The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #42 with Teddy Atlas

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

Joe is joined by boxing trainer and fight commentator Teddy Atlas.

four three two one and we're live teddy atlas thanks for being here man i really appreciate it so i'm a minute late i'm my dad you keep saying that stop make you guys uh listen get anyone out there mad at you no one's mad at anything there's no real set time you know uh i can't i gotta tell you since i announced you're gonna be on the, I had about 100 people tell me to get you mad. They want you to rant and get scared. Ever since the We're Firemen speech you gave to Tim Bradley, everybody wants you to start screaming and get mad. You get people hyped up. Well, hopefully if there's only an occasion for it.

And I don't think there'll be an occasion. No. I'm looking at this stuff here. You got a nice place here, by the way. Thank you. I don't think there'll be an occasion. No. I'm looking at this stuff here. You got a nice place here, by the way. Thank you. And it's making me think about the Denzel Washington movie, The Equalizer, the first one,

where he was in with those Russian guys that were like messed up guys, and he was trying to protect that girl. And he started pointing. There were skulls and stuff at the guy's desk, you know. Yeah. And he was pointing this stuff. He was trying to explain to the guy, listen, let this girl go. You know, I'll give you $9,000, whatever it was. Let her go.

She was like 15 years old. And he didn't want to listen to him. And so he started, had stuff like this with this skull. I don't know if the people could see it. And he started pointing it towards him. And the guy didn't, like this with this skull. I don't know if the people could see it. Right. And he started pointing it towards him. And the guy didn't, like, take the hint, you know, the guy. And about a couple minutes later, he killed everybody in the room. But it's just, it looks exactly like the thing from that movie,

the Denzel Washington, where he also had guns and stuff. There it is right there. There's the scene. Jamie pulled the scene up. Oh, really? Yeah. There it is right there. There's the scene. Jamie pulled the scene up. Oh, really? I never saw that movie. Yeah, so you see, like, there's a scene where he starts pointing. They might have taken this from here.

I mean, they could have gotten it from you. That's from Mexico. The props. So he pointed it all towards the guy to kind of warn the guy what was coming next. Tenzo, that movie is probably the only good movie that ever came out of a terrible TV series. You remember the TV series, The Equalizer? I remember the name, but I don't know that I ever really watched it. It was a fat, sloppy white guy driving a Jaguar that supposedly kicked everybody's ass.

And you'd watch it and you'd go, get the fuck out of here with this movie. No, I didn't watch it. I heard it though. It was a TV show. It was just a dumb TV show that didn't make any sense. And when they turned it into a movie and had Denzel Washington in it, I'm like, what? How is this possible? I'm going to turn this guy into a movie.

Was he freaking you out? Not really, but I was just thinking about that. And it didn't end well. So listen, man, you just came back from the Canelo-Triple G fight, which was a phenomenal fight. That was a phenomenal fight. I really enjoyed that fight a lot. I think people exaggerate how good fights are nowadays.

If they're around, everything's great. I think if a pitcher has one good year in baseball, he's great. He's like the next Sandy Colfax. People don't wait to see and truly grade it against things that were out of their era. Because we're human. Like, hey, I was there. I reported on it. It's the greatest fight ever.

You really think so? No, no. But that's what people do. That's what they do. Right, right was there. I reported on it. It's the greatest fight ever. You really think so? No, no, but that's what people do. I think it was a really good fight. Yeah. But everything's relative, you know, and it depends on everything is influenced. The judgment of people is influenced, at least I see it in my view, for whatever that's worth, by what's around and how hungry they are. Like, everybody bought the Pacquiao Mayweather first fight because the fans were hungry.

Their imagination was like, there's no good fights. Right. This is going to be a good fight. So they're anticipating it. So you got them at the right time. they're anticipating it. So you got them at the right time. If it was the 80s and you had Lennon, Duran, Penel, Whitaker, Hagler,

you know, you had Hearns. I mean, you had all these great fighters. Aaron Pryor. You had all these guys fighting each other. You probably couldn't have pulled off the Mayweather, Pacquiao thing that you pulled off, and it turned out to be a bit of a, I don't want to say scam, but it definitely wasn't what it lived up to be. Wasn't that because Pacquiao came into the fight injured?

I don't believe it. I never saw any, listen, I'm not saying he didn't have an injury, but you're in a tough business. You were in taekwondo and all that kind of fighting stuff and MMA and whatever part of it. I'm probably not giving it the proper understanding of what it was and exactly what part of the fighting, not just MMA. I'm being too broad, but I know you did taekwondo. You did kickboxing. I know that you were a national champion when you were young. Somebody show me something about it. So you do things when you're injured.

I mean, like, when are you not injured? If you're a football player, if you're a fighter, if you're in the contact business, tell me when you're not injured, like when there's not something wrong. So I never saw proof during that bout. I was there covering it for ESPN. I never saw proof where he winced or he didn't throw that hand or he threw it in a poor way or in a less than high-level way.

I never saw that. So listen, I'm not in his body, you know, and I'm not a mind reader. But I didn't see it. But what I did see, I saw him and his trainer in the runway was more telling to me taking selfies because they had got paid a few extra dollars to promote some kind of product where the selfies were attached to it. So I saw that. To me, that was more debilitating to see a guy before the biggest fight of his life where people were going crazy and going to break the pay-per-view record and paying $100 for the freaking thing.

To see him taking a selfie when the mentality should be in a different place and normally is in a different place before you're about to walk that 100 yards to the ring where you might not come out of there. It's always possible. You have to have that mentality. I thought that was more debilitating than anything I saw physically

with what was supposed to be an arm injury. So to me, look, to me, maybe I don't know if it's fair to say it was a money grab, but obviously it was a bit of a money grab. They were beyond themselves. One guy was retired. He came back for it. They were beyond the peak of their abilities in their career. And I just didn't see that fight, the purpose to it.

Well, it happened about five, six years late. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I mean, everyone who gets in a ring, they deserve to make as much money as they can. I never say that a fighter got overpaid. Never. I don't care. I never say that because I understand what it took to get to that point.

But, you know, you can play with things. And, you know, you can kind of lead people to things. And, again, where we started with this conversation, you know, it's the time you're around, the environment, what's not around. Not just what's around, but what's not around. Right. There's not that many great fights to be made right now, is what you're saying.

So the Triple G Canelo fight is important because there's not a lot of guys waiting in the wings. It's not like the old days of the 1980s or the glory days of the welterweight and middleweight division. No, it's not. And the people, you know, they have a thirst, if you will, to see something that the PR department can bring it, can use the right material because there has to be fighters that obviously are marquee fighters

with a name that they can build it and get the imagination of the people to say this is going to be a great one. So when they see it and they pay $100 or $85 or $95, whatever the heck they're paying for the fight, and then it's a good fight, well, it becomes a great fight because of all those elements. Because, you know, it's during your time. You saw it. You committed to it. You sacrificed to pay that money. You sacrificed to fly there.

And, yeah, a really good fight becomes iconic. A great all-time fight. Yeah. And I don't think we separate that in our minds. I don't think, hey, who says we have to? Because, right, it's about enjoyment. So if that makes people happy, hey, that's part of what goes into the mix of entertainment. But I didn't see it when I tried to separate that being in the business. I didn't see it, when I tried to separate that, being in the business,

I didn't see it as, you know, the thrill in Manila. I saw it as a really good, solid fight, and they once again, unfortunately, took away from it with controversy with the decision. Did you think the decision, I thought the first decision was terrible. I thought Triple G clearly won the fight. I thought the second decision was arguable. I thought, like, this looks like a draw to me.

It was an amazing fight. I mean, I got to be honest because, I mean, that's what you're supposed to be. Who do you think won? I had a 117-112. And a lot of people are going to say you had it too far. I had it for Golovkin. And all week long I picked Canelo to win on ESPN, on SportsCenter. I was working.

So I— 117, 112 is big. Yeah, it's five rounds. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm—you know, you start to—you're human. You start to hear people like you, you know, that know something about fighting, that had it closer, so maybe you don't want to yell that you had a 117-112, but yeah, you still got to yell it.

Yeah. Because that's what you believe, that's what you saw. And I still say it, I still yell it, that it was, they didn't give him credit for jabs, like jabs don't count no more. Like, I'm not going to pick out anybody anybody because that's not really fair to do when you have a podium and they don't have a podium, but sometimes it is because they deserve it, but not generally. And the judges nowadays, I think that they just give it, I see too often that they almost go down the easy route. Like, you know, they just give it to who's aggressive.

A guy's walking forward, a guy's throwing punches. It's like they're favoring that guy. And it's more to it than that. And I understand that the sport doesn't help itself. They don't make a clear criterion. But it's supposed to be clean, harder, effective punches. Because the separation of professional boxing and amateur boxing is you have to sell it. You have to make money.

And you got to put fannies in the seats. So you want to see guys get hurt. You want to see guys impact guys. So it's the cleaner who hurts the guy more. It's the cleaner, more impactful punches. But it's not just throwing. It's not just aggression. Because the aggression has to lead to something effective.

Effective aggression. For me, to get it to that 117, 112, I saw Golovkin on the outside controlling range, controlling distance. You want to use that silly word, ring generalship? Because half the time I don't know what they're talking about. They say ring general. I'm like, what are you talking about? I just saw the way you judged it. Where did you fit in ring generalship into your thinking? Because I'd like to know.

But if it is ring generalship, he was controlling the range. He was controlling the outside. He was keeping the shorter man on the outside, catching him with the jab, making him earn his way in, making him pay a price to get in. Now, was the other guy, Canelo being the other guy, landing the hard, clean body shots that sometimes you don't get credit for? Yeah, he was. Yeah. Like I say on ESPN, he was putting water in the basement.

Right. He definitely was. But the jab didn't count suddenly. We're suddenly in a universe where the jab of a guy doesn't mean anything when we don't want it to mean anything, when we want to give it to the aggressive guy, to the guy trying to get in there. The question is, what's more important? Is a jab more important or a hook to the body? What is more important in your eyes?

Hook to the body clean is more important. More important. But if the jab outnumbers the hooks to the body through many rounds and the numbers are significant that it's greater than, then you have to account for that. Right. So you think that people are watching, they're watching a couple of jabs and then one hook to the body and they count that one hook to the body

better than they count the two jabs. Yeah. And I don't have a problem with that because I count it that way too. If it's a good shot. Yeah. Because again. A power shot. Yeah, because that is what's going to drive people to the event Right To the sport

It's the harder punches So I have no problem with that But if the jabs are 20 jabs Right And it's two body punches Well then I'm starting to say We can't forget the jabs Because the body punches got your attention

And it you know Moved you out of your seat a little bit maybe because for whatever reason so i'm just saying that the criterion is not clean enough uh for for the judges sometimes well it's a bit even bigger mess in mma and it's a lot of the same judges i mean i think the problem with judging is the same in both sports. You should have someone who has experience in the sport. I mean, they have to have a deep understanding of what they're actually watching. And that's not the case. I know it's not the case in boxing, because I know a lot of the same judges from boxing also judge MMA. They don't know what they're talking about in MMA.

And I don't think they know what they're talking about in boxing either. And that's a real travesty. It's a huge disservice to these professional athletes who literally are, as you said, risking everything as they step in there. There's a real good chance that they might not come out. I mean, it happens every so many fights, a guy dies. This is just a fact in boxing. Football too. Football too, sure. And MMA as well. Well, MMA has plenty of problems. I mean, there's less deaths in MMA, but we're getting deaths from weigh-ins. We have a lot of extreme weight-cutting issues in some of the smaller organizations in particular. All of that stuff is legitimate. It's a problem.

It's something that should be looked at. It's just a shame that the judging is so poor and it's been this way for so long. Well, see, the boxing, I mean, you have a, and I'm not saying this in a derogatory way. In some ways, it's a good way. But you have a dictator running, you know, UFC. No, but it's okay to have a dictator sometimes because at least you have rules that adhere to. At least you have structure. Yeah.

And, you know, as long as they're not, you know, taking people out and killing them. I know what you're saying. And so boxing has no real accountability, no structure across the board, no real, you know, lateral structure and conformityity nothing unilateral because you have different states that have different commissions and you know they're supposed to be tied together but they all act differently and there's no national commission there's no body there's no dictator

there's no czar there's no there's no nba commissioner There's no NFL commissioner. There's no MLB commissioner that overlooks and polices the whole sport. And there's no separation of church and state, so to speak, where the people making the money in the sport are separated, truly separated from the people supposedly administrating this. There's no separation. I mean, promoters actually that are making the money and have obviously a horse that's running in the game, so to speak, that night, that they want that fighter to win, they pay the judges. And there's no, again, there's no buffer.

There's no separation where you can have promoters and managers that can actually go to the commission and say, we don't want these judges to judge. They can't say, put this judge in, but they can knock judges out. And the commissions will listen to them. The alphabet organizations, they're corrupt. They are. I mean, it's not Teddy Atlas saying it. It's everybody saying it. There's very few people that are going to say they they're corrupt. They are. I mean, it's not Teddy Atlas saying it. It's everybody saying it. There's very few people that are going to say they're not corrupt.

Well, they're corrupt. I mean, if you're going to be honest about it and you don't have an agenda where you're afraid to say it because you have an agenda, which a lot of people do in my business, they have agendas, so they're not going to say it because they're part of it. If they're not part of it, they're friendly with people that are part of it, and they want to have access. They want to have relationships. So they stay away from it, and they understand how the corruption works. So they understand, you know, is it a smoky room with cigars like the old days where Frankie Carbo was running things, and you put an envelope? No, it's not that. But you might be paying $30,000 for an ad at a convention for the WBA or the WBC

or the WIBF or WBO or whatever the heck they are, and you might be paying $30,000 for an ad. You know why you paid the $30,000 for the ad. I don't think that you just like to see your name in the ad, in the brochure. There was a purpose behind paying that ad. And so there's no, again, you have the administrators of the sport, the commissions, and then you have the alphabet organizations that get paid a sanctioning fee

from the champion. So they want that champion to win. And so they get the sanction fee. And especially if he's a popular champion. So now you have nobody saying, well, the manager can't talk to the sanctioned organization. Of course they can talk to them and say, I want my guys rated high. Of course they have access. So they have access to talking to somebody, influencing somebody to move their guy up in the ratings. These are honest ratings. And they have access to telling an organization, well, you know, I'd like to push a mandatory.

I'd like to push my guy to get the mandatory, which means, of course, that he's got to fight him within a certain period of time. He's got to fight to champion. That's missing in MMA. Yeah. That's absolutely missing in MMA. So you have all that stuff going on. And where is the... is the where's the oversight yeah where's

the office how is the police and where's the right where's the line where because again people making money people running the sport people making money people administrating the sport it's not supposed to blur. There's supposed to be a separation. Now, if you know where to go in Europe, America, United States too, but all through Europe where there's a lot of big fights. There was just a big fight with Joshua in London. They drew 90,000 people, which is good for the sport, and it's incredible. But if you know where restaurant to go to the night before a big fight,

you will walk in the restaurant. I've been there. You will walk in the restaurant. I'm not going to say something if I can't stand behind it. And you will see at the restaurant, it's a big table, kind of like, you know, not the Last Supper,, it's a big table, kind of like, you know, not the last supper, but it's a big table. And you will see all the officials at that table that are going to work the fight the next night. And you will see the organizational heads, the heads of that sanctioned body and the guys that are in charge, the presidents, vice presidents, supervisors, judges, referees.

And guess who the host of the dinner is? The promoter. There's something wrong with that. I mean, there's something greatly wrong with that. So the host of the dinner, and it's a big bill, obviously. I mean, it's a lot of people. It's a good restaurant. They're eating all the best stuff, drinking the best wines and everything else.

So it's a big bill. And it's being picked up by the promoter who wants a specific fighter to win that night. And he's got access to all the judges, all the officials, all the organizational heads. Now, so I would say to the people that are listening out there that just to make the analogy that really I think would hit home,

the New York Yankees, they're obviously a universally known name and brand, organization, maybe the biggest of all time. So how about in New York, you go to the best restaurant, and the night before a World Series game, you walked into the restaurant, and you saw all the umpiring crew, all the officials that are in charge of the umpiring for the World Series game, sitting at a dinner hosted by the Steinbrenners.

Problem, problem, problem, problem. Giant problem. And it can't happen because there's a commission would never let that happen because the integrity, the credibility of the sport would be down the tubes in one moment before you could finish your shrimp cocktail. And so it can't happen. Yeah, it goes unchecked in boxing.

But it happens all the time in boxing and just the look of impropriety is wrong it should be wrong it should be wrong in baseball it should be wrong in football should be wrong in everything but it should be even more wrong in a sport where you risk so much yeah no. No, I agree. Yeah, it's a very, very good point. And I don't know how you would ever fix that. I mean, how would you have some universal oversight over the entire sport? And how would you get everybody from the WBO, WBC, WBA?

