Nigel Benn - The Dark Destroyer

Full transcript: Nigel Benn on London Real

6:44 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Nigel Benn, aka the Dark Destroyer, who is a British former professional boxer known for his epic battles in the 80s and 90s with Chris Eubank, Michael Watson and Gerald McClellan. Your second fight with Chris Eubank captured the nation, selling out 47,000 seats at Old Trafford and attracting twenty million viewers on television. You now reside in Australia, where you are a practicing Christian pastor, and your son Conor Benn became a professional fighter this year.

7:15 Nigel, welcome to London Real. God bless you. Bless you too. How are you? I’m good, but I just had a staredown with you in the studio and that wasn’t really a staredown.

7:25 It wasn’t really. I know you were doing it, real, but it was pretty real to me. Well, I’m not a practicing pastor. We’re doing, with my wife, we do a Chapman thing course where we just help people, but I’m not a practicing pastor. I’m not there yet.

7:41 Okay. Okay, and the staredown, that wasn’t completely real, or it was pretty real? It wasn’t real for you because you were smiling. Saying we can’t do it unless we both engage, right? He told me to stop smiling and then I did stop smiling, but he was still smiling.

7:58 How was, maybe my defense mechanism, you know. You know, I wanted to ask you, these days when a lot of the kids think of boxing, you know, they think they’re kind of, what’s going on in the heavyweight division? I can’t name who the champion is. They’re trying to, what’s going on, and they’re the divisions, I can’t name anybody, and they’re like, oh yeah, boxing. But back in the day when you were there, it’s something that captivated the nation.

8:20 It’s something that the Yanks would watch the Brits do, which I don’t think happens anymore, except for football, but it was a different sport, right? And it really, it captured the nation, it divided and brought the nation together. You were even known for saying that, I mean, it brought the British people together, but it was, it was on free TV for everybody to watch for free. Didn’t have to pay-per-view or anything. Everybody watched it for free, to go and watch it in the pub, watch it at home, so everybody got together, and that’s what we had, a big following, because everybody wanted to watch it.

8:50 Fine, and I know, well, especially we made, I know they’re gonna get a real fight, then we go, get value for money, and you had a big fan base, yeah. And a lot of your fights split the nation, you know, whether it was a Eubank or maybe Watson, I punched him, side with you, someone side with the other guy, everybody was invested, right? Everybody, you know, why did your fans love you? What was it? I think, you know what it is, they say, look, I’m not even gonna make a cup of tea, I’ll go and get a beer, because it could be over.

9:17 I’ll just get ready for money, you know. I came out, I was proud to be a Brit, and I’m just gonna have a fight, whatever it takes to win, I was willing to do that. With me, Barry McGuigan said you weren’t a boxer, you were a fighter. Yeah. Did, who was the only one that predicted I would go all the way?

9:36 Really? Yeah, I didn’t forget that. Huh. He’s a fighter’s fighter, isn’t he? Yeah, and he respects, I think he knows what it takes, right?

9:45 That’s right, and he can see the real deal. Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. He was the only one that really backed me from day one. He’s the only one that I think had me too, I had me a, I’m returning, but he was the only one that knew that I was gonna go to the top and I thought it was just like, you know, I just believed in what he was saying as well, so and he backed me, that made me feel good.

10:07 And what did he mean by you’re not a boxer, as in what I was? No, I can’t stand and do all that, and it’s so funny because I actually had a trainer who tried to change me from a fighter, I won’t say his name, but he tried to change me into a boxer and I tried it and it was like I got hit, oh, I felt that, because my whole mentality changed. Good boxers don’t like getting hit. I would like, and I got hit and I felt it and I didn’t like it and I thought, I’d never felt like that before.

10:42 He’s got to go, I said. When I got rid of him I went back to what I like doing. If I got whacked, yeah, okay, that’s how you want to play, that’s how do you want to roll, let’s get it on. Such hate changed my mentality. So you had to go?

10:56 I had five trainers, five, but this one really had to go. He tried to make me into a boxer. I’m not a boxer, I’m a fighter. I just found out tonight you were doing wushu. Well, Shaolin kung fu and Chinese boxing, the Chinese come through back in 1976.

11:12 I put Nigel Benn kickboxing in 1976. I get the Paulo Keith, you’ll see me all grainy footage of me kickboxing. Before you were violent, way before, cause at that time we used to go late-night pictures like Iron Monkey, sneaking the ego shadow, all these kind of films, all these kind of songs that we used to love, with only like 12 going in late night picture, that took 6 o’clock in the month, the talk in the morning. I’ve been to briefly, chicken and chips.

11:40 I remember sitting down watching these come from all dubbed. You know, I love martial arts, I love Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, back in the day, and what was your style? What’s your fighting style? I used to come forward. I was a come-forward fighter, that was me.

12:00 I just wanted to get stuck in, in every war, take him to a place that he hasn’t been, and that was it. I’m not giving the guy a chance to try and box me. I was just on the crew, trying, crowding, crampy style. I know what I got to do and take him out, but majority of my fights I knew already, won before we got in the ring, because I would look at him, I’d stare them out and they do that, they look away and I knew ahead and straightaway. Does that work?

12:29 Oh, absolutely, always, that’s majority of the time. Okay. Every time? 99 there’s that one exception where the guy looks away? No, no, no, no, no, no, it’s just like 92.

12:41 Two people have really, have really kind of, okay, but you can tell like when you’re signing the contract at the press conference. No, a contract, it’s just like we yet at weigh-in, okay, that’s when you can do that. Yeah, you can tell because they don’t want to stare. It’s two people, I know, no Mario Veit, winner, winner, WBC, gonna for Iron Mountain, you know, in Vegas, and I knew he looked down on the ground and I knew from there I had him, and the first thing I done, on a hop, skip and a jump, bang, straight right hand.

13:11 I knew because he looked down at the press conference, he didn’t stare me out and I knew I had him. No, and there’s little tells, right? Dude, a little faith, and you can’t hold them all back. You think a fighter, he’ll just do something in a split second, but once I could, I could look a man in the eye and I can tell because he looked down at me, I knew I had him. Mike Tyson’s had a similar thing in his, you know, his documentary about his life, that he would just, in the ring, stare, stare, stare until he got some kind of contact.

13:43 Yeah, but he, I mean, you know, it was just, you don’t even fear with my god. I, I like Mike Tyson in his heyday, in his heyday he was just, he was punched fast as a middleweight, and I mean it was a heavyweight, but he was fast, it’s just like a freak of nature, and everyone always keep compared, what would he do against Ali? I think he was throw down a number, he fought six or five guys and you know that would like 18 still install done it, but I said, oh no, he wouldn’t beat Muhammad Ali.

14:11 I think his old fighters saying now, what are you talking about? Okay, Mark Spitz, good swimmer, he can deal with Phelps. Jesse Owens, a good runner, he can tell, were you seen Bo Pele, a great footballer, George Best, great footballer, they couldn’t do a Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, everything’s go for it, don’t go back, when they go forward, everything changes somewhere if it’s over that good was. Okay, right, let’s go back in time, had a all trained, everything moves forward, nothing goes backwards.

14:44 Hello, because the training gets better, more knowledge. Absolutely. Okay, so then where is boxing today? Do you watch boxing? Yeah, I do, well yeah, I think, yeah, you know, in our day we followed the Magnificent Four, Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray, the river Duran, Tommy, and we after them we followed them, so we had a lot to live up to, but then now he’s, I mean, it’s been great fights out there, I love Tyson Fury, but he made Wilder look very easy, but Daley for Kell Brook, which I mean who moved up to weights, it’s a good fight.

15:23 I’ll praise out there, Mayweather, but they just stayed like once every six, eight months or once a year. I mean, no, I want to fight all the time, I don’t get paid for overtime. If I can knock somebody out, get somebody ready again, now I like to be busy, I want to keep in the public’s eye, not nowadays. When did you know that you were gonna be able to make a career out of boxing? Well, yeah, because after the army, right, that was, well, I came back from the army, security guard and a store detective in Marks and Spencer, not much spent the war worse in down in Hackney.

16:03 Oh, security guard and doing cash in child, security guard, store detective in Woolworths, sir, and I thought to myself I left, yeah, me, I never lost a fight in the army. I could be Southern Area champion, uh, yeah, yeah, I might have a shot at the British, I might have a shot, cuz all I wanted was a terrace house like my dad, cuz I think he made it, that’s what I wanted. I said, well you know what, I’m doing, I’m betting him I’ll get a BMW as well. That’s all a fool, I just thought, could be somebody, reach champion, and if it was gonna be world champion, you know, I thought that was it, cuz I remember, and all of a sudden I’m knocking people up, I’m gonna get a thousand behind a fight.

16:50 Wow, that’s a good money, man, cuz I remember 16 and was signing on and God never taken its way. I need to get 36 pound 40 every two weeks, that’s what you’re gonna pay ever. You’re fighting on the dole, six pound for every to 1,000 went along, yeah, we’re a long way, a long way, and so you started getting these wins, first-round knockouts, 22 and 5, 22 wins, 22 KOs, because you were aggressive, man, you hit hard. Even Eubank says you hit hard. Yeah, and says he was petrified of you.

17:25 Mm-hmm. And I spoke to him even in the last year, and when your name comes up, and we’re gonna get to this whole potential trilogy, we will get to that, but he still, and I think he’s honest when he says, I’m still terrified of that fight, as in I think he knows that if he has to do it and go in the training that he’s in for a long night. Yeah, absolutely, because that’s the only way. Yeah, that’s it, that’s mean him. We know if people think, we’ll, you’re partially so point that I don’t believe that I feel more like Benjamin Button now as I get older.

17:57 I’m more fit. Huh, it’s just weird because the life that I had before, with a really healthy life, even though I trained hard, when really healthy life. So you were training hard and partying hard. Loquendo, that’s what your men do, right? Yeah, but not like smoking at the age of eight, finish that.

18:15 41, when I had the encounter with him. Okay, that happened, you were 41. How will you know, personal with it? I’ll be 50, 53 in January. 53 in January, okay.

18:28 And so do you? I am 45, baby. I know. Are you good? Yeah, well thank you very much.

18:34 That, I mean, you’re about to have an abs contest with one of your young sons. Yeah, my son Conor, yeah. We have, we had a thousand pound bet, could the some one picture than a picture of me and him, and at me, my heyday, but I had, I had my abs all just bound, know out there, and he had one, nothing. Oh, that’s your son. You come, you ain’t got message, you don’t match that picture, cuz look at me.

18:59 You okay, so we had, we have, we’re having a thousand pound bet on Sunday. Good. Yeah, was it judged by the public? Oh yeah, because otherwise a saying I am anything, if he might, he might see the difference. He’s a bit more, is a bit more slimmer than me, but he ain’t got definition like me and I’m challenging him, so we’ve whipped, but we have good banter, honest banter.

19:25 He’s turning pro, he turned pro this year, right? 2016, last year, this. You’re not seeing, okay, he’s got one, five, five, five fights. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, my, yeah, yeah, um, proof has been really well. How does that feel, see him, one of your sons box, and did you not want him to do it?

19:47 I did not want him to do it. I didn’t know why. I’ll fit, you know what it was, Brian, I think it was what comes with it, and Conor’s a lot like me, we’re both alpha males and it’s a good lad. I just didn’t want him to go through what I went through, very painful, which is what fix, it, drugs and all that. I didn’t really want my son, ain’t is he strong enough to deal with that which comes with the fame and success?

20:16 Yes, comes the darkness, irritation, the temptation is darkness. I don’t know if he’s got the temperament to deal with that, um, the only reason why I did, I had seven boys, certainly four years, twenty and fifty-six days in the army, so I had that discipline, that determination, a will to win, where he didn’t live. I had to bring up work with seven boys, no girls, nothing, my dad had to grouse. I had that kind of that hardness which he hasn’t had, and when I was fighting the world, social media, and we, there’s a lot of pressure on him.

20:56 Last fight he really got ill, this fight we was meant to be fighting on the from Saturday, yeah, meant to be fine, he’s not fine, you really got ill, just too much for him. So your dad was a grafter, we grew up learning how to hustle? Yeah, but at the same time you went to the army so you learned discipline? Yeah, yeah, and you think that of course he doesn’t have the opportunity of both of those, but has that discipline? But he does have a disc, oh yeah, okay.

21:35 Some of the things that he used to do as a kid, I mean, running these BMX bikes, he’s got massive legs, I mean all day he’d go out from like 10:00 in the morning, right, like down to London and back, but hanging there out was just riding. Yeah, if he’s got that in Diablo for the Apple, don’t fall far from the tree, he’s so much like me. Absolutely, so much like me, and so the fitness side, he’s really got the determination, he has everything, but it’s just really trying to control.

22:11 If I look at me at 20 and him at 20, I would say I’m here and he’s there fitness-wise. See this way, then school wise, go wise, okay, I just had to punch. He’s got the power but he don’t know how to transition it because his feet are not right and we know we’re working on that. We can’t, but he has everything to be been in me, I’m gonna pray, pray that got pretty good, that he’s better than me. And is he gonna be able to handle the fame?

22:38 Yeah, look, the first fight where he going front on Anthony Joshua bill, front like 20,000 people, millions, and he’s like, yeah, all right, yeah, come on. He likes all that, he loves all that. I think Conor’s, he just loves reading. Wow, this fight could be with in Australia, he was getting about faithful $50 a day then painting and decorating, just mucking around, all his fun, he’s my old bill, frightening in front of 20,000, millions, honey, he feels at home.

23:22 Yeah, tell me now, there’s a challenge, but you know he’s getting there, right? Tell me about you and your 20s, like what was that like, partying hard, training hard, but twins, you’re you in your 20s? Oh, very much like you’re coming up, you know, you’re the 22, I know, you know, oh yeah, it was crazy. So you get that money, you get a little bit of fame and of course now comes with it popularity, lots of opportunities, the party, it was just crazy, it was like, it was like, huh, hmm, if I were on a merry-go-round, not she just, it never, it never stopped all food.

