"Everytime when somebody either takes a loss or sees something that's not their way of seeing things, they want to take somebody else's fighter. If Adrien was just a regular fighter, Floyd or Roger wouldn't even say the things that they saying about him. It more or less seems like they jealous of the relationship of Adrien and Floyd," stated Mike Stafford, world-class trainer of Adrien Broner, who took offense to recent comments made by Roger Mayweather and Floyd Mayweather Sr. Stafford reached out to FightHype.com to sound off on their criticism, as well as the treatment that Broner received both during and after his fight with newly-crowned WBA welterweight champion Marcos Maidana. You don't want to miss what else he had to say. Check it out!
BT: Mike, what's good? I take it you're probably calling about the recent comments that Roger and Big Floyd had to say regarding Adrien.
MS: Every time when somebody either takes a loss or sees something that's not their way of seeing things, they want to take somebody else's fighter. If Adrien was just a regular fighter, Floyd or Roger wouldn't even say the things that they saying about him. It more or less seems like they jealous of the relationship of Adrien and Floyd. All of a sudden now, I don't know if it was Chris writing that; I thought Chris, you know, was trying to be a friend. I let him into camp with us and everything and talk to Adrien and everything. Now he's turning against us and saying different stuff. Adrien is a 3-time world champion, you know. What do you mean? I don't see nobody in Floyd and dem's camp that's a 3-time world champion other than Floyd Mayweather Jr. We got a relationship together with Al Haymon and Golden Boy. I don't see why they saying, "Adrien needs to do this. Adrien needs to do that."
And he's not doing no Floyd Mayweather roll. He's not fighting like Floyd. Adrien is a different fighter, you know what I'm saying. All he is; he's an offensive-defensive fighter. That's what he's doing. He's not trying to fight like Floyd, you know. They saying that it's a look-a-like, you know what I'm saying. Adrien didn't even know Floyd Mayweather about 10 years ago, you know. He grew up in Cincinnati in the camp with champions. Ricardo Williams. Ravae Springs. Robert Dula. You know, all of them had different styles. Rau'shee Warren, you know. Floyd Mayweather and dem only had Floyd. I didn't see that Floyd and dem had champions in their gym. When he was coming up in the amateurs, all I seen was him bringing his son to the fights, you know what I'm saying. We brought many champions to the fights. I don't see that. They riding Floyd's coattails. The father and the uncle riding Floyd's coattails because of Floyd; not because they got great fighters. All they fighters that they got in the gym is from other past gyms. Not one guy have they raised in their gym; not one guy. These guys is coming from other gyms and most of them I done beat before with my guys in the amateurs, so how in the hell do Floyd Mayweather Sr. think they can try to steal my fighters and put 'em with they guys? That's just ridiculous.
Just because Adrien, on the mishap of this fight, you know, we don't know if this guy was on drugs or nothing. We waiting on the decision now to see; we don't know. As you see, things wasn't right. A lot of funny stuff wasn't right. We don't know what's going on, so they shouldn't make judgments on what happened, you know what I'm saying. Adrien had two bad rounds of his life, and that cost him the fight; the 2nd round and the 8th round. Other than that, he would've won the fight. If you go back and look at the fight, he got dropped in the 2nd and he got dropped in the 8th. When he got head-butted, that changed the fight. Adrien fought with a swollen jaw the whole fight.
BT: How is his jaw? I hadn't heard if it was broken or anything.
MS: It wasn't broken, but hell, let me head-butt you with my head. Could you fight four more rounds and show toughness like he did? They ain't taking that into consideration. It was just a mishap. And frankly, that should've been a disqualification right there because it was blatant. If the shoe was on the other foot, we would've got disqualified. And then, behind that, he hit him with an elbow. Adrien fighting as clean as he is, it cost him. If we would've got down dirty with him, we would've been disqualified, you know.
BT: Was there anything that surprised you about Maidana or his game plan, or was he as advertised?
