Interview with Teddy Atlas: Boxing, Loyalty, and Legacy

that&#39;s all that matters that he got there that he got to the place to act like a fighter to to do what we want him to do to be ready to persevere to go beyond the Comfort level to do another round he didn&#39;t want to damn righty didn&#39;t want to but he knew we want him to and he knew in order to pass the test he had to do it he goes now it&#39;s going to be your job to get him in the gym make him mentally stronger make him face things and teach them how to slip punches and create holes and fill those freaking holes with devastating punches this cuss with punches with bad intentions the following is a conversation with Teddy Atlas a legendary and a times controversial boxing trainer and commentator when I was going to this conversation with Teddy I was ready to talk boxing styles matches techniques tactics and his analysis of individual Fighters like Mike Tyson Michel Moore klitschkos usk petkin lenko Triple G Canelo Muhammad Ali shag Leonard Haggler Duran Floyd and on and on and on like I said I came ready to talk boxing but I stayed for something even bigger The Shakespearean human story of Teddy Atlas cust tomato and Mike Tyson it&#39;s a story about loyalty betrayal fear and greatness it&#39;s a story where no nobody is perfect and everybody is human to summarize in the early 80s young trainer Teddy Atlas worked with his mentor custado in training the young boxing prodige now a boxing Legend Mike Tyson Mike was a troubled youth arrested over 40 times and at the age 15 he was sexually inappropriate with Teddy&#39;s 11-year-old niece in response to this Teddy put a 38 caliber handgun to Tyson ear and told him to never touch his family again or he would kill him if he did for this custado kicked Teddy out why well that&#39;s complicated in part I think to help minimize the chance of Mike Tyson who cuss legally adopted uh would be taken away by the state and with him the dream of developing one of the greatest boxers of all time of course that summary doesn&#39;t capture the full complexity of human nature and human drama involved here for that you have to listen to this conversation the things said and the things left unsaid the pain in Teddy&#39;s voice the contradictions of love and anchor that permeate his stories and his philosophy on life like I said I came to talk about boxing and stayed to talk about life this conversation will stay with me for a long time the people close to you the people you trust the people you love are everything and if they betray you and break your heart forgive them forgive yourself and try again happy holidays everyone I love you all this is Alex freedan podcast to support it please check out our sponsors in the description and now dear friends here&#39;s Teddy Atlas you wrote In the book that your father had a big influence on your life what lessons have you learned about life from your father when you ask that question you know I remember C Mod when I was with him up in cat for all those years he used to say to me Teddy you you learned through osmosis I believe there&#39;s true to that if I know what osmosis is and and I but it sounds good yeah yeah but I learned through osmosis with my father he he wasn&#39;t a big talker he was you you know he was a doer and I when you&#39;re around someone who lives a certain kind of life and does certain things uh it penetrates he was a doctor he was I I&#39;m going to sound like an idiot right now because I&#39;m being a son uh but he was the greatest diagonistic doctor yeah I mean if I say I ever knew what&#39;s that mean yeah you know what I mean are you a doctor you know you know what I mean like what does that mean but other people have told me this yeah like just legendary stories he would do house calls and he help people and like you said a lot of people have spoken about the impact he&#39;s had in their life he built two hospitals and he he built a hospital before the verado bridge in New York uh connecting Brooklyn to stown and he he built it so people could get proper hospital care they couldn&#39;t afford it period and um everybody looked at him as uh eccentric yeah nice yeah because because he he would literally sneak patience not sneak him in he was Dr Atlas he could do what he wanted to a certain extent but he would bring patients in without administering putting through Administration so there was no charge because you know they they didn&#39;t have anything they were Street people they were I I remember being my only way to be with my father was to go on house calls yeah or to go to the office there&#39;s no you know and so I went on house calls with and he did house call by the way till he was 80 and and $3 I mean it was better than like McDonald&#39;s you know what I mean I mean the deal you $ and you got medicine you got everything and but he used to right around the holidays there was just certain things that I didn&#39;t understand but I understood later where we would just drive certain areas and he just over open his door he would pick up these home and you know I&#39;m I&#39;m 10 years old yeah you know move over move over you know mhm and it&#39;s just you him and a homeless guy a couple yeah a couple yeah whatever he can fit in three four you know whatever it was that&#39;s a big heart and then he took him to the hospital dropped him so you know I would ask questions after it was all over with I&#39;d say that they&#39;re sick he goes well not not in a way whether you put them in the hospital MH so he said yeah and he tried to explain things to me you know he would try he didn&#39;t talk much unless you asked him something yeah that kind of works and you know don&#39;t talk someone ask something and he he he explained to me that he said um I said well why you put him in the hospital then I you know and of course the sickness was through alcohols but um why why you put him he&#39;s it wasn&#39;t an alcohol rehab you know so why you put him and it wasn&#39;t for the purpose to dry out he wasn&#39;t trying to cure them yeah let&#39;s put that for before we we anointed him for saood you know Like by Teddy at so I was like we we finally get to the point why you put him in there yeah well because it&#39;s the holidays all right why you put them in there well the holidays you know are good for certain people at badf fathers and um and it was always before the holidays it was before Christmas before whatever and and um New Years whatever and so I said why and he said because they remind people certain people of what they don&#39;t have that you other people uh enjoy the holidays because of what they have family you know whatever and it reminds them their mind is that that&#39;s pretty profound yeah and and then I I don&#39;t know remember because he didn&#39;t use the word suicide but I I got it like he he basically I forget how he said it but like I just got it I don&#39;t know how I got as most I don&#39;t know but I just got it like so they don&#39;t hurt themselves that that&#39;s what came across way I don&#39;t think he ever articulated that ever verbalized that but yeah they don&#39;t hurt themselves so and well how how does that work well just basically they&#39;re going to be around people they&#39;re not going to be alone they&#39;re going to be around people they&#39;re going to get fed they&#39;re going to be warm right and it&#39;s going to be for three days two three days whatever and it&#39;s basically it&#39;s it&#39;s a bridge so and the the funny thing as a 10-year-old I wanted to I want to be connected to him so I I I enlisted myself in a job when when when he used to drop them off he he would take them get them in right and um and then the thing that I know again he didn&#39;t say nothing but I you notice things and if you care enough you don&#39;t you don&#39;t notice nothing if you don&#39;t care but if you care if it&#39;s important you notice and this guy was important to me I just was I didn&#39;t know what a hero was no clue I love Mickey Mano I love Willie Mays I love I I love Muhammad Ali I I I never ever connected in my mind as Heroes never my father I I didn&#39;t connect it that way but he looking back now looking back he was he was my first connection to a hero the two of you ever talk about how much you love each other one thing that was uh not allowed the the greatest memory I have my father shown me love was we were down in Florida at an airport and and um we were I was born in Miami don&#39;t ask me I was passing through and the rest of my family is born in New York St now and so I was supposed to go back with him right and I wanted to stay with my mother for whatever reason and so he you know he of course conceited to it and he&#39;s he&#39;s okay you know whatever and very quiet very and there&#39;s a man who never showed emotion to anyone I mean for the most you know really all of a sudden he just turned and kissed me on the forehead and left and I was I was like that&#39;s different yeah you still remember that yeah like that&#39;s weird you lost them 30 years ago how how did that change you it made me realize that some of the deals I used to make for god um more than realistic when I was a kid I used to make deals with God let me die before my father and then you know you get older you have kids you&#39;re blessed why did you make that deal you know what I mean like thank you for not taking me up on it yeah thanks yeah you know oh yeah you miss him I missed him in moments when I&#39;d like to know what to do and um you know I I remember when I would driving for the one of house calls he didn&#39;t listen to music he was a guy he read books to his when he got older he read books to uh blood vess was broken his eyes he only read non-fiction books science he loves science um Wars um generals I mean I cheated on a couple uh book reports because of him because I didn&#39;t do the reading of the book the night before I had a freaking uh book report to put in that I got a book report to do on St the war of Stalingrad yeah really the war of Stalingrad and who the freak could tell you where you get an A I got an A yeah he I just wrote what he told me told me generals he told me times he told me strategy he told me about the winter that came and destroyed the Germans and and and the Soviets were tougher than and the told Soviets were tougher than the Germans and you know the Germans picked on the wrong opponent yeah I was already in the boxing business yeah I didn&#39;t know it yeah I didn&#39;t even know it yeah matchmaking very important yeah they they they mismatched they did they made a mistake with the picking the opponent and so when we would be driving in the car my father would be in a trance and Dad he wasn&#39;t ignoring me at all he was just with his thoughts M he was he was wherever he wasn&#39;t even here in the radio no more I always wonder where he was I did so I asked him one day and just so we&#39;re driving I said I want to know so I said dad what do you think when you&#39;re basically in this place that I know you&#39;re somewhere yeah what what do you what do you where are you what are you seeing I actually said what do you see and he said to me I see what could be I see what could be and I&#39;m like oh all right I got to ask you when did you discover boxing what when did you first fall in love with boxing when it saved me how did it save you I I was I was a stupid violent kid that was angry not exactly know why he was angry uh I&#39;d fit in real good in today&#39;s society because there&#39;s a lot of angry kids out there that I don&#39;t think they know why they&#39;re angry I was I was just out there getting fights and um I got this stupid thing from that can you tell the story of how you got that I was just running around doing stupid things bad things I heard people some people physically but I heard I heard my my my family you know that&#39;s BS you only hurt yourself you know that that&#39;s a good way of you know Alibi in it um you know to but it if at some point the truth usually Finds Its way I&#39;d like it to look like it was just hurt myself but it wasn&#39;t obviously so I was just out on the streets with kids that didn&#39;t grow up in the neighborhood I grew up I grew up in a neighborhood where father was a doctor and um I walked down the street the funny thing was down down the hill was a very tough neighborhood called Stapleton and most of the people down there on the corners wish they could get up there and I I wished I could get down the hill so I went down the hill and I hung out with all these friends that became lifelong friends and uh I um I gravitated to that because I I figured out later a little bit but you know I wanted family we were disjointed family we were you know my father was a doctor he didn&#39;t have time for nothing but being a doctor you know uh I think when you gred something you sacrific something too you know when you&#39;re really great at something so great that maybe God Made You great and and you&#39;re too great for your own good and and I don&#39;t know it took me to these stupid dangerous places dangerous for me but dangerous for other people too because I got to the point where I was doing robberies on the street I was I was fighting everybody and and you know what the most dangerous part about it was and I came to this realization on my own all by myself I I figured out um I was really as D you know these kids from the project some of them they got nothing you first of all I learned you don&#39;t have to be poor to be poor you don&#39;t have to be deprived of certain things to be deprived and or because you at least to think you&#39;re deprived and I was pouring way that I didn&#39;t have the only thing I wanted to have him so here I here I am where I&#39;m out there doing these things and what made me more I was more dangerous than some of these Psychopaths well I was a psychopath too I guess the way I was behaving but some of these Psychopaths that really had nothing um you know really would you know they obviously would kill you I I was dangerous in the almost in the same way but for a different reason I know it&#39;s ridiculous what I&#39;m about to tell you but I figured it out cuz I felt it I thought I was on a righteous path I thought I had a right because it was going to get me my father back why why I mean you know you&#39;re a scientist you couldn&#39;t figure this one out because all the people that had them were injured people fractured people screwed up people in some ways but but hurt damaged people so if I get damaged I&#39;ll get him so I was on a crusade really a righteous Crusade where I thought it was okay I had permission I had permission to do these terrible things quite frankly and to fight everyone and do I I did and then it it came almost to a crash doing all that you know winding up in Reicher Island like an idiot not understanding the damage I did to this poor man that you know he um he was a great doctor and he&#39;s got to see his son and hear about you know what I mean like God I I was out on that day you know with with the guys that I grew up with now you know the guys from the projects from the as I described and I was with one of them who he he&#39;s dead now so I was I was with him and we were we we were in a neighborhood the neighborhood we grew up that that I hung out and and they and he grew up in Billy he came from the from the project and we got into a thing where we cut somebody cut us off we cut them off you know jumped out to fight and um you know it turned out there&#39;s like five or six of them and two of us and um you know we fought you know right on the side right there only about a block from where I used to hang out and um maybe a block and a half and right in front of like a Spanish Bodega and uh it really does happen in slow motion I actually saw the guy I was fighting the guys that that I had to fight and then all of a sudden I was able to get one guy out of the way a little bit and um I really I noticed the guy go into his pocket and um I knew why he was going in his pocket you know and when he came out of his pocket I knew what it was right away it was weird because in the neighborhood guys used to hang out they were they were into this you know they get into feds like right on the streets and they went to at that time they went to this cheap knife but it was they thought it was we thought it was cool uh it was a007 and and um and the cool thing whatever was that you could flick it you could learn and I learned how to flick you know but I never carried a knife but but when my friends would have it I would just you learn how you could flick it open not a switch plate but flick it with your wrist and I was like here I am in the middle of this freaking fight and all of a sudden oh it&#39;s A7 you know and and and so I&#39;m like I you got to make a decision you know and I got to splits I can either not do nothing which wasn&#39;t didn&#39;t seem like a great you know a great option um I couldn&#39;t run away what not because you got to live with yourself afterwards and and and that&#39;s more difficult to live with than whatever it is at that second because that don&#39;t go away you couldn&#39;t live with yourself running away it just don&#39;t go away that thing not nothing to do with being brave yeah nothing to do with being brave really it it&#39;s got to do with just common sense in life that for for me whatever you&#39;re dealing with it&#39;s over it&#39;s done like like okay deal with it good or bad whatever but you you do that you know that other thing you you you&#39;re gone um you you that never that never ends this thing ends memory of you being let&#39;s say a coward in that moment that never ends the only thing I had at that point in my life in my St mind was a reputation yeah that I would do stand up to certain things that that was like and that for me was was worth something whatever because I didn&#39;t feel any Worth to anything else that was the only thing I felt a connection of wor to so so stood your ground I say no I made a decision yes I stood my ground but I I actually things do slow down they do and I actually said it&#39;s A7 he&#39;s got got to flick it you know I didn&#39;t say but he&#39;s got to flick it I got a split second either like I said either I do nothing whatever or I get to him before he gets it flicked I went to get to it before he got flicked and and I and I just as I got close to him I I did him a favor I I I walked right into a counter punch because I I I cooperated with him I went right to him and and just as I he he he he practiced more than I did with the7 apparently because he was like boom boom and and anyway what did you think what did you think that happened that was all slow motion did you think he might die yeah well not immediately took me a minute I&#39;m a slow learner I put my hand up right wouldn&#39;t you I guess so mhm and it went into my face yeah and that was it it was gooey it was warm and gooey and I was like I don&#39;t know I I don&#39;t know what this means but I don&#39;t want to know but I think I know and and and um did you think about your dad in that moment no you know what I thought about him was um you don&#39;t know who anyone isn&#39;t to DET test it and um I learned that cuz used to tell me but I learned it uh he say you I remember one time C I was a 17 18 year old kid up there and you know thought I was whatever I thought I was and he said you got a lot of friends and um I said yeah because you know I was on the street hanging out with 100 kids at night sometimes on the street corner so I was like I don&#39;t know too many people that hung out with 100 Kids on the street on a corner on a Friday Saturday night and um I was like yeah I got a lot of friends he go really really he said um how about if I told you you might not have any most likely you don&#39;t have any and he goes and then he just started this thing he said everyone&#39;s got to be tested you me everyone cuz you don&#39;t know about nobody to they tested he goes you know nothing he goes you know nothing until you know until something happens to test if they were really a friend and then he told me this story about a guy a guy came to him and he was upset what are you upset about he goes I&#39;m upset because I I I just uh I just lost a friend uh you know after 20 years of friendship we&#39;re not friends no more so Co looks at him he goes let me ask you a question what what made you think you have a friends with him now the guy gets insulted and goes did you hear me he goes I I just told you 20 years I&#39;ve been friends with this guy why would you say that to me he said well I say it again what makes you think he was your friend he goes whatever happened in the 20 years other than chasing girls because figured that one out fast chasing girls and drinking together um and whatever else you&#39;re doing out on the street whatever gave you the inclination that he was a friend yeah he goes whatever when did he risk himself to be your friend yeah when was it dangerous to be your friend when was the Friendship tested when was it uncomfortable to be your friend and you know what the guy said you can figure it out you&#39;re a scientist he said he said today yeah and and and today came for me and today today today today kept coming for me today and and that day my friend Billy it turned out well I was fighting these whatever five six guys and where was Billy he was on a roof he was on a roof he was on a roof he was my best friend and and um so anyway they take me to the hospital and here&#39;s the thing with my father but one thing Billy did do for me when he got off the roof thank God he did he he dragged me dragged me into this Bodega laid me on the floor and started putting towels right and the towels I vaguely remember this they filled up with blood yeah I mean completely like drenched like like you put them under a shower and and um I Heard the B owner screaming screaming you know like you know whatever and everyone&#39;s screaming and there chaos and I&#39;m like I don&#39;t know I&#39;m I&#39;m calm weird I&#39;m like real calm and um I&#39;m just in this place&#39;s calm and all of a sudden I hear Billy he&#39;s screaming call the call the ambulance call the you know and nobody&#39;s doing nothing everyone&#39;s Frozen I&#39;m starting to understand already people get Frozen in situations people the fear fear fear fear fear just paralyzes people and um and I was going into a fear business I was learning I was learn I was getting a a learning early PhD and and yeah and all of a sudden genius Billy genius really Street kid yeah he jumps up on a freaking counter jumps over the counter grabs the phone calls 911 says the cop&#39;s been shot and forget about it yeah it was crazy all I remember after that I&#39;ll tell you the couple things I remember lights being put onto a stretcher bounced around you know rushed I felt everyone&#39;s anxiety except mine I had none but I felt everyone&#39;s anxiety everyone&#39;s fear like was all around me it was like wow this is interesting this kind of I know that&#39;s stupid but like w this is interesting wow you really have an eye for fear that&#39;s fascinating you&#39;re really studying it well they I had no choice I I got introduced in the crash course and they they put me in ambulance and this this is what I remember to your point I&#39;m sorry I took so long to get to it I am although I&#39;ll probably do it again before this conversation&#39;s over but all about the journey yeah we&#39;ll get there we&#39;ll get there pops um so I I hear the cops say I we might lose him and I&#39;m like laughing to myself I&#39;m not laughing because I&#39;m not again I&#39;m not John Wayne John Wayne would have left but I&#39;m like lose you guys are stupid you know I didn&#39;t say that but I&#39;m like lose me I my father&#39;s the greatest doctor in the freaking world yeah there&#39;s nothing to worry about you people all you people are all uptight and whacked out here with with fear and and there&#39;s nothing to worry about Dr alas is my father so anyway so they&#39;re they&#39;re they&#39;re taking me to the and they said we don&#39;t have time I hear a couple things I remember don&#39;t have time take them to and they take me to the US public health hospital Marine hospital was called at the time but US public health and it&#39;s in Stapleton so it&#39;s close thank God so they&#39;re taking me and I hear them on the radio you know saying this stuff about we go to we got to move we got to move and um I start talking and that tell me don&#39;t talk but I like to talk a lot you know and I&#39;m so again fear there&#39;s no fear when the fear&#39;s been removed it&#39;s the only time you&#39;re really free in life and I know that sounds absurd but really it is it&#39;s the only time you really free in life I was when you&#39;re close to death when you&#39;re devoid of of of things that that normally hold you back that normally influence you in ways that that you know that are not of the influence that always positive influence where you&#39;re where you&#39;re in a pure place where you&#39;re you&#39;re in a purely free place from all inhibitions from fear from anxiety from from Joy Joy can screw you up and you&#39;re free from all these things and I&#39;m in this place just in the back of an ambulance you&#39;re free I&#39;m yeah I&#39;m I&#39;m like I said just give me Dr Atlas and they say we don&#39;t have time no no no no no you don&#39;t you have to get Dr Atlas you have to get him this was the damn it this was the you know what I mean I finally freaking hit the number and I&#39;m not getting paid and then all of a sudden I&#39;m out how many they well I think it was 400 200 inside 200 outside or whatever it was a lot hey look after after after 50 it the number doesn&#39;t matter no more right whatever 60 70 80 90 whatever you know so I was fortunate I was fortunate and of course they I was fortunate they told me afterwards that miss my juggler literally by like like a centimeter I mean whatever and um so then um then we wouldn&#39;t be having this conversation obviously I&#39;m glad you made it yeah that&#39;s another I&#39;m kind of glad too and and it just missed my eye which thank God it&#39;s