Interview Dated January 2007 Lou Savarese is one of the few currently active fighters whose career reaches back into what some might call the Modern Golden Era of boxing, having fought arguable some of the greatest heavyweights of all time. A giant at 6'5" and 250 lbs., Savarese racked up 36 straight wins before losing a split decision to George Foreman in 1997. His career went on a roller coaster ride from there: A one-round knockout win over James "Buster" Douglas, a quick and devastating knockout loss at the hands of Mike Tyson, a decision loss to Kirk Johnson, a knockout win over Tim Witherspoon. Savarese has endured it all, and he believes he remains a viable contender, just a win or two away from a title shot. HBS - You're from the Bronx? LS - Yes. HBS - Tell us about that, what it's like growing up in the Bronx. LS - Actually I lived there for seven years, my father had a cab place on Bainbridge Avenue in the Bronx. But I grew up an hour north of New York City. It was probably more country than most part of the country so the hardest thing was dinner at my house. I'm the smallest guy in my family and I'm the baby so I had to fight my brothers for food. HBS - How many brothers do you have? LS - I have two brothers. One's a biscuit away from 300 and the other one's about 290 so they're big guys. HBS - How'd you get into boxing? LS - Interestingly my sister is a nurse practitioner. My brother was a hospital administrator then got into the building industry and then my other brother's in journalism and I was the baby. I was kind of I guess you could say the black sheep. I was always enamored with boxing. My uncle was a trainer, kind of ran that family, we always went to the Golden Gloves. I always wanted to do what my Dad would want me doing so I had a baseball scholarship, I had to keep up my grade point average and I didn't do it so I just started boxing just really kind of in between jobs in the Bronx at a place called the Wakefield Forum and I started sparring with a guy named Renaldo Snipes who was a great fighter and I fared decent with him for somebody at my skill level and then I just kind of kept progressing. I won the New York Golden Gloves in '85 and '86 and then I lived in the Olympic Training Center. I lost in the '88 Trials to Riddick Bowe in the semis. HBS - What is it that you enjoy about the sport? LS - You know that's a great question because my wife thinks I'm crazy. I want to keep fighting. One day I popped up in bed I said "I gotta." It's simplicity. The average joe would say "What is simple about boxing?" But to me it's sort of like my happy place. I love training. You know I always say most guys quit not because they lose the will to win, but because they lose the will to prepare to win, and guys like Evander and myself, we like training, I see Evander, I come down here, and the guy's amazing, no matter what you say about him, he's a great competitor and he never rests on his laurels. I always see him at different gyms and I enjoy it. You know besides the actual training boxing's a bunch of characters. HBS - What's your connection to Houston? How'd you end up down here. LS - In 1986 I actually won the Olympic Sports Festival which is kind of the premiere American amateur tournament as opposed to the Olympics which is international. But I fought down here in 1986 and I met my manager Bob Spagnola and a lady who was pretty prevalent in boxing back then, Josephine Abercrombie, and she signed me to a promotional contract and that's kind of how it got started. I decided to transfer here. It's a premiere heavyweight town in the United States. Most heavyweights are down here. HBS - You won the U.S.B.A. Title against Buster Mathis Jr. in 1996. LS - Mathis was a guy, my hat's off to him too. He was an incredible guy. I think out of everybody he probably did the most with his physical capabilities. He wasn't very strong. He was an incredible athlete but the guy just kept coming, he was very tough and unfortunately for him styles make fights. I have a good long reach and a style that just kept him from coming in and bringing things underneath and I stopped him in the 7th round. HBS - So after that you were 36-0 and then you fought Foreman, you went 12 rounds and lost a split decision to him. LS - George, my hat's off to him, it was a tough fight. People say it was controversial, I think George edged me out. If I have one regret from the fight it would be that the 12th round at the time, my trainer told me that the eleventh round was the final round which was kind of a mistake. Then I had to go back in the 12th round, that was a little bit discouraging but it was one of these fights that even in losing I won because people didn't give me much of a chance and I just trained like an animal for that fight. I trained so hard and I did something that nobody else did. In fact George had said before the fight that if anybody would stand toe to toe with him and still be there at the end of the fight he'd quit boxing. He doesn't remember that but I did that and you know, no brains no pain but I stood with him toe to toe and it was really a tough fight. HBS - So you kind of gassed yourself in the eleventh round because you thought it was the last round? LS - Yeah, I was told it was the last round so I gave it my all and then the 12th came and I said "Oh boy" (laughs), that's not good but it was a great fight and I left everything there. HBS - Then anybody who's fought knows it can happen to anybody but you lost to Tyson in a quick knockout, I guess a left hook. LS - I think it was a right hand actually but I'm a fighter and that does happen unfortunately. I wish it would have went on. They stopped the fight. I thought it could have continued but who knows. Everything happens for a reason and thank God I think I'm somewhat articulate and can speak a little bit so I'm here to talk about it. As we learn from fights it's such a life lesson. Life isn't a sprint, it's