Carl Frampton, Fmr Boxing World Champion: ‘How to Win in the Brutal Business of Boxing' (Ep74)

0:00It's a horrible, horrible business boxing. It's full of crooks, it's full of people trying to take advantage of people like myself who don't have any business acumen. A lot of people get involved in boxing that have no right amount of people I see around this, attached to young fighters, but have no experience in the game. I don't think it happens in any other sport. You have to separate influencer boxing from real boxing. And I know boxers will say it would harm it, but it's just bringing a new audience and a generation of kids who would never have watched a fight in their lives. But what annoys me is when you have influencers tapping a bill and you've got legitimate world champions on their card.

0:38I think that the Turk Elishik is actually good for the game. He's paying fighters what they're worth, but he's also making the big fights that people want to see. I mean, he's brought Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn together. They're like best mates now. They despised each other a few years ago. But because of Turk Elishik, he's brought them two together. and because of that we're seeing crossover fights from both platforms which is what the sport needs. Hello and welcome to The Business of Sport, the show that takes you behind the scenes with the industry's leading owners, operators and athletes.

1:08Today we're delighted to welcome Carl Frampton to the show. This is our second dive into boxing and it's long overdue. A boxing legend and Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year in 2016, Carl was the first Northern Irishman to hold world titles in two different weight classes. He is recognised as one of the best fighters of his generation. But as you may expect, there's far more to him than the success he achieved in the ring. This was also the time for us to understand what the life of a top-class fighter looks like and how the business of the sport works from the athlete's perspective. Saudi involvement has elevated both prize money and fight calibre in recent times, correcting some of the big problems in the sport and making the fights that everyone wants to see actually happen.

1:48But this hasn't always been the case. From the promotion world that can consist of exploitation and mismanagement to the challenge of driving commercial opportunities, building the brand of an individual, Carl's story is one of both past and present. Now one of the leading media figures in the sport, as well as exploring a number of business ventures including his own whisky brand, we take a look inside a sport that is re-establishing itself as one of the major assets in global entertainment. We're delighted to welcome Carl to the business of sport. But first, some words from our valued partners.

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4:42This reward is only available until the 7th of July 2025. New Revolut business customers only. Feature availability varies by plan. Fees and T's and C's apply. Carl, we're so excited to have you in the studio. Thank you so much for joining us today. No problem, boys. Only our second trip into boxing, isn't it? It's exciting. Quite exciting. Who was the first? Frank Smith. oh Frank yeah I know Frank so he liked darts he did like darts but darts Harry doesn't like darts I'm not the biggest fan of darts in the world either do you know it's really interesting that they call themselves sportsmen oh have you seen it mmm mmm really you don't think so it's like chess they're not sportsmen you can't drink beer and play sport and put yourself a sportsman at the same time have you seen cricket it's true it's very true it's the only sport where you can legitimately spend half the match on the sidelines having a picnic with your family and still be playing snooker it's a highly skilled game as it starts but I wouldn't say sportsman either I mean that's an interesting start I think you have to be able to you have to sweat a little bit to be described as a sport I think I mean that's good we've never actually defined what it tastes to be a sport every bobsledder right now is questioning themselves boxing is a sport like we're pleased to say and it's not a niche sport as well no it's not a niche sport about you've had an amazing boxing career give everyone just a little bit of context and background what it is that you achieved um i won a few world titles i unified a super bantamweight division which is the eight stone 10 division or 122 pounds it's not very tall not very big difficult for me to make that and then i moved up a weight and won another division the featherweight division beat a great fighter a guy called Leo Santa Cruz who I wasn't supposed to beat and I think no one in the world apart from me thought I was going to win that fight but I won it and along with that I won Ring Magazine fight of the year which is probably the proudest achievement for me I mean you I put my name to a list with Muhammad Ali and Shigurei Leonard and I always I joke about it sometimes in 30 years time when people are looking at the record books they're going to say who's Carl frompton but i'm on the list anyway which is which is nice you're the first person to bridge two weight classes right for northern island yeah how was it making those different ways you mentioned 122 is really hard i mean that's light yeah yeah what do you have to go through it was it was so difficult for me i used to live off a kind of a paleo diet um caveman diet they called it then as well some people can't perform off that and and training and stuff when they're sparring very very low carbs i mean i used to get excited about a bowl of porridge on a sunday morning that's what that was my carbs for the week so it was difficult to make the weight high fat high protein low carbs but i had to be really really shredded to get my body down to eight stone ten um kind of three percent body fat something like that did you do like the sweat training you know the sweat suits and yeah i see boxers doing that like way out from way in but i don't see a point in that because all you're doing, you're just losing water.

7:55So it's fake, really. It's fake weight. But I used to do that as I got a little bit closer to the weigh-in. And then the day, not meant to do this, the British Boxing Board of Control don't allow you to do this, but everybody does it. I was in saunas and wearing sweatsuits kind of two hours prior to the weigh-in just to try and get the remainder of the weight off. Does it change the type of training that you do in the build-up to a fight when you have to make a weight class and it's less than you would normally be? Yeah, the training does change. I mean, as the fight gets closer, so say from a week out, you're doing very little training.

