Florida Keys WeeklyFormer Golden Gloves boxing champ Tom Patti is much more than Mike Tyson’s business partner, but he has some great stories to share.
Very few men can say they trained, sparred with and still share a special friendship with Mike Tyson. Tom Patti is one of them. His relationship with the champ originated under the legendary trainer “Cus” D’Amato. Patti joins the the Florida Keys Weekly Podcast to discuss his lifelong friendship with Tyson, his list of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers in history and a massive affordable housing project he and Tyson are embarking on in the near future. Today, Patti serves as an elected County Supervisor in San Joaquin, California, where he is recognized for his servitude and philanthropic endeavors. So lace up the gloves and join us as we chat with the five-time state and Golden Gloves champ, Tom Patti.
Welcome back to another edition of the Florida Keys Weekly Podcast and the show. I'm Brett Myers, your host. I wanna thank you radio listeners at WKWF AM for you am listeners that still exist out there. I know you're out there and our FM listeners on 103.3. Thank you for getting up incredibly early
earlier than I'm getting up. You're listening to this recorded and uh for our podcast listeners, of course, you can get the Florida Keys Weekly podcast at Keys weekly dot com and there's an archive there. You can go back and listen to our shows like this one and we have a fun one coming up today. And you can also catch those in this show on your Apple format, Spotify,
uh Amazon, wherever podcasts are found, that's where we're at. I wanna thank our sponsor OMG, which is overseas media group. They do your local websites here in the Florida Keys in Monroe County, Social media. Seo all your digital services. Basically, they are the world of expertise that you need and the local service that you expect the overseas media group. So check them out. Uh my show today our show today.
It's gonna be a fun show. This is why, it's neat. So, I've got two individuals with me right now and we're going to talk about a variety of things. I think this is what makes podcasts so cool. Uh, and living in the Florida Keys, I've been down here almost 20 years. A good friend of mine up in Marathon. We're in Key West here now. Daniel Samus. He's the Chamber ceo up in marathon. He's been calling me for a few years. He says, Brett, I've got this friend.
I know you're a boxing fan and he has extensive, uh, boxing knowledge, background involvement. He and Mike Tyson are not just good buddies, they're business partners. And,
uh, I'm gonna ask Tom in a minute, maybe they used to live together and train together and, and, and what have you up in New York? And, uh, one thing led to another, he was down here in the Keys and I have Tom Patty with me. We're gonna talk about Tom in a minute. Uh, a little background on Tom is he, is now in California. He's on the county Board of Supervisors out in California in San Joaquin County. Uh, San Joaquin,
I'm saying that correctly and has an incredible resume that he's done out there for some time and, uh, we'll talk more about that. So I won't spend the beginning of this show giving you his resume. Uh, but another thing is he's a five time, uh, state and golden gloves, boxing champion and trained with the legendary Cusamano, who, as you all know was Tyson's legendary trainer and made him who he was. And
because we're talking boxing today and I'm gonna jump into our guest quickly, but I wanna point out if you're not a boxing fan, I've got people here very well versed in politics and all things life. You don't have to be a boxing fan and you can hold me to this as you listen to enjoy this segment. Um I think you might learn something, appreciate it. Whether you love boxing, hate boxing, don't know much about it. Uh We're gonna talk boxing and because of that, I also brought in
Jonathan Crane who is with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department. He's a captain there and he's a huge boxing fan. Has a different accent than I do some place called Boston. He's from, uh Springfield actually and has a weird accent and pulls for all the bad teams you love to hate. Uh, most notably the Patriots, he's gonna join us too. So with that, it's a big intro because I have two people here. Um But it reflects the Florida Keys in general. You never know who you're sitting beside who visits here, who comes here,
uh, unique walks of life and I've got two of them right here. So without further ado, let me introduce Tom Petty and Jonathan Crane. Tom. You go ahead Britt. Listen, it's just great to be here with you and Jonathan Captain. Um Listen, I grew up here. My family's from here for decades. So this is home for me to be here. Summer visiting. I've spent countless days and years coming out here and obviously uh doing scuba diving, spear fishing and, and just recreating and enjoying the keys. So great to be back.
Awesome. I got Jonathan Crane right here and we could do a whole show with Crane one day. If you live locally in the Keys, you already know Jonathan Crane, Captain Crane and uh or maybe his wife Kathy who he answers to. But uh crane. Good to have you on the show as well. Thank you very
much. Great to be here.
Good deal. I know you're gonna weigh in more on some boxing now. Jonathan and I love to fight verbally about. He beat me up in a real fight. We love to verbally fight about. We, we watch boxing together
religiously and Tom I think knows a lot more than we know, which makes us fun. But we disagree on every fight just naturally. I pull for one guy. He pulls for the other guy. I think one guy's the pound for pound all time. Greatest. He says another guy, I think one guy, we all agree is a great boxing ambassador. Probably got a lot of people at my age. I'm in my forties and now I'm over the mid 40 range a guy that pulled a lot of us in, during that era was Mike Tyson.
