StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - The Sweet Science of Boxing, with Sugar Ray Leonard

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice enter the ring with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and neurologist and ringside physician Dr. Anthony Alessi as we investigate the sweet, sweet science of boxing. Ding, Ding! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice and this is Playing With Science. Yes, today's show certainly has clout and it way may have a little rope-a-dope thrown in for good measure. So pay attention and part the ropes because Chuck and I are stepping into the ring and the hard hitting world of boxing. That's right. I'm pretty. And that is because we're going to do this show right now. And we have one of the greatest boxers of all time. No hype. All fact. One of the greatest boxers to ever step into the ring i'm talking none other than sugar ray leonard himself yes indeed um also on the card will be dr anthony alessi a sports neurologist who sits on the connecticut state boxing committing and will be taking a look at the protocols in place for concussion and discussing all of the effects and potential effects boxing can have on the human brain.

Ring that bell, Chuck. That's right. Let's get ready to I Can't Say It because of Trademark Influence. Dr. Anthony Alessi, neurologist specializing in neuromuscular disease and sports medicine. Ringside physician, Connecticut State Boxing Commission, bi-weekly columnist and blogger, Norwich Bulletin. Author, healthy sports, a doctor's lesson for a winning lifestyle. And as you haven't guessed, a very busy man. Radio show talk host, Healthy Rounds with Dr. Anthony Alessi.

Dr. Anthony Alessi and, get this Chuck, 2009 elected Ringside Physician of the Year by the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians. Dr. Anthony Alessi, welcome to Playing With Science, sir. How are you? Hey, great. Thanks for having me. How does boxing differ from any other sport? Well, boxing differs from any other sport because the object of the sport is to neurologically impair your opponent. So it's kind of the ultimate challenge for a neurologist. When we think of sports, especially high velocity collision sports or contact sports, the idea is still to score a touchdown or to get the puck in the net, but not in boxing. In boxing, the goal is to produce a knockout, the ultimate neurologic injury, you might say. It's even different from other combat sports,

because when you think of MMA, you're looking at the possibility of an arm bar, a leg bar, some type of choke hold. So you don't necessarily have to neurologically impair your opponent. The other big difference is you can tap out of those sports, right? You can take yourself out of the game. Nobody takes themselves out of boxing. There's no tap out. And in a sense, I consider myself that athlete's tap out. So you have to understand there's a sub game here. So if I'm in the corner and I sense the fighter does not want to continue, I will end the fight. He or she will get up, say some nasty things about my mother. But with a wink and a nod, they will know that they're still going to get paid for that fight right really quick but i knew that they did not have the heart to stay in it

and that's typically at the lower level so you're the safety net between them and a hard fall a hard landing a very hard landing i'm the difference between them and death. Right. Let's face it. My only job when I lecture people is to make sure every boxer leaves there alive. Right. That's my only job. I don't care who wins, who loses. If everybody's still breathing at the end of the night, I've done my job. And I think that people don't really, it's not, they're not cognizant or it's not front of mind that boxing is a sport where people can and have died in the ring. And are still dying in the ring.

There are some states that don't have the same level of regulation that we have in bigger states like California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut. We have very active commissions with active medical staffs. You can go to states in this country where they hardly I don't even know if they put a blood pressure cuff on the fighters. When you talk to the fighters, they say, well, no one ever asked me that. That's never been an issue. No one even examines you. And there's not necessarily a physician at ringside for those fights. Interesting. That's just mind-blowing

well there's no federal regulation that that's one of the issues is it's run by the states and the states are incentivized because they get tax dollars at the end of a fight they tax that purse so there's a whole sub game to this interesting so. So can you, for our, you know, just for our benefit, to neurologically impair the opponent is the goal. Can you break down what that neurological impairment is? Can you give us the anatomy of a knockout? Great question. Yes.

