#406 – Teddy Atlas: Mike Tyson, Cus D’Amato, Boxing, Loyalty, Fear & Greatness

Teddy Atlas is boxing trainer to 18 world champions, ESPN boxing commentator, and host of podcast THE FIGHT with Teddy Atlas. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: – Notion: https://notion.com/lex – Babbel: https://babbel.com/lexpod and use code Lexpod to get 55% off – ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod to get 3 months free – InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/teddy-atlas-transcript EPISODE LINKS: Teddy’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeddyAtlasReal Teddy’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/teddy_atlas Teddy’s Website: https://teddyatlas.com/ Atlas: From the Streets to the Ring (book): https://amzn.to/48uIQBj Teddy’s Podcast: https://youtube.com/THEFIGHTwithTeddyAtlas Dr. Theodore Atlas Foundation: http://dratlasfoundation.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: – Check out the sponsors above, it’s the best way to support this podcast – Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman – Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman – LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman – Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) – Introduction (09:47) – Lessons from father (19:53) – Scar story (40:31) – Cus D’Amato (50:43) – Mike Tyson (2:08:39) – Forgiveness

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lex Fridman?

  The following is a conversation with Teddy Atlas, a legendary and at times controversial boxing trainer and commentator. When I was going to this conversation with Teddy, I was ready to talk boxing. Styles, matches, techniques, tactics, and his analysis of individual fighters like Mike Tyson, Michael Moore, Klitschko's, Usik, Pavetkin, Lomachenko, Triple G, Canelo, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Hagler, Duran, Floyd, and on and on and on. Like I said, I came ready to talk boxing, but I stayed for something even bigger. The Shakespearean human story of Teddy Atlas, Customato, and Mike Tyson.

• 0:43Lex Fridman?

  It's a story about loyalty, betrayal, fear, and greatness. It's a story where nobody is perfect and everybody is human. To summarize, in the early 80s, young trainer Teddy Atlas worked with his mentor Customato in training the young boxing prodigy, now a boxing legend, Mike Tyson. Mike was a troubled youth, arrested over 40 times, and at age 15, he was sexually inappropriate with Teddy's 11-year-old niece. In response to this, Teddy put a 38 caliber handgun to Tyson's ear and told him to never touch his family again or he would kill him if he did. For this, Customato kicked Teddy out.

• 1:27Lex Fridman?

  Why? Well, that's complicated. In part, I think to help minimize the chance of Mike Tyson, who Cus legally adopted, would be taken away by the state and with him, the dream of developing one of the greatest boxers of all time. Of course, that summary doesn't capture the full complexity of human nature and human drama involved here. For that, you have to listen to this conversation. The things said and the things left unsaid. The pain in Teddy's voice, the contradictions of love and anger that permeate his stories and his philosophy on life. Like I said, I came to talk about boxing and stayed to talk about life.

• 2:11Lex Fridman?

  This conversation will stay with me for a long time. The people close to you, the people you trust, the people you love are everything. And if they betray you and break your heart, forgive them, forgive yourself and try again. Happy holidays, everyone. I love you all. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Notion for team collaboration, Babbel for learning new languages, ExpressVPN for privacy and security on the internet webs and InsideTracker

• 2:53Lex Fridman?

  for health based on the data that comes from your body. So choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to work with our amazing team, we're always hiring. Go to lexfridman.com/hiring or get in touch with me at lexfridman.com/contact. And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Notion, a note taking and team collaboration tool. All the coolest kids have used Notion for many years for note taking. And those cool kids have grown up and started businesses and started teams.

• 3:38Lex Fridman?

  And now as part of teams, they have to not just do the wolf pack of one type of note taking, but an actual wolf pack where collaboration is required. Anyway, one of my favorite use cases of the internet is that you can collaborate with people on written projects. And Notion does this better than anybody else. Listen, they also obviously have LLM's AI integrated into what they're doing. And it's not just about the power of the LLM. It's about how the interface looks like, how it's integrated into the whole writing collaboration process. And they do this really well with their Notion AI tool. You can do all kinds of cool stuff. Something everything you know

• 4:20Lex Fridman?

  about large language models you can do here, but it's just interface wise, so natural and so well integrated. Notion AI can now give you instant answers to your questions using information from across your Wiki projects, docs, and meeting notes. Try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com/lex. That's all lowercase notion.com/lex to try the power of Notion AI today. This show is also brought to you by Babbel, an app and website that I use for learning new languages. It can get you to speaking a new language in just weeks.

• 5:01Lex Fridman?

  We're talking about Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, all kinds of languages. One of the things I find fascinating is the power of language to express ideas. And also, on the negative side, the barrier of language can serve as a kind of foundation, or maybe a catalyst of division between nations or between peoples that speak those languages. And so to break down those barriers, the most powerful ways for people to speak the different languages, in all the ways that that means, fundamentally, that means speaking with other people in those languages.

• 5:45Lex Fridman?

  And you don't have to speak well, you just have to try. But also, you have to be open, listen, be present, be attentive to the music of a peoples that is expressed through the language. Anyway, you should take steps on that journey with Babbel. Get 55% off your Babbel subscription at babbel.com/lexpod, spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash lex pod. Rules and restrictions apply. This show is also brought to you by an oldie but a goodie, a trusted friend, ExpressVPN. I've been using them for so many years, I wonder if I'll be on my deathbed. Kind of.

• 6:31Lex Fridman?

  With a laptop or whatever, in a virtual reality thing, pressing that big sexy button that says, "Connect", that teleports me immediately to a different geographical location in the virtual cyberspace. And I can watch programs I couldn't otherwise watch on Netflix and other places. But, you know, it's just a basic layer of protecting your privacy on the internet. Everybody should be using a VPN. And the one I recommend is ExpressVPN. Works on every operating system, including the coolest, the best operating system of them all, Linux. What flavor of Linux do you use, friends? If the answer is none, then you should consider, in this new year, exploring the possibilities. It's not just for college.

• 7:16Lex Fridman?

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• 7:35Lex Fridman?

  This show is also brought to you by InsideTracker, a service I use to track the data coming from my body and make lifestyle and diet decisions based on that. All right? You should be collecting data from your body. You should be doing the basic blood tests. That's what they do. And then they use their machine learning algorithms to interpret that data and give you advice. So it's integrating general population data and the data that comes from you to make, to give advice. That's, that's the future. And in the future, the more and the more data will be coming from your body. And then it will be able to properly locate you in the high dimensional space of what it means

• 8:18Lex Fridman?

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• 8:59Lex Fridman?

  Open up. And when you walk in, there's a big Christmas tree with Santa Claus and all the infinite presents that you want. This is holiday spirit, since we're releasing this episode on this very special holiday. Anyway, you can get special savings for a limited time when you go to inside tracker.com/lex.

• 9:22Lex Fridman?

  This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Teddy Atlas.

• 9:47Lex Fridman?

  You wrote in the book that your father had a big influence on your life. What lessons have you learned about life from your father?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  When you ask that question, you know, I remember because the motto, when I was with him up in Gadsden for all those years, he used to say to me, Teddy, you learn through osmosis. I believe there's true to that, if I know what osmosis is. And I, but it sounds good.

• 10:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  But I learned through osmosis with my father. He wasn't a big talker. He was, you know, he was a doer. And I, when you're around someone who lives a certain kind of life and does certain things, it penetrates.

• 10:31Lex Fridman?

  He was a doctor.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  He was, I'm gonna sound like an idiot right now, because I'm being a son. But he was the greatest diagnostic doctor.

• 10:43Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  I mean, if I say I ever knew, what's that mean? You know what I mean? Are you a doctor? You know, you know what I mean? Like, what does that mean? But other people have told me this.

• 10:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Like, just legendary stories.

• 10:55Lex Fridman?

  He would do house calls and help people. And like you said, a lot of people have spoken about the impact he's had on their life.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  He built two hospitals. And he built two hospitals before the Verrazado Bridge in New York. Connected Brooklyn to Staten Island and he he built it so people could get proper hospital care that couldn't afford it, period. And everybody looked at him as eccentric. Yeah, nice. Yeah, because he he would literally sneak patients, not sneak them in, he was Dr. Atlas. He could do what he wanted to a certain extent, but he would bring patients in without administering, uh, putting through administration. So there was no charge because, you know, they they didn't have anything. They were street people. They were, I I remember being, my only way to be with

• 11:43Speaker 01

  my father was to go on house calls. Yeah. Or to go to the door. There's no, you know, and so I went on house calls with him. And he did house calls, by the way, till he was eighty. And and three dollars. I mean, it was better than like McDonald's, you know what I mean? I mean, the deal. Uh, you three dollars and you got medicine, you got everything. And but he used to, right around the holidays, there was just certain things that I didn't understand, but I understood later, where we would just drive certain areas and he just over time open his door. He would pick up things home and, you know. Help him. I'm ten years old. Yeah. You know, move over, move over, you know, and. It's just you, him and a homeless guy. A couple.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple. Yeah, whatever he can fit in, three, four, you know, whatever it was. That's a big heart. And then he took him to hospital, dropped him off. So, you know, I would ask questions after it was all over with. I'd say, Dad, they're they're sick. He goes, well, not not in a way, well, you put him in the hospital. So he said, yeah, and he tried to explain things to me, you know, he would try. He he didn't talk much unless you asked him something. Yeah. That kind of works. And, you know, don't talk unless someone asks you something. Yeah. And he he he explained to me that, he said, um, I said, well, why are you putting him in the hospital? They're not, you know, and of course, the sickness was the alcoholics. But, um, why why you put him, he's, it wasn't an alcohol rehab, you know, so why you put

• 13:13Speaker 01

  him? And it wasn't for the purpose to dry out. He wasn't trying to cure them. Yeah. Let's put that for before we we anoint him for sainthood, you know, like by Teddy Atlas. So I I was like, we we finally get to the point, why you put him in there? Yeah. Well, because it's the holidays.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  All right, why you put them in there? Well, the holidays, you know, are good for certain people and bad for others. And um, and it was always before the holidays, it was before Christmas or whatever. And, and um, New Year's, whatever. And so I said, why? And he said, because they remind people, certain people, of what they don't have. That you, you, other people are, enjoy the holidays because of what they have. Family, you know, whatever. And it reminds them their mind is that. That's pretty profound. Yeah, and, and then, I don't know, remember, because he didn't use the word suicide, but I, I got it.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Like, he, he basically, I forget how he said it, but, like, I just got it. I don't know how I got, I don't know. But I just got it, like, so they don't hurt themselves. That, that's what came across. In every way. I don't think he ever articulated, ever verbalized that, but, yeah, they don't hurt themselves. So, and, well, how, how does that work? Well, it just, basically, they're gonna be around people. They're not gonna be alone. They're gonna be around people, they're gonna get fed, they're gonna be warm, right? And it's gonna be for three days, two, three days, whatever. And it's, basically, it's, it's a bridge. So, and the, the funny thing, as a ten-year-old, I, I wanted to, I, I wanna be connected to them. So I, I, I enlisted myself in the job.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  When, when, when, he used to drop them off. He, he would take them, get them in, right? And um, and then, the thing that I know, again, he didn't say nothing, but I, you notice things. And if you care enough, you don't, you don't notice nothing if you don't care. But if you care, if it's important, you notice. And this guy was important to me, I just was, I didn't know what a hero was, no clue. I loved Mickey Mantle, I loved Willie Mays, I loved, I, I loved Muhammad Ali. I, I, I never, ever connected him in my mind as heroes, never. My father. I didn't connect it that way, but he

• 15:43Lex Fridman?

  Looking back now.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Looking back, he was my first connection to a hero.

• 15:47Lex Fridman?

  The two of you ever talk about how much you love each other?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  The one thing, one thing that was not allowed. The greatest memory I have, my father showing me love was we were down in Florida at an airport. And, and um, we were, I was born in Miami, don't ask where I was passing through. And the rest of my family is born in New York, Stan now.

• 16:10Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  And so I was supposed to go back with him, right? And I wanted to stay with my mother for whatever reason. And so he, you know, he of course conceded to it and he's, he's, okay, you know, whatever. And very quiet, very, and there's a man who never showed emotion to anyone. I mean, for the most, you know, really. All of a sudden.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  He just turned and kissed me on the forehead and left. And I was, I was like.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  That's different.

