Sportswriter Jonathan Rendall's First Hand View of the Boxing World

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 27, 1998
Time: 12:00
Tran: 072701NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Johnathan Rendall
Sect: News; International
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest, Jonathan Rendall, knows boxing. And it has inspired his passion and cynicism. As a journalist common he's covered the game in written investigative pieces for British publication and for Esquire and Ring magazine.

He also knows boxing from the inside. For five years, he managed the British boxer Colin "Sweet C" McMillan. Rendall guided McMillan to the world featherweight championship. McMillan held the World Boxing Organization title for about six months in 1992.

Rendall has written memoir called "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own: A Journey to the End of Boxing." It's published in the states by the literary press Echo.

Rendall writes that he wouldn't have wanted to get involved in any boxer's career except for Colin "Sweet C" McMillan. I asked what made McMillan so special.

JONATHAN RENDALL, BOXING WRITER AND FORMER AGENT: I always just thought he was the one. I mean, every person who follows boxing has one boxer, but may not ever be a champion or some kid on the undercard. And he just -- you just follow him. And he's the one, you know.

And I was happy enough just watching him. And I knew him because I was reporting on amateur fights. So I knew him a bit from the amateur days. And I just thought he had tremendous potential. I thought he was the best boxer I'd seen for years. But unfortunately, not many people shared my opinion.

And so, because of those two things really, we got -- unlucky defeat he suffered. We grew closer in closer in terms of the likelihood of me getting involved with him.

GROSS: How would you...

RENDALL: It wasn't something I was desperate to do.

GROSS: How would you describe his boxing style? One of the things you say in the book is that he was self aware without being self-conscious.

RENDALL: I would discover -- he actually, he was compared to live in this country to Sugar Ray Leonard. But he himself actually modeled himself more on Sugar Ray Robinson. He month Sugar Ray Robinson. And he liked Leonard. And he also liked a fighter -- South Central American fighter called Alexis Aguello (ph), who was a great lightweight champion of the '70s and '80s and he liked him a lot. He was called the thin man, Aguello.

And he's were melded all those together. And then he added his own things to it. And it was just a beautiful style to watch. It was boxing as I thought it should be. It was balletic, and it was -- I found it almost poetic. But, of course, it needed a foil. I mean, if you had two Colin McMillans in any ring against each other, it might get that boring. But you put that style against some guy who wants to tear your head off, then you've got the makings of classic boxing match.

And great thing was that he was so slight that everyone thought he was going to get sort of completely annihilated. But he'll most always prevailed.

GROSS: When "Sweet C" McMillan and his manager went separate ways, you stepped in and took over the job of manager, first informally...

RENDALL: Yeah.

GROSS: ... and then more formally. So what was it like for you when you first started calling promoters trying to set up fights for him?

RENDALL: It was actually surprisingly easy. And looking back, I think I had a (Unintelligible) -- I was working of the sports writer at the time and of the boxing writer within that. So probably they were a bit wary of me in the sense that they knew that they couldn't really screw Colin or me to the extent they could the others because it would, you know, although obviously, the conflict, I couldn't write about Colin.

They knew that I would, you know, possibly use it or passed onto someone. And so it was -- it was -- as soon as we got going, it was -- getting going was easy, getting the initial fights. It was when he started winning, putting quite a few wins together, and perception of him started changing in that it got very difficult to get him fights because no one wanted to fight him.

GROSS: Because they were afraid they would lose?

RENDALL: Yes. And there wasn't a lot of money in it -- in fighting McMillan. And they were afraid also that a fighter who fought like Colin did that if you lost to him you wouldn't only lose, you probably be made to look pretty silly as well. And they didn't want that.

GROSS: You say that sometimes you'd pay to get him on the bill.

RENDALL: Yeah.

GROSS: How would you offer money?

RENDALL: Well, it's not quite as sinister as it sounds. It was just that I thought that it would be a great benefit to his sort of "fistic" education to go to America because that is where it really is. And so he went over to train. And I didn't have a lot of money at the time. I was working of freelance sports writer and basically investing sort of most of my salary in hanging around with Colin.

And we went up to New York. And we stayed on people' s apartment floors and stuff. And he went to Gleason's (ph).

But when it came to getting fights in America, no one would give him fights unless he signed a contract with an American promoter, for a long-term deal. And so they said, "But the only way you can put him on a card was that you pay Colin's purse but also his opponent' s purse. And I did that twice with a guy called Ace Miller (ph) in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and then he fought a guy in Mississippi -- Summer, Mississippi, called Malcolm Rougeau (ph). And he beat him. And they both got paid $500, and Colin got paid $500.

GROSS: So it cost you...

RENDALL: And I...

GROSS: ... $1000?

LAUGHTER

RENDALL: Yeah. It was on my overdraft.

