Speaker 1: Boris and this is straight talk. Michael Cats. Welcome mate
Speaker 1: to straight talk.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm very privileged to have you sit in front of
Speaker 1: me like this, mate, privileged to be here. Turn it
Speaker 1: up right mate, Okay, We've got a lot to cover. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you know, I'm a boxing student, tragic. I love
Speaker 1: the game. But there's lots of talk about, particularly in
Speaker 1: relation to your career. But probably importantly, take me back
Speaker 1: to midwest. We call Queensland. Whether it's up on the
Speaker 1: table lands, isn't it. Yeah, take me back to who
Speaker 1: Michael CATSI this was as a young kid. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you box from a very young age. Amts
Speaker 1: your dad a box at what's the deal?
Speaker 2: No? No, dad comes from Greece. He was born there.
Speaker 2: He's from a very small, small village called Ataraki. It's
Speaker 2: near Larissa, which is three hours in lands from Athens.
Speaker 2: So you come over here when you I think he
Speaker 2: was like twenty years old something like that and married Mum.
Speaker 2: She's from Mari and they married to Ma. Yeah yeah yeah, mum,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah. But they were very young and they had
Speaker 2: my brother and I. There's eighteen months difference between Stathi,
Speaker 2: my older brother. We went on to go into our
Speaker 2: respective sports. Well, I was. I was born later, born
Speaker 2: in Timba, so I was born and bred out of
Speaker 2: Timba and got into the boxing. My brother got into
Speaker 2: the horse racing.
Speaker 1: We both Stuffy was older than you. But was he
Speaker 1: born in Toma too? He was.
Speaker 2: He was actually born in Mare born. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: folks move out to but that's right, and I was
Speaker 2: born eighteen months later, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you just said stay went into the jockey. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just went into the young kids. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like our sport of kings. Really why did
Speaker 2: choose boxing and racing, don't? I think it's the the adrenaline,
Speaker 2: like the adrenaline rush that you get from the sports,
Speaker 2: and just the challenge like like like I remember being
Speaker 2: as a little kid and Dad used to go and help
Speaker 2: a lot of people that couldn't afford to have their
Speaker 2: graves completed and that. So we had some people, old
Speaker 2: people lived in our neighborhood and he'd talk to them
Speaker 2: and he'd learned that he was a concreted by trade,
Speaker 2: so that we'd spend like days on end, like on
Speaker 2: a weekends, Daddo'd go and help these people do love
Speaker 2: jobs basically. And we were in these graveyards till late
Speaker 2: at night, and not late at night, but until dark basically,
Speaker 2: which is late enough in a graveyard. And that'd be
Speaker 2: finishing off these these boneheads for people's days. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but there was these old brumbies in there like charity
Speaker 2: thing just just to help you just love jobs to
Speaker 2: people who hadn't been other get you know, proper graves
Speaker 2: complete for their parents and stuff. This has gone back
Speaker 2: like forty you know, long thirty five years ago, at
Speaker 2: least thirty eight years. But there's all these brumbies in
Speaker 2: there in the graveyard and we'd jump on the horses
Speaker 2: and we just ride them and like I just no
Speaker 2: way not doing this bare back, bare back. Yeah, just
Speaker 2: jump him and my brother would just he would just
Speaker 2: hang on. He would just go. He would just go.
Speaker 2: He would fly, you know. He's yeah, he was fearless,
Speaker 2: always fearless. And my grandfather, my mom's father, he's passed,
Speaker 2: but he was a jockey and also a horse trainer
Speaker 2: as well being timber has An Australia's first ever twilight
Speaker 2: racing and Timber so very popular industry start. He just
Speaker 2: you know, he was twelve.
Speaker 1: Years of age.
Speaker 2: You'd go to the you know, go be cleaning out
Speaker 2: stables and he'd work for these different people and just
Speaker 2: very much involved in against him from a very young age.
Speaker 2: He was always destined to be a jockey. That was
Speaker 2: what he was always going to do.
Speaker 1: But he knew it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just knew that's what he wanted to do.
Speaker 2: He didn't finish school. He stept out grade nine. He
Speaker 2: stepped out and then he just just become an apprentice.
Speaker 2: And just I remember being a little kid ringing people,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, just thirteen twelve years old, Oh
Speaker 2: starthy cats is calling. I was wondering if you need
Speaker 2: a jockey for the weekend on your and ring up.
Speaker 2: You know. He was just you know, you just keep
Speaker 2: on going at and going on. And then he went
Speaker 2: under be one of Australia's greatest horse riders.
Speaker 1: So I would just give me a little bit of
Speaker 1: a sense of Toomba, you know long ago. It was
Speaker 1: a long time ago now, but give me a sense
Speaker 1: of what was like. I mean, you've got a Greek father.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, your Greek father would probably stand out like
Speaker 1: in some of like warm but they're they're all real guys.
Speaker 1: I guess. And then you've got two half casts. One
Speaker 1: one wants to be a stable hand and turn into
Speaker 1: a joggy one day, and the other ones may be
Speaker 1: going to become a box. He might be, but it
Speaker 1: might not have worked that out. But his job, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have worked that out. But like these two boys
Speaker 1: running around the joint, like give me, give me a
Speaker 1: bit of a pen pen sketch of what it would
Speaker 1: look like.
Speaker 2: Look, look dad, Dad was a very hard worker. So
Speaker 2: he was he was a concrete and he had a
Speaker 2: lot of people working for him as well. Excuse me.
Speaker 2: We were just very dedicated guys, like to to our
Speaker 2: sport and I think we for ours, for us to
Speaker 2: receive any sort of gratitude, we would just work really
Speaker 2: hard and do really well. So we always were pushed.
Speaker 2: Our parents would always take us to sports and you know,
Speaker 2: we take we'd play soccer, you know, we'd play a
Speaker 2: lot of soccer and whatever it is, activities, we'll get it.
Speaker 2: Mum and Dad would always take us to it. So
Speaker 2: but in Twimber, you know, for us, you know, we
Speaker 2: would blend in and and you know, but it's tumers
Speaker 2: like it's a beautiful place, beautiful people country down but
Speaker 2: now now it's actually a city. Has grown over the years.
Speaker 2: But back when we were living there, there would have
Speaker 2: only been like eighty thousand, one hundred thousand people. Now
Speaker 2: I think there's up to two hundred and two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand people in Timber.
Speaker 1: It's quite a wealthy area too.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it has perpa per capita has for a
Speaker 2: long time had the largest amount of millionaires really per capita.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, probably coming from grazing families or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so so yeah, yeah, so like the lot
Speaker 2: of the people, Yeah, that's exactly right. So people that
Speaker 2: have big properties and all that, and then like I
Speaker 2: end up having the luxury have been able to go
Speaker 2: to a boarding school later on and we'll complete high school.
Speaker 2: But in Wombera and Britain, yeah, Downlands College in Timber
Speaker 2: and a lot of the kids that I was, I
Speaker 2: was a day ago, so go by day and I'd
Speaker 2: go home by night. But a lot of people were
Speaker 2: from wealthy families on farms that they would want to
Speaker 2: send their kids into town for a proper school, and
Speaker 2: they'd send them to go to Downlands or grammar school.
Speaker 1: Not many boxes you can say they got a background,
Speaker 1: going to a good school.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and that's just how did you get that
Speaker 2: sporting thing? No, yes, yeah, scholarship was one avenue that
Speaker 2: we could have went along. But like boxing hasn't really
Speaker 2: been an accepted sport, like back, we're going back a
Speaker 2: while now, like I graduated in nineteen ninety eight. You know,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it wasn't boxing wasn't something a sport
Speaker 2: that you would get a scholarship for, whereas now I
Speaker 2: do believe people do get scholarships for boxing and someone.
Speaker 2: But and soccer was a sport that I was always
Speaker 2: really good as well. I paid representative soccer, but rugby
Speaker 2: union or rugby league and those sort of things. Yet
Speaker 2: you straight in, but.
Speaker 1: What did your parents just send you there as a
Speaker 1: just the fees?
Speaker 2: They paid the fees, and you know, Dad was a
Speaker 2: hard working man, and that's right, that's right. And so
Speaker 2: it was like my I was lucky to have parents
Speaker 2: that loved me and would support me and drive me
Speaker 2: all the way. And my brother and I both you know,
Speaker 2: like we knew when we were in trouble, Like Dad's
Speaker 2: English wasn't always the best and there's always broken English,
Speaker 2: and oh my luck you know, we pick up all
Speaker 2: these swear words and we didn't really then we picked
Speaker 2: on later in life what they really meant. But Greek, yeah,
Speaker 2: well mum did speak great, she did. Mum was very intelligent,
Speaker 2: so she was duck with the school five years and
Speaker 2: this is but she was really smart. So she learned
Speaker 2: language to cater for the family, to make dad's family
Speaker 2: proud of her, you know, and you know and understand
Speaker 2: them basically. But yeah, mum's very very very intelligent.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's around yeap. Mum.
Speaker 2: Dad's still around yeah, yeah, but mum actually doesn't live
Speaker 2: too far from Sitney, a little bit Aladalla now the south. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my dad is with me in Brisbane.
Speaker 1: So you guys are coys and she's down here, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as okay, so you're at school and at this stage
Speaker 1: you're playing soccer, but we're just started thinking about boxing.
Speaker 2: But like boxing, Like I was seven years old and
Speaker 2: I watched the Rocky movies and that's just got me.
Speaker 2: So that was like my earliest memory. Wasn't that young
Speaker 2: as well? And I could say that would be like
Speaker 2: six years old. So to me, it's like I don't
Speaker 2: be in alive for about a year because my memory
Speaker 2: just doesn't go that back that fast. Just how I am.
Speaker 2: That's me, right, but a bit of a knucklehead really
Speaker 2: like that. But the boxing got me and I felt
Speaker 2: really motivated and inspired and I planted to see Then
Speaker 2: I said, I want to be world champion. This is
Speaker 2: this is bad, but I said it to me. That
Speaker 2: was what I always said it. And I would tell
Speaker 2: everyone too, because I basically my heart on my sleeve
Speaker 2: and I'd say everything that I thought all the time
Speaker 2: and got me into a lot of trouble doing that
Speaker 2: as well. Not like my brother, he was much more
Speaker 2: quieter than me. But you know, we had this great relationship,
Speaker 2: this great bond my brother and I. But you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, he just thought it was great that
Speaker 2: I wanted to do boxing, and you know, eventually I
Speaker 2: found boxing and that was when, you know, in Tormbo,
Speaker 2: a friend of mine said, oh, we go down to
Speaker 2: the PC icy and and yeah, yeah, And I went
Speaker 2: down the piece of icy and did a bit of boxing.