MS: Well, he kept coming at him. Adrien was hitting him with some tremendous shots. He was as advertised. Adrien settled down after he got dropped, which anybody can get dropped. Floyd got dropped before and he came back. He got hurt when he was fighting Shane Mosley. He got dropped when he was fighting Zab Judah, but he came back. DeMarcus Corley too. Adrien was on his way back, so why would they say this and that, there's flaws, and all that. But when Floyd gets hit, it's a different story. But when Adrien gets hit, it's all, "He need a trainer. He trying to fight like Floyd." That's bullshit! I'm tired of that bullshit! I am tired of that bullshit. I'm tired of them talking that. I don't say nothing about none of them fighters that he got in the gym, and they all know me because we all whooped them before, you know what I'm saying. They all know me. They need to take emotions on that. My stable of fighters been so strong over the years, and now you get a kid [Adrien] that's almost as equally talented as one of the top fighters in the world [Mayweather] and they want to tear him down. That's crazy, you know, when they should be embracing him. The kid, he's a good kid, you know what I'm saying. He ain't out selling drugs. He ain't trying to rob no banks. You know, all he's doing, he's just being a kid, having fun. He might go overboard a little bit having fun, but he's still a kid. They just too hard on him. The kid is just 24 years old and I'm tired of people saying this, saying that; he should've did this, he should've did that. What it is is what it is. I know the kid brags a lot and he got high expectations, but still, you know, he's still a kid, and they not getting a true evaluation on a lot of stuff. It ain't like he's a dirty fighter or nothing like that. He's a good fighter, you know.
Now, Brandon Rios, all of them, they fight dirty, they test up dirty; nobody ain't saying nothing about this. They fighting dirty. Marcos [Maidana], he's fighting dirty. Ain't nobody said nothing about that. If Adrien would've did that, it would've been crazy. If Floyd would do something like that, they'd go crazy, but once they do it, it's okay and they call them a tough fighter. Ain't no way that you supposed to head-butt somebody like that. No way. He could've broke his jaw. Look at football; they fining people $30-$50,000 for an illegal hit. Why these referees and inspectors can't see that and fine these guys. That was illegal. Adrien, with that head-butt, he could've been out, broken jaw, messed up for the rest of his life, but they ain't saying nothing like that. You know what they saying? He got his ass kicked. That ain't right, you know. All they saying is that he got his ass kicked, but they ain't saying he got head-butt and everything; blatant head-butt. The referee took a point. Now you know it was blatant if the referee took a point. He should've just got disqualified right away. Then he came back with an elbow, you know. They could look at film and shit and see that and disqualify this guy. This guy didn't want to fight, man; he wanted to rough my guy up, you know. They're fighting, you know, I understand that, but that's why you got 3 people in the ring. You got people in the ring that's supposed to stop all that and Laurence Cole, he didn't stop it. He was looking one-sided, you know.
BT: Roger came out and said a lot of negative things about Adrien, but then you had Big Floyd saying he wanted to train him. Obviously if Big Floyd is looking to work with Adrien, he must see a lot of potential in him, so I would think that kind of contradicts Roger's statements.
MS: Right! Right! He want him just like he wanted De La Hoya. He want him just like Ricky Hatton. He want him just like he got all them other guys down there, you know what I'm saying. I mean, that's case in point. How you gonna train everybody? Now you got everybody down there, you gonna train everybody. You got Big Floyd down there; you need to train your son. How you gonna do all of that with good intentions? You know what I'm saying. Because he never did that before. I've never seen him train no group of fighters. I was Olympic coach. I train with two teams at one time. I was a two-time Olympic coach and a World Championship coach. You know, all the guys that he's training was in our camp, you know. So how in the hell he gonna train my fighter and have interest in him. Shit!
BT: So Adrien's okay? There's no issues with his jaw or anything?
MS: Nah. He got a CAT Scan and it was good. The reason why he didn't talk; people talking about, "Well why he didn't talk?" He couldn't talk. He couldn't even open his mouth. He was hurt from a vicious fight, which was a good fight which I think is candidate for Fight of the Year. You know, he finished out strong. He didn't lay down. All of a sudden now, they want to say he ain't this, he ain't that, you know. He finished strong. 24-year-old against a 31-year-old experienced man. They didn't give him no credit. All they're saying is that he got his ass whooped, you know, but if the shoe was on the other foot, it would've been different. They don't say nothing about Adrien except he got his ass kicked and he crying about the decision; crying about this and crying about that and all this bullshit.
