by Geoffrey Ciani (Exclusive Interview by Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) – The most recent edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio featured an exclusive interview with Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward, who discussed a wide variety of topics including Yuriokis Gamboa, the upcoming fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Jean Marc Mormeck, Alexander Povetkin’s heavyweight title defense against cruiserweight champion Marco Huck, his experience winning the 1963 National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions, Floyd Mayweather Junior’s amateur boxing career, Lennox Lewis, Deontay Wilder, Seth Mitchell, David Price, Tyson Fury, the upcoming heavyweight matchup between Vitali Klitschko and Dereck Chisora, his desire to see Andy Lee get a shot at the middleweight title in 2012, and much more! Here is a transcript from that interview:
JENNA J: Well speaking of great trainers it’s time for our final guest of this week’s show. He’s one making an unprecedented 21st appearance to On the Ropes Boxing Radio. We’re once again joined by Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward. How’s the day treating you Emanuel?
EMANUEL STEWARD: Oh everything is going fine so far. I’m getting ready to head out and start working with Gamboa. I’m heading to Florida.
JENNA: Okay speaking of Gamboa, it’s been a little bit vague about who his next opponent is going to be. What have you heard?
STEWARD: The last I heard, well way back it was Rocky Juarez. The last I heard was maybe they were trying to make a fight directly with Rios, which would be a big fight for boxing. I as a fan and a spectator would be very excited about the fight. You know Rios is a bigger stronger guy, and he’s not just bigger but he’s a physical type fighter where he takes advantage of his size. He’s very tough. Some guys can have a physical advantage but they are guys who move around and box a lot and they don’t take advantage of it. He’s a good fighter and a very physical tough rough kid, mentally and physically. If they do fight it should be an exciting fight. It would be Gamboa’s great amateur background, and speed, and skills. He’s an extremely strong and determined physical guy like Rios. So it should be an interesting fight.
JENNA: Now Rios is a 135 pound champion. Do you think that kind of step up in weight for Gamboa is really a good one?
STEWARD: Well it’s a tough fight. I myself would have personally preferred if Gamboa fought a 130 pounder first to say test the water temperature, which will tell us before you put the rest of your body in the tub. You know. But his promoter Ahmet Öner feels very comfortable that his talent would be able to overcome the difference in size. In fact Rios is not a lightweight champion now. He gave up the lightweight title because he didn’t make the lightweight. So he’s very more a junior welterweight, and it’s more like Gamboa’s going from featherweight to junior welterweight.
JENNA: Okay Emanuel let’s turn things to the heavyweight boxing scene, and whenever we speak about heavyweights we have to mention your fighter Wladimir Klitschko. He has a fight coming up on March 3. It’s a fight with Jean Marc Mormeck. It’s the second time for a training camp. What are your thoughts on that fight?
STEWARD: Well with Wladimir it’s a different type of a fighter that he’s fighting, but I don’t see him beating Wladimir. The biggest thing we have, and I was just telling Wladimir, we have to be prepared for a guy who is fighting just the opposite of what we had in the last fight with David Haye. David was more of the cat and mouse type fighter that we expected. For this fight Mormeck is being trained by Kevin Rooney, and Kevin Rooney is naturally from the old Mike Tyson school. He knows only one way to bob-and-weave, bob-and-weave, put pressure, pressure, and come out with combinations. So he’ll try and be more aggressive than most of the fighters we fought. It will be a little different style with a guy that’s coming in with his head trying to bob-and-weave and punch for the first few rounds. Then I think Wladimir will systematically break Mormeck down still, and hopefully in about four or five rounds he’ll have taken control of the fight and will let his missiles go and not hold on to them like he has a tendency to do so many times in fights.
JENNA: Okay Emanuel well sticking with heavyweights, Alexander Povetkin will be having a fight and it will be an interesting one. He’ll be taking on WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck, and a lot of people aren’t giving Marco that much of a chance. I’m wondering if you give him a shot at all?
