Camp Gagnon - Boxer Saves Mom From Soviet Serial Killer, Meeting Mike Tyson, & Becoming Champion

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Yuri Foreman is the first jewish world champion boxer. He's lived a crazy life, growing up in Soviet Union, saving his mom from kidnappers, meeting his hero Mike Tyson, and fighting in a sold out Yankee Stadium. He's like real life Rocky.Produced and edited by: @99OvrAll Thank you to ZippexBluechewMorgan & Morgan

My mom got kidnapped. One day, her classmate came home, crying and screaming to my dad. And she's like, they took her, they took her. And my dad, like, who finished? Who took her? They took Irka. She said the car stopped. Two guys grabbed her, put her in the bag and just went out. That was during time of Chikotillo.

Chikotillo was a Russian mass serial killer. He killed so many teenagers, young women. My dad, for days, he was gone. My grandma, she started every day, calling more. That was like horrifying. And the story was they put her in the cage for two days. For two days she was in the cage in some room. My mom was very beautiful and her friend was clearly not.

No offense, but she was not a looker. Did you ever see the guy that saved your mom? This is Yuri Form. He's the first Jewish World Welterweight boxing champion and even was the main event at a sold-out Yankee Stadium. This guy's boxing career is absolutely amazing. career is absolutely amazing, but his life stories are even crazy. Today, he's going to tell us about how he survived nuclear fallout from Chernobyl.

And that's probably I got my superpower. Oh, that's crazy. Well, you actually played in the radioactive room? Oh, yeah, yeah, all the time. How he moved to America as a janitor with a dream. And how he met his boxing hero, Mike Tyson. My conversation with Yuri was absolutely amazing. He is just an incredible dude and an amazing storyteller.

His life is complicated and has so many twists and turns. He's had such a tough upbringing, but never quit. He never stopped and eventually became the champion of the world. I'm inspired by Yuri, and if you're someone that's going through something and you're maybe having a tough time or you're facing some challenges and you're looking for inspiration or trying to hear a story about someone that never stopped fighting, that never gave up, this is the one for you. So without further ado, enjoy Yuri Foreman. Welcome to Cam. Have ever had a funny name for like your boxing matches?

You know how they'll have like the rumble in the jungle Or like they'll have like funny names, you know what I mean? Sparmitza. The Sparmitza. The Sparmitza. Yeah, Sparmitza. Dude, the Sparmitza is great. Yeah, Sparmidzah.

So for those listeners who don't know, like bar mitzvah, bar mitzv, when the kid at age 13 becomes 13, he start observing all the commandments. And that's a big thing in Jewish kind of life. So 13 is called Bar Mitzvah So that's the word of Sparmidzvah. That's great. I love that. And also, of course,

Gofelta fist. Whoa, Gafelta fist is great. That's so funny. Yeah. Gepelta fish, obviously, is like a very popular Ashkenazi Jewish dish. Of course, because I know some Ashkenazis, and they do not want to be lumped in with Sephardic.

Especially food-wise. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think the other way around. I think Sephardic don't want to be in the lamp with us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's some Moroccans that are like, yeah, yeah, we are not, we don't eat gefelta fish. We're not even...

In the Arkansas, they have a great food, though. Yes. It's good, right? We're just eating some bread and some, I don't know, like tuna bagel. Yeah. Tuna bagel? Latka's are good. It's usually like bagel with the tuna.

It's not tuna bagel. Yeah. So I'm curious about just starting from the beginning. I mean, an insane career. You were born. in the USSR. And what was the city we're born in? So it's city Gommel.

Now it's actually Belarus. My city, Gommel, was the closest to closest to Chernobyl. Oh, really? If anybody have seen, I don't know if today people read history or anything like that, but great HBO show at Chernobyl. Yeah, the show was really popular.

It was very good. Yeah, very good. I watched it. and 1986, it's happened. I actually remember when it's happened. How far was your town from Chernobyl?

So about maybe 60 miles, I would say 60 miles. Were you living in Gomo when that happened? Yeah, when that happened. Wow. Tell me that whole day. So I don't remember what my parents taught because first of all,

people not right away heard about what really happened. because Soviet government, you know, hiding from people, not the first time, hiding those kind of things. And they didn't even know what kind of extend, what kind of, it's only, I think, I believe Swedish start calling Soviets by kind of like their, what's it called this device, whatever the, I forgot to prevent it. And not to say any kind of a curse words. No, you can curse. Geiger counter. Geiger counter.

They started noticing like a crazy elevation and radiation, and they kind of raised the alarm and it became like really, you know, you're kind of living in the machine that takes the images of you. Like a cat scan. A cat skin. Yeah. So my parents sent me to Estonia. Because of Chernobyl?

Because of Chernobyl. So everybody, all the kids have to be evacuating below seven. If you're seven, you're fine. I was like six. So they say the logic, kind of a similar logic, what during the pandemic six feet distance would protect you, you know, by one meter below surface. But average six years old is within the meter,

so you have to go till they are seven. So my parents sent me to Estonia for three months to my great grandma. And then I came back because I turned seven. And my parents took me back and it was fine. But the best, the best, I'm telling you. I had to show my wife, she didn't believe that. Because I say the weatherman, like the weather channel, we didn't have weather channel. But at the end of the news, they tell you like five minutes, like the regions of Soviet Union

where there's raining, where there's sunny. Or there's nuclear fallout. And they say, stay home. We're expecting, we're expecting on Wednesdays and Thursday, a radioactive rainfall. And so my parents always like, told me, you're not going outside, you know, because radioactive rain, you know. Yeah. So, and, you know, you kind of, you can't as a kid, you're going out.

Your parents goes to work. We didn't have iPads to stay home. So we're going outside. And, you know, you're going in, you're playing in rain, and you're fine, and you didn't die. And that's probably I got my superpower. Oh, that's crazy. Well, you actually played in the radioactive rain? Oh, yeah, yeah, all the time, because it's just regular rain, you know.

Hey, what's up, guys? Sorry to interrupt this amazing program, but I need a little bit of help. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can probably see our subscriber number right down here. And if you're able to, it would mean the world if you could subscribe. That is the best way to support this show. Because when you subscribe, I'm able to show it to potential guests or to different brands and stuff like that. And it really, really helps grow the show, get us cooler guests, have cooler conversations. And it helps everything so, so much.

So if you don't mind, thank you so much. Let's get back to it. That's crazy. Did you ever know anyone that got like a little thing for sure know? You know what? You know what? Actually, later, when I already living in Israel, the highest rate of type of cancer, cancer, what's called, the area here,

they have this cancer. Lymphoma? Not lymphoma, something else. Where is it? It's in your throat? It's a throat, like thyroid cancer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The highest, like, among kids, you know.

Damn. I think now it's like, you know, I don't know if now, but like, hey, they say the radiation about to stand up for like 300 years or something. That's crazy. So within six years of your life, you're playing in radioactive rain, you survive Chernobyl. You survived Chernobyl, but then it's going to decline, you know, at some point. But anyway, I moved to Israel with my parents in 91 right before the collapse of Soviet Union. Oh, wow.

And, yeah. So you lived in the USSR for like 10, 11 years. Yeah, almost 11, yeah. Almost 11. And how was it? Was it difficult growing up in that area? Was it challenging? So my parents never told me that I'm Jewish.

So that's one. And my dad, my parents were, you know, like Soviet family. I just one kid or maybe two kids. And it was nice. I have a good memory in terms of sports. Sports were free, you know. They were pressuring parents when you child turned six or seven. You have to do some sort of kind of a sport, you know.

So they sent me to swimming classes. And after swimming class, I got bullied a couple times by older kids. I got beat up a couple times. And then my mom, like, you know what? my former classmate is a boxing coach and I'm going to take you to him it's in the same building as as a

it's kind of a sport center and the same building as swimming and the second floor there's boxing and I remember kind of nervous I was like oh no no no I was a very shy kid but I remember going to the second floor all the sports

wrestling Chudo, aerobics, gymnastics like first of the best spot and then you're going like kind of almost climbing that that ladder you have like you're going to like

and there's like a and you hear through the through the door the sound of speed like when there's big punches of heavy bags and I was like

what the heck is going on and I walked in and the first thing is not the aura but the smell the scent of this place it was a leather you know like a leather like a smell of a leather

like a very distinct like kind of a shoemaker I don't know and there was a huge pile of this old kind of brown gloves and I was looking at it and kids running around

like doing kind of a Soviet style I'll warm up. And the coach sees my mom. And it's like, oh, hi, Rina. How are you? And it's like, this is him? All right. Change, go in.

Go right inside. And I started and I loved it. Like, right away. Really? Yeah. And shortly after, like American kids, like my kids now, I have three kids, they like Marble. like marvels, you know, the superheroes.

We didn't have superheroes. Yeah. Besides Stalin and Lenin's superheroes, you know, he didn't have much superheroes. Wait, so why were you bullied for swimming? Yeah. So in the end of the class, you're going to showers, all right? So butt-negated, everybody are going to like showers, you know? And, you know, waiting for your shower, you know, like getting in, you're going to wash

your chlorine, whatever. and one older kid, maybe two years older. I was seven, so he was nine, you know, and he told me, go pick up, go get me my towel. I'm not getting a towel, you go get it. So he takes his bag with soap dish, whatever the soap, and he kind of hit me a couple times with it. So he gave me one black guy, and he gave me the second black.

And I was crying I couldn't deal with the stress of this and I came home I was embarrassed and my mom decided you know what kid

I'm gonna have to build you first build you up Wow And your parents didn't tell you that you were Jewish No I didn't even know like what's I remember Some classmates were picking up on the kid

And they would kill him Shit And shit is Because jit is a kind of a name of a Jew. But it's more of like in Russian it comes more of a regatory term for a Jew. And I was asking my parents, what is, what is jit? Now it's kind of Yid, in Yiddish with Yid, which is not, not somebody calls me, EU Jew. I'm not going to get offended.

Oh, yeah, good. All right. So what's next? So Yeah So yeah You get bullied You know But your parents didn't want you to be bullied

Like what was the I think you Kind of protect your Kids asking questions Do you guys have kids? No No God willing

You know When you are Ready And you have Beautiful and healthy kids And kids You know You know

Um I want to have a lot of kids. Yeah, of course. But the hair like yours, man. They're like jeans like, like your self-portrait here, right? Exactly. What is that? A Passover?

Yeah, yeah, it is, actually. That's a Jewish meal. Jewish meal. Yeah, that's the Last supper. Oh, last supper. Oh, last supper. in that time, in that place to be Jewish? So, I was asking my dad, my dad went to Army in 70s.

So he went to Army 79, 79. And I was asking him, how did you experience in the anti-Semitism? He experienced because he's dark hair. He looks more of a Jew, you know. He could also look like an Arab. as well or Italian, you know, from South Italy somewhere. And I say, yeah, but towards 80s, 80s already, like mid-80s, things started getting kind of on decline.

More of, they start opening churches here and there. So more of spirituality was more like acceptable. And Judaism Jews were, you know, most Jews, they were Soviet, you know. They might not have a perfectly Slavic last name, and that would be already a, I would say, a limitation. The top scientist is not going to be a top scientist because his last name would be Greenwald or something, Iceberg. you know who sang the Titanic A Jew, Iceberg Oh, I'm like a iceberg

By the way, I like anti-Semitic jokes Russians have the best anti-Semitic jokes Oh really? What's a good one that you've heard? One is for example I think it's not even maybe this one It might be not a Russian

But the two Jews when they meet in Florida. They both retired. They're from New York. And I say, Moshe, how are you? Like, you've done well for yourself. What's happened?

Like, I had the company. You know, the business, I had the textile company, and the business burned. You know, I collected insurance. Now I live in Florida. And I was like, what's up with you? I was like, I had also textiles in L.A., you know.

And earthquake, happened. I lost everything. I collect the insurance also retired here in Florida. And he says, how do you do an earthquake? That's like anti-Semitic, but... That's funny. Okay, I got one. I got. This one is going to be a two-for-one, because I'm Catholic. So I'm allowed to say this. Okay, this is going to be a Catholic Jewish joke. There's a priest and a rabbi, and they're sitting on a bench, and all of a sudden a little boy walks by, and they both look at him. And the priest turns to the rabbi. and goes, see that little boy, let's fuck him.

And the rabbi says, out of what? That's pretty good. That's pretty good, right? That's a two for one. You're allowed to say that. Yeah. I like the priest joke, you probably heard about a priest in boxing match. I always, through my Jewish community, I switch to rabbi, not the priest.

But anyway, it's a priest. Originally, I heard it as a priest. is a ring side. Ring side and two boxers coming in and one of the boxers going to the corner, like Rocky Balboe, you know, doing the what are you called? The sign of the cross. Sign of the cross, you know, in praise. And the guy is next to the priest.

Like, hey, hey, father, what you think? Like the guy who just prayed, you think you're going to win now? And it's like, I don't know if you're going to win. I hope he trained hard, you know. So it's like kind of explains the boxing. of it's good to pray it's good to but you still have to wake up early in the morning and

do your road work one of my favorite fighters are Marvin Hagler rest in peace he once he beat already Tommy Hearns and they're saying that

how is it to be a champ and he says it's hard to wake up now to wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and you're saying that's silk pajamas in a warm bed, you know. Exactly. But you still have to do it.

Exactly. You want to be successful. That's the same, bro. It's hard to be a champ when you're sleeping in silk sheets. Exactly. That's what they say. I wanted to know growing up back in now Belarus, but USSR, your parents, what was your dad like and what was your mom like? Very supportive, very loving.

I was a little bit spoiled with attention because any time my dad would be working, my mom, if she'll be somewhere else, my grandma was also living with us and my grandpa who was living in one bedroom apartment with a lot of adults and now retrospectively now I remember like, why is they fighting? Why are the fighting?

You know, it's such a nice. It's so good. Like, you know, but I remember, you know, when too many adults in one place yeah, feel buttheads. It's like two Jews, three opinions. So, but they were supportive.

My dad was you know, he was trying, you know, it was kind of besides working, he was trying to, you know, make a couple business, side business, things, but he would get arrested a couple times. You got arrested? I arrested because, you know, things in Soviet Union, a lot of things were not permitted, you know. If my dad would get, if the entire city or region don't have, let's say, Adidas shoes. you know like people would pay you a lot of rubles if you get that high in-demand product yeah you guys love those tracks suits so my dad would find something like that he would he would cross the border to Poland he would get there for cheaper and come and resell

it you know which is not bad because I mean that's his time you know he should be selling you know that's legit it's not legal yeah so he um he would get arrested and he would not serve time but they beat the shit out of him

oh really yeah I remember my dad came home one day and I was like eight years old and it was summer and he would show my mom because my mom's like where are you been where are you being like what's going on like and he would remove

his his uh his uh shirt and And I remember counting on his back, butons. Poor, like, butones, there's so many. And I remember my dad, my dad, like, go to your room. I didn't have my room. It was like my grandparents' room, you know.

And I remember counting, like, 17 marks. And all I heard it from, they say, like, they would beat the shit out of us, take a break, then beat the shit out of us. And my mom was like, what? You do, you know? And it's like, oh, you're trying to get as, like, a ball of getting the ball and trying to protect your organs or something. And that was like one of the things I think my parents started thinking about immigration. Wow.

And what was the crime that he committed? It was forbidden to sell products if you're not a... state-owned store. So even just selling products. Yeah, you can. You can. Wow. So that was it.

