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Speaker 1: Welcome to another awesome episode of soft Rep Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Rad and today I have a very special guest.
Speaker 1: But before I introduce him, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about our merch shop. Go check it out. It's
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Speaker 1: That's what keeps the fireplace flickering, so keep it up.
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Speaker 1: rep dot com forward slash book hyphen Club. You know
Speaker 1: it and if you don't, it's book hyphen Club at
Speaker 1: soft rep dot com. Go check out all the latest
Speaker 1: books that we've been curating for you to read and enjoy.
Speaker 1: And we're also gonna try to get this next book,
Speaker 1: this next author in the book club. And without further ado,
Speaker 1: I want to welcome Styton Bonner who authored Bare Knuckle
Speaker 1: and this is his first book, and we're gonna welcome
Speaker 1: you to soft Rep. Welcome, great to be here.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me so much.
Speaker 1: You know, I have the book here, Bare Knuckle, Bobby
Speaker 1: Gunn seventy three and Oh Undefeated, A Dad, a dream,
Speaker 1: a fight like you've never seen Styton Bonner.
Speaker 4: What a great feeling book. Okay.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of books come through my hand. Okay,
Speaker 1: and there's a field. Do you know that there's a
Speaker 1: feel to this book and it just feels good.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to hear it.
Speaker 1: Oh okay to me, yeah it does. It has a nice,
Speaker 1: nice feel too it some of them are slick. Someone
Speaker 1: just feels like a little gritty, you know. It feels
Speaker 1: like where it comes from, you know. I box well, okay,
Speaker 1: all right. My business partner says.
Speaker 4: The bag doesn't hit back to me all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're right, you're right, you're right. So I
Speaker 1: call a lot of fights. I sit around the ring.
Speaker 1: I have a microphone. I'll call you from the red corner,
Speaker 1: the blue corner.
Speaker 4: You know. I love to do it.
Speaker 1: And when I was told that you want to come
Speaker 1: onto our show and talk about Bare Knuckle, I was like, ouch,
Speaker 1: well let's go. Welcome to the show. Glad to be here,
Speaker 1: So you decided to go into the underground of the
Speaker 1: Russian boxing underground in New York City with gun over here,
Speaker 1: Bobby Gunn, I was gonna have to hold it up again.
Speaker 4: That dude has got a mug. Bro.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a tough guy. Literally no cartilage left in
Speaker 5: his nose. You'll give you the profile and compress it
Speaker 5: totally flat bare knuckle.
Speaker 1: I was so this morning. I was talking to my coach,
Speaker 1: coach Demetrius at my gym at Legends. I was like, Hey, Coach,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go interview this guy about bare knuckle boxing.
Speaker 1: He's like, Bro, that's the first thing he says, and
Speaker 1: he's pro.
Speaker 4: He's pro.
Speaker 1: He's going he's twenty eight years old, wanting't it and
Speaker 1: he's like, all it takes is won two punches with nothing,
Speaker 1: just to rip you open.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pretty fascinating and we'll get into the science
Speaker 5: of it and the sport of it. It's completely different from boxing,
Speaker 5: which is you know, you know, technical in some ways,
Speaker 5: it's a longer lasting fight. With boxing, bare knuckles all
Speaker 5: about speed and precision. You're trying to take down someone
Speaker 5: very quickly with surgical strikes, but yeah, you know, to
Speaker 5: back it up, Bobby Gunn to me was just a
Speaker 5: fascinating person.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: He was a father who was fighting in these underground,
Speaker 5: mob backed bare knuckle matches to put his seven year
Speaker 5: old daughter through private school. That story alone stood out
Speaker 5: to me, and I was like, who is this guy?
Speaker 5: So I was working as an editor in New York
Speaker 5: City at GQ magazine writer there and saw a story
Speaker 5: in twenty eleven about the first sanctioned bare knuckle fight
Speaker 5: in US history in one hundred and twenty years, happening
Speaker 5: on a Native American reservation in Arizona because they were
Speaker 5: able to do it in tribal law outside of US
Speaker 5: state jurisdiction. The winner of that fight was a guy,
Speaker 5: Bobby Gunn, And you know, I was like, who is
Speaker 5: this guy? What is this thing? I looked him up
Speaker 5: on Facebook. He was right across the river in Hackensack,
Speaker 5: New Jersey. I messaged him. He's like, yeah, bro, come
Speaker 5: on over. So I went out and went to this
Speaker 5: you know, gym Iken Randy's is actually in Patterson, New Jersey,
Speaker 5: which this is not you know, your Bally's fitness. This
Speaker 5: was in a you know, pretty tough neighborhood. You had
Speaker 5: to go through a chain leak fence, past barking pit
Speaker 5: bulls basically into this basement and it was a beautiful
Speaker 5: place though. I mean it was really all dumb with love.
Speaker 5: These guys in the neighborhood who were you know, trying
Speaker 5: to you know, improve themselves through sport, and we're really dedicated,
Speaker 5: a lot of great trainers, a lot of good young kids.
Speaker 5: But man, this was you know, just sweat and blood.
Speaker 5: The place just like a sauna of sweat and met
Speaker 5: Bobby gun Bobby Gunn was this hulking goliath, you know, jeans, sneakers,
Speaker 5: you know, cranking, just drinking a dunkin Donuts coffee, no
Speaker 5: water and this in like a black you know, T
Speaker 5: shirt and that's.
Speaker 4: How he's healthy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how he rolls.
Speaker 5: He's got his like cell phone holster on his belt
Speaker 5: and it's just like because he just wakes up, dropped
Speaker 5: his daughter at school to private school, before he goes
Speaker 5: doing asphalt work. He would hit this gym and he
Speaker 5: had a son with him too, because the son was
Speaker 5: working with him, and you know, it was fascinating because
Speaker 5: he also had this tiny little dog named Max, little
Speaker 5: pitbull terrier that he would take with him. I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: French bulldog he had with him, just the sweetest little dog.
Speaker 5: He'd put his little water bowl out for him by
Speaker 5: the you know, by the boxing ring, and you know,
Speaker 5: put him, give him some treats, and then this guy
Speaker 5: would step in the ring and just you know, savagely
Speaker 5: go to town on other people. I saw him training in
Speaker 5: a World War One gas mask, and I was just like,
Speaker 5: who is this guy? He pops it off, It's like, Hi,
Speaker 5: I'm Bobby Gunn. He was doing that to you know,
Speaker 5: simulate training at altitude basically, so less oxygen. But it
Speaker 5: was just an amazing introduction to this guy. And I
Speaker 5: was instantly fascinated.
Speaker 1: It was what you were looking for. He was what
Speaker 1: you were hoping he would be. You're like, this is it.
