Mark Kriegel & Andre Ward get HEATED over Terence Crawford & Mike Tyson’s Secret Ability

29:22And, um... I remember he'd take me out to a football, tell me who was a good ball player, who wasn't. And, um...

29:35I remember him falling. I remember him falling. So, um,

29:45from, till I went away to college, most of the time he was on crutches. So you have a, like this big guy with, with braces, old fashioned, you know, braces and barrel chested, big arms on these aluminum crutches. And he'd walk in the streets of New York. He would walk, he would walk upstairs, little stairs in Rome. Walk everywhere, drive everywhere. But I remember him falling and I remember the crash. All that coming down.

30:27The sound of it and the might of it, like a wave, it just hit. and he was Superman to me. You don't want to see your father, you know, falling.

30:50And he couldn't get back up himself. He had no legs. So he had to grab onto something and pull himself up more reluctantly or furiously accepting help. And, you know, you're four or five years old. I can't. This big son of a is like 200 and some odd pounds. I have. So no one wants to see their father fall. But I remember that. I remember a crash coming down. Like a tidal wave. But it's interesting to me, you know, just that what he dealt with didn't limit him or cripple his mind. Like he was very, that's the part I'm saying, like what did you learn from him pressing even though he had that limitation?

31:37That there are no excuses. You know, there are no excuses. I mean, he's poor and crippled and born in the Bronx. I'm middle class, born in Manhattan. There are no excuses.

31:59you became a writer because of your father? I didn't want, I went to college, and even after I got out of college, I thought I was going to be a lawyer because I never wanted to be vulnerable in the same way my father was. I never wanted to have to depend on the reception of what I wrote, or I thought it was unfair. I don't know. But so... But I was a talented writer. And I remember I'm attending bar. And I'm studying for the LSATs. And I start writing because, you know, I'm supposed to be a writer for a lot of reasons. My father and whatever, my natural talent, what I was actually good at. And I take the essay portion of the test and walk down.

32:55I go to my friend's house. He goes, what's the matter? He's supposed to be in the LSATs. I said, I ain't not going to do it. Really? Yeah, I'm not going to do it. I go through four years of college. I quit playing basketball because obviously the coach was sane, but he didn't recognize my true genius as a shooter.

33:16I get out. But you had some game, though. Well, not enough. I went to a school, Swarthmore College. Very prestigious division, but not prestigious for basketball. But it was the only place I knew I could actually play ball as a freshman. Your game above the rim or below the rim? Well below. Well below. But you can shoot though, right? I can shoot. You had a three ball? You shoot three points? I'm so old. They didn't have no three point line? That's crazy. I played knees in high school. If they did, I might have hung around a little bit longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But was Pops feeling it? I think that I wanted to...

34:02I was not a talented athlete, but I fashioned myself into an adequate high school basketball player. I loved it. But I also loved...

34:19I did love the idea that, I hope this doesn't sound, like giving him legs. I loved it. I thought it would make him proud of me, you know? So I get out of school and I take a job. I take a job at some place in Washington, D.C., which is like you go for a year or two before you go to law school or something like that. I'm like, I hate this, man. I just hate this. um you would have been a dynamite lawyer but I think I think I would have I think I think I want to be a writer yeah so I quit come home I said dad I'm gonna write my novel yeah where you're gonna live like I'm living my I'm happy You can't write a novel.

35:05You can't even write a sentence.

35:14And I remember being torn down that year trying to think of what I was supposed to be. And I went through the books on his shelves, which is mostly like male American literature. and a lot of it about, you know, how to be a good man or a tough man or whatever, you know. It all had an influence. Later, I did find on his shelf a student of his gave him a book about boxing. My dad liked boxing. I thought that he thought of himself as a fighter. It's not a particularly original metaphor. But I found a book called Reading the Fights on his shelf. It's a beautiful anthology of boxing writing. And it was from one of his students who said, keep on fighting.

36:18And I start, this is 88 now. And I start looking through the book. And there are beautiful, beautiful boxing stores. like Pete Hamill, who was my mentor, my rabbi in the newspaper business, wrote a beautiful eulogy for Custom Auto. And there's a piece from Norman Mailer about Ali's ego, which is essential. And then there was another piece on the death of a Welsh fighter by Hugh McElvenny, great, I think, Scottish columnist. about the death of Johnny Owen, who was killed in a fight with Lupe Pintour in LA in 1980. And I'm reading it, I think, holy, like, I mean, this is beautiful. I think I can sort of do this without knowing that this was a, I think this was the sport I was supposed to write about.

37:21I didn't know that then, but I kept returning to it. And those books on my father's shelf. Norman Mailer collection with, I found this extraordinary account of the Patterson-Liston fight. All of it, all of it wound up in here. And one way or another, in my head, or like Patterson-Liston is central in this. Like, you know, Customato builds up Floyd Patterson, who really ain't much more than a middleweight. And he makes him the youngest heavyweight champion ever, which is extraordinary, insane. And then he gets demolished by Liston. And I think Liston figures very heavily in the Tyson story. Everyone was scared of Liston because he was the scary black guy.

38:21And it was so much, he should have been redeemed. This country should have embraced him. And he was scorned from the White House on down. And what Tyson's handlers didn't understand was that the world had changed. It was okay to be Sonny Liston now. But I found all this stuff on my father's shelf, this ego piece by Norman Mailer. And now I think that boxing is a whole, is a symphony of ego. All of this stuff that I found on his shelf that later winds up in here. I remember you telling me, we were talking about your doc. You said, hey, I found this, I don't know, it was a duffel bag or a footlock or something with all your dad's stuff.

