Manny Pacquiao’s long-term coach Freddie Roach is surprisingly uninterested in seeing his most successful fighter take on UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor
The legendary coach simply believes that the fight would be a gross mismatch.
Recent reports linking the Filipino icon to a boxing bout with McGregor in 2018 gained traction when Pacquiao posted a peculiar Thanksgiving message on Instagram. The 38-year-old added a photo of the UFC superstar, tagging him with the caption “stay fit my friend” and indicating that a bout between the two would be a “real boxing match” in 2018.
Happy Thanksgiving @TheNotoriousMMA Stay fit my friend. #realboxingmatch #2018 pic.twitter.com/3ze20fZgpe
— Manny Pacquiao (@mannypacquiao) November 23, 2017
Dana White flat out denied the possibility of a fight between McGregor and Pacquiao, going as far as to threaten to sue the highly decorated former champion and ‘whoever is representing him’.
Roach was also dismissive of the potential matchup and delivered an honest assessment of why the fight wouldn’t make much sense:
“Manny always told me that he doesn’t like that sport [MMA] because it’s more like a street fight”, Roach told FightHype.
“It’s a very winnable fight [against Conor McGregor], and there’s a lot of money to be made from it. But it’s kind of like ripping off the world. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, unless Manny fought by their rules too, which would make it fair.
“But if you’re going to do boxing rules, the boxer’s gonna win 99 and a half percent of the time. I don’t think it’s much of a fight. He’s not that great a boxer, and I think we all saw that.”
