Francis Ngannou Breaks Down Sharing Heartbreaking Story: "I Don't Know The Purpose Of Fighting Anymore", "I Feel Powerless", "I Don't Know How To Deal With This!"

Crossing oceans, deserts, national borders, and finally the entrance to the UFC ring, you've never heard a journey like Francis Ngannou's Francis Ngannou is a martial artist, professional boxer, and Lineal Combat Sports Heavyweight World Champion. He became UFC Heavyweight Champion in 2021 and holds an MMA record of 17 wins and 12 victories by knockout. In this conversation, Francis and Steven discuss topics such as, Francis’ painful childhood, how Francis worked in a sand mine aged 10 and dreamt of boxing, his struggle to find a place to train, and the death of his 15-month-old son. (00:00) Intro (01:13) My Childhood: Surviving on Less Than $1000 a Year (05:17) Overcoming Struggles in Rural Cameroon (11:52) My Dream of Becoming a Professional Boxer (13:59) Choosing a Different Path Than My Father (16:27) Growing Up with a Violent Father (17:11) Coping with My Father's Death at 15 (18:57) Wishing for One More Day with My Dad (23:22) The Struggles Of Chasing My Boxing Dream (24:30) The INSANE Journey to Reach Europe (27:41) How We Survived the Sahara Desert! (31:47) The Hardest Part of My Journey (33:59) Waiting to Cross the Border (35:53) Two Ways Out: Swimming the Ocean or Climbing the Barbed Wire Fence (41:15) Six Attempts to Cross the Sea in a Dinghy (48:02) Months of Survival in the Forest (49:56) Evading Police Radars (57:26) Calling the Red Cross for Help (01:01:60) Two Months in a Detention Center (01:04:07) Surviving on 50 Euros (01:06:49) My Coach's Support: A Place to Stay and Guidance (01:09:15) My First Experience with MMA (01:10:12) Facing Rejection: No One Wanted to Fight Me in Paris (01:11:40) How I Made It to the UFC (01:13:20) My First Fight in America (01:15:04) Winning the UFC Heavyweight Title (01:20:10) The Conversation with Dana White (01:23:31) How the Contract Took My Freedom (01:26:44) The UFC Contract and Its Clauses (01:28:40) Tyson Fury vs. Francis Ngannou (01:31:41) My Future Goals in Fighting (01:33:53) Ads (01:34:51) The Truth Behind the Anthony Joshua vs. Francis Ngannou Fight (01:42:17) Coping with the Death of My Baby Son (01:46:29) Going Through Grief (01:51:37) Returning to Cameroon (01:58:05) The Last Guest Question Follow Francis: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/1NxVsZgZPLb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/LLWRzrkZPLb Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Just getting tired, being tough was the purpose of fighting if

• 0:07Speaker 00

  I would end up not being able to fight for the only person that I could fight for.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  I was 13 years and I decided that I was going to be a professional fighter. But I have no money, we don't have shoes, we don't have food, there's not a gym. I have to do something for that dream, so I left Cameroon.

• 0:40Steven Bartlett?

  You need to get to Spain. I was reading that people died.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  A lot.

• 0:44Steven Bartlett?

  And you were drinking water that had dead animals.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  We had no choice. I attempt in the ocean, I fell six times. I tried to climb the fence, but that wire, it was the toughest part.

• 0:53Steven Bartlett?

  Why didn't you give up?

• 0:54Speaker 00

  When your dream is so big, it's hard to give up. And the day that we arrived in Paris, I could start that dream to become a world champion.

• 1:06Steven Bartlett?

  You left the UFC because of a disagreement with Dana White. What's the truth?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Easy, he didn't want to.

• 1:12Steven Bartlett?

  And then you fought into Joshua?

• 1:14Speaker 00

  Honestly, on that fight, there was a lot of unfairness.

• 1:17Steven Bartlett?

  What do you mean?

• 1:17Speaker 00

  They have a lot of tricks.

• 1:19Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think they were doing that intentionally?

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was so messy.

• 1:22Steven Bartlett?

  And then life shows how cruel it's capable of being.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  When my boy passed away, that was the moment that I really felt like I could fail.

• 1:33Steven Bartlett?

  Have you been able to grieve?

• 1:46Steven Bartlett?

  Francis, we met in a hotel room in Paris. It was me, you, Thierry Henry and Chemy and several other people. And I knew you from TV, I'd watched you fight. But I had no idea about your story. And it's funny because we all went around one at a time, Thierry, me, and then you, and shared our early story. And when we came to your story, I just couldn't believe it was true. I couldn't believe it was true.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Really?

• 2:16Steven Bartlett?

  Of course, I'd never heard, and I sit here and interview people for a living. I've never in my life heard a story like that, from where you started to where you ultimately ended up. And I know you've told it before to some people, but I have to start there. Because I think it creates the context of everything that you are today and the man that sits in front of me. So if you take me back to West Cameroon in nineteen eighty six.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:46Steven Bartlett?

  What would I see? What was your childhood like?

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Um, I think you will see two parents that are just struggling, um, making it. A dad who was a carpenter and then a mom that really didn't have a job. And then at some point she she was doing whatever she find, whether it's like selling, uh, cook some stuff and sell in the in the trade. So that's, that was it.

• 3:17Steven Bartlett?

  In.

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Back then, back in nineteen eighty six.

• 3:20Steven Bartlett?

  The average person lives on one thousand five hundred dollars a year in West Cameroon. That's what I read.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a lot.

• 3:29Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, really?

• 3:29Speaker 00

  One thousand five hundred dollar a year? That's a lot of money.

• 3:34Steven Bartlett?

  How much money were your family living on a year?

• 3:38Speaker 00

  A year? Oh, definitely less than that, less than thousand for sure.

• 3:48Steven Bartlett?

  And you're in a village of about eleven thousand people?

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe back then. I think now we are over is over twenty or twenty thousand people or thirty thousand people now.

• 4:01Steven Bartlett?

  I found some pictures. Take a look at these pictures. What are these different pictures? Can you describe them to me, what they are?

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Those are, this is me and my mom in our kitchen.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, this was when I won the USA title.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  And then I I set it there on purpose, like, you know, I've been sitting in this kitchen since when I was a kid. So dreaming about boxing and everything. So I get to go out there from this kitchen, go out there, get that belt of a world champion and bring it back and set it in that same kitchen and sit in the same spot that I used to sit in. And I'm like, at the end of the day, not only everything is possible, it's not such a big deal, you know.

• 4:52Steven Bartlett?

  For anyone that can't see this because they're listening on audio, it with all due respect, it it looks like there's the floor is mud and the walls are mud and bricks.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:04Steven Bartlett?

  So it looks like a mud hut.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Yes, that's how that's how we build house because it's the lesser cost you want because you make like a mud to make to make bricks with. It's not like a brick with sand and cement. It's just a mud.

• 5:18Steven Bartlett?

  So that's a it's like a mud hut.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:21Steven Bartlett?

  And you're sat you're sat there on the floor with with your mother.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  No, on the floor, on the chair.

• 5:26Steven Bartlett?

  On the, I mean, I wouldn't call that a chair, but it's a piece of wood.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  It's a chair, a piece of wood, which is a chair. You can sit in the piece of wood. It's very comfortable.

• 5:38Steven Bartlett?

  Was this was this a happy childhood?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  No, um, absolutely not. But for some reason, um, I think regardless of everything, I owe who I am today to my childhood, you know, um, as much as I hate my childhood, my childhood, I was so mad, so upset about it, since we didn't have the minimum, the minimum necessity, like even like brush, uh, toothbrush, stuff like that, you know, book to go to school, even like a petrol to put in the lamp and learn, we didn't have sometime, sometime, like you see the fire there, right, on the picture?

• 6:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  The fire where we are cooking on the wood. Sometime you're gonna take your book there and read it like this, like.

• 6:29Steven Bartlett?

  So this is just a fire you've made with a bunch of wood and some rocks and you would go and read by the that fire so you could see your book?

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, we cook, uh, they put some food on top of a, uh, the the bricks or the stone there to cook. And then meanwhile, you're using the fire, the flame. To to light up and read your book sometime.

• 6:51Steven Bartlett?

  What made your childhood so unhappy, though? What was it, other than the?

• 6:56Speaker 00

  The difficulty, the challenge of everything. Uh, as I said, like, we miss everything. Uh, most of the time, we, uh, a lot of time, we will be walking barefoot because we don't have shoes. Uh, or we will be like, uh, fixing shoes in ten, in thousand ways, you know, to still have a shoes. Our pants will be having holes all over. Uh, and we will still trying to do, we will go to school, be embarrassed. Because, uh, maybe sometime we don't have a pen or pencil or notebook. Or haven't paid scholarship fee and they're gonna, um, kick us out from the classroom.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  So all that stuff was embarrassing, not to mention like when come a, uh, break time, you don't have something to eat. Uh, unlike your, um, peers, the other kids, you know, you're just around on your own. So it was a lot of thing, everything, uh, was a challenge. And that's why, like, when sometime I'm like, uh, you people that are being very comfortable, never been in the struggle. I'm like, oh, money doesn't make happiness, money, blah, blah, blah, I'm like, give me the money and then keep the happiness. Because I have been without money and I know what it feels like all day long, I prefer being with money.

• 8:17Steven Bartlett?

  You're really describing the comparison that causes the unhappiness between yourself, your family, who you guys were, and the other kids.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. I mean, how many times do I get sick and didn't have a pill? Couldn't even go to the hospital, we couldn't even have a pill from around, uh, the street.

• 8:36Steven Bartlett?

  A pill?

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then you're just home, sick like this, hoping, having some prayers. Maybe luckily sometime go in the bush and find some, um, remedy, uh, to cook. And hopefully that it works, but you can't afford.

• 8:55Steven Bartlett?

  What were you eating during that time when you didn't have the money?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  We were farm, um, corn, beans, peanut, uh, stuff like that, yam, uh, cassava. Um, veggies.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Stuff like that.

• 9:12Steven Bartlett?

  Is there a moment you look back on your childhood and think that was the worst moment for me growing up? Just a memory or something that happened that you thought this was really the the bottom for me?

• 9:23Speaker 00

  I would not say the bottom. I mean, regardless of everything, I think um. I was lucky and I think I was gifted to be able to handle that that appropriately. You know, uh when I look at it today, I'm impressed of the way that I handle it. And even without knowing where that would lead me, where I was going with that. I just handled it like find a way out, but I never like feel like in a bottom, you know. In fact, like one of my my biggest motivation came out of that situation. Like I was around thirteen years old and he was someday around three P M.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  They kicked me out of the classroom one more time. And I think that day I was pissed. I was very pissed, like almost crying, like, okay. What the hell is this? Like, what do I do to deserve this? Like, why is this so unfair? You know, uh and then the look of the other kids on me, I didn't stand that either, you know. Then therefore, I uh it was now a challenge. I promised myself that I'm gonna change that. I'm gonna prove them it's not my fault. I was just a child, just ask them. Uh which doesn't have the same opportunity as them. Just who couldn't have a parent that can provide for them?

• 10:52Speaker 00

  But in fact, the minimum that I had, which wasn't enough, was um. Something that I worked for, I earned, I know the value of it. And even though you have more, they have more than me, they didn't earn it, you know. They they they gave it to them, but they didn't earn it. I started I started to work in the sand sand quarry. I was nine years old, so.

• 11:18Steven Bartlett?

  Which was a sand mine?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, sand mine.

• 11:21Steven Bartlett?

  And what are you doing? You're you're using a shovel to pick up sand and put it in piles?

• 11:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, pick up sand or dig dig sand in the on the mountain um.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  So I mean, I know that I get to realize that even though I have less, I work for those less and I work hard for that. And even though they have more, they don't really know the value of what they have. So in fact, I'm not beneath them. In fact, I'm quite superior.

• 11:52Steven Bartlett?

  Why were you kicked out of the classroom that day?

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Uh.

• 11:55Steven Bartlett?

  When you were thirteen?

• 11:56Speaker 00

  He was, I think he was, uh, scholarship. That, that exact same day, I think was scholarship, uh, the fee, the scholar fee.

• 12:05Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, okay. So you were kicked out of school because you didn't have the money?

