Speaker 1: We gotta wear every single round. You hear me, Drake Man,
Speaker 1: this is what great you see it?
Speaker 2: Robinson got up litterard and got up all lady got up,
Speaker 2: You got up?
Speaker 1: Do it.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of the Art of War Today.
Speaker 1: I got a man as my guest to it.
Speaker 3: Very special to my heart is my trainer, godfather and
Speaker 3: the twenty eleven Boxing Riders Association Trainer of the Year
Speaker 3: and one of the greatest minds in the sport of boxing.
Speaker 1: And y'all been asking for want a Welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: Virgil Hunter Bean, what's up baby?
Speaker 2: How you b baby?
Speaker 1: Man? I'm good good, I'm give you got your You
Speaker 1: got your Stevie wonder thing going on? Man? With the tent,
Speaker 1: what's you got going on?
Speaker 2: Actually it's a blu rays Okay. Yeah, So they keep
Speaker 2: everything calm, the quarters all down and things like that.
Speaker 2: I found out that it works that sleep real good
Speaker 2: at night. Now.
Speaker 3: See that's the age when you start getting older, you
Speaker 3: start going more for comfort and functionality over over.
Speaker 2: Well, it takes skills to get old. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. You can't. You just can't help harbor on
Speaker 2: one thing. What you did in twenty you can't do
Speaker 2: in fifty and so on and so on. So it's
Speaker 2: all about preservation. You got a roleo trying to be here.
Speaker 2: Oh I wear it every now and then. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: just to keep it click moving.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm back in the gym. Man. This is uh,
Speaker 1: this was home.
Speaker 2: For many many years for the house that you built.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I remember me and me and me
Speaker 3: and my wife. Man, we were looking for gyms because
Speaker 3: we're training in Oakland.
Speaker 1: And we just had a lot of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Traffic coming in, especially as we started really growing and
Speaker 3: I became a champion, we needed some private man, and
Speaker 3: looking at all these you know, industrial buildings, and man,
Speaker 3: we we built this from the ground up, from the
Speaker 3: mirrors to you know, put the mats over here, heavy.
Speaker 1: Bass, feed bags, equipment.
Speaker 3: Man, we didn't have some great moments in this gym, man.
Speaker 3: And man, it's good to be back. And I just
Speaker 3: want to take you know, normally I do you know,
Speaker 3: I have my notes and I do my thing, and
Speaker 3: you know, I just I just want this today to
Speaker 3: be just more of a conversation with us, just kind
Speaker 3: of kind of talking and vibeing just about the history
Speaker 3: and how we got to this point. You know, I
Speaker 3: think it's a lot of things we can talk about
Speaker 3: that would bless a lot of people and just get
Speaker 3: people insight to the journey.
Speaker 1: You know, they see the fight night or they see the.
Speaker 3: Interviews, but they don't really understand exact a lot of
Speaker 3: the process.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to go back to
Speaker 1: I think it's ninety five.
Speaker 2: You know when I.
Speaker 3: First met you a US karate in box and it
Speaker 3: was a karate school and a boxing gym in Hayward, California.
Speaker 1: And my dad was in there and you.
Speaker 3: Were in there that day, and I was hitting the
Speaker 3: heavy bag. Man, what's your what's your earliest memory from
Speaker 3: that moment.
Speaker 2: Well, I was in there working out myself, and I
Speaker 2: had finished and completed my workout and I was sitting
Speaker 2: on the side of the ring and I just heard
Speaker 2: a little pop over in the bag. So I happened
Speaker 2: to look over and there you were standing there, a
Speaker 2: little kid hitting the bag, and every now and then
Speaker 2: you turn around and look at me, and I died
Speaker 2: my head and approval like that, and at that time
Speaker 2: didn't think much of it. Was just a kid in there.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know why my attention was averted
Speaker 2: over to where you were. I don't know why I
Speaker 2: just nodded approve. I don't know why eyes met, but
Speaker 2: they met several times. So that's my earliest recollection. I
Speaker 2: believe it was ninety four because you were ten years old.
Speaker 2: You were born in eighty four, right, yeah, so I
Speaker 2: think it was ninety four. You might have just turned ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah around that.
Speaker 3: Time, man, and this you know that day my dad,
Speaker 3: you know, you had a conversation with my dad and
Speaker 3: I was actually training with another trainer.
Speaker 1: At that time.
Speaker 3: It was that the guy we call it the house
Speaker 3: trainer person, the guy that trains most of the people
Speaker 3: that come through the gym. But the style, my dad
Speaker 3: didn't like.
Speaker 1: The style.
Speaker 3: It was a style of take two punches to give one.
Speaker 3: And my dad was you know, he boxed as an
Speaker 3: amateur in high school in San Bruno, California, and he
Speaker 3: liked to dance, you know, in the ring.
Speaker 1: You know, he was an Ali fan.
Speaker 3: And y'all started talking and he said something to you, said, man,
Speaker 3: I want to teach.
Speaker 1: My son how to hit and not get hit.
Speaker 3: And you you told my dad, you said, that's my specialty.
Speaker 2: Well, we got into a conversation. I think your dad
Speaker 2: was watching me work out. He felt comfortable approaching me,
Speaker 2: and he says, look, I have my two sons here.
Speaker 2: They want a box and everything like that. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm not really happy with who's training him right now.
Speaker 2: So my question to him is, well, what are you
Speaker 2: looking for? What do you want? What do you want
Speaker 2: you to get out of boxing? He said, well, I've
Speaker 2: always been a big Muhammad Ali fan, so I liked
Speaker 2: that idea hitting and not getting hit. And I said,
Speaker 2: well that's my specialty.
Speaker 1: Man. It's crazy. I thought about this recently.
Speaker 3: Just that conversation alone and my dad having that type
Speaker 3: of vision right saved me from.
Speaker 1: So much punishment.
Speaker 3: Like my quality of life today is what it is
Speaker 3: because my dad wasn't one of them dads.
Speaker 1: I was like, nah, man, you gotta.
Speaker 3: Make him tough, you know, just making tough, getting in
Speaker 3: shae and teach him how to fight.
Speaker 1: I want him to fight. If that was the case,
Speaker 1: I don't know where I would have been.
Speaker 3: Mentally, you know, physically, because it just would have been
Speaker 3: a hard role. Because I was kid that had drive,
Speaker 3: I was competitive, so I and I wasn't you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't scared. Just that one conversation saved me from
Speaker 3: so much punishment in amateur boxing and proboxing.
Speaker 2: Well, it's definitely a spiritual journey that you can deny. Uh,
Speaker 2: The introduction was spiritual because you if you remember, I
Speaker 2: told you later on. During that time, I was going
Speaker 2: through a little mild depression because I thought I had
Speaker 2: a son that I was initially was working with and
Speaker 2: he was taken from me. So I cared about him
Speaker 2: so much. I loved him so much. I was going
Speaker 2: through a depression, a mild depression. I was coming home
Speaker 2: every night pouring a shot of Tanga ray or two,
Speaker 2: smoking a couple of cigarettes. This was a ritual every night,
Speaker 2: even though I wasn't a smoker, even though I wasn't
Speaker 2: a drinker, which was the deal with what I was
Speaker 2: dealing with. It really hurt me so but I just
Speaker 2: snatched away like that. So I went to the gym
Speaker 2: to stay in shape, try to keep my mind intact,
Speaker 2: try to keep my spirits up. And you know, that
Speaker 2: day happened. That day happened, and from that day on,
Speaker 2: I knew it was for a reason. I just knew
Speaker 2: it it's something deep down. It was for a reason,
Speaker 2: long before everything manifested itself, long before the potential showed
Speaker 2: up and everything. I just knew it was for a
Speaker 2: reason because I also was training kids at the probation Department,
Speaker 2: and I would get them real good while they were
Speaker 2: locked up, and then when they would get out, they
Speaker 2: would come to the gym and they trained three or
Speaker 2: four months. But eventually, you know, the home situation, the
Speaker 2: money situation, the peer pressure, they would always go back
Speaker 2: to the street. So I kind of got fed up
Speaker 2: with that, and I made myself a promise. I said,
Speaker 2: if I ever start again, it's gonna be a young kid,
Speaker 2: young enough, but the temptations are not there yet to
Speaker 2: where I can give him a foundation that when the
Speaker 2: temptations come, he'll have something to fall back on. He
Speaker 2: won't go across the line. He might tow the line,
Speaker 2: but he won't go across the line. That always stayed
Speaker 2: in my mind from the beginning, you know, and then
Speaker 2: you had the support that you had, You had your father,
Speaker 2: there's supporting the situation. So I needed that situation too.
Speaker 2: I knew that you were taking care of that, your
Speaker 2: needs were being met, so I didn't have to worry
Speaker 2: about you l leaving the gym and then it got
Speaker 2: to go to the block to make some money so
Speaker 2: you can eat that night, or go to the block
Speaker 2: that morning so you can buy some shoes for school.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that worry, so it allowed me to
Speaker 2: relax and gradually I began to heal from the depression
Speaker 2: because your presence replaced all of that. Man, it's crazy cause,
Speaker 2: like you know, my dad, I had my father there,
Speaker 2: me and my brother. He was raising us as a
Speaker 2: single parent, and then we had different mothers.
Speaker 1: So Jonathan, my brother, h his.
Speaker 3: Mom was doing what she was doing, and then my
Speaker 3: mom was fighting an active drug addiction. So you know,
Speaker 3: we had stability, but we also had some instability too,
Speaker 3: you know, and we didn't understand everything.
Speaker 1: That was going on.
Speaker 3: But you know, it was good because once we started
Speaker 3: locking in, you know what you and Millie, you know,
Speaker 3: your wife for those that don't know, you know, we
Speaker 3: were able to go to your house sometimes get my
Speaker 3: dad a break, and then you know, we was going
Speaker 3: back and forth, so we ultimately ended up losing our
Speaker 3: house because my dad had to go back into a
Speaker 3: drug program.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a good fit for us to
Speaker 1: go and stay with y'all, you know, but.
Speaker 2: It was always in the plan. You know, when you
Speaker 2: see the plan unfold, then you begin to realize why
Speaker 2: I was in this plan, because long before you came
Speaker 2: to stay with me, you were staying over, spending the night,
Speaker 2: and would take you up to the country and we
Speaker 2: would go to Santa Cruz. We would do a lot
Speaker 2: of different things together. And you know, I was giving
Speaker 2: your father a break on the weekend because I know
Speaker 2: he worked hard in his business and things like that,
Speaker 2: and a lot of times you were telling me, you know, man,
Speaker 2: I got to stay home today because Dad's tired this
Speaker 2: and then and there and the other. So merely fell
Speaker 2: in love with your guys right away. My wife the
Speaker 2: only person that I know, only woman I know that
Speaker 2: would take in two young boys like that. So when
Speaker 2: that time came and your dad came to me and
Speaker 2: he said, look, you know I'm gonna have to go
Speaker 2: into this program. I'm gonna have to let the house go.
Speaker 2: The thing is is where I'm gonna have Andre and Jonathan,
Speaker 2: he said, because I talked to my sister and they say, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe a week or so. It's good, and things like that,
Speaker 2: and you know, so I told him, I said, they
Speaker 2: can stay here. They used to be in here anyway,
Speaker 2: They spend the night all the time. They used to
Speaker 2: be in here, so they could stay here and not
Speaker 2: you know, so that's what happened. I think he told
Speaker 2: me that you guys wanted to stay with me, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we really didn't to be The truth is, we
Speaker 3: didn't really have no other options.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I know, you know, don't.
