Manny Pacquiao pummeled Chris Algieri Sunday in Macau, but his trainer, Freddie Roach, said he’s been looking at Floyd Mayweather Jr. tape … just in case.
It’s the current Holy Grail of fights, both in terms of people looking desperately for it and in terms of no one ever quite able to put it together.
But Freddie Roach, the veteran trainer of welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, is hopeful that the super bout between Pacquiao and undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. might yet happen before the fighters would have to be the main event at Shady Acres Retirement Home.
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Pacquiao scored a dominant unanimous decision over Chris Algieri at the Venetian Macao Sunday—Saturday here in the U.S.—to retain his WBO welterweight title, but Roach said even as he was preparing Pacquiao for the title defense, he’s been watching tape of Mayweather in anticipation of the fight—talked about for five years but never quite arranged.
Roach told Yahoo Sports he facilitated a meeting this summer between promoter Bob Arum and CBS Corp. chairman Leslie Moonves in hopes of arranging a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight.
How optimistic is Roach that it could happen?
"“I’m watching tape again,” Roach said."
It’s not a signed deal for a fight, but it’s more than the two camps sniping at each other or not talking at all.
Pacquiao says he’s all in favor of a match with Mayweather, recognized as the WBA, WBC and The Ring welterweight champ at 47-0 with 26 knockouts.
With his win Sunday, Pacquiao improved to 57-5-2 with 38 knockouts. Algieri, a junior welterweight who stepped up in weight class to take on the Philippine veteran at 144 pounds, took his first loss as a professional and is now 20-1 with eight knockouts.
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