Trainer Emanuel "Manny" Steward works with WBO and IBF heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko
, as well as newly-crowned WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) titlist Miguel Cotto (pictured above, at left), whose ninth-round knockout victory dethroned Yuri Foreman (pictured above, at right) on June 5 during their first bout together at Yankee Stadium in New York.Steward has been credited with helping the 29-year-old Cotto (35-2, 28 knockouts) resurrect a career that had been damaged during knockout losses to Antonio Margarito and WBO welterweight (147 pounds) king Manny Pacquiao.
In this Q&A, Steward talks about Cotto's resurgence as well as potential rematches with Pacquiao and Margarito. FanHouse: What do you think about potentially being in Miguel Cotto's corner for a rematch with Manny Pacquiao?
Manny Steward: Well, any time that anybody in the world fights Manny Pacquiao, they've got a hard fight, OK? That's just a fact. It would be a different fight, I'm quite sure. One reason is that they'd be fighting at 154 instead of 145 for Cotto the last fight that they had.
Do you believe that being forced to fight at a catch weight of 145 pounds against Pacquiao in some way hurt or hampered Miguel Cotto?
Well, when I talked to Miguel and I was asking him, 'What happened in the fight?,' he didn't say anything about having to lose weight or anything about that being a factor. All that he said was, basically, 'I couldn't handle his speed.'
And I said, 'You're kidding?' And he said, 'Nope. I couldn't handle his speed.' So he just couldn't handle Manny's speed.
So neither you nor Miguel Cotto believes that extreme weight loss had anything to do with the loss to Pacquiao?
You know, Miguel has never mentioned that. I don't think that he would ever say that. I just asked him what the difference in the fight was because he was doing so good earlier on in the fight in the early rounds with his jab.
Miguel just said, 'later on I couldn't keep up with his speed.' But with me in there, it would be totally different because Miguel is a different fighter right now than he was then.
How would you, as a trainer, neutralize Manny Pacquiao's speed against Miguel?
Well, that would not be a problem with me this time because I specialize in fast sparring partners. That's something that I insist on. I've never had a fighter come back at the end of a round and tell me that 'I've got a problem because I can't handle his speed,' you know?
But any time anybody's fighting Manny Pacquiao, you have your work cut out for you any way that you cut it.
Would you look forward to testing yourself as a trainer against his trainer, Freddie Roach, and Manny Pacquiao with yourself in Miguel Cotto's corner?
You know, I don't go into any fight really looking at it that way. I go into a fight trying to get my man in the best shape for the fight that I can. I've never gone into a fight anxious to face any other trainer or this guy or that guy.
If we did fight Pacquiao, though, that, I guess, would be good for boxing. But to be honest, I've never thought too much about it.
But you do have a history, by extension, having gone against the late Eddie Futch, who was Freddie Roach's mentor. Can you tell me about that?
Well, I went up against Eddie Futch with Evander Holyfield against Riddick Bowe in the second of their three fights, and I went against Eddie Futch with Tommy Hearns against James Shuler in a fight.
So that was twice that he had undefeated fighters. And that was twice where we won both of those fights [Holyfield by decision; Hearns by first-round knockout.]
How about a rematch for Miguel Cotto against Antonio Margarito?
These are questions that [HBO's] Jim Lampley brought up to him during the fighter meetings before we fought Yuri Foreman. He asked Miguel if, clearly, 'would he be interested in trying to settle the score with Margarito and Pacquiao?'
But Miguel doesn't show a lot of emotions, you know. He was like, 'they were just fights.' And he said that with very little emotion. It wasn't like 'Margarito just beat me.'
Do you have a preference for whom Miguel Cotto fights, whether it's Manny Pacquiao, Antonio Margarito or Julio Cesar Chavez?
No, not really. Whatever fight they make, I would just start training Miguel for the fight. I have no personal feelings about it at all. I think Margarito, even if you take away the badly taped hands, he's still one tough sonofab****, you know?
How so?
I'm down in Los Angeles while he was training once, and he just trains really, really hard. Regardless of what may have been in his hands, he was always in great shape.
When he lost to Shane Mosley, you may say that part of his confidence may have been effected. You may say that his confidence before that came from the fact that he may have felt that his illegal hands gave him an advantage.
But, emotionally, the night that he fought Shane, he may have been all confused and mixed up because of what went on with the commission that night. By the time that the fight came up, I mean.
But I have a lot more respect for him as a fighter than most people do, I think. It seems like everyone is saying that he got as far as he did because of the hand wraps. But as far as I'm concerned, he's always in unbelievable condition.
You and Miguel seemed to have really bonded during training and the night of the Yuri Foreman fight. How much fun was that?
Well, I learn from each one of my fighters. And I learned the art of being relaxed from Miguel Cotto. I've never had a fighter who was going into such a high intensity fight go into it as relaxed as he seemed to be.
During the promotion, everything was about Yuri Foreman and this and that, and I have to tell you that I was a nervous wreck at times. But Miguel Cotto, this guy, he was the definition of the word 'cool.'
Before the fight, he was out there watching the undercard fights. After the fifth round of the fight with Foreman, he came back to the corner and he gave me a little wink. He's just not one to get emotional about a lot of things.
He was not all wired up, you know? And he's not all wired up about getting revenge. With Miguel Cotto, it just seems like nothing bothers him.
Source: boxing.fanhouse.com
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