Australia's #1 Unsung Boxing Legend | Diana Prazak - 918

She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.

I'm tiff. This is Roll with the Punches and we're turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go to court, and don't My friends are test Art Family Lawyers. Know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution. Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples, custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements

Good day.

Where you being, mate, Where you be? You of this show?

I've been everywhere. I'm more than anything. I was just so excited to hear your voice for me. I get so excited when I'm not obviously home home in Australia. For me, every time I can connect with someone from home, it makes it makes.

My heart happy. Do you know what I mean? So? I love it. I love it. I might live in the States.

I'm I had citizenship for the States as well. But there's no place like home, you know. And we're always told that growing up, there's no place like home. There's no place like Australia. It's the greatest country in the world. But I never realized that until I left it.

M do you know.

It's funny. I'm from Tazzy and I go home all the time, and I've always been like, nah, I always thought i'd move back there one day, but I've found beautiful spots in malb when the last two years, it's had that beautiful connect you know, you just eventually land and you go there is something about this, Yeah.

There's just something like just home. There really is no please like home.

Every time I come back home at least once or twice a yeah, and every time I'm like crying at the airport coming back to.

The States.

When we were last year.

Last time I was home was August last year, and I'll actually be home.

Again in July.

Ah.

Well, we better have a coffee, mate.

We'll learn them more than a coffee, I'm sure.

All right, Let's how do we explain you to my listeners? Gods, you're amazing for it. Let me let me start with my introduction, which is very brief, but my first memory of you is so right before. I'd had a few corporate boxing challenges and was on right balls deep in the excitement of boxing for women, and I hadn't yet had an amateur fight, but I was ready. I was

That was a good fight, that was awesome. I had just come home for Christmas.

M it was you know, I had just fought in Sweden. We had a couple months off.

We're still training even though we had a couple months off.

And Lucia said go home for Christmas, just take some time off, and I was like sweet.

So I flew back home to Melbourne.

And while I was home, you know, your Facebook always goes off a little bit like crazy.

And Shannon called me out.

Shan like there was she came out like here, I hadn't even had the title.

For that long, do you know what I mean? And she she called me out, and Brian Armatruda put it on. He reached out to me and said, hey, I know you're here for a holiday, but do you want to you know.

Shannon's called you out? Do you want to defend your title back home? And obviously the fighter in me is like hell, yes, like definitely, of course I always in a fight, but you learn very quickly that when you have a train like Lucia, that you don't get to call all the shots.

So I remember I gave her Yeah, yeah, she was always in charge. And I remember she was in.

The Netherlands and I rang her and I was like, hey, I just got called out.

Do you wanna do you want to fight? Do you want a trip to Australia? And she was like yeah, let's do it. And yeah, a month later she had flown in. Brian's got it all set up the I think he was working with Barrier of all.

No, they just done a five bar at all, but Brian got it all sent up and yeah, I ended up defending my title back home and it was no one knew I was from Australia. How's that for people not knowing who you are? I remember being in the dressing room of that fire and a guy came in and he was like, so, what is it like being in Australia? Do you like this country? And I was like, dude, I was this.

Weird in Melbourne? This is my hometown, do you know what I mean?

Like, how how's that you come in and you don't even know who I am or where I'm from.

This is my title, this is my this is my home. And yeah, that happens more than it should. Unfortunately, that blows my mind.

Like I remember being back then being and I guess still to a degree. Women's changing, but back then I just remember going, no, boxing is are weird sport and especially for women, it's like no one knows anyone, like no one I couldn't name, I couldn't name boxes unless you were And for someone to was obviously involved in the sport to walk into the change rooms and have no idea of your background.

Exactly and there was my home that it was my hometown, that I was the Melbourne girl. Shannon was from Queensland. Yeah, so it was I remember that was a good fight Shannon. Shannon was a.

Real goer, tough girl, tough girl.

Yeah, really, watching you two was something, like I said, from going from watching most of my experience was watching those corporate fights that I was involved in, and that level to coming and watching you two was like, oh, DP, do you want to do that?

That was a really important win for us to get.