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I haven't paid the annual fee, haven't completed annual fee. And, uh, yes, that day was it. But, you know, he was the same thing over and over this year, next year, the year after. And, uh, that day, I think it was a signal. And I'm like, this is going to change. And, uh, but the problem now, um, I was in the situation that I needed to do more than others to, to be noticed, you know? I was, I wanted to prove them that that's not the, the perception that they have on, of, on, of me is not who I am. I'm better than that. And, uh,

• 12:53Speaker 00

  yeah, so I was thirteen years. And that's the day that I decided that I was going to be a professional fighter, professional boxer. It was the day that I really decided, growing up, I want like karate, I want this, I want that. But I get to the point that I want something that not only will be my passion, but at the same time will provide for me and help me to provide for my family as well. And then I come across like, okay, boxing combat sport is the thing to do. But problem, I'm thirteen years old, there is not, um.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  There's not a gym in a fifty kilo, fifty miles radius. And I haven't, I never see a gym, you know, I never saw a gym before then. And even after that time, I think I stayed in the village until I was twenty two was the moment that I'm like, okay. Enough is enough. I can just be dreaming. I have to take action. I have to do something for that dream. Then I leave the village. I move to the city. I move to some place that I don't know. And then just like sell everything that I have to start boxing. And I was twenty two at that time.

• 14:12Steven Bartlett?

  I've heard you say as well about your father. My whole life, my father was the example for me of what not to do.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:18Steven Bartlett?

  I think that's the best thing that ever happened to me because if my dad wasn't what he was, I could have been what he was. But I still love him a lot.

• 14:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, because again, like from my perspective, um, he is the person that affected my life the most. He was violent and then I happened, but he wasn't capable of uh. Canalizing his energy, his strain or know how to use it, then maybe if.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  They have an argument or something, usually at time people was fighting a lot, but he was stronger. So he basically end up beating other people. So makes them the victim and him the guilty, right? So and then he has a reputation because when you get in so many fights. Uh, in the, in the hood and you, and you're winning any fight. So you're just a bad guy, you know? So he has that reputation uh from people don't really like his behavior and then uh.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  That's something that I understand really quick and then who have affected me. I didn't wanna have that reputation, although I like everything uh that related with power. I was very into it, but I'm like, no, no way they are talking to me about my dad. Basically, like the divorce, I was six years old, so I started go live with my aunts and this. And everywhere they'll be like, yes, you just yeah, he's doing nice like his father. He must be like his father, stuff like that. And it pisses me off like so bad, like I didn't wanna be. Have that reputation, even though I like everything with strain, power fighting, you know.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Then that's how like I ended up find those boxing combat sports staff. He was the right thing to do because there was a rules, uh there was a rules. He was organized and everything was right to do and you you wouldn't affect your reputation. When you get into a boxing my match or character fight, you win, you're a winner. They celebrate you, they don't blame you from beating somebody.

• 16:39Steven Bartlett?

  He was a violent man outside of the home, but also inside the home.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, little bit.

• 16:47Steven Bartlett?

  To you and your mother?

• 16:48Speaker 00

  We would get some, we would get some spank. I mean, in Africa, uh at that time, that's kind of uh thing was happening a lot into a lot of families. So he wasn't something nowadays, things are a little different, but he wasn't something that was very different. You know, just so he was kind of like straight, straight guy, yeah.

• 17:11Steven Bartlett?

  Was he violent towards your mother?

• 17:13Speaker 00

  Uh, sometimes, sometimes it could happen.

• 17:19Steven Bartlett?

  He passed away when you were fifteen years old?

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it did.

• 17:24Steven Bartlett?

  How how did that impact you at fifteen when he passed away?

• 17:30Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, he wasn't, um. He wasn't a big part of my life at that at time, um. But, yeah, you can affect, you think about like your dad and the fact that you will never see him again. You know, time to time for months, you think I am like, man, so this is it. And, yeah, he affected you a lot. I mean, you're hurt, but just have to keep rolling.

• 18:02Steven Bartlett?

  When he passed away, he couldn't afford to go to the hospital.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was sick. He was at home for months, sick, uh, just stay in bed. Uh, couldn't even go uh out to the toilet on his own, anything. He has one leg that was get uh rotten. And was just there like that until he die. And that was something that I look at it, I'm like, man. I think I need to do something, I need to take action. Because this kind of thing might happen uh again in the future or in my, to my mom or to somebody close and I won't be, I will be powerless. And uh no, does I have to be like this, you know?

• 18:51Speaker 00

  So that was one of the reason, like just being sick, be at home and to die. Maybe we could have saved him if we have money, maybe he could have still be alive if he could have go to the hospital. But nobody knows and nobody will ever know.

• 19:10Steven Bartlett?

  Couple of years after, I was looking at my mom and I asked myself, if she ever got sick, what would I do? And it scared the hell out of me. At that point, I knew I had to do something to at least be able to provide her some decent healthcare. I always wonder what it would be like if my dad was still alive today. I wish I can have him in my life today, even just for a day.

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, uh.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  After my dad uh passed away, and then I think that was also a shock of our situation. I realized, I mean, I was fifteen, I, by the time, I know that our situation wasn't good. We weren't living in a good condition, but that was like a eye-opening, like, okay, this how bad it is. He didn't go to the hospital for months. I was going there time to time, and he was suffering. In pain and everything, he didn't go to the hospital. And uh even when he passed away, I could have, I keep having nightmares of seeing him, like, in pain. Screaming at night, stuff like that. And I'm like, this not happening again, bro, like.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  He was tough, right? So uh now, that was, not only like, I was thinking that. Uh when I grow up, I will have a family and I will want to provide them, uh provide to them and then. Get them in a good situation, in a better condition, but that was like, okay, this something that can happen again, what would you do? It could be, yes, it could be your mom, it could be one of your siblings, or it could someday be your own kid. What will you do? Like, just sit there and, no, I need to do something. So.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  That's, I, I took actions, you know, and then uh, yeah, in the other hands. Seeing where we were when my dad passed away, I always wonder like, what would he be like if he was around? If he could turn around and see us, what would he say? Like, how would he feel? I mean, it's always. Uh and I miss those moments that I, I replicate uh our family a lot, you know. Growing up, we never have to eat in the dining table like this. We didn't have a dining table. Um but uh for the past year, I've been replicating that, like, I will have.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  We have nice house with table, dining tables, and sometime I will get there and then regroup everybody in the table. And then even though I don't speak, I look at that table and know that somebody is missing. There is one person missing, you know, who could have be. The to to to make that a perfect table, you know. Even though it's quite uh enjoyable to be with those who are there. It's still like a blessing to have them. Uh but it's still sad not to have one person there.

• 22:26Steven Bartlett?

  You start dreaming at that very young age, you start dreaming of a different life. And I was reading that you were pretty obsessed with America. You were signing your signature San Francisco.

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Not like obsessed, I love America. I always love America like since I I uh I name myself American boy. I name I give myself a nickname of American boy.

• 22:48Steven Bartlett?

  When you were young.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, like kids around will call will call me American boy because I tell them that's my name.

• 22:55Steven Bartlett?

  And at seventeen, you said that you left that small town. Is it called Betty?

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Betty, yes, the village.

• 23:00Steven Bartlett?

  And that's the village that you left and you um you moved to a different town.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 23:05Steven Bartlett?

  You went to Cameroon's largest city where you started boxing.

• 23:07Speaker 00

  City, yes, Duala.

• 23:10Steven Bartlett?

  Why did you leave?

• 23:11Speaker 00

  It wasn't at seventeen. At seventeen, I left uh.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  I abandoned school because I couldn't continue.

• 23:18Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, okay, so you left school at seventeen.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Twenty two.

• 23:20Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so twenty two, you decided you wanted to move city.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:25Steven Bartlett?

  Had you ever been to a gym before before then? When was the first age you went to a gym?

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Uh, a boxing gym?

• 23:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Kind of twenty two.

• 23:35Steven Bartlett?

  Twenty two.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I left the village to go find one.

• 23:40Steven Bartlett?

  And why did you end up leaving Cameroon? And what age was it when you left Cameroon?

• 23:44Speaker 00

  I left Cameroon, I was around um, I was twenty six, around twenty six when I left Cameroon.

• 23:52Steven Bartlett?

  Why did you leave?

• 23:53Speaker 00

  Well, I knew that I couldn't make it there uh as a boxer. Because I started boxing and I know the reality there. I know the truth. Even before I started boxing, I I knew the reality. I knew that uh it can happen there, you know, I need a big stage, I need somewhere that um. There is more, boxing is well developed uh.

• 24:18Steven Bartlett?

  Where did you wanna go?

• 24:20Speaker 00

  First, he was always America. But from Cameroon, there wasn't a way to come to America. I wasn't going to swim toward the Atlantic Ocean.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  So the easiest way, the more paved way was to go to Europe.

• 24:43Steven Bartlett?

  So, April the third, you twenty five, twenty six years old. Two thousand and twelve, which doesn't feel like it was that long ago. Two thousand and twelve is when I left.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  It was two thousand and twelve.

• 24:53Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, that's when I left, that's when I left my secondary school. And at that time, you were leaving Cameroon.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 24:59Steven Bartlett?

  And your objective was you were gonna try and get to Spain or get to Europe?

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:08Steven Bartlett?

  So you were gonna walk from Cameroon to Europe?

• 25:11Speaker 00

  I wasn't walk, I mean, from Cameroon, I was in Duala. I took a bus to Yaoundé, then I took a train to the train to North Cameroon. And then we took like, we started take like, um, um, how do they call? Clando.

• 25:31Steven Bartlett?

  Like a lorry?

• 25:32Speaker 00

  No, no, no, small car, that, you know, they know how to avoid police station and all those stuff on the road. So that's how we get from Cameroon, North Cameroon to Yola in Nigeria. And then Yola to Kanu and then Kanu, Nigeria.

• 25:54Steven Bartlett?

  So you traveled from Cameroon to Nigeria to Niger to Algeria.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  To Morocco.

• 25:58Steven Bartlett?

  To Morocco.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:00Steven Bartlett?

  And then, how did you get through the Sahara Desert?

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Uh, he wa- we were lucky. Our group didn't have so much of a trouble.

• 26:16Speaker 00

  Even though it was twenty five of us in the back of a pickup truck.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, but we made it. The truck didn't broke up. Uh we get it all the safe.

• 26:30Steven Bartlett?

  People died going.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Oh, a lot. Like, all the way you will see like skeleton around.

• 26:38Steven Bartlett?

  Skeletons.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  Skeletons in the desert and just look all the way, all the way like no.

• 26:45Steven Bartlett?

  You'd see skeletons and look away.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:48Steven Bartlett?

  How, how do you afford? Where does the money come from to get, go on this journey to get out of Cameroon and to try and get to Europe? Cause it must cost money.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, from the beginning, um the beginning is not so hard, uh because it's something that you prepare for for years. You don't just wake up one day and go like this. You prepare for, you don't know how much you need, but you know that the much that you can have. You, you can use it to go, you know. So I have some savings that I've been saving, saving for a little while. I took some with me and I give, gave some to my little sister to keep it ready in case I call. Because I didn't know where I was going. And then we have heard that there's a lot of smoker, smuggler uh on the way.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  So you better don't carry what all your money on your, on you. So as much as you're going, you're gonna call. And then they will send money uh until it's over. And then you start to figure it out on your own.

• 27:54Steven Bartlett?

  What is the, you say it so casually, but what is the reality of that, of that journey? You know, I was reading that you were drinking, at times drinking water that had dead, dead animals inside the water.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, when we first crossed the desert, uh we get to South Algeria, um in a Tamaraset.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  We found a water well and it was almost dry and there was a little water that was there for, I think for months. There was dead animal and all the leaves, everything was inside the water. But we were so dehydrated because our water finished in the desert like hours ago. So at time, the water didn't look good at all. It was pretty bad. But I think the philosophy right here was like, okay, whether I drink the water and if he has to kill me, he kill me later, or I just die now by dehydration. I think when that's

• 28:56Speaker 00

  the only two choices, it's easy to choose one. Die now or die later, later.

• 29:07Steven Bartlett?

  What does all of this this experience do to you as a man in terms of your resilience and attitude towards life? You probably don't even know because you just are the way that you are. But you must see that you're different from other people in the Western world.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  I think in general, in Africa, we are quite different to the Western world. We have more, not that in the Western world, people don't have hardship, but we have mostly, most of us, we have hardship and toughest one for the most part, you know, like because in the Western world, you will not see, it's it's not very often that you will see kid that have experiment famine, you know, like going to to sleep without eating or something.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  I think this is the is the West is more designed to stay away of those kind of trouble. You might not have home, but you can still have something to eat. But in Africa, most people, they will not even have that. And then the good thing, and I think the difference that I found so far is that. In Africa, you know from your early age that you are not counting on nobody. You are not expecting anything from anybody. It's all on you. And as long as you get that, the rest of your life get better. Because you go out there and figure it out.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  But you go in a lot of western country and then even though coming from where you come from, uh you see that there's a lot of opportunity and people are stood there sitting complaining, we don't have this, this should be like that, it should be like that. You'll be like, man, this is like more than all what I need. You know, because I you are at the point that you don't need, you don't just need what can be given to you. What will be given to you is just a way is uh a what could be given to you is just a way for you to uh a bridge to help you get where you're going.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  Because you have set um your goal way beyond what you you can get.

