Crime in Sports - #289 - I'm Always Innocent - The Cinematicness of Vinny "The Pazmanian Devil" Pazienza

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

This week, we dip back into the brain damage sports with a man, who is nothing, if not entertaining. He's a boxer with flash & power, but the story isn't all happy. He made his way back, from a broken neck, all the way to ring, to box for another 10 years. He was a champion, a lunatic, and great quote. He lost his money, several times, but got arrested, even more. Drunk driving, fighting cops, fighting women in bars, fighting women at home, bad checks at casinos, rushing into someone's house, then biting them... And even had a major Hollywood movie made about his life. It's a lot. And so is he!! Follow the dream to be Rocky, have a major Hollywood movie made about you, and spend all of your post career life, fighting in court, instead of the ring Check us out, every Tuesday! !We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!!  Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman  Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail]  Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com  Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurder See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Let's do this. A lot of show here. All right. Let's dip in. We're dipping into boxing. I love it. And we got a good one here. Vincenzo Edward Pazienza.

Yeah. You know who that is?zo Edward Pazienza. Yeah. You know who that is? Vinny Pazienza? No. You don't know who Vinny Pazienza is? No. Oh, my God. He's a lunatic.

Is he a lightweight? Yeah, he's a lightweight, and then he goes up to light welterweight. He goes from 135 to the low 150s in his career. Later on, he'll change his name legally to Vinny Paz at one point. I do know that name. There you go. That's Vinny Pazienza. He fought his whole career under Pazienza.

And like the last three fights, he's like, I'm changing my name. Better known. And he shortened it. And he shortened it, which is understandable. From a Pazienza to a Petrogallo, believe me, I get it. If you from a Pazienza to a Petrogallo, believe me, I get it. There is many. My father, when he like orders anything like at a restaurant or they want your last name, he just says Gallo.

It doesn't even bother because he doesn't want to see the look on someone's face. So it's I get it. Trust me. Believe me. Gallo. No, no, no. Gallo. C-A-L-L-o jerry cat with a c c-a-l-l-o jerry's dead i know he's dead that's what they told me jerry gallo

jerry gallo's dead i know that so that's so good that's what it is though you have to so but his his nickname better known as the pasmanian devil is what he is called what the pasmanian devil and he's he wouldn't just go by pause like p-a-w-s that seems easy pause why wouldn't well no because he's a boxer and his last name is pause pause p-a-z pazA-Z. Pazienza. Right. Yeah. All right. Sorry. I just think it's easier. Vinny Paz, P-A-W-S.

He's a boxer, for fuck's sake. It seems like an easy leap. He's throwing paws all day. Jimmy's opening a marketing company for up-and-coming boxers. This is his first foray into it so don't judge him he's gonna get better it's gonna get better you have to doesn't even feel like you have to jump for that that's just a step if you're planning on becoming a boxer or just getting into it you know the difference between anonymity and some club somewhere and being a world famous boxer it's a nickname and one guy

out there can help you with that and that's jimmy wissman vinnie pause vinnie pause see there's an example of his amazing work that's what i really thought you when you said isn't that is that not is it p-o-p-o-z is that what he ended up p-a-z-i-e-I-E-N-Z-A. And he just shortens it to P-A-Z, Paz, Vinny Paz. I think I've heard of it, but I thought it was like P-A-W. Maybe I thought that's what it was. Vinny Paz. I know Vinny Paz. Yeah.

The boxer, right? Then he's got Paz. Paz around. So he's born in and will always be. He's one of these guys that hometown always forever type of guy. Doesn't move around really. Just stays home and always repping home. Cranston, Rhode Island.

Loves it. And he loves it. Born December 16th, 1962. Jesus. Getting up there now. Now, his family, to be expected, he comes from a tough family. We'll put it that way. The way he says it, he got his toughness from his parents.

He says that his father is the toughest person he ever met, except for his mother, because she's even tougher. And he explains why. And he boxed. And he boxed. These are hardy people, okay? His father is from Italy, came to the States when he was 18, fled in the middle of World War II. And so his father and my grandmother have like a very similar story. Came over just about the same age and the whole deal.

So I really know what his father's all about. These are a fucking aggressive and stout people. They just don't take shit. And stayed on the East Coast in New England? Italian New Englanders? Yeah. You know what I mean? That's a different group.

They're a different kind of breed. And especially, too, his father's a barber always. So the hands. I can't describe to you the hand strength on a fucking old Italian barber. But they could crush the... Not even your hand. They could grab your they could crush the you're not even your hand they could grab your wrist and crush the bones on it like they're my grandfather used to bring you to your knees that was his trick as a kid he'd squeeze your hand you go oh jesus christ and you'd fall

your knees because he cut hair for 50 years and his hands were like iron grips it's a little scissor iron grips just constant he did it he's flexing it all day fucking 12 hours a day of that shit just so his father fled italy this is during world war ii italy was not occupied by the nazis for a long time so if you grew up then you lived with nazi soldiers walking around which is unsettling at best, we'll say. You know. Uniform and everything. Oh, with tanks and shit.

We're talking the whole, not just a couple of them out for a night on the town. We're talking whole units. They're just, they're there and they're occupying and they pretty much, you know, they do what they want because they're occupying. So this is the famous story about, I would complain to my grandmother about something that was bothering me as a child trivial but you know as a child a major concern

and then she'd tell me when i was a little girl uh when we used to have to hide so the nazi soldiers wouldn't rape us and i went oh okay never mind i guess i'll eat this cereal dry so i guess two percent milk's gonna be good then i guess we don't need the one percent okay good yeah i'll just use that okay thanks grandma for putting it all in perspective yeah and that's how they raise you they raise you as well at least there's no nazis walking around trying to kill you like that's good so you should be fucking satisfied with what you have you have food and there's no nazis walking around trying to kill you like that's good so you should be fucking satisfied with what you have you have food and there's no nazis yeah done and done what the fuck so it's american beauty pasta eat it that's what i mean so it's uh well we don't skimp on the pasta that's one thing we're not gonna well let's skip other places but we're gonna eat the pasta

that's good pasta close enough make it ourselves what the fuck fuck? They're from Italy. You can slap a pasta together in no time. So anyway, he said his father had to flee Italy after there was apparently some Nazi soldiers stole some animals from the farm. They would just come and take shit from your farm. So obviously. So apparently a Nazi soldier who was was straggler in the group stole a cow and his father pitchforked him in the chest and killed him hell yeah so this is a uh that's a

story so apparently then he had to be like veto corleone out of the country like he had to be hidden and you know they were like searching for the where's the boy who killed the soldier. You know, you couldn't do that, obviously. So they had to, you know, get him and get him into the cargo hold of a ship somewhere. Yeah. Up a donkey's ass and get him through town and, you know, in a hay pile and then on a ship and then, you know, all that stuff. So he ended up coming to America when he was 18 when that happened. So that's where his father comes from, fleeing after pitchforking a Nazi.

Wow. This is the type of people we're dealing with. And he says, though his mother is even tougher, he says his mother one day was carrying groceries home and fell down on the front stairs of the house which are all the houses back here and back there are all like uh like the concrete steps you know those oh yeah they're they're granite ledge yeah they're very steep yes exactly i fell down this flight of them when i was i still have a scar on my fucking head i fell down the flight of them when i was a

kid happened a lot so they're bad granite slabs that they just yeah a smaller one up and up top that's all or the shittier house is just concrete that's you know the concrete ones either way though they're fucking hard so apparently her his mother fell on the stairs while carrying groceries and um she hurt her knee and apparently went inside made dinner for everybody because you know gotta have well we gotta eat you know injure or not everybody's got to eat here so i'm cooking for a man who pitchforked and knots yeah he wants his dinner better get that dinner ready he wants his dinner on the table so made dinner for everybody and then once it was all ready and everybody ate and she waited till everybody was done eating and then she said can i have a ride to the hospital please i hurt my and her

knee was shattered in eight places her kneecap was broken her fucking knee was broken her knee was totally destroyed it was the size of a basketball but she made dinner and waited till everybody finished first and then said could i please have a ride to the hospital? Her knee's the size of the eggplant Parmesan tray, but everybody's fed. This is, they're a hearty people. Let's just say that. They're a hearty people. So they're kind of your classic. I mean, they're like, he's a few years younger than my parents,

five years younger than my dad. Not even, I think four years younger than, no, five years younger than my dad. So it's the same thing, you know, my grandparents, five years younger than my dad. Not even, I think four years younger than, no, five years younger than my dad. So it's the same thing, you know, my grandparents, the same deal. So I know exactly how he grew up. His father, he grew up like my dad pretty much because his father was a barber. This guy's, you know, Vinny's father, Angelo's a barber

and his uncle, Sal, his father's brother, also a barber. My family, my grandfather, a barber, his brother, a barber, their uncle barbers, their aunt cut brother, also a barber. My family, my grandfather, a barber. His brother, a barber. Their uncle, barbers. Their aunt cut hair. They own shops. That's how my grandfather got his start, was cutting hair when he was 12 in his uncle's barber shop. They were also named Vinnie and Sal, too, right?

Everybody's named Vinnie and Sal, Jimmy. It makes it easier to remember. It makes it easier, you know? All those hits in the head, we can't remember a lot, so it works. So Uncle Sal's a barber. Jesus. Uncle Sal, Angelo, Vincenzo over here. We got a...

Jesus Christ. It's Christmas at my house, everybody. Come on over. That's what it is. Pasta's fresh. And it always is. His father, Angelo, his mother's name is Louise, by the way,

father, Angelo, thought he wanted him to be a baseball player, actually. Wanted Vinny to be a baseball player? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Vinny's only 5'7", Vinny. He's a small little guy. I relate. Yeah. We both relate to him now.

guy so he's he yeah we both relate to him now so minnie is me and you together yeah if you mix us together he uh he wanted him to be a like a great middle infielder baseball so he called him scooter after phil risuto who was the hall of fame yankee shortstop and you know shortstop of all those 50s teams that were so good so he uh the way she's described his mother this house is such a such a saturday night fever house like he grew up in the saturday night fever house yeah like if you've seen that movie travolta comes downstairs and they all the pictures and the fucking saints and all that shit and there's dinner on the table everybody's yelling at each other it's night in the mid 70s that's exactly when vinnie was like that age too like it's he is saturday night fever fascinating he's in this article uh they describe quote mama's

louise she makes ricotta cheese pie and has more religious artifacts than the vatican which describes every old italian lady is what they just described she's fine she'll sling a ricotta pie and she'll have shit everywhere so he says quote there's a lot the large print of da vinci's last supper lots of illustrated copies of the lord's prayer a statuette of christ on the cross she sprinkles holy water on a writer's notepad pictures of vinny which are everywhere are rosary draped like he's dead that's the other thing oh vinny oh he could be hurt out there oh my god vinny's doing the sign of the cross ma vinny's fine he was just here 10 minutes ago he's doing great he's got they broke his tooth something bad could happen though it could happen and i'm i i

gotta get ahead of it that's how these people you have no idea he broke his tooth on the rosary beads that you had in that raccoon pot yeah i put it in there i thought maybe if he just ate it without knowing it would protect him you never know you know my mom my vinnie be careful out there sweetheart you have no fucking idea how overwhelming this can be. That says a lot. Just pictures of Vinny everywhere, rosary draped. That says everything you need to know about this family. And it's fucking hilarious and more relatable than I can even tell you.

Whenever Vinny would have fights later on, he's a boxer, his mother would light two candles to keep him safe and pray. One for him and one for the other guy? I guess prayer candles, probably, honestly. She never would go to his fights, though, because she can't watch that. Oh, really? She'd jump in there and fucking hit the other guy

with a rolling pin. You can't. An Italian mother can't watch that. No, that's never going to happen. You hit my baby. Oh, he could be kicking the shit out of the guy the guy throws one flailing jab as he's running the other direction you son of a bitch you'd get in there how dare you hit my vinnie she'd be all over him i'm telling you i'm fucking

it's ridiculous man it's a lot it's a lot the uh the love that an italian mother gives is uh is it's a lot it's it's um it's it's it's like a dump truck load, and you're just pouring it into the back of a Toyota Tacoma. And you're like, that's enough! It's full! Come on! You're like, but there's a lot left in the truck. We're going to keep going. You're like, oh, for Christ's sake, I can't even move it.

You paid for it. You get what you paid for. You get what you paid for. But Ma, please, for Christ's sake, I can't even move. You paid for it. You get what you paid for. You get what you paid for. But Ma, please stop dumping it. Jesus. So Angelo later on would say that Vinny was never in trouble as a kid. But he was. He was never in like, you know, legal trouble.

He wasn't getting arrested all the time. But he was always kind of a pain in the ass, Vinny. Vinny's got a lot of energy. He likes to fight. He's a showman when he fights too that's the thing you watch a pazienza fight whether he wins whether he loses you're gonna have a fun time watching the fight he's gonna be dancing putting his chin out there doing all that shit he puts on a fucking show he understands that the difference in between boxers and ability is very, very slim. So who gets to go on TV and make the money?

It's the guy that people want to watch, and he understands that. So he gets it. I mean, a lot of guys don't get that shit at all, and they're just very boring. So basically, he would beat the shit out of kids at elementary school for just all the time. Twice a week, they'd be calling home calling home going vinny beat somebody else up again they're like oh for christ's sake vinny what are you doing but fighting every day fighting all the time but then at the same time it's like stop doing that but you know good job you know that's how they it's treated too it's the thing here um so uh at one point he somebody stole his bike as a child his bike was stolen so he went to his house

and just kicked his garage door in over it apparently his own garage door no the other the guy who stole his bike the kid who stole his bike he knew who stole it so he went over the kid wouldn't come out of the house so he just kicked his garage door and fucking busted it all up and awesome destroyed it. And, uh, you know, he said that Angelo yelled at him for that cause he had to pay for it. But other than that, you know, no big thing here. Um, the one time he got caught putting slugs in a pinball machine. Oh boy, you little hooligan.

But I mean, that's, if you gave an adult a bunch of slugs and put them in a room full of pinball machines now they'd be like no one will notice if i just put one of these in there you know what i mean as long as they fit who gives a shit let's see if this it worked fuck it yeah it's lighting up there's the ball what's going on now who's the real victim but he didn't get arrested or anything like that none of that bullshit everything it's a 25 cent crime it's not yeah it's not that big of a deal and you're not stealing it's not like you did that now the pinball machine can't be

used by others like the next person can still drop a quarter and you just got a free service yeah it's not really like you get to take the fucking pinball machine home now no no no no no it's like and it's such it's not even like lot. Like, it's not like it was anything that you like sweat on or like, it's like stiffen up. It's like, I'm not going to say that. Just for a hand job. You know what I mean? Not for anything that's that invasive, but it would be like that. It's terrible to do and nobody would approve of it, but you'd be like, well, it's not like.

That's at least theft of services. That's what I mean. Well, this is theft of services. It's theft of the pinball machine service. God damn. That's a machine. Who gives a shit? Well, I mean, it's not like you can't give another handjob.

It's the same thing. The machine can collect another quarter. Unless you set the high score. It's a bad thing. It changes nothing. You shouldn't do that, by the way. Who do we have that's stiffed an escort? Didn't we have a.'t we have a no we had a crime and sports person that stiffed an escort we were like now that is above and beyond the call of shitty like that is fucking ridiculous

that person sucked your dick you pay them for that they earned that money you asshole like there's nothing lower than that save that for like stiffing the guy that rewires your house later. At least he didn't have the indignity of your penis inside of him in one way or another. At least he didn't have to see your balls. So when Vinny's 15, everything changes. Now, he was into boxing before this and had boxed before this, but when he was 15, he went down to Park Cinema, which was five blocks away, and he saw something that would change his entire life. What did he see, James? What do you think he saw, Jimmy?

Deep throat. Well, he saw that a couple years before, and that did change his life, but this changed it in a different way. What was it? This changed it in a way that he wanted to put his career. See, this is the thing. He didn't want to see deep throat and then be like i'm gonna suck all the cock i can he's like rocky he saw rocky when he was 15 which he's like he's italian i could do that yeah if you've if you've seen old

eddie murphy stand up there's a bit in eddie murphy raw about italians around rocky time and it's it's it's unfortunately it's more true than it i would like to say but there's something about i don't know what it is was more culturally relevant to italians than the godfather now they're both they're the same they're they're equal no they hold um they hold equal equal uh levels of esteem in the culture in the culture yeah rocky's rocky's the blue collar guy they're the this guy they're like the crime people because that's separate rocky's a legit guy you know i mean yeah he was twisting a couple of thumbs maybe breaking a leg now and then in the beginning of rocky but hey you got to do what you got to do to get by you know what i mean so but every italian kid that sees rocky goes you know hey and look at him he's fucking small

you know and all this shit and that's the other thing he saw vinny is he's a smaller guy sly's a smaller guy so he's a he's a fucking tiny guy he's gonna be heavyweight champ of the world i could fucking do this so he uh he said quote it something. A flame ignited and it started burning. Oh, boy. I saw that guinea on fucking that screen and I said, look at that. I could fucking do that. He almost beat Carl fucking Weathers. What are you kidding me?

He couldn't even say Carl Weathers. He couldn't even say. Later on, too, he has a different take on it at the end of his career. Really? Yeah. Because at first he's like, I saw this as like a positive story. And then at the end of the career, he's like, hold on a minute. So we'll get to it.

