Roach Says Ariza Defamation Suit Against Him is Still In Play, But He’s Not Worrying About It

Alex Ariza, the much traveled strength and conditioning coach who most recently was part of Team Robert Garcia, but was dumped by the Marcos Maidana trainer, caused a stir when pics emerged of him advising Floyd Mayweather.

I asked Freddie Roach about that, on Thursday. “He when he did his job, he did it well, but when he wants to do everyone elses’ job, he pisses people off,” Roach said. “That’s always the way he goes. He’s suing me now for defamation, but I have witnesses on my side, I’m not worried about it.”

Here’s what Floyd said about him and Ariza, when asked on a media conference call a couple days ago. “Alex Ariza, I think he’s out in Las Vegas,” Mayweather said, “I don’t know, taking care of some personal stuff. So our gym is open to everyone. In the past I’ve spoke about Alex Ariza, but I never knew him. He’d come by the gym, he’d watch me train, and he showed me some stretches before I ran and that’s it. However he handles business with his other fighters is how he handles business. I’m not enemies with Alex Ariza. We may just talk about boxing, we just talk about normal things. What Alex Ariza has said is, “I’ve never seen a fighter in my life train as hard as you and work as hard as you. Now I see why you where you’re at. He said I just wanted to come see for myself. He basically said that I thought that ALL ACCESS was just camera tricks. I didn’t really know you worked that hard.” When he came and said I’ve never seen a fighter work as hard as you. Now I see why you are where you at in the sport of boxing. He showed me stretches. Actually, yesterday after my run he showed me some other stretches that I can do that could help me. I can’t say who’s going to be around me fight week. I really don’t know. I can’t really say. Leonard used to be around me a lot fight week, but I mean he’s doing different things now so he’s not around me fight week. So we don’t know who’s going to be around, but fight week I’m not around nobody. I’m at home resting. That’s where I should be.”

That filibuster-y answer aside, Roach said he’s not worrying about the Ariza defamation, “We’re not worried about it, because nothing happened.”

WATCH RELATED VIDEOS ON BOXINGCHANNEL.TV