All language subtitles for Champs (2014) (Champs.2014.1080P.Amzn.Web-Dl.Ddp2.0.H.264-Thr.m4v) (ENGLISH)

I'm the youngest
of nine in my family.

As you can see, I'm
black, born black, and came

from, you know, people
called it the ghetto.

My mother didn't read,
my father didn't read,

and so, you know,
they were a hard worker.

And that was my beginning.

You live in a project, people
throw their trash on the ground.

We was a family that picked the
trash up and put it in the dumpster.

And, you know, people
look and would laugh at us.

My mother said, you
know, you live in this

environment, you don't
have to be like that.

Of course, people had money and
they used their money in the wrong way.

My mother didn't
buy clothes or toys.

She bought food.

She know that this is what
we need to be able to live.

My upbringing was four
sisters, three brothers.

Coming out of
Philadelphia, it's a task itself,

especially in the inner
city called North Philly.

In the morning, we get
up, my mother saying, okay,

get up, get up, ready
to school, this and that.

You had to ration out two cans of pork and
beans with six kids and try to mix other

stuff in there to call it
something different, mom.

It's the same pork and beans.

It just got other meats in it
to make it something else.

My father was one of those guys that
got up every day, did what he had to do.

I never seen him sell drugs or anything
like that, but I know that he used drugs.

I know that he drank.

So I had the two parents structure in the
house, but it was a family where we you

know, we was, we tight, but it was
some things that wasn't as, as I would say,

normal family would be.

The worst characteristic you can think
of black life is where I stemmed from,

lot of drugs, tons of violence.

Mom's parents, old
women, they, they was in the

sex industry and stuff
and that's what they did.

We weren't safe in the house.

We were always vulnerable.

A lot of men.

Sleep with my sister, beat me.

There was a pattern of
abuse that Mike experienced.

Bullies in the neighborhood,
which routinely would pick on him.

But also, Mike was
beaten by his mother.

His father was
pretty much absent.

My mother was very promiscuous.

It was just the way life was.

Everybody I knew had just their mother
at home or their mother's boyfriend.

Nobody was ever his father.

I don't know that well.

My whole world is just
lost kids with broken homes.

You know, forget poverty.

I don't care how much
money you get or fame.

Forget that.

Poverty hurts and leaves an
everlasting impression on you.

Poverty has its own
self-perpetuating logic.

When you are strapped for cash, and
you need to survive in the short term,

you start to adopt certain practices that
in the long term end up preventing you

from taking advantage of all the

opportunities that may
be out there for you.

We came to an era where
it really got a little worse.

Where nobody had anything.

You couldn't tease me
about my mother being

on welfare because your
mother was on welfare.

Childhood poverty often leads to adult
poverty and you get locked in these ruts.

So not only are there
these worse environments,

but they find it much
harder to escape.

All these ills work together to create
very strong barriers to upward mobility.

And very hard to still believe
the American Dream is out there.

The American Dream is
something that we're all proud

of, we all embrace, yet
it's a little bit dangerous.

America may be one of the richest
countries in the world, but we also have

the largest pockets of poverty
in the developed countries.

One in five children in the
United States grows up in poverty.

America has, by far, the
most unequal distribution

of income and wealth
in the developed world.

Yet, the idea of the
American Dream is, in a

sense, what keeps the
whole system running.

I know what it is when people
move away from you because

they think that they're
going to catch what you got.

They think they're going to
get poor if they get to know you.

I was just always
searching for something.

I didn't like my life at home, so I
wanted to have a family somewhere else.

I tried to find a new family.

People that I hung around was
in the same situation that I was in.

You went on like you
was going to school, but in

reality, we was in the area,
but not in the classroom.

We stayed around the school,
but not actually in the school.

And eventually, people do find out, but
after a while, you get lost in the system.

When I went to school, they said
we wasn't going to be anything.

They said we were
going to be statistics.

You're not articulate.

You don't know your
ABCs, your little simple stuff.

My momma always say,
so they read better than you.

Who the fastest in your school?

I said, fastest in what?

She said running.

Who run the fastest?

I ran to everybody.

My momma, there's things that
you do better than that person.

I said, but momma,
they don't talk about that.

Your day will come.

My goal wasn't to be the
President of the United States.

My goal was to be the
baddest guy that I can be.

We just basically looked at
school as being no fun, no action.

And if you do catch us there, this
gym where we get to play basketball,

we get to do things that we
thought that was more important

than reading and writing,
and science and history.

I stopped going to school
because people were kicking my ass.

And I just walked around
the school until school

was over because I didn't
want to get my ass kicked.

One day these guys came
around, three or four guys.

They pinned me up against the wall
and they said, hey, yo, got any money?

I said, no.

So the guy says this, he
says, do you want to fly with us?

And I didn't know him.

He's a kid, 10 or 9.

I said, okay.

So I'm helping these
guys to this building.

This is like an
abandoned building.

And I see a box and it's
pigeons and pigeons are flying.

I said, what the hell?

Now I know it's a place to hang
out with birds and these guys.

So I said, okay, I'd rather be there
than be in school and get bullied.

So I went back to the coop.

I said, didn't need me
to do anything for you.

I said, yeah.

And he took me robbing houses.

And, um, whoa.

And, um, he didn't
give me much money.

But he bought me clothes.

Yeah.

He bought me clothes.

There are a number of reasons, I think,
why he kind of embraced the thug life.

One of which is if you have a community
of people who are watching your back,

then you're going
to be protected.

And now he's buying the
coolest velour sweatsuits.

And he's buying ski goggles, even though
he's never been anywhere near a ski slope.

And he's buying
the greatest kicks.

So now, you know, status in that
environment is who looks the coolest.

The role models that I seen
was the people in the street.

The pimps, the number
riders, the hustlers.

They had the cars,
they had the jewelry, they

had all the things that
shines in your face.

As you grow up and
you grow up fast, you

get to know what
they're doing is not right.

But got them a lot of things
and made them live different

or better than every working
class person in the streets.

That's the situation for a
lot of young people out there.

You know, they can step off
the porch with all the values

in the world that mom gave
them and dad can give them.

When they step off that porch into that
den, they got to deal with it accordingly.

You can go out there and turn
the other cheek if you want to.

All they're going to do is hit you in
the head and take that earring too.

So you had to adapt.

Those that adapt well become
predators out there themselves.

To me, it wasn't a hard choice.

I was the type of guy that had
no conscience of value of my life.

And repercussions of what I do.

When you think that the value of your life
is not that much concern on your actions,

then that is a time
bomb waiting to blow.

Ain't no rules.

You don't get disqualified for busting
a nigga over the head with something.

When you get hurt
badly, either your fear

consumes you or you
become a bit insensitive.

Either you're going to
be a punk or you're going

to start to harden up
a little bit following that.

When you find yourself,
you make it clear to

people that you don't
have a problem with it.

As a matter of fact, make
them feel like you want this shit.

In an environment that I grew up in,
which was animal, which was survival of

the fittest, which was do or
die, you have to be strategic.

Very few of us grow up in
fear because we live in this.

And we're told early
we can't be afraid of it.

Whenever we're confronted with an obstacle
in the streets of a physical nature,

the first thing we think of is
how to dissect the obstacle.

My dream started off
when a coach told me I

could be the heavyweight
champion of the world.

And I asked him, what was it?

And he said, Muhammad Ali.

He said, do you
know Muhammad Ali?

I said, yeah.

And he said, you
can be just like that.

My first goal was to
be the boys club champ.

I wanted to be great
because I already know how

it feels not to be great
because I grew up at it.

