by Geoffrey Ciani (Exclusive Interview by Jenna J & Geoffrey Ciani) – Last week’s 132nd edition of On the Ropes Boxing Radio (brought to you by CWH Promotions) featured an exclusive interview with heavyweight correspondent and top ten contender Chauncy Welliver (49-5-5, 19 KOs) who is coming off of a fourth round stoppage victory against Lawrence Tauasa (31-9-1, 18 KOs) in Huili, China on June 28. Welliver spoke about his victory, his future, and other aspects of his career. Here are some excerpts from that interview:
Regarding his recent 4th round stoppage victory against Lawrence Tauasa:
“It was a great event. It was over there in a place called Huili, China. It looks like ‘hue-willy’ when you look at the writing, but it’s called Huili, China. Listen, the people in China absolutely love boxing and I was proud to be a part of it. We were cheated with such great respect. People were holding banners when we got off the plane. I mean we were being swamped by hundreds and hundreds of kids as we went for our daily runs and things like that. I definitely felt like a superstar. Before we left, we were notified that we had a new opponent. We were fighting Lawrence Tauasa, a guy from ‘The Contender’. He had already been training to fight somebody on the undercard. My opponent ended up falling out. Lawrence said, ‘I would love to fight Chauncy, I’ve been waiting for years for this fight. To be honest I’ve known Lawrence for a long time, and I thought maybe this wasn’t too good of a style to fight compared to the style I was getting ready for. But I thought I got to be able to fight guys like this on a moment’s notice and beat them if I want to say I can fight the absolute best. I got to be able to beat guys at this level on this short of notice. So we went out there, Lawrence went out there, and it was a great fight in a packed stadium. There was 4,000 jam-packed in there and there was another 7,000 people outside the stadium watching it on the big screen. There were a reported 17 million watching it on TV. That was very nerve-racking for me. I was very nervous. They said they were expecting 10 million and it wound up being 17 which I thought was absolutely great. In the first round, I caught him with a left hook and at that point he seemed to want to back up a lot. He backed up a lot and he kind of gave me the range. I worked his body, busted up his nose something pretty good, and after the fourth round the referee said it was done. He was taking too bad of a beating and he stopped the fight, which was good! I mean I like getting the stoppages. I wish we could have gotten a couple of more rounds in, but at the same time the people absolutely went nuts for it. I mean they gave me the nickname in China ‘The Boxing Panda’! They were chanting, ‘PANDA! PANDA!’ They went absolutely nuts. It felt good to be loved in another country and I cannot wait to go back.”
On whether he would prefer his 50th victory to be against a name opponent or if he is just interested in getting it anyway he can against whoever they put in front of him:
“In a perfect world I would absolutely choose a much bigger opponent, a guy in the BoxRec top 50 or a guy in the WBC top 40. I would choose that. These guys that are accepting the fights are the guys that are accepting the fight are accepting it for the money that the promoters are offering. The guys in the top 40, unfortunately, want a lot more money than that. Now with this new China deal, we may be able to get these WBC top 40 or WBO top 15 guys. We’re going to see a solid step up. I’ve said it before with this China deal. I think Tauasa was a solid step up and that was the beginning of the contract. So we’re only going to step up each time. It’s going to be a better fight and a better fight. For the 50th fight, as I said should we get a call in the next week or two we’re absolutely ready. If it was up to me we would wait until September when we are 100% ready and have a very spectacular 50th victory over a very solid opponent, but you can’t put a gun to their heads and make them fight as you know.”
Regarding his recent power surge which includes five consecutive stoppage victories:
“It’s very good. I went from hardly having any stoppages. I think I had a 27% KO ratio to having 32%. Five points ain’t that bad! The heavyweight division is known as the division as having power. You know one thing I’m able to do is throw a lot of punches and do it consistently for twelve rounds. Now I can do it consistently for twelve rounds while putting something on it. I’m able to get some respect out of these guys. Usually these guys don’t care. They say they’ll get 100 times by me, but now these are getting hit once and saying wait a minute! Maybe I don’t want to stand on the inside with this guy. So having power is definitely key, and working with Joe Hipp is definitely improving my power. We’re learning more and more with each fight, and I think we’re showing improvement.”
On whether he believes he will be ready and prepared for a big step up in competition being most of his recent fights are against lower tier opposition:
“I personally think I do, and the main reason why is I fought Odlanier Solis with I mean a day’s notice. I forget what it was, a little over a week, a little under two weeks, and I hung. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sitting here and saying I beat him or I beat him up, but for a couple of rounds I gave him hell, and that was a 50 pound heavier version of me able to out-dance the Olympic heavyweight champion. But then those 50 pounds definitely caught up and slowed me down and I wasn’t able to do all the things that I wanted to. You know I’ve been in there with Solis in a fight. I’ve sparred some of the absolute best in the world. I know sparring is sparring and it’s much different than a fight, but it’s not that much different. You’re still getting hit by these guys, so you know I think I can hang with these guys. I’ve been in there trading punches with a lot of the best guys in the world and I’ve done damn good for myself! I personally think I can hang with these guys and I don’t see much of a shock when I do fight these champions.”
On whether he believes earlier career losses against subpar opposition will prevent big name fighters from taking him seriously:
“No, because the one thing the Klitschkos, and the Hayes, and the guys like that have, they have a marketing team. One thing I have is I have a very good record. Yes, I lost some earlier in my career but those were very early in my career. Those were fights when I was young, and I was dumb, and I’m not going to lie. I was an 18-19 year old partying and going out. Ah! Who needs boxing? All I’m making is $1,000! It was more or less just for party money. That’s all it was. I didn’t take the sport seriously. I think those guys are smart enough to see that this guy is taking it seriously. He’s rebounding. This is a guy who came from nothing. He’s lost 50 pounds now. He’s showing he’s real now. I think the weight loss shows that Chauncy Welliver is training, Chauncy Welliver is trying, he wants to be a contender! Hey! I didn’t lose the 50 pounds for my health. It isn’t because I was obese as some people might say. No! I lost the weight because I wanted to prove that I could be a contender and I knew that was the best thing for me. I think the story of advancing my career and going with Joe Hipp and having him advance me in the past couple of years. This definitely is something that Klitschkos and the guys like that would look at. I don’t think they would look at the earlier losses.”
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For those interested in listening to the Chauncy Welliver interview in its entirety, it begins approximately forty-nine minutes into the program.
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