****m Richardson: “I guess I don’t have the luxury to see Manny as Superman or.....

[Jedi Vader]

****m Richardson: “I guess I don’t have the luxury to see Manny Pacquiao as Superman or Jesus dressed up like a boxer?br />

Regarding Shane Mosley’s preparations for his May 7 bout against Manny Pacquiao:

“It’s pretty good. We’re winding down and getting ready to go.?br />
How he views the fight between Mosley and Pacquiao:

“I view the fight as two of the top fighters in the world clashing heads, and like I said come May 8 we’ll all be experts.?br />
His views on why so many experts seem to be counting Mosley out:

“Well see, like I said it’s about the value. Experts counted out Buster Douglas. Experts counted out Cassius Clay against Sonny Liston. I mean we’ve been here before in boxing. You know so that’s the value where experts hold. If it was up to the experts, why fight the fights? Why not just go with them and then everybody could go back home. There’s a reason why we fight the fights, because man has been known to have been wrong throughout history.?

On what he views as Shane’s greatest strength going into the fight with Pacquiao:

“So-called experts counting him out and hoping that the other camp does too. That’s a huge strength right there but Shane has a high IQ in boxing, he’s been at this level several times. So this is not a new walk for him.?br />
Regarding what, if anything, he takes from Mosley and Pacquiao’s fights against common opponent Antonio Margarito:

“The thing was I picked Pacquiao to beat Margarito by decision. I didn’t think he punched hard enough. I can’t measure it myself but I knew Margarito’s chin was special and I knew it was going to take an above average dude’s punching power to get Margarito off his feet. I picked him to win by decision, but after the beating that Shane put on him almost anything would have been possible. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he went out there and knocked Margarito out in one round.?br />
On whether he believes Pacquiao has a style that will enable Mosley to look good:

“Everybody keeps saying that Manny is a warrior, which he is, and they’re saying he’s going to fight Shane. He’s going to stand in there and fight Shane, but my thing is that the way Shane punches he can turn anybody into a boxer. A guy can stand there for a few seconds and realize I better start moving around if I’m going to deal with this guy. Mayweather’s probably one of the most talented fighters of this era. I think Pacquiao’s the best fighter; I think Mayweather is probably the most talented. But even him, when he decided he was going to walk forward and make it a more fan friendly fight. When he got hit you noticed he started boxing too.?br />
On whether he believes Mosley’s best chance is to draw Pacquiao into a dog fight:

“No I don’t think that’s his best chance. I think that’s an option he has. I think that’s one of the ways he can beat Manny Pacquiao, but I’m not in agreement with everyone else who thinks that’s the only way he can beat him.?br />
Regarding other ways he believes Mosley can defeat Pacquiao:

“Manny Pacquiao can be boxed just like every other human being can be boxed. I guess I don’t have the luxury to see Manny Pacquiao as Superman or Jesus dressed up like a boxer. I give him his due respect because I think he’s an exceptional fighter and he is that, but you know these commentators and so-called experts, they put the man on a pedestal that I think is unfair to any man with me being a religious man myself. I think it’s unfair to be any man at the level they put some of these guys, and the thing that’s going to be odd about it is when Shane beats Pacquiao they won’t put Shane up there where they have Pacquiao.?br />
On whether he believes Mosley is the most dangerous opponent Pacquiao has ever stepped in the ring with:

“The most dangerous? I can’t say that. Of late maybe he might be the most dangerous opponent, but when you look back throughout his career Juan Manuel Marquez is one of the most fabulous fighters who was ever put on this planet. Pound for pound he’s one of the greatest fighters ever and at the time when Pacquiao was coming up against him, he was the most dangerous fighter for Pacquiao at that time. Pacquiao actually lost round every time he fought Marquez. He lost more rounds than Marquez, but he got the knockdowns to make up for it.?br />
On how much this fight reminds him of Shane’s fight with Margarito with regards to the majority of observers counting Mosley out:

