Mayweather To Young Fighters: To Say You Got Locked Up Is Not Cool

Published

12 years ago

April 8, 2013

The Sweet Science

EIGHT-TIME AND FIVE DIVISION WORLD CHAMPION

FLOYD “MONEY” MAYWEATHER MEDIA ROUNDTABLE QUOTES

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Photo Credit: John Filo/SHOWTIME

Atlanta (April 8) – Eight-Time and Five-Division World Champion Floyd “Money” Mayweather broke from his Las Vegas training camp over the weekend to attend the semifinals of the men’s college basketball tournament at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. While there, he also sat down with media members covering the tournament to discuss his upcoming WBC and Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship mega-fight against Six-Time and Four Division World Champion Robert Guerrero taking place Saturday, May 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas which will be produced and distributed by SHOWTIME PPV^®.

Below please find quotes on an array of topics in “Money” Mayweather’s own words.

On the NCAA Tournament and Enjoyment of Basketball

“I love basketball. I honestly feel if you are not sweating and it is not blood, sweat and tears, it is not a sport. No disrespect to anyone who’s involved and they think it is a sport, but to me it’s just an activity if you don’t have blood, sweat and tears, then I think it is just an activity.

“This year I really thought it was going to be Indiana. One of my teams is still in it too, but unfortunately for me, I did not have them advancing to the Finals. I will watch the game and am probably going to watch the first half before I decide to make a bet. I have watched both teams [Lousiville and Michigan] and see how they play.”

“No one had Wichita State and I guess that is why they are called the ‘Shockers.’ Obviously that program is doing something right.

“I was telling Charles Barclay before my interview, during the Big East tournament, when Syracuse took the lead over Louisville, they started to play comfortably and Louisville came back and won the game. Same thing happened Saturday against Wichita State, but I think if Michigan takes the lead on Louisville, it is going to be harder for them to come back. Both teams are stacked with talent.

“These guys just poured their hearts out for the love of the game. I just saw that situation at Rutgers where the coach was throwing balls and choking those players and those players didn’t go over the edge. They knew they couldn’t because they weren’t in the position to pull their family out of a rough situation so they were in a tough spot. In that case you have to take the bumps and bruises that comes with those situations. but I don’t think it was right what was going on and treating those young college kids playing basketball.”

On His May 4 Championship Fight Against Robert Guerrero

“I have been off for a year now, so I am looking forward to getting back in the ring. Less than a month away, so I am excited.

“Robert Guerrero is a tough fighter, a solid, busy fighter. He only has one loss, a champion in multiple weight classes. Let’s see what he can do in there. I am sure he is going to be able to make adjustments in that squared circle just like I can, so we will have to see what happens on May 4^th. We will have to see how the fight plays out. I just want the fans to tune in. It’s going to be an action-packed fight on May 4^th. I am willing to do whatever it takes to get the victory. If I have to mix it up or box. I am going to bring it.

“He [Guerrero] did something right to get here. I am sure he is going to be on his ‘A’ game, but I am not really worried about what he can do. He needs to worry about what I can do because I have already proven what I can do in the ring.

“I am very appreciative of what boxing has done for me and I am glad to have given back so much to the sport too. I always wanted to be the best and I think I have proven that over the course of my career.

“I have been pushing myself in training camp. I think my body is going to look tremendous for this fight. I can’t say how my performance is going to be, but of course I am going to go out there and perform. I always am at my best.

“On May 4^th I am going to go out there, be ready and hopefully he is ready too. This is the longest I have trained for any fight, so it should be a great night.

“I am going to dish it out against Robert Guerrero on this one. I am going to be the Mayweather that is active. I have young guys who are really pushing me in the gym for this fight. Sure I have bad days in the gym, but I don’t have bad fight nights, bad paydays.

“Everything is going in camp like it should go. My Dad and me have an understanding that we all work as a team so that is going well because I need my whole team. My uncle Roger is coming along as far as his health, but one thing is for sure, that is my family and I love them. We can’t choose our family and as my mother said in the documentary [30 DAYS IN MAY], they gave me a hand and I am just playing the hand they gave me.

“I really wouldn’t be here without my team. My career is not just about the money like some people want to believe. My career is about my legacy. It’s also about living, loving and laughing and enjoying life.

“I go through ups and downs. It’s a roller coaster ride. I just keep on going and do the best I can, but I am strong and am going to continue to survive. Continue to go strong not just for the sport of boxing, but to entertain the people too.