• 16:45Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. You still remember that?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, that's weird.

• 16:49Lex Fridman?

  You lost him 30 years ago? How, how did that change you?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  It made me realize that some of the deals I used to make with God, um, more than realistic. When I was a kid, I used to make deals with God, let me die before my father.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  And then, you know, you get older, you have kids, you're blessed.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Why did you make that deal? You know what I mean? Like.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Thank you for not taking me up on it.

• 17:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 17:30Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  You know?

• 17:35Lex Fridman?

  Ah, yeah, you miss him?

• 17:37Speaker 01

  I miss him in moments when I like to know what to do.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  And um, you know, I, I remember when I would drive with him on a house calls, he didn't listen to music. He was a guy, he read books to his, when he got older, he read books till uh, blood vessels was broken his eyes. He only read nonfiction books, science, he loved science, um, wars, um, generals. I mean, I cheated on a couple of book reports because I, because I didn't do the reading of the book that I, before I had a freaking uh, book report to put in that. I got a book report to do on uh, the war of Stalingrad. Yeah. Really, the war of Stalingrad.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  And who the freak could tell you when you get an A? I got an A. Yeah. He, I just wrote what he told me. Told me generals, he told me times, he told me strategy, he told me about the winter that came and destroyed the Germans. Yeah. And, and, and the Soviets were tougher than. You got an A. And the Soviets were tougher than the Germans and, you know, the, the Germans picked on the wrong opponent. Yeah. I was already in the boxing business. Yeah. I didn't even know it. Yeah. I didn't even know it. Yeah. Matchmaking, very important. Yeah. They, they, they mismatched, they did, they made a mistake with the picking the opponent. And so when we would be driving in the car, my father would be in a trance.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  And Dad, he wasn't ignoring me at all. He was just with his thoughts. He was, he was wherever, he wasn't even hearing the radio no more. I always wondered where he was. I did, so I asked him one day. And just, so we're driving, I said, I wanna know. So I said, Dad, what do you think when you're basically in this place that I know you're somewhere? Yeah. What, what do you, what do you, where are you? What are you seeing? I actually said, what do you see? And he said to me, I see what could be.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I see what could be. And I'm like, oh. All right.

• 19:54Lex Fridman?

  I gotta ask you, when did you discover boxing? What? When did you first fall in love with boxing?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  When it saved me.

• 20:03Lex Fridman?

  How did it save you?

• 20:04Speaker 01

  I, I was, I was a stupid, violent kid. That was angry, not exactly know why he was angry.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  I'd fit in real good in today's society because there's a lot of angry kids out there that I don't think they know why they're angry. I was, I was just out there getting in fights and um, I got this stupid thing from that.

• 20:27Lex Fridman?

  Can you tell the story of how you got that?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I was just running around doing stupid things, bad things. I hurt people, some people physically, but I hurt, I hurt my, my, my family.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  You know, that's BS, you only hurt yourself, you know, that, that's a good way of, you know, alibi in it. Um, you know, just, but it, if at some point the truth usually finds its way. I'd like it to look like I was just hurt myself, but wasn't, obviously. So I was just out on the streets with kids that didn't grow up in the neighborhood I grew up. I grew up in a neighborhood where my father was a doctor. And um, I walked down the street. The funny thing was down, down the hill was a very tough neighborhood called Stapleton. And most of the people down there on the corners wished they could get up to hell. And I, I wished I could get down the hill. So I went down the hill.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  And I hung out with all these friends that became lifelong friends. And uh, I um, I gravitated to that because I, I figured out later a little bit, but you know, I wanted family. We were destroying a family. We were, you know, my father was a doctor, he didn't have time for nothing but being a doctor. You know, uh, I think when you're great at something, you sacrifice something too. You know, when you're really great at something, so great that maybe God made you great and, and you're too great for your own good. And, and I don't know, it took me to these stupid.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Dangerous places. Dangerous for me, but dangerous for other people too, because I got to the point where I was doing robberies on the street. I was, I was fighting everybody and, and you know what the most dangerous part about it was? And I came to this realization on my own, all by myself. I, I figured out, um, I was really as dangerous, you know, these kids from the project, some of them, they got nothing. You, first of all, I learned you don't have to be poor to be poor.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  You don't have to be deprived of certain things to be deprived.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  And, or because you, at least to think you're deprived. And I was pouring away that I didn't have the only thing I wanted to have, him. So here I, here I am where I'm out there doing these things. And what made me more, I was more dangerous than some of these psychopaths. Well, I was a psychopath too, I guess, the way I was behaving. But some of these psychopaths, they've really had nothing. Um, you know, really would, you know, they obviously would kill you. I, I was da- dangerous in the, almost in the same way, but for a different reason. I know it's ridiculous what I'm about to tell you, but I figured it out. Cause I felt it.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  I thought I was on a righteous path. I thought I had a right.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Because it was gonna get me my father back. Why? Why? I mean, you, you know, you're a scientist, you couldn't figure this one out. Because all the people that had him were injured people, fractured people, screwed up people in some ways. But, but hurt, damaged people. So if I get damaged,

• 23:54Speaker 01

  I get him.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  So I was on a crusade, really a righteous crusade where I thought it was okay. I had permission. I had permission to do these terrible things, quite frankly, and to fight everyone and do. I, I, and then it, it came almost to a crash of doing all that, you know, winding up in Rikers Island like an idiot, not understanding the damage I did to this poor man that, you know, he, um, he was a great doctor and he's got to see his son and hear about, you know what I mean? Like, God.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  I, I was out on that day, you know, with, with the guys that I grew up with now, you know, the guys from the projects from the, as I described, and I was with one of them who, he, he's dead now. So I was, I was with him and we were, we, we were in a neighborhood, the neighborhood we grew up, that, that I hung out and, and they, and he grew up in, Billy, he came from the, from the project. And we got into a thing where we cut, somebody cut us off, we cut them off, you know, jumped out to fight. And, um, you know, it turned out there's like five or six of them and two of us.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, we fought, you know, right on the side, right there, only about a block from where I used to hang out. And, um, maybe a block and a half, and right in front of like a Spanish bodega. And, uh, it really does happen in Saw Motion. I actually saw the guy was fighting the guys that, that I had to fight. And then all of a sudden I was able to get one guy out of the way a little bit. And, um, I really, I noticed the guy go into his pocket. And, um, I knew why he was going in his pocket, you know? And.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  When he came out of his pocket, I knew what it was right away. It was weird because in the neighborhood, guys used to hang out. They were into this, you know, they get into fads like right on the streets. And they went to, at that time, they went to this cheap knife, but it was, they thought it was, well, we thought it was cool. It was a double oh seven. And, and, um, and the cool thing, whatever, was that you could flick. You could learn, and I learned how to flick, you know, but I never carried a knife. But, but when my friends would have it, I would just, you learn how you could flick it open. Not a switchblade, but flick it with your wrist. And I was like, here I am in the middle of this freaking fight. And all of a sudden, oh, it's a double oh seven, you know?

• 26:36Speaker 01

  And, and, and so I'm like, I, you gotta make a decision, you know? And I got a split, I could either not do nothing, which wasn't, didn't seem like a great, you know, a great option. Um, I couldn't run away.

• 26:58Lex Fridman?

  Why not?

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Because you gotta live with yourself afterwards. And, and, and that's more difficult to live with than whatever it is at that second, because that don't go away.

• 27:09Lex Fridman?

  You couldn't live with yourself, running away.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  It just don't go away. That thing, not, nothing to do with being brave.

• 27:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  And nothing to do with being brave, really. It, it's got to do with just common sense in life that for, for me, it, whatever you're dealing with, it's over, it's done. Like, like, okay, deal with it, go to bed, whatever. But you, you do that, you know, that other thing, you're gone. Um, you, you, that never, that never ends. This thing ends.

• 27:41Lex Fridman?

  The memory of you being, let's say, a coward in that moment, that never ends.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  The only thing I had at that point in my life, in my stupid mind. Was a reputation. That I would do stand up to certain things that that was like and that for me was was worth something, whatever, because I didn't feel any worth to anything else. That was the only thing I felt a connection of worth to so.

• 28:09Lex Fridman?

  So stood your ground.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  So I say, no, I made a decision.

• 28:12Lex Fridman?

  Yes.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  I stood my ground, but I I actually, things do slow down, they do. And I actually said, it's a double seven, he's got to flick it. And I didn't say, but he's got to flick it. I got a split second, either, like I said, either I do nothing, whatever, or I get to him before he gets it flicked. I went to get to him before he got flicked and and I and I, just as I got close to, I I did him a favor. I I I walked right into a counter punch.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Because I I I cooperated with him. I went right to him and and just as I he he he he practiced more than I did with the double seven, apparently, because he was like boom, boom, boom, boom. And and anyway.

• 29:03Lex Fridman?

  What did you think? What did you think that happened? That was all slow motion. Did you think he might die?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not immediately. Took me a minute. I'm a slow learner. I put my hand up. Right? Wouldn't you? I guess so. And it went into my face.

• 29:23Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  And that was it. It was gooey. It was warm and gooey. And I was like,

• 29:31Speaker 01

  I don't I I don't know what this means, but I don't want to know. But I think I know. And and

• 29:39Speaker 01

  and um.

• 29:43Lex Fridman?

  Do you think about your dad in that moment?

• 29:46Speaker 01

  No, you know what I thought about him was, um.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  You don't know who anyone is until they're tested. And, um, I learned that. Cus used to tell me, but I learned it. Uh, he say, you, I remember one time Cus, I was a seventy, eighteen year old kid up there and, you know, thought I was, whatever I thought I was. And he said, you got a lot of friends? And, um, I said, yeah. Because, you know, I was on the street hanging out with a hundred kids at night sometimes on the street corner. So I was like, I don't know too many people that hung out with a hundred kids on the street, on a corner, on a Friday, Saturday night. And, um, I was like, yeah, I got a lot of friends. He goes, really? Yeah, really? He said, um.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  How about if I told you, you might not have any? Most likely, you don't have any. And he goes.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  And then he just started this thing. He said, everyone's gonna be tested. You.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Me. Everyone. Because you don't know about nobody until they're tested. He goes, you know nothing. He goes, you know nothing until you know. Until something happens to test if they were really a friend. And then he told me this story about a guy. A guy came to him and he was upset. What are you upset about? He goes, I'm upset because I, I, I, I just, uh, I just lost a friend.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  You know, after twenty years of friendship, we're not friends no more. So Cus looks at him and goes. Let me ask you a question. What, what made you think you were friends with him? Now the guy gets insulted. The guy goes, did you hear me? He goes, I, I just told you twenty years I've been friends with this guy. Why would you say that to me? He said, well, I say it again. What makes you think he was your friend? He goes. Whatever happened in the 20 years, other than chasing girls,

• 31:46Speaker 01

  figured that went out fast, chasing girls and drinking together,

• 31:51Speaker 01

  and whatever else you're doing out on the street, whatever gave you the inclination that he was a friend? He goes, whatever, when did he risk himself to be your friend? When was it dangerous to be your friend? When was the friendship tested? When was uncomfortable to be your friend? And you know what the guy said? You can figure it out, you're a scientist. He said,

• 32:18Speaker 01

  he said, "Today."

• 32:22Speaker 01

  And, and, and today came for me. And today, today, today, today, kept coming for me, today. And, and that day, my friend Billy had turned out, well, I was fighting these whatever, five, six guys. And where was Billy? He was on a roof.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  He was on a roof. He was on a roof. He was my best friend.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  And, um, so anyway, they take me to the hospital. And here's the thing with my father. But one thing Billy did do for me, when he got off the roof, thank God, he did, he, he dragged me, dragged me into this bodega, laid me on the floor, and started putting towels. Right? And the towels, I vaguely remember this, they filled up with blood. I mean, completely like drenched, like, like you put them under a shower. And, and, um, I heard the bodega owner screaming, screaming, you know, like, wah, you know, whatever. And everyone's screaming and there's chaos. And I'm like, I don't know, I'm, I'm calm.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Weird. I'm like real calm.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I'm just in this place where things calm. And all of a sudden, I hear Billy, he's screaming, call the, call the ambulance, call the, you know, and nobody's doing none, everyone's frozen. I'm starting to understand already. People get frozen in situations, people, the fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Just paralyzes people. And, um, and I was going into a fear business. I was learning, I was learning, I was getting a learning, early PhD.

