Boxing Insider Interview with Floyd Mayweather Sr.: “In Between One to Twelve He’ll Be Done and Out”

By : William Holmes

Boxing Insider had the opportunity to catch up with Floyd Mayweather Senior and his publicist Mark McCoy this weekend. This was exactly one week after we spoke with Freddie Roach. Floyd Mayweather Jr. is in the middle of some intense training in preparation for the biggest bout of the 21st century, and his father was able to offer us some insight into his training camp.

Boxing Insider: What are your feelings about this fight? How does the anticipation for this fight compare to some of Floyd’s other big fights such as against Cotto, De La Hoya, and Canelo?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I feel more comfortable with this fight than with any fight that he [Floyd Mayweather Jr.] has ever fought. Pacquiao is not even in my son’s class. . . period. You can dot the i on that.

Boxing Insider: Who do you plan on bringing in for Floyd as a sparring partner? Why did you choose them?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: We have about ten sparring partners down there. We’ve been whooping all of them. We’ve been stopping them and everything. We’ve been bringing in guys much bigger than him. Floyd is doing what Floyd is supposed to be doing.

Boxing Insider: There have been reports that Floyd was dropped by Zab Judah with a body shot, is there any truth to this?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: That’s the biggest lie I ever heard in my life. If you would have came down here and seen for yourself you would have known that. Ain’t nobody else whooping ass down there except for one person. . . and that’s Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Boxing Insider: Has Alex Ariza been involved with this camp and has he been of any help to Floyd?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: He’s been there, I guess he’s helping out with his rubs and all that stuff. I don’t even want to talk about him at all…period.

Boxing Insider: How does Floyd look in camp so far? Can you tell us what a typical day of training for Floyd looks like?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Like I said, Floyd comes in and always walk down the aisle in the gym and then he walks back. . . and he usually boxes. . .But you know Floyd is doing his thing, Floyd is Floyd, and I don’t know what they’re talking about when they’re talking about Pacquiao. . . anybody talking about Pacquiao beating Floyd.

Boxing Insider: In your opinion, what was Floyd’s biggest win of his career? Why?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: The biggest win that Floyd had, I would have to say, was between Shane Mosley and [Oscar] De La Hoya. But right now, Floyd is older right now, he’s reaching near 40. The thing is. . .these guys are supposed to be good right now. . .Floyd whopping them like they old.

Boxing Insider: Do you watch a lot of tapes of Manny Pacquiao?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I’ve seen Pacquiao fought before, I know what Floyd is going to do what he’s going to do anyway. Even though I know what he’s going to do, it’s still always good to look. Because I guess if you look at a lot of fights of when he fought, and when Floyd fought. . .Floyd don’t look at anybody fight. Floyd don’t watch nobody fight. He don’t watch nobody train. Floyd fights when the fight is there, that’s when he fights.

There ain’t too much to watch to tell you the truth. We ain’t looking for cause he’s left handed, because Floyd has left handers down. We definitely ain’t looking for anything unexpected.

All I gotta say is we ain’t worred about his power, we ain’t worried about his skills, we ain’t worried about his footwork. If we know we are going to out think him, so what is there to be worried about?

Boxing Insider: How much longer do you think Floyd will continue to fight?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I really don’t know. I’m gonna say that he’s going to fight this fight than he has one more fight with Showtime. After this fight, right here, he has one more fight. But I’m gonna say that, as when he’s done this fight right here, I think he may retire with Rocky Marciano’s record now.

Boxing Insider: So you think he’ll go after Marciano’s record?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I think he might do it, but myself personally I don’t care if he tries to beat Rocky Marciano’s record or not. I just want him to get out safe. He went in great. . .come out great. I don’t know whether he can do that sometimes, sometimes people got to look at things…he’s grossed more money than any athlete has ever grossed, it’s something to look at. It wasn’t you thinking about that next fight…sometimes that last fight will catch you up. Sometimes greed overcomes common sense.

I’m just saying that. . . I’m not saying my son is greedy because my son has enough money. I’m not in Floyd’s mind. I don’t know what Floyd is thinking. The only thing I’m going to tell you is now, like I said, greed overcomes common sense.

Boxing Insider: So let’s say Floyd wins on May 2nd, will you tell him that it’s time to retire?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I wouldn’t tell Floyd it’s time to retire. I wouldn’t tell Floyd it’s time to retire because he beat Pacquiao. I would hope that my son do the contract all the way out like he’s supposed to. I hope he goes and does his other fight, I wouldn’t know who that other fight is, but I’m just saying I would hope he would do that and be fair to everybody and then. . .step on out of there.

