Roach Vs. Beristain: Battle of Trainers

The forthcoming boxing fight between Oscar de la Hoya and Manny Pacquiao is heating up. But this time, the protagonists are not the boxers themselves but their eager boxing trainers.

A few days ago, Freddie Roach brought a toy gun in a press conference in California, in the presence of de la Hoya's trainer, Ignacio Beristain, to demonstrate that Oscar is no longer capable of pulling the trigger, referring to his declining power due to his age. Oscar de la Hoya is 35 years old while Manny Pacquiao is just 29.

Beristain on the other hand was visibly irked by the antics of Freddie Roach saying that Roach forgot all about ethics just to gain some psychological advantage.

Top Rank Chair Bob Arum joined the fray and said that Manny will get Oscar de la Hoya dizzy and will knock him out.

Obviously, all these promotional gimicks are intended to drum up interest in the fight and generate more revenues and big profits for the promoters.

But the real issue at hand is the much publicised mismatch. Everyone knows that de la Hoya is way ahead in terms of physical assets including his longer reach, height and superior built. Fans of Manny Pacquiao from all over the world are worried about the obvious mismatch. Even the Philippine Games and Amusement Board tried to intervene by asking for the cancellation of the scheduled fight in Las Vegas.

At this point in time, it seems that the much publicised boxing match will take place as scheduled, with greed for money as the obvious and compelling reason for staging the one-sided match.