The Joe Rogan Experience - #2346 - Jim Lampley

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Jim Lampley is a sports broadcaster and commentator best known for his 30-year run on HBO World Championship Boxing. His new book "It Happened! A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Broadcasting," is available now. https://jimlampley.com Visit https://blackriflecoffee.com/joe-rogan and use code ROGAN for 30% Off This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/JRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Uh, really? That was your closest male friend? Unexpected, unexpected, but over a period of time, we just got closer and closer and closer and, you you know very brotherly and the last public appearance Emmanuel ever made was my wedding in September of 2012 and that night the wedding was at our house in Del Mar California and that night he his girlfriend came to me and said we we have to leave early, Emmanuel's having stomach pains. He was in oncology by the next week. He was gone by three weeks later. So very touching to me and, you know,

deeply symbolic of my love for him and thus the Kronk hat. Yeah, what a classic gym gym and he was one of the first guys to realize like if you crank the heat up it actually gives guys better conditioning. He realized a lot of things. Emmanuel was a genius in a lot of ways and there were a lot of sort of time-honored rules and techniques in boxing that he quietly upended. Because he was more advanced in his point of view and thought process. And then everybody else sort of followed his lead. Once they understood what he was doing.

If you saw the McCrory's and Tommy and those guys, why wouldn't you imitate, right? Right, right, exactly. Yeah, no, he was... And he did it at both the amateur and pro level too you know so and he was always fantastic too as a commentator because he would give insight that you're really not gonna get from someone that's not like with these fighters day in day out through an entire camp he really well we need consider the privilege I had, the expert commentators I work with, starting with Ray. That's one perspective. Then gravitating through George Foreman and Roy Jones, Emmanuel's in there.

To me, he was the best. I agree with you. The public responded more to Roy and Ray. Of course, famous guys. Because of their stardom, etc. And they were really good too. And they were good, but Emanuel taught me more. Interesting. Because he was totally well rounded as a human being as well as a boxing trainer. I was very pleased to hear you back on the microphone for that

Times Square event. Thank you. Because it had been so long. Six plus years. God I was like that's crazy it didn't make any sense you were the best in the business HBO was the best in the business and when they stepped away from boxing I was really heartbroken. If you look at what happened, we go from a situation where the television networks have the authority and the self-belief to choose the commentators the way they want to. Yeah. Then you get into a more subdivided and widely disparate marketplace and now the star promoters have a great deal more influence than you would have thought before. And now the star promoters start getting involved in influencing who's on the air.

So PBC, Mayweather was never a fan. We got along, but he was absolutely... Was the famous thing with Larry. Larry Merchant. Well, and I guess he associated me with Larry, which makes all the sense in the world. Kind of, but you weren't nearly as critical. I was just a blow-by-blow guy. I'm not an expert commentator. So I tried very hard, not always easy, but I tried very hard never to go over the line into doing what the experts were supposed to do.

Right. No, you were excellent at that. It just didn't make any sense to me that, you know, and Kellerman, he's also excellent. That's another guy we should remember. And now he's back. Yes. It's nice. And Andre Ward is another excellent guy. Totally. It's just the good thing about boxing was that HBO was completely independent from these promoters. And the bad thing about boxing is that the fighters don't get paid as much on the undercard fights and don't get paid as much coming up as is the case in the more broadly organized UFC universe. Right?

Yeah, there is a difference. Yeah, there's a giant difference in the undercard pay, but then- I learned that from Joe Rogan. Ha ha! Yeah, well, the UFC treats the entire card as an enormous event. So they have elite fighters fight in the entire card.

It's not top heavy. Like one of the problems with boxing is you would just say when's the main event, when is Canelo fighting, and you didn't... the other stuff is just nonsense. Whereas the UFC, you look at it like, oh look who's fighting first fight of pay-per-view. There's five fights on pay-per-view. First fight of pay-per-view is a banger and everybody's... the seats are packed and everybody's excited to see it. Whereas everybody starts shuffling in about 20 minutes before Canelo fights and one of these big boxing events that I think is

kind of unfortunate you know I totally agree a little bit short-sighted and I accede to your point of view because I've made this point before. I'm not a UFC expert. Any comment I make about UFC is atmospheric, but it's not expertly informed. I didn't have the bandwidth for that. I was trying to be knowledgeable out about every single tributary and every single meaningless pocket in the boxing world. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot that's a lot it took time and and

frankly you know I decided it would be distracting to me to try to keep up with two combat sports at once this is the one where I make my living this is the one where the audience identifies me this is the one that's on HBO. And I know that Dana in particular is said by some to have been quite upset that he had a deal with HBO and the deal with HBO went away. If that's the case, and I don't know, I'm very sorry to hear it, because I think it would have been good for both if UFC had been on HBO. I think so as well. I mean, HBO at that time was the premier network for combat sports. The work that you guys had done in boxing was the top of the food chain.

It was the best. Well, Larry Merchant, Ray Leonard, George Foreman, Roy Jones, Emmanuel Stewart. It was also the production. Everything was on point. It was just so well honed. Good production. Yes. It was just so well honed good production. Yes. It was just a well polished machine One of the issues is they wanted to replace the commentators HBO did but they did yeah, so if we came over there, I wouldn't go over there as well

So really yeah because HBO was always about their own producer autonomy. Yes You know they wanted to have we don't want anybody telling us what to do exactly right? Yeah, the problem with that is in mixed martial arts So they wanted to have control. We don't want anybody telling us what to do. Exactly. Right. The problem with that is in mixed martial arts, there's a very small pool of people who have a deep understanding of the entire history of the sport. Yep. And you can't just hire a regular sports guy to take that part. They're not going to be able to.

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off your first website or domain purchase. Get it. Well going back to the developmental stages, and I try very hard not to use the word unique, it's massively overused in American society, sports media have beaten it to death that means only one like this on the whole planet but you were unique in those days because you had the full knowledge of UFC and you also knew some stuff about boxing so I think you were not just unusual but unique. Well all I was doing was just following my interests and I've always been a huge boxing fan. From the time I was a child. Can you remember what your first fight was?

The first fight I watched, my parents watched it, which was crazy because my parents were hippies and they were really interested in Ali's rematch with Leon Spinks. New Orleans. Yup. When Leon had beat Muhammad Ali because Muhammad Ali was, he was a cultural icon as much as he was a sports figure. Oh yeah. I mean like multiply that by a hundred, you know, to get to where he was. He was very, very unique. And his opposition to the Vietnam War made him a hero to many Americans. Well I always say

He was my childhood hero and he was my childhood hero as Cassius Clay The very first live prize fight I ever attended was Cassius Clay versus Sonny Liston February 25 1964 in Miami Beach. Oh you there for the first fight? I saved lawn mowing and car washing money for months to buy a ticket that in my memory was $100 but I don't really know for sure what the cost of that ticket was. I didn't save it. It would be worth millions now. My mother took me over from our crappy Southwest Miami tract house rental and dropped me off at the Miami Beach Convention Center and then came and picked me up afterward.

And I went in alone. And that was the first live... How old were you? I was 14. 14. It was the first live prize fight I had ever attended. It was all about my hero worship for Cassius Clay. Two days later he stands on Brickell Avenue in Miami and tells two reporters that he's

a follower of the Nation of Islam and now his name is Muhammad Ali. And I'm in shock, okay? What do you mean? You're Cassius Clay, you can't. And so nowadays I say the lesson he taught me then was a man's identity is his own. And it does not matter how much I love him or cherish him or feel connected to him, he has the right to say who he is. I mean, back in those days, Islam?

What is that? Right. I had no clue. But he got over with me on that one. I understood it was his right. Then he taught me my stance on the Vietnam War. My mother was double widow of two United States military heroes. I grew up with a basement filled to the gills with memorabilia from their

tours of duty as B-17, B-24, and B-29 pilots in World War II. So there was nationalistic and patriotic material all over my household. And when Ali said what he said about Vietnam, that moved the meter for me in that regard. And I understood. And eventually, eventually my mother said, you'll go to Canada before I'll ever allow you to accede to being drafted into the army and going to Vietnam, because her thought was that it was a pointless war. Yeah and she was correct. Yeah she was right. Yeah and they took three years of his prime. That's what's crazy. I always point to the Cleveland Big Cat Williams fight. That was his best. Yes. You're totally right.

That was his number one performance and he was never 100% the same after that. But he still had his mind. Yes, but he didn't train for three years. That's part of the problem. Of course. And you know, at 30 years old, in that day and age, it was just a different world. You don't train for three years. Not as much knowledge of nutrition.

Not as much knowledge of training techniques, you know, the old fashioned stuff in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, not the same as no hyperbaric chamber, etc. etc. Yeah, it's just they just robbed him. They robbed us too, because he came back and he's a different fighter then. He was much more easy to hit and, you know, he became, you know, he relied on his chin more and, you know, he didn't have the fleet of foot movement that he had before then. But he found a way to rise to the top again.

Yes he did. Well, the championship mind was always there. That's 100% correct. But as a fan of boxing, it drives me crazy, because you imagine what we could have seen in those three years if Ali had never been robbed, never took his title away, and allowed him to fight all those guys like Joe Frazier, George Foreman, all those guys with keeping the same skills that

he had when he was younger. And I think you're 100% correct, Joe. But isn't it, in a perverse way, a part of his mystique? The fact that he was able to come back from those three and a half years off. The fact that he was able to rise to the top again. The fact that he was able to beat Foreman the way he beat Foreman and beat Frazier in the third fight in the kind of fight you would never have imagined him being in. All these things combine to create the unique mystique of Muhammad Ali. Oh for sure, yeah. And then also the tragic ending, you know, the staying in too long

and too many beatings, you know, just seeing him at the end of his life was just so horrible, you know, and we all know that that was trauma induced. We all know that. And it's just sad to see. We haven't seen that yet in MMA right? No not quite but you're seeing some damage you're seeing some guys that are really struggling you know you just they're not as public so you're not seeing it from a George St. Pierre or someone like that. George is one of the very unique former champions who has all of his wits as faculties, retired as champion, very

healthy. Roy Jones. Roy Jones is a good example. Yeah. And Roy, you know, Roy famously after Gerald McClellan was hurt when the Nigel Ben fight, he was really concerned because Gerald McClellan was the guy that a lot of people thought was a giant threat to Roy. For a long period of time when Roy and I were working together, he was providing helpful

financial support to McClellan's sisters who were caring for Gerald and, you know, keeping them alive on a daily basis. I think in Illinois or Ohio, some place like that. But yeah, Roy loved all other fighters, and he did what he could to help with McClellan. I know that that loss that McClellan had and the subsequent medical issues, the stroke and the aneurysm, all that stuff really disturbed Roy

and made him think about getting out early. 100%, yeah. really disturbed Roy and made him think you know about getting out early. 100% yeah because Roy was nothing if not smart. Roy was brilliant okay and Roy very assertively fought in a style that would limit harm. He didn't want to get hurt. His gifts. I mean what guy, like who else in recent memory led with left hooks? There's heavyweight boxing and then there's weight class boxing. Ali is the unique physical specimen in heavyweight boxing. Roy is the unique physical specimen in weight class boxing. Right. So Marcel that he actually won the heavyweight title.

Well, exactly right. Whatever he wanted to do, if you put his mind to it, he could do that. And a part of the ongoing cliche was he could play any sport. He could be great in football, basketball, baseball, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, he did go through the theatrics of playing a basketball game on the same day that he fought a fight. Which was so crazy. It was. It was insane. It was so crazy. But was, it was insane. It was so crazy. But that was, his talent was insane. But it was also like he was just

showing people, he was kind of playing with his food. He's like, I'm going to play a basketball game and then go and easily win a fight, same night. It's interesting you use the phrase playing with his food. Yeah. And I like it. Roy liked to play with his food. It gets to a certain level. Sometimes you do things because you can. He knew what he could do. Right. So.

Yeah. I mean, his speed was so preposterous. When he would forego the jab to lead with left hooks, which was just so crazy. When he stood against the ropes in Miami against Glenn Kelly and put both hands behind his back and made Kelly miss and then hit him with one straight hand and knocked him out. That's Roy Jones. Oh, it was incredible. How about the Vinny Pazienza fight when he didn't get hit for the entire round? The only round in CompuBox history where someone never got hit.

It was crazy. And I was with Roy at the International Boxing Hall of Fame induction ceremony a few weeks ago, and we were talking about exactly that. We were talking about Pasey Yen, and I said, is he the guy that you shut out for a round? And he said, yeah. And I did it just because I wanted to do it.

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Hit up blackrifleco com slash Joe Rogan. Use the code Rogan. Get 30% off black rifle coffee. America's coffee. Yeah. Well, he was just so far above so many of the guys that he fought. They just had no business being in there that he had to create competition by doing stuff like that. He had to have fun. He had to play with his food. Well said. Yeah, no, he was spectacular. He was one of those guys that's a unique once in a lifetime talent that, unfortunately though,

his mistake was going up to heavyweight and then trying to go down to 175, which is unbelievably grueling. Because when he was 200 pounds at heavyweight he was 200 lean muscular fast pounds that was not like fat to lose and so to starve himself to get down to 175 like he was diminished and you saw that in the Tarver fight I'm not here to feather your nest but you're brilliant that's 100% correct.