“It’s taken on that overtone where people are counting him out, but I’ve just come to understand with boxing how fickle boxing is. That’s why our sport, as fabulous as it is, it should be considered the most outstanding sport amongst sports but it never is because of how we treat it and how we handle it. We have a tendency to take young guys and lift them up on a pedestal that doesn’t deserve it. When we get someone who’s legitimate like a Pacquiao it’s like we lose our minds, like we’ve never seen the Ray Robinson’s or the Ali’s that ever came before these guys. They get crazy all over again and the minute a guy loses a fight we figure he must be done. Everybody counted this young kid Victor Ortiz out and now they’re all looking shocked. Oh! You’re shocked and stunned because you were wrong because the kid got hit all in his head by a heavy puncher and then you stuck a microphone in his face and he said some wrong things! Let me punch one of them in the face and then stick a microphone in their face. Some of these dudes would be calling their daughters their sons, but we get so caught up we don’t recognize aspects of those levels, and then when it comes back around we stand there like oh! As soon as Shane gets past Pacquiao watch the flip flop! Oh, Shane was the bigger man! I’ve been saying everybody’s been the bigger man for the last five fights! He’s the bigger man, all of a sudden the political office is an issue, and Freddie having to go train Amir Khan is going to be an issue. All of these things will come into play.?br />
On whether he believes Mosley facing a smaller opponent for the first time in a long time will factor in more than people realize:

“If Shane would have turned pro when he was 16 or 15 years old Shane would have been like 119, too. He’d have been 112. He’d have been in those small weight classes, too. The times you saw Pacquiao in those small weight classes, at those times Oscar and Shane and all of those guys were in the amateurs. They were still amongst the best fighters in the country but they fought in the amateurs at the time. Pacquiao when he was 106 and all of that, he would have been on the Olympic team. So that’s the difference, and so Shane grew right into that junior middleweight just like anybody else. But I tell Shane calling Pacquiao a small welterweight is like calling Mike Tyson a small heavyweight.?br />
His views on comments made by Freddie Roach that they expect Shane to be dangerous for the first four rounds and whether he believes they are making a mistake if they expect Shane to fade after that point:

“Well we all have a plan. We all have a plan until I guy gets hit in the mouth. So that’s their plan that he’s willing to reveal to the radio. You know that’s the so-called plan he’s willing to offer up to the radio. We have a game plan that we have to stick by and abide by. I think if you count Shane out at any time you’re making a mistake, but I don’t think they’re counting Shane out. I believe Pacquiao is training for Shane just as hard if not harder than any other fights he’s had. I believe their camp has been just as focused if not more for Shane Mosley. I realize and I believe they realize Shane Mosley is not someone to overlook or bypass.?br />
On whether he was surprised by the way Bernard Hopkins performed against Jean Pascal:

“Pascal did better than I thought he would do. I thought Bernard would knock Pascal out. Even going into the twelfth round I still felt like Bernard was going to knock Pascal out and I really didn’t believe we had an option. I felt like if we didn’t knock Pascal out we weren’t going to win that fight.?

[Jedi Vader]

Part 2 Of Interview.

On whether he believes the knockdowns Hopkins suffered stemmed from Bernard’s commitment to the body:

“Well like you just said he didn’t start the body attack until the sixth round. He got caught with the shots earlier than that. Going to the body was not the issue of him getting caught. The one thing I noticed people have gotten away from is, now maybe it’s my observation and maybe I’m biased, but one of the knockdowns was behind his head. I thought he kept hitting Bernard in the back of the head the whole fight, and my problem with that is that in the Roy Jones fight—I mean let’s just keep it real. We can go back a little further. The reason we got the Pascal fight is because Pascal thinks he’s a young Roy Jones. He watched the Roy Jones fight. He saw Roy get twelve rounds in with Bernard and hit Bernard in the back of the head. He felt like if old Roy Jones could get twelve rounds in with Bernard, all I need is twelve rounds with Bernard up in Canada and I could get the win. So he felt like a young version of Roy who could go twelve rounds. It was a very smart deduction by Pascal and his people. It was very smart. It just didn’t work out the way they thought, but it was a great deduction on their behalf. Now what I didn’t appreciate is that once he hit Bernard in the back of the head and Bernard didn’t respond like he did in the Roy fight, it’s almost like Pascal kept hitting him the back of the head like he was looking for that right place to make him respond like the Roy fight. He hit him in the back of the head the whole fight and the first so-called knockdown was a back of the head shot.”