They wouldn't. No, no, they don't care enough because the president of the United States started caring when there was a problem with baseball. He got involved. That was about steroids, though, right? Yeah, but it was a problem. But wasn't that a horseshit problem? I mean, it was a real problem, but it was more of a problem of they wanted to clean up the image because it's America's sport. And they had these people, the Mark McGuire's and Sammy Sosa's.

They were worried about where the fans were going to leave the game a little bit. Right. So it was a problem. It was a problem. It was impacting them. It was impacting them. It was impacting, listen, it was impacting the perception of the game, which impacted the gates, what they're going to make. And ultimately the fan base, which of course impacts them financially.

which of course impacts them financially, it impacts the country because if less people care about the sport, you're gonna see it less. And if you care about it, you're gonna be one of the people that are left out. So it was a problem, and they can't. I'm gonna be careful saying this, but not that careful, but because you have to say it.

I don't think that they care as much about the people in boxing. I don't think they do either. It's more of a dangerous, dirty sport in their eyes. Yeah, and the people that come into it and everything else, I'm not going to get into all the other stuff that you could get into that is so popular to get into in some ways nowadays. You mean like racism? Yeah, yeah.

I'm not going to get into that because I don't want to and I don't have, you know, definitive things to show for that. I just know how I feel. Well, the perception of the sport. The perception of the sport, it's not cherished the way baseball is cherished. When there's a big fight like Canelo and Triple G, people get excited, and a lot of people will buy it, but it's not necessarily

thought of as something that represents America, and particularly in Canelo and Triple G, you're talking about two people that aren't American to begin with. Yes. And there's a history to boxing, though, that unfortunately, because I care about the sports, it's been my whole life.

Then it's kind of corrupt. Yeah. It's got a reputation as being corrupt. Yeah, and unfortunately, fortunately and unfortunately like there's a part,

a good part where the history goes back longer, farther than any other sport. Any other sport. I mean, it was the first sport in the Olympics.

It goes back further there and it was the first sport in the Olympics. It goes back further there. And it was the biggest sport in this country, bigger than baseball at one time. It was that big. I mean, you know, so, and now it's not. And it's too bad because, and it's too bad that the kids, that the younger people, they don't have the ability

to learn about those fighters, those special fighters. They were special. They really were. And they were special for different reasons. Like Jackie Robinson was special. We know. We don't have to go into why he was special.

But nobody knows that Joe Louis, he was quiet and everything, but when he was special. But nobody knows that Joe Louis, he was quiet and everything, but when he was in the Army and there was segregation and all that crap going on, he quietly used his position as heavyweight champ of the world to make sure that when he went to movies and they put him in the front row

and he saw that blacks weren't allowed to come in, he said, I'm not going in there unless blacks can come in there. When he went to other sort of events where the same kind of junk was going on, he very quietly but powerfully integrated things and said, no, I'm going to make a change here. You're not going to have me and not have people that look like me, you know, kept out. So he, and there were people, I've read about it because I like reading about those things, about history, to see how we could be better and where we've come from.

And there were history of black families, poor black families that would get hope from just saying, hey, Lewis did it. They would tell their kids, hey, Joe, listen, I don't wanna hear this. I don't wanna hear that you can't do this. Joe Lewis did it. And so he was that important.

That's the only point I'm making here. He was that freaking important that that history and the history of other fighters like him, doesn't have to be black fighters, but that what they did, what they overcame, where they came from. Benny Lennon, one of the greatest Jewish fighters of all time. It was a time when, and it's still around, unfortunately. There's a lot of anti-Semitism. But there was a time where, you know, it was tough being a Jew.

And you're growing up, and you get called a kike. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. I think it was, right? And you get called all those kind of, I don't even know what the hell it means. I just know it's a bad name to call a Jew. And you had all that stuff going on. And Jews weren't thought of being, they were thought of moving towards banking and they're moving towards things, we're making money. And later on, they started doing that.

But they were in the ghettos and they were trying to pull themselves out. And so at that era, during that time, the 20s to 30s, the Jews were some of the best fighters because that was their way of getting out. But there was another significance to being a Jewish fighter that a lot of the kids, they weren't thought of as being tough, so they got picked on and thought of that they're going to go more towards academic and other stuff. So there was a weakness perceived. Not true. None of this stuff is usually— Just perceived because they were smart. Yeah.

So now all of a sudden Benny Leonard comes along when the sport's the biggest sport in the country, and he's the best freaking fighter in the game. And he combed his hair before he got in the ring. And he would come out without it being messed. And this guy was, I mean, he was Michael Jordan. I mean, before that stuff, before Michael Jordan, before Air Jordan, before anything. I mean, this guy was not only tough, he was not only a champion,

which obviously connected to being tough by itself, but he was smart. He was cool. He had pizzazz. He was a man. And there were Jewish families. You don't hear about these stories, but there were Jewish families I've read and I've heard from people where say, hey, don't let nobody pick on you. Benny Leonard is the best fighter in the world. Jews are tough.

We're not just smart. We're tough. Benny Leonard shows that. Lenin shows that. So that kind of history, that kind of pulling of people up in many different ways, not just economically out of poverty, but emotionally, mentally, because you can be in poverty mentally. You can be in a low place mentally. It doesn't have to be, you know, financially all the time, you know, where you have holes in your shoes and you're wearing shirts that don't fit. No, it can be the way you feel about yourself that is without prosperity, without value. You have no value for

yourself as a person. That's the worst poverty in the freaking world. There's nothing lower than that. And Joe Lewis and Benny Leonard, they were fighters. They weren't baseball players. They pulled people out of those places. They let people know they had value, that their race had value, their people had value. They had value. And that should be known.

And you can go anywhere. And I'm glad you can because I love all sports. You can go anywhere and you can read about the greatness of the baseball players and the greatness of, of course, NFL hasn't been around that long, but the greatness of those players and the greatness of the NBA players. But where did the kids ever get to read and to hear and to see about the greatness of these people, these fighters? Nowhere. Very little. Very little. It's not there. Why? Because, again, I'm not going to get into craziness, but the powers that be, listen, it's not marketed properly. I get it. It doesn't have a commission.

So it doesn't take care of itself the way the UFC, the greatness about the, why the UFC grew so much as they marketed themselves in a tremendous way. So there's nobody, boxing is just there. It takes care of itself. It exists because it's man against man. So it's always going to be there,

but nobody's building it. Nobody's marketing it. No one's feeding the monster to make it bigger. It's a plant that's in the corner of your office that doesn't get sun, doesn't get water, but it's still there. Right, right. It's still there. And what I'm saying is that, sorry, I didn't want to yell because now people are probably happy but

but but it should be fed a little bit it should be watered a little bit because of what I just described guys like you guys like you guys who have a deep appreciation for the history of the sport

guys who have a deep appreciation for the history of the sport. Guys who have a deep appreciation of what it meant when Joe Louis beat Max Schmelling. Guys who understand what it meant when Sugar Ray Robinson was the best fighter in the world. And everybody knew it, and he'd pull up in a fucking pink Cadillac with a beautiful suit on. And he made... He elevated. He elevated people in Harlem, everywhere around the world. But Harlem, he owned half of Harlem. He owned restaurants and stores and barbershops and everything.

And you wanted to be there because that's where Sugar Ray Robinson came from. Yep. It was great. Yeah. I mean, it's a rich part of history that really does get ignored. Let me tell you something about Schmeller. You brought up, you know a lot about, obviously, this stuff. And that's what it's nice to talk about, which Schmelling was a hell of a fighter.

Joe Lewis was the brown bomb. He was coming up. He was undefeated. And Schmelling had the great quote before the fight. You know, it's kind of like the Babe Ruth thing, that it really happened where he pointed out and then he hit the, you know, those are great stories. But what's the real truth behind them? You know, we don't know.

We don't care. We don't care at a certain point. You know why? Because they let us feel good. They let us dream about possibilities. And we should all have possibilities to dream about. And they make somebody feel good. Because, you know, the Babe Ruth one was connected to a sick kid.

So it's a nice thing. It's where sports can be better than just sports, than just somebody participating in it. It can go beyond that. It can be stronger than that. And that's some of the good participating in it. It can go beyond that. It can be stronger than that. And that's some of the good stuff about it. And so Schmeling, the great story, he didn't point to the fence, but he said before the fight,

I see something. That's my trying to be an accent for the German, you know? But I sound more like Schultz from Hogan's Heroes. I don't know why. Every time you try to do something like with certain ethnic pronunciations,

you sound like you go to one of those sitcoms. You go to one of those places, you know? And when I say somebody, I think my kid, I think my son know he had watched one of them uh and i think he said you sound like sergeant schultz like from hogan's uh heroes but and he said i see something and what he saw was that lewis would jab and he would leave you You should never leave your head on the right side. Because if you leave your head, you know, you move your head to the right side, you're in a path to the right hand. You should actually finish on the left side because then you're outside the right hand.

You follow? There's the right hand. Over here, it can hit you. Over here, you're outside it. Right. So he had a habit of, and he had a great trainer. He had a habit, though and he had a great trainer. He had a habit, though, at that point, of leaving his head over on the right.

So Schmeling saw something, as he said, that he could hit him with a right hand. He could time it over the jab. Now, Schmeling was of the ilk, of the level, of the caliber. It wasn't just about talent. He could punch. He was a good fighter. But he was a pro. What do I mean by that?

A lot of guys would hesitate a little bit. Same opening. They might see it. But it was the brown bomber who was knocking everyone out. So they hesitate. They were afraid. Normal. A lot of people are afraid of that word.

I mean, it's there. I mean, without it, we're not alive. So they might see the same thing, but they want one at a pro level. Pro level is a guy that can do what he has to do and no emotions interfere with doing it. I mean, that's my simplest way. Webster's might not say that, but that's what I would say. So they might have seen the opening, but they would hesitate just enough, and it'd be gone.

The door closed. Because it's like life. It's moments. Capture a moment, lose a moment. But this guy was a pro. He didn't let that come in there and make him hesitate that fear. He controlled it. And if the opening was there, bang! He was going to throw the punch. So

he did and he dropped Lewis a few times and you know, he won that fight. what round did he stop him in? I can't remember. Maybe the ninth. But it was late in the fight. But he had hurt him and you know, Lewis was taking a beating. So Lewis went on. He won the world title, and he beat Braddock for the title.

Cinderella Man, great movie. He came from welfare to being a world champion. That's the Braddock story without getting into it too much. Lewis beats Braddock and had to give a percentage.

Don King and Aaron might not have been around then but the people that taught him what to do were around. Taught him how to take advantage of fighters. Ta taught him what options were before options were ever known. You know, Braddock, I think, I forget his name, but Braddock's manager basically made Lewis and his people agree to give him a percentage of his purses for the rest of his career to get the fight. What? Yeah. Really? Yeah. agree to give him a percentage of his purses for the rest of his career to get the fight. What? Really? Yeah. So, I mean, you could obviously research it and look into it.

How much percentage? I don't know. Listen, I could say 10%, but I don't want to say definitively because I'm not positive, but there was an understanding that, you know, you're not getting a fight otherwise. Like, you want to get the fight now? And listen, like I said, not great guys, but King and Irem, they had other guys before

them that taught them some of these moves that weren't so nice. But there's always a history of good and bad. Sure. Always. Who's good? Well, there's- Well, of good and bad. Sure. Always. Who's good? Well, there's... Well, we'll get to that. I want to know if there's like a shining star promoter out there.

I'll try to think about it. But so we... So they go and he wins the title. And of course, the biggest sport in the country. So all the press is there. And they're, Joe, you're the country. So all the press is there. Joe, champion world. Not yet.

Not yet. What do you mean not yet? Just won the title. Not yet. Not until I beat that man. He didn't even have to say his name. Not until I beat that man. That's how much pride he had.

And listen, he's the real deal. Because in his mind, how can I be champion if a guy knocked me out? Right. So when that fight took place, I mean, you talk about a setting, a stage. You know, nowadays people say, oh, I'm on the stage. A lot of pressure, you know. Hey, I'm not saying it's not. I'm not saying it, but a lot of pressure, you know.

I'm not saying it's not. I'm not saying it, but a lot of pressure, you know. A lot of people looking, a lot of people, you know, depending on a lot of stuff going on, you know. And, you know, maybe I got a headache. But Joe Louis had World War II on the horizon. The president of the United States called him up. And you had Nazi Germany, you had a guy named Hitler that is saying that he's got, you know, the master race, he's going to take over the world, just starting that stuff, not too far away from World War

II, and you got all that stuff permeating in the air. And you got Lewis fighting a guy who, of course, you know, propaganda was started by the Germans, if you want. To me, almost invented that word because you had the propaganda minister. You had all these terrible people with Hitler that were putting out that they're the master race. They're this, they're that. You had the Jesse Owens situation in the Olympics. We're putting out that they're the master race, they're this, they're that. You had the Jesse Owens situation in the Olympics. And now you had the biggest sport in the biggest country and the champion of that sport, the heavyweight champ, Joe Lewis. And he's fighting the German fighter, Schmeling, the second time now for the title.

And, of course, you had Hitler and all his psychofants, all these people that their job was to promote it, so to speak. And they come and they're saying, we will show the world that we're superior. And there's no better way to show it than in a ring. And so Lewis has to, he's got to carry all this stuff. I mean, think about it. And he's a black guy in a country that he still can't go into certain places to eat. And he's got to carry the whole, he's got to carry the whole country and not let them down. And the president calls him. And again, we don't know if this is a legendary story.

We don't know if it's completely true. But supposedly the president called him and said, Joe, you've got to win this one for the good guys. That's one of the legends. I don't know if it's true, but I know that I'm sure he called him. I'm sure he called him. I'm sure he called him. And Lewis has to go into Yankee Stadium outdoors. And in Times Square in New York, they used to have it set up where the radio, because all the fights were on radio back then,

and some of them on fights on TV, on Gillette, Calvacator Sports, and all that stuff, Friday night fights, but was coming along. You know, just coming along, but radio was the thing. And so in Times Square, you had the radio speakers outdoors, you know, playing the fight, broadcasting the fight. So people out on the streets, they hear the radio and they hear, you know,

Joe Louis is walking into the ring and, you know, and you got Yankee Stadium, you got the place full and you got the whole world of everything I just described. The good, the bad, the evil, the ugly, everything. It's not a movie it's real life

and you got joe lewis and he gets in that ring and he annihilates with all this pressure with with that that he's got to save the basically the united states and the world from looking like this ugly scourge and disease of the Nazi party is going to take over the world. It's greater than us. And he single-handedly has to prove that. And he goes in there and he annihilates the guy in one round with all that stuff hanging over him. I think that's the greatest single event in the history of the world. Pull that fight up.

Pull that fight up and put it in the background. And I think that when you talk about all the things that we're here to talk about, about character, about talent, about perseverance, about resiliency, about caring about more than yourself, about selflessness, about strength. When you talk about all those things that we try to say that we care about and that we sometimes look to be. And very rarely can we be that. He was all that. He was all of that.

There it is right there. I mean, how great is that? And he stalked the guy. He stalked the guy. And his punches were short and powerful. And he was the greatest finisher in the history of heavyweight boxing because when he hurt you, you didn't survive. He got rid of you. He put punches together and they were short.

And he was always in position. Look at his legs. He's always in position. You move forward, he takes a little step back to give himself room. The shortness of those punches is absolutely beautiful. If you wanted to teach a young fighter how to punch correctly, Joe Lewis, there's no better guy to watch than Joe Lewis. No.

Did you see, Joe, what he did a minute ago? No, a minute ago, Schmeling tried to catch him with that same right hand he had knocked him out two years earlier. Go back. He just missed it. But he changed. He stepped out.

He changed his distance this time. Because Jackie Blackburn, who's a great fighter, a black fighter, he was a trainer. He was a great trainer. Nobody hears about Jackie Blackburn. What a great fighter he was and what a great trainer he was and how he wasn't allowed to fight white fighters. And he beat everybody.

Look at that. Counter left hook. Instead of laying his head on the right like he did the first fight, he changed his range, and he made that right hand miss. And look how calm he is. Look how calm he is. Look how focused he is. It's beautiful to watch.

Really. The shortness of those punches is phenomenal. And watch his legs, Joe. Watch how he's always in position. Look at that. Watch his legs, Joe. Watch how he's always in position. Look at that. Look at that right hand. But what did we miss? What didn't you see?

Go back. The sidestep. No. The blinding jab that sets it up where you don't see it. Watch. The jab is just a decoy. Just so he can hit it with the right so you don't see it. Right.

What a beautiful sidestep, too, right after he lands the right hand. Look at that. Well, that's why he's the greatest finisher of all time. Watch. Watch the way he finishes this guy. It's going to go to the body and then the head. That right hand. Right hand to the body, right hand to the head.

Oh. Look at that. That right hand is so short. And even when he's got the guy hurt. Look at the guy. Look at that. Phenomenal. Phenomenal.

And he did all of that with everything we just talked about for the last 20 minutes hanging over him. Yeah. I don't know. It's a giant piece of history that people don't talk about. But doesn't that make you think a little bit? Doesn't that make you feel something about it? Yes. Really? Yeah. Well, it's one of the reasons why I'm a giant fan of the sport. Yeah. Thank you.

