"If we go by what we seen the other night when he fought Dawson, what I saw is both of them guys would have had problems with Bernard. Bernard is a cagey cat, but then again, we have to look at the fact that Pascal has youth. All professional sports will bow down to youth in the long run. That's just the way it is. We've known that throughout history. As much as we can watch Willie Mays, we know some day, we gonna be watching Ken Griffey Jr. The torch is handed down. It's one of those fights that can treat the public. Bernard Hopkins is one of those veteran dudes and everybody in the media wants to give their opinion on Bernard. When it comes to a cat like X, they been talking bad about him since he started...these dudes ain't even in their 30's, let alone 40's. These cats are supposed to be in the prime of their life. They not supposed to be coming up short like that. They babies in the sport. Bernard has hand wraps, training boots and cups that are older than these dudes," stated world-class trainer Naazim Richardson as he shared his thoughts on the future plans of Bernard Hopkins and much more. Check it out!
PC: How has everything been going Brother Naaz?
NR: You know me; just holding on with both hands.
PC: Bernard Hopkins is still an active figure in the fight game and an important component in the light heavyweight division. There were 2 big fights recently in the division that potentially produced eventual opponents for BHop. What did you think of the Cloud/Johnson fight?
NR: I've always been impressed with the young guy, Tavoris Cloud. I've always appreciated the young man. He puts me in mind of the older fighters. He really looks like he's focused and he's fighting so hard. The kid can make a little noise out here. You can really see that the kid is trying to be special. I appreciate that. And Glen Johnson is just such a solid and strong guy. He's like Bernard and he's gonna pick whenever it is that he wants to retire because these young bucks can't just retire him. You gotta rumble with these dudes, man, and only the special are going to get past them. I'm a Glen Johnson fan from way back, but I picked Tavoris to get by him. I thought if it was one cat that can get by him, it would be Tavoris Cloud.
I have always been impressed with Chad Dawson. I actually took Dawson to the "Under 19" tournament years ago when he was a young kid and they robbed him real bad in that tournament, but you could see his quality even then. I have always been impressed with him; the Dawson family really. Dawson has a brother and I've been curious as to where he is because he was special too. Chad Dawson is a quality dude. If we can figure out what happened in certain fights where sometimes a guy doesn't respond, then we can figure out this sport. Guys can pretend like they are experts and say, "Well, I can see this and I can see that," but some things just didn't show up in Chad that night. It didn't look like the Chad Dawson that we had come to know, but he still showed some flashes and I can't take nothing away from Pascal. I remember him from the qualifiers out there with my sons and knew him from the amateurs. Pascal was a tough kid and he stuck to a good game plan. Even when he got rocked a couple of times, he got back on board to what he wanted to do and where he wanted to fight Chad. And he never deviated from where he wanted to fight Chad. Chad was stepping up the pressure, but this is why we say, "if you can step it up, get it done," because if you linger around, no telling what may come. Eddie Mustafa is one of the top guys in the game and he is one of those teachers and he knows. You can hear the intensity in his voice and he was trying to send Chad out there to get it done. Chad had put his back up against the wall and it looked like he was coming to do what he needed to do and finish it out, but by then, anything could happen and something happened. He got the headbutt.
PC: He was in Pascal's backyard and a lot of those shots Chad may have been blocking, but he wasn't throwing anything, so you can't even use the hometown thing because he made it easy on the judges by not throwing.
NR: My problem with that situation, which to me was much different than Diaz and Malignaggi; it was two different fights with Diaz/Malignaggi and Dawson/Pascal. Diaz was landing shots and yes, the crowd was responding and maybe over-reacting, but it wasn't like he was hitting gloves in that first fight. Diaz was landing shots and that's the best I've seen Diaz look in a long time; both of them. I didn't think either one of them looked that good in the second fight. Paulie is an exciting kid, but in that fight, everything may not have landed clean, but the crowd was responding to Diaz. I thought Diaz landed some solid shots in that fight. In the Pascal fight, Pascal did what you're supposed to do. Its okay if he threw flurries, or whatnot, and they didn't land. He put himself in a position where Chad threw nothing back. So the bottom line, if we gonna fight and two men gonna stand in the ring and one guy slaps the other guy's glove and the other guy don't do nothing, and they continue that pattern, who can the judges give that fight to? He has no option but to give it to the guy who he sees at least throwing something. Chad wasn't doing too much in those early rounds and Eddie Mustafa was pushing him to get that jab working. Chad started showing up in the 2nd half and maybe that was his game plan; let this guy burn his energy down and then go to work. Chad is a sure enough champion. Maybe he wanted to let the kid burn some of that nervous energy off and then he would go get him. You never know what could happen by the time you go get him if you wait like that.
