As Gary Antuanne Russell gets set for his next outing against Andy Hiraoka on Feb. 21, he joins Ring Magazine to talk about that upcoming fight as well as some potential bigger fights down the road for him. During the chat Russell would give his breakdown on Shakur Stevenson’s big win over Teofimo Lopez, and why he’ll be looking to target Dalton Smith in the short term as he wants to grab the WBC title. Check out some excerpts from him below.
Russell on Shakur’s performance against Teofimo
“I just tells me he’s been honing his craft, you know, and he’s a well-rounded fighter. He’s definitely a great fight. Anything that anybody in this sport produces, you cannot take that away from them. They earned it. Shakur, himself, he’s a technician. He’s very grounded to the fundamentals and granted Teofimo Lopez, I feel like he got more in his arsenal than Shakur Stevenson, but he get away from his fundamentals and he lost sight of the fight.
“Shakur, he kept it simple, kept it basic, kept him on a string. You mess up, you have your hands down, I’m going to make you pay.”
On his thoughts on potentially facing Dalton Smith and Richardson Hitchins
“You know, I feel like Dalton Smith, he’s a good fighter as well. I don’t look at any fighter as a slouch because those little gloves, anyone has a puncher’s chance…Dalton Smith, he got the belt that everybody strive to get, the green belt, the WBC, and then you got Richardson Hitchins. We’ve had past relations, I fought him a couple of times, of course. I feel like he’s grown more into his professional look and because of that I feel like I would see a different type of fight if I was to fight him again.
“But you know what they say, some habits is hard to break and I still see the same old habits that he had in the amateurs, so hopefully I can take advantage of those and come out victorious once more again.”
“What I know about Andy is he’s a long fighter, he’s lengthy, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to utilize that. A lot of people have been paying him step-aside money because they want an easy victory. No one wants to get in there and have to work extremely hard for a victory. If you can get an easy victory, why not?…Andy Hiraoka, he isn’t a slouch.”
