Javan ‘Sugar’ Hill: “I have one hundred percent confidence in Adonis Stevenson to knock Sergey Kovalev out!”

The 2015 boxing year is now here and fans are again looking forward to potential super fights between the sport’s biggest stars. In this “On The Ropes” interview with trainer Javan ‘Sugar’ Hill, I discuss some of those fights, as I get Hill’s view on his fighter, Adonis Stevenson, and a possible fight against unified light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. ‘Sugar” also shares his thoughts on Mayweather vs. Pacquiao, Anthony Dirrell’s future and talks about his stable of fighters. Here is what Sugar Hill had to say.

Jenna J: Adonis Stevenson recently came off of a defense win against Dmitry Sukhotsky, what did you think about his performance?

Sugar Hill: This year has been pretty good and Adonis Stevenson just had his second fight of the year, which was a fifth round knock out and I was pleased with his performance, I was very happy with it.

Some things that we worked on, he did them in the ring and I was really happy with his performance of him being patient and setting up shots and not making the mistakes. That’s something that he trains hard for, not to make mistakes and to catch his opponents making mistakes, and to get a knock out. All of those were achieved in this last fight, December 19th.

I gave him an A+ on that fight, just because of me watching him, not just seeing him fighting, but I’m watching a lot of things I know he has learned, instead of just watching him set shots up. So I gave him A+ for his last performance.

Jenna J: Adonis has gotten a bit of criticism due to the fact he didn’t fight a well known guy in his last fight. Were you disappointed that you weren’t able to see Adonis get a fight with Sergey Kovalev or Bernard Hopkins?

Sugar Hill: There was talk of him fighting Kovalev or Bernard Hopkins or Pascal and ultimately it’s not really his decision like that. He has a manager and a promoter who makes important decisions for him. Those people, they get paid to do their job so that he doesn’t have to worry and think about it, but Adonis wants to fight anybody.

A fight was scheduled for him to fight Kovalev and I was ready him to train him, yet his managers and promoters did something different, that’s their job. Adonis’ job is to go in there, win and knock fighters out, and too look sensational.

Everybody is doing their job and he is happy with that and I happen to be happy with that as well and my job is to train Adonis to win. If everyone does the job that they have specialty in, then that’s what it’s about. We just take whoever they say for us to fight. It’s not hard for us being a fighter and trainer, just whatever the two sides come up with and they negotiate than we get ready to fight.

Jenna J: You took over for Emanuel Steward when he passed away. You being his nephew, what was the most important thing in terms of carrying on Emanuel’s legacy that you want to incorporate into Adonis Stevenson going forward?

Sugar Hill: He told me just to win and everything else will happen and everything else will fall in place. That’s what I’ve been doing, just been training my fighters and keeping my fighters winning and everything else will fall in place where it’s suppose too. It’s not much, but it’s powerful, just keep winning and everything else will fall in place.

Jenna J: A lot of people want to see a fight between Stevenson and the winner of Pascal vs. Kovalev. People are expecting Kovalev to win. How big of a fight will that be for boxing, to see all the belts on the line for one fight?

Sugar Hill: I think it will be a sensational fight. It will be fight of great magnitude, and it’s something that is well needed in boxing. You have two boxers in the light heavy weight division — which is one of the elite premiere divisions of boxing that’s been around since boxing — these are not middleweights, these are not junior middleweights or welterweights, these are just under the heavyweight. These guys hit, and everyone likes to see the big guys hit and get knock outs.

In the light heavyweight division you have two of the most talked about fighters right now, which are Adonis Stevenson and Sergey Kovalev and both of these fighters are knocking everybody out that they step in front of. This fight here, when it happens — I’m quite sure it’s going to happen — it will be an exciting fight, it will be a super fight. I don’t know how to really explain it really but just call it a super fight.

When you got two guys that are at the top of their weight division and in their primes that get to meet up against each other, and both of these guys are knocking people out, so I believe as well as everyone else does that it is going to be knock out.

Personally, I have one hundred percent confidence in Adonis Stevenson to knock Sergey Kovalev out. I don’t have a prediction of a round, but for every fight that Adonis trains for, he trains for a knock out, it’s not just to win but to get a knock out. So it’s nothing new that we’re training for to knock Sergey Kovalev out. If he is our opponent, that’s what we’re training for, a knock out.

