Latest / The Chris and Mike Show / #126 - Harold Wilen - Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer

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#126 - Harold Wilen - Hall of Fame Boxing Trainer · The Chris and Mike Show

• 0:25
  What's up there, boys and girls? This is Chris and Mike show.
• 0:28
  We have a boxing Hall of Fame legend coach Harold with us on
• 0:32
  today. Super excited about that because
• 0:35
  Mike and I are huge boxing fans and we've we've had we've had a
• 0:37
  boxer on the show and Harold just happens to be his coach.
• 0:41
  So it's kind of full circle, right?
• 0:48
  Hello. Hello.
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  Did you hear any of that, Harold?
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  He talking about jig? Yeah, I was just making sure you
• 0:56
  heard what what I was saying because because I said hello and
• 0:59
  and it was just everybody was quiet.
• 1:01
  OK, I don't actually coach Jig. He has.
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  He has another coach that works with him sometimes to my club,
• 1:13
  but not in these days. Got you.
• 1:18
  But you you, you know, jig, which is kind of cool, right?
• 1:21
  And and ash. Yes, yes, I've been in Jig's
• 1:24
  corner on 2. That's awesome.
• 1:30
  Yeah, that's way awesome. So so you've been coaching.
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  We talked to you and I were chatting before we jumped on the
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  show. You've been coaching since 1964,
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  I believe you said. 69. 69 right on and and so were you a boxer
• 1:44
  previous to that or you just got into the coaching game?
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  1964 to 1970 in New York City. Oh wow, right on.
• 1:58
  So how many fights did you have? I had 25 fights.
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  OK. And what?
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  What's your record? Once you won and four with six
• 2:09
  stoppages. Cool.
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  Are you by stoppages? Meaning you knocked them on
• 2:13
  their butts. Or the referee stopped them when
• 2:18
  they were yeah. Yeah, when?
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  When? When Harold was bringing the
• 2:22
  poor. Was your nickname Harold?
• 2:23
  Harold what? No nickname at that time.
• 2:26
  No, just Harold. Yes.
• 2:33
  That's cool. So take us through a a typical
• 2:36
  work out when you when you have a boxer in your gym, what are
• 2:38
  you doing with them? What's kind of like the routine
• 2:40
  there? How do you start things off and
• 2:42
  you know the length of time you work and all that stuff?
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  Because it blew our mind when we talked to Jig about how much he
• 2:50
  works out and how much he trains.
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  And it's kind of like just the the behind the scenes of a
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  boxer. So I think Mike and I would both
• 2:57
  love to know the behind the scenes from a coach, a boxing
• 2:59
  coach standpoint. When I first saw start to work
• 3:03
  with the boxer in the room, the first thing I do is the stance.
• 3:09
  How he holds body in space, where his hands are, where his
• 3:15
  legs should be, where his shoulders should be, where his
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  knees should be. And I'm an advocate of what I
• 3:25
  call the skinny stance, which means the boxer, be he a
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  right-handed or left-handed, hides the middle of his body as
• 3:36
  best he can. And that's how I position the
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  boxer in the ring, so that his left shoulder, if he's a right
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  hand there is kind of almost directly facing his opponent and
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  his right shoulder is in back of the his left shoulder.
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  My bet his right shoulder is back left shoulder so that the
• 4:02
  opposing boxer has very limited access to the middle of his
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  body. So.
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  Like this? That looks pretty good.
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  Yes, that makes sense, except the left I'm.
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  A professional now. Except the left hand I like
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  right underneath the left eye higher.
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  Higher like that. Yeah, turn your fist.
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  Turn your fist to the left the other way.
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  Your other left. That's it, there you go.
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  And the right hand, I like eye level, actually touching the
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  face on the side of the eye on the side there.
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  Yes, that's I've done all these years when I first worked with a
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  boxer. All right, so if I get in the
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  Street Fighter, just do this and I start jabbing and then I start
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  jabbing, right? Way out of it.
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  Talk your way out of it well. Of course, talk.
• 4:59
  About. That's my strategy too, Harold.
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  Yeah, yeah, never, never come to blows unless, you know, you just
• 5:05
  have no choice, right. So, so you start work with a
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  boxer, you get a stance the basically the fundamentals, like
• 5:12
  everything else, right? You got to have fundamentals for
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  sure. Are you hearing that weird sound
• 5:17
  like is that me? Yes, it's it's me.
• 5:20
  You have an echo. Oh, weird.
• 5:24
  OK, are you on the right Internet?
• 5:26
  Yeah, yeah, OK. I just, I didn't know it was me.
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  That sounds like that's weird because every time I say
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  something I hear so, so sorry about that people.
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  Technical difficulties. So you start with the
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  fundamentals, which is obviously key with any type of sports,
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  right. So how long does it take for you
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  to ingrain that into the the the new boxers mindset of this is
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  how you stand, this is how you position yourself?
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  Is it, you know, is it a couple days?
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  Is it a couple months? Well, every boxer is different,
• 5:53
  like every human is different. So some internalize it
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  immediately and some you keep on having to emphasize it.
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  OK, how long does it take for you to, once you start training
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  a fighter, to actually start sparring with somebody?
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  So like live action? Again, everything is unique to
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  the individual. So sometimes they get it and
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  they may be ready to spar within a month and 1/2 or two months.
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  There's no, no rush. I emphasize to them that there's
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  no rush in this. I want to get you ready for the
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  combative situation and some it takes quite a few months.
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  They're met maybe mentally slower or have some other issue
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  going on. There's some situations that is
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  not often talked about where the particular individual grew up in
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  an authoritarian household where they have issues with listening
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  to a male voice. I found that sometimes.
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  So I have to take that into account that look, I'm not your
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  daddy, I'm not your grandfather, and I didn't perpetrate any new
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  things upon you when you were growing up, OK?
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  So you have to kind of be a psychologist as well.
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  Oh, yes, yes. Do you only train professional
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  fighters or amateurs or? Both.
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  OK. And the really rewarding thing
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  is when you start with an amateur and he progresses to be
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  a professional, It's not your everyday situation, right?
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  Sometimes a coach just trains an amateur and then they go
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  elsewhere for the professional career.
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  Or the opposite. Sometimes a professional trainer
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  happens upon an amateur and you didn't do his amateur training.
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  Have you had any amateur fighters that you coach turned?
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  From Yes, I had one notably who fought for the world title who
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  only had three amid fights before he turned pro.
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  Went on to one of the most famous shows in history, namely
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  the fight in which Mike Tyson bit off Evan the Holyfield's
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  ear. That gentleman that I just
• 8:29
  referred to who only had three Mr. Fights, he fought on
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  pay-per-view right after the Mike Tyson bite fight incident.
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  My guy fought for the WBO middle weight championship.
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  The world that night talking about 1997.
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  Right on. And how'd he do?
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  Oh yeah, I remember that fight. Oh well, he had a weight issue.
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  He had to lose weight in a short amount of time.
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  We got the notice of his fight about two weeks before the
• 9:03
  fight, but we couldn't turn it down.
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  It's an amazing opportunity. So he got stopped eighth round
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  by the world champion, who was 25.
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  Oh, and one at the time. And I think given the
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  circumstances, he did great. That's awesome.
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  Right. How did he continue his boxing
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  career? I'm sorry.
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  Did he continue his boxing career?
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  Yes. He continued his boxing career
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  after that, yes. No more world title shots,
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  however. Have you kept track of how many
• 9:48
  people you've trained in your career?
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  I could just, I've often been asked that question and I can
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  only say that in terms of the boxing club in general,
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  thousands of people have walked through the doors of my
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  different locations in Sarasota since I started doing it.
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  But how many people I've actually trained myself.
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  I, I would say hundreds and hundreds would be the best
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  answer because I've been, you know, like I say, since 1969.
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  And I started in New York and then New Jersey and then
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  Florida. That's where you're currently at
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  is in Florida. Yes.
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  What's the name of your gym down there?
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  Sarasota Boxing Club. Awesome.