• 34:20Lex Fridman?

  Student fear.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and all of a sudden, genius, Billy, genius, really. Street kid. He jumps up on a freaking counter, jumps over the counter, grabs the phone, calls nine one one, says a cop's been shot. And forget about it. That was crazy. All I remember after that, I'll tell you a couple of things I remember, lights, being put onto a stretcher, bounced around, you know, rushed. I felt everyone's anxiety, except mine, I had none. But I felt everyone's anxiety, everyone's fear, like it was all around me, it was like, oh, this is interesting. It's kind of, I know that's stupid, but like, wow, this is interesting.

• 35:06Lex Fridman?

  Wow, you really have an eye for fear, that's fascinating, you're really studying it.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Well, they, I had no choice, I got introduced in a crash course, and they, they put me in ambulance, and this is what I remember to your point, I'm sorry it took so long to get to it, I am, although I'll probably do it again before this conversation's over, but I-

• 35:27Lex Fridman?

  It's all about the journey.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would get there, we'll get there, pops. So, I, I hear the cops say, we might lose him. And I'm like laughing to myself, I'm not laughing because I'm, again, I'm not John Wayne, John Wayne would have laughed. But, I'm like, lose, you guys are stupid, you know, I didn't say that, but I'm like, lose me? My father's the greatest doctor in the freaking world. There's nothing to worry about. You people, you people all tight and whacked out here with, with fear.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  And and there's nothing to worry about. Dr. Atlas is my father. So anyway, so they're they're they're taking me to the and he said, we don't have time. I hear a couple of things I remember. Don't have time. Take them to and they take me to US Public Health Hospital. Marina Hospital was called at the time, but US Public Health. And it's in Stapleton, so it's close. Thank God. So they're taking me and I hear them on the radio, you know, saying this stuff about we gotta, we gotta move, we gotta move. And um, I start talking. And they're telling me, don't talk. But I like to talk a lot, you know? And I'm so again, fear.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  There's no fear when the fear's been removed.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  It's the only time you're really free in life. And I know that sounds absurd, but really, it is. It's the only time you're really free in life. I was when you- Close to death? When you're devoid of of of things that that normally hold you back, that normally influence you in ways that that, you know, that are not of the influence that are always positive influence. Where you're where you're in a pure place, where you're you're in a purely free place from all inhibitions, from fear, from anxiety, from from joy. Joy can screw you up. And you're free from all these things. And I'm in this place. In the back of an ambulance, you're free.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm I'm like, I said, just get me Dr. Atlas. And they say, we don't have time. No, no, no, no, no, you don't. You have to get Dr. Atlas. You have to get him. This was the, damn it, this was the, you know what I mean? I finally freaking hit the number and I'm not getting paid. And then all of a sudden, I'm out. How many stitches? Well, I think it was four hundred, two hundred inside, two hundred outside, or whatever it was. A lot. And look, after after after fifty, it the number doesn't matter no more, right? Or whatever, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, whatever. You know, so I was fortunate. I was fortunate. And of course, they I was fortunate, they told me afterwards that Miss My Juggler literally by like-

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Like a centimeter, I mean, whatever. And um, so then um, then we wouldn't be having this conversation, obviously.

• 38:32Lex Fridman?

  I'm glad you made it.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm kind of glad too. And and it just missed my eye, which, thank God. It's bad enough I have a scar matching me with a patch. I mean, I mean, it's enough that I got this freaking thing. And um, and look, it goes all the way, you know, I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's pretty long. And um,

• 38:57Speaker 01

  I don't know, I was out and then somehow I sensed like they had the curtain closed, you know? And it's amazing how vivid this is. And the curtains closed and I see a shadow. I I felt the presence, I did, and I felt him. He's a, oh, he's a powerful guy. And I felt him. And I just see like a shadow, you know? And all of a sudden, the curtain gets pushed back. And I can't really see, it's dark and I'm, you know, out of it. But not completely out of it. And um, pushes the curtain back, comes in.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  And his hand, even though it's all bandaged, you know, whatever, but his hand surveys.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  And felt safe. And um, it felt, it felt warm and safe. I was happy. And um, he got there, you know?

• 39:59Lex Fridman?

  Did he say something?

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Remember, I gave you a little bit of introduction to my father, right? You know him now a little bit, right?

• 40:06Lex Fridman?

  Yeah. What did he say about the job?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  He just said, this is what he said, I remember to this day what he said.

• 40:11Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  That, that I do remember, I don't know if it was six or five people, but this I do remember.

• 40:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  He said, they did a good job, you're gonna have a scar the rest of your life. And he left.

• 40:27Lex Fridman?

  Oh, man. They did a good job.

• 40:32Lex Fridman?

  You mentioned Cus, Cus Tomata, legendary trainer. And you also mentioned, it turned out, he really cared about you. In the book you write about a testimony he gave. I was hoping I could read it because it speaks to your character, it speaks to his, it's just powerful. The testimony goes, "Your Honor, I realize you might not know much about me, but I've spent my whole life developing young men. As a boxing manager, I trained two world champions, heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and light heavyweight champion Jose Torres.

• 41:07Lex Fridman?

  I've also helped a lot of other young boys straighten out their lives and build character. I know things about Teddy Atlas this court doesn't know, things you won't find in his arrest record. This boy has character, he has loyalty. He'll hurt himself before he'll let down a friend. These qualities are rare and they shouldn't be lost. He's made mistakes, we've all made mistakes. But I've come to know this boy, and if we lose him, we'll be losing someone who could help a lot of people. Please don't take this young boy's future away. He could be someone special. Let's not lose him. Please."

• 41:49Lex Fridman?

  Those are powerful words from a powerful man. What have you learned about life from, from Mr. Cus Tomata?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  He gave me a quote and he drilled it into my head. I became his guy, you know? He loved me. I loved him.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  He, he said to me,

• 42:15Speaker 01

  "Teddy, no matter what a man says, it's what he does in the end that he intended to do all along." That's what I learned from Cus.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  That's if it is BS.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  And, um...

• 42:35Speaker 01

  A lot of people say things. You just have to give them a minute to let them show you eventually what they really meant by it. I always learned from him that everyone's afraid. Because this way of saying, or another great saying, you'll get kicked out of this. Anyone who's in a situation where fear should be prevalent, where fear is actually necessary to survive the situation, anyone who says that they're not afraid, they're one of two things.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  They're either a liar, or they should go to a doctor, find out what the fix wrong with them. He was right about that. You know, we live in a taboo society where that word to a certain extent is taboo because it invokes weakness. You know, we are just layers of what we saw and learned since we were kids. We all are. We're products of those layers. I learned that on my own, without some help.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, you know, fear, people will find their way of avoiding that term. So they use the word anxiety. They use the word, you know, butterflies, apprehension, you know, a million different right words. I find all those other words to be cousins of fear. And fear, fear causes a lot of things in life. It causes a lot of problems, and it also solves a lot of problems. Without it, we couldn't be great.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  If we are great, if we ever have a chance to be great, or at least to aspire to be great.

• 44:44Lex Fridman?

  How does fear connect to greatness? That's a, that's a profound statement. Without fear, we wouldn't be able to be great.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you couldn't be great without fear because

• 44:57Speaker 01

  fear allows you to be brave.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  The most important word for me in this whole, you know, conversation, right, neighborhood would be selfishness. It allows you to be for a moment less selfish. One of the things I learned, I guess, partly on my own. Everyone thinks my greatest teacher was Cus. He was a great teacher, mentor. My greatest teacher was my father, the one who never talked. And I realize one of the things to be better towards great

• 45:36Speaker 01

  is if you can be, submit less than we submit. See, one of the things that I'm afraid of, one of the things I was always quitting in my business, it's kind of not a good thing.

• 45:51Lex Fridman?

  Every business, I think. Yours, yours is just more clear.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it hurts more.

• 46:01Lex Fridman?

  True. In the moment, at least.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the moment, you're right, 100%. Because some things hurt for a long time afterwards. And something like regret. Regret is the worst thing in the world because it's a solitary sentence. And man, oh, man.

• 46:19Lex Fridman?

  That's a powerful phrase. Regret is a solitary sentence.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  So.

• 46:24Lex Fridman?

  Oh, boy. You're full of good lines.

• 46:28Speaker 01

  You know, it wasn't easy to accumulate them. It was a little bit hurtful. But so submit less because we submit every day. And if we can get to a place where we submit or compromise ourselves less, we'll get to a better place. You know, again, one of the, one of the words for me that attaches to things that give you.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  That wind up hurting you in life and have hurt me in life. Uh, one of those boogeyman words is the word of convenience. That's attached to everything, you know, people, people disappoint you not because they want to disappoint you. Or let you down or betray you because they want to betray you. They do it because it's more convenient to do than than the other thing. An old man once told me, he said to me.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  I was trying to, I was trying to rationalize something. I was trying to make someone an excuse for something. I was trying to make myself better than I was. I was trying to say it was okay. And, and he just looked at me and he, he liked me and he said, Teddy.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Ain't no such thing as being a little pregnant.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  I was like, yeah. He goes, you're pregnant or you're not pregnant. Either you're real or you're not really, either you're, you know, truthful or you're not truthful. Either you're tough or you're not tough. Either you're, e- e- e- either you're, you know, committed or you're not committed. Either you're in or you're out.

• 48:18Lex Fridman?

  That applies to a lot of things.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:19Lex Fridman?

  Including loyalty.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  That's quite a statement, but the lifeblood of humanity for me is loyalty. Um, it's, it's what goes through the veins of, uh, you know, everything has to have some veins in some form. And if humanity has veins, what runs through the veins of humanity instead of blood to keep it alive is loyalty. Without loyalty, without loyalty, we're dead. We're freaking walk, we're, we're vessels. I never understood what a ghost ship was. You know what? As I got older, I know what a ghost ship is. It's people. It's people that are empty. They got no loyalty.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Therefore, they got no humanity. Therefore, they got nothing.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Therefore, freak them, freak them. Because, and, and, and you know why they don't have loyalty? Convenience. And you know why?

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Because it takes, it's hard to be loyal. It's actually hard. I'll be a son of a gun. Yeah, you're telling me, yeah, it sounds great. Give it to me. Give it to me. Paint me with it. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I'm loyal. I'm, yeah, I'm great. I'm, yeah, this is good. I'm ready. I'm on that team. I'm ready. Put me in, coach. I'm ready. Okay. Now, you have to, uh, you're gonna have to get hurt here. What do you mean get hurt? Oh, it's gonna be painful. I mean, to be loyal, you know, you're gonna be in danger because the person that you committed your loyalty to for a reason, because obviously you did something in your life, whatever, whatever. Um, you're actually gonna get hurt to be loyal to them. You're actually gonna, hold on a minute. Wait, hold on a minute, coach.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Hold on, call time out here. Um, let me, let me think about this, coach. I'm, I'm, I might need more, more practice. I'm not ready for the game. I'm not ready to go in the game yet. Give me a little more practice, coach. And it hurts to be loyal. It freaking hurts. But without loyalty, we're, we're, we're ghost ships. We got no strength. We got nothing. We got nothing. We, we got, we got nothing.

• 50:27Lex Fridman?

  I agree with you in a deep, fundamental sense, but there's a pain that comes with that. I have to ask you to introspect on this part of your life because of your value for loyalty. As people know, you and Costamato trained young Mike Tyson. And the interaction there between the three of you led to the three of you parting ways. Given your value for loyalty, can you tell the full story of what led up to this? And maybe the pain you felt from that?

• 51:20Speaker 01

  I guess it was the second time in my life I felt betrayed. The first time was when I, you know, I was whatever, young, seventeen, and I got arrested. I was with all these older guys, tough guys, whatever, and supposedly. And the detectives separated us, that's what they do. And, you know, they, they asked me, who did whatever, whose gun this, that, you know, all that, the particulars of, obviously, what we did. And, you know, it was me. And they said, "You sure?

