Michael Marley announce early this week that the youngest of the five Roach brothers, Joey, suffered a heart attack and died sometime Saturday in Las Vegas.
Freddie Roach, beloved trainer of Manny Pacquiao, has just taken one of the hardest blows.
Joey Roach was just age 47.
Freddie and Joey were extremely close. I want to record my condolences to Freddie, to mother Barbara, Brother Dominic (better known as Pepper) and to the entire family.
The Roach boys father, ex-New England featherweight champion Paul Roach, died in 1992 at the age of 62.
I can’t say that I knew Joey because it’s Pepper who has been involved in working with fighters.
But I do know that when Freddie retired as a pro boxer, he worked with Joey in a telemarketing business in Vegas. Joey grew that business and became a wealthy man in his own right.
“I brought him to Shaq’s show [Shaq Vs.],” Roach said. “He met Shaq. He let me drive his Ferrari for the weekend. He was retiring. He had bought a retirement home in Michigan with his wife. He came back [to Las Vegas] from Michigan, him and his wife, went to bed and he’s dead. He was my closest brother.”
Joey Roach was also a boxer. He had around 200 amateur fights and fought 14 times as a pro, going 11-3-3 (3 knockouts). He lost a decision to Olympic gold medalist Paul Gonzales in Gonzales’ second pro fight.
“He told me, ‘The first time I get cut in a fight I’m retiring,’” Roach said. “He got cut against Mauro Diaz (in 1986) and said, ‘That’s it. I’m not going to end up like you.’”
Roach did much better after his boxing career. At the time he died, he owned a telemarketing firm that employed more than 130 people.
“He was very successful,” Roach said. “He was a good talker. He told me, ‘If I had four flat tires, you couldn’t sell me a spare. But I could sell an Eskimo an icebox.”