Do Freddie Roach Fighters Lack Inside Defensive Skills?

Published

13 years ago

April 9, 2012

Lee Wylie

KhanMediaDay4Peterson Blevins20 If we were to compile a pound for pound list on sheer talent alone, Jorge Linares would probably feature somewhere around the top as a result of his smorgasbord of just about every positive boxing attribute imaginable – decent height, reach, handspeed, footspeed, hand/eye co-ordination and power. Linares was once thought of as one of boxing's hottest prospects, but now, after his second round knockout defeat courtesy of Sergio Thompson – his second technical knockout loss in a row – it seems Jorge Linares is now destined to join boxing's “what could have been?” list.

So how does a fighter, who is blessed with all the talent in the world, suffer consecutive TKO losses at the hands of far less talented fighters?

Linares' promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, believed he has the answer when he took to Twitter after the bout.

“Linares needs a new trainer. He has so much natural ability but has no defense. Jorge needs a new trainer, someone that is going to pay attention and teach him defense! Freddie Roach was just too busy and I was told he didn't train him for this one. If you do not get hit, you do not get knocked out. If Linares had defense, he would be untouchable. If I had no chin I would do everything in my power to learn the craft of defense.”

De La Hoya does make an interesting point. While I wouldn't go as far as Oscar in saying that Freddie can't teach defense, I would say that there seems to be certain defensive areas that Roach has missed in the tutelage of his fighters.

Looking at Linares, Amir Khan and Manny Pacquiao, we can see a fighters who ARE defensively responsible when attacking. A fighter is at his most vulnerable at the time of his attack, so by being overly aggressive, a fighter may be caught off balance and find it difficult to transition back to defense. This is where Roach has done a terrific job with Linares, Khan and Pacquiao; their balance issues have improved under the guidance of Freddie Roach.

Also evident in Roach's fighters is the ability to move away from danger after an attack, so as to reduce the risk of a counter attack. In other words, Roach has taught his fighters how to maintain defensive concern after the completion of their attack. Roach has embedded this into his fighters through an emphasis on great footwork. If you look at Pacquiao, his ability to move off after an attack is his main form of defense. It's the same with Khan and it's the same with Linares.

Defense is not only used when under pressure from an opponent. It is also used when a fighter is on the attack. This is the area in which Roach clearly excels. On the other hand, there does appear to be an area in which Roach seems to have either neglected, or has a distinct lack of understanding of: defending on the inside.

Yes, Roach has worked with some great defensive fighters in the past. Marlon Starling and James Toney were indeed defensive specialists. But Toney was already well schooled under Bill Miller and Starling, a naturally gifted counterpuncher, didn't need any defensive refinement.

Even fighters who operate at a distance have to posses some understanding on how to defend in close, Muhammad Ali and Wladimir Klitschko being prime examples. At their best, they are keeping the fight at arms length, either on the end of a jab or a straight right hand. Their objective? To prevent their opponents from breeching their optimum fighting space. That's why we have never seen them mount much in the way of offense on the inside. However, one of the reasons that Ali and Wladimir were able to dominate is because of their ability to prevent an inside fight from occurring by tying up on the inside and locking their opponent's arms up. From a defensive standpoint, they had knowledge on inside fighting.

I believe this knowledge is missing in Jorge Linares', Amir Khan's and quite possibly Manny Pacquiao's work as a direct result of the type of fighter Freddie Roach was… an offensive blood and guts trader who sometimes took five to land his one. If we focus on Khan and Linares in particular, they don't seem to know how to react when confronted with severe pressure.

So how does a fighter defend in close?

The best defensive fighters have a good variety of defenses against every punch available. They are able to mantain relaxation amid heavy fire. If a fighter is putting severe pressure on them, panic is no option. They stay calm and allow their defensive skills to take over, slipping, rolling, elbow blocking, half arm covering, hip rotation and the ability to tie up. I've never seen Linares and Khan display any of these defensive attributes.

A trainer like Freddie Roach likely never had much use for these techniques as a fighter because his entire emphasis was on attack. This could be the reason why Roach was never considered a great fighter. There always comes a time when offense is not always enough.

If we take a look back throughout history, more often than not, the defender has gotten the better of the attacker; James Corbett got the better of John L Sullivan, Gene Tunney got the better of Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson got the better of Jim Jefferies. The modern era is no different. The ability to defend, and in particular the ability to defend in close, cannot be overlooked.

Telling times lie ahead.