I mean, that alone is, in terms of historical impact, I agree with you. It's one of the biggest moments in all of the sport. Yeah, thank you. I mean, that alone is in terms of historical impact, I agree with you. It's one of the biggest moments in all of sports, ever. In life. In life. You know what I like about boxing? I like a lot of things I don't like. I don't like the administrators. I hate them.

I know that's a powerful word, but you know, not every single one of them, but I'm just saying, I hate their weakness. I hate their cowardice. I do. I do. Because they sit outside the ring.

A lot of them, you brought up a point, they should have had experience one way or the other. And they've never, ever had anybody punch them. And I'm not saying to be a man you got to get punched. I'm not saying any of that stuff. Being a man is a lot more than that, a lot more. Plenty of people get punched and they're not men. But what I'm saying is that you should understand what it feels to a person to put themselves on the line and to risk so much and to risk everything

to try to get their family in a better place. I think there's also, they should be a fan. I don't think some of them are even fans. No, they're not. And some of them might not even like it. They wouldn't tell you that. Right, but they just do it for a job. Yeah.

And what I'm saying is that when I see these people that haven't put them been in that place and not everyone can be in that place so again I got to be careful with that if I'm going to be fair but for them so easily to take something away from somebody see what's different for me why I get passionate if you want to use that word. People say, Teddy, you get a little crazy. If it happens in baseball and a guy beats out the throw, now you have cameras. So you didn't used to have that.

But if a guy, you didn't have replay. Back in the day, a guy, it happened a lot of times. Guy was safe and they'd call him out. You know what? Too bad. It's a shame. But you know what? The next day he's going to play the game again and he's going to be able to make amends for that.

And his family, and he's got guaranteed contracts. And you know what? It's going to be okay. I mean, was it right? Wrong is never right. No. But you know what? In the mix of things, we're going to overcome that.

But now you take a fighter. Same thing. And the judges make a mistake, maybe on purpose, whatever. But they make a bad mistake. The fighter can't go back the next day and rectify that. The fighter doesn't have a guaranteed contract. He only has what he can make if he gets to that fight. That's it for that night.

Guess where that fighter goes. He don't go back to the dugout and then come out the next day and play again with a new uniform on. No, he goes to the back of the line in boxing and has to take hundreds, maybe thousands of punches to get back to that place he was to earn the right to get closer to the exit in the business. Because everyone's trying to get to the exit. They're trying to gain what they can gain with their legacy, for their families, for themselves, in many ways, financially, you know, but also what's inside them. That they have to prove something, that they have to make it for all different personal reasons.

And they're close to doing that. And now they're forced because of some crook. Maybe it's incompetence. It's either corruption or incompetence, okay? But sometimes it's corruption. And they have to go all the way to the back of the line now. They're not playing a football game the next Sunday. They're not playing an NBA game two days later.

And they got to take all those punches and hope, hope they get back to that place. And you know what? I seen it. I did 22 years of ESPN boxing. I've been with ESPN about 22 years, but I did like 18 years, whatever it was, of Friday night fights.

We did a lot of title fights. Not the big names, not the Canellos, not the Golovkins, not the Mayweathers, but guys that have meant just as much to them, even more, because they didn't have millions of dollars.

And they got their shot, and I watched them get robbed. And I saw that they never got back there. That night was the right night for them. That particular night, everything worked. Everything was perfect. All that training, everything came together. And they were beautiful. They were magnificent.

And they were freaking robbed. And it's wrong. It's really wrong. And that's what they do when they do that. But the glorious thing, if that's not too made up of a word that sounds like glory. But the beautiful thing about boxing is that with everything wrong in the world, and I hate to use this cliche, this terminology, but with life being unfair, because I don't like to use that

because sometimes people nowadays, for me, there's too many excuses out there. There really are. There's too many damn excuses. You're in this country, you got a chance to do something where you don't have in other places. But having said that, it can feel like life's not fair sometimes,

especially when you think about some of the things we just talked about in a day that's gone now. It's not there no more, but a day of Lewis and those it's not there no more but well the day of lewis and those kind of people life wasn't fair that really they really had a right to use that saying nowadays i don't think people have a white black purple they don't have a right to say that to the extent that they did back then not to the extent no no they don't they

really listen are there things wrong are there messed up people still out there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But sometimes it's too easy to use that. Yes. It's just too easy. I agree. So, but there was a time when life too often was unfair. Ruthlessly unfair.

Yeah, really unfair. Ruthlessly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ruthlessly, yeah, yeah, yeah. And when life was unfair, boxing was around to make it fair. And I'll tell you how. On one given night, if you worked hard enough, if you dreamed big enough, if you were tough enough and you made yourself tough enough you sacrificed enough you became polished

and savvy enough and technically equipped to do things that you had then you learned those things and you just worked yourself to the bone no matter where you came from,

no matter what part of the world, no matter who your parents were, no matter what your poverty level may have been, may not have been, no matter what you had, what you didn't have, no matter what people had told you, didn't tell you, all of that,

if you made yourself and took advantage of that opportunity and got yourself ready, and you were ready to behave like a champion, you could get in that ring on one given night and make the world fair and have your hand lifted and be called champion of the world. That makes boxing special.

And that's what these judges don't get. That kids are waiting to hear that. And they give everything. You know, you hear too much the crap where, I would die for that. There's people that would die for that. There's people that would die for that. There were people in our times, in this world, in this country, and you used the right word, you know, tragically,

whatever powerful word you had just used, ruthlessly. Yeah, yeah, there were people because of that word, because of the reality of the actions attached to that word, if you told them, listen, you're going to have to die after this, but you'll get to have this. Your hand will be lifted. You will be called champion of the world. All your people will see it, and the people you want to see it, and yourself.

But you'll die afterwards. I would give you that people would sign on. That's how important that was. That's what that stood for. And then you get judges that have no conception of that. I don't mean to laugh, but no. I'm not saying they have to have a complete conception of it, but no feeling of what we're talking about.

I think they're like DMV workers. That's what I think. I think there's a bunch of them that are real good, but a lot of them are just like people that are just taking a government job. That's what I think. And I think it's a travesty that they're not removed. That's what I think. Whenever I go to a UFC, and like I said, a lot of it's the same judges,

and I see some of these scores, I want to take my fucking headset off and throw it into the cage and scream and flip over the table. And you just kind of take a deep breath and calm yourself down because there's nothing you can do. And these athletic commissions have kept these people on for whatever reason, and you're watching a bad decision. You're watching someone who trained for eight, ten weeks for this one particular fight and years and years to get to that position and they're getting fucked.

And they're getting fucked because someone just sucks at their job and they don't care. And this person, they're going to be there two months from now at another fight and there's nothing you can do about it. And I don't understand it. I don't understand how the commissions let this slide. I don't know how difficult it is to fire these people or to prove they're incompetent but i do know that especially with with well i guess it's probably true with both boxing and mma there are countless fans out there that would do a far better job countless countless people that have had experience in fighting countless people that have experience in fighting. Countless people that have a deep appreciation and understanding of what's actually going on inside the fight.

And these people don't get those jobs. And instead, these same fools continue to give piss-poor decisions or corrupt decisions. I mean, whoever that woman was, I don't want to mention people's names, but there's been some decisions. There's been some horrific decisions. The one that had it with the Mayweather. You're talking about the Mayweather Canelo? Yes. The woman that had it a draw?

Yes. What the fuck is that? I know her name, but I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say her name either because she was also involved in another one. Was it? Yeah, she got 30. Brandy, I think. Manny Pacquiao?

Yeah, she was involved in a couple. Yeah. A Yeah, she got 30. I think. Manny Pacquiao. Yeah, she was involved in a couple. Yeah. A couple, at least two, right? Yeah. So I think we're being responsible. Why was she still there? Right. Seriously.

Why was she still there? Why was she still there? Why? Yeah, why? Why was she still there? I mean. Right. We're not talking about neurosurgeons that can separate and join twins.

Really? Right. We're talking about a job. There's a lot of people that could do it. I'm not saying it's an easy job, but I'm saying there's a lot of people that have a real understanding of boxing that would have done a way better job. I mean, somebody robs a bank. They're not your bank teller the next week.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, out of all the promoters today is Golden Boy the best I mean at least Oscar De La Hoya Bernard Hopkins they're legit

world champion fighters yeah I mean they have a they got but they're attached to they got one they got a strength

and they got a weakness their weakness is they're attached really attached at the hip to one you know their solar system so to speak

has one sun. And that sun is called Canelo. Canelo disappears tomorrow and- They're fucked. Yeah. They're not happy. They got some problems. But listen, Al Heyman's out there.

You know, he's PBC. You know, he came along. He just signed a deal from what I read. I think I'm saying the numbers right. Fox gave him $50 million for a four-year deal to put fights out there. And he's probably got the best stable of fighters. I mean, he's got what the guy hasn't been fighting, but the guy I think was one of the best guys, Thurman. But, you know, he's got who I really love this guy's a beast my son loves him

uh Spence Errol Spence yes he's a beast I mean the guy yeah I like him inside and out what do I mean by that I mean yeah he truly believes that he should fight all the best he truly believes he's the best he truly believes he's gonna get to you you know what I mean yes and and he fights that way and he's a great guy like he's a good guy. He's a good guy. So it's good. He's articulate. Yeah. Handsome.

It makes it better. Yeah, he's fun. Got a big smile. Yeah, yeah. It's better, you know? Terrence Crawford is another one. I'm a giant fan of Terrence Crawford. And so, I mean, Haven's got a lot of, he's also got Wilder, the heavyweight champ, but

one of the champs, whatever that is. But Wilder, technically he's got a lot of problems, but he's got one thing that's not a problem. Confidence. Confidence, but one other thing. Oh my goodness. He's Thor. Instead of a hammer, it's the right hand.

He does have a fucking hammer for a right hand. Oh my goodness. Listen, I only— That motherfucker knocks out everybody. Oh, man. If he hits you— And the Ortiz fight was very interesting, right? Yeah, he was hurt.

Ortiz gave him some problems. He was in bad shape. Yeah, and still. Referee might have helped him a little, but he was in bad shape. Yeah. But boy, oh, boy. Still. You know, I say it a lot of times.

He had that eraser, you know. I remember—I remember— it's not a great memory, but as a kid, somehow I wound up in Catholic school for a minute, and those nuns, they should have been fighters. They were mean. They were mean. I think they were a little twisted, some of them, but I'm not going to go too, but they were mean they were mean I think they were a little twisted some of them

but I'm not gonna go too but they were a little they were mean but they had no problem hitting you in the head with that black eraser they're like you won't pay

bang it was just like and it was hard it was like and the dust would fly yeah dust would fly you know and he has that eraser

that's the point I'm making he has that eraser where bang but look his technique is so crazy not too good it's so crazy You know? And he has that eraser. That's the point I'm making. He has that eraser where, bang! But look at his technique. His technique is so crazy. Not too good. It's so crazy. His feet come up off the ground.

Terrible. Technique bad. But when he lands. Technique bad. Power good. Boom, shalak, lak, boom. Really. When he lands, people go flying.

I mean, listen. And he's not a giant heavyweight either in terms of his physical weight. No, but you know what he is, though? He's long. Yes. And he's tall. And look at those arms. He is long. I mean, if he was in here, he could

hit you across the room. Well, so is Tyson Fury, and that's one of the things that makes this fight very, very, very interesting. That's one of the times where that's saying, Styles make fights? That's going to be this fight. That's going to be the whole thing. Yes. Tyson Fury is a motherfucker. Well, he can move.

He's not only 6'7 or whatever the hell he is. I think he's bigger than that. 6'8, maybe 6'9. He's tall, he's long. But he can move. And his jab is phenomenal. Yeah. Somebody forgot to tell me he's heavyweight because he moves around like a lightweight.

Yeah. And that could be a problem. Yeah. Until he gets hit. Also, he talks tremendous shit until he gets hit. Well, then things change. Yeah. Until he gets hit. Also, he talks tremendous shit until he gets hit. Well, then things change. Yeah. But I always used to say when I was doing a broadcast, I would always say, and of course

I wouldn't say it if I didn't have a belief in this and a proof of it in my mind at least, that punches are born, they're not made. You're born or you're not born to be a puncher of that level. You just are. And I'll tell you something funny, because you brought it up about him being, you know, he's not a big, you know, he's not that prototypical big, you know, husky, you know, wedged out heavyweight. Like Joshua.

Yeah, he's not that. Right. But I'll tell you, when I was training fighters when I was young, and I was taking them to smokers in the Bronx to get experience every week, tough places there in the South Bronx, and we'd take them to these unsanctioned fights just to get them experience. And if I didn't know the fighter, see, I'm responsible for these kids back then. I'm like their parent, and they're trusting me.

Some of them didn't have parents, but the ones that did, they were trusting me to take care of this kid. They didn't know I was going to South Bronx where, where I remember one time I borrowed a car from somebody. I didn't have a good enough car. It was the publisher of the newspaper, the Catskill Daily Mail. And, and I've come to his name in the publisher and I borrowed his station wagon. I didn't have a car big enough to take the kids. And as I'm leaving, he says, you're not taking them to a bad place where they like rob hubcaps or something.

And I was like, no, because I didn't think I was lying because to me, they robbed the whole car. So I said, no, because he left it at hubcaps so I said no so I get there and the first thing I do is I pull

underneath the L for people who don't know it's the train and underneath and you talk about life growing up quick in one night it was like reading chapters of a book. You went through different things and you learn different things about yourself and about what's there, what you

don't see. And you haven't been around, but it's there. And it's good to know it's there. A different life, different way. And I'm down in the South Bronx. And, and first thing I did, I went to Mr. Santos. He was the father of one of my kids. I went to his bar across the street, said, Mr. Santos, my car's over there. Gotcha. And I come out, and all the batteries of the cars were gone except mine, quite often.

But my car was good. Mr. Santos and his crew made sure that nobody took my battery. And so we were good. So I was looking out Mr. Santos and his crew made sure that nobody took my battery. And so we were good. So I was looking out for the kids because I did what I had to do. But it was a scary place. It was a tough place. And the kids grew up fast.

It was three flights. And I often thought that it was meant to be three flights because you had time to think during those flights. The first flight, quite frankly, you saw syringes sometimes. Kids didn't know nothing about this. Kids were cats going to New York. Really? Syringes? And then the next flight, you know, you smelled urine because people were there, they went up there,

and they were, you know, going to the bathroom, doing whatever and shooting up, whatever, and it smelled. But then by the time you got to the third flight, you started to hear noise. You started to hear salsa music. And you could smell something. They were cooking all the Spanish specialties. The fried bananas.

The meat with the potato in the middle, polantas and all the, you know, I don't remember all the names, but all the different, and then, of course, a lot of rum. A lot of, it was a bar. But that's how they kept, that's how they paid the rent for the gym because they would do these smokers twice a month. You know, there was a smoker every week in New York, every week. People had to know where they were, but they were every week. And they weren't sanctioned.

There was no doctor. Listen, I'm going out there and saying, yeah, that don't sound too good. I got you, but we made it good. Yeah, we made it good. We made sure we took good. Yeah. We made it good. We made sure we took care of it. We made it. I know it was still dangerous. It was still all that.

But you want to know something? A kid drinking a bottle of vodka a day was pretty freaking dangerous. Okay? I had some idiot one time. I was trying to get money for my foundation. And I was explaining to him. And he was a political guy. And I was explaining to him.

And he goes, but you get brain damage in boxing. It's a pretty thing. Like I was trying to, like you, when you want to throw your headset when you see these, I was like trying to control myself. I'm trying to talk to,

I'm supposed to talk to the right guy, wait a second, if I'm going to get money from my foundation that helps these people, right? So I'm trying to talk to him and I'm saying, do you get brain damage from being out in the street

and getting hit with a pipe? Because these are the people I'm helping. Do you get brain damage from doing crack? Do you get brain damage? I did have a kid who drank a bottle of vodka. Now when he came to my program and the foundation that we run, for two years he's been, well now it's three years, he's been clean.

He's back with his family. He was living on the streets. He was with gangs. And when he got into boxing in one of our programs, he stopped all that. But he was drinking a bottle of vodka. Yeah, it's true. 15 years, yeah, a lot of people say, Teddy, how do you drink? Yeah, but he was. How do you do it? Because you, a lot of people say, Teddy, how do you drink? Yeah, but he was.

How do you do it? Because you have a lot of pain maybe or whatever, whatever. But yeah, he was. And so I said to the guy, I was trying not to get into an argument, but I was like, boxing causes brain damage, but I'm taking guys away, kids, that the alternative is the bottle of vodka,

the crack, the needle, the pipe on the head. Or maybe the pipe on someone else's head where they caused brain damage to someone else. Maybe, unfortunately, you one day walking out of your house. What about that? Brain damage? That's your way of telling me no? That's your way of not giving me what I'm asking for? To say that?

