Exclusive Boxing Interview: Junior Witter

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European Light Welterweight Champion Junior Witter faces ex-WBO Champion DeMarcus Corley this Friday at the Alexandra Palace in London, England on a Hennessy Sports promotion televised by Sky Sports. With the winner of this bout annexing the WBC title, it’s

the biggest fight of Junior Witter’s life. Despite the enormity of the occasion, the ambidextrous power puncher from Bradford, England, 33-1-2 (19), took time out of his busy training schedule to speak exclusively with SaddoBoxing.

SaddoBoxing: You have an impressive record with your only loss coming against Zab Judah on points; did you learn much from that fight?

Junior Witter: “Yeah, I learned a hell of a lot from that fight. It showed me really how good I was, what I was; basically, it showed me what I was doing right and were I was going wrong. Since then, I’ve come away and learned from that. I’ve worked on my power and brought the power through. The speed, accuracy, timing was already there, I am a completely different fighter than I was that day.”

SB: Since the loss, you’ve gone on to win the British, European, and Commonwealth titles and your record now sports an impressive variation of TKO and KO wins. But, you’ve had to face harsh criticism with regards to your last three performances against Lovemore N’dou, Andreas Kotelnik, and Colin Lynes. Do think this criticism has been deserved?

JW: “See, the last fight…yeah, I didn’t really have much criticism from the N’ dou fight, I did what I had to do. Yeah, everything negative from that fight I completely blanked. Everything negative from the Colin Lynes fight, I felt it but it was a case of, yeah, fair enough for a lot of it because I wasn’t on form. I didn’t box as well as I could have, I could have been a lot better, but on the same note, I went in there boxed well below standard and still beat him easy. So even though it was a bad performance, there was so much positive to look to from that.

“Colin Lynes is a British level fighter, which is a stone throw away from a European fighter, but yet I beat him that easy on a terrible night. it just shows how good I am in general. I had a bad night but I learned a lot from that fight. I just didn’t get my self motivated for it. I knew I would get negative criticism for it, I got more than I expected, but that’s a case of how my career has always been. Colin Lynes got praised for that fight for doing really well, yet when I boxed Zab Judah and did better than what he did against me, I got slated for it, yet I had no chance going into that fight.”

SB: Looking towards Corley, I hear that you have prepared 20 weeks for this next fight. Is that normal for your or is this something you have done solely because of what is at stake here?

JW: “I’m never really out of training, I’ve probably had two weeks off since my last fight. But what really happened is I had a couple of fights lined up and they fell though and through that whole time, its just been progressing like we’ll have an easy week this week then, oh that fight is coming on us in a month, right, we’ll step it up. so we did that, then the last two months have been solid for the Corley fight.

“I was supposed to box at the end of April, defending the European then that fell through and I had an easy week back in the gym. (trainer) Dominic (Ingle) said I could go to Denmark and spar for two weeks with Thomas Damgaard. I went over and sparred with Thomas and a kid called Reda Zam Zam, a light-middle weight.

“I went over there and I did what I wanted to do, they all looked at me and said you’re ready for this fight now. I said I was, but I would probably have to wait till July cause that’s what I was expecting, I got back and they said, no, it’s going to be September and since then I’ve not been out of the gym. I just stayed in the gym and then we stepped it up when we needed to.”

SB: Are you going to hit your peak, spot on for this fight?

JW: “I’m going to peak in time. I think I’m going to be right on the night, my timing is there, everything’s going fine in sparring. I’ve got my last spar tomorrow night and everything will go fine and come Friday night, I’ll be on top form.”

SB: DeMarcus Corley took Mayweather to points and Cotto stopped him in five. It looks like it will be a tough test; do you see this going the distance or do you have plans for an early night?

JW: “I want an early night but I can see it going the distance. I want to do him in about five or six, but to be honest, he is tough, he can take a shot and he can give a shot. He hurt Mayweather, he is not going to come over and be intimidated by anything. And the fact that Mayweather is going to be in his corner, I think that will give him that little boost and a bit more confidence and belief in himself. I think he is going to be at his peak for this fight.”