STEWARD: I do. I think Marco Huck, first of all Povetkin is a true super heavyweight but not compared to some of the physically big, big guys. I think Huck is a good fighter. I’ve met him a few times and watched him fight. He’s a good boxer and a puncher, but he brings in a very strong mindset. And you know me I go more by the mental makeup of a boxer or the person than I do even the skill level. That’s something that I don’t think Povetkin has had to deal with so much in the past. I know in the fight with Chambers I didn’t understand what was being said in between rounds but I know that Wladimir pointed out to me, because he understands Russian, that at one point in the Chambers fight he was wanting to quit, even in that fight. So being that he may not be that strong mentally, Huck being a confident guy and residing in Germany also means that he will be sharing a lot of that same crowd support that in the past Povetkin didn’t have to share with his opponents for the most part. I think that it’s going to be a very good fight and much more competitive than anyone expects.
JENNA: Interestingly enough Marco Huck has actually expressed interest to face Wladimir if he can win this fight. He says that’s a fight he wants and he believes that if he can beat Povetkin then Wladimir would take him seriously. If that does happen, would you want that fight for Wlad?
STEWARD: Well I think any good fight that would be marketable for the heavyweight division right now is what the public is looking for. Wladimir says it seems that Vitali is moving into the final stages now, and probably going to pursue his political career. He’s preparing to run for the Mayor again of Kiev. So yes and it’s interesting, Povetkin fought on the undercard when Wladimir knocked out Chris Byrd. I remember we were walking through the parking lot and I was walking alongside Povetkin and his manager. His manager said if you weren’t with Wladimir, Alexander would love for you to train him. I didn’t know who he was at the time. We were just walking and he had fought earlier. His manager explained to me that he idolizes Wladimir Klitschko. He said he has pictures of him all over everywhere. I said you’re kidding! That’s why when the fight never took place I was not that surprised, because it’s very hard to go in and fight your hero.
Then it’s the same thing with Marco Huck. I was with him when he was here in Detroit when Abraham fought Dirrell, and we had dinner together all of us. Marco was saying the same thing. That if I wasn’t with Wladimir he’d like me to train him because Wladimir was his hero. So it’s a battle between two of Wladimir’s fans, and a fight with one of them. I don’t think regardless that Povetkin will ever fight him, but maybe he will. I think that the decision of Teddy Atlas was a good decision. I respect it because when he got involved he realized that Povetkin not only on the skill level, but mentally was not prepared to fight a guy like Wladimir. I respect his judgment. He said hey we’re just going to leave that alone, and we just have to bide our time, and wait for the right opportunity to make a move. He recognized it was not the time because he was not prepared mentally, or physically, or skill wise. He’s got a title right now and he’s getting a little attention, even though most people don’t give much credibility to the situation. But still he’s got a belt and he’s avoided fighting the Klitschko’s. This is going to be a tough fight for Povetkin. I think it’s going to be the toughest fight he’s had in his entire career, and he could easily lose this fight, too.
JENNA: Okay Emanuel. We’re also on the line with my Co-Host Geoff.
GEOFFREY CIANI: Hey Emanuel. It’s a great pleasure to have you back on the show.
STEWARD: My pleasure being on the show as always.
CIANI: Emanuel I wanted to ask you something different than I typically would. I think it was on a recent HBO broadcast where Jim Lampley had made a reference to your amateur boxing career where you had previously won the National Golden Gloves. And that’s something that I think a lot of fans don’t know too much about. I’m wondering if you can share a little bit about your experiences as an amateur boxer and winning that tournament?
STEWARD: Well the biggest achievement I’ve had in my life, even though I’ve had a very successful life in every aspect of boxing as a trainer, manager, broadcaster, I’ve been very successful. But the highest most important thing that every happened in my life in boxing, or in anything, was winning the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions in 1963. What was so special about it at that time, you only had eight weight divisions and you fought like professionals so to say. There was no headgear and all of that. I mean it was just like really semi-professional fights. Also the fact that you had boxers who were not turning professional then because there wasn’t much money in professional, particularly for the smaller weight divisions, you know maybe a few heavyweights but as a rule guys just came from one tournament to another tournament. So you had in this tournament guys with 200, 300, 400 fights, and everybody was punching then. The way the system is now everybody just throws to get the points. They don’t get hurt, they have headgear, and they have wider gloves. So to win that tournament was a major, major thing and it was almost like getting close to winning the Olympics to some degree, because there were only two major tournaments that happened through the entire year. It was called the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions and the National AAU.
