When three-time Olympian Rau’shee Warren and his Washington D.C.-based coach, Barry Hunter, were training for Warren’s bantamweight title rematch against champion Juan Carlos Payano last June, Hunter, a highly respected conditioner, was not about to let Warren get away with not doing what the coach wanted and felt was necessary to win: Use his jab early and often to keep the ultra-aggressive Payano at bay.
“That was the scheme, and I was drilling and drilling him on the jab,” Hunter said. “And times when he wouldn’t do it, I’d stop the action and call him to the side and put the emphasis on how important the jab is. Not only is it a range-finder, it’s a rhythm-setter and allows you to have separation between you and your opponent, and it allows you to time whatever combination you want to set up.”
Sounds easy but was anything but that for the 29-year-old kid from Cincinnati. Easy was falling back into old habits, doing what he was comfortable doing. Hunter had no patience for easy.
“(He made me) stick to what we were training to win the fight for,” Warren told USA TODAY Sports this week. “It was frustrating at one point, but I’m an all-around fighter and whatever Barry throws at me I feel like it’s a challenge. Being a fighter I am, with all this experience, I got it and I added to my arsenal.”
The best part about it was that it worked. Warren fought the fight of his life, and in the process of scoring a majority decision in handing Payano the first loss of his career, Warren showed more power than ever. That made Hunter especially proud.
“I always get on these guys is about setting your feet. That’s one thing we went over for the Payano camp. We needed to make Payano respect us,” Hunter said by phone. “He had a bad habit of rushing in and showing no respect, so this time Rau’shee met him with something and drew a line in the sand. It helped dictate the pace of the fight.”
It helped dictate the outcome, too. In the 15th fight of his professional career, Warren finally won what had eluded him his entire life, including through a record three Olympic Games: a championship belt.
When the decision was announced, Warren fell to the canvas and sobbed on national TV. His biggest fan, his mother, was deliriously overjoyed, too. Her son never got a gold medal to hang around her neck but he did wrap his championship belt around her waist.
The sheer emotion of the moment overcame him, and he couldn’t process it.
“At that point, I just kind of blacked out,” he said. “I really didn’t know what was going on until I watched the fight (later). The night I won, I couldn’t even go to sleep. It was like a dream, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, from the Olympics, trying to win a gold medal. And now I’m a world champion and I was laying in bed with my kids, looking at the ceiling with my eyes open. It was a feeling I didn’t want to get rid of.”
It’s a feeling he hopes to regain on Friday night (Bounce TV, 9 p.m. ET) when Warren (14-1, 4 KOs) defends his WBA bantamweight title for the first time against Kazakhstan’s Zhanat Zhakiyanov (26-1, 18 KOs) in Toledo, in his home state, where he has fought only once in his pro career in 2014.
This fight, the co-feature on a Premier Boxing Champions card, is headlined by Warren’s close friend, Toledo native and undefeated lightweight champion Robert Easter Jr. (18-0, 14 KOs), who is defending his IBF title against Luis Cruz (22-4-1, 16 KOs). It’s co-promoted by another close friend and fellow Cincinattian, Adrien Broner, and his company, About Billions.
Warren and Hunter are together again, and as always, training at the Headbangers Gym in the nation’s capital, which is fast gaining a reputation as a home of champions.
“We’ve been blessed to have dynamite coaches,” Hunter said about this last camp. “Plus, when you look at the fighters we have, you look at Rau’shee, you look at (former champion) Lamont (Peterson), his brother Anthony, (former four-division champion) Adrien Broner, (lightweight champ) Robert Easter, Hank Lundy, (new super featherweight champ) Gervonta Davis, Raynell Williams, I mean it was loaded. You had no other choice but to step your game up, or it wasn’t going to be pretty.”
If Warren, who said he is comfortably on weight several days before the fight, has learned anything in all his years in the ring, it’s to never overlook an opponent. He respects Zhakiyanov, though he knows little about him.
“I know he’s a pressure fighter, he looks for one shot and will try to time you and try to knock you out,” Warren, 29, said. “The crazy part about it, I remember going over to Kazakhstan to fight in the World Series of Boxing, with the L.A. Matadors, and we had to fight against the Kazakhstan team, and the guy who I beat over there fought just like (Zhakiyanov).
“May the best man win, but it’s going to be hard getting the No. 1 spot because I worked very hard for it. Now that I’m in that spot, I’ll continue to keep that spot.”
If Warren defends his belt, will there be a rubber match against Payano? The Dominican Republic fighter certainly wants it.
“Yeah, it can be a trilogy,” Warren said. “We both won one, and I feel like it would only be fair to give him another chance because he gave me a chance. We fought in the amateurs, too, and I beat him.
“We can definitely get it on again, but I feel like he’s going to have to come to Cincinnati and take this title from me.”
(Photo of Warren, right, slugging Juan Carlos Payano in their second fight, by Leo Wilson, PBC)