This week’s 96th edition ofOn the Ropes Boxing Radio featured an exclusive interview with Hall of Fame boxing trainer Emanuel Steward, who discussed a slew of different topics, including Vitali Klitschko’s victory over Briggs, Wladimir Klitschko’s upcoming title defense against Derek Chisora, Lennox Lewis, Miguel Cotto, Andy Lee, Freddie Roach, Naseem Hamed, Marquez-Katsidis, Hopkins-Pascal, Pacquiao-Margarito, and much more. He also spoke about his October 23 Boxing Clinic which will be held at the Maple Avenue Gym in Dallas, Texas .
His views going into the fight between Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao considering most observers heavily favored Barrera:
“I felt the same way. I had seen Manny. I think his first fight here we did on television Ledwaba who I think it was a boxer from South Africa. I got a report from a friend of mine who was from the Philippines and he said, ‘He’s a pure fighter. He’s a little tough street kid here who shoots pool, he is a pool hustler or whatever, but he can fight. He’s never in a boring fight so don’t take him lightly’, because I didn’t think he could do anything. Anyway, when he knocked out Ledwaba he had punching power and intensity that I had not seen in a long time, but I did not think he was going to beat Barrera.
When he beat Barrera, I was just totally shocked and I think he beat him in San Antonio if I remember. I mean everything was totally out of order for him in terms of being in a Mexican town. I was just very impressed the way he fought with such intensity and confidence. Then he did it again and he did it again, and throughout the years he not only made a big believer out of me, but he is probably my favorite fighter in the world today and I think definitely one of the greatest fighters that I ever saw because of his consistent performance over all of these years with the top fighters. He’s been performing on the top level, and I think lost only one I think maybe to Morales where he stopped him in the return. I judge a person on his performance against the best, but he’s been performing on a consistent level against the best fighters for all these years and has held up.
In Barrera’s case, he’s one of the few fighters that I ever saw who made a complete transition from his early career, from being a ‘baby-faced assassin’ or whatever, where we looked at him with McKinney and those type of fights with ‘Fight of the Year’, ‘Round of the Year’. It was mainly from tough aggressive fighting and a typical Mexican style of fighting. It seemed like he just transformed everything. He maybe even changed the whole culture of the Mexican boxers with Morales and all of them. He just changed and became a technical boxer, and at the end of his career he was known as more of a I call him ‘boxing machine’. It’s very seldom you could have someone do that, especially when they’ve had like twenty or thirty fights completed.
We were fortunate in this time to see two of the best probably featherweights, and junior lightweights, and lightweights maybe in the history of boxing. All of them have been right here and they’ve been fighting each other, which has been good. Instead of the situation where we can’t get Floyd involved. I guess Barrera and Morales and Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez have all been fighting each other. More than any one person, I would definitely have to say Naseem Hamed brought the focus and attention to the lighter weight divisions. Without him, you don’t invest them money or you don’t do this with the small fighters. The TV wasn’t even interested in watching the small fighters. I’m not sure, but I think it was Lou DiBella who really was the one who went over there and convinced HBO to try and invest in this situation with this colorful little fighter from over there in England. Once he hit New York and started talking and had one of the greatest kickoffs, if you will, that we had in history at Madison Square to crawl off the floor with Kevin Kelley and he ended up winning by knockout. It was like the timing was set for greatness, and from that point on I think that’s when they got interested in all these other smaller guys. But Prince Hamed was the guy that I credit more than anyone else for really bringing the focus on the smaller guys in boxing.”
