Jake Paul vs Tank Davis: Coach Larry Wade Reveals Training Secrets

What’s it like to train Jake Paul for the biggest fight of his career against Gervonta “Tank” Davis? 🥊

Coach Larry Wade—one of boxing’s most respected performance coaches—sits down with Ryan Verneuille and Danique Liddell for an unfiltered interview.

🔥 In this episode:

Behind the scenes of Jake Paul’s training camp

How Jake will be remembered in boxing history

Exclusive insights into the upcoming Jake Paul vs Tank Davis fight

How Coach Wade says he would have trained Mike Tyson in his prime

The mindset & science of building elite fighters

This interview aired on Fox Sports Radio’s What’s Going On and is syndicated nationwide on The Ryan Show FM.

🎙 Don’t miss this mix of boxing analysis, fight science, and legendary storytelling.

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Hello friends, we are back. This is another edition of What’s Going On right here on Fox Sports 1280 Rochester and this is Ryan Vernell alongside of my co-host for the evening, the lovely Denique Liddell who you can hear on my boxing point of view. And to get things started on today’s edition of What’s Going On, we’re bringing on an absolute legend, a guy who was one of the all-time greats in track and field and later made the transition to working with professional boxers, training world champions, and of course, arguably the most famous boxer right now, Jake Paul’s coach, the legend himself, Larry Wade, is here on What’s Going On. Larry, how are you, man? How are you, coach? Listen, man. I’m honored to be here. I’m grateful you guys took the time out of your day to to talk to little bitty old me and uh hopefully we can get some good stuff out of this uh conversation. Absolutely. Oh yeah. We’re going for all the all the juice, man. All the good stuff. We have to you and everybody else. I know. We got to be like these these gossipy page sixers. No, not really. We’ve got to Nick here with all the professional questions and me here to figure out. Look, I’m just a fan of of not a not one of these super mega boxing fans, but I’ve been watching plenty of fights, especially recently now that it’s moved to Netflix. So, I mean, what do you think about this new direction of boxing, which is you’re one of the pioneers and legends behind the scenes making this transition happen. A lot of people are saying, “Oh, boxing’s dead.” But you that’s in the heat of it. How do you feel about that statement? Boxing’s dead. Well, I I disagree. I I do feel like there was a period of time where boxing was starting to struggle keeping fans, especially when you take us out of the main line of uh television and we made it more cable and then HBO Showtime. So, you had to have a a paid subscription or a cable channel to have it. That made less eyes be able to have access to it, which made it less uh palatable as far as wanting to watch it. But now since the majority of the people on earth are with Netflix and they’re able to put it back into the mainstream and people get opportunity to pick and select fighters who they like or dislike. Now we’re in the process in my opinion of building it back up. You know, the world has to always understand that when we go to watch movies, yeah, we go to a movie to be entertained, but we always want to see a good guy and a bad guy. Either way, we want to watch it, right? And so if we went to a movie theater to watch a movie and we only had good guys, we would never watch it. If we only had bad guys, we would never watch it. So now what Netflix is doing is giving people an opportunity to select who they like and dislike and be able to be fans of those individuals and be able to see them ongoing opposed to you see one fight on HBO with somebody you might kind of know, but maybe not really, but you watch it because your friends are watching it. You’re not going back to watch it again, right? So I think Netflix has been good. I think the change of of guys coming from a different atmosphere, a different space like social media coming into the sport has been helpful as well. Bring different eyes, different sponsorships. So I feel like it’s the one of the best things that could have ever happened to the sport. Right. And what do you think about Turkey Alashik’s entrance? How do you think he’s changing boxing and give us your opinion on that? It took me a minute to kind of get an a grasp of how I felt about it. uh only because uh you just never know someone’s full intentions when they come into a sport. You don’t know if they are to build it or just to pull or take away from it. I think Talashik has a plan that he feels like can help build the sport based on his perspective. And I feel like there’s a space not only for him but for other people as well to be able to cut out their little piece of the pie to be able to build the sport into a much bigger space. So, uh, as of right now, he’s bringing a lot of money to the sport, and that’s something that a lot of fighters really need. We’ve heard so many stories of guys retiring with no money and no benefits and not able to take care of themselves. So, I feel like he’s bringing some good things to the table as well. And I think as long as we continue to put it in that competitive space, right, I’m going repeat this for a reason. As long as you keep putting put putting in that competitive space, the sport can grow. I agree. I agree a thousand%. And what do