Then when he walked out the arena, they threw all kinds of shit on him. Did they put anybody in jail? At a basketball game, if you do that, they'll put you in jail or ban you from the arena. Suppose one of those cups would've hit him in the eye. He would've been through for life. Here it is, you paying $100 for a ticket and then you throw a cup or something on somebody that's worth $3 million or $4 million, ruin they career, and you just paid $100 to sit in a seat. Come on, man. That's what we got ushers for, that's what we got security for, and they seen that. They want the worst for Adrien. Everything they doing is the worst, but they didn't realize that Adrien couldn't talk, you know what I'm saying. He wanted to go to the hospital; he thought his jaw was broke. As soon as he went straight to the back, he said, "I want to go to the hospital." He's tough enough; he never has said nothing like that. He even got hurt before in the gym and he don't never wanna go to the hospital. He was hurtin' inside. I done seen him almost hurt his hand and he never went to the hospital, you know what I'm saying. He was real concerned. That head-butt was real, real vicious, and then with the elbow right behind it. People ain't saying nothing about that. All they saying is he's crying about this, he's crying about that. It's just bullshit; straight bullshit.
BT: Obviously you're not already looking ahead to your next plans, but after a tough fight like that, do you want Adrien to take a longer break before getting back in the ring?
MS: We waiting on this decision with this investigation and all that stuff. As soon as that investigation is over, I'll talk to Al [Haymon] and we'll get everything together, but right now, we just waiting on the investigation. That's the next plan. Adrien's fine. He did a welcome party last night. Over 600 people came to see him and he had a nice time; he had a real nice time and people was congratulating him saying he was their champion. I tell you what, wasn't no cup and bottles thrown at him last night. It was a lot of love; a lot of love. Wasn't no beer bottles and all that stuff thrown at him; spit on him. Yeah, they spit on him and everything. It was the worst thing. They should never give a fight down there again until they have all those fans give an apology to the commissioner, because it's bad on the commission. And you seen people spit on him and everything, but are you seeing that in the news? Spitting on him and everything. Throwing cups and everything over a fight. And they just the spectators, you know. Shit. Over a fight; over a sport. They was trying to get him in a life and death situation. Just think if they had a gun or an object, they would've shot him. They wanted to kill him. That was real, real disrespectful. That ain't right. That is not right.
BT: Mike, I appreciate you reaching out to me to respond to those comments. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest before I let you go?
MS: With the Floyd thing, you know, I respect Floyd Jr. I knew him, you know what I'm saying, in the amateurs, knew him in the Olympic movement, and he's a good kid. But Floyd Sr. and Roger do not know my kid, you know what I'm saying. Floyd Jr. and Adrien have developed a good relationship. I don't know if they jealous of that relationship. They should just leave them be. Let them be friends, you know what I'm saying, and whatever comes out of it, comes out of it. You know, it's just like kids in a playground. You arguing with kids in a playground and next thing you know, the parents get in it, they arguing, and the next day, the kids out there playing. Now the parents looking stupid. Why you arguing over kids? No matter what Floyd Sr. say or Roger say, Floyd and Adrien going to be friends because they done developed a relationship. And even with some of the boxers in their stable, Adrien has developed a friendly relationship with these guys. It's not up to the trainers saying this and saying that; that ain't up to them because they don't know Adrien. They don't know the relationship with Floyd; they have developed a relationship. Them guys talk on the phone. We old guys, you know what I'm saying. I'm 57. I'm pretty sure Floyd is in his 50's. I'm pretty sure Roger is in his 50's. So why would you worry about what's going on with these kids, you know. Let these kids be kids because they gonna be friends when we dead and gone. Let the other kids coming up learn from these kids. Adrien got kids that love him; Floyd got kids that love him. Ain't no time for nobody to have no bad blood and be talking about nobody. We ain't got time to be talking about each other because boxing is a small state.
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