And he lamented it afterward because he understood how he had penalized himself in that way. 25 pounds is so much weight to lose. Lean muscle mass. And you made the point, when it's muscle. If it's fat, you can go into the steam room and sweat it off. But once it's muscle, Yeah. It's there, you know, it's a part of the structure, it's a part of the building. Yeah. Now how are you gonna rip it out? You know. Not only that, it diminishes his endurance,

it diminishes durability, gets compromised because you can't take a punch as well because you've cut so much weight. It gets to his confidence. Yeah. And his confidence was unshakable. Right. You know. It was everything. Right. Like when you go into the fight fatigued, you're feeling fatigued. And then you've got a guy like Tarver who's infinitely talented and has legitimate knockout power and is talking shit to you. Right. Right before the fight. Got any excuses tonight Roy? Remember that? And then he knocks him out like holy shit. With a brilliant straight left hand against the ropes. I can see it in my mind. Yeah, and you know I just worked with Tarver a few weeks ago when you mentioned the Times Square card

Yeah, and Tarver was my expert commentator on the Times Square card so energetic. Yeah, Tarver's great So lively really good. Yeah, I I was thrilled I thought he was another guy that with his boxing skill went all the way up to heavyweight because he was just so much better than everybody else. Well, how many southpaw heavyweights? Right, very few, very few. Michael Moore. Yeah. Yeah, he was southpaw. But again, another-

Who won the championship. Yep, another light heavyweight who went up. And lost it to my man. George Foreman, one punch. Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, thus the title of my book. Thank you so much, George. You know the reason why my book is titled It Happened? Where I came up with It Happened? So he was the expert commentator in the weeks leading to his fight with Moorer.

He and I together had called Moorer against Holyfield when Moorer won the championship. And in the weeks before he fought Moorer, I would pull him aside at crew meals and fighter meetings and other occasions when I could get a minute with him. Three, four times I asked him, George, how are you going to beat Moorer? He's a southpaw, he's a mover, he has great feet, Holyfield couldn't find him, and Holyfield was much faster than you. And every time I said it, George would fix me with that implacable George Forman gaze and say, Jim, you watch. There will come a moment late in the fight, he will come and stand in front of me and let me

knock him out. Always the same words. He will come and stand in front of me and let me knock him out. Wow. So now as Moore is on the canvas and Joe Cortez is six, seven, eight, and I'm thinking, what am I going to say about this? How in the world do you establish this without being self-glorifying? You know, I've got to say something that's meaningful, but I want it to be about him. And I thought about what he had said to me. And what came out spontaneously was, it happened. It happened. It's really me talking to George, saying to him, okay, I get it. You told me it was gonna happen, and it happened. Well, do you remember when George came back and he was 300 pounds and everybody was laughing at him, and he was in his late 30s, I believe, was he 34, 35? Something like that. When he made his

comeback, he hadn't fought in 10 years everyone dismissed him like what is he doing? He was very overweight and he started the bum of the month tour Mm-hmm, you know I mean and and that that's not a fair way to say it They weren't bums, but they were people that he knew he could beat. Yes to build a dossier Toward what he really wanted and get in shape. Yep, and no one believed in him. No one. I remember me as a boxing fan watching that comeback being sad like, Oh, George Foreman's coming back and he's all fat. Now this is sad. Well, I'm sure you've known a lot of people like this, Joe. You want to see George do something, tell him he can't do it. Right. Challenge his will, you know, because he's self-constructed person. You're talking about

a guy who, as a teenager, 17 or 18 years old, says to himself, I want to get out of the fifth ward of Houston. I don't want this life as a gangster or a laborer or whatever I'm going to get by living in the fifth ward of Houston, I want something else. So he goes to the Job Corps in Hayward, California, and enrolls in the Job Corps. And that's where he learned to box. That's what set him up a year and a half later to win his Olympic gold medal in Mexico City. And then go on to his storied professional boxing career. But you know he was in his own mind proving he could do something that other people didn't think he could do even at that point. He told me that when he first got to Hayward he befriended one of the other people in the Job Corps, who was a white kid, and said,

you know, they're talking about things that they like, and the guy talks about Bob Dylan, how much he likes Bob Dylan. So George got the first two or three Bob Dylan albums, and listened, wanted to hear what this is all about, and absorbed the lyrics and paid attention and when George told me this story I said George you Bob Dylan you know how am I supposed to process all this and he began quoting the lyrics for me okay from blown in the wind from don't think twice it's alright it's better it's from early Bob Dylan songs yes he knew about hurricane yes so he was just an amazing person you know so broad-based you know and that was I think that was

part of what burned in him was that everybody myself included gave Ali credit for all that and George wanted wanted, in his own way, for people to see, hey, I'm not that different than that, you know? And I mean, one thing he said to me was, you can't win the heavyweight championship of the world without being smart, okay? A stupid person couldn't do this. It's true. Yeah. So he respected Moore's intelligence, but he also understood something that I didn't understand. He'll come and stand in front of me late in the fight and let me knock him out.

Crazy that he predicted it that way. Cause that's exactly how it played out. Oh yeah. Go to YouTube. I haven't seen it. It's uncanny. It really is. Giant Michael Moore fan when he was a light heavyweight. I think a lot of people forgot how dangerous he was at light heavyweight. He was one of the great light heavyweights. No question. Terrifying. Because of the southpaw punching power. The power at light heavyweight was true in UFC as it is in boxing, but you don't see southpaw punchers very often. Southpaws are technical. They box. They take advantage of their foot skills and their hand speed, and they beat you with boxing skills.

You're not often going to run into a southpaw that's going to knock you out. But we've already talked about Tarver, and Murura was another one who had punching power. And it's kind of Cooney. Cooney was a southpaw with punching power. It's kind of doubly effective if you've got that, because you're worried about the technicaloney was a southpaw with punching power it's kind of doubly effective if you've got that because you're worried about the technical issues with a southpaw and now he brings a cannon right right yeah the southpaw thing was always so confusing to people because if you ever boxed before you're so accustomed to that left hand being forward right and

all sudden everything's reversed and now you're thinking and if you don't have a lot of southpaws that you train with on a regular basis, things aren't automatic anymore. And one of the things that George used to talk to me about all the time was angles. That you're standing in front of another man, you're confronting him, you're trying to deliver and stop delivery, angles. It's all about where does it come from and where is it going and how can I deal with that. where does it come from and where is it going and how can I deal with that now I

was never a fighter so I can't empathize but I can sympathize when I listen to that well you can see it right and I think the greatest at angles of all time is Lomachenko nobody nobody the greatest footwork the greatest hand skills the the most effective training by his father. Yeah, what a genius move to take him out of boxing for two years to study Ukrainian dance. And brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And by the way, he had an effect on the national team for several years. And what culture in the world has had more accomplishments and

surprising new stars in boxing other than Ukraine. Right, and Usyk who is basically like moves like a giant Lomachenko just not quite as effective. That's a really great phrase that I had never conjured before this moment. Thank you Joe, a giant Lomachenko. That's exactly what he is. Yeah, you can is quite move that well when you're 220 pounds you're just dealing with gravity and mass but you're

still creating unique angles you're you're coming at them from unique approaches etc you're hard for your opponent to figure out and Usyk is impossible and for most of the heavyweights constant motion constant motion yeah constantly cutting off the ring with his feet and hammers you to the body as often as he can. Yeah. Lomachenko in his prime was just a magical thing to watch. It was like you were just watching poetry. And I had the privilege of calling those fights. It was an extreme privilege. Yeah. it was it was amazing watching him Just do something where you'd seen so many different versions of boxers and you watch him do it and you're like Oh my god, he put a new thing on this. That's why I can't understand at this moment I can't really figure out what's up with Teofilo Lopez. How do you right beat Vasily Lomachenko?

Right and then wind up, you up with somewhat indifferent results since that time. Yeah, the Kambosas fight was kind of shocking. Now, he fought better than the other guys in Times Square. He did. I give him credit for upholding the card. But still, there's nothing since the Lomachenko win. I mean, you lose to George Kambosas?

I think the Kambosas fight was, I think he was just a little overconfident and he got caught and then that really rocked him that really shocked him. He got dropped early in the fight. Remember that. It's a bad sport to be overconfident in it. It's the worst sport. Whether you're talking UFC or boxing. Yeah. Any combat sport when you don't appreciate the potential that your opponent has to do damage. combat sport when you don't appreciate the potential that your opponent has to do damage. Well I used to say to people all the time these are fine margins of competition. You think you see a lot of wipeouts in boxing because you see a second round knockout or third round knockout and you think that means there's a huge talent gap between the two fighters. No it means one fighter made a mistake. Right. Okay. 90% of the time it means one fighter made a mistake

and if he thinks about it and trains against it he won't make that mistake again. Well like the perfect examples Juan Memo Marquez vs Pacquiao. 100% They have three insane fights that are very close. Marquez lands one bomb and starches Pacquiao. This one error he got a little overconfident, a little little too... greatest counterpuncher of his era. And power. Yeah, and with with power, with the straight-ahead power from the shoulder. Marcus was a gifted fighter. Very gifted, but just like that one moment, like if

that had happened in the first fight, we would look at the whole thing very differently. 100%. Yeah. This is like the margins, as you're saying, are so small for victory that when you see like a spectacular result, you do automatically assume, oh, that person's just that much better. But sometimes it's just one error. It's a moment in time. If it's a knockout, now if somebody gets knocked down six times, then you're talking about something different. One knockdown that leads to a ten count, that was a momentary mistake.

And that's, again, that goes to the fine margins of competition. You can't make the one mistake. Right. And then, you know, it's also how do you bounce back from that? Like some people, the one moment, even if just a knock down, they don't have the capacity to correct and stay safe and then regroup. Like they get shook and then now they're fighting from this position, this defensive position where they're a little bit gun shy. So Mark has exposed the difficulties that Pacquiao could have against a great counter

puncher. And now we get ready for Mayweather Pacquiao. Right. Mayweather just did such a smart thing, but also a devious thing. Waiting until Pacquiao was older, waiting until he slowed down, and then... Devious is not illegal in boxing. It's encouraged. Yeah.

In any entrepreneurial sport, devious is not illegal in boxing. It's encouraged. Yeah, in any entrepreneurial sport, Devious is not illegal. Devious can be an asset. That's how you retire with a 50-mil record. I give Floyd credit for brilliance, okay? Floyd wasn't just a smart fighter. Floyd was a brilliant fighter. He was on his own level. And so much so, you know, in any matchup between the great counterpuncher and the great attacker you know that the counterpuncher has the advantage he's got more options he's got more ways of winning the attacker has to break through the wall so to speak so in the years before mayweather pacquiao

people would run up to me on the street run up to me in the shopping center in vegas run up to me in a hotel when am i going to see Mayweather Pacquiao? And I would say, well, we don't know but what exactly is it you think you're going to see? Oh, I can't wait, it's going to be such a great fight. No, it's not going to be a great fight. It's going to be watching, like watching somebody pluck the legs off a spider, alright? You know, at a step-by-step method. And you're going to watch Mayweather pluck the legs off the spider, that is Pacquiao, and it's going to be pretty easy for him, and it's not going to be wildly entertaining,

but it is going to be a one-sided victory. So why are you so excited about the Pacquiao? Oh no no I don't think that's the case da da da da da but if you knew Floyd you know Floyd was only about winning the fight he'll make fans other way on the web I call him the first great social media genius yeah he was great at talking shit he got everybody upset at him so badly that they wanted to see him lose and that would sell tons of pay-per-views. He realized you could build an audience with negativity. Yes. You didn't have to be an omnibus character. You didn't have to be somebody everybody loved. You whole thing he knew what he was doing he definitely did a look and it was it would have been an interesting fight had he fought Pacquiao when he was younger in his prime it would have been a very different would have been a more interesting

fight much more different because because any go-forward physical warrior like Pacquiao is going to wear down right and any brilliant counterpuncher like Floyd is going to retain more yeah Right. And any brilliant counterpuncher like Floyd is going to retain more. Yeah. So he did. Yeah, it would have been much more interesting when they were younger. Also the fact that Pacquiao fought him with a bum shoulder. That was a disaster too. Money talks. Yeah. I mean, look, I guess he was faced with this thing legacy or I mean, it was the biggest pay-per-view of all time in boxing, correct? I believe so. I believe so. And I think it was like four million buys or something crazy like that. It was of all time in boxing, correct? I believe so. I believe so.

And I think it was like four million buys or something crazy like that. It was huge. So like what is that? It was massive. Yeah, just lured Pacquiao into it. All those people who had run up to me on the street corners for years finally got the chance to see what they wanted to see. Yeah, give them a cortisone shot, throw them out there.

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A lot of the gamblers. I never talked to Freddie about that, but you know, at the end of the day, the fighter makes the decision. Well, the money. Yeah. And the money. And the money, yeah. That happens a lot in the UFC.