What happens is with the blow, with the impact, there's a tearing of the wall to the nerve cell. Now, typically, the nerve cell has an electrolyte balance. The calcium is inside the cell, right? And rather, calcium is outside the cell. My mistake. Calcium is outside the cell. Potassium is inside the cell. When you breach the wall, the calcium rushes in, potassium rushes out. That calcium causes the cell to swell and can cause the cell to die.

So if you take the analogy of a crack in your basement and you have a big storm, you got water rushing into your basement. The thing you want to do is repair the crack, stop the flow, and then pump that water out. That's what the cell does. It tries to repair the wall to the cell, and now it's got to pump out that calcium, which takes energy. So the more, the bigger the hole, the more energy it's going to take to pump it out. And with that diversion of energy from your muscles and other features, you lose consciousness. So if you take this a step further, you know, you have one crack in your wall before you get a chance to fix it. You have another and another. Suddenly the cell becomes overwhelmed and the brain becomes overwhelmed with swelling that can result in death.

overwhelmed with swelling that can result in death. So this timeline is immediate, the way the brain reacts to compensate for potassium loss and the influx of calcium. But is there a standard procedure of, if I have this sort of damage, I need to be out of the ring for X days, X weeks, months, or is it different from athlete to athlete? It's a great question. We still don't know that. So what we do with athletes is we wait for symptoms to clear and we wait for them to get back to their level of activity without developing new symptoms. So going back to the basement analogy, once you've pumped all this water out, you've still got a mess, right? You've got mold, you've got a smelly rug. We don't know how long it takes to get rid of that mess. We don't know if that's still lingering in

the brain for years, for a lifetime or not. No one can tell you that. So we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants saying, well, your symptoms are better and you're not getting headaches when you're running a mile or when you're back in the ring. But we don't know if there's still that mold or whatever it is existing as an analogy in the brain. With respect to that. So if you're looking at this the way we do in other sports, which would be a concussion protocol, let's just say football and a concussion protocol. The idea in football is a guy takes a hit. Normally, it's a hit like up, you know, kind of to the jaw instead of the crown of the head. It's kind of like up and under. They get boom, they go

out for a second and then they go through a series of protocols up and under they get boom they go out for a second uh and then they they go through a series of protocols to figure out whether or not they can play or if they have been indeed concussed is it possible that while the boxer is boxing that he sustains a concussion but yet he wasn't knocked out And the sustaining of that concussion will actually lead to him getting knocked out. Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head. So that's the great irony with boxing, right? So in football, somebody gets hit in the head.

They're a little wobbly. We get them to the sideline, put them in a tent, do a big evaluation. Right. In boxing, as long as the person is still standing, that fight's going on. So I tell people all the time, I look at a fighter's footwork. If they lose coordination in their feet, they've lost coordination in their hands and suddenly become a defenseless fighter. So that's what gives ringside physicians the idea that it's time to end the fight. But absolutely, because don't forget, you get one blow, two, three.

We've seen those exchanges. And those are all blows that can produce damage to the brain. But the interesting point you brought up is obviously the shot from below the chin, the uppercut being the most punishing blow in boxing. I'm getting ready tomorrow. I'm flying out to Las Vegas to be with the professional bull riders tour. Wow. Many people don't know that the most common injury of all in bull riding is concussion. Oh, wow. And where you see it the most is fortunately not the bull stepping on somebody's head, but it's when the rider gets propelled forward and the head of the bull comes up and takes them out from under the chin. Right. So that's where you see jaw fractures and things of that nature.

And that's why I'm heading out there for their world finals in Las Vegas tomorrow. So it's an interesting it's an interesting kind of lab. Yeah. I think the one thing I, Chuck, and everybody listening has learned that we don't really want to be a bull rider going forward from here. Yeah. I do, however, want to be the bull. Yeah, that depends how that ends up for the bull. Thinking about your safety net for a boxer and your attention to footwork

and then the chain of events that you perceive will be enacted. So you take me out of a fight. You protect me. I walk out of there conscious, compass mentis, maybe a bruise or three. You've protected me, but I'm in the ring two days later sparring. What can you do to stop that boxer getting back in the ring, even to spar? Because it must say you cannot fight for a purse X amount of weeks. But what's to stop that boxer getting back and sparring?

