Q & A with Austin "No Doubt" Trout


For the second time in a row Austin “No Doubt” Trout will be heading to Mexico to face a Mexican. It wont be easy but the unbeaten Austin knows what to expect after snearing the WBA Light Middleweight crown from Rigoberto Alvarez last time out when he won a near shut out in Guadalajara back in February. Austin 25, will head to Monterrey on 11 June to square off with David Lopez who despite a modest 40-12(23) record is unbeaten in 6 years and has earned his shot at Austin the old fashioned way. Lopez is the kind of fighter who’s in the who needs him club, to good for his own good. It’s something Austin respects, it wasn’t that long ago he was also a member of that club. He’s an old fashioned kind of fighter too and thinks nothing of travelling across the border for his title defence. If he can turn back the challenge of Lopez he will finally get the attention he deserves and make the other big names sit up and take notice. He’s what the talkative Austin had to say.

Hello Austin, welcome to 15rounds.com

Anson Wainwright – Firstly congratulations on a terrific win in Mexico, what can you tell us about the fight with Rigoberto Alvarez? Though it’s early when would you like to fight next?

Austin Trout – After my fight with David Lopez I would like to get back in the ring as early as august…Lord willing the fight goes to plan.

Anson Wainwright – How does it feel to of become a world champion? Has winning the title increased the attention you receive & how has it been in New Mexico for you?

Austin Trout – It feels great, I feel proud, accomplished, but also I feel like this just means my job is going to get harder to stay on top. Winning the title definitely has increased my attention. New Mexico has always supported me, but now they are doing it with more excitement!

Anson Wainwright – What was it like fighting in Mexico, were you treated well or did things happen to try to disrupt you in the build up to the fight?

Austin Trout – The people in Guadalajara were wonderful! One thing I love about fighting in Mexico, and just Latin countries period, is their passion and love for boxing. The people although cheered for their man, didn’t care that I was an outsider they were happy to be in the midst of a great fighter regardless race or nationality.

Anson Wainwright – You are heading back to Mexico for your first defense against David Lopez. What are your thoughts on him & the fight?

Austin Trout – David Lopez is a tough guy who is going to bring everything to take my title; I think he sticks to his game plans well. I also believe that I am athletically superior to him and just as strong if not stronger. I am already in good shape and have full confidence that I will be able to take anything he has to give.

Anson Wainwright – Before fighting Alvarez you hadn’t fought in over a year. Can you tell us why this was and what you did in this time?

Austin Trout – Well it was a situation with my mandatory position and after the WBA made a Super Champion there was confusion on what was to happen with the now called “regular” title. Between all that and my new promotion team I was hung up (takes breath). During the layoff I was training and going to training camps with fighters like Margirito, and Sergio Martinez.

Anson Wainwright – Who are members of team Trout, your manager, trainer & promoter? Also what gym do you train at?

Austin Trout – I am trained by Louie Burke, his assistant is Randy Gomez. My strength coach is Shukree Shabazz. Managed by Bob Spagnola and promoted by Greg Cohen Promotions, There you have Team No Doubt!

Anson Wainwright – Can you tell us about your amateur career? What titles did you win and what was your final record?

Austin Trout – I had a decent amateur career I won the US mens title in 2004 and became the Olympic Alternate in Athens Greece. I fought in quite a few international tournaments and duels. My record at the end was 163-42

Anson Wainwright – How did you first get into Boxing?

Austin Trout – When I was about ten I heard about a boxing gym in my town of Las Cruces. I had already been a fan of boxing because my mom was such a fan. She put me in and it was love at first sight

Anson Wainwright – What are your thoughts on the Light Middleweight division including the other champions WBA Miguel Cotto IBF Cornelius Bundrage, WBC Saul Alvarez & WBO Sergei Dzindziruk? Also the top contenders Lara & Martirosyan?

Austin Trout – I feel my weight class is packed full of talented tough guys. I am honored to be a part of it and I am 100 percent sure that I am the top guy in this class! I know I got some backing up to do, but I am fully prepared and willing to do so. So to answer your question I think all the guys you named are good fighters and will pose a challenge but, I’m better than them, and that’s all that matters in the end

Anson Wainwright – The younger brother of Rigoberto Alvarez is Saul Alvarez, he is thought by many to be the future of Boxing. What do you think of that fight?

Austin Trout – I would love the opportunity to bust that myth.

Anson Wainwright – Who were your hero’s growing up & what fighters do you enjoy watching fight today?

Austin Trout – I’ve always enjoyed all the greats since I was a boy I can’t list all my favorite fighters. I am a fan first, the people I like watching today are; Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jnr., Victor Ortiz, Berto, Yuriorkis Gamboa,….i like them all its really not fair to ask me to list them.

Anson Wainwright – What do you like to do to relax away from Boxing? What are your hobbies and interests?

Austin Trout – I like video games, movies (all kinds), outdoor activities, longboarding, snowboarding. I try to stay as active as my kids allow.

Anson Wainwright – Finally do you have a message for the Boxing world?

