In this episode, I sit down with my good friend and former professional boxer, Shannon the Cannon. We talk about how he got started in boxing and how he went from being overweight to being in the top 3% of all boxers in the world. He also talks about his struggles with depression and how changing his diet changed his life. I hope you enjoy this episode and tweet me with any questions or comments! if you like the podcast, please HIT SUBSCRIBE so we can keep bringing you high quality content. Timestamps: 1:00 - How I got my start as a boxer 4:30 - Why I decided to change my diet 6:20 - How my diet changed my life 8:00 - How changing my diet helped me get back on track 9:15 - Why sugar is a problem 11:00- How I lost weight 12:00 -- How I went from 400 pounds 13:30 14:30 -- My struggle with depression 15:15 How I turned it all around 16:40 - How to get back into the ring 17:15 -- How to lose weight and become a better version of myself 18:20 19:00-- How I found my passion for food 21:40 -- Why I started eating healthy 22:40 23:10 - How sugar is bad 26: How I changed my diet and drinking water 27:20 -- Why sugar sucks 28:00 | How I became a better person 29:30 | How to eat better 30: How to be a better man 31:40 | What I got back into shape 32:10 33:10 | How do I get back in the ring again? 35:00 / 32:00 // 33:00 + 34:00 & 35:15 | I m going to eat healthier 36:00/35:00 My goals 37:00 I m gonna eat right 38: What s your favorite meal 39:00 How do you feel about you can I have a good day 40:00 Can I have it back? & so on and so much more 45:00 Thank you for listening to this episode I hope y'all like it?
00:02:42.000Changing my diet just totally made my life different.
00:02:45.000Well, I love your story because I love a success story, but almost more than a success story, I love a success, then fuck your life up, then get it back together again story.
00:02:57.000I like that because there's a certain amount of enthusiasm that you have that you know that you've seen dark days, but now you're back.
00:03:08.000And that's part of the fun of what you're doing.
00:04:24.000So it just became, at the point, you know, when I got older, that was just like, hold on.
00:04:28.000Well, when you were young, you were so hyped up.
00:04:30.000You had this crazy look with the dreadlocks, and Teddy Atlas was behind you, and all these big names, and everybody was like, Shannon the Cannon Briggs is the next big thing.
00:04:38.000And you had a lot of success, but there were some people that felt like you didn't live up to your full potential.
00:04:44.000And then you went away for a little bit, and then you came back, and you look better than ever.
00:04:58.000Because I've always had a foot in boxing, but it was really something that I was really dedicated to or had the right team behind me.
00:05:06.000It was always something that was to get me by, to make a living.
00:05:10.000And it's finally come to the point now, at 44, being 45, I think about three, four years ago, when I got to the point where I was like, you know what?
00:06:27.000It's possible I guess for other people wasn't for me What was what was going on for you back then?
00:06:31.000Like what was that like to be that young up-and-coming prospect with all those eyes on them, right?
00:06:37.000That wasn't really it was overwhelming in a sense It was fun, don't get me wrong, but it was overwhelming in a sense where it's like, I knew I wasn't ready.
00:06:45.000I had a very limited amateur background.
00:06:47.000From day one, I was put on the top level.
00:07:29.000So I've been on my own since basically since I was a kid, you know what I mean?
00:07:33.000So when I was put on the amateur top level, I've always been in a situation where besides playing catch up, I'm on the big screen and I'm not ready.
00:08:16.000I met a guy down in, not a guy, a friend of mine is now, Carlos Abuene, and we trained for about eight weeks, and here I was battling George Foreman and got a close decision, but here I was, I didn't get knocked out, and I was happy with that, and I became the linear heavyweight champion.
00:09:39.000That was a real down point in my life where I really felt like that was one of the times where suicide definitely came into play.
00:09:47.000And I know that may sound crazy, but the reason why is because, you know, when I got with Teddy, I was like 19, 20 years old, and he was very overbearing in a sense where it's like, you know, I wanted to make it.
00:13:01.000So for me to become heavyweight champion in the world two times and about to be three very soon, this is an accomplishment for not only myself, but for asthmatics and people who didn't give up.
00:13:11.000Because I wanted to give up when Teddy left me.
00:13:14.000Well, people who don't know boxing maybe don't know the legend of Teddy Atlas and how he directly connects to Customato and the early hard days of the Tyson camp.
