By JONAS TERRADO
Freddie Roach said Manny Pacquiao remains open to the idea of facing Floyd Mayweather despite slim chances of a rematch of their mega-fight five years ago.
“What he would like best is Mayweather one more time,” Pacquiao’s long-time trainer told BoxingScene.com’s Dan Rafael.
Mayweather outpointed Pacquiao in their May 2015 faceoff at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, an event that became the highest-grossing pay-per-view in US history.
Pacquiao later said that he re-injured his shoulder during the fourth round, causing him to be ineffective for the rest of the fight.
“(After) the fourth round of that fight he told me my shoulder is shot. I said, ‘OK, Manny, go out there, do the best you can, don’t get hurt,’ and he says, ‘Of course,’” Roach said.
That is why Roach said that Pacquiao is eager to face Mayweather anew. The only problem though is that the unbeaten boxer has been retired since his 10-round TKO of former UFC star Conor McGregor in Aug. 26, 2017.
Mayweather did face Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in an exhibition bout in Saitama on New Year’s Eve 2018, emerging victorious with a first round TKO.
“He would like to get that one back one more time. He would,” said Roach. “Watching the fight with no commentary it was a pretty close fight. He fought well but he can fight much better and with much more activity.
“I think the activity would be too much for Mayweather. Then again, Mayweather might not come back,” added Roach.
Roach also said he and Pacquiao have discussed other possible foes, namely Mikey Garcia, Terence Crawford and even middleweight Gennady Golovkin.
“We talked about opponents and a couple of names come up here, a couple of names come up there. There are a lot of names coming up and so forth,” Roach said.