• 52:04Speaker 01

  You don't want to change that? Because your friends changed it." And, and these cops, they were nasty, but they were cops. They were, the way, you know, you're gonna wind up in Rikers with, and they're gonna be doing this to you. And I won't even say the things, because then, eh, why say them? You know? Figure it out. But, you know, they're trying to get what they're trying to get, and, you know, you wanna change it? And, um, no. And, but, I felt very betrayed, you know? And, especially when I was standing in the, in the cell, in Rikers, looking at the airplanes leave LaGuardia Airport, and then hoping I was on one.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  You know, I was making like a deal with God that, "Let me be on one of those planes, and let it crash. I'll take a shot."

• 52:53Lex Fridman?

  Was part of you proud that you didn't give up your friends?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  No, because I didn't understand what proud was. I didn't understand nothing. I just understood that, um...

• 53:02Lex Fridman?

  Rules are rules, you're just loyal, and that's it.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  I didn't even know there was an option. I didn't think there, I know the cops said you could do this, but that, there was no option. My father never had an option. But, the betrayal, the private betrayal was like, and so when Cuz...

• 53:25Speaker 01

  We were partners, me and Cuz. Yeah. Cuz was retired. This stupid kid goes up there and all of a sudden I start training fighters. First, I wanted gloves. Cuz put me in the gloves. I wanted gloves that I had injury, whatever. But bottom line is, I still want to fight. I want to turn pro. I want to fight. That was the plan. And, um, and Cuz had a different plan.

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Cuz, Cuz was like, he can't, and he had it set up a little bit, whatever, without getting into it. Hey, he did me a favor. And I like to think he knew he was doing me a favor. And you know what? I do think he was. He was doing himself a little bit, one too. But, but he was doing it for the greater cause because he believed in this thing of boxing. He, he believed that it changed lives. He believed that it was worthwhile. He believed that there was a power to it beyond the left hook. The big picture of boxing. Yeah. He believed in it. Yeah, he believed that to be a champion, you had to be special. You had to be smart. You had to have character. You had, that you had to be a better person and that you couldn't make a champion if you didn't make him a better person first.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  And, and that, that this, you know, this could strengthen people. The sport could strengthen people in those ways. So he, he was married to it. And he, he was old and he needed, there was no one in the gym. It was empty. And it was above a police station, which was crazy. And he needed an heir to the throne. He needed to pass it on to someone and he saw something. And all of a sudden he said, he saw that my career as a boxer was less important than having me become his heir to the throne and become his trainer, his man, his guy to continue, that we could do a lot more for him

• 55:15Speaker 01

  and for, for, for everyone, not just for him, but for everyone. It was more like to keep it going, like, like it couldn't die. It couldn't die. And Cuz was afraid that it would die with him. And he committed his whole life to it. He didn't get married because of boxing. So he didn't, so he saw me as, as, you know, the, the little bit of, you know, the seed to plant. For for more things to grow. Yeah. And before that plant died. And so he all of a sudden he says, you can't fight. And I had people tell me that I could go somewhere else and fight. And I could. But I couldn't. Right. Because I'd be disloyal. Loyalty is everything.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I couldn't leave cuz. Yeah. And he kind of knew that. And and so, you know, I couldn't leave him. And he said, you have an ability to teach. He said, knowledge means nothing. He said, see these Britannica, he had Britannica Encyclopedia, the whole set in in our library. He said, you see these? Yeah, I see them. All the knowledge of the world, whatever, is in these, all right? Means nothing if you don't have somebody to convey it to people. Otherwise, it just sits on a bookshelf and looks good. He goes, you have the ability to convey knowledge to people. You're a teacher. You were born to be a teacher. You'd lessen yourself by only being a champion fighter.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Because you'd only take care of one person. You could take care of all kinds of people. And you could do this, and you could do that, and you could do this. So we go on this venture. Took a minute, because I didn't believe him at first. But finally, we, I am, I'm there, I'm training fighters.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  And then he he gets me to buy in.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  And I was a teacher. And I start teaching these kids, and there's no one in the gym, it's dead. And all of a sudden, there's ten kids, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-five. Catskill Boxing Club, which was never there. Now it's there. And I'm training fighters. I'm taking them down to South Bronx to get experience. One of his former fighters, Nelson Cuevas, down to South Bronx. I'm taking down there to get smokers, to get fights when they're ready. After I teach, I'm wearing our dungarees. I'm getting holes in my dungaree. I was fashionable before it was fashionable to have holes in my dungarees. I could have made a lot of money with that. Because I was on my knees with these little kids, nine years old, ten years old, eight years old, ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  All these kids and I'm teaching them and I'm building a gym. And Cus only came once a week because he was semi-retired, you know. And and he's home and when he would come once a week, he knew he couldn't give me money, but he gave me more than money. He gave me praise. And he said, look what Atlas is doing. He's creating champions. And I was like, whoa. Yeah. Wow, I'm doing good. And and and then all of a sudden, after four years of that, because I was up there seven years, eight years, eight years. After about three and a half, four years of that, we get a phone call that they get this kid in prison and try on prison. Uh, from one of the guys that knew Cus, Matt Pereski.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Uh, and and there's a state, there's a correction officer named Bobby Stewart, who used to box. And Cus had helped him out a little bit, little bit. And um, and they knew we had this gym now that was really starting to become something. Because we were winning tournaments and everything else. They call, I was like, we got this kid, Mike Tyson, he he's he's 12 years old, he's 190 pounds. He's a mess. But Bobby Stewart got involved with him. Uh, you know, the the former fighter and he's taken a liking to it. And now where he didn't behave at all and he didn't listen to anyone. Now he's listening because Bobby's got a carrot and the carrot is hit. It teach him boxing and now he he's at the point now where we we want you to take a look, you and Teddy. All right, bring him down.

• 59:18Lex Fridman?

  What what did you think when you first saw Mike Tyson?

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Well, I I wanna I wanna see his birth certificate because he 190 pounds, 12 years old and all solid.

• 59:28Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Um, you know, really, but yeah.

• 59:32Lex Fridman?

  Just physically, just as a physical specimen.

• 59:34Speaker 01

  And and.

• 59:35Lex Fridman?

  Big guy.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, and listen. Cus was right, I was a teacher. He was right. And he was testing me even that day. He said, what do you think? So I said, well, we ain't gonna know nothing in the bag. Who the fuck cares about that? He knocked the bag down. Yeah, we gotta put him in with, uh, we got no one to put him in that way. I didn't have anyone that way. We gotta test him. Everyone's gotta be tested. And, um, so you gotta put him in responsibly, but let's put him in just responsibly. But let's put him in with Bobby Stewart, former pro fighter, had fourteen pro fights. Smaller than Tyson. Uh, he was, when he was fighting, he was one seventy-five, but still he's twenty-eight years old. Tyson's twelve, come on. And, and he'll work with him, right? So we do, we put him in.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Tyson, he recognized the moment. He understood this was an audition. This was a chance, you know? This was that TV show, Change Your Life. And he understood that if he passed the audition, he could change, possibly change his life. He wasn't sure what, how could he be sure what exactly? But it was better than what he had. And so he was on audition, so he wanted, he innately understood what we would wanna see. Ferociousness, toughness, uh, character, uh, desire, you know? And of course, ability. Well, we saw the ability, power, speed, but it was, it was unbridled. It was untaught. It was, it was raw.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  He didn't know really much at all, um, at all. But we saw that. But he wanted to show more. He knew that wasn't enough. Again, innate intelligence. He, he had to show desire. He had to show toughness. And so I was being responsible. After two rounds, that's enough. Normally I don't put a guy into boxing to maybe four months, five months, six months, eight months, ten. It depends what it takes to learn on the floor before it's responsible to put him in the ring to, to actually take on, uh, incoming real live shells instead of blanks.

• 1:01:41Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  And so normally I wouldn't have him in. And I knew after today, he wouldn't be in the ring again if I trained him. I would teach him first and then he'd get back in in a few months. But for this day, it was the only way.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  It's kind of like, I used to make this announcement, Cus loved it. I, I, he said, "What's trainer and fighter? What do you, what do you look for in a trainer and fighter, Teddy?" You know, he asked me this ridiculous question, just to test me. And, and I say, "It's like going to Macy's." Ah, he loved it. I, I said, "It's like, I said, "It's like going to Macy's window." And Chris, he goes, "What do you mean Macy's window?" You know, Cus was like, boom, boom, boom. So, "What do you mean Macy's window?" "Oh, you go to Macy's window and they got the window with everything you want to see. Everything in there, and it looks great." "Oh, everything." "And, yeah, and then what?" "Well, then you ask, "What's in the warehouse?" "And they tell you nothing."

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  And, and Cus says, "That's it. That's a trainer." Yeah. And I wanted to see what was in the warehouse. Because I saw what was in Macy's window, I saw the power, I saw the speed. So, he goes two rounds, and he gets a bloody nose. Here's the weird thing, not weird, very telling. We knew what we were doing. Not bragging, but we knew what we were doing. Because he got a bloody nose because he got hit.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  After that bloody nose, he never got another bloody nose. You know why he didn't get hit? Because he learned. He was still strong, but he was smarter now. Anyway, he goes two rounds, and I saw, and I'm being responsible, because if he goes more, it's not responsible. I saw what I needed to see. I saw speed, I saw power, I saw athleticism. And I saw, I didn't believe him. I thought he was lying to me. I'm just telling you. I, I thought he was lying, trying to act tough when he wasn't really feeling tough. It didn't matter. Cus questioned me on it afterwards. "What did you see?" And when I said it, he goes, "Young master." You know, again, he wasn't paying me money. So, he had to give me something, right? And, and that was better than, that was currency. "Young master, I'm the young master, whoa." You know, "Young master," you know what I mean?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  I, I felt like that guy Kung Fu, you know? Like in the movie, like Kung Fu. "Grasshopper, when you're ready, when you can take this out of my hand, you can leave." And- That's powerful. Yeah, it was. It worked. Cuz knew how to work me and he did and it worked and and so but you know what? I didn't mind being worked. I kind of knew I was being shuffled a little bit.

• 1:04:07Lex Fridman?

  Well, you're making it sound a little bit negative, but it's also extremely positive. That's a teacher instilling wisdom into you that you carried forward and impacted a lot of people.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz get the job done, but he did it his way and he did it for a lot of a myriad of reasons. And but at the end of the day, it was all good and I just had to understand that eventually later on, but.

• 1:04:33Lex Fridman?

  And you do the same. You do things your way and carry some of him in you, some of your father in you.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, that day, you know, that day was funny because when Cuz said, what did you see Teddy? When him after two rounds, I got up in the ring. I knew I was going to train him. Obviously, we weren't going to say no. And he still had about four months to serve and we were going to work it out.

• 1:04:56Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  And when I got up on the ring apron, that's my job. I'm the boss. You know, people later on in life call me a dictator. You know what I said? Yeah, you're right. I didn't deny people thought you you you mean, I'm right? Yeah, I'm a dictator. I'm a trainer. I'm the boss. I'm in charge. If I you wouldn't be here if I wasn't. What the fuck you need me for if I'm not freaking in charge? You idiot. Yeah, yeah, damn right. Well, what do you think it's a it's a shared responsibility? No, it's my responsibility. That's why you're here. Yeah, I am in charge. And you shouldn't be here if you don't understand that. So I get up there and I know that I'm going to be training him. I got to show him who the boss is, you know, I'm being really frank about this.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  So I get up there and say, that's it out.

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  No, no, you know, this is Tyson. No, let me go. I want to do another round. I want to do another one.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  I said, out. Did you hear what I said? Because I knew that, you know, he was going to test me. It's testing me. I said, I said, get out. He got out.

• 1:06:01Lex Fridman?

  But were you impressed with the fact that you want to keep going or not?

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Yes, and I recognized what it really was. So Cuz asked me, what was that? Cuz want to know what the young master saw. So Cuz said, what was that? I said, it was um.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  It was an act. He goes, you saw that? Did he really wanna go? I said, no. I said, he didn't really wanna go. But he knew that we want him to go. And he made himself ready to go in order to satisfy. And that's just as good. And Cus said, damn right, it's just as good. All that matters was not, not, not how he got there, but that he got there. Yeah. That's all that matters. That he got there. That he got to the place to act like a fighter. To, to do what we want him to do. To be ready to persevere. To go beyond the comfort level. To do another round. He didn't want to. Damn right, he didn't want to. But he knew we want him to.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  And he knew in order to pass the test, he had to do it. And he said, you're right. He goes, now it's gonna be your job to teach him, to make him a fighter that don't get bloody noses. That don't get hit. And will get to that place without being coerced to get there. To get to that place on his own. Instead of using the things that he had to use to get to that place today. Those things are not going to be available. One day, when you, and listen to this. You talk about a man being prophetic, Cus was pretty good. You talk about man being on a job, on money.