PC: What's it like, Brother Naaz, when you're in Eddie Mustafa's shoes and the athlete just isn't responding to you?
NR: It's a part of the game. Trainers, we can get to the point where some of them get so self-righteous and they start hooting and hollering about what a fighter needs to do because he has the experience and knowledge to know. The bottom line is you take our ass up in the ring and do it our damn selves if you want to show how you want it done. All you can do is pass that information on. If you running a store and you tell the guys to clean and every time you come back, the store is not clean, the best thing you can do is to fire them jokers and clean it yourself. That's all you can do is pass the information on. In this sport, we've seen it time and time again where sometimes the athlete just doesn't show up. Sometimes something goes wrong in the last minute. We don't know what some of these guys are carrying on their plate in their social lives. We coming up now and you looking at a documentary of Tyson telling you he has gone into the ring with a venereal disease. They not going to share that with you. A fighter just may have to keep that to himself. Alls you can do is support them through the bad times and motivate them when times are good and support them when times go wrong. There was a situation I had with my athlete. When Shane came out of the ring, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, "My bad. I wasn't listening to you and I wasn't doing what you said to do." I said, "Listen man, it's still my job to make you listen. You're not going to talk bad about my fighter because nobody talks bad about my fighter, including you."
PC: Pascal is calling for BHop. Is that a fight that you like for Hopkins right now?
NR: We can only imagine how a guy is going to show up for Bernard that night. If we go by what we seen the other night when he fought Dawson, what I saw is both of them guys would have had problems with Bernard. Bernard is a cagey cat, but then again, we have to look at the fact that Pascal has youth. All professional sports will bow down to youth in the long run. That's just the way it is. We've known that throughout history. As much as we can watch Willie Mays, we know some day, we gonna be watching Ken Griffey Jr. The torch is handed down. It's one of those fights that can treat the public. Bernard Hopkins is one of those veteran dudes and everybody in the media wants to give their opinion on Bernard. When it comes to a cat like X, they been talking bad about him since he started. What do they think, he cares about everybody wanting to jump on the mic to say they want him? I remember Dawson and them had put something out after he fought Roy and I'm like, I remember watching you guys put on performances that were lackluster and these dudes ain't even in their 30's, let alone 40's. These cats are supposed to be in the prime of their life. They not supposed to be coming up short like that. They babies in the sport. Bernard has hand wraps, training boots and cups that are older than these dudes. We gotta quit pointing the finger because you never know when you're on the other side of that fence.
Bottom line is I told Bernard, and I will go on record and say this, I told Bernard after the Tarver fight to retire, but I didn't tell him to retire because I didn't think he could compete anymore. I keep seeing people come out and say that, but I didn't tell him to retire because he couldn't compete. I told him to retire because no one that late in the game at that age had put on the kind of performances consistent to the one he had. If he would have retired at that time, with the shocker over Tarver, it would have been a long time before another fighter retired like that. A lot of them started like that, but who is the last fighter you've seen finish it like that? That's why I told him to do it because I felt like it was securing his legacy and whenever you mention a fighter, no matter what legend you mentioned, you would say, "Well, none of them left like Bernard Hopkins." But the choice is his and this is where people get it confused. The choice belongs to the gladiator. The gladiator put these years of work in and now they are towards the end, it's their time to make decisions. When Bernard turned pro, he wasn't making decisions in the process. When he turned pro, cats told him when he was fighting and how much the money was and so on. You just went along with it and you do what you had to do. I tell these young bulls in the streets, "Do what you have to do until you're in a position to do what you want to do. Work the job that you have to work to finish school and get the job that you want to work." It's not for us to tell him when to retire. He's earned the right to retire when he's ready. He's earned that right. I tell you what, I'll support him. I hear people say, "Well, he shouldn't stay around for too long." I tell you what, you do it! You go out and get the record and build the name he's built and you leave and show him how it's supposed to be done.
These young boys are just walking through this sport on their talent and on their athleticism. Like I said, I've seen a lot of athletes that just happen to box. They are basketball players and football players and all of these kids are jut athletes who happen to do some boxing. Their athleticism holds up for a second to do that, but like a good buddy of mine, who I really like, Jermain Taylor, once that athleticism is stunned, it comes back to the boxing and that takes a lot of time.
CHECK BACK FOR MUCH MORE TO COME FROM NAAZIM RICHARDSON
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