BRC: I agree I think all divisions shoud go through the same progress

 

CAMPBELL: I think all divisions should take the best four fighters who hold titles get together and mix it up.

 

BRC: It made boxing exciting and I think it brought fans back to the sport

 

CAMPBELL: Yes.. People can say what they want about Bernard Hopkins, in the end he's remembered for what he did. He'll be remembered for the fights he had,  not the ones he didn't. A lot of these people fail to realize that man.

Three days from now we're going to have a fight (Hopkins vs De La Hoya) that shouldn't be happening, but there's so much money in it, it had to happen. Felix Sturm was sacrificed on the altar for a future big fight, a mega fight. What would have been right is him fighting; it would have been just as good or a better fight in the end. Probably be a better fight with Sturm and Hopkins. People need to get over these names and stop looking at fighters on the net who they fought, you know what I mean, and what they do in this fight not the fight before this fight.

 

BRC: I can't see that ever happening in boxing...

 

CAMPBELL: A fighter looses one fight and they dog him. A football team looses three games, four games, five games in a year and become the Super Bowl champion. Basketball, baseball, they lose tons of games and some games they get blown out; a boxer loses one fight and he's lost his marketability. How harsh can you be?

 

BRC: In boxing most people believe you're only as good as your last fight...

 

CAMPBELL: And that's bull. Sometimes that last fight is a turning point in a fighters life. I'm so sick of people with these old colloquialisms when they've never taken a punch. Most of these people who talk about boxing have never taken a punch! Most of these guys who are commentating boxing, if you put them all together,  they've never been hit in their life. I don't think most of them have ever been in a street fight. How can you critique me on my job? That's like you buying  a house and telling a carpenter how to build it. That's like you needing a heart transplant and you tell the doctor how to do it. Boxing is the only sport you can come in off the street and be a trainer a manager, promoter, anything, with no prior knowledge of the game, no credentials no nothing.

 

BRC: Do you feel the media has been extra hard on you since the Peden fight?

 

CAMPBELL: You know what? I could care less about the media, the ones who have so much to say about me... Tell 'em all, each and everyone of them that gots something to say about me, to do me one favor. Give me 18 minutes of their life and I will change their mind. Give me 18 minutes of their life, that's six three minute rounds... Not only by the time I'm through with them would I have them speaking a whole 'nother language, some of them I wouldn't have speaking at all.

These people don't know me, they don't know what I've been through to get here. They don't know what kind of sacrifices I've had to make. Do you get what I'm saying? These people don't understand... they read about what little bit I put out there, but they don't know, they don't understand. They don't understand that for months and months of my life I slept in the front seat of my car. They can read about it, but they'll never understand  that I've bathed in convenience stores all over Florida. They'll never understand that, you know what I'm saying?

I would arrive to fights four or five hours early, sleep in the front seat of my car and just pick somebody up to work my corner or use my manager at the time to work my corner. I wrap my own hands 'till this day. This is what I do for a living. Every mistake I've made I've paid for it, me and my family have paid for it. So these people that call themselves experts, if they have something to say about me, say it to my face and give me six rounds of their lives and I will break their bodies in half.

They don't understand what it's like to be hungry and desperate at your wits end and then see someone come along and be given something that you had to work for. Do you understand me? I had to work for this man, nobody has given me this. Nights not seeing my daughter, no way to contact them because I don't have a cell phone... they don't know what I've been through.

I'm the American story... I came from nothing, nowhere, and considered to be no one and I've made myself a major player in the sport of boxing. And I'm not talking about major players like these other guys with great promotional deals and somebody there to hype them up. I fought my way to the top, I fought my way here. I went into every nook and cranny and fought whoever they put in front of me sometimes on two days notice. I fought the baddest man in my division at the time, (Joel)  Casamayor on one month's notice, three weeks training. Nobody gave me nothing, I've held my own in every fight I've ever fought. Now, I made mistakes along the way, okay. Have you ever heard me make any excuses for that Peden fight? I've never made an excuse and I won't make an excuse for it. Nobody will ever know what I had to go through because it ain't their buisness what I had to go through.

When you wake up in the morning and look at yourself, who do you get mad at? When you look at your kids and you realize that the money you could have made and should have made is gone, who do you blame? When you think about the fact that you have to give up everything that you've worked for; begged, borrowed and stealing to make ends meet because of something that you did wrong, who do you get angry with? Yourself.  But then there comes a time when you can no longer be mad at yourself. I've struggled to get back to this spot, I've fought to get back to this spot, I have bled to get back to this spot. To get this number two spot I've ran around the ring many a rounds fighting with Santiago Samaniego, Matt Vanda, Erik Rodriguez, a Brazilian kid named Juiliano Ramos, a guy named Omar out of Anaheim, (California), John David Jackson. I put my time in to get back here. Nobody gave me a shot; they just didn't elevate me back to number two, they made me fight for it and they just didn't make me fight anybody, they made me fight someone who gave me one of the toughest fights of my life and I did my job, did I not? So don't you go telling me you're doing me a favor, don't go telling anybody that I owe anyone anything. I don't owe anybody nothing. I've earned everything I got, nobody gave me nothing.

But all I'm asking is... I want a clear cut understanding about why in the world is  Barrera on the internet and all over the world, I'm hearing that Barrera is fighting Morales for the IBF and WBC titles? I don't  care about the WBC because I don't have a dog in that hunt, but I do have a dog in the IBF hunt, but my dog is not being fed.

You make me fight for a position but you don't make him fight for a position. He got dominated in his fight before last; he was dominated, he didn't win a round. You don't hear me on TV saying I wasn't ready, I was ill prepared. That's your fault. You've got over 50 fights and you're not going to be prepared for a fight?  Then you've got this -excuse my French- this p*&%y Robbie Peden... He's not standing up for his rights, so I have to stand up for the rights of everyone in our division who's ranked. He's the biggest bitch I've ever heard. I shouldn't be the one on the phone talking to you. he should, right or wrong?

 

BRC: He should be fighting just as hard as you if not harder...

 

CAMPBELL: Harder! Let me tell you something... My manager gave this analogy to me and I'm gonna tell you how I tweaked it. There's a tree in the owner's property.  That tree's gonna fall and knock down his fence; now, I talked to him about getting that tree trimmed because when that son of a bitch falls, it's gonna knock my roof down. He doesn't give a f&%k about his fence, but I give all the care in my world about my roof. He need to get out there and trim his tree.

Peden's problem is he has no heart. He don't wanna fight me because he knows the last time we fought it was a fluke. He knows when I see him again, I'm gonna   hurt him. So he's willing to sit on his ass and allow Morales to fight anybody in the world that he wants to fight in hopes that Morales will come back and throw a bone his way. That is a bitch and if I see him in public I'll tell him to his face and I dare him to say something. Because a real man ain't gonna let you just skip him and disrespect him, talk to him any kind of way.

Let me tell you something... I don't care how much money they're paying him to be quiet because I don't know if they are or they aren't because I can't say enough. I don't care what he's getting to be quiet, it ain't worth his spot in history. Because in the end, wouldn't you want to fight a guy you know you can beat? He told everyone he knows he can beat me. Wouldn't you want to fight me for the wolrd title? It wouldn't make a difference what the money was looking like if I knew I  could win I'd get right at it. Now check this out, if I know I'm going to win this fight anyways if all I'm going to make is a hundred thousand, seventy five thousand, whatever I'm going to make, shit, I'm gonna go and get this title then. He can't make money unless it has someone's name attached to it.