Speaker 3: I don't fault nobody for that, because you know, you
Speaker 3: got a ten year old, eleven year old maybe it's
Speaker 3: twelve and thirteen at that time, somewhere around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a lot. It's a lot to just get that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get two boys like that put in your life
Speaker 3: from monetary standpoint, needing.
Speaker 2: Your food, like buying your clothes.
Speaker 3: But the truth is is you and merely were there
Speaker 3: really the only option that we had.
Speaker 2: But that was the only option meant to be, you know, spiritually,
Speaker 2: that was the only option meant to be. Because I
Speaker 2: understand this to be a spiritual trip, a spiritual journey.
Speaker 2: I'd look at it that way. That's the only way
Speaker 2: I can look at it. I can't deny, I dispute it,
Speaker 2: so everything was just in place, step by step, brick
Speaker 2: by brick, you know, layer by layer, everything was in place.
Speaker 3: The world never got a chance to meet my father,
Speaker 3: But what what was your earliest memories of him?
Speaker 2: I felt your father was a man of principle, and
Speaker 2: in spite of our struggles, we can have principles. In
Speaker 2: spite of our struggles, we can have character. In spite
Speaker 2: of our struggles, we do have genuine love in our heart.
Speaker 2: It's just sometimes our struggle can override that and we
Speaker 2: question it sometimes. But what's There's gonna be there. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you can get diverted by other things and other activities
Speaker 2: that are going on. But in this situation, he gave
Speaker 2: you a foundation, a foundation of respect, a foundation of caring,
Speaker 2: a foundation of intuition, a foundation of comprehension. He gave
Speaker 2: you all those things so when you came, it wasn't
Speaker 2: like you had to be programmed into those uh categories
Speaker 2: every there. It was already existing. So it made things
Speaker 2: a little easier. You're you were able to communicate.
Speaker 1: Man, My dad was big on respect.
Speaker 3: My dad was big on you know, doing things right,
Speaker 3: looking people in the eyes, shaking they hand.
Speaker 1: You know, we start using slang. Hey, man, what would
Speaker 1: you say?
Speaker 2: You know here?
Speaker 3: Correct us, Like, that's just who my dad was, man.
Speaker 3: And you know, I even look at my mom. Ain't
Speaker 3: my dad? You know, as I've gotten older, you know,
Speaker 3: when you're young, you start looking at what your parents
Speaker 3: didn't do or.
Speaker 1: How they could have did it better.
Speaker 3: But when you understand the beast uh the sixties and
Speaker 3: the seventies, you know, like they didn't know what they
Speaker 3: was getting theyself into experimenting with them drugs.
Speaker 1: They were just looking for escape.
Speaker 3: M We're looking for a hide to party, and it's
Speaker 3: like boom, you know, an addiction came in and then
Speaker 3: you carrying that thing into the next.
Speaker 2: Decade to the next decade, you know.
Speaker 3: And I just I've been able to have more more
Speaker 3: understanding about that and more grace and mercy just understanding that,
Speaker 3: you know, like even my mom being in and out
Speaker 3: of my life. Yeah, that that that was a wound.
Speaker 3: That was a mother wound. And sometimes I still gotta
Speaker 3: fight to this day.
Speaker 1: You know. But I know it wasn't intentional. I know
Speaker 1: it wasn't on purpose, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: No, I don't believe it was on purpose. Again, when
Speaker 2: when you're confronted with a situation like that where you
Speaker 2: have something so powerful and mind altering and at the
Speaker 2: same time it gives you eupharia. You feel your pharia
Speaker 2: when you're able to forget your problems and everything like that.
Speaker 2: You're gonna gravitate to that. Only if a cigarette is
Speaker 2: able to make you forget your problems and you your
Speaker 2: fork and you happy with everybody, you're gonna gravitate towards that.
Speaker 2: And at the time that you're gravitating toward it and
Speaker 2: getting the fulfillment of the eupharia, you're not thinking about
Speaker 2: the long run that euphoria goes away now all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you need it not to get sick, you
Speaker 2: needed just to function. So it's a double ed sword.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So like they didn't know how the long term cost,
Speaker 3: They didn't know the long term consequence of heroin.
Speaker 1: No, you know, but by the time you figure it out,
Speaker 1: it's too late. It's too late.
Speaker 3: Back to the gym in the boxing, man, it took
Speaker 3: so you and my dad, like y'all didn't lit me
Speaker 3: fight right away. You know, I was in that gym
Speaker 3: getting battle tested with and Anito Denier, a great Filipino fighter.
Speaker 1: His brother Glendon him.
Speaker 3: A lot of people don't know him, man, but he
Speaker 3: was a beast and he's older than me, stronger than me.
Speaker 1: But we were the same size, you know, because he
Speaker 1: was a Filipino.
Speaker 3: I had to like get through him and get battle
Speaker 3: testing with my brother for that whole year some change
Speaker 3: before I even had my first national Why was that
Speaker 3: important for y'all to make sure that I was battle
Speaker 3: testing before I had my first fight.
Speaker 2: Well, when I first started putting you in with Glenn,
Speaker 2: of course you're the same size, but he's three or
Speaker 2: four years older. And Saraphene at the time was coaching him.
Speaker 2: So you're not gonna take no mercy on you, right,
Speaker 2: So he Sajapen, was the.
Speaker 3: Coach that was originally training me at the gym before
Speaker 3: I went to Burge.
Speaker 2: He would just pound on you, but you would keep
Speaker 2: your hands up and you just move and run all
Speaker 2: over the ring and stop and then move and run again.
Speaker 2: And I just watched, and I remember your father coming
Speaker 2: up to me and he said, Verge, I don't think
Speaker 2: he got it right. I just don't think the kid
Speaker 2: got it. I said, just be patient. I said, he
Speaker 2: got to learn how to defend himself before he started
Speaker 2: attacking people, right, I said, it's something I'm waiting on
Speaker 2: right now. So every time, I don't know if you remember,
Speaker 2: every time Glenn with Atlanta a real big punch, I'd
Speaker 2: stop it, yep, I'd say stop, that's enough, right, the
Speaker 2: saraphene would get mad. And we went through this four
Speaker 2: or five times. Right, you just move around and ra
Speaker 2: ain't more on. Boom, that's it, stop it, right, And
Speaker 2: then one day it happened and you said, I'm okay, Verge,
Speaker 2: I'm okay. That's what I was waiting on. I was
Speaker 2: waiting for you to say I'm okay because I realized
Speaker 2: that you have to have the trust in me that
Speaker 2: early on. I'm not gonna let you get hurt. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna let you get beat. I saw the competitiveness
Speaker 2: in you, so winning early on when you did start
Speaker 2: boxing was very important to me because I knew it
Speaker 2: was important to you because I saw the competitiveness. And
Speaker 2: even then you had tears in your eyes, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't tears of it was tears of anger. You know,
Speaker 2: why is he doing this to me? I can't you know?
Speaker 2: And if you remember when you told me that. I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna work on just one punch. I said, because
Speaker 2: every time you stop, he's so confident. You're not gonna
Speaker 2: throw nothing. He's not gonna protect himself. He's gonna look
Speaker 2: at what he wants to hit, and when he does
Speaker 2: that cracking and move again. And we started doing that,
Speaker 2: and then pretty soon two pieces started landing, and then
Speaker 2: within two or three months they didn't want to spark
Speaker 2: no more. It developed that quick, it turned around that quick.
Speaker 3: So it took me about I probably had like I
Speaker 3: don't know, ten fights, you know. My first fight was
Speaker 3: San Jose, California, San Jose Pile Samuel Rosco. I still
Speaker 3: talk to him to this day. And I lost my
Speaker 3: first fight. I thought I won that fight, of course
Speaker 3: you won. Yeah, and I visited I think my third fight.
Speaker 3: So I had about ten to eleven fights, and then I
Speaker 3: had my first big national so I won the local
Speaker 3: Silver Gloves and I won state that I won regional.
Speaker 1: So I'm ten fights, eleven fights.
Speaker 3: He in Lenexa, Kansas at the Silver Gloves nationals. Man,
Speaker 3: I was crazy. That's the first time I ever seen snow.
Speaker 3: Being from California, I ain't know what snow looked like.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's an indoor hotel, and I'm green.
Speaker 1: At that level.
Speaker 3: I've never been at that level, so I would be
Speaker 3: you would be like you go, you stay in the room,
Speaker 3: but you would be downstairs at night with the coaches,
Speaker 3: you know, and uh, everybody bragging about that guy you had,
Speaker 3: you know, Uncle Dre from New York, you had Detroit, Philly,
Speaker 3: you know, Concrete Jungle. I mean it was some real hitters,
Speaker 3: you know, from these different seas Ohio. And I ended
Speaker 3: up battling my way through the tournaments, like five day tournament.
Speaker 3: But the dude on the opposite side, Curtis Stevens, were
Speaker 3: on opposite brackets.
Speaker 1: I didn't know him.
Speaker 3: And I said this in my book, how you know
Speaker 3: at them nights when you and the coaches was hanging out,
Speaker 3: Uncle Dre was like, man, that's my nephew.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: He grew up on a Mike Tyson's doorstep. Like what
Speaker 3: was some interactions? Like, I mean, you got young kids
Speaker 3: in the room that night, they finna rumble, like, but y'all.
Speaker 2: You know adults, Well, you know, when we first got there,
Speaker 2: I of course watched everybody that was in your bracket fight,
Speaker 2: and Curtis stood out right away because he was knocking
Speaker 2: kids out. I mean, that's first time I seen a
Speaker 2: kid knock another kid out, just out, you know, and
Speaker 2: seriously out. But I saw some other things that I
Speaker 2: knew that that was his only hope. It was the
Speaker 2: land of punch. But at that time I used a
Speaker 2: lot of psychology. I don't know if Drave remembers it
Speaker 2: or not. We've talked about it and laughed about it.
Speaker 1: In the workout room.
Speaker 2: Curtis was in there hitting the heavy bag and I said, man,
Speaker 2: this is your kid. He said yeah. I said, boy,
Speaker 2: he could really hit, you know. And Andre, because he's
Speaker 2: so nice and cordial, you know, and such a genuine person,
Speaker 2: he responded to me to where a genuine person would
Speaker 2: not suspicious. He his coach. He just responded to me
Speaker 2: to where a genuine person would And yeah, coach, he's
Speaker 2: a killer. You know, he's knocking out everybody this and that.
Speaker 2: And so I said, well, man, I said, my kids
Speaker 2: fight seemed tomorrow night. We just glad to be here,
Speaker 2: you know, we you know, we were just lucky we
Speaker 2: got this far, so we glad to be here. So
Speaker 2: I want to congratulate you now, so and left it
Speaker 2: at that, you know, but I already knew and I
Speaker 2: beat him and you beat him.
Speaker 1: But the power was real though. He can crack, yeah,
Speaker 1: no doubt.
Speaker 3: Some dudes you fight, you feel like they got bricks
Speaker 3: in their hands, like even if they grazed you or
Speaker 3: they partially hit you, like dang, I don't gonna.