Why don't you think it out a little bit more? Why don't you think it out a little more and give me a better excuse? Why don't you at least understand what we're doing? Yeah, there's a reason why we're doing this. So these kids, we would go. We would go to the South Bronx. So these kids, we would go to the South Bronx, and these kids would walk up, like I said, they'd walk up the steps. By the time that door opened up, and again, this is how they paid the rent.

By selling liquor, by charging $3 to get in, and selling that food, and the place would be packed. Packed! And when the L went by, you talk about, we talked a little bit about pressure and about what pressure does to you. It can form you. It could destroy you, but it could form you. It could make you realize what you're capable of. You know what the greatest thing about what boxing does for somebody?

It makes them know. Teddy, what does boxing do for you? Oh, your jab, your, no, your condition, you take care of your temple, your body, all that stuff. Yeah, sounds good. Teddy, give us one thing that boxing does for you. It lets you know you can depend on yourself. Let's a kid know that he can like himself.

We don't know he can like himself and depend on himself. These kids. So was it rough? Yeah, it was rough. So we're in the place, and yeah, there's no doctor. Yeah, we had no sanctioning organization. We made our own fights. But there was a danger.

But I just told you the other dangers. This was taking them and replacing those other dangers. This was taking them away from that. You know what? It was the only positive thing in the neighborhood for these kids. It really was. Was it rough? Yeah. It was boxing. But I just talked about life is rough, especially for these people, rougher. So it was an alternative to violence. People say, Teddy, what are you talking about, boxing? No, because if you're angry, which these kids are, if they don't learn to lose that anger, they never become anything in boxing because they walk in and get hit.

They learn that they can control that anger. They can put it hit. They learned that they can control that anger. They could put it somewhere. They learned that they can control themselves. They can depend on themselves to be something positive. So I would take these kids and we would go there and we were the only white kids in the place. And they loved us. They were funny. Like I said, the guy who ran at Nelson Cuevas, he was a great guy. But, you know, look, he carried a gun in his holster, in his belt, because he knew it could be rough.

I mean, did I leave that part out to the parents when I was taking him, that the proprietor of the place, you know, has a gun and every once in a while he opens his jacket to make sure that the proprietor of the place, you know, has a gun and every once in a while he opens his jacket and makes sure that the people remember that he has it. Yeah, all right. But they looked out for you. The kids, I know it sounds contrary.

I get it, contradictory. But it was, these kids, they learned so much about themselves. And we, I looked out, we looked out for them. And when it came time to make the matches, the point I was making about Wilder, and you talked about being long and about, I'm sorry I jump all over the place.

No, it's great. But I learned, Cus taught me this, but you have to learn it yourself. You have to see it. You have to be in it. Cus told me about it, but you have to learn it yourself. You have to see it. You have to be in it. Cuss told me about it, but that's only part of it. He always told me, Teddy, be careful with skinny, wiry guys. They're the greatest punches.

I was thinking, you know, this. They're the greatest punches. He never told me why. He let me figure it out. I saw it. I saw when he hit him. Yeah. Tommy Hearns.

Yeah. But I know why now. Leverage. Yeah. Talk. Talk. Whatever you call that. Yeah.

And so anyway, so here we are. And if you saw the guy, you knew who to match with. But if you didn't see the guy you had to depend on other things who's the coach? certain coaches had no good fighters, certain coaches had good fighters another coach does he have a good rely, is he honest?

is he lying? does he have does he have an opinion that is good? or does he just say things? So I'd have to go through all that. If I didn't know the guy, I wouldn't put my kid in with the guy unless I was sure what he was.

Sure! And it was hard because everyone was lying. There was like a cold. It was all connected to lying, unfortunately. But everyone looking out for their kid. Like if you said, I'll give you an example. Guess who the matchmaker was? I became the matchmaker.

You know, in the place. All Spanish, black. But Nelson made me the matchmaker. You'd be the matchmaker. And a lot of the people didn't speak English. So, you know, we figure it out. We get there. So you make a column, the name of the fighter, the weight. Yeah. So you, you

weigh him, you know, that's one thing you see it. Okay. That's only truth. The rest of it got dicey. Okay. How many fights? Most important thing. Most important thing most important thing how many fights zero everyone in this place got zero fights and i said nobody got fights in this place you've been doing this for years so okay here's the code zero fights means two or three one two or three fights meant six to ten. God forbid anyone ever said they had five, six fights. Anywhere from 25 to 100. Real, real. This is the world that I lived in for five, six years.

Took them every Friday. This is the world that I lived in for five, six years. Took them every Friday, every drove down to the Bronx and got them a smoker every week. And so you figured out the code after a while. But you're responsible for these kids. So you wanted every tangible thing you could have. So, again, if I wasn't sure how much the guy was lying, that he was lying a little extra, I would,

I'd go to Nelson. You know this guy? No, but talk to Pablo. Talk to Angel. All right. You know the guy? No. Yeah.

He's, stay away from him. No fight. You know, because I'm not taking a chance. But then when you get to the point where you don't really know then I would just your instincts come alive

you're protecting your kid it's your kid it's your kid as much as it's paternally your kid it's your kid I remember one time I went up to the guy I couldn't get enough info I went up to the guy brought Nelson as an interpreter because he didn't speak English. I said, listen, I know what we do here. All I'm telling you is I'm not putting my kid in

to get beat up. If it's fair, it's fair, but I'm not putting him in with a kid that's got 30, 40 fights. My kid legitimately has two fights. I'm telling you. I know we don't do that here, but I'm telling you. That's what he's got. If your kid's got 40 fights, tell me. Just tell me and say no fight. And I'll shake your hand and that's it. We're good.

So he stood to his story. So we get close and I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, and I'm watching the guy warm up. Cuts always told me, watch the guy warm up. Watch him warm up. I'm watching him warm up. Bow, bow, bow, bow, bow. Bow, bow, bow. Bow, bow, bow, bow, bow.

I said, this guy didn't have two fights. I mean, I'm a pretty good trainer. And even without fights, I think I teach them technically what they need to know before they get to experience. But this guy was beyond that. I mean, you know, this was Sugar Ray Robinson. So I go back to Nelson. I said, bring him over here again. Ten minutes before the fight. I said, bring him over here again. Ten minutes before the fight.

I said, bring him over here again. Comes over. A little bit of an attitude. It's all right. Everyone's got attitudes in this business. I said, hey, listen. One more time. I just want to tell you.

I'm not threatening you. But I want to tell you, not threatening you, but I have to tell you this. You told me he's got no fights, whatever, two fights, whatever. When the bell rings, if you got over on me, I was wrong, you were right. As soon as the bell rings, I'm going to see it. I'm going to know it. There's nothing you can say afterwards to explain it.

I know it. And I'll stop the fight if I have to because I'll protect my kid. And right after I do that, I'll be coming over to you. That's all I'm going to say. So please, please, for you, for me, please. If it's what I'm saying, please, just tell Nelson. You don't have to tell me. Just tell Nelson when I leave here that we're not going to fight.

Nelson came back to me four minutes, three minutes, two minutes later and he said, no fight. Thank you. Tell him thank you. Tell him thank you. That's the world we lived in there. But we got it done. We got it done, though, Joe. We did. We really did.

Well, thank God that someone like you was able to understand that there is a big difference and that you can, you know, these guys that sandbag like that, it's very, very common. And, yeah. And see, they think they're gaining something because, you know what I mean? Well, they just want to fuck somebody up. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but let me tell you something.

And so, but let me tell you something. My kids, I mean, like when we first started fighting there, they had bongo drums this high. I mean, my kids had never seen bongo. I didn't see bongo drums that high. What am I saying? But they were this high. They were bongo. And they were in the ring. They only came out, you know, when we got ready to fight. And they're playing the bongos and And they were in the ring. They only came out when we got ready to fight.

And they're playing the bongos and great music. I mean, really, it was, you know. But you know what? When you're hearing that bongo music and you're in the ring and you're talking to the kid in the corner and they're outside now with the bongos and they're playing the bongos and you're talking, that's an atmosphere. Yeah. That're talking. That's an atmosphere.

Yeah. That's different. That's real experience. That's experience. That's life experience. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

That's not taught in a classroom. And my kids, after six years of that, because that's about how long we did it. I was up there seven years training fighters for class. So I'm telling you you my kids grew up they go did they all go on to be pros and did they go on to be olympic champion no but they took that and they used it to be better at what they did and to to have the confidence to do things they might not have had the confidence to do without that experience i got a couple of them that are state tro. I got a couple of them that are state troopers. I got a couple of them that are teachers in high school. I got a couple, you know, all

different things. A couple that went to college that nobody in their history of their family ever went beyond high school, but they went to college and they were kind of told they're never going to go to college. They went to college. And I would like to believe it had something to do with that, you know. And a lot of people asked me, who was your greatest? Because I had Tyson, too, there. You know, he became one of them. And I remember it was funny because when I would put it down, like I said,

everyone lied about their experience, but, lied about everything. But I would put down the age and everything else, all the stuff for what it was worth. You had to have something to try to believe in, right? And then figure it out from there. So Tyson, when I first had him, he was 190 pounds, nothing but muscle, 12 years old. Okay. That's what he was. But that's what he was. I mean, that's what God made him. That's crazy. So I go down there and I put the first fight. Nobody's seen Tyson. Nobody's ever seen Tyson.

But 12 years old, zero fights. Okay. Teddy! Now you go too far. You lie more than us. You learn a lot from us. You lie better than us. I said, thanks.

That's a compliment. I said, I think, Nelson, that's a compliment? I mean, I take it, I guess it is, right? All right. I'm not lying. 12 years old, 190 pounds. Teddy, please, please, please. Nelson, I'm not lying, okay?

He's 12 years old. He's going to be 13 soon, but technically he's 12 years old, okay? Oh, come on. I said, all right, I'll make you feel better. I'll put down 17. Thank you. Now you tell the truth. I say he you feel better. I'll put down 17. Thank you. Now you tell the truth. I'd say he's not 17.

But I knew what I had. Like I said, I knew what I had. So I fought a 17-year-old. I wasn't going to fight no 12-year-old. That wasn't going to happen. Right. And plus, I get arrested for murder. What was he like at 12 years old?

Mentally weak, but physically, what do I mean mentally weak? Not weak for the average guy, but for a fighter, he still had remnants. He still had residual stuff from his upbringing. Listen, you want to know the truth about the guy? I mean, he always, but he used to hide in between abandoned building walls in Brownsville. It was a rough place, no doubt about it. Didn't have a father, whatever, the mother, whatever. And he used to hide between walls to not get picked on.

And I believe when you do that, you never get outside of that wall to a certain extent. You're always hiding in that wall for the rest of your life. That's just my belief. Teddy, what are you talking about? He became heavyweight champ. Some people think he's the greatest. Some people...

I don't have his record in front of me. And this is going to blow some people crazy. But what are you going to do? I don't have his record. Let's me, and this is going to blow some people crazy, but what are you going to do? I don't have his record. Let's just say we're going to make an arbitrary number because your man's going to pull it up. But let's just say it's 50 and 6. All right, we'll say 5. 50 and 5, but whatever.

I think his record is truly, if you're going to be this, and we're not truly in life with anything, but if we're truly, truly in an absolute world, which we don't live in, but I would say he's 0-5. All right, now everyone who's listening to you think it's just like, let me get what Teddy's drinking. Like, I don't see him drinking nothing,

but he probably had some before he came in. To me, a fight is not a fight until there's resistance, until there's something to overcome. Something to overcome. Otherwise, it's just an athletic venture. It's an exhibition. I think life is that. I think that you don't know if a lawyer is a lawyer until there's something to overcome in the courtroom.

Something goes wrong. Okay? I know he's a lawyer. I know he went to school. I get it. Nobody has to tell me that. But he ain't a lawyer. He ain't that.

Until everything goes wrong, the judge throws all this crap out. And he is effed, so to speak. And he still handles it. Then he's a lawyer. A doctor's not a doctor until he opens up this kid, a kid, just like he's got at home. And arteries are bleeding all over the place. And it's not in the textbook. It's not in the freaking textbook and he got to do it he got to figure it out and he got then he's a doctor then he's a surgeon

at that level you you're not you are not in a fight i i look i i admit it I equate life to a fight. I do. You're not in a fight until there's pressure, resistance, overcoming something. Otherwise, it's just an exhibition. Tyson's talent was so great. His physical ability, his talent was so overwhelming, just like somebody's intellect, just somebody's charisma, whatever, beauty, until it came to something else. But his talent was so superior that the other stuff never got tested. He was blowing guys out and it never got tested if there was anything in the warehouse, so to speak. If there was anything inside, you never knew. And then five times, whatever the real record is, five times there was resistance.

Five times it became a real fight. Five times there was something to overcome. And he failed all five times. He was only in five fights in his life. And he's all in five. I'm sorry. Salah Graves, because we know my history with him, right? Am I capable of that?

Yeah, I'm human, yeah. But I can honestly tell you that I try to be better than that. I've called many fights where the people in the corner, I couldn't stand them. I had no respect for them. But if they did a good job in the corner, if their fighter did a job, I'd talk to them about them like they were Ray Arcel. Like they were Angelo Dundee. Because that's what it was supposed to be.

That's all. And it's selfish because I want to know and I want my kids to know that I can be better than that, that, that it's, it's about, it's about the code of, of the profession. It's, it's about you. It's about you believing that what you say is, should be honest. It should be what you believe. It shouldn't be tainted or influenced by lesser things. That it does represent you. It does represent your family.

It does represent where you came from. It does stay. You know, you blurt it out for those five minutes or maybe two hours on ESPN. But it stays. Someone can go back to it. You can go back to it. for those five minutes or maybe two hours on ESPN, but it stays. Someone can go back to it. You can go back to it.

How do you feel about it? It does mean something. It really does. So I'm only saying it because I would say it about somebody else. In the way that I calibrate things, the way that I evaluate things, that I don't think that you know crap about somebody until they're tested.

You don't know if they're your friend. You don't know if they're a good wife. You don't know if they're a good girlfriend. You don't know crap. You think you do, but until they're really tested, you don't really know. And Tyson, when he got tested, when he had to overcome something, when he didn't run them over like one of those big monster trucks running over a Volkswagen, because he was a monster truck for Volkswagens.

Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. And was he one of the greatest punchers of all time? Yeah, yes. Could he punch from either side of the plate like Mickey Mantle, the greatest switch hitter? Was he that in body? Yes. He could punch evenly great with either hand from either side of the plate like Mickey Mantle, the greatest switch hitter? Was he that in body? Yes! He could punch evenly, great with either hand from either side. Was he all those things? Yes!

Was he as great an intimidator as Sonny Liston? Yes! Was he a great finisher like Joe Luz to a certain extent? Yes! But he wasn't a great fighter. Yes! But he wasn't a great fighter. Because great fighters, when the fight came to them, they found a way to do what they had to do. He found a way to disappear.

They found a way to show up. Yeah, show up. He found a way to go and not show up. And look, you could go talk to psychiatrists and you could go through all the reasons why. Hiding between a wall when he was a kid. Yeah, that's part of it. I'll tell you another part of it. To be that, not to be the power puncher, not to be the aggressor,

not to be just those things, to be the titan, to be the viking, to be the samurai, to be the warrior, to be those things. It has to be inside you. You have to believe it. You know, a lot of times people lie in life. There's certain places you can't lie you know sometimes we say that the ring is the chamber of truth you know it sounds good and all that

but it is it is because just like in other places in life too when the moment comes for those kind of serious things you have to feel like that.

You say that you're the conqueror, you're Alexander the Great, you're all those things, right? Okay, words, sounds great. Makes good sound bites. Probably bring more people to the TV. But when the moment comes and you didn't intimidate the guy,

that didn't work, okay? We all try it to a certain extent, right? Probably, yeah. I'm sure you've it to a certain extent, right? Probably. Yeah. I'm sure you've looked at guys certain ways when you were younger and you'd purposely looked at them in a way to invoke a certain kind of action, a certain kind of result from them. Just, just looking at them in a real serious way that you hope that it weakened them. Yeah. But because I know your background, you were prepared to do what came after that.

But some people aren't. Some people aren't. And Tyson wasn't. As great as he was. I just said it. He's great, guys. That hate me for saying your hero or whatever your favorite guy was. He's great. guys, that hate me for saying you're a hero or whatever your favorite guy was. He's great. Just not great in this area.

And when that moment comes, you have to, that's where the truth matters. You have to believe that you're really that guy. And if you're a guy that, hey, listen, he was convicted, so I think it's fair, that raped somebody, okay? Now, listen, I wasn't in that room,

and I don't know. A lot of people don't think, okay, but he was convicted. But I know enough people in the business that there was a lot of other bad things that he did that are just not things that you would probably want to hang around with somebody if you're a halfway decent human being that he did. There were weak things, okay, weak things. So when you do weak things and you know you did those, and I don't know what, but I'm just saying, you do weak things and you know they were weak things and now you got to do a strong thing.

How do you become strong when you know that you did those weak things and you know that's really you and you got a's really you? And you got a guy across the way from you named Evander Holyfield that doesn't give a shit about how hard you punch, doesn't give a crap about what a finisher you are, doesn't give a crap about how fast you put your punches together. He wants to find out. You're going to have to make him a believer by doing it. And doing it in a difficult place because he's going to make it difficult.

