By CompuBox
COMPUBOX INTERVIEW WITH FORMER TWO-TIME 130-LB CHAMP GERNARO HERNANDEZ – A COMMON OPPONENT OF BOTH DE LA HOYA & MAYWEATHER
Only two men can boast of experiencing first hand the skills that Oscar de la Hoya and Floyd Mayweather possess. One is Arturo Gatti, who suffered blowout losses to both (KO by 5 against De La Hoya and KO by 6 to Mayweather). The other is former two-time junior lightweight champion Genaro Hernandez, and though he also lost to both men (via 8 th round TKO to Mayweather and 6 th round retirement to De La Hoya) he experienced some good moments as well.
The mega-match between "The Golden Boy" and "The Pretty Boy" provided the perfect vehicle by which to catch up with the thoughtful Hernandez, who offered his recollections about his adventures in the ring against both men as well as his thoughts on what will happen on May 5.
COMPUBOX: When you first signed to fight Floyd Mayweather, what were your impressions of him?
Hernandez: That he was pretty quick, but that I was able to beat him. He was coming out of the Olympics and didn't have much experience professionally. Don't get me wrong, everybody who goes into the Olympics has experience – many, many years behind them – but I just thought I would impose my professional experience on top of him. At that time I was unbeaten at 130 pounds and I didn't think anybody could beat me in the first place. But he proved me wrong – he was quick and obviously I had a very bad night that night, but it just goes to show that even the best can be beat sometimes.
COMPUBOX: At the time, many pundits were saying that while Mayweather was a phenomenal talent – and he was just 21 years old – that it might have been a case of too much, too soon for him. You were an experienced and veteran world champion, you had 300-plus rounds of experience and he had far less, that this was a fight that he could have taken a year down the line but he decided to take it then and there. Did this "too much too soon" thought process ever get into your head or did you just prepare normally?
HERNANDEZ: I just prepared normally. I had some weight issues but that was no excuse. Floyd proved that he was ready to fight the best and he proved it against one of the best 130-pounders that was out there at that time and that was me. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you have confidence in yourself; you proved in the gym that if you're worthy of training and being a world champion, you're going to become a world champion.
COMPUBOX: You did mention that you had weight issues. How severe were they?
HERNANDEZ: For me, who is practically six feet tall and to be fighting at 130 pounds for 14 years, it became a very big issue for myself. I went to Las Vegas one week prior to the fight five pounds over after trying for almost a month-and-a-half to lose the five or six pounds I would have to lose. I was only eating once a day for three weeks, so I go to Vegas and your saliva's like rubber. I couldn't even spit, that's how bad it was. But when the time came – no excuses, he beat me fair and square.
COMPUBOX: You've always been one to maintain a high work rate because you weren't a one-punch knockout artist. You wore down your opponents with your intelligence, your combinations and by working your plan. But against Mayweather you were averaging in the neighborhood of 30 punches per round throughout the first half of the fight. Was there something that Mayweather was doing to inhibit your offense?
HERNANDEZ: Not really. With all due respect to Mayweather – he's a nice guy – I just think that that night, people saw a person who really had problems making weight. It just comes down to the fact that his quickness did play a big part, his movement somewhat of a big part, but you gotta understand that I was seeing punches coming but yet I was too late to react, and that's lack of having any – that's being dehydrated. Because I had to jump into the steam room for about half an hour to lose the five pounds I had to lose after working out twice in the morning. I jumped into the steam room because I couldn't lose the five pounds. So I was very dehydrated and like I said, that night you saw an overnight aged fighter.
COMPUBOX: What were your general memories of the fight – the flow, the thoughts that were your head? Were you preoccupied by your physical situation? What was it like being in there with him?
HERNANDEZ: Preoccupied? I wasn't preoccupied. Maybe before the fight I was worried that I wasn't going to make the weight and get the title taken away from me (on the scale). But before all this, I need to clear one thing: My intentions were never to fight Floyd Mayweather. My intentions were to fight Angel Manfredy. At the time his people had offered, talking to my brother, offered me $1 million to fight him and Top Rank, having the promotional rights, told me I couldn't accept that fight, that I had to fight Mayweather first and the winner between Mayweather and myself would fight Angel Manfredy...
COMPUBOX: Which happened.
HERNANDEZ: ...which happened right after the fight. But my thing was just to make that $1 million payday and move up to 135 pounds and not have to struggle no more to make 130. Obviously, I was put in a situation where I HAD to try and make 130 pounds to try and get the big payday like everybody else.
