Interview Dated November 2004

Termite Watkins

Termite Watkins is one of the most well known figures to come out of the Houston Boxing Scene. Most recently he received worldwide attention for training an Iraqi boxer, Najah Ali, and taking him to the Olympics. But Watkins has some surprisingly harsh things to say about both amateur and professional boxing, and it's likely that you will hear more from him in the weeks and months to come. He has recently written a book about his life, and is weighing several movie offers. What follows is an exclusive interview that will be shown on this page in several parts.


HBS - Originally from Galena Park Texas?

TW - Actually Houston, Texas, actually North Shore, which is just a couple of miles from here but can say I'm from Galena Park because I've been in and out of here all of my life.

HBS - How'd you get started boxing?

TW - One day I was at a baseball field, my dad was my coach, I was out in the outfield, and a guy named Joe Dove came up to the baseball field and said "Hey Bill, does Termite want to be a boxer?" So they called me in off the field and asked me, "Termite do you want to be a boxer?" I said "Yeah, yeah, yeah,". So we went down to my house, my dad had a three car garage and I put the gloves on. The man that was there, Joe Dove, had two brothers that were twins and his own son and so put the gloves on one twin brother and he beat the devil out of me. Then he put them on the other one and he beat the devil out of me and then he put them on his son and his son was the best of them all and he just really boxed circles around me. Well we got through and he says "Yeah, I think he'll make it Bill", and I remember leaning against the wall and thinking to myself, "What does he think I'm going to make, a punching bag?". That night I weighed in with my clothes on, I weighed 65 pounds. I was ten years old. The next night I fought and got beat and a week later I fought, barely won. A week later I fought the guy that beat me the first time and he beat me again. I talked with my dad and said "We've got to do something different. We've got to get a trainer." I met Kenny Weldon. Kenny Weldon started training me and I went for 65 fights without losing and then of course I went on to become Kenny's first national champion. At 16 years old I had become the first to win nationals at 16 years old which of course put me on a place on one of the Olympic teams and there was five of them and the team that I was on was myself and Howard Davis, which won the gold and Sugar Ray Leonard which won the gold and we had a great team. Some of the other guys on some of the other teams were guys like Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler and Mike Ayala and so we had some great fighters at that time. Anyway I ended up not going to the Olympics and I turned professional at 17 years old. I ended up having 65 pro fights and I had a professional record of 58 wins, 5 losses with 2 draws and 48 ko's.

HBS - To what do you attribute your success?

TW - My father knew that if I was going to be a boxer I needed a good trainer and of course Kenny Weldon is a good trainer, one of the best around and so partly my trainer and partly my dad because my dad was there for me. So all you dads out there be for your sons because you'll never know what type of part you play in his life. But my dad was right there with me and then myself I was ver disciplined. I've had a couple different trainers in my lifetime and if you ever talk to any of them, for instance Kenny Weldon he'll tell you that I was probably one of the most disciplined fighters that he ever had and one of my big things is that I always found a way to win.

HBS - Can you elaborate on that?

TW - Sometimes you've got to really, really box, be the guy that runs but you've got to be able to adapt and if needed to be could become that puncher or that boxer-puncher and if needed to be I could even become a puncher so I had the three styles: I could box, punch, or boxer/punch which is basically the three styles that you have in boxing. I could adapt to all of them. I wasn't really a hard puncher even though I had half of may amateur fights knockouts and more than half my professional fights, but I was a smart fighter. I set fighters up to be taken down. When I realized I couldn't punch very hard I realized at a very young age that I had to do something so I would set them up and I would do some pivots to where my weight was going at them, their weight was coming at me except for my hand was doing the connecting. So that's why I got a lot of knockouts.

HBS - What weight did you fight?

TW - I turned professional at 135 but I fought for the world championship at 139. Junior Welterweight

HBS - Describe the high point of your career.

TW - As an amateur the high point of my career was winning the nationals. Being the first to do it at 16 years old was just really a big thing back then. Sugar Ray Leonard lost that year. Howard Davis lost that year. Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler, they all lost that year, even though they did get a spot on one of the Olympic teams because they were runners up. That was one of the highlights as an amateur. The other was of course travelling with the greats like Sugar Ray Leonard & Howard Davis and going to the different countries was the highlights there. As a professional, probably the biggest highlight of the year was when I fought for the world championship in 1980. I went 15 rounds with a fighter, a boxer named Saul Mamby. It was at Ceasar's Palace. I was in front of the largest viewing audience in history at that time and to this day it still is the largest boxing viewing audience. There's been a basketball game that has a bigger one. At that particular fight we fought outside at Caesar's Palace. And so fighting on a card with Muhammad Ali versus Larry Holmes, it was a double main event, me versus Mamby, and we had some young guys coming up called the Spinks brothers that fought under us so that was the highlight as a professional.

