By Ian Aldous: This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with Seth Mitchell (25-1-1) as he looks to get his career back on track after suffering defeat to Johnathon Banks last November. Despite that defeat, Mitchell and his team will look to press on and get the big fights he craves allowing Seth to prove himself as a genuine world heavyweight contender. Seth spoke with me prior to attending the Lamont Peterson vs. Kendall Holt fight last Friday.
Just ten days away from his rematch with Johnathon Banks and a shot at redemption, Seth Mitchell receives the call that all fighters dread during training. “Someone from my team called and told me that Johnathon Banks had hurt his hand and they were gonna get back with me to let me know the severity of it. They said they think he’d broke his hand but waited for the x-rays just to clarify it, so I found out on Tuesday and then on Wednesday it was official that the fight was pretty much (off). Even if I was going to fight, which was highly unlikely because of the late notice, it wasn’t going to be Johnathon Banks.”
The fight was all set to be the co-main event to the Adrien Broner vs. Gavin Rees show from Atlantic City, New Jersey. A fellow U.S heavyweight did put his name forward to take the place of Banks, but unfortunately that particular fight couldn’t be brought to fruition. “Bryant Jennings, I guess his team had called out Golden Boy (promotions) and said they would take the fight. I was willing to take the fight but it just didn’t materialize.”
So, imagine working on a project at your job for weeks and then ten days from completion, you have to down tools and forget about it. That’s the position a fighter finds himself in when a fight is cruelly taken away by either an injury to yourself or your foe. “It’s frustrating and very disappointing but as a fighter you have to know that these things happen in boxing and you can’t let it bring you down too much, we’re only human. So, it does frustrate you but it frustrates you even more when it happens so late, not five or six weeks out. At least you have an ample amount of time to find a replacement but when it’s that close to the fight and you put in your heart and your soul in your training and you’re salivating just to get in the ring and then you get the call that it’s not gonna happen, it’s a bummer.”
After the obvious disappointment of the first fight with Banks and a maiden defeat of his professional career, you have to admire Seth and his team for wanting an immediate rematch with Banks and not going another avenue, as many fighters will do following a tough loss. He wants to right what he sees as the wrongs of the last fight. “Absolutely, I’ll say this: when the stakes are high, I don’t bet with my heart, I bet with my head, my mind and I truly believe that I can beat Johnathon Banks. If he was outboxing me and outclassing me for five or six rounds and then he knocks me out, the competitor in me would have still wanted a rematch but I would’ve taken a few more fights before I went back for the rematch. I don’t feel that was the case. Not saying he caught me with a lucky shot because he didn’t, I was lunging and reaching and he did what he was supposed to do, but that wont happen this time.”
What makes Mitchell think we’ll see a very different outcome from the first bout? “Without getting into too many details, I’m a quick learner and this fight has definitely taught me a lot. I’m excited to get back out there and just show my improvements. I’ve learned a lot from the fight. Looking at that fight, I wasn’t getting dominated, my technique was wrong, my balance (was wrong) and I was reaching a lot, I was lunging a lot, so those are just some of the things that we’ve worked on. I’m not one for a lot of words and I’m not one to talk a lot. I can say that I’ve gotten better but until I show it in the ring, it really doesn’t matter. That’s why I’m so excited to get back in the ring and show my improvements.”
It’s a fair assessment to make that Mitchell had steam-rolled through the majority of his opponents. Big victories immediately preceded the Banks fight with exciting and quick wins over the previously never-been-stopped, Timur Ibragimov and Chazz Witherspoon. It’s feasible that over-confidence may have infiltrated his mind. “Not at all. I don’t underestimate any of my opponents. I train extremely hard so I’m always in shape when I get in there and I know that anybody can be beat on any given day. Now, with that being said, I did steam-roll twelve of my thirteen opponents before that fight, so you don’t really see how much you have to change when everything is going well and I could admit to that. As far as me underestimating him, no, I had respect for him. I trained extremely hard but my technique was wrong and when I went back and viewed some of my prior fights, I did some of the same things that I did in this fight, in those fights, they just didn’t capitalize on them.”
No date had been set for the rematch during our conversation. “It’s still unknown, I’m waiting just like you. I’m very confident within the next week or two weeks, I’ll have a date lined up.” Time is of the essence and he rightly wants to get his career back on track ASAP. “Absolutely, that’s why I can’t wait to get him back in the ring. Hopefully he’ll be able to get back in the ring and it wont be that long because I don’t wanna wait until May to fight, that’ll be another six months out of the ring for me and I want to stay active this year. I was hoping to fight four times this year but we’ll sit down and I would like to fight before May and if I don’t, I’m a firm believer in ‘everything happens for a reason’ but I’ll be ready when I step in the ring.”
The big win for Tony Thompson this past weekend over David Price appears to echo what happened to Seth last November, a bona-fide heavyweight prospect unexpectedly suffering the first defeat of his respective career by second round stoppage. One loss doesn’t spell the end like so many fans seem to want it to. Thompson believes he’s the No.1 U.S heavyweight, while Seth sees himself not too far away. “I think I’m right there in the mix with them. I think I can contest any of those fighters right now. I believe I’m up at the top of the heavyweights right now. I just have to go out there and show improvements and get the job done in my next fight and everything else will speak for itself.”
Comments are closed.