COMPUBOX: Now in the seventh round, you really increased the pressure. You started charging ahead and throwing all sorts of power punches – to the head, to the body – and you were backing him up. You probably had your best round in round seven. But while you were more effective, he was showing a lot of poise by rolling and keeping his defense and keeping his head under the immense pressure you were putting him under. There was already talk from your corner – your brother Rudy – that he was thinking of stopping the fight...
HERNANDEZ: Correct.
COMPUBOX: ...was this your answer, the making of your case to your brother, that you deserved to fight on by showing him that you were still ready to go?
HERNANDEZ: Definitely. When I saw that my title was leaving me – leaving to a young guy who at that time hadn't fought anybody with a name – the last thing I wanted to do was lose to a guy like Floyd. Like anybody else, I never wanted to lose spirit. But yeah, there was a point of trying to come across to my brother, after all the criticism that I received against Oscar, I was not going to quit. He was going to have to knock me out. And what my brother was, like you say, I went after Floyd, but my brother said that he saw that I landed right into a right hand that make me buckle a little bit and stop me in my tracks. My brother made the decision, telling my dad, "you know what? That's it, the fight's over." In a way, I appreciate the fact that my brother did that because if he would have never done that, I may not be here talking to you now. And the reason I say that is because two weeks later I couldn't see your face. My vision went blurry.
COMPUBOX: Really?
HERNANDEZ: Yes. So I went to a doctor. I took a CAT scan, and it found a very small speck of blood. But that was not the cause of the visual problem. The problem with the vision was one of the muscles in my left eye got weakened so it was making my right eye struggle more and that's where the double vision was occurring.
COMPUBOX: So after the fight, you weren't of a mind to retire, per se.
HERNANDEZ: No, no, no, no.
COMPUBOX: The vision problem popped up and that's what caused you to retire?
HERNANDEZ: What really sent me to the retirement was the fact that the doctor said that I had a small speck of blood – which you could have – but me, trying to be the intelligent person that I am, or that I think I am, I decided that I was going to quit there. As soon as he said "you got a blood clot," that was it. I was not going to fight no more. But with the medication that he gave me, I mean, that blood clot disappeared. If you get a shot from a pencil and you poke a little dot on the piece of paper, that's the type of blood that I had. But the double vision wasn't going away. So I decided to eat good, thinking I could nurse the body a little better, yet it didn't go away. I really appreciate the WBC for what they did, they offered to pay for the operation. I had two operations to the eye to get it fixed.
COMPUBOX: How is your vision now?
HERNANDEZ: Oh, my vision's perfect.
COMPUBOX: That's great.
HERNANDEZ: I've always had 20-20 vision but if I leaned my head to the right, I couldn't see. So that's the main reason why I retired from boxing. Not because of the loss to Floyd or anything like that. It was the health issues.
COMPUBOX: If you were talking to Oscar de la Hoya right now, and you were going to give him advice on how to approach Floyd Mayweather, what would you be telling him?
HERNANDEZ: Different people have different ways of fighting. Obviously, Oscar has speed and I believe he has a little more power than Floyd and obviously he's a bigger person right now. I had always thought up to this point, before today, that Floyd had a very good chance of beating him. But my understanding is that Oscar is looking very good right now in the gym, which anybody could look good in the gym, but he looks very strong, quick. Obviously, he's using a sparring partner – well, I'm not going to call him a sparring partner – a world champion, Shane Mosley. Who actually, because of him, I'm mad at him....nah, I'm just kidding (laughs)...he's the one that broke my nose and cost me the fight with Oscar. But he's very quick, he's very mobile in getting away and slipping punches, and naturally that helps out Oscar a lot. I think because of that, I think that Oscar can actually beat Floyd Mayweather.
COMPUBOX: Wow...that's completely different than what you said in the article in Ring magazine.
HERNANDEZ: Yeah, because I actually thought that Floyd Mayweather was going to beat him. I think he's quicker than Oscar, I think his defense is a little more problematic to get through, the only thing that I don't see Floyd Mayweather doing is slipping punches, bobbing and weaving so that makes it a more easier target for Oscar to hit. And we all know that (Carlos) Baldomir hit Mayweather with a left hook and the left hook is Oscar's power punch.
COMPUBOX: Now on to your fight with Oscar. What were your impressions of Oscar de la Hoya at the time that you signed to fight him?
HERNANDEZ: He's a young guy; cocky, talking that he could do this and he could do that to me when I was respecting everybody out there. Obviously, his corner people might be the ones who were talking at the time. I never had any grudges against him. Yeah, we worked out several times – there were days where he got the better of me and days where I got the better of him. I didn't think, to be honest with you, I never thought he was going to beat me. And I still, to this point, if it hadn't been for that broken nose, he never would have beat me. I don't think so.