There's a lot of fighters that fight injured. And you know. I've got to tell you this while we're talking about him all right I apologize for going off script here a little bit. I was with Manny three weeks ago less than a month ago at the Hall of Fame Inductions in Canastota New York where he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame and on the night before the induction ceremony, there's a big banquet in a banquet hall at the Turning Stone Casino, and I'm sitting up on the dais between Roy and Ross Greenberg, my former boss at HBO, and right across to the left of us behind the podium is Manny.

And several people spoke. I didn't know that I was gonna speak I was asked to get up and speak I did Roy did a speech etc etc eventually Manny got up and made a speech now I met Manny Pacquiao 24 years ago in a fighter meeting room in Las Vegas before his fight against Leshonola Lidwaba which was his first appearance in the United States. What weight class was that? He was a kind of a throw-in opponent. What weight class was that?

So that would have been 122. Isn't that nuts? And Larry and I were 100% convinced that Ledwaba was the best 122 pound fighter in the world. We had seen him on the undercard of Louis Rachman in Johannesburg, South Africa. There's nobody who could possibly be better than that. Grace, style, hand skills, all the stuff. And I meet Manny in that room. He can't put three or four words of English together. I learn his back story, that he survived by selling stolen cigarettes on the streets of General Santos City in the Philippines. I get and understand that his big activity outside of the gym is to go play pool. He's a pool player in bar rooms,

exactly. Professional level pool player, etc. All of that. And then fast forward 24 years and he's being inducted at the Hall of Fame. And without warning he's asked to speak that night and he stands up and makes a 15 minute speech, maybe 12 minutes, but it was more than 10. All in English, all perfect. All more or less off the top of his head, unedited. It was brilliant. And I went to him afterward, hugged him, told him how much I loved him, and I said, I said, Manny, I first met you 24 years ago when you couldn't put three words of English together, and I know that politics had

something to do with this and he said yes but a lot of my political speeches were in Tagalog and I said well some of them were in English he said yes some and I said I don't think there's any sport other than boxing where somebody could have achieved the kind of personal transformation that you have achieved. This is the only one. And he said well it sure helped me, that's for sure. Now you probably know the story about Muhammad Ali and graduating from high school in Louisville. Yes. Okay so just for our listeners and consumers, Ali had very bad grades, and in his senior year, he was flunking a math course, and in order to graduate, he had to pass the math course,

and he was nowhere near it. And the math teacher went to the principal of the high school and said, I'm gonna give him a passing grade, even though he has not performed on any of the tests school and said I'm gonna give him a passing grade even though he has not performed on any of the tests and he doesn't do the homework and stuff like that and the principal is like why would you do this for for this kid why would you give him a passing grade when he hasn't earned it and the teacher said you have to understand he's going to be the most famous man in the world and we cannot be the high school that denied a diploma to the most famous man in the world. And we cannot be the high school that denied a diploma to the most famous man in the world. That's such a crazy statement.

I wonder if it's true. I wonder if it's true too, but it seems like it's a fun story to tell. And of course, it's secondhand. You're exactly right. It is. It's so good. I don't know the teacher and I don't know the principal. I just know the story. And I know Ali's primary biographer, Tom Houser. So maybe I got it from Tom.

Yeah, I'd like to believe that that's true. I'd like to believe it's true, too. It makes it more fun. Let's make a pact to believe it's true. The thing about Pacquiao that's so extraordinary is that he kept his power through eight weight classes. That is just wild. What other fighter can you name that went through eight different weight classes as a world champion? I can't. None.

No, obviously. What I did learn that may relate to that is Foreman was at great pains to explain to me and explained a couple of times that power punching is not a physical gift. Power punching is a science. Power punching is the product of real technical knowledge. Power punching is about footwork, weight shift, the angle at which you deliver the punch, you know, all sorts of things not directly related to your strength or quote power. And George was a disciplined and knowledgeable scientist about stuff like that and he explained it all to me one time and of course if you watch the Moorer knockout, he lands

the first one too, right on the button, and then having Moorer where he wants him, he puts a little more mustard on the second one too, and we're out of there. But there are physical gifts that you are just, they're just God-given gifts of power. Big hands, big hands, big hands are shoulders. Yeah. Yeah. All that. There's just certain guys though that just have extraordinary power. Like you remember Julian Jackson in his prime. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Extraordinary power. At some moment or another he's gonna get you.

Yeah, it was just disturbing how hard he hit. It was just different than everybody else and it looked like he was doing the same thing but the results were so much different. How about Andy Lee? Skinny? is different than everybody else and it looked like he was doing the same thing but the results were so much different. How about Andy Lee? Skinny, not somebody you would expect to have, you know, heavy hands, knocking everybody out with a left hand. How about Deontay Wilder?

Yeah, another one. A 209 pound heavyweight that's flattening people. I have 209 pounds when he fights Tyson Fury the first time. Some of it is the bravery to commit. Right. You know, can you can you push your weight forward in a way that might leave you open to the counter and and believe that you're gonna get the better of that exchange. If you believe you're gonna get the better of the exchange, go ahead, go forward and and that enhances your chance of knocking someone out. But there is there's physical gifts that you are just god-given

And some people have them and these are the extraordinary outliers the diante wilders the julian jacksons The uh john mugabes remember mugabi John the beast mugabee. Oh, I rewatched that mugabi haggler fight the other day in the gym. What a great fight What a great fight. What a great fight. What a fight. What a fight. Hagler was my hero when I was a kid. So you're probably, so I'm sure you're an advocate with regard to what I call the number

one elevator fight of all time. Thomas Hearns. That Hagler was the winner. Which one? No, the number one elevator fight of all time, and an elevator fight is the fight where you're Jim Lampley or you're Joe Rogan or you're any combat sports expert, etc., and you step onto an elevator with six people and somebody turns around and says, who won Leonard Hagler? Okay?

Oh, okay. The debate about the decision, you know? And I'm sure you say Hagler beat Ray. And of course, we all know that Ray partially won the judges and the crowd with showbiz, with the way that he threw his arms up at the end of every round and called attention to himself. And he was quite aware of what he was doing and he was quite aware also that it would get under Hagler's skin.

There was an element of genius in Ray as we talked about already that went to more than just his spectacular physical gifts. Right yeah no he he gamed the system a little bit he figured out how to flurry at the end of the rounds and make a big impression in the judge's eyes. That was a very close fight, but that fight always bothered me. And one of the things that bothered me is I felt like there were moments where Hagler could have turned it up and didn't.

And then when he retired after that fight and went to Italy and became a giant movie star in Italy the conspiratorial part of my brain was always like one of those deals Where everybody assumed that Hager was gonna win Hager was a destroyer Hagler had knocked out Tommy Hearns Hagler had beaten everybody in the division knocked out Mugabe He was he was the man, you know? You fought, right? Yeah.

So you fought, I didn't. I mean, I've only talked. But because you fought, you probably have an even stronger sense than I do of how difficult the sport is. Yes. The training is difficult. The fear factor is certainly part of it. The level of concentration and devotion that it takes,

it's not easy. Team sports are easier. And so, you know, I'm thinking that every fighter reaches a point where enough. And they might reach that point without really cognitively knowing that they've reached that point where it's enough. Hagler went to Italy, as you say. Yeah. Maybe he had already reached something like enough before he fought Rey in that fight. Well, you know, he had accomplished so much and also his training camps were the stuff of legend. I mean, he would spar a hundred rounds a week sometimes, which is just insane. Hagler was a monster. I mean, his conditioning and his drive and his will and his discipline, he was a monster.

He would scare the shit out of everybody just from his work ethic. I remember I told the story, there was a news piece when he was training on the Cape, and it was in the middle of the winter, and he was fighting Mustafa Hamsho, and he was running down the sand dunes screaming war, with combat boots on in the winter. And I remember thinking,

pow, war, war. Because you think you're disciplined, you think you're driven, you think you're driven, you think you're special, and then you see a guy like that, he's like, he's what my friend David Goggins calls uncommon amongst uncommon men. Great line. So where does Hagler-Herns rank among your all-time favorites? One of the greatest of all time. One of the greatest fights of all time. Because Hagler just threw caution to the wind. Fuck all this boxing. Just jumped out.

So did Tommy. So did Tommy. Both of them did. Tommy didn't go in with a self-protective approach. Well, he tried to box. Remember after he broke his hand, he tried just throwing the jab out there. You could tell early on in the first round when he broke his hand. Yes. Because from then on, he's moving, but he's already endured so much damage. I mean, they have just thrown each other into the woodchipper. Both guys were just blasting away.

I hope a lot of people are going to listen to this and go watch Hagler-Herns on their web attachment. They have to. Because it's as great as anything has ever been. It was insane. I remember being in my living room when when Hearns went down and just wow like you can't believe this was after Hearns had knocked out Duran and I thought nobody could knock out Duran. When Hearns flatlined Duran I was like good lord good lord like to see Duran face down on the canvas is like yeah to check your eyes like is this real? well did Tommy break his hand with that right hand in the first round

Against Hagler yes. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. There you go. You lost her. You've lost your primary weapon He has one knockdown attributed to him in his career and it's bullshit the one roll down fight Mm-hmm bullshit not a really a knockdown and now we deal with Canelo who has had one knockdown Not really a knockdown. And now we deal with Canelo, who has had one knockdown attributed to him in his career, and in my view it was bullshit. Which fight was that? So it was Miguel Cotto's little brother, Jose Cotto. It was the first time we had Canelo on HBO.

Believe it was an undercard of a top-ranked pay-per-view. I'm not 100% certain about that. And Cotto's little brother, Jose, caught Canelo with a right-hand body punch to the chest, and Canelo hit the ropes behind him and bounced off the ropes kind of unbalanced. He didn't go down, but he came off the ropes ungainly, unbalanced, etc. And the referee, and I can't remember which referee, stepped in and very technically ruled that the ropes had held him up. So that's the only official knockdown in Canelo's career, and he didn't touch the canvas.

That's crazy. Nobody has ever put him on the canvas. And this is part of what Terrence is facing as he gets ready to fight him in September is you're you're fighting a guy who up to this moment in his career has been utterly knockout proof. Knockdown proof. Well even against a guy like Bivol who's huge. Yeah exactly. A huge light heavyweight. Yeah but Bivol is I'm gonna say at least 50-50 a backup counterpuncher and they don't muster exactly the same power as a go

forward attacker. True. You know you notice that he hasn't fought Better BF and I'm not sure that Better BF would be the right matchup. But for Canelo. Yeah. I think that would be a nightmare matchup. Yeah, Better Be Up especially even though he's almost 40 now, right? Is he 40? He might be 40. He might be 40 but but he's still in shape and he still comes forward and he's a you know naturally heavy hands. Big hitter. One of the scariest of all time at 175. He's another one of those guys. It's just like but with him it's volume. It's not one shot, but it's this thudding volume that never ends. This constant attack.

Which is what has made his two fights with Bevole so spectacular to watch, you know, because Bevole is not a make fire fighter. He's a natural counterpuncher. But if you insist on making the fire and you're strong enough to make the fire, then Bevole has to fight, which he's done twice against Baderbiev. Well, he made brilliant adjustments in the second fight. Brilliant. He's a brilliant guy. Yeah. I mean, he really, really made the proper adjustments and the counter strikes and the

movement, and he was just much better in the second fight. It's another country with very good boxing training. Oh, phenomenal. Do you think that they're, are they having a rubber match? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah I'm not I don't talk to promoters anymore so yeah I'm not sure about that. I hope they do. Yeah. I think it's a fantastic idea. I think Riyadh season was trying to put that together. I think they're trying to put together a third fight and I really hope they do make that fight go turkey Yeah, you kind of have to do it now before better be of is just he's probably passed his point 42 etc. These numbers sound forbidding. Yes, but even though you don't remember

Foreman was 45 right? What did he still have power? Right? Okay And but in skill the skill thing like here's the best example of that, Bernard Hopkins, who has maintained their skill deep into their 40s. In fact, at a world-class level at 49 years old, beating like top contenders at 49 years old. One of the smartest men I've ever met, okay. Bernard Hopkins is smart beyond smart. He has PhD-type intelligence. He really does. And he was also a very critical and thoughtful self-examiner. So those two things helped Bernard to sustain long into antiquity and an extremely disciplined personal life. Yes, that's the big one.

He kept his prison tattoo on his arm, and he kept that number on his arm to remind him that he was never going to go back. And I asked him one time, I said, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? And he said, well, the hardest thing I've ever done was to walk off nine in the neighborhood in which I grew up. I said, what do you mean walk off nine? Nine years of probation. Nine years of living on and in the same streets

where I was the king of the streets when I was on the other side of the law. Nine years of reminding myself that I could never go back, that my behavior had to change completely. That's what he called walking off nine. Wow. What a phrase, huh? Yeah, what a phrase. What a guy. Yeah. Really, what a guy. Well, I remember when he was middleweight champion and he wasn't getting the credit that he felt like he deserved and he was you know Squabbling with promoters they kept him on the shelf. I'm like my god

He's like wasting away in the prime of his life And I felt like we're gonna like miss out on the prime of his life And then here he gets into the Felix Trinidad fight and I was like this guy's it gets into the Felix Trinidad fight. And I was like, this guy's, this is crazy, watching this guy like completely outclass Tito Trinidad. I'm like, this is nuts. Of all the fighters I've ever known, if you were to ask me,

who is the one most likely to still be holding every dollar he ever made? That's Bernard, okay? He gives nothing away. And he protects himself, he protects his family, he protects everything about his experience in an extremely devoted way. Why?

