High Stakes
A Free-Wheeling Interview with Floyd Mayweather, Sr.
2009-04-17
By Melody K. Hoffman
Part 1 of a 3 Part Series on the Pacquiao/Hatton Championship Bout
Floyd Mayweather, Sr., says his job is to win. However, when Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao and Ricky "Hitman" Hatton meet in "The Battle of East and West," on May 2, more than just Hatton's IBO junior welterweight championship belt will be at stake. The ante will also include Pacquiao's coveted title as boxing's No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter.
Simultaneously the stakes will be just as high for their trainers, Mayweather Sr. and Freddie Roach, regarded as the two best trainers in boxing today.
Mayweather is set to prove he is the best in the game, and the winner will take home a specially designed four-tier trophy, measuring over five feet in height, with the inscription "No. 1 Pound for Pound Best Trainer in the World," to be presented to the trainer of the winning fighter.
In these last crucial weeks, Mayweather Sr. took time from camp to talk to EbonyJet.com sportswriter Melody Hoffman about his unique training style, the key to boxing and why Ricky will win.
Q. What is the importance of this fight?
A. It means a lot to both camps. It means at this time right here who’s the best trainer, who’s the best fighter. I feel like I have the most dominant fighter in this case and I know that I’m the most dominant trainer between me and the Roach.
Q. What makes you a unique trainer?
A. I get into my fighter’s head. A lot of people call me a disciplined trainer. It’s just like your kid, if you find a kid with no discipline, you find problems.
Can’t nobody else do what I do. I’m fluid. I'm fluid at what I do. I’m always doing different things. I can train a fighter for 20, 30 minutes in terms of working on the pads or telling the fighter what to do on the bags, I always have something different to tell him.
It’s not like I’m trying to put something new together because you can’t change boxing. I know the game from now and way back. I had old coaches that know the ropes and they go quite deep. And my trainers are no longer here anymore, but what they left me, I gave it to Lil Floyd. So that’s why you see he is the fighter he is.
Pacquiao, the pound for pound best because he beat a dehydrated Oscar De LaHoya? Ah, hell no. If he beat De La Hoya at 147 pounds, he should be able to beat Ricky Hatton, a 140 pounder. You about to find out that ain’t about to happen.
Q. How do you train each fighter individually?
A. Everything is in my head. When I get with my fighter on the pads or whatever it is…I already know what to tell them because I see what they do wrong and I straighten it out.
Like if a guy is coming toward them with their hands up and the guy is spread a little wide, I would tell him to hit him with an up jab. And sometimes you hit him with an up jab, then you come back around and hit him with a hook and a straight right hand right down the middle.
Sometimes when you come back with the up jab, and come with the hook right down the middle, you hit him with a left hook to the liver... I’m just telling you there’s no set way of throwing combinations. There are so many different things you can do off of a jab, or 1, 2 or 1, 2, 3,4.
Q. Why is the jab so instrumental?
A. The jab is the key to boxing. The jab is the main thing that opens up everything. It sets up the right hand, it sets up the hook, it sets the uppercut up…when you stick your jab out, you stop him right there. That stops everything; you have to start all over.
Q. As you train for May 2, how much time does Ricky spend inside the ring?
A. I usually like my men to hit the bag for 10 minutes straight. I like 3-4 rounds shadowboxing. Sparring depends on how many rounds you think that your fighter needs. Ricky did his first 8 rounds last week on Friday. We’ll probably be going 10 this week and picking it up as we go. We’re looking to bulldoze Pacquiao. We already know he’s going to try and move, throw his punches and get away. But he ain’t going anywhere.
Q. How are you training Ricky to combat that?
A. I'm trying to intimate to Ricky that you be aggressive but be smart being aggressive. Use your jab and move your head behind your jab on your way in. When he tries to go to any corner, I plan on having Ricky cut him off.
