The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #55 with Kelly Pavlik

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

Joe is joined by former unified WBC, WBO, Ring magazine and lineal middleweight champion, Kelly Pavlik.

three two Youngstown the house how are you brother good how you doing thanks for doing this man appreciate it no thanks for having me on I appreciate it you're out here um working with Danny Garcia no Mikey Garcia Mikey Garcia and uh Garcia camp um, I came out, you know, a couple things. As we mentioned earlier, a buddy of mine, Marco Micah, throwing some ideas around and kind of just taking a week out here in California to, you know, keep moving. It's nice, right? It is nice.

Yeah, it was nice in Ohio, believe it or not. And then this morning they woke up to like three inches of snow. So I'm out here enjoying, and they got the snow. Well, the thing about L.A. is no one's from here. So everybody grew up in a place like Youngstown or something like that. Like you were saying, you're running into a bunch of Youngstown people out here. Tony Hinchcliffe got super excited to see you. Absolutely.

You know, that's what's weird about that. I'm excited to see him, and he's excited to see me. And it was really cool. You know, I've heard of Tonyony and i knew of tony you know before and everything and then uh to finally be able to meet him and somebody from youngstown that's doing you know great things it was kind of cool so yeah no it was cool hanging out with you when we're in columbus too that was a fun time i was that was good eating stew yeah what was the name of that place again you guys picked it i believe i think is italian market i think whose

joint was that is that it was your friend's friend of a friend. Matt Brown's friend, right? Yeah, I don't remember the name. Matthew Mornal? Yeah, another good guy. Yeah, no, he's a fucking scary dude. He's such a savage. I got to tell you a funny story with him.

We're at my gym, and he came and did a seminar at my gym. And I have just a fitness gym right now there. And he was going over, and he was showing people when he kind of came in, and I was showing him like a little gym right now there. He was going over and he was showing people when he came in. I was showing a little punch and a hook. He started doing the elbow off the hook. I'm a pretty big guy now since I retired. I'm working on losing weight. He hit me with that elbow on my arm and it just hurt.

It was slow motion. He wasn't throwing it hard. I'm going, if this son of a bitch really wanted to turn that over i wouldn't want to get hit by it yeah elbows are awful bones are awful it's like it always weirds me out that the ufc uh has little padding on the gloves but there's no padding on your shins no padding on your elbows no padding on your knees it's a terrible way to take a beating it is and people get into the brutality of it. Unfortunately, not because I boxed. I think boxing is more brutal.

The only reason is because if you get dropped in boxing, you've got 10 seconds to get up. Your brain could be rattled in the first round, and you could get dropped four more times in that fight. You've got 36 minutes to fight. Unfortunately, in MMA, yeah, they're hitting you with the knees, the elbows, and if you go down, they usually stop the fight yeah rightfully so because somebody could come down with an atomic knee drop and you know that's not legal yeah i know but i'm just saying it's uh or anything can happen in it so when you were fighting uh mma wasn't as big as it is now but did you ever think about doing it no and to be honest what you know um but i was always interested in it

i was i was always interested in the martial arts um actually that's how i got into boxing was a young kid taking taekwondo and and uh i don't know that's how you pronounce it but okay and um you know i got into it with that it was to me it was kind of like boring i'm a young kid you know i was full of piss and vinegar and I wanted to actually get in and do something. And I played other sports. But, you know, then after I retired a little bit, I kind of strayed away from everything in a fight game. And I started getting interested in jiu-jitsu and stuff like that. How old were you when you retired?

30. 30. That's young. Yeah, still am pretty young. How old are you now? retired? 30. 30. That's young. Yeah, still am pretty young. How old are you now? 36. Yeah, you're still in the range. Yeah.

You know? It's an effective range. Oh, that's why I've been working out, and I kind of slowed down on the power lifting a lot and been getting flexible again. So you haven't had a fight in six years. Do you ever get the itch? That's why I'm saying. Are you getting the itch right now yeah you know really yeah i've been um

well another reason what why i came out and was talking with mark and everything but you know i don't want to lead nobody ever on either you know right this is something you're just thinking i'm really thinking about it, and I'm working out, losing the weight. But at the same time, there's a lot of process behind that, too. I would have to sit down with the family, just go over a lot of things. Are you doing any boxing these days? I've been working out, just hitting the bag, pads, stuff like that. I'm still lifting, but nothing.

You're jacked, dude. Look at the size of your fucking arms. I know. You ain't fighting middleweight, son. No, and cruiserweight is the nice area right now. That's the range? Yeah, anybody but Yusick. I'm not fighting that monster. That guy's scary as fuck.

Yeah, and I don't. You know, the thing is, everybody, I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and the first thing that came out about it was he needs the money. So I can't win for losing um you know what i mean like because there's other things right now that we're talking about actually been in contact believe it or not with dancing with the stars and uh oh jesus so i'm i'm having fun with it now i guess don't make no jokes i'd rather take a fight i'd rather fight you sick believe me dancing with the stars is fucking hard work man man. Talks.

Talks of it. Which my buddy Mark's doing. I've had a couple friends that have been on that. And they said it's brutally hard work. It is. That original tease, it was a fighter been on it. Yeah. So that's where it's going.

I don't want people also, the rumor mill starting that, he's broke. He needs the money. Because it's absolutely not the case. So you retired healthy. Yeah. You retired young. Yeah. And you set some money away.

But you still – look, you were a world champion for a reason. You know, to become a real world champion, you have to have some crazy drive, some competitive fire inside you. There is. A lot of people don't understand any combat sport. Combat's combat. I'm not patting myself on the back. I don't know if it's even good to say, but

combat world champion athletes and fighters, mentality-wise, you're always going to have that mentality. My only reason why I'm even throwing this around, and I guess that's the right term to use, because if nothing comes of it, I don't want to backlash on that either, because I'm still only 36. And I'm at that point where I got that small window still, you know, where I'm not 40.

Right. I'm not 38. And, you know, I've been healthy for, you know, four and a half years, and I've been working out. What made you decide to go powerlifting? I know. Tell me. Just fucking show bitches what's up. Yeah.

That's another one. Show them guns. Exactly, right? I was tired. Think about it. I was so damn skinny, if I turned sideways and stuck my tongue out, I'd look like a zipper. You know what I mean? And being 6'2", having to make 160 pounds,

even between fights you still had to maintain your weight. And I got tired of that. What was your walking around weight? I would walk around about 173. That's not that bad. No, it's not. For MMA, that's real light. Yeah.

But as I got older, yeah, I started getting a little more difficult to keep that, and I started getting up to like 175, almost 180. So now you're looking at a—and I'm still skinny at that point. So now you're looking at having to lose 20 more pounds again to get down at that age. And it came to a point which caused a lot of issues for me in one fight with the Martinez fight, and after that we had to jump up hmm yeah that point of diminishing returns right when he was cutting too much weight yeah when you fought

Jermaine Taylor that was 160 right yes yeah dude I was one fight where I remember getting angry at Larry Merchant Larry Merchant's calling the fight I'm like he's not. He wasn't recognizing that you were tuning him up and you were hurting him. And he was commenting on almost like it was a trend that he expected to see rather than what was actually happening. There was a lot of things about that fight. I loved them guys because, believe it or not, in my opinion, that was a great fight. And I seen that they had that fight in one of the top ten middleweight fights of all time, and that's kind of a great fight. And I seen that they had that fight in a top 10 middleweight, one of the top 10 middleweight fights of all time. And that's kind of a cool thing.

But also, you know, some of that commentating, though, really made that fight, especially at the end, in my opinion, made that fight kind of what it was also. You know, besides the fact of me getting dropped and everything. But I didn't agree with the judging of it, you know, because I still had me ahead. I went back and watched it. I'm not one of those egotistical people either. Like, I like to really break down what happened in that fight and i and if i lost a round i would say i lost a round you know i was hard on myself with that i watched that fight now probably 10 times and i don't see where they had jermaine winning you know yeah i gave

him one round and plus the 10-8 so that's a total of three rounds. And I don't see how that happened. Well, you know, I mean, we've had this conversation a hundred times in this podcast. Judging in boxing and judging in MMA, judging is just terrible. It's just terrible. It's sad. It doesn't make any sense. There's so many experts out there. There's so many really reliable people that you can call on that would do a great job of of figuring out what's going on in a fight and for whatever reason they don't get those jobs

i think they got to start doing something soon in boxing with that yeah they have to figure something out with the judging you see the charlo fight yes yeah and there's a handful of people i had the argument with that actually thought charlo lost. I didn't think that he looked as good as he could have in that fight. Yeah. But I thought he won the fight, you know, 116-112. But I don't know what system they could try to break down for that or try to get to actually start making some of them fights fair. But boxing is doing fantastic the past two years.

I mean, the numbers are crazy. You've seen what the zone um did with canelo and yeah so it's it's there the attention's at the sport and the popularity of it's coming back but what could eventually hurt it again is things like the the judging of the fights yeah outcomes well there's certain ones where you you want to like you want a criminal investigation like uh tim bradley Manny Pacquiao. That was one where after that was up, I was looking at the TV, I was looking to the side,

I was looking away, I was like, what the fuck did I just see? What just happened here? That fight right there, I actually had to walk away with my head down. That was probably one of the worst robberies that I've ever seen in boxing. It was a horrible robbery.

I searched to give Tim Bradley two rounds. I gave him one. I was trying to give him rounds to kind of like say, where did you get this at, in other words, and I couldn't do it. Yeah, I love Tim Bradley too, by the way. Awesome guy. Awesome fighter too. I mean, he's just all heart.

I mean, that guy, he's amazing. But that just was a bad decision. And, you know, I think there was a lady that was responsible for two really bad decisions. Bird. Yeah. Natalie Bird. Was it her or was it another one, too? There was another.

Natalie Bird, she does MMA, too. I want to say, yeah, Letterman's daughter, maybe. Well, no, there was another lady who retired from doing it after that decision. It was like a big controversy. Her score was so off, people were thinking she got paid off. There's so many anymore, though, it's hard to keep up with it. Well, the thing is, and people that are cynical or skeptical, do you know how much money is being bet on fights,

especially a Manny Pacquiao fight? There's so much money. And if someone like Pac much money is being bet on fights, especially a Manny Pacquiao fight? There's so much money. And if someone like Pacquiao is a prohibitive favorite heading to a 10 proudly fight, I mean, who knows? It could be four to one, five to one, six to one. Somebody rolls up with a nice brown baggie filled with hundreds. Hey, look who we got in here.

Here's $30,000. You never have to report. I think there's more behind why that happens, too. It has to be. That's always been a good idea. The idea that there's no bribery going on anymore is crazy. I don't want to say it, but I think I have an idea. I think it comes down to who's putting the show on and who's in the pocket.

Well, Teddy Atlas was explaining it, too, when he was on the podcast. One of the things that he was saying was that they take these people out to dinner. Like, they're all in cahoots and friendly with each other. And if there's a certain result that the promoter would like to see, these judges will lean towards that if they have a good relationship with that promoter. You said it for me. Yeah, that's what it is. Look, Teddy laid it out.

And I don't know yeah it's it's bad because again boxing is really coming back it is and the fights you got three or four weight classes right now that's so interesting but the bad part about it is you don't get interested in it or you don't get as excited anymore because you're afraid of the outcome of the fight yeah you know i wasn't terribly upset at the Wilder-Fury decision. I wasn't terribly upset. I thought, you know what, I think Tyson Fury did enough to win, but when I look at it, I like when they scored damage. Damage means a lot to me.

When I look at that fight when when wilder hurt him he hurt him twice and he hurt him real bad i mean i think that's worth a lot and i think he was always threatening so i felt like i don't know if i would agree with a draw i think it was a close decision win for tyson fewer but i didn't hate it i didn't hate it because I think I'd like to see them fight again. Absolutely. I mean, those were one of them fights where, yes, you're 100% right, that it could end in a draw, and I think everybody would be kind of satisfied with that.

Yeah. Unfortunately, with the count knockdown, which I was so frustrated with the comments, and I had to stay away from the social media and the boxing groups and things like that. Why is that? I had to stay away from the social media and the boxing groups and things like that. Why is that?

Just some of the opinions of people, that's the way to put it. That was a long count. And this and that. There's been thousands of fights in the last 10 years, and I've very seldom heard anybody complain about a count. That fight, they don't do a 10-second count boxing they go by the referee's count right and for another thing where uh wilder kind of hurt himself referee tells you in the locker room before the fight and he explains it to you go to your neutral corner if you come out of your neutral corner i will stop the count i mean you know that so the first thing i used to do when i dropped somebody

is i ran my ass to that neutral corner, you know, so that referee could start counting. I didn't see any issue with the knockdown. I even recorded it on my phone, and if you did go by the 10-second count, Tyson Fury still beat it. Really? Yes. I have it.

You know, I'd have to go through and find it. I thought I saw it on Instagram or one or another. I think it was on Wilder's Instagram where he had it where the count starts right when Fury drops. I counted it as soon as his back, almost right before his back hits the ground until where he got up. And, again, that's only a 10-second count without a referee even coming over to it. Okay. But, you know, as far as the fight itself, I gave Wilder, obviously, the two knockdowns. That's automatically four rounds.

But I thought, and I gave him one other round after that. I thought Tyson Ferry controlled the action, you know, controlled the momentum of the fight. On the flip side of it, I think that Wilder actually could have made that an easier fight, too. You know, Wilder actually has a hard time with his control. He don't know how to really work to the body. I don't want to put it on a trainer. I don't know what the issue is with that, but he neglected that body a lot throughout the fight. And I just thought that's why Tyson won most of those rounds. You know, he just controlled the action, the pace, and was kind of able to do what he wanted to. And I think that if Wilder went back with his trainer and watched the tape of that fight,

they're going to see a lot of opportunities that were missed in that fight. Well, you know, what's crazy about Wilder is how little time he's actually been boxing. I mean, it's really stunning. When he was on here, he told us that he made the Olympic team a year and a half into learning boxing. Yeah. And he won a bronze medal. In the heavyweight division, though, you can kind of get away with that, too. Yeah.

You can. You know, most of your heavyweight, well, back then also, were big guys who came up. Usually most of them were football players or something like that. And they kind of just got into the sport. And still even to this day, you're talking about maybe three heavyweights that really could throw down, as were some of the other guys are just big, sloppy guys that come in. Right. You know. so what do

we got now you got Luis Ortiz you got Fury Wilder Joshua who else Joseph Parker yeah Parker you know I think right now Parker is one of the guys that could actually still upset anybody in the heavy weight division especially with that style that he has. So it's getting interesting again, though. It is. It's certainly, well, I think with Wilder and Fury, that was one of the more interesting heavyweight title fights in a long time. And Wilder, it's so weird. He's so different.

He weighs 209 pounds. He's skinny as a rail. He hits you. It looks like you get hit in the face with a missile. I mean, it's crazy. Well, because that is a missile he's firing. Fucking crazy power that guy has, isn't it? And I try to explain to people, and I tell you, you don't have to be a big guy.

Yeah. You know, it's all about the leverage, how you torque, how you generate that power. And, you know, he's just one of them guys that that's one of the things where you either have it, you got it in the cradle, or you don't. And that's another one that you try to explain, even like in baseball. You're either a home run hitter or you're not. You could work on it a little bit and maybe knock one or two more home runs out or knock a guy or two out more. But if you don't have it, you're not going to unless you really go back over

and find the time and patience to reprogram that fighter and change the whole style yeah it feels like one punch knockout power you either have or you don't yeah and but the the guys who can put it on you and stop you like julio cesar chavez never had really that one punch knockout power but he fucked a lot of people up and he had that body shot too he didn't he didn't need a knockout punch to the head dude he was so perfect when was in his prime, the way he would fight was constant bobbing, weaving, moving in, and then once he put that pace on you, it was just constant damage, constant punches, the volume, the volume, the accuracy, and the fact that he never got tired.

He would just keep that pace up, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, and you would see guys just start to wilt, just backing up all the time, just wilt under that pressure. Yep. And that's that body attack that he had. How he invested into that body from the early rounds, people carry those punches. They carry that into the fifth and sixth round. And it was brutal.

I couldn't imagine fighting. I fought some tough guys, but I was glad being a tall guy, nobody ever went to the body like that against me. I would have hated that it's a it's a fucking rough way to make a living bro there is chavez in his prime god damn he was good whoo he was so good i mean it's just constant movement too constant cutting angles and the fucking pressure another one like like him was Duran, too. That's Roger Mayweather, right? Yes. Black Mamba.