you think about the um the reforming of the Muhammad Ali Act? Do you think that could be a good thing for the sport or or for the boxers? Do you think what’s your opinion on that? Because that’s a big thing, you know, that’s going around as well in the industry and with Turkey Alashik and Dana White coming in with uh the president of the United States putting that on Congress’s uh door. How do you feel about that? Mixed reviews. I I feel like in in that particular situation, we have to be very careful. We have to be very careful because if we pay attention to the whole purpose of why that was created, it was created to protect the athletes, right? And and if we put if we create a new space of where those athletes are no longer protected, then I think we’re in a space where the ones who are benefiting will benefit the most and the ones who should benefit will benefit the least. So, so we have to be very very careful in how we address that and how we tweak it, right? you know, um if everyone’s on the best has best intentions and great, but if we’re just looking at it purely as a business structure, it makes it difficult because we got human beings that are involved with it. And it’s not we’re not talking about a situation say with a factory where you may just lose your job. We’re in a space where you can actually lose your life. So that’s a little bit on the line. So we have Yeah. So we have to really just be very careful in how we address that. Right. And that’s one of the main reasons why it’s been such a challenge over these years for anybody to actually work something like that out. So obviously we’ve got a very very big day November 14th as Jake Paul is set to face Jervante Davis. So there’s the obvious fight. I love this fight, man. I love this fight. So, so, and there’s a lot of people talking, a lot of people think that even though there’s a big size difference that Jake Paul’s just not cut from that cloth, but you’ve trained world champions. So, let’s just start here. Just from you training Jake behind the scenes, do you put him in the same class with his his his potential ceiling as some of these other great fighters that you’ve trained in the past? Absolutely. Absolutely. You have to. I feel like I think any I think anyone who has any type of boxing knowledge and the hell with it if they got any type of common sense if they would evaluate their favorite fighters and go back to a guy and I’m just going to use Javvante because we’re fighting him um go back to his amateur career he has what over 130 something amateur fights right absolutely and then before he gets on TV maybe he had maybe 10 12 15 other fights before he got any real TV Right. Well, Jake was able started fighting from fight one on TV, right? And when you start at fight one, you don’t get a chance to develop and grow behind the curtain like everybody else did. If you go back and look at your very very best favorite fighter on earth and you look at the first 15 fights and ask yourself how they looked in the first 15 fights and compare yourself to what how Jake looks in his first 15 fights, there won’t be a comparison. On top of that, you look at the quality of fighters he’s had in front of him, even if they came from UFC, the quality of fighters who were champions to get in front of him fighting. You compare them to some of your favorite fighters first five to 10 fights and they they fighting Taxi Driver, Trash Man, the man sitting in the stands that just happen to want to make $500. Yeah. But this guy fight, he’s got all these He’s got all these fights under his belt. But who did he fight? That’s always a big thing in the boxing industry when they when we talk about boxers, right? So you if you look at that, if the world just looks at that, then they they have the answers to their own questions. The reason it comes up so much for Jake is because one, he gets so much TV time and two, he makes so much money doing it. So, so the fighters and the promoters and the people who aren’t able to benefit from it definitely are going to want to say things to tear him down because they’re not able to to be part of it. But I promise you if they were able to get their piece of the pie, oh, he’d be the best thing since sliced bread. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, at this point, you know, I love it. What are these What is one thing that all of these world champions and Jake Paul have in common since you can put them in the same category as these other guys? Like, what is that trait? Is it their personality? Is it their physical limitations? Trained the best and now you’re training Jake Paul. So, you can tell us like what’s the similarities? You know, I’m laughing because this answer is going it’s going to sound crazy that I’ve always said it. They all crazy. Every last one of them are crazy, you know. And now I’m not saying that they’re not they’re not intelligent. They’re smart. A lot of them are smart as hell. But they all got that one little screw that ain’t tied tighten all the way up. And when they come unraveled, boy, they come unraveled. Right. So, I think anyone that has become a world champion in boxing specifically, or let’s not even say just boxing, let’s just use uh basketball, if they when they talk about Michael Jordan, they all talk about how ultra competitive he was and that he was crazy and he would he would make stuff up in his head to motivate him to