Speaker 1: This is who I.
Speaker 4: Want to write about, and I'm going to follow you around.
Speaker 4: And you did. You tailed him right like as a friend.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So I spent years with him, you know,
Speaker 3: so again, I was.
Speaker 5: Living and working in New York at GQ. Then I
Speaker 5: was at Rolling Stone as an editor. I spent years
Speaker 5: with him, going all over to fights. He was still
Speaker 5: in pro boxing. You know, he's still in pro boxing
Speaker 5: as well champion fighter. But really what was fascinating what
Speaker 5: you see at these boxing gyms is there's really an
Speaker 5: underground world to the fight world in both pro boxing
Speaker 5: and MMA. Because at this gym there was an old
Speaker 5: school phone sitting on a desk about the size of
Speaker 5: a toaster, and it was a landline phone, and there
Speaker 5: would be a little message board next to it and
Speaker 5: if someone in the underground or you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of these were mob backed matches, whether it was Irish Mob,
Speaker 5: Russian Mob, all these different factions. You know, it's like
Speaker 5: blood sports, I mean, just like dog fighting, cockfighting. They
Speaker 5: had this in Chinatown as well, where Bobby fought and
Speaker 5: he was usually backed by the Irish Mob. Is their
Speaker 5: guy to basically, you know, fun nights out. This would
Speaker 5: be the entertainment and they would call and leave a
Speaker 5: message for him. You know, Bobby Gunn called this number,
Speaker 5: we have a fight for you, and that's how he
Speaker 5: would get word to enter one of these underground matches.
Speaker 5: But these these boxing gems were a lot of times
Speaker 5: feeder systems as well. It was kind of this secret
Speaker 5: underground world that existed just below the surface. Hey, you
Speaker 5: want some quick cash on the side, there's going to
Speaker 5: be a bare knuckle opportunity for you. And that's really
Speaker 5: that's why Gun did it, you know, for the money,
Speaker 5: and that's why a lot of other pro boxers and
Speaker 5: MMA fighters I spoke with did as well.
Speaker 4: What kind of money are we talking about here?
Speaker 1: I mean, I have an idea, I've read a little
Speaker 1: bit of the book, But what tell me what kind
Speaker 1: of money we're talking about that he's willing to put
Speaker 1: his brain cells up against to put his kid through school, right,
Speaker 1: because he's got it.
Speaker 4: He's got a job as asphalt.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: So he grew up paving, left school at third grade
Speaker 5: and it's been working night and day his whole life.
Speaker 5: And he does that all day. But yeah, when the
Speaker 5: pro boxing career fizzled and he started taking on these
Speaker 5: underground matches, it's all about cash, and it's quick cash,
Speaker 5: you know. I mean a lot of these guys have
Speaker 5: been burned by promoters, different factions that run boxing, had
Speaker 5: gotten stiffed, gotten lowballed, you know. He had He had
Speaker 5: fought as a trainer for Carl King it was Don
Speaker 5: King's son, and had some pretty you know, atrocious experiences
Speaker 5: in his pro boxing career. He was worried about the atmosphere.
Speaker 5: It was a dangerous atmosphere going into these underground matches obviously,
Speaker 5: where you have weapons and organized criminals and things of
Speaker 5: you know, bikers and things of this nature. But you know,
Speaker 5: there was a basic code in place and honors system.
Speaker 5: And he did say, you know, the blood was red,
Speaker 5: the cash was green. I mean, I always got paid
Speaker 5: on time. I mean, honestly, at the matches would vary
Speaker 5: in terms of prize money. I'd say an average that
Speaker 5: I heard over and over it was around ten thousand dollars. Now,
Speaker 5: Bobby Gunn doesn't have ten thousand dollars in his pocket
Speaker 5: doing asphalt work. But what he would do is a
Speaker 5: couple of things. A lot of times he would be
Speaker 5: staked or backed by the Irish mob and they would
Speaker 5: have a place in Hell's Kitchen in New York. You
Speaker 5: go through this Irish bar, you know, down a back door,
Speaker 5: down some stairs and there's a fight circuit there, and
Speaker 5: you know, they he would stake money behind him. He
Speaker 5: would also gather money from friends and families. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: it was a base. It was just a very basic
Speaker 5: proposition and he would put in his own cash. But
Speaker 5: you bet on me, I'll double your money. That's really it.
Speaker 5: And he always came through right.
Speaker 4: It's like, you want your money, then you bet on me, Bro,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: The most money he ever won collectively in a bare
Speaker 5: knockle match wasn't a Russian mob fight in sheep, said
Speaker 5: Bay in Outer Brooklyn, and that was a fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Person, that's gooft. How long did that take?
Speaker 3: It was a long time.
Speaker 5: So in that fight again, he told me he was
Speaker 5: training at Iken Randy's gym in Patterson, New Jersey, said,
Speaker 5: a couple of gentlemen from the Russian Mob, you know,
Speaker 5: left a message. They arranged me at a nearby Starbucks.
Speaker 5: He met with them. They explained the terms. The Russian
Speaker 5: Mob was looking to have an event. Pro box combat
Speaker 5: sports are very popular in Russian and gneral and they
Speaker 5: even have their own disciplines. Again, Bobby had definitely had
Speaker 5: a reputation at this point up and down the Eastern Seaboard,
Speaker 5: particularly in New York City and across the country. And
Speaker 5: they basically said, hey, we want to bring in somebody
Speaker 5: for you to fight. You'll be the main card on
Speaker 5: this Evening's Entertainment and Bobby agreed and he went there
Speaker 5: and he had a little bit of a crew and
Speaker 5: they had put together some cash and it was a
Speaker 5: big purse ultimately, you know, I think they put in
Speaker 5: twenty five total. And it was a long fight. I mean,
Speaker 5: the guy they brought in from Russia could not speak English.
Speaker 5: It was a slightly different I mean, the rules of
Speaker 5: bar knuckle boxing are simple, and you can now see it.
Speaker 5: The guys I was trailing, Bobby and David Feldman. Feldman
Speaker 5: has literally created the bar Knockle Fighting Championship, which has events.
Speaker 5: You can look them up online, you can watch them
Speaker 5: on pay per view. There's going to be a big
Speaker 5: one Knucklemania in Los Angeles in April.
Speaker 3: I will be there.
Speaker 5: Become a three hundred twelve million dollar sport now and
Speaker 5: it's growing. These guys were doing this underground at that time.
Speaker 5: But the rules are simple. At stand up boxing. You know,
Speaker 5: it's just standing up hitting each other. Just no gloves obviously,
Speaker 5: so it's not it's not grappling, it's not getting you
Speaker 5: down on the floor, you know, it's not. Also, really,
Speaker 5: these these these bouts would sometimes go rough and tumble,
Speaker 5: which means all rules are off.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna gouge your eye, gonna try to.