Yeah, because because I had come home and everyone she was the favorite, Everyone was saying that she was going to she was going to win that fight, and yeah, it was a fifth round stoppage alway obviously.

Yeah, and yeah it was.

It was so important for us to walk away with that wind and to win decisively, just to just because you know, at that stage, I was number one in the world. I had just made pounds of pounds number one in the world, the only Austraying to ever do that, and and I.

Was still being looked as the outsider coming in. I was still the underdog in my own home after everything that we had achieved.

So that was a big, a big, really decisive win for us that we had to get.

And I'm really happy that it was a good.

It was a good, clean fight, and it was a really good, decisive win for us, just to show that, you know, we were a whole on a whole different level than everybody else.

Oh yeah, Oh, let's let's talk about a bit about your entry into the sport and your background in the sport, because, like when I was just having a bit of a refresh on your on your life, I read your first I can't remember how many, but all of your amateur fights, however, many all knockout, like knockout.

Well, they weren't all knockouts. I think I was technically, I think I had four stops.

It was six fightsages six amunter fights, and I think it was four stoppages I think, not six, So it definitely wasn't six.

All right, well it's still pretty well.

Wasn't six for six? I think it was four for six, I think.

Yeah, yeah, amazing. All right, tell me how you got started in the sport.

Me, my boyfriend. It was a muso.

My boyfriend at the time was a muso and we were we were on the drink at a at a gig and one of my mates come up to me and Donna and she was like, Hey, they just opened a boxing gym near us, do you want to come box?

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go box. And and then I forgot all about it.

Obviously, I didn't think. I never thought about it again. And a week later she rocked up in my house. She's like, let's go and where are we going there? She's like, We're going to boxing gym, and and it was boxing Fit in Hops Gross.

They had just.

Opened not long ago, and and that was where all pretty.

Much started up. I really liked it. And as I was leaving, one.

Of the trainers said to me, so he was just trying to get me to sign up. I know he was, but he was like, so you're going to stay fat your whole life, or you're gonna sign up. He just read me, right, He just read me, read me, and he read me right. And I said, yeah, you know what, You're right, and I signed up. And and at the beginning, like that first couple of months, I was just having fun. It was just so much fun.

Hitting things, you know.

And I was always a very natural athlete, always a tomboy, so for me, it was easy to do that. And when it come down to I was watching some people's fire and I said, hey, can I do that? And and he pretty much said to me, Look, you know you're kind of you're old, you're fat, and you're a girl.

What's the what's the point? Do you know what I mean?

I'm sure if you deny it as well if if it came out, but I'm not going to hide it.

But it was it was like that were fighting words for me.

And I worked out an arrangement with with Cel and she started training me and I dropped the weight I was.

I was pretty heavy at the.

Time and started went straight into the amateurs and I won and I just kept winning.

But I never had that amateurs style yet. I mean I always had that pro style.

So and then my first profile that was like I was twenty seven when that happened, so definitely a very late start in the sport. I turned pro after six fights, so the last fight being the Austrain title which I won. And when I my first pro fight was against Sarah Howard Sarah and Missy Howard, and she six rounds and she she beat him on points, broke my nose in the last round and it was like someone had died. I was so devastated. I was like, this is what is this?

Jeremyn It was at sixty four kilos and was I never want to experience this again. And we just went straight into the gym.

I probably had a couple of days off and that was it before I went hardcore's training. And I suppose that's really all that that's what started at all that lost to Sarah.

I think my ninth fight was the title fight against Lindsay Garbett. I think you'd have to look at box check.

I'm not sure, but after Seriah's fight, I went undefeated after that and fought for.

Ronlin Wildly from from New Zealand. She was awesome. She was my entry into the international circuit.

I had to win a ten round against Sarah, my first at a time at one hundred and thirty pounds, which I think is fifty nine kilos, and yeah, beating her got me a shot at the world titled against Lindsay Garbet, who was the champion from Canada. And that was where I think I was thirty or thirty one when that happened, So it was relatively short time, that really short space of time when that had happened, and yet we won.

That was that was a ninth round stoppage against Lindsay.

When did you relocate.