“I am happy to be with SHOWTIME and CBS. This is the beginning of our relationship and for the next 30 months I plan to give you action-packed fights.

“I flew to Atlanta for the Final Four, flew to Miami to check my property, I am heading back to Las Vegas to train, then have to make a stop in Los Angeles.

“Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion about me and my career. I honestly don’t really care what you say. I love my fans, but I don’t live for anybody except myself and my family. I am comfortable with myself. If people are out there saying ‘I don’t like Floyd Mayweather and he is only about the money,’ I am pretty sure I have some of their pay-per-view money too.”

On Heroes and Young Fighters

“I looked up to a lot of people coming up. I looked up to different people: my father, my uncle Roger, a lot of other fighters who have come before me too like Muhammad Ali and even Mike Tyson. I looked up to a lot of people. I always wanted to be the first to do something, so I was always listening and learning the best I could.

“The person you meet now is the same person you are going to meet down the road. I don’t care what car I am driving or jewelry I am wearing. I stay who I am regardless of what you think I might be or who you think I am.

“People always say, ‘If I had this much money, I would do this or I would do that.’ Well those people don’t actually have the money or are not in my position. As Stephen Espinoza just said, you don’t stay at the top for as long as I have just because. I obviously have been doing something right.

“My mindset has always been to be the best. I would rather be known as a smart fighter. If you go back and look at my interviews from when I was young, I always said the less you get hit, the longer you are going to be able to stay in the game. Going to toe-to-toe just because you can say you did it is not cool to me.

“Sure I have done it in some of my fights, like the Miguel Cotto fight, but there is also a limit. I couldn’t have done that in all of my 43 fights. There is a limit.

“I say to the young fighters that some things just aren’t cool. They think taking a lot of punishment and going toe-to-toe in every fight is cool? That’s not cool. Or to be able to say they got locked up. That’s not cool either. I know I have made mistakes but I can wake up every morning and say I have been honest admitting that.

“Also for the young fighters they should make sure they have a good team around them. People that are going to keep it real with you and can help you make the right decision. There are limits to everything you do. Even though I might seem edgier at times, I have limits too. I am older now and I understand it better. Things can come to a young good fighter so fast they can get caught up in a bad situation. I am going to continue to mentor the young, up-and-coming fighters. I will try to be the best mentor I can for some of these young fighters.

“For young people I say, work hard and dedicate yourself to your life. Be respectful to your parents, go to school because education is important and never compromise to be the best that you can be.

“I want to be able to get around and be sharp when my career is over. I want to be like Rafael Garcia who is here with me today. He’s almost 90 years old, hanging with us, still jogging, driving, and wearing sunglasses. I want to be like that when I am older. I want to be able to hang out with my grandkids and be the patriarch of my family.”

On Training and Music

“If I was to identify with a rapper I would probably have to say Tupac. Just with everything that has happened in my career and what he rapped about and his own life struggles, I would have to say.

“As far as listening to music, I am older now and I am an R&B man. I got a lot of nice cars and when I am driving around in a nice Rolls Royce taking Ms. Jackson out to eat, I’m not trying to be bumpin’ some wild music. Even in the gym or when I run with cars following me with the music, I tell them to give me some old school music, all old school.”

# # #

“MAY DAY: Mayweather vs. Guerrero,” a 12-round fight for Mayweather’s WBC Welterweight World Championship and the vacant Ring Magazine Welterweight World Championship, is promoted by Mayweather Promotions and Golden Boy Promotions and sponsored by Corona, O’Reilly Auto Parts, AT&T, Star Trek Into Darkness and Valvoline. The mega-event will take place Saturday, May 4 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and will be produced and distributed live by SHOWTIME PPV® beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. The event can be heard in Spanish using secondary audio programming (SAP). Also featured will be Daniel Ponce de Leon vs. Abner Mares, a 12-round fight for Ponce de Leon’s WBC Featherweight World Championship, former IBF Bantamweight World Champion Leo Santa Cruz facing veteran Alexander Munoz in a 10-round junior featherweight bout and rising star J’Leon Love squaring off against recent world title challenger Gabriel Rosado in a 10-round middleweight battle for the vacant NABF Middleweight Championship.

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The Sweet Science

Fury-Usyk Reignited: Can the Gypsy King Avenge his Lone Defeat?