Um Tom, I wanna go to you because I know that there's a lot more to you than your relationship with Mike Tyson. But it's obviously a talking point people would be interested in. So I wanna start with that a little bit. Go back to your New York days. Your father, how did your, how far back does your relationship with Mike go and, uh, tell us a little more about how that's developed. So back in 1982 I began boxing in Stockton, California. I was born in New York, but I living in Stockton
and I knew my interest level exceeded Stockton. I was back in New York and real long story short, um, my dad was trained by cus d'amato when he was a young man and we had an opportunity. I communicated with cus and got on the phone with him and he said, I understand you want, you want, you're boxing? I said, yeah, he goes, what do you,
I want to do? I said I want to stay in New York and fight. He goes, why do you want to be a fighter? And based on this answer, he invited me to come meet with him and he said, I said, well, I want to be middleweight champion of the world and I think you could help me. How old was he at this time? Cus was 74 73 maybe 73 ish. Yeah, about that. And
so had I said, oh, I make some money and try it. I said I'm not interested and Cus would hang up the phone. But because I said I want to be a champion. I go down and I sit down with Cus the next day and it was a reunion with my dad and he hadn't seen each other for decades. And cus would talk and explain
this new venture, this journey that we're about to take and how you talk about. Some people may not be fight fans. Well, this is exactly the reason why you want to learn to understand what fighters go through. First off, every fighter experiences fear. You learn to control that, uh you captain in the, you know, in military, there's fear, but you learn to control that you learn discipline, right? These are factors that you're gonna be, develop your character c constantly talked about to
build that character in a person. So that no matter what your challenge or adversity, you rise to the occasion. And oftentimes you're taking kids like Mike Tyson troubled from the streets and I have no bad story. I have a mother and father, very good family, but I had a affinity for boxing and it brought me there and it brought me through, through, you know, almost, uh almost eight or 10 years of boxing to, to uh to grow from in that, that challenge. But as cus would say,
not all my fighters become champions, but if you apply the same principles that you'll gain from this sport, you'll be successful no matter what the endeavor. And just real briefly, positive affirmation, creative visualization. When you first went to the house cuss gave you the book Zen and the art of archery, learning how to control your emotions and your, you know, your mind and your body. But you get to do things like, you know, again, meditation,
hypnosis and just different elements that you know, what is it that's gonna take you to, you know, work that much harder than everyone else to be successful, how to use adversity as your advantage, which is, by the way, a new platform, Mike Tyson and I are doing right now. We're about to launch a company, a new program. It's an online platform called Champion's Corner and our real, the, our thesis is using adverts
city as your advantage, taking that challenge, that rejection that, you know, the hardships you have and manifesting that to a pathway of success. That's really cool. Now, going back to Tyson, how old were you guys when you met? Uh where were you guys at? And how did you guys meet Mike just turned 15 and I had just turned 18 and we now lived and trained in the same house. So we were
roommates of sorts and we went to the gym seven days a week. But one thing I'm gonna tell you something about Mike, you know, Mike, people think it's a natural talent cus created the style that all of his fighters fought how to hit, not get hit, but do it in a manner that excites the crowd. If we threw punches and ran around the ring, people kind of get bored. They don't like to see that. So if you can do a style fighting. Exactly. Who's the Mayweather fan?
You are Jonathan Crane, Jonathan? I thought, I thought opposite. I thought you'd be the aggressive like a Marvin Hagler guy
without a doubt, without a doubt. I give, I give Mayweather his credit and, uh, we'll get more into him later. I want you to continue with your story though.
So, yeah, so, so cuss was creating and, and, and, and nurtured and has developed a style of fight and you saw this demonstrate with early Mike Tyson, ok? You can see Mike's change. Mike's style has changed and his effectiveness in the ring changed and from the beginning he was created to later.
So, so, uh, so we were all under that tutelage and, and guidance, but I'm gonna tell you the difference when I'm sleeping at four o'clock in the morning. I heard Mike already training at 2 33 4 o'clock in the morning, Mike was already training. So you hear about people that get up early, you hear about people that 1% of people in, in the success they get up at four o'clock in the morning. That was Mike. Now, was that cost us, you know, uh installing that in him or did he
bring that with him into that relationship? I mean, I've always heard and you have firsthand knowledge there. You are literally in the origins and I guess right around that age, I mean, Tyson was already hitting the main stage and getting a lot of looks as a late teenager, right? Uh And so how much, you know, and cus gets a lot of credit, if not all the credit for developing him, I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but where was he prior to meeting him? And then, and, and when did that start kind of coming along
into his work ethic or is that sort of something he always had? Well, so cus would never say get up in the morning, you have to run a certain amount of miles or you have to do a certain amount of things. But as cus would say, a lot of people say they want to be fighters, but I'm gonna judge you by your actions, not your words. Ok? Now again, cus didn't care if you did 1000 push up
a day or zero a month. It that wasn't what's gonna make a great fighter. It's learning skills which cuss cir cus short circuited the timeline to be an evasive fighter. Most people will learn boxing on their own and mostly the hard way by, you know, really a school of hard knocks. Well, cus would short circuit that he'd make it a much faster learning process. So you knew how to hit slip, move and be evasive and, and a constant perpetual motion.
Um, but Mike was demonstrating that extra level of interest and that would spawn cuss interest to be even more excited and to, to, um, kind of feed that fire of interest. And as cus would say, you know, take that spark and fan it, it becomes a fire, feed the fire till it becomes a roaring blaze. And that's what cus looked for. That kind of describes Mike Tyson to A T as he came out, he was a roaring blaze. Now, there's a weight difference there for people who don't understand boxing. That's really not
a smaller guy, doesn't typically jump in the ring with a bigger guy by any means. But did, do you have any, did you ever spar with Mike or you mess around there with? I know, I know you guys are friends today but back in his early days and you guys were good in going. Did you ever uh punch around with him? Sure. We, we got in the ring again, Cusa style, two of cuss's fighters could stand toe to toe in the center of the ring, throwing punches with bad intentions and full force. There was no like yo jabbing
and slowly moving around the ring, we went at it. And so, but both of us are evasive. So we're both throwing punches and slipping and moving and counter punching at the same time. And, you know, I was a middleweight and I'm fighting guys oftentimes some of my sparring partners that were heavyweights. How could I do that? Well, I could avoid the big punch with head movement first off. Secondly, I punched hard enough where they
would have to respect me as a fighter. Now, if you aren't evasive and if you don't punch hard, somebody will walk right through you and pay, pay you no regard at all. But with cuss style, you can be quite effective and the bigger guys are easier to fight.