LAUGHTER

I don't know why I'm laughing. I got in terrible trouble. But no, and but he was being -- I wasn't actually out there, you see. I wish I was because it would have been good material, but because I had to work to sort of get the money together. And then I sent the money out to an American trainer who was training out there called Beau Williford (ph). His real name was Maybond George Williford IV (ph), who trained some fighters in Monroe, Louisiana.

And so I sent out to Beau. And Beau -- I spoke, I was covering Wimbledon at the time. And I rang him on the pay phone from Wimbledon between sets and finding copy, and then, you know, to check he got the money. And he said, "Fine, I got the money." So that night you could go off fine and thankful he won both fights.

GROSS: Did you find the promoters in the states functioned any differently than promoters in London?

RENDALL: I thought they were more honest in a way.

GROSS: In the states?

RENDALL: Yeah. They told you exactly what they -- why they wouldn't put your kid on that TV or why -- in very explicit terms. I went to -- whereas here they'd sort of say, "Yeah, we'd love to use him," but then they wouldn't.

As I remember one, I went to -- I was in Las Vegas. And I went and saw one major promoter. And he said to me, you know, "I think your -- this kid is a great fighter. But the problem is we've got too many."

I said, "What do you mean you've got too many?"

He said, "We've got too many black fighters who fight with this fancy style. What we really need is a white kid at the moment, a white kid who goes down several times but then gets up to win. So I'm sorry but, you know, he just doesn't fit the bill."

And I just thought -- I was obviously very, very astonished.

GROSS: It's more like they're casting for a show.

RENDALL: Yeah, absolutely, which is what they're doing really. But, you know, that was I think, however unpalatable, the truth of the way they were selecting him, and probably is in England too.

GROSS: Yeah, well I'm glad you brought that up. Did you find that race was treating any differently in England than in the states?

RENDALL: In boxing gyms, the race didn't really play a part. Everyone is just struggling to get there and fulfill the dream, you know. But the difference was, say, in New York compared to London I found in London, I mean, I hung around with Colin socially as well. And in London, you know, black people, white people, any color doesn't matter. There is social mixing, and there's not a problem with that really, although definitely there is racism in English society.

I found that in New York, for example, after you finished a day at the gym all the Hispanic fighters went back to the Hispanic area, and the black fighters went to the black area, and Irish fighters went back to the Irish area. And walking around New York, me and Colin, trying to find somewhere, we sort of attracted a bit of attention, you know. Not anyone who knew he was a boxer or anything, but just because -- and I think that came as a surprise to me. But so I think is was more overt in the states, but possibly no less present in England.

GROSS: And in the ring any difference racially here and there?

RENDALL: You mean from what point of view, from the marketing?

GROSS: Exactly, from the marketing.

RENDALL: I think there's -- remember, this is going back to the early '90s. And I think it's probably changed in the states. But at the time in the states, there was still very much a pervading culture among promoters of, you know, we'll promote lots of black fighters. But if we get a white fighter who can fight just a bit, we'll really go with him. And possibly, that may well be the case here as well.

But at the moment, I don't see it so much here. And I don't know whether it exists in America.

GROSS: When you were managing the featherweight champion, and when you were managing him before he became the champion, did anyone ever approach you to throw a fight?

RENDALL: No. No. It doesn't really -- I've heard of a couple of occasions in all the years I was involved that that happened. That was dumb, but you don't need to do it these days because it's all done with the matchmaking. And so the fixing is done in a way that you just -- if you've got fighter A and he's a real prospect and you want to pad his record out to get a payday after he's had 18 fights, say, and he's got a respectable record and he's 18-and-0, then you get 17 what are called in the trade "dead men" to come in and be knocked over by him.

And the dead men, if, you know, knowing they're dead men. It's not a question of being told. They know they've got no chance of winning against a good young prospect like fighter A. And so they, you know, they take their licks and then that's it.

The injuries in boxing tend to happen when you get two young fighters who both want to win as much fighting each other. But as far as the fix being put in it, it's not really like, you know, it's not your night-to-night kid sort of stuff.

GROSS: Right.

LAUGHTER

RENDALL: But because it's not necessary.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Jonathan Rendall. And he's a writer. He's written a lot about sports. He also managed the former world featherweight champion. And his new book is a boxing memoir called "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own."

Let's talk a short break. And then we'll talk some more about boxing. This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

Back with Jonathan Rendall. He's the author of the new book "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own: A Journey to the End of Boxing." And he's a writer, who mostly has written about sports. But he also for a while managed the featherweight champion of the world.

Would you describe for us the fight in which Colin "Sweet C" McMillan won the featherweight championship?

RENDALL: Well, I think I was in a state of sort of probably clinically terror -- I don't know what -- I was -- I could barely watch. I watched it through my fingers. But he was -- when he won the title against an Italian called Marizio Stecker (ph), who was the Olympic -- as an amateur, won the Olympic champion -- had been Olympic champion. And he came out with this great entourage and posse of Italian journalists. And he was the favorite.

