"These young people seem to forget that any fight that you get on the national level is an opportunity for you to showcase your skills. A lot of these guys are pricing themselves out of the picture. You gotta make yourself worthy. What happened to making yourself worthy? You gotta go out and make yourself worthy and these guys don't want to do that. They want you to give them moneyÂ…Wladimir Klitschko treats everybody with dignity and respect, and you're not going to be in a better atmosphere than the one he offers to a fighter. I mean, you got the best hotel, the best environment, international press, and you're eating top class food and you're in a Five Star Hotel over there, and then you get a chance to hold camp with the champ for 3 or 4 weeks, and some clown gonna come talking about," stated world-class trainer James Ali Bashir, who explained just how difficult it can be dealing with fighters who have an inflated sense of self-worth. Check out what else he had to say!
PC: We always talk about current fighters as opposed to the old school guys and I think fans and media alike are both guilty because we run guys out of this sport after a loss or two as opposed to the golden era where you win some and you lose some, you know?
JAB: That's what makes a fighter though. When you are in the ring and you're fighting, these are outstanding boxers and you drop a loss to them, you come back, and you win 3 fights and then you drop another loss. You look at a guy like Marvin Hagler, who fought the who's who of boxing at that time. There was a time when you had to feed the family. Now these guys are spoiled. They got girlfriends with these $80-$90,000 a year jobs and they allow these guys to just lay up on them and don't do nothing. I hear guys say, "Well, I'm not gonna fight him. How much am I gonna get paid?" If you look back, pay wasn't a thing. Ray Robinson and Henry Armstrong wasn't making a whole lot of money, and every guy that comes to me and wants me to manage them or train them, especially with the management, they are expecting to get some monetary award for them signing with me. You're not doing me a favor. I'm not giving you any money. What do you mean money? They want you to give them money like they are some kind of a star. They might have went to the Nationals or something, you know?
PC: Yet they act like they are already making you money.
JAB: Yeah! No, I can guarantee you 3 fights a year and maybe get you 4. That's all I can guarantee you, but I'm not giving you no money. I learned my lesson from that years ago. I managed fighters years ago and I lost so much money and so much of other people's money believing in the dream. They want to get paid then and there. It's like a college course. When you invest in a loan as a college student, they want that money back. These guys think that you are supposed to take care of them and you don't get money back. No! I'm not doing that no more. You either want itÂ…you're gonna hone your skills and learn it and come to me and learn how to do this here, and then you go forward, but if you don't want to do none of that, then you might as well forget it.
PC: And some of these guys get these big signing bonuses right from the beginning and before the ink dries on the paper, they lose their motivation and will to work for that money.
JAB: Look at Ricardo Williams. The prime example is Ricardo Williams. Ricardo got a million dollars to buy some coke with. He went out and bought some coke and started dealing coke instead of doing his job, you know? He got all of that money. I remember years ago when guys got big money from managers and stuff and the managers lost out. The guys took the money, ran, or got out of the contract, so to me, that's crazy. You have Eddie Chambers and Tomasz Adamek, and they are facing each other and it's not even about money. It's not about money. We're not getting paid a lot to take this fight, but we are taking the opportunity. These young people seem to forget that any fight that you get on the national level is an opportunity for you to showcase your skills. A lot of these guys are pricing themselves out of the picture. You gotta make yourself worthy. What happened to making yourself worthy? You gotta go out and make yourself worthy and these guys don't want to do that. They want you to give them money and I'm not going to do that. If a guy is looking for money, they are coming to the wrong guy. They need to go somewhere else because I won't do it no more. It doesn't make a bit of sense. I remember Marvin Hagler coming to the gym after working on a construction site. He would work 8 or 9 hours out of the day and then go to the gym at 7:30-8:00 and do the gym work. He would go home at 9:30-10:00, it would be almost 12:00 before he would get in bed, and he went out there and dominated everybody. He did that. These guys want some money.
I spoke to the champion yesterday, Wladimir, and he needed southpaws, and one of the managers to this southpaw we were trying to get involved with, the manager wanted $4,000 a week and a guarantee for his fighter to fight on the undercard. I'm like, "Who in the fuck does this guy think he is? Is this guy on cocaine or heroin or something?" He goes, "I want a guarantee that my fighter is fighting on the undercard and I want $4,000 a week and X amount of rooms." He's acting like he's got the heavyweight champion of the world. He thinks thatÂ…I've seen these kinds of guys before; the guy thinks that he has more than what he has. You got these people in boxing that always feed the fighters egos. "You are better than that. You deserve more than this and this is what you need to get and if you come with me, I'll get it for you. I'll battle and get it for you." We are not going to cheat anybody. Wladimir Klitschko treats everybody with dignity and respect, and you're not going to be in a better atmosphere than the one he offers to a fighter. I mean, you got the best hotel, the best environment, international press, and you're eating top class food and you're in a Five Star Hotel over there, and then you get a chance to hold camp with the champ for 3 or 4 weeks, and some clown gonna come talking about, "Well, he's worth this and that and I need to get paid for this and get paid for that." You got these fly by night so-called managers thinking that they know more than everybody else know. I look at them like a joke. They are a joke. These guys don't have a clue of what goes on behind the scenes. Most of these guys don't fight nobody coming up. They don't fight nobody and they don't know nothing. I look at this Puerto Rican kid who is a cruiserweight. He went up to heavyweight and came back down to cruiserweight. He does the guest commentary for ESPN.
PC: BJ Flores?
JAB: Yeah, BJ Flores. He is not fighting nobody and he doesn't want to fight nobody. Do you remember a guy named Willie Classen?
PC: No I don't, but enlighten me my man.
JAB: Willie Classen was a tough guy out of New York; Puerto Rican, but a journeyman type of guy. He was tough and he was a fighter. He got killed in the ring. He had suffered some brain injuries in the ring. I think he got killed in the Garden. You look at guys like Willie Classen and the other guy out of Philadelphia, Eugene "Cyclone" Hart, and Bennie Briscoe, those kinds of guys. If you look back at these guys, Saud Muhammad and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, these guys were fighting top notch fighters early. You got guys now that say, "If it don't make business sense, then it don't make sense." How are you gonna get the business sense when you don't fight nobody? You gotta fight somebody; and I always look at Saud Muhammad and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and these guys were fighting everybody. They were fighting tough fights. They weren't avoiding anybody.
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