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unidentified
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Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. | |
The Joe Rogan Experience. | ||
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. | ||
George, congratulations. | ||
Thank you. | ||
What does it feel like? | ||
Yeah, look, it's been pretty crazy. | ||
You know, obviously on top of the world right now. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Does it feel like you're living in a fog, like a dream? | ||
A little bit, but I've had that vision, you know, for so long. | ||
You know, I've manifested for so long and before this fight, even as a young amateur, I knew I'd be world champion. | ||
I knew one day more time would come and, you know, it finally did. | ||
Well, I was told about you a couple of years ago by my friend Vinnie Shorman, who's big in the Muay Thai world, and Liam Harrison is a Muay Thai world champion. | ||
They were telling me how awesome you were years ago. | ||
But until Saturday night of last week, the world, you know, they didn't know. | ||
They're hard to see it. | ||
Yeah, look, both great guys. | ||
And I think it was 2018, I was in the wildcard gym sparring. | ||
And I'm in the ring and I see these two guys and they're watching. | ||
So I thought, you know, I'll put on a show for these guys. | ||
And let's see, they might be someone that... | ||
Can take me to the next level. | ||
They might be promoters. | ||
Who knows? | ||
So I always want to put on a show. | ||
And they couldn't believe it. | ||
And then I knew that they'll come in on your show when I started speaking to them. | ||
And when they dropped my name on you, I was like, wow, this is amazing. | ||
Now I'm here with you. | ||
Well, your performance against Teofimo was spectacular. | ||
It was amazing. | ||
And, I mean, it was a fight where... | ||
How much of an underdog were you coming into that fight? | ||
I was a huge underdog. | ||
You know, seven to one underdog. | ||
unidentified
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Wow. | |
You know, BetOnline.ag had me 7-1. | ||
That just shows the adversity that you have to come through. | ||
You can be a massive underdog, but no matter what, you get through it and you can win whatever you choose to do. | ||
Well, you were undefeated coming into that fight, but you just hadn't faced the same level of opposition that he had. | ||
And it didn't mean that you weren't capable of it. | ||
You just hadn't had the opportunity before. | ||
So it wasn't a 7-1 like they didn't think you had the skills. | ||
It was 7-1 that you just hadn't had that moment in the sun before. | ||
I think because... | ||
That's right, I haven't had my moment yet leading into that fight, but... | ||
He was coming off the big Lomachenko fight, the big win there, what he'd done in that fight, so impressive. | ||
He knocked out Richard Comey as well, so the hype, the noise that he was making, this was just going to be a normal mandatory fight that took so long to make, and he was supposed to just do the business and move on to something bigger. | ||
That hunger that I had, that tunnel vision to show who I am, to show how great I am, and I had to go through it all in that fight, from the cuts to being put down in round 10, but I knew that this is my greatness now, how good I can be and show the world and shock the world. | ||
You definitely did shock the world. | ||
It is a reoccurring theme in boxing and in all combat sports when someone takes an opponent lightly. | ||
And they go in thinking they're just going to steamroll this guy, and then they get met with reality. | ||
I mean, it's happened so many times in fighters' careers. | ||
And then there's also the other reoccurring theme, a guy like yourself, who has his eyes on the prize, is completely focused, and people are counting them out, and then they rise to the occasion and become a superstar. | ||
And that's what happened to you. | ||
You see it many times and I feel that he didn't take me lightly because he's in great shape. | ||
He was in unbelievable condition. | ||
I felt as we led into the fight and we had that first press conference where we looked into each other's eyes and I saw a guy who it came too fast and he needed to be matched with someone that was not going to take a step backwards. | ||
And the whole thing was this whole preparation. | ||
I was never going to take one step backwards. | ||
I never gave him that inch. | ||
And even in the fight, I never gave him that inch. | ||
I was always there to be dominant. | ||
And I felt like he was a bully kind of character, you know, where he bullied Lomachenko, he bullied Komi. | ||
Yeah. | ||
He bullied all his past opponents. | ||
But, you know, I've come from bullying. | ||
I was an overweight kid at a young age. | ||
I've been bullied all my life. | ||
You were overweight? | ||
I was overweight. | ||
I used to be 135 pounds at like 10 years of age until I fell into boxing. | ||
So, you know, I knew straight away. | ||
I go, okay, I know how to stand up to this guy. | ||
I know what I've got to do in this fight. | ||
And he saw how serious I was. | ||
So, you know, we stayed focused. | ||
We kept the tunnel vision and we done the business. | ||
Well, you did a beautiful job of boxing him as well. | ||
I mean, you stayed in the pocket and cut angles. | ||
You landed beautiful combinations. | ||
That one right hand in the first round, though, really set the tone for that fight. | ||
When you sat him down at the end of the first and dropped him, and it was a hard right hand. | ||
I mean, it was a beautiful right hand. | ||
And when you see his eyes roll back and he drops and he gets up and he's like, what the fuck just happened? | ||
That was a giant wake-up call and it really set the tone for the rest of the fight. | ||
Yeah, it did. | ||
I went into that first round. | ||
I knew he'd be very emotional. | ||
I knew he took it so personal and leading up to the whole fight week when I kept getting asked, is this personal for you? | ||
Because I knew it was so personal for him. | ||
I said, no, this is business for me. | ||
This is another fight. | ||
This is what I love to do. | ||
Doesn't matter who's in that side of the ring fighting against me. | ||
And I knew I had to get his respect straight away. | ||
He would come out crazy. | ||
I stayed composed. | ||
I landed some really good short shots on the inside in that first round. | ||
And like the great customer I said to Muhammad Ali when he fought George Foreman, he goes, How am I going to beat this guy? | ||
How can I beat this puncher? | ||
And Cus goes, hit him with the right hand. | ||
In the first round, hit him with your best right hand and show him that, hey, I can punch as well. | ||
And I had that in my head. | ||
I have the great book by Cus DeMoto and I have it highlighted. | ||
And before I went to the arena, I went over it and showed it to just have it in my head. | ||
What an amazing mind he had. | ||
Custom model's mind for boxing, for the psychology of boxing, was just so incredible. | ||
You know, and the fact that Mike Tyson found that man when he was 13 years old, it's almost like destiny, you know? | ||
And you know what? | ||
I believe that everything in life is destiny. | ||
I look at my road to get to the championship. | ||
It's just falling into place. | ||
But with Destiny, you need to work hard. | ||
You need to take it in your own hands as well. | ||
But everything's meant to be. | ||
And that right hand was meant to be. | ||
And I said it to my team. | ||
I go, you're watching the first round. | ||
I'm going to catch him early. | ||
I'm going to hurt him with something because I knew I was looking for that right hand. | ||
And when he came out crazy and he was heavy on the front foot, he tried to fake the jab and I saw that front foot right there. | ||
I knew his head wouldn't move. | ||
I go, okay, here it is. | ||
Here's that shot I've been dreaming about my whole life. | ||
Bang! | ||
I let it go like a lightning strike. | ||
Let's take a look at it. | ||
Jimmy, show me that punch because that was just so beautiful. | ||
I screamed when I was at home and I watched it. | ||
I yelled out. | ||
I was by myself. | ||
I was sitting in the living room. | ||
unidentified
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Ah! | |
The whole world just jumped up. | ||
Okay, now we've got to fight because I don't think many expected me to even stand a chance in the first round. | ||
You know, they were so vocal about one round, one round, especially his dad. | ||
Well, his dad made a huge bet. | ||
Didn't he bet $100,000 that he was going to knock you out within two rounds? | ||
Yeah, well, I want to find out the person he bet against because... | ||
Here it is. | ||
Take a look at this and take it in. | ||
Nice, beautiful left hook. | ||
Well, you were in front of him, but you weren't there. | ||
That was what was beautiful about it. | ||
Like your head movement, like right there, that angle. | ||
God, it's just gorgeous box. | ||
Here it is. | ||
Right here, baby. | ||
unidentified
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Bank! | |
Oh my goodness. | ||
And I saw it in his eyes as soon as I land that shot and he got up. | ||
He thought, what the fuck was that? | ||
Yeah, you can see it right there. | ||
He's like, whoa. | ||
Yeah, now we're in a fight. | ||
And then the fake smile. | ||
And this shot I land here, bang! | ||
I was a little bit off balance. | ||
But that shot there was probably more devastating than the original shot. | ||
And then I'm just going off. | ||
I had to say it. | ||
I said, you know, now I'm here. | ||
One round. | ||
Is that what you said to him? | ||
Yes, I said. | ||
One round. | ||
Okay. | ||
Now we're in a fight. | ||
It was an amazing performance. | ||
Why was it emotional for him? | ||
What was about that? | ||
He had this theory in his head and the people around him. | ||
You know, someone told him that... | ||
When he tested positive for COVID and we were in Miami, I was very upset, very disappointed. | ||
I trained for four months in preparation. | ||
Wasn't this fight rescheduled like five times? | ||
Yeah. | ||
Well, June 19th was the original date. | ||
And four days out, he tested positive for COVID. So on the day that I found out, obviously I've been away from my kids, my family, I flew my pregnant wife out to be with me for that fight week. | ||
She took a lot of sacrifices as well because the doctors were telling her not to go with the way the world is at the moment. | ||
But that's the sacrifice we make. | ||
And when I found out, I was devastated. | ||
Literally wanted to cry because this is how much it meant to me. | ||
And then I was obviously angry and upset. | ||
So, that night when we were going back to our room, we had a dinner and went to the room. | ||
On the way to the room, there was the bar and his team were having a good time and enjoying themselves. | ||
Obviously, Lopez was not there. | ||
And I found it strange. | ||
I go, why are they enjoying themselves? | ||
You know, their son just ruined the fight. | ||
One of his team members tried to be a smartass and come up and try to take a photo and try to be, you know, try to aggravate me. | ||
And I got my wife, they got my father with me, I got my team. | ||
I said, look, just stay away. | ||
It's not the time. | ||
You know, I don't know, you guys might have COVID, you know, you're with Lopez all the time. | ||
And they got a little bit more aggressive and tried to push the matter. | ||
And I said, look, just get the fuck out of here. | ||
I don't want to deal with it right now. | ||
That's all it was. | ||
And all of a sudden, someone's gone and told him that I've had a go at his mother, which I never even saw his mother. | ||
I don't even know what she looks like. | ||
And that just played. | ||
I think they were trying to motivate him. | ||
I think they were just trying to push him a little bit extra, make it more personal. | ||
But it's the worst thing. | ||
You don't want to take this, any combat sport, personal. | ||
Because as soon as you do, everything is slow. | ||
You lose your reactions. | ||
You go in the headhunting. | ||
And you can see it. | ||
He was headhunting and, you know, perfect. | ||
It felt perfect for me, what I was coming to do. | ||
Well, you maintained that composure through the entire 12-round fight, too, which was incredible. | ||
Like, your precision, your movement. | ||
You never got lazy. | ||
You never just stood in front of them. | ||
And even when you got caught in the 10th, you still bounced back beautifully in the 11th. | ||
I mean, you didn't adjust. | ||
You didn't change anything. | ||
You didn't, like, become hesitant. | ||
Yeah. | ||
And that's a testament to my conditioning and how hard I train and how prepared I am for every single fight. | ||
And that's been my whole career. | ||
You know, from my pro debut to winning the Undisputed Championship, I've prepared for every opponent, given them respect and prepared as a World Championship fight. | ||
When I got put down in round 10, I was actually smiling. | ||
I was enjoying the whole adversity because this is what makes fights like this great. | ||
And you're okay. | ||
Now you're going to show how great you are. | ||
You're going to rise. | ||
And that was a minute 45 in that round. | ||
I think Lopez finishes any other lightweight in the world at that stage. | ||
But not this lightweight. | ||
I had that inside me. | ||
And it's crazy. | ||
How bad were you hurt by that right hand? | ||
I wasn't badly hurt. | ||
It was more like a flash knockdown, you know, kind of back of the year, cup of the year. | ||
The equilibrium was a little bit out, but it's going to take a lot more than that shot to put me away. | ||
I come back to the corner and the coaches were like, you're right, you're okay. | ||
I go, yeah, I'm good. | ||
I started smiling. | ||
They go, you sure? | ||
What are you smiling for? | ||
I said, because I made the mistake there. | ||
Now watch what I'm gonna do. | ||
Watch how great I'm gonna be. | ||
I think round 11 was the best round of the fight, literally. | ||
Busted him up and then round 12 closed the show. | ||
That cut that he had over his left eye was brutal. | ||
It was. | ||
It was from a punch. | ||
Beautiful shot, spit him open. | ||
My one was from a head clash. | ||
They thought I couldn't punch. | ||
They thought I didn't have the power. | ||
Why do you think they thought that? | ||
Is that just wishful thinking? | ||
Did they just get overconfident? | ||
I think because my last two fights when I fought Mickey Bay and Lee Selby, both former world champions, I didn't knock them out. | ||
But these guys are veterans of the sport, guys that have been there before. | ||
So they know how to move around the ring. | ||
Much more experience than what I was at that stage and more experience than what Lopez has. | ||
I just had to box nice with them guys. | ||
You know, learn the tricks from the veterans. | ||
But they felt the power as well. | ||
So I knew what I possessed. | ||
I knew what I had in the tank and in the bank. | ||
And that's it. | ||
Done my business against Lopez. | ||
Having trained with Manny Pacquiao had to be a huge asset for you because even though Bay was probably your biggest name opponent up until then, how many rounds had you done with Manny? | ||
250 rounds. | ||
I have a three-world total campaign side. | ||
So it started with the Jeff Horn fight? | ||
It did, yeah. | ||
When Jeff got, obviously, the fight with Manny Pacquiao, I was in Los Angeles. | ||
And I was sparring. | ||
He's ex-sparring partners, Jose Ramirez and Ray Beltran. | ||
I was doing 5-5, and these guys are good fighters, former world champions. | ||
And Freddie come over and goes, you know, Manny's got the Jeff Horn fight. | ||
So yeah, I'm hearing about it. | ||
He goes, well, you're sparring. | ||
He's sparring partners. | ||
How would you like to go against your countrymen and help Manny prepare? | ||
I said, Freddy, I'm all in. | ||
You know, I know he's my countryman, but this is an opportunity of a lifetime. | ||
Manny's my idol. | ||
You can't bounce that up. | ||
So I had a fight a couple of weeks after the sparring sessions that I impressed and got the opportunity. | ||
So I still had to win that fight against Kamil Bala in New Zealand. | ||
And in between that fight, I got a really bad cut in my eye. | ||
And the first thing that went to my head was, I got to sparring with Manny Pacquiao in a week and a half. | ||
I go, now this cut might stop it. | ||
So I wasn't even thinking about the opponent or thinking about the fight. | ||
