#2346 - Jim Lampley

27:56Yeah. So he respected Moore's intelligence, but he also understood something that I didn't understand. He'll come and stand in front of me late in the fight and let me knock him out. Crazy that he predicted it that way because that's exactly how it played. Oh, yeah, go to YouTube. Yeah. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. It's uncanny. It really is. Giant Michael Moore fan when he was a light heavyweight. I think a lot of people forgot how dangerous he was at light heavyweight. He was one of the great light heavyweights. No question. Because of the South Boat Bunching Power. You know, you don't get light heavyweights.

28:32I don't know what it's called. I don't know what it's called. You have to see as it is in boxing, but you don't see South Boat Bunchers very often. South Boas are technical. They box, they take advantage of their foot skills and their hand speed and they beat you with boxing skills. You're not often going to run into a South Boat who's going to knock you out. But we've already talked about Tarver and Moore or was another one who had punching power. And it's kind of, Cooney, Cooney was the South Boat with punching power. It's kind of doubly effective if you've got that. Because you're worried about the technical issues with a South Boat and now he brings a cannon.

29:09Right, right. Yeah, the South Boat thing was always so confusing to people. Because if you ever box before, you're so accustomed to that left hand being forward. Right. And then all of a sudden everything's reversed and now you're thinking. Right. And if you don't have a lot of South Boas that you train with on a regular basis, things aren't automatic anymore. And one of the things that George used to talk to me about all the time was angles. That, you know, you're standing in front of another man, you're confronting him, you're trying to deliver and stop delivery angles. Right. It's all about where does it come from and where is it going and how can I deal with that.

29:42Now, I was never a fighter. So I can't empathize, but I can sympathize when I listen to that. Well, you can see it, right. And I think the greatest at angles of all time is Loma Chanco. Nobody. Nobody. The greatest footwork. Oh my gosh. The greatest hand skills. The most effective training by his father. Yeah, what a genius move to take him out of boxing for two years to study Ukrainian dance. And a brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Yeah. And, and by the way, he had an effect on the national team for several years. And what culture in the world has had more accomplishments and surprising new stars in boxing.

30:26Right. Other than Ukraine, right. And Usik, who is basically like moves like a giant Loma Chanco. Just not quite as effective. That's a really great phrase that I had never concerted before this moment. Thank you, Joe. A giant Loma Chanco. Yeah, you can't. You can't quite move that well when you're 220 pounds. You're just dealing with gravity and mass. But you're still creating unique angles. You're coming at them from unique approaches, etc. You're hard for your opponent to figure out. And Usik is impossible for most other emotions. Constant motion. Constant motion. Yeah. Constantly cutting off the ring with his feet.

31:02Mm -hmm. And hammers you to the body as often as he can. Yeah. Loma Chanco in his prime was just a magical thing to watch. Brilliant. It was like you were just watching poetry. And I had the privilege of calling those fights. It was an extreme privilege. Yeah. It was amazing watching him just do something where you'd seen so many different versions of boxers. And you watch him do it and you're like, oh my god, he put a new thing on this. That's why I can't understand that this moment can't really figure out what's up with Tefima Lup. How do you beat Vasili Loma Chanco? Right. And then wind up with somewhat indifferent results since that time.

31:45Yeah, the combos just fight with Kajar. He fought better than the other guys in Times Square. And I give him credit for upholding the card. But still, there's nothing since the Loma Chanco win. I mean, you lose to George Cambosos? I think the Cambosos fight was, I think he was just a little overconfident and he got caught. And then that really rocked him. That really shocked him. He got dropped early in the fight. Remember that? It's a bad sport to be overconfident in. It's the worst sport. It's the worst sport. Whether you're talking UFC or boxing. Yeah. Any combat sport when you don't appreciate the potential that your opponent has to do damage?

32:22Well, I used to say to people all the time, these are fine margins of competition. You think you see a lot of wipeouts in boxing because you see a second round knockout or third round knockout. You think that means there's a huge talent gap between the two fighters? No, it means one fighter made a mistake. Right. 90 % of the time, it means one fighter made a mistake. And if he thinks about it and trains against it, he won't make that mistake again. Well, like a perfect example. One memo, Marquez versus Pacquiao. 100%. They have three insane fights that are very close. Marquez lands one bomb and starches Pacquiao.

32:59There's one error. He got a little overconfident, a little too... Greatest counter puncher of his era. And power. Yeah. And with power, with the straight ahead power from the shoulder. Marquez was a gifted fighter. Very gifted. But just like that one moment, like if that had happened in the first fight, we would look at the whole thing very differently. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. This is like the margins as you're saying are so small for victory. That when you see like a spectacular result, you do automatically assume, oh, that person is just that much better. But sometimes it's just one error. One moment in time.

33:38Right. You know, if it's a knockout, now if somebody gets knocked down six times, then you're talking about something different. Right. But one knockdown that leads to a ten count, that was a momentary mistake. Right. And that's again, that goes to the fine margins of competition. Right. And then you know, it's also how do you bounce back from that? Like some people, the one moment, even if just a knockdown, they don't have the capacity to correct and stay safe and then regroup. Like they get shook. And then now they're fighting from this position, this defensive position where they're a little bit gun shy.

34:19So Marquez exposed the difficulties that Pacquiao could have against a great counter -puncher. And now we get ready for Mayweather Pacquiao. Right. And Mayweather just did such a smart thing, but also a devious thing. Waiting until Pacquiao was older, waiting till he slowed down, and then... Devious is not illegal in boxing. It's encouraged. Yeah. In any entrepreneurial sport, devious is not illegal. Devious can be an asset. That's how you retire with a 15 -year -old. I give Floyd credit for brilliance. Okay. Floyd wasn't just a smart fighter. Floyd was a brilliant fighter. He was on his own level.

34:58And so much so, you know, in any match up between the great counter -puncher and the great attacker, you know that the counter -puncher has the advantage. He's got more options. He's got more ways of winning. The attacker has to break through the wall, so to speak. So in the years before Mayweather Pacquiao, people would run up to me on the street, run up to me in the shopping center in Vegas, run up to me in a hotel. When am I going to see Mayweather Pacquiao? And I would say, well, we don't know, but what exactly is it you think you're going to see? Oh, I can't wait. It's going to be such a great fight.

35:33No. It's not going to be a great fight. It's going to be watching... Like watching somebody pluck the legs off a spider. All right. You know, at a step -by -step method. And you're going to watch Mayweather pluck the legs off the spider. That is Pacquiao. And it's going to be pretty easy for him. And it's not going to be wildly entertaining, but it is going to be one -sided victory. So why are you so excited about the fight? Oh, no. I don't think that's the case. But if you knew Floyd, you know, Floyd was only about winning the fight. He'll make fans other way on the web. I call him the first great social media genius.

36:17Yeah. He was great at talking shit. He got everybody upset at him so badly that they wanted to see him lose. And that would sell tons of paper views. He realized you could build an audience with negativity. Yes, I do. You didn't have to be an omnibus character. You didn't have to be somebody everybody loved. You could be totally negative. Right. And that would build a following, too. Yeah. When he shifted from pretty boy Floyd to money Mayweather, changed the whole thing. He knew what he was doing. He definitely did. A look. And it was, it would have been an interesting fight. Had he fought Pacquiao when he was younger in his prime.

36:50It would have been a very different fight. It would have been a more interesting fight. Much more different. Because any go -forward physical warrior like Pacquiao is going to wear down. Right. And any brilliant counter puncher like Floyd is going to retain more. Yeah. So he did. Yeah, it would have been much more interesting when they were younger. Also the fact that Pacquiao fought him with a bum shoulder. That was a disaster, too. Money talks. Yeah. I mean, look, I guess he was faced with this thing legacy or, I mean, it was the biggest pay -per -view of all time in boxing, correct? I believe so.

37:20I believe so. And I think it was like four million buys or something crazy like that. It was huge. So like, what is that? It was massive. Yeah, just lured Pacquiao into the list. All those people who had run up to me on the street corners for years finally got the chance to see what they wanted to see. Yeah. Give him a quarter zone shot, throw him out there. Yeah. Unfortunately. This is an advertisement from BetterHelp. Stress in the workplace is becoming an issue around the world. Did you know that 60 % of the global workforce has reported experiencing higher than normal levels of stress? So it's more important than ever that we learn to take some time for ourselves.

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39:14Yeah. That happens a lot in the UFC. There's a lot of fighters that fight injured. And, you know... Yeah, I've got to tell you this while we're talking about him. All right. I apologize for going off script here a little bit. I was with Manny three weeks ago, less than a month ago, at the Hall of Fame abductions in Canestote, in New York, where he was being abducted into the Hall of Fame. And, uh, on the night before the induction ceremony, there's a big banquet in a banquet hall at the Turningstone Casino. And I'm sitting up on the dais between Roy and Roskeringberg, my former boss at HBO, and right across to the left of us behind the podium, is Manny.

40:00And several people spoke, I didn't know that I was going to speak, I was asked to get up and speak, I did, Roy did a speech, et cetera, et cetera. Eventually, Manny got up and made a speech. Now, I met Manny Pacquiao 24 years ago, in a fighter meeting room in Las Vegas before his fight against Lachinola Lidwaba, which was his first appearance in the United States. What was that? He was a kind of a throw in opponent. What weight class was that? Yeah. So that would have been 122. Oh, and that nuts. And Larry and I were 100 % convinced that Lidwaba was the best 122 -pound fighter in the world. We had seen him on the undercarter, Lewis Rockman, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

40:45There's nobody, nobody could possibly be better than that. Grace, style, handskills, all the stuff. And I meet Manny in that room. He can't put three or four words of English together. I learn his backstory that he survived by selling stolen cigarettes on the streets of General Santo City in the Philippines. I get and understand that his big activity outside of the gym is to go play pool. He's a pool player in bar room. In Barcelona level. In Barrums, exactly. Yeah, he plays a very good pool player, et cetera, all of that. And then fast forward 24 years, and he's being inducted at the Hall of Fame.

41:27And without warning, he's asked to speak that night. And he stands up and makes a 15 -minute speech, maybe 12 minutes, but it was more than 10. All in English. All perfect. All more or less off the top of his head, unedited. It was brilliant. And I went to him afterward, hugged him, told him how much I loved him, and I said, I said, Manny, I first met you 24 years ago when you couldn't put three words of English together. And I know that politics had something to do with this. And he said, yes, but a lot of my political speeches were in Tagalog. And I said, well, some of them were in English. He said, yes, some.

42:12And I said, I don't think there's any sport other than boxing, where somebody could have achieved the kind of personal transformation that you have achieved. This is the only one. And he said, well, it sure helped me. That's for sure. Now, you probably know the story about Muhammad Ali and graduating from high school in Louisville. Yes. So just for our listeners and consumers, Ali had very bad grades. And in his senior year, he was flunking a math course. And in order to graduate, he had to pass the math course. And he was nowhere near it. And the math teacher went to the principal of the high school and said, I'm going to give him a passing grade, even though he has not performed on any of the tests and he doesn't do the homework and stuff like that.

