Glen Johnson Interview

This is an interview I did all the way back in 2014. I was writing for a boxing website and desperate to get any sort of material, I would ask any professional boxer who followed me on Twitter if they would be open to an interview.

So imagine my shock and disbelief when I got the opportunity to one day make a phone call to Florida and chat with none other than the former Light-Heavyweight Champion and Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year for 2004, Glen "The Road Warrior" Johnson. 

Where Am I?

I didn't die.

It'll Get Better

While I do my best to update the blog as often as I can, I do admit that last month probably wasn't my best in terms of blogging quality. Yeah, the 9/11 post was serious and I do like to do serious work every now and then but I hope that this month I'll still be able to do a lot more.

Lately most of my time has been occupied by sleep. Yeah, not gonna lie, I'm a lazy mofo. Working midnights blows, trying to find new work, new apartment and the time I usually have off is spent in dreamworld. Also I've been comitting a lot of time to doing podcasts with friends from college, as well as doing my own podcast for a boxing website I contribute to (Albeit, not consistantly). Last week I took part in a Star Trek podcast that took nearly three hours to get through. Not that I don't have a good time with them but even looking back at it now, I think, "Three hours...what the hell is the matter with me!?" That'll but up on the Basement Vagrants site some time soon.

Right now I keep hearing rumours about how Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore might be getting a divorce cause Kutcher is cheating. I remember being really annoyed at the couple when they first hooked up because I really didn't give a shit about their relationship and it made me realize that there are so many other celebrity couples that make a big deal about how in love they are and then break up shortly after getting married. I'll be making a list about that soon.

But anyway, thanks for the support. Each month has been better than the last in terms of hits and hopefully it will get better in terms of post quality and updates.

What I Love About Boxing #1

Referee Kenny Bayless. The fight can be a massive disapointment (Like Pacquiao/Mosley last night) but at least you know that man is going to put every ounce of energy he has into a count.

Keep up the fine work, Kenny. You're in an inspiration to referees everywhere

Vegas Vacation: Coles Notes Edition

Normally, I could bombard you with a recap of my trip to Las Vegas with a summary so detailed that Tom Clancy would find it longwinded but instead, I'll just go in point form:

• Walking in -30 weather with howling wind is a bitch.
  
  
• Getting to the gate for the flight was one long maze of lines, scans, questions and bullshit that seem so easy to get around that it's a miracle there aren't more terrorist attacks in North America.
  
  
• Aaron's friend Oleg is a nice guy despite living in Edmonton. He and Aaron met on the internet and at this point, I'll allow you to make your own To Catch a Predator joke.
  
  
• Aaron claims he wants to get back into boxing which shocked the hell out of me. I plan to sell him my heavybag for five times what it's worth.
  
  
• Flights can suck ass when you wait an hour on the runway for them to de-ice the plane. Seriously, a whole hour just waiting. A word of advice to any people who want to fly out when it's really cold: Pre-drink.
  
  Flight 547 to Las Vegas is now boozing
  
  
• Nearly suffered heatstroke once we landed in Vegas.
  
  
• Our hotel was right across from Caesar's Palace. Sadly, it was not as extravagant. Did have a better buffet though.
  
  Breakfast of champions
  
  
• Heavy drinking was one of the activities we lined up for ourselves however it was probably a bad idea to eat only two hot dogs before downing drink after drink after drink.
  
  
• I can understand people visiting Las Vegas but for the life of me I can't understand how anyone can live there.
  
  
• Four Loco is an alright drink for the first few sips but after that it's like punch at a high-school dance that someone spiked way too much.
  
  No es bueno
  
  
• We didn't stay up all night partying unlike the people below us however I'm very certain that when it was all done they played 'That's All Folks' from Bugs Bunny.
  
  
• We spent our first night looking for a strip club but when that didn't work we tried looking for the buffet in our hotel which was even more pathetic considering we kept walking past the stairway.
  
  
• It was probably a good thing though since we were so wasted that we would have been thrown out.
  
  
• Aaron came up with the good idea of going to The Gun Store so we can shoot stuff. It sounded like a good idea so we went.
  
  Special discounts for children and psychopaths
  
  
• You know how in the movies someone who has never fired a gun before will pick one up and turn into Clint Eastwood. Yeah, that's a load of shit.
  
