Rising Above Challenges to Inspire Greatness with Cody Crowley Part 1

The training that it was was actually deeper and deeper and deeper awareness of myself. Yeah. I would be aware at any microsecond that I would spend a tiny bit of energy and I would notice just so many things about them. And it became, you're walking a very fine line of life or death. But it became like this spiritual thing that showed me so much about myself that you can literally get through anything 100%. And then after that, I got hired by over 30 world champions to help get them ready for fights.

All right, Cody, so I am so excited to have you here. You know, I've had the pleasure and it has been a true pleasure of being part of a lot of the entertainment that you've brought to this community, the excitement that you've brought to the world stage. I've been an admirer of all the great things that you've been doing for so long. And fortunately, we just happened to bump into each other at the gym the other day, which I was like, yes, of all places. Yeah. Yeah. I was not training on the things that you were training on because you're very much more an elite athlete, I'm told. I'm not an athlete, by the way, but that's okay.

Hold that.

That's okay. Well, you know, when I'm an accountant, you get the. You're not an athlete. That's okay. I can take that. I'm my own champion of sorts. But it's been absolute pleasure to. To see you and continue to grow and evolve. And I know there's been a lot that's been sort of going on for many years. You've got a wonderful story, and I truly believe the greatest is yet to be achieved. But I would love for you to maybe kick off with, you know, how you got started in the boxing world and what that looked like.

First of all, thank you. Yeah. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for you and others in the city just like you, the support. I took a very different route in the boxing game. Yeah. I was signed to big promoters. And then I went after working with Floyd and hearing about doing my own promotional company and getting the grassroots in really deep. Yeah. That means more. You can't buy fans, right? You can't buy support. Yeah. I remember my second pro fight at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas. An HBO card. Who? I forget the two headliners. Yeah. But I had the most people at the weigh in. There was like fit 50. It was a smaller way in the day before. Yeah. But 50 Cody Crowley T shirts, maybe 100 people in the stands that flew in and that support was stronger and deeper than these people who have fans coming in just because they know them through Instagram or Facebook. And that was one of the things that even as Sam Rockman, two time heavyweight champion of the world, when he was here in Peterborough for the very. I remember.

Yes.

He's been in arenas that are just jam packed with people and he said that arena that night was actually the loudest that I felt. Not that I heard, but I felt.

Yeah.

And it was like 4,000 people, which isn't much. Oh, what Packed out together in that heart space. Yeah. Of. You know what it's like coming from a. Like living in a small town. Yep. Right. And how much people lock arms and how much love we give.

For sure. Very generous community.

Treat each other like family. Julia, that door open. Don't mind if someone came in your house and grabbed some milk that day. Yeah. Right. That type of love.

If somebody walks in my house and grabs milk. We're not. We're not good. Ask first. Yeah.

But so I was just. I was very grateful and blown away by the support and that's why I'm here today, because of you. Yeah. Thank you.

Oh, hey, man. I would say that my contribution to anything you've done is small to. To non existent. But I guarantee you, where you're going, I want to be the number one guy behind you. So share with me a little bit and. And with our audience of entrepreneurs and you know, high performance people. How did you get into the boxing world? How did this start for you?

I was not very high performance, believe it or not. So it's crazy. People will look at. At me today fighting and they'll be like, oh, his endurance. He can just keep going. This must just be second nature. It's genetics.

I would say that people would say that.

Right. But I actually was non athletic.

I.

One of the childhood memories that's still kind of ingrained in me is wearing a T shirt in the pool because of how insecure I felt of my man boobs and how out of shape I was for a little kid.

Yeah. And I can confirm that that is no longer the case. I know.

Not the case anymore.

I don't know that you have. What's your body fat composition right now? Like zero point?

Oh, probably 10 or.

Okay. All right, all right, all right.

I'm trying to be healthy. Yeah. I got.

Yeah.

So I. I was never that guy. And that was the state of the body now. The state of the being inside was someone who had no confidence and no self esteem. The second I would get the puck in hockey, someone pass it to me, I would shoot that thing so fast because that means people are looking at me.

Yeah.

And I didn't want the attention on me. Yeah. But my dad, he's the one who brought it up to me one day and he's like, there's a. I came across a kickboxing gin. And I think it would be really good for you to learn structure in a workout, get some off season training in so you can be stronger. You're lacking in hockey. You can come next season stronger than everybody. Yeah. And I also think that, you know, he's in his mind, he's like, I don't want my son to have man boobs too. Right. Like, let's, let's, let's get her.