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  My Chris, I'm getting something that says reconnecting and it's
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  on, it's on Chris's screen. Yeah, he froze up on us.
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  Oh, OK. There he is again.
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  Now we have 2 Chris's. Dude, I, I promise, I, I promise
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  I have the right Internet going on.
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  I don't know why mine's being difficult today.
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  So what was just spoken? It was lost during that time.
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  No, we're still there. Oh, I mean during the time a few
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  minutes ago. No, it's all good.
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  Yeah, he just. Didn't hear what you were
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  talking about. Yeah, yeah.
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  Every now and then there's technical issues on our side,
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  Harold, so it's all good. Yes, we're connecting between
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  Illinois, Florida and Arizona right now, so it's amazing this
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  even works. Yeah, and it's, it's today.
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  It's on my side. Harold, it's not you at all.
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  For some reason my my side's just being a pain in the butt.
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  One of my probe is from Arizona. Oh, right on.
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  Superior. OK.
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  We know where that's at, yeah. Yes.
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  You remember Michael Carver Hall?
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  I do. Yeah, we're trying to get him on
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  the show. He's he's local and I've been
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  going back and forth with his, I forget her, his, what does, what
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  does he call her? He's not a promoter like his.
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  I don't know his liaison to get stuff on.
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  So he's all excited about it because he follows me and I
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  follow him back on social media. And I was like, hey, want to
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  come out of the show? He's like, absolutely.
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  Talk to, you know, this person will set it up.
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  So, you know, still waiting. Michael, come on.
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  Come on buddy. So you said you were in the
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  Boxing Hall of Fame, correct? I didn't say it, but I am.
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  Ash did it. Ash told me that.
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  Oh, Ash. Told us.
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  Yeah, yeah. Is that as a coach or as a
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  fighter, or both? As a as a trainer, yes.
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  Cool. OK, I got in in 2015.
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  How many? How many boxers have you trained
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  over the years? Do you have any idea?
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  That's what we talked about while.
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  You're oh, Dang it, sorry. Hundreds and hundreds he.
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  Says hundreds and hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds, yes.
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  OK. And two of my boxes have also
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  been inducted into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame.
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  As fighters. As fighters, the general that's
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  huge fought right after the Mike Tyson Holyfield ear biting
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  incident. He got 2018 cool and a female
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  that won the world title in 2007 got in this year this past June.
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  That's really cool. She won the world title and then
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  she retired as the number one female heavyweight in the world
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  when she had her last fight in 2020.
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  Wow. That's the way to go, right?
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  Win the whole damn thing and retire.
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  Call it a day. Yes.
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  For some, for some anyway you. Know boxers have a terrible
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  track record of extending their careers past when they did and
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  some pay for it badly with their being and very few instances
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  when somebody first retired and comes back do they do well.
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  They need to retired but the ego and and or the money is such
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  that they they can't quit. I could see that.
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  So with with with what you do and what you've and so you have
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  this like just amazing knowledge of fighters and boxers because
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  obviously you're a trainer, we're a boxer, etcetera.
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  So I'm going to throw some names at you and I want you to kind of
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  give me like a a 32nd spiel of what you think.
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  So I grew up watching Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray
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  Leonard, Thomas, the Hitman Hearns.
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  So in that era, right, which I think was the, was the 70s or
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  so. Or 70s.
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  Yeah. So what was your of those 3
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  Hagler Hearns and and and Sugar Ray?
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  Which one of those would you have loved to have have been in
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  the corner with while they were in their career fighting?
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  Sugar Ray. Really.
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  Why is that? Well, I said it topped by
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  fighters of all time and I got a personal experience with him
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  when he was one of the interviewers prior to the HBO
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  and pay-per-view telecast of the gentleman that I referred to who
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  fought the on the pay-per-view right after Mike Tyson bit off
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  Evan the Holyfield's ear. So it was beautiful to have a
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  personal interviewing experience with Sugar Ray.
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  Well, is he is he is as good of a guy as he comes across in in
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  the media or is he, you know? As good of a guy?
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  Yes, Yes he is. So what do you what were your
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  thoughts about Marvelous, Marvelous Hagler's as far as the
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  fighters concerned? Credible fighter, an incredible
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  mindset who used to use the phrase that's not grammatically
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  correct, but he said destruct and destroy.
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  He was known for that for those for that phrase.
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  His mindset was a a combative fighter who wouldn't quit for
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  anything and is looking to knock out his opponent.
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  And he had tremendous success with that mentality.
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  And Tommy Hearns, who's currently really medical
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  problems. I don't know if you download
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  that. Yeah, he he used to be not a
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  power puncher in the amateurs, but the legendary coaches of all
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  time, Emmanuel Stewart worked on his his form, his technique, and
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  he became a tremendous knockout artist as a pro.
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  Right on. And so Emmanuel Stewart's been
• 16:59
  around that long, too. He passed years ago.
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  Right. But he was.
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  But yeah. Yes.
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  So let's talk. Let's talk promoters.
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  How shady was Don King? Well, it if I have personal
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  knowledge of that. Three fighters that I have
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  trained have been promoted by Don King, including one
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  currently who Don had set up in 2024 for the WBC Cruiserweight
• 17:30
  championship of the world. Don King changed his mind.
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  My guy got depressed and wound up in jail, still dealing with
• 17:40
  that legal situation and hopefully he could return to his
• 17:46
  career as soon as possible. But yeah, Don Don is going to be
• 17:52
  94 in a few days and. He's still promoting.
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  He's still active in the game. That's crazy.
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  You don't hear his. I don't hear his name anywhere.
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  Like you don't. Because he's not one of the
• 18:04
  major promoters anymore. Gotcha.
• 18:07
  His hand is still in the game, OK.
• 18:10
  That is so crazy. And if my guy gets his legal
• 18:13
  situation resolved, John King and Christy Martin were partners
• 18:19
  in promoting my guy. OK.
• 18:23
  So let me ask you this, If somebody said you only had one
• 18:28
  boxer to choose, who's the best of all time?
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  Sugar Ray Robinson. Really.
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  He had he had it all, including charisma.
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  That's interesting. That's not who.
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  I I wasn't, I wasn't expecting either.
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  That's crazy. Who would you guys put in that
• 18:51
  position? I don't have as educated of
• 18:56
  guess as you do, but I would say probably Floyd Mayweather.
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  OK. Yeah, I I'd be be Floyd or
• 19:03
  Tyson. Just cause the guy never gets
• 19:05
  hit. Well, yeah, and, and Jig talked
• 19:07
  about that with us. Like he's, he's, we asked him
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  who his favorite boxer was and he was like Mayweather.
• 19:12
  And we're like, why? He's like, 'cause he's the art
• 19:13
  of being defensive. Like he just doesn't get hit.
• 19:16
  He doesn't take the big punches. Yes, that's which I.
• 19:20
  Never thought of until you talk to a boxer, you don't think of
• 19:22
  that aspect of it. But the whole goal of being a
• 19:24
  boxer is to hit and not be hit. So, you know, when he said that,
• 19:29
  it kind of made me realize, OK, well, I could see how
• 19:32
  Mayweather, you know, sustained the career as long as he did
• 19:35
  because legit, he never really got hit.
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  He never really took big punches.
• 19:40
  The little rap against Floyd at in the latter part of his
• 19:44
  career, he chose boxers that it will a little past their prime
• 19:49
  when he fought them. So it sounds like his management
• 19:53
  and him aspire to not put Floyd in any kind of major danger,
• 20:02
  even though you know he's he's one of the top ten all time.
• 20:07
  You can't deny that. I never thought about that.
• 20:10
  You're right, he did fight a lot of fighters past their prime.
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  Floyd Manny Pacquiao, on the other hand, who just fought
• 20:18
  about a month ago. Yeah, Really.
• 20:20
  Oh, he's yeah. OK, that's right.
• 20:22
  Yeah. And that was an important thing
• 20:27
  that made him stand out as one of the top fighters of all time.
