In simply doing his job, Naazim Richardson already has done more to clean up boxing than any grandstanding proclamation from Floyd Mayweather Jr., who has anointed himself as the game’s undisputed savior with Olympic-style drug-tests that apparently happen as often as conference calls before his May 1 showdown with Shane Mosley at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.
If not for Richardson’s due diligence before Mosley’s last victory more than a year ago, Antonio Margarito might have continued to fight with hand wraps described as everything from irregular to criminal. Whatever they are called, there would be no debate and perhaps no movement for regulatory change in how wraps are applied and provided if not for Richardson. His instinctive eye for detail is about survival, which he learned on the street and practices in a corner. Ropes don’t confine the task. It doesn’t begin or end with an opening or closing bell. It’s just the job, which is as challenging as ever for Richardson in preparing for a May Day that Mosley says will belong to him.
As Richardson proved before Mosley’s stoppage of Margarito more than 15 months ago in Los Angeles, fights often turn on what happens before they ever begin. It’s a lesson not lost on the heavily-favored Mayweather, who launches his sharp-edged rhetoric like artillery-fire long before the fighters invade the ring. Mayweather is at it again. He wonders if Mosley already is feeling pressure.
Why else, he says, would he suddenly show with a Polynesian-style tattoo across one shoulder.
“Why would someone wait until they are 38 years old to get a tattoo?’’ Mayweather said Wednesday during a media day while working out in Las Vegas.
Crank up the volume. Mayweather, trainer-and-uncle Roger and father Floyd Sr. are just getting started.
“Hysteria,’’ Richardson says of the predictable storm of expletives and insults.
That’s a good description. It’s also been a good weapon for Mayweather, a cautious, clever and unbeaten fighter who waits on the other guy to make a mistake. If his jab and defense don’t create one, maybe anger from a well-timed insult will. From day-to-day through the next two-plus weeks, the detail-oriented Richardson will try to guard against exactly that.
“I will keep him focused on the task at hand and not let him get caught up in the Mayweather hysteria,’’ Richardson said at Mosley’s media day Monday in Los Angeles.
Easier said than done, perhaps, simply because the Mayweathers will say whatever they can for as long as they can in a noisy attempt to find a chink in Mosley’s psychological armor. If there is a silencer, however, it might be Richardson. Listen to him and you get the idea that specifics matter. Noise doesn’t.
During a conference call Tuesday that included Roger Mayweather and some contentious give-and-take about drug testing, Richardson: “If you asked me to respond to everything Roger is saying. I wouldn’t have time to train my athlete.’’
Richardson’s stubborn adherence to detail — and only detail — looms as an effective counter to the many distractions inevitable in any fight against Mayweather. One important detail is character. It’s a lot more subjective than, say, a problem in an opponent’s hand wraps. But it is there, fundamental to the job and getting it right. In Mayweather, he sees a fighter who loves to talk and uses negotiations, media days and conference calls as if they were the early rounds. In Mosley, he sees somebody who just wants to fight.
“I respect Shane and I love his approach as an athlete, how he does his job and takes it on,’’ Richardson said when asked if Mosley conceded too much at the bargaining table when he agreed to random drug testing and a rematch clause for Mayweather. “But I tell him to his face: I think he is a poor negotiator. He wants to fight so bad he doesn’t care. He’d let Roger be one of the judges.
“Shane would agree to it. He just wants to fight.’’
The trainer went on to say that Mosley would agree to fight with one hand tied behind his back. He was exaggerating. Kind of. It couldn’t happen. Richardson. Who has Mosley’s back, wouldn’t let it happen any more than he would have let Margarito fight armed in altered hand wraps.