And, and like every Canadian dad, let's toughen you up a little bit.

Yeah, let's toughen. Let's tough. That was it. He threw me in to get hit and beat up. Yeah. And toughen up. Yeah. So I was like, shoot, all right, I'll do it. I walked in there, I was so terrified. Just like, even my very first motocross race as a little kid, my dad put me in everything. I remember being on the starting line, peeing my pants at 7 years old, just from all the noise of the other people and that competition feeling. Yeah. There's seven year old kids looking at me like, and, and about to go. Right. And I'm like, I want nothing to do with this. So when he invited me into the kickboxing, I was like, I don't know, this ain't gonna work. But every day I showed up, I started to be able to move a little bit better in my body. And then a couple weeks go by, especially when we're young, things move faster.

Oh, of course.

Yeah. A day can be a week feel like, and all of a sudden a couple weeks go by. And now in gym class in elementary school, how would I go from, like, not being good to the best of everything in just a couple of weeks? Maybe it was a month or two. I don't know.

Yeah, a couple years. Whatever it was. Yeah, whatever.

But I noticed right away people started treating me differently and that made me see myself differently. So right there I was like, shoot, maybe I'll do something with this. And there was a kickboxing tournament coming up and I said, I'm going to go do it.

So really you were seeing, you know, the discipline, the, the hard work and everything was starting to Pay off. And it was impacting your the rest of your life.

Yeah. Got it.

Not only me, confidence and in my.

External reality, people like, be more open and showing me more respect. Yeah. And so my whole entire elementary class basically knew that I had this fight this weekend. Right. And I went there. Little did I know it was a karate slash kickboxing tournament. Okay. And 14 and under is co ed.

So you had some big, tall, strong girls that were out there that had matured before you.

Yes. I got told that it's my turn to fight. So I get up there, I'm standing, I look across, and there's a little girl with like a purple belt or belt on. And I just knew this is not going to be good for me. And when the bell rang, she lifted her leg, went across my face, and I lost my very first fight to a girl. So now I have to go back to school.

Did you say your entire school came to watch this?

No, no. Like, oh, I telling them.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

That was your first mistake. You should have never said that.

Right. Um. But those little egos. Right. I wanted people to think something of this is what I do in after class. Yeah.

Yeah.

And I had to go back there with not the shame of losing. The shame of losing to a female.

Right.

And that was a very tough pill to swallow. Yeah. And that was one of the moments where in my life I said that I will become the baddest mother effer on this planet because I do never want to feel this amount of shame.

Interesting.

Ever again in my life.

Wow.

I don't want.

That's a pretty big defining moment.

I don't want to feel embarrassment. All I wanted, deep down was acceptance. Yep. So that just. That creates a monster. I would just lock myself in the garage, just train for hours. I remember my mom would drop me off. I'd be going. I would wake up in the morning, live in town of my grandma's because she's closer to the Y. So I could go to the Y from 5 to 7 to then go get dropped off at high school. And then my mom come pick me up from high school at 10, drop me off at the gym till 12, then bring me back to high school to then pick me up at 3 o' clock to then drive me to Ajax or wherever to go. Trained. Yeah. And it just became this obsession. And I knew that's when that whole champion mindset came in where it was like this ability to close off the external world. Yeah. I closed off everything. And I just had these blinders On, I remember my mom, my mom, dad, I went months and they're like, are you ever gonna ha, like you wanna go hang out with a friend? Are you doing anything this weekend? And I was like, no. School, teachers, counselors. All right, graduation next year, we need to get these classes in order. What are you doing for college? I ain't going to college. I'm going to be a professional fighter. Especially in Peterborough.

They're like, no, yeah, we've never had a professional fighter before.

Like go to. Do you want to go do accounting? You want to learn this? And I was like, no, there's something inside me that I just know I can go and do do it. I can do anything. But wasn't that I could be this greater fighter, but it was just this feeling inside of myself that I know I can do anything. Yeah, it's the same thing that's in anybody else and in, in people who.

Want to be the best in the world.

Yeah, right.

If you want to be the best in the world. I actually had Chris Bumstead, I don't know, bodybuilding champion, Mr. Olympia.

Yeah.