a marathon and look at poor Mike now. I feel so sorry for him. I really do. I saw him at a heavyweight fight, I can't remember when but I literally bumped into him, physically bumped into him and I hadn't seen him since my fight and I had a little animosity towards him, I don't know why, but he grabbed me and gave me a big hug and I said "How you doing, Mike?" He said "Ah, not too good, I got a lot of problems." I said, "Well, you know keep your chin up, no pun intended, everything happens for a reason, just keep a positive attitude," and I walked away and I was with my partner and we looked back and the guy was just sitting there all by himself with his hands in his pockets and he looked really like a lost soul. If anybody's been around Tyson I'm not exaggerating when I say before that there was always maybe 40-50 people around him and unfortunately they weren't the right kind of people around him so I felt very sorry for him at that point. HBS - It's a bizarre business in that someone could have that kind of wealth and fame and now plummet to what appears to be a fairly significant low. LS - You know I always think back to when I was young and I was angry, I was ringside, someone took me to a fight where he fought Larry Holmes, and Tyson was just incredible. People don't realize how good Tyson was. He should have probably been the greatest heavyweight of all time and he was so well-schooled, great fundamentals. He just annihilated Larry Holmes. I mean Holmes wasn't at his top but he was still a otugh guy and Holmes said something after the fight that always rang in my head. He said "The only guy that will beat Mike Tyson is Mike Tyson." He said "He's either going to be in jail or kill himself." I always thought about that because it was kind of prophetic. HBS - Then of course you've got to feel good about your win over Tim Witherspoon (Savarese won by 5th round TKO). LS - Yeah, well I don't feel that good about it because he was a great champ and I think I got him later in his life. But still, a dangerous guy, he hit me in the first round with a huge right hand. I weathered it pretty good. That was a great experience. He was the nicest guy I've met in this sport. A gentle giant. Douglas is another one (Savarese knocked out Douglas in the 1st round in 1998 to win the I.B.A. Heavyweight Title). It's funny because my manager Bob Spagnola didn't want me to take the fight (against Witherspoon) because I'm susceptible to the overhand right but I'm glad I did. But I remember Bob saying don't try to knock this guy out because nobody thought I could knock Witherspoon out and I did it in a different way. I just kind of wore him down so that was a good fight. HBS - Then you fought Kirk Johnson. LS - Once again, styles make fights. He was a tall guy, rangy, you know, no excuses, I wasn't feeling my best, but whatever, he's a tough guy, caught me with some good shots, I got up I thought I could continue but I'm a fighter and I say that all the time. (Johnson won by 4th round TKO) But he's a tough style for me, got a good jab, another guy that should be one of the greatest heavyweight fighters, he's just an enigma that you don't know what kind of shape he's going to be in. I mean think about him against Klitschko, he comes in 20 pounds overweight. That's bizarre to me. HBS - So you're still fighting at 41. There might have been a day when people might have said that was too old but since Foreman won the title at 46 or 47 who knows what the age limit is as long as you take care of yourself. So is that your ambition now, to fight for a title? LS - I don't like dabbling per se. You'll see I'm in incredible shape. Aesthetically and physically I'm in maybe one of the best shapes I've been in, in my life. I'm in very good shape. You know I'm sitting at home, I'm watching this diluted heavyweight division and it seems to be attainable. Now I take this fight coming up, it's not a big fight. I mean no T.V. exposure, but just from that, we've tentatively accepted a Chris Byrd fight in March. If that comes through, look, Chris Byrd, I believe he's ranked #4 or #5 by the I.B.F., we beat Chris Byrd, it's a tough fight, the point I'm getting back is we could be right back in it. It's a lifelong dream for me is to be the heavyweight champion of the world. To me it's attainable and I don't know of anybody that's a better conditioned fighter than myself. I've lived pretty clean. HBS - Byrd's a frustrating guy to fight, he's so elusive. LS - The Chris Byrd that was around three years ago really presents a lot of problems. Hopefully if he's like the guy who fought Klitschko and Oquendo, he's slowed down a lot. He seems to be getting hit a lot more and that's what I'm going to bank on because the young Chris Byrd was very hard but he seems to be standing in there a lot more I would hope. HBS - Let's talk about the current champions. Most people when they talk about the champions they bring up Valuev because he's so big. People talk about what a monster he is. LS - Yeah he's a big guy, he's a specimen. Big, huge guy. But I thought Ruiz beat him handily. He must be strong but I would love to fight him. I mean, styles make fights and I fight big guys, well, big, tall guys would be perfect for me like Whitherspoon and Douglas, guys like that. This guy's extremely tall but I would really love to fight him. HBS - Maskaev? LS - Oleg's a tough guy. I was in camp with him years ago and it's funny, he came up and sparred with me a couple of times in upstate New York and he's an awkward guy. Very strong, very beatable. Here's a guy, everybody wrote him off. He lost three in a row, got knocked out a couple times but look, I give the guy credit. Always in shape, a good family man, got a couple of daughters, good guy, so he's a tough guy. HBS - Klitschko? LS - Klitschko's a beatable guy. Here's a guy, HBO, everybody was writing him off. He was the bad brother. The other guy was the good brother, now he's on