DANIEL “Miracle Man” JACOBS and LUIS “Cuba”ARIAS Conference Call Transcript from Respective Training Camps in Long Island and Delray Beach Florida & Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn EDDIE HEARN: When I saw Luis Arias fight on the Kovalev-Ward undercard, I thought ‘This is a guy that really excited me.’ He had plenty of charisma and he loves to fight and he could become a star on November 11. In the other corner a very determined Daniel Jacobs, trying to recapture the title and trying to pick up more championship belts and potentially unify the division. He’s a honest a kid if I ever saw one and since the press conference in New York Danny Jacobs has been extremely motivated. I believe that his team and certainly I and Roc Nation know all about the threat of Luis Arias and I think this is a great fight. LUIS ARIAS: Training camp is going great. I am working hard. We know what kind of fight we have ahead of us. I plan on making it a dog fight and I am in dog shape and everything is coming together perfectly, my weight is good – training camp has been perfect. I’m ready. What can I say? I am ready. How much have you studied Jacobs? LUIS ARIAS: I have studied him a lot and I have known Danny Jacobs since I was about 15 years old – his name has been in my weight division and I always new that Daniel Jacobs and I would end up fighting at some point in my life. It wasn’t in the amateurs and it ended up being in the pros. I know a lot about Daniel Jacobs. I know how he fights. I mean, I am just going to fight my fight. I can’t change anything up.. I’ve seen everything I could possibly see in the ring. I have been fighting my entire life. I’ve fought them all and seen it all, so I’ve got to go in there and do my thing. I don’t want to run and I don’t want to chase him but I know I’m going to have to so I just plan on making this a dig fight. Daniel Jacobs is going to be in a very dogfight – a hard fight. I’m coming to fight, I’m going to rough him up and I’m going to be in his face all night. I’m looking forward to showing the world what I’ve got. Do you think Danny Jacobs is overrated? LUIS ARIAS: I do think he’s overrated. I just like Danny Jacobs has a lot of things in his story but I’m a lot better. He comes from a big city – he comes from New York – and the amount of media and attention that anyone gets compared to anyone else around the United States is different. But if you go and look at his record there is nobody there that he beat. Eddie mentioned adding another world title but he never was a world champion. Everybody knows that the WBA has two world champions and that’s not even right. There should only be one world champion. Then he had the opportunity to be a world champion and he didn’t win. He has shown there are flaws in his game. He has been down some; he’s been hurt plenty and I don’t see a lot of tough fights. The tough fights that I see – he lost. But he is a good athlete, he is a good fighter and he has good fundamentals. But me personally I think he’s a little overrated and I feel he hasn’t completely cemented his name in the game yet. Like I said, he hasn’t been a legitimate world champion. The Last couple years, GGG has had all the belts. And Saunders . He’s just holding onto that belt. But he’s a good fighter and he’s got a lot of experience. This is a mixture of me being underrated and him being overrated. Danny said yesterday that you talk a good game outside the ring but when you get inside the ring it’s going to be a totally different story LUIS ARIAS: Jacobs? Well, every time that bell has rung and I’ve been inside that ring and the fight ended, my had was raised. So, no flaws have been shown in my game. How have you grown over the past few fights? LUIS ARIAS: I’ve grown a lot. I’ve grown a lot as a person and as a man. I was in a different stage of my life when I was with that whole (Mayweather Promotions) situation. Now I’m a lot older and a lot wiser and I’ve dealt with my ups and down with the game. I have a daughter now and I’m just in a better place in my life. I learned about the game. I learned about myself. I learned about the people around me. It’s a valuable lesson I had to learn and I took what I need and progressed.. I’ve gotten better, I’m fighting twelve-rounds now. I’ve grown as an athlete and as a fighter and it’s good and it’s a good learning experience. Have you put a chip on your should moving forward since then? LUIS ARIAS: No, people split in business all the time – aside from the boxing game – just business I general. Guys are making millions and doing business deals one moment, the next moment they are doing something else. I wasn’t mad a actually being let go, I was just upset abou the way it was handled. I felt I was undefeated and I should have more respect in the way it was handled and had it been handled in a more professional manner it would have been fine. It is what it is and what motivates me most is to be a world champion. I always felt that it really doesn’t matter what that banner says on top of the ring it’s about what you do in the ring. As long as I am controlling what I can control, which is the fights, I really can’t pay too much mind to that. What happened happened, and it was just a learning experience from God. God obviously had a different plan for me. Were you planning a fight with Jacobs? LUIS ARIAS: No – actually it’s no secret how the game is – whether you are on this side or that side. For the most part everybody in the middleweight division was on this side and Daniel Jacobs was really the only one that was on that side. I was shocked actually because we had put together a list and HBO put together a list of possible opponents and I never heard his name. His name had not come up because he was on that side. But it is what it is and it ended up falling in my lap and I didn’t hesitate to take it. What kind of a fight are you expecting? LUIS ARIAS: Hopefully he does try to come in and blast me out – that’s what I want him to do but I think he’s a little bit smarter than that. We both have a lot of fighting experience – he is just a little more known that me. I feel like the fight will be tactical in the beginning until I catch him. The moment I catch him that’s when the fight will change. I want a war. I want to duke it out. I want to stand in the middle of that ring and duke it out. Tha’ts what I want but I’m sure that’s what Danny doesn’t want. We’ll see how it plays out but I want a dog fight. I want to get out of that ring and feel like I’ve been in a fight – not in a marathon, so. Have you fought anyone like a Danny Jacobs? LUIS ARIAS: I have fought my whole life so in the amateurs I have fought guys like Daniel Jacobs. Even in the pros, I fought a couple bigger guys. My first fifteen fights were at super middleweight which is the reason I’m not worried abut the size difference. I was fighting at the wrong weight class until just this year. I can’t really say. Every fighter is different – they’ve got their own different things. I’ve got a lot of fights – 160 amateurs and twenty fights in as a pro and not even counting the guys I have sparred – thousands and thousands of sparring partners. I’ve seen it all. I didn’t just turn pro a couple years ago. I’ve been fighting my whole life. If you get the win are you hoping to jump right in with the Canelo’s and the Golovkin’s? LUIS ARIAS: The main reason I took the fight was I was told this would be a world title eliminator – that’s what really jumped on me – so I can jump right in. My goal is to become a world champion. There are different ways to get to a world title fight. You can be blessed and just given a world title fight or you can fight the names and climb the rankings. This is one of those fights where I get a name and climb the rankings.