Anyone who would assume that 66-year old Emanuel Steward is a man running out of fight or vigor would be poorly mistaken.
The world renown Kronk trainer is going strong as ever, as evidenced by his core group of talented prizefighters, and has been particularly adamant during the lead up to his charge Miguel Cotto’s fight with Ricardo Mayorga on March 12th. Cotto defends his WBA junior middleweight title this Saturday night against the vulgar Nicaraguan inside of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in a fight that is turning out to be more interesting by the minute.
Steward of course hooked up with Cotto after the Puerto Rican’s disastrous defeat to Manny Pacquiao inside of the same building in November of 2009 and the two have seemed to mesh well together. In June Cotto showed a lively bounce to his attack in stopping Belarus’ Yuri Foreman in nine rounds at Yankee Stadium and Steward has been predicting an ever finer performance against Mayorga this weekend.
<--- Slideshow: A look inside the final Miguel Cotto-Ricardo Mayorga presser
Speaking from the Studio 8 ballroom inside of the basement lobby of the MGM earlier today, Steward spoke like a brazen buzzard full of revelations as he addressed the assembled media during Team Cotto’s time on the dais. Asked his assessment of the soon-to-be 38 year-old year old Mayorga, Steward insists that as the times have changed, so too has their opponent despite his everlasting theatrics.
“It’s crazy,” Steward said of Mayorga. “You don’t want to get too wrapped up [in his antics]. Now he is more of a conventional fighter actually. He’s slowing down. He’s become a more fundamental fighter.”
Mayorga has taken several barbs at Cotto over the weeks, especially dogging him for his 11th round TKO loss to Antonio Margarito a few years back in which he claims he ‘cowardly’ surrendered defeat. Cotto has shown no emotion to Mayorga’s attacks but you could tell that Steward has a small chip on his shoulder as he continued his dialogue.
“They have been telling Mayorga that he can just overwhelm Miguel,” Steward continued. “They are brainwashing him. He’s mentally unorganized. [Cotto] is too accurate. He has too much precision.”
Steward found his taste of fame with bruising welterweight puncher Tommy Hearns in the late 70’s and earlier 80’s and these days his stable includes Cotto, heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko, middleweight contender Andy Lee, and former light heavyweight titleist Chad Dawson, among others. While not meaning to show signs of arrogance, Steward claimed that he is one of the few trainers in the game who still practices the sport the way it’s meant to be taught.
“Nobody teaches boxing anymore,” he claimed. “People are too busy trying to develop superstars. I have even thought of doing clinics to teach other trainers. When we are on the pads we work on punching through the target. Miguel has been more powerful and he’s faster too.”
After finishing up his rap session Steward would make his way upstairs to the main ballroom as the ‘official’ press conference took place before an even greater audience. Mayorga continued to trash on Cotto and eventually Steward had heard enough. The emotions boiled over between the two men and they spent several minutes going back and forth with one another.
Steward left the crowd with some salty sound bytes to hang on to, some of which I never expected from him.
“I don’t care how hard you train. You are getting knocked out and it won’t take long either. You could take your shirt off. You could get butt-naked on here. You are out of your class. The only flag [Don King] is going to waive afterwards is a white flag. You are getting knocked out from a hook to the body.”
Tension is in the air and you can tell that it’s fight week out here in Vegas.
Chris Robinson is based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. He can be reached at [email protected]