Yeah, people forgot about Roger. Yeah, he just systematically broke you down, Chavez. Yeah. Very tactical and textbook, and didn't make many mistakes. He wasn't flashy. He wasn't overly fast. He wasn't overly powerful. But he just broke you down the right way And threw the right punches Yeah

That's what That's the best way to put it Threw the right punches He was just relentless And he was Constantly moving forward Constant pressure God damn

He was good Yep And you know Greg Haugen Oh remember that one Greg Haugen said He found a bunch of Tijuana taxi drivers

And he beat the shit Out of Greg Haugen Yeah There's those left hooks To the body Those like tough taxi drivers young fighters man you want to like emulate a guy who just fought with perfect technique this is the guy well you know that comes down to another thing that i was breaking down i actually i touched on it on my show a lot and uh a lot of people get mixed up and confused on the fact of footwork with people and some of the guys that the fact of footwork with people.

And some of the guys that had the best footwork in boxing were not flashy guys with the footwork or even like Mikey Garcia now or like Bernard Hopkins is another one. But you had guys, Pernel Whitaker. I know I'm going to probably get beat up on this. He had decent footwork. What I mean by that is because, yeah, he'd make you miss, but Pernell Whitaker a lot of times put himself out of range

by moving like that. You know, he'd make that move or he'd do it too much, and then he wasn't there to counter. So what good did it do? You get guys like Chavez or Duran or guys like Mikey Garcia now, they take that one little step, inches and angles, they take that one step and they're right in position for that punch. They take the opposite step to suffocate your punch, you know, and throw you off.

They spin you around. You know, that's where footwork comes in, and Chavez was great at that. Yeah, he was always in range. He was always in range. He was never running away. And, yeah. And his, like, you know, the guy who does it the best today about cutting angles and being right in front of you and can't hit him is Lomachenko. I mean, whew.

I mean, Lomachenko stands right in front of you, and then he's not. Yeah. And then he's over here, and then he's punching you in the face. TJ Dillashaw, who's a UFC bantamweight champion, said he sparred with him. And he said the first round was like you know Lomachenko's just feeling him up just figuring him out and you know he's like wow I'm kind of hanging in there with this guy and then his dad yelled something in Russian and then the second round Lomachenko's just dancing around him stepping to the side touching him in the face. And unfortunately that was the only round they put on

YouTube too you know what I mean um yeah I've seen. You know the thing with Lomachenko is this. And I tell people also, like, Floyd Mayweather is an unbelievable defensive fighter. But Floyd was really good on drawing you in, you know, and kind of countering off that. His defense and his reflexes were amazing. But he kind of lured you in a little bit, made you make a mistake, and then he would counter you. Lomachenko, on the other hand, is a guy you could throw a punch and that punch could be a mid-air and he's spinning and he's already behind you. The athleticism is astonishing.

I have not seen it. Granted, can he lose? Absolutely. It's boxing. And if you get one of them rugged guys that are just going to come in and say, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to get hit, but I'm going to hit him.

That may be a type of fighter that beats Lomachenko. Well, who was the Mexican guy who beat him in one of his first fights? Oh, Salido. Salido. Right, right, right. Yeah, that was the kind of fight that he fought. Yeah. Just dirty, got on top of him. But you got to understand on that point, too, that was L, that was the kind of fight that he fought. Yeah. Just dirty, got on top of him.

But you got to understand on that point, too, that was Lomachenko's second pro fight. Yeah. Against a real veteran. Yeah, a guy who's been there and done it and seen it. And that's the argument. And it's hard to explain. Again, and that was another argument on these

that I get a little frustrated reading. Second pro fight, usually in boxing, it goes like the first year, you're up four, six. Second year, maybe you start getting up to eight. But you get a good amount of fights under your belt before you start getting into the 10 rounds and 12 rounds. You're talking about a kid coming out of the amateurs, fighting three minute rounds or four two-minute rounds rounds depending on whatever tournament or international tournament it is and he's going

right into a 12 12 round fight i know my myself coming up and the process that top ring brought me up which was a great process too they had they picked the fights and they made sure the fights that they picked for me were the correct fights and they groomed me the right way you know by rounds and everything else and i know just jumping from six to eight the difference in that you know let alone being a kid and you're going into your second pro fight and you're fighting a 12 round fight so if he lost that fight which he came back and he made it a really close fight i would have to tip my hat to him just on the fact that he was able to go 12 rounds. Yeah. You know, people take a lot away from that fighter.

What he accomplished is something that not many can do. Well, it's crazy. I mean, he had a second pro title at what, how many fights in? Yeah, the second fight was for the world title. Then he won the world title in his third pro fight. Yeah, that's insane. And then, but he's had more than one world title, right? Yes, he's won, I think, three different weight classes.

Right, but his second one was some insanely short. See, pull up his record. Yeah, I believe if I'm right, I looked this up. This is his first fight was. What's that? This is his first fight was for the international featherweight title. That was against Salido? Ramirez. He said he lost against Salido for the vacant WBO featherweight title.

Oh, okay. So what was the first title? International featherweight title, WBO. Yeah, that's not a real – that's not like a world title. They have a bunch of weird titles, right? Like international title, continental title. You're assaulting me. I had the WBO.

You were the world champion, motherfucker. But you had all of it. You were unified. Well, I should have been by all rights. title you're you're assaulting me i had the wbo i had the world champion yeah but i had but you had all of it you were unified well it should have been by all rights but taylor vacated too oh that's right yeah but he's you know that's why i get mad and that's another big argument in boxing how you break that down between the lineal put that back up the lineal and uh unanimous you know i had to ring the wBO. Scroll up, CC, his whole record. So what was his – okay, so his second world title was when? Retained, retained, won.

Okay, one, two, three, four, five, six fights in. He's in his second – that's when he wins his second title. Six fights in. He wins a junior lightweight title. That's insane. Yeah. The international, okay, that wasn't he wins his second title. Six fights in, he wins a junior lightweight title. That's insane. Yeah. The international, okay, the first one wasn't a world title fight. But the second one was the WBO world title fight.

Eleven fights in, he wins his third world title. What in the fuck? I believe now there was, at one point, it was seven world champions in just that short period of fights. I believe it's around eight now, eight world champions he's fought and just that short period of fights i believe it's around eight now eight world champions he's fought in just that short period uh three different weight classes i think when he fought regandia out you really got a chance to see how he handles a real world-class you know cuban amateur system trained top of the food chain boxer and he just put it to that dude that was the fight that actually really sold me on lomachenko yeah because i thought for

a fact that that was going to be a chess match because of the boxing ability from rigandale their styles were very similar yeah and i thought that you know i was like it's going to be a boring fight for the first like like, four rounds, which I still would have liked because I like watching that type of fights, you know. And I see, I go in there and I'm expecting this fight. You know, the amateur background of both guys, how talented the guys are and the skill level of both guys. And then next thing I know, I'm two or three rounds into it and I'm going, he's playing with Rigondeaux. Playing with him.

I'm going, that's the fight that really sold me on Lomachenko that he's that good. My man Vinny Pazienza called that. Not Vinny Pazienza the boxer, Vinny Paz the rapper. This guy, Jedi Mind Tricks. He called it. He was taking bets on Instagram. Jeez.

He called it that early too? Yes, he was taking bets on instagram you think regandio has anything for him he's like find me in the dms he goes let's bet yep i uh i i took lomachenko in that fight but i thought it was going to be a close fight uh uh really close fight and i thought lomachenko was going to pull ahead in the later rounds you know and win that fight so that's why it really surprised me, you know. Well, it was a stunning display of talent. He's such a weird guy, too, because his background,

you know the story where his father took him out of boxing and made him do traditional Russian dancing for several years and just made him learn that for footwork. It seems like his dad was just a mastermind architect of a champion yeah you probably know more on this than i would didn't he also have a martial art background i heard he definitely can do martial arts techniques i've seen it but i don't know what i thought maybe i don't know that makes sense he's uh his footwork though is so extraordinary. And if that really is that dancing background, like learning the footwork and the way he's so agile with the stepping of his feet, I think a lot of people are going to learn and mirror that.

Yeah, his training regimen is pretty brutal. Also, I got a buddy, Roger Romo, a good friend of mine. He was working for a little while there up until the last fight. He was a strength and conditioning coach with Cecilio Flores, who was mine when I was in Oxnard training. And they said it was just crazy, the hours that he puts in, how he trains, how hard he trains, and some of the drills that he does. I'm looking at them and going, I could use these. Not for me, but I could use them for some of the athletes that I got now.

Yeah, he's definitely something special. And, you know, you get those guys. It's kind of a shame that he's a little too small for Terrence Crawford. You know? I mean, I really would love to see those two fight. But it seems like Crawford's just a little bit too heavy for him. I agree. But that's another touchy subject because I kind of agree with you

but I also go back because I'm always trying to really break down and nitpick. I look at guys like Manny Pacquiao who came from, I believe, 112 or something like that and went up all the way to junior middleweight. Which is crazy. Yeah. He's shorter than Lomachenko. Other than his calves, I don't think anything else is much bigger than Lomachenko on his body. And he was able to do it.

And what the fuck is going on with his calves? I don't know. It's like he's keeping hams in them. I don't know what he does. You know, I wish I knew the secret to that because I could use it. Get that secret to Jon Jones. This article says that his mother was actually a martial artist, still is a martial artist. Oh, interesting.

Gymnast and martial artist. Well, it makes sense. He's a boxer. Yeah, man. Footwork, the way he does it is just, it's something to watch, man. It's just the ability to move and also to anticipate the other fighters' movements. It's like, especially earlier in his career, it's like he was fighting guys that just,

they seemed so crude in comparison to his approach. Yeah, and you know what's even more crazy about it is being the opponent. Because usually you go into a fight and you break down film and you're going over to film and you got a good idea of what he does right, what he does wrong, and what you might have to do. Lomachenko, it's hard to pick up where he's going to go. He'd be different angles. So you can't go, well, you know what? After he throws the right hand, he likes to move over to the left because he does it one time. And then the next time he's totally somewhere opposite. You know what I mean?

And yeah, the angles, it's really almost impossible to break film down on him. You know, this last fight with this Pedrazo, everybody's going was the blueprint no no it wasn't you know uh and they're saying it was a closer fight than you know people expected i go why because he finally got hit with more than 11 punches in a fight oh that's him uh doing some asambo i believe yeah he's trained it when he was a younger greco-roman yeah yeah he's he's slamming kids that's right well you know what man i believe cross training, and I think that there's certainly some skills that would make you better at different martial arts. And I feel like if you have the ability to wrestle guys and move guys' bodies around that you would get from something like Sambo, I just feel like as an elite boxer, having that extra strength, that extra ability to move your core that way, I think that would be beneficial.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, no world-class boxer has the time to also be doing judo and also be doing wrestling. You just don't have the time. Nope. And being in combat sports, even I know that as far as I'm not involved in MMA, but I know that. You know, these guys, they have to perfect three or four as much time in a short period of time. You know, I imagine, I think Matt was telling me, you would know more like sometimes it's

two days of one, two days of the next, trying to fit that in. Yeah. It's hard. You cannot, especially in boxing, the sweet science where it's just hands, but you got people, that's all they do all day long. Right. That's why I say it's so unfair when an MMA guy goes in and fights a Mayweather because Mayweather, he perfected that. Yeah.

And you got to use just that style of boxing. It's going to be almost impossible to beat a boxer, a world champion boxer. Did you watch the New Year's fight? That thing that he did with Tenshin Matsukawa? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people think that was a fixed fight i think that was 120 pound fighter fighting the best ever yeah i mean it's just

there's it wasn't a fixed fight i don't know why people think it's a fixed fight that guy fights at 126 pounds i think yeah i think that's his weight class and you could definitely tell the size difference just like i could actually tell the size difference though Just like I could actually tell the size difference, though, when McGregor fought Floyd. You know, I think both of Floyd's legs equaled one of McGregor's. Yeah. But, yeah, with that tension, that fight, the first knockdown was legit. Yes. And I think my personal opinion of what happened, it wasn't fixed, you know, or fake.

I believe that he got hit with that right hand and seen how strong and how the defensive skills that Mayweather had. I think he said, you know what? This could be a long-ass night. Then the next couple of punches he just kind of went down because he's seeing what could happen. He knew which way that fight was going. Really? Yeah. That's what you think? I do. The first knockdown... Let's play that fight.

See if you can find the fight and play it. I feel like the first one clipped him on the temple. He hit him with a left hook on the temple. Hit him with a right hand, but then he hit him with a left hook. The right hand, and then he hit him afterwards as well as he's going down. But I think that left hand to the temple is what did the real damage. And then there was a big right hand afterwards that dropped him. I just think he was out of his league.

Exactly. Way, way out of his league. Not that he took a dive, but almost to the point of, like, he knew that that fight was not going any way the way that he thought it was. He was so smiley and relaxed. It was kind of funny. You know, he just sort of walked the dude down. He had a big old smile on his face.

Look at him smiling. When was the last time you saw him smile? And he's so much bigger than this kid. Right. Yeah, he's fighting like it's a joke. Like, look at him. He's so much bigger than this kid. Right. Yeah, he's fighting like it's a joke. Like, look at him. He's so much bigger than this kid.

What's really funny is if they let this kid kick, he would fuck Floyd up. Yeah. If they let him kick. But Floyd may look so dominant. I didn't even know on that part,

but then again, that kid, his kicks. That kid would have kicked Floyd's legs out from under him in seconds. Oh, wait, you went too far there. See, he got up right there.

Boom. See, he hit him with the left hook, and he stumbled, and then he hit him with the right hand behind it. And I just think he's too little. He's just a very small guy. And for him, I mean, and Floyd's not a big guy. This kid is tiny. I mean, I think he's fought as light as 121 pounds,

and I think sometimes he fights at, like, 126. Yeah, I think you can fought as light as 121 pounds, and I think sometimes he fights at like 126. Yeah, I mean, I think you can see right there. Right there. Sometimes in a fight, a lot of times in a fight, the whole issue is you get hit with that, and you're fighting, and somebody taps you with a certain punch, your brain, you'll be surprised how fast it works, you know, and all the things that go through that mind. Right here, boom. Yes, that was yep and i think at that that moment right there he just knew going in you could feel just when

somebody hits you on the arm or shoulder you know how how much power they have and uh yeah i think he was trying to after that he knew that was going to be a long night so crazy they paid him nine million dollars for this Must be nice. Yeah, I mean, fuck. There was a lot of people I seen going he deserves to give some of these prospects a chance now. He should be fighting these guys instead of doing this. These guys ain't

boxers, blah, blah, blah. And my take on that also is the man went 49-50 and 0. He fought almost everybody in the sport. Even if you want to say that they were past their prime, some of them may have been a little bit. He still went in there and dominated them and beat them. This guy, in my opinion, if he wanted to fight defensive backs from the NFL,

he has all the right in the world. I don't think that he owes the sport anything. I think actually it's the other way around, the amount of money that he has brought to the sport, the attention that he brought to it. So if he wants to go around and do these size shows, let him. I mean, what do you want him to do, fight prospects until he's 51 years old? I couldn't agree more.

I couldn't agree more. It's crazy the idea that they want to see him sacrificed. They want to see him get beat. That's what they want. They want to see him finally fight someone who's younger and faster and hungrier, who's more active. And what will happen is that he will lose. And I think Mayweather's smarter than that.

He wants to go out and keep that, his status and the record that he built up and that resume that he has and go out like that. Well, they're talking about him fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov, who's the UFC 155-pound champion.

But Khabib's not really a boxer. I just want to say, but boxing rules? Yeah. That would be a – Same thing. Yeah. Khabib's a take-down-ground type guy. Yeah, exactly. It would be the same kind of fight as the Conor fight.

The only difference is I don't think Khabib would get as tired as Conor would. I don't think – heib would get as tired as Conor would. I don't think he's definitely got better endurance. I think one of the only few in there right now that would be a good fight would be one of the Diaz brothers as far as striking. That would be interesting. But he would box their face off. I still think that he would win that. But I'm just saying as far as stand up and letting the hands go,

I think those are one of the two better ones in the MMA. Yeah, I mean, that guy, he's got all the right in the world to just keep fighting freak shows. Have fun, man. You're playing me with her. The only thing is, you know, if Father Time shows up, you know, he's getting to that age where you might get one of them guys. Yeah. So, I mean, if he's having fun, do it.

But if you go and get beat by one of them guys, that could change the whole outlook of a career. Well, it's interesting how guys who are really good defensively, they're not just really good longer because they have such good technique, but also they've taken less damage during their career so that they're more durable as they get older as well. Like you definitely saw that with Bernard. Like Bernard up until the Joe Smith fight, Joe Smith was the first guy to really put it on him like that and knock him out of the ring and it was hard to see it was

hard to see that they they had that ring set up too where he fell and landed on his fucking head like jesus christ you know i don't know if there was so much to ring i just think it was an awkward way that he went out of them ropes in a way because he got hurt by that punch yeah so and the legs buckled and when the legs buckle like that they could put him in that awkward position for him to slide out you know his ass was headed out and then he got clipped again went right through but i mean it just sucks that there's nothing to protect the fighters if if they fall out like that there's no padding there's no no tables no nothing nothing to break your fall no one for it. You just got to hope one of the ringside judges or commentators are there too.