Speaker 5: To bite your nose off, but those are that's that's
Speaker 5: that's that's unusual, and that's really either happens out of
Speaker 5: a desperation by one fighter and then everyone understands, Okay,
Speaker 5: this has gone south and let's see what happens. Or
Speaker 5: if it's like that from the beginning, the money is
Speaker 5: usually bigger.
Speaker 3: But that that's a rarity.
Speaker 5: So most of these matches are governed by basic boxing rules,
Speaker 5: no hitting below the belt.
Speaker 3: Et cetera. It's just it's just right with no gloves.
Speaker 5: But Bobby Gunn went in with this understanding it would
Speaker 5: be that kind of a but this guy was doing
Speaker 5: a slightly different variation of you know, Russian bare knuckle
Speaker 5: fighting and started again kind of doing more grappling, crazy rules.
Speaker 5: Bobby just remembers him as being very hairy. Bobby says,
Speaker 5: they walked in and it was people in evening where
Speaker 5: and it was a nice dinner and event. And then
Speaker 5: there was a space cleared out in this mansion and
Speaker 5: out of Brooklyn for these guys to in a makeshift
Speaker 5: ring go at each other Bobby put him down multiple times,
Speaker 5: and you know, it was a fairly long fight by
Speaker 5: bare knuckle standards. Usually these things just last a couple
Speaker 5: of minutes tops, because again, if you don't have a
Speaker 5: glove on, you know, glove is boxing is the war
Speaker 5: of attrition, right, because it's these blunt, broad impacts that
Speaker 5: you're you're hitting someone else with and you're wearing them down. Obviously,
Speaker 5: there's a technical aspect as well bare knuckle boxing. I mean,
Speaker 5: if you don't have a glove on, you don't want
Speaker 5: to break your hands, so you're you're automatically pulling your
Speaker 5: punch to a certain extent. Now, skin on skin. First off,
Speaker 5: the first time I ever saw one of these, it's
Speaker 5: the noise, you remember, it's like this wet slap. It's
Speaker 5: a very different sound, and it really does grab your attention.
Speaker 5: But also skin on skin contacts just bloodier. Now it
Speaker 5: looks bad, But the flip side of that is because
Speaker 5: you are pulling your own punch and you're hitting someone
Speaker 5: with less force so you don't break your hand, it
Speaker 5: actually reduces the impact and studies have shown this so
Speaker 5: far reduces resulting concussions and CTE levels because you just
Speaker 5: don't want to hit somebody as hard so you don't
Speaker 5: break your hand. A great analogy is a sport of
Speaker 5: rugby versus the sport of NFL football. NFL football. We
Speaker 5: can all watch it on a Sunday afternoon with our kids.
Speaker 5: It looks really sanitized. These guys are doing massive, massive
Speaker 5: damage to each other, but you don't see it.
Speaker 3: Rugby.
Speaker 5: It's a pretty violent sport to watch, but again, in
Speaker 5: the long term, they're getting hit with much less face.
Speaker 5: So when Bobby would go into these he had decades
Speaker 5: of experience in the pro boxing ring, had a real
Speaker 5: set of skills that most guys did not have. But
Speaker 5: he also really knew from years of bar knuckle fighting
Speaker 5: how to quickly take someone down, and a lot of
Speaker 5: those are body shots, organ shots. Hit someone in deliver,
Speaker 5: go for the kidney. So he could, like with his
Speaker 5: small hand as opposed to a much bigger boxing glove,
Speaker 5: really kind of surgically strike and nowhere to hit you yeah,
Speaker 5: on your internals, and it just drops guys, you know,
Speaker 5: I mean well, his strategy would usually be to do
Speaker 5: a little bit of cuts up top, get some blood
Speaker 5: in their eyes. That typically takes the fight out of
Speaker 5: a person, gets them a bit disoriented and then and
Speaker 5: then drop them pretty quickly with a devastating, very technical,
Speaker 5: very precise body shot. Bobby was doing that in this
Speaker 5: Russian fight at this mobster's mansion in Outer Brooklyn, and
Speaker 5: the guy was basically unconscious. There was one young gangster
Speaker 5: in the crowd who kept yelling at the fighter, maybe
Speaker 5: he had some money on the guy to get back up.
Speaker 5: Bobby said he was done, and the kid pulled a gun,
Speaker 5: his gun says, and you know, basically put it to
Speaker 5: Bobby's head. And you know, everybody kind of freaked out, obviously.
Speaker 5: And there was some older gentleman who was running the
Speaker 5: organization there kind of the dawn of the Russian mob
Speaker 5: They looked to him. He said, no, he fought a
Speaker 5: good fight. Give this man his money. Bobby got fifty
Speaker 5: grand in a brown paper bag and drove the hell
Speaker 5: out of there.
Speaker 4: Oh bro, But still, I mean, wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, look he's got in the book. It's
Speaker 5: just crazy. I recount so many stories. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 5: Bobby's life is like any unlike any life.
Speaker 3: You will ever come across. You know.
Speaker 5: He was born in nineteen seventy to Irish travelers. If
Speaker 5: you've seen the film Snatched, the Guy Ritchie film. Yes,
Speaker 5: Brad Pitt's character is an Irish traveler, so yes, these
Speaker 5: are basically itinerant workers, as the name would imply.
Speaker 4: Far and Away. Yeah, I hate to bring that up. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't like your hat, Shannon. I don't like you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: come on, I mean yeah, tell me you like my hat.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like, exactly, don't like a hat, and
Speaker 4: I don't like you.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's not his sister, you know, but I mean
Speaker 1: that whole that movie Far and Away was Irish travelers
Speaker 1: coming into America picking out a job that they could get.
Speaker 1: They just wanted a job, they just wanted to work.
Speaker 1: And they're like, all right, well, let's fight then, a
Speaker 1: bare knuckle fight. And I'm sitting in the position of
Speaker 1: the old school style stance. You know, it's like he
Speaker 1: just had it in his nature. Bobby Gunn is like,
Speaker 1: let's go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 5: And before we get into that, you bring up a
Speaker 5: point talking about Far and Away with Irish immigrants in
Speaker 5: the nineteenth century. Look in the United States in the
Speaker 5: eighteen hundreds, bare knuckle boxing was the most popular sport
Speaker 5: in the country. Alongside horse racing in baseball. I did
Speaker 5: not know any of this until I started doing research
Speaker 5: for the book, and we include the history of this
Speaker 5: in the book. But it's fascinating. I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: it was always a means for immigrants coming to the
Speaker 5: country to you know, make money. It's obviously you don't
Speaker 5: do this unless you need cash pretty desperately, but also
Speaker 5: to move themselves up in society. I recount a story
Speaker 5: the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York. Daniel da
Speaker 5: Lewis's character Bill, a butcher based on a real life
Speaker 5: immigrant who was also a champion bare knuckle boxer, and
Speaker 5: he was able to parlay that into political clout and
Speaker 5: that fame in the ring. There was several instances. There
Speaker 5: was Tom Mullino, who was an enslaved person in Virginia
Speaker 5: who became renowned as a bare knuckle boxer on plantation bouts,
Speaker 5: made so much money his owner freedom. He then made
Speaker 5: his way to New York and then to England where
Speaker 5: he fought bare knuckle champions over there. And so, you know,
Speaker 5: it was a sport that was always a means for
Speaker 5: people in the most desperate situations to pull themselves up.
