Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, said,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law.
Speaker 2: The interviews are raw.
Speaker 1: And honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Cats Killers. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: speaking to two guests who knew each other when they
Speaker 1: were younger. Their lives went in separate directions, but a
Speaker 1: chance meeting years down the track brought them both back
Speaker 1: together again. They've both experienced the highs and lowers in
Speaker 1: their lives, but they are resilient and strong. They now
Speaker 1: share a common purpose in life and are trying to
Speaker 1: make a difference encouraging boys and men to find purpose
Speaker 1: in their life and become the best version that they
Speaker 1: can be. I thought it'd be good to have a
Speaker 1: chat with both of them and get their take on life.
Speaker 1: So in the studio today we have former Olympian and
Speaker 1: World boxing champion Michael Cassidas, who had his sporting peak
Speaker 1: was living in America hanging out with the likes of
Speaker 1: Denzil Washington, but he has also experienced horrendous laths, a
Speaker 1: victim of childhood sexual abuse, drug addiction and incarceration. Our
Speaker 1: other guest, Marty Cornish, grew up in the Housing Commission
Speaker 1: with a heroin addicted stepfather. He also got caught up
Speaker 1: in the wrong crowd. He joined the Army to find
Speaker 1: a brotherhood and is now focusing on men's mental health
Speaker 1: and encouraging men to be the best version of themselves.
Speaker 1: And today I'm looking forward to hearing their stories and
Speaker 1: find out how they're trying to make a difference in
Speaker 1: this world. Michael, that's welcome to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Gary, it's.
Speaker 2: Good to good to have you here.
Speaker 1: I've been a big fan of your your fighting career,
Speaker 1: so it's great to see you in see you in person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2: You're looking good.
Speaker 1: You're looking healthy, yeah, healthy, healthy, yes, staying fit and
Speaker 1: strong yes yeah, yeah, okay. And we've also got a
Speaker 1: second guest in the studio today, so it's going to
Speaker 1: test my skills as a podcast. Marty Cornish, welcome to
Speaker 1: I Catch Killers.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Gary, it's good too, good to see you too. So Michael, firstly,
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you a hard question, but just
Speaker 1: describe your life. Tell people who you are.
Speaker 5: I suppose the best way to begin this is to
Speaker 5: start from the beginning. I had a pretty had a
Speaker 5: very strong relationship with my brother and our mothers. My
Speaker 5: mother and father brought us up very well, like they
Speaker 5: take us all the sporting things, you know, got right
Speaker 5: behind us, and we were pushed each other along. We
Speaker 5: both played soccer anyway. So he's got involved in the
Speaker 5: racing industry and left school grade nine just to follow
Speaker 5: that ambition, and he ended up becoming one of Australia's
Speaker 5: best jockeys.
Speaker 3: And he's basically like he.
Speaker 5: Was Australian leading jockey and come to the point where
Speaker 5: we'd push each other in our careers. I'd built up
Speaker 5: an excellent record at twenty three fights, twenty three wins
Speaker 5: with twenty one knockouts. One of the most exciting fighters
Speaker 5: in the world. Fought on all the arenas England. That's
Speaker 5: when I first won the world title, had successful defenses
Speaker 5: at mental a Bay. Basically lived in the States for
Speaker 5: six years, you know, and our relationship was really strong
Speaker 5: and Stathi being one of Australia's best riders.
Speaker 3: He made it to the Melbourne Cup.
Speaker 5: And he was a week out for the Melbourne Cup
Speaker 5: and I was in a training camp fighting about the
Speaker 5: fight against the pound for pound best fighter in the
Speaker 5: world in one Manuel Marquees and he's the guy knocked
Speaker 5: out Minipatio Fort Floyd Mayweather, an accomplished fighter, and you
Speaker 5: know that fight was to make me a household name
Speaker 5: all over the world. Hadn't been home to Australia for
Speaker 5: like since two thousand and six. This is twenty ten,
Speaker 5: and I'll get a phone. I was in heavy training camp.
Speaker 5: So my brother's riding in the Melbourne Cup a week later.
Speaker 5: In three weeks, I'm fighting as one man your Marquez,
Speaker 5: and one morning he had a phone call from Brendan.
Speaker 5: He says, we're in Thailand training camp and he says
Speaker 5: don't look at your phone, and he said, turn it
Speaker 5: off and meet me at the gym, and it's really important.
Speaker 5: I met him at the gym his first thing in
Speaker 5: the morning, and I knew something was up straight away.
Speaker 5: And I looked him in the eyes and I said,
Speaker 5: someone has died, hasn't he And he said, yes, it's
Speaker 5: your brother. And where I was at that stage in
Speaker 5: my preparation, that was a really hard thing to have
Speaker 5: to deal with, having to lose your brother, and you know,
Speaker 5: and then I had a decision to make there and
Speaker 5: then whether I would continue with that fight or to
Speaker 5: go back to the funeral and grieve. You know, hindsight's
Speaker 5: a wonderful thing, but at the time I decided I
Speaker 5: did what my brother would have wanted me to do,
Speaker 5: and you know, and I thought then the best thing
Speaker 5: was to go on and have the fight, which I
Speaker 5: did and just about won that fight as well. So
Speaker 5: I'm one of the only people to put one and
Speaker 5: your markets on his bums the third round of the fight. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: And I was an excellent finisher according to finish him
Speaker 5: after I dropped him. And one thing that helped me
Speaker 5: back I could hear the commentators yelling, and he's thinking
Speaker 5: of his brother, you know, in my past, like I
Speaker 5: would never dreamed of even thinking I'd just execute. I'm
Speaker 5: an excellent finisher, That's what I would do anyway, one man,
Speaker 5: your marquees recovered come back and end up stopping in
Speaker 5: around nine to that fight, and from there onwards, I
Speaker 5: just lost the next four fights straight and it's just
Speaker 5: on a downward spiral started.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how life can turn so quickly. Like you're
Speaker 1: describing your brother at the top of his career, at
Speaker 1: the top of your career, and then you get news
Speaker 1: like that. We'll talk in more detail about that, but then, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was probably the high high points in your life,
Speaker 1: the way your life was going. But you're sort of
Speaker 1: spiraled after that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I suppose, you know, like it was the icing
Speaker 5: on the cake, so to speak, you know, like the
Speaker 5: downward spiral that my life went. So I lost the
Speaker 5: next four fights straight after that. Yeah, you know, at
Speaker 5: one point my record was unblemish. You know, I was
Speaker 5: right on top of my game. But that's when all
Speaker 5: the drugs and the alcohol started and I began using
Speaker 5: that as a recipe to mask my pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a story of story. I've heard a lot here.
Speaker 1: I saw a lot when I was in the cops,
Speaker 1: Like what is it about?
Speaker 2: The drugs?
Speaker 1: Is about the high and invariably when you strip it down,
Speaker 1: it's about masking pain that you've vix been in your
Speaker 1: life will break your life down that further. But Marty
Speaker 1: about your life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I guess, you know, taking it back for
Speaker 4: the start. You know, my mom, who is my best friend,
Speaker 4: you know, but she gave birth to me at sixteen.
Speaker 2: Jesus young, isn't Yeah, so you.
Speaker 4: Know we essentially had a teenager raising a child, and
Speaker 4: you know that just it provided I guess, you know,
Speaker 4: she was battling, you know, from the day dot and
Speaker 4: my father wasn't really in the pitch. I even I
Speaker 4: went to one of the most wealthy schools in Sydney
Speaker 4: and I didn't really meet him for the first time
Speaker 4: until I was seventeen, right, and that provided a void
Speaker 4: in my stomach. I had an emptiness inside me, and
Speaker 4: funny enough, I actually meeting for the first time around
Speaker 4: the time I started boxing at the pc y C.
