Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment and shot.
Speaker 1: It's the Bloody You Pro project. What else would it be?
Speaker 1: Who else would it be but bloody Craig Uper and
Speaker 1: bloody tiff Cook and bloody Micol. Let's start with Tiffany
Speaker 1: and Cook. Who's who's the mother of two very precious children,
Speaker 1: one canine, one feline and the canine's been in all
Speaker 1: sorts yesterday?
Speaker 2: Oh, what a day we had, Harps, what a day
Speaker 2: we had? Little miss went into hospital?
Speaker 3: How is she? How is your daughter Luna today?
Speaker 2: She's good as gold. You know what I love is
Speaker 2: the little lessons you take. And I woke up and
Speaker 2: she bounced out on three legs and I picked up
Speaker 2: the lead and she was wagged her tail and was like,
Speaker 2: come on then, And I just made me reflect on
Speaker 2: that idea that they don't. They don't think about the
Speaker 2: what if saw that if only or they you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh well, we footsore, can't use it because
Speaker 2: it hurts, but let's go for a walk because walking's
Speaker 2: the best.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'll use the other three legs because I've got
Speaker 1: three more, so fuck it, let's use them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just love pondering that. I'm like, well, you are
Speaker 2: my teacher today, Luna.
Speaker 1: I'm no canine psychologists, but I'm pretty sure dogs don't
Speaker 1: feel sorry for themselves.
Speaker 3: But they don't go, oh my god.
Speaker 1: All the other dogs have got four feet to use today,
Speaker 1: but I've only got three lives.
Speaker 3: Not fair? Why does God do this to me?
Speaker 2: Pretty much?
Speaker 1: Nicaul, you're not really an animal person, are you. I
Speaker 1: don't know that you dislike them, but I've never heard
Speaker 1: you talk about dogs or cats, and I've never known
Speaker 1: you to have a pet.
Speaker 5: Well, craigy boy, let me just enlighten you. I'm not
Speaker 5: an animal person, but I do have a dog. I
Speaker 5: have a black Labrador called Sasha. Oh, and I've had her.
Speaker 4: We got it from a breeder.
Speaker 5: I've had her for the last She's eighteen months old,
Speaker 5: and yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4: She's awesome, has she?
Speaker 1: I mean, so, you say I'm not an animal person,
Speaker 1: yet you have a dog that you love.
Speaker 3: Workshop that with us a little bit?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 5: Well, let me give you an example of my non
Speaker 5: animal loving personality. My oldest daughter, who's now thirty five,
Speaker 5: about five years ago, came to me in tears, and
Speaker 5: she was upset because her dog had passed away and
Speaker 5: she needed to talk to somebody about it, and I
Speaker 5: had to let her know that although I feel for
Speaker 5: her and I want to be there for her, I
Speaker 5: don't have the feelings for animals that she has, So
Speaker 5: she may need to speak to somebody that can actually
Speaker 5: empathize more.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wow, Father of the Year, Nicoll, Welcome back
Speaker 1: to our father or Father of the Year's selection panel.
Speaker 2: All out doesn't just hit hard in the boxing ring.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: And how did that go? How did that go? That conversation?
Speaker 4: Pretty average, Craig, Well average?
Speaker 3: Do you reckon?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, we don't. By the way you said
Speaker 1: to me last night. I sent you a message and
Speaker 1: said do you want to do a podcast? And you
Speaker 1: said what are we going to chat about? I said,
Speaker 1: I'll let you know tomorrow. And I still haven't let
Speaker 1: you know, But that's all right.
Speaker 3: Do you reckon?
Speaker 1: Because of a lot of the shit that you've gone
Speaker 1: through in your life? And it's all well documented, so
Speaker 1: we're not throwing you under the basket. You know, all
Speaker 1: of the stuff you've been through addiction and booze, alcoholism
Speaker 1: and prison and a lot of you know, peaks and troughs,
Speaker 1: probably a lot more troughs than peaks for certain phases.
Speaker 1: In fact, maybe a long fucking extended trough for a while.
Speaker 1: But there's in quite a lot of peaks over the
Speaker 1: last decade or so that I've known you, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: Do you reckon that having to deal with really.
Speaker 1: Hard shit and have to be in certain environments and
Speaker 1: situations for survival where you kind of at least have
Speaker 1: to appear, you know, like hard and unemotional and not
Speaker 1: vulnerable because in certain environments and places that you've been
Speaker 1: being vulnerable, being emotion is analogous to weakness.
Speaker 5: Right absolutely, And look at is it funnily enough? It
Speaker 5: is a skill to be able to I guess, not
Speaker 5: just a peer unaffected or something like that, but be
Speaker 5: able to switch it on and switch it off. And
Speaker 5: I think that's different to being one way or the other,
Speaker 5: you know. And survival has had had become and has
Speaker 5: become a very ingrained, well learned skill that I have.
Speaker 5: But of course nobody wants to live in survival mode forever.
Speaker 5: But it is a handy tool to be able to
Speaker 5: whip out when needed.