• 31:40Steven Bartlett?

  You, how long does it take you to get across the Sahara Desert?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Across the Sahara Desert itself, it took uh one day. We didn't stay, our uh again, we were lucky, our car didn't broke up. So they drove for about, I think, twenty or twenty-two hours.

• 32:00Steven Bartlett?

  And eventually you get to Morocco and Morocco, from Morocco, you need to get to Spain, which is difficult.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  That was the toughest part. I spent almost one year in Morocco.

• 32:09Steven Bartlett?

  Trying to get to Spain.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, trying to get to Spain. I did a lot of attempt uh in the in the water and also in the in the fences.

• 32:19Steven Bartlett?

  When you were living in Morocco, where were you staying?

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Wherever you find in the desert, uh in the forest, uh it it depend on like what you're looking for. You know, for example, if you wanna go to the fence, trying to fence to escalate the fence. Um which is in Melia, for the most part, then you have to stay in the forest of Gorogo. It's like living in the forest between trees, you know, and then you hunt.

• 32:52Steven Bartlett?

  What are you eating?

• 32:54Speaker 00

  What you eating, everything that you find sometime, uh there are people that can make trap and. Try uh get some animals, but for the most part, we will wait night time to go to the market. Uh because the police is always around, you know, the undercover police. We will wait for the night for night time, go to the market, go to the market trash. And then find like rotten rotten stuff like that they throw away, whether it's tomato, potatoes. Um chicken legs, because they didn't eat chicken legs, who was the best thing for us. So we will find stuff like that in the trash and go back in the forest and try to make a meal.

• 33:38Steven Bartlett?

  How were you?

• 33:39Speaker 00

  When we don't have money.

• 33:40Steven Bartlett?

  Were you try, at that time, were you trying to figure out, learn how to get to Europe? Were you trying to learn the best way? Because I can't imagine, or did someone tell you how to get to Europe?

• 33:51Speaker 00

  There is a lot of people there that is trying to do the same thing. It's not just you, you left your house by yourself. But by the time you get to some point, you start meet people that are in the same journey. And by the time you get in Morocco, there is a lot, hundreds of people.

• 34:11Steven Bartlett?

  Are you training at the time? Are you trying to stay fit?

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, sometime in the forest, I mean, you have nothing to do, you will do push up, you will do some app. But otherwise, what would you do?

• 34:25Steven Bartlett?

  And you were still dreaming of being a boxer, even though you were.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, that was, that was the thing. I mean, that was my motivation. I think if it wasn't about that, I wouldn't have left my country. It was just about that.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  I did, I never thought about anything else. So that was the reason why I left.

• 34:47Steven Bartlett?

  How, how did you, how did you know you'd be good at it?

• 34:49Speaker 00

  I didn't know. But he was about to find out. I didn't know at all. I had no idea. I, I could have been very bad. I could be good. So he was just about to give it a try. And if he doesn't work, then at least I try. You know, I think is the, is the most important thing is to try and give it all. And if he doesn't work, then, well, we reset.

• 35:18Steven Bartlett?

  You, there's two ways to get to Spain. You can go over the wall or you can go across the water, through the sea.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, and across the water could be very.

• 35:31Steven Bartlett?

  Dangerous.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Dangerous and difficult sometime. I tried a couple of times.

• 35:36Steven Bartlett?

  Did you try the wall?

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:39Steven Bartlett?

  The barbed wire?

• 35:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I tried the bar. I have a lot of scar on me, a lot of barbed wire scars on me.

• 35:45Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Those are barbed wires. Those, you see my finger?

• 35:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Into, like on my skin, you will find on my stomach here, on my feet, a film. I try, I have a lot of that. Um, I try and I attempt in the ocean, like six, I fail six time.

• 36:06Steven Bartlett?

  What happens when you, you try and go over the barbed wire fence? Is it, do they catch you?

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Um, where the, the spot that we pick, because it's about like twelve or fourteen miles of fence with barbed wire. So we will have like an outlook guy that will go walk around all the, those fence. And then like trying to identify a spot that there is not too much barbed wire or that the barbed wire has failed. You know, uh, and when there's not a lot guard, because there's guard on the Moroccan side.

• 36:42Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  And there's guard on the spin side. And some way, there's like three fences. And then barbed wires on like maybe the first one or the uh two.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  There is not a chance that unless you can fly, you cannot go there. And it's like seven meter high.

• 37:01Steven Bartlett?

  Seven meters high.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Seven meters high. So it it's not possible with barbed wires. Without barbed wires, yeah, that's good. But and then they clean, they're surrounded of the uh of fences. So the guy have to stay like far from the distance to trying to identify if there's a uh a failure of barbed wire somewhere. You know, so it's very difficult. And uh. On there is a a police, uh, a Moroccan, on the Moroccan side, there is like a boxes of um a guard.

• 37:39Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  In like an interval, I don't know, maybe twenty meter.

• 37:44Steven Bartlett?

  Every twenty meters, there's a guard.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, twenty thirty meter, there's a a boxes of guard. Sometimes some boxes can be empty. But from where we are, you don't see. Need somebody to go there like a week every time, read everything. Monitor the um um uh all the information, you know, like the. The post, the the guard, how they be in um.

• 38:11Steven Bartlett?

  The schedule.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, how they being changed, because it's permanent, but one person does stay there twenty four hours. I think it's like eight hours. So you have when he spotted a spot that there's not too much barbed wire, then you'll be like, okay. There's a outlook very far there, there's a outlook from the spin side very far. And then these boxes is there guard inside. It might take him days to just find if, find out if those boxes have guard. Some day is gonna go by and then like wait, uh, they can stay in the same spot for like two days, just to wait. And then when the truck come uh comes to uh change uh shift.

• 38:59Steven Bartlett?

  For the guards to change shift.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, for the guard to change shift. And then he will see which box has the guard and which box does have. And then what time they come and this, what time they go, if they pray, what time they go to pray. And you need all those information before prepare a attack.

• 39:24Steven Bartlett?

  And you eventually prepared an attack for the fence.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, and sometimes you prepare the attack. You see all those, you collect all those information. Then as you are getting closer to the fence, you realize that there was a barbed wire. You couldn't just see from where you were at.

• 39:42Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  You know, or that maybe there is someone that is in the floor. They dig like five meter long like this, wide, and then they throw barbed wires all the way. Then you ran, you ran by maybe thirty meter or hundred meter meter. They can see you coming, they know that you're coming. Now you're taking advantage on like, because you're in a group of people. And then you get closer and then you find like five meter barbed wire. You can jump five meter, it's not possible, you know, so.

• 40:18Steven Bartlett?

  So what do you do, you run back?

• 40:19Speaker 00

  What, you run back or some, by the time you run back, if it's a group of you, some people will fall in the barbed wire. Because they didn't see, or maybe you're in the front line, you see, but you can't go back because there are people. A mass behind you coming, they might just push and then you fall inside the barbed wire.

• 40:39Steven Bartlett?

  Did you ever try and climb the fence? And did you get caught?

• 40:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I tried to climb a fence. I get out of those barbed wires on the floor once. The only, and that was the time that I fell in the barbed wire. I tried to climb the fence, but the barbed wire on the fence was.

• 40:57Steven Bartlett?

  Painful.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Big, like I was trying to hold it and he was just catching my face like. Like, oh, okay, I see.

• 41:09Speaker 00

  Right, so, and I get to the point that I'm like, you know, I'd rather be alive without being a Europe.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  It's uh instead of being dead in Europe like wait it's gonna be another time. I can't it's not possible.

• 41:27Steven Bartlett?

  So you eventually decide that you wanna go via the sea in a boat. You're gonna try and take a small little dinghy.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was that was um I mean, even before I tried the barbed wire, the first thing that I tried it was a boat.

• 41:40Steven Bartlett?

  And why did that not work?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  I mean, it's not like the boat is a a small inflatable boat that you you can use in your swimming pool. Stuff that they use in the swimming pool.

• 41:49Steven Bartlett?

  We call it a dinghy. You can put it in the swimming pool.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  You get it in Walmart.

• 41:53Steven Bartlett?

  In Walmart. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's a you tried to cross from Morocco to Spain in one of these small inflatable boats. Um you couldn't swim?

• 42:03Speaker 00

  No, I don't know how to swim. But guess what? I ended up being a captain.

• 42:08Steven Bartlett?

  Captain of the what?

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Of the boat.

• 42:12Speaker 00

  Because it still need a captain. It still need somebody to organize, somebody that knows how to paddle, somebody know where we are going. Somebody know how to organize like for ten people to get in the same boat from uh going from the ground to the ocean. And then like how do they they get all those organization? And then I I practiced, I did it so many times that I become I became an expert.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  And I still don't know how to swim.

• 42:40Steven Bartlett?

  You tried six times to get across.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 42:43Steven Bartlett?

  What happened in those six times?

• 42:46Speaker 00

  Uh sometime we get caught.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  The majority of time we get caught.

• 42:51Steven Bartlett?

  And what does that what happens if you get caught?

• 42:53Speaker 00

  They send you back to the desert.

• 42:55Steven Bartlett?

  They send you back to the desert?

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, to the desert.

• 42:58Steven Bartlett?

  Not to Morocco?

• 42:59Speaker 00

  No, you are in Morocco. You get caught by the Morocco guard.

• 43:04Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, but then they just bring you back to the city or something?

• 43:06Speaker 00

  No, because um they have been financed to protect uh people from from your border. They have been financed uh by European Union or something like that from holding you guys down there. So every time that the uh could catch somebody, they make a report of that person. Uh that, okay, we caught somebody and then we send them back out of Morocco. They will just bring you to the to Algeria border in the desert and throw you guys there and you will figure out your way.

• 43:39Steven Bartlett?

  So they threw you back in the desert without food every time you got caught?

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:45Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, it's pretty, pretty horrible.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Why his life and even till today, there's people out there still doing the same thing. And even though he's getting harder and harder, I don't know how they do, but I don't want to find out. It's horrible.

• 44:04Steven Bartlett?

  So you would, but then you, you went back again and tried again for a seventh time. Why didn't you give up? You've tried the fence, the fence doesn't work. You've tried crossing six times in a small inflatable boat. That doesn't work. Why don't you give up?

• 44:17Speaker 00

  What for?

• 44:19Steven Bartlett?

  Give up, go back to Cameroon, maybe live in Morocco.

• 44:22Speaker 00

  Go back to what?

• 44:26Steven Bartlett?

  Didn't I get a job in Camer- in Morocco?

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Why couldn't I, why shouldn't I try again? It was all about trying. And I think like when your dream is so big, when you have something, it's hard to give up. You know, like you get to the point that you, um, you're capable of risking more for just a dream, which is something that a normal person would not understand. Like, I still ask myself now, like, why didn't I give up at that time? Why do I keep doing this? Why did I take those risks? Because there was a moment that even now I think about it, I'm like, that was stupid. It was like a dead sentence.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  You just get lucky from coming out there alive, you know? But I took those decisions. Your dream was so big that he, um, blinds you. You couldn't see any, anything else except what you have, not what is in front. You couldn't see anything in front of you, except what you have in your mind. You could only see what is in your mind. And regardless what is in front of you, what, um, the obstacle is in front of you, you can only see what in the front of, uh, in your mind and it couldn't, nothing could stop you.

• 45:55Steven Bartlett?

  And what was that in your mind that was pulling you?

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Dream.

• 45:59Speaker 00

  Dream to make it to go have that boxing, you know, uh, that boxing career. Um, set up a stability for me and my family. And my potential kids, so they don't have to go to what I've been through, you know. So, uh, I knew that if I gave up, I wouldn't be able to look in myself in the mirror like this. It would have been a shame to live with myself. I couldn't live with myself. It was hard. You thought about it. Think about like, oh, maybe, maybe there's not a way, worth for like going back.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  And then maybe some not really have something to do and someday you see your, your child gets sick. And you feel powerless, just ask your parent why to you and like, no, that's not happening.

• 46:56Steven Bartlett?

  And then the seventh attempt was successful.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:02Steven Bartlett?

  Take me, take me to that seventh attempt of getting across the sea to get to Europe. You, you get in the boat, there's you and a couple of other men, you start paddling.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  The sixth, the sixth attempt was close to the winter.

• 47:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 47:18Speaker 00

  We get caught.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  And I was this close, we were already on the other side. We get caught by a army, it wasn't even like, um, uh.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  The, I don't know how, the, the coast guard, it wasn't even the coast guard. He was the army with a big ship and they were just passing by going somewhere. After three hours inside the ocean, we were paddling, we knew that we are getting there. And then we get caught.

