ESB: Yeah, Dimitri said the same thing.

Roman Karmazin: Yeah, that would be the Soviet guy. As far as professionals, that would be our own Kostya Tsyzu, who is an absolutely unique fighter. The things he did in the ring were just, without going into detail, they were unbelievable.

ESB: Will Dimitri be in your corner for the fight?

Roman Karmazin: He will come for the fight, but he won’t be in the corner. My team is basically full, that is why.

ESB: Recently, your other friend, Kostya Tsyzu, made an announcement about his desire to organize an Association for Russian or ex-Soviet boxers. What do you think about that and will you be helping him out with this organization?

Roman Karmazin: You know, if he asks me, I would be glad to help. I already started calling a whole row of boxers and one of them will come for my fight. Ivan Kirpa, did you hear of him?

ESB: Yeah, sure, Ivan “the Terrible.” I saw him once but he lost.

Roman Karmazin: Yeah, he lost, unfortunately, and it was his fault, cause he shouldn’t have taken that fight, cause he had only trained for 2 weeks before the fight. Nobody knows about that, of course.

ESB: Now, everyone will know, though.

Roman Karmazin: Yeah, and, well, he tried hard, even if he only trained two weeks. Now, I think, things will be different for him.

ESB: I think you mentioned recently that with your manager, Steven Bash, you want to start a promotional company for Russian fighters.

Roman Karmazin: Yeah, yeah, we want to bring over a whole slew of fighters and amateurs who are very talented. I just can’t name any names, you know, because they could get into trouble.

ESB: Can you at least name some guys you would try to bring over? Just some perspective guys?

Roman Karmazin: No, I won’t do that because the Amateur association is not interested in letting them go to the pros, and they will do everything in their power to stop them. At the same time, these guys are boiling in that soup, and as a result, not earning any money and leaving the sport beaten, broken, and not needed by anyone.

ESB: Have any of your family members come to support you on July 8th?

Roman Karmazin: No, my wife won’t come because we just had a baby born on the 30th of January, here in America. They are in Piter (St. Petersburg), now and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t come.

ESB: Will they be watching it live in Russia?

Roman Karmazin: I don’t think so, because I don’t think they will be showing it.

ESB: Roman, can you tell us about your family?

Roman Karmazin: I have three sons. The oldest, Oleg, is 11, and he is from my first marriage, and I am trying to get him a Green Card. My first wife is not against him living with me.

From my second wife, Natalya, my love, I have two sons. One is, 6, Sergei, and the other, Nikita, was just born.

ESB: Who did you name them after?

Roman Karmazin: The first one, I named after my brother, who died at 21, in a car crash. His name was Oleg, also.

With Sergei, I just liked the name, and the third one, my wife said, “you got to name Sergei, so I will name this one, Nikita.”

ESB: How did you meet her?

Roman Karmazin: We met on V.E. day, the 9th of May, during the salute in Pushkin, which is a region in Piter. I was living there at the time.

ESB: What do you do after training every day?

Roman Karmazin: Well, I am an athletic guy and I like big Tennis, so I go there. Today, it's Saturday, so I drove to Big Bear, 100 miles from town in the mountains. Sitting here fishing, and I haven’t caught anything and probably won’t catch anything cause its just one of those days.

ESB: (laughing) You went by yourself?

Roman Karmazin: No, with a friend of mine. Sitting here all night and the fish just are not biting.

ESB: (laughing) Nikolai Valuev likes to fish, too?

Roman Karmazin: I don’t know about that.

ESB: I think he said he did. Interested to know if you ever went together?

Roman Karmazin: No, we just met often in the gym. We trained together for a long time and, of course, Kolya was with a different manager and he was just unlucky, at first. Now, I hope that he will earn his money and everything will be ok. I think he finally ended up in the right place. I am happy for him.

I also read on the Internet that he wanted to come to my fight but I talked to him a little while ago, and he doesn’t know anything about that.

ESB: I think King wanted to bring him over and start promoting him here. Ok, well, whenever anybody talks about you, they always mention your deceased trainer, Igor Lebedev. Can you tell us about him?

