by Geoffrey Ciani (Exclusive Interview with Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) - Last week’s 128th edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio (brought to you by CWH Promotions) featured an exclusive interview with boxing trainer Roger Mayweather who is best known for training his nephew, Floyd Mayweather Junior (41-0, 25 KOs). Roger discussed the upcoming September 17 bout between his nephew and WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz (29-2-2, 22 KOs) and also touched on various other topics, including Manny Pacquiao, Bernard Hopkins, and more! Here is what he had to say:
His views on Floyd Mayweather Junior’s upcoming September 17 matchup against Victor Ortiz:
“My nephew can fight pretty much anybody out there and go in and beat them. My nephew’s got too much skill for these mother f*ckers! That’s why they can’t win. Boxing is about what you learn. Boxing ain’t about because you throw punches. You got to throw the punches in the right place at the right time. Anybody can lucky, but as far as skill-wise there ain’t nobody out there who can match him, period! Remember, my nephew has more skills than Sugar Ray Leonard, too.”
His views on Victor Ortiz as an opponent for his nephew:
“Ah, he’s an opponent just like all the rest of them. De La Hoya was an opponent. Shane Mosley was an opponent. That’s what he is. He’s an opponent, too.”
On whether he played part in the decision making process to choose Ortiz as Floyd’s next opponent:
“Listen, I don’t debate as to who my nephew will fight and who he won’t fight because number one, my nephew has pretty much fought all the best fighters out there. Pretty much as far as in his weight division, he fought the best fighters out there, anyway! If you talk about Ricky Hatton, he already beat Ricky Hatton. If you talk about Shane Mosley, he already beat Shane Mosley. If you talk about Marquez, he already, so any guy you talk about that, that was still fighting and was good, my nephew already beat him. So this is another challenge. That’s all. You just prepare differently for the guy that you’re fighting because all guys have a little difference in styles.”
Regarding the differences in training techniques to prepare Floyd for a southpaw:
“It’s easy! I can train any fighter so it doesn’t matter. I just trained a southpaw fighter that’s going to fight a minute ago. The number one contender I train is a southpaw. That’s Said Ouali. So training a southpaw ain’t nothing, so fighting a southpaw ain’t nothing.”
On how soon he expects to be in camp to train Floyd for Victor Ortiz:
“You ain’t have to worry about it this early because we’re a ways from the fight. You can’t be four or five months out talking about training for a fighter. It don’t take that long to get prepared for a fighter. So you start talking about fighting about two months. It don’t take no more than that to prepare for a fighter, otherwise if you do more than that you over train, anyway.”
On whether he believes Victor Ortiz is a more talented fighter than Manny Pacquiao:
“I think the guy’s got better talent. This guy Victor Ortiz has better talent than Pacquiao. Pacquiao ain’t nothing but wild, anyway! Pacquiao ain’t got no skills, period! That ain’t why he’s winning. That ain’t why he’s winning! He ain’t winning on no skills, that’s for sure.”
On the fact Victor Ortiz has agreed to take the drug test for this particular fight:
“Well that’s the thing. Like I said, this guy is more skilled than Pacquiao. Pacquiao ain’t skilled! Pacquiao’s just wild. He ain’t no skilled fighter. He ain’t got no head movement either, Pacquiao. They’re going to see how much skills he has.”
His views on Pacquiao’s last victory against Shane Mosley:
“Well like I said, he could get away with that with other fighter because, number one Mosley wanted the money. That’s why he couldn’t force him to take the test. He couldn’t force Pacquiao to take the test, but if he fights my nephew he’s going to take the test. Then you will find out what he really can do. There ain’t no way in the world a guy that’s been knocked out twice at 105 pounds is going to beat up someone like Shane Mosley at 157 pounds. There ain’t no way. The only reason why he does win with all of those guys, anybody can tell you what he does because he wouldn’t fight my nephew the first time. He wouldn’t even take the test. ‘Oh I can’t take a test! I got to take the test four days before the fight’. That already tells you. You got to take a test four days before the fight? Why? You take a test the day before the fight. That’s generally when you take a test, blood test, HIV test, all of that. You take that a day or two days before the fight. He said oh I can’t take it, I got to take it four days before the fight. That’s why the fight never happened. Hopefully it happens and when it happens everybody is going to say the same thing that they were going to say already. Floyd had too much skill for his mother f*cking ass, and if he ain’t got that sh*t in him he’s going to get knocked out! He ain’t going to get whooped, he’s going to get knocked out because he can’t fight anyway! Pacquiao can’t fight! All that wild sh*t he’s doing, he can’t fight! He does that because he’s got that sh*t in him. That’s all there is to it. How a guy who’s been knocked out twice at 105 pounds going to beat a guy at 150 pounds? Ain’t nobody no f*cking fool! And remember, when he was fighting at 105 pounds, do you think those guys at 105 pounds are better than the guys he’s fighting now—De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Ricky Hatton—at a higher God damned weight? If you believe that something has got to be wrong with you!”