24:02 My career never stopped until I retired, so from 22 or what, to fate, it just never stopped, even when I lost it was still going. What does that mean? It’s still going, I was partying hard. I remember the first fight, a guy called Malinga, and that was the first time that someone gave me, I had a bad fight, Belem went to me, oh yeah, when we pals went to me, I’m putting in before, what’s that, it just changed, I just changed, I had this experience and it’s not, I’m trying to, you know, this is it, this is real, it’s real TV, yeah, I’m talking, I’m real, it’s not being real, been on it, so I don’t want to put it so no, whoa, you know, don’t talk about it, this is my life, I’m not gonna be real, I’m not gonna weave, God set you free, it says when the Son sets you free, you’re free indeed, so I’m gonna be transparent about my whole life and don’t give me any fixes.

25:10 It, I didn’t know what it was at a time and I took it and I had an experience for the first time I took, when I was back in nineteen, what happened, I just loved everybody, I didn’t know what it was and some work to me in the night club, legend, the goth guy dancing, that speak of it, oh okay, how do that, oh God, the speaking of thought, it danced in and did, it was like I just, I was just happy, just fell in love with everybody and I came home, you know, sleepy, nothing did I do that, go to speak, win dance time cuz I didn’t understand what it’s not the kind of drug, MDMA, you expect a boxer to be taking? Well, because I think, you know, it slow because there’s so much that went on in my life, we missed a big part of my life that started me, because we have to go back, because if you don’t go back you’re not gonna understand why I was in the position I was in.

26:21 Back in 1972 my brother was killed by racists, and here in London, yeah, in Essex, okay. He was killed, the only way I can describe it, he was like my Mufasa, I would like Simba, I always wanted to be with him. I remember the police lights are flashing outside my house and my mum was crying, she was screaming, screaming, I was eight years old and she said he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s always crying, was dead, dead, dead, what’s dead, I don’t understand, Dave, and he’s dazed and I found out my brother was killed by racists, he’s cut, he’s grinding, he bled to death.

27:14 He was 17 and it affected me in a big way, because from then something in my heart was severed, something in my heart was said that it was like, and it was so funny because now I understand it was that the same way as Simba. Just left and went away, and that was the same with me, something just, I just went away. I started shoplifting, started smoking at the age of 8, my life just went. I didn’t have no feelings, my whole life changed from that incident, and I’m gonna show you from this 8-year-old boy was affected until the 40s.

27:53 Something you loved was taken away, yeah. And when you’re 8 you think that the world is just, just telling you that it just did, there’s nothing here for you, no, you don’t want to love anything anymore, you know, it, I think I’d see, yeah, I need to cry myself to sleep. I was 8 years old. I would tell my shop, my said, I don’t want to die, down the diary, you’re dying like him. Yeah, yeah, I was scared, and that’s like older now as my life, it’s been turned around.

28:16 I said to myself back in them days, like 17, when you’re 18 you’re like a man, I’m a ninny, Furi gata internet, big cyber, big, big, I thought we ain’t got long to live, he’s gonna die soon, that’s what you used to think. So my brother at 18, we think he was a man, he was just a little boy. Come on, my 53, nearly 53, and it’s like he was taken away from me and it affected me. Was that shoplifting? I was that fighting with National Front all the time, always fighting and angering me, that did not go.

28:51 What was the scene like back then between National Front, what was racist racism scene like? I mean was it, what can you describe it? Absolutely, actually the best time of my life was actually living in that area compared to now. How’s that? That’s not because we never fight with our fists or before, be, that’s it, no packing, no one, it coming up with a Mac-10.

29:18 Hello? We will fight with guns and all that, Lyla is today, we never fight sometimes, you fight somebody, you by the time you get to the end of the road you back friends. Do you understand? No one died, no one died, him went back in the day, it was like someone got mugged, it was an old Lena thing, our play so many black, that that was just my, I was it happens all the time now, he picked up the paper, you see what’s going on in the world today compared to there, and it was so funny, the old people were going, oh, I was good in the old days, so we’re talking about good in the old days, now I’m throwing up, I think, man, it was good in the old days because everything was changed, the programs that we watch, the things that we done were completely different, we’d come at a certain time, soon to get done, we’ll all be home to finally be there now.

30:14 There’s no family unity like how we grew up, so growing up with a National Front, nothing for unpacking and shooting and killing in, in doing. The actually prefer the time then and now, you prefer fighting with the National Front guys in the streets of Essex as opposed to being in Australia, relax? No, oh no, no, no, no, see, don’t throw that one, no, no, no, no, I’m to me here, no, in Australia, we’re talking about here, okay, but you, it’s, oh okay, see because you’ve gone from, I’m talking about in here, I’m talking about growing up here.

30:51 Okay, so you’d rather have grown up then than today? Yeah, absolutely, today more dangerous. But still your brother got killed. No, it wasn’t that safe and it was still fights intention. Yeah, it was more intense, but the difference is it was one of them things that it was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

31:09 It was so funny, I thought my dad warned him, like you know that when my uncle saw him that day, my uncle floors, like you know my dad’s probably, well if I only brought him home, but it wasn’t meant to happen. My dad was trying to warn him and it was so funny that Becky night intimate to my dad, didn’t leave me, everyone back to his grave afters because that Wally’s sons, he was everything that come, they bought some bar bailiffs, everybody else was born in England so they think, wow, we brought more away from Barbados, support me here and he died, so now healing to do. What’s it like growing up with a family from Barbados?

31:50 What’s the color, what’s the culture like, what do you take away from that? I’m no coach, I’m English, I’m English, my, um, you know, it’s not like, yeah, it’s so funny because when are we [expletive] get to give the accent change, but um, when I’m with my friends I’m English, we mummy dad came back in the 50s, early 50s, and the neighbours like mum, like the woman that used to help look after my mom’s kids and Florrie, it was like gypsies, Scottish gypsy that looked after me from like six weeks old, help my mum, and then we all just grew up the English way. My dad, when they play the West Indies play England in cricket, my dad will become our West Indies Joe Scheffer, oh come on England, sir, we had good banter, we just grew up that way.

32:38 Okay, so eight, eight years old you see your brother killed, you’re angry now, yeah, smoking, your shop, shoplifting, fine, okay, fighting, and that goes throughout you, you got this funny chip on your shoulder but it’s probably based on fear. It wasn’t, I never kind of had no, I never had a chip because you know what, if I could have had a chip, but you know what, my dad, my dad said never judge a book by its cover, God rest his soul, because my dad never had no racism in him even though he lost his son. My dad was never like that, we never, we never had no, like, friends or anything that had raised him, if they had they got to go, we never had that, we was never brought up that way, so now fact my dad’s were bringing the family up all the same way, they never looked, everybody see all, he was never like that, so we never had, we never, never had chip on my shoulder.

33:34 But you had this, I had anger, anger, but with a blue chip within the chip, you had a strange kind of anger, because I watched this press conference today that you had with Eubank, the first time you guys signed the contract on the wall, on the desk, and he’s not even looking at you, in the back to you, but you got this kind of anger in you that I haven’t seen it afire before. I said something that’s unique to you, know, have you met Chris Eubank? Yeah, yeah, so the difference is what is with him, it’s only Chris, it was like he just have to good look at mingi, oh, and I see I want to strangle him.

34:09 It was just a way that he conducted himself. And why did that wind you up? Because I didn’t even, you know what it was, Brian, I was like, it was just like he just dropped them, where did he come from? It was just like that, what, who are you? What?

34:28 He was like you’ve bought a silver spoon in his mouth, and when you come from South London, but the way that he conducted himself, for like it’s like the Queen should be living in home and it should have been in Buckingham Palace, that was his element, our mentality, we just clashed, we’re just different. Someone in kind of people is my sausages fell on the floor, I’m picking up and put it back on a plate, no Chris, he won the whole new breakfast, that’s just his image. But now all the difference is he has to continue to portray that image and I know that’s hidden, I know to rule him, I really know the real here.

35:05 What is the real him? It’s got the foul mouth. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, you think he can put on all that image to everybody, I know him. He told me never to swear when I was done doing these interviews, after he said, Brian, I don’t swear. Oh listen, he swims and he knows I could look at the camera and say how much he costs, and I told him to stop swearing, so he can’t come in, so you can pawn that image, see, yeah, I know him, you know, I know you.

35:38 How do you know him so well? Because when we were signing this contract and should we go there now and doing a favorite for later on, we’ll come to it. I want to go through you, a little bit of your history, yeah, and then we’ll talk about Eubank been three, yeah, and the history of it, I’ve seen some emails, so you feel it’s me, man, okay, so you know, so now you know it’s the truth, no life, all right, they say you know the real man, yeah, and I’m afraid he’s a bad man, right?

36:08 He defeated the way he conducted selfies, he’s got an image that he’s got to portray, but then we can talk about, oh there’s so much about him in the Sun and I think that sounds quality, but we can go there, but I don’t know when you want to come in, there’s so much that we can, I know can cover. I mean, first of all, I guess you have to admit that having a guy like Chris as an opponent oh yeah is an amazing thing. Absolutely, you can’t appreciate at the time.

36:32 No, I mean I think at the end of the day I think I just didn’t know where he company, just like he did a book, whoo-hoo, where did you come from? I don’t even know, we come from just like to drop there any victim, it, who are you? I don’t even know who he was. I had the limelight and in order for this man and I thank God for him, don’t get me wrong, I thank him, but where did he come from? It’s just like he just dropped out, this guy, and he was there with his monocle, eavesdroppers in his Ken, who’s this man?

37:03 I didn’t know who he was, it just dropped me, it wasn’t like I didn’t have the time to think about it and digest. He was fun, I didn’t even know, he would, he just was there just like that. Do you think, do you think that was a technique that he was, I think that was a tactic to get in boxers’ minds by making them angry in the air and they all that funny. No, that was Jeffersonville, that was just who I was, it was, it wasn’t like I was angry anywhere, as you say, from yeah, now I will show you, from being 8-year-old boy, right, because I don’t want you get a twist, didn’t think that because he came along, it was an angry man, angry boy that was living inside me and I didn’t know how to deal with.

37:44 Okay, which made you a successful fighter? Yeah, yeah, but yep, I think that was in me anyway because I had, I had successful brothers in there, was no girls in the house, if you got up late for breakfast you missed it, so it was always fighting in the house, look at, my dad wasn’t there and when you want, when you, when you’re knocking 22 guys out in a row, yeah, when you’re doing that stuff, is that anger being expressed or is it fear as well? Sometimes I thought about it, you know, you think, no, just, okay, just do, cuz I had that discipline from the army.

38:21 Okay, I just had that discipline, remember the thought, major, I came in second in a relay and I was all happy in the farm, major gave it to me, you w you did you that and I remember after the Germans had invited, I’ve been number one, second to no one, and that came from myself, made you remember what I was saying, look at him, so net they’re betting, but he wasn’t talking about how I’m talking, he was screaming and cussing me and say, look at you, be number one, second to no one, and I remember that’s sticking in me, I know for Joe McClendon, that wasn’t me, number one, second to no one, from what I know. Wow, and you said that before the fight, after, after the fight, right? So your channel, so that army also harms your competitiveness.

39:06 Listen, back in the day we, Rocky was around, listen, snow, sleet, with, hey, Rocky can do it, I can do it, so whatever it is, we had that kind of mentality. Yeah, be number one with your weight, we work with, we’re going to the mountaintop, that was it, that was a whole so what I really sleek, that’s so fun, I’ve got to mention this corner when he was in Australia, if I am, I’m not really good, it’s raining. What, I’m not running because it’s raining?

39:42 Hello, to a design, obviously, obviously it’s changed, but I mean like it’s when I can’t run, what is that all about? I don’t give it, five below zero and it’s no sleep, I’m running out there, that’s dedication. Oh it’s cool, I’m not running because it’s raining, sorry. Khan, all right, so that’s the background. What you’re right back up to this ecstasy evening, is that, that was one of probably the first times where maybe you could let a lot of that anger out, maybe even for the night, because look, there’s something therapeutic about MDMA too, you know, okay, when abused maybe not, but you know it was, it was, it didn’t turn into an addiction, right?

40:21 Because I think what it was, it was, it was going through curbs, going through a messy divorce as well, it’s pretty long, so it was like, and I love, I love my wife, I let the time, but it was just like we was not ready for marriage, we had three kids but it was like we’re just clashed and it was light enough, I didn’t want to not be married because I want to try and be just like my dad was, being married, and but we just didn’t hit it off and so sometimes I take that for, I was in the dark, very dark pie for many years, right, it’s all through my career, it was a dark place. So you’re winning and still in a dark place? Yeah, because they’re gonna take them for you to just take me away, right?

41:06 Do you think part of you wanted to get away from the angry Nigel as well, because that can be hard to wake up every day and be that angry guy? No, I grew at a time, okay, it was in me, it was something going on, it was a lot. Yeah, no, never like that, you could just tap into it? Yeah, no, I didn’t tap into it because I had all these negative thoughts going on, is well another force, you gotta understand that, you know, no, because I laugh till I know what, my Christianity later on as we get it, because there’s this so much that how what coincide with my life, so in my fault pattern, it’s what you think is what you wanted to understand, so the force that was going in there was a negative force, only positive force, well it got full or what is devil falls, if this is how it is, it’s one only ever, and I’ll show you from Scripture as we talk how my life was.

41:58 Okay, now you’re partying and training hard at the same time? No, no, no, no, I party hard, see what I do is I’ll just give you a quick synopsis, then I train, I live on boiled chicken, sometimes fish for breakfast, chicken for breakfast, when I thought you guys, I was thinking about a hundred eighty-eight meals a day, fifty hemoglobin iron tablets like dog biscuits, I’ll have to take fish in the morning, fish in the morning, but these are the kind of thing that I do, so do that for like eight weeks and then after the fight then I go and hit the town hard, so what it is then I go out and I come right down, kebabs, McDonald’s, fish and chips, you name it, all the way down, and I know it took me eight weeks to get back into tip-top condition anymore. I’m gonna peak and I’m gonna go down, so I know it took me exactly eight weeks to get to the top.

42:47 Okay, and what is hitting the town hard look like in in at your heyday? And my heyday, what it was only through a week of hitting the town, listen, what it would be like after a fight, Friday, cleaning someone, fights I’d be hurt by doing a guy in part because I’ve just experienced something I’ve never experienced before and I wanted to get that feeling again because when I weren’t training I had more problems, when I was training out with that piece, gender someone may not be here when that Mount Teide and I just been away, when I came back if everybody wants something, people want money off of me, stories being sold, because it was all self-inflicted, mind you, it wasn’t nobody else, is all self-inflicted, so I took these little friends to get me away from these these places, but was already in a dark place anyway.

