By Jonny Stapleton

Newly-inducted Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach claims Jamie Kavanagh  is proving anything but a ‘Nuisance’ and has been nothing but impressive since he joined the Wild Card two years ago.
Roach, who worked with Bernard Dunne, Michael Collins, Dean Byrne amongst other Irish fighters, is happy with the progress that the lightweight has made since relocating to Los Angles.
The greatest trainer in the world doesn’t get too much one on one time with the Dubliner, but keeps a close eye on his progress.

“Jamie is doing real well.  I have been travelling a lot lately with (Manny) Pacquiao, Amir (Khan) and Chavez and I haven’t had a lot of time, but Sedano Ruiz, his Spanish coach, is doing a great job,” he told the Irish Voice.
“He’s just had a great performance in Cancun, he looked really well in the fight, and I think that draw we had was a wake-up call for him and it sparked him to work a little harder.  It was probably more of a good thing than a bad thing,” said Roach.
The talented 22 year old hasn’t just the benefits of working in a quality gym, he also has the promotional backing of Golden Boy. Roach revealed Kavanagh’s bilingual abilities excited America’s top two promoters.
“When Golden Boy found out he that he was bi-lingual and that he could speak Spanish – they have a lot of Telemundo shows and that is their biggest audience in boxing – they signed him right away. They wanted to sign him before Top Rank did.  We could have gone either way, but Golden Boy made the better offer at the time.”
Despite waxing lyrical about the Irish fighters progress, Roach still feels he needs a few more eight round fights before progressing further.

“I would probably give him two or three more eight-rounders and then move to 10,” said Roach. “If you can fight eight, then you can fight 10.You know he is just too small to fight in the 140 division, you can look at him and see that,” added Roach. “135 is a much better weight for him. He’ll be a much better puncher at that weight, once he settles down and sits down on his punches a little bit.  He still has a lot of amateur in him, but we are slowly making those changes.”