James Ali Bashir: “I think that Bryant Jennings is gonna run into a brick wall with Wladimir Klitschko”

I recently had an opportunity to speak to highly regarded boxing coach, James Ali Bashir to talk about his career in boxing. James was a former amateur boxer who went on to a career as a trainer. Bashir has trained boxers Eddie Chambers and Monte Barrett, but he is most known for working beside the legendary Emanuel Steward as an assistant trainer, and working with long time heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko.

Topics discussed include his professional relationship with Emanuel Steward, Wladimir Klitschko’s upcoming fight against Bryant Jennings, Amir Khan possibly fighting Miguel Cotto, fighters today compared to the past, and his thought on Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Here is what James Ali Bashir had to say.

Robert Brown: Can you tell us about how you started your journey in boxing?

Ali Bashir: I started out as an amateur boxer in the late fifties. After having been a boxer for over nine years, I realized that I could never be a professional, so I decided to embark on a trainers career.

I started at the very bottom of the ladder in boxing, I started out working with amateur fighters under other trainers. I didn’t start training amateur fighters but I started out working with other trainers, working with their amateur boxers. That led me to becoming a professional trainer.

Robert Brown: You spent many years as an assistant to the legendary Emanuel Steward. Can you share some memories about those days?

Ali Bashir: I joined forced with Emanuel Steward later on as a trainer, but there had been quite a few trainers that I worked with prior to working with Emanuel Steward. Trainers such as Tommy Parks, George Benton, Slim Robertson, Carmen Graziano, I had worked with Sam Soliman. There had been numerous trainers prior to me even engaging Emanuel Steward, so I was pretty well informed by the time I got to Emanuel.

Emanuel Steward and I became friends in the Lennox Lewis training camp, we formed an alliance there in that training camp. I was training a young boxer at the time, Maurice Harris, a heavyweight kid and Lennox would box with my guy a lot, so therefore I was in Lennox’s camp practically every time he prepared for a fight and there Emanuel and I formed an alliance — even though we knew each other over the years from the amateur boxing scene, we never had clicked the way we clicked in the Lennox Lewis camp.

The last time we were together was in Bern Switzerland, in the second fight with Tony Thompson. That was the last time I ever saw Emanuel Steward alive. We had arranged to meet at his home in Detroit, he was going to have a barbeque there as he does every year at his house and that never happened. He went into the hospital and he never got out of the hospital.

Robert Brown: Wladimir Klitschko has his fight coming up against Bryant Jennings. What are your thoughts on that fight?

Ali Bashir: Bryant Jennings is a competent professional, he’s managed to work his way up the number one spot and I think that he’ll be more than what most people think in this fight. He’s better than just a guy that just managed to be in the number one spot, he’s a better fighter than that.

I believe Jennings is gonna try to make something happen in this fight. Having said that, I think that he’s gonna run into a brick wall with Wladimir Klitschko — as will most of the people in the division. He’s gonna put up a good fight but I expect Wladimir Klitschko to come out on top in that fight with a mid to late round stoppage.

Robert Brown: Assuming Wladimir gets past Bryant Jennings, who do you think he’ll fight next?

Ali Bashir: I would personally like to see him fight Deontay Wilder so that he can fulfill his dream of becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion. I would personally like to see him fight the WBC champion, Deontay Wilder but I would also like to see him fight Tyson Fury too because Fury has been there, he’s done what he’s had to do to get where he’s at, he’s the number one contender in the WBO and he’s earned a right to fight for the championship. I’d like to see that happen too but I first would like to see him fight Deontay Wilder but at the same time I would like to see Tyson Fury get his shot.

Robert Brown: There are rumors that Amir Khan might fight middleweight champ, Miguel Cotto at a catch weight. What are your thoughts on that fight if that happens?

Ali Bashir: I think catch weight is a bunch of malarkey. Listen, if you want to make boxing come back to the forefront of professional combative sports, if you want to bring boxing back to the forefront, the boxers themselves have got to stop acting like a bunch of wimps. You’re getting paid a lot of money for people to see you do what they can’t do.

The reason people pay to see these fights is because they’re paying to see an exhibition of human ability that they don’t have. Henry Armstrong, the last guy, the only guy to hold three divisions at the same time, lightweight, featherweight and welterweight all at the same time. They didn’t have junior divisions at that time.

Henry Armstrong, when he fought for the welterweight title, he was 5’7 and he only weighed 133lbs. He fought for the welterweight title and won the title at 133lbs and the champion was 145lbs. These guys are getting paid enormous amounts of money for people to be entertained when they get in the ring.

Now I’m looking at many of the fights on television and it looks like the people are in there acting like they’re trained to stay safe, like they’re trained not to get a bloody nose. Hello, people are paying money and paying you homage by watching this stuff, they’re paying to see you take chances, to take risks! The people that are fighting now, they’re not taking risks, many of them are not taking the risks.

Robert Brown: Do you think there are too many weight divisions these days? Do you think weight divisions should be reduced?

Ali Bashir: That’s not gonna happen because there’s too much money involved in so many division. Can you imagine if you took away the junior division, or the super divisions, whatever you want to call them. Super welterweight and all that, to me it’s a bunch of nonsense.

You got a guy separated by a couple of pounds. Hello, this is a fight here, these are fights! Ray Leonard fought Danny Lalonde at 166lbs, Lalonde was a light heavyweight, he came to 168lbs and Ray came to 166lbs. By the time the fight was over, Ray Leonard said he weighed 152lbs, he had sweat, he had lost the weight that he had during the fight.

Robert Brown: Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have agreed to fight after six years of talk and hype. Now that the fight has been signed, what are your thoughts on the match?

Ali Bashir: I think that Floyd Mayweather is the complete package. I think both of them are past their primes but I think Floyd Mayweather is the complete package, he’s a natural born fighter and he covers all the bases. He has it all, he has a good chin, he has good skills, good defense, good desire. I expect that he’ll win the fight by decision.

Pacquiao however could be in this fight big time and he could conceivably come out with a split decision for himself. You got two great fighters meeting and their chemistry matches up perfectly. I’m expecting Floyd to win the fight but I’m not expecting him to dominate Pacquiao. Most people expect that he will dominate him but I don’t expect him to dominate Pacquiao.

I think Pacquiao will come into this fight with a plan and I think for the most part the plan will work, keeping him in the fight throughout the duration. It may boil down to a decision or split decision fight for either one of them.