Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Anthony "Pretty Boy" Taylor on Sparring With Jake Paul, Tommy Fury Fight & Trusting Your Gut

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Anthony “Pretty Boy” Taylor (@anthony_prettyboy) is a boxer, MMA fighter and entertainer. He joins Chris Van Vliet for an in-person interview recorded at Chris’ apartment in California, where Anthony talks about his hero Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and why he wants to be the next electrifying man in sports along with how WWE influenced his style as a heel in sports. They also discuss the boxing career of Jake and Logan Paul and how a social media exchange led to a training session with Jake and then a boxing match with Tommy Fury, the prediction for Jake’s next fight, the origin of the “Pretty Boy” name and more!  Save 20% on your first purchase at True Classic Tees with the code CVV20: https://trueclassictees.com/discount/CVV20 If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. For more information about CVV and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Bleas! All right, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being back with us on this episode. And oh yes, I love being able to say it. It's another in-person interview.

I love it. Nothing. Nothing beats being able to be in the same room as someone. Feel their energy. Look at them in the eye. their hand, give them a hug, and the hope, the plan moving forward is to do all of our interviews in person again, just like we used to. In 2015 and 2016, in 2017, 2018, 2019, you get the point. So that's what we're working towards because you'll see in this interview. It's just so,

so good. This Saturday night, are you watching it? It's YouTuber and social media sensation, and Jake Paul, taking on former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in their boxing rematch. And my guest today is on that same card. Anthony Pretty Boy Taylor, who actually also fought on the last event where Tyrone Woodley and Jake Paul fought each other. Anthony on that one fought Tommy Fury, who was supposed to be Jake's opponent this Saturday until he pulled out of the fight due to injuries. So Anthony has a pretty incredible story of growing up. as a huge wrestling fan,

then getting into mixed martial arts, fighting for Bellator, and now having some pretty high-profile boxing matches. He also became the sparring partner for Jake Paul, and how that whole thing came together is pretty crazy. And it's an amazing story of betting on yourself, so I will let him tell you that story. And you can find him on Instagram at Anthony underscore Pretty Boy.

On Twitter, he's at Anthony underscore For Real. and if you're not following me, it's just my name at Chris Van Fleet. Our fan of the week is Lucind in Timmy. I hope I said that right. L-U-C-Y-N-D-E, Lucind in Timmy, who says, can't get enough. Just need to say that Chris is the man. He's such a great interviewer.

Can also say he's generally a good guy in person. Met him in Charleston, West Virginia at one of the very first AEW Dynamite shows. Great guy and great podcast. please keep up the great work. Well, thank you so much. I will continue to keep up the work. Thank you for saying it's great. I appreciate that.

And I read one review on every single episode. So if you have an iPhone, take it out, scroll down to the bottom, click on write a review, and just leave a few words on there or a few emojis. And we'll shout you out on the show, of course, for free.

It'd be so great if you could help us out. All right, let's get into it. ahead of his big fight this Saturday night, please welcome Anthony, pretty boy, Taylor. I appreciate the singing you were doing there. Good mic check there. Yes. Always good to sing.

Man, what can't you do? I can pretty much sing, dance, fight, cook, I can cook. Man. You know? Yeah. He's the total package. Literally, the total package. Literally.

Are you seeing yourself more as a boxer or a fighter now, or do the two kind of become one? Make sure you're talking to this thing, by the way. Overall, Chris, I look at myself as an entertainer. Because the entertainer does everything. He can sing, he can box, he can do MMA fights and stuff. I can do it all. So that's why when people say, are you a fighter? No, I'm an entertainer.

Because this is where I want to take my career into entertainment. This part of fighting is entertainment. Yeah. Well, I think that's so much of it right now, right? So much of it is the lead up to the fight. Absolutely. How entertaining can you be? How memorable can you be leading up to the fight?

Right. And, you know, growing up watching WWE, you look at Triple H, you look at the rock. It's okay to play the hill because without the hill, there's no hero. Well, look at some of the greatest fighters right now, the ones that we're talking about the most, Connor McGregor, Jake Paul, Logan Paul. What do they all have in common? They play the hill. They play the hill.

They played a bad guy. I'm like, okay, let me play the hill. I've been playing the heels my whole career in MMA and boxing since I started off as amateurs and stuff. And it's all right. Because what you can do is you can build your character, know what you want to do with your character. Slowly build it and take little things from other fighters, other wrestlers, and putting your own personnel. Yeah. Are you worried at all that people will think that you're actually just kind of an asshole, you know, because you're playing this heel?

Yeah, not really because I've had this consistent heel since the amateur days. Yeah. So people already know I'm charismatic. I'm flamboyant. I'm loud. I rock loud. I wear loud and I look loud. Yeah.

So I watched your last fight. So did everybody in, you know, the world. The trunks you were wearing were ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, then, the best possible way. Yeah. Very like Rick Flair inspired. No, definitely.

