"Look, I'm in the minority here, but I happen to like Floyd. I mean, he's an easy guy to throw rocks at, he's an easy guy to be mad at, and he's an easy guy to get down on, but I've seen different. No excuses, but he's had a different kind of upbringing. He's been in boxing his whole life and, like I said, he didn't have the smoothest upbringing. I've been around him and he's a fight guy, he's a thoughtful guy, and I know this is going to sound crazy to your readers, but he's a sensitive guy...Floyd thinks he's being like Muhammad Ali, like you said before. Half of the people that used to fly all over the place to see Ali...like Ali used to say, 'Half of the people loved me and half of the people are here because they hate me, but they are here and they all bought a ticket.' And he got a percentage of those ticket sales. It made a lot of sense for him to say some of the things he said. In his mind, I think he just thinks that he's doing something that has been done for generations, that has been done in other sports and done in this sport, and figures that it's fair game," stated ESPN commentator and world-class trainer Teddy Atlas as he shared his thoughts on Floyd Mayweather Jr. and some of the recent issues he's dealing with. You don't want to miss what else he had to say. Check it out!
PC: Floyd Mayweather Jr. had been quiet for a long time and now he seems to be in the news every day; first the video and now the legal trouble. What's your take on Mayweather's current situation?
TA: Look, I'm in the minority here, but I happen to like Floyd. I mean, he's an easy guy to throw rocks at, he's an easy guy to be mad at, and he's an easy guy to get down on, but I've seen different. No excuses, but he's had a different kind of upbringing. He's been in boxing his whole life and, like I said, he didn't have the smoothest upbringing. I've been around him and he's a fight guy, he's a thoughtful guy, and I know this is going to sound crazy to your readers, but he's a sensitive guy. Look, what he said on that recent rant was wrong. It was foolish, it was ignorant and he's paying a price for it, as he should, for the way people are responding to it. There was no reason or no cause for it. There was nothing positive as a human being for him to be saying those things, but having said that, I see the other side of Floyd and I can't help it. I see a guy that sometimes he's influenced by the wrong things, sometimes he thinks that he needs to say things to get attention, and he's being misguided and he sometimes misguides himself, but I don't think he's a bad guy. I really don't. I think he is a guy that has issues. I don't dare speak on the personal situation that he's going through because I don't know all of the details, and I'm not going to speak on something that I don't have all of the information on and I shouldn't be speaking on it.
But I know that he hasn't helped himself, obviously, as far as not being active, as far as not fighting; I think that is obviously his choice. I think it speaks to who he is. He is a guy that fights very defensive, a guy that fights very carefully, a guy that prides himself on being cerebral, and he's smart and he's not going to be a guy that's going to be used up. It's guys like that that are thoughtful in those areas, and think that way, and don't want to take a lot of punishment, and pride themselves on being smart fighters. Those guys are not really the kind of guys that are going to want to fight forever and the kind of guys that don't want to fight 3, 4 or 5 times a year. They tell you what kind of person they are by their styles. They're not liars. I actually think he's very honest. He's telling you that he's a very careful boxer; a defensive-minded boxer. I don't care if the audience doesn't like it. I care about what works for me and what makes sense for me, what's safe for me, what's best for me and in line with the way he fights in the ring, he's being consistent with that outside of the ring. He's saying, "I'm not going to fight a lot of times, I'm not going to take that many chances, I'm not going to use myself up and I'm not going to put myself in a position where I'm walking a tight rope too many times if I don't have to." So he's been consistent with the temperament that he has and the style that he has. He's being consistent outside of the ring with what he shows you in the ring, so I'm not surprised by that. And I understand it. In some ways, I admire that he's being that honest and he's telling you, "I fight because I can make a good living at it. I fight because I've been fighting since I was a kid. I fight because I'm good at it. I fight because I can feel proud of what I can accomplish and the feeling of being a champion. But I also understand the risk, the dangers, and I also understand that I'm going to pay mind to those risks. I'm going to pay attention to those dangers." And I understand that.
