"There is a lack and a very critical shortage of teachers
oh, you got thousands of trainers, but how many of those trainers can teach... These guys come on now right into the pros full time and they think they are trainers. What gives them the right to go into a professional corner and tell a professional fighter what to do? And most of them are guessing and don't have a clue to what they are doing," stated world-class trainer James Ali Bashir, who talked about the current and future state of boxing. Check out what else he had to say about Andre Ward, Chad Dawson, and much more!
PC: James my man, what do you think of the current landscape of boxing?
JAB: Well, you look at the middleweight division, the super middleweight division, the light heavyweight division, and the heavyweight division, and customarily years ago, that all belonged to black fighters. Customarily, we were the guys to control that. It was a given. But now, because there is a lack and a very critical shortage of teachers
oh, you got thousands of trainers, but how many of those trainers can teach? You know what I'm saying? Because all you have to do is put a label on somebody and say he is a trainer. I look at this situation with this kid "Da Momma's Boy" Denis Douglin. It's a kid out of New Jersey and he calls himself the "Momma's Boy." He is a junior middleweight and his mother trains him and she be jumping in the ring with high heels on. He had already been clipped and knocked out one time already, but the fact of the matter is he lets his mother train him. His mother gave the commission some money to buy a license to train. I said this gotta be the biggest joke in the book, and he was undefeated for about 8 or 9 fights until he got knocked out. I told a guy, "How long do you think that's gonna last?" I told him, "I know how long. As soon as he steps up his competition just a little bit, he gonna get knocked out," and that's what happened. He got knocked out by Jermell Charlo in his last fight. It makes a mockery of the sport. You can't get to the NHL, NFL, NBA, or MLB and do that. You don't have black fighters in the mix a lot of times because they don't have no teachers, man. Talking to these young trainers is like talking to a hole in the wall, bruh. They think they know it all and as a result, we didn't even get a Bronze damn medal. Boxing is weak in America because you got a bunch of young jocks that think that they can train, you know what I'm saying?
PC: I agree with you 100%. There are exceptions to that, and we talked about it a little bit the other day, and that's Virgil Hunter and the job he has done with Andre Ward. What did you think of the Ward/Dawson fight, because you didn't like Dawson's chances going in?
JAB: It's one I told you, man; you can't be at 175 all of those years and then drop down to 168 and then the people that don't know say, "Dawson is strong. He came in fight night at 185." I say that doesn't mean he's going to be strong. He's coming in at that weight, but let me tell you something Percy, it takes the body time to break that food down and distribute it. It might take 36 to 42 hours to do that. Just because he ate the food and got big doesn't mean that the nutrients from the food distributed throughout his body, his biceps, his calves, and so forth. The body is a miracle invention and it's gotta break that food down and distribute it to the places where it needs it the most, and it doesn't happen over 24 hours. So it means nothing. When those guys make that weight, they are still coming in there at a strained weight. He fought up there at 75 and I don't care if he weighed 74 or 73 or whatever, he still was a light heavy. Him taking that weight off and going down to 68 is enough to put the body in shock. I'm not even a physician, but I know from experience.
PC: You said after the first left hook he never got his legs back, and that's common with a lot of weight loss.
JAB: His legs look like Silly Puddy, and they were like that every time after he landed a shot. He hit him with a body punch; anytime he landed a clean shot, his legs were gone on him. That was because his body was depleted. His body depleted and he didn't have energy and his body never had the time to distribute everything. And then you see a fighter tell the referee
he didn't tell the referee, "That's it,", he had an ongoing conversation with the ref. He was talking to Steve Smoger for about 8 or 9 seconds. Chad was telling him, "I'm done, we over with, it's done." The thing that went through my mind was Eddie Mustafa in the fight where he had lost all of that weight. I was there. Saud Muhammad and Eddie Mustafa fed off of each other. Saud had to inform Eddie, "Nah man, you gonna lose this weight and defend this title." Eddie ran those stairs and he got out there and did it. Eddie couldn't make the weight for that fight. When he fought Michael Spinks, he was dead. Eddie Mustafa was dead when he fought Michael Spinks. By the 7th round, he was a dead man walking. He didn't have nothing left and Spinks was bombing him with uppercuts and hooks and he dropped Eddie. Mustafa got off of the floor, but he didn't look to the referee and his eye was closed. His right eye I believe was close badly and he started fighting going into the 13th, 14th and 15th round. He started fighting, man, and I thought those were the best rounds of the fight. He started fighting harder. He didn't look to no referee and say, "That's it, man."
PC: I gotta find that fight.
JAB: Go to YouTube and look up that fight. I have been with Mustafa a lot, from Ali's camp on, and he was a warrior. I got a lot of respect for that man. He wasn't just a crafty puncher. He had guts. He has been in there with the who's who. He was in there with the Bennie Briscoe's and all of those guys. He's been in there with some good guys. Lottie Mwale and all of those guys. And Eddie didn't have the best training habits. His training tactics I thought from a training perspective could have been better. But he had such good eyes and reflexes and such a knowledge of the sport that he got away with a lot of stuff that normal fighters couldn't get away with. Let me tell you something, man, the light heavyweights now better thank their lucky stars
and I'm talking about Roy Jones and all of 'em better thank their lucky stars that they weren't in there with Eddie Mustafa or Matthew Saud Muhammad. They better thank their lucky stars that they weren't in there with Quawi because they would have got their ass drug through the mud. It was a different breed of fighter. They better be lucky that it's not them years, where even guys like Jerry "The Bull" Martin, these guys would have beat the breaks off of Roy Jones and 'em. Bruh, Eddie Mustafa woulda put Roy Jones in a wheelchair.
PC: And you don't feel like Chad Dawson is in the clear just because he's going back up to 175 pounds.
JAB: He could be damaged psychologically. I think that the boy Andre Ward just got his number. I think Andre could move up to 75 and do the same thing. He could move up and do the same thing because he could be damaged. And I don't know what John Scully was doing. He was just whistling in the dark. The stuff he was telling him, "Roll your shoulders; you look good when you were rolling your shoulders." What the fuck do that got to do with anything? He getting his ass whopped; you gotta give him some critical information right away. You gotta give him some critical shit because he getting his ass whooped. He was getting his head handed to him and you telling him he looks good when he's rolling his shoulders. That's what I'm talking about when you say training. You got one man in that corner to give that critical information. We have about 50 seconds because by the time they sit down and get situated, you can kill 10 seconds. I just see so many mistakes in the corner. But you can't tell these boxers nothing and you can't tell the people around them. Everybody is a hot shot and got an idea how to win. "That's what he needs to do; this is what he needs to do," and all of 'em guessing. I trained amateur boxers for 5 years before I even trained a pro. I didn't do nothing but amateurs. These guys come on now right into the pros full time and they think they are trainers. What gives them the right to go into a professional corner and tell a professional fighter what to do? And most of them are guessing and don't have a clue to what they are doing.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]