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  Lex, he says, how do you think he finishes the sentence? He goes, because someday, because you know, you're gonna have to make sure that he learns these things. Because you know, he, he'll be your first heavyweight champ. What did you just say? He's 12 years old. Yeah. He, he, he's been arrested 30 times. He's getting out of jail, out of, you know, juvenile detention, try on. He's a mess in a lot of ways. There's a lot of things we find out later, a lot of problems, weaknesses. He goes, and you're, that's part of your job. That'll be part of your job. And, but he really said that.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  And then, then he turned to him, he goes, you wanna come live with us, young man? You wanna be a fighter? Yes, even that, Cus said to me later, what do you think about that? I said.

• 1:08:35Lex Fridman?

  The way he said yes.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the way he said yes. Yes, sir. Yeah, he said, what do you think about that? And we're talking, I said. Ain't gonna be that polite in a little while down the road. Again, he knew that that's what he felt that he needed to to project himself as, to to present himself out, to to get to where he want to get to. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:00Lex Fridman?

  Did you see what Cus was seeing in terms of the heavyweight champion of the world?

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  No, again, the easiest answer would be yes. Teddy, Teddy Alice, genius, wow, wow, Teddy's, wow, no, no, no, no. But again, it was my job.

• 1:09:15Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  And I just, I, my job, it was simple, simpler than Cus's. Cus knew too much. I knew nothing. I just knew, you know, rudiments of boxing, I knew what it took to be a fighter and and how to execute it, the steps of executing it. So I took those steps. The, the, the rest of it, you get blurred by those other things. I wasn't blurred by those other things. I, it was, it was just get him in the gym. Make him mentally stronger, make him face things and teach him how to slip punches and and create holes and fill those freaking holes with devastating punches, this is Cus. And what are you gonna do? I'm gonna teach him to fill holes and fill them with punches with bad intentions.

• 1:10:00Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  And, and that became the moniker.

• 1:10:03Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  And then Tyson would say that, I'm throwing punches with bad intentions. Yes, you are. And, um, you know.

• 1:10:10Lex Fridman?

  How do you make him mentally tougher? So that part of the job, the, you said the don't get a bloody nose, but the part of the job where it makes him mentally tougher, how you do that?

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Most important part of the job. To make him face things. Make him face where he's lying to himself, where he's submitting. When we start this conversation with submission. Submit less. Submit less, submit less every day. Submit less. Cuz only come to gym once in a while. And if I had him spar and he would come because that was his, that was his project, that was the heavyweight. Now he came, you know, put life in cuz, cuz had life. He was losing a little life, but that made the light bulb bright again. It did. And it was great to see it. I felt proud of that. I felt connected to that. And that's why when, when, when it all went bad. And cuz took the side that the only side he could take. The side of the next heavyweight champion of the world. But he, but he left me.

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  His partner. The young master. And

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  of the second time I get betrayed. And I'm like.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  For a while I thought everything cuz taught me, said to me. I was a liar, I didn't want to be any part of it anymore. Until I got a little more mature and I got a little past that.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  Where I was able to understand.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  I was able to understand.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  That

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  just because somebody that you perceive as great in every area is you find to be weak in certain areas.

• 1:11:50Speaker 01

  Doesn't mean that they can't still be what they were to you. It's, it's something that.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  It's something that can be understood or forgiven. Yeah, it's, it's hard. It's hard to get to that place to forgive somebody in that kind of way that I felt betrayed. Because cuz told me the most important thing was loyalty. Cuz told me he loved me because I was loyal. Cuz, cuz told people that the reason that he went to court was because I didn't give up anybody, even though it meant putting me in the risk of going to jail for 10 years. And he, and cuz felt that he admired those traits. And so I assumed that he, he would show the same traits. And he took a deal.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  He took a deal. He took a deal. He, he, he signed the papers that those, that those so-called feds of mine signed. You know, he, he, he took a deal to, to, you know, to, to have the future heavyweight champions turned out and, and to let me, you know, to let me go, to sign the deal, to, to let me take, you know, take the weight.

• 1:13:10Lex Fridman?

  For people who don't know, uh, Mike was inappropriate with a young girl and he pulled the gun on him. I don't know if there's deeper things to say about that situation. But why do you think Kuz made the decision to cut you off from both Mike Tyson and from Kuz, Kuzomato? Like to break that when he valued loyalty so much?

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  I served my purpose. I got him to the way he needed to get, um, brought life back in the gym. If I wasn't in the gym at that particular time, Tyson never would have been in the gym. There would have been no gym to bring him to. When they called up and made that phone call to bring him to the gym, there would have been no activity. There would have been no boxing program. There would have been, you know, no trainer training him 24/7 the way I was, where Kuz wasn't capable of doing that at that point in his life. But then again, it's not poor Teddy. I get the benefit of a career. I get the benefit of knowledge. I get the benefit of a life. I get the benefit of learning, of, of becoming

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  hopefully a better person. Um, I got the benefit of being betrayed again. Um, but...

• 1:14:21Lex Fridman?

  That's a hell of a statement right there. I don't know what the benefit of that is.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  You can learn to forgive weakness, you know,

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  when you realize how...

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  How easy it is to be weak. And, and when you realize that, somebody asked me, how did you get to the point where you, you could forgive, right? It's a pretty good question, pretty simple, pretty basic, pretty important, right? And I didn't, I didn't understand I understood, but I did understand immediately for me. I said, how can I not forgive somebody? It becomes easier to learn how to forgive when you're still trying to forgive yourself. When you're still in the process of trying to forgive yourself for all your own inherent

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  weaknesses and betrayals of people like my father in different ways that we forget very easily because it's handy and it's a way of surviving. It's a lot easier to, to figure it out, rationalize it, to, to, to, to find forgiveness when you realize that you still haven't figured out completely how to forgive yourself. I'm still trying to figure that out. And, um, so that helped me figure out how to forgive Cus. Because to figure out how to forgive me, I had to understood why I did these things,

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  where the, where the weaknesses came from, where the selfishness came from, where the convenience came from, that they really existed. But they didn't exist for malice. They existed for me not being prepared to understand that I could be stronger. To wanna be stronger. And then I looked at Cus. He wanted to be stronger, but he got to a point in life where he had been strong for a lot of his life. He was strong with me, he was strong with a lot of things in his life. And does everyone deserve a pass in life? Where?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  He got, he got to a place where everything was in one basket. The basket of boxing. He once told me that he never got married because it would be, it would have been selfish to a woman to have gotten married when his whole life was boxing. That he couldn't give to a kid, he couldn't give to her. He could, and, and then I thought about it. He had no money really. And Jim Jacobs and Bill Caden took care of the bills. So he didn't really need money that way. But the one, what was the payoff for that kind of life? That kind of commitment? That kind of sacrifice? Really, what was the payoff? The payoff was to have champions.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  To have a champion that would keep your name alive. You know, that word legacy, like, what does it mean? Sometimes it's, it's just a word. Sometimes it's, it's more than a word. It's, it's, it's a reprieve. It's a pension plan. It's, it's being given a pension on your way out for the rest of your life. For, for your life, wherever you're going. You're going to wherever you're going for eternity. It's, it's, it's the only thing that you take with you is what you left behind. And for Cuz, it was all about leaving behind a mark. A mark that of champion. Yeah, it was attached to ego. We all have it.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was attached to some selfishness and all. But yeah, it was also attached to wanting to leave something great behind. To know that you were part of it, that you existed for a reason. That, that, that you sacrificed for a reason. And all that freaking pain I brought my father. I was searching for something. Yeah, I made it into a righteous search. I made it into, I did. And I made it into, I was okay because it was righteous and I, but it still did damage. It still did damage. It still hurt people. It still betrayed my father's trust.

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  And Cuz betrayed mine, but he didn't do it maliciously. He, he did it out of, again.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  My father came home, this is how I'm gonna connect it. My father came home from, from work one night, 12 o'clock, and I was waiting on. And like I said, I was over nine, 10 years old. And he got mad at me. He goes, "Go to bed. What are you doing up?" I said, "Waiting for you. Waiting for you." And, um, he said, "Well, go to bed." I said, "No, I, I, what were you doing?" He said, "I was at the hospital." "You were there, why were you there so late?" You know? He answered me. He, he said, "There was a patient. There was a sick patient." I said, "Oh, he must be better now, because you're his doctor." You know, because my father could fix anything.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  My father, nothing got in the way of the truth. Nothing. Nothing. Even blowing his son's bubble.

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Matter-of-factly, he said to me, "Uh, no, he's not gonna get better. He's gonna die."

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  And, um, so as a nine-year-old kid, you know, you're a kid, you're selfish, you know, not in a bad way, but, you know, you want what you... And I said, um, I said two things. First, I said, "How? How? You're his doctor. How? I mean, it can't be." And then I said, I, I just said it almost angry. "Then why were you there? Like, you should've been here with me." Yeah. And you know what he said to me? "'Cause you don't give up on life. Go to bed."

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Don't give up on life. And that's, I finally connected the dots. This idiot that didn't graduate high school.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  I finally connected the dots. I was asking Cus to give up on life.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  You don't, you don't give up on life. You don't give up on aspirations of life. Life is all forms of life. Doesn't have to be a physical form of it. It's life, it's having a reason to be alive.

• 1:21:25Speaker 01

  It's having a reason to have tomorrow. And, and Cus' only reason to have tomorrow was to have another heavyweight champ. And Teddy Atlas, even though we were together all those years and we were partners and we trained together and we would, we would, you know, the only thing we didn't do was what they did in the Indian movies, where, where they cut the finger and they became blood brothers.

• 1:21:47Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:47Speaker 01

  That's, that's the only thing we didn't do and I felt like we did that.

• 1:21:50Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Without cutting. And, and now here we are.

• 1:21:56Lex Fridman?

  And still.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  And he freaking betrayed me this. And, and I'm, and then all of a sudden I connected the dots, I was like,

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  he didn't betray me in the, in that cold sense. He didn't give up on life.

• 1:22:15Lex Fridman?

  Years later, Mike Tyson apologized to you. What, what, what's meaningful to you about that? How does that fit the story?

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  I want to be the great gracious guy right now. Say, oh, I'm so hu- human that, that, you know, a man's man enough to say, sorry, that's it, we're good. I want to be really, that, that's, that's, that's the, that's the best presentation of Teddy Atlas I could put out there. He's a good guy. He forgives, he, he's a good guy. He's a, he's a, he's a stand-up guy and he's a good guy. I'm not sure

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  if he truly did it for himself, that he really did it because he felt that.

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  It was true.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  But, but if he's persuaded by other things. He was in the middle, I know I'm taking it too deep, I know it, but what am I gonna do? He was in the middle of 12 steps with the, you know, getting out of drugs, alcohol, 12 steps, which is a commemorable, really, it is. And, and he's taking the steps, and part of the steps was to admit or to apologize to all people you offended in life. Okay. But...

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  Are you doing it for the 12 steps, or are you doing it because you really, truly

• 1:23:46Speaker 01

  have come to terms with believing what you did was that hurtful to me? And that it matters to you that it was that hurtful to me? And that you were wrong in doing it? Did you do it for... I know that's deep, I know that I'm a freaking idiot, I'm a... You're, you're a... Teddy, freaking, you're, you're... You should be better than that. He's better than you. Yeah, maybe he is better than me. Maybe he is, really, seriously, maybe he is. And, and I took it, he put his hand, I took it. I, we hugged, he said, "I love you." I, I, I... Yeah, yeah. I, but I wanna believe.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  But, what did Cuz tell me? No matter what a man says, it's what he does in the end, that he intended to do all along. So to this day, today, was it really genuine, or was it reflexive of that moment for him to get what he needed? To, you know, for that step? Or was it truly

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  for what I needed? To, to really, that he really cared? That what he did to me caused me to do what I did? Because I did something that was pretty damn bad to him too. Is he able to...

