Timothy Bradley Jr.’s trainer Teddy Atlas during the final press conference in MGM Hotel, Las Vegas, April 6, 2016. Pacquiao and Bradley is set to fight on Saturday (Sunday Philippine time.) PHOTO BY REM ZAMORA
LAS VEGAS—Teddy Atlas is not going to be baited into a word war with Freddie Roach. At least not now.
If the two celebrated trainers are going to end up crossing paths in a trainers’ roundtable with journalist scheduled Thursday at MGM Grand here, all bets are off. But at Wednesday’s final presser for the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. duel, both kept their verbal guns in their holsters.
Talking to select journalists after the presser, Atlas acknowledged hearing a lot about Roach talking smack about him, but he simply refuses to be drawn into a media war with Pacquiao’s celebrated trainer.
“I have no animosity with Freddie,” said Atlas.
“All I care about is my responsibility to my fighter,” he added. “Freddie thinks differently and that’s his right. And God bless him. I don’t think it should be about me. About him, maybe. Not me.”
Suddenly turning animated, Atlas continued: “It’s about the fighters. They’re the ones that take the risk. They’re the ones who get in the ring. They’re the ones that, God forbid, could get out of the ring with less of themselves than they get in with.”
Roach and Atlas have had some sort of a history between them. Atlas once guided Michael Moorer to the heavyweight championship against Evander Holyfield. Somewhere along his career, though, Moorer parted ways with Atlas for a second fight with Holyfield.
Atlas says he has no bad feelings about that one, but did sneak in a short jab: “What happened to that fight? What was the result of that bout?” Moorer lost to Holyfield in the rematch after getting floored several times, forcing the ringside doctor to tell the ref to wave off the bout.
But if Atlas remains mum about Roach, he is willing to speak a lot about Bradley, whom he refers to as a Hall-of-Fame fighter regardless of what happens in his match against Pacquiao Saturday at MGM Grand’s Garden Arena.
“Five-time world champion. He’s a fighter. Finds ways to win. Invents ways to win. Goes to the edge of the cliff, halfway off the cliff, three-fourths of the way off the cliff and comes back off the cliff,” Atlas said. “He treats people with respect and lives the way human beings should live. That’s hall of fame for me baby.”
Atlas also said he’s prepared Bradley to absorb and understand the enormity of a moment that seems to not have caught the mainstream audience’s fancy just yet.
“My responsibility is bigger now because of what this fight means,” he said. “This is everything for this kid, for his legacy for his family for everything they’ve been through and for me and my family. This fight against an iconic fighter is a special fight and this will be our last chance to get it right.”
Atlas said part of the preparation for the fight included letting Bradley see through the Pacquiao myth. It’s like beholding a huge Ferris wheel, Atlas noted. “At first it overwhelms you. It looks like it can go around so fast. But then you get a second look. And then you try it out for a ride. And then you realize it isn’t as fast and big as you thought it was the first time you saw it.”
“When you’re a guy like Tim Bradley who is so respectful and you’re in the ring with someone iconic like Manny Pacquiao, you’re in awe like ‘wow, this is Manny Pacquiao,’” Atlas said.
Part of the mental upgrade Atlas put into the program was to let Bradley see that Pacquiao is human too.
