I recently had the opportunity to speak with promising welterweight prospect, Chase ?Checkmate? Corbin. The 24 year old, who is trained by Jeff Mayweather, will take on Eric Draper at Harrah’s Casino in Chester, Pennsylvania on January 22.
LS: How are you doing this evening?
CC: I’m doing great. I just finished sparring not too long ago, so I’m feeling pretty good.
LS: How’s your training going?
CC: Training camp’s been real good. Weight hasn’t been an issue. I have great sparring partners. Training’s been good. I can’t complain.
LS: You had it pretty rough growing up in Philly, and you have an interesting story about what got you started in boxing. Can you talk a little bit about that?
CC: Yeah. I used to be late for school a lot. A lot, a lot. Like, real weird, crazy stuff, I don’t know. Get caught throwing food in the lunch room, or whatever, and I never wanted my mom to find out I got in trouble, so I would hide the little suspension slips and everything. One time I had to do a little, uh… three months of community service type thing. I had to work in this gym, and I was mopping the floor and sweeping up, and I just started to like it. I told my mom, ‘I’m going back,’ and she would say, ‘No, no, no’. I just decided to stick with it. I used to go in there, but I didn’t really take boxing serious until I was about twenty. Twenty or twenty-one, that’s when I really took it serious.
LS: I know you had a successful amateur career. What was it like making the transition from amateur to pro?
CC: I actually liked it. Of course, my first fight I was pretty nervous, but I had more of a pro style in the amateurs. The only big adjustment was fighting in the smaller gloves. I never used to wear a shirt when I was training anyway. The headgear thing, that actually helped me because I was able to see more punches coming (without headgear). The only thing it was, was the smaller gloves because I’m a smaller fighter. I gotta wear 8 ounce gloves.
LS: You’re now 5-0, with 4 knockouts. How long have you been training with Jeff Mayweather?
CC: Close to about a year now.
LS: What has it been like training with Jeff?
CC: It’s great, not only in the ring, but I spend the majority of my time outside the ring, outside of boxing and the gym, or whatever, with Jeff. I spend at least eighty-five percent of my time with him. When do get in the ring, I mean, he taught me a lot. He teaches a lot of the defense and throwing good combinations, so yes, we added a lot of arsenals to my fight game.
LS: Name some boxers who have inspired you.
CC: First, I like Meldrick Taylor, the Philadelphia fighter. I like Bernard Hopkins. But my personal favorite is Tommy Hearns because we’re like the same build. I’m about 6′ 1? tall, and I’m actually supposed to be going down to 140 because I’m having trouble making the ’47 weight limit. I always weigh-in ’43 or ’44, or something like that. Tommy Hearns is pretty much my favorite. Sugar Ray, Roy Jones, and of course Floyd Mayweather. But my favorite out of anyone is Tommy Hearns.
LS: Would you like to say a final word to your fans?
CC: Yeah. I want to thank all my fans. I want to thank my sponsors; Display Solutions Group, Helix Protein, Scottsdale Sports Medicine Institute and RSCS. And I wanna thank all the fans in Arizona, Las Vegas and Philly, and pretty much all over the USA. Hopefully, my name will be in there as a top prospect in the US in the welterweight division.
LS: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me, Chase.
CC: No problem, man. Thanks a lot.
