Justin Hackman: Your fighter Sergey Lipinets came out strong and sharp early, but Lamont, being the fighter that he is, mounted a comeback in the middle rounds.  Did you feel that momentum shift? Joe Goossen: Well we knew that Lamont was never going to lay down easily by any stretch.  Because I knew as a fact that Peterson was in A+ condition for this fight.  He was at his very best.  He’s never thrown that many punches in a fight in his career.  But it was the same with my guy: they both threw over 900 punches. And we heard about Peterson’s level of focus and dedication going in, so you gotta know he’s going for the brass ring, especially given the division in which we’re competing.  So we knew what Lamont’s mindset was: I’m not going down easy, you’re going down hard.  And he fought that way; he was very aggressive.  He may have thought he was going to catch us off guard somehow by taking the fight to us on the inside, perhaps noticing some flaws in Lipinets’ game from his previous fights.  However, Lipinets had shored up his game since last viewing.  So that there was the ‘X factor.’  We were able to do more on the inside than Peterson thought we were going to be able to do.

 

JH: Did you train Lipinets with that particular game plan knowing that it could surprise Lamont?

 

JG: Absolutely.  In the final weeks of training, Sergey was peaking, and let me tell you, he was looking sharp.  He looked as sharp as any guy I would want going into a major league fight.  I knew that if Peterson expected to beat us on the inside he’d have a tough night ahead of him.  Therefore we trained with the expectation that Peterson was going to try to put it on us early, so we prepared for a very good inside fight. We also stressed that if Peterson was going to use his wheels, then we had to have quick feet to the target as well.  However we didn’t really have to employ that because Peterson was willing to dig and that played into our hands.  But listen, either way, we would’ve been ready.  Sergey’s training camp ranks up there with one of the best ever.

 

JH: Tell me about it; what made it so great?

 

JG: Well first, let me say that you must have a guy who keeps the same frame of mind outside training as he has when he’s at the gym.  In other words, there’s nothing sidetracking him from eating right, sleeping right, staying 100% focused, etc.  So if you can get someone to do that then it’s a great advantage.  And that’s exactly what Lipinets did; he’s a real dedicated guy.  On a scale of 1-10 in terms of dedication, Sergey is a 10.  From there, we had to get his head movement right, his distance right, his combinations right, slipping, blocking…so many things you have to try to perfect through drilling.  We started working together in November, so it was close to five months of floor work and sparring.  But sometimes you must be aware that a training camp that long is not always optimal – you need to know when to put on the gas, and when to ease up.  It ended up working out for us.

 

JH: You train the whole being, don’t you?  Not just the boxer.

 

JG: The way I view it, there’s really no other way.  You gotta do everything you can to help your fighter win.  I impart everything I can to these fighters because typically, boxing doesn’t produce long careers.  I try to mould them into winners now.  It’s a fun thing.

 

JH: We’ve spoken about this before: you’re on trial for the truth when that first bell rings.  Seems like you put your fighters to that truth test in training first so he can go into the fight with the mentality of “I’ve been here before.”

 

JG: There are a lot of trainers out there that feel that way though.  I could name you ten guys right now – guys that I know we’d be up against it when I look across the ring to that opposite corner.

 

JH: Barry Hunter being one of those guys I assume?

 

JG: Oh well sure, are you kidding me?  Absolutely.  There’s at least five trainers I could name here in California alone.  Try to go up against Robert Garcia’s guys for the most part.  Freddie Roach’s fighters. There are plenty of guys out there where you know you’re getting a dog fight every time.  When you go up against certain trainers, just like certain fighters, you know they’re going to be hard to beat. 

 

JH: At 30 years old, is Lipinets just now hitting his prime?

