Boxing's Naazim Richardson Says Badr Hari Could Be a New Manny Pacquiao

by Fraser Coffeen on Oct 12, 2011 5:00 PM EDT in Boxing

Boxing trainer Naazim Richardson has been in the corner of some for the biggest fights in the past few years. Through his work with men like Shane Mosley and Bernard Hopkins, he has established himself as an important player in boxing today.

Now, he's working with Badr Hari.

Former K-1 fighter Hari announced his retirement from kickboxing last month in order to pursue a boxing career with an accompanying move to the United States to train full time. Long time fans of Hari met the news with some skepticism - he's flirted with the idea of boxing for some time with no results. But now, in an interview with Fight Hype, Richardson takes time out of his training for the upcoming Bernard Hopkins vs. Chad Dawson fight to confirm that he has met with Hari, and that The Golden Boy is indeed serious about becoming a boxer.

Badr Hari is a good dude and so is his trainer Mike [Passenier]. You know, Badr Hari won me over, man. As soon as we met, he told me he wouldn't let me down and that he would make me proud. But that's not what won me over. What won me over is he said, "I don't want to be top 10. I want to be the f***ing best." He has the right mentality to do this s*** right here.

Richardson doesn't end there. He has a tremendous amount of praise for Hari, including the highest compliment you can give a fighter in today's boxing world: a comparison to Manny Pacquiao.

Bouie Fisher used to always tell me in the gym, "Watch that door and eventually the right kid is going to walk through it." I asked him what he meant by that and he said, "One day, a kid is going to walk through that door and do whatever you tell him to do and be able to adjust to anything that you want him to adjust to." I remember when me and Freddie Roach was working together and Freddie told me when Manny Pacquiao walked through the door at Wild Card Gym, he said to himself, "That's who I built this gym for."... Badr Hari could be that type of kid.

High praise indeed.

Finally, Richardson makes it clear that Hari has one target in mind: the Klitschkos.

If [the Klitschkos] want to stick around, we either gotta let them see Badr fight and say, "Hey man, it's time for us to move on," or do what Mike [Tyson] did to Larry [Holmes] and show them it's time for them to move on.

This kind of praise from Richardson is interesting to see, as is the very idea of Hari working with him full time. I see the veteran trainer as a good fit for Badr, as he shares some stylistic similarities to Badr's long-time kickboxing trainer Mike Passenier, and is the kind of truly dedicated boxing trainer that can help Badr make this a full-time transition.

While Hari obviously has a lot to prove and many questions to answer in the world of boxing, this has me even more interested in seeing just how this all turns out.

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Comments

Wait and see

The transition to boxing should not be as steep as it would be if he was going into mma.

Badr does have legit KO power in his hands and possess a killer instinct that borders on the demonic. If they want to fast track his name maybe they should call out Kimbo lol.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

- Helen Keller

MMA is stepping on other people's dreams to reach your own.

- Roxanne Modafferi

by The Blackula on Oct 12, 2011 5:09 PM EDT reply actions

i agree with this

Hari has a better chance in boxing than in mma. hari’s hands are good.
but he won’t even be close to pacman’s level.

to be honest, i dont think he will be anywhere in top 10

Matt "The Terror" Serra!!!!

by DK_Monster on Oct 12, 2011 5:26 PM EDT up reply actions

do you know the kind of bums that are in the top 10 in the HW div?

by Mohammedini Hussein on Oct 12, 2011 5:58 PM EDT up reply actions

You think Badr could take Arreola?

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 6:19 PM EDT up reply actions

Honestly ...

… i think Badr would knock Chris “crybaby” Arreola’s out.

by pillowfists on Oct 12, 2011 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions

What's food taste like on your planet?

Arreola went 10 hard rounds with Vitali and 12 with Adamek.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:29 PM EDT up reply actions

In other words you mean ...

… the only two times he fought anyone worth a damn he ended up getting destroyed so badly that he had to cry like a little outraged female? lmao, you should come visit us here.

by pillowfists on Oct 12, 2011 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions

You'd never heard of Arreola before reading Rob's post?