39:05And I think of that shelf in our apartment with his books. That was telling me something. You know, that was a, it shaped the nature of my ambition. I became a sports writer by accident, and my entree into it was basketball. But once I found boxing, you know, I don't feel like covering the nets or the jets, but boxing, it was a gift. I remember the first big fight I covered, Bo Holyfield won. I'm watching it. And I remember like a glob of Vaseline flying off of Vander's face, like radicated with an uppercut. And like it was brutal, but I'm thinking, oh, wow, this is what it's about. This is beautiful.

40:01Might be terrible. It's violent. Damn, this is... I understand what all those guys were writing about. This is where I want to be. You write about many things, but, you know, like I was close to my father before he passed in 2002. And, you know, like we mentioned, you've got multiple New York Times bestsellers, you know, columns, essays, and you're writing about complex family dynamics and more specifically with fathers and sons. What is it about the father-son relationship that draws you? The wait was worth it. Positive affirmations and all the hard work. The keys to your dream home from the vision board have been secured.

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42:47The official language of football is trash talk. Late night group chats, memes, and unbelievable highlight clips. That's why Boost Mobile brings you our new global connection plan. The first plan ever made for WhatsApp. Get unlimited data, talk and text, international roaming, and calls to over 100 countries for just$40 a month. $40 price includes$5 a month auto pay discount. After 40 gigabytes of premium high-speed data, speeds will be lowered. Coverage not available everywhere. Visit store or boostmobile.com for details. I mean, look, my dad, for all the reasons we've been talking about, my dad was this extraordinary influence in everything I did.

43:27My first novel was about fathers and sons. My book about Pete Maravich. Mancini? It was about fathers and sons. Mancini and Maravich were explicitly about fathers and sons. Joe Namath was not. Tyson's both, but I think the most driving force is the mother. But I think that anything you do, all the dysfunction follows you all around and makes you who you are. And the love, too. But in boxing, it's the most clear. It's the most explicit. And people break my balls like, oh, man, another father story, son from Kriegel. I get it. But hey, but I started certainly with ESPN since the time we know each other.

44:20I didn't ask for this age. I didn't. But here comes this sport where everyone now is trained by their dad. And we've talked about it that your dad reached this point where he had enough sense of himself. And I don't want to speak for you, but this is OK. But say, hey, I'm going to give you to another man. He's going to train you because I know the perils and I know all the stuff. That doesn't happen anymore for whatever reason. But one of the reasons I do this story about fathers and sons so often is because just the way this sport ended up. You know, Tia Fimo, Devin Haney, Lomachenko, I go on and on and on.

45:04And in a certain way, look, I understand it. I want to be a writer in large measure because of my father. Okay. but um the ultimate in male vanity and what it is hey my son can kick your kids forget little league my kid will mess your kid up what are you gonna do about that's at the pro level but that that you know where it starts no i understand that but i'm saying that that that intensity like that that's starting locals regionals nationals guys going at it i understand And that's what the young kid is brought up in, too. Like, people don't, they don't, like, register that, obviously, because they're not in the sport like that.

45:48Or don't, they're not in those formative years. But, like, that's the stuff we're around. That type of energy, that type of, you know, ego. That type, like, hey, man, my boy going, and you, now we got to go back it up. I got to back up your smack talk in the lobby at 2 in the morning while y 'all drinking. And there's, and there's another, I see this all the time in the amateur circuit. I see it in the gyms. But there's another element to it, too. And it's less attractive even than the ego, which is the money. And I do feel there's a lot of kids, you know, who feel responsible for the family's livelihood.

46:30Someone once made the argument. The family or the father? Family. Family. You're the family. Like, yo. Red one. You win a couple of Golden Gloves titles? Guess what? you were the family business. You're going to bring us out of here. I once had a manager make the case. He goes, I can't prove it, but I think it has something to do with the financial crisis of 2008. Everyone became, after that, every dad became a trainer. You know, check out YouTube videos. Some of them pretty good, okay? You know, David Benavides' father, Tiafimo's father. It goes on and on. You know, these guys did not come up in the game, But somehow their kids are championship level fighters.

47:12But I also think that there is a sense. It's New York. It's New York. I also think there's a sense that becomes very clear to the kid by the time he's a teenager. Like, you're the family business. You're going to get us out of this. You're our hope. That's a tough one for me. And I also think, by the way, and Tyson subscribes to this notion. by and large, I'm typecasting here. I guess you're an exception. The toughest fighters, the great conquerors, are mama's boys. And Tyson makes this case. It's like Alexander the Great, which is another thing. It's like maybe he got this from Cuss. Maybe it's him.

48:04He has this breadth of knowledge of really interesting stuff bouncing around in his head about Alexander the Great. And he compares himself to Alexander the Great. My line here is like, I wonder how Alexander the Great would have done on Amboy Street. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Tyson is... His mom's not really available to him. After his dad splits, she's broken. He knows that. And he can never, at least from his autobiography, which is a great resource in this, he comes back and I won this title. I'm going to be the greatest. Well, there's always someone better. Someone's going to. He can never get that love.

48:47The interesting thing to me and the incontrovertible fact of his career is that the three guys who beat him when he was still Mike Tyson, Van Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and Buster Douglas, whatever else you want to say about them they were all straight up mama's boys and that's an extraordinary that's more than a coincidence to me you know i think look to me the the toughest most resourceful fighter we have today is a mama's boy it's terence crawford now it wasn't the the too much love it was like the motivation but terence crawford's motivation and proving his mother wrong, you can get your ass kicked.

49:36No, you watch. It's not unlike what Tyson talks about with Alexander the Great. I'm going to conquer Europe or Asia to show my mom. And somehow, at least anecdotally here, the motivation that comes from the mom side is even more potent than the stuff that comes from the dad. Yeah. I think for me, I relate more to like a Mancini. Yeah. That's probably my favorite work from you, The Good Son. That's probably the most compelling, most relatable because my father passed and I made promises. I made promises to my dad when he was dead. The day he died, I leaned in and I knew he couldn't hear me, but I said it, more so for me than him because I felt myself teetering.