Speaker 1: But I also know, like we spoke about you knowing
Speaker 1: You've spoken about many times you being a lonely, isolated,
Speaker 1: socially disconnected child when you were young, very young, probably
Speaker 1: earlier than ten, and then picking up booze for the
Speaker 1: first time at twelve. And these are not the words
Speaker 1: you use, but this is how I think of it.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, fuck, this is where my best friend
Speaker 1: has been my whole life. Or it was feeling like
Speaker 1: you'd come home when you first tasted booze, because it
Speaker 1: took you out of that temporarily, out of that pain,
Speaker 1: you know, out of that social and emotional and mental
Speaker 1: pain and kind of made you feel better, right, And
Speaker 1: so there's that bit. Yeah, there's this dichotomy of like
Speaker 1: Mick Hall, the young child who was vulnerable and emotional
Speaker 1: and just wanted love and care and attention and acceptance,
Speaker 1: and then the bloke that became this hard man who
Speaker 1: had to survive in jail. It's a real kind of
Speaker 1: almost a contradiction. It's it's weird, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Like I lived my worst nightmare, which is, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the very thing that I never wanted to experience
Speaker 5: and I couldn't imagine having to go through, and luckily
Speaker 5: I had to go through it. I threw there through
Speaker 5: the card, you know. And the funny thing is when
Speaker 5: you talked about that, you know that relief, you used
Speaker 5: the beautiful words with that as well, and then you
Speaker 5: explained it beautifully. When I was sort of twelve years
Speaker 5: old and I had that first drink or whatever, and
Speaker 5: I got that relief, and I felt like i'd come home,
Speaker 5: that I just sort of all of a sudden, I
Speaker 5: could be me. But you know, that gave me relief
Speaker 5: from the condition that I didn't even know that I had.
Speaker 5: You see, feeling the way I was feeling was the
Speaker 5: only normal I knew. And then when I had this
Speaker 5: taste of alcohol and I was released, I didn't know
Speaker 5: that that was possible or real, and so when I
Speaker 5: got a taste of it, I just needed to chase it.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you've spoken before about how people are you know,
Speaker 1: a percentage of people are genetically predisposed or more likely
Speaker 1: to become addicted because of the way that their brain
Speaker 1: works or doesn't work, whatever we want to call it.
Speaker 1: And David Gillespie's spoken about this, and doctor Bill Sullivan
Speaker 1: I spoke to the day before yesterday, and he was
Speaker 1: talking also about how you know, like when you don't
Speaker 1: some people who naturally don't produce a lot of dopamine
Speaker 1: and then they have booze and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this thing that most of us have most of the time,
Speaker 1: or at the very least most of us have access
Speaker 1: to on tap, you know. You know, Tiff plays with
Speaker 1: her dog, you know, in her cat, and she takes
Speaker 1: them for a walk, or she goes to the gym
Speaker 1: and punches some poor unsuspecting motherfucker in the face, and
Speaker 1: she's got dopamine out of the wazoo.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: But but you probably were born where you didn't produce.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is just my guess because if you if you're normal,
Speaker 1: because everyone's got their own normal, but we don't know
Speaker 1: how it compares to anyone else's. So you know, you've
Speaker 1: been a certain way for twelve years and then you
Speaker 1: have booze and then you're like, oh, is this how.
Speaker 3: Other people feel? Is this what? Maybe this is what
Speaker 3: good feels like? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And that's open? Is you bang on?
Speaker 5: You know, like I work with a lot of people
Speaker 5: that are suffering from addition, and everyone's you know, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: hang on, I'm a heroin addict or I'm an ice
Speaker 5: addict or I'm a gambling addict or whatever addict, and
Speaker 5: they're concerned about the substance that they're taking. And when really,
Speaker 5: when you break it down, when push comes to shove,
Speaker 5: what we're really addicted.
Speaker 4: To is the dopamine release in the brain.
Speaker 5: The actual addiction is the dopamine, because that's the thing
Speaker 5: that medicates the mind and the emotions. Hmm, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the dopamine. It's that euphromoric yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And really the booze or the drugs, or the gambling
Speaker 1: or the sex. Yeah, it's the pathway to the thing,
Speaker 1: or it's the conduit too, you know. And I was thinking,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about you yesterday and congratulations, not last weekend,
Speaker 1: but the weekend before you. You won a world titled
Speaker 1: in boxing, a masters world titled It's fucking amazing. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking, so, the chat that I wanted to
Speaker 1: have with you is, you know, I wrote down some
Speaker 1: things here, loneliness, social disconnection, drinking, booze at twelve, crime, jail, addiction,
Speaker 1: attempted suicide, rehab, recovery, redemption, working in radio, drug and
Speaker 1: alcohol canceling, counseling, becoming a dad, building a successful business,
Speaker 1: becoming an entrepreneur, talking to thousands of people. And then
Speaker 1: when most people are kind of going, I mean, your
Speaker 1: life has been mental, right, your life has been crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, crazy good and crazy bad. But like we're
Speaker 1: all in many ways, we're all a byproduct of where
Speaker 1: we've been, what we've done, and what we've seen, what
Speaker 1: we've been through.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: And then but when most people like fifty issue going, well,
Speaker 1: not that people intentionally do, but most people just seem
Speaker 1: to all right, I'm just going to you know, my
Speaker 1: brain's going to start to wind down. My body's going
Speaker 1: to start to wind down. Like most people are not
Speaker 1: ramping up life in their fifties. Some are have the
Speaker 1: capacity to do that. But the truth is, I would
Speaker 1: think the majority are not the majority consciously or not
Speaker 1: probably not a kind of winding down. You know, they've
Speaker 1: done thirty thirty five years of adulthood. They're winding down
Speaker 1: their career. They were in great shape when they were
Speaker 1: fucking twenty four and jacked for three weeks. You know,
Speaker 1: they've had a couple of kids and they're like eh.