This next one is going to be. be amazing, I'm telling you. So they've already been picked down? I've already been picked down. Everything is good to go. I'm ready to rock it. Okay, so you said you watched wrestling growing up. Who were your guys?

Or girls? All right. The rock was definitely the number one guy who really just, oh my gosh, this is something what I want to do. I want to be the best electrifying guy there is. Triple H was one of those guys. I say, hey, AAA.

You're like, oh, you're like, without Triple H. There's no rock. And you're also like, I hated it because he was so good. Yes. Because he was so good. Mike Tyson was definitely one of those guys, so I looked up to. And pretty much was it, the rock and Mike Tyson.

Yeah. What was it about the rock that drew you into him? The swag. The charisma. Man, I want to be just like him when I get older. Yeah. And now I have the opportunity to be just like him, but better than him. Yeah.

Than what he's done in the sport. And you would. You were the guy who dropped the people's elbow after your win in Bellator. Yep, I'm that guy, the rock of MMA, y'all. The rock of M&A. So was this planned out? Like, if I win this fight, I'm going to do this. Absolutely.

At first, I thought about having, you know, the elbow band. I was going to give it a baby slash that. I go throw this in the ring once I win the fight. If I knock them out, we're going to do it. And that was the original idea, but I didn't knock them out. been a little cheesy doing it after the firebust. Okay, let me just go. Yeah. And then were you surprised by the reaction that you got?

I was. I actually was. I didn't expect to have so many people see it over hundreds of millions of people seen. Yeah. Well, look, The Rock just celebrated his 25th anniversary of wrestling, like last week. Right. Everybody knows who the Rock is, for sure. Whether they've seen a Rock match or not, they know who Dwayne Johnson is.

So when you see something like that, you immediately go, oh, oh, I know what that is. Absolutely. And I'm just here to, he's past the baton. I'm here to take the baton and carry that torch and continue his legacy. Man. There is. I mean, the Rock's not slowing down anytime soon. No, definitely not.

But I'm, I, do you guys know this for sure? I'm going to continue the Rock's legacy and put it into my. Man. Those are some really big shoes to fill. Oh, I'm confident I got it. I can do this. I got the right team and cast around me to fulfill those shoes. I might not physically shoe size, but...

You do have pretty big feet, though. I'm like 11.5.12. Yeah, that's pretty big. I was watching the trash talk for your last fight. So it's you versus Tommy Fury. I laughed out loud when you said that he was like Shrek's better... What was a Shrek's better looking cousin? Yeah, Shrek's better looking cousin.

Okay, did you come up with that beforehand? Man, it just came out to, I was hitting Pro Bowl shots, bam, bam, right on the spot. Literally hitting him on the spot. I also think a lot of people looked at that fight and went, man, like, you've got a lot of balls to take that fight. Because Tommy Fury was like significantly bigger than you. Right. What was the mindset going into that? He was, when you look at Tommy Fury, Tommy Fury was that, oh my God, the perfect looking boxer, how a boxer should look so gorgeous and chisel body.

and had the total package. Me, I was there like, hey, I'm the pretty boy. This is going to be an ugly fight. And I knew where my capabilities of fighting were, and I knew where his was. I knew that he didn't have the knockout power to knock me out, and I knew I had the power to knock him out. Fortunately, it didn't go my way,

but I came, I saw, and I conquered. In the real way, Chris, I won that fight. Not as far as winning the boxing match, but I won as far as, He was the bigger fighter. He was supposed to knock me out in one round. I went four rounds with him, a unanimous decision. Everybody said, you should have knocked him out.

I made him look mediocre. And I'm an MMA fighter, and he's a theory. Was there not another, like, lightweight that you could have fought? No, I wanted that guy. Really? I manifested this moment. Back May 31st, June 1st, I called out Tommy. I said, Tommy Furious.

Stop fighting these bums and come fight me. Wow. All of a sudden, August, I'm fine Tommy Ferry. No one liked the tweet. No one retweeted. It's still there on my Twitter. Wow. Manifested.

I even said, Jake Paul, I'm going to fight you. And this was February 20th, 2020. I said, Jake Paul, one way or another, I'm going to fight you. Called him on Twitter. Next, you know what? I'm training with them in Puerto Rico, find them twice a week. Yeah, okay. So walk me through that hole.

thing. Okay. Like the fact that, first of all, you're on a card with Jake Paul. That's amazing in itself. But the fact, well, now you're on another card with Jake Paul. Another card. Another card. But the fact that you were training with Jake Paul, how did you even get on his radar? Was it that tweet? Well, that was the tweet. So I'm on Twitter. I had my guy named Donna Corby, who was a a news anchor for M.A. Island. I wrote on Twitter, you know, with BJ Flores. who was Jake's Matt trainer. I said, hey, Jake Paul stop ducking these fighters. Come fight me. I'll knock you out.