On whether he believes Hopkins can perform even better in the rematch with Pascal:

“Pascal survived. I didn’t expect him to survive. That’s what I meant in that sense. Okay, he’s not as good a fighter as Bernard Hopkins. That’s obvious. He’s just not as good a technician as Bernard Hopkins. He’s younger, he’s faster, he has the geographical advantage. These are his advantages, but now that’s not even an advantage. Him fighting in Canada, there are probably more Bernard Hopkins fans in Canada than Pascal because the jury was always out on him. With the Diaconu fights a lot of people thought he lost those. Then he had the Dawson fight and people felt like Dawson was closing the distance on him, but they were going to give him the Hopkins fight to clear his name and finally bring the jury in. Then he had what you saw. So now they’re like they all want to put their energy all behind Bute now in Canada. This guy will have to come back and knock Bernard Hopkins out to win those fans back in Canada.”

Regarding his attention to the Hopkins-Pascal rematch with the Mosley-Pacquiao fight just around the corner:

“The advantage I get with having fighters with such a high IQ is that I have Steve Cunningham going right after Bernard Hopkins and I have a young kid I train named Karl Dargan who I feel like is the future of the lightweight division on the under card of the Mosley fight and then he’s going to go again in July. The advantage I have is that these athletes I have that I work with, they all know me and they understand my formula very well. So I don’t have to drill it into them. They have it. So Bernard is already on track with what needs to be done and what we have to do. In the course of battle I have to remind them of certain things. Hey don’t get big with this kid! Hey don’t get into a slugging match. There are certain things you have to do. Like I said I really feel like sometimes it’s unfair that we hold these fighters on such high account on the things they say immediately after being punched in the head. I come back to that fight again with Victor Ortiz! This kid was punched in the head by one of the hardest punchers in the division. They threw a microphone in his mouth just four seconds after he just got punched in the face and the kid says a few things off balance and then we hold him to that. Now the kid can’t fight with them not bringing that up. You heard him say that he shouldn’t be getting beat on like that. This is why you hear the robotic interviews you hear. Fighters practice their interviews and they just give them the robot interviews. Hey what happened in the fight? I can’t take anything away from him. You hear the robotic answers because they are afraid to go out and say anything else because like I said they’ve just been rattled. If they say something they feel and it comes out wrong there’s a problem.”

On whether a Mosley victory against Pacquiao or a Hopkins victory over Pascal would be more satisfying for him as a trainer at this stage:

“The one thing is Bernard doesn’t have to do anything else for me. The greatest achievement Bernard had with me coming from the hood and him coming from the hood is Bernard worked off those years of parole and never returned back to the prison system which is a rarity in the hood coming out of the circumstances he came out with. People don’t realize that’s probably his greatest achievement is coming out of that kind of environment and never going back. That in itself, there are not too many people who could have done that and I can’t say you or I would have done it. We weren’t faced with that adversity so that’s it with me for X. He’d probably have to fly from mountain to mountain to impress me any more than that. With Shane Mosley, like I said the Buster Douglas camp didn’t think Tyson was so far out of their league that it was the great monumental upset that everybody else thought. We just feel like we’d be pleased if the game plan goes as laid and seeing that no one gets hurt on either side and us coming out with the victory. But would be more satisfying would be seeing this little young kid we got starting out unify the lightweight division. That would be the most satisfying.”

His views on far away Karl Dargan is from being on an elite stage in the lightweight division:

“I feel as if things go as planned this year with the plans we have laid for him, if Karl Dargan stays focused then we can see him challenging for the title by next year. By the end of next year he should be challenging for a world title.”

On whether he would view a Mosley upset victory against Pacquiao on par with Buster Douglas’ upset victory against Mike Tyson:

“I don’t consider it to be that big an upset. I don’t consider it to be as big an upset as Buster Douglas’ knockout of Tyson because Shane has already been known to be on an elite level. We already know that Shane can knock you out so none of these things are surprising. We already know Pacquiao’s been knocked out before so that’s why I don’t put it on that same tier. The way the public and the media is, you can hear commentators when they start talking about Pacquiao, you can hear the excitement in their voice. Like I said it turns into the type of situation where sometimes you watch a Pacquiao fight and it turns into the Ali-Joe Frazier situation where every time Frazier gets hit we talk about Ali’s hand speed. Every time Ali gets hit we talk about how strong his jaw is.”