• 20:34
  What do you think about Tyson? Well, in his earlier days when
• 20:39
  he was worked with by the late custom Auto and by oh, blanking
• 20:47
  out on his name boy, boy, boy, the white guy that took over for
• 20:53
  custom Auto and really did great things with Tyson those with the
• 20:58
  great. Agreed 100%.
• 21:00
  Agreed. And Don King kind of did them
• 21:04
  wrong. It was money issues.
• 21:08
  And then I don't know if you've ever read Mike Tyson's book.
• 21:14
  He wrote a book. He claims that before some of
• 21:18
  his biggest fights, he was drinking, drugging, womanizing.
• 21:24
  Yeah, I heard that and still did great in those fights.
• 21:28
  But just imagine if he led a a cleaner boxer's lives.
• 21:33
  Right. So I don't know, arguably I may
• 21:36
  put him out of the top 10 if you if he considered the latter part
• 21:40
  of his career, but the early part, he was an unstoppable
• 21:45
  force beyond comprehension. So I've, and again, Mike and I
• 21:50
  are big boxing fans. So obviously we've, I followed
• 21:53
  Holyfield 2 when he was, you know, in his prime and it was
• 21:57
  always rumored and kind of the, the whisper in the background
• 22:00
  was Holyfield was a dirty fighter.
• 22:01
  And that's kind of what, at least as far as I, I read and
• 22:04
  heard and listened to about the Holyfield Tyson ear biting fight
• 22:10
  from a, from a training standpoint, was Holyfield The
• 22:14
  Dirty fighter? And, and if you, and if so, was
• 22:16
  that kind of the, the reason Tyson bit his ear 'cause he was
• 22:18
  tired of The Dirty fighting coming across?
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  Cause Tyson to me would just, you'd come up to Tyson, he'd
• 22:23
  just start throwing his punches and you know, he'd drop you
• 22:26
  because he was just so powerful. But when he, you know, fighting
• 22:29
  Holyfield, because I think the height difference and the reach
• 22:32
  difference, I think there's a lot of head butting stuff going
• 22:35
  on. Is that how you saw that in, in,
• 22:37
  in those fights with them together?
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  And, and if you could get in Tyson's brain, is that why he
• 22:41
  went in and just decided to take a chunk out of the air?
• 22:44
  I would think that Tyson was telling the truth, that he
• 22:47
  responded to the the head butting of Holyfield and they
• 22:52
  both had quote UN quote dirty boxing reputations.
• 22:57
  But over and over and above that, Holyfield was an
• 23:03
  incredible fighter, arguably in the top ten and Tyson and
• 23:09
  arguably in the top ten, particularly in the early part
• 23:12
  of his career, an incredible fighter.
• 23:15
  And the fact that Holyfield went up from a cruiserweight to a
• 23:21
  heavyweight and did so well. Right.
• 23:24
  Speaks very well of him and and his trainers.
• 23:27
  Yeah, agreed. What do you think about the
• 23:30
  Lennox Lewis? Oh, there's another one that's
• 23:35
  slucked off by many people. Yes, highly highly respect his
• 23:41
  technique and unfortunately him and Tyson couldn't get together
• 23:45
  earlier in their effective careers.
• 23:48
  So when they did get together, Lennox was just too much for
• 23:52
  Tyson. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:54
  What about the now recent recent heavyweight champions?
• 23:58
  What do you think about Tyson Fury?
• 24:01
  I think he's a tremendous fighter, yeah.
• 24:04
  And there's talk of him doing another fight with Usyk.
• 24:09
  I don't know if I'm in love with that.
• 24:11
  I've saw Tyson Usyk showed his superiority.
• 24:16
  The Tyson Fury tremendous but no doubt technically tremendous and
• 24:21
  so awkward. His awkwardness makes him helps
• 24:25
  his game. Sure.
• 24:27
  What about the other one that took Tyson down?
• 24:29
  Buster Douglas. Yes, Buster Douglas.
• 24:33
  He had his run there for a while and apparently he motivated by
• 24:41
  his mother's death just before the Tyson fight.
• 24:45
  I think that carried him through that.
• 24:49
  What is arguably the greatest upset of all time?
• 24:52
  Oh yeah, big time. Absolutely.
• 24:56
  I was pissed. It was so mad.
• 24:58
  We all were. We all were so mad when he
• 25:01
  freaking got knocked down and just, you know, he's crawling on
• 25:04
  the ground grabbing his mouthpiece and trying to stand
• 25:06
  up. I'm like, no what?
• 25:08
  Are. You doing man?
• 25:12
  The invincible one went It was. Yeah, it was just, I mean, you
• 25:15
  know, we grew up in the era with pay-per-view with Tyson.
• 25:17
  It's like, OK, you know, you're going to spend 100 bucks for for
• 25:19
  two minutes, you know, and it just, you know, that's how it
• 25:23
  was. So from a from, from again,
• 25:28
  because you have such a long tenured history as a as a, as a,
• 25:32
  as a boxer and A, and a trainer and a coach, how much of the,
• 25:35
  the legal problems actually follow the fighters like like
• 25:39
  Tyson Mike and I've had the discussion before about Tyson
• 25:43
  and his and you know, the rape Commission, things like that.
• 25:45
  I'm a big believer if you're going upstairs to, you know, a
• 25:48
  professional athletes room, you know what you're getting into.
• 25:51
  So we don't have to go down that path.
• 25:52
  But is there a lot of a lot of more of legal issues with
• 25:56
  fighters? It's not really out in public
• 25:58
  just because of how they grew up and where they grew up and, and
• 26:01
  the systems they were put into and, and you know, Tyson came
• 26:05
  from a completely broken home, right?
• 26:06
  And if it wasn't for Cus D'amato, who knows where he
• 26:08
  would have ended up in life, you know, so he took, he took Tyson
• 26:11
  on a better direction to for his life, obviously.
• 26:15
  Do you see that a lot with, with boxers that are coming in and
• 26:18
  wanting to learn how to fight? And they just have so much
• 26:20
  demons and stuff, you know, surrounding them.
• 26:22
  They just can't get over that hump.
• 26:24
  Oh yeah, I've been dealing with that in all the years that I've
• 26:27
  been working with fighters, yes, boxer and legal problems are are
• 26:33
  sometimes like go hand in hand. And is there techniques you've
• 26:38
  done to kind of get them to get through that and just focus on
• 26:41
  let's get you out of that, that part of your life and move
• 26:43
  forward to something more positive as as a pugilist as you
• 26:47
  know, getting out there and making money and and being a
• 26:50
  professional fighter? My.
• 26:54
  My words are often directed in that direction, but the bottom
• 26:59
  line is the the boxer has to buy it and he has to really
• 27:03
  internalize and not be in the legal system anymore.
• 27:09
  He has to focus on the the career that he has chosen.
• 27:14
  And sometimes the trainer has to the distance himself from a
• 27:20
  particular boxer. If the legal problems are such
• 27:23
  that the boxer just can't shake them, trainer has to make a
• 27:27
  decision. Yeah, because you don't want to
• 27:30
  go down with them. Right.
• 27:32
  They have to do the work right? Yes.
• 27:36
  So do you ever so obviously, you probably watch Rocky, right?
• 27:41
  Yes. OK, so how how realistic for for
• 27:44
  people that that have never kind of seen the true reality of, of,
• 27:49
  of a trainer and a boxer dynamic.
• 27:52
  The the role that Mickey and Rocky play in that in the
• 27:55
  original movie was that was that close to what it's truly like as
• 27:58
  a boxer trainer relationship? Or was that all movie theater,
• 28:02
  you know, movie Hollywood, you know, fluff.
• 28:05
  Again, yes and no. There are readers who do some
• 28:09
  theatrical things like Burgess Meredith did, and it's not that
• 28:18
  realistic compared to other boxing movies.
• 28:21
  OK, OK, so what's a what's a really good realistic boxing
• 28:24
  movie that you watch like yes, that captures the moment if.