8:27So at that stage, you're trying to conserve energy because it's a hard game and you don't want to pick up an injury or a nickel. So from about six days away from the weigh-in, I'm probably not training or doing very, very little, but not eating, pretty much not eating or eating tiny amounts of food. But the build-up prior to that, it's intense. It's really, really intense. So what do you eat before a fight then? Because you then starve yourself. Yeah. And then as you get close to the fight, you suddenly start carb loading? So after the weigh-in, you would carb load straight after the weigh-in.

8:58Do you have like a favourite meal? I do have a favourite meal, but I wasn't allowed to eat that even. I mean, it would be silly to go from the start of a 12-week camp, make your weight, and then ruin it by eating crap. You know what I mean? So I tried to eat, maybe I had a bit of steak and some mashed potato or something like that. Boring enough stuff. I'm going to get in trouble for this. I was surprised when I saw the Tyson Fury fight. And he takes his top off and he starts fighting. I mean, dude needs to go on a diet. It doesn't make sense, does it? He was not in good shape. He's in much better shape than he has been.

9:32I know he was really out of shape. But even when he faked, I mean, it's still... No definition to his arms. You know, the stuff hanging over his shorts and stuff. Not body beautiful, but... And the way he moves around, his agility in the ring, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but he can do it. Is it simple to say you move across weight classes because you can win more yes and also the i couldn't make it's don't ten anymore um so i had to move up i was kind of forced into doing it but it's about achieving more and and greatness really the great fighters are the ones that have won world titles in multiple divisions i was very happy to win world titles in two divisions and probably probably didn't believe i could do that at the start of my pro career it wasn't a realistic thought so it's something i can be really really content with but the greats are all guys that are three four five world champions i mean even saying that like if you're a boxing guy if you know boxing like someone who's won a world title in five different weight divisions it's it blows my mind still i don't know how to do it what age did you know you wanted to be a fighter i was really young i started boxing when i was seven and i was probably too young to be honest um they don't kind of let the kids into the boxing clubs now until or nine or ten but i was just curious the box the local boxing club was literally a 100 150 yards from the front door and i was a quiet kid and maybe easily intimidating stuff on the street but i was really into sport and i wanted to try this boxing game out and i tried it and i liked it and i was i was half decent at it and i used to so the guys in the street who were louder than me and i just shied away from them but we were all in the boxing club at some point and and I used to beat them up in the gym and there was just something nice about that for me.

11:15It's got a proud kind of boxing history, doesn't it, Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland and specifically Belfast. I don't think, there can't be too many places in the world that has so many boxing clubs in such a small area. Belfast is a small city, but in West Belfast in particular, I'm from North Belfast, but in West Belfast in particular, you could hit each boxing club with a stone. They're just everywhere. When do you turn pro? I turned pro when I was about 23 I think is that quite late it's I think it was a good time for me because I'd done all my training and my development as a as a senior amateur boxing men as a young man myself and I think it's quite important I think there is guys with a lot of talent and they jump ship and they turn pro too early and they haven't got their man strength and they maybe haven't improved completely as they can as a fighter and i think sometimes people get it wrong and do it a little bit too early but i think i had the right the right balance when did you first get paid so my my signing on fee i was i was a decent amateur right so there was a few different promoters floating about and interested in me i was skint i had no money i was on the irish high performance team but so i was a number one fighter in ireland as an amateur at my weight division but i wasn't getting a grant like everyone else does because the cycle starts at the start of each year and i'd won it in kind of february so i was going to have to wait to the end of the year before i received any money but so the first payment was my sign on fee which was i was offered eight grand for a sign on fee and i thought it was worth a bit more than that and i asked i said i was thinking more like 20 and he came back and says okay we'll agree on 20 but the purses weren't the purses were small they were a grand around so four grand a fight for at the start four round fights i was getting yeah four grand but to me at that time when i was skint i was calling myself the money man you know what i mean i was loving life spending everything i mean some of these journey men stuff coming in from south america or places in europe that they're coming in as opponents to lose to local fighters they'd be coming away with 500 quid for a four round fight or maybe a six round fight and there's agents involved and the agents will be taking a lot more money than the fighters are getting it's a it's a horrible horrible business boxing why is it a horrible business it's just it's full of crooks it's full of people trying to take advantage of people like myself who don't have any business acumen um and the crooks are agents well managers a lot of people get involved in boxing that have like no right to be involved in boxing it's it's like the wild west the amount of people i see around this attached to young fighters but have no experience in the game i don't know who they are where they came from it's like i don't think it happens in any other sport and just specifically what is it that they do that is wrong they're trying to get a few quid for themselves so as a fighter you're meant to pay your manager right but the manager does the deal with the promoter to get the wages so a lot of times they're say deals going on the manager already has an extra deal with the promoter but then the manager's taken a cut out of the fighter's purse as well but yeah it's and you don't know about it well you should but sometimes you don't yeah did you have that happen to you yeah yeah yeah what did you do well i i had a quite a long court process with my former manager mr barry mcguigan and no one can say they won the court case but i can say i'm very happy with the settlement it was settled in the the end out of court but it was a long process we were in court i think it might have been maybe three weeks of court horrible horrible experience is that because you discover things that have gone on yeah and then you're reacting initially what i discovered was that the tax man i was in camp in london getting ready for a fight and someone from hrc comes up to my my house my wife answers the door with our young son on her hip and someone is looking 397 grand and unpaid VAT and me I was a director of Cyclone Promotions as well and I was the only person that they could find it was specifically at that point where I was saying I'm never gonna fight for these guys again you're a really promising young fighter how old are you when you get the first people around you trying to capitalize on the success in the ways that you've just described well at the start I had good people around me my old amateur coach a guy called Billy McKee literally would never have taking a penny off me for anything that actually would give me money for trips and stuff as an amateur really really looked after me so you had good influence at the start and specifically in the amateur i think that would be the story um kind of throughout amateur boxing there's a lot of good guys involved in it why would you get involved in amateur boxing unless you're a good person because it's volunteer work and i mean it literally takes over your life but yeah when you get into the pro game it's almost you have to separate amateur boxing and professional boxing and they're almost like two different sports.

