Who is the best defensive fighter Roach has trained from the ground up?

He trained James Toney. He didn't develop him from the ground up of course, but he did train him.

 

worked with Hopkins and Jamez

they are not freddie roach products in any way though

 

He trained Starling.I'm sure if I remember he only ever went down from an illegal punch.Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong but I'm sure he's known for not going down.

 

Not the best but he trained Virgil Hill who was a defensive spoiler at times and Wayne McCullogh didn't get KO'd much.I'm sure there are others who were better defensively.

 

Yea, it's not that their defense doesn't exist or is completely terrible (fans like to exaggerate), but there's something about neither being comfortable being backed up on the inside; they just shell up and wait till it's over. Pacquiao less so, since he usually pivots out to restart the angle (JMM wasn't giving it to him and also made him afraid to commit so that's an exception.) Khan needs to work on it, but he's only been tagged hard by Maidana and Peterson since working with Roach in fights where his offense was effectively working as his defense for large parts of the fight. Roach is good at defensive footwork and taking away an opponent's angle, but for some reason they just freeze up in close quarters.

 

for a fighter that loves to go forward and engage and has a high workrate, pacquiao is underrated defensively. his last fight with marquez, most of jmm's punches were blocked or avoided and his only sustained damaged was due to a headbutt.

 

Wayne McCullough is a terrible example!! i love the guy but he had a chin of Granite which he relied on too much.

 

Most is an exaggeration there.

 

i have watched through most of the sequnce and pac would catch all evade jmm's 2, 3 or 4 punch combo with his high guard. jmm did successfully landed them frequently on those middle rounds but on other rounds, pac has blocked most of it. imo, jmm did much better offensively against pacquiao in the 2nd fight.

 

None that I can think of. Takes away very little from what he did with Pac and Khan and how he developed them after their devastating early KO losses. I know this thread stems from Floyd Sr and Roger Mayweather's disdain for Roach and their jealous hatred for all he's accomplished. Which fighters did they build/rebuild from the ground up, besides the naturally talented Floyd, that went on to achieve anything close to what Pac and Khan did?

 

He trained Bernard Hopkins, James Toney, and a ton of other guys. And roach himself was trained by Eddie Futch, and he was a prototypical boxer basically with a good inside game. He wasn't an 'offensive fighter' by any means.

I think Roach as a trainer likes to focus on a fighters strengths . With Pacquiao he knew he had an offensive dynamo on his hands so he focused on that and gave him a lot of extra tools and worked on his balance and fundamentals. It seems he's doing something similiar with Khan, but he hasn't been with him that long. Khan is still young and has plenty of time to improve.

 

so I guess Roger and Joy built ATG Floyd from the ground up while roach hasn't ever built any ATG from the ground up as you said

I rather have 1 dollar than no dollar

 

At the beginning and end, he evaded a good number, but I can count the number of body shots he blocked on my one hand. JMM through a lot of those.