The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average persons never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, said, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law.
The interviews are raw.
And honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Welcome to another episode of I Cats Killers. Today, I'm speaking to two guests who knew each other when they were younger. Their lives went in separate directions, but a chance meeting years down the track brought them both back
together again. They've both experienced the highs and lowers in their lives, but they are resilient and strong. They now share a common purpose in life and are trying to make a difference encouraging boys and men to find purpose in their life and become the best version that they can be. I thought it'd be good to have a chat with both of them and get their take on life.
So in the studio today we have former Olympian and World boxing champion Michael Cassidas, who had his sporting peak was living in America hanging out with the likes of Denzil Washington, but he has also experienced horrendous laths, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, drug addiction and incarceration. Our other guest, Marty Cornish, grew up in the Housing Commission with a heroin addicted stepfather. He also got caught up
in the wrong crowd. He joined the Army to find a brotherhood and is now focusing on men's mental health and encouraging men to be the best version of themselves. And today I'm looking forward to hearing their stories and find out how they're trying to make a difference in this world. Michael, that's welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thank you, Gary, it's.
Good to good to have you here.
I've been a big fan of your your fighting career, so it's great to see you in see you in person.
Yeah, thank you.
You're looking good.
You're looking healthy, yeah, healthy, healthy, yes, staying fit and strong yes yeah, yeah, okay. And we've also got a second guest in the studio today, so it's going to test my skills as a podcast. Marty Cornish, welcome to I Catch Killers.
Thanks for having me.
Gary, it's good too, good to see you too. So Michael, firstly, I'm going to ask you a hard question, but just describe your life. Tell people who you are.
I suppose the best way to begin this is to start from the beginning. I had a pretty had a very strong relationship with my brother and our mothers. My mother and father brought us up very well, like they take us all the sporting things, you know, got right behind us, and we were pushed each other along. We both played soccer anyway. So he's got involved in the racing industry and left school grade nine just to follow that ambition, and he ended up becoming one of Australia's best jockeys.
And he's basically like he.
Was Australian leading jockey and come to the point where we'd push each other in our careers. I'd built up an excellent record at twenty three fights, twenty three wins with twenty one knockouts. One of the most exciting fighters in the world. Fought on all the arenas England. That's when I first won the world title, had successful defenses
at mental a Bay. Basically lived in the States for six years, you know, and our relationship was really strong and Stathi being one of Australia's best riders.
He made it to the Melbourne Cup.
And he was a week out for the Melbourne Cup and I was in a training camp fighting about the fight against the pound for pound best fighter in the world in one Manuel Marquees and he's the guy knocked out Minipatio Fort Floyd Mayweather, an accomplished fighter, and you know that fight was to make me a household name all over the world. Hadn't been home to Australia for like since two thousand and six. This is twenty ten, and I'll get a phone. I was in heavy training camp.
So my brother's riding in the Melbourne Cup a week later. In three weeks, I'm fighting as one man your Marquez, and one morning he had a phone call from Brendan. He says, we're in Thailand training camp and he says don't look at your phone, and he said, turn it off and meet me at the gym, and it's really important. I met him at the gym his first thing in the morning, and I knew something was up straight away.
And I looked him in the eyes and I said, someone has died, hasn't he And he said, yes, it's your brother. And where I was at that stage in my preparation, that was a really hard thing to have to deal with, having to lose your brother, and you know, and then I had a decision to make there and then whether I would continue with that fight or to
go back to the funeral and grieve. You know, hindsight's a wonderful thing, but at the time I decided I did what my brother would have wanted me to do, and you know, and I thought then the best thing was to go on and have the fight, which I did and just about won that fight as well. So I'm one of the only people to put one and your markets on his bums the third round of the fight. Yeah, yeah, And I was an excellent finisher according to finish him
after I dropped him. And one thing that helped me back I could hear the commentators yelling, and he's thinking of his brother, you know, in my past, like I would never dreamed of even thinking I'd just execute. I'm an excellent finisher, That's what I would do anyway, one man, your marquees recovered come back and end up stopping in around nine to that fight, and from there onwards, I just lost the next four fights straight and it's just on a downward spiral started.
It's interesting how life can turn so quickly. Like you're describing your brother at the top of his career, at the top of your career, and then you get news like that. We'll talk in more detail about that, but then, yeah, that was probably the high high points in your life, the way your life was going. But you're sort of spiraled after that.
Yeah, I suppose, you know, like it was the icing on the cake, so to speak, you know, like the downward spiral that my life went. So I lost the next four fights straight after that. Yeah, you know, at one point my record was unblemish. You know, I was right on top of my game. But that's when all the drugs and the alcohol started and I began using that as a recipe to mask my pain.
Yeah, it's a story of story. I've heard a lot here. I saw a lot when I was in the cops, Like what is it about?
The drugs?
Is about the high and invariably when you strip it down, it's about masking pain that you've vix been in your life will break your life down that further. But Marty about your life.
Yeah, well, I guess, you know, taking it back for the start. You know, my mom, who is my best friend, you know, but she gave birth to me at sixteen.
Jesus young, isn't Yeah, so you.