In one fight, I became
the boys club champ.

Every year, I would
win a tournament.

Boxing is interesting.

In that it's an escape
from the violence and

the poverty of many
American neighborhoods.

But you're escaping
through violence itself.

People who fight, fight
their way out of something.

Whether it's poverty,
whether it's jail.

Rich kids don't fight.

Why the fuck would
a rich kid fight?

You know, poor kids fight.

You want to fight your
way to a different place.

Boxing gives you a chance to
literally fight your way through it.

Boxers succeed based
on their own work.

If you keep winning and you
keep succeeding, chances

are eventually you're
going to get an opportunity.

Boxing is the ultimate
representation of the American dream.

It allows someone who came
from nothing to achieve greatness.

It's about his talent, his own
skill, and his own determination.

Boxing is such a special sport.

I think most people
don't choose boxing.

I think boxing chooses them.

You know, disadvantaged childhood,
less fortunate kids in tough communities.

And, you know, we grew
up boxing at the boys club.

We were able to go there and, you know,
we had somebody who cared about us,

wanted to take us off the streets
and give us something to do.

If you look at the history of boxing over
time, you will see some of the cultures

and ethnicities that
have suffered the most

have always produced
the greatest champions.

Boxing both attracts and preys upon
talent from disadvantaged communities.

And it's almost like you can read a chart
of history of disadvantage, in the United

States at least, of which groups are
struggling to make it and then which

groups have made it, when they
disappear really from the boxing scene.

Especially in America where you had
the immigrants, you had the Jewish boxers,

the Irish boxers, the Italian American
boxers, African American boxers.

Now it's, I would say,
predominately Hispanic boxers now.

There's a certain generation with
Mike and Evander and Bernard,

black kids who were disadvantaged
and saw boxing as a way out.

I lived in an all black neighborhood and
everybody said white boys couldn't fight.

And that's my first time
experiencing that people tell

you lies because that kid was
white and he beat me twice.

I told the coach that I quit.

I told him I didn't want
to fight no more because I

didn't think you could actually
be a champion if you lost.

So I went home and told my
mom I lost and I told her I quit.

And she told me something that
just had to impact my life even now.

She's a son.

Everything is not going
to always go your way.

If you quit, you'll never
reach your destination.

She said, what is
your destination?

I said, be the heavyweight
champion of the world.

Of course, I went back
and I finally beat him.

And that fight kind of changed
my whole aspect about winning.

I kept getting in
trouble with the law.

One particular time I got in
trouble and I went upstate New York.

I had a reputation as
a troublemaker there.

I had to be locked
down most of the time.

You couldn't go outside
with the rest of the kids.

Weekends, I would see
guys going the other side.

And I would say,
what's going on?

Because I would see guys coming back,
swollen eyes, busted nose, busted lips.

The most interesting thing
about it is that they were happy.

When they would come back,
they're all beat up, but they're happy.

And I would say, what's
going on over there?

And they said, Mr. Stewart
is boxing with the inmate.

Mr. Stewart is probably
160 pounds, white, Irish guy.

I never fought before
with gloves on in my life.

I didn't know I could beat
Mr. Stewart, this white ass.

I didn't know I could beat him.

I'm just flaring away.

And he hit me in my
stomach and I went down.

And I started throwing up
everything I ate for two days.

I was just, wah.

So I actually
started teaching me.

He wouldn't teach me unless I
started behaving around the facilities.

And once I made my honor roll, I
started doing one of those schoolies.

And he started
teaching me how to box.

Bobby Stewart immediately
saw the potential in Mike.

And Bobby said, if
you're serious about this,

I'll take you to see
this old guy in Catskill.

As soon as Cus DeMata saw me
spar, he was planning my life out for me.

First day he met me.

Cus was the kind of gruff guy.

Didn't display any emotion.

At the end of that session, Cus
turned to Bobby and said, this

guy's going to be the future
heavyweight champ of the world.

At that time, I didn't know.

I was about to be
paroled back to New York.

And he didn't want me
to go back because he

believed I would get
in trouble, like get killed.

He asked me would I be
interested in staying with him.

And I said, why?

Sure.

I didn't want to go
back to that disgusting,

wretched tenement
that we lived in.

This guy had wonderful,
like, 14-room mansions.

Roads and that stuff.

I never saw that stuff.

For the beginning of that period,
Mike was still living in two worlds.

While he was in Brownsville,
he'd fall in with his

old friends and they'd
go out and start jostling.

Mike's first street
mentor, this guy, Barkeem.

I think they saw some pictures of Mike,
you know, with Cus and with Camille.

And they looked and
they said, man, Mike, these

white people, it looks
like they love you.

And Mike said, yeah,
yeah, they love me.

And he goes, Barkeem says,
what are you doing here, man?

If I had white people that love
me, I wouldn't stick around here.

And everybody in the neighborhood
is telling Mike, go, get out of here.

At least 30% of
all the families in

Brownsville at that time
had no father figures.

I think when we look at
boxing, we see a number

of men who grew up
without a father in the home.

But what's key
is they grew up in

circumstances where
the family was redefined.

The trainers became part
of this larger extended family.

Cus would tell Mike
that he was a colossus.

He was a titan.

And he's telling him this
and building up his ego

to a person who has
absolutely no self-esteem.

So it's a very tricky situation.

I heard about this heavyweight that
they were saying this guy is dangerous.

He's from Customato's camp.

And he was trained
by Kevin Rooney.

When I finally seen him, I was like,
man, you know, he was like, he was going

through fighters like
a hot knife on butter.

No!

When I saw him, I
knew he was special.

North Philly was
known for a lot of fighters

back in the 60s,
70s, and in the 80s.

I got introduced
to the amateurs.

And I had the talent.

I had the skills.

But then as time
went on, eventually I

started getting respect
as a street fighter.

And I shot away from boxing.

Every time I got stabbed, which was
more than once, crazy as it might seem,

it gave more stock
to who you are.

In 1984, I was put in
jail for taking money.

At that time, I blamed the system
for everything, even for my ignorance.

That same year, my
brother got in a fight.

And a guy pulled a gun out.

He tried to run.

He got shot.

They couldn't find him
because he ran down the street.

And when they found him,
he was laying across the street.

Across the grass.

So can you imagine my mom?

It had to be hard on
her to bury one son.

And then get to see me being
escorted by the sheriff's department

from prison to view the body
and then go back to prison.

So basically, she lost two sons.

So 1984 was a really
challenging year.

In 1984, Mike and myself, we were
both trying to make the Olympic team.

There was a big emphasis
placed back then, especially on the

idea of your amateur experience
and this Olympic experience.

It was very much a place where
your worth was going to be determined.

Holyfield and Tyson got an early taste of
what the other was about at the Olympics.

That's when I got a
chance to see him train.

I'm one of the guys who kind
of pride myself in working hard.

And when I work in the
gym, I'm with him and

I'd seen all the things
that he would do.

I was just amazed.

I was like, God,
you know, shoot.

17 years old, he's
just a kid, man.

He's the only person in the gym
that I could admit that I worked with.

I didn't think nobody
was going to beat him.

Mike unfortunately lost to
a guy named Henry Tillman.

Didn't make the Olympic team.

He was voted as an alternate.

You know, I went
to Olympic trials.

I didn't make the Olympics.

But the experience of going to
the Olympics was just incredible.

Evander Holyfield, he was just
very competitive in the Olympics.

He was just very hungry.

Very hungry fighter.

And he fought just my man, me.

He was going to win the most
outstanding fight, I thought.

Because he was
knocking out everybody.

He was beating everybody easily.