After that fight. After the we we went to al Paso, Texas. I'll never forget this, right, And so we flew into La first and Michell and Okay, she was she had just been in the States and she had trained with Lucia. She had done some training with Louise, and.

She said, Hey, you're in LA. How about I get you a session with Lucia and that way you really get to experience it. And I was like, yes, let's let's do this.

And so I ended up having two sessions with Loose and we just connected like sometimes you just mess the people, but I wasn't there for a long time. We just had fun. I had a great training with her. We were there to support frank Lopordo. He was fighting in our passid for a world title. So we all flew there and we always got told we had a really similar fight style, me and Frankie, like we both with that pressure final that would just walk through punches and

Mate experience, do you know what I mean? And when I was watching him fighting and getting a hit with with everything. All I could see was myself.

I thought, if I stay in Australia, this is what's going to happen to me, because the competition is only going to increase.

We're only going to fight other champions now that I was a champion, and I was like, if I'm going to do this, I have to do it properly. So I flew back to Australia. I spoke to a manager and I said, hey, I'm going to do this. I haven't got very many years left in me. I'm already thirty one, thirty two, whatever it was.

And I said, let's do it properly, and so I flew to the States. It was tough because you know, you left everything you know on this little wilm that you know, hoping that you were going to achieve something. But I never stopped believing that if I wanted it, if I worked hard enough, I'd have it.

So Lucy started training me. It was the scariest thing I ever done ever.

Literally I cried the whole way on that flight, that sixteen hour plane ride to LA I just cried. I remember I had a shitty little motel on sunset boulevard that was literally stood out of the gutters.

I remember, I was too scared to go outside because it was like nothing like the movies. Yeah, and there was a mate from Australia, Mike Almatura. He was here at the same time, and we were on the plane.

Together and he took me under his wing and he took me the target so I could get some food. He showed me where wild Card Boxing was so I knew where I had to train. And yeah, he like, I was just so bloody lucky he was on the plane because it was petrifying. But that was the start of everything, you know, being in the States, that shitty little motel, training with Lucia. If I didn't do any of that, none, nothing would have happened.

You know.

Hell, back then, how financially viable was professional boxing for women.

It wasn't.

It literally wasn't at all. I didn't make any money. A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there. I was desperate for sponsors, like I would put out I would put out like Facebook posts and I would speak to people, you know, anyone that could help. Because training was expensive. Training was so expensive. Gear was expensive, you know, gloves just taping your hands, favsing wall training session, your clothes that you wore, being able to eat.

You know, it was it was so expensive. So I had a couple of really good people who threw in a couple hundred bucks here and then.

But I was very lucky. I worked for myself, so I was able to I had full flexibility over how I worked. I mean, I still worked for myself. I have my whole career, but there's no money.

There was no money. It was zero money. I like, I made way easy because I was always so poor. Count I had no food. It's the oddest truth.

You know. Lucia would come over and she's like, she look in my free and she's like, dang, where's your food? And I'm like, oh, I just haven't gone to the shops yet. I just haven't got any groceries yet. And I'd bullshit my way through everything. But she knew that, you know, she'd bring food for me.

Or I'd go to her place and she'd always feed me and stuff like that. But yeah, it was, it was. There were rough There were some rough t was My old career was pretty much like that.

Actually, what makes it? What drove you? What made it worth it.

This what we're doing right now.

Yeah, anytime I can share what I went through, Yeah, if I can, if anyone can hear my my shitty little story, okay and be inspired to do something that someone told them they couldn't do, this makes it worth it. Because my I was the underdog my entire career. If it wasn't for my family believing in me, you know, I lost relationships. My boyfriend of twenty years, we broke up because I came to the States because.

I was going to do this properly.

Gentlemen, you know, I had some really good mates. Every time I came back to Australia, it was like it was literally coming back home.

You know. People would take care of me. People would they believed in me.

I remember running doing my you know, my roadwork in the Netherlands and being on the phone to my sister or Mike Almatsura and that would just talk to me and they would give me, you know, make help me believe in myself. If people could hear that what I did, knowing that there's no financial game, there was zero financial game, knowing that most people will never know your story, that a man will always you know, get a higher rank.