He said that he saw Rocky one when he was 15. He said, quote, I lettered in high school in football and baseball. So he was playing a lot of sports. He's a good athlete, very good athlete. He said, but then I saw that movie and it ignited the competitive fire inside me. I used to box in the cellar with some of my friends. I was good. After we saw the movie, my friends were saying, you've got to go to the gym.

You've got to try it. The next day, I put on my jogging stuff my father angelo saw me and said what are you doing i said i'm going to start training i want to be a boxer he said quote get back in bed don't be stupid and stay in school which is exactly what an italian father would tell you yeah get back in bed you stupid idiot i'm gonna oh you want to you want to fight i'll smack you get the fuck back in bed that's what they do you want somebody to hit you there you go yeah they just school night never mind put them up they just give you a shot pow there you like that that's what you want to you want to fight i'll hit you boom there you go you couldn't even block it what do you

mean you want to fight you're going to sleep one way or the other kid uh uh fantastically voluntarily or not so he said don't be stupid stay in school he said i promised i would keep my grades up and i went to the gym and whammo the ball just kept rolling so he uh he said later on by the way and we'll find out how because it's a hilarious story. He gets to meet Sylvester Stallone later on. Oh, really? And, yeah, Stallone's very much into boxing, and there's so many fighters that have gotten, like, letters and messages and phone calls from Stallone, because, you know, he's Rocky, so he can just call up, you know, Caesars and go, put me through the guy in the heavyweight fight today, would you? And they'll put him fucking through. Put me through the guy in the heavyweight fight tonight would you and they'll put him fucking through

and he can just put me through the guy in the I don't know blue trunks I think he's a black guy I don't know so but anybody he liked he would compliment them and for some reason that's always a huge deal to boxers when Rocky likes them so

anyway he says about Stallone he's a nice guy very down to earth stallone is not down to earth by the way that's the last fucking thing he is have you seen his hairline he's like 78 years old that's the least down to earth hairline i've ever seen it looks like he planted it last week looks like he had the landscapers come in and sod that shit last week bro yeah come on he just he is not thrilled that this is almost over for him. I've never seen a hairline without one hair out of place like that. Like, I have great hair.

My hairline doesn't look like that. That's crazy. Like, that's insanity. He looks like a fucking maniac. I'm sorry. And it's not just the hair, James. He's let people do things to his face. That's weird, too. Oh, God. He looks plastic. It's not just the hair james he's he's let people do things to his face that's oh god he looks plastic it's it's not okay i'm just starting from the top down i never got past the hairline

it looks like one of those like a doll thing that you get the hook and pull the hair through like that's what it looks like up top like he just popped it through his skull yeah he down to earth maybe in his treatment to people but not himself not in his treatment of himself no not at all fuck man so apparently when he when he met stallone his dad was with him and uh stallone i don't know he probably got a little probably had a little fear in him out of this. Angelo, I'd be scared of Angelo. Angelo told him that when he met Stallone, he said, quote, it's because of your movie that my son is a boxer.

I don't know if I should thank you or kill you. He was an honor student in high school. How do you react to that if you're Stallone? I love these fucking old italian immigrants they're my favorite fucking people because they are insane they will say anything to anybody at any time they don't i don't know what it is about nazi occupation whatever the fuck goes through their heads they're just like i'm not gonna fucking pull my punches for you yeah it's crazy like they're they have no fucking filter whatsoever my

grandmother was 92 she called the nurse a putan told her to get out like they don't have any filter whatsoever so uh sly must have been like really confused by that so uh vinnie says he doesn't really you know understand uh what is what what the later on he doesn't get what the allure of rocky one was and when you think about rocky one think about it he started out in the beginning he's like losing his locker in the shittiest gym in philadelphia right he's losing his locker because he's like a you know middle of the road fighter who's not really any good and you know not expected to do anything Not really any good and not expected to do anything. He's collecting money for some guy.

Remember the guy in the passenger seat of his boss is making fun of him, calling his girlfriend names. Why don't you take her to the zoo, Rock? He can't fucking win. He's got no money. He's trying to talk to this chick who won't even fucking like respond to him at all his best friend is like 30 years older than him than him a raging alcoholic who just yells at him for no reason and says why don't you go out with my sister you don't need her she's a fucker she's fucking stupid find somebody else it's his life is terrible and uh he only becomes something not that out of a pure stroke of luck. I mean, he didn't work his way up.

He was doing terribly. And Apollo Creed said, it's the 4th of July. America was discovered by an Italian. I'm going to fight an Italian. That's literally the scene in the movie. That's what Apollo Creed says. And so he's like, find me an Italian. Find me an Italian is what he's not an Italian.

Find me an Italian. So they found him. And there you go. So Vinny says, when I look back at Rocky I now, I say to myself, what did a 15-year-old kid see in this movie that made him want to be a fighter? Here's a guy that's taking a beating and can't put two syllables together. And yet I wanted to go out and do it. Thank you. Thank you. Two syllables together and I wanted to be just like do it. Thank you. Thank you.

Two syllables together and I wanted to be just like him. Yeah, you don't. I could see wanting to go out and punch somebody, but not actually go be that profession. That sounds like a bad idea. So his father didn't like how seedy the boxing gyms were. Because on the East Coast, they're all these old, they're fucking 100 years old. They're disgusting. They're're disgusting they're moldy there's you know and so angelo went out and bought an old fucked up fire station in cranston an old decommissioned piece of shit fire station in cranston for sixteen thousand dollars he ghostbustered him so he ghostbustered

it remodeled it himself awesome and. And that's the other thing. These people will, Jesus Christ, my great-grandfather dug a wine cellar just by hand. He just dug a wine cellar by himself, which seems like you could do, but he was like 80. He just dug a wine cellar. How the fuck did you do? You just dug that? That's not in the Bronx. Who digs?

Anyway. I don't think that's up to code. Oh, fucking code. I'll give you code. I'm a code. I put the Y in as nice. Here digs? Anyway. I don't think that's up to code. Ah, fucking code. I'll give you code. I'm a code. I put the Y in. It's nice. Here, you have a sip.

Very, very nice. How's that code? There's a code for you. It's a beautiful code. It's so nice. The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience.

Quickly, I see that. Bing! The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases.

She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother.

That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. How did I know that? I have crystal ball in my head. It's streaming. You can say anything. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued,

what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from Smartless Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia

with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link,

careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So he called it Father and Son's Gym, and that's what it was.

So there you go. Paul says of his first amateur fight, he said, I fought my first fight in Newport and got my ass kicked in front of Willie Pepp by some muscle-bound white kid, but I kept fighting. That set the precedent for my life. So he keeps— Vinny said? That's what Vinny said, yeah.

He lost his first. He ends up fighting about 110 amateur fights, which always fascinates me some of these guys how many fights they have um he fights about 110 amateur fights wins about 100 of them he says so that's pretty good um i have a few here this is like kind of a i guess some of his big ones here and there's a lot of losses in here like the a lot of international fighting i see here. One, I see he lost the American Amateur Boxing Federation Lightweight Championship tournament in the finals. He lost to a guy named Angel Herrera. These are all three-round fights. By the way, all of them losing on points.

None of these are knockouts or anything. They're amateur fights. He loses to a yugoslavian named what the fuck is that oh my god kradu jiva vac yeah that's who he lost to he lost to uh oh no that's a place that's not a person he lost he lost in oh my god the name is even worse than the place mill mill what millivoy millivoy g ladubovic millivoy g is his first name millivoy g ladubovic is his name he lost to him then he lost to what millijavi what the fuck millivoy g that's a great name and then he fought sir is that Sergei? Sergei Michinik, a Russian. He lost to him on points.

He lost to Vladimir Stepanov of, I don't even know what country that is. I don't recognize that flag. One of the Russian countries. He lost to Angel Herrera of Cuba and Hartmut Kruger, an East German at the time, because he was 82 when the wall was still up, in Biloxi, Mississippi. And then finally also lost to Viktor Demianenko, a Soviet guy in some Soviet U.S. boxing meet. So a lot of losses in his amateur career kind of toward the end there, but all these international fights. He ends up going pro in 1983

after he loses to a bunch of guys with hard-to-pronounce names. Yeah. And his first fight is against Alfredo Rivera at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. Oh, boy. There we go. So not too far of a drive for him too. Not

bad. Alfredo Rivera comes into the fight here. By the way, it's his debut. Debut on debut. Not a big deal here. And this is a TKO in the fourth round for Vinny and he wins his first fight. Next fight against Keith McCoy,

also at the Sands in AC. It's his debut as well. So, I mean, everybody's new to this, goddammit. Brand new sport. Brand new for us all. Knockout in the third round here for, these are four round fights, by the way. So knockout in the third. And then, by the way, this is my favorite of all.

Caesars Hotel and Casino, Atlantic City on July 10th, 1983. He fights May 26th,lantic city on july 10th 1983 he fights may 26 june 30th and july 10th so he's trying to stack them up quick when he starts he fights patrick dangerfield jr that's his name do we know his dad i don't i don't know if his father is rodney or not but he is patrick dangerfield his nickname is junior he's not a junior but his nickname is junior so i don't know if this is rodney's kid getting the kicked out of him or what either way though he gets knocked out in the second round does mr dangerfield and uh three and oh for pazienza referee for that one frankie cappuccino of course of course it's frankie cappuccino we've talked about old frank Frankie Cappuccino, of course. Of course. Of course. It's Frankie Cappuccino.

We've talked about old Frankie Cappuccino before. It's my favorite of all time. Favorite referino name. Referino, I just said. My favorite referino is Frank Cappuccino. Italian referees are called referinos. We got a referino. We got a referino. Bring in a referino.

Bring him in. That's fantastic. Referino. Oh, God, that's amazing. So August 16th, 1983, he fights Eddie Carberry. Carberry. Carberry. This is at the Playboy Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. Carberry is 0-1 coming into the fight and will finish his career 0-4.

Oh. Not great. We're going to group the next five fights together. It's Eddie Carberry and then four other fights, and then I'll give you an amazing stat that you'll be shocked about. So he beats Eddie Carberry in the TKO in the second round here. four other fights and then i'll i'll give you an amazing stat that you'll be shocked about uh so he beats eddie carberry in the tko in the second round here uh next fight is two weeks later august 31st rafael alicia it's his debut fight here uh at the sands casino hotel again and uh he wins

vinnie does second round tko again so second round tko is this thing that he likes to do yeah then he fights uh jesus christ september 9th so 10 days later basically he fights uh ricardo moreno it's his debut as well this is that this though caesar's palace in vegas at the outdoor arena where they had wrestle IX there, that whole fucking thing. So this is interesting here. So this is the big time he's feeling like. He wins this fight by TKO as well, making him up there. Now there's that.

Next fight, he fights two weeks later again. Every two weeks, man. He fights Jim Zielinski, who comes in 0-1 to the fight. So he's had one fight anyway. This is in Ice World at Totoa. Where did we find that that was, Ice World? I can't remember. Was that in Florida or something?

I don't remember. Either way. Totoa. T-O-T-O-W-A. Fuck, I didn't write it down because I thought we'd remember that. No, I don't. So this is another second round TKO for Vinny. So Vinny's rolling right now.

He's at 7-0. He's fucking killing it. Then his next fight, the last of this bracket of five, is the 27th of October, 1983. He fights Robert Stevenson, who comes into this fight oh six and one that's at the sands in atlantic city this fight a minute and 45 into it vinnie knocks him out so very quest now these last five opponents have one thing in common in their careers no win well two two things in common one they've all been beaten up by vinnie pazienza the other none of them ever have a career win not ever they never ever get one not first of all none of them have a win coming into the fight but none of them ever

acquire one ever combined they never want to fight ever, ever won a fight. None of those fighters. So you can say tomato cans. This is more than tomato cans. These are marshmallows. This is like a cardboard cutout of a boxer that they put in the ring and he knocked it down. These are teddy bears that he can just knock the stuffing out of. They never won one fight? That's not good, man. No.

Nobody's ever had five fighters in a row that combined never ran a fight, right? Not even one. They could have fought each other in one one. Nothing. Let's say you have to win against somebody huge. Yeah, none of those guys ever fought each other. That's true. Hey, Jim Zielinski, go beat up Eddie Carberry and let's get it on.

Someone's got to win, right? Somebody's getting a win today. Maybe that's what happened when Robert Stevenson got that draw. 0-6-1. Maybe he fought another guy with no wins and neither of them could win. He tried his best. He tried his best. So on December 2nd

of 83 in Warwick, Rhode Island, he fights Emilio Diaz who is 6-14- one coming into the fight. Not much better, but at least he's won some fights. This is a TKO in the third round for Vinny. So Vinny wins this one as well. Next fight here.

He fights Jose Ortiz. This is 12 days later, by the way, December the 14th of 83 at the Ice World again, and Jose Ortiz is 6-32-6 coming into this fight. 6-32-6. How did you have six draws?

Six draws is a lot of fucking draws. That's a lot. Finishes his career 6-37-6. So not good. Just not good. Not a great fighter. He beats him TKO in the sixth round, Vinny does. So he's doing pretty well here, 9-0. Not too shabby at all.

Next up, he fights David Bell. This is February 26, 1984, at the Civic Center in Beaumont. Texas, maybe? It could be anywhere. Maybe Texas. It could be Arkansas. It could be Beaumont, Texas maybe? It could be anywhere. Maybe Texas. It could be Arkansas. It could be Beaumont, Arkansas. We found from Indiana this week that there is – you can't just hear the name of a city and know because every other – by the – whatever town you live in, whatever big city you live in, there's a town in Indiana called that, just so you know that.

We found that's an absolute fact. You live in Las Vegas? There's a Las Vegas, Indiana, I guarantee you. I assure you there's one. And anything in Europe, there's a town in Georgia named after that, too. Absolutely. We found Indiana has a fucking Montpelier. We didn't know that.

It's not fair. I thought that was just Vermont. You're telling me you're throwing around Montpeliers in Indiana, too? No. You're reckless with the Montpeliers. Like you didn't know about the first one already, motherfucker? You knew. It's the goddamn capital, you sons of bitches.

You knew. Oh, man. So David Bell, 0-1 coming in, and he'll remain winless as Vinny beats him in a TKO in four rounds. What is this? April 15, 1984, at the Sands in atlantic city he fights mike golden six and four coming in a winning record hell yeah wow this is a first this is the first fight with with a fighter with a winning fucking record here and he wins this goes all eight rounds and vinnie wins a unanimous decision in that one great next up, in August of 84, so a few months go by now,

he fights Rich McClain at the Sands in Atlantic City. He's a 4-7-2 fighter, Rich McClain, and he beats him in a unanimous decision in eight rounds Vinny does. So Vinny's killing it here. Next up is in November

of 1984 against Bruno Simili, who this is an this is down in mexico uh wow interesting okay oh no this one's in italy he goes to i'm sorry he goes all the way to italy to fight this fight and uh it's a 19 8 and 6 fighter bruno is so pretty good fighter at least he's won 19 fights. Vinny knocks TKO in the third round for Vinny. Another win for Vinny. Now here is the one December 1st, 1984.

This is the one that he will protest and everything else because it really was kind of not fair here. This is in Milan, Italy. He's fighting Abdelkader Marbiby abdelkabar marby that's a hard name to say here um so he's headbutted vinny's headbutted in the third round

by marby marby's from morocco and in the fifth vinny is bleeding everywhere. Oh, one thing we have to say about Vinny Pazienza. He is a fucking bleeder. Really? I mean, every fight he is fucking covered in blood. He just he's always bleeding. They keep always. Well, he's got scar tissue. He's like Abdul of a butcher at this point.

He's got so much fucking scar tissue. You just hit it and it bleeds. I mean, it's just the way it is. Yeah, it's. Yeah. He's like an old wrestler. He's like roads his forehead it's not good so he yeah he gets head butted and he gets a lot he's like i said he's always a bleeder and he never wants to stop because of blood he just knows he's a bleeder and that's life with vinny so um anyway the fight is stopped because he's bleeding profusely. Vinny goes crazy.

He says, what the fuck? You can't stop this fucking fight. I'm fine. This is ridiculous. So the posse ends a posse. They say that they were told by the officials at ringside that the fight would be ruled a no contest since the cut didn't come from a punch. If the cut came from a punch punch then the fight would be awarded to the guy who punched him the guy that punched him but if it's from a headbutt or an illegal act

they rule it a no contest is the the way they said they were going to do it so he uh they they don't end up doing that though they end up awarding the fight to marby and vinny's fucking pissed because he's like i kicked his fucking ass he got a one headbutt in and i was fine i didn't even feel it he just you know cut me vinnie says and this is this is his words from a 1984 boxer quote i rocked him i had him on queer street what which is what they they used to always say that and boxing announcers used to say that all the time when a guy was wobbly queer street yeah i don't know why i don't know what that means i don't know either the people on queer street are wobbly i have no idea what that means it wasn't a gay slur i know that no it wasn't

a gay slur it meant something it meant something different but it was maybe you had him on the wrong on the wrong street because he was wobbly and and didn't know where he was is that what they mean so i i don't know what the hell that means but it's a sounds lovely it's a weird old boxing term i'm not sure now the box the box italian boxing federation didn't alter the decision even after formal complaints and everything like that so at this point technically vinnie has one loss but he will not acknowledge that loss he says that's not a loss. That's bullshit. I'm undefeated.

Fuck him. So that's how that goes. He's back in the States in Providence fighting. So home state on February 5th, 1986, fighting Joe Frazier Jr. Is that right? Absolutely. Joe Frazier Jr. Was Joe Frazier had a boy that fought?