16:19With the increasing prominence of professional boxing and it being a main sport for sure in every way, do you see the professionalization of the industry where there is less Wild West cowboys or more because there is more money? I don't know. I mean, if you can go back to the 60s, like the mob were running boxing in America. So I don't think it's as bad as it was in the 60s, but I still think that it is a bit like the Wild West and there is so many people that can get involved in this game and have prominence in it without having any story experience. But it's a game full of young, naive men a lot of the time, especially when they're turning over, they're turning pro, and they are easy to take advantage of.

17:04So I imagine people see this sport, you know, if you're a bit of a con man or whatever, boxing's an easy sport to get into. But this is huge business now, right? The sport, and when you were fighting increasingly so now, is it enough to just be a great fighter or do you need to have a brand built around you to take you to that next level i think you need to have something around you a bit of a brand to take you to the next level there's very few fighters who don't have or when you would class as boring that get the the big purses and the big paydays and stuff um so i think it's all about the brand really alexander usik i mean unbelievable fighter i think he should be spoken as one of the fighters well the fighter of a generation but one of the best fighters that's ever lived but his personality and his charisma is unbelievable i i love him not the typical fighter because he's not that aggressive and in terms of his approach and the things that he says but very funny and his brand's huge tyson fury different character massive brand though aj again another different character but the brands are huge who's the best fighter with the worst brand oh good question there's a kid called Shakur Stevenson at the minute he's unbelievable I don't think he'll ever get beat in his career me and him nearly fought there was a talk of him me and him actually fighting if I had won my last fight which I didn't then the next fight was meant to be Shakur I'm kind of glad that it wasn't but he's so boring not not I mean he's a nice kid and he speaks okay but in terms of his fighting style very very boring and then the brand isn't that great either but he's earning big paydays and stuff now.

18:39Who's a fighter that has done far better, should we say, than their talent because they've maybe had a personality that's been more to them than just what they've done in the ring? And I don't mean that in a negative way. That's a skill in itself. I would say, and I don't want to be disrespectful to anybody, I would say Durek Chisora. Durek can fight and he's a decent fighter but the fan base of Durek gets still at this age and this far on in his journey and with this many defeats is incredible. and again he's completely different he's not wholesome in any sense of the imagination but people love Derek The fights I find it amazing when you look at a top boxer as a sports person because a loss to a top top boxer is really really not a good thing and they don't happen very often to the best sometimes never for you you had just over 30 fights and I think 3 losses how do you deal with those losses when you're so used to winning Yeah, well, the first loss was very difficult.

19:37I'd lost to a guy called Leo Santa Cruz, who had beaten in the previous fight. So it was hard. And you know that old saying that you know who your friends are after a defeat. Literally, that's what I found out, that people had actually... What did you do that night and the next morning? I went and got pissed that night. Really badly drunk and struggled to get to the airport the next morning. But Joe's side, is it like, you know what, in 24 hours I'm going to get over it and I'm back in camp or is it actually like depression? I wouldn't say I was depressed, it was very very down though, I just lost my first fight in a number of years I hadn't lost since it was an amateur Is your pay impacted?