And growing up, you were cut off from all, like, Western media, right? Like, there was a... Oh, yeah, no. Like, there was no... So, when I was eight, and I already started boxing. So my Marvel heroes, and besides the leaders, I, my... It's funny, I'm going to day. progress. My

ABC book was a we call it Grandpa Lenin. That was the picture of Grandpa Lenin. Wait, really? Yeah, Lenin was the founder, even though it was not a founder, but it was a leader, the first leader of Soviet Union.

And that was his picture. And he looked very kind always. So I always called him Dadduska Lenin, because in the school, that's how you said, Deduska Lenin, the grandfather, Lenin, you know, like North Korea now, you know. And I remember I came home one day. I was seven or six.

I was learning ABC, maybe five. Maybe I was five. I don't remember what age we learned ABC, probably before that. And I came and I said to my dad, oh, look my book with the grandfather, Lenin. And my father is, it looks like, this piece of shit. and once this shit my whole world turned out

so my dad was he had beautiful hair as yours in Soviet Union it was unacceptable his we had a vannial player

like record player and and the track record the track whatever is called like the what's the the final

not the vinyl with one rolling you know like one rolling and like a cassette it's not a cassette but like a big cassette you know okay yeah like an eight track or something the eight track or something like that yeah so he had black Sabbath

deep purple Led Zeppelin all forbidden like he would serve probably if they would know that he listened to this kind of very on very forbidden music you know

you would get probably serious trouble. Wow. So that's what he grew up, and his favorite band, Deep Purple. Black Sabbath is one of his second favorite, Led Zeppelin, Queen and those bands. So I was growing up listening to that music. Wow.

And, and, you know. Did you know it was forbidden at the time? I, my parents says, Yuri, don't tell your friends. That's, and it's fine. Okay, I was always like keeping my, my promises. Wow. And would they play it, like, quiet?

Quiet, yeah, quiet. Towards already, like, 88, 89. My dad, I remember he bought, he paid, I don't know how much money. For that amount of, like, whatever money, he paid 800 rubles for a record. music player, whatever, it's called Sharp, like a big with the two dynamic stereo and two cassette and you can re-record, you tape and record.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the radio and stuff. Yeah, radio, and he was, like, blasting music. So 88, it was already like Pedestroika, when Reagan was already kind of getting body, body with the Gorbachev, things were getting laxed. He was blasting that music. Wow. Oh, that's awesome.

So your dad's kind of like punk rock. He was punk rock before. He was punk rock for that era. Yeah. Wow. For that. And he was raised there also? He was raised there.

Yeah, it was raised there. It was very anti-regime. He was like, because that's why they forbade the rock and roll. It was forbidden because music change. Music change people. You know, they knew, the Soviets knew the lyrics not going to sit well with our programming, our propaganda. Yeah, we got to fight

for our right to party. Yeah, you know, it's not going to work. So, so, so my, so my, my, my, um, my,

my, my marble heroes where, for the first time, I think in 1989, they showed the first American fight in Soviet Union.

And it was amazing. It blew my mind. It was Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson was my Batman. He was my super, Superman. anybody like the thing when I was I was into martial arts I was into watching like

Bruce Lee Jackie Chan movies Jack Norris and but once I've seen Mike Tyson going to the ring and I was like maybe a year into boxing and and you know like a kid's asking their father's like which who's stronger this guy or this strong or this guy stronger which guy like you know that's that was like those kind of questions and that moment when Mike Tyson walked into the ring and the translator saying this

most amazing words description letters and gentlemen this is Mike Tyson himself in his traditional black pants with no rope and black shoes with no socks

that was my Pandora Box just been not open. It was exploded into thousands of pieces. Like, no socks? Who does that? Like, do you have to be like

some kind of an American person to wear shoes, no socks? Like, people, normal people wear socks. And that part, and he was fighting Donovan and Razor Roddock, the Canadian

guy. I didn't know. He was a big, big dude. I didn't even know that Mike Tyson going to take on him. And I haven't seen power, so much, like so much power in one man. Like, he blew my mind.

Like, at that moment, I knew, I don't care. I want to be a boxer. That's amazing. That's, like, that's something. And my parents, like, first of all,

like, in our city, Gomel, and it was, it's not, big city, but third biggest city probably in Belarus, and it's like 500,000 people live in it, you know? And I remember my parents

brought, they borrowed or they rented a VCR for it was 1986, 87. And they brought 20, like VHS and

the movies. Like, I have goosebumps even saying like, because it takes me back because there was movies Rocket 3 Terminator 1 a bunch of Tom and Jerry's Star Wars

When I start Like my parents They told me For the next two days You're not going to school Because you're going to be watching this No way You can watch anything you want

And I couldn't stop For me that was like a mana For the Jews in the desert. I was absorbing Star Wars. I was absorbing Terminator 1. You know, it was like, like we had the action movies in Soviet Union.

Action movies were second lower. When you shoot from the, like your pistol here. Yeah. Like, and somebody dies. Oh, you know, those kind of things. Corny, but that was action for me, for me, you know. For the first eight years of life or something. It's like, we would watch that when Arnold Schwarzenegger have a soul chasing someone.

Oh, he's been chased by electric, man, whatever they call the guy from the running man. Yeah, yeah. And then I knew, why am I in Soviet Union? Wow. So you downloaded that all in one day basically. It's like, it's like I've been watching this like, like, Star Wars, oh my goodness, like, did whatever I could absorb in my six, seven years old brain and Rocky. And that's, I knew like, I want to be in Soviet Union in America.

Wow. And like, I need to go there. That's crazy. Yeah. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because it's 2024. And it's time to talk about something important. When you are seriously hurt, your injury could be worth.

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law that's pound 529 from your cell phone that's for the people f-or the people dot com slash gag non or dial pound law pound 529 from your cell phone this is a paid advertisement now let's get back to the show after the short disclaimer so the first 10 years of your life you're just like in soviet union life is pretty like boring it's fine but it's just it's it's it's a lot And you're getting, you're the subject of propaganda. People are programming you with propaganda. You're getting it in school. Like, did you have to do, like, recite, like, the Soviet National Anthem and things like that?

So we had to recite a lot of, so the good things that would they, I would think, I would say, good, is a lot of poetry for the kids. You have to memorize, if they would punish you, you would have to memorize three or four pages of poetry. But the classic poetry of, like, poets of Russia, like, angels. Russian, like not ancient, I'm sort of like a Russian empire, you know. So, but that would be good for memory, your catching information faster. But I would say one thing is there was not so much, it was quite a bit of lowlessness as well. Oh, really? Yeah.

It was dangerous. Dangerous. When I've seen one of those days, I've seen Crocodile D. I was watching among that movie, it was Crocodile D. Like, you call it a knife? Now, this is a knife. Yeah. My dad had one of those knives at home.

And I remember he was working in Kazakhstan in some kind of a building project, whatever company. I don't know. He would gone for 10 days or sometimes two weeks, but he would leave home. And I would say, Yuri, I was just like, you know what I'm talking about as a habit. like Yuri, you're the man now, you know? And I took it always like I would be is eight years old. And anytime my mom, I was eight, so my mom was 28. And she would, you know, my dad is home.

She's going to her friends, you know, drinking or something. She's going, you know. And I remember, stay home with your grandma. I would always take the knife and I would follow her, like from tree to tree, like make sure that she get the distinction because one day she got I remember

horrifying probably four or five days of my life I think 89 1989 I remember her classmate her friend came home crying

like crying and and screaming to my dad and she's crying and I'm there you know I'm there like watching like what's what the fuck is going on, you know? And she's like, they took her, they took her, they took her.

And my dad, like, grabbing her by, by, like, by her clothes, like, like, Valentina, like, her name is Valentina. Like, who? Finish! Please, come on, come on, who took her? And so they took, they took I, like, my mom's name. I was like, who, like we were going to a train station to get some booze from gypsies. That's where you get, if the stores don't have booze, gypsies have.

Gypsies would sell it for double the price, but, you know, it's okay. You know, respect to Gypsy King. Yeah, yeah. who eventually have to fight Usook. He just pulled out. But anyway, and my mom got kidnapped.

She said the car stopped in, two guys grabbed her, put her in the back, and just went out. My dad called his people, call him police. And for days, he was gone. He was gone, like looking for her,

going through gypsies, neighborhoods, and stuff like that. I, for days, I wake up in the morning and get on my bike and I had addresses of all of my mom's friends throughout this city and I was just bike

to one and go up and it says, did you see my mom? And they were like, no, Yuri, no, I didn't. I go down, okay, thank you. I go ahead. Did you see my mom? And I was like, why they always like, they looked at me like, oh, poor kid. you know

and I was sleeping during that time with my dad and it's like I'm trying to sleep and he never slept always like sitting like moving thinking and so we thought like my grandma her daughter she started every day calling morgues

you know and I thought that was like horrifying so so And then I remember she came late at night. I don't know. It was so late. I was pretending.

I was sleeping because I was so embarrassed. Because when she started knocking on the door, my father just broke down. He was on his knees and crying like a hysterical baby, you know. And I was so embarrassed to see him and that witnessed him. so I pretend I was sleeping. So, and, but I heard, because the apartment was so, so, it's like your studio, you know. So, um, not as fun though.

So your mom came home? She came home, after a week? And then I heard the story. And what happened? And, and the story was, the story was my mom, we had our neighbor. Like, we had like a building, a kind of a, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, projects buildings, you know, like with four, four or five entrances. And one of the furthest entrants, just the guy, I listen.

Nobody talks with him, nobody's messing out with him. Tough guy, you know, like, and he was always, he was, her classmate from, I think, in high school already. And she knew him as a kid, like in the same backyard. But his name, like, the nickname. name they gave all the kids saddest. You know, so

and I said, why do they call him saddest mom? I was like, well, I remember he would get this little little baby baby chickens from the market.

Like little chicks, yeah. And he would try to get our attention by taking big bricks, you know, and just like, look! boom boom boom and that's what I so everybody call him including adults saddest so he she got so yeah so he also um it was like I have to kind of give like a little background that was during time of Chico Tillo Chiquotillo was a Russian pedophile slash first First, first Soviet Union, first, I would say, mass serial killer. So the Soviet Union tried to catch him from 1978, I believe.

They caught him 91, I think. Oh, 90. Wow. They caught him. I remember we came already to Israel and my dad was around. Oh, they finally got him. So it was 13 years of this guy. 13 years, yeah, 13 years.

And he killed so many, like, kids. Kids are like teenagers, young women, usually going from train, like a village train, because to village, from the train station to village, you're kind of going through a kind of a wood area and it would catch them and he would cut pieces and violate them and them. So for that, that's how they stress the shit out of the kids by saying like Chickatillo is out there. You know, so you have to be careful. But I knew my mom going in the dark, you know, and I have to protect her at least. So what I heard from through the wall already that they caught her.

Some guys caught her. Maybe it's some kind of a trafficking. They put her in the cage for two days. For two days she was in the cage in some room. What? Yeah. They put your mother in the cage. In the cage, yeah.

In probably selling her to some other part, maybe Baltics or maybe Turkey. Who knows? My mom was very beautiful woman. And so her friend was clearly not. No offense, but she was not looking. Yeah, I wonder if she, if the friend was mad, like, yo, take it. Me too. They're like, no, we're good.

We're okay. So, and on the third or four day, first of all, my timeline is completely messed up because during that time, you don't know how much time passed. You're not sleeping. Sir, this neighbor of us, or ex-classmate Sadist, who was a very tough guy, he was going, he went into that spot. It's a wise people, you know, like, you know. you know, kind of like hanging out kind of a thing, you know.

He went in and he saw her there. And he says like, what the fuck she's doing there? I was like, oh, this is our property. And he says, I'm not living without her. Today I'm living without her. With her. And my mom was saying is he grabbed a knife. They got the knife.

And they fought, I don't know how long, but it's got stopped, and they just released her. On one condition, you don't call cops. What? Yeah, so my mom got home, and I remember my mom, when she was coming to the room, I was pretending, sleeping, you know. And I was, like, I remember, I'm home, I'm home, and I was, like, pretending, and I was, like, you know, I hug, her and but that was shocking

that was shocking. That's crazy the most insane story I've ever heard. Not a shocking thing happened I was biking. First of all

we didn't have people watching us at home. I'm sorry. I don't want to go to that story just yet. I want to ask

about the kidnapping thing. So the kid sadist that would kill the chicks during the recess why was he

going into this sex trafficking guy's house? He is he being became a wise guy. What do you mean by that? A wise guy.

He was probably not the last person in the underworld, so to speak. He was not a law-abiding citizen. I see. So like a mafioso. He was kind of a mafioso. He was a guy that he went with his path. And how old was he? He was my mom's age.

Oh, really? Yeah. So he knew your mom. He knew your mom. He knew your mom from when they were kids. When they were kids, they were in the same backyard. He didn't have no kids. He didn't, I don't know, he was married or not.

But he's a little bit of a crazy guy. He was crazy guy. He's killing little chicks at recess. Like, this is not good, normal behavior. So, you know, yeah. And in Soviet Union, you know, it's not something like in the school, oh, you know what? We're going to send you to therapists right now.

There's no therapist in Soviet Union. You want to go to therapists, probably declares. closest thing would be the United States of America. Wow. Where there is a therapy for people to get there. So that's one of the...

Did you ever see the guy that saved your mom? I didn't saw him after, but I saw him on several occasions and I knew to stay away. Nobody told me to stay away from him. It just, you subconsciously. I was like, I don't want to... I don't want to be even close

to him because what if did you see him after like did you say thank you? No I I would if I if I if I if I

um if I would see him but yeah it's a crazy story that's insane how did that affect your mom after that? Um I don't know

Did she behave different Did she go out less frequently? She would not I'm not sure she would go by herself Mm-hmm And my parents, my goodness, like there's no books for parenthood in Soviet Union. So my parents had me when they were 20.

My dad went to Army 18. And before he went to Army, he conceived me. And during three years of Army, he was twice at home. so when I came when he get home when it came to back home it was 81 I was on I'm sorry he was 82 79 it went into so I was two years old already so you're already walking around I was like I'm walking around I remember yeah I remember I remember him um kind of little like who's this man I kind of love him but in the same time I don't you know um wow yeah so my my parents were were kids.

Yeah, of course. I just think of 20 years old. Yeah. And was your dad affected by the kidnapping? Like, did he, was he more protective? My dad was definitely overprotective. Yeah. Very overprotective.

But in terms of discipline, I'm not getting my discipline for my dad. I can tell. He knows that too. You know, my dad is like, I remember, my goodness. Like, it's the days where my parents tell me like, we're going to go to our friends. You're coming with us, you know? And I knew it's going to be. involving drinking, all right, me playing somewhere in the living room, drawing, and then, and then,

when they're all drunk, we have to walk home for 20 minutes maybe. And my both parents, very drunk. And I remember trying to kind of balance them to get home. And it's so messed up. Like, it's so messed up. I looked at those lessons, those events as a lesson, because I don't get drunk. I might get tipsy.

But my kids know, you know, they can rely on me 100%. Wow. You know? Wow. Not like, it's just funny. But I have no beef with them because they were kids. Yeah. They tried to have.

And plus also they didn't have two days weekend. It's only one day weekend. Yeah. And so were you more protective you think after that? I would more protective with my mom. Yeah. With my mom. Because you're the only sibling, right?