43:05And the principal is like, why would you do this for this kid? Why would you give him a passing grade when he hasn't earned it? And the teacher said, you have to understand he's going to be the most famous man in the world. And we cannot be the high school that denied a diploma to the most famous man in the world. That's such a crazy statement. I wonder if it's true. I wonder if it's true too. But it seems like it's a fun story to tell. And of course, it's second hand. You're exactly right. It is. It's so good. I don't know the teacher and I don't know the principal. I just know the story. And I know Ali's primary biographer, Tom Houser.

43:48So maybe I got it from Tom. Yeah. I'd like to believe that that's true. I'd like to believe it's true too. It makes it more fun. Let's make a pact to believe it's true. The thing about Pacquiao that's so extraordinary is that he kept his power through eight weight classes. That is just wild. Like, what other fighter can you name that went through eight different weight classes as a world champion? I can't. None. No. Obviously. What I did learn that may relate to that is, the foreman was at great pains to explain to me and explained a couple of times that power punching is not a physical gift. Power punching is a science.

44:29Power punching is the product of real technical knowledge. Power punching is about footwork, weight shift, the angle at which you deliver the punch. You know, all sorts of things not directly related to your strength or quote power. And George was a disciplined and knowledgeable scientist about stuff like that. And he explained it all to me one time. And of course, if you watch the Moore or Knockout, he lands the first one too, right on the button. And then having Moore or where he wants him, he puts a little more mustard on the second one too. And we're out of there. But there are physical gifts that you are just, they're just God -given gifts of power.

45:17Big hands. Big hands. Big hands are shoulders. Yeah. All that. There's just certain guys though that just have extraordinary power. Like you remember Julian Jackson in his prize. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Ordinary power. At some moment or another, he's going to get you. Yeah. It was just disturbing. Right. How hard he hit. It was just different than everybody else. And it looked like he was doing the same thing, but the results were so much different. How about Andy Lee? Skinny. Not somebody you would expect to have. You know, heavy hands. How about looking everybody out? How about the LeONTAI Wilder?

45:51Yeah. Another one. A 209 -pound heavyweight. Right. That's flattening people. I have 209 pounds when he fights Tyson Fury the first time. Some of it is the bravery to commit. Right. You know, can you push your wake forward in a way that might leave you open to the counter and believe that you're going to get the better of that exchange. If you believe you're going to get the better of the exchange, go ahead. Go forward. And bat enhances your chance of knocking someone out. But there is physical gifts that you are just God given and some people have them. And these are the extraordinary outliers.

46:30The Deontay Wilders, the Julian Jackson, the John Mugabies. Remember Mugabie? John the Beast Mugabies. Ooh, I rewatched that Mugabie Hagler fight the other day in the day. What a great fight. What a great fight. What a fight. Hagler was my hero when I was a kid. And he was one of your first guys. So you're probably, so I'm sure you're an advocate with regard to what I call the number one elevator fight of all time. That's right. Hagler was the winner. Which one? The number one elevator fight of all time. And an elevator fight is the fight where your gym lamply or your Joe Rogan or your any combat sports expert, etc.

47:09And you step on to an elevator with six people and somebody turns around and says, who won Leonard Hagler? Okay. The debate about the decision, you know? Yes. And, you know, I'm sure you say Hagler beat Ray. Yes. And of course, we all know that Ray partially won the judges and the crowd with showbiz with the way that he through his arms up at the end of every round. And you know, called attention to himself. And he was quite aware of what he was doing. And he was quite aware also that it would get under Hagler's skin. Yes. You know, there was an element of genius and Ray as we talked about, already.

47:51For sure. That went to more than just his spectacular physical gifts. Right. Yeah. Now, he, he gave this system a little bit. He figured out how to flurry at the end of the rounds and make a big impression that judges eyes. That was a very close fight, but that fight always bothered me. And one of the things that bothered me is I felt like there were moments where Hagler could have turned it up and didn't. And then when he retired after that fight and went to Italy and became a giant movie star in Italy, the conspiratorial part of my brain was always like, was that like one of those deals where everybody assumed that Hagler was going to win.

48:31Hagler was a destroyer. Hagler had knocked out Tommy Hurnes. Hagler had beaten everybody in the division. Knocked out Mugabi. He was, he was the man, you know. You fought, right? Yeah. So you fought. I didn't. I mean, I've only talked. But because you fought, you probably have an even stronger sense than I do of how difficult the sport is. Yes. The training is difficult. The fear factor is certainly part of it. The level of concentration and devotion that it takes. It's not easy. Team sports are easier. That's true. And, and, and so, you know, I'm, I'm thinking that every fighter reaches a point where enough.

49:20Yes. And, and they might reach that point without really cognitively knowing that they've reached that point where it's enough. Hagler went to Italy, as you say. Yeah. Maybe he had already reached something like enough. Okay. Before he fought Ray in that fight. Well, you know, he had accomplished so much and also his training camps were the stuff of legend. I mean, he would spar a hundred rounds a week sometimes, which is just insane. Hagler was a monster. I mean, his conditioning and his drive and his will and his discipline. He was a monster. He would scare the shit out of everybody just from his work ethic.

49:59I remember I told the story. There was a news piece when he was training on the cape and it was in the middle of the winter. And he was fighting Mustafa Hamchow. And he was running down the sand dunes, screaming war with combat boots on in the winter. And I remember thinking, War, war, because you think you're disciplined, you think you're driven, you think you know you're special. And then you see a guy like that is like he's what my friend David Goggins calls, uncommon amongst uncommon men. Great line. So where does Hagler herds rank among your all -time favorites? One of the greatest of all time.

50:35One of the greatest fights of all time. Because Hagler just threw caution to the wind. Total. Just jumped out. So did Tommy. So did Tommy. Tommy didn't go in with a self -protective approach. Well, he tried to box. Remember after he broke his hand, he tried just throwing the jab out there. You could tell early on in the first round when he broke his hand. Yes. Because from then on, he's moving, he's a little, but he's already endured so much damage. Yeah. I mean, they have just thrown each other into the woodchipper. Both guys were just blasting away. I hope a lot of people are going to listen to this.

51:10And go watch Hagler herds on their web attachment. Because it's as great as anything has ever been. It was insane. I remember being in my living room when herds went down and just go, wow. And this was after herds had knocked out Durran. And I thought nobody could knock out Durran. When herds flat -lined Durran, I was like, could Lord. Could Lord like to see Durran face down on the canvases. Like, yeah, yeah, to check your eyes. Is this real? Well, did Tommy break his hand with that right hand in the first round against Hagler? Yes. Yeah. There you go. There you go. You've lost your primary weapon.

51:50He has one knock down attributed to him in his career and it's bullshit. The one -roll down fight. Bullshit. Not a really a knock down. And now we deal with Canelo. This episode is brought to you by Farmer's Dog. It doesn't matter how old your dog is. It's always a great time to start investing in their health and happiness. And thankfully, the Farmer's Dog makes it easier than ever to feed your dog a healthy diet of real meat and veggies. Dogs prefer their food, even picky dogs, and owners prefer their service. If you have a question about your dog, your plan, your delivery, or anything else, they have 24 -7 customer service that connects you to real humans who are genuinely interested in providing the best experience possible for you and your dog.

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53:14We're American companies making American products with American workers in America's hometowns. We're local bottlers and manufacturers operating in all 50 states. Employing more than 275 ,000 Americans in good paying jobs delivering for the nation. Because we believe in the promise of America and the people who make it great. Learn more at wedeliverforamerica .org. Pay for by the American Beverage Association. Who has had one knockdown attributed to him in his career and in my view it was bullshit. Which fight was that? So it was Miguel Cotto's little brother Jose Cotto. It was the first time we had Canelo on HBO.

53:55Believe it was an undercard of a top -ranked pay -per -view. I'm not 100 % certain about that. And Cotto's little brother Jose caught Canelo with a right hand body punch to the chest. And Canelo hit the ropes behind him and bounced off the ropes kind of unbalanced. He didn't go down but he came off the ropes, ungainly unbalanced, etc. And the referee, I can't remember which referee stepped in and very technically ruled that the ropes had held him up. So that's the only official knockdown in Canelo's career and he didn't touch the canvas. That's crazy. Nobody has ever put him on the canvas. And this is part of what Terrence is facing as he gets ready to fight him in September.

54:45Is you're fighting a guy who up to this moment in his career has been utterly knockout proof, knockdown proof. Well, even against a guy like Beavol, who's huge. Yeah, exactly. A huge light heavyweight. Yeah, but Beavol is, I'm going to say at least 50 -50 a backup counter -puncher. And they don't muster exactly the same power as a GoFaward attacker. True. You notice that he hasn't fought better BF. And I'm not sure that better BF would be the right matchup for Canelo. Yeah, for Canelo. I think it would be a nightmare matchup. Yeah, better BF, especially even though he's almost 40 now, right? Yeah.

55:27Is he 40? He might be 40. But he's still in shape and he still comes forward and he's naturally heavy -hands. Oh, one of the scariest of all time at 175. He's another one of those guys. It's just like, but with him it's volume. Right. Not one shot, but it's this stunning volume that never ends, this constant attack. Which is when... Has made his two fights with Beavol, so spectacular to watch, you know. Because Beavol is not a make -fire fighter. Right. He's a natural counter -puncher. Right. But if you insist on making the fire and you're strong enough to make the fire, then Beavol has to fight.

56:05Yeah. Which he's done twice against better BF. Well, he made brilliant adjustments in the second fight. Brilliant adjustments. He's a brilliant guy. Yeah. I mean, he really, really made the proper adjustments and the counter -strikes and the movement and he was just much better in the second fight. It's another country with very good boxing training. Oh, phenomenal. Do you think that they're having a rubber match? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't talk to promoters anymore, so... Yeah. I'm not sure about that. I hope they do. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a fantastic idea. I think Reod's season was trying to put that together.

56:38I think they're trying to put together a third fight. I really hope they do make that fight. Go turkey. Yeah. You kind of have to do it now before Better Beav is just... He's probably passed this party run. 42, etc. These numbers sound forbidding. Yes. But even as a guy... You know, remember, Foreman was 45. Right. What did he still have? Right. Power. And skill. The skill thing. Like, here's the best example of that Bernard Hopkins. Who has maintained their skill deep into their 40s? In fact, at a world -class level, at 49 years old, beating like top contenders at 49 years old? One of the smartest men I've ever met.

57:19Okay. Bernard Hopkins is smart beyond smart. He has PhD type intelligence. He really does. And he was also a very critical and thoughtful self -examiner. So those two things help Bernard to sustain long into, you know, antiquity. And an extremely disciplined personal life. Yes. That's the big one. You know, he kept his prison tattoo on his arm. And he kept that number on his arm to remind him that he was never going to go back. And I asked him one time, I said, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? And he said, well, the hardest thing I've ever done was to walk off nine times. In the neighborhood in which I grew up, I said, what do you mean, walk off nine?

