Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Morning, everybody in Steve j n V Jess hilarious, Charlamagne
Speaker 3: the guy.
Speaker 4: We are the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: We got a special guest in the building, indeed, boxing
Speaker 3: legend and icon, Andre Ward. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: happy to be here. Now you're feeling I'm good man,
Speaker 3: happy to be here.
Speaker 2: How are you, sir?
Speaker 1: Man, I'm good man. I'm juggling, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: all good. I'm working it out well.
Speaker 5: I hope you all read Andrea Ward's book Already Killing
Speaker 5: the Image of Champions, Journey of Faith, Fighting and Forgiveness.
Speaker 5: You've always been like notoriously, you know, private with your
Speaker 5: personal life to a certain extent. How did you know
Speaker 5: now was the time to reveal it all in the book?
Speaker 1: Man, It's been it's been a it's been a few
Speaker 1: years coming, you know. You know, I've said it many times,
Speaker 1: you know, promoting this book, like I'm an eighties baby,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was raised to not share my business,
Speaker 1: my family's business, you know. And it's it's not about
Speaker 1: this day and age because people overshare that. People think
Speaker 1: that like being private is some weird. You know, some
Speaker 1: some sneaky about you with you hi, and it's like, nah,
Speaker 1: that's a superpower to like keep my business to myself
Speaker 1: and I and I share it. So but as I'm
Speaker 1: getting in the game and I'm mentoring a lot of guys,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to tell I'm like, bro, I
Speaker 1: understand what you're going through. I've been there, done that.
Speaker 1: And they're like, nah, you've always been like this. And
Speaker 1: it's like, nah, bro, like I'm telling you, I did
Speaker 1: more than you. So I started getting discontent and start
Speaker 1: feeling like, man, they don't have the full story. And
Speaker 1: I was talking to my pastor man and he was like, Dray,
Speaker 1: you got to kill the image. And I'm like, what
Speaker 1: you mean. He was like, Nah, who you are is real,
Speaker 1: but it's not who you've always been. You can tell
Speaker 1: that story now for people.
Speaker 3: That don't know who andre Ward is and how you
Speaker 3: got in the box, and break that down a little bit.
Speaker 4: What got you into boxing? What made you love boxing?
Speaker 1: My daddy, My daddy, I was My first love was baseball.
Speaker 1: You know, I was a picture on the short stop,
Speaker 1: but I was always competitive, always, you know, just competitive,
Speaker 1: like I'm a sore winner and a sore loser. And
Speaker 1: my daddy started telling me about his amateur careers. You know,
Speaker 1: he was at fifteen of ois a heavyweight. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what you mean you box? And my dad, you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, he raised me as a single parents.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to do it. I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about it. And that was like, that was the
Speaker 1: first seed. That was song and my dad being my dad,
Speaker 1: you know, and I talk about this in the book.
Speaker 1: You're like, and we're gonna do it. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: it right, You're not gonna quit. But the first day
Speaker 1: I walked in that gym, man, it was love at
Speaker 1: first sight. And I didn't even really understand what that was.
Speaker 1: I just knew the sights and the sounds, the speedbag,
Speaker 1: the heavy bag, you know, the smells of the gym,
Speaker 1: you know, hearing people ha ha ha, hitting the bag
Speaker 1: and sparring. I knew I loved it. I knew I
Speaker 1: loved it. I wasn't very good when we first started.
Speaker 1: Was hard on you, very but that's why my dad
Speaker 1: couldn't train me. You know. My dad was you know,
Speaker 1: he was all or nothing. You know, I told you
Speaker 1: to get your ble bleep, hands up, man, just what
Speaker 1: you're doing? Move your head and me I would shut down.
Speaker 1: I don't respond to that. And shortly after I started,
Speaker 1: we met Virgil, my godfather, lifelong trainer, and Versese had
Speaker 1: a different finessa body. You know. He would he would, hey, baby,
Speaker 1: try this, dude, get your hands up now. I responded
Speaker 1: to that. So my dad was wise enough to pass
Speaker 1: me on the verse.
Speaker 5: We don't hear those stories enough about single fathers. Yes,
Speaker 5: how did that impact you? Not have a mother in house?
Speaker 5: You always hear about having a father now.
Speaker 1: Man, The good part of it was I got to
Speaker 1: see a man get up every day and go to work.
Speaker 1: My father would always say, you know, I got my struggles.
Speaker 1: And my father he struggled with heroin addiction, but he
Speaker 1: was a functional at it, and my mother was a
Speaker 1: full blown at it. You know, she was in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: I'm in the East Bay and she's completely in her addiction.
Speaker 1: And my dad will say, I don't care what I'm
Speaker 1: going through. I'm not leaving, you know. So just seeing
Speaker 1: him get up every day, he owned his own business,
Speaker 1: get up every day and go to work. He struggled
Speaker 1: a night he had that monkey on his back when
Speaker 1: he came home. But that showed me what manhood was about.
Speaker 1: That gave me a strength about me and a confidence
Speaker 1: about me. Not having a mother there that I didn't
Speaker 1: have that nurture. I was raised by a bachelor. I
Speaker 1: didn't have that that that that gentleness, that balanced thattive
Speaker 1: that a young man needs. So now when I get
Speaker 1: into a relationship, I wonder why I got mistrust and
Speaker 1: distrust for this young lady, my wife Tiffany that I'm
Speaker 1: that I say I love. I can't see the trust
Speaker 1: because the most important woman in my life at the time,
Speaker 1: she wasn't there. So it took me time, Charlotte Mane
Speaker 1: to start realizing the mother woman. We talk about father woman,
Speaker 1: but the mother woman that I had going into adulthood
Speaker 1: and how that followed me. And I didn't realize this
Speaker 1: until later in life, and I had to do a
Speaker 1: lot of work, and you know, I'm in a much
Speaker 1: better place now, but not having my mother there, it
Speaker 1: definitely impacted me for sure.
Speaker 2: How did you get over that?
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, how did you get over there?
Speaker 4: I mean, not having a mom in your life?
Speaker 3: Like you said, that sensitive side, that nurturing inside because
Speaker 3: you know Dad, especially in that.
Speaker 4: Era, is you full get your ass back. You better
Speaker 4: not cry.
Speaker 3: That was Dad's back then, but you didn't have that
Speaker 3: other side of Mom said, well, let me let me
Speaker 3: hug you, let me hold up, so let me make
Speaker 3: you feel better.
Speaker 4: So how did you get over it?
Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing is just identifying what it was.
Speaker 1: Took a lot of une to get there, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, because I'm you know, I'm not trusting
Speaker 1: and I'm blaming her. I'm not you know, loving her
Speaker 1: the way I should, and I'm blaming her. And it
Speaker 1: just took me. You know, really, when I crossed over
Speaker 1: and got out the streets and really settled down and
Speaker 1: gave my life to God, I started really being able
Speaker 1: to hear my thoughts and really put the patterns together,
Speaker 1: and then remember the struggles that my dad had, Like man,
Speaker 1: my dad struggled with this too. And then getting around
Speaker 1: you know, they say a few good me and my
Speaker 1: pastor and a couple of good core brothers that I have,
Speaker 1: and just them helping me identify certain things and talking
Speaker 1: through that stuff. And for me, when I talk through
Speaker 1: things with the right person, it's cathartic. It's it's therapeutic,
Speaker 1: like even writing a book, Like it's a lot of pain,
Speaker 1: you pulling off old scabs and old wounds, but the
Speaker 1: end is it is good. So really just identifying what
Speaker 1: it was, understanding what it was, acknowledging it, and then
Speaker 1: allowing the help to help me.