Because that is basically undoing everything you've done to save that person. Nothing. Oh, wow. Boxing, like bull riding, is a sport where there is uncontrolled exposure so for example if we take the bull riding analogy the pbr the higher highest level of the sport can suspend somebody same way as they won't fight for a purse but in the boxing right that fellow can be in the dominican republic tomorrow fighting for a purse or in a state where they don't check on things fighting for a purse. So you could still fight for a purse aside from going in and sparring. You know, there are people who still believe the more that you get hit in the head, you raise your threshold for injury.

You become resistant to being knocked out. I can tell you, the more you get hit in the head, the dumber you get. OK, and it does more and more damage. But there are still people who believe that. So there are sports where there's uncontrolled exposure and boxing is clearly one of them. How far are we away from addressing that issue where there's a daisy chain of federations, not just nationally, but globally to ensure the protection of boxers from themselves and from their trainers and managers? You know, we were awfully close. John McCain introduced the bill in Congress for a federal regulatory body for boxing. This was years ago and it fell flat. Why? Because promoters, I mean, and it's like any other business. You have promoters who are really legitimate and do a legitimate job of protecting their fighters, protecting it. And then you've got the dark side of the sport, like every other sport. And those people were able to win out.

So I would say we're nowhere near having a federal regulatory body. But, you know, the other thing, too, and if I can speak to this just from what I've been told, full disclosure. So my dad was a welterweight boxer for for a period of time. He was golden gloves. And I never boxed because, you know, he would try to teach me how to box. and I immediately knew that I was far too pretty to be hit in the face by anything. Okay, so you're not a bull rider, but you may be a bull thrower. Okay. Very nice.

Very nice, Doc. I see what you did there. But I know this for a fact. I said to my dad, why you box when he because he thought he was going to become a professional boxer and he my dad didn't grow up with a lot of money and he was like well you box for two reasons one is because you love boxing you love fighting you love the fight game that's number one number two the money. Like it was that simple. Well, you're right. And unfortunately, many boxers are on the fringe of society. It's always been the lowest socioeconomic level.

OK, people with real money aren't getting in there. They're not getting in the ring. And a lot of times at the weigh in, I'll have to disqualify a fighter just from the weigh in. All right. That's where that's where a lot of that's where we eliminate a lot of times at the weigh-in, I'll have to disqualify a fighter just from the weigh-in, right? That's where a lot of, that's where we eliminate a lot of fights. And so I'll eliminate people and they'll say stuff, you know, Doc, my other job is, you know, I deliver Chinese food, okay? It's the only job I've been able to get since I got out of the joint, okay? I need to get in that ring to make 400 bucks that night. Obviously, I don't let them get in. But these are fairly desperate people in desperate times and are willing to sacrifice potential death to get in that ring.

Yeah. And you're the only safety net, you're the only guardian that they've got between them and clocking out completely. So that makes me think. So, you know, we worked with. We had a show where we had on from the University of Dartmouth, the coaches who work with. Buddy Teevens from Dartmouth College. Thank you. Buddy Teevens from Dartmouth College. They work with robotic tackling dummies.

And the reason why they do that is so that during the practice, they can have non-contact with the players during practice. Yet, they can still develop and hone the skill of tackling without the contact. And that reduces their neurological injury greatly. Is there anyone working on a way to perhaps have a virtual sparring for boxers so that they're not receiving contact during the practice version of the fight or minimal contact so you would not spar as much or is it just that boxing is the type of skill and sport that when the two come together it has to be done in order for you to be good at it i don't know of anybody developing kind of a virtual way of training as we have in football you know look how many years it took for us to figure out in football that the the more you get tackled and