He was on the podcast and talked to seven times, six time Mr. Olympia. It's like it takes, you need to be dedicated, you need to be obsessed. If you want to be the best in the world in something, you've got to forget about everything else.

Yeah.

And you got to be obsessed.

And that's what I was. Yeah, completely obsessed. All throughout high school, I sometimes went to parties, but mostly it was just all business, right. Straight training. And then the second I graduated, remind you, my fifth, my amateur record was 50, 50 out of 60 something fights, I only won 30 something.

Interesting.

So it's not like, oh, this is a hot prospect coming up or anything like this. This is just a kid in the gym and in my mind I'm, I'm in Vegas, I'm gonna be this world champion. And the day I graduated, luckily, thankfully enough, my dad is so supportive. He's like, you want to go chase this dream? I'll support you. Right before graduation, actually I was training at the Tap out training center. You know, Tap out clothes. Yep. Big mma. So I was training there and a guy, the boxing coach, invited me to come live with him. I did graduate and he would take me on, he would train me and everything like that. So the day I graduated, I booked a one way trip down there and I only lasted six months. I got my face beat in every single day. Now you're talking 50, 50 record in Canada, where Canada does not actually really Exist in the boxing world. Yeah. Now you're going to the fight capital of the world to try and compete. It's not even like check. Comparing check checkers to chess.

Yeah.

It's two total, total different things. Yeah. And after about six months of wanting to come home every day and crying and just. I didn't have a support system there. I didn't. It just wasn't what I needed or I wasn't strong enough at the time. And I came home finally. My mom booked me a ticket home and there I started going downhill because I knew I came back to the small town and all my friends were. Because they.

Comfort food.

Yes. But. But at the same time, it's kind of like a sour taste in my mouth because they're all like, well, you were supposed to be something big. What are you doing now you're back here with us kind of thing. Right. And I'm like, I see everyone. Not that I don't like what you're doing, but that feeling inside, this fire, it can't grow to what it's supposed to be doing. That. Yeah. Or that. So I kind of sat and just recalibrated thinking things, started partying a bit. But I knew I'm gonna go. I just don't know when what's gonna wake me.

You still had that inside you?

Yes.

I want this.

Yes. Yeah. And then I met a girl at a bar one night and Taylor. And we just, we headed off and then she's like, you're. What are you doing? Like, you don't work, don't have a job. It's been three or four weeks sitting there. And I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. She's like, well, you used to be a fighter. Why don't you fight again? I'll support you. Da, da da. So literally just one night, I told my parents, I'm like, we're gonna go, we're gonna work for a couple months, save up money, and then we're going. And me and her went on this mission, a 10 year game plan to go down there. And I'd go from 00 to a world champion. And when I first went down there, my coach that I have now today, even Cason, who brought me from 0 to 22 0, he would not train me, really refused to train me. This time when I went back, I was still going through old management at the Topo training center. Yeah. And they just basically dropped me off at Ian's doorstep saying, try this guy out. We have, you know, all these trainers on tap here, try this guy. You don't like it, we move you here, right? That's the management's job. And I showed up there and Ian was training these slick fighters that were. Had a lot of talent and all I had was this raw will and desire to win. Zero skill, Ma. Matter of fact, me and IBN doing pads, I. I'd be more likely to hit myself with a punch, I guess.

Hoping you're not going to hit me with a punch in there.

But he's like, he told my manager the first day, he goes, if you've invested a penny, get it back. Just ignore this kid. But I kept showing up every single day. All of a sudden, three or four months went by and I'm, I was the first one to the gym, last one to leave. And I had all the conditioning beep, beep than these guys from. That's how I used to train back home. Yeah, conditioning. No, no skill. Yes. Work to the battle. But then I started to learn some skill and all of a sudden I started work blasting these guys, just beating them. And it kind of showed IBN like, oh, shoot, he had a tool that these guys might not actually have. He's just lacking the skill set. And skill set can always be learned. Yeah, but it's the will inside of them and that's what he bet on. And then we went from 0 and oh to 22 and oh. And so the greatest, some of the greatest fighters after another. I boxed Floyd Mayweather, thanks to ibn. He, they called him up when he was fighting Manny Pacquiao for the biggest boxing fight, cash fight of this, of history.

Yeah.