I still did it. If they can hear that and say, you know, fuck it, I'm going to do it too, you know, and if they get the same.

It doesn't matter if it's boxing, or if it's sports, or if it's a new job, or if it's you know, the end of a relationship and they need to believe their relationship for a new one. You know, it doesn't matter anything anything that you believe in yourself that you can do. It doesn't matter if someone is shitting on you, you can go do it.

You know that. I really believe that. I truly believe that.

I consider myself so lucky that for the people that I had around me. I'm so lucky for those people who would you know, I moved to America with nothing, literally nothing. I was scared twenty four to seven, but it gave me so much. It was the scariest thing I did.

But that that.

I want to say bravery, but you know, first world problems. Yeah, it's compared you know it gave me. Boxing took, but it gave you know, I got to see the world I met that, I saw the best in people.

I saw the worst in people. You know, I met a lot of wankers along the way as well.

But there were some amazing people that you know, put their neck out for me and believed in me. And and that's how we just kept doing. We just you know, just keep after every loss, coming back and getting a win, you know, going to your going to your hometown and some wanker coming and the dress you in and asking you what it feels.

Like to be in Australia. You know, it's you do it because of people like that, you know, just just to one up them a little bit, you know.

Okay, so you were just inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Pretty cool.

Well that's a fucking big deal. That's deal, right, it's pretty good. How do you deal with the factor? I mean, there's not many hot You were number one in the world as a female pound for pound, You've been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and yet, let's be honest, the level of recognition from your home country is like it was just a tumbleweed that blew away in the wind, Like, how do you how do you manage that in yourself? Because listening to you speak and the passion that you

It's pretty ship. Yeah.

Like if we ever think about Australia as a whole now, as a young girl growing up in Australia, we were always Australia as a sporting mad country, right, everyone loves sports industry. We celebrate our athletes, we celebrate them now. I remember when I won the WBC in Sweden. That when I won the WBC in Sweden, that made that fight made me numb one in the world. Okay, it also made me pounds of pounds number one in the world. And I thought this in my how naive I was though.

I thought, that's going to be me.

I'm going to come home after this five and people are going to be They're going to be proud of what I did.

My country is going to be proud of me, because that's what we were.

Raised to believe, that our country would be proud of us if we for these accomplishments. And I rang up every news station, every newspaper, and I told them and they all said the same thing. I'm sorry, no one, you're a girl. No one's interested in hearing about a female fighting. And then I remember trying to tell them, no, you don't understand.

I just did.

Look like I just did.

No Australian male female cat dog. No one's ever done this before, like this is the first. And they're like, oh, well, you know, congratulations, that's amazing for you. But we're not gonna tell them.

We're not gonna do a story on it. And it was so like demoralizing, it really was. I came home.

Mischa threw me a celebrated you know, a celebration party for the WBC, and I remember saying it to her and she's like, it's okay, Die, She's like, we've just got a long way to come.

We're still coming though, and there's a lot of knocks, like especially like one I remember Wonderport telling me I wasn't pretty enough.

You know, if you had something to if people would enjoy looking at you, and it would be different.

And I was like, yeah, but I'm an athlete. I look like an I look like an athlete, do you know what I mean?

And you know, when you get that again and again, it does it breaks you down until my wife name me.

She works with the education system, and she got me to do a couple of talks for some of the kids at the school's here and they're at risk kids. And I didn't even know what at risk meant. That's how naive I was. These are gang kids or parents that are in jail and stuff like that. And I went to do a talk with them and they were asking me all these questions, what's it like to hit someone, what's it like to win the title?

And they're telling me about their street titles and stuff like that. What I did instead was it.

Inspired me to keep going because these kids could keep going and I would just tell them.

The truth instead.

So instead of instead of pretending like it was easy, or pretending like if you're not pretty enough, you're not going to achieve it, if you're not good enough, you're not going to achieve it.

If you're born the wrong gender, you're not going to achieve it. I just told them the truth. Hey, yeah, it's really shit.

Sometimes sometimes they're not going to listen to you and they're not going to hear you, or you'll do something.

Really good and they'll ignore it. I said, but you can't let that stop you. You need to keep going.