Because he ain't going to cooperate. When that happens, you got to feel like that person. And when you don't feel like that person, you got a problem. And that's what happened. It wasn't a matter when he bit his ear it wasn't a matter that he was hungry he was a savage and he was from the street stop the crap

there's a way to get out because he knew he wasn't that guy and when you're not that guy guess what you have a great talent of recognize when somebody is yeah that's your greatest talent you can recognize when somebody is yeah that's your greatest talent you can recognize when somebody is

and he recognized that the holy field was and that was his way to get out and he did so that's why again it's not sour grapes it's really not because I'm more selfish than that I really do care about what what my

reputation is and whether or not I've been honest about things I say. It doesn't mean I'm right, but it means I believe it. I do care about that. I do. And so it's not that. It doesn't mean I'm right, but it means I have a reason to believe I'm right. From the way I've lived, from what I've seen, what I've experienced in the business, the human condition, how strong it can be and how weak it can be. and he was as strong a guy as you're ever going to see, but he was as weak a person as you're ever going to find. That's intense, but I see what you're saying in terms of you are judging it by the highest standards possible. You're judging it in comparison to other champions.

You're judging it. What else other champions. You're judging it. What else are you going to judge it with, Joe? Yes, of course. Well, you look at guys who are known for incredible heart and their ability to come back, like Diego Corrales. Diego Corrales and some of those wars when you would see. Well, with Castillo. Yes. That was one of the greatest fights of all time.

The first one. Greatest fight of all. Mickey Ward, Arturo Gary, the first one. Right. Not the second, third, the first. The first. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

I mean, if you want to go back, if you want to go back farther, a lot of people won't know this, but Bobby Chacon was involved in a lot, and unfortunately, he paid the price. Okay? Yes. But Bobby Chacon in the 70s, 80s he he was involved in those fights every other day yeah you know I'm just kidding but he was in fight in too many of those fights yeah and unfortunately you don't know about Bobby Chacon you talk to somebody again I'm like the baseball thing you talk about the average guy Bobby Chacon who the hell's that

who the hell's that unfortunately it's a guy that wouldn't know his name anymore. But he was a pretty special guy in that ring. He was pretty damn tough. Tougher than most people. There's guys that unfortunately relied on that toughness, right? Yeah. When it comes to guys known for incredible chins, that can be a detriment.

Yes. And it can be... If that's all you have. Yeah. If you think that's all you have. Cuss used to put it this way. Cuss used to, because he wanted me to be a great trainer. So Cuss used to always be with me all the time,

you know, saying things. And Cuss would say, Teddy, got two tough guys. Okay, gotcha. Now, what's tough? It's a prerequisite to being a fighter. You better be tough. But what level?

It's all levels, degrees. I gotcha. But how special is being tough? Because if you're a fighter, you should be tough. I got you. I'm listening. So you got two tough guys. But one of them is smart, taught, developed.

That's him. He's tougher now. That's how he explained it. Tougher because he's smart. Yeah. Tough and smart. He goes from here, he's here. Because he's not just dependent only on toughness.

So he's tougher than this guy. Right. Because you don't have to depend on just that. Right. You might not even have to get to it. It's there as a reserve. It's always there to call on. Like army you call on you need it right but he's not dependent just on that isn't that the balance though is knowing that you have it yeah

knowing that you have it and there it is there it is see what you just said yeah you have to know that you're it yeah tyson didn't know he was it will Will you ever admit that? No, he'd probably knock me and say, whatever. It's okay. It's okay. Well, there's certain people that you can't question. And Evander Holyfield is one of those people. That's why that fight was so fascinating. Because Evander Holyfield was, he is a 100% warrior.

Well, he had the right nickname. Most of them don't. Most of them don't have the right fight nickname in whatever they do. But the real deal. He was the real deal. Yeah. And remember, a small heavyweight is why. You want to know why?

I mean, trace it back. Cuz always told me this, but I learned it innately on my own too. But trace it back to the parents. Trace it back to the background. Trace it back to all that stuff. Trace it back. He didn't live up to something. He didn't face something. He didn't do whatever it was

that was supposed. He had a mother that he talked about a few times and I'm sorry if I'm not saying exact, but it's there. And a great mother, obviously, but they grew up in Georgia. I think it was Atlanta, but whatever, suburb of Georgia.

And she, different age, you know, different time, down south and all that. Had a little, I guess, a little shack in the back with a thing called twitches. Switches. Switches, I'm sorry. I'm twitching. Switches. Switches, I'm sorry. I'm twitching. Switches.

And she basically had different size switches, you know. Short ones, long ones, medium ones, depending on the occasion. And when he didn't live up to what he had to, tell the truth, whatever, be accountable, okay? Face what he had to face. Whatever

she had to do, a switch for him. And you know what? It formed him. Because he faced things. Tyson on the other hand, and listen, did he ask for it?

No. No, he didn't ask for that upbringing. I get it. But I know people have that upbringing, and they get to a point they can make a left turn instead of a right turn. It's your ability to make a choice. But don't you think there's also the overwhelming hype and celebrity involved in Mike Tyson in his prime. It was probably so difficult for him to even understand himself. Yeah.

But what he did understand, and I'm glad you said that. Backwards. What he did understand was there was a way out. Evander learned there was no way out. You know, a perfect example. You know what I mean, right? Like somebody would come and pay and he did a lot of things before he became champion

and somebody was always there with a check or cash or whatever and would absolve him from it, would not have to face what he did. Right. But there was a switch that Evander had to face. And that's what made him what it made him. And that's what allowed Tyson, part of what allowed Tyson,

look, you make your own choices at a certain point in life. So let's not make too many excuses. But it is part of it that he was formed by what he was allowed to do when he shouldn't have been allowed to do those things. And that was one of the issues that you had with Cuss, right? Yeah. That you felt like Cuss was ignoring his own principles and teaching because this guy was so special. Yeah, and Cuss was getting older.

And Cuss recognized he didn't have much time left, and this guy had a legitimate shot at being a world champion. And for Cuss, everything in his junior, everything in the world of boxing, success and everything, he was great. He was special, Cuss. His whole life. He didn't get married for a reason because he was married to boxing as he said that it wouldn't have been fair. I mean, this was a different guy. That it was boxing. His whole life, everything. Life was boxing. And lessons were connected to boxing. Everything. And principles, boxing. And so this is a, you know, this is a guy that his whole,

you know, you use that word legacy, but really his whole existence was boxing. for him it was heavyweight champs he had floyd patterson youngest heavyweight champ ever that was cause that was cause it wasn't about lightweights listen he had lightweights he had welterweights jose torres yeah jose torres light heavyweight champion exactly right he had other guys too but it was the heavyweight champion of the world because it was around what we talked about before when boxing was the biggest sport, bigger than baseball, and it was the heavyweight champ of the world was Babe Ruth.

It was Rocky Marciano. And you're going to say that before you leave this earth, did you have a chance to have another heavyweight champ that might be the best, could be one of the best ever, and could break Patterson's record, which was part of the plan. Part of the plan when Cuss was alive, you're going to break Patterson's record.

He broke it. He became the youngest heavyweight champion. And so when you float that out there, if you will, and tempt a guy with that, even a great guy like Cuss, some things are going to be pushed to the side. Compromised. Yeah, compromised, and he did. Do you think if he didn't do that, that Tyson would have been a different person?

I'm going to use his words. That was told to me by a great promoter, Mickey Duffy, passed away. He was close to Jim Jacobs, he was close to Cuss, and he was up there sometimes after I left and all that. And Mickey wanted me to train all his fighters. And he was a great promoter, Mickey. He had great sayings, he was a very witty guy, but he was a sharp guy. Boxing was his life too.

And he ran everything in London with three partners. One of them was Jarvis Estelleelle who owned Wembley Stadium so they were powerful they ran everything they were the cartel in London back in those days he told me that before Cuss died

that Cuss had said some nice things about Teddy Atlas but he said that Cuss had said some nice things about Teddy Atlas, but he said, and look, I know there's a danger that this can be convenient, you know what I mean? Self-serving crap. Sometimes you gotta trust whatever. I was told by Mickey that he said that Teddy Atlas was right

but where he was wrong was he was going to get in the way of the possibility of making a great fighter if he did things his way as far as the disciplining and the you know whatever in other words whether he left it like that. So I don't know.

So I know what I think it meant, that Tyson wouldn't have been around if you disciplined him, he would have left. I don't know. Because I don't know that he had those options because he was a ward of the state and, you know, he was coming out of, obviously, a criminal situation.

He was coming out of a juvenile detention center called Tryon up outside of, 30 miles outside of Albany. You know, so I don't know that he had, but basically that if Teddy did it his way, he was right, but he was wrong because it would have ruined the possibility of a great fighter. And I couldn't let that happen. So I don't think that's, I don't know if it's true actually.

I don't know. You know what? I was about to say I don't think that's true because of course it's me. Right. I want to make myself feel good. So I want to say you could have had the best of both worlds. You could have had maybe a better person or within the realm of a better person, right? Boundaries, right?

There were no boundaries. Maybe those boundaries realm of a better person, right? Boundaries, right? There were no boundaries. Maybe those boundaries would have made a difference, right? And you still would have had the talent. I mean, the talent wasn't going to dissipate because of the discipline, you know, that you put on them as a human being. That wasn't going to change. But I guess because we're saying that it wasn't going to happen. Maybe you lose him. Maybe he goes to someone else at a certain point in his development. Maybe that's what he meant. I don't know.

Well, you had that with Shannon Briggs. Yeah, Shannon Briggs came from Brownsville, and I had him as a young developing pro that we got to a certain point. And you also had that situation with him where you felt like he wasn't 100% in. He wasn't doing the things you wanted him to do. He was lacking in a certain amount of discipline or he was distracted in a certain amount of ways that bothered you to the point where you didn't want to work with him anymore. He wasn't committed, I didn't think, completely. But he was a smart kid, a particular kid.

Talented. Talented, very talented. Smart. smart kid, a particular kid. Talented. Talented, very talented. Smart, you know, he knew how to market himself. He had the dreadlocks and he made them orange. And, you know, nobody was doing that back then. And he could punch. He was talented. And he looked good, you know.

Yeah. But his real commitment, I didn't think because and maybe to his credit he was smart and he thought of other things but he never really bought in that the end all was

boxing that was the complete I don't want to use just the average same standard word commitment that that was the complete, I don't want to use just the average, same standard word, commitment. Like what the frig is that? Sometimes like commitment. But more than commitment,

he said all the right things because they had investors and they had different people. It's not a bad thing. Everyone, if you're talented enough, you draw those kind of things to his credit. He deserved it. He did something to bring investors and people to back him.

But he got so used to saying what they needed to hear that he never knew what he needed to hear. He never, and what he needed to hear and believe was that I'm really going to do it. He got so good at selling it that he never got good at buying it. He never really, he just thought that I ride this train until,

I ride this train until I fall off or until it comes off the track or until it comes to a stop. But it is going to come to a stop. And I'm not saying everyone can have that confidence. Everyone can have that belief. I'm not saying that. But you have to get it somewhere, sometime. He didn't believe that the train was really going here.

He believed that it was just going to go to a place where it was going to be better than where he was and that that he'll ride it as long but he he's not committed to staying on it when when the when the turns come up and and it gets a little fast he he doesn't believe that he's really going to get there he believes that when that first turn second turn third turn third turn, whatever, on the rails comes, that that's going to be it. But it took him better place than he was at. It earned him some money. It got him some things. And it was good. But he never really, there's that word committed, but he never really believed. And a lot of people don't. They find their way along the way. people don't. They find their way along the way. But he never believed that what he told the people around him that he was going to be. He never believed that. His personality was too good. His personality was too sharp. He could say all the right things and became easier to say the

right things than to believe the right thing. Does that make sense? It does make sense. This uncompromising psychology of combat sports, this uncompromising philosophy, is this something that you got from Cuss? Is this something you inherently understood from working closely with these guys and taking them to these smokers in the South Bronx? Where does this come from? Just raw honesty, seeing it all? Listen, it comes from, again, you don't want to be corny, but it comes from living a certain way, life, seeing things, traveling through things. That's part of it, definitely.

But the articulation of it, the blueprint, the map of it, the seeing of it, the visualization of it on paper comes from Kuss. He was a genius. That was his world. The theory of it, that's the better way. The theory of it comes from Kuss. The living, the doing of it comes from my father. I had a father that most boxing people don't come from,

although Barrera did, great Mexican fighter, but he came from something like that. He wanted to be a lawyer, actually. But anyway, and you think Mexico, you think, well, he came from the, you know, the dirt floors and the stuff which a lot of guys come from.

And, you know, they pull themselves out. And that's part of the, obviously, the motivation. But come from and you know they pull themselves out and that's part of the obviously the motivation but my father was a doctor he was a gp practiced 55 years staten island new york he came from the bronx center he founded two hospitals he built a hospital with 22 beds and it was It was called Sunnyside. I don't know if that stuff even existed in Google back then, but anyway, it was Sunnyside Hospital. And he built it so that all people, well, listen, he built it so poor people, he grew up very poor. He just, he wasn't that kind of like, oh, it's because I'm, he just, he built his hospital

so that the less of people with less could get hospital care because back in those days there were no HMOs, there was no Obamacare, there was no, you know, whether you think it's good, it's bad, it doesn't matter, there was nothing. You wound up in a clinic maybe, unless you had a doctor that took care of you. And there were other doctors. He wasn't the only one. But he was the only one I knew. And he founded Sunnyside Hospital with 22 beds in it.

It lasted about 25 years until the Verrazano Bridge was built. And the city put the highway in it. It lasted about 25 years until the Verrazano Bridge was built. And the city put the highway in there. It changed Staten Island, obviously. It connected Brooklyn to Staten Island. You didn't have to take a ferry boat. And the city bought it from him. And then he went and founded Doctors Hospital with 60 other doctors. But he was the original founder.

Him and a guy named Dr. Tim Pone Sr. He founded Doctors, which was a bigger hospital. It lasted 30 years. It was a bigger hospital. But so he was a guy that he didn't waste time telling me how to live and all that stuff. The only thing I remember was you say something do it what does that mean and then I watched him as a kid he was my hero I mean I like Mickey Mantle and I like Joe Louis you know all those things and just like any other kid but if I had a hero I didn't know what a

hero was I'm not going to make believe I knew but I know now what it's supposed to mean right so he was my hero and I just I watched him you know when

I went in his room one time when he graduated NYU they didn't have money, so he had to get scholarship. He had to get help from different things, whatever they had to do. But he went to NYU Medical School, NYU undergrad, and then he interned at Bellevue, which he wasn't a big talker, but he did tell me, when you graduate at Bellevue,

you're ready for anything. So later in my life, I took that as the South Bronx. You graduated the South Bronx to smoke because you were ready for anything. You learned there, you're ready for anything. You learn how to matchmake, you're ready. You learn how to be a trainer, you're ready for anything. So he, you know, he came, I didn't knock on his door. When he was interning in Bellevue, a young guy, you know,

apparently he saved some obese woman's life that had a heart attack in the street. He dragged her off the street, whatever. You never get the whole story. But he saved a life. And he developed a hernia, and it grew into a double hernia and my father was the kind of guy he didn't let anything interfere with his patients his work he didn't take time to get it so he carried it for 30 years and he finally got it you know and so it become a double hernia i know hernias now they do the mesh and they do lathes in there. But in those days,

it was a more serious thing. It was evasive surgery. It was different. It was. And it was painful, apparently. And I didn't knock on the door. I was a young kid, you know, very young, but I still remember. And there was a mirror here and he was over there near his bed and the mirror was here so I opened the door I didn't knock should have knocked obviously and I saw he was bent over in pain

I mean I could recognize and he was wearing a thing I had no idea it was like I didn't know what the frick is that but it was a probably not you i probably need you again to give me the proper pronunciation thank you for but it was a trust i think it was yeah to suck his guts yeah yeah yeah it was leather it was two things like this and uh you know i was i was like i don't know what the freak freak is that, you know? But I could see he was in pain, and he had this thing on, and he got mad.

Told me to get out. And for the rest of my young life, I knew there was something wrong. I knew he was in pain every day, and he never showed it. He never used an excuse. He worked every day, including Sunday. he never used an excuse. He worked every day, including Sunday. His office hours were a joke because if it said on the thing, you know, 4.30,

he stayed to 9.30 because he didn't leave until the last patient left. And most of them weren't paying him. You know, he took the patients that other doctors didn't take. Took all the Medicare, Medicaid, whatever it was, whatever the right one is, basically welfare. He took all of them. And, you know, he made the he had the biggest practice on Staten Island, maybe the biggest in New York.

So all the all the all the drug salesmen, they they all migrated to his place. You want to get his account, Dr. Ellis, to sell the new stuff, to sell the drugs, to sell the pills. And he used them. He didn't hide it, but he made them give him a huge amount of samples. You know why? Because his patients couldn't afford to fill the prescriptions, so he would give them the free samples. I used to always wonder, what the freak are all these things?