Q. How much time do you spend with a fighter in one day?
A. Maybe 2 hours, 2 and half hours at the most. Sometimes not that much. It all depends on what you think the fighter needs...Sometimes they may have worked awful hard and you tell a fighter to take off. Matter fact, I did that last week with Ricky. One day I told him to take off.
Q. Are you strict about his diet?
A. Me and Ricky talked about that and Ricky said himself, if a fighter didn’t learn how to eat what he needs to eat by now, something is wrong. That let me know right there he’s trying to do something right. Just by what he said, that gave me confidence in him. Ricky is a pretty straight up person.
Q. When did you realize you were the best trainer?
A. My son, he was the best fighter in the world and that was no joke. This right here, with Freddie the joke coach roach and his fighter Manny Pacquiao, that’s a joke for real. My son came with skills and stuff that nobody had ever seen. Everybody is beginning to realize who taught him how to do this. His daddy taught him.
Q. How long did you train Floyd Jr.?
A. I've been training Lil Floyd every since Lil Floyd was in pampers. When Lil Floyd was 1 he could throw a hook good as anybody. He use to hit the doorknobs a lot you know.
Q. You started training Lil Floyd and then your brother Roger took over?
A. It was discipline with me and my son. It came down to that. When my son was fighting when he was 16 years old, he fought and won the National Golden Gloves…my son beat two 24-year-olds…but my son didn’t want to run in boots and stuff then. It was a couple of things I was telling him to do. I told him at that time I was the parent and being that I was the parent, I wasn’t going to let my son lose. I told him look, you going to do whatever the hell I tell you to do. You going to put the boots on, you going to run in the boots, you going to do this and you going to do that, and if you don’t, you not fighting. Simple.
He wanted to fight real bad so he did what his daddy told him to do and we got the job taken care of. From that point on, he was who he is today right now.
Q. What is your relationship with him right now?
A. I don’t feel like I can trust him right now and I’m not about to lose no real money messing around with Lil Floyd. He didn’t lose his money when he fought against me and De La Hoya. I don’t want to lose no money with him. As soon as he won the world title, he got with some real negative people and he lost at least over $3 and half million. His daddy been telling him all along. I’m going to tell you the only reason he’s coming back now to fight is because he’s made some bad investments. That’s why he’s coming back to fight. People thinking he’s coming back to fight because he likes the game that much. Hell no. He’s coming back to fight because he needs money. That’s the truth.
Q. When he comes back, will you be in his corner or Roger?
A. It could be Roger, I don’t need him. Let Roger get a chance to make some money because I’m making mine. Let Roger get that little money. I’m trying to do better than what he’s giving out.
Q. How much will you make from this Ricky Hatton fight?
A. It’s damn near as much as De La Hoya gave me in the seven or eight years I've been training him all together. It ain’t as much as what I’m getting in Ricky’s two fights, but it’s close. Believe me. That tells you right there about De La Hoya…how the hell could you do that to a man that was that good?
Q. Right now, with 2 weeks left, what is the plan of attack for Pacquiao?
A. I think Pacquiao throws quite a few punches, more punches than Ricky, but Ricky is typically stronger than him by far and that will make a difference anytime we get in close. In order for him to do any damage, he has to come close. [Pacquiao] ain’t going to win any fight being backwards because he ain’t no Muhammad Ali. [Pacquiao] can’t fight going backwards; he can only fight
oming forwards. And when he comes forward, he’s in the danger zone.
[Mayweather, Sr. wrapped up the interview with an original rap/poem]:
Come May 2, his ass better be ready, because I don’t want to hear no shit
about him blaming it on Freddie the joke coach roach,
who wouldn’t dare to approach
a roach blowing smoke with no hope
Manny just moved from first class to the coach, with the roach
and now he will be sprayed with Raid and underpaid
because at the end of the night, his title will be gone,
just like the roach when the lights come on.
Pacquiao-Hatton Welterweight Championship airs on HBO Pay Per View on May 2nd.
Melody K. Hoffman is an Associate Editor for Jet.