00:13:25.000You know, Teddy's a famous motivator, I would say, in a lot of ways.
00:13:31.000But I think there's a certain amount of intoxication that comes from people telling you you're a great motivator and you start to believe it and buy it into yourself.
00:14:00.000No disrespect, but that's just a fact.
00:14:03.000And he wasn't doing well financially, and my manager was like, you know what?
00:14:06.000I spoke earlier about he was a guy who can go out and raise capital.
00:14:10.000And he had this young kid from the same neighborhood as Mike Tyson.
00:14:13.000I had just won the National, excuse me, the U.S. Olympic Championships, 92. And he was able to go out and get a guy and say, look, back my guy.
00:14:51.000And Teddy, in the process, I watched him say, he told me I would never be a commentator because he doesn't feel it is right to talk about fighters.
00:15:26.000There's not an exact science to motivating people, right?
00:15:29.000There's not an exact science to training and a lot of the relationship between a trainer and a fighter comes to, like, A perfect trainer for you might not be a perfect trainer for another guy.
00:15:37.000You've got to have that bond together, and whether you do or you don't, you don't find out until you're in there, right?
00:15:43.000Now, looking back as a man now, as an accomplished man, and you look back on your days when you were 19 or 20, what do you think would have been different?
00:15:50.000What would you have done to motivate yourself or to talk to yourself differently back then?
00:15:56.000You know, what I'm doing now, to be honest with you, I honestly tell you, Joe, like, what I'm doing right now, I'm being free.
00:16:03.000You know, everyone's not that type of fighter.
00:16:04.000You know, he worked great for, I guess, certain people.
00:16:30.000People say, you know, my guys who work with me, Jesse Robertson, Stacey McKinley, the great Stacey McKinley, the great Jesse Robertson, these guys know how to train me now.
00:16:38.000And although I'm 44, I'll be 45, I've learned later on in life how to just be me.
00:18:32.000Different places, sometimes an aunt's house, a cousin's house, a friend's house, you know, sometimes a shelter, wherever I could, to be honest with you.
00:18:41.000And so it wasn't until you started having some success as a boxer that you stopped being homeless?
00:20:35.000Now, when you went that long period of your life where you're boxing consistently and then you stopped for a while, what was going on there in your life?
00:22:48.000And I couldn't imagine her in this world, you know what I'm saying, having to do things to survive that some women have to do, you know what I mean?
00:22:56.000And just looking at her and the love for her, I got up and I started walking, man.
00:24:03.000Do what you got to do to get what you got to get.
00:24:05.000And it was a lot of hurt and anger from my past.
00:24:09.000From that situation, from other situations, other management, and, you know, I mean, I've been through so much, Champ, you know, I've been heavily involved with some of the biggest deals in probably this country's history, I kid you not.
00:24:20.000Live Nation deal, I was involved with that.
00:24:22.000I mean, one of the first reality shows, you look at The Contender, I was involved at the top level of things, you know, disappointments, things not happening, where I was heavily involved in, I got shagged.
00:25:26.000Having peace with that balancing act, like the negative moments that you had in your life not defining you and figuring out how to use them for fuel, figuring out how to look back on those negative moments and don't wallow in them but say that's never gonna happen again.
00:25:40.000That's the great balancing act of the successful fighter because there's not a single successful fighter that hasn't come from some kind of conflict.
00:32:43.000It was a big fuel injection behind what I'm doing right now because I went over there and I've never felt that type of love anywhere in the world for myself to go where we speak the same language, we speak their language, and Just to have the love, man.
00:35:30.000Well, boxing is hard to get fights lined up because there's so many different conflicting promoters and different, you know, everybody wants their piece of the pie.
00:35:38.000And then it's hard to get fighters to agree to fight someone like you who's dangerous.
00:36:05.000If you're relying on me running out of gas, if you're going into a fight, talking about, man, I just hope you run out of gas, you already lost, champ.
00:37:10.000I don't know, champ, but you know, looking back, like we lived, you know, my mom lived in the towers, but like, you know, Where my grandmom lived, on Pennsylvania Avenue, East New York.
00:37:19.000You know, looking back, it was an old abandoned building that my aunt bought from the city for like $7, and they constructed.
00:37:26.000I'm sure it had asbestos in it and that whole type of shit, you know, looking back.
00:37:30.000But, you know, I grew up, man, in the hood, champ.
00:37:32.000I grew up in the poor New York City, 1970s.