The next couple of months could prove to be very detrimental for Freddie Roach. He has two fights coming up, against two proven inside fighters, against his two prized assets – Amir Khan and Manny Pacquiao. During their first bout, Amir Khan's lack of an inside game was brought into light from the third round onwards as his opponent, Lamont Peterson – who normally operates as a boxer – took on the persona of the brawler and swarmed all over Khan, throwing nothing but power shots in close. As was evident during his win over Marcos Maidana, Khan had no answer to Peterson's severe pressure. Khan's only response was to push his opponent off which eventually led to a two point reduction against him. If there have not been any improvements made to Khan's inside game, then it is not hard to imagine Peterson utilising the same strategy that won him the fight last time out.

While Freddie Roach deserves an awful lot of credit with regards to his transformation of Manny Pacquiao's offense– namely his two handed attack and balance issues–is there any evidence of him improving Pacquiao defensively on the inside?

Against Antonio Margarito, a slow plodding fighter, Manny found himself on the ropes on more than one occasion. If we take a look at those instances when Pacquiao's back was up against the ropes, his only answer for defense was more offense. There were also occasions early in the Miguel Cotto fight when Pacquiao's back was against the ropes. Pacquiao's response to his opponents offense in that fight was to cover up and wait for Miguel to stop throwing. It is no coincidence that between rounds during most of Manny Pacquiao's fights, you will hear Freddie Roach tell him to keep off the ropes. Apart from those two occasions that I've mentioned, Pacquiao's offense has been so overwhelming of late, and his footwork has been so good, that we have not seen him forced into an inside fight. While he is considered the underdog, Timothy Bradley's footspeed, stamina and inside game could provide the perfect foil for Pacquiao's offensive. If Pacquiao is forced into an inside fight, I'm not sure I can envision him competing with Bradley in close.

These next two fight's could be THE defining fights of Freddie Roach's illustrious training career. A win in both of them for Khan and Pacquiao, and the two Linares defeats will merely be deemed as unfulfilled potential in a promising young fighter. However, unless there have been significant steps taken with regards to improving his fighters' inside knowledge and ability, we could be in for two of the biggest back to back upsets in recent memory. Suddenly, Freddie Roach, who is considered by many as the finest trainer in the sport, would be faced with the ominous notion that a gaping hole in his tutelage may have resulted in the demise of his two star pupils, culminating in three high profile defeats in a row as a result of his neglect on the inside nuances of boxing.

Comment on this article

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Lee Wylie

TSS Salutes Thomas Hauser and his Bernie Award Cohorts

Published

2 days ago

April 16, 2025

TSS Press

TSS-Salutes-Thomas-Hauser-and-his-Bernie-Award-Cohorts

The Boxing Writers Association of America has announced the winners of its annual Bernie Awards competition. The awards, named in honor of former five-time BWAA president and frequent TSS contributor Bernard Fernandez, recognize outstanding writing in six categories as represented by stories published the previous year.

Over the years, this venerable website has produced a host of Bernie Award winners. In 2024, Thomas Hauser kept the tradition alive. A story by Hauser that appeared in these pages finished first in the category “Boxing News Story.” Titled “Ryan Garcia and the New York State Athletic Commission,” the story was published on June 23. You can read it HERE.

Hauser also finished first in the category of “Investigative Reporting” for “The Death of Ardi Ndembo,” a story that ran in the (London) Guardian. (Note: Hauser has owned this category. This is his 11^th first place finish for “Investigative Reporting”.)

Thomas Hauser, who entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the class of 2019, was honored at last year’s BWAA awards dinner with the A.J. Leibling Award for Outstanding Boxing Writing. The list of previous winners includes such noted authors as W.C. Heinz, Budd Schulberg, Pete Hamill, and George Plimpton, to name just a few.

The Leibling Award is now issued intermittently. The most recent honorees prior to Hauser were Joyce Carol Oates (2015) and Randy Roberts (2019).

Roberts, a Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University, was tabbed to write the Hauser/Leibling Award story for the glossy magazine for BWAA members published in conjunction with the organization’s annual banquet. Regarding Hauser’s most well-known book, his Muhammad Ali biography, Roberts wrote, “It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of the book to our understanding of Ali and his times.” An earlier book by Hauser, “The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing,” garnered this accolade: “Anyone who wants to understand boxing today should begin by reading ‘The Black Lights’.”