Speaker 5: The most famous person, the lebron of the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 5: was this guy, John L. Sullivan, and it is the
Speaker 5: classic image of a you know, mustachioed, shirtless you know,
Speaker 5: a Bronnie Musseley guy. And he was the son of
Speaker 5: an Irish plumber who became renowned for his bare knuckle
Speaker 5: boxing skills. Traveled the country. You know, his breakfast was
Speaker 5: like eating a dozen raw oysters and drinking whiskey. He
Speaker 5: would travel down to town and it was like a game.
Speaker 5: You know, anybody who can beat me, come on up.
Speaker 5: And he took them all down, you know, went to
Speaker 5: the White House to visit day. Roosevelt traveled in the
Speaker 5: you know, wild Bill Hoocock's West Show, Wild West Show,
Speaker 5: so you know, really was was a headliner. But what's
Speaker 5: fascinating is even back then, in his final fight New Orleans, Baron,
Speaker 5: uncle boxing was starting to become more and more unseemly,
Speaker 5: and you know, especially amid you know Christian Protestant like yeah, taboo,
Speaker 5: and it was just seen as bloody and gambling was
Speaker 5: always a central part of this. So in his final fight,
Speaker 5: where he took on an opponent outside, it was a
Speaker 5: mysterious location people took a train at the last minute
Speaker 5: out of New Orleans and they were dodging authorities and
Speaker 5: it was this epic epic, you know, seventy something round
Speaker 5: about and he won, and he won, and his opponent,
Speaker 5: Jake Corraine great great grandson, actually ended up heading up
Speaker 5: Special Operations Forces years later. It was a seal and
Speaker 5: just just fascinating history of these guys. But that's when
Speaker 5: the sport really went underground. Boxing again rose up. Was
Speaker 5: not as bloody, you know, gambling was still happening, but
Speaker 5: just not so ostentatiously. And the you could have you
Speaker 5: can make more money as a promoter because bare knuckle
Speaker 5: was usually a shorter duration except for some of these
Speaker 5: crazy bouts back then, so it became a more sanitized version.
Speaker 5: But what's face fascinating about boxing in general is, you know,
Speaker 5: one boxing commissioner told me, it's a billion dollar sport
Speaker 5: run like a five and dime store. There's no NFL,
Speaker 5: there's no MLB, NBA, It's run by these state boxing commissions.
Speaker 5: So you know, there still is a lot of independence
Speaker 5: and you know, different rules throughout and and that's when
Speaker 5: you know bare knuckle really went underground, and you just
Speaker 5: had to know to get the invite to go to
Speaker 5: one of these things, and that's where where Bobby Gunn
Speaker 5: became a champion.
Speaker 1: You know, speaking of Snatch previously, you know with the
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt character, he seems to always kind of tailored
Speaker 1: himself towards that scrapper fighter, like with the movie Fight Club.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like straight up bare knuckle. He's just
Speaker 1: taking a drag, flexing his risbs and just right back
Speaker 1: to punching each other.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: It's like yeah, so yeah, and again taking it back
Speaker 5: to Snatch. So those are Irish travelers and that's what.
Speaker 3: Bobby Gunn is.
Speaker 5: So you always think of the Irish travelers, especially aspected
Speaker 5: in that film, as being overseas in Ireland, but there
Speaker 5: is a large faction. It's as the numbers aren't exactly
Speaker 5: known here in the United States. It's estimated to be
Speaker 5: about ten thousand, but these are Irish travelers who live
Speaker 5: and work across the country. They tend to be located
Speaker 5: more heavily in certain areas in Mississippi, South Carolina, New Jersey.
Speaker 5: Outside of Fort Worth, Texas, there's a large community, but
Speaker 5: basically it's a community that's very tight knit. They even
Speaker 5: have their own language which Bobby would slip into quite
Speaker 5: often with other people, can't. And the joke is you
Speaker 5: can't understand us, but it's called can't. And they tend
Speaker 5: to rever two things, which is religion and fighting. I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, it's a close knit community. They are raised.
Speaker 5: I met a priest who caters to the community in
Speaker 5: Memphis and he gave me a lot of insight for
Speaker 5: the book. And you know, they're just raised in a
Speaker 5: very religious, old school religious way. And you know, Bobby
Speaker 5: before every fight would literally lie prostrate on the ground
Speaker 5: praying to God.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: He didn't drink, no tattoos, no cigarettes, nothing like that,
Speaker 5: you know. But the other part was fighting. These were
Speaker 5: people who they would pull their children out of school,
Speaker 5: usually around the middle school age, because they did not
Speaker 5: want them to assimilate, typically with broader culture. And it's
Speaker 5: in their culture and it's what Bobby was raised doing
Speaker 5: to work as an itinerant tradesman. It was a derogatory
Speaker 5: term that was used, but you know, Tinker was referring
Speaker 5: to travelers and that's those were traveling people in Ireland,
Speaker 5: you know, showing little trinkets in things towns to town.
Speaker 4: So if you tinker on something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like doing like metal doing like metal work.
Speaker 5: Again, it's a derogatory term for the community, as so
Speaker 5: is gypsy, but these were all terms that were referencing
Speaker 5: the traveling the traveling communities they would do like metalsmithing
Speaker 5: and things like that, and that's what they do today.
Speaker 5: It's it's usually more of like asphalt coding and and
Speaker 5: you know, working on barns and literally going door to
Speaker 5: door and knocking. They do have a reputation for taking
Speaker 5: advantage of people, as I report in the book based
Speaker 5: on my interviews and reporting, it absolutely is warranted in
Speaker 5: several cases, and you can see this online. But I
Speaker 5: do think it's overblown and it's unfair how this entire
Speaker 5: community has been, you know, given that broad paint paint stroke.