Had you? Be honest.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 7:10 PM EDT up reply actions

naw, im pretty i was watching that bum fight way before you had decided to hop on his nuts.

by pillowfists on Oct 12, 2011 8:06 PM EDT up reply actions

Calling a guy who contended for international belts a "bum"

Stay classy, asshole.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 10:15 PM EDT up reply actions

In 2001 at 20 he got back into boxing and after only three months of training managed to win the National Golden Gloves at the Light Heavyweight division, to win Chris beat Dallas Vargas who had about 300 amateur fights at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Arreola

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 7:13 PM EDT up reply actions

by pillowfists on Oct 12, 2011 8:11 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

So what’s your point?

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 10:16 PM EDT up reply actions

he didn't really get beat too bad by Adamek

Ademek, for possibly the first time in his life, boxed with his opponent.

I almost shit myself watching that live, because, well… I watched him at LHW and at Cruiser, and… had never, EVER seen Ademek do anything that resembled boxing.

Arreola lost that fight because of fatness. Plain and simple. Didn’t have the gas to be effective. Adamek got off alot of headbutts off in that fight as well, which is why Chris’ face was so fucked up.

When I'm on the mic it goes down, CINTRON

-Joell Ortiz

by The Lethal Haze on Oct 12, 2011 7:58 PM EDT up reply actions

Yes

Hari gets smoked by Thompson, Chambers, etc.

I love people who think they can just stroll into boxing. How many times has that happened ever? The money is better for high-level heavyweight boxers, so if he could do it, why didn’t he do it a long time ago?

Also, it’s not like he got a personality transplant. Dude was a head case in K-1 and he’ll be a headcase in boxing. Only difference is that in Europe, the spotlight is brighter for boxers than K-1 fighters. Maybe not in The Netherlands, but continent wide.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions

Vitali transitioned from kickboxing.

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 5:32 PM EDT up reply actions

So did Hatton

in their fucking teens.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions

Kimbo wouldn't take that fight in a million years.

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 5:34 PM EDT up reply actions

The transition to boxing should not be as steep as it would be if he was going into mma.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions

it is almost certainly easier

for a kickboxer to adjust to hands only and a change of stance than it would be to learn the wrestling, bjj, clinch fighting, judo and fighting in a cage versus a ring.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 12, 2011 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions

False comparison in my eyes.

Easier in the sense that there’s a smaller number of new skills and disciplines to master. Certainly leaving out the infinite ocean that is grappling lowers the difficulty level. However, boxing requires you (on an incredibly simplified level) to do one thing and do it insanely well. Depending on a person’s natural skill, athletic ability, and capacity to learn, acquiring a completely new range of combat might be too difficult to learn at 26. On the other hand, if that same person lacks the fast-twitch muscles, mental toughness and chin required to be top 10 in boxing, they may never ever become a good boxer no matter how hard they try.

Basically? MMA requires being a jack of all trades in several completely different disciplines*, boxing requires you to be inhumanly good in just one. I don’t think you can pick one as being more difficult than the other.

*I realize that having several different disciplines to learn could potentially be harder since you’d like to be inhumanly good in all of them, however, that’s neither a realistic goal nor requirement since no one in MMA is world class in everything. Even the top fighters on the p4p lists have their flaws, even if they haven’t been successfully exploited so far.

by gzl5000 on Oct 12, 2011 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Thats the ? now isn't it.

What is more difficult, mastering a couple skills or becoming proficient in several?

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

- Helen Keller

MMA is stepping on other people's dreams to reach your own.

- Roxanne Modafferi

by The Blackula on Oct 12, 2011 7:10 PM EDT up reply actions

you can't really "teach" utter mastery

Yes, they work insanely hard to hone their craft, but they either have it or they do not, and all the hours in the gym won’t change that. In that sense, the same can be applied to both, but let’s face it, Hari stands a much better chance of honing his craft to the mastery point than he would be picking up grappling cold at his age.

It’d be like climbing 3 new mountains rather than finishing a climb from halfway up an existing one. He has plenty of boxing skill, he has very little MMA skill

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 12, 2011 7:37 PM EDT up reply actions

Hari stands a much better chance of honing his craft to the mastery point than he would be picking up grappling cold at his age.

I disagree, and you’ve obviously never tried to truly master something.

10,000 hours.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 10:18 PM EDT up reply actions

yea thats the point

he’s probably already put in thousands of hours doing the boxing aspect. he’s got zero hours in how to defend an omaplata. mind you i don’t think he succeeds at either sport, but his odds at his age to do either lean towards boxing, since he already has some skill in that discipline, whereas he has next to none in mma.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 12, 2011 11:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Or

Is it harder to learn the complete mastery of one aspect of the game necessary to compete at its highest levels (although admittedly there’s less of this mastery in the heavyweight division).