No, we're talking to Tom Patty if you can't see him in podcast land and I've got Jonathan Crane with me. Uh Tom looks, Tom, I think your bio says you're in your fifties now. Is that right? I am a few months away from being 60. Come on. He looks like he's about 40 if not less and he's in better shape than most people. I know. So he, he backed this fighter. Talk up. He just has to look, uh, even though he's a, he's a county board of supervisor, elected official out in California. Now,
now I want to get back to Mike Tyson. But when you look at your bio and where can people find your bio? Tom if they want to look you up as they listen. And so in San Joaquin County, I guess, uh, SJ gov dot org, you'll find San Joaquin County and there's a little bio on me. Yeah, you can look him up, Tom Patty P att I, and when you look at Tom's bio, there's a story at the top of the bio and it has all your,
you know, talks about your family and your daughter and all the things you're involved with, which is impressive and amazing that the charities and things you support. But at the very top, there's a story about a young lady who was in a car. You happened to be passing by and I think it made the newspapers there and, um, a guy in the back, I went to call a gentleman, a man in the back seat, uh, was assaulting her. You witness this, you go to the car, you get an altercation.
Uh, tell me a little bit about that story real quick. So, yeah, I'll try, I'll be brief, I'm parking a car as a designated driver. I've got a date with me and her friend. They're getting out on the passenger side. They don't understand what's going on as I'm getting out in the middle of the street, not an intersection in the middle of the street, a car stops and there's this really big guy, a bad guy punching the holy heck out of a, a girl, a little Spanish girl. So I got out, I knew I had to take care of
my two guests, got him inside of where we're going a little uh lounge we want to go to. And so I come back around and I see this guy, she's out of the car screaming for help and I go running up not to her. But what do we, what do we do, Captain? We go right to the bad guy. Right. Go right up to him. I confront him. He's like, Ben. What's up with you? I said, listen, I don't know what's going on, but you're not gonna be punching on that girl anymore. She needed a separation. And I, so I was there to
give her that time to get away. And so being the bad guy that he is, he's, you know, he's like, man, I'm on this XYZ. Oh, it's now being a fighter I completely interpreted. I'm not blacked out in rage. I'm not angry about anything. I'm very disciplined. I know exactly. I read the situation. I see his aggressive nature and I see his threat and I take it very serious and we, and, and, and a spring in action and we start exchanging blows. Um,
I did get my nose busted and my eyebrow eye socket broken on that because he had a brass knuckle or something. It split my face and, and here and whatever happened, but, but we fought and gave her separation and I did what I had to do and as you know, right, I mean, you do it, you, you already,
you already mentioned it once but the flight of play and obviously you didn't have tunnel vision. You took action, you went right to the culprit and we applaud you for that. You know, we thank you very much for
because with the citizens in a meeting with something like that, you probably saved a life. So we thank you very much for that. And it should be at the top of the page where it's at. So thank you for that
now and, and these are just things you do. It's, and, and being a boxer, I mean, you see a bad situation, you have to spring into action. Well, and I put that out, it's an incredible story aside from you, hope she's ok today. And she's living in that situation. Aside from that though, I think again,
if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, oh, this is about boxing. I think one of the misconceptions is you have a lot of hotheads who can't wait to punch somebody and show them who, who can, you know, out physical or out punch or, you know, take care of business and, and feed the ego when really boxing with the boxer, boxing mon uh mentality. Excuse me. If I could talk here is really the opposite, right? You talk about that discipline, you talk about
holding your holding your emotions in and being disciplined, whether it's in the ring or outside, a boxer is completely disciplined. Again, referring just like in, in military, you have to be disciplined under pressure. So in boxing, you don't get frustrated if you get hit because why, now you're frustrated about something already happened. Well, what's about to happen? You can't be caught up on what already did happen. So boxing is so split
second that you need to remain calm, even if you get hit. If you, if you get hurt, you cannot be discouraged, you can't be frustrated. You can't be angry. You've already controlled your discipline. Um, you've already demonstrated discipline by controlling your fear when you enter the ring the night before you were sleepless. Some people are throwing up in the locker room an hour before, uh, they, they fight. So there's so much anxiety that a person is gonna go
through. So fighter does remain very disciplined and we're not there to, you know, you see these guys are accomplished fighters, they're very humble, they're very nonthreatening. They've already exercised their demons and they've learned control. Jordan Peterson talks about that by the way, that guys need to be, you know, you should be dangerous and you learn to be controlled and that person is now an efficient and effective as a man. He's a protector, he's a provider and he knows his role. Yeah. And when we talk about Tyson who you're, you're so close with, um, I wanna talk more about that. I mean, again,
Tom, you're an accomplished, uh, five times state golden gloves, boxing guy champion. Um, your resume, I mean, to make it to that level. If anyone could ever say that to you in a bar or in an airport. That's amazing. And then we talk about a guy like Mike Tyson. Um, when did you know
that Mike? Now you guys, I wanna talk about your relationship today and some of your business adventures. But when did you know, as you roomed with Mike sparred with him? Evidently, which is incredible. I didn't know you did that talking to Daniel. When did you know, man, this guy, he's got something he can go places.