I knew I was going to win this fight by any means. | ||
But I was thinking about my opportunity against Manny Pacquiao. | ||
But, you know, we got there. | ||
We got the stitches. | ||
A week after the stitches came out, I was putting so much vitamin E cream and every bit of... | ||
You know, theory that I could find on the internet to make sure it closed up good and wasn't going to give me an issue. | ||
And I went into that first sparring session with Manny and it was okay with a cut. | ||
Did you know Jeff Horn? | ||
I did know Jeff, yeah. | ||
We were in the Amateurs together. | ||
How did he feel about you training with Manny? | ||
Yeah, he wasn't happy at that stage, you know, but he's a good guy. | ||
He's actually a good guy of the sport. | ||
At that stage, he had come out and said, you know, why is he going against me? | ||
He's a countryman. | ||
Why couldn't he give me a phone call? | ||
And me being me, you know, I turned around him being a school teacher and said, I've never asked for permission from a school teacher ever, so I'm gonna go do my thing with Pacquiao no matter what. | ||
I think he's gotta understand that you had to. | ||
And I think he does. | ||
I think he does now. | ||
He had to. | ||
And to be able to have an opportunity like that to spar 250 rounds with one of the greatest of all time, I mean, he won world titles in what, eight divisions? | ||
unidentified
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Eight divisions. | |
13 or 14 world titles. | ||
Crazy. | ||
It would never be done again. | ||
Crazy. | ||
And as much as you want to see records broken and, you know, I want to break records, that man is a one of one. | ||
He's a one of one. | ||
I mean, when he knocked down Thurman in that fight, I was like, this is crazy. | ||
This guy's 40 years old, and still can crack, and still as fast as lightning. | ||
Yeah, look, the power that he possesses, but it's not a thumping power, it's that explosive speed, that explosive power, the forework he gets in position, and all of a sudden he's landed three, four, five shots, and then he's angled off. | ||
A lot like I did in my fight against Lopez. | ||
A lot of that sparring paid off and it did shape me. | ||
And I know he did put out a tweet as well saying that I hope the sparring we did helped you in this fight straight away. | ||
That's amazing. | ||
And I was so excited. | ||
He's a legend of the sport. | ||
He is a legend. | ||
And he's such an unusual guy. | ||
You know what's crazy about him is his calves. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Massive. | ||
They're giant. | ||
They're like a thigh. | ||
And I know the reason why. | ||
Because in General Santos, the mountains that he runs, and that steep hill, that's why they're so big. | ||
Because he's always constantly running mountains. | ||
And I was doing the mountain runs with him. | ||
Yeah? | ||
My calf started getting bigger and bigger. | ||
But I understand, yeah, why his calves are huge. | ||
But he's always bouncing. | ||
He's always moving around. | ||
He'll bounce for like 20-something rounds. | ||
He'll do his pads and he's jumping up and down. | ||
He really is an unbelievable person, unbelievable athlete and a legend of the sport. | ||
I think as time progresses, people are really going to appreciate his greatness. | ||
Yeah, and coming back from defeats too. | ||
I mean, he's a guy that's had his downs. | ||
He's had his ups and his downs. | ||
He's always smiling and always friendly to people. | ||
He's so admirable just as a human being. | ||
And it shows too that... | ||
Defeats, I love how the UFC is. | ||
Losses are losses. | ||
Boxing has this stereotype where the zero is so important. | ||
I'm undefeated, but would you rather see the best fight than the best? | ||
You're going to get competitive fights and great fights, but unfortunately in boxing, it's not like that. | ||
Well, the biggest draw in the sport is Canelo, and Canelo's not undefeated. | ||
That's right. | ||
So it's one way of looking at it. | ||
He lost to Floyd. | ||
You know, Manny is also a world-class pool player. | ||
Well, he's got the pool tables at his mansion in his house. | ||
unidentified
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He's really good. | |
He plays like a professional. | ||
And he loves his basketball. | ||
Yeah, he's great at basketball, too. | ||
Shooting threes, it's unbelievable. | ||
Wow, he's a serious athlete. | ||
unidentified
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Yeah. | |
Did training with him, did you make any changes to the way you approach fights or the way you prepare for fights after training with him? | ||
I did. | ||
I learned the one percenters, the extra bit to do the extra rounds. | ||
You know, usually before the sparring with Manny Pacquiao. | ||
You do your 8 rounds or your 10 rounds of pads and your sparring, but that's it. | ||
You do your ab work and you finish. | ||
With him, he does his pad work, he does his sparring, but then he's on the bag, he's on the shadow boxing, he's there doing the pad work. | ||
So that extra rounds just builds that conditioning and that stamina. | ||
And that's what I just found that push more rounds. | ||
If your body can keep going, push more and more. | ||
That's what I learned from him. | ||
Is it a thing where you have to figure out what your body can do? | ||
Because obviously overtraining is an issue with fighters too. | ||
Have you ever had a fight where you felt like you overtrained for it? | ||
Not as a professional. | ||
In the amateurs, yes, as a young amateur coming up, I did feel certain times were overtrained. | ||
But I think the reason is, as an amateur, you're fighting so constant. | ||
You might have three fights in one week, and then you've got two fights the week after. | ||
But in the professional ranks, I've always been very smart, got a good team around me, and I made sure that every preparation is pinpoint. | ||
And a lot of people were thinking I was going to burn out for this fight and overtrain because it was such a long preparation, nearly 10 months. | ||
But I said, look, I've got a good team. | ||
I know what I'm doing. | ||
I know how my body feels. | ||
If I started to feel a little bit run down and burning out, I'd pull back. | ||
But you're fighting for the biggest prize in boxing. | ||
How can you put your foot off the pedal? | ||
This is everything. | ||
This is going to change my life. | ||
Well, you did it perfectly as far as your preparation because you were in tip-top shape in the 12th round. | ||
You never lost any steam, you never lost any endurance, and the way you bounced back from that knockdown in the 10th really showed what kind of conditioning you had. | ||
And I think that the conditioning there, especially to bounce back after getting put down, it shows. | ||
Because if I wasn't conditioned, I wouldn't be able to survive that round. | ||
Yeah. | ||
When you think of, like, preparation for fights, you know, and you see guys like Manny Pacquiao, you see guys like Floyd Mayweather, you see guys that are just always in peak condition, that extra edge that they have that seems to be, I mean, that is, there's not one elite world-class fighter that you can say doesn't have that same kind of endurance and that same kind of discipline. | ||
100%. | ||
I think that elite level guys, you need to have it. | ||
If you don't have that conditioning, I don't think you even get to that elite. | ||
I think you need to have that from a young age, from early in your professional career, to be able to have that work ethic, that relentless drive, to have that conditioning. | ||
The only guy I could think that wasn't like that is James Toney. | ||
Yeah, but his defense too was unbelievable as well. | ||
Amazing. | ||
Defensively, you watch these guys and you think, wow, unbelievable. | ||
But the conditioning there was a problem for him. | ||
You look at the guys like Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao, you know, all the greats that have that conditioning. | ||
Muhammad Ali to do 15 round fights. | ||
I was even telling the commission, can we move it to 15 rounds? | ||
That's how, you know, conditioned I was for the fight. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Well, back then, you know, the 15-round fights, they weren't just 15-round fights. | ||
They also weighed in the day of the fight, which is crazy. | ||
And they would have probably fought three weeks before that as well. | ||
That's real fighters. | ||
That's real warriors. | ||
Rob, you go back to the Sugar Ray Robinson days, and you've seen a hundred... | ||
Yeah, a lot. | ||
How many different fights did you have? | ||
I think... | ||
What was Robinson's record when he retired? | ||
I think it was close to 200 fights. | ||
200 fights. | ||
Yeah, it's unbelievable. | ||
I've only had 20, and to think how the preparations are, and what you put your body for, and how sore you are after a fight, especially a 12-round fight, to think these guys would fight, and then a week or a week and a half later, they're fighting again, that's real worrisome. | ||
That's gladiatorial stuff. | ||
It really is crazy, and that's one of the things that the old-timers always point to. | ||
When you try to make a judgment call of who's the greatest of all time, they always point to Robinson. | ||
Just the sheer amount. | ||
I think he was something crazy like 90-0 before he lost his first fight. | ||
201. He lost to Joey Archer in 65. That was his 201st fight. | ||
That is crazy, man. | ||
unidentified
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Three fights in three weeks, four weeks. | |
And he was 44. Crazy! | ||
That there, just saying that is... | ||
Unbelievable. | ||
I mean, just unbelievable. | ||
If you go way back, Jamie, I think it was close to his 100th fight before he had his first loss. | ||
Yeah. | ||
I think he lost to LaMotta... | ||
Okay, what number was that? | ||
So I guarantee these are all wins. | ||
So the draw was, okay, 41. Okay, so it was 41 fights. | ||
So that was LaMotta. | ||
He lost to LaMotta. | ||
And then he came back and beat him. | ||
But just what a record that guy had. | ||
Absolutely incredible to think that this great had over 200 fights and would fight every couple of weeks. | ||
15-round fights, it's incredible. | ||
That's real fighters back then. | ||
I love that. | ||
I love the history of our sport. | ||
Yeah, they certainly were real fighters, but it's also not the best way for your body and your brain. | ||
Yeah, because the punishment you take in a fight, you need to be able to recover. | ||
You'd think that them fighting 201 fights, 202 fights that he had, and be fighting every couple of weeks, Right. | ||
That body is taking a lot of punishment, that brain. | ||
I know, it's crazy. | ||
It's crazy to think of. | ||
And the end of his life wasn't the best. | ||
When you see guys like that that stay in too long, like Ali, like a lot of these guys, do you have it mapped out when you're going to exit the sport? | ||
Yeah, look. | ||
I've seen it time and time again. | ||
Even the great Manny Pacquiao, my good friend, that last fight that he had, I wanted to cry watching it because I know how great he is. | ||
I know what he's done. | ||
To see that fight, just the shots weren't coming off, the footwork wasn't there, the feet were slow. | ||
But don't you think that fight was kind of, the whole thing was fucked because of the last-minute change of opponents? | ||
It was a difficult preparation because he prepared for Spence and all of a sudden Ugas. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Ugas is clever. | ||
He's a very good fighter. | ||
Very good fighter. | ||
Cuban school, you know, that style that he has and he can brawl too. | ||
He can fight. | ||
So, you know, he got him at a good time as well. | ||
Everything suited perfect for Ugas that night. | ||
But when you see these other legends, you know, Roy Jones, Muhammad Ali, they go that extra step. | ||
And it's hard for a fighter. | ||
As much as you want to get out, you think about, okay, when can I get out? | ||
Right. | ||
Get as much as you can from the sport and win your championships and get out. | ||
But we're fighters. | ||
Like I said this weekend when I was at the Haney Diaz fight, I said, I feel good. | ||
I feel like I'm fighting this week. | ||
If someone pulls out, I'll fight. | ||
That's the kind of worry and that battle mentality I have. | ||
That's awesome. | ||
How much weight do you cut? | ||
Not much. | ||
10 pounds. | ||
So how many days do you need to do that and feel good? | ||
Naturally, my body weight comes right low. | ||
The day before the weigh-in, you know, a pound and a half, two pounds, a hot bath and I'm there. | ||
Oh, nothing. | ||
The weight is easy. | ||
That's great. | ||
But I feel good, you know, I've been told that you should go to 130 before I won these championships. | ||
You could be champion at 130. I said, yeah, I can be champion at 130. I would be champion at 130, but what for? | ||
You're champion at 135. I'm champion at 135 and I feel good at 135. I feel strong at 135. I've got that extra bounce, that energy. | ||
I can eat throughout the weight cut. | ||
Sometimes fighters want to sacrifice that weight division and lose that extra bit, but they lose themselves in the actual battle, in the fight. | ||
The fight becomes the weight cut. | ||
We've seen it time and time again. | ||
Well, in the UFC it's a bigger problem because there's only eight weight classes. | ||
The gaps between the weight classes are ridiculous. | ||
I was looking at some photos of Conor McGregor when he was fighting at 45 and how skinny he was and even Khabib as well. | ||
The brutal weight cuts. | ||
It's incredible. | ||
It's not good. | ||
Conor never lost at 45, but also never missed weight. | ||
He made weight every time he tried at 45, but it was a rough one. | ||
When you would see him at the weigh-ins, he looked like a skeleton. | ||
And that's when you see big issues in fights and problems start where You know, brain damage and fighters unfortunately pass away and we've seen in boxing because they lose all that weight. | ||
They're so dehydrated in the brain where they don't hydrate properly as well. | ||
And all of a sudden, you know, you see it in the fights, they take brutal shots and unfortunately things happen in the fight. | ||
So, you know, I'd rather be feeling great, be hydrated. | ||
You know, I know that I'm going to this fight, you know, that there's going to be no issues with that and, you know, I feel good. | ||
No, I think that's the right approach to be healthy. | ||
And if you look at boxing, I think the vast majority of deaths occur when guys have caught weight. | ||
I don't think there's very many deaths at all in the heavyweight division. | ||
I think the heavyweight division is unusual in that. | ||
You get the biggest guys with the hardest punchers. | ||
Hardest punchers, and yet you have the least amount of deaths because they're not cutting anywhere. | ||
And it's scary, man. | ||
It is really scary. | ||
I've got three kids, and I've got a life away from boxing. | ||
When you think of that, when you go in there, your life is on the line. | ||
And all of a sudden, you're trying to make this weight. | ||
You want to dehydrate yourself and put yourself at more risk. | ||
I'd rather feel comfortable and feel good. | ||
Well, it's that balancing act, right? | ||
You're trying to figure out what's the best approach, to be bigger and have maybe a little bit more horsepower behind the punches, or to be healthy and then you have more gas tank, you can go longer, you can push a faster pace, you're lighter on your feet. | ||
It's a great example, my fight with Lopez. | ||
He was the bigger man. | ||
How much do you think he cuts? | ||
I think it cuts a fair bit. | ||
Yeah, I think probably 10 pounds, you know, a couple days out from the fight. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But I know that he puts on a lot of size too. | ||
He was way bigger than me in that fight. | ||
He definitely looked bigger. | ||
Yeah, he would have put a lot more on. | ||
But again, it shows that, you know, it's not about the size of a fighter. | ||
Right. | ||
And the way I've always had that approach is it's about the size of the heart, you know, how much you want it, the willpower, what you're ready to go through. | ||
And that's the way I took him to that fight. | ||
Have you gone back and watched the fight? | ||
No. | ||
I have not watched the fight. | ||
Interesting. | ||
The reason being is when I get home, my friends and family, I want to sit down, have a watch party, and just relive the moment with them. | ||
