#ICYMI - The Sweet Science of Boxing, with Sugar Ray Leonard

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice enter the ring with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Leonard and neurologist and ringside physician Dr. Anthony Alessi as we investigate the sweet, sweet science of boxing. Ding, Ding!

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

• 0:09Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm Gary O'Reilly.

• 0:10Chuck Nice?

  And I'm Chuck Nice.

• 0:11Gary O'Reilly?

  And this is Playing With Science. Yes, today's show certainly has clout and it may well have a little rope-a-dope thrown in for good measure. So pay attention and part the ropes because Chuck and I are stepping into the ring and the hard-hitting world of boxing.

• 0:27Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, that's right, I'm pretty. Hmm, um, and that is because we're going to do this show right now and we have one of the greatest boxers of all time. No hype, all fact, one of the greatest boxers to ever step into the ring, I'm talking none other than Sugar Ray Leonard himself.

• 0:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, indeed. Also on the card will be Dr Anthony Alessi, a sports neurologist who sits on the Connecticut State Boxing Committee and will be taking a look at the protocols in place for concussion and discussing all of the effects and potential effects boxing can have on the human brain. Ring that bell Chuck?

• 1:10Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Let's get ready to, I can't say it because of trademark infringement.

• 1:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Dr Anthony Alessi, neurologist specialising in neuromuscular disease and sports medicine, ringside physician, Connecticut State Boxing Commission, bi-weekly columnist and blogger, Norwich Bulletin, author, Healthy Sports, A Doctor's Lesson for a Winning Lifestyle and as you haven't guessed, a very busy man, radio show talk host, Healthy Rounds with Dr Anthony Alessi and, get this Chuck, 2009 elected Ringside Physician of the Year by the American Association of Professional Ringside Physicians, Dr Anthony Alessi. Welcome to Playing With Science, sir, how are you?

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Hey, great, thanks for having me.

• 1:55Gary O'Reilly?

  How does boxing differ from any other sport?

• 1:58Speaker 02

  Well boxing differs from any other sport because the object of the sport is to neurologically impair your opponent. So it's kind of the ultimate challenge for a neurologist. When we think of sports, especially high-velocity collision sports or contact sports, the idea is still to score a touchdown or to get the puck in the net. But not in boxing. In boxing, the goal is to produce a knockout. The ultimate neurologic injury, you might say.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  It's even different from other combat sports. Because when you think of MMA, you're looking at the possibility of an arm bar, a leg bar, some type of chokehold. So you don't necessarily have to neurologically impair your opponent.

• 2:47Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 2:48Speaker 02

  The other big difference is you can tap out of those sports.

• 2:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  You can take yourself out of the game. Nobody takes themselves out of boxing. There's no tap-out. And in a sense, I consider myself that athlete's tap-out.

• 3:03Chuck Nice?

  Ah.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  So you have to understand, there's a sub-game here. So if I'm in the corner and I sense the fighter does not want to continue, I will end the fight. He or she will get up, say some nasty things about my mother. But with a wink and a nod, they will know that they're still going to get paid for that fight.

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Really quick. But I knew that they did not have the heart to stay in it. And that's typically at the lower level.

• 3:34Gary O'Reilly?

  So you're the safety net between them and a hard fall, a hard landing, a very hard landing.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I'm the difference between them and death.

• 3:42Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Let's face it, my only job when I lecture people is to make sure every boxer leaves there alive.

• 3:50Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  That's my only job. I don't care who wins, who loses. If everybody's still breathing at the end of the night, I've done my job.

• 3:57Chuck Nice?

  And I think that people don't really, it's not, they're not cognizant or it's not front of mind that boxing is a sport where people can and have died in the ring.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  And are still dying in the ring.

• 4:11Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  There are some states that don't have the same level of regulation that we have in bigger states like California, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut. We have very active commissions with active medical staffs. You can go to states in this country where they hardly, I don't even know if they put a blood pressure cuff on the fighters. When you talk to the fighters, they say, well, no one ever asked me that. That's never been an issue. No one even examines you. And there's not necessarily a physician at ringside for those fights.

• 4:44Chuck Nice?

  Interesting.

• 4:45Gary O'Reilly?

  That's just mind blowing.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Well, there's no federal regulation. That's one of the issues is it's run by the states. And the states are incentivized because they get tax dollars at the end of a fight. They tax that purse. So there's a whole sub game to this.

• 5:03Chuck Nice?