Evander Holyfield,
United States of America.

Kevin Barry, New Zealand.

Holyfield came
into the competition.

The unknown American.

But he's known now.

And he's only 21 years old.

Look at Holyfield.

He's ready.

He's got the
opponent hurt again.

He's ready to put him away.

Even though there's no blood.

Oh, there it goes.

You saw that.

It was in.

Evander launches a
lethal hook that drops Barry.

And everybody thinks,
okay, fight's over.

Move on.

All of a sudden, the referee
starts motioning to the judge.

He starts motioning to Evander.

And nobody knows
exactly what's going on.

He is going to disqualify
Evander Holyfield.

He makes the
announcement that Evander is

disqualified for hitting
after he calls stop.

Nobody really heard
the referee say stop.

All they saw was
Evander drop the guy.

Holyfield got screwed royally.

He shouldn't have been
disqualified against Barry.

That was a joke.

Holyfield in total
command of the fight.

And I just don't
understand this rule.

Look at Holyfield's face.

What an untoward development.

Very conscious.

Controlling.

Controlling the anger.

Controlling the tongue.

I sit there and tuck it.

Howard Cosell made
me bigger than life.

This is unbelievable.

Holyfield holding
himself together.

A raging controversy
had reared its ugly head.

Bill Simon, the president
of the Los Angeles

Olympic Committee,
has gotten involved.

It really is a
full-blown controversy.

He wanted that gold medal.

But by responding to it the way he did,
not complaining, showing a lot of grace,

he probably emerged from that
Olympics as the most well-known

of all those boxers, even the
ones that had won the gold medal.

That became his launching
pad, was the Olympics,

while Mike had to begin
his pro career in obscurity.

Cuss got me into thinking about the
great fighters, and every time I failed,

I'd go read about their failures
and how they overcame their failures.

Mike had a very high
skill set, and he had a

profound understanding of
boxing and boxing history.

And that's what
made him special.

When he wanted to know
something, he'd sit there and watch.

Numerous fights of
guys from the 50s and 40s

and 30s, he's like a
boxing encyclopedia.

What's the difference between a
good fighter and a great fighter?

It's how far they're willing to go and
how much they're willing to endure.

It's the hunger for the world.

You want to be their champion.

Once you get to know
Mike, you know he was a very

insecure human being,
a very insecure fighter.

So a lot of that tough guy
image and a lot of the talk and

the brashness was basically
to hide his own insecurities.

Every time he went in
the ring, he was scared.

It wasn't like he just
knew he was going to win.

But Mike also knew when he looked
in that opponent's eye, he'd seen fear.

As I was fighting, I realized these guys
were more afraid of me than I was of them.

And that's when my whole game started
changing as far as my approach to fighting.

Left hand almost drove
Richardson right through the canvas.

I did all those early
fights on ESPN and he

knocked everybody out
in the first or second round.

So you looked at
it and said, wow.

Anybody that wants to stay in the business
for a long period of time like myself,

I plan on staying in the
box and I would like to box

for at least a good 20 years
because I love the game.

You took care of
business tonight.

Congratulations, Mike.

Thank you very much.

I study every fight that might
unfold and tell everybody, be quiet.

I'm watching.

You know, my whole thing,
I realized that was going

to be the toughest fight
in my life if it happened.

This is the guy that I
got to face one day.

In prison, you have a lot
of energy that's bottled up.

From one way or the other, love it
or don't love it, agree to disagree,

it has to be released.

After getting a few
fights, I built a reputation

on the block like I was
building on the streets.

I was known, don't fight
me, you got to stab me.

At home, you can hide.

But in those institutions,
you have to see these people.

Every day you wake up.

Someone is plotting
for that vulnerability.

You got to meet
your fears every day.

Things going through my head
was that I'll be dead before I'm

18 or I'll be in prison all
my life or that I'll be nothing.

As I got more mature in jail and
I started watching other people,

I started saying to myself,
what's wrong with this situation?

I had to stop being a nigger.

I started doing research.

I've seen something to
me that really woke me up.

Prison is a business.

It's $50,000, it's $60,000
a year for one inmate.

How can I keep myself from
being an employee of this business?

Oftentimes, the real problem with
prison is the stultifying boredom.

There's mountains of evidence that,
you know, the supermax prisons where

you're in a cell by
yourself 23 hours a day.

They literally drive
people insane.

The people who leave are substantially
mentally harmed by the experience.

It's just not what we as
humans are designed to handle.

Having that thing that gives you something
to do, to hold on to, can be a very

powerful means of sort of getting
yourself through the mind-numbing tedium.

They had a little gym with a
ring, with gloves, with sparring.

And Smokey Wilson, aka Michael Wilson,
continued to say, Come on to the gym, man.

Come on to the gym, it's
tough fighting the block.

You're either going
to go on a hold or

you're going to get
stabbed or this and that.

So, hey, man, all right,
yeah, I'll go to the gym.

And I sparred with one of
the known, respected guys.

I didn't knock him out, but
I gave him a boxing lesson.

And Smokey Wilson
became my trainer.

I got a chance to get
back into what I've deviated

from and used it to my
advantage in the penitentiary.

It came to a thing where now,
in prison, you bet on each other.

And I'm getting this reputation
because now the block, the jail is buzzing.

I became the celebrity
boxer in a penitentiary.

The boxing program
was established in 38

penitentiaries from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

And so we had boxing
tournaments in jail.

And Hill, Rockford, Dallas, Grated
Ford, Smithville, Frackville, we on buses.

Escorted by guards with
shotguns from one prison to another.

I'm beating everybody
in every penitentiary.

And I become the middleweight
state penitentiary champion.

I fell back in love
with boxing again.

Boxing is the sport in
which all others aspire to be.

It's you and another guy
and who wants it more

and who's got the heart
and the will and desire.

But it comes down
to a lot more than that.

Best combat is man against man.

I mean, since Roman
times, the gladiators.

It's human nature for people
to compete against each other.

Sometimes I feel so
guilty I'm a boxing fan.

I know on one level I'm not supposed
to really be enjoying what I'm watching.

And yet on another,
I can't control myself.

We're violent.

We're animals.

Like any other animal.

There's a release of aggression
that comes with fighting.

There's a drama to it.

Boxing is theater.

If it's not theater, you're
fucking up and presenting it.

To be ringside, you're
like, wow, this is amazing.

The part for me that stuck was people
are literally fighting for their lives.

They're fighting
for their families.

That's the thing
that attracted me.

It's an ancient, brutal, some
would say barbaric spirit.

But there's something very interesting
about the individuals who choose to try to

perform at that level and
risk what they risk in the ring.

It's raw.

It's something that appeals to our
basic instincts of survival or battle.

Nobody else is going
in there with you.

You can't call time out.

It's like having
a fight of blood.

A fighter don't care
who his opponent is.

He might wait, bring him.

It's a different mentality.

They're a different breed.

The fighters know what
they have to sacrifice

and give up to try
to perfect their game.

A fighter learns from
walking through the fire.

Dwight Muhammad Kawe
and Evander Holyfield

in their WBA Junior
Heavyweight title fight.

Of course, you remember
Holyfield with the controversial

bronze medal at the Olympic
Games in Los Angeles.

Since then, 11
successful pro bouts.

Is 11 enough going up against
someone of the experience of Kawe?

The bell rings and
this is round one.

And one of Evander's biggest challenges
here is going to be overcoming the

psychological barrier of going
15 rounds for the first time.

Just keeping your hands up
for three minutes and moving

around the ring is
tremendous exertion physically.