In our house, you open up a closet, there was, like, things falling on you, you know? Like pills and stuff. And, like, what is all... But it was so he could give it to them so they didn't have to fill a prescription because they didn't, there was, again, there was none of those things that pay for your prescriptions that they do today. And they couldn't afford it. They couldn't afford to go to him. But he charged them $3, $5, whatever, whatever it was that they could afford. And, you know, he made money.

I mean, he was a doctor, but he didn't make the money that other doctors were making. But he was a real doctor, right, for me at least. But more importantly, he didn't talk about it. He did it. And every day he was in pain. Later on, I was a little older, but I was still a young teenager. I saw him put a white pill under his tongue.

I didn't know what the freak that was. Later on, I found out it was nitro, that his heart would skip beats, but he still didn't say a word, didn't talk about it. If he didn't have a son who thought he was his hero, I wouldn't have known because I looked at everything he did. And, you know, he did house calls.

He did house calls to who was 80 years old, charging $5, whatever, nothing. He had patients that could not get to an emergency room. They didn't have the ability to get there. They didn't have a car. They were in shape where they couldn't get there, couldn't take a bus, whatever. So he did house calls. And the patients, when he died, they all said, hey, sometimes you have to wait till one in the morning.

But he got there. That was the thing. He always got there. He always delivered. that was the thing, he always got there he always delivered and with all those things that I knew as his kid he never made an excuse and he was a fighter

in his own way he was the best fighter I ever saw and he didn't talk about it. He didn't articulate it. You know, he didn't wax poetic about it like Cus did. And Cus was a great man. But he did it. And he did it right in front of my face.

And it stayed with me. You know, I didn't understand a lot of it until I got older, but then suddenly I understood all of it. And so if somebody says, hey, you know, I can't do this because, you know, last night my girlfriend, my wife yelled at me, and she caught me with a girl. She did, I mean, I night my girlfriend, my wife yelled at me and she caught me with a girl. She did. I mean, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it. And listen, it was a curse to me too in some ways. It's not perfect because when my father died, I went to the funeral and then I went to the gym. And I didn't tell nobody. And listen, I probably shouldn't. A lot of people would probably say you can't live your life that way by what people say. I get it. But I'm just saying I'm aware of it.

All right. A lot of people say you shouldn't have went to the gym. My father, we lost a kid. He was five years old. And I wasn't going to say this because I don't know how some people say it, but if it is, it is, right? So you can take it the way you want to take it. I know the kind of man he was.

But you talked about commitment, absoluteness. You talked about certain things, right? Maybe this explains some of it. We had little Todd. He was our brother. He was born with problems. He was our brother. He was born with problems. He was retarded. You don't use that word anymore, but in those days, it was okay to use that word.

That's what he was, okay? Now, of course, you say that he was impaired, mentally impaired, whatever. Okay. He was a beautiful kid. I remember him. I was older. I was the oldest. He was very loving

I remember he used to jump into my arms when I come home so I know he was very trusting because I would walk up the steps and he would jump from the steps if I didn't catch him obviously he would have fell so it was part of his condition but it was part of his lovingness and his trust

so when he was 5 years old he had to get surgery he had a problem with his heart it was open heart surgery open heart surgery was a whole different story back then right and where did he get the operation yeah he did in my father's hospital my father did not perform the surgery of course you're not going to do that but he was there there was a few surgeons. Might have been five, whatever it was. And my mother was the opposite. My father was a Hungarian Jewish background. You know, he had no father. He died young. His mother, they were very poor. My mother grew up poor too. She was Irish, Irish Catholic Different mix

And my father didn't have time for religion My father had time for living And for healing people So he let us be brought up Catholic That was up to my mother And So he They were different

They were the opposites. My mother was beautiful. She was Miss Staten Island. Her mother didn't, her father died also young. Her mother was a tough Irish woman. And she, my grandmother, she did not allow her from winning Miss Staten Island. She was supposed to go to, obviously, to Miss America. She wouldn't let her go there. I say right out, she thought that was

for whores. Like you go do that, you know, even though she wanted, she let, that was cute. But now you're going to go Miss America, you're going to go, no, we're not. She said, no, you're not doing that. And she had a chance to go and try out for the Rockettes, which most people out there know what they are. The dance

group in Radio City Music Hall. No, that's for those people too. No. So she was beautiful. And she had a great personality. And she loved social life. And she was the antithesis of my father in a lot of ways. And I guess opposites attract.

And if you want to make a movie out of it, she was sick. And he, she wasn't getting better. And my father was in the hospital. He was in, I guess his patient was in a dual room. Whatever, whatever,

he became a doctor and helped her get better. She had a form of hepatitis. Back in the days when you didn't get it from needles only. You could get it from eating a bad clam, whatever. I don't know if it was C, whatever it is. I'm not going to tell you because I don't know for sure. And she was very sick.

And anyway, he took care of her, and they got married. They fell in love and all that stuff. So, you know, just my father was, like I said, my father was, he was dedicated to that life. But the thing that he did that I started to say, and then I want to give that background, I guess, but my mother was very emotional. My father's a doctor. He hid his emotions. And when Todd went for surgery,

he died on the operating table. He had told my mother, my father never lied. He told her the risk, but my mother wanted to believe what she wanted to believe. My mother said, you said he would be okay.

You know, he didn't say that, but you know, but of course my mother, my father was her hero too. You know, made her better. Can't make your son better. So he died. We all got split up. I had to live with an uncle that was single, and he was a very handsome guy, just like my mother. So he had girlfriends coming in and out all the time, and he was a young, good-looking guy and liked to go out. I'd wind up sitting in a bar waiting for him. I'd get a lot of bags of potato chips, a lot of Cokes. He'd finally come back. I'd have eight Cokes in front of me. Maybe ten.

You know, and we got split up and my mother was sleeping in her cemetery. She had a nervous breakdown. But, you know, she got herself together. She overcame it. But, you know, she got herself together. She overcame it. But she never forgave him. You know, she was Irish, and then the easy thing is the Irish curse and all that stuff. But, you know, she drank. But she's a great woman, but she was tragically hurt,

and everyone copes with things differently, and it was difficult, and that day, with all of what I just described, and again, I'm always afraid to say it, but you say it because it's part of it, right? Maybe it explains, maybe some people hold it against him when I say this, but he got a phone call that day on his answering service.

You didn't have pages in those days. He had an answering service. He told them to call him when he had requests for house calls two in the morning as a kid i used to hear the phone ring it was two in the morning i i started getting dressed i came out and i was on the stairs waiting for him to go hey he'd look at me what are you doing i'm going with you no you're not get back in the room you know sometimes you let me go with him No, you're not.

Get back in the room. You know? Sometimes you let me go with him. And anyway, this day obviously was a different day. And there was his patient. His patient's daughter had a child who was very, very sick. She did not know that her son. The mother knew, but the daughter didn't know that his son died that day, that his son was buried that day,

I should say. So she called. He went and did a house call on a day that his, you know, that his son got buried. You know, that's tough.

But that was what, you know, that's what his, You know, that's tough. But that was what, you know, that's what his, you know, that's what his... So when people tell me that they can't keep a commitment because this happened, it doesn't go with me. That's all. And that day after I buried my father, I went to the gym, and I trained Michael Mora. Because I was, you know, that's what I was doing. That was my job.

Character. Real character. I mean, whatever it is, it is. Whatever it is, that's strength. Call it whatever name, whatever noise you want to make. There's not a lot of people like that. That explains a lot.

That explains a lot about your unyielding understanding and appreciation of real commitment. Yeah. I mean, that's, yeah, that's you almost don't have a choice because to not listen you just do it but to not follow that in some ways

it's like you're not honoring your father because your fathers leave you certain things In some ways, it's like you're not honoring your father. Because your fathers leave you certain things. You know, they leave you, you know, something in the will maybe. They leave you whatever. They might leave you a special trinket of something that you always remember. A car, a little thing, whatever. But they leave you something if you're fortunate enough to have a father.

I know not everyone is. I get it. But when they leave you that, you got to cherish it. You should. And that's what he left me. So to be, it's not that I'm a good guy or a bad guy or a great guy or a lesser guy or anything. I'm not, I'm not any of that, but I'm loyal to that because you should be loyal to that. That makes sense. I mean, you know, I'm, I i'm i'm loyal to that idea i'm loyal to that living i'm loyal to that that just that stance that he took in living his life that belief that you know principle of living whatever you want to call it, all those words that make it sound better. But I would feel that by not doing it that way,

when you're lucky enough to have a man that kind of taught you what he taught you without talking too much. And that might be the greatest teacher is by seeing, right, examples of it. But if you don't honor that, then you're not honoring your father, what he stood for. And at the end of the day, I was pissed because for everything that he did, there's no, I know this sounds foolish, but there's no statue of him. And so, and for me, there should be something. Because he did it his whole life. You know, we all have moments of light, moments of where we maybe worry about what's there when we're gone and where we're going and maybe we change.

And I've seen it. I've seen it with friends. I get it. I understand it. But where we start trying to live differently because we start wondering about what's coming next when we're gone. Death, whatever, you know, but what's there? And so we start thinking about that a little bit. Maybe I've seen people influenced by that. I have.

You have too, I'm sure. And he was never influenced by that. It was just what he was. He was that his whole life. And the only thing that I could think, because I try to put pieces together a little bit of how he got that way. And all I know from people when he died, you know, patients come up to you, they're great, they want to tell you something, you know,

and they told me, you know, that they were poor and all in the neighborhood and everything, a neighborhood called Mariner's Heart, but down by the water in Staten Island, a rough place, you know, and they told me that his mother was a tough woman, the water in Staten Island, rough place, you know, and, um, they told me that his mother was a tough woman. She didn't have a tough woman.

And there was three sons, you know, and they were originally from, they weren't born, they were born here, but she, they were from, from Europe,

you know, and they had a, just, you had to be what the mother, the mother told them what they had to be. She told each one what you're going to be. The oldest was my father, like I was the oldest. And Eugene, you're going to be an orthodontist. He became an orthodontist, very successful. Reynolds, you're going to be an engineer Boeing aircraft unbelievably successful lived in Seattle Theodore the oldest her favorite

you know you're not supposed to have a favorite but it's real right you have favorites you're going to be a doctor my oldest son you're going to be a doctor he wanted to be a builder he wanted to be a builder. He wanted to build. He did both.

He built over 150 houses on Staten Island. He built different things. How the fuck did he do that? He did it as he was a doctor. How did he have the time? Well, he had a contractor, you know, a guy that did it. But he... He did that because that was his passion.

Well, he did, but no. No, no, she was smarter than him. She was smarter than anyone. She was smarter than anyone. He was supposed to be a doctor. He was one of the greatest diagnostics doctors ever. I know it's my father. I know the whole thing.

I get it, but he really was. You walked in, he knew what was wrong with you. There was a great, again, we don't know, like the Beirut thing, we don't know the complete truth to it, but there's a great legendary story that a guy walked in, had been to Mayo Clinic he had been to John Hopkins he had been everywhere he was dying that's all they knew he was dying losing weight falling apart dying and nobody could diagnose him he walked into this place where you had to wait five hours to see him

because the line was out the door because he was had all the poor people. And there were cigarette burns in all the rugs. And she was like, where am I? But when you got to him, you knew where you were. And he went there. Somebody sent him there. He went there. And my father made all the patients leave. And he gave himself an injection. That's the legendary story. And I asked him about it. And there was a name. I couldn't tell you the name, whatever. He made it real simple. He said, because he knew I watched movies, and we all watch movies,

and we all heard things from different times. And he said, back in those days, it would have been called leprosy. It was some kind of cancer. And I guess there was a contagious part to it, whatever. And he got everyone out of the office and he diagnosed the guy, gave himself a shot. He gave himself a shot? Yeah, yeah.

To inoculate himself? I guess so, I guess so. I mean, that's the story. Right. And he said to me, the only definitive thing I know about that story, and there was a million of them, you know, similar,

but was that I bragged to my father, you're smarter than all these other doctors. And he said, no, I'm not. And I said, but you found it in these other places. Big hospital, big problem. I'm not a big hospital. Big hospitals, bigger problems. I said, what do you mean? They have to do things fast and with large numbers. I don't. So they

have to, it has to make sense. Some things don't make sense. That's what he told me. He said, so this particular thing, they're smarter than me. They knew the characteristics of the disease. They knew the symptoms. They knew that it fit in here. But that hadn't been around for 40 years in the continental United States, whatever he said to me. But I remember it was something like that. It hadn't been around for 40, maybe it was 60, but whatever.

It hadn't been around. So they moved right past that because they have to go. It's a big hospital. They got to go quick. He said, I don't have to. He says, it didn't make sense to them because it wasn't around 40 years. But he says, if it is, almost like if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, maybe's a duck so he just stayed he could stay with that they couldn't stay with that and he stayed with and he was right and um he did a lot of things like that he was famous for that he was famous for people coming from brooklyn coming from manhattan coming over there to see this diagnostic genius in this little basement office

with people up the out the block like they were waiting for McDonald's

or pizza and um and he cost less than McDonald's to a certain extent you know

because if he didn't have money he didn't charge you like I said but he

uh but he made money of course but he didn't make the money of course but he didn't make the money of the and he was uh i'll tell you a great story to be to have a nursing home maybe this explains him the best to have a nursing home you had to have a open on staten island i guess anywhere in new york you had to have a doctor who was signed on as the medical director the problem

was they couldn't pay you because the nursing homes weren't really making money. So you just had to have a doctor who would be there. None of them really wanted to do it. So my father was the medical director. And just bear with me. I'm going to say of eight nursing homes. Might have been five. Might have been nine.

So I would go with him on house calls. That's how I hung out with him. So I would go with him on house calls. That's how I hung out with him. So I'd go with him on nursing homes. So of course he didn't get paid. He was the director. But he figured if he was that, he never told me this but I think it's okay to say it. He figured

if I'm going to be there, I'm going to go see the patients. He didn't have to. But he went once a week and he went into each nursing home, and I went with him when I was with him, and he saw the patients. So there's one day we go in, and he's like, he gets treated like royalty. I mean, he comes in, the staff comes running out. From all the nurse stays, they all come on. You know, and it made me feel good.

I was like, wow, I'm with the man. So I'm following him around. We're going down the hallway, and he's very humble. He really truly is. That word is overused. But this guy was beyond humble. Like the rector thing would go this way, the needle. It was ridiculous.

He'd get mad if you said something good about him. So they all come in. Do you have the charts? Yeah, come on. So he's looking at the charts. Change this medicine. Give him 100 milligrams. You know, the typical stuff that I know from watching Dr. Kildare or something, right?

Right. So he's looking and he's doing his thing he's going down I'm following him around I don't know how old I was but young 10 11 I don't know so I'm following him all of a sudden this woman

do you ever see I don't know I jump around with these things but you ever see the movie it was that comedy guy that was around back then and he did like Bride of Frankenstein and he did. Mel Brooks? Yeah. It was one of his movies and the Bride of Frankenstein, the white hair was all like, well, this woman was the Bride of Frankenstein. She comes running out and she was disheveled and she was like half nude and her gown was falling off and she's an older lady and her white hair was like that.

And she comes running and she's yelling, incoherent and screaming and they jump her. And they jump her and they start putting straps around her, I guess like the old white coat, I guess. And apparently she was tied up to a bed, you know obviously back in those days they didn't know how to deal with senile people the way, you know it was a whole different thing. I mean we're talking a lot of years ago. And so they had her tied up and she got loose. And her gown was falling off and she's,

and so they jump on her and they're tying her up. And I'm watching this woman get mugged in the nursing home that my father's the medical director of, and all of a sudden he said, leave her alone. And he's still looking at his charts. He's not like, hey, oh. He said, leave her alone. It's okay.

She's fine. She'll be all right. And she calmed down. She was a little, you know, nuts, but... She was nuts, right? Right. That's okay to say. It's realistic.

And she comes over to my father. She says, hey, how are you doing? And he's right there. And he starts walking. She starts following him. I'm a kid, so I can't figure it all out the way I could later, right? But she becomes his assistant, basically. She's following him around, and he's going room to room.

and he's going to room to room and she's, see, I think he gave her, if I remember correctly, he gave her like the thing that you write on, the billboard, you know,

the thing. Clipboard. Yeah, clipboard, to hold. So she's holding the clipboard and she's looking like she's making believe

she's reading stuff and I'm like looking at this scene like, you know, but I'm a kid, like I haven't seen all the movies yet that i can compare it that this is this is out there you know what i mean this is freaking nuts and and she's following around she's looking at the thing and i think she's like saying yeah yes like she's and he's going and he's he's basically not even paying attention he's just every once in a while he's like let me have that and he's gone and he's basically not even paying attention. He's just, every once in a while he's like, let me have that.

And he's doing, and all of a sudden, and this is the part again, just like the other thing. I think about leaving it out. But if I leave it out, it's not the story. It's not the story. Because if I left it like that, it's a beautiful story. But this is a beautiful story in its own way. Because it is what it is. It's real.

