As if the Manny Pacquiao-Brandon Rios bout needed any more fuel added to its fire, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach stirred up controversy leading up to this weekend’s bout when he got involved with an altercation (via Yahoo! Sports) with members of Rios’ entourage.
Roach and Rios’ trainer, Robert Garcia, got into a verbal argument to which Roach may have thrown out some racial slurs in the midst of the nervous showdown. He then shouted out some more to Pacquiao’s former conditioning coach and now Rios’ current conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, also got into the scuffle by allegedly kicking Roach in the stomach area, causing Roach to react the way he did.
Roach threw out a few alleged racial slurs like, f***ing Mexican to Rios’ camp assistant Donald Leary and reportedly called reporter Elie Seckbach a “f***ing Jew.”
Despite what Roach may or may not have blurted out in the heat of the moment one thing should be dreadfully evident: Roach is not a racist.
Training fighters of all different races over the past two decades, Roach has never been accused of any racial rants before and with his stellar history before this controversial incident, this could be chalked up to a heightened atmosphere. This may have caused Roach to spit out the first thing he thought of instead of a well-planned out response to such a hectic situation, but one should give Roach the benefit of the doubt as no complaints have ever been directed his way before this.