BJ Florida said, hey, if you want to fight Jake, come Miami, Florida, and come spar. I'm like, cool, when? Next Friday, let's go. I said, okay, so I'll book my ticket. I booked my hotel. I flew to Florida. I went down there and spar. He's like, where are you out? I'm like, I'm here. So Jake walks to me. I look up. Jake's like 6-2, I'm 5-6. I'm like, yo, 5, 6, and 6-2 is a big difference.

Me and Jake go at it in a spark. You know, after the next day, Jake has words. I had my words. This was in April 1st, Spard. June comes, I'm getting ready for my next two MMA fights. I get a message from BJ Flores. Hey, Puerto Rico, four to six weeks. We want you to train with us.

You damn? I'm like, absolute. Who am I training with? Jake Paul. I'm like, okay. He's like, yeah, we want you to emulate Tyrone Woolie. So I end up going down there, sparring them for like two weeks. They ended up taking a liking into him.

They like, we like this guy. Like, he's pretty cool. Like, at first they thought, let's bring him in a wolf his ass. We don't like because they were talking proud. But they warmed up and they was like, man, Anthony's really a cool dude. And this also makes sense. They wanted a former MMA guy who was boxing. to emulate Tyrone.

Absolutely. Wow. And then all of a sudden, Jake was like, hey, I want to tell you something. I got some good news for you. I'm like, okay, cool, you know. Maybe y'all can keep me for a couple more weeks. That'd be great. Yeah.

She's like, hey, have you heard of Tommy Fury? I'm like, of course. Yeah. I want to give you the opportunity to fight Tommy Fury on my favorite. Wow. I was like, whoa, manifestation just hit me hard, Chris. I'm like, let's do it. Let's go.

Let's go. So you flew yourself. Originally, you flew yourself to Miami. You paid for your own flight. Yeah. Paid for your own hotel. Yep. Bet on yourself.

Yep. And look where I got you. Absolutely. Now, it could have either went two ways. It could have went, A, I could have just fought him, talk crap, and just left that that people would have talked about it for a day to

MMA, former belt or star, or star, say, Paul. It would have got erased in the books two days later. B, I could have thought it like this. Let me go there, spar, Jake Paul, build that relationship. So there's a bridge and the connection between him, me and my team, bringing in other fighters if he needs for training. I thought about let me get the opportunity to build it.

You know what they're saying. If you can't beat them, join them. One, I'm not going to be able to fight, Jake. Just because I don't have the fan base on the phone. So I was like, let me join him. And that's what I did. I joined him, and he's put me in a great position for the rest of my life. Like, without Jake, I think I wouldn't be here at this very moment.

And Jake is just a very humble guy, very sweet. He's caring. He's supportive. And he's just a really good guy. And a lot of people don't understand that part about you. This seems like such a testament to it's not what you know. It's who you know. Right.

No, I swear to God, it's not what you know. It's who you know. Yeah, you might know physics. but if you don't know nobody gets this job for you about physics then we can't give you the job because we don't know who you're doing. When you got that DM from Jake's team

being like, you know, come to Miami, what was your reaction when you saw that? I was like, sure, when? This was on a Thursday. He's like, we want you here Sunday. I'm like, oh, three, okay. Okay, I was like, shit, coach. I'm going out there.

He's like, go do it. Go for it. Wow. Yeah. And next you know, the pretty boy is out there, flamboy. People's like, yo, who the hell is this guy? They be like, how the hell he sound like Chris? Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

You know? So, so, and that's, that's how you were made, kids. But what's, like, this is what's so crazy about this story, man, is you went from paying your own way to getting paid to train with them in Puerto Rico. Oh, yeah. Jake has paid me more money training with him than I ever did in my whole career at MMA. Wow. And I said I made about $40,000 in my whole career in MMA. I made more than that sparring when I did in my whole career.

In six weeks? Six years of MMA in six weeks. Wow. What's so interesting about both of the Paul brothers is they've surrounded themselves with so many great people that it's almost like their, what have they been boxing for three years now, four years? Three, three, four years now. It's almost like it's six or eight or nine years

because they've been doing it so intensively. Right, right. And their dedication to the sport is real. A lot of people say you're YouTubers. Who cares? You can be a YouTuber and be an actor. You can be a YouTuber or be a firefighter. You can be a YouTuber and be NFL player.

It doesn't matter what you want to do. Set your goals to it. Do it. Manifest it. Set many goals. Turn those mini goals. to a real actual big goals. Yeah.

And Jake has done that first. Him and Logan has definitely manifested their dreams of becoming the biggest stars in boxing besides Canelo and Giovante and all the other, you know, the other brother, Tyson Fury. Yeah. You can't, when you think of boxing, you're also going to have Jake Paul's name in that conversation. Yeah. Regardless. Yeah.

