The Joe Rogan Experience - JRE MMA Show #91 with Radio Rahim

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

Joe sits down with boxing reporter and journalist Radio Rahim.

Yeah, that is a guy named Ross Baines. He painted that. He's also painted this. There's a picture in the green room of me and Daniel Cormier. And there's another one. I think he sent me the one of Masvidal. He did an amazing one of Jorge Masvidal when he landed this knee on Ben Askren. He's a great artist.

But that's Richard Pryor. He painted that for me. Well, clearly, my screensaver used to be a collection of mugshots. Really? Like Jim Morrison. I have Morrison out there. Frank Sinatra. I saw.

I have Frank Sinatra in the green room. Okay, so then the thing is, I'm not a criminal, right? Me neither. I don't aspire to be a criminal. I don't either. But what are these, like these mugshots are so iconic. Yeah. What does it mean to you to see like your heroes essentially charged with crimes and maybe one of the worst nights

there a lot well it didn't start off that way this is what happened i was in hawaii and they i'm a giant jimmy hendrix fan that's why i named the podcast joe rogan experience i ripped off the jimmy hendrix experience and i was in hawaii and um i went to this art gallery and they had all this uh rock and roll art and they had this really dope uh collaboration of hendrix his mug shot was like six nine nine images nine square images of hendrix much i go that looks cool as fuck and so i bought it and i also bought uh the Rosa Parks one, and I also bought the Elvis one. They had three different, just nine squares on one piece of artwork. And I thought it looked cool.

So I said, oh, that would be a good backdrop for the podcast. So the old podcast studio, I had those behind me. And then I started picking up other ones. Like I got Janis Joplin in the bathroom. I got Johnny Cash. I got James Brown. I got Janis Joplin in the bathroom. I got Johnny Cash. I got James Brown. I got Pryor on the wall here. I got Jim Morrison.

I got Steven Tyler on the wall over there. I just started collecting them, and there's no real rhyme or reason to it. I got Lenny Bruce. I just found mug shots, and I just started collecting them. Like I said, my screen saaver was that for like a year. And I even had Sinatra in my room, big, you know, a big one on the wall and whatnot.

And I'm like, you know, what is this shit about? It occurred to me like everybody that became an icon, became a legend, like you have to break the rules. There's nobody who just like followed every rule

and that's what they're famous for. Like, hey, this guy never stepped out of line. He did everything that everyone said he was supposed to do. Did it all the way within the rules. And that's the fucking legend that you love. No. It's almost like it's illegal to be exceptional. You have to fucking break the law to make the imprint on the society that you want to make.

Well, particularly in a time where these guys were doing their art. I mean, we're talking about Morrison and Hendrix. This is the 70s, the 60s. It was wild times. There's this transitionary period between the 50s where everything was like mom and pop and diners and fucking drive-thru movies and shit. And then all drive-in movies. And then all of a sudden you have drugs and wild rock and roll and james brown and chaos and whatever you're not supposed to do yeah that's the thing you should be

doing i mean within reason we're not talking about like harming other people whatnot but the society is like restrictions yeah that's the boundary to keep you as a normal person as a like i wish i had a better answer but if uh if i had to really put my finger on it, I would say that those images represent these moments where society tried to contain these wild people. Exactly. These people that were breaking the rules. These people that were trying to change culture.

These people that were just doing their thing. And it wasn't like they weren't popular. I mean, when... I think Jim Morrison pulled his dick out, right? Didn't he pull his dick out popular i mean when i think jim marston pulled his dick out right didn't he pull his dick out i mean he was insanely popular when he pulled his dick out and they're like enough yeah that way you didn't say we probably would have got arrested finally for pulling his dick out but when you get arrested for pulling your dick out it's never the first time no he's pulled his dick out i know a lot of people have pulled their dick out. It's a weird thing, like that moment where the society that's trying to contain these artists

lashes out and captures them briefly, but they don't even realize they're just making them bigger. Yeah. And they're making them more accessible. Hey, I got a mugshot. I don't mean to be a criminal, but... It turned out the one from Hendrix was a bullshit mugshot. It wasn't a real mugshot i mean like criminal but it turned out the one from hendrix was a bullshit mugshot it wasn't a real mugshot he never got arrested he did get arrested but the image that i had some fucking artist took liberties and they decided well this is a cooler

picture let's put his mugshot logo under that so it was the actual words from toronto where he got arrested for heroin underneath his image but the image was incorrect so then i went out and got the real image. So now that big, and I used to have them in the squares, but then I changed the squares to these big metal ones. See, the one I had is the upper right-hand side. That's the wrong one. That's not the real image.

That is a cooler one because if that one down there is, yeah, okay. Okay, well, no, that's a cool one too. That's the real mugshot, but don't do the one with the words behind it. The one next to it, Jamie. No, next to it. Right above, above above right there that's it that's the actual one see that one on the right hand side that's the actual image of hendrix oh i didn't know there's a mick jagger oh yeah oh my collection well the yonkers one is steven tyler i have that one on the wall that's the side shot.

But I didn't know Steven. Did you know that Mick Jagger got arrested, Jamie? Ordered that shit. Hold on to those and start ordering. We're going to get some new ones. Oh, David Bowie? We got the Janis Joplin in the bathroom. Fuck, I didn't know David Bowie got arrested.

That's Axl Rose right here. Axl Rose was a little cutie pie when he was younger. Look at him. The David Bowie one is pretty dope. That actually looks like it could be the cover of an album. Scroll back down again to that, please. Yeah, look at that. Jim Morrison looks like Chris Stapleton.

Look how odd he looks there. 1976. He's guilty. Whatever he got arrested for that night. Arrested for being beautiful. Look at him. So, dude, let's get into this man we had this conversation at the comedy store i'm like you got to come on the podcast we got to talk about this because you are a part of probably the most iconic boxing interview of our day you with deontay wilder when deontay Wilder freaked out on you, it became this huge, huge fucking thing.

To this day. To this day. To this day. He puts it on his Instagram. He puts it in hashtags. Till this day. He sells sweatshirts with till this day on them. There's a store that's adjacent to the Barclays Center.

It's connected to the Barclays center it's connected to the barclay center and it's full of shit it says to this day on it he had a grand opening there i was invited to it like this is so that is an iconic meme this is now a major part of my identity do people associate you with it though do they like automatically or do they just so because it's you're you see the side of your face but you see him angry as fuck arguably the scariest heavyweight of all time i mean mike tyson's right up there mike see off state off ring outside the ring deontay is a sweetheart he's a really nice guy so to see him angry outside the ring is kind of weird because i had him on the podcast he couldn't be a nicer guy yeah it's true he's a really nice guy look

and so to see him angry at you to this day and like giving you crazy eyes that was like oh and when you explained it it's like yeah that's what you do in an interview you you you want someone to expand and say what do you mean by that? And listen, man, this is not like the first day we met. It's not like I just happened upon this heavyweight champion of the world screaming and decided to piss him off. We've had multiple conversations, sat down for hours at a time. In fact, in Belfast, in Germany, or Ireland, I'm sorry, we sat down for an hour.

I'm going to give you the context of what I was thinking in the moment. He's on stage. Some people might not be aware of exactly what happened, so just try to... There it is right there. In a couple weeks, we're going to see it again. I don't know if we're going to see the exact same thing happen.

It comes up. It's going to come up. It's seasonal. Deontay Wilder is facing Tyson Fury. Tyson Fury is a British gypsy. Okay? He's a boisterous, very animated showman in boxing. Heavyweights, mind you. These guys are giants.

First time they met. This is December 18. So, I travel the world covering boxing. Everywhere. Like I said, I sat down with this guy in Ireland. I've covered Tyson Fury in England. I've covered him in America. I've covered boxing literally everywhere.

So I'm familiar with what you also know, that fighting, even combat sports, boxing, MMA, there is a regional aspect to it like everybody's culture brings something to it the irish fighter feels like he's got a certain style he's got a certain history he's got a claim to the warrior legacy same for the british fighter of course the american fighter but both of these guys come from what's like an underclass of their society uh travelers gypsies in england are looked down upon these people are cultural fighters and i don't mean necessarily just the oppression of being an underclass but fighting is part of their tradition almost like it is to mexicans in mexico it's something that they do that bonds the clan. They believe in the

history of it. Obviously, Deontay Wilder is from Alabama. He's as dark as midnight. He is a descendant of slaves for sure. He's got a history coming to any fight, bringing what he experiences in this country

to this element of the face-off, one man, one man versus one man. So when Tyson Fury is on stage during the press conference, it's something possessed him to say, you know, I'm coming from a fighting people. My people have been fighting for 200 years. Well, in context, he means that the culture of travelers, of gypsies, is one of we're fighting men.

I'm a fighting man. That's something that they say about themselves and each other. So that's what he's bringing to this argument. That's how he's challenging Wilder. But Wilder takes that and says, 200 years of fighting. My people have been fighting for 400 years. Of course he's talking about the black experience in America, slavery, all alike. But mind you, he's talking to a British fighter.

He's talking to a world audience. It's not like he's fighting Dominic Brazil. You understand? Where it's two Americans, probably not going to get that much international attention. The world's watching. Particularly communities that don't necessarily know when a black man says 400 years, you know, I know, you know, because we grew up in America, you know what we're talking about. The world doesn't know that.

I travel the world. They're not steeped in black American history. I've had conversations with him. He loves to talk about the plight of the black man in America and how it relates to his career, how he feels, you know, disadvantaged in certain ways. And he carries the mantle in other ways. He's a champion of black America in certain ways. And he's a victim of white America in other ways.

So when I see this argument happening, I'm like, oh, okay, well, this is definitely a moment. But I'm not a pool reporter, right? So in this particular instance, it's unusual for me to be part of the scrum, is what they call it. Collection of reporters, everybody's kind of shouting questions out, just trying to evoke responses. Usually I'm a one-on-one guy. I'll wait my turn, right?

But on this particular day, I didn't have a haircut. I wasn't really – I just got back from Dubai. I'm in Dubai with, like, you know, Dave Chappelle. I didn't have a haircut. I wasn't really, I was coming, I just got back from Dubai. I'm in Dubai with like, you know, Dave Chappelle. I'm hanging out. It's after Thanksgiving. I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to kind of mail this one in, to be honest. I'm thinking, let me throw something out because I know what he's talking about. And I also know that the audience around us in the world, especially may not have that reference but he is he's a it's a high watermark right now it's thursday and the fight's saturday so he's amped up yeah that's the other thing fight week fighters are not themselves not the guy you were sitting across

from doing the experience you know i mean that guy was having a good day this guy's been waiting to fight for at least three months if not you know 10 weeks ramped up ramped right he comes off stage he answers a couple of other questions and then just to be sure because i've been doing this a long time i'm not an idiot i know he's amped and i want him to get the question clearly dionte radio rahim i say my name so he knows who it's coming from. Not because he doesn't know me, but because he does. So, Radio Raheem, you just said your people have been fighting for 400 years. Okay, first of all, I'm in the midst of my question. I don't do these things haphazardly.

I word my questions very carefully. Yes. But in the ears of black America later in the story you'll find out that your people that part of the question became incredibly important and people were very sensitive about that.

Because you said your people instead of our people. Because I said your people instead of our people. But I'm fucking quoting the guy. Okay? I'm not speaking for him. I'm quoting what he said. Okay? I'm not speaking for him. I'm quoting what he said. He said, my people have been fighting for 400 years. So, if he had said, our people, I would have said our people.

But I can't take possession of your quote. It's not me saying it. It's you saying it. Right. Your people have been fighting for 400 years. What did you mean by that? your people have been fighting for 400 years. What did you mean by that?

So, uh, I mean, he laser focus turns to me. He's already at 10. Like there's no ramp up at this time. And he started, you know, shouting my face like,

uh, your people too. Like, you know what I'm talking about? He says, don't try to bait. You know what I'm talking about? When I say these things,

when I'm like, well, yeah, I do. Can you tell them what you're talking about? Trying to get them to bait. You know what I'm talking about when I say these things. When I'm like, well, yeah, I do. Can you tell them what you're talking about? You're trying to get them to expand. I'm trying to get them to explain to the world what he said to me on numerous occasions in different interviews and off camera. I know exactly what he's talking about. And I know that this is the moment that he finally gets to talk about it right to people who

have never been listening to him before right but when he heard your it was a trigger for him too i'm so oblivious and i even looking back i'm like man how did you miss that i do i swear to, I didn't know what the fuck was the problem. He starts shouting, your people. And I'm like, well, it took me him. He needed to keep saying it because I didn't know why he was saying that. Yeah, my people, too. My people, too.

Oh. There's a moment I'm like, oh, uh-oh. Oh, no. I thought he was shouting at them. He shouted at me. Oh, no. You know, our people have been fighting for 400 years to this day, to this day. And so what I wanted, what I wanted, what I thought was happening was that, okay, this moment now has become about him attacking me because he thinks I'm attacking him.

He thinks because I do know what he's talking about. He knows we've spoken about it numerous times. He thinks I'm pretending not to know, like some air quotes, Uncle Tom or whatever, the numerous names I've been called on the internet since as though I'm trying to pretend like, oh, I don't, what? 400 years? What does that

mean? You know what I mean? I'm like, okay, okay, like, okay. Okay. Okay, fine. So when he's screaming at you, what is going through your mind? When he's hitting you with, is it to this day or till this day?

Because there is a debate on that. First of all. Let's see. Let's play it. Play it. You know what I'm talking about. Y'all all know what I'm talking about, man. Don't sit up here and try to bait. And not know what I'm talking about. Y'all know know what I'm talking about, man. Don't sit up here and try to bait. It's not know what I'm talking about.

Y'all know what the fuck I talk about when I say these things. Y'all are people too. Explain it. Not everybody knows what you're talking about. Radio Raheem, I don't have to explain what's understood, man. You know what I mean by that. You know what I said by that. I ain't got to go farther.

And if nobody, if anybody don't understand that, then God be with them. Go look up the history. Go look up the history. You see, don't everybody believe in Google? Go Google that shit. See what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about, man. You know what, I dare you to sit up there and say, explain.