And a couple of those kids came to me after and said, hey, will you teach me how to box? And I was like, sh yeah, let's do it. Let's let's let's do it. Let's let's do boxing. A couple of kids stayed with me for months, like just coming.

To the gym. Whenever I'd be the gym, they would just be there, you know.

And I really hope that they're still going or that they found something. So I think that's why we keep going, just for that to be able to talk to somebody from home, to be able to reach out to youth, to be able to reach out to, you know, the person male or female that's too scared to leave their job and change their career, you know, because they've got financial security is too big a risk to somebody in

Just rattled on a fair bit. Then sorry, that's so good. It's so I love it.

I love it. And as you were talking about it, I was thinking about, and it's one thing I talk about a bit. It was that for me, that realization at some point, and it was through going through it myself, but also observing my best mate, Courtney, and in the preps for her fights and what it meant for her and what she would sacrifice time after time to do that,

No fae like yeah if what we when at the Hall of Fame when I did my acceptance speech, I really wanted to speak from the heart. I didn't want to blow off about what I want or what I achieved or whatnot. I really want to speak from the heart. And the reality is is that boxing humbled me. It really humbled me because every time I took a step up, something happened to give me a kick in the ass and put me back down.

And you have to keep persevering through that regardless. You know, I met, like I said before, I met amazing people.

I got to travel the world, I met my wife, you know, so all these great things happen from it.

So when we talk about how much it takes from you, God it does.

It takes and takes and takes and takes, but it gives you so much as well. And I mean I've never met a champion. I mean that hasn't experienced the trauma.

Of our sport.

I'm not even sure that we can be champions without the trauma that drives us to keep going. But we need to be there for each other. That's really what it comes down to. We've got to keep supporting each other. And that's what I spoke about in my speech. As much as this sport will take from.

You, and God I love it.

I love this sport like anything, but yeah, it will take from you, but it will give you so much. And it's our responsibility to keep giving to others around us. You know, the generation before me, Lucy is generation. They helped pave the way for my generation. You know, my generation of fighters have helped pave the way for this generation. And as long as we keep acknowledging that and growing from it, that's how we keep winning. That like, that's

You know, what did you learn about you that it didn't expect that it didn't expect In the boxing ring, that.

Was probably tougher than I thought it was. It was probably tougher than I thought. My whole life I had, I was always trying to prove myself. I was always trying to.

Prove and find who I was because I never knew who. I never knew. I was just always that, you know, the little tom boy who played with all the boys. You know, that's just what I was known for.

And you know, I.

Experienced abuse a very young age, and for the longest time, I thought it was so tough it didn't hurt me.

And then I could just ignore it and put it away. And the more I went through this sport and I had to find who I.

Was, I realized how hurt I was from that abuse and how it had shaped me to be the person that I was. So for me, the whole experience of boxing wasn't just about getting into the ring. It shaped me as a person throughout my entire career. It made me realize that I was a victim of something that I had to overcome, and that I was one of hundreds of thousands of other women who had been a victim that we had to overcome it. I think the stats are like one in three women, you know, discussing

I love that so much, and that's so in line with my own experience. You know, I have a similar background and I have and I always called boxing my mirror. I'm like boxing is a place where I met me for the first time and realized I didn't know the person I was pretending to be.

Yeah, it's we could talk to you know, ten twenty thirty other women and I'm and eighty percent of them, ninety percent of them will give us the same say the same thing. You know, when I did those kids, those talk with those kids, I was very open about the abuse that I had experienced because I had to keep my mouth shut for such a long time because it was a family member who did it, and so it was, you know, that hush hest that secret that everyone knows, and.

I was never allowed to speak about it. And I was like, screw this, I'm going to speak about it. And as I talked, I can see the girls.

That were there all light up that it wasn't just them, that they weren't the only one to experience something like this, and that we could.

Get we could get through it, that they could get through it. That if they looked at me and they're like, hey, she she did it, she kept going.

And then for whatever they perceived that I made something of my career, I had a career, then hey, I can do it too. They can believe in themselves, you know, whatever's happened to shoot them down. These are things I tell myself to really that I hope a true by the way.

