"Unless Pacquiao makes some changes he has problems" - Naazim Richardson -- Examiner

By Chris Robinson, Examiner.com

This weekend North Philadelphia's Naazim Richardson will again lead Bernard Hopkins into battle as the living legend looks to capture the WBC light heavyweight crown away from Jean Pascal. The fight is a rematch of their December encounter, a bout that saw Hopkins dropped in rounds one and three before storming back and appearing to do enough to win the fight despite settling for a majority draw.

During a recent media function to promote the fight, Richardson recently discussed Hopkins' chances at age 46 and analyzed what this fight means for his career during an interview with Marc Abrams of 15Rounds.com. Also on the agenda for Richardson was last weekend's Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley WBO welterweight title bout, as the respect coach was in Shane's corner in his losing effort to the Filipino star.

The Pacquiao-Mosley affair was pretty uneventful outside of a 3rd round knockdown by the General Santos City fighter, an action that saw Mosley go into retreat mode for the rest of the fight. Asked for his take on those dramatics, Richardson insists the knockdown changed the overall outlook of the fight.

"Listen, that little dude is a special cat," Richardson said of Pacquiao. "And what you see in these dudes, is when he hits these dudes, everything changes. Shane is a tough kid but Pacquiao is special."

At 39 years of age, Mosley has looked rather ordinary in his last three outings, with the Pacquiao fighting coming before a dreadful majority draw with Sergio Mora and a whitewashing at the hands of Floyd Mayweather last May. Mosley has a call from Canastota awaiting him but Richardson isn't the type of man to tell him that he should hang his gloves up.

"It's his call," Richardson retorted. "But if you are going to compete at that weight class, you've dealt with the best in that weight class and you see how you match up against them. This is a different era. If you see that's how you match up in that era, then maybe it's time for you to do something different. But the call lies on the man. We didn't tell him when to get started, how do we tell him when to finish?"

Richardson was then asked about the fight everyone has been fantasizing about for the past year and a half, a Pacquiao-Mayweather clash. Richardson is often one to prophesize and speak in riddles yet he seemed to hint that what he saw in Manny on May 7th leaves reasons for concern if a fight with Floyd ever comes off.

Pacquiao-Mosley image galleries: Massive gallery of Pacquiao's dominant victory Part 1 and Part 2 / Behind the scenes at the Pacquiao-Mosley weigh-in / Inside the Wild Card with Pacquiao, Ariza, Porter, Holloway, Concepcion and others

"I feel like, what we had in place in Shane, everybody is going to want to fight him now," Richardson continued. "After you seen the Shane Mosley fight, I exposed him. You know how to beat him now. I asked my guy after the fight, I said 'The way you got hit the first time, did you ever get hit like that again?' and he said 'No'. That why you heard me say 'Ok, the debate is over'."

Many have been forgiving to Pacquiao, putting full blame on Mosley's lack of enthusiasm for the tepid in action in last week's fight. Surely one fight does not make a fighter but Richardson seems to think some subtle changes from Pacquiao's end are needed at this point.

"Like I said, right now, I think people are going to watch that DVD and unless Pacquiao makes some changes, he has problems with certain things."

Source: examiner.com