Speaker 1: Get hit with that clean. Well he was built the punch, yeah, stocky, blow.
Speaker 2: To the ground, yeah, strong, thighs strong, he was built
Speaker 2: the punch. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I you know, I won that tournament and went
Speaker 3: you know once you I think that was that was
Speaker 3: at one hundred pounds.
Speaker 2: I think it was that was.
Speaker 1: I'm the best in that weight class in the nation.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So we come home.
Speaker 3: You know, you got newspaper, local television. So my name
Speaker 3: is buzzing now locally man, and I continue to do
Speaker 3: my thing. But like even when I started sparring, right like,
Speaker 3: I'm getting thirteen now a little bit older, fourteen, Now
Speaker 3: I gotta spar pro So I'm sparring vets, local vets
Speaker 3: in the area and guys that come into town. So
Speaker 3: I'm rumbling with older men. They can't keep up with
Speaker 3: my speed. They're getting embarrassed, but they also got the
Speaker 3: strength on me, so they're trying to bully me, to
Speaker 3: hit me on my hip. And you know I used
Speaker 3: to come back to the point of man, man hit
Speaker 3: me on my hip. Man many many you foil me
Speaker 3: and you say, make me stop. Why did you let
Speaker 3: me at thirteen fourteen, fifteen years old spar those type
Speaker 3: of guys.
Speaker 2: Because I knew you had the ability, And you have
Speaker 2: to remember, before I would let you sparre to anybody
Speaker 2: that old, I would observe them sparring. So I knew
Speaker 2: outside of them, he and you were a lucky punch
Speaker 2: on the button that it was gonna be tough for
Speaker 2: I'm I already knew that because styles make fights, and
Speaker 2: at that time your style had matured to the point.
Speaker 2: And you have to remember you did have the physical
Speaker 2: strength because after you won the first tournament at ten,
Speaker 2: you were granted a scholarship to sports Metas. You didn't
Speaker 2: even have to pay, so you had the benefit of
Speaker 2: getting all that work, all that body in the condition
Speaker 2: at early age don chrue.
Speaker 1: So you were strong.
Speaker 2: And that was two or three years of that, and
Speaker 2: actually we never stopped. We went there three days a week.
Speaker 2: We never stopped. So you had the benefit of years
Speaker 2: of strength and condition and the right type of strength
Speaker 2: and condition and not waiting anything. Parliamentrics, follow balls and
Speaker 2: things like that, that speed treadmill and things like that.
Speaker 2: So I knew that the strength was there, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe not man strength, but enough for sparing. So I
Speaker 2: was very confident that and it turned out to be true.
Speaker 3: And my brother, like I think my brother, My brother
Speaker 3: was built like Tommy.
Speaker 2: Hearns exactly with feet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had natural good footwork. He had a lot
Speaker 3: of ability. Sometimes I say, I think he had more
Speaker 3: natural ability certain things he could do. What do you
Speaker 3: think the difference was between me and my brother? Even
Speaker 3: even early on.
Speaker 2: Desire he John liked to participate in boxing. He had
Speaker 2: the buility. I mean, people forget John when he quit fighting.
Speaker 2: I think he was fifty six and six something like
Speaker 2: that and international champion. But he didn't love it. He
Speaker 2: didn't love it. And that's what you have to do.
Speaker 2: You have to love it. There's no other way. You
Speaker 2: just can't dibble that. And you can go so far
Speaker 2: liking it, but in order to really put in the time,
Speaker 2: in order to really get the benefits out of it.
Speaker 2: In order to really follow your dreams, you have to
Speaker 2: love it. And that was the difference. As soon as
Speaker 2: he got home, he was down there watching cartoons and
Speaker 2: things like that when you got home. That's another thing
Speaker 2: I noticed about you at ten, liz Or. He watched
Speaker 2: fights all the time, all the time, and it didn't
Speaker 2: matter who was fighting, Ham and Eggers. What was the
Speaker 2: hispanic channel? You have Telemoon though Tuesday Night Fights, USA
Speaker 2: Tuesday Night Fights. You watched every single fight, So that
Speaker 2: let me know early on you were a student of
Speaker 2: the game. So I knew you were getting it up
Speaker 2: here as well as everywhere else physically.
Speaker 3: What did you notice about cause you been in a
Speaker 3: propation apartment, You've been in juvenile hall for years, you'd
Speaker 3: work with you know a lot of fighters, You've been
Speaker 3: around a lot of fighters.
Speaker 1: What did you notice about, Like.
Speaker 3: My drive, my competitiveness, my just my desire to win,
Speaker 3: and even my desire to train hard cause I worked
Speaker 3: hard even as a kid. Like what was you noticing
Speaker 3: early on twelve thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 2: Playing basketball with you that I knew that you were
Speaker 2: an athlete even though you weren't a basketball player. You
Speaker 2: could play basketball. So I if you remember, we used
Speaker 2: to go out there all the time because when I
Speaker 2: could feel your strength, I could feel your desire, your
Speaker 2: tenacity just kept coming. You never gave up. You never
Speaker 2: gave up. And I used my experience to beat you
Speaker 2: all the time, right, but you never gave up. So
Speaker 2: I knew the tenacity was there. I knew the drive
Speaker 2: was there. And I remember one particular session where you
Speaker 2: fighting the pro. I think he was like thirty and
Speaker 2: two or something like that, I can't remember his name,
Speaker 2: and you guys was going at it and his coach said,
Speaker 2: Saraphienie said do you want to stop? And you said,
Speaker 2: I'll stop when he stops, right, So I knew that
Speaker 2: the drive was there, that that was gonna be hard
Speaker 2: to knock over and make you compromise the drive that
Speaker 2: you had.
Speaker 3: So the next so you got the silver gloves. The
Speaker 3: next big tournament is a JO. So I remember my brother,
Speaker 3: he's a year older than me, so I think.
Speaker 1: You took him to the jail.
Speaker 3: He took him to the JA, the Junior Olympics, he
Speaker 3: made no marquette Michigan.
Speaker 1: Me and my dad were back home, so we calling
Speaker 1: every night. What happened.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 1: So he lost. But I remember you said something on
Speaker 1: the phone.
Speaker 3: You say, man, this this is the most violent tournament
Speaker 3: I have been to. For y'all's age, I never been there.
Speaker 3: I was like, for real, and man, that's put the
Speaker 3: fear of God at me.
Speaker 1: That Then I remember I ran that night. Uh.
Speaker 3: You were staying in Hayward and I ran uh down
Speaker 3: the street round mission like I was just kind of spooked,
Speaker 3: like man like he said, Man, I'm seeing dudes get
Speaker 3: knocked out. I'm seeing dudes get clit. I ended up
Speaker 3: fighting the next year at the j O's and that's
Speaker 3: the first time I ever been buzzed, like really really
Speaker 3: visibly her. I remember I fought the dude I forgot
Speaker 3: his name. He's like like Orange New Jersey.
Speaker 1: He was telling me that, hey man, he got a
Speaker 1: short level hook.
Speaker 3: You know, you gotta stop pulling back, make sure your
Speaker 3: hand up sure enough, man, do hit me with a
Speaker 3: punch so short inside boom, my legs wobble.
Speaker 1: I recovered, But that was like the first.
Speaker 3: Time that I, uh that really got buzzed in a fight,
Speaker 3: you know. And I ended up winning that and then
Speaker 3: I went to Junia Olympic Worlds and I think Pueblo,
Speaker 3: Mexico or something like that.
Speaker 1: I won that and.
Speaker 3: The try I hadn't started getting in trouble yet, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that came a couple of years later.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: But when did you first start noticing that some stuff
Speaker 3: was going on with me in terms of like, you know,
Speaker 3: being in the streets or cutting school, smoking weed and
Speaker 3: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't entertain it too much, you know, while
Speaker 2: while we were together. Of course, you know, you moved,
Speaker 2: and I knew that the environment, yeah, where you was
Speaker 2: moving too, was gonna subject you to some things the environment,
Speaker 2: So I.
Speaker 1: Start tripping a little bit before I before I had moved.
Speaker 2: Well, no, what I did was it was inedible that
Speaker 2: you was gonna move. And I think that you deserved
Speaker 2: to move at that time, because you know, it was
Speaker 2: with your mom, and I remember that. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you remember, were sitting on the steps the night
Speaker 2: before you left, and I told you, I said, you're
Speaker 2: gonna go downhill from here. Yep, I don't remember if
Speaker 2: you t me.
Speaker 1: Saying I was mad too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said you're gonna go downhill from here, cause
Speaker 2: at that time you are Honor Rolle's student. Yeah, going
Speaker 2: to school every day and things like that. But me
Speaker 2: having all those years in the probation department, I knew
Speaker 2: the enticements and I knew all the things that didn't
Speaker 2: tell for a kid that's in that particular environment. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I was hoping that you wouldn't go to the street.
Speaker 2: But I was prepared because I told you, I said,
Speaker 2: no matter what happens, I'm gonna be here for you
Speaker 2: right that. I was prepared for you to go through
Speaker 2: the streets. So everything that I would hear coming from
Speaker 2: the streets and things like that, I wouldn't really react
Speaker 2: right away because I knew what type of kids you were.
Speaker 2: I knew that you would go to the line, but
Speaker 2: I knew you wouldn't cross the line, and that you
Speaker 2: had something that you built that you couldn't deny. There
Speaker 2: wasn't no guesswork game. You knew you had ability at
Speaker 2: that time. Any coach in the world would have took it.
Speaker 2: Any coach in the world where it took you. So
Speaker 2: you had that to fall back on. So that gave
Speaker 2: you a little cushioning to go out and explore and experiment,
Speaker 2: you know. So I knew the temptations was gonna come
Speaker 2: because you hadn't gone through temptations, and at that time
Speaker 2: with the hip hop game and then the draw of Oakland,
Speaker 2: you know, the Oakland mystique, the draw of it that
Speaker 2: you gotta be part of this, and you gotta be
Speaker 2: part of that. And if you whatever hood you right,
Speaker 2: whatever movement, whatever hood you in, you gotta be down
Speaker 2: for that particular hood. If you're gonna walk and talk
Speaker 2: and associate this hood, you gotta be down for it.
Speaker 2: So but I had already had experience in those situations,
Speaker 2: so I knew how to handle those situations. But the
Speaker 2: good thing about it is every tournament you'd come back
Speaker 2: and train, stay with me, and then you go back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I barely make I barely make that thing.
Speaker 3: I get it just enough good, just enough shape to
Speaker 3: do six eight weeks, which I disappeared and disappear again.
Speaker 2: So at that time, I wasn't concerned about Andrea boxing.
Speaker 2: I was just concerned about Andrea man. But I needed
Speaker 2: an opening to really bring that into focus that hey,
Speaker 2: you gotta go in another direction. I needed an opening.
Speaker 2: That was the time to turn it around. Of course,
Speaker 2: you were going through some things and everything like that,
Speaker 2: and I constantly remind you, look, man, you're gonna be sorry.
