With that, Freddie Roach said he’s moving forward and concentrating on the big fight at hand between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito.
Margarito, his trainer Robert Garcia and upcoming Brandon Rios, who is fighting in the undercard, had earlier extended their sincere apology to Roach, whose Parkinson’s disease was the subject of their mockery caught in a video posted on the internet by FanHouse.com. a few weeks ago (scroll down for the video clip).
“I was mad, but now I am not,” admitted Roach, who was personally reached by Garcia over the phone to say his piece on the controversy. “Robert seemed to be really sincere in what he said to me this morning on the phone, so I accepted his apology.”
Margarito and Rios were both repentant during the undercard press conference Thursday at the Gaylord Texan Hotel here, where the 32-year-old Mexican was not really part of the proceedings.
“I want you to know I would never make fun of Freddie Roach or anyone with that disease,” said Pacquiao’s opponent, stressing even someone in his family has Parkinson’s disease. “If he really wants an apology, I have no problem with that because I know I’m not laughing at his disease. I can look him straight in the eyes and tell him….`I’m not laughing at you. I respect you.’”
Added Rios, “I take responsibility for what I did. I’m man about it. It was wrong and I’m sorry.”
The gentleman that he is, Roach said he’s putting the incident behind him now, although admitting he didn’t sleep well the night before and had to double his medicine intake for his disease.
“I would shake (Margarito’s) hand to end this. I think they realize what they did was maybe a little bit too much, they went overboard,” he added.
“Let’s just move on with the fight now,” said Roach, who said he extended Garcia the best of luck for this weekend’s bout.
Apparently, Roach predicted Margarito was going down in eight. It's now down to three. Yeah Right! Apology accepted.
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