• 47:55Speaker 00

  Back in Morocco, they knew that we are gone, we made it. And then, uh, at that time, it was like, close to winter, the winter was coming. The water wasn't stable anymore. We couldn't attempt anymore. And for me, he was that, I tell myself that the day that I'm touching the ocean again, I'm not coming back ever.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  I don't know exactly what I was willing to do, but I'm like, it's not happening. This is it, you know, my frustration was top to the level. So we uh we um recruit back in the forest trying those trying fences. I was just there during the winter because the water, I mean, yes, you can try some crazy stuff. But only when you see that there is an ounce of a chance.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  But when you look at the oceans, the big most mon- monster rising up with those waves, you know that you cannot go through. There's no way, no, you can't do that.

• 49:15Steven Bartlett?

  Not a small boat, on a, on a small inflatable boat.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  And it's cold, it's freezing. So I think what was uh even scary the most was the cold. You would just get frozen out there, you know. So I stayed in the forest for like months, uh months. And uh once, when the uh winter was uh by the touch in the end. I had a friend that people, he was in Tangier. And then he reached out to me, he said, I have a, I have a ship.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  Let's go. I couldn't leave Tangier. I did everything, I get to the bus station and there was so much police and this. I didn't wanna end up in a, in the desert in Ustad. I'm like, okay, just.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  And then the next day, one, one, uh, the next day, um, we are running from the police uh from four A M. To like maybe four P M. We came back to our spot, I opened my phone, I saw like two of Miss Kong.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  I checked and then he was like, Edo made it. Edo was the guy that was calling me. I'm like, damn, I could have been making it too with them.

• 50:38Steven Bartlett?

  Did they get, they got to Europe?

• 50:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, they got to Europe. Like, bro, come on.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  I couldn't sleep there anymore. And I have a lot of call and people was like, yes, we want you to be our captain. You wait this, that, that, that. I'm like, I'm going, you know. And I didn't want any promises like, oh, we're gonna do this, buy a boat in one week. Or no, I have a guy that we've been talking for a long time. He said, I have a boat already. I'm like, let's go.

• 51:08Steven Bartlett?

  So you get on a boat, an inflatable boat. I heard that you wrapped yourself in silver foil.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  No, no, I didn't. But um, I was planning, uh, um, we put a life jacket though. We had the one thing that we are very um, strict about is a life jacket.

• 51:25Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. I didn't, but because over time, you learn a lot of stuff. And you know that those silver foil uh, would deviate radiation from like, you know, they have the radar.

• 51:41Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you wear the silver, then the radar can't find you.

• 51:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, the radar can find you. It can see you because when the radar is going like this. And then he see like, uh, I think it's infrared or something. And then he see movement, he will like.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  But when you have that silver foil, they can see you.

• 52:01Steven Bartlett?

  So that time, tell me about this successful journey. You get in the boat, not you and a few other men.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  No, we didn't get in a boat. I went to Rabat, which there were.

• 52:12Steven Bartlett?

  What's Rabat?

• 52:13Speaker 00

  A city.

• 52:14Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  There were, I went from uh, Nador to Rabat to meet them. Like, okay, when are we going to Tangier? Because I've been in, I've been in Tang, I, I've been living in Tangier for so long. Um, until winter that I went back to, to Nador. So they are living in a Rabat, which is kind of like a city. And they have those little job of construction. I'm like, when are we going? I meet them there and like, okay, let's go down like, oh, we are still working. We are going to get pay on Saturday. And this is what went like, I think this was like Tuesday. I'm like, bro, I'm not staying here on this Saturday. Bro, bro, my blood was boiling like.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  Ah, I'm like, man, I miss this. I could have been making it with the with it with the the other guy that call me. So we.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Their their leader, the the head guy of the group, he say, okay, then I'll go with you. Uh, because I was a captain, I I need to go and check the place and everything. Say, I'll go with you. The rest of people, they can wait until we give, everything is good, we give them. Uh, sign so they can come. We move. By the time we touched ground, we are stepping down of the bus. In Tangier, I got sick, I got fever. And we are going to this. House inside mud. We have to take our shoes off, walk inside mud to get into this house to sleep, something like that. And I was sick, bro.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  But I can't tell anybody that I'm sick. I'm the captain.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  And people saw me in Tangier, they're like, wow, this guy is here, he's going to make it, he's not coming back. So they are trying to bribe the the guy that I was to get them in the in the group. And you're like, no, we collect the money together to buy um to buy the boat. So I can't uh kick uh take anybody out of it. Uh, I'm like, if, uh, because they call me Vandam. They say, if Vandam is the captain, you guys are not coming back, you're going to make it. And I was sick, nobody knows.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  So, long story short, uh, we've been there for like a couple of days. And I didn't even have any money to eat. And then, uh, but I check internet every day to check the.

• 54:54Steven Bartlett?

  Weather?

• 54:54Speaker 00

  The weather, to see how the ocean is. And he wasn't so stable and I found one day, I think was Tuesday, and he was the second, uh, April second, two thousand thirteen. And I say, this day is good because this is the speed of the wind, this is the, uh, direction of the wind, this, this. I know that thing, I don't know how I know it, but by the time I know it properly, I was a captain.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  So, I say, tell your guy to come this day because we, uh, because we are leaving. By the time they come with the boat, we are not sleeping here with the boat, we have to just be going with the boat. Because it's a very, even the police, when they're like, uh, bust into houses, they will search for that.

• 55:42Steven Bartlett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  And they came, we get to the, to the, to where we were going, next to where we were going. But the police car was up there, so we couldn't inflate here and then put the raffle inside the ocean without them seeing us. Now we have to make it the two.

• 56:01Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  All night long, we make it the two to go somewhere in the front.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  And, uh, even though I was sick, usually captain, you don't carry staff because they protect you. Like, for the big action, for the main action, which is inside the ocean. And then while we are making this day two, some people are being left behind and this, I'm like, bro, where's the, where is the boat? Where is the raffle? They say, oh, he's here, he's to this guy, I'm like, bring that raffle. If you stay back, stay alone, don't stay, uh, don't stay back with the raffle. I take that thing and like, if somebody wanna go, he has to catch up with me. I just lead the way and keep going. And all night we go up and then finally go down to the, um, step.

• 56:50Speaker 00

  And find a place and it was all rocks. And I'm there. You know, we used to go to where, to the beach, so there is a sand.

• 57:00Steven Bartlett?

  Uh huh.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  It's easier because like when you walk to the sand like this to go inside water. And every footstep get you deeper and deeper. Now you're in the mirror of rocks. And then the ocean is there, you don't know how deep is the ocean there and how you're gonna get in that ocean. You want just, you can just jump like this to get in the ocean. And then uh the wave was so strong, you you appear like.

• 57:28Steven Bartlett?

  I'm like damn. Was it night time?

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, early in the morning.

• 57:32Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  Because we are waiting, we are aiming to do this when uh they call for five A M prayer.

• 57:40Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, but we get a little late because because of those detail.

• 57:47Speaker 00

  But I'm the captain, I'm the one that everybody's expecting on me. And he was, we were, it was uh nine of us. So as I tell them, okay, wait me here, let me uh uh find a place.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  You know, when something is yours, is yours. I walked around and I get somewhere in the mirror of rocks. I found a spot just bigger, as big as this table, enough to inflate the boat. Just enough, no more than that. And it was like this, clean, I touch it, it, there wasn't anything sharp on it, just like that, enough.

• 58:32Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  I went back and called the other guys, like, let's go. Came like, okay, let's inflate the boat.

• 58:39Steven Bartlett?

  Eventually, the boat gets in the water, you go.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:43Steven Bartlett?

  And the boat is rescued by the American Red Cross.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Uh by the Red Cross. Don't know if it was, I, we know there was a Red Cross base in uh in Spain, in Tarifa.

• 58:53Steven Bartlett?

  Did you get to, you got to Spain?

• 58:55Speaker 00

  We didn't get there, but we know that there is a Red Cross inside ocean. In fact.

• 58:59Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, okay.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  In fact, we have their numbers.

• 59:02Steven Bartlett?

  So you knew there was a Red Cross there?

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:04Steven Bartlett?

  So you got close to Spain?

• 59:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:06Steven Bartlett?

  And then the Red Cross came and got you?

• 59:08Speaker 00

  We get far from the uh Moroccan's coast, but we don't know where is the limit. But we just get far from this coast and then trying to get as far as possible uh inside the ocean and call. But the problem is that you're in the middle of the ocean. And even though it's where lands uh the two con- the uh closest distance of the two continent. Uh from this side, you can see the other side. But in the middle of the ocean, when they say, where are you, what are you seeing? You can really give them a direction. So sometime, because their goal is just to rescue you, their goal is not to bring you to Spain.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  And if they cannot find you, they will even call a Moroccan coast uh uh coast guard for uh help. And if no, you're lucky day, you get fined by Moroccan coast guard, you know where you're going. You're going back to work.

• 1:00:02Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  So we paddle like for one, I think it was like hour and a half, almost two hours. And then there was a helicopter uh in in front of us. And he was like standing there, like he was looking about something. And I tell the guy that, okay, this is not a good sign. Whether this helicopter can play against us or it can play for us. What we do, call, we call now. Because when they ask, if they ask, what are you seeing, we will see the helicopter is right above us. And then we call.

• 1:00:40Steven Bartlett?

  So you called the Red Cross.

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  We called the Red Cross.

• 1:00:42Steven Bartlett?

  You called the Red Cross.

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:44Steven Bartlett?

  And what did you say?

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  For the restroom.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  Oh, we are in the, inside the ocean, we need help. And then I don't know who pick up the phone and start to ask if we have, uh yes, how many people? Do you have uh ladies in the boat and this? I'm like, what the hell is this problem? We are human being and I'm like, yes, we have ladies, even kids.

• 1:01:09Speaker 00

  We didn't have kids, we didn't have ladies. I'm like, what's that, what's different that makes? Like, you would just let off us here because like, yes, even kids. And say, okay, what are you seeing? We see, we s- I we see the helicopter right above. Say, okay, welcome in.

• 1:01:26Steven Bartlett?

  Did, and they found you?

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then right after that, it started rain. And the water really get bad. He was moving. Now we are in the mirror of the ocean in this little uh boat, just as like this table. And he's like going, oh. We get tired in the middle. It was nine of us.

• 1:01:52Steven Bartlett?

  How long did it take for the Red Cross to find you?

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  Uh, like ten, ten to fifteen minutes.

• 1:02:00Steven Bartlett?

  It's quick.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:02Steven Bartlett?

  And they they take you.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think a little more, maybe like twenty minutes.

• 1:02:06Steven Bartlett?

  And they take you to Spain.

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  And then when they when they find us, because now it was a little harder to find us because it was raining and the ocean wasn't stable. You know, when the ocean is stable, you can see something from far away. Now, this is there's something crazy that happened inside the ocean. Like, from the coast, the ocean is flat. When you get inside at some point, bro, ocean has mountain. Like, there's a way that you're climbing. And then until you get to the peak, and then there's a way that you're going down inside the ocean. I don't know how it works, but it's exactly like that. And you can see, like, a huge mountain inside the ocean.

• 1:02:50Steven Bartlett?

  And they they took you to Spain?

• 1:02:52Speaker 00

  They they found us, uh, and then took us in their in their boat. They have a real boat, you know, like, solid big boat. They took us inside and then, uh, brought us to their, um, headquarters, which is in in Spain.

• 1:03:13Steven Bartlett?

  And you stayed in Spain in a detention centre, in a cell with ten or twenty other men, um, for two months?

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  Yes, it was like, I think, fifty-three days.

• 1:03:23Steven Bartlett?

  How were you treated?

• 1:03:28Speaker 00

  Treated, we were eating, but it was a prison though, it was quite a prison. I think you get to the point that you're like, maybe they should have just let us inside the ocean. Or maybe we were better in in Morocco, because you are luck, you can do anything, you're.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  You realize that you had freedom, even though your life wasn't the best. That's when, I mean, you're here, you're getting feed every day. But they tell you where, when to eat, when to shower, when to go sleep, when to go out and everything. And after like a couple of weeks, it started to become hard. Because at first you are excited, I'm like, oh, I made it, you're excited, you, ah, I'm in Spain, I'm in Europe. But after a couple of weeks, I'm like, come on, man, like, I need my sentence now.

• 1:04:30Steven Bartlett?

  Because if you, you had a fake ID at one point, and if you.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  When you get caught, you make sure that you don't even have a receipt or whatever on you.

• 1:04:41Steven Bartlett?

  So you threw it in the water?

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:43Steven Bartlett?

