I tried boxing with NO experience - it changed my LIFE forever

On paper, my life looked great. My business was growing, my relationships were solid, my family was healthy. But inside, I felt stuck. Every day started to feel the same, like I was watching my own life on repeat. And I couldn't shake this thought. I knew I needed to break the pattern. That's when I came across this ancient Japanese concept called the misogi, a ritual cleansing, purifying yourself through physical challenge or hardship. Jesse Itzler redefined it for modern life. 'Once a year, do one thing so hard that it changes how you see yourself. Something with a real chance of failure. Something that forces you to confront who you are when it hurts.' I remember seeing that and thinking, 'I need my misogi.' Something that terrified me. So I signed up for a USA-sanctioned boxing fight in front of 2,000 people. I'd never boxed before in my life, but that was the point. And so it began, the next 6 months of my life training for a boxing fight. The first few times I walked into the gym were challenging but fun. It humbled me and reminded me that although I had been in a few hockey fights on ice, I had minimal true boxing experience. For the first time in a while, I had something new to obsess over. Then came my first sparring day. The thing about learning to box is if you just hit bags and pads, you feel like the man because no one's hitting you back. I learned the hard way that's not reality. The first thing my coach told me before my first round, "Don't think, just move." 30 seconds in, boom, I got punched straight in the face. My ego, my plan, my breath, gone. And in that split second, I finally understood what Mike Tyson meant when he said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." You can't truly relate to that quote until you live it. Joey said something at the end of that session that just like clicked in my head. The more aware you become, the worse you are. It's like when you don't actually understand the sport, you just think you're good at it. When you start to become aware of everything, you realize how bad you actually are. After that day, I started over. I realized this wasn't about power. It was about patience. I found solitude in the structure. I played hockey for 20 years. Routine was where I'd always found my peace. The discipline, the quiet mornings, the sacrifices, they grounded me. I started to find that same happy place with boxing. Although the fear never went away, every time I sparred, I had the intrusive thoughts about getting rocked again, or maybe worse. But I stopped running from that anxiety. I started embracing it. That's the lesson boxing taught me that business never could. Getting comfortable Being comfortable in the uncomfortable is a superpower. I was thinking about yesterday and I spent like 2 and a half hours at the gym, um, and got home at like 10 o'clock last night and then woke up this morning at 5 o'clock to now head back to the gym, which is where I'm going right now to get in like an hour workout. And I realized that when you have something to strive towards or have an obsession or a goal and have to commit more time to it, I find that you just end up being way more productive. I've spent more time working and training in the last 3 months than I have in a long time. And I feel like I've gotten more done in every aspect of my life, which feels overwhelming in some ways because I feel like I have zero free time anymore. But at the same token, I'm having so much fun with it, which probably explains why I'm able to get so much shit done, because you just want to get after it every single day. There's never a moment in my life that I was waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning like excited to go to the gym and then be in meetings until 8 o'clock at night, but we're doing it.

If in fact this is his final NBA All-Star Game, it's a perfect place to make a last statement. I put an opp in a chokehold, they snitchin' and broke, po-po'd us. Give me a quickie, she go-go's, 'cause I'm in a rush, JoJo. Okay.

If there's one thing that I've realized in the first couple months of training for the fight that I'm doing in November, I would say the number one thing is that it doesn't matter how many times you go to the gym, how good your cardio is, sparring and getting hit in the face is like the only thing that actually matters. I was just talking to the owner of the gym that I'm training at and he's like, dude, it doesn't matter how good a shape you're in, you need to be able to go in the ring and feel comfortable getting hit in the face and being able to breathe. So the next 3 months needs to be dedicated to just chilling the fuck out when I'm in there and trusting my instincts. Somewhere around month 3, something changed. I stopped flinching at every punch. I learned to stay calm even when chaos was right in front of me. That's when everything in my life started moving faster— business, relationships, clarity. Because once you learn to breathe through fear, everything else feels easier. Ben's gonna win this fight. He'll be all right. He's gonna make it harder than it needs to be though. He's definitely a guy that's gonna get under the lights and go Fucking crazy. I feel like I have two challenges right now in boxing training. One of them is obviously learning how to breathe, because when you get amped up or tired or tense, lactic acid buildup really crushes you. The second one is my legs burn out. Out. So I'm trying to do more high rep leg workouts to just build up the stamina on my legs because it's crazy how much your lower body burns from boxing. I'm still trying to figure out, but I only have 50 days before the fight, so doing everything that I can to basically build up the stamina on my lower body. 29 days out from the fight. I feel like I am as ready as I'm going to be. The last couple weeks now, it's just about staying healthy and continuing to fine-tune, but I feel like I'm battling mentally right now. It's getting monotonous and boring, which means I'm just ready to get in the ring and do this thing.

