Quote Originally Posted by bilbo
Quote Originally Posted by TyBuff
IMO this is a bad move for Manfredo. SRL may have been a great boxer, but they may not transfer at all into attempting to train somebody else. Manfredo should have gone with Roach's assistant, Justin Fortune. He has at least been in the gym with Manfredo and would have had a good idea on how to work him and everything. I thought Manfredo would make it competitive with Roach in his corner but now I cant imagine that happening.
I seriously doubt Leonard would attempt to come in with a new gameplan or alter any of Manfredo's preparations in any way. I'm sure that both Leonard, Manfredo and his all his team are way to smart for that.

What Sugar Ray will obviously bring to the table is confidence. It must have hurt Peter to lose Freddy Roach,regarded by many as one the top trainers in the world. Well at least now he's got the support of one of the all time greats of boxing.

I mean come on, if you could have one man in your corner, believing in you, telling you that you can win this, you can't do much better than have Sugar Ray Leonard be that man can you?

As for Justine Fortune, I expect he probably still is training him.
One question would be if Manfredo and Roach already had a gameplan set. I am sure they talked it over, but dont know if they already set something up. Manfredo hadnt even started serious training for the fight yet so I would question whether or not they had a set game plan already.

He is going to need the confidence against Joe but will SRL be able to guide him during the fight. What if their game plan isnt working will SRL be able to get Manfredo to addapt to something different? I just think that there are to many question marks with SRL as a trainer. As great of a fighter as SRL was it doesnt mean that he will be a great trainer or even a good one. I think that SRL's lack of experience in working a fighters corner will show to the detriment of Manfredo. I dont like Manfredo going with SRL, he was fighting an uphill battle to start with and now the hill has gotten steeper.