You know what I'm talking about, man. He's fighting people. You know we've been fighting 400 and still fighting to this day. To this day. to this day to this day to this day You just sit here you don't know what I'm talking about Man I'm out of here bro. Let's go. Let's go Fuck

You know the key planet but just so you know, there's more to this video. In fact, the last guy says, oh, we know what he's talking about. That's what I just said at the end. But that clip everyone in the world has seen fits very neatly on Instagram in a minute. Oh, no. Right? So you missed the beginning and the end but the welcome to 2020 or 19 or welcome to the new age of clips and things being taken out of context so listen this

is not the first time i've had an interview that has you know uh gotten a major attention not the first time a fighter has been pissed off at me. I knew that this was going to be a big thing. I knew people were going to talk about it. Bro, I had no fucking concept of what was about to happen to my night. Basically, when you're a reporter like this, you're like, okay, well, that was dramatic. We got a hot one.

That one might get me a few hundred thousand, if not a million views, maybe. Like, this is, yeah, we got the champ. But also I'm thinking, you know, it's something of a success. Like, okay, we got him to express, at least in that moment, something that we don't usually see. It's fight week. We talked to this guy a million times. Everyone's had their interviews. He's been on every show. And that was, like, the realest moment in the whole

build-up so for me that in and of itself is something of a victory like you've you've created a moment here where you got to see inside the champ's heart you got to see like his passion when i get home though i gotta take a nap like it's been a long day it's good so as as these stories tend to go i'm woken up by chimes on my phone what the fuck's going on in the interim he's posted on Instagram just a minute of what is really like a two and a half minute interview where it

looks so bad and then he's written like a paragraph essentially about having to like you know teach people like basically not to be uncle toms and how you gotta like straighten it out and like there's a whole like civil rights diatribe and i'm the pin cushion right like i'm the straw man i'm the guy oh my god uh i i start to of course read the comments.

I'm like, well, is there any possible way this is good? Bro, everybody's like, fuck that guy. Uncle Tom, Uncle Rugacello. I always hated this motherfucker. Oh, no. Oh, no. I'm also not a stranger to criticism criticism not a stranger youtube comes i live on youtube it's one of the most vicious places on earth if you ever want to like just get you

like humbled if you're ever feeling too big about yourself post a youtube video let it sit there for about an hour and then start reading the comments i don't care who you are it'll bring it down a notch. But this is another element. Bro, Rihanna was upset at me. I don't want Rihanna mad at me. I don't even know Rihanna. I don't want to start our relationship this way. What is going on? Snoop Dogg, who we all now know, can be incredibly vicious

When he's upset at somebody Over something Oh Like nobody Yo Teach that fella Like yeah you know Put his

Inward in his place Like Bro Snoop Dogg's mad at me About these things Oh no What are you feeling When this is going on

How many knots Are in your stomach Bro I'm panicking I'm panicking I'm way more comfortable With him shouting in my face and having no idea whether or not, like, this can go any kind of way. But at least I understand the moment. Like, at least I'm in control of half of it.

Right. This is a train on fire off the rails. You know what I mean? And, of course, the more people respond to it, celebrities and other fighters and the like, the more emboldened he is to double down on it. Like, hell, this is a moment. The fight's not selling well. You know what I mean?

They've been giving him stick overseas for not being known anywhere. They're saying you can walk down the street and, you know, Eddie Hearn did this video where he's asking people in New York, like, do they know who Deontay Wilder is? And he made a whole video of them saying no. So at this moment, you also have to give context of what's happening in his career. At this moment, he's

knocking everybody out. He's WBC heavyweight champion. He can't get the fight to unify with Joshua. They're saying he's a nobody, essentially. He's not worth the money's a nobody essentially he can't he's not worth the money because nobody knows who he is he's fighting arguably the toughest fight he could have possibly picked Tyson Fury is an incredibly technical fighter no one thinks of Deontay Wilder as a technical technician like they're thinking this guy's gonna get outclassed he could lose his

belts this way and not be making it's not like made a shit ton of money for that fight so now that all his attention is on him and like i said it's a subject he loves to talk about he's a hero he's like a champion of black america in this moment the only the only i'm just like you know collateral damage there's a casualty boost the fuck out of that fight though. Taking sales through the roof. The moment's viral. It's everywhere. People didn't even know the fight was happening until this meme just is in their inboxes.

People are like... Look at this. The to this day meme is taking over the internet and it'll speak to your soul. Yeah. Oh my goodness. This became like the flagship moment for black woke people to tell like, you know,

the black sellout class. It's Kermit with a fucking oxygen mask on and it says, you still on your parents' phone? Me, dot, with this. To this day. Right. The fucking internet.

The internet is so goddamn funny. It's undefeated. Oh, my God. At this point, it's kicking my ass. Oh, my God. Hey. Goddamn, dude. Yeah.

So, as this thing gets bigger and bigger I start to realize that it's well out of my control and then I have to start to think about what my role really is it's not about me what I do isn't so that people can feel one way or another about me

it's really again taking myself back to that initial moment of showing them something about the fighter that they haven't seen let's get a look inside this guy and get him to share something usually yeah just verbally that they didn't know or that he there wasn't he didn't come to the room expecting to share right and i support people understanding the culture from which he we come as black americans i wanted to give him the stage to do exactly that right didn't turn out like i expected but it did become an iconic like civil rights i guess type of moment it became one of those things that people identify with black power

black information being like yo this is this is what we're experiencing. And this is how deep it still runs at that time in 2018. Did you think about it in retrospect? How could I have phrased that better? I mean, sure you did, right? What could you have said? Because you wanted to get that out of there. You wanted to get him to expand on it.

I think that it was exactly the right thing at the right time. I couldn't have predicted in a million years it would have went that way, but that's the way it was supposed to go. If I had phrased it so-called better, and he had given a more reasoned, thoughtful answer, we wouldn't be sitting here. He would have made less money, too. The fight would have sold less tickets, less pay-per-views. That wouldn no that wouldn't went viral you wouldn't gave a shit about my side of the story

the moment doesn't exist right right and that's the beauty of like you were telling me in the back of the comedy store i'm like oh shit that's you right oh my god so the blessing and the angle on the camera work in in some regard is some people don't know it's me. And I'm so happy for that. Oh my God. But the ones who do, there's enough who do. So I'm telling you, Joe, every day since then, it's been over a year now, someone, somewhere, every time I've left my home and sometimes while I'm still in it has shouted in my face to this day that's how they say hello some people don't even know my name

to this day oh my god oh my god yeah oh my you know, hey, man, it's a godsend, really. It's something that captured everybody's attention in a moment. And if it had been anything else, I can't imagine how it would have done that. It wouldn't have. No, it had to be that crazy in his eyes because he's so ramped up getting ready for that fight. And he's so angry. He takes the glasses off. I'm like, I remember watching.

I was nervous i was nowhere near him yeah you must have been shitting your pants okay but you know him right so you probably weren't shitting your pants but you're probably like very uncomfortable i absolutely was not shitting my pants i wasn't in fact in the in the exchange i'm quite calm right i'm just trying on the one hand i'm trying to figure out what's happening in the beginning because I didn't understand the rage being directed at me. I'm telling you, for a minute I thought he was just talking

white America. I was like, yeah, get him. You know what I mean? I'm halfway through this thing. This is my bad. According to thing. Oh my goodness. This is my bad. According to him. Oh my goodness. Yeah, get him. So once he's like, you know, I'm done.

Oh man, he walks off in disgust. I then find him 20 minutes later And I interview him again This time In much more calm than reason fashion I let him lay out what it was about What I expected to happen the first time A lot of people have seen it Not a fraction of the people who've seen that

I do know the guy But as you know these people are warriors man And their blood's running high And he saw red At that time yeah we weren't friends we weren't homies he didn't remember belfast he didn't he thought i was coming for him so even though i know him i don't know him you know what i mean i don't know what's really gonna happen in this moment right i'm just doing my job like i can't be afraid to do that

so whatever happens in this moment this is what's. You've got a great perspective on it, though. You're so right that without that moment blowing up like that, the fight doesn't become as big as it is. The meme doesn't exist. You don't become more popular. Right. And he even did, like, a segment before a fight on Showtime where he, like, went through a black history segment on Showtime because of this. It actually created a moment that put him in position to be the kind of representative of that issue that he wanted to be.

And it gave me an opportunity to be seen, even though in a lot of quarters initially negatively i was also seen as the journalist who pulled that out like i'm the other guy i'm the guy on the other side of that camera that yes created that moment and i've been doing this long enough to where my fan base people who know my work who understand me they know that i think they know i'm not an idiot and i i like to think they know i'm not a sellout but they don't really know me because i'm i don't ever make it about me i don't like this interview we're having is a is a unicorn like i've maybe done three or four or five of these in my entire life where i'm talking about my perspective on anything. I'm entirely showing up at every press conference, every fight, every weigh-in, every media workout,

trying to get something out of the fighter to be consumed by the audience in a way that maybe they hadn't seen it before. Not just for the audience's sake, but I want the fighter to get in touch with something. Like, there's so many of these platitude questions and the same old shit and nobody's really like digging deep these aren't one-dimensional characters these aren't actual bulls these aren't just gladiators their fathers their sons they're like they have civil rights issues they have cultural things are bringing to this thing they have all like depression we know all the things that fighters go through but they only want to show you one side because they don't want to show any vulnerability and their fans aren't interested in like anything other than who's up and who's down

if that's all you're feeding them yeah so i try to get out of the way i don't want to get in front of the work so when people see me in this line a lot of people are just like oh this guy must be a fucking uncle tom then wilder rihanna and snoop dogg think so. Clearly, that's who this guy is. Have you talked to Snoop since? No, I didn't talk to Snoop then. He just put it on Instagram. That's what I'm saying. Oh, no. But I have talked to Wilder many times since then.

And to this guy's credit, even the 20 minutes after, you're right, we did know each other. We do have a history. And he is now knowing the moment that he created and knowing what he did to me in that moment has always been especially gracious. He's always been especially helpful. I can always get access to him.

We have a bond now. We share this thing that's inextricable no matter what happens. You know what I mean? Oh my goodness. That's inextricable no matter what happens. You know what I mean? Oh, my goodness. That's amazing. I don't think there's another boxing interview like that ever. Ever. There's nothing like it.

There's nothing like it. There's one where, like, remember when Larry Merchant was talking to Floyd Mayweather? He was like, you were 20 years younger. If I was 20 years younger, I'd kick your ass. Right. To me, with all due respect to Larry Merchant, a legend and an icon on that microphone, shouldn't have said that. Of course not.

Yeah. That's ridiculous. It's not only is it ridiculous. It's preposterous. Preposterous. You're talking to the best boxer ever. You would have kicked his ass when you were younger? Oh, really, Larry?

Yeah. How old was he going to be at the time? Because when you were 50, he's probably still an embryo. At that time, you probably could have kicked his ass yeah when he was four anything after 10 i'm rooting on floyd but uh larry in the moment made it about him like he you know what i mean yeah well he did that a lot you know right which is yeah well it it if not made it about him, he insulted fighters a lot. There was a lot of that. I feel like what Merchant did that people objected to was he had his own standard by which you had to win the fight and by which you had to get his respect, even if you won, that everybody doesn't share.

And it's like there's no... He existed in a vacuum. This was before the internet. Like, there's no... He existed in a vacuum. This was before the internet. And one of the things I think about internet, commentary in the age of the internet, is you're accountable.

You're accountable in a different way. Back then, if you were Howard Cosell, or if you were anyone who was commenting on sports, you really could kind of get away with it other than what radio guys would say about you or journalists would say about you. But the regular person didn't have a say. Didn't have a voice.

Now the regular person has a fuckload to say. Trust me, as a commentator, I mean, I know when I've made mistakes. I don't have to read the comments. I know if I fuck something up, but they'll let me know. I don't mind. In fact, I encourage a regular person to have something to say. It's these strange motherfuckers that are like, really should probably pipe down. And you do because you're on YouTube and you're on the internet.

The amount of comments that are useful or thoughtful or like, okay, interesting, 90%, maybe 92. But there's like eight percent that eight percent of really just like vitriolic racist sexist like violent trolls yeah shit posters it's a good way to put it yeah that's the expression shit posting i've never heard it but it's wildly accurate it's like a reddit thing right 4chan reddit yeah that's they call it shit posting guys do it on purpose all they're trying I've never heard that before. I've never heard it, but it's wildly accurate. It's like a Reddit thing. Right? 4chan? Reddit? Yeah.

They call it shitposting. Guys do it on purpose. All they're trying to do is get a rise out of you. They're trying to say the most fucked up thing to you to make other people laugh and to get a rise out of you. And if you met them in real life, they'd be like, I'm sorry, I'm just bored at work. Like a lot of them. Or they're 12. You know Deontay went and like beat a guy up that was...

Oh, well that guy that he beat up, that guy is fucking crazy. That guy would fight every... Floyd Mayweather Sr. beat his ass. Did you ever see that? I didn't see that. Yeah, what the fuck's his name? Charlie Zelnoff? That's his name?

Ah, yeah, that is his name. That rings a bell. When I was watching him box Deontay, I'm like, is this guy out of his fucking mind? And then Deontay was beating his ass outside the ring. He wouldn't let him go. I support that. I support that, too. But that guy's a troll, and he sucker punches people.

Like, he tried to sucker punch Floyd Sr. He was beating, Floyd Sr. was beating his ass, and he got tired and he quit. And Floyd Sr. moved away, and he jumped through the ropes and took a wild haymaker swing at him. But I think he's legitimately mentally deranged. Like, there's something wrong with him. I did see that. Yeah.

Yeah. But Deontay beat the fuck out of him. But those are the people that are, like, the loudest in the room. Yeah. A normal person will post a comment for or against criticism or congratulations and kind of leave it at that. Maybe like a couple other posts, but that kind of guy, a shit poster, it's going to

be every couple of hours. He's going to be engaging people. He's going to be all over your thread. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. Look at this. Imagine he hit that left hook and just sat down.

I mean, he's fortunate he's still alive, but then he still went after him. That was his thing. He would go, no, no, no, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. Then he would run after him. He basically fights like he comments. Well, he's just a crazy person. There's something wrong with him.