Although there's a lot of people that are like, yeah, I think about boxing and I think of the Paul brothers. Right. But I don't think of the. it's boxers. Right, right. But when you think of boxing, the first thing, oh, Jake Paul, that's going to be a top 10 name in that conversation when you think of boxing. Right now, for sure. Right now, as we speak. I always say the best thing about YouTube is anyone can do it. And the worst thing about YouTube is also anyone can do it because you need to do something to make yourself stand out. And that's exactly what they've done, both in YouTube and now in podcasting and also in boxing.

And it was crazy because a lot of people, they criticize other fighters. Oh, Jake's making all this money. UFC makes less money. One, I can't really comment on the UFC pay because I don't fight for the UFC. Sure. But what I will say is it's all about building your base. Don't be surprised if you got a guy who's been in the UFC for less than six months making more than a guy who's been in the UFC for 10 years.

Yeah. This guy's been in the UFC for six months. He probably already has 3 million followers. because he's interacting with fans. He's doing things that's involving fans. His hometown supporting. You can't be mad when this guy is promoting himself. And you just think, we're going to promote yourself.

You, as a fighter, have to promote your brand and build your brand. So more people's going to want to buy and see more of you. When you just feel like, oh, do you UFC, we're going to just pay you the fight. Yeah, you're getting paid a fight, but your value is not rising. Yeah. Your value is just staying there. You're slowly taking the ladder. Before you got into the ring with Tommy Fury,

how many followers did you have? And then after you got out of the ring, how many followers did you have? Before I got out of the year, I was like at 13,000. Okay. And then you... And I went up to like 25 shots.

Just for the one fight. Yeah. See, I feel like you're right there. Like right there on the cusp of like one more thing and you're going to blow up. Oh, absolutely. Like, it's crazy. Like, man,

I remember I was at 3,000 followers. And I called out. Kishikala, like Kishkao. You're going to date with me. That right there went viral on Instagram, on the Shade Room and everything. I ended up going up $3,000 to like $13,000. Yeah.

I'm like, whoa. You know, I got a couple crushes on me. You know, I don't want my girl to kick my butt. But, you know, celebrity crushes. That don't count. You know what I'm saying? But, hey. So you've been in the ring with Tommy Fury.

Now your friend Jake Paul is going to get into the ring with him. What do you think the outcome of that fight's going to It's going to be just like if you saw the Anthony Joshua versus Usoc's fight. If you saw that fight, it's going to be exactly like that. When you look at Tommy, Tommy's a big brook. He's a one-two puncher. One-one-two. One-two. When you look at U-Sik,

Usik was more of the light on the feet, moving around, punch, get out the way, slit, bounce, keep bouncing. Now you look at Jake Paul. I'm not saying Jake Paul is like Usik, but he mimics some of the things that U-Sik's

does. He uses every inch of the ring and he moves around and picks his shots. Tommy Tommy is a good box. Don't get me wrong, but he doesn't have that dog. Yeah.

So you think Jake's going to come out on top? Jake's going to come out of top. I think a seven-round TKO or, you know, this decision. Wow. And then what? Then what for Jake? I want to see Nate fight Jake.

Me fight Nick Diaz. So it'll be Nate Diaz versus. Jake Paul, Nick Diaz versus me, or I either fight Jake Shields or Gilbert Melendez. Or I can fight Jake Shield, baby slice fight Gilbert Melendez. It'll be Team Paul versus Team Dia. So you want to keep going in boxing. I want to keep going to boxing if it approaches me the correct way. But overall, my whole vision was to be a wrestler.

I knew I was going to be a wrestler. I knew I was going to be the most electrifying man other than the Rockings. Of course, entertainment. The second most electrifying man? A second most lightning, you know, all that stuff. So I knew that entertainment was going to be my factor, even if it's not in boxing or if it's not in wrestling, something in acting would definitely be there. Would you think that maybe after this fight you start to train to be a pro wrestler? Absolutely.

That's definitely what I'm going to do. Really? Really? I'm going straight to train. Wow. Talk to my publicist. We're going to reach out to some people and go straight there. Wow.

I mean, that's a difficult. journey, but with the right people around you, it seems like something you could easily do. No, absolutely. I mean, it's like you said, it's not what you know. It's who you know. Now, I don't know how to bump, but if I don't know who I, if I don't know who to connect with, no one's going to be able to see how I bump or how I do in the ring. Well, it's just a matter of also, like, I truly believe that anyone can learn anything. Yes. And if you have the best coaches in the world who are teaching you this and you certainly have access to them. Right. It could really speed up that process.

for you. True. But it's always, Chris, it's always good to have a student mentality. Yeah.

Are you willing to relearn? Are you willing to open up to new possibilities and new ideas? Hey, you might not like this,

but we got something that might work better if you do this. Are you willing to be like, okay, though everything

I learned before throw it out the window and learn something new, you have to have that what we call student mentality. Yeah. If you have

that student mentality, you're going to go further along your career. Yeah, and I can tell you from the few months of training that I did for pro wrestling, it's all about the little things. It's all about the really, and you'll see this when you start training, it's all about the very little things, like where you put your feet when you're locking up or put your feet in a headlock.