bad enough I have a scar matching me with a patch I mean I mean it&#39;s enough that I got this freaking thing and um and look it goes all the way you know I mean it&#39;s you know it&#39;s it&#39;s pretty long and um I don&#39;t know I was out and then somehow I sensed like they had the curtain closed you know and it&#39;s amazing how Vivid this is and the curtains Clos and I see a shadow I I felt the presence I did and I felt him he&#39;s a he&#39;s a powerful guy and I felt him and I just see like a shadow you know and all of a sudden uh the the curtain gets pushed back and I can&#39;t really see it&#39;s dark and I&#39;m you know out of it but not completely out of it and um pushes the curtain back comes in and his hand even though it&#39;s all bandag you know whatever but his hand surveys it felt safe and um it felt it felt warm and safe I was happy and um he got there you know did he say something yeah yeah remember I gave you a little bit of introduction to my father right you know him now a little bit right yeah yeah what did he say about the job he said he just said this is what he said I remember to this day what he said yeah that that I do remember I don&#39;t know if it was six or five people but this I do remember yeah he said they did a good job job you&#39;re going to have a scar the rest of your life and he left oh man they did a good job you mentioned C Cato legendary trainer and you also mentioned it turned out he really cared about you in the book you write about a testimony he gave I was hoping I could read it cuz it speaks to your character it speaks to his it&#39;s just powerful the testimony goes your honor I realize you might not know much about me but I&#39;ve spent my whole life developing young men as a boxing manager I trained two world champions heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and light heavyweight champion Jose Torres I&#39;ve also helped a lot of other young boys straighten out their lives and build character I know things about Teddy Atlas this court doesn&#39;t know things you won&#39;t find on his arrest record record this boy has character he has loyalty he&#39;ll hurt himself before he&#39;ll let down a friend these qualities are rare and they shouldn&#39;t be lost he&#39;s made mistakes we&#39;ve all made mistakes but I&#39;ve come to know this boy and if we lose him we&#39;ll be losing someone who could help a lot of people please don&#39;t take this young boy&#39;s future away he could be someone special let&#39;s not lose him please those are powerful words from a powerful man uh what have you learned about life from from uh Mr custado he gave me a quote and he drove into my head I became his guy you know he loved me I loved him he he said to me Teddy no matter what a man said is is what he does in the end that he intended to do all along that&#39;s what I learned from CZ rest of it is BS and um a lot of people um say things you just have to give them a minute to let them show you eventually what they really meant by it I also learned from him that uh everyone&#39;s afraid because his way of saying another great saying you&#39;ll get kick out of this uh anyone who&#39;s in a situation where fear should be prevalent where fear is actually necessary to survive the situation anyone who says that they&#39;re not afraid they&#39;re one of two things they&#39;re either a liar or or they should go to a doctor find out what the freak&#39;s wrong with them he was right about that you know we live in a a taboo Society where that word to a certain extent is taboo because it invokes weakness you know we we uh we are just layers of what we saw and learned since we were kids we all are were products of those layers I learned that on my own well through some help at the end of the day um you know fear people will find their way of avoiding that term so they use the word anxiety they use the word you know butterflies apprehension you know a million different right words I find all those other words to be cousins of fear and and fear fear causes a lot of things in life it it causes a lot of problems uh and and it also solves a lot of problems without it uh we couldn&#39;t be great if we are great if we ever have a chance to be great um or at least to Aspire to be great how how does Fear connect to Greatness that&#39;s a that&#39;s a profound statement without fear we wouldn&#39;t be able to be great yeah you couldn&#39;t be great without fear because fear allows her to be brave the most important word for me in this whole you know conversation right neighborhood would be selfishness uh and it allows you to be for a moment less selfish one of the things I learned I guess partly on my own everyone thinks my greatest teacher was cus he was a great teacher Mentor my greatest teacher was my father the one who never talked and um I realized um one of the things to be better towards great um is if you can be submit less than we submit see one of the things that I&#39;m afraid of one of the things I was always quitting in my business that it&#39;s kind of not a good thing mhm every business I think yours yours is just more uh clear yeah it it hurts more and in the moment at least yeah in the moment but you&#39;re right 100% because some things hurt for a long time afterwards and um something like regret regret is the worst thing in the world because it&#39;s a solitary sentence and and man man that&#39;s a powerful phrase regret is a solitary sentence so boy I you&#39;re full of good lines you know it wasn&#39;t easy to uh to to accumulate them it was it was a little bit hurtful but so uh submit less because we submit every day and if we can get to a place where we submit or compromise ourselves less we we&#39;ll get to a better place you know again one of the one of the words for me that attaches to things that give you that wind up hurting you in life and have hurt me in life uh one of those boogey men words is the word of convenience that&#39;s attach to everything you know PE people people disappoint you not because they want to disappoint you or let you or betray you because they want to betray you they do it because it&#39;s more convenient to do mhm than than the other thing an old man once told me he said to me I was trying to I was trying to rationalize something I was trying to make something an excuse for something I was trying to make myself better than I was I was trying to say it was okay and and he just looked at me and he he he liked me and he said Teddy ain&#39;t no such thing as being a little pregnant like yeah because either you&#39;re pregnant or you&#39;re not pregnant either you&#39;re real or you&#39;re not real either you&#39;re you know truthful you&#39;re not truthful either you&#39;re tough or you&#39;re not tough either you&#39;re either you&#39;re you know committed or you&#39;re not committed either you&#39;re in or you&#39;re out that applies a lot of things yeah including loyalty that&#39;s quite a statement but the life blood of humanity for me is loyalty um it&#39;s it&#39;s what goes through the veins of uh you know everything has to have some veins in some form and if Humanity has veins what runs through the veins of humanity instead of blood to keep it alive is loyalty without loyalty without loyalty We Dead We freaking Walk we&#39;re vessels I never understood what a ghost ship was you know what as I got old I know what a ghost ship is it&#39;s people it&#39;s people that are empty MH they got no loyalty therefore they got no Humanity therefore they got nothing therefore freak them freak them because and and and you know why they don&#39;t have loyalty convenience and you know why because it takes it&#39;s hard to be loyal it&#39;s actually hard mhm I&#39;ll be a son of a gun yeah you tell me yeah it sounds great give it to me give it to me paint me with it yeah it&#39;s great yeah I&#39;m loyal I&#39;m yeah I&#39;m I&#39;m yeah this is good I&#39;m ready I&#39;m on that team I&#39;m ready put me in coach I&#39;m ready okay now you have to uh you&#39;re going to have to get hurt here what do you mean get hurt oh well it&#39;s going to be painful I mean to be loyal you know you you&#39;re going to be in danger because the person that you committed your loyalty to for a reason because obviously he did something in your life ever whatever um you&#39;re actually going to get hurt to be loyal to them you&#39;re actually G to hold on a minute wait hold on a minute coach um hold on call time out here um let me think about this coach I&#39;m I&#39;m I might need more more practice I&#39;m not ready for the game I&#39;m not ready to go in the game yet give me a little more practice coach and it hurts to be loyal it freaking hurts but without loyalty we&#39;re we&#39;re ghost ships we got no strength we got nothing yeah we got nothing we we got we got nothing I agree with you in a deep fundamental sense but there&#39;s uh pain that comes with that I have to ask you to uh introspect on this part of your life because of your value for loyalty uh as people know you and custado uh trained young Mike Tyson and the interaction there uh between the three of you led to the three of you parting ways given your value for loyalty can you tell the full story of uh what led up to this and maybe the pain you felt from that I it was if I guess it was the second time in my life I felt betrayed um the first time was when I um you I was whatever young 17 and I got arrested I was with all these older guys tough guys whatever and um supposedly and uh the detective separated us that&#39;s what they do and um you know they they asked me who did whatever who&#39;s gun this that you know all that the particulars of obviously what we did and you know it was me and um they said you sure you don&#39;t want to change that you don&#39;t want to because your friends changed it and and these cops they were nasty but they were cops they were the way you know you&#39;re going to wind up in Rikers with and they&#39;re going to be doing this to you and I won&#39;t even say the things because then why say them you know figure it out but you know they&#39;re trying to get what they&#39;re trying to get and you know you want to change it and um no and but I felt very betrayed you know yeah and um especially when I was standing in the in the cell in rikus looking at the airplanes leave luati airport and then hoping I was on one you know I was making like a deal with God said let me be on one of those planes and let it crash I&#39;ll take a shot was part of you proud that you didn&#39;t give up your friends no because I didn&#39;t understand what proud was I didn&#39;t understand nothing I just understood that um rules are rules you&#39;re just loyal and that&#39;s it I didn&#39;t even know there was an option I didn&#39;t think there I know the cops said you could do this but that there was no option my father never had an option but the the Betrayal the private betrayal was like and so when cuz we were Partners me and cus yeah cus was retired this stupid kid goes up there and all of a sudden I start training Fighters first I won the gloves cuz put me in the gloves I won the gloves that I had injury whatever but bottom line is I still want to fight I want to turn pro I want to fight that was the plan and um and cuz had a different plan cuz cuz was like you can&#39;t and he had it set up a little bit whatever without getting into it hey he did me a favor and I I&#39;d like to think he knew he was doing me a favor and you know what I do think he was he was doing himself a little bit one too but but he was doing it for the greater cause because he believed in this thing of boxing he he believed that it changed Liv he believed that it was worthwhile he believed that there was a power to it beyond the left hook the big picture of boxing yeah he believed in it yeah he believed that To Be A Champion you had to be special you had to be smart you had to have character you had that you had to be a better person and that you couldn&#39;t make a champion if you didn&#39;t make him a better person first and and that that this you know this could strengthen people the sport could strengthen people in those ways so he he was married to it and he he was old and he needed there was no one in the gym it was empty and it was above a police station which was crazy and he needed an air to the throne he needed to pass it on to someone and he saw something and all of a sudden he said he saw that my career as a box was less important than having me become his air to the Drone and become his trainer his man his guy to continue that we could do a lot more for him and for for for everyone not just for him but for everyone it was more like to keep it going like it couldn&#39;t die it couldn&#39;t die and the cousin was afraid to it would die with him and he committed his whole life to it he didn&#39;t get married because of boxing so he didn&#39;t so he saw me as as you know the the little bit of you know the seed to plant for for more things to grow and before that plant died and so he all of a sudden he she came fight and I had people tell me that I could go somewhere else and fight M and I could MH but I couldn&#39;t right because I&#39;d be disloyal loyalty is everything yeah so I couldn&#39;t leave cus yeah and he kind of knew that and and so you know I couldn&#39;t leave him and he said you have an ability to teach he said knowledge means nothing he said see these pranica he had pran pranica encyclopedia uh the whole set in in our library he said you see these yeah I see them all the knowledge of the world whatever uh is in these all right means nothing if you don&#39;t have somebody to convey it to people otherwise it just sits on a bookshelf it looks good he go you have the ability to convey knowledge to people you&#39;re a teacher you were born to be a teacher you&#39;d lessen Yourself by only being a champion fighter because you&#39;d only take care of one person you could take care of all kinds of people and you could do this and you could do that and you could do this so we go on this Venture took a minute cuz I didn&#39;t believe him at first but finally we I am I&#39;m there I&#39;m training Fighters and then he he gets me to buy in and I I was a teacher and I start teaching these kids and there&#39;s no one in the gym it&#39;s dead and all of a sudden there 10 kids 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 cat skill boxing club which was never there now it&#39;s there and I&#39;m training Fighters I&#39;m taking down to South Bronx to get experience one of his former Fighters NOS quis down to South Bronx I&#39;m taking down there to get smokers to get fights when they&#39;re ready after I I&#39;m wearing out dungar I&#39;m getting holes in my dung I was fashionable before it was fashionable to have holes in my dungar I could have made a lot of money with that because I was on my knees with these little kids 9 years old 10 years old8 years old 10 12 13 14 all these kids and and I&#39;m teaching and I&#39;m building a gym and cuz only came once a week because he was semi-retired you know and and he&#39;s and when he would come once a week he knew he couldn&#39;t give me money but he gave me more than money he gave me praise MH and he said look what Atlas is doing he&#39;s creating Champions and I was like wow yeah wow I&#39;m I&#39;m doing good and and and then all of a sudden after four years of that because I was up there seven years8 years eight years after about three and a half four years of that we get a phone call that they get this kid in prison and try on Prison uh from one of the guys that knew C Matt Baranski uh and and there&#39;s a state there&#39;s a correction officer named Bobby Stewart who used to box and cus had helped him out a little bit little bit and um and they knew we had this gym now that was really starting become something because we were winning tournaments and everything else the go we got this kid Mike Tyson he he&#39;s he&#39;s 12 years old he&#39;s 190 PBS he&#39;s a mess but Bobby Stewart got involved with him uh you know the the former fighter and he&#39;s taking a liking to it and now where he didn&#39;t behave at all and he didn&#39;t listen to anyone now he&#39;s listening because Bobby&#39;s got a carrot and the carrot is hit teacher boxing and now he he&#39;s at the point now where we we want you to take a look you and Teddy all right bring him down what what did you think when you first saw Mike Ty well I I want to I want to see his birth certificate because he 190 lbs 12 years old and all solid yeah um you know really but yeah just physically just as a physical specimen and and big guy yeah and listen cuz was right I was a teacher he was right and he was testing me even that day he said what do you think so I said well we ain&#39;t going to know nothing in the bag who the freak cares about that he knocked the bag down we got to put him in with uh we got no to put him in that weight I didn&#39;t have anyone that weight we got to test them everyone&#39;s got to be tested and um so you got to put them in responsibly but let&#39;s put him in just respond but let&#39;s put him in with Bobby Stewart former Prof fighter had 14 Prof fights smaller than Tyson uh he was when he was fighting he was 175 but still he&#39;s 28 years old Tyson&#39;s 12 come on and and he&#39;ll work with him right so we do we put him Tyson he recognized the moment he understood this was an audition this was a chance you know this was that TV show change your life and he understood that if he passed the audition he could change possibly change his life he wasn&#39;t sure what how could he be sure what exactly but it was better than what he had and so he was on aition so he wanted he innately understood what we would want to see ferociousness toughness uh character uh desire you know and of course ability well we saw the ability power speed but it was it was unbridled it was untaught it was it was raw he didn&#39;t know really much at all um at all but we saw that but he wanted to show more he knew that wasn&#39;t enough again inate intelligence he he had to show desire he had to show toughness and so I was being responsible after two rounds that&#39;s enough normally I don&#39;t put a guy into box until maybe four months 5 months 6 Months 8 months 10 it depends what it takes to learn on the floor before it&#39;s responsible to put them in the ring to to actually take on uh incoming real live shells instead of blanks yeah and so normally I wouldn&#39;t have them in and I knew after today he wouldn&#39;t be in the ring again if I trained him I would teach him first and then he&#39;d get back in in a few months but for this day it was the only way it&#39;s kind of like I used to make this analogy and C loved it I he said what&#39;s traded on fighter what do you what what do you look for tading a fighter Teddy you know he asked me this ridiculous question just to test me and and I say it&#39;s like going to Macy&#39;s with he loved it I said it&#39;s like I said it&#39;s like go to Macy&#39;s window and Chris he goes what do you mean Macy&#39;s window you know cuz was like boom boom boom so what do you mean Macy window you go to Macy&#39;s window and they get the window with everything you want to see everything in there it looks great oh everything and yeah and then what well then you ask what&#39;s in the warehouse and they tell you nothing yeah and and cuz says that&#39;s it that&#39;s a trainer yeah and I wanted to see what was in the warehouse because I saw what was in a Macy&#39;s window I saw the power I saw the speed so he goes two rounds and he gets bloody nose here&#39;s the weird thing not weird very telling we knew what we were doing not bragging but we knew what we were doing because he got a bloody nose because he got hit after that Bloody he never got another bloody nose you know why he didn&#39;t get hit cuz he learned he was still strong but he was smarter now anyway he goes two rounds and I saw and I&#39;m being responsible because if he goes more it&#39;s not responsible I saw what I needed to say I saw speed I saw power I saw athleticism and I saw I didn&#39;t believe him I thought he was lying to me I&#39;m just telling you I I thought he was lying trying to act tough when he wasn&#39;t really feeling tough it didn&#39;t matter cuz questioned me on it afterwards what did you say and when I said he goes young Master you know again he wasn&#39;t paying me money so he had to give me something right and and that was better than that was currency young master I&#39;m the young Master whoa you know young Master you know what I mean I felt like that guy Kung Fu you know like in the movie like F grasshopper when you&#39;re ready when you could take this out of my hand you can leave and that&#39;s powerful yeah it was it worked cuz knew how to work me and he did and and it worked and and so but you know what I didn&#39;t mind being worked I kind of knew I was being shuffled a little bit well you&#39;re making it sound a little bit negative but it&#39;s also extremely positive that&#39;s a teacher instilling wisdom into you that you carried forward and impacted a lot of people yeah cuz got the job done but he did it his way and and he did it for a lot of a myriad of reasons and but at the end of the day it was all good and I I just had to understand that eventually uh later on but and you do the same you do things your way and carry some of him in you some of your father in you yeah that day you know that day it was funny because when C said what did you see Teddy when him what two rounds I got up in the ring I knew I was going to train him obviously we weren&#39;t going to say no and he still had about four months to serve and we were going to work it out yeah and when I got up on a ring apron that&#39;s my gym I&#39;m the boss you know people later on in life called me a dictator you know what I said yeah you&#39;re right I didn&#39;t deny people thought you you you mean I&#39;m right yeah I&#39;m a dictator I&#39;m a trainer I&#39;m the boss I&#39;m in charge if I you wouldn&#39;t be here if I was what the freak you need me for if I&#39;m not freaking in charge you idiot yeah yeah damn right what do you think it&#39;s a it&#39;s a Shar responsibility no it&#39;s my responsibility that&#39;s why you&#39;re here yeah I am in charge and you shouldn&#39;t be here if you don&#39;t understand that so I get up there and I know that I&#39;m going to be training them I got to show them who the boss is you know I&#39;m being really Frank about this so I get up there say that&#39;s it out yeah no no you know Ty no let me go I want to do another round I want to do another I want I said out did you hear what I said because I knew that you know he was going to test me he was testing me I I said I said get out he got out but were you impressed with the fact that you want to keep going or no yes and I recognized what it really was so cus asked me what was that CU want to know what the young Master saw so God said what was that I said it was um it was an act he goes you saw that did he really want to go I said no I said he didn&#39;t really want to go but he knew that we want him to go and he made himself ready to go in order to satisfy and that&#39;s just as good and CZ said damn right it&#39;s just as good all that matters was not not not how he got there but that he got there yeah that&#39;s all that matters that he got there that he got to the place to act like a fighter to to do what we want him to do to be ready to persevere to go beyond the Comfort level to do another round he didn&#39;t want to damn righty didn&#39;t want to but he knew we want him to and he knew in order to pass the test he had to do it and he said you&#39;re right he goes now it&#39;s going to be your job to teach him to make him a fighter that don&#39;t get bloody noses that don&#39;t get hit and will get to that place without being coerced to get there to get to that place on his own instead of using the things that he had to use to get to that place today those things are not going to be available one day when you and listen to this you talk about a man being prophetic because was pretty good you talk about man being on a job on a money Lex he says how do you think he finishes the s he goes because someday you because you know you&#39;re going to have to make sure that he learns these things because you know he he&#39;ll be your first heavyweight champ what did you just say he&#39;s 12 years old yeah yeah he he&#39;s been arrested 30 times he&#39;s getting out of jail out of you know Juvenile Detention Fry on um he&#39;s a mess in a lot of ways there&#39;s a lot of things we find out later a lot of problems weakness is he goes and you that&#39;s part of your job that&#39;ll be part of your job and but he really said that he and then then he turned to him he goes you want to come live with us young man you want to be your fighter yes even that CZ said to me later what do you think about that I said he a the way he said yes yeah the way he said yes yes sir yeah he said what do you think about that and we&#39;re talking I said ain&#39;t going to be that polite a little while down the road again he knew that that&#39;s what he felt that he needed to to project himself as to to present himself at to to get to way he want to get to he goes you yeah yeah did you see what cus was seeing in terms of the heavyweight champion of the world no again be easiest answer would be yes Teddy Teddy Al genius wow wow Teddy wow no no no no but again it was my job yeah and I just I my job it was simple simpler than cusses cus Knew Too Much I knew nothing I just knew you know Rudman of boxing I knew what it took to be a fighter and and how to execute it the steps of executing it so I took those steps the the the rest of it you get blurred by those other things I wasn&#39;t blurred by those other things it was it was just get him in the gym make him mentally stronger make him face things and teach them how to slip punches and and create holes and fill those freaking holes with devastating punches this is a cuss and what are you going to do I&#39;m going to teach him to fill holes and fill them with punches with bad intentions yeah and and that became the Monica yeah and then Tyson would say that