But it was actually quite an easy fight for Colin because he'd worked out -- he wasn't worried about Stecker. And he'd worked out, had a box -- Stecker was a boxer. And so as soon as the first round came, and as soon as Stecker knew he couldn't out-jab Colin, and Colin knew that he could out-jab Stecker, the pattern of the fight was set.

And Stecker didn't really have the punch to pull it around. It was just a question of Colin keeping his nerve, not thinking suddenly, as some people do, suddenly they're in the eighth round, "Oh my goodness, this is the world title. I've only got a (Unintelligible) and I'm world champ." And then start getting nailed.

But he didn't -- his concentration. And he won by a wide-point's (ph) decision. And then suddenly the dressing room, which has been empty for years, for five years, apart from you, Colin, the trainer, the bag man sort of folding up all the stuff, was besieged by about 60 journalists and TV crews and everything. And the whole thing started.

GROSS: Did that feel good?

RENDALL: It felt rather bewildering. It felt great, obviously. I mean, it was more -- I was just relieved more than anything else because I actually got more nervous before the fights than Colin did. I would be sitting there biting my nails off with his trainer, Howard.

And Colin, the way -- I'm sure he was nervous. But the way he dealt with it was he used to hang around outside, go and see friends in ringside seats, talk to blokes on the undercard up to about half an hour before he went on. And then he'd come in the dressing room and go, "John, what's wrong with you?"

And I'd go, "Col -- Col -- Colin..."

LAUGHTER

You know, and then I'd be banished, really. I mean, I didn't stay. I just thought I was probably too much of a neurotic presence. For the final 20 minutes, I went and sat ringside for that.

GROSS: Were you nervous because of the competitive aspect? You wanted your guy to win? Or were you nervous because you might be watching at ringside while your guy took a beating? Were you nervous for him physically or just you know, the game?

RENDALL: I was nervous for him physically, actually. I was nervous from the same standpoint. I discussed this recently actually with his wife Sue and because we used to sit together quite a lot. And we were both of us with our hands over our heads.

And he was just watching the other guy's hands. He didn't even watch Colin much during the fights. I did that on video -- watched the video later.

But, you watched the other guy's hands and you saw them arcing towards Colin. And then just thought, you know, that's not gonna hit. Is it? Is it? Is it? And then -- you look and he hadn't hit him. And he was dancing away and he was peppering the other guy with jabs and whatever.

But sometimes it's difficult. You see, it was a matter of sort of millimeters that Colin would not get hit often, particularly when he was on the ropes because he was very old fashioned which he got from studying films of Ray Robinson (ph).

He was one of the few fighters who could really -- or British fighters who could fight off the ropes. And that position is very hard to tell. What, as he flinched with each blow, whether he actually hit him. Had he hit him on the arm or had it got through to the ribcage. Was he hurt? You know, and so you would sit there in that sort of state of suspense really until it was over and then you would have this tremendous feeling of relief.

GROSS: Now, when he won...

RENDALL: For the times he won, you would.

GROSS: ... Yeah. When he won the world featherweight championship, what were you supposed to do to build on that success?

RENDALL: Well, it was all in place really. Everything would of -- the hard work being done in the ring you know, and out of it. American TV was interested. He was going to be on ABC television. And he was being featured on the cover of "Ring" magazine in the States. He had ascended to a sort of new -- completely new pay bracket.

And all he had to do was get over this first offense of his title against the number-10-ranked contender. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, so it remained tantalizingly out of reach.

GROSS: Now what happened in that fight?

RENDALL: He got beat.

LAUGHTER

What happened was he -- his shoulder, he dislocated his shoulder in the seventh round and obviously couldn't continue, and had to retire from the fight. And really, he never recovered from that.

GROSS: You make it sound in your book that you noticed that Colin's arm was out of the socket before he even realized it.

RENDALL: Yes, that's right. Yes. But the adrenaline, I mean, he was in a world title fight.

And what happened was that he didn't know -- you know, his eyes were always on the opponent. You can't take your eyes away. Or even if you're pretending you are looking at the floor and doing some mugging trick. You know, you're not really looking at the floor, you're sensing where he's going, the other guy.

And he must have just poured out a jab with the hand that was now useless to him. It was hanging from his shoulder, from the socket. And neither, thank goodness, did Palasio (ph), Ruben Dario Palasio (ph), who was the guy he was fighting from the Dominican Republic. Neither did he notice.

And so Colin turned southpaw, you know, to lead with the other hand. And the other guy turned with him, and both looking a bit perplexed, Colin perplexed because he couldn't know why -- he couldn't seem to be using his hand. The other guy thinking, "Why is he pretending that he can't hit me and what's happening?"

And then I just rushed over to the corner and said to Howard, the trainer, who had also noticed. I said, you know, "You've got to stop it." And so, Howard was already stopping it. And he chunked the towel in.