50:22I wanted to just abandon everything and just bolt. So Mancini promising his father a world championship that he didn't get. When he was still alive. When he was still alive and then finally getting the world championship. And then six months later, killing the man in the ring. And that forever shaped his career, shaped his life. I didn't do that, but I would always think about even those moments that if this ever happened, I knew that I'm done. I can't go forward. But when I look at that story, and even Kim's mother, Duke Co Kim, his mother committing suicide three months after he died of brain damage.

51:00But the father-son, like, man, the motivation and the fire from the death, like, that's what I relate to.

51:11It's funny, I didn't want to do this book. Because I didn't want to go back to the 90s when I was, like, a columnist who knew everything about everybody. But Mancini, I wanted to do. And Mancini, you know, the publisher wasn't crazy about it. You're supposed to be doing the book on Jordan. Supposed to be doing a book on Jordan. How could you not want to do a book on Michael Jordan? For the same, one of the same reasons I did want to do a book about Tyson. What the hell am I going to say? The bar is so high. What are you going to say that's new? What's a new way of thinking about him? And I think also it was too fresh.

51:45He hadn't left the stage long enough. Mancini was forgotten. But you're right in that the father-son thing was most compelling to me. and I had this idea of Ray, who I knew from California, Ray talking to ghosts. Yeah, what do you mean? Kim and his brother. And there's another element here because he's religious, so he believes in an afterlife and the ghosts were real to him. And I started thinking about Ray and his present life in California, and I remember those fights. And Ray was like, it's hard to remember now. It's hard to remember what this was like now because boxing was a major league sport, and it was on Saturday and Sunday, and it was on network TV, and there was no internet.

52:49That's what you saw. and after Ray Leonard, there's a time where Ray Mancini is the highest paid athlete in America. Forget basketball, football, forget all that. And he's like in the perfect storm. He's from the Rust Belt. He's from a busted out factory town during the first term of Ronald Reagan. Youngstown? Youngstown. Youngstown's like the Brownsville of the sort of Midwest. or, you know, Brownsville is its own thing. It's like, I remember guys, you know, like a friend of mine from college, like talking about fighting. And they go, oh, he's from Brownsville. He's from Youngstown. Like, no, that's a different thing.

53:34Like, they're tougher than like us. But also big organized crime town, you know, like, and there's always this question in Youngstown, like who does it belong to, the mafia of Cleveland or the Mafia of Pittsburgh. But I saw Ray talking to these ghosts. I remembered how heroic he was. Because he didn't just say, he wasn't like speaking over a casket. He was saying it to the world. I'm going to win the title for my dad who got screwed out of a title, never got a chance, never got his title shot. This was in the 40s. How can you not love that story? and he was so big, there's this period in American life, a brief one, where people will come up to him.

54:26And remember, he's like, he's demographically, at that moment in the early 80s, he's like the perfect white guy to come along for television. White, ethnic, it's like your father would have liked him, your father's father, all this stuff. He's from a busted out town. So it's like this irresistible story that they can sell. and he and there were i think in large respects sometimes it's really unfair there are two kind of fighters the fighter with a story or a fighter's story you know and the fighters hasn't the story hasn't been told but his story was irresistible and there's this moment in american life where people come on up to him straight up serious saying yo when you go kick mr t's they don't make any distinction between him and rocky it's just like the same like a Italian dude who fights a certain way.

55:19And that's crazy, but it's real. Like, when are you going to kick Mr. T's ass? So he was supercharged, and he had the right kind of style. It wasn't a style that was going to make him have a long career. But he was also, by the way, he was better technically than he gets credit for. He had a better jab. I remember Bramble telling me that. But think he forgave himself for killing Kim? Yes, but I don't think he killed Kim. I think it's boxing. And I think that, and I would... He kept dying at the hands of... And he's devoutly religious. It fucked him up. I don't think he was ever the same fighter.

56:01And it certainly hurt him. I remember Aram telling me, he goes, look, you can sell a lot of stuff. And with Mancini, you can sell anything. Again, he's Rocky. But you can't sell death. Mmm. And he's right. And all the heat that he generated, like right up there with Ray Leonard, the height of Ray Leonard, goes away. You can't sell death. So what do you do when you've done everything righteous? You win the title. You make it right for your family, for your father, for your busted out town. And this happens. And this happens. What do you do, man? And now you left talking to these ghosts. And there was another element with him, with his brother.

56:51It was mixed up in a lot of stuff. So what do you do when you're a kid? And everybody's on your job. Everybody wants to hang out with you. Mickey Rourke, this one, that one. And now, pshh. The other thing that did draw me to Mancini's story was his dad. in that, and this was personal, is that the more I knew about his father, the more I understood the father as a wounded character. And I do know about a son's love and wanting to, I don't want to say rescue, but ennoble the wounded father. And I remember Ray talking about being a little kid picking up his dad at the bar when he had too much to drink.

57:43And between the lines, you knew what that was about. And I think that to make the family name right again, that he succeeded in that, that was beautiful. I mean, it's not a chance that Tyson ever got. I'm going to shift gears for a second. This past weekend, like every other Sunday, you were on the court with the guys playing ball. Just a pickup game, living out your hoot dreams. No triple doubles, but a mean set of threes. In between buckets, one of the homies mentions, he closed on a new crib? This is big. And while everyone's asking about the housewarming and making plans to celebrate, you're asking the real question.