But running around for 15 rounds, three
minutes a round, throwing punches at

a guy who's trying to hurt you
and getting hit while it's all going on.

There's just nothing like it.

Kawe was going for it.

He doesn't want to go 15 rounds.

He's only in round three and
he's using so much energy.

Kawe breathing very
heavily but he is relying

against the ropes
and sliding away.

Kawe's slipping an awful
lot of those punches out.

He missed a bunch

of landed punches of his own.

Saw the smiling shrug.

And that is
demoralizing to Evander.

He built up some energy for a
flurry and he got nothing out of it.

Just watching
these two go at it.

But there's no way that I
can imagine this one going.

Whatever I hit him with, that
guy never stopped coming.

Now we're really going to get to see
what kind of shape Evander Holyfield is in.

He's only been to eight
rounds once in his career.

Evander Holyfield
started this fight very fast.

Won the first round in
convincing and oppressive fashion.

But the rounds have gotten
closer and closer since then.

Perspiration flying off the face
of Holyfield as Kawe gets in.

And he looks a little slower and
slower as this fight moves along.

When somebody's breathing
on you and they have the

right to hit you just as the
right you have to hit them.

It becomes a tougher thing.

A right-left combo to Holyfield.

Holyfield is staggering.

This is just trench warfare and
right now Dwight Kawe is winning it.

The question is who's going
to get their second win first.

It's just like somebody putting a mask
over your head and put your hand behind

your back and throw you
out in the middle of the ocean.

That's how tough this fight was.

Round 11 for Evander Holyfield.

He's never gone this far in his

professional career
or in his career period.

And a big powerful right.

The likes of which we haven't
seen from Holyfield in a few rounds.

I'm a little bit surprised
that Evander has

been able to hang in
there as well as he did.

He tired a little bit but he's come
back and he's very much in the fight.

Kawe's eyes are blood red.

He has taken numerous shots.

Breathing very very heavily.

Bloody in the mouth.

Evander has a tremendous heart.

Al he's got just a
burning intensity.

As these two try to chip away and
chip away at the stamina of each other.

Both men showing unbelievable
courage and determination.

I lost 15 pounds in that fight.

They were talking about
my kidneys were messed up.

All I wanted to do is not die.

Holyfield's eyes have that fire.

He is officially a
professional fighter.

He can go.

He's 14 and he will be
able to go the 15 rounds.

Like Muhammad Kawe who yesterday
called Evander Holyfield mediocre.

Would not be saying
that to us right now.

And there's the final pose.

I didn't die.

I made it to the land.

And then they gave me a
bonus by giving me the belt.

For the winner and new junior
heavyweight champion of the world.

After that I was a light
heavyweight champion.

But my goal, I never forgot my goal was to
be the heavyweight champion of the world.

Evander Holyfield started
as light heavyweight.

Which is you know kind of like being
the vice president of the United States.

It's not, you don't
get a lot of attention.

When you talk about
boxing for most people

you're talking about
the heavyweight division.

The heavyweight champ
of the world is an icon.

This is the main
event of the night.

The WBC championship
of the world.

In the blue corner with 27
wins, no defeats, 25 KOs.

He is the challenger Mike Tyson.

And in the red corner.

He is the WBC heavyweight
champion of the world.

Trevor Burbick.

Any questions from the
challenger or chief second?

Any questions from the
champion or chief second?

Alright, let's get it on.

Come on.

Alright, and with the words
of Mills Lane, we're ready.

I don't know about you
folks, but here at the

Hilton Hotel there is
electricity in the crowd.

Mike Tyson has trained
his whole life for this.

And let's watch how quick
Tyson will jump on Trevor Burbick.

You get the idea now that Burbick
is showing a little false bravado here.

And Tyson clips
him with the left hand.

Look at that.

Combination.

And Burbick ready to go.

But he stays on his feet.

Another right hand.

Five and six and
seven and eight.

And he says he's okay.

Mills Lane lets him continue.

Here comes Tyson again.

He knows he can
hurt him any time.

That was

the most exciting
moment of my life.

People pat me on the back
and say, wow, you're great.

I've never seen
anybody like you before.

Incredible.

How am I going
to articulate this?

It's all I dreamed about.

Being a champion and stuff.

This is very serious
since I was 13.

This isn't being like, hey, we're going
to box and get some trophies, guys.

No.

Our purpose is to win and
win in spectacular fashion.

I got so much
trouble on my mind.

Refuse to lose.

Here's your ticket.

Cause the drama get wicked.

Mike did something special.

He convinced me that no man
on the planet could beat me.

You get up, go to the bathroom,
come back to fight over me.

Mike got a bad rap in the sense that
people concentrated on intimidation.

The only way you're intimidated is
because you've seen him do something.

When you see somebody
knock out 22 other people,

yeah, the 23rd guy may
be a little intimidating.

He was an unstoppable
force of nature.

I mean, I still in my head have visions of
Welcome to the Terror Dome being played

where Tyson was walking into
the ring twitching with no socks on.

And the guy standing in the ring
looked like he was shitting his pants.

Well, welcome to
the Terror Dome.

Don King told him every
time that you knock somebody

out in the first round, I
give you $100,000 in cash.

And he's down again.

He's not going to make it.

It's all over.

First big fight I went
to was the Tyson fight.

And there was nothing
more exciting than that.

He put on a show.

When the lights came on, Mike
just knew this is my moment.

Everybody's
watching me right now.

It was crazy in there.

Just great energy,
unbelievable energy.

Every time we get home,
Mike said, well, who came?

How did they lose?

He looked like he just wanted to
know, like, what was the crowd like?

And it's hard to
explain it to him.

You see Eddie Murphy.

You see Donald Trump.

You see so many big
people in the audience.

Like, if you was in that front three
or four rows, you was somebody.

Tyson was superhuman.

He represented our culture.

He represented who we were.

Mike Tyson was a phenom.

Everybody heard about him.

Mike Tyson represents in the
community the American dream.

Anybody can make it if
they have the determination.

Cuts put me in a mindset that
there's no room for everybody.

I need to suck all the air.

I need to reign with God.

Do you ever stop to
think about money?

The stage of thinking
about money is far gone.

I don't have to worry
about that no more.

I'm just having fun.

They were able to sell
Mike Tyson very effectively.

He delivered, of course, because
he scored all these knockouts.

And you got this
feeling of caged fury.

In our era, what would box
have been without Mike Tyson?

Could you say it would
have been the next society?

After Ali, people
stopped liking boxing.

It don't bother me to say
that I was in the right time.

With Tyson, that's when the fire
came back in the game of boxing.

When Tyson came in the game, boxing became
one of the most popular, if not the most

popular sport outside
the walls of Greater Ford.

We used to watch fights on ABC.

We used to watch fights on ESPN.

Alexis Ogueiro and
the fighters, it was hot.

And I'm like, yo, I
can beat these guys.

For myself to come out and be paroled
to a halfway house, I said to myself,

I gotta make boxing work.

I knew that this is the only
thing that I had to gamble on.

Most guys go back when
you're in that situation.

When they lock you up when you're like
17, and you get out when you're like 23,

24, now you're thrown
into the adult world.

With no job skills, nothing
but a record on your back.

Plus, the little guy you seen on your
block, he comes past you in a brand new

car, with a gold chain big enough
for you to see your reflection in.

That's hard to deal with.

When you go away, if you come back
into the same environment, around the same

circumstances, around the same people
that you're comfortable making new friends

with, and these decisions
around, you have influences

that make things easy for
you to be in a bad situation.

Temptation is great.

It's the same if you try not
to be involved with drugs.