compete. All these guys are a little bit not wrapped right, right? And I think that’s great. That’s what makes them think outside the box. that what makes them believe in themselves. Because the reality of it is none of us, none of us are going to be open to walking outside the door and say, “Hey, every time I walk out this side, this door, I’m going get hit in the face.” Nobody’s going to go look forward to it. These guys jump into the ring understanding and this is what makes them crazy to accepting the fact that this is going to come along with it. I’m gonna walk in this ring and I’m gonna get hit in the face and I’m okay with that. So, you got to be a little unwrapped a little bit to want to do it. So that’s what makes them very um good as far comparison. But there’s another aspect too. I think a lot of times Jake doesn’t get respected for his commitment to the sport. I mean when you in this sport if you want to be at the top you gonna have to sacrifice a lot. You gonna have to give up a lot. And a lot of guys don’t lot people who are just TV fans they don’t see anything but the fight. They don’t realize how much time these guys give up. In my first year with Jake, we was in camp 10 out of the 12 months. We did three months, had a month off, did three months, had a month off, did three months. Before we know, we done did, you know, 10, nine months of camp. So that means, you know, 10, nine months is a lot of times you’re not able to spend time with your mom, your dad, your wife, your girlfriend, whatever you got going on, right? So they sacrifice a lot. So that being said, I think that’s that’s another attribute that makes him more zone to be a world champion. And forget his athletic ability, he has it. He’s gifted. So it’s just about sharpening it up and that’s what you’re there for that he’s got a legendary coach to do just that. So in terms of his actual workouts and what he’s doing behind the scenes, are we talking like Rocky four here or are we talking like the actual level behind the scenes? because you you mentioned that a lot of these guys have 130 fights leading up to their first television fight. So, there’s a lot of training in between. Is he hyperfocused on the training? I mean, what what’s his level of training compared to some of these other guys you work with? Because I imagine he has to be doing it that much harder to keep up with guys that have been fighting for their entire lives, right? And he seems very focused, very disciplined, you know, very confident. So, just like give us a little bit insider info into how disciplined he is in this camp. He’s he’s always had great work ethic from the very beginning. He’s worked his ass off. The one of the thing one of the best decisions he he made in my opinion is saying to himself, I don’t have all the answers. So, let me bring somebody in who may have these answers to help me get better. And that’s when he brought the Chambers in who we call third from Krunk. He brought Jon Love in who also from Detroit come from the Krunk family. Then he brought me in as well, you know, with me having my world titles on my back. And so he brought a lot of experience in to kind of help close the gap between where he’s at and where he wants to be. And each fight that gap gets a little closer. But the thing is he gets judged even more because he’s elevating at the same time. I expect all of that to hit a peak where he’s going to be at his best as far as the learning IQ curve and athleticism and conditioning and along with a a level of talent he’s going to have in front of him meaning world champion. So, it’s all going to meet at one apex point. And when that moment comes, then the world will understand the vision we had from the very beginning. Jake telling me he wanted to be a world champion is what convinced me to want to sign with him, right? It wasn’t anything else, right? Because you’ve worked with a notable amount of athletes and boxers. And I always say when I watch boxers, when I watch these boxing matches and I, you know, you can tell when they don’t have a strength and conditioning coach. And I always I said where why don’t they hire Larry Wade? Like you know they need a strength and conditioning coach. He’s literally by the third round like they’re like I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. They didn’t have the strength and conditioning coach. It’s it’s essential to me like as you know as a spectator as a boxing analyst from a fans point of view looking out looking at the fight like this guy needs a strength and conditioning coach. Like you are key. You can’t just have the person who was going to teach you the skill. You have to have a strength and conditioning coach. So, he definitely did the right thing in hiring you. Well, I’m grateful for it. I think uh the number one thing that we bring to the table is experience and you can’t put a price tag on experience. You only can earn it. And he’s getting his dollars worth every time he get in that ring every fight because he’s gaining experience that no one else is able to have. And let’s just think about it. Think about it in the last say three fights or four fights how many champions he’s been in the ring with whether it was boxing or UFC. Think about the level of experience he’s acquired each and every time. And so each time he goes in the ring in the ring and sparring we can see oh he took something back from that fight that he brought