But what do you think? I think that the internet now is to a place where you can drag people, you can change their lives, you can actually put them in harm's way by stirring up a fervor around being violent towards them. That everybody should have to be identified on the internet. I don't believe in this anonymous posting, shit posters, all this shit. The problem with that is there's a lot of people that have things to say that are important. They don't want to suffer consequences at work or their job.

They want to be able to whistle blow and say, hey, there's some safety problems here or there's some sexual harassment here or there's this or that. There's benefits to being anonymous. And then there's negative aspects of it. I see both things. I mean, that person is that in a comment section, though? This is what I feel like. I feel like if someone is saying some horrible shit, then yes. But if someone is just explaining something that's going down,

like there's people that have talked about like unfair labor practices or things that are going down at work, and they literally have to be anonymous in order to leak this information, particularly if they're talking about someone from another country and they're doing it through a VPN. Like they have to do it this way. They have to do it anonymously. Otherwise, their life is in danger, and they need to get the word out.

There's real crimes taking place. There's a real issue. I see your perspective that there's a lot of cunts online, and they think it's cute, and those fuckers should be outed. Yeah, and I think – I'm not sure that you should be all right i'm not there are times in which people are unjustly punished for having reasonable opinions or going against the grain or something like that but generally if you say something publicly for public consumption you should be willing to accept the consequences of that.

There's no... Again, if it's not something where you are putting yourself in danger to expose a crime. Right. But who's doing that? There's a lot of people doing that. And YouTube comment sections are on my Instagram and Facebook. No, that's different. But here's the thing.

You shouldn't be reading that shit anyway. Everyone says that. I say I don't read it. Everyone says that. Really? You can't not read it. You say, I don't read it everyone says that you can't not read it i don't read it i don't read shit really i don't read a goddamn thing when you okay when the show goes up whatever show it is the next experience yes for the first hour or two you're not skinning it a

little bit no fucking chance no fucking chance no i've disappointed i mean i i have in the past Like way long ago But within the last couple years I don't It's a waste of time It's not good for you And what are you going to learn You're awesome What are you going to learn What are you going to learn People love you

If people don't love me by now Like some people don't love me by now What am I doing wrong I've been doing this fucking show for 10 years I'm assuming people Some people enjoy it You know That's true I mean I enjoy talking to regular folks like if you said hey man i got a lot out of that episode where that doctor talked about this or something oh okay cool that's awesome i like that

those are fun conversations but just throwing yourself into the wolves of the comments covering yourself up with fucking blood and just leaping into the pen of wolves? I am willing to throw myself on the fire just to pick out the few little pieces of charcoal that I can use to warm my next interview. Sometimes people, I mean, I don't consider myself one of these people who come to an interview with an agenda and I've got a point of view and the fighter has to answer to me. More so, I'm gleaning from the audience what it is that they want to know or perspectives that they, I may disagree with personally, but I want to present their perspective to people they can't get at or talk to.

So I have to like be listening to what they're saying and understand how they're consuming information. You don't have to be listening to what they're saying about you. Say if you were talking about, you know,'re going to interview uh canelo or someone through an interpreter you would you know you there's plenty of people with perspectives on canelo you don't have to listen to anything they have to say about you yeah it's dangerous it's not good see this this this wrestling match that you're doing inside your head everybody does this everybody does this the solution is don't read the comments. People saying mean, horrible things about you, don't read it.

Don't read it. Like, if people are talking about you right now in a barbershop somewhere, you don't know. Yeah, that's true. Should you go there so you feel bad? Should I listen to every word? That's basically what you're doing if you get it into the comments. Like, at a certain point in time, it becomes untenable. And in my life, it's untenable. is just the the volume is insane it's not possible

and it's not healthy and most of it's positive right if i if i go on my instagram like if i looked at comments i'm sure most of it's positive but i just post and go post and go do people stop you in the streets to give you their opinion? Because you call fights, and everybody's got an opinion. I've had, you know what? Political comments more than anything, man. I had a fucking guy where I was playing pool, and he wanted to talk to me about an Abby Martin interview that I had. Yeah, you let her off the hook, and I go, I'm here to play pool.

I'm not here to talk fucking Venezuela with you. I don't know jack shit about Palestine. Just leave me alone. I'm here to play pool, bro. I'm like, this is work. I don't come to come to your job right and then fucking talk to you about some shit like don't come on or come to you in the street and talk to you about your job this is uh you know it's i i'm happy to talk to people but i'm not going to debate whether or not they're right or i'm wrong or you put so much more yourself out there i I'm out there plenty. I don't need to be out there any more than that.

Yeah. So, yeah. They don't know me. I don't put anything out there like that. Well, you put it out now. Now people get you. So here we are. Well, people get that.

You know, the way you explained it backstage when we were at the comedy store, I was laughing so hard because it was so funny. Like, the emotions of it all. Like, you explaining what it was like. Like, of course I fucking know what he's saying saying i was trying to get him to explain it to people who might not understand his personal perspective yeah and it's it was it's still such a big part now of my identity yes that uh it can't be understated how big one minute. Yeah. The thing was one minute on Instagram.

And it's the way that a lot of people identify me. Like I say, they say to this day more than they say my name. Yeah. And it's also his most famous clip. Unquestionably. Including the- Knockouts. Yeah.

40 knockouts. Still. They care more about that than those those but you have to look at it this way i think i mean you don't have to but this is my perspective this thing that can abuse us the internet with comments and 15 year old assholes saying mean shit to you what it also is is an avenue for you to put your stuff out there that would not have existed before before you would have had to been hired by cbs or abc or whoever name it you don't have to be hired by anybody anymore but the other side of that is the comment section now you can be one of those guys that

turns the comment section off but man i don't think that's a good idea i don't think that's a good idea either we accidentally had the comment section turned off back when we used to stream. Because we were streaming live, and it wasn't that we turned it off, but we had it off. We had the chat off on the streaming because people would just say a bunch of rude shit just so that other people had to read it while the podcast was going on. I'm like, look at these people are just taking advantage of us. But something happened when we flipped it over to live there was a bug and for how long was it that it did that jamie where the comments were turned off

it wasn't that long but it was long enough for people to freak the fuck out and i'm like hey hey i'm not turning any comments off like you fucking say whatever you want to say i'm not reading it but you say whatever the fuck you want to say go have fun so this this medium this uh avenue for putting out content never existed before it exists now but also people's ability to comment exists and i think most people are rational most people the vast majority are just commenting on it. They might disagree with you. They might think you suck. They might tell you why you suck. But they're pretty rational.

They're like, man, he just talks about himself. Or he does this. Or he has to bring it back to that. Or he blah, blah, blah. You know, there's going to be people having their perspectives and then they debate those perspectives with other people in the thread. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's going to be a certain percentage that are out of their fucking mind or they're 15 and they're angry.

I was just talking about this in the last podcast with my friend Justin Martindale. I was like, when I was 15, man, thank God Twitter wasn't a thing. I would have said the dumbest shit. I would have found celebrities. I would have said mean shit to them. I mean, I was a fucked up kid.

And they'd be digging those tweets up now today well they're doing that to kids now that get gigs and then they're finding their tweets when they were 17 and 18 years old and now they're 24 like hey it's a different fucking human being man like we need a path to redemption for people and twitter and facebook and all these con these these comments that are permanently on the record, they make it really difficult for kids. I would not want to be in high school today with a Twitter account saying the dumbest fucking shit in the world

and then having that come back to haunt me when I want a job someday. Right. You don't know what the world's going to be like in 15 years. No one knew. And hopefully you're not the same as you were 15 years ago. If anything, let's commend the person that doesn't look anything like they'd look when they were 15 today. But we don't want that. Nobody wants that.

You know, there's a thing with comedy, right, where you have to leave your town because they won't appreciate you. They remember you when you sucked. Like when I lived in Boston, when I started out as an open mic, I was fucking terrible. Everybody's terrible when they start. I was terrible. And so they thought I was terrible. And then I had to leave. I had to leave.

Even though I'd gotten better, they still thought I was terrible. I had to leave, and I had to get TV shows and then come back. And then they're like, oh, yeah, you got better. He's okay. Yeah, but the people that you would go to Pittsburgh, they never saw you before. They're like, you're hilarious. I'm like, thank you. Tell the people in Boston, would you?

But what about the internet for comedians? The kind of thing that you do, developing bits and having to have an opportunity to put them on stage before everybody sees them. And like you say, they see the joke at all different stages. How can you create a bit on the road with as much internet, as many people posting your jokes? Most people don't. Believe it or not, most people are cool about it. Sometimes sets get leaked like louis ck set like that was a big deal that was he hadn't done stand up in 10 months and then they put it most comedy fans don't want to ruin it for everybody else most most if you're a real comedy fan like if you go see dave and he's

working some shit out at the store you're not going to film it and put it online. Most people are not going to do that. Yeah, I mean, there's no better example for me than Dave Chappelle on how to do it. I mean, that's how we met at the Comedy Store, you and I. Obviously, Dave's my best friend. And I've watched him walk through these minefields of all this shit. And the main thing he likes to say is live right now. Live in the moment.

Put your phones away and just be present and all that. And I've never seen a guy other than him be able to convince an entire room of people. I don't even mean at his own show. He'll pop up somewhere where everybody's already got their phones out. They're filming Mayor or The Roots or whatever it is that they came to see dave will come out like put those damn phones away yeah let's have a minute let's make a memory and put an entire room of people can stuff those phones in their pocket even dave like when we do when dave and i do gigs on the road we use those vero bags what no it's what it's called yonder yonder yonder bags

what is zero but i mean even started that like ionder, yonder bags. What is Yonder? But I mean, even started that. Yeah. Yonder bags. No, we've been doing, I've been doing yonder bags for years and they, they,

the first time I ever used them, the Denver comedy works actually started using them independently. And the first time I had heard about them, it's like, it's been a few years, but comics like Ali Wong, she used them in all her shows i used them a lot up until my last netflix special then i got tired of using them it's just like i'm like i don't want to tell people to put their fucking phone away you know the most hilarious thing was miami because

miami is it's such a party town right and half the audience is probably coked up and is the only audience when they had the yonder bags where they just kept getting up and going outside because they wanted to use their phone they didn't just sit down and enjoy the show most places that 99.99999 everybody just sits down and they go all right my phone's in the bag now let me just enjoy the show and it makes the show better in miami the whole audience is people getting up and going out and coming back getting up going out and coming back they go to the. They go to the bathroom to either do coke or to fucking get their phone out of their bag because they're trying to get pussy

or whatever the fuck they're trying to do. They're just wild people. If they're coming back, you're doing your job. If Miami keeps coming back, you're good. They would definitely keep coming back, but it's hilarious what the culture of Miami is so different than anywhere else. They're such wild people.

That is like, you should have to have a passport to go to Miami. And I don't mean because people there are from other countries, and some of them are, but it's because the culture is different. The white people there, the Latinos, everyone's different there. Miami is like visiting another country. It really is. It's a wild- place i was in miami for the essentially the first time over super bowl it's like the first time oh it's a wild place man

actually spent any time do you go to south beach uh i went to south beach i went downtown it's a wild fucking place man but it's so cool i feel like every i didn't do like the party party scene even though it was Super Bowl. I like went the other way with it. I was so like kind of drained already. I was like, you know what? I'm just going to relax in Miami while everybody else is turnt to like 12. It's one of the coolest places I've ever been. Great food, man.

The most fantastic Cuban food you'll ever find. A lot of Caribbean food. And just like the women are so beautiful too. It's like, it's a crazy place. It's a crazy place. It really does feel like another country. I do love about this phone thing and like people sharing so much is like when I talk about the different cultures in combat sports, like that gives me access to everybody being

on their phones. Like the one thing that's everywhere is YouTube. So I don't know if you know this, but like you said, there was a time when the only way you could have a voice or certainly comment on boxing or MMA or sports is if you got hired by a major network that had a reach where people could see you. Somebody has to die for you to get that job.

Right. But Larry March has to retire. Exactly. But I came up in an age at the very beginning of YouTube. I was training at Wild Card Boxing Gym. I'm a teenager training there. The gym is fairly new. And it was still like mini DV days.

And I had a camera that I would use to shoot sparring sessions. And because Freddie has a gym where there are world championship fighters preparing for title fights on television, the class of fighter that's in there on any given day sparring are like main event ticket selling marquee guys. And I'm in there shooting their sparring session any you know any name anybody versus anybody and i'm using the money i'm making selling the sparring footage back to the fighters to pay my gym dues wow that's how i started and it's like in so that's journalism yeah but okay it's a it's an interesting story because i was doing broadcasting since 10th grade i was like at a performing arts high school we had

a radio station in the basement it's like a coming of age like 80s movie or some shit like yeah exactly blow the dust off the equipment like ask the faculty can i do a show and so i'm covering like headline news and whatever a fucking 10th grader thinks is important and who won the football game and, you know, this kind of shit. But I always thought that, you know, I'm going to be a talk radio guy. Never sports, though. I've been training boxing since fifth grade. But never did I, like, did I think the two shiled meet.

Except that I'm now, I've moved to L.A. right after high school. I'm in Freddie Roach's boxing gym. I'm training. Can't barely afford dues. I got to come up with a way to do that. I'm now, I've moved to LA right after high school. I'm in Freddie Roach's boxing gym. I'm training. Can't barely afford dues. I gotta come up with a way to do that. I start shooting sparring sessions and this is like James Toney is still fighting. We're on the sunset of his career, but he's still

the man. And there's a guy named Danny Green who is a Australian fighter, wildly famous there, but doesn't have a global audience. He wants to fight James. There's no real money in it for James, but if you know James Toney, this is no shrinking violet. This man is

insane. He was wilder turnt up. If to this day was every day, that was James Toney at Wild Car Boxing Gym. So this guy flies from Australia walks into the gym and you know what a sacred place those are

the main fighter at any gym the guy who is the representation of the toughest dude the top dog you don't just walk into that guy's gym and start talking shit especially with James Toney no one talked more shit than James Toney.

Right. He'll talk shit in the middle of a round, right? Exactly. Famous for it. All throughout rounds. This guy comes to the James gym, starts talking shit. James is like, get in the ring right now. Your last 10 rounds, I'll fight you anywhere.

You can get the fight. He takes the challenge, gets in there, gets the shit beat out of him For like Eight rounds Just pummeled I'm shooting the thing I'm like Is it right here? Oh!