43:42 Some, what it would be like, right, it would start off Friday night, you were like no. Oh, on Friday night, yeah, but then after that we got Friday and there will be out from Saturday night to Monday morning, to three day, two day, three day ago, after we go to Stringfellows, when it was, wasn’t a strip club, it was twenty odd years ago, it was a good company should DJing, I can remember his class, right, know what, a members table, just no, no, that remember what, none of the members, it weren’t, no, no dancing, no women dancing, was nothing like that, was just like a funky ass that we used to go and play, then from there we go to type, called for names, even read, do you mean used to go to Cassandra Perry, back in the day, we’re not talking about how it is, all pushing all them all and here are Henry’s, none of that, my the boys, he said, we used to have it large and then we go to, what was it like, Cavity or one of the best clubs going, yeah, then we go from there on Saturday night we go to the Park in Kensington, now they don’t let bright, you know, back in the day, profits, we used to run the place, these lovely clubs, Cassady Perry, I mean you know we’re talking about the creme de la creme back then and that’s all change.

45:05 And what are you doing in these clubs, you talking to girls, you hanging out? Yeah, I’ve never drunk champagne, I didn’t ever buy it, but I didn’t drink, I couldn’t, my drinks were, sorry to say it, the team down, but my drink for like do Pawnee eliminating tearing, Coke in Southern Comfort, lemonade, like that will come, but lemonade, I just can’t drink, I wouldn’t really drink, a drinker, but by people champagne, and yeah, I mean I never paid for knowing that, so it was just, I was just in a different place, so and that would last for like from so after a fight, be Saturday night, Sunday night, come on Monday, Monday morning, then then when the fights having to be first a night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night, coming on Monday, so it’s like for five days and we’ve done this for like ten years, ten years, but the club that we love was Ministry, is found, I DJ and it was like I just be like an experience that I’ve never experienced, it was just like I just love music, I love funky house and it was like we used to say if you want to fight you would have gunfire to rile up a whole slew in the play a football you want to go to Wembley, if you want to play rugby when playing Twitter and if you want to have it large you gotta be Ministry of Sound, and we used to do that, we had a corner in the same corner for 10 years in Ministry, sounds a good life?

46:39 No, because at the time, at the time, because I was in a very dark place and it was something where I didn’t want to remember. We remind, no, where was I, just want to get away from it. Okay, in the dark place for 10 years you were in a dark place? Well it wasn’t because I, I kind of had these feelings to try and take me away from the dark places. What was the dark place?

47:05 Well, I think fighting, because going back of the kid now, I had six, I was 12 years old a summer when we were could have been 10, 5, 10, 5, 12, size 18 big woman, I just need someone to just love me, redefine, I didn’t have had a very low self-esteem. As much as I was hard, I had a very low self-esteem, so I was addicted to sex as well, regarded in what science a woman was, I and I and I weren’t getting that kind of love from a wife because we didn’t know how to love each other because we were too young in life, we didn’t really know how to, it’s much as I was doing my face, she was doing her own thing so we were always clashing, nothing at that time with like three kids involved, but we just didn’t know how to to make this marriage work, so laughing, so I had a lot of feelings away, why can’t I make this manager, why can’t is why can’t we be, but it wasn’t ever meant to be, it’s much of you had three kids and that was what my battle was, was I did not want to be without my kids.

48:17 Okay, and the darkness was who knows, child, low self-esteem, trying to find some security in a woman or lots of women. Again, I hear about the notorious orgies of Nigel Benn, but he’s happening, well there are lots of women at the time, whoa, being onto the athlete, net within my book at 26, then I felt funny, it was like, are you saying there with a guy called Grade, I took me to some, this place in Outer Mongolia somewhere and it’s all like merchant bankers, lawyers, Barry Simms, I think one way, you know, finding where you can, you know what I mean, it was just crazy, all these Bentleys and Mercedes, you name it, all these women coming in ball gowns and it’s like I never experienced that, and then what would happen, a little movie, but your Cruise, Eyes Wide Shut?

49:13 I don’t know, I’ve never watched. Okay, but I’m just talking about like I’ve never experienced that, it was like I’m just a black guy from Ilford, merchant bankers, lawyers, Barisan, these big mansions and it’s like there was doors off of every room and I’m looking at it, was my eyes wide open. I’m in becoming home only 26, yeah, you know what was going on, I remember coming away, mom, mom, and I tell my mom and dad and I started laughing, I was like, I’ve never experienced any ones, I’ve never been there, and it was a lot of celebrity today about what major name.

49:59 Okay, but there were a lot of women in your career, and when you’re party and a lot of things happen, but again you felt like you’re trying to fill a hole inside of you with the women sometimes? You know, it’s because I think I had a little self-esteem and I think sometimes it was some negative thing that was coming my way about my appearance and all that, and it kind of affected me. Do people say you weren’t a good-looking fighter? Well no, the more world other people’s, you know, people that you wanted to say that, you know, so I had a low self-esteem anyway.

50:34 I didn’t have a woman, we were saying like, come up to me and say, oh, oh, you really fix them, like, who, me? But you know they just working me, but they give me a comfortable, okay, is that what you feel? Okay, okay then, yeah, I take that and in this minute you can’t sell a story on me by me. Okay, you tell me I was alright, sorry, and so it was just like, you know, I wouldn’t even feed in the Eagle, just feed them, I said, wow, okay, right, you might feel ugly, they feel so, I had to add that a little, trying to like, you know, and I’ve gone by women, cars, diamonds, and that was what was doing it, it was just like, you know, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, low self-esteem, okay.

51:19 And so that made a real roller coaster during you? Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah. Do you imagine what your career would have been like without that stuff, if you had maybe found God back then, even? I was in a very dark place when I’d been the fight I am now, I don’t know, I don’t know, so it’s really hard to say, well if you did, I don’t know, because it’s so hard to kind of say, well what would you have been, I don’t know. I don’t know, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t really say because, you know, that’s so, it’s hard to just mail in, say, yeah, you know, could be like, you know.

52:10 So you’re burning the candle at both ends, yeah. Then Watson was a big moment and it’s remembered as a great fight, and it was here in London, right? So he part in the 10, I know, I heard all about that today. And no one wanted to put the fight on so they put it on in the park in a tent and the Yanks watched it in America on a live broadcast. I mean, again, this is how big that was.

52:34 Tell me what you remember of that night. I remember a life with yesterday, I, because I thought to myself, what could Michael do to me? I’ve had 22, 5, 22 wins, 22 KOs, hello, this is how confident I went. I think that three or four hours I went to get my hair plaited, my hair plaited, it’s not like in English where they play, when you go to black hairdressers it’s like they pull your hair hard, you like, you going here, black man, you come on like a Chinese man because your heads, oh, and my head was throbbing.

53:12 What was I thinking? That’s how confident I was, just I just got, yeah, find my cause, I’ll just go down to the hairdresser’s and get my hair plaited and come out with this outfit, sparkly outfit. So you weren’t taking them as seriously as you should have? No, because, because you’re indestructible, the best thing since sliced bread, and you worried? Absolutely, and I remember it because what you gotta understand is my biggest fight in my life, I got back semi, semi eight, you fathom for that fight and good comment was something and I come out and you can understand it’s like a quote from the tanks gone, because the nervous energy is building up inside me because it’s the biggest fight of my life, and I mean I come out and Michael, so everything I live for, everything, at Mike, I just threw literally everything for the Dean Dean, I will sit about him and Michael’s would no disrespect, I didn’t feel a thing, I mean he’s a great boxer, but I didn’t throw the punches, I just walked ruinin, didn’t feel nothing, so after five rounds it was like delight with flashing, you outta petrol, there’s nothing left, I’ve come back to me corner and this is me microRNA moon, I remember this is like, go out there and steam in, looking a boxing pamphlet, steam him, oh steam, you know I can’t find it in it what it means, steaming, doing for the last five rounds, hello, steam him, that’s what I got.

55:18 I needed a coach in and say, goodnight, goodnight, take your time, just use your jab, thanking me but easy, that’s what Michael had in his corner. I remember my dad said, with Michael had me, you just went to him to say, much no, Michael’s cut, Michael wink that my dad would say like, yeah, I’ve got your boy to understand, and I mean he was hitting me and Michael just covered up, not but every time I was friendly and Michael just bang with the gentleman, I was out, and I remember this bro and I went back to my change because I had a big entourage and it’s like when I lost it was viola, cuz I remember a fit of the best thing since sliced bread and all of sudden was crumbling around me and everyone’s cup that mean the change where everyone’s like, yeah, nice, well I’m just just gonna hang with Michael, yeah, look, when you get the title back give me a call, mmm, God left me, so come on, they all did our listen that quick, I can hit a pin drop, it was only me and my jockstrap in that change room, just me, I thought, man, it was like everything just crumbled around me, like, hello, no one was there, just me and my jockstrap and that was it.

56:43 Even when I got pushed by the referee I felt that packed up that we’re free done that it because if when you lose a fight you feel like every punch going, every punch going, and I thought to myself, you lost, you’re not the best five spread if I had that to deal with. And what, how did you deal with that, what did you do then? I decided to move to Miami, right, that’s not really bad, is it? What did new trainers, new everything, yeah, that’s the furthest distance you’d ever been in a fight before, in two rounds, sir, yes, you just didn’t know about what that felt like?

57:27 No, I wonder give, I think seven or eight rounds but yeah, but wasn’t that intense. Okay, Reggie Miller, that was it, right, but it was not intended, Michael Watson and the ever fire one, you know, sir, but if I was really intense and I let some close shave, but then I went to Miami and you later became good friends with Michael? Oh yeah, well my collection, you got my original belt, I actually give Michael my original belt, my WBC, he’s got me actually the original belt I won, you gave it to him?

58:03 Yeah. Why? Oh, he went through me, Malcolm, became good friends soon after, after Heath. No, after he’s white view bangs, not with me. Okay, okay, after that you guys became friends?

58:16 Okay. Michael was the kind of guy that, you know, I’m, I didn’t even from, he was a good-looking lad as well, maybe I was jealous of his looks as well, he’s a handsome, we had a good body and he never spread, he never said a bad word, Michael just conducted this himself or so. How can the other person’s different, but we’re Michael completely different, he always had respect from everybody, was a great ambassador for boxing, not many like him, I know, did not many like him, neither one of us is like Michael, I’m not just saying it because of what happened, but none of us like him, he’s a good-looking lad and every Jesse just conducts himself in a good way.

58:56 Okay, so you go to Miami, start picking up the pieces, start rebuilding? Yeah, there could be a better, you know, I mean to just pick up a thing, you know what, I’m going to Miami, I mean back in the day where I was hanging, that was like me in Kari Otis and all things, I was crazy. Hardy moved from London to Miami? Yeah, but I’d, yeah, but no, but NIM days, no, wasn’t doing, I wasn’t doing nothing, okay, I was a straight going in, you strike on the stranger, still early in your career, it’s too early, my career.

59:31 Yeah, like I said, it even drink, I was just taking it all in because we were right on Miami Beach on Collins Avenue, OD he had like the big hammer, Gloria Estefan, in John Cheever, all him houses there and where the block the amethyst would have stayed in behind me was like Miami Beach in Fontainebleau, so really just left open and I’m wow, so had will experience, but then we had to go Fifth Street Gym, and I didn’t like sparring, I actually really hated sparring. Why is that? I didn’t, I never, I’m mostly, my fights, God is my witness, I’m mostly done about thirty rounds of fight, some people do 300, I didn’t like it at all, I need to do bang bang, get my distance, that’s it, that’s it, bye, so get your timing right, your cardio, that’s it, that’s what you know.

1:00:32 Some guys on fire, hey, don’t make me, you now can fry it, I did, will never fight in the gym, how many fighters I look at, Tommy Hearns, maybe that’s why your brain, right, great fighter. I’m looking playfulness and then path you to bash me, idle feet, no, oh, away your pain got a distance, bam, bam, bang, that’s all I wanted. In Miami it wasn’t like that, the Yangs like to put in the heart, this is down there like, now you got a, do you got a, that’s it, and a funny thing about it, you get guys from at the street, I don’t, I don’t not using this term but it like street punks rather, he’s just really smoking, anyone’s part with me now, and I was fine with a guy called Freddie Pendleton, Ricky Hatton battered, but back in the day, I mean 2084 wiki for him, I mean I’d spar and he just waits, like him, watch my moves and they’re getting it, just step back and go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and my head gear would go fine and after gun-walking pick up my head gear, put it back on and I didn’t get it, I didn’t a fault of a guy called Adolphus Washington, right, it was like cruiserweight and I was like Midway, he was a spitting image of Mike Tyson, saying you’re looking at this guy’s full of it, oh, no, oh no, no, no, no, hell no, that’s what you gotta look him out, Adolphus, watch this, you look at him, that’s spar with him, it was like, it was like light heavy, I was a middle, go cruiserweight, and I was like Freddy Pender was like, like water and bang, bang, so he’s just knocking my head off a number, I used to think, no, just broke my ankle so I ain’t got a

1:02:34 Spa, that’s what it was like for the first six weeks, and after three months I started understanding their culture and I think, who was his father? Yeah, yeah, got a sore back, oh okay, it all changed and I started understanding their culture, what they were like down there, so you’re, you be aggressive? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because, but then because that’s where I, and then we can talk about, don’t do it, which is a great fight, but now I’m fighting Holgate on power, now this guy was just strong, like his shoe boxes really pass about really fixed fit and I mean I was hitting this guy, banging him, banging him, but it was and I was just trying to box, just bam, bam, bam, about a different kind of moving, better bang, and I mean was just strong, really powerful, but I just done 10 rounds, that was it, because always in the back of my mind, can I do around every time I’ve been there, yeah, my name’s, you love you’re not gonna make it, I had all the negative force, yeah, can I make 10 rounds and so on for now 10, 10 rounds, I know that I can do 12 rounds, and then I had another fender, Lyle Williams, and then the next song was dogged, wait for the WBC, WBO in Atlantic City.