Speaker 4: First heard of the name Michael Cassidis in Toomba and
Speaker 4: even through that period when I was growing up. My
Speaker 4: mom actually went through her own diversity and coming back
Speaker 4: to the healing ourselves, and that's exactly what's happening in
Speaker 4: the household. There was a lot of heroin in the
Speaker 4: house and as you know, it's it's one of those
Speaker 4: drugs I've been told where it really master pain, it's
Speaker 4: really it heals. So my childhood was up until about
Speaker 4: twelve thirteen when I went to live with my grandparents,
Speaker 4: who my grandfather's a veteran. It was quite dysfunctional with
Speaker 4: you know, my stuff would be pawned. You know. I
Speaker 4: was doing odd jobs to make money because I went
Speaker 4: to actual a primary school in Neutral Bay. So my
Speaker 4: mom was trying to send me into a good area,
Speaker 4: a good area.
Speaker 1: Yeah you're brought up in housing commission, but trying to
Speaker 1: steer you in a different direction.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the thing was like a lot of these kids
Speaker 4: lived on on the Sydney Harbor, you know, around Cremorne,
Speaker 4: and I went over to their house and then their cover.
Speaker 4: They've just got like a lot of these fucking teddy teddies.
Speaker 1: It must it must be using for at your age,
Speaker 1: like you see your friends in households like.
Speaker 2: That, and then you go home and there's syringes and
Speaker 2: yeah that lane around the house, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: And it was really like because I remember one time
Speaker 4: I walked into i'll staying up one of these guys,
Speaker 4: one of the kids from school, and I was so
Speaker 4: excited just I was like amaze of how much food
Speaker 4: they had in the cupboard and now like holy shit,
Speaker 4: like what's going on with this dude. But all of
Speaker 4: this provided me with a fuel and a deep level
Speaker 4: of ambition to try and break the cycle, you know.
Speaker 4: And that's when people go to me or you know,
Speaker 4: how you so ambitious or you know, where does it
Speaker 4: kind of come from? If it wasn't for this, it
Speaker 4: wouldn't have filled me. I don't believe to try and
Speaker 4: accomplish something in my life.
Speaker 1: You you told me in conversations that we had that
Speaker 1: you joined the join the army, looking for a brotherhood,
Speaker 1: looking to belong to something.
Speaker 2: That that helped to a degree.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I really I was living in Sydney, I
Speaker 4: was walking working a corporate world, but I was just
Speaker 4: drinking every weekend, you know, not just having six beers.
Speaker 4: You know, would really work hard and play hard, and
Speaker 4: I really wanted to force and pose some discipline into
Speaker 4: my life because I actually applied to get into the
Speaker 4: army when I was seventeen and I was knocked back,
Speaker 4: just purelyus to look make go get some life experience,
Speaker 4: and that was into Womba and you know, but I
Speaker 4: was twenty three at the time, and I really wanted
Speaker 4: to test myself. I really was just in this lull
Speaker 4: in life where I'm like, I need something, I need
Speaker 4: something to believe in me. I need to find out
Speaker 4: what I've actually got inside and what I'm capable of.
Speaker 4: And I also wanted to feel proud of myself, you know,
Speaker 4: to be able to walk into a room with my
Speaker 4: shoulders back and say, you know what, I'm a soldier.
Speaker 4: And I wanted to be able to tell my grandfather,
Speaker 4: you know, and make him proud as well a man
Speaker 4: out of respect. So I was really looking for a
Speaker 4: lot of things in my life that was missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, understandable why you choose heading to the army. You've
Speaker 1: got to out of the army, as I understand that.
Speaker 1: And when you left, your started a business and you're
Speaker 1: working successful. But in your own words, you said to
Speaker 1: me you got caught up in your own ego and
Speaker 1: success and started to become the party boy again, lost
Speaker 1: your way exactly.
Speaker 4: And the interesting thing is, as now where seven years
Speaker 4: past that I look back on it, and you know,
Speaker 4: people may criticize me for the way that I was,
Speaker 4: and it wasn't that bad. Like fuck I was just
Speaker 4: because you know, all of a sudden, for twenty seven
Speaker 4: years of your life, you've never really done well. You know,
Speaker 4: you've aspired. And I worked on the business four years
Speaker 4: and I was around a lot of successful people, and
Speaker 4: when I finally started to see a little bit of success,
Speaker 4: you're like, well, I finally did it. But a lot
Speaker 4: of the people don't understand what it was like in
Speaker 4: those how's the commission? You know?
Speaker 2: What was driving your home? I think?
Speaker 1: And we'll talk talk about Michael's career, and like, success
Speaker 1: in whether it's business, sport, or whatever you're aspiring to
Speaker 1: can be a double edged sort, yeah, Like you can
Speaker 1: lose lose your way, lose perspective on things, and yeah,
Speaker 1: forget the important things about being a good, good person.
Speaker 1: And I see it time and time again. We've all
Speaker 1: got it within us every time. And some of the
Speaker 1: knockdowns I've had in life, I think they've made me
Speaker 1: a better person. Because if you don't, you start to
Speaker 1: believe your own hyah, your own surrounds and yeah, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I can do this, and yeah we lose lose our way. Michael,
Speaker 1: let's get back to you, or before we do, how did.
Speaker 2: You two meet? What's where did you to first meet? Well,
Speaker 2: I was connected.
Speaker 5: I wasn't so aware of when I first when Marty
Speaker 5: first came into my life, because like, I was really
Speaker 5: passionate about what I did with my boxing and that
Speaker 5: was my addiction, you know, and I would train, take
Speaker 5: classes and train heaps of kids and I was only fifteen.
Speaker 5: I'd even train the adults as well, and Marty was
Speaker 5: one of those kids that I would look after. And
Speaker 5: it's just funny how everything in the world just always
Speaker 5: comes around like I've you know, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: just so many stories that go onto that. But you know,
Speaker 5: water finds at the same level. And then years later,
Speaker 5: like I'm at a bottle of about to get some groging,
Speaker 5: and mart he's just like he was so cool.
Speaker 3: Man, He's just like rolling on around love. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: it is Michael Kats. He said, He's like.
Speaker 5: He's balling and he's rolling around and he's just laughing
Speaker 5: and I can't believe in you and all this. And
Speaker 5: his mum was with him, which I couldn't even remember
Speaker 5: till I caught up with her last night. But he
Speaker 5: told me the stories about how like he would see
Speaker 5: me and with a flock of people around me all
Speaker 5: the time, and see this guy that would just going
Speaker 5: to the gym and to be skipping there and I
Speaker 5: would always come in and have black eyes and they're
Speaker 5: just working away, work away, and he just like looked
Speaker 5: up at me and saw what I was doing and
Speaker 5: could and saw my career progressed into the world stage.
Speaker 5: And then I mean, what's your take on it is.
Speaker 2: That you remember it.
Speaker 4: I've got a completely different story. Yeah, well it was
Speaker 4: so I started boxing at the PC YC, and you know,
Speaker 4: I remember one time looking over and there was just
Speaker 4: this guy with these mad bruises under his eyes and
Speaker 4: he's like skipping in the dark, and it just had
Speaker 4: this real rocky vibe about it, you know, like this,
Speaker 4: and I was like, that's Michael Casidas. That's Michael Casidas.
Speaker 4: And then you know, about a year later when I
Speaker 4: turned eight and started going out into WARMBA and there
Speaker 4: was just this entourage of people around just as swarm,
Speaker 4: you know, and because there was obviously such a about
Speaker 4: two hundred thousand people. You know, you've got another limpi
Speaker 4: in and someone he's a big name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone wants a piece of him.
Speaker 4: And this was before America, I believe you're thinking, before
Speaker 4: we had gone over to it, so he even got
Speaker 4: way bigger. And you know, the name was just it
Speaker 4: just carried weight with it, you know, in that town
Speaker 4: and was renowned for being just this tough dude. And
Speaker 4: you know, when I ran into him on a Gold
Speaker 4: Coast at the bottle shop, I said to the bottle
Speaker 4: shop going, what do you know? Who you know this is?
