Jackson Talks Mayweather-Pacquiao Mess, Roach's Ability

by Chris Robinson

In the first part of my interview with respected trainer John David Jackson, I caught up with the former two-division champion to get the latest on everything he has been up to in the South Florida area. Jackson spent a memorable period training the likes of former lightweight king Nate Campbell and Allan ‘Sweetness’ Green but now is focusing his attention to an emerging crop of young talent.
 
In the second part of my interview with Jackson we turned our attention to the sport of boxing as a whole, focusing on some of the recent storylines taking place in the game as well as him venting his frustrations towards some of the more corrupt happenings in the sweet science.
 
In his own words, this is what Jackson had to say about the ongoing drama surrounding a possible Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight, certain characters in the sport he has learned to not care for, his true opinion on the abilities of Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach, and what he was able to take away from his time in boxing…

The problem with boxing...
“You know, right now boxing is kind of weak for a lot of reasons. But the main thing I see is, the problem with boxing is that TV has now become the promoter. The promoters are no longer the promoters, the TV is the promoter. They call the shots, what fighters are fighting, and the promoters, instead of sticking to their guns, they sit back and let the TV now dictate to them because they have the money. What needs to happen is that these promoters need to get tough, get strong, and go back to promoting the way they used to be. Go out and hustle the tickets to the people. Get the sponsorship, don’t worry about TV so much. If they don’t come, they don’t come.”

Promoters playing different roles…
“One thing about [Don] King, King had his ways, but he hustled and got sponsorship money. [Bob] Arum does the same thing. King is pretty much done but Arum has shown that he can still make it with or without TV. But most promoters today, they don’t do that. And the promoters are now the managers. The manager has to step back. They’re just there because TV took over.”

Why the Pacquiao-Mayweather drama is bad for the fans…
“It’s bad for the fans because the fans are being cheated out of, I don’t want to say it would be a great fight at this point, it’s a very intriguing fight. It’s not as intriguing as it once was because Pacquiao slipped in his last fight. He’s been slipping. The fact is that fans don’t realize that he’s been fighting guys who have had to lose weight to fight him. It was an intriguing point about two years ago. Now, everyone knows, at this point, Floyd would probably pick him apart. But it’s still a fight that the fans would want to see. I doubt it’s going to happen this year and if it doesn’t happen this year, I doubt it happens at all.”

Whether it was ego or pride that killed the fight…
“Let’s say it’s a little bit of both. They’re both playing games. Floyd had a legitimate claim when he said ‘Take the test’. And Pacquiao said 'No' so that was the first problem. Then they went back and forth and Arum wanted to do his little thing. He doesn’t like Golden Boy, so they don’t get along and then this fighter wants this amount of money and that fighter wants that amount of money. A lot of head games had been played. And it’s robbing the fans. They’re the ones getting hurt, not the fighters because they’re making money. The people that paid good money to watch these guys fight, they’re getting hurt. What they should do, boycott each fight so the fighters get a hint.”
 
Snakes and hustlers in boxing…
“Listen, as long as I’ve been in boxing, there were hustlers and snakes. From the invention of boxing there were hustlers and snakes, and long after I’m gone there’s going to be hustlers and snakes and that’s a big problem in boxing.”

So-called trainers…
“Another problem with boxing is, you have all these so-called trainers. So many so-called trainers. No real teachers in boxing. I’ll match my skill with any other trainer as far as teaching. I can teach boxing because I learned the craft when I was in it. The guys today, they can’t show you certain things. What they do, everybody calls themselves a trainer and they learn one or two things and what they do, they push the older, more knowledgeable trainers in the background and they get these young guys who do pad work real good. And the pad work may look great but you’re not teaching them anything. But these guys go for all the BS, they like their ego stroked. They want them to rub their feet and kiss their butt and I’m not going to do that.”

Respecting his era…
“There’s a lot of guys that I respect. I don’t want to call some because I might forget to call others and that’s disrespectful. There’s a lot of guys, more in my era, that are my age now and a little bit older, that I respect. These young kids today, I don’t respect them because they haven’t shown me anything that proves they are world-class trainers. But the guys who are going to be coming up in the next ten years from now might be good. But right now, the guys from my era and beyond, they’re the trainers.”

