by Geoffrey Ciani – Last week’s edition of On the Ropes featured three exclusive interviews. Paul Malignaggi sounded off with suspicions that Manny Pacquiao is using illegal substances to enhance his performance and Micky Ward discussed his famous trilogy with Artuo Gatti, but before that, highlighting this episode was a very interesting interview with the man widely regarded as the best junior welterweight in boxing, Timothy Bradley. Here are some excerpts from that interview:
On his recent victory over the previously undefeated Lamont Peterson:
“Tough battle. Real tough battle as you guys could see, but I did what I had to do and won that match and am just looking forward to 2010.”
On rating his own performance in that fight:
“I’m my worst critic. I reviewed the tape and I made a lot of mistakes in there. I did a lot of good things, but I made a lot of mistakes. It was an all around good performance. I showed a little bit defensively, I showed a lot with my movement and my boxing ability, and plus I showed that I’m still the champ and that I can fight no matter if it’s brawling or it’s boxing. I can pretty much do it all in the ring..”
On who he would like to face in 2010:
“All of the best. Definitely first off, I want to take out all the champions. I can start off with Amir Khan. I would fly over to England and face him in his backyard. I want to fight against Juan Urango, he’s the IBF world champion. There’s Devon Alexander, as well. I would love to get it on with him, too. There’s a lot of future opponents: (Juan Manuel) Marquez, Ricky Hatton, (Paul) Malignaggi, also. I just want to fight the best.”
Regarding why he believes he has been able to improve in recent performances:
“Just hard work and dedication—hard work and dedication and just studying myself. Like I told you, I’m my worst critic. When I watch film, I don’t watch my other opponent, I watch myself. I see where I’m making mistakes and see how I can get better because there’s always room for improvement.”
On being stripped of the WBC title:
“The WBC title, I mean, that was my first title I ever won. I was promised a lot of things and it didn’t happen, and I felt pretty bad relinquishing that title. I ended up in the same boat that I was facing Lamont Peterson. He was the number one contender just like Devon Alexander. I didn’t really want to fight Lamont, but I didn’t want to lose my title. I didn’t want to be stripped because I’m looking for the bigger fights.”
On whether he had any doubt as to whether he would have beaten Nate Campbell had their fight not been stopped due to a clash of heads:
“No doubt. I started off really well, just like I did in this fight. I feel that in that fight you would have seen a lot of my ability as well.”
Regarding whether or not he believes Nate Campbell could have continued fighting in their match:
“If you’re a competitor, you just know right off hand when somebody is taking the easy way out. I just know, I’ve been a competitor all my life. I felt deep in my heart that he quit that night. He might have been hurt, but he can see right now. I just felt that he quit and after the verdict (that reversed the fight to a no contest) I called him a quitter. I was like ‘Congratulations quitter. You quit.’
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Next up we had a nice chat with Micky Ward who is best known for his sensational trilogy with the late Arturo Gatti. Here are some excerpts from that interview:
On how he first got involved with boxing:
“I started when my brother took me down when I was like seven. He was fighting before me, and he had a good career. I thought I’d just do it as a hobby. I liked wrestling, baseball, and football better than boxing when I was younger, but it just grew on me.”
Regarding his first retirement:
“Instead of losing a fight and coming back with three wins like normal guys, like guys that you have a 60-40 advantage over, I was fighting guys that I was the underdog all the time. I was just getting thrown in there I believe with the toughest opposition. So I lost three in a row, and I said the hell with it. I wasn’t going to be used as a stepping stone just to pad other guys’ records and stuff like that, so I left.”
On how it felt being involved in Ring Magazine’s boxing “Fight of the Year” over three consecutive years from 2001-2003:
“That’s a great honor being in the Fight of the Year three years in a row. I’m in good company.”
On his ability to absorb punishment:
“It’s funny. People ask me that all the time, ‘How did you do that?’ I still to this day say I don’t know. I guess I have just the opinion just to fight and not give up and with every breath I have to just keep trying. That’s just the way I am. I really don’t know where it comes from or where I go. Why I got it, I don’t even know, but I’m glad I had it.”
On his epic first fight with Arturo Gatti:
“When you’re in there, you don’t really realize what you’re involved in when you’re doing it. You know it’s something special. You know it was a great fight but until you stop and go back and look at the fight, right now I look back and I say, ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ or ‘Why didn’t I just move my head?’ It’s almost surreal.”
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Finally, we had the chance to have a good discussion with returning guest, Paul Malignaggi. Here is what he had to say:
On his victory in his rematch with Juan Diaz:
“I felt good. I think I felt even better during camp. I felt good during the fight but I just started to maybe lose focus maybe playing around a little too much, not that I regret playing around, because I enjoy playing around in there when I’m fighting, but a couple of times it made me not execute on some of the opportunities I might have had.”
Regarding why he enjoys clowning around inside the ring:
“I almost became, I’m not going to say “bored” because I think a lot of fighters use that excuse, ‘I got bored in there’. I was not really ‘bored’ but I wanted to make it more interesting. A lot of my fights, when I start dominating and winning on points, it becomes monotonous and what I mean by monotonous is you start seeing the same thing every round with me just dominating and out boxing guys. It almost becomes monotonous to me sometimes, so I think the clowning around it keeps the crowd involved and keeps everyone wondering.”
Regarding the Klitschko brothers:
“We were talking about Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko. To me, Wladimir Klitschko is better than Vitali Klitschko but the overall opinion is that Vitali is better than Wladimir. Now why is that? Because Wladimir took a couple of bad losses in his career and Vitali showed a little bit of toughness.”
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If you missed last week’s special edition of On the Ropes, be sure to tune in and listen now!
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