That's crazy. And you got guys that are 80 years old trying to push a 200-pound man back in the ring. Yeah, they're not going to get clipped like that and wind up somebody falling on them. But Bernard was able to keep his skill very late in life. I mean, deep into his 40s, almost to 50 years old, was still world-class, which is really crazy. That is. You got a handful of guys out there that could do that. And to be honest, you know, but he kept himself in good shape in between fights. Yeah. And he did what he was supposed to do. And some guys, you know, you get some guys out there. A good friend

of mine, my trainer, Robert Garciacia retired at 29 um a youngstown guy mancini retired young and came back a couple years later but it was only for one fight um who did mancini come back against greg halgan oh that's right that's right i forgot about that fight yep and uh some of them you know some guys they go in and do it, and it's fun, and then it becomes a career and job and financial security, the way a lot of fighters look at it. And then you get some guys like Floyd, Manny Pacquiao, Bernard Hopkins, who just love the sport that much that they don't know anything else outside of it. What was it like fighting Bernard?

side of it so what was it like fighting bernard who you know and i don't know if this is the stage i want to fighting bernard was it was um totally different than what i expected what'd you expect i expect him to be tricky and sneaky and and just uh very crafty and and obviously experienced um you know i did jump up two weight classes to take that fight. But at the same time, that was not an 80% Kelly Pavlik. And this is true and this is documented. I have it on my phone and I was going to actually bring that out. But that fight, I sparred three times for that, maybe four. The fourth time was with an arm brace and then I went into it and I'd never said anything

because I'm the type of person I don't want to have people think that I was making excuses. I love Bernard and I think he's one of the greatest of all time, greatest middleweights. But that was not that night. You know, I came down, we had- What's wrong? What was wrong? I had bronchitis. I was sick.

I was running a temp actually in the locker room. We had to go through with the commission. We almost took the inhaler for it. Then we found out through the commission that you cannot take that because it's steroid. So we had to go to the nasal or not nasal, the pill, oral pill. We had it in the locker room. I don't know if you ever heard of a guy, Thomas Hauser. He used to write for the New York Times.

He does a lot of big boxing books. He was in there, and Hauser, he's not one-sided with anybody. He writes what he knows, what he sees, and that's the truth. And he was in there when the commission came in. They were going through my prescription. They were taking the temperature, giving me the exam. And that's what happened. It was a lethargic fight of all people.

What was wrong with your arm? I had a burst. Yeah, burst sac. Burst site. Burst site is in your elbow? Yeah. And, you know, that came into an issue. And we sparred.

You know, like I said, it was a handful. It might have been more than three or four, but it wasn't a lot because usually in training camp, you do three days a week for about eight week camp for about six, six and a half weeks. And it was because of your elbow that you couldn't spar? Yeah. You know, cause you didn't want to keep hitting it. Then I didn't like, just the way I am, I didn't like having a brace on it or nothing. Um, so that was an issue. And there was a lot of things that sometimes if you could go back and you wish you could do it over again,

but there was a lot of other things going on why we didn't postpone the fight. First of all, it was sold out, and the Youngstown people bought all the tickets. We had the issue with the Paul Williams fight that fell through. the issue with the paul williams fight you know that it fell through so i can't i just came off fighting gary lockett who was really not a well-known name a household name so if i would have postponed that fight the backlash on that would have been bad really bad and you know so it was more the ego thing that i think and worried about what everybody was going to think taking nothing away at all from but that's where I wanted to tap into taking nothing away from Bernard Hopkins unfortunately

against a guy like Bernard Hopkins that had to have that happen to me is what sucks and he was a tremendous fighter I mean he did things in there a lot of times I seen him making moves and I knew what he was doing and I just couldn't pull the trigger on it. And he was fast and he was strong. And then there was times that he just did some crafty things also that, you know, got to me and his body work in that fight slowed me down a lot. But it was just one of them fights where I could honestly say that that was not an 80% Kelly Palik. And I could be honest and say if I was 100%, I don't know if I would have won that fight. And I'll be honest about it. I'm not going to be the guy that comes here and says, well, if I was 100%, I would have knocked him out.

No, it's Bernard Hopkins. When you think about your legacy and you think about looking back at your career, those kind of fights where you had to take it when you were compromised um how do those factor in to do those fuck with your head yeah not in a real bad way right but enough where you're like if i was 100 yeah you know i got invited to the international boxing hall of fame over the summer and it was cool as hell and to be there and you start seeing the inductees and everything and i start you start breaking down your career like am i am I able to qualify for this? And is so-and-so going to get pissed off who didn't get in because I got in?

And I look at it, and I break it down a couple ways. I say 40-2 with 34 knockouts is a hell of a record. I held the belts for over three years. I beat a handful of guys that were legit when I beat them. And then I look at the fight, though. I fought Bernard Hopkins, and I got my ass whipped in that fight. There's no other way of putting it. You know, it's the truth.

So how much did that damage? You know, people remember that. Nobody looks at the fact of the two-way class jump. And then coming back down and defending against a very game Antonio Rubio. And then, of course, the Martinez fight, which a lot of people, and it was documented on HBO with the commentators, the weight issue in that fight. What was the weight issue in that fight? How he had to get down. That was my last fight at middleweight, trying to cut the weight.

I was 29 at the time. And another great fighter that happened. That was my last fight at middleweight, you know, trying to cut the weight. I was 29 at the time and another great fighter that happened. It was tough with the weight. I really can't use that as an excuse, though, because I don't know. But, you know, I know I was doing good in the ninth round. I did hit a wall. A lot of people try to use the cut. And I think even without the cut, the same result would have happened, though. You know, he would have boxed my ears off the last four rounds.

It was just one of them things that there's nothing you could do. So when I, when I sum up my career, I look at those fights and I, and I know personally that they could have been different, but at the same time, I'm very happy and content with the way my career went. You know, I was 40 and two, um, my last four fights, I won my last four fights, you know fights before I retired. So I went out winning. And I was done with the sport. I truly was. And so I think right now, I'm kind of content and happy with my career. Of course, I think anybody says, could have been better. And I wish it was better. Yeah, maybe a little bit, but I'm not going to ever beat myself up over it. Well, it's just one of those things where when you look back and you think of all the great things that you did accomplish, then you realize that you retired at 30.

Yeah. So much room there. 30 is so young. It is. You're in your athletic prime. I think they say 32 for a professional fighter. They consider most athletic primes at 32. It was.

But I look back on it again, the 42 fights, that's a lot of fights. Yeah. Plus, I started when I was nine. I had a little over 100 amateur fights. There was a lot with that. I mean, for a while, well before I retired, I was throwing it around, retiring. I was one of them guys that just, I liked it and I loved it, but I also sometimes got tired of it. Right. You know, I'm a very simple guy and, and, uh, I don't,

I don't care about the glam or the fame or, or any of that. I truly don't, you know, like even now with my, my podcast and what I'm doing with some of these other adventures, it's because I got bored and I'm going to have fun. Right. You know what I mean? And keep myself busy. And I've been fortunate to have what I have to be able to do all this on my own, you know, and go out there and be around everybody.

But yeah, so when I was fighting, you know, there was a lot of rumors around of the retirement, this, that. And I think the final icing on the cake was we were supposed to fight Andre Ward. And that's when Andre Ward ended up getting a shoulder surgery, and that fight fell through. And now I've been out in California training, or in Oxnard training for almost a year, which most fighters leave at the beginning of their career.

You know, when they don't have a family, when they're not making the money, that's their opportunity to try and go make money. Not when you're 12 years into it, you know, when they don't have a family, when they're not making the money, that's their opportunity to try and go make money. Not when you're 12 years into it, you know. And so I went out there and that kind of took a little bit from here as far as the sport, even though I loved it and it was great training with Robert Garcia. I learned so much that I didn't think I could learn at that point in my career. And when that Andre Ward fight fell through um i was i was done

i mean i was i rolled over i never forget i rolled over told my wife i said i think i'm done and she goes what are you talking about and i said i think i'm retiring and she started crying of tears of joy because she wanted me to be done even before that she don't know the sport or right what what prime age is or not. And I hung them up. And, you know, over the years, as we talked earlier, hearing her, I would get the itch, you know, and that could have been just going to the gym and doing a round on the pads.

But I just never wanted to keep doing it. You know, my health, believe it or not, is more important than anything else. Well, that is something that every fighter has to consider. Like, when have they fought too much? Yeah. How do you make that decision? When you lose it in here, in that heart a little bit,

it's a horrible hobby to have, especially at that high of a level. Yeah. You know, because you're not fighting guys that are getting off work at 3 o'clock. Right. You know, you're fighting guys that are legit athletes and skilled professionals at fighting. And it's dangerous. Unfortunately, we've seen, and, you know, when we were talking about this,

with me getting the itch earlier, there's a lot of things I take in consideration. Like I'm really into it and I'm really debating on it and I'm hitting the gym working boxing. Then I see things like this Adonis Stevenson situation? Yeah. You know, and those are the things where I say, I got to sit back and talk to my- Explain to people what happened.

He just, he got hit. It was a good fight. He's been fighting for years now. One of the most feared fighters also in boxing. And he fought the guy we were talking about earlier. Yeah. I can't pronounce his name. I don't want to chop it up. Pull up the Russian talking about earlier. Yeah. I can't pronounce his name. I don't want to chop it up.

Pull up the Russian gentleman's name. Yeah, there's a way to say it. Better be. I see him all the time, too. Adonis Stevenson. I got that. Those Russian cats have some crazy-ass names, man. They do.

I know it's hard. You know, me being a guy involved in a sport and talking about it all the time, too, how hard it is for me to get it down. There are so many badass Russians these days. Okay. Vozdik. Vozdik. Yeah.

It's G-V-O-Z-D-Y-K, but it's Vozdik. You don't pronounce the G. Vosdick. He's a beast, too, man. He is. He's a beast. So in that fight, again, Adonis Stevenson is a brutal puncher, devastating knockout puncher. He's been fighting all these years now also, and this is the part that's scary about it.

He's 41, right? Yes. Isn't he 41? Yes, and that's another factor where you might want to say hey i'm done right you know even before this happened unfortunately had to get to this point but uh he's in there and it's a fairly decent fight from what i was watching and next thing you know he goes down at fights over and he dropped vosnick at some point in the fight he did yeah. Yeah. And next thing you know, he ends up in a coma, you know, fighting for his life. The sport, you never know.

That's the scary thing about it. You know, you could get injured two weeks before the fight in sparring and have a little bleed that you would never know, you know, no signs of it. And then the next thing, you're in a coma. Yeah. You're dead. Well, I know that that really fucked up Roy Jones Jr. when Jerry McClellan, who was his arch rival, this was the guy that they thought one day he was going to fight,

when McClellan was killing it at light heavyweight and Roy was 168-pound champion. And then to see McClellan now, people don't remember, man, McClellan was a fucking destroyer. He was so goddamn scary and so good. And he hit so hard. And he was the guy that, you know, he's a cronk fighter, you know, in the vein of Tommy Hearns and all those other great cronk fighters.

And people looked at him like, man, one day that's going to be the fight. Him and Roy Jones Jr. It was almost like it was inevitable. Yeah. It was like Canelo and Triple G or something. I know because everybody does the fantasy matchups, and they ask me if I – Pavlik versus McKellen. I'm going, what are you guys trying to do to me?

I don't want that fight. You know what I mean? Because he did hit that hard. He was a brutal guy. Yeah. And then to see him when he fought Nigel Benn, same situation, lapse into that coma. We don't know how Adonis Stevenson is going to come out of this.

We don't. But a lot of times when a guy does have a traumatic brain injury like that, they're never the same again. Yep, that's what I'm saying. It could have happened. That could have been something two weeks earlier that was never detected, or signs of it. So it's

scary. It is. So you take that into consideration, but you also have that itch. Yeah. And again, I'm 36 um is it something that again it's going to be a process of sitting down and discussing you know so would you say you're like 60 considering fighting again maybe a little more right now i know i know i know um wait do you ever like go back and watch like highlight reels and then you start shadow boxing and getting itchy and really start thinking about it and it's weird because i'm in

my gym and there's people lifting weights and i'm in the back i got a couple bags back there and i'm you start hearing the bags popping and everybody they're not used to seeing it so everybody gets curious and they come back and you see them like peeking around the corner and watching me hit the bag and then i get a little embarrassed. I'm like, all right, you know what? I'm just going to chill with it right now. So, yeah, it's fun. It is.

It's a thought, again, and we'll see. But a lot of that plays in my mind because the one thing is it becomes very selfish, too, at a point. I got two young kids at home. You know, that's going to be 13 and 10. They're involved in sports and a lot of activities. They love me being around for it. And it don't take me having to fight a Usyk for something to happen. You know what I mean?

But we'll toss it around and we'll see how that goes. Yeah, that's a big consideration, right? There's a lot of things to factor in on that. Well, especially because you are busy now. So what made you decide to do a podcast? Actually, my buddy— I was excited when I heard you were doing that. I was like, all right, let's get into the podcast world.

I am. I'm looking. I hear some of these guys commentating, and I say, I think I could do that. Yeah, you could do that. After listening. And the podcast, we're kind of throwing it around. Like I said, I got a handful of investments going on, and I pick and choose on what I want to do.

And the podcast started off, hey, let's have fun. Let's throw this podcast on. We'll get some cheap equipment. We've got a lot of followers on social media, so we'll do the social media live, and then we'll also hook it to the youtube and we were doing it and it started off for a little while there um but no advertisement it was kind of lonely you know you're on yeah just you know if you feel like i'm talking into a mic and nobody's there right um and then it started taking it's doing fairly well right now how. How many downloads are you getting? Man, right now, well, the social media is the biggest.

We end up hitting – it reaches out after the first episode. You got 2,000 people it reached and maybe like 400 views. And then as the days go on and the shares go on, you start seeing it reaches out to over like 20-some thousand people. And then you see, you know, like 8 8 000 views so and that's on social media we got it youtube is the one i'm working for you know really trying to push and right now sometimes we get up 113 views on there and then sometimes i don't even want to mention how many views are on it uh so again it's a process with that also i know that i'm starting to learn that. It's about consistency. That's the most important thing.

But I get out to these fights and people know it, you know, who don't comment on the show because we do it where it's live. The format of it is to have everybody involved because they like that. They can ask questions. And we're pretty much faces on the phone reading the questions and answering it. And I think they like that. And it actually is kind of funny because we'll get some great guests on there we had tj dillashaw we had mikey garcia

terrence crawford on i think you could i think you could bring back joe lewis and put them on there and people don't care about that they want their their questions answered you know through the social media or through youtube and they kind of don't interact with the the guests that you have on so it's weird. I think the format, I like the format of it, but at the same time, I wish people would be more involved with the guests that we have on. But for the most part, it's fun. It's different.

That kind of format is, well, boxing fans in particular, well, I should say just combat sports fans in particular, they love to comment on things, love to get in on it. I mean, whenever there's a big fight, social media just lights up, both with boxing and with MMA. And the ability to go back and forth with a guy like you and get your questions answered and stuff like that has got to be huge. Yep, and we tap in. We've had Matt Brown on, so we tap into the UFC.

I personally don't want to because I don't want to make nobody mad. I don't know enough. I watch it. You're not going to make anybody mad. I know. I'm saying that some of the fans. I watch it. I enjoy it.

But now the co-host, James Dominguez, he's really big into that. And he was the one that actually introduced me to Matt Brown. And so he knows. So on that show, that's where we worked hand-in-hand together. He's able to do more of the questions. I think it's fun when boxers don't know about MMA and they ask wonky questions. I know. That's how I feel, vice versa.

I'm sure, man. I'm sure. When a big fight goes down, do you watch it and stream live? We do. Well, we tried. We actually tried on that. That's a great idea for someone like you. We do a thing called the Fight Companion. We do it all the time where there's

a UFC fight. We'll put it up on that screen. We'll have a bunch of guys in here and we'll watch the fights and talk shit while the fights are going on and people play it alongside the commentary. It's like they're watching the fights with us. That's an idea. Thank you.

It's a great idea, yeah. It absolutely is. And that's the whole thing. We're just looking for a different... Plus, if you go into the comments and start having people ask questions, like, who do you think won that round? Then you go, this is why I think Triple G won the round.

This is why Canelo lost the round. Or this is why you could make an argument that Canelo won it. That kind of stuff for... That kind of interaction stuff for... why. You could make an argument that Canelo won it. That kind of stuff, that kind of interaction stuff. It does, and the fans love that. They love it. Yep, they love that. And that's what we're looking at different ideas, too,

because you never stop learning. You can never stop expanding and doing things like that. So it's good. We get places, we get to these big fights, and people notice the show. Hey, I love your show. Even if they they don't they're saying that to me you know um yeah it was uh even if they don't they're saying you're saying it's very uh that's keen insight yeah you know and it was cool actually what was that the first triple g canelo fight you know when i retired i i again stayed away from boxing i went to that uh i there, and I was all about promoting my podcast.