To the right. Load the choppers up, hit them on sight. Never turning back, I done been to hell and back. Me running out of guns? No, never heard of that. I ain't never ran from a gunfight. This is you and me, mano y mano, you damn right. Don't act like you don't know, know what I came for. Too late to turn back, this is the payback. Yeah, you take one, I take one. You can't hide, you can't run. Too late to turn back, This is the payback.

I now understand why training camps for boxing fights are just like a couple months sprints, because when you do the same shit over and over and over at like a very high level, it not only becomes physically draining, but it becomes extremely mentally draining and monotonous. And like, I'm having a lot of fun with it, but there's definitely been moments mentally where I'm like hitting a wall, just ready for the damn thing to happen. And it's funny too because I'm not even a pro fighter. Like, I was just a curious person who wanted to put myself through one training camp and one fight to see what it's all about. And I feel like the level of respect I have now for combat athletes is just so much higher because there's a level of adversity that you can't understand unless you put yourself through it.

If you know like I know, you don't want to step to this.

Okay, don't get too sweaty. I have no sweat left. It's gone. I'm literally out of it. I ran out.

This is it.

One more day. It's like 6 months for 6 minutes. What a crazy concept. Last training session. This is it. You ready? I feel like this is just like a swagger workout. Like, walk away, you're supposed to feel feel good about yourself. I'm ready though. It's crazy to wrap up your last workout. It's like now it's showtime.

That's it, that's it.

6 months in the books right there. One day out from the fight. I, I've mixed emotions right now. I feel like I'm like, I honestly, I genuinely have chills talking about it right now because I feel like I've put in so much work for this and I've had so many people support me, and it's just like surreal that it's happening, and I'm excited for it. See, it's people like that. I don't know if you actually heard that on the camera, but that's one of the trainers from the gym who's been watching me for like the last year and a half figure this whole sport out. I'm grateful, I'm excited, and I'm more than anything, curious to just see what I can push myself to do. I think, you know, it's all fun and games until you get into the ring in front of 2,000 people and there's no one there to save you. It's you versus one other person. It's like the most human thing you can do. So the work's already done. I just have to go collect my medal. We are finally at the last night before the fight. I am supposed to weigh like 185 tomorrow at 4:30 PM. So I figured— and I was this morning. But I figured that I would weigh myself after eating a shitload of food and fully clothed at the end of the night, knowing that this will be like my max weight tomorrow. So I'm just curious to see like how much wiggle room I'm gonna have tomorrow for the actual weigh-in. My guess right now, I probably have to weigh maybe over 190 if I'm wearing full clothing right after I ate and I'm hydrated. I'd say I'm probably over 190, but I have to be like 185 to 190 tomorrow. Yeah, 192.7. Take off the sweater, that's like a 3-pound sweater. That was like a 3-pound difference. That's crazy. It's fight day, baby. Ready? We are 12 hours away. First beautiful cup of coffee. Just another day at the office. I'm excited. If I were to say that I didn't have any nerves, it's not human. But I do genuinely believe in this notion of like the work is already done. It's like what you do leading up to it. It's too late now to change anything. So I think this is the fun part to basically just go out there and see what you have been doing for the last few months behind the scenes. And I'm extremely grateful because I've had so many people support me, like my friends and family. I've raised over $50,000 for cancer research. I have a ton of people in town. So I think tonight's going to be a movie. It's going to be a ton of fun. I think today's going to go by really slow because I have like 12 hours of waiting around, but I'm going to go to the gym for a little bit right now to just stretch out. And yeah, it's game day. My friends who are texting me like, "Oh, knock him out." Like, it's all like very aggressive. But the irony in that is I feel like from an emotional management perspective, for me today, it's like almost trying to minimize that and compartmentalize it and stay super calm because getting like all riled up and aggressive is like the worst thing you can do because then all the adrenaline just empties and you feel like you're in quicksand after 10 seconds of a fight. So I feel like right now it's just about like staying, staying light, calm, and having fun with it. Like I'm just going to go to the gym right now and jump rope and ride a bike and like fuck around for a little bit just to like feel good about myself.