Absolutely. Motherfucking. Yeah. I mean, that indeed. Joe Frazier had a boy that fought? Absolutely. Motherfucking yeah. I mean, that's just like 15 years ago. His dad was fighting Muhammad Ali. Yeah. Now he's fighting Vinny Ponzienza. And this fight, the smaller guy, Frazier was a heavyweight for Christ's sake. I mean, a small heavyweight, but a heavyweight.

This guy's 135. So a little bit different. Frazier Jr. is 15-2-3 coming into this fight. So 15 wins. Vinny knocks him out, TKO in the seventh round. And apparently this one was, they said that Vinny was kind of toying with him a lot and shit like that. Yeah, he was, you know, not even, Joe Frazier Jr. wasn't really in the fight, everybody said. I'd like to see Joe Frazier Jr. fight Layla.

There you go. Who's going to win? If Vinny can toy with him, I feel like Layla could probably hold her own. She's a tough broad, man. Especially because Joe Frazier Jr. is probably in his 50s now, I would assume. She's probably pretty close to that, right? She's probably in her 40s. I bet she's 44, 48, somewhere in there.

Yeah, Joe Frazier Jr., we'll find out. It's an even fight. We'll find out how broken down he is at this point. So he next fights in May 18, 1986 at the Civic Center in Providence. He fights Harry Arroyo here. Harry Arroyo here. Now, Arroyo, by the way, used to be a police officer and has now been a boxer for a while. And Arroyo's 29 and 2 coming into this fight.

Holy shit. Very good fighter. But before the fight, Vinny hands him a whistle. He said, you're going to need this when you have to go be a cop again when I'm done cooking your ass. I'm going to send you back to work so he literally handed him a fucking whistle and was like keep that for later motherfucker hilarious which is pretty goddamn funny uh the fight went all 10 rounds but unanimous decision win for vinnie so i don't know if this guy took the whistle and put it to use or what but i guess it's better than him handing him a gun in the ring. Yeah.

Here you go, pal. Take this with you. Everybody ducks down. Next off, in September, he fights Nelson Balanos. Now, Balanos is a hell of a good fighter here. Balanos is 31-0-3, so he has no losses here. This is impressive. So he ends up during this. He's fucking around.

I guess he has a pretty easy time with Bolanos. It's a TKO in the sixth round. So not much of a fight. But he fucks around at one point. And he steps on Bolanos' foot and then pushes him so he falls down on his ass and knocks him down on his ass yeah and then turned and looked like what are you doing i don't know what you're talking about like did like a little kid thing and later on they said why'd you do that and he said when i fight i want to make people smile and uh then he said afterwards that he said uh he thought bolanos was going to be a tougher fight

he said quote if i knew i knew if i saw his legs go like spaghetti i was going to be all over him like the sauce jesus vinnie you don't have to do that could you be more of a stereotype he's one of these fighters that he's one of these guys italians have two separate camps that we have we have the this guy that wears like the fucking horn and they have an italian flag in their garage and they have there's red and green all over their house and then they have the other the other kind who you don't even know they're italian and they like just like either they family changed the name and they you know they don't eat sauce on sunday or they're like you know what i'm saying like they just pretend they're not it's those are the two different kinds

i found out someone was italian that i had i've been i watched him my entire life growing up had never a clue that he was was in the public eye like you wouldn't believe hosted saturday night live never once had it mentioned that he was italian you know that is no joe montana do you know he was italian jimmy joe montana's well i guess i had no fucking i he's half sicilian his father Northern Italian. Well, their name was Montani, which if his name was Montani, you'd know he's Italian. For some reason, you put an A on it. Now he sounds like a rugged Westerner. Now he sounds like he's John Wayne.

And he has the light brown hair and light eyes. So nobody knew he was fucking Italian. I didn't know. If no one in Italian knows, I guess it makes sense. No one knew. He fucking skated on that shit like no he didn't have to take anything for that like he didn't have to know jokes nothing he didn't have to take any fucking incoming for that whatsoever no shit for that not one drop of shit he took for that so

yeah i don't like that at all but i was to the point where if i don't know you're italian you're hiding it i'm sorry like if i don't know it you're hiding it. I'm sorry. Like, if I don't know it, you're hiding it because I'm looking for it. So anyway, I mean, he doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't even sound. Even when he talks, it doesn't sound that doesn't sound ethnic at all. It's not. He's trying not to be. That's the point.

And no one else said he was like, fine. He sweats more with that than he does on the football field. He'd say more effort to not be that. Oh, my the football field, for Pete's sake. No shit. Puts in more effort to not be that. Oh, my God. Very funny. It's funny. So, anyway, he says Vinny doesn't hide it at all is what I'm getting at. He's like, hey, I'm going to be all over him like the sauce.

All right, then. You just have a good one. I see his knees go like spaghetti. You fellas have a good day. I'm going to go back in here. All right. Yeah. So, he says he he liked this

fight he would stick his chin out and all that shit and he said quote i am fun to watch see there uh see the chin is there whoops now it's not it gets pretty aggravating to fight me he said i'm having fun because nothing is more fun than winning although it's not a bad feeling when the check clears either yeah so yeah i would say so pretty good day he said i feel like a kid fighting for his next meal while people are while people are holding my mother for ransom if i lose so that's the mindset he's trying to get himself in there they do some kind of profiles about him now because he's starting to get some some steam and he's this flashy fighter that fights on TV and he's very recognizable. One article talks about he has

50 pairs of sunglasses. One of the things he's been collecting and they said, Vinny, why do you have 50 pairs of sunglasses? He says, quote, because there are many shades to Vinny Paz. Oh, Vinny.

Vinny, Vinny, Vinny, Vinny, Vinny, Vinny, Vinny. Oh, yeah. Vinny. 50 shades? 50. There's, well, 50 pairs. He says many shades. So he was the original, I guess.

Yeah. He still lives at home. With mom and dad? Like, at home with his parents. In his 30s, right? He's a prize fighter. He's making hundreds of thousands of dollars. He's 24 at this point, but he's a professional fucking fighter.

He's a prize fighter. He's got main events. He's fighting at Caesar's Palace, for Christ's sake. He lives with his parents. Why else, goddammit? What the fuck are you doing? Rent an apartment, something. And they do this article. He's at his house with his parents and everything. And they said, well, they do this article.

He's at his house with his parents and everything. And they said, well, when are you going to get your own place? And Angelo yells from somewhere else, from some other room. They're always listening to these old guineas. Angelo yells, quote, where is he going to find a better place? People don't leave good things. That's what he said. God, Jesus.

Oh, I know what this house smells like man i can see all the right down to the plastic on the furniture i can feel it i feel where's he gonna find i'm i'm sure there's a real estate market pop don't people don't leave good things jimmy that's where's he gonna find a better place well there's lots of but people don't leave good things this one's already good uh he said quote my kids don't believe the grass is greener and uh by the way his sister he's got an older sister who's seven eight years older than him she lives in the basement too so she's there too she also lives in the house they keep them there and they like them there so yeah he he said at this point that he likes to uh he likes to run in the cemetery near his house that's because it's peaceful to run in there and uh yeah that's what he likes to do he uh his his cousin sal who's also a barber i think it's sal's son sal who's a barber. Sal, the barber, he says, quote, we don't have anything in Rhode Island.

I can't think of anything that happened here in the past 25 years except Vinny. Oh, yeah, the America's Cup. But we lost it. We haven't lost Vinny. We got Vinny over here. All right. Okay. You're looking a little shaggy on the side.

Do you want to sit down in the chair? Nah, 15 minutes. We'll get you in and out of here come on come on get the fuck out of here sit down so he drives like a psychopath by the way then he does drives like a maniac boxers drive like maniacs because they're not afraid of things that most people are afraid of sure if you said i'm gonna take you somewhere if i said j are afraid of sure if you said i'm gonna take you somewhere if i said jimmy let's go in here i'm gonna punch you in the face for an hour you'd say no thanks you know whereas they're like well you get punched in the face for an hour i feel like that you would lose physical fear of a lot of things if you'll fight a you know

large man who's trying to fucking murder you with his punches all the time the uh punishment i don't know the consequences of getting in a car accident is that you hit your face on something that's what i mean yeah i think a lot boxers definitely have that invincibility thing to them where they feel like they're invincible a lot especially a young boxer sure especially a young boxer hasn't been beaten you're gonna think you're you can't be hurt yeah you can't king shit a fuck mountain you can't be hurt and i i think that's where vinny's coming off at this point he has a bmw that he'm telling you man uh he uh they have uh they had a in the newspaper they had this like map of new england and it showed you know all

the states in their states and then in rhode island it said the state of pasmania over it so yeah i mean it's the smallest one you can probably just do that and they got nothing else so why not um he says uh he's gonna fight a guy named greg haugen next who's a it's this is supposed to be a really big fight coming up and this is like kind of the fight that they're gonna see if he's for real one one of these fights. And Vinny says, quote, Wow. Wait, what? He doesn't box. He's going to be real surprised when you show up. And Larry Holmes weighs 100 pounds more than him, so he's going to be surprised when you show up for that, too. So he's saying he's going to be real surprised when you show up. And Larry Holmes weighs 100 pounds more than him, so he's going to be surprised when you show up for that, too.

So he's saying he's going to fight this, then he's going to beat Rosario. He's going to move up in weight then, one class, and beat Rosario for the junior welter, which I think is 141 or 140. And then Hagler, which is the next weight class up, he's saying, that's not next, it's middleweight, so then I'm going to be a middleweight,

which is 25 pounds heavier than that. Then Larry Holmes, who's 250 and the champ of the time then the president of the united states i'm gonna fight them all and all of his secret service so he's got a lot of plans i'm gonna go from larry holmes to an 80 year old man with alzheimer's disease i'm gonna go from one to the other. I'm going to really, it's going to be big. So if I'm Reagan, I'm scared. So Lou Duva is his manager, by the way. Really? Remember Lou Duva, the white haired?

You've seen him. He was Holyfield's trainer. So if you've seen a Holyfield fight, he's the white haired guy going, Oh, Vandy, you got to do this and that, you fucking bum. He's that guinea in the corner. So Lou Duva says, quote, my biggest concern is not his talent. He might be a hell of a fighter, but the one thing he likes to do more than box is entertain.

He loves to entertain. He says, you don't get hurt. Oh, that's it. He doesn't listen to his trainer. He doesn't listen to Duva because he's a pain in the ass. He said that Duva told him not to lift weights. So weights so he said pazienza's in the gym lifting weights right away because he told him not to uh he said to him vinny said quote you don't get hurt lifting you get hurt dropping them on your feet i'm gonna lift them um now before this haugen fight uh haugen said

quote i can't see myself leaving that ring without my belt. This is at the press conference because he's the champ. And Pazienza said, better bring suspenders then. Because I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it. Then Haugen called him. He said, quote, Vinny's nothing but a pizza-faced punk. Oh, don't say that.

Boxing is a weird. Okay. Boxing is a weird hinterland where ethnic slurs are perfectly okay. It's the weirdest thing. I don't understand why it's always been like that. And somehow it still is. It's like, I guess ethnic slurs. Okay. Let's make a rule.

Ethnic slurs are allowed in situations where the other guy is going to be legally allowed to punch you in the face for an hour afterwards. I think that's the only time it's acceptable because it's like, well, he called him that. Oh, what are we going to do? Well, he's going to fight him. So I guess he can fight him if he wants to. The guy who called that gets the opportunity to rectify the situation. So let it be. So nobody gets mad because there's no consequence greater than fighting about it.

So that's what's going to happen. So, well, we'll see once he gets fighting going. We'll see how that works. We'll see who's right. Yeah. Give it a minute. Oh, man. Pazienza, the fight had to be delayed, by the way, because Pazienza broke his nose while sparring.

By the way, this was like two days after Duva told him not to spar anymore for the fight. So Duva was pissed. Well, you only get hurt, James, if you get punched. So if I don't get punched, it'll be all right. Haugen said that he'll definitely be going after his nose, saying, quote, it's like a big pizza on the middle of his face. He just won't stop saying it. Everything he says about Vinny, there's something to do with pizza or spaghetti or something. quote it's like a big pizza on the middle of his face he just won't stop saying and everything he

says about vinnie it's all there's something to do with pizza or spaghetti or something like he's just it's it's very cheap and a big italian nose reference too yeah but not even a big italian nose a big pizza is his big italian pizza nose you know those are he's got a big field cutlet parmesan hanging off his fucking nose you know right there between his eyes right below right above his mouth you know it is one of those it's hanging down like a fucking hot sausage that came off of my out of my sundae fucking gravy you know what i'm talking about so uh anyway he said that um doesn't matter he says vinny says he's not scared about the broken nose at all. He goes, it doesn't matter. He goes, I'm not

worried about it. He said that quote, it isn't bothering me, but I don't really care about the nose anyway. He's going to have to do a lot more to stop me than hit me in the nose. I wanted to keep the fight for May 24th. Now I'm glad they did, but a broken nose can't stop me for now. I'm a fighter. So he doesn't

give a shit about that. He he says that he Lou Duva, by the way, getting ready for this fight. They're training at the firehouse for this fight. He's training at his dad's gym at the firehouse, not doing anything fancy. And this place is not fancy. They interview Lou Duva and he says, quote, I'm supposed to be a big shot in boxing. Manager of the year in 1985. All these Olympic boxers and I'm sleeping in a gym. That's about how big I am. But it was Vinny's idea.

He thought it would be good for us all to stay together for this fight. It's good, really. It keeps him away from all the people so he can concentrate on the fight. But being here is like living in an Italian commercial. Anthony! Oh, Anthony! That's the old spaghetti commercial. They're screaming for the kid running down the fight. But being here is like living in an Italian commercial. Anthony, oh, Anthony. That's the old spaghetti commercial. They're screaming for the kid running down the street. We get up every morning and go down to Marie's Galaxy Luncheonette for breakfast.

Kenny Weldon is up here helping me work with Vinny, and the waitress comes over and asked him if he wants Italian toast. He said, Lou, what's Italian toast toast i told him it ain't caesar's but it's just fine it's fine but this is actually pretty good food uh vinnie gave me his sweet i got the stationary cot i'm in the fire chief's room so uh that's what's going on here a bunch of guineas hold up in a fire station eating at a diner eating at a fucking diner constantly with some guy from texas because that's where that other guy is from asking, not knowing what anything is. So they're going to the Civic Center. That's where it is, the Civic Center here. And I think it's Providence.

And he says that this is he used to fight in the cellar there. He said, quote, It started for me in the cellar here 10 years ago. I was boxing an amateur fight in the cellar of the civic center i wondered if one day i'd be the main man in the main arena i wondered if i'd ever get into the lobby sunday it's finally gonna happen so he's finally got like the main event in his home this is a headline in your home club here finally after you've opened there a hundred times he said, I'm the only pro sports team we have here. I'm the Vinnie Pazienza franchise. Everybody wants to get behind a winner.

And that's what I am. We all love the Celtics and Red Sox, but they're from Boston. I'm Rhode Island. It's a good feeling for the whole state to have a world championship fight right here. He says the crowd makes me fight better. If I don't have that intensity, that feeling of making thousands of people happy, I can't perform. When the crowd gets going, I get into it more, but I don't lose my head. Okay.

So he fights. This is June 7th. It ends up being delayed until it originally gets delayed six weeks and then another two weeks. So June 7th, 87, Civic Center in Providence. Greg Haugen, who's 19-0 coming in here. This is still, by the way, when championship fights were 15 rounders. Wow. Yeah.

This is for Greg Haugen's International Boxing Federation, IBC World Lightweight title. So here we go. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. That's 15 fucking rounds. That's wild. This fight, he does a pretty good job of controlling it by the way uh vinny does goes all 15 rounds oh dear fuck off with a broken nose all 15 rounds and vinny wins a unanimous decision how about that and wins the

title and is very happy he's thrilled for two months sleeps for two months and uh nothing but pasta and sleep and fucking you know just sauce dripping down his chin i'm gonna say this grace this is grace right here yeah he's technically i mean technically he has one loss but in reality he's undefeated and uh you know he's one that does belt and it's it's great for him so taylor swift is soaring high her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun. And then, by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time. And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So then a few months later, it was eight months later, February 6, 88, it's the convention center in Atlantic City. He fights Greg Haugen again here, and this time it goes all 15 again.

Oh, dear Lord. In the rematch, this time he loses a unanimous decision oh no so he gives the it gives the belt back so there's that which that happens with good fights now you got a rubber match two yeah two that went the distance now you got a money match yep so in 8080 as he tries a bunch of different things here. He fights Felix Dubre. This is when he tries to go up to the junior welterweight division. So moving up a few pounds here. June 27th, 1988 in Providence at the Civic Center again. He fights Felix Dubre, who's 13-1 coming in.

And this fight, fourth round TKO for Vinny. So good job for him. And then he fights in October at the Park West in Chicago. Holy shit. Oh, we've played there. We played there. Okay. We did.

Vinny fought there. That was our mid-range venue. There was a great venue. If they had 300 more seats, we'd have never stopped going there. But it was beautiful. The guy got me weed and everything. I love that place. 30 years ago, Vinny fought there.

