Manny Steward Interview (Wlad)

Emanuel Steward: “We are very lucky to fight a fighter that everyone is going crazy about!” On Saturday, as Wladimir finished up his training and began stretching we spoke to Emanuel about his training and all the bad press that has been addressed in Wlad’s name. Emanuel, tell us about Wladimir’s training camp? This is the first time that Wladimir has ever prepared at a place like this. This is the old type training, like Muhammad Ali’s, when he used to go up in the mountains in the morning, run in the cool air. He never trained like this before. How is his preparation? His preparation is extremely good. He can fight in a week. My only concern is him overtraining. He’s very focused and with only three weeks of training he’s boxed already seventy rounds. A hundred rounds is a lot before a big fight, he’ll probably do 130 rounds. He’s covered every area; we want to be sure he’s perfect. Tell us about his sparring partners? We’ve got over nine sparring partners and more still coming. I never had so many during any camp. They have different styles. We got short guys, old experience guys, pro boxers, and aggressive guys. We don’t want to take chances on anything and be prepared. And how is Wladimir sparring? Wladimir is boxing twelve rounds with different opponents, so that he’s used to different styles, and if fight goes to be a long fight he shouldn’t even worry about stamina. He’s got a good chef who’s cooking for him what he wants, a good personal trainer who’s working on conditioning him and massages. We also started watching videos of different fight and while he trains Wladimir sees movies of Samuel Peter’s fight on four screens around the gym. As he’s getting his hands wrapped or exercising he’s constantly watching Peter. Is Wladimir focused? Wladimir is very focused on this fight, more than any fighter I have ever worked with. And I have manager/trainer over 31 world champions and six Olympic gold winners. Never have I seen someone so focused in every area. Any prediction? I think he’s going to fight a very professional fight, and some people will be surprised at how much he can control Samuel Peter and make Samuel look and feel like an amateur fighter. Wladimir has too much experience to be like “a big clumsy kid that gets boom, boom, boom by Samuel and that’s it.” Wladimir has many amateur fights, Olympics, almost fifty pro fights. Some argue that Wladimir shouldn’t lose his European style, what do you think? Wladimir hasn’t lost his European style. What we have done is added on and improved some areas. I think it’s a big mistake when you try to change everything. If a fighter has been successful winning Olympics, winning professional titles he doesn’t need to change. What about all the negative press about Wladimir? Forget three loses, let’s talk about two that everyone went crazy about. I understand each one of them. It happens, even to the best guys. I know the fight with Sanders was bad, because everyone expected Sanders to be so easy that WBO didn’t even wanted to sanction it. And Wladimir was relaxed, while Sanders, who has one of the best explosive first rounder, proved himself. The fight with Brewster, like I said before, Wladimir was physically damaged. I will leave it at that. I was there I have no doubt about his defensive skills, his confidence or stamina. Some people say Wlad lost his confidence? I have refused to work with any other big heavyweight because I want to train Wladimir Klitschko. I believe in Wladimir and have no doubt about his confidence and stamina. I still say that he has the best talent in a heavyweight division. And I believe by the end of this year, him and his brother Vitali will be the best heavyweights in the world. What do you think about this fight? This fight here is a great opportunity for us. So that we can remind people who Wladimir is. He beat Chris Byrd, he beat Monte Barrett, and McLine. Everyone forgets it, like he only had two fights in his lifetime – Sanders and Brewster. So it’s great, cause we have a chance to beat a fighter that everyone thinks will beat Wlad. We are very lucky to fight a fighter that everyone is going crazy about. When we knock him out, then we’ll get respect. If we fought three-four guys and knock all of them out, we’d get not much attention. Look at the last guy, undefeated Cuban Castillo, he TKO’d him. So if we knockout an undefeated Nigerian I think people will start looking at Wladimir beyond his two losses.