And if you can master the basics, you can do anything after that. I'm so excited for what's next for you. I appreciate you. A lot of people don't know, man. I'm talking TV, reality TV. Love Island, Shmove Island, everything. We're doing it all. We're doing it all.

I'm going to be a household name by Time and Spider. You talk about your background being an entertainer, and I thought it was so interesting when I was doing research for this, that you started out as a stripper. I started out as a male stripper. Yeah, I had. You know, Chris, before I started doing this, before I turned pro at MMA, I was doing my amateur circuit.

I met Antonio McKee on Facebook. the coach I have now as we speak. He was like, come on down to L.A. You know, I had no car, no job, no money. I, you know, I take the Greyhound bus to L.A. I'm living with Antonio. Meen, A.J. McKee, we're upstairs. You took the Greyhound to move here?

Absolutely. From Stockton, California. I started my career, for most people don't know that. I started my career in Stockton, California. So you're wondering, oh, why does he disrespect Stockman? I'm not from Stockton. So I took the Graham from Stockton. to all the way to Lakewood, well, Long Beach, California,

Ben Antonio, and AJ introduced me to a girl. This girl's like, hey, if you need a job, I got a job for you. I started stripping for a couple of months. Hold on, hold on. So they tell you, I've got a job for you, and you're like, sounds great. And they're like, it's stripping. What's your immediate reaction? Hey, I have no shame at what I do.

Let's go. Let's do it. Do male strippers get completely naked? No. Okay. This one was similar to like magic mic. Like, literally was an all-woman theme. Man.

Like, bachelor's at parties. You see some of the hottest women there. Man, this could really start to be some sort of a wrestling gimmick here. Like that maybe the moves that you learned there could really help you in the ring. Absolutely. Like, I used to do this little thing where you just like your shit on fire. You just twirl it around. The girls just love that.

What? Wow. They love it. Dude. no. They're like, yeah, not for the main event. Wow. You had an extra torch.

Oh, my God. I have so many questions. I have so many questions about this. I've been to, I've been to strip clubs before. I've never been to a strip club where it's like a male review. Right. I'm sure you've been to both. Yes.

Are the women crazier than the men are? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because when you look at it, when you're going to a woman strip club, men can't do too much of the touch. and everything because the security's no touching. Yeah. But when it comes to women, we're like, hey, touch all you want, baby.

Wow. They let you go wrong. Go for it. Who taught you how to do this? Man, I learned it on my own. Did they just throw you to the wolves, like, the first day? They threw me in the wolves. I was first as a serving boy with the drinks of my shirt off.

And they're like, yo, I was the only, like, these dudes were like six, two, ripped up, but the face, ugh. Not good looking in the face. And that's why it was dark. It was always, I always wondered, why is it so goddamn darkier? And I really turned on light. The girl, like, ooh, they look around like, you're cute. So I was getting more of the attraction.

And a lot of the women were always requesting me, like, go get that little cute light skin caramel, oh boy, yeah. And that was the shortest one there. I remember a joke from years ago that my buddy told me, and he said, do you know the difference between a server and a stripper at a strip club? Okay. Two weeks. Because the servers aren't making nearly as much money as the people on stage.

And they go, huh, I think I want to do that. Does that make sense to you? Absolutely. I actually need more money as a server than I did at the server. Really? Because I was always, so the guys are on stage. The guys didn't really get off the stage towards the end of the show. Yeah.

And when they wanted to request live services and stuff. I was right there serving drinks. The girl was just throwing tips right down. Like, they're just grabbing me right there. Like, oh my God. I'm like, yeah, baby, I'm that guy. That total package. No pun intended.

How do you end up leaving that world? You're making so much great money there. A turn pro for Bellator and my whole life changed. I fought James Gallagher in Ireland. That's a co-main event. And then I end up fighting in Budapest against Adam Bowdox. He was like 16 and 1. Yeah.

Now, just my whole life just changed. ever since I'm having Tony on the key. So what were you doing to pay the bills while you were training? Stripping. But then when you turned pro, then what was it? I didn't need to work because I was making so much good money with Bell Tour. You know, I was making about $20,000 a fight. Yeah.

Like, shit, okay. Let's keep doing this. Keep rolling. Keep rolling. Yeah, give me as many fights as I can get. Absolutely. Make connections in the UK. Let's start fighting out there in Europe.

And then, bam, I'm here on the Christmas. Yeah, I'm just so amazed. You might be the only fighter, maybe, certainly the only fighter I know of, who was a former stripper. Yeah. Former stripper, turn pro, turn boxer, turn entertainer,

the most election fine man. Like, come on, guys. How many guys, like, yo, we, like, come on. If we look ahead five years, and we're having the same conversation, and what are you going to be doing in five years from now? I'll probably having to, I'll be probably walking red carpet on my own movie,

probably with Michael B. Jordan or something with the rock with everyone. That's the goal? That's the goal. Oh, man. Be a household name. Yeah. Definitely be a household name. To be very marketable.