Vinny was fighting there before us. So there was still some Vinny blood on the floor because you know he was bleeding. And 18 and 12 for Rich Kaiser coming into the fight. TKO in the third round for Vinny here. So going to build himself back up. Then he fights WBC world champ Roger May mayweather the black mamba is his nickname pre-kobe so he uh rogers 33 and 5 coming into this fight mills lane is the ref it's at caesar's palace this is a big big fight here uh this fight goes all 12 now we're down to the 12 round

championship fights this fight goes all 12 rounds unanimous decision loss for Vinny here. So he loses this fight, and looks like by the cards, pretty good too. 117-110, 117-110. So he got his ass whooped pretty good here, and so he loses that fight. Next fight he fights is 1989, about five months later.

He fights Jake Carolloollo who at the trump plaza hotel in atlantic city jake's 11 and 1 coming in and vinnie gives him a nice tko in the second round get some of his steam back here now vinnie's he's always cut and they start asking him about this all the time now and he says that lou duva gives an answer. He said, cuts, pain, they don't bother Vinny. Vinny's oblivious to pain. Sherry's had his share of cuts, but no doctor or referee has come close to stopping fights because of them, except for the one that got stopped because of it. I added that myself, but it did. So nothing from a legal action anyway.

so next up at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City again on June 11th 1989 he fights Vinny Borghese oh look at this a couple of gins beating each other up in the ring it's like the 40s in here look at this Vinny's

16 and 1 coming in and they're gonna fight over whose mother's got the better sauce you son of a no she doesn't oh your mother puts what in the fuck coming in and they're going to fight over whose mother's got the better sauce. You son of a, no, she doesn't. Oh, your mother puts one in the fuckers.

Get the fuck out of here with a bay leaf. I'm going to shove it up your ass. And they start beating each other's asses over it, kicking each other's fucking dicks in over. Bay leaves are great. Not in sauce though. I don't belong in that. Basil leaves are great in sauce.

Basil is great. Yeah. Basil is wonderful. Fresh basil. You don't want to put a bay leaf in there. It leaves are great in sauce, right? Basil is great. Yeah. Basil is wonderful. Fresh basil. You don't want to put a bay leaf in there. It's not a soup. So anyway, just the first thing that popped into my head. So anyway, this fight goes all 10 rounds. Or no, I'm sorry.

In the 10th round, Vinny gets a TKO over Vinny. Vinny beats Vinny. Vinny and Vinny violence. Vinny and Vinny violence is 10th. Vinny and Vinny violence. Vinny and Vinny violence is so bad. It happens so often. So 1989 in November the 27th, Eddie Van Kirk is his next fight at the Civic Center in Providence. And he wins this fight in the fifth round with a TKO as well. Next up, big, big, big fight.

Convention Hall, Atlantic City. Hector Macho Camacho. Now, this is just an entertaining fight to look at. Just the visuals here. They're both colorful. They're both fucking crazy. This is a fun fight to watch, Camacho Pazienza. Camacho will have his own episode, by the way.

Absolutely have his own episode coming up here. This is for the WBO World Super Lightweight title. This is... So, this fight goes all 12 rounds. Oh, boy. And Vinny loses a unanimous decision. Camacho was 36-0 coming into this fight, by the way. Oh, man.

He was nasty. He was kind of his fight. Yeah. Yeah, this was... He was nasty at this point in time. Real nasty. So now he's talking about a future fight that he wants against Laredo Garza is who he wants to fight pretty bad here. And he says, quote, it's come to the point where I feel every time I step in the ring, my career is on the line.

I need wins desperately. I know the sky's the limit again for me if I win. If I lose, I don't know what avenues I'll take. If I win Garza's title, I can secure my future plans. A lot of doors are wide open for me in and out of the ring, but if I don't win, it'll be like walking into

a closet. A closet? I just thought you used to say off a cliff or something. You can come out of a closet. You know what I mean? It's not the end of the world. There's only one door to open. That true you trap someone closes it you're in trouble he said people forget that when i started out i was a mover a flashy boxer but the knockout started coming and i got away from that i can still knock guys out but i'm back to a lot of movement speed flash i'm back to my old style there's no way I should lose if I box. Okay. So he gets another rematch.

This is the rubber match against Greg Haugen now. So third fight against Haugen. And this is in Atlantic City. And this fight goes all ten rounds because neither of them have a belt at this point. So it goes all ten rounds. This time Vinny wins the unanimous decision again. Oh, shit. And closes the Greg Haugen chapter of his career.

Next up, for the WBA World Super Lightweight title, this is on December 1st, 1990, he fights Laredo Garza. And this is the fight he's talking about. 27-1-1 for Garza coming into this one. This fight here, he loses it in the 11th round on a DQ. I don't know what the fuck happened on that one for some reason. But lost it on a goddamn DQ.

Maybe he stepped on his foot and shoved him down. I'm not sure here. So that doesn't look great for him. That was at the Arco Arena in Sacramento, too. Like a basketball arena. Big fucking place. He's got to be furious about it. Oh, I'm sure.

Next fight here. No, this is July 2, 1991. Ron Amundsen, who is known as the Stormin Mormon. Amundsen. I've heard that, I think. It was Sean Bradley's nickname nickname the old seven foot six basketball player yeah he was the storm any any mormon who plays sports they call him the storm and mormon it's just the way it is it's there's no other nothing else rhymes with it uh the boring

mormon yeah that's something the so uh i got nothing it's all boring it's tough this is at the civic center in providence uh the storm and mormon is 24 and one coming in so 20 wins four losses and one draw this fight goes the distance of 12 rounds it's for the usba super welterweight title they're fighting at 154 now by the way this is a he's moved up in weight big time. So this fight, all 12 rounds, unanimous decision for Vincennes. So here we go. Oh, he wins. He wins. Now, next fight, he has a very tough fight with Gilbert Dele. He's 29-0-1 coming in, Gilbert. So this is a big fight. This is October October 1st, 1991 at the civic center in Providence.

And he says in the way pause puts it, quote, I didn't think during the seventh round, he said this was his toughest fight. And he actually thought about quitting in the seventh round. He said, I didn't think there was any way I could continue. He kept pressing me.

He was as strong as an ox in that split second. That thought went through my mind. I said, Vinny Paz, you die in this ring if you have to before you quit. So he said that he ended up coming back and then gets a TKO in the 12th round to win the title from Dele. So there you go. And he said it meant a lot. He said, quote, I could feel the people behind me were losing faith in me. They had felt I had better days.

Mayweather, the other one, Roger, not Floyd, and the second Greg Haugen fight where he lost were my worst fights. A lot of it had to do with not having a regular trainer. He said after Mayweather, Dan Duva came to me with a list of trainers and told me to pick one or retire. So get a trainer or don't fucking bother anymore. Angelo Dundee's name was on the list. That's Ali's old guy. So was Eddie Futch. But I picked Kevin Rooney, who was Tyson's original guy.

It's, you know, Customato's guy. I figured he'd try to make me a banger like Tyson, but he didn't. So he was happy with that. So let's let him just explain it. Let's do it in their own words. What do you say? Let's let Vinny tell what he thinks here with a little something. Let's do in their own words, quote, before Haugen 3, everybody had me dead and buried. They had me banging on top of my coffin

from the inside. I got into this because I went to the movie Rocky. It pumped me up. Now when I look at that damn movie, I don't know what made me do it. The guy takes a beating every fight and can't put two syllables together. There you go. He's poetic. I love this, and I hate this. I hate this. He's not an idiot, no matter how much he gets punched in the head. Then he says later on, too, he says, quote,

I was better at sleeping with girls than gambling, that's for sure. He's a huge gambler, by the way. Huge. Pisses tons of money away gambling. I mean, he's a big time casino gambler and loses his ass. That's what happens, James, when you fight at the casino and you're given a very large check. And they'll offer to pay you in credit, too. They'll pay you in chips.

So he said, better at sleeping with girls than gambling. Quote, around half were playmates, strippers, and porn stars. He said that he blamed one of his losses on his sex drive, saying, quote, I took three porn stars to the fight, which probably wasn't a good idea. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. saying quote i took three porn stars to the fight which probably wasn't a good idea oh my god jesus christ and so he he ran through them before the fight i think so is what he's getting crazy that's you can't do that um he said he would either if he said he sometimes he would abstain from sex but if he was fucking before fights then he would have like quote nine cappuccinos to get me good and pissed off he said so i couldn't have i couldn't sleep with one porn star and then pull my weeds the next day how does he this guy's gonna go fight and then he's like now i'm gonna kick your ass

how why what would you what would be your interest in fighting at that point you'd feel too loose and too goddamn tired so here's when real bad stuff happens uh in 1991 in january here uh vinnie there's a problem with in rhode island the rhode island central credit union shuts down something that has to do with the governor uh the credit unions and banks were closed by the governor at one point i don't know what the fuck was going on but i don't know i didn't want to honestly vinnie posienza is too much of a of a oyster here to have i can't be fucking going into other rabbit holes on this so okay somehow in 1991 the governor of rhode island apparently had a bunch of banks shuttered credit unions and all these banks in Rhode Island.

And Vinnie had his money in there. So his mother, Louise, said, quote, Vinnie's worked so hard. He put so much into it. And then and she makes it, you know, lucky guts. They're closed. So, yeah, he had three hundred thousand dollars in the rhode island central credit union uh and 175 000 of that money was his pension uh he that was his money you know he knew that shit so he was like okay i got that he thought that was safe and um he thought it was

safe and then the word came out that he uh that credit unions and banks were closed by the governor. But Pazienza said he told himself, quote, it's not going to be my bank. My bank's safe. Rhode Island Central isn't going to be one of them. And then his bank shut down. And I bet there was thousands of other people there, too, real pissed off that their money was inside. They told him nothing you could do about it. All of his money was frozen. Couldn't have his money. So Louise said, quote, We all heard so many different stories. Vinny was afraid he was going to lose it all. His lawyer tells him not to worry, but you have to worry.

He said, you know, it's a fucking, it's a disaster. And Vinny said, quote, they say they're going to send out a check a month, maybe 200 bucks, maybe 500 bucks. Nobody seems to know for sure. It was supposed to start last week. There's been no checks yet. So you get a check and then you can't do anything with it because it's a fucking check.

Well, I need a bank account now. Right. So yeah, he says he doesn't know how much of his money he'll get back when he'll get it back uh he says it might take years he doesn't fucking know wow he says he's gonna have to do some other stuff too he's gonna try commentating on boxing also he says you know maybe he wants to try to be an olympic commentator next year get on that commentary um he says though but he's to have to box more because he has to because he needs the money.

He says he did, he's getting money for something. He did some commentary and they said, they asked his mother, his mother said, where's he going to deposit it when he gets the check?

That's what she said, too. She said, where's he going to put it? Quote, in the mattress? But you can't even put it under a mattress these days because that's what everybody's doing and that's where all the thieves are going to be looking? Quote, in the mattress? But you can't even put it under a mattress these days because that's what everybody's doing. And that's where all the thieves are going to be looking for it. So even the mattress isn't safe.

God, Jesus, that's exhausting. Ma, okay. I won't put it in the fucking mattress then. You just told me four fucking times. Yeah. I get it. You just told me how the drywall gets cut open. That's what you just told me.

Damn it. You just told me how the drywall gets cut open. That's what you just told me. Damn it. 1992 during this whole, or I'm sorry, that happens later on. Later on in 92, he's going to have to give up his title, and we'll talk about why. November 12th, 1991. Things aren't going great for Vinny here. No. He's lost his fight. He lost his money.

November 12th, 1991. Lost his fight. He lost his money. November 12th, 1991. He is driving with his friend here. And they're going about 40 miles an hour. And what ends up happening, I guess it's slippery. And he is involved.

He's a passenger in his friend's car. It's a Camaro. And he's involved in a head-on collision. Oh, no. In Warwick, Rhode Island. So the driver of the car he's in suffers a head-on collision oh no in warwick rhode island so uh the driver of the car he's in suffers a head injury and the driver of the oncoming car suffered only minor injuries vinnie though breaks his neck yeah his neck is broken um he ends up suing both drivers he's awarded 926 000 later on um the dry hit the driver driving vinnie's car the car vinnie was in

was solely responsible for the accident they found um yeah it's it's he was supposed to fight january 10th for a title fight he had to give up his title for this he ended up have the doctors told him he's probably not going to be able to walk again yeah fuck fighting this he was real damage had to wear a halo the whole deal oh yeah metal fucking screws into his skull yeah you can see to this day um move your hips to look around like a hoot owl it's fucking scary man um he tried to do all this shit here um he said they did it was a midday workout his friend was driving him home said they were going like 50 miles an hour he said they were cut off and their car skidded into oncoming traffic and he wasn't wearing a seat belt oh he's invincible so he held on for dear life he said he said quote my last thought was i'm never going to be able to defend my world

title that's his last thought he said a truck narrowly avoided them and then a big town car hit us and that was it whiplash yeah i've been there that's fucking sucks and his head popped off and rolled down the street down this double yellow the jaws of life were used to cut him out of the wreckage and he had to be stabilized put him on a stretcher taken away in the ambulance and all that sort of thing uh they wheeled the driver of the other vehicle over toward his ambulance and he was pissed off at them yeah so he's there this is from somebody that was near there he said quote uh he's saying those kids had to be drinking you better check those kids broken neck and all calm down sir i can't lift my neck he tried to he was all pissed off uh the emt said i put my foot on top of his stretcher and said he's not coming here get this

fucking guy out of here and finally they put my friend with me that's one of the other guys so um uh the they told him that he's never going to be able to fight again that seems pretty obvious they were worried he might not be able to walk again. He cracked two vertebrae, and a third was very close to his spinal column. Yeah, that's the other part with these injuries like that. If they'd stabilize you fucked up, they could permanently damage shit. Oh, yeah, it's a neck. Giving you help could permanently make you never be able to walk again.

Fuck you up all sorts of ways here he was in the hospital for weeks and then he was brought home he had to be in a hospital bed in his parents house and have you know people helping him and all that and he said he's looking at this halo and shit and he said quote i said i gotta do something i can't just stay like this so oh my god four days later after he's decided this he's home alone he snuck down into the basement and started lifting weights what he said he said i quote i put my hand on two 30 pound dumbbells i'm taking deep breaths i can do this gonna do this i lift them up he said it hurt fucking he said he screamed he said i immediately dropped

them pain shot through my body my head started pounding around the screws yeah he said he sat down for about 10 more minutes and then started looking at the weights again oh no vin you're gonna rip the fucking bolts out of your face he said i get back up and i grab the 25 pound ones and i lift them. A little lighter. We'll go five pounds. Maybe it's the weight itself. Maybe it's just that five pounds that makes a difference. Can you flex your arms?

You know what I mean? That flexes your chest and that will move a halo. Oh my God. It's terrible. So he said, oh, he screams. He said, quote, I throw him over my shoulder and start doing shoulder presses with them. And that was it. I sucked up the pain.

Wow. So this is fucking crazy. I sucked up the pain. Wow. So this is fucking crazy. Vinny's my hero, James. That gives my temples like, I have such a headache right now. Before you go with he's my kind of guy, hold on again, because we haven't gotten to the key.

The first part of the story is a crazy boxer inspirational up uplifting and then it's just all fuckery from there i mean this guy gets on a toboggan like clark riswald and flies down the hill so um he was doing this when everybody was out of the house so eventually yeah eventually his mom caught him like he was like he was fucking jerking off down there or something. He said, quote, she started washing my clothes and they were sweaty and they were wet. And she says she she figured out what he was doing. Yeah. And she said, Vinnie, you could be paralyzed. Are you out of your mind? Oh, God, I know.

Yes, I know. I could be paralyzed. I was in the hospital for three weeks. You're going to get hairy palms. Stop weeks. You're going to get hairy palms. Stop this. You're going to get hairy palms. Vinny! Ma, I've had enough. It's not bad that you're almost paralyzed.

You're going to go blind. Okay. We need to have Vinny's mom as one of our characters. Vinny's mom coming over to nag somebody is going to be, Louise Pazienza is going to be my favorite fucking character that we have, I think. All kinds of cliches about growing up. How is it you come to arrive here? You're a mess.

Look at you. Clean this place up. Let me help you. Are you hungry? Let me get you. Sit down. What are you doing? Oh, my God.

This is terrible. That girl's a hooah. What's wrong with you? She only want you for your money oh my don't trust the banks don't trust banks put it in your mattress but then you can't put it there either because there's thieves everywhere i don't know what to do with it buried under the house i don't know but then don't draw a map because you never know they'll find the map when they break in to steal your money under the mattress so i don't know where to and then finally the guy goes all right jesus christ and poof in a in a in a cloud of ricotta pie she disappears ricotta pie and rosaries

ricotta pie and rosaries she disappears that is absolutely one of our characters now fantastic she is going to be my favorite here that's why italians dropped of heart attacks. It's not because they stuffed themselves full of sausage. It's the stress. It's stress. It's constant. It's constant. It's the Catholic guilt and overbearing mothers. Our own families.

All right. Jesus Christ. It's the best when you get, like when you're a kid and you have like, you know, over to, like, a Jewish kid's house or a Jewish kid comes over to your house and they go, oh, my God. It's exactly the same. We freak out because we're like, his house is like, your house is just like mine except you have better food and there's more violence. And I'm like, yeah, your house is just like mine except the food sucks and nobody hits you. It's great. We used to go to my friend Adam's house

for like 10 or 15 minutes. That's all we could be there for because his parents were yelling at each other and us and they weren't even our parents. Oh, they yell at everybody. Oh yeah, they'll threaten to hit you. They don't care. You're in my house.

