Transcription
Some say the motivation is to build. Some say motivation is the trophy. Well, I say motivation is the money, for me. Because the money was able to put my mother in retirement. Put my dad in a comfortable, uncomfortable position. Put my kids in the best area. I come from a rough background. I come from a rough area. Because if you think small, small things happen. I always dream big. I always believe. I believe in my team. I believe in these fighters. I mean, everything you got on costs money. Everything you do costs money. You can’t take your wife on a date for free. And I’m a good person, and I call them spade to spade. Money doesn’t make me. I make money. And without money, I’d be the same person. I fought so many fights for free. [Music]
You know, I’m always thinking, how can I get better? How can our company grow? How can I continue to teach people around me how to fish? And I don’t want to fish for you. I’d try to become entrepreneurs. And if we can’t, we want you to be the best that you can be. If you’re up under the bed, you know, the stream that I have started years and years and years ago. You know, no matter what my dad did, to give me a finer life, to give me a better life, to give me the best life that he could give me. And everything happens for a reason. Even when my dad was incarcerated and he went away, I still would hear his words in the back of my mind: continue to work hard. Nothing is going to come easy. I worked hard. I worked extremely hard to get to this point. And every day I know I’m blessed. I’m truly, truly blessed. And I don’t take anything for granted. Ain’t nobody in here could take anything for granted.
Yes, everyone sees, you know, us on all access, or when I was, when I was with HBO 24/7. They see all the flashiness, all the, the talking, the trash talking. [Music] And when I say TBE, it’s no disrespect to no legendary champion. Because anybody, every fighter that’s in this room has to feel that he’s the best. If not, you’re in the wrong sport. People don’t understand what it takes. These young fighters come in the gym at four and five in the morning and work and bust their ass, because their ultimate goal is to surpass y’all legends, because they want to become legends. Every day I would come home and watch every legendary champion, every champion: Larry Holmes, Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Roberto Duran, Michael Dokes, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. I mean, this list goes on and on. I’m gonna always want to… it wasn’t one fighter I wanted to be like. Some days I want to fight like Leonard, some another day I want to fight like Hagler. But then I want to be, I want to have a style like Tommy Hearns. But then I want to be a killer like Mike Tyson. And then when I took all those different champions, Chavez and Roberto Duran and all these different champions and all these different guys, I said, I’m gonna take a little bit from every one of them and put it all in one box, shake it up and see what we come up with.
And being a champion, I think that even, even though I transcended and changed the sport of boxing, but being a champion is not just receiving a lot of money or guilt, or receiving a belt. Because I did it thousands of times for free before I got to this point. I didn’t just want to be a fighter. I don’t want, I wanted to learn the business, so I could have my own business, so I could have my stable of fighters. We give back, but we don’t look to the media to get praised, as long as God knows we’re doing a good deed. Because when I go do deeds and I don’t, I don’t glorify it to everyone else, I get blessed. When I get in that square circle, that’s why I keep winning. And that’s what I have to tell every fighter, all you champions. Because you, you don’t have to have a belt to be a champion in my eyes. To get something, you have to sacrifice something. And what I did, I put everything aside. My whole life, boxing has always been first. I never focus on anything but the guy that’s in front of me. Because when it comes down to it, I always say this for many, many years, that fans cannot fight for you. And one thing I know I can do, I can fight. So uh, the fans, when they shout, scream, I don’t worry about nothing. I just, you know, keep my composure and stick to the game plan. Constantly keep coming ahead, coming ahead, pushing him, pushing, pushing him back, pushing him back. When he first come out for the first 20 seconds, at around when you go, when you go down, when he go back to his corner and he sit down, I said, when he come out he’s gonna come out for 30 seconds and fight hard, and then he gonna break. And once you break, that’s what I’m gonna shoot a hard shot to the body, hit him with a hard shot up top and keep pushing it back, keep pushing him back. Remember I told you guys, weight doesn’t win fights, fighting wins fights. And then talking doesn’t win fights, fighting wins fights. Meaning that when we was on the, you know, when we’re on stage for the weigh-in, I don’t have to do no more talking, we fighting tomorrow. So I did, I did, I did a lot of talk on the tour, basically. So you know, everybody said, oh maybe he was talking on the tour. Okay, I did, I did, I did a lot of talk on the tour, but now it’s time to fight. But life is priceless, and your health is your wealth. So a lot of times they say, Floyd, once you stick a wrong boxing, you can make this and you can make that, you can make this, two, two years off, I could have made a ton of money. But remember, your health is your wealth. Come, the goal is to become a 100 million dollar fighter. Once I seen guys like, when Mike Tyson, and I’ve seen it myself with my own eyes, when I seen that Bentley at the boxing gym and I seen that diamond Rolex, I said, I want that. And I knew what it took. So I know when my opponent is sleep, I’m out there at four or five in the morning chopping trees, working to this day. Because I can retire today, I’m well off, very comfortable, but I got the will to win.