"Maybe Pacquiao's fire is dwindling a little bit. You can only burn so bright for so long. He's been doing it an awfully long time and boxing isn't his end all be all anymore. Obviously he's a politician, and doing all of the other things that he's doing and being the world figure that he is that's got to be taking him back a little bit. That's very hard to do. Very few people in the world have had to put up with that constant pressure of being the man like that. Maybe he needs to take a step back. Him and Marquez fought, what, 36 rounds now and you can say Marquez won the majority of them. It's just always gonna be a tough fight for him. It's just a bad matchup for him and if he can't find a way to knockout Marquez, it's gonna be a long, drawn out, hard fight...the only thing that he can really do after the last fight with Marquez is to do it one more time. It doesn't really make any sense, if you're not going to fight Floyd Mayweather, to fight anybody else. If you lose to a Tim Bradley, then you don't get another Marquez fight or a Floyd Mayweather fight. He should fight Floyd first because if you lost to Floyd, you would still have the Marquez fight, but people will pay to see a Pacquiao/Marquez 4th go," stated world-class trainer Ron Frazier, who shared his thoughts on a potential fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez, Floyd Mayweather, Andre Ward, Lamont Peterson, and much more. Check it out!
PC: Ron, what sticks out in your mind the most when you look at the year of 2011 in the fight game?
RF: When I look at the world of combatant sports of MMA and boxing, it's Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather is still the most intriguing thing out there. His fight with Victor Ortiz and the build up to it, obviously the kind of controversial way it ended, he still commands so much attention, and watching the fight itself before the controversial ending if you will, you see the skillset is still intact. He was looking really good and putting on a good performance against a younger, bigger, and stronger opponent.
PC: When you look at the time he will be away starting in June, do you think he loses any skillset or mental edge that he's always had?
RF: I don't think it's gonna diminish his skillset at all. He's a guy that only fights once a year anyway. He just came off of a 16-month layoff. He's had a 18-month layoff before and came back and performed really well. If he was gonna be off 2 or 3 years at this stage of his career, you might start to see some erosion, but this kind of falls into that timeline where he was going to be off and not fighting anyway. I think he will be fine. Hopefully though, it will give him a chance to refocus his mental game and do what he needs to do as a father and as a man. I'm not going to cast dispersions because I don't know what went on. I just know what he pled guilty to and that's not acceptable. I only know him a little bit on a personal level. We're not personal friends. He's been very good to the UNLV boxing kids that I coach, letting them come watch him spar and things like that. As a man, you gotta get your house in order because raising your kids and doing the other things that you are supposed to do is way more important than being a fighter. I don't care how much money you make.
PC: Three other guys that had big years were Andre Ward, Brandon Rios and Lamont Peterson. What did you think of their years and what do you look for them to do this year?
RF: Andre Ward stepped up big time. I was thoroughly impressed with how he handled the Super Six tournament. Everybody has kind of been waiting on Andre to see what he is gonna do. There were concerns that he didn't have a sturdy chin and things of that nature. He just keeps growing as a fighter and getting better, and he's been able to break down his opponents knowing their strengths and taking them away. I wish he had a little bit more dynamic power. I mean, obviously he hits hard enough to get your attention. Nobody is just going to walk through him for sure, but I wish he had a little bit more of that dynamic power; that one-hitter-quitter in him. I just really think he has a really bright future. I think he's the best at 168. I think he cleans out the division and I think he can go to 175 and do damage there as well. And hopefully people understand that this sport is called boxing. It's not called knock people out.
PC: He reminds me of Gerald McClellan without the punching power.
RF: That's a very astute comparison. And you know what? His fights are not boring to me. I think people are uneducated in the game. Maybe it's because of how we live our life. We have microwave ovens, cell phones and car phones, and everything is instantaneous, where 30 years ago, you actually sat down and watched fights and understood the nuances of the game. We would appreciate guys like Andre Ward. As far as Brandon Rios is concerned, he is a young fighter, but you gotta be disciplined, you know? If it calls for you to make 135, then you need to make 135. If you cannot make that weight anymore, then you need to speak up and say, "Hey, I'm struggling. I can't make this," and then move up to the next weight class. I think he has a bright future because the guy can fight, but I don't ever want to see guys not do what they are supposed to do on the scale. You are a professional athlete and the other guy is training just like you. If they are making weight, then you need to make weight too. As far as talent is concerned, he can fight and he is definitely a rising star.