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  Deal with that and put that where it has to be put. Is he able to put that? Or is it just he did something he had to do and maybe he's sorry he did it? I know him.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  Look, I appreciate it that he. I would have rather been in a private place.

• 1:25:26Lex Fridman?

  Yeah, so what people don't know, you were in the middle of commentating a fight. And he walked up from behind you and he said he was sorry. He shook your hand, gave you a hug. I didn't know he said I love you.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's emotional. I get emotional a little bit too. But but he he's emotional and he could be and he can be. I can see why people have a fascination in a love affair with him right now. Because he was. Because, you know, he was. He was the meteor, the meteor that went across the sky that is. If they didn't see it, their parents told them about it. There was a meteor that came across the sky one day. And and and the meteor is walking around in a room now. And that's the meteorite. And then and it actually landed here and and that's it right there. And and and now he's come a long way. And now he's, you know, he's more human and and he he's lovable, you know, and and compassionate.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  And he cries and and I get the fascination. I get the love affair. I get it because we're inherently, we're people that want to forgive. We're people that we want to be good. We and part of being good is to forgive people and to to show compassion to people. And so and when somebody's been damaged.

• 1:26:46Speaker 01

  To acknowledge they've been damaged, to acknowledge that you know they've been damaged. And you care about them being damaged. And how do you show care? Through admiration, you know, in in some ways, almost through adulation. And he's getting adulation from people like, you know, which is to an incredible level. And it's because it's a phenomenon. But but I get it. I understand it and um.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  I don't know if he gets it. I don't know if underneath all of this, he's a complex guy. He's a sensitive guy. I don't know, and I am too.

• 1:27:22Lex Fridman?

  One complex guy talking about another complex guy.

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  I don't know if underneath it all, where he's really, truly at. As far as that day that he said that to me.

• 1:27:34Lex Fridman?

  Is there part of you that's sorry to Mike?

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  I'm not sorry.

• 1:27:38Lex Fridman?

  Pulling the gun on him?

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, listen, that's fair. I, I know dimensions of human nature too well. To not know that he still has to have certain, because I have those strong feelings. What, it's not fair for him to have them? Damn right, it's fair. Now, now, he could look at it if, if he was to be held to his word that night. That he just acknowledges that what happened, he deserved because of what he, you know, the position he put me in and he put himself in, what he did. And I wouldn't change nothing.

• 1:28:16Lex Fridman?

  You're still, you're, you don't regret pulling the gun on him?

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  I regret that I had to. Yeah, I regret very much that, that I had to, that I regret very much.

• 1:28:28Lex Fridman?

  He crossed the line.

• 1:28:30Speaker 01

  I hated him for putting me in that position. That, that, you know, how dare he think that, that somebody's feelings are that trivial? That the way I would feel about myself and the way the girl would feel about herself that was 11 years old at the time, how she would feel about herself? How, how dare that he think it's that trivial that, you know, that I shouldn't be ready to freaking, to both die and kill for that?

• 1:28:58Lex Fridman?

  Why didn't Cus Tommato see it in a deeper way and talk through it?

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  The word came back to me. But of course, what does it mean? But the word came back to me that Cus said you were right. But if he took the side of Teddy, he would destroy a potentially a great, a great fighter.

• 1:29:21Lex Fridman?

  Why, why do you think that, okay, if you were to try to understand the point he was making, why, why is that true? Isn't the part of greatness that you said is building the character of knowing what is right? What, you know?

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Cus was afraid to, to go there where he used to not be afraid. Because it's kind of like, you're never afraid of going up. And I, I get it. You know, when I train a fighter now, if I come out of retirement, I train a fighter now, I feel in camp like I'm, I feel like I'm on death row every day. That, that if every day, I, I try to retrace my memory and say, did I feel this way when I was younger? I, I don't remember feeling this way. I feel every day a dreadful feeling that if I don't get this right, I, I betrayed everything. I betrayed the fighter's trust. I betrayed what I'm supposed to be. And then one, one day I tried to figure it out.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  Why do I feel this way so intense? I was in camp for two months training a guy for the world title a couple, few years ago, fighting the hardest puncher in the world at the time. And Adonis Stevenson, and the fighter was Ukrainian. And I was, you know, brought in to train him for that fight. And he trusted me and changed his whole style, trusted me. Oh my God, I went to bed every night like praying, dread, waking up dread, my stomach down to here. Every day saying, what, what if I fail him? What, what, what if everything that I told him was gonna happen, don't happen? What if I fail him? What, what if he trusted me and I, I betrayed that trust?

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  And the thing was the, with Cus was, you know, he used to be stronger than that. And then I, I tried to figure it out why I got this way and why it was so dreadful to me. And why I felt like I was on death row every day training a fighter. Like, did I do enough? Did I do right? Well, well, will we accomplish what we, will we accomplish what I promised him we would accomplish? Would I keep my word? And, and then I started thinking, how did I become this weak? How did I freaking become, I was a pretty strong freaking guy. How did I become this weak? And then finally, I think I figured it out. You know why? Because I was always working to get up. But once I finally got up, now I was looking down. And I finally hit me. I said, I didn't want to lose.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  I said, there was nothing to lose on my way up. Now all of a sudden, there's something to lose when you're up there and you're looking down.

• 1:31:51Lex Fridman?

  And that's where he was.

• 1:31:52Speaker 01

  And that's where Cus was. Cus, Cus was at the end of his rope. He, he was, he accomplished two world champs, all this stuff, right? Everything he, and, and, and he did it right. Now all of a sudden, it wasn't about moving forward. It was about not falling down. Holy cow. I was like, I got it, Cus. I got it. I got it. You didn't want to fall down. Oh, my God. You didn't want to fall. And he, this was his last chance. You don't give up on life. This was his last chance to live forever. To, to make everything he did worthwhile. To have the youngest, it wasn't just heavyweight champ.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  You've got to remember, he was the youngest heavyweight champ ever. And to have that, it was okay to die now. And how's loyalty to someone named Teddy Atlas gonna get in the way of that? That's a tidal wave that there ain't no wall that's been made high enough to stop that tidal wave. And now I'll stop myself. Yeah, there is. But, but it'd have to be an awful big one. And you know what? Who are we to say that we could ever build that wall that big? Who is any of it? Who am I to say?

• 1:33:16Lex Fridman?

  Do you think if you were to put yourself in the shoes of Cus, Cus Tomato, can you see yourself having the big enough wall or you would choose loyalty?

• 1:33:29Speaker 01

  Now, if I answer the way I feel, then, then I'm, you know, I'm making myself John Wayne again.

• 1:33:35Lex Fridman?

  You don't have to answer that. I think loyalty, loyalty is important.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  No matter what a man says, what he does in the end, that he intends to do, do all along. I didn't make that up, Cus did. And, and when, when this all went down?

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  Those words came freaking echoing into my freaking ears. I didn't want them. Cotton doesn't help. And they freaking kept coming into my ears. And what do you think, still an immature kid at the time? You know, I was young, still an immature kid at the time. What the freak do you think my response was? You were full of.

• 1:34:16Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  And but I got past that.

• 1:34:20Lex Fridman?

  Do you do you forgive Gus? Have you found forgiveness?

• 1:34:25Speaker 01

  Listen, I forgive him because he gave me more than he took away from me. If I can't, what kind of man am I to if I can't at least acknowledge that? And be grateful for that. He I he he gave me more than he took from me. And um, I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful for what I gave him. That I had, you know, that I I did give him some. And um, at that point in his life, you know, a place, a place to still to still have test tubes and um,

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  chemistry experiments, you know, a laboratory where it could still create create fire. And I I helped give him that I helped. I hope I was part of that lab and making sure that lab was there. And um, just that there was the existence of test tubes. Um, in the place because you can't freaking do experiments without test tubes.

• 1:35:29Lex Fridman?

  Now, you're the scientist with the test tubes.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I I guess so. And um, I I just hope that um, what I said earlier is is really is really my thread through this whole thing. When you say, can you forgive Gus? I I'm still trying to forgive myself. And if I can have hope that I can forgive myself, I think that hope has to start with the power to forgive someone else.

• 1:36:08Speaker 01

  How can I ever forgive myself for all my failings? And figure it out? If I can't start and practice it? By forgiving someone else for some shortcomings? And for me? That's, that's, that's the only sense of, sometimes a very hard thing to make sense of. That, that, that's my north star. That's, that's my compass. Cuz used to make me laugh. You know, me and him did everything together. We drive and we get lost in the city. We get lost in the Bronx and he get all frustrated.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  And he said, Atlas, you're a great trainer, but you turn you around, you spin you around and you're lost. And I said, me or we? And because I was the only one who would argue with him. And, and it was really funny sometimes. And I said, we or me? You or we or? And he goes, I don't get it. Cuz, you're lost. I'm lost. What are you talking about? And then all of a sudden, Cuz couldn't give in. He just couldn't admit. He couldn't give in. You know what he said to me? All of a sudden, he goes, when I was in the army, if I had a compass, I could get out of the woods. I said, we're not in the woods. We're not in the army. We don't have a compass. Cuz, cuz, just don't argue with me.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  I, one time we're driving. I want, I want to get back to Catskill. We, we just finished at the Bronx. It's been a long day.

• 1:37:42Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:42Speaker 01

  You know, visiting the, the murderers' houses and everything else that, that he took me through for the 1800 time. And I'm, and he would fall asleep. You know, he was getting older and he, and he would just fall asleep in the car. So what do you think? I went a little faster, right? Because before he went to sleep, he said, don't speed. So I don't consider myself, I try to be an honest guy and I try to be a freaking, but yeah, you know.

• 1:38:12Lex Fridman?

  It was the five or six guys.

• 1:38:14Speaker 01

  What did I say earlier? Try to do less submitting.

• 1:38:17Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  Really, in all phases, try to submit a little less. Try to lie a little less today. A little less. Try to get stronger. Try to get a little better. So here we are and we're driving and all of a sudden he's like, what did I do? Eighty, seventy-five, probably. Yeah. Probably did. You know, whatever. And all of a sudden, he wakes up.

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  You were speeding. Oh, I lie. No, I wasn't.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Don't lie. I'm not lying.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  He lied again. You were speeding. Now, come on. This guy, he's, you know what I mean? He's, he's, he's unbelievable. So I got a freaking, you know, he's the, he's David Copperfield. I want to know the trick. Yeah. I want to know how he freaking, he made this thing disappear. So I said, what are you talking? How do you know? He goes, because I timed you. I looked at the post number. And I'm like, what? I looked at the post number on the side of the road. Yeah. Where we were, whatever miles. And I never knew they even existed. Yeah. I look and I said, yeah, there's little numbers. He started timing and then fell asleep. Yeah. He timed it. And he looked, he goes, we couldn't have got from here to there. Yeah.

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  In that amount of time, unless you were going seventy-five miles an hour. And I'm like, all right, I'm. Smart man. All right, I'm impressed. You know, don't try to get the mileage, the mile per hour part right. It's enough that you got me. Yeah. Yeah, that's enough. I'm, yeah. I said, and I'm not going to do that no more. I'm, you know, and, and just, he helped me in crazy ways where there would be times where I wanted to be, you know, where you wanted to be whatever, right? Convenient, week, submit, right? And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, because in my mind, because was there with the stopwatch.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  And I'd be like, you know, no. You know, where I was about to say yes to whatever that. Yeah. Particular situation was.

• 1:40:38Speaker 01

  Somebody up there calling.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  Hello? Hello?

• 1:40:45Speaker 01

  Yes, you're great. Thank you.

• 1:40:51Lex Fridman?

  Just for the record, never had a phone call like this. It's hotel security. The question is, he asked me is, are you okay, sir? Are you okay? Are we okay?

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  I think so. I, I think so, so far.

• 1:41:05Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  You know, I can only go like so far. It's kind of like that old joke, you know, where the guy jumps off the Empire State Building.

• 1:41:13Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  Falling down and he's going, you know, eightieth floor, seventieth floor, sixtieth floor, fifty. And he gets past the fiftieth floor and they're looking him out the window and he goes, how am I doing? So far, so good. I, I don't know where it's gonna end, but um.

• 1:41:28Lex Fridman?

