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| After eight years as a professional, Robbie “The Bomber” Peden finally gets a world title opportunity as he meets Nate Campbell in Australia tonight for the IBF super featherweight crown. This will be a rematch of their brutal showdown in March of 2004 when Campbell dropped his hands in the fifth round and stuck out his chin, only to be stretched out by a perfect Peden left hook that quickly ended that |  |
argument. Peden will try to prove that was no fluke and as an incentive he’ll have all he wants from Campbell’s history of extensive trash talking.
SaddoBoxing: You must be looking forward to fighting Nate Campbell again?
Robbie Peden: “Yeah, I want to make sure that everyone knows that last time was no accident. I trained hard and did my homework. He can talk as much trash as he wants to talk, I’ll just let my fists do the talking in the ring.”
SB: In the first fight, were you surprised that he just dropped his hands?
RP: “Actually he didn’t just drop his hands, I hit him with a hook just before that. A lot of people think he dropped his hands for some stupid reason but he has a habit of dropping his hands after he gets hit, trying to prove how strong he is and how tough he is. It’s a street tactic for intimidation, something that I don’t give in to.”
SB: You’ve obviously studied him thoroughly.
RP: “Yeah, he makes a lot of mistakes and makes mistakes late in fights as he gets tired. He throws everything he has in the first four or five rounds so I know it’s going to be a very difficult fight for maybe five or six rounds but after that I’ll take over.”
SB: So the plan is to let him wear down and then jump on him in the later rounds?
RP: “If the opportunity arises, I’ll jump on him in the first round, he doesn’t really worry me. I think he’s very disrespectful to other fighters, I think he’s very disrespectful to boxing in general. He always talks about how he does this and does that and blames everyone for his mistakes and downfalls. He never will see himself in the mirror. It’s a problem he has but he doesn’t see it.”
SB: This IBF title fight must be very exciting for you.
RP: “Oh yeah, I’m ready for this and I’ve been training all my life. It’s my home country and the support I’ve been getting here is going to raise me to a high that I’ve never been before. Unless he brings three or four guys into the ring with him I don’t see how he’s going to win this fight.”
SB: Is this your first fight back in Australia in awhile?
RP: “It’s my first professional fight ever in Australia since I started my career in 1996. The majority of my fights have been in America. I’ve always thought of myself as one of the best in the world and I’ve always wanted to prove that against the best fighters but the best fighters have never wanted to fight me. I’ve had numerous offers on the table for world champions to fight me and I can’t blame them if they don’t want to take a hard fight for a little bit of money. Morales is one of them and for his last fight, he had the choice of either defending his IBF title against me or fighting Barrera for very good money. I can’t be mad at him for making a good business decision.”
SB: Should you win the IBF title against Campbell, will you be defending in Australia or do you plan on going back to America?
RP: “I’ll leave that up to Dan Goossen. Dan knows how to make his fighters good money, he’s done it many a time with people like Glen Johnson and JamesToney. He’ll have aplan for me and we’ll go the direction he feels will make the most money. Of course, I’ll have some input into the situation but he’s there to promote me and I’m there to fight. I would love to fight here and defend the belt every other month but I have to build my fan base all around the world.”
SB: I imagine if you win the IBF title, you’d be interested in unifying the belts?
RP: “For sure, and maybe before I didn’t bring enough to the table and that’s why the champions didn’t want to fight me. Now when I get this belt I’ll be bringing more to the table and money so they’ll risk their belts and position in the 130-pound division.”
SB: Anything additional?
RP: “Just that I prepared very well for this fight and I had a long and strenuous camp. I have no injuries, and all the talking has been done. I won the fight fair and square last time and I’ll win the fight fair and square this time. After he loses this fight, you’ll hear another excuse from him, just like every other time he lost. It’s always someone else, the judges, Casamayor, this guy Martinez, he blames a death in the family or he didn’t train…who’s fault is that? This is a business and you know what you’re supposed to do. People pay good money to come see you fight, not blame everybody else for your mistakes. That’s why people sometime see boxing as a bad business. People see someone crying instead of just going and fighting. If you lose, you lose.
“Just like when I lost to Marquez. I was beaten by a better fighter on the night. I’d love to fight him again, yes, but he’s proved he is a champion time and time again. It’s all about choices. Campbell was whining again about why didn’t I make this fight earlier and I said that I wanted to fight Morales for big money. Why the hell would I want to fight Campbell again for no money? We’re not getting paid much for this and I’d rather fight Morales for big money. People need to understand the business end of boxing. I haven’t been fighting very often or been paid huge amounts of money but I’ve stayed solid and focused on what the big picture is.”
Richard Eberline can be reached at richardeberline@fastmail.fm