00:38:35.000You start talking and coming up with things and believing and doing anything you can do.
00:38:40.000That's why a lot of people are religious and a lot of people go to different things for something outside of themselves that they can hold on to or ask for help for.
00:39:13.000It's like being in the water, you know, drowning almost, I guess, you know what I'm saying?
00:39:19.000You're panicking, I guess, you know, you're suffering, you're trying to get that oxygen.
00:39:23.000But, you know, it's something that I really, thanks to, you know, things that I'm doing now, my diet of first, and I really feel like I've overcome it.
00:39:33.000So the diet, cutting out the sugar, eating really healthy.
00:43:59.000Listen, it was the highest grossing fight as far as TV coverage in history, either one or two in German history, Shannon Briggs versus Vitaly Klitschko.
00:46:55.000He was like, you know, champ, you should train three days, take a day off, train two days, take two days off, train four days, take three days off.
00:48:59.000You gotta be honest with yourself because I wasn't always honest with myself.
00:49:02.000Because of asthma, I was having high anxiety when it came to running and when it came to pushing my lungs because this is something I've experienced all my life since birth.
00:49:36.000I mean, what other heavyweight and champion in history can honestly say they suffered from something with undeveloped lungs and became a champion?
00:53:58.000So when you work with a strength and conditioning coach, what is a week in the life of Shannon Briggs when it comes to training?
00:54:05.000Say if this fight gets signed and you know you're going to get started, how do you organize your weeks?
00:54:10.000I already started, but what I'm doing is basically I'm using a strength and conditioning day with boxing, a running day with boxing, a rest day, a strength and conditioning day with boxing, a run day, and then another run day.
00:57:24.000Some CBD that I've been, you know, and I was ahead of the game with that too, champ, but I'm not trying to give myself a blowjob, but I was suffering from depression, champ, and I was fortunate to, I went and got like 10 different MRIs, and I was like, what's wrong with me?
00:57:38.000I'm always feeling like, you know, I feel anxiety overcoming me, and I was given this and that, and then I was I picked the CBD five years ago, four years ago in a life-changing experience, you know what I mean?
00:58:48.000I was never that type of drinker, but after a fight, you know, celebration, Heineken and Hennessy was, you know, chasing and just being, you know, a kid.
00:59:03.000My daughter, man, you know, my daughter, you know, I was taking, like I said, I was taking the different antidepressants and they gave me Xanax as well and My mom was a heroin addict, like I told you.
00:59:15.000She died on my birthday of an overdose.
00:59:17.000And I said, if I was ever hooked on drugs, I'd rather die than be a slave or hooked on something.
00:59:23.000I remember not taking the Xanax for a couple days and just having the jitters.
01:00:42.000Like, I never knew how to turn on the Let's Go Champ.
01:00:46.000I tell everyone listen there is a champion with all of us people see me hype how I go from that's me turning on the champ champ That's me turning on the champ because I didn't know how to do that That's why I said I'm in the best shape ever because now I can zone out I was on my way over here champ in the car I was like damn.
01:06:04.000You're the heavyweight champion in the world.
01:06:06.000You're supposed to be the biggest prize in sports.
01:06:08.000You're supposed to be out there doing interviews.
01:06:09.000You're supposed to be Muhammad Ali of the state.
01:06:11.000Kids around the world are supposed to know who's the heavyweight champion in the world.
01:06:14.000When I was out there trying to campaign, and even to this day, you ask somebody who's the heavyweight champion in the world, they don't even know.
01:07:46.000I want people to be excited about boxing because boxing saved my life.
01:07:49.000Every time I left the game, champ, my life fell down.
01:07:52.000Well, there was a long period of time while Klitschko was the heavyweight champion where literally no one could tell you outside of real hardcore boxing fans who the heavyweight champ was.
01:12:07.000Ray Mercer fought Kimbo Slice and Kimbo guillotined him.
01:12:11.000And then Ray Mercer fought Tim Sylvia.
01:12:14.000And it was supposed to be a boxing match, but the Athletic Commission wouldn't sanction it for a boxing match because Tim Sylvia didn't have any boxing matches.
01:13:26.000And I started messing with them, and I was doing some Taekwondo, and I was doing MMA, you know, jiu-jitsu and all that, and it was kicking my ass, but I was loving it.
01:15:43.000I'm trying to be happy about my situation because I am getting in a fight.
