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Mayweather’s visits to Roach’s gym spark McGregor and Pacquiao rumors

Fighters Network
26
May
Photo: Naoki Fukuda

Photo: Naoki Fukuda

When Floyd Mayweather Jr. visited Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club earlier this month, the recently-retired fighter didn’t ask about a possible rematch with Manny Pacquiao. No, Mayweather talked about UFC superstar Conor McGregor, whose handlers have contacted Roach about training the Irishman.

Mayweather’s comments to Roach nearly three weeks ago should further fan the flames on a potential event between the two that seems as if it were dreamed up by TMZ.

“(Mayweather) said, ‘If I was you, I would take that job because I think it’s going to happen,'” Roach told RingTV.com on Wednesday night. “I said, ‘Well, it will probably take me three years to get him ready to fight you.'”

It was the first of two visits that Mayweather (49-0, 26 knockouts) paid to Roach’s Gym this month, visits that have sparked rumors of a second fight with Pacquiao or a match with McGregor. Mayweather didn’t come to Roach’s gym by chance. The two ran into each other at the West Hollywood restaurant BOA Steakhouse on May 3. Roach approached Mayweather’s table and asked whether he would take pictures with some friends he was with. Mayweather left his table and obliged.



Before he left, Roach invited Mayweather to his gym since there was a present – a speed bag emblazoned with Mayweather’s face, a relic from his fight with Pacquiao — he wanted to give him. Nearly a week later, Mayweather showed up at Wild Card, which is in Hollywood.

“He was very nice and we didn’t talk about boxing at all,” Roach said in a phone interview. “He asked if Conor McGregor has called me and I said, ‘No.’ I said I’ve heard that he’s tried to reach out to me but nobody has called me yet.”

While McGregor’s camp has yet to follow up, the Irishman has been sparring with one of Roach’s fighters, welterweight Chris Van Heerden, at Wild Card West in Santa Monica. “So it seems like he’s training for something but I haven’t been asked to do anything with him at all,” Roach said. “I’ve only heard rumors.”

Roach, like most fans, wishes Mayweather had brought up a possible rematch with Pacquiao instead of discussing a bout that seems to be pure fantasy with McGregor. Mayweather won a lackluster decision against Pacquiao last May in a match that was marred with controversy when Pacquiao admitted later he had suffered a right shoulder injury before the fight and wasn’t at full strength. Their fight also broke every box office record in boxing with more than $600 million in total revenue.

“I was kind of hoping that he’s going to ask me about Manny Pacquiao and try to negotiate that because I would love to see Manny get him one more time with a healthy shoulder,” Roach said. “But I’m not sure what Manny is doing now that he’s a senator (in the Philippines). I haven’t talked to him in a little while.”

The second time Mayweather paid a visit to Roach’s gym – both visits were first reported by the Los Angeles Times — Roach wasn’t there because he was in Moscow for Denis Lebedev’s cruiserweight unification match with Victor Emilio Ramirez on May 21.

Mayweather hung around anyway and watched sparring, Roach said. To this day, the trainer doesn’t think Mayweather had some ulterior motive for showing up to talk to him. He thinks it was more a social call than a business stop.

“It doesn’t seem like he had any reason, I think it was a nice friendly visit,” Roach said. “He knows that I’m at the gym and I had no problem with him and his people, so it worked out well. But I have no idea if he will ever come back or not. But he’s always welcome there because he’s always a gentleman to me.”

 

Mitch Abramson is a former reporter at the New York Daily News. He can be reached on Twitter at: @Mabramson13.

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