And then Colin said, "Why'd you do that? And he got back to the corner and then looked down at his arm and starting -- he convulsed in pain. But in the old days, they'd of banged the shoulder back in and sent him out there for the next round, which is just a horrendous thought.

GROSS: Now were you confident you were doing the right thing when you got the fight called?

RENDALL: I don't think -- if you had time to think within the skewed logic of boxing -- it probably was the wrong thing, as several people told me afterwards. You know -- they know, you know, if he'd waited out the round, John, he'd still be champ.

GROSS: Do you think that's true?

RENDALL: I don't know. I mean, what would have happened if the guy -- there was still 25 seconds, which is a long time in boxing, you know, for the guy to realize and he had nothing to hold him off with. And so you know, that way he got an immediate rematch.

And he could have won, you know, won the title back. But unfortunately, the shoulder never healed. So maybe I did do the wrong thing. But Colin, I -- you know. But what would you do? (Unintelligible)...

GROSS: I probably wouldn't have been there in the first place, frankly, so it's hard for me to say.

RENDALL: Yeah. No, put it this way. Neither myself nor the trainer, Howard, who was a very experienced boxing man, we thought, there was no question of not pulling him out at that stage.

GROSS: Now is he...

RENDALL: Boxing is hard enough as it is without going in there one- handed.

GROSS: ... Was Colin angry with you, that, in retrospect...

RENDALL: No, no.

GROSS: ... that you called the fight.

RENDALL: No, he knew that he couldn't go on as soon as he saw what state his shoulder was.

GROSS: You took him to the hospital right away...

RENDALL: Yeah.

GROSS: ... And you say in your book that you were looking at him in the hospital as he waited hours and hours for a doctor. And he was all hunched up in his green and gold shorts with his leaking face and his arm hanging out. And you say, "And I finally understood." And then the chapter ends and I'm thinking, "Understood what?" What is it that you finally understood?

RENDALL: Well that actually was referring back to a conversation that Colin and I had in the very early days when he was still a prospect and I was fairly kind of looking through boxing with rose-tinted spectacles. And I used to read all the trade magazines and talk about left jabs and right hooks and more with that combo this, that, and good defense, good offense. And I remember Colin saying to me at rather an early stage. He says, "You can talk about boxing all you want, John. But at the end of the day, what it is, is a fight."

And that's what I understood is that this is -- the brutality of it, I suppose, which perhaps should have been blindly obvious to anyone. But there is a -- it is obscured beneath layers of sort of mythology and discussion of styles and particularly now statistics and punch stat things. But at the end of the day, what boxing is, is two people fighting each other, and until someone else stops it or one of them is rendered unconscious.

GROSS: Well, when you were watching Colin "Sweet C" McMillan in the hospital knowing that his career probably about to end, did it change your mind about boxing? Did you start to feel different about the sport?

RENDALL: It changed me, yes it did, because I think that when you're with a prospect like that -- and I sincerely believed just as I was sure Mike Tyson believed and people behind Mike Tyson believed and like this new guy, Prince Nazim Hamed (ph) and his people -- on the way up, he was one of those fighters that you just thought he was untouchable. He used to come in to that old MC Hammer song "Can't Touch This," and that was his choice.

And it was very apt. And I couldn't see anyone beating him. He couldn't see anyone beating him. Howard couldn't see anyone beating him. He was one of those fighters you just couldn't see -- it wasn't only you couldn't see him losing on a -- you just no one was getting a round off him. I mean, on his way up to the world title, I don't think he lost a round in his previous 10 or 11 fights.

And so it was a tremendous sobering up for all of us. And I think being personally involved like that, obviously it changes your perspective. And I think it was, you know, being that close to it. You know, I think, yes, it's inevitable that you will -- something will be -- will move you about it. And you are going to be much more ambivalent about putting someone in that situation again.

GROSS: What did "Sweet C" McMillan end up doing after his boxing career ended?

RENDALL: He's doing really well. He's trained, against my advice, to be a journalist. And he's doing a course at the moment. And he also has a club down in the east end of London where he does one night a week DJing down there. And he's doing really well.

GROSS: And what have you been doing? Writing.

RENDALL: I've been writing, yeah, I've been writing. I still see him. I still see his trainer Howard. But I don't really see anyone else from boxing.

GROSS: Jonathan Rendall's new boxing memoir is called "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own." He'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross. And this is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Jonathan Rendall, author of the new boxing memoir "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own."

Rendall spent five years managing the career of Colin "Sweet C" McMillan, who held the world featherweight title for about six months in 1992. Rendall is also a journalist who has written extensively about boxing.

When your career as a boxing manager ended, you just went back into journalism in a more full-time way. And you ended up writing investigative stories largely about boxing. And that's when you realized that there were perhaps more threats going on outside of the ring than in the ring. What were some of the stories that you were writing that were getting people really angry with you?