They one hundred percent. I think it's so so so important to speak and to express and to let people know that they can. Like you know, you talk about being silent for so long, like not sharing that and holding that inside, and I was the same. It was like, oh, I just forget about that. Whichen it never happened on moving, isn't it. Yeah, it's like it'll disappear. And then I start boxing and I get this visceral experience of expressing

It's always with us, Yeah, because it's part of us. It shaped us, you know.

And when you have the people who tell you oh, it was nothing or it wasn't so bad or you're fine, you know, fuck then because the reality is is it's shaped the people that we are today.

Yeah, you know, and some people aren't going to get through it. Some of us aren't going to be able to push push through it and persevere.

So it's our job to be vocal about it and screw if they like it or if they don't like it, you know. So that's what I think. And I'll piss off a lot of people when they hear me say that, you know, probably my family included. But I don't care anymore, do you know what I mean? Because we're the ones who have to live with this And if this, like I said too before, if we can help one other person by being vocal, then we're doing the right thing.

Okay, and I didn't know this that in Australia, the partners are like, it's such a right.

Mass waiting for this is going to be terrible, okay, But that the abuse that people receiving relationship domestic domestic abuse.

It's calling the death of people around us, people that we love, sisters, brothers, you know.

And if we're not vocal, if people like us aren't vocal to speak out about this and call the bullshit that it is, nothing is ever going to change.

And it comes from people.

Like us who've experienced abuse and who are lucky enough to survive it and persevere, Okay, to stand up and say this is not okay, what's happening, because if we don't, it just stays quiet. It just stays quiet, and it keeps going and it gets worse, you know, and more people will suffer. So our boxing talk has changed a little bit right now. But these are all really important things, you know what I mean, And we've got to use our voices to be able to make.

People aware of what's truly happening.

What I love about this is this morning I went to secondary college and spoke to some young girls and I was talking on topic of you know, I was asking about the podcast and who I speak to, and I said it. You know, I started it by wanting to talk to people who had been through the Ringer, and I wanted to know why some people go through the ringer and come out stronger, and why some people go through the ringer. And it's like an anchor, I said.

Hey dude, I'll be home in July. I'll come and speak with you happily. Because we need, we need to get we need to we need to have a voice, you know, because for those who can't for those who can't speak. And but if I if I do a big circle and go back to boxing, in my case of boxing gave me that voice.

Yes, because while I was always a fighter, I had never dealt with my own bullshit, and I well, I put it away like it was nothing, and waxing now gave me the strength to be able to deal with it, to meet people who had also experienced it and dealing with it together. So all these all these things, they all make, they all collide, they all join.

The world is really small, and people share a lot more than we give it credit for.

One of my favorite quotes that I read at some point was I heal out loud because my silence nearly killed me. And you know, we talk about people that overshare and the stuff that I isn't it, Yeah, I

There's always going to be hate, yeah, always.

There's always going to be people who agree with what you're doing, and there's always people that don't.

That's just the way this is.

After the Hall of Fame, there was an article I did in the Guardian and the only reason I got that article in the Guardian is because one of my good mates knew the new a journal from the Guardian and he's like, don't does anyone is anyone writing about your Hall of Famer? I was like, no, mate, nothing's happened. And Nick was like, hey, I know a dude, who who's going to want to write the story?

And he did so.

From from everything like that happens of nobody wanting a piece of what are being inducted, okay, it's another thing of one person saying now saying, you know, that's bullshit. We should we should talk about this is incredible what you've achieved. And if it wasn't for Nick, I never would have had that article.

In the in the Guardians.

So it's another example of just really good people that you meet that are a part of your team, you know, a part of the people that help help build you up.

It's such insanity. I remember when those very early corporate fights I had, and you know, you have to sell your twenty tickets to pay for your involvement of being in it. And it was so funny because people there was such a I don't want to watch girls fight, you know, like fine natural or whatever, like oh yeah, as soon as people in the room, I remember, there

Isn't it awesome? Yeah, yeah, so good.

It's so good, like you know, once given a chance, once once did all that bullshits out of the way. It's like, sit down and watch these women are making.

Amazing It's just it's just words. It's literally just words.

