I spoke to Al yesterday. We had a deep conversation. First of all, let me say this, I don't talk to a lot of people about my business at all, but Al Haymon was a person that I had met via a friend years ago on the telephone. I grew up of course in Washington, D.C. knowing the name Al Haymon because I used to go to a lot of concerts; Frankie Beverly in particular," stated world-class trainer Barry Hunter, who opened up on his relationship with Al Haymon and shared his thoughts on the Golden Boy's lawsuit against Haymon being dismissed. Check out what else he had to say!
BARRY HUNTER ON AL HAYMON:
The first thing I said when I talked to him was, "Wow, what an honor. I finally got a voice with the name." And he laughed and he said, "You know what, brother, I'm a fan too. I've been watching you guys for awhile." So during my run in this game, and you know how crazy this game can be, I used to get advice. He would give me advice on what to do and how to do it. And I appreciated that. So after, I had made my run with Lamont for as long as I did and as far as I could and Lamont had won a world title. It was just him, myself, of course Andre, my wife and his brother, Anthony, and Patrice Harris, Boogey the pad man. After that, of course now we're not attached to anybody and we don't have the backing of the networks. So it was either we would get stuck fighting our mandatories or do the smart thing and align ourselves with the most powerful man and the smartest cat in boxing. So when he called me and we talked about it, he basically said, "Barry, it's time to come to this side. I respect what you did, I love what you're doing, and if you decide to stay on your own, I'll still love and support Barry Hunter and the Peterson's." That's what he told me. He said, "But I'm telling you, now it's time to align ourselves." So that was a no-brainer to me and it was an honor to be reached out to by him. And I told him about the concerts and how I grew up going to the concerts and the whole nine and it was a great thing.
So when I spoke to him yesterday...and a lot of times, man, people like Al and me, on a lower level, as far as boxing is concerned and boxers are concerned, a lot of the times, Percy, we walk around with the weight of the world on our shoulders because you got so many battles that people don't know and a lot of the times, they don't appreciate it and the people you help don't appreciate it all of the time, so I get it. So yesterday, I told him, man, how much respect I had for him based on the fact that how he's standing up to all of these people at one time, fighting all of these battles on the front. This is a man that, and I don't mean to ramble, but I gotta tell it. This is a man that, we didn't have no identity. Boxing itself is almost like it's an underground sport. You know and I know, when we watched the old fights, you knew who Duran was, you knew who Ray Leonard was and Hearns and all these guys were; Ali and Foreman. You knew who these guys were. They had an identity. They had a face and a name. Now not only did we not have an identity in recent times, we didn't even have a face that they could attach to the name. Nobody knew who the hell we were. When you go to the venues, the venues' half empty; all kinds of stuff. So when you get a guy that brings professional championship boxing and serious matches to free TV again, come on, man. How can you not support that? And me and a lot of these other black athletes and figures in the sport, and I'm not knocking it down to race, but it is what it is; when you have a chance to back somebody that looks just like you, instead of fighting against him, man, get with him. And the good thing is Al don't see no color. Look at his roster! If you're Latino, if you're Asian, Russian, black, white or brown, whatever, everybody gets a fair shake. I done seen guys get on TV and lose and instead of him throwing them to the wayside, he put them back on the front again. Come on, man! How can you not back that? I'm telling you, if you don't succeed, you're going to miss it when it's gone.
They have called this man everything. I saw...let me say, I understood, I'll put it that way, when I got the information of what happened in the particular lawsuit and the emails, I'm not surprised by that. I've been down that road. Keep in mind I've had the fortune to work with most promoters. Not one, but all of the big time promoters and some of the smaller ones, come on, man, you can't tell me nothing about how this thing works.
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[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]