My good friend and Former heavyweight boxing champion Lou Savarese joins me this week on The Midlife Male Podcast. Lou has recently opened his second boxing gym, Saverese Fight Fit, in West University Place, Houston Texas. It’s a high end boutique fitness studio that centers around boxing as a workout and getting that “Fight Fit” body. Boxing for fitness is in the midst of a major push and growing in popularity across the country and we get into detail about this on the show. It’s also a compare/contrast to his other gym in downtown Houston which is much more of a traditional boxing gym and home to many pro and amateur fighters and it was great to get Lou’s insight on both. He’s one of those rare guys that is both a boxing purist and also just as much at home and comfortable coaching a class full of West U Mom’s or a kid’s class…Lou really loves kids. Savarese, originally from New York, won two New York Golden Gloves championships during his amateur career, and turned professional in 1989. His overall boxing record was 46 wins and 7 losses, with fights against popular boxers such as George Foreman and Mike Tyson. He fought everybody… Bowe, Holyfield, Buster Douglas, Ruiz…The list just goes on. He’s a gentle giant at 6’5 250, family man, husband, father, poet, amateur comedian (very amateur…) and all around great guy. This one is super off the cuff as we’re friends and we tend to just go off on a bunch of tangents but the common thread throughout is that Lou has a heart of gold and I was touched by his relationship with his father, the love that he has for his wife and family, the perseverance and tenacity that he’s shown outside of the ring even more than his time in it and that he’s still a gym rat who feeds off the energy of training and being around people.