I think he has to get himself together and put his house in order so to speak. He has to take care of his personal situations and then, once he does that, then obviously he can think about what he's going to do professionally back in the ring. I also think that he's always thought like a manager. I mean, he fights like a manager. I'm going to maneuver, I'm going to manipulate you and I'm going to do this and outsmart you and make the best deal for myself. I think that he thinks the longer that I put off this Pacquiao fight, the more controversy I can create. And again, he didn't say the smartest things in the world, but I think that he gets misguided. In his mind, he thinks...he comes from a world where there is a pop culture and the more sensational the stuff is, the more attention it gets. We come from this time and that culture is out there; let's be honest. The media gets influenced by it. you act like you do things straight down the road and you go to bed every night at 8 o'clock and you drink a glass of milk right before and you do everything perfect, but not too many people have your name on their lips. All of a sudden, you do something a little crazy, not that you do something wrong, but you do something that's a little out there and all of a sudden, everyone has your name on their lips. The kid's notice that today and they see that. And I think that, in his mind, part of it was misguided, but in his mind, he gets influenced by these things. And I think that in his mind, he's thinking, "If I say something that's really crazy, shocking, or that's going to shake people up, like the other guys, I'm going to make money. I'm going to get paid for that. It's going to get me more attention. It's going to make financial sense." I think that's a part of it, and again, I'm making no excuses for him. I'm just understanding where he comes from a little bit and where his thinking is and I think he got out of control and he didn't get the best advice. But again, he's a full grown man and he's gotta make his own decisions. There's no excuses for that. But I think that he just thought if I say something outrageous, when the time comes for this fight, it's going to be bigger and I'm going to get paid more. I'm giving myself leverage to make the purse bigger. I think that he thought the combination of that and a combination of waiting as long as possible will make that fight that much bigger.
PC: I believe we share a brain as far as the aspect of what you just said goes. Like you said, it's not to make excuses, but we have to stop acting like this is the first time this has happened in boxing. This is a mental warfare sport and I think it was Ali-like, but in this day and age, maybe Ali wouldn't have been appreciated. I don't know, but it made people go from saying, "I can care less if they fight," to saying, "God, I want to see Manny knock this kid out," so it served its purpose in my opinion.
TA: We need to get control of ourselves. People say, "Get real." We need to get more real. We need to stop the BS and stop with all of the, "we think somebody was being racist because of a comment." These are things that people say, and we say it amongst friends, whether you are black, white or Hispanic. These are things that are said, and they're not said with maliciousness in our heart or hatred in our heart, but these things are said because people talk that way and they are said in a flippant way. They are said because they've heard it. They say it in the neighborhood and the culture that's out there; people say these things. They are not saying it in a way to where it's in their mind and heart that they are being racist to a certain race of people or portion of society. They are just saying things like you were just touching on; they say it in a way that it is said in their neighborhood. Is it being insensitive? I think it's only insensitive when it gets to a certain place. Those are things that people say to be funny, to get a raise or a reaction, but they're not saying it because they are trying to hurt people's feelings. I think that sometimes we get carried away. We get carried away with that stuff and we lose credibility. Because if we try to attach these racist intentions on everything when it doesn't belong there, then when it does belong there, it's like, "Is that the real one now or is it just one that we're using there because it's convenient to use right now?" I think we just have to have common sense. I think we just have to slow down a little bit as people and really stop using it for a dagger; stop using it to get an advantage, stop using it because it's convenient and easy to use it. Use it when it's right to use it and when it's not right to use it, use common sense. Don't take advantage of certain things that shouldn't be taken advantage of. And again, I really don't think that Floyd was doing it as anything close to racism. He could have used better judgment on some of the things he said, but he was saying it because it was going to get someone's attention, it was going to get a reaction, it was funny and it was things that he probably said to his friends where he used a certain term. And it was things that if you say it or use it in certain places, it wouldn't be appropriate, but when he uses it amongst his friends, it's okay because it's something that he's comfortable with, something that's common for him to say, and I think he thought that was the case there. And I also think that Floyd thinks he's being like Muhammad Ali, like you said before. Half of the people that used to fly all over the place to see Ali...like Ali used to say, "Half of the people loved me and half of the people are here because they hate me, but they are here and they all bought a ticket." And he got a percentage of those ticket sales. It made a lot of sense for him to say some of the things he said. In his mind, I think he just thinks that he's doing something that has been done for generations, that has been done in other sports and done in this sport, and figures that it's fair game.
PC: We here a term a lot in our profession and that term is "face-first Mexican style of fighting." It's not said to be delivered as a racist comment. It's just a certain style that we've grown accustomed to seeing from Hispanic fighters.