Speaker 5: I wonder how did that how you talking about your wife,
Speaker 5: but I'm talking about this relationship with women period? Yeah,
Speaker 5: how did that affect you? Not having a mom? How
Speaker 5: did you look at women like throughout your whole life?
Speaker 1: Man? Like I said, it was just distrust and mistrust.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Did it ever come to a point like where your
Speaker 6: wife where y'all want a verge of divorce or separation
Speaker 6: or what?
Speaker 7: She just always very patient and understood from the jump.
Speaker 1: Oh no, we went at it for sure. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know you got to realize too. We started
Speaker 1: super young, like first first child we met in high school.
Speaker 1: First child sixteen years old, second child eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: And I'm living with Verge. Like I said, my godfather,
Speaker 1: Trainer and his wife and she mad were going at
Speaker 1: it and vergis sit us down, this is how you
Speaker 1: want to carry yourself as a wife, and as a
Speaker 1: woman dre and he I felt like he was always
Speaker 1: taking her side, Like, why you're always taking her side? Nah,
Speaker 1: you said, listen, I'm trying to I'm trying to help you. Man,
Speaker 1: sit down and stop talking. And he would just sit
Speaker 1: us down and break it down. He would open the wordness.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how you're supposed to carry yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: look when he go to the gym, and this is
Speaker 1: again we're seventeen, eighteen years old, nineteen years old. He
Speaker 1: go to the gym all day. Don't as soon as
Speaker 1: he come through the door, start yelling at him and
Speaker 1: telling him what he didn't do. You got to give
Speaker 1: him a chance to unwind, take a shower, eat, and
Speaker 1: then go talk to him. So I see her listening.
Speaker 1: Then he get on me, man, you need to stop
Speaker 1: reacting like that. Bro, you tripping. It was that type
Speaker 1: of counseling that we had that wasn't even like formal counseling,
Speaker 1: but it was him sitting down and this is in
Speaker 1: the middle of him going through his own personal marital stuff.
Speaker 1: He would sit us down to educate us about what
Speaker 1: he believed a wife was supposed to look like bek
Speaker 1: and what a husband was supposed to be like and
Speaker 1: it was a lie.
Speaker 7: And this is as growing up as teenagers, y'all grew
Speaker 7: up together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well she is from Seattle and I'm from the Bay.
Speaker 1: And my half brother, I don't call him my habits
Speaker 1: my brother. But you know, we got different different moms,
Speaker 1: different different same father, different mothers. We went to high
Speaker 1: school together for you know, to I think his junior
Speaker 1: year and my sophomore year. He went back to Seattle.
Speaker 1: I went to go visit him. I met her. That's
Speaker 1: how we locked in, and you know, I talk about
Speaker 1: it in the book. For me, it was love at
Speaker 1: first sight. I'm like, man, who is that? You know?
Speaker 1: What's her name? And we locked in, you know, that
Speaker 1: weekend and we've been together ever since. But it got
Speaker 1: to a point where I'm ripping and running. I'm going
Speaker 1: up there to see you. I'm getting on Greyhound twenty
Speaker 1: hour bus ride from from North Oakland to Seattle because
Speaker 1: I'm with you know what I'm saying, And I know
Speaker 1: I don't know what love is completely, but but I
Speaker 1: feel like I love her. And VERSE said, look, man,
Speaker 1: what is it gonna take for you to stop running
Speaker 1: into this wall? And because we got three years bro
Speaker 1: before the Olympics. What is it gonna take you? I said,
Speaker 1: I want her with me, and he brought her down
Speaker 1: and that's where we live with them, and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to chase my dream and clean my life up and
Speaker 1: get myself together and get ready for these Olympics. But
Speaker 1: she was also there with me.
Speaker 3: How did they know you were the one when it
Speaker 3: came to boxing, you know, because everybody, I mean, you
Speaker 3: go to these gym everybody like that. Everybody thinks they one.
Speaker 3: You go to Gleasings and everybody's like that the next
Speaker 3: How did they know that you were the one out
Speaker 3: of all at what was the That's something that somebody seen.
Speaker 1: I think it didn't start out like that, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I said, I think it just started out something
Speaker 1: I wanted to do and I went in there and
Speaker 1: I had to really pay my dues the first couple
Speaker 1: of years, like I was getting beat all over the
Speaker 1: ring because.
Speaker 4: You said the Olympics, like you were ready for it.
Speaker 1: But it got to a certain point where once I
Speaker 1: overcame in that gym after that first year, we call
Speaker 1: it being battle tested. Once I got battle tested in
Speaker 1: that gym, then it was like all right, let's go
Speaker 1: to the nationals. Once I won my first national title
Speaker 1: at ten years old in nineteen ninety six, I actually
Speaker 1: beat Curtis Stevens, who from Brooklyn, Brownsville, and he was
Speaker 1: my rival. Once I did that, I think everybody starts saying,
Speaker 1: to man, he could be the one. And it sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: right I'm ten years old. But I kept winning, and
Speaker 1: I kept winning, and then we start, you know, vergis
Speaker 1: the counters in. But we got nine years to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: We got seven years, and I just I turned into
Speaker 1: this prodigy and I gave up my whole childhood to
Speaker 1: do it. So it went for me looking like I
Speaker 1: might not have it to all of a sudden, He's
Speaker 1: gonna be the one. So at a certain point it
Speaker 1: became a fourgone conclusion. I'm gonna through the limps, want
Speaker 1: to go medal turn pro, win championships and make a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Like that just was the conversation in
Speaker 1: my home. It sounds crazy, but that's what it was.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to your parents just for
Speaker 2: a couple more questions.
Speaker 5: Were you ever afraid that the disease of addiction would
Speaker 5: would get you?
Speaker 1: It did get me. Oh man, it did get me.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't a long time, but it was long enough.
Speaker 1: I had a two three year stint where you know,
Speaker 1: some people say generational curses, some people say generational patterns.
Speaker 1: They had me and I was already you know, dibbling
Speaker 1: with weed and starting to drink, probably sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: I mean it really stemmed from this. I believe, like
Speaker 1: I said, my mother was a full blown attict. My
Speaker 1: daddy was a functional attic. Once I started realizing that
Speaker 1: my dad was struggling and I no longer was buying
Speaker 1: the lines, and I'm just you know, he would my
Speaker 1: dad would go to work all day and he would
Speaker 1: come home and you know, talk to me and my brother,
Speaker 1: and he would go up in that room and he
Speaker 1: would always had a water run and it'd be like
Speaker 1: an hour or two hours. When my daddy came out,
Speaker 1: his face was flushed and he just acting funny, slurring,
Speaker 1: and I didn't I didn't understand what was going on.
Speaker 1: Then I started putting it together. I found a needle.
Speaker 1: I'm questioning him about that. Then I got to the
Speaker 1: age where I'm like, man, you're getting high. Then that
Speaker 1: bitterness and that resentment and all that anger started to
Speaker 1: rise up. So what I do is I go to
Speaker 1: what's familiar to my family, alcohol and drugs. But I'm
Speaker 1: hiding at this point. When my father dies at at
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, that was my excuse just to go
Speaker 1: buck wow. And I did.
Speaker 2: Let me.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3: Jess and I were talking about this a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago, and this is a new judgment zone. But
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know, like when you see something
Speaker 3: affect your family in a negative way, right, think we
Speaker 3: were talking about bow Wow bow. I was talking about
Speaker 3: he see mac millerdo lean and passed away from it,
Speaker 3: but then he tried it. And I always wanted to
Speaker 3: know the mind frame of somebody seeing it destroyed somebody
Speaker 3: but saying I'm gonna try it, I can overcome, right, Like,
Speaker 3: what's that mind frame? Because you see what it's, what
Speaker 3: it's doing, and you see what it does, but you
Speaker 3: still say, fuck it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try it.