I'll hit anything in my house, god damn it. They call me names. I'm'm like i barely know yours i'm telling you dude it's a wild fucking way to grow up it really is it's wild so vinny uh his friends start taking him out to the gym, sneaking him out. And he went to the doctor for x-rays, and they looked good. And the doctor said, just keep doing whatever you're doing. You're looking good, making good progress. So he started lifting more weights and heavier weights. You're an anomaly.

I can't believe how well you're healing, and your muscles are getting bigger just from the halo. Just keep doing that. Your mom's pasta must be magical. don't know keep going on so uh on valentine's day a couple months later the halo is finally taken off and he said that he didn't want a pain killing injection for it he said quote i've probably had a thousand stitches in my face but this was the most pain i've ever had he got it oh he didn't even get the local they just give you a local to numb it like a novocaine shot and he said they're literally backing screws out of your face unscrew things from my skull they're screwed into your

skull and he was like just do that just don't numb it just unscrew it from my skull like a fucking psychopath they took pins out of my hand when i blew up my hand while i was awake and they were like say when it hurts i was just screaming it hurt and they just kept pulling the james these pins are not long these are not threaded fucking screws they don't they don't take a socket wrench they didn't use power tools to get it out and it wasn't in your skull this guy give me the 7 16th to get this out of this guy's head little pliers i mean medical pliers this guy lined up a black and decker here made sure it was fully charged did we charge this last night yeah all right he fucking backed him he fucking backed the screw out man they didn't call a nascar team in to change the

fucking lug nuts in my face either that or worse would be a ratchet spinning a craftsman in your face amazing so um it does hurt to take that out but these were tiny little metal pins. They are not fucking bolts. Those screws in your face are actual bolts, man. Fucking intense, man. So later on, his father is doing a thing with the press here, and he's got a reporter in the car, and he's driving down the street near where Vinny got in his accident. And he said, quote, Thing is, Vinny's got these incredible reflexes so he can drive crazy. All his friends try to imitate the way he drives,

but they ain't got his reflexes. People used to tell me all over the state, Angelo, he's not going to get hurt in the ring. He's going to get hurt on the road. Crazy. And he wasn't even driving. So they were right, but it wasn't them. So he could drive like

that because he's got reflexes his friends fucking jerk offs they can't jerk offs one at all hey that one jerk off your other friend fucking jerk off they can't drive like you yeah so um he uh he then said that uh two broken vertebrae aren't going to keep him from boxing yeah and his father said you're out of your mind you just tell him we'll cross that bridge when we come to it you know whatever helps you recover faster great but you're not no one's punching you in the face anymore yeah but how many are the ones that do it you know if it's not two how many two's enough for me two's plenty it's two i mean five yeah to stop but two get the fuck out of here who doesn't break a couple bird of right too many come on um wow um

so he uh he said that uh um you know he's he wanted to do it he said said, oh, my God, I don't want to fight. And he said that at one point he said, quote, Angelo said, quote, he told me not to worry. He was doing this all along. Then he lifted 50 pounds with his neck. He wanted to show his father what he was doing. So he had to show him he had confidence in him. He said 12 times forward, 12 times backwards, 12 times to the left, 12 times to the right. So 48 times in all. I knew right then that to the left, 12 times to the right. So 48 times in all. I knew right then that he was really going to try to fight again.

Oh, boy. He's doing it. So he would like to – he said that he was done with all the MRIs. He's fine. He's going to be good. He said, no more MRIs because I'm already a walking Chernobyl. Not doing that. He says people don't – he's going against everybody's

wishes. He said, including his promoter, the Lou Duva, he goes, quote about Lou. He said, they don't need the money. They got millions and millions. So how many more millions can I get them? They sent me to the doctors in Houston who tried to stop me, but I blew up. I blew up and made them look at the pictures. So he was like, see, I'm fine. Look, I'll be fine. So then Kevin Rooney, his trainer, he said that he thought he was going to fight from the beginning. He said after he broke his neck, I knew it. When I saw it, he said, quote, there was no spinal cord damage,

and he could always move his arms and legs. I knew if anybody could come back from a broken neck, it was Vinny. So he thinks that he wants to move up in weight and do all this shit. So, yeah, Rooney said, quote, he won't get hurt because of the accident. The thing I'm worried about is Vinny will want to prove he can take a shot and let himself get hit. You're not supposed to try to take punches. So, yeah, that's that's smart. Vinny said, sometimes I think I'm crazy just for boxing. There's always a risk.

I'm a realist, but this is what I want to do. If something happens, then this is the way I choose to go out. I know how lucky I am. I see Dennis Bird and Mike Utley. Those are offensive linemen in the NFL who won a defensive, won an offensive lineman. Fascinating story. Oh, that's a great story. It's a wild story.

And that could have been me. But I think life is like a suicide mission. Okay. I don't know about that. I'm taking a calculated risk. I'm getting paid, and I just can't understand how my girlfriend likes going up on roller coasters. I like living on the edge, but I don't like throwing up on myself. He's like, everybody's got their shit. You're afraid of getting punched in the face.

I'm afraid of the roller coaster, but my girlfriend's not. He also says that he's fearless. He said, people would think I didn't have a good defense because I was blood and guts, but I would get cut and the cut would run down because I was taking anti-inflammatories before the fight. People would think I was getting killed, but I had a good defense. You got to have a good defense to last. Apparently he was taking anti-inflammatories before he fought, so that makes you bleed more. That's what he's saying.

So they'd hit me, I'd bleed like a razor. I guess that makes sense, yeah. They used to do that in wrestling back in the day when guys really wanted to have a bloody one. What is it, aspirin, I think they'd take a shitload of before the fight. That way when they cut themselves, pow, that shit would be. Yeah, that's what they were looking for there. So, he ends up coming back 13 months after the accident.

He's got a match. A fucking year. That's. From breaking his neck. That is fucking wild. And he said, I don't want. And he said,

I don't want a fucking tomato can. Get me somebody good. I don't want any of this bullshit. So, he got. But 50 pounds, James, a punch is more than that, right? Yeah.

Oh, fuck yeah. It's like a thousand pounds per square inch, whatever the fuck, from a boxer. It's got to be an insane amount of pressure and energy that's coming at you. That's more than a dumbbell of 50 pounds. Unless you can break a Bowflex with your neck. It's not strong enough yet maybe he can maybe that's what he did so he ends up luis santana 36 and 14 coming in so yeah no no nobody here didn't fight like a guy making his debut it's at the foxwoods resort in connecticut there

and goes all 10 rounds god damn it and wins a unanimous decision really comes back and wins it uh this is at one this he's coming in this is at like 160 these guys are fighting too now so 154 and then 160 he'll try to be a middleweight after that so it's wild uh super middleweight is what he's fighting at uh a little in a little while here next up bright, Brett Lally, sixth round TKO with the Foxwoods. Next up, Lloyd Honeygon. Jesus. Lloyd Honeygon, TKO in the 10th round. He's 41-3 coming in, Lloyd Honeygon.

That's a good fighter. And he gets knocked out in the 10th round by Vinny here. Robbie Sims, he goes on to beat in the, what is this, in the 10th round unanimous decision. These are all guys. These are the records.

31-7, 41-3, 37-9-2, 22-5, 22-7. The guys he's fighting here. Afraid of all of them. He's fighting real fighters. The Ritz Carlton and Aspen he fights in. That sounds fancy. At least it's lovely. It's a little lovely.

He fights Dan Sherry and beat K.O.'s him in the 11th round. Ritz Carlton and Aspen he fights in. Oh, that sounds fancy. At least it's lovely. It's a little lovely. He fights Dan Sherry and beat K.O.'s him in the 11th round. And then Jacques LeBlanc at the Foxwoods, who's 22 and 7, beats him. 10th round, unanimous decision. So he's doing very well, I would say. He even won the IBO World Super Middleweight title. So good for him. Next up, 1994 in June, June 25th, 1994, he fights Roberto Duran. Yeah.

Roberto Duran, hands of stone. I mean, we all- Really great fighter. Amazing fighter. Roberto coming into this fight is 92 and 9. Holy shit. Is that real? 92 and 9 holy shit is that real 92 and 9 oh my god problem is roberto this is roberto's this is the end of it here for roberto he's not in his prime and uh pazienza

will even say he's not proud of these fights you know this isn't like he's not gonna brag that he fucking whooped roberto duran's ass when he was an old man. So he ends up fighting here. Pazienza goes down in the fifth round and he's pissed off about that. He goes, I just fucking didn't even see it coming, asshole. But he got right back up, goes all 12 rounds. But it's a unanimous decision win for Pazienza. This is at the MGM Grand in Vegas. It's a big deal.

So next up, 1994 in November, he fights rafael williams 33 and 13 coming in this is back at the foxwoods beats him by unanimous decision uh then he gets a rematch against iran really i guess he went to the distance why not so uh here we go this one is he's 93 and 10 now because he won another fight since then. Roberto did. This is in January 95 in Atlantic City goes all 12 rounds again and another unanimous decision for for Pazienza. So there you go. But Pazienza, the decisions here, I guess they were closer than everybody said they should have been on a lot of them. Like 116-112, all the announcers, I guess the announcers were like, I had Pazienza won every round on my card. Should have been 120-108, and they had it like the judges had 116-112. They were like close.

So it was a, I don't know what they were doing there. He said, quote, I don't brag about it because he was like 90. That's what Pazienza says. Well, 92 actually. 92 wins. He said that at the press conference before their second fight. I don't brag about the first one because he's like 90, so I'm not going to brag about this one if I beat him up. Okay. one because he's like 90 so i'm not going to brag about this one if i beat him up okay he said that

um um pazienza was hoping that duran he wanted him to say something nice about him and duran said quote um jesus christ roberto said he can't wait to kick your this is what he said through his translator roberto said he can't wait to kick your fucking ass and your playboy girlfriend is going to have to take care of you when he puts you in the hospital a 90 year old man said that 90 uh but he said pause said he was still tough he said quote it was like hitting an oak tree i'm thinking to myself imagine this motherfucker when he was 25 so he said the fifth round comes up i start throwing a bomb and uh that's when he got knocked down on that one so um yeah he says um he gets up and he says you get up here oh wait i'm sorry yeah uh duran said he wasn't going anywhere and uh apparently he said he was doing

some crazy shit and he said duran called him a crazy gringo and he said, I feel like that's when I got his respect for being crazy. So June 24th, 1995, he fights Roy Jones Jr. Is that right? He never thought these would cross, but yeah, Roy Jones 28-0 at this point. Wow. This is when Roy was unbeatably so fast.

He's fighting at 168. He's fighting at middleweight. He's a bad motherfucker right now. In his prime, he chose to fight Roy Jones? In his prime, yeah. He's always looking for good guys to fight. So, yeah, he wants to fight him. This fight goes only to the sixth round,

where Pazienza's knocked down three times in the sixth round. There's a three-knockdown rule in effect, and it is called off. And so Roy Jones Jr. beats his ass, which to be expected, obviously. Sure. in the sixth round there's a three knockdown rule in effect and it is called off and so uh roy jones jr beats his ass which to be expected obviously sure he's gonna fight a guy named dana rosenblatt first okay you sure that's a guy i think it is um maybe this is from uh one of vinnie's guys and his crew here i guess one of his promoters or something. He said, Vinny sent a dozen black roses to Rosenblatt's mother before the fight. Wow.

That was pure Vinny. Then on the night of the fight, Vinny stopped walking toward his dressing room and peeled off in a different direction. The security guard who was accompanying him said, hey, Vinny, that's the wrong way. Vinny said, yeah, I know. I just got to do something first.

Then he burst into Rosenblatt's dressing room and told him, tonight's going to be your worst fucking nightmare. I'm going to kick your fucking ass. At which point, security dragged him out of the room. He said, but it was just a continuation of the mind games Vinny had been playing from the time the fight was announced. Fascinating. That is crazy.

Rosenblatt was 28 28 no coming into this fight is that right oh yeah this is for the wbu super world super middleweight title and uh this fight only goes to the fourth round where vinny knocks him out tko fast they waved it off uh the funny part is he just kept punching so much so that he fucking floored the referee. He hit the ref, too? He hit ref Tony Orlando, knocked him down. Yeah, he says that he can explain everything. It's fine.

The boxing commission said, well, you have a 90-day suspension, so you can figure out your explanation in that. $5,000 fine as well. Remember Bill Caton? We've talked about him a lot, a boxing manager. He's managed a few of our guys. He says, quote, Vinny feels he has an explanation as hard as it is to believe. That's what he said about it.

So apparently, yeah, he punched the referee, and the state boxing commissioner who reviewed the tape said uh quote vinnie pazienza continued to throw punches long after the referee had stopped and stepped in to stop the fight he certainly had the opportunity even if one or two punches had been thrown in the heat of battle to stop but he continued so uh yeah pazienza apologized and said he got carried away he said quote i wanted to knock everyone out. Tony just got in the way. Well, you tried.

He said, quote, I called Tony's room, the referee, later that night. And he says that I said, Tony, I want to tell you I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to do that. He said, Vinny, don't worry about it, but can I get a rematch? And then we left. Did the ref throw a punch after he got thrown? No, no. I think that's the joke of it.

Maybe I can get a punch in this time. Now Rosenblatt starts saying that it was all just a lucky punch. It was a lucky punch. He just hit me with a lucky punch. That's what happened here. 30 of them. 30 of them. So Paz's trainer said, said quote Vinny knew Dana would be

open to being hit with that punch those first three rounds Dana was just beating the crap out of Vinny who was already pretty busted up bleeding all the time after the third round Dana who was always this serious self-contained guy did something that was pretty uncharacteristic for him he put one hand up and

kind of dismissively twisted his glove around I remember thinking he's in trouble because he actually thinks this fight is over i knew that this was the time when vinnie was most dangerous even in the in the very next round vinnie knocked his ass out with an overhand right a few hours after the fight i was walking through the casino and ran into dana's dad who was a very nice man i told him quote i'm sorry for what happened to dana but i gotta tell you something i have no inside information but i'm pretty sure that right now in dana's room his trainer is telling him he got hit with a lucky punch but mr rosenblatt let me

tell you something vinny spent a lot of time getting himself ready to throw that punch because he's a professional and that's what your boy needs to know yeah he left himself open it wasn't lucky he needs to close that hole in his fucking fighting basically tell your trainer uh no yeah well yeah vinnie said that he saw that hole and they saw it on film and they were training for exactly for that shot that was the one they were looking for um so 1997 he decides here that he is going to be an actor. Oh, no. Of course. So he is in a movie. He's in a Stallone picture.

No shit. A Frank Stallone picture. Yes. No shit, Jimmy. He's in a Stallone movie. A Frank Stallone movie. Oh, man. Hey, Frank Stallone.

Oh, man. That's a sentence that many an actor told their mom and left that Frank part out of the conversation. Don't worry, Ma, I got a role. I'm in a Stallone movie. Oh, that's great. It's going to be fine. It also has Dennis Hopper in it. Is that right? Yeah, it's called The Good Life.

It's from 1997 um it is uh the synopsis three guys move from new jersey to miami and two of them end up killing the third yeah uh it had a director replaced in the middle of filming which is always a good sign you always get it it's always great when there's two completely different visions fucking mashed together on screen by editing. That's always wonderful. Starring Frank Stallone, Dennis Hopper, Andrew Dice Clay is in this movie. Who else here that I've ever heard of? Oh, Don Barris.

I know who he is. Is this after Speed came out, James? This is 97, yeah. This is way post-Speed. Why is Dennis Hopper doing this? Money on the side. they probably gave him a few bucks david carradine beverly d'angelo's in this movie holy shit so um anyway this movie there's a problem with this movie he has a small part in it who cares it doesn't matter what he's

doing it's a what stallone makes a cameo in this movie for his brother okay he does him a favor and makes a cameo now um stallone from what i understand he worked a 10 hour day he really fucking like you know he went hard at it yeah he agreed to do the film for a set of golf clubs oh he doesn't want he's doing his brother a favor he goes just give me a set of those golf clubs i want and fucking have a set of callaways they're nice have them ready for me so when i'm done i can go fucking hit 18 holes when i'm done on the set so that's what he said uh kenneth smith golf club is what he wanted clubs so there you go kenneth smith golf clubs i don't know anything about golf yeah because i've never heard of shit i know ping i know callaway ping uh and that's about it whatever they have like

target or whatever i don't know golf. So there's top flight. But there is a contract clause in his contract that very specifically limits the use of Stallone's name and likeness and advertising. You can't put every scene he was in in the trailer and say Sylvester Stallone starring in this. He won't let you do that. That's very specific in the trailer. So what do they do? Exactly that. Exactly that. They won't let you do that. That's very specific in the trailer. So what do they do? Exactly that.

Exactly that. They're going to fucking do that. Whoever's the producer is going to be like, we're putting Stallone all over this trailer. He's fucking not Frank either. So Stallone sues the movie for $20 million. Oh my God. Sylvester Stallone sues for $20 million. It's his brother's movie.

He's not the producer. He's the, you know, I guess he's probably a producer. So this is four times the budget of the movie. It's a $5 million budget. Four times what they're paying. Hopper, D'Angelo, everybody combined. You got it. Everybody. A month later, Frank Stallone and then the also the producer countersued Sly Stallone.

So Frank sued his brother now back countersued using one of the people he used as on his legal team is Chris Darden, the prosecutor who famously had O.J. Simpson trying a glove that didn't fit him and fucking might have blown the entire case. That guy. Yes. Chris Darden. He's on the team. Both. This is fucking crazy.