20:16It can be but for me it wasn't because I had beaten the guy already, Leo then he beat me but both fights were really good fights like voted for fight of the year contenders and they both were very close fights so the pay shouldn't it wasn't impacted that much can i ask how much you get paid when you beat him the first time i got paid 1.5 million dollars but it was it should have been more i didn't find out i didn't find that out until after the court case i'm lucky they keep getting that sort of money especially now that the saudi involvement is different now with the fights it's going on in saudi arabia but do you get paid more the second time yeah i did well i was i was meant to but yeah it didn't happen it's often used as a reason the biggest fights don't happen is it can't be negotiated where the splits between the purses are just too far apart or not what an individual fighter wants to is that true or are there often other reasons no that's one of the reasons i think there's a bit of principle involved as well and i even come back to my own fight i i fought a guy called scott quigg who wasn't very marketable um nice guy but like wouldn't be the sharpest toot in the box or anything but i remember at the time i was i was a world champion and he he wasn't well he was he won a regular title and then was upgraded by the governing body without fighting and all this nonsense really so he was able to call himself a world champion but i was kind of the real world champion he wasn't so they were classed in his unification fight of two world titles and and they wanted the split to be 50 50 even though i was the bigger name the bigger draw by far and away the biggest ticket seller so 60 40 was probably the first split but it ended up being like 57 and a half 42 and a half just to make a fight so that was me i was trying to hold out for the 60 40 and out of principle but yeah the fight wouldn't happen then frank was saying some of it goes as granular as whose name goes first on the poster honestly there's so much stuff like that whose name goes first i remember the quig one again that was a load of stuff about that but i genuinely didn't really care about any of that but i knew it was winding him up so we just kept we just kept playing the game and there was an issue right up until the fight day about who was going into the home dressing room in the manchester arena because i was seen as the a side in the fight and the champion but he was the local guy he was from manchester where we fought and that's the changing room that he always used and he wanted he wanted that changing room are you exposed to these grand i knew all that but i i genuinely didn't care but i knew it was really annoying him so i just kept saying I don't like the fight's off if I'm not in that change room.

22:53So much of boxing is to build up, especially as you're thinking about Bundle getting audience participation and viewers. Are you thinking before fights, how do I get in the head? And to what extent is it? How do I get in the head to beat this guy versus I'm doing a media game? I'm going to slap him. It's going to go on Twitter. I think it happens. I mean, the stuff between me and Scott and his team at the time, like I. You won? I won the fight, yeah. It was a really boring fight, but I won it pretty well. Do you know a fight is boring when you're doing it? Are you bored in it? I was bored. But I had some really good advice from the corner, and Shane McGuigan was the coach at the time.

23:32And normally at about round six, you're starting to feel the pace. I remember sitting on the stool at the end of round six thinking, I'm not really blown yet here. I was doing very little by winning rounds, and his advice was just keep doing it. You don't have to win the rounds by a male, just win them a little bit. and conserve as much energy as possible. But it was so boring, the fact. And it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be a barnstorm. Like the bottle of Britain, people were calling it and people were expecting like a real shootout. But I knew if it was sensible, I could make it easy for myself.

24:02How much did you get paid for that one? That was a pay-per-view fan. I don't know exactly, but there was, it was over a million sterling for that one. And I'm very lucky because in my weight division, normally the guys don't get them sort of payday. So I'm lucky in that sense. But it was because of the draw. I was a big, big ticket seller. Why is that? Why is, should we say, lighter weight boxing not had the same, or hit the same heights as the heavyweight? Is it as simple as cutting just because of the size? Pretty much. People want to see blood and guts, and they want to see big guys just getting sparked out and laying unconscious on the ground, and it can happen in the smaller divisions.

24:35I am not just saying this because I'm a smaller guy, but it's much more exciting watching two featherweights going at it with high skill level and knockout power as well, more speed than the heavyweights. more punch output for me it's it's a lot more exciting but as a mayweather kind of the pacquiao stuff right that's what really brought it through absolutely for a lot of people and even before that i mean you go to ray leonard and juran and stuff juran was was a lightweight and then he went up the divisions obviously as all the greats do but are you told by promoters like spark up interest you know in the weigh-ins yeah buttheads come on guys give us some theater i i don't think i have been never told that it wasn't my character really i didn't like to fake anything if it was real and it felt real and we'd done something but it was nothing kind of pre-organized or anything like that for me anyway i think it does happen where i know fighters and i'll not say their names where they've looked like they've had a real hatred and grudge for each other but prior to the fight being made there's been a text conversation saying like anything goes here we can just get stuck into each other it's good for pay-per-view numbers and stuff and and they did that can i ask which of the fights did you hate them the most which fighters oh there was only one guy a guy called chris avalos um an american loudmouth just obnoxious clown yeah i knocked him out in round five but i wished the referee he was kind of out on his feet in front of me and the referee done a really good job and saving him like jumped in at the right time if i had one more second i'd have cleaned him out he was literally in front of me and the referee jumped in and just saved him did Did you have any where you were like, oh, God, I don't want to hit Simon.

26:17He's a really nice bloke. No. I mean, I fought. That was easy. Yeah, I fought with friends, though. I've fought friends, and I've fought people that I'm still friends with, but they're trying to do the same. They're trying to knock you out. They're trying to win. Everybody wants to win, don't they? And that's normal. But I've actually fought a few. I mean, I fought my best man at my wedding. I fought him four times in the amateurs. Wow. Yeah. Must have given you a shit speech. Yeah, it must. or a great one. You know, you're world champion, you're kind of at the top of your game. Are you capitalizing on this commercially?