Speaker 2: One day. You're gonna look up and somebody's gonna be
Speaker 2: in your weight class, on the team that you knew
Speaker 2: couldn't beat you. So I would put these little things
Speaker 2: in your head, that's all. Just put something in your
Speaker 2: head because I knew you respected me. Yeah, I knew
Speaker 2: you loved me, and I knew you respected me, So
Speaker 2: I would put those things in your head. Even on
Speaker 2: the drinking thing. When your grandmother called me and told me, oh,
Speaker 2: he's drinking, right, So I didn't call you and say, man,
Speaker 2: you're drinking and you're drinking, you're doing this? You doing
Speaker 2: I didn't say that at all. I use the psychology
Speaker 2: that I learned over the years, because you'd call me
Speaker 2: once a week, twice said week. You'd always call checking
Speaker 2: what was going on. So I'll wait until you call. Hey, Verge,
Speaker 2: what's going on? I said, Oh, Dre, I'm not doing
Speaker 2: too good man, what's going on? I said? Man, my
Speaker 2: friend is having so many problems with his sons. What's happening? Man?
Speaker 2: He keetch His son is just drinking every day, any
Speaker 2: concerned he can't stop me from drinking. I'm so glad
Speaker 2: you don't drink.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: So I played to your conscious and I would you
Speaker 2: talking about man, Yeah, because I knew you respected me,
Speaker 2: and I knew you stood that I stood on principal,
Speaker 2: So I didn't That wasn't gonna stop it, but that
Speaker 2: was what was gonna put a guilt trip on your
Speaker 2: mind in order to argue. Man, I'm disappointed. If Verge
Speaker 2: really knew what I was doing, he'd be disappointed. He
Speaker 2: really believes in me, you see what I'm saying. So
Speaker 2: psychology is so important on raising the kid and keeping
Speaker 2: them in the right direction. And I'm just glad I
Speaker 2: had the battle feeling the battleground to be able to
Speaker 2: decipher all the right things to need to be said
Speaker 2: at the right time. You know, man, just take.
Speaker 3: It back a little bit, like so me making that
Speaker 3: move to my mama's house in North Oakland.
Speaker 1: You know she had been in and out.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad was a functional addict for periods
Speaker 3: of time in his life.
Speaker 1: My mother was a full blown addict.
Speaker 3: She started getting herself together, right, I'm living with y'all,
Speaker 3: you and Milly.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like Man, I don't live with my mama.
Speaker 1: You know, I hadn't. I hadn't. Like that was like
Speaker 1: the one thing that I never got to feel.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of my friends had they grandmother or
Speaker 3: they mother and not they father.
Speaker 1: Some of them had both, but a lot of them didn't,
Speaker 1: but they had their mama.
Speaker 3: And I'll be sitting there, like, man, Roy, your mom
Speaker 3: in here cooking food and like, you know, man, and
Speaker 3: I was super grateful man for you and Millie, you know,
Speaker 3: and what y'all did you know, and what y'all was.
Speaker 1: Doing at that time, But like not having that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, it's always gonna be avoid there.
Speaker 3: So that's why I wanted to go go to the
Speaker 3: flat lands in North Oakland live with her.
Speaker 1: But you told me that.
Speaker 3: You were like, man, you're gonna go downhill, And I'm
Speaker 3: being like, right cause I wanna go live with my mama.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it.
Speaker 2: I couldn't because you were going to be giving freedom.
Speaker 1: My dad. Wasn't gonna have that structure with my dad.
Speaker 2: And with you, yeah, you wasn't gonna have a structure.
Speaker 1: But the truth is I really didn't want that structure.
Speaker 2: No, you didn't.
Speaker 3: My whole lot of my life was going to school,
Speaker 3: getting up, going running, going to school, coming home, chilling
Speaker 3: for an hour or two to the gym, rent and repeat.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, man, I was. I was asking Roy this
Speaker 3: when I interviewed him, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think me and you talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about it at one point.
Speaker 3: But like, can you make a Roy Jones or Andre
Speaker 3: Ward without having without living that type of life? Because
Speaker 3: I had to give up a lot of my childhood,
Speaker 3: and I gave up a lot of trouble that I
Speaker 3: probably would have got into. But I had to sacrifice
Speaker 3: a lot. Now forty two, I'm I'm not complaining.
Speaker 1: You know. I see a lot of my friends.
Speaker 3: That had all the freedom and look like they could
Speaker 3: do whatever.
Speaker 1: They want to when I see what happened.
Speaker 3: But can you produce a great or an all time
Speaker 3: great athlete without having them with that type of structure.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to think who's on top right now
Speaker 2: that didn't have structure, you know, whether it be Shakur,
Speaker 2: whether it be Kishon, whether it be Benevita's, whether it
Speaker 2: be some of the greats. If you look at them,
Speaker 2: they all have structure, and they all had something that
Speaker 2: at an early age they knew they had something to
Speaker 2: fall back on. Now, of course you get a kid
Speaker 2: like Mike Tyson to come up to Catskill at fifteen
Speaker 2: sixteen trouble, what happened? He got structure right, So I
Speaker 2: don't think you can get to the top without structure.
Speaker 2: I don't see any long wolves out of there out there. Now,
Speaker 2: you got some that don't want to follow the script.
Speaker 2: But in order to get world class you have to
Speaker 2: have some sort of structure. But then there's another level
Speaker 2: after structure, there is following this script. Structure is very important.
Speaker 2: It is the foundation to success in any sport. I
Speaker 2: believe structure, discipline and structure. And even though you might
Speaker 2: get off the beaten path, that structure and discipline never
Speaker 2: leaves you because no matter what you were doing at
Speaker 2: that time, when you were going through your phases, no
Speaker 2: matter what you were doing, boxing never left your mind.
Speaker 2: That's structure, that's foundation. It never left your mind. It's familiar.
Speaker 2: There's been many a night that you might have been
Speaker 2: doing something. I guarantee I never asked you this, but
Speaker 2: you could tell me now that you tell yourself, I'm
Speaker 2: blowing it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Every time I would smoke some weed or smoking black
Speaker 3: and mind or drink something, I'm like, Broy, you wasn't raised, like, yes,
Speaker 3: you're blowing it. And you're blowing it because I'm tearing
Speaker 3: up my lungs, you know, my wind. Like that's what
Speaker 3: I that's my thing in boxing is man, I can go.
Speaker 1: So I did. I did way to the north. I
Speaker 1: went to North Oakland, man.
Speaker 3: And I did go downhill just like you said, you know,
Speaker 3: And it didn't take long, you know. And it's crazy
Speaker 3: because it's like I felt like I need I needed
Speaker 3: a break from boxing. You know, I've been doing this.
Speaker 3: I've been nine years old, and it was like it
Speaker 3: was a grind, man, And it's like in my young mind,
Speaker 3: I want a freedom. I wanted I wanted to breathe.
Speaker 3: I needed to axal. I don't want to have to
Speaker 3: go to the gym. I don't want to have to
Speaker 3: tell my friends I can't go. Man, I'm trying to
Speaker 3: go to the party for once. I don't never get
Speaker 3: the chance to go to the party. And you just
Speaker 3: don't understand what you're saying. But I took it from
Speaker 3: like just want more freedom to now I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 3: delving in into to street activities.
Speaker 2: You know, my mother.
Speaker 3: Was doing good for a while, but her being in
Speaker 3: that environment, right the dope house, right around the corner,
Speaker 3: it uh inevitably them old demons start coming back on her.
Speaker 3: And I'm grateful for my mama, man, cause she you know,
Speaker 3: I get a lot of my fight from my mother, man,
Speaker 3: cause she she a fighter.
Speaker 1: But at that time she started, she started dibbling and dabbling.
Speaker 3: I can always tell when you know my mom was
Speaker 3: struggling because the house started looking dirty.
Speaker 1: My mom is a neat freak until she not.
Speaker 2: And when you know.
Speaker 3: That the house started getting dirty and staying dirty and
Speaker 3: smelling different, I'm like, man, it's happening again. And so
Speaker 3: I seen that, me and her arguing and fighting a
Speaker 3: lot because I'm mad jamming her up about that, and
Speaker 3: but you always accusing me.
Speaker 1: I ain't doing that. I'm looking at her eyes. I
Speaker 1: know my mother and.
Speaker 3: Her using drugs again means us not being together. I
Speaker 3: feel like it's just a matter of time. So I
Speaker 3: start using drugs and numbing and drinking a lot, and
Speaker 3: then I start selling dope. I dodn't know how to
Speaker 3: cook it up. But I had connections around the corner too.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, I buy a bunch of
Speaker 3: rocks and go do my thing. And it's like I
Speaker 3: said this in a book too, that like it was
Speaker 3: crazy because I'm praying for my mother to get free
Speaker 3: from an active crack addiction on fifty to fifty market
Speaker 3: in the apartments, but I'm two blocks down serving somebody
Speaker 3: else's mother. That's crazy that my mindset had been here,
Speaker 3: and I remember God convicted me and just I just
Speaker 3: I was like, man, you're a hypocrite, Like I'm praying
Speaker 3: for my mama that man, God take this from her,
Speaker 3: don't let it fall back into this. But I got
Speaker 3: I got dope in my mouth and I'm serving somebody
Speaker 3: else's mother. But I will say this though, the people
Speaker 3: that were praying for me, the prayers worked. You know
Speaker 3: the things that you would say and other people would say,
Speaker 3: you know, God would send people and you had an
Speaker 3: interesting style the way you would do it because a
Speaker 3: lot of people were calling you saying, man, I seen hi,
Speaker 3: dry man, he ain't looking good man, he you know
Speaker 3: he hang with this person or I seen him and
Speaker 3: you never you never panicked, but you would always say
Speaker 3: the right.
Speaker 1: Thing at the right time, and it would sit with me.
Speaker 3: And I'll be fighting with you on the phone like, man, hey, brother, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm telling you you ain't gonna get away with nothing.
Speaker 3: And I'll be mad cause I'm thinking you speaking something
Speaker 3: moment that's gonna happen. I'm like, man, I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to you know, live my life. Man, you just man,
Speaker 3: just cause I ain't boxing, you're gonna say that. You said, Man,
Speaker 3: it's deeper than that. God got his hand on you.
Speaker 3: So I never felt comfortable being in the street. I
Speaker 3: never felt comfortable. And you said something to me one
Speaker 3: time that really rocked me. And he say, man, you
Speaker 3: out there playing And I laughed, and I'm like, I
Speaker 3: ain't playing.
Speaker 1: Somebody run up on me.
Speaker 2: A'ma da da da.
Speaker 3: I'm talking that talk you said, brother, Listen, if you ain't,
Speaker 3: if you ain't sell your soul to if you haven't
Speaker 3: sold your soul to the devil, and you ready to
Speaker 3: kill or be killed right now, you playing, then that's
Speaker 3: the type of treachery you're dealing without. There I knew
Speaker 3: deep down I wasn't trying to kill nothing off. The
Speaker 3: show wasn't trying to be killed exactly. And you have
Speaker 3: to remember where I worked. I had my ear to
Speaker 3: the street. Yeah, I had kids in the neighborhood telling
Speaker 3: me everything. And you're in that neighborhood North Pole, coming
Speaker 3: in being incarcerated, and they telling me everything that's going on,
Speaker 3: because at that time you had been.
Speaker 2: In the newspapers and they knew who you were. They
Speaker 2: knew what I did, right, they knew who I was
Speaker 2: before they would come. Man, you you you you missed
Speaker 2: the hunter. Yeah, man, man, I stay down there Andre
Speaker 2: doing this and he doing that, and he doing this.