Speaker 4: And even my mom and everybody's like, oh, what's going
Speaker 4: on with Marty? Like you know, it's like and then
Speaker 4: I came back home that night and I didn't catch anything.
Speaker 4: Like I put on some casitas like Top five knockouts,
Speaker 4: you know. And then every time when we started hanging out,
Speaker 4: because he's like, oh mate, yeah, no dramas, like you know,
Speaker 4: he goes, here's my number. And then the next day
Speaker 4: I get this phone call from a number and he goes, oh,
Speaker 4: it's Michael, Michael who And he goes casitas, he goes
Speaker 4: come over for like a cup of tea, like a
Speaker 4: fucking cup of tea. So I drive over to his
Speaker 4: house just random. Hi, Now I've got to Michael Cassetta's place.
Speaker 4: And we became mates ever since then, and you know,
Speaker 4: I got to know him a lot better as a mate.
Speaker 4: And you know we're talking about doing things together back then,
Speaker 4: but you know, some things happened.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the world of that world boxing, they use
Speaker 1: boxing just as an analogy to pass this message on.
Speaker 1: I know Michael will get you to talk about this
Speaker 1: later on. But yeah, when you're a rising star in
Speaker 1: the boxing world, everyone coming to you and everyone wants
Speaker 1: a piece of it, be associated with it, just get
Speaker 1: a photo with you, just be part of the excitement
Speaker 1: of someone in one of the toughest sports in the
Speaker 1: world on the rise, and let's have a piece of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your grown men, businessmen want to be there. Yeah, Michael,
Speaker 1: he's a good friend of mine. That type of thing
Speaker 1: at an early age, it must be hard to deal
Speaker 1: with that adulation and keep you your ego in check
Speaker 1: and everything else in check.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So like even from the age of fifteen, getting interviewed
Speaker 5: and doing when uses our local news station up there
Speaker 5: and always in the media. You become it's a common
Speaker 5: thing to be talking and having this persona and it
Speaker 5: just becomes an everyday thing. It's just business, part of life.
Speaker 5: And then of course as you go along you become
Speaker 5: more successful. You know, it's just business as usual. It
Speaker 5: just becomes a part and part of the past of
Speaker 5: your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and I see with that and use like
Speaker 1: boxing we're talking here, but the same with footballers, even
Speaker 1: in the music industry anywhere. You can see how you
Speaker 1: can go off track when you do that. Now you
Speaker 1: reached the dizzy heights of world boxing champion, but your
Speaker 1: career is probably not as well known here in Australia
Speaker 1: as it is in America because you decided to go
Speaker 1: over and test yourself against the best of the best.
Speaker 1: But before we step into that there Sydney Olympics, you
Speaker 1: represented the country here, Sydney boy, I was working at
Speaker 1: the Olympics with the close personal protection and seeing what
Speaker 1: was going on in the thick of it. You guys
Speaker 1: were treated like gods at that stage. An Olympic athlete.
Speaker 1: If you're wandering at wandering Australian tracks with yeah, so.
Speaker 5: You are so like you know, like I come from
Speaker 5: Timba and you know, like all of a sudden you're
Speaker 5: this is superstar, and like it doesn't really hit you. You
Speaker 5: have these dreams and these aspirations. You want to go
Speaker 5: to the Olympic Games. And then when you actually go
Speaker 5: the Olympic Games, you're like in the forefront and front
Speaker 5: of the world. It's like here Australia saying, here you are,
Speaker 5: this is our greatest But you know, and then you
Speaker 5: put up on his pedestal and you know, like just
Speaker 5: to see the go to the opening seramony and people, ah,
Speaker 5: you can just hear this just so like you always
Speaker 5: these little fingers and have people sit trying the cracks
Speaker 5: in the water trying to get like a vision of
Speaker 5: us and stuff. And you know, they gave us some
Speaker 5: kangaroos to throw out to the crowd and like they'd
Speaker 5: like swarm all over these people like animals and they're
Speaker 5: like these human beings. It's like they're like I saw
Speaker 5: it and it's like they're like, you know, like people.
Speaker 5: It was like sofa anyway, it was a really really
Speaker 5: big thing. But Nicki Webster was singing it. I saw
Speaker 5: how days a grown woman, like things have changed and
Speaker 5: what was the cold chill that played at the opening zeramony?
Speaker 1: But anyway, they're closing ceremony. Coltures will midnight, allay.
Speaker 3: That's not all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was so big and you know, and there
Speaker 5: we were, and so we're performing from the big, big screen.
Speaker 5: I won my first round of the competition against Brazil
Speaker 5: and then I lost by two points to Kazakh Kazakhstan
Speaker 5: and the next fight and it so like you're like
Speaker 5: Michael and you're about to become a household name. As
Speaker 5: so the psychological side of things, they back then, they
Speaker 5: used to like a briefing and like a debriefing where
Speaker 5: you'd have to talk and they just have a check
Speaker 5: in with you. I have no doubt now the way
Speaker 5: that we're evolving as humans and in the sport, that
Speaker 5: there's a much greater role played played on the psychology
Speaker 5: of people in general. You know, when going to the
Speaker 5: Olympics and not going to the Olympics and whatever.
Speaker 1: Disappointments that you get getting, whether Olympics or anything.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, we all aspire to.
Speaker 1: You two guys have formed the friendship, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about your time in prison too.
Speaker 2: But this was you met.
Speaker 1: Back at the bottle shop after you've got out of
Speaker 1: prison or just recently out of prison, and you've you've
Speaker 1: formed a bit of a bond here and you want
Speaker 1: to help men find the way be resilient. What brought
Speaker 1: you two together on that issue? How did that play out?
Speaker 3: Well, we both.
Speaker 5: At one stage. Marty was always you know, telling me like,
Speaker 5: do you know who you are?
Speaker 3: Do you know?
Speaker 5: And trying to encourage me to remember who I am
Speaker 5: and to hold me in the highest light and you know,
Speaker 5: get yourself amongst all the all the good people. And
Speaker 5: I just wasn't ready yet. I wasn't ready and like
Speaker 5: my I'd taken this pathway. It's like, to be honest,
Speaker 5: it's like I've been sleeping for the last fourteen years,
Speaker 5: to be honest.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until you know, I got locked up. You know,
Speaker 5: my fingerprints were found. It's a cocaine and I got
Speaker 5: charged with cocaine trafficking and just just basically I wasn't
Speaker 5: even living at the house anymore. But the long end
Speaker 5: of the short is that my dirty MIT's getting on
Speaker 5: these drugs and things like that, and if I wasn't
Speaker 5: associating with the people that I was associating, I wouldn't
Speaker 5: have been in that position to begin with. And it's
Speaker 5: a void that I had, Like I was this world
Speaker 5: champion and I could never feel that void. And I
Speaker 5: was constantly looking for something to master the pain and
Speaker 5: surround myself with people that make me felt more comfortable,
Speaker 5: which is right down there, you know. And it wasn't
Speaker 5: up here with the people that I needed to be around.
Speaker 5: There was no clarity. I couldn't I didn't have any
Speaker 5: sense of direction. And it wasn't until you know, it
Speaker 5: took you know, I've got two years jail and what
Speaker 5: were were charges cocaine trafficking, and I'm sitting in jail
Speaker 5: and I found myself, you know, I had a good, long,
Speaker 5: hard think about things, and I thought, fuck, Like, I'm
Speaker 5: talking to these guys that I'm in there with and
Speaker 5: I could actually relate to them. I could actually see
Speaker 5: there's a lot of trauma in there. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of people brought up with it, with a lot of
Speaker 5: sexual abuse.
Speaker 2: Just just on that.
Speaker 1: Michael, And yeah, I've spoken to you about it and
Speaker 1: you said you're comfortable talking about it, but you were
Speaker 1: a victim of child sexual abuse. Yes, And I think
Speaker 1: in the conversation that we had, you said you didn't
Speaker 1: tell people, you didn't deal with it then and suppressed.