Mike was very interesting, very introverted, but you could see he was exceptionally well. First off, he had speed and power is incredible and he now had, he had focus, he had a purpose and I have to tell you boxing at some point after several nose operations being Italian and it is a contact sport. So I had a couple of nose, a broken nose and deviated ses and such. But, um, so that's eventually why I got out of the sport of boxing because I had other options. Boxing is really
truly a sport for people that have no other option, no other pathway in life. And Mike had no option where he came from, from the streets. He had only one single opportunity in life to for redemption, for validation, for an identity, for a possible career. He had nothing without boxing. And thanks to cuss and discipline, having an intent, a purpose and
having somebody as brilliant as cus teaching Mike, you know, that, that discipline the control uh teaching Mike how to redirect some of the angst and anxiety and Mike's talked about some of the real brutal things that happened to him as a child. Well, that lends itself to a lot of self destructive behavior and most all of Mike's friends are to end up dead or in jail. Mike's not. Um and he's had his challenges, but boxing was a place
for him to, to find that discipline and a purpose. And, and so you saw that early on, you saw focus and intent, a purpose and you saw that he had uh he had exceptional skills, speed and power and only because of cuss of style was he able to just leapfrog above the competition? I know you don't speak for Mike but your close friends, your business partners. Um
You read a lot growing up and even to this day that there was two Mike Tyson's as a fighter. There was the, there was when Cus was training in his post after his death, um that Mike and I know he had some other things happened in his life. Um leading up to the first loss that we saw with, with Buster um would, would you agree with that? Was he two different fighters? Was that the reason was there other factors when, in terms of Mike's career? I mean, because there in his prime, we'll talk about this
in a minute as we talk boxing and kind of jump from Mike to boxing in general. A lot of people still say in his prime, he may be the greatest ever, greatest puncher ever. Definitely one of those, particularly as a heavyweight. Was he two different fighters? Was there other things? Was it just success? What's your take on that? I'll tell you what I what I observed and you start to watch this talk about, you know, success changes, people or money changes, uh uh money and success reveals who you are and Mike had a lot of dysfunction now, while he was able that very same
element that compelled him to work so hard for validation for an ID just to, to, you know, for revenge, right? That, that taking adversity and using it to as a, as a motivating factor is, is a very important element of Mike's life. However, there was also a high level of insecurity, emotional immaturity, there was a lot of um low self esteem. So then all of a sudden that person without a custo model without a real strong father figure to kind of help keep him more ground,
you start to give that person millions of dollars. Well, now you're now you're enabling them. It doesn't matter what your name is or who you are, you've delivered millions of dollars for a person that has some psychological and emotional issues that haven't been resolved so that you could work it concurrently. But you have to have a guiding force and without cuss that guiding force was no longer there. And that really is what I saw more than anything. Yeah. One of my favorite Tyson moments was, you know, growing up in the eighties, sports illustrated was
sort of the go to for sports stuff and I remember the spinks fight there. He was on the cover. He says, don't count me out. Very next cover was it 90 seconds? Ko I it was very next cover said ko, he was just for people who don't recall those days. He was such a force. Um that no one had ever seen in my generation. I know if you go back with your father, uh Tom and talk about some fighters and so forth, we can talk about that. But Mike was just a force and he changed boxing for a lot of people. He made it, it was really a time when
maybe it was, you know, you came out as some big time fighters and stuff in the seventies and into the eighties, he kind of really brought it back for a lot of us and made it something that we all, you know, in the mainstream, from video games to the mainstream. I mean, we, we love Mike Tyson. So today you and Mike Tom, we're talking to Tom Petty. I've got Jonathan Crane here today. Tom. Tell me a little bit about what you and Mike do together and what your relationship's like today.
So I really would fashion myself as Mike's Big Brother. And sometimes Mike calls me the moral compass because it's, uh, you know, sometimes if he's hanging out with the wrong crowd or not saving money or doing things the wrong way is that because you guys go back to cuss together, I mean, is there because he's probably had everybody in the world. He's got to be careful as a celebrity one. But he's such a, he's one of the most famous people on the planet. He's had a lot of coming along, but Mike's had a lot of people come along his life. They have taken a lot of money from him in the end.
And I have not, I've put more money in Mike's pocket than anything he's ever done for me. Now, Mike's been phenomenal for me. In fact, he launched my political career and he came, I couldn't pay him back for that. I mean, it was Mike's idea to run for office because Mike knows that in our community, in our society, we have to be involved to make a difference. So Mike's out of phase right now in his life, he's opening up a charter schools in inner cities which are taking kids with a 90% dropout rate that have a GPA that doesn't even register.
And the, and the success rate in turning their lives around and, and a positive impact in that community is going to reverberate for generations. And you're part of that. I helped put him together with a group of people that are doing that. So we're, we're working in conjunction. That's so cool. And he's such a likable guy. I mean, today the non fighters know him from Joe Rogan and everything else and him talking about some of his. Now I have to ask you, uh are you involved at all in some of his cannabis endeavors? I know he's,
I am not, I'm not involved at all except the ear bit, say peace. I'll tell you the story sometime, but I should be getting royalty on that. Sorry, Mike. I'm an Atlanta guy. I was, I was a Holyfield guy threw him through, but I followed him from the light heavyweight days. But uh before the steroids, hey, come on real deal. When Lee Haney is your trainer and you go from 100 and £80 to £220 of solid muscle. It's steroids, you know, it was never proven. So uh yes, it is.
Let's look at the pictures. Well, I like this. So let's transition here. Let's talk boxing. I've got Tom Tom Patty. Uh I keep trying to say Tom Needy because he's down here a financial guy, but Tom Patty's here with us. Um, incredible political career that's still going on by the way before we jump right into boxing. We've got about 10 minutes here. I've got Jonathan Crane. What's the conversation with you? And Mike Tyson, you and Mike and he talks you in or tells you you should run for office and get into politics. How's, how's that go down? Well,
I've been working with local nonprofits and raising money for veterans and children's homes and such for a long time as a local business owner and Mike was with me doing this. We're bringing him back to the airport. He says, Tommy, I want you to do something. I said, what's that? He goes, run for office. I said, why would you say that? He goes your community Stockton, which was number one of foreclosures, high rates of crime and murder at the time all in the, you know, 2008, 9 10.
So he goes, you need to be involved. You, business people complain but you don't get involved enough. And I thought about that and other people started approaching me about that. And I called Mike up. I said, I'm gonna launch a career. I'm gonna go for politics. Will you help me do a fundraiser? And he did, we came to town, we did a show and we did the Mike Tyson show and it was just a, it was a, it was a launch. What do most people not know about Mike Tyson that they should.