Walking off nine. Wow. Never wants to go back. Wow. Well those are the stories that are so inspiring about boxing, right? The people that have used boxing as a vehicle to get out of their circumstances.

Totally. Yeah, and Bernard's one of the greatest examples imaginable. I love him. I had him on my show, The Fight Game, on HBO. I had him do technical pieces because he was better than anybody at explaining footwork, technique, et cetera. Andre Ward could have done it, too But Andre was still fighting at that period of time

Mmm. Yeah, that was a great show man. That was another bummer when when HBO stopped doing boxing Well, look, I mean I say for them. I like to say this it wasn't HBO Okay, the minute that time Warner was bought by a bunch of cell phone salesmen from Dallas AT&T the character of the operation changed and the first thing that went away was boxing it's in my book you'll read it there's an anecdote about me at a post Emmy Awards or post Golden Globe Awards event in Hollywood shortly after AT&T had purchased HBO. And I was seated at the table of Richard Plepler, the longtime brilliant chairman of HBO, my

beloved boss. And Plepler said, see that guy over there in the gray suit? And I said, yeah. He said, that guy over there in the gray suit and I said yeah he said that's your new boss that's John Stanky the CEO of AT&T I think you ought to go say hello I think you ought to go meet him and just spend a little time with him so I took his advice so went over and had a 10 minute discussion with Stanky, very nice, very cordial, fun, and I walked back to Plepler's table and he said, so what do you think? I said, I think boxing is dead. He said, I agree with you. I just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page.

Oh God. Yeah. So it was clear. It was clear from that moment that they were not interested in going forward with something as... Why did you think boxing was dead? Why'd you say that? Well, I mean I could just tell from the way in which he spoke to me and the... Oh, so you weren't saying it based on your personal opinion. The diffident replies to questions like are we gonna do this fight? You know, what do you think about that? Stuff like that. It was abundantly clear that they just they saw it as a negative rather than a positive. And public perception or profitability?

Profitability. Really? Too many unpredictables in boxing. You schedule a show, somebody gets hurt, etc. I think they didn't want that kind of real life upheaval and also they saw it as unsavory or at least it felt that way to me. This goes to the fact, and you know this as well as I do or maybe better, people from outside combat sports don't understand combat sports. You're either in the culture and you get it or you're not.

When I first started calling fights, I was assigned to call boxing at ABC Sports by an incoming new president of the sports department who wanted to get rid of me and who thought that I would be such a misfit in boxing that if he assigned me to boxing the audience would reject me. Really? They would see me as the successor to Cosell. That would cut my throat. And then I would walk away from my contract, which is what he wanted me to do. He wanted me to, he thought my contract was absurd, too

lucrative, he didn't like the guarantees for relative to exposure, and he told my agent, flat out, he said I'm gonna get rid of Jim, I'm gonna make him walk away. And his first method for doing it was boxing. So of course that means he didn't know that the very first sports event my mother ever sat me down to watch when I was six years old after my father died when I was five was Sugar Ray Robinson versus Bobo Olson for the middleweight championship on Gillette Friday Night Fights that I had grown up all through my childhood and teenage years watching Gillette Friday Night Fights and later people would say to me who's the voice

in the back of your mind when you're calling fights is it cosel i said oh hell no i would never try to emulate that don dunphy chris precise factual on point that's who i'm hearing in the back of my head when i uh when i call fights interesting yeah so he he thought he could get rid of me by assigning me to boxing and he also did not seem to be paying much attention to the fact that his division with leadership of a guy named Alex Wallow who was a boxing freak had just signed a get acquainted look-see contract with a 19 year old heavyweight from upstate New York whose name was Mike Tyson. So the first fight I ever called on TV was Mike Tyson versus Jesse Ferguson in Glens Falls, New York. And this is the famous

drive his nose bone into his brain fight. Alex went to do post fight interview after Tyson had obliterated Jesse's nose with an uppercut. There was blood all over the ring and and Alex said you know Mike tell me about the uppercut and Mike said got them out of taught me that the purpose of the uppercut is to drive the opponent's nose bone into his brain. I was trying to drive his nose bone into his brain and I'm standing on the other side of the ring listening to this headset on and I thought to myself oh my my god, look at what I've stumbled into here. This kid is not only going to be the biggest attraction

in boxing, he's going to be the biggest attraction in American culture if he can keep coming up with quotes like that. And of course within the next few weeks they all started spilling out, boxing is a hurt business, everybody's got a plan until you hit them. All the things that DeMato had taught him, which he memorized and then reproduced in his media contacts. One of my favorite TV fights was him versus Marvis Frazier because it was such a terrifying execution. I'm giving away too much of the book, Joe. I mean, my publisher would say, wait, don't tell them the whole book. Come on, people are going to buy it

anyway. Don't worry about that. So, Alex Wallow and I lived five blocks apart on Upper Fifth Avenue in New York. And when we went to upstate New York for the Tyson fights, of which there were several, we would always ride up in his green Jaguar and he knew the route. He would drive, play me his esoteric rock music. You ever heard of Cock Robin? Try him out sometime. And so all the way up to Albany for the Marvis Frazier fight. Alex is saying to me, you know, I'm thinking of saying in the opening on camera that Mike will knock him out in the first round. Do you think that's too audacious? And I said, well Alex, you're the expert. You know, I'm just a throw-in blow-by-blow guy who's trying to get my feet wet here.

I'm the last person who's going to tell you what it is you should say. So if you believe Mike is going to knock him out in the first round and you're confident saying that, first of all, no one's going to penalize you on Monday if you're wrong. Nobody's going to print some big headline that says Wallow was crazy or something like that. It goes into the wash at that point. And second of all, if you're right, you will get credit for it. If you're right, Rudy Martzke will say so in USA Today. And so that's our position

for two-thirds of the trip to Albany. And now in the last, oh, 40 or 50 miles, he starts saying, what if I said he's going to knock him out in the first minute? Do you think that's too brave? Same thing, Alex, if you believe he's gonna knock him out in the first minute, go ahead and say he's gonna knock him out in the first minute. I'm not here to control you or tell you what to say. Say whatever you want to say. I think I'm gonna say that he's gonna knock him out in the first minute. So the following day we do rehearsal for the opening on camera and he says he'll knock him out in the first minute. So the following day we do rehearsal for the opening on camera and he says he'll knock him out in the first minute. Then when we do the live opening

on camera for the show, he gets a little more cautious and he pulls it back to, there you are, that's Jim Lampley. Look at you. Hair ported on the right, we'll get to that in a moment. He pulls it back and when we do it live on camera, he says, Mike will knock him out in the first round. Was it 33 seconds or 31 seconds? Yeah. I think it was 33 seconds. And all the way back to New York, he is moaning and groaning, why in God's name didn't I say what I really believed? That's funny. Alex, you said he'd knock him out in the first round. And you had Groning, why in God's name didn't I say what I really believed?

Like Alex, Alex you said he'd knock him out in the first round. And you were right. You're going to get credit for that. You were right. Yeah, but I could have gotten more credit if I'd said what I really believed. That's such a silly perspective. We talk about fighters freezing. Marvis froze on Saturday, I mean on Friday, the day before the fight.

Marvis was frozen. Well, we knew, we knew coming into that fight, we knew. It was a perfect fight for Mike to showcase because Marvis had the giant name because he was Joe Frazier's son, and Joe Frazier had been trash-talking Mike. It helped to create what ultimately became the myth of Mike Tyson, the notion that he was going to knock everybody out in that way. It's partially because of stuff like that, that Douglas is a 42 to one underdog in Tokyo.

Yes, yes. When if you looked at the record for the preceding year, year and a half coming into Tokyo, Mike went the distance with James Bonecrusher Smith. Mike went the distance with Tony Tucker. Mike went the distance with James Bonecrusher Smith. Mike went the distance with Tony Tucker. Mike went the distance with James Quick Tillis. There were scorers at ringside in upstate New York who had Tillis as the winner in the fight. He went to the last 10 seconds with Jose Ribalta. He went the distance with Mitch Blood Green. What did they all have in common? They were all taller

than Mike. Some of them have a right hand that would come over the top where he would have difficulty seeing the delivery. And when you get to Douglas, best athlete of the group, former college basketball player with good feet, had a big right hand. I mean, looking back, pure logic, no way in the world Mike should be a 42 to 1 favorite against Buster Douglas. But Buster Douglas had underperformed most of his career and had not been motivated, then his mother dies. That's correct. 100% correct and you're right on point for saying it at this moment.

Yeah, his mother died and then... And that lit him up. Lit him up and never again. And Mike was at the height of his differences with Robin Givens. Right, right. Constant turmoil and partying and feeling invincible. Nothing that can do more damage to a good man than the wrong woman, right? Yeah.

And she was the wrong woman. She was the wrong woman, period. Yeah. Right? And she was the wrong woman. She's the wrong woman, period. Yeah, that was... There's certain women out there like that, they could tank your life, yeah, and unfortunately... O.J. used to say to me, if you want to know what the daughter's going to be like, look at the mother. And if you looked at her mother and the background relative to Dave Winfield and all of that, maybe you could have predicted. Or, as Merchant said in our on camera prior to the Tubbs-Tokyo fight, Tyson versus Tubbs

in Tokyo, first fight I ever did on HBO, Larry had a line before the fight where he said this is the beginning of the Robin thing Cuss had died Jimmy Jacobs had died no cuss hadn't died Jimmy Jacobs at any rate With Kevin, he was already out. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Larry said since the beginning of organized boxing heavyweight champions have often consorted with actresses and never to their benefit. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I love him. That was one of the best things about you and Merchant and just the entire commentary team at HBO was that you had these intelligent, articulate people involved in what many people

think of as the most barbaric of all sports. So it defined it in a very different way. That's the HBO way. Elevate it. Yes, yes. It certainly was elevated. in a very different way. That's the HBO way. Yeah. Elevate it. Yes. It certainly was elevated. And HBO's executives were smart enough to see that you can treat it as an intellectual

event. Yes. And if you're doing it right, you'll get away with it. But it has to be with the commentators. It frames everything. The same exact event with crude commentators is not the same experience because you don't get that intelligent and articulate analysis and a guy like Larry Merchant who'd been around boxing for his entire life and had a deep understanding of it and you and then it's even the funny back-and-forth banter between Larry and

George Foreman when they would disagree on things. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant and I'm very proud to say, not blowing my own horn, but Larry and George in particular, there's a sports television columnist in the New York Daily News named Bob Raisman, R-A-I-S-S-M-A-N, and at some point in that arc, Raisman wrote in his TV sports column in the Daily News, Lampley, Merchant and Foreman are the greatest three-man broadcasting team in the history of sports television. Now think about that. That's amazing.

This is not Monday Night Football. This is HBO Boxing. Right. Yeah. And so he was saying in effect, this is better than Gifford, Meredith and Cosell. Wow. Uh, and you know, I was, I was very, very flattered by that, you know, which I should have been. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. Having a great team like that. And then it was also,

there was the flow where you guys had worked together so often. And, and there was the between rounds stuff. What set Showtime and HBO apart from ABC, CBS and NBC? No commercials. Right. And no commercials means you get one of the most meaningful and communicative parts of the narrative, which is what goes on in the corner between rounds. So you're watching Tyson Douglas, for instance, and you see these two novice

trainers struggling with a condom filled with water to try to do something to ease the swelling in his eye. No inswell. Unbelievable. I remember Ray, Ray nearly fell off his chair when he saw that. It's just so hard to believe that you could achieve the highest level of combat sports, the heavyweight champion of the world, and yet have this really rank amateur corner. There was so much that was taken for granted about Mike during that stage of his career. so much that was taken for granted about Mike during that stage of his career. The only person in that camp, once D'Amato died, the only person, and Jimmy died, the only person in that camp who was really aware of how vulnerable he could be was Mike. Mike was a boxing genius.

Mike knew much more than those guys about how to prepare for a fight etc etc but again before Tokyo he was distracted yeah he was distracted and just it comes with success all the trappings I mean he was just constantly you know you know Mike right yeah yeah have you had him in here? Oh a couple times yeah. One of the most lovable people in the world. I love him to death yeah he's great. You can't not love Mike Have you had him in here? Oh a couple times. Yeah. One of the most lovable people in the world. I love him to death. Yeah, he's great. You can't not love Mike. No. If you know him. No, if you know him, I mean the first time I met him

It's it's hard to believe he's really in the room. You're like, I can't believe he's real. Well, he's right there. This is Mike Tyson. Yeah. Me as a child, I remember when I was a kid, I guess I wasn't a child I'm only a year younger than him, but when he lost to Buster Douglas, I didn't watch it until after the fight. I watched a replay of it and I still expected him to win. You know how crazy that is? That's the kind of aura that Mike Tyson had. So you've read in the paper and on the web that he's lost, but you're still expecting him to win.