Speaker 1: Do you want to just talk us through through that
Speaker 1: aspect of your life because and you identify it in prison.
Speaker 1: I know I've spoken to you about it, Marty. So
Speaker 1: many people inside have had situations like that and that's
Speaker 1: where the anger comes from. And you see these guys,
Speaker 1: big tough, bikey dudes that what's this anger about? They
Speaker 1: just they never want to be a victim again. And
Speaker 1: a lot of it steems from this childhood sexual abuse.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right, and they haven't dealt with the
Speaker 5: trauma associated with that, and then they haven't really been
Speaker 5: able to find the right support network. There is support
Speaker 5: out there, there's people that do understand, but at first
Speaker 5: it's been able to identify. It is one thing that
Speaker 5: leads to the next, you know, ultimately, like like I've
Speaker 5: gone on that pathway like I was. I was always
Speaker 5: messed up growing up, and then one thing led to another.
Speaker 5: I've gone down a bad spiral and then when my
Speaker 5: brother died, that was the catalyst, and it's just added
Speaker 5: to it, and it's smarts in the pain, and I couldn't.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't until I was speaking to a trauma
Speaker 5: therapist and and and realizing where where it was all
Speaker 5: coming from that that that I could actually identify. And
Speaker 5: like he said to me, he said he could tell
Speaker 5: straight away. He said, Michael, you just have to stop using.
Speaker 5: You have to stop using, you have to stop drinking.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just as clear as that, because they're.
Speaker 3: Not going to heal.
Speaker 1: But just just to put it in context and perspective,
Speaker 1: how old were you and what happened?
Speaker 2: Was someone known to you or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: So I've just recently found out who it is, and
Speaker 5: you know, something that would happen regularly. And I was
Speaker 5: having I was having a phone conversation with my partner
Speaker 5: of my brother before he died, and I know, I
Speaker 5: asked her, I said, it's something that that happened to
Speaker 5: start thinking like and she just started crying on a
Speaker 5: phone and she said the time enever to tell anyone
Speaker 5: about it. And because he was similar to similar to
Speaker 5: me in a lot of ways, but also it's just
Speaker 5: very kept things to himself.
Speaker 1: Because there's and this is a manipulative side of predators,
Speaker 1: which you call them people that pray on children for
Speaker 1: their own sexual gratification. They manipulate it to they make
Speaker 1: it feel like it's something you can't talk about, something
Speaker 1: that you've done wrong, and you carry that. Is that
Speaker 1: similar to what happened in your situation?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I guess so.
Speaker 5: You know, like like I was just I was just
Speaker 5: really messed up, Like I was just messed up about
Speaker 5: my ideal about sex and about life and what things are.
Speaker 5: You know, it's took away my innocence and you know,
Speaker 5: and then later on in life, you know, it's taken
Speaker 5: my brother's life as well. It's like if you have
Speaker 5: trauma in your life and things that you can't really
Speaker 5: comprehend or understand anything about them, and that you don't
Speaker 5: even realize that it's happening to you. But the moment
Speaker 5: that you find something like like a really good drink
Speaker 5: or or a drug that you like, it's like, all
Speaker 5: of a sudden, it's just muscle that pain. It's taken away,
Speaker 5: and no one really understands. But no one really understands
Speaker 5: unless it's a fellow addict, what that feeling is like,
Speaker 5: that's the whole weight of It's like everything's just taken away.
Speaker 5: From all that, all that pain that you suffered the
Speaker 5: experience of going through that sexual molestation and the trauma,
Speaker 5: and then the things as a result that happened after
Speaker 5: that as well, that the trouble that you get yourself
Speaker 5: into just being messed up and head people and it's
Speaker 5: just like a whole massive weight just taking off your shoulders.
Speaker 5: That feeling is unreal. And you know, and I can't
Speaker 5: say that that I like drinking. I love drinking, you know,
Speaker 5: but I can't do it anymore because it's not the
Speaker 5: way for me to deal with things. And these are
Speaker 5: the things that I related to with other people that
Speaker 5: were in prison. They had that similar thing and ultimately, look,
Speaker 5: this is what happened. My brother, a talented athlete and
Speaker 5: a free course writer with one of the best in Australia,
Speaker 5: has found drugs and he loved it and it killed him.
Speaker 5: So to that person that molested me, you fucked my life.
Speaker 5: I want him to know that. And soon he's going
Speaker 5: to know very well, know, even if I can see
Speaker 5: him face to face. But I'll get my opportunity. But
Speaker 5: the things like, it's not just that, it's my brother,
Speaker 5: my mother, my father, and all my family around that.
Speaker 3: As well, that they've all suffered as a result of
Speaker 3: all this.
Speaker 5: And it's not right. It's not right, and it's wrong.
Speaker 5: It's wrong what's happened. And you know, look, these things
Speaker 5: will get dealt with and I won't deal with it
Speaker 5: the way that I used to deal with things and
Speaker 5: just go and mask it. I'm clear on my life's
Speaker 5: back now. I have clarity, I have directions, I have direction,
Speaker 5: I know where I'm going, I know what I want
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 1: So the person you saw that you looked up to
Speaker 1: when you walked in there and there's this tough dude
Speaker 1: with his black eyes skimming in the corner, looking everything
Speaker 1: like a scene out of a rocky movie, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: for one moment think there's any pain or any any weakness.
Speaker 1: What you're projecting there is this tough guy that can
Speaker 1: take on the world and don't yeah, don't fuck with me,
Speaker 1: or you're going to pay for it.
Speaker 3: Well, you know they say, when you're in the fight,
Speaker 3: you know you never show that you're hurting. Yeah, never
Speaker 3: show your weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Just let's just so people understand the heights
Speaker 1: that you reached in your boxing career. The Olympics and
Speaker 1: then after the Olympics an amateur, then you went professional
Speaker 1: and you wanted to test yourself and you ended up
Speaker 1: living in the United States, living in some pretty tough areas.
Speaker 1: Talk us through that experience.
Speaker 5: Mate, It was it was meant to be. You know,
Speaker 5: like when I was seven years old, I watched the
Speaker 5: Rocky movie and you know, and Sylvestera salone and I said,
Speaker 5: I said that I planted a seed in my head
Speaker 5: that I don't.
Speaker 3: Laugh, but it's true. I planted.
Speaker 5: I planted a seed in my head that I was
Speaker 5: going to be the world champion there and then and
Speaker 5: and I loved Rocky. And so I've landed in LA
Speaker 5: and I stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel and that very
Speaker 5: that very night, I've walked outside. They've got a premiere
Speaker 5: for Rocky five, and Sylvester Salon's out there shaking hands
Speaker 5: and I shook his hand. What an experience like? I
Speaker 5: shook his hand. Years later I met his brother, Frank
Speaker 5: Stallone as well. But I felt like getting a chance
Speaker 5: of saying, hey, do you know my name used to
Speaker 5: be Rocky? Like they called that was my finale, They
Speaker 5: called me Rocky. Then they end up making it concedas
Speaker 5: the great Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so what was it? What was it like going
Speaker 1: in there? Like when I say testing against the world's
Speaker 1: best in that in that day and age, that's where
Speaker 1: all the top fighters went to the US back back
Speaker 1: in those days and probably pretty much still now. It's
Speaker 1: a testing ground. There's some pretty mean, hungry dudes in there,
Speaker 1: or from a little country town in Queensland. And what
Speaker 1: makes you think you can take on the people from
Speaker 1: the mean streets of and the Mexicans, like the Mexicans
Speaker 1: and the tough dudes from the US.
Speaker 3: No fear, No fear.
Speaker 5: It's because fear is a false expectation appearing real f
Speaker 5: E a R. And it's just it's that set had
Speaker 5: already been planted from a young age. I was always
Speaker 5: going to do well. So that's the same thing with
Speaker 5: life now. I'm always going to do well. It didn't
Speaker 5: matter who I was in front of it because because
Speaker 5: I had a clear goal, I focused on that goal,
Speaker 5: I focus on my opponents were in front of me.
