by Suge Green | Sun. Jan. 23, 2010

Former Heavyweight Champion of the World joined the world's number one boxing podcast, ONTHEGRiND BOXiNG recently for an in-depth interview encompassing his entire Hall-of Fame career. The champ lived up to his candid reputation on an array of topics including; his humble beginning, his time with Muhammad Ali, Gerry Cooney, George Foreman, the Klitschko brothers, Floyd Mayweather and much more. Check out the excerpt below to learn what one of the sport's true elder statesmen has to say to today's boxing fans.


Poop-butts...

We all worked regardless of how the fight turned out or whatever. We all worked hard to get to be where we were at. We gave people their money's worth - not like today! These fighters out here today do not give you your money's worth! These guys are just poop-butts!

They go out there and they try to earn a few dollars and they quit. Mayweather and all of them. They don't fight. I mean, who ever heard of a fighter turning down $25 million for a fight? Nobody! We fought everybody for a lot less money than what these guys get paid now.


Any Favorites Today...?

I would like Mayweather. His father and I were in the same stable together, I would say...because I always fought so much in Vegas - he was always there at my camp and what not, we talked a lot and hung out together and everything else. So of course I was rooting for him (Mayweather Jr.).

What made me not root for him no more was his attitude. He changed his attitude...and one day he came to a fight and people was hollerin' for Mayweather, 'Hey - hey - hey!'

Then he came straight by me, and I went to shake his hand, and he looked at me like I was nothing. He walked on by. I said 'Ok, fine.' It killed me right there. I lost my respect for him after that, because I would never snob another fighter. I would never act like I'm much better than another fighter.


The Difference Between Then and Now...

Respect. We had respect for each other, and we had respect for the sport of boxing. These guys today don't have any respect for boxing. They want to get out there, they want to have an entourage of 20 or 30 people. They want to talk a lot of stuff about a guy, call him names and whatever. Talk about the family and all that...that's nothing. That's, 'No.' Don't do that. And a lot of the guys are doing it...and then they don't want to fight each other.

I mean, talk about Mayweather telling Pacquiao to take a test. or whatever...If Pacquiao is taking any drugs, let him take it. It might kill him after I knock him out, you know that's what I think....because it's hard to turn down $25 million. If the guy wants to take a drug, wants to kill his body, let him do it...but $25 million is a lot of money to turn down.


Records, Dollars and Legacy...

When you die - you're gonna die. That record will be remembered, but hey! You aren't gonna know anything about it, because regardless you are out of here. I don't know what's going on up there or where ever we are going, but I know one thing...I'm gonna do all I can while I'm here, and when I leave I'm gonna leave a legacy people are gonna be talking about for years. Now the legacy he's (Mayweather) gonna leave is that he was afraid to fight Pacquiao, and he turned down $25 million. And they gonna say, 'What The Heck Was He Thinking?'...and that's the name of my show, I've got a show and I talk about that.

We got into this game not to be Champions of the World. I hope people got into the ring to make money, that's what I did. I wouldn't want nobody punching me in my face for free. I don't want to run up and down the hills everyday for free. There's got to be a goal behind it. My goal was to be able to get my mom and my family out of the projects so they could live better, so they could eat better, so they could have better clothes. That's what my goal was, not to be the Champion of the World. That just happened to come as you win and you go along, that comes...but that wasn't my goal. My goal was to make some money.

Try to do without money, you can't today. If you haven't got money, there isn't too many people want to bother with you.

Listen to ONTHEGRiND BOXiNG episode 235 in it's entirety, featuring 40 historic minutes with Larry Holmes!