  When did you throw it in the water, when you saw the Red Cross coming?

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  I know, when you're sure that the Red Cross will get you. Because otherwise, that would be your way out in Morocco. Sometime he can prevent you not to be thrown in the desert.

• 1:04:57Steven Bartlett?

  When did they, they released you from the detention center in Spain?

• 1:05:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:05:01Steven Bartlett?

  Eventually, after almost two months, and they gave you fifty euros.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  No, not from the detention center. There is an association that come, charity for refugees, some organization that are out there. So they will come, take you and then bring you to their place.

• 1:05:19Steven Bartlett?

  And where, where did you, where did you wanna go? What was the plan? So you're now in Spain, you're free, you've got fifty euros.

• 1:05:27Speaker 00

  So my plan, first of all, was to go to, first I wanted to go to the UK. But I knew that even though I'm in Europe, the free circulation in Europe will not allow me to get in the UK because they are not in that zone, in the Schengen zone. So I think I started for Germany because I wanted a place that boxing was big. But for somehow I was in a group of people that most of them, they were like, oh, we are going to France, or Shanzilizi, or this, or that.

• 1:05:58Steven Bartlett?

  And in the ninth of June twenty thirteen, twenty six years old now, you arrive in Paris. And I read that on your first day in Paris, um, you figured out where to eat, where to sleep, and you found a boxing gym. Where did you sleep when you arrived in Paris?

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  In the parking lot.

• 1:06:15Steven Bartlett?

  You slept slept in a parking lot?

• 1:06:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:18Steven Bartlett?

  How long did you sleep in the parking lot for?

• 1:06:20Speaker 00

  Like two months.

• 1:06:21Steven Bartlett?

  For two months, you slept in a parking lot? How did you, how did you, so you arrive in Paris, you're sleeping in a car park. Um, how do you find a gym, pay for a gym?

• 1:06:32Speaker 00

  Oh, next day, I was after it, so I finally get where I could start that dream that I'd been having for a decade.

• 1:06:40Steven Bartlett?

  What do you do? Do you just walk up to the boxing gym and say, hey, can I come here for free?

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, basically what I I walk in the front desk and they gave me this um form. And then I saw the price and everything and I couldn't afford it. Then I'm like, can I talk to a coach, to the boxing coach? And the lady said, the boxing coach is not there today, but uh. He has his substitute, he's there, you can talk to him. And we, I just explained straightforward, like, okay, I arrive in Paris yesterday, I don't have where to sleep. You know, but all what I want, I want a place to train, so that's why I wanted to see a boxing, a coach. If you can let me train here because I have no money, uh, I have nowhere to sleep, I have nothing, but.

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  The only thing that I'm asking for is a place to train because I want to become a world champion. Straightforward, that was it.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  And he said, um, if you have a phone number, give me your phone number. I'll speak to a boxing coach, he'll be here on Wednesday and I'll give you a call back. That's how I gave him my phone number, I had a phone. And then on Thursday morning, he called me and he said, yes, I spoke to the coach. And he agreed that you can come and train. And the next training uh is Saturday and that's how he started.

• 1:08:04Steven Bartlett?

  Didier Carmont?

• 1:08:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, Didier Carmont.

• 1:08:06Steven Bartlett?

  Didier Carmont was that man that you met that day in the boxing gym that gave you a chance?

• 1:08:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Steven Bartlett?

  And he let you train for free? How?

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  He speak on my behalf to the coach who let me.

• 1:08:17Steven Bartlett?

  Let you train?

• 1:08:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Steven Bartlett?

  And he gave you new pair of shoes? I read that he gave you keys to an apartment to sleep in as well.

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  Uh, yes, after like two months, uh, he gave me, he gave me a key. He has like one apartment that, uh, he was, uh, I think was Airbnb or renting out. And then he get free for corporate. Yes, and at time, I think, uh, he knows me a little bit more. And he gave me that apartment for almost two months.

• 1:08:45Steven Bartlett?

  He, he changed your life, didn't he? Because if he hadn't have said yes, if he hadn't have introduced you to the person, if he hadn't have helped you.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  He helped me a lot. He helped me a lot, changed my life, I think is too much say.

• 1:08:58Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  But he helped me a lot. Um, I mean, we were at the gym and then he knows exactly my situation because I was, uh, clear to him, telling him everything. But other people at the gym didn't know. And in fact, he, he at some point even tell me that you don't have to tell your story to everybody. They don't need to know your situation, you know, like.

• 1:09:19Steven Bartlett?

  Why did he help you?

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  Hmm?

• 1:09:21Steven Bartlett?

  Why did he help you?

• 1:09:23Speaker 00

  Because he was kind. He just like me and like to help me and, uh, hear me a lot.

• 1:09:30Steven Bartlett?

  It's because he didn't have a, a reason.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  No, he didn't. A lot of people will have expectation that maybe at time you would, you will not know, but later on you will find out. But he was just genuine, he never have like expectation, you know? In fact, sometime he's the guy that sometime you will even call, you will not, he will not be around, shut down his phone and everything. He's always been like that.

• 1:09:58Steven Bartlett?

  Because it was quite difficult to become a boxer in France without having all of the correct identity papers. He eventually suggests that you take up mixed martial arts as a way to make some quick money. Um, and in two thousand thirteen, twenty six years old, you went to the MMA factory in France and introduced your coach, see yourself to a coach called Fer- Fernand Lopez. And within four months, I mean, he saw something special in you in terms of MMA. And within four months of that, you had your first MMA fight.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Steven Bartlett?

  What did you think when you first saw the sport of MMA? Did you, had you ever heard of MMA before?

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  No, so Didier was the first one to talk to me about MMA. I'm like, oh, yes, you have a good striking if you do MMA. I'm like, what's MMA? Mixed martial art? Okay, good. Then what's that? What's mixed martial art? So, yes, it's like boxing with wrestling with this. I'm like, ah, I think I have seen that once on the TV. I was watching TV, I see something like that. Like, yes, if you have, if you learn some good wrestling, some takedown defense, little bit of grappling and this. I'm like, what's grappling? So he explained the whole thing to me.

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  And this is back in two thousand thirteen, June two thousand thirteen. And I'm like, bro, nah, that's not what I want. I want, you know, the Mike Tyson boxing, right?

• 1:11:22Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  So, yes, I'm like, that's what I want.

• 1:11:25Steven Bartlett?

  You fought five times in Europe before you were signed for the UFC, which is quite remarkable because a lot of people spend many, many, many, many years trying to get into the UFC. You fought just five times in Europe before you were offered a chance to fight in the UFC.

• 1:11:41Speaker 00

  I didn't even, I wasn't even planning to go to the UFC. And, uh, but as soon as I start, I started to fight in France, then it became, it became very hard for me to have a fight in France. People didn't want to fight me, fight me.

• 1:11:58Steven Bartlett?

  Why?

• 1:11:59Speaker 00

  Oh, they say I'm brutal. And I'm like, it's a fighting game.

• 1:12:06Speaker 00

  I mean, the, the goal is to be brutal. And then I'm not having fight because I'm brutal, like.

• 1:12:15Steven Bartlett?

  I heard your coach, he actually posted on Facebook saying, um, asking if anyone in Europe wanted to fight you. The post says, will anybody in Europe fight Francis?

• 1:12:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:25Steven Bartlett?

  Nobody wanted to fight you?

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  I mean, no, anybody at that level.

• 1:12:31Speaker 00

  Because even though a lot of people didn't wanna fight me, I was still unexperienced. So he's not like they will give, just give me to anybody. But nobody either like wanna take a risk. There is not a gain for a elite fighter to fight me. He's risking of losing everything, but not a mo- not a quite lot to gain.

• 1:12:53Steven Bartlett?

  Were you aiming to be in the UFC? Cause you now you knew what MMA was. But when you started becoming an MMA fighter, were you trying to get into the UFC?

• 1:13:00Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:13:01Steven Bartlett?

  How did that happen?

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  I was just like, you know, training, uh, because I had time, I, uh, I was jobless. So I have all my time and I like to train and I found MMA, I found MMA very, uh, exciting. I like all those stuff, so I was training boxing MMA. And then I started to fight MMA and sometime maybe I will have like, um, couple hundred euro fighting, uh, MMA, who was, who was very welcome at it, at the time. So I'm like, let's do this. But that was it. And people keep saying, oh, if you improve your jiu jitsu, if you do this, you're gonna become a UFC champion. Like, then what?

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  I really like, I was so focused on boxing and then, um, but I think like MMA came to me and gave me that opportunity. And then all of the sudden, I'm here, I have the UFC contract.

• 1:13:59Steven Bartlett?

  How did that happen? How did that happen? Did they call you or your agent or your manager?

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  So I think, um, uh, Fernando, a guy that was a manager at time, uh, he, uh, Thiago.

• 1:14:13Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  Thiago Okamura.

• 1:14:16Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then he was the guy that was, uh, pitching me to the UFC.

• 1:14:21Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so your manager, your coach knew someone who was pitching you to the UFC?

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, a manager.

• 1:14:28Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  And then that's how I get, uh, that's how I get the UFC contract.

• 1:14:33Steven Bartlett?

  Where was your first fight in UFC?

• 1:14:36Speaker 00

  Orlando.

• 1:14:36Steven Bartlett?

  Orlando?

• 1:14:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Steven Bartlett?

  Was that your first time in America?

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:41Speaker 00

  Uh, it was the first time and I remember like, uh, I get there.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  And I'm like, okay, and uh there was somebody at the airport with a tablet with my name on it. And then picked me up with a Cadillac, brought me to the hotel. They hired hired residency to check me in, brought me to my room.

• 1:15:04Steven Bartlett?

  How did it feel?

• 1:15:06Speaker 00

  Then I call home, I call my mom, I'm like, I don't know what it is, but I think your son have made it. Finally get to that, like, I mean, like, I get to America.

• 1:15:20Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:20Speaker 00

  Basically, so that's what, because for so many years, America was the dream, to get in America. And I get in America, and in a big way, not the way that I get in Europe, because I get in Europe in the service door. I get in America, basically, on on the red carpet. That was it.

• 1:15:41Steven Bartlett?

  That was two thousand and fifteen, two thousand and fifteen. How much, that first fight, do you, do you, does that make, that first fight make you rich?

• 1:15:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:15:50Steven Bartlett?

  You don't get paid much for the first UFC fight?

• 1:15:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was ten thousand dollar, plus ten thousand uh win bonus. And then with all the commissions, you got out with almost just half.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  But he wasn't, he wasn't about the fight, he was more about like, I think, me coming to America and all the stuff. He was more than what I was making in the fight.

• 1:16:17Steven Bartlett?

  That's nine years after you left Cameroon, you fought for the UFC Heavyweight Championship belt. And eventually you won that belt and you held that UFC heavyweight title.

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I lost, I I fought before.

• 1:16:32Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, you fought quite a lot, yeah.

• 1:16:33Speaker 00

  Yes, I fought in uh two thousand eighteen.

• 1:16:36Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:37Steven Bartlett?

  Um, but eventually you won.

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  The same guy.

• 1:16:39Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:40Speaker 00

  I lost.

• 1:16:41Steven Bartlett?

  I've I've watched your career, so I've I've watched the journey and it felt like for the first start of your career, I don't know, it felt like maybe you weren't as focused. But then it felt like this this other half of your UFC career, something had changed.

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  I was focused, it's just that I didn't, I never, I never done sport before. I didn't grow up as an athlete, so I didn't know how how they do. I didn't know how they train, I didn't know how they prepare for a championship. I didn't know anything. So I was just out there trying and then in that fight, I did a lot of mistake and I learned from it and I'm like, okay, the good thing, I might have lost this fight, but this fight would be the biggest um fight in my career because everything that is coming after this fight, everything that I'm learn that I learned in this fight, I will implement that in my

• 1:17:34Speaker 00

  game, in my career uh from now on and it will be quite helpful.

• 1:17:39Steven Bartlett?

  You have the hardest punch ever recorded by the UFC, the equivalent of ninety three horsepower. A smoke car by comparison maxes out at eighty horsepower and they called you the predator. You did eventually win the UFC heavyweight title and you held it between twenty one, two thousand twenty one and two thousand and twenty three. And eventually you left the UFC in January twenty twenty three because of basically a disagreement with with the UFC, with Dana White about, I guess, freedom and money?

• 1:18:13Speaker 00

  Yes, freedom and uh treatment, the way that uh I was being treated. I didn't like it.

• 1:18:22Steven Bartlett?

  Was there ever a moment where you realized that you'd really made it? You know, you're you're a young man that come from Cameroon, walked you walked your your way out of the, you know, through Africa and then you got on a boat and went to Spain and then from Spain to Paris, then from Paris to America and then you you reached the highest mountain, which is you win the UFC heavyweight title, which is like the peak of fighting. Was there a moment where you you thought I've I've made it?