His views on the work Freddie Roach has done with Pacquiao to make him a more complete fighter:
“I think Freddie did what words won’t be able to describe what he did with him. He definitely transformed him from being one-dimensional, and that’s why I wasn’t that super high on him to a certain degree, because he would move around, move around, and throw a long straight left hand with his full power, but there was no other balance or combinations or anything. It was mainly just a strong straight left hand punch. The chemistry between him and Freddie, and you get this sometimes rarely when you have a certain trainer and fighter that just have a chemistry that is unbelievable. The chemistry worked perfect for them, and he’s became a balanced fighter with a right hand now that’s just as deadly as his left. He boxes well with his right jab, his right hook, he’s a tremendous counter-puncher, and what is really unusual about him also and special, he’s the type of guy you have to be careful with when you go into an exchange. A lot of his knockouts and knockdowns come when people are in the middle of exchanges. He has unbelievable cat-like reflexes where he could be slipping punches and landing punches at the same time, and then slip another punch that’s coming in, and land another punch and slip again. So he’s a very dangerous guy to fight, and it seems like they have a great relationship not just in the ring, but out of the ring. He has definitely been Freddie’s signature fighter that has been really great for both of them in terms of money and recognition that they’ve gotten as a team.”
“I think Freddie did what words won’t be able to describe what he did with him. He definitely transformed him from being one-dimensional, and that’s why I wasn’t that super high on him to a certain degree, because he would move around, move around, and throw a long straight left hand with his full power, but there was no other balance or combinations or anything. It was mainly just a strong straight left hand punch. The chemistry between him and Freddie, and you get this sometimes rarely when you have a certain trainer and fighter that just have a chemistry that is unbelievable. The chemistry worked perfect for them, and he’s became a balanced fighter with a right hand now that’s just as deadly as his left. He boxes well with his right jab, his right hook, he’s a tremendous counter-puncher, and what is really unusual about him also and special, he’s the type of guy you have to be careful with when you go into an exchange. A lot of his knockouts and knockdowns come when people are in the middle of exchanges. He has unbelievable cat-like reflexes where he could be slipping punches and landing punches at the same time, and then slip another punch that’s coming in, and land another punch and slip again. So he’s a very dangerous guy to fight, and it seems like they have a great relationship not just in the ring, but out of the ring. He has definitely been Freddie’s signature fighter that has been really great for both of them in terms of money and recognition that they’ve gotten as a team.”
His views on the upcoming fight between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito:
“Originally when the fight was made, I thought with Margarito being a tough big, big man who’s big even for any welterweight. Don’t forget, he drowned down big guys like Cintron, and guys who are 5’11”. To put him in with a guy who is about 5’6”, and in my opinion Manny is still nothing but a little over the lightweight limit. From what I was told and what Freddie’s said, he still stays around about 138 and that’s with eating and feeding him and sometimes weighing-in and eating the day before the fight just to make 142 or something. So for him to be what I call really a lightweight/junior welterweight or whatever, to be fighting these types of guys who seem too big for him. The fact that Manny’s such a special, special machine, and I haven’t seen him fight since he lost to Mosley, I didn’t see Margarito’s fight in Mexico—his timing and coordination is not going to be able to deal with him. Even though he has a physical advantage, I just don’t think he’s going to be sharp enough to deal with the speed and accuracy and pinpoint punching of Manny. Even though he’s physically much smaller, I think he’s going to just be too much for Margarito.”
“Originally when the fight was made, I thought with Margarito being a tough big, big man who’s big even for any welterweight. Don’t forget, he drowned down big guys like Cintron, and guys who are 5’11”. To put him in with a guy who is about 5’6”, and in my opinion Manny is still nothing but a little over the lightweight limit. From what I was told and what Freddie’s said, he still stays around about 138 and that’s with eating and feeding him and sometimes weighing-in and eating the day before the fight just to make 142 or something. So for him to be what I call really a lightweight/junior welterweight or whatever, to be fighting these types of guys who seem too big for him. The fact that Manny’s such a special, special machine, and I haven’t seen him fight since he lost to Mosley, I didn’t see Margarito’s fight in Mexico—his timing and coordination is not going to be able to deal with him. Even though he has a physical advantage, I just don’t think he’s going to be sharp enough to deal with the speed and accuracy and pinpoint punching of Manny. Even though he’s physically much smaller, I think he’s going to just be too much for Margarito.”
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