Speaker 2: And I went down and I got punched up and
Speaker 2: I got two black eyes, you know, And the next
Speaker 2: week I was able to get there to give me
Speaker 2: a lift back down there again, I was like eleven
Speaker 2: years old and I only got one black eye. So
Speaker 2: for me that was a win. Yeah, because I thought
Speaker 2: it was so cool that these kids would go down
Speaker 2: there and you get to really punch on and it
Speaker 2: was really challenging. And for me to get one black
Speaker 2: eye instead are two, that was a big win. For me.
Speaker 2: That was a big winner. And it's just it just
Speaker 2: progressed from there and this I was a kid that
Speaker 2: was too scared even throwing my right hand, Like I
Speaker 2: was really scared, like I didn't I didn't how to fight.
Speaker 2: And then whenever there's any altercations, you know, there was,
Speaker 2: as you said, like being in timber and being half caste,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And then you know, and then you
Speaker 2: do it. You know, you get a bit of the
Speaker 2: redneck thing, and there's always these little controversial type of things,
Speaker 2: and you know, when there's a fights or anything like that,
Speaker 2: you know, because it can be rough at times, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, I've always just wanted to go to
Speaker 2: It was always just to tackle them. I never knew
Speaker 2: how to box, so to learn how to box, you know,
Speaker 2: I was still really scared just to be able to
Speaker 2: throw my right hand and you know, just throw my
Speaker 2: left hand, throw my left hand. And then I got
Speaker 2: hit with a big one and that you know, a
Speaker 2: big big shot and I just sort of I just
Speaker 2: kicked and started coming out. So then then I knew
Speaker 2: that I was a fighter then, and just the accolades
Speaker 2: I've gotten, just the appreciation I thought in the Wilsonton
Speaker 2: Hotel in Timber and you know, you know, and just
Speaker 2: to get a win, you know, And I said to
Speaker 2: myself for my next fight, I'm going to be throwing
Speaker 2: both hands. I'm going to really be giving this a
Speaker 2: real good go. And luckily that I did. Like I
Speaker 2: waited in like thirty two point six kilo ground, yeah,
Speaker 2: how old, eleven years old, third two six yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: but I had fish and chips just before. Wayne didn't
Speaker 2: really know how that all sort of worked. So that
Speaker 2: put me into thirty five kg division. Now three kill
Speaker 2: those to a little kid. That's a lot of weight.
Speaker 2: Luckily that I did say to myself that I was
Speaker 2: going to fight really hard and throw a bed both hands,
Speaker 2: because I did, and I went, I went flat out.
Speaker 2: But the guy, really, the guy was good. The guy
Speaker 2: was good. And if I didn't do that, he would
Speaker 2: have really wanted me and I would have been really
Speaker 2: licking my wounds.
Speaker 1: But I lost that fight.
Speaker 2: And from that fight I learned so a lot of
Speaker 2: people when they lose something or they in business or whatever,
Speaker 2: it is like they lose something and that's it and
Speaker 2: throw it away. But what I decided to do was
Speaker 2: start make sure I didn't eat before Wayne Wayne right.
Speaker 2: I did my diet right, and then I started running
Speaker 2: a bit more to get my legs better. So for
Speaker 2: my third fight, I bettered myself and then I didn't
Speaker 2: stop punching and I was having my legs behind him.
Speaker 2: I was the right weight and everything was on cue.
Speaker 2: After I had that fight, and I thought a guy
Speaker 2: that I still remember the name, Sean mccullor from Quilpie,
Speaker 2: and affought him at mil Merin And this is eleven
Speaker 2: year old kid, so I've won the fight. He was
Speaker 2: really good, but I won it and I did and
Speaker 2: we both was in all that war. And what they
Speaker 2: had back then was called the shower. And you know
Speaker 2: what a shower is where they throw the money in
Speaker 2: the ring. So for an eleven year old kid to
Speaker 2: get praise such as that, to get money thrown at
Speaker 2: the ring at them yeah, like back then, like ten bucks,
Speaker 2: twelve bucks was a heap of money, especially for an
Speaker 2: eleven year old kid. When you add up all them
Speaker 2: five cents and twenties and fifty cent or whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: How how long did you stay amateurphorce? Obviously starting to
Speaker 1: do a certain age, But did you just keep fighting
Speaker 1: amateur for PC for your club?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So yeah, I fought for the PC Yic for
Speaker 2: one And then I was about twelve, So I was trained
Speaker 2: under a guy called Mick Beetross. So he was a
Speaker 2: professional fighter as well, and so he taught me a
Speaker 2: lot of the boxing fundamentals and I was with him,
Speaker 2: and then I went on to train with Brendan Smith,
Speaker 2: but primarily most most of my work I did with
Speaker 2: Mick Beetross and MultiMate Goal. Then obviously, like I already
Speaker 2: had that seed plan. I wanted to be a world champion,
Speaker 2: and I started learning about this thing called the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: Then my goal was to become an Olympian and to
Speaker 2: go to the Olympic Games. So obviously, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I was only young then to just finish high school
Speaker 2: and I actually had to qualify to go the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: And that was a really big one, was the qualifiers.
Speaker 2: So to make it the Olympic Games, you have to
Speaker 2: win the Oceanic Games and then you so you have
Speaker 2: to beat all the countries in the Ocean region of
Speaker 2: the world. And I got sick the night before the fight,
Speaker 2: and I was I was just I was just a
Speaker 2: kid still, you know, like nineteen years of age, and
Speaker 2: I was so sick. And I was fighting a guy
Speaker 2: called ramel Able what from New Zealand, And I was
Speaker 2: so I called my mother. I said, Mom, Mom, I'm
Speaker 2: so sick. You know, you know, I really want to
Speaker 2: go to the Olympics. And she she said, look, son,
Speaker 2: all the answers that you're asking for was within yourself.
Speaker 2: She said, You've got it within yourself. Love, You've wanted
Speaker 2: this your whole life. If you want this, you'll get it.
Speaker 2: You already know what to do, Love, it's already there.
Speaker 2: You have to dig deep. And you know when you asked,
Speaker 2: when you at that age and you're asking your mom
Speaker 2: what to do, and you know when you don't, you're sick,
Speaker 2: and you know you're pretty much crying. You just you know,
Speaker 2: and she just said, you just got to dig deep.
Speaker 2: So I did just that, and then somehow I pulled
Speaker 2: it out and I knocked the guy out. I just
Speaker 2: you know, I dug deep, and I've got the strength
Speaker 2: and I built up the resilience and I knocked out
Speaker 2: this guy and I qualified for the Olympic Games.
Speaker 1: Because I want to stop there for said because it's
Speaker 1: interesting you're talking about Olympics and we've seen this with
Speaker 1: Harry Garsan more recently. But the style of Olympic of
Speaker 1: Amita fighting, especially at the Olympic level, probably more so
Speaker 1: back then than than today's. They've changed up a bit,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of stepping in, stepping out a lot,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's a different style of fighting to
Speaker 1: standing in the Yeah, standing in front of someone and trading.
Speaker 1: I mean there's not much trading, but you're sort of
Speaker 1: just doing the you know, flicking them out and yeah,
Speaker 1: do you but then you become a really aggressive fighter.
Speaker 1: Yeah later on in your pro career were you always?
Speaker 1: Were you aggressive as as a em.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm glad that you said this because look, Australians,
Speaker 2: like we're very much behind and still are so to speak.
Speaker 2: We still haven't won a gold medal at any Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: I don't know about the females. Did they win one?
Speaker 2: I don't know if the I.
Speaker 1: Think we've got a medal, but I don't think we
Speaker 1: didn't get a goal.
Speaker 2: But anyway, no man has ever won a gold medal
Speaker 2: at the Olympic Games for Australia at the boxing, So
Speaker 2: the best that we got was like a silver and
Speaker 2: his name was Snowy Baker back in the sixties of Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was at Melbourne nineteen sixty two. Maybe I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but anyway, I remember looking at the stats and so
Speaker 2: for Harry to get that, you know, where he's done
Speaker 2: so far, like he's done great for the country, but
Speaker 2: we were just so underdeveloped. And when you look at
Speaker 2: the Cubans, the Russians, the Germans differently, it's just it's
Speaker 2: just it's a sport to them, but to us it's
Speaker 2: a fight. Yeah, you know, and we had that mentality
Speaker 2: and that that's all I knew. That's that's so so
Speaker 2: you know, I'm actually I'm a slow learner, but when
Speaker 2: I've got something, I've got something. And for me, all
Speaker 2: out attack was my only way of winning. Just all
Speaker 2: out attack, attack, attack, attacks, So I actually looked into
Speaker 2: the other side of things, and I took some some
Speaker 2: lessons on board, and I said to the Cuban coach,
Speaker 2: because they're the best, and they couldn't speak good English.
Speaker 2: But I said to him and said, what do we
Speaker 2: need to do as Australians to be better fighters, to
Speaker 2: be better boxes? And he didn't want to give us
Speaker 2: an insult, but he wanted to give us a compliment.
Speaker 2: So he say, he goes Oi, he goes tough, tough
Speaker 2: like this, but he goes like that, Russia, Cuba, Germany
Speaker 2: play play play like this strategy, Yeah, play play and
Speaker 2: relaxed and and and he goes, he goes Russiak Cuba
Speaker 2: play play. So it just it's just our mentality. And
Speaker 2: that's how we sort of were, or sort of like
Speaker 2: Britain and showing our motion and too much emotion.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because you don't notice me talk to the Cubans.
Speaker 1: You don't see them many great professional Cuban fighters either.
Speaker 1: Rarely do they become great fighters. And when you see
Speaker 1: a couple of heavyweights divisions that were only won more recently,
Speaker 1: but they concentrated winning the Olympics, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is, what the deal is but I think they
Speaker 1: get paid for it. Is it because of our training.
Speaker 1: We don't have the right coaches at our em middle
Speaker 1: level because they're all ad to becoming they get dragged Avemitas, Jeff, you, Danny,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a whole heap of them look to
Speaker 1: become world champions.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Look, I was really privileged to be an
Speaker 2: Olympic team with the likes of Paul and Miller, like
Speaker 2: Danny Green, Danny Gill. You know, we traveled all around
Speaker 2: the world together and we went to the US Olympic
Speaker 2: Training Center in Colorado, where like these guys have the
Speaker 2: state of the art facilities, and the stuff that they're
Speaker 2: more focused on then was was science, you know, like
Speaker 2: and mental awareness and things like this. Like when I
Speaker 2: was at the US Olympic Training Center, I learned that
Speaker 2: a bit about the preparation. So we had three groups
Speaker 2: and one group did twenty five percent twenty five percent
Speaker 2: mental training and seventy five percent physical training. The other
Speaker 2: group did fifty percent mental training fifty percent physical training,
Speaker 2: and the third group did seventy five percent mental training
Speaker 2: and only twenty five percent physical training. In the end,
Speaker 2: the results were the group that did the seventy five
Speaker 2: percent mental training and only twenty five percent physical training
Speaker 2: got far greater results as per the amount of mental
Speaker 2: training that they did. So the emphasis on psychology in
Speaker 2: sport these days and being at the speed, and it
Speaker 2: makes more sense even as a professional fighter in the
Speaker 2: pro ranks with the smaller gloves on, to be a
Speaker 2: relaxed fighter, a calma fighter, because you know, we are
Speaker 2: here to express that highest potential and master around emotions
Speaker 2: and when you're fighting, you don't emotions is just just
Speaker 2: giving energy, excess energy, and you don't need to do that.