58:13Nine years of probation. Nine years of living on and in the same streets where I was, the king of the streets when I was on the other side of the law. Nine years of reminding myself that I could never go back that my behavior had to change completely. That's what he called walking off nine. Wow. What a phrase, don't? Yeah, what a phrase. What a guy. Yeah. Really what a guy. I remember when he was middleweight champion and he wasn't getting the credit that he felt like he deserved and he was, you know, squabbling with promoters and I kept him on the shelf. I'm like, my God, he's like wasting away in the prime of his life.

58:53And I felt like we're going to like miss out on the prime of his life. And then here he gets into the Felix Trinidad fight. And I was like, this guy is, this is crazy watching this guy like completely outclass Tito Trinidad. I'm like, this is nuts. Of all the fighters I've ever known, if you were to ask me, who is the one most likely to still be holding every dollar he ever made? That's Bernard. Right. Okay. He gives nothing away. And he protects himself. He protects his family. He protects everything about his experience in an extremely devoted way. Why? Walking off not. What? Never wants to go back.

59:36Wow. Well, those are the stories that are so inspiring about boxing, right? The people that have used boxing as a vehicle to get out of their circumstances. Totally. Yeah. And Bernard is one of the greatest examples imaginable. Yeah. I love him. And you know, I had him on my show, The Fight Game on HBO. I had him do technical pieces because he was better than anybody. I'd explaining footwork, technique, et cetera. Andre Ward could have done it too, but Andre was still fighting at that period of time. Yeah. That was a great show, man. That was another bummer when HBO stopped doing boxing. Well, look, I mean, I say, I like to say this.

1:00:18It wasn't HBO. The minute that time Warner was bought by a bunch of cell -spawn salesmen from Dallas, AT &T, the character of the operation changed. And the first thing that went away was boxing. It's in my book. You'll read it. There's an anecdote about me at a post Emmy Awards or post Golden Globe Awards event in Hollywood. Shortly after AT &T had purchased HBO. And I was seated at the table of Richard Plepler, the longtime brilliant chairman of HBO, my beloved boss. And Plepler said, see that guy over there in the gray suit. And I said, yeah, he said, that's your new boss. That's John Stanky, the CEO of AT &T.

1:01:10I think you ought to go say hello. I think you ought to go meet him and just spend a little time with him. So I took his advice. So I went over and had a 10 minute discussion with Stanky. Very nice. Very cordial. Fun. And I walked back to Plepler's table and he said, so what do you think? I said, I think boxing is dead. He said, I agree with you. I just wanted to be sure that we were on the same page. Oh, God. Yeah. So it was clear. It was clear from that moment that they were not interested in going forward with something as... Why did you think boxing was dead? Why did you say that? Well, I could just tell from the way in which he spoke to me and the...

1:01:52Oh, so you weren't saying it based on your personal opinion. The dividend replies to questions like, are we going to do this fight? What do you think about that? Stuff like that. It was abundantly clear that they just... They saw it as a negative rather than a positive. And... And a public perception or profitability. Profitability. Really. To anyone who's... Many unpredictable in boxing. You schedule a show, somebody gets hurt, etc. I think they didn't want that kind of real life upheaval. And also, they saw it as unsavory or at least it felt that way to me. So... Yeah. Well, that... This goes to the fact, and you know this as well as I do, are maybe better.

1:02:37People from outside combat sports don't understand combat sports. You know, you're either in the culture and you get it or you're not. Right. And I... You know, I first started calling fights. I was assigned to call boxing at ABC Sports by an incoming new president of the sports department who wanted to get rid of me. And who thought... And who thought that I would be such a misfit in boxing that if he assigned me to boxing, the audience would reject me. Really. If they would see me as the successor to Cocelle, that would cut my throat. And then I would walk away from my contract, which is what he wanted me to do.

1:03:19He wanted me to... He thought my contract was absurd, too lucrative. He didn't like the guarantees for relative to exposure. And he told my agent, flat out. He said, I'm going to get rid of Jim. I'm going to make him walk away. And his first method for doing it was boxing. So of course, that means he didn't know that the very first sports event my mother ever sat me down to watch when I was six years old after my father died when I was five. We sugar Ray Robinson versus Bob Olson for the middleweight championship on Gillette Friday Night Fight. That I had grown up all through my childhood and teenage years watching Gillette Friday Night Fight.

1:03:57And later people would say to me, who's the voice in the back of your mind when you're calling fights? Is it Cocelle? I said, oh hell no. I would never try to emulate that. Don Dunphy, Chris, precise, factual on point. That's who I'm hearing in the back of my head when I call fights. Interesting. Yeah, so he thought he could get rid of me by assigning me to boxing. And he also did not seem to be paying much attention to the fact that his division with leadership of the guy named Alex Wallow, who was a boxing freak, had just signed a get acquainted look -see contract with a 19 -year -old heavyweight from upstate New York, whose name was Mike Tyson.

1:04:41Yeah. So the first fight I ever called on TV was Mike Tyson versus Jesse Ferguson in Glenn's Falls, New York. And this is the famous drive his nose bone into his brain fight. Yeah. Alex went to do post -fight interview after Tyson had obliterated Jesse's nose with an uppercut. There was a blood all over the ring. And Alex said, you know, Mike, tell me about the uppercut. And Mike said, cat them out of the top, me that the purpose of the uppercut is to drive the opponent's nose bone into his brain. I was trying to drive his nose bone into his brain. And I'm standing on the other side of the ring listening to this, head set on.

1:05:21And I thought to myself, oh my god, look at what I've stumbled into here. This kid is not only going to be the biggest attraction in boxing. He's going to be the biggest attraction in American culture, if he can keep coming up with quotes like that. And of course, within the next few weeks, they all started spilling out. Boxing is a hurt business. Everybody's got a plan until you hit them. All the things that Demato had taught him, which he memorized and then reproduced in his media contacts. One of my favorite TV fights was him versus Marvis Frazier, because it was such a terrifying execution.

1:06:00I'm giving away too much of the book, Joe. I mean, my publisher would say, wait, don't tell them the whole book. Come on, people are going to buy it anyway. Don't worry about that. Alex Walla, Alex Walla and I lived five blocks apart on Upper Fifth Avenue in New York. And when we went to upstate New York for the Tyson fights, of which there were several, we would always ride up in his green jaguar and he knew the root. He would drive, play me his esoteric rock music. You ever heard of Cockrobin? Try him out sometime now. And so all the way up to Albany for the Marvis Frazier fight. Alex is saying to me, you know, I'm thinking of saying in the opening on camera that Mike will knock him out in the first round.

1:06:51Do you think that's too audacious? And I said, well, Alex, you're the expert. You know, I'm just a throw in blow by blow guy who's trying to get my feet wet here. The last person is going to tell you what it is you should say. So if you believe Mike is going to knock him out in the first round and you're confident saying that, first of all, no one's going to penalize you on Monday if you're wrong. Nobody's going to print some big headline that says Walla was crazy or something like that. It's, it goes into the wash at that point. And second of all, if you're right, you will get credit for it. If you're right, Rudy Martzki will say so in USA today.

1:07:29And so that's our position for two thirds of the trip to Albany. And now in the last 040 or 50 miles, he starts saying, what if I said he's going to knock him out in the first minute? Do you think that's too brave? Same thing, Alex, if you believe he's going to knock him out in the first minute, go ahead and say he's going to knock him out in the first minute. I'm not here to control you or tell you what to say, say whatever you want to say. I think I'm going to say that he's going to knock him out in the first minute. So the following day, we do rehearsal for the opening on camera and he says he'll knock him out in the first minute.

1:08:05Then when we do the live opening on camera for the show, he gets a little more cautious and he pulls it back to, there you are. Look at Young's hand -lapped him. Look at you. Hair -ported on the right. We'll get to that in a moment. He pulls it back and when we do it live on camera, he says, Michael knock him out in the first round. Was it 33 seconds or 31 seconds? I think it was 33 seconds. And all the way back to New York. He is in the first minute. And you can groaning, crying, God's name didn't I say what I really believed in? Alex, Alex, you said he'd knock him out in the first round. You were going to get credit for that?

1:08:49Yeah, but I could have gotten more credit if I said what I really believed. That's such a silly perspective. We talk about fighters freezing. Marvis froze on Saturday. I mean on Friday, the day before the fight. Marvis was frozen. Well, we knew we knew coming into that fight. We knew. It was a perfect fight for Mike to showcase because Marvis had the giant name because he was Joe Frazier's son. And Joe Frazier had been trash talking Mike. And it helped to create what ultimately became the myth of Mike Tyson. The notion that he was going to knock everybody out in that way. And partially because of stuff like that, that Douglas is a 42 -to -1 underdog.

1:09:31Yes. When if you looked at the record for the preceding year, year and a half coming into Tokyo, Mike went the distance with James Bohn -Cresher Smith. Right. Mike went the distance with Tony Tucker. Mike went the distance with James Quick -Tillus. Yeah. There were scores at ringside in upstate New York who had Tillus as the winner in the fight. He went to the last 10 seconds with Jose Rebalta. He went the distance with Mitch Bloodgreen. What did they all have in common? They were all taller than Mike. Some of them have a right hand that would come over the top where he would have difficulty seeing the delivery.

1:10:08And when you get to Douglas, best athlete of the group, former college basketball player with good feet, had a big right hand. I mean, looking back, pure logic, no way in the world Mike should be a 42 -to -1 favorite against Buster Douglas. But Buster Douglas had underperformed most of his career and had not been motivated, then his mother dies. That's correct. 100 % correct, and you're right on point for saying it at this moment. Yeah, his mother died. And then... And that lit him up. Lit him up and never again. And Mike was at the height of his differences with Robin Givens. Right. Right. You know, constant turmoil and...

1:10:50Yeah. And partying and feeling invincible. Nothing that can do more damage to a good man than the wrong woman. Right. And she was the wrong woman. She was the wrong woman, period. Yeah. That was it. There's certain women out there like that that they could tank your life. Yeah. And unfortunately. O .J. used to say to me, if you want to know what the daughter is going to be like, look at the mother. And if you looked at her mother and the background relative to Dave Winfield and all of that, maybe you could have predicted. Or as Merchant said, in our on -camera prior to the Tubbs Tokyo fight, Tyson versus Tubbs in Tokyo.

1:11:36First fight I ever did on HBO. Larry had a line before the fight where he said, this was the beginning of the Robin thing. Cusshead died. Jimmy Jacobs had died. No, Cusshead hadn't died. Jimmy Jacobs had died. At any rate. Larry... Larry... With Ken Verrune who was already out there. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Larry said, since the beginning of the organized boxing, heavyweight champions have often consorted with actresses and never to their benefit.