Boxing Insider: Can you tell us anything about your strategy to combat Manny’s aggression and his southpaw style?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Can I tell you something about the strategy? Nothing.

Boxing Insider: Where do you rate Freddie Roach as a trainer?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Zero.

I’m gonna be honest with you. Let me ask you man, we talking about from 10-50, or what?

Boxing Insider: From one to ten…

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I’ll be honest with you I would give him a four. That ain’t too bad. That ain’t too bad if you look at it, he’s halfway there. He’s at the end of his road right now for training, but he is halfway there. He didn’t make it to the fifth so he’s a little less than halfway there. I gave him four, he still yet to make it to five, but I don’t think he’s going to make it to five.

He’s in there, he’s close, let’s just leave it at that.

Boxing Insider: What’s your prediction for the fight?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m thinking Floyd is going to stop him.

Boxing Insider: What round do you think?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Well, I can’t tell you what round, I can’t tell you what round because in all the rounds he can get stopped in any one of them. I don’t know what round the fight could end, but hey. . .I could give you a round, I think. But I’m gonna tell you, in between 1 to 12 he’ll be down and out.

Boxing Insider: Do you think a rematch might be possible?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I don’t think people will want to see a rematch. The can of whooping that Floyd will give, there will not be another rematch. There won’t be another fight.

When the fight people. . . sometimes, that would be like Sonny Liston whooping Joe Louis. That would be like Muhammad Ali whooping the bear. . . you know?

Boxing Insider: Do you train anybody else besides Floyd right now or are you just focused on your son?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: I’m training people earlier, I’m going in there earlier and training. I’m training Mickey Bey, and I’m training Andrew Tabiti. I train the whole gym pretty much.

Boxing Insider: Who that you are currently involved with are you the most impressed with, besides your son?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Mickey Bey is already a world champion. All my fighters are championship material. All the ones that I work with all the time, they are championship material. Tabiti is right there. He’s 9-0 with nine knockouts, he’s a cruiserweight. Of course, Mickey Bey, has won his world title already with me. Those are some of the people I’m looking right now after Floyd’s career is over.

Boxing Insider: So will you continue training after Floyd’s career is over?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Well you know something man, a lot of people have asked me about that, and to be honest, I’m going to tell you right now, it seems like I’m not where I was five or six years ago. I don’t feel it. Don’t get me wrong I can still out-train Roach. I’m just saying that the thing is, I can still out train anybody in the gym, I ain’t worried about that. I got fighters calling me every day, all day. I got people’s coming in everyday. I got guys coming in from England today to train. I got guys coming in from everywhere to train, it’s not a problem right there about training.

The only thing I want to do, even though I know it’s not going to happen now, I want to match up with. . . well not so much now, not even so much with Freddie then, a long time ago I wanted to do that thing with him, I wanted to do a square off with him. He keeps on getting all these accolades, accolades, accolades. . . but you know, the thing is, don’t nobody, you mean to tell me nobody else is supposed to get accolades but Freddie?

Boxing Insider: When you say square up and do your thing with Freddie, what do you mean by that?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Well when I say square off I’m talking about me and him getting into an arena, or a big old gym, and lets go ahead and off our skills on the pad. We are trainers. I wanted to see how many things can you do and how many things can I do? And I know I can do way more than you can do.

But if I told him to hook off a jab, right hand, then go back to the body, you think he knows how to do that? Thank you.

Boxing Insider: Last question, is there anything about Pacquiao’s style that impresses you?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: The style? He can in the same way he did that last guy, the one Floyd beat in twelve rounds. . . Marquez. We ain’t worried about Floyd, we already see what Marquez did already. Marquez lined him up for us. He’s definitely going to go, you know, I’m telling you right now, ask Marquez where he put his money.

Boxing Insider: Is there anything else you want to say?

Floyd Mayweather Sr.: Everything is good man, like I was saying, I was just telling Mark today, there ain’t too much else more to say about Freddie. I’m not going to talk about him no more. A roach is a roach man.

Freddie is a joke coach roach. Wouldn’t dare to approach. He’s a roach. Blowing smoke. Daddy just woke up first class to the coach. I hear he gets sprayed with raid and is underpaid. Because at the end of the night his title will be gone, just like the roach when the lights go on.

There’s enough things to say about Freddie Roach, but I’m not gonna make enemies with him no more. He won’t really keep talking because he knows if he does he’ll have me doing this stuff on him all day long and he knows he don’t want that.