Jeff Mayweather Talks College, Comanche, Litzau, And Pacquiao Drug Testing

Check out the full interview at Rope A Dope Radio.com By Kevin Davis (A.K.A. Karceno) Karceno - Unlike your Brothers, you waited to finish college before you went into boxing; looking back would you have done it the same way again or turn pro earlier? Jeff Mayweather - No I wouldn’t have done it any other way I think my education has helped me a great deal in dealing with so many people on many different levels and because of it I feel it gains me respect when I'm dealing with people. I'm not the stereotypical fighter so I believe it has helped me a lot more than it has hindered me. Karceno - Your middleweight fighter The “Comanche Boy” George Tahdooahnippah, (26-0-1) Native American will face Thomas Longacrehow on the 25th. How many more fights you think he needs before you move him up against the top tier opposition? Jeff Mayweather - I think George has to take a risk soon. He's already 32 years old. Many fighters have won and lost titles at that age. George is a force to be reckoned with. He's a very durable and strong fighter that can present problems to any Middleweight he faces. I feel it’s time to step in the very near future. Undefeated records look good but without tough fights that involve risk they don’t mean much. A fighter can choose to be a local hero with a padded record but if he wants to recognized as a top fighter by the rest of the world he must take risks. Without risk there is no reward. Karceno - Let’s talk Caballero for a second. Litzau was supposed to be an easy match up for him. Cellestino was an 11-1 favorite. What do you believe was the reason for Caballero’s subpar performance? Was it training focus issues, looking ahead to Lopez maybe, or was it that he just couldn’t get off till late because of what Litzau was doing in there? Jeff Mayweather - I think it may have been a little bit of looking past Lizau but I also would equate it more to the fact of Celestino being over trained. He was here in Vegas for two and a half months even before the Litzau fight was even signed. We were training as though we had a fight coming up just as we did with the Yordan fight. We got lucky and we had a fight signed while we were in the process of training. Then the fight got canceled and Celestino went home for two weeks. I told him to have fun meaning no training but he trained the entire time he was in Panama. While he was in Panama we got a call for the Litzau fight. Now we had to get ready for Litsau. Celestino ended up training another two and a half months. Our camp was almost 5 months and in that time Celestino may have peaked once maybe even twice. What the world saw that night in the Litsau fight was a drained Celestino. We will never make that mistake again. Karceno - A lot of people don't know that Floyd is the first fighter that didn't win a gold medal at the Olympic Games to start his career off signing a million dollar contract and you negotiated that deal with Bob Arum. Tell us how that went? Jeff Mayweather - Well it wasn't quite a million dollars but it was a very nice contract with lot of great incentives. When I sat down with Top Rank I told Todd that I wanted this contract written in the simplest terms. I wanted it written in a way so that a person with a 5th grade education could understand it. They made everything simple and easy to understand. I also added to the contract an additional thousand dollars a month for Floyd Sr. who was incarcerated at the time. I didn't want Floyd Jr. worrying about his father’s well being. It was a great experience and a part of history that I can always look back on and say I did a pretty good job. Karceno -With all this Blood test issue going around with the "He doesn’t want to fight" or “He doesn’t want the tests issue," if you were still your nephew's manager how would you handle this situation? Jeff Mayweather - I would have also taken a strong stance on it but an even harder one than what was taken. I would have made Manny and his team look like the bad guys and the ones avoiding the issue. Manny has this good guy image and because of that no one wants to question him. I would bring Manny and his team to the table and tell them either step up or shut up, then the issue would be a dead one. The finger pointing would be in the other direction.