His evaluation of Saul Alvarez’s latest performance in his victory against Kermit Cintron:
“It’s like I told you. I can’t put a lot of credence into what Saul Alvarez has done in many of these fights, because his advantages have been so vast. There is not a fight he goes into that I’ve seen where all of the advantages weigh on his side. You can’t really prepare based on that. We have to look at the fact that this time he doesn’t have the experience that our guy has. He hasn’t been in the limelight. He hasn’t been in this level of fight where he has never looked across the ring and seen a name this big in front of him. So know we’ll find out some things. What we have to do is prepare to make sure. I equated to Shane like this. I said, ‘We didn’t know that Trinidad got up off the canvas and fought like a monster until Yori Boy Campas got him, and then we found out! And many people found out after that, but that’s when we first found out that Trinidad gets up off the canvas and can still annihilate! So we got to prepare for any surprises like that with Canelo. He might have a chin of iron, but we don’t know that yet because we haven’t really seen him been tested right.”
On whether he still feels we have not yet seen the best of Andre Ward, in reference to previous claims he made “On the Ropes” when the Super Six was just underway:
“Yeah and I told Ward when he saw me, he said, ‘Brother Nazim, you know me well!’ I said, ‘Listen brother, I still know there’s an aspect of your game that boxing hasn’t even seen, and they’ll be surprised when they see it’. The kid is special. I mean with the Super Six, I told people at the beginning of the tournament when they asked me who was going to win it. I said, ‘Actually Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell will probably be in the Finals’. But I knew they wouldn’t fight each other. I picked both of them to be in the Finals and I told ya’ll that a long time ago. When it came to Andre Ward everybody was counting them out against the Viking, against Kessler who I like. I told them Kessler did better in that fight than I thought he would do. Kessler did better against Andre Ward than I thought he would do. Allan Green did better in the fight than I thought he would do. Andre Ward is the truth, man!”
On whether he believes Andre Ward is a future Pound-for-Pound King in boxing:
“A guy once posed a question to me, a buddy of mine actually in the gym. He said, ‘If you had to pick out of these young kids a future Hall of Famer, how would you do it?’ I said, ‘You can’t pick out a Hall of Famer. You can guesstimate a champion. You can take a good guess on a kid who may do some things, or win a title, or do well, or things like that. But if you saw early Bernard Hopkins you wouldn’t have said Hall of Famer. You know what I mean. If you saw early Larry Holmes, I have some early tapes on Larry Holmes, you would have never said Hall of Famer’. So you can’t guarantee someone will be a Hall of Famer, but if a gun was put to my head the only athlete I would say that about would be Andre Ward. He’s the only kid.
Pound-for-Pound? Did you say future Pound-for-Pound? Oh! You said ‘King’, because I was going to say he should be considered Pound-for-Pound now! You know once you can make the Pound-for-Pound list, you know there’s a chance you can rise to the top of it. Like I told him, as much as I respect that little Floyd Mayweather, and I’ve known him since he was a kid and I respect that young boy. He said one time to me, ‘I’m the best undefeated fighter! The only champion that’s undefeated’, and blah, blah, blah, and I was like he must not know who Andre Ward is!
The reason why I pick Andre Ward to be a Pound-for-Pound and even a Hall of Famer, is because the one thing I don’t really worry about with Ward is I’m comfortable with Ward’s demeanor outside the ring. See I’m comfortable with Ward when it comes to that, and that’s where a lot of these superstar young boys that are coming up scare me! Like I said, think about it! If you look at a kid can you imagine your child becoming a multi-millionaire and then you still have to see him go to jail? When your kids become millionaires you figure we cool! You figure as a parent your done! I got him past, college is paid for, and he’s got enough left to send the grandkids to college. We good! Then you got to go to jail. There are jokers down the street in the projects in north Philadelphia whose parents are sitting there preparing for their children to go to jail. So this is where I get comfortable with a guy like Andre Ward. His demeanor and knowing his character, having me him, his trainer, knowing his father before his father passed, his kids, his wife, you know what I mean. He’s a solid kid! We pray nothing stupid happens because we are all one bad decision away from doing jail time, so I don’t point my fingers at anybody. Anybody can be in a bar and scuttlebutt where something stupid goes dumb, and there’s nothing worse than when something stupid goes dumb.”
His views on the Floyd Mayweather Junior versus Miguel Cotto bout and whether he sees it as a one-sided mismatch in favor of Floyd:
“Well you can’t just lock in on one-sided, because last time Floyd has been at this weight was probably his toughest contest when he fought Oscar. Cotto’s a kid who has pretty much reenergized himself. You know he felt like he went back and redeemed himself from the Margarito fight, and Cotto’s a special kid, too. So one-sided? I never count on that against champions, against guys who are true champions. You don’t see one-sided. As far out as Floyd is talent-wise, and I told people this years ago because we dealt with it with Roy Jones. When Roy Jones came along and Trinidad was coming along I told people. I told Bernard! Me and Bernard had words about this. I said, ‘You want to be the best fighter in boxing? You got to beat Trinidad. Pound-for-Pound Roy Jones is the most talented fighter in boxing. Pound-for-Pound God gave him the most gifts’. So he’s the most talented fighter in boxing. It’s like saying yes Yao Ming is the tallest guy on the team. That’s just a gift! Nobody else could be that tall if they wanted to. So Pound-for-Pound Roy was the most talented, but I said, ‘Pound-for-Pound Trinidad is the best fighter’.
Once again in this era we go through it again. Pound-for-Pound Floyd is the most talented, but Pound-for-Pound Pacquiao is the best fighter in boxing! This is why everybody calls for that and they keep looking for it. Me myself, I never pursued a girl for that long so nothing holds my interest for that long. Maybe I got attention deficit syndrome, but I ain’t never been interested in something that long except for wanting to see my grandkids to go to school. Me waiting this long to see these two guys fight there is nothing they can do to satisfy me now. For them to satisfy me in a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, then it’s got to be better than Hagler and Hearns. It’s got to be better than Hagler and Hearns. Now anybody in boxing, you say that and they’ll understand what I’m saying. If it ain’t better than Hagler-Hearns it’s a letdown to me. I got to wait six years to see two dudes fight and I get a chess match? You can keep that! I ain’t even interested anymore.”
His views on who has the tougher challenge: Manny Pacquiao in his fight against Timothy Bradley or Floyd Mayweather Junior in his fight with Miguel Cotto:
“It’s down the line. I’ve known Timmy since he was a kid, too. The beautiful thing about Timmy is that nothing you see on tape or DVD shows you Timmy Bradley. If you watch Timmy throw a left hook or a right hand on DVD you’re really not all that impressed. But how does this guy keep winning? That’s what I’m saying. Some people have mastered the art of winning. I once said that about Ward. I said Ward is the Tim Duncan of boxing. He does nothing exceptionally special, but he wins all the time. There will be no championships unless you go through him. So Tim Bradley is very much like that in the sense that you can watch him on DVD, and you can see well I can counter his hook, and I can counter his right hand, and I can do this, and I can do that. So that’s where Tim is tough. Tim is very tough in that sense, but we know if Pacquiao cracks you and hits you with that ooh-wee, and you see it time and time again when guys’ eyes get back and they say ooh-wee!”