A few things you should know about Freddie Roach:
1) He is a world-renowned, Boxing Hall of Fame-inducted trainer whose list of credentials includes everyone from Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya to Georges St. Pierre (who will never fight without Roach in his corner again, FYI) and Anderson Silva.
2) He suffers from Parkinson’s disease.
3) He once bit a dude’s eyeball out of his socket.
4) He is legend.
Yesterday morning, Roach entered a gym in Macau for an open workout scheduled ahead of Pacquiao’s clash with Brandon Rios this Saturday. Shortly after entering, Roach got into a heated altercation with Brandon Rios’ trainers, Robert Garcia and Alex Ariza, regarding gym time. When Rios’ crew refused to leave despite their time being up, Roach called Garcia a “piece of shit,” setting into motion a back-and-forth that would result in Roach being kicked in the chest, called a “faggot” repeatedly, and having his Parkinson’s disease mocked and laughed at by Rios and his crew of troglodyte cohorts.
Now, while some of the blame for this altercation can be placed on Roach for his overly-aggressive approach (and somewhat insidious use of the term “Mexican motherfucker”), to act as if Garcia and Ariza’s childish mocking of a boxing legend’s incurable disease is anything less than despicable, abhorrent behavior is to sell the incident short.
Fuck you, Robert Garcia. Fuck you, Alex Ariza. Fuck you both to Hell. May your tiny, tiny genitals be severed from your bodies and fed to the meanest, junkyardiest dogs this planet has to offer while the rest of you is cast to the boats.
A second angle of the confrontation, as well as a little backstory on the rough history between Roach and Ariza, is below.
For those of you who think this was an isolated incident, think again. It turns out that, for a time, Ariza was the strength and conditioning coach for Pacquiao until he was fired on Roach’s advice. Yahoo’s Kevin Iole has the scoop:
“Ariza is just an [expletive],” Roach said. “He never did a thing for Manny. Manny always worked on his own. Alex just stretched him, and that was the extent of his job. I told Manny, ‘You’re paying this guy a lot of money just to stretch you.’ What fighter in the world, what professional athlete, can’t stretch himself?’ And Manny agreed and said, ‘I’m going to go back to the old way.’
“Alex is just a pain in the ass. My cornermen, Buboy [Fernandez], he used to cut off and go up in the ring. He cut Buboy off and would start yelling instructions over me. My cutman, Miguel Diaz, refused to work the corner if Alex was in the corner because he wanted to be the cutman also. If he would have just done his job, he would have been OK, but he wanted to do everyone else’s job.
Now let’s bring things back to the “racist” allegations being thrown Roach’s way in/as a result of this video.
To my understanding (which is somewhat limited on account of my “whiteness”), calling a person of Mexican descent “a Mexican” does not inherently qualify as racist. In the interest of fairness, however, I will say that Roach’s use of the term sure sounded racist, if only because of the context in which he was using it.
Calling someone with Parkinson’s disease “a stuttering prick” and “a faggot” before repeatedly mocking their disease, on the other hand, is a revolting act worthy of a swift and brutal punishment. While my previous suggestion of castration/scaphism might be a little on the extreme side, can we all agree that a good old fashioned kneecapping is in order for both Ariza and Garcia?
Oh, and the worst part? This isn’t even the first time that Rios & Co. have been caught mocking Roach’s Parkinson’s on camera.
You know what, fuck it. Fasten each and every last one of Rios’ crew to a boat and let the insects feast on their insides.