Because of its low price, crack permeates
the country, especially the inner cities.

When the crack era came into and flooded
the streets, it was just hard to say no.

The crack era
affected everybody.

If you lived in an area where they
sold it, you were going to be involved.

You're looking at your environment
and no one's helping you.

No one's doing anything.

Just feeding you to drugs, feeding you to
alcohol, feeding you to negative comments.

They're doing exactly what
was done to you as a child.

So you have to shift and
change your environment.

Do something.

Change something.

For Bernard, not violate
parole during that era,

during that time, it was
the most impressive to me.

He dealt with it.

He came home.

He was able to move forward.

He realized it
wasn't the life for him.

He was going to make sure
it wouldn't happen to him.

How can I beat the system?

I fought.

I worked.

I worked in the kitchen.

I worked on landscaping.

I did roofing.

I found some new people.

Those new people got me into
boxing as far as the business side.

I was the only fighter to my knowledge
to take a team of trainers and go to

Graterford and train and use that
environment to remind me where I came from.

I think it speaks volumes about
Bernard and how he looks at life.

That he went back to prison
with his team to look at the

situation and know this is what
I do not want to fall back into.

There were athletes who came along
who had better talent than Bernard.

There were athletes who came along who
had better positions, better situations.

His discipline
has set him apart.

And the new IBF Middleweight
Champion of the World Bernard Hopkins.

I won my first title in 1994.

From there I went on to defend the
Middleweight Championship for 11 years.

Oscar De La Hoya is knocked out by a
left foot to the liver by Bernard Hopkins.

Bernard Hopkins is
already Robertson in this era.

Those guys were cut
from a different cloth.

The ones who could sustain.

Tonight, you have
witnessed history.

Boxing's ageless warrior.

Bernard Hopkins!

He became the oldest
fighter to win a world title.

At an age 48 when it's almost
impossible to imagine a fighter doing this.

Bernard walked and kept that
middleweight weight for 20 title defenses.

20 title defenses.

That's going to be a
hard record to break.

He's just always
representing the hungry fighter

that's dedicated and put
in a lot of work, you know.

You can just tell he didn't
get anything handed to him.

Bernard Hopkins to me is a testament
to the fact that anyone can reshape their

thinking, can reshape their life,
and continue to live that reshaped life.

The Bernard Hopkins that I have known all
these years, and the man who resurrected

his life, is an absolute
pillar of self-discipline.

What saved me was
knowing that I can do this.

And to be able to do
this in the penitentiary.

Those stages
are critical for me.

To be able to come through that era
and come through that time with scars.

But I used it to motivate
me in a different way.

It took time to get there.

Bernard Hopkins is very lucky to
have boxing, and to capitalize on it.

He had it and he
took advantage of it.

People who don't have those
options, it gets very bleak.

We cut back on a lot of the educational
options, we cut back on a lot of the

facilities, we cut back on time out
in the yard, we cut back on sports.

Energize inmates.

Use their energy in the right
direction by going to the boxing gym.

It releases energy that
won't be released on authority.

Or on other things.

Those kinds of programs are no
longer available in today's prisons.

Today's prisons are more about punishment
rather than recognizing the mistakes

individuals may have made
and helping them grow from them.

Sometimes we do
completely perverse things.

In New York State at least,
the single most popular

training program in
prison is barber school.

So you have thousands of men
training to be barbers in prison.

It's actually giving them a
job to do while they're in prison.

Providing actually a useful
skill they can use on the

outside, only they're
not allowed to use it at all.

People on parole,
ex-felons, can't be barbers.

It's a blanket
ban for licensing.

Once you get into that
system, we're actually

setting you up even
more to fail down the line.

You just keep making it tougher and
tougher and then, you know, shaking your

heads in disappointment when
they fail and making it tougher still.

Activist Angela Davis describes
prisons as this place where

we don't make problems disappear,
we make people disappear.

We want to think of ourselves
as never making mistakes.

And so when confronted
with individuals who make

mistakes, we're forced
to look in the mirror.

Muhammad Ali, in his prime,
was served by his character.

Mike Tyson didn't
have that character.

He had tremendous ferocity,
tremendous ability, God-given strength.

But the people around him weren't
encouraging him to develop character.

They were enabling him, in a
lot of ways, to destroy himself.

His only real mentors were
his managers and his trainers.

They weren't really
trying to teach him a lot of

social skills, other than
how to deal with media.

People treat you differently
when you're famous.

Fame really distorts your
own perception of yourself.

It's a thing.

Anybody on this planet with six
billion people, six billion, right?

Anybody on this planet, you
could beat them in a fair fight.

So you tell me how
that'll feed your ego.

He starts buying all these
incredible sports cars.

He buys Bentleys.

He buys Rolls Royces.

And he starts buying
these mansions.

And, of course, it's
conspicuous consumption.

He's showing the world that,
you know, look how far he's come.

My life only existed
through accomplishments.

You win this, you get this car.

You win this, you get this.

You win this, you get that.

And you have that much money,
you know, everything is possible.

The media was creating this image,
but Mike was helping with the image.

That he was just a
savage, a wild man.

If I fuck you in your
ass, you punk white

boy, I'll eat your ass
all alive, you bitch.

I became a megalomaniac.

I thought I was a god.

If you were old enough,
you may have seen some of

my fights and some of
the things I said to people.

I said about myself, you know, as
some kind of demigod or something.

I'm a tyrannosaurus, man.

I'm a tyrannical titan.

I'm the best ever.

There's never been
anybody who's worse than me.

That's just the way I was trained to
fight, to have that kind of belief system.

We all heard those stories of
people that have had nothing

and then had it all and
didn't know how to handle it.

It's one thing to be able to have
that drive and that desire to become a

champion, but to stay hungry when you have
that success, it becomes that much harder.

We think of him as this
monster with huge power.

And he did have power.

But Mike Tyson was a small heavyweight
who needed to fight well to be effective.

A Mike Tyson that isn't
perfectly conditioned and a Mike

Tyson that isn't fighting
the right style, he's beatable.

Please welcome the challenger,
James Buster Douglas!

No one expected Mike Tyson
to lose to Buster Douglas.

The odds were astronomical.

Introducing the undefeated, undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world,

the one and only,
Iron Mike Tyson!

It was in Japan and
most news organizations

didn't even send
anybody to cover the fight.

Larry, what are we about to see?

Another 90-second annihilation
of an ill-prepared opponent?

Well, in the important
game of expectations, this

fight is over before it
begins or soon thereafter.

You have to remember
that just nobody

believes anybody can
compete with Mike Tyson.

And there, of course, is
Amanda Holyfield, who has a

guarantee of $12 million
to fight Mike Tyson in June.

Everyone was
looking forward to it.

I was looking forward to Mike
Tyson fighting Evander Holyfield.

I watched the Douglas-Tyson fight
with Donald Trump and his executives.

They were expecting that
Tyson-Holyfield fight to be on one

of their properties and would
be a major event for them.

Mike went kicking and
screaming to Tokyo.

You know, he thought, I
knocked out guys that beat Buster

Douglas, so why do I have to,
you know, train for Buster Douglas?

So he got there
and he didn't train.

And he instead enjoyed all the
fruits of young Japanese women there.

Buster had nothing to lose,
and he was training his heart out.

Evander saw this, and he knew
trouble might be on the horizon.

Douglas is getting
Mike Tyson to reach in.

When you reach in,
that's what happens.

Another good right
hand and a good right

uppercut, and two more
good rights by Douglas.

I don't think I've ever seen Tyson
absorb that kind of a four or five-punch

combination before in
his professional career.

