Those three bouts also provided the type of money Roach isn’t likely to receive by rebuilding against lesser-known lightweights. If he wants to continue earning major purses, he’ll need opponents with names, titles or enough ability to make the fights commercially valuable.
Floyd Schofield, Andy Cruz, Abdullah Mason, Gervonta Davis, Jadier Herrera, Rayo Valenzuela, Sam Noakes, Lucas Bahdi and Zepeda offer Roach few comfortable options if his goal is another lightweight title. Those are also the type of opponents capable of producing the paydays that make remaining at 135 worthwhile.
The Zepeda loss exposed an offensive limitation that won’t necessarily disappear against a different style.
“My timing was a little off. I was throwing one big shot, and they was capitalizing with the work rate,” Roach said after the fight.
His father and trainer, Lamont Roach Sr., saw the same issue from the corner.
“We slipped the first three or four shots. We didn’t come back with nothing,” Roach Sr. said to Fight Hub TV. “We didn’t punch with him like we planned on.”
Roach Sr. also said he instructed his son to stop loading up because he was looking for the “home run.”
Counterpunching Zepeda wasn’t enough. Roach could make him miss early in combinations, but without an immediate offensive response, Zepeda remained free to continue throwing.
The other top lightweights present a different set of problems. Waiting for counters against bigger punchers such as Schofield, Mason and Herrera places Roach in exchanges where one mistake can be costly. Andy Cruz has become more offensive as a pro and now carries enough power to punish a passive counterpunching strategy.
Roach can’t wait for power to arrive at this stage of his career. It probably isn’t coming. If he’s committed to 135, increasing his punch output may be his only realistic avenue for changing the results.
He doesn’t literally need to throw 800-plus punches every fight, but he may need a fairly radical increase. Otherwise, we’re asking the same low-output counterpuncher to beat a lightweight field containing fighters who are younger, more powerful, more active, or some combination of all three.
Roach can take a softer opponent to improve his chances of ending his three-fight winless stretch. The tradeoff would likely be a much smaller purse.
Taking another major fight keeps the money coming, but another clear loss could reduce his value and make those paydays increasingly difficult to obtain.
At nearly 31, Roach doesn’t have unlimited time for a lengthy rebuild. He can protect himself with lesser opposition and accept less money, or continue chasing the lucrative fights at 135 and risk another defeat. Neither direction gives him an easy way back.
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