Look at this First of all I'm wildly impressed That you came up with this I don't even know where to find this Look how good he looks too James looks good I'm shooting this

Oh my goodness And this is James In his prime He looked like he was A fucking heavyweight Look at the size of him Yeah Was James heavyweight at this point? Was Cruiserweight? I think it was He looked like he was a fucking heavyweight. Look at the size of him. Yeah.

Was James heavyweight at this point? Was cruiserweight? I think he was cruiserweight. He was still cruiserweight. God damn, he's huge. Right. He's on all the Mexican supplements. Look at the size of him. Oh, man, that's so funny.

I haven't seen this footage in I don't even know how many years. Dude, James is fucking him up. Okay, but the point being that at this time, there really wasn't any boxing press to speak of. Keep that plan. This is great. ESPN might

give you a highlight of De La Hoya. You might get a Mike Tyson knockout clip, but there's nobody sitting around talking boxing. There's no place to see fighters training. There's no place to see fighters training. There's no websites for fights. And after this thing got done, I'm

like, hey, you know, Danny Green doesn't want it. He's got the shit beat up. James Toney doesn't care about it at all. So I'm just gonna go home and record over it. And yeah, because this is my side hustle. I need, listen man, I'm a very young man at this time.

I need every VHS tape I can use. I need every mini DV I can use to keep the money in my pocket. I can't just be stockpiling footage nobody wants. But before I get a chance to tape over it, I get a call from a site called Max Boxing.

And at that time, they were pretty much the only boxing website. What year is this? I want to say this is probably close to 2000. Wow. Yeah, 2000. And

they say, hey, we heard Danny Green came down a wild car and they had this brutal sparring session. Look how much bigger James is. Yeah. He looks so much bigger. They don't even look like they're nearly in the same weight class. James looks like he's 20 pounds heavier than him. Doesn't he?

Yeah. Well, of course he does. But, you know, I mean, by weigh-in day, he'll get down. But this is how James, like, rocked. Every day, like, he'd be just banging guys, talking shit, beating them up, talking shit. And so this, even though now, looking back, of course, it's amazing footage. But at the time, this could be any given Wednesday. Right.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it happened there all the time. You know, he used to spar with Mickey Rourke. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why Mickey Rourke had to get his face worked on, apparently. Yeah, Mickey Rourke used to cover in a wild card. And he used to spar James, which is like someone needed to talk to him. You're like, what are you thinking?

Come here. Come here. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Oh, there's McAfoley. Geez, man. Wow.

God rest his soul. man. Wow. God rest his soul. So what ultimately ended up happening was I got a little bidding war going for this video. It was such like a hot piece and I got it up to like- Looks like Danny's in pretty fucking good shape and James is getting tired. Was there moments in this where James looked really tired?

The thing about James Toney at this time, he always looked really tired. He always seemed like he was being lazy. He's always leaning on fighters. But what you can't hear is the thud of those shots. Like, he's just turning shit over. Can we hear some volume, Jamie? And it's... Come on, paper champ.

Come on, paper champ. Come on, paper champ. Is that James? Yeah. You hear Freddy in the background talking to him. Come on, you guys. See that? Something's happening, you know. So they went eight rounds like this? Yeah.

And then what happened at the end of it? Still, Danny Green still seems like he's kind of in it. No? I mean, he... In the beginning, looks like james was fucking him up yeah i mean like danny had spots where he's connecting but at no point during and mind you his face is getting bloodier right like the shots that that james were throwing are consistently heavier and james is just having an easy time with him it's not not like anything that Danny's doing is making an impression. So how did they end it? It was just over.

Danny had enough. Oh, Danny's in there. And this became Jim Wars. What I did with this footage, ultimately, was I took it and went to an editor named Brian Hardy, who was the editor for Max Boxing at the time, and he got Doug Fisher, who's now the editor-in-chief of Ring Magazine, and I to commentate that footage as though you're watching it on HBO. Oh, wow.

Right? So Doug's doing the color. I'm calling the fight. I'm the Lampley, and he's the Kellerman. And we showed the whole thing. I he's the keller man and we showed the whole thing i talked about the context of what had happened like i told you and we're calling the fight in this show gym wars blew up it was like the first big boxing like thing on the internet at all and so i would go to around the different gyms and get fighters and they all started at

wild card and then i would branch out get fighters agree, let me shoot the sessions and turn it into a show called Gym Wars. And so the way these guys now get their phones and their cameras and they go interview fighters and all this shit, I started that. That wasn't a thing before I started doing it. that that wasn't a thing before i started doing it i'm the one who created this like medium by which you now receive boxing news wow so um my entire career and trajectory in life was changed at a boxing gym and never to look back and were you a fighter at one point, Don? Never. Never. You just used to train? Always trained.

Since fifth grade, always trained. And it's taken incredibly seriously. I've heard you talk about this too. And it couldn't be more true. This was a way for me to release all of those young man angst, all that frustration. It's really my therapy. I can barely afford gym dudes. You know I can't afford therapy right boxing was that it was like an integral part of my life i spent hours in the gym to where i had to figure out a way to make some money there so i could continue to eat and

pay for it and that was my way of doing it um and so be interviewing fighters is now like my claim to fame because everybody thinks they're reinventing the wheel now you can't shoot anybody sparring or anything like that so that show had to go away but the way that i relate to and understand fighters and what it is like that's inside them that's that they're experiencing that's driving them i think is unique because although i would never ever classify myself as a fighter that that's such a unique and cherished like banner that you can really hold if that's really what you do. I'm a warrior too.

You know what I mean? Like I've, in my own way, I forged a career. I created something that didn't exist and I had to fight every step along the way to make it a thing. So is this something while you were doing it, you were realizing like, I'm making a career out of talking about boxing? Were you doing that? Or do you thinking, well, I'm doing this for now and I'm going to do something else?

I kept doing what was working. You know what I mean? And at times I thought about doing something else, but never did I spend as much time thinking about or applying myself to anything else. So yeah, other things would come up, but it all would come back to this. I would always go back to the gym. Because Dave is a crazy boxing fan too. And I remember Dave talked to me at one point in time about the three of us doing something. This is a while back, right?

Strap season. Dave and I have a show called Strap Season. And the best way I could describe it is it's like the Anthony Bourdain of boxing, if you will. As I've said, I go all over the world covering fights. Every community of combat sports has its own culture. Every fighter's got his own story. Every fight's got its own narrative. That's connected to another fight.

That's connected to another fight. That's got a historical point of view. And that's how I see the world of combat sports. That's how I see boxing. It's through that lens that this show exists. And you're right. Dave's a phenomenal boxing fan. He knows his shit. He

goes to the fights. He takes his whole crew to the fights, buys everybody ringside tickets. We talk for hours on the phone about any and every fight that's upcoming. And we met in Macau at Pacquiao Rios.

Wow. Brandon Rios. Wow. Brandon Rios. Yeah. That was in Macau. It was Rios and then Algeria. He fought Algeria as well. That was a mismatch. Yeah.

The Brandon Rios just like, he was a good fighter, like a tough guy. But man, that's a fight where you really saw how great Pacquiao is. Seven knockdowns. And that's when they let him out of the cage.

He just lit him up. He just lit him up. That was crazy. And, you know, Pacquiao's been doing it. He just did it recently to Keith Thurman. He kept wanting to write this guy off. He kept like, oh, that's got to be it. When he did that step in right hook over the shoulder and dropped Thurman, I was like, holy shit, bro.

And dropped Thurman. I was like, holy shit, bro. And mind you, that guy is why wildcard boxing gym, of course, including Freddie Roach, is the most famous gym, I would say, in the world. Yeah. I would say more famous in this day than even Gleason's. I think you're right. But the first time I interviewed Manny Pacquiao

was at the Vagabond Hotel, which is now torn down because it was condemned, next door to the gym on an air conditioner, one of those protruding air conditioners from the wall, with seven other guys in his hotel room, all living in the hotel room. It's me and Manny Pacquiao on an air conditioner doing a one-on-one. Doesn't he have that thing where if he has a house out here, he'll have 20 dudes living with him? Yeah. This is the most generous

guy I've ever known in my life. Manny Pacquiao does things that just defy reason. As nice as it is, you want to shake him. Like, yo! Not 100 people on the private plane. Buy them normal tickets. He has to keep fighting probably just to keep up that payroll i yeah i guess he's got to keep fighting he's got to be a senator yeah he's got to you know endorse uh cast pistachio nuts

he's got to do everything yeah because he it's like water like he wants to feed the people he wants to be that guy and it's genuine he He really is an outlet. The money will flow through him if he keeps going. That's right. That's right. So you just got to imagine me meeting, of all people, Dave Chappelle of all places in China, in Macau, because he's there for a fight. So Dave flew in for the fight? Flew in. Flew his family in.

Like, you know, the Chappelle's were there. Wow. For the fight flew in flew his family in like you know the chapelles were there wow uh for the fight and that and now that i know him well that's not unusual at all like he does that for bot he loves boxing to that degree so we spent like i said hours just talking about boxing on the phone and when we get together we have these dinners for on fight night and we're like you know what this is something that could be something. And we ended up shooting for like two years of following me around. The dinners we had, countless people at these dinners. Michael Buffer, we wanted you, we still want you. These things that you know and I know about combat sports, about this community of fighters,

is something that I don't think anybody else could do. You have to be a part of that conversation because you're really the only one who can talk about it from the perspective that you do. I know a lot of people... There you guys are. I know a lot of people that comment on MMA, as I'm sure you do. I know a lot of people that comment on MMA, as I'm sure you do. I know a lot of people that comment on boxing. I know people who dedicate themselves to the community, to the sport, to the spirit of it, like you do.

Like I do. And that's what makes it unique. There's a lens through which you can see this shit that really very, very few people can show you. You're that guy. Well, those people like particularly the mma people they demand it you can't you can't be a casual observer of mma you can't they won't allow it if you don't know what the fuck you're talking you saw what happened with steven a smith recently i did yeah that's that's what happens man you know and part of it is like you know luke thomas

had an interesting he's a really good MMA journalist. He had a really interesting take on it where he's saying that part of it is that there's a thing in this sport where they don't want outsiders. Like people that cover other sports. Like, no, no, no. You don't know this sport. But if you do jump in, god damn, you got to know what the fuck you're talking about. You got to really know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah. You got to really know what the fuck you're talking about. And Steven's thing is being entertaining and being dismissive of people and, you know, kind of in an arrogant way and, you know, insulting.

You know, that's his thing. I mean, he creates controversy. That controversy creates a lot of people watching and paying attention. That shit does not fly in MMA. These guys are literally fighting for their life. I mean, they literally are moments from death at several times in certain fights. There's moments where guys are out cold

and you see a guy dropping an elbow on their face and smashing their orbital bone before the referee can get to them. You can't make fun of those guys in that way. You can't talk shit about them. They're not going to allow it. That's correct. Nor should they.

There's five fighters that we know about that have succumbed to injuries in the ring. And died. And died just last year. Yeah. And you can't bring your shtick to this shit. Right. And I don't think it's... Save that for sports with balls.

Yeah, exactly. Save that for countdown shows. Well, sports where people hit each other are different, man. They're just different. It's a different thing. Like boxing. The reason why Deontay was so amped up and wild before that fight, you're not going to see a basketball player like that four days before the NBA finals.

They'll be tuned up and ready to go, but they're not ready to go to war. They're literally putting their fucking health on the line. It's a different thing. Yeah. And, you know, of course, we respect all sports, but this kind of risk that you're taking and the individuality of it, even though you've got a guy in the ring, got a cut man, you've got somebody working in your corner, it really is just you out there when that bell rings. And you're not just fighting the guy you're looking at.

You're fighting the guy inside you that wants to quit. You're fighting the guy inside you that thinks that last punch really hurt. You're fighting the guy inside you that's like, you know, I probably made enough money. I don't probably need to do this shit anymore. Like, your own demons. Everything that goes into not just being a successful fighter but being a respected fighter a fighter at all like i don't know everyone's seen that clip with a guy climb through the ropes the bell rang he climbed out of the ropes and walked back into the

locker room there's a little bit of that in everybody and you're fighting him too yeah you know what i'm saying what was that about Wasn't there like some contract dispute or something though? They felt like they were fucking him over. So he did that. From what I understand, he went back there and asked for his money. Oh, so he thought that because he got in the ring, he'd get paid? He got out, he could still get his money. What?

That's what I heard. Oh my God, that's hilarious. But that guy could never fight again. No. You know what I mean? Right Nobody would ever trust him again Go through a full camp preparing for that guy No

I mean, imagine being his opponent Seeing him walk out You're like, what? Right What's happening here? And you don't even get paid now You can't criticize somebody As though they are just

doing what you're doing because oh I'm talking I got a job I'm an important guy I'm at this level as shit so no yeah we're doing the same thing essentially yeah we're both on TV it's not that man it's not

so the kind of love that you have for combat sports the kind of love that you have a combat sports kind of love that you have for what it is that you comment on it comes through because you do it but i've been doing it almost half my life now in terms of commenting on it i've been doing martial arts since i was a fucking baby basically and that's it yeah but when you see combat sports today and you see like the landscape of boxing, I feel personally that this is an amazing time. I mean, I feel like the heavyweight division has never been more exciting and more turbulent because there's so many great fighters now.

To have Andrew Ruiz jump out of nowhere and knock out Anthony Joshua, I think was a godsend for the sport. Because all of a sudden you see, like, look at this chubby Mexican just fucked up. This dude looks like a God. Like this is crazy. Like, and this is for the Mexican community. It's huge having their first Mexican heavyweight champion,

but it's also like, wow, this is a crazy division. Look, you got the Deontay just knocks the fuck out of Louis Ortiz with that one punch to the forehead. You're like, what the fuck?

You got the rematch with Tyson Fury's coming up in two weeks. Right. Not even, right? Less than two weeks. Yeah, 22nd. Oh my goodness. Now, what you're talking about earlier is exemplified in what happened after the Ruiz fight, where you see, like you say, a chubby guy.