I think the one of the greatest misconceptions and people, once you start to get to realize Mike, how compassionate, how caring, how giving, very soft spoken, very easy guy, obviously, he has buttons, he can be pushed. You want, you don't want to poke the bear too much. But, uh, but when I was training him one time and I've been a boxing trainer advisor for him over the years
and I find him, we were training in Maryland at one point and I couldn't find him. After training, he'd be gone. And finally I tracked him down and he was in a room working with handicapped kids. He'd go there for like a half hour, 45 minutes every day, finally found him on his own and he's just sitting there playing and interacting with these kids. And he's like, Tommy goes, this is what I want to do. He goes, people don't realize he goes, this is where I find all my joy is helping others. And that's where Mike's at right now in life. That's why we're doing this Champion's corner platform. It's gonna be
online. You can go there, I believe now even and preregister, but we're gonna be using this platform as a mentorship to a better way, financial success, a better way of better quality of life, relationships and, and just being a better person. So if I Google Mike Tyson champions corner, that'll bring some stuff up. I can tell you, I think if you go to champions corner dot com, I think you'll find it there. I don't have, we're just launching that landing page soon. Ok, good deal. Alright. So it, boxing.
Uh we've talked about Mike, I can talk to you all day, Tom about Mike Tyson and your background, you in political career, another podcast we could talk about, especially out in California, maybe some similarities to the Florida Keys here. But let's stick to boxing today with the time that we have. I've got Jonathan Crane here when we first sat down and we made a joke earlier, we talked about, uh, maybe who's some of the greatest boxer boxers of all time, not Mayweather. So Mayweather comes up a lot, Jonathan and I disagree on this all the time.
I think you can make great arguments either way on what constitutes a pound for pound fighter? Is it their greatest fights? Is it their record? Is it in their prime? Were they, were they unbeatable? Who could, who could beat who in their prime? That's always a fun discussion. Could fra you know, Frasier and Tyson and Ali and you know, and on and on and on.
Uh, so your opinion, you, you, you've got an opinion about Mayweather. I wanna hear that real quick. So tell me, what's your, what is your take on Floyd Mayweather Junior? Uh, and where does he rank on your list, Tom of all time. Greatest boxers. Pat. I'd put him somewhere in the bottom part of the top 100. It's, listen, it's like football. Ok. In any particular era you've got the quarterback, well, who would be the greatest quarterback of all time? If you, if you transcend
time, where would Mayweather rank? You've got Henry Armstrong destroying him? You've got Ray Robinson, you've got Willie Pep Sanity style. If you want pound for pound, you've got fighters. You that, that would just, that would run circles around him because he doesn't even have the quality of fights that you would test him. And you say like this guy is great because of his competition has exemplified greatness and he's overcome their greatness. Repetitively.
Mayweather doesn't have that. Is he in a class by himself? Absolutely. In a class of boxing that's void of top tier talent to any spectrum. Think about boxing right now. 7, 17 divisions and four sanctioning bodies. How about you go back to an era when there was eight divisions, eight, when one sanctioning body and if you were champion or anybody in the top 20 or 30 below them could fight for that time
and possibly win on any given night of the week. That's a great era in boxing. You don't have that now. And that's a travesty because we want to see the best boxers fight in the prime. We have one of those fights coming up uh, before we talk about Crawford and Spence. I want you to defend your guy, Jonathan Crane. You're being quiet over here. Come on, Jonathan, what do you got? Let's hear it. Well,
first and foremost, I don't think you can choose which era
you grow up in. So I know people are gonna say that Floyd Mayweather didn't fight the competition or he delayed Pacquiao. Um I believe that uh everyone that he stepped in the fight, it was dominant. It, it wasn't even close and I know that we mentioned the four kings with Sugar, uh with, with uh Sugar Ray Leonard Hagler hearns Duran. But I can go on to say that I think Mayweather would give him a fight with the point system
with the point system. So, um I don't, is he pound for pound the greatest of all time? No. Does he get the respect that he deserves from some folks? Not from
all? OK. So wait, did you watch, did you watch uh Sugar, Shane Mosley against Mayweather? Now, you have an older, a faded sugar, Shane Mosley who was a great fighter, highly experienced amateur fighter and a dominant pro and a champion of all of all levels of respect. And he was working
and giving Mayweather a beating on that during, throughout that fight. Now, Mayweather persevered in, in boxing is a, you know, is, is a long term fight, not just, you know, one round, but I'm just not, I'm I'm sorry, I'm just not a big Mayweather fan, smart fighter, a smart fighter, a smart businessman, made a credible amount of money and made certain to very wisely choose his opponents at the right level.
Definitely chose his opponents at the right level at the right time without a doubt.
Definitely business wise. A see what he's done. Uh, the shoulder role, the defense that he displayed, I think is one of the best defensive games that boxing has seen by an individual. Um, you know, I mean, I like to hear your response on that with you being in the ring and having experience, but, uh, his defense was amazing and you said it earlier, uh to hit and not to be hit. And I think that's one of the best things that Mayweather portrayed in the squared circle.
Ok. So, so
cuss's rule, the object of boxing is to hit, not get hit, but do it in a manner that excites the crowd. So I ask you if a guy is doing this, how he's got his hand, his right hand up, protecting his left side of his chin. He's got his left shoulder up and he's doing the shoulder roll. Ok. How exciting is that exchange of blows during the most climactic moment of action? It's not
you, you're right. II, I do agree that Mayweather's 1st 20 fights when he was,
maybe he didn't fight the competition that should have been out there, but you're building that resume in boxing as you know, to make that money. Sure. But he was a knockout fighter in his 1st 20 fights. I mean, after that he went straight through like the business Mayweather and that was obviously not the big excitement but to not be hit. And for that, I give him the credit
and I give him great credit to your point. Listen, this guy could have been much more great, a greater level of a fighter. I mean, this,
his fighting, he's fighting Pacquiao and his own father in between. I was around 78 or nine. The father's like, man, I don't get you, man. What's the matter? Why don't you get out there and fight this guy, man. What's the matter with you? And he's just playing to save, he's playing to save. He risks very little smart business guy smart because he's looking for his own health. His own well being sometimes though, in my opinion, you throw cautious to the wind and you're a Marvin haggler. That bell sounds. You go out to win
to dominate and destroy your opponent because there's risk, the longer that fight goes on that something might happen. So if you're playing it safe, the longer the fight goes on in risk of something might happening, then you're only gonna look for opportunity to me. You're not exciting the crowd to the greatest level of what they're paying and expecting. Now we're talking about a guy that's made more money than any fighter in the history of the sport. So kudos to him, not my kind of fighter.