That's why I don't want to watch it. | ||
I think that's what I'm trying to achieve. | ||
People have been asking me, why have you not watched the fight? | ||
I'm trying to achieve to sit back, take myself away from the fight, and just watch it with everyone like it's live. | ||
That's what I'm trying to achieve with that. | ||
Well, you're going to enjoy it. | ||
I know, yeah. | ||
Spoiler alert, it turns out good for you. | ||
I hope so. | ||
It does. | ||
What's interesting about it, I wanted to talk to you about this, is the corner advice that he was getting. | ||
Did you hear about any of that? | ||
I have heard about that, but we knew that coming in. | ||
I knew that, you know, the corner that he has, you know, I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but his father, you know, is... | ||
When you're getting information, you've got to have trust in your corner. | ||
My corner is unbelievable from my coaches, Javier Santino, Mick Ackerway, to my cup man, Mike Basil, to even my father was the fourth, Jimmy Cambosis, which I'll tell a funny story with that as well. | ||
You want to have trust in your team because, again, you could be taking a lot of punishment. | ||
And again, as much as you don't want to stop the fight, I expect my corner to have that trust and to throw in the towel or stop the fight. | ||
Because we want to leave that ring and go back to our kids and family. | ||
Now his corner, you know, they didn't do a right job. | ||
His cut man took forever to get in the ring. | ||
You know, his dad was giving the wrong information. | ||
They had no game plan. | ||
Yeah, the game plan was to take him out. | ||
Yeah, and that's not a game plan. | ||
We had a perfect game plan. | ||
Round by round, we executed it round by round. | ||
These guys had no game plan and that's on them. | ||
I think after he beat Lomachenko, they had this idea that he was the next superstar and he was gonna steamroll you and steamroll everybody else and because he's such a heavy puncher and the way he fought like with that Super stiff jab with Lomachenko and like real aggressive and the fact that he was able to maintain that pace throughout the entire 12-round fight and Lomachenko I think it was in the 11th he put it on him a little he really got to him and Lopez survived that and then came back to win the 12th I | ||
knew from that fight that the size difference between myself and Lomachenko, obviously I'm a lot bigger, but my speed, my explosive power, the way I move and get in positions and throw punches and combinations that are quite awkward shots, shots that you don't see. | ||
I knew that I would have that advantage and I was never going to wait. | ||
I was going to come in there like I did in round one, take the shots, be prepared to take shots and obviously land my shots as well and put him down and show what I'm about and get my respect. | ||
But that's on them. | ||
They made a big mistake there with the corner. | ||
They did have a very good coach that they usually use, but they didn't have him for whatever reason. | ||
I was talking to my friend Radio Rahim today. | ||
We were talking. | ||
He's a giant boxing fan. | ||
You know Radio. | ||
He does a lot of those interviews on YouTube. | ||
He's a real expert. | ||
A real good guy, too. | ||
Great guy. | ||
And we were talking and he said something I wholeheartedly agree with. | ||
He said it's very rare that a father-son team works out in terms of trainer and boxer. | ||
It's just very rare. | ||
It's hard because, again, that emotion. | ||
It's your father. | ||
And obviously the sun, but it doesn't work out. | ||
You see it time and time again. | ||
My father, he was the fourth. | ||
Even that, his job was to put the seat in the ring and get a bit of ice and that's it. | ||
Everything went a little bit crazy when I started bleeding and the cup man was screaming at my father, wipe him up, wipe him up. | ||
You know, and he's like, wait a minute, my job's only this when we went through the pre-fight plan. | ||
So he was like, okay, let me find a tail and wipe him up. | ||
But, you know, when you've got the head coach being your father, like they do, a lot of time it doesn't work. | ||
You need someone to be able to, you know, that's the rules. | ||
That's what you've got to do. | ||
You've got to be able to, you know, respect, you know, the trainer. | ||
And I don't think they had that. | ||
Yeah, I don't think it's impossible. | ||
I think it can be done with the right personalities. | ||
But oftentimes, the problem is it seemed like in the Lopez corner, you know, his dad was so accustomed to Lopez just fucking everybody up that he thought that he was going to wake up eventually and catch you. | ||
And catch me, yeah. | ||
For certain fighters, it works. | ||
But when you come against a guy that was prepared to die in that ring, as scary as it is, and as much as I trust my corner, I was honestly prepared to die in that ring. | ||
I told my wife before we went to the arena that I'm prepared to die tonight. | ||
If anything happens, everything's for the kids and yourself. | ||
I'm here to win this fight by any means. | ||
That's the kind of fighter. | ||
And the shots that I took in that fight, I think he takes out any other lightweight in the world. | ||
There were some big shots, but I just kept coming. | ||
And I know for a fact, when he did put me down in round 10, and I got up and survived that round and finished that round strong as well, And this is like a Rocky IV movie. | ||
He came back into that corner and he said it to his team and his corner men that this guy's made a steal. | ||
I can't put a dent in him. | ||
And I know psychologically that would have broken him as well. | ||
That's why that round 11 was so successful. | ||
That round 11 really showed what I was about. | ||
It really did, and the fact that you came out as hard in round 11 as you had in round 1, and maybe even harder because you had something to prove. | ||
You were letting them know that that knockdown is not how the rest of this fight is going to go. | ||
A testament to myself and how hard I prepared for this fight. | ||
I just want to show how great I am, especially in the last two rounds. | ||
I've been put down and, again, in life you get put down. | ||
Sometimes things don't go the way. | ||
You expect them to go. | ||
But you rise and you finish whatever you're trying to achieve with everything you have. | ||
The thing is, too, that I lost my grandfather about two and a half months before the fight. | ||
I had my baby as well, my son, on the same day. | ||
And I know he was there with me, my grandfather. | ||
So the day your grandfather died your son was born? | ||
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
My son was born and then six hours later my grandfather passed away. | ||
George Cambosis. | ||
When I got put down and I just got up, honestly I felt like he lifted me up. | ||
I didn't even realize I'm up again. | ||
I'm ready. | ||
Even in the dressing room, the DAZN cameras came out and had the flashlight. | ||
We had the Aussie flag and the Greek flag, and we had them tied up pretty tight. | ||
Half of the Greek flag fell and it came down. | ||
And all of a sudden I felt this touching presence on my shoulder. | ||
I thought, okay. | ||
I looked at my father and I go, he's here. | ||
He goes, he is. | ||
And I knew at that moment that I will not be beat. | ||
I am winning this fight. | ||
He's with me and I got the job done. | ||
Now this, it originally was not with DAZN, right? | ||
It was originally a trailer fight. | ||
What happened with all that? | ||
Look, everything was great until Lopez tested positive for COVID. And then everything went downwards. | ||
You know, postponements, date changes, you know, venue changes. | ||
As a fighter, and again, Lopez as well, we're preparing for a fight. | ||
You can't expect the fighter to be making weight, to have the right sparring, the right preparation, and all of a sudden they said, okay, let's move it back again. | ||
It just doesn't work that way. | ||
They tried to move it back several weeks, right? | ||
Yeah, originally we had five or six different dates. | ||
Yeah. | ||
So we had a certain date. | ||
September 11th we heard. | ||
Then we heard about October 4th. | ||
Then they went to October 5th. | ||
Then they went to October 16th. | ||
Were they changing because they were looking for a new venue? | ||
Was it like that there was competition? | ||
There was something else on television that night? | ||
Like why were they... | ||
Doing that? | ||
All of them. | ||
Yeah, everything. | ||
There was certain NFL games. | ||
There was baseball games that clashed with the same night. | ||
There was venues. | ||
All of a sudden, they'll change and go to another venue. | ||
So, look, that's on them. | ||
They missed out. | ||
It's a learning curve for them. | ||
There's no disrespect. | ||
It is what it is. | ||
They would have seen the fight. | ||
They would have seen a fight of the year, and they missed out on it. | ||
Well, they got the fight of the year when it was supposed to happen. | ||
Now, after the fight, it was crazy when he came over and said that he thought he won. | ||
And that he thought he won 9-3 or 10-2. | ||
Is that what he said? | ||
Originally, he said 11-2. | ||
Well, that doesn't make sense. | ||
It doesn't make sense. | ||
And honestly, I believe he was concussed. | ||
I honestly believe he was concussed because not only he said 11-2, but then he said, I haven't been with my son for so long. | ||
He was only born a couple days ago. | ||
So nothing made sense. | ||
I felt that he was concussed. | ||
That's why I said, you're too illusional. | ||
But I was so respectful. | ||
And again, I got no anger to him. | ||
I'm not here to put him down or trash him. | ||
He's a young kid. | ||
He lost all his belts. | ||
He got beaten up. | ||
Sometimes that happens when you get knocked down in the first round and you fight the rest of the fight almost on autopilot. | ||
Yeah, concussed. | ||
I mean, that right hand was so clean. | ||
And when you watch his eyes roll back and he sits down, then he got up and he's fighting off, easily could have been concussed. | ||
Well, the way he looked at me too and he thought, okay, what was that? | ||
Shit, I'm in a fight now. | ||
I said, okay, forget the first round now. | ||
Let's go. | ||
Now from round two, now I want to show you. | ||
Well, what's interesting, though, is now they're talking about him moving up to 140 because the weight cut's too brutal. | ||
So they're coming up with a reason for why he lost. | ||
They're saying that. | ||
And then on top of that, there's this new thing that they're saying, that he had an esophageal tear and that his lungs were filled up and his body cavity was filled up with air. | ||
And they were saying that he went into the fight like that, but... | ||
When you go through a brutal fight like the one you two went through and you hit him with, how many body shots did you hit him with? | ||
A lot of body work. | ||
A lot of body, and shots to the neck as well. | ||
I mean, you hit him everywhere. | ||
Everywhere. | ||
So if you're hit, like, why would they assume that the tear was before the fight when you went through that brutal a fight? | ||
It's so crazy. | ||
Look, again, very delusional. | ||
Yeah. | ||
And there was nothing before the fall when he was screaming, you know, and the videos of him screaming at the poster of me saying, I'm going to eat you. | ||
I'm going to rip you. | ||
Okay, you look good there. | ||
And leading up in the press conference, You're going to go to hospital, everything. | ||
Okay. | ||
And then after the fight, you thought you won 11 to 2. You know, you're there telling the world. | ||
And then you still got enough energy to do your backflip. | ||
unidentified
|
Right. | |
He went around and done his backflip. | ||
Yeah. | ||
With a esophageal tear. | ||
With a tear. | ||
So, if there was something there... | ||
You wouldn't be screaming. | ||
You wouldn't be doing backflips. | ||
It's so hard to tell. | ||
Is the doctor exaggerating? | ||
Is it something that he sustained during the fight? | ||
Who knows? | ||
I want to know who's the actual doctor. | ||
It is what it is. | ||
There's been a lot of excuses. | ||
He didn't fight like a guy who was compromised, like his endurance was compromised. | ||
No, because in round 10, he landed that shot. | ||
He was still coming the whole night. | ||
He was still throwing punches. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But when you're getting, you know, badly attacked and my shots are landing and the bodywork that I was landing, you know, and the placement of the shots, you're going to feel all types of ways. | ||
Yeah. | ||
All kinds of damage. | ||
The funny thing is, Deontay Wilder, when he came out with his excuses, and they bashed him online about that. | ||
They came out so vocal, doing the same thing. | ||
But look, the champion that I am, I respect them. | ||
All the best to whatever they do in the future. | ||
If they want to give me my praise, respect me, so be it. | ||
The kind of person I am, through a mutual person that we both know, I sent the video. | ||
To him. | ||
You know, wish him all the best. | ||
You know, heal up with the cuts. | ||
This was before anything had come out. | ||
You know, I knew the face would be pretty damaged. | ||
And just to keep going because you hear things that he doesn't want to fight no more. | ||
So, you know, he's a talented kid. | ||
You just beat Lomachenko. | ||
You knocked out Richard Comey. | ||
You beat all these guys. | ||
Again, one loss doesn't define you. | ||
So the kind of person I am, I reached out. | ||
Did I receive anything back? | ||
unidentified
|
No. | |
What are you going to do? | ||
With the thought of him moving up to 140 pounds, which is interesting, because post-fight, when there's a fight like that, it takes a while for the dust to settle, especially when he got hit with a lot of big shots and he's badly cut and battered. | ||
When the dust settles, if he chooses to go up to 140, do you see yourself ever fighting at 140? | ||
At this stage, there's so much unfinished business at 135. And because I make the weight so good, you know, there's no vision of 140 right now. | ||
Yeah. | ||
But once I take all these guys out, the Haneys, Javonte Davis, you know, Ryan, go see if he gets his act together and starts fighting, Lomachenko. | ||
That's my plan, to take them all out. | ||
And even in the next fight, there will be no tune-up fight. | ||
He'll be straight in there again against a big, big name. | ||
So... | ||
Once we handle that business, then we'll look at moving up to 140. Did you watch Javante's fight? | ||
I was there. | ||
Oh, were you there? | ||
Oh, okay. | ||
And the crazy thing was, you know, before the fight, they showed the cameras and they were showing all the basketball players there. | ||
And all of a sudden, they showed me and the applause that I got. | ||
I couldn't believe it. | ||
I thought, this is unbelievable. | ||
This is crazy. | ||
You're a star now, man. | ||
It's growing. | ||
It's growing. | ||
But, you know, it's been that... | ||
The way I looked at it was, you know, I was a rough-cut diamond. | ||
I knew what I had. | ||
My team knew what we had. | ||
And it just had to keep polishing it and keep shining. | ||
And now it's shining. | ||
And the world can see it. | ||
And they can see the person I am. | ||
You know, I'm a confident fighter. | ||
But outside of the ring, I am who I am. | ||
Your performance was so good. | ||
Thank you. | ||
Now, when you see what happened with Lopez when he beat Lomachenko, it was kind of a similar thing, right? | ||
Like, that made him. | ||
That's what made his star rise. | ||
And then you came along and... | ||
Took the star. | ||
Yeah, you took the star. | ||
You ruined the party. | ||
But what do you think is the big fight in that division? | ||
Is it Gervante? | ||
I think Haney or Tank. | ||
They're the big names. | ||
Either one. | ||
Either one. | ||
Now. | ||
They're all fighting. | ||
It's really interesting because everyone's on kind of the same schedule. | ||
Yeah, which is fantastic. | ||
Everyone's fighting within a month. | ||
We started it. | ||
I started the big fight, you know, and I gave a fight of the year. | ||
Then I was at the Haney fight, watching ringside, and we had our little chat as well after the fight with the cameras there, which was all respect, you know. | ||
And then I was at the tank fight as well, and I know he walked past. | ||
He could see me there with the... | ||
The cameras and everyone trying to get interviews and he wants nothing to do with it. | ||
We'll see now. | ||