And it was kind of cool. I walked in there, and everybody went crazy in the media room, and I thought I was fighting again. After five years of being retired, I thought I was fighting. I mean, they were just asking, and I was trying to squeeze stuff in and tell them what I was doing. And then it was cool also because Bernard Hopkins was there, you know, and I was already a year into the powerlifting.

I was still about 230, and he came up and gave me a big hug, and, you know, it was awesome to be able to, after a fight, and being able to go in there with him to see how nice he was and how humble he was after that. You know, he could have been cocky. Right, right. He could have walked past me and not said hi or recognized me at all. Right.

And he was just really brought me in, so. That's cool. Yeah. What did he say to you after the fight? Did he tell you you need to box like a black guy? I think he did. You know, after that fight, he could have told me everything he wanted in the world. He could have sat down for an hour with me and I wouldn't have what he said um i was you know everybody's seeing the fight so i

need not to say much more on that but uh he had a little bit of it because my trainer was there it was you know keep your head up you're a hell of a fighter you know and and you know i'm experienced and go back go back to the drawing board don't get too down on this and come back strong he goes you're a champ and that was what he said yeah i remember something where he said that you needed to learn how to fight like a black guy yeah i didn't hear that i truly didn't you know and maybe he might have said that in an interview after with somebody and that's what people thought right i know he didn't say it in a fight right yeah yeah that was um that was uh it was you know one of his best performances.

I mean, he had so many great performances late in his career. The Tito Trinidad fight in particular, because nobody thought he was going to win that fight. He was a big underdog in that fight. Trinidad was an up-and-coming, rising Puerto Rican superstar, was fucking everybody up. And Bernard put on a show. I actually had Hopkins in that fight, though, because he was just bigger. The big guy, middleweight. Trinidad's moving up. And there was a lot of good middleweights that I didn't think Trinidad was going to be.

I think Trinidad was an amazing fighter, but I think his great days were at 147. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, he was a big puncher, though. I mean, he was a big puncher even up into light heavyweight. I mean, even into middleweight. Big puncher, though. I mean, he was a big puncher even up into light heavyweight. I mean, even into middleweight.

But his style was almost tailor-made for Bernard. Bernard was so clever and such a good counterfighter and so good defensively. He didn't really open up. He didn't leave many openings. That goes back to the footwork that we were talking about. You notice when he fought that fight, even when he fought me, but Trinidad and other guys, when they go to throw a punch, he'd take that one step in and kind of suffocate the punch, especially if it was a straight right hand.

Or then he would take that step and he would throw that overhand right and catch you with it. So he was really good at just putting that foot, not moving around much, putting it in the right spot to hit you and counter you. And he did that. Trinidad was probably one of the best technically sound fighters ever, if you actually watch him, you know, the way he threw his punches.

He never made mistakes on that part of it. But I think he needed a little bit more, changed it up a little different with Bernard Hopkins in order to have even made that fight kind of close. One of the most ridiculous Trinidad fights ever. Remember when he fought Ricardo Mayorga and Mayorga let him punch him in the face? Yeah. He just put his hands down, go ahead, and Trinidad fights ever. Remember when he fought Ricardo Mayorga and Mayorga let him punch him in the face? Yeah.

He just put his hands down. Go ahead. And Trinidad teed off. And then he hit him with two left hooks on the chin. Mayorga was crazy. He was so crazy. That was a crazy dude. He would smoke cigarettes in between rounds and shit.

I don't even know if I could believe that. I don't know if that was a show. Did he do that when the cameras were on? Because he was able to go a handful of rounds without getting tired. Yeah. I know if you smoke a cigarette, man man that's going to take the wind out of you yeah but you know i know fighters that smoke yeah yeah joe schilling who's a world-class kickboxer top of the food chain world champion kickboxer smoke cigarettes well crazy fucker yeah i chewed most of my career that's different though right it is you know Nicotine restricts the oxygen in the blood, and it's not good for boxers or anybody lifting weights.

Nicotine does? Yes. Like chewing tobacco restricts the oxygen? Oh, yeah. It restricts the oxygen in the blood. I didn't know that. Yeah, but can you pull it up? Just make sure.

It's a stimulant though. It's actually like for your brain. People say the – a lot of folks... I actually bought some... I never tried it, but I bought some nicotine gum to try to see if I would write on it, if it would help me writing. Because apparently it works as a nootropic, as a cognitive enhancer. Nicotine is actually an effective cognitive enhancer. I didn't know that.

Maybe how much you take of it, the quantity. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I didn't know that it affects your, because it's a stimulant. I didn't know that it restricts the oxygen in your blood. That's pretty neat. Yeah, from what I heard, and chew actually more so than cigarettes because of the amount of nicotine and how it gets into the stream faster. But to me, I didn't chew the day of the fight.

Right. And I believe after so many hours, six to eight or ten hours, it's out. But either or, it didn't affect me. That stuff's so nasty. Because I was able to run, you know, three miles in 19 minutes, 19-some minutes, and five miles in 30 minutes. And I was chewing. So it never really affected me. Well, maybe it did, but just you were in such good shape.

Good shape. It was barely. No, smoking, on the other hand Lungs Yeah Filling them It is horrible But after I retired

And the itch wasn't there for like a year I wanted to give the gums a break And I decided Well you know what I'll smoke And I quit smoking shortly You started smoking cigarettes after you retired? Yeah Jesus Christ

Well I didn't want to start them when I was fighting. Who the fuck starts at 30? I was switching out because it was nicotine. Here it is. Smoke tobacco, smokeless tobacco and health risks. The amount of nicotine in the bloodstream after using smokeless tobacco may be higher than that of a cigarette smoker. Okay. What does it say about oxygen, though?

That's where it was going. This puts it all together. The nicotine basically is taking the place of the oxygen, I think, is what the other... It's a less scientific paper, but... Nicotine stays in the bloodstream longer with smokeless tobacco than cigarettes, oral tobacco, 28 calories. Which is why it causes heart disease.

Yeah. Okay. It's not a safe alternative,c. Which is why it causes heart disease. Yeah. Okay. It's not a safe alternative, folks. That's what it's saying. All right. Yeah. Either way. Either way, bad for you.

But you started smoking cigarettes. Yeah. Was this- Not because- Were you a smoking when you're drinking kind of guy? Is that what it was? No. It was because I wanted-

I liked the nicotine. Oh. And I chewed. And I wanted to give the gums a break, the lips a break, and I smoked so that way I didn't have to chew. Right. And doing the lifting, empire lifting, I went over and I think I got seven squats and I couldn't breathe. Jesus. And I said, you know what?

This is a shame. How long have you been smoking for? I was only eight months, several months. That's long enough. Yeah, I said, you know what, because I had no plans coming back to the ring. I didn't. So I was done. And yeah, I got to seven reps

into the squat, and I was like, you know, this is sad. I was a former world-class athlete. So I was done right after that day, put the cigarettes back. Well, good for you. Yeah. Sad you started it up, but glad you figured out to let it go.

Yes. That's a weird choice, though, at 30. Yeah. You don't start smoking. Well, it's nicotine. That's what a lot of people do when they try to quit the chewing. They go over to the smoking. Don't they just go to the gum usually?

You could do that, too, but some people just like it. Yeah. I don't know. Well, it does juice you up. Tony Hinchcliffe smoked cigarettes. He doesn't anymore, but he used to. And a couple of times I took a cigarette from him and smoked it before I went on stage. And he's like, dude, you're going to get hooked.

He was worried about me. You're going to get hooked. I'm like, I'm not going to get hooked. I'm just going to smoke this one cigarette. I'm not going to go buy a pack. but people are so scared of it yeah well i see why though yeah you know especially again you know as i'm mentioning i'm over i used to be able to do all that and then i do seven reps on a squat and i'm having a hard time breathing and uh i racked it now granted squats are hard though i mean you, you're going to, if you're spending a lot of weight

and how many reps you're doing, it's a different type of exercise, but I was done after that. You had a drinking thing for a while too, huh? Yeah. That's one that gets a lot of fighters. Yeah, it does. But it's one that, you know, on that, it ticks me off and it don't.

It ticks you off? Yeah. How so? A lot of it was ran through the hometown, you know, and the troubles that I got in with it, TMZ, stuff like that, you know, got in with it um tmz stuff like that you know the incidents that happened were petty small and if it was it wasn't in youngstown i would never made news stuff that kind of happens like what kind of shit no bb guns and in the four we began yeah i shot a kid we're playing around i was taking care of him and this is the truth of the story, taking care of him.

I was putting a big lake in my backyard, and I got the country boy in me, and I went out and rented two excavators and some bobcats and started putting the pond in. This guy I was helping out, he knows how to run the excavators, so he needed work. He had no money. I was taking care of him and his kids over at the house. He's working. So long story short, after about five days, I come home, and he's in the pond or lake just in his underwear playing around.

I grab the BB gun. I'm joking around with him, you know, because we were shooting targets for a couple days in between working. I shoot him in the arm. 42 years old. 41 years old at the time, too. So it wasn't a kid. He gets out.

He's like, ah, you shot me. And he's crying about it and everything else. And next thing you know, he's cool, though. He gets out. It's on Facebook. And he's giggling, laughing about it. And he stays at my house that night. His kids come over. I'm feeding them.

We're having cookouts the next day. And little things that I don't know that I'm glad that I'm not involved in no more or I don't put myself in that situation. So he stays for two days after that at my house. And his uncle comes there who worked for the local sheriff's department and goes, hey, is so-and-so here? And I said, yeah, he was. I haven't seen him, though.

And he goes, okay, listen. He goes, Kelly, I'm coming here to tell you so that way the news, the media, everything else don't come. He has a warrant out for his arrest, and tell him, you know, if he comes back, call us. So he leaves. I go walking through the house. And Brian comes down the steps. And I was like, dude, you got to get the hell out of here.

I was like, I didn't know anything of this. You having a warrant, blah, blah, blah. He goes over and passes out on my couch. I call his uncle. Hey, you want him? He's here. So he finds out he ends up running out of the house and they catch him you know that night or whatever they take him in he does two months in the county jail gets out takes his uniform off walks over to the sheriff's

department sheriff's department and presses charges on you you? Yes. For shooting with a BB gun? Yes. And a buddy of mine who was there when it happened was videoing it. His girlfriend's laughing in the background, you know, when it happened. It was just a video of it happening. He sold it to TMZ. And next thing you know, I end up getting served or whatnot. My attorney calls me also and says, hey, go down, turn yourself in.

You know, it's a federal assault charge. Jesus. Yeah. BB gun's a federal assault charge? Yes. Yeah. And that was it. And again, it was all over money.

It was a drawn out case, supposed to have been beat. And it turned to that over a BB gun by a guy, and he said it was an assault. How much was he trying to get from you? He got nine grand. And when he filed the civil suit a couple months into this, the criminal charges were supposed to be dropped at that point because the prosecutor and everybody knew that it was all about money. So they were going to drop the criminal charge.

They never did. And it goes back in Youngstown. You know, I was out in the public eye and some of the people, they had it out. They have. For people to understand how big a star you are in Youngstown. I mean, I remember at the time, I remember reading stories, seeing stories seeing news clips i mean youngstown's not a big place and other than ray boom boom mancini he's not a whole lot of like really famous people especially fighters that come out of youngstown but you were a fucking giant celebrity in that town yeah and that was kind of

my my bad on that that's where i take the. Well, it's probably hard for you to recognize. You're not even 30 years old. Yeah. All this shit is going on. Yeah, and it's true, and I'm not looking for that as an excuse when I say it, but it is true. I looked at myself as everybody else. Right.

I think that was the issue. You hadn't recognized yet that you're in some weird place where you have to watch what you're doing. I felt like if I go to the bar and somebody goes, boy, Kelly Pauk's been here three days. He's a lush. My argument was I got every right to be here just like you do. As a matter of fact, I have more of a right.

I'm retired. I've got my money put away. You're probably drinking your weekly pay away. That was my thought process of that. And it probably wasn't right you know because it comes down to is you are a big fish in a little pond and it's a small city and I think that by being out there I brought a lot on myself because of that it is what it is unfortunately as an athlete you you can't do that and so that happened over a period of time,

and the war got around and a lot of anger. You know, you had some jealous, some angry, some who just didn't like me. Well, also just so much fun for them to gossip. Yeah, exactly. Because what else? Really, not beating up Youngstown, I love it. It made me who I am.

But if you really look up Youngstown, there ain't a lot to talk about. Besides the fact that we do put out the most NFL players per capita. Really? Oh, absolutely. Youngstown does. Why is that, you think? I don't know. Savages. There's some badass dudes from Youngstown. And it is. I don't know why. I mean, even the boxing part

of it, if you truly break down five world champs from such a small city in 36 years as it came out. Who are the other world champs from such a small city in 36 years, as it came up. Who are the other world champs besides Ray Boom and Mancini? Harry Arroyo. Oh, Harry Arroyo. Harry Arroyo actually held the title in the same weight class around the same exact time that Mancini did. You had Jeff Lampkin, Greg Richardson, and then you had a handful of other guys like Roland Cummings and fighters out there that were making noise out of Youngstown.

A guy, Ken Signorani, who fought Chavez and Camacho out of Youngstown. But being there like that, it brought a lot of attention and people wanted it, and there was a lot of angry people. Was it weird growing up there and then becoming a famous guy there yeah it is because again you know you don't people tell you hey would you get to that level when you win the world title shit's gonna change man and you're going yeah yeah yeah okay you think you know right like you're going yeah i got what you're saying and then it happens and you win. And it's so true when they say overnight. Like, you're not you no more.

You know, like, you can't be yourself no more. It's everything changes and it comes down to the person. Even though if you don't want to change and you like living your life the way you did two days ago, unfortunately, you can't. You know, and it's hard and it's that you've got to learn how to deal with. And that wasn't my choice, though. You know what I mean by that? My choice wasn't to go out and act like a jackaloon.

My choice was kind of just be me, though. Right. You just did what you wanted to do. I did. And then it just became a big issue because you were a famous guy. Yes. And another issue on top of that came, too, was where I could actually take the blame for this. And I honestly can.

A lot of it came down to, and everybody's different, so I'm speaking for myself. I trained my ass off when I trained. You know, I was a six, seven hours a day type guy. And that's what got me to throw as many punches as I did around, you know, and I was in great shape for every fight. I sacrificed a lot of things. I gave up a lot. You know, even starting from high school, you know, being in the amateurs

and just turning pro right out of high school. I missed a lot of things. My mentality was when, you know, I had time, I was going to live. I was going to live like my friends who were 19, 20, 21, 24, and that was the process of it. I do believe, though, at a point, especially after I retired, that it got a little out of hand. Absolutely.

I'm not going to be the person to sit here and say it didn't. It did. I'm not naive enough to say that. Well, you know better than anybody, but the rumors were always that you were drinking a lot, and that was affecting your career. It may have to some point. I don't think it did.

People say it used the fact that Hopkins beat me, and that was the reason, and that's why I retired so young and it wasn't it truly wasn't um maybe some of the stuff I was doing especially as I got older in between fights the drinking I think that that could have that may have hurt a little bit I don't think it was enough to make any significant changes in my career to be honest with you you but you know who knows with that if I didn't we'll never know again but I lived up and do I got anything to regret about it no do you still live in Youngstown yeah on the outside in the suburbs you know is it I mean it's got to be strange to have grown up there been a there, and then become an internationally famous world

champion boxer and celebrity and still stay there. Yeah. The world changes and you're still Kelly Pavlik. And I think after I retired, that's where some of the mistakes have come to, where I should have gotten out. Maybe come out here to California or go to a new come on out kelly yeah right i don't yeah we're working on it plenty of room yeah i just had that last night with with my uh manager uh mark he was talking about you doing out here can you say he's throwing around ideas

also again we were talking about what we have talked about earlier with the fight coming back uh we talked about the Dancing with the Stars thing. That's some ideas. He's looking into also sponsorships. Again, Mark has got a lot of connects. He's in that industry. Boxing is in an interesting place right now, and I was really bummed out that HBO canceled their boxing series.

I mean, after how many years? 43 years. Something crazy like that? Yeah, 43. I mean, they put on years? 40, 43 years. Something crazy like that? I mean, they put on some of the all-time great classic fights. And, you know, I think Jim Lampley, one of the best commentators of all time. I loved hearing Roy Jones Jr. do it and Andre Ward. And, you know, I just – Max Kellerman was amazing. I just can't believe that it's over.

