I started as a light handed southpaw around clubs in the Bronx. This was because my gymnasium idol, Dennis Cruz, was a southpaw and I made the decision to convert so as it would be easier to copy his moves and punches. My trainer at the time however, Andy Martinez, wouldn't allow me to bob and weave or throw hooks and uppecuts because he felt I should take advantage of the height and reach advantages I more often than not had. This was a constant disagreement.
I went into the prestigious Spanish Golden Gloves Championships in 1984 as an orthodox 156-pounder with an 8-2 record. I won the championships and also reached the semi finals of the Golden Gloves at the Madison Square Gardens, losing a narrow decision in a fight that would shape the rest of my career.
We got into a clinch on the ropes towards the end of the third round and I bit my opponent on the shoulder, this was because I was getting beaten and knew I couldn't win. I was so ashamed I actually bit him and still am to this day. I was disgusted with myself for my actions. It taught me to not react like a child, but rather take your beating like a man so as you can live with yourself and leave the ring with your head held high.
That fight in the semi finals of the Golden Gloves taught me integrity, which is the centrefold of my entire life. Be true to yourself.
I won my first five professional fights in Atlantic City over four rounds on points. I'd switched to the paid ranks because I needed to pay off telephone bills and gambling debts.
My bout with James Canty I dedicated to one Ray Rivera, who was Golden Gloves champion and trained with me in the Bronx, only to get involved with drugs and end up being shot dead when failing to pay his dealer. He was my only true friend in New York and I use this story when talking to youngsters about staying away from substances.
Canty had narrowly missed the 1980 US Olympic team, and I'd actually turned down a television contract from SportsChannel in the United States a year earlier to concentrate on my studies. The fight was talked of as comebacking prospects.
My mentor in New York, Adonis Torres, sadly died in 1987 and I made Brighton my adopted home in January 1988. In the 18 months prior to making Brighton my home, I had worked painstakingly hard, menally and physically, to evolve into being a complete boxer, fighter, puncher and gladiator with a style all of my own.
I realised that a pugilists success is usually determined by how well he can absorb a blow, so worked hard towards a PhD in absorbance. I also studied intensely Yuan Shibing's translated Art of War until it became imprinted in my brain, and used various techniques from Shaolin tradition to enhance, edit and add to the textbook boxing manual skills I had mastered through thousands of hours of repetition.
My drive to succeed in boxing came through my drive to become an accepted individual. My brothers always treated me like horse manure growing up and they all boxed. Basically, that's the only reason I boxed.
One day I read the 1692 poem, 'Desiderata', where one of the stanza goes like this: 'If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.' That learned me to place objective in front of subjective.
Subjective is negative. Objective is positive. It's really that simple.
If it wasn't for me reading this particular poem (believed by some to have been found in a churchyard in Baltimore - author unknown), I would never have made it in boxing. I'd have wanted to be the best of the best in my chosen profession, to do things more exceptionally brilliant than everybody else in the trade. That would have burned me out, both mentally and physically.
However, I gave myself an objective and that was to win. If certain fighters needed to be avoided, they would be avoided. I would win until I got my hands on a world title belt, which I'd have needed to honour the thousands upon thousands of hours in the gymnasium and social isolation by making money off. My only concern was to win boxing matches.
The score is that if you lose a boxing match you're on half of what you were before and if you lose two boxing matches there's a dead end. I couldn't afford that.
I always say I went through a trial-and-error period to make the grade, then I beat Benn and made the grade. My first 19 fights in the United Kingdom were basically still part of that trial-and-error period. For example, in my breakthrough fight against Anthony Logan, you'll notice that I still looked too novicey - my arms were positioned poorly, whereas against Benn they were much more tightly tucked in and correct.