To have my own clothing brand. They have just to be successful. Having financial freedom is the goal. Yeah. Is that how you would. would define success? Absolutely. Financial freedom is success.

Yeah. No one can't, as long as you do everything by the books and write. Yeah. But no one can't. Well, everybody has a different definition

of success. I think for a lot of people, it's doing what you want, when you want. Exactly. Yeah. I'm loving it. You know,

I'm loving life right now because I feel with my career, I'm just like right here on the tip of the iceberg, about to explode. Like a volcano. Like, hey! I'm that volcano erupting.

I'm screaming, hey, everybody, I'm here. As the volcano explodes and erupts, I feel like I'm just, I just got to get that one more step over the ladder. Just to get that household. Is that next rung right now, December 18th, and Chris Avila's? Yes. Yeah.

That right there, and then hopefully we get something on in the summertime, if not. But after Chrisabila, I'm going straight to wrestling with some of the connection. Yeah. Well, we'll end up seeing. You don't need to say it now because we'll probably just end up seeing it. Yeah. Does this have to be a win on December 18th?

Absolutely. This defines my whole legacy. If I can't win on pay-per-view or Showtime itself, then what's the point? Yeah. What's the point being entertaining if you keep losing? Yeah. No one wants to. It's like watching a rock, yeah, and he keeps losing all his matches.

It's like, damn, man, it's good entertainer, but he keeps losing all the matches. It just doesn't make sense. But when you talk about that, like, your MMA career, you were on a four-fight win streak? Five-fight wing streak. Why jump from there to boxing? Jake, yeah. Jake just took me a long ride. Hey, come over here.

Make some more money, some good money with this. I said, okay. On a five-fight win streak, was Bellator not offering you more fights? Me and Belator didn't see eye-to-eye. So I went my way. They went their way. I told myself,

the only time I go back to boxing to MMA is in the UFC. I told myself, if I go to UFC, I want to fight Conno McGregor as my debut and I'm going to have Jake Paul in my corner because we know Jake Paul and Dana White do not like each other. Damn, nobody dreams bigger than you. Absolutely. How big would that be?

Dana White does not like Jake Paul at all, but Jake Paul is there in my corner, cornering me. It would be probably the biggest sale in pay-per-view history because we all know Jake doesn't like, doesn't like Dana and Jake doesn't like Connor McGregor. The shit talking is going to be big time.

Do you think at any point in his career, Connor will fight Jake? No. Even if it's in a boxing match? No. Really? Really. Only person is who can possibly close to unless Connor McGregor retires and he's out of his contract with the UFC, then, yeah, but they're not letting go to that cash cow. Makes sense.

I would possibly be closer to fighting Connor than Jake. In UFC. In the UFC. If I was to go there and mark it as Jake going to corner me. you know because connor's very predictable and he's very beatable because of this time of age of martial arts every kid at the age of 23 is a blackbell in jujitsu a wrestler star

it wasn't as when MMA was in 2014 you know where oh my god it's dumb yeah I'm just it's amazing that you would jump out of what you knew MMA is what you knew well you grew up boxing right I did I did some amateur circuits I had about 11 amateur fights fights and then I stopped but I was like 18 didn't until I was 19 and then I didn't get into

Eminem until like 26. And now back into boxing. Was it difficult to make that transition? No, because I'm a boxer, wrestler. Yeah. I hate, I can't kick so I don't kick so I'm either sparring and wrestling. I love how big you dream and I love how you're not afraid to dream big. Is this stuff that you write down? Do you write down your man? I do. Like, it's crazy. I keep it on my phone. And I just dream big because when you dream big is going to come true. And you just got to digitalize it. You visualize it. Like, this is all the influence of anime. Anime is they made a big influence like Naruto, Baruto, all those big stuff, One Piece, the manifestation you dream big, when they dream big on them anime shows, they dream big and it comes true later on the series. Why not dream big like those series? And how my dreams come true. Now, you got to work towards them, the goal of the manifestation.

Because God's not like, hey, knock, oh, open my door. Oh, it's a PhD right there. Oh, I'm a doctor now. You got to work towards that. Yeah. To get it. If you work hard and you think positive,

everything's going to go correct. Yeah. Who gave you the name Pretty Boy? The girls. Well, at first, at first, at first, at first, when I used to fight in MMA, I used to fight in these orange. shorts and the girls used to call me the orange crush.

Okay. So during a fight, some girls, oh, he ain't an orange crush here, pretty boy, because he didn't like getting a hit. I'm like, pretty boy. Okay. I'm going to take that name and roll with it. Ever since then, people used to call me the pretty boy. I also saw that you, and, you know, I love wrestling, you borrowed the name the rated

our superstar. I've been calling myself the rated R superstar since I was MySpace days. So you were a big edge fan? No. Right. Like, I was, because everything I did was like sexual. Everything as a kid, like always, something women was always sexual, sexual, sexual.