  Interesting. So can you, for our, you know, just for our benefit, to neurologically impair the opponent is the goal, can you break down what that neurological impairment is? Can you give us the anatomy of a knockout?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Great question. Yes. What happens is with the blow, with the impact, there's a tearing of the wall to the nerve cell. Now typically, the nerve cell has an electrolyte balance. The calcium is inside the cell, right? And rather calcium is outside the cell, my mistake. Calcium is outside the cell. Potassium is inside the cell. When you breach the wall, the calcium rushes in, potassium rushes out. That calcium causes the cell to swell and can cause the cell to die. So if you take the analogy of a crack in your basement and you have a big storm, you got water rushing into your basement.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  The thing you want to do is repair the crack, stop the flow, and then pump that water out. That's what the cell does. It tries to repair the wall to the cell, and now it's got to pump out that calcium, which takes energy. So the more, the bigger the hole, the more energy it's going to take to pump it out. And with that diversion of energy from your muscles and other features, you lose consciousness. So if you take this a step further, you know, you have one crack in your wall. Before you get a chance to fix it, you have another and another. Suddenly the cell becomes overwhelmed and the brain becomes overwhelmed with swelling that can result in death.

• 6:44Gary O'Reilly?

  So this timeline is immediate, the way the brain reacts to compensate for potassium loss and the influx of calcium. But is there a standard procedure of if I have this sort of damage, I need to be out of the ring for X days, X weeks, months? Or is it different from athlete to athlete?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  It's a great question. We still don't know that. So what we do with athletes is we wait for symptoms to clear. And we wait for them to get back to their level of activity without developing new symptoms. So going back to the basement analogy, once you've pumped all this water out, you've still got a mess, right? You've got mold, you've got a smelly rug. We don't know how long it takes to get rid of that mess. We don't know if that's still lingering in the brain for years.

• 7:41Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  For a lifetime or not. No one can tell you that. So we're kind of flying by the seat of our pants saying, well, your symptoms are better and you're not getting headaches when you're running a mile or when you're back in the ring. But we don't know if there's still that mold or whatever it is existing as an analogy in the brain.

• 8:01Chuck Nice?

  With respect to that, so if you're looking at this the way we do in other sports, which would be a concussion protocol, let's just say football and a concussion protocol. The idea in football is a guy takes a hit. Normally it's a hit like up, you know, kind of to the jaw instead of the crown of the head. It's kind of like up and under. They get boom, they go out for a second. And then they go through a series of protocols to figure out whether or not they can play or if they have been indeed concussed. Is it possible that while the boxer is boxing, that he sustains a concussion? But yet he wasn't knocked out?

• 8:42Chuck Nice?

  And the sustaining of that concussion will actually lead to him getting knocked out?

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 8:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  You've hit the nail on the head. So that's the great irony with boxing, right? So in football, somebody gets hit in the head, they're a little wobbly. We get them to the sideline, put them in a tent, do a big evaluation.

• 9:02Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  In boxing, as long as the person is still standing, that fight's going on. So I tell people all the time, I look at a fighter's footwork. If they lose coordination in their feet, they've lost coordination in their hands and suddenly become a defenseless fighter. So that's what gives ringside physicians the idea that it's time to end the fight. But absolutely, because don't forget, you get one blow, two, three, we've seen those exchanges. And those are all blows that can produce damage to the brain. But the interesting point you brought up is obviously the shot from below the chin, the uppercut, being the most punishing blow in boxing.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  I'm getting ready tomorrow, I'm flying out to Las Vegas to be with the professional bull riders tour.

• 9:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Wow.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Many people don't know that the most common injury of all in bull riding is concussion.

• 9:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  And where you see it the most is fortunately not the bull stepping on somebody's head, but it's when the rider gets propelled forward and the head of the bull comes up and takes them out from under the chin.

• 10:12Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh.

• 10:15Speaker 02

  Right? So that's where you see jaw fractures and things of that nature. Uh, and that's why I'm heading out there for their world finals in Las Vegas tomorrow. So it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting kind of lab.

• 10:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. Uh, you, I, I think the one thing I, Chuck, and everybody listening has learned that we don't really want to be a bull rider, uh, going forward from here. Yeah. I, I do, I do however, want to be the bull. Yeah, well, yeah, that depends how that ends up for the bull. Um, thinking about your safety net for a boxer and your attention to footwork and then the chain of events that you perceive will be enacted. So you take me out of a fight, you protect me. I walk out of there conscious, compos mentis, maybe a bruise or three.

• 11:10Gary O'Reilly?

  You've protected me, but I'm in the ring two days later sparring. What can you do to stop that boxer getting back in the ring even to spar? Because it must say you cannot fight for a purse X amount of weeks. But what's to stop that boxer getting back and sparring? Because that is basically undoing everything you've done to save that person.

