"I don't blame it all on the fighters because I know how this stuff works. Hopefully Richard and Bob can sit down and hash things out and make this fight happen because this is the fight that everybody wants to see. You see, any time you do an article on your site regarding the fight, you get a ton of responses. This fight should happen. Let the two supposedly best pound-for-pound fighters fight and let's see what happens. I have my opinion. I think styles make fights and I think Floyd Mayweather beats Manny Pacquiao, but the proof is taking it to the ring and letting them settle it themselves," stated world-class MMA and boxing trainer Ron Frazier as he shared his thoughts on whether or not the megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. will take place, how it would play out and much more. Check it out!
PC: Last time we spoke, I asked you if there was any chance of Mayweather-Pacquiao going outside of Vegas. I never thought I would be asking you if there was any chance that this fight doesn't happen. Do you think this fight may not happen now?
RF: I guess there is a way that this fight doesn't happen, unfortunately. It's a fight that's out there that I think everybody wants to see. There has been a lot of buzz and I gotta blame the promoters on this. I think that, in a sense, if you didn't have everybody signed on for everything that's in the contract, why did you announce the fight? If everything is not signed on the dotted line and everything is not agreed to, then don't announce the fight. You have announced that you have a fight and it seems like everyone was still working for leverage. This camp wants this and this camp wants that and if they don't get it, then it's like, hey, they aren't fighting. They put everything up in arms and it kind of makes the boxing world look bad. Hopefully, there is a way to resolve the issue. I guess the main sticking point right now is the blood test and it's huge. The Mayweather camp asked for the blood test. Pacquiao said they would submit to as many urine tests as they want and that they would do some blood testing, but USADA, the Olympic side of it, said, "Hey, if you're going to do a blood test and use our facility, you're going to do it our way." They seem to be the ones not willing to compromise anything on that point and, in a way, I don't blame them. That's what they put their Olympic guys through and these guys are no different. So we will see what happens and how everything plays out.
The funny thing to me, and everybody is going to believe Bob, especially those in Pacquiao's camp because he's Pacquiao's promoter, but he is saying, "Floyd doesn't want to fight" and blah, blah, blah. Well Bob, you've never been in a fight. I'm not going to say any fighter that has had an extensive background like a Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao or any other top fighter in the world is afraid to fight somebody. This is what these guys do for a living. I know it's easy to be keyboard warriors and you say you know more than the fighters and the trainers, but you don't fight either. No fighter is scared of another fighter. Now, managers and promoters, on the other hand, can be scared to make fights, but the fighters themselvesÂ…you know, I have been around the game for a long time and I know a lot of fighters. Very rarely do I run into a fighter that's afraid to fight another guy. It can be somebody from the management team or somebody looking at the promotional side of it, yeah, because they can be afraid to lose their meal ticket and they don't want to be exposed. I've seen that happen, but I haven't seen the fighters afraid. They will sign on the dotted line and they will be ready to go. Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley, Andre Berto, the list is endless; those guys don't fear nobody. This is what they do. These guys have foughtÂ…if you put their amateur careers and add what they have done as professionals, these guys have fought over 100 times. Why would they fear somebody now?
PC: We have seen many barriers placed in the way of fights before and that usually never prevented them from happening. Have you ever seen a request for testing or something along those lines prevent a fight of this magnitude from happening?
RF: I have not seen that before. This could be the largest fight in the history of boxing and this could be the stumbling block. One side says, "Man up and say you want the fight." Well, the fight is out there and it's just a matter of everybody agreeing to the drug testing and the fight can be on. The funny thing is I heard about the lawsuits and I heard Bob Arum first say, "If we don't get Mayweather on the 13th of March, we will get Paulie Malignaggi." The irony of that is before Mayweather accused Pacquiao of doing any performance-enhancing drugs, it's been Malignaggi. How do you go, "We're not fighting this guy because he is accusing us of something and I'm going to take him to court and the other guy we might fight has been even more vocal than the first guy"? I don't understand promoters sometimes. I don't blame it all on the fighters because I know how this stuff works. Hopefully Richard and Bob can sit down and hash things out and make this fight happen because this is the fight that everybody wants to see. You see, any time you do an article on your site regarding the fight, you get a ton of responses. This fight should happen. Let the two supposedly best pound-for-pound fighters fight and let's see what happens. I have my opinion. I think styles make fights and I think Floyd Mayweather beats Manny Pacquiao, but the proof is taking it to the ring and letting them settle it themselves. I have my say and I know what I think will happen and I'm sure you will have a ton of people who have nothing better to do with their lives, but sit down and try to pick apart everything that everybody else says and that's cool too. If that's their passion and that's what they like to do, that's cool. I'm not mad at them, but they are funny.
PC: Do you think a PPV with Malignaggi or Yuri Foreman could even sell?
RF: No, I don't believe they could. The fact of the matter is they thought the Cotto and Pacquiao fight was going to far out distance what Marquez and Mayweather did. That was the talk anyway and they only did what, 250,000 more PPV buys. And in the grand scheme of things of what people expected, that wasn't that much. I don't think you can now sell Paulie Malignaggi, who was destroyed by Ricky Hatton and destroyed by Cotto, and yeah, he beat Juan Diaz, but Juan Diaz let Marquez come from behind and beat him. Marquez was easily outclassed by Mayweather, so how do you sell that fight? You can't sell a Malignaggi fight. And it's so interesting because even before that, they were saying if the Mayweather fight didn't happen, they would fight Yuri Foreman. Here is a guy who has 8 knockouts in 28 fights at junior middleweight, so why would you fight this guy? If you're going to fight a junior middleweightÂ…and I know he's not going to fight a huge junior middleweight. I'm not expecting him to fight Paul Williams. Why would you fight Paul Williams when you're 5'6 and he's 6'1. That's just not a fight that you make, but why not fight a guy who doesn't have many knockouts either, but a guy who has been in some big fights, like Cory Spinks? Most people have Cory Spinks rated higher than Foreman.