The balls in my court, I get to pick but also they need to present now. | ||
Who wants to fight? | ||
It's got to be presented now. | ||
Did they get a medical analysis of Gervonta's hand? | ||
I'm not sure yet. | ||
Yeah, so that there is probably going to be an issue. | ||
But I hope that the hand is okay. | ||
Yeah, hopefully it's not a break. | ||
Because if we do go with Tank, you know, I don't want no more excuses. | ||
I'm sick of hearing excuses from these guys. | ||
Yeah, well, that's to me, well, either way, Haney's amazing too. | ||
It'd be a fantastic fighter. | ||
They're great fighters. | ||
Lope is a great fighter as well. | ||
Yes, yes. | ||
I'm so privileged to be the champion right now at this division. | ||
135 pounds is the hottest division in the world. | ||
It really is. | ||
So to be ruling the emperor at the division. | ||
The emperor. | ||
Because you've got the four kings. | ||
Yes. | ||
We came out with a cool little thing that they can be the four kings, but the emperor in our ways are more. | ||
I like it. | ||
Now, when you look at that division, it's arguable that that's the most stacked division in boxing. | ||
With Lomachenko, is he going to drop down to 130 or is he going to remain at 135? | ||
Because he's the smallest guy in the division, right? | ||
Yeah, he's the smallest guy. | ||
Obviously, he's come from 126, 130. And I give him a lot of respect because he brought most of them belts to the Lopez fight. | ||
Yeah. | ||
So, you know, he does deserve a shot as well. | ||
But as well, he did lose to Lopez. | ||
He's fighting the mix. | ||
He's in soon, right? | ||
This weekend. | ||
Oh, this weekend. | ||
Against Richard Comey, who was the one that Lopez knocked out in round two to capture his first title. | ||
Okay, so he's fighting another 135-pound fight. | ||
Is it a 10-rounder or is it a 12-rounder? | ||
I believe it's a 12-rounder non-title fight. | ||
Because I know that he had talked after the Lopez fight about possibly going back down to 130. He was another one. | ||
He thought he won that fight, which is crazy. | ||
Lopez won that fight. | ||
As much as the lead up, I was taking shots at Lopez and saying, oh, it's a close fight, you know, maybe a draw. | ||
He was injured, whatever it was, but he did win the fight. | ||
Yeah, I just, I mean, to deny that Lopez controlled most of the fight seems to me to be kind of silly. | ||
And to hear from Lomachenko was kind of surprising. | ||
I thought. | ||
And again, too, he came out with, you know, the excuses, which it made him look worse because he put out the videos of the highlights and showed the world, look what I did, but the world saw. | ||
Yeah. | ||
See, I've always been that. | ||
You lose. | ||
Yeah. | ||
If it comes one day, take it on the chin. | ||
You beat me. | ||
You know, take it like a man. | ||
These guys, they can't accept it. | ||
I want a fighter to come out of a fight and then put the highlights of his opponent punching him in the face. | ||
Yeah, punch the shit out of him. | ||
Nobody ever does that. | ||
No. | ||
We saw that part too, man. | ||
Yeah, well, the world saw it, and that's why with Lopez coming out and saying, I won the fight, the whole world, whatever, saw it, blah, blah, blah. | ||
I said, man, the whole world saw this. | ||
The arena, your own fans are booing you now. | ||
That's a crazy thing too, because when I walked inside that arena, I was getting booed like crazy. | ||
Yeah, but that's the thing about Brooklyn, man. | ||
If you're fighting your Brooklyn fighter, you're going to get booed. | ||
But if you beat them, they're going to cheer you. | ||
unidentified
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They're going to applaud. | |
They're going to cheer you. | ||
You won them all. | ||
And that's what I did. | ||
I stood on that ring before I entered the ropes inside, and I just stared at them like a gladiator, like a Roman gladiator, like a Spartan warrior. | ||
I could see him booing there, doing all types of stuff. | ||
I said, okay, you boo me now, but I tell you, by the end of this fight, you're going to applaud. | ||
And when that round 12 was done, I stood on the ropes, and I'm bleeding, and Eddie Hearns there clapping like you couldn't believe it, like a little kid. | ||
And I'm wiping the blood off my face and I'm showing the crowd and say, this is for you guys. | ||
They're going crazy. | ||
I'm old school. | ||
You talked about the difficulty in coming from Australia and getting over here and competing. | ||
Do you think that you'll set up your next training camp here and bring everybody over in advance? | ||
Would that make it easier if you're fighting here? | ||
Or do you think you could lure somebody to Australia for a big money fight? | ||
I mean, you'd probably sell out a fucking giant arena in Australia right now, right? | ||
Australia is the plan. | ||
You know, I think I've earned that. | ||
I deserve that. | ||
I've been on the race since 2017. Yeah, you need one at home, right? | ||
I need one at home. | ||
And look, you've got the beautiful Marvel Stadium. | ||
They had Adesanya and Whittaker there. | ||
Yeah. | ||
You know, that there will be 70,000, 80,000 people. | ||
They'll be packed to the rafters, you know. | ||
unidentified
|
Melbourne. | |
Melbourne is fantastic because there's 600,000 Greeks. | ||
It's the second biggest Greek population outside of Athens. | ||
Really? | ||
So, me being such a proud Greek, they're going nuts back home. | ||
They are smashing every plate they have. | ||
You know, it's been crazy. | ||
So that is the plan. | ||
I know Heaney's up for it. | ||
I know Lomachenko is up for it. | ||
Tank, I don't know if he wants to come to Australia. | ||
I don't even know if he can get into Australia, to be honest. | ||
Why's that? | ||
Well, he has a lot of certain charges on himself. | ||
Oh, does he? | ||
So I don't know if he can get in there, but we'll see. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Do you have a preference, the fight that you think would be the bigger fight? | ||
All of them, yeah. | ||
Two of them have had their fights. | ||
They show a lot because I was looking for excitement, entertainment. | ||
I feel like I put a lot of pressure. | ||
My presence just being there. | ||
I kind of feel bad for the Haney-Diaz fight work because when I rocked up into Vegas, it was all about me. | ||
I kind of feel bad. | ||
Even when they had their post-fight press conference, they wanted me in there. | ||
I said, no, I'm not going in there because it's their time. | ||
Let them enjoy their moment. | ||
I watched that fight for the first time today in the gym. | ||
It was a good fight. | ||
He's very sharp, painy, he boxes very nice, but Diaz brought it too. | ||
Diaz made him work. | ||
Diaz is not a natural 135 pounder. | ||
He's small. | ||
So when you put someone like me, who's fast and strong and a lot bigger, it's a different story. | ||
Well, it's an exciting matchup with either one of those three. | ||
It really is. | ||
The compelling thing about Lomachenko is Lomachenko's defeat to Lopez was kind of shocking to a lot of people. | ||
And having you just beating Lopez, he has the opportunity to kind of get it back a little. | ||
Get one back, yeah. | ||
Yeah, if he could get you. | ||
And also, he's a giant name. | ||
Yeah, he really is. | ||
And again, any one of these three guys in Australia at Marvel Stadium is going to be a sold-out attendance. | ||
Yeah. | ||
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I'm excited. | |
It's a beautiful arena. | ||
That arena is beautiful and the way it's set where it can be open for the undercard and the co-main and then on the main event to be closed. | ||
I've already envisioned that. | ||
And you hear all the sound even more because it echoes off the ceiling. | ||
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It's like a night time for the broadcaster in America. | |
Listen man, I'd love to go. | ||
I've got to get you there. | ||
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We've got to get you there. | |
I'd love to go but that 16-hour flight can kiss my ass. | ||
Yeah, it is hard. | ||
And I got it tonight. | ||
I'm flying back home tonight. | ||
I've done it a bunch of times. | ||
I did a bunch of UFC cards over there. | ||
It's rough. | ||
And you're just bewildered for weeks afterwards. | ||
You're so confused. | ||
And I wanted to talk to you about that. | ||
What is that like when you do your preparation and then you come over here for a fight? | ||
How much time do you have to give yourself? | ||
Usually, in my last fights, I've been here for eight weeks, ten weeks. | ||
At points, I'd bring my whole family, my kids over. | ||
But for the start of this preparation, I was here for four months before he tested positive for COVID. I was here by myself. | ||
And then my father and my Australian coach came over. | ||
So we had the preparation here. | ||
We were accustomed to the time difference. | ||
Everything was perfect. | ||
Then when he tested positive for COVID, I said, I don't know how long he's going to be until he's ready to get inside them ropes again. | ||
It's going to take forever. | ||
I can't just stop my life. | ||
I've got to get back home. | ||
I've got to go be with my kids. | ||
I've got to be a father. | ||
So we flew back home. | ||
We've done that bloody quarantine for two weeks, which is not easy. | ||
And then, you know, continued preparation in Australia. | ||
Then I flew back two and a half weeks out. | ||
That's not a lot. | ||
So it wasn't a lot, but... | ||
I knew because I've done this trip so many times that my body would be accustomed. | ||
Is it harder to go back there or to come over here? | ||
It's harder to go back. | ||
They say that. | ||
I've heard that. | ||
Someone's trying to explain that to me and I don't understand it. | ||
I found that coming here, because you don't lose any time, you literally leave 10 in the morning in Australia. | ||
And by the time you get here, it's still the same day, 6 or 7 in the morning. | ||
Which is fucking crazy. | ||
It's unbelievable. | ||
It's like I could train. | ||
I could train. | ||
I've thought about this. | ||
How mad I am with my training. | ||
I could train just before I get on that flight and I can get to LA and I can train again. | ||
So that means I've done two sessions and lost no time. | ||
It's unbelievable. | ||
Yeah, that is crazy. | ||
And when you do that, do you try to train the moment you land, just to try to kill a jet lag? | ||
I need to train, I need to sweat. | ||
Straight away. | ||
I go to bed, I have a good sleep, and I'm up, I feel great. | ||
That seems the only way to settle it, is a hard workout, right? | ||
Yeah, you need to have the hard workout, and I've told guys coming over, because I've done it so many times, I said, as soon as you land, don't sleep. | ||
As much as you want to sleep, do not sleep. | ||
Just do a light session. | ||
Just shut that box for three or four rounds. | ||
Go for a little jog. | ||
Just get something going. | ||
Your body can start to tick over. | ||
It's crazy how the body is to think that a small workout like that can get you set and help with the jet lag. | ||
Yeah, there's something about the circadian rhythm, apparently, that gets reset by a brutal workout. | ||
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It's unbelievable. | |
Yeah, and they also say you should try to not eat on the flight, which I've never done. | ||
Yeah, well, the plain food, yeah. | ||
I don't touch that anyway, because that stuff is brutal. | ||
Do you bring your own food? | ||
I bring, yeah, small snacks and I hydrate a lot. | ||
Yeah. | ||
So, coming over, you know, I was hydrating with the stuff that I take non-stop. | ||
You know, like I had maybe three, four liters on that flight. | ||
Oh my God, you must be hanging every five minutes. | ||
And I was up and down. | ||
Once it hit, I was like, oh man. | ||
My Australian coach is looking at me and goes, again? | ||
Far out. | ||
It was only like 10 minutes ago. | ||
That's funny. | ||
And the people in the painting, this guy, right? | ||
Why does he keep going up and down to the toilet? | ||
He's doing coke in the bathroom. | ||
Doing something, yeah. | ||
Are you very strict with your diet? | ||
Very strict. | ||
Yeah? | ||
Very strict. | ||
What's a normal meal like for you? | ||
I have a high protein, so my chicken, my turkey, lean beef, and then I like my complex carbs, my sweet potato, my pumpkin, some brown rice, some quinoa, and then from there... | ||
My salad, my veggies, and that's it, yeah. | ||
Clean, super clean. | ||
Do you have someone prepare meals for you? | ||
Not really. | ||
My wife, obviously, when we're at home together, but when I'm here, I'm doing most of it myself, and I enjoy it. | ||
You know, I love the aspect of the nutrition, you know, eating right, getting the right fuel into your body, because a lot of fighters, they train unbelievable, but all of a sudden they stuff up on the nutrition. | ||
They stuff up with The post weigh-in, the right meals. | ||
Straight after the weigh-in, I had my hydration and I had a meal ready to go. | ||
My turkey, my avocado, the good fats, the good protein. | ||
I had to put all the good stuff back into me. | ||
Now, have you worked with the nutrition to develop this meal plan? | ||
Very early in my career, I think I was still an amateur. | ||
I did get to a nutritionist, learn a couple facts, and then the rest was just my own study, trial and error. | ||
You know, I'd sit there and, you know, I'd have a big sparring session, you know, on a certain date, and I'd work on things leading into that sparring session, see how I felt. | ||
You can have a nutritionist, you can have a dietitian team, but it depends how your body feels. | ||
It might work for you, it might not work for me. | ||
I've come to a point where I know exactly what I've got to do to make the weight, to have the right energy. | ||
But again, I'm always open to learn. | ||
That's why I study so much on it, and I'm always open to learn more and more. | ||
And how did you come to turkey and chicken? | ||
Did you try seafood? | ||
Do you eat meat, like red meat? | ||
I do. | ||
I eat red meat. | ||
I just love turkey and chicken, the high protein about it. | ||
It just sits good in my stomach. | ||
But as well, a lot of prawns as well. | ||
Probs? | ||
Yeah, because they're high protein, low calorie. | ||
So that there, I was having a fair bit leading into this fight and it was unbelievable with the weight. | ||
Best I've ever felt, easiest I've ever made weight. | ||
What's like the heaviest you ever get? | ||
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Probably 147. Oh, that's not bad at all. | |
I checked my weight two days ago and obviously I've been eating a little bit more now because I just had a big win. | ||
I think I was like 140. I was like 144. Yeah, so like nine pounds. | ||
Not bad. | ||
It's crazy. | ||
I could make the weight. | ||
That's why I said to Eddie, if you want to put me on, pull one of these guys out. | ||
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You were really serious. | |
I was serious. | ||
Because you got stitches. | ||
I don't know about the stitches. | ||
Let it open up. | ||
Makes the fight even better. | ||
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It's hilarious. | |
Imagine if you actually did that. | ||
Imagine if like someone's opponent fell out and you had to step in on that short of notice. | ||
Imagine using the same fight shorts full of blood. | ||
Lapers' blood, my blood, whoever I was going to fight their blood. | ||
Boy, that would be a great story. | ||
And also, maximize your time before you have to go back home. | ||
Well, you might as well. | ||
You've got that big trip, so if you can get two fights in, you can make the trip worth it. | ||
Yeah, for sure. | ||
Do you take any supplements, vitamins, anything like that? | ||
A lot of vitamins, yeah. | ||
My glutamine, my immune boosters, my vitamin Cs, my B12s, my zinc, fish oils, all the good stuff. | ||
And have you learned this from nutritionists or is this trial and error as well? | ||
Again, trial and error. | ||
Maybe research online? | ||
Research, trial and error. | ||
Listen to other athletes. | ||
Listen to other fighters. | ||
See how it feels. | ||
Introduce it. | ||
If it doesn't feel good, take it out. | ||
If it feels good, leave it. | ||
Here you are now. | ||
You've just come off this huge win. | ||
When you're preparing for another fight, it's going to be a few months at least. | ||
What do you do in the meantime? | ||
Do you go back to work and work on technical aspects of your game? | ||