Speaker 1: And when most people are kind of just you know,
Speaker 1: not pulling the pin. But you know, facing the inevitable
Speaker 1: in inverted commas with an asterisk, you go, oh, I
Speaker 1: know I might become an elite athlete. I might train
Speaker 1: seven days a week. I might get in the ring
Speaker 1: and not just trained, but then I might actually start
Speaker 1: fighting and become a boxer.
Speaker 3: And I know you got the bejeebas punched.
Speaker 1: Out of you once or twice, and then you went actually,
Speaker 1: then you learn, then you adapted, then you started getting better,
Speaker 1: then you started winning. Then you've got a state title,
Speaker 1: and bibbittybobbedy boo, now you're fucking fifty whatever you are,
Speaker 1: and you've got a world title. But firstly, congratulations, it's
Speaker 1: fucking amazing. But whoever thought I'll shut up after this?
Speaker 1: But I remember you vividly telling me a story about
Speaker 1: when you were I can't remember if it was like
Speaker 1: a warehouse or a factory. Were you living in a
Speaker 1: caravan some blokes caravan?
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, absolutely?
Speaker 1: And I remember you telling me about how addicted you
Speaker 1: were in the absolute grip of I believe it was heroine.
Speaker 1: And you looked at yourself in the mirror and you
Speaker 1: essentially looked like death, and you were in your I
Speaker 1: think early twenties. Maybe correct me if I fucking ear
Speaker 1: this up. And I thought about this guy that I
Speaker 1: saw on social media with his arms in the air,
Speaker 1: this world title belt, his fucking family, Like, who looks
Speaker 1: like an athlete, not just some old fat fuck trying
Speaker 1: to throw a few? Like you look like an athlete,
Speaker 1: and three decades earlier, you were a fucking heroin addict,
Speaker 1: at the brink of death, living in a fucking caravan
Speaker 1: in a factory, And like, what do you think?
Speaker 3: What a fucking transformation.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll tell you what I do think. Great, you
Speaker 5: know what that world titled? Like you said, it was
Speaker 5: two weeks ago, and you know I was in the
Speaker 5: ring in the in the fourth round. It was for
Speaker 5: only about ten seconds into the fourth round, and I
Speaker 5: punched the pajevas out this guy. We had small gloves,
Speaker 5: so it was through the WBL. So they're required that
Speaker 5: we wear small gloves. So very powerful, very powerful hits.
Speaker 1: And just explained to just explain to our listeners who
Speaker 1: are mostly not boxing fans. God bless their socks. The
Speaker 1: bigger the glove, the less punishment on the person, and
Speaker 1: the smaller the glove, the more punishment.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, absolutely, so most Masters boxes these days are
Speaker 5: required are required to wear what we called sixteen ounce gloves.
Speaker 5: That's sixteen ounces of padding on the gloves, which, believe me,
Speaker 5: there is still a lot of risk and a lot
Speaker 5: of and they hurt, but they're a lot safer than
Speaker 5: smaller gloves. And through the WBL they sanction my fight
Speaker 5: and their requirements are that we wear twelve ounce gloves
Speaker 5: which are much smaller padding, which means that there's a
Speaker 5: lot smaller amount of padding between your knuckles and your
Speaker 5: fists and the edge.
Speaker 4: Of the glove. So when they hit, they hit really
Speaker 4: really hard.
Speaker 5: And when I was in the fourth round and I
Speaker 5: was getting stuck in the guy I actually actually in
Speaker 5: the third round, I got what's called a standing eight count,
Speaker 5: so they had to stop the fight for a second
Speaker 5: and give him a standing eight count, and then he
Speaker 5: was saved by the bell. Ten seconds into the fourth round.
Speaker 5: I went to work on him and the referee stepped
Speaker 5: in and stopped the fight. The doctor and the referee
Speaker 5: stopped the fight, and of course I won, which was fantastic.
Speaker 5: And my trainer, I've got two main trainers. My main
Speaker 5: trainer is Scottish. He's gol Rwegian and he's very difficult
Speaker 5: to understand, but but I love him.
Speaker 4: He's as mad as me.
Speaker 5: And he's a fantastic person, person who absolutely now here's
Speaker 5: the key to this.
Speaker 4: This is a person who believes in me. It believes
Speaker 4: in me, you know.
Speaker 5: And I've needed that so many times in my life
Speaker 5: when I couldn't really believe in myself. But I needed
Speaker 5: somebody to believe in me so that I could grab
Speaker 5: some belief. And he's always done that for me. And
Speaker 5: the other person, the other trainer that I have is
Speaker 5: a guy named Andy Briggs and Briggsy. He had about
Speaker 5: I think he had about sixty five amateur fights. He
Speaker 5: had a couple of pro fights. He says, well experienced,
Speaker 5: and he's my second guy in the corner and he's
Speaker 5: been with me like I've been mates with him for
Speaker 5: a long many many many many many years. And he's
Speaker 5: been cornering me on every fight in Masters. And when
Speaker 5: I won that weld time, when that fight got stopped
Speaker 5: and I walked over with tears coming out my eyes
Speaker 5: to the corner, Breezy looked at me and so did Carl.
Speaker 5: They both looked and the said, can you believe this
Speaker 5: prisen to a world title.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that might be the name of the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks for that, yep, yeah, well thanks thanks Cole, and
Speaker 5: thanks Andy, you know, like I mean, and that really
Speaker 5: hit me, you know, it really hit me.
Speaker 4: And it was.
Speaker 5: An overwhelming experience, you know, and it was just just amazing,
Speaker 5: you know, just amazing and full respects my opponent and
Speaker 5: you know, like he he.
Speaker 4: Was very gracious in defeat.
