Floyd Mayweather Sr: “Shane hit my son and hurt my son, because my son ain’t doing all the stuff everybody else is doing”

by Geoffrey Ciani – Last week’s 105th edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio featured an exclusive interview with boxing trainer Floyd Mayweather Senior, whose son Floyd Mayweather Junior is widely viewed as one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world today. Mayweather touched on a variety of topics, including Amir Khan’s recent victory against Marcos Maidana, the May 7 fight between Manny Pacquiao and Shane Mosley, the controversial draw with Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal, his son’s future, and more! Here are some excerpts from that intrerview:

His views on Amir Khan’s performance against Marcos Maidana:

“You seen what happened. Like I told you before, Amir Khan and they even said it on TV then, he’s not known for taking no big shot. Well he got hit by one of the hardest punching guys in the division. He got hit a whole bunch of times. As a matter of fact he got beat, but I told you that you just watch and see and Amir Khan is going to win the fight, which he did. Amir Khan won on the strength of, like I said—one reason is for some reasons they want Freddie Roach to be something great, which he’s not. He just ain’t got it, period. These guy that he has are not winning on talent. There ain’t no talent there. Pacquiao can’t move his damn head and neither can Amir Khan, and probably nobody else in the gym can move their damn head. They take punches. The thing is it’s about running guys down and punching them, and punching them, and keep punching them. All of a sudden, even as small as Pacquiao is even though he’s starting to become a gigantic type of guy by his legs and body and all that stuff but like I said, people will be punching them and ain’t nobody hurting them, but every time they’re hitting somebody else they’re hurting the other people. When have you ever seen a man that small dominate this many big men, some of them that ain’t even been defeated—he dominates them, and knocks them out, and makes them quit, and makes them stop, and the referee’s got to stop it, and all kinds of things. I never seen no shit like that before.”

On whether he could ever have imagined Amir Khan standing up to the type of shots that Marcos Madiana landed on him:

“It didn’t surprise me about Amir Khan standing up because I told you. I told you that Amir Khan was going to dominate which Amir Khan was dominating, but I don’t think he won the fight. I’m just telling you the reason he’s dominating is because if you notice for some reason he’s taking big old shots from this guy. He’s getting hit a whole bunch by this guy and he’s not shook up or wobbling or nothing. I’m just saying, and then he hit the guy to put the guy down. I believe that it’s hard for me to just look at that. Letting things happen it just ain’t right. Amir Khan got hit with a hell of a lot of punches and he even got beat the other guy. They say he had a glass jaw. The other guy hit him and put him down and everybody else hit him and they wobbled him, and all of a sudden now he gets hit by one of the hardest guys for the weight class and the guy ain’t never even really shook him. The guy might have stunned him a couple of times. The guy never shook him where he was really like hitting off the ropes. You didn’t see that. Then you see Amir Khan take a whole lot of punches. The reason I thought he lost was because I felt like the guy won quite a few rounds with him being on the ropes and just covering up, and the guy was nailing him and nailing him and then when he did get a chance to get loose, then he took off running. Then every now and again he would recuperate real fast. Amir Khan will recuperate when a guy just hit him with all them good hard shots. He’ll come out of his shell and attack the other guy and he’ll stop throwing punches and he’ll start running again. Let me tell you, there’s more here than meets the eye.”

On whether he would be in favor of a fight between his son and Amir Khan:

“Look at here, let me tell you something. I’m not in favor of nobody fighting my son that isn’t doing the right thing. That’s the only thing I can tell you. Everybody that’s not doing the right thing, whether they can fight or not, I wouldn’t want to see it, even though I know that neither one of them can whip my son. I know that for a fact. Even with the little short midget, Pacquiao—I wouldn’t even want to see him fighting him, or not even the other guy, the glass jaw Ami Khan. It’s not that he can’t beat them, but it ain’t worth it. For what?”

His views on the May 7 clash between Manny Pacquiao and Sugar Shane Mosley:

“That fight is interesting to see but I will say this right here. Whatever it was that they caught in Margarito’s hands in the gloves, that was the thing that gave Shane the chance to beat Margarito’s ass, because they caught Margarito with the stuff in his gloves. So that gave Shane an advantage to do what he needed to do. It was not Margarito being bad, or not even him being bad at this point. I’m not even saying he was bad at that point. I’m pretty sure they were both on the same level. Shane beat up Margarito. He beat the hell out of him and stopped him, and then you see how my son beat Shane. Shane hit my son and hurt my son, because my son ain’t doing all the stuff everybody else is doing. So he hit my son and hurt my son. That’s what boxing is all about. When my son got hit, he got hurt. There ain’t nothing wrong with that because that’s the way boxing goes. After that one time he shook my son, all the rest of the punches came to Shane and that was the fight. Floyd was too slick, too clever, too smooth, and too smart.”

On whether he believes Pacquiao can stand up to the type of punch Shane landed on Floyud Junior:

“Oh yes! Of course! Yeah! I really, really do. I don’t think Shane is gonna move him at all. You see everybody else can punch. What the fuck happened? Nothing. Everybody else hit him. Ain’t nothing happened. I don’t think Shane’s going to do nothing if Shane hits him. All Shane is going to do is make him pull his trunks up and he’s going to chase Shane, and make him run, and chase him down and jump on him.”

His views on the recent draw between Bernard Hopkins and Jean Pascal:

“I thought that Pascal was doing good earlier but I think Hopkins won the fight, man. I think Hopkins clearly won the fight. Anybody can see that. Hopkins was hitting him with a lot of body shots and that slowed him down and then Hopkins had the chance to get some good shots on him. Like Hopkins said, they called it a draw in the man’s home.”