Speaker 2: But I didn't look at it. Ton. I just thank
Speaker 2: God that he was giving me the info, right, so
Speaker 2: I can plan, so I can maneuver. So I knew
Speaker 2: what to pray for, so I knew what to say,
Speaker 2: knew where to go, and knew and it just told God,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever help you have out there for it,
Speaker 2: because I don't want to do this by myself. I
Speaker 2: know there's a team around you, even your best warriors, David,
Speaker 2: everybody else, they had a team around him. So but
Speaker 2: he gave me the peace, but he gave me the
Speaker 2: info and getting back to your structure. It's your structure
Speaker 2: that kept you from going over the line. The end
Speaker 2: there that like you said, I'm getting ready to blow this,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna blow that. That lets you know what you
Speaker 2: were talking about early on. People coming in and already
Speaker 2: have it. You see what I'm saying, already had that instinct,
Speaker 2: already had that drive, That drive was already there. The
Speaker 2: competitiveness was already there. You just needed to tie him out.
Speaker 2: You just having to be in the wrong place to
Speaker 2: take your timeouts. So you just needed to time out
Speaker 2: what every kid does, even today, when amateur coaches come
Speaker 2: to me and ask me for advice when the kid
Speaker 2: is ten and eleven years old and twelve years old,
Speaker 2: I'm not ashamed to say that some of the mistakes
Speaker 2: I think that I made, and that is when the
Speaker 2: day age. You got to give them a break because
Speaker 2: if you don't, they're gonna get a certain age and
Speaker 2: they're gonna resent it and they're gonna go off on
Speaker 2: their own and everything like that, especially if there's no
Speaker 2: promise there, if they're not getting the accolades or they're
Speaker 2: not you got to give them a break. You just
Speaker 2: can't go three hundred and sixty five days, seven days,
Speaker 2: five six days a week. You know, you got to
Speaker 2: give them other all turners. Let them play other sports.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna lose nothing. They gonna come back fresher, right,
Speaker 2: their mind is refreshed. It's gonna help them. So and
Speaker 2: I learned that from when you played football. Right, when
Speaker 2: you played football, you can't and you came back fresh,
Speaker 2: you see. So I courage all coaches to do that.
Speaker 2: However they want to do it. Don't grind them because
Speaker 2: what you teach them, they're not gonna lose it. They're
Speaker 2: not gonna lose. It's like a basketball player terrors's achilles.
Speaker 2: Once they need is here, his game is right back
Speaker 2: to where it was. It's the same thing in boxing.
Speaker 2: You're not gonna lose it. So those were not tough times.
Speaker 2: They were times that I realized it was all part
Speaker 2: of the journey. You know. I never panicked, I never
Speaker 2: got discouraged. I never lost my stance on how I
Speaker 2: interacted with you. I always came to where I see it,
Speaker 2: what I felt. I never coward. I never went down
Speaker 2: and just and everything and let you set the tone,
Speaker 2: because she wasn't ready to set the tone yet so
Speaker 2: I need to know you needed that in your life.
Speaker 2: They as somebody that, hey, I'm gonna disappoint this man, right,
Speaker 2: somebody that if you hide and stuff from me, you
Speaker 2: respect me. You see what I'm saying, if you hide
Speaker 2: and stuff from me. But it's like I said, in
Speaker 2: this lifetime, it's such a spiritual journey. It's such a
Speaker 2: journey that when I look back, I'm marvel how everything
Speaker 2: turned out. Because your faults now is somebody else's testimony.
Speaker 2: Somebody else's your test Your false became your testimony to
Speaker 2: help somebody else. And that's how it all works. You know,
Speaker 2: what I did bad gives me a testimony to stop
Speaker 2: you from doing it right. Because God put me in
Speaker 2: a position where I am somebody. I've done a whole
Speaker 2: lot of things. I'm known all over the world. I'm
Speaker 2: just not somebody down the street trying to tell you
Speaker 2: what to do. I'm somebody that been where you been,
Speaker 2: and now I'm here and I'm gonna tell you everything.
Speaker 2: This could befall you as you take this journey into
Speaker 2: the going into the crime, the crime world, going into
Speaker 2: the dope world, going into anywhere. I can tell you
Speaker 2: what gonna happen to you.
Speaker 3: And during that period, it was probably like a two
Speaker 3: or three year run, man, where it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: I would go to I would win. I never went
Speaker 3: to the to the golda Glove Nationals. I would always
Speaker 3: win locally and then boom, I disappear. My first US
Speaker 3: Championship before I really win left was two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: I missed.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and two I was catting off, and then
Speaker 3: two thousand and three I was still messing up.
Speaker 1: But you were like, Man, you gotta you know, we're
Speaker 1: getting close.
Speaker 3: Used to count on your hands when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: like man, we got we identified what Olympics I was
Speaker 3: gonna be eligible for.
Speaker 1: Man, we're going nine years. Man, eight years, Man eight
Speaker 1: five years.
Speaker 3: You even had a notebook where you wrote in there, Man,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be a preacher, commentator.
Speaker 1: A Hall of Famer, world champion.
Speaker 3: You wrote that in a notebook, And it's like during
Speaker 3: the period that I was going through, what I was
Speaker 3: going through, it was the opposite of what you were saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually it was a diary I had and I'm
Speaker 2: still looking for that diary today. I was just inspired.
Speaker 2: I think you're fifteen sixteen at the time, I was
Speaker 2: just inspired to write this, and I wrote in that diary.
Speaker 2: Kid is special. Don't know it yet, but this is
Speaker 2: what I see in this future. I see Olympic gold
Speaker 2: medalists in two thousand and four. I see a middleweight
Speaker 2: champion that at some point of the champions will be
Speaker 2: afraid to fight. And I see a first ballot Hall
Speaker 2: of Famer. And I also see a top broadcaster because
Speaker 2: of his intuition, because of his insight, because of his
Speaker 2: ability to comprehend. I see all that in his future.
Speaker 2: MM and I just left it out and you picked
Speaker 2: it up one day and read it, and you said,
Speaker 2: you write this verge And I said, yeah, I wrote
Speaker 2: it and put it back. And then I don't know
Speaker 2: where it is. I wish I could find it. I
Speaker 2: think it's in a container somewhere. Yeah, but it was
Speaker 2: in it was uh instilled in me because you know,
Speaker 2: I understand that if you hadn't win to Washington. See,
Speaker 2: God got a plan, right, and sometime the plan is
Speaker 2: not what we expect. As God fearing people, we think
Speaker 2: it's gotta be perfect. We gotta think it's gotta be
Speaker 2: thrown free, weed free, just of a Rosie path to
Speaker 2: wherever our destination is meant to be. But you had
Speaker 2: never met your wife. You see, you never had that
Speaker 2: opportunity to meet your wife and develop a relationship to
Speaker 2: where you know, I love her, this is who I
Speaker 2: want to marry. The boxing might have been another thing,
Speaker 2: but it might have been a whole nother situation for you.
Speaker 2: But you met somebody who was a perfect compliment for you.
Speaker 2: So it was that. Lets me know, it was always
Speaker 2: in the plan, right, it was in the plan. And
Speaker 2: I remember when you came to me and said that
Speaker 2: you guys wanted to get married at an early age,
Speaker 2: and everybody was against it. But I told you, I said, look,
Speaker 2: because you guys lived.
Speaker 3: With me, this girl girl they want to marry Dre. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but they only see it from one side on the lady.
Speaker 2: From one side of the age part, right, But they.
Speaker 1: Looking at the age, and then you know, they looking
Speaker 1: at who. You know, they look at it like, who
Speaker 1: is this girl trying to take our baby?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, get married.
Speaker 1: That's how the ladies looking.
Speaker 2: But what they didn't realize is that you got to
Speaker 2: stay with me, right, So I was able to watch
Speaker 2: over the years, you guys interact and I always saw
Speaker 2: you guys were never apart. Wherever you went, you had
Speaker 2: the kids with you. I'll watch y'all. Tiffany was so
Speaker 2: great with the kids early in the morning, feeding them,
Speaker 2: bathe them, making sure all their needs are met. And
Speaker 2: you guys were inseparable. So to me, he was already married, right,
Speaker 2: So I told you, I said, if anybody could do it,
Speaker 2: you could do it. Don't let all these old people
Speaker 2: tell you you've got problems in their relationships to things
Speaker 2: like that. Don't let them kill your vibe. You know,
Speaker 2: go ahead to get married. That's what you want to do.
Speaker 2: And you guys did. And look today it's a blessing man.
Speaker 3: You know you will you be fighting argument, just not
Speaker 3: knowing how to deal with life pressures of life relationship at.
Speaker 1: That level, you know.
Speaker 3: And you would sit us down be like, look, you
Speaker 3: know this is this is cause Tiffany didn't understand the
Speaker 3: magnitude of.
Speaker 1: What I was chasing. Like I told her, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I box. She was like, yeah, I play.
Speaker 1: I played basketball. I'm like, nah, like I box, Like
Speaker 1: I'm the best in my white class. She was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's cool.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't until she moved to California and really
Speaker 3: was like, start asking you questions, like wait, so she
Speaker 3: went to one of my fives.
Speaker 1: She's like, oh you.
Speaker 3: Want Oh that's cool, and then started really understanding. He
Speaker 3: was like, Nah, he gonna win a gold medal, he
Speaker 3: gonna You ain't have to worry about nothing.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: One day I told her, I said, t if you
Speaker 2: understand what I'm telling you, and if you really look
Speaker 2: into what you got, you got an ox and if
Speaker 2: you follow the script, you'll never have to work a
Speaker 2: day in your life. Has she had a job today?
Speaker 3: So just right, just just raising the kids and holding
Speaker 3: the house down, man.
Speaker 1: Which is what she wanted to do exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, so you got the perfect situation, and you
Speaker 2: got the perfect wife out of an imperfect situation. You
Speaker 2: see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And I was challenged too, because I always thought you
Speaker 3: would be signing with her.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why you always signing with her?
Speaker 3: We got an argument or something, But I was growing up.
Speaker 3: I'm learning how to treat her the right way. And
Speaker 3: you know, because I didn't, I didn't have a lot
Speaker 3: of great examples.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of that throughout my.
Speaker 3: Family line, strong marriages, you know, like it was just relationships.
Speaker 3: And it's like I seen dysfunction and I seen disorder.
Speaker 3: So that's what I know. I just want to pressure
Speaker 3: hit that's what you're gonna be, dysfunctional. So you and
Speaker 3: Millie May y'all would sit us down. You would sit
Speaker 3: us down, man and really open up the word man.
Speaker 3: And I think that was a difference maker. You know,
Speaker 3: your life wasn't perfect, but you never you never stray
Speaker 3: from that word.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: No, sometimes you have a glass of champagne and a
Speaker 3: cigarette your hand. Let you say look man, and you
Speaker 3: take us to the word yeah, and you'd be like, look,
Speaker 3: this is what God says.
Speaker 1: That how a husband's supposed to treat his wife.
Speaker 2: I didn't want you guys to hear what I needed
Speaker 2: to say. I wanted to hear what the word said.
Speaker 2: So to be true, it's not what I said. It
Speaker 2: is what the word say, is right. And the first
Speaker 2: thing I told was but to you, I said, it's
Speaker 2: a scripture to see he who finds a wife finds
Speaker 2: a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Right.