And he is swelled up.

Mike Tyson's eye and is
dominating the fight right now.

It was a perfect
storm of events.

It was Mike Tyson not taking Buster
Douglas as seriously as he should have,

and it was Buster Douglas
preparing himself correctly.

Rolling willingly just to try to get in
the shot that will finish things in here.

Oh, the uppercut.

What an uppercut by
Douglas, and down goes Tyson.

It's over.

It's over.

Mike Tyson has been knocked out.

There are a lot of lessons
fighters learn the hard way.

Every fighter comes to know the
fact that this is an unforgiving sport.

And suddenly Mike Tyson has been reduced
to being another heavyweight champion.

He got defeated.

There's no other sport where
you can rise and fall so quickly.

When I became the heavyweight champion
of the world for the first time with Buster

Douglas, people hated the fact... That's
not by holding... White hand stuns Douglas.

Brown knockout.

They said, you can't
get no credibility from me.

You still ain't the champ.

You didn't even beat Tyson.

An Indiana grand jury has indicted former
heavyweight boxing champ, Mike Tyson.

He is charged with raping a
woman who was a contestant

in this summer's Miss
Black America pageant.

Within the past hour, the jury
has returned four indictments.

One for rape, two charges
of criminal deviant conduct,

and three charges and
one charge of confinement.

If I was in here for something
that I did, it would be easier.

But just the fact that I'm in here for
something I didn't do and I'm innocent is

every day I'm walking
a thin line through hell.

I thought prison was for the rehabilitation
of men, or women, so to speak.

That's what I always thought.

That's what they say.

We send you here and we rehabilitate
you before you won't do it again.

People come out of prison,
they come out in worse

condition than they was
when they first entered.

In the lackluster
heavyweight division, even

without his crown,
Tyson is still the man.

Promoters even courted
him at the prison, hoping

to share an estimated
$100 million payday.

Waiting for my opportunity
to get a chance to fight him.

Since a lot of writers in general
think that really he's the champ.

I'm telling you, but, you know,
realistically, I am the champ.

I have the best.

Long before dawn,
news helicopters hovered

over the state prison,
and cameras were ready.

Hundreds of them
from around the world.

Tyson issued a
written statement.

I'm very happy to be
out and on my way home.

I will have more to say later.

It was viewed as
good versus evil.

The good was Evander, the good Christian
guy who talks about the Lord and things

like that, versus Mike, who at that
time was the ex-con convicted rapist.

But Evander was perceived to
have no chance against Mike.

When the fight was first announced,
Evander was a 24-year-old 25-to-1 underdog.

I mean, that's huge odds
for anybody to be 25-to-1.

It's like they've got no shot.

I'm from the hood, too.

I may not act like I'm
from that, but I'm from that.

Tyson never did insult me.

But the press did.

They talking about
Tyson gonna kill you.

As we head for the mound.

And continue to
go after the mound.

Ain't nothing that he was gonna
do that I'm not accustomed to.

No intimidation factor
here whatsoever.

I knew it was gonna be tough.

But I had watched
him my whole life.

And it's almost
like, this is the fight.

The crowd behind Holyfield.

The chance of Holyfield.

The crowd sensing that Holyfield
might have Tyson in trouble.

Mike just wore down from
not being able to hurt Evander.

And that was something that
he had never experienced before.

I can't believe what I'm seeing.

It's the most unbelievable thing
I've ever been privileged to witness.

It was one of the most
complete fight I ever fought.

That was Holyfield's
greatest achievement.

Evander Holyfield ended up
being in some of the largest

pay-per-view matches
in the history of the sport.

But it took him a
long time to get there.

Evander Holyfield was
not just a good fighter.

He was a great fighter.

He's an underrated
heavyweight in my mind.

Very arguably belongs in the
top ten heavyweights of all time.

Even though he was a little guy.

Started as a cruiserweight.

Tyson...

I don't think he became
what he could have been.

Boxing as we imagine it is driven
by a desire to annihilate the opponent.

The focus is on the external.

Looking at what boxers themselves
say is that it's about the internal.

It's about the discipline.

It's about the craft.

That it's not about
the opponent.

It's not about the external.

But it's about the internal.

It's about self.

When you win, everybody wins.

When you lose,
you lose all along.

And that's the truth.

Because you have to
deal with that by yourself.

There's a large degree to which
the fighter that achieves stardom,

superstardom, they represent
the American dream to people.

I mean, the underdog
that makes it.

But I got to be honest with you, I
think a lot of that's greatly overstated.

You know, Mike Tyson, the biggest athlete
by far of the 1990s, the biggest athlete

of the 1990s, and certainly a superstar
boxer, suffered a lot of ups and downs and

was never really
protected by the people that

surrounded him for the
majority of his career.

My self-worth, even when I was a child, was
depending on how much I could hurt someone.

And as I got older and I met
Cuss, that's what it continued to be,

how many people I could knock
out, how fast I could knock them out,

how bad I could hurt them.

And so it just...

it just stayed on that path.

A kid doesn't have a normal home
environment, doesn't have a normal support

system around him, and then he's
basically trained to be a fighting machine.

His life was crazy.

Tyson was a pit bull.

The ear-biting incident
was a check-out.

Mike was messed up.

I'm sure he'd be the
first one to tell you that.

You have to understand,
this is just what I did

seven years of my life,
eight years of my life.

My greatest moment was
when I stopped boxing.

It was just dark for me.

Boxing got real dark for me.

A stunned crowd here at the
MCI Center in Washington, D.C.

as Kevin McBride defeats Mike
Tyson, who quits on his stool.

I got the ability to stay
in shape, but I don't

got the fighting guts,
I don't think, anymore.

When did you recognize that?

In what part of the fight?

I don't know.

Early into the fight.

Um... I'm just sorry I
let everybody down.

I just don't have this
in my heart anymore.

Did you feel as though you
had it coming into the fight?

Um, no.

I'm just fighting to take
care of my bills, basically.

We know from studies of lottery winners,
of professional athletes, anyone who comes

into a sudden windfall of money, be
careful what you wish for, because that

creates more problems.

You have everybody
coming out of the woodwork

to try to get a
piece of your action.

Tyson has pulled in an
estimated... 300 million dollars.

He could have made more if he
hadn't racked up the prison time.

And who knows how
much he's lost in lawsuits,

or to the managers he
claims ripped him off.

Bottom line, Tyson
then, 300 million.

Tyson now, Chapter 11.

It's a sport where
you can be used.

There's no training about how to
handle yourself outside the ring.

Very few boxers are taught
about how to handle their money.

You don't have a good
team of people around you.

You will kill yourself.

You will crash and burn
because every level of success

you have, you hit a wall
that you have to learn more.

I'll always wonder why
Mike Tyson didn't declare

bankruptcy years before his
tax issues became crushing.

I mean, he clearly was bankrupt.

Why did he declare bankruptcy?

Because it was in
people's interest to keep his

contracts alive with those
he was doing business with.

Days after filing for
bankruptcy, boxer Mike Tyson

has filed suit against his
former promoter, Don King.

Don was, I mean,
he knew everybody.

It's like he was a
step ahead of us.

How could you prepare
for something like that?

You don't know who's trying to take
from you, who loves you, who likes you.

You don't know if somebody's
trying to set you up.

Even when you play by the rule book,
you find a person that has that same

energy that the person had
that was trying to rob you.

But they won't even give you
courtesy of pointing a gun at you.

They'll rob you and
do it in black and white.

And I've seen people
do worse things.

I've seen people do worse
things to you in corporate

settings than I've seen
them do on the street.

