Manny Pacquiao/Photo courtesy of Top Rank Inc.

Manny Pacquiao has never been a trash-talker, but Freddie Roach has encouraged Pacquiao to be much more assertive when it comes to making his feelings known about how badly he wants to get Floyd Mayweather Jr. into the ring.

Roach last week told this newspaper that the right people are talking about getting this fight done, but that Pacquiao can help his cause by getting a bit mouthy.

“Manny’s always been a very respectful person and he’s never called Mayweather out,” Roach said. “He’s always said, ‘My promoter will decide who we fight next,’ and just being a gentleman. And now the commerical came out and he was real excited about that. And he’s talking for the first time because we figure that’s the only way to get him (Mayweather) out since being a gentleman didn’t work.”

Roach is referring to a Foot Locker commercial in which Pacquiao gets excited because he thinks Mayweather has finally agreed to fight him.

“We’ve gotta antagonize this guy to get him to come to the table, I think,” Roach said of Mayweather. “So Manny’s talking and I told Manny, ‘Manny, you keep doing that commercial. Do that every time you talk to somebody from the press. Because then they can write something about how bad you want the fight. But if you don’t say nothing, they can’t write nothing because you didn’t say nothing.’ I said, ‘If the press gets behind it, and the boxing world is already behind it, I think it will make more noise for us and I think it’ll make the fight happen faster.”