When Brother Naazim Richardson calls your phone to chat, you know you're about to get the good word from him. Brother Naazim, who trains Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley, Steve Cunningham and a number of young up-and-coming fighters, contacted FightHype.com to discuss a hypothetical showdown between his fighter, Mosley, and pound-for-pound champion Manny Pacquiao. Although Mosley recently instructed his promoter to stop attempts at making a fight with Pacquiao, Brother Naazim made it clear that he's still up for the challenge and would look forward to coming up with a gameplan to defeat the Filipino superstar. "I hope the fight does happen man. I would like the chance to figure out the Pacquiao puzzle with Mosley," he stated.
While Richardson is eager for the opportunity to match wits against Freddie Roach, he was quick to point out that he thought Mosley might be trying to get the fight in the wrong manner. "You never want to look like you're begging for a fight because eventually, you will talk yourself out of it," he admitted. "If a fighter sees you constantly saying, 'I'll fight him in his backyard, I'll do this and I'll do that,' then eventually, they will be like, 'Hold up! What? He's a little too confident that he could beat me!'"
Richardson had nothing but praise for Pacquiao, stating, "All of these guys underestimate Pacquiao thinking he's the small man. When I met Pacquiao, I wasn't saying how does this guy make welterweight? I was saying how in the hell was he making 130 and 135? Pacquiao is a big dude. Cotto keeps saying he's the bigger man, but that's going to be his downfall because if they make him suck down to 142-43, then his strength becomes his weakness because he is the bigger man and that is a lot of weight for him to cut. I always thought Cotto was draining down too much to make junior welterweight and that was the reason he used to get dropped so much."
That being said, Richardson would jump at the chance to train Mosley for a Pacquiao fight. He's not holding his breathe on it ever happening, however, as he actually thinks another fight other than the proposed Cotto bout will inevitably stand in the way. "Mayweather isn't going to let Pacquiao fight Shane because he wants to be the one to give Pacquiao that loss," Richardson revealed. "Back when Don King was saying he was going to put Bernard in against Trinidad, Roy Jones told him not to do that because he knew Bernard would destroy Trinidad and he wanted to be the first to beat Tito. King thought Tito would beat Bernard and the rest is history. Floyd is in the same position Roy was in and Shane is in the position Bernard was in."
Richardson continued, "See Mayweather is smart. He picks his fights, but he's not picking chumps like Roy Jones used to do. He's not fighting Otis Grant, but he picks fights where his opponent's style fits his style perfectly and I can't blame him for that. It's a smart move!"
Joking, Brother Naazim closed out the conversation referring to a comment made during a press conference. "Richard Schaefer or someone said at a press conference, 'Watch out Naazim! Look how Bob Arum's looking at you. He remembers what Bernard did to Pavlik and what Mosley did to Margarito, so watch your back!' He may never let one of his guys back in there with one of my guys."
Indeed, it might be a long time before we get a chance to see a bout between Shane Mosley and Manny Pacquiao, however, if it ever did happen, we would get a chance to see perhaps the two best strategists in the sport pitting their fighters and their gameplans against each other. Although Floyd Mayweather Sr., thanks to Ricky Hatton's poor performance, never stood a chance in his bid for the "No. 1 Pound for Pound Best Trainer in the World" trophy, Brother Naazim just might give Freddie Roach a run for the money if Mosley and Pacquiao ever faced off.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]