• 28:28
  You could help me with the name. I'm blanking out a little bit
• 28:31
  with Robert De Niro raging. Bull.
• 28:33
  Oh yeah, Raging Bull. Great movie.
• 28:35
  More authentic? More authentic than.
• 28:39
  Jake D'amato, right? Was that the character, the
• 28:41
  boxer? Jake D'amato?
• 28:42
  Raging Bull, Yes. OK, Yep.
• 28:46
  Yeah, that was a good one. There was one with Robert Ryan,
• 28:52
  the name of which I can't remember now in the 40s, that
• 28:56
  quite a realistic 1. And so Body and Soul with the
• 29:03
  late great actor again blanking out on his name.
• 29:07
  Now Body and Soul was pretty realistic and in portraying the
• 29:13
  role that the gangster world had in in.
• 29:16
  The setup is what you were trying to think of with Robert
• 29:19
  Ryan. Yes, the setup.
• 29:21
  And Kevin Rooney was Mike Tyson second.
• 29:23
  That's it. That's the name.
• 29:25
  Yep. So the setup was the one that
• 29:27
  that that kind of opens sheds light on the Mafia's involvement
• 29:31
  and organized crime in boxing. Yes.
• 29:33
  OK, I'll have to check that out. 1949 It'll be in black and
• 29:37
  white, buddy. Sure.
• 29:38
  Well, so was Raging Bull, but that was in the is in the what,
• 29:41
  60s? I think that was filmed or 70s.
• 29:42
  That was. A great movie.
• 29:43
  That was a great movie. But yeah, that was a great movie
• 29:46
  for sure. Who the who's who's the, the,
• 29:50
  you know, the trainers that you look up to Harold, as you were
• 29:52
  deciding to kind of get into the fight game and and training
• 29:55
  aspect, who inspired you to do what you do?
• 29:58
  The aforementioned. Emmanuel Stewart, Customato.
• 30:04
  Well, Stewart stands out. Ray Arcel, ARCEL who trained
• 30:11
  Roberto Duran and many. Oh, we forgot about him, Yeah.
• 30:15
  Roberto Duran, man, what do you think about Oscar De La Hoya?
• 30:20
  Another good one. As a fighter, you're talking
• 30:23
  about OK. Yeah, you can tell us what you
• 30:28
  thought about him as a human too.
• 30:29
  That's fine. He has a documentary out that I
• 30:32
  don't know if you've seen that. I heard man very, very.
• 30:39
  It could be called Golden Boy. OK, Mike is checking it out.
• 30:45
  He. Is he?
• 30:46
  Is yeah. I'm not ignoring you guys.
• 30:47
  I'm checking. You out?
• 30:48
  No, we know. The name, Oh, it is documentary.
• 30:53
  Golden Golden Boy, you are correct. 2023 documentary.
• 30:56
  It's one season. Yes, he he details in the
• 31:02
  documentary that in some of his biggest fights he was being
• 31:07
  heavy before the fight. He was what?
• 31:10
  Drinking heavily, yes. So as so here's I don't this
• 31:15
  blows my mind like like football players, baseball players, back
• 31:19
  ball players, right, They they all can kind of, you know, be
• 31:22
  stupid and drink and shit like that before games because it's a
• 31:25
  team sport, right? It's you have so many supporting
• 31:28
  casts around you that you know, the over the years it's been
• 31:31
  chronicled about the drug use in those sports.
• 31:33
  And you know, like Pete Rose is there.
• 31:36
  You know, they would drink a cup of pot of coffee and do speed
• 31:39
  before they went on the field, right.
• 31:41
  But you had eight of the guys playing with you.
• 31:43
  So with boxing, you're like, it's it's just you.
• 31:46
  It's just you standing toe to toe with somebody else who's
• 31:49
  entire goal in that moment is to knock your head off.
• 31:52
  So I can't imagine going into a fight drunk or hungover.
• 31:58
  Yeah, there are those fighters who are so cocky, I would use
• 32:02
  that word as stupid cockiness, that they think that their
• 32:08
  skills are such that whatever they imbibe would not affect
• 32:14
  their fighting ability. And sometimes that's hidden from
• 32:18
  the trainer and trainer doesn't know if a boxer drank before the
• 32:26
  fight unless it comes out during the fight that he does so badly.
• 32:30
  And so he asked the boxer, hey, what happened, coach, coach,
• 32:36
  that whiskey was just too much to and then it's too late that.
• 32:42
  Just that just blows my mind. Wow, OK boxers getting drunk
• 32:49
  before the fight now did now now in your career did you ever come
• 32:52
  across somebody that actually showed up to the to the to the
• 32:55
  fight that was loopy? To mine, no.
• 32:58
  OK, OK, OK, OK, so so if they showed up loopy and you knew it,
• 33:04
  would you just knock them on their ass or what?
• 33:07
  Oh, it means that's just a hypothetical.
• 33:11
  I don't know what I would face questions, frankly.
• 33:14
  You just have to say, I hope you know what you're doing.
• 33:17
  Yeah. At that point.
• 33:19
  Or another issue, famously, women in boxing don't get along.
• 33:24
  So it's such that I had a fighter, the aforementioned one
• 33:28
  who fought for the world title and promoted by Don King right
• 33:33
  after he he faintlessly had a argument with his girlfriend the
• 33:41
  night before a big fight. He was fighting for the state
• 33:46
  title, Florida State title. He was such a he was so out of
• 33:52
  it mentally that in the corner I couldn't get through to him in
• 33:56
  between rounds. And he lost that fight to a
• 33:59
  fighter that he easily should have beaten had he not had that
• 34:02
  argument with his girlfriend the night before the fight.
• 34:05
  It just put him into a trance. I'm sorry.
• 34:10
  It just put him into a trance where he wouldn't listen to
• 34:12
  anything you were saying. Trance.
• 34:14
  Yeah. His mind was such so heavily on
• 34:18
  perhaps losing his girlfriend and I couldn't get through to
• 34:22
  him with my words. And you encountered that more
• 34:25
  than once where a woman screwed up a fighter.
• 34:28
  Oh yes, Oh yes, yes, yes. Many, many women resent the fact
• 34:33
  that their men are gone for so many hours during the afternoon
• 34:39
  or evening takes away from their own time together.
• 34:43
  And that meant sometimes is perpetrated on the boxer and
• 34:48
  he's perplexed what to do. The same thing happens with
• 34:53
  musicians. Yeah.
• 34:56
  Oh yeah. Because you have to practice so
• 34:58
  much. It's the same concept.
• 34:59
  The boxers at the gym, you know, nobody sees the thousands of
• 35:03
  hours that you're at the gym practicing your craft.
• 35:06
  They only see the two minutes it took to knock the guy out,
• 35:09
  right? Yes, and I as a trainer, I faced
• 35:13
  it in my own training experience the the Wednesday.
• 35:18
  Are you married to the gym coach?
• 35:20
  Is that what you want? That's me.
• 35:23
  So that's a tough one. Can be a tough one.
• 35:26
  Well, and, and you have to realize, I mean least like MM
• 35:31
  and I were in a band for years and that's why he he can be able
• 35:33
  to. We can relate to that being away
• 35:35
  from home and talking to my wife every now and then, we talk
• 35:38
  about those days in the band and and she hated it because that
• 35:44
  alone right there. We we were always practicing, we
• 35:46
  were always playing a show. So I was gone and, you know,
• 35:50
  virtually four or five nights a week you.
• 35:53
  Know yes. Even though our first date
• 35:56
  Herald, I told her exactly what I was doing, what my intention
• 35:59
  was as far as music was concerned, that I wanted to be a
• 36:01
  rock star. That was the trajectory I wanted
• 36:03
  to go with my life. So I laid it out.
• 36:05
  Date #1 like in the first hour of the conversation.
• 36:09
  So I was like, well, you, you're new because I but.
• 36:11
  You know what, man? Nobody can understand the
• 36:14
  concept that the three of us are discussing right now until
• 36:17
  you're in the middle of it, right?
