"Gabby wants to take the road less traveled. He dares to be great. He is willing to do whatever it takes...This guy is the big bad wolf of the middleweight division, supposedly the most feared middleweight in boxing, so we were more than willing to take the fight...he is a murderous puncher, he has good killer instincts, and he's very relaxed. He goes about his business and he uses his style to the best of his ability. He gets the most out of what he has. He is a legitimate guy. I just think that we have the style to beat him and styles win fights," stated world-class trainer Billy Briscoe who talked about Gabriel Rosado's upcoming clash with middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. Check it out!
PC: How is everything going, Billy?
BB: Everything is great.
PC: It's the holiday season, but with the date of the fight, I know you guys aren't taken any days off. Is that tough or is that just part of the occupation?
BB: This is our profession and what we do.
PC: When the name Gennady Golovkin was brought to you guys at middleweight, what was the thought process before accepting this fight?
BB: We secured the #1 spot in the IBF and we could have waited for K-9, but we thought he was gonna play the waiting game. So we got offered a chance at the legitimate middleweight championship of the world. We put our heads together and he asked me what I thought and I told him I thought we can take this guy. He said he felt the same way. See, Gabby wants to take the road less traveled. He dares to be great. He is willing to do whatever it takes, and to us, this is a better win than K-9 because if we beat K-9, it would have been, "He's 38 years old and he's old." This guy is the big bad wolf of the middleweight division, supposedly the most feared middleweight in boxing, so we were more than willing to take the fight.
PC: Gabby told me that he hadn't really been paying too much attention to Golovkin being that they weren't in the same division. He said he pretty much watched his last fight and that's about it prior to getting a fight against him. Had you watched a lot of him or are you attacking tapes of him now because he wasn't on the radar?
BB: Nah, I just started watching film on him now since we took the fight with him. I reallyÂ…he wasn't even on the radar to be honest with you because we were ready to stake our claim at 54, but you know how that goes. You gotta go where the opportunities are in life.
PC: Obviously Gabe is a huge underdog; not many people giving him a chance. Do you prefer for him to have this underdog moniker heading into this fight?
BB: Yeah, I mean, the underdog role is fine really because Gabby always fights better with the underdog role being attached to him, you know, so we have pulled off a few good upsets in our time. We are more than capable of getting this win. I prefer it because all of the pressure is on the other guy.
PC: When you watch Gennady Golovkin, obviously he's a powerful fighter. What are some of his other strengths that you have been noticing?
BB: Well, I think he is all they say he is and more. He is a murderous puncher, he has good killer instincts, and he's very relaxed. He goes about his business and he uses his style to the best of his ability. He gets the most out of what he has. He is a legitimate guy. I just think that we have the style to beat him and styles win fights. He is a murderous puncher and great pressure fighter and he's strong. He has 315 amateur fights and a silver medalist, so he is definitely an experienced guy, but at the end of the day, I just feel that everybody is beatable. Styles make fights and I believe my guy's style matches up against his in a winning fashion.
PC: You are big on the strength and conditioning program you guys have in place. How important is that for him to put on the weight correctly and be in the best shape of his life?
BB: We're not trying to match size for size. We believe skills and technique wins fights. The better man is the smarter man because the smarter man gives himself options, not only in boxing, but in life. We are giving ourselves options. One of the main assets of Gabby is his adjustability. He can adjust better than 90% of the guys in boxing. So whatever this guy bringsÂ…people say, he's going to come right at you. We don't know how he's gonna come. He might try to run. For all we know he might be on his toes trying to outbox us. We don't know. At the end of the day, we will be prepared for it. We are going to shuffle the deck and give him different looks and find which look we need to get us where we gotta go and beat him. And if that game plan doesn't work, we can always make the adjustments. You plan your fight and you fight your plan, but if all fails, you gotta be able to make the adjustments. The guy that can make those adjustments wins the fight.
PC: It was somewhat of a short notice fight as far as Gabby not being the first option, but you guys will be done put in a full camp, correct?
BB: About 7 ½ to 8 weeks. I like 8 weeks. I don't like more than that anyway because my guy is an extremist. When he's in the gym, he's going hard. When we are in the gym, he's working. He has that mentality of go hard or go home, and he goes hard. If it's longer than that, then I have to try and taper him off and calm him down a little bit because we don't won't to burn him out in the gym, because you train a fighter to a peak not a plateau. If you go too long, you go stale. There is a real fine line, you know, but I'm very satisfied with it.
PC: How huge will this be for you guys to go in and defeat Golovkin and take away his 0?
BB: It would be great. Like I said, he dares to be different; he dares to be great. He does whatever it takes. If you offered him the Klitschkos, he would take it. At the end of the day, it's great because they see that, okay, this man has a few blemishes on his record, but at the end of the day, that's how you learn. The old timers never put stock into a guy until they got a setback. Anybody can look like a million dollars when you're on top of the world. It's all about progression, progression, progression. He has been progressing at a good rate. Experience kicks in when it kicks in and you can't rush it; you can just cultivate it, and I think experience is kicking in at the right time. If we gotta move up to another weight class and fight the perceived superstar killer, then that's fine. At the end of the day, I believe that Gabby is going to show the world that he is going to be a superstar. They say to be the best you gotta beat the best and they say that this guy is the best, so we are gonna beat him.
PC: I can't wait for this fight. I think it's going to be a great fight. Best of luck to you guys. Is there anything else you want to say?
BB: I just want to thank Team Rosado, and first and foremost, Gabby because he is the CEO of the company and if he don't fight, then nobody eats. I want to thank my team, my strength and conditioning guy, Jason Sargus, one of the best in combat sports, Michelle Rosado, our marketing and publicity agent, and she is one of the best in the business. My cutman Joey Eye, one of the best, and the whole Team Rosado and Russell Peltz, who is our advisor, and also NBC Sports for giving us the opportunity to showcase his abilities, and that's about it.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]