Freddie Roach gets kicked by Alex Riza; physical altercation between Pacquiao and Rios camps (Video)
By Josh Sanchez
Saturday night’s fight between Manny Pacquiao and Brandon Rios in Macau got a bit more interesting late last night, when Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach got in to an altercation with Rios’ trainer, Robert Garcia, and strength and conditioning coach, Alex Riza.
During the altercation, which was escalated by verbal assaults, Roach got kicked in the chest.
From Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports:
"The argument began when Roach entered the gym at 11 a.m. when Pacquiao’s training session was scheduled to begin. Rios had the gym from 9-11 a.m. Rios was wrapping up his workout when Roach entered.According to witnesses, Roach made a beeline to Garcia and demanded that he leave immediately. Garcia asked for three minutes to finish up, but Roach wouldn’t hear of it. Apparently, several witnesses said the trainers shoved each other.Ariza told Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub that he kicked Roach."
As Iole notes, the men were finally separated and business went on as usual.
While Pacquiao and Rios will do their battle in the ring, this was certainly an interesting dynamic that will bring even more attention to the big fight leading up to Saturday’s fight time.
You can watch a video of the incident below:
Warning: Video contains strong, NSFW language