Cruiserweight reflects on title fights, sparring Chris Byrd, David Benavidez

BJ Flores is a former cruiserweight title contender who has spent the past six years working as a boxing coach. Although best known for his work with Jake Paul, Flores stopped training Paul in February 2023. He now trains influencer fighters such as broadcaster Wade Plemons and Tristan Hamm.

BoxingScene: Who is the best you ever sparred?

BJ Flores: Chris Byrd took it easy on me. He was great. He was really something. When he was the IBF champion, that guy hit me with a left uppercut to the body that I just never saw coming from that angle. He was so good. He was the most difficult guy to hit.

I sparred David Benavidez when he was 16-0, and he was just a monster. He’d stand right in front of you, but he was so defensive. I know you see how he fights now – he catches a lot of shots up close, but he didn’t do that back then. He’d make you miss and counter you. He was really difficult, and he’s a good friend of mine. Now I’m going to his fight February 1 to watch him against David Morrell. I can’t wait for that fight, I’m a big David Benavidez fan.

George Groves, I couldn’t believe how good he was at 15-0, before he won his title. I sparred him in 2011; he was excellent, so sharp, very spiteful. Chad Dawson was so smooth from range. I sparred him before the Antonio Tarver II fight. I sparred David Haye after he became a cruiserweight world champion, after he beat [that] 7ft fighter [Nikolai Valuev]. Sergey Liakhovich, I got to spar him multiple times before he became the champion and beat Lamon Brewster. Ruslan Chagaev was 8-0 when I sparred him, before he had fought IBF world champion John Ruiz. He only did 30-second rests and had a tremendous motor.

Those types of names gave me a lot of perspective on how different styles work for different people and different fighters based on your physical attributes. It’s given me a lot of insight to learn how to move my guys better.

BS: Who is the most intense boxer you remember sparring or fighting?

Flores:  A name I left off – Kubrat Pulev. He was a very intense guy to work with. We did a couple rounds a couple different times. He was a very, very intense guy. I would say he would have to be up there on the list.

This was 2017 or 2018 when I sparred him. He was a handful. He was big. People don’t realize how big that guy is because he fights Anthony Joshua and, you know, guys like that. You see him, he doesn’t look as big, but that’s a massive guy. He’s a handful. Congratulations to him on winning the WBA [regular] championship, and he’s a dangerous guy.

BS: Who is the best you ever fought?

Flores: Danny Green was one of the best. I was 23-0 when I fought him, and I had to go over to Australia, and he was so professional and so sharp, and he was a very difficult guy to hit on the front foot or the back foot. One thing he was able to do very well that I give him credit for is, he was able to counter me on a lot of shots that I threw at him. It made me slow down to think a little more about how to attack because he was able to hit me with counter shots that nobody was able to hit me with. Nobody, didn’t matter who I sparred with. Danny was very sharp that night. He was the best, [most] complete fighter that I ever fought.

BS: Any moments you are proud of in your pro career?

Flores: I kind of let my career … I walked away without a world championship belt. I fought for three world titles. Thing I’m most proud about was beating Darnell Wilson in his hometown for that No. 2 IBF world rating. Everyone said I was going to get knocked out – I was a 3-to-1 underdog – and I beat him in his hometown.

Then the fight I had with Beibut Shumenov for the WBA cruiserweight title. I thought I did enough to win the fight, and everybody else did, too. But the judges didn’t see it that way. I’ve moved on from that now. That really hurt me for a long time. It’s hard to get to those big fights and perform well, and if I would have gotten to the big fight and lost cleanly, I think I probably could have lived with that a little easier than getting there and losing a decision that almost everybody ringside saw me winning. That was one of the most difficult things I had to deal with. It kind of broke my spirit a little bit.

Lucas Ketelle took an unconventional path to boxing, eventually finding his stride in gyms and media. For the past decade, he has hosted the Lukie Boxing podcast, filmed training camps for fighters like Arnold Barboza Jnr, Mikey Garcia, and Caleb Plant, and worked with top professionals like Mike Bazzel. Ketelle is also an author of Inside the Ropes of Boxing, a guide for young fighters, a writer for ProBox TV, BoxingScene, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @LukieBoxing.