A panel of six judges determined the Bernie Award winners for stories published in 2024. The stories they evaluated were stripped of their bylines and other identifying marks including the publication or website for which the story was written.

Other winners:

Boxing Event Coverage: Tris Dixon

Boxing Column: Kieran Mulvaney

Boxing Feature (Over 1,500 Words): Lance Pugmire

Boxing Feature (Under 1,500 Words): Chris Mannix

The Dixon, Mulvaney, and Pugmire stories appeared in Boxing Scene; the Mannix story in Sports Illustrated.

The Bernie Award recipients will be honored at the forthcoming BWAA dinner on April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in the heart of Times Square. (For more information, visit the BWAA website). Two days after the dinner, an historic boxing tripleheader will be held in Times Square, the logistics of which should be quite interesting. Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, and Teofimo Lopez share top billing.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Mekhrubon Sanginov, whose Heroism Nearly Proved Fatal, Returns on Saturday

Published

3 days ago

April 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Mekhrubon-Sanginov-whose-Heroism-Nearly-Proved-Fatal-Returns-on-Saturday

To say that Mekhrubon Sanginov is excited to resume his boxing career would be a great understatement. Sanginov, ranked #9 by the WBA at 154 pounds before his hiatus, last fought on July 8, 2022.

He was in great form before his extended leave, having scored four straight fast knockouts, advancing his record to 13-0-1. Had he remained in Las Vegas, where he had settled after his fifth pro fight, his career may have continued on an upward trajectory, but a trip to his hometown of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, turned everything haywire. A run-in with a knife-wielding bully nearly cost him his life, stalling his career for nearly three full years.

Sanginov was exiting a restaurant in Dushanbe when he saw a man, plainly intoxicated, harassing another man, an innocent bystander. Mekhrubon intervened and was stabbed several times with a long knife. One of the puncture wounds came perilously close to puncturing his heart.

“After he stabbed me, I ran after him and hit him and caught him to hold for the police,” recollects Sanginov. “There was a lot of confusion when the police arrived. At first, the police were not certain what had happened.

“By the time I got to the hospital, I had lost two liters of blood, or so I was told. After I was patched up, one of the surgeons said to me, ‘Give thanks to God because he gave you a second life.’ It is like I was born a second time.”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have happened in any city,” he adds. (A story about the incident on another boxing site elicited this comment from a reader: “Good man right there. World would be a better place if more folk were willing to step up when it counts.”)

Sanginov first laced on a pair of gloves at age 10 and was purportedly 105-14 as an amateur. Growing up, the boxer he most admired was Roberto Duran. “Muhammad Ali will always be the greatest and [Marvin] Hagler was great too, but Duran was always my favorite,” he says.

During his absence from the ring, Sanginov married a girl from Tajikistan and became a father. His son Makhmud was born in Las Vegas and has dual citizenship. “Ideally,” he says, “I would like to have three more children. Two more boys and the last one a daughter.”

He also put on a great deal of weight. When he returned to the gym, his trainer Bones Adams was looking at a cruiserweight. But gradually the weight came off – “I had to give up one of my hobbies; I love to eat,” he says – and he will be resuming his career at 154. “Although I am the same weight as before, I feel stronger now. Before I was more of a boy, now I am a full-grown man,” says Sanginov who turned 29 in February.

He has a lot of rust to shed. Because of all those early knockouts, he has answered the bell for only eight rounds in the last four years. Concordantly, his comeback fight on Saturday could be described as a soft re-awakening. Sanginov’s opponent Mahonri Montes, an 18-year pro from Mexico, has a decent record (36-10-2, 25 KOs) but has been relatively inactive and is only 1-3-1 in his last five. Their match at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, California, is slated for eight rounds.

On May 10, Ardreal Holmes (17-0) faces Erickson Lubin (26-2) on a ProBox card in Kissimmee, Florida. It’s an IBF super welterweight title eliminator, meaning that the winner (in theory) will proceed directly to a world title fight.

Sanginov will be watching closely. He and Holmes were scheduled to meet in March of 2022 in the main event of a ShoBox card on Showtime. That match fell out when Sanginov suffered an ankle injury in sparring.

If not for a twist of fate, that may have been Mekhrubon Sanginov in that IBF eliminator, rather than Ardreal Holmes. We will never know, but one thing we do know is that Mekhrubon’s world title aspirations were too strong to be ruined by a knife-wielding bully.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis Wins Welterweight Showdown in Atlantic City

Published

6 days ago

April 12, 2025

David A. Avila

Jaron-'Boots'-Ennis-Wins-Welterweight-Showdown-in-Atlantic-City

In the showdown between undefeated welterweight champions Jaron “Boots Ennis walked away with the victory by technical knockout over Eamantis Stanionis and the WBA and IBF titles on Saturday.