Speaker 5: And of course I always you know, I always have
Speaker 5: respect for the people that I get in the ring
Speaker 5: with and that fight because it's it reveals who you are.
Speaker 5: You know, it takes a real certain courage to get
Speaker 5: in the ring. And I've never been in a fight
Speaker 5: where I wasn't scared. I've been scared every single time,
Speaker 5: including that world title fight. I was scared before I
Speaker 5: got in. And yeah, it was just an amazing experience.
Speaker 5: So you know, like, yeah, I do. I think about
Speaker 5: it a lot, you know, like the how have I
Speaker 5: gone from here? You know, from back where I was
Speaker 5: to going through what I went through to where I
Speaker 5: am today. It's amazing and looked there's been a mean
Speaker 5: twists and turns along the way, as we know, and
Speaker 5: you talked about the peaks and troughs before.
Speaker 4: Well, usually my peaks are very steep, sharp beats.
Speaker 5: What goes up comes down, and I'm one of those
Speaker 5: ones that goes up and down, you know. So it
Speaker 5: hasn't been a smooth, nice ride. But to just comment
Speaker 5: to on what you were saying before in terms of,
Speaker 5: you know, like most people are sort of a fifty
Speaker 5: you know, I'm fifty three now and they're winding down
Speaker 5: and that sort of stuff. And I'll tell you, you know,
Speaker 5: I just.
Speaker 4: Have a hunger in me. My boxing journey is not over.
Speaker 4: My journey.
Speaker 5: I've learned in my fifties what I always wanted, and
Speaker 5: I didn't know I wanted when I was young.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be an athlete. I wanted to be
Speaker 4: an athlete.
Speaker 5: And I'm so grateful that because I'm clean and sober,
Speaker 5: because I'm who I am, because I've been through the
Speaker 5: experiences I've been through, I'm able to realize that dream
Speaker 5: at fifty.
Speaker 1: Plus, And isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing? How much
Speaker 1: like I know that from a few silly things that
Speaker 1: you did when you were young, one of them trying
Speaker 1: to end your life jumping off a bridge, a significant bridge,
Speaker 1: which you've spoken about on this show. And you shattered
Speaker 1: your ankle, and so there are bits of your body
Speaker 1: that aren't in let's just say elite condition. I mean,
Speaker 1: your cardiovascular system is and your hands go pretty good,
Speaker 1: but you know you've got a bit of a fucked
Speaker 1: ankle medically speaking, and you know so, But isn't it amazing?
Speaker 3: At fifty three?
Speaker 1: Like we talk about potential on this show, we talk
Speaker 1: about possibilities, you know, yeah, and maybe the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm the most you know, I'm the most fascinated with
Speaker 1: the human mind slash brain, but tied into that, which
Speaker 1: is you know, almost one and the same is human potential.
Speaker 1: What like what when we actually just have a crack
Speaker 1: and I mean really really really have a crack fucking
Speaker 1: boots and all fully committed dive in, not not oh well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll see how I go. Fuck that, don't
Speaker 1: see how you go do it?
Speaker 3: Jump in?
Speaker 1: You know, like you do the work, you do the training.
Speaker 1: You have a fight, you lose, you have another fight,
Speaker 1: you lose, you have another fight, you win, Then you
Speaker 1: have another fight you win, and then you fucking then.
Speaker 3: You're on your way and you know you lose.
Speaker 1: You learn as much from losses as wins, sometimes more
Speaker 1: from losses than wins.
Speaker 3: And sometimes you know, and I.
Speaker 1: Know this is cliche, but you just can't escape the
Speaker 1: truth of the fact that Paine is a great teacher,
Speaker 1: That disappointment is a great teacher if you let it be.
Speaker 1: That that uncertainty and the unknown and the unfamiliar and
Speaker 1: all of that shit.
Speaker 3: Is just when you lean into it.
Speaker 1: You know whether or not that's leaning, you know, with
Speaker 1: physical pain, mental pain, and financial, social, emotional, and you go, fuck,
Speaker 1: this won't be fun, but I'm in because the outcome
Speaker 1: might be awesome. And even though it's not fun in
Speaker 1: inverted commas, in the moment, it's who you're becoming along
Speaker 1: the way, Like the dude that I met I don't know,
Speaker 1: fuck NELLI twenty years ago doing radio, which is you.
Speaker 1: You are just a different here. I mean, with full respect,
Speaker 1: I can say this to you. I wouldn't say it
Speaker 1: to anyone else because we're mates. But you were fat
Speaker 1: and out of shape.
Speaker 3: You know, you were.
Speaker 1: Probably twenty kilos heavier than you are. You're unfit, you're unhealthy.
Speaker 1: You were healthier than when you're an addict. That's for sure,
Speaker 1: because you were clean and sober. But now the guy
Speaker 1: who's and I mean in inverted commas, this shouldn't happen,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's like that.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't happen because like on a typical traject So I
Speaker 1: met you when you were say, thirty five and twenty
Speaker 1: kilos overweight, not particularly fit or healthy.
Speaker 3: Well, what would normally.
Speaker 1: Happen, which I'm glad it didn't, is will you would
Speaker 1: end up being fifty three and morbidly obese and probably
Speaker 1: with a bunch of medical conditions and on a bunch
Speaker 1: of medication. But you've literally reversed the aging process.
Speaker 4: I mean crazy.
Speaker 1: And it's not like you're a freak or you've got
Speaker 1: some genetic secret.