  
• I was having a hard time deciding which gun to shoot however I ended up picking the Baretta, just like Robert Blake.
  
  
• There were many targets to choose from and I decided to go with a zombie clown. Aaron took the zombie soldier (Headshots were a must) and Oleg took one that had two bad guys on it. The taller guy was pointing a gun and screaming and the guy in front of him looked like that midget from Fantasy Island.
  
  "What did I ever do to you, Oleg?"
  
  
• The people who work at The Gun Shop were packing heat at all times. Aaron even saw on the website that if you didn't drop the gun when they told you to, that they would shoot you.
  
  
• Apparently Katelynn doesn't like guns. The Gun Store employee deemed her a 'hippie'.
  
  
• Aaron probably did the best out of the three of us. I was only lucky to manage one headshot on my Zombie Clown. However, truth be told, I had to hold back lest my identity as a former assassin be uncovered.
  
  
• After shooting our loads (So to speak) we went back to the hotel for a bit and then decided to do more sightseeing. I mentioned how Mandalay Bay had a boxing museum that I was interested in checking out. And since we could get buzzed along the way, off we went.
  
  
• As I mentioned earlier, just because it looks close doesn't mean that it really is. We walked, drank, drank, walked, stopped to drink, stopped to pee and then drink some more before walking a lot more.
  
  
• I felt kinda bad for Aaron and Oleg because they're not boxing dorks like I was and yet here we were, busting our asses just to get to Mandalay Bay for a museum. At one point I told them that they could go back to the hotel and rest (And drink some more) but they insisted we stick together.
  
  
• If I didn't wear the camera strap around my neck, Aaron would owe me a new camera. He decided it would be funny to poke my ribs while I tried to focus in on a shot. Naturally had the camera been damaged, I would have had to kill him but thankfully, this was not the case.
  
  Aaron caused me to take this...
  
  ...when I was going for this.
  

• The Mandalay Bay fight museum was...smaller than I had expected. And naturally, I almost got us kicked out within ten seconds of entering because I didn't notice the 'No Cameras' sign.
  

• I don't see the harm in me taking a picture of De la Hoya's trunks he wore against Vargas but if those are the rules...
  
  
• Was a bit disapointed that most of the stuff was actually up for sale. I mean, yeah in hindsight it might be cool to own some small part of boxing history. But to have it for sale in a museum? Just didn't sit right with me.
  
  
• Surprised they didn't have any Manny Pacquiao shirts for sale for $10. I would bought one and started wearing it right then and there.
  
  
• From there it was more walking but this time back to the hotel. Thankfully there were trams that could take us from hotel to hotel but sometimes it felt like we were doing the same amount of walking.
  
  
• You'd think we would have been tired after all this walking but once we rested our feet back at the hotel, we decided we would head to one of the strip clubs we couldn't find before. And since we had free passes, we'd be kinda dumb to not use them.
  
  
• "Little Darlings" sounds like a strip club that features midgets. Oddly enough, one guy did offer us passes to Larry Flynt's strip club which features naked midget mud wrestling. Pass.
  
  Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three.
  
  
• We weren't even in the club for two minutes and already Oleg was being felt up. Sadly it was by security after he kept setting off the metal detector.
  
  
• We were greatly disapointed that the strip club didn't even serve alcohol. Instead they offered us soft drinks. Cause everyone knows nothing goes better with a lap dance than Mountain Dew.
  
  
• There was one dancer named Pink who I swear had the upper body of a twelve year old boy. However she made up for her lack of boobies by...humping somebody's baseball hat. I'm not kidding. The guy didn't look to happy about it either.
  

• If you want to read more about what happened at the strip club, pick up this month's issue of Penthouse.
  
  
• I was enjoying the scene but for some reason, when receiving a lap dance, I wanted to burst out and sing, "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts".
  
  
• I don't understand why guys think they have to buy souveniers for their girlfriends. Seriously, they'll get over it. Besides, do you think they'll be envious of the crabs you picked up from that stripper and how there wasn't any left for her?
  
  
• Every time I said, "That's my last beer," I was being handed another one. And I drank it.
  