I&#39;m throwing punches with bad intentions yes you are and um you know how do you make it mentally tougher so that part of the job the you said the don&#39;t get a bloody nose but the part part of the job what makes him mentally tougher how do you do that most important part of the job to make him face things yeah make him face where he lying to himself where he&#39;s submitting what if we start this conversation with submission yeah submit less yeah submit less submit less every day submit less cuz only come to the gym once in a while and if I had him spawn he would come because that was his that was his project that was the heavyweight now he came you know put life in cuz cuz had life he he was losing a little life but that made the light bulb bright again it did and it was great to see I felt proud of that I felt connected to that and that&#39;s why when when when it all went bad and CZ took the side that the only side he could sake the side of the next heavyweight champ of the world but he but he left me his partner the young master and the second time I get betrayed and I&#39;m like for a while I thought everything CU taught me said to me was a liar I didn&#39;t want to be any part of it anymore until I got a little more mature and I got a little past that where I was able to understand I was able to understand that just because somebody that you perceived as great in every area is you find to be weak in certain areas does it mean that they can still be what they want to you it&#39;s it&#39;s something that it&#39;s something that can be understood or forgiven it it&#39;s hard it&#39;s hard to get to that place and forgive somebody in that kind of way that I felt betrayed because CU told me the most important thing was loyalty cuz told me he loved me because I was loyal cuz cuz told people that the reason that he went to court was because I didn&#39;t give up anybody even though it meant put me in the risk of going to jail for 10 years and he and cuz felt that he admired those traits and so I assumed that he he would show the same traits and he took a deal he took a deal he took a deal he he signed the papers that those that those so-called fedin signed you know he he he took a deal to to you know to to have the future Heavyweight Championship turned out uh and and to let me you know to let me go to sign the deal to to let me take you know take the weight for people who don&#39;t know uh Mike was inappropriate with a young girl and you pulled the gun on him I don&#39;t know if there&#39;s deeper things to say about that situation no but why do you think hus made the decision to cut you off from both Mike Tyson and from C Cato like to break that when he valued loyalty so much I served my purpose I got him to the way he needed to get um for life back in the gym if I wasn&#39;t in the gym at that particular time Tyson never would have been in the gym there would have been no gym to bring them to when they called up and made that phone call to bring them to the gym there would have been no activity there would have been no boxing program there would have been you know no trainer training him 247 the way I was where C wasn&#39;t capable of doing that at that point in his life yeah but then again it&#39;s not poor Teddy I get the benefit of a career I get the benefit of knowledge I get the benefit of a life I get the benefit of learning of of becoming hopefully a better person um I got the benefit of being betrayed again um but that&#39;s a hell of a statement right there I don&#39;t know what the benefit of that is you can learn to forgive weakness you know when you realize how how easy it is to be weak and and when you realize that somebody asked me how did you get to the point where you you could forgive right it&#39;s a pretty good question pretty simple pretty basic pretty important right and I didn&#39;t I didn&#39;t understand I understood but I did understand immediately for me I said how can I not forgive somebody it becomes easier to learn how to forgive when you&#39;re still trying to forgive yourself when you&#39;re still in the process of trying to forgive yourself for all your own inherent weaknesses and betrayals of people like my father in different ways that we forget very easily because it&#39;s handy and it&#39;s a way of surviving it&#39;s a lot easier to to figure it out rationalize it to to to to find forgiveness when you realize that you still haven&#39;t figured out completely how to forgive yourself I&#39;m still trying to figure that out and um so that helped me figure out how to forgive cus because to figure out how to forgive me I had to understood why I did these things where the where the weaknesses came from where the selfishness came from where the convenience came from that they really existed but they didn&#39;t exist for malice they existed for me not being prepared to understand that I could be stronger to want to be stronger and then I looked at CU he wanted to be stronger but he got to a point in life where he had been strong for a lot of his life he was strong with me he was strong with a lot of things in his life and does everyone deserve a pass in life where he got he got to a place where everything was in one basket the basket of boxing he once told me that he never got married because it would be on it would been selfish to a woman to have gotten married when his whole life was boxing that he couldn&#39;t give to a kid he couldn&#39;t give to her he could and and then I thought about it he had no money really and Jim ja was and Bill Caden took care of the bills so he didn&#39;t really need money that way but the one what was the payoff for that kind of life that kind of commitment that kind of sacrifice really what was the payoff the payoff was to have Champions to have a champion that would keep your name alive you know that word legacy like what does it mean sometimes it&#39;s it&#39;s just a word sometimes it&#39;s it&#39;s more than a word it it&#39;s it&#39;s it&#39;s a reprieve it&#39;s a pension plan is is being giving a pension on your way out for the rest of your life for for your life wherever you&#39;re going you&#39;re going to wherever you&#39;re going for eternity um it it&#39;s it&#39;s it&#39;s the only thing that you take with you is what you left behind and for C it was all about leaving behind a mark a Mark that of Champion yeah it was attached to Ego we all have it yeah it was attached to some selfishness and all but yeah it was also attached to wanting to leave something great behind yeah to know that you were part of it that you existed for a reason that that that you sacrificed for a reason and all that freaking pain I brought my father I was searching for something yeah made it into a righteous search I made it into I did and I made it into it was okay because it was righteous and I but it still did damage it still did damage it still hurt people it still betrayed my father&#39;s trust and CZ betrayed mine but he didn&#39;t do it maliciously he he did it out of again my father came home this is how I&#39;m going to connect it my father came home from from work one night 12:00 and I was waiting up and like I said I was over 9 10 years old and he got mad at me he goes go to bed what are you doing up I said I&#39;m waiting for you waiting for you and um he said well go to bed I said no I I I what were you doing he said I was at the hospital you were there why were you there so late you know he answered me he he said there was a patient there was a sick patient I said he must be better now because you&#39;re his doctor you know because my father could fix anything my father nothing got in the way of the truth nothing nothing even blown his son&#39;s bubble matter factly he said to me uh no he&#39;s not going to get better he&#39;s going to die and um so as a 9-year-old kid you know you&#39;re a kid you&#39;re selfish you know not in a bad way but you know you want what you and I said um I said two things first I said how how you&#39;re his doctor how it can&#39;t be and then I said I I just said it almost angry then why were you there like you should have been here with me yeah and you know what he said to me cuz you don&#39;t give up on life go to bed and don&#39;t give up on life and that&#39;s I finally connected to dots this idiot that didn&#39;t graduate high school I finally connected to dots I was asking cut to give up on life you don&#39;t you don&#39;t give up on life you don&#39;t give up on aspirations of life life is all forms of life doesn&#39;t have to be a physical form of it it&#39;s life it&#39;s having a reason to be alive it&#39;s having a reason to have tomorrow and and C&#39;s only reason to have tomorrow was to have another heavyweight champ and Teddy Atlas even though we were together all those years and we were partners and we trained together and we were we would you know the only thing we didn&#39;t do was what they did in the Indian movies where where they cut the finger and they became Blood Brothers that&#39;s that&#39;s the only thing we didn&#39;t do and I felt like we did that yeah without cutting and and now here we are and he freaking betrayed me just and and um and then all of a sudden I connected to D I was like he didn&#39;t betray me in the in that cold sense he didn&#39;t give up give up on life life uh years later Mike Tyson apologized to you what what what&#39;s meaningful to you about that how does that fit the story I want to be the great gracious guy right now say oh I&#39;m so you human that that you know a man&#39;s manad enough to say sorry that&#39;s it we&#39;re good I want to be really that that&#39;s that&#39;s that&#39;s the that&#39;s the best presentation of Teddy Atlas I could put out there he&#39;s a good guy he forgives he he&#39;s a good guy he&#39;s a he&#39;s a he&#39;s a standup guy and he&#39;s a good guy I&#39;m not sure if he truly did it for himself that he really did it because he felt that it was true but but if he&#39;s persuaded by other things he was in the middle I know I&#39;m taking it too deep I know but what am I going to do he was in the middle of 12 steps with the you know getting out of drugs alcohol 12 steps which is a commemorable thing really it is and and he&#39;s taking the steps and part of the steps was to admit all to apologize to all people you offended in life okay but are you doing it for the 12 steps or you doing it because you really truly have come to terms with believing what you did was that hurtful to me and that it matters to you that it was that hurtful to me and that you were wrong in doing it did you do it for I know that&#39;s deep I know that I&#39;m a freaking idiot I&#39;m a you&#39;re you&#39;re a Teddy freaking you&#39;re you&#39;re you should be better than that he&#39;s better than you yeah maybe he is better than me maybe he is really seriously maybe he is and and I took it he put his hand took it I we hugged he said I love you I I I yeah yeah I but I want to believe but what did CZ tell me no matter what a man says is what he does in the end that he intended to do all along so to this day today was it really genuine or was it reflective of that moment for him to get what he needed to you know for that step or was it truly for what I needed to to really that he really cared that what he did to me caused me to do what I did because I did something that was pretty damn bad to him too is he able to deal with that and put that where it has to be put is he able to put that or or is it just he did something he had to do maybe he&#39;s sorry he did it I know I&#39;m look I appreciate it that he I would have rather been in a private place yeah so for people don&#39;t know you were in the middle of commentating a fight and he walked up from behind you and he said he was sorry he shook your hand gave you a hug I didn&#39;t know he said I love you yeah he&#39;s emotional I get emotional a little bit too but but he he&#39;s emotional and he can be and he can be I can see why people have a Fascination in a love affair with him right now because he was because you know he was he was the meteor the meteor that went across the sky that is if they didn&#39;t see it their parents told them about it there was a media that came across the sky one day and and and the media is walking around in the room now and that&#39;s the meteorite and then and it actually landed here and and that&#39;s it right there and and and now he&#39;s come a long way and now he&#39;s you know he&#39;s more human and and he he&#39;s lovable you know and and compassionate and he cries and and I get the fascin I get the love affair I get it because we&#39;re inherently we&#39;re people that want to forgive we&#39;re people that we want to be good we and part of being good is to forgive people and to to show compassion to people and so and when somebody&#39;s been damaged uh to acknowledge they&#39;ve been damaged to acknowledge that you know they&#39;ve been damaged and you care about them being damaged and how do you show care through admiration you know in in some ways almost through adol and he&#39;s getting adol from people like you know uh which is to an incredible level and it&#39;s because it&#39;s a phenomena but but I get it I understand it and um I don&#39;t know if he gets it I don&#39;t know if underneath all of this he&#39;s a complex guy he&#39;s a sensitive guy I don&#39;t know and I am too and one complex guy talking about another complex guy I don&#39;t know if Underneath It All where he&#39;s really truly at as far as that day that he said that to me is there part of you that&#39;s sorry to Mike for I&#39;m not sorry G on him yeah and that&#39;s listen that&#39;s fair I I know dimensions of you nature too well to not know that he still has to have certain because I have those strong feelings what it&#39;s not fair for him to have him damn right it&#39;s fair now now he could look at it if if he was to be held to his word that night that he just acknowledges that what happened he deserved because of what he you know the position he put me in and he put himself in what he did and I wouldn&#39;t changed nothing you know still you&#39;re you don&#39;t regret pulling the gun on him I regret that I had to yeah yeah I regret very much that that I had to that I regret very much I&#39;m he crossed the line I hated him for putting me in that position that that you know how dare he think that that somebody&#39;s feelings are that trivial that the way I would feel about myself and the way the girl would feel about herself that was 11 years old at the time how she would feel about herself how how dare that he think it&#39;s that trivial that you know that I shouldn&#39;t be ready to freaking to both die and kill for that yeah why didn&#39;t custom a see it in a deeper way and talk through it did the word came back to me but of course what does it mean but the word came back to me that C said you were right but if he took the side of Teddy he would destroy a potentially a great a great fighter why why do you think that okay if you were to try to understand the point he was making why why is that true is isn&#39;t the part of greatness that you said is building the character of knowing what is right what you know CU was afraid to to go there where he used to not be afraid because it&#39;s kind of like you&#39;re never afraid of going up and I I get it you know when I train to fight an hour if I come out of retirement I train to fight an hour I feel in Camp like I&#39;m I feel like I&#39;m on death row every day that that if every day I I try to retrace my memory and say did I feel this way when I was younger I I don&#39;t remember feeling this way I feel every day a dreadful feeling that if I don&#39;t get this right I I I&#39;ve betrayed everything I betrayed the fighter trust I betrayed uh what I&#39;m supposed supped to be and then one one day I tried to figure it out why do I feel this way it&#39;s so intense I was in Camp for two months training a guy for the world title a couple few years ago um fighting the hardest puncher in the world at the time and um adona Stevenson and the fighter was Ukrainian and I was you know brought in to train him for that fight and he trusted me and changed his whole style trusted meh oh my God I went to bed every night like praying um dread waking up dread my stomach down to here every saying what what if I fail him what what what if everything that I told him was going to happen don&#39;t happen what if I fail him what what if he trusted me and I I betrayed that trust and the thing was the with cus was you know he used to be stronger than that and then I I tried to figured out why I got this way and why it was so Dreadful to me and why I felt like I was on death row every day trading to fighter like did I do enough did I do right well well will we accomplish what we will we accomplish what I promised him we would accomplish would I keep my word and and then I started thinking what how did I become this weak how did I freaking become I was a pretty strong freaking guy how did I become this weak and then finally I think I figured it out you know why because I was always working to get up but once I finally got up now I was looking down and I finally hit me I said I didn&#39;t want to lose lo I said there was nothing to lose on my way up mhm now all of a sudden there&#39;s something to lose when you&#39;re up there and you&#39;re looking down and that&#39;s where he was and and that&#39;s where CZ was cuz cuz was at the end of his rle he he was he accomplished the two World Champs all this stuff right everything he and and and he did it right now all of a sudden it wasn&#39;t about moving forward it was about not falling down holy cow I was like I got it cus I got it I got it you didn&#39;t want to fall down oh my God you didn&#39;t want to fall and he this was his last chance you don&#39;t give up on life this was his last chance to live forever to to make everything he did worthwhile to have the youngest heavy it wasn&#39;t just heavyweight CH you got to remember he was the youngest heavyweight champ ever and to have that it was okay to die now and how&#39;s loyalty to someone named Teddy Atlas could have get in the way of that that&#39;s a tital wave that there ain&#39;t no wall that&#39;s been made high enough to stop that title wave and now I&#39;ll stop myself yeah there is but but it have to be awful big one and you know what who are we to say that we could ever Build That Wall that big who&#39;s any of who might is say do you think if you were to put yourself in the shoes of C cust tomato can you see yourself having the big enough wall where you would choose loyalty now if I answer the way I feel then then I&#39;m you know I&#39;m making myself John Wayne again you don&#39;t have to answer then I think loyalty loyalty is important no matter what a man says it&#39;s what he does in the end that he intends to do do all along I didn&#39;t make that up custard and and when when this all went down those words came freaking echoing into my freaking ears I didn&#39;t want them cotton doesn&#39;t help and they freaking kept coming into my ears and what do you think still an immature kid at the time you know I was young still an immature kid at the time what the freak do you think my response was you were full of yeah and but I got past that do you do you forgive C have you found forgiveness listen I forgive him because he gave me more than he took away from me mhm if I can what kind of man am I to if I can&#39;t at least acknowledge that and be grateful for that he I he he gave me more than he took from me and um I&#39;m grateful for that I&#39;m also grateful for what I gave him that I had you know that I I did give him some and um at that point in his life you know uh place a place to still to still have test tubes and um chemistry experiments you know a laboratory where you could still create great fighter and I I helped give him that I helped I helped I was part of that lab and making sure that lab was there and um just that there was the existence of test tubes um in the place because you can&#39;t freaking do experiments without test tubes now you&#39;re the scientist with the test tubes yeah I I I guess so and um I I just hope that um what I said earlier is is really is really my thread through this whole thing when you say can you forgive cuss um I I&#39;m still trying to forgive myself and if if I can have hope that I can forgive myself I think that hope has to start with the power to forgive someone else how can I ever forgive myself for all my failings and figure it out if I can&#39;t start and practice it by forgiving someone else for some shortcomings and for me that&#39;s that&#39;s that&#39;s the only sense of sometimes a very hard thing to make sense of that that that&#39;s my Nord star that&#39;s that&#39;s my compass CU used to make me laugh you know me and him did everything together we right and we get lost in the city we get lost in a bron and he get all frustrated and he said Atlas you&#39;re a great trainer but you turn you around you spin you around and you&#39;re lost and I said me or we and because I was the only one who would argue with him and and it was really funny some sometimes and I said we or me you we or he goes I don&#39;t get cuz you&#39;re lost I&#39;m lost what are you talking about out and then all of a sudden cuz couldn&#39;t give in he just couldn&#39;t admit he couldn&#39;t give in you know what he said to me all of a sudden he goes when I was in the Army if I had a compass I could get out of the woods I said we&#39;re not in the woods we&#39;re not in the Army we don&#39;t have a compass cuz cuz just don&#39;t argue with me I one time we&#39;re driving I W I want to get back to CCO we we just finished at the Bronx it&#39;s been a long day yeah you know VIs in the the murderers Inc houses and everything else that that he took me through for the 18800 time and um and he would fall asleep you know he was getting older and he and he would just fall asleep in the car so what do you think I went a little faster right because before he went to sleep he said don&#39;t speed so I don&#39;t consider myself I try to be an honest guy I try to be a freaking but yeah you know it was the five what did I say earlier try to do less submitting yeah really in all faces try to submit a little less try to lie a little less today MH a little less try to get stronger try to get a little better so here we are and we&#39;re driving and all of a sudden he&#39;s I what did I do 80 75 probably yeah probably did you know whatever and um all of a sudden wakes up you were speeding oh I lie no I wasn&#39;t don&#39;t lie I&#39;m not Li you lied again you speeding now come on this guy he&#39;s you know what I mean he&#39;s he&#39;s he&#39;s unbelievable so I gotta freaking you know he&#39;s the he he&#39;s David Copperfield I want to know the trick yeah I want to know how he freaking he made this thing disappear so I said what are you talk how do you know he goes cuz I timed you I looked at the post number and I&#39;m like what I looked at the post number on the side of the road where we were whatever miles and and I never knew they even existed yeah I look and I said yeah there&#39;s Little Numbers he started timing and fell asleep yeah he timed it he look he goes we couldn&#39;t have got from here to there in that amount of time unless you were going 75 miles out like all right I&#39;m smart man all right I&#39;m impressed you don&#39;t try to get the mileage the mile per hour part right it&#39;s enough that you got me yeah yeah that&#39;s enough I&#39;m yeah I said and I&#39;m not going to do that no more I&#39;m you know and and just he helped me in crazy ways where there would be times where I wanted to be you know where you wanted to be whatever right convenient weak submit right and then all of a sudden all of a sudden CZ in my mind CZ was there with the stopwatch and and I&#39;d be like you know uh no you know where I was about to say yes to whatever that yeah particular situation was somebody up there call hello hello yes doing great thank you just for the record never had a phone call like this it&#39;s hotel security the question is he asked me is are you okay sir are you okay are we okay I think so I I think so so far yeah you know I can only go like so far it&#39;s kind of like that old joke you know where the guy jumps off the Empire State Building yeah he&#39;s fall down and he&#39;s going you know 80th floor 70th floor 60th floor 50 he gets past the 50th floor and they&#39;re looking him out the window and he goes how am I doing so far so good I I don&#39;t know where it&#39;s going to end but um so uh Mike Tyson is considered by many to be one of the great boxers one of the greatest boxers of all time heavyweight boxers uh what do you think on the positive side made him great I don&#39;t know if he was ever great I know he was Sensational I know he was the greatest mix of maybe speed and power ever I know he was one of the greatest punches from either side of the plate left or right there&#39;s been great punches with just the right hand like Ernie Shavers and Deontay Wilder and Max bear I don&#39;t know if there&#39;s ever been anyone who could punch as good as he did on either side with either hand other than Joe Lewis and a few others I don&#39;t know if there&#39;s ever been such a comb combination of speed and power to that pure level that he had and it was a pure level I don&#39;t know if there was ever as good a fighter as Tyson was where maybe one night he was great where he wasn&#39;t tested but he might have been ready to be tested at one night against Michael spings when he took him apart 90 seconds I think I saw a great fighter that night I don&#39;t think you can be great unless you have all the requirements of being great what does it take to be a great fighter truly great to not rely on someone&#39;s else&#39;s weakness to be strong to be strong on your own too often he relied on other people&#39;s weakness whether it&#39;s the by being intimidated or whether is because his talent was so much greater than their that it was like putting a monster truck in there with a Volkswagen and the Volkswagen was going to get crushed no matter how much horsepower the Volkswagen might have