Welterweight hopeful Rashad Holloway was supposed to be back home in Cincinnati, Ohio for Christmas, as he had a scheduled bout this weekend. So in preparation for his final appearance of 2008, the 9-1 Holloway spent last week sparring with Antonio Margarito, who faces Shane Mosley next month. He wasn’t looking forward to the frigid conditions of the Midwest, but he wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity to perform either.
Holloway, whose technically sound boxing style makes him a favored sparring partner of world-class prizefighters around the Southern California area, spent most of the fall replicating Oscar De La Hoya for Manny Pacquiao and Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood, where Holloway is based.
“It was a fun experience,” he would say of being ‘The Golden Boy’ for a few months. “Manny’s one of the best guys I’ve ever met outside of boxing, he’s a great guy, a great human being, a very talented fighter. From the first day of camp I saw him getting a lot smarter. He took his bumps and bruises early in the camp, but we had a great camp. It was a fun experience.”
Roach has specifically lauded the work of Holloway, who boldly predicted that ‘the Pac Man’ would defeat De La Hoya soundly. While many others were shocked by the results that took place on the night of December the 6th, Holloway wasn’t.
“Not at all,” he says. “With the guys that we had in camp, I believe I was a much better boxer than De La Hoya is right now, at this point. De La Hoya’s older, I was faster, I was stronger, I was slicker and I just saw the progression Manny made in camp. And I didn’t see De La Hoya providing anything he didn’t see.”
When asked to contrast the difference between sparring Pacquiao and Margarito, Holloways says, “I’ll tell you what, against Pacquiao I was the bigger man, the stronger man. Against, Tony, I’m the smaller man. I kinda felt like Pacquiao, so I got to be a lot smarter. The heart of me, I love to fight, they call me a ‘Blaxican’, some days I’m black, some days I’m Mexican. Tony’s a very heavy-handed guy, and he can obviously punch. It’s two different styles.”
At this stage of his career, these battles in the gym are much tougher than anything he’ll face in a real fight. “Without a doubt, most definitely,” he agrees. “I mean, the fights I’ve had, I haven’t fought top level guys, not at all. I’ve fought a couple of pretty good fighters. They were talented but I was able to go in there and do what I had to do. The guys I’ve been sparring with, I’m sparring with some of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, there’s no comparison.”
In addition to Pacquiao and Margarito, since relocating to Los Angeles he has also gone rounds with the likes of Roman Karmazin and Alfredo Angulo, and sparring with more accomplished boxers is a rite of passage that many boxers must go through.
“If you want to get better, you have to spar with people who are on top of the game,” explained his trainer, Eric Brown, after they went four rounds with Margarito last Wednesday in Montebello. “If you want to get to that point, the only way is to work with some of those people and get some of that experience. They’re fighting at the top of the heap and it’s a different game up there. So you need to spar with people like that.”
Holloway, who was brought in by Margarito’s camp because of his quick hands and athleticism, has success when he’s able to keep things in the center of the ring. The tide turns when his back is to the ropes and he begins to slug with ‘the Tijuana Tornado’.
“He’s been making a lot of progress and he’s becoming more of a complete fighter,” says the no-nonsense Brown, who continually implored his fighter to box and move. “He still has a tendency to want to bang a little too much, but he’s improved quite a bit. He’s been getting some good work with different people like Pacquiao and Margarito and Sergio Mora. We’re looking forward to getting one more fight this year and then next year really start picking it up.”
Unfortunately for Holloway, two rounds into his session with Margarito last Friday, he was hit awkwardly by a right hand that caused an injury to the orbital bone of his right eye, thus forcing a cancellation of his bout this weekend. It?s precisely why the days of Holloway being a sparring partner are coming to an end.
“I’m not sparring anymore, no more guys, no way I’ll be a sparring partner, again,” Holloway said just a couple of days before his injury occurred. “I did it for the experience to see where I was at first, and I’ve been in there with some top level fighters. I see where I am. As far as that, there’s no reason for me to spar. I worked with Margarito’s manager (Sergio Diaz), we worked out a few things and that was the reason I came into camp with Margarito for this fight. I’m not going to say he promised some things, but he’s trying to deliver on some things and I told him I would do it under those circumstances.”
The money he gets for sparring comes in handy as he looks to get situated with a manager and promoter. But the goal is to craft a lucrative career as a prizefighter, not a ‘gym fighter’.
“Rashad’s nobody?s sparring partner, he’s a contender,” says Brown. “So we’re going to keep him in that frame of mind, keep him in that mode.”
2009 is a pivotal year for Holloway, who is 27-years of age. Certainly not old by any standard, but not a youngster either.
“I’ve got to have eight fights,” he says. ?By 2009, at the end of the year, we plan on going for a top ten title, NABA, NABF, NABO. Whoever has one of those belts – or if one is vacant – I’m willing to go on ShoBox or whatever to fight one of the top guys for that spot.”
BALCO
While it hasn’t been talked about too much, it doesn’t look like the issue of Shane Mosley’s usage of EPO (which helps boost endurance) and other designer steroids for his 2003 rematch with Oscar De La Hoya will go quietly into the night. In response to a defamation suit filed against him by Mosley, BALCO founder Victor Conte filed a memorandum on Tuesday in New York Supreme Court to dismiss the case. Much of this memorandum is centered on Mosley’s own statements in his grand jury testimony that were once sealed.
It seems that Mosley?s own words will now be used against him. In public statements, Mosley has insisted that he was unaware he was taking banned substances. Conte insists otherwise.
Conte would release this statement: “I believe it is time for Shane Mosley to receive the consequences he deserves for lying about his use of performance enhancing drugs. Other athletes associated with BALCO who have lied about their use of drugs have been banned from their sport, stripped of their records and medals and even spent time in jail. It seems unjust that Mosley has continued to earn millions of dollars while others have received significant punishments. Maybe the WBA is sending the wrong message to the world of boxing by sanctioning Mosley’s upcoming championship fight. It’s my opinion that Mosley deserves a full investigation now, so that boxing authorities might avoid dealing with an even bigger problem later.”