At the time. And Edmund goes, yeah, yeah, I got a guy, don't worry, I'll send him down. Floyd sparring manager called him, right? He said, yeah, I'll send him down for a training camp. And they were looking for like a 5, 6, 140 pound dude. Yeah, 5 10.

Yeah.

Out of camp, out of shape. I'm 170. Yeah. So when I showed up there, Boza just looks at me and he goes, nah, nah, this isn't gonna work, daddy. So I was like, well, what do I do? So I went and sat in the corner for two weeks. I showed up every day and just sat in the corner and waited for Floyd to come. And then they would all train and I would still just sit there. And then one day, Floyd came in late. Normally he'd come in around three. Everyone on payroll had to be there at three. But when he shows up, he shows up. Yeah, it's 6pm one night, we're all in there for three hours later. I'm not getting paid, though. I'm just here. Yeah, let me be here. And he was very angry. I don't know what he was dealing with or got caught up in. Yeah. But I heard people say, yo, whoever, I feel bad for who's going in the ring when Floyd gets here. He just called, he's on the way. Oh. And we're hidden in the corner and they say, yo, Canada, you're up. And I was like, what?

Wait, after you just say Floyd's mad. Yes.

Yeah. I was like, me. And no. No one knew my names. Right? Right. And so I was like, shoot. Okay. And I'm putting on my wraps and I'm trying to warm up and I'm like, what is going on? Then I get in the ring and I look across and there's Floyd Mayweather. And then his dad, Floyd Senior, the greatest fighter. And his dad, the greatest trainer now Roger. And then I look back, and at the time, it was my friend Chef Mark, who I love, who was just. He loved being in the gyms and he would help me out whenever he can. And I'm like, I got. I got a chef to back me up right now who suggests, if you're.

Hungry after this would be great.

But yeah, then I look back and Mariah Carey sitting down there. All these types of people. Yeah, what am I gonna do? Because I can't fight. Really? I only had two pro fights at the time. Those. I faked it. Basically, like, that confidence still wasn't there. Right. Yeah. I would just wheel and at work, people. And I remember box and Floyd and he said, no rounds. No rounds. So you just be out to the cell. The officer gets knocked out. Yeah, right. Yeah. So which is playing to your strength. Yeah. Game, right. So I remember I dumped my load very quickly, gassed 10 minutes into it, and I had my very first out of body experience where time froze. I got sucked up and I'm standing above the rain and I'm just like, what the wow is going on? Yeah. And I'm like, do you really want to be here right now, Cody? Like, seriously, do you want to be here? You can pack up and go, but stay here and keep going. And that's. That's what a champion is. He does not give up. Yep. I just. And then I blinked. I kept going. 36 minutes later, no, 36 minutes later, Floyd just looks at me and drops his hands and gives me a fist pump and drops down, rolls out and Starts hitting the bag, and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm alive. Thank God. Yeah. Yeah. And then ever since then, I was there for the whole rest of camp, and every time I boxed him, we would box either 12 rounds or no clock and just go, go, go. He was using me there for the conditioning. Yeah. Even one point, I was still training for fights, my own fight, at the same time. Right. And one time, he. I don't know. He knows what everyone's doing in the gym. Right. And all week, he didn't actually use me for sparring. And so I've been like, cody, I need to kill you today. Like, I need to. We got a fight in a couple weeks, right?

Yeah.

So three hours in the gym. Oh, yeah. Beat me up. Can't hardly move. I go pick up Taylor, go to. Take her to the mall to go grab a smoothie. We're in line, and the phone rings. But be at the gym in 20 minutes. Yeah. It's burn time. Spawned. I can't even move. So now I got to go in. And you have to survive against one of the greatest. When you have zero left in your battery, how do you survive? Yeah. And I did. And that was one of those things that Ian kept actually doing where he would make me go run eight miles. Then all of a sudden, when I come back and I'm dead tired, he would go and say, oh, Devin Haney called, and they want some work or another world champion.

Right?

Yeah.

So the whole strap them on and let's go.

Yeah. But the whole. Now we're talking tired, like you can't stand up.

Yeah.