• 36:19
  That's. It you can say to somebody,
• 36:22
  yeah, I have to practice four to five nights a week and that's
• 36:25
  going to be in perpetuity. It's never going to end.
• 36:28
  No. And they don't understand till
• 36:30
  they've dealt with it for a year or two, you know, Then it's
• 36:32
  like, oh shit, I only have access to this person one or two
• 36:35
  days a week. Yeah.
• 36:38
  Yeah, but that's how we make our living.
• 36:39
  So sure, it's a double edged sword.
• 36:41
  But the the ultimate would be if if your wife wanted to get into
• 36:46
  the band, right? Right.
• 36:48
  Sure. Then you have Yoko Ono.
• 36:56
  We know how that worked. Now, never a good idea.
• 36:58
  Never a good idea. So.
• 37:00
  So how long does how long do you?
• 37:02
  How long is a training session? So you open your gym up at 4:00,
• 37:05
  I come in there to train with you.
• 37:06
  How long is our session? Depends on the day of the week.
• 37:11
  Three days a week Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or
• 37:14
  sparring days. OK, so they, they get ready,
• 37:19
  they get loose, they shadow box and then they spar and they
• 37:25
  probably leave not long after they spar or they you know, they
• 37:30
  do a floor workout for the sparring.
• 37:32
  Other days are strength and conditioning days like Monday,
• 37:36
  Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. So they may spend the longer
• 37:41
  time in the gym than on a sparring day because you know,
• 37:45
  you take blows and sparring and you may you may not want to stay
• 37:49
  that much longer. You want to go home and rest and
• 37:52
  eat. Gotcha.
• 37:53
  So we talk in two hours, four hours.
• 37:57
  Some stay the better part of four hours and again, there's
• 38:01
  there's no rule on that. Every case is individual and
• 38:06
  it's fine with me if they leave after I feel they've done all
• 38:10
  they needed to do on that particular date, right?
• 38:13
  Talking about sparring, how much CTE have you encountered in your
• 38:18
  life? It's a, it's a question that's
• 38:22
  unanswerable because generally boxers, unless they're knocked
• 38:29
  out in a professional fight, do they actually get tested for
• 38:35
  concussion and further than that, but that definitely every
• 38:42
  time the, the, the boxer gets hit, there's, there's definitely
• 38:48
  something that builds up in the brain.
• 38:50
  It's, it's unavoidable. And the the brightest ones know
• 38:55
  that, and the brightest trainers know that, and they know how to
• 39:00
  modulate the sparring according sometimes according to that
• 39:04
  reality. That was gonna be my next
• 39:06
  question. How do you do that as a trainer?
• 39:11
  Well, at worst, I see a guy, thank God, I haven't had this
• 39:15
  situation basically never that where the guy is stumbling on
• 39:20
  his words or can't realize what you're asking him that that's,
• 39:26
  that's, that's a terrible situation.
• 39:29
  But again, there's only three spark days a week.
• 39:34
  I, I really watch how they're how they're dealing in the ring.
• 39:39
  If I see them getting hit too much, I stopped the session.
• 39:43
  I, I stop it and say, that's it for now.
• 39:47
  And then we go back to the world of training again and teaching
• 39:54
  them how to avoid the reason why I had to stop this session.
• 39:58
  The reason I asked that question, Harold, is I listened
• 40:00
  to a lot of MMA fighters talk about their training camps and
• 40:05
  it seems more and more of them are giving up the sparring part
• 40:09
  of it. Giving up being a sparring
• 40:12
  partner, you're saying? Just sparring at all.
• 40:15
  At all, right? Just doing strength and
• 40:17
  conditioning and they'll do like jujitsu things that are not
• 40:22
  going to require them to get kicked or hit, right?
• 40:24
  Because they claim they already know how to do that.
• 40:27
  That's why I asked that question.
• 40:29
  And you seem like you limit your sparring so you're in the same
• 40:32
  mindset. Oh yeah, yeah, there are some
• 40:35
  gyms that spar seven days a week.
• 40:38
  I'm not in that mindset and another factor that's very
• 40:43
  interesting that there's I have seen no conclusive medical
• 40:47
  evidence of this in, in amateur boxing when you fight, you wear
• 40:53
  a headgear and professional boxing of you don't.
• 40:57
  And my question is that again has not been answered to my
• 41:01
  satisfaction. Does a headgear protect the head
• 41:06
  from CTE or not? Because there's a double impact
• 41:12
  when you have a headgear. The glove hits the headgear and
• 41:16
  then the glove hits the head. You're not the first person I've
• 41:20
  heard say that. Yeah.
• 41:21
  Is it better than a glove just hitting a head with no headgear?
• 41:26
  The last guy I heard talk about this said that basically he felt
• 41:30
  like it was safer without the headgear.
• 41:33
  OK, I've had boxers and trainers say that yes, headgear protects
• 41:41
  against getting cut because of how the headgear is positioned
• 41:45
  on the face. But again, does it protect
• 41:48
  against brain damage? I don't know.
• 41:51
  So so. Speaking of brain damage,
• 41:53
  Muhammad Ali. The word on him is that in his
• 42:00
  sparring, preparing for a fight, he let LET he let other boxes
• 42:07
  hit him around the the head just to show his ego how tough he
• 42:12
  worked and and this punch. But ultimately he wound up
• 42:17
  paying for that. The real fights, especially at
• 42:20
  his peak, he didn't get hit at all, hardly.
• 42:24
  So you would think that his training really did him in.
• 42:29
  Yeah. You know, this whole podcast, we
• 42:31
  haven't mentioned Muhammad Ali. So where does he stack up there?
• 42:34
  Yeah. He was my idol growing up.
• 42:39
  Oh yes, big idol. I think he was an idol to a lot
• 42:43
  of people who weren't even boxing fans just because of who
• 42:46
  he was as a person for sure. Right.
• 42:49
  Yeah, like he that's, that's and again, that's pre Internet, pre
• 42:52
  social media. And he was still known around
• 42:55
  the world because of just who he was and the person he was and
• 42:58
  the character he was and his charisma and his his presence
• 43:01
  alone. Yeah, you didn't have to know
• 43:03
  one thing about boxing. And you knew who?
• 43:05
  Mohammed Ali. Was exactly and take away the
• 43:07
  the the the Vietnam protest part of it.
• 43:10
  He still was known as a boxer because he was so dominant in
• 43:15
  the sport. Just, you know, George Foreman.
• 43:17
  What do you think about George Foreman, Harold?
• 43:19
  Another great one. Jeez.
• 43:22
  Definitely one of the top 10 heavyweights of all time.
• 43:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:26
  He recently passed before his time.
• 43:31
  I don't know how much CTE was involved in his passing.
• 43:34
  We never knew the. I've never seen the exact cause
• 43:38
  of death, have you? I.
• 43:40
  Have not. I have not.
• 43:43
  So let's let's let's rattle off your top, your top, let's go top
• 43:46
  five heavyweight champions of all time.
• 43:49
  In order or just the top five? Top five.
• 43:52
  Just your top five, Joe. Joe Lewis, yeah.
• 43:57
  Muhammad Ali. Larry Holmes.
• 44:03
  Oh, I forgot about Larry. Who I met a few years ago.
• 44:07
  It's a pleasure to meet him. Nice.
• 44:10
  And #4 would be Alexander Usyk, who recently fought and, you
• 44:20
  know, holds victories over Tyson Fury and Daniel Dubois.
• 44:26
  And I think highly of Alexander Usyk.
• 44:31
  And one thing to to think about in his story is that back in the
• 44:38
  50s, heavyweights like Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson
• 44:44
  weighed in the 108 lbs. And Ustek comes up from
• 44:50
  cruiserweight. He fought guys who were 18190
• 44:55
  when he was cruiserweight champion of the world.
• 44:58
  And because of that and the fact that he could handle heavy guys
• 45:05
  now, like Dubois was like 240 I think when he fought him and
• 45:09
  Tyson Fury was way up there, 280 or whatever.