  
• Yes there is footage of me shotgunning a beer. Yes, Aaron and Oleg are full of crap when they say I only did about 1/4 of it, it was more like 3/4 (I would know, I was the one drinking). And yes, I did throw up for over a minute. OK, it wasn't like a minute long puke or anything. Think of it like puking in segments.
  And no, I will not upload it.
  
  
• After the first one Oleg asked, "Did you throw up?" despite being the one holding the camera and pointing it right at me.
  
  
• Even though they were laughing at my expense and I told them, "I fucking hate you guys", I still had a smile on my face.
  
  All the beers I drank
  
  
• Halfway through my barf Aaron told me to finish my beer however I had already put the can down and chances are that I puked on that as well as the balcony.
  
  
• It was funny that immediately after throwing up everything I had eaten up to that point, the next thing I wanted to do was get back to the buffet.
  
  
• I suck at gambling
  
  
• Last day was kind of bittersweet. It was a nice vacation but like all good ones it felt too short and we knew that we were leaving nice warm weather to go back to hell frozen over.
  
  
• If I ever go back to Vegas, I think it will have to be the weekend of a big fight.
  
  
• Viva Las Vegas

Jones/Hopkins II: Who They Are and Why Should I Care?

Boxing is not a perfect sport. There are instances of fighters who take forever to get a title shot (Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Frankie Randall), shady promoters (Don King) and scorecards that makes you think wonder if Helen Keller was sitting at ringside as a judge (Lewis/Holyfield I, Williams/Martinez). But one thing just as annoying as any of those is a fighter that doesn't know when to quit.

Helen Keller or a corrupt Las Vegas boxing judge? You decide!

Today I'll be writing about two such fighter: Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. Both are two of the best fighters of their era and both have been fighting professionally for over twenty years and both continue to fight despite being over the age of 40.

Both came from different backgrounds. Jones was brought up by a tough, hard knocks father who was grooming his son to be a champion. Stardom seemed evident for Jones when he got screwed by clones of Helen Keller at the 1988 Seoul Olympics after dominating his opponent from start to finish.


Can you spot Helen Keller in this video?

Despite this, Jones went on with his pro career and ended up winning titles at Middleweight, Super-Middleweight, Light-Heavyweight and Heavyweight and was named the best fighter of the 1990's as well. But before all the titles, he came up against a tough contender from Philadelphia named Bernard Hopkins.

Hopkins was also an amateur boxer but was pulled into the street gangs and then thrown into prison where he converted to Islam and got back into training so that upon his release, he could turn professional and become a champion. But after losing his first fight, Hopkins took a year and a half off and then tallied up a 22 win streak which lead to his first title fight against Roy Jones, both of whom were fighting for the vacant middleweight title in 1993.

Since these two men are considered the best of their era, it should come as no shock to you that the fight was boring as all hell. They barely made contact with each other and it almost made you wonder how anyone could say, "Wow, I'd like to see those two have a rematch!"

From there they went separate paths. Jones moved up in weight and began a long dominance in the light-heavyweight division. Hopkins stayed at middleweight where he quickly won title after title until finally reaching super stardom when in late 2001, he knocked out (and destroyed the career of) Felix Trinidad to become the first undisputed middleweight champion since Marvin Hagler. Jones in the mean time had beaten everyone who had come before him and even avenged a DQ loss by a 1 round knockout.

While both were dominant, Jones was the flashier of the two. He had faster hands, better athleticism and the ability to knock you out with his hands behind his back (Seriously, he did that once). He was a major force for HBO Boxing and got so popular (or arrogant) that he wrote a rap song that was simply a love letter to himself about how great he was. Along the way he also kept dropping hints that he was going to move up to heavyweight and fight Evander Holyfield and while this was back in 1997, don't be too surprised if that fight somehow ends up happening next year.

Boxing fans in regards to Roy Jones Jr's constant talk of moving up to heavyweight

So in 2003, Jones vacated his undisputed light-heavyweight title and moved up to face perhaps one of the worst heavyweights in recent memory, John Ruiz for the meaningless WBA title. Never mind that Lennox Lewis was seen as the king of the heavyweights, having beaten every opponent either the first time or in a rematch and had just come off of spanking Mike Tyson. No, instead Jones picked John Ruiz and promptly won a small chunk of the heavyweight championship. It was his last moment of greatness.

