Pacquiao vs Margarito | Pacquiao Fight Updates

The Americans have the best trainers in boxing. That has long been the mantra. And it is easy to get carried away with the myth. As lovely a man as he is, if there is a luckier trainer in boxing since the war than Angelo Dundee, I'd like to meet him and maybe he could tell me who's going to win the next Grand National. Would you know Angelo's name if it wasn't for Muhammad Ali? Maybe not.

He brought out an entertaining autobiography this year, ghost-written by Bert Sugar, and in there is a lot of wisdom and some great anecdotes. But there was nothing in the book to reveal why Dundee is regarded alongside acknowledged greats such as Ray Arcel, Jack Blackburn and Eddie Futch.
It was sad to see him on the edge of the ring with Oscar De La Hoya, battling for corner space with another superstar trainer, the Mexican Nacho Berenstein, the night Manny Pacquiao dismantled what was left of the Golden Boy last December. DLH, who changes trainers like underpants, loaded up with legends and couldn't pull the trigger.

Anyway, I don't go along with the sweeping judgment about trainers, wherever they come from, because I've met as many overrated Americans as I've met underrated trainers from elsewhere. Buddy McGirt, for instance, still hasn't done it, despite his reputation, while not many outside Britain will know how smart Jimmy Tibbs is in the corner.

If Dundee, McGirt or Emanuel Steward knew more about the arts than, say, Bobby Neill or that old warhorse Mickey Duff, I'd be very much surprised. Imparting the knowledge is another thing but a good rule of thumb is don't believe every whisper your hear.

For what it's worth, my favourite British trainer is Brendan Ingle, the Brian Clough of boxing, whose best work often is done away from the glare of publicity in his little Wincobank academy, with all manner of toerags and dreamers. He has also turned his boys, John and Dominic, into first-class cornermen. It never surprises me when Brendan calls to say he's got another world champion on the way. He is more than a trainer; he is a delight – and nobody's fool.

His latest young prince is an 18-year-old featherweight called Steve "Super Bad" Barnes, who is on the undercard in Wigan on Friday night when John Murray and Scott Lawton contest the British lightweight title. It is on ITV4; check it out to see if Brendan is right about Barnes, of whom he says, "He's something else … a bit special. He won four national titles as an amateur. He can do it all – he can box orthodox, southpaw and switch from one to the other, but he likes to get in there and have a fight as well. Unlike a lot of our boxers, he's not a talker and he's not brash. I think he'll finish up in the pro game having won everything out there. He really is that good."

We will see. He goes over four threes against a virtually unpronounceable Latvian novice, Jevgenijs Kirillovs.

But there can be no doubt that another very nice man, Freddie Roach, is not only the No1 in the world at the moment but one of the best boxing has had in the past 20 years. He learned at the foot of the master, Futch, and he has a string of world champions on his CV that is the most eloquent testimony to his talent.

Roach pretty much kept his cool under the eccentric attacks of Floyd Mayweather Sr before Ricky Hatton folded against Pacquiao. He showed a lot of class, too, when the Pacman won, resisting the temptation to rub it in. On Friday night in New York, Roach picks up the 2008 Boxing Writers of America Association award for trainer of the year. There will not be a dissenting voice in the room.

The following day he will pack his statue alongside his training bits and pieces and fly to London to put the finishing touches to Amir Khan's preparation for his world light-welterweight title fight against Andriy Kotelnik at the 02 Arena in Greenwich on 27 June. The work he has done on Khan's defence and ring smarts, without curbing his attacking instincts, has been impressive. If Khan makes it, he will owe much to Roach.

It is a measure of Roach's standing in the sport that fighters on the rise, and their managers, are flocking to his Wild Card gym in Los Angeles. The latest to knock on the door – and to be welcomed warmly by a man who also knows the value of talent in financial terms – are the Cuban defectors Guillermo Rigondeaux and Yudel Johnson.

I watched a tape of Rigondeaux's pro debut, a three-round work-out against the Arkansas novice Juan Noriega at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach last month – and the 27-year-old from Santiago de Cuba, who won two Olympic gold medals at bantamweight, looked one hell of a fighter already, one weight up. Johnson, a light-welter silver medallist in Athens, is now a heavy-handed light-middle and not in the same class, but still good.

Roach, not one to get carried away, enthused over Rigondeaux after their first work-out. "When we worked the mitts together, it was like when I worked with Manny for the first time," he said. "He is very clever. He's very elusive and he punches with both hands. He caught me on the tip of the nose with a right hook by accident. I could feel the power and he didn't even catch me that good. We have some things to work on, but he's a talented kid."

Working out with Rigondeaux and Pacquiao in Los Angeles will be the making of Khan. As I say, don't believe everything you read about American trainers. But believe Roach. Rigondeaux is the next big thing in boxing.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/