Speaker 1: It depends, Bro. You gotta realize it's forces behind them,
Speaker 1: generational curses. It ain't just natural. It's forces behind and
Speaker 1: them forces follow you generationally, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: give into it. But once you open that door and
Speaker 1: you say, yeah, I'm gonna try this now it's home.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't emotionally mentally mature enough to be able
Speaker 1: to make those decisions. All I knew was I was hurting.
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with depression. I'm dealing with anxiety, and I
Speaker 1: don't know that that's what it is. All I know
Speaker 1: is when I drink something or when I smoke something,
Speaker 1: I don't feel that way no more. That edge is
Speaker 1: taken on temporarily. But once I got myself together and
Speaker 1: you know, I got clean and I got I kicked
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Then I started thinking the way
Speaker 1: you said, I'm never gonna touch that again. I gotta
Speaker 1: do something different from my kids. But I wasn't at
Speaker 1: that stage. I didn't have that kind of strength and power.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting too, because my dad, my grandfather Herold.
Speaker 1: He was an a functional alcoholic great man, but he
Speaker 1: had a drinking problem. My dad vowed I never touched
Speaker 1: a drink because because my dad only told me he
Speaker 1: loved me when he was when he was drunk, and
Speaker 1: he never did. But then he turned the hair. So
Speaker 1: it's a slippery slope.
Speaker 5: Would you say you replaced one addiction with another. When
Speaker 5: you took up boxing.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say I replaced it. I would say, man,
Speaker 1: I got free, And I would say that I just
Speaker 1: channeled who I am as a person that drive, that
Speaker 1: focused towards the right thing. You know. I don't look
Speaker 1: at boxing like an addiction, and I always have tried to.
Speaker 1: And it's not easy. Man. I don't want to sit
Speaker 1: here and act like it's an easy thing. But I've
Speaker 1: always tried to keep that sport in its proper place
Speaker 1: because I knew it was end one day. And I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate that God always put me around people who would
Speaker 1: walk that walk. My pastor Napoleon Coffee and form a raider.
Speaker 1: He played All American in college, six years as a
Speaker 1: as a professional runner back, and then he did. He
Speaker 1: went in the ministry and never looked back. I had
Speaker 1: him to talk to me, Dray, listen, man, this is
Speaker 1: what you do. It's not who you are. Guy's got
Speaker 1: other stuff for you. Bro Hey, enjoy it, give it
Speaker 1: all you got, but it's not gonna always be there.
Speaker 1: So I had people like that in my ear. So
Speaker 1: when the time came, the impact wasn't It's hard.
Speaker 5: What effected losing your father have on you, and what
Speaker 5: was your relationship.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, my dad was my mother and my father.
Speaker 1: For many many years, that was my everything, and it
Speaker 1: is had a profound effect and I still feel it
Speaker 1: to this day. Now the thing isn't as as strong,
Speaker 1: but I had times when I'm with my kids and
Speaker 1: I just drift off and I'm thinking, like, man, my
Speaker 1: dad can see this right now. He lived long enough
Speaker 1: to see my first child, dre Jr. And Tiffany was
Speaker 1: pregnant with our second child, Malachi, and then he passed
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two. I have moments like that.
Speaker 1: I think about how my career would have been different
Speaker 1: if my dad was here. I think about me helping
Speaker 1: my dad and giving back to him and buying in
Speaker 1: my house or just you know, just just doing life
Speaker 1: for him. I wish I had my father there to
Speaker 1: talk about life. I got questions, man, even at forty
Speaker 1: years I just turned forty. Men, I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out. I think about that stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: Charlote Mane. It was a devastating loss, man, devastating loss.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to ever say I got over it.
Speaker 1: But I've been able to cope with it, deal with it,
Speaker 1: and you know, uh, hopefully make him proud with the
Speaker 1: life that I.
Speaker 7: Lived because you were retired at thirty three. Yeah young?
Speaker 7: Yeah all that right?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so if your dad was here, you would have
Speaker 6: would have gone longer, you believe.
Speaker 1: So, I don't know what, Like my dad loved boxing,
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't like my dad was always focused on
Speaker 1: the man, you know, Like he was always focused on
Speaker 1: me and my character and type of person that he
Speaker 1: was always big on that. So I don't my dad.
Speaker 1: I don't think my dad would have been trying to
Speaker 1: push me to stay in the sport. I think it
Speaker 1: probably would have been the opposite. He might have wanted
Speaker 1: me to end it a little bit earlier than when
Speaker 1: I did it.
Speaker 2: How did you know it was time then?
Speaker 5: Because he was undefeated, Like yeah, relatively young in the sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like what made you? How did you know it's
Speaker 2: time to hang the gloves up?
Speaker 1: Man? I started feeling it two three years before I
Speaker 1: did it, And I would always ask the other athletes, man,
Speaker 1: how did you know? And they would all say the
Speaker 1: same thing. You just gonna know. You're gonna wake up
Speaker 1: one day and you don't want to do it. So
Speaker 1: I started here and myself Charlotte Mayne say that our
Speaker 1: word retired three four years before. I would just say
Speaker 1: stuff and I'd be like, bro, what you just said
Speaker 1: and I and I would I would be aware of that.
Speaker 1: I'm self aware, like yo and you talking like that.
Speaker 1: But I still had to drive. I'm still looking good,
Speaker 1: I'm still sharp, and went through the laws suit Perior
Speaker 1: with my promoter, going through that where you know, money
Speaker 1: going out and no money coming in, and I'm like, look, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end this on my terms. They trying to
Speaker 1: start me out. If I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go out of my own term. My pastor like, nah,
Speaker 1: I don't do it. My wife like it's too is premature,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Don't don't send that that letter out
Speaker 1: you just wrote and got through that. Had my run
Speaker 1: with rock Nation for three years, and uh, it got
Speaker 1: to the point after the first COVID Left fight, I
Speaker 1: thought I was done. After that, my body was starting
Speaker 1: to break down. You know, I've had multiple knee surgeries
Speaker 1: and stuff and it wasn't boxing related. It's just all
Speaker 1: the preparation, all the training, and man, you just want
Speaker 1: your freedom back, Like I'm the type of person that
Speaker 1: when I do something, I really do it like I'm
Speaker 1: locked in, Like it's just the way I am. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be that guy all the time. My
Speaker 1: body's starting to break down. My kids were in high school.
Speaker 1: It was like all these mitigating circumstances Charlotte, Maine that
Speaker 1: start adding up, and you know, I'm I'm a numbers cruncher,
Speaker 1: so I'm crunching the numbers like, man, okay, if I
Speaker 1: get this just this much on my money every year,
Speaker 1: And it wasn't it Just like my pastor was like, Bro,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to figure that out. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to step out on face. So if you
Speaker 1: if you want to walk, you gotta walk in fake.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna stay, you gotta stay in faith. So
Speaker 1: I went and talked to him after COVID aed one
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, I think I'm done. I
Speaker 1: haven't been in the gym in three months, and that's
Speaker 1: not like me. I'm like, man, I have no desire
Speaker 1: to be in no gym. I just fought the dude
Speaker 1: that they said I wasn't gonna fight and want a
Speaker 1: close decision everybody say, all you lost you listen, I said,
Speaker 1: but what am I doing this for? And he sat there.
