"We know they don't want to fight Juan Manuel Marquez again. Pacquiao weighs in at 144 for his last fight, and you saw on the 24/7 that he's eating everything that he possibly can and still weighed 144. So he can easily make 140 and probably make 135, but they say, 'Naw, if Juan Manuel wants to fight us, he has to come all the way up to 147.' And Juan Manuel is a little dude. I just stood next to him last week and he is barely a 135-pounder, so he cannot go up to 147 and carry that weight and they know that. I think that it's actually chicken shit that they would say he has to go up to 147. Meet him at 140 and that is probably still a weight class above where he should be...If they fight at the right weight and they don't make him come all the way up to 147 where he just can't handle that weight, then I think he gives Manny all that he wants and it's a toss up type of fight. If he can't fight Mayweather and he's not going to fight Sergio Martinez, why not drop to 140 and fight him again. They had two classic fights. Why not do it again," stated world-class boxing/MMA trainer Ron Frazier as he shared his thoughts on a potential third showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez. You don't want to miss what else he had to say as Frazier breaks down all the big matchup from this past weekend. Check it out!
PC: I want to cover all of the weekend fights with you, but first, I wanted to go back a couple of weeks to the Martinez/Williams fight. You called a Martinez win. What did you think of the fashion in which he won?
RF: Yeah, I knew Martinez would win just based on his performance in the first fight. Martinez was hitting him harder than he was getting hit in that fight. That was a great fight and I thought Paul Williams may have eked out a decision, but my problem with Paul Williams is he just has not evolved as a fighter. He's entertaining, he's got that style and he's long and likes to throw a lot of punches, but sometimes, the game is about hit and not get hit, and he's not moving his head or showing me any elusiveness that he would need. You can't walk through everything, as we saw in that fight. Martinez threw a homerun punch and it landed and ooohhh, Paul Williams crumpled. But now, the test is when you get knocked out like that, it can have lingering affects. If I'm Paul Williams' camp, I don't go after Sergio Martinez right away for a third one and my next fight would not be against someone who hits hard. Let his brain and his psyche recover and then start that track back up. If he goes too quick, then he will get knocked out again and then he would be on a downward slide and be done.
PC: Froch/Abraham really didn't bring any surprises for me. What were your thoughts on that fight?
RF: I think you can see if you give him [Abraham] movement and you're athletic, you can beat him. His power hasn't really followed him. I know he hurt Jermain Taylor, but even in the Andre Dirrell fight, that was more of him starting to catch him late when Dirrell slowed down and was retreating. And then obviously he hit him on the ground to put him out when he was pretty much defenseless. But it's tough when you're a power puncher and you're a one-hitter quitter type of guy and then you have to take your power up 8 pounds. I know 8 pounds doesn't seem like a lot, but you're talking about guys that are fighting at 168 and are walking around at 190 and dropping down. So those are some pretty big boys and it is pretty difficult to keep that power up. And you know, you give him lateral movement and he's not a hard problem to solve. I think he got so used to fighting over in Germany where he gets rounds for being aggressive, but outside of Germany, you can't just give up rounds expecting to land something big. It's difficult to always try to fight from behind.
PC: I think Andre Ward has shown us every way possible to win fights since this Super Six tournament started. Some say it is ugly, but it's definitely affective.
RF: It's hard to look good against Bika. We said that when we talked going into that fight. He is one of those guys who is hard to look good against. I'm one of those guys where it's all about getting a win. He's had his moments where he's looked spectacular, shutting out Alan Green and beating Kessler. You're not going to always look spectacular. Sometimes you just have to win, keep your titles and move on to the next. Bika is one of those rough guys who you are not going to look good against and I think he tried some new things. He fought on the inside, similar to what he did against Alan Green, and it was a situation where he probably didn't have to. He could have fought on the outside a little bit more, but he didn't and he is trying some things. Here is a guy that was
because he was dropped a few times early in his career, people said he had a suspect chin. He has shown everybody that not only does he not have a suspect chin, he has a good chin, he is willing to go in, fight on the inside, fight on the outside and he can fight a grimy fight. He's just kind of adding more tools and that's good for him because no matter what happens inside of that squared circle, he will be able to adjust and adapt. Very few of today's fighters can adjust and adapt. As much as I liked Felix Trinidad, Oscar De La Hoya and Shane Mosley, their biggest problems in their fights was once it started going bad, it stayed bad because they didn't know how to make adjustments. Here is a kid who challenged himself to learn how to make adjustments on the fly and I think later in his career, or whenever he runs into some difficulty in a fight, he will be able to make the proper adjustments. I think these kinds of fights kind of merit that. They might be kind of ugly, but he's winning and he's not being challenged, so it's all good.
PC: He was known for being a soft fighter early in his career, for whatever reason, and
RF: (Cutting in) You know, when you're a boxer, people don't like that. They think you are running. There have been guys that we've seen run in fights, and Ward and Mayweather are not runners. They are slick, they give you angles, they make you miss and they make you pay for missing, but why take a chance when they don't have to? I remember having an argument with one of my fighters because they said, "I don't like Mayweather; he needs to bang more." And I'm like, "Why? Unless the other guy makes him bang more, why do you do that? Why do you have to come out of your shell to do those things?" Unless you are working on some things, like Andre Ward seems to be doing when he's fighting, that's fine, but if you don't have to, then why? Why give a guy a chance to win by doing the only thing you can do that will give him a chance to win a fight? If I'm going to fight a Manny Pacquiao and I move straight forward, then obviously that's going to make it a long, difficult night for me to win that fight, but if I can counter punch and do things like Erik Morales done to him, or Juan Manuel Marquez, then why not do that? Why take unnecessary punishment? You see a lot of old fighters who were straight ahead, come on, I'll take 4 to get my 1 in kind of fighters and you tell me how they are living after the age of 45 or 50.