1:12:14It's a classic merchant line. Among many classic merchant lines, I love him. That was one of the best things about you and Merchant and just the entire commentary team at HBO was that you had these intelligent, articulate people involved in what many people think of as the most barbaric of all sports. Yes. So it defined it in a very different way. That's the HBO way. Yeah. Elevated. Yeah. It certainly was elevated. And HBO's executive was very smart enough to see that you can treat it as an intellectual event. Yeah. And if you're doing it right, you get away with it. But it has to be with the commentators.

1:12:55It frames everything. The same exact event with crude commentators is not the same experience. Because you don't get that intelligent, articulate analysis and a guy like Larry Merchant who had been a round boxing for his entire life and had a deep understanding of it. And you, and then it's even the funny back and forth banter between Larry and George Foreman when they would disagree on things. It was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And I'm very proud to say not blowing my own horn, but Larry and George in particular. There's a sports television columnist in the New York Daily News named Bob Raceman, R -A -I -S -S -M -A -N.

1:13:36And at some point in that arc, Raceman wrote in his TV sports column in the Daily News, Lampley, Merchant, and Foreman are the greatest three -man broadcasting team in the history of sports television. Now think about that. That's amazing. This is not Monday Night Football. This is HBO boxing. Right. Yeah. And so he was saying in effect, this is better than Gifford Meredith and Koso. Wow. This episode is brought to you by Ship Station. Managing an e -commerce business is challenging enough without the added chaos of shipping and order fulfillment. It can feel like trying to herd cats on roller skates.

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1:15:44Don't think wireless can be so transparent, so Visible will now you know. Switch today at Visible .com slash Rogan. Terms apply, see Visible .com for planned features and network management details. I was very, very flattered by that. Which I should have been. That's incredible. Having a great team like that. There was the flow where you guys had worked together so often. And there was the between -round store. What set showtime and HBO apart from ABC, CBS and NBC? No commercials. And no commercials means you get one of the most meaningful and communicative parts of the narrative. Which is what goes on in the corner between rounds.

1:16:36So you're watching Tyson Douglas, for instance. And you see these two novice trainers struggling with a condom filled with water. To try to do something to ease the swelling in his eye. No inswell. Unbelievable. I remember Ray, Rayden Elyf fell off his chair when he saw that. It's just so hard to believe that you could achieve the highest level of combat sports. The heavyweight champion of the world and yet have this really rank amateur corner. There was so much that was taken for granted about Mike. Yes. During that stage of his career. The only person in that camp, once Demato died. The only person and Jimmy died.

1:17:21The only person in that camp who was really aware of how vulnerable he could be was Mike. Mike was a boxing genius. Mike knew much more than those guys about how to prepare for a fight. But again, before Tokyo, he was distracted. Yeah. Thoroughly distracted. And it just, it comes with success. All the trappings. I mean, he was just constantly, you know, you know, Mike, right? Have you had him in here? Oh, a couple of times. Yeah. One of the most lovable people in the world. I love the death. He's great. You can't not love Mike. If you know him. No, if you know him, I mean, the first time I met him, it's hard to believe he's really in the room.

1:18:03You're like, I can't believe he's real. Like he's right there. This is Mike Dyson. Yeah. Me as a child, I remember when I was a kid, I guess I wasn't a child, I'm only a year younger than him. But when he lost to Buster Douglas, I didn't watch it until after the fight. I watched a replay of it and I still expected him to win. You know what crazy that is? That's the kind of aura that Mike Dyson had. So you read him the paper and on the web that he's lost, but you're still expecting him to win. I remember I heard about it in a gas station. Someone told me in a gas station. I can't believe this is true.

1:18:39I was getting gas and I heard, did you hear Mike Dyson got knocked out? And I remember pumping gas on what the fuck are you talking about? Like what? Like Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Dyson. What? For real? So we talked about the call of Forman Moura and where that call came from. The other call that is on that same level in terms of people remembering and stuff like that is that call. And you just came very close to identically articulating what my call was because, you know, I'm watching the rounds in Tokyo. And I've arrived in Tokyo with firm opinion that Mike is going to knock this guy out in one, two, three rounds, something like that.

1:19:23And as the rounds go on and you're watching the debacle unfold, the, you know, water in the rubber glove to try to stop the swelling and stuff like that, you realize that the preparation might not be all there. And Douglas is getting more confident. And Douglas is landing his jab, et cetera, et cetera. And then hooking off the jab. And hooking off the jab. And I mean, people think that he knocked him out with the right hand. It was the left hook that did the damage. The left hook was thunderous and Mike stumbled to his side. And then, but at any rate, I'm sitting there in Tokyo. It's 10, 30 or 11 o 'clock in the morning.

1:20:06There are 34 ,000 people seated around me making no noise whatsoever. Right. The culture of a Japanese sports event. It's as if they are at an opera. You know, and that's just cultural. That's the way they are. And as that count is rising, five, six, seven, and it's abundantly clear that Mike's not going to get up. And I'm thinking, oh my god, what am I going to say about this? The very first live fight I ever attended was the biggest upset in boxing history. And now, here in front of me, 12, 14 feet away, is the result that's going to supplant that as the biggest upset in boxing history. So what do I say?

1:20:50And I've told this story many times. If you've heard it, I apologize for repeating. But I was developing a golf relationship with the greatest actor of my generation, Jack Nicholson, who became a close friend and later served saved my career. But that's another story. And I had asked Jack on the golf course about two or three weeks before Tokyo. So Jack, when you're going to the set to deliver the full -crime line in the movie, when you're going to the set to do the one thing that everybody in the audience is going to remember, when you're getting ready to go deliver, you can't handle the truth.

1:21:28What is it you have on your mind? What's your mantra? He said, lamp. Same thing I've been saying to myself ever since I first went to acting class. Don't overact. So I'm in Tokyo. The count reaches four or five. And I hear in the back of my mind, Jack's voice. Don't overact. And that call became, Mike Tyson has been knocked out. In about that tone of voice, I wanted to make it as matter of fact as possible. Because there was nothing I could do to elevate it by screaming or shouting or delivering any kind of window dressing, etc. It was what it was. Mike Tyson has been knocked out. That was that.

1:22:13I remember that. Yeah. Now that you said it, I remember that. Well, thank you. I appreciate it because you're a male. It was energetic, but matter of fact. Well, there it is.

1:22:32It's over. Mike Tyson has been knocked out. All right. So I did shout a little bit. I did shout a little bit. All right. I give myself too much credit for the matter of fact. But that of course was, that's my younger voice. It was a little bit higher. That was what I wanted to say. Octavio Mairan was in the name of the referee. I just remember Buster Douglas winning the game. That fight was thinking, man, what happens to him now? Now he's in the world. Well, what happens to him, of course, is that he goes on a celebration rampage. Yeah. He puts on, oh, I don't know, 40, 50 pounds, something like that.

1:23:07He tries to train them off, but not effectively enough. He goes into the ring against Toli Field and Holy Field delivers one left hook. Yeah. One perfect counter -left hook in the first round and we're out of there. Yeah. That's what it was. It was a left hook. I thought it was a right hand. Might have been a right hand. I don't remember. I could be wrong. See if you didn't find it. Might have been a right hand. They'll find it. Yeah, Jamie will find it. But yeah, he just never reached those heights again. That was it. He just never... Money. Yeah, I mean, also like the money. The other things.

1:23:40The other things. Food. He got real fat. He was an addictive eater. Here it is. Okay, let's see. Right hand. You're right. Then there was a left hook following. I don't think the left hook landed. The right hand is the one that did it. I think the left hook missed. Yeah, the left hook missed. You're right. All right, so one perrogan. Zero for lampening. It's cemented in my mind because I remember... What year was that? Well, it's 1990 when... Buster knocks out Mike. Was it? Yeah. Not 90. No. Not to be earlier than that. Huh? No. It was... It was 90. Well, it was February... February 10, 1990. Wow.

1:24:23February 10 in the United States, February 11 in Tokyo. Boom. Okay, right. And so this is probably 91 then. It might have been 90. Yeah. I think it was later in 1990. Yeah. I just remember... You know, when someone does something extraordinary and rise to the occasion, I always root on them. I always root for them. Like, wow, he's going to turn his life around. He's going to be great. So now you're rooting for Buster to be with you. Well, and also I was a giant Holyfield fan too, so it was one of those conflicted fights. And Holyfield, to me, was extraordinary because what he did with Maggie Shelstone in his training...

1:24:59October 25, 1990. There it is. This time I was right. Yeah. It was one of those things where Holyfield was one of the first guys that really embraced weightlifting. And I remember as a young fighter, I was always told, if you lift weights, it'll slow you down. Wates will make you stiff. Wates will slow you down. You should never lift weights. And so I listened to that. And I never lifted weights. And then I remember watching Holyfield train for his heavyweight debut thinking, God, I remember his fight with Dwight Muhammad Kawi. Remember that fight? Incredible fight. Like, that was when he was a cruiser weight.

1:25:37I was thinking, how is this guy going to go up to heavyweight? How is this going to work? And then... Strong mind. Very strong mind. Unquestionably. You want to see Evander do something? Tell him he can't do it. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But also, one of the first applications of real modern science in regards to strength and conditioning. Yeah. What Mackie Shelstone was doing was like very revolutionary. Yeah. And to see him do all these crazy strength and cardio routines and putting all that mass on and seeing all the doubters and naysayers. Which other fighter looked at that and realized who Mackie was?

1:26:13Bernard Hopkins. Right. Genius. He worked with quite a few fighters, didn't he, Mackie? I believe Mackie worked with quite a few fighters after that whole meeting. He worked with quite a few fighters. Everybody saw that the results were there. Yeah. Everybody kind of changed their opinion on that fight. Did he work with any MMA guys? I don't know. I don't... Probably. It was probably a few. Makes sense. Yeah. I mean, MMA guys are led... I mean, with MMA, you have the grappling aspect of it. Without strength and conditioning, you really can't compete. It's not really possible at this day and age.

1:26:44Everyone uses strength and conditioning. There's very few fighters that just train using skill. Just train skills. Like, George St. Pierre did that for a certain period of his career. I wonder if there's anybody left in boxing who trains just using the gym skills. There were a lot of them when I was first involved in the sport who would never have touched a weight. They subscribed totally to the notion that that was negative. And the worst... I mean, they definitely did calisthenics, but that was it. It was just bodyweight exercises. Which brings us to Crawford, which I think is really interesting.

1:27:20The Crawford Canelo fight. Beyond interesting. Fascinating. Fascinating. How does Crawford compete with that size? And, you know, we have to recognize, okay, well, when Canelo fought Floyd, it was 152 pounds. So he had dropped down, which was a struggle for him. Which is why Floyd was so brilliant in getting him to go down to 152. Because he knew he would be trained. 52 or 54? Well, the weight class, I believe, was 54, but I believe the clause in the contract for that fight was that he'd get down to 52. You're ahead of me. Let's see if that's true. I'm pretty sure that that's true, that they had to fight it when I left back checking on the fly.

