On Thursday’s “First Take” on ESPN2, co-host Stephen A. Smith reacted to Manny Pacquiao trainer Freddie Roach’s comments on May 2 opponent Floyd Mayweather showing up tardy to a media workout on Tuesday.
Roach told ESPN, “Mayweather is a different ‘A side’ now, and you can guess what the ‘A’ stands for. He was late for his media workout, leaving major media outlets scheduled to go live with dead air. How selfish is that? It doesn’t take a lot to figure out why everyone is rooting for Manny.”
Smith declared that comments like that and Pacquiao previously saying on “First Take” that God would deliver Mayweather into his hands are examples of Pacquiao and his camp taking low blows at Mayweather.
“Well, if you are Manny Pacquiao, you are bringing up the spiritual aspect and what have you. How are you supposed to come back from that? If you are Freddie Roach, he is suffering from Parkinson’s. How are you supposed to come back at him? It’s like, you talk about a fight but you are not given a fair fight in this round.”
He continued, saying, “On one hand they come at Floyd if he came back at them it would be like attacking God himself, so he’s not gonna do that. You have Freddie Roach and he has Parkinson’s, you’ve got some people that would like to slap him upside his head, not advocating that of course, but you can’t do that either because he is suffering from Parkinson’s.”
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