26:49No, not at that. No, not at the start. And I should have been. I was marketable and I was one of the biggest sports names in Northern Ireland at the time. So I should have been, but yeah. And that was representation side. That was because you didn't have someone really building the commercial side for you because your fight promoters were really focused on. They were focused and they liked to keep everything in house and didn't allow outsiders to come in and try and do this. and my agent who I'm with now, Ben, he was my agent back then, but I never really had any conversations with him because it was all done through the management team.

27:21And then once I get rid of them guys, the influx of endorsements, and I wasn't a world champion at this stage, so I'd lost my world title. So it was a depreciating asset, but earning a lot more than I'd ever earned from endorsements outside the ring. So I always have a wee bit of a chip on my shoulder about how much I could have earned in them periods when I was, I mean, I think one of the best fighters in the world for a couple of years. I mean, I got small manner endorsements. I was looking at Scott Quigg, for an example. I looked at him and again, I feel like we're hammering Scott Quigg here.

27:57I'm not, but he's a nice guy. But he was covered in endorsements, covered in them all over his shorts. And I know I'm more marketable than this guy, but why have I not got a sponsor? And it was down to the management team. they just didn't want to have other people come in So when you got the big endorsement what was the biggest endorsement? I mean I'm not AJ's league or anything like that but I think the biggest for a one-off fight was literally once someone just stick their logo on my shorts and we'll have to do anything give me 50 grand And they do that? They do one-off deals it wouldn't be like I want Carl to represent the brand for the next two years and you have that?

28:29Just depends some are like that and some are one-off Do you think now because there's two sides to this we talk about the challenges that athletes often have when they are or their focus is taken away because there's so much commercial responsibility now around the sport. And you not having that, you could purely focus on fighting. You weren't being called into shoot days for whatever type brand, but also you're missing out on the side. Do you think athletes now, the fighters now, where boxing is really commercialized, particularly the top fighters, do you think they're struggling with that at all?

28:56Maybe. I mean, if you look at someone at the very high end, like AJ was sponsored by everybody, all huge brands, Beats and Lucas Aid and Under Armour, the name but a few. so I imagine his obligations for them guys was pretty intense. So there's probably a fine balance to get, but boxing is a short career, and I think that while you're in it, you should make as much money as you possibly can. Were you in the mindset of, I know this is going to be short, I need to make hay? Yeah, for the fights and stuff, yeah. I always knew. I had a kind of age. I wanted to retire when I was 30. That was always the age in my head when I turned pro, 30.

29:32I'm hurt. I wasn't someone who enjoyed boxing, really. I'd done it because I was good at it that's interesting, just double down on that you weren't someone who enjoyed boxing it reminds me of like Nick Kyrgios in tennis who's like he loved this I enjoyed sparring and fighting I enjoyed the limelight and the admiration and the crowd and the atmospheres and stuff but the training, it was hard like really really difficult and I spent all my camps away from home so I was missing my kids and my wife and what are the camps like camps are tough they're grueling how long are they i used to do a long camp so 12 weeks for me which is which is a long training camp most most fighters do 10 8 weeks but a lot of it was down to me in between fights i would i would get a bit out of shape and a little bit fat so i needed a bit longer to get the weight off and this is just for those that camps is basically where you go super straight diet pretty much intense training yeah and for me it was away from home as well and you don't see your family you you go and see them every couple of weekends or whatever and then you're back into camp but other guys do it differently and they stay at home and they live at home um and train and sleep in the same bed as their wife and have their kids around and stuff but it was different it was different for me can you solve a question for me do you have sex before like fights or does it lose aggression when I was getting close to the fight my weight like my energy levels were so down so it's probably the last thing in your mind anyway maybe the big heavyweight guys are doing it right up until the day I don't know but that question has come out of it because I think Tyson Fury says I think he says that which is amazing because he has about 28 kids but still it's intense how long are the average kind of time frames between you agreeing the fight and you actually doing the fight Because you can only do two, maybe three a year.

31:25Yeah, two or three a year is probably an ideal number. Agreeing a fight and then having a fight, I don't know, probably four months, something like that, four months. And that focus when you're actually in it, let's say you go through the training camp, at what stage does media really come into it? Well, the media comes into it normally at the start when the fight's announced and then there's a few media applications around that. and then towards the end of fight week. And that's when it's difficult when you're not eating, when you're getting narky with people, you're getting easily annoyed with things and you have to do your media obligations as well.

32:00And there's a little bit in the middle, but it's normally at the start and the end. You talked about short career there. Something you have spoken about recently is health and the challenges of boxing on what it actually does to you and your body. How do you embrace those challenges as a fighter? And I guess to everyone who participates in the sport. Yeah, well, it's a sport where you get punched in the head for a living. And I've done it for a long time. So I've made this statement recently, and I can't remember who I was talking to, but I've said that I will get dementia probably. I'd be very lucky not to get it at some point in my life, but I just hope I'm 80 and not 50 when I get it, you know.