the more contact you have the more risk of injury okay i mean it took it took the ivy league to figure that out right but by the same token in boxing i just don't know i think you know you'd have to ask that of someone who's a's an accomplished fighter or a fight trainer more than I would know. Neurologically, I'd say yes. Okay, you can develop reflexes, you can develop punch placement, but a lot of it is counter punching. A lot of it is based on what your opponent does. So it's a much more complex decision in boxing than it is in football. It almost sounds like you have to get hit in order to be a great boxer. Probably. The odds are pretty certain that you will. So let's think the use of gloves against bare knuckle and the use of head guards, which is a must that is mandatory in amateur and the Olympics, but not in professional where as a neurologist,

would you stand on both the glove and the head guard issue? Great. Both of them. Anything that protects the brain more uh is going to be good you know boxing gets kind of a grant a bad rap in the sense that i don't want people to think that this is some horrible sport it's actually you know when i do physicals on athletes boxers are in probably the best overall condition on average than any other athlete i mean let's face it heart rates are down into the 40s low 50s these people at that level are in phenomenal condition so many people many young men and women now have taken up to get into shape. So there are gyms all over where people are not

necessarily getting in and sparring all out. So boxing is a great sport. If you want to develop good fitness, good coordination. Heck, I'm a neurologist. I have patients with Parkinson's disease who now have taken up boxing because we found that the rhythm of boxing helps them walk and keep their balance now granted they're not getting in and sparring but they're doing the same drills in the same gym learning how to hit the bag so it's very interesting to see the benefits of boxing rather than so there's a whole range here we're dealing with in boxing so helmets and gloves great will can you sell that at the professional level at madison square garden heck no yeah well listen i you know we're out of time we've gone oh we've actually gone

over time but what a great place to leave that is that there is a great a lot of a lot of positivity in boxing and uh and you're right people don't want to see you know there's just something about the mano a mano competition that makes people when you put on protection they feel as though you're cheating for some reason so maybe it's up to us not the boxers to change our appetite for the way we consume the sport instead of putting the onus on the sport itself to change for us. So who knows? Yeah, absolutely agree. Anthony Alessi, a pleasure, sir.

An education. Let's do it again tomorrow. Doctor, thank you so much. we're going to take a break when we come back it's going to be a tough act to follow but we might just have something to keep you interested sugar ray and leonard it will appear in a sentence and on the show when we get After this break. Welcome back to Playing With Science. It is our boxing special, and I say special for one simple reason. We are joined by a man who has heard this so many times, he's probably wincing with embarrassment,

but it is Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers. Of all time. Of all time. Of all time. Of all time. This guy didn't just win a world title in one weight division. He went through several. Yep. He is part of what history has come to learn as the Fab Four, the fabulous four.

Not the Beatles, but Duran, Hearns, Hagler, and Sugar Ray Leno. Yeah, I mean, I make no apologies for saying during Hearns, Hagler, and Sugar Ray Leonard. Yeah. I mean, I make no apologies for saying during the eighties, I was,

even back in the UK, a major, major fan. Chuck, I know you've just gone ultra fan. Are you kidding me? Exactly. So first of all,

like, you know, everybody knows Sugar Ray Leonard and hello, sir. Welcome to the show, by the way. That's it. Thank you guys. Yeah. And hello, sir. Welcome to the show, by the way. That's it. Thank you, guys.

Yeah. And, you know, so it's – and you – and clearly, like, you know, it's funny. When people say Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers of all time, they don't even put the pound per pound per pound in front of it. They don't even put, like, in the weight class. They don't even put, like weight class. They don't even put in the time that he fought. You're up there with all the great names. And on top of that, your boxing name, your actual name is named after Ray Charles, the singer.

And then your boxing name is named after the great Sugar Ray Robinson. Man, you set yourself up for failure so many times, but yet you still came through as a champion. You know that got to feel good. It feels great. I mean, I had no real say in that. When I called, well, my mom named me after Sugar Ray Charles. Right. Because she was a big fan, right?