They take everything from you.

There are bottom feeders that will
attach themselves with their law license,

with their business savvy, to a
fighter from Brooklyn, New York, Philly,

or any other place that don't
have really the education.

Just ask Atlanta car
dealer Kent Sanders.

Who took Holyfield under
his wing when he needed

a co-signer for a car
and became his manager.

Kent Sanders wasn't my manager.

I just told people that because he ran a
car dealership, so he knew about money.

I got into boxing because all I
had to do was know how to fight.

I didn't know nobody
who knew about money.

I don't know nobody
who made a lot of money.

I mean, even when you
hit the powerball, the first

thing people tell you is get
an accountant and a lawyer.

Well, boxing is the same
way, but they don't tell you.

That's why most athletes
wind up not having nothing

when all the hard labor
and years in the ring is over.

You ask Mike Tyson,
how you doing, Mike?

He says, just living
the day-to-day.

That's what he's doing,
just living day-to-day.

You can look at people like Evander
Holyfield that made hundreds of millions

of dollars, that's how
those houses went into

foreclosure, and who's
struggling right now to get by.

A foreclosure notice in
the local newspapers dates

Holyfield defaulted on
a $10 million voucher.

A strange reversal of fortune
for a champion believed

to have earned $200 million
during his storied career.

The house that
Holyfield built may soon

become his biggest
loss outside of the ring.

When you get money,
you gotta ask questions.

I never did have to ask questions
because I never had nobody.

What happened to me
is not so much they stole,

but they did take advantage
of what I didn't know.

They all want this boxer
to make them money.

Once the boxer doesn't make them any more
money, they're cast aside like rubbish.

You retire with a great record and then
be sitting on a stool in your living room.

Where do I go from here?

I don't have any skills.

I'm not trained to do anything.

I'm not educated.

I don't have a college degree.

A lot of guys don't have
high school degrees.

It's not at all uncommon to have even
boxers who had great acclaim wind up

broke, penniless, as greed
is at a casino in Vegas.

What you don't hear about is the
guy that fights on ESPN for money.

Four times a year.

And after he pays, his
manager and his trainer and

everyone involved is
still at the poverty line.

The budgets on ESPN allow a guy in a
main event to get paid about 15 grand.

Like I said, split
that money off.

Train for a number
of weeks for that fight.

And you can make more
money, honestly, taking a

minimum wage job and
working a little bit overtime.

The minimum salary in
Major League Baseball,

even in Minor League
Baseball, is livable.

There is no minimum
salary for a fighter.

99% of fighters probably
make 99% of money.

Boxing is laissez faire
capitalism run amok.

There is essentially
no one running the ship.

There's different organizations
that run a piece of it.

There's promoters who go up
and down and control parts of it.

But there are
essentially no regulations.

Boxing is regulated
at the state level.

You have Nevada
with its set of rules.

You have California
with its set of rules.

You have New York.

You have New Jersey.

Jurisdictions will have different
perspective on a different matter.

And nobody is on the
same page at all times.

Most people think that we need a federal
commission to regulate the sport of boxing.

The federal government
attempted to regulate

boxing by the passage
of the OLLI Act.

It's given some authority to the federal
government to enforce boxing from a

business perspective.

However, there has not
been any prosecution or

implementation of the
OLLI Act for a fighter.

Why is it every sport
in America is regulated?

Or have some type of union?

And boxing don't?

In other sports like baseball, football,
tennis, you have individuals who

are well educated in
those sports to help guide

those champions through
their effort and their time.

If you're an NFL player or
an NBA player or a major

league baseball player,
there is at least a core.

You have the team.

You have whatever resources
they have to help you with.

You have the league
that has some resources.

Who do we go to?

It's crazy to pit your body
and your mind through this

hard way of making a living
for yourself and your family.

And to wind up with nothing.

And not even your health.

To me is a sin.

We as a country are
in love with our sports.

But when these two fighters step into a
ring, there is a level of violence that is

unlike any other sport in
terms of duration and intensity.

When a fighter receives a blow that's so
severe, what's going on inside the head is

the brain is suddenly slammed
against the back of your

skull and then thrown forward
again as the head snaps back.

It's commonly
called a concussion.

It can swell and cause long-term
hematomas, bleeding on the brain,

memory loss, strokes or
aneurysms, or vessel breakage.

It can cause death,
depending on how severe, how

acute, where the brain
actually impacts the skull.

It has happened where
a fighter will leave the

ring, whether they've
won or lost, they look fine.

They head out to dinner, everything's
wonderful, and one to two to three days

later, something, you
know, traumatic happens.

I had a young champion, a
guy named Lavander Johnson.

He was walking out of the ring.

I walked out of the ring behind him, and
I saw he was a little unsteady on his feet.

He put his arm on me, and I
walked him back to his dressing room.

He was apologizing for
losing, and I'll never forget it.

He literally sat on his stool,
and he looked at me and he said,

Lou, I have a headache,
and then he fell forward.

And he never regained
consciousness.

He died, I think it
was five, six days later.

Every society, for the
most part, on the face

of the earth, has some
primal need for violence.

It's always there,
that bloodthirstiness.

It's human nature to be
fascinated by violence.

We hear a car wreck,
we go see what happened.

Horror movies, how is somebody
going to be eaten alive or torn up?

It's all over the place.

We are just attracted by
confrontation, by conflict, by controversy.

That's what sells, and
that's what boxing tries to sell.

Boxing needs something that can
say, hey, there is support for a fighter.

The fighter is the one who's putting
his life in danger to enter that ring and

provide entertainment
to everybody that's there.

However, we have to
weigh the resources we

have with the actual
regulation of the sport.

Over the last year, we
generated about $5.5

million in tax revenue
just from ticket sales.

The state legislature then makes an
appropriation to the athletic commission,

and that allocation
is about $450,000.

So there's a huge disparity
from a regulative perspective.

I'm concerned right
now about the sport.

People in life have a
right to take risks and

a right to live the
lives they want to live.

Now, that being
said, it's Barbara.

It's barbaric in a lot of ways
that there's no standardized

health and safety criteria
in the United States.

Think about that.

You know, it's preposterous.

It's high time that boxing
began to regulate just

like, you know, other
pro sports like the NFL.

When there's no checks and
balances, there's a problem.

When you see the people who come from
nothing, who come from less than nothing,

to see them perform
and to see them give

such great entertainment
is an amazing thing.

But as important it is for us to celebrate
them at the top of where they are,

it's as important that we figure out how
to carry them when they need us the most.

There are some great success
stories and some great stories

of those who escape prison,
escape the street and make it.

But for every one of those
guys, there's a sad story.

And there's a story of
someone who's exploited or a

story of someone who loses
their health in the long term.

Or a story that somebody who
becomes a champion and toils

for years and then winds up
retiring with virtually nothing.

It's the American dream and
it's the American nightmare.

When I'm over here and I'm looking at the
Vegas strip, I think about all the trouble

I got in over there, all
the drugs I used there.

I never even think about all
the great fights I had there.

I think about all the things I
did there wasn't really moral.

All I did was knock people out,
screw people, have sex with women,

get high on drugs.

When me and my wife first got
together, I was a full-blown addict.

My daughter passed
away at four years old.

I'm having a tragic
accident at home.

That's my lowest point.

When I was at the hospital, I realized that
other people's children were dying, too.

And those people, just because I'm famous,
they took out of their way, left their

dying children, their sick children,
came over here and prayed with me.

Then I realized, well, hey,
their babies are dying, too.

So what makes you so
important that you think you

should be mad and angry
and want to kill somebody?