I remember I heard about it in a gas station. Someone told me in a gas station. I can't believe this is true. I was getting gas and I heard, did you hear Mike Tyson got knocked out? And I remember pumping gas and what the fuck are you talking about? Like what? Like Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson. What? For real? So we talked about the call of Forman Mura and where that call came from. The other call that is on that same level in terms of you know people remembering and stuff like that is that call and you just came very close to

identically articulating what my call was because you know I'm watching the rounds in Tokyo and I've arrived in Tokyo with Firm opinion that Mike is gonna knock this guy out in one two three rounds something like that And as the rounds go on and you're watching the debacle unfold the you know water in the rubber glove to try to stop the swelling and stuff like that you realize that the in the rubber glove to try to stop the swelling and stuff like that, you realize that the preparation might not be all there, and Douglas is getting more confident, and Douglas is landing his jab, etc., etc. And hooking off the jab. And hooking off the jab, and I mean, people think that he knocked him out with the right hand,

it was the left hook that did the damage. The left hook was thunderous and Mike stumbled to his side and then, but at any rate I'm sitting there in Tokyo. It's 1030 or 11 o'clock in the morning. There are 34,000 people seated around me making no noise whatsoever. Right. The culture of a Japanese sports event. It's as though they are at an opera, you know, and that's just cultural. It's the way they are. And as that count is rising, five, six, seven, and it's abundantly clear that Mike's not gonna get up, and I'm thinking, oh my god, what am I gonna say about this? The very first live fight I ever attended was the biggest upset in boxing history. And now, here in

front of me, 12-14 feet away, is the result that's going to supplant that as the biggest upset in boxing history. So what do I say? And I've told this story many times. If you've heard it, I apologize for repeating. But I was developing a golf relationship with the greatest actor of my generation, Jack Nicholson, who became a close friend and later saved my career. But that's another story. And I had asked Jack on the golf course

about two or three weeks before Tokyo. Said, Jack, when you're going to the set to deliver the fulcrum line in the movie, when you're going to the set to do the one thing that everybody in the audience is going to remember, when you're getting ready to go deliver you can't handle the truth. What is it you have on your mind? What's your mantra? He said lamp same thing I've been saying to myself ever since I first went to acting class, don't overact. So I'm in Tokyo, the count

reaches four or five, and I hear in the back of my mind Jack's voice, don't overact. And that call became, Mike Tyson has been knocked out in about that tone of voice I wanted to make it as matter of fact as possible because there was nothing I could do to elevate it by screaming or shouting or delivering any kind of window dressing etc. It was what it was right Mike Tyson has been knocked out that was that I remember that yeah now That was that. I remember that. Yeah. Now that you said it, I remember that Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It was so energetic. But matter of fact Well, there it is

All right, so I did shout a little bit. I did shout it a little bit. I give myself too much credit for the matter of fact. But that of course was, that's my younger voice. It was a little bit higher. Octavio Moran was the name of the referee. I just remember Buster Douglas winning that fight thinking, man, what happens to him now? Now he's the king of the world. Well, what happens to him, of course, is that he goes on a celebration rampage. He puts on, oh, I don't know, 40, 50 pounds, something like that. He tries to train them off, but not

effectively enough. He goes into the ring against Holyfield, and Holyfield delivers one left hook. One perfect counter left hook in the first round and we're out of there. Yeah. That's what it was. It was a left hook. I thought it was a right hand. Might have been a right hand. I don't remember. I could be wrong. See if you can find it. Might have been a right hand. They'll find it.

Yeah, Jamie will find it. But yeah, he just never reached those heights again. That was it. He just never... Money. Yeah, I mean also like the... Money. Money. Food. Food. He got real fat. Yeah. He was an addictive eater. Here it is.

Okay, let's see. Counter right. Right hand, you're right. Yeah. Then there was a left hook following, but the right hand is the one that did it. I don't think the left hook landed. I think the left hook missed. Yeah, the left hook missed. You're right.

Yeah. All right, so one for Rogan, zero for left hook. Yeah, I think the left hook missed. Yeah, the left hook missed. You're right. All right, so one for Rogan, zero for left hook. Yeah, I think the left hook missed. Yeah, I think the left hook following but the right hand is the one that did it. I think the left hook missed. Yeah the left hook missed. You're right. All right so one for Rogan, zero for Lampling. It's cemented in my mind because I remember... what year was that? Well it's 1990 when Buster knocks out Mike. Was it? Yeah. 90. No. No. It had to be earlier than that. Huh? No it was. It was 90. Was it? It was February 10, 1990. Wow. February 10 in the United States, February 11 in Tokyo. Okay right and so this is probably 91 then? Then he... It might have been 90. Yeah. I think it was later in 1990 yeah I

just remember that you know when when someone does something extraordinary and rise to the occasion I always root on them I always root for them like wow he's gonna turn his life around he's gonna be great so now you're rooting for Buster to beat oh yeah well and also I was a giant Holyfield fan too so it was one of those conflicted fights and Holyfield to me was extraordinary because what he did with Mackie Shilstone in his training October 25, 1990. There it is. Nice.

This time I was right. Yeah. It was one of those things where Holyfield was one of the first guys that really embraced weightlifting. And I remember as a young fighter, I was always told, if you lift weights, it'll slow you down. Weights make you stiff, weights will slow you down, you should never lift weights. And so I listened to that and I never lifted weights.

And then I remember watching Holyfield train for his heavyweight debut thinking, God, I remember his fight with Dwight Muhammad Kauawi, remember that fight? Incredible fight. When he was a cruiserweight, I was thinking, how is this guy gonna go up to heavyweight? How is this gonna work? And then- Strong mind. Oh yes.

Very strong mind. Unquestionably. You wanna see Evander do something? Tell him he can't do it. Oh for sure, yeah. But also, one of the first applications of real modern science in regards to strength and conditioning. Yep.

What Mackie Shilstone was doing was like very revolutionary. And to see him do all these crazy strength and cardio routines and putting all that mass on and seeing all the doubters and naysayers. So which other fighter looked at that and realized who Mackie was? Bernard Hopkins. Right. Genius. He worked with quite a few fighters, didn't he Mackie? fighter looked at that and realized who Mackey was, Bernard Hopkins. Right. Genius. He worked with quite a few fighters, didn't he, Mackey?

I believe Mackey worked with quite a few fighters after that whole thing. Oh yeah, he worked with quite a few fighters. I mean, everybody saw that the results were there, so everybody kind of changed their opinion on that kind of stuff. Did he work with any MMA guys? I don't know. I don't... Probably.

There's probably a few. It makes sense. Yeah. I mean, MMA guys are led. I mean this is with MMA You have the grappling aspect of it with without strength and conditioning. You really can't compete It's not really possible at this day and age Everyone uses strength and conditioning. There's very few fighters that just train using skill Just just train skills like George George St. Pierre did that for a certain period of his career I wonder if there's anybody left in boxing who who trains just using the gym skills just to train skills like George George St. Pierre did that for a certain period of his career.

I wonder if there's anybody left in boxing who trains just using the gym skills. There were a lot of them when I was first involved in the sport who would never have touched a weight. Right. You know they oh yeah they subscribe totally to the notion that that was negative. Right and the worst case I mean they definitely did calisthenics but that was it. It was just bodyweight exercises. Which brings us to Crawford, which I think is really interesting.

The Crawford Canelo fight. Beyond interesting. Fascinating. Fascinating. Because how does Crawford compete with that size? And we have to recognize, okay, well, when Canelo fought Floyd, it was 152 pounds, right? So he had dropped down, which was a struggle for him, which is why Floyd was so brilliant in getting him to go down to 152, because he knew he would be drained.

Is it 52 or 54? Well, the weight class, I believe, was 54, but I believe the clause in the contract for that fight was that he get down to 52. You're ahead of me. Let's see if that's true. Find out if that's true. I'm pretty sure that that's true, that they had a fight at one time. I love fact checking on the fly's see if that's true. Find out if that's true. I'm pretty sure that that's true that they had a fight at one time.

I love fact checking on the fly. Yeah, it's interesting. That was a struggle. The 54 was a struggle. Now Canelo goes all the way up to 68 and then even to 75 and now back down to 68, whereas Crawford is leapfrogging. He goes to he's going 47 to 54 and now to 68 and the Madra fight in 54 is iffy Difficult fight. Yeah, difficult fight 152 52. Yeah, wait Joe Rogan scores again. Yeah. Well, I have a goofy memory It works a lot of the time, but sometimes not Sometimes it's like I don't think you can do this podcast without having a spectacular memory. Sometimes it's super accurate and sometimes it's just terrible. I don't understand why. But certain things I do remember, and I do remember it because of the weight cutting

thing because I remember thinking, like, what a brilliant move to get him to do that. The same thing that Gervonta Davis did with Ryan Garcia. Yes. Like, you can't read hydrate right like which is like no reiteration for soccer bet that's such a soccer bat you know that it's like the same thing with pacquiao taking the fight with a little and some of that don't you think some of that is tank reading the ryan's personality and playing him

a little bit oh yeah yeah you're fucking with him. Yeah, you're giving him other things to think about. Tank is a brilliant con artist. Oh, he's so good. He's so good and boy that Lamont Roach fight. Ooh. Well that was a knockdown. Ooh, a hundred percent was a knockdown.

And that's a dramatic mistake by the referee. Without that you have a decision victory for Roach and he's a superstar now you have this fucking draw yeah that they have to fight again but now Gervonta knows what's coming they had fought in the amateurs correct? They both have knowledge now you know Roach knows that his counterpunching can be effective against Tank and Tank knows that he has to make an adjustment if he's gonna land a power shot. Well it's also Tank is another guy that has experienced all the trappings of fame, all the success and the money and all the jewelry and all the craziness and the ladies. And Roach hasn't.

And Roach has not. And Roach is a hungry motherfucker who can really fight. He can really fight. And he should have got his flowers after that fight. And a lot of the boxing people recognize like that was that was a knockdown But forever in history books, it's not a knockdown When you take a punch to the face and then you take a knee that is a fucking knockdown period end-of-story I don't care if you got your hair fucking perm. It's like a literary

idiosyncrasy, okay, and both of our sports, boxing and MMA, are littered throughout their history with these things that are egregiously unfair at the moment, but also prompt us to remember the fight and remember both fighters. If you're a fighter who has been victimized by a severe injustice in one of your fights, the audience is going to remember you sympathetically and be more interested in your next fight. So this is an entertainment enterprise and anything that contributes to your legend is ultimately going to pay you back somewhere down the road. Yes, that's true. There's definitely something to that. And then so Lamont will have a lot of

fans on his side going through that. Oh big time. Yeah, in fact I would put the fight in DC. Although I don't think Tank would want to do that. Is that fight scheduled? Not to my knowledge. Not to my awareness. Gervonta Davis. I'm totally focused on Canelo Alvarez and Terrence Crawford at this particular moment. Are you calling that fight? No. At least, wait a minute. Let me say, I don't know.

You don't know. I don't know. There was a news conference in New York yesterday and they announced that Max Kellerman is part of the broadcast team. So that's only one person they've announced. This is an- Obviously I'd love to call the fight, but I don't know yet. August 16th scheduled for August 16 in Las Vegas. Wow, boy, I might go to that. I might go to that. Maybe I'll go with you. Maybe we should. That would be fun. Hey, we're getting along really well here aren't we? Oh yeah, for sure.

Yeah, so I enjoy the conversation. It would be fun to go sit at a live fight, wouldn't it? Oh no, is that a UFC weekend? God damn it. Let me check real quick. As it might be. Yup. Shit. UFC in Chicago. Shit. Alright, I'll call you later that night and let you know. I'll watch it. I'll have it on my phone. I'll set my phone up and have it there while the fight's going on. All right, looking forward to it. So who do you like in Cannella versus Crawford? Well, I'm a giant Crawford fan because I think he's the best switch hitter since Marvin Agler. I'm a giant Crawford fan because I called his coming out fight against Bray to Sprescott and then various other stepping stones throughout his career. I also think he's one of those guys that

if you tell him he can't do something he wants to show you in shock. Thousand percent absolutely right. I also think Canelo is slowing down and Canelo is a more of a one-punch fighter now than the combination fighter he was when he was younger. We'll see. Not yet ready to subscribe totally to that because again you're talking about somebody who is stubborn and who wants to prove everything he can prove. 100%. I agree with that too.

But I think there's like in boxing and certainly in MMA there's a certain amount of years where a fighter can keep the RPMs up and you know when they're in the red line and I there's some people subscribe to the idea of nine years there's Nine years is the most that a elite fighter in MMA has performed at their prime I think that's a bullshit number because I think it's entirely dependent upon lifestyle nutrition Discipline physical attributes. There's a lot of factors George Foreman won the heavyweight championship of the world in boxing at age 45. True, but he took 10 years off.