Speaker 5: You know, absolutely craz absolutely, And the one point I
Speaker 5: want to get across is is that what I've achieved
Speaker 5: in boxing has got nothing. I'm not naturally talented, I'm
Speaker 5: not naturally talented, and I am not a natural athlete.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 5: But what I've done is I've absolutely worked. I've worked
Speaker 5: harder than anybody my age works at this at this Yeah,
Speaker 5: and what I've lacked in talent, I've made up for
Speaker 5: in commitment. Dedication, passion, belief, waning, belief even. But that's
Speaker 5: when I've met it, the other people to believe about
Speaker 5: me and talk about adaption well, and talk about the
Speaker 5: human body and how what shouldn't happen. I'll tell you
Speaker 5: that's what shouldn't happen. When I jumped off that bridge
Speaker 5: back in the day and I shattered that ankle. Well,
Speaker 5: as I started boxing, I'm naturally I'm a right handed person.
Speaker 5: Everything I do in my strongest hands. I write with
Speaker 5: my right hand right, so I'm right hander. And when
Speaker 5: i started boxing, because I've got limited flextion in my
Speaker 5: right ankle, as an orthodox boxer, I couldn't get my
Speaker 5: feet in the right position because of my ankle.
Speaker 4: So it made me a little unbalanced.
Speaker 5: And so how's this at about forty six years old,
Speaker 5: I've gone fuck everything that I've learned in boxing.
Speaker 4: I now need to relearn left handed, and I need
Speaker 4: to be I need to become better left handed than
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 5: Right handed, so because I've got a better balance that way,
Speaker 5: because my right puts out the front.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my left puts out the back, yeah. Right.
Speaker 5: And so so I relearned it and I am now
Speaker 5: way more powerful left handed, biting than I am right handed.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm still powerful right handed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it is like that adaptation for using what
Speaker 1: is your naturally your weaker, less coordinated, less natural kind
Speaker 1: of side of your body. Like I'm very left dominant.
Speaker 1: I'm left handed, right left handed. I throw left handed
Speaker 1: if I was to play tennis, which I clearly wouldn't,
Speaker 1: but you know, like, I'm very left dominant my left
Speaker 1: side by the way I would rock.
Speaker 3: A tennis skirt. Don't worry about that, man.
Speaker 1: But do you know another thing I think also about you,
Speaker 1: which you kind of alluded to.
Speaker 3: Like you, you.
Speaker 1: And I caught up a couple of weeks ago before
Speaker 1: your world title fight, and.
Speaker 3: You basically said you're basically where you've been.
Speaker 4: Tiff.
Speaker 2: Well, camera just failed itself. I had to reboot it.
Speaker 1: Oh, tiss beIN, tis beIN not what welcome back? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Tip's back on the show. She's been absolutely But you
Speaker 1: and I caught up. You and I caught up, and
Speaker 1: you essentially said to me it was more than this,
Speaker 1: But you went thanks for being my friend, and you
Speaker 1: went thanks for like just and I love that. And
Speaker 1: I've said this to Tiff right, It's like I love
Speaker 1: that I can just support you and there's nothing in
Speaker 1: it for me other than being your friend.
Speaker 3: Right. And the interesting thing I saw about you.
Speaker 1: Is I saw this tough guy, this fucking tattered head
Speaker 1: to toe motherfucker dude who's been in prison, you know,
Speaker 1: just to sooner have a fight as a fucking hot lunch,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But I also saw this strong,
Speaker 1: resilient person, but also this vulnerable dude who just needed
Speaker 1: another dude to just like him and to just believe
Speaker 1: in him and support him. And I also recognized and
Speaker 1: I think it's really changed in the last ten years
Speaker 1: because your world is different, your life, lifestyle, you're different.
Speaker 1: But I think when I met you, you hadn't had
Speaker 1: a lot of people in your life that just loved
Speaker 1: you and accepted you without any agenda.
Speaker 5: Very true, and I'll sell you. The other thing that,
Speaker 5: to just sum that up a little bit, is one
Speaker 5: of the things that I believe I was, you know,
Speaker 5: I still am, and I was very grateful for and
Speaker 5: I am grateful for, is the fact that you know,
Speaker 5: when the ass fell out of me, out of my world, right,
Speaker 5: you didn't leave me. M hmm, you didn't leave me.
Speaker 5: That's all I want. I want someone, Just don't leave me.
Speaker 5: Now if I'm going bad, if shit's gone bad, just
Speaker 5: don't leave me. Just fucking hang in there, you know,
Speaker 5: like fucking walk away from me. And and I love that,
Speaker 5: you know, that's that's my highest quality that I hold
Speaker 5: in people, is that beautiful loyalty and that now that
Speaker 5: I'm wavering sort of I'm there good or bad. And
Speaker 5: that's something that you know. In my work that I
Speaker 5: do helping other people with addiction, something that I want
Speaker 5: to bring to them.
Speaker 4: I want them to know I'm not going to leave them.
Speaker 5: Even if I get ship and hard, I'm not leaving
Speaker 5: if I if I sniff something, if I sniff some
Speaker 5: authenticity mm hmm, some realness, some genuine desire, I ain't
Speaker 5: fucking leaving. Simple was that, and I love that, And
Speaker 5: that's what you gave to me. It would have been very,
Speaker 5: very easy to just know, Well, you're a busy man,
Speaker 5: you've got an unbelievable life, you've got you know, you're
Speaker 5: a professional, you've got so many things going on.
Speaker 4: But you still said he's my man, and I'm still
Speaker 4: going to make time for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you're easy to be a mate. Too.
