i love him as a trainer,but i have wondered the same thing, I know he has parkinsons syndrome from fighting, He is a great trainer and he has done great work with pac man
His thin skin betrayed him; he cut over the eyes as soon as the ref gave instructions. Lots of heart, and like Billy Conn, his Irish got the best of him -- never backed down from trading with anyone. Though not a big puncher, his double and triple left hook to the head and body was his best weapon. Very tenacious but limited. He looked more like a choir boy then, but he was a tough SOB.
The very first boxing match I ever watched on ESPN was Fast Freddy Roach versus David Capo broadcast from the Bradford Hotel in Boston. Capo was a novice professional who had upset Olympic hero and future champion Leo Randolph. In his previous match, he became the first boxer to go the ten round distance with Azumah Nelson in Ghana. In his professional debut, he went the eight round limit with 5-1-0 Juan Laporte. Capo seemed to be a prospect with tremendous potential, despite being only 2-4-1 at the time. Some boxing writer described his style as that "of an epileptic road runner." Roach was 20W (8 KOs) 1L 0D at the time, and La Cucaracha had won the New England Featherweight Title in his previous bout. As a second generation boxer, and amateur from age six, he posted a record of 141-9 before turning pro. As a professional, Freddie very much retained the amateur style of high speed and punching volumn in the super bantamweight division. For ten rounds, the fists of both competitors were a blur on the television screen, but Freddie's were faster. The nonstop action would have short circuited a compustat calculator. In the final round, the ceaseless fire exchanged in mid-ring was so riveting that the timekeeper forgot to ring the bell at the three minute mark! It did not matter, as Roach and Capo maintained the exact same pace without any sign of either slowing down. After four minutes had elapsed in that tenth round the timekeeper finally rang the bell, and Roach was rightly awarded the decision. In that spellbinding ten rounds, it looked as though Roach, and not Howard Davis Jr., was the fastest boxer in the sport, with Capo very close behind. Although neither displayed intimidating power, the blistering pace of their contest was one of the foundational moments in the rise of boxing on ESPN. They both looked like future world champions. While Capo would later go the ten round distance with former world champions David Kotey and Julian Solis, he never won another match, losing the final 16 bouts of his career, athough only getting stopped twice. I've often wondered what Capo might have achieved with first rate management. Freddie would go on to box numerous televised matches, and become a staple of boxing on ESPN during their formative years. La Cucaracha had a solid career, eventually going the ten round route with Macho Camacho and Schoolboy Chacon (losing a majority decision to Bobby), but he was never able to win a contest which could vault him into a title shot. He later would box as a junior lightweight, lightweight, and junior weltereight, but never again display the flashing speed he showed against Capo as a super bantamweight. He wasn't much of a puncher, and weight increases did nothing to improve the impact of his blows. 122 was clearly his fastest weight, and his speed reduced with each increase in weight. I believe that any boxing related brain damage he might have sustained does not come from his final professional matches, but probably from the numerous blows he took to the head while sparring and competing from kindergarten age. Should ESPN ever decide to create a boxer's hall of fame for themselves, Freddie Roach deserves to be one of the charter inductees, for helping to bring attention to the exciting variety of competition and competitors at the local and developmental level of boxing in the States during the early 1980's.
Give this a little more meat and submit it as an article. I think it has some potential. Put it on the front page. Freddie Roach The Boxer is a good topic. I think people would read.
Wow! Achilles, coming from you that's an enormous compliment, but I assure you, I'm no kind of writer. If somebody else wants to take this ball and run with it though, they're more than welcomed to it. It would be extremely useful for anybody writing about Freddie's boxing career to have access to ESPN's archival footage, and any other bouts of his recorded on camera. When I think back to how fast Freddie was at 122, and how much slower he exponentially became with each jump in weight, I have wondered if he could have reduced himself down to 118 without weakening himself. A match between Freddie and Jeff Chandler for Joltin' Jeff's WBA Bantamweight Title would have really capitalized on the heated sports rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia then in full swing, in basketball, hockey, and boxing. As a bantamweight, Freddie might have had the speed necessary to compete with Jeff.