PC: And Lamont Peterson, obviously when you here his story, it is amazing where he is today, but even coming off of the Tim Bradley loss and the Victor Ortiz draw, he bounced back well. What do you think of him?
RF: You know, he is one of those guys, and boxing more so than some other sports, where guys came from such bad conditions in life. What are you going to do to this kid in the ring that life hasn't already done to him prior to that? So I just look at him being able to persevere and overcome in that ring. Even when he gets a setback like a loss to Timothy Bradley or a draw with Victor Ortiz, his mindset is like onward and upward. He moves to the next fight and shows his metal. He is mentally tough and in that fight with Amir Khan, he found a game plan that was working. He was being very physical in there and it worked for him. Once you become a champion, I think you get that championship confidence, so I think that's going to serve him well moving forward and I look for him to do some good things.
PC: Manny Pacquiao did go 2-0 in 2011. The Shane Mosley fight was a terrible fight, probably not his fault, but still not a good fight, and the Marquez fight was a very good fight, but Manny didn't look too great in the fight. Do you see him as a guy losing interest in boxing or maybe just being figured out a little bit?
RF: The luster and the shine is definitely coming off somewhat. It's not that so much...once he hit Shane and Shane went into survival mode, which he obviously did against Floyd Mayweather as well, if guys don't want to be knocked out and they are a veteran of the game, then it's gonna be hard to do. The thing is it looked like he was getting turned and his footwork wasn't what I expected from him at this point in his career. I mean, he is great and dynamic and all of those things, but Shane was able to stay out of trouble with a few basic tricks, and you look at that and you go, "Wait a minute! What's going on?" Maybe Pacquiao's fire is dwindling a little bit. You can only burn so bright for so long. He's been doing it an awfully long time and boxing isn't his end all be all anymore. Obviously he's a politician, and doing all of the other things that he's doing and being the world figure that he is that's got to be taking him back a little bit. That's very hard to do. Very few people in the world have had to put up with that constant pressure of being the man like that. Maybe he needs to take a step back. Him and Marquez fought, what, 36 rounds now and you can say Marquez won the majority of them. It's just always gonna be a tough fight for him. It's just a bad matchup for him and if he can't find a way to knockout Marquez, it's gonna be a long, drawn out, hard fight, and the only thing, coming into this fight, the 9 to 1 odds were absolutely ridiculous considering the previous 24 rounds that they had fought. The only question was could Marquez handle 145? They are both little guys that moved up in weight, but Manny has obviously handled the weight better and the only thing we had seen from Marquez in particular was when he moved up in the Floyd Mayweather fight. Obviously he was fighting a bigger fighter, who was naturally the bigger guy, but it looked like he didn't hold that weight properly, so you wondered if he could do it in the fight with Manny, and if he couldn't, than that might give Manny a huge edge down the stretch where he might possibly win by decision or maybe a late round stoppage. But you saw early on in this fight that he can handle the weight, so you knew he was gonna be a handful and he was. Moving forward for Manny Pacquiao, the only thing that he can really do after the last fight with Marquez is to do it one more time. It doesn't really make any sense, if you're not going to fight Floyd Mayweather, to fight anybody else. If you lose to a Tim Bradley, then you don't get another Marquez fight or a Floyd Mayweather fight. He should fight Floyd first because if you lost to Floyd, you would still have the Marquez fight, but people will pay to see a Pacquiao/Marquez 4th go.
PC: Not so much Trainer of the Year, but what trainers do you enjoy seeing them do their work in the corner in the sport of boxing?
RF: Ah man, I like a lot of them. I'm an open book. I have no favorites in particular. I just try to keep an open mind and hear the advice that they are giving in each fight and the adjustments that they are making. If it's a major fight and we are getting a 24/7 or Fight Camp 360, I like to see their preparation leading up to the fight. I like Andre Ward's trainer. Virgil Hunter should get a lot of credit. Freddie Roach does some good things. I think some of the things that people do with him may be a tad bit overweight. Ya boy Naazim Richardson is a great trainer. I just try to have an open mind and listen and learn. I don't care what sport it is, you can always learn as a coach and as a trainer. If you close down your mind and think you know the only way, I think you limit your fighter. There is not one way, but many ways, so I try to keep an open mind. I have no particular favorite out there, but I listen to everybody. I remember one of the most enjoyable experiences I had in my life came before I really started training fighters. I had a chance to interview Angelo Dundee on a radio show and before the show started, I had a chance to talk to him for like 45 minutes. To just talk boxing with him and see what he had to say was like, "Wow." I just tried to pick up little nuances and nuggets here and there.
