GL: Congrats on your victory Shawn, can you give us some thoughts on your performance? I’m proud of it. I thought that the game plan that we put forth before the fight pretty much came through during the fight. Outside of the head butts I feel like it was a pretty good performance by me. GL: Was there anything about Berto that surprised you? It was what I expected to see, I didn’t see anything unexpected.”
GL: What needs to be done to prevent so many head butts moving forward?
Shawn Porter: “At this point we’ve just got to keep working. It happens, obviously we work on being aggressive, but being smart at the same time. I think it was mixture of both, sometimes I was a little bit more aggressive than what I needed to be, but it wasn’t just me. Neither of us were intentionally throwing our heads around, it just happened and that’s a part of the sport. You never really know what’s going to happen until you’re in there.”
GL: You were a dog in there, you asserted your will early and looked like the Alpha Dog early into the fight…
SP: (cutting in) “Yeah that’s always a key to me, I want whoever I’m in the ring with to know that they’re going to be in for a long night. They’re going to get the best of me and I’m in there to win. I thought I did a great job of boxing from the outside as well as the inside.”
GL: How many stitches did it take to close the cuts on your eyes?
SP: “Enough. (laughs) I think I’m expected to be back sparring and stuff like that in about thirty days.”
GL: Do you plan to fight again before your next title fight?
SP: “The plan was to fight for the mandatory, become the mandatory and then move from there. Right now it’s a little too early to figure out exactly what we’re going to do. We’re playing against boxing right now, we’re playing against time and we’re playing against Keith Thurman. We have to wait and see what he wants to do. We’ll negotiate, we’ll make it happen and we’ll figure it out. We want to be back into the ring sooner than later and if that means taking a fight to stay busy and stay in the public eye we’ll do that, but my number one is to win that WBC title.”
G:: Is there anything you’d like to say in closing?
SP: “I’m just so happy to make it through that fight safely, blessed and with another victory. Keep a lookout for me and I’ll see you guys real soon.!”