He's in front of her. And my mother was, I described her, she was this gorgeous, beautiful woman that liked good things. My father could give a crap. My father had ink stains exploding in his white shirt pockets. My mother would go crazy. He went to Kmart. I don't know if you remember Kmart. He went to Kmart and bought us all shoes for $4.99 each, maybe $3.99, plastic shoes.

And my mother was buying him leather shoes. He never wore them. If he knew what she paid for them, he would have went nuts. Waste, waste. For what? That was his, that was him. So he's got these plastic shoes and, you know, he's got the inks blow up in his pockets and everything else. And my mother would always get upset, always mad. Why do you wear those shoes? But he, that's, so he's walking in front of her and all of a sudden, everything changes.

The woman goes, he's not a doctor. She flipped on him. Can you imagine this? She, after being so great to her, he's not a, barely gets his attention. Still walking. He's not a, barely gets his attention. Still walking. He's not a doctor, everybody. He's got holes in his shoes.

I look down, his foot goes up. He's got a hole in his shoe. His sock's sticking out of the shoe. She was right. He's got a hole in his freaking shoe. In his plastic shoe. He doesn't care. He can't be a doctor.

He's got holes in his shoes. Now he turns around. He looks at her. I'll never forget this. He pats her on the head. Says, you're not so crazy. Pats her on the head. Just like this.

And not in a demeaning way like you might think. You know what I mean? Really, he touched her on the head just like this and not in a demeaning way like you might think you know what i mean right really he touched her on the head and said you're not you're not so crazy turned around took the billboard and kept walking she didn't say another word Wow. My mother was freaking embarrassed and mad because I told the story when I got home. And, of course, he would never tell it. And I said, you know, Dad, you know, I said it like a kid would say it. All right.

You know, this lady, he said, you know, he's got holes. Oh, my God. You know, Jesus. You know. Right. Didn know, Jesus. You know. Right. Didn't mean anything. Well, that makes just this, your description, your understanding of your father just makes so much sense now. So much sense of who you are, why your principles are so rigid, why you're intolerant of any bullshit.

Just makes so much sense. As a fight trainer and as a guy who understands fighters, as a commentator, it makes so much sense that you have this just unyielding need for 100% commitment. Yeah, I mean, just don't, listen,

it doesn't make me a better person or anything. I say, but I don't have tolerance. I don't have tolerance for the BS. Right. Because I know it to be BS. Right.

You know, I say to, we were running these gyms for the last nine years, 22 years. Listen, I say to, we were running these gyms for the last 22 years. Listen, when he died, I started the Dr. Atlas Foundation. Again, there was no statue, okay? So I really, I went to a Supreme Court judge who was a friend on Staten Island because I used to be in front of the judges when I was young in a bad way.

And, you know, because I got myself in a little trouble. Stupid. You know, but I got to the right place. That's what counts. Right. I think. And but I always got a kick out of it that I could hang out with the judge and I didn't have to be in the court to do it, you know.

Right. And I didn't have to be standing like in front of him. I could be on the side of them like hey so um i got a few people together and i started the dr atlas foundation 22 years ago and uh we've grown you quite a bit, but just a little grassroots thing, but it's grown. We probably give away, in real health, we have one paid person and one office that's $1,400 a month. That's it. So no administrative costs other than those. And that's it.

Nobody gets salaries, just that one person. And all the money goes to the cases. and that's it. Nobody gets salaries, just that one person. And all the money goes to the cases, and we probably give away $600,000, $700,000 a year, but direct help. We don't give to March of Dimes. We don't give it to them. We don't give to the, you know, we don't give to March of Dimes. We don't give it to them. We don't give it to American Red Cross.

We give it directly. They come to us now because we're out there to an extent where people all know. But they come to us. They have a kid with cerebral palsy, needs a certain bike. The bike costs $1,500. Bang, boom, got the bike. We got another baby that needs a machine that circulates the blood in his legs. It costs $2,500.

Bang, you got it. Obviously, we make sure it's legitimate. We research it. We do that. We have a board. We make sure it's real. We do make sure it really is real because you do get people to take advantage a little bit. But, and we do it. We act on it because my father never made people feel less when they were poor or when they needed something. That was the greatest thing he did. He never made

them lose more than they lost already. Their integrity. Never, never, never. He never made them feel. He didn't try. I remember one time, it was Christmas Eve. Where was I hanging out? I was a kid. I was at my father's office because I wanted to be with him. And it was Christmas Eve and it was late. And we were still in the office. And a woman, I remember she was a Spanish woman.

She came in, she had six kids. And she was nervous. And I remember watching how nervous she was. I was like, even though I was young, I was like, she's really nervous. And I found out, I learned about human behavior. I learned about what it was. And I'm watching her, and sure enough, she was getting ready. When the last kid got taken care of, she was going to dart out of there.

She didn't have money. And the poor woman, she had to take care of her kids. She didn't want to do that, but she was going to run out of there because she did not have money and he recognized me thinking I didn't know what it was so I'm not going to say I thought I was smart but I recognized something

all this motion, all this nervousness it wasn't normal he recognized it all and before he got to the last kid so he wouldn't embarrass her, so she wouldn't run out of there and do that to herself and lose something more than she lost already. He said, this one's on me. And the nervousness went away. She said, there's no charge today. He said, there's no charge today. And I don't know if she spoke English but she understood it and he

made her understand it and there was no charge today and as soon as he said that everything changed everything changed she wasn't nervous she wasn't looking at doors and she she cried and she left and And she left. And when she left, the place was packed because that was his office. And all of a sudden, he talked to himself a little bit, just for a second. I mean, he didn't do this on regular, you know. But he just, like, said, you know, it wasn't like that. You know, I wasn't thinking.

Of course he wasn't thinking. He didn't know it was Christmas Eve. Right. So he turns to me, and he gives me a mission, a job. He takes out his, and he gives me a $50 bill. He says, go find it. She's probably on the bus stop. I ran out that door like I was given the greatest mission in the world.

I felt so proud I could I ran I knew where the bus stop was I was going to run all of them but she was at the first one down on Bay Street right around the corner down block two blocks and I she's there

and sure enough there she is on the bus stop I went up to her and said, the doctor said to give you this. You know, she looked at it. You know, she was shocked, but she started crying again. But I felt so good because, like, I felt like I was part of it, you know? Yeah. And so I started this foundation. And I said, you know, I needed help.

I said, look, we're going to do what he did. No red tape. No losing your pride. People that fall through the cracks. That's my father. He had a Ph.D. in that. All the people that fell through the cracks. He took care of them all.

I said, we're going to take care of them. The ones, you know, musculoskeletal, great organization. But the people out there know, not in a bad way, but did you know like 80-something percent goes to administrative course and like 4% goes to research? These people don't need research in their life. They've told me that. I know it. I recognize it. You know what they need?

They need a wheelchair. You know what they need? A handicapped ramp. You know what they need? Their cancer medication paid for. You know what they need? The utilities to be kept on when they're being shut off because they can't afford. You know what they need? They need the back rent paid because someone got sick and one of the people working there had to quit the job and they were going to be put into a shelter with six kids. So we pay the back rent. We pay the utility costs. We pay the cancer medication. We put the wheelchair ramp up. And we do those.

That's what we do. And research ain't part of their life. It's great. Let's hope it comes so we could close all these places down. And I'll close mine down first. But right now they don't need research they need that they need help for their way of life now for the quality of life of that kid now so that's what we do how could someone donate to this if they want to it's the Dr. Atlas said I'm real bad on uh

website stuff I'm like a caveman. But it's the DrAtlasFoundation.org. www.DrAtlasFoundation.com. .com. Yeah. And 718-980, I'm sorry if it's okay. Yeah. 718-980-7037. One person.

There it is right there. Yeah, there it is. That's it. There it is. All right, we got it up there. One more time with the phone number? Yeah. If someone's in their car.

718-980-7037. 718-980-7037. So dratlessfoundation.com. Yes, there it is. Go there and donate. I'm sold. Thank you. This is a beautiful conversation, man, and not just about boxing.

Thank you. This is a beautiful conversation, man, and not just about boxing. And I think this, like I said, it speaks so much to who you are and why you who you are and why you won't tolerate any bullshit. Yeah, it's like when you've seen a guy like that, it's kind of like it don't make sense. Are you still working with fighters? You know, it's funny. No was the word until a few minutes ago. Until a few minutes ago?

Well, I'm saying a few minutes, but until a week ago, maybe less, maybe five days ago, I've decided to train a fighter. He's going to fight for the World Light Heavyweight title December 1st against the second hardest puncher in boxing, unfortunately, which he wasn't. And it's going to be, I think it's on Showtime. I think. I don't even know because I didn't even find those details out. When they asked me to train him, first I was saying no.

And then my kids said, Dad, at least give it a chance. So I flew out to where he is in Oxnard, California to meet him. His name is Oleksandr. He's a Ukrainian. Oleksandr Vozik. I learned that you don't pronounce the G. It's Vozik, but it starts with a G. He's 15 and 0, 12 knockout.

He's fighting the second hardest puncher in boxing, Adonis Stevenson, in Montreal. It's a tough fight. They asked me if I would train him at first. Like I said, I would say no. Who do you think is the hardest puncher in boxing? Wilder. Wilder.

The old times would say, he hit you on top of the head and fractured your ankles. That's hard. Donna Stevenson is a hell of a puncher. He's the second hardest puncher in boxing left hand southpaw on top of it and um when i flew out toxin to i said if i'm gonna say i'm either gonna say no which my kids asked me not to so i said then i gotta fly out and i gotta meet him and when we had lunch him and the manager too you know anyway and i'm sitting with them i don't know what they are for sure you know the manager i knew for a while in the business, but for sure, you don't know

till you know. And I wanted to try to find out. So their thinking was like, you know, you're here to find out things probably tomorrow in the gym. And plus we watch tape. So those are the things. But so I said to him right out, I said, well, I'm here to see one thing first, if you're a decent person. And they were like, that sounds maybe different.

Right. But I said, I just want to know if you're a decent person because I don't want to be around bad people. Right. I just want to be around, and there's bad people out there. Sure. It's the way it is. But I don't want to be around, and there's bad people out there. I mean, it's the way it is. But I don't want to be around bad people. I never did, but now I definitely don't.

I want to be, if I'm going to spend two months, it's not easy in camp. I want to be around someone I feel good about being around. And so that's the first thing. The second thing is, do I think I can help him? That was the second thing. The second thing is, do I think I can help him? That was the second thing. And can he be helped? So when you go to talk to someone like that, do you watch him move? I've met his family.

First thing I did, I wound up meeting his family. He's got three young kids. And he's a husband, of course. And I see a decent person. And then I watch film. I see a decent person. And then I watch film. And I see a guy that has ideas that need to be added to.

I think that's the best way to say it. That's got good ideas technically, but they need to be advanced. They need to be added to. Polished. Polished. Added to, yes. Taken down the road a little bit. Right. And I see a guy who behaves like a fighter.

That's where it starts for me, besides being a decent person. He behaves like a fighter. He got hurt. He got dropped in a fight. He behaved like a fighter. You have to behave like a fighter. To be a fighter, you have to be a fighter. Right.

And you would know that better than most. So he, and there's one problem. Every fight he gets hit at least once really clean. You can't do that with this guy. Right. He gets hit more than once, but he gets hit clean. You know, one time I said to a fighter when I was trying to, Bradley actually was, I said, are you religious?

Yeah, I am in my own way. I said, listen, I'm not into that. I'm just using it as an example, my way of saying it. I said, I was brought up a Catholic. I forget half the things they told me, but I remember about, they used to teach you, I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. I'm going to need your help again, but venial sins and mortal sins. The venial are the little ones you can live with. You don't go and see the guy that's red. The mortal ones, you got a problem. I said, the way you box, you're making mortal sins.

The venial sins don't mean crap. But you're making mortal ones. You're getting hit clean, unblocked, clean, solid punches that sometimes you don't even see. Like the Provodnikov fight. Yes, yes, yes. So I said, that's got to be corrected. So we corrected it. How do you correct something like that? You know what it is.

You have to know what it is. You have to see why he's getting hit. But you've got to change the way he moves. And you've got to change the technique, the way... Everything. There's rules. It's life. It's rules. When you work with a guy like that and you only have two months, how much change can you affect in two months?

Well, I worked with Bradley for the Rios fight and he couldn't stand in front of the guy and he went out and he moved around the guy. We were fortunate. We did okay. We made some change. But, I mean, things like I give you example rules rules rules simple things like where do you throw a punch from i i just yeah i throw a punch no don't throw a jab from there because if you're too close it

could time you with right hand everyone heard jab is the beginning of things jab is the you know it leads to good things. It's a great punch. Yeah, it is. It's a terrible punch. It's a horrible punch if you throw the wrong distance. You throw from a little too close, bang, you get hit with the right hand. Know where you throw punches from. Left hook, he threw a lever, he got hit with the right hand. All he knew was he got hit, but he didn't know why. You threw the left hook in front. Right hand is there. Boom.

Get on his side. Throw punches from certain positions. Not allowed to throw punches unless they're from the right position. Now, you have to, Cuss would tell me, you have to go over and over and over and over it again till they can't do it wrong if they wanted to. It's got to become a habit. You're not thinking about it.

It's a habit. And that takes a lot of work, and that takes understanding what it is. And it takes a lot of work. You got to be on them every time. And it takes a guy that can put his ego in the pocket. That's why you want to know, do I have a good guy here? Do I have a decent guy?

Because you're telling a guy who's already made it to a certain level without you. He has. And now you're telling him there's things that he don't know. So he's got to be willing to be able to accept that. And one of the things, I like people that aren't selfish. And look, we're all selfish to a certain degree. But again, it's degrees. How tough are you?

Degrees. All fighters are tough. Degrees. How selfish are you? Degrees. Right. And the whole understanding was I would go to Oxnard for eight weeks, you know, to train them. But maybe I don't want to go to Oxnard for eight weeks, you know, to train him. But maybe I don't want to go to Oxnard. But I'll go

wherever I think it gives the fighter the best chance to win. The weather, the time zone. But the main thing why I'll go there, he's got three young kids. I'm not in a Rocky movie. I don't want to take him away from those kids for those eight weeks. Right. That's not good. So I took two weeks to decide.

He kept calling the manager up. He's a good kid. He is. And he kept calling the manager up and saying, did you hear yet? And, of course, he hadn't. So he's thinking like a good person. I shouldn't say a good person. He's thinking like a person that wants to get what he wants to get.

But at the same time, here's where the good part comes in, or the selfless part. He says, if I have to go to New York, I'll go to New York. A lot of fighters don't do that. They want help, but they want it on their terms. He said, if I have to go to New York, I'll go to New York. If I have to go to Montreal, I'll go to Montreal. Please tell him that. That spoke to me that I had this kid that's selfless to that extent.

Who was training him before? I don't know the name, but it was a decent guy. He's 15 and all. He's a decent guy. He's 15 and all. But he felt like when he got dropped in a fight and he went back to the gym, immediately that should be dealt with. But it was back to just basic training again rather than that specific.

Doesn't mean that the guy is not good. Doesn't mean it's just that everyone deals with things differently. That's all. I mean, it doesn't make me this or that, but I just can do it the way I do it. And I do it, I look at film. When I went to see him, I had a couple pages written out already on things I saw in film that he does wrong, that he would have to correct.

And the one thing that he has to correct for this fight would be good if you don't get hit. I mean, that'd be a damn good thing. But the one really thing is you can't keep coming back in front of the guy at a certain distance and giving him a shot at you when he can punch like that. And that's one thing. He always winds up localized right back in front of the guy. And there's got to be other options, other places to go.

You know, I joke around. I use different, you know, different examples or different analogies. I say, listen, whether you had a mother, a grandmother, an aunt, somebody when you were growing up told you don't hang out on the corner. Right. Right? Yeah. Why? Because nothing good the corner. Right. Right? Yeah. Why?

Because nothing good can happen. Right. Well, don't hang out in front of the guy. Right. Nothing good can happen. Nothing good can happen. So we go from there. You know, it's a lot more to it.

He speaks English well? Yeah, he does. He's a smart guy. He's got a beautiful family. And like I said, it's- So when do you start? Because December 1st, is that what you said? December 1st?

First is the fight. I have to make a decision. It's either going to be an eight or a seven-week camp. I'm trying to feel, I'm trying to find out by asking him questions how quickly his body gets in shape. Because I know it sounds funny to the average guy out there, but if it's a week too long, it could be bad. Yeah. You can overtrain. You know?

Yeah. And he's overtrained in his career. Yeah. So you get over-trained. You know? Yeah. So, and he's over-trained in his career. Yeah. So I want to try to try, it's not an exact science, to have a feel for it should be eight to seven weeks. Do you monitor their heart rate, their resting heart rate? Yeah, well, I have, so we have that stuff that we do that. Right.

To see if they're over-trained when they wake up in the morning. Yes. But you know what I depend on? I'm not going to stand and BS you. I depend on my eye more than anything. You see them slowing down. You see them struggling. And the trick is to not get there.