Published

15 hours ago

December 20, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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In professional boxing, the heavyweight division, going back to the days of John L. Sullivan, is the straw that stirs the drink. By this measure, the fight on May 18 of this year at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was the biggest prizefight in decades. The winner would emerge as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 when Lennox Lewis out-pointed Evander Holyfield in their second meeting.

The match did not disappoint. It had several twists and turns.

Usyk did well in the early rounds, but the Gypsy King rattled Usyk with a harsh right hand in the fifth stanza and won rounds five through seven on all three cards. In the ninth, the match turned sharply in favor of the Ukrainian. Fury was saved by the bell after taking a barrage of unanswered punches, the last of which dictated a standing 8-count from referee Mark Nelson. But Fury weathered the storm and with his amazing powers of recuperation had a shade the best of it in the final stanza.

The decision was split: 115-112 and 114-113 for Usyk who became a unified champion in a second weight class; 114-113 for Fury.

That brings us to tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 21) where Usyk and Fury will renew acquaintances in the same ring where they had their May 18 showdown.

The first fight was a near “pick-‘em” affair with Fury closing a very short favorite at most of the major bookmaking establishments. The Gypsy King would have been a somewhat higher favorite if not for the fact that he was coming off a poor showing against MMA star Francis Ngannou and had a worrisome propensity for getting cut. (A cut above Fury’s right eye in sparring pushed back the fight from its original Feb. 11 date.)

Tomorrow’s sequel, bearing the tagline “Reignited,” finds Usyk a consensus 7/5 favorite although those odds could shorten by post time. (There was no discernible activity after today’s weigh-in where Fury, fully clothed, topped the scales at 281, an increase of 19 pounds over their first meeting.)

Given the politics of boxing, anything “undisputed” is fragile. In June, Usyk abandoned his IBF belt and the organization anointed Daniel Dubois their heavyweight champion based upon Dubois’s eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in a bout billed for the IBF interim title. The malodorous WBA, a festering boil on the backside of boxing, now recognizes 43-year-old Kubrat Pulev as its “regular” heavyweight champion.

Another difference between tomorrow’s fight card and the first installment is that the May 18 affair had a much stronger undercard. Two strong pairings were the rematch between cruiserweights Jai Opetaia and Maris Briedis (Opetaia UD 12) and the heavyweight contest between unbeatens Agit Kabayal and Frank Sanchez (Kabayel KO 7).

Tomorrow’s semi-wind-up between Serhii Bohachuk and Ismail Madrimov lost luster when Madrimov came down with bronchitis and had to withdraw. The featherweight contest between Peter McGrail and Dennis McCann fell out when McCann’s VADA test returned an adverse finding. Bohachuk and McGrail remain on the card but against late-sub opponents in matches that are less intriguing.

The focal points of tomorrow’s undercard are the bouts involving undefeated British heavyweights Moses Itauma (10-0, 8 KOs) and Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs). Both are heavy favorites over their respective opponents but bear watching because they represent the next generation of heavyweight standouts. Fury and Usyk are getting long in the tooth. The Gypsy King is 36; Usyk turns 38 next month.

Bob Arum once said that nobody purchases a pay-per-view for the undercard and, years from now, no one will remember which sanctioning bodies had their fingers in the pie. So, Fury-Usyk II remains a very big deal, although a wee bit less compelling than their first go-around.

Will Tyson Fury avenge his lone defeat? Turki Alalshikh, the Chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the unofficial czar of “major league” boxing, certainly hopes so. His Excellency has made known that he stands poised to manufacture a rubber match if Tyson prevails.

We could have already figured this out, but Alalshikh violated one of the protocols of boxing when he came flat out and said so. He effectively made Tyson Fury the “A-side,” no small potatoes considering that the most relevant variable on the checklist when handicapping a fight is, “Who does the promoter need?”

The Uzyk-Fury II fight card will air on DAZN with a suggested list price of $39.99 for U.S. fight fans. The main event is expected to start about 5:45 pm ET / 2:45 pm PT.

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

Published

1 day ago

December 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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Unheralded Bruno Surace went to Tijuana and Forged the TSS 2024 Upset of the Year

The Dec. 14 fight at Tijuana between Jaime Munguia and Bruno Surace was conceived as a stay-busy fight for Munguia. The scuttlebutt was that Munguia’s promoters, Zanfer and Top Rank, wanted him to have another fight under his belt before thrusting him against Christian Mbilli in a WBC eliminator with the prize for the winner (in theory) a date with Canelo Alvarez.