top of the world. He's looking great though. HBS - And then Briggs. LS - That's a tough one. HBS - He's from your home town isn't he? LS - Well, I always wanted to fight Briggs. I had three different contracts to fight Shannon Briggs and he pulled out every time. Never fought me. Just ducked me. I'm not a guy to talk bad about a guy but this is a hard one. Now all of a sudden he's heavyweight champion so more power to him. You know he put on a drastic amount of size and muscle in a short period of time. I mean the guy doesn't look like the same person. His head, he's probably put an extra three inches on his head at minimum. He's now proportioned like Barry Bonds so I don't know if that's good for the sport but who knows. He's a big, strong guy but I don't know him to be a really hard trainer. For me to put on five pounds of muscle in a year would be something and now this guy's put on so much weight in a short period of time it's very questionable. HBS - So one has to infer steroid use from what you're saying. LS - I mean the guy has gotten huge in a short period of time, so I don't know, if he's training hard and doing it the right way that's great but I would love to fight him. That's one of the main reasons I've come back. I would do anything to fight Shannon Briggs. HBS - So really in your mind you're just a couple of fights away from a title shot? LS - Well we're back in it taking this fight, then if Chris Byrd comes along, if I beat Chris Byrd we're right back in the picture so we are a couple of fights away from a title fight I think and thank God I don't need to do this to put food on my table so I have the luxury to train really hard for fights which is a good luxury. HBS - That's the next point. You don't actually have to do this. You've been quite successful in real estate I hear. LS - Well real estate's just like boxing. There' s ups and downs but I've done pretty well. This should be a great year. A better year in boxing, but it should be a good year in real estate. I'm a real nervous investor and I really do a lot of research, a lot of due diligence. I know every stupid little fact about real estate, insignificant stuff so I think that's really healthy. I find out whether something's going to work. HBS - What's your primary investment or holding? LS - I have a partner, George Silverman, we have a company called Sage Solutions and I started out small. I've been buying real estate in 1990, been a real estate agent in New York and Texas since 1988, which I don't really practice but I use it for when I buy stuff but just now we've got 30 homes going up this year, new construction, and then we have development in New York and just diversification which is really important like in a stock portfolio or whatever. HBS - And your partner's name is Silverman? LS - Yes, George Silverman, and he has one of the largest private investigation firms, he's done really well for himself, he has all Bloomberg's Private Security, in his private sector. He has all Bloomberg New York, where he has 300 guards permanently there, and he has Bloomberg D.C., and then just picked up Bloomberg London recently. HBS - Some people might be surprised to find that you're so lucid and articulate, especially after all the fights you've had. What separates you from some of the other fighters who may not have fared so well over time? LS - To get back to the first point, my wife may debate that I am that lucid and sharp (laughs), but it's just my family. I had a great upbringing. I've never had a posse. I've had the same guys around me since I started, I mean it's kind of boring. My brother, my cousin, my friend Patty, I think the biggest my posse's been has been maybe three people exclusing my mom. I have a good family, we're all pretty much smart people, including my dad who was the most amazing man. I had a great family life. He's a true hero. My dad was a cab driver, worked his butt off and never complained, drove to work each day 55 miles each way because he wanted to give us a better life in the country. I have to go outside the loop in Houston, I'm starting to whine. But those are real men, a dying breed of men, those guys. HBS - So how old do you think someone can be and still fight pro as a heavyweight? Is there a limit? Do you have a number in your mind? LS - Well my number used to be 35. It's just like getting married. I said I was going to get married when I was 25 then it kind of went up. It's a good question, I'm kidding about that. You know they say 40's the new 30 which is kind of cliche but really I went out and I tried to tell myself I can do it. Because I'm a realist so I went out there and I try and run and I try and kill myself and I still can compete at a high level. I just sparred with two young guys and I think they got a lot more tired than I did so you know I'm kind of a fanatic when it comes to training. Everything I do I'm kind of a fanatic, it's kind of wacky but that's just the way I am. My goal now is to take a shot, make a run at the title. I know I can do it physically and that's the main thing. But your priority once you have children are your children so on the flip side you can't be naive. This is a blood sport. You see guys like Ali, who is an idol of mine, you see guys later on in their career, it's sad, I see so many guys, I go to a lot of the charity events, it's so, so sad. That could be me so you have to be very careful. That being said I'm sure people feel it's crazy I'm still fighting. You know what? I understand that, I really do. HBS - So if you were to win the title, it's kind of an impossible question to answer accurately but are you saying that if you win the title you'll retire or would you defend it? LS - If I win the title that's it, that would be it. I would be so happy. I probably wouldn't have a wife if I won the championship and then said I was going to fight again. I'd probably get a vicious knockout from her, from a 125-pound blonde.