You always look at it like this as we segue into yours. Uh, we've got, uh, Tom Petty Jonathan Crane here. I'm gonna segue into your top £5 for pound for times to the top 10. I wanna hear that. I always look at Mayweather this way. I could be devil's advocate and say maybe he's the greatest defensive fighter of all time. Give us dad credit there for that. But at the end of the day, we came into a pay per view era and Mike was a, Mike Tyson was a big part of that bringing boxing into this pay per view era.
Um I always told Jonathan right here, I always said, look, you know, if he's the greatest of all time or one of the pound for pound, greatest, why don't I want to buy his fights? Why do I not want to pay 70 bucks or 60 bucks to watch 12 rounds of this good point? Does it mean I'm wrong or? Right? But again, personal taste, I just, when I think about pound for pound greats, I don't hesitate to get my card out and pay for that fight. Not sure Jonathan's right here. He might say you don't appreciate great box.
If I don't do that, he may have an argument. So II I see it but I do want to hear your two. because I, I respect obviously both of you very much in your boxing knowledge and opinions. Give me your top £5 for pound, greatest fighters of all time. Tom, I'll start with you. So you gotta give and, and this is not gonna be in a particular order and I really, I give a lot more credit and you look at fighters for different qualities that they bring, that made them great, you know, will how they dominated in their,
their psychological control so that they impose themselves. So you have to give credit to Muhammad Ali. Mike says he goes, he's willing to die in the ring and I'm not. And you have to admit Ali, no matter how hard, no matter what challenge that man faced, he never backed down. I'm not saying he won every single fight and he was, you know, he was the undisputed greatest of all times, but you have to give him a lot of credit. But you got, honestly, truly, you've got Henry Armstrong,
you've got Sugar Ray Robinson hands down and it's arguable. They always say Robinson number one, I'd probably edge Armstrong above Robinson to tell you the truth. Roberto Duran could transcend time to fight anybody any era. I I honestly I look back and I also look at Sugar Ray Leonard. This guy was a great fighter. He had tenacity, he was a vicious competitor. He fought with bad intention, he had skill. He had experience that would parlay no matter who his opponents were, he could rise to that
and beat them. So that would be right. You know, that would be a quick little round. I think it's four or so of them. Uh, what do you got? Who's your top? I wanna hear Jonathan's list before he does that. There's a lot of old white dudes out there right now. I can hear Eddie Murphy saying it, Rocky Marciano. You know, where do you put? Rocky? Here's a guy who was undefeated. One of the only, maybe the only other most notable undefeated guys. We talk about Mayweather a lot of white guys. Oh, he was undefeated. Where do you put him and why or why not? Well, you have to put him in the top 10,
one of the great, great greats undefeated, not by accident. Um And he imposed his will. Nobody works harder than he was just a relentless fighting machine. But he was, you know, he had two left feet, he had, you know, short arms. He was just, I look at him, it was like, you know, being Italian, I want to love him more than I do. And, and I, I remember reading his book as a young amateur, like I want to be great the rock, right? You know, Marciano and this legendary who he was being, you know, getting to be 49 and, oh, again, not by accident.
Um And, and even though Ali says he goes, probably only one guy could beat me. It was Rocky Marciano, right? And he was the guy that beat Liston and everybody's like, I wouldn't fight. Listen. And so what would listen, do to Marciano or, or, or likewise, or even against Tyson. So these guys all have a special place in that sport, Jack Dempsey. I mean,
Joe Lewis, come on, this is greatness and when you can look at sports and end in eras. So, uh so it really is hard to, when you, when you start looking at that next tier, it's hard to even say who's not in there because there's so many great fighters. All right, Jonathan Crane top five. Jonathan, let me hear it.
Definitely, definitely, Ali Sugar Ray Robinson for sure. Um I got Haggler, maybe I'm a homer, but I got a quick story on uh uh Sugar Ray Leonard. He was uh had a um
I had a fight in Springfield. Uh that was an exhibition. I was in the front row with my father and I had my boxing gloves on which happened to be marvelous marvel Haggler because that was my guy back in the day. And as he was walking by, my dad's like cover the names, cover the names and then uh Sugar Ray Leonard pulled me out of the crowd, pick me up. I was five years old, put me down and we started sparring and then he points back and says, is that your dad back there? I looked back and then he popped me right in my head and, and he says, I'm gonna tell you one thing, son, one thing
never take your eye off the opponent. And I never forgot that for the rest of my life. So I'm gonna put those two guys there and my number five is gonna be Mayweather. I understand where we're at. But as a boxer, he did what he was supposed to do and that was win fights. He, he made it look easy at times. He fought Cano Pacquiao, everyone that was in front of him coto whoever they were. Virgil, t he beat him. So with that being said, that's my top five. And Britt, what do you
got a lot of the same guys? I mean, Sugar Ray Robinson is hard to ever. If you put
50 boxing enthusiasts in a room, there's no way to argue against that. His pedigree, his resume, everything about him watching him fight.