In boxing, if you run up against a guy with better hands, you can’t leg kick him. Can’t side kick him. Can’t catch a lucky head kick. Can’t break out some knees. You just get your ass beat.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 7:08 PM EDT up reply actions

“or do what Mike [Tyson] did to Larry [Holmes] and show them it’s time for them to move on.”

Interesting take considering Holmes had not fought in almost 2 years (retired after his first 2 losses) and owed the IRS a lot of money (ie needed a payday).

by Eoghan on Oct 12, 2011 5:17 PM EDT reply actions

I thought the exact same thing when I read that.

don king gave him a shitload of money for that fight.

"Many have the will to win. Few have to will to prepare to win."

" A black belt only covers 2 inches of your ass. The rest is up to you." - Royce Gracie
"Wanderlei eventually got to his feet and stalked Fujita like a Japanese octopus in an all-female prison." - Sean Baby Cracked.com

by the-gentle-way on Oct 12, 2011 6:20 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Everybody disrespects Holmes

It’s deplorable.

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:29 PM EDT up reply actions

it really is.

Pbf thinks he is the GOAT. Don’t know about that, but it is a very informed opinion.

"Many have the will to win. Few have to will to prepare to win."

by the-gentle-way on Oct 12, 2011 6:38 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

uh...

Let’s see how that chin holds up, big fella. you haven’t passed every chin check in the past, ya know.

The artful muppet formerly known as KrmtDfrog.
Please read my sardonic wit and over-blown sense of self over at headkicklegend.com

by Cory Braiterman on Oct 12, 2011 5:34 PM EDT reply actions

yeah, show Naazim the first fight with Overeem.

That’ll change his opinion.

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 5:36 PM EDT up reply actions

I honestly don't believe a word that comes from Naazim's mouth.

He just doesn’t seem genuine to me. This is they guy who really acted like Mosley had a chance against both Mayweather and Pacquiao.

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 5:35 PM EDT reply actions

He kind of has to, being his trainer.

by Horselover Fat on Oct 12, 2011 5:47 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs

Seriously

The day that any trainer doesn’t act like one of his fighters has a chance against a future opponent is the day he becomes unemployed.

by paythefighters on Oct 12, 2011 6:08 PM EDT up reply actions

what i mean is that

he backed a fighter who had no chance in winning and was just there to pick up a check, at least in the pacquiao fight.

by Rob Young on Oct 12, 2011 6:21 PM EDT up reply actions

He was Shane's trainer

He got Shane through the Cheato fight, which also no one thought Shane would win. Was he just supposed to say, “No one thinks you’ll win this one either, so I’m bailing on this one.”

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:31 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

Thanks for saying this

rarely do people look back on fights after they have happened to see who was supposed to do what to either fighter.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

- Helen Keller

MMA is stepping on other people's dreams to reach your own.

- Roxanne Modafferi

by The Blackula on Oct 12, 2011 7:06 PM EDT up reply actions

He got paid millions of dollars to find a way for Shane to had a chance

It was his job. Do you show up to work and say, “Well, I’m sure going to suck today and fuck up your project, but thanks for the money, boss”?

by The Ghost of Spike Owen on Oct 12, 2011 6:30 PM EDT up reply actions

I could see him being a decent prospect, but not a world beater.

Signed, Pick'em Champs 2011-2012: Michael Jordanesque in our picking skills.

by mountaineers101 on Oct 12, 2011 5:37 PM EDT reply actions

Perhaps not

Lets not forget that Vitali was a kickboxer in a mediocre organisation and he was knocked out cold by a spinning head kick by Pele Reid when he was in his early 20,s with the ref not bothering to even start the count.Vitali was also knocked out (headkick) by Van Roosemalen in 1995 when he was 25.He was also knocked down by low kicks in that fight.He absolutely tried to avoid contests where low kicks were allowed.Now if Hari had to fight either brother,given that he kicks much much harder than Reid or Van Roosemalen and given Vitalis wonky chicken legs and glass jaw against flush head kicks as well as Wlads glass jaw and perhaps the outtcome is not so clear?

by Muhammad Moosa on Oct 15, 2011 3:00 PM EDT up reply actions