Ariza kicks Roach: Pacman, Rios men clash in gym melee

MACAU – The Clash at Cotai came four days before the actual fight.

Just before noon yesterday, in an isolated room that was turned into a boxing gym, a fight broke out among members of the two opposing teams.

Freddie Roach, for Manny Pacquiao, and Rob Garcia, for Brandon Rios, got into a verbal tussle. Then Alex Ariza, the strength coach, stepped into the picture.

Then everything went out of control.

As Roach stepped forward, to Ariza’s direction, the former member of Team Pacquiao who’s now with Team Rios kicked the 54-year-old trainer.

Ariza hit Roach near the mid-section. Then Donald Leary, a training assistant for Rios, came out swinging but actually hitting no one.

Leary, a burly Mexican, felt Roach threw a racist remark at him and couldn’t take it sitting down.

It took a few minutes before the smoke cleared. Everybody called everybody bad names, and Ariza dared Roach to get it on inside the ring.

Roach kept shouting back at Ariza, whom he called “tough guy,” then later on the celebrated trainer said Ariza “kicked me like a girl.”

Ariza said he just tried to defend himself because he claimed that Roach was coming to him with a raised fist. A video footage of the incident showed otherwise.

“When someone raises a fist on you the only one who can protect you is yourself,” said Ariza, who may have gone overboard when he mocked how Roach, with onset of Parkinson’s disease, spoke during the incident.Manny Pacquiao was not inside the room yet when the fight erupted. And as it all transpired, Rios did his thing with an exercise machine.

Roach said it all started when he came up to Garcia and asked them to leave the room because their time was up.

Rios has access to the gym from 9 to 11 a.m. and Pacquiao right afterwards. But Garcia said they came late because of an interview with ESPN. They wanted to stay until 11:30.

Besides, Garcia said Pacquiao wasn’t around yet. But Roach wouldn’t hear any of it, and insisted that Team Rios give way to them.

“Their time was up. It was our time. They wanted an altercation. They are bad people. They were wrong,” said Roach.

As Roach and Garcia raised their voices, Ariza shouted at Roach,” Get out of here!” and said something like “This isn’t Wild Card anymore.”

“Throw me out. Throw me out,” Roach said. Then he took a step to his right and toward Ariza who was just maybe five feet away.

Ariza landed his kick solidly although Roach never hit the floor. A report said Ariza’s shoe went off as he kicked his former partner.

Rios said he’s not bothered by the incident because he’s not going to fight Roach inside the ring anyway.

Pacquiao said he can’t say anything about what happened but added that perhaps it was a “misunderstanding.”

The formal press conference for Sunday’s fight was scheduled last night, and chief promoter Bob Arum said measures are being taken to prevent another episode.

“Never a dull moment,” he told Pinoy scribes later on.

“It’s unfortunate. It adds up to the excitement but it’s not to the best interest of the sport. It’s not good for the sport.  People think there’s an element of hooliganism in the sport and it reinforces the belief,” he added.

Arum is hoping that things have calmed down but added that security at The Venetian have been doubled up around the opposing camps.

“Everybody got a kick out of it,” he said.

Arum said there’s no move to fine anybody for the incident that was the talk of the town here yesterday.

“Who’s to fine? I have no authority to do that,” he said.

It was an ugly incident, as Arum said.

There’s always two sides to a coin, and people were asking, “Who’s right or who’s wrong?”

They were all wrong.