Regarding speculation that Floyd will face Pacquiao next since Ortiz is a southpaw volume puncher like Pacquiao:
“Hey, you know what? To be the best you don’t debate as pretty much who you’re going to fight. You’re getting paid to fight so that’s what it’s about. You’re getting paid to fight. Right? Okay, then. So if you getting paid enough money to fight then you’re going to fight the guy that they’re going to put you in the ring with. It would be no different with Pacquiao or any other fighter. So I don’t know if they’re talking about preparing for Pacquiao. Pacquiao ain’t no big issue, anyway. Pacquiao is a big issue to the public. He ain’t no big issue in boxing to me, because I know how he fights with all that wild ass sh*t he throws. All Pacquiao’s got to do is take that Olympic style test and Pacquiao’s going to get his ass knocked out, too. I’m going to tell you this before it ever happens. When he gets his ass whooped you know what you’re going to say to me? ‘Oh Mayweather! I didn’t think your nephew would do this to Pacquiao!’ Why? He’s been knocked out twice at 105 pounds anyway, and the only reason he can ever compete against a guy at this kind of weight is because he got that sh*t in him. That’s all there is to it! Otherwise there ain’t no way in the world a guy who’s been knocked out twice at 105 pounds is going to beat a guy at 150 pounds, not a guy with skills he ain’t!”
His views on Bernard Hopkins’ historic victory when he became the oldest man to win a major championship at age 46 against Jean Pascal:
“Oh he fought a good fight! The first fight was very close. I mean that fight could have gone either way that first fight. But this fight that he fought, he fought an amazing fight for a guy his age. But you got to understand, fighters get more conditioning today than they did back then. They got more things to get themselves in condition. Fighters got more things to do to get themselves in better condition than they did back in the early days. In the early days they didn’t have all this stuff that they have now, but Hopkins fought a great fight. I can’t say nothing about it. He fought a great fight. If the fighters back then had the same things they have in these days and times they would do the same thing, the good ones would. The ones that are good would do it. I’m not saying any fighter but fighters who had great ability would be able to do it. Remember, the fighters back then fought way more than the fighters fight now. Back then they had 100 and something fights, or damn near 200 fights. These days today they barely have 50 or 60 fights. You see? That’s the difference.”
His views on his Floyd Junior’s long layoffs and at what point he thinks these layoffs will begin having a negative impact on his nephew’s performances:
“They will affect him. You can’t keep taking layoffs with guys that are active. You can’t keep doing it. That’s what gets fighters beat, and you can’t say oh he beat me because of this or he beat me because of that. The bottom line is layoffs hurt fighters. If you’re going to be a fighter you have to be actively fighting. If you’re going to make this your career and you’re going to be a fighter, then you have to be actively fighting. I mean that’s your job. If you want to commit to your job you have to stay on point. That means you have to be training, you have to be preparing, and you have to stay in that gym because the gym is what makes you money.”
Regarding the last time he saw Floyd training in the gym:
“Floyd ain’t been in the gym. He ain’t been in the gym. He’ll get in the gym but he ain’t been in the gym. I mean he’s going to train and get ready for the fight, he ain’t gonna slack from that but the whole thing of it is, no matter how much of a great fighter he is, when you keep taking time off, and taking time off, and you ain’t going to the gym, it diminishes your skills. That was just the boxing. It ain’t just diminishing Floyd’s skills. It would diminish any other fighter’s skills. You have seen when Ray Leonard came back and beat Marvin Hagler, right? Then he came back after another long layoff and he came back and Camacho whipped his ass. He came back and Terry Norris whipped his ass. What’s that tell you? That diminishes skills. You cannot keep taking layoffs, and layoffs, and layoffs, and think your skills are going to be the same. It ain’t going to happen.”
