O’SHAQUIE FOSTER Q&A
improved through the years? OF: Being more aware of my body and keeping up with the little things. I know I always had the talent. I am reaching new levels of training. I’m breaking new barriers now. The Fulton fight brought that other level out. He was the most accomplished fighter I ever fought, and everyone was praising him and questioning my skills. I had something to prove. I was ready for that fight. For the Ray Ford fight, I really pushed it. I was doing 10-mile runs, and the eighth mile, I would run backwards, then switch up and run forward the last mile. I was sparring three, four guys for five-, six-minute rounds, really pushing myself to levels I never reached before. That’s the best shape I was ever in. I know this is what I have to do to get in the pound- for-pound [rankings]. I made 130 easy, but with Ford, it was way easier. Ring: Which is a perfect segue to my next question: What weight classes are you looking to conquer moving forward? OF: I want to go all the way up: next 135,
then 140 and eventually 147. I can’t see myself fighting [until I’m] 40. I can see myself fighting into my late 30s. I want to retire from the sport; I won’t let boxing retire me. I see the way Floyd [Mayweather] and [Terence] Crawford got out of the game; I want to go out like them. I have had spells when I have been inactive. I’m 32, but I feel like I’m a fresh 32, because I haven’t been consistently fighting over the years like a normal world champion. I’m 32, but I have a 27-year-old body. But I don’t see fighting until 40 ahead. (laughs) I feel fresher now than I did when I was in my 20s. I want to make the step to 135 in 2027 – that’s definitely going to happen. Ring: I can’t help but notice this constant war of words between you and Stevenson. Where does that stem from? OF: The world knows it’s a rivalry. (laughs) Shakur wanted me to fight his man Ray Ford, and he was someone who had a style similar to Stevenson. Stevenson pushed me to make that fight, and if I won, he said he would fight me.
He didn’t fight me. He didn’t keep his word. He went on the internet saying I had to beat Ray Ford to fight him, and I did that. He likes to talk. I just hope the fans and media stay on his head. I hope they stay on his head and make it happen. Ring: You think Stevenson is afraid of you? OF: I know he’s afraid of me. Every time they bring me up, he gets shaky and makes excuses when he doesn’t want to fight me. I beat Ray Ford, and then [he says] I need to beat [WBC lightweight titleholder] William Zepeda. I need to do more at 130. I need to accomplish something at 135. Shakur keeps moving the goalposts. I just want to show the world I’m better. The stuff he says about me and the stuff he does isn’t normal for a world champion. If you’re a champion, a true champion, you should want to fight the best. I’ll come up and fight him. He makes excuses. Ring: Why do you feel you can beat Stevenson? OF: Honestly, I feel like I can do more in the ring than he can. I have more grit. I have a higher IQ. I feel like I can do it all. And then we have history. I’ve been in the ring with him numerous times sparring. I know what he can and what he can’t do. I’ve seen it. The things he said about us sparring was that I lied when I said I beat him up. Then he changed his mind and said it was true, I did beat him up, but he said he was up with his girlfriend the whole night before. (laughs) So was I. (laughs) We sparred a couple of times. The first time we sparred was in 2016. The sparring sessions I’m talking about happened during 2020. He said on Andre Ward’s podcast that I got the best of him and had all these excuses as to why. He was lying saying it didn’t happen. I would say we sparred five,
six times. I would say this: I had my way with him every time we sparred, but the last time we sparred, when he was training for Felix Caraballo in The Bubble, I got the better of him. And I did it when I wasn’t even training for a fight. I’m a logical man. I was the one up all night. I was the one laying in the ring waiting for him to start. (laughs) My confidence was high. He was training for a fight and I wasn’t. He knew I led. Ring: Excuse me for asking this, but do you have any relationship with Stevenson? OF: I definitely don’t like the guy. We used to be cool. Not anymore. No, I don’t like him. Stuff transpired. He is too arrogant. He thinks he is better than everyone else. He has gone Hollywood. I don’t like people like that. The only way to shut him up is to beat him up. There is no other way to handle it than to beat him up. He’s so scared to lose; he wants to protect that ‘0’ so much that he is afraid to take chances – and fighting me would be taking a big risk, because I’ll beat him and he knows it. He wants to avoid real tests. Ring: How close do you feel you are to the pound-for-pound list? OF: I definitely think I’m close. I feel I’m starting to get the credit I deserve. I still get excuses around me. People think I’m beating these guys by accident somehow. I think I’m one more fight from touching the pound-for-pound list. There is hardly anyone in the game with a resume like me. Everyone I’ve fought in the last three, four years at the time I fought them were top two, top three in the world. My overall body of work says I should be on the pound-for-pound list, though I do know the politics of boxing and I know the robbery against Conceicao the first time put me back. Ring: What was the fight in your career where you gained the most? OF: I would say the first Conceicao fight. I say that because he changed my drive;
Foster learned some valuable lessons from a points loss to Robson Conceicao.
than normal people, because I was the one who always had to figure it out. I was disciplined a lot as a little kid. Boxing did save me. If I wasn’t boxing, I would still be in the streets, and boxing took me out of the circumstances I was already in, facing 20 years in prison for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That person and this person are two different people. I had a lot going on around me, and my [paternal] grandmother had just died. She was the one who raised me after my mother died. That’s what brought out the anger. Everything happened after the Rolando Chinea fight (an eight-round split decision loss in July 2016). I would go from being in the streets to trying to box. Nothing, at that time, was working. I went from the Chinea fight and I was off 18 months to fight [Andrew] Goodrich. I sat four months in a prison cell (May 2017-September 2017). I was given a certain warrant. I got out. But staring down at the concrete prison floor, it makes you think. I thought it was over. Through time, I began working out and having these dreams of doing what I’m doing today. Yeah, it’s like I dreamed all this up.
it made me know to always finish strong. Finish every round, from start to finish. [Don’t] give away any rounds. Stay consistent. I learned a lot of lessons in that fight. It’s all of that. Ring: You come from a hard background. You’re the second oldest of eight who lost your mother when you were 12 and went right from her funeral to a Golden Gloves fight. You wiped away the tears and went on to a fight. How many 12-year-old kids would do that? OF: No one. I was 12 and left my mother’s funeral to go to a Golden Gloves tournament. I was angry. I was confused. I was disappointed. I couldn’t express myself like I wanted to, because I had no one to express it to. I always fight in memory of my mom. In time, anger built up. It built up because a coldness builds when the person that was supposed to love you for the rest of your life is gone. My dad was a tough man. A lot of times going through things, you go through them alone. That made me stronger. It made me stronger
Rey Vargas lost his 36-fight unbeaten streak to Foster.
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