• 11:34Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 11:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Ugh, wow.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Boxing, like bull riding, is a sport where there is uncontrolled exposure. So for example, if we take the bull riding analogy, the PBR, the higher, highest level of the sport, can suspend someone, same way as they won't fight for a purse. But in boxing, right, that fellow could be in the Dominican Republic tomorrow fighting for a purse or in a state where they don't check on things, fighting for a purse. So you could still fight for a purse aside from going in and sparring. You know, there are people who still believe the more that you get hit in the head, you raise your threshold for injury. You become resistant to being knocked out. I can tell you, the more you get hit in the head, the dumber you get. Okay, and it does more and more damage.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  But there are still people who believe that. So there are sports where there's uncontrolled exposure and boxing is clearly one of them.

• 12:30Gary O'Reilly?

  How far are we away from addressing that issue where there's a daisy chain of federations, not just nationally, but globally, to ensure the protection of boxers from themselves and from their trainers and managers?

• 12:47Speaker 02

  You know, we were awfully close. John McCain introduced the bill in Congress for a federal regulatory body for boxing. This was years ago and it fell flat. Why? Because promoters, I mean, and it's like any other business. You have promoters who are really legitimate and do a legitimate job of protecting their fighters, protecting it. And then you've got the dark side of the sport, like every other sport. And those people were able to win out. So I would say we're nowhere near having a federal regulatory body.

• 13:23Chuck Nice?

  But you know, the other thing too, and if I can speak to this just from what I've been told, a full disclosure. So my dad was a welterweight boxer for a period of time. He was Golden Gloves and I never boxed because, you know, he would try to teach me how to box and I immediately knew that I was far too pretty to be hit in the face by anything.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Okay, so you're not a bull, wait, you're not a bull rider, but you may be a bull thrower.

• 13:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay. So, very nice, very nice, Doc. I see what you did there. But I know this for a fact. I said to my dad, why did you box? When he, because he thought he was going to become a professional boxer? And he, my dad didn't grow up with a lot of money. And he was like, well, you box for two reasons. One is because you love boxing, you love fighting, you love the fight game. That's number one. Number two, for the money. Like it was that simple.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  It, well, you're right. And unfortunately, many boxers are on the fringe of society. It's always been the lowest socioeconomic level. Okay? People with real money aren't getting in that.

• 14:38Chuck Nice?

  They're not getting in the ring.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And a lot of times at the weigh-in, I'll have to disqualify a fighter just from the weigh-in. All right? That's where, that's where a lot of, that's where we eliminate a lot of fights. And so I'll eliminate people and they'll say stuff, you know, Doc, my other job is, you know, I deliver Chinese fruit. Okay? It's the only job I've been able to get since I got out of the joint. Okay? I need to get in that ring to make 400 bucks that night. Obviously, I don't let them get in.

• 15:07Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  But these are fairly desperate people in desperate times and are willing to sacrifice potential death to get in that ring.

• 15:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 15:17Gary O'Reilly?

  And you're the you're the only you're the only safety net. You're the only guardian that they've got between them and clocking out completely.

• 15:26Chuck Nice?

  So that lets me that makes me think. So, you know, we worked with we worked worked with. We had a show where we had on from the University of Dartmouth, the coaches who work with.

• 15:39Gary O'Reilly?

  Buddy Tevens from Dartmouth College.

• 15:42Chuck Nice?

  Thank you. Buddy Tevens from Dartmouth College. They work with robotic tackling dummies. And the reason why they do that is so that during the practice, they can have non-contact with the players during practice, yet they can still develop and hone the skill of tackling without the contact, and that reduces their neurological injury greatly. Is there anyone working on a way to perhaps have a virtual sparring for boxers so that they're not receiving contact during the practice version of the fight, or minimal contact so you would not

• 16:24Chuck Nice?

  spar as much? Or is it just that boxing is the type of skill and sport that when the two come together, it has to be done in order for you to be good at it?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I don't know of anybody developing kind of a virtual way of training as we have in football. You know, look how many years it took for us to figure out in football that the more you get tackled and the more contact you have, the more risk of injury. Okay, I mean, it took it took the Ivy League to figure that out.

• 16:57Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  But by the same token, in boxing, I just don't know. I think, you know, you'd have to ask that of someone who's an accomplished fighter or a fight trainer more than I would know. Neurologically, I'd say yes. Okay, you can develop reflexes. You can develop punch placement, but a lot of it is counter punching. A lot of it is based on what your opponent does. So it's it's a much more complex decision in boxing than it is in in football.

• 17:27Chuck Nice?

  It almost sounds like you have to get hit in order to be a great boxer.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 17:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. The odds are pretty certain that you will. So let's, let's think. The use of gloves against bare knuckle and the use of headguards, which is a must, is mandatory in amateur and the Olympics, but not in professional. Where, as a neurologist, would you stand on both the glove and the headguard issue?