JONATHAN RENDALL, BOXING WRITER AND FORMER AGENT: Well, I tried to write what was in -- you know, tried to monitor the boxing scene from a point of view in the way that a journalist would, say, cover financial stories or even soccer stories, which are really big and equivalent to, I suppose, American football over there -- whatever -- I, in a sort of correct journalistic manner.

And I found out this was totally impossible because you just got banned from covering the fights. And also, it's such a hall of mirrors, boxing. And the allegiances are shifting all the time, and enemies are friends the next week.

And even though you know a story to be true, you know, and you got everything together and you printed it, you would then, even with the most innocuous story in this country, and would be bombarded by libel risks because I think, per capita, boxing promoters, both here and in the states I think, are, you know, the most voracious litigants with libel in the world. And I'm confident that's true, you know, by some margin.

And that's the way it sort of imprints itself on editor's minds. And they don't really want to know. And also, there's the other problem with boxing is that you spend a year discovering corruption in boxing. And at the end of the day, people have already thought that it was already corrupt in the first place.

GROSS: That's a good point, isn't it? Well listen, dating back to all the like early classic boxing movies everybody knew, you know, that's what was always shown is the corruption.

RENDALL: Yeah, that's right. And "Raging Bull" is my favorite movie, which is, you know, a great story of it really.

GROSS: Were there a lot of threats against you when you were functioning as a reporter investigating the boxing world?

RENDALL: Yes, there were threats. And I think most of them were probably all just below me really. But after a while, it starts wearing down on you and you start becoming a bit paranoid. And I just thought in the end, "What's the point?" And I spent four years fighting one particular libel case, which thankfully, you know, we fought and didn't give in. And, you know, it was finished. But after that I thought, you know, "What's the point?"

GROSS: When did you realize that you were no longer in love with the world of boxing?

RENDALL: It was during the year when Colin's shoulder was healing. And I was spending -- I spent quite a lot of time out in Vegas and covering fights. And I just remember -- I had a -- I just got fed up with the, or just got I suppose confused really would be the word, by the fact that everything, nothing is what it seemed in boxing. And what seemed was nothing. And you really couldn't get to anything and it seemed to me, the boxers suddenly appeared to me as absolutely the heroes of it which they are.

And -- but it's the same story in boxing really. I mean, you can take any one boxer, champion boxer, and you'll probably find, almost certainly find, that 10 to 15 years after he's retired he's not in a good state either financially or health wise, usually both. And you watch these young men entering this ride. And it just seems doomed. And you in the end just don't want to be a witness to it anymore.

GROSS: Has the world of boxing changed a lot from when you first fell in love with it to now?

RENDALL: I think it's changed a lot. I think in this country, at least, it's really dying on its feet because, you know, without getting too boring, all that, the number of titles there are now is ridiculous. And the whole structure of boxing...

GROSS: So you think they've lost their meaning because there are so many of them?

RENDALL: ... Yeah, I mean, when I was a kid we used to be able to name every world champion. And there were two then I think. That was always a bit annoying at the time, you know that there were two. Every other sport had one, but boxing had two. But we still all knew both of them.

But now there's five, six, seven. I don't know how many there are now. And the titles have become meaningless.

And it's just a sort of, I mean, you had the ridiculous situation when English fighter Prince Nazim Hamed(ph) going to New York, I think a few months ago, fighting a New Yorker and being the attraction, but being the attraction based on a huge Madison Avenue advertising campaign. I think they spent something like $10 million on the marketing for that fight. So it must be fairly desperate.

But the problem is that however much one knocks promoters -- and they should be knocked -- they, like the boxers, have been broke themselves where some promotion has busted them. And so the last thing they're going to do when they've got the chance of a TV date with some bogus title because the TV company wants a title is tell them that the title is bogus. You know, they just want the payday. And that's the sort of mindset that they carry into it.

So it's complete short-termism in boxing. And the result has been that the structure -- the public have, I believe, have become confused by it, even those that have carried on with it. And what has been most notable has been that the declining column entries in newspapers about boxing where really only it's the big heavyweight fights that will get a mention there, whereas when I started 10 years ago, we were covering everything.

GROSS: Now I know you had one dealing with probably the world's most famous promoter, Don King. Tell us about the contract that he offered.

RENDALL: It was a very interesting contract. It was a completely blank piece of paper with a dotted line at the bottom for Colin to sign. We were in his New York offices, East 69th street or something. And he said he wanted to sign this blank piece of paper.

And I said, "Well, he can sign that, Don."

LAUGHTER

And he said, Don King said, that it was just, the only thing was it was just the figures were just too big to put on the paper. That was the only problem. And you know the only way of really equating the sort of figures he was talking for "Sweet C" McMillan was to look up at the clouds outside his office. We looked out the window.

And he said, "You see those black clouds there and the money -- you know, it's the sort of money that can only be transposed on the clouds. And it can't really be distilled down onto this bit of paper because it's just too big." He said, "Just sign there." But thankfully, he didn't sign. We managed to get out of New York.