But the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions you had the toughest roughest kids and the best fighters from all of the cities in the United States to meet in Chicago, which was like a tradition. A guy named Cassius Clay had won it just three years before I got there. It was a pace where you fought for two weeks. You fought for one full week with three rings going, and you fought twice a night. That’s something that doesn’t happen anymore. Whether you got cut or hurt, you still would fight twice some nights. Then the last four guys that made it to the Finals, they ask you to come home so they can make a program book up, and when you came back they had the four guys in each weight division. Whoever won it had to fight twice that same night again. So the stadium was sold out and everyone in America would be fans and waiting to see who was going to be the number one Golden Glove boxer in America, and it was a major, major thing.
That particular night when I won it I had a very tough fight. My first fight, which was about at 8:00 I remember, and I was back in the ring at about 10:30 for the championship fight fighting a guy named Frank Glover. He had won his fight earlier that night by quick knockout, which is what he had done for the most part of the two weeks. So to win that tournament, and win it against a guy particularly in this case who was favored to win and beat me. I was 18 years old. I think he was 22 years old at the time. It was a major thing. Also one of the guys on the team with me who won the middleweight championship was a guy named Bill Douglas. Bill was fighting at 160 and he was in the Army, but he was with Columbus, Ohio. His teammate was the guy that I beat, Frank Glover. They were both scoring a lot of knockouts in the tournament.
When I came home they had parades and a big reception at the Mayor’s Office, because I was the first National Golden Gloves Champion I think in about 15 or 20 years. Also my victory won the team title for Detroit, which they hadn’t won in 24 years. So that was a major, major thing. Today the kids have a tournament every month, there are so many different ones, Silver Gloves, Diamond Gloves, and so, and so, and so. Everybody is now trying to score points on the computer system. If you even watch an amateur boxing match, and that’s why you don’t get to see too many of them, you look more in the left lower corner to see who got the computer points. So it’s not even like boxing anymore. It’s like a computer game. But back then it was a very serious thing, there were lots of knockouts, and there were a lot of seasoned guys, particularly the military guys who were just professional fighters so to say almost like the Cubans were. But it was a major thing to win the National Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions at that time.
CIANI: Now did you ever think during your amateur career, did you ever imagine yourself not even becoming as successful as you have, but did you ever imagine a scenario where you would be out there training boxers?
STEWARD: Yeah I was training fighters then. I won the National Gloves Tournament of Champions—and I always use those words “Tournament of Champions”. Not winning the Golden Gloves because everybody got the Golden Gloves all over in the different cities, but it was the National Tournament of Champions that was the difference. I was training boxers since 1961. In fact I was 16 years old, and I would go to the gym and I would train the boxers from like 5:00 until like 7:00, and then at 7:00 I would do my training. In fact the year that I won the Nationals I had to hurry up and rush home, because that same weekend we had the little city junior championships, and I had my little team, and we won the team championship. As a coach I had five winners out of five fighters I entered into the tournament. So I was training boxers in 1961, even a lot of guys that were much older than me. But I was training fighters then.
I never thought I would be to this level. I never even expected to even train anybody professionally. I was doing it just as a part of what I was doing. Then in like 1964 or 1965 I virtually just got out of boxing altogether. I just dropped it and I was working very successfully in Detroit Edison as an electrician. Just through my half brother moving in with me and wanting to box, I started training him a little bit and the next thing I knew I was back in boxing. That was in 1969. So for about five years I was totally out of boxing, which people don’t realize, and I didn’t miss it believe it or not. I didn’t even go to fights. I was just in a whole different world. I was smoking my pipe, just a regular construction worker, coming in and working in my garden and around the house. I was very, very happy living that life believe it or not, and never in a million years did I expect to get back in boxing, which started in 1969. I started training some little kids mainly because of my brother. The next thing I’m all over the world here when I was very happy with my career at Detroit Edison.
CIANI: Going back to your amateur career again, what would you say is the most important thing you learned as a boxer that helped make you the trainer that you are today?