Speaker 1: I just I just knew he was gonna co sign
Speaker 1: what I was saying. He sat there, he was like,
Speaker 1: I think I can see you doing one more and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, but I ain't got to this. They said,
Speaker 1: once you go death fire, come back. And I remember
Speaker 1: leaving his office disappointed because every time I talk about retirement,
Speaker 1: every time I talk about getting my freedom back, somebody
Speaker 1: always giving me a reason to stay. So it's weird, right,
Speaker 1: Like I knew I was gonna miss it, but I'm
Speaker 1: also fighting to get out of it. And this is
Speaker 1: after I did this since I was nine. So people
Speaker 1: don't do the math. You're just thirty three, But you
Speaker 1: got to date that back to nine years old and
Speaker 1: the toad that that takes mentally, physically, emotionally, the things
Speaker 1: that I missed, the things that I couldn't be a
Speaker 1: part of, and do the pressure that I have on me.
Speaker 1: I hadn't lost a fight since I was fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: That's pressure. So you get to a point that even
Speaker 1: though I can do this, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: want to do this. Win fal covilet the second time,
Speaker 1: and I knew it was time.
Speaker 5: When you say freedom, like, what do you mean like
Speaker 5: the simple things like wanting to eat what you want
Speaker 5: to eat, or not having to be on the training regimen.
Speaker 2: Like what do you mean when you say freedom?
Speaker 1: Boxing consumes you? I feel like it has to if
Speaker 1: you're gonna be elite. Like if I was on this
Speaker 1: trip right now, I would have to be doing the math.
Speaker 1: When was the last time I ran? Like I eat now,
Speaker 1: I try to eat good for my health, but I
Speaker 1: would have to eat good for performance. Right where you
Speaker 1: weigh at? Well, hey man, you when you're coming back
Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff. I was always on
Speaker 1: the clock, always an obligation, always on the clock, and
Speaker 1: nobody put more pressure on me than me. So I
Speaker 1: was tired of myself. I need a break for me,
Speaker 1: because I know how I get with competition. I need
Speaker 1: a break for me. And it's been a blessing, though
Speaker 1: I miss it to not have to be on the
Speaker 1: clock in the builder to enjoy my life and say
Speaker 1: I don't have nowhere to be. Sometimes I go to
Speaker 1: the gym, the gym, I go to uh the lab
Speaker 1: in Sarahmont, my boy, my boy, Bobby owns it and uh,
Speaker 1: they won't see me for a week. Where you at brother,
Speaker 1: I said, Bro, I got time in. I deserve to
Speaker 1: miss a week or two. If I want to miss
Speaker 1: a week or two. That feels good to be able
Speaker 1: to do that. I wouldn't be able to do that
Speaker 1: if I was active.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you a question. You said you were
Speaker 3: undefeated since fourteen. Do you feel like and I asked
Speaker 3: every boxing when they going pare do you feel like?
Speaker 3: That undefeated category messes up boxing now where people instead
Speaker 3: of fighting fights, they just they're looking for the perfect
Speaker 3: fight to keep it undefeated, to keep the money coming in,
Speaker 3: to keep the sponsorships, to keep the pay per views big.
Speaker 4: Because you and Floyd kind of after the game.
Speaker 1: With that, it is messing up the game a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's also the game. The game is messing up
Speaker 1: the game in some respects, and the fighters are messing
Speaker 1: up the game in some respects, right. And what I
Speaker 1: mean is we put a lot of stock into a
Speaker 1: loss in box and MM, don't do that. You got
Speaker 1: cats that are still revered, respected all that they got
Speaker 1: six to seven loss. But he's that name, he's that
Speaker 1: guy we respect him. It's not like that. In boxing.
Speaker 1: If if a young guy coming up, if Javonte davisor
Speaker 1: Stevenson Debnhady take a loss, oh my goodness, they take
Speaker 1: a loss. Now used to be.
Speaker 4: Like that though, it used to be all these amazing
Speaker 4: like nobody cared. You come back and get a rematch.
Speaker 4: But now you lose, it's like, oh, it's finished.
Speaker 1: So so that's part of it is the game, the
Speaker 1: way the game responds to us. And then it is
Speaker 1: the fighters, right Like some guys have to fight competition
Speaker 1: to make good money. But if you crack the code
Speaker 1: and you able to have a fan base without fighting
Speaker 1: top competition, where's the motivation to fight top competition. So
Speaker 1: you had pretty Boy Floyd the first ten years of
Speaker 1: his career where he had to get it out the money,
Speaker 1: improve and show and scratch for every dollar. Then he
Speaker 1: crossed over to money. May now can fight who I
Speaker 1: want to fight. So the youngsters, they don't want the
Speaker 1: pretty Boy Floyd era, they want the money May wear
Speaker 1: the air. That's what the game is doing right now.
Speaker 1: So it's pros and cons because for so many years
Speaker 1: fighters took huge risk and got no money. So if
Speaker 1: I'm an air on the side, I'm gonna say, may
Speaker 1: get your money, say you the best, even though you
Speaker 1: ain't fought the best. I'll respect your hustle. You able
Speaker 1: to get it that way. But for so many years
Speaker 1: it was the opposite. So now it's shifted. So I
Speaker 1: think it's it's a fine line, right because everybody want
Speaker 1: you to go fight that person right now, do this.
Speaker 1: We'll hold on to make sure the money right, make
Speaker 1: sure that the business hander will do that. So it's
Speaker 1: pros and cons to the era that we're in right
Speaker 1: now in boxing.
Speaker 5: I think about stuff like that, right, And I just
Speaker 5: used somebody like Canelo as an example. He's an all
Speaker 5: time great, but then there's certain fights we wanted to see,
Speaker 5: like maybe you you you and Canelo. Even now they
Speaker 5: say him and Benavidez, and I'm like, well, if he
Speaker 5: doesn't fight Bena Videz, do you really put that as
Speaker 5: a strike against him?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Really, And the Canelo fans they call me a
Speaker 1: hater because I'm telling the truth. Like me and this
Speaker 1: guy Canell, we never had we never looked each other's way,
Speaker 1: different way, class, and we we shouldn't have like we
Speaker 1: he didn't, And people say Canelo duck me. He didn't
Speaker 1: duck me. The only reason why we brought up in
Speaker 1: the same categories because we had a common opponent, Sergeykvilet
Speaker 1: When I retire, so people start connecting the docs. Now
Speaker 1: you fought him, fight dre now called Dre out, So
Speaker 1: I don't I'll never say Canelo ducked me, because he didn't.
Speaker 1: We wasn't even on his radar, wasn't on my radar.
Speaker 1: But in terms of his resume, it's a little website
Speaker 1: called boxreck dot com. And if you know what you're
Speaker 1: looking at, you can look at them, the opponents that
Speaker 1: he fought right and people say he fought this name
Speaker 1: and fought the name. Where did he fight that name?
Speaker 1: When he fought him? He thirty two, he coming off
Speaker 1: two losses. He thirty five. Cole when he fought Colder
Speaker 1: coche Leve was cooked. He wasn't a crusher, He wasn't
Speaker 1: the undefeated guy. He had lost that And I'm not
Speaker 1: knocking the hustle. But you lose me when you start
Speaker 1: seeing I'm the best fighter in the world, or you
Speaker 1: lose me when you feel like you don't have to
Speaker 1: fight the best. But then everybody else gotta fight the best.
Speaker 1: Canelo is a is a really good fighter, man, But
Speaker 1: you don't really know how good you are until you
Speaker 1: fight the other best. Now, you shouldn't fight other top
Speaker 1: guys every fight out. That's not wise and that's not safe.
Speaker 1: You need tune up fights, you need you know, you
Speaker 1: need them kind of fight. But when most of your
Speaker 1: fights are like that, come on, man.
Speaker 5: But if Benevidez was to beat him, now, wh and
Speaker 5: people say the same thing, Oh, Canelo is older, he
Speaker 5: been in the ring a long time, maybe he lost.
