Boxing Life Stories

By Tris DixonSports

Boxing Life Stories episodes

October 30, 2019 Season 2: #6 Jamel Herring

WBO super-featherweight champion Jamel Herring has seen the highs and the lows. He's mixed triumph and tragedy.
As a US Marine he completed two tours of Iraq, his first born arrived while he was away, he lost a daughter and a niece to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) but now is one of the hottest properties in the sport.
He's part of Terence Crawford's team and the two have become firm friends. The captain of the US 2012 Olympic boxing team in London, Herring has been written off time and again but he's unquenchable deserve and motivation to be the best serves to drive him on.
Here, he talks about how he was inspired in his battle with alcohol and PTSD by Tyson Fury, amateur fights with the likes of Danny Jacobs and Josh Taylor, splitting with Al Haymon and joining Top Rank and potential rivals, including Carl Frampton and Josh Warrington.

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1 hr 7 min
October 23, 2019 Season 2: #5 Bones Adams

Former world super-bantamweight champion Bones Adams is now one of the go-to trainers in Las Vegas. But life has been challenging for him. Born into poverty in Kentucky, he soon found himself tied up with gang life in Detroit. His godfather, the infamous Johnny Ace, was shot and murdered.
Bones started fighting. It was something that came naturally to him and it led him to big fights with the likes of Paulie Ayala, Nestor Gaza, Guty Espades and Kevin Kelley.
While he rated Prince Naseem Hamed, he craved the Erik Morales fight and it was there for him until he lost his hotly-disputed first bout with Ayala. That sucked the life from him and he was never the same again. He struggled in retirement, went off the rails, went to jail and he nearly suffered similar fates to his late friends, Johnny Tapia and Diego Corrales,
Adams is a complex person, always has been, always will be.

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1 hr 8 min
October 16, 2019 Season 2: #4 Leroy Caldwell

At 73 years of age, Leroy Caldwell can be found in the City Boxing Gym in Las Vegas waiting for the break he never had as a fighter.
He fought the best heavyweights of the 1970s and 1980s and caused a few upsets. He's been to prison, he's been screwed and now he's trying to claim a debt he feels boxing owes him for services rendered.
He sparred the likes of Muhammad Ali, Bob Foster and Sonny Liston and fought Cleveland Williams, Oscar Bonavena, George Foreman, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Pinklon Thomas and countless others.
He also worked as a bouncer in Las Vegas nightspots, let an underage Mike Tyson in to one place, and he talks about life on the road as a heavyweight outsider.

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1 hr 11 min
October 07, 2019 Season 2: #3 Robert Smith

Former fighter Robert Smith is now the general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control.
As a boxer, he sparred the likes of John Mugabi, Dave Green, James Cook and Mark Kaylor while getting in the ring with Lloyd Honeyghan at late notice at the Royal Albert Hall.
But he was plagued by injuries and found work as an engineer. From a family of fighters, Smith is now one of the major players on the British landscape and here he talks about his life as a boxer and his time at the helm of the BBB of C in a candid interview with Tris Dixon just days before he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award from the Boxing Writers' Club.

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1 hr 11 min
October 02, 2019 Season 2: #2 Joey Gamache

Former two-weight world champion Joey Gamache is becoming one of the sport's in demand trainers.
He recently guided Otto Wallin through a big step-up as he pushed Tyson Fury hard during their bloody Las Vegas fight but it's no surprise Gamache is now a coach. He's learned from the likes of Teddy Atlas, Emanuel Steward, Jimmy Glenn and many others.
He fought the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez, Chil-Sun Jun, Jerry Ngobeni, Orzubek Nazarov and Tony Lopez racking up a career record of 55 wins and four losses.
Many felt his time as a fighter was defined by his brutal two-round loss to Arturo Gatti, the debatable weight increase Gatti made and the decade-long legal mess that followed but that's doing Gamache a disservice.
Gamache has had to fight demons. He's been a bad place but now things are good. Here, in his own words, he tells his story.

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1 hr 14 min
September 25, 2019 Season 2: #1 Bruce Trampler

To kick-off season two, Tris Dixon is in Las Vegas where he spent time with veteran Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler.
For some 40 years, Trampler has been one of Bob Arum's right-hand men, working with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, George Foreman and Oscar De La Hoya.
Bruce is one of the most popular guys in the sport, though he doesn't receive much of the spotlight for his work because he would prefer it to be shone on the fighters.
But here, in a rare in depth interview, he talks about his start in boxing, his mentors, the long relationships he's had in the sport, what it's like working with Arum, how he got behind Foreman's incredible comeback, what happened between Arum and rival Don King at Dan Goossen's funeral and much more besides.
This episode is brought to you in association with Hanson Lee Resourcing and Delco Safety Compliance.

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1 hr 33 min
September 09, 2019 #50 Frank Bruno

It's episode 50 and it's the UK's favourite fighter, former WBC heavyweight champion Frank Bruno.
In one of his most candid interviews in years, Bruno reflects on his life and times, from his rough childhood, starting boxing, being sent to borstal and then fighting his way through the ranks and into huge fights with the likes of Tim Witherspoon, Mike Tyson (twice), Lennox Lewis and Oliver McCall.
There were huge knockouts and heartbreaking losses along the way and, of course, his post-boxing career battles that have included him being sectioned three times and a public mental health battle.
Here, Bruno covers it all, answers the questions that have surrounded his career and talks about his biggest fight in life after boxing.

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1 hr 30 min
September 04, 2019 #49 Colin Hart

For more than 50 years, The Sun's boxing scribe Colin Hart has been at the biggest fights, delivered the biggest interviews and broken the biggest exclusives.
Here, he looks back on a half century in the sport that has seen him earn the top awards in boxing journalism, the Nat Fleischer award via the Boxing Association of America and his induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
He was at the Fight of the Century between Frazier and Ali, in Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle and in Manilla for the Thriller. He was a the Bite Fight, the Fan Man, the biggest upset in boxing history – Douglas-Tyson – and he witnessed the likes of Hagler, Duran, Leonard, Hearns, Chavez and many more in their primes.
Hart reflects on an incredible journey, the fighters he has met and the good, the bad and the ugly of the fight game.

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2 hr 34 min
August 28, 2019 #48 Don Charles

Don Charles is perhaps most famous for his work with heavyweight enigma Derek Chisora.
Yet the story of the African-born Charles is fascinating. Yes, he takes us on the wild Chisora ride but he also talks about escaping war-torn Biafra after the Nigerians won a three-year war, he talks about his upbringing in 1970s London, his businesses (running florists, working as a clothing seller in the markets and running a door security firm) and then his break into boxing.
As an amateur super-heavyweight, he sparred the likes of Danny Williams and Henry Akinwande, impressed James 'Bonecrusher' Smith but, disenfranchised after a loss to Harry Senior – whom he'd already beaten – he never fought again. Although there was that press conference brawl with David Haye in Munich...
As a coach, he's trained Frank Buglioni, Chisora, Ajose Olusegun, Ashley Theophane and he now works with, among others, his son George Fox, an up and coming heavyweight.
From running for his life in the African forests to having his own heavyweight gym in north west London, it's been an emotional roller coaster.

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1 hr 30 min
August 21, 2019 #47 Richard Towers Part Two

After the explosive nature of his first Life Story podcast, heavyweight Richard Towers returns with more prison stories, more sparring tales and more on the men he's looked up to and admired, Adam Booth, Brendan Ingle and Dan Pena.
Richard talks about his future, his business outlook and, of course, there are stories that will blow your mind.

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1 hr 35 min