"I just don't think Marquez holds that weight really well. Marquez is not a very big guy. I think that he could probably make 130 from what I've seen when he's come by our gym a couple of times. He's not a big guy at all and that's why I think Marquez struggles at 144. That's just too much weight for him to carry. And Manny is a freak of nature athlete who has carried that weight very well for himself," stated world-class boxing/MMA trainer Ron Frazier, who shared his thoughts on the upcoming fights of both Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Check out what else he had to say.
PC: Floyd Mayweather announced that he will be fighting Victor Ortiz in September. There is still no venue, but do you think the fight will take place in Vegas and what are your thoughts on the fight?
RF: I think it's a good fight for Floyd. He has a young, hungry and capable guy in Victor Ortiz and he feels this is his moment. He's coming off of the Andre Berto fight, in which nobody gave him a chance to win, and he looked good in that fight. We also know that he has some vulnerabilities, but he has big pop and if he can upset the applecart and upset Floyd Mayweather, then that would be a tremendous feather in his cap. But Floyd is Floyd and he's going to be very prepared to do what he does and be the fighter that he is. He is a very smart fighter. There are a lot of things that people can say about Floyd, but I don't think they understand his boxing IQ. It is very high. He is going to go in there and put himself in a position to win. I like it that he is taking on a young viable guy instead of some guy who is off of the scrap heap.
PC: Does the fact that Floyd selected a southpaw with a pretty good punch output convince you that maybe this is the setup to the Pacquiao fight?
RF: I don't know if that fight will ever happen. We had this fight signed 2 years ago, according to Arum, and it never happened or materialized. You're going to hear from both sides and both camps saying this guy is ducking this guy and this guy is ducking that guy. I don't know what the case is because I'm not privy to the inside information on either one of them camps. I can only go by what I see that both sides have put out in the public, and from what I gather and from how they have managed Manny Pacquiao's career, they don't really want to fight Floyd Mayweather. They don't feel like they need to fight Floyd Mayweather for his legacy, so they will continue doing the fights that Bob Arum and Top Rank feel are suited for him. And Floyd is Floyd. He is not backed into a corner. He is a tremendous champion in his own right and he's facing a young champion like Victor Ortiz and if he disposes of him, then he could go on to Sergio Martinez or go back to Pacquiao and say, "Hey, I just beat a young lefty. Do you want to get this on or not?"
PC: Where do you stand on the Marquez/Pacquiao trilogy? I don't think we're going to get the same fights those guys gave us at 126 pounds and 130 pounds. I think Pacquiao may breeze through him at 144.
RF: I just don't think Marquez holds that weight really well. Marquez is not a very big guy. I think that he could probably make 130 from what I've seen when he's come by our gym a couple of times. He's not a big guy at all and that's why I think Marquez struggles at 144. That's just too much weight for him to carry. And Manny is a freak of nature athlete who has carried that weight very well for himself.
PC: Bernard Hopkins recently got himself into the record books becoming the oldest guy to ever win a world title. Where is your overall take on his career and this achievement?
RF: Obviously making history going in and becoming the oldest guy to win a title helped his legacy and career. You know, I don't know. I used to be this huge Bernard Hopkins fan and then I started doing research on his record and I'm looking at it going, okay, at middleweight, yes, he has 20 titles defenses and that's a record, but his two biggest wins there were against Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya, who are two blown-up welterweights. He really didn't have any other challenges there. Then he moved up in weight and beat Antonio Tarver. Antonio is a solid fighter, so that's a great feather in your cap, but I don't think Antonio is a Hall of Famer by any stretch of the imagination. You lose to Calzaghe and then beat Winky Wright, who was inactive, aged and out of his weight division at 170. And then he beat a guy who...I just don't know who Pascal is. Is he really a good fighter? I mean, he's explosive and he looks good at times, but is he really a good fighter? The funny thing is, I just ran into Eddie Mustafa Muhammad at the airport. I didn't really talk to him, but just seeing him, I think there is no way Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Matthew Saud Muhammad, Michael Spinks or Glen Johnson back in the day would let a middleweight, and an old middleweight on top of that, come up to the light heavyweight division and win, and not just win, but take their titles. You don't see that happening in the late 70's or early 80's. Maybe I'm biased and skewed because that's my era and I grew up with those guys, so maybe I'm looking at it in a totally different way. You know, it's great for Bernard, but overall, I'm not that impressed. You have to put things in perspective because my thing is, could he have done this at any other time then right now when boxing seems a little watered down where you got all of these protected fighters. When you go back to the 60's, 70's and 80's, these guys fought each other and now everyone avoids one another. They avoid the big fights. You never know what you got until you put a kid like Pascal out there and then you found out that maybe he's not as good as advertised. I mean, he has some nice things that he does, but his boxing is not that good and he's a frontrunner. He's a guy that, if it's going well for him, he could kind of keep it going, but you change the tide and he can not change it back.
PC: I know you held Roy Jones very highly in your book. I think he does a great job commentating for HBO. Should he still be getting sanctioned to fight inside of the ring though?
RF: No. If any promoter out there wants to put him on a card and a sanctioning body sanctions him, the promoter should have their license revoked and whoever sanctions it is a non-factor as a licensing entity if they sanction this guy. I've always been a huge Roy Jones fans. It just saddens me to see him go out in his career like this. He was a much better fighter. I don't know what he's doing. For all of those years when he couldn't be touched, everybody said he had no courage, and now, maybe he's trying to prove that he has courage. Any time you walk that aisle as a boxer or MMA fighter, you have courage. I don't care what anybody on the sideline says that don't fight or train fighters. He had courage; he was just an exceptional athlete. Was he the best boxer in the world? No, and obviously once he slowed down from being that superior athlete, it kind of caught up with him. It's just sad that it's going to hurt his legacy because he was not liked by the media. If this was anybody else, like Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard or Roberto Duran, we would give him a pass. The media loved those guys, but when Roy came in, he played by his own rules and not the media's rules, so now they are all gonna pile on and say they knew he wasn't that good. This guy made great fighters look ordinary. A guy like Vinny Pazienza, who was a two-time champion; he fought above his weight at 168, but he didn't win a round and didn't land a punch. Who else could have done that to him? It's just very sad and unfortunate that he's going to continue on. Hopefully nobody sanctions him and they will kind of force his hand in not giving him any fights.
PC: Boxing recently lost Genaro Hernandez, who was a great fighter as well as a great person. What are your final thoughts on the ring legend?
RF: I got to meet him a couple of times here in Vegas and he just seemed like a real nice and down to earth person. I enjoyed watching him fight. Obviously he lost to Oscar De La Hoya when he moved up in weight and to a young Floyd Mayweather, but he was a treat to watch fight because you knew what you were going to get when he was in there; he was gonna bring it. It's a sad day for boxing to lose a good guy like that.
PC: Always good to hear from you my man. Best of luck to you here in the coming months. Is there anything else you want to add?
RF: Everybody stay safe out there; train hard and fight hard!
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]