BT:  We're here with Joe Goossen.  How has the switch been since you've taking over training for Brian Viloria from Freddie Roach? "There was no switch really. Brian switched.  You may want to ask him that one.  For me, it's just receiving and welcoming a new fighter to my gym.  The bottom line is that number one I gotta like the guy.  I gotta like his demeanor and his presentation, and I like Brian.  That was simple.  It's a nice thing for me.  I hope he likes working with me as well.  We started off working right off the bat there wasn't a long feeling out process with me.  He knows who I am, and I know who he is and what he's done.  He knows what I've done.  There was not a lot of gladhanding there, we just got right to work.  I think Brian really enjoyed the fact that he was getting a small gym.  That's the way I like it.  I like to concentrate on a couple of guys, so Brian gets a lot of attention from me.  I think he likes it.  It's not just attention for the sake of attention, it's attention with dilligence.  We're working on a lot of things that are hopefully going to win us this championship.  

BT:  What do you like about him as a boxer?  What dos he bring to the table when he steps between the ropes? 

JG:  His willingness.  He's willing.  I like a fighter who's willing to fight.

BT:  He earned the nickname Hawaiian Punch for his power, and yet in his last two fights he struggled with Omar Nino.  What type of performance are you expecting from him against Sosa on April 14th?

JG:  That's what we're addressing in the gym right now. I don't make predictions about that.  I'll just say that we're really going to work hard.  We're training hard, and we're addressing what we feel are Brian's strengths Sosa's weaknesses.  There are not many.   We're addressing all of that.  We're doing one thing.  We're going into this fight with one idea, and that's to win.  I can't put it any more clearly than that.  We just want to win, that's what we're training to do.  How things work out, whether a fan may fly into the ring and stop it, I don't know.  I just know what we're doing now, what our intentions are, and what our goals are.  Our goals are to win.

BT:  I know you don't like looking back, but if you had to on the last two fights, do you think that Brian was relying too much on his power? He was looking for the knockout, especially since it was on national television.

JG:  The worst thing you can do in baseball is try to get a home run.  I learned that as a little kid.   The best thing to do is to keep your bat on the ball.   I say the same thing about a fighter.  Don't try to hit the home run.  Get your hands on the body somewhere.  Be touching somewhere.  The big one comes usually after a couple of little ones.  It's rare that you look for that home run and just out it out of the park.  Yes, it's a point well taken and we're addressing the situation. 

BT:  I'm going to change gears a little bit.  You recently had a split with Diego Corrales,  who was, I'll say, kind of your signature fighter over the last few years.  Tell me about how that affected you personally and professionally. 

JG:  How it affected me personally is that Diego is a person that I had in my house, with my family.  A couple of years in, I found out he wasn't as good of a friend as I thought he was.  Financially, what he did to me was inexcusable. To say anything other than that is a lie.  To say that he doesn't owe me the money, would  be a lie.  Anybody that might back him up on that claim would be false testimony, would be supporting a lie.  That's the only way I can put that.  He owes me the money.  His closest advisors, his managers, the guy that was the in bed trainer, he had his apartment out here, we all know the story.  We all know the truth.  He'll have not one person that will be able to testify for him truthfully about this matter in his corner. 

BT:  Did this kind of sneak up on you or did you know?

JG:  No, it didn't sneak up on me.  I can't get into the whys and wherefores, but believe me it's a problem that had better be solved for the future trainers of this game, because I'm not going to be here forever.  There's a lot of young guys coming up.  This system has not been changed since before the Depression.  This is an old way.  The way they're doing thing doesn't work.  It leads to this sort of problem.  There's no reason why the promoter, the manager, and the fighter should all be contracted together in the same time frame, and the trainer is not allowed to be contracted.  There's no provisions for it.  There's no way to secure our money.  The commisions secure the money for the promoters, the managers, and the fighters, but they don't secure it for us.  What do we have to do?  We have to hope that the fighters are good enough people that they'll pay us.  And that's a lot of hoping.  The number two thing is, at some point in time, the commisions now have to stop using the old kinnard about we're not a collection agency.  Don't let them use that one on you anymore.  Something's got to be done something's got to be changed.  We have got to get contracts, for trainers that coincide with the length of the fighters contract.  Manager-fighter, five year contract together, we should have a five year contract together. 

"We should round out that team, so we have some stability.  We know that after 3 years of our giving our intellectual property to these fighters, and these managers with no guarantee, we can have that fighter, after 2 or 3 years, win fifteen or twenty fights, and say, "Oh, by the way, we've learned enough from you now, see ya."  Those three couldn't do it to each other, but all three can do it to us.  We have no recourse.  I've got to sue the guy now to get my money.  But I'm probably going to have to pay a lawyer forty percent of what I may or may not get back.  Now I'm going to get half of what I deserve.  What the fighters normally do is they declare bankruptcy, and you can't collect anything.  What do they care? 

This has led to a chain of financial events for me that have really put me in harms way, and my family.  That's the last straw for me.   It almost makes me rethink what I did for Diego.  Forget all the fights, the game, the turn around, three championship wins in 2 and 1/2 years.  After he was knocked out by my fighter. Something has got to be done.  Remember Castillo-Coralles fought one, they fought two when Castillo was overweight, three got postponed because of an injury, the fourth time they set the fight was last May in '06.  Castillo didn't make the weight.  Believe me the heirarchy, everybody was pushing for that fight to happen.  Based on what happened to Diego last time Castillo was heavy, Castillo had the advantage.  I wasn't going to let him go into the fight with him at a disadvantage like that again.  I had no control over the first one.  The second one, I was determined.  I said to Diego, "If this guy doesn't make weight, I don't care what anybody at the top says. You're not fighting him. I'm not going to allow you to be abused by this game, and this system if this guys is heavy."  I lost a lot of money on that, for doing a good thing for him.  It almost makes me wish you didn't think about the betterment of the fighter.  

"We're the only one's who are going to think like that, trust me.  A few managers out there will too.  For the betterment of the fighter, we're going to be the guys who are really watching out for them.  No matter what anybody else says.  No matter how many rules they put in, or tests they do, we're going to be the guys that are going to watch out for them ultimatly.  It almost makes you rethink your position on doing a good deed for a guy like that.  When you do right for them, they don't seem to remember what you did for them.  The system has to change.  The fighters, they're good guys, but they get boxed into a corner and they have stresses and other things.  They will not fulfill their obligations to guys like me, because they don't have to.  You ahve to fulfill your obligation to the state of Nevada, he did that.  They got their money from him.  The promoters got their money, the managers got their money, the fighter got his money.  Out of everyone else, I did not.  It's gotta stop.  The commisions have to stop using the kinnard, "We're not a collection agency."   Outright lying to collect for everybody, and anybody, including themselves.  Somethings got to be done.  Hopefully the reporters will ask the tough question to commisions, and not let them schlep it off with, "We're not a collection agency."