Can Freddie Roach Bring Some Of His Boxing Magic To Andrei Arlovski Against Fedor Emelianenko?

One of the bigger upsets last year, at least in our eyes, was Manny Pacquiao’s complete dismantling of Oscar De La Hoya (hey, give us a break—we didn’t figure out The Sixth Sense until the end, either). The man behind that was Pac Man’s trainer, Freddy Roach, who had an axe to grind after being fired by DLH as his trainer when he went down against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. But what motivation will he use to try to push “Gerrard Bulter-in-300“-clone and MMA up-and-comer Andrei Arlovski when he battles the world’s consensus number one Fedor Emelianenko on January 24th? Arlovski is using Roach to improve his boxing style, but is keeping quiet and focusing on the fight. Roach, however, has enough balls to spare after the DLH fight that he’s using them to talk smack against Emelianenko, one of the scariest men on the planet.

”I watched Fedor’s last 20 fights and I am tired of him,” Roach said. ”It is easy for me to emulate his moves because he is predictable.

”He sucks at boxing. He can’t box. He can punch but he can’t box. I know he’s great on the ground. I know his moves. His last fight he won with his fists, but he ended it with a submission. There are certain moves that he has that we can take advantage of.”

When told of his comments, Emelianenko could only muster a…

”Sometimes it is a trainer’s job to point out weaknesses in his fighter’s opponents,” Fedor said. ”And sometimes it is a trainer’s job to convince his fighter that his opponent has weaknesses…. We will see.”

Apparently “I will break him” and “If he dies, he dies” were either too cliche or trademarked by the screenwriters of Rocky IV (which might’ve been written by patriotic monkeys—we’ll check IMDB later on).
Roach throws down gauntlet, rips Fedor’s boxing [Chicago Sun-Times]
Image [MMA Weekly]