Roach, who has trained and coached Pacquiao for the past 15 years believes the fighting senator from the Philippines needs to start knocking out foes again as he did before his last KO win in 2009 in order to please his fans and to entice them to watch his future fights.
In a recent interview by Jenna J over OTR Radio, Roach was asked what he thinks of Vargas and what he’s doing differently this time to secure a knockout win for Pacquiao.
“I know he’s won a couple of world titles and so forth, but I’ve never seen him fight on TV. I forget his name quite a bit, so I don’t think he’s that well known. I don’t think he’s in Pacquiao’s class and I’ve watched tape on him and I do think we’re going to get our first knockout at 147lbs.,” Roach said.
“He’s being more explosive and being more aggressive than he has been in the past. I think he finally realizes that he can’t just tune up to win fights, he has to knock people out to be impressive and for people to want to watch him more. We had a great run back in the day and that’s what made him famous and made him a great fighter. I think he wants to be that guy again.-,” he added.
Roach has been predicting a knockout win for Pacquiao in the last seven years but he has yet to come up with a correct prognosis. There were instances in the past where Roach thought Pacquiao’s religious transformation may have something to do with hurting opponents in the ring.
But religious beliefs are hard to substantiate and so Roach had entertained the possibility that the real reason Pacquiao failed to score a knockout in his recent fights was primarily due to his shoulder injury which was only addressed when Pacquiao lost to Floyd Mayweather, Jr. last year.
Pacquiao had to undergo surgery a few days after the Mayweather fight and stayed off the ring for about a year to recuperate.
In his first post-surgery fight, Pacquiao fought Timothy Bradley for the third time and everyone in his team was impressed with his performance as Pacquiao scored two knockdowns enroute to a unanimous decision win.
With his impressive performance, Roach seems to have found the answer to Pacquiao’s long knockout holiday which he now attribute to the successful surgery.
Roach is again predicting a knockout win for Pacquiao and this time he is confident the fighting senator will knock out Vargas to regain his WBO welterweight title.