No doubt. Ennis was the superior fighter.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s a good guy,” said Ennis.

Philadelphia’s Ennis (34-0, 30 KOs) faced Lithuania’s Stanionis (15-1, 10 KOs) at demonstrated an overpowering southpaw and orthodox attack in front of a sold-out crowd at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

It might have been confusing but whether he was in a southpaw stance or not Ennis busted the body with power shots and jabbed away in a withering pace in the first two rounds.

Stanionis looked surprised when his counter shots seemed impotent.

In the third round the Lithuanian fighter who trains at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, began using a rocket jab to gain some semblance of control. Then he launched lead rights to the jaw of Ennis. Though Stanionis connected solidly, the Philly fighter was still standing and seemingly unfazed by the blows.

That was a bad sign for Stanionis.

Ennis returned to his lightning jabs and blows to the body and Stanionis continued his marauding style like a Sherman Tank looking to eventually run over his foe. He just couldn’t muster enough firepower.

In the fifth round Stanionis opened up with a powerful body attack and seemed to have Ennis in retreat. But the Philadelphia fighter opened up with a speedy combination that ended with blood dripping from the nose of Stanionis.

It was not looking optimistic for the Lithuanian fighter who had never lost.

Stanionis opened up the sixth round with a three-punch combination and Ennis met him with a combination of his own. Stanionis was suddenly in retreat and Ennis chased him like a leopard pouncing on prey. A lightning five-punch combination that included four consecutive uppercuts delivered Stanionis to the floor for the count. He got up and survived the rest of the round.

After returning shakily to his corner, the trainer whispered to him and then told the referee that they had surrendered.

Ennis jumped in happiness and now holds the WBA and IBF welterweight titles.

“I felt like I was getting in my groove. I had a dream I got a stoppage just like this,” said Ennis.

Stanionis looked like he could continue, but perhaps it was a wise move by his trainer. The Lithuanian fighter’s wife is expecting their first child at any moment.

Meanwhile, Ennis finally proved the expectations of greatness by experts. It was a thorough display of superiority over a very good champion.

“The biggest part was being myself and having a live body in front of me,” said Ennis. “I’m just getting started.”

Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn was jubilant over the performance of the Philadelphia fighter.

“What a wonderful humble man. This is one of the finest fighters today. By far the best fighter in the division,” said Hearn. “You are witnessing true greatness.”

Other Bouts

Former featherweight world champion Raymond Ford (17-1-1, 8 KOs) showed that moving up in weight would not be a problem even against the rugged and taller Thomas Mattice (22-5-1, 17 KOs) in winning by a convincing unanimous decision.

The quicksilver southpaw Ford ravaged Mattice in the first round then basically cruised the remaining nine rounds like a jackhammer set on automatic. Four-punch combinations pummeled Mattice but never put him down.

“He was a smart veteran. He could take a hit,” said Ford.

Still, there was no doubt on who won the super featherweight contest. After 10 rounds all three judges gave Ford every round and scored it 100-90 for the New Jersey fighter who formerly held the WBA featherweight title which was wrested from him by Nick Ball.

Shakhram Giyasov (17-0, 10 KOs) made good on a promise to his departed daughter by knocking out Argentina’s Franco Ocampo (17-3, 8 KOs) in their welterweight battle.

Giyasov floored Ocampo in the first round with an overhand right but the Argentine fighter was able to recover and fight on for several more rounds.

In the fourth frame, Giyasov launched a lead right to the liver and collapsed Ocampo with the body shot for the count of 10 at 1:57 of the fourth round.

“I had a very hard camp because I lost my daughter,” Giyasov explained. “I promised I would be world champion.”

In his second pro fight Omari Jones (2-0) needed only seconds to disable William Jackson (13-6-2) with a counter right to the body for a knockout win. The former Olympic medalist was looking for rounds but reacted to his opponent’s actions.

“He was a veteran he came out strong,” said Jones who won a bronze medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “But I just stayed tight and I looked for the shot and I landed it.”

After a feint, Jackson attacked and was countered by a right to the rib cage and down he went for the count at 1:40 of the first round in the welterweight contest.

Photo credit: Matchroom

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!