Jessie Vargas / Dewey Cooper / Bob Arum Training Camp Q & A
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JESSIE VARGAS / DEWEY COOPER / BOB ARUM TRAINING CAMP Q & A JESSIE VARGAS: My trainer Dewey Cooper and my strength and conditioning coach David Hayes, Rafael Garcia, my father – we make a great team and they brought out the best in me. They brought out the best in me in March against Sadam Ali and now we are going to outdo that performance in this fight on November 5th. I am very thankful for my manager Cameron Dunkin getting me this opportunity and I can’t wait to perform on the big stage and show what I’m about. DEWEY COOPER: Hi everyone. I am Dewey Cooper, Jessie Vargas’ boxing trainer. I am thrilled to be here it’s an honor and I feel so blessed to be a part of this magnificent event and to be a part of Jessie’s first pay per view fight and I can guarantee you that this is going to be a great performance by Jessie Vargas. Training camp has been wonderful. We’ve topped every number ten-fold from when we were preparing for Sadam Ali. He has thrown more punches per day than he had thrown for Ali. We have added even more explosive power, more athletic agility, more speed and more total IQ we have added since the last fight we had together. We have more synergy in this training camp and guys, I keep saying in every interview I do don’t forget who the champion is in this fight is and don’t forget who the challenger in this fight is and that’s exactly who we are viewing this guy as – we are viewing him as our opponent, the challenger and we are going to conquer him on November 5th. I am fully confident in Jessie and this is not promoter speak and this is not theatrical hype, I am telling you actual fact. We expect, we know and we will show the whole world on November 5th how great of a fighter Jessie Vargas is and we are looking forward to that night. CAMERON DUNKIN: Jessie, years ago when he began this, all he talked about was being at this level, being at the highest level, and thank you, Bob, for putting him here he really deserves it and he is getting better every fight and there is going to be a shocker. I really believe he is going to win this fight. He is so dedicated he is training so hard and I just think there is going to be some surprised people. As you know Bob, when this fight was announced everybody was like “No, no, not Jessie.” And they are going to have a lot of Jessie on the 5th. Manny is ten years older than you, he has been very busy in the Senate in the Philippines and maybe boxing is not his number 1 priority, whereas your team is totally focused – do you think you are getting him at the right time? JESSIE VARGAS: What I am focused on is that I am in my prime. I have a lot to show and I have a lot to give in this sport and on the 5th I am going to perform at the highest level and as you said, Manny Pacquiao’s best performance in those three [Tim Bradley] fights was in that last fight which was only a few months ago and I’m happy that he was able to give that performance so when I defeat Manny Pacquiao they will see that I beat a good Manny Pacquiao who is still performing at the highest level. That’s the Manny Pacquiao that I want to beat. What would it to for your life to pull off the upset? JESSIE VARGAS: It would definitely put me on the world-wide stage – make me that boxing star that I have been looking forward to being. I have been waiting for this for a long time and I’m glad it’s here and I am going to take advantage of it. The only fighters to beat Manny Pacquiao have become legends themselves. So I plan to become one of the few to beat Manny Pacquiao and also become one of the legends. Bob, what do you think a win does for Jessie Vargas? BOB ARUM: He becomes not just a champion but a superstar. I will deny to him that I said that because I will have to negotiate his next fight (laughing). He would be a superstar there is no question about that if he were to beat Manny Pacquiao. He has a hell of a shot to do that. This fight I look at both guys trained for the fight and how explosive it’s going to be but I don’t know who is going to win, but I’m confident it will b by knockout. Jessie has a hell of a shot to win this fight. DEWEY COOPER: The biggest illusion the devil ever pulled on the world was to make us think he doesn’t exist. If you are thinking Pacquiao is only half prepared in this fight or not mentally ready for this fight you are not the expert writer. We are not hearing anything about the Senate – he is an eight- time world champion and he knows how to get ready for a big fight. So we expect the best Manny Pacquiao and we are going to beat the best Manny Pacquiao. I don’t want to hear anything else except how great he trained, how Freddie has him prepared and great he is going to fight. At the end of the day we don’t want to hear any excuses after the fight. We are defending champions and he is the challenger and once we win this fight we are not going to hear about Senate duties and all of that. He knows how to prepare for a fight and we are sure he has. And we are sure we are going to be the better man on November 5th. Is there any bit of you that is in awe that you are fighting a legend? JESSIE VARGAS: Not at all this is where I belong. I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was eight years old. This moment is not so big. It’s here an I am going to take full advantage of it When you envision something in your head over and over again it’s like a movie placing you in that position and once you are there you’re ready. That’s the way I see it. I am so ready for this. I am in the best shape of my life. I have never felt this strong or this powerful. I mean there’s no…I am going to win this fight, that’s how good I feel about it. You won a title at 140 now another at 147 it seems like you have a lot of confidence… JESSIE VARGAS: I would say overall what gives me that confidence is the team that I have. They are bringing out the best in me I said that when we became a two-division world champion. We won the welterweight title in March. Again, we are looking to surpass the level that we were in in March. I will outdo that performance on November 5th. You are going to see a faster, stronger, more hunter, more intelligent and with better ring IQ. Just overall a better fighter and it’s all because of my team – my coach Dewey Cooper, my strength and conditioning coach David Hayes and Rafael Garcia my cut man. We have such great team chemistry and I have the best of the best and that’s why I feel so confident. Dewey, when you joined Jessie’s camp was there anything in particular you wanted to work on? DEWEY COOPER: Yes, the first time we met to train at City Boxing Gym we talked about some things and we had a good understanding and we had a role we did it his way and we did t my way and whatever it took to make them both mesh we’ll do. It was a just a few technical things that I had seen that Jessie needed to do a little more of. He already knew how to do them he just wasn’t doing them as much. He was open-minded and we grew together but remember, I’ve got to say it like this. I didn’t teach Jessie shit, he already had it in him. I just helped him acknowledge it and re-bring it out. I’m not trying to overdo it with the credit. I identified things that he had lost through all the training he had done and brought those back out in his physical exercises and his technical boxing. We have improved even more since the Sadam Ali fight and we are ready to show the world. This moment is not too big for us guys. We are the champions. Did you work on techniques to improve his punching power? DEWEY COOPER: Absolutely we did but once we identified the slight technical error, we had drills that we used to enhance that natural power. Everything that he is doing now is natural power. There are just some exercises that are conducive to make it more natural instead of so forced. And that’s what we did. We just put a magical formula together. Jessie trusted it and he believed in it.