Manny Pacquiao may not fight Terence Crawford straight away, says Freddie Roach
Tuesday 26 July 2016 17:01, UK
Freddie Roach has admitted that he may not pick Terence Crawford as an opponent for Manny Pacquiao's November comeback fight.
The Hall of Fame trainer was in the opposing corner to Crawford at the weekend as the Omaha super-lightweight unified the division by comfortably outpointing Ukrainian Viktor Postol.
I don't think we are going to accept or want the Crawford fight for Manny straight away.
The victory seemed to set up a mega fight with multi-weight world champion Pacquiao, who is likely to return to the ring this autumn.
Promoter Bob Arum previously compiled a three-man shortlist for the chance to face 'Pac-Man', with Crawford's name put alongside welterweight world champions Jessie Vargas and Danny Garcia.
Roach, however, has dispelled the chances of Crawford landing the fight, telling boxingscene.com: "I don't think we are going to accept or want the Crawford fight for Manny straight away.
"We will take it in the future, give me one warm-up fight and a fight right after that and then we can talk.
"It will be a tough match-up as Crawford can move for 12 rounds and is a pretty good puncher. He hits hard and emulates Floyd Mayweather Jr quite a bit in his style - he's like a younger version."