• 1:18:53Speaker 00

  It's not like you reach the higher mountain, you know, uh. Whatever mountain you are on top, there's always. Then when you get in the peak of a mountain, you realize there's another mountain that's higher. You know, and you realize that what motivate you, what keep you going. Wasn't the peak of the mountain, but it was the peak of all mountain. So then you keep, it's never a satisfaction, satisfaction. Even though you, you take a moment, I'm like, oh, finally make it to the top. You know, you take a breath, but you know that you'll keep going.

• 1:19:33Speaker 00

  It's, I think it's a mindset that you have and basically will not stop. Like, you don't have a limit, you don't have a place that you say, okay, if I get here, then I'm done. There's always something uh around, there's always something which is set as a higher mountain. You know, so, but I think um what I do is to take time, you know. I like to go home a lot and I like to go back on my path. And every step, every time I'll be there, I'm like, thinking of the moment that I was there. Like maybe fifteen years ago and you feel like it was just yesterday.

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  And I were trying to see like where I am today, you know, see the difference. That's exactly when I realized, because when I'm here, I'm just living like it's normal, like it's everybody, like. He was just like this all the time, but when I get back, I connect with the, with the past. And then I realize how far uh the road has been.

• 1:20:40Steven Bartlett?

  And you've, you've really gone, I mean, it's been an incredible journey. Has your mother ever seen you fight in the UFC? Has she ever been there?

• 1:20:46Speaker 00

  No, I tried, I tried to get her uh to my fight uh back in two thousand nineteen. She couldn't get a visa, she get uh denied twice. And I'm like, okay, this is so stressful, I'm not doing it again.

• 1:21:01Speaker 00

  It was also embarrassing, stressful and.

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  And even for her, it was very tough. And I'm like, okay, I'm not putting her to this again. Uh, there will be a moment, I think if I set up, if I sent, set things up pretty good, there will be a moment that things would be easier for her to see me fight.

• 1:21:23Steven Bartlett?

  Why are you fighting? Why are you fighting now? I mean, you, you made, I mean, the reason you left the UFC was because of freedom issues and you didn't like the treatment. You wanted to be free. The argument you had with Dana, um, you know, you say that

• 1:21:39Steven Bartlett?

  essentially you, you weren't willing to um comply with the the system of the UFC where you don't really have the option to go and box and do other things. Dana White said that you're in a place where you wanted to take less risks and you wanted to fight lesser opponents for more money. So we're gonna let him do that. Is that true? Do you agree with what he said? He said you wanted to take less risks and fight other opponents, lesser opponents to make more money.

• 1:22:07Speaker 00

  I think if we have to spend time to talk about like what Dana White say, if it's true or not, we're gonna spend a whole night here and then don't be okay with a lot of thing. Um, I think the situation was a little bit embarrassing for him and then he was going to make a statement and find his way out. Less of opinion, like living my comfortable life, uh, career in MMA that I'm quite comfortable into to step into boxing to take the best for my first uh boxing match, which I never really do a professional boxing match. Does, does that sound like an easy fight?

• 1:22:52Speaker 00

  I mean, I think he has to say something and um those who knows, uh, those who know, know that he has, just has to say something to get out of that situation.

• 1:23:04Steven Bartlett?

  What's the truth?

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  Easy, he didn't wanna um compromise, he didn't wanna change and I feel like that situation wasn't good for me and I tell myself if that's the end, then let it be. I I mean, in fact, I had no guarantee that the boxing that I've been dreaming of doing, I will have to do it, it will happen at the time, but I didn't just wanna comply and do thing that I'm not okay with, just because they let me with that one option to say yes, with things that I don't like, that was the thing. I I was very aware that uh that could be it,

• 1:23:50Speaker 00

  but he has to be on my term and e- even though he means like going back to Africa, you know, I don't know, farm, I like, I love farm farming, I always love uh farm. And if that's mean I had to go back and farm, I was okay with it. So I made my peace with myself uh at time and that's why I stood with my decision. I turned down a lot of money that I didn't have at time. I was, for the most part, I was broke, I was living uh out of loan. So, yes.

• 1:24:29Steven Bartlett?

  You're the heavyweight champion of the world in the UFC, you're broke.

• 1:24:35Speaker 00

  I mean, not that broke, when I say I was broke, I mean for uh for a hea- for a heavyweight champion, I wasn't comfortable. Yeah, I wasn't comfortable.

• 1:24:46Steven Bartlett?

  Were you a millionaire?

• 1:24:49Speaker 00

  Maybe, but never made a millionaire fight, but um.

• 1:24:54Steven Bartlett?

  The most you made was five hundred thousand pounds?

• 1:24:56Speaker 00

  Except, except if I have accept to um to sign a new contract, I would have been having a lot of money, but that contract was coming with a lot of things that I was fighting against and that's why I didn't sign. So I'm like, okay, whatever this deal is, whatever this contract is, I'm fighting this contract of uh instead of renewing the contract for and have more money and really have nothing changed, that's mean I'm setting myself up for another ye- for another years in the same situation that. Uh I'm giving away all the power in a contract that is not giving me any power.

• 1:25:39Steven Bartlett?

  The power you wanted was freedom.

• 1:25:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, was freedom, was it uh possibly to say, okay, this is not right, you can't do this, you know, or you have to do this. You have, I mean, I I I need an obligation. I don't want a one side contract. I don't want a contract that, okay, there's uh.

• 1:26:01Speaker 00

  I have no right, but in the other hand, the other side of the table have no obligation. So in fact, uh.

• 1:26:12Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm giving everything for nothing, just for money. I want some of that leverage.

• 1:26:20Steven Bartlett?

  So you wanted to be able to decide and you wanted.

• 1:26:23Speaker 00

  Not like to decide, but I want I want at least some responsibility on the other side showing toward me. You know, I want some responsibility. For example, when I come to like, say, healthcare.

• 1:26:39Speaker 00

  For that level, for the money that I could have been making, uh for the money that I would have be making. If I had signed that contract, I could have have any kind of healthcare that I want. But at the same time, I also want the guy on the other side of the table to take some responsibility. I'm like, okay. I'm giving you a healthcare, for example.

• 1:27:02Steven Bartlett?

  So you wanted some something like healthcare included?

• 1:27:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:27:05Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  I want stuff like that. I want something like a guarantee. Since I'm making this of a as a living. And I'm exclusive to you, you guarantee me that whenever I could fight, you find something for me. You are obligated to give me a fight. Know that because if I don't sign a contract and you want me to sign and you want me to run out of money. And crawl back to you because I need those money, then you staff me and not give me a fight. You know, even though you know that, even though that you you know that I might need to. Because just because you know that I might need two or three fights to make a living, to keep up up my lifestyle, then uh.

• 1:27:46Speaker 00

  You strengthen back down to one fight, so I will be needing money and then will be forced to take. A contract that I don't want, just because I need money.

• 1:27:56Steven Bartlett?

  So I want to make sure I'm super clear on this. You you essentially wanted a guarantee of fights within the contract so that you could live.

• 1:28:04Speaker 00

  Guarantee of engagement. I'm giving everything. I'm giving up all my right.

• 1:28:08Steven Bartlett?

  Exclusivity.

• 1:28:09Speaker 00

  Exclusivity and everything.

• 1:28:10Steven Bartlett?

  Do anything else.

• 1:28:11Speaker 00

  But I really, yes, but you are not committed to anything.

• 1:28:15Steven Bartlett?

  So, okay, so I'm the UFC. I'm not committed to anything, but you have to give up your exclusivity.

• 1:28:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:21Steven Bartlett?

  And I'm not even guaranteeing that I'm gonna give you.

• 1:28:23Speaker 00

  And then some some exclusivity in that contract said in perpetuity.

• 1:28:27Steven Bartlett?

  Forever.

• 1:28:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:29Steven Bartlett?

  So exclusive forever in certain situations.

• 1:28:31Speaker 00

  But at the same time, you really have not obligation.

• 1:28:36Steven Bartlett?

  But I have no responsibility obligation to give you anything.

• 1:28:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:40Steven Bartlett?

  So it's really one sided.

• 1:28:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:28:41Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:28:42Speaker 00

  So if if you decide not to give me a fight for two years, I can say anything.

• 1:28:47Steven Bartlett?

  And you'd starve.

• 1:28:48Speaker 00

  But if you if you call me and say, oh, you have a fight in, uh, okay, I have a fight. Uh, I want you to fight in one month and I'm say, oh, I'm hurt. Then you have a right to say, okay, I extend your contract for six months.

• 1:29:00Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, okay. So if you turn down a fight, then they can extend the contract.

• 1:29:02Speaker 00

  And doesn't matter the reason.

• 1:29:05Steven Bartlett?

  For any reason. So you could be sick.

• 1:29:06Speaker 00

  And and there's nobody will be consulted for that if that's fair or not. They make the decision.

• 1:29:12Steven Bartlett?

  So you so I could know that you are sick and I could offer you a fight, knowing that you couldn't take it. And that would extend the contract six months.

• 1:29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:21Steven Bartlett?

  So you decided to quit and you knew that when you quit, you could lose everything. You there was no guarantee that you could go. There's not a bigger fighting league.

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  I decided to leave, not to quit.

• 1:29:30Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, you decided to leave. Um, and when you left, did you have a plan?

• 1:29:37Speaker 00

  Not really.

• 1:29:39Steven Bartlett?

  How do you feel about the UFC now?

• 1:29:41Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think they do business how is good for them. They they do a good business for themselves. I just wanted to do what's good for me too.

• 1:29:53Steven Bartlett?

  And you went on to do the impossible once again in your life because, you know, many people thought that maybe you were you were gone now. You were gone from fighting. But then after that, it was announced that you'd be fighting Tyson Fury in a boxing match, who is the world heavyweight champion of boxing. And by many people's account, you know, I watched the fight as well. I stayed up in the UK and watched it. Um, you beat him.

• 1:30:21Steven Bartlett?

  You didn't beat him on the scorecard. But I think in every sense of the word, you beat him. And for that fight, you got paid, I read, many times more for that one fight than you got paid in your entire UFC career?

• 1:30:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:30:36Steven Bartlett?

  From one fight with Tyson Fury?

• 1:30:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:30:43Speaker 00

  And even in my, it would have be a Tyson Fury fight, or he would have be a PFF fight. I knew that from that moment, every fight that I will make, I will be paid more than what I have been making in my entire career. Why? Because

• 1:31:05Speaker 00

  my last years, years in the UFC, I could have been making more if I have accepted contract. So I basically left a lot of money on the table in order to gain my freedom. I bought my freedom, basically. You know, they say that, they say freedom is not given. It's not given. Freedom is not free. You have to give something in order to get that.

• 1:31:34Speaker 00

  So that's why at that point I made so less of a money. Because I refuse, I turned down a lot of money.

• 1:31:43Steven Bartlett?

  But it worked out. It worked in the end because you got paid more in that Fury fight than you ever got.

• 1:31:48Speaker 00

  Lucky eye.

• 1:31:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, and then I read that for the fight with Anthony Joshua, you earned about fifteen million pounds, which is almost twenty million dollars. True?

• 1:31:59Speaker 00

  I don't know. I haven't counted yet.

• 1:32:04Speaker 00

  So I can, I can say if it's true.

• 1:32:07Steven Bartlett?

  This is, I mean.

• 1:32:07Speaker 00

  But it's not true.

• 1:32:08Steven Bartlett?

  It's not true?

• 1:32:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Steven Bartlett?

  But you earned a lot of money, right?

• 1:32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:13Steven Bartlett?

  Life-changing amounts of money?

• 1:32:16Speaker 00

  What's life-changing?

• 1:32:17Steven Bartlett?

  I don't know, enough money to just.

• 1:32:18Speaker 00

  One thousand can change life, depend of where we are standing from. You're speaking from Messiah or from your side or from whose side?

• 1:32:28Speaker 00

  You give, you give ten million to somebody, it's just another ten million and he won't change anything in his life. And you give one thousand to somebody, he changed his life, he saved his life. He would take that one thousand, maybe.

• 1:32:44Speaker 00

  Send his kid at school or maybe buy them some medicine, save them from illness or something. So life changing money is not the amount.

• 1:32:54Steven Bartlett?

  Why are you still, why are you still fighting then? Cause you don't, you don't need to.

• 1:32:59Speaker 00

  Why, why I start fighting? You have to find, in order to know why I'm still fighting, you have to know why I start fighting.

• 1:33:08Steven Bartlett?

  Why, why is that?

• 1:33:10Speaker 00

  I love fighting.

• 1:33:13Steven Bartlett?