Do you do strength and conditioning? | ||
Do you do all the above? | ||
What do you do in the downtime? | ||
A bit of everything. | ||
My whole theory and thing about it is, every day I'm going to get better and better. | ||
I was in the gym this morning before we were here. | ||
I love it. | ||
I love training. | ||
The big thing now is to continue my strength conditioning, get a little bit bigger, get a little bit stronger. | ||
I have room and time to be able to get bigger. | ||
I make the weight very easy, but still keep my speed, my explosive snap and power because that is a big factor in my game. | ||
That's one thing I never want to lose. | ||
Perfecting the punches a little bit more. | ||
You know, work on that shot that I landed on Lopez in round one. | ||
If I threw it maybe a little bit more with an angle, I might have put him to sleep at that moment. | ||
So, we keep working. | ||
There's so much more to do. | ||
You know, in that fight, the world might have thought that they've seen the best of Kambosis, but, you know, for me, I feel like that was 15%. | ||
There was so much more to go. | ||
Yeah, honestly, there was moments in that fight where I said, come on, throw that shot, throw that shot, and they weren't coming off. | ||
So, I know that there is a lot more, but... | ||
Once I sit down and watch the fight, I'll be able to analyze it even more and game plan and get the notebook out and go through it all. | ||
Start writing the mistakes. | ||
It's interesting because that is the mentality that makes a true champion. | ||
Someone who's never satisfied with their performance and always wants to do better. | ||
It is. | ||
I'm never content. | ||
I just won the Undisputed Championship. | ||
I had one celebration drink. | ||
I have been so focused. | ||
I've been in Vegas. | ||
I've been in LA. I'm here now. | ||
Not one celebration drink. | ||
That's the kind of fighter I am and dedicated to this sport. | ||
You got the Ring Magazine belt, which is by many people, they think that that's probably the most unbiased of the belts. | ||
Because if you look at the regulatory bodies, they all have their own mandatory challengers, and there's a lot of shenanigans that go on with that. | ||
So now you have the IBF, you have the WBO, and you have the Ring Magazine title? | ||
I have... | ||
I have the IBF, WBO, Ring Magazine, WBA super title which is the best WBA belt you can get and I also have the WBC franchise belt which to me is a super title as well. | ||
I know Haney has a WBC belt and the way the WBC has set this up is You got a super champion, a guy who, you know, cannot have any mandatories, can be able to maneuver, you know, and have options to do what they want to do, which I like, because the last thing you want to do is be caught up in a mandatory where it doesn't make sense. | ||
You know, I can maneuver where I have to. | ||
How did you get to become a super champion? | ||
How does that work? | ||
Well, Lopez was a super champion. | ||
He had everything. | ||
How does one become a super champion? | ||
I think it's when you've defended the belt certain times, they elevate you to a point. | ||
Seems odd, right? | ||
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It is. | |
You know, I'm old school. | ||
I'm old school and I love all the belts. | ||
They're my pride now. | ||
They're like my kids now. | ||
It's like I've got five new kids. | ||
But I'm old school and if they can eventually just have one champion be recognized and that ring magazine does do that. | ||
The ring magazine is... | ||
You're the leading champion. | ||
You're the number one in the division and that's what I am right now. | ||
But I love all the belts too. | ||
I respect that. | ||
And it looks so cool to have all these beautiful belts. | ||
Oh, yeah. | ||
There's nothing better than watching a guy walk to the ring, just showered in belts when he wins. | ||
You know, you're draping them all over you. | ||
Everywhere, yeah. | ||
The problem is now trying to get back home with all these belts. | ||
It's like, it's a mission. | ||
Do you have to check them? | ||
I would never check those fucking things. | ||
No, I'm taking them with me. | ||
I'm boarding them with me. | ||
And we get to the airport, and even yesterday, we get to the airport in LA, and as we're going through customs, they open them up, they check them. | ||
Okay, okay, there's another one. | ||
Check it. | ||
Then the bag comes. | ||
There's another one. | ||
How many did you get? | ||
A fair few. | ||
That's part of my entourage now. | ||
Yeah, for sure. | ||
I've worked hard to get them. | ||
Like I said, this is not the end. | ||
This is going to be a long reign. | ||
It's 15% of what the world saw. | ||
Well, enjoy it and take it in because you deserve every minute of it. | ||
So you say you work on a little bit of everything, but talk me through a typical day in training. | ||
Are you working out twice a day? | ||
Do you do strength and conditioning, road work? | ||
What's a normal day for you? | ||
Usually three sessions a day. | ||
Three sessions? | ||
Yeah, that's how I feel. | ||
That's why I have that conditioning. | ||
I have my strength conditioning early in the morning. | ||
And what would that consist of? | ||
All types of things. | ||
Your resistance, your heavy lifts, your load work where you're going down on a certain count. | ||
As you get closer to the fight, your resistance bands and the speed work, the explosive power. | ||
Your speed and agility work, part of that shrink conditioning cycle in the morning. | ||
And then we go to our boxing in the afternoon, early afternoon, where you're doing your pad work, your sparring, your bag work, your game planning, your shadow boxing, everything that is involved, you know, to get to that level of the top. | ||
And then later at night, I'm running. | ||
I'm on the road. | ||
I'm doing my road work. | ||
I love the roadwork, especially at the end, because you've put in the hard work to get up again and say, okay, I've got to do my roadwork now. | ||
Even though I'm fit, I'm ready. | ||
Push a little bit more. | ||
And my trainers have to hold me back sometimes. | ||
They're like, don't do it. | ||
You're ready. | ||
But I know how my body feels and I know what it takes to get to that next level. | ||
Three sessions a day is the usual. | ||
Did you develop this schedule of three sessions a day? | ||
Again, trial and error. | ||
A lot of trial and error. | ||
As a young amateur, you start off with one session a day and you see the professionals in the gym when you're watching them and idolize these guys. | ||
You know, you say, okay, they're training twice a day. | ||
I've got to do two sessions a day. | ||
So you get that. | ||
And then as you get to the next level, the elite level, you think, no, I need to do more work. | ||
I need to get better and better. | ||
You know, Manny Pacquiao as well. | ||
He puts in two, three a day. | ||
Two, three a day every day? | ||
Yeah, pretty much every day. | ||
When you do your strength and conditioning, do you work with a physical trainer? | ||
I've got a strength conditioning coach, yeah. | ||
Yeah, Mirawani from Ethos Performance. | ||
They've got a couple UFC guys that you would know. | ||
Shui, Bam Bam, two of us. | ||
Oh, beautiful. | ||
To us and Pedro. | ||
He's fighting next weekend? | ||
Yeah, yeah. | ||
Or this weekend, coming up. | ||
I wish I could go. | ||
Yeah, I would have loved to be there, but I need to get home. | ||
Yeah, I get it. | ||
I get it. | ||
They're missing Dad and Mum, so... | ||
We've got some good guys. | ||
We've got a really good team out there. | ||
The strength and conditioning is very important. | ||
Massive aspect of the game. | ||
Do you do different work when you're not in camp versus when you're in camp in terms of strength and conditioning? | ||
Do you have specific stuff you do to ramp up for a fight? | ||
Now, obviously, the fight is done. | ||
My goal is to get back and do heavier lifts, build that more strength, push my body to the next level. | ||
And we got all the data and we got everything from every past fight that I've been working with this team. | ||
And we can see the figures continually go up. | ||
Now, if them numbers and figures didn't go up in the next preparation, I don't feel right because I'm always trying to get better and better every day. | ||
So we'll put in the heavy strength work now to build that power, to build that next level numbers. | ||
And then as the camp progresses, the date will get locked in, then we start to pinpoint, okay, we're sparring on these certain dates. | ||
We need more speed here. | ||
We need more explosiveness in this part. | ||
We maneuver everything as the fight gets locked in as we go through camp. | ||
Is there any concern when you're doing the strength and conditioning that you might put on too much weight? | ||
Not really. | ||
No? | ||
No, I trust the team and my body type never really blows out too much. | ||
I can't really put on too much mass amount of weight and muscle. | ||
So I'm always very confident that no matter what, I will make the weight comfortably. | ||
Especially when you're doing three a day. | ||
Yeah, you can see it. | ||
That's right. | ||
The strength conditioning is one aspect, but when you're boxing and you're losing so many calories and then you're running on the road doing your 45 minute to one hour road work, you're always going to be in that peak condition. | ||
The body type is going to be very similar. | ||
Do you have specific foods that you eat right post-workout to try to recover? | ||
Because when you're training three a day, one of the most important things is refueling your muscles before you give it a go again in a couple hours. | ||
I used to have obviously your protein shakes and all the good stuff to get back into you, but I took it out of my system, the protein. | ||
I thought, you know what? | ||
I don't need it. | ||
My body feels great. | ||
There was a time where I missed it for a few times and I go, you know what? | ||
I feel good. | ||
I feel better. | ||
So I took that out. | ||
I'd rather have the good food, the eggs, the spinach, the broccoli, the veggies. | ||
I still put in my glutamine with my hydration because it's very important to get the lactic gases and keep the hydration up. | ||
But real food, my body's never looked better and I'm on real food. | ||
Yeah, I agree with you on the real food thing. | ||
I think the best thing about protein shakes is when you're on the go and you need to get calories, and you need protein, and you could down a shake, but I really prefer real food too, and I think I prefer that athletes eat real food. | ||
Well the thing is too, when you're a professional and you're working non-stop in the gym and this is your craft, I don't have to go to a job, I don't have other work. | ||
So you take the time, you use your time management and I learned that from Manny Pacquiao too, time management is very important. | ||
The quasi senator. | ||
He'll come straight from the Senate in his suit. | ||
Right to the gym. | ||
Straight into the gym. | ||
That's crazy. | ||
Hand wraps are on, into the rounds. | ||
That's crazy. | ||
So the time management is very important and making sure that you have the food, the prep. | ||
You finish your session, get the right food into you. | ||
Have the vitamins and everything that you take. | ||
Do you eat a lot of fruit? | ||
Do you eat fruit pre-workout at all? | ||
I do have a fair bit of fruit. | ||
Your watermelons, your antioxidant, your berries, your blueberries, your strawberries, your raspberries, even coconut meat. | ||
I love the coconut meat. | ||
The good fats, the good stuff into you. | ||
Your pineapple. | ||
Everything is a formula to get to this position. | ||
And this is again all stuff that you've tweaked over time. | ||
Yeah, I learnt myself trial and error. | ||
You know, I'll try something and say, no, I don't feel good with that. | ||
Don't need it. | ||
This, okay, that's beautiful. | ||
I need it. | ||
My weight, I see where my weight bounces too. | ||
Some certain things you take and, you know, put into your system and, you know, the weight will fluctuate too high. | ||
It's okay. | ||
No, don't need that. | ||
Now, when it comes to recovery, when you're doing these kind of brutal workouts and you're doing something like that three times a day, do you do anything for recovery, like in terms of massage, sauna, ice baths? | ||
We do our massages, but the biggest thing I'm on is three to four times a week, I'm in the Epsom bath. | ||
Hot bath, Epsom salts. | ||
I know that, you know, the ice baths are a big thing. | ||
But, you know, I just can't put myself in that ice. | ||
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Really? | |
It's just too cold. | ||
Yeah, I just hate it. | ||
I used to do it as a young kid. | ||
As an amateur, I used to love it. | ||
But I think because I got so hooked on the Epsom salt baths and the heat, that my body can't deal with the cold now. | ||
Really? | ||
You know, so that. | ||
But again, I do try to have the cold showers. | ||
You know, I started learning a little bit more about Wim Hof. | ||
You know, seeing the cold, start with the cold showers and you start to get better and better with it. | ||
Yeah, but Wim Hof would tell you you needed to go into the plunge. | ||
Yeah, yeah. | ||
So that's what you said. | ||
Look, you guys start with the showers first and then you make your way. | ||
So hopefully in another couple of weeks, I'll be able to get back in the cold baths. | ||
It's interesting that you used to do it. | ||
Yeah, it's crazy. | ||
As an amateur, I'll do it. | ||
And when I was in Sydney, we got the baths there in the gym. | ||
This gym is unbelievable. | ||
It's just boxing. | ||
And they've set up actually a hot bath and a cold bath with an ice machine and everything pretty much for me. | ||
Oh, nice. | ||
And after a session, they got it set up. | ||
Like, hey, it'll be easy. | ||
It'll be all right. | ||
No problem. | ||
But I hadn't done it for a while, for a long time actually. | ||
Yeah. | ||
When I got in there, I was in there for about 30 seconds and I'm like, hyperventilating. | ||
I go, I've got to get out. | ||
I've got to actually get out. | ||
You're a beast. | ||
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What's wrong? | |
Everyone's like, what's wrong with you? | ||
You've fought all these guys. | ||
I said, I don't care about that. | ||
I go, I am getting out of this bath. | ||
I don't care. | ||
I go, I put my body for enough pain. | ||
I go, this ain't going to do nothing. | ||
Get me out of here. | ||
I went home and had an Epson bath. | ||
I don't know, man. | ||
I'm telling you. | ||
It helps you recover. | ||
I know it sucks. | ||
It sucks while you do it. | ||
I do the cryotherapy as well. | ||
That's good. | ||
Yeah, I do that. | ||
That there is no problem. | ||
The three minutes, I can do that. | ||
I feel like I've done cryotherapy and I've done the cold plunge and I think the cold plunge is superior. | ||
I really do. | ||
Yeah, it is. | ||
It's just like when you get to that 33, 34 degree temperature and you go neck deep, holy shit. | ||
You're making me cold right now just thinking about it. | ||
I'm thinking of that. | ||
I think I'm traumatized. | ||
I'm thinking of that ice bath in the gym. | ||
My favorite is sauna straight to ice baths, back to sauna. | ||
That's the best because you get to the sauna to the point where you just can't be in there anymore. | ||
Like 20 minutes in, I do like 185. 20 minutes in at 185 degrees Fahrenheit and then right into the cold plunge, freeze my dick off for like three minutes and then back to the sauna. | ||
When you get back to the sauna, that 185 feels like nothing. | ||
Like nothing. | ||
The old school, you know, in Russia and the Soviet Union, they all do that. | ||
I've seen that firsthand. | ||
I actually did it as an amateur. | ||
We were in Russia fighting in the amateurs and they took us to the mountains with the snow and they had this little, you know, hut with a sauna in there. | ||
I said, wow, this is crazy. | ||
So we did the sauna and we run straight out into the snow and do our angels in the snow and back in the sauna. | ||
Yeah, they knew what they were doing, man. | ||
You know, the first time I found out about that was, do you know who Fedor Emelianenko is? | ||
Yes. | ||
Yeah, so Fedor, we used to watch him prepare in Russia, and Fedor's arguably, if not the greatest heavyweight of all time, definitely in the argument of one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. | ||
He's probably three guys you could make that argument about, and Fedor's one of them. | ||
