"No, they not gonna fight Bernard again because the fight turned out better than they anticipated and they just gonna roll out with the bragging rights....That was out of character for the Chad Dawson that I know. That was out of character for Scully for the way that he trains fighters from what I know. But if you keep saying rough him up and don't nobody really know how to fight rough or they don't have no street background to fighting rough, then rough, for certain guys and a guy don't know what rough is, it can become illegal. A guy that don't have a lot of street fights don't know what rough is. You keep saying my guy is going to be rough, and rough this and rough that, but they don't know what rough is. You've been around boxing all of your life and ain't never really been in a rough fight yourself. So they telling a guy how to rough a guy up, but they can't show him how to rough a guy up legally, and that's why he ended up picking my guy up by the leg...Like I said, he's one of the best technical fighters in the game, so them telling him to be rough tells him that the people around him didn't have confidence in his skill level. They didn't have confidence that his skills would be enough good enough to get past Bernard," stated world-class trainer Naazim Richardson, who spoke more on the controversial ending to Hopkins vs. Dawson and what he thinks motivated Dawson shove his fighter to the ground. Check it out!
PC: So you truly feel Dawson and his camp won't entertain a rematch?
NR: No, they not gonna fight Bernard again because the fight turned out better than they anticipated and they just gonna roll out with the bragging rights. They just gonna let Bernard do his thing and whenever Bernard and whatever Bernard do, they can always say, "Well, he didn't do that to me." I mean, this is neighborhood stuff. I remember when you would align yourself with guys from the past and you go and fight their battles, man. That's neighborhood nonsense. Do what you need to do and just get it done. You picked the guy up. They see you hooked the guy with your arm. I argued with a guy on our team. I'm going to tell you how bad it is. There is a guy on our team, my man Tony. He's Bernard's massage guy. Tony said, "He hooked his arm around the leg." I said, "No he didn't." I couldn't believe it. He said, "Yes he did. He hooked his leg with his arm." I said, "Well, if I see that on the replay, I owe you an apology." I still owe an apology to Tony. But Chad, with all of this barking about how he wanted to perform and he worked too hard not to fight, listen, if you're that angry, then pass the check back to the promoter. Give your check up.
Me personally, I seen the bull get hit with a hook and put his glove on the ground. I was told anything but the sole of your feet is a knockdown. The bull got hit with a hook and his glove hit the canvas. Now, anybody that re-watched the fight pretend they didn't see it and say it was no knockdown, but why not? This is what we deal with. They got Bernard in that atmosphere where you can do anything to Bernard. They keep labeling him all of these things, when in reality, he's none of those things. He said he was a man. He always said he is a man. But they want to label all of these labels on him and then feel like they can do what they want and nobody can say nothing. It's like when you're a thief and then you want to go report something stolen and everybody feels like you got what you deserved. They creating an atmosphere to get my athlete damaged. He's a human being and a man. The one that gets me is when they talk about he's a billygoat and he constantly runs in with his head. He fights with his chin down, the way you are taught. You are taught to fight with your chin down. You fight with your chin tucked to your chest. He comes from the cloth of Bennie Briscoe and the great Philadelphia fighters. That's what we teach them in Philly. We put that towel up under your neck to make sure you keep your chin down. These jokers keep labeling him and labeling him, so that way, they can tell their athlete, "Rough him up. Get inside and rough him up," and all of that kind of nonsense.
PC: You guys weren't happy with the way that fight went either, I'm sure.
NR: Listen, the world was disappointed; of course both corners were disappointed. I don't know man, the whole thing was weird because during the press conferences, you got John Scully saying he's been in my house. I don't know. He may have been in one of my houses down in North Philly that I have, but I know he wasn't at the home that I live at. I just sat there and was looking. I didn't bust him. I didn't know what he was talking about. I mean, I know Scully, we've been cool for years and I've always respected him as a trainer, but he was going on like we just got finished drinking coffee together. I guess he needed to keep Chad confident like, "I know this dude and I know these people." I guess that was his ploy. But like I said, in the amateurs, man, we all came up together, me and Barry Hunter and Virgil Hunter. I know all of those dudes, man. They are all great dudes, man. Scully has been there and Mike Stafford. There are a lot of trainers that helped each other in the corners and had to fight each other's guys. Things like that happen like that; this is boxing, but like I said, I was a little disappointed in what I saw because I would have argued it when I saw the film and it wouldn't have gone down the way it appeared.