Munguia came to the fore in May of 2018 at Verona, New York, when he demolished former U.S. Olympian Sadam Ali, conqueror of Miguel Cotto. That earned him the WBO super welterweight title which he successfully defended five times.

Munguia kept winning as he moved up in weight to middleweight and then super middleweight and brought a 43-0 (34) record into his Cinco de Mayo 2024 match with Canelo.

Jaime went the distance with Alvarez and had a few good moments while losing a unanimous decision. He rebounded with a 10th-round stoppage of Canada’s previously undefeated Erik Bazinyan.

There was little reason to think that Munguia would overlook Surace as the Mexican would be fighting in his hometown for the first time since February of 2022 and would want to send the home folks home happy. Moreover, even if Munguia had an off-night, there was no reason to think that the obscure Surace could capitalize. A Frenchman who had never fought outside France, Surace brought a 25-0-2 record and a 22-fight winning streak, but he had only four knockouts to his credit and only eight of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.

It appeared that Munguia would close the show early when he sent the Frenchman to the canvas in the second round with a big left hook. From that point on, Surace fought mostly off his back foot, throwing punches in spurts, whereas the busier Munguia concentrated on chopping him down with body punches. But Surace absorbed those punches well and at the midway point of the fight, behind on the cards but nonplussed, it now looked as if the bout would go the full 10 rounds with Munguia winning a lopsided decision.

Then lightning struck. Out of the blue, Surace connected with an overhand right to the jaw. Munguia went down flat on his back. He rose a fraction-of-a second before the count reached “10,”, but stumbled as he pulled himself upright. His eyes were glazed and referee Juan Jose Ramirez, a local man, waived it off. There was no protest coming from Munguia or his cornermen. The official time was 2:36 of round six.

At major bookmaking establishments, Jaime Munguia was as high as a 35/1 favorite. No world title was at stake, yet this was an upset for the ages.

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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Steven Navarro is the TSS 2024 Prospect of the Year

Published

2 days ago

December 18, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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“I get ‘Bam’ vibes when I watch this kid,” said ESPN ringside commentator Tim Bradley during the opening round of Steven Navarro’s most recent match. Bradley was referencing WBC super flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez, a precociously brilliant technician whose name now appears on most pound-for-pound lists.

There are some common threads between Steven Navarro, the latest fighter to adopt the nickname “Kid Dynamite,” and Bam Rodriguez. Both are southpaws currently competing in the junior bantamweight division. But, of course, Bradley was alluding to something more when he made the comparison. And Navarro’s showing bore witness that Bradley was on to something.

It was the fifth pro fight for Navarro who was matched against a Puerto Rican with a 7-1 ledger. He ended the contest in the second frame, scoring three knockdowns, each the result of a different combination of punches, forcing the referee to stop it. It was the fourth win inside the distance for the 20-year-old phenom.

Isaias Estevan “Steven” Navarro turned pro after coming up short in last December’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana. The #1 seed in the 57 kg (featherweight) division, he was upset in the finals, losing a controversial split decision. Heading in, Navarro had won 13 national tournaments beginning at age 12.

A graduate of LA’s historic Fairfax High School, Steven made his pro debut this past April on a Matchroom Promotions card at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas and then inked a long-term deal with Top Rank. He comes from a boxing family. His father Refugio had 10 pro fights and three of Refugio’s cousins were boxers, most notably Jose Navarro who represented the USA at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and was a four-time world title challenger as a super flyweight. Jose was managed by Oscar De La Hoya for much of his pro career.

Nowadays, the line between a prospect and a rising contender has been blurred. Three years ago, in an effort to make matters less muddled, we operationally defined a prospect thusly: “A boxer with no more than a dozen fights, none yet of the 10-round variety.” To our way of thinking, a prospect by nature is still in the preliminary-bout phase of his career.

We may loosen these parameters in the future. For one thing, it eliminates a lot of talented female boxers who, like their Japanese male counterparts in the smallest weight classes, are often pushed into title fights when, from a historical perspective, they are just getting started.

But for the time being, we will adhere to our operational definition. And within the window that we have created, Steven Navarro stood out. In his first year as a pro, “Kid Dynamite” left us yearning to see more of him.

Honorable mention: Australian heavyweight Teremoana Junior (5-0, 5 KOs)

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