There's we have these predivined values in life still of what men should be doing and what women should be doing.

You know, and your name is this, So I'm going to pay you five hundred, you know, thousand for your fight or whatnot.

For me, all it does is is it makes me sad number one, that my own country hasn't acknowledged what we've achieved.

And on the other hand, it makes me just want to speak up a little bit louder and.

Say, hey, we're all doing this. Look what we're doing, and you can shut us down for as long as you want, but.

We still did it. Like we still did it eventually. Another restraint is going to win pounds for the pound, right man or woman?

But I did it first, and they better remember like I did it first, and they even though they might not have wanted to speak about that or report it, they can't take away that happened, you know. So there we have our little ego little bursts on there, and it's just the reality is are you going to keep us alive?

Sometimes? You know? I love I love that.

I had Caitlin Parker on the show recently and she just won the bronze medal for Australia, right, so the first female boxer in Australia to bring over the medal and I'm like, mate, And I don't know if she'd thought about it that way that I'm like, mate, do you realize like we can chicks can go there and win medals again now? But you you're the first, she did it first, Like you're the first. No one could ever do it for the first time again and just

Yeah, it's isn't incredible?

Yeah, acredible. Are a piece of Australian sporting history. You're a piece of international sporting history forever.

Thank you, Thank you for saying that.

That's really very fucking cool.

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

I'm a little I never got it from getting from being on the piss one though and saying hey let's go bogs to speaking to you right now in my house in LA and.

Wanted to go looking forward to coming home again.

You know, it's frustrating as it feels it also I have I really love the story start to finish. You're like, yep, still not because it means right now your voice is as powerful, if not more, for the underdogs, Like I'm all for representing the underdogs, Like who thinks they're an underdog? I thought I was so shit when I was boxing, but it was just like some seed of tenacity let

It takes a warrior to get in those roots win all loose. Yeah, you've got to be a warrior, you know. You can't fight with that two people.

Yeah.

So, and even a journeyman who takes a fight just for the purse, for no other reason then for the purse, the fact that they get in that ring and that they're willing to do that knowing that their chance of what we all see the padded records in boxing, okay, And there's obviously the fans out there that don't understand we're building a career. There's lots of them, we all know that. But it takes a lot of courage for a journeyman to.

Get in there knowing that their likelihood of winning.

Is pretty bloody low, you know. So it takes a lot of courage in this sport. And we see as well a.

Lot more now, or maybe we're just more aware of it now. There's a lot more people getting hurt in the ring, you know, sometimes fatally. So the courage it takes to step in there is you can never take that away. You can never not give that enough credit.

What is what's the future hold for you? What's what's important now?

Well, I'd love to I'd love to help out to work more with our youth, do you know, Amen? And and just and I do a little bit of it, but not enough, is the truth. If people don't know who you are, they don't want you to work with them, do you know, Amen?

But I on the side, like I said before, I work for myself. I'm working in it.

But I'd love to to put more effort into our youth because I think not I think they are our future. They're the ones that will shape us. They're the ones that will define how we keep walking forward, whether it be in Australia or the United States. If we don't put that effort into the youth coming through now, the world looks pretty bleak, do you know what I mean? So, especially like look all we've just spoken about in this time together. So it's that that's really I think where

I love it your best? Can you where? Do you want to promote anything? Do you want to point their listeners in a direction to check you out? Follow you find you.

Have?

I haven't really got anything, is that honest?

But you can find me on social media, like just like everybody else through Facebook and the install and just what we're doing is just trying to let people know about the youth around us, and we're.

Trying to support them. So yeah, hit us up for that if we if we can be of any assistance.

But I think, just more importantly, just don't forget where we all came from, because if we if we forget that, we lose sight of what we've number one, what we've achieved, and what we're capable of doing and still almost left still to do.

You're really good. I've enjoyed this. I mean I knew i'd enjoy it, but I've enjoyed this way more than I thought you've and You've got such awesome passion and energy. So thank you so much. I can't wait to see you next.

Yeah, for sure, I can't wait to come home.

Thanks Di, she said, it's now.

Never I got fighting in my blood. It's got