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ROYCE DA 5'9": "BOXING'S BEEN IN MY FAMILY FOR YEARS...MANNY'S LOOKING HUMAN TO A LOT OF FIGHTERS"

By Percy Crawford | April 16, 2014
ROYCE DA 5'9

"My uncle was a pro fighter. Boxing's been in my family for years. I have been following boxing since I can remember. I really can't remember a time in my life when I didn't follow it… I wanted to know what Manny do we have right now? What Manny are we dealing with because everyone wants to see the mega-fight, which is him and Floyd, and I wanna know if this boy is damaged goods…Manny is a shell of his former self…He's losing that mental advantage and he's looking human to a lot of fighters. It's the same thing that happened to Mike Tyson. When Mike started looking human, people starting trying to knock his head off. It's the same thing with Manny," stated rapper Royce Da 5'9", who talked about his love of boxing and shared his thoughts on last weekend's rematch between multi-division world champion Manny Pacquiao and former champion Timothy Bradley. Check out what else he had to say!

PC: Nickle, how is everything going, man?

Royce Da 5'9": Everything is going real good. I got a couple of things that I am working on, so I'm just trying to get everything done in a timely fashion and finally get some of this stuff out that I have been sitting on for a minute. It's been a minute, but I had to take some time and fall back and just put everything in perspective and get it together. But everything is going great.

PC: Before we even get into the fight game, because you are an avid fight fan, you have dropped a few freestyles and things like that, but what has been the delay on true studio stuff?

Royce Da 5'9": I'm just being nitpicky with stuff. Like a lot of the stuff that I'm working on is collaborative stuff, group stuff, stuff that I'm doing with other people. So obviously everybody's schedule gotta be right; everything gotta be right, the music gotta be right, your business gotta be right, so, you know, it just takes a little more time and it ain't no rush. It ain't no rush, you know what I'm saying, but once stuff starts coming, it's going to be firing from every direction. We will make up for lost time once we start releasing stuff.

PC: You are a part of this great stable Eminem put together. Slaughterhouse may be 4 of the most talented MCs in the game; yourself, Joe Budden, Crooked I, and Joell Ortiz. With that much talent being in the studio at one time, is it hard for 4 guys in their prime to get along at times or is that chemistry there?

Royce Da 5'9": Yeah, the chemistry is there. It's not real hard when you all get along with each other. I can see... you know, dealing with other people's personalities, I can kind of see where if some members didn't get along with each other, it could be a problem. I see why other groups may not have worked. Anytime you gotta run ideas by everybody and everybody gotta be cool with something, because it is a joint thing and everybody gotta kind of play they part, you always run the risk of that, but that's one problem that we never had. We never had that problem at all and I think that's why we have been doing it for so long together because we clicked from day one.

PC: That's good, man, because all of y'all are from different regions.

Royce Da 5'9": Yeah, we are all from different regions, but, I don't know man, it's God's work. That's all I could really attribute it to.

PC: You are a huge boxing fan and every fight night, anyone could go to your Twitter [@Royceda59] and see how passionate you are about the game. You're obviously from Detroit, which is a big fight town. Is that what got you into boxing so heavy, just being from the D?

Royce Da 5'9": Yeah, I think me being from Detroit got a lot to do with it. My uncle was a pro fighter. Boxing's been in my family for years. I have been following boxing since I can remember. I really can't remember a time in my life when I didn't follow it. It's kind of a Montgomery tradition. The fight game is real big in my family.

PC: I see you even follow MMA in the sense that you watch when you can and you respect those guys, but not to the level you follow boxing.

Royce Da 5'9": Yeah, yeah, I love MMA; I just could never switch all the way over. I couldn't switch all the way over, but I do love MMA. It's a little harder to follow for me because it's so much going on. Dana tries to do everything that he can to shut down every boxing and sporting event on Saturdays. He's always got something going on. There is always a fight every Saturday, so it's just a little difficult with my schedule for me to follow. With boxing, I can keep up with it because I have my favorites that I make sure that I follow and then, you know, the stuff in between ain't really that hard to keep up with either. I got certain people around me feeding me information and I got my computer when I'm traveling, so it's just easier to follow boxing.