I had the only child. Yeah. And I had, I was very protective of my mom. I once, I was witnessing during in the daytime. You know, people who lives in the small towns, you know. They would know, like, it's like you can be sometimes walking on a big street and you might see only one person far, far away. There's no blocks.

It's not like square. Some street might be like, you know, half a mile, you know, and you don't see the hand. And it's not even an official street. It's just kind of like alleys, you know. And I remember I was biking with a friend of mine and on school yard. and one lady walking there far, far away. And I remember since it was echo, it was just me and my friend. And he said, excuse me, what time it is?

And he said, oh yeah, no, whatever the time is. And he grabbed her. And you start taking her in some kind of a very dark alleys, you know. We start screaming. We're screaming, police, please, please, please. but that was such an effect on me because when I got home, I didn't know what happened.

She was screaming, help, help, you know. Like, you know, I got home. I was mortified. I was mortified and I told my dad, like, what I've seen, it's crazy. I was like, did you call for help or something? It was the people. And there was no people.

I started running to one direction with the people and trying to tell them And some people went that way and I was just, I didn't, didn't stay longer. Wow. So, you know, but overall, it was nice. Besides this couple events. I mean, that's pretty rough. Like seeing people that have, like your dad kind of being in the military, you see people get robbed, your mom gets kidnapped.

I mean, you're getting beat up in the street. showers just after swim practice like i think everybody get beat up but what happened to my mom was like i was like i was just going here on willensburg altrain is like stop the human trafficking and it was like it's funny because it's like i was thinking like oh yeah i'm totally a hundred percent it should be i think people who are selling human they should be put to to wall and you know and done the right thing you know bro i mean it's just just insane. But was your family were they well to do? Do your parents have money?

Or like your dad was kind of hustler? My dad was hustler. Yeah. My dad was hustler. My parents were okay. My first boxing coach. I, like I, you know, like, you know, like, for example, you, like you, I assume like you, like you becoming a comedian, you know, there's people you look up to, you know.

Of course. Captain, like, experienced comedians would give you some tips. And those tips are, it's like gold. It's precious. Something you cannot even buy, you know. You cannot be some rich Jews, for example. Tell me, like, like, I'll give you money. Just make me, like, make me like six-pack and strong.

Like, I was like, no, it takes time. And you have to earn it. Because there's no, like, a magic word you. Like, you, Mark, you have. have to earn your spot under, and it becomes you. You know, like, I wanted to be Mike Tyson. Ever since I saw Mike Tyson,

till years later, some coach told me already in Israel, you will never be like Mike Tyson. And shock me, like, devastated, man, but he's told me because different body complexion, you're lently, you're more, like,

more of, like, some like sugar, a Leonard, maybe, something like mover, you know, this and that, but you will never be like Mike Tyson, you know. Over the times, I remember already in competing Golden Gloves, and one of the writer for Daily News wrote like something in his Uri-Forman, in his style already second year defeating this guy in his usual style. and I remember like, oh, I have my own style.

That takes you kind of a long time. You're not becoming like Louis C.K. or George Collins. It becomes you, Mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it takes so long. Yeah, but this is this precious experience. Exactly. You imitate someone until you become your own thing.

And painful, too, you know. A lot of failures. I mean, I'd rather bomb a show than get punched in the face. Yeah, a lot of bomb a show. That's true. Then punch you the face. But at an end, you find your kind of, you can't, you find your way. And same, yeah, like in Soviet Union, kind of you find your way.

Because first of all, it's like North Korea now, you know, like everybody, I have a old, like my wife was going to pictures and there was a picture of me in fifth grade and I had longer hair. But not like long hair. Like, it's just like this. And I remember that day, like the teachers were on me. I'm going to call your parents because you need a haircut. It's too long hair, you know? And my dad had long hair, you know. My dad, first of all, in the 80s already, he thought that mule is a hot thing.

The mullet? Like a mule, yeah, like a Chuck Norris type of things, you know. And my dad went here and dad, let him call me. Let him call me. I want to see that, you know. He was like so anti-tie. like it was a punk rock he hates conformity

he conformity everybody has to this day you have to be there in dance like you know we're taking pictures I didn't have the white shirt but I'm sure because everybody like I had this

like my mom says sweater like sweater no like you look at like you look beautiful you know and my wife says like you look beautiful you know so anyway it's funny

like to see those memories you're watching the pictures I know wow And so your dad was just like on his own beat. Like what did he dress like? What did he wear on a regular day? Did he dress like other people?

James Leveyes. Which is the hot item in 80s? Is that crazy to wear Levi's in USR? Levi's, oh my goodness. It's like in the 80s we're really not crazy, but to take a brand like Levi's. Yeah. Because it's American brand. That was, you could actually get beat up and they would remove pants from you.

They would take your pants off. It would take a pencil. Yeah. It's like there's no... I got... I didn't got robbed by quite a few things that have been...

Like, my things were stolen in the school. Oh, wow. Because my parents would buy me like something extra, you know? Right. Your dad would get you the cool shit, the Adidas.

But always in... Once we became immigrants in Israel already, broke. All I remember is broke. Wow. And now I say broke because I've seen

David Chappelle all the thing, but poor and the difference poor and broke I'm like oh that makes sense you know wow and this whole time when did you realize you were Jewish like how old were you?

Oh I knew towards then when we were moving to Israel but I didn't know what it is I remember asking my dad I had we had a dog a big dog

a Caucasian shepherd it's a big huge dog it's like a bear and people probably could even half of my passwords in early times on social media and everything was the name of my dog obviously like the rest of you

we all did that the dog on the name was Rocky you know oh awesome so obviously because of Rocky yeah and once it was in Israel like I yeah so me and my dad was walking

our dog and asking what is God and I was maybe 10 10 years old and my dad was like well you're you know it's like some kind of a thing being kind of everywhere but not there

and and that was my first introduction to Judaism not Judaism about God exists I didn't care. I'm like, okay, Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson is powerful. Mike, that's my God.

Mike Tyson is my God. Mike Tyson. That's what it is. That's Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson was my, the thing. Like, I tried to, I don't know people like, I was not obsessed with, I was obsessed. Not like I was all Mike Tyson, like, I was, I remember in Israel is like, in Israel is so pissed at society in Israel because. I couldn't understand.

It's like Israel's smallest country surrounded by a lot of enemies. Wanna see us another Holocaust, you know, anytime. If they press the button Holocaust number two, they'll be pressed already so many times. And we surround it and they're playing two main sports, baseballs and soccer. And I couldn't understand why not boxing. Boxing should be the most the sport and the two funny

the two groups predominantly doing boxing in Israel is Arabs and ex ex anyway the ex-soviet people

you know the expats expats ex- Soviets ex-sovets so so I was training with an Arab gym, you know?

For me, that was Rocky 3, when Apollo Crete, rest in peace, by the way, Carl Witters, which was passed away, which was like, you know, like one of those things like, ugh, you know.

And when it took Rocky, it was gym, I'd always thought it was in Philadelphia, but it was LA. Somebody corrected me in social media. Oh, really? I should have known. Yeah.

I've seen this movie hundreds of times. But I've seen it 99 times. I've seen it with dubbing as a Russian, like a Russian dubbing. Oh, really? Who knows? When you were a kid, all those movies you got, like Star Wars and stuff, was it Russian dub? Yeah, and the only guy who did all the dubbings, all the dubbings, he was a guy who his nose was plucked all the time? No.

So we talked like this, you know, like all the characters. It was so many jokes. Before memes were even available, there was like jokes about only guy who were doing every single movie. Luke, I am your father. Just like God. Yes, it is. That's so funny. That's how it is.

Like, look, I'm your father. That was, look, I'm your father. And it was one guy that did every movie. One guy doing all the characters. And would you do a lot of movies? Yeah, but like after a couple times you're watching it, you already knew who is stalking, you know. Oh, that's so funny. It's a female, male.

It's like, it's an ultimate, ultimate LGBTQ voice you can even imagine, you know? So one guy covers men, women, and animals. He would do like a high voice. You'd be like, oh my goodness. Yeah, like my cousin Vinnie, you know. No way. Yeah, my cousin Vinny, they're so, yeah, absolutely. So you're watching Rocky, but it's just a guy with his nose plugged, like speaking Russian?

When Mr. T says what's your prediction and it looks. with the camera, pain. He says like, pain, with like clock nose. That's so funny. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because we got to talk about

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I don't know, I don't really need it. What are you talking about? It could be better. It can always be better. Let's say you're in the 1% you're about to be in the 0.01% with Bluatu. Let's get back to the show. So when did your parents tell you like, oh, we're going to go to Israel?

First, my parents... Did you even know what Israel was? No, no. I didn't know. For me, it was kind of exciting because we... going to take plane. It was very exciting. We're taking a plane somewhere.

And your dad's not going to get beat up by the police and you're not going to get black guys anymore. Yeah, I didn't get so excited about that. I didn't like, you know, I didn't, I was not so much work. Because my parents did a good job. They kind of shielded me away from a lot of the Soviet things. I thought, listen, the less I know, the more. But that was all that propaganda was coming out of them.

already already in Israel, you know. And my parents initially went in 88 or 89, they opened the border to move to United States first. You know, so my parents wanted to immigrate to New York, you know. And right before he would receive that green card or whatever the visa is, they canceled, they closed the whole gate, like for all the Soviet Jews. I mean, come on. By the way, not blame him.

You've seen Brighton Beach, right? A lot of Jews there, but, you know, they came out with a great, great, very interesting people. From Gulag, I'm talking about, you know. And so right after that, my parents had to gain, and you wait for the, you applied those documentation,

they usually take a year. And my parents start applying for two countries. is either South Africa or Israel. And my mom looks in Israel as like a little kind of bottle opener, kind of what is a little hook where his Haifa is. I like this kind of a grain, let's go there. You know, that's how my parents chose their life path. Wow.

Based off a little map and they're like, let's go there, you know. And was it hard to get out at that point? At that point, no, they just, they had some contacts already in Israel. And they started applying, and it took probably seven, eight months. And, yeah, they received whatever kind of a citizenship. As we already received Saturday in there, we got the visas. And we came to Israel.

My mom hated every single day. Really? Yeah, hated every single. I'm not like my mom very proud. She was beautiful. I already said. very proud person and thanks to her.

My dad is complete opposite. It's not very proud. His pride is kind of wearing it on this. Sometimes sleeves on his shoulders. Sometimes if he wants to sometimes he's okay. But mom is very proud. Like you say, Yuri, always when you promise something, do not back off of those promises.

You know, like, she taught me way more than my dad did. Really? You know, like you, you know, you promise something, you kind of have to deliver. Wow. Just like Mike Dyson said. Walk to walk. Yeah. Talk to, no, talk to talk and walk to walk.

Wow. So your dad was like a free spirit, fun. It's a punk rock and everything. My mom was like that, and she was super, like, so depressed in Israel. Why? Because, first of all, no friends. She was very social butterfly. No friends. Her mom was in Israel, my grandma.

And... Oh, her mom already moved there. No, no. Only me and my parents. Oh, her mom was still in the U.S.S.R. My grandma there, yes. And her sisters, everybody there. It's just us, you know, in Israel. And in Israel, 1991, right before the collapse of Soviet Union, like, it was the biggest wave of ex-Soviet. moved to Israel.

It's a huge. It's like 300,000 people a month probably moving. Oh, it's like south border now. But people are just coming over. But Russians, you know. And, you know, and they came and Israelis at that time, they didn't like us. So we were living in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Haifa together with Sephardic Jews.

Sephardic Jews hated us. The most? Like right away, I felt like I'm the bottom of the full chain, you know? Oh, that's so fun. Yeah, my first day in school, the first day in school, I come in, it was May. There was still, I think, one month of school left. to put me in the school I don't speak any Hebrew

I don't know any alphabet I wear a blue jeans tight shirts blue jeans kind of a shorts and my socks still the knee almost looked like a complete Soviet poster child

the teacher put me into the middle of the class I was super shy kid and through translator the one kid who speak a Russian kid who was like five years who speak fluent Hebrew. And she asked, can you ask you, please?

How was it growing up in Russia? How many days a week he didn't eat? That's what they thought of us. That's what we are. We were starving. It was like Auschwitz. We just came up from Auschwitz. Wow.

And I just burst her bubble at that time. without knowing, because I didn't have, like, I should be more like, if I knew now, like I wouldn't, I don't want to be embarrassed the teacher. I would tell her, like, it was very difficult, something like that. And my mom would probably slap me after because I've been lying, you know. So I tell her, please, we never, we had plenty of food. You know, we always had food.

So he translated and remember her face just changed it from like kind to, slow. It's like, were you abused there by other kids? I was like, no, I never been abused, but, you know, like I had some fights, you know. And that day, I went back to the class, back sitting in class, no more, she ignored me all day. I'm coming out, the school, like, like, what's it called, the day over, right? By the way, I'm sorry, I'm speaking like immigrant. 25 years here. I like it. It's way more,

way better for the character. If you had perfect English, I'd be like, boring. So I like, I thought with my American wife, I'm going to start developing my English. No,

no, no, no, this is perfect. Anytime she corrects me. No. You know, Uri, it's not dears.

It's deer. Plural and single. It's a deer. That's my last thing I learned moving to suffer outside of New York. city. I've seen a lot of deers here. It's not deers, honey.

Yeah, well, that's hard, though. It's like, there's a lot of fishes or fish or like, uh, or like, uh, I try to on, but this doesn't make sense. Yeah. It ass and end is plural. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's trying like, I understand your logic here, but you're wrong. There's a lot of fish

or there's one fish. They're both the same. How is that, how is that English? Ships. Like, like animal, you know. Yeah, yeah. So, um, We, the, it's elementary, elementary school, right? Elementary school until grade, sixth grade, fifth grade, I think,

yeah, fifth grade. I was in fifth grade, and I'm moving out. And I'm moving out going, just one exit. And one kid just, like, right away suddenly, like, steps me, pushes me, and starts something telling me, something in my face, like pushing me and pushing me. I already considered myself as a boxer. And I knew, like, if you get pushed, you know, like watching, like, one of my favorite movies is a lot of, by the way, a lot of my wisdom I got from America was in the early 80s.

Untouchables. Oh, wow. It was like when Sean Conrad character tells us that Kevin Costner, I was like, when one of them, When one of them sent one of yours to the hospital, they have to send one of his to the morgue. That's a bar. That's a bar. I knew I'm not going to send him to the morgue,

but this kid pushes me. And he started telling me something. And this kid asking, what is it down? And he says, oh, he said, your mother is a prostitute. And it's like for four, for like Arab people

Dagestanis or Spanish people you can curse the entire world of mine I'm not thinking but as soon as you go to your mom

it's over my dad says as soon as they say something to your mom I don't care how naked is you have to go full in you go full

report it's from movie Tropic Thunder just watch with my kids three days ago um so what this guy goes and he goes and as soon as it says my mom is the letter pee and i just went punch him in nonstop and i i've been jumped by another three or four kids my

my like my age and they're doing something in the back they're kicking me and i just remember getting this kid punching him and punching me and he's scratching my face And for me, like in Soviet Union, like, you don't scratch. If you're a boy, you don't scratch other boys. You punched out of boy. You don't scratch because girls scratch, you know. That was my logic. And I just remember like, I'm going to.

So anyway, we've been pulled apart by some younger one of those, maybe a school assistant something yelled. He gave me a kick under my butt. I'd pick up my back and I went back home. I came home with my scratch. I was not crying, though. And I came home, my mom, how was the first day in school. And I was like, it was fine.