Speaker 1: But I remember five or six years ago, maybe four
Speaker 1: or five years ago. We won't talk about what specifically,
Speaker 1: but things were tough for you. There was a real
Speaker 1: moment in your life where shit wasn't going great, as
Speaker 1: happens to everyone, but you were in the middle of
Speaker 1: some stuff. And I remember sitting outside this window right
Speaker 1: now in the bamboo. Do you remember you and me
Speaker 1: sitting out in the bamboo in the fucking chairs with
Speaker 1: our feet up on them, and just having quite a
Speaker 1: lot of chats out in the bamboo about the ship
Speaker 1: that you were in the middle of. And you know,
Speaker 1: I knew that I couldn't fix it or change it
Speaker 1: or wave a magic wand but I also knew that
Speaker 1: somebody just being there same or mate, you know, I'm here,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere, you know. And you do that
Speaker 1: for people, Tiff does that for people? Tif Do you
Speaker 1: have any questions for the great? You know? Box at
Speaker 1: a boxer pugilist to pugilist, thug to thug.
Speaker 2: I just want to make a comment on how difficult
Speaker 2: it is to switch to South poor. I just don't
Speaker 2: think people could ever grasp the complexity of that. It is.
Speaker 2: I applaud you for that.
Speaker 3: Like when you said that, I was like.
Speaker 2: People, even people who write left handed or brush your
Speaker 2: teeth left handed, when you're a right hander, it'll give
Speaker 2: you a snapshot. But as a coach being challenged to
Speaker 2: try and stand in Southpoor to show technique and see technique,
Speaker 2: I struggle with that. So that is incredible.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you, Tiff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's crazy, really, isn't it, Because I mean, you
Speaker 5: think everything's going to be reversed when you're in south Wall.
Speaker 5: Everything that you've learned has to be reversed. But not
Speaker 5: only that, there's a lot of stuff that you do.
Speaker 5: Not everything, but there are there are some things that
Speaker 5: you do in Southport that don't translate to Orthodox and
Speaker 5: some things that you do an Orthodox that don't translate
Speaker 5: to Southport. So you have to relearn different ways of
Speaker 5: different combinations don't.
Speaker 4: Work in both stances.
Speaker 5: And also imagine changing your stance, but then you could
Speaker 5: be in front of someone that's an Orthodox or a
Speaker 5: Southport and so not just your stance that matters.
Speaker 4: It's when you're in the ring all of.
Speaker 5: A sudden, you're a Southpaw, but you used to be
Speaker 5: an Orthodox, but now you're facing a South for.
Speaker 4: It's triply triply weird.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of yeah, so it's it is. It
Speaker 5: was a major, a major feat and I'm very very
Speaker 5: fortunate that I had teachers, or I had a teacher
Speaker 5: in particular a French guy actually who's but a French
Speaker 5: guy who was very very high level, and he he.
Speaker 4: Put myself and my son through.
Speaker 5: I would call it nothing short of sas training for boxing.
Speaker 5: Over a period of about four years, seven days a week,
Speaker 5: we're at like sparring at six o'clock in the morning
Speaker 5: in the rain in a sand pit.
Speaker 4: Crawling through, crawling.
Speaker 5: Up hills with it was just incredible, you know, like
Speaker 5: it was just this mad, mad conditioning and training and
Speaker 5: technique training that it's paid off.
Speaker 4: In the end.
Speaker 2: And the idea about understanding. So there's that whole tough
Speaker 2: love aspect, there's that getting in getting hit and just
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about your background and what you've
Speaker 2: been through, right, and maybe your opinion of yourself at times.
Speaker 2: And one thing that's apparent to me is how you
Speaker 2: you learn to be tough and weather the storm when
Speaker 2: you need to, but also understand when you might need
Speaker 2: a bit of self love and self acceptance. Have you
Speaker 2: been through anything with that? Psychologically?
Speaker 4: I've been through that repeatedly, repeatedly.
Speaker 5: And it's been the major stuff for me with boxing
Speaker 5: is around the psychology and the emotional side of it,
Speaker 5: because my first seven fights were a loss, a lose,
Speaker 5: a loss. And it's not like playing foot you we
Speaker 5: can go, oh, I played well, but look we lost
Speaker 5: by one point or two points. It's like, did you
Speaker 5: what happened in the fight? Mate?
Speaker 4: I lost to right? Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 5: So you sit with that loss and and it's hard
Speaker 5: to come back from because there's only two people in
Speaker 5: the fight. You're only going to win or lose. You're
Speaker 5: not going to have a bad day or like it's
Speaker 5: syst it's going to win or lose. And so psychologically
Speaker 5: what would happen for me when I'd lose is it
Speaker 5: was very, very difficult because I got in the demons.
Speaker 5: I'm almost fighting in the demons. And in the demons, Tommy, mate,
Speaker 5: you don't belong here. You're not good enough, You're not
Speaker 5: a boxer. These people can see through you. Are you
Speaker 5: really do you really think that you've got a fighting spirit?
Speaker 5: You know, you're a little boy, you know, that's.
Speaker 4: What my head.
Speaker 5: That's what my head and my heart tried to tell
Speaker 5: me in the beginning. And I had to find a
Speaker 5: way to settle with myself and say, now I'm not
Speaker 5: a little boy, and yes I am good enough to
Speaker 5: be here, and I believe. And you know, my first
Speaker 5: fight as a master, as Martha's fight was about.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It was about three years ago or whatever. And I
Speaker 5: thought a guy whose name was Christopher Hume. Now I
Speaker 5: fought at eighty six kilos. I now fight at seventy
Speaker 5: two kilos, right, But I fought then at eighty six kilos,
Speaker 5: and Christopher Hume he beat me, and he beat me well.