PC: Joell Ortiz is a big boxing fan too. Do you guys ever bet on any fights?

Royce Da 5'9": Nah, you know what? Joell is the bettor, dawg. He's the gambler. I never bet or gamble. I've made people a lot of money from the advice I gave them on who to bet on, but I got an addictive personality. I don't need to try nothing new and fall in love with it. I will be doing that shit the rest of my life (laughing).

PC: I know your history (laughing). We had a big one last Saturday between Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley. Did it live up to your expectation and what are your thoughts on the fight in general?

Royce Da 5'9": Well, the fight itself, to me, as a fight fan, didn't have any expectation to live up to in terms of the overall fight. I realize what it was prior to going into it. I wasn't surprised at the ticket sales or nothing like that. I knew this was just not that fight, you know what I mean? But what I was looking for and what I wanted to see... I wanna know what's up with Manny. I wanted to know what Manny do we have right now? What Manny are we dealing with because everyone wants to see the mega-fight, which is him and Floyd, and I wanna know if this boy is damaged goods. You weren't able to tell that against Rios. He went in there and he fought safe and he looked beautifully if you not comparing him to the original Manny style. If you comparing him to the original Manny style, he didn't look right at all. He went in there and basically fought a Floyd type of fight and that's not how he made his name. So a gun shy Manny is no good for me; not as a fan. And I think that's what we got against Bradley. You know, Bradley, I love Timothy Bradley, he earned my respect as a fight fan. I wasn't a fan of his at first, but he earned my respect with his journey to where he is today. We all know Bradley don't have no punching power; he got 12 knockouts, so with 12 knockouts, he can't knock a glass of water off the table with a running start. He got in there with Manny and he almost put Manny down. Manny was gun shy the whole time and he almost put Manny down in the 4th round. That tells me pretty much everything I need to know; everything that I needed to see, I saw. Manny is a shell of his former self. He is a shot fighter, but he is such a great fighter that a shot Manny could pretty much beat just about everyone in the division; certainly everybody over at Top Rank. So I don't really know what's about to happen. Bob Arum is going to have to make an executive decision because I don't see it going nowhere. If they want to play ball with Floyd and make this his last fight after he is done with his contract, Manny may get knocked out between that. That fight needs to happen now.

PC: Now with that being said, do you see that fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather happening or do you think it will be the greatest fight to never happen?

Royce Da 5'9": I don't see where they have a choice. This comes down to ego. This comes down to two big corporations having power and having other options other than having to be submissive to the other company. And I'm not saying what side is what side because I don't know. I can only go off of what I hear and what I see and what I read. It looks like both sides don't want to back down because they both got power in their own respect. They won't back down, and to show the other side, what do they do, "Well I'll go take this fight." With them doing that, the result of that was Manny getting slept because he had no business fighting Marquez again. He didn't have to take that fight. He took a stand against Floyd and took that fight and that's what happened. It's just crazy how decisions can change things, man. One fucked up decision can just change your life like that.

PC: Absolutely. The unfortunate thing for Manny is that when you are fighting Marquez so many times, and Bradley so many times, eventually no matter how great of a fighter you are, these guys start getting your number or catch you with the right punch because they have been in there with you so many times. We will probably eventually see Pacquiao/Marquez 5 and Pacquiao/Bradley 3.

Royce Da 5'9": Yeah, and also he had a mental advantage on a lot of fighters. He's losing that mental advantage and he's looking human to a lot of fighters. It's the same thing that happened to Mike Tyson. When Mike started looking human, people starting trying to knock his head off. It's the same thing with Manny. Who would have guessed that Timothy Bradley would get in there with Manny Pacquiao and go for the knockout early in the fight? Come on, man; that's no respect. You talking about a guy that's not a puncher; he an excellent boxer, but not a puncher. And he get in there trying to knock out a knockout guy. That's ridiculous. So if people don't see what I see... I mean, I argued on Twitter all day that Sunday how Manny just don't look like himself. I'm worried about him because somebody gon' hurt him.

BE SURE TO CHECK BACK SOON FOR MUCH MORE WITH ROYCE DA 5'9"



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

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