Speaker 5: So basically, with what we're doing and what mat has
Speaker 5: helped me unpack with my mind and with a mindset
Speaker 5: coaching that I wanted that I'm helping people out with.
Speaker 5: People want to get some sort of confidence and and
Speaker 5: and it's and it's the things that the seeds that
Speaker 5: you planning your mind from young age, like building that
Speaker 5: sort of confidence. And it's not something that you can
Speaker 5: get overnight, but I can.
Speaker 3: Tell you how. I can show you how to do it.
Speaker 5: For example, I've gone from a kid that was who
Speaker 5: had been through what I'd been through and too scared
Speaker 5: to even throw my right hand. When I went in
Speaker 5: for my first fight, I was only could only throw
Speaker 5: my left hand. That's all I could throw. I was
Speaker 5: too scared until I hit with a big one. Then
Speaker 5: it really tested myself and I opened up.
Speaker 3: I unleashed.
Speaker 5: I won that fight just on points. And then for
Speaker 5: my second fight, this is eleven year old, I fought
Speaker 5: against a guy called Nicholas Frawley from Harvey Bay, and
Speaker 5: he like I'd ate too much fish and chips. I
Speaker 5: waited in thirty two point six kilograms, so six hundred
Speaker 5: grams over the thirty two.
Speaker 3: Kilo big boy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I thought a guy was thirty five killos,
Speaker 5: which you know three point four killers, and that it
Speaker 5: was a lot of weight for that. But he could
Speaker 5: really fight, and luckily I said to myself, I'm going
Speaker 5: to throw both hands and I'm going to go float
Speaker 5: out because it was an absolute war.
Speaker 3: But he handed it to me. I dished out some
Speaker 3: real damage, but I loved it.
Speaker 5: I lost that fight, but I gained so much from
Speaker 5: it because I put so much into it. And that's right,
Speaker 5: that's right. And then so that was a known lesson,
Speaker 5: so I'd learned from that. Okay, I want this next fight.
Speaker 5: Not only am I going to throw both hands, I'm
Speaker 5: going to train better, preparation prior preparation prevents pissporp performance.
Speaker 5: I'm going to eat better, so I'm not going to
Speaker 5: come in over that thirty two kilo division. I'm going
Speaker 5: to run better, and I'm going to make sure that
Speaker 5: my stamina's up there. I'm going to really give it,
Speaker 5: so my diet and everything's all in check. And the
Speaker 5: third fighter had against the guy called Shaw mccolor from
Speaker 5: Quilpy and forty Milmern and it was a war because
Speaker 5: he was a good fighter, and I won the fight
Speaker 5: and I just give it absolutely everything, flat out. And
Speaker 5: after the fight, the crowd has thrown money in the ring.
Speaker 5: It's called a shower money shower, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: one of them things where as an eleven year old
Speaker 5: kid to have people throw money in the ring, so
Speaker 5: happy and.
Speaker 3: Please with the performance that you put on.
Speaker 5: That creates growth and with that growth comes confidence. And
Speaker 5: so that's why I can walk around the world and
Speaker 5: talk to you know, I was a former criminal.
Speaker 3: I can talk to a copper.
Speaker 5: I said there at a first place, get nervous talking
Speaker 5: the coppers. Not anymore. I've can look you straight in
Speaker 5: the eye and I'm happy. I'm clean, i have clarity,
Speaker 5: and I have direction, and I have a good purpose
Speaker 5: in life.
Speaker 3: That that there, It just creates growth.
Speaker 5: And that's the message that I want to pass on
Speaker 5: to other people and for young aspiring you know, people
Speaker 5: that young use. You know, there's a youth christ christ
Speaker 5: youth crime crisis going on right now. There's all these
Speaker 5: experiences through boxing is so much like life, and I
Speaker 5: can pass that message that I've learned on with boxing
Speaker 5: to people out there.
Speaker 1: And I think you the test of this, Marty. We
Speaker 1: haven't gone there in the path that Michael has, but
Speaker 1: someone that's walked that path in a such a tough
Speaker 1: field you have you've got to have some respect for it.
Speaker 1: That you must have some strength and resiliency, would you agree?
Speaker 1: Like the messaging that can come from someone that's walked
Speaker 1: the path that Michael has.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. You know, we've got a guy that's
Speaker 4: walked out d MGM Grand to a pack stadium. There's
Speaker 4: only a handful of guys illustrated, I believe, have done
Speaker 4: that in boxing. And then we've got this ultimate levels
Speaker 4: of success that only zero point one zero one percent
Speaker 4: will achieve. Then we've got this low of trauma prism.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of experience and life lessons in
Speaker 4: there that's quite unique. And we've got someone that's trained
Speaker 4: at the AIS, he's worked in Colorado at the High
Speaker 4: Performance Center, you know, with Cubans and Donner.
Speaker 2: So does it really? I believe?
Speaker 4: And this is what I said to Michael because I
Speaker 4: met him or when I ran into him again at
Speaker 4: the Bottle. It was about five years ago, and that
Speaker 4: was I think on the start of a bit of
Speaker 4: the adversity that was coming, and we were talking about
Speaker 4: doing some stuff together again. Like Michael was saying before,
Speaker 4: I said, look, you know, mate, you know I know
Speaker 4: who you are, I know what you've accomplished, and I
Speaker 4: can see your career, that world has come to an end,
Speaker 4: and it's got to be hard, as we know for
Speaker 4: a lot of a fleets when you lose your purpose,
Speaker 4: for a lot of humans, when.
Speaker 2: Your identity, yeah, isn't it.
Speaker 4: That's like you know, you've got guys that are doing
Speaker 4: anything that you say, and you know all the lights
Speaker 4: have and that's all gone one day where you have
Speaker 4: a couple of losses and those people you look around,
Speaker 4: they're not here anymore.
Speaker 3: That's hard.
Speaker 4: And even our role players talk about that as well.
Speaker 4: You know, people want to get photos with you in
Speaker 4: the peak of your career. Then that all kind of
Speaker 4: starts to go down.
Speaker 1: And I look, I think people, and we're talking a
Speaker 1: lot about men and women experience the same thing in similar,
Speaker 1: if not slightly different different ways. But I think for
Speaker 1: me and we all go through stages in life you
Speaker 1: want to prove yourself, whether it's your role model, whether
Speaker 1: it's trying to prove yourself to your father or whatever.
Speaker 1: You want to succeed. In the army, there's a pecking order,
Speaker 1: isn't there, And you want to be the best soldier.
Speaker 1: You want to compete. So the heights that Michael Rowse two,
Speaker 1: and you say point one percent. It probably is that
Speaker 1: because people don't get there that's in the rear. You know,
Speaker 1: they're the outlies that reach reached those heights. But it
Speaker 1: just shows that when it's all stripped back, that we
Speaker 1: still carry these these demons that Michael clearly had. And look,
Speaker 1: talk about your life over there. You were telling me
Speaker 1: the story that, yeah, you've been training in the gym
Speaker 1: for six weeks and this bloke kept talking to you
Speaker 1: and all that, and you're sort of fobbing him off,
Speaker 1: and so tell the story.
Speaker 5: I say, I was prepared to fight against jail casma
Speaker 5: al So we did, like we spit that camp up,
Speaker 5: camp up into two.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 5: I think it was about it would have been like
Speaker 5: six weeks in Thailand. Then we went to finish off
Speaker 5: the next six weeks in America. And we're trained at
Speaker 5: the gym called the Pound for Bound Jim Pound for
Speaker 5: Pound Jim on my Bray Avenue there in LA. And
Speaker 5: there's this dark guy there has always has watched me.