Speaker 2: But the best of the best, if you look at
Speaker 2: them from outside, it appears as their machines, like their
Speaker 2: robotics and how they do things. And you know, Australia
Speaker 2: basically hasn't won a gold medal as yet because we're
Speaker 2: only a young country when these these other countries have
Speaker 2: been doing this stuff for centuries, centuries and for such
Speaker 2: a long time. And then they share information, they passed
Speaker 2: it on and they you know, what's important to them.
Speaker 2: But you know Australia is you know, the day that
Speaker 2: we win a gold medal at the Olympic Games is
Speaker 2: the day that we're going to be treated a lot
Speaker 2: more the fighters in Australia, boxing will be treated more
Speaker 2: so like the swimmers get treated like look at the
Speaker 2: even Harry Garside, although he lost at the Olympics, the
Speaker 2: accolades like the support that he gets and who he
Speaker 2: is as a person, Like in Australia, he's relatively known.
Speaker 2: Like we had when I went to the Olympic Games.
Speaker 2: We had like there's like ten of us that made
Speaker 2: the team and a lot of us become good fight
Speaker 2: like Danny Gilded so good and Poorly Miller, did you
Speaker 2: know he went onto other things. But Danny, Danny Green,
Speaker 2: you know, like like we we excelled and we like
Speaker 2: still the accolades. We know, you don't get the credibility
Speaker 2: like like you would if you're in like the other
Speaker 2: sports and that, but had we want to go medal.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a different it's a whole different thing.
Speaker 2: Like you you are, you're put in front of the
Speaker 2: world as as your country as you're you're the country's Olympians.
Speaker 2: So the most elite, yeah, the most elite.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you put up on this high pedestal and then
Speaker 2: after it's over, there's nothing left it and that has
Speaker 2: a psychological effect on athletes, and you know, and then
Speaker 2: sometimes the lies. You know, it's not always about it's
Speaker 2: not always adulation. And that's the life is not always
Speaker 2: like rosy impeachy.
Speaker 1: It's not there's no money to do.
Speaker 2: Actually no, there's no and there's you know, and it's
Speaker 2: always been a very hard task. That's why hats hats.
Speaker 2: My hat goes off to people like Anthony Mundane and
Speaker 2: and Danny Graham, you know, fellow them, big teammate like
Speaker 2: that for things I was to pull out money out
Speaker 2: of the sport. They've done so so so good or.
Speaker 1: Something like Danny too, is about what he did after
Speaker 1: boxing as well. He's got that two round fitness. It's
Speaker 1: got a new name you. Tommy's got a new box
Speaker 1: boxes Yeah, and uh and and Chocked the same. I mean,
Speaker 1: Chock's got a whole lot of businesses. He different And
Speaker 1: Tony tells me, I don't know, talk about it, Tony.
Speaker 2: I was messaging before I come on to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're active, they're always active. Danny's always active
Speaker 1: and sort of moved away from well he's still got
Speaker 1: something to a boxing, but he's sort of moved away
Speaker 1: from the art of boxing as opposed he still has
Speaker 1: a boxing in his DNA and Bonanthy's move away completely
Speaker 1: from it. So you're you come back from Olympics. You
Speaker 1: got knocked out in the second second.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, lost on points. Yeah yeah, I'm made to
Speaker 2: the second round of competition. Yeers.
Speaker 1: It's funny like Fennick Jeff Jeff Jeff one he would
Speaker 1: have gone in for the for a medal about but
Speaker 1: they reversed Boxing Federation whoever it is, reversed the decision
Speaker 1: against him, and he left him discussed. I don't think
Speaker 1: will Tomlinson never did very well, Jacko didn't, Luke didn't
Speaker 1: do very well at the Olympics. But all these guys
Speaker 1: gone out of either one world titles like you or
Speaker 1: Luke was a you know like fort food world title.
Speaker 1: Jeff won world titles and lots of them. Any won
Speaker 1: the world title. There's and I wonder what happens post Olympics.
Speaker 1: So what happened to you post Olympics? How did you
Speaker 1: become the professional fighter you became that you weren't as
Speaker 1: a fighter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So like it did have a I think it
Speaker 2: did have a psychological effect, like looking back, like it
Speaker 2: was an adulation, like it's you know, there was controversy,
Speaker 2: you know, and I got charged for assault in two
Speaker 2: thousand and two.
Speaker 1: That's just after it, because you're in the two thousand bits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, and you know that,
Speaker 2: you know I got convicted of that, and you know
Speaker 2: it's because you sort of know, just keeping your mind busy.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a bit there's a bit of downtime
Speaker 2: and things, and it has a psychological effect on you,
Speaker 2: I guess, and you know, and then you look for
Speaker 2: gratify gratification in other areas, I guess, and then your
Speaker 2: life can easily take a whiny turn. You know, everything's
Speaker 2: not always as perfect as what what it was, and
Speaker 2: you know, you sort of lose sight of your goal.
Speaker 1: Did someone did some of them when you come up Olympics?
Speaker 1: Just someone come try and pick you up and like
Speaker 1: put you into a into a pro program, professional program.
Speaker 2: After the Olympics.
Speaker 1: No, so so so that's where you lost your way
Speaker 1: a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. So so the there's the psychological support now
Speaker 2: is there's there's much more support resources out there available
Speaker 2: now to people needing any sort of assistance and help.
Speaker 2: Like that's one thing I can speak for from experience,
Speaker 2: not to say that it wasn't there. Then they did
Speaker 2: offer something, but I think it's there's like a what
Speaker 2: do they call it? They they yeah, they you know,
Speaker 2: when you finish in the big games and then then
Speaker 2: you have a debrief, but yeah you feel about this,
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, and all that stuff, and that wasn't so
Speaker 2: much pushed. But I think these days they push it,
Speaker 2: you know, push push it upon the athletes and things
Speaker 2: like that. But look, look, my real savior was like
Speaker 2: I really went into my once I finished the other
Speaker 2: big games. Look, it wasn't for me. I was a brawler.
Speaker 2: They're not saying there's no intelligence involved in brawling, because
Speaker 2: you're still in there, you're taking punches, you're give them punches.
Speaker 2: It's still all boxing. You're brawling. But I found a
Speaker 2: lot more success in putting the fear of the fear
Speaker 2: of the of life into into my opponents. So, you know,
Speaker 2: they had all the skills, and I thought Joel cast
Speaker 2: Male gold Mellis for Cuba all this sort of thing,
Speaker 2: you know, and pretty well had the guy beat, you know.
Speaker 2: But I put the fear of life in and I
Speaker 2: just kept on going and going and going and just
Speaker 2: being that brawler and just and just they're all out attack. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and that brought me a lot of success
Speaker 2: throughout my professional career. So after going in the big games,
Speaker 2: I want to stay told in my first fight when
Speaker 2: the Australian title with my second fight when twelve three
Speaker 2: minute rounds and just went on to have great success.
Speaker 2: I built up my record to twenty three fights with
Speaker 2: twenty three wins with twenty one knockouts and.
Speaker 1: Had lightweight division.
Speaker 2: In the lightweight division, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Which those people are listening, that's the equivalent division that
Speaker 1: Cambosis is into the moment. I think, yeah, Natives boy
Speaker 1: hasses in the all right lightweight division. I think he's
Speaker 1: just kind of strange champion, Okay, and yeah, so we
Speaker 1: were talking. It's a pretty heavily contested division, by the way,
Speaker 1: especially at the moment like back then too as well.
Speaker 2: You get some of the eight fighters oh lightweight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at the moment, it's great. These guys aren't believable. It's
Speaker 2: a very basis like these guys something special.
Speaker 1: It's heavily contested, heavily contested. So you're in the lovemad division.
Speaker 1: So you you're I do want to go back to
Speaker 1: your when you got to rest for arrested for and
Speaker 1: charged and convicted for assault. What happens to a boxer
Speaker 1: They lose their way a little bit. We'll not lose
Speaker 1: the way bit like young bloke come from being put
Speaker 1: up on a pedal stall at the Limits Games in
Speaker 1: Sydney or high heightened awareness and all sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Doesn't do as well as you wanted to do. Obviously,
Speaker 1: sort of back to it. It's not picked up by
Speaker 1: as a professional probably a little bit rudderless of that state.
Speaker 1: It's still a young guy. But you've gone through this.
Speaker 1: You're living this life where you're sparring and jumping in
Speaker 1: the ring with blokes like you know, you're willing. You
Speaker 1: know how it works, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you do you? Did you get on the drink
Speaker 1: or something like that? Like what was the situation?
Speaker 2: No, No, it wasn't, because your next fighter was.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was it was self defense basically. But like you
Speaker 2: know how much self defense you are entitled to? You know,
Speaker 2: like the it's gonna be that's right. So the judge
Speaker 2: said that I was entitled to self defense. However I
Speaker 2: broke the guys draw in two places. But he said,
Speaker 2: you could have timed your punches precisely to break the
Speaker 2: the men's draw in two places. So that's excessive use
Speaker 2: of self defense. So the fact that that I pleaded
Speaker 2: not guilty and then got guilty as a result of it, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got the maximum penalty for it. So I had
Speaker 2: to serve time. You know that. That's that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's a lot not a lot of no people. Very
Speaker 2: few people next to Nune would be able to say
Speaker 2: they've been the Olympic Games and they've been the jail
Speaker 2: as well. So look, I had some things I had
Speaker 2: to overcome, and you know that was that was a
Speaker 2: real challenging time in my life.
Speaker 1: And I think just explained the moment because I think
Speaker 1: it needs to be explained, So maybe do it as
Speaker 1: a good example, a given example. So if someone breaks
Speaker 1: into my house and he has a wooden tennis racket,
Speaker 1: I'm saying that's his weapon. Okay, if I have a gun,
Speaker 1: I'm entitled to defend myself, but not unreasonably so I can't.
Speaker 1: So having a gun. A gun is too powerful for
Speaker 1: a tennis racket, so that'd be deemed to be an
Speaker 1: unreasonable use of excessive force.
Speaker 2: You have a gun's license, are you're trained guns?