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1:00:25Plus taxes and fees. Same-day delivery for most internet-eligible customers. See if it's an option during checkout. fastest according to Ookla speed test based on speed test intelligence data second half 2025 all rights reserved You've been at ESPN since 2017. I think we got there right around the same time You get me in trouble now a little bit. Okay, phenomenal writer But you're not shy in front of that camera. Yeah, what do you like more? Do you like to write still currently more than you love to be in writing? I've always hated writing. Come on, man You just told me you loved it. That's why you were drawn to it

1:01:00How you hate something you're so good at? Because I'm good at it. I worry about every sentence, every mark of punctuation. And I see the same... It's funny, because like... But you tease me. You call me neurotic. You're neurotic like me. I'm like, I'm not neurotic. I'm just me. I admire that, man. It's like, and it's one of the things I always thought would work so well with you and Timmy. Timmy's like, it's coming out. Bang. You have to, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to say that again. And there's a perfectionism about you. And it's not natural for television that you want to perfect everything.

1:01:48And there's a sentence or a paragraph that you have in your head. And I see it. I know how much care you take in it. So I do the same damn thing. It was a funny thing because we would argue about the media. but to me we would agree more times and I talk about this with Timmy all the time like we would usually agree of my and most of our assessments came about the character of the fighter and Timmy was like emotional and making a judgment right away and it was about strategy you guys no you guys and boom he would come and that's why I thought you guys were so great and I miss it do you like being on camera?

1:02:27yeah Yeah. Because apparently you don't like writing. I like when it's done. When it's finished, yeah. I'm happy when I, you know, the pieces I'm happy when I crafted, which, you know, I like to take to the grave with me. I like the beginning of this. I like the end of it. There are characters in here I love. There are paragraphs and sentences I love. I'm proud of myself. I'm happy when it's finished. I go, damn, I am. We saw you in the middle of this book. We saw you in the middle of this book. And I was worse than usual. How's the book? Oh, man, this thing is going to kill me. And you take a sip of it.

1:03:03Every time. If it doesn't kill you and doesn't make you cry, it ain't. I remember the first time it happened, I wrote a basketball piece. A piece about New York and basketball. And I got to the end and I started to cry. I didn't know why. yeah but from that point on said if it's something if it's a big thing I can't get to the end I don't cry man something's wrong I was faking it

1:03:36Like the perfectionism I have when I write. Not that I'm not even that good. Come on, man. No, no. It kicks my ass. It might whoop you, but you're good. You're very good. I apologize for all the times I was in extra pain in the ass while I was working on this. But I never felt so kindred with you as when you're working on your autobiography and you're walking around like me. You're walking around like you just got your kick. It's hard because it's, and I think what you think is what I think, which is once it's there, it's there forever. Forever, yeah. You know, going back. And on TV, it's like you say one thing and then you don't.

1:04:22But I'm watching you for many years. You're measuring those words the same way you're writing them. And it would be better if I just boom. I would be better in broadcasting if I could ever simultaneously control my writer's instinct and my writer's ego and let my hands go. Just bop, bop, bop. Timmy lets his hands go. I got to think about it and make a grand statement. Sometimes it gets in the way. I would have been a better broadcaster if I could let my hands go and be quicker. and I had to learn things, you know, by trial and error, a lot of error over the years. I tell you, the writing that I learned to really love was essay writing for TV and it was a whole different craft.

1:05:10When you have something like this and you're taking custody of 120, 130 ,000 words, 200 ,000 words, God help me in the case of Joan Ameth, you think that the weight of the book has to do with its, you know, how heavy it is. Nonsense. In TV, I learned to cut through and get to the heart of it, and it was the only way I could stay on the broadcast was to, I don't know if master's right, but to learn this essay form and to boil it down to what's the nub, what's the issue. And more often than not, it's about the fighter's ego, and it's about the spectacle of it, and it's this incredible continuum that boxing is, which is like ecstasy to humiliation, and it keeps going.

1:06:04The stakes are so damn high. So writing about that, writing for TV, made me a better writer, made this an actual shorter book. That I found exhilarating. And I like TV because I don't, there's a famous columnist. named Red Smith and he was asked, well, what's your process? Oh, my process is real. My process is easy. He said, I just sit down in front of the typewriter and I open a vein. He was a bleeder. Larry Merchant once said to me why he liked TV more. Larry Merchant was a great newspaper columnist. I was a bleeder too, Mark. I know what you're talking about. I'm a bleeder. I'm a bleeder. You're a writer and you are, you're a bleeder because it hurts and it's supposed to hurt.

1:06:58And if it doesn't hurt, my feeling, yeah, you're doing it right. Yeah, but how do you hurt? How do you bleed when you're writing about another person, an athlete? Hold on. How do you respect that person? How do you respect that athlete as a man or woman, right? Not treat them subhuman, but yet still do your job. I don't think I ever treat anyone. Not saying you. I'm saying a writer. No, no, no. How does that work? I can only tell you from me, okay? I tried to treat, I think I have, I think I have, not him. When I was a kid, he didn't exist to me. He wasn't real. He was just the villain in my column.

1:07:38I came up, I was covering cops and courts. My first Tyson job is Mitch Green. Go up to Harlem. You know, he just got into a fight with Mitch Green. It was a group, like, it just was another thing, man. It was like going to Bensonhurst. It was like going to East New York. It was just another job. You know, it was like, I was a city side reporter. I knew who he was, but he was an abstraction to me. And then he became a full-on villain. So he was the bad guy in my column. Another guy, Lloyd Daniels, was a basketball player, became a junkie, but an incredibly gifted guy. Grew up next door. He was the hero in my column.

1:08:17But I knew Lloyd, and I knew what he had struggled with, and I could empathize with him. And I remember he came back from getting shot. I meet him at West 4th Street, and my career... Yeah, when did he become human, though? To me? To you? To me, in 2012, I go to see his one-man show, which his wife, really, in her infinite wisdom, wrote. the first making sense of his life. And it's before Spike Lee got a hold of it. So it was really rough, man. It was in preview at the MGM. And he wasn't polished. The performance was kind of jagged. And you could still stay working on stuff. And I'm watching the show.