Speaker 2: So I used to go from that, but I don't
Speaker 2: know to this day, I just marvel at It wasn't
Speaker 2: even under my own understanding. It was just the understanding
Speaker 2: the guy gave me for that particular moment to open
Speaker 2: my eyes to see what was going on in the
Speaker 2: battlefield that he gave me. So when that war, when
Speaker 2: your war came, I was able to assign you the
Speaker 2: proper weaponry and a proper strategy to deal with it,
Speaker 2: even though I hadn't done all that in my life,
Speaker 2: you know. So it was set aside, you know. And
Speaker 2: today I just marvel. You know, it's every time I
Speaker 2: think about it, it just enlightens me. It just when
Speaker 2: I see you on TV. When I see all the
Speaker 2: things that you accomplished, When I see all the beauty
Speaker 2: that your wife is doing, and the kids raised up
Speaker 2: well and everything like that and happy, it's just a marvel.
Speaker 3: During that time when I was, you know, doing my thing,
Speaker 3: getting in trouble.
Speaker 1: You know, I said this, when I interviewed Jay, you and.
Speaker 3: James Prince start talking, I think I forgot what year
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 1: Maybe so I was supposed to be.
Speaker 3: I wandered the local and the state state golden gloves,
Speaker 3: and then I just I dipped on you. I'll be
Speaker 3: back versed and I just left. I was gone, never
Speaker 3: showed up. But Jay and his team kept hearing about
Speaker 3: War Waterer's kid War.
Speaker 1: They went to the I think it was in Vegas.
Speaker 1: They went to the to the.
Speaker 3: Golden Gloves and I wasn't there, and somehow you got
Speaker 3: your number and y'all started talking.
Speaker 1: What was that conversation like?
Speaker 2: Well, actually, Antonio Leonard was the first person who called
Speaker 2: me and inquired about you and said, man, we've been
Speaker 2: hearing great things about this kid and this and that.
Speaker 2: I didn't know who Antonio was, you know, because at
Speaker 2: that time, Shelley Finker was calling me. Camera Duncan was
Speaker 2: calling me. Uh, the guy over in Europe, I can't
Speaker 2: think of his name. He was calling Gary Shall was
Speaker 2: leading you know, people like that. And I never was
Speaker 2: comfortable when they would call. I never could sit down.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just listening because it was all about
Speaker 2: mone It was all about what they thought they thought
Speaker 2: said was gonna wanted to hear. You know, they bringing
Speaker 2: the money up first, not the person, right. So I
Speaker 2: get a call from Antonio Leonard and he said, is
Speaker 2: it okay if I give your number the j Prince?
Speaker 2: And I said yeah, give it to it. So when
Speaker 2: Jay called about thirty minutes later, did you know who
Speaker 2: was at that time? Yeah, knew who he was from
Speaker 2: Floyd and I never met him at that time, but
Speaker 2: I knew exactly who he was. So when he called
Speaker 2: and Mr Hunter, y know, it's James.
Speaker 1: Prince, right, It's James Prince.
Speaker 2: So after about two or three minutes of us filling
Speaker 2: out each other and everything like that, you know, trying
Speaker 2: to get the motives of one another and this and
Speaker 2: that and the other, I was able to sit down
Speaker 2: and listen to what he said and able to tell him.
Speaker 2: I said, you know what, if you can help me
Speaker 2: with this kid, because everything he was talking about never
Speaker 2: about money, It was about family, it was about help,
Speaker 2: It was about his life. We talked about thirty men
Speaker 2: minutes before I even said this to him, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was telling me everything that he had been through
Speaker 2: and this and that Floyd and this and that Roy
Speaker 2: and all these things. So something just lighten me up,
Speaker 2: you know where I knew that I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: make say the wrong thing or putting myself in a
Speaker 2: position that I would regret later on. So I said,
Speaker 2: you know what, Jay, if you could help me with
Speaker 2: this kid. He'll want us a gold medal, he said, yeah.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, he want us a gold medal. I
Speaker 2: guarantee you he will and he So that's when I
Speaker 2: gave him your number and I called you and I said, man,
Speaker 2: I talked to j parents. He's interested in you. But
Speaker 2: the beautiful thing is it was a God send again
Speaker 2: because you came home and we went to Houston. Right now,
Speaker 2: you're able to see how people live, right, whips, whips,
Speaker 2: everything like that. Then he put your I onl on
Speaker 2: the phone to you Roy, right, so his connections were
Speaker 2: able to bring another dimension into the whole thing. Then
Speaker 2: we started going to all the big fights.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So long before you fall in the Olympics, long before
Speaker 2: you turn pro, you've been exposed to it. You saw
Speaker 2: what it could bring you in the locker room, in
Speaker 2: the locker room at Jay's matching, going to the night
Speaker 2: club of Floyd there and things like that.
Speaker 3: Because I was still you know, I wasn't all the
Speaker 3: way right yet, right, I was still trying to get
Speaker 3: right right. I mean, we was at a I think
Speaker 3: it was Roy Jones, John Ruiz and I had to
Speaker 3: all go suit on and uh, we were staying in
Speaker 3: the same room. But I'm still you know, I'm still
Speaker 3: drinking and stuff, So I don't.
Speaker 1: Know how I got it.
Speaker 3: I got like a like a personal bottle of Hennessy
Speaker 3: or something like that, so I think I'm being slick.
Speaker 3: So I got the personal bottle in my bag, tucked
Speaker 3: in some clothes.
Speaker 1: So I drink a little bit tucket. Leave, go do
Speaker 1: my thing, come back, drink drink some tucket. One night
Speaker 1: I go in there, I look at my bag. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's gone. I'm like my bottle way and you holding
Speaker 1: the ace car.
Speaker 2: You ain't saying it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, man, got my bottle.
Speaker 2: Bro I didn't have to say nothing my bottle.
Speaker 1: Man like either he got it or the cleaners. I said,
Speaker 1: how the cleaners know what's in my bag? So I'm tripping.
Speaker 3: That's worse than somebody finding it getting mad at you
Speaker 3: because you ain't saying nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's up, very ol, what's up?
Speaker 3: You act like ain't nothing happening, And uh, I think
Speaker 3: then you say something when we got back home or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 2: Back to the bay. I don't remember, but I knew
Speaker 2: you wasn't gonna question me because you knew nobody you knew,
Speaker 2: you knew I had, so it wasn't nothing to be questioned,
Speaker 2: and you didn't want to hear me come back and say, man,
Speaker 2: why you got this boom boom boom. I just that
Speaker 2: was my time because at that time, I don't think
Speaker 2: you knew that I was aware of what was going on,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want you to know. Then you didn't
Speaker 2: want me to know. But when I got this bottle,
Speaker 2: now you know, I know, right, So if that's all
Speaker 2: I had to leave it at, I didn't have to
Speaker 2: go no further. Now you know I know, So now
Speaker 2: the next move is on you, right, But at that
Speaker 2: time it w It was a great time. Again. It's
Speaker 2: how things are maneuvered and steered into the proper place
Speaker 2: and alignments and how things supposed to go. Ja was
Speaker 2: a blessing. He was a blessing because he cared about
Speaker 2: you genuinely and I respect it and he respected it
Speaker 2: and you and he came to He came and rescue
Speaker 2: for different things that mattered. When you needed a bigger
Speaker 2: vehicle for your kids, you didn't ask him for escalade
Speaker 2: with big rams on it, and he said, I just
Speaker 2: need something from my family. He provided a nice pre
Speaker 2: certified uh forget Toyota s expedition, things like that. So
Speaker 2: he was always there when you needed it. He was
Speaker 2: always there for me. But after if Jay became involved
Speaker 2: and we began to team up, all the other stuff
Speaker 2: just begin to disperse and started going away. And then
Speaker 2: you start locking in. You going to focus because you
Speaker 2: had all examples around. You got to put you in
Speaker 2: that arena where you could see this could beat me. Yeah, right, I.
Speaker 1: Could see it though right when I was around Roy.
Speaker 3: A few times I was around Floyd, like I just
Speaker 3: felt like I could do this, you could do this.
Speaker 3: I see myself here and but brushing shoulders with them,
Speaker 3: and like you know that that did something to me, man,
Speaker 3: especially at that time in my life, cause I lost
Speaker 3: my dad in two thousand and two. Man, my dad
Speaker 3: was here today going tomorrow, and I was already you know, teetering,
Speaker 3: and that just that just took me over the over
Speaker 3: the line man, and sort of gave me an excuse
Speaker 3: to continue to self destruct.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: But man, God is good.
Speaker 3: I got I got in trouble one last time, man,
Speaker 3: and I was like that breaking point for me and
Speaker 3: I just surrendered. Man, I just I told God. I
Speaker 3: was like, you know, I was like, man, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: You know, I know I've been running from you. I
Speaker 3: know I've been, you know, just just doing what I
Speaker 3: want to do, you know. But it's crazy though, because
Speaker 3: you you spent some years getting some bad habits, right,
Speaker 3: don't it don't go over? And I can, But it
Speaker 3: took some time to get, like the desire to want
Speaker 3: to smoke weed out of my system, the desire to
Speaker 3: want to drink out myself. Never went to a program,
Speaker 3: never did none of that. Some people that's that's the route.
Speaker 3: But for me, man, he just took it well. And
Speaker 3: and then with Ja being there and then Tiffany moving
Speaker 3: to the bay, I felt like, what do I need
Speaker 3: to leave for? Like, like, I got a year and
Speaker 3: a half to try to make this happen.
Speaker 2: Well in the major thing was she was taking out
Speaker 2: the environment. Yeah, say if you had stayed in that environment, right,
Speaker 2: but you were taking out the environment right. It was
Speaker 2: down the street, but we were all centered in the
Speaker 2: house together, so you know, even at the car wash,
Speaker 2: I had connections there. I had my ear to the street.
Speaker 2: At the car wash, I had my heirs to the
Speaker 2: street on eighty second and Black Arthur on the corner
Speaker 2: where I had kids that I had that was running
Speaker 2: those blocks and telling him, look, when he come down here,
Speaker 2: don't bubba, don't do nothing, don't give me nothing, and
Speaker 2: don't mess with him when he comes down here to
Speaker 2: this store. So everything was in order. Everything. But it's
Speaker 2: so important and getting back to JP, it's so important
Speaker 2: I think, and I'm just saying this for young fighters
Speaker 2: to have many men in your life.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Notice I said men. I didn't say fellas. I didn't
Speaker 2: say hanger ons. I didn't say get the man that's
Speaker 2: gonna backstab your cult or backstab this or put anything
Speaker 2: that's negative in your parents here about what's going on.
Speaker 2: Not negativity, but real men. Everybody needs more than one
Speaker 2: man in their life.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a blessing because I lost my dad.
Speaker 3: But then you was already playing a dual father role
Speaker 3: and you had to step up completely.
Speaker 1: Then you know, God brought Jay and brought.
Speaker 3: Other people that you know, he knew that I will
Speaker 3: respect and I would listen to. I ended up getting
Speaker 3: on the team qualifying, and you know, I thought it
Speaker 3: at a higher weight class because I thought I was
Speaker 3: gonna grow. Should have been in one sixty five, but
Speaker 3: I thought at one seventy eight, you know, I'm in Athens, Greece.