Know we essentially had a teenager raising a child, and you know that just it provided I guess, you know, she was battling, you know, from the day dot and my father wasn't really in the pitch. I even I went to one of the most wealthy schools in Sydney and I didn't really meet him for the first time until I was seventeen, right, and that provided a void
in my stomach. I had an emptiness inside me, and funny enough, I actually meeting for the first time around the time I started boxing at the pc y C. First heard of the name Michael Cassidis in Toomba and even through that period when I was growing up. My mom actually went through her own diversity and coming back to the healing ourselves, and that's exactly what's happening in
the household. There was a lot of heroin in the house and as you know, it's it's one of those drugs I've been told where it really master pain, it's really it heals. So my childhood was up until about twelve thirteen when I went to live with my grandparents, who my grandfather's a veteran. It was quite dysfunctional with you know, my stuff would be pawned. You know. I was doing odd jobs to make money because I went
to actual a primary school in Neutral Bay. So my mom was trying to send me into a good area, a good area.
Yeah you're brought up in housing commission, but trying to steer you in a different direction.
Yeah.
And the thing was like a lot of these kids lived on on the Sydney Harbor, you know, around Cremorne, and I went over to their house and then their cover. They've just got like a lot of these fucking teddy teddies.
It must it must be using for at your age, like you see your friends in households like.
That, and then you go home and there's syringes and yeah that lane around the house, Yeah exactly.
And it was really like because I remember one time I walked into i'll staying up one of these guys, one of the kids from school, and I was so excited just I was like amaze of how much food they had in the cupboard and now like holy shit, like what's going on with this dude. But all of this provided me with a fuel and a deep level of ambition to try and break the cycle, you know. And that's when people go to me or you know, how you so ambitious or you know, where does it
kind of come from? If it wasn't for this, it wouldn't have filled me. I don't believe to try and accomplish something in my life.
You you told me in conversations that we had that you joined the join the army, looking for a brotherhood, looking to belong to something.
That that helped to a degree.
Yeah, well I really I was living in Sydney, I was walking working a corporate world, but I was just drinking every weekend, you know, not just having six beers.
You know, would really work hard and play hard, and I really wanted to force and pose some discipline into my life because I actually applied to get into the army when I was seventeen and I was knocked back, just purelyus to look make go get some life experience, and that was into Womba and you know, but I was twenty three at the time, and I really wanted to test myself. I really was just in this lull in life where I'm like, I need something, I need
something to believe in me. I need to find out what I've actually got inside and what I'm capable of. And I also wanted to feel proud of myself, you know, to be able to walk into a room with my shoulders back and say, you know what, I'm a soldier. And I wanted to be able to tell my grandfather, you know, and make him proud as well a man out of respect. So I was really looking for a lot of things in my life that was missing.
Yeah, understandable why you choose heading to the army. You've got to out of the army, as I understand that. And when you left, your started a business and you're working successful. But in your own words, you said to me you got caught up in your own ego and success and started to become the party boy again, lost your way exactly.
And the interesting thing is, as now where seven years past that I look back on it, and you know, people may criticize me for the way that I was, and it wasn't that bad. Like fuck I was just because you know, all of a sudden, for twenty seven years of your life, you've never really done well. You know, you've aspired. And I worked on the business four years and I was around a lot of successful people, and when I finally started to see a little bit of success,
you're like, well, I finally did it. But a lot of the people don't understand what it was like in those how's the commission? You know?
What was driving your home? I think?
And we'll talk talk about Michael's career, and like, success in whether it's business, sport, or whatever you're aspiring to can be a double edged sort, yeah, Like you can lose lose your way, lose perspective on things, and yeah, forget the important things about being a good, good person. And I see it time and time again. We've all got it within us every time. And some of the knockdowns I've had in life, I think they've made me
a better person. Because if you don't, you start to believe your own hyah, your own surrounds and yeah, I'm good, I can do this, and yeah we lose lose our way. Michael, let's get back to you, or before we do, how did.
You two meet? What's where did you to first meet? Well, I was connected.
I wasn't so aware of when I first when Marty first came into my life, because like, I was really passionate about what I did with my boxing and that was my addiction, you know, and I would train, take classes and train heaps of kids and I was only fifteen. I'd even train the adults as well, and Marty was one of those kids that I would look after. And it's just funny how everything in the world just always comes around like I've you know, and you know, it's
just so many stories that go onto that. But you know, water finds at the same level. And then years later, like I'm at a bottle of about to get some groging, and mart he's just like he was so cool.
Man, He's just like rolling on around love. Oh my god, it is Michael Kats. He said, He's like.
He's balling and he's rolling around and he's just laughing and I can't believe in you and all this. And his mum was with him, which I couldn't even remember
till I caught up with her last night. But he told me the stories about how like he would see me and with a flock of people around me all the time, and see this guy that would just going to the gym and to be skipping there and I would always come in and have black eyes and they're just working away, work away, and he just like looked up at me and saw what I was doing and could and saw my career progressed into the world stage. And then I mean, what's your take on it is.
That you remember it.
I've got a completely different story. Yeah, well it was so I started boxing at the PC YC, and you know, I remember one time looking over and there was just this guy with these mad bruises under his eyes and he's like skipping in the dark, and it just had this real rocky vibe about it, you know, like this, and I was like, that's Michael Casidas. That's Michael Casidas.
And then you know, about a year later when I turned eight and started going out into WARMBA and there was just this entourage of people around just as swarm, you know, and because there was obviously such a about two hundred thousand people. You know, you've got another limpi in and someone he's a big name.
Yeah, everyone wants a piece of him.
