“My oldest son, who was 16 at the time, told me one day that he wanted to become a professional boxer. The moment he said that, I stopped him immediately. I told him, ‘Are you crazy? You went to private school! You can’t be a boxer. You’ve traveled the world, you’ve seen Europe, you grew up in comfort. You can’t fight like that.’
I explained to him, ‘Do you really want to fight people like me? Tough, rough people who come from nothing? You have no idea what that life is like. I don’t want my kids to face that. It’s degrading, it’s painful, it’s full of sacrifices. Boxing is something you choose when you have no other option left in life.’
I told him, ‘I already went through all of that—the pain, the suffering, the hits—so that my children wouldn’t have to live the same way. When I look at my kids, I see young people who had a normal upbringing, who went to good schools, who live a comfortable middle-class life. They can become anything they want.’
To me, boxing is about hunger, desperation, and the desire to prove yourself by beating everyone in front of you. It’s a world filled with pressure and struggle. And I don’t want to put that kind of burden on them.”
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