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Great. Both of them. Anything that protects the brain more is going to be good. You know, boxing gets kind of a bad rap in the sense that I don't want people to think that this is some horrible sport. It's actually, you know, when I do physicals on athletes, boxers are in probably the best overall condition on average than any other athlete. I mean, let's face it, heart rates are down into the 40s, low 50s. These, these people at that level are in phenomenal condition. So many people, many young men and women now have taken up to get into shape.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  So there are gyms all over where people are not necessarily getting in and sparring all out. So boxing is a great sport. If you want to develop good fitness, good coordination. Heck, I'm a neurologist. I have patients with Parkinson's disease who now have taken up boxing because we found that the rhythm of boxing helps them walk and keep their balance. Now, granted, they're not getting in and sparring, but they're doing the same drills in the same gym, learning how to hit the bag. So it's very interesting to see the benefits of boxing rather than, so there's a whole range here we're dealing with in boxing. So helmets and gloves, great.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Can you sell that at the professional level at Madison Square Garden? Heck, no.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  Well, listen, you know, we're out of time. We've gone, oh, we've actually gone overtime. But what a great place to leave that is that there is a great, a lot of, a lot of positivity in boxing. And, uh, and you're right, people don't want to see, you know, there's just something about the mano a mano competition that makes people, when you put on protection, they feel as though you're cheating for some reason. So maybe it's up to us, not the boxers, to change our appetite for the way we consume the sport. Instead of leaving, putting the onus on the sport itself to change for us. So who knows?

• 20:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, absolutely agree. Uh, Anthony Alessi, uh, a pleasure, sir, an education.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Let's do it again tomorrow.

• 20:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Doctor, thank you so much. Uh, we're going to take a break. When we come back, it's going to be a tough act to follow, but we might just have something to keep you interested. Sugar, Ray and Leonard will appear in a sentence and on the show when we get back after this break.

• 20:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Welcome back to Playing with Science. It is our boxing special, and I say special for one simple reason. We are joined by a man who has heard this so many times. He's probably wincing with embarrassment, but it is Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers.

• 21:01Chuck Nice?

  Of all time.

• 21:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Of all time.

• 21:04Chuck Nice?

  Of all time.

• 21:06Gary O'Reilly?

  This guy didn't just win a world title in one weight division. He went through several.

• 21:12Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 21:13Gary O'Reilly?

  He is part of what is, what history has come to learn as the Fab Four, the Fabulous Four, not the Beatles, but Duran.

• 21:21Chuck Nice?

  Hearns.

• 21:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Hagler.

• 21:23Chuck Nice?

  And Sugar Ray Leonard.

• 21:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I make no apologies for saying during the eighties, I was, even back in the UK, a major, major fan. Chuck, I know you've just gone ultra fan.

• 21:36Chuck Nice?

  Are you kidding me?

• 21:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 21:38Chuck Nice?

  So first of all, like, you know, everybody knows Sugar Ray Leonard and hello, sir. Welcome to the show, by the way.

• 21:44Gary O'Reilly?

  That's it.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  Thank you, guys.

• 21:47Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and, you know, so it's, and, and, and you, and clearly, like, you know, it's funny when, when people say, Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers of all time, they don't even put the pound per pound per pound in front of it. They don't even put, like, in the weight class, they don't even put, like, in the time that he fought. You're up there with all the great names, and on top of that, your, your, your, your boxing name, your, your actual name is named after Ray Charles, the singer, and then your boxing name is named after great Sugar Ray Robinson.

• 22:26Chuck Nice?

  Man, you set yourself up for failure so many times, but yet you still came through as a champion. How, you know that gotta feel good.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  It, it, it feels great. I mean, I had no real say in that. I, when I called, well, my mom, my mom named me after Sugar Ray Charles.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  Because she was a big fan, right?

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  Yep.

• 22:47Speaker 03

  I named myself Sugar Ray because Sugar Ray Robinson was my, one of my idols, besides Muhammad Ali.

• 22:55Chuck Nice?

  Fantastic, man. And you've lived up to the name, without a doubt. So, you know, um, you know, we're talking about, in this show, science and the sport itself. And they call boxing the sweet science. And when you ask people that, why do they call boxing the sweet science? You get a lot of different answers, but mostly it's like, well, it's because you got a hit while not getting hit. It's not about just power, it's not about just speed, it's about skill and strategy and all of these different things that come together to make a boxer great. What does it mean to you when you hear the sweet science? What does that mean to you?

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Well, for me, there is a sweet science to boxing.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  When I first saw and became a major fan of Muhammad Ali, he, and Sugar Ray Robinson, I mean, I can go down, I can go down the line of great fighters that fought with not just power, but they, it was like, the fight was almost choreographed. The fight was all, it was so much more intuitive. No one went to go to the body, no one to...