Yes, that's exactly right. So 10 complete years off, so you have to factor in. But were the 10 years off good or bad? Well. Did they dull his reflexes, or did they actually allow his body to recover in such a way that, I mean, you could debate that all night. All night, and George is biologically very unusual.

I mean, he had canned hams for fists. They were gigantic fists. And intellectually unusual as we discussed before. Yes. And boy, you know, one of my favorite all-time heavyweight wars was him and Ron Lyle. That was one of his all-time favorite heavyweight wars. Yeah, he loved to reminisce about the Lyle fight. God, that fight was crazy. Every fighter loves drama, and they love having been a part of drama. So George loved that. That was an insane fight. Insane.

All the knockdowns, both guys rocked and hurt. And Ron Lyle's another one of those guys who just kind of lost in the history books. People sort of forgot, except for that fight. You know, there's a few of those guys that like people just kind of ever forgotten. They attached them to one fight. Yeah, because they didn't ever have that shining moment again in their career. Yeah, cruel game. What a cruel game. You know, Ali, Ali and Cleveland Williams. Sure. Same thing. Right. Right. Cleveland Williams is a murderer. He was nasty knockout puncher.

Absolutely. But Ali just boxed his face off and put him away. That's exactly right. Big cat. Yeah. That was the one that caused a lot of people to realize, oh, Cassius Clay is a really legitimate, meaningful talent. Yeah. And that's on the way to the first Liston fight. Yeah, and that's on the way to the first Liston fight. Mm-hmm. Yeah Special it was a special fight. The first Liston fight was crazy It was crazy and also the crazy thing was there was something probably on Liston's gloves, right? Yes, God and Cassius there was unquestionably something on Liston's gloves and Cassius at one point Asked Dundee to cut his gloves off. That's right. Because he was blinded.

So I think it's the fifth round where he ran and had to stay away because he was waiting for his eyes to clear. Yeah, yeah. And then by the seventh round, he knocks Liston down and Liston effectively quits. What a dirty business to put something on your gloves to get in someone's eyes when you punch them.

So crazy. What a dirty business to load someone's gloves with what amounts to cement and send them in to fight Miguel Cotto in a pay-per-view in Las Vegas. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, they put holes in the gloves, removed some of the stuffing stuffing and watered it down and then he also did something to his hand wraps as well right? He was hitting

Kodo with bricks yeah that's all I know for sure and he and he could have killed him. Kodo went through a life-threatening experience and I always you know don't fall in love with a fighter you could not know Miguel without falling in love with him he was was a wonderful, sweet, great person. So I was very, very deeply disturbed and upset and sentimental calling that fight that night. Not because I knew that Margarita's gloves were loaded. I didn't. I just knew that Miguel was getting beat. We didn't know until the Shane Mosley fight. That's exactly right.

Right. Shane Mosley's thinking. And I remember walking away from Vegas with a bad feeling after the Cotto fight. How could that happen to Miguel, et cetera, et cetera? And then it's, I don't know, several weeks later, maybe three months later when we're in LA getting ready for the Mosley versus Margaritofight, and I hear in my headset, there's a disturbance in Margarito's dressing room, they're making him take his gloves off and da da da da da.

And at that moment it all comes together. Yeah, that was a handwraps thing. I'm conflating these two stories in my mind with Louis Resto and Billy Collins. 05.30 Pete Slauson Plaster of Paris. 05.30 Pete Slauson Yes. So, Louis Resto was with Panama Lewis. 05.30

Pete Slauson Yes. 05.30 Pete Slauson With Panama Lewis who famously gave that drink to Aaron Pryor. 05.30 05.30 Pete Slauson Yes. 05.30 05.30

Pete Slauson Yes. Get me the one that I fixed. And then Aaron Pryor goes out and knocks out Alexis Arguello, which is alleged to have been cocaine. A lot of people think it was cocaine because Aaron then went to famously have a cocaine problem. Right. But the Luis Resto... I don't see how cocaine could help you in a fight. I really... It's a stimulant. It's a stimulant. Yeah I guess you're right. It's a stimulant. Yeah if you're exhausted and all sudden you get a bump and you fired up and you go out there and fuck him up you could help you. Certainly if you're tired. all of a sudden you get a bump and you fire it up and you go out there and fuck him up, you could help you. Certainly if you're tired.

Yeah, 100% it would help. I've never done cocaine, but I'm just guessing. It ruins a lot of other things, that's all. Oh yeah, it does, but in that moment, I guess, you know, in that moment, especially if you're a person who imbibes and you've had a history of cocaine, and then what does it do? It boosts up confidence and it's a stimulant I would have met in that Alexis Arguello fight whoa phenomenal oh my goodness phenomenal and he was you know again another great person yeah another really I didn't know Aaron all

that well but Alexis was lovable in every way. Wasn't he murdered? He was a politician in Nicaragua, right? I think he was. Was he murdered? Yeah. Yeah. Nicaragua. Yeah, man. So I was conflating those... So with Margarito, I think it was just the raps, where they had put Plaster Paris in

his raps. But Billy Collins Jr. and Louis Resto was a fight where Billy Collins was this up and coming fighter and he fought Louis Resto and Louis Resto was like Breaking his face open with every punch and there are photos that you can find on the web of columns that show that yes And so resto then when the fight was over Billy Collins dad grabs Resto's gloves realize there's no padding in. Right. And then Billy Collins' career is over and he winds up drinking himself to death. Actually drove into a tree. Yeah. So we don't know whether that was suicide or not. We don't know. No. You know, the guys, he couldn't see after that fight.

It's a great story. His eyes were fucked. I hope everybody who is listening to this will go to the web and pick up some of these things because you are touching on a lot of the most meaningful and poignant stories. Yeah. Yeah. There's the photo right there of Billy and there's his dad in the photo. Crazy.

Just crazy. I mean, his vision was fucked for the rest of his life for as long as he lived after that. Never fought again. And everyone was so confused because they couldn't believe that this guy, Louis Resto, was not known as being this big puncher, was just busting him up with every shot he landed. It was confusing. It's a dirty business, man.

And Panama Lewis, he did some corner work with Mike Tyson as well. Remember? And Panama Lewis was, he did some corner work with Mike Tyson as well. Remember like later in Mike's career when everything was kind of chaotic and he had all those wackadoos in his corner, Panama Lewis was like on the sidelines there, but wasn't able to be officially a part of it because he was still banned. Well you know, Mike by late in his career had a very clear understanding of his vulnerabilities. Now Mike was a boxing scientist. He knew better than anybody that styles make fights, and that there were certain stylistic

matchups which for him would be difficult. He had spent a week training with Lennox Lewis when they were 14 years old. Because Lewis' Arnie Bem, his amateur trainer, had brought Lennox from the Toronto area to Canistota, I mean not to Canistota, but to upstate New York, to the Catskills. And Mike and Lennox spent much of a week, maybe all of a week, watching old black and white bite films on the wall, sleeping in the same room, training and sometimes sparring every day. And so Mike had known Lennox for a long, long time, by the time they met June 8, 2002 in in Memphis. And I don't know that he would subscribe exactly to me saying he knew what was coming, but I think he had a pretty good idea. And you'll recall

that at the first news conference he ran across the stage and bit Lennox on the leg. Yeah, he went crazy. Lennox claimed that he drew blood through the pants leg. And my interpretation of that at the time was he wants to get the fight canceled. He wants to get this fight wiped away. Well, you got to think this is also 12 years after the Buster Douglas loss. Yes. It's a long time in boxing. Long time and a lot of trials and tribulations. Prison! Yep. You know, I mean you might, maybe you get a little chance to train in prison, but not the way you train in a boxing gym. So he paid a lot of prices for a lot of experiences. Lennox throws a right hand. I'm not sure he Here it is.

Lennox throws a right hand. I'm not sure he landed that right hand. Might have broken his hand if he'd landed it on Tyson's jaw. Crazy. That's the hard part about bare knuckles boxing, right? Oh yeah, they break their hands all the time. You know why gloves emerged? Gloves emerged because John L. Sullivan got tired of breaking his hands. Really?

Yeah, he was a big proponent of behind the scenes of going to gloves and then of course in the first gloved prize-fighting heavyweight championship fight he loses to Corbett because Corbett was a boxing scientist. And back then they probably had terrible medical treatment for broken hands like would they do? I don't know. But they didn't have the kind of surgery that they have. Certainly not the sophisticated surgeries that take place now.

If there were any surgeries at all. Yeah, they probably got tired of breaking his hands. Along comes this idea, this phenomenon of gloves. Yeah, absolutely. Let's do that. Wow. And then he loses to Corbett. Wow.

I was watching a piece yesterday about, it was a YouTube video on Sugar Ray Robinson and his training and the type of training that Sugar Ray would do and how phenomenal his dedication was. And if you think about a guy that like when he had his first loss, how many fights had he won? 120. You know how crazy that is? Yeah. Stop and think about it. I sort of have a sense of it. Yeah. Stop and think about how insane that is. Did you ever drink in Jimmy Glenn's bar in New York? No. Jimmy's Corner? Oh, that's too bad. Jimmy Glenn was a

Glenn's bar in New York? No. Jimmy's Corner? Oh that's too bad. Jimmy Glenn was a really great well-known corner man who worked with Robinson, worked with Joe Lewis, worked with a lot of really big-name fighters, and he had a bar on 44th between 6th and 7th. It's still to this day, I think his son is running it now, I hope he still is, the ultimate boxing bar, the photographs on the wall. Oh, there we are. Oh, what a cool little home. Jimmy's corner. Yeah.

What a great spot. Between sixth and seventh. There's Jimmy. There's Jimmy down to the left. Is it still there? Is it gone? Uh, the bar I think is still there. Jimmy's gone.

Uh, what a wonderful, wonderful, loving man. Um, he was like an uncle to me because I spent so much time in the bar and just his stories were fantastic because of the people with whom he worked. Wow. Wow. That's awesome. You gotta go sometime. I would love to. I'd love to go sometime. Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the first guys also that showed how effective being a great dancer. My mother's favorite fighter. Really? Yeah, and I told

you that the first fight she ever sat me down to watch was Sugar Ray Robinson versus Bobo Olson. Right, right. And the last thing she said before she left the room and left me in front of a little TV set on a TV dinner tray was Sugar Ray Robinson's my favorite fighter because he dances while he fights. Wow, and he did. And he did. He did. He, you know, that was the thing about his training, you know, this video that I was watching was so interesting to watch someone who's really just ahead of the curve, like above everybody. Like no one really understood how to move like that. And then of course Cassius Clay, his favorite fighter,

Sugar Ray Robinson. 100%. And so he's like a heavyweight version of Sugar Ray Robinson. So what's the greatest asset for any fighter? Is it his punching powers, is it his hand speed, is it his footwork, or is it his intelligence? It's the mind.

It's the mind. But it's the willingness to accept what you need to accept and to see what you can do. Right. That's what makes for great fighters. And also the ability to objectively analyze your skills and recognize where you need to advance. Right. What you need to do differently. Because you have a trainer to help you with that. Yeah. Yeah. But you don't have coaches per se the way you do in organized team sports and stuff like that. At the end of the day, you're the one.

You've got to figure this out. And you can have an idea of what's effective, but until you see someone come along and do something totally different, that's where the innovators come in, where the real ground breakers come in. I bet before Sugar Ray Robinson, nobody like you had Willie Pepp right you've mentioned what I think of as the modern supreme innovator earlier Vasily Lomachenko yeah yeah he recreated you know our approach to the sport well you see a lot of that now in MMA. You see a lot of footwork and movement and switching stances.

It's like a fighter that can't switch stances in MMA is kind of archaic because you... I think we'll reach that point in boxing too. Right. I think eventually as time goes by. Well Hagler was an example of one of the first guys to be a switch hitter that people sort of dismissed. So you just... Earlier we talked about Canneelo versus Crawford. Yes. Do you think

Terrence Crawford can beat Canelo Alvarez? Yeah I think he can win. Okay. I don't know if he's going to win but I think he can win. So I asked. He's going to have to he's going to have to box a brilliant fight. Okay what kind of a fight? I'm gonna get to that. I asked the great Larry Merchant, 94 years old, living on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica, looking out at the ocean, reflecting on all the amazing things he did, and I asked Larry, I said, do you think Terence Crawford has a chance to beat Canelo Alvarez? And Larry said, Jim, did Ray Leonard get an official decision victory over

Marvelous Marvin Hagler? And I said, yes, he did. He said, well, if Ray Leonard could beat Marvelous Marvin Hagler, then Terrence Crawford can beat Canelo Alvarez. And I said, why do you say that? He said, same equation in get out get in get out over and over and over He's got to figure the angles and the approaches that will allow him to step in land to the body or Occasionally upstairs and then get out. Yeah before he's facing any damage, right? That's what Ray did so effectively against Hagler and it frustrated Hagler And the more you frustrate the opponent the better off you are Yeah, Canelo has such unique skills and one of the weird things that he does at very few people since Rocky Marciano

Does is he punches your arms? Yes. He brutalizes your arms. He's another brilliant guy He has the greatest punch resistance in the sport You know, we talked about it earlier one knock knockout in the whole career. Knockdown. And it wasn't a knockdown. And it wasn't really a knockdown in my personal view. So, he didn't touch the canvas. He's never been on the canvas. And we call it chin. And I think that we kind of missed the point by calling it chin, because I used to be Canelo's neighbor in Del Mar, California. I used to run into Chepo, his senior trainer at the grocery store. I'd look into the cart and say, oh, he's eating tuna.

