Roach: Pacquiao is the greatest

MANILA, Philippines – Freddie Roach is looking forward to retirement – not his but Manny Pacquiao’s.

“I’m really excited about this fight. It’s going to be a great fight,” said the seven-time Trainer of the Year of Pacquiao’s coming fight with Timothy Bradley.

The fight itself, slated April 9 in Las Vegas, doesn’t excite Roach, but the fact that it’s going to be the last for his prized fighter.

Roach and Pacquiao first teamed up in 2001, and they formed perhaps the most successful partnership in professional boxing.

Pacquiao said he’s retiring after this fight so he could focus on politics.

“I’m looking forward to Manny Pacquiao’s retirement fight,” Roach told the press during the whirlwind press tour more than a week ago.

Training for the Bradley rubber match begins in the first or second week of February when Roach flies in to join Pacquiao in General Santos City.

Like the rest, the celebrated trainer is sad to see Pacquiao leave the sport, but is happy to see the eight-division champion move on to the next level.

Pacquiao is favored to win a senatorial slot in the Philippine elections in May.

Roach said the 37-year-old Pacquiao, already a two-term congressman in the province of Sarangani, can even seek the highest position if and when the opportunity comes.

“He can become President of his country,” said Roach.

What Pacquiao has accomplished inside the ring, the American trainer said, will be very difficult to match or surpass.

Not in this lifetime.

“I think Manny Pacquiao is the greatest fighter of this decade and of his era. That’s eight world championships. I would never see that in my lifetime again,” said Roach.

“No one will duplicate that. That stays forever,” he added.