Speaker 5: Bobby Gunn is a very upstanding person in his business
Speaker 5: dealings that I've seen, and you know, it's as has
Speaker 5: done right and a lot of I think they're unfairly
Speaker 5: maligned in that way, but it is. It is itinerant
Speaker 5: work and that's what he was raised doing. But they
Speaker 5: also gather in these groups and they fight. His father
Speaker 5: was before there was WWE. He was known as Black
Speaker 5: Bart and he would travel in these early early wrestling communities.
Speaker 5: Is the heel these guys would be in like some
Speaker 5: you know van traveling city in the city.
Speaker 4: You know, a touring band dude trying to get there,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, playing in your local high school gym.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: They would have razor blades and do the cuts all that.
Speaker 1: We have a gig at the hair salon, guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a gig's a gig, bro It's one hundred and fifty bucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so bring my five thousand dollars amps and all my
Speaker 1: stuff to the show that I yes, because it's a gig, right,
Speaker 1: just to show the craft, to be a part of
Speaker 1: the art, to just be able to like continue and
Speaker 1: put it out there. You know, like a like a
Speaker 1: theater in back in the day where they'd have wagons
Speaker 1: that roll through town and they'd set up at theater
Speaker 1: and people come pay a penny or pence or whatever
Speaker 1: to sit down and watch with this theatrical I mean,
Speaker 1: really just to give the craft.
Speaker 4: I love it. Yeah, good job, Bobby Gunn, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Good job, Well, Bobby grew up in that so his
Speaker 5: father stops doing that. When when Bobby was born and
Speaker 5: took him on the road with him, he left school
Speaker 5: at third grade. It's just hard to go to school
Speaker 5: and it wasn't really taking if they were always In.
Speaker 1: Your book you talk about how you know, I'll give
Speaker 1: a little bit out there. It talks about how you
Speaker 1: know he was eleven and his dad's waking him up
Speaker 1: because he's already been boxing as a young man, like
Speaker 1: training as a boxer. His dads, I get up and
Speaker 1: go pumel these guys out in the parking lot for me,
Speaker 1: will you because they don't think they can. They think
Speaker 1: they can be a probably an eleven year old. I
Speaker 1: got this kid that could kick ass, Like, yeah, bring
Speaker 1: him out here. He's like, okay, fifty bucks, who knows?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know. But Bobby was already thrown into the
Speaker 4: ring by his dad.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent. So Bobby from birth was trained in
Speaker 5: pro boxing. His goal was to be an Olympic boxer.
Speaker 5: But simultaneously the dad started training him in the art
Speaker 5: of bare nuncle boxing as a child. And this was
Speaker 5: a tough, tough kid. They were living in motor courts,
Speaker 5: you know, when they weren't on the road going campground
Speaker 5: to campground looking for work.
Speaker 3: They're living in.
Speaker 5: Motor courts on Lundy Lane on the outskirts Niagara Falls,
Speaker 5: which was a tough area. You know, you imagine a
Speaker 5: motor court with criminals, prostitutes, that whole thing. Bobby at
Speaker 5: eleven years old. One night, he was sleeping on their
Speaker 5: shag carpet floor his father. It was not unusual for
Speaker 5: his father to go out drinking all night, then be
Speaker 5: up at five in the morning and going out to work.
Speaker 5: But the dad woke him up in the middle of
Speaker 5: the night. Just remembered his cigarette glowing in the dark.
Speaker 5: His mom was asleep on the motel bed, and the
Speaker 5: dad said, get up, put your clothes on. I've got
Speaker 5: a guy out here. You got to beat him. And Bobby,
Speaker 5: you know, without questioning it, didn't, put on his T
Speaker 5: shirt and jeans, walked outside. It was a grown man
Speaker 5: that Robert Gunn had brought home from the bar. There
Speaker 5: was a crowd of people watching the guy's buddies along
Speaker 5: with some prostitutes and various hangers.
Speaker 3: On and the you know, the guy. It basically kind
Speaker 3: of looked at him.
Speaker 5: I was like, what the fuck, this is a kid
Speaker 5: and gun just took him out straight to the face. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and then you know, the guy started throwing some haymakers
Speaker 5: and he took him down pretty quickly. And his father
Speaker 5: pocketed one hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: So this is.
Speaker 5: Something that he would repeatedly do, which is quick cash.
Speaker 5: You know, he'd be like all the guys. I talked
Speaker 5: to his father about this. Father still alive and interviewed
Speaker 5: him multiple times for the book. He's like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: I just I would bring home ringers. I knew my
Speaker 5: son could take him out. Now, this is obviously an
Speaker 5: abusive situation. I mean, this is not a healthy one.
Speaker 5: And you know, Bobby is interesting. I mean because his
Speaker 5: father trained him in these really brutal ways of fighting.
Speaker 5: In addition to bare knuckle, he taught him what's known
Speaker 5: as rough and tumble, which I mentioned earlier, and that's
Speaker 5: those are rules if it's just a dirty street fight,
Speaker 5: you know, how to really use any means necessary to
Speaker 5: take another person down. And it's it's fairly her horrific.
Speaker 3: Way to fight.
Speaker 5: But Bobby was trained this way, and his father will
Speaker 5: say it too. He's like, look, I knew he was
Speaker 5: entering a tough world. I was just wanting to forge
Speaker 5: him as a weapon. And even Bobby Gunn he'll be like, yeah.
Speaker 3: This sounds awful, but I understand my dad, and that's
Speaker 3: that's what he was raising me to do, and that's
Speaker 3: that was just his childhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not feeling any like, oh I was overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: He's not saying Dad didn't know that I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: Dad wasn't throwing him to the wolves.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He he was like, come to my son. Let me
Speaker 1: introduce you to my child that I got here. And
Speaker 1: he's going to kick your ass.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, and you.
Speaker 1: Don't think so, oh you're drunk, old man, You're a kid,
Speaker 1: can't beat me. He's like, yeah, I haven't drunk, old man,
Speaker 1: aren't I I don't know. I'm just assuming, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just talking shit, you know. Yeah, no, how would
Speaker 1: you get your yeah, how would you get a fight going?
Speaker 4: You know? You got to smoke the bear.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Like the dad would definitely be on the
Speaker 5: sideline talking massive shit like you, Yeah, my son's going
Speaker 5: to kick your ass and like you call that, you
Speaker 5: call that a fight? I mean that's something else. Gun
Speaker 5: recounts as his dad was just a world class.
Speaker 1: Eleven year old right now, kicked your ass right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the son's back there like, oh I got to
Speaker 1: wake up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that was it. That was it exactly.
Speaker 5: So, I mean, honestly, all of those guys were in
Speaker 5: for a world of pain and love.
Speaker 3: They would never know what was gonna hit them.