01:15:47.000But again, the politics of boxing where the ups and downs, these managers are shifty and they're saying one thing and they're telling me the way.
01:15:56.000See, the whole thing with me is, like what happened with Hay and it's happened to me so many times, I live in fear that I'm going to get shagged.
01:16:03.000Like, okay, what are they going to shag me with now?
01:18:15.000I'm going to knock out Lucas Brown and then I'm going to let Beyonce Wilder I'm going to let Beyonce put up his BC belt and I'm going to knock him flat.
01:19:13.000And that's, to me, for the first time in my life, giving me some purpose.
01:19:16.000Other than making money, I've been struggling to make money since I came home from school and didn't have a place to live.
01:19:21.000For once in my life, for once in my life, I'm doing something that's not involved, like, me using the money from a fight to buy a car and look fancy and, you know, hang out.
01:20:05.000Nothing can outdo that, champ, because I've had a little bit of money, never made a lot of money, like those guys with hundreds of millions of dollars, but I made a little bit of money for me to feel good, you know what I'm saying?
01:20:45.000I think your message is important and what you're saying about about having all that bullshit all the material possessions and counting on it You know, I remember Chuck D talking about that once, you know It was during the height of when people had giant wheels on their fucking cars And he was like he was like I drive a Ford Explorer and he's like in I don't put any any I felt so sad that I was a slave to it.
01:21:12.000I feel so miserable when I think about the days that I spent money on, sweaters, cars, jewelry, bottles at the club.
01:21:20.000I'm just like, damn, what was I doing?
01:24:18.000I mean, if you're like 18 years old, you got it all figured out, get the fuck out of here.
01:24:24.000I know what I did because I had my own apartment when I was like 15. So I was like, you know, not my own, but I had an apartment when I was 15. It was like a, what do you call it when you're living in a place where you're squatting, in a sense.
01:24:36.000But, you know, I was like, I've been on my own all my life.
01:24:38.000A friend of mine, Jesse Robertson, said to me one day, he said, you know, Champ, you've basically been making your own decisions since you was a kid.
01:24:45.000But now you understand yourself better.
01:27:09.000I can't watch the internet and watch so much brutal knockout videos and this girl's doing that and this guy.
01:27:15.000I don't need to be involved with that.
01:27:16.000And that's what a lot of people need to learn.
01:27:18.000And a lot of people who follow me on kids, And they say, thanks champ.
01:27:23.000Because what I see the most damaging thing right now in America or around the world, forget that, around the world, is that kids don't have guidance.
01:28:01.000And I think you really do have a mental diet.
01:28:03.000And if you just take in nothing but negative things all day and around negative people, and especially when you just expose yourself to 7 billion people's worth of news, and the only stuff that gets popular is the stuff that's fucked up.
01:29:31.000I heard you once say, if you want to find out about your hormones, find a super older doctor that looks great that knows about this type of shit.
01:29:38.000Because when you're feeling depressed and your testosterone is like 80 or 20, you feel like killing yourself, champ.
01:31:13.000Your body adapts to not having sugar and feeling healthy, and then when you do have something that's unhealthy, you feel it like you really feel it deep in your body.
01:31:35.000But I think what you're saying, I think, is very important for people to take in, you know, and having a person like you who's experienced these great highs and lows and then come out of it with this positive energy, that is so powerful for people.
01:31:49.000That's such an important, motivational thing for other people, though, man.
01:33:35.000He went to the Vietnam War as a child, you know, as a young man, 18 years old, when he left high school.
01:33:39.000He didn't have to because it was all sisters, and he wanted to go because everyone around the town, Petersburg, Virginia, excuse me, Jarrett, Virginia, everybody from his town, the young men were going, his cousins and everybody.
01:40:11.000And she said something before she died.
01:40:12.000She said, Shannon, when we lost everything, people said, you know, she was like the big person in my family that was supposed to do something.
01:40:22.000And she came to New York, and she was living her life, and she was making it, got a job, and she got on drugs.
01:40:30.000And she went from a beautiful woman to a woman who lost everything, but she had a son.
01:40:35.000And she took me sickly and all and stuck by my side, so I said, I'm going to make it.
01:40:40.000And she instilled in me, make it, Shannon, regardless of what you got to do, make it.
01:40:43.000And when people turned our back on us, and we had nothing, Joe, she said, Shannon, one day we're going to have something, and they're going to look at us different.