Freddie Roach is the trainer of Manny Pacquiao, who is preparing for Saturday’s Super Welterweight title fight against Antonio Margarito. Roach, a former boxer himself, lives with Parkinson’s disease. You and I can probably agree that Parkinson’s is not something that’s okay to mock, ever. Rush Limbaugh famously did so, and now he’s joined by Margarito and his stablemate, Brandon Rios.
VIDEO: Antonio Margarito Mocks Manny Pacquiao’s Trainer Freddie Roach
Our boxing blog, Bad Left Hook, dug up the original version of a video that was edited for obvious reasons.(UPDATE: the video has since been removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim.)
Roach had accused Margarito of fighting previous bouts with an illegal, and dangerous, hand wrap. It’s a serious accusation to make, and given that the two camps don’t like each other and that boxing loves bad guys, it would have been permissible for Margarito to fire back. The reaction they chose, though, doesn’t fall within permissible territory (it’s about two minutes into the video). Bad Left Hook writes:
To stoop this low is... I don’t want to call it unforgivable, but it shows you the level these guys are at, and I don’t think that’s something to slap your knee over. Margarito, Garcia and Rios show their true colors. Congrats, guys. Now people know who all of you are, and it’s not for the right reasons.
It’s tasteless, yes, and if you mock Parkinson’s, a neurological disease, and you’re a boxer, a profession sometimes linked to neurological disease, you aren’t displaying much self-awareness.
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