32:36I'm actually doing some tests at the minute, well, yearly tests with a neuropsychologist, and it's like kind of cognitive tests to see if there's been any decline. and so far so good there hasn't been do you think we will have boxing as a sport in 10 years when you look at the studies around the damages that heading in football does yeah it's very likely that that actually will be removed from the football in game boxing seems insane yeah i i get it as well and and that's i mean people you hear about the old footballers having dementia just from heading heading heavier balls and em days and stuff but it's four or five headers a maybe depending on your position we're getting punched in the head and for a full fight of 12 rounds potentially but it's the training camp it's the the rounds of sparring you do in the gym that's where all the damage is done i do think boxing is still going to be around in 10 years and i mean there's more especially amateur boxing amateur boxing is a safe sport and you know big safe gloves and head guards the kids were the referees jump in if a kid gets you know a punch that knocks his head back a lot of times the referees just stop a fight straight away so it's it's very safe and not very safe safer than people think it is and i think that there's more good done from amateur boxing and amateur boxing clubs than bad is there anything that professional organizations associations regulators can do to mitigate some of that risk without taking away what most people tune in for the appeal of boxing that we don't currently do well i i think that like I said most of the damage is done in the gym so more so than the governing bodies or the regulators doing anything I think it has to be down to the coaches and how much they allow their fighters to spar and with who they allow them to spar with I used to spar way too many rounds like this may not sound much but 220 rounds for a camp I'd done for Scott Quigg sparring with guys who were bigger than me majority of them anyway maybe four weight divisions above me and at the time I think it's macho that I can stand up to these big guys but you're still it's just trauma to your head and stupid but when you're a young naive kid i just think i'm tough you mentioned like two to three fights here optimal say you do a million a million and a half from each fight great so we've got three there what was the biggest year of earning for you yeah so that i had i thought i fought quig and that again quig in the unification fight and then i moved up and fought leo santa cruz quig was 2016 at the start leo santa cruz was in the middle of 2016 the start of 2017 so then a full year was leo santa cruz again so that that period was probably the most so we have say like three there and then what does the endorsements and every other thing look like is that another three or is that like one no it's well for me it wasn't close to millions like if for a big fact if you're coming away with 100 grand over a few different then you're wow okay well and i get you never lent into the social media luke's aid oh i would have if they asked me but um i wasn't the most appealing guy in the world for them when you have someone like aj who's as good looking as he is and as big as he is and speaks as well as he is and everything else but i mean if luke's he had wanted to give me a sponsor i'd have happily taken it but you're doing you've got big financial success still is anyone helping you manage that money is anyone helping you decide how to do that to make it last as long as you can because as you said your career is short yeah well i've got i've got some investments and um i've got a few quid put away and i think i'm going to be safe for for quite a while and my kids and stuff have a bit of security for quite a while so i'm one of the lucky ones i really am but i'm again young naive boxer i've spoken about that i was one of them guys and i was very trusting of people and there was a few outsiders came in and tried to pull a few strokes and what do you think we should do for young boxers who are suddenly earning a lot of money and a thrust into a new financial world i would always say have a good solicitor a good legal team genuinely because there's so many contracts and stuff to be saying and things going on in boxing and someone independent of your managerial team as well and that was an issue for me everything was in-house i had the same accountant as my manager the first manager that i fell out with and it was all a bit too close yeah a bit too tied in so have independent advice of someone that you can trust as well that's important and there's there's not too many in the boxing game that you can you've done a huge amount since you retired right and a huge amount of it now is in the media we've seen such a development in i say boxing as a sport but you know with part of this which we'll talk about you know influencer boxing these kind of different factions yeah of a sport coming up, Riyadh's season also into it.