something new to the table that he learned. Right. Right. And and I tell I just told Jake this past week that hey, we had a great week of sparring because every round I saw you learning. Every round I saw you trying to get better. The biggest mistake that boxers make is thinking I’m winning sparring. I’m winning sparring. I’m gonna win sparring. No, you’re going to learn in sparring. You win fights. So, right. And that’s key. And you guys are training in the United States. You guys are training in Puerto Rico and Finland. I remember you said you Yeah, we’re training all over the world right now, but we’re training. We uh you know, when you at a fight at this level, there’s a lot of marketing and things that have to get done, right? In order for the for the fight to be as you know, successful as you want it to be. So, that being said, yeah, we may have to go to New York and do a press conference, but we still got to work. We may have to go to Miami, do photos, shoes, press conference, but we still got to work. So, we’ll we’ll travel all over, but Jake makes sure his entire team goes with him because every city we go to, we work that day. Even if we have a full schedule, we work. We went a full day, one day, uh, I want to say we had a full day on in New York where he had to do interviews, he had to do the press conference, and we also had to do a private flight back to Miami. We still worked out that day. We did a full workout that day. So, Oh, wow. When you were at the press conference. Yeah. There’s no breaks. We work. So, where everybody else think, oh, he’s just taking pictures today or he just did the press conference today. No, we’ve already put in three hours if not four. We already did. Wow, that’s amazing. So, he goes up there after already having a workout or in other situations where he’ll go up there and maybe we couldn’t do it that morning, we go work that evening. Worst case scenario, we go for a long run. It’s the worst case scenario. But we always work even if we’re not there. they may not be able to compete or whatever, right? How does it impact him being just having the level of celebrity that he has? How does that affect the behind the scenes and the training? I mean, compared to what you if you’ve trained world champions, yes, but people that are actual household names, that’s absolutely different, I would imagine. What’s it like for you having to cope with that? And and what different tactics do you have to use training Jake Paul than you’d have to use otherwise? I don’t think Jake was a household name before he even got into boxing. He was a huge YouTube sensation. He’s on Disney Channel. So, he’s a he’s a very well-known celebrity. We don’t care. We don’t care that he’s a celebrity. We don’t care that he’s well known. He asked us to come in and help him become a world champion, right? That’s how we see him. We’re not here to be fans of him. We’re here to get you to become a world champion. So, there are plenty other people on this earth that can say, “Hey, I’m a Jake Paul fan. I want to get his autograph. I want to be near him.” Well, I want to get Jake Paul to be a world champion. Whatever he does outside of that, that’s Jake. That’s a different Jake Paul. That’s on him. You know, I want him to be a world champion. So, we don’t we don’t care that he’s a celebrity in that response. We respect him, but he has to respect us, too. And he does. So, when we like, hey, I’m I’m tired. I’m have to do this. Listen, man. I don’t care. We got But we we got to do the things necessary so that you come up out that ring alive. This is this is one of few sports that you get hit the wrong way, you don’t walk out. So, oh yeah, you can’t play boxing. I’m not going to be responsible for that. So, that that being said, we don’t really take that in consideration. The only time we may take it in consideration is if we’re transporting places because the fans sometime can be a little unruly. You know, do some negative things or say negative things. Then only at that point we take consideration. But when we’re in the ring and when we’re in the gym, he’s another athlete. Right. Right. Now, what do you think about fans and uh people who have said that Tank shouldn’t have taken this fight? It’s going to tarnish his legacy. So, what do you think about legacy verse immediate results? I would ask you think about that. That’s that’s a good that’s a good question, coach. I don’t question. I’m not I’m not saying it’s a bad question, but what is legacy? That becomes the question, right? You know, because some of the decisions you make now that people may not be in favor of later could become the reason why they like you, right? You go you go back to Muhammad Ali when he decided he wasn’t going to the military, he wasn’t going to the army, he wasn’t going to go fight, the general public hated him for it. Absolutely. You know, absolutely draft dodger. He’s not for the country. And then later on, it’s the same reason why they stood up behind him of like, hey, look, he’s a man’s man. He’s the greatest boxer of all time. And yeah, and that being said, I think that you have to make the best decisions based on where you feel like you’re at in life. And if you talk about legacy, to be honest with you, we end up chasing legacy our whole life. You should be. It’s not one fight. It’s not one week. It’s not one month. Legacy is is what you chase all the way till you’re at