• 45:14
  He's an amazing, amazing, amazing fighter.
• 45:17
  And I put him in a top five for the fifth one, possibly Joe
• 45:31
  Frazier, because there's a relatively short guy and having
• 45:36
  a victory over Muhammad Ali as well and his toughness, except
• 45:42
  for when he fought George Foreman, I, I may have to
• 45:47
  include him in the top five. OK.
• 45:50
  That's a damn good list, that. Is a really?
• 45:54
  Good list. What about the What about
• 45:56
  cruiserweights? Well, my guy who's currently
• 46:00
  have he legal problems, he's a cruiserweight.
• 46:05
  OK, I put. Definitely Van the Holyfield,
• 46:15
  OK. The real deal.
• 46:17
  Real deal, Holyfield. It was.
• 46:21
  Great. Name maybe Hamill, who was the
• 46:24
  first cruiserweight champion in the world.
• 46:27
  Spelled like the animal camel. Yeah.
• 46:30
  Where of that guy? No, you could look him up.
• 46:34
  The cruiserweight division didn't even exist.
• 46:37
  So he was the first cruiserweight champion.
• 46:40
  Cruiserweight came in in the 70s or the 80s, I'm not sure.
• 46:43
  They didn't. It used to be light heavyweight
• 46:45
  and then heavyweight. Gotcha.
• 46:47
  OK. Yeah, and otherwise I'm blanking
• 46:55
  out frankly right now on the other cruiserweights, but
• 46:58
  Holyfield got to be about the top.
• 47:00
  Yeah. Do you have any?
• 47:01
  Like do you have any featherweight favorite?
• 47:05
  Oh, Willie, guys, yeah. The little guys are fond to
• 47:09
  watch. What's his name?
• 47:10
  Harold. Willie Pep.
• 47:12
  PEP. OK, he was there.
• 47:15
  Also almost impossible to hit like Floyd Mayweather.
• 47:19
  Him and Floyd Mayweather, probably the top five defensive
• 47:24
  fighters of all time. This may be a legend.
• 47:28
  I don't know. I I've seen yes and no on it.
• 47:31
  Willie Pep was once credited by the judges with winning a round
• 47:37
  without having thrown a punch. Really.
• 47:40
  Really. Yeah, you can just check that
• 47:42
  out. That's a famous about Willie
• 47:45
  Pep. That has to be the best
• 47:47
  defensive round of boxing in the history of the world.
• 47:50
  I'm telling you, telling you other featherweights who had a
• 47:56
  famous two or three fight series, Willie Pep with a guy
• 48:00
  named Sandy Sadler. SADDLER.
• 48:04
  I've heard that name. Great, great, great fighter.
• 48:08
  Great fighter. And I'm blanking out on other
• 48:12
  featherweights, possibly Benny Leonard back in the 1900s,
• 48:21
  nineteen 20s or 30s, he was a great one.
• 48:24
  OK, yes. OK.
• 48:26
  With that said, going back in time, you just mentioned Rocky
• 48:30
  Marciano, who had. We hadn't talked about him
• 48:32
  either. I've heard different things
• 48:34
  about his career where he didn't fight the same kind of
• 48:39
  competition that the guys after him fought.
• 48:42
  And he gets credit for being one of the baddest boxers of all
• 48:45
  time, which arguably he was, but he didn't face the same kind of
• 48:50
  competition. Is that true?
• 48:54
  I wish I had lived those days, I was alive, but I didn't live
• 48:58
  those days. In the 50s when he made his
• 49:01
  mark, it looks like he had avoided some of the best
• 49:05
  fighters in the world, some of the black fighters.
• 49:07
  That's what I heard. Yes, yes.
• 49:09
  So we don't, we don't know what he could have been had he faced
• 49:12
  those guys. And he also faced guys kind of
• 49:16
  at the end of their career. So we don't know.
• 49:20
  Ezra Charles, Joe Walcott, There was some big competition for
• 49:29
  Rocky Marciano that gave him great fights.
• 49:31
  So do we put him in the same category as you're putting Floyd
• 49:36
  Mayweather in, in that he may have avoided certain times in
• 49:39
  his life to make his career appear better on the yes?
• 49:44
  I would put him in the same category, yes.
• 49:46
  OK. Which that puts it into
• 49:50
  perspective for me because I'm all about, you know, I want the
• 49:54
  toughest competition in anything I do in life, right?
• 49:58
  You want to know, what do I major up against, right?
• 50:01
  So when you got a guy like Tyson who fought the best, Muhammad
• 50:04
  Ali who fought the best, Joe Frazier fought the best, those
• 50:08
  guys, they're legendary careers are not marked by these periods
• 50:13
  where they avoided certain situations, right?
• 50:16
  Yes, that makes a lot of sense when you put it into perspective
• 50:20
  like that for me. Yes, Rocky Marciano was
• 50:23
  supremely conditioned. He did what was needed to
• 50:28
  perform well. Tough, tough guy, hard puncher.
• 50:35
  He had all those things. But again, the element of
• 50:38
  avoiding competition is is in the picture.
• 50:42
  Yeah, it's very important. So what do you think about the
• 50:48
  Klitschko brothers? Oh, I love their efforts.
• 50:52
  I highly, highly recommend. And they they may be just
• 50:58
  outside the top five heavyweights of all time, but
• 51:03
  the very, very respectable heavyweights.
• 51:06
  Which one? Which one do you think was
• 51:08
  better? I like the Vitali better than
• 51:14
  Vladimir. OK.
• 51:15
  And why is? That Vladimir was famously
• 51:17
  worked with by Emmanuel Stewart, right later in his career, Yeah.
• 51:24
  And Vitali I think had the more skill.
• 51:27
  OK, OK, I could see that. Both good fighters though.
• 51:34
  I I like the Klitschko brothers like Linux, Linux Lewis too.
• 51:37
  He was a good he was. He was always enjoyable to watch
• 51:39
  as. Well, Oh yes.
• 51:40
  Agreed, you know. What about how?
• 51:43
  Many fighters do you train at one time.
• 51:45
  Oh, good question. It varies through the years.
• 51:52
  Like when you were in your prime, you know when you first
• 51:55
  started training. Say you're five years into your
• 51:57
  career, you got a good handle on what you're doing, you're being
• 52:00
  successful. How many guys would you take on
• 52:02
  at a time? Whoever was in the gym who
• 52:06
  wanted to get serious about it, I took on.
• 52:10
  I couldn't answer the question numerically because it depends.
• 52:14
  And another factor is that for many years of the boxing club,
• 52:19
  I've been doing it for 40 years in Sarasota.
• 52:23
  We recently had our anniversary celebration in June.
• 52:28
  Thank you. And it, it, it just depends.
• 52:35
  It depends on on who's in the gym.
• 52:38
  For many years, since I was the only trainer, I I worked with
• 52:41
  everyone, amateurs and pros. Now we have 8 different trainers
• 52:47
  in the gym. Not every day that they come in.
• 52:50
  I'm the only one who's there seven days a week, but we have
• 52:54
  trainers who were there 5-6 days a week, others 3-4 days a week,
• 53:01
  and they also are involved in the training with particular
• 53:04
  guys. Sometimes the same trainer works
• 53:07
  with multiple guys and you know, there's an ego situation,
• 53:13
  unfortunately, with trainers that I didn't, did not have to
• 53:15
  face when I was the only trainer in the gym, right, Right.
• 53:20
  Sometimes trainers feel that they have the knowledge that a
• 53:25
  boxer can take advantage of and they don't want all the trainers
• 53:29
  to work with the guy they're working with.
• 53:31
  So I've never had these problems until recent years because I was
• 53:36
  the only trainer in the gym. Have you ever trained any women?
• 53:40
  Oh good. Question.
• 53:41
  Well, the woman who won the world title that I earlier, she
• 53:45
  was the most famous one that I trained.
• 53:48
  And yeah, there's always women that that I've worked with
• 53:51
  through the years. Oh yes.
