We got on trainer Freddie Roach’s case for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s poor performance last weekend against Sergio Martinez, but it looks like Chavez Jr. is the one largely to blame.
Roach complained that Chavez Jr. wasn’t following proper training in his preparation for the Martinez fight, and then on Wednesday we learned that Chavez Jr. also smoked marijuana leading up to the fight. That’s hardly the recipe for success.
On Monday, Roach decided that Chavez Jr. was making him look bad and that he wouldn’t put up with the flakiness any longer.
“I’ve told Julio, ‘When we do this again, the first day you miss anything, I’m going home,'” Roach told the LA Times.
Roach also defended his reputation, saying Chavez Jr. has himself to blame for his poor performance.
“I don’t know why [Chavez Jr.] messed with the success of listening to me. He trained in his living room, and it just wasn’t enough.”
Roach is smart to threaten to drop Chavez Jr. as a client. The trainer’s reputation is taking a big hit with his major fighters — Manny Pacquiao, Amir Khan, and Chavez Jr. — not looking good in their recent fights. We do think something is wrong with his training that’s creating these problems, and that his fighters are not listening to him, but when it comes to Chavez Jr., he needs to be strict because that dude is making him look really bad.