And this was before America, I believe you're thinking, before we had gone over to it, so he even got way bigger. And you know, the name was just it just carried weight with it, you know, in that town and was renowned for being just this tough dude. And you know, when I ran into him on a Gold Coast at the bottle shop, I said to the bottle shop going, what do you know? Who you know this is? And even my mom and everybody's like, oh, what's going
on with Marty? Like you know, it's like and then I came back home that night and I didn't catch anything. Like I put on some casitas like Top five knockouts, you know. And then every time when we started hanging out, because he's like, oh mate, yeah, no dramas, like you know, he goes, here's my number. And then the next day I get this phone call from a number and he goes, oh, it's Michael, Michael who And he goes casitas, he goes come over for like a cup of tea, like a
fucking cup of tea. So I drive over to his house just random. Hi, Now I've got to Michael Cassetta's place. And we became mates ever since then, and you know, I got to know him a lot better as a mate. And you know we're talking about doing things together back then, but you know, some things happened.
So yeah, the world of that world boxing, they use boxing just as an analogy to pass this message on. I know Michael will get you to talk about this later on. But yeah, when you're a rising star in the boxing world, everyone coming to you and everyone wants a piece of it, be associated with it, just get a photo with you, just be part of the excitement of someone in one of the toughest sports in the world on the rise, and let's have a piece of it. Yeah,
your grown men, businessmen want to be there. Yeah, Michael, he's a good friend of mine. That type of thing at an early age, it must be hard to deal with that adulation and keep you your ego in check and everything else in check.
Yeah.
So like even from the age of fifteen, getting interviewed and doing when uses our local news station up there and always in the media. You become it's a common thing to be talking and having this persona and it just becomes an everyday thing. It's just business, part of life. And then of course as you go along you become more successful. You know, it's just business as usual. It just becomes a part and part of the past of your life.
Yeah, okay, and I see with that and use like boxing we're talking here, but the same with footballers, even in the music industry anywhere. You can see how you can go off track when you do that. Now you reached the dizzy heights of world boxing champion, but your career is probably not as well known here in Australia as it is in America because you decided to go over and test yourself against the best of the best.
But before we step into that there Sydney Olympics, you represented the country here, Sydney boy, I was working at the Olympics with the close personal protection and seeing what was going on in the thick of it. You guys were treated like gods at that stage. An Olympic athlete. If you're wandering at wandering Australian tracks with yeah, so.
You are so like you know, like I come from Timba and you know, like all of a sudden you're this is superstar, and like it doesn't really hit you. You have these dreams and these aspirations. You want to go to the Olympic Games. And then when you actually go the Olympic Games, you're like in the forefront and front
of the world. It's like here Australia saying, here you are, this is our greatest But you know, and then you put up on his pedestal and you know, like just to see the go to the opening seramony and people, ah, you can just hear this just so like you always these little fingers and have people sit trying the cracks in the water trying to get like a vision of
us and stuff. And you know, they gave us some kangaroos to throw out to the crowd and like they'd like swarm all over these people like animals and they're like these human beings. It's like they're like I saw it and it's like they're like, you know, like people. It was like sofa anyway, it was a really really big thing. But Nicki Webster was singing it. I saw how days a grown woman, like things have changed and what was the cold chill that played at the opening zeramony?
But anyway, they're closing ceremony. Coltures will midnight, allay.
That's not all.
Yeah, it was so big and you know, and there we were, and so we're performing from the big, big screen. I won my first round of the competition against Brazil and then I lost by two points to Kazakh Kazakhstan and the next fight and it so like you're like Michael and you're about to become a household name. As so the psychological side of things, they back then, they used to like a briefing and like a debriefing where you'd have to talk and they just have a check
in with you. I have no doubt now the way that we're evolving as humans and in the sport, that there's a much greater role played played on the psychology of people in general. You know, when going to the Olympics and not going to the Olympics and whatever.
Disappointments that you get getting, whether Olympics or anything.
That, yeah, we all aspire to.
You two guys have formed the friendship, and we'll talk about your time in prison too.
But this was you met.
Back at the bottle shop after you've got out of prison or just recently out of prison, and you've you've formed a bit of a bond here and you want to help men find the way be resilient. What brought you two together on that issue? How did that play out?
Well, we both.
At one stage. Marty was always you know, telling me like, do you know who you are?
Do you know?
And trying to encourage me to remember who I am and to hold me in the highest light and you know, get yourself amongst all the all the good people. And I just wasn't ready yet. I wasn't ready and like my I'd taken this pathway. It's like, to be honest, it's like I've been sleeping for the last fourteen years, to be honest.
You know.
It wasn't until you know, I got locked up. You know, my fingerprints were found. It's a cocaine and I got charged with cocaine trafficking and just just basically I wasn't even living at the house anymore. But the long end of the short is that my dirty MIT's getting on these drugs and things like that, and if I wasn't associating with the people that I was associating, I wouldn't have been in that position to begin with. And it's a void that I had, Like I was this world
champion and I could never feel that void. And I was constantly looking for something to master the pain and surround myself with people that make me felt more comfortable, which is right down there, you know. And it wasn't up here with the people that I needed to be around. There was no clarity. I couldn't I didn't have any
sense of direction. And it wasn't until you know, it took you know, I've got two years jail and what were were charges cocaine trafficking, and I'm sitting in jail and I found myself, you know, I had a good, long, hard think about things, and I thought, fuck, Like, I'm talking to these guys that I'm in there with and I could actually relate to them. I could actually see there's a lot of trauma in there. There's a lot of people brought up with it, with a lot of sexual abuse.
Just just on that.