1:27:56Yeah, it's interesting. That was a struggle. The 54 was a struggle. Now, Canelo goes all the way up to 68, and then even to 75. And now, back down to 68, whereas Crawford is leapfrogging. He's going... He goes to... He's going for midway. To 54, and now to 68. And the Magerville fight in 54 is... Biffy. A difficult fight. Yeah. A difficult fight. 152. 52. You were right. Joe Rogan scores again. Yeah, well, I have a goofy memory. It works a lot of the time, but sometimes not. Sometimes it's like... I don't think you could do this podcast without having a spectacular memory. Sometimes it's super accurate, and sometimes it's just terrible.

1:28:41I don't understand why. But certain things I do remember. And I do remember it because of the weight cutting thing. Because I remember thinking, like, what a brilliant move, to get him to do that. The same thing that Javonte Davis did with Ryan Garcia. Yes. Like, you can't rehydrate. Right. Like, which is like... No rehydration cloth. Soccer bat. That's such a soccer bat. But it's like the same thing with Pacquiao taking the fight when it's a bomb. And some of that... Don't you think some of that is tank reading Ryan's personality and playing him a little bit? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're fucking with him.

1:29:15Yeah, you're giving him other things. Tank is a brilliant con artist. Oh, he's so good. Yeah. He's so good and boy, the Lamont Roach fight. Ooh. Well, that was a knockdown. Oh, 100 % was a knockdown. And that's a... You have to call that a knockdown. That's a dramatic mistake by the referee. Without that, you have a decision victory for Roach, and he's a superstar. Now you have this fucking draw that they have to fight again. And that's a fight again. But now Javonte knows what's coming. They had fought in the Amateurs, correct? Well, they both have knowledge now. Roach knows that his counter -punching can be effective against tank.

1:29:48And tank knows that he has to make an adjustment if he's going to land a power shot. Well, it's also tank is another guy that has experienced all the trappings of fame. All the success and the money and all the jewelry and all the craziness and the ladies. And Roach has not. And Roach is a hungry motherfucker who can really fight.

1:30:13And you know, a lot of the boxing people recognize like that was a knockdown. But forever in his tree books, it's not a knockdown. When you take a punch to the face and then you take a knee, that is a fucking knockdown. Period end of story. I don't care if you got your hair fucking permed stuff in your eyes. It's like a literary idiosyncrasy, okay? And both of our sports, boxing and an MMA, are littered throughout their history with these things that are egregiously unfair at the moment. But also prompt us to remember the fight. And remember both fighters, if you're a fighter who has been victimized by a severe injustice in one of your fights, the audience is going to remember you sympathetically.

1:30:58And be more interested in your next fight. So this is an entertainment enterprise. And anything that contributes to your legend is ultimately going to pay you back somewhere down the road. Yes, that's true. There's definitely something to that. And then so Lamont will have a lot of fans on his side going to that side. Oh, big time. Yeah, in fact, I would put the fight in DC. Although I don't think Tank would want to do that. Is that fight scheduled? Not to my knowledge. Not to my awareness. Jervante Davis is totally focused on Canelo Alvarez and Terrence Crawford at this particular moment. Are you calling that fight?

1:31:39No. All right, wait a minute. Let me say I don't know. You don't know. No, no. There was a news conference in New York yesterday. And they announced that Max Kalamin is part of the broadcast jam. Okay. So that's only one person they've announced. And this is obviously I'd love to call the fight, but I don't know you August 16th scheduled for August 16th and Las Vegas. Wow. Boy, I might go to that. I might go to that. Maybe I'll go with you. Maybe we should. That would be fun. Hey, we're getting along really well. I mean, for sure. Yeah. So I enjoy the conversation. It would be fun to go sit on a live fight, wouldn't it?

1:32:16Oh, no. Is that a, is that a UFC weekend? God damn it. Let me check real quick. I'm sorry. He said it might be. Yeah. Shit. You have seen Chicago. Shit. All right. I'll call you later that night. Let you know. I'll watch it. I will have it on my phone. I'll set my phone up and have it there while the fight's going on. All right. Looking forward to it. So who do you like in Canelo versus Crawford? Well, I'm a giant Crawford fan because I think he's the best switch hitter since Marvin Agler. I'm a giant Crawford fan because I called his coming out fight against Brady to express God. And then various other stepping stones throughout his career.

1:32:52I also think he's one of those guys that if you tell him he can't do something he wants to show you in shock. 1000%. Absolutely right. I also think Canelo is slowing down and Canelo is a more of a one punch fighter now than the combination fighter he was when he was. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Summer is here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken Parmesan delivered a day in the sun. No, a bottle of rum. Yes, Uber Eats can definitely get you that for almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats order now.

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1:34:14It's younger. We'll see. Not yet ready to subscribe. Totally to that because again, you're talking about somebody who is stubborn. For sure. Who wants to prove everything he can prove. 100%. I agree with that too. But I think there's a like in boxing and certainly in MMA, there's a certain amount of years where a fighter can keep the RPMs up. And you know when they're in the red line. And I see there's some people subscribe to the idea of nine years. There's nine years is the most that a elite fighter in MMA has performed at their prime. I think that's a bullshit number because I think it's entirely dependent upon lifestyle, nutrition, discipline, physical attributes.

1:34:58There's a lot of factors. George Foreman won the heavyweight championship of the world in boxing at age 45. True, but he took 10 years off. Yes. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So you have to like factor in. But were the 10 years off good or bad? Did they dull his reflexes or did they actually allow his body to recover in such a way that you could debate that all night? All night. And George is biologically very unusual. He had canned hams for fists. They were gigantic fists. And intellectually unusual as we discussed before. Yes. And boy, you know, one of my favorite all time heavyweight wars was him and Ron Lyle.

1:35:33That was one of his all time favorite heavyweight wars. You know, he loved to reminisce about the Lyle fight. You know, that fight was crazy. Every fighter loves drama and they love having been a part of drama. Yes. So George loved that. That was an insane fight, insane. All the knock downs. Yep. Both guys rocked and hurt. Yep. And Ron Lyle is another one of those guys just kind of lost in the history books. You know, people sort of forgot except for that fight. You know, there's a few of those guys that like people just kind of ever forgot. They attached them to one fight because they didn't ever have that shining moment again in their career.

1:36:10Yeah. Cool. Cool game. What a cruel game. You know, Bully, Ali and Cleveland Williams. Sure. Same thing. Right. Right. Cleveland Williams is a murderer. He was nasty knockout puncher. Absolutely. But Ali just boxes face off and put him away. That's exactly right. Big cat. Yeah. That was the one that caused a lot of people to realize, oh, Cassius Clay is a really legitimate meaningful talent. Yeah. And that's on the way to the first list of fights. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Special. It was a special fight. The first list of fights was crazy. It was crazy. And also the crazy thing was, there was something probably on Liston's gloves.

1:36:53Right. Yes. It got in Cassius Clay's car. There was unquestionably something on Liston's gloves. And Cassius at one point asked Dundee to cut his gloves off. Mm -hmm. That's right. Because he was blinded. Yeah. So I think it's the fifth round where he ran and had to stay away because he was waiting for his eyes to clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then by the seventh round, he knocks Liston down and Liston effectively quits. What a dirty business to put something on your gloves to get in someone's eyes when you punch them. So crazy. What a dirty business to load someone's gloves with what amounts to cement and send him into fight Miguel Cotto in a paper view in Las Vegas.

1:37:36Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. They put holes in the gloves, remove some of the stuffing, and water it down. And then he also did something to his hand wraps as well, right? He was hitting Cotto with bricks. Yeah. That's all I know for sure. And he could have killed him. Yeah. You know, Cotto went through a life -threatening experience. Yeah. And I always, you know, don't fall in love with the fighter. You could not know Miguel without falling in love with him. He was a wonderful, sweet, great person. So I was very, very deeply disturbed and upset and sentimental, calling that fight that night. Not because I knew that Mark Reader's gloves were loaded.

1:38:18I didn't, I just knew that. Well, we didn't know until the Shane Mosley fight. Right. That's exactly right. Shane Mosley's thing. And I remember walking away from Vegas with a bad feeling after the Cotto fight. How could that happen to Miguel, et cetera, et cetera? And then it's, I don't know, several weeks later, maybe three months later, when we're in LA getting ready for the Mosley Versus. Margarito fight. And I hear in my headset, there's a disturbance in Margarito's dressing room. They're making him take his gloves off and da, da, da, da, da. And that moment it all comes together. Yeah, that was a hand wrap thing.

1:38:57I'm conflating these two stories in my mind with Louis Resto and Billy Collins plaster pass. Yes. So Louis Resto was with Panama Lewis. Yes. With Panama Lewis, who famously gave that drink to Aaron prior. Yes. Yes. Get me the one that I fixed. And then Aaron prior goes out and knocks out Alexis Arguello, which is alleged to have been cocaine. A lot of people think it was co, because Aaron then went to famously have a cocaine problem. Right. But the Louis Resto, I don't see how cocaine could help you in a fight. I really, I - It's a stimulant. A stimulant. Yeah, I guess you're right. It's a stimulant.

1:39:37Yeah, if you're exhausted and also you get a bump and you fire it up and you go out there and fuck it up, you could help you. Certainly if you're tired, yeah, 100 % it would help. And it's coming, I've never done cocaine, but I'm just guessing. It ruins a lot of other things. That's all. Oh, yeah, it does. But in that moment, I guess, you know, in that moment, especially if you're a person who embibes. And you know, you've had a history of cocaine. And then, you know, what does it do? A boost up confidence and it's a stimulant. I would have met in that Alexis Arguero fight. Woo! Phenomenal. Oh my goodness.

1:40:09Phenomenal. And he was, you know, again, another great person. Yeah. Another really, I didn't know Aaron all that well, but Alexis was lovable in every way. Wasn't he murdered? He was a politician in Nicaragua, right? Did he - Was he murdered? Yeah. Yeah. He got rags. Yeah, man. So I was conflating those - So with Margarito, I think it was just the wraps, whether it had put plaster, Paris and his wraps, but Billy Collins Jr. and Louis Resto was a fight where Billy Collins was this up and coming fighter, and he fought Louis Resto, and Louis Resto was like breaking his face open with every punch.

1:40:48And there are photos that you can find on the web of Collins that show that. Yeah. And so Resto, then when the fight was over, Billy Collins' dad grabs Resto's gloves and realized there's no padding in the gloves. Right. And then Billy Collins' career is over and he winds up drinking himself to death. They actually drive, drove into a tree. Yeah. So we don't know whether that was suicide or not? We don't know. No, but you know, the guys - You couldn't see after that fight. It's a great story. I hope everybody who is listening to this will go to the web and pick up some of these things because you are touching on a lot of the most meaningful and poignant stories.