GROSS: Do you think it's possible to really have a boxing career as a boxer or as a manager and stay clean?

RENDALL: As a boxer, yes. I think you're not -- yeah, I think you can. But you're doomed. That's the price you pay. As a manager, I think if you have more than one fighter ever, then you are -- it's impossible.

GROSS: And why is it impossible?

RENDALL: Because once you have a stable, you're gonna have to start judging, well, if he wins, you know, if you've got two fighters, you see, and, you know, and you say, "Well, if he wins, how will it effect his career? So I don't want him to win two world -- or, you know, you're going to have things in your mind weighing out. You'll be balancing the career of one fighter against the needs of the other when you're dealing with a promoter.

So whenever you fight for the promoter, you know you're dealing with a promoter. You might not get the best deal for the second fight you've got because it might jeopardize your deal with -- you've already got for the fighter, your first fighter. That sort of thing. Does that make any sense?

GROSS: Mmm-hm.

RENDALL: Good.

GROSS: Now you were briefly a boxer yourself when you were in college.

RENDALL: Yeah.

GROSS: So what was it like for you when you were in the ring and you were giving and getting the blows? Did you have a taste for that?

RENDALL: I certainly didn't after (Unintelligible). I didn't actually really feel them. Thankfully, we so inexpert at it, both myself, I think, and the opponent, they couldn't really do any serious damage.

They were just sort of thudding. I was aware of myself, it was more like a sort of dance. I seem to remember just hugging on to him after about the first. And there again, it didn't even reach the end of the second so didn't have to have long to wait.

But no, it was a very odd experience, very odd. I couldn't speak afterwards. That's all I remember. I was trying to speak, I was trying to tell the trainer and everything what had happened and why I had lost. And they were looking at me with this sort of strange expression. And I realized that I was speaking, that absolutely no words were coming out.

GROSS: Was that for physical or psychological reasons?

RENDALL: Well, it was either from a punch in the throat or -- I don't know which. I sort of resumed my speech a bit, you know, about, you know, soon afterwards. And I left the arena as quickly as possible.

GROSS: I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

RENDALL: Thank you very much.

GROSS: Jonathan Rendall's new boxing memoir is called "This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own."

Coming up, the health benefits of working out with weights, light weights.

This is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Johnathan Rendall
High: Jonathan Rendall knows boxing. And it has inspired his passion and cynicism. As a journalist common he's covered the game in written investigative pieces for British publication and for Esquire and Ring magazine. He also knows boxing from the inside. For five years, he managed the British boxer Colin "Sweet C" McMillan. Rendall guided McMillan to the world featherweight championship. McMillan held the World Boxing Organization title for about six months in 1992.
Spec: Books; Authors; Sports; Boxing; Jonathan Rendall

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1998 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1998 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Johnathan Rendall
Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 27, 1998
Time: 12:00
Tran: 072702NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Strong Women Stay Slim
Sect: News; Domestic
Time: 12:40

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Lifting weights is apparently good for a lot more than building impressive-looking muscles.

My guest, Miriam Nelson, is the associate chief of the human physiology lab at the Tufts University Center on Aging. She's also a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.

She's been conducting research on how exercise affects aging since 1983. Recently, her studies have focused on the health benefits of strength training for older women.

She translated her research on strength training into the bestseller "Strong Women Stay Young." Now she has a follow-up book called "Strong Women Stay Slim."

I asked her why her focus now is on strength training.

DR. MIRIAM NELSON, SCHOOL OF NUTRITION SCIENCE AND POLICY, TUFTS UNIVERSITY: Since the late '80s, we've been really focusing a lot on strengthening exercises and how they affect the typical losses of muscle that many individuals experience, that most individuals experience as they get older. And in women in particular we lose about a quarter of a pound to a third of a pound of muscle every year after our -- after we reach the age of 30.

And the only thing that we've seen that can counteract that loss of muscle is strengthening exercises. And the problem as we get older is that we're losing muscle but we're gaining fat and we're gaining body weight. So it really compounds and really affects women, especially as they get into their 50s, 60s, 70s and on up.

GROSS: Now before we go any further, you're researching older women. Is your research relevant to younger women and to men?

NELSON: Certainly. And I'm, you know, I'm not just researching older women. I've done a fair amount of work with women in their 20s and 30s. Our laboratory, the primary focus has been in older individuals. But after all, we're all aging from the time that we're born.

And certainly, the principles that we're looking at apply to men as well. The issues for women, again, are that we tend to have a much less muscle than men. We lose it at about the same rate. But then it catches up with us in our later years so that on average we live for about 10 years with disabilities. And also, we're losing bone. And that really puts us at risk for osteoporosis.

So for those factors, it's very important for women. But the principles apply for men as well.

GROSS: Yeah, so one of the main findings of your research is that strengthening exercises can prevent the loss of muscle and bone, which is so debilitating for a lot of women later in life. How does that happen?'