Speaker 1: That's the risk you take. That's the risk you take.
Speaker 4: Who's the best, the best boxer of all time?
Speaker 1: To you? Man? Why that's come on?
Speaker 2: And that's asking the man who's ranking number twelve.
Speaker 1: All time. Yes, sir, it's tough that we can go
Speaker 1: back and forth about that forever. I look at it
Speaker 1: like who are my greats? Right? Like who are my goats?
Speaker 1: And Roy Jones, Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather. That's my era.
Speaker 1: I'm a hybrid of all three of those guys. And
Speaker 1: of course you got the sugar Ray Robinson's if you're
Speaker 1: talking all time, you got Muhammad Ali if you're talking
Speaker 1: all time.
Speaker 4: But why those three individuals? Why Banard, Why Floyd?
Speaker 1: That's who I gazed at, That's who I took for Roy.
Speaker 1: I'm a hybrid of all three of them. I can
Speaker 1: shift and be Bernard Hopkins one round, I can be
Speaker 1: Floyd Mayweather in the next round. I can be a
Speaker 1: young Roy Jones the next round. That's who I looked
Speaker 1: up to. That's who I stole from the most. So
Speaker 1: those those are my three goats. But I'm also, like
Speaker 1: I said, Robinson, Alex, you can't leave them dudes and
Speaker 1: other people. Salvador Sanchez, you know Mexican fighter that you
Speaker 1: know he died in a car accident, lost his life
Speaker 1: very very early, great fighter. He would have continued to win.
Speaker 1: So we can go back and forth about that all
Speaker 1: all day long. But I look at it like, who
Speaker 1: are yo Grace? Who are yo goats? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I want to go back to just Canelo real quick,
Speaker 2: but who.
Speaker 1: So a lot of guys he in fun three times,
Speaker 1: like maybe I just know too much? Maybe I just
Speaker 1: know too much?
Speaker 2: Like what's missing from his run?
Speaker 1: He didn't even want to fight HBO. Preston made Glufkin
Speaker 1: getting the ring after one of his fights and call
Speaker 1: him out, so he had to respond and do that,
Speaker 1: and most of their fights were controversial. So it's like
Speaker 1: Canelo is a good fighter, man, But like, and that's
Speaker 1: why even when people talk about Floyd, I don't I
Speaker 1: never say Floyd duck this, when the duck that. When
Speaker 1: Floyd had ten years of giving you all them kind
Speaker 1: of fights and he still took some tough fights even
Speaker 1: when he was getting older. But he earned the right
Speaker 1: to pick and choose at a certain point. I'm the show.
Speaker 1: Hasn't you gotta fight good and then you gotta pick.
Speaker 1: Then you gotta fight a guy that's not it's too
Speaker 1: much ducking. It is too much, man, bro. I can
Speaker 1: go down the list like it's but it keeps happening though,
Speaker 1: Like this guy could rise up and then he ducked
Speaker 1: that dude. He just wants to pay day, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they want to pay day. That's the that's the position
Speaker 1: what you think to see it. So I just feel like, man,
Speaker 1: when it's a guy that's a threat, like even even
Speaker 1: dmitriy bev all the due you lost to you got
Speaker 1: to give him credit for going up and wait, but
Speaker 1: I feel like he miscalculated though. That was a miscalculation
Speaker 1: and if you the all time great, don't you want
Speaker 1: to get that back?
Speaker 5: And he says he wants three masses, But you know
Speaker 5: it's so interesting, that's that's the keto.
Speaker 1: He says he wants to remas. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So you got you got ben a v there's right now,
Speaker 1: or you got Terres Crawford. Right, Oh, there's no credit
Speaker 1: if I fight Tarres Crawford. Well, you fought a mere
Speaker 1: kan that was way smaller than you and you knocked
Speaker 1: him out cold in Las Vegas at the tem Mobleson.
Speaker 1: I was there. You didn't feel no type of way
Speaker 1: about that. But now Terres Crawford, it's too small and
Speaker 1: you won't get credit. We gotta we gotta be consistent.
Speaker 1: So I'm qualified to speak about this stuff and speak
Speaker 1: out against it because it's all kind of double standards
Speaker 1: in the game. So I try to mind my business
Speaker 1: and then when I'm asked about it, I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. Good fighter. Box Office got his
Speaker 1: country behind. You got to give him credit for all
Speaker 1: the marketing and the money man, get that. But when
Speaker 1: you start talking about breaking down these resumes and start
Speaker 1: talking about who's the greatest and you and you mentioned
Speaker 1: yourself with other all time Mexican greats. You gotta have
Speaker 1: a kind of conversation about that.
Speaker 2: You don't think two fights are having Crawford and uh uh.
Speaker 1: It's not looking like it, but like, but like the
Speaker 1: Golufkin situation, if they if they press him enough, he
Speaker 1: may give in. But listen, bro, get your money. But
Speaker 1: at some point, every now and again, you got a
Speaker 1: total line and so you you the next one come on,
Speaker 1: and he's just not doing that. There's no there's no
Speaker 1: appetite to do that. Is there any boxer that you
Speaker 1: looked at.
Speaker 4: And like, I would have loved to fight him.
Speaker 1: Ah. Man, it's hard for me to talk about the
Speaker 1: greats because I got a lot of respect for him.
Speaker 1: But I would have loved to a fall Floyd. Just
Speaker 1: the styles really my three Bernard and Floyd at what
Speaker 1: wait though, huh at what It don't matter, just just
Speaker 1: a just a fantasy matchup. Yeah, Bernard, Floyd and Roy.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have seen my style against
Speaker 1: their style. It would have been a mirror of themselves.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's probably the three that that I
Speaker 1: would have I would have loved to get and really,
Speaker 1: you know, the fight that should have happened was me
Speaker 1: and Gelufky Hm that that's a fight that should have happened.
Speaker 2: Why didn't happen?
Speaker 1: He didn't want it?
Speaker 2: Scared, you would say, scared, but you you were a boogeyman.
Speaker 1: I just think, man, guys know they've been around the
Speaker 1: game long enough where you don't have to be an
Speaker 1: analyst to be an analyst. They know this guy's a
Speaker 1: problem for me. And I'm not a bully in the game.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a He was a smaller weight
Speaker 1: class than me. He was one sixty. I was one
Speaker 1: sixty eight. But I take stuff personal. When you start
Speaker 1: saying that I'm the boogeyman, everybody scared of me. Okay,
Speaker 1: then you say I'll fight anybody. I'm one sixty, I'll
Speaker 1: fight you at one sixty eight, which was my weight class,
Speaker 1: or one seventy five. Now you're gonna get my attention,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna speak out. And then when we my
Speaker 1: team sends you an offer, right and you and you
Speaker 1: maybe two years from that. Man, come on, bro, I
Speaker 1: just don't like or respect that kind of stuff. We're fighters, bro,
Speaker 1: this is what we do. Right. You get lied to me,
Speaker 1: but you line to the fans. You know, your promoter
Speaker 1: he to this day when I speak about this stuff,
Speaker 1: they get mad. All you're lying. They go crazy on
Speaker 1: soci mean, why you saw emotional of them lying?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: What's wrong? I got emails right now that has them
Speaker 1: turning down the fight. My lawyer said, they turn the
Speaker 1: fight down less than fifteen minutes. Wow. So it just
Speaker 1: sometimes a lot of talking, man, and then when it's
Speaker 1: time to walk, it don't the song and the dance
Speaker 1: don't line up.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if Oakland make Andrea Ward the man
Speaker 2: he is today. I'm be honest with you. I've heard
Speaker 2: you talk a lot.
