by David P. Greisman

Though Freddie Roach is the head trainer to Ruslan Provodnikov, the Hall of Famer won’t be in the corner when Provodnikov faces 140-pound titleholder Mike Alvarado on Saturday night.

Roach is in the Philippines training Manny Pacquiao for next month’s bout with Brandon Rios. And so instead Provodnikov will have Roach’s assistant, Marvin Somodio.

Roach “tried to come out, but it’s hard for him to travel back and forth,” Somodio told David P. Greisman of BoxingScene.com and Victor Salazar of Tha Boxing Voice shortly after Friday’s weigh-in.

Somodio has also worked with other fighters such as Brian Viloria and Frankie Gomez. But while Somodio admits that Roach is a better trainer than him, he is confident that his absence won’t be detrimental to Provodnikov.

“Ruslan is ready. He trained hard for this fight. We’ve been training with Freddie for eight weeks before he [Ruslan] came here [to Denver],” Somodio said. “I just follow whatever Freddie says, and that’s it. Almost every day in the training camp, he explained it to me and he told me what to do. Ruslan already knows. I’m just going to work in Ruslan’s corner. What I’m going to do is remind him what we need to do to win the fight.”

Pick up a copy of David’s new book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com