Right. To try not to get there. Right. And when you see it, what do you do? You tell them to take a few days off? Yeah, but I try to see it before I see it. What I mean is if you had a hard day of training, I will just automatically give him a light day or maybe

off the next day. And like a lot of people won't because they're afraid. You gotta work. You gotta work. But I learned not to be afraid of that. So if I see he had a real, and he looked great, you know what? Take off tomorrow. Are you sure? Take off tomorrow.

So we don't get there. Right. To try to, kind of like my father, like preventive medicine. This is a new way of thinking, though, and such a smart way of thinking, because for the longest time, everybody just wanted to be tough. Yeah. They just wanted to work harder, but you got to work smarter. Yeah, you do.

Less is more. You know that saying. But sometimes. But it really is sometimes. Yeah, sometimes. But sometimes not, because some people are fucking lazy, and they're looking for that easy way out you have to gauge that you have to see it you have to know what you gotta you know what i mean and sometimes the real discipline driven guys are their own worst enemy in that regard yes push too far yes

and this kid has been again i'm not here to say what was but the kid has been in that place right and that's why they're coming to me and again again, I'm no better than anyone, but I will understand that. So when you're saying seven weeks or eight weeks, so either one, when you decide. So it's either going to be, so my first day, it's going to be a Monday. So the first day in camp in Oxnard will either be October 8th or October 15th. October 8th would represent eight weeks. October 15th, seven weeks. And that would mean I would fly in on a Saturday,

get myself settled. Sunday, watch tape with him. And then start Monday with a structured schedule. You know, with the ability to change at any time because, again, your eye, your see. You know, I remember years ago I was training fighters, you know, I've been around 40 years already. I remember in Gleason's when I moved down to Gleason's, you know,

many years ago, 30, whatever it was, maybe more, 35. So Gleason's was in Manhattan. It's in Brooklyn now, but it was in Manhattan. It was the place, you know, and it was two blocks from Madison Square Garden. It was kind of cool, you know. So I'm training, and I remember I was the first guy there, and I'm bragging or not, but, I mean, I would make my guys drink water. And the old-time guys there, not because they knew it from scientific evidence,

other than it was passed down to them. It was taboo. It was just passed down to them it was taboo it was just passed down to them don't drink water it makes you weak you know you gotta be tough don't drink so i was making my guys not only drink water drink a half a gallon i mean drink a lot of water so i remember some of the old timers would they'd be like talking about me they'd be like to fix this guy don't drink. Don't follow what he's doing because some of the fighters would say, can I drink some water? Get a little of that water.

And no, it'll give you cramps. You can't drink. No, it don't give you cramps. If you drink a large amount, very cold, yeah, you could get, but no, it rehydrates you. It allows you to stay strong. Try to drive a car across the desert with no water in the radiator.

You might have a problem. You might. Yeah. But I'm telling you, and I'm not, oh, I was the first. No, but I'm saying at that place, the thing was nobody drank water. Spit it out. Right. And I was making my guys drink.

Right in front of people. How did you know, though? What was the difference? I knew by learning. I knew my father. My father talked about the importance of water. He was proud I was training. He thought I was going to be a lawyer.

I went a little different. But he was proud. So he would talk to me like I just got a true osmosis, if that makes sense. I just, I knew. You knew the water was healthy for you. I knew it was important that you had to rehydrate yourself. And you had to, my father had a thing with water too. My father would make, my father got involved in my training in different ways.

Like if my fighter was feeling a little weak or he had a cut and he was healing from the cut my father would say set him down the ocean what dad we're not taking a fake put him in the ocean i said all right okay let him go in the ocean let Let him soak his scar, whatever, you know, his car. Let him soak it in the ocean. And don't go to Colby Island, though. That might not be good. But that water might not be, that might not heal you.

It might change you. It might change you. It might be green when you come out. You got something going on with the Hulk. But, no, but, so, no, he would tell me in a serious way. He said, Teddy, send your fighter, if he's a little, if he needs to be revitalized a little, send him to the ocean. Let him swim in the ocean. Let him be in the sun.

And let him soak whatever cuts healing in the ocean. And if he happens to swallow some water, it's okay. Because no one wanted to swallow seawater. Right. The worst thing in the world. My father said, it's okay. Because no one wanted to swallow seawater. Right. It's the worst thing in the world. My father said, it's okay. Not the worst thing. So one day, I guess, I got around to asking him why he was so into sending my fighters to the ocean.

And he told me, he just, that's how my father would say things. He would just tell me things, and that's what I would learn. And he just said to me, ocean is where all life came from. All life on earth started in the ocean. Microcosms, whatever you want to call it, he didn't get into all technical stuff, but he said it started in the ocean and it came out onto land. He says our percentage of salt in our blood is the exact same percentage per cubic inch, you know, whatever it was. I'm just saying it probably not close to what he said it, but close enough.

It's the exact amount cubic inch as it is in the ocean. We come from the ocean. All life comes from the ocean. Go back to where life came from. That was enough for me. My father was telling me anything my father told me, that was it. So. My father was telling me, anything my father told me, that was it. So I said, all right.

So matter of fact, he told me a story. I remember I was going out with a girl that had a little baby that had bow legs. And he told me, he said, and he was serious,

he wouldn't say it otherwise, but he said, send her down, he had a condominium in Daytona Beach and he said, send her down to Daytona Beach, let her stay there for the summer and let her boy be in the ocean and the sun, vitamin A, vitamin D, right? I didn't know that. And then just straighten his legs out.

Yeah, his legs would get straight. They weren't crazy, you know, but, you know, there was a crookedness to them. His legs would get straight, and he was right because by being in the ocean, by being in the sun, vitamin A and D, healthy, of course, I guess part of it was the swimming and part of it was the ocean and part of it was the sun,

but it would straighten his legs. Now, look, did he need them to the point where he had to put braces? No. But was there a slight issue? Was there an issue? Yeah. Was it dramatic?

No. But did what he say work? Yeah. Was it right? Yeah. You know, but we just think of braces, you know, obviously. And it would heal. He would say, let the cut go in the ocean.

The salt water heals the cut. It will heal the cut. Well, a lot of fighters used to soak their face in brine, right? Yes. Well, Joe Fascia did. Yeah. Did that really keep your skin tough and protect you from cuts, or is that an old wives' tale?

I think that's a little bit of that old stuff, you know, where we don't know. Right. But they believed it. So, you know, he smelled like a pickle when he was falling with you. You get hungry and then he hits you with a left hook. What about other controversial training methods? Like weightlifting for the longest time was thought to be a taboo. Taboo.

So Holyfield and Mackie Shillstone. Yeah. Mackie Shillstone's training of Holyfield and moving him up from a cruiserweight to a heavyweight. Very true. And he was a very light heavyweight at the beginning, right? Cruiserweight. Yeah. He really essentially was.

And they just packed some meat on him. Michael Spinks with the guy. Oh, that's right. Michael Spinks was really the first. Yeah. When he fought Larry Holmes. Yes. Yeah. And Mackie Shillstone worked with Holyfield after that. that's right. Michael Spinks was really the first when he fought Larry Holmes. Yes. Yeah, and Mackie Shillstone

worked with Holyfield after that. That's right. Yeah. Listen, and Gleason, I'm going to go back to Gleason, the epicenter, you know, of the place. No water, no weights.

Right. I used to have my fighters do weights. If I felt that a fighter wasn't physically strong enough, I'd put them on a weight program. But I do it myself. There were no strength coaches back then. But just a common sense program. Just three days a week, you know, eat protein. Of course, you have to replenish yourself with the proper diet and all that stuff.

And do it at the right time in between the training where you're not killing yourself, you're over-training. Right, you don't go sparring tired. That's right. You don't have the separation of workouts. But if I had a slightly built guy that I thought two things, and the second one is one where

probably sounds a little, that you wouldn't normally connect to it, but the first thing was, if I thought he could physically be a little stronger, not that he had to be fighting inside, but when he did fight inside, because let's face it, if you're a fighter,

you're going to wind up in all quarters. You are. Even though you say, well, I'm going to live on the outside. Okay. Until that day that the guy slips your jab and now you're living in the inside. Are you ready to live on the inside for a minute?

So I believe that. So I would make my guys do weights if I thought physically they could get help and improvement in those areas. But I also did it for the psychological reason. I felt that it's all psychological battle. It's 75% psychological mental.

And you have to do anything you can to help the fighter in that area. Anything, anything. Grab anything. If there's something floating over your head, I'll grab it. Anything. And the mental part, if you make him feel stronger, he'll be stronger. If that's something that just gives him a little iota more of confidence and belief.

Now listen, here's the catch-22. Maybe you don't want the guy fighting inside. Maybe his style, his makeup is to fight. I get you because if there's smart guys out there listening, and I'm sure there are, they're going to think that before I said it. Yeah, I still want him to feel strong, okay? I'm not going to make a guy that should box like Penel Whitaker or should box like Muhammad Ali. I'm not going to let him guy that should box like Penel Whitaker or should box like

Muhammad Ali. I'm not going to let him fight like Jake LaMotta. I'm okay with that. But I want him to feel stronger. So what kind of weight lifting would you have him do? Because you're, do you have a background in lifting weights yourself? No, other than I played football

so I was around it and I've been around gyms my whole life and fitness people all my life. So I understand the plyometrics. I understood all the advancements, all the new stuff that came out, the bands. Hey, listen, you've got to remember, there was a guy named Charles Atlas that started with resistance training. He was somebody kick sand in his face. Those comic book ads, yeah. Right?

And, you know, I don't know if he was related or not, but, you know, he did isometrics. I believed in isometrics. I did isometrics for the whole camp with Michael Morrow for the Holyfield fight, believe it or not. Really? Yeah. I used to put my hand here, and I used to make him push against my hand both ways. Then I would make him push. I would design all kinds of different exercises and ways to do it where I just gave him resistance with my own body.

Sometimes push against my shoulder. Right. Move me. You know, be careful of the joints you want to strain. You know, all common sense stuff. Yeah. So this is something that you thought of yourself. You were trying to figure out how to do it, and then you just implemented stuff. Yeah. But so we— So this is something that you thought of yourself. You were trying to figure out how to do it, and then you just implemented it.

Yeah. Yeah, this is something that— Michael Moore, man, when he was a light heavyweight, was a murderous puncher. Murderous. Murderous. Boy, oh boy. Woo! He was dangerous.

He was so scary, but it seemed like the weight cut was too brutal. Yeah, it was brutal. He was a terrifying light heavyweight. Yeah, he was. People forgot about him. They forgot about him as a light heavyweight. He knocked everyone out. Just murdered people.

I don't think he went the distance with anybody. He was murdering people. Yeah, he was really something. Yeah. And first Southpaw heavyweight champ of all time. First. Is that true? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Better be true. I've been saying been saying i'm sure it is i didn't know yeah no he was i've met him a few times good person very good guy yeah he's like all of us we get lost and we get confused all of us but he's a good you know you're good or you're not good right yeah? Yeah. You want to hear a crazy thing? Some people might, I hope they don't, whatever. I hope they don't take it the wrong way, but anyway. It's meant to be the good way.

I have a friend, a very close friend. I hate politicians. I think they're phony. But I have one that's, he makes a living a politician, but he don't live as a politician that makes sense right i know he's saying he's the former president of staten island his name is jimmy holland and um probably go crazy if he hears this but anyway it's okay it's a little crazy anyway that's why we get along but he's a good man and uh like my father was born to be a doctor. He was.

His mother knew it. He was born to be, I don't know. I don't want to use the word politician. It seems like a dirty word. A leader. Yeah, a leader. A carer of people. All right?

A public servant, maybe. Whatever. But anyway. So he's the borough president of Staten Island. And he really does things. And anyway, we're close. And he just gave his $94,000 for the foundation like a week ago. He does that.

He finds the money and, you know, he knows. All he says is the greatest compliment. He goes, I know where it's going. I know where it's going. And thank you, he knows, all he says is the greatest compliment. He goes, I know where it's going. I know where it's going. And thank you, he says to me. I said, what are you thanking me for? Thank you. I can't help these people without you.

You know, I get other help. We do fundraisers and we do things. We do a big dinner, a thousand people a week before Thanksgiving where we have people like Tony Dancer and Phil Simms and Bill Parcells used to come. He don't come no more. He don't leave Florida anymore. But, you know, we, I mean, Patrick Ewing,

DeCampo Matambo, I mean, we're blessed. We're blessed with Rosie Perez. She loves boxing. She loves boxing. Yeah, she loves it. I mean, we're blessed. Brandon Marshall from the Giants last year, they come, and they allow me to have a successful dinner because they come.

And they don't get a cent because nobody gets a cent. And so with all that and with Jimmy, so anyway, I have these things that I just say sometimes. So he caught me one time, but I was just saying it. I didn't realize that it was going to register, you know, because it's just something, you know. So I just said, I said, people bad. So he said, what? I said, what?

He goes, what'd you say? I said, no, I said, you know, words to live by. People bad. So I'm joking. But I said, people bad. So he said, what do you say? I said, no, I said, you know, it's worse to live by. People bad. So I was joking around. But I said, people bad. So he said, what do you mean?

I said, no, people bad. He said, but you help, you're in the business. I said, there's good people too.

So anyway, about a month ago, two months ago, whatever, he comes up to me and he says, you're going to think I'm out of my mind.

I said, well, no, I know it, but what's the matter? He said, with your permission, I want to take a domain, which I barely know what that means, copyright the phrase people bad, and if I told you I wanted to start a business with you and me

and the proceeds, some of the proceeds will go to the foundation. We'll sell shirts. We'll do that. And you have these different sayings. So to start with, people bad, resiliency good. People bad, forgiveness good. People bad, be better. People bad, parks good.

People bad, you know, redemption good, people bad, let's be better, you know, whatever. But the whole idea is to be unapologetic and to say, we got a problem. I don't know if you want to say we're at a tilting point, but we got a problem. Am I a social genius? No. Am I a saint? No.

But I got kids. I Am I a social genius? No. Am I a saint? No. But I get kids. I care about what the world is, you know. Maybe if I didn't have kids, I'd still care. And I have grandchildren now. I have two of them. They're beautiful. And you know what? There's a lot of bad people out there.

I'm not apologizing about saying that. There's a lot of great people out there. I'm not apologizing about saying that. There's a lot of great people. There's more good people. But it's like drawing a battle line, a line of resistance, really, where I want to call people out on it. I want to remind us that we could be better. I want to remind us that people bad, selfishness worse. And I just want to, he brought my attention to it because I used to use that phrase so frequently when I was mad. And he said, let's turn your mad into something better.

Teddy, that's because I know what you stand for. I know. That's why I give you what I give you. 22 years. So people are bad, but they're good. They're good. Let's remind people that we need to be good. Let's remind people.

Let's call them on the crap. Let's freaking say, hey, we got to be better. We got to care about the right things. We got to stop getting caught up in our crap, you know. And we got to be stronger. People bad, don't be weak, you know. But in other words, we're using it to remind people that sometimes we're going in a bad direction. We are.

Look at the world. Look at that. You know, when I was flying here, I was reading the New York Post. Do you know, I don't want people to think I'm weak or something, but I didn't want to read some of the stories about some of these kids that got killed. There was a story about a parent that someone in a hospital in Manhattan that decided to slice up a bunch of infants just ran through the hallway of this place.

It was for Chinese immigrants that they go to this place when they're young mothers where they think it's a safe haven for their children to be there for like a month. And so they're infants, two days old, five days old, ten days old. And they're all in there. It was all Chinese immigrants. And they're all in there, these babies. And this woman walks in there with a knife and starts stabbing these kids. Now, listen, I know a lot of people out there are going to say,

Teddy, that's psychotic. That's different. Yes, yes, yes. It's evil. Yeah, there, yes. It's evil. Yeah, there's evil in the world. Yeah. But I'm just calling to arms. I'm not the guy, but I'm just saying in my small way, calling to arms that we can be better.

That just remind people that, you know what? We have so much promise. people that, you know what? We have so much promise. There's so much to be grateful for in this country, particular, in the world, but not always. And we have so much here. Let's be better. If people are bad, let's help them be better. Let's lead the way to be better. Let's take a stance. So we're going to, I don't know how the freak we're going to do it, but we're going to start this company, but then we're going to have all these inspirational, if you will, but all these positive, positive, positive things to say that,

to remind you that, you know what, you could be anything you want to be. You know that old saying, you could be anything you want to be. But some people choose to be bad. Let's choose to be better. And so we're going to do some of the proceeds. I don't know how the freak will probably, whatever, but we're going to figure it out. He's going to do it all because I only know boxing. I think you know more than that. Listen, Teddy, this has been three hours.

Oh, I'm sorry. Flew by. Don't be sorry. It was great. I really appreciate you being here, man. Wow. I know. It's actually a little bit more than three hours. Thanks for... It was beautiful. Thanks for having me, all right? Thank you very much, man. Really.

Thank you. Really appreciate you. Appreciate you. Teddy Isles, ladies and gentlemen.