And you used to think of Pretty Ricky, the R&B group. And yeah, Pleasure P. Yeah. I'm like, I want to be something like rated R. Yeah. R. So I used to call myself rated R at the time when I was younger in my Myspace days. And I started, oh, I'm a superstar.

rated our superstar. All of a sudden, Edge came out with it. I'm like, what can you do? You're in high school. You can't really like, all right, Pat, first. So I've always been to flamboyant one, Casanova, rated our superstar. Mr. Three Times, if you let me, if you catch what I mean.

How much thought do you put into your trash talk? 100%. No, 99% trash talk, 1% ability. Because the one percent of ability is the easy part. fight. The fight's easy. But the trash talk, you got to be naturally gifted with the trash talk. So are you like, you know, do you wake up in the middle of the night and go, oh, I got to write this down right now. Because it's like, that's that good. It's, man, I think of every time I wake up, I think of liking time to check my social media, yeah, to see who loves me?

Yeah. That's what I think of. Like, who's, who's, who can I get, who nerves can I get on without getting reporting? You know, by the police on Instagram. But, like, I literally take my trash talk into a whole other level. I can go from zero to 100 real quick with it. Who's the greatest trash talker, in your opinion? As, like, just overall? Sure.

It had it been the rock. Well, but, I mean, there's also been boxing, like, Muhammad Ali was fantastic, Connor. Well, the only person who could say that was, like, Roy Jones. Roy Jones was, like, doing it, and it woping your ass. Excuse my language. And looking good about it.

Poop, poop, poop, poop, one hand. I'm going to knock you out with one hand. Boop. He was doing that. And even you, you didn't really hear a lot of trash truck. Like, Tyson Fury didn't start really doing until, like, later on in his career. But Mahalini's been doing it since his early careers. Roy Jones been doing it since his career.

Floyd didn't start doing until, like, later in the middle of his career. You know, but, you know, besides the rock, Roy Jones was that one guy. It was just, just Mr. Unstoppable. And the rock was heavily, heavily inspired by Muhammad Ali. Right, absolutely. I mean, I mean,

when you saw wrestling as a kid, everything was nothing but trash talk. Absolutely. Especially in the attitude area. You son of a gun, you Steve Austin, oh, Hunter, Hellsley,

you're gonna burn. J.R. was that guy that made us love wrestling. Damn damn, Duttlies. You know, he made it so, cool, he's going to burn in hell for that son of the, you know, everything about wrestling

and trash talking, like, as kids, we all mimic something from wrestling next day as kids. Seriously, like, between the rock and Stone Cold in their prime at the same time, and then every kid was running around their school telling people to suck it, like. Absolutely, yeah, DX, Brooke Flair, like, you didn't really trash. Rick Flair. Right, you didn't really trash talk, like, the stuff. that you hear from like Muhammad or like Roy Jones. Every time

you heard something from from W.W.E or WWF at the time, we go to next day. You're Jiboney. What? Teacher asked you a question. What? What? Yeah. Or it doesn't matter. Exactly.

Yeah. Where's the pencil? It doesn't matter. So everything we did when you grew up, anybody in the 30s, mid-20s, you grew up a wrestling fan. That was the most important childhood

of our life. Yeah. So the trash talking we see at the press conference. Yes. Is that stuff that like you had written down previously?

That's the, man, that's called improv. All of it's improv. Impro? You must go in there with a line or two or three. Nope.

All improv. Like when you saw that sit down with being timing, did you see that? I saw it with Ariel in the middle. Yeah. That was all improv. I was going right out the back.

Bam. Bam. People's like, yo, you need cut that promo. I'm like, I'm gonna cut that promo. I'm gonna cut that promo.

I'm gonna cut that promo. Anthony, does it, the fact that you didn't win that fight, does it feel bad that you didn't live up to the trash talk? I lived up to where I feel I lived up. I can care less what other people think about me because you got 500,000 people who's going to like me, 500,000 people who's not going to like Conno. They can like me or hate me, but make sure I get paid for both people.

Right, and they're going to be talking about you either way. Hey, they're going to hate you this day, going to hate you the next day, but make sure you get paid for both days. So if you win this fight, I would imagine you get another one. Possibly, who knows what the future holds? I would definitely like to fight Nick Diaz if it occurs, if it does happen. But he hasn't boxed before. We'll see.

Or I can fight Sienpunk if you catch my breath. Wow. Look at this. My God. Look at all the people you're calling out here. I'm calling out the world. Everybody from A.E.W. can get it to. C.M. Punk doesn't matter.

Man. C.M. Punk in a rock. wrestling ring or a boxing ring? Both. Both. If he went in a wrestling ring, we can do it. And I'll just smash him with the pretty boy locks and everything. Who would you say has been the most influential person for you in your life? Definitely. Yeah.

