Word war: Roach belittles Cotto trainer

HOLLYWOOD – The word war is definitely on between these trainers.

From his own corner at the Wild Card Gym, Freddie Roach threw bombs on Joe Santiago Thursday after the three-time Trainer of the Year got word the other day that Miguel Cotto’s trainer had asked him to shut up.

“Yesterday, I was told that they were saying, ‘f***k off,’ because I talk too much they say,” said Roach who must have pinched some nerves by saying that Cotto could or should get knocked out in the first round.

“But if I can do it again and get inside his head... these young coaches,” said the 49-year-old Roach who was in his first pro fight at the Boston Garden on the night of Aug. 24, 1978 when Santiago, 32, was just learning how to walk.

Roach doesn’t keep it to himself how he feels about a fight, and in so many interviews said that the Nov. 14 fight could be a Ricky Hatton fight all over again because he said Cotto “makes the same mistakes” as Hatton.

Hatton suffered two knockdowns in the first round against Pacquiao last May, and if not for the bell would have gone out for good. But in the second round he took the biggest hit of his life and was knocked out for good.

Roach said he’d put $1,000 that Pacquiao will knock Cotto out in the first round.

But Santiago, in his first big fight as a trainer, would hear none of it and again, if Roach’s intelligence network is that good, even dared the hottest trainer in boxing today to put his trophy on the line at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

“I heard he said ‘why don’t I put my trophy (as Trainer of the Year) on the line? Well, we’ll see about that after the fight. I have a thousand or a million trophies in boxing and he’s never fought before. He’s never fought in his life. Never in his life,” said Roach.

Roach, who fought 53 fights as a pro from 1978 until 1986, and winning 39 of them, said that makes the difference.

“He doesn’t know what it means to be inside that ring. He puts the towel over his shoulder and gives him drinking water and all of a sudden he’s a coach. Believe me, Cotto trains himself,” he said.

While Pacquiao’s conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, spoke well of his counterpart, Phil Landman, he couldn’t do the same with the Puerto Rican’s trainer.

“I think the guy (Landman) is doing a good job and I have no doubt that his guy is gonna come in shape. My guy is gonna come in shape. So, it’s gonna boil down on who you have in the corner and I have Freddie Roach,” said Ariza.

“And he’s (Cotto) got whoever that is. The average Joe, yeah,” he added.

“That’s really where it’s gonna come down to.”       – Abac Cordero