A new story from SI Boxing with Chris Mannix
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
Well, even the referee in the fights I did in Oklahoma, this kid is getting beat up. And as the referee, Mark Nelson, comes to talk to him, he looks at me and I kind of give him a little nod of no. And he talked to the guy and said, look, man, do you want to continue? The guy said, nothing. He stopped the fight. But it's protecting these guys. When you think back at all the fights you've done, you mentioned Marquez early on. What was the hardest cut, the hardest you've had to work to keep a cut closed? This one, this is an MMA, Jay Haran, Jonathan Goulet from Canada. Jay Haran took a knee from Jonathan Goulet. You know that big vein we have right between the eyes? Well, he popped that vein and that's, when you do that, you're not going to stop it, right? I've never seen so much blood in my life in a fight. It was so much blood that it made me nauseated, right? And when the doctor came and asked me what I thought, I said, ah, no problem, I can stop it, right? I'm cleaning them up and all that. Well, I put the final mixture of Vaseline with Adrenochloride as a topical. It bled right through it just like a busted dime. So, but, yeah, so that one right there, you know, was kind of tough to work with. And he lost, but that Matt is at Randy Couture's gym right now. So that was pretty bad. Were you working with Vitaly for the Lennox Lewis fight? No, but Vitaly told me, he goes, if you would have been with me, I would have won that fight, you know. Do you think you could have closed that? Well, you know, with that, no, yeah, the one on top, yes, control it. But the one that was the problem was the one in the mouth. See, people forget about that. That one, he bled so much that you start, the Julio Cesar child, mild retainer scenario, where you get all this blood that goes into your throat. That one was bad. But, yeah, I've worked on those cuts plenty of times. When you go into a fight, what's the area that is your biggest challenge? Like, if a guy gets, what part of the face the guy gets cut on? He's like, man, I'm gonna have to do my work on this one. Right above the eyebrows? Yeah, right there. But that one, that vein in the middle, you know, you don't want to pop that one, you know. And that's a good question because when you have multiple cuts, then you've got to go with the priorities. The ones on the cheekbone, on the nose, those are the last priorities. The one on the nose, I did when Terrence Crawford fought. I was a guy from Australia. When he fought him in Vegas, I came in as a... Jeff Horn, yeah. Jeff Horn, as an analyst for ESPN. And Jeff Horn got a cut on his nose. I said, man, those type of cuts, you can't stop because there's nothing but cartilage there. I said, that's what we say. It's better you working on it than me. So you don't want those kind of cuts. They make a cut man look bad. Yeah. It's like any other kind of medicine. I'm sure the technology changes over the years. There are new tricks to the trade. I mean, how much have you evolved as a cut man since the beginning? Yeah, I've been through every scenario. You know, I've been through broken bones. I've been through... But the stuff you use... Well... Does that change much? Yeah. Everything is based on the athletic commission. Number one, there's three items that are authorized for now here in Nevada and pretty much everywhere. Adrenaline Chloride 1-1000, vessel constrictor, that's number one. Avatine and Thrombin are coagulants. And now I introduced a gauze pad called Quick Aid that's 100% natural and doesn't require prescription. And what it does, you put it on the cut and it dehydrates it. All these companies always send me stuff to try and that one works the best. And, you know, to get a prescription for the medications we use is almost impossible and they're expensive. A bottle of Adrenaline, that was like 300 bucks. This gauze pad, Quick Aid, and you can get that at cutmanforhiresupplies.com. Juan Ramirez, by the way, he does. He has it. Everybody should have it because it doesn't require skills. All you do is put it on the cut and leave it there for the duration of the round and it'll dry up that blood. And other than that, there's not a lot of new science to it? Everything's based on application. Literally, everything is based on how you do it and when you do it and saving seconds. And you look at fights, I always study fights and if you can get to the fighter within 7-8 seconds, that's good because you basically have 40 minutes, 40 seconds, 45 seconds, maybe 50, right? And like I say, if a fighter's cut and the bell rings and he's at the other side of the ring, I'll go meet him over there and I'll be applying pressures. I take him to his corner and sit him down. So you're working on seconds. When you go into a fight, do you hope to be busy or not busy? Bernardo asked me on the ESPN fights, Camposas got cut. I said, what do you think? I said, man, it's a piece of cake. I love this stuff. I'm waiting for cuts. I don't mind the anticipation. But just to work and I saw the tapes because I was in Tokyo. I saw them this morning and I know people look at the applications. The applications that I applied were applications that work at its highest level. So when you think back at all the years you've been doing it, what are your favorite memories of this job? God, I got tons, bro. We could sit here for hours and I could tell you stories with just about every fighter I've worked with. But working with the clinicals was like tremendous. That's a great experience. I, in 19, December the 12th, 1992, Vitale says, I said 91, he says 92. When the Soviet Union first broke, we took a team of professional boxers and kickboxers to Kiev, Ukraine to fight them. And I had a Mark Longo kickboxer at that time. That was a great journey. And then now to find out that I started working with them when they started training in Vegas and then they did Ocean's 11 with Lennox Lewis when the casino broke. Well, I was Vladimir's cut man in the movie. And from there, I see Emmanuel Stewart at an HBO fight. He's walking into the arena and I'm watching people walk in. And he looks at me and says, Stitch, I want to talk to you about Vladimir rubbing his eyebrow. And I look at my buddy, Steve. I said, did you see what I saw? Well, the next day he called me, says Vladimir wanted the guy that was a cut man in the movie to be his cut man for the fights. And that was me, you know, so that's how we got started on that. Working with Emmanuel Stewart was unbelievable. You know, unbelievable just to say I did eight years with him in the trenches with not only him, but Jonathan Banks and other fighters that he had. You know, you're just a master at what he did. Who are the craziest guys you've worked with? None, actually. You know what? Did you get to work with Tyson? No, I didn't. No, I did patch for Mike. So I'll tell you this story. So I'll tell you. So Mike Tyson, I think he had just left Teddy Atlas and Panama Lewis was with him. So I used to do patch because I was a trainer. When I went to Vegas, I didn't come to be a trainer because I had an eight to five job with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. So I came as a as a cut man, but I could do patch. And I was very, very good at that. Panama Lewis brought me in to do patch for Sultan and Timur Bragimov, the Russian guys. And, you know, so Johnny Tapia did pass for him and and all these guys. And so Panama called me to do patch with Mike. And I would have been glad just do one day at work. I did two days, two weeks of work with him. And that was good. This guy took a picture of us and that son of a bitch wanted to sell to me for 50 bucks.