TA: I agree with you. Use common sense and just be fair and be realistic about it. It's like we have to be too careful. Why should we have to be so careful if in our heart, we don't mean it in any derogatory way? We don't mean it in a hurtful way. We're saying something that explains a position that's become a common way of explaining it and people understand it for that. A lot of times, we say, "a lot of Mexican fighters have a good left hook to the body." Am I being prejudiced or improper by saying that when the history of the sport has shown that there is truth to that. I have to worry about that? I think I should be worried about...just maybe...just maybe other things that are a little bit more serious than that.
PC: I love the way you keep your father's name alive through your foundation that you set up in his honor. I can't let you get out of here without telling us a little more about your father and the foundation.
TA: I appreciate that and I appreciate the person you are to think of that. I think when a person lives a proper life and a good life, they should be remembered; whether it was your father, your neighbor, a coach or a teacher. But if it was somebody that lived a life that you believed was a good life, and they extended themselves to other people, the best way to honor them is to remember them and do things in that spirit. When I started the Dr. Atlas Foundation 14 years ago, it was to remember him and the way that he lived and try to, as best we could, do some of the things that he did to remember him in the spirit that he did. He was a doctor that took care of people. I don't know any other way to put it. He took care of everyone. He went to the projects every day to do house calls for free. He did house calls every day and he had a line of people outside of his office every day that would wait 4, 5 to 6 hours just to see him because he didn't care if you had little coverage or no coverage. He knew that people couldn't afford to pay for the prescription that he gave them. I remember one day, he got angry at himself because he wrote a prescription out to a family and it was a mom who had 5 children. He wrote a prescription and then he caught himself because he realized that she didn't have a prescription plan to fill this prescription or have $50 to pay for these pills. So then he went into the next room and what did he do? He gave her the medicine. He did that for 55 years. And that's what got me. Sometimes we feel our mortality and we start thinking, "Maybe there will be somebody, and there will be a gate, and maybe somebody or something may keep me from going in there." So for a period of time, you try to straighten yourself out and walk the right path. But for 55 years, he did it, so I figured he couldn't have hid it for 55 years. He might have hid it for 5 or 6, but for 55 years, he consistently lived that way. I thought that he should be remembered.
So I started this foundation and the mission was 2 things. It was to help people that needed to be helped. If it was a family that had a child with cancer and there insurance wasn't paying for it, we pay for the insurance. Or if it was a family with a sick child and they needed to get to a treatment program outside of the state and they couldn't afford to fly out because, of course, the insurance wouldn't pay for that, we would fly them out there and we would put the family up. Or a situation like we had 2 weeks ago where the child was 2 ½ years old with brain cancer and the father quit working a year ago, which a lot of the families go through this. He wanted to be with his son and they fell behind on the bills, and common and very simple things became very difficult and the family couldn't afford to stay near the hospital, so we made sure that they can stay near the hospital. We make sure they have simple things like the gas money, the money to stay in a hotel to be with their son while he's sick; simple things like that. We put up handicap ramps on the side of houses with a paralyzed child. Of course the insurance doesn't take care of that, so we take care of that. We have a food pantry that feeds 300 families a week. I felt like a moron. One day, I was doing a program in a very rough area in New York and I just happened to notice it. It was like 10 o'clock at night and there were about 7 kids that were hanging out after the program. One of them was probably around 7 years old and the oldest ones were probably around 11. I said to one of the women who was running the program with us, "Those kids are still hanging out?" I went over there and I talked to them and the older kids had already been informed to where they didn't open their mouths. They didn't say nothing. But the little one still had to catch up to that, so he said to me, "We didn't eat yet." So I went over to the lady and I said, "You think that's true?" She looks at me, and I'm supposed to be a guy that's been around a lot of stuff, I'm not supposed to be naïve; I felt like an idiot. She says, "It's probably true. They probably got nobody at home and if they are lucky, they might have a grandmother, but they probably got nobody. And who they do have, you wouldn't even want to know." So I rounded them up and ended up taking them out for pizza. It was no big deal, but what happened was, I went back to my organization and I said we gotta open a food pantry. The simplest thing in this country and in this great city and there are kids out there that aren't eating. I felt like an idiot. I really felt like a stupid person because I had never thought of that. So we opened the food pantry and we had a mother that came to us a few months back, and she had 4 children and she's trying. She's working, and she is a single mom, but things got a little out of control and she was going to be thrown out of her apartment. She was going to be put into a shelter and she's got enough dignity and enough pride to where she's been working a couple of jobs and she did not want to be in a shelter. She's got 4 young children and we wanted to make sure she did not go into a shelter so we helped until she got things straightened out.