Michael, And yeah, I've spoken to you about it and you said you're comfortable talking about it, but you were a victim of child sexual abuse. Yes, And I think in the conversation that we had, you said you didn't tell people, you didn't deal with it then and suppressed. Do you want to just talk us through through that aspect of your life because and you identify it in prison. I know I've spoken to you about it, Marty. So many people inside have had situations like that and that's
where the anger comes from. And you see these guys, big tough, bikey dudes that what's this anger about? They just they never want to be a victim again. And a lot of it steems from this childhood sexual abuse.
That's right, that's right, and they haven't dealt with the trauma associated with that, and then they haven't really been able to find the right support network. There is support out there, there's people that do understand, but at first it's been able to identify. It is one thing that leads to the next, you know, ultimately, like like I've gone on that pathway like I was. I was always messed up growing up, and then one thing led to another.
I've gone down a bad spiral and then when my brother died, that was the catalyst, and it's just added to it, and it's smarts in the pain, and I couldn't. And it wasn't until I was speaking to a trauma therapist and and and realizing where where it was all coming from that that that I could actually identify. And like he said to me, he said he could tell straight away. He said, Michael, you just have to stop using. You have to stop using, you have to stop drinking.
You know, it's just as clear as that, because they're.
Not going to heal.
But just just to put it in context and perspective, how old were you and what happened?
Was someone known to you or yeah, yeah.
So I've just recently found out who it is, and you know, something that would happen regularly. And I was having I was having a phone conversation with my partner of my brother before he died, and I know, I asked her, I said, it's something that that happened to start thinking like and she just started crying on a phone and she said the time enever to tell anyone about it. And because he was similar to similar to me in a lot of ways, but also it's just very kept things to himself.
Because there's and this is a manipulative side of predators, which you call them people that pray on children for their own sexual gratification. They manipulate it to they make it feel like it's something you can't talk about, something that you've done wrong, and you carry that. Is that similar to what happened in your situation?
Yeah, well I guess so.
You know, like like I was just I was just really messed up, Like I was just messed up about my ideal about sex and about life and what things are. You know, it's took away my innocence and you know, and then later on in life, you know, it's taken my brother's life as well. It's like if you have trauma in your life and things that you can't really comprehend or understand anything about them, and that you don't
even realize that it's happening to you. But the moment that you find something like like a really good drink or or a drug that you like, it's like, all of a sudden, it's just muscle that pain. It's taken away, and no one really understands. But no one really understands unless it's a fellow addict, what that feeling is like, that's the whole weight of It's like everything's just taken away.
From all that, all that pain that you suffered the experience of going through that sexual molestation and the trauma, and then the things as a result that happened after that as well, that the trouble that you get yourself into just being messed up and head people and it's just like a whole massive weight just taking off your shoulders. That feeling is unreal. And you know, and I can't say that that I like drinking. I love drinking, you know, but I can't do it anymore because it's not the
way for me to deal with things. And these are the things that I related to with other people that were in prison. They had that similar thing and ultimately, look, this is what happened. My brother, a talented athlete and a free course writer with one of the best in Australia, has found drugs and he loved it and it killed him. So to that person that molested me, you fucked my life. I want him to know that. And soon he's going to know very well, know, even if I can see
him face to face. But I'll get my opportunity. But the things like, it's not just that, it's my brother, my mother, my father, and all my family around that.
As well, that they've all suffered as a result of all this.
And it's not right. It's not right, and it's wrong. It's wrong what's happened. And you know, look, these things will get dealt with and I won't deal with it the way that I used to deal with things and just go and mask it. I'm clear on my life's back now. I have clarity, I have directions, I have direction, I know where I'm going, I know what I want to do.
So the person you saw that you looked up to when you walked in there and there's this tough dude with his black eyes skimming in the corner, looking everything like a scene out of a rocky movie, you wouldn't for one moment think there's any pain or any any weakness. What you're projecting there is this tough guy that can take on the world and don't yeah, don't fuck with me, or you're going to pay for it.
Well, you know they say, when you're in the fight, you know you never show that you're hurting. Yeah, never show your weaknesses.
Yeah, okay, Just let's just so people understand the heights that you reached in your boxing career. The Olympics and then after the Olympics an amateur, then you went professional and you wanted to test yourself and you ended up living in the United States, living in some pretty tough areas. Talk us through that experience.
Mate, It was it was meant to be. You know, like when I was seven years old, I watched the Rocky movie and you know, and Sylvestera salone and I said, I said that I planted a seed in my head that I don't.
Laugh, but it's true. I planted.
I planted a seed in my head that I was going to be the world champion there and then and and I loved Rocky. And so I've landed in LA and I stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel and that very that very night, I've walked outside. They've got a premiere for Rocky five, and Sylvester Salon's out there shaking hands and I shook his hand. What an experience like? I shook his hand. Years later I met his brother, Frank
Stallone as well. But I felt like getting a chance of saying, hey, do you know my name used to be Rocky? Like they called that was my finale, They called me Rocky. Then they end up making it concedas the great Yeah.
And so what was it? What was it like going in there? Like when I say testing against the world's best in that in that day and age, that's where all the top fighters went to the US back back in those days and probably pretty much still now. It's a testing ground. There's some pretty mean, hungry dudes in there,
or from a little country town in Queensland. And what makes you think you can take on the people from the mean streets of and the Mexicans, like the Mexicans and the tough dudes from the US.
No fear, No fear.