Speaker 1: Assuming I've got a license GA so, and let's say,
Speaker 1: in defending myself, I wounded him, the judge would say,
Speaker 1: that's not self defense, Mark, that's excessive and unreasonable use
Speaker 1: of force, which is which negates yours your your defense
Speaker 1: self defense defense in the court case. Therefore, I'll probably
Speaker 1: get convicted. For a boxer, particularly someone who's been Olympic games,
Speaker 1: if you're doing one on one with somebody, let's say
Speaker 1: weren't a boxer and he was confronting you, threatening you,
Speaker 1: he's going to knock you out whatever. You can defend yourself.
Speaker 1: If you're not a boxing if you hit him on
Speaker 1: the chin, happens to bous so be Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: rules are if you're a fighter, that's right, you've got
Speaker 1: a weapon in your hands in that you're a trained
Speaker 1: expert at it, and therefore that would be considered to
Speaker 1: be unreasonable force and excess Yeah.
Speaker 2: So to speak, yes, I get it, I get yeah,
Speaker 2: there is, but there's also different variables that have to
Speaker 2: be taken into consideration when assessing a judge and and
Speaker 2: the judge as a as a duty you know, as
Speaker 2: a judge to do the way they You know, there's
Speaker 2: other sorts of things that you know back then, like
Speaker 2: I can own up that you know, I wasn't forthright completely,
Speaker 2: you know, like at first I tried lying about the
Speaker 2: the the incident and things like that. So you know,
Speaker 2: was I an honest young man?
Speaker 1: You know? No?
Speaker 2: I wasn't. Was I prepared to own up for it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I wasn't straight away? You know, how do I had
Speaker 2: I been able to have accountability then, which are things
Speaker 2: I've learned later in life and the hard way, but
Speaker 2: but having accountabilities could have done me so much more.
Speaker 2: And you know, just having gratitude that i'd been through
Speaker 2: the Olympic Games and just you know, and just been
Speaker 2: thankful that I was able to have had that and
Speaker 2: then move forward. You know, looking back in hindsight's such
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: But you had to expect of yourself when you're young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I don't feel any sort of resentment. I
Speaker 2: don't feel feilthy about what's happened or what's having you know,
Speaker 2: I'm one hundred percent accountable because like I know more
Speaker 2: than anyone because I was there. I know what happened,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, like you know, was a
Speaker 2: judge harsh for me? I don't know, like maybe maybe not,
Speaker 2: but like I have to own it because.
Speaker 1: Then you do the time. Yeah, I did the spend
Speaker 1: eight months eight months.
Speaker 2: At Woodford where is that at in Queensland somewhere out there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and howd you do? Time?
Speaker 2: It was all right, so inside confronting, you know, I
Speaker 2: had I had some fights inside because I was young,
Speaker 2: you know, I was young, and you know, and then
Speaker 2: to be put in there with like hardened criminals, you know,
Speaker 2: like I've got I got challenged, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: being a little guys a challenge. Yeah, this this this
Speaker 2: little guy out there, he's a fighter.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: At the time, I was Australian champion as well. And
Speaker 2: you know, I remember having pretty pretty vicious fights in
Speaker 2: there because I was I was willing back then, you know,
Speaker 2: you don't think and you're just willing to go on
Speaker 2: with it. But looking back, I could have killed someone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was pretty bad. There's even like to the very day,
Speaker 2: people with their witnesses still speak about the fights that
Speaker 2: they saw me have in jail, and you know, like
Speaker 2: one guy's ear was hanging off by a thread, like
Speaker 2: this is what you have to do to defend yourself.
Speaker 1: Because no referee, no referee.
Speaker 2: Now you've got a guys one hundred and ten kilos,
Speaker 2: I'm probably sixty five kilos ringing wet.
Speaker 1: You know that sort of guy's challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I'm up against the wall and I
Speaker 2: can't even you know, he's just trying to stand over
Speaker 2: me and own my gloves, and there's what can I
Speaker 2: do about it? Like, you know, you have to back
Speaker 2: yourself and just straight away. So I've had to knock
Speaker 2: this guy out five times whilst and jail, and then
Speaker 2: he's still kept coming, still kept coming, and I've just
Speaker 2: I'm stuck. Now I'm up against the wall. He's smashing me.
Speaker 2: Now he's come back after me and dropped that many times,
Speaker 2: and I've got my arm free hook. Hook has kept
Speaker 2: on hook until his ear was hanging off by over
Speaker 2: thread and then there's nothing but a pool of blood everywhere.
Speaker 2: And to this very day, as I said, guys still
Speaker 2: talk about what they saw that time. But that's something
Speaker 2: that I had to that's something I had to deal with.
Speaker 1: No gloves, no mouth guard, no no.
Speaker 2: He I had wrapped on my hands. Actually, I was
Speaker 2: about to do some bad work, so that helps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're smiling. I guess you sort of can think back
Speaker 2: now you're an old and glad I'm not there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god. And what happened after that? So
Speaker 1: who picked you up? What happened after that? So when
Speaker 1: you came out, Yeah, you just you wanted to keep
Speaker 1: the boxing going because you're still the strain champion. Did
Speaker 1: the boxing, I know, but don't you don't you get
Speaker 1: not canceled whatever. God, Now they look at your license,
Speaker 1: they look at that goes on.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so that was so, that was so I
Speaker 2: was the whole time I was there, I was manifesting.
Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to win a world title. I
Speaker 2: still had that dream to win a world title and
Speaker 2: I still had and and you know, I had to
Speaker 2: work towards that. And then I teamed up with Brendan
Speaker 2: Smith at that stage. He saw a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of potential in me, and I just kept
Speaker 2: on striving and striving and pushing through and you know,
Speaker 2: as I said, I built my record up. But you know,
Speaker 2: I was hanging out with you know, some you know
Speaker 2: people that weren't good for my life. They weren't serving
Speaker 2: me and you know, hanging around the bad crowds basically,
Speaker 2: And I looked I had a good hard thing to myself,
Speaker 2: like if I want to win a world title, what
Speaker 2: do I need to do? Like, there's no there's all
Speaker 2: these different roads that could have taken. So I just
Speaker 2: had to back myself. So I booked a one way ticket.
Speaker 2: I went to the States. You know it was but
Speaker 2: I didn't come back for six years.
Speaker 1: You could get into you.
Speaker 2: No, No, yeah, I could get in. So I was
Speaker 2: there's some planning in preparation went too that beforehand. So
Speaker 2: because I got offered fights to go to the States.
Speaker 2: For first I was fighting at the Playboy mansion and Belaire, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Hugh Heffner's Playboy mentioned that's where I was fighting. That
Speaker 2: was my first fight ESPN against Bernaldo Rays. That was
Speaker 2: the name of the guy I was fighting. I've gone
Speaker 2: down to the US Embassy here in Sydney and I've
Speaker 2: spoken them and they said, look, because of your criminal conviction,
Speaker 2: you're not going to go to America, and even after
Speaker 2: five years, but they're not going to let me go.
Speaker 2: They said, no. That was that was like a real
Speaker 2: downer time in my life. I just got rejected. So
Speaker 2: fortunately enough, my lawyer at the time, Damian Arrow, he
Speaker 2: was pretty close with Premier Beauty. Of course, you remember
Speaker 2: the Premier Beauty Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He made love of sport. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He wrote a letter to the US Embassy pretty much
Speaker 2: condoning that, you know, saying how great a guy was,
Speaker 2: how hard done by I was in the case, and
Speaker 2: to give me consideration to you know. So I got
Speaker 2: a one working p one working visa wow in America,
Speaker 2: so we already set the go in the fires. But
Speaker 2: I was still fighting the local network in Australia and
Speaker 2: still doing things. But so that was already set. So
Speaker 2: when an opportunity to come up, I could have flown
Speaker 2: over done on my training here, but by living in Australia,
Speaker 2: I was still still it wasn't serving me. I just
Speaker 2: knew that I had to I had to do something
Speaker 2: to make it work because I'd seen so I've looked
Speaker 2: at those around me, others going on my pathway and
Speaker 2: what they're going to, and there's just nothing there. So
Speaker 2: I just had to back myself. Had a house, had
Speaker 2: my family here and everything that with very little money
Speaker 2: because there's no money in Australian box. I don't care
Speaker 2: what anyone says. Australia as a whole. That's why I'm
Speaker 2: saying about money. And how is that? And he did
Speaker 2: do it with the boxing, and Green did it early
Speaker 2: with the boxing. Yeah, they made some decent amount of money,
Speaker 2: and yes they did make it later on in business, correct.
Speaker 2: But they're smart guys. The smart guy it's really hard
Speaker 2: to get ahead. And and you know, I just had
Speaker 2: to back myself. So I've got whatever I could. I
Speaker 2: booked a two thousands, I went flew to Sydney. He
Speaker 2: paid two thousand dollars cash for a ticket, and flew
Speaker 2: straight to straight to America on my own. And I
Speaker 2: rang Brand and I said, I'm in America and I've
Speaker 2: got I just had to get away. This is what
Speaker 2: I got to do. And he backed me. He said, yeah, okay, Mick,
Speaker 2: I'll be right over. I'm coming.
Speaker 1: Because you know, he came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he believed in me, and if he didn't, it
Speaker 2: wouldn't things wouldn't may not have panned out the way
Speaker 2: that they did. And so you know, he backed me,
Speaker 2: and you know, flying over to America and by the
Speaker 2: time brand. So I stayed at Marina Delray first day,
Speaker 2: some hotel near the airport, and then a few days
Speaker 2: later Brandon come over. We stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel,
Speaker 2: and then I've gone From the Roosevelt Hotel, we walked
Speaker 2: out there's a premiere for Rocky five on that On
Speaker 2: that that same night, we walked out Sylvesta salone shaking
Speaker 2: the hands and we shook his hand. Wow, Sylvester Sellone
Speaker 2: is that this is like the first day Brendan arrived
Speaker 2: and it was a sign, It was a sign made.
Speaker 2: These things are happening more so than ever now in
Speaker 2: my life, like signs and and moments and things. And
Speaker 2: don't even get me started on that. But there's you know,
Speaker 2: soul flares released from the sun. There's a different energy
Speaker 2: just that.
Speaker 1: I do you find those those things the universe? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do we call it? Do you think that they
Speaker 1: would be able to account for your resilience and the
Speaker 1: fact that you said, stuff, I'm going to go to Sydney. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to us. If you hadn't got had that mindset,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have walked in, You wouldn't have able to
Speaker 1: meet a silver sloan, which.
Speaker 2: Is the thing that gave you a whole to pursue
Speaker 2: time ago.
Speaker 1: Do you think those things that given that you're open
Speaker 1: to perceiving these things is let's call them signs or
Speaker 1: gets from the universe or or someone tapping on the
Speaker 1: should team or to do yep? Do you think there
Speaker 1: are the things that give you your resilience because you're a
Speaker 1: resilient bustard, like you've had lots of ups and downs,
Speaker 1: but you still manage to keep going or is it
Speaker 1: just you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can. You can relate this to business success
Speaker 2: and you know about that. And so it's just about
Speaker 2: tapping on doors and go this way and you tap
Speaker 2: on the right thles, you know, And it's just consistency
Speaker 2: and keeping at it and keeping at it and just
Speaker 2: going different pathways. And you know you have a plan.