  You're not doing it for the money?

• 1:33:15Speaker 00

  No. When I start fighting, there wasn't the money. I fought a lot of fight for free that I had no, not a pennies.

• 1:33:24Steven Bartlett?

  And what is your goal now with fighting? You've, you've done it. I mean, you've done it. You've, you did the UFC, you've done boxing.

• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  As I said, there's always a challenge. There's always like, could this be possible? Can I done this? Can I, you know, like, what's, what's my limit? How far can I go? I think, I think whatever we do in life is a shame if we end up not really find our full potential or not giving it all. You know, I think I can give, give all everything that I have, then I go home. But as long as I still feel like I have something for fighting, I have something to give to the fighting community. Uh, I go to the gym, I get excited,

• 1:34:16Speaker 00

  I wake up, I think of training and I get excited like, oh, this is it. I still have that motivation, that fire in me. I think I keep doing it, you know? I go to the gym, I train, I think like, oh, I learned something, I have some improvement, you know? Or there's something that I really wanna understand how it works or how, want to master. Yes, I think it works like that.

• 1:34:41Speaker 00

  You have to remember that it's not just fighting, it's martial art.

• 1:34:48Speaker 00

  Fighting is a martial art and martial art never ends. Before uh MMA came around, you will see people, karate, Kung Fu, Taekwondo, they were doing it for like six, until they are sixty, seventy, eighty, they are still doing it because it's a passion.

• 1:35:05Steven Bartlett?

  When you left Cameroon, you had a really clear goal. You had this vision, a really, really clear goal.

• 1:35:11Steven Bartlett?

  What is that?

• 1:35:12Speaker 00

  To stand on top of the mountain.

• 1:35:13Steven Bartlett?

  And you stood on top of the mountain?

• 1:35:15Speaker 00

  But there's the biggest mountain.

• 1:35:16Steven Bartlett?

  What's the biggest mountain?

• 1:35:17Speaker 00

  There's always a biggest mountain. There's always a mountain ahead that is big.

• 1:35:22Steven Bartlett?

  What is the big mountain in front of you now?

• 1:35:24Speaker 00

  What's coming?

• 1:35:26Steven Bartlett?

  What is that?

• 1:35:27Speaker 00

  Another fight.

• 1:35:29Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, do you wanna become the heavyweight champion of the world in boxing as well?

• 1:35:33Speaker 00

  Uh, that's never been my goal. My goal was really, because I was aware of the situation. My last fight, my first fight in boxing was less than a year ago, October, October twenty uh twenty three. And I was what, already thirty seven?

• 1:35:53Speaker 00

  It's not a moment in your life that you're expecting to have a career into a combat sport like boxing. You know, he was just like, okay, what can I do? And I think that question stood stand. And even for MMA, I think there's a lot of thing for me. Uh, I've been doing even MMA for just like, what, eleven years? And I think I still have so a lot of thing to learn, to experiment, to, to show in the fight. I think I still have a lot and I still have that passion. I'm uh, I'm not very young, but I still have couple of years in front of me to be doing it.

• 1:36:34Speaker 00

  Because after this, you have to remember that after this, maybe by the time I'm forty, forty two, then I'm retired. What a early retirement. We only have that short window of a time. Then at forty two, like it's a time that most people, a career just pick up, but we are forced to retire by that time. So why would I just like do what I can do until then and see how far I can go?

• 1:37:05Steven Bartlett?

  You fought Tyson, m- m- many people think he won the fight, incredible fight. Um, you fought Anthony Joshua, you lost that fight. Um, and I think at the end, at the end of that fight, Anthony actually says, he says, you should, you need to carry on boxing, you need to carry on going. And I think that's the sentiment that everyone has.

• 1:37:22Speaker 00

  No, I'm, I'm, I'm carrying on. I don't really, uh, take that fight as a note because, um, not to say, I mean,

• 1:37:33Speaker 00

  you cannot, you, you will be a fool if you're going to fight basically in boxing, somebody like Anthony Joshua and don't think that you can lose. Right? Or trying to make an excuse of losing. If there's a, somebody that you can lose against in a combat sport, then he's somebody like Anthony Joshua, right? But, um, honestly, on that fight, there was a lot of unfairness.

• 1:38:01Speaker 00

  You know, and then, uh, who should, might have been for something or not, but there was a lot of unfairness. Unlike the Tyson fight, that everything was straight and I think nobody was giving me a chance. And then the, everything was fair, um, no sneaky stuff.

• 1:38:25Speaker 00

  But the second one, he was so messy.

• 1:38:29Steven Bartlett?

  What do you mean?

• 1:38:30Speaker 00

  A lot of tricks, like they will get you everywhere that I was going in that week. I have to wait at least one hour, one hour and a half before the beginning or before Anthony Joshua arrived. But they, they always send a car to pick me up, like that amount of time, even the fight day. The fight day, I stay in the locker room for four hour and a half, four hours and a half. They send a car to pick me up, pick up time, ten thirty. Because you're supposed to fight, they tell me upfront, I'm supposed to fight around midnight and one P M. So pick up time.

• 1:39:12Steven Bartlett?

  One A M.

• 1:39:13Speaker 00

  Yes, and one A M, sorry. Pick up time, uh, ten thirty. It's like, okay, good. It's how it works, it's that amount of time. Then you get in the arena, they're like, oh, yeah, there's a, there's a producer, like, oh, we are, we are running behind uh, clock on the broadcasting, so we might be fighting at one forty five.

• 1:39:39Speaker 00

  Okay, it's not that bad. I've been training to fight in that timeframe, in around one P M, one A M. Bro, we are sitting there and then

• 1:39:53Speaker 00

  watching Anthony Joshua arrive in the arena at one thirty. Like, how come you tell me that, with you guys tell me that I'm going to fight around midnight and one o'clock? Or that is delayed, I'm gonna fight at one forty five, and then he's now just arrived. When he arrived, we know that it's about two hours before there is a fight. You don't get in the arena one hour before the fight, no. It's two hours, it's the, and stuff like that, they did a lot. Again, not to say I couldn't lose the fight, but.

• 1:40:32Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think they were doing that intentionally?

• 1:40:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:35Steven Bartlett?

  You, you think that?

• 1:40:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:40:39Speaker 00

  I said the whole week, he was like that.

• 1:40:42Steven Bartlett?

  They were wasting your time.

• 1:40:42Speaker 00

  I mean, I think it's a trick, I didn't know before, but I think it's, it's, it's a trick that they have in boxing, they have a lot of tricks. And in fact, like in the, in the week, during the week, my coach Dewey, because he's a very calm person, and he was like, he get to the point that he was really mad and was yelling about it, like, no, this is how you get to get, you do to get fighter tired. And I'm like, no, it's okay, I didn't know how deep was the problem. You know? Until I get in the final set, then I'm like, okay, this is serious, but he was too late.

• 1:41:20Steven Bartlett?

  Were you tired by the time?

• 1:41:21Speaker 00

  Very tired.

• 1:41:22Steven Bartlett?

  By the time?

• 1:41:23Speaker 00

  I was sleeping.

• 1:41:24Steven Bartlett?

  You were sleeping before?

• 1:41:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know if it was just a fatigue or whatever. I was in the locker room getting uh warm up and and fell in asleep and feeling asleep.

• 1:41:37Speaker 00

  So that's why I like uh personally, yeah, I take that loss, but I don't put it in the context.

• 1:41:44Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:41:44Speaker 00

  You know, I think it could have been different.

• 1:41:47Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you could have beat him?

• 1:41:50Speaker 00

  I still I still think I could have beat him. I could have lost too, but not that easy. Yeah, things were so easy. Um like, I wasn't, I don't know. Yeah.

• 1:42:03Steven Bartlett?

  Did you feel like yourself?

• 1:42:05Speaker 00

  No, not at all, not at all.

• 1:42:12Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:42:14Speaker 00

  But I think it was my mistake. I wouldn't, I shouldn't have done good in the fury fight. I think that was what was expected in the fury fight.

• 1:42:25Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:42:25Speaker 00

  For me to lose maybe in that um fashion.

• 1:42:30Steven Bartlett?

  You have um, you come out of the fight with Anthony Joshua and you go back to making plans for the future. And then life shows how cruel and unfair it's capable of being when your fifteen month old baby boy Kobe passes away just a few months ago.

• 1:42:49Steven Bartlett?

  I'm really sorry.

• 1:42:50Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:42:51Steven Bartlett?

  And um it is the the most unimaginable, the most unimaginable thing.

• 1:43:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's something that I never, I never imagined. And all of the sudden, nothing really matters.

• 1:43:11Speaker 00

  All of the sudden, you realize that you were complaining about a lot. Instead of being feeling blessed, being grateful, you were complaining about things that didn't work. But in fact, everything was working well.

• 1:43:27Steven Bartlett?

  How are you?

• 1:43:28Speaker 00

  How am I?

• 1:43:29Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:30Speaker 00

  A life of being surviving, but uh not the same. I don't think you you will ever be the same.

• 1:43:41Speaker 00

  And I can't explain how in just fifteen months.

• 1:43:47Speaker 00

  I mean, I so ask myself how in just fifteen months.

• 1:43:53Speaker 00

  A kid or a person can take this much space and be basically became you to the point that when he's gone, you you feel like you're missing too.

• 1:44:10Speaker 00

  Just fifteen months. I mean, two years ago, he wasn't there and I was living good. He came and he left. And I feel like. I don't know, it's

• 1:44:25Speaker 00

  it's a weird type of thing. Basically, like, uh, after what I was saying earlier, like, my whole life was about to do to fight in order for my family not to go through those situations, not to feel powerless uh, or useless in the situation and for the very only person that I should fight for, I couldn't. I didn't even have a chance. So sometime only that idea is painful.

• 1:45:02Steven Bartlett?

  You didn't have a chance?

• 1:45:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, he wasn't sick. We didn't have to take him to the hospital, didn't have

• 1:45:10Speaker 00

  anything like that, you know. I wish I could have like, you know, take him to the hospital, find for a good doctor, like make calls and do stuff, you know, feel like I'm useful, I'm playing. I'm useful, just as I always wanna be.

• 1:45:31Speaker 00

  So that was it.

• 1:45:37Steven Bartlett?

  Is it possible to, is it possible to?

• 1:45:42Steven Bartlett?

  Have you been able to grieve?

• 1:45:45Steven Bartlett?

  And process it?

• 1:45:48Speaker 00

  How do they grieve? How do they process it? I never learn. I never know how it works. You just feel it.

• 1:45:58Speaker 00

  Some days you do with it, some days you do without it.

• 1:46:03Speaker 00

  How, how do they deal with that kind of situation?

• 1:46:08Speaker 00

  There's not a, um. How do they say? There's not a process that is set up to.

• 1:46:20Speaker 00

  To learn how to go through.

• 1:46:24Speaker 00

  People would do, people would do it in different ways.

• 1:46:33Speaker 00

  And how long it takes to grieve? When did it stop?

• 1:46:38Speaker 00

  Whenever.

• 1:46:44Steven Bartlett?

  You know, one of the big conversations in, um, I think that's become quite popular is the idea of mental health. And our, and protecting our mental health and being aware of our mental health.

• 1:46:56Steven Bartlett?

  When something like that happens to you, it's the, the most, I mean, I've never. And I don't have children yet, so I don't, I've not been through something like that, but I can just imagine. The, the way that I try and imagine it is I have these wonderful nieces and nephews in my life. My brother is a year older than me, has three children. And they're like my children in a way, and just the thought of something happening to them is the most. It's the most unimaginable, unimaginable crushing feeling to me.

• 1:47:21Steven Bartlett?

  And men in particular aren't very good at dealing with. Things compared to my partner, for example. She's very expressive, very emotional, she expresses how she feels. What are you like at expressing how you feel?

• 1:47:36Speaker 00

  You don't learn how to express. I think I found myself very emotional at some point. More than what I thought.

• 1:47:46Speaker 00

  You don't, it's not something that you commanded, you don't control, just happen. And then you, you discover yourself.

• 1:47:55Steven Bartlett?

  And you're still in that process?

• 1:47:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. You discover your own self. You think you've been through a lot, you think you're strong, you were, you thought you were strong. You realize you were, oh.

• 1:48:11Steven Bartlett?

  How is your family, your, your family, your mother, everybody else?

• 1:48:15Speaker 00

  Surprisingly, I think a lot of people are doing pretty good.

• 1:48:23Speaker 00

  Better, which is for me a surprise. I always walk around like the toughest guy. Until now.

• 1:48:32Steven Bartlett?

  Until now?

• 1:48:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48:35Speaker 00

  And I get to.

• 1:48:38Speaker 00

  You know, just being tired, just getting tired, being tough, think it's exhausting.