PC: Celestino Caballero failed to make the impression he was hoping to make at 130. Do you think it was the weight or the fact that he just took Jason Litzau very lightly?
RF: I think it was a combination of both. I think 130 is too big for him. He should definitely go back down to 126, but he cost himself now. He said everybody was avoiding him and now they have good reason to avoid him because he lost. There is no money in fighting him now, and he is still a tough guy, especially at 26, but he cost himself some paydays there and some bragging rights to be able to say, "Hey I've been calling these guys out and looking for them." He looked sluggish and it didn't look like they had a game plan of what to do. I know he is a good fighter and Jeff Mayweather is a good trainer, it's just things weren't clicking and, you know, unfortunately in boxing, it happens that way. In basketball, you play 82 games. If you have a bad night on 20 nights, you still get to win 62 games. In boxing, if you have a bad night, that's a lasting impression. I think Litzau's size gave him some problems. I think when you're used to being the more physical guy, and the taller and rangier guy, it's hard to make that adjustment when that's just not you. He has to kind of work on that part of his game if he's going to fight at 130 because at 126, no one is going to be taller or more physically imposing than him. I'm sure that plays into your psyche. I just had a guy in a MMA fight that fought a guy who was tall and he heard what I was telling him, but he said he just couldn't get comfortable in there because the guy was long. The guy was a lot longer than he expected him to be and when he did get comfortable, it was too late in the fight.
PC: Juan Manuel Marquez made a major claim to be next in line for the Filipino superstar, Manny Pacquiao. Do you think we will get that fight next?
RF: I don't think that comes to the terms that they want. They know with certain people, they are not going to be able to
you gotta come in at like 142 or whatever. It's ridiculous. We know they don't want to fight Juan Manuel Marquez again. Pacquiao weighs in at 144 for his last fight, and you saw on the 24/7 that he's eating everything that he possibly can and still weighed 144. So he can easily make 140 and probably make 135, but they say, "Naw, if Juan Manuel wants to fight us, he has to come all the way up to 147." And Juan Manuel is a little dude. I just stood next to him last week and he is barely a 135-pounder, so he cannot go up to 147 and carry that weight and they know that. I think that it's actually chicken shit that they would say he has to go up to 147. Meet him at 140 and that is probably still a weight class above where he should be. As great as Juan Manuel is
I think he's my second favorite Mexican fighter of all time behind the late Salvador Sanchez. I have him just past Barrera to me. I just loved his fight on Saturday. And you think about it, he did not win a round against Floyd Mayweather. Here is one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world and he looked like an amateur next to Floyd Mayweather.
PC: How do you see a third fight between Marquez and Pacquiao going if it were to happen?
RF: It's a bigger struggle for Manny, just like the other 24 rounds that they fought. Some people think Marquez won both of those fights. If they fight at the right weight and they don't make him come all the way up to 147 where he just can't handle that weight, then I think he gives Manny all that he wants and it's a toss up type of fight. If he can't fight Mayweather and he's not going to fight Sergio Martinez, why not drop to 140 and fight him again. They had two classic fights. Why not do it again? Who said the public don't want to see that fight? What other fights are out there; Yuri Foreman, Cotto again or Shane Mosley, who hasn't looked good since he dominated Margarito who you dominated 2 years later and got more credit for?
PC: Going back to the Katsidis fight, did you think Marquez would get up after that 3rd round knockdown? He was badly hurt.
RF: He's a true warrior. I knew he would get up. I just didn't know if
he was fighting a strong 135-pounder, who is the naturally bigger guy, so I didn't know what would happen there. But you know what? What I love about Marquez is he stays so composed under fire. When he got up, he had that look like, "Okay, I'm ready to go. I know what's coming." By the end of that round, he was starting to control the round, so instead of a 10-8 round, he probably should have lost a 10-9 round because he came back and was controlling the round. At the same time, you just wish all of the best to Michael Katsidis after going through the tragedy of losing his brother, who he was close with. Sometimes, I don't know how these athletes perform under the circumstances, but he dug down deep and it looked like, for a moment, he had this fight won, but he just lost to a better fighter.
PC: Andre Berto picked up a spectacular, but easy win. A lot of people are ready to see him step up a caliber or two. Are you one of those people?
RF: Yeah, absolutely. This past January, the Shane Mosley fight was supposed to come off and the situation in Haiti happened and obviously, with him being a Haitian immigrant and his family and friends was in peril, he just couldn't focus on fighting. And that is totally understandable, but he needs to step up and fight a legitimate opponent and that's probably not going to be an easy thing. I don't know if Cotto could come back and make 147, so he's probably out of the picture, so if you want to step up to the plate, he's going to have to step up and do it big and that means you're going to have to fight Manny Pacquiao right off the bat. And you know what? I think he has a chance. I think Manny, skill-wise and his foot movement, should be able to beat a Berto, but Berto is the bigger, strong, quick-handed guy who hits hard. It would be an interesting fight.
PC: As always, I appreciate your time Ron. I want to wish you the best of luck with your fighters and I hope you had a wonderful holiday. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
RF: Hopefully everybody had a Happy Thanksgiving and Christmas time is coming up, so hopefully people will be in a giving mood. Give back to those who are a little less fortunate than you. I would also like to thank my sponsors, Inflict Sports and Xtreme Couture, and love always for my family, Rebecca and Samara!
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]