Yep. I named myself Sugar Ray because Sugar Ray Robinson was one of my idols besides Muhammad Ali. Fantastic, man. And you've lived up to the name without a doubt. So, you know, we're talking about in this show science and the sport itself. And they call boxing the sweet science. And when you ask people that, why do they call boxing the sweet science? You get a lot of different answers, but mostly it's like, well, it's because you got a hit while not getting

hit. It's not about just power. It's not about just speed. It's about skill and strategy and all of these different things that come together to make a boxer great. What does it mean to you when you hear the sweet science? What does that mean to you? Well, for me, there is a sweet science to boxing. When I first saw

and became a major fan of Muhammad Ali, he and Sugar Ray Robinson, I can go down the line of great fighters that fought with not just a round or two before you figure out what style or what punch would be more effective. It is the sweet science of boxing. Without the sweet science of boxing, I could not have beaten marvelous Marvin Hagler. I could not have beaten Roberto Duran. Tommy Hearns. I mean, the list goes on. When did you realize as a boxer, you had more than enough tools to dismantle an opponent? And as you say, it might be a couple of set up moves for you to do something later in the round, later in the bout, or it might be something where you just strategize. When did you realize it wasn't just about punching, but the mental application?

It was as an amateur, an amateur boxer. I remember vividly, I fought this guy named Bobby Magruder, and he was what they call an open fighter. I was a novice fighter because I had maybe a year or two of experience and he had like five years or longer. And the way I beat him was to break him down, was to stay on the outside, was not be a stationary target, to use my hand speed. So at that early age, I learned that there's a better way to defeat your opponent. Awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. I'm going to ask you this about your punch, okay? Just, you know,

went back and I watched a few of your fights from back in the day. Man, I tell you, it's just a thing of beauty to watch. And when you punched, you seemed to punch like a golf swing with a fist on the end of it. It wasn't like it was controlled. It was using your torso. You were punching through. I mean, is that an illusion or is all that stuff actually happening? Are you, you know, is that what's happening? You look like you were using your whole body, your torso, the way a golfer like swings through the ball.

That's the way you seem to punch through your opponent. Is that what was going on? Well, if you don't have the fundamentals to know how to execute the proper punch. It's like, you're not tight. Cause you, cause speed is, is pretty quick. Um,

speed is, you can't teach that. You really can't teach that. You can teach accuracy, but you can't teach speed. Speed is a gift, but getting back to that speed, your hands gotta be loose.

Your arms gotta be loose and you don't make contact once you make contact that's when you make the fist you understand what i'm saying chuck it's like pow right if you were closer i could i could show you how it's done don't worry i felt it through the screen man but it it is a science it is a sweet science like even body shots which at times is a lost art form body shots are tactics too that really drops you it makes your opponent's hands drop and and also you know it's the combination it's the combinations it's all it's all scientific when you talk about strategy when you were talking about how like you know um you when you're dropping an opponent's hands because you're working his body you know and then and the combinations and so let's go to one of my

favorite fights of all time and it's roberto duran of Okay. And it's the second fight, of course. And the cool thing about this fight is. So many cool things. So many cool things. The number one cool thing is that you had the presence of mind to ask for a fight right away. As opposed. And everybody didn't want you to do it. So first, can you tell us about that? Why did you do that?

Duran, first of all, Roberto Durant, the first fight, he took me out of my game plan. He got inside my head. And although he didn't really speak English, he got into my head. And I hated the guy. I mean, I've never seen anyone so rude and intimidating. I mean, he was, I mean, probably Mike Tyson, he was the most intimidating guy out there, man. I mean, he was a maniac. And he got into my head. So, because he cursed my wife out, he cursed me out, he pushed me, all those kind

of things. And I wanted, I said, you know what, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to beat him at his own game. And when that, when I thought about that, even during the fight, man, when he was hitting me hard, I didn't think about changing. I wanted to knock him out. So right away, he had me beat. He had me beat. So I want to visit a moment in this fight.