That was out of character for the Chad Dawson that I know. That was out of character for Scully for the way that he trains fighters from what I know. But if you keep saying rough him up and don't nobody really know how to fight rough or they don't have no street background to fighting rough, then rough, for certain guys and a guy don't know what rough is, it can become illegal. A guy that don't have a lot of street fights don't know what rough is. You keep saying my guy is going to be rough, and rough this and rough that, but they don't know what rough is. You've been around boxing all of your life and ain't never really been in a rough fight yourself. So they telling a guy how to rough a guy up, but they can't show him how to rough a guy up legally, and that's why he ended up picking my guy up by the leg. Everybody has a voice. If you have a 100 dudes in your camp and everybody has a voice and everybody is telling you how you should be fighting this guy, and like I said, I have never known Chad Dawson to be a dirty fighter or a fighter out of context like that. He's a technically sound fighter and he outboxes you. He touches you more than you touch him. He's good at it and I respect him for it, and that's what I've known him to do. Now they telling him to be rough and everybody telling him to be so rough, he did a great job of that, but he ain't got the belt, so how did that work out for you? That's what I always tell my sons when they say, "Oh, I'm doing this," and I say, "Well, how is that working out for you?"
Like I said, he's one of the best technical fighters in the game, so them telling him to be rough tells him that the people around him didn't have confidence in his skill level. They didn't have confidence that his skills would be enough good enough to get past Bernard. They sent him out there to kick ass and he had to throw him down. And I'll put that on the record for you, Perc. I don't disrespect no corners, but if his people was telling him to be rough and that led him to do that, then that says that they don't believe in your skills. See, I believe in Bernard Hopkins' skills, so I don't have to tell him to rough nobody up. You gotta be more physical at times. There are times where you gotta show some physicality and not let a guy walk through you, but this ain't Glen Johnson. You gotta put more body on a Pascal. And that's what it was, this guy sat back and watched Pascal lose and was listening to people say that you can't outbox him, rough him up, and cost this dude a shot at being champ. He blew an opportunity of being champ of the world. Now they all gotta look back and they can point the finger at the WBC and try to blame somebody else, but they really gonna have to go back and look in the mirror and say, "The reason we don't have these belts is why?" It's going to be behind these actions. Now they can try to blame somebody else, but then you gotta say, who orchestrated that action? Who helped provoke the athlete to lead to that action? Them the dudes is why you are not champion of the world. Now, I can't say who it was. It might have been his corner; it might have been the guy at the grocery store or his sparring partner. I don't know who told him, but whoever got in this guy's ear and told him to go out of character and not to rely on his skills is why he's not champion today.
PC: We hadn't got on record in so long, I definitely wanted to catch up with you and discuss your fighters as well as, of course, the fallen soldiers out of Philly.
NR: Yeah man, we lost Bouie. A little while back, we lost Al Fennell, Georgie Benton and Bennie Briscoe, and these are great minds in boxing that we lost and it's so scarce these days to have these great minds. But it's up to us to keep their names alive and teach these young dudes. Hopefully the next generation will roll out and prove that Philadelphia still has that backbone and still has that heart in them, man. We got a young kid, Jesse Hart, made the Olympic team and he comes from the legendary cloth of "Cyclone" Hart. Somebody awhile back out of Philadelphia said something derogatory about the "Concrete Jungle" and Rock got offended when it got back to him and I told Rock, I said, "Dig this, that just means that you're getting back in position. They watched Dynamite do his thing a couple of months ago and you're getting back in position." When they are not mentioning you is when you know you're not in the elite. If all I have to do is to try to succeed in order for you to do your job as a hater, by all means, let me see if I can help you. I'm going to go out and do the best that I can with my athletes and see if I can keep you employed. I'm ready to get this bull Badr Hari in here soon and we gonna be putting that work in too; see what this kid working with. We got some things coming up. You tell me I got a heavyweight on my hands now, so we gonna make it do what it do.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]