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Wait your man out for a round or two before you figure out what style or what punch would be more effective. It's it's it is the sweetest science of boxing. Without the sweetest science of boxing, I could not have beaten Marvin, this Marvin Hagler. I could not have beaten Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearne. I mean, the list goes on.

• 24:27Gary O'Reilly?

  When did you realize as a boxer, you had more than enough tools to dismantle an opponent? And as you say, it might be a couple of setup moves for you to do something later in the round, later in the bout, or it might be something where you just strategize. When did you realize it wasn't just about punching, but the the mental application?

• 24:49Speaker 03

  It was as an amateur, amateur boxer. I remember vividly, I fought this guy named Bobby McGruder.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  And he was what they call an open fighter. I was a novice fighter because I had maybe a year or two of experience and he had like five years or longer. And the way I beat him was to break him down, was to stay on the outside, was be not be a stationary target,

• 25:18Speaker 03

  to use my hand speed. So at that early age, I learned that there's a better way to defeat your opponent.

• 25:28Chuck Nice?

  Awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. I'm going to ask you this about your punch, okay? Just, you know, went back and I watched a few of your your fights from back in the day. Just it's, man, I tell you, it's it's it's just a thing of beauty to watch. And when you punched, you seemed to punch like a golf swing with a fist on the end of it. It wasn't like it was controlled. It was using your torso. You were punching through. I mean, is is that an illusion or is all that stuff actually happening? Are you, you know, is that was that what's happening? You look like you were using your whole body, your torso, the the way a golfer like swings through the ball.

• 26:12Chuck Nice?

  That's the way you seem to punch through your opponent. Is that what was going on?

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Well, if you don't have the fundamentals to know how to execute the proper punch.

• 26:24Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  It's like, you're not tight, cuz you, you, you, cuz speed is, is, that's pretty quick, quick. Uh, speed is, you can't teach that. You really can't teach that. You can teach accuracy, but you can't teach speed. Speed is a gift. But getting back to that, speed, your hands gotta be loose, your arms gotta be loose, and you don't make contact, and once you make contact, that's when you make the fist. You understand what I'm saying, Chuck? It's like pow, pow.

• 26:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, right.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  If you were closer, I could, I could show you how it's done.

• 26:57Chuck Nice?

  Don't worry, I felt it through the screen, man.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  But it, it, it is a science, it is a sweet science. Like even body shots, which at times is a lost art form, body shots are tactics too, that really drops you, it makes your opponent's hands drop, and, and also, you know, it's the combination, it's the combinations. It's all, it's all scientific.

• 27:24Chuck Nice?

  When you talk about strategy, when you were talking about how, like, you know, um, you, when you're dropping an opponent's hands because you're working his body, you know, and then, and the combinations, and so, let's go to one of my favorite fights of all time, and it's Roberto Duran, of course, okay, and it's the second fight, of course. And, um, the cool thing about this fight is. So many cool things. So many cool things. The number one cool thing is that you had the presence of mind to ask for a fight right away, uh, as opposed, and, and everybody didn't want you to do it. So first, can you tell us about that? Why did you do that?

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Duran, first of all, Roberto Duran, first fight. He, he took me out of my game plan.

• 28:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:10Speaker 03

  He got inside my head. And although he didn't really speak English, he, he got into my head. And I, I, I hated the guy. I mean, I hate, I've never seen anyone so rude and intimidating. I mean, he was, I mean, probably Mike Tyson, he was the most intimidating guy out there, man.

• 28:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  I mean, he was, he was a maniac. And he got into my head. So, uh, he, cause he cursed my wife out, he cursed me out, he pushed me, all those kind of things. And I wanted, I said, you know what, I know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna beat him at his own game. And when that, see, when I thought about that, it's even during the fight, man, when he was hitting me hard, I didn't think about changing it. I, I wanted to knock him out.

• 28:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Let me.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  So right away, he had me beat. He had me beat.

• 28:58Gary O'Reilly?

  So I, I wanna, I wanna visit a moment in this fight. I know Chuck's asked you about the rematch and we'll get to that for you, with you. You weren't world champion at this point, were you? Cause this fight was in Montreal against Duran, the first time you'd fought him. You are getting taken apart with all due respect. You must have gone somewhere. An athlete like yourself, a boxer, when that situation confronts him, has to go somewhere. Find something, bring it up. It's the stuff that will make a world champion. So where did you go? What did you find? And how did you use it?

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Well, that first fight in June of nineteen eighty in Montreal, he hit me so hard, I swear, I, I contemplated retirement.

• 29:48Gary O'Reilly?

  That's rough. That is rough.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  He hit me so, he hit me so hard. And I'm like, pow, pow, pow. Then I kinda, I looked around like, who else is in this goddamn ring?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  I mean, they call him Hands of Stone.