He might be the best. | ||
But he would do, they would call it a banya in the Soviet Union or in Russia. | ||
And they'd do the hot bath and they'd do the cold plunge, the hot bath. | ||
And I remember thinking about that. | ||
I'm like, this guy, everything he does is old school and yet he's dominating everybody. | ||
He does kettlebells for his workouts and conditioning. | ||
Yeah, there they are. | ||
Yeah, so they would, I mean, Russia's cold as fuck. | ||
Look at that. | ||
They'd get in that freezing cold water. | ||
And then they would go sauna to that, back and forth. | ||
There's something about that... | ||
Oh, the song is back there? | ||
Yeah. | ||
There's something about that going back and forth that really just... | ||
It does something to you that makes you feel fantastic after workouts. | ||
It's just... | ||
I think, yeah, with the way the body is, I think from going to the cold and then the heat, it just relaxes the muscles, gets the lactic acids out. | ||
Yeah. | ||
I think I need to introduce the cold. | ||
Yeah, you gotta get in there, buddy. | ||
I just love the Epsom salts, the heat. | ||
Oh, I love that too. | ||
I swear, the weight management is great by doing it, but if I add that in there as well. | ||
You know what's phenomenal? | ||
Have you ever done a sensory deprivation tank? | ||
I have. | ||
I actually done two of them before I came to the US. Really? | ||
And it was unbelievable. | ||
That's all Epsom salts too. | ||
So it's not just good for the brain to think and float and relax, but it's amazing for your muscles because there's so much salt in there. | ||
Way more than a regular Epsom bath. | ||
I think 400 kilos. | ||
There's a lot of salt in there. | ||
The first one I did, you know, they told me that your mind will wander. | ||
And, you know, I went in there and trying to relax and, you know, I could hear the music and then they turned the music off. | ||
So you let your brain, you know, relax. | ||
And then by the end, I was like, I can't just switch off. | ||
I just want to switch off. | ||
All of a sudden, the music went back on to say that there's 10 more minutes to go. | ||
And just boom, just switched off. | ||
And all of a sudden it's like, time. | ||
So that was the first one. | ||
I go, okay, this is great. | ||
So then the second one, you know, I really felt it. | ||
I really switched off, you know, let the might wonder. | ||
And I think in vision, I was manifesting, you know, the belts winning this fight. | ||
So I've seen it. | ||
It was amazing. | ||
Yeah, that's the thing about it is that it takes a while to get relaxed. | ||
But if you do it a bunch of times, then you become accustomed to it. | ||
But as far as a guy like you trying to envision winning titles and fighting, I think it's a phenomenal tool. | ||
It's a phenomenal tool for anybody that is working on visualization because you're alone in the total silence, total darkness. | ||
You're floating. | ||
You don't even feel anything. | ||
I'm very big on manifesting and visualizing it. | ||
Like my room in New York, it was overlooking Madison Square Garden. | ||
I could see it. | ||
Oh, wow. | ||
And literally every night I'm just there looking and I go, that's where I'm doing history. | ||
That's my history right there. | ||
I'm meant to be here. | ||
And literally before the fight, I'm there looking at it and I go, okay, that's the place. | ||
But another little trick that I do is, you know, you've got my diary that I write every day. | ||
I'd write three things that, you know, What I'm doing it for, what it means most. | ||
Obviously, every time, my kids, my kids, but, you know, you're writing for your legacy, for, you know, your country, all the little things that, first thing in the morning, you're having your coffee, you write it down, it just sets me in a right path. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Did you learn to do that? | ||
Is that something that was taught to you? | ||
I believe it was Sugar Ray Leonard that was doing it as well. | ||
I saw it somewhere and I go, you know what? | ||
This was leading into my well-taught eliminator. | ||
I said, okay, I'm going to try that. | ||
I'm going to do that. | ||
Let me see if it works. | ||
And just writing it down kicks off the day in a good place. | ||
But the visualizing and manifesting and seeing it before it actually happens from a young kid, I feel like I've always had this sixth sense and I could just see it. | ||
Really? | ||
Yeah. | ||
So have you always been a kid that's been very focused on very specific goals? | ||
I have been, yeah, always from a young kid. | ||
I put my brain and my focus onto something I can achieve and I can do it. | ||
You know, when I was young, you know, with obviously my family, there was no young kids around us. | ||
You know, I was born and then my sister came, you know, many years later. | ||
There was no cousins. | ||
I was always hanging out with the older crowd and the parents and my parents' friends. | ||
So I think just from that young kid, that age, you become a little bit more mature and you realize that you can visualize things. | ||
I think something from there has transpired to where I am now as well. | ||
When did you first think that you were going to become a boxer? | ||
Look, I fell into boxing by luck. | ||
It really was. | ||
It was by luck. | ||
It wasn't because my father was a fighter. | ||
You know, it was by luck. | ||
I was playing rugby, you know, back in Australia, you know, as a 10, 11-year-old, you know, from starting at age 6. That's all I wanted to do in my life. | ||
I wanted to be a footy player. | ||
But I was overweight. | ||
I was putting on a lot of weight. | ||
So in the off-season, my dad said, we've got to do something here. | ||
You're not going to be able to cut it next year. | ||
You're not going to make the A squad. | ||
I said, alright. | ||
Because we live not far from the beach, we'll do nippers. | ||
What's a nipper? | ||
So nippers is beach running. | ||
Why do you call it nippers? | ||
I don't know. | ||
All my Aussie fans and people watching will be saying, okay, nippers. | ||
unidentified
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Hell yeah! | |
Nippers! | ||
Nippers! | ||
You don't know what nippers are? | ||
Come on Joe! | ||
So I said, no way, you're not going to see this big 11-year-old obese kid running down the beach, you know, the fat ziggler and no chance. | ||
He goes, what about boxing? | ||
You like the Rocky movies? | ||
I said, yeah, let's try it out. | ||
So to get to the gym, we went down to the gym, the local community, PCYC, they say, gym. | ||
Walking up to the stairs, the smell of the old school gym. | ||
You can smell the blood in there. | ||
Most kids turn around and say, no way. | ||
Especially being overweight and being bullied his whole life. | ||
But I walked in there. | ||
I thought at home, I go, wow, this is amazing. | ||
unidentified
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Really? | |
So let's do it. | ||
Right away? | ||
Right away. | ||
So I put the gloves on. | ||
My dad said, hey, you're on your own. | ||
And that's the kind of little battles and little tricks that he would do. | ||
So you're on your own. | ||
I'll be back. | ||
I'll see when I pick you up. | ||
I fell in love with the sport. | ||
Wow, right away? | ||
Right away. | ||
All of a sudden, I lost all this weight. | ||
You know, I went down to, say from 135 pounds, I probably went down to like 120, maybe a little bit less, 118. So, everything changed. | ||
You know, the bullying kind of stopped. | ||
You know, my whole confidence grew. | ||
My footy got better. | ||
All of a sudden, instead of coming last, you know, in whatever we did, I was coming first. | ||
So all of a sudden, you know, that passion for boxing, that real combat took over. | ||
So as I went back to the next year for rugby, you know, I was playing really good rugby and I got picked for a representative team. | ||
But at the same time I was boxing and, you know, I made the state championships, the team, And I just, I still love both, but boxing was everything I wanted to do, and I wanted to take that to the next level. | ||
So with the representative team, they sat us down, the coaches sat us down, and they said, okay, you'll be training Monday, Wednesday, Friday. | ||
And straight away I said, okay, Monday, Wednesday, Friday is when I have boxing on. | ||
That's not going to work. | ||
So I sat in the car with my father on the way home, had all the footy training gear, the rugby training gear, and He goes, how good is this? | ||
Something you want to do your whole life? | ||
He knew straight away. | ||
He could see my expression on my face. | ||
I said, yeah, but didn't you hear? | ||
I said, what? | ||
He knew already. | ||
He said, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that's boxing. | ||
I said, yeah, well, you're going to have to make a decision. | ||
He goes, remember I was telling you about the crossroads? | ||
I go, I know what it is now, the crossroads. | ||
I said, this is like 11, 12 years of age. | ||
So you guys, look, it's the weekend now. | ||
I'm going to give you the weekend to think about it. | ||
Come Monday, after I finish work, I want to see what bag's going to be here, the boxing bag or the footy bag, and we'll go where you want to go, where your heart is. | ||
So you make the decision. | ||
So I thought about it. | ||
I said, no, I'm going to be a fighter. | ||
You know, and my heart was there. | ||
unidentified
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Come Monday, boxing bag, boxing gloves, let's go. | |
How did your rugby coach handle that? | ||
Look, they were upset because they saw how dedicated I was and what a good player I was, but they understood it because they knew that boxing was there and that's how I'd lost all that weight and become a good player. | ||
So they said, look, whatever he wants to do, the kid made his decision. | ||
We support him. | ||
Obviously, they'll be looking at this now saying, wow, he did. | ||
He went all the way and won the belts. | ||
What a crazy story. | ||
That is a crazy story. | ||
So how old were you when you had your first amateur fight? | ||
Yeah, 11, 12. My first amateur fight. | ||
unidentified
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Right around that? | |
Yeah, right around there. | ||
So they jumped right in there. | ||
Pretty much in there straight away. | ||
I lost all the weight and you want to have a fight. | ||
And again, funny stories. | ||
I remember my coach saying, you want to have a fight? | ||
I said, okay, that'd be cool. | ||
So I went and told my dad when he picked me up in the car. | ||
He goes, the coach wants me to have a fight. | ||
unidentified
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He said, fight? | |
He goes, we didn't come here to fight. | ||
We came here to lose weight and, you know, get better for rugby. | ||
I said, well, I'm going to do it. | ||
He goes, all right, I'm going to support you then. | ||
So, I remember that first fight was, I fought this really tall kid. | ||
He was massive. | ||
And it was like I was doing a 100-meter freestyle swimming race. | ||
I was just throwing punches, haymakers. | ||
I bloodied him up. | ||
I beat him. | ||
I won the fight and I got hooked. | ||
You know, that real combat, you can't beat it. | ||
Yeah, what was that like when you're, I mean, you don't have a whole family that was into it. | ||
You just, you're a young guy and you make this decision. | ||
Like, what did it feel like once you won that first fight? | ||
Were you like, this is it? | ||
This is what I'm supposed to do? | ||
Straight away, this is it. | ||
This is unbelievable. | ||
You know that feeling before a fight, especially in the amateurs, you're using the same gloves, you know, that we're used in the tournament. | ||
So you're putting them on, you can see the blood and you can smell it and You know, the sweat and everything, you know, you got everyone there ready to watch. | ||
unidentified
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Wow. | |
It's pretty crazy, but, you know, my grandparents are old school too, so I'm trying to tell them that, you know, I'm fighting, I'm boxing. | ||
They're like, no, no, no, no, no. | ||
They can't even deal with me having an earring, let alone all the tattoos. | ||
And they're like, no, no, no, no, no boxing. | ||
No, no, no, no way. | ||
Go get a job. | ||
Go work. | ||
Oh, boy. | ||
I said, no, no, I'm going to box, you know, and... | ||
Are they still around? | ||
All of them, except for my grandfather, yeah. | ||
And same with him, you know, God bless him now. | ||
He's old school. | ||
Did he eventually realize, though? | ||
Eventually he did, but even before this fight, when we spoke to him, you know, before he passed away, leading to this fight, with all the dramas that we had, he said, Just accept it, whatever they say, just take it, get the money, you know, for your family. | ||
It's still that old-school mentality, make money for the family, and that's what they did. | ||
They came overseas in the 60s from Greece, you know, didn't speak the language at all, you know, to give a better life for themselves, and all of a sudden, they met their wives and their husbands, and, you know, all of a sudden, they have a family, they raise a family, and they move on to me being here, you know, the next generation. | ||
It really is an amazing story. | ||
It is an amazing story. | ||
So you got a 20-0 record right now, and you started your professional career in 2013? | ||
Is that what it was? | ||
Yeah, 18 years of age. | ||
That's crazy, right? | ||
unidentified
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I mean, that's not that long ago. | |
You know, to think about it that a year and a half, two years ago, when I fought at MSG, when I beat Mickey Bay, I only got paid like 20 grand. | ||
And when I paid everybody else and worked out my training expenses and had my kids there and my wife with me. | ||
I lived off the sponsorships, the small amount of sponsorships. | ||
That was your first real world-class opponent, right? | ||
Yeah, it was. | ||
And when his name popped up, You know, they said, Mickey Bay. | ||
I was already number three in the world at that stage, but I wasn't tested yet properly on the American scene. | ||
I jumped at it straight away. | ||
I was so excited. | ||
I go, this is what I came here to the U.S. for. | ||
This is the kind of guy, a veteran, a guy that's been there, a guy that knows the ins and outs of boxing, the little tricks, you know, the smooth moves. | ||
You know, that's what I wanted. | ||
A lot of fighters said, nah, too risky. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Let's suck up another guy and let's get close to the rankings and hopefully we'll get a shot and we'll make some money and see how we're going. | ||
But... | ||
I've always been about taking the hardest road, the risk. | ||
That's what I did in that fight as well. | ||
You certainly did. | ||
It's a wake-up call to people too when they hear about that purse. | ||
Because a lot of people, they think of boxing purses, they think of the purse that Tyson Fury gets or that Floyd Mayweather gets or Deontay Wilder. | ||
The reality is guys coming up, even when you're headlining, even when you're the main event, it's not a lot of money. | ||
No, it really isn't. | ||
If you go out there thinking that it's just about the money, you will fall over. | ||
You don't chase the money, it will eventually come. | ||
Again with this fight too. | ||
I was originally set with Triller to get 2.1 million US. All of a sudden, the problems that happened and the issues, you know, it was a lot less now for Matrim. | ||
But for me, it was never about the money. | ||
And people online and friends were saying, you're crazy, man. | ||
What are you doing? | ||
Because we kind of took a stance and said that, no, we want to fight. | ||
We're sick of these games. | ||
And, you know, the sanctioning body went out and said that, no, this is enough. | ||
No more date changes. | ||
You guys are done. | ||
You know, it's a lot of money to lose. | ||
It is. | ||
But I knew my vision. | ||
I said, doesn't matter. | ||
What was the difference in the payday? | ||
It was from 2.1 to 1.3. | ||
unidentified
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Wow. | |
So it's a fair bit of money, but... | ||
Lost a million dollars. | ||
Yeah, pretty much, yeah. | ||
But again, it's never about that. | ||
But look what the glory did and look where the position you're in now. | ||
I mean, now you're in a position to make a gigantic amount of money. | ||