Speaker 5: And they were interviewing us at the end of the
Speaker 5: fight in the ring. And when they came to me,
Speaker 5: and they asked me a few questions and whatever I
Speaker 5: said to them. You see, I had this dream, I
Speaker 5: had this believe I didn't know how I was going
Speaker 5: to do it, and I was frightened of doing it.
Speaker 5: But I said, but I'm going to win a title.
Speaker 5: I will be back, make no mistake. I will not
Speaker 5: stop until I win the title.
Speaker 4: And yeah, very good, Mick. You know I've got the
Speaker 4: applause whatever, and off we go.
Speaker 5: I lost the next six in a row after that,
Speaker 5: so that speech didn't look to be coming true. But
Speaker 5: I did keep that belief, and my trainers believed in me,
Speaker 5: and did you know that it was only however, long
Speaker 5: later I was standing in the ring and I won
Speaker 5: a Victorian state title, and that guy, Christopher Hume, was
Speaker 5: the guy that stood there with the belt and presented
Speaker 5: me the belt and wrapped it around my waist.
Speaker 2: That just gave me goosebumps.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: That's that's the power of consistency. That's the power of
Speaker 5: doing shit, whether I'm fucking scared or not right, because
Speaker 5: because I knew that deep down, it's it's who I am,
Speaker 5: who I want to be, It's who I want to be,
Speaker 5: and it is who I am. Even though the head
Speaker 5: noise was telling me it's not, I knew in my
Speaker 5: heart it was that's who I am.
Speaker 4: I'm boxing on a fighter, you know. And I kept going.
Speaker 5: And so then the consistency, the discipline, all of that
Speaker 5: stuff led me to standing there in that ring and
Speaker 5: the guy that beat me that first fight wrapping that
Speaker 5: belt around me.
Speaker 4: And since then I won.
Speaker 5: A WBL Asia Pacific Super middleweight title. I want to
Speaker 5: WBL Masters Middleweight world title, and I've got you know,
Speaker 5: after the back of that world title fight, I've been
Speaker 5: offered more title fights in Sydney, you know, and which
Speaker 5: I'm considering and weighing up whether I can, whether I can.
Speaker 4: Make it happen. But there's lots of opportunities come up.
Speaker 5: And I know that my boxing journey isn't finished yet
Speaker 5: because I'm getting better and better and better every fight.
Speaker 5: And I have to say too that I don't mind
Speaker 5: being fifty three years old and having an absolutely rippling
Speaker 5: stick pack.
Speaker 3: You know what I also love.
Speaker 2: I love the fact that you used the word scared
Speaker 2: and didn't change it, didn't change it too nervous or
Speaker 2: you know, prefect nerves. I love that you said I'm
Speaker 2: scared every time I get in the ring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I think we we change our language into positive of things,
Speaker 2: which can be really good, but sometimes that can let
Speaker 2: us make us leave it behind when we might need
Speaker 2: it the most. So then when that same feeling is
Speaker 2: being scared in real life, we don't translate it anymore
Speaker 2: because it's like, well, this isn't pre fight nerves. Now
Speaker 2: I'm scared, and I haven't been scared for years. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're scared every time you get in the ring.
Speaker 4: Exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 5: And the thing I love about boxing is that everything
Speaker 5: that we've been talking about that goes on psychologically and emotionally,
Speaker 5: like you think and you know as a box of
Speaker 5: two tiff that you know when you're under attack in
Speaker 5: the ring, you know you have to be able to
Speaker 5: stay calm. You've got to be able to think, you've
Speaker 5: got to move, you've got to make split second decisions,
Speaker 5: and you have to be able to negotiate your way
Speaker 5: through whatever's coming at you. And that translates to life.
Speaker 5: It translates to life in so many areas. It translates
Speaker 5: to business, it translates to relationships, it translates to financial stuff,
Speaker 5: it translates to friendships, you know, in every aspect of life.
Speaker 5: And that's why I love boxing because it absolutely number one.
Speaker 5: It makes me take responsibility for me. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: the guy in there. There's nobody else can help me.
Speaker 5: And that's one thing I also learned through all of
Speaker 5: the stuff that I've been through my life, through addiction
Speaker 5: and everything. Craig talked all about stuff before. But at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, I guess what, nobody could
Speaker 5: help me. Nobody can save me. Only I can. I
Speaker 5: need other people, I need help, but only I can
Speaker 5: do it. I alone can do it, but I can't
Speaker 5: do it alone. And and boxing just emulates and mimics.
Speaker 5: It helps me realize all of that stuff. No one
Speaker 5: in that ring can help me. I've got all that training,
Speaker 5: everything I've been shown, taught, talked about, all that stuff.
Speaker 5: I now have to implement it, and nobody can do
Speaker 5: it for me, and no one can help me. I
Speaker 5: have to do it. Helps me take responsibility for me.
Speaker 5: That's the key to not being a victim. That's the
Speaker 5: key to empowerment. True empowerment I've found is me taking
Speaker 5: responsibility for me.
Speaker 4: Simple as that.
Speaker 2: Was there something you believed about you or how you
Speaker 2: saw yourself before the boxing ring, that you saw in
Speaker 2: black and white for the first time, when you saw
Speaker 2: yourself in the ring and then couldn't deny it, that
Speaker 2: changed you.