• 1:48:45Speaker 00

  Being tough mean you have to been through over and over to a lot of shit. Which just not easy to deal with.

• 1:49:00Steven Bartlett?

  Because people see you as a, you know, they see you as a tough guy, that's your, they called you the predator, they, you know.

• 1:49:07Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:49:09Speaker 00

  I've been questioning myself about that lately.

• 1:49:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:49:27Speaker 00

  That's why I like, you see people trying to

• 1:49:34Speaker 00

  know somebody, pretend to know somebody.

• 1:49:40Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, they don't even know themselves. Like you can know somebody who, who doesn't even know he owns self, you don't know who you are. You don't know what you can do, what can affect you, how you can deal with things that never happened to you. So you can't expect to know that about somebody.

• 1:50:04Steven Bartlett?

  What have you been questioning in yourself?

• 1:50:11Speaker 00

  If I can deal with stuff.

• 1:50:14Speaker 00

  If I can handle stuff.

• 1:50:19Speaker 00

  Been doubting

• 1:50:22Speaker 00

  about my capability

• 1:50:26Speaker 00

  of stuff sometimes.

• 1:50:28Steven Bartlett?

  What, what, what are you talking about? We, we, in terms of dealing with stuff, handling stuff?

• 1:50:34Steven Bartlett?

  Emotional things?

• 1:50:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, um.

• 1:50:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, even emotionally.

• 1:50:48Speaker 00

  You know, there's a lot of, there are some days that you wake up and you don't, you think about every, about stuff, about everything.

• 1:50:59Speaker 00

  And you should really like, what's the purpose, what's the goal? If it's gonna end up like this?

• 1:51:06Speaker 00

  What's the purpose of fighting if

• 1:51:10Speaker 00

  I'll end up not being able to fight for the only person that I can fight for?

• 1:51:18Speaker 00

  Let's talk about something else.

• 1:51:21Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 1:51:36Speaker 00

  What else you get? Move on to something.

• 1:51:47Steven Bartlett?

  I am... You're in Vegas at the moment?

• 1:51:50Speaker 00

  Yes, but I'm going home soon.

• 1:51:53Steven Bartlett?

  Going back to Cameroon?

• 1:51:53Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. Next week.

• 1:51:56Steven Bartlett?

  Next week?

• 1:51:56Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:51:57Steven Bartlett?

  What's the plan?

• 1:51:59Speaker 00

  I'm gonna be there for a couple of weeks. I'm training now.

• 1:52:04Speaker 00

  I wanna really make a purpose, make a... Have a purpose. You know, make a sense of all of this and I think I'm going back to fight. So I've been training a little bit. Because like...

• 1:52:20Speaker 00

  I get to the point that I feel like I really need to push myself to get out there, start to think about something. Find... Find purpose. And that's what I'm doing. Now, training. And I think I should fight.

• 1:52:37Speaker 00

  I need to fight, so... I might fight before the end of the year, you know? I think some MMA fight would be good. To get back in the loop a little bit. Before going back to boxing again.

• 1:52:55Steven Bartlett?

  You're fighting in a new league, under a new promotion?

• 1:52:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:52:58Steven Bartlett?

  Which is very exciting, I saw the announcement.

• 1:53:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm supposed to be fighting, um... No, I'm not fighting in the PFL Africa, I'm fighting in PFL Global. Uh, but yes, we... We... We along... Uh, we launched the PFL Africa and they announced it the other day in Nigeria, in Lagos, Nigeria, with the... Uh, one of our new partners, Ilios. So, it's been good.

• 1:53:27Steven Bartlett?

  And you're... It's about purpose now? It's about finding new purpose, you said?

• 1:53:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Fighting a reason. Fighting for a reason. You know, something to fight for.

• 1:53:40Speaker 00

  I think it's whether you... You make it a purpose to keep going or a reason to keep going or a reason to stop.

• 1:53:50Speaker 00

  But other ways, either way, he can serve as a, as a reason.

• 1:53:57Steven Bartlett?

  And your reason, your purpose, you're gonna get out there and find him?

• 1:54:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think my son was full of life. I think if there's one thing that he wasn't, uh, he wasn't inactive, he was very active, was very curious about stuff, he was. And I think uh,

• 1:54:21Speaker 00

  the best way to honor him would definitely not be to quit or to leave thing like that because of him. I think if there is a way that he would like to, things to be done was to serve as a

• 1:54:38Speaker 00

  motivation.

• 1:54:39Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:54:40Speaker 00

  Or to be a reason for things to happen.

• 1:54:45Steven Bartlett?

  That's what you've always been, Francis. That's what you've always been. You've always been an inspiration.

• 1:54:51Speaker 00

  He's now an inspiration, I think.

• 1:54:53Steven Bartlett?

  He's now your inspiration?

• 1:54:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. I had so much in this kid, like he was just fifteen years, fifteen months old. But you know, I have so many plans, was doing this, was preparing that, was having a ba- building a basketball court, was getting ready for his um, uh, like looking for a soccer uh, glit of his side so we can go play soccer when he started, because he just started to work when he saw it, we could play. Everything, he become, he became a

• 1:55:32Speaker 00

  a goal. He wasn't like just a kid, he was a goal, like was exciting, waiting, you know, he's there and it's time, right? Yeah.

• 1:55:54Speaker 00

  So fighting next, the goal is to fight before the end of the year.

• 1:56:01Speaker 00

  So I'm training, I'm keeping in shape, but I have to go back in Africa a little bit.

• 1:56:07Steven Bartlett?

  Is it easy to train at the moment, or is it day by day?

• 1:56:12Speaker 00

  It's day by day. I think, as I said, like there's some day like, I don't just really wanna do anything, I don't really care. And those are the day that you, I mean, that's how, that's what your, your heart tell you, like, your heart don't really care about anything. Then your brain will tell you, be reasonable and tell you that to go. That's when you really have to. At that moment, that you feel like you don't wanna do anything, is exactly the moment that you have to do something to get off of there. Because like, um, those emotion, who, they are pretty good at shutting things around you.

• 1:56:57Speaker 00

  Sometime you get in the, just get, I don't know, in the bath, and then just get stuck in there. And then memories and stuff just get you stuck in there and you, it's so sad inside that you don't even know that you can push the door and get out. So you have to do something, you have to keep. And then when you push the door, get out, maybe walk in the room or something. Then it change your mind and you're like, oh, this, pick something down and then it help change your mind. But if you stay in that bath, uh, bathroom, those same memory will run over and over and over.

• 1:57:37Steven Bartlett?

  Have you spoken to a therapist at all? Or anyone that can help?

• 1:57:42Speaker 00

  Do they take, help what, do what, take a penny away?

• 1:57:48Speaker 00

  Or bring him back.

• 1:57:51Speaker 00

  Think it's a process that you have to go through. It's a pain that you just have to learn with. It's like having a handicap. You just have to learn to deal with. There are people today that live pretty good without hand or foot. Or foot. Uh, whoosh. At first, uh, or they get impeded. And they have to rehab to deal with.

• 1:58:18Steven Bartlett?

  You've um, you've been an inspiration your whole life. Your whole life to so many people. Um, you now say that um Kobe is your inspiration. And he's, he's the reason why.

• 1:58:27Speaker 00

  And motivation.

• 1:58:29Steven Bartlett?

  And your motivation.

• 1:58:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:58:30Steven Bartlett?

  And he's the reason why you are striving. He's the mountain. He's pushing you up a new mountain in your career, in this chapter of your career. And I'm really, really looking forward to seeing this season of your career play out.

• 1:58:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. I hope I'll be able to do it. I might, I just have to get out there and find out.

• 1:58:54Steven Bartlett?

  Francis, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest. So the last guest has left a question for you and they don't know who they're leaving the question for.

• 1:59:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:59:05Steven Bartlett?

  And the question is here. When did you last realize that you had it all wrong?

• 1:59:16Speaker 00

  When my boy passed away.

• 1:59:19Speaker 00

  There was a moment that I realized that everything. I mean, everything that's been my reason for fighting

• 1:59:33Speaker 00

  fall apart.

• 1:59:36Speaker 00

  That was the moment.

• 1:59:39Speaker 00

  That I fear that I really felt like, ah, fail, like a failure.

• 1:59:46Steven Bartlett?

  You felt like a failure?

• 1:59:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. I feel power, I feel.

• 1:59:53Speaker 00

  I just feel like I could have done something.

• 1:59:59Speaker 00

  Just that.

• 2:00:09Steven Bartlett?

  Francis, um, I have to say a huge thank you. I have to say a big thank you, and I'm not just saying thank you from me. But um, ever since I heard your story, that that time in Paris, when we're in that hotel, you you put my life in perspective. You gave me gratitude that I probably didn't have to the same extent before because you've been through an incredible journey and throughout that whole journey, you've got this perspective for life where

• 2:00:42Steven Bartlett?

  you understand more than I ever did what's important. Things like family, things like principles, you've understood that more than I did. And you also, having gone through that entire journey, I didn't hear you feeling pitiful, complaining about the struggles you'd been through. And I reflect on the life that I've lived and the things that I'd dwelled on. And I thought, oh, my God, this guy has walked out of a really, really dire situation and built this the most incredible life. He's climbed to the top of the mountain. And it's funny because when you climb to the top of those mountains, you get there alone. What you don't ever get to see is that you've actually brought millions of people there too, because you've inspired them and you've shown them, proven that they have no reason why they can't do.

• 2:01:27Steven Bartlett?

  If Francis could, if Francis could go from Cameroon on that journey through the Sahara Desert, he tried to climb the fence, couldn't get over the fence, then went through the sea on the boat. From Spain to Paris, from Paris to the USA, to the top of the mountain, to beating Tyson Fury. There is absolutely nothing that I can't do.

• 2:01:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I um, I think so. I think there's a lot, we we set ourselves for, we set a lot of limit of ourselves. But I just like, oh, it's not possible.

• 2:02:05Speaker 00

  Which, again, we don't know what's possible or not, but.

• 2:02:11Speaker 00

  Staying there, thinking of what's possible or not, doesn't help, actions help. And sometime you try, you fail, it's okay. You stand, you stand back up, pick your shit, reset, start again. And then until you make it, and then once, you, you, you really make it. And I'm like, oh, he's good, he's a genius. Like, how did he know that this will work? He didn't know anything. Just keep trying, just refuse to give up, it's just like that. And it's a some, it's something that, um, you know, because at some point, like, I feel like, um, I need to succeed in order to prove everybody that was daring at me, uh, to prove them wrong.

• 2:02:55Speaker 00

  Because even like coming from where I came from, having the idea of boxing, bro, he was the worst thing that, it was dream that you could have have. Like, everybody, nobody believe in me, in, in it, in the dream, not in me, but just in the dream, like, it's not possible, we can't came, come from where we come, we are, uh, to get there, it's not possible, it's not mean for us. Find something that is around us and get settled, you know, like, they really thought I was losing it. Basically, like, when I let, um, my little job in the village, like, say, go to the city. I was twenty-two years old and I, I saw my motorcycle, like, okay,

• 2:03:38Speaker 00

  go to the store and buy clothes and stuff that I'm doing boxing, I'm like, okay. This how, this guy has go to the, uh, top level of craziness. What the, what the hell is this, you know? And, uh, everybody doubted.

• 2:03:57Speaker 00

  I mean, even my mom say, like, you're my son, I'll always stand by your side, even when you're losing it, like now.

• 2:04:07Speaker 00

  Like, okay, at least I know that, you know? But, and one day, it happened, I made it. And I'm like, wow, he's a genius, how do you know that it's gonna work? I didn't know, just keep doing it, you know? So whatever you have, you can keep trying. It might work, might not, but at least you will be in peace with yourself, knowing that you have given it all. I think it's the most important, people are so afraid to fail.

• 2:04:39Speaker 00

  That they don't even try. And I think that's really, that's the failure from not taking action. The failure is not actually, uh, the fact that you, you, you're not suc-, you, you, you don't succeed in whatever you do. The failure is not taking action, is not even try. That's why you really fail.

• 2:05:02Steven Bartlett?

  Francis, thank you.

• 2:05:04Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:05:04Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you so much, honestly. It's the, the most amazing honour and you're such an incredible person on and, on and off camera. You're such a wonderful human being, but you're just the most tremendous inspiration. I've interviewed three, four hundred people, but I've never, ever encountered a story.

• 2:05:18Speaker 00

  You do, you do that a lot.

• 2:05:19Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:20Speaker 00

  Interviewing people.

• 2:05:21Steven Bartlett?

  As heroic as yours, so.

• 2:05:22Speaker 00

  I rather fight than interviewing people.

• 2:05:26Steven Bartlett?

  Thank you.