HBS - And what happened in that fight?

TW - I lost a 15-round decision to Saul Mamby. Later Don King did come by and say "Termite, if y'all would have signed with me you'd be my champion today". So I have mixed emotions about losing that fight. I personally thought that I pulled it out a little bit but most of us do.

HBS - So again there's that story about politics in boxing and whether boxing is an honest sport or a not-so-honest sport. Describe your opinions on that.

TW - It's a sport with a mixture of good and evil as most things are in life. In the amateur fighting it's gotten very evil and I'll just come out bluntly and say it because I plan to take him down. There's a gentlemen named, he's not a gentlemen, excuse me, he's a thug named Anwar Chowdhry and he is one of the worst things that's ever happened to boxing and he's come up this point system that is ridiculous. He rules boxing. (Anwar Chowdhry is the President of the Amateur International Boxing Association) He is called the "Godfather" of boxing because things seem to happen to people when they try to take him on. And I am going to take him on at the right time. One of my goals in life is to take him out of boxing. He is probably the worst thing that's happened for boxing. Whatever he says goes in boxing unfortunately.

HBS - Elaborate a little bit more on this point system and what the change was and how it's worked to the detriment of American boxers.

TW - We American boxers and actually the world used to be pretty much on the ten point must system. The winner would get ten points, the loser would get nine if he barely lost and eight if he lost a lot which is about as fair as you can get. The point system was invented by Chowdhry. We as Americans and actually the whole world was taught to throw combinations. Your combinations, your agressiveness, you slickness, your missing punches all was part of the ultimate score. In this scoring system, being a good boxer doesn't have anthing to do with it, slipping punches doesn't have anything to do with it, being classy doesn't have anything to do with it, it's how many times you score a point. A point, there's five judges sitting around the ring and a point is when three of the five judges at the same time click their little clicker within a second of each other. And so what that does is it makes a boxer become a single shooter. Instead of throwing combinations he says, "Why should throw a combination, I'm only going to get credit for one (punch)". We joined that crowd. We were throwing lots of combinations and we changed our style for the Olympics and went for one shot at a time. What it does is it takes away the "sweet science" of boxing. It takes it away. The hitting and not getting hit, blocking punches with your elbows and picking them with your hands, slipping them with your head. You're not rewarded for the good things like that you do which is part of boxing. It's part of the sweet science of boxing, hitting and not getting hit. The scoring system is all about throwing single shots and three of the five judges seeing it at one time so it just did away with everything else in boxing which is ridiculous. It benefits no fighters. As a matter of fact it teaches them all the bad things that people do in boxing. Single shotting, it teaches you not to throw combinations, it teaches you not to slip. It also teaches you, the last round or two, if you know you're up by ten points, it teaches you to run and hold which is a shame. It doesn't teach you to fight. It doesn't teach you to be the better boxer throughout the fight.

HBS - This was apparently devised sometime after the 1988 Olympics and do have any idea how or why this came about or do you think it was done deliberately to somehow the counter the advantage that the Americans had been displaying traditionally in Olympic boxing?

TW - Anything Chowdhry does is done to go against America. He doesn't like Americans. He makes it clear, in fact tells everybody he does not like Americans and of course being American I had no problem with telling him I didn't like him and I don't like him. I am out to get him. I am out to take him down at my timing.

HBS - The reason why the USA Olympic boxing community or organization goes along with this is somewhat unclear at this point. You thoughts on that?

TW - It's not only the U.S. Olympic community it's the international boxing community as a whole goes along with it because he's the big guy, he's the big kingpin. Whatever he says goes. I won't name any names but I confronted someone that's very high in the USA Boxing and asked this person why Chowdhry was still involved in boxing. His comment was, "He's bigger than America". I said "That's crazy". He said "No, he's bigger than America" and what he meant was that he carried more clout in boxing than America does. Well I disagree with that. As a matter of fact I think it's a copout. There's nobody bigger than America. I think there's a lot of people that are afraid to go up against him because I've been told that there's a lot of big high salaries being paid and a lot of benefits for going along with him. I can't prove this. I want to make that clear that I'm not stating this as a fact but numerous people have told me about how there's so many people up the ladder that's involved in this. All I can said is I hope they're not because if they are, I'm after them too. One of the things we have to remember, amateur sports, not just amateur boxing but amateur sports is for the amateur person whether it be male or female, we as adults are in it for the benefit and to make sure that things go right for the sport so that it will continue going. Because we have so many spineless, backboneless people throughout the world in the international Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic Committee, all together that won't take a stand the corruption is getting deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and what happens is they're getting sucked into it because it's easier to be a part of it than to go against it because rightly so they may lose their job, they may be kicked out of boxing and they don't want to but I don't care. I'm in it for the sport. It doesn't pay me a salary. I'm in it for the love of the sport. I love the sport and I young people and I love what amateur sports do for young people. It gives them direction in life. It teaches them how to set goals. It teaches how to go for something they want, and then when they have bunch of adults that won't take a stand and say "Enough is enough", that's terrible.