Speaker 5: We can and I talked to him occasionally check in
Speaker 5: and stuff like that. And I'm sitting up against the
Speaker 5: ropes and I'm you know, and I'm getting my Brandon's
Speaker 5: doing my hands up and and he's gone. So he goes, so,
Speaker 5: who are you fighting next, kid? And I said, I'm
Speaker 5: fighting Joel Cassameo. He goes, oh Joe Cassamo. Huh, I'm
Speaker 5: going to have to go to that one, I said.
Speaker 5: And I was just looking at him and thinking, I said, mate,
Speaker 5: do you know you sound like that Denzel Washing? You
Speaker 5: sound just like him? Hey? And he he goes funny,
Speaker 5: you should see that anyway. When he walks away, Bretta goes.
Speaker 3: Mick, that fuckings Denzel Washington. You're idiot.
Speaker 5: You've been talking him for the last six weeks, so
Speaker 5: you know they have to support of those guys. I
Speaker 5: never seen him on TV, Arnold Swartzenegger sitting like a
Speaker 5: love of my fights at that the MGM grand you know,
Speaker 5: Maddie Trip from sports bed all the way from Australia.
Speaker 5: In the back room when they're picking the gloves, which
Speaker 5: one I'm going to fight against? Marcus macOS get a
Speaker 5: Mick Hay going. I said, how did you fucking get
Speaker 5: in here? The black can get in anywhere, you know,
Speaker 5: like he pulls some strings, you know some people. He's
Speaker 5: my mate. Maddie Trip mate, he's unreal. But like, this
Speaker 5: is the people that were there to support me. Those
Speaker 5: are the people the shoulders that I was rubbing with,
Speaker 5: like Oscar de la Hoya, you know, like Alexis d Juria,
Speaker 5: you know, like these people John Porta, Joria's daughter.
Speaker 3: You know, you're like she's a success.
Speaker 5: Like I just connected with so many powerful people and
Speaker 5: people to create movies and that's that's where I belong
Speaker 5: mix some of those people because I've made it into
Speaker 5: that world. I'm hanging with those people and I've come
Speaker 5: back to Australia and.
Speaker 1: At that level too, you're getting big verses. So we've
Speaker 1: gold boy, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Got who I was. I come back to Australia.
Speaker 5: I just forgot completely who I was and just just
Speaker 5: went into a dark stump. But it's like I've been
Speaker 5: asleep literally for like the last twelve years, you know,
Speaker 5: just masking my pain. And I couldn't pick up the
Speaker 5: phone and have a conversation or asks for help or
Speaker 5: tell anyone about what I was going through because I
Speaker 5: didn't even know how to identify it. I just couldn't
Speaker 5: see clearly.
Speaker 1: My clarity was good there and look we're not We're
Speaker 1: not psychologists, So we're not professionals in this field, but
Speaker 1: I think we can say, just with life experiences, how
Speaker 1: many times blokes are like that, Like you've come back
Speaker 1: and you're in the dark place, but you're too proud
Speaker 1: or too stupid or too tough to hand up and go, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling. I was living in the stratosphere up there
Speaker 1: with movie stars and everyone wanted the piece of me.
Speaker 1: I was a man, and I've lost some fights, and
Speaker 1: then I've come back here and who am I? You
Speaker 1: used to fight, didn't you? Or Marty? You're looking in
Speaker 1: this field. How helpful do you think it would be
Speaker 1: if someone in Michael's position then actually put his hand
Speaker 1: up and said, hey, fuck, I need some help.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very helpful. You know, we've got a guy here
Speaker 4: that you know, like there was a guy that came
Speaker 4: through spoke to us last week that's struggling with something similar.
Speaker 4: We've just kind of we get caught up in that cycle.
Speaker 4: We're drinking on the weekend, a little bit of addiction
Speaker 4: here and there. We get out of these bad habits.
Speaker 4: So when they come to a guy like Michael, they're
Speaker 4: speaking with a guy that's actual. She lived that experience.
Speaker 4: And that's the main thing. Like, even when I talk
Speaker 4: about mental well being or mental health, I always talk
Speaker 4: about a lived experience, you know, through what I've been
Speaker 4: through and how I've overcome it. And that's Michael's greatest asset,
Speaker 4: you know, he talks from where he's been in their shoes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well it's that lived experience and yeah, the
Speaker 1: situation you're in, Michael, And I think everyone in different
Speaker 1: stages of their lives find themselves in that way. I'm
Speaker 1: here doing podcasts and not out of the crime scene
Speaker 1: because of what happened to me in the place I
Speaker 1: went from being My identity was a homicide cop. That's
Speaker 1: who I was, and that was taken away overnight, and
Speaker 1: I went through dark periods. But I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: put my hand up to anyone and say, hey, I'm struggling,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I'd meet with mates, friends or whatever, how
Speaker 1: you going. We'd make a joke of it and laugh
Speaker 1: it off and go, oh, yeah, I'm a crook now,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Do it that way.
Speaker 1: But a couple of people are respected reached out and said, hey,
Speaker 1: how are you actually dealing with that? And those calls
Speaker 1: were so important to me, and those chats were so
Speaker 1: important because instead of the Bravada, yeah, sh it's fine,
Speaker 1: and I go sit at home and go, fuck, what's happened?
Speaker 1: How did my life turn upside down? So I think
Speaker 1: it's in a message if Yeah, for blokes, it's all
Speaker 1: right to put your put your.
Speaker 2: Hand up and say say you're struggling. And that's a
Speaker 2: hard thing to do.
Speaker 5: So you can embrace it and you can move forward,
Speaker 5: or you can or you can sit back where it
Speaker 5: will happened and just keep going backwards, move forwards.
Speaker 1: What was what was your check when you've had the
Speaker 1: tough childhood, not the ideal situation. You've joined the army,
Speaker 1: you've come out, you've got your business up and running,
Speaker 1: and you're doing a bit of traveling, living the high
Speaker 1: life and high fiving yourself and hey, I'm pretty crash
Speaker 1: hot what i'm doing here?
Speaker 2: What was your wake up call?
Speaker 4: It's hard to point it to one specific thing, but
Speaker 4: there was just this constant, I guess feeling inside where
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, you can say that you want
Speaker 4: this fear life and be ambitious, but if your daily
Speaker 4: habits and actions aren't in alignment, you're not in congruency,
Speaker 4: and that's where you get the internal conflict, and that's
Speaker 4: where you're not really proud of yourself because you're like, well,
Speaker 4: I'm talking a big game, but my actions aren't aligned.
Speaker 4: So like my process is simple, like simple, but not
Speaker 4: always easy. But we've got to really work out, well,
Speaker 4: who do we actually want to be. And when I
Speaker 4: worked out who that is, what type of person, values, vision,
Speaker 4: personal philosophy, then we go around, well what do I
Speaker 4: need to do each day and who do I need
Speaker 4: to show up as to be that person? And you know,
Speaker 4: I had to cut away to the alcohol because I know
Speaker 4: that was the one thing in my life that would
Speaker 4: just pulled every think out in chaos, you know, the
Speaker 4: bad nutrition, doing stupid shit. And I knew deep down
Speaker 4: because I asked myself, like if I removed, like, what
Speaker 4: would I need to do to go to that next
Speaker 4: level of my life? You know? And I was I'd raise,
Speaker 4: you know, qualified for the Boston Marathon, I'd done, you know,
Speaker 4: some pretty cool stuff, and I just knew it was
Speaker 4: this thing because we can't truly you know, I understand
Speaker 4: some people have had some very tough upbringers, and you
Speaker 4: know it's very hard to heal from a lot of
Speaker 4: those things. And I just want to be clear, but
Speaker 4: I had to really heal myself, not even just through
Speaker 4: the childhood. That wasn't even a really you know, once
Speaker 4: I met my dad that kind of healed things for me.
Speaker 4: But when I went through you know, things after leave
Speaker 4: in the army, you know, and then I was self
Speaker 4: medicating with the drinking, you know, but then that just
Speaker 4: puts me in a more downward spiral. So like Michael
Speaker 4: was saying, like the answer is really cutting away devices.