That's fair. This guy's chubby. Yeah. But he's aubby guy. That's fair. He's chubby. Yeah. But he's a fucking fighter. Oh, my God. He's a heavyweight for real. His hand speed's tremendous. And if you think just because he's chubby, you can take a knock at the guy, especially

after he won the title as though he won the lottery or he won a scratch off and this shit just happens. It doesn't. It reminded people of what the heavyweight division is. One punch can change the fight. It's a real thing. It is a real thing. He fucked up, though, in that rematch.

That rematch was a disaster. He was so clearly unprepared. When he weighed 280, I was like, oh, my God. And what was the rumors like? And I fell into them, too. Everybody's talking about how he was getting thinner. No, it was one Instagram picture. He did what chubby girls do.

He held that camera up and he did one of these things. He catfished us. He catfished us. Yeah. Well, you know, he wasn't training with his trainer, and he was partying a lot. I knew he was partying a lot. I heard from people that knew him. They're like, man, I don't know.

I heard whispers of that and didn't believe it. I was like, no fucking way i believed it i believed it you know why i believed it because it's so hard not to all of a sudden you're the fucking man out of nowhere and maybe he was convinced that he could do it again you know he's hitting the pads it looked pretty good hitting the bag looked pretty good he's like i'll fuck that guy up again but anthony joshua had a totally different game plan this time and to see anthony joshua stick and move like that was interesting i was like wow yeah that's interesting it's a cliche but again losing might have been the best thing that ever happened to him i don't know about that i don't know about that you know i mean i think it's great that he got his title back but i felt like um one thing that happened in that fight that disturbed me was even

though uh ruiz came in out of shape and clearly didn't look like he was prepared correctly joshua didn't did never really enforce his will on him he never really had a moment where he's beating the fuck out of him where he's like you know i trained hard for this fight i'm gonna dominate you now now i'm gonna take you out the way you took me out there was none of that it was boxing just stick and move make sure you get the decision make sure you get the decision that is in stark contrast the way dionte finishes fights which is why that matchup is so intriguing which is why no matter what happens between the two of them, hopefully they remain undefeated for their own sakes and can make that unification fight. I saw his commitment to discipline, Joshua, I'm talking about, as a good thing. the title back but when you make the argument who's the best heavyweight in the world if you have to look at it on paper i don't think it's him right now i think it's tyson fury or deontay wilder depending on what happens on the 22nd i lean towards deontay because he can close the

show at any moment that 12th round i was i was in bed and i was watching the fight and I went, oh shit. I popped up. Oh shit. He knocked him out. He knocked. And then Tyson Fury rises. I'm like, what the fuck? He rises. He gets through the barrage and then he wins the remainder of the round. I'm like, this is insane.

And he even rocked Deontay at one point in time. I'm like, this is an insane fight. And then it was a draw. And I don't think on paper it's really a draw. I think that's horseshit. I think on paper Tyson Fury won more rounds. But I'm not upset with the draw. Because the way Deontay knocked him down and then knocked him down,

the way he knocked him down in the 12th round should almost count for, like, three points. It was so crazy. Just about any, and This is not a criticism of Jack Reese. The guy did get up. You can't say he did something wrong, but most referees of that would have just

waved it off. There's no way this guy's getting up. His arms were flat. He was laying on his back. It looked like he was in another dimension. Can you think of any other fight in the countless fights that you've covered where the main highlight of the fight is in the countless fights that you've covered where the main highlight of the fight is just the guy getting up? Crazy.

Crazy. Well that punch too. The right hand and the left hook behind it and then him walking off like this. He thought he had him. He thought it was over. Crazy. Tyson Fury is something special man but so is Deontay. And so is Joshua. I think all three of those guys they're so uniquely different that I can't say,

I mean, the argument about who's best can rage for days, but I don't know that for sure this guy beats that guy or that guy beats the other guy or if this guy beats that guy, then that guy. You don't. You won't know until they face each other. And what I'm saying is even if Deontay were to lose to Tyson Fury, I still want to see Joshua Wilder more than... Oh, 100%.

100%. That is the fight I want to see. That is the fight I want to see. Well, the rematch is the first fight I want to see. The next fight I want to see, regardless of the outcome, is I want to see... Well, unless Tyson Fury KOs Wilder. If Tyson Fury KOs Wilder and is like, Anthony Joshua, Anthony Joshua, you doser.

If he gets on the mic and starts talking that kind of shit, then I want to see that fight. But my dream matchup right now is the rematch. That's their dream matchup. The dream matchup is the 22nd. I am so fucking pumped for that rematch. I'm not doing jack shit. I'm taking the night off i'm

sitting right in front of the fucking tv sweaty palms now see for you to say that about a boxing match that's a huge thing i love boxing though i do i mean i call combat sports you know i call mma but i i do love boxing you know i i love the canelo kKovalev fight. I thought that was fascinating. To watch Canelo KO Kovalev like that, I was like, god damn. What, did he have six minutes? I thought Kovalev was winning that fight. He was winning the fight. If he could have stayed on his feet for six more minutes, he beats Canelo. Canelo looked like he had a plan to do that.

Like, it looked like he planned for Kovalev to fade. You know, because Kovovalev he's not the same guy he used to be you know he's slow after andre ward knocked him out in the second fight he just seems like a different guy it just seems like he doesn't and he's also had a lot of legal troubles outside the ring his rumors of booze and abuse and all kinds of other shit you know sometimes fighters they they hit this point in their career where they don't have the same level of commitment that they did when they first started fighting.

And when Kovalev, in the early days, man, when he was the crusher, when he was fucking everybody up, man, he was a terrifying force. Fantastic amateur record, amazing technical boxing skills, vicious right hand. I mean, he was something special.

But to your point, it's hand. I mean, he was something special. But to your point, it's those kind of experiences. Getting stopped by Ward, I think, was more of a mental thing for him. I think that it's a hurdle that he couldn't get over mentally and the physical followed

suit, which is why I say it would have been easy for Joshua to get bogged down in the disappointment of that moment and not ever really recover from the lack of invincibility that he found himself in on a fight

everybody thought he was going to win going away. You're deep in boxing circles. Had you heard the rumor that Joshua had been knocked out in training? I've heard all the rumors. But that was apparently from enough people that I was taking it seriously. The two weeks before the fight, he had got KO'd really bad in training.

Yeah, I heard it. Do you know who supposedly KO'd him? I have no idea. Nor do I know that it's true at all. I don't know if it's true either. Even though that kind of thing is salacious, and I would love to know for sure, I feel like if you turn up

on the night and you get to that first bell ringing, we're in a fight. Everybody's struggling with something. My hand hurts. I pulled a hamstring I'm not telling you about. I think they said, and this is even more widely reported, that Joshua had a bit of a panic attack in the dressing room before the fight.

That I find hard to believe. The sparring thing I think could happen to anybody, and then it's a question like, do we go on? But here's the thing. If he was suffering from the residual effects of being KO'd. Ah, I see where you're going. And then he's like, I really shouldn't be fighting right now. Fuck, I can't believe I have to fight right now.

And then he's starting to freak out. Because I know that's happened in MMA. In MMA that's definitely happened, where guys have been KO'd badly in the training before the fight, and then they get to the fight, and they really shouldn be fighting and they know it and they kind of they kind of freak out what do you do though like I mean what do you blame let's say that let's say that all that's true this is just hypothetical let's say that these are true stories then it comes down to like the date set you have an opponent that should be easy to beat. Everybody thinks this guy is

an easy replacement. Don't forget, this was his American debut. This wasn't just some fight. Another one at the O2. This is the Garden. His first fight in America. That Wilder fight's still looming. Joshua's supposed to take over the world

in June. Big Baby Miller tested positive when? Well, what do we have? I think we were like three weeks out. Three weeks out. Three weeks out. And then it was like officially, okay, like two weeks is what Ruiz had. So he tests positive for steroids and then Ruiz comes in somewhere two and a half, three

weeks in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, man. It's just like. Crazy can of worms. Yeah.

What do you do? What do you do? Do you cancel that date? Right. But here's the thing. I mean, I bet he wished he canceled it after it was over. I bet he wished he canceled it. Sure.

If that was the case. But we don't even know if that was the case. So we're just talking shit Yeah To that point What does that experience with Joshua Do for him against Wilder

The biggest knockout puncher in heavyweight boxing To be sure If not history 40 wins by knockout one decision one draw what the fuck who the hell does that and even that decision ever nobody ever he avenged the guy he got he got a decision yeah it's to burn right yeah but that that record is unchallenged there's no one like that i don't think in any fucking division. Even you go back to the KO punches like Julian Jackson, right?

The old school one punch destroyers. He beat people by decision. Deontay knocks everybody out at heavyweight. It's crazy. And he knocks them out with like forehead punches. That forehead punch to Ruiz just, blah! Yeah. And he just walks away.

Ruiz is laying on the ropes like, what in the fuck just hit me? He's flouting convention. Yeah. Like, you're not supposed to be able to do that. And everybody talks so much shit about his skills. Right. Because that's what the science is built on. Yeah, but it's nonsense.

Because the way he's built, first of all, 6'9", 209 pounds. That's what he weighed when he fought Tyson Fury. 209. Right. I mean, he's probably like 218 when he fought Ruiz. Gained nine pounds or so. Not that much, right? Yeah, he's very light anyway.

But also, because of that, doesn't get tired like those bigger guys. He doesn't have as much body mass where his blood is flowing through. But he also has fucking ridiculous power. And he keeps that power later than any of them. And to your point, now I think he'll keep that power longer. And I've seen, he does get tired when he chases the knockout. Yes. He can get winded.

But he recovers. But his patience. Like, everyone says, oh, he he'll tell me skills don't pay the bills i got my own style like you gotta stop saying that shit but what we saw in the ruiz for the uh the luiz ortiz fight was that he started to use the discipline of patience he wasn't chasing the knockout anymore he was relying on it, which is a taboo, but he knew when that moment came, he'd be in position to fire

and he believed when he fired, he'd win. Yeah. He'd get it. And the patience and not chasing the knockout, that's science too.

It is science. That's technique too. Because he knows that he has this preposterous power and he knows he's 100, and he's rightous power. I mean, he knows. And he's right.

He's been right 40 fucking times. You're going to have to get it right one more time. Yeah, he's right. He's right. But the thing is, man, the Tyson Fury fight showed that some people can survive. And that was what was so fascinating about that fight. Because Tyson was the only guy that could survive. And he survived it twice.

He got dropped earlier in the fight. Was it like the fifth round or something like that? I don't remember what round it was. It was the ninth. Was it the ninth he got dropped? So he got dropped earlier in the fight and then the big one in the 12th. And still survived. I mean, just crazy.

I don't think Wilder thinks he survived. I think Wilder thinks he got jobbed. Well, we talked about it. He said, look, if you look at the clock, it's like the fucking dude was down for 10 seconds the fucking guy was like if you count to 10 and that is that always always drive me crazy about boxing why don't they have a goddamn digital clock why are they relying on this guy to go one two that shit is crazy because they're just counting they're just counting what are we in the dark ages throw a fucking digital clock up when the guy goes down at 10 seconds the fight is over if that's the case that fight is over tyson fury is down for like 12 seconds i don't know why so many things in sports aren't automated

at this point i don't get this like nostalgic like human error bullshit i don't believe in any of it including the the the judging what do we do about MMA, too? What do we do about the judging? Yeah, MMA's the worst. What's the solution to that, though? I don't know, man. Well, look, boxing has experienced some fucking significant levels of bribery and corruption. And, you know, there's been people that have actually been forced out of boxing, right?

They don't judge fights anymore. Like Manny Pacquiao, Timadley remember that one of course that one was like what in the fuck did you people watch like what is this right you know uh triple g canelo the first fight what in the she's a nice lady yeah she does mma too and you know and dc daniel cormier one of the fights he looked at, he goes, Oh, no, Adelaide Byrd's here. And I'm like, she's a nice lady. She's a wonderful lady. But to be fair, most of the fights I watch are ringside, right?

And I'll be on my phone texting my friends, hey, you know, this fight, I got it this way. People watching it at home will have it an entirely different way. I'll go home and see what they're talking about. I don't think sitting ringside from one angle all night gives you a perspective enough to judge the fight properly. Agreed. And then comparing it to the other guy. Do boxing guys have monitors? Because UFC people have monitors.

No, the judges don't. They should. They didn't have it for a long time. No, the judges don't. They should. They didn't have it for a long time. We asked for it. We eventually got it. We complained forever. In most commissions, the judges have ringside monitors. But they should have more judges, too.

Three judges is ridiculous. Why are we leaving it on three people? There's four sides of the ring, by the way. Right. Well, there's eight sides of the octagon and by the way there's a fucking million people that would love to judge. It doesn't make any sense it's not like we're short of people that understand it

and in MMA we have an additional problem is that we go to places like we were in Texas this past weekend and we had terrible judging and those people weren't even some of them weren't even MMA judges they had backgrounds in boxing and they transitioned over to MMA and some of them weren't even MMA judges. They had backgrounds in boxing, and they had transitioned over to MMA. And some of them really didn't understand what was going on,

and there was really, really bad decisions. And that's the other thing. People, you know, the raging debate, boxing versus UFC and all this shit, it is the silliest debate I've ever heard as far as combat sports goes. It's just not the same thing. No, it's not the same thing. The idea that you can judge boxing and MMA and think that, well, everybody's hitting everybody.

I've got the same skill set here as I do in the other one. Doesn't make any sense. There's a lot of legit MMA judges now. It's much less of a problem than it used to be. But when we travel to places like Texas, where we were this past weekend, and you run into problems where they just don't get world title fights very often.

And then the main event was a very controversial decision, but close enough that it wasn't. I don't think it was a robbery. Close enough. Close enough. And I think you give it to the champion. He dominated the last two rounds, clearly, in my eyes, and could have won the third.

I watched it again today, actually. But some of the earlier fights were fucking preposterous. I don't even need judges ringside. Just watch the shit on TV. Give me an extra two, three minutes if we have to wait for the decision to figure it out properly. Let's wait. Better than two or three decades of arguing about the shit.