1:04:02 Mmm, how’d you like fighting in America? Okay, big boy, I’m a brick, I’m gonna kick up the noise in there, but then vote for me, I’ll fight anywhere, I don’t care. You were a blonde, okay, he still can get it, it’s not me, it’s me, me, him, he can get it, so you can do what you want, I know it’s gonna get it. Yeah, what about Americans in general, what do you think of being over there, would you pick up? I just think, you know what is it, Sam, it was just a way of life, I had nothing against Americans at home, I didn’t have like, you know, I get now, I’ve gotten very well, I enjoyed my time in America, I really did, and I done some of the crazy things in it, LA, living in there, hanging out, right, Latino, like crazy Mexican with bandanas, you know what, am I doing, listen, some of the places that we went, I’m talking about me and my wife, we go to Rae’s way, like God must have been upon me, listen, I tell you, God must have been there, there’s so much more life that I’ve not even put in my book, laughing, I never diamond, car, a watch and my wedding ring and all that, I mean my wife where Ray’s waiting, like people said, you better leave, there might be a shoot at him, things like this, like LA gang man, listen, but and I knew I was, and I pull up in my on line five nine, pose in this club, Black Widow to Ray’s, it’s like okay, let’s get back to poke them because, because then we could ever why they keep jumping back, we’ll get to that, alright, we’ll get to that.

1:06:03 So Atlantic City, you win that night? Yeah, get that belt? Yeah, but it was there with, give us a build up to define, cuz man I can do twelve rounds, I just knew, I was 26 years old, I don’t mean it was so much kicking up inside me that I was like, in them days we had eight ounce gloves on, now we fight with ten ounces, we had they’re like, oh, you know baby clothes, what I mean by baby, cuz it’s like I can actually swim my knuckles and it would like do it just like nothing on there, and I was hitting this guy, if you watched that fight, I was hitting him with speed and power and I remember we looked at each other, don’t do it, and he said to me, you’re going down, and I said to him, yeah, Mike, going down, you’re going down too, but you’re gonna say down that would, I think the second or the third round we both throw hoops together, but the difference is I was moving him and he was moving back and he caught me right on my chin, but the difference is he actually hit me pinpoint perfect, no differences now if he hit me up here, aqua Libra, you go like you were drunk, but me hit because he hit me bang on perfect shot, I went down, but everyone did, then I looked at the ref and I said, yeah, I’m okay, and I remember I looked up, said yeah I’m okay, and I’ve got up and I’m in with a Knicks fan, oh I give it to my bastard granny out of him and I hit him hard and he went down, but I know every shot I was phirni him, people going, weren’t you disarmed?

1:07:54 Oh no, because I knew I was hitting him hard, really hard, because I actually thought my knuckle sinking in and I was fast. You got to watch the fight, it was like the speed of my punches, it’s just I was just reckless, I knew that he weren’t gonna take my punches, I just kind of went for him non-stop, I mean that missing the rights coming up, right, the less come in, whenever watch it and you will see that I just threw, he might miss it all and I’d catch him, I remember after the song he’s in, they said they’ve never seen the air like this, I smashed badly, I just, I was just throwing punches and all my knuckles actually boost off to it. Oh, great, it’s so that’s your first belt?

1:08:48 Yes. And so now you’re back really from that Finsbury Sparkman’s, yeah, now you got that momentum, 26, now you’re feeling good, you know you can go the distance, yeah, all right, and now it’s time to come back to England. No, didn’t know, I thought Iran Barkley, Kleenex, you know who Iron Bars, Iron Bars for Tommy Hearns twice, what a magnificent four and they beat him twice, stopped him twice though and he was my number one contender, I don’t mean the Iron Bar is like 6 foot 2, 6 4, 3 built like her and he’s so ugly, tears when he’s a run down, he’s frightening and it was where I prayed really hard for him and he’s not fast, not like Tommy and skill for him, but he can bang, he’s just strong, he’s built, it’s like Honey Monster, and I trained hard for the fight, worth it for one for I was gonna get stopped by him.

1:09:48 We’ve got to the press conference, we looked at each other, we just looked at each other, I looked at him and I would think to myself, if you want it, can have it right now, you ready, you want some of this, I’m ready now, and he went, he looked down and because he looked down I knew I had, I knew I had him, and then when we got the first round I assumed it had then the hot skipper, bang, right hand straight away, I knew the shot straight away, right up in his corner, he do you know time it, get out, he’s gonna bang right hand straight away, I hit him and he started bucking now in a reference, try to pull me off and I’m not Ben, he’s sitting on the road and I just threw a punch or just I’m thrown, the referee had to pull me off him, but I said and did I remember afterwards we were banging, just trying big punches and then I went over to the right side of road and he hit me and I went back, but then I’m good at fighting off the ropes, I was just friend punches, I was missing McKay at one time, I was just friend punches through, got free knocked down rules in a fight was stopped, but I didn’t want it to be stuck because I knew I was actually gonna stop him, I know was I was breaking him up and I knew that free knock Neville’s defending this house back home.

1:11:10 You wanted to actually finish him? Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, okay, so now you got a lot of momentum. Yeah, now we’re going in to your old buddy. Yes, you back? Yeah.

1:11:25 Okay, and so I was talking about that night where he’s not facing you, you signed the contracts there? Yeah, he’s bad, more than bad-mouthing the sport of boxing, he’s saying it’s a mug’s game. Yeah, that upset you because that’s the way you, that didn’t really have a set, me go to the mud guy, he needs to fight just the way he is, he always was, he wants a reaction, that’s just the way he is, he wants a reaction and it was betting people and I think that was just a way that he’s, he just has know how to rub people up the wrong way and me, so it was never about that, that’s not water running for that way, I just didn’t like him at that present time.

1:12:03 And as a boxer when you saw him, what did you think that you had to worry about with him, or what, well I plan, well did you ever have a point? No, I didn’t know, I never had a plan, never had a plan, never had a plan. I’m not gonna take nothing away from Chris on the day to fight, God is my witness, I’m telling you the truth, I’ve gotten us cows in the morning, I was 12 stone, they’d 12 Sunday and I had to do five, three and a half minutes in the steam room, anything that you know.

1:12:37 How much weight did you have to lose for the weigh-in? From 12 stones five, five, five six, five six, what kind of, I was living selling five in three-quarter pounds, it’s had two lives about really six pounds, it was in two hours, that was not a problem because I was healthy and remember the films that I was actually watching, because what happened, my manager put me in the top of the hotel, I was sitting down, there was like actually watching On the Waterfront, was Marlon Brando, so I was eating all healthy but because I weren’t burning it off it was sitting in my gut, but that’s not taking nothing away from Chris, absolutely, not taking nothing away from Chris, he prepared like the champion and and I’m gonna look to him, I didn’t underestimate but I just didn’t ever game-playing at all, never had a game plan at all, majora more fights, hella game plan at all, no.

1:13:26 I think number gen of my fights did I have had a game plan, not one did I ever had a game plan, not one, none of my face, doc, I’m trying to think, no, you got me there Brian, I don’t go in there and crush them and just whatever feels right in the moment, yeah, but aggressive, I never had a game plan, even would have think of like an event, a game plan, I just got to do what I got to do, do you understand, it was a yeah, I never had a game plan, I’m trying to think, mm-hmm, it’s what taught me through that fight that night, yeah, I think when I looked at Eubank’s got great, for the funny thing about, you’ve got Nick, it’s got big thick massive in the end of physique on him to die for, yeah, he had abs before anybody had ever, yeah, in this big thick net in the other head that was shaped like a mallet, it was just what his head was just big, but I was strong, I was like punching can’t dead it, he said he had a strong chin?

1:14:34 Oh sure, 100%. I mean punched him hard, I hit him hard, it was like these by new ways weak and I wish I knew, knew now, and the met at the time these, I didn’t underestimate him but I wasn’t smart, I wasn’t smart with reading him, I just won’t ever fight with him, that was it, but it’s the wrong fight that has because I mean it caught me about three or four times in that fight and you know easy, oh my leg one loses sometimes, you get a good punch up, Bank stylee out, you can just come forward or sometimes you walk food and he’ll back off, but when you let go the Fattah, you saw that Cristina black? Yeah, I did, noise, I thought and they come at ya, you know and I can’t goose on me, let go and I do, you see now me come at me and he combined some, yeah, combined so, yeah, and he saw that and he went for it in that lasted right, but he had dropped to the canvas like even a minute, yeah, sleepover right hand at the backyard, but he was just strong, it it got me about in around four or five, it got a thumb in the eye, I got so many, I didn’t know humility as an accident, but did me, I went up and it was like so I couldn’t see the punches coming, it was like something pricking, the needle, cuz when he was hitting me was just like it was just paying going up there, but you know the best man won in a fair stoppage, yeah, absolutely, yeah, so I’m not gonna quit against that, hadn’t had it.

1:16:25 How did you deal with that loss, and was it hard to lose to you, baby? Oh absolutely, because you know he’s gonna be walking around with visa monocore knees cane, he’s beneath me, you know it’s all gonna come, don’t ya, you know that’s all gonna come, what can I say, rock on, say oh you never really won that fight, if he did he was fast at the apple pie, and I mean the difference is when I lost her once and it was like, yep, well done mate, but I know I know I’m gonna get all that, so it’s hard to deal with, okay, but you deal with it, I know of it, right? I don’t really, and that builds up the rematch, which came a few years later.

1:17:08 Bring you back because that fight we’ve got 400,000 for, that was a lot of money then, 400 grand, and you kept your money? You don’t tell us, okay, yeah, we get to that cuz every Sunday we usually has a story about them losing their money. No, no, no, no, thank you Jesus, but we get to that in a minute, but then after you banks, it was like I got 400 grand, it was a good payday for me, latest ever at the time, yeah, and then I went down to 35 grand. Oh absolutely, I’d focus from going from 400 grand and a 35, trying that was that, wow that was a kick in between a ligand at her and he’s got it in, he’s guys of all people, of all people, and you know you have words with him out there?

1:18:08 No, no, put step away from him as far it’s possible, and then Barry Hearn, Thank you, Baron, he got me a shot with the premier built the WBC, hallelujah, and then we went on to Italy for Mario Veit, won the WBC, premier about premier, you don’t get hide in the WBC, mate. Mm-hmm, so we were back on track, back on track, so did I defended that knowing time before him and each fighter was getting like seven family and your grandsire, yeah, we back on track, okay, and you’re banking a lot of that money? Yeah, yeah, thank them, not a lot of the money, they give one of the few boxers that doesn’t have the story of the promoter that screwed him, the agent that did this, listen, I had Don King with my accent from, huh, but the difference is he knows I’m packing in venues, so why is he gonna try and make money for me, I rather go to the biggest rat, why are you good to leave little rats go to the bigger, I don’t, you know, trying to use that term, but why am I going to somebody ending where I’m at the top, I’m top of the food chain, he’d say well no, I yeah, I like this man, he’s making pot loads of money, so I, you know, regardless if, see what happens, there’s a lot of Fighters if he find me 800 grand or whatever and he’s making two million, I’m happy with that, I’m making free monkey, I’m happy with rum game as long as what you saved going in my bank, I’m happy, but if he started playing around, thing was, you know, more go elsewhere.

1:19:54 That was my intention, so own, and you always got paid? I got paid, man, it was like, you know, German choir, would see the money, show me the money, and I got my money. I never understand that story, boxers give you a wire, like, oh this person’s cream is it, it’s like well you know, read the goddamn contract, or again like you say, if you play me once then I’m not gonna pack your stadium out, and I couldn’t, awning is a businessman. Yeah, absolutely, if you know how to do the business, he’s been doing it for many years, but I don’t, I wasn’t under, I was not, he was from promoted from a lot more fights for the deficit, he paid me over money, didn’t have a lovely, why is that investing a lot, my money invested, all my money in properties, that’s why I’m, you’re doing just fine.

1:20:41 I’m blessed, right, you’re blessed, you don’t need the money for you, Eubank been three, we’ll get to that. Yeah, second fight with him comes up, yeah, how do you feel about that, was that always on your radar, did you want to get back there? Oh no, because it was different now, you know, it was like I had to permeate bill, he wanted to bill, he went in my bill, you know, I’m coming, didn’t show me the money. We both got million-pound each for that fight, which he got eight hundred I think.

1:21:18 Oh did he? Yeah, so I watched it, thanks, show Jonathan Ross had the two of you, it was like some hour show and he had you in front of a huge audience, like three reporter people, and yeah, you made like a mil and Chris had eight, eight hundred thousand and you’re sitting there at two chairs across with him with Jonathan Ross, you know, and you stand up and you walk over and Chris is like leaps out of his chair, right, and you were in your head, if you said there’s some money and you sad about your, your, your [expletive] with him, pub, you messing with you? Yes, even Chris said that was a good move.

1:21:51 Yeah, that was good because he’s giving me compliments. I was just saying with me, I know it’s the money, mate, but yeah, it’s, I respect him, much of living like him at the purple, respect to me, the fun. Why do you respect him as a fighter? Pun, why, what, I respect him, it was good fire, I think you know if some of the fights that he had, some very close decision that he should have lost, but because sometimes you look at anything more, am I gonna have Joe Bloggs or I’m gonna have Chris Eubank in there, he ain’t gonna bring the money in, Ephesians make very close decision, but I respect him in the book when he fought me for good, he felt good, it felt very good, very strong, very strong, he had to do what he had to do, by the second fight, you know, he didn’t, I’ve got point deducted, really, I would have stood still won that, it was like wait, these shorts up here with these yellow shorts up there, you can’t even see his body shows up there, there’s a low blow, wouldn’t mean pull the shorts down, I should said look, keep him down there, yeah, up here, I put his chest, deducting the point and then we got a draw, so that point we’re giving you the win.

1:23:08 Right, okay, and so that second fight, you said the first fight you wish you would have trained harder for it, maybe you didn’t want to wait cut that wait before, maybe? No, no, it wasn’t even that, even if a cut, if I’d have cut away it was just he’s not, yeah, I don’t think I really had a game plan. Okay, second fight you had a game plan? No, really, just like, you know, just doing different, differently because what anybody, I’ve already experienced him, I’ve already experienced, yeah.

