"Probably not, man, and I told you the reasons why before. Right now, Lil Floyd is doing his thing and I'm doing mine. This guy he is fighting is young and he has to take him serious. Lil Floyd is 34 years old now, man. Fighting is all about timing. Alls it takes is for you to lose a second or two of timing. It is what it is, man. I gotta keep on doing my thing, man," stated world-class trainer Floyd Mayweather Sr., who informed us that, surprisingly, he doesn't think he'll be assisting his son with any preparations for the September 17th clash with WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz. With several of his own fighters, like Mickey Bey and Vernon Paris, having bouts already scheduled in August, Mayweather Sr. might be too busy to make his usual visits to the Mayweather Boxing Club to see how training camp is going. Check out what else he had to say about Mickey Bey, Vernon Paris, Floyd Mayweather and much more.
PC: Congratulations on the win with Mickey Bey on Friday Night Fights.
FM: Thank you Percy.
PC: The last time we spoke, you said things were cranking up for you and that you were getting a lot of fighters. Are you still planning on staying busy like that?
FM: Yeah, I got a fighter coming up on August 5th in California and Mickey's gonna probably fight again on August 6th. Then I have my female fighter, Yolanda [Ezell], fighting on August 27th. Yolanda's only got one fight, but she's about to fight a girl with three wins, one loss and one draw. I'm staying busy, man. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna have to break my vacation I was going to take. I was going to take a 2-week vacation, but I'm gonna have to put that on hold for now.
PC: How did you think Mickey looked in his fight?
FM: Everybody tells me Mickey looked the best he's ever looked. I trained Mickey early in his career and then my brother Jeff trained him, and then he recently came back to me.
PC: I know Jeff was out of the country with Celestino. I figured you just filled in for him.
FM: No, I was his trainer before Jeff was. He just got back with me recently. But yeah, Jeff was out of town anyway. He [Bey] got a lot of praise from that fight and a lot of people said he looked good.
PC: Rodriguez had a very slow jab and in between rounds, you told Mickey to drop the right hand over it. Did you think that punch could seal the deal like it did?
FM: Yeah! I told Mickey he had a slow jab and he brought it back low, so I knew he had to go over the top of that jab. I told him what we was going to do was use the jab to back him up and close that distance and then we could walk him down. That's why Mickey wasn't punching sometimes. He was either walking right to him or catching punches because we wanted to get to the body. That's what we needed to do and that's what Mickey did, man. He hit him to the body and then came back and hit that motherfucker with the straight right.
PC: I know you teach combination punching...
FM: (Cutting in) That's correct. I was telling a guy today that Mickey wasn't throwing combinations. I just told a guy today that I gotta get him throwing combinations. He ain't throwing combinations. He looked good, but in order to put it all together and look great, you gotta throw combinations. You gotta put your punches together. I'm not worried about it though because when he gets ready to fight again, I will be drilling him on combinations. We gonna work hard on combinations over and over and over until he gets it.
PC: Yeah, it sounds like you're going to have to put that vacation on the backburner for now.
FM: I definitely gotta do that.
PC: You're also training Vernon Paris now, right?
FM: Yeah! You know him?
PC: Yeah, he recently beat Emanuel Augustus, who is always tough.
FM: As a matter of fact, that was Lil Floyd's toughest fight.
PC: Yeah, Emanuel gave Lil Floyd some issues.
FM: He was Lil Floyd's toughest fight because Emanuel Augustus was always a really good fighter, man. They never gave him the breaks though. He is a really good fighter. I like Augustus. I was gonna train Augustus one time. We talked about it, but sometimes, it just doesn't work out.
PC: Speaking of Floyd, will you assist at all in his camp for Victor Ortiz?
FM: Probably not, man, and I told you the reasons why before. Right now, Lil Floyd is doing his thing and I'm doing mine. This guy he is fighting is young and he has to take him serious. Lil Floyd is 34 years old now, man. Fighting is all about timing. Alls it takes is for you to lose a second or two of timing. It is what it is, man. I gotta keep on doing my thing, man.
PC: So you are happy with your current crop of fighters right now?
FM: Oh yeah, I got a few fighters that will be champions one day. Mickey Bey is one of them. I gotta work with him a little bit, but he's gonna be straight. Vernon Paris is the other one. I can make Vernon a champion fast; faster than Mickey. Vernon done been shot and everything, man. He was shot three times and stabbed in the back a couple of times. He got a bullet in his back right now. But that don't mean nothing. He's getting ready to fight Roger's boy, Tim [Coleman]. That's the next fight coming up on August 5th. Then Mickey Bey's gonna fight on another channel on August 6th and then Ms. Knockout [Yolanda Ezell] gonna fight on August 27th. And then I got a guy gonna fight out in Chicago on July 15th. But I'm telling you right now, Vernon gonna be a champion and so will Mickey. I got a lot of fights going on and I feel great man, so that helps a lot. I can honestly tell you Percy, I don't even remember coughing at all today. I'm doing much better, man. I'm doing real good.
PC: You sound 100 times better than you did when I first spoke to you 3 or 4 years ago.
FM: Oh yeah, man. I have been dealing with this stuff about 11 years and I'm doing great now. I used to not want to go lay down and go to bed. I knew I would be coughing all night and it scared me because I didn't know if I was going to choke or not. You never know what could go wrong, man. When I feel good, I can train my fighters good. And that's what people don't know about Mickey, man, because they don't see what I see, but the only thing he is lacking is combinations. He threw a good jab and the right hand he threw when he knocked him out, but that's the only thing that looked good. You can't knock it though because he looked impressive, but as his trainer, I gotta be critical of him. I was telling him too that we gotta punch behind our defense. Instead of just rolling and catching, he gotta fire something behind that. Everything is going to be good, man. I will be working with him a lot.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]