Gary Antuanne Russell talks to Fight Hype about his split decision loss to Alberto Puello and criticism he received he received afterwards. Russell says he believes he made the mistake of allowing the fight to be too competitive despite feeling like he won, which he believes left the official judges enough wiggle room to favor Puello.
“We had a post press conference and some important people to me outside of my brothers, they was just saying — I respect their opinion — but they was just talking about how I relate to Shawn Porter, I give a Shawn Porter fight style,” Russell said. “I said ‘nah, that’s disrespectful.’ No disrespect to Shawn Porter but honestly he’s one dimensional. Everybody can count on him to put on his football helmet and his shoulder pads and just come in recklessly and being aggressive.
“Now it’s a difference when you’re aggressive and you’re strategic with how you approach your opponent, how you apply your pressure. I can do it in multiple facets…from one to round five I was applying pressure how I normally apply pressure to my opponents, effectively, strategically. But after round five I started deviating from the game plan, which was a fault on me.
“Me, personally, I felt like I did enough to win but I made it too competitive. I look at that as somebody who can get themselves some brownie points if they was to survive with a Mike Tyson. I have a 100% knockout ratio. At this point you didn’t do enough to beat me for real, for real, but because you survived motherfucker, kudos to you, because you survived. They can kind of give you like some brownie points.
“I didn’t feel like he was outclassing me or nothing like that, didn’t hurt me or nothing like that. I felt I made it too competitive to the point where the judges can like lean a goddamn board to the side and say ‘yeah, aight, we can give it to him, he survived.’
“If I see him again I’m going to knock him the fuck out. That’s the whole game plan.”