"Kenny does what he has to do to win and he could adapt to any situation. As far as his hands are concerned, as of late, his last couple of fights have been good. He just keeps getting better and better and improving...I know how hard the kid works. It's been a little bit of a grind for him to come back, but it's been a quick turnaround. I know how hard Kenny works and if anybody could get it done in a short period of time, it's Kenny. He's a lot sharper now," stated Peter Welch, boxing coach for Kenny Florian, as he talked about Kenny's recent success and much more. Check it out!

PC: How are you doing Peter?

PW: Great! I'm staying busy, you know, between the gym, fighters and the family, I got my hands full.

PC: What did you think of the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight?

PW: Speed kills!

PC: Were you surprised he came in so light even on fight night?

PW: No because I think he wanted to try and match Pacquiao's speed and coming in light was the only way to keep himself from being slowed down. That extra weight, whether it be 5 or 10 pounds, would've made him that much slower.

PC: Congrats on the UFC 91 win over Joe Stevenson. How impressed were you with Kenny's performance over Stevenson?

PW: I was shocked. I was shocked that he did as well as he did.

PC: I agree. Joe Daddy is no joke.

PW: No, he's no joke, that's for sure. I expected more out of Joe, but it just goes to show that hard work pays off.

PC: I always tell Kenny that he has one of the more solid teams in MMA. With all of the knowledge you guys have, how do all of you co-exist and not talk over one another?

PW: You just have to believe in what you do and Kenny makes it easy. He follows everything I tell him to a tee. It makes it easy for me to focus. I don't get caught up in what everybody else is doing. It just makes it so much easier for me when Kenny does exactly what it is that we worked on. He knows exactly what it is that he needs to do and if I get in his face, he knows it's for a reason and he'll pay attention. I don't try to do battle with the other trainers; I just do my thing. He knows if I'm there, I am there for a reason. I'm a man of very few words so when I speak, it's not for nothing. There is a purpose behind everything that I'm saying.

PC: You have been with Kenny for some time now. Which performance would you say was his most complete fight?

PW: That's tough. Kenny does what he has to do to win and he could adapt to any situation. As far as his hands are concerned, as of late, his last couple of fights have been good. He just keeps getting better and better and improving. That's the main thing I focus on is his standup and what he can do in that department as far as executing with the footwork and the hands and just getting wins. If he's sitting down on his punches and moving his head, I'm happy. I'm favorable to that performance opposed to anything else.

PC: Kenny has come so far since the show and even since the fight with Sherk. How pleased are you to see him work his way back to a title shot?

PW: I'm not shocked because I know his work ethic. It goes back to the fights because you gotta win fights to get back at a title shot. You just have to take it one fight at a time, one training session at a time and one day at a time until you've worked your way back. I'm not shocked at all because I know how hard the kid works. It's been a little bit of a grind for him to come back, but it's been a quick turnaround. I know how hard Kenny works and if anybody could get it done in a short period of time, it's Kenny. He's a lot sharper now and I'm glad he got all of those wins and put himself in that position.

PC: More than just being a great fighter, I think Kenny is a great person. How much easier does that make your job to work with someone not only with great fighting ability, but a great personality to go along with it?

PW: It makes it a helluva lot easier than working with a guy who is a head case that brings a lot of baggage with him. He's a well-rounded individual and with that I mean his personality and what he brings into the gym every day. He's always a gentleman coming in and he never brings a lot of outside stuff in with him. He takes care of business and he's out of the door. The fact that he takes initiative and he takes responsibility for his performances and he's really in tune to what he's doing, how he's doing and how he's progressing. So it makes my job easy because he does his workouts close to 100% every time he walks through the door. You don't have to deal with any of the outside bullshit.

PC: Is there any MMA fighter that you see Peter that could make the transition to boxing?

PW: Anderson Silva hands down; no problem. He would have no problem. He has all of the tools.

PC: How about boxers coming over into MMA?

PW: That's a little bit tougher because now you have to deal with the takedowns and all of the ground stuff. They may have some rough kid's in boxing that are from the streets that may be able to make the transition, but they have to put their time in like anybody else. Just because you are a fighter don't mean that your style will transcend into MMA. They're a fighter, but they are a different type of fighter. You have to make sure the ground is comfortable to you.

PC: Who are some of the fighters, boxing or MMA, that you enjoy watching right now and are you surprised that MMA has become so much more popular than boxing?

PW: Yeah, I'm not a huge current fan of boxing like I used to be. Coming up, I grew up off of guys like Hagler, Leonard and the heavyweight division, Chavez, Meldrick Taylor and Pernell Whitaker. It's not a whole lot of that today and because of that, it doesn't make it easy to follow. Then you get a taste of the real side of it…you know, as an amateur, I was enthused and excited about boxing and then when I turned pro, you realize all of the bullshit that you have to deal with behind the scenes with the promoters. It made it tough to like the sport the way I did when I was a kid. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. My whole experience as a kid, I loved it. I ate it, drank it, slept it…and as an adult, I kind of gravitate towards watching an exciting MMA fight as opposed to watching the same bullshit match-ups in boxing that has no spark. There is nothing there; the super-fights back in the old days with Hagler, Leonard, Hearns, Mugabi and Antuofermo and fights like that, which we were raised on. Now, the best of the bunch today is Pacquiao 3 or 4 weight classes from De La Hoya moving up to fight him and that's as good as it gets. What does that tell you about the sport? It was great and it was an incredible performance by Pacquiao. De La Hoya couldn't do anything. He couldn't pull the trigger for anything.

PC: Is there any fighter out there that you would like to work with that you haven't had the opportunity to work with yet?

PW:  You know what, and this is like a broad brush, but I would like to work with any MMA fighter that doesn't move their feet and move around like a boxer because I know that there are MMA fighters, and I won't name any specific fighter, but when they engage their feet, it makes them a better puncher, but they don't seem to make that connection a lot of the times. When they're moving around, they think they shouldn't be because it makes them vulnerable for takedowns. But if you do it right, you should be able to move, create angles, open up and still be safe enough to defend against the takedowns. I don't know how it transcends into MMA that if you move around or bounce and don't keep your feet set all of the time, that's going to affect you being taken down. I don't see how that theory went into practice. You know, you see guys like Anderson Silva, who has phenomenal movement, set punches up with beautiful angles and now with Kenny starting to do that himself, he's really starting to set up and get comfortable moving around in there and there are a couple of things I'm going to be working on here with him to tighten that up even more. I want to keep him from being up tall. I want to make him sit down more on the angle and when he's flushing out of the clinch. I want to make sure he's flushing out sitting down. It's great that he has good height for the division, but you don't want to stay tall in and out of an exchange. That could be deadly at times. You have to make yourself short at times. Not only to not be punched, but to be able to sit down and outpower on your punches. You gotta have those feet locked in and be set to punch.

PC: You have definitely transformed Kenny's game. I remember when he was a kid with good Jiu Jitsu and deadly elbows and you have made his standup look great.

PW: I was told by great trainers that the fighters make the trainer, not the other way around. For him to be able to get in there and apply everything I'm teaching him and fight the fight speaks volumes. He's the one in there fighting and putting in the work in the gym.

PC: I appreciate your time Peter. Good luck to you guys in 2009. Is there anything you want to say in closing?

PW: I just want everybody to know that we have a new facility opened up and we have a lot of good young sparring in there. We have more MMA fighters coming down for their standup than boxers. We have great sparring on Tuesday and Thursday nights and any and everybody is welcome to come down for sparring. We do a round robin and I want everyone to look for us in the future; we'll be expanding.