had under the hood and you put under the hood it was going to get crushed the monster truck was not going to allow it to be a contest and to be able to find a way when your talent wasn&#39;t enough he didn&#39;t find a way when his talent wasn&#39;t enough and he and I&#39;m not making statements of I&#39;m not ready to put some evidence you know like if we were in a courtroom exhibit a um when he fought when he fought Buster Douglas um Buster Douglas matched his will and didn&#39;t get intimidated stood up to him he didn&#39;t do what most people did he didn&#39;t submit even a little bit not that night he had in the past but that night he didn&#39;t why because Buster had buz had a secret weapon that night his mother buz&#39;s mother had died a few months previous he loved his mother very much bust had always had Talent big heavyweight talented could punch technically solid he was all those things always was but he quit in fights he he he did less than he should have done he never lived up to his ability he gave in he submitted he wasn&#39;t strong enough he never had a reason to be strong enough when his mother died he had reason nothing could hurt him as much as his mother dying hurt him Mike Tyson included that night Mike Tyson could not hurt him as much as his mother had hurt him by dying that night he had a reason to be strong for his mother and he was strong he was everything he was supposed to be and more and he stood up to Mike and Mike for the first time maybe ever was in a fight where he had to overcome something where he had to be more than Talent talented more than a puncher more than a guy with scintillating speed and he wasn&#39;t and then that night got followed by another Knight with Holyfield Holyfield wasn&#39;t as talented as him as big as muder puncher but Holyfield had the character he was strong in ways that Tyson wasn&#39;t strong he was strong in a way where he could find a way he was willing to find a way he&#39;s willing to go to the cliff to to truly die before he submitted you know a lot of stuff is just wor yeah they&#39;re GNA have to carry me out on the shield yeah sure sure okay yeah until it comes time to be carried out on the shield sometimes there&#39;s people that actually mean it you think Mike didn&#39;t have that well all right he let&#39;s just say arbitrarily I don&#39;t have his record for me let&#39;s say he was 55 and five I know he had about five losses all right let&#39;s say he was 55 and five right a lot of Knockouts I have a saying a fight&#39;s not a fight until there&#39;s something to overcome until then it&#39;s just an athletic uh exhibition contest yeah who&#39;s a better athlete who&#39;s got more quick twitch fers who&#39;s who who&#39;s more developed who&#39;s in better this who&#39;s who&#39;s more developed than those physical areas but a fight is not a fight until there&#39;s something to overcome okay so if you go by my definition not Websters my definition but I think means something Mike Tyson was only in five fights in his life the five fights where there was something to overcome and he didn&#39;t overcome it now I know people hate me for this including Tyson I I understand hate me oh you&#39;re a hater cuz you weren&#39;t with him you didn&#39;t make the money because this because that because you got betrayed I think I&#39;m better than that I hope I&#39;m better than that I believe I&#39;m better than that I&#39;m not a hater I I&#39;ve broadcast fights for 25 years on ESPN where there was some people in the corner I did not like and if they did a good job this guy&#39;s doing a great job and then there were guys that I liked and I had friendship he he he messed up and we weren&#39;t friends no more friendship got to be tested remember that so we weren&#39;t friends no more but why did I do that because it was my job it was more important for me when when it&#39;s all over with the only thing you&#39;re left with is I mean we&#39;re going to be dust all of us right the only thing we&#39;re left with is what carries on our reputation you know Legacy whatever that is but our reputation that&#39;s all we&#39;re left with and that&#39;s all our kids are left with I wanted to be as good as it can be I&#39;ve always had a ability I&#39;ve done a lot of things wrong and I&#39;ve had a lot of lackings but the one strength I&#39;ve had if I had a strength is to understand somehow to I guess to learn the lesson that was important is not what&#39;s in front of you for those 5 seconds for that moment in life it&#39;s what&#39;s left behind you when those 5 seconds are gone when that what whatever it is that you&#39;re dealing with you know whatever the that moment is whatever that moment what you doing that moment the action of that moment is going to stay with you and be you it&#39;s going to become you what what you face for that moment it&#39;s gone it&#39;s it&#39;s gone in the air and an instant it&#39;s gone it&#39;s done whether you take whether you stand up there and you get shot in the head and the guy freaking blows your brains out or you freaking you you stand up or you&#39;re fighting a guy who&#39;s like an un a scary guy to fight but you fight him and you beat him or he beats you up but how you represented yourself in that moment is all that matters that&#39;s going to live what happened don&#39;t matter it don&#39;t matter that you guys shot in the head I know that sounds absurd but if you believe that it was important to stand up and had take the chance to get shot in the freaking head rather than to live like an empty vessel you know what that&#39;s all that freaking matters and somehow that got freaking wrapped into this freaking head of mine like that&#39;s what matters that&#39;s all that matters you know how many times I went and I I things whether it was with this one with Tyson with that I didn&#39;t want to be there I was scared to death but I was more scared I was more scared living with regret how I would have felt yeah I don&#39;t want to be in solitary confinement in rest of my life with that freaking guy in the cell next to me called regret I don&#39;t freaking want to be next to that guy if I want to freaking go down that road I&#39;ll watch papon you know what I mean and I&#39;ll get my feel from that but I don&#39;t want want to freaking live it I&#39;m afraid of what my children would think of me if if I fail in those areas why because that&#39;s forever when I&#39;m closing my eyes for the last time I I don&#39;t want to have that fear I don&#39;t want to have that fear you know whether I&#39;m going down there or I&#39;m going up there you know I I I laugh because uh I I I was I was around guys years ago that used to when we talk about that you know in just you know and um I we get a kick out of this this one guy who been around the block a few times um when he say hey Teddy I ain&#39;t worried about that I got friends in both places that&#39;s a good line and I yeah and I thought it was a I thought it was good uh listen Mike Tyson you want me to say was a great fighter then you want me to betray what I really you know what I mean you want me to do that I ain&#39;t doing it for listen I could do it to be a bigger Teddy Atlas and I know it would work for me I I know it would be do great promotional work for me I know it would it would make me more popular in certain area I know it I&#39;m not that dumb not that dumb but I also know what else it would do to me and I don&#39;t want him to do that to me I think he was a great talent I think maybe the night with Michael Spinx maybe the M Night with M maybe he could have been that fighter maybe he could but he didn&#39;t never really get tested but he might have been ready no matter what I have to be tested that night that&#39;s how good he was that&#39;s how for even though it was a guy who used to be a light heavyweight I get it but it was still a guy who beat Larry Holmes who still had something left uh Michael spins so and a great puncher um and an Olympic gold medalist but and a special fighter one of the great light heavyweights of all time you know what Mike Tyson was he was a meteor he was a meteor that struck across and not too many meteors and we still talk about himh and and and unlike H&#39;s comment he came back and and he&#39;s walking around and he&#39;s he has become greater after his career more loved more beloved more AED and he&#39;s been forgiven he found the Fountain of forgiveness I don&#39;t know I wish I could find that where he has been forgotten for all his shortcomings all the things that he may have done may not have done we don&#39;t know only him and God know but he&#39;s been forgiven of all that and he&#39;s been not only forgiven he&#39;s rised above it and and above that and been brought above that he&#39;s been brought to the pyramids of of of the greatest athletes that in the world and in every in every way in every way as a person as a fighter as a historian yeah as a figure as a celebrity I mean even a philosopher everything yeah so I will take it back all right all you guys out there you forgive me he&#39;s the greatest of all time if you encapsulate all that if you encapsulate everything I just tried to describe um and explain if you put that all he&#39;s the greatest of all time yeah he is but he still might be 0 and5 in a record of 55 fights he might in Teddy Alice&#39;s book again I got friends with both places so it&#39;s okay wherever I go I I have company somebody there will like me despite me saying this he might be on fight because of five fights where there was something to overcome which really finds a fight he came he he didn&#39;t find the way let me ask Teddy Atlas to introspect on the human nature here it&#39;s part of the complexities of your feelings on this whole thing is that you know to some degree that if you were coaching Mike Tyson he could be truly great throughout I know Co I&#39;m going to cut you right off because you asked a million dollar question I wish you didn&#39;t but you did you did because that&#39;s why when do I get paid that&#39;s why you get paid I get it you took the words out of my mouth that&#39;s why you are where you are and that&#39;s why I&#39;m here the humility I&#39;m gonna I&#39;m gonna Again full disclosure it&#39;s important right um I&#39;m going to cheat I&#39;m going to take some of ca&#39;s wisdom all right a little bit of mine yeah um CZ told somebody that that if Teddy Atlas got his way he might have been a better person but we would have risked him not being a great fighter now I believe and I thought cus did and I think he did up to that point in his life that part of your strength of character made you a great Fighter um and truly a great fighter and part of that battle to be a better person that that fight if you will to be a better person to overcome the themes to be a better person um part of that fire you have to go through to be a better person I really truly bought into it and I and I&#39;m in for life that is really the only way to be a great fighter and I don&#39;t think that&#39;s what cus meant I thought he meant I think he meant that CZ knew more than I did of what was about to come and what would come and what the world was how people would try to steal him how people would take him how people would steal his guy the last thing he had to really the thing that he lived for because he lived to have another heavyweight champ the greatest fighter ever C and C&#39;s mine he could be and I believe that CZ knew that he he could put forward a guy that had the ability to be the greatest fighter ever without fully completing the mission of what it takes to really be great but that he wouldn&#39;t he wouldn&#39;t be around to have to witness it and that he wouldn&#39;t he was will he would oh man this is awful he&#39;s willing to concede that he might be dead in order to have eternal life in order to have greatness uh and which CU does have greatness and part of that greatness is attached to Tyson and he deserves it he deserves it because was a great man and I wouldn&#39;t be here partly without him but that was part of the calculation I know that&#39;s deep and I know that&#39;s oh God I hate myself right now but um but cuz he knew he was getting out free he knew he was going to not have to be there he was he was getting off easy oh Teddy how do you say someone&#39;s gonna be dead they getting off easy well I say it again in case you didn&#39;t hear me all right he he he was going to get off easy and not have to face where he came up short because he did his job because he put forward the greatest fight of all time and you guys screwed it up and he knew that that might happen but you guys screwed it up and and whatever that&#39;s your fault that&#39;s on I tell you Tyson will be mad at this but that&#39;s on Tyson how could you say that Teddy he loved me I&#39;m not saying he didn&#39;t love you but he loved him he loved some other stuff too and I don&#39;t know if Tyson could ever come to Griff&#39;s light with that and and it&#39;s not his job to but it&#39;s my job not to hide from it I know cousin Dimensions that people just only think they know did cus know did cus know this about himself they did he reflect did he introspect well he sent a message to me c sent a guide to me my wife was pregnant we were living in apartment apartment in catso on cill road we went through all this I you know and I was getting ready to move to stat on and we still were there for a little while before we did you know after all this went down he sent a guy to me to the house secret whatever you want to call it my wife me so I listen to him cuz said if you leave I&#39;m I&#39;m a messenger you know whatever if you leave this was in a aftermath of what the gun the whole thing you got to remember Tyson was Award of the state he was in C&#39;s custody cuz was looking to adopt him for obvious reason so he had control and and he loved him how dare I say anything less I won&#39;t but it made sense too but he was Award of the state still do you know what that means there&#39;s rules means the state&#39;s still overlooking it if he ain&#39;t living the right life you know you gota remember he came out of you know he came out of of a jail so reform school but if he ain&#39;t living like he could be taken away from cuz what&#39;s not living the right life well he he wasn&#39;t in school no more they didn&#39;t know about it um he he had some things that were going on we won&#39;t get into that right now in school and different things whatever and he had his trainer put a gun to his head that isin&#39;t so good if the report came back to them that that happened he would have been taken away from cus that couldn&#39;t happen nobody knows this mhm I talk about a little bit but never probably because why would I I don&#39;t know why am I doing it now I don&#39;t know because I don&#39;t know because I am because it&#39;s now because it&#39;s now maybe maybe because is now I don&#39;t know so he sent this man that you know obviously we both knew and he said here&#39;s the deal Teddy if no talk about this wants it to you know disappear basically you leave and he will give you 5% his word can you imagine he would he will give you 5% of Tyson&#39;s earnings for the rest of his career and um but I don&#39;t regret it one bit because it wouldn&#39;t happened anyway see that&#39;s where I I could be honest with my people say oh stand up guy because I told him to shove it with the you know you know to in that place and and um and tell cut to shove it in that freaking play you know I was mad um Teddy Teddy don&#39;t get angry don&#39;t get angry are you out of you serious get out of here tell them to go shove it over and you know my wife was like huh but and then people like after why didn&#39;t you take the deal it wasn&#39;t a deal it was an escape clause for cuss it was it was a it was an insurance policy that his you know that this kid wouldn&#39;t be taken away from him and thank God he wasn&#39;t I wasn&#39;t going to go and say nothing they didn&#39;t have to worry about cuz forgot who I was cuz forgot why he went to court for me because of those because of those characteristics that he said he loved and he noticed and that that he admired I didn&#39;t lose those Char he forgot that that was me he forgot who he was talking to he didn&#39;t have to do that how about that&#39;s why I told him to shove it up his not because of the other insult yeah and then and then when people said to me oh you would stand up because it was around a little bit it was around in the circles and then were people oh stand up Teddy he he didn&#39;t care about the money I said stand up Teddy what are you talking about how how about how about just realistic Teddy how about I live in a real world that I was never going to get that money so I&#39;m saying I&#39;m standing up to something that I knew never existed so I ain&#39;t stand up not in that way I am in other ways maybe but not don&#39;t don&#39;t put a metal on my chest for that because because that never existed yeah it was never meant to exist but he didn&#39;t even understand that was the one thing that that really disappoint me in cuss I was like cus you really allowed this to get to you where where you where you&#39;ve allowed it to really fog up your thinking to the point where you&#39;re smarter than that you&#39;re better than that that you would actually think you gotta freaking offer me a freaking pieces of silver yeah you really think that that&#39;s what you freak you like all that you told me that you love me and that we you I was the young master and that all this and and you think you were going to buy me and I was going to and that was going to keep me quiet how about I would keep quiet because I would always keep quiet so he thought maybe you might betray him isn&#39;t that interesting yeah and why did he think that no no really fear yeah but yeah fear is at the essence of everything is connected with everything fear of losing what he was going to lose but it was more than fear it was him not believing in the things that he told me he believed in he didn&#39;t even know that he believed in me because I was a standup guy because I because I didn&#39;t sell myself because because I you know I didn&#39;t freaking turn evidence I I didn&#39;t make a deal I didn&#39;t do and and that&#39;s why I went to court that&#39;s why he stood up for me and I appreciate it and that was what he lived by and that was his you know those were the blocks of being a man oh so much for those blocks well it&#39;s like you said loyalty requires uh you know he would have had to take a risk on losing immortality that he would achieve by creating that&#39;s the only heavy 100% but the only way you ever find out if somebody is that hard it&#39;s hard it&#39;s the test yeah and it was cuss this is Shakespearean you know this story CU told me cuz said and it does come in different forms yeah I said all right CZ this was his test and and some people pass this test because they&#39;re able to pass that test because it&#39;s not really a test not for them because it doesn&#39;t speak to their weakness but it&#39;s the test that speaks to the weakness that&#39;s the one so this one I get it I get what it spoke to cuz and you know what at the end of the day I forgive you and I feel bad for you I feel bad that you were put in that position after you lived your life that way and that you that you taught that and you preach that from the mountaintops that that you had to be that you had to be I&#39;m not going to use the word but that that you had to fail yourself and that you had to somehow know that before you died I just pray that you didn&#39;t know that and you still don&#39;t know that because you were great you are great and um and you&#39;ve given me some you know you&#39;re giving me something to to Aspire towards to try to try to be less weak try to be better and try to be as good as you want it to be I wish I can someday more importantly I I wish I could make my father you know feel um just feel good up there your grandfather now yeah for grandchildren what uh if you can give them advice on how to uh live a life they can be proud of just um do everything you can to the best of your ability every day to like yourself to give yourself a reason to actually say I&#39;d like to be friends with that guy is loyalty one of the reasons one of the things to Aspire to loyalty is your chance to have a fulfilled life loyalty is your chance to to have strength to have all the things you need to have a good life to be a good parent be a good husband be a good grandfather hopefully be a good role model loyalty is loyalty is if you could find something to drink to take into your body to make you prepared for life to to be all the things that you want to be to be strong enough to be those things loyalty would be the thing you would drink and and when I say loyal I mean unequivocally I mean you know unconditionally not conveniently obviously you know that if you could be loyal you could be a good person you could be a person that you would actually like to be around because you could be a person you could rely on and I think that&#39;s one of the greatest assets that a human being can have and what do you do when you&#39;re betrayed how do you overcome that you think of what you learn from it use it as a road map to remember and to think back of how you got there and how you got to the place where you got betrayed and how that person got to that place try to remember that in your own Journey has it for you made you cynical like how do you try how do you take the leap of trust towards people again and again after that just by remembering that I&#39;m still trying to forgive myself for the things that I came up short with and if I haven&#39;t figured that out yet it&#39;s probably okay to um to say they didn&#39;t figure it out yet they didn&#39;t get it at they didn&#39;t figure it out and if I couldn&#39;t figure it out and I&#39;m still trying to figure it out maybe I could get over that initial step stabbing of uh what it feels like it does feel kind of like a stabbing that you that you feel when you betrayed initially and that you can only think of of anger Revenge hatred um and those things I&#39;m not I&#39;m not proud of that but I&#39;m but I felt all those things you know and I still fil them sometimes and then I go back and say hey you&#39;re still working at forgiving yourself for some things try to remember that kid you know mem is an important thing forgetfulness is it&#39;s pretty important too and um try to remember why we forget why do we forget because it wasn&#39;t something you felt proud of you think about your death are you afraid of it you know it&#39;s funny you asked that I never used to to think about it I know people in both places you know I know got it cover you&#39;re going to be all right don&#39;t don&#39;t forget that I know people in both places yeah um both neighborhoods I I I um I&#39;ve been I&#39;ve been given credit for being brave in certain spots in life I hope I can be brave when it comes time to leave life I hope I can be you know and and that&#39;s you know that&#39;s just as real and honest as you can be about it I hope I can be you know so far so good you know when when I&#39;ve had to be certain things that was scared to freaking death um I I found a way to beat them for the most part and um so I figured when that day comes I&#39;ll figure that out too it&#39;s going to be another test maybe the last one Teddy it&#39;s a huge honor to talk to you no it&#39;s my pleasure thank you for being the human you are for being honest honest about the full range of human nature and thank you for talking today thank you thank you for having me and um thanks for listening thanks for listening to this conversation with Teddy Atlas to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali I hated every minute of training but I said don&#39;t quit suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion thank you for listening and hope to see you next time

