"The Pacquiao/Bradley fight is going to be a good fight. Pacquiao has decent speed, but he can't sit there and punch with this young guy, but Pacquiao can punch hard also, so it's gonna be who wants it the most. Pacquiao already sleeps in silk pajamas. I don't think Bradley sleeps in silk pajamas just yet, but he's starting to get that feel and he knows if he wins this fight, it's going to be silk pajamas forever," stated world-class trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, who shared his opinion on a number of subjects, including Pacquiao vs. Bradley, the positive tests of Lamont Peterson and Andre Berto, as well as the recent performances of his own fighters, Badou Jack and Ishe Smith. Check out what else he had to say!
PC: You recently had a couple of guys get in the ring. Both guys were successful. We will start off with Badou Jack, who was in with a very experienced guy and had the toughest fight of his career. What did you think of Badou's performance?
EMM: It's like this here, Badou Jack
this was a guy where we got a guy fighting who was 35 years old, he was 17-0 with 15 knockouts, and he had vast amateur experience. I think Badou could have did a lot more than what he showed that night. The guy was very awkward and I give him much credit. We were working on a few things for that style, doubling and tripling up on our jab. We can beat a guy like that with a basic jab, but Badou got out of his fight game and started fighting the guy's fight, and I had to calm him down. I had to go out of my element to calm him down, and I did that and by the grace of God he won the last round and I think that's how he won the fight.
PC: You were a great fighter and you're a great trainer, so you have seen these types of situations before. At this stage in his career, how important is it for a guy Badou's age to have to dig deep and have that type of fight?
EMM: Every once in a while, you have to have a fight like that to see where you are in the game, and that fight showed me that Badou still needs a lot of work. And this guy was rated #7 in the WBC and #15 in the WBA, and I'm not saying that we are taking over his ratings, but now is the time to really let Badou learn the game of boxing. We can sit around and keep winning and keep getting better and that's what I told his promoters. "Yall gotta keep pushing him. We got the right guy, we beat him and got the decision; now we gotta get back and let him learn the game of boxing."
PC: When I saw that Alexander Brand was trained by Gabriel Sarmiento, it definitely explained the awkward style, so that was a good learning experience for Badou.
EMM: Oh, without a doubt. Like I said, Badou could have did better, but what happened was he fell into the trap of fighting that kid's fight. Like you said, it's a learning experience and that's what it was.
PC: Ishe Smith also picked up a win the weekend prior to Badou's fight. Ishe never seems to catch a break, but he picked up a good win and seems to be heading in the right direction.
EMM: It was a great performance. Ishe worked hard and at that time, we were employed by Floyd Mayweather and we were boxing Floyd just about every day. And then we were boxing Cuba and J'Leon Love, so Ishe was in pretty good shape. And I've always told him, we're not fighting at middleweight anymore. We are going to fight at our natural weight, which is junior middleweight, and that's what he did and he looked excellent the last fight he had.
PC: And you also have another young gun, Luis "Cuba" Arias. When can we expect to see him?
EMM: We will probably get him a fight some time next month. He just went back home for a little vacation. He's been away from home for about 3 months, staying in Vegas with us, and we put him through some drills and he's going to be a great pro.
PC: How beneficial was it for your guys to work out at the Mayweather Gym with Floyd, and of course in Jack's case, get in some work with Andre Dirrell?
EMM: You know, it's like a learning experience. Floyd is the best fighter in the world, bar none, so you get in there and have a good day with Floyd, that should bring confidence. I'm against the best fighter in the world and today I held my own against him. Now tomorrow may be a different story, but today I held my own against him.
PC: One thing I learned from Floyd's fight with Miguel Cotto, and I think everyone should take at least this away from that fight, we should all stop giving these guys the death sentence for 1 or 2 losses. Cotto was what, 37-2, and people wrote him off like he was a bum. What did you think of the fight and the way it played out?
EMM: They didn't understand that Cotto was a very good fighter. They looked at what happened between Cotto and Pacquiao and Cotto and Margarito and thought Floyd was gonna have a cake walk. But we all knew, and even Floyd knew, that he was in for a rough fight. Floyd trained like an animal for that fight and I was there watching him workout; nothing changed. He trained like an animal
like he knew he was going to be in a tough fight. And he was in a tough fight and he prevailed. Let's be real, you gotta give Floyd all of the credit in the world because all of these so-called boxing experts said that Cotto was washed up and then they see him put on a fight of his life with Floyd and Floyd just took it to another level. If Floyd could have took it up one more notch, he probably could have stopped Cotto in the last round. You gotta take your hat off to Floyd and that's how it is.
PC: Of course another fight coming up in your backyard is the Pacquiao/Bradley fight. It appears more and more people are starting to believe Bradley can pull it off. What do you think?
EMM: I give Bradley a good chance because, number one, he hasn't been defeated. If I'm not mistaken, there are already 3 ways on how to beat Pacquiao. We don't know how to beat Timothy Bradley. There is no blueprint. Just like I tell everybody at the time I was saying 42 have tried and 42 have failed, and now 43 have tried and 43 have failed against Floyd. So just like there is no blueprint to beat Floyd, and I don't think there will ever be a blueprint to beating Floyd, but the Pacquiao/Bradley fight is going to be a good fight. Pacquiao has decent speed, but he can't sit there and punch with this young guy, but Pacquiao can punch hard also, so it's gonna be who wants it the most. Pacquiao already sleeps in silk pajamas. I don't think Bradley sleeps in silk pajamas just yet, but he's starting to get that feel and he knows if he wins this fight, it's going to be silk pajamas forever.
PC: Before I let you go, I gotta get your thoughts on those two big fights that were canceled due to positive drug testing.
EMM: You know what it is? It could be anything; it could be in the meat, because they're not finding huge traces of it. It can be in the things that they eat because now everything is being sprayed with all kinds of pesticides and things like that. It could be anything. We don't know how it got into their system and they don't even know how it got into their system unless somebody is lying. And I know Peterson's people. Listen, there is three sides to every story. There is your side, my side, and then the truth, and it's going to come out. We just have to wait and things will come out. And if they still need a fight for Ortiz, they can throw Ishe Smith in there. Not only would we put up a good fight, but we will beat Victor Ortiz. We will step up to the plate and beat him.
PC: I think Josesito Lopez got the assignment, but we will put it out there for sure. It's always great catching up to you my man. It was great seeing you out there in Vegas. Is there anything you want to say before I let you go?
EMM: We got Rock [Hasim Rahman] getting prepared for Povetkin and I got a new kid from Romania named Ronald Gavril. He actually beat Badou Jack in the amateurs. He is going to be a great fighter, so I'm just in the gym working with these guys putting it all together; that's all. And Percy, you are the man that tell it like it is, so I represent FightHype proudly!
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