1:23:40 And in your mind you won that fight, as long as I’ve got a draw, still got a million pound around my waist, right, right. What you did, you made your money, you kept your belt? Yes, and he kept his belt, I made his money. Yeah, okay, so how’d you feel afterwards? Neutral, yeah, it was just when I partied, that was it really, the amount of money I had a little moan that with it, had a bee in the bonnet and that’s it gone, move on, I would have been, I would be item SS, IDI if I’ve lost, you know, that didn’t love, okay.

1:24:20 And so the beef was squashed then, or the tension still remained because you didn’t like his attitude? You know, we had, we had an honest rivalry for our ignorance or my ignorance, as Chris would say, we made a lot of money, I mean over 47,000, over eighteen point five million people watching from TV, you no, thank you, no, thank you, Chris Vaughn, bless ya. Every fighter needs a nemesis. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So since then have you guys been battering back and forth, this third fight?

1:25:04 Oh well, I’m just gonna put it out there, Brian, okay, you just read the email from the head from 2013, I just showed you, right, I just showed you, yeah, and it was right, so from there he was talking about nine million dollars, this in there, I saw the email and it said nine million dollars is gonna be held in escrow for you and until after the fight and you’ll be paid ten percent before, and there was a documentary movie you were gonna film and you were gonna sign the contract in Thailand, and yeah, have you see, you’ve just quoted everything that he wrote back in 2013. See this is what we kept with Chris, which is what, all talking, no action, a lot of googly goop, a lot of rubbish, then we had the net within, then I’ve got emails like, should have shown you, that we’ve been talking out to about 2015, I went him, he had guys from Dubai, those men I put it on, that fell through, then we drove all the way down to Manchester, me and him, and that’s why I’m talking about his mouth, cussing in this, you know, so we met guys from boohoo.com, we set any office, we taught there, that’s all through something not working with him, so we got guys from Island, mega multi-millionaires, that was really put on our fight in Wembley where to cut between night between 5 and 10 mil each at Wembley Stadium, we talked about light and it would this year now, could have been the beginning and we’ve got this all sorted, Chris, what really we had an opportunity but let’s just say we made 5 meal each, so if I took it over there

1:26:53 And be like, you know, live in Australia, but it was like 5 million. Your biggest payday? Oh it would have been my biggest, but the difference is it’s like we had all of this and I think myself, what’s wrong with him, he’s not the full ticket, you really ain’t, and I fitted myself, I mean you saw it, the emails, I could’ve showed you more but I just wanted to show you what kind of person that you’re dealing with. It’s why isn’t he fighting? I don’t know, he’s in, he’s in pretty good shape.

1:27:24 Oh yeah, what about being in pretty good shape, it’s not about being in pretty good shape, am I, but the difference is you’re gonna sign it or not and I ain’t got time for this, really, but she was like, and you have a fight twenty years, it’s not about that because the reason why, it’s not about being frightened, in 20 years I’ve been training all the time, it’s not about never fighting 20, and I know Chris, it’s me and him fighting, we just were banging, automatically, it’s nothing about waiting for in 20 years, it would just come back, the only between me and him, I can’t get it against anybody else, only him, but the difference is it’s not had the opportunity, you know what it is, it’s like I can’t play games, it’s just silly, very pathetic, I’m sorry.

1:28:09 We had the opportunity, I’m all right, I really am all right, it was just like really after trilogy, it was like there the fight I wanted, the title be the final curtain, but I just can’t work with him, he’s just silly, I’m sorry, but it’s just like he wants to run the shows, he wants to do everything, it’s just he talks, go Gordy cook, you just search, I just showed you too fast and infer name, which made me person about myself, I feel like Benjamin Button as I get older, there’s no splits, there’s no exceeds, no women, it’s nothing, I feel in great shape but because he’s the way that he’s doing this I can’t work with him and a distance, and you can see that’s why he’s having a lot of problems with his son and I think he’s son is quality, you know, either one gonna talk about his son, it’s because he talked about my son so I’m gonna give it to him just the same way he give it to my son, but I’m not giving it to his son because I think he said it’s absolutely quality, he had the opportunity to fight Billy Joe, I know what’s happening to free milk or even more triple G, never free million or whatever that fell through, now he’s going was gonna defend his title against a British title for about 300 grand, that fell through, I don’t know why.

1:29:25 He’s met Elena’s, he should hold it alone, kind of sick to me down, if you done that you got to go something I would go, he son should be a multi-millionaire now and one thing is I think Kushi Bernstein is talented, he don’t need to jump over the ring, he don’t need to come over and simply the best, start trying to email, I hear dad is only one dad, we don’t need another one, be yourself, and I feel he’s so talented and I think he can get to the top, but what he said pulling the pulling the strings, I think he’s just alienating it, alienating him from the rest of the public. I really feel it’s quality and the difference is really started up my son, this is the same pathetic man, I’m sorry, because they’re getting personal, we said I should be there, this is the same man that sent his kids off to America on their own, so he won’t say he needs to look at himself before he start looking at my son.

1:30:22 My son, you know what, is my son told him about himself, who are you to tell me about my life? Only you and I see, and everyone said, Nigel, what do you think about, y’all leave my son, if my son could tell me about my son, he’s gonna tell him about himself. So I worry about my son, I want my son to learn the hard way, I wouldn’t go through the school of hard knocks so that he can learn, no, I want him to, he might have to go through the only center finger, told my son, son, pay your taxes, they don’t sleep around, did the only two things were tell him, everything else you’re gonna find your way, but two things, pay your taxes, don’t sleep around, don’t be like that, because you know what, his son, he’s gonna hurt you in the long run, but so when he comes a jump from my son, my son can handle himself.

1:31:11 I don’t need to hold my son myself on him or feed him, he needs to let go suddenly some be who he is, and I know that regardless about what he says, I could see with Chris’s son, Chris, he should be, it should be world champion now, his son should be world champion in his quality, oh good, I still think this trilogy fight, it’s gonna happen somehow, do you know what it is, I be on the fifty, Brian, I don’t really know, I don’t really care, really, it was, I feel when I sit down and think about here, I’m actually having a great life, we talked about my life where I’m living in Australia, we were actually a lovely mansion out there, paid for a cache though, it’s not about me trying to earn because maybe if I do it be able to me to bless other people, really?

1:32:08 Yeah, those are big paydays, look, would care, right, how do you think you got a number five, what are you too old, listen, if I can be voted the best Superman entry in history but is everything in Dutchess is the Hall of Fame in the Guinness Book of Records, smoking twenty fives a day, work, he was saying how do you feel gonna be working with Jesus, hello? Wow, and I’m not chasing nothing now, I was before and all the issues that I had with my brother and everything, that evil, the darkness that was in, I’m not in that life no more, no drinking, no sex, no anger, and everything is so funny because I would quote, which I was very, I had a very foul mouth, in Ephesians, Ephesians 4:29, I’d say, let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, only such a word for edification, so it would give grace to those who hear in the need of the moment.

1:33:07 What does that all mean? Speak good words, positive worth other people. I was angry, James one says, be quick to listen, so to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God, sign all these kind of things, regardless of the life that I live now, I’m at peace, and it was so funny in Matthew, this is so inception, in the cheek, giving the other side also, really, I’m working on that, and then it fits like, you know, love those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you, that’s a lot to deal with, but that’s a position I’m in now and I’m more blessed now than they ever have.

1:33:49 And see because you can talk about that life, but I really want to talk about that life because if we talk about that life, it was my nervous breakdown, suicide attempt, suicide attempt while you were fighting after Becky, 9, 1998, two years after 1998, and it was I just could not believe why I keep having either face and why was I hurting this woman I loved so much, that was like she was actually, she hates me saying it, but she was like my knight in shining armor, she could have left me and took everything that she wanted because I think that’s my old life now and I wanted to tell you about my new life, as it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, said if anyone in Christ, he’s a new creature, old things have passed away and behold, new things have come, do you understand, my whole life is changed now, so because I can’t have one without the other because we concentrate so much on that.

1:34:52 If you want to, because I don’t want to start, if you want to finish up all night, let me finish if I listen and I worry about, okay, yes, so two things, if the trilogy happens, what happens in that fight with Chris, you think that’s the way anything, because you know what, if I just know, I know me and how I am, Jesus citizens with that, no weapon formed against me will prosper and no tongue racist, and he said if I’m with you who could be against you, he tells me the battle’s not mine but his, and she and in Philippians 4:13 said that I could do all things through him who strengthens me, I believe in these words and I stand on each word, so you got back up. So I asked Chris, so Chris has been on the show, you know, about a year ago, he was at an event of ours about eight months ago, I interviewed him on stage, so it was, it’s fascinating, I have a fascinating relationship with Chris, he has told me not to swear on the show time, technology knows different accounts on Isaac, I have learned a lot from Chris definitely, but he is a very unique man, very, and sometimes he can be challenging.

1:36:00 So I asked him, I told him you were coming on and I said, do you have something you want to ask Nigel or say the module, and he texted me a question, can you pass me my phone over there, now he’s in Dubai as you know, he spends a little time over there, maybe he’s working on the financing for this fight. No, and so he sent me his question, it’s a little cryptic, maybe you understand what he’s talking about, I don’t know, but here’s what Chris Eubank says when I asked him to ask a question, I said here we go, he said, Chris Eubank, this is for Najib, and he said, can you ask him if he will ever be able to let go of the disease that is called regret, which is yesterday? Listen, if defeat that, see I’m not in City for all this, like I think what he feels is he feels because he’s beating me that I must fight, I think that’s the only thing, I think that’s about it, see when I speak I speak direct, I don’t, I don’t understand that, what did say again?

1:37:06 Yes, can you ask him if you will ever be able to let go of the disease is called regret, right, which is yesterday. So what he’s talking about, have I forgiven him for to beat me, advice, but you haven’t gotten over it, listen, I think I worried about him, I’m getting on with my own life, so it’s not about that, trying to feel it, this is what it’s so pathetic about him, you, I feel saying if they say it’s a straight direct, not like old disease, I’ve got no disease, I’m healthy, I’m blessed, I’m blessed because when we finish up on their life then you will understand how my life is split, it’s not about that, you know what it was, I was really, I was really up for it, I felt great, that’s about it, it’s not like it’s like knowing how good I feel, like I said there’s no drugs, no fix, though nothing, I said wow, how great do I feel, if you won’t say I was ready, so it’s not about disease or anything, it’s just like I don’t know, I see I don’t understand you, see this is talking Gogarty Guk to me, there’s not like straight, why was you a sweet direct, I’m not beating around the bush, I won’t, let’s talk, well Christmas if I just showed you what he sent me to email back to in 2003.

1:38:33 You read it correctly and where we today, same rubbish that he talks about that, you know, I’ve got no time for that, I’m getting on my own life and it’s not about me disease or whatever. I mean what you’re talking about I understood, I want to talk about your new life and new you, but first I want to talk about Gerald McClellan, because talk about that fight. Oh, so you had him over here in 2002, do a fundraiser for him, but for people that don’t know, and now that you’ve had the time to look back on it over that many years, yeah, you know what happened that night and how do you feel about it now?

1:39:16 I didn’t feel nothing anyway because the reason why I’m saying that were not being disrespectful to what happened, I didn’t wish that on anybody, didn’t wish it on Mike Watts, on any boxer that gets in the ring, I don’t, don’t wish it, but with gladiators and if you watched a documentary called A Fight of Our Lives, you ain’t seeing that, you’ll understand, he came over with the wrong attitude, Don King, it all start with Don King, he wanted them me to fight Michael number, take a hundred grand off, well taking a hundred grand off, so then he sent to my agent at the time, if we don’t we’re gonna bring him in, E, Mike Tyson, this is me before I got, okay, I don’t work like that, I know where it’s not who I am, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t work like I don’t, I don’t move him feeling like that, I am it, I meet it head-on, so where it was like a normal fight would have gone, oh you got what she ended the fight, it’s the our talk with Don King because I just give it to him, you already brought him over here to bash me up, he said you made a believer of me, that was his word.

1:40:37 Yeah, Edward sling your hook, because what happened, they put my over here to bash me up, to do a number on me, they brought and that was it, and I remember him saying to my dad, I’m gonna hurt your boy, that’s what you said to my dad, and my dad was that, that was my dad, but that was not disrespectful, but I thought you disrespectful, as I thought myself, this is the guy, I’m not gonna, you know, I’m gonna talk to my dad like I might, don’t talk to my dad like that and that kind of wound me up, could risk my dad’s soul and talk to my dad like that, my him things like that, kind of come over all cocky, you know, thinking like, no I, you know, see if he won like now, and it’s so funny, it’s churning up, I remember that so clearly, everybody had me to get knocked out with him, round went around free from the Observer, the Guardian, the Sun today, the Daily Mail, Mirror, Telegraph, everybody had me to lose within one round, one friend of all you lot don’t know me, so I’m the Dark Destroyer, but I’m not really the darkness, strong really the light destroyer, really, you don’t know me, so you feel all in fights ahead, well easy, you think that if I’m going out, I’m going out on my shield, I’m gonna fall, I’m gonna show you who I am, and what happened and I mean it was like, I remember, if it was like yesterday, it was right, I looked at him and we watched Have the Fight of Our Lives, even his trainer said he used to fight pit bulls and if they lose it shoot them, and then what’d he do, he tape up a Labrador’s mouth and put him in the kennels with his pit bulls, this

1:42:33 Is what the type of person he was and I don’t, but see I don’t need to kind of think that I’m talking, I’m not talking ass at school by him, this is what he was like through his trainer and he loves these people, he always show these pit bull on his arm, you know, this is what kind of person he was, so I remember first round I was not scared at all, didn’t have no time. Did he stare back at you? Oh yeah, it was like easier for gonna be like many other guys and I’m gonna tell you what, the absolutely you’re not like never guys because the different is what happened, you got to look at it, he sat left foot like middle save, gone from like mental banging everybody out, didn’t went up to min away, banged everybody out, but then he first fight he had at super middleweight it’s against me, so he’s not, it takes you about six, eight to ten months heard that to the way, so you getting you, it might have been a different thing if he adapted to their way, but he’s gone bang, bang, bang, straight up there and fighting me and and the funny thing about it, he’s nothing big, it was nothing really big about him, which is explosive puncher and and this is where, sorry, my subconscious, and I’m gonna tell you about he hit me, hit me, did he hit me again, and I went out the ring and I got, I don’t remember nothing, I don’t remember nothing, and I remember I’m just like just friend punchy to survive, now then I’ve gone back to my corner, Danny Mancini, God rest his head, on my trainer came in, Saunders, I said look at the state that you’ve gotten me, look at the site, and I like that.