I know Chuck's asked you about the rematch, and we'll get to that with you. You weren't world champion at this point, were you? Because this fight was in Montreal against Durand, the first time you'd fought him. You are getting taken apart, with all due respect. You must have gone somewhere. An athlete like yourself, a boxer,

when that situation confronts him, has to go somewhere, find something, bring it up. It's the stuff that will make a world champion. So where did you go? What did you find? And how did you use it? Well, that first fight in June of 1980 in Montreal, he hit me so hard. I swear, I contemplated retirement. That's rough. That is rough. He hit me so hard and I'm like, pow, pow, pow.

Then I looked around like, who else is in this goddamn room? I mean, they call them hands of stone. I mean, I said, I don't need this anymore i can i can like let this go and i really i seriously contemplated but i took my wife to hawaii after the fight and i you know i was all beat up they drew blood from my ears because i wouldn't get cauliflower ears

because you know he did that kind of stuff with this with his gloves and they it was so bad man I was hurting places I shouldn't be hit and after the fight I said you know I may retire but once I went to Hawaii with my wife just to get away

and I'm young so I bounced back then fans were telling me Ray if you box her, Duran, you would beat him. I said, I want to beat this guy. And I knew his lifestyle, that he would go from 147 to maybe 240, 220. He gained that much weight. That's serious. So that was sweet size, too, by the way.

Right, right. So that was sweet size too, by the way. Right, right. So let me ask you this. When you come back and you're fighting the same fighter, right? Now, he's already figured out like, okay, this is what this guy is going to do. Now, you know, this is what this guy is going to do. Okay. How do you change the way you're going to approach him so that he's not coming at you so that you're not coming at him the same way?

Do you get a sparring partner that's like him? Do you what do you do? You work on film. What do you do? What happens to change your fight? All of that. All of that. I started the tapes of the first fight, which was hard. I studied the tapes of fights that he's had and how he dominated, physically dominated his opponent. And me being

more versatile than I displayed, I had box, had sparring partners come who were similar to Duran, rough, tough, body punchers, short, kind of a mixture of Roberto Duran. No one's like Duran. Duran has his own thing. But I was prepared to box him, to use my jab, to use my hand speed. By the way, when you say to box him, it's the perfect way to put it. When you look at that fight and you look at the way you are up on your toes and what was most impressive, I wouldn't say most impressive, very impressive. You look like Muhammad Ali the way you were using the ring.

Like you kept him from being in the position that he wanted to be in. You kept shifting and shifting and shifting and dancing. And I don't mean like dancing, showboating, even though you did some of that, which really freaked him. I mean, that freaked him out. But you really, I mean, that's strategy too, right? Just not allowing the boxer to box his own fight, right? Chuck, you're right on time.

I came back with something totally different. It was a totally different fighter, totally different tactics and stuff. I was moving, didn't let him get set, didn't remain a stationary target, using my jab, using my hand speed. He was so frustrated from the very beginning that he knew it was going to be over. But I tell you what, even what made it even more, I was more convinced that I could beat this guy was when Ray Charles, my namesake, sang America the Beautiful. I was like, it's over, baby. It's over.

It's done. You know what I mean? Because I believe in biorhythms. I believe in getting up on the right side of the bed. I believe in this is your day. Because even when you go into the studios, sometimes there's a time that you just don't have. You're just not sharp. That night in New Orleans, everything was perfect.

Everything. My weight, my training, my sparring partners everything was perfect it was all like they say the styles were lined up you had if i'm not mistaken you had angelo dundee as your trainer at this particular moment in time and chuck mentions you look like ali in the ring how much of that Ali know-how did Dundee bring to your boxing? He can't bring that. No one can do Ali. Ali was Muhammad Ali.