Speaker 2: You know, I basically had a plan that I need
Speaker 2: to go to the States and my dream was to
Speaker 2: win a world title. But I planned, like I couldn't
Speaker 2: just get on and book a one way ticket to
Speaker 2: the States. There was a bit of planning involved in
Speaker 2: that as well. But if you want something more than
Speaker 2: you want to breathe, then you're going to achieve it.
Speaker 2: So then so I left everything in Australia, I committed
Speaker 2: myself and I just I just got stuck into it. Now.
Speaker 2: I believe it's you can manifest things. That's a big
Speaker 2: part of it. I believe that you know what you
Speaker 2: believe and how much you want something that will determine
Speaker 2: the outcome. And it's it's not just gonna it's not
Speaker 2: just going to happen by magical thing. But it's the
Speaker 2: want and the will, and there's and there's there are energies,
Speaker 2: you know, there there are things that make this happen.
Speaker 2: You know, whether you caught your higher power or you know,
Speaker 2: so many things that can determine the outcome of certain things.
Speaker 2: And you know, and then business as well, you know,
Speaker 2: like you just do the right things and you keep
Speaker 2: tapping on the doors and you set things up the
Speaker 2: right way. If you keep at it, you're going to
Speaker 2: get there.
Speaker 1: And how much of the consistency though, like you know,
Speaker 1: like not only have you got to you know, like
Speaker 1: follow that path, You've got to you to look for
Speaker 1: the path. You've got to be open to it. You know,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to get it. We'll get away from
Speaker 1: this mob who are so maybe not help me out
Speaker 1: here doing it. I'm not it's just not good for me.
Speaker 1: Don't have to make a judgment, but just not good
Speaker 1: for me. You don't make a judgment bout them, then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm going to make the call. I'm going
Speaker 1: to buy the ticket, I'm going to go to America.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do all the other stuff in between,
Speaker 1: going to get the visa and you know something, get
Speaker 1: topeter beating and make sure I get that that process going.
Speaker 1: But then it becomes out of effort. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of effort involved, a lot of driving this ship. Like
Speaker 1: you've got to keep driving yourself, get yourself up in
Speaker 1: the morning because it doesn't happen overnight. Where you get
Speaker 1: that from that? What you go and work in the
Speaker 1: concrete his whole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of it's trial and error. You know,
Speaker 2: you do a lot of trial and error, and then
Speaker 2: it's easy when you're looking back to say, oh, I
Speaker 2: wish I did it this way. You know, we should
Speaker 2: do it that way, but you didn't, you know, but
Speaker 2: but you know, but by trial and error, and I
Speaker 2: still had that youth in me. I still had that
Speaker 2: drive to want to do it. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of trial and error, and then I had to cut
Speaker 2: out a lot of vices. Like there's going to be
Speaker 2: a lot of noise in your head with like other
Speaker 2: things going on. You're like, like, what's happening back at home?
Speaker 2: What's going on? Who cares? This is what I really want?
Speaker 2: And sometimes in business or successful boxing people in that
Speaker 2: business are successful, they seem like they're really rude or
Speaker 2: ruthless people in that but they all narcissists, so to speak.
Speaker 2: But like they just they just have a goal. They
Speaker 2: have a goal and they're going to be successful. They
Speaker 2: cut out all the things, the things that are going
Speaker 2: to be holding them back, like noise, it's just noise
Speaker 2: and and and that's so that's what I had to do.
Speaker 2: So i'd go, so training, like your fitness is a prerequisite.
Speaker 2: You have to be fit, you know, And like that's
Speaker 2: why I'm developing, Like I'm on the online coaching business now,
Speaker 2: that's what I'm doing and developing, you know, this bulletproof mindset.
Speaker 2: I'm developing the maintenance program. So everything that I was
Speaker 2: doing back then that got me to the levels that
Speaker 2: I achieved, I put into a training program. So but
Speaker 2: I had to do these things every day, every day,
Speaker 2: all the time, so you know, whilst looking for a
Speaker 2: place to live in America, you know, and then working
Speaker 2: out you know, how I was going to make it happen.
Speaker 2: And so I had like a bit of a team.
Speaker 2: I started building a support network around me, and Brandon
Speaker 2: was a really big part of that, really big part
Speaker 2: of that, and the booking in this fight, making sure,
Speaker 2: you know, his main charge was going to be ready
Speaker 2: and going to be right. So I was just like knew,
Speaker 2: like say, when you when you if you want to
Speaker 2: be the best, you got to hang out with the best.
Speaker 2: You got to associate with the best. So what they do.
Speaker 2: I went to the wild Card Gym Hollywood, training side
Speaker 2: Minnie Paco all the rest. Just walked in there. I
Speaker 2: I'm from Australia. I've got a record, you know, some
Speaker 2: of the underfeed record. And I said, okay, you had
Speaker 2: no worries, so oh, you know, I just started just
Speaker 2: rubbing shouldals with those guys doing the hard work there.
Speaker 2: It was all new. It was scary, it was intimidating,
Speaker 2: But how were I was twenty six? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was because that's the difference between tomber there. Oh mate,
Speaker 2: like you just I've call them from now I'm living
Speaker 2: in a big smoke. Yeah, just just trying to make
Speaker 2: my own and I started to actually, if, like I
Speaker 2: said earlier, if you want to make something more than
Speaker 2: you want to breathe, then you're going to achieve it.
Speaker 2: So I started making friends. I started talking to people that,
Speaker 2: you know, that were like minded, and they could see
Speaker 2: they could, but they start believing you as well. And
Speaker 2: you know, when you're as close as to what Brendan
Speaker 2: and I were, well, he jumped on the flight and
Speaker 2: comes straight over. He backed me. He saw that drive
Speaker 2: like he supported me. But I gave him that drive
Speaker 2: like he could see that hunger in then what I had.
Speaker 2: So you know, he's not long after you seen me
Speaker 2: going in the world card all the time, training all
Speaker 2: the time, doing all my maintenance broke and doing all
Speaker 2: this stuff, and it wasn't long. And then he was
Speaker 2: very close to securing a world total fight at Wembley
Speaker 2: Arena and in London against Graham Earle. So we had
Speaker 2: a decision to make them. So we flew to Brooklyn
Speaker 2: Gleason's gym in New York and we trained that like
Speaker 2: it was minor six degrees back then. It was so coold.
Speaker 2: But they had the most world champions. Like you had
Speaker 2: like Tyson train out there, you had a to Rour
Speaker 2: grading train out there. There was a there was a
Speaker 2: trainer there called Hector. He passed away, but that they
Speaker 2: were all there, the big names, all the people. And
Speaker 2: you walk into this gym. You got some big dudes
Speaker 2: in there, and you got all these like tough guys.
Speaker 2: They're like going all the time, spraying like so intimidating,
Speaker 2: so intimidating. So I ended up securing a fight with
Speaker 2: the record that I had with secured a fight Wembley,
Speaker 2: and I went into a training camp and I'm in
Speaker 2: this gym.
Speaker 1: It was an eliminador of toph This is the this
Speaker 1: is actually for the world title.
Speaker 2: So Brendan. So I'd already built up my record in Australia.
Speaker 2: I built it up, but I just need to get
Speaker 2: the world tider fight secured. And and Brendan he saw
Speaker 2: that I was hungry. He did it, He got he
Speaker 2: got it, you know. He said, look, Michael, he's reading
Speaker 2: up these promoters of Frank Warren in England and Michaels
Speaker 2: already he's gone to the States. He's in the train,
Speaker 2: and look, we're ready to go, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, we want the fight basically, and so he
Speaker 2: we got the fight, and so I did. I put
Speaker 2: myself through it, and I knew if I was going
Speaker 2: to beat this guy, I had to be fighting and
Speaker 2: training makest the best. It was hard. It was hard.
Speaker 2: It was real hard, like I was training in minor
Speaker 2: six degrees. I was walking on all these long stairs,
Speaker 2: all these these subways. You know, have you been in Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jewish community.
Speaker 1: It's Maad is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? What was his name? Mike? Mike was the
Speaker 2: owner of the but and so. And you're walking along
Speaker 2: there and and you walk in there and all this
Speaker 2: was going on and the movies. Yeah yeah, there's just
Speaker 2: one Polish guy in there. And he was like pretty
Speaker 2: much mirror. This is like everything's meant to happen, you know,
Speaker 2: how many things just a line, it's just aligned. I
Speaker 2: saw this guy and he was just like a bigger
Speaker 2: image of the exactly like the guy that was going
Speaker 2: to be fighting. And I knew if I spa this
Speaker 2: guy and I can get over this guy, that's what
Speaker 2: I need to that's my key, that's what that's what
Speaker 2: I need to do. Anyway, he was just beating everyone
Speaker 2: up all the time. It's like a ci as I'm
Speaker 2: going along, I'm building up confidence. And Brendan goes up
Speaker 2: to his trainer and says, hey, mate, how you going.
Speaker 2: You know I was the accent, because we want to
Speaker 2: see if we can get you some rounds in with
Speaker 2: your Polish. Boy goes, hmm, you want to spy my boy?
Speaker 1: He goes.
Speaker 2: He goes, We'll see how you and then brend says
Speaker 2: he has how many runs? And he says, Brandon said,
Speaker 2: I was six eight rounds. Okay, we'll see how you
Speaker 2: go after two like this. So so we got in
Speaker 2: there and I just walloped this guy. I walloped in
Speaker 2: first round. The guy couldn't even continue. I had the
Speaker 2: confidence through the roof, and I knew that I'd done
Speaker 2: it because I'd done every day I would walk to
Speaker 2: get there. I done on my training. I sacrificed everything
Speaker 2: to show I knew how hungry I was. I was prepared.
Speaker 2: I was ready. So when we locked in the fight,
Speaker 2: signed the contract, flew over to the Wembley. Wembley and
Speaker 2: I was fighting against graham ll. I wanted it so badly,
Speaker 2: and I remember like it was like, this is the
Speaker 2: Knights leading up to the fight, and you got all
Speaker 2: these media, all these commotion going over. There was a
Speaker 2: really big thing. You had Amy a Kart fighting on
Speaker 2: the same card. You had Michael Spot fighting Ordley Harrison
Speaker 2: back then, big name. It was a big show. I
Speaker 2: think it was a would have been fifteen thousand people
Speaker 2: back then. That's a decent. But yeah, ITV was a
Speaker 2: TV company, and and you know, you have to get
Speaker 2: your sleep. You're still getting over a bit of jet
Speaker 2: lag whatever, and the fire alarms are going off the hotel. Yeah,
Speaker 2: fire alarms are going off. And you know the nights
Speaker 2: before that, you got your hookers knocking on the door.
