I wasn’t able to record Floyd Mayweather’s latest conference call for his upcoming bout against Ricky Hatton (12/8, HBO PPV) but below are some of the highlights:
On whether he (Mayweather) was happy to get booted off Dancing With The Stars early so he could focus on his training:
“Well, I would rather go home early then go home, you know, a week before the fight. I’d rather go home early. I mean it’s just like when you’re fighting a guy, you say to yourself, like – it’s hard to explain. It’s more like – I mean I was happy that – just to get the experience, just to go on dancing with the stars, just do so something different, because I was the only athlete that was active. You have other athletes, they weren’t active. They were like – I was doing two things at one time. I had to wake up, go to the dance studio. After the dance studio, go to the boxing gym. After the boxing gym, go run. After the run, I had to go back to the dance studio. After the dance studio, then I had to go to physical training, you know, at the fitness gym. So, I mean it was grueling, but was it worth it? Absolutely.”
Oscar De La Hoya (Golden Boy is promoting this fight) was also on the call and had this to say regarding Mayweather’s involvement on the show:
“Well, I – being a fighter myself, you know, and the fighting world, you know, it’s a small world. And we all know that Mayweather is a professional when it comes to his boxing. We all know that he’s always in great shape. We all know that he goes to the gym every day and he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t – you know, he has not bad habits. You know, so it really didn’t worry anybody much, you know, because even though if he did stay until the last week, you know, we felt it wasn’t going to effect him because he’s always in great shape.
And so, you know, obviously, in my case, I think it was a little bit different, you know. You know, I wouldn’t stay in shape, like Mayweather in between fights, and so, you know, it was a different case for me. You know, when I was fighting and younger, but with Mayweather, I think there no doubt that he can pull this off with no problem.”
Mayweather on his amazing stamina:
“Well I don’t train like no other fighter. We don’t train like no other fighter. And, you know, I mean of course, Oscar is – you know, he’s one of the guys that’s going down in history as one of the best guys of my era. And if I’m fighting one of the best guys of my era, I’ve got to push myself to the limit, you know. And what I was doing for that fight is – actually I’m training harder this fight than I did for that fight because for that fight, you know, I just started boxing nine rounds probably into the third week. But, you know, I think it’s my second day back boxing – it’s my second day back boxing in the gym I started boxing nine and 10 rounds.
So, you know, I’m all ready in tremendous shape all ready. I’m running eight miles. And it’s just that we don’t – we’re not like no other fighter. We don’t use a bell when we go to the gym. We don’t use a bell at all. We don’t even have a bell in our gym. So, sometimes when we box, we box, you know, six to eight straight minutes, because if a guy gets tired, we put another guy in to keep boxing. So, I guess I’m a throwback fighter. I’m a fighter than can fight 15 rounds, you know, if needed. But, I mean I have nothing but the utmost respect for all of these – you know, all fighters who dedicate themselves to his craft. And I just come with tremendous shape. I mean a lot of it is God-given talent. Most of it is God-given talent, you know. And the rest is just hard work.”
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Two big fights left on the 2007 boxing calendar: Mosley vs. Cotto and Mayweather vs. Hatton. Not a bad ending to what is shaping up to be a record-breaking year in the world of boxing. (Who said this sport was dead, anyways?)