 

JG: Sergey has only had 16 fights; that is very little wear and tear.  It’s not like he’s been bounced around the ring by half a dozen guys.  There’s still a learning curve involved here, sure.  He’s probably looked at the Peterson fight since then and picked it apart. He’ll use this fight as a learning experience in terms of what he can take away; he’ll be more inclined to improve wherever needed.  A good athlete, win lose or draw, takes away what he needs to in order to do it better next time.  So yes, I believe that Sergey has the makings of a great fighter, and I do believe his potential is not yet realized.

 

JH: How excited are you to continue to work with him?

 

JG: I’m very excited.  Working with guys like Sergey is what I love about my job.  It’s a thrilling profession, because it’s either you win or you lose, and I pick win.  I choose to work with Sergey because he’s a winner.  I’m also excited to work with him because he’s so appreciative of our relationship.  That’s a sign of intelligence: the mindset that everyone’s important. 

 

JH: So where does Sergey go from here?

 

JG: He was already world champion once, so achieving that again is far from unattainable.  That being said, you’ve got one of the best lineups in the welterweight division in perhaps decades.  You start with Spence, and from there you include guys like Porter, Thurman, Ugas, Danny Garcia, Crawford, and now Lipinets.  He has put himself in that mix.  It’s an incredible division.

 

JH: Terence Crawford is sort of a different beast all together.  I wouldn’t pick anyone to beat him, so I’m not going to ask you to do the same.  But let’s say if you put Lipinets in there with Spence, do you believe that Sergey could emerge victorious?

 

JG: If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to get him into the sweepstakes.  We entered those sweepstakes when we agreed to fight Peterson, and we won the first round so to speak.  And now we’re in that realm of great welterweights out there.  I guarantee you there isn’t a camp out there from the names I just mentioned that doesn’t think they can beat the other guy.  And if you think any other way, you’re probably not in those camps.

 

JH: What you just touched on is the difference between thinking you can and knowing you can.  That to me is what separates great from good.  So given that you make your fighter KNOW he can beat anyone, how would you train him to defeat a guy like Spence?

 

JG: Well number one, you gotta figure out how to beat a southpaw.  Number two, you gotta figure out how to beat a fairly tall southpaw.  Then you gotta figure out how to beat a well-schooled, tall, southpaw with power, etc.  So the negatives for his opponents are adding up.  Is he good backing up?  Yes.  Is he good coming forward?  Better.  So now you’ve got a laundry list.  OK, so we look at our guy and his own laundry list.  And we ask the question, where can we apply our strengths against our opponent?  Then you develop a plan accordingly.

 

JH: But what separates you from the Arm-Chair Eddie Futch's out there like myself, is that to us, Spence looks like how a top pound-for-pound fighter should look—nearly unbeatable.  And yet you inherently know that he is beatable. 

 

JG: Listen, I remember when Ray Robinson looked unbeatable.  Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Tyson, De La Hoya, Chavez, Duran, they all looked unbeatable until they weren’t.  You could go down the list of top fighters in boxing history.  Everyone looks unbeatable until they get beaten.

 

JH: So on that note, given that you believe Lipinets not only belongs amongst the top tier at 147, but that he can beat anyone out there, where does he go from here?

 

JG: Well, after a fight like he and Peterson just had, you give the guy time to rest and recover.  After a month or so, we will focus on getting back at it.  And then at that time, things will have changed in the landscape – you got Crawford and Khan coming up.  Most likely Thurman, Spence, and Porter will have fights lined up at that point, so things will have solidified a bit as far as the immediate future is concerned.  So to answer your question, I don’t know at this moment where he goes.  But I do know that he’s now in that mix of elite fighters competing at and around 147.  And we will know more in the coming months.

 

JH: Closing thoughts Joe?

 

JG: This was a really great performance by Lipinets but also a great battle that we got from Lamont Peterson.  He went out like a warrior in his hometown, and I respect him for giving us the fight.  I wish Lamont, his brother Anthony, and their coach Barry Hunter nothing but the best of luck because they are first class individuals.  And as far as Sergey Lipinets is concerned, I am incredibly excited to continue to work with him as we navigate the incredible talent out there currently in the welterweight division.