• 30:02Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I said, I don't need this anymore. I, I can, I can like, let this go. And I really, I seriously contemplated, but I took my wife to Hawaii after the fight and I, you know, I was all beat up. They drew blood from my ears because I wouldn't get cauliflower ears because, you know, he, he did that kind of stuff with his, with his gloves. And they, it was so bad, man. I mean, I was hurting places I shouldn't be hit. And, uh, after the fight, I said, you know, I may, I may let this, I may, I may, I may retire.

• 30:35Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  But once, once I went to Hawaii with my wife, just to get away, and I'm young, so I bounced back. Then fans were telling me, Ray, if you beat, if you box hack, beat boxer Durant, you would beat him. I said, I want to be, I want to beat this guy. And I, and I knew his lifestyle, that he would go from one forty seven to maybe two, two forty, two twenty. He gained that much weight.

• 31:01Chuck Nice?

  That's serious.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  And so that was Sweet Size Two, by the way.

• 31:05Chuck Nice?

  Hmm, right, right, right. So let me ask you this. When you come back and you're fighting the same fighter, right? Now, he's already figured out, like, okay, this is what this guy is gonna do. Now you know, this is what this guy is gonna do. Okay, how do you change the way you're going to approach him so that he's not coming at you? So that you're not coming at him the same way? Do you get a sparring partner that, that's like him? Do you, what, do you, do you work on film? What do you do? What, what happens to change your fight?

• 31:39Speaker 03

  All, all of that, all of that. I, I studied the tapes of the first fight, which was hard. I studied the tapes of fights that he's had and how he dominated, physically dominated his opponent.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  And me being a, a more versatile than I displayed. I had box, had sparring partners come who was similar to Duran, rough, tough, body punchers, short, kind of a mixture of Roberta Duran.

• 32:09Chuck Nice?

  Uh huh, yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  No one like Duran, Duran has his own thing.

• 32:13Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  But I was, I was prepared to box him, to use my jab, to use my hand speed.

• 32:19Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, by the way, when you say to box him, it's the perfect way to put it. When you look at that fight and you look at the way you are up on your toes and what was most impressive, I wouldn't say most impressive, very impressive, you look like Muhammad Ali, the way you were using the ring. Like you kept him from being in the position that he wanted to be in. You kept shifting and shifting and shifting and, and dancing and, and I don't mean like dancing, showboating, even though you did some of that, which, which really freaked him the, I mean, that freaked him out. But you really, I mean, that's, that is, that's strategy too, right? Just not allowing the boxer to box his own fight, right?

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Chuck, you, you right on time. I came back with something totally different. It was a totally different fighter, totally, totally different, uh, uh, uh, tactics and stuff. I was moving, didn't let him get set, didn't let, didn't, didn't remain a stationary target. Using my jab, using my hand speed. He was so frustrated from the very beginning that he knew it was gonna be over.

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  And, but I tell you what, even what made it even more, uh, cause I was more convinced that I could beat this guy, was Ray Charles, my namesake, sang America the Beautiful. I was like, it's over, baby. It's over, it's done. You know what I mean? Cause I, I believe in biorhythms, I believe in getting up on the right side of the bed. I believe in this is your day, cause even when you go into the studios, sometimes there's a time that you're not, you just don't have, you're just not sharp. That night.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  In New Orleans, everything was perfect. Everything, my weight, my training, my sparring partners, everything was perfect. It was all, I can say the styles were lined up.

• 34:11Gary O'Reilly?

  You had, if I'm not mistaken, you had Angelo Dundee as your trainer at this particular moment in time. And Chuck mentions you look like Ali in the ring. How much of that Ali know-how did Dundee bring to your boxing?

• 34:28Speaker 03

  He can't bring that. No one can, no one can do Ali. Ali was, Ali was Muhammad Ali.

• 34:35Gary O'Reilly?

  I understand that.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  You know, but I, I knew I had to be mobile to beat Roberto Duran. You can't stand, it's like standing toe-to-toe with, with marvelous Marvin Hagler.

• 34:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 34:52Speaker 03

  At the end of the day, it's not gonna, it's not gonna be a nice day.

• 34:55Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  If you stand toe-toe with Marvin Hagler, just like with Roberto Duran. And he was, you know, Durant was like a bully.

• 35:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  And when I stood up to him and people were laughing when I was doing this and pow.

• 35:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  And that was, again, that was all intuitive. And, and people were laughing at this guy.

• 35:14Gary O'Reilly?

  You didn't script that before the fight. You just, that just came straight out of you.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, you can't, you can't, you don't practice that. Practice this.

• 35:24Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh man, that's, no one had that much fun in a ring in a world title fight ever, not apart from Ali. But you took it to another level that night.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Another level. Oh yeah. And, and he, he blew a fuse.