STEWARD: Winning and losing is mental. That’s all it is. It’s the determination, and it’s not so much the skill level. From Detroit there have been so many boxers going to this tournament as a kid, and my heroes I would read about in the paper. They would get to the first day of the National Tournament and they would all lose like the first day or two. Nobody had ever had won. I realized that they were at the banquets when we would get home and they would be praising them and saying how great they did. They won one fight, and those guys were very happy with that. I went over there with a different attitude. I went over believing I was going to win everything, and nobody was going to beat me even though I didn’t know how, particularly going into the Final match because the guy was better than me. But I was just determined some kind of way I was going to win.
So winning and losing is all about the mental makeup. It’s all on the inside, and that’s what I learned. I thought about it as I was coming home, the difference between me doing what nobody else had done from Detroit was I went there with a different attitude. And I was not satisfied with winning that silver glove with a ruby in it. Everybody was just mostly happy if they could get that, but I wanted the Golden Glove with the diamond, which was for number one. I never saw that from anyone in Detroit, but I went there with that mindset, so winning and losing you determine that yourself by the way that you think. That’s what I’ve found with everything in life. When I deal with fighters today, those are the main characteristics I look at. How do they think? I try to get inside, and then you look whether it’s t a Cotto, a Pacquiao, or even this kid Gamboa, Klitschko, or all these guys I worked with, Tommy Hearns, Holyfield—there is a certain way that they think, and it’s not so much the skill level. They all have a certain amount of ego, and they want to be number one, and they’re willing to find a way to win even when they don’t know how. That’s what I’ve learned. It’s all about the mental makeup.
CIANI: Now in terms of style Emanuel, one of the things you’ve always stressed when talking to us on this show is good balance, working behind a good jab, and keeping yourself in a position where you’re able to protect yourself and still throw punches. Who taught you these fundamentals that you always stress as being the most important thing from your point of view as a trainer? How did this collection ideas become ingrained into you?
STEWARD: Well for the most part to be honest with you, I always trained myself. It’s not an ego thing. People say who was your hero, and this, and who was a great trainer that you tried to emulate, or taught you. I was pretty much always a self-trained guy. I started boxing when I was 8 years old. I used to box southpaw for about my first 13 fights. But I was once at the gym and my trainer was Bill O’Brien, who was a guy who was there even when I won the Nationals. Bill really knew he couldn’t really train, because he didn’t know as much boxing as I knew. But the one thing he put so much emphasis on was always keeping good balance, stepping with the left at the same distance you step to the right. That was the only thing that he could really work with you on. He would always correct me when I would be boxing, you know, you’re crossing your legs or this. That’s the only thing, but that was a key! That was a key factor. That’s today the one thing that whenever I even train any boxer I start off with the footwork, the ability to get in and get out quickly, and the ability to maximize your punching power. You have to have good balance.
CIANI: Now two of the heavyweight guys, Lennox Lewis and Wladimir Klitschko obviously, whose balance you greatly helped improve after working with them—who in your estimation when you look at those two fighters would you say had the better natural balance before you worked with them?
STEWARD: Oh, I can definitely tell you! Wladimir Klitschko, because Wladimir came from the great fundamental basic background training school in the Soviet Union, and that is something that when I first trained him I still made him work for one, maybe two weeks. We just moved in and out, and he actually was laughing at me one day and I said what’s so funny. He said, “Emanuel, when I first started boxing in the program back when I was a kid, this is what I had to work on. Here I am now a veteran fighter, an ex-world champion, and you’ve got me doing the same basic things that I used to do”.
I said, “That’s why you guys are dominating boxing, because the trainers over there spend more time and have more patience teaching the basics. They start with the footwork, and that’s something we don’t do as much in America”.
So his footwork was always fairly good. It was good. I didn’t have to do that much. I just made him rehearse a little bit and I had him move more to go forward and go backwards, because he was still a little stiff. To make him move around the ring a little more fluidly, in some of his fights like with Eddie Chambers and even David Haye—the biggest problem they all complained about afterward was that they couldn’t deal with his footwork. He was moving in and out so fluidly that it surprised them.
With Lennox it was a little different. Lennox was a little bit heavy on his legs, and he didn’t actually have the complete fluidity that Wladimir had in the balance. But he improved his boxing and Lennox could be a very physical guy a lot of times, and that’s where he made up for maybe not being so fluid on his feet. But his balance improved and his left jab improved, but Lennox could be a very physical guy and could adjust to situations and do a variety of things probably more than most of the heavyweights I’ve ever trained.