• 53:53
  Yes. Now, is there a different
• 53:54
  approach to training them or is technique technique?
• 53:59
  Technique is technique. No, no different whether you
• 54:02
  have a penis or a vagina. I work with the the same
• 54:07
  technique with the with both sexes.
• 54:09
  Yes, that's good. OK, now I got to know this
• 54:12
  because I don't know the rules because I don't watch a lot of
• 54:14
  women's boxing sorry women, I just somehow don't watch a lot
• 54:18
  of it's not that I don't even enjoy it.
• 54:19
  I don't happen upon it. There's.
• 54:21
  Such entertaining fights though, Mike.
• 54:23
  I and the ones that I do see, I enjoy.
• 54:25
  I just don't see a lot of them. Is it illegal to punch them in
• 54:28
  the boob? Well, they wear a chest
• 54:34
  protector around the boobs. And no, it's not illegal.
• 54:37
  You get just that you have to go.
• 54:38
  The other girl has to go for it. Both girls have to go for it in
• 54:42
  the legal area, anywhere from the waist to the forehead where
• 54:49
  it meets the top of the head, and halfway.
• 54:52
  If you could cut a body in half halfway, you can't hit a boxer
• 54:57
  in the back legally. Halfway around the waist all the
• 55:02
  way up is legal. OK, so.
• 55:06
  You can hit him in the side, right?
• 55:08
  In the side, yes. OK, well, it seems like other
• 55:12
  than the head, going for the boobs would be a good place to
• 55:15
  go because, you know, they always say that's super
• 55:17
  sensitive. That's got to hurt like hell.
• 55:20
  Well I've seen women boxes go for the boobs and actually
• 55:24
  they're a buff when as a box. Really well and they wrap so you
• 55:30
  got to wrap those things down right?
• 55:32
  Like you're you're. Yeah, he said.
• 55:33
  They got a chest protector. Pulling them tight, yeah, that's
• 55:36
  good, yeah. Yes.
• 55:37
  Yeah, that I did not know. That makes a lot more sense.
• 55:40
  Yes. Yeah, So what was your favorite
• 55:42
  female boxer of all time? I would say the one that I'm
• 55:50
  associated with in terms of her promoting with Don King, my my
• 55:54
  cruiserweight. OK, Christy Martin.
• 55:58
  Christy Martin. OK, Yep, Yep, I remember Christy
• 56:00
  Martin. And, and she was promoted by Don
• 56:03
  King. That's where she has the long
• 56:05
  association with Don King. Sure, sure.
• 56:08
  And Layla Ali. I was going to ask, yeah, yeah.
• 56:11
  I was waiting for Layla Ali to come up because obviously
• 56:14
  Christy. Martin fought Layla Ali.
• 56:16
  Yeah. And she had to go.
• 56:18
  She had to put on. Actually, she wore, the story
• 56:23
  goes, that Christie, when she got on the scales before the
• 56:26
  fight, she actually put some stuff to make her heavier so the
• 56:30
  fight would would look more legal than it would had she
• 56:36
  actually got her regular weight against Layla.
• 56:39
  Layla was a big girl. Yeah.
• 56:42
  So, so Christie Keister some some weights.
• 56:45
  When she weighed in against the Layla, yes.
• 56:48
  That's hilarious. That's funny.
• 56:50
  That's crazy, who won? I don't remember who won that,
• 56:52
  but did did Ollie win that one? Yeah, Ollie won that.
• 56:55
  She really punished Christie that night.
• 56:57
  That's a fight that I wasn't in love with.
• 57:01
  If I if I had been Christie's trainer, I I don't know if I.
• 57:04
  But the money, she got a million for the fight, Christie, but
• 57:07
  that's tough to pass up. Yeah, I'll get my ass kicked for
• 57:10
  1,000,000 bucks. Yeah, Hell yeah, Hell yeah.
• 57:12
  But. Can I set that up?
• 57:14
  My. Hand, Harold, let me, let me
• 57:16
  know where to be. Yeah, yes.
• 57:18
  I'll be the, I'll be the undercard.
• 57:20
  I'll be the undercard, Harold. So we can, yeah, double dip you.
• 57:24
  I have a musician who weighs probably what you weigh, so
• 57:27
  we'll make that happen. I'm one.
• 57:29
  I'm the same weight as Jig, but Jig looks like he's 200 lbs.
• 57:33
  Uh huh. That still fascinates me.
• 57:35
  I asked Jagger. Chris did.
• 57:36
  How much do you? I think Chris did.
• 57:38
  How much do you weigh? And he says 154.
• 57:39
  I'm like, I'm 154, but I look like a skeleton and he looks
• 57:43
  like a mad shit out. Yeah.
• 57:46
  Right, right, right, right. I need to hit the weights,
• 57:50
  Harold. Yeah.
• 57:52
  So we got a few more minutes here left to Harold, who's the
• 57:55
  fastest, the fastest hand speed boxer you've ever watched?
• 58:00
  Great question. Oh, a lot of contenders there.
• 58:03
  Yeah. I some of the best would be
• 58:07
  Hector Camacho. Yes.
• 58:09
  Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah.
• 58:11
  Wow. I'm demach, young man.
• 58:14
  I'm demacho man. Roy Jones, Junior.
• 58:19
  Yes. Oh, I forgot about Roy Jones,
• 58:21
  man. Incredible hands, yeah.
• 58:23
  A prime Floyd Mayweather? Yeah, and those three come to
• 58:28
  mind. OK, now what about the, the, the
• 58:30
  power punchers? Who's your top three power
• 58:32
  punchers? And it doesn't matter what
• 58:33
  division, but just somebody that when, when you knew they throw
• 58:36
  that one punch, that was it if it connected.
• 58:39
  Sonny Liston. Oh yeah, dude.
• 58:42
  Yeah, Sonny. This is the George.
• 58:44
  Mormon, yes. Joe.
• 58:46
  Lewis, Joe Lewis. OK, so Tyson wasn't in that as a
• 58:49
  as a power puncher. Tyson, of course, yes.
• 58:52
  Well, I said top three, though, so you gave your top three, but
• 58:54
  that's cool, yeah. Yes.
• 58:57
  Did Foreman and Tyson ever fight?
• 58:58
  I don't remember. They did not, no.
• 59:00
  Who do you think would? Have.
• 59:03
  Won that play. A toss up a prime George Foreman
• 59:08
  and a prime Tyson. Tyson would be giving up quite a
• 59:11
  few inches in high reach, but Tyson had a way of out jabbing
• 59:18
  guys who was sometimes 6 foot 6 because as he's famously said
• 59:23
  and as Customato trained him, a jab is more a matter of timing
• 59:29
  than the length of your arm. Oh, OK, that's.
• 59:33
  Good. So he got in which?
• 59:34
  Which is some of my verbiage when I train a fighter, how
• 59:38
  quickly can you get from where you are now till you touch your
• 59:45
  the opponent's chin? How quick can you get in?
• 59:48
  Yeah, I'm always telling my boxes to be first.
• 59:53
  Yeah. From my years in boxing, whoever
• 59:56
  punches first usually is the winner of the fight.
• 1:00:00
  Really. Yes, that totally makes sense.
• 1:00:02
  Yeah. You see, the more you're, the
• 1:00:04
  more the aggressor of all of yeah.
• 1:00:05
  Yes, the other boxer, if you're first he's on the he's he has to
• 1:00:10
  react OK instead. Of defending right.
• 1:00:13
  Yes, yeah. OK.
• 1:00:15
  So Jig Jig taught, taught us something when he was on the
• 1:00:17
  show, because I asked him, when you're when you're standing toe
• 1:00:20
  to toe with your opponent, my assumption was you're looking at
• 1:00:24
  the head, you're looking at the waist.
• 1:00:26
  His answer was the feet. He looks at the feet and how
• 1:00:29
  their feet are. He determines what kind of boxer
• 1:00:32
  they're going to. Be he said he wants to know if
• 1:00:33
  the guy can move or not. Yeah, it totally made sense.