1:41:30Yeah. There's the photo right there of Billy and there's his dad in the photo. Crazy. Just crazy. I mean, his vision was fucked for the rest of his life for as long as he lived after that. Never fought again. And no, and everyone was so confused because they couldn't believe that this guy, Louis Resto, was not known as being this big puncture, was just busting him up with every shot he landed. It was confusing. It's a dirty business, man. And Panama Lewis was - he did some corner work with Mike Tyson as well. Remember, like later in Mike's career, when everything was kind of chaotic, and he hells whack a dos in his corner, Panama Lewis was like on the sidelines there, but wasn't able to be officially a part of it because he was still banned.

1:42:15Well, you know, Mike by late in his career had a very clear understanding of his vulnerabilities. Now Mike was the boxing scientist. He knew better than anybody that styles make fights and that there were certain stylistic matchups which for him would be difficult. He had spent a week training with Lennox Lewis when they were 14 years old. Because Lewis's Arnie Bamm, his amateur trainer, had brought Lennox from the Toronto area to canister - I mean not to canister, but to upstate New York to the Catskills. And Mike and Lennox spent much of a week, maybe all of a week, watching old black and white fight films on the wall, sleeping in the same room, training and sometimes sparring every day.

1:43:09Wow. And so Mike had known Lennox for a long, long time. By the time they met, June 8, 2002 in Memphis. And I don't know that he would subscribe exactly to me saying he knew what was coming, but I think he had a pretty good idea. And you were called that at the first news conference, he ran across the stage and bit Lennox on the left. Yeah, he went crazy. Lennox claimed that he drew blood through the pamphlet. And my interpretation of that at the time was he wants to get the fight canceled. He wants to get this fight wiped away. Well, you got to think this is also 12 years after the Buster Douglas loss.

1:43:57Yes. It's a long time in boxing. Long time and a lot of trials and tribulations. Prison. Yep. I mean, you might maybe you get a little chance to train in prison, but not the way you train in a boxing gym. So he paid a lot of prices for a lot of experiences. Here it is. Yeah. I didn't know this happened. Lennox throws the right hand. I'm not sure he landed that right hand. Might have broken his hand if he'd landed on Tyson's jaw. Crazy. That's the hard part about Baronucle's boxing, right? Oh, yeah. They break their hands all the time. You know why you know why gloves emerged gloves emerged because John L.

1:44:40Sullivan got tired of breaking his hands. Really? Yeah. He was a big proponent of behind the scenes of going to gloves. And then of course, in the first gloved prize fighting heavyweight championship fight, he loses to Corbett because Corbett was a boxing scientist. And then they probably had terrible medical treatment for broken hands. Like what they do. I don't know. But they didn't have the kind of surgery that they have. Certainly not the sophisticated surgeries that take place now. Yeah. If there were any surgeries at all. Yeah, they probably got tired of breaking his hands. Along comes this idea, this phenomenon of gloves.

1:45:18Yeah. Absolutely. Let's do that. Wow. And then he loses to Corbett. Wow. I was watching a piece yesterday about it was a YouTube video on Chugaree Robinson and his training and the type of training that Chugaree would do and how phenomenal his dedication was. And if you think about a guy that like when he had his first loss, how many fights had he won? 120. You know how crazy that is? Yeah. Stop it. I sort of have a sense of it. Yeah. Stop and think about how then sane that is. Did you ever drink in Jimmy Glenn's bar in New York? No. Jimmy's corner. Oh, that's too bad. Jimmy Glenn was a really great well -known corner man who worked with Robinson, worked with Joe Lewis, worked with a lot of really big name fighters and he had a bar on 44th between sixth and seventh.

1:46:15It's still to this day. I think his son is running it now. I hope he still is. The ultimate boxing bar. The photographs on the wall. Oh, wow. Oh, there we are. Oh, great. Cool little room. Jimmy's corner. Yeah. 44th between sixth and seventh. There's Jimmy. There's Jimmy down to the left. Is it still there? Is it gone? The bar I think is still there. Jimmy's gone. What a wonderful, wonderful loving man. He was like an uncle to me because I spent so much time in the bar and just his stories were fantastic because of the people with whom he worked. Wow. That's awesome. You got to go sometime. I would love to.

1:46:57I'd love to go sometime. Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the first guys also that showed how effective being a great dancer. My mother's favorite fighter. Really? Yeah. And I told you that the first fight she ever sat me down to watch was Sugar Ray Robinson versus Bobo Larson. Right, right. And the last thing she said before she left the room and left me in front of a little TV set on a TV dinner tray was Sugar Ray Robinson's my favorite fighter because he dances while he fights. Wow. And he did. And he did. He did. You know, the thing about his training, you know, this video that I was watching was so interesting to watch someone who's really just ahead of the curve, like above everybody, like no one really understood how to move like that.

1:47:45And then of course, Cache's Clay, his favorite fighter, Sugar Ray Robinson. 100%. He's like a heavyweight version of Sugar Ray Robinson. So what's the greatest asset for any fighter? Is it his punching powers? Is it his hand speed? Is his footwork or is it his intelligence? It's the mind. It's the mind. But it's the willingness to accept what you need to accept and to see what you can do. That's what makes for great fighters. And also the ability to objectively analyze your skills and recognize where you need to advance. Right. What you need to do differently. Because you have a trainer to help you with that.

1:48:19Yeah. But you don't have coaches per se the way you do and organize team sports and stuff like that. At the end of the day, you're the one. You've got to figure this out, you know. And you can have an idea of what's effective. But until you see someone come along and do something totally different, you would be like that's where the innovators come in, where the real groundbreakers come in. Like I bet before Sugar Ray Robinson, nobody like you had Willie Pepp, right? And you've mentioned what I think of as the modern Supreme Innovator earlier. That's a little machinco. Yeah. Yeah. He recreated in our approach to the sport.

1:48:57Well, you see a lot of that now in MMA. You see a lot of footwork and movement and switching stances. It's like a fighter that can't switch stances in MMA is kind of archaic because you... I think we'll reach that point in boxing too. Right. I think eventually as time goes by. Well, Hagler was an example of one of the first guys that be a switchheader that people sort of dismissed. So you just... Earlier when we talked about Canelo versus Crawford. Yeah. Do you think Terrence Crawford can beat Canelo Alvarez? Yeah, I think you. Okay. I don't know if he's going to win, but I think he can win. So he's going to have to...

1:49:34He's going to have to box a brilliant fight. Okay. What kind of a fight? I'm going to get to that. I asked the great Larry Merchant. 94 years old. Living on Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica. Looking out at the ocean. Reflecting on all the amazing things he did. And I asked Larry, I said, do you think Terrence Crawford has a beat... Has a chance to beat Canelo Alvarez? And Larry said, Jim, did Ray Leonard get an official decision victory over Marvel's Marvin Hagler? And I said, yes, he did. He said, well, if Ray Leonard could beat Marvel's Marvin Hagler, then Terrence Crawford can beat Canelo Alvarez.

1:50:16And I said, why do you say that? He said, same equation. Get in, get out. Get in, get out. Over and over and over. He's got to figure the angles and the approaches that will allow him to step in, land to the body, or occasionally upstairs, and then get out before he's facing any damage. That's what Ray did so effectively against Hagler. And it frustrated Hagler. And the more you frustrate the opponent, the better off you are. Yeah. Canelo has such unique skills and one of the weird things that he does at very few people since Rocky Marciano does is he punches your arms. Yes. He brutalizes your arms.

1:50:57He's another brilliant guy. He has the greatest punch resistance in the sport. We talked about it earlier. One knockout in the whole career. Knockdown. And it wasn't a knockdown. And it wasn't really a knockdown in my personal view. So because he didn't touch the canvas, he's never been on the canvas. And we call it chin. And I think that we kind of missed the point by calling it chin. Because I used to be Canelo's neighbor in Del Mar, California. He used to run into Cheppo, his senior trainer at the grocery store. I'd look into the cart and say, oh, he's eating tuna. He said, yes. And he's eating chicken, da -da -da.

1:51:37And so I also used to go down the hill from my house off of Via Delabaya in Del Mar and watch him train at the equestrian center, where he would go to the equestrian center in the morning and do two and a half hours of hunter jump or riding before going to his gym in the afternoon to do three and a half hours of boxing training. Hunter jump or riding, what is that? Hunter jumper is where you go over jumps and you go to the horse? Yeah. On the horse. Yeah. Why the fuck would you do that when you're training for a fight? Because he was riding horses since he was a little kid. He was skilled enough to do it.

1:52:21You control the height of the jumps. You say set the jumps at 36 inches or 40 inches. You know what the horse can do. It's all about staying on the horse. And I asked him, you know, how can you do that? And he said, everything I do in boxing is upper body and everything I do on the horse is lower body. And on that basis, I am the one who theorizes that the reason you can't knock him down is not because of his chin. It's because of his legs. His face. You can't get him off balance. He's too strong from the waist down. And you know, if other fighters would pay attention to what Canelo does, they might go do a little horseback riding.

1:53:05I wasn't even aware of that until you brought that up. That's incredible. There is. There is with this horse. That completely makes sense. If you think about it, squeezing with the lower legs, the core strength, the hip -hat, the balance. The balance. Exactly. The timing. All of it. Yeah. I trained Hunter Jumper for a couple of years in the early 90s trying to please a wife who was a horse freak. Okay. And I had a really great trainer at the Stables over next to Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Fabulous trainer named Jonathan Saraci. Hey, John, if you hear me. And I trained for, I don't know, I want to say three quarters of a year, riding Hunter Jumper.

1:54:00And I got to the point where I was jumping 36, 38 -inch jumps. And I was riding quality horses. And I was doing pretty well. And one day after my training session, I was in the stall, combing the horse down, brushing to do the things, the busy work that you're supposed to do, to be a part of it. And Jonathan came in and said, how do you feel about your riding? I said, I think I'm doing pretty well, don't you? He said, I think you're doing really well. He said, but I think that this would probably be a great day for you to quit. I said, quit. What are you talking about? You just said, I'm doing pretty well.

1:54:40He said, well, you're doing pretty well because you love to do the fun stuff. You love the jumping and you love the riding around the ring fast, etc., etc., but you don't want to do the busy work. You don't want to do what we call sitting try. The other things that help you to build your awareness and your command of what you do. And the result is that you're getting closer and closer to the stage at which something negative is going to happen. And the first time something negative happens, you're not going to be able to respond to it. So I think today would be a great day for you to quit. Whoa.

1:55:21Wild, right? Did you listen to him? I quit. I quit. I quit on a win -home and thought about it and I thought he's right. But we can positive, constructive advice being if you enjoy this. There's some other stuff that you need to do. Well, he did say, look, I'm perfectly happy to keep training you. If you will come and do the busy work that I need you to do to 20 to 30 minutes before you go out and jump. But if you just want to come here, sit on the saddle and run and jump, you're asking for trouble. And I'm not going to be part of it. Wow. Because of course, if you fall off and I saw this one a couple of times, if you fall off, the horse can stomp you.