COMPUBOX: Describe the circumstances by which you suffered the injury sparring against Shane Mosley. Where and when did it take place, what punch did it, and how badly was it hurt when you entered the ring that night?
HERNANDEZ: The broken nose was caused the very last day of our sparring session one week prior to the fight.
COMPUBOX: Was it in the gym?
HERNANDEZ: It was in the gym.
COMPUBOX: It wasn't in a public setting like a basketball court? (This was in reference to a video that surfaced several years ago depicting a public sparring session between Hernandez and Mosley that took place shortly before the De La Hoya fight. In the video, Hernandez was wearing headgear that offered full-facial protection. There was speculation that the injury happened during that particular sparring session).
HERNANDEZ: No, it had happened already. I had already received the broken nose when you saw that sparring session. I was wearing that mask that was like a football mask. It was some type of weird mask. It was already hurt that time because I would NEVER use one of those headgears without being hurt. It happened before that...I believe we did that gym workout about a week-and-a-half before the fight. I don't know what kind of punch it was (that broke the nose), I think I threw a right hand – and I was wearing a headgear, just not the one that would protect the nose at the time – I think I threw a right hand and Shane Mosley somehow threw a left hook that got in between the padding of the cheekbone and the forehead, right between there, and just CRACKED it.
So then going into the fight, having an injury is already in the back of your mind, I went in there and I think I was doing pretty good. I think I did get caught with a right uppercut when I was walking in, he buckled me, I think in the third or fourth round. He tried to attack me and what did he do? What he always does – throw straight punches. I made him miss every single one of them so he decided to back off. He didn't want to stay in close. He never wanted to fight me in close. Because he knew I was always dangerous in there for him.
I think it was in the sixth round that my brother told me "you're not going to win this fight on a decision, you go out there and either he knocks you out or you knock him out." So that's when I went in there. I went after him and that was the first time I ever listened to my corner (laughs). I ran right into a left uppercut, right on the tip of the nose – and it just shattered my nose. What I never told anybody was the fact that after that bell rang it just seemed like I went into a blackout. I didn't see nobody or hear nobody. The only thing I saw was the corner padding when I went in there and threw the mouthpiece out and the referee Richard Steele. When my brother came to sit me down I told him "no, I'm not going no more" and I went over there and told Richard Steele that I was not coming out no more. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant for me to have to become that great world champion.
COMPUBOX: This had been billed as a neighborhood rivalry of sorts. Did you approach Oscar any differently than with your other opponents either tactically or emotionally or was it just another fight but just for more money?
HERNANDEZ: To me it was just another fight for more money than it being about a rivalry. It all comes down to the fact that he went to my rival high school – I was from Roosevelt High School and Oscar was from Garfield and that was a big-time rivalry in football between us – but we always beat them so ... (laughs). So that was where all that was hyped up. Somehow Bob Arum and the promoter found out that there were rivalries in football so that's why they made such a big deal about it.
COMPUBOX: Gauge for us Oscar's ability as a fighter – his jab, his speed, his combinations, his power, his defense – give us an idea about that.
HERNANDEZ: Power? I can't really give you that because I never really felt his power. His jab is very quick, very good, he's a smart fighter. Now it shows that he can take a pretty good punch. Before I think he lacked a little bit more of that. He's a bit calmer, more relaxed where before he would want to go in there and knock people out and that's was the reason why he was getting hurt. I think he's gotten a lot smarter. He's a good fighter. You don't disrespect a fighter who's actually become a six-time world champion, you just don't and some people do.
COMPUBOX: You had some pretty good moments against him. What were you able to hit him with most often? What was he vulnerable to from you?
HERNANDEZ: It's kind of hard to say that because I haven't really looked at the tape. From what I recall he was running away from me; he wasn't really giving me a chance to catch him. I can honestly say that he doesn't like body shots.
COMPUBOX: Who does?
HERNANDEZ: Well, sometimes you like to stay in there, but you're right, nobody likes them. I think he's actually become a very smart fighter. Power, like I said, I think he's got that good left hook. The right hand is quick but he likes to surprise you with it. Other than that, I think he's a strong fighter.
COMPUBOX: Only you know how much pain you were in when that left uppercut hit you in the nose. Tell us how you were feeling; how intense was the pain both upon impact and when you were trying to fight on with that injury. Were you having problems breathing? What were the tribulations you were going through in that ring that eventually pushed you to do what you did?
