Interview Dated October 2005

Cruiserweight Maurenzo "T-Diddy" Smith

Maurenzo Smith is one of the most explosive young boxers to emerge on the Houston Boxing Scene. Since turning pro in November of 2004, he has knocked out all three of his opponents in the first round. A conversation with "T-Diddy" reveals that the 27-year-old Houston native is engaging and articulate. I caught up with him after a recent workout at the Savannah Boxing Club in southwest Houston.


HBS - How'd you first get involved in boxing?

MS - Actually, getting involved in boxing, it was a weird story for me because I came in the gym like a lot of people, just to relieve some stress, because there was some things going on in my life, and once I started I couldn't stop. (laughs)

HBS - Tell us a little bit about your amateur career.

MS - I had 55 fights. I went 50-5. I went to Ringside, Golden Gloves, U.S. Championships, fought in the western trials for the Olympics. I fought Tough Man, like underground-type fighting, then I turned pro.

HBS - When you say once you got started you couldn't stop, what is it that you enjoy about the sport.

MS - I love the art of boxing. To me boxing is beautiful. I like the people that are smooth and sweet with it like Ali, Ray Leonard, Prince Naseem, Floyd Mayweather, Sugar Ray Robinson, those type of fighters. I see you can turn something brutal into something artistic. Look good, and get paid for it.

HBS - Normally I wouldn't ask guys to describe all their fights but yours have been so quick. Tell us about your first fight.

MS - It was a few butterflies. That first fight without the headgear is always going to get to you because you never know. The gloves are smaller and what I realized is that it was two-sided. I realized one, the punches hurt a lot more. The feel like bricks. The guy wasn't even a big puncher and he hit me in the stomach and it hurt. But also what I realized is that my impact increased by ten multiplied by ten from when I was an amateur. So I catch guys clean and I get 'em out of there. I think I dropped him three times and I stopped him at 2:59 of the first round. One more second and he might have made it.

HBS - And then your second fight?

MS - I was pretty smooth in that fight. That was the first and only time I fought pro in Houston, in my hometown. So I had a lot of pressure to perform. My mom was there, my dad. There were a lot of beautiful women in the crowd and a lot of reporters. There was a lot of stress on me. They wanted to see if the legend was true. So when I came out there I was smart. I moved around. I was real conservative with my punches. I think I was 100 percent. I probably was about four for four in that fight. (laughs) I let the guy swing until I seen an opening. See what I did in that fight, I manipulated his defense. I jabbed low. I let him punch. I jabbed low. I jabbed straight. I was throwing all straight to make his defense adjust for straight punches. Then when I set him up I turned him and I leaped in with a looping left hook. Never seen it coming. Put him out cold.

HBS - Then your third fight?

MS - My third fight was my best fight so i guess I'm getting better with each pro fight. I'm getting stronger. I have a strength trainer now. I don't train like a bodybuilder or anything. It's real explosive-type workout. And my power is just going up and up. What I did in my fight, the guy came out really aggressive. See a lot of guys, because I have fast hand, fast feet, and I'm real smooth in the ring, it turns a lot of guys into aggressive fighters. So the guy came at me aggressive but what they don't realize, the harder they come, the worse they're going to get it. So the guy came in, I established my jab. I gave him five hard jabs because I watched Larry Holmes. And I gave him five hard, crisp jabs. He walked through them which surprised me a little bit and then I just started counterpunching him. He was swinging, I caught him with a hook, broke his nose. That's the first fight I can say I hit a guy with every punch. A left jab, straight right, left hook, right hook, left uppercut, right uppercut, left and right body shots. The crowd loved it. I mean, I heard the commentator when I was fighting and the only thing I could hear was "Gosh, this T-Diddy really has power." (laughs)

HBS - It's got to be a rush to knock someone out so quick.

MS - Yeah, the knockout is the best thing in boxing because it's so many bad decisions and so many times a controversy between judges because judging a fight is subjective. One judge might like the aggressive fighter, one judge might like the smooth, fluid fighter or ring generalship. So you never know with judges. And a lot of people especially in boxing they always make excuses. I haven't seen maybe one boxer lose a fight and didn't give an excuse. Fighters are always giving excuses. They had to lose too much weight, they're dehydrated, training camp was too short, somebody died in their family, I mean you hear every kind, they ate the wrong food, they had diahrrea. It's crazy. Nobody can lose and not have controversy. So when you knock somebody out you never have to worry about excuses. You never have to worry about people saying the judges scored it the wrong way. Plus the fans, they pay their hard-earned money to watch a fight. So when they see a good fight and an explosive knockout, the excitement, the adrenaline rush is just indescribable.

HBS - You're a pretty soft-spoken guy, pretty friendly. How do you reconcile that with the damage you do in the ring?

MS - Well my boxing name is T-Diddy. I'm one of the fighters that's going to revolutionize boxing and bring it to more mainstream and attract a different type of crowd because I'm not the hard-nosed, rough, tough, ugly gritty Joe Frazier-type fighter that's just a hard worker and winning by conditioning. I'm a clean guy, smooth, good-looking, and my style is the same way. I'm smooth. You hardly ever see me get cut. No bumps, no bruises. You just see a clean artist in the ring, execute to perfection and look good while he's doing it.

HBS - Explain why your nickname is T-Diddy. Everybody knows who P-Diddy is, or now it's just Diddy I guess.

MS - Okay it's a famous guy with like four or five hundred million dollars named P-Diddy. Actually I didn't give myself this name. A lot of people think I gave myself this name but I didn't. My nickname is Tuffy. It's been Tuffy ever since I was like two months old as a baby. So this guy thought I looked a little bit like P-Diddy. As far as my personality, it's the same because you know in my life, even earlier in life, I amassed large amounts of money, maybe two or three hundred thousand dollars so I always had fancy cars, nice clothes, a real smooth guy. Since my name is Tuffy, spelled with a "T", he said "You remind me of P-Diddy, I'm going to call you T-Diddy". You take the first letter of your name, your name's Kirk, you could be K-Diddy. You can fall in line with the description. On my robe instead of saying Team Smith, Team Mayweather, knows it just says the Diddy. Diddy's just live a nice lifestyle, clean, enjoying life and look good while they're doing it.

HBS - You don't have a manager do you?

MS - Actually right now I'm a free agent. I'm looking for a manager. I'm kind of working closely with a couple of guys but right now there's nothing because I mean I'm a smart fighter. I'm a smart guy in general. I went to college. I was runner-up for valedictorian in my school. I made straight A's all the way through school, through college, academic scholarship, everything. So I'm not like one of the Joe Blahs or dumb fighters that just come in and do what anybody says, and "Yes sir, coach and yes sir boss". It just goes with the program. I'm a thinking guy, I'm a businessman and I don't just take any old offer so actually I've been financing my own boxing career. Thank God I have money saved up but that's part of being The Diddy.

HBS - What have you been doing to make a living?

MS - We own some family businesses and my father, my grandmother, my aunt, we're all entrepreneurs. The main lesson they teach us growing up was do for self so I never had a nine-to-five job and that's probably why I'm in boxing because I can't work for anybody. I have to be my own boss and I have to have a job that has million dollar earning potential.