Well, I really think they need more people choosing. I think there should be a large group of people you know maybe even 10 people maybe even people at home and there in person and then you add you tally up the score cards like people that are respected like respected world-class trainers respected fighters respected experts in martial arts that watch these fights or boxing matches and then tally it up then you would never have a triple G versus Canelo first fight because 90% of the people thought that Triple G won that first fight, which is interesting that Canelo won the second fight

because Canelo fought very differently in the second fight. He did. He was a better fighter. He was a better fighter in the second fight. Yeah, and I think the criticism he took in the first fight enraged him. He played it cool. I think that really pissed him off. He's like, okay, well, let me show you what I can do. He came back better. He played it cool. I think that really pissed him off. He's like, okay,

well, let me show you what I can do. He came back better. He came back better. The fact that he went all the way up to fucking light heavyweight and knocked out Sergey Kovalev is amazing. What does he do now?

Does he stay at light heavyweight? Does he go back to super heavyweight? I don't know that he makes middleweight again. I mean, he's not... He probably could if he gave him enough time. But then he might be drained. Right right but he's too small for light heavyweight I mean yeah I mean obviously 68 68 is probably the sweet spot for him but how I mean he's not a kid anymore there's not like he's 22 like no

fluctuating and wait like that but didn't he fight floyd at 52 yeah that's nuts yeah that's nuts yeah 75 now that's crazy that's so much weight yeah that's so much fucking 23 goddamn pounds that's crazy and then probably weighed a lot more than that before he cut weight to make the weights and given given a guy 24 hours between the weigh-in sometimes more than 24 hours in fact most times more than 24 hours so like they they blow up what kind of what kind of testing are they doing that dude's gone through so many weight classes and he's just jacked as fuck yeah i mean suspicious as fuck i'm not a doctor i don't you're not a doctor i'm not a doc i know i'm not a doctor either at don't. You're not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor either. At this point, it probably seems like I am.

I'm suspicious, though. There's so many things about both of our sports that could be easily corrected if the motivation was there to even the playing field. Well, the USADA program in the UFC is even the playing field considerably. A lot of people fell off. A lot of physiques changed. A lot of physiques changed. A lot of people just lost all their muscle mass. But only one entity has to make a decision in MMA, essentially. For UFC, particularly.

Yeah, right. The decision comes down, and then everybody's got to do it. Period. Boxing does not enjoy that kind of dictatorship. Right, and there's also been instances in boxing where guys have said no i don't want vada testing i don't want it they gotta pay for it themselves right right why should they why should they and then imagine if you're the guy who'd like this is his big fight this is the first time we've been making any money right now i gotta spend all this

dough on vada or whatever and whatnot no what is the status of Adonis Stevenson? Did he recover? Yeah, he's recovered. Is he okay now? I mean, he's not his former self, but he's certainly, I think, living a good life. Because I know that was one of the more recent superstar guys that wound up having a significant brain injury. Survived and didn't succumb to those injuries, but it's life-changing. This guy will never be the Adonis Stevenson he was before the fight.

He's always going to now for the rest of his life deal with those injuries and have challenges in a way that are a result of boxing. Have you seen him? Is there videos of him talking about it or anything? Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen him talk about it in depth, but we've seen him, like, his motor skills are coming back. He's smiling. He's able to, like, speak.

So it's not like Gerald McClellan. No. No. The Gerald McClellan fight, it's interesting. It kind of, in many ways, changed Roy Jones Jr.'s thoughts on the sport, you know, and that he never wanted to turn out like that but then roy gets older and he's still fighting fighting fighting people like deep into his 40s right and you're like this is crazy like this is the same guy that after gerald mcclellan

got hurt said he would never want to go out like that. And he's fighting young badasses in Russia and shit. But if you still think you can do it, it's hard to stop doing it. It's easy for me to say, hey, man, that was your last fight. Let's take it easy. Look at Bernard, right? He's the best example. Fought into his 50s. Right, but he had a style that was crafty enough to have some longevity in it

without taking that kind of damage. Like, Roy will embarrass you. But he's still there in front of you, which is what's the embarrassing part. So if your motor skills slow down, if your reflexes slow down, you're going to get hit. You're going to get knocked out. You're going to get fucked up. But what he told me in an interview, and it might be one of those moments when I was talking to a guy and he said something that was like, I thought I should have known until I heard it. And then I was like, oh, I can't believe I didn't realize that.

He said, it's not the fights that destroy you. It's the gym that destroys you. It's the sparring. Oh, yeah. Those are the rounds that destroy fighters. Oh, yeah. Those are the rounds that destroy fighters. Oh, yeah.

And it's like the hundreds and hundreds of rounds to thousands of rounds that you're fighting that nobody sees, that you're not getting paid for, you're taking that punishment, headgear or not, that's what you're seeing at the end of a fighter's career. Do you remember, was it Danny Jacobs Jr.? Who was it that someone, no, it wasn't him. No No it wasn't him No it wasn't Danny Jacobs It was someone else Someone that said that they stopped sparring

Oh yeah Who the fuck was that Well he was fighting Kovalev And that was Anthony Yard That's right Not that he stopped sparring He said he never sparred And no one believes him And then anyone who does is like well you probably should have been

sparring yeah he looked great in moments in that fight like it was like the eighth round where he had kovalev and deep shit yeah man that was a crazy thing like his philosophy if i remember correctly was yards philosophy was if you don't get hit at all in training you will be so much fresher when you get to the ring so he was doing just ridiculous mitt work and bag work and drills and he already knew how to box so his idea was that he will have some sort of advantage and he was a really fairly green guy right in terms of like world-class competition yeah i mean this is the first really big fight yeah but really physically talented and just built like a brick shithouse. And still is all those things. Yes. But I think

the rub is that you do have to spar. Right. Like, you know, you have to feel shots that no trainer that I've ever had this discussion with, and right after the fight, plenty of people wanted to talk about it. I didn't hear anybody be like, yeah, that

made sense. No, it's just part of it you find that a little bit in mma now donald cerrone was doing that for a while he wasn't sparring at all i was just doing pad work and just doing wrestling drills and stuff like that kickboxing drills yeah listen if if pad work and like a really good workout could make your world champion i'd be like three-time world champion by now. That's not it. Sparring is a reality check. You know what I mean? You need it. Otherwise, you're just doing aerobics. Yeah, you need to be tuned in to movement, to people

and also to danger, to be able to exist and to be able to fire under pressure. You have to take shots. You have to absorb those shots. Keep your eyes open. All of these things. You can't download them yeah you can't simulate them but you can only do that so many times that's the other thing it's like there's only so many times you can survive it you know and gym wars are real they take a toll on people yeah yeah yeah and i wish that we could shoot that

show still because people wouldn't let you? They won't let you? No, everybody— They hide things now? Yeah, everybody thinks that they've got, like— They all have stories, right? The secret. Yeah. Like, there's a story that Klitschko knocked out Deontay in training.

Like, someone, Dylan Weil, was talking about that recently. Mm-hmm. You know? And I don't make much of that because I think it's unfair. I am one of these guys, like, yeah, what happens in the gym stays in there. If I'm in there with a camera and it's a set thing, well then, okay, we know what's going on. Right. But the point of sparring is that you're working on shit.

Right. You're trying things. You know you have weaknesses and you're going to lean on trying new... You're opening up your game. You're opening it up and you're trusting the guy that you're sparring with to help you work on those things and catch you if you're slipping. Yeah. that you're sparring with to help you work on those things and catch you if you're slipping. So then if the guy catches you when you're slipping, and then a month later, he's like, yeah, I caught that motherfucker slipping.

It's like, yo, that's what I was paying you to do, man. Like, what are you talking about? I flew you in. Yeah. So I try not to make much of that. You know what's the craziest story in boxing of the year is Errol Spence Jr. surviving that fucking Ferrari crash. That that's the craziest story of the year when you see that car flip like that and the fact that he got out of that with like a chipped tooth uh i mean that's bonkers

thank god he didn't have a seat belt on i never say that thank god he didn't have a fucking seat belt on because if he did there's no way he would be dead probably or fucking severely injured you know yeah yeah and you know i was in chicago and it was the usic fight that that week when that happened um and it was one of those things where it reminded me when i first heard the news uh of paul williams yes and you realize like yo yeah these guys are warriors they put their life on the line like people die in the ring and all that shit but there's also real life too like there's a whole other life with all its dangers and all the other ways that people can meet tragedy and hurdles you have to overcome and that's the point to put to You almost want to keep them sheltered in a box between fights so that nothing happens.

Nothing can taint what's going to happen in the ring. But these guys are just like everybody else to that degree. Sure. You know what I mean? He's young. He's rich. He's in this town where he grew up. And one night you make a bad decision, changes everything.

Yeah. And so now, until we see him in the ring again, we don't know how that affects him. You just can't. You can't know if we'll ever see the Errol Spence that we saw before. Hopefully we do and better. How badly was he injured? From what I understood, and I follow this very closely, not badly at all.

Like, you're not wrong. Like, from what I understand, he had issues this very closely, not badly at all. You're not wrong. From what I understand, he had issues like teeth being knocked out, lacerations on his face, no broken bones, no... No concussion. No con... I mean, I don't know if he had no concussion, but he had no serious brain injury.

He had no permanent injury whatsoever. That's crazy. But the mental side of it is that to each individual to handle, to be faced with death like that. Right. At that age, whatever the moment was when you were flying through the air, not knowing if you're going to live. Right. You don't know how people adjust to that. It's so bad because him and Crawford god

damn what a fight that would be yeah god damn that is the fight it's almost like I wish Lomachenko was taller you know I wish he was a bigger fighter you know like because Lomachenko versus Crawford was really the fight that I would want to see because those I mean I believe Errol Spence Jr. is right there with them he's a fighter, particularly what he did with Garcia. But Lomachenko and Terrence Crawford are two masters. When I look at them in terms of what they do to their opponents, they're the two. Lomachenko with that crazy movement and footwork.

But Terrence Crawford just figures people out. He finds a way. He switches stances. He'll start out southpaw or start out orthodox then they'll switch up on you start boxing you up he puts all the data into that computer and then starts finding your weaknesses and then he gets nasty with you and i love the i mean one of the things i like about him is how fucking mean he is like you know there's another guy who's like a sweetheart the nicest guy i've had him in here i've had him in here. I've had him in here. He was great. He was a great podcast guest.

But once he starts putting it on dudes, man, there's like a meanness to him, you know? It's like you see he relishes in it. When the dudes go down, he gets a kick out of it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. There's that killer instinct. Oh. But these fights, there's no replacement for them. You can see Terrence in a great

fight. You can see Lomachenko in a great fight. Spence in a great fight. But if they're not fighting each other, we just won't know. Because once you get to an elite level, everybody's so good, you can't say you know how this is going to turn out. Right, right, right. Lomachenko's

too small. I mean, I don't think he's ever going to fight Terrence. I mean, there was a time when the Mikey Garcia fight could have happened with Lomachenko at 35. I don't think he should ever fight at 40 or above. I think he'd say the same. But when you see what Mikey Garcia would happen to him when he went up against Errol Spence, you go, oh, Errol's just way bigger

and stronger and better. Yeah, I mean, he's 147 pound division. Yeah, and he's jacked. Errol Spence is just jacked at 47, like ripped and shredded and at the weigh-in, when I looked at two of them, I was like, wow, that's a difference. Right. That's a difference there.

Again, by the time fight night is, fight night's on, you're fighting a middleweight. Earl's, yeah, Earl's even bigger. I think him, and hopefully he's okay. Hopefully he's okay. And he said he's getting back to the gym and getting back after it. Him and Terrence is the fight. That is the fight. It's a fight.

It's got to happen. it's got to happen. It's got to happen. And neither one of them fighting anybody else will tell us more about what's going to happen when they fight each other. Errol Spence is back in training, right? He's training, isn't he? Yeah, and has been for a while. That's what the reports say.

So are they trying to make something happen soon? Is there an idea of a timeline? I believe. I think he's thinking like May. Like, really? That's, again, these are, you know, this is the talk.

Yeah, I know. It's three months from now. I know. I'm very excited. And he's the kind of guy that's going to want to jump right back into the deep water. I don't think he's a

tune-up fight type of dude. No. Not after the Garcia fight. I'd like to see that one live. That's when I might go to see that one live that's when i might i might go to see that one live yeah i hope it's a t-mobile or something or mgm i might fly in to see that one that one's gonna that's a very very very interesting fight to me uh oh oh okay so this morning oh i went and floated ah Ah, I have a tank here.

Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Okay, first of all, I only did it because you suggested it. And I was like, okay, well, you're so adamant about how dope it is that I was like, let me see if this guy's onto something. A phenomenal experience. It's amazing, right? It's amazing. It's therapeutic.

I felt like I was meditating and then somehow having a muscle relaxing massage at the same time. I couldn't tell at some point whether my eyes were open or closed. I tried to keep my eyes open Instead of closing them and falling asleep But I couldn't tell between daydreaming And sleep dreaming It's such a crazy experience Just be in the pitch black

Just floating Bro I love it I'm a guy's guy Even massages sometimes I don't guy's guy. Even massages sometimes, I'm just like, I don't know. Too manly for massages. Especially because you're in such a macho business, right? Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And this is perfect for guys. Meditating seems a little too, you know. It's great for your muscles too, man. All that Epsom salts. It's really good. It loosens everything up. My bow's got to crack in.

I felt like I had a massage when I got out. Looses you up. Yeah. So kudos to you for finding that. Thanks. That's awesome, man. I'm glad. I'm really excited.

I try to tell more people about it. You know, there's, did you go to the float lab? Which place did you go to? I went to Just Float. Where's that at? In Pasadena. That's the biggest place in the world, apparently. Is it?

Yes. Because people were talking about how they get claustrophobic and it's like a constricted tube. But this place, it's like a spa. It's a big room. The tub's big. You're not enclosed at all. You got your own room. They use float lab stuff.

They use all the float lab stuff i'm pretty sure don't think pretty sure uh float lab my friend crash who uh runs the started and runs the float lab he built my tank and uh i met him actually when i had an old tank a different tank and the guy there was a friend of mine who was a tank repair guy he was doing repair on my tank and i said you know these tanks are good but there's a guy of mine who was a tank repair guy. He was doing repair on my tank. And I said, you know, these tanks are good, but there's a guy in Venice that makes the best tanks ever. He's like a mad scientist. He goes, you should talk to him.