I mean, I don't know. I guess it wasn't profitable for them, or they just decided to get out of the business. I really don't understand it. I don't believe that it's going to be gone for long. From HBO? Yeah, for some reason. I think, you know, Lampley still has the fight game on there, and they're doing that. I heard rumors of maybe Roy Jonesones taking it over buying it out

or somebody buying yeah um the big issue i think where that what happens into the hbo and showtime is doing very well right now yeah and i don't know yeah and i'm not sure if they'll ever fall into the situation that hbo did but you have these apps coming out now espn plus uh the zone dazn and again like what they just had that signing with canelo how big that was the But you have these apps coming out now, ESPN Plus, DAZN, DAZN. And again, like what they just had that signing with Canelo, how big that was, the richest athlete, you know, the biggest contract. It was like $650 million or something. I thought it was $365 million. What was it?

Canelo's? How much money? Something. I think it was $365 million. But there was also incentives and everything else with that. $365 million. Yeah. I knew there was a six in there. but there's also you know incentives and everything else with that so 365 yeah I knew there was a six in there

that's a lot of fucking money yes it is for I think 11 fights or whatever it was that's crazy and so again that's where these people

are coming this ESPN plus they can watch these fights now yeah on these for $7.99 $9.99 the zone has UFC or MMA fight or I I think a spell of tour fights, whatever on there. It is nice that ESPN is putting on a lot of fights now.

Exactly. And they also now have a deal with the UFC. So into 2019 now, the first UFC event is going to be January 19th, which is TJ Dillashaw versus Henry Cejudo for the flyweight title. And they're really putting on some great fights on ESPN. It's just exciting to see MMA being recognized by ESPN, but it's exciting to see ESPN put Lomachenko fights on. Exactly, because ESPN used to be kind of more so the prospects.

The Friday Night Fights were the up-and-coming guys, and they were putting that on. That was great for the prospects. I think they need to actually keep doing that maybe on a different night. But now they're putting the Lomachenkos and they're putting the world-class fighters on ESPN. Was Terrence Crawford's last fight on ESPN? I believe it was. Yeah, that's awesome.

That's awesome. Yeah, and that app, that ESPN Plus, like I'm saying. So there's more accessibility to that, and people would rather pay that than order the $69 or $ 89 or $100 pay-per-view fights. Right. $7 a month is nice. It is. Yeah.

I mean, with the UFC, the UFC has UFC Fight Pass, and they have events just constantly. Yeah. Same sort of deal. And that's great for that. It is because it's an easier route, outlet for it. Yeah, and you can watch on your phone on a train. Exactly. It's like the world's changing

and now also i love the fact you could stream it from your phone right to your television if you got a smart tv you can watch it exactly yeah you know i was even thinking about that at my gym because i know how it is with business and ordering pay-per-view fights there was actually a funny story about that in youngstown with that too, where everybody thought it was my fault. But yeah, you could get that. I could have 40 people there on a big fight night, UFC fight night or a boxing fight night, and I could just put that phone right up to the smart TV and we could watch it on there instead of paying.

Don't say this. Don't say this right now. They're going to come get you. Oh, yeah. You're not going to do that. This is all hypothetical this will never happen you're not gonna do that right i thought it was legal okay it might be legal yeah well the ufc's gone after people in the past for illegally streaming things and then

showing them on television oh well i thought if you had the app i don't know i don't know how it works to be honest i think it's when you're showing it on in a business because i know what i was talking about earlier what the youngstown thing that happened it was kind of funny was um they were getting the fights they have pay-per-view fights and they were some of the businesses were illegally getting it and they all got fined you know they were fines going around and people were actually coming to me like i had something to do with it they were like i can't believe you could do that. You should have to pay us like $3,000 for the fine that we got. Wow.

Yeah, and I'm going. You? Yes. I started giggling. I'm going. Last thing on my mind that I was worried about was who was ordering fights in Youngstown. Yeah. When I'm here in Atlantic City or Vegas right now fighting, getting ready, trying to make weight,

and doing the interviews and the press conference and everything else what kind of asshole says that you should have yeah they kind of came out and one actually my brother was doing uh going to get um ads for the program from places and they're like i'm not giving i'm not putting that in he cost me three thousand dollars you know no you cost you yeah you fucking pirate i i i might ease'm sure, and I'm not just using that with the Youngstown. That probably would have happened anywhere in a small area. Well, you know, illegal streaming, if they don't do something about it, man, it would run rampant. I just don't know what the thing to do that's correct is.

You know, I've seen some outrageous fines. I don't know. You know. You know, I've seen some outrageous fines. I don't know. You know. And as we just, what happened earlier, we don't know what's legal and what's not either anymore. With all the different internet stuff and apps that you have and the smart TVs. With TVs, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, or, you know, can you stream it on your phone and have a bunch of people look over your shoulder? Yeah. How does that work? Or if you have a smart TV, though. Yeah, like if you have it on your phone and then like 20 of your friends come over and they're behind you yeah and you say hey man everybody give me a dollar yeah you get in trouble for that how's that work or that could be a great idea it's not the worst idea but yeah how does that work because with apple tv anything you're watching you can watch a youtube video and you just stream it to that TV with a quick swipe and a press, bam.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the move for them is to make it easily accessible. Like WWE was the first one to figure that out, right? They figured out how to – you get like a monthly subscription and you get to watch all the events. And then the UFC did that with fight pass and espn plus doing this and wwe knows how to make the money yeah we could all see for sure um

you know i think what's also great is some of these inside stations you know local stations and inside putting these fights on also like they used to do back in the day you know the abc fights yeah and uh i was a cbs sports Yeah, all that shit. Doing that again. Why wouldn't you? It's great for the sport, and that's how you get people involved back in it. You know, it's almost like almost every other generation or every other decade,

there's that group of fighters that come out, you know, like Ali, Frazier, guys like that. Then you had, like, the Tyson, Holyfield, Reddick Bowe. But also at that time, it was easy and it was accessible to watch all the time. Now, you know, it's not. And even the apps, which I think is great, you get a lot of guys in their 40s and 50s who don't want to have to watch an app on their TV. So I think if they start bringing back just a little more variety of shows or something. Well, it seems like, especially with boxing right now, the talent level is extremely high.

I mean, it is with MMA as well. But I mean, with boxing, it seems to be on an upswing. And it also seems like people are really interested in some of these big rivalries like Triple G and Canelo. That was two amazing fights. I thought the first one was a robbery. I thought that Triple G won the first one. I hope they don't fight again.

Really? Yeah. Why is that? Because when you get a guy that hits as hard as Triple G does and you get a guy that's as good as Canelo, you know, and they're in there, even though they're not getting dropped and they're not getting knocked out, them type of fights take a lot out of you. They really do. And they shared a lot in those two fights. And we don't know even right now if the next fight or the

fight after that Canelo starts showing some of the effects from those first two fights. You think so? Yeah. You get a guy that hits, two guys that hit that hard and they're in there fighting like that, eventually it does drain you a little bit and that will catch up i think a third fight will shorten the career of canelo i'm not going to say triple g because triple g is my age now and i i have a feeling that his might be getting short here pretty soon anyways just due to age but canelo i mean that that's those are brutal fights they were brutal fights. Did you think that some people thought that Triple G won the second fight as well?

I thought it was a much closer fight than the first fight. But did you think that Canelo or Triple G? I think Canelo showed some improvement, but it's also possible that Triple G might have slowed down a little bit. I think so. You know, the first fight I had at 9-3 for Triple G. That's how I scored it. That sounds about right.

Yeah, and I gave the first three rounds to Canelo, and then I had at 9-3 for Triple G. That's how I scored it. That sounds about right. Yeah, and I gave the first three rounds to Canelo, and then I had it every round after for Triple G. This fight I thought Canelo won. Close fight. And if you gave it to Triple G, that wouldn't have screened Robert. Right. I think Teddy was saying that he thought that Triple G won, but I felt like it was a pretty close fight, pretty close fight.

But certainly Canelo showed much improvement. He did, and he fought a better fight. The first half of the fight, I gave Canelo a lot of rounds because I thought he controlled the fight with the body shots. Everybody thought Triple G was controlling it with the jab, but the reason why Triple G wasn't using his size and strength and was using his jab was because of the body shots that Canelo was landing.

I mean, they were brutal. And, uh, I just thought Canelo dictated the pace of those first couple of rounds. Um, I thought he won enough of the early rounds and obviously triple G won the second,

most of the second half of the fight, but I thought it was a little too late, you know, and I had Canelo up by a round or two. Yeah. Um, it's, it's just one.

Those are two fighters that really sort of epitomize what people like to see when they like to see these classic rivalries, right? Like a guy like Triple G who's just forward pressure, constant throwing bombs, knockout puncher. A guy like Canelo who's just one of those classic Mexican fighters that has incredible heart wants to fight the best of the best like really like really takes it into the first fight yeah yeah stay on the ropes for triple g and let him let him use that power to beat your organs and yeah one of those types you know I was sitting I'm going I'm not one to talk I I kind of like getting in and getting involved myself with guys, especially like Miranda, who I personally believe hit harder than Triple G. Really?

Yeah, and I was a guy. But that was my strategy. As were Canelo. That really wasn't a great strategy. I didn't lay on the ropes and let Miranda beat me. Do you think he just didn't know what to expect until he was in there with Triple G? It could have been because everything changes. I think Mike Tyson said it.

Everybody's got a game plan until they get hit. He might have got touched, like I said, even with the tension in that Mayweather fight. And the whole brain might have just started going 1,000 miles an hour trying to figure out, okay, this ain't going to probably work tonight with this guy because he's a lot stronger than I expected. And he was just trying to maybe tire him out. The only issue is now when you're on the ropes like that and you're getting hit by a guy that hits that hard in the delts, in the elbow, in the forearms, and to the body,

and then you're tightening up and you're tensing up really hard and you're cutting the oxygen off to the blood, it tires you out quicker and it wears you down, you know, more than what he was doing in the middle of the ring by pop shotting and counter punching. And he could have dictated how fast he wanted, you know, how much he wanted to punch, how hard he wanted to punch. Yeah, we certainly made some big improvements in that second fight. Yeah.

Do you, you really don't want to see them fight a third time? I truly don't. I mean, if it happens, I'm going to watch it. But they're going to fight, right? I mean, Canelo's obviously going to fight some people, and Triple G's obviously going to continue fighting. And again, I don't know how long Triple G's going to fight, because as you mentioned, and I agree with you, I think he's starting to, his age is showing up a little bit with him. Well, I mean, he got avoided by a lot of people. And he had a pay-per-view a couple years back that only got 150,000 buys.

And I remember thinking, that is a damn shame. It is. It's a damn shame that people don't realize that this is absolutely one of the best fighters ever. I was surprised by that, too, because I think he's a lot more popular than what those numbers showed. I didn't get it. I don't understand. I mean, I don't, maybe it's because they didn't think the fight was competitive.

Maybe, I mean, I don't know what it was. But it just, it seemed like. I just think, personally, myself, there's a lot of fights out there for Canelo. He just went up to 168. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of that. Do you think he's too small for 168? I do. Especially if you get him with the right fighter.

I truly do believe that. How tall is he? Is he 5'10"? Yeah, 5'9", 5'10". But, you know, with boxing or, like, football, when you see the height, you always got to take an inch and a half off, too. Oh, do they lie? Yeah, they have me listed 6'3".

I'm right under 6'2", by, like, that much. So it's kind of like the football program in high school. Right, right, right. But Canelo, I think that there's guys out there. Staying at 68 is kind of dangerous. I think he's right now talented enough to keep good fights out there. Yeah, but it's a little dangerous in my opinion. Who do you think at 68 could cause problems for him?

You've got even guys like Zerto, Benavidez. Those are dangerous fights. Just them two guys right there I would have to take. Not so much overall skill-wise, just size and being at that weight. And, you know, you got guys coming down like B-Ball from

175 to 168. I think that his better days are going to be at 160. Does he have a hard time making 60 or did he just have an opportunity to fight 68 and he took it? I think it's the trophies. Yeah. And I don't blame him for that either.

He had the right fight to go up to 168, so get another weight division under his belt. Yeah, he was tuning that dude up. I think that would be, what, three? No, he's a three-weight class champ. Yeah. And so that looks good on paper when you retire. Yeah, well. It does.

I would have done it if I could have, you know, if there was the right fights out there. When he fought Mayweather, Mayweather made him cut down to, what, 52? Was it something like that? I think they had to catch weight around that. Yeah. That fight was, to me, well, it was a good learning experience for him to be in there with a guy who's as slick as Floyd is,

but also a good learning experience. You're not supposed to suck that much weight out of your body. Just he didn't have the fire. No, even though you have 24 hours or however long it is to try to rehydrate, that's never enough time to recoup. Yeah. It's not. So your thing is you're just hoping your opponent's going through the same thing that you are. That's what it comes down to.

What I do like about boxing that is missing in mma is more weight classes i really think that and that's one of the things that people have a problem with in boxing they think there's too many weight classes i don't agree with that i think if anything there's too many world champions i think it's ridiculous that in any organization that one guy could be a wbc world champion the other guy could be a wa there's an ibf other guy could be a WA. There's an IBF. There's a WBO. I mean, like, that's crazy. It's crazy to have that many world champions.

It should be a world champion. But how do you decide what organization is the real sanctioning body? Well, you just need one sanctioning body. I don't know how you would do that either because it's all money. You know what I mean? Oh, they're all so corrupt. Yeah, it's all money, and it's hard to do that. I see your point on that a little bit.

And then I also look at like you got so many guys that are so good. Yeah. And boxing is a short window. So like how long can you stay undefeated until you finally get that chance to fight the top guy, the top dog? And anything can happen in boxing too. I kind of like maybe knocking down a three, but I think when you have the different weight classes,

now you've got four people. Just say one person has each belt. You've got four world champs. Now you're looking at these four guys, and you can start taking these prospects and start saying, this will be an interesting fight with this guy and this guy. And then I do believe that they should make happen one undisputed champ. Yeah, I believe so too.

I think that should happen in every weight class. Yep. They should have a fight off or a box off and the four champions, or maybe that way, keep the prospects in line and have the four champions fight off. Then you know who's the undisputed champion. And then your prospects get their shot. It just seems weird to have more than champions fight off. Then you know who's the undisputed champion, and then your prospects get their shot. It just seems weird to have more than one world champion. You're either the world champion.

It's like how many guys won the Super Bowl this year? How many teams? One. One. It should be one. You can't have multiple world champions. When Anthony Joshua is walking around as a heavyweight champion, but also Deontay Wilder is walking around as a heavyweight champion,

like what is this? It is. Are you the heavyweight champion, but also Deontay Wilder's walking around as a heavyweight champion. Like, what? What is this? It is. Are you the heavyweight champion or are you the champion of an organization? That falls into kind of, again, what we were talking about earlier with the Jermaine Taylor thing when he vacated the belts. Yeah. Yeah. In my mind, you won the unified title.

Unified or universal or recognizable middleweight champ. The ring middleweight title. Because where does the lineal begin? When does it not? And I had the ring middleweight title. Because where does the lineal begin? When does it not? And I had the ring title. Right. So usually, in most cases, the ring title is undisputed or lineal champ. So in other words, the champ of that weight class.

Right. For the most part, you know who is the champion of a weight class. Well, Ring Magazine's title is almost as valuable as anybody else's. It is. And that's the one that I really showcase when i show people my nice my case you know it's so classic too with like this the stripes and the i think rocky really did a lot for that belt too yeah i mean i do that's true yeah yeah yeah well it's a classy looking belt you know and everybody else got the big ones with the leather and the strap like the ring magazine's a nice one yep i wanted the belts you know i

didn't want to pay the sanctioned fees for all four of the belts, but I still wanted the IBF and the WBA to put in the trophy case. But unfortunately, a lot of them fights fell through. When you were coming up, when you were a kid and you were watching boxing, were you a Hagler fan? I was a Hagler fan, but that's another one that's actually weird with me.

Even having guys like Mancini and Arroyo from Youngstown and guys like that, I never really had this one person that I was like, or a poster in my bedroom, like the Deloy or something. You never had one guy that you emulated or you really looked up to? No, I emulated everybody. And I think that's what helped me get as far as I did in my career. I mean, even when I was 16, I could watch a 9-year-old sparring and see him do something cool and hit a guy,

and I'd be like, damn, you know, I'm going to try that. That actually might work. I followed it, and I was just a big fan of the sport overall. Of course, I had guys that liked Gaudi because of his style coming up, and De La Hoya. Sugar Ray Leonard, in my opinion, is probably one of the best fighters pound for pound of all time. Oh, yeah.

