Kostya Tsyzu is a Hall of Fame inductee and was a former undisputed 140 pound champion. I recently had the honor of speaking to him in this interview, topics discussed were; Tszyu’s transition from fighter to trainer, Manny Pacquiao vs. Bradley 2, Sergio Martinez vs. Miguel Cotto. Kostya Tszyu also talks about Floyd Mayweather and how he thinks he would match up with the p4p star. Here is what Kostya Tszyu had to say in part 1 of my interview.

Robert Brown: Can you tell us some of the differences and some of the difficulties between being a fighter and being a trainer?

Kostya Tszyu: The most difficult and different part is, when you train yourself, when you prepare yourself for the fight, you have only one person responsible for everything. When you do train fighters, it’s another responsibility because if anything can happen wrongly, you’re part of the responsibility.

I’m never afraid of responsibility, but at the same time, when you’re asking your fighter to do something and they’re not doing it, everyone around is saying that you’re bad. In this way it’s a bit difficult, but most important for me is, I’m trying to teach not only be physically strong as hell, you have to be mentality strong as hell.

Robert Brown: The 140 pound division is extremely strong; do you think you would be successful against today’s top 140 pound fighters?

Kostya Tszyu: I think I still would be very competitive if I would fight them because they have many holes. They’re good offensive fighters but not the best defensive fighters. That’s always been key for my success, when I see the holes to capitalize on the mistakes that they do in the ring. I think I would be very competitive against these fighters.

Robert Brown: What are your thoughts on the upcoming Pacquiao vs. Bradley rematch?

Kostya Tszyu: Look, when I see the interview between the two guys, I agree with what Timothy said, that Manny Pacquiao is not hungry anymore. You can’t be on top of your game if you’re not hungry anymore. I lost my hunger in the last couple of weeks of my fights because when you achieve everything in sports, it’s so hard to push yourself over and over the limit.

That’s the thing, Manny did tremendous, became a legend in the ring, but he lost a bit of hunger. Maybe the loss against Timothy may help him to find his hunger, maybe, you never know. Timothy is still a young fighter and still got lots of goals ahead of him and for Manny there’s just one thing, to prove that he’s the best, only one.

Robert Brown: Who do you think will win that fight?

Kostya Tszyu: Look, both fighters can win. I still think if Timothy can make some mistakes, like he did against Provodnikov — try to brawl against the fighter that can brawl — he can lose. For Manny, he has to take a very good game plan and should forget the knockout he had and then he can be successful again.

It’s a very close decision, this time it’s 50/50 chance because both fighters are great. Closer to the fight, it’s all gonna be depending on the pressure that both fighters are gonna receive from the media, it’s a huge pressure.

Robert Brown: We also got Miguel Cotto vs. Sergio Martinez coming up, how do you see that fight playing out?

Kostya Tszyu: One fight Martinez surprised me, when he fought Murray, he couldn’t do anything really. That’s the one thing that concerns me. Cotto was the 140 lb champion for many years, he moved so many divisions now and he’s not that big really, but I don’t think it’s a good for him to brawl against Martinez because he’s much bigger and much stronger. In this fight, I believe Martinez has a bigger chance than Cotto.

Robert Brown: Floyd Mayweather is going to fight Marcos Maidana. Maidana is coming off a win against Adrien Broner, do you see him posing any problem for Mayweather?

Kostya Tszyu: The way Maidana fights, it suits Mayweather because he’s a tremendous counter puncher. He’s worked against big guys and he did an unbelievable job. I think he’s got more than 50% chance, I think he’s got a big advantage against any fighter who can try to push him. He’s probably gonna have more difficulty against a fighter that’s smart like him.

Robert Brown: Over a decade ago Mayweather was calling you out. Did a fight between you and Mayweather ever come close to materializing, and would you liked to have fought him?

Kostya Tszyu: No, actually that fight never was discussed with me at all. At that time I was under contract with Showtime and he was an HBO fighter. Unfortunately in my time he’d never been 140 lb champion, it wasn’t even able to talk about the fight.

Robert Brown: Hypothetically, if you did get a chance to fight him, how do you think you would have done against Mayweather?

Kostya Tszyu: Look, it would be a dream fight for me. Of course his style is very, very similar, and much better of what his uncle did, Roger. I fought Roger in 1995 when Roger was in the end of his career and it was the first defense of my world title.

It wasn’t an easy fight for me but at same time at least I knew what to do. In the last few years after my last fight, I realized that so many things in my career I did not 100%. Actually after my retirement I became much wiser. If I would fight in the ring now, I would do different things, which is use my skills more than my strength.