• 35:37Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  He blew a fuse. He, he was so, cause he was, again, he was, I mean, not, not bully, bully, but he was a bully, had a bully mentality.

• 35:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes, he did.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  Intimidate you.

• 35:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  But now people are laughing. So he has to do one or two things. He has to stop it or run away.

• 35:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. Just like, just like bullies do.

• 36:02Chuck Nice?

  Now let me ask you this, Sugar Ray, cuz I'm really interested. What is better for a fighter?

• 36:10Gary O'Reilly?

  I know what you're gonna ask.

• 36:11Chuck Nice?

  A pugilist of your caliber? What is? What is better for you to knock a man out? Or to make him give up?

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Give up.

• 36:28Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  There's, there is, get for a fighter to give up. And I, again, I, I, Roberto Duran and I, good friends. We, we, we love each other. But that night, I really felt, I felt sorry for, I felt bad for him, man. Because to give up, for a fighter to give up, for a champion to give up, to quit. It, it doesn't get any darker or deeper than that.

• 36:54Chuck Nice?

  Right, right, right.

• 36:55Gary O'Reilly?

  The interesting thing is in Montreal in the previous fight, when he was asked afterwards, he said he's still alive because of his heart. Yet you got him to turn his back and quit. That, I mean, how, how does the man wanna get back into the ring with you after that? There's no way. There's no way back psychologically.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's, you, you so defeated. And the only, the only way you can come back is to do something drastic. And although he, he, Duran after the no masquerade, he came back and won titles again. And he, um, he came back, he, he, you know, he's honored, he came back.

• 37:38Gary O'Reilly?

  When, when you were training, uh, was it the, the skipping rope, the hard miles, the, the old school training? Or did you embrace new thinking? You talked about how intuitive and biorhythms are important to you. Did you embrace new, new thinking of the particular of the eighties and such in the nineties?

• 37:57Speaker 03

  No, that was a good, that's a good question. But no, because that was no, no, that was Buddha. Uh, we didn't lift weights, we didn't do no, we didn't incorporate other things besides, you know, doing your road work, running three, four, five miles. Uh, no weights, uh, as far as nutrition, eating.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Uh, eat a, I guess eat a, hell, chicken, fried chicken. I eat fried chicken.

• 38:22Chuck Nice?

  Who doesn't?

• 38:23Speaker 03

  No, I, I eat fried chicken and biscuits.

• 38:26Chuck Nice?

  Chicken and steak and biscuits.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Sweet potatoes.

• 38:31Gary O'Reilly?

  So, how did you work, how did you work that through the weight divisions for your own boxing style?

• 38:36Speaker 03

  I never had a problem with weights. I never had a problem with making weight as a professional fighter. Uh, you know, I just, I mean, I ate, I ate strong, eat, eat heavy, but, um, um, I don't know. I just didn't, I didn't allow myself to be too, too happy, put it that way. I wasn't too happy. I didn't get too big.

• 38:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Are you training fighters right now? Do you, are you still involved?

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Uh, no, no, I, I, I've been out of the, I'm with Dzone now. I, I do, uh, boxing commentary, which I love.

• 39:11Gary O'Reilly?

  No, no, I, I understand that, yeah, yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, I'm still close to boxing, man. I'm watching these incredible talents, uh, get out there and show, and show the world who they are.

• 39:22Chuck Nice?

  Right. Hey, uh, speaking of that, speaking, speaking of boxing talent, let me ask you why, now, you know, you were part of a very exciting group of boxers.

• 39:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, for sure.

• 39:34Chuck Nice?

  And, um, you know, you kind of like filled that void where there was like no heavyweights, right? And now here we are back in that time again, you know, you have the, the, the, the lighter weight classes. There's no interest in heavyweight fighting. Why, why do you think that is? Is it because there's no talent? Or is it just because the lighter weights are faster? They seem more exciting? I mean, what, why do you think that is?

• 40:03Speaker 03

  You know, Chuck, it's all that. It's all that combined, mixed up and everything else because when I came on the scene, Muhammad Ali was about to leave.

• 40:13Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  Uh, leave the stage, I should say, or leave the ring. And, uh, because back in the day when I was fighting, back in nineteen seventy six, seventy seven on up to the eighties, uh, boxing was on network television, free TV and NBC, CBS, ABC. So we were out there and we had a platform that, so we became a kind of household name. It was just, it was just a different time.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:41Speaker 03

  But, uh, again, there's just so much talent out there that, um,

• 40:47Speaker 03

  People say boxing is boxing is dying. Boxing is not dying. It takes a black eye, a black eye every now and then, but it bounces back, you know? I mean, look at the Floyd Mayweather fight with Conor McGregor.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Was it a fight? Not really, but it was a spectacle. It was entertainment. It went longer than I thought it would. And the only person that could have made that happen was Floyd Mayweather.