It's because fear is a false expectation appearing real f E a R. And it's just it's that set had already been planted from a young age. I was always going to do well. So that's the same thing with life now. I'm always going to do well. It didn't matter who I was in front of it because because I had a clear goal, I focused on that goal, I focus on my opponents were in front of me.
So basically, with what we're doing and what mat has helped me unpack with my mind and with a mindset coaching that I wanted that I'm helping people out with. People want to get some sort of confidence and and and it's and it's the things that the seeds that you planning your mind from young age, like building that sort of confidence. And it's not something that you can get overnight, but I can.
Tell you how. I can show you how to do it.
For example, I've gone from a kid that was who had been through what I'd been through and too scared to even throw my right hand. When I went in for my first fight, I was only could only throw my left hand. That's all I could throw. I was too scared until I hit with a big one. Then it really tested myself and I opened up.
I unleashed.
I won that fight just on points. And then for my second fight, this is eleven year old, I fought against a guy called Nicholas Frawley from Harvey Bay, and he like I'd ate too much fish and chips. I waited in thirty two point six kilograms, so six hundred grams over the thirty two.
Kilo big boy.
Yeah, but I thought a guy was thirty five killos, which you know three point four killers, and that it was a lot of weight for that. But he could really fight, and luckily I said to myself, I'm going to throw both hands and I'm going to go float out because it was an absolute war.
But he handed it to me. I dished out some real damage, but I loved it.
I lost that fight, but I gained so much from it because I put so much into it. And that's right, that's right. And then so that was a known lesson, so I'd learned from that. Okay, I want this next fight. Not only am I going to throw both hands, I'm going to train better, preparation prior preparation prevents pissporp performance. I'm going to eat better, so I'm not going to come in over that thirty two kilo division. I'm going to run better, and I'm going to make sure that
my stamina's up there. I'm going to really give it, so my diet and everything's all in check. And the third fighter had against the guy called Shaw mccolor from Quilpy and forty Milmern and it was a war because he was a good fighter, and I won the fight and I just give it absolutely everything, flat out. And after the fight, the crowd has thrown money in the ring.
It's called a shower money shower, and you know, it's one of them things where as an eleven year old kid to have people throw money in the ring, so happy and.
Please with the performance that you put on.
That creates growth and with that growth comes confidence. And so that's why I can walk around the world and talk to you know, I was a former criminal.
I can talk to a copper.
I said there at a first place, get nervous talking the coppers. Not anymore. I've can look you straight in the eye and I'm happy. I'm clean, i have clarity, and I have direction, and I have a good purpose in life.
That that there, It just creates growth.
And that's the message that I want to pass on to other people and for young aspiring you know, people that young use. You know, there's a youth christ christ youth crime crisis going on right now. There's all these experiences through boxing is so much like life, and I can pass that message that I've learned on with boxing to people out there.
And I think you the test of this, Marty. We haven't gone there in the path that Michael has, but someone that's walked that path in a such a tough field you have you've got to have some respect for it. That you must have some strength and resiliency, would you agree? Like the messaging that can come from someone that's walked the path that Michael has.
One hundred percent. You know, we've got a guy that's walked out d MGM Grand to a pack stadium. There's only a handful of guys illustrated, I believe, have done that in boxing. And then we've got this ultimate levels of success that only zero point one zero one percent will achieve. Then we've got this low of trauma prism. So there's a lot of experience and life lessons in
there that's quite unique. And we've got someone that's trained at the AIS, he's worked in Colorado at the High Performance Center, you know, with Cubans and Donner.
So does it really? I believe?
And this is what I said to Michael because I met him or when I ran into him again at the Bottle. It was about five years ago, and that was I think on the start of a bit of the adversity that was coming, and we were talking about
doing some stuff together again. Like Michael was saying before, I said, look, you know, mate, you know I know who you are, I know what you've accomplished, and I can see your career, that world has come to an end, and it's got to be hard, as we know for a lot of a fleets when you lose your purpose, for a lot of humans, when.
Your identity, yeah, isn't it.
That's like you know, you've got guys that are doing anything that you say, and you know all the lights have and that's all gone one day where you have a couple of losses and those people you look around, they're not here anymore.
That's hard.
And even our role players talk about that as well. You know, people want to get photos with you in the peak of your career. Then that all kind of starts to go down.
And I look, I think people, and we're talking a lot about men and women experience the same thing in similar, if not slightly different different ways. But I think for me and we all go through stages in life you want to prove yourself, whether it's your role model, whether it's trying to prove yourself to your father or whatever. You want to succeed. In the army, there's a pecking order, isn't there, And you want to be the best soldier. You want to compete. So the heights that Michael Rowse two,
and you say point one percent. It probably is that because people don't get there that's in the rear. You know, they're the outlies that reach reached those heights. But it just shows that when it's all stripped back, that we still carry these these demons that Michael clearly had. And look,
talk about your life over there. You were telling me the story that, yeah, you've been training in the gym for six weeks and this bloke kept talking to you and all that, and you're sort of fobbing him off, and so tell the story.
I say, I was prepared to fight against jail casma al So we did, like we spit that camp up, camp up into two.
I did.