What time do you go to sleep every night?

Like 9:30 to 10.

9:30, 10, right? So you're fighting like 9:30, 10.

Go home and take a nap.

Yeah, yeah. So you fight like 9:30, 10. That's when your body is naturally tired. You go to sleep at a time, right? So what you want to do is you want to be in bed so when you wake up like 5, 6, you can drink coffee.

It's like morning time. Ben, in 10 years when you look back on this video, what are you going to want to remember the most? 10 years from now when I look back at this footage, what am I going to want to remember the most? Probably that I didn't leave the ring with any regrets. I left it all out there. Don't want to be a bitch. That's it. That's what I would remember in 10 years.

Wow.

My trainer Charlie told me that the most important thing for today is to have fucking aura. So I'm just going to order an Uber Black. That's the only option. We can't go cheaper than that. That's the only way we're getting there tonight. Pick me up. It's game time, bitches. See you on the other side. You nervous? I got a little bit of nerves, but I'm ready. I think it's very human. So this is it, right now. This is the best advice my coach gave me: fucking Snickers bar 30 minutes before you go out.

Flying out of the blue corner, weighing in at 185 lbs, flying out of Gotham Gym and trained by Charlie Himmelstein, Ben Sharf, 5'10", 185, 29-year-old, trained by William Urena. Austin Kavanagh. Kovalev, 6 foot, 190 pounds for the 29-year-old. This is a big money fight in terms of money raised. Kovalev with a slight height advantage at 6 foot. Some wild swinging here, really. ¡Vamos! So this first round is gonna go to Ben Sharf. Landed some big blows. And your winner, fighting out of the blue corner, Ben Sharf! If you are what you say you are, a superstar, then have no fear, the camel's here and the man—

What happened been so many months before the actual fucking day. I put my life into this for 6 fucking months and I fucking buried him. So awesome, dude. I feel so many emotions right now. It's just crazy how, like, put in so much work and it just comes and goes so fast. And it's just so important to, like, enjoy the moment, just be in it. I got no words, honestly. It's just like seeing everyone supporting me, and I called the second round in. I called it. I just trusted my trainers and put in the work, man. That was one of the coolest moments of my life.

If you are what you say you are.

Without her, none of this shit happens. People don't know that. It's like the behind the scenes champion.

The crowd is here. He and the lights are on.

The dopamine right now from this experience of the boxing fight is so crazy. Like, it's so unhealthy but so beautiful at the same time. Like, I'm just so overwhelmed right now with the amount of people that I've had come forward to support me. When you sign up for a boxing fight, you dream about that moment of being under the lights in front of all your family and friends and like knocking someone out. I got to live that. Like, it's so crazy. The amount of messages I've been getting, I'm just like overflowing with gratitude. It really— it's hard to put into words. It's so surreal. It's like you train for so many months behind the scenes to be able to show up and you get one opportunity to do the damn thing. Yesterday was honestly one of the best days of my life. Hopefully it inspires someone to see that you really can just like put it all out there and live in the moment of something that you never thought was possible. I will cherish this forever, and I think the beautiful part of capturing this on camera is it's timeless. Like, I will have this for years to come. The raw reactions of my friends, everyone just being so thrilled for me and getting to relive this moment. It was fucking awesome. So thanks again to everyone that came out for me and showed up and supported me. I wouldn't be able to do this without all you guys. This wasn't about boxing. It was about doing something that scared me enough to wake me up again. Do something that scares you. Create a life worth living.

Is let you tell me to save my face.