Roach Talks Tough On Canelo, PEDs

Famed trainer Freddie Roach feels that if Canelo Alvarez willingly ingested performance enhancing drugs, then he, and anyone else who does the same, should face an “attempted murder charge.” As far as the veteran corner man is concerned, strong enough action hasn’t been taken in light of fighters willfully cheating. “I think, you know, they should be punished for it,” he told Boxing Insider. “I mean, because there should be stricter rules. If they had stricter rules that you could never fight again or maybe longer suspensions they’d think twice about it.” At the moment, Roach feels the punishments simply don’t fit the crime.

“The thing is,” he said, “they give them a little bit of a fine and a slap on the hand and that’s it. I mean the consequences are not enough to make them think about doing it and doing it.” Roach understands the reality of the current fight world, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. “I mean it is a part of our sport and is part of our life right now,” he said. “I hope to say that they both (Canelo and scheduled opponent Gennady Golovkin) come out okay. I want that fight to happen because it’s an exciting, exciting fight.” Perhaps surprisingly, Roach didn’t rule out the option that Canelo might well have accidentally consumed tainted beef, causing him to test positive for the banned substance Clenbuterol twice this past February, as Canelo’s team has claimed.

“I’m an arborist,” he said, “and I went to school in an agricultural high school.” Roach went on to explain that cattle are indeed injected with substances that will make them bigger. “The more they weigh, the more money you get for your cow,” he said. “It is a common practice…I know this can happen.” Roach went on to speak of other matters during the course of the interview, such as Terence Crawford and his WBO welterweight title matchup against Jeff Horn on July 9th in Las Vegas.

“Horn,” Roach says, “is a very physical fighter…I’d say a dirty fighter, but it is a fight.” Roach feels Pacquiao let Horn off the hook when the two men met in Horn’s hometown of Brisbane last summer (Horn ended up winning the bout via an extremely controversial decision). “I don’t think Horn’s really a dangerous fighter at all,” Roach admitted. “Pacquiao should have knocked him out along the way…he let that opportunity slip by.”

Roach doesn’t expect Crawford to make the same mistakes he felt Pacquiao did when Crawford steps into the ring to face the Aussie fighter. “He had a smart game plan for Pacquiao because Pacquaio is one of those guys who wants to fight fair,” Roach said of Horn. “I don’t think that will happen in this fight.”

As far as Roach is concerned, Crawford is “a bigger, stronger guy” than Pacquiao. “I think he knocks out Horn somehow along the way.” Roach is clearly impressed with Crawford’s skills, saying the former unified junior welterweight champion “has a lot of tools in his box. He can do a lot of different things.” Roach feels Crawford fights at such a level that he’s “the best pound for pound fighter in the world today…I like him a lot in this fight.” Roach spoke of a dream fight between Crawford and welterweight titlist Errol Spence. “They worry about MMA taking over boxing,” he said, “but the thing is, it will never take over if they have the best fight the best.”