HOLLYWOOD–For Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is not even close to his claims that he is the best ever to put on a pair of boxing gloves.
In an interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, Mayweather said that “no one is better me,” not even former champions Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. AP FILE PHOTO
“I don’t think you can rank someone until their career is over. Right now, he is undefeated so he’s one of the best fighters of his era but that’s as far as I’ll go,” Roach told reporters after Manny Pacquiao had wrapped up his Monday training at the Wild Card Boxing Club.
Mayweather has not lost in 47 fights but Roach is not impressed with the type of opponents the pound-for-pound king had been able to beat throughout his career.
“He’s not in the top hundred in the history of boxing. There’s a lot of people ahead of him. Look at the opponents that he’s fought, that says it all,” said the seven-time Trainer of the Year awardee.
And Roach’s most celebrated student Pacquiao stands as Mayweather’s greatest challenge with the two welterweight champions’ megafight in Las Vegas barely two weeks away.
As for Pacquiao place among boxing’s greatest, Roach also put the eight-division champion in the same conversation as Mayweather being “one of the best fighters of his era.”