1:09:02Here's a guy, I probably never, one good thing about him.

1:09:11I told you before about crying. I'm holding back the tears. I'm like, Tyson's making me cry.

1:09:23And with me, I'm doing a story. Meet backstage. I probably wrote more bad about you than anybody. Did he know who you were? Who knows? He might have, might have, might not. I don't know. What he remembered, what he didn't, or if he cared. Yeah. And I told him, I remember my first job was like Mitch Green.

1:09:44My first Tyson assignment. And then, you know, I would get like tips at the city desk. He threw stuff all over the house and the mansion in Bernardsville. Boom. Front page. I'm a young reporter, man. I want to get on the front page.

1:10:01And he says to me, wow, how did that make you feel? I mean, how did it make you feel? So I started thinking about being a young reporter in this town. And being on the front page and being in the heat of that mix, man.

1:10:24It's like getting high. It was adrenaline. It was a rush. It was about New York. It was about Tyson. It was live, man. I told him, he just kind of like, he nods. It's like, not in judgment, but acknowledging. Yeah, it was all adrenaline. But that was the moment, I'm ashamed to say it, that he became full-on human to me. And how does that work? I said, did you ever, I guess he was like 45 then. I said, did you ever imagine being here? He goes, what do you mean? Like being 45.

1:11:14And I could never imagine being this old. And that's the thing. That's one of the peculiarities and the beautiful things about the Tyson story is that he outlived not just mine, but his own capacity to imagine. He was born to die. There's a famous line about Sonny Liston, I'm probably mangling it, but that he was dying, that he started dying the moment he was born. Tyson was like that too. But here he is and now he's in this place that no one could have anticipated he's beloved. This book doesn't deal with that, but for the beginning, this book deals with why are we addicted to him? Why is he such an important figure in the american imagination but if if if writers right we me and you talk about this a lot we have throughout the years if writers don't have that moment like you had with mike when do they humanize athletes when do they humanize fighters if they don't have that it goes back to what we're talking about before.

1:12:23I can say

1:12:28guys that cover on camera are not. I want, I need the guys. When I go back to my room, I cry. See, a female did that to me. So his father, like his father's voice, I heard that in this neighborhood my whole life. That voice, like in the park. Hey, bro. Yo, but I know what he went through even when he's crazy you know I want to like buddy come on what are you kidding me

1:12:58um the great thing about boxing and I've said this before boxing made me a little bit better writer than I actually am because it deals with all the stuff I wanted to deal with as a writer fame masculinity um how you deal with humiliation heroism what is heroism what is fear so all that stuff is explicit you don't have to go searching for it it's right out there because the protagonists male female that you know they're naked physically almost physically and certainly metaphorically it's all there and and and what made them fighters what what what makes you want to empathize with them the the wound the hurt it's not just ability you like ability athletic ability okay that's one thing but there's got to be something in there makes you a fighter that's different and more often than not it's the dysfunction in your backstory but if a writer has not put the work in and it's not just on the writer but i'm saying if a writer has not been trustworthy every time you read an article he's coming for you i'm not saying just regular no i understand but this is where we disagree listen Every time you turn on your fight, let me go see what they said.

1:14:13It's nothing positive. It's always a backhanded compliment or something negative. And you already got trust issues coming from whatever lifestyle you came from. I don't trust you, so I'm not going to give you the thing that you need to start humanizing me. How does that work? Athlete, writer, how does that work? You may not have a good heart. Doesn't mean what you saw was wrong. If I'm calling a fight, I could say something is heroic or something is cowardly. It may not mean the guy is heroic or cowardly. Do I know him personally? Maybe, maybe not. It's harder for me to call a guy a coward or to cite him for an ethical or moral fault if I don't know him.

1:14:54It's easy. If I do know him. It's easy. Confession. it's easy when I was a kid in the 90s a columnist I don't know him I don't give a and plus he ain't behaving well you know some things I wrote were overboard some things weren't man you know and Tyson's an extreme example but and this is what I this is what I liked about the old media formula you call out a guy because he threw a bad pitch or he's a whatever you know you're in the locker room the next day. You gotta see him. Okay, I'm in the locker room, what you, you know? You gotta see him. I remember the Mets wanted to kill me, but I didn't care because I didn't want to be a sports writer.

1:15:38I wanted to cover, like, New York. I think that the problem that you're talking about is more pronounced today because every idiot with a phone can have an opinion on something they really know nothing about. Yeah. So, I mean, part of it's human nature. Now, if I have a job and I got to go cover a ball game, I can't know everyone on both teams, you know, or fight. I can't know everyone. I got to rely on my best judgment. I trust my best judgment. Sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes there are biases that I don't even know about. But I trust myself ethically, basically. Your point's well taken. But everyone tweeting and Instagramming and whatever the hell else they do right now, I can't even, like, put a picture up on there.

1:16:24But they're offering their opinions. Yeah. You know, I really, I really, I really admire Shakur. And I like Shakur because he, he, he was honest with me. Like when it came down to going on camera, he gave himself up. Always, always be indebted to that. And I think he got a bad deal. I think he got a bad deal in Delos Santos because he, he beat a guy who was supposed to be big and bad with one hand. Okay. People didn't like the fight. That's great. I asked, Zepeda about that. And Zepeda knows coming up on this fight, so I don't know how it turns out this week. But Zepeda knows. I said, what do you think Shakur's weakness is?

1:17:05He goes, well, if he listens to the social media, when he answers social media, that could be his weakness. He said that? Yes. And I don't think that he's wrong, okay? But how is that different? All those chuckleheads, who are now experts on boxing, and think Shakur isn't tough, isn't this, isn't that, has no game, he's boring, doesn't want to fight as a runner which is i've never i still haven't seen shakur run i've seen it be not violent i've seen it be not ambitious i've seen it for one punch at a time but i've never seen him run but you have not thousands not one sports writer you have millions of dudes on here going like oh he's a runner well you're basing that on what so what i'm saying my question is how is that less evil or less informed than the old media formula?