And it's arguable. I mean, if somebody says Mayweather, I'm not going to say it. He's one of the best, for sure. Yeah, I'm not going to say you're stupid for having a number one. It's a great debate. But, yeah, so I followed it more as a fan, you know, and I watched, and I took from this person, I took from that person. As I mentioned, we had some prospects in the amateurs coming up that trained in the same gym and I would kind of copy

their style you know coming up so I was always trying to keep learning like I even doing and working out now um I find different things that work you know what don't work and uh that's what I did as far as boxing I just watched guys here and there I would copy for like two days Dila Hoya style you know He'd be there with the hands up and picking them off with the hands. I go in sparring. I didn't try it in the fight. I did it in sparring. And I will copy his style a little bit to see how it works

or how I can add it to my arsenal. Yeah, I was just asking about Hagler because he's sort of the quintessential middleweight champion. There's a few guys that you look back in the day and you look at who are just iconic middleweight champions. And your guys in your late 40s and 50s, they'll argue with you that he was the best middleweight of all time.

He certainly was one of them. Yeah, and you'll have your guys that have Hopkins. Certainly one of them, too. That's what I'm saying. Even the heavyweights, you've got your olders. Muhammad Ali was the best. Then you have your guys in their early 40s tell you that, Mike Tyson. So it's kind of like whoever grew up on that.

Me personally, you got to get past that because, again, that becomes biased, and everybody's going to kind of go with what they grew up with. But there was a lot of greats. Sure. Well, people sleep on Lennox Lewis. You know, when you talk about the greats, all-time great heavyweight boxers, like how the fuck do you not include Lennox Lewis in the discussion? The size, the power. But how do you not put Evander Holyfield?

You do. You have to. The guy that beat the Tyson, the crazy. Yeah. Riddick Bowe. Yeah. I mean, way smaller than Riddick Bowe, too. That was a hell of an era of heavyweights right there.

Crazy. Yeah. Crazy era. Yeah. It was the 90s, right? Yep. And those are the ones, when you say heavyweight division, those were the fighters. Yeah.

But it's, how long ago was that now? Quite a long time. Yeah, 30-some years. And so they don't come around enough. Well, what I'm hoping is more emerging talent in the heavyweight division will sort of take a little bit of this spotlight that you're seeing now that's going on. Fury and Wilder and Joshua. And I'd like to see, you know, a little bit of this spotlight that you're seeing now that's going on Fury and Wilder and Joshua and a little bit of Ortiz. I'd like to see more guys get in the mix there and have it be like it used to be back then where there are a bunch of really exciting contenders.

You look forward to these big fights because right now there's like four guys, five, six guys at most that are going to fight each other. Exactly. And hopefully what it does is it gets these other bigger guys, five, six guys at most that are going to fight each other. Exactly. And, you know, hopefully what it does is it gets these other bigger guys, these athletic athletes and skilled athletes, and hopefully it brings them into the boxing again. Did I remember this right? Is David Tua making a comeback?

I hope not. Seriously. How old is he? Shit, he shit he gotta be mid 40s dude he was 46 46

yeah maybe he's not did I make that up that he's making a comeback I'm looking he was a fucking monster you know

unfortunately in the heavyweight division he probably could get away with that at 46 he might be able to he was a god damn monster yeah well he was short

he was he was a hard guy to fight he was one of them guys that was low to the ground, thick, big legs, no neck. Brutal power. Yeah. Big left hook. Yeah. Yeah, he's one of the guys you didn't want to fight, even if you were Lennox Lewis' height.

Remember when he knocked out John Ruiz? Yeah. Like, whoo. It was brutal. Yeah, no, he was an animal, man, and he could take a shot, too. Remember when he fought Ike Abeabuchi? He was the only guy to go the distance with Abeabuchi. That was another big guy.

He was a scary motherfucker. Yeah. And he went to jail for, like, sexual assault or something crazy like that. He was in jail for a long time. We were just talking about another guy that kind of reminded me of them, Samuel Peters. Oh, yeah. Don't neck. Tank. Just thick. Yeah, another don't neck. Tank.

Just thick. Yeah, he was my height. Actually, I trained with him a little bit out at top ranks, Jim, when we were fighting. He was actually a really cool guy, you know, and he was a big fan of mine too. So it was kind of neat to be able to share it out with him and, you know, talk with him before we started training. That's cool. That's cool. Abe Ibuchi, I want to say that he's getting out soon.

He was in jail for a long time. And apparently there was some article that I read a couple of years back that he was planning on making a comeback when he gets released. But, again, he's deep into his 40s as well. Yeah, and it's hard to make a comeback. And no matter if it's heavyweight or not, at that level, you know, after being out, I tell people all the time with even young kids that are 21 and 22, when sometimes these promoters freeze their contract or there's a dispute going on

and they sit out two years, sometimes they may not ever come back fully from that. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's true. Especially at that high of a level, you know, in boxing. Did Mikey Garcia have a contract dispute for a long time? Yeah, and I was concerned about that when he came back. You know, I was concerned about how much damage that time off could have done.

How long was his contract dispute for? I think it was two years he didn't fight, over two years. For a top-level fighter like him, that's a disastrous event. It is. And, you know, but Mikey, on the other hand, he's a genius in the ring, and he just has that going for him, you ring, and he has that going for him. And he also can fight. He's been doing it since he was so young and being in a family.

I think he came out of the womb with boxing gloves on. There's so many good fights to be made right now. It's a really exciting time. It's just a really, really exciting time, which is another reason why I'm bummed out that HBO got out of the game. I would like to see HBO come back. I mean, you know, there's talks of it, and I think it would be great for the sport again if it came back as big as it did. Now, don't get me wrong.

Towards the end, it was kind of hard to watch with some of the fights they had on, in my opinion. In what way? They just weren't interesting. They weren't big fights, you know. Do you think that was a funding thing? Like they didn't have enough of a budget? That or I think they knew longer that they were. They were on the way out.

Yeah, and saved the money, you know. I don't know how many subscriptions they lost from that. I don't know if it hurt or what. But that's why I say if they're keeping the fight game open and they're showing that, I see it coming back, especially if Showtime stays with the boxing and doing as big as they are in the box office with the numbers. I see HBO. I think it would have to come back. Well, I think with things like Netflix and Amazon Prime, they're making these television shows now that are so popular that it's and they they're such high

budget but you get things like game of thrones it costs so much money to make but so many people watch it i think they're concentrating on those kind of things because they're so profitable and i don't think it's the networks anymore they gotta worry about shutting down too with all these other uh zulu and amazon and netflix being out you know i think somebody eventually some of the cable companies are going to have to worry. Yeah, no, I'm sure. Yeah, it seems like we're entering into a new era of entertainment. Yeah, technology and the advancement of it.

Again, these apps, people are – I think that ESPN Plus had over 7 million-some subscribers when it came out because of the boxing and everything else and yeah that that the zone does the us or you know fights on there and and uh boxing so you're going to have these coming out and people are going to get into it and it's changing it's changing a lot well they're doing uh bellator fights they're doing a lot of fights on the zone right yeah yeah it's um it's a it's very exciting. Have you thought about, you were talking a little bit about commentary. Have you thought about doing commentary? I have. Have you ever done any of it?

No. No? No, but I would like to. Honestly, I would. Not knocking anybody, I may not be the best talker in the world either, but I listen to some of the guys on there and I'm like, I think I could do that. listen to some of the guys on there and i'm like i think i could do that you know um listen i know you could do it you definitely do it um but it's to me it adds a certain element when uh a real world-class fighter um is breaking down situations because you're getting to see it from their perspective of how they would approach it in it's not just a guy who's a boxing expert it's a guy who did it who did it yeah a guy who was a world champion like andre ward like when andre ward's on i fucking love that guy

as a commentator. And Pauly's good too. Pauly's excellent. Andre and Pauly's phenomenal. Malinowski's one of my favorites. He's excellent. Damn that motherfucker talks good.

For all the times he's been hitting the head. I know, right? Malinowski talks so good. He moves his head a little bit too though. He moves his head a lot. Yeah, he does.

But he's smart as shit, man. Yeah, he is. He's in all aspects of life. Yeah. He's doing well for himself man. Yeah, he is. He's in all aspects of life. You know, he's doing well for himself, and he does the right things. So, Paulie, he's a great person. I like him. He's a good buddy of mine.

And, yeah, it is. You know, I think when the fans like to watch and see, you know, they want to hear from the historian or the guy that's the other commentator who just knows the sport and who can speak well. They like hearing their side of it. Yes. But I think at some certain times during a fight, they like to hear from the fighter like, hey, what the hell is going through that guy's mind?

He just got smashed, you know, with that right hand or he got hit with a good body shot. Why does this keep happening again? Why is he doing this? What's going on here? Or what the fighter thinks should be said in the corner, you know, in between rounds. So I think it's important to have a guy that's been there, done it, as a commentator. Andre Ward is another interesting guy because he's also young. Yeah.

And also world champion, undefeated, and just decided, you know what? I'm good. See ya. He is right now. Actually, it's funny, and I'm going to have to talk about it a little bit. I was covering a fight, the Lomachenko perjura is a fight and he comes up to me and out of nowhere and he's like hey you're like damn you're getting big and he's smiling he shakes my hand and he walks down to you know cover the fight and i'm sitting there and look at watching the fights and then i'm

getting ready to head out after you know the fight's about over and he comes walking up and he goes hey if they offered you 10 million dollars would you make a comeback i'm like i couldn't find a reason why i wouldn't um i don't know and he he smiled and he walked away and i was going i'm scratching my head i'm going i wonder why you know why he would ask me a question like that yeah i've seen recently that he's looking at certain fighters as a possible comeback. Oh, so he's thinking about doing it again. Yeah, yeah, he is. That itch.

It's so itchy. Yeah, it's real. It's so itchy. I just don't think you're ever going to find anything that's going to recreate the highs of like when you knocked out Jermaine Taylor. How the fuck could you recreate that high? You can't. You can't. You can't. That combination when you pinned him in the corner and put him away,

and then you walk away and you realize that you won, holy shit. And that don't even kick in. That's all going 100 miles an hour. You're up on that. I see the pictures all the time. Pull that up. They have me with the hands in the air, and I see all the people. And, you know, that's just, it was so fast.

You know, it took me a while before I could, even though I walked out of my house and I had them up, you know, on the side. This was before I moved. I still live with my parents at the time. And I did too. I had them up at the house and I'd be leaving to go to the gym or something. And I look over at the belts and I'm going, wow, you know what? Those are mine.

But it never really kicked in until like a little while later. Like, those are my fucking belts. Yeah, that night. I did that. I'm the world champion. Not only I got one, but I got three of them. When you were lying in bed that night, you probably had to be going,

am I in a fucking dream? That's what it felt like. Here it is. What a fight this was. God damn, this was a fight. This was one of my all-time favorite middleweight championship fights for sure. And Jermaine Taylor, man, he was a bad motherfucker. He was.

And again, a lot of people talked about the handful of fights before that and the tough with smaller guys. But he was a bronze medalist who beat the man, Bernard Hopkins. There it is. Doom. The combination when you put him away, too. Fucking phenomenal, man. Phenomenal.

This right here. When you walked away. That was all a blur. I just put my hands up. Yep. Fuck, man. I mean, that feeling. Try to describe that.

What is going through your head? Everything possible for him not to get back up. I know it sounds funny when people say that, but that feeling, like try to describe that. Like what is going through your head? Everything possible for him not to get back up. I know it sounds funny when people say that, but that's the truth. You know, my big thing was if I got somebody hurt, get them out because boxing is dangerous. Right. You know, and anything can happen. If they can get back up, they have a chance at knocking you out or beating you. So.

But when it was over, like what does that feel like it's it's hard to explain it really is you're just you're on cloud nine you there's nothing that could bring you down you know you're you're uh you went from being a prospect is through the roof to being a world champion to being a huge superstar in boxing yeah and it's hard to grasp at once and it takes time and unfortunately sometimes you get it when it's too late you know what i mean you really grasp it and it's just one of them things it's you know even i was talking with a guy last night and he brought up he was uh originally from south korea and he was talking about he goes there all the time, big business guy, and he says, they actually studied my fight down there. Something on how you could get knocked down.

This is more in your field, up your alley. How you could get knocked down and what gets a guy to get back up and recover, the recovery, the endurance, to pretty much have your brains rattle but be able to come back that strong rounds later and knock somebody out you know yeah and for me the simple answer is you know of course training hard you know making sure i'm in shape but i guess what he's trying to figure out is like what's what's the brain wave what's the pattern why is that what's the um drive that gets you to do that what is the endurance of the muscles and And that's pretty deep thinking, Lopez.

I think there's a lot there. There's a lot. And there's no one. First of all, every combination that you get hit with is different. Some combinations you're just not going to get up from. And some of them, you're on the border. Can you get up? Can you not get up?

How bad do you want it? Maybe you think about your daughter. Maybe you think about your mom. And you just get this burst of adrenaline. You're like, fuck this. Can you get up? Can you not get up? How bad do you want it? Maybe you think about your daughter. Maybe you think about your mom. Yeah. And you just get this burst of adrenaline. You're like, fuck this. I'm getting up. Yep.

And the referee gives you the count. You just fight smart, keep your hands up, and keep moving. The next thing you know, that cardio kicks in, and then you're back. Like, look at Tyson Fury against Wilder. And that's the way I looked at it. That's like the simple way of looking at it. Tyson Fury against Wilder, by all rights, that fight should have been done. He lands that right hand, and

then that left hook, and you see Tyson Fury go down like he got hit in the head with an asteroid. Yeah. Boom! He's just flat on his back. You're like, holy shit, he knocked him out in the 12th round. And then... Everybody thought he did the Undertaker. Yes! It's crazy! You know, the way he sat up. I've seen all the

memes and gifs of him sitting up, and they showed the Undertaker doing the way he sat up i seen all the like memes and gifs of him uh sitting up and like they showed the undertaker doing it with that right there i think a little different from mine i personally believe that he wasn't hurt that bad really i believe that he got dropped and that was legit but he was laying there taking the eight nine seconds you know to recover and he got up i don't think he was out because there's no real way to be out that cold. I don't know. And get up and – The hand of Jesus.

Yeah, right. The hand of Jesus came down upon him. Man, let's watch that knockdown. Pull up that knockdown. Yep. I feel like that was one of the most fucking brutal right-hand, left-hook combinations. When you're talking about that as far as as far as what's going through your head, it's crazy because when I got knocked down, it was more of an equilibrium shot.

But I could hear my legs were gone, but I could hear certain people in the stands. And I knew what was going on. And the first thing that was in my head was, man, you worked way too hard to go out like this. So it is that drive. Yeah, here it is right here. What's crazy is that Wilder, look at this. Boom! I mean, come on, man.

This dude, he's fucking hurt. He's fucking hurt. Something happened. Jesus came down upon him. That's why I was saying, I think, I don't know. Maybe he was hurt. I mean, he went down pretty bad. He went down quick. Fucking incredible. And then his he went down pretty bad. He went down quick. Fucking incredible.

And then his ability to recover. Yeah. And the fact that- And he's not the best in shape guy either. You don't think so? Well, I mean- He kept moving for 12 fucking rounds. Well, yeah.

He did do that. But to be able to get up that quick- Well, how is he not the best in shape guy? I mean, to be six foot- That's a fucking crazy knockdown. And then Wilder does the slip throw. He's in great shape for a heavyweight. You could put it that way.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. Well, no heavyweight is ever going to be in the same kind of shape that, say, a welterweight's going to be in. Just because you're carrying around so much body weight. But I'm saying from the point of getting up that quick after being dropped and not to be stumbling and falling over. It's true. I mean, he just came back and he was fine. I'm thinking more so like, yeah, he got hurt.

I'm probably wrong on this, but I'm saying like, yeah, he got hurt and he's landing and he's going, shit, let me just take it. Let's watch it here. Here comes that fucking missile. And then this one. I mean, come on, son. Timber. That is some crazy shit. They said he hit his head, but he did not.

He landed on his shoulder. He did not. Yeah. People say his head bounced off the mat. It never bounced off the mat. He kept his head up as he was going back, which lets you know that he was conscious. But doom and ba-boom. I mean, he got fucking rocked i wish they would have had an overview because you could tell by the eyes also right right whether or not they're rolled

back his head or to the side cardio is significant if you're in great cardio shape you recover quicker you know there's there's a bunch of different factors and why you recover quicker your mindset has to play a factor right how bad you want it that's what i'm saying i mean no doubt he was hurt from that punch and he went down i'm just thinking for that period of time was he laying there also saying i'm gonna take the full eight nine to get up or like you said did a did a hand come down jesus came upon him and rose from the dead yep he's just a tough motherfucker man and a good guy too super fucking smart guy funny yeah i mean what a character and now when you were training and you were doing your your

strength and conditioning did you were you like an old school method guy or did you use heart rate monitors and all the new school methods no i was i i like the the functional strength training. I did a lot of that. What kind of stuff I do sledgehammer and tire pushing Matt Brown has a great he's got What is Matt's company give his company a plug? I think it's a immortal something strength and conditioning but he's got a great bunch of he's got sledgehammers, but with a rounded head so you don't have to fucking swing it around and uh immortal combat equipment immortal combat equipment he's got a

great sled to these stack weights on and uh he left a lot of that stuff out there these grip yeah the war wagon a lot of uh different uh grip strength uh apparatus things like balls you uh do chin-ups for those those balls on the far left you do uh chin-ups gripping those things yeah he's got some great shit dips uh pushing pushing uh trucks um man what else did we get into i would go to this place called iron man warehouse and it was kind of a nice setup there too and it was more for like the the gym owner i love him to death, and he's crazy. He truly is, and he's about 48 now, and he can still run.