Speaker 5: You know, they're coming in two in the morning, drunk,
Speaker 5: just you know, whatever will pop this kid and this
Speaker 5: They have no idea that they're coming up against the
Speaker 5: terminator and this eleven year old kid just takes him down.
Speaker 1: How big was he at eleven? Do you think how tall?
Speaker 1: How tall is Bobby?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, he's not huge.
Speaker 5: I mean he's around you know, five to eleven now, uh,
Speaker 5: and he'll he'll mean he's a jacked five eleven.
Speaker 3: I mean he is thick and muscular.
Speaker 5: But he will say back then, as he calls himself, quote,
Speaker 5: I was an opie looking motherfucker.
Speaker 3: I mean he was like, I think he's a skinny kid.
Speaker 4: Probably helped him win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was a skinny eleven year oh kid. You know.
Speaker 5: But again, the father, he was already training around Canada.
Speaker 5: His mother was American, his father was Canadian, so he
Speaker 5: has dual citizenship. But he was training as a pro
Speaker 5: boxer at that young age and really knew his stuff,
Speaker 5: so he was a lethal weapon. But he's a skinny
Speaker 5: little kid.
Speaker 4: Right, but he just knew. He just knew. He just
Speaker 4: picked it up.
Speaker 1: There's kids in my gym right now that I look
Speaker 1: at and I'm like, man, how come I wasn't like
Speaker 1: thirteen focused on boxing? I wish I would have been.
Speaker 1: I was forty five when I got introduced to the
Speaker 1: gym lifestyle. I was always into boxing and for years,
Speaker 1: but I was like, oh, one day, I'll get in
Speaker 1: the gym.
Speaker 4: One day, one day, one day, one day, one day.
Speaker 1: And then I took that step and I made it
Speaker 1: that day, and now I don't know why I can't
Speaker 1: go without it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean, it's a great way to focus your mind,
Speaker 5: your body, your discipline as a as a young person.
Speaker 5: And that's something I saw not only in guns life fighting.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's just a hard upbringing.
Speaker 5: He was ostracized because his father was from one plan
Speaker 5: of travelers, his mother from another. He was a bit
Speaker 5: of an outsider, never really welcomed by broader family and community,
Speaker 5: and lonely had just a really hard hard, itinerant background
Speaker 5: and upbringing, and he really focused on the boxing and
Speaker 5: the gym and his trainers and the managers, and you know,
Speaker 5: that was really his productive outlet, his creative outlet in
Speaker 5: his life, and I think it really did save him.
Speaker 5: And it just it's it's just an integral part of
Speaker 5: who he is.
Speaker 1: Oh, gyms can save lives. An there's a coach in
Speaker 1: there that can just see something in that kid and
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, Kime.
Speaker 4: Here, yeah, absolutely do this, let me see that out
Speaker 4: of you.
Speaker 1: And next thing, you know, you're like, I have a
Speaker 1: purpose and it's the gym and the gym, and I
Speaker 1: see kids cleaning up the gym after Jim. You know,
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, I'm just helping out, just making sure
Speaker 1: things are taken care of, helping the coach put stuff
Speaker 1: away because he's holding mits and he's teaching us all
Speaker 1: this stuff he doesn't really have. He doesn't want to
Speaker 1: have to vacuum or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that's it exactly.
Speaker 5: And it's it's part of the training too, right, That's
Speaker 5: part of that discipline, getting kids to help with cleanup
Speaker 5: and all of that. And there's you know, every gym
Speaker 5: I went to, you know, and Gun would take literally
Speaker 5: a baseball bat to some of these and he had
Speaker 5: you know, people had tried to jack him in these
Speaker 5: some of these neighborhoods. And you know, whether it was
Speaker 5: Philadelphia and you're going into a walk up and it's
Speaker 5: literally an apartment that has become a makeshift gym for
Speaker 5: the community because they don't have a gym, but they
Speaker 5: needed that space. All of these places that there was
Speaker 5: a lot of crime. These were hard, hard areas. Again,
Speaker 5: Gun had a baseball bat with him for a reason.
Speaker 5: I never saw any problem personally. I always saw nothing
Speaker 5: but respect because these these gyms are community hubs and
Speaker 5: a lot of neighborhoods and they're a place where young people,
Speaker 5: all people can go and really focus and improve themselves.
Speaker 5: And that was universally respected. And I saw that respect
Speaker 5: among fighters. You know, people who aren't familiar with the
Speaker 5: fight world, they might be surprised to see it, but
Speaker 5: you know, sure when they're in the cage or the ring,
Speaker 5: they're gonna pummel each other, That's that's what they're doing.
Speaker 5: But outside of that, you know, they're shaking hands, hugging
Speaker 5: each other. Again, Bobby and one other fighter told me
Speaker 5: it was crazy. He would tell me how to you know,
Speaker 5: do dirty moves when when a ref wasn't looking in
Speaker 5: the boxing ring, and the next second he'd be asked me,
Speaker 5: if Jesus has saved my life?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Is he give it to you? So?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: But that's that's the dichotomy here, and that is what
Speaker 5: was really fascinating.
Speaker 3: And it really is a true community.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: And when I was in England hosting for soft REP,
Speaker 1: we did the sas Special Air Service Special Operations versus
Speaker 1: Navy Seals. Yeah, and similar. There was a boxing event
Speaker 1: and we got to go to this gym called the
Speaker 1: Peacock Gym over in London. Literally it just gave the
Speaker 1: sense of a home and a training because they had
Speaker 1: a grill and a kitchen and two ladies in the
Speaker 1: back saying what would you like to eat?
Speaker 4: How you want some eggs? What you want?
Speaker 1: You know, you want some Bengals and some hash or
Speaker 1: what you know, and they're just feeding you there. You're
Speaker 1: working out there. It's like they're like, well, let's not
Speaker 1: let the fighter go too far away from the gym.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the military aspect is interesting. In the opening
Speaker 5: scene of my book, it's a fight and it's it's
Speaker 5: a long scene where we is we see Bobby in
Speaker 5: an underground fight somewhere in the Northeast. I don't put
Speaker 5: city names as requested, but it was. It was in
Speaker 5: an autobody shop and he was fighting a former marine,
Speaker 5: and this former Marine had been introduced to barre knuckle
Speaker 5: boxing while in training in California around San Diego.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the CPA, that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just I'm not trying to give away anything.
Speaker 3: No, sorry, I love it.
Speaker 1: I think you're great, dude. I think this is a
Speaker 1: great book. I should go check this out. Guys, thank you.