HBS - Let's go to this kid Najah Ali. What were you doing over there in Iraq?

TW - I went over to Iraq to kill bugs. I was licensed in pest control so that's what I went as. I heard that the coalition needed pest control support and they could not get anybody so I became that somebody. I was the first one to go to Iraq to support the military. The second day I was there I met a British colonel that I started training to get into condition. After six months another guy amed Mr. Mike Gefeller, who is the head of the coalition came to be one morniing at breakfast and says "Termite, what are the odds of putting together a boxing team here in Iraq and getting somebody to the Olympics. I actually started laughing, I said "Mr. Gefeller, the chances are slim to none, maybe a one in a million chance". And he says "Great, all we need is the one. We don't need the million", which is a great outlook on life. Everybody that thinks it can't be done, if you've got one chance it can be done because I just did it.

HBS - So this kid was training in rather deplorable conditions.

TW - I asked somebody at the old boxing federation if they would like to help me put together a team and try to get somebody to the Olympics since they hadn't been in 35 years, or it was a long time. So the next day they had 24 boxers. They put the gloves on them, and I'm thinking, "What are they doing?", because we're out on a soccer field. They put these gloves on, the gloves had tears in them and they were ten ounces and had rips in them. The fighters, most of them had no shoes, none of them had boxing shoes, most of them didn't have shoes period. They had no mouthpieces, they had no headgears, and all of a sudden one of the coaches said "Dam", which means "Begin" and so they started and man these guys were just going to town and after about 30, 45 seconds I started screaming "Stop, stop!". I said "You can't do this, you have no mouthpieces no groin protectors no shoes" and they looked at me and through an interpreter they said "This is the way we always do it". So right then I saw how fortunate we are here in America that we had all the great things. These young men had not fought in two years. They were jumping at the opportunity though. I took the boys, I had them meet me the next day at Hillah, which is right outside of Babylon, and about an hour outside of Baghdad and I had a building which became their home, became their cafeteria, it became their gym and everything. So the first two weeks we had no equipment, didn't have anything. So I used that as a time to sell myself to them on why they should trust this American. I also sold them on the fact that they'd been held back in many cases 35 years and it was their time to shine, it was their time for opportunity and that they needed to seized this opportunity and so immediately we hit it off extremely well. When they got to Hillah, all the team were getting off the bus, I found out that it was the custom that everybody greets with a kiss on each side of the cheek and then the original side of the cheek. When they got off the bus I greeted them with the Iraqi kiss and they all grinned and smiled and the interpreter said "You've got them talking, they're asking where's this American get this at?" That very first day back in Baghdad Najah Ali walked by me and after they got through boxing and they had noses bleeding and mouths bleeding from the lack of headgears and mouthpieces, he walks by me and says "Mr. Termite, I will be your one that goes to the Olympics". I told him "We will find a way to get somebody" which became our slogan. That was one of them. We will find a way. The other way that I came up with, is one that went to the Olympics, our President uses it, Bremer, that was running the country or Iraq he used, it Blair from Britain he used it, was the slogan "Iraq is back". I came up with that. We did an interview and at the end I said, "And Iraq is back", and it just kind of stuck it became our team slogan, "Iraq, is back, Iraq is back", and we would chant this. Everything we did we had to overcome. We had to overcome getting out of the country. We had to overcome getting into the other countries. Overcome getting visas because nobody wanted to give them to them. We had to overcome bombs, we had to overcome shootings, and car bombs, and rocket-propelled grenades and mortars landing around our tent. We had to overcome a lot of things but we did it.

HBS - So you eventually get Najah Ali into the Olympics and what happened there?