the end. And that’s right. I’m at 50 years old right now. I already graduated from college and done all these other things that you guys named earlier. Even my own day in the city and everything else. And I’m still at 50 chasing legacy. By the way, you was at that by the way when I got that. That’s right. I was there because my gave you the safety award. Right. I got That’s right. I end up getting a crystal safety award as well at the same time. December 15th. Yeah. December 15th. Right. So, that being said, you chase legacy your whole life. Even now, I’m I’m going back to get my PhD now. So, you know, I’m at 50. What am I going to do with it? I don’t know, but I’m chasing it, right? Because it’s something I want to accomplish. So, with Javvante, he’s still young in his life. If he feels like he wants to get this bag and he wants to get opportunity to fight Jake Paul, great. But you got to think of it like this. Let’s say he loses. Let’s say Javvante loses, right? Mhm. And Jake goes on to be a world champion, right? Does it look bad anymore? Because now Jay’s a world champion now. Yeah. Think about that. So it all, you know, things that people look at negatively now may not be so negative later. And at the end of the day, the one thing I know Jake does understand, he understands that he has to prepare 100%. if he don’t if he doesn’t do that a chance he can get hurt but he also understands coming from the YouTube world entertainment is a lot of it and that he wants to entertain the world and the last thing which this part I say Jake is crazy about Jake likes to do things that he feels like pins him into a corner and he got to fight his way out he’s that way with everything not just boxing he likes to paint himself into a corner and fight from that corner because he feels like he fights harder. He could have easily taken anybody else and got money if it was about the money. He wants to take a guy who they considered a household name whose skill set is crazy, right? And him challenge himself to see if I can beat this guy, right? I’m not gonna lie, when I when I saw that the two of them were lined up, I said, I don’t really see how it’s going to work because Javvante, you know, Jake is significantly bigger than him as far as weight class is concerned and height and reach. So, there’s definitely things there that are not necessarily in Javvante’s favor. Well, there’s also things that Yeah. Well, if you if you’re matchmaking, but it’s the unspoken things that we uh understand. You can’t put a a a scale or grade on Javante’s IQ. You can’t you can’t put a scale or grade Exactly. on his experience. That’s right. His athleticism. Yeah. Devonte Davis fan. So where you may see one side is being unbalanced, the other side is still there too. So, he has a lot of great things on his side as well that we took in consideration. We didn’t look at this as being no easy fight. We didn’t look at this as not being this is a risky fight. Absolutely. We knew it. IQ alone. It’s crazy. He goes out there, he executes, he figures his opponent out and that’s it. I mean, I’ve been at many Devonte Davis fights, but I’ve been like, “This is amazing. I’ve never seen anybody with this ring IQ besides like Floyd Mayweather.” Floyd Mayweather’s ring IQ was definitely off the charts as well. you know who he was on. But but let me say this to you guys. If you guys saw the press conference, and I I don’t care if Javvante hears this or not, but if you guys saw the press conference, and he pushed Jake, right? If you go back and look at it, he pushed Jake for a number of reasons. He pushed Jake to see what Jake’s response was going to be, and to see how heavy it was. Jake took one step back. He knew it was a problem. But if you notice, when Jake pushed him back, he opened up his right side. He wanted to see if he can catch him with a counter. He was test he was testing the distance. It wasn’t just all emotion. He was calculating, right? And to and to a guy who knows the sport and two coaches who understand, we all looked at each other and said, “You know what that was, right? We all knew. We all knew what it was.” Automatically said he’s sizing him up automatically. Yeah. He sizing him up. He wanted to see if his reach was as long. He wanted to see what Jake’s response was. And uh he was he was already downloading data. Yeah, even to see where his heart was at, to see what his reaction would be, his flinching responses, all those things. Exactly. Absolutely. So, I mean, what’s the I wouldn’t say the prediction, but what’s the game plan? Are we going for a Jake Paul first round knockout here, or is he trying to I mean, what what’s the strategy? Let me tell you my strategy seven weeks before the fight so the whole world can hear it, including Javvante Davis. Uh yeah, no, not telling that. But I can tell you this though, we’re not taking him lightly at all. We understand how how dangerous he is at every weight class. Doesn’t matter the weight class. Uh we’ve seen many many times where the smaller guy can beat the bigger guy. So we just saw that in this past fight with Terence Crawford and Canelo. He he just now he was coming from what 35 40 47 54 now 68. So we know it can happen. So 68. Yeah. Yeah. So we know it can happen. So we are not taking him for granted. We are not looking past him or over him. We’re looking at the fact that we understand that this man is who he is for a reason and that