LAS VEGAS -- For Freddie Roach, it was like being a hard-working father returning home early from a long business trip. Instead of being greeted by his children's adoring hugs, there was a surprise teenage party in progress, with neighbor kids sipping the home's finest champagne, smoking dad's cigars and pouring beers from mom's orange juice carafe.
Boxing trainers reach their breaking points too, and Roach's came in August inside a stifling hot gym in the Philippines that was occupied not only by his star fighter, Manny Pacquiao, but by more than 100 hangers-on who were taking pictures and chatting up the super-featherweight boxer. It was merely the latest distraction for the national icon who will fight Saturday against a proud former champion, Marco Antonio Barrera, bent on revenge.
Roach had to unexpectedly uproot his training base from Hollywood to the Philippines because Pacquiao reported problems with his wife. Upon arrival in the islands, there were reports that the charismatic boxer -- considered one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world -- had been gambling too much.
Roach observed the chaos infecting his disciplined environment, and took a stand.
"Everyone, get the . . . out of the gym!" Roach barked to the annoying throng.
"I was really mean," Roach recalled last week. "But we never had that problem again."
The hectic life of the 28-year-old Pacquiao is pointed to as a source of concern by both those around the fast-moving southpaw and other boxing observers, who say he's in danger of a downfall, perhaps even in a fight in which he's more than a 3-1 favorite.
"When there are major distractions, the fighter doesn't want to admit it -- he'll think, 'As long as I train hard. . . .' But he's in denial," said boxer-promoter Oscar De La Hoya, Barrera's promoter, who knows how the tug of celebrity and personal crises can shape a fighter's preparation.
When he last fought, in April, Pacquiao was in the midst of campaigning for a national election that he would ultimately lose in May. Pacquiao (44-3-2, 35 knockouts) fought most fiercely after being cut in the sixth round and scored an eighth-round knockout victory over Jorge Solis in San Antonio.
He fell to his knees and tears welled in his eyes after an emotional triumph that temporarily relieved the weight of the election pressure and his involvement in a legal battle between De La Hoya and Top Rank's Bob Arum for the right to promote him.
