Bernard Hopkins? trainer Naazim Richardson is in the mist of camp with both Bernard Hopkins and Steve Cunningham. Bernard prepares for ?Bad? Chad Dawson and Cunningham is still preparing to face Kelly Pavlik, which looks like it has moved from August to October according to Naazim. Richardson trains Karl Dargan (10-0 5ko) as well, who just defeated Juan Suazo for the UBO Inter-continental Lightweight title ?.
Richardson took several minutes with 8CN today to discuss how camp is going, Hopkins and Cunningham?s philosophy on the lifestyle of boxing, which as Richardson puts it;
?You play basketball, you play football you, you play baseball, and you don?t play boxing. I try to tell the young guys, it?s the closest thing to religion you gonna have, It?s a lifestyle. It makes you get up in the morning and do what you got to do, because you are always a boxer.?
8CN; I?ve had kids in the gym that think that they can be 30-40 pounds over then come into camp and lose it all in a few weeks and be strong. Getting them to understand that staying closer to weight is better for them in the long run!
Naazim; ?That?s where the lifestyle comes in and they don?t understand. You get athletes that the only way they think they can tell they are in shape is to lose the weight, I?ve seen guys actually put weight on, knowing they were going to camp, they kind of let themselves go last couple of weeks before camp. They figure, well, I?m starting camp next month. Young people , they need something tangible to see , that they are getting in shape, they don?t have the trainers eye that we have, so we can see when they are sharpening up and they can?t, they see it thru the weight loss. They think when they drop ten pounds they are ready. As you know that is why they are going into these fights as weak as pussy-cats, they got the weight off but they are not in shape.?
8CN; They don?t understand that they are breaking down their body over time with that behavior, you?re not in shape that way just lighter. It takes time to acclimate your body to the lighter weight and having a greater strength and endurance. Just dropping the weight in the gym means you may be leaving the strength with it. You get a guy like Ricky Hatton that could blow up to close to two hundred pounds then go to camp and drop 60 pounds and retain strength that is unusual!
Naazim; ?Ricky, now was a freak of nature, I was in camp with him, what he did in one camp I thought was impossible, but he had been doing it for years. The thing I always point out to people is only two guys I know who blew up like that and when they lost they didn?t get wiped out totally Winky Wright was one and Ike Quartey was the other. All the other guys I knew that lost that weight and put on the weight got crushed and their bodies flattened out. You see Paul Williams, Ricky Hatton, when we see those guys lose they get destroyed, it?s like their body finally shuts down from all the work it?s been doing adding and dropping the weight so often.