1:44:40 Really? Oh yeah, really, okay, alright, and I said ring the bell, you gotta watch the fight then you’ll see what I’m saying. Now the second, right, you just bashed me up the first round and you don’t remember what happened, master craniotomy? Yeah, I saw you on the canvas and outside the ring and I didn’t even know what the protocol was, if they stopped the fight or no, no, when you get back in the ring, okay, inside the rooms ten seconds, outside the ring is twenty, not that many fighters get knocked out of the rings.

1:45:11 Oh thank you very much, that’s really nice, right, can we anything of you right now, please, what happened, so I’ve got back in a first in the second round, ding, ding, I’m chasing him because what’s actually happened, something in my subconscious, it’s taken over, I don’t know what’s going on, I’m just a different fighter now, I’m like, they’ve hit me but I’m not feeling nothing, I’m not feeling nothing, when I threw a left hook in around eight I was at halftime punch because he’s not me back, hit me, head flying back and a fool left talk and he hit me but I went down, it was a half punch, I’ll slip first thing, now he’s just put me down, I’ve just got up, I’ve gone vane was right uppercut, left hook, when you come out from around nine, this is what you got, he just put me down, my whole attitude change, but because he put me down, because I didn’t actually feel nothing, I’ve gone past in my sub-conscience, it’s just like so I don’t even know what’s going on, but I still remember the shots there that changed the fight, I remember his around 7:00 did, the punch I threw at him, it was so quick, I was watching it, I think, look at that punch, I actually bang, what she did, it was so quick that we kept to remind me does the punch of that I food, I knew that changed cause to the fire.

1:46:50 You’re on autopilot at this point? Oh yeah, yeah, I didn’t feel nothing, I’ve gone past that pain stage, I’ve gone past that pain stage, and then after the fight we finished in it was I, this is how thinking made my wife, we had big problems off that fight, it was like her, I wouldn’t go out and pie, I wouldn’t go out, I just want a guy in pie, that was just me, but I come out with a damaged nose, damaged jaw, urinating blood for three days and a shadow on my brain, and I just want to go out and party, I just want to know her, you know, I remember it was so funny, they had two ambulances, I never had that before, two ambulance, he went ambulance, how an ambulance were both met at the hospital and but Kissimmee, Simon say I’m sorry that with it and that was it, when I came home and it was my wife at that time, I was just so crazy, I’m sleeping and she’d be pushing, I’m alright, because usually a lot of people falling into comas, right, so she kept him waking up sometimes, worried about the city on all three days, three days Freda, and you wanted a party and you couldn’t party, a car can’t even move, it was like my George, you don’t get the pictures, my jaw was out here but you’re always out here Messi’s, I still wanted this guy in PI, I couldn’t.

1:48:24 And that documentary you talk about, it’s really good by the way, everyone should go watch it. Did you notice anything about him during the fight, the mouthpiece sticking out, any of that? Now they say the signs that something was wrong with him, she said because the reason was an intense pace, he’s meeting somebody say, yeah, well come on then, come, listen what you got, comes chasing him, I didn’t care about the gum show, you you can do damage to me, you said to my dad, you’re gonna hurt me, David was coming back in my mind, all these things that he said to my dad, yeah, I’m gonna see what you got, come on, that was even when he had my, just because I said these things, so it’s nothing that took personal, but I did, I want to get it cleared up now, I ain’t seen him in 12 years and now I see him again, 12 years after, my life has changed because they brought them over at a bar out, remember with in unusual, we wanted been dead, now we want his money, and as you can see how I saw, there were some unpleasant words, no, bring him over here, bash man, going through your billionaire promoter who left him with nothing, don’t see him, don’t come to me, go and see him, didn’t after I’ve calmed down, me and my agent at a time, Kevin Looting, we put on a big do at the Grosvenor House, listen, black people don’t go down to grovel it me, so we don’t get down there, we don’t go uptown, we usually downtown, we up at the Grosvenor with all Coronation Street or EastEnders, but really way up there in it’s packed out with

1:50:11 All celebrities who were able to raise a quarter million dollars, room, thank you Jesus, and I think you know what it’s, when I met him it was right, that’s me, some people just don’t know, he passed out in the ring after that fight, right? He’s in the corner here, in the corner and you can see the footage and he’s on the stool and they said he’s on the, on the canvas and then he just falls over, right? Hematoma and the brain, blood got in the brain, right?

1:50:36 Yeah, went from there to the hospital, it was just bad news from this, right? Yeah, and after that what was it, pretty much after that they knew even days later that, yeah, it was hard, it was like could leave her sister, she was just, oh really, giving it to me, no, how can a man this, I mean I didn’t bring him here, don’t blame me, bring your promoter who didn’t leave him with no money, you got guy some Ilford, Essex, up in Mayfield, raising money from a quarter of a million dollars and you wanna have a go at me, so she came over to give a go at you and then you raised the charity, yeah, but differently that all changed when we met, because the man that she met, the angry man that she met, he’s no longer in me, I’m a different man, and then when she met me because I, I didn’t know how to, was I gonna react or if I were going to respond, but I was always gonna be in love anyway because it was never gonna be a reaction for me, because when I met him, that was the most, one of the most traumatic times of my life actually, meeting him, and we are asking if he said, didn’t does he look like you mean to do it to me?

1:51:52 Oh, up and down, I know he didn’t mean, oh my, I know he said that to his sister, yeah, he wasn’t, he was mad, right? Yeah, but he didn’t get different days, he thought skinny, if he did he mean, I know it means to do this, so my feelings were up and down, I know he’s not a bad man, so folks I’m up and down, roller coaster, I actually left the venue early, I just could not, it was up, down, Lisa saw me, she knew that I was not the man that was, so my feelings up of Carlinhos crying inside, oh, and I just left, I had to get home. Why did you said you’re a gladiator, you’re doing your job?

1:52:35 No bad, yeah, but yeah because my whole life has changed, my whole life is change, is not the angry man that I was, so that in turn actually seen him, it’s good-looking man and always now he’s my client, eight percent definitely rule chair from my whole whole attitude changed completely. He’s in bad shape, yeah, and you hadn’t seen him after since the fight, okay, and yeah, and what do you think about that now, did you make peace with it in ’07? Oh, good God, I think you know it is, no, it’s when I had an encounter with him that to do with all my issues, my fix, my jokes and all my anger to death for my brother, when I had an encounter with him, because if I tried to deal with it on my own I must lean up in a minute or so, really, because I had a lot of issues, my sex addiction, everybody is splitting their ex Adam addiction to deal with, I couldn’t have done it my own, enemy affairs where I confessed all these affairs to my wife, sixteen years for anything, drug news and everything, I confess everything to my wife, so that’s where I want to make sure that you were ready, because when I finish with why and now, so if you wanted almost ready, I was.

1:53:50 Yeah, there’s one parallel that’s really obvious and I asked Chris about that when he was here and that’s Michael Watson. Yeah, so you know Chris had that fight with Michael obviously after your fight and left Michael in a bad, a bad, bad shape, right? Oh, I don’t know, yeah, I don’t know if it was, if you know, you should know, you should, he was 95, I don’t know, give me an, yeah. Wow, better than a punch. So what did you think of that fight with Michael Watson and Chris Eubank and the way Michael was left, and because you became good friends with Michael?

1:54:30 Well you, I’ve always been a good boy, a good friend of Michael. Well how did you feel seeing Michael in that state, because he wasn’t as bad as hard right now, because what it was, it was actually going to the hospital and say, Mike, on my word, because what they actually done is they took out half of his skull for his head, it’s like so they take out the bone so that and swelling would go down and we’ll, you see this good-looking man and so for people that don’t know, Chris Eubank and him had a fight and in the very last round I believe he’s really losing that fight, was he them friends around, he hit Chris, hit him with a punch, he’s had a good singer on the way down, yeah, and so he had a plug caught as well, there’s nothing in there, so he went straight to the hospital.

1:55:14 You went and saw him? Yeah, then his skull’s been possible, what happened, they took her skull half-ley’s go, so he had a big dent in his head, so you got me, this is a man that we all looked at, we loved, even though through my defeat was just, I just had feelings, my coordinates close, he was a Christian brother like me and all of a sudden it was what I want a Christian that time, let’s get out right here, but I just infinitely with Michael, just love Michael, it was just something about him that was just like an ambassador for him and then you see this off his head, got nothing, I just weighed, I just had the same as just comment also really, liked so much, you like so much doing the business you do, you know, does that ever make you think I gotta get out of this business?

1:56:06 No, I believe, no, because I don’t know if we’re going to room with that kind of mentality, I’m gonna get hurt, right? Okay, and you didn’t hold any bad feelings toward Eubank for doing that? Not a blink, reason whatever happened, you call this just wanting things that it all depends how, now how does he do have had the crystal of it, that was it, I think it bothered him. Yeah, it didn’t, it didn’t mean, I’m not being disrespectful, it was sunny, well we’re two gladiators, you don’t wish it on anyone, I’m gonna feel that sound cold, we don’t wish that on anybody, but it’s a lot, it’s a, it’s a risk that we all take every time we step in the ring, and Michael’s continued survived, he’s done marathons over three days and come over there, he’s come over to me coming said to me when I needed me, oka, okay, so yeah, he’s come out with Mike, we’ve got we just had a show with me, Michael, Steve Collins was mended with Magnificent Four, but we can’t work with you, have a person, he’s hard work, but we all never free of us, we all get over really well, okay, and he’s, he’s cognizant, you can talk to him, is he there, Michael Watson, though is that everyone whatever boxes, yeah, but you know it’s got paralysis down one side, yeah, it’s alright, it’s fine, it’s good, okay, alright.

1:57:32 I’m done talking about the fights, we’re moving forward to ’98, thinking about suicidal thoughts, yeah, I’m getting this impression with you is that while you had the partying with the boxing in a weird way, that kept you stable, right? It kept you kind of stable and you take the boxing out of that and it’s only you partying that’s not staying there, but both hand in had before it had it have, yes, so that keeps you kind of stable, yeah, yeah, take me boxing out, yeah, and you can’t just party all, no, no, no, no, I’ve done a month for me but every time I couldn’t wait to fire, right, party, but now when you retire all you have is a party and left, yeah, and that takes you down a road of two years and now it’s doing that, yeah, it’s not fun anymore, fun anymore because I just couldn’t, because I love my wife but I didn’t know how to break it, I had a lot of thoughts and they like I’m sane, I didn’t know how to deal with it, I just didn’t know how to do with what was going on, it was like I had a definitely an angel on my shoulders, I mean devil tell me, don’t listen to us a call, yeah, that sounds good for many years because it’s we only can do what we think we have to have a full pattern, everything moved my arm is, it’s what we think, yeah, I can’t do that without thinking about it, the sleeping woman or taking it, I have to think and my mind was very weak, weren’t strong, I was very weak, I had a weakness that I could not break, I started smoking the age of 8, all the way through my career, I

1:59:19 Years old because I was messed up from 8 years old and I couldn’t do a lot of finger, but there was something that was missing in my life and I think you know is the anger and everything that was going on, I didn’t know how to do with it, I was just struggling with over, tell you often see my wife and I’ll say to her, because they’re always stories in the papers about my partying, party, but what about the drugs, are just about the women, all selling stories, you know, in your married at the time, yeah, it’s a very hard on your wife in your relationship, what did you stayed married? Yeah, yeah, it was, it would actually side for me for my first marriage, the effects I actually had, not blaming my wife but sometimes because we didn’t know how to deal with certain things and had a low self-esteem and so what happened, my first marriage Carolyn, my second marriage because I didn’t know how to deal with it, it’s a woman, women were giving me compliments, I just kind of, well I’m okay then, I’m okay to understand what I mean and I couldn’t break that and there are they’re going so stories and so on, so this addiction that I had, people have more sex addiction, it really is an addiction because I couldn’t have lived for five ten or five 22, I just wanted that confidence that reassurance, I’m okay, things like that, and then within 90 a story come out, this woman it’s good, they also story saying you know must see one of them, they all sell stories to make money, what do we can swim in that sells food to make money, I don’t know, but you know we between

2:01:04 Their lines, but my wife never, my ex-wife never sold no stories, so it was just like I was just annoyed that you know, but I put myself in that deliberately, let’s not cry and blame women, yeah, I don’t want to do that, $1, I don’t want to blame women because they only can be in that position if I put them in there, and in a way they helped you, yes. You know what, you know, you know it’s true, Brian, because everyone always flags off the media for doing good, right? Yeah, itself stories, that’s it, maybe your life might change, the afraid for really, it’s so true, Brian, because my life did change by him when I’m in Carroll is a because I’m gonna carried on, so then it was then straight and common, I’d sleep in tablet, go talk a bottle of wine and I remember having a house in the cars, oh game and picking each other and it’s like a two-time world champion sitting in my, my walk, my wife’s grave Turkey, I had a hose in one in back for the back window through there and I was sitting there, I was just crying, I was just crying, it I don’t want to die, Brian, I just want something put around where I may say, you know what, you’re gonna be alright, because but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t, I couldn’t break it, I mean I wanted to do it, I wouldn’t end, but what I really in hose come out in the car, free time popped out of the tailpipe, three times, three times, three times and we’ve all been picking up each other in it’s like a all done now.

