POST-FIGHT INTERVIEW: JESSE HART

Boxingtalk.com
By G. Leon

Greg Leon: Congrats on your victory over Demond Nicholson (18-3-1). Can you give us some thoughts on your performance?

Jesse Hart: “I rate my performance like a C- because I didn’t utilize all of my tools. I didn’t bring out all of my tools and I think his speed kind of threw me off my rhythm, but once I got settled in I think my jab controlled the fight, so I was happy about that and I give myself like a C-.”

GL: Did you overlook him at all since you have a common opponent that you knocked out early that also stopped him?

HH: “No. I didn’t overlook him. When I chose to fight Demond Nicholson I knew he was a good fighter, that’s why we wanted to make the fight with him. They gave me a lot of names and I knew that was a name that I would get up for. Believe it or not, Demond Nicholson is feared by a lot of PBC fighters, they don’t want to fight him.”

GL: Did he hurt you at the end of the first round?

JH: “It shocked me. I wasn’t hurt because you saw I was good in the next round, but it kind of woke me up. He kind of woke me up with that shot. At the end of every round my body sometimes gets lackadaisical at the end of rounds. It’s like my body knows when that three minutes is ready to be up and it’s like my guard goes down a bit. He caught me with an ok shot, but that’s the fight game.”

GL: Can you describe the bizarre conclusion of the fight? I also thought you were credited with two questionable knockdowns in round three, but the seventh round, you drop him it doesn’t count. Then you drop him for a second time and the referee stops counting at eight, I mean he really dropped the ball on that one.

JH: “Did you see the referee? And I know Shawn (Clark), he’s a good dude but I don’t understand why he was trying to keep a man in the fight when he didn’t want to be there. It was like he was trying to force him to fight. Have you ever seen a ref do that?”

GL: I’ve never seen it happen to the A side in his hometown, but I remember when Lamon Brewster fought Krasniqi he dropped him and the ref not only stopped counting, I believe he helped him up and Don King lost his mind ringside.

JH: (laughs) “I’m going to have to take a look at that. It was bizarre though because the kid was down for…

GL: (cutting in) “Thirteen seconds.”

JH: “You counted?”

GL: Yes it was either twelve or thirteen seconds.”

JH: “He was telling him to get up over and over.”

GL: Just to stop the fight.

JH: (laughs) “It was so weird, because his body language should have told the ref that he didn’t want to be in there no more. He turned his back, he took a knee, he didn’t want to be there.”

GL: Did you sense you were going to make him quit? Was there a punch that landed on the inside or something you saw that lead you to believe it could end that way?

JH: “Let’s go back a minute, you said the knockdowns in the third round weren’t legit. I caught him with a little left hook behind his guard. I got the tape of it and I saw it, so it was definitely a knockdown.”

GL: I said they were questionable.

JH: “I’m telling you I snuck that hook in there and it took his legs away from him. It was a short left hook, the same short left hook that Steve Rolls hit him with. I was walking to him and I could sense that his power kept declining. You could feel a man’s power and when they ain’t got that same steam on their punches.”

GL: Back-to-back stoppages on ESPN after a razor thin loss in your title challenge [against WBO super middleweight champion Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez]… what does last night’s win lead to?

JH: “I truly want to fight one of the champions again. It doesn’t matter though. Demond Nicholson was a solid guy and people need to acknowledge that. I stopped a good fighter, he’s not a mediocre dude, he’s a good solid kid. As of this point I want to fight one of the champions. I fought a young hungry lion like Demond Nicholson, he came to fight, he came to work and I stood up to everything that he had, now bring up one of the champions.”

GL: And to refresh our readers you don’t believe Ramirez is ever going to give you that rematch, correct?

JH: “I don’t feel like I’m getting it because I hear how he’s talking. He wants to move up in weight to fight (Artur) Beterbiev, the IBF light heavyweight champion because Top Rank got him. If he doesn’t fight one of the other champions at super middleweight, he wants to move up to fight Beterbiev at light heavyweight, at least that’s what I was told. If you want to do that then you’re telling me right there you don’t want to fight me. He actually said that he doesn’t want to fight me again unless I get a belt off of one of the other champions first, so that tells me all I need to know.”

GL: When do you want to get back in the ring?

JH: “[My promoter] Bob (Arum) told me we’re probably going to be looking at something in July. I told him I don’t want to do August because I’m going to be very busy that month. My daughter’s turning six years old on August 2nd and I’m going to be taking her to Disney World for her birthday. I told Bob if we could get in there in July that would really be great. I need another fight ASAP.”

GL: Closing thoughts?

JH: “Keep tuning into ESPN. Every time you tune into ESPN you’re going to be seeing Jesse Hart. I hope everybody enjoyed the show! People are going to continue to enjoy the Jesse Hart experience and once my career is long over I’m going to mentioned among the greats.”