So whatever those things are with the foundation, it's not one thing, or just for this or that, but it's for people that truly have nowhere else to go. They have fallen through the cracks and they need a little bit of help. The mission statement when I started it, and I said to my people, "There are two things that I want to do. One is I want to legitimize where the help is and I want to do it quickly and real fast and be able to get direct help to these people, where the money is not wasted on administrative cost." If someone needs a machine...like not too long ago, we had this kid who needed a machine to circulate the blood in his legs and it was $2,400. They went to March of Dimes. March of Dimes makes us look like a pimple on a baby's behind. They have millions of dollars, but 85% of their money goes to administrative cost, so when the family called, and I'm not knocking March of Dimes because it's a good organization, but when the family called and said they needed the machine, they said, "No, we don't do that with the money. 85% goes to administrative coast, 4% goes to research and the rest goes to miscellaneous." Now research is very important because some day, we may not need foundations and charities because research will cure all of these problems, but right now, the people that come to the Dr. Atlas Foundation that we are dealing with, guess what? Research is not a part of their life. He needs that machine for the quality of life today to improve their child's quality of living. The research is not doing anything in their life; maybe it will tomorrow or 10 years from now, but right now, it's not. So if it's a wheelchair or a machine or picking up the cost of insurance, whatever it is, our mission statement is, "Get the help directly to the people and don't make them lose more than they've lost." Don't make them lose their dignity, their pride or their self esteem because if you do that, you kind of blew it; you kind of undue the whole thing.
One of the lessons that I learned, because I'm not that smart, but one of the things that I learned from my father, the only time I could be with him is if I went on house calls. So I went on a house call with him and I would be in the car and we would be driving, and he would go in and I stayed in the car because it wasn't professional to go in the house. I was fine with that because I got a chance to be with my father and I admired what he did. I looked at him like a kid might be looking at Brett Favre. I really liked the stuff he was doing. I was young, 10 or 11 years old. So one day, we get to this house and I happened to ask what was wrong with the person. It was an old lady and she would be waiting at the door and I can actually see her waiting when the car pulled up. So I said, "She must be very sick." And he asks me, "Why do you think she's very sick?" I say, "Well, this is the second time we have come here in a week." He said, "You remembered that, huh?" I said, "Yeah, we came here earlier in the week, so she must be very sick." He said, "Nah, actually she's pretty healthy." So I said, "Well, why are you coming back?" He said, "Well, she's got no family. She's very lonely and loneliness is a sickness." So I said, "So what do you do?" He said, "I go in there and I give her a placebo," and I didn't know what it was and he explained to me that it's a sugar pill. He said, "I let her make a cup of tea for me, I sit there and listen to her and she tells me what a great doctor I am and then I go home and she feels better." That stayed with me. It's not enough for us to just get the machine. It's not enough to write the check out, which is pretty easy to do as long as we can raise the funds. It doesn't make us heroes. But the most important thing is to not make the people feel less than what they should feel. That's the most important thing. We've been doing it for 14 years. We've given away about $5.5 million. I wish it was $55.5 million (laughing), I really do, but one thing I feel good about is it's pure money, it goes right to where it has to go and nothing is wasted. We have one big dinner fundraiser where we get about 1,200 people every year. It will be November 18th. If people are interested, they can call the office at 718-980-7037 or they can go on the internet, and I do not even know how to turn a computer on, but the website is www.dratlasfoundation.com, and they can read about it and learn about it there. But it's November 18th at the Hilton Garden Inn in Staten Island. We have celebrities that are good enough to come out and make it a big night and people will want to come to the dinner. We had George Foreman there, Larry Holmes there, "Sugar" Ray Leonard there; we've had Bill Parcels there, and we've had Harry Carson and the entire cast from The Sopranos. We've been fortunate this year because we're going to have Goose Gossage, Dick Ebersol, who is going to receive one of our awards, and some of the Jets and the Giants. So we are fortunate to where people will come out and support us and help us make the night successful.
PC: I appreciate your time. Good luck with the dinner benefit in November and let us know if we can do anything to help leading up to the event. It was an honor, as I said before, and I look forward to speaking to you again. Is there anything you want to say in closing?
TA: I appreciate you. I appreciate you asking about the foundation and I don't have to spend 100 hours with you to see that you are a good person. Thank you!
CHECK OUT PART 1 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH TEDDY ATLAS
CHECK OUT PART 2 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH TEDDY ATLAS
CHECK OUT PART 3 OF THIS EXCLUSIVE IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH TEDDY ATLAS
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[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]