Roman Karmazin: That is the man who made me the person that I am now. He was a great trainer, who figured out on his own, all the work we are doing right now. When I came to America, I didn’t see anything new in terms of preparation. I mean, absolutely nothing. They are just starting to consider the strategies that he had already developed on his own way before.

He would invite us to his house often and watch parts of the best fights. He would show them to us and say, “Look how this guy worked,” or that guy, and really, I just couldn’t understand it back then. It was only later that I realized that he was a truly unique person and trainer. I will tell you something, honestly, if I would still have him in my corner, I would never, come close to losing to anybody, EVER!

ESB: How did you meet him?

Roman Karmazin: Fate. I used to go to a different trainer in a different gym and it just so happened that we had to go to a competition, and that trainer had issues with the amateur federation. So he told me, “Listen, go to that gym and there is a trainer there, Igor Lebedev, ask for him, tell him it’s from me, and you will go with him.” So that is it, I went to him and said, “I was sent here,” and we met, and through stages I was able to see that this is a realistic person and he would give me exactly what I needed.

ESB: Do you remember one particular fight where it was his exact words that pushed you to victory?

Roman Karmazin: Well, not just one fight, there were many fights. I remember one in particular, where I fought in Moscow against an American. Kolya and Dima were on the same card……..Frazier was his name, he still fights at 160. He was in many championship fights, although truthfully, he didn’t win any, I think.

So, it was a tough fight, I seriously over trained, and the preparation was horrible, and I was like a robot. Anyway, he says to me, “listen to me and we will win,” and I went into the ring and just turned myself off, and just listened to his voice, as if through a megaphone, “left, straight right,” and I scored and in this way, I was able to pull out the win. He was thinking for me, I just obeyed completely.

I was in such horrible shape, I lost weight, couldn’t sleep. I would get up at night and start training. I understood why it happened, too, since everybody thought I was so great, they would come up and ask, “What round will you knock him out in?” and I said, “Why do you think I will knock him out? Maybe, he will knock me out.” This was just so detrimental to me, that I almost fell into a bottomless pit, but thankfully, Mikhailich (I. Lebedev) pulled me out of it in that fight.

ESB: When you are in the corner between rounds, do you think about what he would tell you, if he was still standing in front of you?

Roman Karmazin: It’s interesting cause I did have a situation like that in my fight with Keith Holmes. It was an eliminator, and he was tall, a lefty, experienced, and very difficult to fight. So, you know, the third round, I sit down in my corner, and I feel that I can’t do anything, I can’t feel him out at all and I just can’t work at all. So I was just so nervous that I start thinking to myself, “Mikhailich, what would you have told me to do, damn it?” (laughing). Seriously, and I start to list all the different strategic variations he would have told me to use. So, I thought about a frontal stance, and then I got up and right away, I knocked him down, but the ref didn’t count it, but I still scored well and I tried to finish him, but even so, I felt I broke him with those shots.

Then the same thing in the 11th, after the 10th, I started letting him go again, because to that point, I was in control but then I felt I was losing it once more. So I addressed Mikhailich once more, and as they say, he helped me from beyond, and I changed my approach a little, once more. During the fight, I had switched up a total of three times, see, so that brought me the necessary success.

So, believe it or not, thanks to him, I was able to pull out that hard fought bout, too.

ESB: What was the best advice he ever gave you?

Roman Karmazin: He had so many wise words and pieces of advice, that I won’t even begin to list them all. In different situations, there was different advice for different opponents. He was just a great person in life and taught us to be the same way.

ESB: Roman, thank you for your time. There are just two more questions. What do you want to say to Spinks’s fans that will come to watch you in St. Louis?

Roman Karmazin: I hope they cheer for great boxing. The best man will win.

ESB: What do you want to say in closing?

Roman Karmazin: I want to wish everybody health and happiness and that they go and watch boxing often.

ESB: Well, then, Roman, I will be watching and cheering for you, of course. Good Luck!

Roman Karmazin: Thank you! Until next time, Good Bye!