On whether having cameras around for Showtime’s Fight Camp 360 is distracting to training camp:

“I think there are several distractions. I think open media workouts are a distraction. There are several distractions that happen during the course of a camp, but these are things that you have to encompass and bring in under the umbrella and just hash it out. Like I said when the alarm went off just now when I was talking to you guys, I turned my head and then I just got up and walked out on the back porch and went about the interview. You just make the adjustment and you keep it moving. Yeah there are going to be some distractions, but this is why these guys are champions. They’ve had distractions their entire careers. Just think all of these guys have children and everything. At some point in time when they were going into these camps and these fights their wives were pregnant and with every pregnancy there is some kind of complication, but they handled those distractions and they went on about their business.”

[Jedi Vader]

Interview conclusion.

Regarding which fighters out there today he most enjoys watching whom he is not involved with as a trainer:

“One of the kids I watched box since he was 10 years old and he reminds me of a young version of Bernard Hopkins is Andre Ward. When Andre was 12 years old he would ask me questions and the questions he would ask me were questions that world champions have asked. When he was 10-12 years old he’d ask questions like, ‘Why is this guy crossing his legs? I can use my jab and knock him off balance?

I used to look at him and be like, ‘Are you a little kid or are you a midget??br />
He was just a phenomenal kid. I’ll put it to you like this. I was so impressed with Ward and I’ve known him over the years and know how well he could fight to the point, and I’m not over exaggerating this, Mikkel Kessler did better than I thought he would do with Andre Ward. Mikkel Kessler did way better than I thought he would do with Andre Ward. In all of the years of me knowing Ward I’ll give you this heads up, ya’ll ain’t seen the real Andre Ward yet! With all you have seen you haven’t seen the real Andre Ward yet and we’re going to have to acknowledge him when the time comes.

They counted out this kid not too long ago, this Adrien Broner kid. This is a special kid. I’ve known him since he was like 9 years old. I wouldn’t count Andre Berto out. I’m not so quick to throw the kid under the bus as everybody else is. I never counted Victor Ortiz out. I knew what Andre Dirrell was going to do to everybody. Andre Dirrell is going to raise hell and what they better hope is that Anthony Dirrell doesn’t stay in the game like that, because he had a little illness. But if Anthony Dirrell jumps up he can cause a lot of problems. There are a lot of young kids out there. I watched most of these kids grow up. Anthony Peterson has a tattoo on his chest from the name I used to call him when he was a kid, A+. This kid’s the future of the game man.?br />
His views on whether the heavyweight division will ever regain some of its former popularity in America:

“Me and you must have been on the same vibe because as I was naming the young names I said, as you went to speak I said wow I forgot to mention one young name, Deontay Wilder. That’s a name in the heavyweight division. This kid has the height, he has the range, he punches like a mule kick, and his body is just going to fill out even more. He’s got one of the best guy’s in the game to teach him about throwing a straight right hand that ever did it in Mark Breland. Right now he’s still a work in progress. He’s 15-0 with like 15 knockouts but he’s going to be recognized. He’s a big tall kid. He just started boxing not that long ago. In like his first year of boxing he made the Olympic team and went and got a Bronze.?br />
His views on things that Mosley cannot do if he expects to be successful against Pacquiao:

“One thing is he can’t fall into the media frenzy that is Manny Pacquiao. He can’t succumb to that. The truth is every great athlete misleads you in a certain direction. Like I said if you look at Floyd, Floyd talks so much smack you don’t think he trains like he trains and he does. Bernard Hopkins is such a street dude and the penitentiary and all of that, that you don’t realize he’s really a technician. Oscar De La Hoya is just too pretty to fight as good as he fought. Shane Mosley has got a smile like he wants to sell you car insurance! There is no way he can be that vicious in the ring. And probably the best of our era right now is Manny Pacquiao has convinced all of ya’ll that he’s two inches tall and only weighs 32 ounces. He convinced the world. When the commentators talk, you know he started at 106! Well excuse me. At one point in time we were all under five pounds. But they keep telling you he’s so small, he’s so teeny, he’s minute, he’s so small. Look how big that guy is. He looks like a Klitschko next to him. Guys keep getting caught up on that and if you fall into those misleading that’s your downfall. If Shane goes in there thinking he’s dealing with a small welterweight he’s got a problem on his hands. He’s got to go in there knowing he’s in there with a welterweight who can fight and is faster than most of the others.?br />
On whether he believes Mosley will become the new champion if he lands the type of shots on Pacquiao that he landed in round 2 of his fight with Floyd Mayweather Junior:

