22.05.07 – By John Martinez, BoxingRealm.com: This afternoon I caught up with Roger Mayweather, uncle and trainer to pound for pound king, WBC junior middleweight champion “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather Jr. Roger was very straight forward in his answers and equally explicit in expressing some of his thoughts to me, especially when he spoke about other trainers. Here is a direct transcript of our conversation unfiltered:
JM: Roger, thanks for taking time out to talk with me this afternoon.
RM: No problem man.
JM: I’d like to get right to it now. Jack Mosley stated that he and his son would pursue Floyd Jr. as Floyd’s next fight. Any truth to this?
RM: As far as I know, my nephew is planning on fighting in November, but I don’t know with who. There ain’t been no money talked about as far as I know right now between Shane and Floyd, but I know that he’s planning on getting in there again in November..
JM: Do you think Oscar would have faired better by having someone like Jack training and preparing him for his fight with Floyd Jr?
RM: (Cutting in) He would’ve got his ass whooped. That’s it. Shit, Oscar would’ve had a better chance if he had had my brother in the corner. But guess what? He still would’ve got his ass whooped. It doesn’t matter who Oscar gets, he still gonna get his ass whooped. It would’ve made no difference at all if he had had Shane’s daddy in his corner.
JM: Speaking hypothetically here, handicap a fight between Shane and Floyd?
RM: First of all, speed don’t win fights, skill does. He’s (Floyd) the most skilled fighter out there. He’s the most skilled fighter out there period. See, Floyd knows how to beat Oscar and he’ll know how to beat Shane too. Let me put it this way, Oscar fought Mosley twice right?
He lost both times. I think Oscar won the second one, but they gave it to Shane see? So if Oscar struggled against Shane both times, and you and me believe that Oscar beat Shane the second time around and then went and lost to my nephew, how’s Shane gonna beat my nephew?
Now listen, the fight with Oscar wasn’t even close. I came up with the game plan and I told Floyd not to stay on the ropes because I didn’t want him to give people a reason to believe that Oscar was doing something. This shit wasn’t even close. Oscar wasn’t hitting shit. He was hitting shit all night. So what’s Shane gonna do, huh?
JM: Looking back as a trainer, do you have any thoughts about Freddie Roach leaving some/all of his fighters in order to train Oscar when some of his guys were training for some of the biggest fights of their careers? For example, Israel Vazquez going against Rafael Marquez this past spring. Do you think that Vazquez losing to Marquez was a direct effect of Roach’s departure from Vasquez’s camp in favor of Oscar’s?
RM: Ah man forget that bullshit. Freddie Roach can’t train no fucking way so it don’t make no fucking difference anyway. Freddie ain’t nothing but a punch drunk fighter himself. I know because I used to spar with him before. Let me tell you something, Freddie Roach can’t train no fucking way.
But let me tell you something, Freddie Roach got a lot of fucking money for fucking with DeLaHoya. If it were me, I’d train Oscar too, but I’d train my other fighters at the same time. I ain’t gonna abandon my fighters. Freddie was getting paid a lot of money to train Oscar so I understand that, but I wouldn’t abandon my fighters. I’d just take my fighters to camp with me and train them at different times during the day so that I could give all my attention to each of them while they trained. See I love training. It’s what I do. I got some fighters that make no money and are unknown. Guess what? Still train them. Why? Because I want to take a fighter and build them into something from nothing. Training is what I do and I love it.
JM: I’d like to ask you what you think makes a great trainer and what are your thoughts on some of the past trainers who many see as great trainers such as Angelo Dundee?
RM: Angelo Dundee? What the fuck did he do? Who in the fuck is gonna tell their fighter to go out there and lay on the ropes to get their ass whooped in hopes that their fighter will come back and win? I’m not a bullshitter. I tell it like it is. I’m just being honest here. Listen, why did Leonard still have his trainer from when he was a kid in the corner with him if Dundee was so fucking great? He never told Ali shit. All he ever did was say “ your blowing it kid” what the fuck did he do? Angelo Dundee can’t be a great trainer no way.
You know what a trainer is supposed to do? He’s supposed to make the fight easy on his guy. A great trainer should be able to take a fighter from nothing and build him into something. Not take a fighter who already has experience and been trained by someone else the whole time and then you come in later and say that you got him the championship because he won under you.
Look at Eddie Futch. People don’t understand this. People say, “ Oh Eddie Futch, he’s great” and I say, “ Yeah, look at him. The motherfucker had 24 motherfuckers that were already made so wakeup motherfucker.” He didn’t make no fucking champions.
Look at Alexis Arguello; he already had 60 something fights before Eddie Futch came to him. So he didn’t make Arguello either. People say “ oh well, Angelo Dundee made Frazier beat Ali.” No he didn’t, that was just Frazier just out fighting Ali. Joe was getting his ass kicked the whole fight; he just landed a punch at the right time. If Dundee was so fucking great, then why couldn’t he make Frazier beat Ali the other two times? I mean let’s get real here. See people don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk about great trainers.
Take my nephew for instance. I tell people they got it twisted. I’m not the only one that trained my nephew. It was me and my brother. But you know what the difference is between me and his father is? I put my nephew on PPV. You have to know your fighter and have a fighter that wants to win it.
JM: What are your thoughts on a possible rematch between Oscar and Floyd?
RM: Listen, he (Oscar) ain’t crying and opening his fucking mouth like he did when he thought he beat Trinidad is he? I mean he says he wants a rematch but he also said that he has to look at the tape again, listen, you don’t need to look at no fucking tape to know that you got your ass whooped. You don’t need no fucking tape to tell you that you got your ass whooped do you? So if he wants to get his ass handed to him again, then let’s do the rematch.
Why do you think Oscar hired my brother? He wanted to fight like my nephew that’s why. But Oscar can never beat my nephew because he ain’t got the gift that Floyd has. Oscar can’t do shit if you take his left hand away from him. You can take his left hand and shove it up his ass and he can’t do shit anyhow. He’s done if you take his left away from him. That’s it. People say “oh, Oscar’s one of the greats.” No he ain’t.
Look at that fight again. All DeLaHoya was doing was throwing arm punches. He wasn’t doing shit. Who got staggered in the fight, my nephew or Oscar? Oscar. Who was landing the cleaner shots? My nephew. He (Oscar) knows he got his ass kicked. Ain’t no reason to do a rematch but for the money. That’s it.
JM: Hey Rog, we’ll leave it at that for now and talk again soon.
RM: No problem man. Just hit me up whenever you want and I’ll be here.
JM: Thank you.
RM: Anytime.