• 1:00:37
  I have a different take on that question.
• 1:00:40
  That's why I asked it. I like my boxers to look at the
• 1:00:46
  upper chest. OK, instead of the eyes.
• 1:00:49
  I think the eyes can be deceitful.
• 1:00:51
  Agreed. You look at the chest, you can
• 1:00:55
  see especially if you scan, like when you're driving a car, very
• 1:00:59
  similar. You could make a case.
• 1:01:01
  Boxing and driving are very similar in many ways.
• 1:01:04
  As a driver, you're constantly scanning to the left, to the
• 1:01:10
  right to know what's on the left of you, what's on the right of
• 1:01:13
  you, so you can avoid danger as a boxer.
• 1:01:18
  And you're scanning the chest and you could see better than
• 1:01:21
  looking at the eyes if the boxer is about to throw a right or a
• 1:01:26
  left. Now, in Jig's defense, he said
• 1:01:30
  that's what he looks at first, right?
• 1:01:32
  Right. Yeah, because he wants to know
• 1:01:34
  if the guy can move or not. You say the the feet, right?
• 1:01:38
  Yeah, he said. He looks at the guy when he gets
• 1:01:40
  in the ring. I think Chris asked him
• 1:01:41
  specifically. That question.
• 1:01:43
  Like, what are you looking at? And he said.
• 1:01:45
  I'm looking at his feet first because I want to know if he can
• 1:01:48
  move. A lot of guys are lead footed,
• 1:01:50
  he said. They.
• 1:01:50
  Just you mean what, as he first gets in the ring before they get
• 1:01:54
  into action or as he's boxing? I think as he starts boxing,
• 1:01:58
  that was the first. Thing.
• 1:01:59
  He looks at is to see if the guy he wants to know if the guy can
• 1:02:02
  move with him or not. OK, I wonder how he reconciles
• 1:02:07
  that. I haven't spoken to Jig He.
• 1:02:08
  Reconciles it real well because he knocks everybody right the
• 1:02:12
  fuck. Out.
• 1:02:16
  Excuse my French. Yeah, yeah, you shouldn't say
• 1:02:18
  the word jig. No, because I don't want him to
• 1:02:23
  knock me out. Well, right on, Harold.
• 1:02:26
  Harold, what's the what's the name of the the boxing studio
• 1:02:29
  you train out of? Sarasota Boxing Club.
• 1:02:34
  OK, so if anybody wants to take up boxing, they need to go see
• 1:02:36
  Harold at the Sarasota Boxing Club in Florida.
• 1:02:38
  Yes they do. On Google they could find out
• 1:02:41
  the hours and where we're located.
• 1:02:43
  Awesome. What is it now if somebody just
• 1:02:45
  wanted to come in and just train as a boxer, not box?
• 1:02:48
  Is that something a boxing gym allows?
• 1:02:50
  Oh yeah, We have every type of category, everything you could
• 1:02:55
  think of, from people who want to be competitive and a world
• 1:02:59
  champion all the way to people who are overweight and they want
• 1:03:04
  to lose weight or they don't want to be bullied, right?
• 1:03:07
  Or just just get a a workout to help their physical condition.
• 1:03:11
  OK, that's awesome. Yeah.
• 1:03:12
  I've always thought about training as a boxer just for the
• 1:03:15
  in shape you. Know when can you come in?
• 1:03:18
  Say it will take me a while. Oh.
• 1:03:22
  He's going to start pedaling his bicycle right now.
• 1:03:24
  Hey, there's somebody behind you.
• 1:03:25
  There is. It's the Amazon guy.
• 1:03:27
  I can't ever let that go, Harold.
• 1:03:29
  I almost let him die one day. Oh, I've never heard the end of
• 1:03:32
  it. Well, we all need people behind
• 1:03:35
  us. We do, Harold, this has been an
• 1:03:38
  absolute pleasure, man. You're a genuine human being.
• 1:03:40
  I can't imagine you having any type of ego when you're in that,
• 1:03:43
  that that Sarasota boxing gym training.
• 1:03:46
  You're you're, you're athletes, you know, just Mike and I love
• 1:03:52
  boxing. So this shows afforded us the
• 1:03:54
  ability to actually talk to a boxer and now talk to somebody
• 1:03:57
  who's behind the scenes for 40 years.
• 1:03:58
  So I'm sure I, I can't speak for Mike, but this has been a great,
• 1:04:02
  a great opportunity to talk to you to kind of pick your brain
• 1:04:04
  and, and just absolutely your knowledge and experience was
• 1:04:07
  fantastic. Yeah.
• 1:04:08
  Thank you so much. Really.
• 1:04:11
  Really nice to meet you and we always appreciate somebody who's
• 1:04:15
  achieved the pinnacle of their career, right.
• 1:04:18
  And making it to the Boxing Hall of Fame as a trainer and having
• 1:04:21
  trained somebody who's won a world title, I would say you've
• 1:04:24
  achieved the pinnacle, yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank
• 1:04:27
  absolutely. When can I get a copy of this?
• 1:04:30
  We're going to once we get done, we'll explain all that to you,
• 1:04:33
  OK? I want to shout out and thank
• 1:04:35
  Ash for for hooking us up with Harold as well as well as Jake
• 1:04:38
  because you. Wouldn't thank you, Ash.
• 1:04:40
  Thank you, Ash. Thank you, Ash.
• 1:04:42
  Don't sign off yet when we're when we went, when we sign off
• 1:04:45
  the show, stay on your phone because we won't be live
• 1:04:47
  anymore. We want to make sure everything
• 1:04:48
  gets uploaded properly. OK.
• 1:04:50
  We close every show with this. If you're having a bad day, if
• 1:04:53
  you're feeling depressed, if you're if you're feeling
• 1:04:55
  suicidal, don't do it. Somebody will miss you.
• 1:04:57
  Somebody Loves You. Don't leave a hole in somebody
• 1:04:59
  else's heart. Mike and I have both experienced
• 1:05:01
  people who have taken their own lives.
• 1:05:03
  It's a drag. It sucks.
• 1:05:04
  It's it's the pain that the the that you leave behind is
• 1:05:08
  overwhelming. So just be mindful of that.
• 1:05:09
  Reach out to somebody. Somebody does love you.
• 1:05:11
  Somebody will miss you. Wake up tomorrow and it's going
• 1:05:14
  to be a better day, I assure you.
• 1:05:16
  For for for Mike Michaels. I'm Chris Dunham.
• 1:05:18
  He's herald the the rock, the rock and you know, Hall of Fame
• 1:05:23
  coach, boxing trainer, guru, specialist Sarasota boxing gym
• 1:05:27
  in Florida. Google him, check him out.
• 1:05:28
  Until next time everybody, see ya.
• 1:05:31
  Peace. Peace, all right?
• 1:05:34
  Don't don't sign out. We're going to fly in there.
• 1:05:43
  Go insane on your journey. You will go.
• 1:05:58
  Be on the trail behind your eyes.
• 1:06:00
  Feel yourself and meet yourself. Take a moment.
• 1:06:08
  Look. Until you see it.
• 1:06:10
  Fight the battle. That's you fuck wheel.
• 1:06:14
  Fight the battle, but you fuck wheel.
• 1:07:40
  Come down here, you haven't found solids in your sand.
• 1:07:45
  He's fun fighting. Wait for the dead when he's
• 1:07:51
  closer out there and put in the wind.
• 1:07:54
  You ain't no creature. We don't play inspire and he's
• 1:08:00
  church. You press on.
• 1:08:01
  The almighty dead. You've got a dream.
• 1:08:06
  Who in your life? The people.
• 1:08:08
  Soul in every man. Take the trip behind your eyes.
• 1:08:15
  Feel the soul. Everyone.
• 1:08:18
  You shave now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:08:27
  yeah. You gotta, you gotta.
• 1:09:04
  You gotta, you gotta, you gotta.