If they can pull off that huge show in Australia, if you could talk somebody into going to Australia and you do a stadium, my goodness... | ||
Unbelievable. | ||
It's going to be big. | ||
But again, it's never been about the money. | ||
The money sets up my family, my kids. | ||
For me, it's that glory, the legacy, the battles. | ||
I love the battles. | ||
I love that real combat. | ||
I get excited. | ||
I want to fight. | ||
I love to fight. | ||
When you started out your career, did you have a boxer that you emulated or that you wanted to be like or someone who you admired their career and wanted to resemble their style? | ||
I admired, you know, Roberto Duran. | ||
And I was so privileged to FaceTime with him a couple of days ago. | ||
Oh yeah? | ||
Mauricio Suleiman from WBC president. | ||
I met him in Madison Square Garden once. | ||
I was starstruck. | ||
What a man. | ||
I guess who's your favorite fighter? | ||
Duran. | ||
Duran and his prime, like the Ken Buchanan days. | ||
People think his prime was as a welterweight. | ||
It was not. | ||
It was as a lightweight. | ||
It's a lightweight. | ||
And that WBC belt, you had to see him on there. | ||
And obviously I'm on there. | ||
And you got Floyd on there, the great lightweights. | ||
When Mauricio said, okay, I'm going to FaceTime him. | ||
I was like real nervous. | ||
It's Duran! | ||
So I spoke to him. | ||
He was so happy to chat and he congratulated me, which was amazing. | ||
That's fantastic. | ||
He's unbelievable. | ||
And I had my Duran moment in that fight as well because in round 12 when we both looked at each other, And he didn't want to accept it, Lopez. | ||
I was waiting for some kind of acceptance, and he didn't want it. | ||
So I gave him that shove, that push, like, bang, and then I'm going to celebrate. | ||
Like Duran did with Sugar Ray in the first fight. | ||
Yeah, well, Duran, I think he called him a whore. | ||
Yeah, that's Duran for you. | ||
It's been crazy. | ||
It really has been. | ||
I've had, obviously, Duran. | ||
I've faced him with Canelo. | ||
He showed his love and support and what I did in that fight. | ||
Oh, that's beautiful. | ||
I know Manny Pacquiao. | ||
I'll be faced on with him as well. | ||
I'm sitting here with you. | ||
It's been crazy. | ||
Canelo's in a crazy position, man. | ||
He's going to move up to cruiserweight for his next fight. | ||
Unbelievable. | ||
Isn't that wild? | ||
He just loves the challenges. | ||
I think that's what gets him up. | ||
It must. | ||
I mean, he's truly one of the all-time greats already. | ||
But the fact that he went up to light heavyweight, knocked out Kovalev, and now he wants to go all the way up to cruiserweight. | ||
190 pounds. | ||
Yeah, he's going to fight Makabu. | ||
And that guy's no joke. | ||
I had a look at him. | ||
He's a big fella. | ||
Big, strong... | ||
Knocked out a lot of guys, so this is a risk, but he loves it. | ||
Without risk, there's no reward. | ||
Well, I think he really truly has his mind set on being the greatest Mexican champion of all time, and maybe even the greatest boxer of all time. | ||
And I think he can do it. | ||
I think he's in that running. | ||
When you see the Danny Jacobs fight, and you see his head movement, and you realize how much he's taken from the one loss that he had to Floyd. | ||
That was a fight where he realized, man, there's levels to this shit, and there's some guys you just can't hit. | ||
And how amazing was that transformation from him before that to afterwards because now his head movement and his defense is sensational. | ||
And he's not a big, big guy. | ||
No. | ||
He's small. | ||
How tall is he? | ||
He's probably 5'8". | ||
Yeah, 5'8". | ||
And now he's going to go up to 190. Was Cruiserweight 95? | ||
I think so, yeah. | ||
unidentified
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That's wild, man, because you're talking about a guy who's probably 210 and cutting down to 95. He did say that he was not going to come in heavy at all. | |
No, but his opponent will. | ||
That's right. | ||
But he said he's going to try to stay around that natural weight that he's at because he doesn't want to put on anymore because it'll probably affect his speed and his movements. | ||
Well, all he has to do is be over 175, right? | ||
That's right. | ||
Cruiserweight is basically... | ||
There's nothing between 75 and cruiser, right? | ||
So one of the few weight classes in boxing. | ||
No, I don't think so, yeah. | ||
Yeah, it's a weird jump, right, in boxing? | ||
It is, and you know what? | ||
I'm trying to think how many divisions it is. | ||
I don't know if he's trying to get close to the great Manny Pacquiao. | ||
I don't think he can. | ||
I don't think he can. | ||
He'd have to go all the way up to heavyweight. | ||
Heavy or super heavy, so... | ||
Correct me if I'm wrong, but boxing goes middleweight 160, super 68, light heavyweight 75, but then there's a giant jump to cruiserweight. | ||
Cruiserweight, actually, they've just introduced another weight class, the bridgerweight. | ||
Oh, bridge your weight. | ||
There's another one. | ||
Where's that? | ||
Between Cruiser and Heavy? | ||
Yes, I think so. | ||
But between Light Heavy and Cruiser, 20 pounds. | ||
That's a big gap in boxing. | ||
The fact that he's going to make that leap, and the fact that he started off at 154. It's crazy. | ||
And he fought Floyd at 52. It's crazy. | ||
Nuts! | ||
Nuts! | ||
And it shows the kind of fighter he is, the risk he's willing to take and you've got to applaud that. | ||
Fantastic. | ||
And even after a loss against Floyd, he's come back and he's beat all these guys. | ||
You know, incredible. | ||
He's truly a great athlete and a great fighter. | ||
If he retired tomorrow, he's one of the all-time greats. | ||
Yes, he's in the Hall of Fame, one of the all-time greats. | ||
Without a doubt. | ||
Without a doubt. | ||
And if you watch his knockout of Caleb Plant, that was one he had to earn. | ||
Yeah, he did. | ||
He had to earn that one. | ||
I met Caleb two nights ago. | ||
He was at the hotel in LA and a really nice guy, great guy. | ||
You know, he seemed disappointed because he goes, I was trying to do what you just done and win these belts. | ||
And I said, man, you gave so much heart and you gained so much respect. | ||
Because, you know, a lot of people weren't giving him that chance. | ||
And to do what he did, you know, he didn't win the fight. | ||
But, you know, you got that respect. | ||
You went, you know, so many rounds. | ||
He looked amazing. | ||
He looked very good. | ||
You boxed nice. | ||
unidentified
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And he's only had 21 fights, 22 fights. | |
It was a learning experience for sure. | ||
A learning experience for sure. | ||
But you look at Canelo's power is wild. | ||
What he did to Saunders, that was wild. | ||
He fractured that eye socket. | ||
He fractured his whole face. | ||
You think from one shot. | ||
One shot. | ||
Did you ever look at the diagram of all the repair they had to do to his face? | ||
Have you ever seen that? | ||
Yeah, I did see it. | ||
Yeah, it was brutal. | ||
It's crazy. | ||
It broke it. | ||
Everywhere. | ||
Eye socket, all the orbital bone was shattered around the eye socket, the cheek, the jaw. | ||
I think from just one punch, one devastating shot like that. | ||
That motherfucker can punch. | ||
And again, Billy Joe was boxing nice. | ||
He was close. | ||
He looked very good. | ||
But Canelo, I feel like, even in the Caleb Plant fight, he's just doing his thing. | ||
He's waiting for the moment. | ||
He's so composed. | ||
A lot of guys try to rush. | ||
A lot of guys, they forget about their composure. | ||
In the fight game, especially in boxing, you've got 12 rounds. | ||
You've got a lot of time, 36 minutes in them ropes. | ||
A lot of time to dissect your opponent and break them down. | ||
That's what he does. | ||
He does it so well. | ||
He does it so well and he has that patience and confidence of a multi-division world champion who's faced the best of the best so that when he gets into those championship rounds, he gets into those later rounds, he knows that he's managed his energy so perfectly. | ||
The Kovalev fight's a good example of that, right? | ||
Because Kovalev looked pretty good early on in the fight. | ||
He's boxing very nice. | ||
But to see him knock out Kovalev, and I think this is just fucking... | ||
I know Kovalev is not the same Kovalev has fought Andre Ward the first time, but if you see... | ||
Still, though. | ||
unidentified
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Still? | |
Yeah, that was a brutal shot. | ||
Landed clean, and Kovalev was all over the shop. | ||
Wild! | ||
Put him down, and he's a big guy. | ||
I know, and crack him with one left hook and had him fucked. | ||
Unbelievable. | ||
It's crazy. | ||
Truly an all-time great and a guy that we're getting to witness and have the pleasure to witness right now. | ||
So to be able to FaceTime with him and just hear his advice about keeping that dedication, don't lose sight of what you're doing, and continue reigning for a long time was amazing. | ||
That is amazing. | ||
I'm sure Lopez didn't like seeing that when I did post it because I know he was... | ||
Only a few weeks ago, up there with all his belts, trying to take the limelight of Canelo at his fight. | ||
Well, Lopez is a young guy. | ||
What is he, 24? | ||
24, yeah. | ||
He's going to develop character from this. | ||
Not that he doesn't already have character, but he's going to develop more character from this. | ||
And I think this loss will make him a better fighter. | ||
100%. | ||
And that's what I told him, too. | ||
When that fight was done, I knew I'd won the fight. | ||
I said, you'll bounce back, you'll bounce back, you know, respect, you know, but he's young, he's going to learn and, you know, I can't sit here and knock the guy. | ||
I bled with the guy, I sweated with the guy. | ||
You know, we gave, you know, the world an unbelievable fight. | ||
Well, the beautiful thing about what you did is that he is a great fighter. | ||
And because he's a great fighter, it made your victory so amazing. | ||
If he wasn't a great fighter, it's not going to be that impressive. | ||
It was the fact that you were facing a guy who just beat Lomachenko, who was just a world-class fighter who many people thought was the scariest guy in that division. | ||
And you came out on top. | ||
Look, straight after my world title eliminator in London when I beat Lee Selby, you know, another former champion, a guy who's been around a long time, straight away I called him out. | ||
And like you said, this guy was posed as the scariest guy in the division, the guy that no one wanted to fight. | ||
Unbelievable power, unbelievable boxing, had it all. | ||
And he does, he does have great attributes. | ||
But I knew, I saw something. | ||
And again, I go back to that sixth sense. | ||
Back in 2019, he was at a fight in Pechanga, in California. | ||
And I was there as well. | ||
I got flown out to be at a world championship fight. | ||
And we met. | ||
And the media got us to take a photo together. | ||
I knew inside, I'm going to fight this guy somewhere. | ||
So when they tweeted the photo out, I retweeted and wrote, future mega fight. | ||
Wow. | ||
Yeah, and I knew it. | ||
I'm gonna fight this guy. | ||
Even before that, when I first saw him on the scene, when he came out, he had the stylish fight gear and making a lot of noise. | ||
He was doing the fortnight kind of celebrations. | ||
There's this feeling that I'm gonna fight him. | ||
I know I'm gonna fight him. | ||
I have that feeling. | ||
I get that sense. | ||
Do you think he's gonna want a rematch? | ||
I asked him straight after the fight. | ||
I said, come to Australia, 80,000. | ||
And he didn't want nothing to do with it. | ||
I'm hearing they want nothing to do with it. | ||
Why is that? | ||
He took a lot of shots in that fight. | ||
You think that's what it is? | ||
He felt it firsthand. | ||
I think they're going to move up now. | ||
I think he needs a long rest. | ||
I think he needs some time. | ||
The thing about it is, I know he's big. | ||
I know he's big for 140 or 135 and that 140 is probably better for him. | ||
He's not the most shredded guy. | ||
Like, when you look at him, he's got a lot of power. | ||
And you gotta wonder how much of that is because he put a lot of weight on after the weigh-ins. | ||
But, you know, he has made 135 successfully in the past. | ||
I don't know what his diet and regimen and training routine is like, but it seems like if you want to chase the big money, I mean, it was such a close fight. | ||
If you wanted to chase the big money, I would imagine that they would take a break, take a breath, regroup, and look at all the options on the table. | ||
The rematch is where the money's at. | ||
That's where the money's at. | ||
And that's where the legacy's at, too. | ||
And I'm open. | ||
I'm open to everything. | ||
For me, I'm a fighter. | ||
I'd love to have another battle with him. | ||
Really, it's up to him now as well because I heard some stuff that he doesn't want to box anymore at one point. | ||
So for me, he'll be hearing this. | ||
You're a talented kid. | ||
You've got the world at your feet. | ||
One loss doesn't define you. | ||
You come back, we do it again, you move up. | ||
You know, you fight someone else at 135, you bounce back up. | ||
Whatever you do, you know, you don't throw the towel in. | ||
You know, it's too young, but he'll be back. | ||
Did you really, you heard that from a credible source? | ||
Yeah, I did hear it, yeah. | ||
Really? | ||
Yeah, I did hear it. | ||
Interesting. | ||
Man, this is such a great time for boxing. | ||
It is, especially at 135, too. | ||
Really, in all the weight classes. | ||
I mean, look at Terrence Crawford. | ||
Yeah. | ||
You know, I mean, that Sean Porter fight. | ||
Holy shit. | ||
Unbelievable. | ||
Phenomenal. | ||
Both guys. | ||
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Even Sean. | |
Both guys. | ||
He looked incredible. | ||
He looked great. | ||
He boxed well. | ||
He had a great game plan and Crawford just adapts. | ||
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Yeah. | |
You talk about adapting in a fight. | ||
Oh my god, he's the best. | ||
That guy's, you know, that's adapting right there. | ||
Well, he is the best stance switcher since Marvin Hagrid. | ||
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Yeah. | |
I mean, he really is. | ||
He'll hit you from whatever side. | ||
He can knock you out with either hand. | ||
It's such an advantage, too. | ||
To have that advantage to be able to fight southpaw or orthodox with equal fluidity, because he's so smooth and he finds openings. | ||
And when he switches up on guys, you can see them. | ||
They have to calculate and now put it into the, like, okay, southpaw. | ||
Okay, orthodox. | ||
Well, he's never given the opponent a chance to read him. | ||
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Right. | |
And once you can read a fighter... | ||
See, Lopez, I read him many, many, you know, months before. | ||
You know, I knew straight away. | ||
I see what he does. | ||
I see the mistakes. | ||
You know, I could read it. | ||
Now, Crawford, he's a guy that he'll hit you from here, then he switches, then he's in, he's out. | ||
You can't read a guy like that. | ||
It's very hard to read. | ||
And obviously, me saying that I can't read him, he's big, so it means I'm not going to fight him because he's too big for me anyway. | ||
But he's a good fighter, man. | ||
He's tremendous. | ||
For me, even going to the fights on the weekend, the Haney-Jojo Diaz fight, going to the Javonte Davis fight with Isak Cruz, As a fight fan, not only as a guy that I was scouting to see who might be the next guy. | ||
Just as a fight fan, seeing the fights, being there. | ||
I live for that. | ||
I love it. | ||
That's beautiful. | ||
I was very impressed with Cruz as well. | ||
He fought well. | ||
He fought really well. | ||
He's tiny and he just comes. | ||
But that shell that he fights under, hard to pick it apart. | ||
Especially when you've got him coming forward like that. | ||
He's throwing dangerous shots. | ||
He excited me. | ||
He didn't get the win, but... | ||
There's so many good fights. | ||
It's such an incredible time for boxing. | ||
Basically every division. | ||
From the top down, from heavyweight down. | ||
It's a good time. | ||
Boxing is in a really good state. | ||
A really good position and we are starting to see it more and more. | ||
The best are fighting the best. | ||
I think everyone is trying to become the undisputed champions in their divisions and what better way because then it solidifies there's the one champion. | ||