  So, uh, Mike Tyson is considered by many to be one of the great boxers, one of the greatest boxers of all time. Heavyweight boxers. Uh, what do you think on the positive side made him great?

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  I don't know if he was ever great.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  I know he was sensational. I know he was the greatest mix of maybe speed and power ever. I know he was one of the greatest punches from either side of the plate, left or right. There's been great punches with just the right hand, like Ernie Shavers and Deontay Wilder and Max Baer. I don't know if there's ever been anyone who could punch as good as he did on either side with either hand, other than Joe Louis and a few others. I don't know if there's ever been such a combination of speed and power to that pure level that he had. And it was a pure level. I don't know if there was ever as good a fighter as Tyson was, where maybe one night he was great.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  Well, he wasn't tested, but he might've been ready to be tested that one night against Michael Spinks. Uh, when he took him apart in ninety seconds, I think I saw a great fighter that night.

• 1:42:37Speaker 01

  I don't think you can be great unless you have all the requirements of being great.

• 1:42:44Lex Fridman?

  What does it take to be a great fighter? Truly great.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  To not rely on someone else's weakness to be strong.

• 1:43:00Speaker 01

  To be strong on your own. Too often he relied on other people's weakness, whether it's to by being intimidated or whether it was because his talent was so much greater than theirs that it was like putting a monster truck in there with a Volkswagen. And the Volkswagen was gonna get crushed. No matter how much horsepower the Volkswagen might have had under the hood and you put under the hood. It was gonna get crushed. The monster truck was not gonna allow it to be a contest. And

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  to be able to find a way when your talent wasn't enough. He didn't find a way when his talent wasn't enough and I'm not making statements if I'm not ready to put some evidence. You know, like if we were in a courtroom, Exhibit A.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  When he fought Buster Douglas.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Buster Douglas matched his will. And didn't get intimidated. Stood up to him. He didn't do what most people did. He didn't submit. Even a little bit. Not that night. He had in the past. But that night he didn't. Why? Because Buster had

• 1:44:13Speaker 01

  Buster had a secret weapon that night, his mother.

• 1:44:17Speaker 01

  Buster's mother had died a few months previous. He loved his mother very much. Buster had always had talent, big heavyweight, talented, could punch. Technically solid.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  He was all those things. Always was. But he quit in fights. He did less than he should have done. He never lived up to his ability. He gave in. He submitted. He wasn't strong enough. He never had a reason to be strong enough. When his mother died, he had a reason. Nothing could hurt him as much as his mother dying hurt him. Mike Tyson included. That night, Mike Tyson could not hurt him as much as his mother had hurt him by dying. That night, he had a reason to be strong. For his mother. And he was strong. He was everything he was supposed to be. And more. And he stood up to Mike. And Mike, for the first time, maybe ever, was in a fight where he had to overcome something.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  Where he had to be more than talented, more than a puncher. More than a guy with scintillating speed. And he wasn't. And then that night got followed by another night with Holyfield. Holyfield wasn't as talented as him, as big as a monster puncher.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  But Holyfield had the character.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  He was strong in ways that Tyson wasn't strong. He was strong in a way where

• 1:45:42Speaker 01

  he could find a way. He was willing to find a way. He's willing to go to the cliff to truly die before he submitted. You know, a lot of stuff is just words. Yeah, they're gonna have to carry me out on the shield. Yeah, sure, sure, okay. Yeah, until it comes time to be carried out on the shield. Sometimes there's people that actually mean it.

• 1:46:07Lex Fridman?

  You think Mike didn't have that?

• 1:46:09Speaker 01

  Well, all right. He, let's just say arbitrarily, I don't have his record for me. Let's say he was fifty-five and five. I know he had about five losses. All right, let's say he was fifty-five and five, right? A lot of knockouts.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I have a saying. A fight's not a fight until there's something to overcome. Until then, it's just an athletic exhibition, contest. Yeah, who's a better athlete? Who's got more quick twitch fibers? Who's, who, who's more developed? Who's in better this? Who's, who's more developed in those physical areas? But a fight is not a fight until there's something to overcome. Okay. So if you go by my definition, not Webster's, my definition, which I think means something.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Mike Tyson was only in five fights in his life.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  The five fights where there was something to overcome, and he didn't overcome it. Now, I know people hate me for this, including Tyson. I, I understand them hate me. Oh, you're a hater because you weren't with them. You didn't make the money because this, because that, because you got betrayed.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  I think I'm better than that. I hope I'm better than that. I believe I'm better than that. I'm not a hater. I've broadcast fights for 25 years on ESPN, where there was some people in the corner I did not like. And if they did a good job, this guy's doing a great job. And then there were guys that I liked and I had friendship. He messed up. And we weren't friends no more. Friendship gotta be tested, remember that? So we weren't friends no more. But why did I do that? Because it was my job. It was more important for me. When it's all over with, the only thing you're left with is...

• 1:48:05Speaker 01

  I mean, we're gonna be dust, all of us, right? The only thing we're left with is what carries on, our reputation. You know, legacy, whatever that is. But our reputation. That's all we're left with. And that's all our kids are left with. I want it to be as good as it can be. I've always had an ability. I've done a lot of things wrong and I've had a lot of lackings. But the one strength I've had, if I had a strength, is to understand somehow, through osmosis, I guess, to learn the lesson

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  that was important is not what's in front of you for those five seconds, for that moment in life. It's what's left behind you when those five seconds are gone. When that, whatever it is that you're dealing with, you know, whatever that moment is, whatever... That moment, what you do in that moment, the action of that moment is gonna stay with you and be you. It's gonna become you. What you faced for that moment...

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  It's gone. It's it's gone in the air in an instant. It's gone. It's done. Whether you take, whether you stand up there and you get shot in the head and the guy freaking blows your brains out or you freaking, you you stand up or you're fighting a guy who's like an un scary guy to fight, but you fight him and you beat him or he beats you up. But how you

• 1:50:02Speaker 01

  represented yourself in that moment is all that matters. That's gonna live. What happened don't matter. It don't matter that you got shot in the head. I know that sounds absurd. But if you believed that was important to stand up and had take the chance to get shot in the freaking head rather than to live like an empty vessel, you know what? That's all that freaking matters. And somehow that got freaking wrapped into this freaking head of mine. Like, that's what matters. That's all that matters. You know how many times I went and I there were things, whether it was with this one, with Tyson, with that. I didn't want to be there.

• 1:50:46Speaker 01

  I was scared to death. But I was more scared. I was more scared. Living with regret. How I would have felt. Yeah. I don't want to be in solitary confinement the rest of my life with that freaking guy in the cell next to me called regret. I don't freaking want to be next to that guy. If I want to freaking go down that road, I'll watch Papillon. You know what I mean? And then I'll get my fill from that. But I don't want to freaking live it. I'm afraid of what my children would think of me if if I fail in those areas.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  Why? Because that's forever. When I'm closing my eyes for the last time, I, I don't wanna have that fear. I don't wanna have that fear. You know, whether I'm going down there or whether I'm going up there. You know, I, I, I laugh because I, I, I was, I was around guys years ago that used to, when we'd talk about that, you know, and just, you know, and I would get a kick out of this, this one guy who been around the block a few times.

• 1:51:56Speaker 01

  When he say, hey Teddy, I ain't worried about that. I got friends in both places.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  That's a good line. And I, and I thought it was, I thought it was good. Listen, Mike Tyson, you want me to say he was a great fighter? Then you want me to betray what I really, you know what I mean? You want me to do that? I ain't doing it for, listen, I could do it to be a bigger Teddy Atlas and I know it would work for me. I, I know it would be, it do great promotional work for me. I know it would, it would make me more popular in certain area. I know it. I'm not that dumb, not that dumb. But I also know what else it would do to me. And I don't want it to do that to me. I think he was a great talent. I think maybe the night with Michael Spinks, maybe the night with Mike,

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  maybe he could have been that fighter. Maybe, but he didn't never really get tested. But he might have been ready no matter what I have to be tested that night. That's how good he was. That's how, even though it was a guy who used to be a light heavyweight, I get it. But was still a guy who beat Larry Holmes, who still had something left. Uh, Michael Spinks, so, and a great puncher, um, and an Olympic gold medalist. But at a special fighter, one of the great light heavyweights of all time. You know what Mike Tyson was? He was a meteor. He was a meteor that struck across and not too many meteors, and we still talk about him. And, and, and unlike Hallie's comment, he came back. And, and he's walking around and he's, he has become greater after his career.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  More loved, more beloved, more awed. And he's been forgiven. He found the fountain of forgiveness. I don't know, I wish I could find that. Where he has been forgotten for all his shortcomings, all the things that he may have done, may not have done, we don't know, only him and God know.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  But he's been forgiven of all that and he's been not only forgiven. He's raised above it and and above that and been brought above that. He's been brought to the pyramids of of of the greatest athletes that that in the world. And in every in every way, in every way, as a person, as a fighter, as a historian, as a figure, as a celebrity, I mean.

• 1:54:26Lex Fridman?

  Even a philosopher.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 1:54:29Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:29Speaker 01

  So I will take it back. All right, all you guys out there, you forgive me? He's the greatest of all time. If you encapsulate all that. If you encapsulate everything I just tried to describe. Um, and explain, if you put that all, he's the greatest of all time. Yeah, he is. But he still might be 0-5. In a record of 55 fights, he might, in Teddy Atlas's book. Again, I got friends in both places, so it's okay. Wherever I go, I have company. Somebody there will like me. Despite me saying this, he might be 0-5 because of five fights where there was something to overcome, which really defines a fight.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  He came, he he didn't find a way.

• 1:55:17Lex Fridman?

  Let me ask Teddy Atlas to introspect on the human nature here. Is part of the complexities of your feelings on this whole thing? Is that you know, to some degree, that if you were coaching Mike Tyson, he could be truly great.

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  I know, Cole, I'm gonna cut you right off because you asked a million dollar question. I wish you didn't. But you did. You did. Because that's why.

• 1:55:43Lex Fridman?

  When do I get paid?

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  That's why you get paid. I get it. You took the words out of my mouth. That's why you always you are.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  And that's why I'm here.

• 1:55:55Speaker 01

  The humility. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, again, full disclosure, it's important, right? Um, I'm gonna cheat. I'm gonna take some of Cus's wisdom. All right, a little bit of mine. Yeah.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  Cus told somebody that

• 1:56:14Speaker 01

  if Teddy Atlas got his way, he might have been a better person, but we would have risked him not being a great fighter.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Now, I believe, and I thought Cus did, and I think he did up to that point in his life, that part of your strength of character made you a great fighter. And truly a great fighter. And part of that battle to be a better person, that, that fight, if you will, to be a better person, to overcome the themes, to be a better person.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  Part of that fire you have to go through to be a better person. I really, truly bought into it and I, and I'm in for life. That is really the only way to be a great fighter. And

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  I don't think that's what Cus meant. I thought he meant, I think he meant that Cus knew more than I did of what was about to come and what would come and what the world was. How people would try to steal him, how people would take him, how people would steal his guy.

• 1:57:26Speaker 01

  The last thing he had, really. The, the thing that he lived for. Cause he lived to have another heavyweight champ. The greatest fighter ever, Cus, and Cus is mine, he could be. And I believe that

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Cus knew that he

• 1:57:45Speaker 01

  he could put forward a guy that had the ability to be the greatest fighter ever, without fully completing the mission of what it takes to really be great, but that he wouldn't, he wouldn't be around to have to witness it.

• 1:58:00Speaker 01

  And that he wouldn't.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  He was willing, he would, oh man, this is awful.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  He's willing to concede that he might be dead in order to have eternal life, in order to have greatness. Uh, which Cus does have greatness and part of that greatness is attached to Tyson. And he deserves it. He deserves it. Cus was a great man. And I wouldn't be here partly without him.

• 1:58:28Lex Fridman?