SB: Well at the end of the day, you’re both going after quite a prestigious belt…

JW: “Oh yeah it’s the best belt in the world, the most prestigious belt is the one that everyone recognizes as the original world title. I’m not saying that the WBA, IBF or WBO are not good belts cause they are, and they are genuine world titles but the WBC still holds that bit of history that everybody respects.”

SB: I believe there is no other British light welterweight that has ever won that belt is there?

JW: “There isn’t as far as I know, so I’m going to make history.”

SB: Do you think winning this title will open the doors to the fighters who have dodged you in the past?

JW: “Definitely, it’s going to open that door. It’s going to open other doors, to other champions out there, the fact that I could have boxed Cotto a couple of times but it’s fallen through for different reasons. A Vivian Harris fight is still there and there are prospective fights coming through. There is the WBA Champion, Souleymane M’baye, he’s linked with Frank Warren so these fights can happen. There’s the Hatton fight if he ever decides he wants to fight.”

SB: Who would you ideally want a shot at, if you had that title as a lure to come out and try and take it?

JW: To be honest, Cotto is a good fight, Hatton is a good fight, M’baye, I’m not fussed, I’m not really bothered. Out of the champions at the minute, the one I would want would be Cotto.”

SB: For any reason in particular? Would you see it as an easier fight than Hatton or just because Cotto is a greater scalp in your opinion?

JW: “No, he’s a good style of fighter, he’s got a good reputation and he can bang, and I’d get some credit for it. Like I’ve said before, Hatton is the fight I want personally, that’s not about a title, I just want to prove to the world that I can do him. So out of all the fights in the world, realistically that’s the one that would be the biggest fight, but beating Cotto would prove to so many people, because Hatton isn’t actually saying he wants to make it and he’s never actually come forward, so if the Hatton fight can’t happen, then it will be Cotto.”

SB: Would you agree this is a must win fight, because if you lose you may have to go back to the European levels, hoping for the chance to step back up? JW:

JW: “Oh yeah, I’m too dangerous for any other champion to give me the fight, I’ve had to really push to get my chance for the WBC title shot. I’ve done it the hard way, they’ve not just said, ‘Ok, we’ll give you another chance; they didn’t want to give me the first chance. The Zab Judah fight was a shot in the dark, it wasn’t a proper chance, so I don’t see that one as a chance.”

SB: I hear you were offered Ben Rabah for the IBF title but you decided that the green belt was the way to go as this was a childhood ambition of yours, but do you think Rabah would have been an easier fight for you?

JW: “Yeah definitely, it would definitely have been easier, but it would have allowed the critics and the knockers to have something to knock about, and I just thought, I want to prove that I’m the best so the best has got to have the best belt.”

SB: Similar to the criticism Hatton got when he went up to face Collazo, even though he won he still got knocked for it?

JW: “Yeah, he moved up the weight, and if your going to move up, you need to set a standard for yourself and he didn’t prove anything in that fight. I mean it was very close, a lot of people thought he lost and he needed to win that convincingly.”

SB: I believe that you got close to a fight with Floyd Mayweather before he vacated; is he someone you would of liked to have fought, and do you think that you could have done the thing that no one has managed before?

JW: “I do, I think I would have beaten him, the fight got offered to me about two year ago for a non title fight and this was before he was WBC champion. He’d moved up and had one fight at light welterweight, and people said ‘yeah, Ok, you can box him’. I said ‘when’? And they said ‘in seven weeks time’, I said ‘I can’t because I’m on holiday’ (lots of laughing) but then I told them ‘Ok, we’ll do it’. I know the money is going to be superb, better than I ever had before, but then he went a different way in the end, I think he got a title shot, so I understand him doing it, I have no problem In that respect.”

SB: You said earlier that Mayweather was going to be in Corley“s corner, I read somewhere that Roger Mayweather has reportedly been rubbishing you. How does this affect you, do you take any notice or is it something that you thrive of and use to your own needs in the desire to prove he has made a bad mistake?

JW: “Half of me just laughs at it, and half of me thinks, right, I’m going to prove you wrong. But mainly, it’s like water of a duck’s back, it doesn’t bother me whatsoever. The only thing it could actually do is fuel me, but I’ve got to be professional about what I’m doing, as long as I can use it positively for me, I would use it, but if it’s getting too deep, I’ll just move on and just ignore it.”