What about someone like in your life who's like that you know? Yeah, no, definitely be my brother. My older brother, he's an actor in Hollywood. He's in a film Days of Our Lives. Another pretty boy then Another pretty boy I never said he was in But my oldest brother

What's his name? We'll look him up on Ndb Rico E. Anderson For people who want to know his name is Rico E. Anderson Okay, there we go So what was it about him That really helped you in your life

And in your career? Just being a brother And just seeing how he was acting I was like wow, that looks fun Looks cool I want to be an actor too Yeah You know

So that was one of the major things why I got into entertainment was because of him also. Yeah. So are you going to be taking, like, are you looking at it taking acting lessons? Oh, absolutely. Definitely. Definitely. You definitely live in the right place for this.

I can just do it all, you know. Mondays, Trashock Press Conference, two days, training for wrestling. Wednesdays, acting, you know, Thursdays, singing. Fridays, strip. I could do it all in each day. He's going to go back to stripping. Possibly. Who knows?

They might come out on a walkout. Oh, wow. Maybe that's the thing that puts you over the edge. Not stripping, but maybe it's something to do with your walkout. Maybe a magic mic theme on the walkout. Maybe. Maybe, yes. Do you think you could get the rights to, what's that, you know, the Magic Mike's song?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, who knows? Showtime could make this happen for you. Showtime came. It's like, this is Showtime. Huh.

I think you might. You probably. already planned it out. What am I doing here? You already planned out your walkout. Possibly. I'm sure you have. Man, how excited are you for this fight? Man, I'm just, I'm more excited what the future holds after this fight. I'm planning my next step. I've already envisioned what I'm going to do in this fight. How's going to pan out? Now I'm planning the next step out of this fight.

I think it's so important to celebrate those little wins along the way. Yes. What have been the little wins since your last fight? leading up to this fight? My little one is just connecting with people. Connecting on so many outlets of social media. Just really sitting down, connecting with them. You know, speaking with family, speaking with friends, you know,

speaking with my coach, you know, after this fight, after the Tommy Fury fight, I went to Mexico, I fought twice, got two wins out there. They were grinders, but they were wins. And I got another. opportunity. That's a win. Yeah. Get another opportunity to fight on Jake Paul card on pay-per-view after you lost your last

fight. That's a win. And during Christmas week. Absolutely. Christmas time coming early. This could be the best Christmas present for you. Absolutely. Man. Who, the best. Yeah. I'm just, I'm also very excited. Let's take note right now of how many followers you have. And then we'll take note, let's say, on Christmas Day,

of how many followers you have. that that'll be like a good indication of the growth that will have occurred between now and then. So right now we'll say we're at between 25,000, 26,000 right now. Okay, great. Maybe when we come back on show, probably like 40, 50,000, possibly. Well, you're going to be part of the press conference. You're part of the lead up to this. So there it is.

Absolutely. Has Jake Paul specifically asked you about the Tommy Fury fight and asked you what he needs to keep in mind for his fight? No, I mean, he's spoken to me. We spoke, but they got this. They got them. I'm sure they watched the fight with me and Tommy over and over and over again to see his mannerism, see what he's done.

Jake doesn't need to call me to see to ask for advice. He and his team has got this. Well, and you won your last fight against Chris, but it was an MMA. What changes now that this is in a boxing ring? No, there's no grappling. Well, sure, but what changes with the game plan?

Um, none. Just go out there and look pretty. Go out there and look pretty, you guys. That's it right there. Look, man, thank you so much for coming by here. Anytime. I end every conversation with the same question because I'm all about gratitude. I start every day, while you're singing the Lion King, I start every day with gratitude.

What are three things in your life that you're grateful for right now as we sit here? Family, friends, God. And I feel like those three combined have put you to exactly where you are right now. Absolutely. Where can everybody find you online? Okay. Instagram, Anthony underscore Pretty Boy. Twitter.

Anthony underscore for real. TikTok, Anthony Pretty Boy, Taylor. Facebook. Anthony Pretty Boy, Taylor. And if you can't find neither of them and it's just so hard to find me, just Google me, baby. Anthony Pretty Boy, Taylor. There it is. Thank you for help.

Any time, my book. There we go. Big thank you to Anthony for coming into my home for the interview. Thank you to you for allowing me into your home

or your car or wherever you are right now, into your ears as you listen to these conversations. And I hope that Anthony's story of just going for it inspires you to chase after whatever it is in your life

that you want to accomplish. Send this episode to someone who's going to be watching the fight this weekend. Just take a screenshot. Let us know that you're on this journey with us. Tag us on Instagram. Anthony is at Anthony underscore pretty boy. On Twitter, it's Anthony underscore for real. And I'm at Chris Van Fleet. And I'll leave you with this anonymous quote that I saw the other day and I just loved. Happiness is like jam. You can't spread even a little without getting some on yourself.

Hmm. Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more inside. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan. on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of Sports Smack. Take advantage of it, but get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast.

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