by Natasha Aiello | Tue. Jan. 11, 2011

Check out these excerpts from ONTHEGRiND BOXiNG's in-depth exclusive interview with veteran cornerman, Lenny De Jesus. As a cutman and trainer, De Jesus has worked the corner assisting and attending to such legends as; Angelo Dundee, Eddie Futch, Al Gavin, Carlos Ortiz, Roberto Duran, Hector Camacho, Wilfredo Gomez, Wilfredo Benitez, Alexis Arguello and Carlos Santos. More recently, De Jesus has worked with Joel Casamayor, and served for three years under Freddie Roach as Manny Pacquiao's cutman. De Jesus stepped into the role of head-trainer for Joshua Clottey prior his bout with Pacquiao, creating another subplot in the Manny Pacquiao story that turned out to be more eventful than the actual fight. In the pre-fight build up, De Jesus made claims he had the "key to beating Pacquiao." In his interview with ONTHEGRiND BOXiNG, De Jesus revealed what the key is and shared his take on some of boxing's hottest topics.

Looking Back On Joshua Clottey vs Miguel Cotto...

“With the Cotto fight, I also worked in his corner and he made it close. I would go as far as saying he did enough to lose, not enough to win when he fought Cotto. Yet there, we were trying to push him to throw more punches and give Cotto more of a fight when we had Cotto cut. Even though it was an unintentional head-butt, when you have an individual who is cut, go for the jugular vein – the cut. And try to make more damage, and maybe the fight will get stopped and we get a TKO. 0

Joshua Clottey does not go all the way."

Claims of Possessing The Key To Beating Pacquiao & The Key Revealed...

“Well you know what happened was that I had a fighter (Clottey) that didn’t have the confidence that I was putting into him. In other words, when I trained him I said, 'If you do exactly what I tell you, we’ve got a win.' That’s how sure I was to beat Pacquiao.

I got an idea that we could beat him because we had the height, the strength and he [Clottey] had a bigger body than Pacquiao, you know, he had all the things to actually knock him out because that’s what my training was based on – to knock out Pacquiao. Because [if] we would have gone 12 rounds, and the decision would have been close, Pacquiao gets the nod, no matter which way you look at it. 

When I said I had the key, it was to go for the body inside and try to do damage, because Pacquiao got knocked out by one body-shot many years ago. A lot of people don’t know that. But when he got stopped, it was a body-shot.

In this case, [Clottey], after the fight told me that he did not want to give Freddie Roach the satisfaction that Manny Pacquiao got him knocked-out because Freddie Roach had said in the [press] conference that this is the first time that my guy is going to get knocked out.

So that came into play – as an excuse, more or less – and this is why he said, ‘I wanted to last all 12 rounds."'

Pacquiao's Punching Bag & A Trip To The Bank...

"But I said, ‘This is not fighting because you went down the tubes, because a lot of people don’t want a guy to just be a punching bag.'

And that’s what he was. A punching bag.

At the end I was almost going to tell him, ‘Give me your gloves and I’ll get in there and I’ll beat the hell out of Pacquiao.'

He [Clottey] did not do exactly as I said, and yet he did enough damage to Pacquiao. You know, Pacquiao had more swelling in his face than my guy. My guy came out with no marks…but yet his stock, instead of going up, went all the way down.

I would have rather seen him get knocked-out than go the distance, so then maybe you could say, ‘Well at least he tried, but he got knocked out.’

There’s no shame.

Sometimes people can get on your inside and I think Freddie Roach is good at that. When he told him that, 'Pacquiao is gonna be the first guy that’s going to knock out Joshua Clottey,' that bothered him and that got into his game plan.

In the third round, I more or less knew already that we had sort of like, a chicken in the corner. I’m not afraid to say it. When you fight the way he did, I think we had a guy that was afraid to throw his punches…this is a hurting game. You throw punches, you do your best.

He [Clottey] went there, I would go as far as saying - to survive. And take his million dollars and go to the bank laughing."

On Joshua Clottey's Future...

“He is still good out there. He is still a product to be reckoned with. But which TV [entity]; HBO, ESPN, whoever, would want a fighter who didn’t…he didn’t earn his money, let me put it more blunt. You should do a little more to earn your money. I mean you go, you get a job for a million dollars and you sit down and you read a magazine and you chew gum? I mean, what is that? But if you go to the job and you did your role and you do everything, you earn the money.”