we’re going to do everything we can to make sure we walk out of there successful. So whether it’s an early knockout, whether it’s a stoppage or whether it’s a decision, I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Right. So that being said, we know that you’re training. You know, you’re not you’re not friends with Jake Paul. You’re making this man into a world champion. I I shouldn’t say a friend. I’m just not a fan. My intention is making him into a world champion. Misra. So that being that being said, when do you see this prediction coming true? When do you see him actually becoming a world champion? How long is it going to take after this fight? If it doesn’t happen in Well, I don’t I don’t think it can happen based on u how they got the structure of the fight set up that he can, but I do believe in the next couple of fights he’ll be closer to that opportunity. Uh I’m in I’m in no rush to get it because the more fights we get, the more experience we get. So, if I really think about it, and I don’t know boxing history that extremely well, but if let’s just say Jake becomes a world champion by say 20 fights and they were saying the youngest heavyweight fighter to ever make it with Mike Tyson at 20 years old. Let’s just say under 20 fight. Oh, you know what? Let’s say under 18 fights he gets to become a world champion. Do you know any other fighters that have ever became world champions under 18 fights? Now, when I say 18 fights, I’m not saying 18 professional fights. I’m saying 18 fights, okay? Period. Period. Think about that. I ain’t talking about people who had 30 amateur fights or 10 amateur fights and then fought their way and became world champion at like 13, 14 fights. I’m saying period. Do we know anyone else on earth in the history of boxing that became a world champion with only 18 to 20 fights ever? It’s a possibility. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I just don’t know of it. Off the top of my head, me either. I would definitely have to check that. Yeah, that that I mean it just sounds ridiculous. It’s definitely not anything off the top of my head at all. I mean, D has been making a lot of strides and things that people haven’t done, you know, that professional athletes haven’t done, right, in any sport, right? Period. you know, for for him to get to that level from where he began is absolutely Davis, it’s crazy. I never who would have actually thought this would would happen like when when Jake first stepped into the ring, I don’t know if anybody could have seen him actually taking on Tank Davis. That’s insane. So So that being said, coach, before you got in, I mean, what did you have to change about his training methods? How did you improve these training methods? Was there anything at all you had to change? I think the number one things we had to change was just the mindset. You know, most people who get into boxing, they watch it on YouTube, they watch it on Instagram, and they want to do the fast, pretty boy, flick your move, punch, and and that sounds good, right? But nine times out of 10, most of that stuff is going to help you in a real fight, right? It looks good, though. Uh but yeah, it looks amazing. I think one the first thing that we sat down as a team and discussed was what we need to h what needs to happen at this point because he had just came off of a loss with Tommy Fury and one of the things that we all recognized from the very beginning his footwork was not good at all. He had horrible footwork and so we yeah we spent we spent a lot of time and we still do a lot of time working on footwork. As a matter of fact for the very first camp we went so many days of just footwork only. I know Jake was like, “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of this shit.” Because that’s all we did. We weren’t even throwing punches. He just moving for hours, hour said move the feet a certain way. Calves burning, quads burning. And right, I think that was the number one thing that we all said without a shadow of a doubt that we have to fix because it doesn’t matter how athletic he is. If he don’t have proper footwork and he’s not able to to react when someone comes his way, he’s just going to continue to get caught. He going to continue to make bad defensive decisions. Yeah. Yeah. So, we we changed that. And if you go look over the past fights, if you go look at when he starts, he’s in a good position. The only way he may stray away from it is if he feels in command and he feels like he has the opportunity to just freelance a little bit, but we try to stay locked into it. So, that’s one of the top things uh from a strength conditioning standpoint. I’m g speak on something I don’t think most people would even pretend to understand because they just like watching TV. What we’ve seen Jake do over the last six fights has been from a weight standpoint has been phenomenal. But the world won’t value it because they don’t understand the difficulty at which he did it. We went from my first fight fighting 185. Okay. Right. The next fight we fought 200 which is cool. We going to go cruiserweight no problem. Then went cruise away again. Right. Right. Right after that last cruiserweight fight, we supposed to fight Mike Tyson. We go up to 238. We think the fight’s going to be good. We done gained 38 pounds. The fight gets postponed. In five weeks, we dropped 38 pounds to go to 200. Right. As soon as that’s over, the