So apparently eventually there was an amicable settlement at some point, but the film ends up never being released. Oh, my God. There's a trailer out there for it that was released that pissed everybody off. This kind of grainy looking trailer. You can look that up, but otherwise it was never released. Never made? It's a big story. It's a funny fucking.

I remember hearing about it. I was so happy that this was in there because we could talk about it. So, 1990s, 70s, also in the Police Academy series where he plays a boxer. Which one? They made a television series based on the Police Academy movies. Oh, no. A comedy about a silly police academy. Yeah, that sounds awful.

They ruined the, I mean, the movies were already ruined by the movie. Oh, they desecrate. They made one in Moscow, for Christ's sake. They ruined it. But that's regardless. This is worse. So he also, he's a guest on the tonight show with jay leno through all this the montel williams show after his broken neck he was very famous too after all that

he was a guest security guard on an episode of the jerry springer show remember when that was a big deal then at wrestlemania fucking wrestlemania 15 he is the referee for the bart gun versus butterbean boxing match that's the the final of the brawl for all not the final bart gun this poor bastard wins the brawl for all and they're like instead of making him a star how about we put him in the ring with a professional boxer who outweighs him by 150 pounds and we'll kick the shit out of him in a round because he knows how to box how about we do that and that's what they did watching that that whole thing on uh behind the ring what is it dark side of the ring yeah and then we did the bonus on it too watching that episode and seeing that man take that punch from is crazy fucking ridiculous absolutely silly so he keeps fighting

here i'm gonna buzz through his fights here pretty quick at the end here he uh 97 in december he Ridiculous. Absolutely silly. So he keeps fighting here. I'm going to buzz through his fights here pretty quick at the end here. He 97 in December. He fights Harold Graham in Wembley Arena in England. Their unanimous decision. It's a 12 rounder for the WBC International Super Middleweight title. He goes all 12 rounds and he loses a unanimous decision. middleweight title. He goes all 12 rounds and he loses a unanimous decision. Next, in

July of 98, he fights Glenwood Brown, who's 47 and 10 coming in. This is a split decision, but he wins it in a 10-round fight. Next, he fights Arthur Allen, who this is at Foxwoods. All these next fights are all going to be at Foxwoods.

He fights Arthur Allen, 23 and4, coming in. Wins in a unanimous decision. He does Vinny. Next up, January 99. He's still fighting. Jesus Christ. Undra White he fights, 21-8, coming in at Fox Woods. TKO

in round 9 for Vinny. Then he fights Joseph Kiwanuka, who's 26-3, coming in. Be beats him with a unanimous decision. Esteban Cervantes in June of 1999 beats him with a split decision in all 10 rounds. So he's putting a lot of rounds on. We're coming up on 20 years of boxing. That's not good.

And he's fighting in the high 160s. So these aren't little light punches either. This is you're taking a fucking walloping, and he does not mind getting hit in the high 160s. So these aren't little light punches either. This is you're taking a fucking walloping. And he does not mind getting hit in the face. He has an iron jaw, obviously. He's never been fucking knocked out. You notice that through all this? It's always a decision.

So, yeah, he tries to do his thing there. Then he fights 1999 in December Dana Rosenblatt again. Remember him? Yeah. That whole deal, the one he knocked out years ago. He's 35-1 coming in, so he's still only lost that one fight. And this fight goes all 12 rounds for the IBO World Super Middleweight title. Split decision loss for Vinny on this one.

No shit. Yes, indeed. So split decision loss. I read this article too dana rosenblatt he is damaged psychologically by the posienza thing that fight he says i did i never even saw the fucking punch i don't know it was a lucky punch and he's like my whole life would have been so much different if that didn't happen if i beat him that night i could have done this and this and this would have opened and he's doing the what if game of this would have rolled into this would have rolled into this.

He said instead, after that, I just became a name to fight. And, you know, I wasn't the same thing anymore. And I wasn't a big deal. And he said that ruined his life, basically. So he still had a good career. That's boxing. 2000. Here we go.

Vinny is arrested on early on a sunday morning late saturday night on charges of drunken driving recklessly eluding the police resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer oh i call that's like a it's a full house right there that's a full you got delta full house he's arrested at three o'clock in the morning yeah by the way he goes out and drinks every single fucking night like a monster and either gambles or goes to the strip club those are his two big ones he likes to do he's a party animal he loves to fucking party so he gets in a in a traffic accident uh in paw tuck it and uh he's arraigned he's released on five thousand dollars and all that sort of shit

he was driving on the wrong side of the road after leaving a nightclub at 3 a.m which is a if you pull out of a nightclub at 3 a.m you better drive pretty fucking straight because right away you're suspect you start going on the other side of the road without your headlights on and shit you're getting pulled over that giveaway yeah so uh he did that and uh the apparently he insisted on getting out of the car after the cops told him to stay in the car he's like no no no i'm good i'm getting out so at some point there was i don't know they went back and forth and at some point fucking vinnie went to throw a punch at a cop and one of the other cops grabbed his arm as he went to throw the punch and blocked it from fucking going at the guy

so uh yeah they were going uh back and forth uh at some point he's then he sprayed with pepper gas spray him with pepper spray they fucking wrestle into the ground the whole deal it's a fucking disaster it's a disaster um he says he had been drinking but he wasn't drunk and he didn't try to punch anybody nothing he goes what do you i'm i'm i'm a good guy what are you talking about he says quote obviously some of those cops didn't like me and wanted to bust my butt and see me behind bars it's not a coincidence i've never gotten in a fight outside the ring i make friends with everybody i'm not a troublemaker i diffuse situations all the time and that should have been done by them the police yeah you can't swing at a

cop i don't know that's what i'm gonna say peacemakers that's what they're supposed to do you just can't swing at a cop and expect good results is what I'm getting at from that. You know what else you can't do is drive with no lights on going the opposite way of traffic at 3 a.m. He might have had his lights on. I think I just said that. But he definitely was on the wrong side of the road. Anybody? I've never heard of somebody going the wrong way after 2 a.m. sober. Never happened.

No, no, no, no. Because there's no one else on the road, so you can get on your side and just stay there. It's great. Now, early 2001, he legally changes his name to Vinnie Paz. I don't know if that's to get rid of the embarrassment, to try to sweep his legal record clean. I'm not sure what he's doing.

It's also at this point that he says he had a very serious gambling addiction, and even after his career was over, he had a very serious gambling addiction and uh even after his career it was over he had it and he'll talk about later he uh his lifestyle was pretty wild and then he loves blackjack just loves it he said he wasted about 10 million bucks up to 10 million dollars on bullshit and gambling oh yeah 10 million he says quote my life has been fabulous because of Oh, my God. for me. I'm getting a little bored with the boxing game, though. It's monotonous. It's a monotonous game. It's monotonous hitting the bag every day. It's monotonous hitting the same speed bag, the same jump rope, the same shadow boxing. I'm still fast, maybe faster than ever. Probably not.

That's not how your body works. Maybe stronger than ever. But the training has always been hard. That's why I'm ready to have these three fights and go he's saying he's gonna have three more and go which by the way is what a lot of athletes is why they retire is not from the games it's from the practice that's a famous emmett smith quote emmett when he was retiring they said wow you played so long and he goes i could play longer if it wasn't for the practices because i can play the games i just can't get up every day after practice that hurts the training sucks yeah and that's uh that's a lot. Even David Letterman said that's why he retired. The whole thing was it's not about doing the show.

It's about preparing for the show. I don't have that in me anymore. I can go out there for an hour. That's great, but I'm not going to sit there all day and pick jokes out and shit. That's too much. The show's generally not the work. It's the work that prepares the show that sucks. We do our live shows.

They're an hour 45 they feel like they're four minutes long they're so much fun but the excruciating shit of me preparing that is like having a screw born into my skull with a fucking halo around it yeah that's hard so uh he fights next up 2001 in uh february fights Aaron Davis, 47-6, this guy is. He loses this fight by TKO, so the ref stops it in the eighth. Next up, in July of 2001, he fights Pat Lawler, who's 23-13. I don't know, no relation to Jerry, I don't think, but you never know. This is on Rhodes on the Paw tuxet in cranston this is

his hometown hometown this must be for just for fun because he beats this is a second round knockout he beats this guy roads on the paw tuxet that sounds like a like a restaurant yeah roads r-h-o like dusty weird Weird. So September 21st, 2001. Wow, that is quick. They got a fight lined up real fast. I don't even think SNL was on the air yet. No, nothing came back together that 11 to 10 days after. Damn.

He fights Tim Shocks, who's 21 and 10. This is in Cranston again. Unanimous decision. Wins that one. The buildings were still on fire, for Christ's sake. Yeah, they're still digging people out. And he's like, I'm going to kick this guy's ass in memory of these fallen people. We've had it booked.

We sold tickets. Let's do it. No shit. He fights Levon Easley at this point, who 14-6-2 beats him. Now he's got 49 wins. He's 49-9 at this point. So many people do this. 49-9.

He said he wants one more fight to get his 50th win, and he's happy. Fight for Raph. They should have counted that. Count that fight. He's fighting a guy named Eric Lucas, and he says, quote, I'm not afraid of anybody, and I'm sure as hell not afraid of Eric Lucas. I respect him as a world champion. He's one tough bastard, but I'm the

toughest SOB in the world. That's why I'll win because I know how to fight. He's getting about $200,000 at most here. He said, but this is about getting my 50th win. He said if I win, I could die 10 minutes later and be happy. so 50th win

he'll drop dead and be thrilled with it so this fight goes all 12 oh my and he loses by unanimous decision yikes so he doesn't fight again for two more years then two years later he comes back to try to get his 50th win we'll talk about that but in the meantime he has some problems first of all also 2002 he's inducted into the national italian american sports hall of fame you got him he got it so he and arturo gatti are like the two last big guinea fighters you know because god he's a tough that's a tough gin right there arturo gatti jesus have you ever seen any of those fights? No, I don't think so.

You never saw any of those Gotti-Ward fights? I don't think so. Him and Mickey. Oh, my God. Dude, it's brutality. They just savage each other. Him and this guy, Mickey Ward, they fought like four times. In the 70s?

No, like five years ago. What? Ten years ago. They beat the shit out of, they beat each other fucking bloody for 12 rounds. It's a war. It's like a Rocky movie. Oh, look. It's the most famous, like, holy shit fights you're going to find.

Gotti, Ward. I haven't watched boxing in so long. These were just famous as, like, you don't even have to like boxing to watch them because it's just, holy shit, that's a fight. It's not. Mickey Ward or Turo Gotti. So, yeah, a lot of people feel so lost. A lot of people in that Hall of Fame I didn't know about, by the way. Yeah, there's a bunch of people I didn't know about, but a lot of people I never heard of. So there's so many people I never heard of that.

Like, I feel like I mean, we do a sports show. Yeah, that's close, guys. Can we start a fucking petition, please? Because I bet you anything. I bet you anything. There's media in here. Let me in the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. Yeah, there's broadcasting executives.

There you go. There's a fucking water polo coach. No, right. All right. Come on. I have brought way more attention to fucking American guineas than any fucking water polo coach anywhere on this earth. No. I guarantee you.

Yeah. Because you've brought people that literally we get tweets. I hate sports and I listen to this show because I love the show. I'm dead serious. I hate sports, and I listen to this show because I love the show. I'm dead serious. Nobody hates water polo and sports and watched that because of that fucking coach. There's people, there's all sorts of people like that.

Here, the CEO of STP. What are you, fucking kidding me? He makes oil that goes in cars that people drive. That's not fucking. Is that guy? If that guy gets to be in here, I do too. It's the N-I-A-S-H-F. The National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame. If you, whatever, dot org.

Fucking contact them. Please, I want in. I feel I've earned it. Where are the Ps? Yeah, Pazienza. Yeah, I'd be near Rico Petrucelli. You gotta get me in here. This is good.

There's a fucking screenwriter in here. Angelo Pizzo. I'm sorry. Get the fuck out of here. Put me in here. Okay. It's just great Italians. That's all it is.

That are involved in sports. It's a sports hall of fame. So, I mean, there's a screenwriter if he wrote a movie about a fucking sports. So, we do this about sports. He edited Moneyball or somewriter if he wrote a movie about a fucking sports. So we do this about sports. Edited Moneyball or some shit. He wrote a movie about sports. Well, we're doing this about sports. So we don't know him.

No. And you don't know me. But put me in anyway. You know me. He was listening now. I want in on that. I'm not even kidding. So 2003, he is at the Foxwoods Resort and Casino.

Not to fight, even though he has fought in 15 main events at Foxwoods there. So they know him there. Oh, no, no. He's there to gamble. And he's arrested at the casino. He's arrested for passing bad checks in Las Vegas. They catch up with him at Foxwoods here. No, they're charging him with seven counts of non-sufficient funds.

He's also charged by state police in Connecticut from being a fugitive from justice and has to post a $75,000 cash bond. So he's fought in 15 main events and one arrest at the Foxwoods. That's his record there. So 2004, he fights Talker Pudwill. I'm not kidding. Talker, T-O-k-e-r pudwill p-u-d-w-i-l-l and he goes by tucker pudwill which isn't any better nope tucker talker your last name's pudwill bro you're gone your first name is irrelevant at this point your first name isn't the joke here talker no

and it's at foxwoods so they let him back on premises that's nice to make him money this fight goes all 10 rounds and he wins a unanimous decision getting him his 50th win bringing his career record to 50 and 10 and that's where he will retire he says that quote i love the discipline of being a fighter i I love the climb, the struggle, the agony. I'll miss that. I'm surprised to hear me say I don't want to. I don't want to anymore, but I've been fighting all my life. Boxing has given me everything, but it takes away from you, too. Then he says, when I drive into my garage and I see the poster for this fight, I see come see Vinny Paz's last fight. It's never been my last fight. I had screws in

my head and it wasn't my last fight. I wasn't one of the greatest fighters in boxing, but I was one of the greatest stories. I lasted. This is the only life I know. I have the word warrior tattooed on my body, but that don't make me a warrior. What does is I'll go through all the pain to win. So I just want to be remembered as a warrior who lasted as a guy who fought and never quit i think i'm very lucky to have survived through all the bad stuff uh he says at this point he says his father's got fucking uh his mother's got cancer his father's got alzheimer's he's got a lot going on he said i've lost money millions in the stock market he actually does also lose that i've got two parents who are ill yet i'm lucky

life can be cruel when i'm dead i'll be appreciated they'll miss me when i'm gone one thing i know how to do is fight i'm a fighter that's why i come back i've come back through financial disaster losses and the broken neck i'll be in his face and I'll be all over and do anything I have to do to win. 2005, he files for bankruptcy. Yeah. Yeah. Accumulates more than $2 million in debt. Yikes.

He owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS, Las Vegas casinos, and just people that he knows, friends. He filed for Chapter 7. He said that he was playing the stock market in an attempt to cover his gambling debts he took like a big stock risk wow he basically said fuck i gotta pay the bookies and i lost all my money well i'm gonna take the last hundred go to the track and put it on a long shot because otherwise i'm fucked anyway so if this hits great if not whatever that's what he. And he lost all his money again. So he's pretty fucked. He said, I just lost a million dollars in the stock market about a month ago.

So that, like, did it for me, is what he says. It was a $900,000 stock gamble in 2005. He was reeling from blackjack losses and owed more than $2 million in back taxes and unpaid markers. reeling from blackjack losses and owed more than $2 million in back taxes and unpaid markers. So, uh, owed $291,000 to the Mirage Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. He, uh, wrote bad checks like we talked about and, um, man, he owes $608,000 in back taxes to the IRS in state of Rhode Island, $110,000 to friends who lent him money during the past two years. His bankruptcy attorney said, quote, he's blessed with many friends, and he's helped a lot of people in his life.

What do they do with you when you're that far in debt? I don't know, and you can't, how are you going to make it up? He's been known to, they said, he gives friends expensive gifts over the years. He's always been very generous. He's, fucking guineas are generous too that's the other thing he earned about six million in his career uh however he said that in the the last year he's made about twelve thousand dollars from being a sports commentator so not going well here 2007 it gets worse he is arrested for drunk driving oh then well it's really drunk sleeping it's more it's like a bernard king situation where they knock on the window and he's like what now and they're like get out of the car and put these cups on sleep you're in the fast

lane of the freeway what's that now and you're moving. It's a yellow Jeep. He falls asleep in it. Police say he refused to take a breathalyzer and was arrested for drunk driving because you're not allowed to do that. He has he was got a report to court and all that type of shit. Then, Jesus Christ, a little while later, he has to turn himself into the Warwick police after being charged with domestic simple assault and domestic disorderly conduct. Yeah. They said that they received a call. The police did about 414 a.m.

That's never a good time to get calls. Whenever anyone calls you at 414 a.m., it's not good news, including the police. No one's calling the cops at 414 to go. Just wanted to say, keep it up. Good job, guys. And hang up the phone like your boss doesn't call you at 414 and say, see you in two hours. No, that doesn't happen. Your mother doesn't call you at 414 and go.

Your grandparents are doing well. They're just doing great. That never happens. Call you then to go. Mom, grandma died. That's happens. Call you then to go, Mom, Grandma died. That's the only time you hear shit. So, yeah, they found his girlfriend with a bloody nose. And then, you know, they issued an arrest warrant for him.

Like she's been punched in the face? You know, like she's been punched in the face. He goes to DUI court and he pleads no contest to the charge of DUI and is fined $600 in order to receive substance abuse treatment and perform 60 hours of community service. And you, sir, may fuck off. Driver's license revoked for 18 months. So that's a you can't have that. So his life has turned into just a shit drain. It's spinning like things do in a drain now. It's just going bad.