2:02:41 When I think about that, two-time world champion sitting in his car crying his eyes out and then I come home because it wouldn’t matter my time then. We moved to Majorca, my wife became a Christian, it was, it reckon, she got it, funny without funny, but we, my wife, we laugh at it now, she went into a city called a steeple Church, she went in there and she said, if you are real, you want to help me down here, it’s what she would say, and then she said, if you help me I will worship you for the rest of my life, in a small town like they, we should go because we speak in church, she go there, she felt that big rocks that had been taken off of her back and we had been spoken for when it’s been speaking in for about three weeks and we have to say cases, I’d sleep up 1/5 sleep so ever fight and she was banging on her door and she opened the door, she said it’s with Jesus, if it’s gonna be all right, and I’m like thinking, uh, ok, ok, Jesus, okay, okay, but I’m thinking I need to put her in the Priory, that’s what I thought, I thought she’d gone crazy, and then she go Church, because when she had that encounter with Jesus her life change, her life changed, now with me I go church’s Verna feel okay, lift up holy and this praise you, okay, oh that’s what you do, hallelujah, hallelujah, okay, and you now come home and I’ll be like that, oh yeah, okay, love this Christianity, yeah, thank you Jesus for what you doing in my wife, Smokies, don’t understand because being born again is if that, if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that

2:04:56 Jesus Christ is Lord, we shall be saved, so but she made a confession, she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, but with me I’m trying to say well she’s a Christian, I might be a Christian, so we decided to move to me, okay, now we have, you know, Bible says, I’m thinking I’m a Christian when within England we’d have like big Christian parties at my house and everything in, in doing everything now, getting through Australia, I mean to me, oka, and I’m starting then I saw this woman and it’s like, okay, I didn’t sleep with her, if you understand what I mean, I understand, and I was having all these Bible studies for three years and and all of a sudden I started learning scripture, it says in Galatians 6:7, do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked, a man whose report he says, what’s going on, did I read 1 John 1:5 and said God is light, in him there’s no darkness.

2:06:07 If we say we have finished it with him but yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all our sins, but if we say we have not sinned, we deceive ourselves in the truth is not in us, the point that we’re getting to, but if we confess, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us. So what it’s saying, if I know Jesus I can’t pretend I know Jesus and walk in darkness in life, so I went to my teacher where I was having Bible shows for three years, I said, I’ve been having an affair, I don’t even want to say that, but because all my life I’ve been a cheat, I’ve been denying everything, and then she said, have you told your wife?

2:06:54 And so I came home, I came home and listen Brian, for the first time in my life, I mean if you ever see a black man turn white, loses color, it was me, I just cried, turn power, they were struggling because now I’ve got a confessed everything to my wife for 16 years, says drug use, everything I confessed to my wife and we didn’t speak mention, but I got to you three days before my wife, she has a lovely diamond, but she used to leave in a shoe and I covered because I chose running rich Church though, she she put in the shoe, but she remembered good, think it’s got always speak to my wife so clearly, he told her to put the ring back on her finger and she told all the women, jazz, my women’s group, she said God Talmud to put a ring back on my finger because he’s gonna make the marriage, it’s clear the diamond and all the girls were like, that’s so lovely, but she didn’t know what was coming, she did not know what was coming, I’m gonna set it down and I come first, I was like, I mean it was like God was in this and like I tell you why, cause it is so much that I have to be means more to me than my boxing career because what you’re getting, a you’re getting gold, okay, you’re getting, you’re getting the crux of who I am and so I confess everything to her and I had to confess it, she was punching me, I mean I mean she punched me really hard, and my wife, everyone these women of war covers, she’s from the street before, do you understand, bring you back power, oh yeah, oh yeah, she’s got that and but she’s a lovely woman, but all the time I was doing you heard God say, let him speak, let

2:09:13 Him speak, my pastors came and picked me up, we live in a lovely house on top of the hill, three four hundred foot, panoramic views, everything that you could think of, just get them out, I don’t care what you do, take the bath, I want to divorce him, I want him out of my life. God food, God would let you do that, I don’t think God’s gonna do what he wants in your marriage, and so I left my house, I went to my left, listen, I left my house, I went to live with my past, I’m gonna show you the woman minute, good, pastureland passing Miguel, now I’ve left my parcel for one year, me and my wife not have no communion, I’ve left my mansion, I left my Porsche, Cadillac Escalade, they stripped me of everything, no authority, no machine or nothing, I had a 25 years gee rich escort with wine down winders, could wear no designer clothes, couldn’t watch TV for one year, all that done with study God’s Word and then that’s when I had an encounter with Jesus and my whole life changed, now I’m actually wearing my clothes at second-hand shops, I had to be accountable, I couldn’t go nowhere, I had to do the washing up, um, clean up dog mess and all this kind of sense.

2:10:58 Is this a self-imposed piece on yourself or your making? No, because I just do because my wife, I was willing to do whatever it take to win my wife back, okay, so she threw you out? Yeah, and my pastors accepts me to come and live with them, right, but and now you gotta experience a lot of things in my life I’ve never experienced before, these demons I had to deal with and I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, the only thing, God is my witness, the only thing that was allowed to watch was Little House on the Prairie and I’ve got a thief, I’ve got the season from season 1 to season 10, I’ve got the more crime watching Little House on the Prairie because what’s happening now, it wasn’t just about it’s about dealing with all my issues in my life, we’ll think it’s about my cheating and all that, my faith about my drug, my sex, smoke and everything and that’s for my brother, all of these fees coincide in learning God’s Word and I’m gonna show you where I am today because of that.

2:11:58 So you spent a year, yeah, living with your pastor? Yes, and they said no bling, nope, no clothes, no cars, no, no clothes that sick me now husband Miguel, I show you Miguel Salamanca, we’re gonna get sick and then shutting to be like shorts, that’s what their mind, they fit me, hold on, t-shirts, I’m looking for second-hand clothes, second-hand clothes, and we’re I’m with a path, they don’t see either too big, this is what was going on, so I don’t know who are really all right, but you trusted their process, absolutely, knew you had to make a change? No, but you gotta understand what are you thinking about, it’s not experiences, I just think God is so good, so gracious, are you remembering the pain that you were in, in the bad place, you know?

2:13:39 I think what I went through, it’s not bad, it’s just experience that went for, I’m happy because, you know what, I came because the pain, I had an opportunity to come from the other end, I keep my family together, I’ve got worth it. Oh, big idiot, I come through the, every no, it’s not, I’m from the other end, that’s what the excitement Spain, no, I’m happy, Jesus said you stood by me, so it’s not about sadden, if you think, wow, I’ve come true. Ok, it’s kind of tears of joy, it’s not a sadness, it’s of joy, and I think what it, it sometimes it was a joy, but look what I put this lovely room for, it, oh, this is my knight in shining armor, but yet she stood by me, she could have left me, she could have took me to the cleaners, but she stood by me.

2:16:10 It’s so funny because Colleen dear, I fifth baby, we couldn’t babies naturally, we went through years of torment and me ejecting Caroline’s her to fall pregnant and then we had XE and then we have Khan in India and then all of a sudden if we didn’t go through Laila and leave, I wouldn’t have been born, but they came along naturally, naturally, do you understand, so it’s so much in there, it’s not like just crying because I’m gonna cry, I’m gonna cry because of joy, I got Leila, Levi, that will naturally came along, God just blessed us with these kids and Levi’s my little Mowgli, that was seven years old, that came along naturally, but it’s so much tied up into that that we’re now. Have you come through that bit now, I bring you back some joy now, then you remember where you were, just an incredible blessing that you got through that?

2:17:13 Yeah, and that’s what it is, it’s not like me, I think, oh why do this to me, sometimes he just presses a button and in the split second just comes back, it’s just remind you where I was, him I am today, and now we’re, and I’ve got to trade because now this is a beautiful journey, it’s a beautiful journey, down then were boxing, boxing gone, recon if that’s all gone, and now where we are now, where we were living in Majorca and then when I had that encounter with Jesus, when I’ve really had that encounter by confessing everything, I went through, my life change, I’ve stopped drinking, stop smoking, stop doing drugs, stop doing everything, be faithful to my wife, and a year with the pastor’s talk about from there, but living my passive, it was just teaching me who I was, who was I being accountable to everything, so then all of a sudden, yeah, it’s true about what you’ve said about this interview, site let Fritton er5, but what happened, so then we said okay look we’re gonna go now, my wife City, I’m gonna show you how come with hands on my life, venomous lips in Australia, ain’t gotta worry about serving, cuz we black men we don’t surf, I heard about turning over the great whites and all that, so so we decided to move to Australia, my kids, it’s insane, for 12 years I don’t speak Spanish, recording India speak it fluently, so and then went to Australia, I just fell in love of it and you know, wow, and I remember going to Wendy’s food, cause I got to hear this story, we want fries with fried noodles, yeah, what new doing sweet examples, well yeah, thank

2:19:06 You, Chinese man in English all for halfway around the world, so I just fell in love with Australia, to me it’s the only country that I would promote, I love Australia, and so my friend’s son was living here, I said, Adam, go and see the immigration officers, find out what I need to get in it, it’s not easy to get into Australia, so you went to see the immigration officer and it said, look, I’ve got a celebrity boxer that wants to move over in immigration of little went to him, who’s that who annoys you, abandoned Nigel Benn, I would tease Jim in Tenerife when I was 15, he’d sign me an autograph, it was like God saying I had your back 25 years ago, it’s an immigration officer sorted out all my visas that were permanent written in Australia, and now me and my wife we have a blessed life, we’re actually born in love, magic mention any cash, we’re building it, nice six bedrooms, six bar from the theater room on two acres of land, it’s simply because of my wife and where we now, we do volunteer work at Hillsong Church in Australia where I’m the big, they’re big here to work on, maybe you’re a man of God now?

2:20:19 Yes, and it happened that one day or you confessed in the church to the Bible study person, then you went home and told your wife everything and took the hits, literally, figuratively, yeah, and then spent a year living like a monk? Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, watching a Little House on the Prairie, there hour-long episodes, and that was the time where you think you really confronted those demons? Yes I did, I don’t with a lot of issues, a lot of issues, I never, I never dealt with my the death of my brother, that was the biggest issue of my life, and when you talk in to your pastor about the whole time all these are deep inside yourself?

2:20:57 No, no, I live with them, right, every day, not like what every single day where they win, I win, when I went to pick up food from like shots that we get delivered to the homeless ID and all that, secondhand clothes I used, so I couldn’t win nothing, I had to wear, I had to follow their life, I could go nowhere on my own, I had to do what they told me for my prepared to accept that? Oh yes, but in a funny thing about it, sure the documentary that we’re doing on my life, BBC was doing, it’s coming out in December and what I went through, yeah, it was the best part of my life because then I found out who I was and not only that, from me dealing with now I help my mom deal with the death that my dad passed away, God bless you, so but I put my brother, cuz they didn’t have a tombstone, I put them in, I made them come down, no help to deal with the issues that they had his role they did some 90 to do, they never went back to eighth grade because they thought that that they brought was sent away from Barbados, so it’s helping him deal with that, a lot of things that what I win for, we had to help mom and dad, is all not just only me but there was so much that we had to that was changed in my life for me going through that, but now the position that where I am now, gonna have to mention this, it’s like me, my wife, we do volunteer work for Hillsong Church in Australia where now what I do, I go around, I deliver food to people that are struggling and I go to hospital over the people that got chemotherapy, got through trauma, dialysis, I’ve got and pray for people, so that’s where my life, and I’m so blessed

2:22:51 Now, if there’s no comparison with boxing or anything, it’s about where I am now, the peace, God’s peace that surpasses all understanding to join the peace I actually have now, I’m not chasing mine so regards to BIOS is fine, who cares, I’m happy, I’m continuing a number, wife doesn’t want it. And how many years now have you been reborn? 2007. Ok, so right around when you met Gerald again, okay, and that gave you the strength to meet him? Yeah, and be and show her his sister, you were a different man?

2:23:26 Absolutely. So now you’re a man of God and you even counsel couples too? Yeah, yeah, well it’s not, it’s not canceled listening it because you’ve got what it is, I’m actually just me, my want, my wife should fit in the chaplaincy cause I’m doing my course now, it’s so funny when I fly back to Australia on Tuesday, listen, soon as I get off the plane, I’ve got a going into my intensive, it’s not like I can’t go home and Jane, I’ve got go straight from the airport straight onto my intensive course, we’ll do a Chapman C cos help dealing with trauma, domestic violence, all these things that we’re doing intensive courses that I do, but that’s why I am now position I’m okay.

2:24:09 And so you will be a pastor at some point eventually? Okay, but I know God’s already give me a blueprint out these men that’s dealing with drugs, sex or whatever, anger and all, God’s give me the blueprint through his word, the teacher needs men how to treat their wives, it says Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wife, and love that he’s talking with calling a gap in love and unconditional love, cuz men will say my wife’s not being subject to me, but no, God tells you to love your wife, if you love your wife according to his word in the unconditional way, your wife is gonna follow you, if you know if you walk in the wrong way, you’re walking with, say, follow me here, you leading me down the wrong path, I said about teaching these men how you treat your wife and now you treat your kids and that’s why where I am now, and you know what it is, when you gonna deliver food to people, too, I ain’t got food, there’s no comparison, we, you know some kids ain’t got no fully taken presence in all ie, I mean in praying for people.

2:25:09 Wow, that’s a blessing, more than boxing, there’s no comparison. Powerful, and no, no relapses, no change back? No, because you know what it is, God simply some with you, who could be against you, I’ve been through there everything, III, if I study God’s Word he gives me the strength, don’t you understand, temptations here, there’s drug to sex and it’s all there, it says in Scripture in 1 Peter, if the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour, but going further than John 10:10 says God come to give you life and give you life abundantly, then the devil comes to kill, seek and destroy, but God comes to give you life in life and abundance, so I find long as I stick with God Whitney’s word.