And she was like, can you come here? I was like, no, I'm busy. I was like, after you're busy, come here. So it was like, Yuri, come here. And then I'm watching my face trying to like cool down. Clean it up. And I come in and say, what's happened?

And I was like, what just happened? You know? And I was like, I got on to fight. You know, I got on to fight. And my dad says, like, what just happened? And it says, like, he curse my mom and I punched him. And like, no more questions.

Like, good boy. Just enjoy. Enjoy, enjoy there. And I was like, That's it. And at that moment, I knew I'm, it's kind of a subconsciously, I knew I'm not 100% a citizen of that country because I'm hated so much. And unfortunately, even though I didn't, I probably was not hated, but I was almost 11. I was 10 years old. And I was all my friends for eight years in Israel, all my friends were ex-Russians. you know, ex-Russians, ex-Sovits. Wow. You know, from Ukraine, Dagestan, Uzbekistan, whatever it is.

All our breaks from school, we would go, like, into our little groups. Groups of, we talk about music, we talk about rock, we talk about some sports maybe. Girls? Some girls, yes. And I don't know. And stay together because if somebody picks on us, we kind of have to defend. Wow. And we got in so many fights like that.

So this kid that called your mom the P-word, was he an Israeli kid? Oh, yeah, he was Israeli kid. Like, yeah, like a Sephardic kid. I mean, and for anyone that doesn't know, Sephardic, like a Sephardic Jew is different than an Ashkenazi Jews. Sephardic Jews are North African. North African or even Middle Eastern Arab, like Yemenite Jews, Iraqi Jews before when the old Gaelic, Egyptian, even Jews had back in the days, but they all had to do either

Exodus or meat maker. So, yeah, if you ever see like an Arab-looking guy with the Star of David, this is a Sephardi Jew. And then an Ashkenazi Jew is like Woody Allen. Perfect. That's actually, it's funny because you said that, because, um, I don't know, later on into our talk is like during the upheavals here in New York after October 7. A lot of, there was a spike in violence against Jews.

So they would beat up Jews in our neighborhood, Crown Heights. They would beat up Jews in any other neighborhood. There's two neighborhoods. They don't go to beat up Jews. It's Brighton Beach, Corn Island, right? and Bukhari's Jew, who are Dagestani, like the, you know, because everybody knew. Everybody know. Because if you're going to go beat up on Russians, actually, they might beat you.

And they might send you to the hospital. Same with the Buharis, because when they went, do some kind of violence in Queens, and Biharis were standing. Come on. They usually like, bite us. I'm like, come on. And who are the Bajaris? Buharis are, they're predominantly from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.

They had this minority, Dagestan. They had this minority of kind of Jews that I'm not super correct with the geography probably, but they had their tradition as a Sephardi tradition of Judaism. And safari, actually, Safarid is mean Spain in Hebrew, but it's now. kind of overlapping umbrella for all the darker skin Jews. Right. We had a Woody Island Jews who we're trying to help to change our image from Woody Allen to maybe Barney Rose.

Yeah, exactly. Something like that's because... You're reformant, you know what I mean? Reforming. But yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a Spanish exile of Jews in like the 1492. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a lot of them went to North Africa. Yeah.

Then they had kids, yada, yada, a little bit of sun. Yeah, they went to also Egypt. Right. One of the greatest sages now bear hospital names

of Crambum or Maimonides Hospital which is the name of the of the sages from Egypt. Oh wow. I was a head

physician for Saladin. Oh really? Yeah, a thousand years ago. Oh, wow. Saladin was a smart man. You knew if you want to have a good doctor. Get a Jewish doctor.

That's funny. So that's crazy. So when you're living in the USSR, you're the Jew that lives in Russia, basically. Or the Jew that lives in Belarus. And you're too Jewish to be there, so your parents try to hide it. And then you move to Israel, and then you're too Soviet to be Israeli. It's so funny. Like, you said it, my manager, my Zeta, Zeta is in Yiddish grandpa.

I call them grandpa all the time. Mori Wilson. Morey Wilson, people who likes the whole research of mafia's and all that, Mori Wilson was considered last Mayor Lansky. Mayor Lansky was in 30s and 40s. A respected person. Morrie Wilson, who was my manager and a great officianto with Italian restaurant in First Avenue, 17.

the 4th Street Campanola. And he was Jew and they had one of the best restaurant. But he was very you know tied with the Russians and Italians.

He told me that joke. Not the joke, I'm sorry. Joke from... It's funny, it comes as a joke but it's a joke from his stories. He told me he had this one respected business

man in Israel, Boris. I don't remember his last name, whatever, and he was dying. He was dying and he's telling his lawyer to change his will and in his will have to be buried in Soviet Union. And he says, look,

Boris, I mean, his name was Aaron. Aaron, how could you? And the lawyer was a Jew, you know, like a complete Hasidic Jew. Like, how could you? You always, for years, wanted to get out from Soviet Union, live

in promised land in Israel of your ancestors and now you want to be dead there, you know? And he says like, and he says, Rabbi over there I was a Jew. Here I'm a Russian. I want to die when I'm

when I'm a Jew. Yeah, that's funny. So it's like it's funny, but it's kind of a sad, tragic and funny, comical. Yeah, yeah, it is. But it is your life also. Like, it's... You were only a Jew and you were living in and Soviet Union. And then you go to Israel and all of a sudden, like,

ah, the Russian kid, the Soviet kid. Yeah. Wow. And so they would beat on you. And you met a bunch of other Soviets or ex-Sovietz. Ex-sovets. And they all had a similar story as you, I'm assuming? Yeah.

Some similar stories. Were they Jewish also? Jewish, yeah, Jewish. And going through their own family, you know, troubled, I guess. I don't consider myself. My trouble. childhood maybe they had

but I knew I had advantage over so many my peers my age is because when I was like nine years old

I wanted to be like Mike Dyson you know it's not easy it's a lot of if they would tell me at that time that you would have to be

going to sleep early you're not going to go Friday nights to the bars and or clubs and this and that. And you have to go wake up, work out. Like, for me, like, I knew I would probably get less. I would discourage. But I was telling to people sometimes I tell them that God, or some people call it,

the universe and this, and that doesn't matter. Let's call it God, right? he, she doesn't matter. It's not a fan of boxing. Probably not a fan of comedy as well. However, you guys probably way more, way more entertaining.

Maybe. I don't know about that. But what's more important is what your desire here, align here. You want to be, you want to achieve your dreams, your goals in life. And somehow

it's going to take you through crazy loops you know like there's competition for the dogs you know when they jump wrong and they go into the town

or like oh like or American Ninja something like that you know life gonna take it through that and some of there is going to be so bitter

and some bittersweet you know if it's not breaks you though and you kind of wise enough kind of learn from it maybe

a lesson from it like that's that's the bad I learn great lessons from victories but the best ones from

getting my ass handed to me yeah I can imagine and Gleason gym is a boxing gym in let's say in Dumbull right in Brooklyn but one you got spanked in the sparring session you know you come home oh my goodness I'm fighting in three weeks and

like my last couple sparring and I get in my ass you know like what's going to happen I have two more sparrings and I want to kind of do something. Wow. And that's the best lessons you get. Same problem as bombing in the show. Oh, yeah. You don't learn much from killing. Because like, like I'm sure George Conlin bombed. I'm sure the Louis C.K. bombed and all of them, Richard Pry.

Yeah, maybe not. But you learn more from the bombs, but God, the killing feels good. Yeah, killing is great. Yeah, it feels good. But you got a, you got a bomb a couple times to learn how to not bomb. You're almost like you channeling Sugar Ray Leonard. Now, Mark, I was like, I remember in Israel, you don't get much sport of boxing. You know, this is soccer. I didn't care. I don't like soccer. Now I appreciate Spocker.

I appreciate golf even. Yeah. You know. But whatever you have like a little newspaper, huge newspaper, you know. And my dad would have like a little cutout, like. one inch by like seven inch of like a hundred words and have a little picture of Mike Tyson in it or some American around the Holyfield, you know, I would cut it off and I would put like a big board and I would have this hundred, these little things and I would learn.

I would like, that's my Bible. That's my Torah. You know, like for me that was my old, new, the newest testament. and it's like, like once somebody gave me a VHS, a friend of mine, for a day. Yuri, you have to return tomorrow to VHS. So I would watch this on bad. It was 25 minutes of Mike Tyson documentary. Unfinished.

It was like 25 minutes in. I remember he wakes up 4.30 in the morning. 4.30 in the morning, he running on, like, in dark somewhere in Brooklyn, or maybe Catskills. I don't know. and that's it. I knew like I'm waking up at 4.30. And but when I came back, you know, 5.45 home, I have to wake up 6.30 for school. The next thing I know, it's 10.

Wow. I'm not going to school, I guess, today. So that was my school. So speaking about becoming a rabbi, I had to kind of balance it out because I didn't finish school. Yeah, you had to unlearn some things. I have to, yeah. Was there any part of you, like, seeing Mike Tyson or these, like, great. American boxers that you thought, oh, like, they're too different from me.

Like, these are black American guys. I'm like a white Russian Jew. Like, I don't, I'm not even in America. I don't think I'll ever go to America. Like, was there any part of you that was like, man, I can't do it because they're so different than me? Or did you just believe it from the very beginning? I didn't see any difference.

I'm not going to lie. Like, I, honestly, it's been so big. Didn't give a shit. Black, white, yellow, red. You had no concept of race. I thought, like, Mike Tyson looked probably stronger because it's African-American. You know, but he was everything that I wanted to be. Yeah.

Years forward, it was 89. That was like 2003. I don't know. I have to Google when Zap Judah. was fighting Costa Zoo in Vegas. I was making my first pro debut undercard for Zabtudo. And Zabstudo was training in Glyssing gym where I train. And Sub judo was, you know, world champion.

He was like, had all the belts. And he was like kind of cold sometimes like Mike Tyson because he's from Brownsville as well. And I was in his training camp with Zab Judah for almost a month in Palm Beach West Palm Beach living there

in like hotel with all the sparring partners we wake up in the morning 4.30 and do our ward work and I was like living like the only white kid who speaks with like broken English was me and I tell them I swear I swear to God the amount of JZ music 50 cent probably

no 50 cent because Jay Z just had his whatever album it was Blue album Blueprint Yeah or was it

The black album I don't remember It was so much Jay Z in it That was I was dreaming Jay Z Allow me to reintroduce Myself

Yeah And there's one song That he says Something fast Or fast Like Zab Jude or something and Zapdrape plays this song on like a zombie on the record. Oh, he's in the song.

He's in the song and all like. But anyway. I mean, that's awesome. Yeah. I mean, we're skipping ahead a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very cool. But he fought one of my, towards then, like one of the fighters that I also tend to respect dearly.

It was Kastuzeu. He was a famous already in Soviet Union as an amateur fighter. but he turned professional. One of the first professional ex-Sovit turned professional became world champion. He lost his title to Vince Phillips, I think in Atlantic City,

which is devastating for me, but he lost, like, legitly. And then he got his title back, and then he fought Zap Judah. And I was like, wow you know he's gonna

Zap Judah gonna fight like one of the top fucking guys like a guy when you were a kid and Gus is you

for junior welterweight 140 pounds he punches like a mule like a small guy he has like

one of the hardest punch and so I'm making my pro debut and I am in the same

same locker room with Zap Judah right and I'm sitting there I'm about to make my pro debut and I was a swing bout

for people who don't know what is swing about you don't have a number if a fighter are going to end a fight faster undercard I'm going to have to be ready to go and fill up the time for the HBO or whatever it is so I keep

warming cooling warming for five hours straight it's okay I didn't know better anyway that's not something little shocking to me like, okay, we're fighting. Anyway, Lennox Lewis came to locker room to wish Zap Judah. I'm like, oh, cool. Lennox Lewis, I'm from far.

I'm like, wow, Lennox Lewis, like, that's the champ, you know. Davitua comes in, you know, like doing like, oh, that's very cool. Like a few other fighters, like famous fighters. And then, I'm kidding you not, Mike Dyson comes in. when Mike Tyson comes in it's like Jesus came in with the whole the whole room just aura

I'm not even becoming a rabbi I don't consider myself like very spiritual but I saw the aura of that person I had when Mike Tyson comes in without

a bunch of people surrounding him by himself he is he filled the entire room I get up from the get out from the

room and I was like a white boy I push all the all the black dudes standing there trainers like Mike Tyson I want to shake your hand shake your hand and Mike Tyson like looks at me

I was like what's your name what's your name you know I said Yuri Yuri I was like Yuri I'm like

and I said cool I I was in Moscow in 80s. I was like, yeah, I know. I was like, well, said, good luck. And that's it. That's the whole, that's the whole, my thing. I was, I didn't went back to the chair.

I were floating there on Cloud 9. Wow, that's such a cool experience. I was like, wow. Fast forward a couple years, Mike Dyson beat up a couple of people on Marriott Hotel in Brooklyn. And they had to do community work 100 hours in Glysson gym where I train. It was a great deal my trainer did. The owner of Glysson Jim, Bruce Silverglade, who is.

Bruce Silverglade is one of the amazing, most amazing people. Anybody in boxing, no? No. He was doing community work. He came there for three days. Bruce just did this 100 hours thing. He came there. I see Mike Tyson.

I went in. Mike Tyson looks at me. Were you the kid in Vegas? It was like my, my, like I became just, my whole hour just became like, I am the most powerful person. Mike Tyson just remembered me, you know. I'm like a nobody. I already had like maybe, maybe like two amateur, two professional fight at that time, maybe.

I didn't do my first professional fight under Card of Zab because Zab, after lost to Kastu Zoo, Zab started a fight Brooklyn style after the fights and the whole the whole craziness happened that they canceled after like no more fights coming in. Wait, he just started scrapping? It was everybody jumped to the room like the whole mass fight.

Did you jump in? I didn't jump because I was getting ready for a fight. Wow. Wow. That's crazy. So the fight got canceled. You didn't even debut. I didn't even debut.

Yeah. Debuter later. Later. You met Mike the first time there. And then a year, two years ago? A year, I would say maybe a year later. Wow. Yeah.

Because Mike Tyson had the fight and merit because two stupid guys decide to attack Mike Tyson. Of course. I mean, what kind of brain you have to have? You're not attacking Mike Tyson. It's like... These are guys that try to perusal. I mean, you saw the guy on the airplane, right? That was talking shit.

And he's fucking... Good. You know what? One thing, the only thing I could say about this guy who started him

he didn't press charges. Yeah. That a man thing to do? Talk shit. You get hit. Yeah, that's life. But Mike Tyson, like...

Wow, He remembered you. I hand him... Mike Tyson, I think, is not what a lot of people think. Thanks to social media also. I think Mike Tyson is very, very wise person.

I think he transcended all the experience that they have. he could have been a really probably with the old experience that he went through it could have been probably um um crazy criminal and uh crazy um some kind of a gladiator and stuff but he changed he he turned that and he really took that to the next level yeah some kind of a spiritual level and transcended yeah yeah absolutely he's very spiritual now and the way he talks about things i mean you've seen the video clip of him talking about uh the monster inside him yeah

You've seen that, right? Where he talks about, like, you know, there was a monster inside me. And I had to, you know, he wanted to be out. And now I have to fight to keep him in. And he starts crying. Yeah, it's amazing. Profound. Yeah.