Speaker 2: So I was just them, was like, what what's your chances?
Speaker 2: You know, like nights in the ray, the same thing happening,
Speaker 2: and all these noises and things, and it's the night
Speaker 2: before the world title fight, and these fire alarms just
Speaker 2: kept going and going going. I remember saying to myself,
Speaker 2: I'd rather die in my sleep than knock at a
Speaker 2: good sleep and lose this fight. That's that was my mentality.
Speaker 2: I didn't care. I went back to sleep. I remember
Speaker 2: it so clearly. But you know, in the back of
Speaker 2: my mind, I thought I might would have got a
Speaker 2: curtain and probably slide down the side of the building.
Speaker 2: I was like if I started smelling smoke or something.
Speaker 2: But like, I just went to sleep. I just went
Speaker 2: to sleep, and I had an air of confidence. And
Speaker 2: you know when it come out to have that fight, Well,
Speaker 2: you had a fight, so to speak. Having yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and the nerves that you feel. Yeah, imagine if you
Speaker 2: didn't train, probably imagine if you cut corners.
Speaker 1: Sleep probably sleep. Probably you didn't know if I didn't sleep, imagine, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because confidence, that just takes that much.
Speaker 2: That's that's right, That's what. And that's a mental thing too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and just and it was a bigger event when
Speaker 2: you got you know, you know, tens of thousands in
Speaker 2: attendance and millions of views all over the world, and
Speaker 2: everything you ever dreamed of was just sitting there right there.
Speaker 1: About that happen on the line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the how the feeling, the hollow feeling inside when
Speaker 2: you knew you weren't doing something right but I did it.
Speaker 1: Or especially for a perfectionist that yeah, if you're a perfectionist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that can fuck you up. Yeah, that thought process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you've got to it's a bit like not an
Speaker 1: out of go See how did you control yourself then?
Speaker 1: So so like let's let's in the room. That's okay,
Speaker 1: that's not too bad. Do you walk out, get up?
Speaker 1: But during the corner, now you're on your own. Now
Speaker 1: no one's rabbing your hands. You were standing there ready
Speaker 1: for the reft.
Speaker 2: Call you in.
Speaker 1: So how do you control your his energy or that?
Speaker 2: It doesn't just happen on a spot. It just took
Speaker 2: time I practice, and so like i'd have ment what
Speaker 2: do you do the mental preparation, meditation, talking, self talk,
Speaker 2: and I was doing a lot of visualization, visualizing, like
Speaker 2: the same thing I learned that the US Olympic Training Center,
Speaker 2: all my lessons along the road, the sparring that I did.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the spar that I did with the
Speaker 2: Polish guy at the Gleason's gym. I had that. I
Speaker 2: had it all in check and I already knew it.
Speaker 2: And if he does this, this happens. You know, boxing
Speaker 2: can be somenpredictable. You can't ever say, if he does this,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do exactly that it's just a numbers game.
Speaker 2: It's like business also, like it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: numbers game. Youre, ok, Okay, this didn't work so many times.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a far better result if
Speaker 2: I go this way instead of doing this and have
Speaker 2: to eliminate this and then get the answer this quickly.
Speaker 2: But it's already calculated. You already got it in your
Speaker 2: mind because you've done it over and over and over
Speaker 2: and over and over again so many times, and you
Speaker 2: built it up. You haven't just like wanted is just
Speaker 2: a want and wish thing. You put the work in
Speaker 2: and the drive and the dedication.
Speaker 1: I mean, really what you and what you're talking about here,
Speaker 1: Michae Liz. Preparation, Yes, I mean that's pretty fundamentally yes, yes,
Speaker 1: like preparation. Yes, it's all those things.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: That's how you control yourself. You don't walk in there
Speaker 1: not ready to control yourself because you're already in control.
Speaker 1: You've controlled yourself through your prep because then everything's about preparation, right, ship,
Speaker 1: what is business or sport?
Speaker 2: Lit?
Speaker 1: All business?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 1: Your business is boxing, Yes, that's right, you know, like
Speaker 1: his business is producing a shop. It's about his preparation,
Speaker 1: Like your preparation, you know how to deal deal with it,
Speaker 1: and you went on to win that fight. Well I did.
Speaker 2: But when I've walked out for that fight, that's the
Speaker 2: feeling that I'm getting to is like like, You've got
Speaker 2: all these people like bo like this because they're all
Speaker 2: for their guy totally and and you go the crowd
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, but I was like, like, the well this guy,
Speaker 2: like I was gonna Charlado kets. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: common says I'm going to be fighting that only one
Speaker 2: guy doesn't bother me. It's all just so it's just
Speaker 2: who cares noise. I'm used to all that. So I've
Speaker 2: got my helmet on, my Greek helmet, my worry helmet,
Speaker 2: and I'm and I'm walking out really really slowly, really confident,
Speaker 2: stopped for a bit, and I stare at them all
Speaker 2: a bit, and I walk a little bit more, three
Speaker 2: or four more steps, and I stare them at all
Speaker 2: again a bit more. So I knew I had this
Speaker 2: and I just couldn't wait. I couldn't wait. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got in there and it's got the fight of
Speaker 2: the year, he got the round of the decade. It's
Speaker 2: the fourth round. I've dropped the guy twice. I even
Speaker 2: put a cheeky five ground on myself to knock him
Speaker 2: out in the first round at forty two to one.
Speaker 2: I didn't get up, but anyway, you know, it was
Speaker 2: one of them fights, and you know, and then it
Speaker 2: got to the third round of the fight and I've
Speaker 2: dropped him once and I've gone in to finish the guy,
Speaker 2: and you know what it is like with boxing, if
Speaker 2: you one little mistake, you go through your right hand
Speaker 2: and your left hand sitting down too low. Bang, I
Speaker 2: copped it and the guys dropped me right. So it's
Speaker 2: just turned the whole crowd. It was so frantic. There's
Speaker 2: no standing eight counts with the WBO commission, and the
Speaker 2: referee applied to standing. Let's just give you an idea
Speaker 2: of the referee, Mickey Ward. He was Mick Mickey Van.
Speaker 1: Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Mickey Van was the referee. Yeah, but he was so
Speaker 2: he was like a very veteran referee, you know, he
Speaker 2: was just that frantic that he applied to stay in
Speaker 2: a cant you don't do that. But anyway, still the
Speaker 2: guy a bit more time to recover. Long end of
Speaker 2: the short I've recovered and and you know, through the
Speaker 2: most amount of punches training in the round that round
Speaker 2: four of that fight, and it was just like an
Speaker 2: all out bloody war. And I won the world title.
Speaker 2: You know, the titles went through the roof. It was
Speaker 2: the happiest day of my life. It's just yeah, it
Speaker 2: was second to none.
Speaker 1: We won't have time to talk about all your defenses
Speaker 1: and because you have stack of fights, but there was
Speaker 1: one thing I do want to talk about, and so
Speaker 1: I think it's important to me. He established right the
Speaker 1: very beginning the close bond between you and your mum
Speaker 1: and your dad yep, but also your brother Staffy yep.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately before one of your bigger fights, you your brother.
Speaker 1: You lost your brother. Can you tell me through that?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I I built my record up. I've got
Speaker 2: these big fights. So then I've I've gone from this
Speaker 2: kid intomba, too scared to even throw a punch, to fighting.
Speaker 2: It's the pound for pound best fighter in the world.
Speaker 2: One man your Markers he knocked out MANI pack like
Speaker 2: those are no box will know who One man your
Speaker 2: Markets was one of the pound for pound best fighters
Speaker 2: in the world. Like he fought Maywether. He's everything for everyone.
Speaker 2: And you know, it was such a big fight. It
Speaker 2: was a megastar fight, and I was preparing for the fight,
Speaker 2: so I I used to going to twelve week or
Speaker 2: eight week training camps in Thailand. My name was so
Speaker 2: big in the States that I could I couldn't go
Speaker 2: anywhere on me anywhere, so big that the paparazzi and
Speaker 2: like people were infiltrating now training and trying to get
Speaker 2: Brendan's here all the time. He joined me all the way.
Speaker 2: And I was in camping Thailand, and I've I've got
Speaker 2: a phone call, you know it. It was Brandon and
Speaker 2: he said, Mick, get on your motorbike, meet me at
Speaker 2: the gym. This is three weeks out. So I'm fighting
Speaker 2: the pound pound champion of the world in three weeks time.
Speaker 2: In training camping Thailand. I'm fighting him in the bright
Speaker 2: lights at the MGM Graham Las Vegas. And I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: and I turned my phone off. I looked at my
Speaker 2: phone was going off. It had like hundreds of messages
Speaker 2: and miss calls and and whatever. And I've got in
Speaker 2: there and I saw Brandan, and as soon as I
Speaker 2: saw his face, I said something's happened, hasn't And he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's your brother. He's gone. He died then, you know,
Speaker 2: to have that happen. I just spoke to my brother
Speaker 2: the night before for like an hour and a half.
Speaker 2: Was probably one of the best conversations we had in
Speaker 2: our entire life. Speaking after this fight, We're going to
Speaker 2: get our kids, we're going to meet together, we're going
Speaker 2: to go on holidays. And you know, he died from
Speaker 2: a drug overdose and accidental. Yeah, it was an accident.
Speaker 2: How it happened. You know, there's a bit of negligence
Speaker 2: involved in things like that. But I decided not to
Speaker 2: focus on that, decided to move forward in my life.
Speaker 2: And we had had a decision then to tie the fight,
Speaker 2: take the fight, and go ahead and fight oneman, your
Speaker 2: markets all recover and for me, you know, in my head,
Speaker 2: I did what I thought my brother would have wanted.
Speaker 2: In hindsight, he's not with us now. He wasn't with
Speaker 2: me then.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But I was a disillusion that he was right on
Speaker 2: my shoulder telling me to go ahead and have the
Speaker 2: fight and missed my That was very mental, strong, personal
Speaker 2: emotional thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is the wrong reason.
Speaker 2: To fight emotional, he's giving and giving energy. It took
Speaker 2: a lot out of me. And the key thing with
Speaker 2: that fight, like the media. I couldn't talk to the media,
Speaker 2: so they'd always mentioned my brother's name, so they put
Speaker 2: a media band mentioned in my brother's name. Because I
Speaker 2: just couldn't stop crying. I didn't have anything the masket.
Speaker 2: I had a drug test. I had a you couldn't
Speaker 2: can't drink alcohol, Like that's what people do. They drink alcohol,
Speaker 2: They take drugs when they want to master the paint.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop the crying,
Speaker 2: you know, and then then then you know, hindsight, it's
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing. But I've dropped Marquez. I dropped him.