1:17:55Because I don't think it is. I think we have these stupid notions that are reinforced a million times over by guys who, I don't know what fights are they watching. Is Shakur a violent fighter? No, I don't think so. Can he not be excited? Okay, depending on what the task is. Is he a runner? What the hell are you watching? What are you watching? With social media, you got to contend with it. You have to deal with it. And just like the media you had to contend with. But it's a different ballgame because I don't have to engage you. I don't have to talk to you. Right? So I use Terrence Crawford as an example.

1:18:29And I'm not going to name names, but I'm going to just speak generally. A lot of people were wrong about him. Bob has his opinion about, I'm not looking at the books. I can't speak on what he lost. I can't speak on that. But I'm saying him not being a draw, you know, talking about his personality. you know and and not realizing this dude's story which you detailed in great detail this whole time at espn but not not having to wear with all to say man maybe he's not very talkative because of what he's coming from and there's a trust thing so let me do a little work to try to build this trust and then maybe we can have a better conversation they just they wrote what they wrote they put the headline hold on hold on i just go for it who is they i'm saying those that I always think it's like it's always we gotta define who they are they know who they are those that did it all I can say not on them but hear me I said those that did it they know who they are this is a point of frustration to me they tried to bury that dude and what happens is but here's my real issue it's not even the action because that's probably not gonna stop it's probably not gonna stop people are gonna write they're gonna do what they wanna do and then they'll show up for the media event and then they'll put a camera in your face and I don't think fighters should engage writers as if they were other fighters.

1:19:47You know, these guys aren't fighters, so I wouldn't engage you on that level, me personally. But how can you put a camera in my... I know a couple times you wanted to smack me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe a few times. But no. You put... Just because you have a job to do, but man, you've been writing... I was just looking at the last dance the other day again and I forgot all the stuff because you know I was young when that stuff was happening. that they're writing about Mike, Michael Jordan. And I don't know what some of his relationship is with some of the media, but it's like these are cheap shots.

1:20:19But Michael Jordan didn't suffer from bad press. At times he did. His father died. He went to go play baseball. His airness. They had certain things that they said. Some of it in the media or press, like you're doing the best you can. Yeah. You're doing the – let me get to Jordan and I'll get to – Because Crawford, I think, is an interesting... I ain't done on Crawford yet. No, no, neither am I. Neither am I. And I agree with a lot of what you say. But, like, Jordan, man, you're there. You got something coming out the next day. You're doing the best you can on deadline. And... But is it the best when, like, he retires and then they say that, oh, it's really a suspension and they're hiding something?

1:21:06Like, those are personal things. Or his father dies. It's probably because he's gambling addiction. You're doing the best. that's doing the best you can do you think people didn't like people think and I was there I covered it people were on Jordan's job and they should have been he was the greatest he didn't Michael Jordan didn't suffer from bad press and but he did at times some of the things that are cynical it's like you have a right to be cynical I'll tell you what I what I think you're talking about which is something that I was taught when I was a kid I was a New York tabloid columnist probably everything you hate in the media Okay, cool.

1:21:41And I was taught this, to your point. And man, you want to be like Shakespeare? Like, great, knock yourself out. Go be Shakespeare on your own time. But right now, I want some red meat. I want red meat. I want some that sells newspapers. And they're allowed to ask you for that. And in one way or another, most consumers want some form of red meat. Certainly on the phone, on social media. You do the best you can in the time allotted. Some guys and women are good, fair, some not. I've been on, I've seen both sides. I don't think Jordan suffered from bad press. I mean, it wasn't like he was in New York.

1:22:29And in New York especially, you talk about the New York swagger. We were expected. He's a global superstar, though. No, no, but we were expected in New York. He changed into the city. But we were expected in New York. Yo, don't be guiding up the athletes. They could do that in Chicago. They definitely do it in L.A. But in New York, man, you know. And you'd always, like, throw a punch just to make sure you were doing your job. Is that dishonest? Is that wrong? I don't know. I did the best I could as a kid. No, no, no. But I'm telling you. But there's some guys that are maliciously doing this stuff, though.

1:23:02I'm copping to what you said as a columnist, and I'll tell you why. I just told you, like, hey, this was the instructor. This was the job. man. You can't, if you're a New York City columnist, you can't, forgive me, you can't be seen as a straight, same thing you were talking about New York swagger. Hey, man, don't let him like, don't let him get away with that. It was a mindset. What's the non-New York guy's excuses? It depends on the, I always thought the other guys around the country were like much softer than we were. We were You're from a New York perspective. Let me go back to Crawford. I don't think the last time I spent as much time covering a, I'm trying to think, on just a single assignment, as I did on Crawford in Nebraska, might have been a homicide in Brownsville of a cop who died in the Tilden Projects, where Sushu Carrick is from.

1:24:12I had a hard time selling that. I had a hard time selling the Crawford thing. People are like, well, who was he? Is he here or there? And ESPN gave me a lot of space. And a lot of time I took with that Crawford thing. And I'm really proud of it because I was in the minutiae of his life and BOMAC's life. And I felt privileged to do that. And I wanted to show it around to everybody. Like, look at this story. And a lot of it was about Crawford and his mom. And I didn't go easy on them. And Crawford and his kids. And Crawford driving to go wrestling with his kids three, four hours, five hours in the damn car.

1:24:54Probably because he didn't, you know, his dad wasn't able. His dad was in the Navy. And I loved that goddamn story. And I wanted everyone to read it. And then we did another version, like sort of on camera, with him and his mom. And it was a hard story. And I remember he fought Benavidez. And if you go back, you look at the rating for that fight, it did a really good number. I mean, like, great. And Benavidez was a, for that time, considered a little bit substandard opponent. Even though he came up, he was incredibly talented. And the fight got juiced up because Benavides went to go slap him at the weigh-in.