Speaker 4: That's a good question.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's something I've seen, but it's
Speaker 5: something Maybe the word I would use is realized, you know,
Speaker 5: but it's internal, internally realized. You know, and it's taken
Speaker 5: a number of fights, has taken ten, twelve, thirteen fights.
Speaker 4: Whoever many fights has taken to.
Speaker 5: Actually realize that and understand and totally believe that I
Speaker 5: belong there and that this is who I am. This
Speaker 5: is who I am. I'm now proud to say and
Speaker 5: I'll say it anywhere.
Speaker 4: I'm a fighter.
Speaker 5: I was embarrassed to say it before, even though I
Speaker 5: was a fighter, I was embarrassed to say.
Speaker 4: I didn't feel like it was.
Speaker 5: I sort of had any credibility or that i'd sort
Speaker 5: of I could say that because you know, up a
Speaker 5: hand on, you're a dad, and you're a business.
Speaker 4: I am all those things. But I'm a fighter. That's
Speaker 4: who I.
Speaker 5: Am and I know that now and I love that.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't make me a hard badass or anything.
Speaker 5: That doesn't that's all bullershit. It makes me an authentic
Speaker 5: person who cares and loves for people, loves people and
Speaker 5: would do anything to help someone. But I know I'm
Speaker 5: a fighter, you know, I know that I have that
Speaker 5: internal spirit that is that will not lay down, that
Speaker 5: will stand up for what I believe in.
Speaker 3: So how's the fifty I'm still here?
Speaker 1: Everyone, Good work tip, I've just been in the jacuzzi,
Speaker 1: had a.
Speaker 3: Back cracking sackquacks.
Speaker 4: Had many head eyebrows done.
Speaker 3: No, I just said I had a back cracking sackquacks.
Speaker 4: Well, right, ignored. That's sorry.
Speaker 3: I don't think about that anyone, and no I didn't.
Speaker 1: Just so, when is the fifty three year old going
Speaker 1: to I know Dana have any immediate retirement plans, But
Speaker 1: do you ever think about how's my brain going to
Speaker 1: be if I kept getting punched in the face when
Speaker 1: I'm you know, do you think about that moving forward?
Speaker 1: Looking after your brain and your mental health and all
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent? You know?
Speaker 5: And it's a funny thing that looking after your brain
Speaker 5: and your mental health. That funny thing is that my
Speaker 5: mental health has never been so good as it is.
Speaker 4: Now through Bobs.
Speaker 5: Yes, so there's a there's a little spanner in the works.
Speaker 5: The other thing, too, is is that if I was
Speaker 5: in a position where I was getting hit in the
Speaker 5: head too much, then yes, it is time to stop.
Speaker 5: But I don't get hit in the head a lot.
Speaker 5: I do get hit in the head, yes, and I'm
Speaker 5: not but you know, while I'm still performing at a
Speaker 5: level where I can really reduce. You know, I'm hard
Speaker 5: to hit, and I've got good defense, and i can move,
Speaker 5: and I've got all of the attributes that i need
Speaker 5: in order to do what.
Speaker 4: I need to do in the ring.
Speaker 5: Then okay, going when they start to fail or get
Speaker 5: to get to a certain point, and I think the
Speaker 5: way I look at it.
Speaker 4: Is I look at each fight.
Speaker 5: If I know that, like, it's funny because each fight
Speaker 5: that comes up and I'm talking to the train as
Speaker 5: we go, fuck mate, they're going to be looking at
Speaker 5: the footage from the last fight that was four months.
Speaker 4: Ago or whatever.
Speaker 5: They don't know what they don't know what's coming because
Speaker 5: we've improved, we've got more arsenals. Now, we've got a
Speaker 5: new we've got new weapons. Now, we've improved the weapons
Speaker 5: we've had and we've added more.
Speaker 4: So while that's still happening, in my mind, it's ridiculous
Speaker 4: to stop.
Speaker 5: But if we're getting to the next fight and it
Speaker 5: was like more of the same, Yeah, then I'm going
Speaker 5: to start thinking, Okay, the improvement stop I've kind of
Speaker 5: platted out, started to decline, then it's time to.
Speaker 1: I feel like, when you do hang up the gloves
Speaker 1: in terms of you fighting. You're probably still going to
Speaker 1: be involved. You're probably going to be supporting other fighters
Speaker 1: or coaching a fighter, or and when's the I guess
Speaker 1: the only the big question really is when are you
Speaker 1: going to move around in the ring with Tiff and
Speaker 1: she'll have the pads on and she'll fucking just put
Speaker 1: you through your face.
Speaker 5: Mick, yeah, grouse, I'd prefer that, all right, I would
Speaker 5: love to.
Speaker 3: In fact, we should sort of. I'll come down.
Speaker 1: I'll stand in the corner and do some filming and
Speaker 1: I'll bring my sponge to mop up the blood and
Speaker 1: to pick up mix mixed self esteem. One's fucking Tiff
Speaker 1: towels him up. Imagine that here we going, Oh well, titled,
Speaker 1: I was going great. So I got smashed in the
Speaker 1: dick by a girl back and now.
Speaker 4: That it wouldn't be the first time.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Hey mate, it's been great catching up
Speaker 1: with you. We appreciate you. Do you want to steer
Speaker 1: anyone towards anything? Do you want to pump anything up?
Speaker 1: Or do you want to point anyone in a direction?
Speaker 4: All good, all good mate, all good bloody gats.
Speaker 1: Thanks mate, Thanks TIV for jumping in, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: you too, finally met.
Speaker 3: You might become friends now me too never know. Thanks team,
Speaker 3: Thanks everyone,