Let's do this whole tough guy
stuff because your baby's dying.

Their babies died, too, and they left
them to come over here and talk to you.

You ain't shit, motherfucker.

You don't care about nobody.

These people left
their fucking babies to

talk to you, and you
don't give a fucking ass.

And that's just what it was.

And it's not about me.

The world's bigger than me.

My wife just stayed by me and
said, we're going to get through this.

She just kept it very
positive, constantly positive.

I just wanted to change.

I wanted to break the chain of
self-bondage that my mother and father and

her mother and father probably
had, and I wanted to change with me.

So my kids wouldn't have to
deal with that same suffering.

I'm just so happy to be
involved with the recovery world.

I met a bunch of people
that were just amazing people.

They didn't quit on me, didn't give up on
me like the rest of the people in my life.

It's an ongoing struggle.

The pain never goes away.

I'm never in a situation that I'm so
secure that I can never fall back into

that nasty, dirty, disgusting,
wretched individual that I once was.

I never think that
guy's gone totally.

It's time now where I have to deal
with things from a serious perspective.

And how me and my family are
going to evolve from that perspective.

You have to make adjustments.

Adjustments are part of life.

Disappointment.

That's the biggest fight.

You want to see how
strong somebody is.

But I don't get disappointed.

It's over.

That's it.

It is over.

Evander Holyfield has
never been knocked out.

And Riddick Bowe
is the one to do it.

If I was Holyfield or any of
his team members, I'd really

have to reevaluate if
he's fit to continue to fight.

With all the health
problems and the heart

conditions, is Evander
Holyfield just completely done?

We don't know.

My mother passed
before I fought Mike Tyson.

My brother passed before
I fought Riddick Bowe.

I had a lot of tragedy
in my family and stuff

that, you know, you
had to put them behind.

What happened?

And the continuing life in
the ring of Evander Holyfield.

Don't count me out yet, he says.

And tonight with some
new gas in the tank.

Evander Holyfield
was an all-time great.

But Evander didn't understand that
the shelf life of a fighter is limited.

We may be seeing
the end of an era.

And I think they're
throwing the towel.

I think he was forced
to fight way too long.

Fights at the end of his
career for virtually no money.

Evander is very confident
in what he believes.

His stubbornness can be his
greatest asset and his greatest liability.

I didn't get into
boxing for money.

I got into boxing because I
wanted to be the very best.

I'm the only person that's been the
heavyweight champion world five times.

Because I got that
minute opportunity.

Everybody's going
to get off the path.

But the point is
to get back on it.

Forgive yourself
and get back on.

Evander Holyfield
has faced plenty of

opponents in the ring,
but nothing like this.

Together with his friend and financier,
Yank Berry, they plan to deliver food aid

and help resettle Syrian refugees
in a home supplied by Berry's charity.

Yank Berry used my
likeness to draw the people.

I was on my last leg.

But this man gave me an
opportunity to fight back these

people who were taking
my memorabilia and all this.

He did it himself.

I think Evander has
come to that realization.

That he needs to be Evander Holyfield
and not necessarily Evander Holyfield,

four-time heavyweight
champion of the world.

If it wasn't for that boys club
and other people who had

money, who sponsored me
as a kid, I wouldn't be who I am.

The work that I'm doing now with Global
Village, that's what life is really about.

I go to heaven, they ain't
going to be asking me how many

times you came to the
heavyweight champion of the world.

He's going to ask what
do you do for the people.

The reason why you exist in
the world is to help somebody.

Not just for yourself.

One of my best friends
was Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad's health started failing and
had to pick a new goodwill ambassador.

It was Evander.

Evander brought in Mike.

You brought him in?

Yep.

Evander Holyfield has
been very gracious with Mike.

Mike bit a portion
of his ear off.

That takes a lot of compassion.

A lot of love in your
heart to forgive someone.

If you forgive, then
you'll have peace.

You won't have people
fighting each other all the time.

That's what makes the world
go around is people forgive.

What did you think when
Evander called you and

said, I want you to get
involved in this project?

Well, it's not like I was doing
anything, of course, you know.

I just said, hey, um, yeah.

Okay.

Well, Mike always
talked about that he never

wanted to be involved
in the sport again.

But now that he's resurrected himself,
you see him going back to boxing.

Establishing his own promotional company
to not only help the young boxers out

there, develop into good
boxers, but to help them

not make some of the
bad choices that he made.

I was very critical of Mike.

I'm happy to see him at a place where I
think he's much more at peace and at a

better place in his life
than I've ever seen him.

The Mike Tyson that's there
right now is an honest guy trying

to do the best he can to be
happy and live a good life.

His core love of boxing
stems from the amateurs.

That's when it was all
about the love of the game.

It wasn't so much about money.

And that's when boxing
and the sport is at its purest.

It's the adversity that you face as a boxer
that really brings out the true champion.

Bernard and Mike and
Evander, all of them have faced

that kind of adversity
inside the ring to be sure.

But outside the ring as well.

And I don't think we can
measure the arc of some of these

people until we see them
go through the adversities.

And when they do, it takes
a lot to come back from it.

The one thing that I think keeps them
coming back both in the boxing ring and in

life, is the fact that
boxers have perseverance.

I'm on a different mission now that some
ain't going to like and they shouldn't.

What I would like to do in my second
half of life is to raise what they would

perceive to be hell amongst the people
that want to keep a society of prey to

exist so they can take advantage of
the backs and blood and tears of a fighter.

We need to start thinking
about things in the long term.

And I think some of that
responsibility falls on those

that interact with the fighters
on a more day-to-day basis.

There's one particular
fighter that has really

stepped out in front and
that's Bernard Hopkins.

Being a part of Golden Boy
Promotion, what I want to

do is to take every fighter
that comes through me.

You gotta have
your own accountant.

You gotta have
your own attorney.

You gotta know what
the business is about.

This sport changed history, man.

This sport had more to
do with the advancement of

the civil rights movement
than any other sport.

From Jack Johnson to
Joe Louis to Muhammad Ali.

This is a sport that is ingrained
in the fabric of this country.

I think that resurgence is possible,
but there has to be some changes made.

The ultimate opponent
for a fighter is truth.

If he can be truthful
with himself, if he can

look at his limitations
and then work on them.

If he can understand what he
does well and then enhance it.

But he has to deal in truth.

When you lose, you
can only blame yourself.

Go back and just look
at what you did wrong.

It's the ones that know how to lose
and make yourself better and come back.

That's boxing.

In boxing, you have
to have challenges.

And you use those challenges
to take it to a different level.

I'm a fighter.

I'm that type of guy
that could have been

anything else in my
life if I chose to be that.

We all have talent in us.

You just gotta find it.

Everybody's tested
in one way or another.

It ain't easy.

Your priorities
gotta be lined up.

I have just as many
distractions as somebody else.

But I really want
it to be great.

Victory is how you're able to
inspire people to want to be better.

It all comes down to family,
love and forgiveness and respect.

Pushing the gaps between
who I am and who I want to be.

And find different ways of becoming
more conscious about myself.

Human beings think a lot
of themselves, you know.

To think that we'll be that
privileged to see the end of the world.

I don't think we're going
to have that privilege.

You know, I know there
are things that happen bad.

But if you look at all the
good that's happening out here.

I see a new birth in the world.

I see people
respecting people more.

We have to evolve.

This is a great world.

And it's the best deal we
ever got in our life, you know.

Life itself.

We got it for nothing.

Look at all we got in return.

Don't Austin!

But what if we were
previous leaders?

Talk about it.