Roy Jones Jr & Emanuel Steward were "On The Ropes" - NOW AVAILABLE ON DEMAND! 7/13

I should be able to get him, I think. I'll look into it in the coming weeks.
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Incidentally, I once asked Emanuel how he believed Hamed would fare against Morales.



http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=25534&more=1

His views on Prince Naseem Hamed before he trained him:

“Well I thought he was extremely to watch, which he was always that way. I think one of the biggest assets he had is a lot of the fighters who were going to fight him in England at that time didn’t even know what to expect. His style of luring you into an exchange, with those gifted reflexes, you would get into an exchange and the punches would be like a right uppercut from weird angles with his hands down, and leaping at you because he had those strong legs, and they didn’t know what to expect. He was a very exciting colorful fighter. I think he did a lot for boxing. As far as the Arabic world, he’s one of the biggest sports stars probably ever. In fact I can think of another athlete that was bigger than him. In my gym today, I have about probably 30% of the boxers I have that are Arabic kids all because of Naseem Hamed and the pictures that I have when I was training him. He was an unbelievably exciting and I just believe he was good for boxing.

When he first landed here in America, his first fight with Kevin Kelley—oh my God, he couldn’t have come out with anything better than that. From that point on, though, the fighters that he fought here in America, they all pretty much figured him out once they had seen him. So he was really not so overly devastating with his performances if you really break him down after that, but his showmanship was just unbelievable. I know the fights with Wayne McCullough and some of those type guys, they knew what to expect after seeing him on American TV. So he was never able to really have that type of consistency with dominant performances, like say Manny Pacquiao has, but for just plain showmanship and things. People today ask me, and they say, ‘Oh, I sure loved that little British fighter you used to train, he would be talking and telling them all what he was going today’ and they were laughing. He was a really true puncher, though, and we could use another one like him right now.”

His expectations going into the fight between Naseem Hamed and Marco Antonio Barrera and what he thought of the type of fight Barrera fought that night:

“Very much what happened is what I had thought. I don’t know if you know, it was on the British TV and we were training. Naz took him so lightly and he was believing the hype. You would be shocked at the unbelievably small amount of rounds he sparred. He was really, not just even confident, but he just had no respect for Barrera. I knew at the same time that Barrera was training up at Big Bear, and I was getting my reports that he was training very hard and very focused. Naz was totally lax in his training. He just didn’t have the respect. He just thought beating on the pads and everything, that it all wasn’t going to be necessary and I’m getting the reports on Barrera.

In fact, Barrera had just fought his last fight and I remember I did the broadcast on HBO and he looked sensational. At the end of the broadcast I think Larry Merchant said, ‘Emanuel, he looked very good tonight. What are your thoughts especially with your guy Hamed getting ready to fight him?’ I said, ‘Larry, if I had my way I would cancel the fight’ and I really meant it. So when I got back he asked me and he said, ‘Manny, you were saying on TV that you could cancel. Do you really think Barrera was that good?’ and I said, ‘Yeah’.

Basically for the most part he was watching tapes of Junior Jones and Barrera, and at that time that was like five years ago and I was very upset at that. I said, ‘You want to look at this guy and prepare for him at his best and how he looks today’. He just totally didn’t believe it, and he just said that he was going to go and knock him out. I saw the intensity and seriousness in Barrera’s face when we were watching him get his hands wraps on, and I knew we were going to be in trouble.

Barrera just fought a very good technical fight, a smart fight. I’ll be honest with you, if he would have really wanted to open and up and had been aggressive he probably would have stopped us. We couldn’t have made it through the fight, because Naseem had no defense for him. He couldn’t counter the punches. His timing was off because he didn’t have the proper sparring, and just the whole atmosphere. Most of his fights were on the east coast here in New Jersey, and New York, and naturally in London and places like that. Then all of a sudden you’re going to Vegas, which is a whole different atmosphere and everything. There are not many Arabic people going to be there on a major level supporting him. I think when he was getting ready to come into the ring and doing his little skit to come into the ring, someone threw some beer on him. So it was just horrible. It was a different crowd that he had never been exposed to, so emotionally and spiritually he was totally unorganized. That was the one fight I don’t even think he leaped over the ropes like he normally did. He was unorganized from the beginning, and Marco Antonio Barrera came out and just really gave him a boxing lesson. Thank God he was not too aggressive in that fight, because it would have been very difficult to stop him from scoring a TKO probably if he had opened up.

Naz was one of those very rare breeds that you get that has so much natural charisma and excitement and punching power, that you just don’t get and that was naturally him, too. So it was not just the hype, that’s the way he was. I had met him when I went to an event when I was managing Dennis Andries once when he was just getting started. We were at this event and he came over and was talking to me, and I told Dennis, ‘Who is this short little guy that’s telling me he’s going to knock out everybody and he’s going to be great?’ He said, ‘That’s a little kid, but he can punch a little. He’s very exciting for a little guy and he could hit pretty good’. From that point on, I watched him and followed his career. He was a very good, good puncher. I don’t know how he would have done with a lot of the all time greats because the unknown element of his style is really what got him to a certain point, but once he came here and we saw him on TV regularly a lot of the fighters were able to be better prepared for him.”

His opinion on how Hamed would have fared against someone like Erik Morales or Juan Manuel Marquez:

“Well I’ll be very honest with, Naz was great excitement. None of those guys still have really got to the level where he did in terms of crowd appeal, but I think they would have beat him. They were fundamentally too sound, and they were basically too sound for him as boxers. So they would have been a big problem for him.”

 

He is matching up Nazim Richardson on October 15, which is pretty cool, though.

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Should be, I added it earlier today.

richard, if you can please let me know if you've been able to access recent ones, this included.

I found in error in my html code that I corrected today, but in doing so I'm somewhat concerned I may have sent something out of wack elsewhere.

Please keep me posted, and thank you for your continued support.

I think I can speak for Jenna in saying we both appreciate it!

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