And that goes back to the 7 titles in 7 weight divisions thing. It's not to take away from his greatness. I think Pacquiao is a great fighter and a Hall of Fame fighter by today's standards, no doubt, but when you tell me his last 4 fights are the ones that made him a top 15 fighter of all time, then let's break down those last 4 fights. Beat me with facts. David Diaz, was he the best 135-pounder out there? No, we all know that. When he moved up to 140 and fought Ricky Hatton, wouldn't Tim Bradley have been a better fight? And I think he could beat Tim Bradley, but it was probably a harder fight than Ricky Hatton. Ricky Hatton is overrated, let's just put it out there. That doesn't mean he's a bad fighter. When we throw out a term like overrated, people think you're saying he sucks. I'm not saying Ricky Hatton sucks. I'm saying he's not as good as you made him out to be. You can check out his record. Okay, he beat Vince Phillips, Ben Tackie and Kostya Tszyu. He beat them all in the downside of their career. He's a good pressure fighter, he brought a lot of energy and he can bang pretty good and they couldn't handle that kind of pace that he had set in that point of their careers. When he fought Mayweather and Pacquiao, who were in their primes, they starched him. It wasn't even close in those fights and we also saw when he fought Collazo that maybe he's not the fighter we thought he was. It's not Ricky Hatton's fault that he's overrated, but maybe the people in the media or maybe us as fans who overrated him just a bit and that's okay. Now we move on to Oscar De La Hoya. It ain't me saying this; look at Oscar De La Hoya in his new Ring Magazine issue. He says he weighed as low as 142 pounds for that camp and that he was getting beat up in training and he knew that he didn't have anything going into the fight. Now, I put it as you were fighting a guy that was 3-3 coming into that fight and hadn't made the weight in 8 years, so he was the underdog, but if you look at it from that perspective and not the casual fan's perspective, you're saying, "Manny has a great chance of winning this fight." And Freddie Roach, who just left out of camp with Oscar De La Hoya, was in Manny's camp and may have given him a little insight. Freddie Roach was really really confident going into that fight. That tells me he knew something going into that fight.
PC: Yeah, Roach told me if Manny didn't stop him they didn't have to pay him.
RF: He knew something because no trainer is working for free, trust me on that one. And then you have the Miguel Cotto fight, and it's not a knock against Miguel. Miguel obviously, even at 140 when everybody was saying he's killing himself to make the weight, he had problems with his chin. We've seen that in a couple of fights there. And on top of that, you don't recover from the Margarito type of fights. You are not the same guy. When you take a beating like he took in the Margarito fight, you're not ever the same. We saw that when he fought Clottey. And Clottey is a tough nut to crack anyway, but he wasn't the same guy. He wasn't the same guy that I saw against Shane Mosley or the same guy I saw against Zab Judah. He was a different fighter, one that had lost invincibility. People don't understand that when you're a guy like Cotto was and like Hatton was going into the Mayweather fight, when these guys not only get beat, but they get knocked out and they get destroyed, it's like, wait a minute, these guys don't know how to lose and all of a sudden, that doubt creeps up and you start questioning things like can you get it back, is it your chin, etc. There are a lot of questions that have to be answered. It's a lot that goes on to rebuild your psyche that people don't understand because they're not in it every day.
PC: Well, let's hope this fight gets made. I always appreciate your time and I will be talking to you soon my man.
RF: I'm sure I will get hate, but like I said, beat me with facts! Tell me where I'm wrong with David Diaz! Tell me where I'm wrong with Miguel Cotto! Show me that you know something more about boxing other than saying I'm a racist. Dude, if you know my family history, you know I am far from a racist. My sister-in-law is from the Philippines, so obviously I don't have anything against the Philippines. She wouldn't make me any good meals if I said something bad about the Philippines (laughing). She's great people and like I said, if you know my family history, you know the last thing I am is a racist, but beat me with facts! Don't just say I'm irrelevant. If I'm so irrelevant, why are you worried and why are you so upset? When websites that I don't respect or reporters that I don't have any use for call me and say, "Hey, can I do an interview?" I tell them, "No!" But when I get a call from someone like you and Fighthype and you ask to do an interview, gladly because I like what you guys do, so if I'm irrelevant, why are you commenting, why are you upset and why are you feelings hurt? It's funny because they say I'm biased for Mayweather, but none of them are biased at all. I saw when you guys had Zab Judah on and here is a guy with a great amateur background and a 2-time world champion and they act like he doesn't know anything about boxing. Tell me this, when is the last time you guys stepped across from Zab Judah? It's funny because some other guy that is running a website can say something that matches your opinion so they are relevant. It doesn't make any sense. At the end of the day, I respect everybody's opinion and you can have a diverse opinion. You can tell me how great Manny Pacquiao is, but if you're going to pick 4 fights to make him top 15, don't pick his last 4 because he has 4 other fights that would qualify him more, like his 2 with Barrera or his 3 with Morales would be a better argument than his last 4.
PC: Well, you are always welcome on the site because not only do I respect your opinion in both MMA and boxing, but you are one of the most knowledgeable guys I speak to.
RF: I appreciate that and anytime for you man.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]