PC: I think the Vernon Paris fight could be a bad fight for Zab Judah, I think Paul Williams and Zab Judah could be guys on their way out this year. Who else do you see that can easily become an opponent this year?
RF: I think Paul Williams is a big one for becoming that based on his last couple of fights; they have not been good for him and his fall from grace has been so rapid and kind of so surprising that it's starting to affect the way we look at other fighters; guys that he fought. Now I'm starting to look at Sergio Martinez, and as great as he has been, you go, "Is he that great? Look at Paul, look at Kermit." Maybe he's not who we think he is based on who they are. Whether that's fair or not, and it's probably not fair, but you get into doing things like that. You say, "Is this the guy that lost to Margarito or is this the guy that knocked Paul Williams stiff when we hadn't seen that?" Paul Williams and Zab most definitely have to do something this year, and Devon Alexander. He's going up in weight. He's a good one that has to come on strong, especially in the early half of 2012. If not, there is a chance that he can fall off of the map. I think that's about it right now of guys that can fall off of the map. I wish we had a heavyweight that was up there that can do something to somebody, but the heavyweight division right now...
PC: I got a few guys talking some serious smack and I think if we can get some of these fights made, it could bring a little spark to the division.
RF: (Laughing) I see that. I see on FightHype what's going on with Malik Scott and Kevin Johnson and there has to be more of that on the pages of FightHype. Hopefully they can bang it out and do some things and somebody captures our attention again, because that's what's missing in boxing. Boxing is fine. Everybody wants to put the death nail in boxing every time something happens, which they been doing for the last 20 years. I think 2011 was a good year for boxing. I think 2012 has some good matchups as well, but if you had some marquee heavyweights in boxing that people wanted to see, then I think a lot of that noise that boxing is dead would die down. I love MMA. I train MMA fighters as well as boxers, but what MMA has done has nothing to do with what boxing is doing. Boxing was becoming more of a marginalized niche sport based on its promoters only looking out for themselves, and they have been doing that forever more so than the rise of MMA. Basically they are not really in the same market.
PC: It's funny you mention that because I was shocked at how many of my cousins and friends who are diehard boxing fans can't really get into MMA. They don't really like to see punches to guys that are downed and so on.
RF: Yeah, a lot of people can't handle it. It's funny because at the end of the day, boxing is probably way unhealthier than MMA is. In boxing, the way you train and the way a lot of guys spar, it's blunt force trauma to the head. MMA don't spar as much, and obviously you have to work on different things, like wrestling and grappling, and you're not taking as much damage and pounding to your head. I was just watching the replay of the Henderson and Shogun fight that I have a copy of and it was a good fight and there was a lot of back and forth action. Then I watched Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the "Thrilla in Manila" and I was wincing because, man, that was brutal. That fight was so brutal. It's not even a comparison of the brutality sometimes and what happens to these guys afterwards is crazy. It can be very brutal and unforgiving, and they are both great sports in their own right. I wish people wouldn't compare them so much. They should understand what they are, understand what the participants in each sport go through to be good at what they do, and just respect that. When you got a fine-tuned boxer like a Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao, these guys have been boxing since they were little, so obviously their hands and their footwork is up to par because that's all they have ever had to concentrate on. MMA is still relatively a new sport. The first one that we ever saw was in 1993, so we're, what, coming up on 20 years. It's evolving and getting better all of the time and guys are learning how to train better and add their skills to show their greatness. but they have different things to worry about and their hands is probably never going to look like a boxers. But the little nuances, the many different ways you can win or lose a fight, those things don't happen in boxing. It's hard to find a guy in MMA that's going to be 40-0. I mean, look at Jon Jones. He is the hot talk in MMA and he has 1 loss because he got the disqualification for illegal elbows because anything can happen in MMA. I wish people would just understand both sports and understand the participants and the guys, and know how they train and what they do and how they deserve to be paid and all of that stuff, and not be so critical. I think a lot of times, people criticize just to criticize. Its like, "I can't do it, so I'm going to criticize these guys for going out there and doing it."
PC: I appreciate your time as always. I know you have been under the weather and I'm sure you would like to thank some of the people that sent you well wishes?
RF: Yeah, I've been under the weather the last couple of weeks, but I appreciate all of the love, support, and prayers that I got from everybody from all over the world and all over the place. So very appreciative, but I'm on the mend and as long as I can go and play with my little 2 year old daughter Samara, who is growing and getting bigger every day, then everything is good in the world.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]