that&amp;#39;s all that matters that he got there that he got to the place to act like a fighter to to do what we want him to do to be ready to persevere to go beyond the Comfort level to do another round he didn&amp;#39;t want to damn righty didn&amp;#39;t want to but he knew we want him to and he knew in order to pass the test he had to do it he goes now it&amp;#39;s going to be your job to get him in the gym make him mentally stronger make him face things and teach them how to slip punches and create holes and fill those freaking holes with devastating punches this cuss with punches with bad intentions the following is a conversation with Teddy Atlas a legendary and a times controversial boxing trainer and commentator when I was going to this conversation with Teddy I was ready to talk boxing styles matches techniques tactics and his analysis of individual Fighters like Mike Tyson Michel Moore klitschkos usk petkin lenko Triple G Canelo Muhammad Ali shag Leonard Haggler Duran Floyd and on and on and on like I said I came ready to talk boxing but I stayed for something even bigger The Shakespearean human story of Teddy Atlas cust tomato and Mike Tyson it&amp;#39;s a story about loyalty betrayal fear and greatness it&amp;#39;s a story where no nobody is perfect and everybody is human to summarize in the early 80s young trainer Teddy Atlas worked with his mentor custado in training the young boxing prodige now a boxing Legend Mike Tyson Mike was a troubled youth arrested over 40 times and at the age 15 he was sexually inappropriate with Teddy&amp;#39;s 11-year-old niece in response to this Teddy put a 38 caliber handgun to Tyson ear and told him to never touch his family again or he would kill him if he did for this custado kicked Teddy out why well that&amp;#39;s complicated in part I think to help minimize the chance of Mike Tyson who cuss legally adopted uh would be taken away by the state and with him the dream of developing one of the greatest boxers of all time of course that summary doesn&amp;#39;t capture the full complexity of human nature and human drama involved here for that you have to listen to this conversation the things said and the things left unsaid the pain in Teddy&amp;#39;s voice the contradictions of love and anchor that permeate his stories and his philosophy on life like I said I came to talk about boxing and stayed to talk about life this conversation will stay with me for a long time the people close to you the people you trust the people you love are everything and if they betray you and break your heart forgive them forgive yourself and try again happy holidays everyone I love you all this is Alex freedan podcast to support it please check out our sponsors in the description and now dear friends here&amp;#39;s Teddy Atlas you wrote In the book that your father had a big influence on your life what lessons have you learned about life from your father when you ask that question you know I remember C Mod when I was with him up in cat for all those years he used to say to me Teddy you you learned through osmosis I believe there&amp;#39;s true to that if I know what osmosis is and and I but it sounds good yeah yeah but I learned through osmosis with my father he he wasn&amp;#39;t a big talker he was you you know he was a doer and I when you&amp;#39;re around someone who lives a certain kind of life and does certain things uh it penetrates he was a doctor he was I I&amp;#39;m going to sound like an idiot right now because I&amp;#39;m being a son uh but he was the greatest diagonistic doctor yeah I mean if I say I ever knew what&amp;#39;s that mean yeah you know what I mean are you a doctor you know you know what I mean like what does that mean but other people have told me this yeah like just legendary stories he would do house calls and he help people and like you said a lot of people have spoken about the impact he&amp;#39;s had in their life he built two hospitals and he he built a hospital before the verado bridge in New York uh connecting Brooklyn to stown and he he built it so people could get proper hospital care they couldn&amp;#39;t afford it period and um everybody looked at him as uh eccentric yeah nice yeah because because he he would literally sneak patience not sneak him in he was Dr Atlas he could do what he wanted to a certain extent but he would bring patients in without administering putting through Administration so there was no charge because you know they they didn&amp;#39;t have anything they were Street people they were I I remember being my only way to be with my father was to go on house calls yeah or to go to the office there&amp;#39;s no you know and so I went on house calls with and he did house call by the way till he was 80 and and $3 I mean it was better than like McDonald&amp;#39;s you know what I mean I mean the deal you $ and you got medicine you got everything and but he used to right around the holidays there was just certain things that I didn&amp;#39;t understand but I understood later where we would just drive certain areas and he just over open his door he would pick up these home and you know I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m 10 years old yeah you know move over move over you know mhm and it&amp;#39;s just you him and a homeless guy a couple yeah a couple yeah whatever he can fit in three four you know whatever it was that&amp;#39;s a big heart and then he took him to the hospital dropped him so you know I would ask questions after it was all over with I&amp;#39;d say that they&amp;#39;re sick he goes well not not in a way whether you put them in the hospital MH so he said yeah and he tried to explain things to me you know he would try he didn&amp;#39;t talk much unless you asked him something yeah that kind of works and you know don&amp;#39;t talk someone ask something and he he he explained to me that he said um I said well why you put him in the hospital then I you know and of course the sickness was through alcohols but um why why you put him he&amp;#39;s it wasn&amp;#39;t an alcohol rehab you know so why you put him and it wasn&amp;#39;t for the purpose to dry out he wasn&amp;#39;t trying to cure them yeah let&amp;#39;s put that for before we we anointed him for saood you know Like by Teddy at so I was like we we finally get to the point why you put him in there yeah well because it&amp;#39;s the holidays all right why you put them in there well the holidays you know are good for certain people at badf fathers and um and it was always before the holidays it was before Christmas before whatever and and um New Years whatever and so I said why and he said because they remind people certain people of what they don&amp;#39;t have that you other people uh enjoy the holidays because of what they have family you know whatever and it reminds them their mind is that that&amp;#39;s pretty profound yeah and and then I I don&amp;#39;t know remember because he didn&amp;#39;t use the word suicide but I I got it like he he basically I forget how he said it but like I just got it I don&amp;#39;t know how I got as most I don&amp;#39;t know but I just got it like so they don&amp;#39;t hurt themselves that that&amp;#39;s what came across way I don&amp;#39;t think he ever articulated that ever verbalized that but yeah they don&amp;#39;t hurt themselves so and well how how does that work well just basically they&amp;#39;re going to be around people they&amp;#39;re not going to be alone they&amp;#39;re going to be around people they&amp;#39;re going to get fed they&amp;#39;re going to be warm right and it&amp;#39;s going to be for three days two three days whatever and it&amp;#39;s basically it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s a bridge so and the the funny thing as a 10-year-old I wanted to I want to be connected to him so I I I enlisted myself in a job when when when he used to drop them off he he would take them get them in right and um and then the thing that I know again he didn&amp;#39;t say nothing but I you notice things and if you care enough you don&amp;#39;t you don&amp;#39;t notice nothing if you don&amp;#39;t care but if you care if it&amp;#39;s important you notice and this guy was important to me I just was I didn&amp;#39;t know what a hero was no clue I love Mickey Mano I love Willie Mays I love I I love Muhammad Ali I I I never ever connected in my mind as Heroes never my father I I didn&amp;#39;t connect it that way but he looking back now looking back he was he was my first connection to a hero the two of you ever talk about how much you love each other one thing that was uh not allowed the the greatest memory I have my father shown me love was we were down in Florida at an airport and and um we were I was born in Miami don&amp;#39;t ask me I was passing through and the rest of my family is born in New York St now and so I was supposed to go back with him right and I wanted to stay with my mother for whatever reason and so he you know he of course conceited to it and he&amp;#39;s he&amp;#39;s okay you know whatever and very quiet very and there&amp;#39;s a man who never showed emotion to anyone I mean for the most you know really all of a sudden he just turned and kissed me on the forehead and left and I was I was like that&amp;#39;s different yeah you still remember that yeah like that&amp;#39;s weird you lost them 30 years ago how how did that change you it made me realize that some of the deals I used to make for god um more than realistic when I was a kid I used to make deals with God let me die before my father and then you know you get older you have kids you&amp;#39;re blessed why did you make that deal you know what I mean like thank you for not taking me up on it yeah thanks yeah you know oh yeah you miss him I missed him in moments when I&amp;#39;d like to know what to do and um you know I I remember when I would driving for the one of house calls he didn&amp;#39;t listen to music he was a guy he read books to his when he got older he read books to uh blood vess was broken his eyes he only read non-fiction books science he loves science um Wars um generals I mean I cheated on a couple uh book reports because of him because I didn&amp;#39;t do the reading of the book the night before I had a freaking uh book report to put in that I got a book report to do on St the war of Stalingrad yeah really the war of Stalingrad and who the freak could tell you where you get an A I got an A yeah he I just wrote what he told me told me generals he told me times he told me strategy he told me about the winter that came and destroyed the Germans and and and the Soviets were tougher than and the told Soviets were tougher than the Germans and you know the Germans picked on the wrong opponent yeah I was already in the boxing business yeah I didn&amp;#39;t know it yeah I didn&amp;#39;t even know it yeah matchmaking very important yeah they they they mismatched they did they made a mistake with the picking the opponent and so when we would be driving in the car my father would be in a trance and Dad he wasn&amp;#39;t ignoring me at all he was just with his thoughts M he was he was wherever he wasn&amp;#39;t even here in the radio no more I always wonder where he was I did so I asked him one day and just so we&amp;#39;re driving I said I want to know so I said dad what do you think when you&amp;#39;re basically in this place that I know you&amp;#39;re somewhere yeah what what do you what do you where are you what are you seeing I actually said what do you see and he said to me I see what could be I see what could be and I&amp;#39;m like oh all right I got to ask you when did you discover boxing what when did you first fall in love with boxing when it saved me how did it save you I I was I was a stupid violent kid that was angry not exactly know why he was angry uh I&amp;#39;d fit in real good in today&amp;#39;s society because there&amp;#39;s a lot of angry kids out there that I don&amp;#39;t think they know why they&amp;#39;re angry I was I was just out there getting fights and um I got this stupid thing from that can you tell the story of how you got that I was just running around doing stupid things bad things I heard people some people physically but I heard I heard my my my family you know that&amp;#39;s BS you only hurt yourself you know that that&amp;#39;s a good way of you know Alibi in it um you know to but it if at some point the truth usually Finds Its way I&amp;#39;d like it to look like it was just hurt myself but it wasn&amp;#39;t obviously so I was just out on the streets with kids that didn&amp;#39;t grow up in the neighborhood I grew up I grew up in a neighborhood where father was a doctor and um I walked down the street the funny thing was down down the hill was a very tough neighborhood called Stapleton and most of the people down there on the corners wish they could get up there and I I wished I could get down the hill so I went down the hill and I hung out with all these friends that became lifelong friends and uh I um I gravitated to that because I I figured out later a little bit but you know I wanted family we were disjointed family we were you know my father was a doctor he didn&amp;#39;t have time for nothing but being a doctor you know uh I think when you gred something you sacrific something too you know when you&amp;#39;re really great at something so great that maybe God Made You great and and you&amp;#39;re too great for your own good and and I don&amp;#39;t know it took me to these stupid dangerous places dangerous for me but dangerous for other people too because I got to the point where I was doing robberies on the street I was I was fighting everybody and and you know what the most dangerous part about it was and I came to this realization on my own all by myself I I figured out um I was really as D you know these kids from the project some of them they got nothing you first of all I learned you don&amp;#39;t have to be poor to be poor you don&amp;#39;t have to be deprived of certain things to be deprived and or because you at least to think you&amp;#39;re deprived and I was pouring way that I didn&amp;#39;t have the only thing I wanted to have him so here I here I am where I&amp;#39;m out there doing these things and what made me more I was more dangerous than some of these Psychopaths well I was a psychopath too I guess the way I was behaving but some of these Psychopaths that really had nothing um you know really would you know they obviously would kill you I I was dangerous in the almost in the same way but for a different reason I know it&amp;#39;s ridiculous what I&amp;#39;m about to tell you but I figured it out cuz I felt it I thought I was on a righteous path I thought I had a right because it was going to get me my father back why why I mean you know you&amp;#39;re a scientist you couldn&amp;#39;t figure this one out because all the people that had them were injured people fractured people screwed up people in some ways but but hurt damaged people so if I get damaged I&amp;#39;ll get him so I was on a crusade really a righteous Crusade where I thought it was okay I had permission I had permission to do these terrible things quite frankly and to fight everyone and do I I did and then it it came almost to a crash doing all that you know winding up in Reicher Island like an idiot not understanding the damage I did to this poor man that you know he um he was a great doctor and he&amp;#39;s got to see his son and hear about you know what I mean like God I I was out on that day you know with with the guys that I grew up with now you know the guys from the projects from the as I described and I was with one of them who he he&amp;#39;s dead now so I was I was with him and we were we we were in a neighborhood the neighborhood we grew up that that I hung out and and they and he grew up in Billy he came from the from the project and we got into a thing where we cut somebody cut us off we cut them off you know jumped out to fight and um you know it turned out there&amp;#39;s like five or six of them and two of us and um you know we fought you know right on the side right there only about a block from where I used to hang out and um maybe a block and a half and right in front of like a Spanish Bodega and uh it really does happen in slow motion I actually saw the guy I was fighting the guys that that I had to fight and then all of a sudden I was able to get one guy out of the way a little bit and um I really I noticed the guy go into his pocket and um I knew why he was going in his pocket you know and when he came out of his pocket I knew what it was right away it was weird because in the neighborhood guys used to hang out they were they were into this you know they get into feds like right on the streets and they went to at that time they went to this cheap knife but it was they thought it was we thought it was cool uh it was a007 and and um and the cool thing whatever was that you could flick it you could learn and I learned how to flick you know but I never carried a knife but but when my friends would have it I would just you learn how you could flick it open not a switch plate but flick it with your wrist and I was like here I am in the middle of this freaking fight and all of a sudden oh it&amp;#39;s A7 you know and and and so I&amp;#39;m like I you got to make a decision you know and I got to splits I can either not do nothing which wasn&amp;#39;t didn&amp;#39;t seem like a great you know a great option um I couldn&amp;#39;t run away what not because you got to live with yourself afterwards and and and that&amp;#39;s more difficult to live with than whatever it is at that second because that don&amp;#39;t go away you couldn&amp;#39;t live with yourself running away it just don&amp;#39;t go away that thing not nothing to do with being brave yeah nothing to do with being brave really it it&amp;#39;s got to do with just common sense in life that for for me whatever you&amp;#39;re dealing with it&amp;#39;s over it&amp;#39;s done like like okay deal with it good or bad whatever but you you do that you know that other thing you you you&amp;#39;re gone um you you that never that never ends this thing ends memory of you being let&amp;#39;s say a coward in that moment that never ends the only thing I had at that point in my life in my St mind was a reputation yeah that I would do stand up to certain things that that was like and that for me was was worth something whatever because I didn&amp;#39;t feel any Worth to anything else that was the only thing I felt a connection of wor to so so stood your ground I say no I made a decision yes I stood my ground but I I actually things do slow down they do and I actually said it&amp;#39;s A7 he&amp;#39;s got got to flick it you know I didn&amp;#39;t say but he&amp;#39;s got to flick it I got a split second either like I said either I do nothing whatever or I get to him before he gets it flicked I went to get to it before he got flicked and and I and I just as I got close to him I I did him a favor I I I walked right into a counter punch because I I I cooperated with him I went right to him and and just as I he he he he practiced more than I did with the7 apparently because he was like boom boom and and anyway what did you think what did you think that happened that was all slow motion did you think he might die yeah well not immediately took me a minute I&amp;#39;m a slow learner I put my hand up right wouldn&amp;#39;t you I guess so mhm and it went into my face yeah and that was it it was gooey it was warm and gooey and I was like I don&amp;#39;t know I I don&amp;#39;t know what this means but I don&amp;#39;t want to know but I think I know and and and um did you think about your dad in that moment no you know what I thought about him was um you don&amp;#39;t know who anyone isn&amp;#39;t to DET test it and um I learned that cuz used to tell me but I learned it uh he say you I remember one time C I was a 17 18 year old kid up there and you know thought I was whatever I thought I was and he said you got a lot of friends and um I said yeah because you know I was on the street hanging out with 100 kids at night sometimes on the street corner so I was like I don&amp;#39;t know too many people that hung out with 100 Kids on the street on a corner on a Friday Saturday night and um I was like yeah I got a lot of friends he go really really he said um how about if I told you you might not have any most likely you don&amp;#39;t have any and he goes and then he just started this thing he said everyone&amp;#39;s got to be tested you me everyone cuz you don&amp;#39;t know about nobody to they tested he goes you know nothing he goes you know nothing until you know until something happens to test if they were really a friend and then he told me this story about a guy a guy came to him and he was upset what are you upset about he goes I&amp;#39;m upset because I I I just uh I just lost a friend uh you know after 20 years of friendship we&amp;#39;re not friends no more so Co looks at him he goes let me ask you a question what what made you think you have a friends with him now the guy gets insulted and goes did you hear me he goes I I just told you 20 years I&amp;#39;ve been friends with this guy why would you say that to me he said well I say it again what makes you think he was your friend he goes whatever happened in the 20 years other than chasing girls because figured that one out fast chasing girls and drinking together um and whatever else you&amp;#39;re doing out on the street whatever gave you the inclination that he was a friend yeah he goes whatever when did he risk himself to be your friend yeah when was it dangerous to be your friend when was the Friendship tested when was it uncomfortable to be your friend and you know what the guy said you can figure it out you&amp;#39;re a scientist he said he said today yeah and and and today came for me and today today today today kept coming for me today and and that day my friend Billy it turned out well I was fighting these whatever five six guys and where was Billy he was on a roof he was on a roof he was on a roof he was my best friend and and um so anyway they take me to the hospital and here&amp;#39;s the thing with my father but one thing Billy did do for me when he got off the roof thank God he did he he dragged me dragged me into this Bodega laid me on the floor and started putting towels right and the towels I vaguely remember this they filled up with blood yeah I mean completely like drenched like like you put them under a shower and and um I Heard the B owner screaming screaming you know like you know whatever and everyone&amp;#39;s screaming and there chaos and I&amp;#39;m like I don&amp;#39;t know I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m calm weird I&amp;#39;m like real calm and um I&amp;#39;m just in this place&amp;#39;s calm and all of a sudden I hear Billy he&amp;#39;s screaming call the call the ambulance call the you know and nobody&amp;#39;s doing nothing everyone&amp;#39;s Frozen I&amp;#39;m starting to understand already people get Frozen in situations people the fear fear fear fear fear just paralyzes people and um and I was going into a fear business I was learning I was learn I was getting a a learning early PhD and and yeah and all of a sudden genius Billy genius really Street kid yeah he jumps up on a freaking counter jumps over the counter grabs the phone calls 911 says the cop&amp;#39;s been shot and forget about it yeah it was crazy all I remember after that I&amp;#39;ll tell you the couple things I remember lights being put onto a stretcher bounced around you know rushed I felt everyone&amp;#39;s anxiety except mine I had none but I felt everyone&amp;#39;s anxiety everyone&amp;#39;s fear like was all around me it was like wow this is interesting this kind of I know that&amp;#39;s stupid but like w this is interesting wow you really have an eye for fear that&amp;#39;s fascinating you&amp;#39;re really studying it well they I had no choice I I got introduced in the crash course and they they put me in ambulance and this this is what I remember to your point I&amp;#39;m sorry I took so long to get to it I am although I&amp;#39;ll probably do it again before this conversation&amp;#39;s over but all about the journey yeah we&amp;#39;ll get there we&amp;#39;ll get there pops um so I I hear the cops say I we might lose him and I&amp;#39;m like laughing to myself I&amp;#39;m not laughing because I&amp;#39;m not again I&amp;#39;m not John Wayne John Wayne would have left but I&amp;#39;m like lose you guys are stupid you know I didn&amp;#39;t say that but I&amp;#39;m like lose me I my father&amp;#39;s the greatest doctor in the freaking world yeah there&amp;#39;s nothing to worry about you people all you people are all uptight and whacked out here with with fear and and there&amp;#39;s nothing to worry about Dr alas is my father so anyway so they&amp;#39;re they&amp;#39;re they&amp;#39;re taking me to the and they said we don&amp;#39;t have time I hear a couple things I remember don&amp;#39;t have time take them to and they take me to the US public health hospital Marine hospital was called at the time but US public health and it&amp;#39;s in Stapleton so it&amp;#39;s close thank God so they&amp;#39;re taking me and I hear them on the radio you know saying this stuff about we go to we got to move we got to move and um I start talking and that tell me don&amp;#39;t talk but I like to talk a lot you know and I&amp;#39;m so again fear there&amp;#39;s no fear when the fear&amp;#39;s been removed it&amp;#39;s the only time you&amp;#39;re really free in life and I know that sounds absurd but really it is it&amp;#39;s the only time you really free in life I was when you&amp;#39;re close to death when you&amp;#39;re devoid of of of things that that normally hold you back that normally influence you in ways that that you know that are not of the influence that always positive influence where you&amp;#39;re where you&amp;#39;re in a pure place where you&amp;#39;re you&amp;#39;re in a purely free place from all inhibitions from fear from anxiety from from Joy Joy can screw you up and you&amp;#39;re free from all these things and I&amp;#39;m in this place just in the back of an ambulance you&amp;#39;re free I&amp;#39;m yeah I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m like I said just give me Dr Atlas and they say we don&amp;#39;t have time no no no no no you don&amp;#39;t you have to get Dr Atlas you have to get him this was the damn it this was the you know what I mean I finally freaking hit the number and I&amp;#39;m not getting paid and then all of a sudden I&amp;#39;m out how many they well I think it was 400 200 inside 200 outside or whatever it was a lot hey look after after after 50 it the number doesn&amp;#39;t matter no more right whatever 60 70 80 90 whatever you know so I was fortunate I was fortunate and of course they I was fortunate they told me afterwards that miss my juggler literally by like like a centimeter I mean whatever and um so then um then we wouldn&amp;#39;t be having this conversation obviously I&amp;#39;m glad you made it yeah that&amp;#39;s another I&amp;#39;m kind of glad too and and it just missed my eye which thank God it&amp;#39;s bad enough I have a scar matching me with a patch I mean I mean it&amp;#39;s enough that I got this freaking thing and um and look it goes all the way you know I mean it&amp;#39;s you know it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s pretty long and um I don&amp;#39;t know I was out and then somehow I sensed like they had the curtain closed you know and it&amp;#39;s amazing how Vivid this is and the curtains Clos and I see a shadow I I felt the presence I did and I felt him he&amp;#39;s a he&amp;#39;s a powerful guy and I felt him and I just see like a shadow you know and all of a sudden uh the the curtain gets pushed back and I can&amp;#39;t really see it&amp;#39;s dark and I&amp;#39;m you know out of it but not completely out of it and um pushes the curtain back comes in and his hand even though it&amp;#39;s all bandag you know whatever but his hand surveys it felt safe and um it felt it felt warm and safe I was happy and um he got there you know did he say something yeah yeah remember I gave you a little bit of introduction to my father right you know him now a little bit right yeah yeah what did he say about the job he said he just said this is what he said I remember to this day what he said yeah that that I do remember I don&amp;#39;t know if it