Karim Mayfield Wants Rios and Garcia After Mauricio Herrera

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Karim Mayfield looks to impress on HBO then land a fight with Brandon Rios or Danny Garcia

Being a sparring partner, especially to a superstar like Manny Pacquiao, is not the most popular job in the world, but Karim Mayfield (16-0-1 with 10 KOs) is trying to make the transition from “Pacquiao’s sparring partner” to being a great fighter on his own regards. I had the chance to recently talk with Karim and talk about his past, his upcoming fight with Mauricio Herrera (18-2 with 7 KOs) in Upstate NY on October 27th, his future in the 140 lb weight class, his opinion on others in the division, as well as his opinion on if we’ll ever see that Mayweather-Pacquiao fight.

Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield is from San Francisco, California. When asked why he decided to get into boxing and what drives him, he said, “I decided to get into the sport because of the competitiveness of a 1 man sport and its 1 of the fastest ways to make money as an individual unlike other sports where you have to go through High School and College. As for what drives me, no question it’s my family, they are the reason I do this.” Karim also said he enjoys how the sport has allowed him to meet different people and be able to get different contacts.

Karim is the current WBO NABO Light Welterweight Champion, so I asked him what type of reaction did he get back home when he won his title, he said, “I got a whole lot of love, I’m from the bay area and we call it bay love. I loved all the tweets and facebook messages, but I really saw the love when I went to Andre Ward’s fight against Dawson.” I also asked what he thought of that fight and how close he is with Ward, he stated. “It was a tremendous fight and Ward was great, I’ve trained with him before and people thought it was going to be a close fight, but Ward was dominate.”

Karim has had fights at 152 and 147, but this fight against Herrera will be at 140, so it can be a bit weird to see someone come down in weight instead of going up, so I asked him what made him make the decision to go down and what his natural weight is. Karim said, “I’m 150 now, I like to stay around 152 so I have something to burn. I decided to go to 140 because I was grinding in camp before my fight against Francisco Santana and I was supposed to be at 152, but I got all the way down to 145, so I decided that I could get down to 140 and it fit me better.” I asked him if he would move back up to 147 after this fight against Herrera, Karim said, “I plan at staying at 140 right now, but I may go back to 147 with the right opportunity, but right now I plan on wiping out the entire division and winning all the belts.”

This will be Mayfield’s 1st big fight on HBO. He was on other HBO cards, but they were not televised. He said, “I am definitely looking forward to this moment and I plan to take advantage of it, I plan to seize the moment.”So I asked what were some things he thinks he can take advantage when he faces Herrera, he responded, “He likes to come forward and I don’t like to get pushed back, I want to push him back. I want to capitalize on his weaknesses and his strengths.” So I then asked if there was anything that Herrera does that scares him or would make him change his game plan, he said, “No, for the most part, people have to train for my style, not the other way around. It’s hard to find a sparring partner to duplicate my fighting style because I change from opponent to opponent.  He’s going to come forward, so we plan on coming forward also, not like Alvarado, but with Angles.”

We then moved on to some of the other fights that are in the same weight class of Mayfield, so I asked him 1st about Rios vs. Alvarado and I definitely got a strong sense of what he wanted to happen. Mayfield stated, “It will be a tremendous fight, and it’s a toss-up fight. Both fighters come forward and it will be like watching 2 bulls, which would make it better for me. I hope they beat each other’s brains out, you got to take any advantage you can get in this sport. I would probably want Rios to win because I want to fight Rios.”

Then we moved on to the Danny Garcia vs. Erik Morales 2 fight that will be just a week before Mayfield’s fight in the new Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn. Mayfield said, “Danny is more confident in himself and mature, Morales just wants another payday, so I think Danny stops him.” I asked him about if he would like to fight Danny 1 day and he said, “I helped Danny train for the 1st Morales fight and they asked me to help again for this fight, but I turned them down, I told them we might be facing you soon so I’ll pass.”

Lastly, since he sparred with Pacquiao and for most casual fans, what they all want to know is if Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will ever fight, so I decided to get his opinion on the topic. So when asked if he thinks they will ever fight, he said, “I do think they will, both are getting older and we need some new fights, we don’t care about a 4th Marquez fight, we want to see them finally fight,”

Hopefully Karim is right and we will see that by next year. Karim was 1 of the most down to earth interviews I’ve ever had. Speaking with him is like talking to your friends in a living room.

 

He can be reached on Twitter @karimmayfield1, on Facebook with the username Karim Mayfield, and on Instagram @karimhardhittamayfield.