HERNANDEZ: People don't realize that with having a broken nose, yeah you have the cartilage,
but you got a very small little pointy bone that's right between the eyes and if that gets pushed up into your brain, you're dead. And I always knew that by you getting hit up there you could actually die from something like that. It didn't help any to know that I had a broken nose and that I might suffer a broken jaw because I would have to breathe through my mouth and swallow that blood. And of course, I did feel the pain. Anybody's going to feel the pain of having something broken. If somebody breaks your leg today and next week they come in and break it again, it's going to be painful. People don't understand that and the critics that actually criticize me have probably never received a broken nose, so for them to come out and criticize me for putting my life in jeopardy, with all due respect, get your nose broken and then come back to me in a week and have somebody hit you there again.
COMPUBOX: And have it hit by a world-class, eventually Hall-of-Fame caliber fighter.
HERNANDEZ: Right. I actually had it in my mind "did I do the right thing?" When I went to the emergency room and they took the x-rays, I asked the x-ray technician "how bad is my nose?" And let's put it this way: You get an egg, you let it fall, that's how bad it shattered. My nose was never broken in 23 pieces – whoever wrote that obviously doesn't have the knowledge that it was the cartilage that was actually shattered in 23 pieces. That actually put in my mind that I had done the right thing, because that's when the doctor told me that "you know what, he did the right thing. If one more punch had hit that bone and it goes up, you wouldn't be here." That relaxed my train of thought that I had actually did the right thing.
COMPUBOX: If you were talking to Floyd right now and giving him advice on how to fight Oscar, how would you tell him to approach Oscar?
HERNANDEZ: Floyd, take that jab away from Oscar, and you walk to your right and you counter him. When he throws that left hook, you counter him with a left uppercut.
COMPUBOX: If he moves to his right, would he not be moving into his left hook?
HERNANDEZ: Yeah, but then you got that right hand up on your chin (demonstrates it by holding his right fist tightly against his face) protecting you at all times. When he throws that left hook, it's going to have to come a little wide, so what do you do? You counter him with a left uppercut.
COMPUBOX: You were only one of two men to have fought both, with Arturo Gatti being the other. From your unique perspective, size up the match. First of all, how do you think the styles will mesh?
HERNANDEZ: From my understanding, Oscar's going to come in there being aggressive which I think he's going to have to do sometimes, not all the time. When you've got a good counterpuncher like Floyd Mayweather, you have to be the counterpuncher. You have to make him come to you. You have to make that fight be boring, frustrate him in a way. Don't give him the opportunity to put the pace in and put his plan to work. Yes, make Floyd come to you. You don't need to go after Floyd. Floyd is a very, very intelligent smart counterpuncher. You're not going to hit him very easily. Yeah, you're going to hit the arms as much as possible but Floyd is pretty well worked out, his arms are pretty well taken care of, he gets hit there, but that may play a part in getting him tired. He's a very difficult fighter to beat, and you're going to have to play that Intelligent Man.
COMPUBOX: What must Floyd do best to win this fight?
HERNANDEZ: Floyd is going to have to withstand the pressure that Oscar is going to put on him, and basically try to work Oscar's body and take it to the later rounds. Because I've noticed that in almost every single fight Oscar has actually gotten tired in the later rounds – when you make him think a lot.
COMPUBOX: That's right – Molina did it, Trinidad did it, Mosley did it – yes, there is a track record. Now, what is your prediction for the fight and explain the reasons.
HERNANDEZ: It's going to go to a decision, no doubt about that because it's going to be a chess match between the two fighters. I think, actually, Oscar's going to have a very hard time trying to connect with that left hook because that's what he thinks he's going to connect with, and Floyd knows that's going to happen. He's going to be looking for that left hook. I just basically think that it's going to be a match where one of the fighters is going to make a bad choice in trying to become stronger than the other, and that's going to be a very big part. It's hard to tell because they just recently had that open workout for the press and I'm hearing that he's looking very strong, very quick. And like I said with the help of Shane Mosley I'm going to have to slightly change my point of view and actually go with Oscar.
COMPUBOX: Oscar by decision?
HERNANDEZ: And it's going to be a split one, I think.
COMPUBOX: Because there are going to be a lot of times when there are lulls in the action where they are trying to – there's going to be a lot of thinking out there.
HERNANDEZ: Yes, definitely. But I think Oscar's going to eventually get tired of thinking so much that he's going to try and force Floyd into making some bad choices, and that's where I think the fight is going to change either way.