Speaker 4: It's hard. It's not easy, especially like we live in
Speaker 4: the straw where the culture is. You know, we went
Speaker 4: to the boxing last night and everyone's drinking and we weren't,
Speaker 4: and people like, you know, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's as a habit, isn't it. They're like, if
Speaker 1: you're playing in football, team sport, you have a victory,
Speaker 1: let's all get on, get on the drink. And it
Speaker 1: is a hard way to step away. But I've heard, yeah,
Speaker 1: I drink, and I hear a lot of people that
Speaker 1: say that I'm taking on what you've said, and possibly you, Michael,
Speaker 1: you drink, But you know, it becomes a problem once
Speaker 1: it's become a problem affecting your life. And I know
Speaker 1: a lot of friends that have said, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: drinking anymore in the go life, life's good. And then
Speaker 1: I've got other friends that can drink. But the drink
Speaker 1: doesn't really become a problem for it. Perhaps it is
Speaker 1: about the fact that it's not they're not using it
Speaker 1: to mask the pain.
Speaker 5: So yeah, that may be the case. But no one
Speaker 5: ever tells you when they lose on a poker machine,
Speaker 5: do they that's like a bit of an ego spray.
Speaker 5: They're like, yeah, it's you know, like things already hard
Speaker 5: enough as it is. You know why I make it
Speaker 5: any harder when you can make it same, Jess, you
Speaker 5: for yourself, it's just it's a no brainer really when
Speaker 5: you think about it. You know, like you can you
Speaker 5: can balance it all out, and if you can get
Speaker 5: by you and honestly true to yourself, you can be
Speaker 5: happy with that decision that you make.
Speaker 3: It's fine. That's fine for some people. Don't.
Speaker 5: They're just like an addict by nature, and they just
Speaker 5: have to keep on going, like every day, every day.
Speaker 5: And of course, as you said before, you know they've
Speaker 5: got the trauma and the pain that they haven't dealt with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know you mentioned the gambling, the gambling
Speaker 1: addiction that I've seen a lot of people have come
Speaker 1: come through here and that's destroyed their lives. They're robbing
Speaker 1: banks because they want to gamble.
Speaker 2: They've gambled too much and stuff stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Your mindset, Michael say, just to put it in perspective,
Speaker 1: you've been living the high life and yeah, achieving everything
Speaker 1: that you believed identified you as been successful in your
Speaker 1: life over in America.
Speaker 2: Two World World Titles three, three w.
Speaker 3: B O one w B U. Okay, it's not as
Speaker 3: big as the WWB t WB.
Speaker 1: So yeah, again, not many people, no one who gets
Speaker 1: to that level. So you've gone their life's looking pretty good.
Speaker 1: You're on the cusp of me and Dollar a fight
Speaker 1: type situation was. So you're at that level. You potentially
Speaker 1: set yourself up at life. I sit back here, you
Speaker 1: sit back, probably Marty and look and think, wow, what
Speaker 1: a what a great way. But you've gone from that
Speaker 1: level and then you found yourself back here and just
Speaker 1: what was your mindset when you've come back here, because
Speaker 1: this is after your brothers, when.
Speaker 5: I've come back to Australia. Yeah, so you know, hindsight's
Speaker 5: one thing. I should never just moved back. But you've
Speaker 5: got to have the clarity. And I didn't have any
Speaker 5: clarity because I was constantly masking my pain with drugs
Speaker 5: and alcohol. So I couldn't make any right decisions. Any
Speaker 5: projects that I started wanted, Like, I'd say, right now,
Speaker 5: I'm going to sell this property in Australia and by
Speaker 5: these properties in America, and I'd never finish it.
Speaker 3: I never finish it.
Speaker 5: And I just i'd go and gamble, I'd go make
Speaker 5: some bad decisions or invest in the wrong per and
Speaker 5: they do the wrong thing by me. I just made
Speaker 5: just one constant bad decision after the other, and I
Speaker 5: was never going to move forward.
Speaker 1: It was just, yeah, did you have anyone in your
Speaker 1: life that was giving you a tap on the shoulder
Speaker 1: and saying, hey, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Look?
Speaker 5: I did, I did, but it's like I wasn't prepared
Speaker 5: to listen. I really was, like you you could have
Speaker 5: said that to me because I had that one little
Speaker 5: secret that I kept to myself.
Speaker 3: I was an alcoholic.
Speaker 5: I was a drug addict, you know, and I just
Speaker 5: couldn't bring myself to just own it that I had
Speaker 5: that problem. And the people that I felt most comfortable
Speaker 5: around were people that were obviously giving me drugs or
Speaker 5: giving me alcohol. I felt comfortable around them because that
Speaker 5: was our little secret, you know, and the only person
Speaker 5: I was fooling.
Speaker 3: Was myself, and.
Speaker 1: They're not going to judge you. We've had Tom Carroll
Speaker 1: on the on the podcast the two Times World Surfing
Speaker 1: Chain and he was using drugs and he felt like
Speaker 1: he was hiding it was his shameful secret because people
Speaker 1: were looking up to him.
Speaker 2: And he went through that.
Speaker 1: Matt Mitcham, the Olympic diver, gold medalist diver, and he
Speaker 1: was he was using drugs. You've got a profile and
Speaker 1: you're using drugs. There must be some shame that comes
Speaker 1: with that too, because you feel like a false pretender.
Speaker 1: Here you are doing this fit, healthy lifestyle guy and
Speaker 1: then you're back Ellie.
Speaker 5: Being who you are too. You have like a responsibility.
Speaker 5: You have a responsibility to associate with the right people
Speaker 5: and to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: Like you already know this.
Speaker 5: You know people people know this, like it's just it's
Speaker 5: a common if people look up to you, don't be
Speaker 5: sitting in front of a kid bloody doing doing the
Speaker 5: wrong thing because people do see you. Everyone there everyone,
Speaker 5: there's ears everywhere, eyes everywhere. So you have a responsibility
Speaker 5: to do the right thing and to be seen doing
Speaker 5: the right thing because you're an example for the way
Speaker 5: you should be doing things.
Speaker 1: And the people that like you had the adulation from
Speaker 1: the boxing fans and the movie stars and all that
Speaker 1: when they're at the peaky your game giving you that attention.
Speaker 1: I'm sure when your life slipped down into that drug world,
Speaker 1: they'd be going, hey, this used to be an olympian,
Speaker 1: he was a world boxing champion.
Speaker 2: That validate their existence. Maybe we're not so bad if
Speaker 2: it's in the mind.
Speaker 3: And that's part of the experience as well.
Speaker 5: Like I've had a lot of people reach out to
Speaker 5: me back then, and you know, like when you're on
Speaker 5: an airplane, the first thing they say is, you know,
Speaker 5: fix your own respirator before you fix the child's, you know,
Speaker 5: because if you can't help yourself, you're not going to
Speaker 5: be able to help anyone else. So here I am today,
Speaker 5: I've gone through that, I've dealt with adversity. I can
Speaker 5: share how I've dealt with adversity and I can help.
Speaker 5: I can really in a position where I can actually
Speaker 5: give someone else the correct kind of guidance when previously
Speaker 5: I've had people reach out to me before in the past,
Speaker 5: and it's like a codependent triangle, you know, like you
Speaker 5: just gone round and round and round, and I couldn't
Speaker 5: really be of any assistance to anyone because I couldn't
Speaker 5: help myself.
Speaker 3: And I've had and I'm sad about this.
Speaker 5: I've had friends commit suicide, you know, and I think
Speaker 5: maybe I could have been there for them, maybe I
Speaker 5: could have saved them the things that I could have done,
Speaker 5: And you know, like I don't carry that weight with
Speaker 5: me now. I just needed to help. I needed to
Speaker 5: help myself. And you know, that's why we're here now.