I'm like, you know, you have some money. Get a better tank. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, get a better tank. And I'm like, wow. So I contacted this dude. I went to see his shit. And I was like, I mean, he makes them.

They look like built-in. They're like walk-in freezers. Like mine is seven tall it's nine feet long it's huge they're giant i mean it's it's a big fucking heavy door and shit it's fully insulated yeah he's got like commercial water filtration system uh filters so like you use that to like for a town's water supply it's ridiculous they see the equipment back there it's fucking bonkers how often do you do it i have been slacking i haven't been in it lately i haven't been in over a month but uh that's just because the last month i've been so fucking busy but uh i'm actually planning on getting in there tomorrow i'm excited see all right so plans you are a man of many hats, right? Obviously, you do so

many things, but is there an overriding passion? Because I only have the one thing. You ask me if I do other stuff, whatever. Yeah, on the margins. But this boxing, this world is my world. Everything else is just,

should I do in between? Is one of the things you do really who you are? If you had to get rid of everything else is just should i do in between is there one is one of the things you do like really who you are if you had to get rid of everything else what's the one thing you got i don't think i'd get rid of stand-up if i had to choose one thing i would keep doing stand-up because it's probably the most challenging podcasts are probably the easiest but they're challenging too depending upon the guest especially if it's like a really intricate subject or this you know it's about physics or history or something where I have to do some reading and really try to keep up with it.

But podcasts are fun because I like talking to people. So it's, to me, it's like the easiest job because I've always loved conversations. I've always loved like, tell me how you do that. What are you thinking when you're doing that? Like what's going on?

Like I'm always trying to figure out my own mind like what are my own motivations and how do i get better at things how do i get better at being a person and one of the best ways is to talk to people that are exceptional and try to figure out like how are you doing that like what what is your approach how do you prepare what's your thought process you know what are you eating how you sleep? That kind of stuff. So to me, it comes – I've always been curious. So it almost becomes natural. And then I've been doing it so long, even though it doesn't seem like it should be, conversation does become a skill.

It's something you get better at not being annoying. You get better at not talking over people. You get better at formulating sentences and being inquisitive um the UFC is just a massive passion of mine from you know the time I've been a martial artist for as long as I can remember so for me and like dedicated from the time I was 15 on like dedicated like my whole life I didn't do any partying in high school all i did was fight all i did was compete travel all over the country and compete in taekwondo tournaments that was my whole life so my my life has been deeply enriched by martial arts so then when the ufc came around

and i realized like oh this is the future this is what martial arts really should be they should this is the stuff that really works. We didn't really know before that. Before the UFC came along, there was all this speculation. What's better? Is judo better? Is boxing better? Is wrestling better?

And then when you see them go after it, you're like, oh, it's a combination of things. And everybody has their own unique way of implementing this combination of things. And then you get to the highest levels of the game and you find some constant variables but something i mean things change and the sports ever evolving and shifting and the the new guys now in 2020 are so much better than the guys in 2010 and way better than the guys in 2000 and way better than the guys in 1993 when the first ufc was held for me, that is like a hobby, I would have to say, or just a thing that is a constant part of my life. But that's one of the easiest jobs because all I have to do is be interested in it,

and I'm already interested in it. So I'm already watching fights, and then before the fights, I'll rewatch certain important championship fights, and I'll rewatch fights where fighters had difficulty and stuff stuff like that but I do that because I love it you know I might do that anyway even if it wasn't my job so by the time I get to like a John Jones Dominic Reyes fight like this past weekend I've watched hours of footage of those guys just that week just because I'm interested I just keep watching stuff. I keep watching difficult fights and easy fights and dominant fights. I watch training footage.

But that's like I probably would do that anyway if I had the time. Like if I'm sitting in my computer and I don't have shit to do, I'll watch the training footage. I'll watch a countdown show. I want to see what's going on. I'm excited for the fight, so I'll get pumped. I'll do that for this Wilder Fury fight. I'm going to watch all kinds of shit. I want to hear them talk. I want to see the fight. So I'll get pumped. I'll do that for this Wilder Fury fight. I'm going to watch

all kinds of shit. I want to hear them talk. I want to see the training. I want to see them running and hitting the bag. I want to see all that stuff. Yeah. See, I'm the same in that everything that I do somehow informs that single passion that I have. Like talking to fighters, looking into a fight and figuring out what the narrative really is, how many things hang in the balance, not just a championship belt or somebody's bragging rights, but all the things that they bring to it personally and the communities that they represent

and all the things that are on the line, down the line. I get caught up in that shit. But when I'm working out in my mind, I'm in the gym. When I'm hitting the bag, when i'm hitting the bag when i'm sparring other guys even conversations can be sparring sessions i gotta be prepared for that kind of back and forth and i use that information i collect about myself and how to

react and respond to other people in a boxing gym yeah So I ask this because my other thing as a hobby or like a fascination, something I would never do, is I'm a huge stand-up fan. I'm a huge stand-up fan. I will watch like stand-up comedy like guys I've never heard of. I go to the clubs, all this stuff. How much does the judo, the martial arts, the discipline inform the craft on the stage for you? I think all three things work together in some strange way. They all work together.

Doing live stand-up makes doing podcasts easier. Because live stand-up is you need a reaction. There's so much preparation involved. There's writing. There's thinking about subjects. There's listening to recordings. There's going over them. There's multiple reps.

You have to do like I'm doing two sets tonight. I'll do two sets tomorrow. I got one on Thursday, two Friday, two Saturday. And this is a normal week. That's normal. You have to do those reps. If you don't do those reps, you won't be sharp. You have to be sharp if you want to do shows, especially now I'm doing arenas. Like a lot of these arenas, it's a lot of fucking people, man.

You got to be ready. You can't be, I'm pretty ready. You got to be ready, right? So that is like there's a lot of discipline involved in that. you got to be ready right so that is like there's a lot of discipline involved in that and then the podcast expands my my perspective i taught just being able to talk to people and see the way people think just talking to you about your experience with deontay wilder the way that you framed that in an incredibly positive way that it it helped you and helped everybody there's a lot of people that would have been tortured by that moment

and it would have fucked them up, but you became empowered by it. And you looked at it as a growing, learning opportunity, but also an opportunity for the growth of you as a broadcaster, for the fight, for everything. And then it became this crazy meme. It was ultimately only positive, although in the moment, you're tied up in knots reading the comments like, fucking Beyonce's mad at me.

All these people are mad at me. Snoop's mad at me. This whole thing, they all work together. And then the UFC, being able to have the honor of calling these fights live with the greatest fighters in the world and being able to put words to their performance and and and give a description of the the heart and the courage and the skill that these guys exhibit and the discipline involved in getting to this state as a mixed martial artist like how what an epic commitment you have to have to excellence to become a John Jones.

Right. To become, you know, a Henry Cejudo or fill in the blank. You have to, it's a special type of human. So I think when you're around those special types of humans, you have a higher appreciation for excellence. You have a higher appreciation for discipline. appreciation for excellence. You have a higher appreciation for discipline. And I think just seeing what they do and watching it manifest itself in real life, a Conor McGregor or, you know, or a Max Holloway or Alex Volkanovsky, all these different killers that have had this opportunity to call their fights. It makes me appreciate excellence.

And that's why you get pissed off when someone dismisses that kind of excellence with a shtick yes yes yes i don't well i also think you know it has to be your thing you know you can't you can't bullshit you can't just go by some stats that you read online or that a producer gives you you you have to understand the complexities because if you don't people will know it's like if you try to talk to understand the complexities because if you don't, people will know. It's like, if you try to talk shit to someone in French and you only know 20 words, you can say those 20 words good,

but then someone goes, oh, oui, oui, and then they start busting out other words you don't know. You're like, oh, no, I done fucked up. Got myself in a quagmire. That's it. That's what it's like if you're like oh no i done fucked up got myself in a quagmire that's it that's what it's like if you're talking shit about mma if you don't really understand the sport you know i've i've been involved in the sport in one way or another professionally since 1997 you know that's when i first started working for the ufc so it's been that's a long fucking time man you know that's a long fucking time i keep hearing rumors

that dana white is going to become a boxing promoter i've heard for like five years he is yeah they are yeah they're working on some shit i can't really tell you much but they're definitely working on some shit yeah they um they put together the conor mcgregor and floyd may with a junior fight of course with tme um uh with Floyd's company, TBE, rather. What is it called? Mayweather Promotions. The money team? Yeah.

TMT. TMT, right. That's what his promotion team is called, right? TMT? Mayweather Promotions. Mayweather Promotions. Mayweather Promotions crew, I guess. TMT, yeah.

So he and they did this sort of co-promotion for that big fight, and then they're working on some other thing with Floyd, where Floyd wants to get involved with them to promote something else. And it might involve MMA fighters. It might involve boxers. And they've actively talked to a bunch of other boxers. And they're trying to put some stuff together. But, yeah, Zufa boxing is a real thing. The UFC wants to put together some boxing matches And maybe even Some crossover fights

I just wonder how that works Cause the The UFC model Just won't exist In the boxing world Like you can't You won't have enough control You don't have to

You just have to schedule A couple big fights I mean They're not gonna do it Like they do the UFC Where they do A fight Like the UFC

Literally is a fight Every week Yeah Right now Like for the next five weeks There's a fight every weekend And people are For the next five weeks, there's a fight every weekend. And people are hitting pay-per-view dollars. Well, it's ESPN Plus or ESPN and sometimes pay-per-view dollars. Some of the fights are free.

I thought the ESPN, because I have ESPN Plus, and I was like, oh, great. Should I get to watch these UFC fights for like $5.99 a month? Nope. Yeah. No. Still. It's still like $65. Yeah, I bought it on my TV this morning.

I watched it again when I was lifting this morning and I had to pay 65 bucks. You know, but it's a weird thing, right? Like you can't really do it where it's just $5.99 and don't have pay-per-view because then the big fights won't be big fights. You know, they want... How does DAZN have it do you have to pay no you don't that's their whole thing oh so like Tyson Fury and Deontay that's going to be on DAZN no no no Tyson Fury and Deontay I think is a simulcast between Fox if simulcast is the right word and ESPN in other words they're going to have their own separate pay-per-views that you can watch

whichever production you like which is going to be something like Really? Yeah. So who's the commentators? Then it becomes who's the commentators. It depends on where you tune in.

If you go to ESPN, you'll hear their people. They got their own I think they have their own broadcast. Why don't they use Max Kellerman? I am so confused. i loved his boxing commentary and he doesn't comment on live fights anymore i think that's got to be his own choice i mean i can't imagine that they don't want how the fuck would he not want to do that he was so good at it

i don't know he was one of my favorite guys andre ward was also one of my favorite guys. He's – I love Andre Ward for a bunch of reasons, but one, for the fact that that guy, undefeated, gold medalist, two-division world champion, goes, you know what? We're good. Walked away. Just walked away. And I sense that he will stay away. Oh, yeah.

He's going to stay away. You know, they talked to him about Canelo after canelo knocked out kovalev and uh he made a this long statement about that he's better off for boxing even for boxing outside of fighting you know he knows like he's so smart man he's so smart and so disciplined he's just so disciplined he knows like there's no reason there's no reason to come back this is the right way to do it there's there's big money in coming back but there's no reason there's no reason to come back this is the right way to do it there's there's big money in coming back but there's also big brain damage the ego after you retire is the biggest fight of your life like you're exactly right this guy's undefeated i'm sure if you're gonna talk to him off camera i could beat beat Canelo. Like, you know what I mean? Of course he must think that

just because of who he is. You just gotta think that. So to think, to stop yourself from the money, the glory one more time, the possibility of, could you imagine

coming out of retirement and beating like, Canelo Alvarez? To be able to be like, you know what? It's better for me and it's better for boxing if I stay retired and keep sitting ringside

and talking about these fights and the way I do. That's a special kind of character. He's a special person. But he also has this issue with his right shoulder. His right shoulder was basically broken most of his career. And he got it fixed before the second Kovalev fight. And he actually wound up hurting Kovalev fight and he actually wound up hurting kovalev real bad with a right hand which if you watch his career he was like a left-handed

fighter from the majority of his super spinatus was like ripped off like it was really fucked up and he tried to rehab it with bands instead of going through surgery when he was young and so most of his career he beat the best fighters in the world. Carl Frotch, all those guys, one-handed. Which is even more insane. Even more insane. And then, you know, had the surgery, rehabbed it, but he said it's still not 100%. It's never going to be 100%.

Right, which is why people are afraid of surgery. It's like, you know, I'd rather do the bands or anything than take the chance. But it's better than it was before. I think before he had like 40% use of his shoulder, which is crazy. Yeah. Beating the – he said he never felt like he could throw a good punch. He always felt like it was going to blow out on him.

Jeez. Isn't that nuts? Yeah. Fucked everybody up with one hand. That's how you make yourself a legend. Oh, yeah. He's definitely a legend. But, I mean, maybe an underappreciated legend, you know, in terms of mainstream boxing viewpoint.

I don't think the mainstream public really appreciates how great he was. No. In his time or after. It will take, like, people reflecting on history, I think. Unfortunately for him, his kids and their kids might get the benefit of who their dad or grandfather was more so than he's getting it now. Yeah. Well, there's certain great fighters that for whatever reason, they never really captured the public's imagination, even though they were great. You know, like Marlon Starling, who was a fantastic welterweight, knocked out Mark Breland, who was actually now Deontay Wilder's trainer.

But I remember when Mark Breland was coming from the Olympics, and he was this really long, tall welterweight, and he fought Starling, and Starling wasn't appreciated enough. And Starling put it on him. And you realize that there's guys out there that for whatever reason people don't appreciate them as much as they should.

Yeah, timing's everything. Also, you gotta catch... It's unfortunate, but as much as we hate just guys putting on an act or hyping themselves up with these characters they create, that is bankable. We all know guys who

don't deserve the shots that they continue to get but because they bring an audience with their shit talking or with their antics and all the the show that they put on it's better than the fight yeah you know who's the most confusing to me is julio cesar chavez jr he's confusing to me like that last fight i'm like what are you doing? Like you're saying, the guy headbutted me, my nose is broken, I'm quitting. I was like, what are you doing? Do you not understand?

