22-year-old world champion Abdullah Mason joins Ring Magainze today to discuss his rapid ascension to the top of his division, how he plans to stay there, and where he sees he future in the sport. Mason is currently slated to defend his WBO title against Joe Cordina on July 4, and talks a bit about that matchup as well. Here\u2019s some of what he had to say below.<\/p>\n
Mason on his mindset, going from prospect to world champion<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mindset now is keep doing the same thing until I retire, because every time I step into the ring, anytime I have a fight, the next performance always tops the last one or it\u2019s always a step forward when it comes to what the people are looking forward to\u2026Me being a world champion, that\u2019s the highest it gets in boxing so as long as I keep performing and keep having those stamps every time I step into the ring \u2014 they been calling me the undercard main event since I turned pro. So, just keep doing what I been doing since I turned pro.\u201d<\/p>\n
On what fighter he needs to beat to really establish himself as an elite<\/p>\n
\u201cI really don\u2019t know at this point\u2026For me it\u2019s not really about that, it\u2019s about me doing what I know I can do, me doing my job. And everybody sees the potential, everybody sees where I\u2019m at now and the growth level is crazy. It\u2019s a high ceiling that I feel no other fighter in boxing has. So I feel like if I keep doing what I\u2019m doing, that ceiling will be met.\u201d<\/p>\n
On mixing his boxing ability with a willingness to fight at close range<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it\u2019s more of a certain mentality. Those throwback fighters, they always want to get in there and they have an appetite for smoke just like I got an appetite for smoke. So, it\u2019s something that I step in there, I want to execute the way we train to execute. Every fight not going to be a crazy head-t0-head, toe-to-toe fight. I\u2019m definitely going to box some in fights and move around but every fight not going to have to be like that and every fight I\u2019m not going to have to box\u2026It depends on who I step in there with.\u201d<\/p>\n
On having a tougher than expected fight with Sam Noakes<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now you can say that no other fighter in my division would\u2019ve fought him the way I fought him that night and came out on top and won. With everybody knowing his strong point, his attribute \u2014 his only thing that he really had was him being strong, him being sturdy, him coming forward and his offense just sitting there and being strong. And nobody would\u2019ve sat there with him and made they mind up that I\u2019m going to beat him like this and step to him and I\u2019m going to beat him at his own game and come out on top as world champion.\u201d<\/p>\n
On facing Joe Cordina next<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m going to have a lot of fun in there with Joe Cordina. Joe Cordina, he\u2019s definitely a quick fighter, volume puncher, he\u2019s good with his offense and he\u2019s going to come to work. I got a lot of smoke to give him.\u201d<\/p>\n
On whether he has interest in fighting Raymond Muratalla<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely. Whatever comes next I\u2019ll be ready for, and if it\u2019s Raymond, I\u2019ll be ready for it. If it\u2019s anybody else with a title or for another vacant title, I\u2019ll be ready for it. But I\u2019m open to all possibilities and if that\u2019s what\u2019s next I\u2019ll be prepared for that, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"22-year-old world champion Abdullah Mason joins Ring Magainze today to discuss his rapid ascension to the top of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,85],"class_list":["post-699264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}