Um You know, I grew up any boxing, you know, is different eras and it is, how do you, I'm not trying to back out of the question. But how do you define pound for pound? Is it their record? Is it the era and who they fought their best fights or is it how good they were in their prime even if it was a short window? So, uh you put all those things together, I think Ali is on everyone's list. I love what Frasier accomplished as a smaller heavyweight. Um, you know, he had some bad fights, he had some great fights. Uh So that era was great
and uh yeah, I mean, you've named all the guys, you guys did not say Joe Lewis Floyd Patterson, some of those names there that get into the mix a little bit, but it's hard to argue with those with, with, with each one of the ones you guys named. Um, you know, Carlos Monzon was great as a middleweight. I mean, seriously, you start looking at errors, you could pick out 10 from any decade that, that would be right there. And I know this has made, get some, some push
back here. Uh, you know, Roy Jones in his prime until he started losing there near the end of it. You know, it was a fun guy to watch and he, but then he started doing kind of the 12 round dances and stuff like that too. He left himself vulnerable doing some silly stuff, but it was fun to watch in his prime. So a guy like that in his prime when he was knocking people out. It's kind of interesting making the jumps to heavyweight and doing things like that his size. But, uh, Foreman
coming back at his age and beating some legit heavyweights to retain the title, you know, to get the title back to me is one of the, you know, I know they just made a movie about that. Now, I haven't watched it but that story and to watch Foreman, you know, back into that era was pretty fun to see happen as well. So, depends on how you look at it. Um, I can't argue with Ali Robinson. Those would be my top two as well. I think we all agree on that. Mayweather's not making my top 10 crane. Sorry.
But I'm being a hater. I'm being a hater, but would he be in the top 100? Is that fair? Yeah, he'd be my top 100. So we agree with that. At least two good minds. Top
100. I don, I get it. I
understand it but I don't understand it. A couple of things to, to, to close out a couple of conversations. One is we talk about Mayweather. The knock on him is, you know, whether he fought the competition or if he fought them at the right time. He was great at fighting Alvarez early. He was great at
Pacquiao. Way too late. And, and I'm mad because he impacted for, for robbing boxing fans. So we're getting to that crane's writing it down. Now. We've got two guys in boxing. If you're not a boxing fan or the average fan, you may not even follow these guys. Earl Spence Junior and, uh, Crawford Crawford are gonna fight, what? In about a few weeks now? Yeah. So Terrence Crawford. So they're gonna fight on the
29th coming up, possibly the top £2 for pound guys right now in boxing are gonna fight each other in their prime. Uh, Tom, I'll start with you. Are you watching that fight? A and B? Do you have a prediction? I'm gonna watch that fight and I'm gonna take Crawford. I think he's still hungry and I think he's, he's, he's a dominant force in the ring. He's got an incredible amount of experience and, and I, I'm impressed by a lot of the skills I see from him.
Right. Uh,
go Crawford Bud Crawford fan. That's who I watch and I'll follow. Uh, right now I think that, uh, Vegas got the odds, right. I think they're at minus 1 65. And I just like to go on to give a shout out to my father. We be at the fight so pop have a good time and enjoy it.
Awesome. And by the way Crawford would beat Mayweather hands down. Oh, man, I gotta go with that too. Um, and May Mayweather would want no point unless he fought him really early or really late if he could pick and pull that off. Um I'm gonna go just to be different and I'm a big, he knows that we argue. I'm a Spence fan.
Uh I'm gonna go with him. There was the car, the car accident a couple of years back that really set him back. Um He looks like he's put on a lot of weight. I don't know if that's good weight. Tom, that'd be a good conversation for you as a fighter, if that's good weight or bad weight. But hopefully that translates to a heavier punch and we'll see what happens. So we'll, we'll reconvene after the fight, I'll put 10 bucks on it. That's about as my max because I don't really believe in everything I'm saying. Crawford's so good. But, um, we'll finish with this too. So the average boxing fans listening to Tom Patty, Jonathan,
we're talking boxing a lot and Tom's stories of Mike Tyson, his good buddy, uh, going back for decades, um, boxing's gotten more fans in notoriety of late because of some of the, I call them gimmick fights. You got youtube stars, crossover fights with M MA fighters who are great in their own right in that octagon. But boxing's a whole different story. We can talk about that all day but these gimmick fights that Mayweather is part a part of and others good for boxing, bad for boxing. I think it's great for boxing people
talking about it. Uh, we obviously have, uh, Logan, you know, Jake Paul, Logan, Paul, you know, making names for themselves. Let me tell you they're coming and fighting and I, I'm an amateur champion. This guy's getting a ring and fighting eight and 10 round matches and like that takes a lot of psychological discipline to rise to that occasion. Not only overcome the fears that we talked about, make that kind of commitment, but get in the ring and fight for that duration and be prepared to do that. So he's stepping up against talent. I just saw Nick Dia a week and a half ago, two weeks ago training sparring in Stockton.
So he's gearing up for that fight and, and uh Nate Dias is and he's no, he's no dog. That guy comes to fight, he comes to fight and he'll fight hard. So it's gonna be a great test for that fight. But here people are talking, people are watching and I hope more than anything at some point, we're getting some of the top tier athletes back into the sport of boxing. That's what's missing lastly the biggest fault in the sport right now. Unlike, let's say you want to be PGA instructor and you go to a training center and you
become one of the most highest qualified teachers before you get your graduate of, uh, as, as being a licensed instructor. Boxing has none of that. Unfortunately, it's still the, the school of hard knocks and any fighter that becomes successful in today's era, it's not necessarily who, it's wi it's who is training you. It's more in spite of who trains you, you've stuck with it long enough, you've gotten the amateur experience, you've learned, you've watched, you've put some flares, some intelligence to your game and you're rising above.