He said yes, and he's eating chicken, da da da. And so I also used to go down the hill from my house off of Via della Valle in Del Mar and watch him train at the equestrian center where he would go to the equestrian center in the morning and do two and a half hours of hunter jumper riding before going to his gym in the afternoon to do three and a half hours of boxing training. Hunter jumper riding? What is that? Hunter jumper is where you go over jumps and you... On the horse? Yeah, on the horse.

Yeah. Why the fuck would you do that when you're training for a fight? What if the horse falls? Because he was riding horses since he was a little kid. He was skilled enough to do it. You control the height of the jumps. You set the jumps at 36 inches or 40 inches. You know what the horse can do. It's all about staying on the horse. And I asked him, you know, how can you do that? And he said, everything I do in boxing is upper body and everything I do on the horse is lower body. And on that basis, I am the one who theorizes that the reason you can't knock him down is not because of his chin, it's because of his legs. His base.

You can't get him off balance. He's too strong from the waist down. How crazy is that? And if other fighters would pay attention to what Canelo does they might go do a little horseback riding. I wasn't even aware of that until you brought that up that's extraordinary. There he is with his horses. Wow that completely makes sense if you think about it squeezing with the lower legs the core strength. 100% correct the balance balance the timing all of it yeah I trained hunter jumper for a couple years in the really early 90s trying to

please a wife who was a horse freak okay and I had a really great trainer at the stables over next to Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Fabulous trainer named Jonathan Cerace. Hey John, if you hear me. And I trained for, I don't know, I want to say three quarters of a year riding a hunter jumper. And I got to the point where I was jumping 36, 38 inch jumps and I was riding quality horses. And I was doing pretty well. And one day after my training session I was in the stall,

combing the horse down, brushing, do the things, the busy work that you're supposed to do to be a part of it. And Jonathan came in and said, how do you feel about your writing? I said, I think I'm doing pretty well, don't you? He said, I think you're doing really well. He said, but I think that this would probably be a great day for you to quit. I said, quit? What are you talking about? You just said, I'm doing pretty well. He said, well, you're doing pretty well because you love to do the fun stuff. You love the jumping and you love the riding around the ring fast, etc., etc., but you don't want to do the busy work. You don't want to do what we call sitting trot and the other things that help you to

build your awareness and your command of What you do and the result is that you're getting closer and closer to the stage at which? Something negative is going to happen and the first time something negative happens. You're not going to be able to respond to it So I think today would be a great day for you to quit. Whoa Wild right. Did you listen to him? I quit. I went home and thought about it and I thought, he's right. But wouldn't positive, constructive advice being if you enjoy this, there's some other

stuff that you need to do. Well, I mean, he did say, look, I'm perfectly happy to keep training you if you will come and do the busy work that I need you to do to 20 to 30 minutes before you go out and jump. But if you just want to come here, sit on the saddle and run and jump, you're asking for trouble and I'm not going to be part of it. Wow. Because of course, if you fall off, and I saw this one a couple of times, if you fall off, the horse can stomp you. You get a hoof on the chest or a hoof on the neck. And you're in the hospital and you're in big trouble.

If you're lucky. I saw it happen to a woman in the ring, a really good rider. So at the end of the day, you can't do that. Yeah, there he is. Look at Canelo. Wow. Now that is, that's a skill he has charried since his early childhood. That's crazy. You can't knock him down. That makes so much sense. Also he's got a square head. Yeah, he's got a great small head. No, he's got a great structure. But he's also got a brilliant mind.

Yeah. Oh, clearly. Give credit where credit is due. No doubt. No doubt. I mean, just the evolution and the three fights with Triple G. Triple G was one of my all-time favorites. If you can fight Triple G and never be badly hurt.

Right. That's a great point. That's astonishing. Triple G never badly hurt him. Yeah. And he was destroying everybody else you put in his path. Everybody. Yeah, everybody. One of the heaviest punchers I ever saw.

And he would do weird stuff, like throw a left hook over the top and hit the top of your head. He would throw a left hook like that, like a looping overhand left. Which, by the way, is very much like the shot that Douglas landed against Tyson in the 10th round, over the top with the left hand. Yeah, but the way triple G would do it, it would be going down on you. Right down on you. It's weird. Yeah, it was a weird punch and he would hit you in the forehead, which is like or the tempo, which is where a lot of people lose their equilibrium. Well, whatever they do in Kazakhstan,

it might be different from what they do in the United States. No, he was special. He was very special. Another guy, we got to talk about Julio Cesar Chavez, who's also one of my all-time favorites. Julio Cesar Chavez, in his prime, he would just systematically break people down, and the volume, the constant attack and volume. like constant attack and volume. His volume was the real key because his power shots did not look like hellacious power shots. His left hook didn't look all that devastating. It wasn't a one punch guy. But it would hurt you.

Over time, he would break you down. Like the Magic Tailor fight. And then we go to the Tailor fight. What is it, two seconds before the final bell that the fight gets stopped? Yes. Larry Hazard stops it and everybody wants to kill him? No, not Larry Hazard.

It wasn't? No, it was Richard Steele. That's right, Richard Steele. That's right. Okay, so you corrected me on one earlier and now I got you. That was Richard Steele. And he took a tremendous amount of grief for that. And I think he deserved the grief.

I thought it was a very bad stoppage. You had an unbeaten American Olympic star who's on the verge of his career-defining victory. There's no question at this moment that he has won the fight. When he stands up and Steele is counting, watch how he gets distracted when Luduva steps up on the ring apron and when he looks away from Steel, Steel uses that as his pretext to stop the fight with two seconds left, all right? Giving Chavez a victory that he did not deserve. Right. If, if, if Duba had not stepped up on the apron and, and distracted Meldrick in such

a way that Meldrick looked away from steel then i think that steel would have caught a lot more heat and wouldn't have had any uh... valid pretext for stopping the fight what if that had been the eighth round would you be okay with it fight goes on no i mean i'd well if that had been the eighth round no no, I still wouldn't be okay.

So it's, but is it dependent? It's the first knockdown. It's not as if you knocked him down three or four times. Right. Meljer could win the fight. Yeah, no, it's all, it's interesting, right, the subjective calls of stoppages by referees. Yeah. Things get very weird.

It's one of the toughest things. It's one of the toughest things. Good stoppage, bad stoppage, et cetera, et cetera. It's one of the toughest things. It's one of the toughest things. Good stoppage, bad stoppage, etc. etc. It's one of the toughest things and and I disciplined myself to be very very careful about ever criticizing a referee in the moment. I'm not sure that I criticized Richard that night, but I'll tell you one thing, this is in some ways part of the proof of the pudding. Las Vegas boxing fans and Las Vegas boxing crowds are knowledgeable, right? They've seen more of the sport than other people. They know what they're watching. Richard was never again introduced in Las Vegas before a fight without the crowd

booing. He was subjected to boos every time he was introduced, which shows you that a majority of the fans in that particular boxing capital agree with me that it was a bad stoppage. Imagine what that did to his psyche. Every time you go out there, you have the whole crowd. I think he wound up committing suicide. Steele? Yes.

Those boos might have had something to do with that. That's what I was going to say. Did Richard Steele commit suicide? I think he did. That's a great fact to check because I don't know. I think he did and you gotta imagine the kind of depression that would come just knowing that you altered the course of boxing history. With that one momentary decision. Yes, yes. Yeah, so Chavez is avenged in certain ways. Deloya beat him twice. There's one where he didn't, where he won but he shouldn't have won,

Pranelle Whitaker. Yeah, that's right. Who's another genius. Yes. One of the greatest defensive boxers of all time. Like certainly in the Chinese certainly in the top five Yes genius and and I remember that decision being called and I was like What the fuck is this that that one was nuts Oscar was Oscar, you know And and he had a glamour image that was difficult to deal with at that time, you know, so was difficult to deal with at that time. So that kind of thing was part of the reason that my dear friend Fernando Vargas was in some ways jealous of Oscar. What other fighter would get a decision over Purnell Whitaker in that circumstance?

But wasn't it Chavez? Didn't Chavez have a decision win over Purnell Whitaker as well? Sure. That's the one that I'm talking about. That's the one you're talking about. Yeah. I thought you were talking about De La Hoya versus Whitaker. So is that Whitaker as well? Sure. That's the one that I'm talking about. That's the one you're talking about. I thought you were talking about Del Oye versus Whitaker. So is that one similar as well? I don't really recall that one as much. Oscar gets a decision win over Whitaker on a night when Larry and a lot of other experts thought that Whitaker deserved the decision.

Well Whitaker was like underappreciated because it was so defensively brilliant. Well sure. I mean, yeah. He knocked a lot of guys out as well. The great defenders never get as much credit as the, I mean, Hopkins. Hopkins had to become a media star late in his career to really get credit for what he had done. Yeah. When you look back at your career and all the fights

that you called, and think about the beginnings, and think about when they were trying to just get you out of the business and by giving you boxing. It's almost like, it's very much a storybook tale. Oh yeah, it really is. But part of the reason for using it happened as the title of the book is that there are so many circumstances in my career which are like that counterintuitive somebody wanted to do something with me that turns in the other direction etc etc that was not

the first time that that that kind of thing had happened to me the you know my whole career begins when I win a talent hunt in 1974 to become one of the first two people ever to stand on the sideline of a college football game with a camera and a microphone. What is a talent hunt? How does that work? So first of all, this emerges from the Munich massacre, all right? This emerges from the 9, 10, 11 days of captivity of the American athletes, excuse me, the Israeli athletes by Black September terrorists in Munich. And during that period

of time, ABC is of course the broadcast organizer for the United States, and during that time, two reporters, Howard Cosell and Peter Jennings, are pushing the control room. How can we get more information? How can we get sound out of the dorm room? How can we get pictures from some adjoining building through the windows, etc., etc.? And in trying to service the needs of those two reporters, Jennings and Cosell, ABC Sports learned things about radio frequency cameras and microphones, wireless cameras and microphones, that they had not known before. So they came back to New York and they convened a meeting, this is after the 72 Olympics,

they convened a meeting among the sports division the news division and the engineering division to figure out okay now that we know these things now that we've learned what we learned in Munich what can we do with it and one of the first ideas that gets adopted is we can put a reporter on the sideline of a football game so in 19 in 1974 Runeone Arledge's chief administrative assistant, a guy named Dick Ebersole, who later became a constant and meaningful factor in my career, Dick Ebersole takes two lieutenants out to conduct a search at 16 different college campuses and they

talked to a total of 432 college-age or extremely close to college-age candidates for this job. I am at first harvested out because I'm number 34 out of 36 on a 97-degree day in Birmingham, Alabama. I have driven overnight from Chapel Hill to get there. I'm wearing my best discount plaid suit. I look ridiculous in a pair of shoes I bought with two and a half inch heels,

so they'll make me look taller. And I go into the room and have the screening interview, and the screening interview is 12 minutes, and before, and when we all have to draw numbers out of a fishbowl to determine in what order the interviews are going to take place, and I'm number 34 out of 36. So I know I'm going to have to sit around in the Parliament House hotel lobby for hours in Birmingham waiting to go in, and by the time I go in I'm grinding my teeth. And the first thing one of the other guys in the room, Terry Jastrow, says to me is, what do you think of our idea here? What do you think of what we're trying to do? And I couldn't resist. I said, I think it's the biggest quack of crap I ever heard in my life.