I think it was about it would have been like six weeks in Thailand. Then we went to finish off the next six weeks in America. And we're trained at the gym called the Pound for Bound Jim Pound for Pound Jim on my Bray Avenue there in LA. And there's this dark guy there has always has watched me. We can and I talked to him occasionally check in and stuff like that. And I'm sitting up against the ropes and I'm you know, and I'm getting my Brandon's
doing my hands up and and he's gone. So he goes, so, who are you fighting next, kid? And I said, I'm fighting Joel Cassameo. He goes, oh Joe Cassamo. Huh, I'm going to have to go to that one, I said. And I was just looking at him and thinking, I said, mate, do you know you sound like that Denzel Washing? You sound just like him? Hey? And he he goes funny, you should see that anyway. When he walks away, Bretta goes.
Mick, that fuckings Denzel Washington. You're idiot.
You've been talking him for the last six weeks, so you know they have to support of those guys. I never seen him on TV, Arnold Swartzenegger sitting like a love of my fights at that the MGM grand you know, Maddie Trip from sports bed all the way from Australia. In the back room when they're picking the gloves, which one I'm going to fight against? Marcus macOS get a Mick Hay going. I said, how did you fucking get in here? The black can get in anywhere, you know,
like he pulls some strings, you know some people. He's my mate. Maddie Trip mate, he's unreal. But like, this is the people that were there to support me. Those are the people the shoulders that I was rubbing with, like Oscar de la Hoya, you know, like Alexis d Juria, you know, like these people John Porta, Joria's daughter.
You know, you're like she's a success.
Like I just connected with so many powerful people and people to create movies and that's that's where I belong mix some of those people because I've made it into that world. I'm hanging with those people and I've come back to Australia and.
At that level too, you're getting big verses. So we've gold boy, Yeah.
Got who I was. I come back to Australia.
I just forgot completely who I was and just just went into a dark stump. But it's like I've been asleep literally for like the last twelve years, you know, just masking my pain. And I couldn't pick up the phone and have a conversation or asks for help or tell anyone about what I was going through because I didn't even know how to identify it. I just couldn't see clearly.
My clarity was good there and look we're not We're not psychologists, So we're not professionals in this field, but I think we can say, just with life experiences, how many times blokes are like that, Like you've come back and you're in the dark place, but you're too proud or too stupid or too tough to hand up and go, hey, I'm struggling. I was living in the stratosphere up there with movie stars and everyone wanted the piece of me. I was a man, and I've lost some fights, and
then I've come back here and who am I? You used to fight, didn't you? Or Marty? You're looking in this field. How helpful do you think it would be if someone in Michael's position then actually put his hand up and said, hey, fuck, I need some help.
Yeah, very helpful. You know, we've got a guy here that you know, like there was a guy that came through spoke to us last week that's struggling with something similar. We've just kind of we get caught up in that cycle. We're drinking on the weekend, a little bit of addiction here and there. We get out of these bad habits. So when they come to a guy like Michael, they're speaking with a guy that's actual. She lived that experience.
And that's the main thing. Like, even when I talk about mental well being or mental health, I always talk about a lived experience, you know, through what I've been through and how I've overcome it. And that's Michael's greatest asset, you know, he talks from where he's been in their shoes.
Yeah, yeah, well it's that lived experience and yeah, the situation you're in, Michael, And I think everyone in different stages of their lives find themselves in that way. I'm here doing podcasts and not out of the crime scene because of what happened to me in the place I went from being My identity was a homicide cop. That's who I was, and that was taken away overnight, and
I went through dark periods. But I wasn't going to put my hand up to anyone and say, hey, I'm struggling, and yeah, I'd meet with mates, friends or whatever, how you going. We'd make a joke of it and laugh it off and go, oh, yeah, I'm a crook now, blah blah blah.
Do it that way.
But a couple of people are respected reached out and said, hey, how are you actually dealing with that? And those calls were so important to me, and those chats were so important because instead of the Bravada, yeah, sh it's fine, and I go sit at home and go, fuck, what's happened? How did my life turn upside down? So I think it's in a message if Yeah, for blokes, it's all right to put your put your.
Hand up and say say you're struggling. And that's a hard thing to do.
So you can embrace it and you can move forward, or you can or you can sit back where it will happened and just keep going backwards, move forwards.
What was what was your check when you've had the tough childhood, not the ideal situation. You've joined the army, you've come out, you've got your business up and running, and you're doing a bit of traveling, living the high life and high fiving yourself and hey, I'm pretty crash hot what i'm doing here?
What was your wake up call?
It's hard to point it to one specific thing, but there was just this constant, I guess feeling inside where it's like, you know, you can say that you want this fear life and be ambitious, but if your daily habits and actions aren't in alignment, you're not in congruency, and that's where you get the internal conflict, and that's where you're not really proud of yourself because you're like, well, I'm talking a big game, but my actions aren't aligned.
So like my process is simple, like simple, but not always easy. But we've got to really work out, well, who do we actually want to be. And when I worked out who that is, what type of person, values, vision, personal philosophy, then we go around, well what do I need to do each day and who do I need to show up as to be that person? And you know, I had to cut away to the alcohol because I know that was the one thing in my life that would just pulled every think out in chaos, you know, the
bad nutrition, doing stupid shit. And I knew deep down because I asked myself, like if I removed, like, what would I need to do to go to that next level of my life? You know? And I was I'd raise, you know, qualified for the Boston Marathon, I'd done, you know, some pretty cool stuff, and I just knew it was this thing because we can't truly you know, I understand some people have had some very tough upbringers, and you know it's very hard to heal from a lot of
those things. And I just want to be clear, but I had to really heal myself, not even just through the childhood. That wasn't even a really you know, once I met my dad that kind of healed things for me. But when I went through you know, things after leave in the army, you know, and then I was self medicating with the drinking, you know, but then that just puts me in a more downward spiral. So like Michael was saying, like the answer is really cutting away devices.