was six or five people but this I do remember yeah he said they did a good job job you&amp;#39;re going to have a scar the rest of your life and he left oh man they did a good job you mentioned C Cato legendary trainer and you also mentioned it turned out he really cared about you in the book you write about a testimony he gave I was hoping I could read it cuz it speaks to your character it speaks to his it&amp;#39;s just powerful the testimony goes your honor I realize you might not know much about me but I&amp;#39;ve spent my whole life developing young men as a boxing manager I trained two world champions heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and light heavyweight champion Jose Torres I&amp;#39;ve also helped a lot of other young boys straighten out their lives and build character I know things about Teddy Atlas this court doesn&amp;#39;t know things you won&amp;#39;t find on his arrest record record this boy has character he has loyalty he&amp;#39;ll hurt himself before he&amp;#39;ll let down a friend these qualities are rare and they shouldn&amp;#39;t be lost he&amp;#39;s made mistakes we&amp;#39;ve all made mistakes but I&amp;#39;ve come to know this boy and if we lose him we&amp;#39;ll be losing someone who could help a lot of people please don&amp;#39;t take this young boy&amp;#39;s future away he could be someone special let&amp;#39;s not lose him please those are powerful words from a powerful man uh what have you learned about life from from uh Mr custado he gave me a quote and he drove into my head I became his guy you know he loved me I loved him he he said to me Teddy no matter what a man said is is what he does in the end that he intended to do all along that&amp;#39;s what I learned from CZ rest of it is BS and um a lot of people um say things you just have to give them a minute to let them show you eventually what they really meant by it I also learned from him that uh everyone&amp;#39;s afraid because his way of saying another great saying you&amp;#39;ll get kick out of this uh anyone who&amp;#39;s in a situation where fear should be prevalent where fear is actually necessary to survive the situation anyone who says that they&amp;#39;re not afraid they&amp;#39;re one of two things they&amp;#39;re either a liar or or they should go to a doctor find out what the freak&amp;#39;s wrong with them he was right about that you know we live in a a taboo Society where that word to a certain extent is taboo because it invokes weakness you know we we uh we are just layers of what we saw and learned since we were kids we all are were products of those layers I learned that on my own well through some help at the end of the day um you know fear people will find their way of avoiding that term so they use the word anxiety they use the word you know butterflies apprehension you know a million different right words I find all those other words to be cousins of fear and and fear fear causes a lot of things in life it it causes a lot of problems uh and and it also solves a lot of problems without it uh we couldn&amp;#39;t be great if we are great if we ever have a chance to be great um or at least to Aspire to be great how how does Fear connect to Greatness that&amp;#39;s a that&amp;#39;s a profound statement without fear we wouldn&amp;#39;t be able to be great yeah you couldn&amp;#39;t be great without fear because fear allows her to be brave the most important word for me in this whole you know conversation right neighborhood would be selfishness uh and it allows you to be for a moment less selfish one of the things I learned I guess partly on my own everyone thinks my greatest teacher was cus he was a great teacher Mentor my greatest teacher was my father the one who never talked and um I realized um one of the things to be better towards great um is if you can be submit less than we submit see one of the things that I&amp;#39;m afraid of one of the things I was always quitting in my business that it&amp;#39;s kind of not a good thing mhm every business I think yours yours is just more uh clear yeah it it hurts more and in the moment at least yeah in the moment but you&amp;#39;re right 100% because some things hurt for a long time afterwards and um something like regret regret is the worst thing in the world because it&amp;#39;s a solitary sentence and and man man that&amp;#39;s a powerful phrase regret is a solitary sentence so boy I you&amp;#39;re full of good lines you know it wasn&amp;#39;t easy to uh to to accumulate them it was it was a little bit hurtful but so uh submit less because we submit every day and if we can get to a place where we submit or compromise ourselves less we we&amp;#39;ll get to a better place you know again one of the one of the words for me that attaches to things that give you that wind up hurting you in life and have hurt me in life uh one of those boogey men words is the word of convenience that&amp;#39;s attach to everything you know PE people people disappoint you not because they want to disappoint you or let you or betray you because they want to betray you they do it because it&amp;#39;s more convenient to do mhm than than the other thing an old man once told me he said to me I was trying to I was trying to rationalize something I was trying to make something an excuse for something I was trying to make myself better than I was I was trying to say it was okay and and he just looked at me and he he he liked me and he said Teddy ain&amp;#39;t no such thing as being a little pregnant like yeah because either you&amp;#39;re pregnant or you&amp;#39;re not pregnant either you&amp;#39;re real or you&amp;#39;re not real either you&amp;#39;re you know truthful you&amp;#39;re not truthful either you&amp;#39;re tough or you&amp;#39;re not tough either you&amp;#39;re either you&amp;#39;re you know committed or you&amp;#39;re not committed either you&amp;#39;re in or you&amp;#39;re out that applies a lot of things yeah including loyalty that&amp;#39;s quite a statement but the life blood of humanity for me is loyalty um it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s what goes through the veins of uh you know everything has to have some veins in some form and if Humanity has veins what runs through the veins of humanity instead of blood to keep it alive is loyalty without loyalty without loyalty We Dead We freaking Walk we&amp;#39;re vessels I never understood what a ghost ship was you know what as I got old I know what a ghost ship is it&amp;#39;s people it&amp;#39;s people that are empty MH they got no loyalty therefore they got no Humanity therefore they got nothing therefore freak them freak them because and and and you know why they don&amp;#39;t have loyalty convenience and you know why because it takes it&amp;#39;s hard to be loyal it&amp;#39;s actually hard mhm I&amp;#39;ll be a son of a gun yeah you tell me yeah it sounds great give it to me give it to me paint me with it yeah it&amp;#39;s great yeah I&amp;#39;m loyal I&amp;#39;m yeah I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m yeah this is good I&amp;#39;m ready I&amp;#39;m on that team I&amp;#39;m ready put me in coach I&amp;#39;m ready okay now you have to uh you&amp;#39;re going to have to get hurt here what do you mean get hurt oh well it&amp;#39;s going to be painful I mean to be loyal you know you you&amp;#39;re going to be in danger because the person that you committed your loyalty to for a reason because obviously he did something in your life ever whatever um you&amp;#39;re actually going to get hurt to be loyal to them you&amp;#39;re actually G to hold on a minute wait hold on a minute coach um hold on call time out here um let me think about this coach I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m I might need more more practice I&amp;#39;m not ready for the game I&amp;#39;m not ready to go in the game yet give me a little more practice coach and it hurts to be loyal it freaking hurts but without loyalty we&amp;#39;re we&amp;#39;re ghost ships we got no strength we got nothing yeah we got nothing we we got we got nothing I agree with you in a deep fundamental sense but there&amp;#39;s uh pain that comes with that I have to ask you to uh introspect on this part of your life because of your value for loyalty uh as people know you and custado uh trained young Mike Tyson and the interaction there uh between the three of you led to the three of you parting ways given your value for loyalty can you tell the full story of uh what led up to this and maybe the pain you felt from that I it was if I guess it was the second time in my life I felt betrayed um the first time was when I um you I was whatever young 17 and I got arrested I was with all these older guys tough guys whatever and um supposedly and uh the detective separated us that&amp;#39;s what they do and um you know they they asked me who did whatever who&amp;#39;s gun this that you know all that the particulars of obviously what we did and you know it was me and um they said you sure you don&amp;#39;t want to change that you don&amp;#39;t want to because your friends changed it and and these cops they were nasty but they were cops they were the way you know you&amp;#39;re going to wind up in Rikers with and they&amp;#39;re going to be doing this to you and I won&amp;#39;t even say the things because then why say them you know figure it out but you know they&amp;#39;re trying to get what they&amp;#39;re trying to get and you know you want to change it and um no and but I felt very betrayed you know yeah and um especially when I was standing in the in the cell in rikus looking at the airplanes leave luati airport and then hoping I was on one you know I was making like a deal with God said let me be on one of those planes and let it crash I&amp;#39;ll take a shot was part of you proud that you didn&amp;#39;t give up your friends no because I didn&amp;#39;t understand what proud was I didn&amp;#39;t understand nothing I just understood that um rules are rules you&amp;#39;re just loyal and that&amp;#39;s it I didn&amp;#39;t even know there was an option I didn&amp;#39;t think there I know the cops said you could do this but that there was no option my father never had an option but the the Betrayal the private betrayal was like and so when cuz we were Partners me and cus yeah cus was retired this stupid kid goes up there and all of a sudden I start training Fighters first I won the gloves cuz put me in the gloves I won the gloves that I had injury whatever but bottom line is I still want to fight I want to turn pro I want to fight that was the plan and um and cuz had a different plan cuz cuz was like you can&amp;#39;t and he had it set up a little bit whatever without getting into it hey he did me a favor and I I&amp;#39;d like to think he knew he was doing me a favor and you know what I do think he was he was doing himself a little bit one too but but he was doing it for the greater cause because he believed in this thing of boxing he he believed that it changed Liv he believed that it was worthwhile he believed that there was a power to it beyond the left hook the big picture of boxing yeah he believed in it yeah he believed that To Be A Champion you had to be special you had to be smart you had to have character you had that you had to be a better person and that you couldn&amp;#39;t make a champion if you didn&amp;#39;t make him a better person first and and that that this you know this could strengthen people the sport could strengthen people in those ways so he he was married to it and he he was old and he needed there was no one in the gym it was empty and it was above a police station which was crazy and he needed an air to the throne he needed to pass it on to someone and he saw something and all of a sudden he said he saw that my career as a box was less important than having me become his air to the Drone and become his trainer his man his guy to continue that we could do a lot more for him and for for for everyone not just for him but for everyone it was more like to keep it going like it couldn&amp;#39;t die it couldn&amp;#39;t die and the cousin was afraid to it would die with him and he committed his whole life to it he didn&amp;#39;t get married because of boxing so he didn&amp;#39;t so he saw me as as you know the the little bit of you know the seed to plant for for more things to grow and before that plant died and so he all of a sudden he she came fight and I had people tell me that I could go somewhere else and fight M and I could MH but I couldn&amp;#39;t right because I&amp;#39;d be disloyal loyalty is everything yeah so I couldn&amp;#39;t leave cus yeah and he kind of knew that and and so you know I couldn&amp;#39;t leave him and he said you have an ability to teach he said knowledge means nothing he said see these pranica he had pran pranica encyclopedia uh the whole set in in our library he said you see these yeah I see them all the knowledge of the world whatever uh is in these all right means nothing if you don&amp;#39;t have somebody to convey it to people otherwise it just sits on a bookshelf it looks good he go you have the ability to convey knowledge to people you&amp;#39;re a teacher you were born to be a teacher you&amp;#39;d lessen Yourself by only being a champion fighter because you&amp;#39;d only take care of one person you could take care of all kinds of people and you could do this and you could do that and you could do this so we go on this Venture took a minute cuz I didn&amp;#39;t believe him at first but finally we I am I&amp;#39;m there I&amp;#39;m training Fighters and then he he gets me to buy in and I I was a teacher and I start teaching these kids and there&amp;#39;s no one in the gym it&amp;#39;s dead and all of a sudden there 10 kids 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 cat skill boxing club which was never there now it&amp;#39;s there and I&amp;#39;m training Fighters I&amp;#39;m taking down to South Bronx to get experience one of his former Fighters NOS quis down to South Bronx I&amp;#39;m taking down there to get smokers to get fights when they&amp;#39;re ready after I I&amp;#39;m wearing out dungar I&amp;#39;m getting holes in my dung I was fashionable before it was fashionable to have holes in my dungar I could have made a lot of money with that because I was on my knees with these little kids 9 years old 10 years old8 years old 10 12 13 14 all these kids and and I&amp;#39;m teaching and I&amp;#39;m building a gym and cuz only came once a week because he was semi-retired you know and and he&amp;#39;s and when he would come once a week he knew he couldn&amp;#39;t give me money but he gave me more than money he gave me praise MH and he said look what Atlas is doing he&amp;#39;s creating Champions and I was like wow yeah wow I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m doing good and and and then all of a sudden after four years of that because I was up there seven years8 years eight years after about three and a half four years of that we get a phone call that they get this kid in prison and try on Prison uh from one of the guys that knew C Matt Baranski uh and and there&amp;#39;s a state there&amp;#39;s a correction officer named Bobby Stewart who used to box and cus had helped him out a little bit little bit and um and they knew we had this gym now that was really starting become something because we were winning tournaments and everything else the go we got this kid Mike Tyson he he&amp;#39;s he&amp;#39;s 12 years old he&amp;#39;s 190 PBS he&amp;#39;s a mess but Bobby Stewart got involved with him uh you know the the former fighter and he&amp;#39;s taking a liking to it and now where he didn&amp;#39;t behave at all and he didn&amp;#39;t listen to anyone now he&amp;#39;s listening because Bobby&amp;#39;s got a carrot and the carrot is hit teacher boxing and now he he&amp;#39;s at the point now where we we want you to take a look you and Teddy all right bring him down what what did you think when you first saw Mike Ty well I I want to I want to see his birth certificate because he 190 lbs 12 years old and all solid yeah um you know really but yeah just physically just as a physical specimen and and big guy yeah and listen cuz was right I was a teacher he was right and he was testing me even that day he said what do you think so I said well we ain&amp;#39;t going to know nothing in the bag who the freak cares about that he knocked the bag down we got to put him in with uh we got no to put him in that weight I didn&amp;#39;t have anyone that weight we got to test them everyone&amp;#39;s got to be tested and um so you got to put them in responsibly but let&amp;#39;s put him in just respond but let&amp;#39;s put him in with Bobby Stewart former Prof fighter had 14 Prof fights smaller than Tyson uh he was when he was fighting he was 175 but still he&amp;#39;s 28 years old Tyson&amp;#39;s 12 come on and and he&amp;#39;ll work with him right so we do we put him Tyson he recognized the moment he understood this was an audition this was a chance you know this was that TV show change your life and he understood that if he passed the audition he could change possibly change his life he wasn&amp;#39;t sure what how could he be sure what exactly but it was better than what he had and so he was on aition so he wanted he innately understood what we would want to see ferociousness toughness uh character uh desire you know and of course ability well we saw the ability power speed but it was it was unbridled it was untaught it was it was raw he didn&amp;#39;t know really much at all um at all but we saw that but he wanted to show more he knew that wasn&amp;#39;t enough again inate intelligence he he had to show desire he had to show toughness and so I was being responsible after two rounds that&amp;#39;s enough normally I don&amp;#39;t put a guy into box until maybe four months 5 months 6 Months 8 months 10 it depends what it takes to learn on the floor before it&amp;#39;s responsible to put them in the ring to to actually take on uh incoming real live shells instead of blanks yeah and so normally I wouldn&amp;#39;t have them in and I knew after today he wouldn&amp;#39;t be in the ring again if I trained him I would teach him first and then he&amp;#39;d get back in in a few months but for this day it was the only way it&amp;#39;s kind of like I used to make this analogy and C loved it I he said what&amp;#39;s traded on fighter what do you what what do you look for tading a fighter Teddy you know he asked me this ridiculous question just to test me and and I say it&amp;#39;s like going to Macy&amp;#39;s with he loved it I said it&amp;#39;s like I said it&amp;#39;s like go to Macy&amp;#39;s window and Chris he goes what do you mean Macy&amp;#39;s window you know cuz was like boom boom boom so what do you mean Macy window you go to Macy&amp;#39;s window and they get the window with everything you want to see everything in there it looks great oh everything and yeah and then what well then you ask what&amp;#39;s in the warehouse and they tell you nothing yeah and and cuz says that&amp;#39;s it that&amp;#39;s a trainer yeah and I wanted to see what was in the warehouse because I saw what was in a Macy&amp;#39;s window I saw the power I saw the speed so he goes two rounds and he gets bloody nose here&amp;#39;s the weird thing not weird very telling we knew what we were doing not bragging but we knew what we were doing because he got a bloody nose because he got hit after that Bloody he never got another bloody nose you know why he didn&amp;#39;t get hit cuz he learned he was still strong but he was smarter now anyway he goes two rounds and I saw and I&amp;#39;m being responsible because if he goes more it&amp;#39;s not responsible I saw what I needed to say I saw speed I saw power I saw athleticism and I saw I didn&amp;#39;t believe him I thought he was lying to me I&amp;#39;m just telling you I I thought he was lying trying to act tough when he wasn&amp;#39;t really feeling tough it didn&amp;#39;t matter cuz questioned me on it afterwards what did you say and when I said he goes young Master you know again he wasn&amp;#39;t paying me money so he had to give me something right and and that was better than that was currency young master I&amp;#39;m the young Master whoa you know young Master you know what I mean I felt like that guy Kung Fu you know like in the movie like F grasshopper when you&amp;#39;re ready when you could take this out of my hand you can leave and that&amp;#39;s powerful yeah it was it worked cuz knew how to work me and he did and and it worked and and so but you know what I didn&amp;#39;t mind being worked I kind of knew I was being shuffled a little bit well you&amp;#39;re making it sound a little bit negative but it&amp;#39;s also extremely positive that&amp;#39;s a teacher instilling wisdom into you that you carried forward and impacted a lot of people yeah cuz got the job done but he did it his way and and he did it for a lot of a myriad of reasons and but at the end of the day it was all good and I I just had to understand that eventually uh later on but and you do the same you do things your way and carry some of him in you some of your father in you yeah that day you know that day it was funny because when C said what did you see Teddy when him what two rounds I got up in the ring I knew I was going to train him obviously we weren&amp;#39;t going to say no and he still had about four months to serve and we were going to work it out yeah and when I got up on a ring apron that&amp;#39;s my gym I&amp;#39;m the boss you know people later on in life called me a dictator you know what I said yeah you&amp;#39;re right I didn&amp;#39;t deny people thought you you you mean I&amp;#39;m right yeah I&amp;#39;m a dictator I&amp;#39;m a trainer I&amp;#39;m the boss I&amp;#39;m in charge if I you wouldn&amp;#39;t be here if I was what the freak you need me for if I&amp;#39;m not freaking in charge you idiot yeah yeah damn right what do you think it&amp;#39;s a it&amp;#39;s a Shar responsibility no it&amp;#39;s my responsibility that&amp;#39;s why you&amp;#39;re here yeah I am in charge and you shouldn&amp;#39;t be here if you don&amp;#39;t understand that so I get up there and I know that I&amp;#39;m going to be training them I got to show them who the boss is you know I&amp;#39;m being really Frank about this so I get up there say that&amp;#39;s it out yeah no no you know Ty no let me go I want to do another round I want to do another I want I said out did you hear what I said because I knew that you know he was going to test me he was testing me I I said I said get out he got out but were you impressed with the fact that you want to keep going or no yes and I recognized what it really was so cus asked me what was that CU want to know what the young Master saw so God said what was that I said it was um it was an act he goes you saw that did he really want to go I said no I said he didn&amp;#39;t really want to go but he knew that we want him to go and he made himself ready to go in order to satisfy and that&amp;#39;s just as good and CZ said damn right it&amp;#39;s just as good all that matters was not not not how he got there but that he got there yeah that&amp;#39;s all that matters that he got there that he got to the place to act like a fighter to to do what we want him to do to be ready to persevere to go beyond the Comfort level to do another round he didn&amp;#39;t want to damn righty didn&amp;#39;t want to but he knew we want him to and he knew in order to pass the test he had to do it and he said you&amp;#39;re right he goes now it&amp;#39;s going to be your job to teach him to make him a fighter that don&amp;#39;t get bloody noses that don&amp;#39;t get hit and will get to that place without being coerced to get there to get to that place on his own instead of using the things that he had to use to get to that place today those things are not going to be available one day when you and listen to this you talk about a man being prophetic because was pretty good you talk about man being on a job on a money Lex he says how do you think he finishes the s he goes because someday you because you know you&amp;#39;re going to have to make sure that he learns these things because you know he he&amp;#39;ll be your first heavyweight champ what did you just say he&amp;#39;s 12 years old yeah yeah he he&amp;#39;s been arrested 30 times he&amp;#39;s getting out of jail out of you know Juvenile Detention Fry on um he&amp;#39;s a mess in a lot of ways there&amp;#39;s a lot of things we find out later a lot of problems weakness is he goes and you that&amp;#39;s part of your job that&amp;#39;ll be part of your job and but he really said that he and then then he turned to him he goes you want to come live with us young man you want to be your fighter yes even that CZ said to me later what do you think about that I said he a the way he said yes yeah the way he said yes yes sir yeah he said what do you think about that and we&amp;#39;re talking I said ain&amp;#39;t going to be that polite a little while down the road again he knew that that&amp;#39;s what he felt that he needed to to project himself as to to present himself at to to get to way he want to get to he goes you yeah yeah did you see what cus was seeing in terms of the heavyweight champion of the world no again be easiest answer would be yes Teddy Teddy Al genius wow wow Teddy wow no no no no but again it was my job yeah and I just I my job it was simple simpler than cusses cus Knew Too Much I knew nothing I just knew you know Rudman of boxing I knew what it took to be a fighter and and how to execute it the steps of executing it so I took those steps the the the rest of it you get blurred by those other things I wasn&amp;#39;t blurred by those other things it was it was just get him in the gym make him mentally stronger make him face things and teach them how to slip punches and and create holes and fill those freaking holes with devastating punches this is a cuss and what are you going to do I&amp;#39;m going to teach him to fill holes and fill them with punches with bad intentions yeah and and that became the Monica yeah and then Tyson would say that I&amp;#39;m throwing punches with bad intentions yes you are and um you know how do you make it mentally tougher so