And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you tell us that you're going around the country to interview 432 people for 8 to 10 minutes each. And on that basis, you're going to choose what you describe as the face and voice of the American college student. He said, yeah, I said, I rest my case. I think this is ridiculous load of crap and I'm embarrassed that I drove from Chapel Hill overnight to be a part of this. Later, much later, I was shown the evaluation form on which Ebersole had written, arrogant, abrasive, alienated, antagonistic. When I was finally chosen as one of the two people, that became known in the college football production truck as the Forays. Every time I would bitch about something,

every time I would get up strepars about something and raise my voice a little bit, there it is, the four A's, arrogant, abrasive, alienated, antagonistic. But the bottom line was through a long and highly unusual process, I was the person who was chosen. Now, what was ridiculous about it? The most ridiculous thing about it, which I've never really revealed until this year, the book, Media Appearances, this, the most prominent media appearance with your 19 million followers, was that Runeology was still the dictatorial and canonized president of ABC Sports, and I, when I was under 11 years old, maybe 10 or 11, 12, living in Hendersonville, North Carolina, had asked my mother while watching Wide

World of Sports one day, is this guy, Roon Arledge, is he related to the Arlages who live around the corner from us? Yes, he's their son. So I grew up around the corner from Arlages' parents. I caddied for both his mother and father at the Hendersonville Golf and Country Club. And when I was finally the person chosen, counterintuitively because I was 25 instead of 22, and because I had already done a lot of sports broadcasting, this person was supposed to be completely fresh. When I get chosen, I meet Rune in the restroom at 1336 Avenue in New York, and, hi Rune, I'm Jim Lampley, oh great to meet you, etc., etc. And as he's going out of the restroom, I say, by the way, how's your dad? And he turns around, quizzical expression, says, why would you ask a question like that? I said, well I guess nobody told you because probably nobody could have known, but I'm from

Hendersonville originally and I've caddied for both your mom and dad. In fact, my mother's in the same bridge club with your mother. The famous red face turned white and he said, don't ever tell anybody that never ever reveal that to anyone so of course now it can be revealed and why would he want that revealed that they had chosen out of 432 candidates the one who grew up around the street from his parents he didn't know well but yeah he could say he didn't know and somebody might kick back. At any rate, his first instinct was to say, don't ever tell anybody that. A long time has passed. Rune

has passed. There are sideline reporters everywhere now. So, you know, I can very easily reveal and let you know that they accidentally chose. The other accident was they had already installed a guy from Stanford named Don Tollefson. And they knew that Tollefson was going to be chosen. He was in the first batch of 16 people they talked to. His credentials were unbelievable. And so they were dead set in their minds on choosing Don Tollefson all along. And now they were two, three weeks away from the first game. Four weeks away from the first game. It was August 8th, and the first game was September 7th. And August 8th, 1974, I'm at a rented beach house in Swan Corner, North Carolina with a friend of mine named Buck Goldstein and his wife, my wife Linda and I are there, and the phone on

the wall rings. And to this day I don't know how Ebersole got that phone number because the house was rented in the name of Buck Goldstein. So Buck picks up the phone, hello, yeah he's right here, Jim it's Dick Ebersole." I was, huh? What is this? Hello. And Dick says, you know, I'm so glad I found you. We are getting ready to announce the college-age reporter thing, and we think we've settled on one person, but Rune is a little concerned about putting on the air somebody who has never had any on-air experience at all, and within that discussion that brought us back to you. Would you be willing to go to Birmingham, Alabama and do a film, in those days 16mm

film, do a film audition for us? And I said, what do you want me to do in Birmingham? He said, well, there's a quarterback there named George Myra. He's now with the Birmingham Americans of, I think it was the World Football League. He's already been busted out of the NFL, the AFL, Canada. This is his last shot as a pro football quarterback and we think it's an interesting story and we want you to go interview him. So of course they

didn't know that I had watched George Moura play all three years of his college career at the University of Miami. He was a huge childhood hero of mine. I had once hitched a ride in his very dull beige Ford Falcon going to pick up basketball on the campus of the University of Miami. I knew more about George Myer than probably some members of his family did. I still had a number 10 green and orange George Myer jersey in my closet in Chapel Hill. So they think they're putting me on the spot here to send me to interview George Myra and I'm gonna have to do a quick research job with no web in those days to find out what I need to ask this guy and I know more about George Myra

than people in his family. So I go down to Birmingham, I'm laughing about it. I do the interview, I go through all these things in his college career and stuff like that, his 49ers experience, and send the film off to New York. And about a week before the first game, I get a call and he said, you're gonna be on the sideline. You're gonna be, we're gonna have

two college football reporters. You're gonna be on one sideline, Don Tollefson will be on the other. Rune feels a lot better about this because he can see that you have on-camera performance skills and understand what you're doing. Wow. What are the odds that they pick that player? The odds are astronomical. So crazy. The odds are beyond all belief. They could choose any story in the world they wanted me to do as an audition. They choose my childhood hero. It kind of almost makes you feel like it's meant to be. Correct. There's no other way to describe it other than this was supposed to happen. Yeah well I think you're the best ever so if that

that's how it had to play out that's how it had to play out. And that's how it played out. Jamie, the Richard Steele thing? Did he kill? Did he commit suicide? Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, Richard. Somebody else committed suicide. Well, I mean, did Larry Hazard commit suicide? Richard's dead. Larry Hazard's still around, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Larry Hazard is a athletic commissioner right now. New York State. Mitch Halpern. Mitch Halpern. Or New Jersey, excuse me, New Jersey, not New York. Oh, Mitch Halpern committed suicide.

Mitch Halpern committed suicide. Oh, that's right. All right, so what is Mitch Halpern's marker? Oh, I covered it. There was a fight. Yeah, I covered it. It was one of mine. I can't remember right off the top of my head, but yes.

There was a very controversial fight, right? Yeah. A similar type situation. Similar type thing. Something that stains your reputation going forward. My apologies to Richard Steele. I'm sorry. Halprin is, I believe, H-A-L-P-R-I-N. R-H-A-L-P-E-R-I-N. Pete Slauson Hmm. What was the big controversial fight? Pete Slauson Can't remember right now. I saw Rich Alpern referee a number of fights. You're right, he did kill himself. Pete Slauson Yeah. Pete Slauson I'm connecting to it now. And as soon as we find out exactly what the fight was, I'll remember what the circumstance was. Again, I told you, my memory sucks sometimes.

Well, Joe, I'm 76 years old, okay? My wife worries about whether I'm going to remember to put socks on in the morning. Oh, Gabriel Ellis. Gabriel Ellis and Jimmy Garcia. Oh yeah. Oh my God. So one of the oldest dictums in the sport is that when one fighter dies, the other career dies too. Gabe was absolutely never the same. Uh, and he allowed that fight to go on way longer than it should have. May 6th, 1995. Never forget it. Hot day outside in back of Caesar's Palace. My wife was sitting with Jack Nicholson, can't resist the name drop. You know, there were a lot of things going on, but Gabe was never ever the same after that. And he, you know, Gabe went to You know, Gabe went to Columbia or Venezuela, I forget exactly where, for the funeral. Oh God, look at this.

And also Richard Green committed suicide after the Mancini-Kim fight. Similar situation. Yeah. Similar situation with Duck-Koo-Kim when he dies, famously on national television, Ray Boom boom boom Mancini and then that referee wants of committing suicide as well. It's um You know, it's a a haunting thing because it's so intimate you're in the ring You're four or five feet away from these guys. You're watching somebody land shot after shot after shot. You're trying to gauge in your mind watching somebody land shot after shot after shot. You're trying to gauge in your mind what is fair to the guy who's taking the beating. Because he could always land one big comeback counter punch and win the fight.

And there's been so many instances over time of guys recovering and coming back to win the fight. Many. Absolutely. So many fights that could have been stopped and if they were, who knows what we've gotten the chance to see. fights that could have been stopped and if they were, who knows what we've gotten? Over and over and over. So, you know, I was always disciplined and restrained about criticizing referees live because what they do is an extremely important and critical job. And sometimes they're the only safety barrier between life and death. I was just thinking of the Diego Corrales fight Diego Corrales

who with that crazy fight where he's knocked down multiple times then comes back to win by knockout arguably the greatest fight of all time. Who was it? Who was it against Corrales versus um uh name is right on the tip of my tongue, Corrales. Jose Luis Castillo? Is that not it? That might have been it. Castillo. It was it. Corrales Castillo. That was it. Jose Luis Castillo. That's arguably the greatest fight of all time. It was a Showtime fight by the way. I was watching it on TV. Easily could have been stopped. Huh? Easily could have been stopped. Oh, 100%. And Corrales comes back and wins. Yeah.

Exactly. And I believe he died in a motorcycle accident. Corrales died in a motorcycle accident. Yes, he did. Yeah. After, after a lot of salacious revelations regarding his troubles with women. his troubles with women. So, but he was a sweet guy. You could not know Chico without loving him. Okay? And that's true of many very violent fighters. You couldn't know Chico without loving him. You couldn't know Mike in the early days without loving him. So, the sport is filled with ironies. I'm sure MMA is exactly the same thing. It is, it really is. Listen, I'm glad we had a chance to talk. I really appreciate it.

It was really fun. Two hours just flew by. Great. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I think I've had a fantastic time with you, and I've really enjoyed every moment. And yes, thank you, I'm glad we had a chance to talk. And your book is available. It happened happened did you do the voiceover? Please

tell me you did. I did. Thank you. I did record the audio book. People who heard the audio book recommend it. You have to do it with you. It has to be. Can you imagine if somebody else if they forced somebody else to record your audio book? Do you know the boxing writer Tom Tom Houser? Yes. So, Houser's one of my dearest friends, and a great man. And Ali's primary biographer. Houser has written a book about his mother, and he knows about my relationship with my mother.

By the way, I read that you were raised by a single mother. Is that correct? Well, I was stepfather. Stepfather, okay. I was raised by a double widow who never married again. Hauser has deep and great affection for his mother, so he wrote a book about his mother, and I'm thrilled to tell you that he called me and said, would you record the audio version of my book?

Oh, wow. that he called me and said, would you record the audio version of my book? So now I am going to record, when I get back to Chapel Hill, Hauser's book about his mother. And if you'd like hearing my book, then you'll probably enjoy reading or hearing my book about Hauser's mother too. Well, I'm going to listen to your book because that's how I absorb most of my books. Well, I've given away a lot of it to you. No, I don't give a fuck. I'm listening to the whole damn thing.

And I really hope that Netflix chooses you for the Canelo fight, the Canelo-Crawford fight. That would be fantastic. Like I said, it made me so happy to hear you on the Madison Square, the Times Square card. Too bad the fights weren't. That was true. But what do you think that is about? You know, because there's a lot of people that have said that Turkey is spending so

much money, that he's spoiling these guys and they're afraid to lose and that they're fighting safe. Far be it from me to say anything about Turkey, okay? Yes. He... anything negative. He put me back at ringside. Right. I'm very happy that he's involved.

On a personal parochial level, I am back at ringside. Right. So I'm very happy on personal parochial level I am a huge turkey fan. Yes, I think that More attention has to be paid to what real matchmaking is If you put two counter punchers in front of each other, that's not gonna make a fire All right to attackers guaranteed fire, right An attacker versus a counterpuncher, that can also be really good. Some of the greatest fights ever have been attacker against counterpuncher. But two- So you think it's a matchmaking issue?

I believe it was. That night you had too many instances where two counterpunchers were standing in front of each other and waiting for the other guy to move. I also think that Rolly Romero very intelligently beefed up, put on strength and went into the fight with Garcia with a defensive frame of mind. I'm going to take the air out of this balloon. I'm going to slow the punch rate down. I'm going to land selectively when I want to and I'm not not gonna allow him to ever land a left hook. He did a good job of that.

He also landed that left hook of his own. Exactly. And rocked him and dropped him, and I think that changed the entire. Absolutely, mentally changed the fight. Garcia's in there trying to land his left hook, and all of a sudden he gets dropped by one. That's got to affect your mentality.

What did you think about Devin Haney's performance? Because I felt like that was an example of a guy coming off of the Ryan Garcia fight where he got dropped multiple times. He needed to put on a show and he didn't. He just looked different. If you go back to him versus Lomachenko. Of course, there's a lot of months in between. It's not as if he's coming back two months later and you can draw a straight line from the mentality of his Garcia fight to what he's doing in the ring that night that doesn't happen to be the case but it was definitely a disappointing performance well you definitely can draw a line between a guy getting rocked and dropped on multiple

occasions from a person that he was supposed to beat easily. Right. If you look at his boxing skill, you look at what he had done to combosus. Yes. I mean, he just boxed his face off. He looked fantastic in that fight. But you get the benefit of being able to say to yourself, if you want to, okay, he tested

positive for a performance enhancing drug, that's the reason he knocked me down three times. You know if you can convince yourself of that. The problem is once you start saying that people start saying fuck you and then the boos get louder. I'm talking about saying it to yourself. I'm not talking about saying it public because you are a hundred percent correct about saying it. No one says anything are 100% correct about no one says anything to themselves anymore if you say something publicly the whole world responds now it's not like a guy living in 1976 this is the different world we're living tell me about it I'm sitting here on the Joe Rogan experience with the possibility

of 19 million people are talking or listening to me I'm sure I've made a mistake or two well we both did yeah it's part of the fun. Just don't read the comments. That's the key. Jim Lampley, I appreciate you very much and I'm a giant fan and I'm really glad you're back in boxing. It means a lot to me. And your book, It Happened, A Uniquely Lucky Life in Sports Television is available now. Thank you, sir. I really enjoyed it. With a forward by Taylor Sheridan. Oh, oh, I love that guy. I have to take care of my friend. Has he been on the show? Yes, yes. I love him to death.

He's a good friend of mine. Friend of mine too. I love him. All right. So we have a mutual friend. Yes, sir. All right. It was a lot of fun. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. That was a handshake. All right. A really handshake. is i have a buddy i thought really and check