Giving Freddie Roach credit for one thing…
“Sometimes people take it the wrong way and here’s the thing about Freddie. I give Freddie credit for one thing; in the gym, Freddie gets 110% out of you. Why? Because he wants you to win more than the fighter sometimes. And that’s one thing I love about Freddie. If you ever watch him train, it’s monotonous, it’s the same thing over and over and over. But he gets the most out of you that he can. He wants you to win more than you might want to win sometimes. I love that about Freddie, because he gives you 110% of what he has. People ask me if I’m jealous of anything. For what? He’s a good trainer, don’t get me wrong. He trains you with everything he has inside of him.”

Why he doesn’t consider Freddie Roach a good teacher…
“As far as a good teacher, let me say this, you couldn’t be a good teacher in boxing if you couldn’t fight that well yourself when you were catching shots back in the day. What makes you such a good teacher now when you were catching punches like a catcher in a baseball game? But listen, he does what he does and it works for him. He has one racehorse that stood up for him, and that’s Manny Pacquiao, and that’s what has made him the most money. I’m happy for him that he’s getting the money that he has because with the disease that he has, once boxing’s over, what else does he have to fall back on?”

Pacquiao’s recent string of opponents…
“Listen, I can’t knock Pacquiao for what he does because he doesn’t choose the opponent. He just gets in there and does what he’s supposed to do. Bob Arum navigates that ship and he’s smart at what he’s doing. He’s getting guys that are washed up, that are used up, but were names, and guess what? The last fight with Marquez, they thought he was shot. It backfired on them. With Shane, he didn’t look good but he should have stopped Shane. He looked good against Cotto but Cotto was drained from coming in at 145. The weight-limit was 147 the last time I read it. When he fought Margarito, he had to come in at a catch-weight. When he fought De La Hoya, De La Hoya had to come in at a catch-weight. All things people don’t realize.”

More issues going on in the sport…
“The way these sanctioning bodies just think they’re God in boxing. There’s about twenty champions now. You probably can’t name twenty champions right off the top of your head because everybody is champion. You have a silver belt champion, you got this champion in recess. You have champions who probably haven’t fought in two years hanging on to their belt. I defended my title in a non-title fight and got stripped of it and I wasn’t champion six months yet. I wish they would have given me that opportunity to defend my belt. It’s bad because you are cheapening boxing with all these titles. It’s bad enough when you have three different world champions, but there’s so many different world champions now. You can’t say who’s champion and it’s a bit confusing.”
 
The game hasn’t changed much…
“That was half my problem in boxing. Once I learned the way boxing is ran and the way these guys rip you off, I began to speak up about it and I began fighting for my rights to get all my money and to pay all my people their money. John David Jackson went from being a nice guy to a crazy-ass boxer. Now I no longer went with the program and did what they wanted me to do. I’m not going to fight this fight and walk away with 40% of my purse. The game hasn’t changed much in the way that these guys manipulate the fighters and rob them. If these fighters don’t know how to take care of themselves, they’re always going to get ripped off by these people, whether they are a manager, a promoter, a booking agent, or just some clown off the streets who claims themselves to be a great person in boxing.”

Pissed off at people off the street trying to manipulate the sport…
“It doesn’t hurt me. It kind of makes me pissed off a little bit. Because boxing is one of the few sports where anyone can come in and get a license and say ‘I’m a trainer, I’m a manger, I’m a promoter, I’m a booking agent’. And guess what? If he gets lucky and gets one good fighter under his belt that can swim through that deep water, then now he’s a great person. There’s a lot of snakes that I can name. There’s a lot of snakes in boxing that just make boxing bad because they’re risking the blood of another person of his blood, his sweat, and his tears, and they don’t care. They go to the next victim and when they’re done with him, they go to the next victim. But that’s just boxing. That’s life in general. Any endeavor you get into, you’d find the same thing.”

Blessed to have a second chance…
“I got two world titles and I always tell people ‘I did it the hard way’. I didn’t have a major manager or a major promoter when I won those titles. I may have had a good manager but I never had a major promoter backing me when I won those world titles. Did I make the money that I should have won when I was fighting? No, because I didn’t get the fights that I thought I should have gotten to make that kind of money. But I’m not bitter about it because I was blessed to have a second chance and stay in boxing as a trainer and to teach these kids how to become better fighters. I try not to get too much into their personal lives with the money but if they ask me a question I might pull them to the side and give them a little education about it. But I won’t get deep into it with the person. I’m not bitter because I’ve been blessed to keep doing what I’m doing and I love boxing. I love it to death and I’m in the sport that I love and I get to do it as much as I want to.”