LAS VEGAS — Trainer Naazim Richardson has a particular way with words. Consider:
“When you meet that girlfriend, you all are holding hands and you’re going to the movies. But after you’ve left that toilet seat up a couple of times, you begin finding out whether or not we can go forward. You see her snap. I just left the toilet seat up, and she got a knife in her hands. You realize this is not the sister for you. When everything’s going great, yeah, we’re the best of buddies. But as soon as you have a dispute …”
Like his friend and fellow Philadelphian Bernard Hopkins, Richardson can sometimes take a verbal stroll along a seemingly unnavigable pathway, leaving listeners stumbling along uncertainly before taking a sudden sharp turn and winding up at the long-planned destination. In this particular instance, Shane Mosley’s corner man was discussing the relationship between trainer and fighter, and how navigating speed bumps can be the key to strengthening that relationship:
“Every athlete is different, and you have to have a different approach with each and every one. I felt like me and Shane Mosley could work together when we had our first disagreement. Me and Shane had our first dispute early. It was the first time I went to wrap his hands. See, Shane wants to fight in the bare-knuckle era. Shane don’t want nothing on his hands. ‘I like to feel it.’ We got to an understanding, we compromised and we got it done.”
Richardson displays an intensity, intelligence and dry wit that has led more than one scribe to dub him the best interview in boxing. On Thursday, he entertained journalists at the MGM Grand by expounding on a number of topics related to Saturday’s fight between Mosley and Manny Pacquiao.
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On Manny Pacquiao’s energy levels: “You’re not going to match Pacquiao for energy. How many people have ever done that? You have to use what you have to try and get something against that.
“This guy can stand there and he’s shaking his head and he’s bouncing and they’re giving him rounds and he hasn’t thrown anything yet. Everybody here has seen the Marvin Hagler-Ray Leonard fight? I always said, the masterful thing that Leonard did in that fight was make the world watch him. You think about that fight, you didn’t even look over at Hagler. You watched Leonard move, you watched Leonard dart in and out. That’s what Pacquiao does. Pacquiao makes you watch Pacquiao. You almost forget there’s another man in there. This guy creates that, he creates that kind of energy.”
On the challenges of fighting Pacquiao “It’s never been an issue about whether you can hit Pacquiao. The issue is whether you can stop Pacquiao from hitting on you all the time. And can you continuously do that? Because in the second half of the bout, this guy’s energy is unbelievable.
“The opportunities that Pacquiao presents, you have to take full advantage of them. It’s not that you don’t find success against Pacquiao. I don’t care how successful you are against Pacquiao, he’ll bite down on his mouthpiece, tuck his chin and come on and try to turn it into something else. So even when you’re doing well, there are still adjustments to be made. You can’t get comfortable.”
On finding a suitable sparring partner “If your sparring partner can do what Pacquiao does, he’s someone who’s getting ready to defend his own title. He can’t come to our camp, because he’s busy.”
On preparing for the unexpected “I said, ‘Shane, it wouldn’t surprise me if Pacquiao came out and fought you with a lot of movement, circling, trying to dart in and out instead of standing there slugging like that.’ Even if he thought about doing it for a second, he’d change his mind about it. These are the things you have to understand: You can’t just prepare to think, ‘It’s going to be a war, it’s going to be a showdown, we’re going to bang it out.’ That could change in a second.
“He said, ‘Oh, that’s against his nature, he’s going to fight.’ I said, ‘We’re prepared if he fights you. What if he don’t?'”