NELSON: Well, if you think about it, our body is uniquely sort of programmed to adapt to the forces that we put upon it. And if we stress the muscles and we do strengthening exercises -- and I'd like to define those in just a minute -- I mean, we do the strengthening exercises, the muscles, our biceps and our quadriceps and all of our muscles in our bodies, they adapt to those forces. And so they get stronger.

If you think about sending an astronaut up into space, what happens, whether it's a man or a woman is because there's no gravity and the body doesn't sense that it needs the muscles and the bones to ambulate to get around because you're floating, you lose muscle and you lose bone very, very rapidly. So it also happens in the other way. You can lose tissue very quickly.

So the body is very uniquely situated to adapt to the different environments that it's placed in.

GROSS: Yeah, before we go any further, you should probably explain by what you mean by "strengthening exercises."

NELSON: Strength training is the type of activity in which your muscles are working against resistance. For example, if I were standing and I had dumbbells in each hand and I were to bend my elbow, do a bicep curl, bring my hands up towards my shoulder so that my bicep muscles are contracting to bend the elbow, I should be able to lift the weight about eight times. And the sixth, seventh and eighth repetition should be at an intensity such that I feel the need to rest after eight repetitions. And then I take a break, and I do another set of eight repetitions.

And then to do a well-rounded workout, do about six or eight different exercises, the upper body and the lower body. It can take about a half an hour, a couple of times a week two or three times a week is fine. And the key is that each week you're going to get stronger so you'll be lifting heavier and heavier weights.

But one thing that's very nice about strength training is that -- and I think one of the reasons that this message has been really sort of taking off is that you can do these exercises at home while you're listening to the radio and while your kids are around you, or your grandchildren. It's very easy to do. And it's nice and very time-efficient.

GROSS: You've done research at the laboratory where you work on the differences between dieting and strength training when it comes to weight loss and body shape. What are some of the differences you found?

NELSON: I think some of the very important findings that we've seen with adding physical activity and strength training in particular to a weight control program is that it really helps to boost your metabolism. A lot of individuals don't understand that when they lose weight by diet alone that they're going to lose between 25 and 30 percent, if not more of the tissue that they lose, is going to be muscle and bone. And we don't want to lose muscle and bone.

And when you lose muscle, what happens is your metabolism plummets by the same amount, by 25, 30, or even more percent. And that makes weight loss very, very difficult.

What we've seen with strength training is that in one study that we did with men and women was that the strength training boosted metabolism by about 15 percent which added up to these individuals needing to eat between 200 and 350 calories more a day just to maintain body weight.

GROSS: You recommend strength training twice a week. How long should each session be in order to actually get some benefits from it?

NELSON: You can get a very good workout. And what I've outlined in the book are six very simple exercises to do that take about a half an hour. And I recommend people to do them two or three times a week if they really get into it.

The new guidelines from the American College of Sports Medicine are to strength train two or three times a week. And you can really do quite an efficient workout in a half an hour.

GROSS: If you're using free weights, how should you decide how heavy the weights should be?

NELSON: What you need to do is we use an exercise intensity scale. And you want the weight to be such that by the sixth, seventh and eighth repetition it's heavy enough so that you really feel fatigued and you want to take a rest after the eight repetition and that you really can't lift it in good form more than nine or 10 times.

And then the key is, let's say you start with three pounds. Next week, you may, your muscles are going to be stronger. You may need to lift five pounds. But then eventually those five pounds are going to be really easy for you because you get stronger and you may need to lift heavier weights.

And I give a lot of -- I think goals are very important -- and I give goals of what to work towards so that women can really work towards a safe weight that is going to be effective. I will say that we've never seen in any of our studies a plateauing of muscle strength. Men and women just keep getting stronger and stronger even in their 70s and 80s, which I think is very exciting. It's not to say that you keep having to lift heavier weights, it's just to say that the muscles can get very, very strong.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Miriam Nelson. And she's the associate chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. She's studying the health benefits of strength training. Her new book is called "Strong Women Stay Slim."

Let's take a short break here, and then we'll talk some more.

This is FRESH AIR.

Back with Miriam Nelson, who is studying the health benefits of strength training. She works at Tufts University. And she has a new book called "Strong Women Stay Slim." That's a follow-up to her bestseller "Strong Women Stay Young."

Now I always hear walking is the best exercise. What do you think of walking versus strength training if you're trying to figure out how to apportion your time?

NELSON: Walking is a phenomenal exercise. It's really one of the best exercises. It trains your cardiovascular health. It burns calories. It helps with weight control. And the, you know, it's very important for us to be walking more.

But walking doesn't affect our bones very much. And it doesn't affect our muscles as much in terms of preserving our muscles as we get older.

The best combination is doing some strengthening exercises maybe half an hour twice a week, and throughout the day and throughout your week walking a bit more, trying to just incorporate those walks with your kids or with a spouse or at work or going up a couple of flights of stairs. You can tuck walking into different parts of your life to accumulate 30 minutes over a day.