Speaker 2: He was down, he was gone, and all I had
Speaker 2: to do was jumping and do what I did with
Speaker 2: every other fight and finish the guy. I didn't do that.
Speaker 2: I was listening to the noise and I could hear
Speaker 2: the commentator saying, and he's thinking of his brother. And
Speaker 2: for the first time in my life, I've hesitated when
Speaker 2: going to finish an opponent. That two or three seconds
Speaker 2: would have given him time for him the balance his
Speaker 2: equivalent equivalent it would equally thinking and I just and
Speaker 2: I didn't do it. And then next you know, he's
Speaker 2: come back and he stopped me around nine. I got
Speaker 2: a throat punching round nine and just my legs weren't
Speaker 2: there like they should have been. I wasn't sleeping in
Speaker 2: the preparation, as we know, sleep so so so important.
Speaker 2: I because I was trying to go over how he
Speaker 2: died every night in my head and just thinking about
Speaker 2: all the things growing up, brighting these brumberies and through
Speaker 2: the graveyard, and you know how he you know, he
Speaker 2: was riding in the favorite in a week's time. He's
Speaker 2: riding the favorite in the Melbourne Cup. He was on
Speaker 2: shootout in a week after he died. He was he
Speaker 2: was to be riding shootout in the Melbourne Cup. Who
Speaker 2: was the favorite? Who would have won? His time road
Speaker 2: for Alesca staff. He wasn't on. His connection with every
Speaker 2: horse was it was something else. He's like the horse whisper.
Speaker 1: And you know in hindsight that Michael, if you if
Speaker 1: you look back on it, and you know, because we
Speaker 1: talked about preparations, the preparation of the week leading up
Speaker 1: to the big event. In hindsight, if you were talking
Speaker 1: to another fighter, or just a business person bad to
Speaker 1: do a big meeting, or a swimmer, what would your advice.
Speaker 3: Be, don't do it, don't do it, don't go ahead,
Speaker 3: because yeah, you don't, because if you can't put your
Speaker 3: best foot forward, don't put any foot forward, or you
Speaker 3: need to come up with a strategy like something that
Speaker 3: you can say, or you can just be honest.
Speaker 2: In my case is being honest. Would have been the
Speaker 2: best dancer. Your brother just died, your only brother just died.
Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with that fighting, that's right.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: You know, but what is it with fighters? I make
Speaker 2: just yeah, we got that, well, we've got that determination,
Speaker 2: We've got it.
Speaker 1: I'll be right. Yeah, yeah I'm ready. Yeah, but really,
Speaker 1: I mean, like a proper judicious thought process about what
Speaker 1: it takes to be ready rarely gets done until you
Speaker 1: mature and become a lot older and you've experienced a
Speaker 1: loss like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And and then the things that I
Speaker 2: needed to maintain being that fighter stopped. Like I wasn't
Speaker 2: sleeping properly for that fight. I was, and I was
Speaker 2: listening to what the commentators saying as opposed to doing
Speaker 2: what I had to do. Then that went on. Excuse me,
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't apply any of the mental stuff.
Speaker 2: You can just imagine my life was a mess. I didn't
Speaker 2: apply any of the principles that I had. I didn't
Speaker 2: have that that bulletproof mindset. I didn't. I wasn't using
Speaker 2: that andre and I just my style of all out attack.
Speaker 2: That's all I had. You know, when when you're in business, mark,
Speaker 2: you know, you guys have a whole team of executives
Speaker 2: working out a strategy. Correct. Yeah, I was on my own,
Speaker 2: but they're all out attack. And then that was only
Speaker 2: going to last for so long. It's all out of
Speaker 2: tax style. I didn't. I didn't step back and have someone, hey, look,
Speaker 2: you need to start doing this doing this. You know,
Speaker 2: I went my own way. I went went wild. I'd
Speaker 2: go to do investing in something else, and I'd buy
Speaker 2: this house and that property, and I'd do this, and
Speaker 2: I changed my mind a thousand times. And you know,
Speaker 2: I got on a plane to get to England to
Speaker 2: fight against Ricky Burns, and I was too drunk to
Speaker 2: even get on the plane. You know, I couldn't go daid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I couldn't go day without drinking or taking drugs. It's
Speaker 2: just it's become my spiral, and bye bye. By taking
Speaker 2: that fight, I procrastinated and prolonged the pain of losing
Speaker 2: my brother, and then this this addiction and this mental
Speaker 2: you know, this drinking would go on for someone so
Speaker 2: many years, and then eventually, you know, I'd go into recovery,
Speaker 2: and then I'd come out of recovery and I'd have
Speaker 2: all these great ideas, have great connections, great people.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I haven't been talking to you sooner,
Speaker 2: but i'd tell you why. It's because my head was
Speaker 2: in a cloud of fog. I didn't even know. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what Arthur from Martha. I couldn't have told
Speaker 2: you what day it was, you know. And here I
Speaker 2: sit and funnier today, thankful because I got locked up
Speaker 2: for two years. I got out seven months ago. And
Speaker 2: when I was the first day sitting in there, unlike
Speaker 2: the first time I went to jail, I said to myself,
Speaker 2: how fucking great is this? You know? For me? I
Speaker 2: had gratitude because I knew that this is it for me.
Speaker 2: I knew that I had to come out the other end.
Speaker 2: I was in there, I saw a lot of things relating.
Speaker 2: I related to a lot of the other prisoners that
Speaker 2: were in jail. They suffered sexual abuse, they suffered from addiction,
Speaker 2: and stuffered from all sorts of trauma, domestic violence, poverty.
Speaker 2: I could relate to a lot of these things that
Speaker 2: these guys were suffering from. You. I had my own
Speaker 2: little narcotics anonymous group in there, and you've got like
Speaker 2: twenty prisons sitting at a table. The prison wardens would
Speaker 2: come home and go, what's going on here? Like groups
Speaker 2: of prisons sitting together at one time. Oh, so we're
Speaker 2: just talking about our feelings, you know, and we'd all
Speaker 2: be sitting there, we'd be having our morning share about
Speaker 2: you know, we know, our daily inventory about how we're feeling,
Speaker 2: what's going on inside the head and dealing with the
Speaker 2: emotions and dealing with what was going on, and you know,
Speaker 2: men becoming vulnerable and talking about things. So it started,
Speaker 2: you know, you know that that was my plan, like
Speaker 2: just start starting from there and helping these guys. And
Speaker 2: that helped me by helping others. And the best way
Speaker 2: to keep something was by giving it away as what
Speaker 2: I learned, and it just went on being generous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now where are you at with it all.
Speaker 2: So moving forward, moving forward, so you know, because like
Speaker 2: you know, I've had two years and eight months. You know,
Speaker 2: I haven't touched a drink, haven't touched a drug.
Speaker 1: I have, yeah, but do you feel as though you
Speaker 1: want it? Or you're not even interested?
Speaker 2: Not even interested? And because I have this will to succeed,
Speaker 2: all I've got to do is apply the same principles
Speaker 2: that I did with my boxing and when I when
Speaker 2: I first went to the States, and when you want
Speaker 2: something more than you want to breathe like I am now,
Speaker 2: it doesn't even become an option. Why would you? Why
Speaker 2: would you? I've just been there, I've been in jail
Speaker 2: for two years. It's it's it's it's a no brainer
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: And Joe was probably easy. I don't know it need
Speaker 1: to be easy relative to the ship life you were
Speaker 1: leading prior to that, the drinks, the drugs, you know,
Speaker 1: like bouncing and out of joints, not really fighting properly.
Speaker 1: You'd never been properly prepared, never being happy with yourself.
Speaker 1: Maybe Joe gave you an opportunity to deal with all
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's it's really really sad, but unfortunately that I
Speaker 2: needed it because I was. I was, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: with the law, you know, like I would go into
Speaker 2: recovery for just long enough. I was doing all the programs.
Speaker 2: I hadn't dealt with my trauma. And you have to.
Speaker 2: You have to. You can't be drunk and dealing with
Speaker 2: your trauma. You can't be high and dealing with your trauma.
Speaker 2: And I don't care who these like, who you are.
Speaker 2: And some people are business people. They think they can
Speaker 2: get away with having a line and co cod things
Speaker 2: and think I'm going to be better today. It's not.
Speaker 2: It's not. You know, there's different ways of dealing with things,
Speaker 2: and that they can be a far better self without
Speaker 2: doing doing that need these other habits and vices and things,
Speaker 2: and these are the same principles. And I know this
Speaker 2: because I've been there and I've done it, and I've
Speaker 2: been able to say I've won the world title. I've
Speaker 2: been in jail. And it's a simple choice.
Speaker 1: So the world title that you're winning, your going now
Speaker 1: is against yourself. I want to be the world I
Speaker 1: want to be Michael, Yeah, world title against the guy
Speaker 1: is not going to get the world title? Yeah yeah?
Speaker 1: And so what to where to from here? Mate, what's
Speaker 1: going to happen?
Speaker 2: So what do you see?
Speaker 1: Your your what is what's your calling? What's the universe
Speaker 1: telling you?
Speaker 2: So I'm developing a program called the Bulletproof Mindset and
Speaker 2: so based these people can have the best version of themselves.
Speaker 2: So I've got my Instagram page and what is Michael
Speaker 2: Underscore cat Theaters And there's all the information on the
Speaker 2: Bulletproof Mindset. So you know, for example, like you could
Speaker 2: spend hours talking to I'm really excited about this because
Speaker 2: we've got as part of our team, were having an
Speaker 2: industrial psychologist Samantha Vox and uh and we have a
Speaker 2: whole team of people. But we're developing this. So it's
Speaker 2: like they could talk to you, you know, for hours
Speaker 2: and hours. You can speak a psychologist for ours and
Speaker 2: psychologists for hours and learn about learn about you know,
Speaker 2: your your life and where it's taken you and how
Speaker 2: it's gone away that's going They could say, look, Mark,
Speaker 2: if you keep doing this, you keep being like this
Speaker 2: is steeple like this, your life is going to be
Speaker 2: like this is going to be like that, right. But
Speaker 2: they have this scan that they do with doctor Daniels
Speaker 2: is part of the team, and the scan on your brain.
Speaker 2: They can say this is without even talking to you,
Speaker 2: this is where your life's scoring. This is what you've
Speaker 2: done basically rundown and if you can't continuing like this
Speaker 2: is what's going to happened with your life. So this
Speaker 2: is one of the part of the things that we're
Speaker 2: developed with a bulletproof mindset, getting this scan done on
Speaker 2: you on your on the starting point as a starting point.
Speaker 2: And then we've got a team of coaches that were
Speaker 2: develop and help help people decipher it and give them
Speaker 2: the best road for them to take and in the future.
Speaker 2: So that's that's that's still developing at the moment, and
Speaker 2: all the information is available on my Instagram. But the
Speaker 2: World Championship Maintenance Program the same stuff that I did
Speaker 2: and maintain doing when I was in the States and
Speaker 2: throughout my career when I helped me reach my peak
Speaker 2: and the maximum results. So I got I formed this program.
