WORLD Boxing Council (WBC) Cruiserweight champion Wayne “Big Truck” Braithwaite’s trainer Colin Morgan is displeased with the champion’s performance in his third title defence at Madison Square Garden, Saturday night.
“He said he’s going to knock this guy out, so he did not train seriously enough to me. He did not do enough road work; if he did road work five or six times for the last six weeks, I think he did a lot.”
Morgan contended that even with the injury, if Braithwaite had trained how he wanted him to train, he could have been in good enough shape to put away challenger Louis “The Lion” Azille before he hurt his hands.
“He just eased and pressed. He did not do like we did all the time. He wasn’t in good enough shape to do that.”
Asked how he rated Braithwaite’s performance, Morgan replied: “Maybe 50 percent.”
The trainer said he hoped that this fight would open Braithwaite’s eyes that he could realise that it was not with everybody he could go and throw two big punches and knock them out.
“You knock people out because you train and be in good condition. You got to be in good enough shape to keep banging at the person until they break. But when you don’t, you got to go in spurts- hit, get your breath, hit, get your breath, and in the meantime, the fight keep going the opponent’s way.”
Morgan disclosed that somehow for this fight, Braithwaite did not take his training seriously, like he did before.
“There seemed to be other people influencing him, telling him differently.”
Chronicle Sport asked if at anytime in the fight he was worried.
“No. I wasn’t worried; I was angry because the guy was doing nothing, the guy was there for a beating. All he had was put a couple of punches together and the fight would have been over. And he just couldn’t do it because he wasn’t in good enough condition to do it.”
Morgan said there was a “big” division in the camp.
“We’re not working together and it was part of the reason Wayne’s performance was not as it normally is. When I’m in control, I get him to do what I want, and now there’s a division in the camp, so he’s listening to other people.”
The trainer warned that that if Braithwaite does not get serious and decide who he will work with, his performance will continue to slide.
Braithwaite told Chronicle Sport: “Coming down to the bottom of the fight, I was feeling a little bit winded.”
Boxing official and promoter Michael Carryl said the performance would do no good to Braithwaite’s marketability for bigger purse.
“That performance would hurt him more than did him good. People would not buy pay-per-view to see a performance like that. He is appearing at the end of the undercard and he has to be exciting to move up.
He is not a draw for a main bout yet. He has to realize, too, that the division has not yet become popular.”