SB: In terms of your own team, John, Brendan and Dominic Ingle seem a close knit team around you. Does this help or are there ever any disagreements in regards to your career or are you all totally focused on the one route?

JW: “You’re always going to get that to an extent, but the team works brilliantly, once a decision is made it’s made. I allow them to take care of the business side and I take care of the fighting side. The whole team works really well and I have no qualms about it, they could have made me a millionaire sooner (laughs), but that’s life.”

SB: Before the fight with Lovemore N’dou, you must have known that no one had managed to floor him and you may have been prepared to go the distance but when you managed to floor him twice, did this change the way you fought in any way?

JW: “The thing is, he went down, if there had been 30 seconds left in that round, I would of stopped him, and that is always a game plan, if you get them going that good, then finish them. If there was 30 seconds left in that round, it would have been over, but his corner done a bloody good job and revived him. He came back, I dropped him the next round, but at the same time, on the first knockdown, I broke my hand. I broke my knuckle and it affected me in the fight, but I tried not to let it show. I stuck to boxing, I stuck to the game plan in respect to make sure I won it on points.

“He started to come back in the middle rounds, when I look at it now and forget the commentary, I reckon I was still winning, because of what I was scoring but they were giving him a lot of credit for coming back from the knockdown, which is not deserving in respect of yeah he’s got a big heart but he’s still losing.

“He was coming back, then in the tenth round I hit him with a left hook which if my hand wasn’t broken, would have been a bit harder and I would of dropped him again, but that’s life, that’s the way it goes. I went from that and stayed on top of him for the rest of the fight.”

SB: Before you go into a fight, do you like to study videos of your opponents so you can have a good look, devise a strategy and a game plan or do you just tend to wing it, so to speak?

JW: “Erm, boxers can change their styles between fights, but in general all boxers are going to have their certain traits. Personally, I don’t study as in, like, I know a little kid called Ricardo, and he studies everything on everyone, and I’m just like wow, that’s too extreme, but give him credit he does learn from that and he does it his way and I do it my way, which my way is I’ll watch a bit of them, I’ll see what I’m doing, then I’ll get back into my boxing, get my boxing up to the best I can do.

“Dominic, Brendan and John will watch the video. They’ll look at it and see what shots are going to come, what combinations are going to come, and work out what I need to be throwing back and work out my combinations and counters, so they work the technical side.”

SB: You’ve had one early fight in Germany and also two in Spain but then only one across the pond in Los Angeles. Is it good to fight as the home boxer or would you prefer to fight in say, Vegas, New York and the like?

JW: “It does play a part but it is more about my opponents. I’m alright boxing anywhere and I can get a buzz and a thrill of anything, erm, negative vibes, positive vibes…I can feed of anything. I’m not at fighter that can only fight at home, I’ve boxed in Manchester loads of times, I boxed Jurgen Haeck in Manchester, I boxed Fred Kinuthia in Manchester and it was as though they were the home fighters because I was boxing in Hatton territory.

“That’s the way it felt, I watched one of the videos the other day and you should have heard the applause what was coming up for them and the boo’s that I was getting, you could see them thinking what’s happening here, but I fed off that negative energy. When I boxed in Nottingham, I got a lot of positive vibes and I fed off that. When I boxed in London last fight, it’s the energy that was flowing, it was there and if I needed to feed off it, I could have done so, but I just chilled that night and went through the motions. But, I feed off the energy, positive or negative, I can still feed off it.”

SB: What are your thoughts of the current world scene at light welter at the moment? There are a few good ones up there, but it also seems that a lot are moving up or attempting to; is that something you maybe thinking about yourself?

JW: There’s been a couple of shifts, as in Mayweather has gone, Gatti has gone, but we’ve had a lot of talent coming through as well, like Souleymane M’baye, he’s a very good force. You’ve got Hatton coming back down, Cotto is still there, you have Demetrius Hopkins who is flying around. There’s a lot of strong fighters there and even though one or two of the biggest names have gone, either moved up or retired, the talent that is still there coming through is immense, and the light welterweight and welterweight classes will be the strongest divisions in the world and I just can’t see it changing. At his minute, I have no plans on moving up, but maybe one day.”

SB: You cant really seem to mention your name with out the mention of Hatton or vice versa. Do you think THAT your career has suffered due to Ricky Hatton’s success?