very next fight is Mike Tyson again. So, we gained another 29 pounds. in order to get in the ring with Tyson because not only is it about strength, it’s about durability. If this man hits you, it’s going to hurt. So, you got to be able to absorb it. So, we went up to 229. I just turned it off. One last question here. Yeah. Go ahead. Turn it back on. You know, we we look at the all-time great fighters. You think of Muhammad Ali with his speed, his footwork, his charisma, Mike Tyson with his explosive punching power, that fear factor, Floyd Mayweather with his defense. when it’s all said and done, what is Jake Paul going to be best known for as a boxer? I really believe uh besides all those things, those attributes you name for those other boxers, I think what Jake is most known for even now is his resiliency. He resilient. He wants it. He willing to take chances. Other people not willing to take chances. We saw all those fighters at some point decide that, hey, I’m not going to take a chance. I’m just going to take this easy fight or whatever the case may be. We Jake likes challenges. He likes to put his career on the line against guys that people think he shouldn’t be in the ring with. And think about this, how many other people, you know, go from absolutely doing nothing, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing in the sport to deciding, hey, now I want to be a world champion. So, I think that takes a lot out of a person. I think for yourself, you you’re doing radio. What would convince you to put your life on the line and go in the ring with a guy and to say, “Not only am I going to put my life on the line, I want to be the absolute best at it, be one of the best in the world, become a world champion.” The type of courage it takes to do that is something that I think every man should want to applaud and be like. So, I think when he walks away, I think the whole world is going to have the largest amount of respect because they’re going to be able to see this man did something that 99% of the men on earth weren’t able to do and have to put it all on the line and risk it all and for the opportunity to be great, right? Especially with the Javvante Davis fight. This is very risky fight for him. Exactly. Very risky. The man stepped into the ring with Mike Tyson and trying to be crazy. Hey, take a second. Listen, when when we were training and uh Mike’s videos was coming out, how like explosive he was and he was hurting people. I looked at Jake. I said, “You sure?” He says, “Yeah.” Like, “Yeah.” What did Jake say? He like, “Hell yeah.” He won. Yeah. Hell yeah. So, I mean, he also didn’t get to grow up as a kid watching what Tyson did, right? So, I think that might have had something to do with it because if you were my age when Mike Tyson was doing what he was doing, you wouldn’t dare step into a ring with a man. Doesn’t matter how old he is. That’s I or Mike. That’s it. Is Hey, listen. When they got into it on stage and uh Mike punched him because he stepped on his toe and we had that little meet and greet in the middle. I got right up into the crowd and I looked and Mike looked at me. I had to turn my head because you know how they say wild animals don’t look them in the eye. Like Mike ain’t going to attack me up on the stage. Mike not about to attack me on the stage. Hell no. So I’m standing up there, but I’m kind of like this. If you go and look at the video, I’m kind of like That’s not in your contract, right? Yeah. I’m not looking at Mike here. I’m I’m looking like over here. But I got to still be tough. I got to still be tough. I I could fight anybody else on your team, but I ain’t really mess with you, Mike. So So a dream a dream uh dream coach question here. If you did have the opportunity to coach Mike Tyson in his prime, how would you have done so? How would you have dealt with with a prime Mike Tyson? Well, let’s just say this. I actually had the opportunity to train Mike for this fight with Jake. It was I got a phone call about Ashley being his strength conditioning coach for the fight. And the individual who called me forgot that I was actually with Jake. And I told him I said, “Unfortunately, I’m I’m fighting against you.” He’s like, “That’s right. I just knew and so it’s a compliment though, you know, that both sides wanted me, you know, so I’m grateful.” Listen, I’m telling you, every time I see someone gas me for air round three, I’m like, they need coach Larry. Wait, what are they doing? Hire him. But if I was Mike, I always get crazy, me and my sister. Listen, if I had a chance to do Mike though, Mike was genetically a gift and he was very explosive and he has so many talents. I feel like the impact that I could have made with Mike is very similar to the impact I could have made with Adrien Bronner. And that is being one of the guys that’s willing to step up and be truthful to you. One of the guys that doesn’t necessarily need your uh acceptance, approval, money to survive. Whenever you got guys who you pay, a lot of times those guys become yesmen because they just want to continue with the check. When you’re an already established person and you’ve already make money, it it becomes more about the honesty of the relationship than it does about the money, you know? So with with Mike, I felt like I would have been more a bigger guide and in in his life as far as how to stay focused to the best of my ability. And the same