I understand that. You know, but I knew I had to be mobile to beat Roberto Duran. It's like saying toe-to-toe with marvelous Marvin Hagler. At the end of the day, it's not going to be a nice day if you stand toe-to-toe with Marvin Hagler, just like Roberto Duran. Duran was like a bully. And he was, you know, Durant was like a bully. Yes. He was like a bully. And when I stood up to him and people were laughing when I was doing this

and pow. Yep. And that was, again, that was all intuitive. And people were laughing at this guy. You didn't script that before the fight. That just came straight out of you. Oh, yeah. You can't.

You can't. You don't practice that. You don't practice this. Oh, man. No one had that much fun in a ring in a world title fight ever. you don't practice that you don't practice this oh man that's you no one had that much fun in a ring in a world title fight

ever apart from Ali but you took it to another level that night another level oh yeah and he

he blew a fuse yeah he blew a fuse he was because he was again he was I mean not not bully bully

but he was a bully he had a bully mentality yes he did he tried to intimidate you not bully, bully, but he had a bully mentality. Yes, he did. He tried to intimidate you. Right. But now people are laughing. So he has to do one or two things. He has to stop it or run away.

Right. Just like bullies do. Now let me ask you this, Sugar Ray, because I'm really interested. What is better for a fighter? I know what you're going to ask. A pugilist of your caliber. What is better for you to knock a man out or to make him give up. Give up.

Wow. There's, there's, get for a fighter to give up. And I, again, I, I, Roberto Durant and I, good friends. We love each other. But that night, I really felt, I felt sorry for, I felt bad for him, man. Right. Because to give up, for a fighter to give up, for a champion to give up,

to quit, it doesn't get any, any darker or deeper than that. Right. Right. Right. The interesting thing is in Montreal, in the previous fight,

when he was asked afterwards, he said he's still alive because of his heart. Yet you got him to turn his back and quit. I mean, how does the man want to get back into the ring with you after that? There's no way. There's no way back psychologically. You're so defeated

and the only way you can come back is to do something drastic. And although Durant, after the No Mosquit, he came back and he won titles again. And he came back. He, you know, regenerated. He came back. When you were training, was it the skipping rope, the hard miles, the old school training, or did you embrace new thinking? You talked about how intuitive and biorhythms are important to you.

Did you embrace new thinking of the particular of the 80s and such in the 90s? No, that's a good question. But no, because that was no-no. That was Buddha. We didn't have weights. We didn't do that. that was no-no. That was voodoo. We didn't have weights. We didn't do no... We didn't incorporate other

things besides doing your road work, running three, four, five miles. No weights. As far as nutrition, eating, I guess eat a... Hell, chicken. Fried chicken. I eat fried chicken.

Who doesn't? No, I eat fried chicken and biscuits. Chicken and steak and biscuits. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Sweet potatoes. So how did you work that through the weight divisions for your own boxing style? I never had a problem with weights.

I never had a problem with making weight as a professional fighter. with making weight as a professional fighter. You know, I just, I eat strong, eat heavy. But I don't know. I just didn't allow myself to be too happy, put it that way. I wasn't too happy. I didn't get too big. Are you training fighters right now? Are you still involved?

No, no. I've been out of the, I'm with DAZN now. I do boxing commentary, which I love. No, no. I understand that. Yeah. I'm still close to boxing, man. I'm watching these incredible talents get out there and show the world who they are.

Hey, speaking of that speaking speaking of boxing talent let me ask you why now you know you were part of a very exciting group of boxers oh for sure and um you know you kind of like filled that void where there was like no heavyweights right and now here we are back in that time again. You know, you have the lighter weight classes. There's no interest in heavyweight fighting. Why do you think that is? Is it because there's no talent

or is it just because the lighter weights are faster? They seem more exciting. I mean, why do you think that is? You know, Chuck, it's all that. It's all that combined, mixed up and everything else. Because when I came on the scene, Muhammad Ali was about to leave. Right. Leave the stage, I should say, or leave the ring.