“My thing is this, I’ve never trained for a guy’s jaw. I thought that was one of the flaws going into the Mayweather fight. People get around your fighter and start telling him how hard he punches and how the other guy never took a shot before. We had a guy that was in our camp with us that I saw shake Mayweather up before that I know can punch. So my vibe is this, I never train for a guy’s jaw because the one thing that doesn’t show up on the DVDs is ambition. No matter how hard you hit a man, if a man’s ambition is deep enough and he’s dedicated enough he may fight through it. When you look at Ron Lyle and George Foreman most of us would have stayed down on any one of those punches. If you would have told me George Foreman could hit anybody the way he hit Ron Lyle and they’d keep etting up I would have called you a liar. But we couldn’t measure Ron Lyle’s ambition. He kept getting up. Yvonne Durelle and Archie Moore, Archie Moore has the most knockouts in history and Yvonne Durelle kept getting up from those shots. So we can’t measure. I told Shane it wouldn’t surprise me if Pacquiao got up four times and jumped right back up on his ass. That’s what I’d be anticipating. I’d be sitting in the corner and wouldn’t be shocked in the least.?br />
His views on what Mosley could do differently if he ever landed a rematch with Mayweather:

“Well Shane knows some things happened during the course of that fight that I told him there is no reason for us to go to the media and start crying about them now. We took the fight! But he feels like if those things would be eliminated and it’s easy to eliminate those things, he felt like he could have a more forward approach to it. So yeah after the Pacquiao fight it opens up opportunities for him. Being successful in the Pacquiao fight is the key to the future of his career. Being successful in the Pacquiao fight opens up a plethora of opportunities. I mean we can go in so many directions then. It’s his choice. Now I myself feel like should he knock Pacquiao out spectacularly, I feel like it may return him to Margaritoville, because after he smashed Margarito everybody was standing around saying no I don’t really want any of that.?br />
Regarding how he expects the fight between Pacquiao and Mosley to play out on May 7:

“The only reason we’re coming down there is for the buffet at the MGM. If the buffet is not there we’re not even coming. I don’t know. We’re fighting. We’re in camp. I got a grandson home that’s adorable that I’d love to be with on the floor right now with, with his gloves hitting me all upside the head. But we’re away from all of that because we believe Shane Mosley can beat Manny Pacquiao. So this is what we’ve come for and this is what we’ve trained for and I feel like if he stays to the game plan that we have, I feel as though not only can we beat him but we can surprise everybody by the way we beat him.?

[Tamis!]

If only every trainer in boxing can be like Naazim Richardson...

[physiker]

All hype.

****m cites Pac not KOing Marg. But it has come out that Pac deliberately decided not to KO him--appreciating the warrior nature of Marg wanting to go out on his sword. This despite what Marg said about Roach.

In reality ****m probably appreciates that Pac will probably not try to kill his Shane, but will never say that publicly before the fight.

[JBell11]

****m never fails to make me believe in his fighters. I give Mosley a puncher's chance and I truly think he learned his lesson from the Floyd fight and actually boxes Pac. Keeping Pac away with a jab. Somewhere in there land that torpedo right!

[Carpe Diem]

“It’s taken on that overtone where people are counting him out, but I’ve just come to understand with boxing how fickle boxing is. That’s why our sport, as fabulous as it is, it should be considered the most outstanding sport amongst sports but it never is because of how we treat it and how we handle it. We have a tendency to take young guys and lift them up on a pedestal that doesn’t deserve it. When we get someone who’s legitimate like a Pacquiao it’s like we lose our minds, like we’ve never seen the Ray Robinson’s or the Ali’s that ever came before these guys. They get crazy all over again and the minute a guy loses a fight we figure he must be done. Everybody counted this young kid Victor Ortiz out and now they’re all looking shocked. Oh! You’re shocked and stunned because you were wrong because the kid got hit all in his head by a heavy puncher and then you stuck a microphone in his face and he said some wrong things! Let me punch one of them in the face and then stick a microphone in their face. Some of these dudes would be calling their daughters their sons, but we get so caught up we don’t recognize aspects of those levels, and then when it comes back around we stand there like oh! As soon as Shane gets past Pacquiao watch the flip flop! Oh, Shane was the bigger man! I’ve been saying everybody’s been the bigger man for the last five fights! He’s the bigger man, all of a sudden the political office is an issue, and Freddie having to go train Amir Khan is going to be an issue. All of these things will come into play.?/b>


Golden quotes.