thing with AB. Adrian Bronner is one of the few guys that I’ve always said if I was able to work with him at an earlier point in his career, I still feel like he would have been on top now because for those who know me, you understand I’m a very disciplined person, you know, but I’m also a very understanding person. I feel like unlike some other guys on this team and those teams, whether you pay me or not, I’m still going to give you 100% of the truth. And if you don’t like it, that’s your choice. But it’s not going to be a space where I’m just going to pacify you because you’re cutting my check, right? And that’s the wrong thing to do with anybody in any aspect of life, even outside of coaching. You never want to be surrounded by yesmen because it’s the wrong thing. They’re just going to go along with whatever you think is correct and not everything you think is correct. Correct. Not everything that I think is correct. I need people to correct me and say, “No, Denique, this is not right.” Or, you know, or when things are going correct. This is good. But it’s terrible to have Yesmen. So many people have been destroyed by surrounding themselves with yesmen. Take a few. Where are all these yes men at? Give me some damn Yes. Come on. You ain’t going to get them on this show. You’re not getting them on this show. I know. What the hell? Tell me about it. I’ve been looking everywhere my whole life. Coach Wade, it’s truly been an honor to sit down with you. I just want to kind of close things out full full circle the early point of the conversation and say this to all the people out there that were hating on Jake Paul and Logan Paul saying that these men are single-handedly ruining boxing. Well, it looks like they’re saving it. Viewership’s up. Boxers are making more money. They’re getting more opportunities. And it all started really on these guys’ shoulders, making it cool for these kids to be watching again, being able to stream it on Netflix. So, I mean, just uh it’s it’s been a really cool thing to watch as a fan and to see that boxing is not dead and in fact alive and well and is on the rise. I only have one thing to close out and that is what people don’t realize now that I’m with Jake is my very first fighter that I’ve ever worked with was KSI who fought Logan at the Staple Center. That was the first quote unquote YouTube fight brought to the US when those two sold out to Staple Center with just those two alone. Sold it out. So, at first I was I didn’t know how it was going to transition over. A matter of fact, I was worried about ruining my career working with KSI. But now that I’ve been in the sport, now I’ve worked with the top guys in the sport cuz I work with Logan now in training now. But being able to work with those guys to any degree has shown me how they sacrifice and sweat and cry and do all the other stuff that any other fighter does. So they’re giving up just as much as any fighter who’s a world champion is now and they deserve a respect. So you know one last question here. Um are we going to see a Jake Paul versus Logan Paul fight at any point in the future? Got to ask. Listen, as as crazy as that sounds, right, I can see it happening. I really can. I can really see it happening. It’s been in discussion before. We should never fight brothers. I listen listen listen. I I I understand. I agree. But that conversation has hit the table a few times. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, because you know early in their careers they kind of had a little beef going for a minute and the world the social media world knew about it. That’s probably why you asked about it. So yeah, that’s what I was going to say. It might make sense. This is why to settle it. I’m sure they’ve had plenty of fights as kids, but I need loves his brother. Logan loves Jake and Jake loves Logan and so they they definitely show support for one another. They’ll go across the world to support one another. to that. I love that. But, you know, siblings siblings do battle a little bit. So, sibling there’s always sibling rivalry. Yeah. So, you never know. You never know. I wouldn’t put it past them. Good to know. Maybe someone to look forward to. And Coach Wade, where can they find you on social media so that they can follow more of your story and see what’s next? Listen, you can find me at Coach Larry Wade on every major platform from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, uh LinkedIn, everything’s going to be Coach Larry Wade. So, if you guys are looking to see me there, you can see me on in that atmosphere or go to any of those other social media platform like Jake Paul’s and you’ll see me there, too. Back there. And coach, what do you plan on doing on December 15th on Larry Wade Day this year? The same thing I do with when it’s uh not the 15th, and that is work my ass off. It’s a it’s a day that I just use to work, man. And if here’s the thing, if I’m not working in a camp, I’m working at home for my wife. So either way, I’m working. So nine times out of 10, I’ll be working. That’s it. He’s doing what he wants to be doing. So there you have it, folks. You know when it goes down everybody don’t meet us there. Meet us there November 14th. Thank you coach Larry Wade for joining us. A true legend. Denique. Thank you for joining us as well. You’re tuned to Fox Sports Radio. What’s going on? And we’ll be back after these brief messages. Don’t go away.