1:56:02You get a hoof on the chest or a hoof on the neck. And you're in the hospital and you're in big trouble. If you're lucky. I saw it happen to a woman in the ring, a really good rider. So at the end of the day, you can't do that. There he is. Look at Canelo. Now that's a skill he has carried since his early childhood. That's crazy. You can't knock him down. That makes so much sense. Also, he's got a square head. Yeah. He's got a, and it's not a small head. It's not a, he's got a great, he's also got a brilliant mind. Yeah. I'll clearly give credit where credit is to. No doubt. No doubt. I mean, just the evolution and the three fights with triple G.

1:56:51Triple G was one of my all -time favorites. If you can fight triple G and never be badly hurt. Right. That's a great point. That's astonishing. Triple G never badly hurt him. And he was destroying everybody else you put in his path. Everybody. Yeah, everybody. One of the heaviest punches I ever saw. And he would do weird stuff. Like throw a left hook over the top and hit the top of your head. Yep. He would throw a left hook like that. Like a looping over, overhand left. By the way, it's very much like the shot that Douglas landed against Tyson in the 10th round over the top with a left hand. Yeah.

1:57:24But the way triple G would do it, it would be going down on you. Right. Down on you. It's weird. Yeah. It was a weird punch. And he would hit you in the forehead, which is like, or the temple, which is where a lot of people lose their equilibrium. Well, whatever they do in Kazakhstan, it might be different from what they do in the United States. No, he was special. He was very special. Another guy we got to talk about Julio Cesar Chavez, who is also one of my all -time favorites. Julio Cesar Chavez in his prime, he would just systematically break people down and the volume, the constant, constant attack and volume.

1:58:01His volume was the real key because his power shots did not look like hellacious power shots. Okay. His left took, didn't look all that devastating. It wasn't a one -punch guy. But it would hurt you, you know, over time he would break you down. Like to match the telefight. It's a match of telefight. And then we go to the telefight. What is it, two seconds before the final bell? Did the fight get stopped? Yes. Larry Hazard stops it and everybody wants to tell him. No, not Larry Hazard. It wasn't? No. It was Richard Steele. Richard Steele, that's right. Okay, so you corrected me on one earlier and now I got you.

1:58:33It was that, that was Richard Steele. And he took a tremendous amount of grief for that. And I think he deserved the grief. I thought it was a very bad stoppage. You had an unbeaten American Olympic star who's on the verge of his career defining victory. There's no question at this moment that he has won the fight. When he stands up and Steele is counting, watch how he gets distracted when Ludova steps up on the ring apron and when he looks away from Steele, Steele uses that as his pretext to stop the fight with two seconds left. All right, giving Chavez a victory that he did not deserve. If Duba had not stepped up on the apron and distracted Melderick in such a way that Melderick looked away from Steele, then I think that Steele would have caught a lot more he and wouldn't have had any valid pretext for stopping the fight.

1:59:32What if that had been in the eighth round? Would you be okay? Fight goes on with it? Fight goes on. No, I mean, I, I, well, if that had been the eighth round, no, I still wouldn't be okay. So it's, but it's the first knockdown. It's not as if he knocked them down three or four times. Right. Melderick could won the fight. Yeah, no, it's all, it's interesting, right? The subjective calls of stoppages by referees. Yeah. Things get very weird in that. It's one of the toughest things. It's one of the toughest things. Good stoppage, bad stoppage, etc. It's one of the toughest things. And, and I disciplined myself to be very, very careful about ever criticizing a referee in the moment.

2:00:10I'm not sure that I criticized Richard that night, but I'll tell you one thing. This is in some ways part of the proof of the pudding. Las Vegas boxing fans and Las Vegas boxing crowds are knowledgeable, right? They've seen more of the sport than other people than what they're watching. Richard was never again introduced in Las Vegas before a fight without the crowd booing. He was subjected to booze every time he was introduced, which shows you that a majority of the fans in that particular boxing capital agree with me. That was a bad stoppage. Imagine what that did to a psyche. Like every time you go out there, you have the whole crowd.

2:00:51I think he wound up committing suicide. Steel? Yes. Those booze might have had something to do with that. That's what I was going to say. Did Richard Steel commit suicide? I think he did. That's a great fact to check because I don't know. I think he did. And you got to imagine the kind of depression that would come. Just knowing that you altered the course of boxing history. With that one momentary decision. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But then... So Chavez is avenged in certain ways. DeLoeia beat him twice. There's one where he didn't, where he won, but he shouldn't have won. Pernell Whitaker. Yeah. That's right.

2:01:36It was another genius. Yes. One of the greatest defensive boxers of all time. Like certainly in the top... Genius. And I remember that decision being called and I was like, what the fuck is this? That one was nuts. Oscar was Oscar. You know, and he had a glamour image that was difficult to deal with at that time. You know? So that kind of thing was part of the reason that my dear friend, Fernando Vargas, was in some ways jealous of Oscar. You know? What other fighter would get a decision over Pernell Whitaker in that circumstance? Wasn't it Chavez? Didn't Chavez have a decision win over Pernell Whitaker as well?

2:02:20Sure. That's the one I'm talking about. That's the one you're talking about. I thought you were talking about DeLoeia versus that one. So is that one similar as well? I don't really recall that one. Oscar gets a decision win over Whitaker on a night win. Larry and a lot of other experts thought that Whitaker deserved the decision. Well Whitaker was like underappreciated because it was so defensively brilliant. Well, sure. I mean, he knocked a lot of guys out as well. Defenders never get as much credit as the Hopkins. Right. Hopkins had to become a media star late in his career to really get credit for what he had done.

2:02:53Yeah. When you look back at your career and all the fights that you called and think about the beginnings and think about when they were trying to just get you out of the business and by giving you boxing. Like, it's almost like, it's very much a story book tale. Oh yeah. I mean, but, but the part of the reason for using it happened as the title of the book is that there are so many circumstances in my career, which are like that, counterintuitive. Somebody wanted to do something with me that turns in the other direction, et cetera, et cetera. That was not the first time that that kind of thing had happened to me.

2:03:37The, you know, my whole career begins when I win a talent hunt in 1974 to become one of the first two people ever to stand on the sideline of a college football game with a camera and a microphone. How do you do? What is a talent hunt? How does that work? So first of all, it reads this emerges from the Munich massacre. All right. This emerges from the 9, 10, 11 days of captivity of the American athletes. Excuse me, the Israeli athletes by Black September terrorists in Munich. And during that period of time, ABC is, of course, the broadcast organizer for the United States. And during that time, two reporters, Howard Cosell and Peter Jennings, are pushing the control room.

2:04:26How can we get more information? How can we get sound out of the dorm room? How can we get pictures from some adjoining building through the windows, et cetera, et cetera? And in trying to service the needs of those two reporters, Jennings and Cosell, ABC sports learned things about radio frequency, cameras and microphones, wireless cameras and microphones that they had not known before. So they came back to New York and they convened a meeting. This is after the 72 Olympics that convene a meeting among the sports division, the news division and the engineering division to figure out, okay, now that we know these things, now that we've learned what we learned in Munich, what can we do with it?

2:05:13And one of the first ideas that gets adopted is we can put a reporter on the side line of a football game. So in 1974, Rune Arlege's chief administrative assistant, a guy named Dick Ebersol, who later became a constant and meaningful factor in my career, Dick Ebersol takes two lieutenants out to conduct a search at 16 different college campuses and they talk to a total of 432 college age or extremely close to college age candidates for this job. I am at first harvested out because I'm number 34 out of 36 on a 97 degree day in Birmingham, Alabama. I have driven overnight from Chapel Hill to get there.

2:06:05I'm wearing my best discount plaid suit. I look ridiculous and a pair of shoes I bought with two and a half inch heels so they'll make me look taller. And I go into the room and have the screening interview. And the screening interview is 12 minutes. And before, and when we all have to draw numbers out of a fish bowl to determine in what order the interviews are going to take place. And I'm number 34 out of 36. So I know I'm going to have to sit around in the parliament house hotel lobby for hours in Birmingham waiting to go in. And by the time I go in, I'm grinding my teeth. And the first thing one of the other guys in the room, Terry Jastro says to me is, what do you think about our idea here?

2:06:54What do you think of what we're trying to do? And it couldn't resist. I said, I think it's the biggest crock of crap I ever heard in my life. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you tell us that you're going around the country to interview 432 people for eight to 10 minutes each. And on that basis, you're going to choose what you describe as the face and voice of the American college student. He said, yeah, I said, I rest my case. I think this is ridiculous load of crap. And I'm embarrassed that I drove from Chapel Hill overnight to be a part of this. Later, much later, I was shown the evaluation form on which ever so had written arrogant abrasive alienated antagonistic.

2:07:44When I was finally chosen as one of the two people, that became known in the college football production truck as the poor race. Every time I would bitch about something, every time I would get up strepers about something and raise my voice a little bit, there it is. The four a's arrogant abrasive alienated antagonistic. But the bottom line was through a long and highly unusual process, I was the person who was chosen. Now, what was ridiculous about it? The most ridiculous thing I'm about it, which I've never really revealed until this year, the book, media appearances, this, the most prominent media appearance with your 19 million followers was that Rune Arleach who's still the dictatorial and canonized president of ABC sports.

2:08:41And I, when I was under 11 years old, maybe 10 or 11, 12, living in Hendersonville, North Carolina, had asked my mother while watching wide rural sports one day, is this guy Rune Arleach, is he related to the Arleaches who live around the corner from us? Yes, he's their son. So I grew up around the corner from Arleach's parents. I catted for both his mother and father at the Hendersonville Golf and Country Club. And when I was finally the person chosen, counterintuitively because I was 25 instead of 22, and because I had when I get chosen, I, um, meet Rune in the restroom at 1336 Avenue in New York.

2:09:33And hi, Rune, I'm Jim Lampley, oh great to meet you, et cetera, et cetera. And as he's going out of the restroom, I say, by the way, how's your dad? And he turns around, quizzical expressions, says, why would you ask a question like that? I said, well, I guess nobody told you because probably nobody could have known, but I'm from Hendersonville originally and I've catty for both your mom and dad. In fact, my mother's in the same bridge club with your mother. The famous red face turned white. And he said, don't ever tell anybody that. Never, ever reveal that to anyone. So of course, now it can be revealed.

2:10:09And why would you want that reveal? I was going to, that they had chosen out of 432 candidates, the one who grew up around the street from his parents. He didn't know. Well, yeah, he could say he didn't know. And somebody might kick back and then at any rate, his, his first instinct was to say, don't ever tell anybody that a long time has passed. Rune has passed. There are sideline reporters everywhere now. So, you know, I can very easily reveal and let you know that they accidentally chose the other accident was they had already installed a guy from Stanford named Don Talifson. And they knew that Talifson was going to be chosen.

2:10:51He was in the first batch of 16 people they'd talked to. His credentials were unbelievable. And so they were dead set in their minds on choosing Don Talifson all along. And, and now they were two, three weeks away from the first game, four weeks away from the first game. It was August 8th. And the first game was September 7th. In August 8th, 1974, I'm at a rented beach house in Swan Corner, North Carolina with a friend of mine named Buck Goldstein and his wife, my wife Linda and I are there. And the phone on the wall rings. And to this day, I don't know how ever soul got that phone number because the house was rented in the name of Buck Goldstein.