On whether he believes Hopkins would have been awarded the decision if the fight with Pascal was in the United States:

“Hopkins would have got the decision. There ain’t no question about it. Pascal, when he dropped Hopkins the first time, anybody can look back on it. He hit Hopkins behind the head and that’s a foul shot. He hit Hopkins behind the head and the referee was counting him out on a foul shot, and he shouldn’t have been counting him out. He should have been giving him a rest period because the shot was illegal. So that particularly knockdown was not legit. The second knockdown? That could have been legit there. I kind of glanced at it. I didn’t quite see it but I knew he hit Hopkins because he went down, but after that knockdown everything was Hopkins all the way through pretty much. Maybe the last round, but Hopkins won pretty much all the rounds—clear. Pascal knows he lost. To be honest you can hear it in the way he’s talking. Sometimes it don’t take a scientist to figure out things like that. Pascal knows he got beat.”

His views on the credit Freddie Roach receives for improving Amir Khan as a fighter since the two teamed up:

“They are giving Freddie the joke coach Roach props he don’t deserve. That man could have done that by himself. Anybody could have did what he did. Amir Khan is just like Pascal. It’s the same thing. He lost the fight. Let’s be real. I don’t know what they’re giving him credit for. If you want to give him credit for him losing the fight, you can give him credit for that then because that’s what Amir Khan did. It’s so plain a blind man can see it. The only thing with Amir Khan is now, I don’t know what’s happening with Amir Khan but I know there’s stuff that ain’t right. Amir Khan all of a sudden now can take punches. He couldn’t take punches before. He can take punches and this guy was supposed to be one of the hardest punchers in the boxing game today and this guy was hitting him with shots and Amir Khan was never wobbled big or anything like that. But when Amir Khan hit him to the body or anything like that. He was hitting Amir Khan to the body and the head with good shots. Amir Khan never wobbled real bad. He wobbled a little bit but he didn’t show that he was really, really hurt. I don’t know about the other guy who knocked Amir Khan out, but I do know one thing—the joke coach Roach, I don’t see where he done nothing. Let’s be honest. That’s what we ain’t seeing today and they’re giving him all the props. Where is the feint? If you asked him about the word ‘feint’, he wouldn’t know what the word “feint” is. If you asked him the word “pull counter”, he wouldn’t know what the word is. If you asked him about the hook off the jab, he wouldn’t know what it is. If you asked him about the stiff arm, he wouldn’t know what it is. I’m just telling you there is so many things that the man don’t know and these are things that I know he don’t know. If you ask him about those things, those particular questions, he cannot show you.”

On whether he believes we will ever see his son back inside the ring given his recent legal troubles:

“I’m pretty sure you’ll see him fighting in the ring again. I’m more than sure about that. I’m pretty sure all of that stuff is going to blow over because they were talking about a thing the other day. Even though it’s my son or whoever, I’m never upholding my son for anything he’s done wrong, because wrong is wrong, and right is right, and right will prevail in the end. So I’m not ever doing that. Whatever my son did, I can’t actually tell you what he did, but whatever it was evidently it wasn’t right to the people, and it wasn’t right to the law men, so what can I say? You got to deal with it. He made the problem. He’s a grown man now. He makes the problem and he’s got to deal with it.”

On whether he feels his son will suffer from ring rust if he is out of action until around September 2011:

“I don’t know what my son is going to be dealing with. Whatever it is, I’m quite sure that when he fights he’s going to do the right thing in terms of making sure he fights somebody before he fights somebody with some real ability.”

His views on a tune-up fight between his son and Paul Spadafora:

“Spadafora can get that fight. He would love to do that with Spadafora. As a matter of fact, Spadafora is trying to get the money right now. That’s what he needs. If he needs the money, he can get it. If he needs a whopping, he can get it and a whopping he’s going to get because if he takes the fight that’s what’s going to happen. See that’s what I’m trying to tell you when I say I’m not trying to defend my son. Let me tell you this right now. Spadafora and my son they sparred quite a few years ago. It was quite a few years ago. I was training my son then and Spadafora was in the gym. I was getting ready to go someplace, but Spadafora and my son boxed. My son, and this is the honest truth no lie, my son was out of the gym in about six months. I mean he was coming to the gym, but not coming in the gym to box or anything. So my son was always like I was and my brother Roger was. We would box anybody. So Spadafora came in that day and asked to box little Floyd. So Floyd had no problem with that. Little Floyd stepped in and fought Spadafora for about four rounds. Little Floyd beat the hell out of Spadafora for three rounds and Floyd got tired because he hadn’t been to the gym. Spadafora hit him with some pretty good shots, but little Floyd already beat Spadafora for a solid three rounds. But that fight, we would be more than glad to take it. We will oblige him for that fight and I’m going to tell you this right here, there’s no question, no doubt about it. Spadafora gets stopped!

On whether he believes a fight between his son and Manny Pacquiao will happen in 2011:

“Like I told you about Pacquiao, something ain’t right. I will encourage my son not to fight anybody like that, not just Pacquiao, anybody. That’s what I was trying to tell you before. Freddie Roach? They’re boosting him up! For what? Fight somebody on the legal ground that you own.If they start taking stuff like they’re supposed to. That’s what they need to start taking anyway.”

On what he has in store for 2011:

“I’m working on getting my book out. I’m working on maybe a clothes line. I have quite a few things going there. I have the reality thing with Jack Mosley versus Floyd Mayweather Senior with three fighters and three alternates for that tournament. I have a lot of things going on right now. My main thing is to get my book of the ground and do that first.”

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For those interested in listening to the Floyd Mayweather Senior interview in its entirety, it begins approximately fifty-seven minutes into the program.

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