As far as I'm concerned, I proved myself the ultimate pugilist for what I achieved that night against Benn in Birmingham. To beat the hardest pound-for-pound puncher in the world with your hands down, to stand up to, look into the eyes of, confidence trick and conquer the most terrifying person you've ever come across, with your fans out-numbered in that arena by around 400-to-1 (I had a crowd of about 30 or so up from Brighton) and 95+% of spectators both expecting your head to end up in the fourth row and wanting your head to end up in the fourth row, I guess it speaks for itself. I was intimidated by Benn, the crowd, everything, just didn't let it show.
The morning after I knocked out Dos Santos in 20 seconds, I went into training for the Benn fight. I made the decision that Benn was the most vicious man I'd ever seen, so for 1) everything in training would have to be unorthodox and for 2) I'd also need to change my style completely. For 1) is because Benn was more used to opponents covering up with perfect boxing manual guard than anybody. For 2) is because I would need to throw him off to tame that viciousness.
Once these thoughts functioned in my mind, there was no going back. I had to go through with them. It was about having complete conviction because Benn was so vicious.
If you watch my first 19 fights in the United Kingdom, my punches are poetically stylish to a severe degree, what I like to call fanciful work. I don't mind admitting that I watch these fights for hours on end, all the time, like a Narcissist. I also fought out of a crouch, a pouncing fighter with pretty, light punching flurries up close or perfect single shots executed with beautiful leverage. That was my game. I also moved and danced a lot and liked to triple and quadruple the jab.
In training for Benn though I focussed entirely on effectiveness over looking pretty because there would be nothing pretty in a fight against a dog with a rag, and staying upright and moving more, leading with right hands, right uppercuts or left hooks. You can't crouch in front of Nigel Benn because he's too vicious. My good friend John Regan came up with a swungball device to help my reflexes - that's how much I respected Benn's punch, going out of my way to use custom made machinery.
Usually I would use the first minute of a fight to find all four corners of the ring and wouldn't throw a meaningful punch, whereas against Benn I beat him to the centre of the ring, had my back turned towards him and tried to take him out with the very first punch of the fight.
In training and sparring, rather than light punching flurries from up close I would use hard punching flurries from long. So everything was done opposing, that was the mindset throughout training for Benn because he was so vicious.
If not for my PhD in absorbance, combined with the granite constitution I always felt I had, I'd have been knocked out by Benn many times over that night. If not for my tactics I'd have been knocked out by Benn many, many times over.
I said to myself, though, that for every knockout blow he landed I'd try to throw four or five punches back in his face. Once I said that to myself I had to go through with that convinction and did.
The first three rounds were so intensely ferocious that, yes, the thoughts running through my head towards the end of the third round were that I needed to quit to get out of this situation. Television sanitised immensely just how ferocious those first three rounds were for me. In the ring that night against that man, his pace was just looney, right from the offset. I'd never experienced anything quite like it before and it was a matter of integrity to block these thoughts.
In the fourth round, we got into a clinch on the ropes and he bounced me off and banged me with this right uppercut that left a laceration in my tongue almost an inch long, because my tongue had slotted in between my gumshield and bottom teeth at that precise moment. I was swallowing pints of blood for the rest of the fight but had to hide it from both the referee and my corner because I didn't want the fight stopped, even though I knew full well that the blood could curdle and cause me to choke to death at any time. It was a matter of integrity.
I was also winded two or three times throughout the fight, which leaves you exhausted anyway.
In the fifth and sixth rounds his pace had been beginning to stutter slightly, which had allowed me draw a few breathes atleast.
I woke up in a hospital bed the next morning and the stitched tongue was the least of my worries, not only were my ribs bruised but my hips, back and even abdominals all had bruises on too. It was agony. But atleast it took the pain away from my skull and semi-dislocated jaw. Then my urine came out red! "I couldn't have been closer to death in there," I mumbled when my bodyguard, supervisor and training assistant since January 1988, Ronnie Davies, came to visit me.
I was in agony in the fight, it took a titanic effort to not show pain during that fight, particularly towards the end.
That was the first of 20 world title fights in a row, ofcourse, and 19 successful world title fights in a row, both were all time records in world boxing history.
Bookmarks