Freddie Roach analyzes Mayweather-Mosley

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There’s not much that Manny Pacquiao‘s trainer, Freddie Roach, likes right now about Floyd Mayweather Jr., after the unbeaten fighter wouldn’t relent on his push to adopt strict drug-testing guidelines -- a stance that helped scrap a bout that would’ve guaranteed each fighter $25 million.

Yet, when asked to pick who’d win Mayweather’s May 1 bout against Pomona’s Shane Mosley at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Roach put aside the hard feelings.

‘I like Mayweather to win,’ Roach said. ‘I do hope Shane finds a way; he’s my friend, but he has trouble with speed and the movement he’ll get from Mayweather, so I think Floyd will win a decision.’

Mayweather and Mosley are due in Los Angeles on Thursday for a noon news conference at L.A. Live. Tickets for their fight, ranging from $150 to $1,250, will go on sale through Ticketmaster at 10 a.m. PST Tuesday.

Roach predicted Mosley won’t implement a major change to his fighting style, assessing that at 38 the world welterweight champion, who last fought in January 2009 versus Antonio Margarito, ‘is set in his ways.’

Asked how Mosley should fight Mayweather, Roach said, ‘The same thing we’ll have to do if that fight ever happens, but I’m not going to tell you that, in case we do get that fight.’

Roach said he believes Mosley ‘will go after [Mayweather], and pressure him, and be very aggressive.

‘But he has to be careful about doing that because he risks walking into some counterpunches. Floyd’s not just a runner. He’ll set you up. I’m sure Shane knows that. It’ll be interesting to see how he deals with that.’

Roach told The Times in a article Monday that there’s a possibility Pacquiao will stop boxing after his March 13 fight against Joshua Clottey, because of the problematic negotiations with Mayweather and the absence of any other major fights.

However, Roach said that if Mosley can upset Mayweather, a Pacquiao-Mosley showdown would ‘be the fight of the year, for sure. Both guys want to fight. They’d come right at each other until one falls.

‘I hope that happens. Then we wouldn’t have to deal with the [behavior] of Mayweather.’

-- Lance Pugmire