1:25:39Crawford has a story. It's an incredibly dramatic story. And I think it was undersold. And you don't have to be like a song and dance guy to sell a fight. Interesting case, you know, Floyd Mayweather says, what do I got to do to sell him? To my mind, he reconstructed himself. And he became this incredibly, probably the second most lucrative fighter after Tyson. But Terrence shouldn't have been asked to do anything other than what he did. My opinion. That's my point. No, and I think that, I'm sorry, who are these other guys who are like household words that are selling? That's my point. He needed, but here's the thing.

1:26:19To me, what Terrence got blamed for is the inability to get him a sufficiently worthy opponent. So what do we have? We're covering Amir Khan. Who's really going to, that outcome is in doubt? This is the thing that has plagued this generation of the sport. And it really came down on Terrence. A success, after he goes to 47, whether Spence was promised or not, they never got him. They never got him Spence. And he had to run through so many damn hoops to get Spence, even after he left. But to my earlier point, that's also a fight that many wrote about and said it's not going to happen. Right. And Terrence said, we can figure it out.

1:27:10Talk to Spence, we can figure it out. That fight, that fight, that should have been the primary goal for Terrence Crawford. Not just Terrence, but I'm saying his team. I got a question, though, okay? Where was... I've done stories on Errol Spence, okay? He was a great fighter. I've seen him in the gym beat up light heavyweights or cruiserweights. Incredibly strong guy. No one ever questioned Spence's drawing power. Was he a bundle of personality? No. When I look at Terrence Crawford, I see a complicated, interesting guy with a story. And if you can't tell that story, shame on you. but the biggest thing in boxing you want to sell a fighter the first thing you do you want to quibble with him because of his style or this and that the first thing you do get him a opponent worthy of his worthy of his titles worthy of his ability an opponent who you see him fight and you will remember but you can't fabricate that and you got to take no but you got to take what you're given sometimes and what i'm saying about crawford is and i can name 10 fighters i think i'm i think i'm with you on this argument i think i can name 10 fighters right now that have not had a marquee matchup but because we like him he's our guy and we got a good rapport you're gonna think he's the next coming terrence crawford i think that's true in any i think that's true and yeah but we're just talking boxing right now terrence crawford the biggest issue is that things will be said and done and then when you overcome the thing that they said that you couldn't do oh many times over which he's done he got the fight he performed in the fight his stature grew he continued to win right he's making more money than he's ever made before oh and then he got the canelo fight that that many said he wasn't going to get but here's the thing where i lose respect a lot of times for those that are speaking about our sport that we're lifers in we're risking our life to be in they never come back and apologize and say man i was wrong about this guy and the same the same energy that i have doing the best that i can to make sure i get meet this deadline we don't put that same energy i've done this i've done it with mike you did it with me yeah yeah but i mean no no but i'm saying we don't come back and say you know what man i was wrong about that guy you were right we don't try to balance out them skills or write that wrong and we just we just normalize but it goes let's think let's think we normalize it creek and then when you when you when you do get on the soapbox and start to elevate your voice and speak about it oh nobody wants to hear that like man i love this sport and i love the fighters that's in it i do too and i'm not saying you don't and i don't appreciate those kind of things whether it's coming my way i'm not saying critique sometimes fighters just sensitive some of the toughest guys in the world but i can't tell them something because they they're sensitive about their work and and it's like dude you shouldn't have felt that way about that but then sometimes you got an agenda you gotta you're trying to really bury this dude.

1:30:17But you just said it. Sometimes you look at... I remember the Benavidez fight and I could not love Crawford more, but I had done a story about Benavidez getting shot in the knee before and I saw him hobbling on that. He just couldn't... It's a real story. So I talk... So wait. So I talk about... Now he's hobbling on that knee late in the round and Terrence is like, yo, what you made about his knee for? That ain't your fault. I wasn't taking... That ain't your fault. But I'm not taking anything away from you, Terrence. I mean, Benavidez did a lot better He did do better in that fight than I thought he was going to do.

1:30:47I thought he was just going to get housed from the beginning. But here's another element here that is particular to our time in boxing, and that is the inability of promoters to make the fights that fighters should have. Now, talk all the fuck you want about Shakur. How popular would he be if he had fought Tank Davis, if he had just had the fights he wanted? All of these guys You know the first thing in making a guy popular Want to make people care about your story Put him in a big fight Tommy Hearns You cared about him You fought Ray Leonard You saw what was best in both of those guys' souls You saw how tough Ray Leonard was But if you don't have If you're not matching guys up And you can't make fights Jeez my God Don King and Bob Arum could do business together but these guys out here today they can't i don't think we know they haven't been able to for the last i don't know how many years and and that and and that has that has resulted in my opinion a presumption against a lot of guys who haven't gotten the fights they should have look why isn't david benavides a household name because canelo hasn't fought him that's straight up that's the truth of it i don't think we know really how to make a star in boxing i do you put him in big fight.

1:32:12I don't think because you don't mean fighters crashed and burned trying to beat Floyd Mayweather. Oh, the money man. No, bro. Like you got to add the jail time and you got to add the headline about this. You got to allow add this in that he overcame. You don't, there is no, no secret sauce to becoming a star. I think I actually think, I think that this, I don't know. Elements. Yes. If you can have the marquee name, that'll help you. Yes. If the media, if you, they know your story and they embrace it and endear themselves to you because of it, that can be a reason. But that's not a guarantee. Danny Jacobs got knockouts.