He is like, he did so crazy, such a crazy thing. And it was fine. I was like, it's Mike. Mike would say something like, when Mike Tyson was about to fight, the bestest run, I heard from him. It was before Lennox loose. I'll fuck you till you love me. You what?

You probably have to edit it. I'm going to eat your children. I'm going to eat you. Oh, that later. Yeah, that was, oh my goodness. And guess what? It's Mike. It's Mike.

That's just Mike. Nobody would cancel Mike. Mike is like, he gets get away with everything. And rightfully so. So did you train with him at Gleeson Gym? I never trained with him. He came there for a couple hours. Did you hang with him?

I had whatever time I could. I was like a little B-I-C-H-T-H. Just like trying to get whatever golden diamonds I could get from that person. If I could just absorb this little nectar that whatever comes from him. Like whatever. I don't care. Like whatever. Like is a bigger.

Is that the last time you met him? So that's the last time I met him. Yeah. Last time I met him. That was a while ago. He has like 2002, like 20 years. years ago. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I need to tell you about one of my favorite new products in 2024. It's called Zipix. Yes, Zipix is a nicotine-infused toothpick.

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if I remember correctly. But I'd rumble in jungle, you know, with the first. fight in Zaire, 1974. And George Foreman, I watching, watching him, like, back in Soviet Union when he making his comeback. And in, like, 87, 88, there was like a little flash of, of, like, a two seconds of George Foreman standing on the scale, kind of chewing, like, making bicycle, and they're saying that one of the heaviest punches in the world today.

And like, you see, like, like, George Foreman and, like, so, you know, I have a last name as George Foreman, you know, like, I felt like, oh, my God, you know. And he posted on his Facebook something during, I think a year ago now, Holocaust Day. He posted something that him and his family were in the Holocaust Museum. all I posted on this photo picture is like, champ, thank you very much for doing and God bless you and this and that and long life to you, to your family,

everything. He responds to me directly, champ, finally, but we need to talk more. How you been? How's boxing? I heard a lot about you. I was like, till my wife told me, Yuri, go take a garbage. You know, the garbage is full. I was on like Woman don't talk to me

You can't talk to me I just got responded to From the great Like me I don't find myself Like naive Naive person Or like That was like

Oh my God Yeah I mean especially because I We talked about us before off air But I couldn't believe your name Is George Foreman Like Yuri Yuri means George

And your last name's actually Foreman Yeah Like that's crazy It's true Like Tyson Fury is named after Mike Tyson, but his dad was also a boss. Honestly, honestly, it's never like really kind of registered to me like till like recently a couple years ago. It's like, oh, that's odd. It's not, that's not weird.

Your name is named after one of the grace poacher's ever. So, so like learning Judaism, for example, anything that happens to you or to any person, doesn't matter, Jew or not Jew, you see, oh, it's interesting. What a coincidence, you know? Like, oh, like, look, you thought about someone and somebody that texted you. It's not coincidence. Everything in the universe, what happens above, so happens below and vice versa. There's always some kind of master plan or something. So I like, there is some, there is a script, some kind of a script that we writing ourselves

and we can change for better or worse. Depends on our actions, really. it's good to be, you know, not an asshole. Yeah, yeah. Everybody understand that, but the habit sometimes, asshole habits sometimes so deep in those people that the curse is not being an asshole, the curse is not seeing it.

Yeah, it's a lack of awareness. Yeah, and that's why Jews, for example, a Christian do maybe on Sundays, we choose on Shabbas on Saturdays, Sabbath. We have one day, one day a week, where we kind of have to stop and disconnect our electronics. Spent time of family.

And sometimes like, yes, spend on, it's alone for you. Like, just like you're flying on the plane, first you put oxygen mask on you. And then on anybody else. And that's, you have to realize, am I doing everything I can? Am I doing the right things?

Am I a good dad? I'm a good husband, a good human being? And that's why I have to ask sometimes these uncomfortable questions and uncomfortable answers because you have to look probably next to the mirror Yeah

and look at all the ugliness all the things you don't I'm like oh no bad you know not bad Yeah because now like society I was driving like to

So for like 16 17 years I was a complete illegal in this country Oh wow Now I can say it on your podcast That I'm kind of illegal I'm still not

citizen. I'm not even don't have a green card. A long time ago, I kind of overstayed my visa, and it's right before 9-11, you know. After 9-11, things changed drastically. And 2001,

my lawyer told me, just be quiet, don't do crimes, you know. You're going to be fine. Maybe next presidency, maybe they do something. So, three presidents later, four. Wow. So, but anyway,

Anyway, it's not about that really. It's like, those kind of things that happens to you, you know. Yeah, those little moments. No, we skip forward a little. Can you take me from when you're fighting in Israel, like you're growing up, you're going to a gym, but the only gym you could find was an Arab gym. Yeah.

So three times a week we was driving to a village called Kfarisiv, Quariceva is like maybe 15, 20 miles north of city of Haifa. And they have gym, they have everything that you need for heavy bags and everything. So I was saying earlier, for me that was a rocketry moment when he takes him to the LA gym. And he comes in and comes in like downstairs, basement. There was a basement there as well. And everybody is hitting the backs and everybody like. and everybody stops

and they're looking at you like a fresh meet everybody black in the movie you know I'm not Arabs you know darker

I'm like a white Irish kid looking skin you know and they're looking at you and they're like oh we have lunch early today

right so that that was the moment for me where he looked look at the eyes rock look at the eyes that's the eyes

of a tiger you know and my first sparring that that that happened. They put me in me and not a kid. Same kind of a

weight approximately. And he jumped at me, tried to take my head off. And something kicks in into you. You're, you're, okay, it's not a, it's not about

my force versus his force. It's about how I'm going to control myself. And I start kind of a moving, kind of jabbing, kind of, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, you know, and I start beating this kid. And as soon as that happened In a couple of short days

A few sparrings later I was going to accept it as As a Arab kid Suddenly, colors doesn't care You Jew, you're a Russian You're white, you're black It's almost like a Michael Jackson song White, you're white

It's like suddenly One thing united us All of us united under one goal is they want to be national champion. I want to be national champion. And we're not a competitor's here against each other. We're here to help one another. And that was like one of the...

And I didn't got that at that time. Only retrospective when it was already here, like, it makes sense because Muslim and Jew can be sitting next to them. We're going to be screaming equally loud for our team to win, you know? Not seeing it. Is a Jewish team?

is that, no, we're just liking our team, our boxers. Jews like Muhammad Ali, believe it or not. We're not calling Muhammad Ali Kassius Klu, we're calling Muhammad Ali, you know. That's interesting. And you found in that gym, even with these Muslim Arab guys, that there was a true brotherhood. Yes, yes. It was a brotherhood. I were invited quite a few times to the house. and they put me always in the guest, like a guest in the head of the table. And I was always shy. I didn't know like, and I knew that if they offer you food, it's not about I'm not hungry.

You, motherfucker, you eat this. Yeah, you are hungry. Even if you're vegan and there's a meat dish. Even if you're cutting weight, no. Yeah, you eat. It's a respect. It's a mutual respect. And were some of them Palestinian?

Not Palestinians, but they were Muslims. Muslims in the territory of Israel. And so that's that. However, in boxing, it doesn't matter also what religion you are or what group you belong to. And boxing is, it's a very one of the sports, you know, it's like you spar with, let's say I spar with a friend of mine, you know. I said, let's go.

Let's go like light. Light is a weird, weird, weird word for sparring, you know. But if soon as he points your heart, you know, you're not going to complain like, hey, you know, like we're not like Italians. It's like, it's fine. It's fine. It's like, that's what you do.

You're fine. You continue. You're not complaining. You're complaining. But you're going to wait for this moment where you're going to let him know that that's what he's done right now. a minute ago, last round. It's coming back. It's coming back.

And I'm going to sit you down a little bit. And he's going to be understanding that. And did you go to school? Did you like being in school? No, I hated the school. So as early I said, my mom was depressed. My mom became a very heavy, alcoholic. My goodness, she got such an alcoholic.

And my dad and my mom would get so much. into verbal fights, I would just leave, you know, and be like, you know, like, live, I don't want to be there. Sometimes I would stay there because I don't want to know, make sure my dad, chill. Because at age 16, the first time when I beat my dad in the arm wrestle, also over the top is one of my, the movies with Arna's, Levesistel. You know, so me and my dad would do this and I, and once I beat him, I realized, I realized, that I can overthrow the king of the castle. Like I really, but I had respect for him all the time.

I would never do anything like that, but I knew that I could push him, you know. So my mom became severe alcoholic, and we were broke, you know. So she would also get the cheapest alcohol. Chippest alcohol is the worst. She also lie because anytime she doesn't have alcohol, alcohol, she lies, you know, and she would convince me.

And I was a kid, I was like 15 years old, 16 years old. I was like, I would believe her lies that, you know, this and that, or she would send me in somewhere, you know. And she would hide things. I would have to hide. I would have to look for her. And she would be so hiding it in such a way. Oh my goodness.

She would hide things in the wall almost, you know, like to hide her bottle of vodka, you know, because I have to go to work. I mean, to school and the summer break I had to go to work and she would hide those things and the next thing I come she is unconscious, you know? And the time

she would not eat, she would drink, not eat and drink and she would watch depressing movies like Russian movies. You know, like and she gets and then one day I come home and she's in the hospital you know, she's in the hospital she has the hepatitis like when the liver just becomes

genomes. Wow. And I remember during next two years, my mom probably been in ER, my goodness, in the hospital sometimes for a week, some 10 days for like maybe I can't get in it, like 15, 15, 17 times. And that was also my excuse not to go to school. I also knew how to get my mom's signature. Oh, yeah, perfect. My signature now.

Oh, really? Yeah, it's so funny. I got her signature so many times that that's her signature my except except my first name different but it's written. Her name is Yuka. Irina. Ira is like for short and so I'll come home from school

and my dad I see like the letter from my dad handwritten handwritten. You come home have lunch come to Rambam is the hospital. I come there and I'll say sometimes she'll fine. She'll be fine. She would acting fine.

The doctor would tell me to translate. I'm the translator. You know, not without this, but I'll translate her that, Irina, you will have to stop drinking because liver can re-regenerate. It can regenerate very quick. You know, just do that. But you have to stop drinking, you know. And my mom never stop.

So, and I would write to school the, why I'm not in. school because I'm my mom in the hospital. And you speak Hebrew. I speak Hebrew, yeah. So you can do both. Yeah. And I would go and sometimes I would, I had my first second or third international competition in Italy for a week and it was amazing. It's like being in Italy from Israel. It's like as being a teenager, I was 17 years old, 16 years old, almost 17. And you. And, you, you know, you see, you know, teenager hormones and you see the most beautiful girls there, you know, like it's crazy, you know, like I want to move to Italy, you know.

And I did also pretty well out of all the Israeli team, I did second medal, I lost in the final. I came to, from international airport home. Same thing, my mom in the hospital, going back with a medal. I told him, I'm going to surprise her. And my mom, I'm not surprised, and she's like, she's laying down, but she's in pain. She looks at me like, oh, when are you going to bring you gold? No.

It's like such a bittersweet thing. That's what she said? She's like, yeah, Yuri. And I remember like, Mom, I promise you soon. Next time you see me, it's going to be gold. Wow. Did it make you sad in the moment? It's a little bit like solid.

I'm like, why you have to be this way, you know? and that day I had my a friend of mine who was a club kind of running the bouncers thing

he's like you really want to extra like pocket money can be a bouncer for you know I'm not the bouncer but you know but I'm like yeah

totally you know so I went there till 3 o'clock in the morning my dad calls me my dad already got me a cell phone and I say Yuri you probably

you should come back come back to a hospital and the way it sounded, it sounded like death. It's serious. And it was Sabbath. It was Friday night and no public transportation, you know. Even taxi is hard to catch. It was like maybe five miles. I remember I ran so fast.

I ran in to the point like I'm coming to the second floor. and I'm like running in asking where's where's Foreman she's like whatever the whatever the room is I'm running in and all I see my dad is in the in the corner like crying and and they just unplugging my mom and I was like I came in and I was like I just saw her just like she was in pain but I just saw her and dad was like I had like crazy I couldn't understand and I kind of run away. I was like embarrassed to cry and I just ran to some bathroom. I cried there till I came out and then I have to kind of be a kind of a helper to my dad because my dad was just a mess. For days it was just mess. And the crazy thing is the crazy

thing I think like going through this memory parts is me and my dad, Dan hooked her. My dad is crying and he just, he just, no more, no more filter, no nothing. He's just out. He is sober, you know, from work. And, you know, I just get him, I'm trying to hold myself and then we go to morgue,

he sees her. Again, over again, he's just going through, because the nurse says they want to see her in the morgue. And I said, no, no. But that, yes, yes. And I'm like, okay. So we're going in, this is she in the morgue. And then a few hours later, maybe like 3 o'clock in the morning,

four o'clock, or maybe 5 o'clock, I don't know. We're going to the bus station. We're sitting in the bus station and waiting for once an hour buses. You know, we're sitting there silent. and we start joking. We start joking like it tells me some joke. And then we're sitting in the... There's no people.

No people on the bus. We're sitting and always in the back. And the bus driver just going through bus. It's not even stopping because no people anyway. And somebody stops and comes in a friend of mine. sits in the front. I say, Yuri! What the heck? And we start talking.

I was like, my dad, I'm going to talk to my dad. And my friend was like, oh, yeah, go, go, go. Like, you know. And my dad was like kind of trying, trying to read some kind of a newspaper or something. It's like it's so weird, you know, like how it's just married for 20 years. It's just like trying to kind of cope your brain, trying to cope with this. And I'm talking to my friend. And we're talking, we're kind of shooting shit.

And it's in the back of my, because I already cried so much for three, four hours that I can. And I ended like, so my, like, and we're like, oh, yeah, but anyway, what do you, what are you doing with your dad here? It's like, fucking late. Where did you guys coming from? I was like, from my hospital. Hospital? What's on hospital? Like, oh, my mom just passed away.

And he was like, why are you here? And I was like, where are? Because I need to go home. And that was like, and he was silent. And at that time, like, it's such a crazy time because the crazy time. Because the crazy time. my dad was, there was like an expression, drinking, going black drinking.

I don't know, maybe that American half. You're just going till you're unconscious. Oh, you blackout. You blackout drinking. Every day, my dad is. And like, and sometimes I go through the bathroom, I'm going to go home and from whatever place. And my friend's trying to kind of, you know,

give me comfort. His friend trying to give me, I'm coming home. is in the bathroom with his pants down and he's like snoring and it's like we have to clean himself, you know? And I'm like, okay, I'm, dad, I'm like 17 years old, 17.

I'm like trying to, you know, tend to my dad putting him to work. I mean, he's a heavy guy too, you know. I'm putting him the next day is over again. Same day. And then I have to find, like, we need to bury my mom. that's like another thing.

Like my dad never told me. I never had to deal with shit like that before. So I start calling like gold pages, whatever. Yellow pages. Yellow pages, sorry. We called the gold pages. Save that. Cold pages, yeah, almost days a half.

It's more Jewish version. Yeah, so like I'm going in, I'm going to the funeral. Like, and I'm just trying that. Everybody's like, they're like 3,000 shekels or whatever, $1,000, $4,000, like $2,000, and we broke, we don't have no money. So I call my Arab, my Arab worker who was always giving me work on summer breaks. He's a stone mason. Legerga, is a Christian Arab, always been family friend.