Um, but really the boxing, the sport is void of top tier athletes and, and, I mean, at a high level, especially heavyweights and, uh, and qualified teachers a lot easier to get into football and baseball and basketball than boxing these days. Although, you know, if you can find a gym in practice, there's probably nothing better athletically conditioning, you know, for your body than the boxing. You know, people don't realize that. And two things I'll tell you first off, here's an absolute fact. Two things are gonna save your life, knowing how to
swim. God forbid you're ever in a situation where you need to be able to swim, to stay alive. And the second is fighting, you need to know how to defend yourself and, or somebody that you're with that, you're protecting your family member. You now, as many fights as I've been in, I've been in a lot of street fights, defending myself, never started anything. But I have stepped up and defended myself or somebody I'm with and I fought several dozen people in the street running clubs and such in New York and L A. That's, you know, some of the, those numbers, but I've had to fight three or four guys as a tour
that tried to jump me at a bus stop in, in Cancun with a buddy. And I, you know, how do they find the gold? Why do these guys always find the golden glove champion to try to fight? I always see these videos like you picked him. Yeah. And this one, I knocked out three guys in about 2.5 seconds which was like phenomenal and, and, and so I know how to defend myself. I know how to protect my daughter or you know, somebody I'm with. So you should know how to swim and you know how to defend yourself. And each parent's responsibility is to teach your Children how to be safe under two adverts
circumstances that God willing they never have to face. We're gonna have you punch crane, Jonathan Crane at the end of this to see if he can take it still. Uh Jonath your take on the, on the what I call the, you know, they're not gimmick fights or real fights. He's gonna like Paul, for example, is really fighting. He's a great athlete. Um Is it good or bad if say the heavyweight champions taking on a UFC guy instead of fighting yi for example, with fury, I mean, what's your take? Crane? Uh
I'm in agreeance. I think it's good for boxing because right now they have a heavy competition with UFC. Um
And one thing that UFC does, right is that they put the two best together a lot sooner, which obviously takes some money out of pocket for boxers that are building up that purse to what we're seeing for E roll and bud. But you're having people talk about boxing and there's more of a chance for a person or a celebrity or a UFC fighter to win in boxing than it is into the ground fighting is a whole different game. So I'm for it, bring it on, bring more competitors, bring more talent to the sport and let's keep it rolling.
We're gonna finish with this conversation because I know Tom's a New York guy. He's got a lot of, he's got more stories than he can probably tell. I bet you on the podcast, one of the most famous maybe Phantom punches of all time, Sonny Liston, you had Ali, what do you know about that? What can you tell? Was it a phantom punch? Was the mob involved? And you know, obviously he, he passed away in Vegas with a lot of question marks around the mob. What, what can you say about that? Uh memorable most talked about boxing moment. There are two takes on it and I'll say this in c
adamantly defended Ali. Um and we can talk boxing a long time cuss Mao and, and Mohammed Ali shared the same birthday and Ali asked Cus to be his manager on four different occasions and cus declined for multiple reasons each time. So again, that's another podcast, another conversation. But Cus says he goes, if you look at the fight, Ali throws a punch and elis him on the, on the tip of the, of his chin and that if that's just enough to cut the nerve your impulses for your legs. It's a neurological.
When you get knocked down, it's not that you got hit so hard, right? So if your impulses and your nerve center that controls your legs give out on you, you're going to go down and cus swears that, that punch, they called the phantom punch that e clipped him on the, on the chin. Now, I've also seen people go down, I've seen people try to get up. I'm not seeing a real strong effort to get up off the canvas. So and I know that there was the Philly mob and this and this lot, I truly don't know, but
there's perhaps an element of both, maybe there's enough of a shot for him to go down and there's enough of a reason for him to stay down. Alright? I think Tom knows more than he's saying, but he might incriminate me or himself. But uh I know Ali was screaming for him to get up and it wasn't like a boastful, you know, it was like, hey, get up dude, but uh is crane your take?
Uh I'm a Ali fan. He got him on a button like you said, and that was it. I'm not going anywhere else with it. Alright,
let's end with this. It's been a great show with Tom Patty. Um and Jonathan Crane before I end with what I want to end with Tom. Tell us again where to find you. And Mike's newest venture. So Champions Corner and it might be Champions Corner dot A I it was, I saw, I just saw that the other day being sent out. So it's in development
and pre launch phase, but you'll be hearing about it. We're gonna be doing a live show in New York City at the Beacon Theater in New York uh with Michael Franzese, Mike Tyson Chaz Palmieri and myself on stage and we're gonna be launching the platform called Champion's Corner. And that's gonna be uh Thursday. I believe it's gonna be September 27th Thursday if that's the actual date, but it's Thursday night in New York City, we're going to do our official international launch. Well, if you need some friends
from the Florida Keys to join you, I know some people that'll come up, give us uh a serious note. Give us your, your, what do you miss most about cus uh our best advice he ever gave you what, what's missing in your life that he's gone. Cus being a disciplinarian and, and a person that was very hard. You never heard him compliment you as a fighter, like you're walking out of the room and you heard him say our fighter? Really? He's really becoming a hell of a fighter. You're like, wait, wait, did he just give a compliment? So
cus was one of those people that you wanted to constantly, you know, prove and validate it like, you know, hey, are you proud of me, did I do the right thing, same thing as parents, you know, hey, you know, I know that when my father passed, I, I was, I was a good man in my dad's eyes and I made my dad proud and that was, that was very meaningful to me. So like Mike says, you know, if you were somebody asked cus one time or ask Mike, what would you ask? Cus and, and, and Mike says, did I do it? All right.
Am I doing ok? It was just interesting that, you know, he and I both still would strive for cuss approval and I'm very proud to have my mom and dad and their approval, of course, but Cus was a very special person and he trained champions and he was a champion maker and I would like to know that I like, you know, he's proud of me. Awesome. Well, it's been a great show. I want to thank Jonathan Crane Monroe County Sheriff's Department captain here in the Florida Keys for joining us and talking box. And of course, Tom Patty,
um if you have some comments, you probably were listening if you're a boxing fan and have about 40 other people that you're like, hey, you didn't list this person pound for pound or what about Duran or you know, Hagler hearns my favorite, whatever it might be on and on and on. Back to the, the, the old days of the new days.
Uh, email me at Britt, BR I TT at Keys weekly dot com. Uh Let me know your thoughts. We will try to get it on our social media page when we talk about this podcast and give some of your remarks on who you think is the greatest pound for pounds of all time or any other boxing stories or questions for Tom, we'll get those over to him.
Uh, maybe some questions about Mike Tyson. Maybe he can answer those for you. Uh, as he reads the social media post as well. I do wanna thank our listeners particularly if you weren't a boxing fan. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it meant something to you. We'll mix it up some more next week. Thanks for joining the Florida Keys Weekly podcast and show. I'm Brett Myers. I'll see you next time next week. Have a great one.
