By Keith Idec

Floyd Mayweather Jr. can’t understand why the trainer who got a lot of credit for Miguel Cotto’s comeback hasn’t been blamed for his work in Cotto’s corner Saturday night.

Mayweather – who along with his father/trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., has been a frequent critic of famed trainer Freddie Roach – ripped Roach during an interview with fighthype.com for failing to give Cotto the proper advice against Canelo Alvarez in their middleweight title fight at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Mexico’s Alvarez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) won their 12-round bout by unanimous decision, though Puerto Rico’s Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) seemingly deserved more credit for his competitive performance than the three judges gave him (119-109, 118-110, 117-111).

“I can understand him being a little hurt [about the scores], but Cotto didn’t have the right trainer,” Mayweather told fighthype.com’s Ben Thompson in an interview that was posted Monday. “He wasn’t given the right advice. What fight was [Roach] watching? When you’re a trainer, you know what you have to tell a fighter if the fight is close? ‘Listen, you gonna have to pick up the f***ing pace! You know what? The fight is extremely close.’

“If you’re losing, your coach don’t need to wait for you to get to the 10th round to tell you that you losing. If your coach knows you’re losing in the fourth round, if that was the case, that’s when a trainer needs to step up and say, ‘You know what? Pick up the f***ing pace. You losing.’ Or, ‘F*** it! Go out like a soldier! Go for the knockout.’ If you get caught, that’s part of the game. But sh*t, the name of the game is kill or be killed. You gotta sacrifice something to get something.”

The retired, undefeated five-division champion can’t comprehend, either, why Roach has received so much praise for resurrecting Cotto’s career following a unanimous-decision defeat to southpaw Austin Trout (30-2, 17 KOs) in December 2012 at Madison Square Garden.

“I hear people talking about Freddie Roach is a legendary trainer,” Mayweather said, “but I think Cotto was fighting the same way before he got with Freddie Roach. I think Pacquiao was fighting the same before he got with Freddie. Both guys were already world champions before they got to Freddie Roach. But when Pacquiao lost to Marquez and he lost to me, they still keep talking about how legendary the coach is. When are y’all going to get on the coach’s ass and say, ‘You know what? This coach done a f***ed up job.’

“I know he’s not 100-percent healthy, so I’m not really taking shots at him. I’m just speaking fact. I don’t have anything against Freddie Roach, but he’s not a legendary coach. As a fighter, he was a club fighter, AKA punching bag. [I’ll] tell you who as a good trainer that Cotto had. The Cuban coach that was working with Cotto when he fought me [Pedro Diaz]. He’s a good trainer – a very, very good trainer. … These guys got these trainers working their training camp, holding pads and working with them when they’re not 100 percent. If you cannot give me 100 percent, I’m not going to be able to go out there and perform the way I need to perform if I don’t have the tools that I need. My Uncle Roger, his mitt work kept me extremely sharp. Now, my Uncle Roger is not 100 percent. I mean, he still holds the pads, but he’s not 100 percent.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.