JW: Oh hell yeah, it definitely has. It’s one of those things…you have to think Gary Mason, you’ve got to think Frank Bruno. No one heard of Gary Mason, even though he was a decent boxer, until Frank Bruno went. Alright, people have heard of me now, that’s only because over the years I’ve called out Ricky Hatton, but if I didn’t call out Ricky Hatton, no one would of heard of me at all, that’s what I’ve had to put up with.

“It’s timing, it’s all life coming at the right time and in my life, in my boxing career, it’s all fallen kind of wrong. If I’d have turned pro four years earlier, or I come about when Naz was on the scene, then everyone would have heard of me. But I came about at the back of Naz, when everyone was sick of Naz and another Brendan Ingle fighter was coming along and people just thought, no we’ll give someone a else a try.

“We say it to Brendan all the time, that’s what it boiled down to, people were sick of seeing Brendan, not me, yeah they were seeing Naz, but Naz and Brendan were associated, so we all got pulled into that boat around Sheffield. And then Ricky Hatton came around with his good support. You had at the time, Anthony Farnell and Michael Gomez , who at the beginning were selling more tickets than Ricky Hatton, they were the main draws, not Ricky Hatton, but Ricky Hatton stayed constant through the whole process and they wavered up and down.

“He stayed strong and the crowd that was supporting the three of them all went and supported Ricky and he tied himself in with the football supporters and that’s the way it went. His marketing was absolutely brilliant, it came about at the right time for him, everything flourished and because I came about at that time, everyone involved in Manchester didn’t want to risk a Sheffield lad coming along and rocking that boat, because that was a lot of cash they were bringing in.

“Financially, Frank (Warren) did the right thing, except I feel he should have let me go, and push me on a European title, cause look at what I’m on now at the same time. That would have suited me fine, he could have had us work side by side but he didn’t want to do that, he wanted all his eggs in the Manchester basket.”

SB: If you were to win this fight on Friday and Hatton came along with nothing to put on the table, would you give him the chance that he seems not to have given to you?

JW: “He hasn’t given me the shot, there’s part of me what would say just be that bit petty and make him wait, but you know what? I want the fight, the people, the crowd, the public all want this fight, I am not going to deprive them of something I can give them and I want it too, so it would be daft not to.”

SB: You said that you have the style and skill to upset Hatton. What is it that you see that you have, that up until now, no one else he has fought, has had?

JW: “The thing is, it’s speed, accuracy, power and timing and I’ve got them all. And its having confidence, its having all of them and instinct to know what you’re doing and having that belief of confidence to throw your shot. He’s boxed people who can punch yeah, but not massive punchers, not single punch punchers. He’s boxed people with good skills but have no power, and when they have good skills, but no power, he’s worn them down, cause he has a lot of heart, he has a lot of drive and he puts people under a lot of pressure.

“Now, when he boxed Eamonn McGee and Eamonn McGee hit him, it made him stop in his tracks and make him think about what he was doing and he wasn’t allowed to put the same pressure on. Now, Eamonn McGee couldn’t attack from that position, but the difference is, I can attack from any position, I can go in backwards, I can go in forwards. If it’s inside fighting, if it’s out and out boxing, I can attack from any position so I look at that and think I can do it. I understand why people like him, why he’s such a popular fighter, but when it comes down to it, I will beat him in the ring.”

SB: People say that a fight between yourself and Hatton would be something that you need more than what Hatton needs; would you agree with that?

JW: “Financially, yeah, money-wise, he doesn’t need it, but as a man and as a person, he won’t be able to sit down when he’s forty and look back at his career and think I beat everyone, I beat the best of the best if he doesn’t beat me. And I can say, I go on, I beat everyone else, Hatton retires, I can say I beat everyone around except for Hatton because he would not fight me, Yeah, Hatton will turn round and say ‘I could have beaten you.’ Yeah mate, but you didn’t have the balls to do it.”

SB: Well, we’ll end it there now, Junior, but on behalf of SaddoBoxing, I’d just like to say good luck for Friday, I hope this title comes back to Britain. Is there any last word you would have for your fans?

JW: “Yeah, thanks, and for the fans, I’d just like to say enjoy the fight, I’ll be giving it my best.”