And I was like, and his name, Johanan. I always called Abu Liyaz, his father of Elias. and as a Johanan he found out that my mom died and he was very like loved my mom he thought my mom is the hardest thing

in her planet always like a little kind of friend but like like I thought like hey yeah yeah go go get a chill and when I found out he like he

Kundili came back and he started cursing the funeral homes that they're charging so much money and there is there is my goodness, why is it

escaping me now? The Jewish organization you don't have money, they bury your dad for free. Whatever you can give, charity? Okay, if no charity, no, it's fine. They took my mom in 24 hours, she was already buried.

And like, and I had to arrange it, arrange the car and no, no, no, no, no. And was there a funeral? Fearno, yeah. My friends came, my dad's friends, and my dad was a mess, you know, and that's it. I was just like... How did you feel? Were you sat at the funeral? I was, I was, what's it called? People, shell shock. It was like a shell shock till just staring.

A few weeks, a few weeks because, like, I knew me and my dad, if I broke, my dad broke, I was a mess. So at least I was like there for my death And slowly like You know never like in front of my dad Like I was like I would be sometimes broke down Like yeah You know See a movie and you cry

Yeah like something Like I remember the day when I was waking up It was like Day was a very hot day And summer Like it was July 26 And I was waking up like in the morning Like

Shit I'm gonna bury my mom today How is your day? and I was like, okay, like, you know, your brain have such a coping mechanism that in the end you can, I guess, you can get used to things, you know? Wow. They put you into a hole, and your hole is going to be your world.

Wow. But that's overall, like... That's when you were 17. I was 17. And you're still boxing at this time. It's boxing, yeah. And then my coach was like, new gym me like come on come to the gym yeah it's been a week since you know time to start and

boxing was a therapeutic also it helps you give you a purpose a focus yeah something to do every day yeah we're gonna have nice nationals coming up you know for people um i became three-time national champion in Israel for those people who think it's a lot you come in and probably after a couple months of training, you're going to be also maybe second, third place. There's not a lot of boxing there. How do you go from Golden Gloves winner to then pro? So I knew, like, I knew that to start to have a little bit of advantage, you should at least establish yourself as amateur, you know. Clearly I couldn't be Olympian because Israel is such a tricky part of, you know, of Middle East that Israel should be competing with the Middle East and African countries

in order to go to Olympic Games. But because Middle Eastern countries and African countries, they want murder of Jews, so Jews cannot compete with their own geographical part in order to be Olympians. because they changed the law. In the Olympic Games, every sport could send your best fighters, any sport, but we're talking about boxing. Any sport could send their best fighters.

And in the end, boxing, it became, what's to call you, a lumberjack. You know, when there's so many lumberjacks, and then there are so many, what's called, the lugs that guys shouldn't even be in Olympic games. you don't want to fight some guy who had maybe 10 amateur fights

fighting guy who had 300 like Cubans because you're going to get assassinated that day you know so they form after 90s they had no no no there should be some kind of levels to it

and only level A going to progress to Olympics so if you don't have a level A fighter yeah you have to win gold medal or civic medal in tournament A, a tournament when the

countries, the best countries of that region, sending their best fighters. So Africans, Africans or Middle Eastern, they're going to send their best fighters, like Iraq is Iranians and etc. in Sudanis. I'm fine.

We could probably deal with that. It's not going to be killers. But we are, because of its hostile crowd, they put us with the Europe. And here is Russians, Germans, who's since the beginning had boxing. Since the end of times they had boxing as part of the school program. I see.

So, once we're going in, so since 1988, there has never been boxing Olympian from representing Israel. Because of that fact. Because as soon as we're going to. tournament A and Russians, Kazakhstan, whatever, like those countries, it's not ends well. Wow. Did you ever try? Did you ever do the preliminary?

I did once and I, yeah, I just got a lost in points to guys. So I couldn't get to metal contention. So yeah. So I knew that I cannot go. Olympics. Partially, yeah, partially to the Olympics. So I knew I had to do at least something. in golden gloves was the big in New York.

So at least in New York, I'll be known at least for that. And already at that time, like, Foreman, they knew, like, Uri Foreman has a kind of name, and they knew that it's a good amateur. And it's a tough guy to fight against. So once I once there was, like, already a few New York promoters were interested in, signing me in. and that's kind of paid my way in and nobody is giving you like you know free pass

you have to go to the gym you have to train and in the beginning I had to go to work still it's not like what they call a bonus cash bonus something so on like that day when you were still grinding what was your day to day you'd wake up at 4 in the morning so grinding so at that time go to work

So three times a week I'll be running. After work, so I've been switching instead of running in the morning, I would be running from Garmin District, 42nd Street and 7th Avenue, actually 38th Street in 7th Avenue, all the way to Dumpur, Brooklyn, and cross like Brooklyn Bridge. That's my run. It's about, I don't know, four miles, five miles, I think. So me with my gym back and I'm just running four seasons,

winter, spring, summer, fall, you know. Snowing. Snowing. Oh, funny runs, by the way, through my first year, through gay parade. Because that was my through vast village. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the first time I got harassed. As you were running.

As I was running. Because the guys were like shoulder bump me. Oh, they would bump you. Yeah. Like guys in the barely had any of them. But what's up? Are you going to bite me? I was like, bite me.

Like, I'm going to break your nose. knows. So anyway, like I knew something is going on here. I don't know what the fuck is going on there. It's like biblical Saddam and Gamara. No offense. Saddam and Gamara. It's a bad thing to bring the ring. But it's like a little weird. It's offensive to Saddam. For me, like with the Russian mentality, like, what is this? Yeah, yeah. I didn't know because I'm not reading like newspapers and stuff. Like what's going on? Yeah. Now you probably never even met a gay person until you came in New York. I was like, what? Wow, like, I don't know. I'm like, I'm telling me in the gym, what's going on? Oh, you ran through the West Village. Anyway, that was my week. So three times a week, two times a week I would run to the gym to, from work to the gym.

And once a week, Sundays, I would run from Garmin District all the way to Bay Ridge. That's like 12 miles long. It was like my half marathon run, kind of conditioning. My coach told me, endurance. That's it. And I'll be running. I'll be running all the way to Brooklyn Bridge. Brooklyn Bridge down the, on Third Avenue,

all the way to two buildings like in Bay Ridge, Verzano Bridge. Wow. And that was my run. And that's it. And, you know, you get one fighter, you fight one guy, you're not a fight, and you kind of slowly climb, slowly climb. I remember becoming Tendano. Tendino was like a kind of like,

oh wow, I'm 10 and oh, and I'm already like fighting 10 rounds, fights. It's kind of big for me. And then there was like ranking. You're kind of Googling yourself. You know, like, oh, ranking. I'm like ranked 135. And you read my dad, my dad, I tell my dad, like, I'm 235 in the world. And I was like, 135.

I was like, you know, that's like, my dad's woke, wow. one kid from Chernobyl and your dad was impressed when he told them yeah my dad yes interesting thing I just moved so two weeks ago

and I was going through so much shit of mine because there's boxes that I move from four or five times I moved there's these boxes there that I moved everywhere and I never opened them but I can take them with me

and I Once in a while I open up and I see there's a bunch of cutouts from the play papers from Israel, from here in the United States, me winning, like, and there's like a bunch of cutouts. And I tell my wife, we're going to have a fireplace. I'm going to burn old ashore. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Your kids are going to read this. And there's like boxes of this crap, boxes, you know.

So that's why I was talking. I got into old letters, my handwritten letters with my grandma. And I found a couple years ago a letter from her. Like, I love your grandma, just like two, three pages for people who I had to like write physically letters, you know. And my mom says, oh, sorry, my grandma says. that it's funny because I, Yuri, I just want to remind you that I spoke with your dad and I just reminded,

I just kind of was thinking about, something I never told you, that when I spoke with him in like, before you guys left to Israel, he told me that, watch, you were going to be a world champion, you know? So apparently my dad believed in my little past, since the beginning.

And that's like it's interesting. Because for me, that was such a news that I thought my dad is, my dad is like such a thick skin in him. He never show emotions outside that, you know, like through the know of my mom. But it doesn't show so much emotions.

Only gets really drunk with his friends. He could be like kind of mellow. But I don't know, like, an emotion. Like, sometimes I don't know. Like, is he proud of me? Is he proud of me? And that and that. Like he, few times when he came to visit, he came to my fights.

And he kind of like, good job. Just tell me like, good job, good work today. And it kind of like tells me like, all right, thanks. Thanks, that. Wow. But like apparently he was already like back then. He knew you. He knew you going to do it.

Like he believed in me, you know. So then what is the road to them becoming the world champion? So I could give you probably a year ago, I would tell you complete different, very pretentious answer. But now I think I got it. I think I got it. Like I got this. And I think it relates to every single profession. People want to achieve.

It's a hack. It's not like, you know, like an Instagram or a TikTok hack. throw this punch combination and you're going to score a knackout 10 out of 10 every single time you fight someone you're going to score a knack out you know like one of these hacks or financial hacks that

that you know put your money here P zero 106 boom in 32 years so I few of those things I'm just going to regress I'm just going to regress I'm just going to take resume

I ask a few of my business juice of those two hacks because those hacks are so believable. And it's so like, my God. I make this account. I just do this accounts or whatever account.

$10 million? And I sent the screenshot to them, they don't have social medias, those shoes. And they looked at them like, it's funny. It's actually very well done because it's very believable. But I had to rewatch twice to realize that you actually can do that for 30 years if you just put $100 into this account,

but only if you don't, if you're all money you make, you put for 32 years all this money. So you don't really don't have enough to eat. Yeah, you don't touch the money for 30 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you don't. Then it's possible.

Yeah. Yeah, but that's, so this is the hack. People ask me also about believing. I usually people, I give religious people, people not religious or quasi-religious like what's the difference like you know God what's the God's a relationship that's it's you have a relationship you develop this relationship

it's um there's two people let's say one is complete atheist or his belief like he's atheists don't believe in God not even spiritual I don't believe in God and there's another guy who is who is believe in God it believes in God the atheist, right?

Atheist, I assume the people who don't believe in God, right? Atheist. Atheist, yeah, sorry. Atheist. He is, let's say, doing a rock musician. You know, I'm going to be a rock musician. I'm going to be the best rock musician ever.

I'm going to be the next Jimi Hendrix, you know. And this person believes in himself, in his abilities, in his whatever it is, so much. versus, let's say, the other guy who believes in God, but anything he does, he has doubts. He has doubts in himself. I doubt that I'm going to be the biggest guitar player. I have, like, doubts.

Like, you know, sometimes it's hard to be once in a million because people told me, you know, being a world champion is like one in hundreds and hundreds of thousand people, you know. So this is what I'm telling you. you want to achieve things because by default you might not believe in God

but if you believe in himself by default I'm sorry to say to all the atheists you believe in God you connected with this universe you have the direct line not Wi-Fi line not Bluetooth it's a direct wire line to God

you know because you comedian you are going to be so believing in yourself you want to make it that's the hack because you okay you can call yourself

and not believe in God because God is not a religious people right away when you say God themselves are like religion no it's not religion it's being a good person and don't take no shortcuts and believe in yourself

because that's what it is in my that's what I lived through and I believe in myself and there is times where I doubted that I'm going to be a world champion

because when I've seen Floyd may win and knocks Diego Corrales so easily and I thought it's going to be this hardest fight like I think like yeah

yeah I will I will again but then and then kind of you kind of collect yourself from piece by piece by piece and you're like let me go do my my thing

and then again you shot in thousands and millions of pieces and you have to do this Lego puzzles or whatever the puzzle a thousand piece puzzles you know like you just you put them together and you have to do it again

and this perseverance perseverance, patience and faith in yourself because faith in yourself is a faith on God and not religion not Christian and I'm not going to Judaism Islam. The creator. It's a creator. It's some kind of there is a force. It's a source. Source, yeah. Because that's your number

one fan because I've seen in boxing in boxing And boxing comes so close to spirituality, or at least from my perspective, probably for you when you're on the stage, it's such a pressure that you are kind of become like you are without your clothes. You're kind of like, here I am. I am here like naked. Just take me or let me do my thing. And I've seen fighters who are going into Europe. Like a one guy, like, goodness, he went to Europe, he fought the guy, like a guy from there, like a favorite.

We thought, like, oh, my God, he's going to be like, probably going to get his ass whooped there, you know? That's what I heard from the other people in the gym, you know? And I remember, oh, you know what? The best example is when Tyson fought Ivan the Holyfield. People remember, we still find it on YouTube. This first time? First time, yeah. first time.

And like I was watching it live in Israel. My heart was broken, but it doesn't matter. But something that I learned that day, that when they introduced Mike Tyson, Mike Tyson is usual, you know, no robe, black pants, black shoes, no socks, kind of a thing, Mike Tyson. And when they start introducing Evander Holyfield,

and Van de Holyfield isn't with greening and smiling. and smiling like they are saying some kind of funny things about him and he's like smiling and smiling and I knew

this is a madman Mike Tyson might be in trouble because this guy is not afraid he's not afraid of him he's excited about he's excited about

what's about to happen I cannot wait and then when I came to the United States I learned that when while they're asking Why are you laughing? And Van de Holbe says, like, I'm looking at the man of gross of me

and he's there. There, even there, even thought that he's there with me in the same ring thinking that he's going to be defeating me. It's crazy. It's laughing. It's funny. Wow. And it was like, wow. Like when I said, I was like,

oh my God. It's a different level. It's a different level. There's a level. There's a level. There's a level. There's self-beliefs and such, it's in steroids. And everybody can achieve that level. You just have to work. Because work is, takes time when you have to turn off your

TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, your persona, your social media, image, whatever image, your brand. And sometimes you have to train on that. And there's a training to that. Whether it's meditation, what it's meditation, what it's saying. names, the holy names of God, or what is this, you have to convince into your, that you are, not you are, you have to

have this connection. Sometimes you have to be like, sometimes you have to, your person, like your person, everybody knows you. A lot of people knows you. You're like a famous guy and sometimes you have to be coming to your little dark room

and you have to be kind of know yourself. like who you are and you have to be honest to yourself. Like you have to be, it's easy to be, pretend like Bruce Lee, like one of the guys. So like, it says easy to be, it's easy to be cocky. You have to throw this punch. It's this fancy.

But the hardest thing and the hardest thing to be is to be honest with himself. And that is like, it's so true. It's such a level like when you have to say like, I'm like yep I just screwed here I was not honest with myself I lied to myself because I'm not working hard enough yeah because lying to yourself is

such a become second nature that it starts probably with your first sometimes with white light maybe to a wife or to your parents or to a figure of a boss or figure that you are kind of respect but you don't want to pretend present yourself from like that

so you would kind of try to make a little format to be more cool looking, you know, and that starts. And if you're not catching in time, you have to cut yourself to decide and work who you really are. Because you are not, you are freaking you, your potential, your person, you as Mark. Like there's only, like the only people, the only person who can fill your shoes in this out of 8 billion people even though I suspect the real numbers, whatever the government's out.