CIANI: Now another thing I wanted to ask you kind of going back to the amateur thing, another thing you’ve always said previously on our program is you’ve always been big on fighters that have extensive amateur backgrounds. When you look at the heavyweight division, one of the problems you’ve identified going forward is that there is not a lot of competition out there right now and with the amateur programs you don’t see a lot on the horizon. I’m wondering in your mind, is there a way to fix that? A way to get more talent into the amateur pools that would prepare better professionals down the line?
STEWARD: Well it’s a major problem. First of all the program itself, starting up in Colorado, is totally in disarray. I mean it’s been like that probably since the last time we had something fairly decent was with Floyd Mayweather and the guys in ’96. Since then there hasn’t been too much, with Roy Jones in ’88, and then De La Hoya in ’92, and then after that Mayweather, and those guys, and Fernando Vargas, and then after that it’s just been a mess. If you don’t have a good amateur program you’re not going to have any good professionals. There is no good farm system so to say.
That was the one thing that I was always so impressed with. Regardless of what we may think of him as a professional, but Floyd Mayweather as an amateur—which is where you can’t pick and choose, and negotiate, and things—he was to me sensational. In fact one year, I think it must have been 1991 when he was fighting at 112 pounds. He represented Kronk in one of the National Tournaments we had in Indianapolis. In fact I remember we gave him a special key ring that all of the Kronk Champions got. Teddy Blackburn has that key ring, one of those, which is probably worth a lot. But he was a phenomenal amateur, and I remember to make the Olympic Trial Final he was fighting a real tough guy from Las Vegas. I can’t remember his name, but to win this fight he just had to get down and just pour it on with all hands, and he did it! Then that year he went to the Olympics and I think he was the first American to beat a Cuban in a long time, and was robbed in the Olympics. But that’s what carried him throughout his career. That’s for him, Roy Jones, De La Hoya, you can look at all of these guys, Shane Mosley. All of those guys had brilliant amateur backgrounds.
Then in the heavyweight division Vitali Klitschko had a good amateur background. In fact it was him who was supposed to be the super heavyweight on the Olympic Team representing the Ukraine. He I guess failed a test or something, and Wladimir who was killing himself trying to fight at the 200 under, then he found out his brother couldn’t fight. So he said, “Oh my God”, and he ended up fighting as a super heavyweight and won the Gold Medal in ’96 here in Atlanta. Both of them had extensive amateur backgrounds, though. You look at Povetkin, a Gold Medal winner. So it’s been proven with those amateur backgrounds, Lennox Lewis in the Olympics, Holyfield, all of those guys.
I really strongly believe in the amateurs, because as an electrician we used to call it the apprenticeship where you make mistakes. You may pull a whole cable to finish up a new feed and you might just be six inches short, and you can’t make a splice. But you learn that as an apprentice, so when you become the journeyman when it really counts you don’t make those mistakes. So that’s why I think the amateur background is crucial, and we don’t have it in America and that’s why I don’t see us having too many dominant fighters the way that we used to.
That’s why as a broadcaster Jim Lampley, and Max, and myself, and Larry—we have to spend so much time trying to learn how to pronounce all of these names before we go on the air, because the Browns, and the Smiths, and the Tysons, and all of that, that’s almost a thing of the past. The world is becoming better boxing-wise worldwide, but here in the United States we’re not producing the fighters, particularly in the heavyweight division. I think Deontay Wilder is a very talented heavyweight. I would just like to see him step up and get out. I think he likes to fight mostly down south, but if he steps it up I think he’s the best that we’ve got. I know they are putting a lot on Seth Mitchell I think because he’s getting the visibility and he’s right up in the midst of all the action so to say up on the east coast. But I think that Deontay Wilder is a very talented fighter himself, but he’s got that amateur background also being in the Olympics.
JENNA: Alright well Emanuel we just have a couple of more questions before we let you off the line, and seeing as you’re speaking about up and coming heavyweights, there is one that has been getting the interest of the boxing fans. He’s 6’8”, has a long reach, and a good knockout punch. He’s David Price. What are your thoughts on him so far?