Speaker 5: But he was at the time, he was a Marine
Speaker 5: and in training and got introduced to baron knuckle boxing
Speaker 5: through his military friends, and then did tours overseas, left
Speaker 5: the military, you know, had some PTSD issues, was homeless
Speaker 5: for a while, got straight as you as you point out,
Speaker 5: became a CPA, doing taxes, became a father, you know,
Speaker 5: would like subscribe to CPA monthly. But he loved that
Speaker 5: he missed he missed the camaraderie. It was hard for
Speaker 5: him to transition from the military brotherhood and fraternity in
Speaker 5: that world into civilian life. He would talk about just
Speaker 5: going to a costco and seeing walls and walls of
Speaker 5: anti septic stuff, and it just kind of weirded him out.
Speaker 3: And people would thank him for.
Speaker 5: Their service, but they wouldn't really understand anything what he
Speaker 5: had done. He was just really kind of a drift.
Speaker 5: But he reconnected with a sense of fraternity.
Speaker 3: In the bare knuckle community.
Speaker 5: So he was doing fighting boxing, got asked if he
Speaker 5: wanted to join some bare knuckle fights, and he said
Speaker 5: he just really liked the fraternal aspect. So you have
Speaker 5: a father, a CP hey who is taking on a
Speaker 5: bare knuckle match.
Speaker 3: Isn't he the money? But he was up against Bobby
Speaker 3: Gunn and he just ended he liked the brotherhood of it,
Speaker 3: which is something he had missed from the military. And
Speaker 3: that's the opening scene.
Speaker 4: Of the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it, and it talks about like, you
Speaker 1: know how he was trained to see and everybody in
Speaker 1: the marine has two jobs, right, I love that and
Speaker 1: say that it's like there's two jobs in the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps'm gonna slip it out there. One is the job
Speaker 1: you're doing and the other is to kill yep. And
Speaker 1: so you have a CPA Marine Corps killer who has
Speaker 1: to transition from that life cycle and go to a
Speaker 1: civilian life cycle. And he found his outlet with in
Speaker 1: the gym and with Bobby and throwing fists and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, working out. Really, the workout is ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the battle. The staying in shape, the cardio, the eating.
Speaker 1: Trying to eat right. Oh, you know how hard it
Speaker 1: is to He tried to eat a banana after I
Speaker 1: work out. Yeah, no, gotta find it.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying.
Speaker 5: There are multiple other fighters I discussed in the book
Speaker 5: who also had experience in the military, and there really
Speaker 5: was an overlap. You know, Obviously it's a it's a
Speaker 5: familiarity with violence when necessary, but but it's also I
Speaker 5: think bigger than that. What I saw was was this
Speaker 5: brotherhood and this community and this discipline that that people
Speaker 5: people liked and wanted to hold on to even after
Speaker 5: their service.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I like someone in the gym saying, Okay, here's
Speaker 4: what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: You're gonna do one minute of planks, and they're like, Radal,
Speaker 1: put your butt down, And I'm like, you are literally
Speaker 1: talking to me. He's literally saying it to me. It's
Speaker 1: my butt that's in the air. He's like level out.
Speaker 1: That's there's something about that, you know, And uh, I
Speaker 1: just I just love it, and I love I love
Speaker 1: your book. I love your personality. I love the fact
Speaker 1: that you've got so much background working in other you know,
Speaker 1: subscriptions like GQ or Rolling Stone. Probably esquired Men's Journal.
Speaker 1: I think you even wrote an article about our buddy Brandon,
Speaker 1: who is soft rep dot com Brandon web Right, I did,
Speaker 1: what is that? Which article did you write about here?
Speaker 5: So I wrote a feature story profile of soft rep
Speaker 5: founder Brandon web for Min's Journal magazine. The story is
Speaker 5: called Navy Seal Inc. And I went out to visit Brandon.
Speaker 5: I flew out from New York. I was aware of
Speaker 5: soft Rep. I liked the coverage y'all were doing, you know.
Speaker 5: I liked that it was run by veterans and inside
Speaker 5: intel and information on things that were happening around the world.
Speaker 5: I thought it was a really smart approach in the
Speaker 5: news was fantastic. I met up with Brandon and went
Speaker 5: out to California, where he would fly in the San
Speaker 5: Diego area. Had a private hangar with some former seals
Speaker 5: who had done well in the private sector. They would
Speaker 5: fly these old decommission YAK fifty two planes they'd gotten
Speaker 5: from the Russians in aerial dogfights. I mean, this is
Speaker 5: legit top gun training territory. In fact, I met through Brandon.
Speaker 5: The guy had a hangar who was the original top
Speaker 5: gun instructor nearby. So Brandon had this kick ass hangar.
Speaker 5: These guys all did where it was literally if you
Speaker 5: watched Top Gun, the latest one at the end, they're
Speaker 5: kind of working on the plane. That's like what these
Speaker 5: things are. And it had a little shower, little kitchenette,
Speaker 5: little bed, and then just this giant open bay door
Speaker 5: looking out on the runway in skies. And I went
Speaker 5: out with these guys and it went flying.
Speaker 3: They put me in the back. One guy was.
Speaker 5: A Southwest Airlines pilot off Tilly. A couple of them
Speaker 5: I'd just come out of the top gun school. There
Speaker 5: was Brandon, there were a couple other ex Navy seals.
Speaker 5: These guys were pulling GE's. You know, I had no idea.
Speaker 5: I'd just gotten off a plane from New York and
Speaker 5: went up with these guys and doing a dog fights.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, really pulling serious cheese, like yeah.
Speaker 4: Like shooting the watch.
Speaker 1: Do you like like you know, banking and like just
Speaker 1: just like you're just doing circles.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, total inverted. My balls were up in
Speaker 5: my throat somewhere.
Speaker 4: Relations Oh, I hate that.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 5: And it was just incredible and uh, you know, went
Speaker 5: up with Brandon and then that night. It was really
Speaker 5: fun because these guys would the sun would be setting
Speaker 5: and they would have it, you know, a little catered meal.
Speaker 5: They'd break out some you know, whiskey and drinks and
Speaker 5: cigars and then guys just trading these crazy ass war
Speaker 5: stories and bullshitting into the night. And it was really fun.
Speaker 5: And so I got a peek at at Brandon's life,
Speaker 5: his own incredible story. He has an very interesting wayship with.
Speaker 3: His father as well.
Speaker 5: I know, Yep has overcome a lot of adversity and
Speaker 5: you know a lot of different things and clearly done
Speaker 5: very well. And you know as a hyper instructor in
Speaker 5: the Seals and then now with Soft Rep and his
Speaker 5: business ventures. And then yeah, another time I met up
Speaker 5: with Brandon and New York in the city where he
Speaker 5: would go work out, and I think he was kind
Speaker 5: of fucking with me. He took me out with his uh,
Speaker 5: a couple other buddies, of his where they would do swimming,
Speaker 5: and they would they would swim and then get out
Speaker 5: and do push ups, swim, get out to push ups,
Speaker 5: and he's like, yea, why don't you guys, why don't
Speaker 5: you hang with us?