Speaker 5: I ain't never heard you sign this Oakland.
Speaker 2: It's like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, yeah, I don't hear it obviously, but yeah, y'all
Speaker 1: y'all off in the east cause you're from Baltimore.
Speaker 4: I can hear that from Carolina.
Speaker 1: He was talking about it in back. My boy tell
Speaker 1: you was like, yeall, can hear that at Baltimore? In it? Man,
Speaker 1: it's just man a city, the city as a whole,
Speaker 1: just blue collar. And you know, my other brothers from
Speaker 1: you know, like Marshawn Lynch and many others that come
Speaker 1: from from Oakland. Man, we just we just like, it's
Speaker 1: really about action, bro, It's really not about a lot
Speaker 1: of talking. That's how I carry myself in the game.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh. Just blue collar and you got that
Speaker 1: grit and that determination about you. That's what Oakland represents
Speaker 1: to me. And I love it because they say we're
Speaker 1: a small market, but but I feel like we got
Speaker 1: some of the best talent in the world. And I
Speaker 1: love people saying that step boy from Oakland. And that's
Speaker 1: what they used to say in the amateur you know
Speaker 1: here from Oakland because you know, I'm around kids the
Speaker 1: national You got kids from everywhere, Midwest, East Coast, and
Speaker 1: they would always, man, you talk weird. I'm like, y'all
Speaker 1: talk weird to me, Like, and they think California is
Speaker 1: l A. I'm like, it's not la. I'm I'm in
Speaker 1: the Bay. And I had to educate them on what
Speaker 1: the Bay was. I love representing my city. Man, it's
Speaker 1: just blue collar Farler man, just get it out the mud.
Speaker 5: Other than the accent, you know, in the getting it
Speaker 5: out the mud, what from Oakland stage with you at all?
Speaker 2: Times.
Speaker 1: I just think. I just think the mentality, like I said,
Speaker 1: it just blue collar, just willing to roll up your
Speaker 1: sleeves and work. You know, you got some places where
Speaker 1: it's a lot of show, right. I think it's where
Speaker 1: the type of people that when the lights come on
Speaker 1: and it's time to go to work, we're ready.
Speaker 5: When did you realize you were turning generational curses in
Speaker 5: the generational blessings.
Speaker 1: That's a good question, man. I think when when I
Speaker 1: start allowing God to get me together. When I start,
Speaker 1: my eyes started to get clear, and I started to
Speaker 1: see things right. When I started to learn what it
Speaker 1: meant to to mour in my father's death, didn't know
Speaker 1: what that meant. When I started being honest about where
Speaker 1: I was and being honest about my emotions and feelings.
Speaker 1: When I started acknowledging the mother wound and how it
Speaker 1: was affecting my relationship with Tiffany. Like, when I started
Speaker 1: like that, I believe that's being a real man. When
Speaker 1: I was able to humble myself and really start acknowledging
Speaker 1: these things, I started sensing that I was I was
Speaker 1: shifting the pair of down the paradine was shifting, and
Speaker 1: generationally the curse has to stop with somebody, And I
Speaker 1: believe that God was using me and my wife to
Speaker 1: stop a lot of the things that have been in
Speaker 1: our family, generational even even poverty, certain poverty mentalities, And
Speaker 1: I just believe I was helping me and my wife
Speaker 1: to break that. So self has started with me. I
Speaker 1: got to get me right. I can't lead a family.
Speaker 1: I can't leave my wife, I can't leave my kids.
Speaker 1: I can't do it unless I'm getting myself together perfect
Speaker 1: by no means. But I'm saying them blatant things and
Speaker 1: blatant sins and things that generational things that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I can't do those things and be the proper leader.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to God, do you remember the moment,
Speaker 5: our event that caused you to like really strengthen your
Speaker 5: faith and your belief.
Speaker 1: My father always gave me a foundation word. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I didn't grow up in the church like that,
Speaker 1: but my father had an understanding and he would open
Speaker 1: up the Bible and say, man, you got you know,
Speaker 1: I probably gave my life to God probably like twenty
Speaker 1: times when I was a kid, just making sure that
Speaker 1: didn't worked. You know what I'm saying and just young
Speaker 1: and not knowing no better. But I always had a
Speaker 1: respect and a reverence for God. And you know, when
Speaker 1: I started getting notoriety, like you know, I'm aging myself
Speaker 1: right now. But the newspapers would come to the school
Speaker 1: and they would want to do an article on me
Speaker 1: and my brother. My dad would be like, man, you
Speaker 1: make sure you give God glory and stuff. And I
Speaker 1: didn't really fully understand it, and I was scared to
Speaker 1: do it at that time. My brother, he was outspoken,
Speaker 1: this dude, we're Christian. I'm like, bro, shut up, bro,
Speaker 1: like you always like I wasn't there. He was there,
Speaker 1: but that's where it started. And but that was my
Speaker 1: father's faith. And then when I start going through life
Speaker 1: and then I lost him, I was angry at God.
Speaker 1: I don't want them to do a church. God, nothing
Speaker 1: like you allowed this to happen. I didn't acknowledge that
Speaker 1: I was already slipping and tripping before my dad died.
Speaker 1: It was his fault. And every time I would smoke something,
Speaker 1: every time I would drink something, every time i'd be
Speaker 1: in a situation, I felt like my conscience was still there.
Speaker 1: I wasn't completely gone, but I would think, man, You're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be doing this, bro, And vergus to
Speaker 1: tell me. And I talk about this in the book.
Speaker 1: Verge was not only a boxing trainer, but he worked
Speaker 1: in a probation department of juvenile all for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: And Verge had and has a gift for young men.
Speaker 1: He can look at you and say something, make you laugh,
Speaker 1: but also get at you at the same time. And
Speaker 1: he used to sit there in the kitchen man in
Speaker 1: East Ookland, Man where we lived, and he would say,
Speaker 1: he say, brother, you ain't gonna get God a gonna
Speaker 1: let you get away with nothing. And this is when
Speaker 1: I'm in the thick of it. And I would get
Speaker 1: mad and be like, man, why you hainte knowing me? Man,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to do my thing and live my life.
Speaker 1: He say, look, man, I hear you, but I'm telling
Speaker 1: you God ain't gonna let you get away with nothing.
Speaker 1: And sure enough, I'd be in a car full of dudes.
Speaker 1: You come here. I couldn't get away with nothing. Could
Speaker 1: do a little bit, but every time I try to
Speaker 1: step it up. So those things were starting to chip
Speaker 1: away at me. And I knew even though I'm still
Speaker 1: doing I knew, like, man, this ain't gonna last long.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have a long career in the streets.
Speaker 1: I'm just not. So it was that kind of stuff, Charlemagne.
Speaker 1: When I'm in a thick of my situation and I'm
Speaker 1: rejecting him, He's still running after me, right, And it
Speaker 1: wasn't to the point to where life was really happening.
Speaker 1: I had another child and stuff just start piling up.
Speaker 1: I had to look up and have a conversation with God. Man,
Speaker 1: I had I was off some ecstasy, and I talk
Speaker 1: about this in the in the in the in the
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the book, and my heart racing,
Speaker 1: and I knew I was gonna die. I just knew it.
Speaker 1: And it took that Charlemagne for me to get through
Speaker 1: my anger, get through my frustration. When the pressure hit,
Speaker 1: I knew where to go. And I looked up and
Speaker 1: had a conversation with God and he sense he made
Speaker 1: a deal with him. Man, you let me live. I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry forgetting I had to And I made it
Speaker 1: through that, obviously, And that was the start of my journey.
Speaker 1: Did it happen overnight, No, But I started softening my heart.
