LAS VEGAS ---  You have to wonder whether Roger Mayweather stopped off at the neighborhood crack house on his way to the MGM Grand. The world wasn’t awaiting this. On a national conference call a few weeks ago, Uncle Roger went off on his own brother. Wednesday, at an otherwise dignified press conference in the Hollywood Theatre, Roger shifted his venom not to his nephew’s opponent in Saturday night’s megafight at the Grand Garden, but to Freddie Roach, his opposite number in Oscar De La Hoya’s corner, disdainfully describing the two-time Trainer of the Year as “that punching bag over there.”

Insulting Roach would have been bad enough, but, unable to control himself, Roger proceeded to sully the memory of the late Eddie Futch, the Hall of Fame Trainer who was probably the most beloved figure in boxing when he passed away at 90 half a dozen years ago.

“(Roach) talks about what he learned from Eddie Futch, but Eddie Futch didn’t do shit,” claimed Mayweather. “He never made a fighter. He didn’t make Larry Holmes and he didn’t make no Alexis Arguello. The only fighter he ever made himself was Hedgemon Lewis, and the other guy trained Hedgemon Lewis, not Eddie Futch.”

Futch, of course, trained twenty world champions, which the last time we looked was about 19 more than Roger Mayweather. Of the five occasions Muhammad Ali was on the losing end of fights, Futch was in the opposite corner for three of them. And what about Joe Frazier, Riddick Bowe, Michael Spinks?

As he walked out of the news conference, Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather’s attorney John Hornewer could only shake his head.

Ironically, even though he retired from the sport three years before his death, Futch continued to watch it with great interest right up until the end, and among the new generation of boxers he saw developing, there was none he admired more than Floyd Mayweather Jr.

“This kid,” he said, “does things I haven’t seen done in years.”

Although Roach termed Roger Mayweather’s gratuitous attack on his old mentor “shameful,” he wasn’t surprised.

“What did Eddie Futch ever do to that person?” he asked. “I guess it was just because he was my trainer.

“But,” he added of the Brothers Mayweather, “they’re low-class.”

Floyd Mayweather Sr., whom Roach replaced in the De La Hoya corner, was not among the 29 assorted dignitaries invited to sit on the dais at Richard Schaefer’s intimate little luncheon, nor is he likely to turn up in his son’s corner on Saturday night. Papa Mayweather also professed bewilderment over Roger’s diatribe.

“I have no idea what that was all about,” he said.

Since all 16,200 tickets at the MGM Grand Garden are long gone, Roger obviously wasn’t trying to boost the gate by picking a fight with Freddie Roach, but he had barely begun his oratory when he made a left turn and began to rant about “he couldn’t whip me in a million years.”

At the press conference, Roger claimed that he regularly got the better of Roach when they sparred together in the early 1980s, and that he had wanted Roach as his first professional opponent.

“When I said that, Eddie Futch asked me ‘How many fights have you had,’ and I said ‘I ain’t got none,’ reported Mayweather.

“So for my pro debut I fought a guy who was 7-0, and in my next fight I fought a guy with 87 victories,” boasted Mayweather. “But I couldn’t whip him?”

For the record, Roger Mayweather’s pro debut opponent, Andrew Ruiz, was 1-0, when they fought in 1981. And his second fight, a month later, was against Jaime Nava, who was 9-27.

Freddie Roach says Mayweather’s memory is equally faulty when it comes to their shared experience in the gym.

“We trained in the same gym, but we only sparred once, for two or three rounds,” said Roach.

Did anybody go down?

“Not even close,” laughed Freddie. “I don’t think either of us even landed a punch.”

Roach was mystified that Roger had decided to make things personal, but it doesn’t sound as if a fight between corners is likely to break out Saturday night.

“I don’t want to get caught up in it,” he said. “It was very disrespectful of him to talk about Eddie like that, but Roger is what he is.”

And what is that?

“A jerk.”

M

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