  But that was part of the calculation.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  I know that's deep, but I know that's, oh God, I hate myself right now. But, um, but Cus, he knew he was getting out free. He knew he was gonna not have to be there. He was, he was getting off easy. Oh Teddy, how do you say someone's gonna be dead? They're getting off easy. Well, I say it again in case you didn't hear me, all right? He, he, he was gonna get off easy and not have to face where he came up short. Because he did his job. Because he put forward the greatest fight of all time. And you guys screwed it up. And he knew that that might happen, but you guys screwed it up.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  And, and whatever, that's your fault. That's on, I tell you, Tyson would be mad at this, but that's on Tyson. How can you say that Teddy? He loved me. I'm not saying he didn't love you, but he loved him. He loved some other stuff too. And I don't know if Tyson could ever come to grips like with that. And, and it's not his job to. But it's my job not to hide from it. I know Cus and dimensions that other people just only think they know.

• 1:59:44Lex Fridman?

  Did Cus know? Did Cus know this about himself? They, did, did he reflect? Did he introspect?

• 1:59:52Speaker 01

  Well, he sent a message to me. Cus sent a guide to me. My wife was pregnant. We were living in an apartment, apartment in Catskill on Coorsville Road. We went through all this, you know, and I was getting ready to move to Staten Island. And we still were there for a little while before we did, you know, after all this went down. He sent a guy to me, to the house. Secret, whatever you wanna call it. My wife, me. So I listened to him. Cus said, if you leave, I'm, I'm a messenger, you know, whatever. If you leave.

• 2:00:33Speaker 01

  This was in the aftermath of what the gun, the whole thing. You gotta remember, Tyson was a ward of the state. He was put in Cus's custody. Cus was looking to adopt him. For obvious reasons, so he had control and he loved him. How dare I say anything less. I won't. But it made sense too. But he was a ward of the state still. Do you know what that means? There's rules. Means the state's still overlooking it. If he ain't living the right life, you know. You gotta remember, he came out of, you know, he came out of jail. So reform school. But if he ain't living the life, he could be taken away from Cus.

• 2:01:18Speaker 01

  What's not living the right life? Well, he wasn't in school no more. They didn't know about it. He, he had some things that were going on. We won't get into that right now. In school and different things, whatever. And he had his trainer put a gun to his head. That ain't so good. If a report came back to them that that happened, he would have been taken away from Cus. That couldn't happen. Look, nobody knows this. I talk about it a little bit, but never probably. Because why would I? I don't know. Why am I doing it now? I don't know. Because. I don't know. Because I am. Because it's now. Because it's now, maybe. Maybe because it's now. I don't know. So he sent this man

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  that, you know, obviously we both knew. And he said, here's the deal, Teddy. If no talk about this, wants it to, you know, disappear basically. You leave. And he will give you 5% his word. Can you imagine? He will, he will give you 5% of Tyson's earnings for the rest of his career. And um, but I don't regret it one bit because it wouldn't have happened anyway. See, that's where I, I could be honest with my people say, oh, stand up guy. Because I told him shove it with a, you know, you know, to the, in that place. And, and um, and tell Cuz to shove it in that freaking place, you know, I was mad.

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  Um, Teddy, Teddy, don't get angry, don't get angry. Are you out of, are you serious? Get out of here. Tell him to go shove it over. And you know, my wife was like, huh, but. And then people like, why did you take the deal? It wasn't a deal.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  It was an escape clause. For Cuz, it was, it was a, it was an insurance policy that his, you know, that this kid wouldn't be taken away from. And thank God he wasn't. I wasn't gonna go and say nothing. They didn't have to worry about, Cuz forgot who I was. Cuz forgot why he went to court for me. Because of those, because of those characteristics that he said he loved and he noticed. And then that he admired. I didn't lose those charac, he forgot that that was me. He forgot who he was talking to. He didn't have to do that. How about, that's why I told him to shove it up his, not because of the other insult. Yeah.

• 2:03:45Speaker 01

  And then, and then when people said to me, oh, you were stand up, because it was around a little bit. It was around in the circles. And then when people, oh, oh, stand up Teddy, he didn't care about the money. I said, stand up Teddy, what are you talking about? How, how about, how about just realistic Teddy? How about I live in a real world? That I was never gonna get that money. So I'm saying, I'm standing up to something that I knew never existed. So I ain't stand up, not in that way. I am in other ways maybe, but not, don't, don't put a medal on my chest for that. Because, because that never existed. Yeah. It was never meant to exist. But he didn't even understand. That was the one thing that, that really disappointed me and Cuz.

• 2:04:29Speaker 01

  I was like, Cuz, you really allowed this to get to you. Where, where you, where you've allowed it to really fog up your thinking to the point where you're smarter than that, you're better than that. That you would actually think you got a freaking offer me a freaking pieces of silver?

• 2:04:52Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:53Speaker 01

  You really think that? That's what you freak you like all that you told me that you love me and that we were yeah, I was the young master and that all this and and you think you were gonna buy me?

• 2:05:07Speaker 01

  And I was gonna and that was gonna keep me quiet? How about I would keep quiet because I would always keep quiet?

• 2:05:14Lex Fridman?

  So he thought maybe you might betray him?

• 2:05:18Speaker 01

  Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

• 2:05:22Speaker 01

  And why did he think that? No, no, really.

• 2:05:25Lex Fridman?

  Fear?

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah, fear is at the essence of everything is connected with everything. Fear of losing what he was gonna lose. But it was more than fear. It was him not believing in the things that he told me he believed in.

• 2:05:40Speaker 01

  He didn't even know that.

• 2:05:44Speaker 01

  He believed in me because I was a stand up guy because I because I didn't sell myself because because I, you know, I didn't freaking turn evidence. I I didn't make a deal. I didn't do I I and that's why I went to court. That's why he stood up for me and I appreciate it. And that was what he lived by and that was his, you know, those were the blocks of being a man.

• 2:06:06Speaker 01

  Oh, so much for those blocks.

• 2:06:09Lex Fridman?

  Well, it's like you said, loyalty requires, uh, you know, he would have had to take a risk on losing immortality that he would achieve by creating a great heavyweight champion.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. But the only way you ever find out if somebody is really that.

• 2:06:28Lex Fridman?

  It's hard.

• 2:06:29Speaker 01

  Is the test.

• 2:06:31Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:31Speaker 01

  And it was Cus.

• 2:06:32Lex Fridman?

  This is Shakespearean, you know? This story.

• 2:06:36Speaker 01

  Cus told me, Cus said, and it just come in different forms.

• 2:06:39Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  I said, all right, Cus.

• 2:06:42Lex Fridman?

  This was his test.

• 2:06:44Speaker 01

  And and some people pass this test because they're able to pass that test because it's not really a test. Not for them because it doesn't speak to their weakness. But it's the test that speaks to the weakness. That's the one.

• 2:07:00Speaker 01

  So this one, I get it. I get what it spoke to, Cus. You know what? At the end of the day, I forgive you.

• 2:07:09Speaker 01

  And I feel bad for you.

• 2:07:12Speaker 01

  I feel bad that you were put in that position after you lived your life that way. And that you that you taught that and you preached that from the mountain tops. That that you had to be.

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  That you had to be.

• 2:07:33Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna use the word, but. That that you had to fail yourself. And that you had to somehow know that before you died. I just prayed that you didn't know that. And you still don't know that because you were great. You were great. And um. And you've given me some.

• 2:08:00Speaker 01

  You know, you've given me something to.

• 2:08:04Speaker 01

  To aspire towards.

• 2:08:07Speaker 01

  To try to.

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  Try to be less weak.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  Try to be better.

• 2:08:15Speaker 01

  And try to be. As good as you. Wanted to be.

• 2:08:22Speaker 01

  I wish I can someday.

• 2:08:25Speaker 01

  More importantly, I I wish I could make my father.

• 2:08:30Speaker 01

  You know.

• 2:08:32Speaker 01

  Feel um. Just feel good up there.

• 2:08:39Lex Fridman?

  Your grandfather now.

• 2:08:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for your grandchildren.

• 2:08:44Lex Fridman?

  What uh if you can give him advice on how to uh live a life. They can be proud of.

• 2:08:54Speaker 01

  Just um.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Do everything you can.

• 2:09:04Speaker 01

  To the best of your ability. Every day.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  To like yourself.

• 2:09:12Speaker 01

  To give yourself a reason. To actually say, I'd like to be friends with that guy.

• 2:09:19Lex Fridman?

  Is loyalty one of the reasons?

• 2:09:23Lex Fridman?

  One of the things to aspire to?

• 2:09:28Speaker 01

  Loyalty is your chance to have a fulfilled life.

• 2:09:35Speaker 01

  Loyalty is your chance to have strength, to have all the things you need to have a good life, to be a good parent, be a good husband, be a good grandfather, hopefully be a good role model.

• 2:09:53Speaker 01

  Loyalty is...

• 2:10:01Speaker 01

  Loyalty is, if you could find something to drink,

• 2:10:08Speaker 01

  to take into your body,

• 2:10:13Speaker 01

  to make you prepared for life to be all the things that you want to be, to be strong enough to be those things, loyalty would be the thing you would drink.

• 2:10:24Speaker 01

  And when I say loyal, I mean unequivocally, I mean, you know, unconditionally, not conveniently. Obviously, you know that.

• 2:10:37Speaker 01

  If you could be loyal, you could be a good person. You could be a person that you would actually like to be around because you could be a person you could rely on. And I think that's one of the greatest assets that a human being can have.

• 2:10:54Lex Fridman?

  And what do you do when you're betrayed? How do you overcome that?

• 2:11:00Speaker 01

  You think of what you learned from it.

• 2:11:05Speaker 01

  Use it as a roadmap

• 2:11:10Speaker 01

  to remember and to think back of how you got there

• 2:11:16Speaker 01

  and how you got to the place where you got betrayed and how that person got to that place.

• 2:11:23Speaker 01

  Try to remember that in your own journey.

• 2:11:26Lex Fridman?

  As if for you made you cynical? Like, how do you try? How do you take the leap of trust towards people again and again after that?

• 2:11:36Speaker 01

  Just by remembering that I'm still trying to forgive myself for the things that I came up short with. And if I haven't figured that out yet,

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  it's probably okay to say...

• 2:11:55Speaker 01

  They didn't figure it out yet. They didn't get it. They didn't figure it out. And if I couldn't figure it out, and I'm still trying to figure it out.

• 2:12:06Speaker 01

  Maybe I could get over that.

• 2:12:09Speaker 01

  Initial stabbing of, uh, where it feels like it does feel kind of like a stabbing. That you, that you feel when you're betrayed initially and that you could only think of, of anger, revenge, hatred. Um, and those things, I'm not, I'm not proud of that, but I'm, but

• 2:12:31Speaker 01

  I felt all those things, you know, and I still feel them sometimes. And then I go back and say, hey, you're still working at forgiving yourself for some things. Try to remember that, kid, you know? Remedy is an important thing. Forgetfulness is pretty important too. And, um, trying to remember why we forget. Why do we forget? Because it wasn't something you felt proud of.

• 2:13:04Lex Fridman?

  You think about your death? Are you afraid of it?

• 2:13:07Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny you ask that. I never used to think about it.

• 2:13:17Speaker 01

  I know people in both places, you know?

• 2:13:20Lex Fridman?

  I know. You got it covered.

• 2:13:23Lex Fridman?

  You're gonna be all right.

• 2:13:24Speaker 01

  Don't, don't forget that. I know people in both places.

• 2:13:27Lex Fridman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:31Lex Fridman?

  Both neighborhoods.

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  I,

• 2:13:34Speaker 01

  I, I, um,

• 2:13:45Speaker 01

  I've been, I've been given credit for being brave in certain spots in life. I hope I can be brave when it comes time to leave life.

• 2:14:00Speaker 01

  I hope I can be, you know, and that's, you know, that's as real and honest as you can be about it. I hope I can be, you know, so far, so good, you know, when, when I've had to be certain things that I was scared to freaking death, um, I've, I've found a way to beat them for the most part. And, um, so I figured when that day comes, I'll figure that out too.

• 2:14:34Lex Fridman?

  It's gonna be another test, maybe the last one. Teddy, it's a huge honor to talk to you.

• 2:14:41Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure.

• 2:14:42Lex Fridman?

  Thank you for being the human you are, for being honest, honest about the full range of human nature. And thank you for talking today.

• 2:14:51Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you for having me and, um, thanks for listening.

• 2:14:57Lex Fridman?

  Thanks for listening to this conversation with Teddy Atlas. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali. "I hated every minute of training, but I said, don't quit, suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion." Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.