You're Mexican. Like those are the hardest motherfuckers on earth when it comes to boxing. You're not just Mexican. You are the son of the man. You're the son of the guy. You are the son of the man. You're the son of the guy. He won something like 31 world title fights. Some insane number.

He has the record of world title wins. Which is also an unattainable goal. If you decide to go into boxing and your father is Julio Cesar Chavez. Dude, one of the goats. is Julio Cesar Chavez. Dude. One of the GOATs. What do you hope to... Oh, my God.

How far can you hope to get in legacy? I almost feel bad for the guy because there's got to be so much going on in his head to put him in the place where he's at. But yet he's talented. He's a good fighter. His skills, his ability to put hands on people are very good but i think also there's something about growing up wealthy yeah it's just almost impossible like you kind of have to have some part of your life that was

fucked up and you didn't think it was gonna work out where where you didn't think it was going to work out where where you didn't think there was there was a future and there's a burn that never goes out there's like a little fire that never goes out ease is a greater challenge than adversity yes it is man there's something about comfort that just makes bitches out of people it just does it's so hard to overcome that. You can't like your dad made $50 million. You're going to be fine. You know, there's something about that that just, for whatever reason, it just haunts people. Yeah, I mean, he would almost have to have,

there'd be something burning brightly inside him, almost like a resentment for his father, unfortunately. I don't think love could propel you to like even come anywhere near his legacy. You'd actually have to hate the guy just to be fire burning bright enough to attain anything close to what he did. And I feel bad for his dad too. His dad watching him quit. I'm like, oh no.

But he's a loving father, man. It's not the first time he's been embarrassed. He keeps coming back like, alright, this is the one. This is the time. One more. The Canelo fight was a rough one, too. But Canelo outclassed him, you know?

Canelo was just a better fighter. And Chubb is not a quitter. At least this last time, he may have had a point. Maybe he was headbutt, maybe the elbows. But quitting and boxing, obviously, is the cardinal sin. He wasn't that fucked up. It wasn't like his nose was pouring blood and he couldn't breathe out of it anymore and it was from a blatant foul.

He looked okay, right? Yeah. Maybe there was something going on that we couldn't see, but he looked okay. And then he took videos from the hospital the next day with tape on his nose. Right. Lay low. He was not healthy. Lay low for a while

bro yeah what is it what else is exciting for you on the horizon boxing wise what are you looking at i'm i'm anticipating and eagerly awaiting the return of manny pacquiao listen we can't not talk about pacquiao when we talk about the welterweight division. Because he's 40 and he's not in the news all the time, he's not at press conferences, we only talk about him when he's got a fight sign, that sometimes in these conversations we forget, yo, he's a world title holder, he just dominated a guy that there's no way at his age he should have been able to dominate, considering who Keith Thurman was two years prior, before his surgery. Pacquiao could ruin everybody's shit.

Like, you know what I mean? But what do you think about, do you think that he would ever step up and fight Terrence Crawford at this stage of his career? I don't think that fight happens for multiple reasons. I wouldn't suggest it if I was in his camp. Also, I don't think that any more than they want to make the Spence-Crawford fight, do they want to put Pac out in that kind of harm's way and give top-ranking ESPN an opportunity to dethrone him. Like, you know, he's with the Heyman camp now. It's the same with Spence.

So that is going to protect him. He's not going to have to say whether or not he really wants to fight because I don't think he can get it. Manny Pacquiao inks deal with Paradigm Sports management who represent Conor McGregor. Oh, Jesus. That's probably what they're gonna do manny packout conor mcgregor no thanks that's probably what the ufc wants to try to do

is well is that the thing maybe they heard you talking about i was like well just got posted a half hour ago oh shit while we're talking oh shit i gotta tell you i am if that's the thing all that anticipation and eagerly awaiting shit just flew out the window. Well, here it is, an opportunity for Manny Pacquiao to make a fuckload of money. I mean, that's how I'd look at it. I'd look at it for Manny to make $100 million. But you'd have to sell the public. I mean, they already watched Floyd Mayweather box circles around him.

They're going to sell it. Of course it's going to. That's why it's going to be $100 million. But I'm going to be irritated by every single brown penny that's spent on that fight. It's going to be my nemesis. You know what you're really going to be irritated by? The people that think that Conor has a chance. It's easy.

What are you doing? Come on guys What if they give him Six months What if he has some What if he fights Paulie Malinowski first I tell you what I would pay for

Manny Pacquiao Versus either Errol Spence Or Crawford. I would pay for either one of those fights. I would like that. That's what I would like to see. I think while Manny's 40, I mean, after the Keith Thurman fight, he has

shown that he's still a legit world beater. Terrence Crawford is the cream of the crop, in my opinion. I want to see that. You know what would be more exciting than both of those fights? Sean Porter. Ooh, that's a good fight, too. Manny Pacquiao versus Sean Porter would be a hell of a night of box.

Very good fight, too. Very good fight, too. Yeah. I don't believe in this. I believe in world champions, although there's way too many of them in every weight division. I believe in world champions, although there's way too many of them in every weight division. This fucking, like, oh, undefeated fighters are the only ones that are worth talking about. There's one thing I love about the UFC and MMA culture, period, is that losing a fight doesn't mean losing your whole fucking brand.

Like, if you go out there, comport yourself well, leave it all in the octagon, you live to fight another day and people still respect the effort you put forward. They recognize that if you're fighting guys at your level, you'll win some and you'll lose some and hopefully you'll win more than you lose and that's how you become the man. But losing some doesn't

make you a bitch. Doesn't make you like a bum. Well, I think Manny's kind of proven that. I mean, remember when Manuel Marquez put him in an orbit? Yeah. Just put him in an orbit around Jupiter. Took him four times to do it. But I'll tell you what. I said it on the night, too.

By the way, that is the most electric boxing atmosphere I've ever been a part of. I've been covered by this my entire adult life. They knew when they were singing the anthem. The Mexicans were singing the Mexican anthem before the fight. And I was sitting there with a friend of mine, also a fellow journalist, Sean Zatel. And we were sitting up in the rafters. We weren't even sitting in the press row.

We were sitting like, I didn't want to be bothered with all the yfters we're even sitting in the press row we were sitting like we i didn't want to be bothered with all the the yammering that goes on the press row so i found seats like up above the ring and when they were singing that anthem we look at each other like uh-oh something is about to happen here tonight this is we knew it was a special night and bro when he knocked out manny pacquiao he should have crowd surfed to mexico and never ever laced up a pair of boxing gloves again right yeah and he never fought him again that's what's really interesting i thought they would have had another one he should never fought anybody again it's never gonna get ever better than that night in that moment yeah but he'll still always have that forever and there's something about especially latino fighters

it's like they almost kind of have to keep going like all the greats kept going all the great chavez kept going way past he should have you know and then you know i mean so so many of them just keep going. Roberto Duran, you know, kept going forever. Yo, I mean, it's an addiction. It's a lifestyle. And if you still believe you can do it, like I'm still better than most of those guys, why not keep doing it? One more W? Who doesn't want one more W?

Yeah. Yeah, so I decided to pick a career with a little bit more longevity in it. And no physical downside. Exactly. We're going to tuck everybody right into the grave. That's the thing about what you're doing. You get to see the real consequences that some of these guys face. Yeah.

And it is a dark thing to see a fight where you see a guy get beaten down and the referee stops the fight and they see him slump into the corner and collapse you know and i've seen that only on television i haven't seen that live when the stretcher comes out yeah you know what i mean it's because sometimes the knockout doesn't look that vicious like i mean it's a knockout but you're not as soon as the guy goes down, you're not gasping. Then the guy's not moving. Right. The guy's not responding.

Well, you remember the Gerald McClellan fight. He took a knee. And then people were questioning him. And then he slumped and collapsed in his corner. Yeah, I mean, it's the most, combat sports are the most brutal of all contests. I mean, football is probably next you know but out of the the difference is with combat sports is a guy doing it to you and you're trying to do it to him i mean it's the only thing that's happening there there's not a ball going across a

line right there's only a guy trying to fuck you up and you're trying to fuck him up right and the lack of protective equipment yeah is part of the fight like you're in your underwear yeah you're basically in your underwear with shoes on in an mma you don't even have shoes on correct yeah and your fingertips are showing i mean it's fucking you're about as naked as you can get legally and compete in something i mean thank god obviously but i am surprised that there hasn't been more serious injury in MMA. I don't know if that's just because of how long we've been paying attention. I don't know. I think it's good refereeing.

MMA has some pretty exceptional referees that are very aware of the dangers of guys taking extra shots. There's also a thing where they don't get a chance to recover like they do in boxing where a guy gets knocked down and then they give them an eight count there's none of that shit when you get knocked down in mma if the referee thinks it's over they just wave it off because there's too many weapons right you're elbowing people in the face you're kicking them there's like if they think you're done you're done you know they don't give you that chance the standing eight counts the you know they don't they don't that 10 count there's something about that 10 count it's great because it makes for moments like Tyson Fury rising off the deck to win the rest of the round with Deontay

Wilder in that 12th but it also it gives your brain a false sense of recovery like you're fucked up man you know like you really probably shouldn't be going on in mma you really don't get a chance to go on when they stop it they stop it if the referee's in front of you the fight's over when i first started watching mma there was no ufc right i had like the bootleg box in my room and we get the fuzzy channel and people are getting their fucking arms broken and shit and like head butted and blood all over between you and I just between you okay which one did you like better did you like like the first iteration of no and pretty much everything no I like skills better now the guys are way more skillful and that's what's

interesting to me what's what's interesting to me more than anything is the growth of the understanding of what works and what doesn't work, of skill, of technique. That's the most important thing to me. Guys like Mighty Mouse. He was one of my favorite fighters to watch because he would fuck people up and not even get hit. He'd be moving on people in ways where they didn't even know what was happening until he was doing it. It was too late. He'd already hit you. He was moving these different angles.

He'd catch people with arm bars. He'd fuck you up with knees in the clinch. He was, in my opinion, the greatest expression of mixed martial arts talent. And because he was so next level in terms of his ability to implement his strategy on you, and you couldn't do shit to him. But he didn't get a chance to fight the level of talent as a guy like john jones john jones is fascinating to me because he's been able to stay on top for almost a fucking decade only fighting world-class top of the food chain world championship caliber fighters which is just

amazing like no one's been able to do that john's undefeated he has one loss by disqualification it's a bullshit loss that was a from a bullshit rule where you're not supposed to elbow like this. Elbow from 12 to 6. It's supposed to come down at an angle, which makes no sense. And I've described it too many times to go into details. It's an ignorant rule. It shouldn't exist. But he beat the fuck out of Matt Hamill winning that fight.

There was no way Matt Hamill was winning that fight. John dominated him. So John's undefeated. And he's been undefeated, youngest ever world champion, 23 years old, won the world championship in the UFC and has dominated ever since. I mean, that's insane. That to me is one of the most impressive things in all of sports, watching that guy achieve a record that might never be achieved again. be achieved again it the the thing about boxing that has my imagination and my fascination continually sparked is the the finite nature of the tools and the weapons that you have to use

yeah right i respect and appreciate mma but it's almost like the antithesis of that in that they have so many things they can use and whatnot. It's an entirely different discipline. Yeah. But you're coming from a martial arts background. So I grew up on Kung Fu movies, right? And so when I started watching this shit, these guys were in geese. They were like, you know, I said, like, it's the the Gracies breaking arms and whatnot, and that made sense to me.

And I understood why a boxer wouldn't fight a karate man or a judo guy or whatever, because that's what the science is for me. What you can do with these two hands and two feet are the only way you can evade and all of that. But why can't the karate man, why isn't there like a Bruce Lee of MMA? As a martial artist, can you still believe in like one discipline after all this MMA is proven? It doesn't work? There's no real one discipline that will work best in MMA.

You have to know everything. But if I was going to say what discipline is the most important, I would say wrestling. Because if you can't keep a guy from taking you down, he's going to be on top of you. He's going to hold you down. He's going to punch you in the face. It's a giant advantage to be able to hold a guy down and be able to punch his face in. And you can't really do much when the guy's on top of you. That said, from there, you have to understand jiu-jitsu.

Because if you don't, you could hold a guy down. Then all of a sudden, he wraps his legs around your neck and you're caught in a triangle and you go to sleep. And every fight starts standing. So you have to have some understanding of striking because you have to be able to close the distance. But there's no one way to do it. That's what's interesting to me. It's like there's Anderson Silva's way to do it, who's the greatest middleweight of all time, and his way to do it was through striking.

He would just stay up with guys and just fuck them up with timing and precision and Muay Thai. But then there's guys like Daniel Cormier who would take guys down and beat the fuck out of them, choke them, you know? And there's a bunch of different people with a bunch of different styles in between. But if you look at the majority of world champions, the majority, except maybe a couple weight classes,

they're dominated by wrestlers. Yeah. There's a lot of pictures on the internet by the way of me with anderson silva's tag you think you're anderson silva you don't look anything like anderson you wouldn't believe how many people stop me especially if i'm in like vegas when there's a ufc event i think you're anderson silva think I'm Anderson Silva. That's ridiculous. You don't look like Anderson Silva, man. I'm telling you. I don't think so either.

But I'm telling you, I get it. A lot. Well, people are weird. I mean, I even dressed up for him on Halloween and went over gangbusters. That's funny. Did you wear the Bruce Lee outfit? Yeah, of course. I wore the Bruce Lee outfit.

I had a beanie, but it was Wu-Tang. I will find that picture and show it to you afterwards. Well, listen, man. I'm glad we had this conversation. It was a lot of fun. It was brilliant. By the way, I hope at some point every single 30 million people that watch your shit get a chance to stop by the studio personally. This is the dopest studio thank you i've ever been

in i don't you must live here i would just live here i don't know what is going on but like everything in here feels like the dude i'm talking to and so kudos to you like thanks for having me thanks brother my pleasure i really appreciate it it's a lot of fun talking to you i'm glad we got a chance to air that story out too to this this day! Tell people your Instagram and all your jazz. Oh, yeah, my Instagram, Radio Raheem Boxing, R-A-H-I-M, Radio Raheem on Facebook. And on YouTube, you can find my content at SecondsOutTV. Beautiful. Thank you, brother.

Bye, everybody. See you. Peace. Bye. Woo! all right