Speaker 3: You somehow not only get there, but you get front
Speaker 3: row tickets to the fight. We had just went to
Speaker 3: War two, so security was we had a secret service
Speaker 3: agent where us everywhere we went.
Speaker 1: So what like just freedom to wrong?
Speaker 3: Like it was, it was strict, yeah, And somehow, some way, man,
Speaker 3: you got you got front row tickets to every fight.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that was that was incredible blessing right
Speaker 2: there in itself, because I didn't think I could make
Speaker 2: us at that time the war. And then when you
Speaker 2: look over they were just staying accommodations they were real high, right,
Speaker 2: just the one bedroom was like a thousand dollars a week,
Speaker 2: two bedroom three thousand dollars a week, and things like that,
Speaker 2: the airlines and this and that, and then you had
Speaker 2: to think about food, and I'm like, man, it's gonna
Speaker 2: kind of be kind of tough, you know, to getting
Speaker 2: over there at these prices. And one day I was
Speaker 2: just sitting in it then and this voice came in
Speaker 2: my ear. It wasn't audible, but I could hear it,
Speaker 2: and it said to me, you don't think I can
Speaker 2: get you to Athens, Greece. And I started crying because
Speaker 2: I knew this voice, right. I started crying like because
Speaker 2: I was so ashamed of the doubt that I had
Speaker 2: that I couldn't get there, saying I couldn't not instead
Speaker 2: of looking at a way where I could. So when
Speaker 2: that happened, I immediately on my credit card look for
Speaker 2: a plane ticket and I got one round trip for
Speaker 2: nine hundred dollars. I had to go through Germany to
Speaker 2: get to Greece and things like that, So I got
Speaker 2: the plane ticket. That was my first step out in faith.
Speaker 2: And then so now I'm sitting there worrying about where
Speaker 2: to stay. And then all of a sudden, Charlotte, she
Speaker 2: used to work at a dental office and her best
Speaker 2: friend was Greek, and her brother, who was the dentist,
Speaker 2: was Greek. And so I called her. I said, do
Speaker 2: you still talk to marykat Sulas? She said, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I said, well, can you give me the number? She
Speaker 2: says she still works at the dentist office. So I
Speaker 2: called Mary cat Sulis and she knew I was and
Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to Athenes Greece, and I just
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to your brother about it to see
Speaker 2: if he had any uh recommendations for me. She said, well,
Speaker 2: George is out of town, but he'll be back tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I haven't call you. The next day, George calls me
Speaker 2: and you were actually going to school with his son, right.
Speaker 2: He told me that. He said, look, I'm going to
Speaker 2: Greece a week out from the Olympics because I'm an
Speaker 2: honor pary athlete in the Greek Olympics. The Greek Olympics
Speaker 2: is going to be a week before the regular Olympics.
Speaker 2: So he said, when I get there, I'll look around
Speaker 2: for you. So he gets there and he calls me
Speaker 2: from Greece. He said, how many I wanna come? I
Speaker 2: said five. He said, my friend has a flat and
Speaker 2: Kalamaki Athens Kalamaki, which you're on the beach bleaches one
Speaker 2: block away, all the shops and everything. He says, in
Speaker 2: the summertime, he owns a restaurant out in some island
Speaker 2: and Greece and some creed or somewhere out there in
Speaker 2: the island, and he goes out there and stays out
Speaker 2: there for the summer, and he leases out his place
Speaker 2: he said, so you guys just pay five hundred dollars
Speaker 2: a piece a week, so that's three weeks. That's fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars plus nine hundred dollars, so that came to
Speaker 2: twenty four hundred dollars, right, So that's way in the ballpark.
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, So got on went to Greece.
Speaker 2: He took us all down on the bus lines and
Speaker 2: the transportation lines to see where we could get to
Speaker 2: the arena and things like that, and we went on.
Speaker 2: So when I get to the fight site the first night,
Speaker 2: you say you were gonna fight. I went up to
Speaker 2: the ticket booth and once again, I'm gonna charge these tickets, right,
Speaker 2: but here comes the enemy's voice in my ear. You
Speaker 2: gonna buy tickets for all four nights. What if he lose,
Speaker 2: You ain't gonna wanna come to the fights, So you
Speaker 2: gonna waste money, buy one ticket at a time. And
Speaker 2: I told the lady, I'm on four tickets in this
Speaker 2: arena right here.
Speaker 1: For the event.
Speaker 2: As she was getting ready, As I was getting ready
Speaker 2: to hand her my credit card, I got a tap
Speaker 2: on my shoulder and I turned around and it was Eric,
Speaker 2: the director of USA Boxing He said, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm getting ready to buy tickets for the event.
Speaker 2: He said no, no, no, no, no, no, do that.
Speaker 2: He took me buying the booth, opened up his briefcase.
Speaker 2: How many of you guys wanna come? I said, well,
Speaker 2: it's five of us. He gave me front row tickets
Speaker 2: wall five of us, all four nights, so I didn't
Speaker 2: have to pay for the tickets. And then after he
Speaker 2: wanted the gold medal, George came to me his friend
Speaker 2: who owned the flat. George had met a girl in
Speaker 2: Greece and he took her out to the restaurant. He
Speaker 2: told his friend, I'm bringing a girl to the restaurant.
Speaker 2: You know, give me a table, treat me nice, like
Speaker 2: I'm somebody, this and that. He said. When he gets
Speaker 2: to the restaurant, he has to stand in line. And
Speaker 2: he said he would even give me a complimentary bottle
Speaker 2: of wine. Right, he said, So, look, when he comes
Speaker 2: and collects the money tomorrow, don't give me five hundred.
Speaker 1: Get him two hundred and tell him.
Speaker 2: I said so, right, So when the guy comes, everybody
Speaker 2: gives me two hundred dollars a piece. And he's looking
Speaker 2: like I said, George said so, so he knew right then,
Speaker 2: so he left. So the old trip ends up costing
Speaker 2: me under two thousand dollars just like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then God pays for the trip. I get home. The
Speaker 2: envelope comes from USA Boxing. I opened it up, is
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars in there for coaching you to a
Speaker 2: gold medal. So the old trip was paid for. And
Speaker 2: so that's how it worked. That's how the journey's being.
Speaker 3: Man, it's crazy because moments like that, man, you call
Speaker 3: him a Moory, you know what I'm saying. Like, it's
Speaker 3: moments that you set up in your life, in your mind.
Speaker 3: So when you face new challenges, new giants, new stuff,
Speaker 3: you go back and say, Man, it's the same guy
Speaker 3: that got me through that. It's the same guy to
Speaker 3: get exactly So that that whole Olympics thing, me being
Speaker 3: in a weight class that I really wasn't supposed to be.
Speaker 1: I had never fought at that level.
Speaker 3: I fought, you know, Ireland and Mexico and Germany and Korea.
Speaker 3: I never fought the Cubas and the Russians before, and
Speaker 3: I think ESPN had me possibly winning a bronze medal
Speaker 3: in that weight class though I hadn't lost since I
Speaker 3: was fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: Twelve twelve, it's a debate. I like, twelve better, No.
Speaker 2: We'll go twe twelve.
Speaker 3: I looked at it, Yeah, we're going twelve. But I
Speaker 3: hadn't lost in a long time, and it was like,
Speaker 3: he probably gonna And I get it because I what
Speaker 3: was your thinking with being the number one ranked American
Speaker 3: for many years but then not allowing me to go
Speaker 3: to certain tournaments or certain like World Championship.
Speaker 1: Never been to World Championship before.
Speaker 3: The Olympics, never went to the PanAm Games before the Olympics.
Speaker 3: That's my route, right though, USA box and don't get
Speaker 3: mad at me. That was my route for some of
Speaker 3: your kids. Y'all got to decide what y'all want to
Speaker 3: do with that. But you didn't want the overexposure. I
Speaker 3: had four years to make it happen, really three years
Speaker 3: to make it happen. Why did you not let me
Speaker 3: go to certain tournaments on the way to the Olympics.
Speaker 2: Well, the year of the Olympics, after you had qualified
Speaker 2: it and they came to me and they wanted to
Speaker 2: go I think Kakistan, different places like that, and I
Speaker 2: told him no, oh, why he could get the experience?
Speaker 2: I said, I never seen nobody getting the experience. Every
Speaker 2: time they go, they lose, you know. But it was
Speaker 2: one thing that I knew. I knew as a light heavyweight,
Speaker 2: even though you wasn't a full fledged light he was
Speaker 2: really one seventy one seventy one without cutting weight and
Speaker 2: just eating and stuff like that. I knew the weight
Speaker 2: classes once, and the weight class has one seventy eight, right,
Speaker 2: But after I'm looking at these guys on TV. It's six',
Speaker 2: five six' six coming to one. Seventy Eight so, I'm saying,
Speaker 2: jesus man this means if he fights On, a monday
Speaker 2: he gotta make that weight, that morning right then he.
Speaker 2: Gonna out he's get two days off IN between i
Speaker 2: think you guys got two days off in. Between bouts he's,
Speaker 2: gonna eat so he go put on another five or.
Speaker 2: Six seven so his whole thing, is fighting putting on,
Speaker 2: the weight taking off, the, weight fighting putting on, the weight.
Speaker 2: Taking off that's, gonna weekend you old period, of, time
Speaker 2: right especially in a. Week's tournament SO but i knew
Speaker 2: that you had something that if they, never saw they
Speaker 2: wasn't gonna beat it in four two many rounds because
Speaker 2: they not gonna have no tape. On you they just
Speaker 2: not gonna figure, you out and four two. MINUTE rounds i, knew,
Speaker 2: That right AND then i knew that if you, could
Speaker 2: eat they didn't have to worry about. Making weight you could. Train,
Speaker 2: Harder right you're gonna, Sleep better you're not gonna be
Speaker 2: stressed With the, OH man i, wanna Eat but i'm
Speaker 2: scared on my game three or, four POUNDS and i
Speaker 2: gotta take. It off this, constant work. Constant STRESS so
Speaker 2: i took that stress level off. OF you i knew
Speaker 2: you were physically strong enough to beat guys ten pounds heavier.
Speaker 2: Than YOU and i, TOLD you, i said they're not
Speaker 2: gonna take you serious because, you're small until you get
Speaker 2: to the, SECOND fight, I said and after that they
Speaker 2: gonna they gotta take. You serious but it's gonna be.
Speaker 2: Too late it's gonna be too late because they're gonna
Speaker 2: have to turn around and figure out how we gonna beat.
Speaker 2: This kid it's. Too late you don't have no tape,
Speaker 2: on me.
Speaker 3: You KNOW once i beat the two time, World, Champion
Speaker 3: Yeah guiney Mac and Nko, from russia they knew, what time.
Speaker 2: They knew what time. IT was i wasn't supposed to Be,
Speaker 2: in Oh Even clementia russo because he came back to
Speaker 2: The next olympics. And, won yeah But if, guinea though
Speaker 2: he was. The one he wore a Two time world
Speaker 2: champions six six or.
Speaker 1: Something, like that he was.
Speaker 3: The one SO when i, beat him, they said who
Speaker 3: is this kid who was out of? State mayor and
Speaker 3: you know the rest. Is, history man we want to go.