that part of the job the you said the don&amp;#39;t get a bloody nose but the part part of the job what makes him mentally tougher how do you do that most important part of the job to make him face things yeah make him face where he lying to himself where he&amp;#39;s submitting what if we start this conversation with submission yeah submit less yeah submit less submit less every day submit less cuz only come to the gym once in a while and if I had him spawn he would come because that was his that was his project that was the heavyweight now he came you know put life in cuz cuz had life he he was losing a little life but that made the light bulb bright again it did and it was great to see I felt proud of that I felt connected to that and that&amp;#39;s why when when when it all went bad and CZ took the side that the only side he could sake the side of the next heavyweight champ of the world but he but he left me his partner the young master and the second time I get betrayed and I&amp;#39;m like for a while I thought everything CU taught me said to me was a liar I didn&amp;#39;t want to be any part of it anymore until I got a little more mature and I got a little past that where I was able to understand I was able to understand that just because somebody that you perceived as great in every area is you find to be weak in certain areas does it mean that they can still be what they want to you it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s something that it&amp;#39;s something that can be understood or forgiven it it&amp;#39;s hard it&amp;#39;s hard to get to that place and forgive somebody in that kind of way that I felt betrayed because CU told me the most important thing was loyalty cuz told me he loved me because I was loyal cuz cuz told people that the reason that he went to court was because I didn&amp;#39;t give up anybody even though it meant put me in the risk of going to jail for 10 years and he and cuz felt that he admired those traits and so I assumed that he he would show the same traits and he took a deal he took a deal he took a deal he he signed the papers that those that those so-called fedin signed you know he he he took a deal to to you know to to have the future Heavyweight Championship turned out uh and and to let me you know to let me go to sign the deal to to let me take you know take the weight for people who don&amp;#39;t know uh Mike was inappropriate with a young girl and you pulled the gun on him I don&amp;#39;t know if there&amp;#39;s deeper things to say about that situation no but why do you think hus made the decision to cut you off from both Mike Tyson and from C Cato like to break that when he valued loyalty so much I served my purpose I got him to the way he needed to get um for life back in the gym if I wasn&amp;#39;t in the gym at that particular time Tyson never would have been in the gym there would have been no gym to bring them to when they called up and made that phone call to bring them to the gym there would have been no activity there would have been no boxing program there would have been you know no trainer training him 247 the way I was where C wasn&amp;#39;t capable of doing that at that point in his life yeah but then again it&amp;#39;s not poor Teddy I get the benefit of a career I get the benefit of knowledge I get the benefit of a life I get the benefit of learning of of becoming hopefully a better person um I got the benefit of being betrayed again um but that&amp;#39;s a hell of a statement right there I don&amp;#39;t know what the benefit of that is you can learn to forgive weakness you know when you realize how how easy it is to be weak and and when you realize that somebody asked me how did you get to the point where you you could forgive right it&amp;#39;s a pretty good question pretty simple pretty basic pretty important right and I didn&amp;#39;t I didn&amp;#39;t understand I understood but I did understand immediately for me I said how can I not forgive somebody it becomes easier to learn how to forgive when you&amp;#39;re still trying to forgive yourself when you&amp;#39;re still in the process of trying to forgive yourself for all your own inherent weaknesses and betrayals of people like my father in different ways that we forget very easily because it&amp;#39;s handy and it&amp;#39;s a way of surviving it&amp;#39;s a lot easier to to figure it out rationalize it to to to to find forgiveness when you realize that you still haven&amp;#39;t figured out completely how to forgive yourself I&amp;#39;m still trying to figure that out and um so that helped me figure out how to forgive cus because to figure out how to forgive me I had to understood why I did these things where the where the weaknesses came from where the selfishness came from where the convenience came from that they really existed but they didn&amp;#39;t exist for malice they existed for me not being prepared to understand that I could be stronger to want to be stronger and then I looked at CU he wanted to be stronger but he got to a point in life where he had been strong for a lot of his life he was strong with me he was strong with a lot of things in his life and does everyone deserve a pass in life where he got he got to a place where everything was in one basket the basket of boxing he once told me that he never got married because it would be on it would been selfish to a woman to have gotten married when his whole life was boxing that he couldn&amp;#39;t give to a kid he couldn&amp;#39;t give to her he could and and then I thought about it he had no money really and Jim ja was and Bill Caden took care of the bills so he didn&amp;#39;t really need money that way but the one what was the payoff for that kind of life that kind of commitment that kind of sacrifice really what was the payoff the payoff was to have Champions to have a champion that would keep your name alive you know that word legacy like what does it mean sometimes it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s just a word sometimes it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s more than a word it it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s a reprieve it&amp;#39;s a pension plan is is being giving a pension on your way out for the rest of your life for for your life wherever you&amp;#39;re going you&amp;#39;re going to wherever you&amp;#39;re going for eternity um it it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s the only thing that you take with you is what you left behind and for C it was all about leaving behind a mark a Mark that of Champion yeah it was attached to Ego we all have it yeah it was attached to some selfishness and all but yeah it was also attached to wanting to leave something great behind yeah to know that you were part of it that you existed for a reason that that that you sacrificed for a reason and all that freaking pain I brought my father I was searching for something yeah made it into a righteous search I made it into I did and I made it into it was okay because it was righteous and I but it still did damage it still did damage it still hurt people it still betrayed my father&amp;#39;s trust and CZ betrayed mine but he didn&amp;#39;t do it maliciously he he did it out of again my father came home this is how I&amp;#39;m going to connect it my father came home from from work one night 12:00 and I was waiting up and like I said I was over 9 10 years old and he got mad at me he goes go to bed what are you doing up I said I&amp;#39;m waiting for you waiting for you and um he said well go to bed I said no I I I what were you doing he said I was at the hospital you were there why were you there so late you know he answered me he he said there was a patient there was a sick patient I said he must be better now because you&amp;#39;re his doctor you know because my father could fix anything my father nothing got in the way of the truth nothing nothing even blown his son&amp;#39;s bubble matter factly he said to me uh no he&amp;#39;s not going to get better he&amp;#39;s going to die and um so as a 9-year-old kid you know you&amp;#39;re a kid you&amp;#39;re selfish you know not in a bad way but you know you want what you and I said um I said two things first I said how how you&amp;#39;re his doctor how it can&amp;#39;t be and then I said I I just said it almost angry then why were you there like you should have been here with me yeah and you know what he said to me cuz you don&amp;#39;t give up on life go to bed and don&amp;#39;t give up on life and that&amp;#39;s I finally connected to dots this idiot that didn&amp;#39;t graduate high school I finally connected to dots I was asking cut to give up on life you don&amp;#39;t you don&amp;#39;t give up on life you don&amp;#39;t give up on aspirations of life life is all forms of life doesn&amp;#39;t have to be a physical form of it it&amp;#39;s life it&amp;#39;s having a reason to be alive it&amp;#39;s having a reason to have tomorrow and and C&amp;#39;s only reason to have tomorrow was to have another heavyweight champ and Teddy Atlas even though we were together all those years and we were partners and we trained together and we were we would you know the only thing we didn&amp;#39;t do was what they did in the Indian movies where where they cut the finger and they became Blood Brothers that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s the only thing we didn&amp;#39;t do and I felt like we did that yeah without cutting and and now here we are and he freaking betrayed me just and and um and then all of a sudden I connected to D I was like he didn&amp;#39;t betray me in the in that cold sense he didn&amp;#39;t give up give up on life life uh years later Mike Tyson apologized to you what what what&amp;#39;s meaningful to you about that how does that fit the story I want to be the great gracious guy right now say oh I&amp;#39;m so you human that that you know a man&amp;#39;s manad enough to say sorry that&amp;#39;s it we&amp;#39;re good I want to be really that that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s the that&amp;#39;s the best presentation of Teddy Atlas I could put out there he&amp;#39;s a good guy he forgives he he&amp;#39;s a good guy he&amp;#39;s a he&amp;#39;s a he&amp;#39;s a standup guy and he&amp;#39;s a good guy I&amp;#39;m not sure if he truly did it for himself that he really did it because he felt that it was true but but if he&amp;#39;s persuaded by other things he was in the middle I know I&amp;#39;m taking it too deep I know but what am I going to do he was in the middle of 12 steps with the you know getting out of drugs alcohol 12 steps which is a commemorable thing really it is and and he&amp;#39;s taking the steps and part of the steps was to admit all to apologize to all people you offended in life okay but are you doing it for the 12 steps or you doing it because you really truly have come to terms with believing what you did was that hurtful to me and that it matters to you that it was that hurtful to me and that you were wrong in doing it did you do it for I know that&amp;#39;s deep I know that I&amp;#39;m a freaking idiot I&amp;#39;m a you&amp;#39;re you&amp;#39;re a Teddy freaking you&amp;#39;re you&amp;#39;re you should be better than that he&amp;#39;s better than you yeah maybe he is better than me maybe he is really seriously maybe he is and and I took it he put his hand took it I we hugged he said I love you I I I yeah yeah I but I want to believe but what did CZ tell me no matter what a man says is what he does in the end that he intended to do all along so to this day today was it really genuine or was it reflective of that moment for him to get what he needed to you know for that step or was it truly for what I needed to to really that he really cared that what he did to me caused me to do what I did because I did something that was pretty damn bad to him too is he able to deal with that and put that where it has to be put is he able to put that or or is it just he did something he had to do maybe he&amp;#39;s sorry he did it I know I&amp;#39;m look I appreciate it that he I would have rather been in a private place yeah so for people don&amp;#39;t know you were in the middle of commentating a fight and he walked up from behind you and he said he was sorry he shook your hand gave you a hug I didn&amp;#39;t know he said I love you yeah he&amp;#39;s emotional I get emotional a little bit too but but he he&amp;#39;s emotional and he can be and he can be I can see why people have a Fascination in a love affair with him right now because he was because you know he was he was the meteor the meteor that went across the sky that is if they didn&amp;#39;t see it their parents told them about it there was a media that came across the sky one day and and and the media is walking around in the room now and that&amp;#39;s the meteorite and then and it actually landed here and and that&amp;#39;s it right there and and and now he&amp;#39;s come a long way and now he&amp;#39;s you know he&amp;#39;s more human and and he he&amp;#39;s lovable you know and and compassionate and he cries and and I get the fascin I get the love affair I get it because we&amp;#39;re inherently we&amp;#39;re people that want to forgive we&amp;#39;re people that we want to be good we and part of being good is to forgive people and to to show compassion to people and so and when somebody&amp;#39;s been damaged uh to acknowledge they&amp;#39;ve been damaged to acknowledge that you know they&amp;#39;ve been damaged and you care about them being damaged and how do you show care through admiration you know in in some ways almost through adol and he&amp;#39;s getting adol from people like you know uh which is to an incredible level and it&amp;#39;s because it&amp;#39;s a phenomena but but I get it I understand it and um I don&amp;#39;t know if he gets it I don&amp;#39;t know if underneath all of this he&amp;#39;s a complex guy he&amp;#39;s a sensitive guy I don&amp;#39;t know and I am too and one complex guy talking about another complex guy I don&amp;#39;t know if Underneath It All where he&amp;#39;s really truly at as far as that day that he said that to me is there part of you that&amp;#39;s sorry to Mike for I&amp;#39;m not sorry G on him yeah and that&amp;#39;s listen that&amp;#39;s fair I I know dimensions of you nature too well to not know that he still has to have certain because I have those strong feelings what it&amp;#39;s not fair for him to have him damn right it&amp;#39;s fair now now he could look at it if if he was to be held to his word that night that he just acknowledges that what happened he deserved because of what he you know the position he put me in and he put himself in what he did and I wouldn&amp;#39;t changed nothing you know still you&amp;#39;re you don&amp;#39;t regret pulling the gun on him I regret that I had to yeah yeah I regret very much that that I had to that I regret very much I&amp;#39;m he crossed the line I hated him for putting me in that position that that you know how dare he think that that somebody&amp;#39;s feelings are that trivial that the way I would feel about myself and the way the girl would feel about herself that was 11 years old at the time how she would feel about herself how how dare that he think it&amp;#39;s that trivial that you know that I shouldn&amp;#39;t be ready to freaking to both die and kill for that yeah why didn&amp;#39;t custom a see it in a deeper way and talk through it did the word came back to me but of course what does it mean but the word came back to me that C said you were right but if he took the side of Teddy he would destroy a potentially a great a great fighter why why do you think that okay if you were to try to understand the point he was making why why is that true is isn&amp;#39;t the part of greatness that you said is building the character of knowing what is right what you know CU was afraid to to go there where he used to not be afraid because it&amp;#39;s kind of like you&amp;#39;re never afraid of going up and I I get it you know when I train to fight an hour if I come out of retirement I train to fight an hour I feel in Camp like I&amp;#39;m I feel like I&amp;#39;m on death row every day that that if every day I I try to retrace my memory and say did I feel this way when I was younger I I don&amp;#39;t remember feeling this way I feel every day a dreadful feeling that if I don&amp;#39;t get this right I I I&amp;#39;ve betrayed everything I betrayed the fighter trust I betrayed uh what I&amp;#39;m supposed supped to be and then one one day I tried to figure it out why do I feel this way it&amp;#39;s so intense I was in Camp for two months training a guy for the world title a couple few years ago um fighting the hardest puncher in the world at the time and um adona Stevenson and the fighter was Ukrainian and I was you know brought in to train him for that fight and he trusted me and changed his whole style trusted meh oh my God I went to bed every night like praying um dread waking up dread my stomach down to here every saying what what if I fail him what what what if everything that I told him was going to happen don&amp;#39;t happen what if I fail him what what if he trusted me and I I betrayed that trust and the thing was the with cus was you know he used to be stronger than that and then I I tried to figured out why I got this way and why it was so Dreadful to me and why I felt like I was on death row every day trading to fighter like did I do enough did I do right well well will we accomplish what we will we accomplish what I promised him we would accomplish would I keep my word and and then I started thinking what how did I become this weak how did I freaking become I was a pretty strong freaking guy how did I become this weak and then finally I think I figured it out you know why because I was always working to get up but once I finally got up now I was looking down and I finally hit me I said I didn&amp;#39;t want to lose lo I said there was nothing to lose on my way up mhm now all of a sudden there&amp;#39;s something to lose when you&amp;#39;re up there and you&amp;#39;re looking down and that&amp;#39;s where he was and and that&amp;#39;s where CZ was cuz cuz was at the end of his rle he he was he accomplished the two World Champs all this stuff right everything he and and and he did it right now all of a sudden it wasn&amp;#39;t about moving forward it was about not falling down holy cow I was like I got it cus I got it I got it you didn&amp;#39;t want to fall down oh my God you didn&amp;#39;t want to fall and he this was his last chance you don&amp;#39;t give up on life this was his last chance to live forever to to make everything he did worthwhile to have the youngest heavy it wasn&amp;#39;t just heavyweight CH you got to remember he was the youngest heavyweight champ ever and to have that it was okay to die now and how&amp;#39;s loyalty to someone named Teddy Atlas could have get in the way of that that&amp;#39;s a tital wave that there ain&amp;#39;t no wall that&amp;#39;s been made high enough to stop that title wave and now I&amp;#39;ll stop myself yeah there is but but it have to be awful big one and you know what who are we to say that we could ever Build That Wall that big who&amp;#39;s any of who might is say do you think if you were to put yourself in the shoes of C cust tomato can you see yourself having the big enough wall where you would choose loyalty now if I answer the way I feel then then I&amp;#39;m you know I&amp;#39;m making myself John Wayne again you don&amp;#39;t have to answer then I think loyalty loyalty is important no matter what a man says it&amp;#39;s what he does in the end that he intends to do do all along I didn&amp;#39;t make that up custard and and when when this all went down those words came freaking echoing into my freaking ears I didn&amp;#39;t want them cotton doesn&amp;#39;t help and they freaking kept coming into my ears and what do you think still an immature kid at the time you know I was young still an immature kid at the time what the freak do you think my response was you were full of yeah and but I got past that do you do you forgive C have you found forgiveness listen I forgive him because he gave me more than he took away from me mhm if I can what kind of man am I to if I can&amp;#39;t at least acknowledge that and be grateful for that he I he he gave me more than he took from me and um I&amp;#39;m grateful for that I&amp;#39;m also grateful for what I gave him that I had you know that I I did give him some and um at that point in his life you know uh place a place to still to still have test tubes and um chemistry experiments you know a laboratory where you could still create great fighter and I I helped give him that I helped I helped I was part of that lab and making sure that lab was there and um just that there was the existence of test tubes um in the place because you can&amp;#39;t freaking do experiments without test tubes now you&amp;#39;re the scientist with the test tubes yeah I I I guess so and um I I just hope that um what I said earlier is is really is really my thread through this whole thing when you say can you forgive cuss um I I&amp;#39;m still trying to forgive myself and if if I can have hope that I can forgive myself I think that hope has to start with the power to forgive someone else how can I ever forgive myself for all my failings and figure it out if I can&amp;#39;t start and practice it by forgiving someone else for some shortcomings and for me that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s the only sense of sometimes a very hard thing to make sense of that that that&amp;#39;s my Nord star that&amp;#39;s that&amp;#39;s my compass CU used to make me laugh you know me and him did everything together we right and we get lost in the city we get lost in a bron and he get all frustrated and he said Atlas you&amp;#39;re a great trainer but you turn you around you spin you around and you&amp;#39;re lost and I said me or we and because I was the only one who would argue with him and and it was really funny some sometimes and I said we or me you we or he goes I don&amp;#39;t get cuz you&amp;#39;re lost I&amp;#39;m lost what are you talking about out and then all of a sudden cuz couldn&amp;#39;t give in he just couldn&amp;#39;t admit he couldn&amp;#39;t give in you know what he said to me all of a sudden he goes when I was in the Army if I had a compass I could get out of the woods I said we&amp;#39;re not in the woods we&amp;#39;re not in the Army we don&amp;#39;t have a compass cuz cuz just don&amp;#39;t argue with me I one time we&amp;#39;re driving I W I want to get back to CCO we we just finished at the Bronx it&amp;#39;s been a long day yeah you know VIs in the the murderers Inc houses and everything else that that he took me through for the 18800 time and um and he would fall asleep you know he was getting older and he and he would just fall asleep in the car so what do you think I went a little faster right because before he went to sleep he said don&amp;#39;t speed so I don&amp;#39;t consider myself I try to be an honest guy I try to be a freaking but yeah you know it was the five what did I say earlier try to do less submitting yeah really in all faces try to submit a little less try to lie a little less today MH a little less try to get stronger try to get a little better so here we are and we&amp;#39;re driving and all of a sudden he&amp;#39;s I what did I do 80 75 probably yeah probably did you know whatever and um all of a sudden wakes up you were speeding oh I lie no I wasn&amp;#39;t don&amp;#39;t lie I&amp;#39;m not Li you lied again you speeding now come on this guy he&amp;#39;s you know what I mean he&amp;#39;s he&amp;#39;s he&amp;#39;s unbelievable so I gotta freaking you know he&amp;#39;s the he he&amp;#39;s David Copperfield I want to know the trick yeah I want to know how he freaking he made this thing disappear so I said what are you talk how do you know he goes cuz I timed you I looked at the post number and I&amp;#39;m like what I looked at the post number on the side of the road where we were whatever miles and and I never knew they even existed yeah I look and I said yeah there&amp;#39;s Little Numbers he started timing and fell asleep yeah he timed it he look he goes we couldn&amp;#39;t have got from here to there in that amount of time unless you were going 75 miles out like all right I&amp;#39;m smart man all right I&amp;#39;m impressed you don&amp;#39;t try to get the mileage the mile per hour part right it&amp;#39;s enough that you got me yeah yeah that&amp;#39;s enough I&amp;#39;m yeah I said and I&amp;#39;m not going to do that no more I&amp;#39;m you know and and just he helped me in crazy ways where there would be times where I wanted to be you know where you wanted to be whatever right convenient weak submit right and then all of a sudden all of a sudden CZ in my mind CZ was there with the stopwatch and and I&amp;#39;d be like you know uh no you know where I was about to say yes to whatever that yeah particular situation was somebody up there call hello hello yes doing great thank you just for the record never had a phone call like this it&amp;#39;s hotel security the question is he asked me is are you okay sir are you okay are we okay I think so I I think so so far yeah you know I can only go like so far it&amp;#39;s kind of like that old joke you know where the guy jumps off the Empire State Building yeah he&amp;#39;s fall down and he&amp;#39;s going you know 80th floor 70th floor 60th floor 50 he gets past the 50th floor and they&amp;#39;re looking him out the window and he goes how am I doing so far so good I I don&amp;#39;t know where it&amp;#39;s going to end but um so uh Mike Tyson is considered by many to be one of the great boxers one of the greatest boxers of all time heavyweight boxers uh what do you think on the positive side made him great I don&amp;#39;t know if he was ever great I know he was Sensational I know he was the greatest mix of maybe speed and power ever I know he was one of the greatest punches from either side of the plate left or right there&amp;#39;s been great punches with just the right hand like Ernie Shavers and Deontay Wilder and Max bear I don&amp;#39;t know if there&amp;#39;s ever been anyone who could punch as