"First I heard it was PED's, then I heard it was weed. I don't care what it is. He is a personal friend of mine and I'm not going to bash him. That's not for me to do. I'm more upset about the decision. But at the same time, we are top professional athletes and whatever you do in your personal life, that's your personal life, but, you know, when you're getting ready for a fight, you shouldn't be smoking weed," stated heavyweight contender Travis Kauffman, who shared his thoughts on the news that Chris Arreola tested positive for marijuana and their fight was changed to a no contest. Check it out!
PC: Travis, the news came out that Chris Arreola tested positive after your fight with him. Being that you thought the decision was unfair, I'm sure this news didn't sit well with you, although the fight was ruled a no contest.
TK: I found out yesterday [Monday] morning, however I heard the commission knew about it since January 5th, so it's something that they knew about, but my entire team found out yesterday. So it was all new news to me. But I'm not here to bash Chris. He's a personal friend of mine. I'm not going to sit here and talk junk about him smoking weed. Whether it was PED's or weed...first I heard it was PED's, then I heard it was weed. I don't care what it is. He is a personal friend of mine and I'm not going to bash him. That's not for me to do. I'm more upset about the decision. But at the same time, we are top professional athletes and whatever you do in your personal life, that's your personal life, but, you know, when you're getting ready for a fight, you shouldn't be smoking weed. If you're smoking weed on your personal time, cool, whatever, do what you want, but when you're getting ready for a fight, you know weed stays in your system for about 30 days. You know you have that amount of time to get it out of your system, so if you smoke before a fight, you're showing that you don't care about yourself and your career.
I think that as a professional athlete, the commission needs to check what they are doing. I think they should punish it a little more. Not necessarily for weed because in today's society, weed is okay now. Do I think it's okay for a professional athlete? If you're doing it on your own time, then great. That's your own time. You can do what you want when you're free and not getting ready for a fight; that's your business. I don't consider it a performance enhancing drug. I don't think it helped Chris any. However, I feel it should have been a disqualification for him because when you're a top professional athlete, you know what you're doing. You're not handling yourself as a professional. At the end of the day, that's something that Chris has to live with. The no contest, I mean, I was upset with the first decision; how can I be anymore upset with this decision? It is what it is. Who am I to say, "They should turn it into a disqualification." I think they fined him $750 and suspended him for 90 days. They did what they felt was right. Let's face it, as a top fighter, we don't fight within 3 months anyways. I don't think it hinders his career at all. The only thing it does is it makes him look as he has just about his whole career; he just doesn't take it serious. Like I said, whatever he's done or does in his personal life, that's his personal life. Chris never treated me wrong. He's a great friend. We all have our demons; Chris' just came to the light.
PC: There were talks of a rematch because the fight was so close and it was an entertaining fight. Would you entertain that or are you ready to move forward?
TK: I'll move past it, but if Al Haymon wants the rematch, then we will rematch each other. I'll fight Chris. We both got nice paydays from it and I believe the rematch, the payday will be even bigger. We should have been a candidate for Fight of the Year, especially in the heavyweight division because that was one of the better heavyweight fights that's happened in a long time. It was definitely a lot better than Martin and Glazkov. Martin's ass got a sweet victory over some BS. Unfortunately for Glazkov, he blew out his ACL and I know about that all too much. I'm coming off of an ACL injury. I don't think Martin deserves that belt. I think me and Chris had the best heavyweight fight, if not the best fight period last year. We had a great fight, the fans loved it, so of course the fans would love to see it again. If that's what Al Haymon wants, if that's what the fans want, I say lets make it happen. But I leave to head to Texas for training camp tomorrow. I'm looking to return possibly in April. I don't know for sure; nothing has been talked about yet as far as an opponent. There are a couple of names thrown out there that I can't mention right now, but I'll be in camp tomorrow and I'm going to focus on me. I can't focus on what happened with Chris and everything going on in his life. That's something that he has to live with as a human being.
PC: What do you have to do in your mind to bounce back after this crazy situation? Do you change the approach at all?
TK: I don't think much needs to be changed. The only thing is that was my first 12-round fight. Now I know I can go 12 rounds, and I knew I could before, however, when I dropped Chris in that 3rd round, I know from now on I can't leave it to the judges, especially when you're fighting a guy who is more known than you are. You can't leave it up to the judges, number one, and number two, when someone is hurt like that, you gotta finish them. I take some blame for that because I knew Chris was done. People ask me all the time, "Was it because he's your friend that you didn't want to take him out?" Hell no, I wanted to knock him out, but I was more concerned with the fact that this was my first 12-round fight and Chris had been there before and he knew how to survive. I just didn't want to blow my load and Chris catch me with something. Chris can punch.
PC: And he has shown that he is dangerous when he's hurt.
TK: He showed that against Travis Walker, Chazz Witherspoon, and many other people. When he gets cracked or hurt, he comes back and knocks people out. I wasn't about to let that happen. I wasn't going to play the fool and jump on him and end up getting caught with something stupid. I just figured I would fight smart. I knew I was winning the fight anyway, so I wanted to take my time and box. I did that in my only loss to Tony Grano. When I hurt Tony Grano real bad, I jumped on him and he hit me with a low blow to survive more. Now, me being an idiot, I should have took that 5 minutes to recover, but me figuring, "damn, he's hurt," I didn't want to give him any time to recover. I jumped on him and I got caught with a shot and that's all she wrote. Plus hitting the TV camera guy didn't help. However, I'm back to 30-1 (laughing) and I'm looking for 2016 to be a big year for me. I'm with the best manager in the business, Al Haymon. I'm with a great promoter in King Promotion, which is my father and he's doing 30 shows a year and things are going to be good, man. I stay very focused, I stay hungry, and the division is open.
PC: Definitely! Travis, I appreciate the time. I look forward to seeing you back in there and be sure to keep us in the loop. Is there anything else before I let you go?
TK: I appreciate you, I appreciate the fans, and FightHype has always been good to me and just keep looking out for me. This will be a good year for me.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]