37:17What do you think is the real benefit of, should we say, the Saudi influence in boxing now coming in and trying to do what they're doing with the product? The real benefit to the fighters is the money. Is it way more? Yeah, it's a lot more. It's a lot more. And there's guys that wouldn't have made a fraction of what they're earning now being involved with Saudi fights. I think that Turk Al-Asik is actually good for the game. He's paying fighters what they're worth but he's also making the big fights that that people want to see and he literally because he's got so much money and this is the thing boxers will fight i think boxers will always fight if they're being rewarded for it and paid handsomely for it and fairly and and he's giving them what they want but he just kind of picks out two of the top guys in the division they're with different broadcasters different promoters before he got involved this fight would never have happened they all want to just keep everything in house but he's got so much money he can do what he wants and i mean he's brought frank warren and addy herne together and they're they're like best mates now frank and addy it's great to see but i mean they despised each other a few years ago but because of turkey el-a-chic he's brought them two together and because of that we're seeing crossover fights from from both platforms which is which is what the sport needs would this environment now have changed how you approached your career no i don't think so well in what way what do you mean you wouldn't have been more mouthy more personality no i know i wouldn't have done anything fake i don't i don't it's not my character and it's not me so i'd have just done i'd have done what i mean i like to wind people up and stuff and try to be funny every now and again and take the piss out of people um and people seem like that rather than me making obnoxious comments and saying i'm going to kill someone or doing throat slitting gestures anything like that um which we see a lot but i i would rather have you know the chris have lost guy that i'm talking about that i didn't like like he was all about that and i just embarrassed him and like made a fool out of him mocked him a bit and but that's my character i'm not i'm not one of them guys did you believe you were the best always i used to make myself believe that and let me explain that a wee bit like i think i have a bit of sometimes a wee bit of imposter syndrome where i i didn't think that i i was the very best but i used to get this mindset especially in the camps like i i trained so hard i wasn't the most naturally talented guy in the world but i grafted and i grafted as either harder than the opponents or as equally as hard look i imagine they were all trading hard too but it was so so difficult for me like the work that i put into it and i knew i had to do that to get the absolute most out of my career so that's what i done but i wasn't i wasn't talented it was my work ethic got me the success that i had all this money now coming in how does it support the broader system we always talk about the top fighters but it'll do a lot for the undercards it'll do a lot for up-and-coming fighters it'll provide a lot more capital to a system that really needs it right at lower levels what actually does that do when you're looking at developing should we say a broader network of fighters well yeah it's important to have big undercards filled with local fighters a lot of the time if the fact if it shows local and try and build a fan base around this guy ticket sales is massively important as well for for young fighters if they're selling tickets the promoters will look after them and the promoters will want to have them at their stable but like my fights when i fought in belfast it always gave the opportunity for the local guys to fight on my undercard which was great because they wouldn't get on the big shows in in england or the us or wherever just because they're not recognizable but because it's in Belfast it gives them an opportunity and it worked out like that for me I fought on a guy called Paul McCluskey his undercards just the ability to be able to showcase your talents to your home fans but then because it's televised people, mainland UK and further afield Move into influencer boxing type thing the positives and negatives of it are obviously varied but you now see professional fights or should we say professional boxers fighting on undercards of what actually is building up to non-professionals let's call them influencer boxers at the top yes you can say that devalues the product but at the same time it is also providing maybe new audiences and opportunities for fighters to be seen where they wouldn't be otherwise how do you view that development of this broader industry well i mean i i think that you have you have two you have to separate influencer boxing from real boxing well what annoys me is when you have influencers tapping a bell and you've got legitimate world champions on their card we see that with jake paul fights and stuff but i mean jake paul has a massive fan base and a global audience and he's actually doing he's actually he can box a bit you know he's not bad fighters like to give him stick and just because he's a new boy in the game but he's trying to do it the right way he's he's got the he's got plenty of money so he's got top nutritionists and top coaches and he has proper training camps and he's he's okay he's not bad and i don't mind that and he's he's done massive things for female boxing in particular and he's paying these women fighters he has a lot of females on his undercard and he pays them i mean girls in uk shows i i i wouldn't even like to think what they're getting they could be fighting you know world world title fights and maybe getting 15 grand i don't know but i would say it's it's not a lot of money jake paul has been giving them a lot more money and we're seeing exciting fights amongst the girls as well i think a lot of us down to the format it's different it's like 10 two minute rounds rather than 10-3 so it's a bit more of a sprint so do you think influencer boxing does more to help than to harm boxing yeah i think it helps boxing and i know boxers it will say it would harm it but i don't see how it's just bringing a new audience a completely new audience and a generation of kids jake paul fans who would never have watched a fight in their lives they may they may never go on after watching jake paul they're never going to go and sit down and watch two flyweights fighting at your call for example but there may be a few that cross over and i think it helps boxing with its fan base well it's a time where we talk about the attention economy has never been more competitive right you've got a finite amount of time and so much to watch if you're introduced to boxing via something like this yeah but actually it does spark an interest where you want to participate more it takes you to other fighters it takes you to a professional and it takes you to different weights that's a very positive thing i think it's good yeah yeah Yeah, I don't see it being negative.

43:40I think that there's maybe guys that are a little bit jealous or whatever, you know, legitimate world-class fighters who are having a little bit of jealousy about this guy off the Disney Channel coming in and taking over their sport, really. If you got called out by someone, let's say you get called out by an influencer like a Jake Paul lighter. I don't know what it is. Fern Troyer. Yeah, would you do it? Yeah. It depends what the money is and stuff, you know what I mean? There's always a number, isn't there? It's 5 million. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, absolutely. But it could be that big, right? it might be because that's sort of money knocking around in these influencer fights but if you want to make a bit of beef between me and some sort of influencer be my guest I love the way you're like no no I wouldn't ever just stir up shit it's not my personality it's like five minutes yeah I fucking run it wouldn't it which influence is light enough though I know that's the thing it's a difficult one isn't it because we can call them out right now there's got to be ISO speed oh yes he may beat me he's very fast but you beat him so if i show speed offered you 5 million quid to fight you'd fight him absolutely yeah as you should like that again talk about your career and everything you've gone through to be successful right at the top you know you've achieved all of that go and make it yeah the interesting thing is for him it'd actually be a pretty good deal too be amazing get great you know netflix probably take that as well again what do you think of the broadcast how that's all kind of changed and you mentioned TNT and DAZN now you're doing a lot of work for this that's helping massively with the distribution what do you uh what do you think about that and how that's developed i think it's good um i think the zone are trying to be the home of boxing that's what they're trying at the minute so they've got there's less boxing on sky i think the boxer deal with ben shalom has just been scrapped they're not renewing that contract i imagine they'll get another promoter in the show boxing tnt at the minute aren't doing any boxing either so the zone kind of have it all wrapped up at this stage but But I think every now and again you see the odd one on Channel 5 or whatever.