But anyway, only you. There's only one person could be you as you. You can achieve such a greatness that, my goodness, if I tell you what you can be, it's like, you'll tell me you're a fool, clown, you know? Muhammad Ali can be only Muhammad Ali.

that's why like in religion like in Judaism does they say that when you die after 120 years you are going to meet your maker

and your maker and your maker going to ask you what did you achieve like one like why did you achieve yourself I didn't expect

for me to be Moses or Abraham I didn't expect to you Muhammad Ali I didn't expect to you Mike Tyson I expected you to be you like the one

that bigger than them, you know? And that's like, that's, I find like, I find out, I find like, that's my kind of, I could sit on that and talk about that. That excites me. How do you deal with the self-doubt? Like when you're on your way to becoming a world champion

and the voice seeps in your head that says, you're not going to make it. That's precisely when you have to be honest with yourself. And what does that look like? What does the honesty look like? So for everyone, it could be different. For everyone, for everyone could be different. For me, for me is being in the locker room.

Locker room, let's say, getting for the fight. I remember sitting before, through every single fight in the locker room, happened when I became more religious in Judaism, so I don't have music playing in my locker room. I can hear my opponent's music, and sometimes like, what a fucking stupid music you're playing? You know, like, my music is hard rock, punk rock. You know, the same thing.

Actually, what's my dad listened? Yeah, what you were raised on. What he was blasting, I'm blasting the same thing. I'm like a dinosaur. And I'm listening and it's quiet. And there's, when I already sweating, I'm about to go. I'm sitting, my coach, a rapping, just a house around him sitting. and you're going within yourself.

And I go within myself. And I tell myself, I telling myself that I did take no shortcuts. Everything, what my coach asked for me, I did extra. I got my ass whooped so many times, but towards the end, I whooped them. You know?

and I tell and it's just like telling myself and I'm you have to have such a kind of release the control you cannot be in control and you kind of I release control like I know like

I potentially I potentially I tell myself like I could put my wife put my life my life on the line right now like if I get hit with the punch that I didn't see happens, happens to Tyson, happens to Mohammed Ali, happens to way greater fighters. But I ask like, give me the strength, the universe, give me the

strength. You know, I put myself 100% a 100% honesty with myself, also with strength. And that's what's that's inner dialogue gives me strength before my fights because in the end I I have to be sometimes like like even that I could take that as well to my marriage and my and my parents of my my my kids as a parent like there's a few times I mean to regret that I snap at my kids they test me though you know and I work and they sometimes I have to be honest with myself that I just I should have not and I

have to be honest and I same as with my wife my wife is my rock she's my rock she is five foot four she probably would say five foot three or something she's like little Italian Irish Irish half of Irish half I don't know what

and like firecracker and like she cuts me down to and she supports me. And like, I have to be honest. Like, it's, and now, like, I learned that what makes me, like, this little voice that we heard, like, you have to say no to this voice. What gets me is the more, the longer I say no to this voice, the stronger I get.

And that's what it is. and like would it be would it be sweets would it be I don't know sugars would it be um social media

social media like so like I can spend like like either do something like my social media is I have to do something about it like sometimes I get motivated sometimes and I get motivated

and I don't know maybe after after after after the after this you can tell me give me some advice So how do you get the title fight? Title fight is faith, fating yourself and no shortcuts. But logistically, how many fights did you have to win until you actually get offered the title fight? For everyone, it's different.

For me, it took seven years, seven years, yeah, I turned professionally. It's seven, six, seven years, of a lot of fights. And your ranking gets better. And as I was saying before, you know, God might be not a fan of boxing, but it sees how much you have a fan and he's your fan. What I was saying about people going to the, I digress so much that I completely forgot, those PowerPoints, I would say. I've seen the guy who went to the backyard without a fighter.

The entire arena has been screaming, booing him. And there was a fighter. A fighter, oh my goodness, it was like 20 years ago. It's not Jamaican, is it like from islands. But he was going to England fight. And I remember watching it, Friday night fights or something. Everybody booing him.

And he was the calmest guy. And he had in his eyes written murder. he is should be convicted for murder you know like the way he approached this thing they could scream everybody can scream

whatever they want there's only one guy be allowed on this ring that's him and you're going about to witness a murder of your kid you know and that's how it is like a savage

and that's is I must say it gives not a hard-on kind of a metaphorically speaking it gives you this like power gives me goosebumps and that's what it is like like Ivan de Holyfield

that gives you when you see that you see that like I don't know the fastest man on the planet you know Usain Bolt Usain Bolt

like you see when he's approaching coaches, like why? Why? Like, asking like, why those guys they are sometimes beating him

in training? Why he is number one? Because in that day when it comes in, it looks at everyone, you're going to be like Fred America and you're going to bite my dust you know, like in this famous

queen song. That's the attitude. Because when they come in, oh, this guy have my title, you know. And that's what my coach told me. Like, this guy just don't even know what it is. You came thousands of miles from this little fuckery town in Chernobyl, you know, that blew out, then you went to Israel, then you went out to here, you went through poverty,

you went, you've been broke all your life, and now you've got fighting in Vegas and the MGM, and I was right under the undercard of Manipaou, and, Miguel Cotto. Wow. You know, it was like a co-main event. That was like big, you know. How was the training camp for that? Training camp was so brutal.

The training camp, I was fighting, I was sparring three times a week. It was brutal because, as I was saying earlier, I was illegal immigrant. I couldn't even get a, I couldn't even get like a driver license. So my routine was, I was living in Brooklyn. I would get to bus subway

subway get to Path train to New Jersey Transit from New Jersey Transit I had my bike with me I would drive I would bike two three miles to to the gym hold together probably an hour an hour of 45

I train don't going back same way so just that was just my traveling but during that time in New Jersey Transit and the trains I was starting to be a rabbi so I had answering the questions, learning more.

So it was not like before social media. You know, you don't have a phone next to you with you all the time. I actually read books. You're doing it at the same time. Same time, like, yeah, usually on the way to the gym, because after the way in a gym, I'm just so tired of sleeping. But this particular camp was so hard because I was sparring with this kid. And he was whooping my ass.

Oh, do you remember who? Yeah, Dennis Doglin. He was a good kid. It was not even professional. He was a good amateur. He was bigger than me. It was like a bigger kid fast. Like, you know, I was 28.

He was 18, probably 18, 19. And he was whooping my ass. You know, like my coach told him, like just keep on going. Just keep, keep on. My coach, you don't listen to me.

You don't listen to me. I tell you, why do you stop? Why do you stop moving? You have to move. And, you know, you get tired and I'll stop. You're like,

somebody hit you. You know, you want to give him back. You know, like Mike hasn't said, like you have a game plan until you get punched in the face, you know.

And that was my training. training camp and then we'll come next day and next day there's four weeks four weeks to go three weeks to go two weeks ago going every day and then two weeks ago three times three times a week I was sparring with this kid and um the the last week of sparring we're doing 10 rounds of sparring and then the following is going to be eight rounds of sparring and the 10 rounds of sparring I'm taking this kid to school I'm taking him to school. Like anything you're trying to do,

something, whatever the abuse that it took, finally it pops in. Whatever the second nature things that you've been hammering and hammering and polishing and polishing and polishing. Polishing, there's like a little like these tools literally going in.

It start popping in. Suddenly you're like, you see. you're ahead of a game. And on the way back, when I was going, I don't know what time of what city in Jersey was training him. I don't know. But this guy, Black Dude, was driving me to Newark Station. It was living in New York,

driving me to Path Train. And I was tired. I was having my proton shake. And it was like, tell me, dude, you're getting. your ass will for weeks I was watching you. And today you took this kid to

school. I haven't seen this boxing in a long time. And once I said that, it's like it made me feel so good. And then I had the last day of sparring. And it was just exactly. The last two sparring, I knew

I am going to take the title. Like I knew I'm ready to the point of like a fell it with my nerves that, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it. No question. Yeah, no question.

Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, like, I knew, whatever this champ gonna bring to me, like, I know how to counter it. Like, I know my body is just gonna do it. You know, I don't even have to think. And there was other, like, kind of a troubles that happened during,

because in professional boxing, you have 25 hours of rehydration. You do one, day before it's a weight in you make your weight 154 pounds Daniel Santos the three-time world champion

that I was fighting he was 154 but he was barely stepping in to 154 he was like really killing himself to make 154 it was interesting I had to step the day of a fight

I had to step two hours before the fight I had to step with my clothes into onto the unofficial HBO, unofficial weight, right? How much I dehydrated myself. So I was 154 the day before, and I was eating, I was drinking and all that. And I'm stamping with my clothes on,

and 156 and a half. So like I rehydrated myself for like, two pounds. I peeved myself, I really like, use bathroom every single time because everything goes through me, you know. Plus I'm getting a little nervous. You know, not every day

I'm fighting for tired. you know kind of your your the food is the last thing in my mind i want to i want to like i'm like anxious i'm anxious you know and it's funny because the the like a screen shows ureform 156 and a half and daniel santos 173 like this motherfucker rehab 19 pounds wow 19 pounds and i'm like so when i'm going to the rink and usual when they

the referee reads you a Miranda Lowe's you know your last last wish you as like

you know protect yourself at all time that's like touch your gloves and what which where is this in Vegas

at MGM MGM MGM how many people are there oh it's full packed it's first of all everybody came

to watch Mani Piccar and Miguel Cotto It's a big, big fight It's a jammed pack Whatever the capacity $10,000 or $25,000 25,000 or $20,000 Whatever the capacity is

It's the mass And that's the most you've ever found The mass, yeah This is at that time, yes And And as I'm going in As they introduce me The challenge in first

Usually like you know Just yeah There is You see like a couple juice A couple juice The funny part of Couple Jews is I'm walking to the ring

And a lot of Puerto Ricans Because Daniel Santos All happened to be Puerto Rican Props to Puerto Rican fans One of the best One of the best When they're going in to support your They go hard

They're going hard Not so much juice Unless you get Do you have a free ticket for me? How well However, the best tickets are sold, bought by the Jews. That's a good point. Whatever, $15,000?

Yeah, I'm going to support my boy here. Ringside. Yeah. So it sounds almost as loud as the whole 20,000 people because they're the closest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the chosen. You hear that. So the way I'm going into the ring, there are things they're saying to the, whatever the Spanish, Mama Wicho, Mama Gwebo, you're a puta this, you know, Judeo, Yudio, you know, things.

Like, it's nice, it's nice. But those stories what I heard years ago about the fighters going in and seeing Van de Holyfield when he's smiling, that's like, I have to go through this, and it excites me. It excites me that to the point that I'm walking on the same footsteps as the world champions, everybody hating me, you know, for whatever reason is, because I'm fighting their fighter. But it gives me so much excitement at that moment, like, wow, like, holy moly. It's scary, but it's the same time, it's exciting.

And when they removed the champion's robe, he was huge. He was a different person. Like, they put the, like, you know, this, this, uh... Just like a bike pump shit. Our game plan changed. Like, same point. Like, as touched your gloves, touch your,

touch your gloves as I'm backing back to the corner, my coach says like, listen, Yuri, first six rounds, you're going to be moving like you never moved before in your life. This kid is going to be doing shadow boxing for six rounds. He's not going to be able to touch you,

unless you let him touch you. And the next half, the six, the 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, you're going to put such a hit on him that it's not going to be no what hit him. That was our group.

That's it. That was a pivot. Boom, this is it. What was the original game plan? Game plan is to box him, not to get hit and not to get hit. That's the, that's what art of boxing known, to hit and not to get hit.

It's not about you hit me once. I hit you twice. You hit me three times. say it's your phone, no, no, to hit it's art of defense. The great Johnny Boss, the greatest matchmaker in boxing, told me that long time, rest in peace, Johnny Boss, but he told me that Yuri boxing, it's art of defense. It's you hit him, it doesn't hit you.

People hate this. People don't like watching it. People want you to get concussion, but you are, you know, you're not going to get hit. People are going to boo because you're bored, but you're boring but you know you're not going to have a headache Is your dad there?

Dad, no That was in Israel In Israel he called me And he said actually he's watching With his work bodies And stuff like that I don't know what's What's happened in Israel there

And while I was fighting protyl Because that was the late last thing on my mind And your wife at the time At the time my wife she was there. She was there, yeah. She was there. And being, you know, kind of supportive.

Yeah. First wife. Yeah. First wife. You have to go through trenches before you find your, not everyone with me, you know. My dad, you know, married only once and get my mom. and some people just marry,

the fine their... The person. The person right away and some people have to dig. Take a couple rounds, you know? Exactly. From your words to God was. So you step into the ring,

you change your plan, what happens the first six rounds? I move. There's a moment in the second round. He hits me. He was so a heart puncher. because clearly my coach told me the reason they gain so much round

because they're hoping for a short fight, they're thinking they're going to knock you in the first six rounds. In the first six rounds, you're going to be moving. Second rounds, you're going to get tired because 19 pounds, they told me, 19 pounds is hard to carry. Somebody who is always, you know.

That's what he told me. And yeah, because when you gain so much weight, and if you didn't like the guy, you have to chase him. And when you throw two punches, you miss one. You throw three punches, you miss three punches or two punches. It's an expenditure of energy that you just lost. You didn't even connect. You lose so much energy.

You get tired. It gets slow as well. But it hits me in the first round. He hits me so hard, like four split second and blacked out. I almost touched the canvas. And he thought he had me, but like I was fine. I recovered fast. We have this, I digress,

we have this, it's an exercise that we do after sparring sessions. Back in Soviet Union, this exercise, it's unique to Russians. I haven't seen anyone, maybe after this, they're going to everybody going to do this. After I finish my sparring session, I get under the center of the rink.

My coach comes with the 15 seconds timer, back when there was timers, you know, now it's a phone. And I spin in one direction, on one spot, like my hands spread, you know, and close my eyes, and I spin as hard as I can till 15 seconds.

And 15 seconds says his whistle or whatever time is scream, 15 seconds. I stop and I start shadow boxing. Well, my whole world, the world is moving. I'm trying to get my different images. Equilibrium, boom, equilibrium fast. Then I repeat that second direction.

Go the other way. Then do the direction. So it's the same feeling. I'm telling you, when the Soviets was approaching boxing, they was approaching from, they were still in this race to the space with the United States because then you're like

okay we're gonna it's the same because a lot of coaches were doctors in science and sports they're like it makes sense that you need

your equilibrium equilibrium getting recovering so fast train it yeah you can train it it's not just all over the place you can train it

so you can recover fast because it's the same as knockdown or knackouts knockout not nagdon sorry so that's what it's on it so I get

recover fast And there was this in the middle of this in the middle of the second round there's the moment where I punch him punch him And it's something voice telling me that I can throw right now a combination and I throw like just a simple combination almost like not panicking but like right left right left and an appropriate and I land every single of them And he's like on the ropes and and the referee start counting him and and I'm getting in the corner and my coach just telling me like, you know, just mostly like, breathe, breathe. And just like, jump on him.

He's like, jump on him, jump on him. And something tells me like I should not jump on him. But maybe I should have. And the crowd, you hear them. And the crowd is all over the place. The Jews, the five Jews, Greece. The Moishe. The Moishe, Aaron, and Yossi, Joseph.

they're all like celebrating and Mendel and yeah they're like all there and and and then and then suddenly I've stopped having like a little bit more hope in me and having a little bit more hope in me and started noticing this seasoned three-time world champion I actually something like a voice like what I believe that I'm going to take in I'm actually going to take it tonight the world round you know and that was like a second round and then you have one minute break and and every, each minute that I had, like, with a 50 seconds, let's hit, you know, you're coming in, I'm telling myself,

like, God, Hasham, like, I had just for a second round, like, please, let's repeat the same, the same round again, please just be with me, let me, like, you know, let me fly, let me fly on my feet, be untouchable, you know,

and, and those was, like, that was me, because, like, I was, and, um, I score another knockdown, and then I was just completely over like every single round. I was just beating him up, beating him up, and I won like unanimous. The sweetest thing, though, was unbelievable. They never, they didn't even hit me yet, because shell shock was like, they knew, you know?

