WELCOMING OSCAR RIVAS TO LONDON

WELCOMING OSCAR RIVAS TO LONDON

By Rachel Aylett 

I was able to talk to Oscar Rivas and his promoter Yvon Michel of GYM, today at the press conference to announce Oscar’s upcoming fight with Dillian Whyte on 20 July at the o2 Arena in London. I discussed the fight with Rivas through an interpreter and then spoke with Yvon about Oscar and other fighters in his team, including Adonis Stevenson.

Welcome to London, Oscar & Yvon

My first question is, how are you going to beat Dillian Whyte? Do you think you can knock him out, and do you need to knock him out to win?

Oscar Rivas: I think it’s dangerous if you go into the fight with the intention of knocking out your opponent. I have plenty of other qualities as a fighter. With all the training I will be putting in, I think the knockouts come by themselves as you will see throughout the process of the fight.

Yvon Michel: Two things – first, he is very fast, he has speed, he has power and experience as an amateur and a pro. Secondly, he has never been knocked down as an amateur or as a pro or even in training. He has never been hurt, so when someone says they are going to knock him out it’s good, as he has a granite chin and a great defence.

Do you worry that if it goes to points you won’t get the decision in England?

OR: I suppose that you must have this in the back of your mind when you are the away fighter, but I can look back at my experience with Jennings. I was fighting in front of about 5,000 people there and everyone was on the side of Jennings. Gradually, as the fight progressed they ended up shouting my name, so just imagine if that happens here in front of an even bigger crowd!

YM: Here in the UK they are very well educated fans. I was there when Brook fought against Spence Jr. At first, everybody was behind your fighter but it then changed and at the end they were cheering for Spence, so it’s going to be up to him (Rivas) to do what he will need to do to first silence the crowd and then turn it in his favour.

In this time of giant heavyweights, how much of a drawback is your lack of height?

OR: Throughout my career I have always fought taller opponents. It’s never been a problem.

YM: He is better against tall rather than short opponents because he doesn’t come across short fighters much and is more used to fighting taller men. Look at him, he is 17 stone, he is very well built – he’s not tall but he said to me, “when I’m in the ring I’m as tall as anybody”.

When to you go into camp to start training for this fight?

OR: I have been in the gym for two months already. At the end of May I will go to Bogota (Colombia) for high altitude training. I will be giving 110% effort in this training programme. I did this for the Jennings fight. The whole process will be the same. This is a massive opportunity for me and I have to make the most of it, so I will be ready.

YM: If you watch the Jennings fight, Oscar dominated the fight in rounds 10, 11 and 12. He realised that Jennings was very tired at the beginning of the twelfth round he was able to score the knockout. He was much fresher than Jennings because of the altitude training.

OR: Yes, the high altitude helps a lot in training.,

When will you tie up with Marc Ramsay? He is obviously with Artur Beterbiev at the moment for his upcoming fight?

OR: Of course, he is a very busy guy, but when he knows I have such an important fight he will join up with me and be totally focussed on me. He will come to Bogota with me.

YM: Just to point out that Marc also has three very good assistant trainers for when he is not available.

Good luck to you in the fight Oscar. I just have a few more questions for Yvon.

How is Adonis Stevenson? Have you seen him recently?

I speak to him on a regular basis. He still has some problems, that’s why he’s still in a rehabilitation unit. But he can walk, he can talk, he remembers everbody. He does have some problems with his short-term memory but they are working very hard with him to make sure that he will continue to improve. Everybody is very optimistic.

You have had some bad times recently haven’t you, with Stevenson, Beterbiev and Alvarez. Do you ever feel disheartened with the sport?

No. I’ve been in the sport over 40 years now and so I know that …. at one point I had three world champions in the same weigt division, so not to get too high when things are going well as it will only last so long. With Beterbiev, we are happy with the way things turned out and he is happy too. With Alvarez, he is coming back on June 15 and after this fight, if all goes well, he will have another world title opportunity. He is a very good fighter, he just had a bad night in the rematch with Kovalev. We now have Oscar going for the biggest challenge of his career. I also have a girl.

Marie-Eve Dicaire? (IBF Super-Welterweight champion)

Oh, she’s so popular. She’s great. You know what? We were in a small place, a casino, for her title fight with Mikaela Lauren. There were only 600 people but I was as excited as I was when Stevenson was fighting! We also have Christian Mbilli, who is also great.

Do you co-promote with the Asloums in France?

No. We are the promoter of Mbilli but we have an agreement that he will have a certain number of fights in France and when he fights in Canada or USA, we have the French tv rights. I am very happy with him.

What does the future hold for Marie-Eve Dicaire? She is running out of opposition?

She will soon be headlining for us for the first time in a main event. We are thinking of a couple of opponents. We thought that we had a deal with Kali Reis, but she priced herself out of the fight. We must remember that the women are not at the same level as the men yet, so people need to be a bit more realistic. We will find somebody else. Down the road will be a rematch with Chris Namus and if Dicaire can come down to 147 we would love to fight Cecilia Braekhus, but everybody wants to fight her at the moment! We are also interested in Claressa Shields – maybe down the road.

But first, we have to do something that we don’t do often with the men, and there is more possibility to do it with the women because the field is not that large. So as soon as the opportunity arises, I will start the discussions with Tom Loeffler, who works with Braekhus, to make this fight. It will be a two weight unification fight, like Sugar Ray Leonard did with Donnie LaLonde.

What can you tell us about Lucian Bute?

I was working for a company called Interbox. I was with them for five years and after a while I resigned and started my own company. He stayed with them but after he lost to Jean Pascal, he came back to me. Lucian is such a nice person. You don’t see people like that very often. Now he is retired, but I am hoping to find him a position with us.

Final question: why has it taken so long – 10 years – to get Oscar Rivas to this position?

He had an appearance on Showtime (ShoBox) in June 2015. We were just about to crack the rankings when he had to have shoulder surgery. Then the other shoulder went, then his elbow, then the bicep. He was like a Formula 1 car that was too fragile. So we had to step back, take a few low risk fights whilst he was getting fit again. After that, nobody wanted to fight him – he was too high risk for not enough money. I had to keep him working in Canada and didn’t have the resources to bring in high level opponents. So I ended up doing a deal with Top Rank. We had offers for Eleider Alvarez for co-promotion. There was an offer from DAZN and also from Top Rank, they both wanted him. One of the conditions I made to Top Rank was that Alvarez would sign with them, but only if they gave us the Bryant Jennings fight for Oscar, so that’s how that fight came about.