45:40And people get criticized and mocked and laughed a little bit if they box on a Channel 5 show. But the audience that is watching, there's more people watching Channel 5 than there is Sky TV. Sky Sports, should I say. Potentially millions of people watching you on Channel 5 when you fight. The wages may not be as good, but it's a big opportunity for you to kind of look good. A way of brokering fights. I remember, was it Canelo Alvarez that they paid like 200 plus million? Oh, stupid money. But they were basically buying a license to his next 10 fights. And that was a change, wasn't it, in the landscape of how we saw boxers being paid.

46:12Did you ever have a discussion or negotiations with a broadcaster who wanted to buy the rights to a show, like for you beyond maybe one fight? No, I wasn't a big enough name for that. But the deals I was doing was with the promoters who were linked to a broadcaster normally. So Frank Warren was TNT after I left the McWiggins. I was with Sky for a little bit, to start him a career as well. How's Saudi change that? Do they centralise everything now where they negotiate and literally fighters just come into the... Pretty much. They do what they want, really. And I think the Saudis actually own a part of the zone, I think.

46:50Most of that's gone to the Club World Cup. Yeah, maybe. But they want the best fights and they want... I mean, they've got Golden Boy on their platform. They've got Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren. Eddie Hearn and Golden Boy, Gosker Delhoi, didn't like each other. hated each other frank warren eddie eddie hearn's the kind of one in the middle here no one liked daddy for some reason i don't mind that he's all right but these guys didn't i mean i would go as far as saying despise each other but they're now all working together because turkey all the chic is almost says right this is what i want and this is the money and they're happy to do that how much is like ego and persona and all of that held boxing back as a broader sport commercially from what it could do because it didn't take full advantage of what it has massively but it's changing again with Turkey Alice Sheik's involvement, but prior to him getting involved, like you had, you know, some of the top promoters in the world, top rank, Matchroom, Queensbury, Al Heyman as well, was promoting fighters.

47:45He was involved with Floyd Mayweather. I worked with Al Heyman for a while actually as well in the Leo Santa Cruz fights, but typically the promoters kept, and they like to keep everything in-house. So a Frank Warren fighter typically wouldn't have went and fought an Eddie Hearn fighter or an Al Heyman fighter wouldn't have fought a Bob Arm fighter in America but it's changing now why would that not have happened though because if they hated each other surely that's the perfect way to go and fight I know they get one up maybe they wanted them to want their man to lose maybe they thought he was going to I don't really know but then they're having to split the pot as well so the pot is being split with the other promoter but then does that not frustrate you you're a fighter you're represented by someone else who you really want to fight is Frank Warren you're not getting your fight and you're very short one career because these two guys basically can't negotiate a deal between them and that's your career defined by them.

48:32Absolutely. And there's so many fights like that that never happened and never came to fruition and fights that happened way too late when the fighters were past their best. Prime example, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Should have happened six years before it did. Would have been one of the best fights ever, I think, but turned into a bit of a damp squib because they weren't as good as they used to be and they were a bit old. Do you buy Tyson losing to Jake Paul? Yeah. He looked so old. He looked so old. I actually think Jake Paul held him up a bit, you know, like could have got rid of the great Mike Tyson, which would have been such a shame.

49:07But Mike Tyson's a, you know, a nearly 60 year old man with sciatica and he smokes a lot of weed. Like, you know, it's just that's the way it is. That's the truth. It's commentating a good business. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, it's a job, isn't it? But it's not really a job. you go and watch big fights and you talk about it for well for me i'm not a commentator i i'm a pundit specifically so the commentator's job is slightly harder than what i do but you watch a fight and you talk about it for five minutes at the end that's that's that's that's pretty much it yeah but it's competitive right like lots of people want to do this so you've got to be good you've got yeah you got to be good and you got to be honest and that's what i am and i think that's why i get decent feedback on on on when i'm working on tv and i have been a pundit the feedback's normally okay i'm not afraid if someone has put in a bad performance to call them out on it but equally if you've you've done well i'll say that to you like i'm not i'm not trying to be like a roy keen or anything like that and trying to really hammer people but i have fallen out with a few fighters and a few friends of mine as well just because i know that they haven't performed at a level they can when you retired did you have any issues acclimatizing to a new way of life I was looking out at the end so going into my last fight the plan was to win the fight and then retire so it was a fight for a to try and win a world title in a third weight division and it didn't work out I got beat pretty convincingly actually so was that decision made literally then no but the decision was made before but I didn't want to speak about it because it sounds a bit negative doesn't it if you're talking about retirement going into a fight but the plan was to win this world title in my third weight division and go down as you would have to say then Ireland's greatest fighter because it'd be the only one from the island of Ireland that's won world titles in three divisions.