Jenna J: The other super fight in boxing that people talk about a lot is Pacquiao vs. Mayweather. There are rumors that there are talks going on to make that fight in 2015. As a trainer, who would you favor in that fight?

Sugar Hill: I’m gonna have to go with Mayweather. I just think Floyd Mayweather’s a highly intelligent fighter and that says a lot. He’s a highly intelligent fighter, he’s been on top of the game. He can make unbelievable adjustments in his fights, for whatever it may be.

He’s on the top of the game still and nobody has proven him to not be on the top. He’s an undefeated fighter and people criticize him for the fights he picks and chooses. Maybe it’s more his decision because he’s just that type of fighter and he doesn’t even have to fight for a belt, he can just fight anybody and that’s gonna to be a big fight.

Floyd Mayweather is Floyd Mayweather, he has flaws and things like that but nobody has ever been able to capitalize on him and to follow through with the gameplan to finish the job. He has always prevailed, so you would have to go with the Floyd Mayweather just for the fact that he’s an undefeated fighter.

My prediction would be Floyd Mayweather, I don’t want to say by knock out, but I think Floyd Mayweather wins a decision. I don’t think Floyd Mayweather is training for fights to get knock outs, so I just would think it would go a decision to Floyd Mayweather.

Jenna J: Do you think there is anything Pacquiao can do to make it a difficult fight for Mayweather if the fight were to happen?

Sugar Hill: He can try putting a lot of pressure on him. He can try to put a lot of pressure on Floyd Mayweather and just be smart, period. Obviously Floyd likes fighters to make mistakes so he can make adjustments. You have to do a lot of mixing up and not fall into a routine against Mayweather to have a good chance of beating him. That’s what Pacquiao would have to do against Floyd Mayweather.

Jenna J: You also work with Anthony Dirrell and he won a title against Sakio Bika. What do you see going forward with him in 2015?

Sugar Hill: I think he wants to have about three fights in 2015, he wants to stay busy. His career has been a lot of stop and go, so right now he’s on the go and he wants to stay busy and I think it’s good for him to stay busy.

It’s called being fight sharp, so you stay sharp in the ring and you’re going to see big improvements from Anthony Dirrell because he staying busy. His moments of inactivity, those moments hurt him. It’s just about getting back to the top and continuing to stay busy like he did when he was an amateur. He was always a busy fighter as an amateur and it showed in his performances.

With Anthony being busy in 2015, you’re going to see a different Anthony Dirrell and it will catapult him to be one of the premiere fighters in the super middleweight division. I don’t know what fights they have lined up for him but I heard talks of George Groves, I think that would be an excellent fight.

People may not think the fight with Sakio Bika was a good fight, but I thought it was an excellent fight for Anthony Dirrell. The second fight he stuck to the gameplan and it may not have looked good with Sakio Bika but going into the fight I knew and I understood that any kind of fight with a Sakio Bika is not going to be a pretty fight and it wasn’t going to look good.

The main thing was to go in there and get that victory and prove yourself after. First get the victory, become champion and then you can fight some other guys with a different style that you would look great against and be able to showcase a lot of your talents and skills.

Jenna J: In closing, can you let the fans know of the fighters you are working with and what fights they have coming up in the new year?

Sugar Hill: Oh I can’t say anything about that, that’s top secret, it’s classified (laughs). Fighters I work with, Kermit Cintron is still fighting. He’s had two hand surgeries since his last fight against Ronald Cruz. He had bone fragments all in his hands, so the doctors cleaned his hands up and took fragments out of both hands. He actually had surgery done a second time, because he didn’t know that he had fragments in both hands.

It’s taken some while for Kermit to get that together, but he’s training again now and getting into conditioning and shape. I’m assuming I’ll hear something from him about a fight coming up for him. Another fighter I’m working with is a Polish fighter, Damian Jonak, a 154lb’er, he’s a really good fighter from Poland. He hadn’t fought in about a year but he’s getting back on track to fight again as well.

My cousin is in the process of opening up a new Kronk gym, which should open early this year, hopefully in January or February so I can start training fighters there and have a place I can call home. I’m sure we will have a lot of fighters coming through that gym and training under the Kronk banner.