After unsuccessful attempts to lure Holyfield or Tyson into the ring with him (But not Lewis), Jones moved back down to light-heavyweight where he fought Antonio Tarver. Jones seemed sluggish in the fight and perhaps losing all that muscle he put on for the Ruiz fight affected him. Many thought that Jones didn't deserve the decision over Tarver so they had a rematch. Jones was knocked out in the second round.

Deciding that a tuneup was in order, Jones decided to fight recent journeyman turned IBF light-heavyweight champion, Glen Johnson who sported a record of 40-9-2. This time Jones was knocked out in the ninth round. He then lost a decision to Tarver. After winning some meaningless fights that no one watched, Jones came back against another faded star, Felix Trinidad.

Believe it or not, Trinidad was actually more shot than Jones despite being knocked out only once in his career and getting out jabbed in his previous fight. And while it was entertaining, it gave a lot of fans the impression that the old Roy Jones was back and going to rule the light-heavyweight division. Then came his fight against undefeated champ Joe Calzaghe.

Do I really need to explain that Jones lost the Calzaghe fight?

Once again back to fighting nobodies in nowhere, Jones was given a chance to reclaim the spotlight by fighting old rival Bernard Hopkins who had just come off his best victory against Kelly Pavlik. Knowing that Hopkins was still dangerous despite being older, Jones decided he would go to Australia and have a tuneup fight against Danny Green. It was perhaps the worst decision of his career because he was knocked out in one round as well as his plans of a rematch with Hopkins.

Speaking of Bernard, as I mentioned he stayed at middleweight and became the undisputed champion and reached superstar status the same year Jones lost his when in 2004, he knocked out the biggest name in the sport, Oscar de la Hoya. However the following year he lost his titles and a rematch to Jermain Taylor. With talk of retirement in the air, Hopkins decided to move up in weight and challnege Antonio Tarver for the light-heavyweight title and promptly beat the shit out of Tarver.

Deciding that he was still good in his 40's as he was in his 30's, Hopkins fought Winky Wright and beat him and then came up against Joe Calzaghe who had moved up from super-middleweight. Now when I first saw them fight, I was excited, especially when Hopkins dropped him in the first round. But from there it was the following: *Punch; clinch; punch; clinch*

Normally fighters hug each other AFTER the fight, not during...

It really annoyed me because that was the first time my dad had sat down and watched an actual fight with me from start to finish in an attempt to find out why I was so in love with the sport. And while this did leave a sour taste in his mouth, highlights of Pacquiao/Marquez II quickly erased any bad memories he had.

Hopkins lost, a decision I agreed with but lately I've been thinking of going back and scoring it again. Anyway, at that point I though Hopkins was shot and was annoyed that he was going to be fighting middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik at a catchweight of 170 pounds. My prediction was that Hopkins was going to be too slow and by the 6th round, the hard hitting Pavlik would have Hopkins down and out.

Well it turns out that just the opposite happened and Pavlik was given a 12 round, one sided beating of a lifetime and in one bout Hopkins erased the doubt that might have been raised in the fights with Taylor and Calzaghe. And at the point, after this great victory, I thought Hopkins should have retired.

But no. He's still got a hardon for fighting Roy Jones and beating the shit out of him. And even though Jones lost his tuneup fight while Hopkins won his, this fight is still happening? Why? What will it prove? The fight should have happened nine years ago when they were still good at what they did.

If anything, this makes Hopkins look kind of petty. He still wants to fight a guy who has lost five of his last ten fights, four of those losses coming by knockout. Hopkins can't really win in this fight anyway. By that I mean, he can't do anything to Jones that can't be done before.

He can't frustrate Jones to where he'll make an illegal move and be disqualified, Griffin did that.
He can't knock him out in the first 3 rounds, Tarver did that. He also beat him over 12 rounds.
He can't dominate Jones when he was expected to lose and knock him out. Johnson did that.
He won't pick himself up off the canvas to come back and spank Jones silly. Calzaghe did that.
I bet that Hopkins was hoping to knock Roy out in the first round and really shock everyone but then Danny Green had to go and fuck that up for him. So you understand, whatever Hopkins does to Roy Jones, it's already been done. But I don't think he'll knock him out. He couldn't knock out Pavlik or What's His Face in his last tuneup.