• 41:11Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, right.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  You know, and Conor McGregor, like Muhammad Ali fought a wrestler. Do you remember that? Antonio Anokhi.

• 41:18Chuck Nice?

  Yes, yeah. It seems like there's an interest that waxes and wanes, but at the same time, it always comes back, you know? Always comes back.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  It always comes back and

• 41:30Speaker 03

  so many fans out there.

• 41:32Gary O'Reilly?

  And that said, people are drawn to it. It is brutal. It can be brutal. But as you've shown it, it can be artistic, scientific.

• 41:42Chuck Nice?

  Poetic.

• 41:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Elegant. And that place where you go when it's not right to pull something out of your being so as you don't turn your back. You don't quit. You stay in there and you box. That's, that's making of a human being.

• 41:59Chuck Nice?

  I call that place the fetal position. Yes.

• 42:02Gary O'Reilly?

  See, that's all happening when someone's trying to knock your lights out. This, this, the environment you operated in was, is just amazing.

• 42:12Speaker 03

  I'm so, I'm like, you know what? You're a modern day of what I used to do. I'm, because I am non-controversial. I am, uh, I'm not really, uh, I guess, I'm so, but I can hit a switch and I can go there. And I love what I've accomplished. I mean, Muhammad Ali told me many years ago, he said, Ray, when I fought Joe Frazier the third time, it was the closest thing to death. And I looked at him like, wow, that's crazy. But I, I, I experienced it with, with Duran, with Hearns, with, with Hagler. Uh, I mean, I, the list goes on and the list goes on.

• 42:49Gary O'Reilly?

  But that moment, did you, did you have to go to that moment in your career to rise?

• 42:56Speaker 03

  You reach down.

• 42:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  And, and, and we all have that, that hit and miss ball of strength. We have it. But what separates us is the ability to activate it.

• 43:05Chuck Nice?

  Hmm.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  To make it happen.

• 43:06Chuck Nice?

  So true. So very, very true. Wow, man. That is, uh, that is, uh.

• 43:12Gary O'Reilly?

  So I've got a young, I've got a young Sugar Ray Leonard now, two thirty, two thousand and eighteen. He's twenty one. He's a bit cocky. He's got great hand speed. He can sting like a butterfly, et cetera, et cetera. How's he gonna be? Is he gonna be like that guy I saw in the seventies and the eighties? Or would he do it different?

• 43:31Speaker 03

  What does he do? You know what? You, you talk trash. It's okay. It's okay. You talk, unless you're back, because you have to back it up.

• 43:37Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  And you have to believe in yourself, because if you don't, no one else will. And you have to go for it. And there are no shortcuts. Put it that way. There is no shortcuts to success in any facet of life. Go out there, do your thing, and don't tell people how great you are. Let them tell you how great they think you are.

• 43:57Chuck Nice?

  Very nice.

• 43:58Gary O'Reilly?

  Isn't it?

• 43:58Chuck Nice?

  Man. Aw, man. Well, that's as good a place as any to end this. Don't tell people how great you are. Let them tell you how great they think you are. That is grace. And you can't do that in a mirror, right? Cause, okay. I'm just saying, Sugar Ray. I'm just saying.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  You can try it.

• 44:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 44:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, the problem is when the mirror talks back.

• 44:23Chuck Nice?

  Hey, Sugar Ray, man. Thanks so much for joining us.

• 44:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Thank you, sir.

• 44:27Chuck Nice?

  Unbelievable, unbelievable, man. I mean, you're still the greatest, brother. You're still the greatest.

• 44:31Gary O'Reilly?

  And he's ridiculously handsome, isn't he?

• 44:33Chuck Nice?

  Uh, well, you know what? By the way, I gotta admit, okay? This is, if you're gonna be a boxer, I, you know, you and Muhammad Ali did it right. Uh, you stay good-looking.

• 44:48Chuck Nice?

  Don't get your face all moved around.

• 44:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Man's been a thrill and a pleasure. There you go. Movement, that's the key. Hey, such a pleasure to talk to you, Sugar Ray. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Bye bye. Oh. Oh, I'm gonna sit and smile for about three days now. Unbelievable, man. Um, that is just a thrill, Chuck. Yeah. To hear one of the greatest of all time. Tell you how. Tell you how, tell you what it takes to get to where you need to be. It's awesome. We are pleased you spent the time with us. So from Chuck and myself. Yep, I'm about to get on the subway and punch somebody. No, he's not. Um. Don't, please. Right, that's been Playing with Science, and no, he won't be doing it to anybody.

• 45:37Gary O'Reilly?

  He's shunned violence. Thank you. Till next time.