2:11:35So, Buck picks up the phone. Hello. Yeah, he's right here. Jim, it's Dick Erbersol. What is this? Hello. And Dick says, you know, I'm so glad I found you. We are getting ready to announce the college age reporter thing. And we think we've settled on one person. But, Rune is a little concerned about putting on the air somebody who has never had any on air experience at all. And within that discussion, that brought us back to you. Would you be willing to go to Birmingham, Alabama and do a film in those days, 16 -millimeter film, do a film audition for us. And I said, what do you want me to do in Birmingham?

2:12:23He said, well, there's a quarterback there named George Myra. He's now with the Birmingham Americans of, I think it was the World Football League. He's already been busted out of the NFL, the AFL, Canada. This is his last shot as a pro football quarterback. And we think it's an interesting story and we want you to go interview him. So, of course, they didn't know that I had watched George Myra play all three years of his college career at the University of Miami. He was a huge child to a hero of mine. I had once hitched a ride in his very dull beige Ford Balkan going to pick up basketball on the campus of the University of Miami.

2:13:11I knew more about George Myra than probably some members of his family did. I still had a number 10 green and orange George Myra jersey in my closet in Chapel Hill. So, they think they're putting me on the spot here to send me to interview George Myra. And I'm going to have to do a quick research job with no web in those days to find out what I need to ask this guy. And I know more about George Myra than people in his family. So, I go down to Birmingham. I'm laughing about it. I do the interview. I go through all these things in his college career and stuff like that. His 49ers experience and send the film off to New York.

2:13:53And about a week before the first game, I get a call and he said, you're going to be on the sideline. We're going to have two college football reporters. You're going to be on one sideline. Don Talifson will be on the other. Roon feels a lot better about this because he can see that you have on camera performance skills and understand what you're doing. Wow. What are the odds that they take that player? The odds are astronomical. So, the odds are beyond all belief. They could choose any story in the world they wanted me to do as an audition. They choose my childhood hero. It kind of almost makes you feel like it's meant to be.

2:14:30Correct. There's no other way to describe it other than this was supposed to happen. Yeah. Well, I think you're the best ever. So, if that that's how it had to play out, that's how it had to play out. And that's how it played out. Did he kill? Did he commit suicide? Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry. Richard. Somebody else committed suicide. Well, I mean, Richard has her commit suicide. Richard's dead. Larry has it still around. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. Larry has her. It is athletic commissioner right now. New York State. Mitch Halpern. Mitch Halpern. Jersey. Excuse me. New Jersey. Not New York. Oh, Mitch Halpern committed.

2:15:06Mitch Halpern committed suicide. Oh, that's right. All right. So what is Mitch Halpern's marker? Oh, I, you know, I covered it. There was a fight. Yeah, I covered it. It was. It was one of mine. I can't remember right off the top of my head, but yes. There was a very controversial fight, right? Yeah. A similar type situation. Similar type thing. Something that stains your reputation. Yeah. Going forward. My apologies to Richard's deal. I'm sorry. Halpern is, I believe HALP or I N or HALP or I N. What was the big controversial fight? I can't remember right now. I saw Ritalp and referee a number of fights.

2:15:55You're right. He did. He did kill himself. Yeah. I am. That's right. I'm connecting to it now. And as soon as we find out exactly what the fight was, I'll remember what problem with like the circumstance. I told you my memory sucks sometimes. Like it's like Joe. Joe, I'm 76 years old. Okay. My wife worries about whether I'm going to remember to put socks on in the morning. Oh, Gabriel. Yeah. Gabriel is going to be Garcia. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Right. So one of the oldest victims in the sport is that when one fighter dies, the other career dies too. Yeah. Gabe was absolutely never the same. And he allowed that fight to go on way longer than it should have.

2:16:38May 6, 1995. Never forget it. Hot day outside in back of Cesar's palace. My wife was sitting with Jack Nicholson. Can't resist the name drop. You know, there were a you know, Gabe went to Columbia, Venice, Wail, I forget exactly where for the funeral. Oh, God, look at this. And also Richard Green committed suicide after the Mancini Kim fight. Similar situation. Now similar situation with Duck Kukim when he dies famously on national television, Ray Boom Boom Mancini. And then that referee wants a community suicide as well. It's a haunting thing because it's so intimate. You're in the ring. You're four or five feet away from these guys.

2:17:37You're watching somebody land shot after shot after shot. You're trying to gauge in your mind what is fair to the guy who's taking the beating. Right. Because he could always land one big comeback counterpunk. Right. And when the fight and there's been so many instances over time of guys recovering and coming back to win the fights. Many. Absolutely fights that could have been stopped. And if they were, who knows what we've gotten over and over and over. So, you know, I was always disciplined and restrained about criticizing referee's life. Because what they do is an extremely important and critical job.

2:18:19And sometimes they're the only, they're the only safety barrier between life and death. I was just thinking of the Diego Corralis fight. Diego Corralis, who with that crazy fight where he's knocked down multiple times, then comes back to win by knockout. Arguably the greatest fight of all time. Who was it again? Corralis versus name is right on the tip of my tongue. Corralis. That's the deal. That might have been it. Castillo. It was it. Corralis Castillo. That was it. Jose Luis Castillo. In that's arguably the greatest fight of all time. Does it show time fight by the way? I was watching it on TV.

2:18:59Easily could have been stopped. Easily could have been stopped. Oh, 100 % and Corralis comes back and wins. Yeah. Exactly. And I believe he died in a motorcycle accident. Corralis died in a motorcycle accident. Yes, he did. Yeah. After a lot of salacious revelations regarding his troubles with women. So, but he was a sweet guy. You could not know Chico without loving him. Okay. And that's true of many very violent fighters. You couldn't know Chico without loving him. You couldn't own Mike in the early days without loving him. So the sport is filled with ironies. I'm sure you're saying MMA is exactly the same thing.

2:19:42It is. It really is. Listen, I'm glad we had a chance to talk. I really appreciate it. It was really fun. Two hours just flew by. Great. Yeah. I think I think I've had a fantastic time with you. And I really enjoyed every moment. And yes, thank you. I'm glad we had a chance to talk. And your book is available. It happened. Did you do the voiceover? Please tell me you did. I did. Thank you. I did record the audiobook. Especially when people who are the audiobook recommended. They you have to do it with you. But it has to be. Well, can you imagine if somebody else if they forced somebody else to record the writer Tom Houser?

2:20:21Yes. So Houser is one of my dearest friends and and a great man. I'll use primary biographer. Houser has written a book about his mother. And he knows about my relationship with my mother. By the way, I read that you were raised by a single mother. Is that correct? Well, I was stepfather. Stepfather. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was raised by double widow. Yeah. Who's never married again. Houser has deep and great affection for his mother. So he wrote a book about his mother. And I'm thrilled to tell you that he called me and said, would you record the audio version of my book? So now I'm going to record when I get back to Chapel Hill, Houser's book about his mother.

2:21:10And it's awesome. If you'd like hearing my book, then you'll probably enjoy reading or hearing my book about Houser's mother too. Well, I'm going to listen to your book because that's how I absorb most of my book. Well, I've given away a lot of it to you. No, I don't give a fuck. I'm listening to the whole damn thing. And I really hope that Netflix chooses you for the Canelo fight, the Canelo Crawford fight. That would be fantastic. Like I said, it was made me so happy to hear you on the Madison Square card. Too bad the fights weren't. That was true. But what do you think that is about? You know, because there's a lot of people that have said that Turkey is spending so much money that he's spoiling these guys.

2:21:50They're afraid to lose and that they're fighting safe. Far be it for me to say anything about Turkey. Okay. Yes. He anything negative. He put me back at ringside. Right. So I'm very happy with it. On personal parochial level, I am a huge Turkey fan. Yes. I think that more attention has to be paid to what real matchmaking is. If you put two counter -punchers in front of each other, that's not going to make a fire. Right. Two attackers guaranteed fire. Right. An attacker versus a counter -puncher. That can also be really good. Some of the greatest fights ever have been attacker against counter -puncher.

2:22:28But two counts of matchmaking issue. I believe it was. That night you had too many instances where two counter -punchers were standing in front of each other and waiting for the other guy to move. I also think that Rolli Romero, very intelligently, beefed up, put on strength and went into the fight with Garcia with a defensive frame of bun. I'm going to take the air out of this balloon. I'm going to salute punch rate down. I'm going to land selectively when I want to. And I'm not going to allow him to ever land a left hook. He did a good job of that. We also land that left hook of his own. Exactly.

2:23:09And rocked him and dropped him. I think that changed the entire mentally changed the fight. Garcia is in there trying to land his left hook and all of a sudden he gets dropped by one. That's got to affect your mentality. What did you think about Devon Haney's performance? Because I felt like that was an example of a guy like coming off of the Ryan Garcia fight where he got dropped multiple times. He needed to put on her show and he didn't. He just looked different. If you go back to him versus Lomach. There's a lot of months in between. It's not as if he's coming back two months later and you can draw a straight line from the mentality of his Garcia fight to what he's doing in the ring that night.

2:23:50That doesn't happen to be the case. But it was definitely a disappointing performance. Well, you definitely can draw a line between a guy getting rocked and dropped on multiple occasions from a person that he was supposed to be easily. If you look at his boxing skill, you look at what he had done to come boss us. Yes. I mean, he just boxed his face off. He looked fantastic in that fight. But you get the benefit of being able to say to yourself if you want to. Okay, he tested positive for a performance enhancing drug. That's the reason he'd not be down three times. If you can convince yourself of that.

2:24:27The problem is once you start saying that people start saying, fuck you. And then the boo's get louder. I'm talking about saying it to yourself. You can't not talking about talking about saying it. But no one says anything. You are 100 % correct about saying no one says anything to themself anymore. If you say something publicly, the whole world responds now. It's not like a guy living in 1976. This is the different world we're living. Tell me about it. I'm sitting here on the Joe Rogan experience with the possibility of 19 million people are talking or listening to me. I'm sure I've made a mistake.

2:25:01Well, we both did. Yeah, it's part of the fun. Just don't read the comments. That's the key. Jim Lampley, I appreciate you very much. And I'm a giant fan. And I'm really glad you're back in boxing. It means a lot to me. And your book, it happened a uniquely lucky life in sports television is available now. Thank you, sir. I'm really enjoyed it. I'll share it. Oh, oh, I love that guy. I have to take care of my friend. Has he been on the show? Yes. Yes. I love him. He's a good friend of mine. Friend of mine too. I love him. All right. So we have him, mutual friend. Yes, sir. All right. It was a lot of fun.

2:25:33Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. That was our everybody. All right. It's really un -shake.

2:25:54Thank you for your time. Oh, my. That was a good one. All right. So we have a mutual friend. Yes, sir. All right. It was a lot of fun. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That was our everybody. All right. It's a really un -shake.