Let Pacquiao and Rios do the fighting

Whether staged or for real, the near rumble between Manny Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach and the brain trust of Brandon Rios gave boxing both an entertaining boost and a quick brush-off by boxing critics.

The main protagonists, Pacquiao and Rios, seemed to dismiss the confrontation between their trainers as a distraction to their battle this weekend. It looked like the Rios camp was running overtime in their use of the common gym facilities and Roach wanted to start on the time assigned to him.  Robert Garcia and Alex Ariza, the conditioning coach who was once in Pacquiao’s corner, said that they still had time to finish up.

In the Philippines, basketball teams and even boxers cut a little slack to allow the players or boxer that was scheduled ahead to finish or tidy up.  But in Macau, these were two American trainers who are gung-ho about time. Roach was therefore insistent about his assigned slot. Bad words were exchanged, Ariza kicked Roach and then the cooler heads intervened.

The shouting and bad-mouthing seemed like a scene from a Rocky movie.  We’ve seen this many times though, dating back to the Muhammad Ali era when too much taunting led to bad-mouthing and then a rumble.  Floyd Mayweather Jr. likes to stir the cauldron with his entourage but that’s really more a lot of noise than anything else.

In this case, it must be understood that there already has been bad blood between Roach and Garcia, dating back to the Antonio Margarito-Pacquiao fight. Some ground where nobody should go has obviously been crossed and now the Garcia side has claimed that Roach ignited the whole thing in Macau with racial slurs.

Let’s take this sideshow with a grain of salt and wonder out loud if the fight needs any more spice than it already has.  Pacquiao is clearly looking for a major comeback to show that he is still at the top of his game despite that devastating knockout inflicted by Juan Manuel Marquez.  Rios, on the other hand, is brash enough to claim that he will send Pacquiao into retirement. The boxing alone, dubbed by the HBO 24/7 prefight documentary as a battle of two relentless fighters, should provide enough fireworks.

But was Roach trying to get into the heads of the cornermen of the other camp? Was he playing a game to throw off Garcia, Ariza and even Rios?  Was Garcia trying to bite back at Roach to get them thinking about other things rather than the fight?

Interestingly, the media relishes this because there is something more interesting to report rather than the tired rehearsed answers of the fighters. Boxing critics and purists hate this though as the sport is being tarnished again.  And yet, those in the fight game know that this spat was just one of those things and part of the mind game trainers and even boxers play.

This incident should be quite enough unless Roach and Garca and their camps want to take this any further.  Let Pacquiao and Rios do the fighting.  That’s all that matters.