It's hard. It's not easy, especially like we live in the straw where the culture is. You know, we went to the boxing last night and everyone's drinking and we weren't, and people like, you know, you know.
Yeah, it's as a habit, isn't it. They're like, if you're playing in football, team sport, you have a victory, let's all get on, get on the drink. And it is a hard way to step away. But I've heard, yeah, I drink, and I hear a lot of people that say that I'm taking on what you've said, and possibly you, Michael, you drink, But you know, it becomes a problem once it's become a problem affecting your life. And I know a lot of friends that have said, no, I'm not
drinking anymore in the go life, life's good. And then I've got other friends that can drink. But the drink doesn't really become a problem for it. Perhaps it is about the fact that it's not they're not using it to mask the pain.
So yeah, that may be the case. But no one ever tells you when they lose on a poker machine, do they that's like a bit of an ego spray. They're like, yeah, it's you know, like things already hard enough as it is. You know why I make it any harder when you can make it same, Jess, you for yourself, it's just it's a no brainer really when
you think about it. You know, like you can you can balance it all out, and if you can get by you and honestly true to yourself, you can be happy with that decision that you make.
It's fine. That's fine for some people. Don't.
They're just like an addict by nature, and they just have to keep on going, like every day, every day. And of course, as you said before, you know they've got the trauma and the pain that they haven't dealt with.
Yeah, well, you know you mentioned the gambling, the gambling addiction that I've seen a lot of people have come come through here and that's destroyed their lives. They're robbing banks because they want to gamble.
They've gambled too much and stuff stuff like that.
Your mindset, Michael say, just to put it in perspective, you've been living the high life and yeah, achieving everything that you believed identified you as been successful in your life over in America.
Two World World Titles three, three w.
B O one w B U. Okay, it's not as big as the WWB t WB.
So yeah, again, not many people, no one who gets to that level. So you've gone their life's looking pretty good. You're on the cusp of me and Dollar a fight type situation was. So you're at that level. You potentially set yourself up at life. I sit back here, you sit back, probably Marty and look and think, wow, what
a what a great way. But you've gone from that level and then you found yourself back here and just what was your mindset when you've come back here, because this is after your brothers, when.
I've come back to Australia. Yeah, so you know, hindsight's one thing. I should never just moved back. But you've got to have the clarity. And I didn't have any clarity because I was constantly masking my pain with drugs and alcohol. So I couldn't make any right decisions. Any projects that I started wanted, Like, I'd say, right now, I'm going to sell this property in Australia and by these properties in America, and I'd never finish it.
I never finish it.
And I just i'd go and gamble, I'd go make some bad decisions or invest in the wrong per and they do the wrong thing by me. I just made just one constant bad decision after the other, and I was never going to move forward.
It was just, yeah, did you have anyone in your life that was giving you a tap on the shoulder and saying, hey, what are you doing?
Look?
I did, I did, but it's like I wasn't prepared to listen. I really was, like you you could have said that to me because I had that one little secret that I kept to myself.
I was an alcoholic.
I was a drug addict, you know, and I just couldn't bring myself to just own it that I had that problem. And the people that I felt most comfortable around were people that were obviously giving me drugs or giving me alcohol. I felt comfortable around them because that was our little secret, you know, and the only person I was fooling.
Was myself, and.
They're not going to judge you. We've had Tom Carroll on the on the podcast the two Times World Surfing Chain and he was using drugs and he felt like he was hiding it was his shameful secret because people were looking up to him.
And he went through that.
Matt Mitcham, the Olympic diver, gold medalist diver, and he was he was using drugs. You've got a profile and you're using drugs. There must be some shame that comes with that too, because you feel like a false pretender. Here you are doing this fit, healthy lifestyle guy and then you're back Ellie.
Being who you are too. You have like a responsibility. You have a responsibility to associate with the right people and to do the right thing.
Like you already know this.
You know people people know this, like it's just it's a common if people look up to you, don't be sitting in front of a kid bloody doing doing the wrong thing because people do see you. Everyone there everyone, there's ears everywhere, eyes everywhere. So you have a responsibility to do the right thing and to be seen doing the right thing because you're an example for the way you should be doing things.
And the people that like you had the adulation from the boxing fans and the movie stars and all that when they're at the peaky your game giving you that attention. I'm sure when your life slipped down into that drug world, they'd be going, hey, this used to be an olympian, he was a world boxing champion.
That validate their existence. Maybe we're not so bad if it's in the mind.
And that's part of the experience as well.
Like I've had a lot of people reach out to me back then, and you know, like when you're on an airplane, the first thing they say is, you know, fix your own respirator before you fix the child's, you know, because if you can't help yourself, you're not going to be able to help anyone else. So here I am today, I've gone through that, I've dealt with adversity. I can share how I've dealt with adversity and I can help.
I can really in a position where I can actually give someone else the correct kind of guidance when previously I've had people reach out to me before in the past, and it's like a codependent triangle, you know, like you just gone round and round and round, and I couldn't really be of any assistance to anyone because I couldn't help myself.
And I've had and I'm sad about this.
I've had friends commit suicide, you know, and I think maybe I could have been there for them, maybe I could have saved them the things that I could have done, And you know, like I don't carry that weight with me now. I just needed to help. I needed to help myself. And you know, that's why we're here now.