good as he did on either side with either hand other than Joe Lewis and a few others I don&amp;#39;t know if there&amp;#39;s ever been such a comb combination of speed and power to that pure level that he had and it was a pure level I don&amp;#39;t know if there was ever as good a fighter as Tyson was where maybe one night he was great where he wasn&amp;#39;t tested but he might have been ready to be tested at one night against Michael spings when he took him apart 90 seconds I think I saw a great fighter that night I don&amp;#39;t think you can be great unless you have all the requirements of being great what does it take to be a great fighter truly great to not rely on someone&amp;#39;s else&amp;#39;s weakness to be strong to be strong on your own too often he relied on other people&amp;#39;s weakness whether it&amp;#39;s the by being intimidated or whether is because his talent was so much greater than their that it was like putting a monster truck in there with a Volkswagen and the Volkswagen was going to get crushed no matter how much horsepower the Volkswagen might have had under the hood and you put under the hood it was going to get crushed the monster truck was not going to allow it to be a contest and to be able to find a way when your talent wasn&amp;#39;t enough he didn&amp;#39;t find a way when his talent wasn&amp;#39;t enough and he and I&amp;#39;m not making statements of I&amp;#39;m not ready to put some evidence you know like if we were in a courtroom exhibit a um when he fought when he fought Buster Douglas um Buster Douglas matched his will and didn&amp;#39;t get intimidated stood up to him he didn&amp;#39;t do what most people did he didn&amp;#39;t submit even a little bit not that night he had in the past but that night he didn&amp;#39;t why because Buster had buz had a secret weapon that night his mother buz&amp;#39;s mother had died a few months previous he loved his mother very much bust had always had Talent big heavyweight talented could punch technically solid he was all those things always was but he quit in fights he he he did less than he should have done he never lived up to his ability he gave in he submitted he wasn&amp;#39;t strong enough he never had a reason to be strong enough when his mother died he had reason nothing could hurt him as much as his mother dying hurt him Mike Tyson included that night Mike Tyson could not hurt him as much as his mother had hurt him by dying that night he had a reason to be strong for his mother and he was strong he was everything he was supposed to be and more and he stood up to Mike and Mike for the first time maybe ever was in a fight where he had to overcome something where he had to be more than Talent talented more than a puncher more than a guy with scintillating speed and he wasn&amp;#39;t and then that night got followed by another Knight with Holyfield Holyfield wasn&amp;#39;t as talented as him as big as muder puncher but Holyfield had the character he was strong in ways that Tyson wasn&amp;#39;t strong he was strong in a way where he could find a way he was willing to find a way he&amp;#39;s willing to go to the cliff to to truly die before he submitted you know a lot of stuff is just wor yeah they&amp;#39;re GNA have to carry me out on the shield yeah sure sure okay yeah until it comes time to be carried out on the shield sometimes there&amp;#39;s people that actually mean it you think Mike didn&amp;#39;t have that well all right he let&amp;#39;s just say arbitrarily I don&amp;#39;t have his record for me let&amp;#39;s say he was 55 and five I know he had about five losses all right let&amp;#39;s say he was 55 and five right a lot of Knockouts I have a saying a fight&amp;#39;s not a fight until there&amp;#39;s something to overcome until then it&amp;#39;s just an athletic uh exhibition contest yeah who&amp;#39;s a better athlete who&amp;#39;s got more quick twitch fers who&amp;#39;s who who&amp;#39;s more developed who&amp;#39;s in better this who&amp;#39;s who&amp;#39;s more developed than those physical areas but a fight is not a fight until there&amp;#39;s something to overcome okay so if you go by my definition not Websters my definition but I think means something Mike Tyson was only in five fights in his life the five fights where there was something to overcome and he didn&amp;#39;t overcome it now I know people hate me for this including Tyson I I understand hate me oh you&amp;#39;re a hater cuz you weren&amp;#39;t with him you didn&amp;#39;t make the money because this because that because you got betrayed I think I&amp;#39;m better than that I hope I&amp;#39;m better than that I believe I&amp;#39;m better than that I&amp;#39;m not a hater I I&amp;#39;ve broadcast fights for 25 years on ESPN where there was some people in the corner I did not like and if they did a good job this guy&amp;#39;s doing a great job and then there were guys that I liked and I had friendship he he he messed up and we weren&amp;#39;t friends no more friendship got to be tested remember that so we weren&amp;#39;t friends no more but why did I do that because it was my job it was more important for me when when it&amp;#39;s all over with the only thing you&amp;#39;re left with is I mean we&amp;#39;re going to be dust all of us right the only thing we&amp;#39;re left with is what carries on our reputation you know Legacy whatever that is but our reputation that&amp;#39;s all we&amp;#39;re left with and that&amp;#39;s all our kids are left with I wanted to be as good as it can be I&amp;#39;ve always had a ability I&amp;#39;ve done a lot of things wrong and I&amp;#39;ve had a lot of lackings but the one strength I&amp;#39;ve had if I had a strength is to understand somehow to I guess to learn the lesson that was important is not what&amp;#39;s in front of you for those 5 seconds for that moment in life it&amp;#39;s what&amp;#39;s left behind you when those 5 seconds are gone when that what whatever it is that you&amp;#39;re dealing with you know whatever the that moment is whatever that moment what you doing that moment the action of that moment is going to stay with you and be you it&amp;#39;s going to become you what what you face for that moment it&amp;#39;s gone it&amp;#39;s it&amp;#39;s gone in the air and an instant it&amp;#39;s gone it&amp;#39;s done whether you take whether you stand up there and you get shot in the head and the guy freaking blows your brains out or you freaking you you stand up or you&amp;#39;re fighting a guy who&amp;#39;s like an un a scary guy to fight but you fight him and you beat him or he beats you up but how you represented yourself in that moment is all that matters that&amp;#39;s going to live what happened don&amp;#39;t matter it don&amp;#39;t matter that you guys shot in the head I know that sounds absurd but if you believe that it was important to stand up and had take the chance to get shot in the freaking head rather than to live like an empty vessel you know what that&amp;#39;s all that freaking matters and somehow that got freaking wrapped into this freaking head of mine like that&amp;#39;s what matters that&amp;#39;s all that matters you know how many times I went and I I things whether it was with this one with Tyson with that I didn&amp;#39;t want to be there I was scared to death but I was more scared I was more scared living with regret how I would have felt yeah I don&amp;#39;t want to be in solitary confinement in rest of my life with that freaking guy in the cell next to me called regret I don&amp;#39;t freaking want to be next to that guy if I want to freaking go down that road I&amp;#39;ll watch papon you know what I mean and I&amp;#39;ll get my feel from that but I don&amp;#39;t want want to freaking live it I&amp;#39;m afraid of what my children would think of me if if I fail in those areas why because that&amp;#39;s forever when I&amp;#39;m closing my eyes for the last time I I don&amp;#39;t want to have that fear I don&amp;#39;t want to have that fear you know whether I&amp;#39;m going down there or I&amp;#39;m going up there you know I I I laugh because uh I I I was I was around guys years ago that used to when we talk about that you know in just you know and um I we get a kick out of this this one guy who been around the block a few times um when he say hey Teddy I ain&amp;#39;t worried about that I got friends in both places that&amp;#39;s a good line and I yeah and I thought it was a I thought it was good uh listen Mike Tyson you want me to say was a great fighter then you want me to betray what I really you know what I mean you want me to do that I ain&amp;#39;t doing it for listen I could do it to be a bigger Teddy Atlas and I know it would work for me I I know it would be do great promotional work for me I know it would it would make me more popular in certain area I know it I&amp;#39;m not that dumb not that dumb but I also know what else it would do to me and I don&amp;#39;t want him to do that to me I think he was a great talent I think maybe the night with Michael Spinx maybe the M Night with M maybe he could have been that fighter maybe he could but he didn&amp;#39;t never really get tested but he might have been ready no matter what I have to be tested that night that&amp;#39;s how good he was that&amp;#39;s how for even though it was a guy who used to be a light heavyweight I get it but it was still a guy who beat Larry Holmes who still had something left uh Michael spins so and a great puncher um and an Olympic gold medalist but and a special fighter one of the great light heavyweights of all time you know what Mike Tyson was he was a meteor he was a meteor that struck across and not too many meteors and we still talk about himh and and and unlike H&amp;#39;s comment he came back and and he&amp;#39;s walking around and he&amp;#39;s he has become greater after his career more loved more beloved more AED and he&amp;#39;s been forgiven he found the Fountain of forgiveness I don&amp;#39;t know I wish I could find that where he has been forgotten for all his shortcomings all the things that he may have done may not have done we don&amp;#39;t know only him and God know but he&amp;#39;s been forgiven of all that and he&amp;#39;s been not only forgiven he&amp;#39;s rised above it and and above that and been brought above that he&amp;#39;s been brought to the pyramids of of of the greatest athletes that in the world and in every in every way in every way as a person as a fighter as a historian yeah as a figure as a celebrity I mean even a philosopher everything yeah so I will take it back all right all you guys out there you forgive me he&amp;#39;s the greatest of all time if you encapsulate all that if you encapsulate everything I just tried to describe um and explain if you put that all he&amp;#39;s the greatest of all time yeah he is but he still might be 0 and5 in a record of 55 fights he might in Teddy Alice&amp;#39;s book again I got friends with both places so it&amp;#39;s okay wherever I go I I have company somebody there will like me despite me saying this he might be on fight because of five fights where there was something to overcome which really finds a fight he came he he didn&amp;#39;t find the way let me ask Teddy Atlas to introspect on the human nature here it&amp;#39;s part of the complexities of your feelings on this whole thing is that you know to some degree that if you were coaching Mike Tyson he could be truly great throughout I know Co I&amp;#39;m going to cut you right off because you asked a million dollar question I wish you didn&amp;#39;t but you did you did because that&amp;#39;s why when do I get paid that&amp;#39;s why you get paid I get it you took the words out of my mouth that&amp;#39;s why you are where you are and that&amp;#39;s why I&amp;#39;m here the humility I&amp;#39;m gonna I&amp;#39;m gonna Again full disclosure it&amp;#39;s important right um I&amp;#39;m going to cheat I&amp;#39;m going to take some of ca&amp;#39;s wisdom all right a little bit of mine yeah um CZ told somebody that that if Teddy Atlas got his way he might have been a better person but we would have risked him not being a great fighter now I believe and I thought cus did and I think he did up to that point in his life that part of your strength of character made you a great Fighter um and truly a great fighter and part of that battle to be a better person that that fight if you will to be a better person to overcome the themes to be a better person um part of that fire you have to go through to be a better person I really truly bought into it and I and I&amp;#39;m in for life that is really the only way to be a great fighter and I don&amp;#39;t think that&amp;#39;s what cus meant I thought he meant I think he meant that CZ knew more than I did of what was about to come and what would come and what the world was how people would try to steal him how people would take him how people would steal his guy the last thing he had to really the thing that he lived for because he lived to have another heavyweight champ the greatest fighter ever C and C&amp;#39;s mine he could be and I believe that CZ knew that he he could put forward a guy that had the ability to be the greatest fighter ever without fully completing the mission of what it takes to really be great but that he wouldn&amp;#39;t he wouldn&amp;#39;t be around to have to witness it and that he wouldn&amp;#39;t he was will he would oh man this is awful he&amp;#39;s willing to concede that he might be dead in order to have eternal life in order to have greatness uh and which CU does have greatness and part of that greatness is attached to Tyson and he deserves it he deserves it because was a great man and I wouldn&amp;#39;t be here partly without him but that was part of the calculation I know that&amp;#39;s deep and I know that&amp;#39;s oh God I hate myself right now but um but cuz he knew he was getting out free he knew he was going to not have to be there he was he was getting off easy oh Teddy how do you say someone&amp;#39;s gonna be dead they getting off easy well I say it again in case you didn&amp;#39;t hear me all right he he he was going to get off easy and not have to face where he came up short because he did his job because he put forward the greatest fight of all time and you guys screwed it up and he knew that that might happen but you guys screwed it up and and whatever that&amp;#39;s your fault that&amp;#39;s on I tell you Tyson will be mad at this but that&amp;#39;s on Tyson how could you say that Teddy he loved me I&amp;#39;m not saying he didn&amp;#39;t love you but he loved him he loved some other stuff too and I don&amp;#39;t know if Tyson could ever come to Griff&amp;#39;s light with that and and it&amp;#39;s not his job to but it&amp;#39;s my job not to hide from it I know cousin Dimensions that people just only think they know did cus know did cus know this about himself they did he reflect did he introspect well he sent a message to me c sent a guide to me my wife was pregnant we were living in apartment apartment in catso on cill road we went through all this I you know and I was getting ready to move to stat on and we still were there for a little while before we did you know after all this went down he sent a guy to me to the house secret whatever you want to call it my wife me so I listen to him cuz said if you leave I&amp;#39;m I&amp;#39;m a messenger you know whatever if you leave this was in a aftermath of what the gun the whole thing you got to remember Tyson was Award of the state he was in C&amp;#39;s custody cuz was looking to adopt him for obvious reason so he had control and and he loved him how dare I say anything less I won&amp;#39;t but it made sense too but he was Award of the state still do you know what that means there&amp;#39;s rules means the state&amp;#39;s still overlooking it if he ain&amp;#39;t living the right life you know you gota remember he came out of you know he came out of of a jail so reform school but if he ain&amp;#39;t living like he could be taken away from cuz what&amp;#39;s not living the right life well he he wasn&amp;#39;t in school no more they didn&amp;#39;t know about it um he he had some things that were going on we won&amp;#39;t get into that right now in school and different things whatever and he had his trainer put a gun to his head that isin&amp;#39;t so good if the report came back to them that that happened he would have been taken away from cus that couldn&amp;#39;t happen nobody knows this mhm I talk about a little bit but never probably because why would I I don&amp;#39;t know why am I doing it now I don&amp;#39;t know because I don&amp;#39;t know because I am because it&amp;#39;s now because it&amp;#39;s now maybe maybe because is now I don&amp;#39;t know so he sent this man that you know obviously we both knew and he said here&amp;#39;s the deal Teddy if no talk about this wants it to you know disappear basically you leave and he will give you 5% his word can you imagine he would he will give you 5% of Tyson&amp;#39;s earnings for the rest of his career and um but I don&amp;#39;t regret it one bit because it wouldn&amp;#39;t happened anyway see that&amp;#39;s where I I could be honest with my people say oh stand up guy because I told him to shove it with the you know you know to in that place and and um and tell cut to shove it in that freaking play you know I was mad um Teddy Teddy don&amp;#39;t get angry don&amp;#39;t get angry are you out of you serious get out of here tell them to go shove it over and you know my wife was like huh but and then people like after why didn&amp;#39;t you take the deal it wasn&amp;#39;t a deal it was an escape clause for cuss it was it was a it was an insurance policy that his you know that this kid wouldn&amp;#39;t be taken away from him and thank God he wasn&amp;#39;t I wasn&amp;#39;t going to go and say nothing they didn&amp;#39;t have to worry about cuz forgot who I was cuz forgot why he went to court for me because of those because of those characteristics that he said he loved and he noticed and that that he admired I didn&amp;#39;t lose those Char he forgot that that was me he forgot who he was talking to he didn&amp;#39;t have to do that how about that&amp;#39;s why I told him to shove it up his not because of the other insult yeah and then and then when people said to me oh you would stand up because it was around a little bit it was around in the circles and then were people oh stand up Teddy he he didn&amp;#39;t care about the money I said stand up Teddy what are you talking about how how about how about just realistic Teddy how about I live in a real world that I was never going to get that money so I&amp;#39;m saying I&amp;#39;m standing up to something that I knew never existed so I ain&amp;#39;t stand up not in that way I am in other ways maybe but not don&amp;#39;t don&amp;#39;t put a metal on my chest for that because because that never existed yeah it was never meant to exist but he didn&amp;#39;t even understand that was the one thing that that really disappoint me in cuss I was like cus you really allowed this to get to you where where you where you&amp;#39;ve allowed it to really fog up your thinking to the point where you&amp;#39;re smarter than that you&amp;#39;re better than that that you would actually think you gotta freaking offer me a freaking pieces of silver yeah you really think that that&amp;#39;s what you freak you like all that you told me that you love me and that we you I was the young master and that all this and and you think you were going to buy me and I was going to and that was going to keep me quiet how about I would keep quiet because I would always keep quiet so he thought maybe you might betray him isn&amp;#39;t that interesting yeah and why did he think that no no really fear yeah but yeah fear is at the essence of everything is connected with everything fear of losing what he was going to lose but it was more than fear it was him not believing in the things that he told me he believed in he didn&amp;#39;t even know that he believed in me because I was a standup guy because I because I didn&amp;#39;t sell myself because because I you know I didn&amp;#39;t freaking turn evidence I I didn&amp;#39;t make a deal I didn&amp;#39;t do and and that&amp;#39;s why I went to court that&amp;#39;s why he stood up for me and I appreciate it and that was what he lived by and that was his you know those were the blocks of being a man oh so much for those blocks well it&amp;#39;s like you said loyalty requires uh you know he would have had to take a risk on losing immortality that he would achieve by creating that&amp;#39;s the only heavy 100% but the only way you ever find out if somebody is that hard it&amp;#39;s hard it&amp;#39;s the test yeah and it was cuss this is Shakespearean you know this story CU told me cuz said and it does come in different forms yeah I said all right CZ this was his test and and some people pass this test because they&amp;#39;re able to pass that test because it&amp;#39;s not really a test not for them because it doesn&amp;#39;t speak to their weakness but it&amp;#39;s the test that speaks to the weakness that&amp;#39;s the one so this one I get it I get what it spoke to cuz and you know what at the end of the day I forgive you and I feel bad for you I feel bad that you were put in that position after you lived your life that way and that you that you taught that and you preach that from the mountaintops that that you had to be that you had to be I&amp;#39;m not going to use the word but that that you had to fail yourself and that you had to somehow know that before you died I just pray that you didn&amp;#39;t know that and you still don&amp;#39;t know that because you were great you are great and um and you&amp;#39;ve given me some you know you&amp;#39;re giving me something to to Aspire towards to try to try to be less weak try to be better and try to be as good as you want it to be I wish I can someday more importantly I I wish I could make my father you know feel um just feel good up there your grandfather now yeah for grandchildren what uh if you can give them advice on how to uh live a life they can be proud of just um do everything you can to the best of your ability every day to like yourself to give yourself a reason to actually say I&amp;#39;d like to be friends with that guy is loyalty one of the reasons one of the things to Aspire to loyalty is your chance to have a fulfilled life loyalty is your chance to to have strength to have all the things you need to have a good life to be a good parent be a good husband be a good grandfather hopefully be a good role model loyalty is loyalty is if you could find something to drink to take into your body to make you prepared for life to to be all the things that you want to be to be strong enough to be those things loyalty would be the thing you would drink and and when I say loyal I mean unequivocally I mean you know unconditionally not conveniently obviously you know that if you could be loyal you could be a good person you could be a person that you would actually like to be around because you could be a person you could rely on and I think that&amp;#39;s one of the greatest assets that a human being can have and what do you do when you&amp;#39;re betrayed how do you overcome that you think of what you learn from it use it as a road map to remember and to think back of how you got there and how you got to the place where you got betrayed and how that person got to that place try to remember that in your own Journey has it for you made you cynical like how do you try how do you take the leap of trust towards people again and again after that just by remembering that I&amp;#39;m still trying to forgive myself for the things that I came up short with and if I haven&amp;#39;t figured that out yet it&amp;#39;s probably okay to um to say they didn&amp;#39;t figure it out yet they didn&amp;#39;t get it at they didn&amp;#39;t figure it out and if I couldn&amp;#39;t figure it out and I&amp;#39;m still trying to figure it out maybe I could get over that initial step stabbing of uh what it feels like it does feel kind of like a stabbing that you that you feel when you betrayed initially and that you can only think of of anger Revenge hatred um and those things I&amp;#39;m not I&amp;#39;m not proud of that but I&amp;#39;m but I felt all those things you know and I still fil them sometimes and then I go back and say hey you&amp;#39;re still working at forgiving yourself for some things try to remember that kid you know mem is an important thing forgetfulness is it&amp;#39;s pretty important too and um try to remember why we forget why do we forget because it wasn&amp;#39;t something you felt proud of you think about your death are you afraid of it you know it&amp;#39;s funny you asked that I never used to to think about it I know people in both places you know I know got it cover you&amp;#39;re going to be all right don&amp;#39;t don&amp;#39;t forget that I know people in both places yeah um both neighborhoods I I I um I&amp;#39;ve been I&amp;#39;ve been given credit for being brave in certain spots in life I hope I can be brave when it comes time to leave life I hope I can be you know and and that&amp;#39;s you know that&amp;#39;s just as real and honest as you can be about it I hope I can be you know so far so good you know when when I&amp;#39;ve had to be certain things that was scared to freaking death um I I found a way to beat them for the most part and um so I figured when that day comes I&amp;#39;ll figure that out too it&amp;#39;s going to be another test maybe the last one Teddy it&amp;#39;s a huge honor to talk to you no it&amp;#39;s my pleasure thank you for being the human you are for being honest honest about the full range of human nature and thank you for talking today thank you thank you for having me and um thanks for listening thanks for listening to this conversation with Teddy Atlas to support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali I hated every minute of training but I said don&amp;#39;t quit suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion thank you for listening and hope to see you next time

Transcript for:Interview with Teddy Atlas: Boxing, Loyalty, and Legacy

Transcript for:
Interview with Teddy Atlas: Boxing, Loyalty, and Legacy