How was it when you called your dad, by the way, after you got the belt? Well, first of all, he was, he already knew that. because that he was, he was, like, very happy. He was, like, screaming on, like, a little, kind of like a high-peach, high-peach scream. I pick on my dad all the, all the time. I'm taller than him.

And he's a fat. Tell him when you're going to get in shape. When I came to the United States, I was 18. he was 38. We had 20 years apart. So now I'm 43. A couple of years ago

I was making fun of me. Like, look, Yuri, you're 40. You left. You left. You left the United States when I was 38. I was younger now. I was younger than you are now,

technically. I was like, I know that, but I still can kick you ass. Even if I have 43, I would kick you or 38 years old. And it was like, that's true. Yeah, that's funny.

Do you wish that your mom could have seen you win the world champion? I wish that. Yeah, by the way, a gold medal. But not proving to her. I was like mama's boy. I love my mom a few times. It's weird that the dear people that I lost over the years, like I haven't had any dreams with them.

I dream of some stupid people that I don't want to even see it. hardly even see, you know, but like mom came probably once in dream with me. Like my manager came in dream with me once to kind of calming all. But the people who really want to hurt me, really hurt me, like hurt me. They, once they changed their mind, they were, came Frank with me. They told me, you know what, I want to do such. horrible things to you, your mom came to my dream

and told me that you better not touch Yuri. And that's like, oh, I guess somebody's watching me. Wait, really? Yeah, it's like, so weird. Like, and at that time I was not even like religious, but at that time I knew like, like, there is something out there. Wow.

And that makes me, then because really, some scientists used to say like, you know, we know only 10% of our brain. Yeah. And 90% we don't know. But it's really different. Like a Kabbalist or spiritual work as Judaism, Judaism, you know, they say we know maybe 5% of the universe that we are in physicality. And 95, we don't even know what it is because we are, have a retardation that's happened along the line.

that we're thinking there is a hack to our existence, that we can hack, how can we catch a train to, how can we run 10 miles faster than Usain Bolt? No, you can't. You have to run. Wow. How much money did you get from that title fight? Title fight?

Oh, not not. I actually, I got before title fight, I had more, more fight. Like that fight, I got paid 55. thousand dollars you know and since it was for the title the title have to take percentage that was like I think three thousand three four four five thousand dollar as a as a percentage of base from the whatever that's why my that's why my weather gives away his titles anytime he wins because when he earns 30 million dollars the organization gonna take about five six

my million dollars. Wow. Makes sense like, I'm the champ. Who cares? I don't need that to define who's the champ. Wow. But for me, I was like,

oh, you can take everything. Just as long as I take the belt. Yeah. Did you get more from the Koto fight? Go to fight? Yeah, more, yeah. Yeah, I got more. There was a bigger fight.

It was a main event as well. Yeah. It was a main event in HBO, I believe. Was that the one at Yankee Stadium? Yankee Stadium. How was that? that was very, very cool to be part of it. It was big.

It was big, like, I was telling myself, like, holy shit, I just got here in JFK a couple of years ago with gym back and some back with, like, some clean underwear, maybe dirty socks and shit like that. And I'm here in, about to fight in Yankee Stadium. and my picture and his picture were in Times Square big like 100 feet it was like unbelievable and I was like holy moly like I wanted to say like just for that moment like I wanted to say like my friends in Israel who told me that who doubted me a little bit you know like here I am here

here we go that's that's the that's the from poster from there um I mean, that's an amazing experience to go into Yankee Stadium. The Yankee Stadium, it was a hot night. It was outdoors. Did that make a difference for you? Cardio, right? Cardio was like, it's maybe a little bit. But really what kind of effed me up a little bit

is the longest Sabbath day. It was that night. So the sundown is really officially happens 9.20. 920 after Sadna. So that time, I can go to the event, to the Yankee Stadium. And I had not so much time to prepare for a fight. It was like... Because you were still observing the Sabbath.

Yes, observing something. I'm still observing Sabbath. But that time I was already like, I was already like starting to be a rabbi. So I couldn't be in Yankee. stadium. It's far away because I was staying in hotel. I asked my manager Mori, Wilson, Mori, is there's a hotel next to Yankees? Because I need to walk because I need

like an hour and a half, two hours in the locker room kind of adjust myself, you know, not to rush. So you really trust me. The hotels that in Bronx here, you don't want to stay in. I'm going to put you in Hilton. It's it's like Manhattan and we're going to figure out something to get you there so the coolest thing though

once the Sabbath was over I had the police escort which is the coolest thing like a president's do going through traffic and I was like holy mother that's what they do that's why they're not late for for the meetings how to manipulate people in the world

to take the vaccines so you take a police escort to Yankee Stadium. The Yankee Stadium. I'm going fast and people like, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, let's go. And my manager always tell me, make sure you don't forget your outfit.

You know, that's like, because one fight I forgot my outfit. It was also like after Sabbath and I was getting there. And I realized I'm like, removing like, I'm like, holy molly, I just forgot my outfit. So they were sent my friend on a car service to get to my home. to get my outfit and go fast and my manager was like I'm gonna pay you anything if you do this under two hours so the the cab driver was like motivated wow I'll pay for the tickets you get go fast so got that got me I was like an underwear till the last moment till I got my things

people got so nervous that that was main event at that time and people were like don't like people win what the fuck what's going oh like you know

they got me and we're going and and whew wow but you didn't forget it on

this night not this night no I did not however you need sometimes time

you know like you preparing for something big like that you need little time

you don't want to be rushed other than that it was it was fun it was fun it was fighting

against one of the best Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto I'm his fan So fighting someone like that Couldn't ask for more You know Win draw a lose

As they say You know Yeah Unfortunately I lost But till the moment I tore my ACL The fight was pretty even Yeah Had you not torn your ACL

I think it would have been a different fight Could be you know But it's in the stars And Yeah This happened. His corner was actually very smart. His corner put a lot of water in this... Rehydration clause.

In his corner, there was like pouring water, you know. To cool him down, that's one thing. But they didn't clean so much, you know. And then you're Uri-formin going to move a lot. Uri-Fordment going to be... You have to stock Uri, because that's going to be like everyone else. When I fight, everybody are going to stock me. you know the better you cut the ring the better you're going to cut me and as a fighter

so they try to make a small ring so they yeah and I was moving and I was moving and it was that's in this corner I was moving like I was making like this kind of move to the left or right and my knee was just like boom and I already had um all the injury anyway in the knee so and you slipped on water you so it was a water yeah I was just like whip and you know exactly like You can see it in the video, right, when you do it? I do the, I thought that it was just the things that I usually kind of dislocate my knee almost, kind of feeling. Like, kind of like the two bones are kind of stick. Like this, like, but this was like painful.

But in the same time, you saw so much adrenaline. You kind of go like, oh, probably might as well just shoot me in their shoulders. I'm going to be still kind of trying to. so the adrenaline is a miracle here as well. But then your knee is not functioning. Yeah, and then... You try to stand and it collapses. Yeah, it was like, and very, like,

start feeling pain towards... Yeah. I tried, I think, for two rounds, I think, to continue and... And was Miguel nice afterwards? Yeah, it was very... It was always gentlemen. Always been in these fights.

He's not a thrash talker, is a true fighter. Yeah. Like a lot of Puerto Rican fighters. And why did the fight? Why would Pacquio not happen? I don't know. Pachio said something, I don't want to fight four men, four men, saying like, he probably was testing his stand-up.

Yeah. But he stand-up, I don't know. I think in Asian states, it's a very different humor there. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, do you think it was like, oh, he wanted, like, a different fight? I don't know. I think, yeah, it just, they tried. to make it happen, it just didn't want to fight me.

It's fine. I'll take it as a compliment. Yeah. You know, great, great, great fighter. And it's fine. It's fine. And now that you've kind of like taken a step back and you have your children and you have your new wife that you have a great time with, do you feel like you're at peace?

I, um, oh, never in peace. My dad says, like, you know, peace when I'm going to be dad. It's just like, you don't want to be in peace. You always want to do things. You want to make things better. Run you. You, run you.

So I'm like, I'm content in certain things. But I want to be like, I want to be, first of all, not done. You know, I'm still going to have two more years of boxing. 43 now George Foreman George Foreman became second time World Champion at 45

I'm taking as a joke so I have still two more years just I told him actually one of my biggest highlights this last summer when I spoke with George Foreman on social media

that was just like wow yeah it's like huge so that's I think the second book I read was about George Foreman and that's

like first Ali Foreman because I believe you're going to be done when you're going to convince yourself when you're going to agree with yourself that you're done I'm old and

a lot of people are going to say you know let's say being in full 40 that, oh, you know, like, old fart, you know. My dad says to me, I'm an old fart, you know, but it's okay. I agree to extend if he base it from himself. He was 40, old fart when he was 43. But I...

So do you think you'll continue fighting? Yeah. What is your next fight schedule? Do you have anything? So hopefully it's going to be towards the summer this year. And my wife wants, not doing it for my wife. I was just like, but she's like, Yuri, you need it. I'm going to support you.

I'm going to watch the kids. I'll watch the kids. You go to training camp. You are, you know, in the war, but I'm going to treat them well. Like my mom, she treats them as my own, as her own. So that's. Is it going to be in New York? I don't know

probably going to somewhere else and then hopefully the last fight it should be in Jerusalem you know that's we're going to get a nice a nice

Muslim fighter of all the Muslim fans gonna beat the crap out of I'm just kidding I have you know what about the Muslim Muslim

Muslim fighters from Israel. I have quite a few friends, still friends with them on Facebook. When I won the title, I received probably three phone calls from Arabs that I was going to the gyms

and they were saying in broken Hebrew, how happy they are. They say, Hamdulala. Hamdulala. Hamdulala, you won. You always wanted to win. And you always wanted to win.

always like you had this passion and you, like, you know, Hamdulal, they always amtulah, you know. And it's sweet. And like you are so different yet so similar, you know. One thing that unites it. Yeah, it's like we're all the same. It's like we are just being assholes to each other, you know? Yeah.

And, you know. Well, I want to go. I want to go to one of your fights. I don't know if I'll make it to Jerusalem, but this next one, I would love to go. Yeah, yeah. I would. It would cool. Yeah.

It would cool. Yeah. Listen, I totally would come out with you as the opening if maybe we can start something new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to start with the funny set of music, you know? Well, this was an idea that I had. I wanted to do a, like, you've seen a roast battle where people will roast each other? Yeah, I love it.

What if you do one round of roasting, one round of boxing? Yeah, that's funny. They started, they tried it with chess. Oh, yeah, chess boxing. The chess boxing. But, like, you know, like, if you know, if you. you are good chess, best. I still have like a round that I'm going to probably not

going to make it to the second round, you know, of a chest. What do you think of Jake Paul and these YouTube fighters becoming fighters? One thing is you know, he's a brand. He's a name. He brings in. He puts work. Whoever going to say something negative

he puts his face on a line of someone else's fists. And that's takes bowls. You know, it takes us. So props to him and he makes it the business. Good for him.

If I would be, let's say, a comedian like that, I would do it, but I'm not. Like Rocky, Rocky One. Remember when Andrews says like, Rocky, why are you box? I was like, oh, because I don't know how to sing, you know. So that's...

Wow. I mean, this is a truly wildlife. I mean, what a roller coaster. You've been through so many, I mean, fighting Yankee Stadium. I'm coming from Chernobyl. I mean, it's truly a remarkable journey. If you want to get your special pills, gets from Chernobyl. Dial one and a hundred-year-old reform.

That's what you need. You got to start selling Chernobyl Superpower Pills. Chernobyl Super Power Pills. She's got to play in the radioactive rain and it'll be all set. But you know what? It's like my coach says, a knife sharpens, not a knife. It's, as you, you are, you're going through your lives. And everyone have very interesting lives.

As soon as they start thinking like, holy shit, I went through this, I went through that. I want, but we're just not trained of thinking about that. And that's what makes a unique, interesting. Not being unique, but everybody's unique, but very interesting human being. You're funny. You're funny. Thank you, brother. Your 80s band, you know, like, you, it's a badass.

It's like something like, I think it would be way more badass if you had a moulet, moulet, whatever. I might need to. I might need to bust out the mullet. But that's one of the things I love about this show and doing this podcast is that I get to sit down with people like you and learn about your life. And I think it makes me more interesting. I think it gives me perspective. It helps me grow as a person, you know, in my 20s to hear about the...

You in your 20s? 27, yeah. 27 shit my god I still have time to win a you know you are actually like you're much you probably because you are

always searching for improving your art and you are in front of people and you know how to you know not act but like not present like it's fake

perform perform in front of a lot of people you are sound you actually look older than you yeah I look like Yeah. I'm too stressed. Not physically.

You are, you present. You're actually like, and you're like, when I third is my age, you know? Almost. All right, easy. I'm not that old. Yeah. I'm not an old fart. Yeah.

Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. My dad was saying before, when I was like 37, 30, like, and so Yuri, now you officially, you

officially, there's a saying in Russian like, up your ass age. Yeah. Up your ass age. And it's like, so what's happened after you? your after up US. It's always going to be way over US. So it's 40 years old. Yeah, that's the cut.

Yeah, that's the cut. Yeah. So I'm like, so when he was saying like 40 years old, you went wishing me congratulating me on my birthday. It's like, you're now officially over US age. Hell old fart. Hell yeah. Oh, I can't wait.

This has been really, really fun, man. I really enjoy the conversation. Likewise, thank you very much for your great, great question. You are awesome, man. wishing you a lot of success because I can see a person when I see one like in Southern I don't see people

you know like four days I saw a mailman I strike a conversation with him I thought like I'm crazy I get it I understand your spirit Like you have a fire You know you have a fire And it's actually interesting to see

In people You see sometimes kids You kids like you see so much things and then you see fire in them. Like when they want to, they have like, I want to be a president and they have so much fire in it. And I,

in the beginning, like, yeah, trust me, I don't want to be a president. I don't want to be the asshole, you know. But I stop, I stop myself, let him, let him have this fire and continue to have this. Because my parents was telling me,

like, cut yourself to, you know, police officer, you know, fireman, like an older doctor. Yeah. So, but I can see you, you're pushing the horizons. And that's what I think, when they watch you, people should expand their horizons.

Because as soon as you start expanding, things are going to start happening. That's what I feel. I mean, I expand my horizons every time I sit down with someone like you. That's cool. I learn about the world. Yeah. Listen, as a rabbi, I'm going to try. I'm going to send you blessings for you and you.

It never, you and your wife. By the way, your wife doing a very amazing work. It's going to be you who telling for that. but you and your wife and be all successful, successful, number one, health, you know, health is and prosperous and so much strength and wisdom that whatever you have some kind of little itty-bitty problems, you know, you'll have strength to overcome and to grow together

and have healthy children after. Inshallah. Inshallah, don't forget, don't forget if it's a boy, name Yuri is a good one. I think George. I think George. So, so on that, yeah, thank you very much for having me. Thank you. You're awesome and cool. I appreciate it. Thank you. Let's do it again soon. Yeah, absolutely.