Speaker 5: And look, look, I'm just look and I will tell you, Marty, like,
Speaker 5: I'm really fortunate to have you in my corner because
Speaker 5: you know, with all the fights I've had and I've
Speaker 5: had that much of a life and just remembering things,
Speaker 5: it becomes very difficult with everything that I've been through
Speaker 5: and been able to have someone there and to unpack
Speaker 5: this mindset and that the experience that I've gone through
Speaker 5: and go right, heah, You've got to do this. Jot
Speaker 5: that down, Okay, you've gone through that okay bang. That
Speaker 5: relates to resilience, that relates to confidence, that relates to mindset,
Speaker 5: and it's just it's just all these things. Been able
Speaker 5: to unpack it and then pass it on to other people.
Speaker 5: Now I'm helping people in the right way and the
Speaker 5: right people, the right people that need help, that actually
Speaker 5: are willing to work out, you know, hold the hand out,
Speaker 5: hold the hand up and say yeah, I need help.
Speaker 1: That's why we don't normally get two gaps on the podcast.
Speaker 1: But I like the synergy between you two guys and
Speaker 1: speaking to you both individually and collectively, I could see that,
Speaker 1: Oh that this is it was.
Speaker 2: A partnership I happened.
Speaker 5: It's just sort of we went on our own way
Speaker 5: and then come to the other. And the one thing
Speaker 5: that we have in common is our mindset. We have
Speaker 5: clarity and our health.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that that is when you talk the health.
Speaker 1: That is the brutality of the boxing game too. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: paying the price you're getting getting hit in the yea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're aware of that.
Speaker 1: The low point into your drug addiction, when was when
Speaker 1: did you realize When could you Michael Cassida say own
Speaker 1: to yourself that I'm a drug addict.
Speaker 5: I think the moment that well Parole called me and
Speaker 5: does it warrant out for arrest? So I quit that
Speaker 5: day April eleven, twenty twenty two. You know, I quit,
Speaker 5: and I'm sitting in a jar cell. I've got two
Speaker 5: years at least they had to me, and I'm just thinking,
Speaker 5: how fucking great is this? Because I knew, because I've
Speaker 5: got this hunger and desire to I always know that
Speaker 5: I'm always going to come out the other end no
Speaker 5: matter what. I've got, this brisk bound awheares has never
Speaker 5: give up. And I'm sitting like this is awesome. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm sitting there because I'm going, you know, I'm going
Speaker 5: to come.
Speaker 3: Through the other end.
Speaker 5: And I've got a fucking story to tell. So it
Speaker 5: doesn't matter where you are or what you've done or whatever,
Speaker 5: you can break through it. And I knew that I
Speaker 5: was going to come out of this. I was going
Speaker 5: to come out the other end. I've got a story
Speaker 5: to tell, and with that, I have my sobriety of
Speaker 5: clarity and direction, and I just just had gratitude, Like
Speaker 5: who are you without gratitude? Is going to be thankful?
Speaker 5: Because there's other people in far worse positions than I'm in.
Speaker 3: You know that I've been in.
Speaker 5: There's people that you know, they're sitting there doing the
Speaker 5: rest of their lives in there, you know, and even
Speaker 5: those guys can find solace. Even those guys can find
Speaker 5: themselves and realize and come to terms with things. So
Speaker 5: every people that are outside in the real world, they
Speaker 5: can do it. The world is your always, so there's
Speaker 5: so many things you can do, Like Russell Manson is
Speaker 5: to have a you know, used to help a lot
Speaker 5: of people, and like that guy is really inspirational and
Speaker 5: you know, like I've only just learned about him since
Speaker 5: getting out about six months ago.
Speaker 1: All Russell became through this we reached out to It
Speaker 1: was a mutual friend that put us in contact and
Speaker 1: we spent a lot of time. And the people on
Speaker 1: the podcast know Russell well. But I remember sitting here
Speaker 1: and the trauma that he went through as a young
Speaker 1: guy and his experience in prison and being sexually abused.
Speaker 2: And all that.
Speaker 1: It was horrific. Yeah, the irony with Russell. He was
Speaker 1: doing stick ups when I was in the arm told
Speaker 1: up squads. A couple of the jobs he was doing
Speaker 1: we were looking for it, but we became we became
Speaker 1: good friends, and he was a classic example of turning
Speaker 1: life around. And sadly when he passed away and it
Speaker 1: was a Zaddy's funeral and it was just a big
Speaker 1: loss that hit people people hard, because when you see
Speaker 1: someone like that that hits the low and then dig their.
Speaker 3: Way out of its inspiration of it.
Speaker 1: Is when we get back in part two, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about what you hope to achieve by what
Speaker 1: you're doing. I also, and this is just out of
Speaker 1: my curiosity, and I'm sure you Marty, I want to
Speaker 1: speak a lot about your experience in prison. Like you're
Speaker 1: going into prison, You're going in as a former world
Speaker 1: boxing champion. They make movies out of that sort of shit,
Speaker 1: so I know what the hell happened when you went
Speaker 1: in there. And I also in my conversations with you, Marty,
Speaker 1: you said that the thing about Michael is that there's
Speaker 1: he points out there's no glamour in the prison, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a message that we can all get out. And if
Speaker 1: I have former Bikis or whatever come here, or gangsters,
Speaker 1: the world looks pretty attractive, but when it's stripped down
Speaker 1: and when you're.
Speaker 2: Locked in a cell. It's not that attractive, and there's
Speaker 2: no real glamor there is there.
Speaker 5: So look, if there's any young people out there and
Speaker 5: they're going on a pathway which they know within themselves,
Speaker 5: and they're thinking about going this way or that way,
Speaker 5: I can tell them, don't go.
Speaker 3: Fucking that way. It's a ship life.
Speaker 5: There's a ship life, and it's nothing to look forward
Speaker 5: to it. There's actually people that are in there that
Speaker 5: actually find comfort in it and then just keeping their
Speaker 5: recit of and they keep coming back. I was talking
Speaker 5: to my psychologists and she said, and I've got like
Speaker 5: one hundred and sixty pages of contacts of people in there,
Speaker 5: and you know, these are people that are you know,
Speaker 5: obviously they're a lot of them going through sobriety and
Speaker 5: they've they've changed, you know, they've they've been forced to
Speaker 5: not drink or do drugs, and you know, you see
Speaker 5: a different side of them that they would otherwise. They
Speaker 5: don't have the same things available to them outside, and
Speaker 5: you see different sides of them. But I've got one
Speaker 5: hundred and sixty pages of contacts, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 5: maybe only three percent would come out the other end.
Speaker 5: In reality, and she said that's not bad, Michael. She said,
Speaker 5: an actual fact, only two percent aren't recidivists. They don't
Speaker 5: keep coming back only to it. So it was pretty
Speaker 5: accurate that And of those two percent of people, there's
Speaker 5: probably only two or three that I would keep in
Speaker 5: contact that I I would truly come out the other end.
Speaker 2: And come out greater things around. Yeah, well we'll talk.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that the in depth in that part too,
Speaker 1: But it's just reminded me. We had spanions on the podcast,
Speaker 1: and I remember him describing when he was in boys homes,
Speaker 1: like doing things, getting caught going to boys' homes that
Speaker 1: was exciting because everyone was in there together and we're
Speaker 1: going to be the biggest, baddest against But he said,
Speaker 1: going to an adult prison really wak him up.
Speaker 2: He's gone, look at it, this is it's life losers
Speaker 2: in here.
Speaker 1: There's nothing glamorous about being in prison, like there could
Speaker 1: be the excitement in the boys' homes that yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to be the baddest of the bad and making
Speaker 1: a reputation. But when it's all said and done, who
Speaker 1: wants to be locked in the sell for eighteen hours
Speaker 1: a day? But we'll talk about that in part two,
Speaker 1: so we'll take a break down of course.
Speaker 2: Cheers,