TW - We got him in by wildcard. I want everybody to know this. They gave two wildcards and it's basically a poor country or a country that doesn't have enough money to go to the Olympics, the International Oympic committee will give you a wildcard, say "We're going to pay your way, we're going to help you". We fought first 57 days from the day I met him we fought in the Philippines. We lost, Najah, he lost but he really won. We went to China two months later, Najah fought, he lost, but he really won. We went to Pakistan. He kicked tail but he did not get the decision. I threw a pretty big fit starting back in the Philippines and was told by Chowdhry that I was a crazy American, I needed to go home while I could. I told him I was there to stay and that I would have somebody go to the Olympics. We drew the wildcard, or simply he may have gave it to us because we raised so much cain. I was told by somebody in the embassy that I was either going to be killed if I went to China because they didn't want me to go to China, he said "You're either going to be killed or you're going to come up with a wild card." I said I'd rather come up with a wild card (laughs). I liked that option better. Then we came to Texas, we trained right here in Galena Park at Kenny Weldon's gym, they had opened arms for us, they worked with us. I've got to say the U.S. Olympic Committee went overboard to make this possible. I give a big applause to the U.S. Olympic Committee and the State Department in Washington. They made it possible, they opened a lot of doors for us.

HBS - At some point you finally get to Athens to fight.

TW - The first fight he fought a guy from Korea and I have to say that Najah went from being a good fighter to being a great fighter. He stepped up a notch. And you can tell great fighters, in tough times, critical times, because the cream rises to the top. Well he did rise. He won decisively. He fought picture-perfect. The next fight he fought a young man from Armenia, it was his second Olympics, quite experienced, 300 and something fights, and Najah, this was his 40th fight and Najah fought a perfect fight again. He did everything I told him because if he would have got on the ropes the guy would have beat him easy. If Najah would have been against the ropes the guy would have taken him out. If Najah would have got him against the ropes the guy would beat him. The guy had also been in the Olmpics on wrestling, weightlifting, he's just one of these all-around athletes. So I told Najah to keep him in the center of the ring and he did. He fought the perfect fight. The night of the fight I didn't think he won. Now that I've reviewed the tape and after many, many people sent me e-mails saying "You're fighter won", I think we did win. But we lost that second fight but the amazing thing was that we won the hearts of the world and I must say that there's two pictures here. You get the picture of an American and an Iraqi boxer going to the Olympics which is real big, but the real big picture here is that the Iraqi boxer was free to go to the Olympics. Freedom is the big picture here.

HBS - No you're thinking about trying to get him over here to have a pro career?

TW - He has been accepted to the University of Houston. He has a degree in Computer Science, a bachelor's. He would like to get his Masters. We are working on getting him over here and we will find a way. Once we do he will come over here, he will go to school. Education is his first thing that we will worry about but he does want to become a professional fighter. That was a lifelong dream of his.

HBS - Muhammad Ali recently went before Congress and testified, said there should be a three-person commission to oversee everything on the federal level. What are your thoughts on that?

TW - They need to get somebody to overlook it because the people that we've got involved in it right now are not watching it. I can't sat that they've all got caught up into the glitz but evidently a bunch of them have because it's sad the things that are happening in professional boxing and amateur boxing. When somebody wins a fight clearly that the whole world knows and yet they give it ot the other guy. Something is wrong. There's a red flag right there. And there's been a lot of red flags in the last several years in boxing. There's lots of them in amateur and lots of them in professional.

HBS - Your name "Termite" doesn't have anything to do with boxing?

TW - My name "Termite" come from the day I was born. A friend of ours that worked for my dad at the time named Leon Spruce, a Texan, he started calling me that as a joke and it stuck with me and he kept calling me that and here I am 48 years old I'm still called Termite.

HBS - So what do you do these days? Are you still working pest control? What's in the future for Termite Watkins?

TW - Job wise I'm going to take off another two or three weeks and see how some things turn out. I have a book coming out. I am with the William Morris Agency out of Los Angeles. I have a manager right here in Houston, Texas, Attorney Cliff Roberts. Our book should be out by December, possibly January at the latest. It's been predicted to be a number one best seller. So hopefully it will happen. It's at a book auction right now. Hopefully we'll get good money up front on it so I can keep on moving forward with it. I will also be doing a lot of public speaking here in Houston as well as around the world. They've put me on kind of a circuit so again I'm with the William Morris Agency and they handle all of this. And then we've had six movie offers. My agency has not let me sign with any movie companies yet because we're waiting to get all the bids in.

HBS - So that brings up the obvious question: Who would play you in the movie?

TW - I don't know. There's been talk of Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Patrick Swayze, there's been all kinds of people. The one thing that you have to be is a good person because rather than being portrayed as a bad dude I would rather be portrayed as a good person with the ability and the talent to be a great fighter. I would never want to be known as a bad guy that's just a tough guy so that image won't happen. It's got to be somebody who's going to play my image or this movie will not happen.


HBS - What's your real first name, James?

TW - No my first name is Maurice. Don't you ever call me that.... (laughs)