He runs with the—matter of fact, at my real title fight against Taylor at the boardwalk, everybody kept talking about it. There was, like, 4,000 people talking about this crazy guy running on a beach with— I think the log was, like, 120 pounds, just running nonstop. Yeah, real Christian guy, you know, into it. And he does all that. He's running with a log on his back? Yeah, he runs all the piece races with that.

Phenomenal shape. Well, he had a place down there. A lot of it was the functional strength training. You know, I do pull-ups on fire hoses for the gripping and everything else. That's what I like doing. I wasn't building muscle, but I was getting strong as hell and i was getting also a lot of cardio work involved in that but for the most part it was the uh the strength there he is yeah running around with a log on here he is this motherfucker running

around with a log that can't be good for your knees i wonder how he's walking right now like right now i see guys do screw screw screwy shit like that knees i wonder how he's walking right now like right now i see guys do screw screw screwy shit like that i go okay you could do that right now but let me see what you look like in six months let me call you back i'm gonna be doing it for a long time i don't know though how he does it but uh that's so much weight on your joints to be running with 120 pound log on your shoulder he's a freaking nature I mean, what does that show, the Ninja Warrior or whatever? I truly believe that he could go into that and do very well in that. I mean, he at the Ironman warehouse, they have the little balls,

and he swings from each one up there. He takes the 45-pound plates, and he throws them up in the air, and he catches them back coming down, just crazy things like that. And that's where I went to train after the Miranda fight. I was doing all that shit on my own for the Miranda fight. And then after the Miranda, he had told me, he goes, Kyle, I got this place down here, come down and try it out. And I was doing all that crazy stuff, man, and it worked.

Again, it was strong. The only thing that I wish I could have went back with that, now as time goes on and I'm training some athletes at my gym, is we have this machine called a VertiMax piece of equipment. And it's amazing. I mean, it truly is. You can emulate more so than you can with the bands what you're doing. If you're a football player, you know, you can come off.

What is it called? VertiMax? VertiMax. See if you can find that. It's an amazing. What does it look like? For wrestlers. Right there. For wrestlers. It's got bands on What does it look like? For wrestlers.

Are these bands? Like elastic bands? But as, okay, no, they're straps, okay? With the rubber band, your tension's usually gone at the beginning, and then you have to get to a certain point to get it. That's where this has resistance all the way through. Okay, so it's a pulley system? Oh, it is a pulley system. Oh. And you can set the tension on it on the way through. Oh, okay. So it's a pulley system? Yeah. Oh, it is a pulley system.

Oh. And you can set the tension on it, on the back part. You can pull out and make it a little harder, the tension, but it's unbelievable. And so when you go back down, there's tension all the way through from beginning to end. Oh, I like that. And it's for that fast twitch muscle, and a lot of wrestlers are using it. Ooh, I like that. So I wish they had that because adding that in with the functional strength training

could have definitely made me a lot better than I think it could for a lot of athletes. That seems like you could do everything with that thing. Yep. That's amazing. Well, they have the Raptor also, which is very good. It's the same concept as that, but you put it up on a fence and you can run out farther and do different things on the Raptor also. With that thing, could you do like shoulder exercises and stuff with it as well?

You just have to prop it up? I've been screwing around with it at my gym, and I found ways to do flies. Really? On putting a little balance boards. I put that down on it, and I get the straps where you can do flies with it. Yeah. Shoulder exercise, core, especially with the Raptor. You can walk out with

that what is the raptor it goes on the wall you can it's more for like travel see if you find that thing so you could put it on the fence at a baseball field and just swing you could even do a golf there it is right there yeah vertimax raptor oh wow look at that golf swing and can you adjust the tension yes it's just on the back, so you'll pull it. They have little black spots that tell you, you know, it goes up to three spots. That seems like that would be great for punching power as well. It is. And the thing is, you don't want too much tension with that.

Right. You know, I try to explain. I got some people that work with guys at my gym on it, and they train them more like an endurance thing. And I tell them, you're defeating the purpose. You know, there's a place and time for strength and endurance, especially a boxer. A guy's running in the morning. He's hitting pads at the gym. I really think that should be focused on the explosion.

Don't go until you're tired. I want every rep, every movement to have explosion. Roy Jones Jr. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. So you just – it's just enough resistance so that everything that you do just gets, if you put too much resistance, then you're not going to be able to really fire off the fast twitch. Right, right, right. Now, the only thing I see also that could

hurt people is that they do the whole workout with that. Now what happens, you eventually get tired and fatigued and then all your motion is slow. So now you fall into the habit of that. I like to work them on it for about 15, 20 minutes, take them off, and then have them do the same exercises with it after with no resistance. And then just keep it that day just with the fast-twitch muscle, the small muscle training, and then the next day we go into strength or endurance. So are you training guys? Right now powerlifting. Because you own this gym. Yeah, and I have one box. So are you training guys? Right now, powerlifting.

Because you own this gym. Yeah, and I have one box. What is the name of your gym? My gym. It's just called My Gym? So we had to change the I because somebody already had My Gym. My Gym? Yeah, and it's not.

So it's Me Gym. Yeah, Me Gym. It's Me Gym. Come on down to Me Gym, lad. Or in Spanish, My. Yeah. Or in Italian. Yeah, no, we got, I'm doing that with them right now.

It's fun working with their strength and conditioning. I am also going to be doing a boxing gym at the end of the summer, hopefully, in Youngstown. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. Now, when you were training and you were fighting, did you have a specific schedule of when you would do strength and conditioning and how many days a week you would run,

how many days a week you would do physical many days a week you would do like physical exercises yeah you know and that's another thing you all as i've said earlier too you always keep learning you know there's never i wasn't it worked for me for what i did when i was fighting and that would totally have changed it now knowing the stuff that i know and you know know, being involved in it and researching. And, you know, we used to run Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three miles, and then take Thursday off and then Friday and Saturday. And then we'd do, on top of that, I would go do my strength and conditioning training, and then I'd be at the boxing gym. That's a lot.

Yeah. That's a lot on the body, too. Yeah. And, you know, as we're, like, when I went to California, we did Monday, Wednesday, Friday running, and it was only two and a half, three miles. And then those days in between, we did the strength and conditioning training. So I didn't have a preference on that. I didn't care.

The only thing I did say is I didn't want to run early in the morning. Why is that? Because I didn't get going. I wasn't one of those guys in the morning, and it happens to people. You know, like if I wouldn't run too early, I would end up feeling like shit the rest of the day. Really? Yeah, just dragging ass. As where when I wouldn't run at like 9.30 in the morning, I got my best run in, I killed it, and then I felt great the rest of the day.

How much sleep would you make sure you had? That was a tough one. I got about seven to eight hours. Yeah, they say you need eight, and you really should try to get ten when you're a professional athlete. I took my Sundays off, and I rested all day Sunday, and I kind of ate a good amount of carbs and kind of what I wanted to on Sundays, depending on where the weight was out and how far out we were from the fight.

But I really don't believe in the theory of you've got to wake your guy up at 4 in the morning and make him run. I don't. If I was training guys, I want my guy to run out whatever I'm going to get the best run out of him. That's what time I want him to run. He'll adapt, and especially after he keeps fighting, he'll adapt. It's more mind over body.

But I think the gym is non-negotiable. At 3 o'clock, I like to train. And if I was training guys, my gym hours would be between 3 and 7. Why do you like late afternoons? Because it gets you closer to the fight night. Especially closer to a fight, I would like actually for my guys to train about 8 o'clock at night, 9 o'clock. Depending on what they have going on in their their personal life so you have like a clock so your body has like a time that it knows

it's going to work yeah and i didn't do that what did you do i sparred at you know four three but if i'm talking about me being a trainer i would like that for my fighters so what you've learned from your career you just apply it yeah the only thing I would really take from it would be the running in the morning. You know, if my guy wanted to say, hey, coach, I'd rather run after the gym tonight. And I knew that that was going to make a difference in a minute on his miles. Okay. Run at night. Because I want him to get the best run possible.

Right. You know, that's the most important. So. Did you run for speed? Did you do sprints? Did you do long distance running? Like what kind of running did you do? Did you do sprints? Did you do long-distance running? Like what kind of running did you do? I did do sprints.

We added. I wish we could have done more. But, you know, I was big with the steps too. Running stairs? Yeah, Youngstown State University in Youngstown. And they've got one side that's pretty big and steep, you know, and it goes up. And I would do that probably about three times a camp. For an unbeliever, you've got to watch how many times you do that throughout a camp

because it builds muscle, especially running that high you know doing steps and then when you start cutting the weight and you got to get down it's going to be hard to to lose that extra pound which could make a big difference come fight night so for a six eight week camp you would only run it three times about three times yeah but then i had sprints on the hills and i did regular sprints because the regular sprints is firing that fast twitch muscle and it's also hitting a big muscle and it's building the legs and strength um distance was was important but still another big one to me is the pad work you know the training at the gym I'm not a big fan of bag work anybody hitting the punching bag how come because uh you learn how to manipulate the bag and you learn how to uh the bag, and you learn how to trick your trainer and everybody else.

I could go hit a bag right now and probably do 10 rounds on it, you know, just because I know how hard to punch. It's hard to tell as to where when you're hitting pads. I know how hard my guy is punching, and I'm giving him the combos and the numbers. So he has no time. He has to concentrate on what you want him to do. And he's not throwing the punches that he wants. Right.

You know what I mean? So it's easier. I mean, it's harder than hitting the bag. I think that's a big part of the training that I would do with the guys, and it makes a big difference overall. Did you do, like, a lot of drills in terms of, like, movement drills, movement drills with combinations? Not at home either.

You know, I didn't when I trained in Youngstown. No? No. I learned a lot of that, you know, when I went to California. From Garcia? Yeah. Yeah. Is that one of the reasons why you were saying, like, man, it was amazing that I could learn so late?

Yeah, because, you know, I was cocky. I'm going, what the fuck are they going to show me after 12 years of being pro he's an awesome trainer yeah you know i was cocky what i'm like i got all these fights and i was you know great amateur what more can you show me and i went out there and i learned you know you can be taught and uh taking nothing away from you know jack and my trainer at home. I mean, that guy, he got me ready, though. Like, if you're fighting, I was in shape. You know, he was like a drill sergeant on that. And, you know, another little thing on that with the running, you know,

cement, I think now I would have my guys run on grass, track. Even if it's boring, I don't care if you're bored running, you know, you're going to run around the track. It's easier on the joints and less demand on the body. But so overall, I mean, there's a lot. That's why I like it. it's easier on the joints and less demand on the body. So overall, I mean, there's a lot. That's why I like it. That's why I like being involved right now with the strength and conditioning gym because I'm working with people, getting them healthy, helping them out,

and eventually I could add a lot of this to my fighters. Yeah, there's a long education when it comes to physical fitness, a long education understanding how much is too much, when's the right time to do things. And that's one of the reasons why I was asking you, how did you decide if you were going to do three times over the course of a training camp, you're going to run those stairs,

how did you decide that? Was that a strength and conditioning coach that decided that? No, that was me. You decided it. Yes, because I didn't want the muscle. I knew it would come. You put some weight on you.

Yeah, come time when you're starting to dry out, you're going to wish that you kind of didn't want the muscle. I knew it would come. You put some weight on you. Yeah. Come time when you're starting to dry out, you're going to wish that you kind of didn't. But I always was afraid in the back. I was second guessing my conditioning. So I always wanted to be strong. And again, the stuff like that VertiMax, that wasn't out yet. We had the bands, and we do some of the exercises on that. I never researched much at that time either.

I was in great shape, and I was strong as a mule. But there was other things like being athletic. I started eventually towards the end doing some cross training. You said you're a big fan of that. Yeah. I absolutely am also. I think becoming a great athlete overall, there's nothing wrong with that. And it's fun.

It breaks up the monotony of the same training regimen all the time. Do you remember when they didn't want you to lift weights? They didn't want boxers to lift weights? Yeah. Like before Mackie Shillstone, before he worked with Michael Spinks when he moved up to heavyweight and fought Larry Holmes. I mean, remember people were saying like they don't want boxers to lift weights. It's going to tighten you up and slow you down. That was the thought process behind it.

And then from him and then in particular Holyfield, when Holyfield went from cruiserweight to heavyweight and he put on a lot of mass, that was Mackie Shillstone too, right? Yeah, I mean that just changed the game. Jamie? That's your guy, but I don't want to make him have to keep searching things. Oh, he loves it. He's the best at it.

If you could put in Kelly Pavlik workouts, training. We had a guy, too, with the weight. I did do weightlifting when I was fighting. And I do agree with the weightlifting, and I don't agree with it. I don't think you should go heavy with the weightlifting. If you're going to get your strength, I absolutely. Look how thin you are, man. Look weightlifting if you're going to get your strength i absolutely um look how thin you are man put training slim bastard yeah put a training with rock at rockies or something like that that was california yeah there you go that second one um yeah i see the lightweight yeah but we would do hundreds and hundreds of reps just endurance yeah burn just

burning when you look at yourself without all the tattoos, do you go, huh, look at all that blank canvas. Look at those arms. But you look at those arms now, you're probably embarrassed. Those gigantic tree trunks you're packing now. No, yeah, but those things kick ass. Those things will fuck your head up. They will, yeah, exactly. I don't know if I have the snap on it now like I had then.

I don't know if I have to snap on it now like I had then. So the weights, stuff like that, I totally agree with because it is great for muscle endurance. And if you're going to get the strength, I go back to the functional training for that. I don't think a boxer or a combat might be a little different with UFC guy, MMA fighters. Because of the wrestling. The wrestling and everything else.

And that will come down to having somebody that really knows. Like I said, you never stop learning in it um but for me with my guys yeah endurance training like that that's great and you could even switch that in with some functional um endurance training too you know one thing we used to do at ironman standard get a heavy chain and arms locked out for the front delts and turn it turn it you know for the endurance do it for a period of time so there's just a lot of things that you turn it, turn it, you know, for the endurance, do it for a period of time. So there's just a lot of things that you could add in. And I think, you know, everybody goes, well, you don't overtrain them. And that's another thing.

Like the body, it's really hard to overtrain. I mean, the only way you could really overtrain is if you're not getting the right nutrition and you're not getting the right rest. Yeah. You know. Or if you push too hard and you don't give yourself enough recovery time and you push it too close to a fight. Yeah. Or if your camp's too long and you don't give yourself enough recovery time and you push it too close to a fight. Yeah, or if your camp's too long and you don't get enough rest period in between. That's a big one, the too long a camp.

You know, Tim Kennedy, who's a big, who's at one point, he retired now, but he was one of the top middleweight contenders. He went through two camps in a row because one of his fights got canceled, rolled right into a second camp, and then fought, and then had no endurance in his fight. You could kind of tell that he was drained. It was just too long. It was like six or seven months of really being in camp,

something along those lines. And probably in the lines of somewhere, the nutritionist, it could come down on a person like that. Is he getting enough of the sources? It's also cutting a lot of weight. Exactly. So dehydration, everything else. And it's hard.

I mean, you've got to find if you're going to bring somebody in. I was fortunate. My dad, we kind of kicked ass on that. We had a little science, broken down to a science, and we made weight good and we were strong. Did you monitor your heart rate ever? No, I didn't. Just felt how you felt?

Yeah. You know, like, did you write down, like, what different kinds of exercises you were doing in workouts? Or did you play it all by heart? I still do that. I still put that in my, even weightlifting. Really? Yeah. I feel like when you write down, you limit yourself.

How so? Because if I go in, I see guys all the time, not knocking at everybody, but I see them come in with their little notepad and they have what they got. And I see them go over and they do literally only four sets on the bench and they write down what they did. And then they go over and do some dumbbells or same with the squats. I feel you're limiting yourself. I mean, you didn't work that muscle to, you know, failure. And you shouldn't most of the time. Because if not, that becomes maintaining. You're not breaking down the muscle fibers, you know, in order to recoup. I feel, you know, when you go on a lift, I'm not saying every exact time you have to kill it.

But when I go in, I want to do either a little bit heavier or more reps than I did last time. You know what I mean? For me to get to the point where I want to get, and it has worked for me. I do. I feel like when you write down, the only time I do write things down is if I'm doing a chart. I'll go through that chart, and then when I finish with it, I finish out with so many reps in that same percentile of my PR. You know what I mean?

