You were involved in the 1st Annual Rapper’s Boxing Championships in 1992. How did that go?
It was a boxing match put together by a man named Gary Braverman, whose father was also in the boxing entertainment world – he was a friend of Don King’s. I remember when Eric B. brought the guy to see me I was actually in the back yard, working out on the bag. He walked back and this guy said, ‘Yo man, you really know how to box!’ So he said he was putting together this boxing match with all rappers, and I said, ‘OK’. I was like I didn’t think no rappers was actually gonna show-up. But back then, there was a few cats that showed-up, they wanted to get down. I actually had to train with professional fighters to prepare myself for what it was – Iran Barkley was one of my trainers. The sad thing was, I was already more capable of the boxing ability than these rap guys was, so I over-trained and I hurt a few cats in that. But it is what it is – I wasn’t in there to play no games anyway.
Who did you fight?
I fought a cat named Spook Blunt [from the group True Culture], and then the other cat was Dope E from The Terrorists or something like that.
Wasn’t Tim Dog meant to fight him originally? And you didn’t appreciate having to step in for him?
My thing was, when you rep where you live or where you from, you supposed to step-up. At the time I believe he was big enough to seal that deal for New York – he was beefing with the West Coast, the NWA thing was poppin’ – it was like, ‘You know what? This guy talked all this trash on the phone to me about he was gonna show up and do this and do that, but for some reason he’s not here’. And I felt it made New York look bad, so I stepped to it and I fought the fight. I won both belts [the 'Heavyweight Hardcore Title' and the 'East Meets West Hardcore Super Heavyweight Title'] and gave Dope E the belt for fighting me, cos he didn’t have to fight me. He coulda said, ‘Nah, I should win by default’, cos there were other people who had default wins, and now this guy is coming back out…and I happened to have a sprained right shoulder when I beat him, too. Poet had gave me a high five and I reached to give him a high five with my right hand. He hit it kinda hard and sprained my shoulder, but I still went in and fought anyway. I dropped him with a left hand in the fight – and I’m right handed! He don’t like when I tell people that! [laughs]