2:25:55 James 4:8 say, draw near to me and I will draw near to you, for as long as I draw near to him he will continue to guide my path. And what’s been the reaction of your fans, of your fellow boxers, of your people? That’s it where it’s not even about that, even though every time with God bless, God bless, God bless, God bless, God bless on Twitter, NOLA, I know it’s not bad, listen, I’m born again Chris Christian, thank you Jesus, I’m walking Jesus, where I go Jesus is with me, I speak his word with boldness, internet city, I don’t hire, I say I’m a Christian, yeah, Chris you’re full of Jesus, hallelujah, praise God, I’d speak, I speak Jesus and sometimes like you say I didn’t know he’s gonna do that to me, cry again, Lord, you know because what if he takes away the heart of stone, before a heart of stone he coming, he wanted to show us, you trying to start them with, oh no, no, yeah, but how many young man do you inspire when you cry and you can show your feelings out there and maybe, maybe you snap someone who was just like you, salute 25 with an anger, the guy who is that guy crying, wait a second, it’s not Japan, well maybe it’s okay for me to do that, you know, the only way that you’re gonna get through that it’s fruit having an encounter with I, that’s the only way I can speak about it, it’s about me having a true encounter, not no like oh well, yeah, because if I said bless Jesus in there, come out and cuff him, you ain’t with me, I don’t speak that language, do you understand, sometimes before you know but his grace is sufficient,

2:27:52 But the difference is, but I told you that were that we in one Cruise in 69, those who continue to deliberately sin will not inherit the kingdom of God, faithful, if you continue to do it infinity you ain’t into him because you continue to keep falling in and doing the same things, His grace is good but if it’s in Romans 8:1 he says, oh go get a sketch I, it talks about graces, his lamb, I’ll come back to it, because you have a lot of scriptures, are you good in church when you speak, are you good, I don’t speak it, oh when I go and speak with my wife in England, yeah, okay, yeah, I could see you really, it’s how can we continue to send the Freedmen’s February by His grace, y’all gotta get it, yeah, I know gotta get it, I’ve gotta get it cuz it’s gonna bug me now cuz I can’t do the view, though come here and talking to me, come back, come back, what is the next 5-10 years look like for Nigel, the next fight, your 60th birthday, look like, where are you doing, where are you, what are you doing, what’s your life look like?

2:29:05 One little life that not even about that, I lived every day today in a different this, if Jesus come and call me now I know where I’m going, I know where I’m going, I’m gonna heaven, if that’s not bad, I just continue to do the will of God, so you’re ready, I know it’s a little thank you right now, it’s but it’s long as they in the will of God, that’s it, yes, it’s so I’m blessed. And there’s a bunch of people I think that are moved by the message you just gave us right now and if they’re out there and they don’t know that next step, you know, say it’s Nigel Benn in ’98, he has just heard those words and you know he’s in that car, the fumes are coming in, you know he just popped the pill and drinking the wine, but he’s heard your story but doesn’t know what the next step no, it’s it’s not, do you know what it is, I think Jesus is knocking on my door many, many, many, many years, but you know if it’s if you if it continues to knock, it continues to knock and he says if you open a door he said he will come in and I’m with you and you word I’m of him, I never worth, he’s there, he’s there, he’s just waiting for us, he won’t, he won’t intervene until you call on him, so I fed my free living to know if it comes to me or you were weary and heavy-laden, he says I will give you rest, that’s what he’s saying, he said like, you know, he will give you rest and you know when you get what pour your ditches you effects the drug there you comes they can put my foot across I’m there because it’s filling John 3:16, for

2:30:45 God so loved the world, didn’t say Christians, and for God so loved the world he sent His only one in begotten son, whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Sorry, Jesus the only one I knew that died for our sins. Yeah, and all you but you have to make the first step, absolutely, not did I, I made them really long enough, yeah, do you know what Scripture? No, we’ll have someone look it up. Yeah, let me ask you a few questions and we’ll wrap this thing up and I always ask people here because you know it allows me get inside your mind.

2:31:22 What’s something that you believe that other people think is crazy? That God speaks with people, some people think that’s absolutely we rethink where is he with when we all call saving. God’s real, I’m just gonna give you one more scripture, can I do that? Yeah, Deuteronomy 30:19, God says, I call heaven and earth as a witness against us today, I have set before you life, death, blessings and the curse, I Heavenly Father for the Chiefs life, never words choose me, what does that all mean, let me try and where God gives us a choice and some people don’t believe he’s rule, if there’s a god they must be a devil, if there’s a demon they must be an angel, if there’s a less they must be right, if there’s a happy it must be a sad, if she’s a forward they must be a backward, it is up they must be it down, if there’s a heaven they must be hell, if this eternity there’s got to be time, they’ve got to be an opposite of everything, and God calls hell a place of torment, when we leave here where do we go, people don’t even think about it, where do we go, this way you’ve got to understand, where do we go and beautiful, don’t believe in all our cool, would you really risk it, it took God could the place of torment and everyone said well, well why would God want to do that, he don’t want to do that, he put Jesus on the cross for you to die for our sins, John 3:16, for God so loved the world he said it’s only one begotten Son, who ever believed me who will not perish but have eternal life, if I died tomorrow no way I’m going cool Hill, a place of torment, and the differences of people, the things that we struggle with in

2:33:20 Life, but when I when I give my leave I would I put my little Levi on the cross for you, for our sins, no, God did because he loved the world, say I just love Christians, he said I love the whole world, he gives us an opportunity, it gives us a choice, he don’t say like you got to follow me, I’ll give you life, I’ll give you death, I’ll give you the blessing and the curse, it’s a chief life and I’ve words choose me, choose me, that’s all looking say because you know what it is, it’s that’s it to me, that’s where my joy is by actually speaking these words and the joy that I haven’t happiness, you know Brian, say you can’t when you get near Brighton, you’re at the pearly gates, they look, well I don’t know, I didn’t know about youth, God can say to you, Brian, yes, she do my son, I fit my disciple Niger to tell you the good news.

2:34:16 I think he did send you here because I’ll tell you this, my mom dragged me to church when I was a kid and you know how it is, that it uh, but you quoted all this stuff to be tonight and never has it made so much sense. Yeah, it’s real, my, it’s real, it’s real powerful stuff, it’s real, it’s real bright, you know what is in and I just feel so blessed and honored and privileged to sit down here because I really think to myself if I get more joy talking about Jesus and talking about my boxing career, mmm, that’s it, I had a great, great career, that’s it, now what I’m doing now is being able to help other people. Listen, I know I’ve just got to do this, can I, my iPad, please, come on quick, quick, I’ve got to do it, I’m sorry mate, I can’t go without saying it, didn’t what I’ve done it once, I’ve done it because it’s just gonna bug me, I’m sorry.

2:35:16 It’s all right, you just like you know because it’s just one of those things, Ronnie, which is the scripture we’re looking up here, Romans 8:1, because it’s just because I don’t want to like say, oh you know, it’s just something that I have to do, it do it because otherwise if I don’t do it it’s just gonna, I’m gonna go away not feeling that, therefore there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Is it for three long scripture, Romans 6:1, what should we say then, are we to continue to continue in sin so that grace may increase, may it never be so, it’s saying how shall we who died to sin still living it, so what he’s saying, if we’ve been separated by his grace, how cool and so it may be synthetic, say his grace may increase, he said how can it be God says away from sin, how can we still live in it if we’d been separated from it, I’m gonna read it again so we get in, what shall we say then, are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase, may it never be, how shall we who have died to sin still living it?

2:36:44 What he was asking me, don’t go back there, but God’s already separated me from that sin and how can I continue to live in it, so that His grace may increase, it’s not about that, it’s about that’s Romans 6:1, he sent me free, so how can I continue to live in it, Lord, I’ve gotta move forward, looking back, and now you’re doing something that makes you feel like you’re empowering the whole world. Yeah, and it’s a little scary because like you said, he’s behind you, the big man’s behind you, and it’s very hard to stop someone who was empowered by God, right? I mean look at me, did you see how before I saw the tape, I watched all these movies the last few days and, yeah, there’s something about that old Nigel that I came from, my finger on, I’ve never seen a boxer, a fighter have that combination of, I don’t know what it was, anger, anxiety, something at the time, you know, but of your fix friends you, Brian, it all start for the death of my brother, this is a little Simba lost in the wilderness.

2:37:54 You got kids? Yes. Right, so then you and say you sit down, you watch Lion King, yeah, my father’s gone, Simba’s running around in the world in it, that was me, my theory can explain and until I look in the mirror and feel reflection, who is, and that’s what’s happened, I saw a reflection of myself. Nigel, I always ask someone it comes here a few questions at the end, I want to ask you, yeah, if you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Nigel Benn, give that young man a bit of advice with everything you know now about the world, about that’s the reason, about everything, that was only one, if nothing else, nothing else, not about fame, fortune, that it’s about having an encounter with him, because let me tell you something now, this if a wasn’t real, let’s just say, Brian, he wasn’t real, even though that I know he’s real, but what great lives I’ve had because of him, do you understand, even if they wasn’t real, wow, how big, how, I’m a good dad, I’m a good husband, a, I’m a good son, I’m a good brother, do you understand, it’s all changed.

2:39:11 So I would say to that Nigel, why wouldn’t really, always say to him, you know what, Nigel, you gonna go through some hard things but you know what it’s gonna be like at the end of the tunnel when you have that encounter. Sometimes it’s like my son Conor, you know, he, he done class himself with the Christian, but he knows he’s real, he’s my life be transformed, but I really want Conor to have an encounter, I can’t force it on him, like you said your mom dragged in the church, we can that I wish all my kids have an encounter with him because if all my kids have an encounter with him they’re gonna live a better life, every single one of my kids will live a better life, there won’t be no friction because you know what, Jesus will be the head of their lives and when you’ve got that encounter, when you have a real encounter with him, I’m not talking about playing around, about going judging, no, I don’t want to go to church and you get out you start cussing, you start smoking, your whole life change, and it’s not about living a religious life, it’s just like living a better life, like my family plays all that that music just like you used to, and you know, no, no, no, no, no, gonna stop you there, mate, because it didn’t exist then, no, but I’m not into all that rap, me, I’m never been into that, I went to first to rap, I remember they played that, I wanted that, wasn’t me, I never been in the nearly, that was me, my, my mean over it up with Simon Cowell, actually made that record, it wasn’t even me singing but they just put somebody else’s voice in here.

2:40:53 The moment is here, the time is now, I’ve got everything I need, oh don’t want to talk about now, that won’t even me singing, but no, but yeah, but I was so, so Conor’s going through all that, I mean he knows he can’t play that, would mean he’s mom, it’s not like we, but it’s just fine, cuz caffeine, I don’t like all that stuff, I just, but he’s got to learn, he’s got to go through some of the things that I’ve been through, I don’t know, you would know he’d come out good, we pray, frame, yeah, we pray that you would tell that young man that there is a light coming, but he also has to go through it all himself, you know what, if Bernie, it’s much at all I can do, like listen, for my son Conor, I cuz I can, you know, let’s forget that 20-year-old Nigel, he gone, he’s already gone, so it’s for my son Conor, it’s knowing that all we could do is pray for him and God would one day answer our prayers, but how Conor’s now, Conor don’t live a life like me and he said this long time was at school, he said I never can live my life like you and never gonna be living off, thank you God, to finger Thomas on pay taxes, don’t sleep around and that’s it, and all we can do is pray for my boy cuz I know he’s gonna do really well.

2:42:02 Yeah, second part of that question, yeah, what’s the best advice you ever received? Your whole life could be about boxing, about religion, about anything, but what’s that thing that comes to mind? Just be dedicated, be number one, now from the Army, army guy, then that was it, because I could go or religious onto, but because, but you see how my life is, by that was one thing that stuck with me, left the army 2000 days, it was still in me, be dedicated, never warning number one, second to no one.

2:42:52 And finally, to that twenty-year-old that’s out there watching us right now, listening to all this stuff, advice to them for two things, first of all if they want to become a professional boxer, what do you tell these kids in their teens that see all the fame, the money, the data that I want that thing, what do you tell them if they really want to do this with their lives, you know, and having a good team around you, cuz you can have a lot of friends that gonna take you, wanna walk you down the garden path, oh come on mighty, let’s go, let’s go to the party, you know, I’m gonna take you away from your wife and take you down the wrong path, so it’s been dedicated, no, no, I’ve done that, but I’ve done it the hard way sometimes, you could do it the easier way, so all these kids that want to be champions, just dedicate that what you do could be number one, second to no one, but put the time in is, you know, the running, the spine, they’re taking the vitamins, into eating the right food, just be dedicated at what you do and it will pay off, you know how much you put in, whatever you put in, you put in 50% you can get 50%, you put in a hundred percent you can get on Jupiter.

2:44:07 Now God bless you and what all you lot do. Nigel, man, I had no idea what to expect, it’s been a fascinating honor meeting you, past three hours, a pretty much felt like I’ve been to some kind of rocket ship, you’re a fascinating guy, you are an alpha male, you’re a man who’s been there and done that, you have a strangely highly accurate recollection of everything that happened, you’ve got your brain after a boxing career, you’ve got your money, two things most don’t have, my wife’s go to, oh you got the money, it sounds like she’ll be around for a little while and you’re multi-talented as well, you know, and you really have seen the light and I’ll say one more thing you’re not gonna like very much, you and Mr. Chris Eubank are a lot alike and you both are maturing to be these kind of men that a lot of people want to hear what they have to say, you know, sometimes different words of wisdom, but a lot of times you both are telling people ways to live and I don’t know if you follow his Twitter, but a lot of times he’s saying a lot of positive things out there.

2:45:10 Absolutely, you know, yeah, but it’s a bit of the Richter scale though, but you know, but you know what is similar, coming out is there, I’ve got a lot of respect for Chris, you know, neither all jokes aside, I mean you know I thank God for him being in my life, I mean I’ve never met anybody like him, you know, say it was great, so thank you Chris, thank you for a great career and I mean that sincerely and may your son go from strength to strength, from glory to glory, into this and the only reason I think I’d ever want to see that trilogy fight is really to give the world the attention that you two deserve again and to revisit the great things you brought to the sport and to show you both off as men, you know, and so in my mind it wouldn’t really be about the fight although that would be exciting to know, it would be about maybe, maybe letting the kids know who you guys were and who you guys are because you know they forget, that’s know done that would change that would just change, it’s just the way that we are and I’ve got a lot of respect for Chris part since we can Murray and it don’t come back, no, not we can ever know this competition, this time it won’t be one being it’s lagging each of us, I’ve gone past that to over that, well if someone’s got twenty million dollars that can call London Real boxing promotion, we’ll do it here in London and we’ll split the money between these two guys and we’ll make it happen.

2:46:41 Yeah, as we say on London Real, it’s about the journey, you’re a man on a great journey and thanks for your time today. It is about keeping it real, it is, men, and you kept it very real today, thank you, and give me a hug too.