STEWARD: Since we’re skipping over and leaving the American heavyweights and just looking at the heavyweight picture as a whole, it’s a lot better to select from because you got him and Tyson Fury over there. Once again Jenna that’s what I was saying. With the future of the heavyweights, when people ask me what’s coming up in America, I say, “Well I spend so much time all over the world really, and I’m studying all of the heavyweights because that’s been my business for about the last twenty years between Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and the Klitschkos. So I look and I just don’t see much coming up in way of the Americans here, but I’m looking in the European market and I do see David Price as a very good fundamentally sound fighter. I think he’s been having injury problems with his hand or something. That’s what’s been hampering his career, but if he’s sound and fit he’s definitely a good solid fighter. There is a good chance he will be heavyweight champion of the world. I think he and Tyson Fury are both. He’s fundamentally I think better and more sound than Fury. Fury’s a big guy, but Fury is just mentally a very tough guy and that’s something as I told you, I put a lot of value on that alone. But both of those guys should be heavyweight champions I think eventually, but I just don’t see that much coming up in America.
JENNA: Okay Emanuel, earlier in the interview you mentioned that Vitali Klitschko is looking more towards politics and that he could be heading out of boxing. I’m curious if you think that could at all distract him, especially when he has an upcoming fight with Dereck Chisora in February?
STEWARD: Well I speak a lot with Vitali. He and Wladimir are probably the two most organized individuals I may have ever met in my life, not just in boxing. They’re very organized. Vitali has a very good political machine that he’s put together, and he spends a lot of time working on it, and it seems to be running itself very well now. I don’t know what the exact date is, but I think he should probably be running about a year from now. There is a very good chance he’ll win this time, but I don’t think it has detracted from his boxing. He’s a very unusual relaxed guy, and some guys are like that. They can do more things than one, but usually you have to have a team so to say, an organization. He is very effective in doing that, he and Wladimir both, in putting together good teams and good organizations, which are effective which means he doesn’t have to spend all of his time worrying about that. I have gotten to meet some of the guys from time to time. He seems to have a very good organization setting up his political career.
Another thing he doesn’t have is that big super fight he was always dreaming of, the big rematch with Lennox Lewis which never happened. He still today really thinks a lot about that and it bothers him. He wanted that badly. Other than that, the David Haye fight, because David talked himself into being a big star and a big attraction. Between Vitali and Wladimir, the way it kept going from time to time, he was scheduled to fight both of them. He didn’t get a chance to fight David. That’s why I think there’s a good possibility you may still see him fighting David Haye. But no one wants to see it, David doesn’t deserve it, including the British fans as well as us Americans, but Vitali personally wants to beat David up real bad because he doesn’t feel Wladimir did it good enough for him.
Other than that I just don’t think that he sees anymore challenges. He’s very much into his political career, and I think both guys are financially set for probably about ten lifetimes with the way that they’re running their businesses, and they have so many other ways that they make money. I mean they’re like Gods over there in Germany. I mean when we’re over there and you turn on the television set, inside of one hour you might see three different commercials with just the Klitschkos. They’re speaking at all of these charitable functions, and hosting all kinds of golf tournaments, and big fundraisers. They’re like multi-million dollar superstars. So I think that there is a good possibility you may see him have two or three more fights at most.
JENNA: In closing Emanuel, going into 2012 you obviously work with a lot of fighters. Is there any particular fight you would like to see happen for one of the fighters you work with?
STEWARD: Well I would like to see mainly Andy Lee fight for a middleweight title. That’s my biggest out of all of the fighters that I’m working with. Gamboa and Rios is a tough fight. I wish he had more time to adjust to the weight, but that’s still going to be an interesting fight. I wish I had something I could say about the heavyweight division, but unless some upset happens somewhere along the way, which happens in the heavyweight division, or some star jumps up I don’t see too much. I just mainly would like to see Andy Lee fight for the middleweight title. That’s the only fight that I would really myself personally want to see.
JENNA: Alright well Emanuel, it’s been a pleasure as always having you back on the program. I wish you all the best going forward and I look and we look forward to seeing you back on HBO.
STEWARD: Okay! Well thank you very much for having me on the show, too.
CIANI: Thanks Emanuel. Take care.
STEWARD: Okay, okay. You’re welcome.
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