Speaker 1: I started being open to God again. I started being
Speaker 1: I started listening to Verge a little bit more. You know,
Speaker 1: the window was closing for the Olympics. I'm probably two
Speaker 1: years out at this point, and it was little by
Speaker 1: little man, but slowly but surely. Man, when I saw
Speaker 1: God supernaturally take the desire and the taste for alcohol,
Speaker 1: drugs and everything else from me. Some people may have
Speaker 1: to go to a program, and I don't knock that
Speaker 1: everybody got that different stuff. But when I saw that happen,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, this stuff is real. When I
Speaker 1: started to develop my own faith, in my own relationship,
Speaker 1: and I started to sense and feel God speaking to
Speaker 1: me and helping me, and it wasn't just my father's
Speaker 1: faith no more. That was that was that was a memorial.
Speaker 1: I never forget that. I never forget that. And then
Speaker 1: giving me the power to sustain me all these years
Speaker 1: and a sport like boxing, being a young father and
Speaker 1: a young husband like man, I'm I'm not that good
Speaker 1: like without a relationship with God and having that power
Speaker 1: working in my life. Oh, y'all gonna be reading about
Speaker 1: me on the bottom of the tacker for sure. In
Speaker 1: my mind, one part of my mind says, all, you
Speaker 1: would have held it together, you would have been fine.
Speaker 1: But the other part of me saying, you're not the good.
Speaker 2: So that's the impost syndrome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's it's all the process that got me
Speaker 1: to his feet and then everything that ensued after. I've
Speaker 1: seen too much, Charla Mane, and I've experienced too much
Speaker 1: to go back. I just have personal experience where it's
Speaker 1: like do and I'm not the kind of person that
Speaker 1: can just read a rule book and then try to
Speaker 1: follow it, Like I need to feel something tangible, something
Speaker 1: that's real. I felt that, and I feel that to
Speaker 1: this day.
Speaker 5: What made you start going into like seek therapy and
Speaker 5: things of that nature. Cause a lot of people that's
Speaker 5: very spiritual, they say, all, God is enough.
Speaker 2: What made you realize I needed something else?
Speaker 1: Well, I got great counselors at my church. I chose
Speaker 1: to go that right because I wanted a godly perspective
Speaker 1: with it. You know, I don't knock anybody else. You
Speaker 1: got to know what's good for you, right. But then
Speaker 1: it just kind of naturally happened. I wasn't like, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't gonna make a conscious decision. I just started
Speaker 1: talking to my pastor and him being who he is
Speaker 1: a wise man, they like, well, tell me about that,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm all of a sudden in the counseling
Speaker 1: session and didn't even realize that I was in the
Speaker 1: counseling session. But I knew I felt better after talking
Speaker 1: about it, and in him tell me, well, man, you
Speaker 1: may want to think about that. Man, Man, I see,
Speaker 1: I know you're going through that right now, but God's
Speaker 1: gonna see you through. And he had vision beyond what
Speaker 1: I was going through. That kind of stuff stimulating me
Speaker 1: gave me hope. It gave me the ability to believe
Speaker 1: the man, I can I can do this, this husband thing,
Speaker 1: I could be a father, man, I could be in
Speaker 1: this career still represent God, and I'd be weird of
Speaker 1: noxious about it, but just live the life in front
Speaker 1: of it. I can do this. So it just kind
Speaker 1: of happened, Charlamagne. It wasn't really a conscious decision, but
Speaker 1: I knew I felt better when I did it. I
Speaker 1: knew I felt lighter. I knew it gave me hope,
Speaker 1: and I do it to this day when I feel
Speaker 1: that pressure hit. Yeah, I have my relationship with God,
Speaker 1: but I got a core group of brothers that I call.
Speaker 1: I got a few people at my church I could passed.
Speaker 1: I need to holl let you, I need to come,
Speaker 1: what's what's going on? Comes to the house. I need that.
Speaker 1: So I just begin to see the value of it
Speaker 1: over time.
Speaker 2: You think every.
Speaker 3: Boxer should have a therapy corner where people they can
Speaker 3: talk to because they're going through so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Yeah, I think probably probably most probably everybody.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And then like everybody that you said, God sends
Speaker 6: you people sometimes, you know what I mean, Like for that,
Speaker 6: like you said you received counseling the church didn't even
Speaker 6: know that that is where you know that that you
Speaker 6: were in counseling.
Speaker 7: God will send you people, you know, just like that.
Speaker 6: But speaking of what ANDB just asked you, I just
Speaker 6: reported a story about Ryan Garcia and everything he's going
Speaker 6: through now, And we were having a conversation earlier about.
Speaker 7: Should they call his fight because he seems to be.
Speaker 6: You know, just going through so many things and just
Speaker 6: you know, and and publicly we're seeing it, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, Like, how what would you what do
Speaker 6: you have to say to speak to that?
Speaker 1: Or he's in a tough spot right now because you
Speaker 1: got this fight coming up, and and you do not
Speaker 1: have time for self care or you got to prepare
Speaker 1: for war. So it's this stuff is coming at a
Speaker 1: bad time. And it didn't just come this stuff. It's
Speaker 1: probably been going on and it's just showing itself. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know about the social media stuff and if
Speaker 1: that stuff is him, because he did put out a
Speaker 1: video saying that he didn't have access to his stuff.
Speaker 1: But the things that I've heard him say, it seems
Speaker 1: I it seems off. And I'm not trying to minimize
Speaker 1: a marginalize what he seems to be going through. But
Speaker 1: you know, his father was like, oh, he's just trolling
Speaker 1: the wrong way. I've heard him say things about trolling,
Speaker 1: so I don't believe it's just trolling. But you you know,
Speaker 1: he's got a lot of follower He's got a big following.
Speaker 1: You wonder, like, man, is this some of this stuff?
Speaker 1: But I think my gut is saying that it's real
Speaker 1: and he's no longer able to hide it or keep
Speaker 1: it behind the scenes. He's in a real tough spot
Speaker 1: right now because of this fight. But I think and
Speaker 1: I don't know if he should cancel the fight or
Speaker 1: if he's gonna even be able to get through a
Speaker 1: training training camp. It's a lot. It's pressure. Man, every
Speaker 1: day you are great and physically mentally you taking punch
Speaker 1: and you dishing punches. You got some type of training
Speaker 1: session and it's not just all I'm just going to
Speaker 1: work out just to sweat, like you pushing your body
Speaker 1: past the limit two three times a day. That's a lot.
Speaker 1: When do you have time to focus on yourself? You
Speaker 1: don't and he's not. So it's really sad to see.
Speaker 1: And it's really concerning to see because young kid with
Speaker 1: a lot, a lot of money, big following, but it's
Speaker 1: clearly something going on.
Speaker 6: And then also with that image, a big image that
Speaker 6: they these young boys have to live up to now
Speaker 6: because we have the internet, we have the social media,
Speaker 6: We have fan bases that are built off of you know,
Speaker 6: their money, their social media, how they look. So speaking
Speaker 6: to your book, killing the images that which you're more
Speaker 6: so talking about, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think with that is just you know, by me
Speaker 1: essentially telling on myself and sharing this side of my story,
Speaker 1: it may kill some images that people have. Man I
Speaker 1: thought he never man, I couldn't see him doing that.
Speaker 1: That may do that but that doesn't mean that who
Speaker 1: I am is not real. I'm just giving you the
Speaker 1: other side of the coin. And when you talk about
Speaker 1: the social media stuff, that's why for me, like like,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to create a viral moment for me,
Speaker 1: like the way my brain works, Like I know I
Speaker 1: can come in here right now and say certain names
Speaker 1: and get a reaction and get more close and views. Right,
Speaker 1: that's not how I'm wired, and I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: get down like.
