Manny Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum recently joked of wanting to put him in with KO artist Gennady Golovkin, but now it appears that Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach is interested in matching him against WBO junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Roach says he’s not concerned with the size of the 26-year-old Canelo, who some boxing fans believe he rehydrates into the 180s for his fights, as long as he can get him to agree to a rehydration limit.
Roach feels that Pacquiao will whip Canelo’s backside if he can get him to agree to a fight with a set rehydration limit. Roach wants to keep Canelo from rehydrating 30 pounds after he weighs in. Roach feels that Pacquiao can beat Canelo, but not if the Mexican star is 30 pounds heavier than him on fight night.
Getting a star like Canelo to agree to a rehydration limit might prove impossible at this point, because he and his promoters at Golden Boy appear to fancy him as the 900 pound gorilla in the boxing world right now. Asking Canelo to keep from rehydrating above 167lbs might prove to be impossible at this point, because he seems to have really filled out since his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013.
Roach said this to Fighhub.com about a Pacquiao vs. Canelo fight:
“He has not a lost a step yet. He still has speed and power. I know he hasn’t knocked anybody out for a long time. That has to do with his religious beliefs that he doesn’t want to hurt people. I think he really sees that people want knockouts. He’s been sparring aggressively and beating me up on the mitts. In the last fight some of the old Manny Pacquiao came out. In this fight [against Jessie Vargas], I expect more of the old Manny Pacquiao to come out and knock his fighter out. He knows to get the fights out there, the biggest ones, you need to be impressive doing it. He has to be impressive to get the Mayweathers or whoever is out there,” said Roach.
When asked about a possible fight between Pacquiao and unbeaten middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, Roach said, “I don’t think we could settle on the weight the fight would be at, but Canelo Alvarez is definitely a possibility. I would like to fight that fight. The thing is, I’d have to put a cap on how much weight he [Canelo] can gain after the weigh-in. That would be the key to the fight, to restrict him from going and gaining 30 pounds. A 30lb weight advantage isn’t a fair fight. We’d have to make a weight and agree on, and there would be a cap on the weight. I’d love to fight him. I know he’s a big ticket seller, and he’s a tough guy. I think he’s getting better and better as time goes on, but I still think Manny kicks his [expletive],” said Roach.
Pacquiao has to win his next fight on November 5 against WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas before a potential fight against Canelo can become a reality.