Speaker 3: Metal man and it's like that was a crazy faith
Speaker 3: builder for me because we had talked, About it you
Speaker 3: had talked, about it and it was just a lot
Speaker 3: Of stuff god was Doing, In athens greece that just
Speaker 3: confirmations that we were there for. A reason and it's
Speaker 3: crazy That that i'm the last mail to want to
Speaker 3: go gold medals in two thousand.
Speaker 1: And four and, it's bittersweet.
Speaker 3: You know, one hand it's like, it's cool but like
Speaker 3: it's that's supposed to be broken in, you know like
Speaker 3: giving the talent and stuff that we have here And
Speaker 3: obviously chloresta shields and done. Her Thing but, i'm saying
Speaker 3: as a mail we gotta. Break, that yeah but that's
Speaker 3: that's a. Long time that's what twenty.
Speaker 2: Two, YEARS well i think one way to break it
Speaker 2: IS is ussa Boxing the, european countries they they twenty
Speaker 2: five and twenty six.
Speaker 1: Years old fighting.
Speaker 2: Amateur yep but they get compensated, for that so they
Speaker 2: don't have any incentive to turn pro too early because
Speaker 2: they're getting a steady check from. The state they might
Speaker 2: get a flat from, the state a car from. The
Speaker 2: state they get everything so their needs, are met so
Speaker 2: they don't have no that's. Guaranteed money that's NOT like i,
Speaker 2: got well when you're gonna give me a, fight date
Speaker 2: OR when i get a, fight date that's. Guaranteed money,
Speaker 2: every month, that's medical That's every all your needs, are
Speaker 2: met so they have incentive to. Stay longer that's why
Speaker 2: you only see maybe the cream of the crop every
Speaker 2: one or two come out of those regions and be
Speaker 2: coming and get into. The program you don't see many
Speaker 2: of them going to the progame because they get well
Speaker 2: compensated in the. Amateur game IF The usa boxing realizes
Speaker 2: that they need a nil they need a, nil, program
Speaker 2: right they, get paid they, get paid but they need
Speaker 2: to up.
Speaker 3: TO pay i think they need to up. To PAY
Speaker 3: and i Think and i've been saying this for a long.
Speaker 3: Ast time for whatever it IS in usa boxing just
Speaker 3: keeps plugging. Their EARS like usa boxing needs to have
Speaker 3: an open door. With alumnis we talk to these kids
Speaker 3: on social we do video calls with them off to,
Speaker 3: the side but it's like we beg to get into,
Speaker 3: the program to influence, these kids to encourage, these kids
Speaker 3: to let. Them NIGHT man i, did it you can.
Speaker 3: Do it nobody's trying to take away from the. Head
Speaker 3: coach the message is still. The same whatever your, Cad
Speaker 3: coach we're gonna implement the. Same message but there's nothing
Speaker 3: like brushing shoulders or somebody who's already walked the path
Speaker 3: that you want and they can reach out and touch you, and, say,
Speaker 3: MAN man i appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Coming through you.
Speaker 3: Can't quantify what that does for a young athlete that's
Speaker 3: trying to get what. You got but it's like they
Speaker 3: just want to keep them to theyself and just you
Speaker 3: gotta like you gotta beg to get.
Speaker 1: In there that's one of the.
Speaker 3: Biggest mistakes cubans don't do What the russians. Don't do
Speaker 3: all the previous champions they're around, the program so they
Speaker 3: get to see or That's That's felix avone or that's you, know,
Speaker 3: Whoever right they get to see, that man that's so
Speaker 3: and so many he won two gold medals and a,
Speaker 3: world championship and they get to they get to brush shoulders,
Speaker 3: with them and they get to get advice from them
Speaker 3: and be. Around them you can't quantify what that's gonna
Speaker 3: do for. THOSE athletes i think that's one of the
Speaker 3: biggest mistakes that they make is not allow on the
Speaker 3: alumni to. Come back we only had one guy, come
Speaker 3: BACK and I Was, andrew MAYNE and i.
Speaker 1: Appreciated them coming because he was in my. Way class
Speaker 1: you want to go medal?
Speaker 2: Eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Uh Damn david reid because he was with our metro
Speaker 1: so but we loved being. Around, them, dudes, like man tell. Me, Something,
Speaker 1: Man man i'm getting ready to go To. These olympics
Speaker 1: you don't know what it's like till you. Get, there well.
Speaker 2: You KNOW and i never aspired to BE a usa
Speaker 2: boxing COACHES because i saw early on it. Was clickish
Speaker 2: and that's not to put. Nobody down i'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say no Names any that doesn't mean that they're a,
Speaker 2: bad person but the threat of somebody coming in may
Speaker 2: be doing it better then you. Did it that's, the,
Speaker 2: threat right instead of realizing it's not about me as,
Speaker 2: an individual it's about. A, team okay six sets of
Speaker 2: eyes is better than, one, Set right but that six
Speaker 2: sets of eyes has got to be on. The up
Speaker 2: you can't come in with, a agenda. Negative agenda you
Speaker 2: can't come, in criticize and you gotta come in with
Speaker 2: your eyes and be. A TEAM where, i asked HOW can?
Speaker 2: I help WHAT can i? Do this? Hey coach you
Speaker 2: know what if he just did this right here to
Speaker 2: his right hand and, Land better and if the coach
Speaker 2: can look at, this, guy, say man he's knocked out
Speaker 2: a lot of guys with his, right hand so he
Speaker 2: know what he's. Talking, about okay, guy comes it's been
Speaker 2: in the pros knocking you out. Left hooks if, he, say,
Speaker 2: hey coach if he throws hook this way or, you
Speaker 2: know or maybe this way or get it off this
Speaker 2: way to, be better you gonna listen.
Speaker 1: To.
Speaker 2: Him right but once you get this salary and this
Speaker 2: team has been given, to you and you got a
Speaker 2: couple of coaches up, under you you don't want to
Speaker 2: get off. That interest you don't want to get off
Speaker 2: that pedestal without realizing it takes a team to keep
Speaker 2: you on. The pedestal no great man is great without.
Speaker 1: A team it takes a village to take.
Speaker 3: A raise i'll give you, an example so that they
Speaker 3: just Had the youth Under Nineteen world championships for the
Speaker 3: girls and, the guys and SOMETHING that i KNOW because
Speaker 3: i was trained this WAY and i. Did it the.
Speaker 3: Body language for a lot of. Those athletes some of
Speaker 3: them lost because of. Body language you saw fatigue, set
Speaker 3: in they falling over, their feet they holding the referee
Speaker 3: has to.
Speaker 1: Warn them that's given.
Speaker 3: The opponent that's given the opponent some energy and some
Speaker 3: and some, you know, Hey man i'm, tired TOO but,
Speaker 3: i said you won't tired. To me and it's also
Speaker 3: for a judge who's trying to figure out who's winning.
Speaker 3: This round they're gonna go with the person that looks
Speaker 3: to for making this. Job EASY but i learned.
Speaker 1: That being at the highest level as, an Amage the
Speaker 1: cubans never, break form rush never.
Speaker 3: Break form they even when, they tired they look like
Speaker 3: they're not even when they're not, in control they still got.
Speaker 1: Their stands they still look like they always look like they're.
Speaker 3: In control that's something that like somebody who's done that
Speaker 3: can implement to.
Speaker 1: Them kids, and, say hey get your body. Language together
Speaker 1: don't lean over the ropes in between. The Rounds the
Speaker 1: cubians don't even sit down in.
Speaker 2: Between rounds how is that for?
Speaker 3: Body language but it's stuff like that that if you
Speaker 3: don't have guys who, did it those are key things
Speaker 3: that like that, seem small that can be the difference
Speaker 3: between a winning and.
Speaker 1: Loss exactly stuff like that. Body language like you're falling over,
Speaker 1: your feet you.
Speaker 3: Look fatigue don't. Look fatigue but it starts in the.
Speaker 3: Gym though hey don't don't put your hands on.
Speaker 2: Your knees hey don't lean on the ropes in. Between
Speaker 2: rounds don't.
Speaker 1: Do that that's a standard the.
Speaker 2: Other countries. That's winning they, do it and the other
Speaker 2: countries are so involved in. Technical stuff technical ability really
Speaker 2: wins amateur matches at, that level and that's short duration.
Speaker 2: Of fighting so a fe more technically sound and you more.
Speaker 2: Technical competitive you could be the mortalented kid who's not,
Speaker 2: the sounder not so sure, of himself and that's why
Speaker 2: he'll fatigue and have. Body language because the mystique Of,
Speaker 2: the russians the mystiq Of, the ukraine the mystique Of,
Speaker 2: the cubans the reputation, they fighting, the names, they fighting the.
Speaker 2: Country's name you Fight, a cuban you Find, a russian
Speaker 2: this and that and. The other so you're already self
Speaker 2: defeated before you even. Get THERE but i think what
Speaker 2: the kids has got. To understand it's in. This game
Speaker 2: all of them need to understand that when your mother
Speaker 2: and father got together in an act, of intimacy that
Speaker 2: lets you know you was chosen before the foundations of
Speaker 2: time for such a time. As this so never. Get
Speaker 2: discouraged and we could build a great ammate tour, a
Speaker 2: team but you have to have the, Financial support you
Speaker 2: have to have the. Coaches support you have to look
Speaker 2: at it from a. Team perspective but you also have
Speaker 2: to respect every coach who has brought a national champion to,
Speaker 2: that level every coach that has developed a kid that
Speaker 2: is qualified for. That team that coach should, be there,
Speaker 2: you see because he knows his kid more than. ANYTHING
Speaker 2: else i don't know WHY The usa boxing does not
Speaker 2: put a financial package together for every. Weight class your
Speaker 2: coach is coming to work the corner. With me i'm the,
Speaker 2: head COACH but i need your coach, here too because
Speaker 2: he's gonna see things that he's seen for YEARS that
Speaker 2: i only see in.
Speaker 3: One camp but that's what my head, coach did really.
Speaker 3: Good man but sure a doula put his ego to
Speaker 3: the side and he stayed in contact with you for
Speaker 3: the year or whatever that he had me before we
Speaker 3: went To, the olympics and, He, SAID man i need
Speaker 3: to know. This kid, yeah man, you, said hey you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna overtrain you gotta pull. Him back, hey man he
Speaker 3: gonna want to.
Speaker 1: Do more don't.
Speaker 3: Let him, hey man watch, his way because it's way
Speaker 3: to drop that type of stuff. Right there you can't
Speaker 3: you can't put a price exactly that type of information about.
Speaker 3: THESE athletes, i said he's gonna be number one in
Speaker 3: every single run the team, do yep we're gonna be.
Speaker 1: Number one he ain't gonna settle for.
Speaker 2: Number two but butsher was a blessing because he did communicate.
Speaker 2: With me and the most IMPORTANT thing i told, h was,
Speaker 2: don't coach you just let you be who you're. Gonna
Speaker 2: be but if you're on a tight, of course orse
Speaker 2: you could say something BUT just, i said because he's,
Speaker 2: gonna improvise he's gonna do whatever, it is whatever it takes.
Speaker 2: To win that's what he's.
Speaker 1: GONNA do i didn't say nothing to you.
Speaker 3: About retirement he was the LAST person i, called MAN
Speaker 3: cause i just it.
Speaker 1: Was tough it's days even TODAY where i. FEEL bad
Speaker 1: i feel bad because we had, a.
Speaker 3: System we had, a program and just that one decision shook.
Speaker 1: Everything up