Austin Trout – Win Lose or draw I’ll give it my all, and I will give God the glory. I am excited for everyone to get to see what I got!

Thanks for your time Austin, keep up the good work & good luck in your fight with Lopez.

Anson Wainwright
15rounds.com

The Great Smokies: a Cherokee land. (Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee)

The Saturday Evening Post April 1, 1990 | Stipe, Sylvia A CHEROKEE: LAND Most people see Sevierville (suh-VEER-vil), Tennessee, only through their car windows on the drive from 1-40 to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Few of them notice a grassy hump, barely higher than street level and perhaps 50 feet in diameter, sandwiched among the local fast-food stops, a shopping mall, and a new motel. But experts say the McMahan Mound (named for a town founding father on whose property it was located) was already the center of an Indian culture 3,000 years ago. in our site great smoky mountains

By the time of the early Christian era, prehistoric Sevierville had grown to include wood, thatch, and clay homes clustered around an open plaza, dominated by a large earthen mound used for the house of the chief and one or more public buildings. In the next several centuries, new earthen layers hauled in basket by basket increased the height of the mound more than 20 feet to enhance local prestige. By A.D. 1500, the homes were built entirely of clay. This peak of prehistoric Native American artistic and technological achievement would not survive European explorations into the interior Southeast. Epidemics devastated a vulnerable people, and by the 17th century, this and other Mississippian mound centers in the region lay deserted. The land became another people’s. But only with the trails the Indians left behind could early white explorers find their way over the high divides bridging these mountains and valleys. Hemando DeSoto and Juan Pardo “discovered” the Smokies in the 1500s by following the Great Indian Path along the French Broad River, a route for northern and southern Indians passing through east Tennessee.

Early English settlers used the same trails to cross the mountains and plant Scot-Irish communities in fertile valleys and coves throughout the haze-hung Smokies. The same paths were the basis for many present-day roads. They wind lazily around the feet of the slopes and rise steeply to cross them, like Highway 441 from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Cherokee, North Carolina, the only route over the mountains through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Near the summit, the view from Newfound Gap seems infinite. For as far as it is possible to see, ridge after ridge disappears into the haze. This is the old Cherokee country.

Modem scholars regard the Cherokee as the direct descendants of the mound builders. A solitary half-breed Cherokee, Sequoya, produced the only written Indian equivalent of the alphabet. In the museum in Cherokee, his feat is chronicled, and the language preserved for visitors to hear. A push of a button, and the 121st Psalm, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” is recited in the soft syllables and guttural sounds of the Cherokee tongue. see here great smoky mountains

The Cherokee of the Great Smokies were divided, but not conquered. Seventeen thousand of their members were rounded up in the late 1830s and marched 1,200 miles to a new home in Oklahoma. One-fourth of the exiles died on the infamous “Trail of Tears.” Other tribe members went into hiding in the vast coves and hollows of the Great Smoky Mountains, where they clung to their ways, often with the knowledge of sympathetic whites. In succeeding decades the fugitives reemerged, clan by clan, to buy back and regain tribal control over 56,000 acres. The Qualla Boundary-their land, not a reservation-was then given in trust to the federal government to prevent any further transfers to non-Cherokees. The Smokies town of Cherokee lies in this district.

Today the Cherokees’ descendants reenact the Trail of Tears saga during the summer months in an amphitheater in Cherokee. At the entrance, an eternal flame commemorating the Trail of Tears has burned since 1951. The flame was lit by coals from a Cherokee Indian Council fire burning in Oklahoma since 1839 and in turn ignited by coals carried westward on the Trail of Tears. Each night the hillside arena, under myriad stars against a jet sky, the fragrance of pines scenting the summer air, rings with the perfidy of the white man’s betrayal of the American Indian.

Because the Smokies were for so many centuries the crossroads of Indian trails and paths, nearby Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, will be the site of the 1990 National American Indian Pow-wow. “Countless pow-wows have been held on that very spot through the ages, so why not ours?” an organizer says. From May 4 through 6, thousands of tribal representatives from all over the country will gather in Old Mill Park on the banks of the sparkling Little Pigeon River, the marker for one fork of the Great Indian path, for traditional Native American activities-sports, arts and crafts, and dance. The public is welcome.

The Great Smokies National Park itself is another echo of prehistoric North America. It too was once imperiled by the encroaching white nation. At the turn of this century, lumbering interests began stripping the mountainsides of vast stands of virgin timber. Only the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1926 stopped the ravishment and gradually restored more than a half-million acres in Tennessee and North Carolina to a wilderness state similar to that trod by the Indian. Immense forests of virgin timber still loom over “Sha-conage,” the Indian “land of blue smoke,” its blue mists curling up with the same indolent motion as chimney smoke.

In 1990, more than 800 miles of hiking trails, many following Indian footsteps, crisscross the park, including a stretch of the famed Appalachian Trail. Even in this most-visited of national parks, it is no problem to find a solitary spot where the silence is broken only by the sounds of nature, where you feel yourself in harmony with Mother Earth and experience a kinship with those who silently walked the paths centuries before you.

-Sylvia Stipe Stipe, Sylvia