So will I watch this fight? Still not sure but if I do I'm not going to throw out fifty bucks like the promoters are expecting us to. I'll find some illegal streaming site and watch it for free. How else do you think I watched Pavlik/Hopkins?

It's a meaningless fight that HBO PPV is going to force down our throats to make us think like it's the Rumble in the Jungle while at the same time, fighters who are younger, hungrier and more deserving of a big fight are pushed into the side while two old men fight to see who, at the end of the day, can say has a bigger cock.

Hajime no Ippo

You'd honestly rather read 'Prince of Tennis' than this?

Two weeks ago I wrote about a character who had been around for 30 years and how his legend of suck has evolved into some strange sort of hero worship for nerds.

Today, I'll talk about something that as of this writing has reached it's 20th anniversary of publication and while it may be having it's own moments of suckage right now (Don't get too excited, Fett-boys, your hero will always be #1) it is still a great read and perhaps one of the most underrated mangas ever written.


Back in 2005, I was participating in an online discussion related to the (then) upcoming movie Rocky Balboa. At the time, I was shaking my head at the thought of Stallone getting back into the ring and slurring his way through another fight and was looking for another source of boxing related fiction. That was when someone asked me if I had ever read or watched Hajime no Ippo. Since I had not and was always eager to give something boxing related a look, I decided it was best to check it out.



First, let me just say that Hajime no Ippo (Fighting Spirit as it was called in the North American dub) is terribly cliched. You have your standard weakling main character who decides to become a professional boxer, the wise old sage/coach with a Gordon Ramsay like temper, the rival/friend who is perfect in every way yet a polar opposite to the main character (A common character in anime), and a strong, undefeated older champion boxer who is so macho and such a heterosexual that he's almost borderline gay. I'm not joking earlier, Takamura may be one of the most likable sexual predators since Roman Polanski.

However despite all the cliches, this is the only manga I'll read and it's one of the best things I've ever read.

To sum it up, Ippo is a timid high school student who helps run a fishing boat business with his mom and generally gets the crap beaten out of him by the bullies at school. During one of Ippo's many beatings, an up and coming middleweight boxer, Takamura, steps in and saves Ippo. After seeing how cool Takamura is at taking buttons from people (Yeah, apparently boxers can take all the buttons off your shirt while keeping their hands in their pockets) and watching a bunch of Mike Tyson videos Ippo decides that he wants to box professionally too.


Surprisingly, Takamura is a bit pissed off about this because he thinks Ippo is taking the sport very lightly. With tears in his eyes, Ippo asks, "Takamura, what does it mean to be strong?" From there Ippo meets his rival, Miyata and the series is ultimately building up to a super huge mega big time ultra super smash hit gigantic hella mega fight between the two.


Twenty years later, that answer still eludes our hero even though in the manga he's only aged maybe six or seven years.


This is an anime geared towards men and has testosterone dripping from almost every page. If the characters aren't fighting, they're preparing for a match and if they're not doing that then Takamura is making a joke about (and thereby grabbing) Ippo's penis.


Seriously, this series has more dick jokes than a Kevin Smith film festival. And you'd be surprised the number of time that someone makes reference to Ippo's massize Schweitzer-like dick. It almost becomes a plot point. What's even stranger is that sometimes Ippo acts like he wants to use his Schweitzer-schlong on Miyata than Kumi, the girl everybody keeps trying to get him to date.

Why are you picturing Miyata shirtless? GIRLS, Ippo! Boys kiss GIRLS!!!

I've watched the first anime series which ran from 2000 until 2002 which was a few years before I got interested in boxing. It took me a long time until I found the English dub for it since reading subtitles can be a bit annoying. However that quickly changed when I noticed how atrociously ass the dub is. The voice actors sound all wrong, and the dialogue is totally changed around to the point where it's almost geared to kids aged 10-12. If you're going to take an anime where at one point Takamura looks in awe at the size of the crap he takes and try to gear it towards pre-teens then you're heading toward Boba Fett levels of pathetic.