Speaker 2: This is training alongside many pakyo and and all the
Speaker 2: big things like I learned, I watched, I observed, and
Speaker 2: everything that I did over the years, I picked up
Speaker 2: this set secrets of moves that I do and I've
Speaker 2: got them more for free that I give them the
Speaker 2: people so they can get maximums. I caught the World
Speaker 2: Championship program and yeah, people question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that because your ability to reinvent yourself. But then,
Speaker 1: but you're reinventing yourself, but you're also pulling on those
Speaker 1: things that have always worked for you in terms of
Speaker 1: a mindset, your mindset and structure, discipline and rules, things
Speaker 1: that work. Okay, that's brilliant. Do you think if you
Speaker 1: had a you know, if you took yourself out of
Speaker 1: the nineties and two thousand, two thousands and put yourself
Speaker 1: into today, would you have ever been a UFC guy?
Speaker 1: Would you? Oh, do you think you would have ever
Speaker 1: afought in the UFC? You know, would you?
Speaker 2: Would you hear me? Yeah? Definitely, definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you watch UFC?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't mind it. I don't I can't remember
Speaker 2: the names of the of the like the big ones
Speaker 2: I'll see and like just the thing that I've always seen,
Speaker 2: like with the kicking sports and grappling and all that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff. There's so many different elements in these sports,
Speaker 2: so many different elements, and it can be much like
Speaker 2: a street fight. But once you get to know the
Speaker 2: sport a bit more, there is a science to it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like and you can appreciate that now. So that's why
Speaker 2: I've always like boxing. It's like mano or mano, man
Speaker 2: against man and there's a science to it and you
Speaker 2: can work out and it's a real it's a real strategy.
Speaker 2: So that's also now been worked into the UFC and
Speaker 2: it's exciting. Right. Do you do boxing on us more.
Speaker 1: In terms of practice or watching? I practice. I don't
Speaker 1: box anymore because I'm too old to get it in there,
Speaker 1: but I do jiu jitsu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, cool.
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed that Larry Pops up here up here in
Speaker 1: the cross. But I love watching Volkan Volkovsky for example. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love watching volk you know. And they're decent boxes,
Speaker 1: decent wrestlers, are decent everything. I mean, they're tough bastards.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's there's no referee is not
Speaker 1: pulling anyone off. I'm going to tell you're dead and
Speaker 1: tell you tapping out here, you're done. It's sort of
Speaker 1: it's there's it's a little bit more brutal than boxing, boxing,
Speaker 1: more art, a lot more art involved. Um, unless you
Speaker 1: were you just going into just questioning no matter what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jeff was like that. Jeff was always in your face. Yeah, never, never, never, never,
Speaker 1: it was back that's right. Yeah, that's about fitness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a lot of it's about fitness, and
Speaker 2: you know that's a prerequisite though then you would have
Speaker 2: the hunger. Then when you want something so much, then
Speaker 2: you know you can force your will upon your opponent
Speaker 2: and you can beat them that way, and you can't
Speaker 2: actually put the fear of life into them and do
Speaker 2: it that way. You know, but the all out attack
Speaker 2: will only last for so long. You know that comes
Speaker 2: to a point in your life as you get older,
Speaker 2: you need to come up with another strategy. If you're
Speaker 2: dealing with so many other back noise and other things
Speaker 2: going on in your life, whether business or boxing or fighting,
Speaker 2: and you'll see like you're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to come up with a strategy if you can't step
Speaker 2: back and breathe and have a look at what's going on.
Speaker 2: You need to be able to assess and you need
Speaker 2: to listen to your team. You got, you can reach
Speaker 2: out to the support. You know you can do those
Speaker 2: things if.
Speaker 1: Someone like you, you know you've made if you and
Speaker 1: if you and I sat down worked out how many
Speaker 1: years you fought, not just in the ring, I mean
Speaker 1: like sparred. How many sparks as she did? How many
Speaker 1: times you got hit in the head. You're pretty good,
Speaker 1: You're okay, you're not affected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, your memory is really good.
Speaker 1: You're remembering things that happened eleven Yeah, yeah, thanks, remember
Speaker 1: names of people.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: So you've you've hung in there pretty well. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of talk around these days about context boards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, about specially cat.
Speaker 1: Boxing and how it affects people, you know, dementia, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. You're in pretty good shape.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thanks think about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course I've had a scare before, so.
Speaker 1: I had I soon record. You had a bit discovering,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: No, but I had a broken eye socket in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, which I forgot to tell. But I'm forgetful.
Speaker 2: My dad's forgetful when he was in a boxer. So,
Speaker 2: but I had a brain scan two thousand and nine
Speaker 2: after I got a broken eye socket against Inside's cabido
Speaker 2: August seventeen, two thousand and nine, and that that that
Speaker 2: brain scan, the broken eye socket distorted the anatomy of
Speaker 2: the scan. So so then when I actually had the
Speaker 2: scan but forgot that and showed it to the doctor
Speaker 2: Johnny Lewis's doctor who was training me here in Sydney.
Speaker 2: And the doctor, the doctor John I think his name was,
Speaker 2: I forgot the was no Johnny Lewis was it was no, No,
Speaker 2: not that, not that John No doctor, No, it wasn't
Speaker 2: that Johnny. I love him. Yeah yeah, but so yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he didn't see that. So but from what he could
Speaker 2: see it was there was no go sign, you know,
Speaker 2: because the scarring stored the anatomy. So then I went
Speaker 2: on to get another scan which which went further into
Speaker 2: to my brain to see and it was just the
Speaker 2: scarring from the eye socket the broken which disored it.
Speaker 2: So so I'm in the clear, you know. In the
Speaker 2: lead up to my court things going on. When when
Speaker 2: I had the problems, the judge said I have three
Speaker 2: months to sort treatment for my addiction to drugs and
Speaker 2: alcohol and then three months to get a brain scan done.
Speaker 2: So when I got the brain scan done, I found
Speaker 2: out that my brain was healthy as if not healthier
Speaker 2: than the average man my age. So then my my
Speaker 2: reservation is about about actually metally abolished. Then I just
Speaker 2: I just knew that all you've got to do is
Speaker 2: stay healthy. Do is look after yourself. Well, you know,
Speaker 2: give yourself the time of day, eat right, sleep, exercise.
Speaker 2: You have problems percific please see a doctor is yeah.
Speaker 1: And also it also don't have a company locate your
Speaker 1: life with stupid stuff.
Speaker 2: Keep a simple stupid Yeah, just keep us.
Speaker 1: It's back and simple. And again because often we complicated
Speaker 1: ouralyves with things where we compromise ourselves, compromise our values,
Speaker 1: and that can fuck you. Yeah, because you get guilty,
Speaker 1: you know, sleep properly, yeah, sort of, you know, you
Speaker 1: feel bad about the ship you're doing, and it's just
Speaker 1: you know, like there's enough things in our lives to
Speaker 1: give us stress as it is. You don't need any
Speaker 1: more stress run around your system, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think what you're doing, Michaels is inspirational to other not
Speaker 1: just fighters, sports people, but inspirational to people who I
Speaker 1: think they've they've got a tough gig. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and really it's.
Speaker 1: Not that tough at the end of the day, and
Speaker 1: we have responsibility.
Speaker 2: Well I want to that's what I want, Thank you,
Speaker 2: because I want to empower other people. That's like part
Speaker 2: of my mission. Now I want to look at what
Speaker 2: I did. Like you know what when you started boxing
Speaker 2: and like and the more you got better at it,
Speaker 2: you realize it's not rocket science. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: why didn't I think of that. It's like it becomes
Speaker 2: like a real challenge to here and then you start
Speaker 2: mastering the art of it and that and that's the
Speaker 2: same principles on pass on. You know, I want my
Speaker 2: boxing course, my my my can see this blueprint boxing system.
Speaker 2: I want that to be the best fundamental boxing program
Speaker 2: in the world so people can learn and they can
Speaker 2: know so basic and the things you know, because when
Speaker 2: you're talking about looking after your mind, and you know
Speaker 2: that bit of training, that boxing training you do is
Speaker 2: looking after yourself. I think that. I think that just
Speaker 2: taking that time out for yourself and just focusing on
Speaker 2: on throwing the punch correctly and then exerting it. So
Speaker 2: is a form of meditation. So to speak to you
Speaker 2: because you're not thinking about what's happening on down the
Speaker 2: road or there's other stuff that you.
Speaker 1: Can't Yeah, you can't, or you're going to copy it right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And how much of And to find a question though, Michael,
Speaker 1: how much of it is is your cat see this
Speaker 1: program your blueprint about not getting hit. It's as opposed
Speaker 1: to just run. Yeah you used to yeh, you were
Speaker 1: always be to cop it, right, Yeah, how much is
Speaker 1: it about?
Speaker 2: It's the number one that it's my number one thing,
Speaker 2: the key thing always so so when you punch, When
Speaker 2: you throw a punch, the fastest point from A to
Speaker 2: B is from A to B.
Speaker 1: Sure is distance, yeah yeah, but so.
Speaker 2: Many times people go all right, I'm going to punch,
Speaker 2: now here is a B, C, D E not a B,
Speaker 2: you know? Or they go to this one, this one,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna hit you with this. No one's going to
Speaker 2: keep the head still to cop the punch. So emphasize
Speaker 2: on just basic fundamentals and things so so people get
Speaker 2: it so they can get it. Doesn't matter who you
Speaker 2: are all over the world. You can get it, and
Speaker 2: you can do it, and you can see it work,
Speaker 2: and then you know straight away if it's not working.
Speaker 2: I get them to center video of themselves back so
Speaker 2: they can get many young kids.
Speaker 1: Many young kids are still in the fight game, Like
Speaker 1: I'm still a patron here, Willow. Yeah, but we don't
Speaker 1: get many kids in there anymore. Boxing get a few girls.
Speaker 1: We get a few girls, and that day is pretty
Speaker 1: good if we get a lot of kids down there.
Speaker 1: But like generally speaking, not not like it used to be.
Speaker 1: Like I think.
Speaker 2: Boxing is great, you know, and you know you're right,
Speaker 2: you know, there's not.
Speaker 1: A lot getting more girls though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Women's sport is picking up, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's and women are naturally more aggressive than guys,
Speaker 2: as you probably know they are. And they're tough too, yeah,
Speaker 2: tough airs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty And by the way, I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing that I got to sit in front of
Speaker 1: Micout Sieges. Thank you, I really appreciate, mate. And from
Speaker 1: one boxing fan to another boxing fan now and from
Speaker 1: one Greek to another Greek, well done.
Speaker 2: Mate, Thank you mate.
Speaker 1: Good You're welcome.