He's made $6 million, but he's lost 10. He's got no money. He owes money. He's got arrests now. He can't fight. He's got all these fucking problems. He doesn't know what to do with himself. His community service, there's all this shit going on.

He's sitting there. He's just lost, man. he's sitting there he's just lost man he's he's damaged he's lost and then in the distance just in the distance he hears some dogs barking and he likes dogs yeah and he wonders who they are then he he hears other here's a lady yelling there's dogs barking and who is it it's both bobby colorado and my grandma they're both there to give some italian advice and they say how is it you come here come to arrive here what the fuck is wrong with you ma what are you doing ma gee ma bobby talk to him ma please He's a nice boy. Ma, Vincia, you're so nice boy.

I know your father. He's a nice boy. He's stabbing the Nazi. Very nice. That's good. If she don't stab, then they're going to rape us. So, yeah. Now you stabbed the Nazi. I saw him do it. I said, yeah, good for you. And then he ran into America. I said, oh,

he's going to be such a nice boy. Vinnie, you're a handsome boy. You know it's a smoosh. But that's OK. It's OK. Right? Listen, listen. This fucking guy.

It's not worth your energy, sweetheart. Come on. Come over here. You're very old right now. You're a fucking jerk-off. What are you? You're embarrassing us. You're embarrassing all of us.

What are you? My please. My Vinny. Be a good boy, OK? My please. My Vinnie. Be good boy. Okay? My please. Be a nice, handsome boy. I'm thinking.

Listen to the lady, would you? Fucking, what are you doing? Listen to her. All right? Come on. Quit fucking around. Don't be stupid. All right?

Get the hell out of here. You're breaking the heart. What's wrong with you? Here. Take one of these fucking dogs and take care of it, though. All right? All right, then. You ready to go? My please, go.

And then poof in a cloud of marinara sauce and dog shit and everything else, they're gone. And Vinny's mom will be here next week for anybody. She's going to need a new Italian lady. So there you go. So next up is domestic violence court. A district judge dismisses domestic simple assault charges against him. She, the accuser, his girlfriend, Ashley Spencer, failed to appear in court. So the judge said her absence endangered his right to cross-examine witnesses in his case, and the case was dismissed.

So 2012, he's at a bar, restaurant, whatever the fuck. And he's accused of, this is amazing. He's accused of grabbing a woman's breast, which you cannot do unless they're very close to you and very willing. I mean close like that's your wife, your girlfriend, or somebody who wants their tit grabbed, basically. Somebody that allows you to do that in a bedroom naked sometimes. Yeah, that would like you to do that. Oddly, which led to an argument between the two of them.

Strange. Very weird. 50-year-old ex-boxer grabbing your titty? Hey, sweetheart, come over here with them titties. So they're yelling at each other. So her friend comes over to get involved and yell at him, too. So now he's arguing with two different women. And the second woman accuses him of hitting her in the throat, grabbing her by the hair, and throwing her to the floor, which is awful if you do that. You can't do that.

You can't fucking. I'm going to grab your friend's tit, and then when you tell me you have a problem with it, I'm going to hit you in the throat and then throw you to the floor by your hair. Seems like a really crazy fucking thing to do. That's crazy. It's a situation that you, on paper, sounds bad.

It's not easy to explain. No. Well, he says that, in his version of it, he told police that he quote grabbed the second woman's wrists until she released or he grabbed the second woman's wrist until she released him then she fell so he's like she was pulling and then like he let go and she fell like yeah no i don't buy that shit at all i'm not buying that, personally. That's just for me. I grabbed a friend by the titty.

She was going to pass out, so I grabbed her by the wrist. Then I let go, and then she fell out. Listen, Paisan, you know, from fucking me to you. I'm not buying it, chief. I'm very believable. Nobody's buying it. You shouldn't be selling it. Let's just put it that way.

So he goes to court for that. And he is, I guess, found or he pleads no contest to one count of disorderly conduct in court. And he is given, you, sir, may fuck off 30 hours of community service. And he must undergo alcohol counseling. Yeah. So there's that shit. So 2013. Now, he just keeps going.

Cranking him in, huh? Cranking him in. He is arrested in Rhode Island and charged with malicious damage and disorderly conduct. Oh, what does that even mean? Okay. He's in a bar. This is fucking amazing. He's in a bar and he has a $23 tab.

Okay. He apparently had some sort of issue and the bartender asked him to leave. Pay your $23 tab and get the fuck out. So what he did is, well, here's a quote from the police here. Paz is accused of smashing two bar stools against the bars and then throwing them.

He continued to confront the bartender, but a friend got between the two. He picked up two metal stools and started smashing them against the bar and then threw them across the room, which is insane behavior for any amount of money, never mind $23. That is bonkers. So, yeah, they said you can't not pay your bill, threaten people, and smash the joint up. That's not okay to do that shit. So he, to pause, says the whole thing's blown out of proportion because I'm a celebrity.

That's all it is. You just know who I am. Otherwise, nobody would care, you know. He also says that he likes to do things to the limit, which sometimes gets him in trouble. But he's innocent here. That's a thing here. So he's in court for the, what is this? Oh, yeah, that was the court for that.

Okay, so he said that he made, this is funny, he said he made $5 to $7 million fighting. Quote, the problem is I spent eight. He said that um quote i have a good brain i just don't use it a lot which is a problem i think you got to use that 2000 8 million is a lot more to spend than 5 million earned so i i understand you do have a terrible brain you a terrible brain now 2000 we have to go back to 2009 to know something that happens in 2016. In 2009, he had lunch with a friend of his, a guy named Chad Verde. And this is a mergers and acquisitions guy.

And Pazienza sells Verde the rights to his life story. Okay. Right. And Pazienza says, quote, I was pushed up against the wall. I didn't want to lose my house. So in October 2009, they announced that the movie was going to go into production. Scott Kahn was going to play the lead. Really?

Jimmy Kahn's kid there, Scott Kahn. Didn't quite work out like that as that kind of fell apart. Productions do this all the time that'll fall apart financing will fall through whatever they you know it takes years sometimes for this stuff to happen so uh then a year later uh another it was another incarnation of the whole thing and then it fell apart again um then he i guess angelo rizzo, who wrote Rudy and Hoosiers, so writes fucking boring, inspirational white people sports movies. Good for you. I know people love fucking Hoosiers, and I love Gene Hackman, and I cannot fucking watch that movie because it bores me to tears.

There is nothing more boring than watching white children dribble basketballs in 19 fucking 56 or whatever the shit I can't do it can't do it sorry so he that ends up happening they signed on to rewrite the script and paused called that script quote fucking terrible

yeah he said it so easily could have come out then and it would have been nothing. It would have gone to Channel 12. Thank God it didn't. I don't know what Channel 12 is. I don't know what channel that is there, but Channel 12. Rhode Island thing probably.

Probably public access. Maybe. 2012, Verdi, who still has his rights here, goes to Los Angeles to meet with new writers. He hired Ben Younger, wrote and directed boiler room. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. It's not a good movie,

but it's a movie that came out and was out and it's a terrible movie, but it's, yeah, it was a big deal. I'll put it that way. So, um, he said he chose not to read any of the previous scripts and any of that

shit. Instead, he wanted to find out who pause was, went to Rhode Island to meet with him, and then he wrote the script. Paz says that, quote, he just fucking nailed it. He got it right.

A year later, Verdi calls Paz up and says, got good news. Scorsese's gonna be executive producer on this. Stop it. Which is pretty fucking good news. So then he was like was like holy shit this is gonna happen he spent only one full day on set and he watched like everything and he said after

watching them set stuff up for a while he said quote this is really fucking boring i'll see you guys at the wrap party showed up one day to watch filming and he's like i don't want to sit here and watch this is boring as shit watching a movie being filmed is the most boring thing you're ever going to see it's people doing technical things and then watching people do the same thing for 10 seconds over and over and over and over again it's terrible so um yeah it's called the movie's called bleed for this and you remember this movie no it was out a few years ago uh no not scott bayo i think he was a little too i think vinnie's younger than scott bayo he might be i think he is so he said that uh he was very excited about it and uh uh miles teller is the guy who plays him

no an actor i don't know i guess probably i don't know not I guess probably. I don't know. No, he's not 6'7", so maybe not. No, that's Penn Jillette. Oh, you're Sean Penn. Oh, you're Teller. You're Penn. Jesus. I don't know. You're Teller. So he never speaks.

He'd be a terrible actor. Very quiet. I guess Teller, who had been in, he was in a near-death car crash as well. So he doesn't look like him or anything like that. But I guess he said that he transformed his body, looked like he doesn't look like him or anything like that but i guess he said that he said he transformed his body looked like an athlete looked like him and uh he says this is the actor some of my best friends are special forces guys vinny's got that mentality mentality he's a warrior in the ring when i met him he said miles you've got to be tough as nails

eat nails for breakfast kid one of my friends is from providence when i said i was playing vinnie he told his dad and his dad was like no way oh man that guy was the best so he figured that out he said this is fucking amazing when pause learned that the guy miles teller was going to be playing him he mailed him something oh boy that is a picture of vinnie paz in his underwear it's autographed and it says quote shove a banana in your undies if you have to make it bigger don't ruin the reputation kid seriously don't fuck it up don't make my dick look small whatever you do yeah i don't know what you're packing down there but i got this so i got a fucking hog so you need to get it together correct motherfucker let's go

so they visit him at his house this press thing and he's remodeling his house i guess pipes burst and there's water damage everywhere they say there's stacks of all these uh pictures of he's got all his like famous people pictures uh him and oj oh that's not a good picture him and tom brady him and pete rose him and barry bonds just cheaters and murderers just that you know those people cheaters and murderers you know how it goes pictures with sports players that everybody universally hates yeah there's the ones hugh hefner stevie wonder uh he says points one out and says here's ali i said i'm only doing this because of you you're the reason i started boxing and he pulled me in and whispered pretty boy and i said no no you're the pretty boy it was really cool when he took the picture with ali so he lied

to ali that's a nice story that's a nice story real nice so he said he wanted to be the white ali that's what he was trying to do yeah he said he was excited about scorsese executive producing because he directed raging bull which is about jake lamotta so it's all fucking coming full circle here he uh he says about jake lamotta he pulls out out a photo of him with Jake LaMotta, and he says, quote, Jake LaMotta, not a good guy, nasty. He had a tough life, Jake LaMotta, so that doesn't bother me. Then he says, you know, he shows him pictures with Stallone and all this shit. He says he loves Miles Teller. Quote, I love this kid.

They're trying to make him the next Leonardo DiCaprio. Well, that didn't work because it's about six years later. He's going to be the next big thing on the block. Aaron Eckhart was Kevin Rooney and Peggy Bundy is his mother. Katie Siegel is his mother. Yeah, that's pretty fucking funny. He says the wall of pain also. He says there's pictures of all bloody pictures.

And he says, quote, it's the of all bloody pictures. And he says, quote, it's the wall of pain, bro. Here's me with my broken neck, a broken nose here. Here. I'm bleeding like a pig here.

Bleeding from one eyebrow to one eyebrow. Was it worth it? Abso-fucking-lutely. He put pictures up on the wall of him. Just with his, with his face beat up his wall of pain, his worst. Wow. Yeah.

That's to say it. it uh one scene in the movie was uh after winning a fight in atlantic city miles teller here as vinnie goes to the gambling tables with five hundred dollars to his name and hours later he comes back to his room with twenty thousand dollars that he won and he throws the chips all over his penthouse pet girlfriend who's laid out on the bed waiting for him and they have a celebration and vinny when he saw the scene yelled at the director what the fuck man what that's fucking bullshit he said quote ben what the fuck i won 65 000 not 20 000 i fucking told you that. And Ben said, I know, Vinny, but no one would have believed that. So your life is beyond movies, dude.

It's fucked up. You're a maniac. The review of the movie, it did pretty, money-wise, it didn't do too well here. It initially was expected to gross around $5 million, and it grossed less than $900,000 on opening day, and so they lowered it to $2 to $3 million. So, yeah, it ended up not doing too well, but on Rotten Tomatoes, it had a 70% approval rating on 145 reviews,

so that's not terrible at all. What is this here? Richard Roper said, Miles Teller gives the performance of his career as Vinny the Pasmanian Devil Pazienza and writer director Ben Younger delivers one of the best boxing movies of the decade in bleed for this. So there you go. Not bad. Yeah. So people are playing him. I mean, that's not people want to be him. Except unfortunately, some people didn't sign up and pay to be Vinny Pazienza. How fucking many?

They just are. And for these people, I feel bad for, including Vinny Pazienza, student at Universitas Trisakti in Jakarta. in jakarta uh vinnie pazienza journeyman automotive service technician at western gmc pontiac buick in alberta beach alberta beach alberta what vinnie pazienza manager slash social media coordinator at ithaca college wrestling team ithaca new york ithaca college vinnie pazienza u.s department of homeland security el paso texas and my favorite of all vinnie pazienza esquire and it says it right on his fucking thing managing shareholder at paz law my god this guy fucking he's amazing vinnie he went to harvard law school this guy shit this vinnie very different life this vinnie pazienza um Very different life, this Vinnie Pazienza.

In real life, he said he hadn't gambled in 10 years. He says he still goes out drinking just about every night, but to avoid a DUI, he sold his car. Good call. Well, you can't drive it anyway. It doesn't matter. He sold it now. He was going to drive and be drunk. He said he's had a girlfriend for three years.

Not bad. She's 27, so, you know. sold it now he's gonna drive and be drunk he said he's had a girlfriend for three years um not bad she's 27 so you know she dances at the cadillac lounge by the way not kidding and volunteers with the elderly and they're off wow what a darling he says that he doesn't care how the movie does he said quote i don't give a fuck about money i just want everybody to see it because i know it's the most inspirational story one guy told me that he got out of a fucking wheelchair and that he's walking with crutches now because of me and it don't get no better than that what so yeah he says the guy saw my movie he was inspired magically healed inspired by him he says they're talking to him about 10 p.m and he says

they said we can do the rest of the night. And he says, same as every other night. I'm going to put on a pot of coffee at 10 p.m., exercise, take a shower, call some friends, then head out on the town. Oh, my God. It sounds like around midnight he's going to be heading out. Probably end up at a strip club. You know, he said, there you go. Why?

You don't have any money. Next thing you know, he's suing the movie. So doesn't give a fuck about money. Then he's suing, saying his signature was forged on contracts connected to the film and claims he's owed at least $175,000. Yeah. He says that, wow, according to him, he was paid $125,000 of the $300,000 that he was promised by Verdi and Younger. This breach of contract and unlawful enrichment, or among other things they're saying here. He says the contracts were executed without the signatures Vinnie Pazienza or Vinnie Pazienza, either with a Y or an IE.

But he says Paz refuses to sign documents that do not correctly use his legal name, which has changed to Vinnie Paz. So he said that he didn't sign those. So then they file a suit back at him denying the forgeries and claiming that they don't owe him any money. They state that the project contracts

were amended in June and that Paz reduced his fees due to problems in procuring the budget for the film so yeah it's a fucking mess eventually though the boxers they say that the counterclaim and the original

claim were both voluntarily dismissed without action or consideration by the court due to a mutual understanding so if they at a court they throw him a couple bucks not worth it apparently so um yeah anyway there's that he said that it was it was a misunderstanding is what he said that's been resolved he does say he is sad about some things though that have happened he's proud of most stuff but he said the domestic violence charges bothered me the most that That'll do it, yeah.

He said, quote, I don't hit girls. Never have. It's not my style. I was going around Rhode Island and people were looking at me in disgust. It was the worst moment

of my life. He says, he does like to drink, though. He's not going to lie there. He says, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not proud of it. It's just what I like to do.

He says, by the way, he has a wine coming out called Five Times Better, a nod to his five championships. it's just what i like to do um he says by the way he has a wine coming out called five times better a nod to his five championships and uh he said he doesn't know if it's a merlot or what it is he says quote red wine i don't know i want it priced low and taste great he doesn't know what i don't know what the fuck they're making it's red i don't fucking know might be a blend after me it's gonna get me a paycheck who knows they gave me like 10 grand i don't care so It might be a blend. They named it after me. It's going to give me a paycheck. Who knows? They gave me like 10 grand. I don't care.

So 2018, a police report comes out here after what's called a wild incident. Police said that he and his girlfriend showed up at a Providence apartment building on Hawkins Street that Paz rushed inside the door and accused a man named Nathaniel Lavoie of stealing $16,000 in cash from him. The argument quickly gets out of control with Paz punching, knocking out some of this guy's teeth and then biting him as well, drawing blood with bites. Jesus Christ. Then taking off in a black Jeep. So Paz screamed as he was leaving soon i'll get you all together and you'll see what happened um so uh yeah he claims though that uh that the that guy robbed him and he's the victim he said quote on the innocent one i got robbed he allegedly punched the man in the

face quote multiple times leaving him with an eye swollen shut several broken teeth some knocked out and bleeding bite marks um so uh pause had a black eye too so uh he seemed to get the better of him though so according to the narrative here uh a woman named Mindy Baptista told officers she heard banging at the door about 1130 p.m. She said Paz rushed in with his girlfriend when she opened the door. He confronted this Nathaniel guy with the theft allegations. It got physical. And Lavoie told police Paz, quote, punched him in the face multiple times, causing him to lose slash break several teeth. So Paz and his girlfriend, Alexis Cougar, fled in a black Jeep Cherokee with temporary plates

after the woman and the Mindy lady informed them that she had called police. So they said that Baptista said Lavoie briefly lost consciousness and fell at least three times during the assault. Wow. Alleged assault. Wow. Alleged assault, whatever. A detective later noticed that the eye was swollen shut, and he was admitted to a hospital. Another witness, Jonathan Santos Castro, told police he was sleeping in the apartment when all the commotion woke him up.