Speaker 2: That feel free for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just.
Speaker 4: Want to slap a co host right now.
Speaker 1: It's all kind of stuff you can do. It's all
Speaker 1: kind of stuff you can say. I was telling to
Speaker 1: tape my boy tell him. I said, well, it's not hard.
Speaker 1: It's not. I try to let any viral moment I
Speaker 1: have be authentic, be real. But what you win the
Speaker 1: people with, you got to keep them with. And Ryan
Speaker 1: won the people over with sharing everything overly sharing, right,
Speaker 1: So now he's going through it, he doesn't even feel
Speaker 1: like he can go through it in produe. He feels
Speaker 1: the need to like, bro, why are you sharing that?
Speaker 1: Why you do that video? Who told you to do
Speaker 1: that video?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: I gotta let the people know. So He's in a
Speaker 1: tough spot because what you win the people with you
Speaker 1: gotta keep him with that. And that's the the tough
Speaker 1: spot you see him in right now. He can't even
Speaker 1: he doesn't even know how to deal with life and
Speaker 1: deal with himself offline. Too young, and you can tell
Speaker 1: he's not he's not been told because I can listen
Speaker 1: to you and hear you share certain things and say
Speaker 1: you shouldn't. You shouldn't have that. You shouldn't have shared
Speaker 1: that now, you shouldn't have said that. Why you doing
Speaker 1: this at the press conference. He's young, he don't understand,
Speaker 1: so he feels like it's all fair game and he
Speaker 1: don't realize that's hurting him even more.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so interesting because when I think about Ryan,
Speaker 5: I started liking Ryan because he was a good boxer, yep, right,
Speaker 5: And so the trolling and stuff that's kind of new
Speaker 5: to me. And I feel like that came after he
Speaker 5: lost the tank, and it's like, you can't distract people
Speaker 5: from that loss.
Speaker 2: You just gotta move on.
Speaker 5: And I think all of this talk of good point,
Speaker 5: Devin gonna beat you up, beat you, I think it's
Speaker 5: messing with him.
Speaker 2: He don't want to experience that again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. I think it is a distraction, dude,
Speaker 1: Like like when you lose and he was all, you ain't,
Speaker 1: but I remember my last loss, said you ain't lost
Speaker 1: in a long time. I remember it, which is why
Speaker 1: I ain't lost. Since it's like, bro, it's like a
Speaker 1: it's like a it's like a death. You you mourning
Speaker 1: that thing, especially when it's a high profile loss and
Speaker 1: you get stopped away that he did you think it's over.
Speaker 1: We going home?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You still living with that? You waking up Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: You gotta get on your flight now that that that
Speaker 1: last night, what you did or didn't do. It's it's
Speaker 1: starting to sink in the next coming months and year.
Speaker 1: All you hear and see is the loss you gotta
Speaker 1: knocked out. Man, Shut up. We don't want to hear
Speaker 1: that you got man, you said you was gonna win
Speaker 1: you It's so he's he's in a form of like
Speaker 1: mourning right now. Good point about him trying to distract
Speaker 1: people from it. But he ain't doing it the right way.
Speaker 1: And I don't know who he has around him to
Speaker 1: pull his coat tail and say, bro, lil bro, we're
Speaker 1: not doing that that we're not doing that well. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell the people, no, you don't. You need to win.
Speaker 1: That's how you're gonna get over that loss. Focus on this.
Speaker 1: But and I say the other thing too. I think
Speaker 1: that you were asking about you always asking about should
Speaker 1: fighters get counseling and different things like that. I think
Speaker 1: like most people should, probably all people, like I said, it,
Speaker 1: should have somebody that they can talk to. You got
Speaker 1: to be able to like life is gonna happen right then.
Speaker 1: Just because you're not talking about it, don't mean you're
Speaker 1: not going through it. But the alcohol and the drugs
Speaker 1: that I'm even seeing and hearing fight like it was
Speaker 1: a thing, but it's even more a thing, right And
Speaker 1: some of that is trying to escape. Some of that
Speaker 1: is trying to deal with the pressure. Some of that
Speaker 1: is not having a counselor not having a relationship with
Speaker 1: God and trying to deal with this pressure. But the
Speaker 1: only way I know how to deal with it is
Speaker 1: to go to the bottle, or go to the weed,
Speaker 1: or go to the drug, or go to the women.
Speaker 1: And I just you just again, I'm sounding like the
Speaker 1: old head. You live long enough and you just start
Speaker 1: to see like Man, you just don't want to have
Speaker 1: a good time. You running from something, and I try
Speaker 1: to do the best I can. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not in these guys business or nothing like that.
Speaker 1: But when my phone rings or they reach out, man,
Speaker 1: I try to give them what I what I had,
Speaker 1: And that's the power of And you talk about this
Speaker 1: a lot, Charla Mane of telling my story, like, I've
Speaker 1: had so much feedback about dude, I had no idea,
Speaker 1: like can I talk to you about this? Like I've
Speaker 1: had youngsters that I've been talking to for years and
Speaker 1: we normally only keep it boxing because they want to
Speaker 1: look a certain way in front of me. But now
Speaker 1: that I revealed that, can I talk to you about this? Bro?
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with this. We need somebody to talk to manly, Yes, sir.
Speaker 5: The final question because I want people to go watch
Speaker 5: the documentary that you the Book of Water and pick
Speaker 5: up the book killing the image. But on the back
Speaker 5: of the book you have what if I die? Why
Speaker 5: did you have that question?
Speaker 1: That was the moment that I was telling you all
Speaker 1: about where I felt like I was gonna overdose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the moment and for me being hard head,
Speaker 1: at that time of my life. That's what it took, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a moment I'll never forget. And
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that that. You know, I just
Speaker 1: like it's it's a lot of inspiration out there. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think we should have people who are inspiring.
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta be inspired. But I tried in
Speaker 1: this book, Charlotte main And to give a role.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: I want you to get inspired, but I also want
Speaker 1: you to have some practical things that you can take
Speaker 1: from my life, hopefully to help you through your situation.
Speaker 1: That maybe by reading my story you can see beyond
Speaker 1: your situation. And I hope that the book, the book
Speaker 1: did that, because this book would make you laugh it
Speaker 1: and'll make you cry. It inspire you, but it also
Speaker 1: give you, like I said, some tools and some weapons
Speaker 1: to be able to fight your fight. People think that
Speaker 1: fighting is just for barbaric people or people who got
Speaker 1: that mentality. We're all fighting something and we're all going
Speaker 1: to have to fight at some point. All of us
Speaker 1: gonna have to toe that line and say, man, I'm
Speaker 1: resisting this. I'm not gonna give into this. It could
Speaker 1: be an addiction, it could be a lifestyle. It could
Speaker 1: be family members, they could be anxiety, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So this is not a boxing book, just like I
Speaker 1: would tell people when I was pushing the doc, it's
Speaker 1: not a boxing doc. People always want to make it
Speaker 1: that this is a human interest story. Man, this is
Speaker 1: about a young man who had a dream, who almost
Speaker 1: lost it all and gave his life to God, and
Speaker 1: it's just been trying to walk this thing out and
Speaker 1: do life. Just do it better than my family members
Speaker 1: did it, and hopefully my kids will do it better
Speaker 1: than I did it.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: There, you have it, andre Ward later, thank you for
Speaker 4: coming brother man man.
Speaker 2: Killing the image.
Speaker 5: Bookstores everywhere right now, everywhere you buy books, go get it.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: And it's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, Wake that ass
Speaker 4: up in the morning.
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club.