Roach hopes to have De La Hoya cornered

Freddie Roach is on Manny Pacquiao's side, and he may also be in Oscar De La Hoya's head in their nontitle bout tomorrow. (Jed jacobsohn/Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS - His hands shake a bit from Parkinson's disease, but Freddie Roach still has a lot of fight in him, and maybe more than Oscar Del La Hoya will ever know.

Roach, the 48-year-old former lightweight from Dedham, Mass., who dished it out and took it during his pro career, is now a sought-after trainer who is calling for Manny Pacquiao to knock out the favored De La Hoya tomorrow night at the MGM Grand in a 147-pound nontitle fight.

"Oscar will have no place to go," said Roach, who runs the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. "I feel it will be his last fight, yes. I don't think Oscar can keep up with us.

"If we work the body correctly and according to plan, I think he'll fade."

His words may be part truth, partly spurred by the chip on his shoulder he harbors for De La Hoya.

Roach was in De La Hoya's corner May 5, 2007, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. won a 12-round split decision at the MGM Grand. De La Hoya accused Roach of a poor game plan and Roach insisted De La Hoya made mistakes. Roach was dumped after the fight. The two agree to disagree, but both have made this fight, dubbed the "Dream Match," a grudge match.

Roach is using his knowledge of De La Hoya (39-5, 30 KOs), who has dropped from about 160 to 147 (he has not fought at welterweight in seven years), to help Filipino hero Pacquiao (47-3-2, 35 KOs), who started his career fighting at 106 pounds.

"He treated me well," Roach said of De La Hoya. "He trained really hard for the fight. He paid me good money. No, I don't regret it at all. When he said he would never fight again without me, I thought that was an honest statement. I thought that was true. And then I read in the paper he hired [someone else]."

But throughout fight week, Roach has not backed off his prediction that Pacquiao, 29, will drop the 35-year-old De La Hoya in nine rounds.

"We're not going to knock him out with one punch," said Roach. "We're going to break him down. Oscar has a great chin so we're not going to win by one punch. When you get older, you don't absorb punches like you did when you were younger."

Roach has been advised by his mentor, Eddie Futch, not to let the De La Hoya matter get to him, telling him that fighters "come and go" and it's not worth the hassle. Roach has taken the words to heart, though he acknowledged it hurt him at first.

De La Hoya paid Roach $650,000 for eight weeks of work and now Roach stands to earn more than $1 million in this HBO pay-per-view event for which Pacquiao is guaranteed $11 million. Roach has added some spice to the fight, keeping the war of words with De La Hoya going, hoping to distract him.

"I'm getting my guy ready to fight him so I'm going to exploit what I know about [De La Hoya's] weaknesses. Any advantage I can get I'll take. If he takes that rage into the ring, I'm happy."

In his head?

"Of course. That's all he talks about," Roach kidded.

One of the things Roach hopes to exploit is De La Hoya's recent struggles late in fights. He does fade. Much of that, according to Roach, is how he starts.

"You see in the first round in these fights he's as tight as a drum. It's amazing to see someone with so much experience be so tight. Before our fight [against Mayweather], in the dressing room he was very tight, and I think that's part of the reason he pays for it in the later rounds.

"It was my first time with him. I wasn't used to being with him. That's why I think we would have done a lot better had we had a tuneup fight first. He says I don't know him completely and that's true, but I know the characteristics he has.

"I mean, I'm not stupid, I picked up something over the eight weeks."

The experts think De La Hoya (5 feet 10 inches) will win because he's bigger and stronger than Pacquiao (5-6 1/2). "I don't think size wins this fight," Roach said. "I think speed does. Just because [De La Hoya] has a reach advantage [6 inches], the bigger guy doesn't always win. A reach advantage can be taken away so easily by just getting close to the guy. Maybe he's a long puncher, we get inside on him and now we have the advantage. We have to get past that jab and for a southpaw [like Pacquiao] to get past that jab is easier than a righthanded fighter. Look at his last fight - he abandoned his best weapon [jab] midway through the fight [a 12-round decision over Steve Forbes]. For him to stay focused for 12 rounds and stick to the game plan . . . I question."

Roach also said, "It's a lot more of a struggle to come down in weight than to go up to a weight. You look at the history of boxing. Roy Jones, coming down to his original weight, got devastated. Ray Leonard coming down got devastated. When guys fight at high weights and come down to fight at low weight, it doesn't add up too well for them."

Roach also clarified that although speed is the key factor, he doesn't mean hand speed.

"Footwork is the key to this fight," Roach said. "When I say speed, everyone thinks I mean hand speed but I'm talking about foot speed. We have to take the jab away from him - that's the key to our game plan and what we've been working on. We pretty much have that down now."

Roach said he can take a fighter so far, then "the fighter has to fight the fight. Once he's in the ring, it's his fight."

He thought De La Hoya was ready for Mayweather, but then he went his own way. Legendary trainer Angelo Dundee, who is working with De La Hoya, believes he's identified some tendencies in Pacquiao for De La Hoya to exploit, but Roach doubts it.

"Without a doubt the first round is going to tell a lot in this fight," Roach said. "You'll see who is going to control the fight right away."

And one more jab.

"He's not the same Oscar," Roach said. "The biggest thing is activity to me. He's fought four times in four years. We've fought four times this year [since April 2007]. It's very hard to be a sharp fighter without activity."

While Roach acknowledges that someday he and De La Hoya could be friends again, he will enjoy the next few days, especially if it ends as he expects.

"[De La Hoya] puts me in a great spot right now. When we win the fight, I'm going to be so happy."