There's the one champion. | ||
There won't be all these different champions all over the shop. | ||
It gives more credibility to boxing as well. | ||
No, I think so, for sure. | ||
And I think that, you know that old expression, as the heavyweights go, so does boxing? | ||
Yep. | ||
And that's a perfect, this is a perfect example, because right now the heavyweight division's on fire. | ||
Yep. | ||
Because there's so much exciting activity in the heavyweight division. | ||
You know, I mean, they're going to do that Usyk versus Joshua rematch, which was, what a fight that was, huh? | ||
You know, and I said Usyk is an unbelievable boxer. | ||
Oh my god, he's so good. | ||
I got the opportunity to fight on the co-main when I won my World Tile Eliminator. | ||
He's not a big, big guy. | ||
No. | ||
He's not massive, but the way he boxes, the footwork that he has, you know, that south pole position is unbelievable. | ||
Look, I love Joshua too. | ||
Great fighter. | ||
You know, he's gonna have to really come with something special, you know, to win this rematch. | ||
And again, all odds against him. | ||
What's the schedule for? | ||
When is the rematch? | ||
I think they're saying March. | ||
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March. | |
I think I'm here in March, yeah. | ||
Do you think when a guy gets so thoroughly outboxed like that and almost put away in the 12th, do you think that's quick to come back from a fight like that? | ||
It is, but again, it shows that the testament that Joshua has. | ||
Yes. | ||
You know what? | ||
Like the Ruiz fight. | ||
Yeah, right, right, right. | ||
Straight back on the horse. | ||
Yeah, but Ruiz didn't get back on the horse. | ||
That's the difference. | ||
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That's the problem, yeah. | |
Ruiz got in the kitchen. | ||
He enjoyed it too much. | ||
He's looking good now, but… Yeah, he looks great now. | ||
But then again, right, that's a wake-up call, right? | ||
And those wake-up calls for a guy like him are so important. | ||
See if you can find a recent picture of Andy Ruiz, because he looks fucking incredible. | ||
Well, he's with the Canelo team now. | ||
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Yes. | |
I love that. | ||
Got him going the way he's meant to be. | ||
But I'll tell you what, he got in trouble with Chris Areola, because he did the same thing with Areola that Lopez tried to do with you. | ||
He tried to just come at him. | ||
Guns blazing. | ||
And Arreola, you know, he's a hard-nosed veteran, a guy that's been there. | ||
And he'll take shots and he'll give them back. | ||
Arreola's a warrior. | ||
Yeah, good fighter. | ||
Yeah, great fighter. | ||
And such a, I mean, you want to talk about a great Mexican standoff between those two guys? | ||
My God, that was classic Mexican boxing match. | ||
You know, I mean, and that's what, you know, like, if there is one nationality that's, like, synonymous with... | ||
Blood and guts, amazing fights. | ||
They love it. | ||
You should have seen in LA. They were going crazy in Vegas. | ||
They kept coming up. | ||
They loved the blood and the guts and the back and forth exchanges. | ||
They loved it. | ||
They idolize it. | ||
Yeah, they do. | ||
I wish more nationalities were like that in the fight game, but that's one country that they really love their fight game, and they've got some tremendous champions. | ||
Oh, so many champions. | ||
I mean, arguably one of the greatest of all time, Oleo Cesar Chavez, and then I think now with Canelo moving into the position, first of all, he's the number one pay-per-view draw right now, or right up there with Tyson Fury. | ||
And arguably, not just the best that's active right now, pound for pound, but one of the best of all time. | ||
He is. | ||
He truly is. | ||
Here we go. | ||
Look how good he looks! | ||
Look at him on the right! | ||
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Look at him! | |
I believe that was the Joshua rematch. | ||
Was that the rematch? | ||
I think. | ||
He got a little heavy. | ||
He looks very good. | ||
But, you know, the amount of work that it takes to get down to that, if he had done that For that Joshua rematch and came in looking like that, who the fuck knows what would have happened? | ||
And psychologically, too, if he came in looking like that, Joshua would be like, okay, this guy's serious. | ||
Right. | ||
When you see him coming in like the way he did, Joshua already knows, all right, this guy's not taking this serious. | ||
He's enjoyed it too much. | ||
Well, there's some guys who kind of like being fat and knocking out muscular guys. | ||
Perfect example. | ||
Butterbean. | ||
Yeah, Butterbean back in the day, you still see stuff pop up everywhere. | ||
Yeah. | ||
Oh, fat people loved it when Butterbean won. | ||
Like, yes, one for us. | ||
Yeah, one for us. | ||
I mean, look, Tyson Fury's not the leanest guy in the world either. | ||
But the conditioning he has, his conditioning is elite. | ||
To be knocked down against Deontay come up in that third fight, it was a great fight. | ||
Not only to be knocked down, but to be knocked down the way he was knocked down. | ||
Where he got hit in the head and you see the ripple go down his whole body. | ||
Because it was such a tremendous shot. | ||
Has there ever been a guy who punches harder than Deontay Wilder? | ||
I don't think so. | ||
Yeah. | ||
It's wild, right? | ||
I think the power he possesses, that one-punch power. | ||
And he came out boxing nice, too. | ||
He was popping the jab. | ||
He looked good. | ||
It's okay. | ||
But straight away, I go, how quick is he going to go back to what he knows best when he does get tagged? | ||
That's what he did. | ||
Devastating power. | ||
And you know what? | ||
They both gave a tremendous fight. | ||
I was on the edge of my seat. | ||
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He almost had him. | |
He did. | ||
He almost had him, which is crazy. | ||
When he put Fury down, Fury kind of looked to his corner and said, I'm in trouble here. | ||
Then he just rose. | ||
In that first fight, the way he rose was like The Undertaker from the WWE. It's unbelievable. | ||
Yeah, and then, you know, the second fight he got dropped twice. | ||
And still managed to pull it out and then stop Deontay. | ||
And the KO when he did stop him, like, holy shit. | ||
Brutal. | ||
Brutal. | ||
They're talking about matching him up with Ruiz. | ||
Deontay and Ruiz. | ||
That'd be a good fight. | ||
That's a great fight. | ||
I love that fight. | ||
Yeah, go either way. | ||
But I think Deontay's just got that pop. | ||
I just don't know how much has been taken out of him. | ||
You know, when you go through them wars and them battles, especially coming from them losses too now, You lose yourself a lot. | ||
You know, they say inside them ropes, you know, a fighter loses a bit of himself every time he goes in there. | ||
Especially when you're in the hard fights. | ||
So, it just depends how much is left in the tank for him. | ||
Yeah, and you think about the majority of his career, it's just him knocking everybody out. | ||
And so psychologically, there's a hurdle to cross too, because now it's two down. | ||
And one fight in between, right, where he knocked out Luis Ortiz. | ||
Yeah, he went from the first fight, which was a draw, knocked out Ortiz, and they went literally back to back. | ||
Yeah, but these two losses back-to-back like that, they're hard to dig. | ||
And they were also both stoppages, which is hard to deal with. | ||
Hard to come back, boy. | ||
And then, like, the first one, the first stoppage loss, it was all those crazy excuses, too. | ||
Like, they thought egg weights and the gloves were all wrong, and his weight suit was too heavy, and somebody poisoned him. | ||
It reminds me of tape lipers. | ||
Not quite as... | ||
Lopez is not quite as bad. | ||
Not as bad. | ||
He really went with everything that he could find. | ||
Everything. | ||
Poison. | ||
Yeah, the poison from his trainer, who's the guy that's been with him for his whole life. | ||
The suit that he came out with. | ||
I just don't understand why people just... | ||
You take it like a man. | ||
It is what it is. | ||
Even if you do have something wrong with you or an injury, you make yourself look worse. | ||
I think when a fighter is as great as he is, it's hard to have someone around him that can tell him something and have him listen. | ||
Someone who's really got his interest for it. | ||
Hey, man, don't say shit. | ||
You have a lot of yes men around. | ||
A lot of them. | ||
And that's the most important thing for me right now is to continue keeping my strong core of people, my good people around me. | ||
I've got my kids. | ||
I'm a family man away from everything. | ||
That's the most important thing in my life. | ||
You don't want to get distracted in the bright lights. | ||
You don't want to be out there doing stupid things. | ||
I think by having my kids there, that keeps me in a position where you keep your feet on the ground. | ||
You keep looking for more greatness. | ||
Like Canelo. | ||
He has so much success, so much money, so many championship belts. | ||
Still does anything. | ||
Pacquiao as well. | ||
Floyd as well. | ||
Floyd when he was at his top. | ||
Floyd, top of his game. | ||
So much money coming in. | ||
Still grinds like he's got nothing. | ||
That's the most important thing. | ||
That really is the most important thing. | ||
There is a time when a fighter becomes very famous where the hanger-ons and the people that are parasites will try to come and hang out with you. | ||
How do you avoid that shit? | ||
I've got good people around me. | ||
My father, you know, he's a solid guy. | ||
So, you know, he can see him coming straight away if I don't see him. | ||
But I'm very sharp as well. | ||
You know, I can see someone that's trying to take advantage, you know, for their gain. | ||
If these guys haven't been there from the start, through the trenches, the hard work that we've had to go through, you know, because I've really had to earn every spot and every position I'm in right now. | ||
They're not there for the right reason. | ||
If I don't see them firsthand, my father will. | ||
That's beautiful that you have that. | ||
That helps tremendously. | ||
Do you get approached by a lot of sponsors and a lot of companies that want you to represent them? | ||
How do you manage your time when it comes to that stuff? | ||
Look, there's a lot more now coming. | ||
But my manager, Peter Kahn, he's very sharp with that as well. | ||
We make sure that it makes the most sense. | ||
You don't want to fill yourself. | ||
The last thing you'll see is an athlete fill themselves with all these sponsorships and endorsements and it just looks tacky. | ||
You pick the right brands, ones that suit me as well, what I believe in, the athlete that I am. | ||
But they deal with that. | ||
Obviously I'm involved in it as well and make sure it's right, the deals are right, you don't get sucked into anything stupid and you go from there. | ||
Well, that's a healthy approach. | ||
It's beautiful to see a young guy like yourself with so much success but has his brain totally straightened and tied down correctly and your mind is right. | ||
It's very important because this fight game, especially boxing, is filled with sharks and chameleons, change their skin real quick. | ||
It's crazy. | ||
You know, even with the next fight being in Australia, you know, a few interviewers have asked, they go, is that who pays the most money? | ||
No, not necessarily. | ||
It's not about money. | ||
It's about, you know, what does my promotional company, Ferocious Promotions, what are they going to be involved in? | ||
Do I get opportunities to have guys that are with me, you know, guys that are signed with me on the cards? | ||
You know, so that there, because I didn't have that. | ||
I had to go through the hard road, the local circuit, you know, literally selling my tickets, selling the tables, getting your $5 here, your $10 here, you know, for each table you sold or your ticket you sold to make it. | ||
So if I can be able to change a talented kid that I've seen and that I have with me and put him on a card and give him the opportunities, It's worth more than money. | ||
For me, like I said, it's about being smart, having the right approach and changing the people around me, the good people around me, changing their lives as well. | ||
So is that part of your goal, to try to elevate the boxing scene in your area as well? | ||
Definitely. | ||
That's why we have Ferocious Promotions, my company. | ||
We want to keep getting the good guys, the young amateurs, the promising professionals, and give them the right blueprint. | ||
Like I said, a lot of people in this game, they want to try to suck the fighter, suck them dry, and take everything from them. | ||
You see it all the time, time after time, where fighters finish the sport and they're left with nothing. | ||
We've got nothing. | ||
We put our lives on the line. | ||
We go through hell and back. | ||
You want to be able to live this sport and be able to give a good roadmap for these young guys coming through. | ||
Do you have a plan for when you exit the sport? | ||
Do you think you'll stay in boxing as a trainer or as a manager or anything like that? | ||
Definitely I've been involved in boxing. | ||
Maybe the commentary. | ||
I had my debut commentary on the weekend. | ||
Yeah, you did. | ||
You did great. | ||
I got a lot of good feedback. | ||
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Beautiful. | |
I think the world said that we need that. | ||
We need real fighters actually doing the commentary, so that was great. | ||
I think that's true too. | ||
I think that helps a lot. | ||
It helps with the UFC for sure. | ||
It was fun. | ||
It was exciting for me to be there. | ||
Well, there's insight that a guy like you can provide, you know, a guy who's a world champion that you're just not going to get from anybody else. | ||
Well, me and Sean Porter, we're just feeding off each other and back and forth with things that we see and the aspect that we see in the fight game. | ||
So definitely the commentary is something I love to be involved in. | ||
You know, the promotional side of things, the managing side of things and I love to be in the gym too, so I think the training side of things as well. | ||
Is Sean really going to retire? | ||
You know, you can never say yes or no with any fighter when they say they're retired. | ||
He's been for a lot too in the fights. | ||
He's had a lot of good wins, some tough losses as well. | ||
So, you know, maybe it is time. | ||
It really depends how he feels. | ||
I love to see him come back. | ||
I think he was a bit premature as well. | ||
It was such a good fight until he got caught. | ||
I thought that you're doing so well against Crawford, who's top pound for pound. | ||
Why throw it in now? | ||
You've still got more to give. | ||
But that's their decision. | ||
Were you surprised the way his dad reacted to the fight? | ||
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I was. | |
I really was. | ||
I can't believe you said that. | ||
Yeah, it just kind of put him on the spot and Sean just didn't know what was going on. | ||
Well, he handled it well. | ||
He just handled it well. | ||
That's his dad. | ||
For people that don't know what he said, his dad said he didn't prepare correctly. | ||
And then when you think about him retiring straight away, you start to think, was that possibly a reason? | ||
Or maybe he really didn't prepare correctly. | ||
And maybe his dad's right, and maybe he's realizing that this is the truth. | ||
Nobody knows you better than your father. | ||
That's right. | ||
Listen, man, you are a part of one of the most exciting eras of boxing. | ||
I'm enjoying this as a fan, and I appreciate what you did in that fight. | ||
It was truly sensational, and I hope you enjoy every minute of this. | ||
You earned it. | ||
You are right now one of the top guys in boxing, and it's beautiful to watch, man. | ||
I really appreciate it. | ||
We're just going to keep getting better and better. | ||
Never lose sight of the goal and keep our feet on the ground and keep winning. | ||
The most important thing is winning not only in the ring but winning in life and keeping the right people around me. | ||
Well, George, you're a fucking true champion and I hope we get to do this again and good luck to you, sir. | ||
Thank you very much. | ||
My pleasure. | ||
Thank you so much. | ||
Thank you, everybody. |