And so that's one of the beauties of walking. But again, it doesn't have the same effects on muscle and bone that the strengthening exercises have.

GROSS: Although you recommend working with weights, you don't recommend walking with weights, walking with weights attached to your legs or walking while you're carrying weights and moving your arms back and forth. Why not?

NELSON: Well, orthopedically, walking with weights on your ankles, it's really contraindicated. It's not good for your knees or your hip. It really alters your gate. The reality is, is there's a real specificity with physical activity. If you're strength training, you're really targeting your muscles and your bones. And you might as well do the strength training correctly.

It doesn't take a lot of time. It's easy to do. So do that correctly. Stimulate your muscles and your bones so you're getting the most out of it. If you're walking, enjoy it. Go out into the park, you know, go out into, you know, wherever and enjoy it.

Orthopedically, holding weights in your hands may not be so bad, but it's not going to make any difference on your muscles. It may increase your cardiovascular workout a little bit more, but you could incorporate hills or just walk a little faster to make the difference for your heart as well.

GROSS: I think some women would say, "Well, I don't really want to do strength training because I don't like the idea of having those big, rippling muscles." Would your advice to them be, "Don't worry, you're not going to have them anyway," probably?

NELSON: It doesn't happen. You know, when you -- I think that's been, and certainly that's definitely a myth that's been there for a long time. There are women that do bodybuilding and have those rippling muscles. They do really extreme types of training. They also really alter their diet in very strange ways. Many of them take steroids.

When we're talking about strengthening exercises to strengthen your muscles, to preserve your muscles in your bone, we're not talking about bulging muscles. We're talking about very feminine muscles. We're talking about strong muscles and very healthy body type.

You know, it's fascinating, I was just overseas last week in Australia and New Zealand, and I was watching the news. And they had this segment on "Life" magazine and the fact that they did this photo shoot on Marilyn Monroe years ago. And they didn't release these photos of her lifting weights because they thought that it would be unfeminine. And now they're just releasing them.

And the reality is, if you think of Marilyn Monroe, I mean, she lifted weights to have her beautiful, feminine body. And I think it's -- I wish they had come out, these photos had come out, you know, two or three decades ago because I think that the strengthening exercises would have caught on much earlier because they are very feminine.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Miriam Nelson. She's the associate chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University where she is studying the health benefits of strength training. Her new book is called "Strong Women Stay Slim."

What do you want to look at next in your research? Or what are you looking at right now that you can tell us about?

NELSON: Right now, what I've been looking at and what our laboratory has been really focusing on is a lot of different chronic disease states and how strengthening exercises affect them.

One study that is just finishing up is with strengthening exercises and osteoarthritis of the knee. A lot of individuals, especially overweight individuals, have knee pain and problems with their knee, with arthritis. We've seen that they do really well with the strength training.

One of the other studies, fascinating studies, one with a colleague of mine, Ronan Rubinov (ph), who is the chief of our lab, with AIDS patients. Classic syndrome with AIDS is that they're losing muscle, they're wasting away. And they're becoming very weak. And we're seeing real reversals in the loss of the muscle. They're gaining muscle back. They're getting very strong.

Also with kidney disease and congestive heart failure in women. A lot of these diseases people are losing muscle. They're becoming weak. And it causes a lot of disability.

So it's been fascinating to be working with a lot of different groups where you wouldn't think strength training would be the ideal exercise for them. But they're doing really, really well an thriving.

GROSS: I'm wondering if you've done any research on the connection between fitness and depression or exhaustion?

NELSON: Yes, another study that was done in our laboratory was with individuals -- this was with men and women who are clinically depressed. And this study came out of the fact that anecdotally we were seeing that a lot of people who were depressed weren't depressed after strength training.

In this particular study, it was randomized control design. Individuals, the 16 individuals who were randomized to the strength training group, 14 out of the 16 at the end of the study no longer met the clinical criteria for depression. These effects were every bit as powerful as you see with pharmacologic agents for depression. But there are no side effects.

You know, you were seeing other health benefits with the strengthening exercises as well as the changes in depression. And I think that's one of the important facts about strength training as well as physical activity in general is you have very few side effects. But you're affecting many different disease states. You're affecting emotional well-being. You're affecting sleep. Individuals who are active sleep better.

So there is this -- not to be trendy -- but there is this real mind/body connection to help make an individual much healthier for a long period of time.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.

NELSON: Thank you so much for having me.

GROSS: Miriam Nelson is the associate chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the Tufts University Center on Aging. Her new book is called "Strong Women Stay Slim."

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest:
High: Miriam Nelson is the associate chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the Tufts University Center on Aging. Her new book is called "Strong Women Stay Slim."
Spec: Women; Health and Medicine; Strong Women Stay Slim

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1998 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1998 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Strong Women Stay Slim
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.