He said he also saw Paz hitting Lavoie with a closed fist and that Paz appeared to be intoxicated, angry, and accusing Lavoie. That's a bad combination. So Lavoie told the news who came to talk to him that he didn't steal Paz's money. He says, quote, he's an idiot. I didn't steal nothing. I don't need to steal nothing from nobody.

He's an idiot. I love it. It's a great quote. The judge offered, the judge in the case ordered uh you know paused to stay away from this guy and uh they're looking for him they end up um they end up apparently this guy they were friends because nathaniel told police that he was assaulted by his friend vinnie pazienza so anyway says, quote, bottom line is I got robbed, and when that happens,

you got to do what you got to do. You got to beat the shit out of people, apparently. You got to take some teeth out. You got to bite at the same time. This is on New Year's Day, so he's kicking the year off right. Lavoie has also had some previous brushes with the law, driving with a suspended license,

domestic assault, uh, domestic assault arrest. Uh, what is this felony domestic assault, simple assault, domestic vandalism, fugitive from justice charges, simple assault. There's a lot of assault charges going on there.

So anyway, uh, he denies it. He says, quote, tried to help somebody out. And now I'm the bad guy. Literally what he said tried to help somebody out by taking a couple of teeth out for him and he told me we're a problem

rap sheet i got rap sheet i get robbed and i'm the victim and the media wants to side with the liar and thief okay to use that go ahead i don't even care wow he. He says, quote, this guy about Lavoie has a rap sheet. Go look. He said Vinnie filed a report on his home robbery. This is his friend. Detectives on the case. Next thing, he didn't break in anywhere. He has a broken nose.

This kid tried to help. This kid he tried to help many times. Vinnie's the victim. It's for the children. Oh, for the kids. He's the victim. It's for the children. Oh, for the kids.

So a little while after that, while he is still on bail for that, basically, Warwick Police Captain Michael Gilbert said officers were called to his house for a domestic incident at 3 a.m. A relative of his girlfriend called the police after she said she reached out and said Paz assaulted her. Police responded to reports of screaming coming from Paz's house at about 3 a.m. Quote, upon arrival by responding officers, they could hear Vinny shouting at someone inside. When the officers knocked on the door, the inside lights were shut off and everything went quiet. This is a way to tell you that I'm inside. No one was answering the door or phones they had to force entry into the home through the garage the police did they said that they found pause with blood on his right hand and face and that cougar his girlfriend had visible injuries

she was taken to the hospital and all that sort of thing they said that pause refused to come out the door and shut off all the lights again, and they said they still had to pull him out. So Paz and his girlfriend, they're found in the bedroom, both having obviously signs of being in this whole issue here. He was placed in a police cruiser, and his girlfriend was taken from the house on a stretcher. So they called her injuries relatively minor,

but they were being on the safe side, they said. Extra cautious, yeah. Extra cautious. He is going to, after that, he pleads no contest to charges of assault on his girlfriend. But now, even after he claims no contest, during sentencing, she says,

he didn't hit me, changed my mind oh god damn it changed my mind she said I hit myself in the face with the phone that's what happened he doesn't have anything stop this and then he got blood on his hands because of that so yeah she says he didn't do it she said she hit

herself with a phone quote I ended up spashing myself because I do that oh boy she said she hit herself with a phone quote. I ended up spashing myself because I do that. Oh boy. She said she was drunk. And when she got pause in an argument, ended up, it got into an argument with him.

She said, I ended up doing stupid stuff to myself that I wouldn't end up doing if I was drunk. Oh my God. This is a fucking mess. I don't even know. I don't even know. Like, I want to be like,

Oh, I don't want to feel bad for this person, but I don't know what the fuck happened here. This is a fucking mess i don't even know i don't even know like i want to be like oh i don't want to feel bad for this person but i don't know what the fuck happened here this is such a mess it's like you guys sort it out and tell me who to feel bad for because you know i always want to feel bad for a domestic violence victim but at the same time if you're like i hit myself in the phone because i was mad at him with the phone because i was mad at him what are we talking about and that's what i do when i'm drunk yeah because I do that. I don't know if I believe her or not. So she said the phone inadvertently dialed her ex-husband, who lives in New Jersey.

She said while she was hitting herself with the phone, it fucking called her ex-husband. She accidentally hit the phone with her forehead? Her forehead called her ex-husband. Write sequential numbers to call her ex-husband right sequential numbers to call her ex-husband it is fucking wild she said her ex abused her during their seven-year marriage and he will do anything to ruin her new relationship so she said that he called the cops she said quote everything he said to them was a fabrication and a lie not just a fabrication a fabrication and a lie so that would mean she has to have him on speed dial, right? To accidentally dial him?

I mean, maybe he would. So either way, he's walking out of court here. He pled no contest. They give him, you sir, may fuck off one year of probation and one year suspended sentence. And he's ordered to have no contact with the victim a friend of his who was bringing him home said he's going to be getting help for his alcohol he's signing autographs outside the court and he's asked he's asked if did this happen and do you have an alcohol problem and he as he signed an autograph he said and i quote this is a quote

of the year candidate here, quote, nothing happened. I'm always innocent. All right. I'm always innocent. That explains everything. Why the fuck did we even bother then? Sorry. Every damn time, no matter what they say in there.

Always innocent. Then he says he's got to undergo counseling for domestic violence and alcohol, but he says he doesn't have a problem. He says, quote, I don't have a drink before 10 at night ever, ever says he doesn't have a problem he says quote i don't have a drink before 10 at night ever ever i don't have a problem it doesn't matter what time you start it's how drunk you get i think is the issue yeah so do it every day who gives a shit i don't have a problem and you know rhode island closes at one so it's a couple hours and so um cougar his girlfriend calls it calls what happened the flawed justice system for the

arrest of her of his of him she said i will be speaking to whomever whomever i have to to make sure that they know that vinnie pause is totally innocent vinnie all he did was take me in and try to take care of me and i will tell everybody that uh that i know that's what happened. He never put his hands on me. That's what he said there. So, yeah, it's a fucking mess. He says, quote, and this is a good quote to last words from Vinny. He said, quote, my life is so fucking nuts. It's amazing. I'm not better than anybody, but I'm different from everybody.

I just happen to be a strong little fucking animal. Strong little fucking animal. Strong little fucking animal. Strong little fucking animal. This year, or this was last year, or two years ago, his house was scheduled for auction. It was being foreclosed upon. And there's federal and state tax liens on the property. Shows that these tax delinquents of $375,483 in backstate taxes. According to the auction listing, there's an auction and all that kind of shit.

And what they do, out of nowhere, I don't know, I think someone he knows helped him out because out of nowhere it was abruptly canceled with no explanation, the auction. So I think somebody paid him up to date or some shit, helped him out here. So nobody knows what happened there. But anyway, there he is. He's in the top 100 income tax delinquents in the state at this moment in time. So he's always a top 100 guy, whether it's boxing or tax delinquents or whatever. Vinnypaws paz can't get

enough of vinnie paz well there's signed gloves and there's all sorts of shit and uh you know go ahead and watch go watch one of his fights they're entertaining if you want to have some fun so there you go that is vinnie pazienza everybody wow italian boxers fucking crazy italians who've been hit in the head you're gonna get craziness so there you go he's Italians who've been hitting the head. You're going to get craziness. So there you go. He's wild. I've been saving that story forever because I knew it was crazy. Him and Paul Spadafora. He really has just

given it all away. He really has. It's a mess. There's a movie and no one made any money off it including him apparently. It's a fucking disaster. Either way,

if you like that story, tell the world about it give us a review go on whatever platform you listen on apple podcast stitcher audible whatever you want you can leave us a review five stars would be wonderful it really does help the show a lot head over to shut up and give me murder.com today right now get your tickets for the february 10th virtual live show yes coming up soon next week we can't wait for it we're very very excited we're jacked it's an episode of small town murder and we do it right on those virtual live shows more booze more weed more pictures more jokes

more craziness and uh people have asked how long they are they're about an hour 45 it's not like a three-hour show it's about an hour 45 it's kind not like a three hour show. It's about an hour 45. It's kind of like like a movie or a comedy show in and out. So check it out there. Shut up and give me murder.com is where you get those tickets and all your merchandise and everything else that you could possibly want there. You can follow us on social media. We are at crime and sports on Twitter and Facebook at small town murder on Instagram. So you can get all the up to date stuff and know what's happening with your

fellows here. You can do that as well as something you definitely need to do. Patreon.com slash crime and sports. Jimmy, you guys need to sign up for Patreon cause it is bumping and we have really, really, really crazy stuff this week. This week we have an anybody $5 or above. You get access to both shows, bonus episodes, the whole back catalog, over 100, 125 episodes on there.

All sorts of stuff. Crazy stuff. This week for Crime and Sports, you're going to get this guy. His name is Ron Weaver, and he's an imposter. Not really. It's not like a Barry Bremond where he just puts a uniform on and goes out there. He was a college football player, a mediocre one. And then a few years after he was done, yeah, he just said, I'm this guy now.

And went and played major Division I college football. And they were like, wow, this guy's amazing. Because he's 25 and he's crushing 18-year-olds. Yeah, he's not 18. It's the story is wild. There's a huge downfall from it. It's a crazy shit story. So check that out.

And then small town murders is going to be one I'm very excited for. We are going to look at the first the first couple of years of the town of Deadwood, South Dakota. This is kind of when the show deadwood was taking place the beginning of the newspaper it's still a camp it's not even part of the united states it's not even a territory it's just a an outpost so uh crazy stuff from there right yeah oh yeah this is the newspaper from there so we're gonna hear about crazy old timey shit. Some serious old west murders happening. You know, fucking miners, prospectors stabbing each other in a creek and shit. It's going to be fucking amazing.

And lots of talk of Al Swearengen and Seth Bullock and all the people from the show. We'll find out what the real people are up to around that time. Do that. Patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all of that and you'll get a shout out at the end of the show which we're going to do in just a second jimmy will mispronounce your name brutally while trying so hard to get it correct he will definitely do that uh in addition to that you can also make a donation on paypal which again uh will get you a shout out which will be fucked up by sure, but you'll like it.

It'll be more fun fucked up. That said, Jimmy, hit me with the name of the goddamn people who have been so nice to us and would never, ever hit our giant pizza noses off of our faces. Hit me with them right now. This week's executive producers are Tracy Mitchell, Melissa Turner, Jordan Bennett, and happy birthday, Abby, whose last name will soon be Whitney.

Thank you guys so much for everything you do. Thank you. It's really staggering. Other producers this week are Kalen Bancroft, Corporal Carl Kirshner, Scott Boogerstein, Stein, I don't know, Peyton Meadows, Berkeley's Gulp, Chunky, Chartreuse, Trout Bait, James. Yeah, see? That stuff works terrifically, I understand. I'm telling you. Chartreuse, Trout Bait, James. Yeah, see? That stuff works terrifically, I understand. I'm telling you.

Chartreuse, baby. Elizabeth Mweach Woody, I think. She goes by BMW. It's much easier that way. Big Ed's Missing Neck, James Martyr, Robert Shea Bully. Shea Bully. Mark Pruitt, Barry Fartstein. Oh, for Pete's sake.

Mark Pruitt, I said that. Otome Brown. Isn't that Whoopi Goldberg's name in Ghost? Otome Brown? Am I right? Maybe. That's possible. I think it is.

Tiffany Whitley. Possible. Happy Hour in Midland, Texas this week. Frank, the South African bird-watching whore. Damn it. Samantha Puckerbrush-Burgoo-Quigley whore. Evidentlybrush Burgu Quigley Whore. Evidently. That's a mouthful.

Christina Brayton, Janice Hill, Hannah Berkner, Justin McNeil, Charity Leith, Blue Whiskey, and Hudson up at centennokennels.com. Pharologist Brittany. That's somebody that gives animals haircuts, I imagine.

Cool. Jeff Shrewsbury, old native man who helps dances with vapes. Oh, yes. Travis going to Titans games with Andrew since the 2 and 14 season. That's a long time to put up with that shit. Frank, the alpha South African bird washer. Oh, he's in charge now. Mike Mondragon, Mondragon, Mondragoon.

Marta McCammond, she's crowdfunding for help for her friend's infant with SMA. If you can help her, find her on social media and give her a hand. Marta McCammond. Mary Ireland, Yvette Anaya. Katie Davies de Jesus. Yvette with no last name. Danielle Alari, Jared Evans, Erland Un, Tommy Not-A-Scientist Thorstensen, Steve Cummings, Iona Montanaro, I think, Heidi Sinsley, Celeste Warlick, Damn It Bobby, Matthew Lee. I'll tell you what, that is one of the best shows ever made. What an amazing...

King of the Hill is terrific. Angela Pagan, Rob Sargent, Lisa Marie, Nancy Colley, Joseph Temple, Jessica Quire, Kyle with no last name, Hannah Buckley, Hannah with no last name, BSA, Uzo Hughes, Paul Williams, Alex Schaefer, Danielle with no last name, Sam Coakley, Chandra Thomas, Red Royalty, Andrew Melizia, Mary Byrne, Jamie Austin or Jaime, Quiggums, Quiggums, Krista Johnson. Chantel Long or Longy. Joe Conrad. Laura Evans. Aaron Bradford. Kitty White. Kimberly Nyquist. Lynette Chambers.

Becky Eickhoff. Jillian with no last name. Anthony Littlefield. Justin Sick. Fez Disturbed. Isaac Deeds Nuts. Probably not. Kenneth Sovey, I think.

Danny fucking K. I threw the fucking in there because his name is Danny K. That's amazing. Danny K. Patrick with, I think. Danny fucking K. I threw the fucking in there because his name is Danny K. That's amazing. Danny K. Patrick with no last name. Danny fucking K. Fapton Cantastic. That's pretty good. Kimmy Dale.

Jacob Jackson. Mother Truck in America. Brandon Drake. Reanie. Reanie DePoy. Jeannie. Jeannie Burry. Zara Green.

Rhiannon JP. Devin Felon. Tiffany W. Matthew. Nope, that's Maggie, Jax, Jax, Jax, Christy Allerhead, Patrick, Patricia, Patricia Reed, Jennifer Brooks, Holly Parr, Graham Reed, Jeff McBride, Carlos Reyes, Stephanie Rogers, Gozia Email, what? I don't know what that is ruby hoffman uh shannon albert riley barnes pocket eric pocket robin turner bug would know last name david jones rebecca mitchell merle rodriguez that's awesome jade bloyd uh ryan adams cheney would know last name michael potter aj ajw red ape cinnamon what high oil content okay it is i don't know no I don't know. No, I don't know. Bola Matt. Blake with no last name.

Eric Dixon. Lauren Hirsch. Tony, Tony Feebo. Bethany Parsons. Clara Lee. Lie, probably. Zubida. Mary Nolan.

Erin Estrella. Jacob Foster. Sean Rice. Saturnson.com. TickleMyFanny. Oh, boy. In England, that means something different. John Ayers, Amanda Alexander, AS, Scott McCoskey, Justin Wilson, Matt McNeil, Tiger Keime, Ben Robinson, Chris Bell, Ashley Dembski, kime kime kime ben robinson chris bell ashley demski robin long john with no last name brian kubiak josh smith mackenzie johnson christopher david mitchell ritesh bondari uh sasha kendell ken kendall stupid flanders whatever that means uh jennifer johnson no that's jenny johnson thank

you jenny she won't she it's a very easy name to pronounce, evidently. Alicia Johnson. Logan Datchler. Oh, boy. Will Sargent. Kelly Baralewski. What? Jen Devlin.

Chad Reikensperger. Greg Jim. Tabitha Gill. Israeli. Israeli Miranda. Lisa Akers. Emily Godbout- Westerberg. What?

Oh, boy. Tiffany Zeiss, Maria Kirshner, Ryan, Ryan Boutellier. That's not right. Adam Ciampi, I think, Ciampi, Michael Anderson, Jennifer O'Regan, Tina, oh, boy, Thayna Nativo, Abby Freeman, Sean with no last name, Konami Kiran, Katie Biddle, Melanie Fagan, Alan Moore, Pinchy with no last name, Royce Bevan, and David Steele. And all of our patrons. You guys are the best people. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody, for everything that you do for us.

We're blown away by it. So thank you so much. Thank you, honestly, for everything that you do for us we are we're blown away by it so thank you so much for thank you honestly for everything you do we're we're just very thankful so jimmy what if people wanted to thank either of us how could they find any of us out there find us on patreon if you want to be with us be there and we really appreciate it or just google the show you can find out how to follow us on all that bullshit. Yeah, you can find us out there. But, yeah, I think we're good on that. We've talked about a brain-damaged guinea, had a lot of fun. Good times here.

Good times, good head beatings, lots of crazy shit. And it's just going to keep happening over and over and over again. And for now, live from the Crime and Sports Studios, we will see you next week. Bye. And for now, live from the Crime and Sports studios, we will see you next week. Bye. Bye. The Crime and Sports, early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.