Speaker 3: I did hang with them.
Speaker 5: I was the last guy, but I didn't I didn't quit.
Speaker 5: And I think we kind of bond bonded over that.
Speaker 5: But yeah, brand Brandon.
Speaker 1: Swim a lap and then do push ups or swim
Speaker 1: swim lap or like back and forth.
Speaker 3: It got a little club yep. So I got a
Speaker 3: little hazy, to be honest.
Speaker 5: And this is before I went to work one morning
Speaker 5: at Men's Journal in Manhattan.
Speaker 3: But hees n y club right off of Central Park South.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know. It was a long ass pool,
Speaker 3: is all I remember.
Speaker 5: And we were swimming and we were getting out and
Speaker 5: doing push ups, and then after George we hit the
Speaker 5: sauna and I think we even did that. We did
Speaker 5: some weights after that. It's getting a taste of the
Speaker 5: daily regimen, but yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was fun.
Speaker 5: I had a lot of fun hanging with Brandon. And
Speaker 5: it's amazing what you guys are are still rolling with here.
Speaker 1: And I love all over your show. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: He's he is great to hang with. You know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of stories traveling with him. He's a great dude.
Speaker 1: And again, I love that he loves me to keep
Speaker 1: me doing this. It's such an honor too. And I
Speaker 1: get to interview you and and all sorts of other
Speaker 1: rock stars that come through my life, and I get
Speaker 1: to soak up some of your valor, and then I
Speaker 1: get this. I've got so much valor from all sorts
Speaker 1: of different people in me right now, it's not even funny.
Speaker 4: Mine. Man.
Speaker 1: I can help you run a va. I can help
Speaker 1: you write a book about bare knuckle boxing. Now what
Speaker 1: else do you want me to cook a grilled cheese?
Speaker 4: No? I love it.
Speaker 1: And and again I haven't grabbed a book so many
Speaker 1: times while I've talked to an author or my guest.
Speaker 4: Your book? This cover is it? Is it black Stone?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 5: Yeah, availed on it it Amazon anywhere. But it looks fantastic.
Speaker 5: They did a really good job with design. My agent
Speaker 5: Shane Sellerno and Ryan Coleman at Story Factory were really
Speaker 5: instrumental in the look and feelings. Well, but it's yeah. Look,
Speaker 5: I mean, Bobby Gunn is a fascinating life from you know,
Speaker 5: fighting grown men in parking lots at age eleven to
Speaker 5: becoming a pro boxer, then leaving pro boxing at thirty,
Speaker 5: just disillusioned with it. His mother had died, he got married,
Speaker 5: he wanted a different life. For ten years, he just
Speaker 5: fought solely in the underground and became a champion in
Speaker 5: the illegal underground circuit of barre knuckle boxing. I've got
Speaker 5: all these stories across the country of him fighting at
Speaker 5: age forty.
Speaker 4: It just smells like cbgbis for some reason. I don't
Speaker 4: know why. You know what I'm saying. It's like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's just that whole time frame.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've got there. There's great photos throughout. So I
Speaker 5: was with him for years. I was taking pictures. I
Speaker 5: got amazing vintage photos from Gun and other people as
Speaker 5: well that we included. But at age forty he goes
Speaker 5: back to pro boxing and fights some real serious contenders.
Speaker 5: Thomas Adamack Roy Jones.
Speaker 4: Junior brought Roy Jones, Yeah, and Roy.
Speaker 5: Jones was fascinating. So Roy Joints came up in Gulf Coast, Florida,
Speaker 5: and his dad was into dogfighting.
Speaker 4: That I know.
Speaker 1: You guys watching May not be able to see the
Speaker 1: best of it. Go get this book that that dude
Speaker 1: is yoke man.
Speaker 4: He is.
Speaker 3: He was you know, he was huge. He was huge.
Speaker 4: I mean the guy he's just so tight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 5: And he fought Roy Jones Junior and all these guys
Speaker 5: were fascinated by his his seventy three and oh record
Speaker 5: in Bare Knuckle Box.
Speaker 3: He became a legend. You can you can YouTube him.
Speaker 5: There are songs about Bobby Gunn. I mean, he's almost
Speaker 5: like this legendary ghost figure, especially before the internet. You know,
Speaker 5: when he was doing this stuff, it was just the
Speaker 5: whisper of this guy. And he would come into town
Speaker 5: like a gunslinger and take down the local tough, take
Speaker 5: the money, and he disappear.
Speaker 3: But you know, ro Joy's Junior was fascinated with that.
Speaker 5: He had grown up with a father who fought dogs,
Speaker 5: dog fighting, and he knew the blood support at the
Speaker 5: cock fighting and he respected gun. A lot of these
Speaker 5: guys respected Gun for his ability to fight Baron uncle.
Speaker 5: And it's just an incredible life story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really happy to have had you on the
Speaker 1: show today. It's been a really great time. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know I've had you for you know, a good
Speaker 1: little while today, and so I think I'll just kind
Speaker 1: of leave it on this positive note and just say
Speaker 1: that you're always welcome back on the show anytime you
Speaker 1: have something to say or want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the article of you writing about Tyson Fury, you know,
Speaker 1: or if you want to talk about all these different things.
Speaker 1: You guys can go out and find all sorts of
Speaker 1: articles that Stayton has written. Just go take a look.
Speaker 1: Type in his name.
Speaker 4: You'll find some Rolling Stones, Men's Journal, Esquire Stock or
Speaker 4: so many. Yeah, seeing him.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
Speaker 3: I love your show. Thank you for having me. It's
Speaker 3: been real pleasure, you know.
Speaker 1: And from all of us here at soft Rep mafiasoft
Speaker 1: rep dot com. You know that's my hashtag right there, soaye,
Speaker 1: you know, we say thanks for being on the show,
Speaker 1: thanks for being a friend of the program, and you're
Speaker 1: always welcome back anytime, Stateton, So thanks again. And on
Speaker 1: behalf of Styton and his book Bare Knuckle, the Bobby
Speaker 1: gunn seventy three and Oh Undefeated, A Dad, A Dream,
Speaker 1: A fight like You've never seen. By stateon Bonner. I
Speaker 1: hope you get used to hearing your name all the
Speaker 1: time like that, sir, so thank you for being on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I loved it well. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And to my listener and viewer out there again, go
Speaker 1: check out the merch We really appreciate that.
Speaker 4: And check out our book club and we're going to
Speaker 4: try to get that book right into that. And on
Speaker 4: behalf of Brandon Webb, I'm gonna say peace.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to surf Red Radio