In part one of this interview, Campbell revealed his influences and briefly discussed his upcoming fight with Joan Guzman. In part two, the lightweight champion talks about the life lessons he has learned from boxing and the importance of journeyman to the sport.
Suite 101: You’ve gained most of your experience as a professional, in a career that includes losses to men like Joel Casamayor and Robby Peden, which, in the case of Peden was a fight you should have won, but made a stupid mistake. What would you tell an inexperienced fighter about handling the ups and downs of a boxing career.
Nate Campbell: I’d tell them you have to take the bitter with the sweet. I’ve learned more about myself (by losing) than any of these guys with all these fights and undefeated records will ever know about themselves. I know my threshold for pain. I’ve been embarrassed about as bad as you can be embarrassed. But I know what I can take; I know what I’m capable of.
S101: Obviously, you believe that boxing has taught you a lot about yourself.
NC: Boxing has taught me more about myself than most people will learn about themselves in a lifetime. Boxing is life. You can box and learn from your physical mistakes and you’ll be a better person for it. A lot of guys don’t believe that. The way boxing is now, that zero on your record makes you a god, but not only are they not gods, they are incomplete people. That zero on your record just means that you haven’t fought anybody, more than likely.
S101: When you finally hang up the gloves, would you like to train fighters?
NC: Definitely. Vernon Forrest and I were talking about that. He told me, I could never be a trainer because I could never get a guy to fight like me. I told him that’s why I could train fighters because I wouldn’t try to make them fight like me. He (the boxer) has to fight like himself.
I’m a classically trained fighter, believe it or not. I know the ways of the straight one-two and so on, but I found ways around that because guys who fight that way can be so rigid that they can’t handle what I do.
S101: Joan Guzman is a more classically trained boxer and unorthodox fighters like you give classic boxers…
NC: Interrupting. Fits. We give them fits. Besides I’m a ferocious puncher and Guzman can’t punch at this weight.
S101: You think you’ll knock him out?
NC: I really don’t worry about knockouts any more. I just want to beat them up real bad. Think about it. Juan Diaz was undefeated, now he is 33 and me. Joan Guzman is undefeated, but he’s going to be 28 and me. These guys aren’t the same when I’m done with them.
S101: If you were to boil boxing down to one or two things an inexperienced fighter needs to know in order to succeed, what would those things be?
NC: Study your craft. Be determined, and study your craft. You know, you’ll learn more from a journeyman fighter than you will from a world champion. I’m sparring with a journeyman right now and I’m learning more from him than I could learn by sparring with the most recognized names in the world.
S101: Explain.
NC: He (the journeyman) knows that he has to be ready. He’s always fighting in someone else’s back yard, so he knows all the tricks. He needs to (know the tricks) just to survive.
A guy like Miguel Cotto, for instance, isn’t a tricky guy, is he?
S101: He’s a textbook fighter.
NC: Exactly. But a journeyman, a journeyman is a craftsman. A journeyman knows when you’re hurt, he knows when you’re frustrated. A journeyman is special.
Where would world champions be without journeymen? They are the foundation of boxing. Journeymen make boxing. Without journeymen you don’t get Miguel Cotto or Nate Campbell, or Joan Guzman.
I hate to see a journeyman with, say, ten straight losses, none by knockout, lose his boxing license. How do you replace a guy like that? A guy that’s willing to fight anybody. His job is to teach us to fight.
You give me ten guys who are journeymen and I’ll give you fifteen or twenty guys that they (the journeymen) made world champions.