And look, look, I'm just look and I will tell you, Marty, like, I'm really fortunate to have you in my corner because you know, with all the fights I've had and I've had that much of a life and just remembering things, it becomes very difficult with everything that I've been through and been able to have someone there and to unpack this mindset and that the experience that I've gone through and go right, heah, You've got to do this. Jot
that down, Okay, you've gone through that okay bang. That relates to resilience, that relates to confidence, that relates to mindset, and it's just it's just all these things. Been able to unpack it and then pass it on to other people. Now I'm helping people in the right way and the right people, the right people that need help, that actually are willing to work out, you know, hold the hand out, hold the hand up and say yeah, I need help.
That's why we don't normally get two gaps on the podcast. But I like the synergy between you two guys and speaking to you both individually and collectively, I could see that, Oh that this is it was.
A partnership I happened.
It's just sort of we went on our own way and then come to the other. And the one thing that we have in common is our mindset. We have clarity and our health.
And yeah, that that is when you talk the health. That is the brutality of the boxing game too. Yeah yeah, yeah, paying the price you're getting getting hit in the yea.
Yeah, you're aware of that.
The low point into your drug addiction, when was when did you realize When could you Michael Cassida say own to yourself that I'm a drug addict.
I think the moment that well Parole called me and does it warrant out for arrest? So I quit that day April eleven, twenty twenty two. You know, I quit, and I'm sitting in a jar cell. I've got two years at least they had to me, and I'm just thinking, how fucking great is this? Because I knew, because I've got this hunger and desire to I always know that I'm always going to come out the other end no matter what. I've got, this brisk bound awheares has never
give up. And I'm sitting like this is awesome. You know, I'm sitting there because I'm going, you know, I'm going to come.
Through the other end.
And I've got a fucking story to tell. So it doesn't matter where you are or what you've done or whatever, you can break through it. And I knew that I was going to come out of this. I was going to come out the other end. I've got a story to tell, and with that, I have my sobriety of clarity and direction, and I just just had gratitude, Like who are you without gratitude? Is going to be thankful? Because there's other people in far worse positions than I'm in.
You know that I've been in.
There's people that you know, they're sitting there doing the rest of their lives in there, you know, and even those guys can find solace. Even those guys can find themselves and realize and come to terms with things. So every people that are outside in the real world, they
can do it. The world is your always, so there's so many things you can do, Like Russell Manson is to have a you know, used to help a lot of people, and like that guy is really inspirational and you know, like I've only just learned about him since getting out about six months ago.
All Russell became through this we reached out to It was a mutual friend that put us in contact and we spent a lot of time. And the people on the podcast know Russell well. But I remember sitting here and the trauma that he went through as a young guy and his experience in prison and being sexually abused.
And all that.
It was horrific. Yeah, the irony with Russell. He was doing stick ups when I was in the arm told up squads. A couple of the jobs he was doing we were looking for it, but we became we became good friends, and he was a classic example of turning life around. And sadly when he passed away and it was a Zaddy's funeral and it was just a big loss that hit people people hard, because when you see someone like that that hits the low and then dig their.
Way out of its inspiration of it.
Is when we get back in part two, I want to talk about what you hope to achieve by what you're doing. I also, and this is just out of my curiosity, and I'm sure you Marty, I want to speak a lot about your experience in prison. Like you're going into prison, You're going in as a former world boxing champion. They make movies out of that sort of shit, so I know what the hell happened when you went
in there. And I also in my conversations with you, Marty, you said that the thing about Michael is that there's he points out there's no glamour in the prison, and yeah, yeah, a message that we can all get out. And if I have former Bikis or whatever come here, or gangsters, the world looks pretty attractive, but when it's stripped down and when you're.
Locked in a cell. It's not that attractive, and there's no real glamor there is there.
So look, if there's any young people out there and they're going on a pathway which they know within themselves, and they're thinking about going this way or that way, I can tell them, don't go.
Fucking that way. It's a ship life.
There's a ship life, and it's nothing to look forward to it. There's actually people that are in there that actually find comfort in it and then just keeping their
recit of and they keep coming back. I was talking to my psychologists and she said, and I've got like one hundred and sixty pages of contacts of people in there, and you know, these are people that are you know, obviously they're a lot of them going through sobriety and they've they've changed, you know, they've they've been forced to not drink or do drugs, and you know, you see a different side of them that they would otherwise. They don't have the same things available to them outside, and
you see different sides of them. But I've got one hundred and sixty pages of contacts, and I thought to myself, maybe only three percent would come out the other end. In reality, and she said that's not bad, Michael. She said, an actual fact, only two percent aren't recidivists. They don't keep coming back only to it. So it was pretty accurate that And of those two percent of people, there's probably only two or three that I would keep in contact that I I would truly come out the other end.
And come out greater things around. Yeah, well we'll talk.
We'll talk about that the in depth in that part too, But it's just reminded me. We had spanions on the podcast, and I remember him describing when he was in boys homes, like doing things, getting caught going to boys' homes that was exciting because everyone was in there together and we're going to be the biggest, baddest against But he said, going to an adult prison really wak him up.
He's gone, look at it, this is it's life losers in here.
There's nothing glamorous about being in prison, like there could be the excitement in the boys' homes that yeah, we're going to be the baddest of the bad and making a reputation. But when it's all said and done, who wants to be locked in the sell for eighteen hours a day? But we'll talk about that in part two, so we'll take a break down of course.
Cheers,