And I'll go down. Now, then I have a speed day, an endurance day with it. And that's when I rep out, and I do sometimes up to 300 reps, you know, on the body part and speed and endurance. And then before I even do that, I work on, say, if it's bench or squats, I get the bands, and I have my guys do no more than six reps, and it all got to be explosion because that helps in powerlifting for that one rep max, the explosion off.

So it comes down, and that's my theory on it. A lot of people do it, and then you got guys who do write down, though. Do you think there's any benefit in the kind of lifting that you're doing now for a boxer? I think right now if you have the time, yeah, it could help. If you had time in between games. Yeah, if you had time to get that big or get that strong for maybe two months of heavy. But I also think that you need a good period of time of no heavy lifting.

To recover before you start really boxing again. So your body is going to be used to it, muscle memory. You know, you're not going to lose all that strength because you're not just stopping the power lifting and not doing anything. It seems like a real guessing game or at least an experiment. I wouldn't try it if I was active and I had an active fighter. But, yeah, I would like to see somebody try that eventually one day. You never know.

They're always coming out with something or they're always debunking some other, you know, you have to do this. And my favorite thing is where I get in about the training when people say, you can't do this two days a week. You can't bench or squat. Look at your guys in jail. All they do every day. Lift weights. Yeah, lift weights.

And eat shitty food. They don't have the supplements that we have. You know, they can't take a protein powder drink and BCAs. Yeah. And they're not small. They're huge. They're jacked. They're lifting every day.

Yeah. So, I don't know. Well, are you familiar with Pavel Tatsalini? Yes. Wasn't he the guy also with the kettlebells? Yeah. Yeah. He's got some interesting thoughts about strength training in particular

because he's one of those guys, he believes you should do more rest in between reps, less reps, and you should do it more often. So instead of like one brutal workout a week where you break your body down and you walk like you're getting fucked in the ass by a rhino for two days, instead of that, you work out with less repetitions. Don't go to failure, but do it two or three times a week. You get more repetitions overall over the end of the week, but you'll be able to recover better.

And you never get that full breakdown, but your body gets just as strong or stronger. I've seen that, and actually I was reading on that, and I was going to put that in you know put that into my program and i read a lot of them i see like uh simmons with west side they got some great ideas and when it comes to lifting weights and power lifting there's only so much so somebody's got it from somebody do you know what i mean like west side they were big with the russian olympic team and everything else there's only so much you could do there's only so many programs you could do where you're not tapping in and copying off this person's.

I think adding that in, there's nothing wrong with that either now. Now changing it up after a while and shocking that body, I think that actually helps you get stronger, you know, and changing the program a little bit. But, you know, if that works, I don't know, and that's something that I may try one day because I'm doing powerlifting, but powerlifting ain't going to be my vacation hawaii you're just doing the powerlifting for fun yeah for fun it was you know it was something that was fun and uh i got guys who i got involved

with a buddy of mine actually a coach on you know certain days of the week we work on the heavy lonnie atkins he's great he's a like six seven time world champion powerlifting drug free you know um federations like raw and wmpf and that's what i'm in because i feel like you know i have not i'm not knocking the other people that use the steroids and stuff but for me i like going a natural route and you know it's funner especially if you think about fighting again if you do, you don't want to fuck up your endocrine system. Well, that's where I really turned against it also is because of the boxing. Yeah. You know what I mean?

I don't want to make anybody too mad, but when people use it, I feel like you're taking away, and I do feel like it's cheating. I tell people in the gym, my gym, you know, there are certain people that do it, and they try to come over and tell people how to work out. And it's kind of like, listen, your working out is totally different than this guy's. And what you do to get big is totally different, all because of that reason. It is. It truly is.

Especially powerlifting. Exactly. And I got guys right now that are freaks of nature that do it, and you can tell that they're not on it. Because if they are, then they have to have long talk with their dealer. You know what I mean? One of those type things. But I like doing it because for me, it's not cheating, you know. And also I like the fact of like when I hit a plateau, it's more fun for me to go through and research things and look at like how do I get out of that?

And what's good nutrition that helps naturally raise this or raise that, you know what I mean? And different workout routines, like the board work chains, you know, add that all in. So that's where it comes fun for me also. Yeah.

Do you do, do you get your blood work done or anything like that? I did get a blood panel last, last year. Just last year. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

And it came back. You don't get like normal ones, regular ones. I'm afraid though, man, I'm getting, I'm i'm getting to that age you know i don't want that shit coming back it's like bad you don't want to know yeah you know hell if i start feeling it then i'll go but um no but you should too i recommend it to everybody and every athlete that you know they should and eventually my time is to go back soon also yeah i think it's a really important thing i think everybody should do it on a regular basis i really do just i know you don't want to know about anything bad but you do no but you have to if there really was something funky going on and you know you went to the doctor and the doctor's like kelly these these numbers are bad this is we gotta we gotta do some more exactly work more tests and

see what the fuck's happening you know Especially with all these different diets that people are getting on. I'm seeing horrific things. I had a brother-in-law from a certain diet, that keto diet. What happened to him? Fatty liver, this. Because he's not, you don't drink. What? Keto diet?

That's what I'm hearing. Well, if you really look at it, I mean, you're eating the fat, all that fat. Shit's good for you. Yeah. But if that's all your body got to burn you know and your organs got to the what happens with people where it does get dangerous is first of all that with if you have certain uh certain genes uh certain people it's just not the best diet for and it's it's a lot of trial and error to find out but it's also if you engage in a high fat contact contact diet but you also have high carbohydrate which is where a lot of people cheat and fuck up that's not good that's that's

not good for you like you you got to get your body into ketosis into ketosis yeah if you don't get your body into ketosis and you're taking this high level of fat and the high level carbs it's not it's just not a good combination and what it also is you know what i do on it if you come off of it you can't just indulge into the carbs either right don't you slowly work that back into that your body always knows how to process carbs it's more difficult to get your body fat adapted but once your body does get fat adapted what i found is i'm not on a ketogenic diet right now but when i've been on it um i can get back in it pretty quick but it takes a while like the first time i did it it took a solid two weeks before i felt normal for two weeks i was dragging ass it was hard to stick through like i didn't want to stick through it

i just wanted to i'm like i'm just gonna have a fucking apple and a bowl of pasta and blow this diet off but um if you get through it, then you feel your body switch over. And when you feel your body switch over, what happens is you have more even energy throughout the day, less tired, no crash in the middle of the day. But I do have to say it took a long time before my workouts felt like I could have the same intensity. Intensity. I would die off quicker. And that's how I look at even some of those um what

do you call intermittent dietings to intermittent fasting fasting yeah like the uh when you're drying out and you're not eating in that period i wouldn't recommend working out at that time power lifting or strength training yeah i think that's a different kind of animal yeah because now you're getting into tearing down the muscles and everything else. Maybe some cardio wouldn't hurt. Listen, that's why I'm saying I'm not knocking all of them. And my brother-in-law, the doctor told him they think that's what it was from. Now, granted, that could be because he messed up on a diet somewhere along the line, you know, eating. I had a doctor, a buddy also that got fatty liver from eating too much of the meat.

Again, that could have been grass-fed or steroid-type meat makes a difference. doctor that a buddy also that got fatty liver from eating too much of the meat and again that could have been grass-fed or steroid type meat makes a difference what the fuck yeah yeah i don't even know if that does cause that i'm sure it does yeah and me personally i'm not knocking any of it because they're pretty soon i gotta try some shit myself you know what i mean um i gotta start losing weight again well did you start eating like crazy because of the power lifting yeah those guys yeah eat like fucking savages and now they're also coming out to like where you could eat right and lose weight and still be strong you know um me yeah i started eating like that and then it really i'll tell you where it gets me so i was never a

real big sweet tooth eater. I'd eat a piece of cake or a candy bar here and there. I'd have like total throughout the day one can of pop. I'd drink a half a can in the morning or an afternoon and then at night. Pop for people who didn't grow up. In Ohio. In Ohio. Oh, yeah. Soda.

Okay. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, you know. Sorry. You a pop guy? Columbus, man. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, pop. There you go. Ohio in the house. Sorry. You a pop guy? Columbus, man. Yeah, for sure. There you go. Ohio in the house.

Yes. And that's right. Yeah, we talked about that. And that's what I would do. So it wasn't that bad, but it was still enough sugar. That's a lot of fucking sugar. Yeah. And then I would start.

The one meet, I was doing a 220-pound weight class. I was 232. And my guy was like, you ain't going to make it in six days to get down to 220. And I kind of like – I chuckled at that because I had to make 160 before. So I got all this fat sitting on me. You're going to tell me I can't lose that in six days? I bet. And this is for powerlifting?

Yeah. So I got down with that, and I was doing it. I watched what I – I didn't even do hardly any cardio for that, and I still got down fairly easy to 220. Then now where I'm falling into this bad habit is I'll have, like, a piece of cheesecake sitting in the refrigerator, okay? I know, and I love cheesecake. Me too.

And that's one of my favorites. It's a good one. And it would be two cans of Pop-Lift, right? And my whole thing is I can't start watching because i don't want to say diet i start saying watching what i eat and i go i can't do that till it's gone i can't have that i know it's weird i'm telling you i can't start it till it's gone but you can't throw it away i can't throw it away and i can't throw it away because it's only one piece left and i don't want to do that so and then the next thing i know my sister-in-law who

who's a hell of a baker she makes something for the kids or makes me a homemade cheesecake and the next thing i know i'm back into the same thing again now let me tell you something else that that uh contributes to this i think all the years of of fighting and having to watch my weight and especially for me to get down to 160. And even when I was fighting at 47 in the amateurs, my life was pretty much running. It was a job. It was time.

Somebody was there. I just couldn't go run. I had to run it so fast, and I was being timed for it in the distance. I had to watch what I was eating. I had people over me watching what I was eating. And when I retired, I was like, fuck this, man. I'm free. You know what I mean? And I sometimes put that in watching what I was eating. And when I retired, I was like, fuck this, man. I'm free. Right.

You know what I mean? And I sometimes put that in the back of my head. I shouldn't, but I put it in the back of my head like, man, you deserve this, man. Screw it. You did that all these years. But now it's coming to the point, too, like you already get a little older. You look a little bit like shit other than your arms. You're going to have to start hitting a treadmill.

You know what I mean? It's one of those type things where. If you just cut the sugar out. Yeah. And it works. And I don't want to hear people say that they can't lose weight. Now that will only work for a certain period of time until that like levels out. Then you guys, that's when you start tweaking the calorie intake.

Right. But you can lose a lot of weight if you just cut out the sugar. Yeah, you can. Yeah. So that's what I mean. I don't want to hear people say it's hard. So I'm eventually, you know, I said when I get home from this trip because like last night I went out with my buddy

and we ate pizzas and stuff like that. So, you know, I don't have the access to healthy food right now. Right, while you're on the road? Yeah, I was on the road. There's plenty of places in L.A. you can eat healthy. I know there is. How dare you? How dare you say you can't eat healthy here?

That's the mindset, man. I know. Yeah, the mindset man i know yeah the mindset but that's you know the thing about a lot of great fighters is they're very impulsive too yeah it's just that fuck it fuck it mentality that sometimes carries over to eating as well look at a lot of your retired fighters yeah i mean they blow up again i keep saying i'm not bragging or anything, but here I am. I'm fairly decent. You know what I mean? I think at least you enjoy working out. I think some guys, they got to a point where they worked out so hard for camps

that when it's over, they don't want to do shit. They're just like, I'm done. It's over. No desire. No drive. Well, that's why cardio is very rare for me right now. And, you know, I used to say this too all the time. After a fight, I have probably two, three weeks off,

and there was a place called Mill Creek Park, and a lot of people go to run and exercise and stuff like that. And there's a main street that goes past the park, and you see people riding a bike and running. And I'll never forget, my wife actually started laughing. And I just got done with a fight, and we're driving past past mill creek park and these people are out running i go what idiots like who gets up and go runs you know um and i got chances are that's hilarious chances are if i didn't have to do it like that i didn't have somebody hounding me or over me while i was

running chances are i would actually like running and I would like doing cardio and adding that into my training. But because it was a job for all them years from nine years old to 30 years old, it was like, screw this, man. I don't want to run. The only way you'll get me to run is if there's a fire or a big ass dog behind me. That's the only way that I, or if I want to run to the buffet table. I know some people do it every day. They get up in the morning every day before work and they'll put in five six miles every day and you know in this reality you have to yeah you got

to anymore if you unless you want to be out of shape and miserable i think it's great to actually start working out and even for me i'm lifting weights and it's fun and it's considered exercising and now with what i'm thinking of doing and everything else, I've got to start getting into that. You know, hitting the bag and everything is fun, and I'm hitting the pads, and that's cardio. I mean, that shit's really cardio. But if you're really thinking about fighting, and you said more than 60%, right?

Yeah. 80%? I would say between around 70% to 80%. That's a lot. That is. That is. But, again, and I'm strongly going to say this, there's a lot that goes behind it, a lot more to think about also. Because what I don't want is in six months when I say, you know what?

No, I don't want the backlash for it. Right. He's fucked up again. You know what I mean? One of those. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes. It does. does but you gotta not read that shit i know but that's unfortunately it really is especially comments you know i try not to and you catch them and you get them i try not to it seems like the boxing world in particular has a lot of fucking haters but you know what

it's nothing like football like if a fighter loses i was i was watching barstool sports barstool sports instagram they got some fucking guy leaving a football game screaming and yelling i'm like this guy is what i think about when i think of like douched out like sports fans this guy fucking screaming about somebody not being able to make a kick do Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. The guy's going crazy. It's so funny. I love it.

I love hearing when I was playing football and when I was in high school, when you're watching these big games and you'll see it on social, or I'll be at a buddy's house and I see, yeah, well, I would have made that. Get the fuck out of here. People love saying stupid shit like that. How many times has anybody given you boxing advice?

Oh, I have people that don't know the difference between a left hook and a fishing hook. I swear to God, they don't. Why didn't you just hit him? Because. You should have got up and hit him. It's TMZ material. No, but I mean like they're saying to you. Why didn't you just hit him?

I don't know. You know, I seen that episode. That was the funniest i think it was on one of your episodes with uh charlie murphy and they were doing the mike tyson and like a deal ahoya um situation that happened like the guy said he could beat up deal ahoya and actually i wish that could happen on a regular basis you know like call people out on it when you're in front of somebody right yeah how many times i hear people say like i could i could have beat him and it's like why why is he sitting on like 25 million dollars and you're over here uh picking up ups shipments you know what i mean like there's a difference for a reason nobody's knocking what

you do but you shouldn't knock what he's doing well you're delusional you are people are delusional for whatever reason especially when it comes to sports and fighting in particular, people just say some unbelievably delusional shit. I don't know why, and I truly don't, and I don't understand it, and I never get into the argument long enough to even ask the question. Well, when was the last time you went on somebody else's page and commented on shit? I can't tell you. Yeah, because you're a world champion.

Yeah, and I don't want to ask another reason. Hey, listen, you know what? That's funny, too, because how many of them I want to, right? How many of the threads in it may involve me? Because, you know, again, and the reason why I have to stay up on it is because that's part of my podcast. Right. You know, we're through to social media, so I have to. And these boxing groups, or even on our own fight

or punchline boxing group, you see the comments and I'm just going, I can't really answer that, though, because that would look corny as shit if I answered that one. Right. It's hard and it's frustrating. It really is. Yeah. Well, the interesting world that we live in today,

I mean, it's a great time to communicate with people. It's amazing. But it's also a great time for douchebags to communicate to you, too. It is. Dangerous time, actually. Yeah. But i think it's cool that you're doing this podcast thing and uh i i think it's awesome and i really do hope you do commentary as far as you fighting hey man if you fight i'll watch but if you don't fight i'll be happy to i'll definitely keep you in a loop tell me let me know i will definitely keep you in a loop come back on if you do announce something something's happening.

I will. Let us know. And tell people how to get a hold of your podcast. How can they get it? My podcast is thepunchline.live. That's the easiest way to get to it. Or on YouTube also, you go to Punchline with Kelly Pavlik and James Dominguez. And we're also on social media on Tuesdays at 7 o'clock Eastern time.

So those are easy ways. Is it on iTunes as well? No. No? No. And that's where we're trying to go next round. Get that shit on iTunes. Jesus Christ.

Hey, listen. I'm learning. Yeah. But, yeah, punchline.live. And then, you know, or you go to YouTube, The Punchline with Kelly Pavlik and James Dominguez. And that's the way to get to it. Well, thanks for doing this, brother. Hey, thanks for having me on.

My pleasure. I truly do. It was awesome, man. I appreciate it, man. Fun times. Kelly Pavlik, ladies and gentlemen. That was two hours.