Takamura does not like any comparisons to Boba Fett


What also sucks about the anime series is that there is no mention at all of Mike Tyson. In the manga, Ippo watches a Tyson highlight video and that starts his boxing adventure. Here, he just watches some unknowns and it's lame. Granted, Tyson had just lost the title by the time this manga was published but still, there are lots of similarities between his and Ippo's style of fighting which would have been great for the anime.



However, when the show ended in 2002, the series had barely scratched the surface of Hajime no Ippo. Yes he had won the Japanese Featherweight Title but there were so many great fights and great storylines that had yet to be told on the small screen. However, I knew that the manga was far from over and I could continue to read a new chapter every week.



So you can imagine my shock when a new series, Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger premiered in January of last year. The original Japanese voice actors were all back (aside from a few minor characters) and it had the look and feel of the original series, picking up right where it left off in 2002. And it started out promptly with Takamura grabbing Ippo's massive dick while in the shower.

Uh...did someone put their hentai pics on my blog?


However, all good things don't last forever (I'm talking about New Challenger, not Ippo's free handjob) and the series ended after just 26 episodes. It's not cancelled because it has been revealed that there will be a third season. That's great and all but why do we have to wait so long?


Which brings me to the manga. It's great as I've said but at the same time, it's starting to get a little frustrating. Ippo is at this point, still Japanese champion and ranked by the WBC (World Boxing Commission) yet in almost every fight lately he seems to be getting the shit beat out of him when he shouldn't be. I mentioned earlier how his fighting style is similar to Mike Tyson's but at the moment he seems to be getting spanked just like Tyson did against Lennox Lewis. And the thing is, Tyson had incredible defense in his peak and would hit you twelve times for every shot you missed. However Ippo's defense seems to resemble the late Arturo Gatti, who would block every right hook with left side of his face.


And this is the second fight in a row that this has happened. The one before that was so bad that I think I've actually blocked it from my memory. It also doesn't help that the fights are longer than they were in the beginning of the series.


Mike Tyson gives foreshadowing to the next chapter of 'Hajime no Ippo'.


Hopefully the series does get better and I think the more we get away from Ippo's fights, the better it will get. But if you ever want a good read, Hajime no Ippo is something you should check out. Just don't expect to get it all done in one day. You're going to need a couple of really free weekends to get through this.

James Toney Said It Best

"Here I come baby! BURGER KING!!! BURGER KING!!!"

As part of my weekly tradition I've decided to cap off a long and tedious work week with some BK. Granted too much Burger King is what caused Toney to balloon from a middleweight (160 pounds) to the heavyweight division where his weight usually tips 220 but I don't think I need to worry about that happening to me

The Ring and Pacquiao

For the past two years or so, I’ve made it my duty to purchase every monthly issue of The Ring magazine so that I can read some good articles and count the number of obvious spelling mistakes. 

However to find this month’s issue has been quite a struggle.

Apparently it was to hit shelves September 29. No such luck at any Chapters, magazine shop or any other outlet. For all of this month, whenever I found a bookstore I had to scope through the magazines, throwing MMA and professional wrestling magazines aside hoping to find the bright blue cover with Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao rushing towards each other for a battle to come next month. 

Up until today I was worried that it was too far into the month that all copies must have been purchased or that they had been pulled. But when it seemed that hope was lost, there it was in a small convenience store in the mall in downtown Calgary. 

I loudly exclaimed “YES!” as I picked it up, probably looking like a massive tool in the process but happy nonetheless. As I paid for it, the young woman at the counter pointed to Pacquiao. 

“Do you like boxing?” she asked. 

“Love it.” 

“Do you like him?” 

 “Pacquiao? He’s great.”

The woman smiled. Being Filipino it wasn’t that surprising that she recognized the pound for pound king of boxing (Special note to Mayweather fans: Coming back and challenging a lightweight to a welterweight contest does not put you at the top of the list). Pacquiao is more famous in his country than Michael Jordon was in America.

“I don’t like boxing or a lot of sports…but when he’s fighting, I love to watch it. Is he fighting this month or next?”

“Next month,” I answered. “I can’t remember if it’s in New York or Las Vegas but it’s going to be a great fight.”