Mm-hmm. And because back in the day when I was fighting, back in 1976, 77, on up to the 80s, boxing was on network television, free TV, and NBC, CBS, ABC. So we were out there, and we had a platform that... So we became kind of household names. It was just a different time. Right. But, again, there's just so much talent out there

that people say boxing is dying. Boxing is not dying. it was just a different time. Right. But, uh, again, there's just so much talent out there that, um, people say boxing is, boxing is dying. Boxing is not dying. It takes a black eye, a black eye every now and then, but it bounces back,

you know? I mean, look at the Floyd Mayweather fight with, uh, Conor McGregor. Mm-hmm. Uh, was it a fight?

Not really, but it was a spectacle. It was entertainment. Um, it went longer than I thought it would. And the only person that could have made that happen was Floyd Mayweather. Yeah, right. You know? And Conor McGregor. Like, Muhammad Ali fought a wrestler. Do you remember that? Antonio Inoki. Yes. It seems like there's an interest that waxes and wanes, but at the same time, it always comes back, you know? Always comes back you know always comes back it always comes back and uh so many fans out there and that's it people are drawn

to it it can it is brutal it can be brutal but as you've shown it it can be artistic scientific poetic elegant and that place where you go when it's not right to pull something out of your being. So as you don't turn your back, you don't quit. You stay in there and you box. That's, that's making of a human being. I call that place the fetal position. Yes. See, that's all happening when someone's trying to knock your lights out. The environment you operated in is just amazing. I'm not, you know what, Gary, I'm night and day of what I used to do. Because I am non-controversial.

I am not really, I'm so, but I can hit a switch and I can go there. And I love what I've accomplished. I mean, Muhammad Ali told me many years ago, he said, Ray, when I fought Joe Frazier the third time, it was the closest thing to death. And I looked at him like, wow, that's crazy. But I experienced it with Duran, with Hearns, with Hagler. The list goes on and on. But that moment, did you have to go to that moment in your career to rise? You reached down.

You reached down. We all have that hidden reservoir of strength. We have it. But what separates us is the ability to activate it, to make it happen. So true. So very, very true. Wow, man. That is, that is.

So I've got a young, I've got a young Sugar Ray Leonard now, 2018. He's 21. He's a bit cocky. He's got great hand speed. He can sting like a butterfly, et cetera, et cetera. How's he going to be? Is he going to be like that guy I saw in the seventies and the eighties or would he do it different? What does he do? You know what? You talk trash. It's okay. It's okay. Unless you're back because

you have to back it up and you have to believe in yourself because if you don't, no one else will and you have to go for it. And there are no shortcuts. Put it that way. There is no shortcuts to success in any facet of life. Go out there. Do your thing. And don't tell people how great you are.

Let them tell you how great they think you are. Very nice. Isn't that? Man. Oh, man. Well, that's as good a place as any to end this. Don't tell people how great you are. Let them tell you how great they think you are.

That is grace. And you can't do that in a mirror, right? Because, okay. I'm just saying, Sugar Ray. I'm just saying. You can try it. Okay. Yeah, the problem is when the mirror talks back.

Hey, Sugar Ray, man, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, sir. Unbelievable, unbelievable, man. I mean, you're still the greatest, brother. You're still the greatest. And he's ridiculously handsome, isn't he? Well, you know what? By the way, I got to admit, okay,

this is, if you're going to be a boxer, I, you know, you and Muhammad Ali did it right stay good looking don't get your face all moved around man it's been a thrill and a pleasure there you go that movement

that's the key hey such a pleasure to talk to you Sugar Ray thanks so much thank you bye bye oh what a pleasure

oh I'm gonna sit and smile for about three days now. Unbelievable, man. That is just a thrill, Chuck. Yeah. To hear one of the greatest of all time. Tell you how. Tell you how. Tell you what it takes to get to where you need to be.

It's awesome. We are pleased you spent the time with us. So from Chuck and myself. Yep. I'm about to get on the subway and punch somebody no he's not

um don't please right that's been Playing With Science and no he won't be doing it

to anybody it's shun violence thank you till next time