On whether he believes Floyd would be ready to fight Pacquiao in his next fight if he beats Victor Ortiz:
“Well I wouldn’t think he would fight Pacquiao right after fighting Victor Ortiz. I mean it would be crazy for Floyd to go in the ring with Pacquiao after fighting Victor Ortiz! Floyd needs fights. He needs to be active. Don’t get me wrong, Floyd is the greatest fighter out there, period. Right now in today’s boxing Floyd is the greatest fighter out there. But at the same time I don’t think that Floyd can do this. Floyd needs tune-ups like anybody else. It ain’t no different than any other fighter if you are going to compete with a guy who has been active all the time.”
On whether he believes Floyd would need more tune-ups after Ortiz before being ready to face Pacquiao:
“He’ll need more. It ain’t so much for Pacquiao, anyway. It’s more tune-ups to perform up to his level of performance. It ain’t so much Pacquiao as do you want to perform up to your expectations. You have to be active to do that. When you ain’t active you can’t do that. Just like what I told you about Sugar Ray Leonard. Yeah he got up for the fight for Marvin Hagler. That was the biggest fight that was out there. But what happened after that? What I’m saying is he prepared for Marvin Hagler because that was the biggest fight for him out there so he prepared for it. Remember, he fought a guy way smaller than Marvin Hagler and he got stopped. The thing of it is when you ain’t actually fighting, he looked at Camacho’s size and said this is going to be an easy fight. You know why I know that? You know why I know how he prepared for Camacho? Because he asked me! Before they ever fought he said you boxed Camacho didn’t you? I said, yeah. He said how was he? I said he wasn’t sh*t to me. I handled him easy. We never fought in the real ring because he already knew what time it was. I used to bake that ass every day. Boom! He asked me right before that fight. I ain’t had no problems with all of that but boom! But I guess he thought he would just maybe walk in there without training. That’s where he was at.”
On whether he saw Victor Ortiz’s most recent victory against Andre Berto::
“Yeah I’ve seen it. They both got dropped. I’ve seen that fight. I generally don’t watch boxing today but I just happened to come home, turned the TV on, and I had seen boxing on. I watched the last fight.”
On whether he saw any weaknesses in Ortiz’s game that he believes Floyd can exploit in the ring:
“Well I don’t know what weaknesses he has, but whatever weaknesses he has my nephew will exploit, anyway! He’s way more skilled than Andre Berto, so it don’t matter what skills he got. Whatever skills he’s got and whatever he lacks in skills he’s going to find out on that night. Remember, like I’m telling you, my nephew really ain’t an active fighter. In these days and times he’s not really an active fighter. In order to bring the best out of Floyd he has to be active. Being active makes you sharper. Being active keeps your skills up, but he’s got enough time to prepare for the guy and he’s going to his best. He may not have his best performance, but I think he’ll have enough skills to win.”
His views on the upcoming junior welterweight unification bout between Amir Khan and Zab Judah:
“Amir Khan would have gotten knocked out by Floyd, period. I know Amir Khan. He’s been in the gym before. He would have gotten knocked out by Floyd. His head is straight up and he can’t take no punch, anyway. He’s going to have problems trouble with Zab. It’s going to be a tough fight. It’s going to be a tough fight but I favor Zab more than I favor him. It’s going to be a tough fight but I look for Zab to win. Zab fought the better fighters of the two, anyway. Zab knocked out Corey Spinks and Zab he fought the better quality fighters. So I look more for Zab to win, and based on experience. Experience plays a difference in title fights and skill-wise, that’s why I lean towards Zab.”
Regarding how he sees the September 17 fight between Floyd Mayweather Junior and Victor Ortiz playing out:
“It’s always skills that pay the bills. He’s the most skilled fighter out there. Skills pay the bills and like I said Floyd is the most skilled fighter out there in the world of boxing. So all Floyd has got to do is prepare and do the work that he does. He’s going to be a little diminished because he’s been laid off from boxing for a little bit, but he’s still got enough skills to overcome the other fighter. He’ll be alright once he gets the rust off him.”
On what he has to say to all the fans out there who believe that Manny Pacquiao is the best fighter in boxing today:
“Well if they say Pacquiao’s the best fighter, that tells you the people that don’t know sh*t about boxing. How is he the best fighter when he’s been knocked out twice? Does that make him the best fighter? Get them to answer that question. Tell the people who say he’s the best fighter that he’s been knocked out twice. So how can he be the best fighter? Floyd never lost, period. So how can he be the best fighter when he’s been knocked out twice? But he’s the best fighter? I ain’t never seen a guy be the best fighter when he’s been knocked out twice. So the next time they ask you that, then you say how can he be. That’s all you have to say. How can he be? He’s been knocked out twice.”
eastsideboxing.com
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