1:32:45Danny Jacobs has a tremendous story. The man beat cancer and is still beating cancer. And I didn't see the media. He's from Boundsville? I didn't see the media flocking to him like that. He's got a great personality. Smiles, clean cut, takes care of his son. I remember. There's no rivalry. There's no source of controversy. No, I remember, and Peter Quillen was working out at the gym I go at the time. And I remember going to see him and Quillen. And Quillen just got smoked. Why isn't Danny Jacobs bigger?

1:33:28But I do think that the first element in becoming a star, even before your personality and the rest of it. Like some guys are stars, some guys are not. And TV executives most of the time can tell you with some accuracy. Writers can tell you who has the it factor, who doesn't. But the one thing we're lacking today is a consistent source of good matchups. Maybe that changes now with TKO. That's a fact. I don't know. But you never had to worry about Ali Frazier if they were going to fight. Different here. But I understand. But what I'm saying is that it took Ali Frazier less time to fight the greatest trilogy in the history of this or any sport than it took Pacquiao and Mayweather to get together for one lousy, boring fight.

1:34:18I liked it. But I know a lot of people do. Oh, okay. I liked it. But if you can't, you have a sport, you never have to worry about what's going to happen in the NBA or the NFL. There's a playoff system. Yeah. Okay, you're seated, and then it goes to its conclusion. Boxing, you have a mess. You have nothing to ensure that. So for the longest time, to go back to Terrence, he wants Spence, and Spence is being held out. I don't know if it was Bob's fault, PBC's fault, whatever fault it is. now look what i had heard was that terence was promised this and didn't come through well then you got a problem um but all of a sudden what did it take for for terence crawford to become this universal star even though he had hbo all the way up once once he smokes errol spence oh we have a star then all of a sudden i see on good morning america my clip is with his mom is playing you know oh yeah of course where was everybody before it's it's the match-ups that were being denied listen even after he loses to Holyfield who Holyfield is convinced like from puberty that he's going to beat Tyson how I do not know but when Tyson beats Spinks Evander who has never fought a heavyweight fight yet is saying how can I say he's the best when he hasn't fought I mean, he believes in himself.

1:35:52But even after Evander beats him the first time, next time right back, Tyson fights him again. I know it was the ear biting all, but, like, you didn't have to. Bo and Holyfield, they fought each other. You can't sustain a sport where the best don't fight the best. I agree with that. I think that a lot of guys have been conned into, like, oh, yo, you're a pay-per-view fighter. I don't know who. He's a pay-per-view fighter, okay? So Mayweather is a pay-per-view fighter. De La Hoya was a pay-per-view fighter. You can count them on one hand who's a pay-per-view fighter. And usually what happens is it's like a transitive property.

1:36:29You've got to fight a pay-per-view fighter to really become a pay-per-view fighter. There's very few pay-per-view fighters, but it's become, because as the pie has shrunk, I think fighters are getting conned, yo, you're a pay-per-view fighter. Don't worry about that. Fight, man. You want to make yourself big and irresistible? fight the best names you got perform well and even if you lose you win did Evander lose anything from losing to Riddick Bowe the first time hell no it was a heroic fight God you know the fighters today man and even in my generation they see the toll that those fights took yeah and I think that a lot of guys don't want nothing to do with that number one I also think that the money is not always there for those types of matchups.

1:37:15What's enough money? I don't know, but it don't seem like enough, whatever you're offering me. That's another thing. I don't think it's just matchups. I think certain guys, for whatever reason, you guys can figure out what that reason is. They need a matchup. You need this to be a star. Then maybe we'll accept if you get the right guy. Then other guys, you don't need the right guy. We're just going to promote you as if you're the guy because we like you, we believe in you, and we appreciate you. I just think for guys like Terrence Crawford and others, we got to do a better job. Don't know if that's going to happen, but like, if you don't understand where he came from or where certain guys come from, if you don't know how to tell that story, man, maybe you should ask somebody or go ask him and learn how to tell that story.

1:37:59Because if it ain't this story, I really don't know how to judge because this guy, you got to entertain me. You got it. You need the right opponent. Why does he talk like that? He don't talk enough. Listen, bro. Everybody ain't called to be Mayweather. I could crash and burn trying to be Mayweather you know how many things Mayweather had to overcome I'm not going to name no names you've seen it I don't call them out like that but you know what I'm talking about I'm just saying there's a lot of people that are going to buy and I think for the integrity of journalism they got to start being able to do that there's one more wrinkle there's one wrinkle in the Crawford store I'm glad you had a last word I want you to have a No, no.

1:38:39Which is what's stranger still is that, look, I understand. I understand Shakur, not an especially violent fighter. And I understand what people want. They want red meat. They want the knockouts. All right. Terrence is. Terrence is a violent fighter. That's my point. That's my point. I understand. What am I missing? But Terrence has this really unique balance of violence and craft. that's that's what's really in the ring that's what's most interesting about him he's got this computer he's working from the left side he's working from the right side and and i wonder how this like how this will work with canelo it it blows me away right but but in terms of this is to your point the the the wrinkle in crawford's case is that he knocks guys out i don't you know I don't get it.

1:39:37I don't, you know, I disagree with you as I have somewhat about the media, but I really don't disagree with you about Crawford. He should have been, it shouldn't have been considered a burden to sell him. It's like, yo, we got this guy. You can't guarantee a guy is going to sell, even if you say the most glaring things about him. But I just, I think the things that were said were unfair. And I think it's a lot of people that owe him an apology. That probably won't happen. But, you know, his success is speaking loud right now. and it has been for the last few years. But we can do this all day, man.

1:40:09We're going to do a part two. Okay. Appreciate you, man. Wonderful read. Wonderful book. Thank you so much. Man, that's it, man. Me and Creed can do the... This is what we did at ESPN. Driving in the cars before we went on television live. Man, we just talking, man, and getting it in. That's my brother. I appreciate him. That's another episode of The Art of War. We'll see you next time.

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