Now I'm telling you to go do this. Yeah. So the training that it was was actually deeper and deeper and deeper awareness of myself. Yeah. I would be aware at any microsecond that I would spend a tiny bit of energy, and I would notice just so many things about them. And it became. You're walking a very fine line of life or death. Right. But it. It. It became like this spiritual thing that showed me so much about myself that you can literally get through anything 100%. And then after that, I got hired by over 30 world champions to help get them ready for fights. One time, went over to Russia. Well, I got brought over to Russia two times to help Edward Chofi, the IBF champion at the time. That time, I traveled for 36 hours on a plane, didn't sleep for two nights. Basically, get off the plane. Get off the plane. No. Get in a car, drive four hours to the Olympic training center, get out. Get guards, guns get out. Then they show me my bunkie, and I get to my bunkie and I just put my feet up and lay down. I haven't slept in three days. And they say, knock on the door, you're going to spar in 20 minutes. And I'm the only sparring partner that they brought in because I know I haven't slept for two days. And now a champion says you got to go box 12 rounds, not just. And then you do that. And they go, all right, I'll see you tomorrow. Wait, you bought. You guys box back to back days here? We don't do that in America. Back to back days. And I'm the only spar partner that week. I went 12, 12, 12, 12, 12,. Four, five days straight as three and zero. Four round fighter. Yeah. So I was learning all this stuff on the job, which was very, very cool. And because I was. I went that different way. Self promoted. I left Top Rank, which was the biggest promoter at the time with only two fights because I like Cody. They. They want you to this the business side of it. Now here you go fighting a six and old dude who brings in 50,000 ticket sales hometown every time here, D. You're just not ready for that. So if we leave them and do it on our own timing, I believe you'll become champion. But right now, you don't have the skill to compete at an even level. Right. So that's why I went and I was like, okay, we start our own promotional company. We had fans, we came back here, we went kind of all over doing it.

And what was the name of the promotional company? I know.

Yeah, yeah. Triple C Promotions. Yeah.

Which was cool, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of felt like I had control for the first time in my life where I could kind of do what I wanted to do, which was very nice. But that got to a certain point where I could only bring in so much revenue. And for the people that I'm trying to fight and climb. Right.

You didn't have the connections.

It wouldn't match. But then one of the last fights that. The last one we did here, we partnered up with UFC Dana White. When I first met him at 16 years old, that was when me and my dad went down for the UFC fight. Yeah. I snuck into the World MMA Train or World MMA Awards that were going on at the time, and I ran up to him. I'm like, dana, I got an idea. I got an idea. He's like, what, kid? I was like, you need to have an Amateur Ultimate Fighter TV show for kids like me, under 18, the Next Generation, we need it. And he laughed and said, come back and see me when you're older. And then blink. Ten years later, there I am at a 17 and no undefeated fighter with my own promotional company sitting at the table doing a deal with him where he gave us, he gave us some cash to use for the show to get a better opponent for sure. But then it was, it got to that point where business again. Yeah. We couldn't quite keep sustaining it unless we did something else. But that very last fight, the one.

That I'm here, here, it was so good.

The very last fight. It shouldn't have happened Tuesday. Monday morning, right? I'm hitting six minute miles, hitting pads Tuesday. Oh. And I already knew, it's happening again. I've been fighting sick for five or six years prior to this. I was like, oh, shoot, it's happening again. It's happening again. All of a sudden, Wednesday comes and I can't do one 3 minute round of shadow boxing. I literally can't move my arms. The lupus autoimmune. And I still remember my mom coming in on Saturday to hug me, kiss me good luck. I love you so much. Go do your thing. And I'm crying because I can't stand up. And I have all these people in my hometown that are going to judge, that are going to whatever. I have this obligations and this fulfillment that I feel like I need to provide for them and also myself, but I can't stand up right now. Yeah. And I would slam to 3,000 milligrams of caffeine and go and box 36 minutes. And after that last one, that's when I said, I will never, ever fight again until I understand what's happening to my body. Right? And that started a three month kind of downward spiral. I didn't leave bed, I got super depressed, all sorts of stuff at the same time. My wife's like, hey, I'm getting, you know, immigration and all this stuff. And me and her, all of a sudden, the next week we get married and I'm literally at my wedding and I'm pooping blood and basically no doctors could really help me get better. But when it all came down to it, I had fatty liver, autoimmune, lupus, ibs, poop and blood. Adrenals going down, kidneys going down, neurological issues.

Is that just. Is that from fighting and getting your organs hit?

So no. Really? Really, that. So all that happened. And then one night I just had this experience is I'm not religious. I never had a connection with God. But something changed my life that night. And it showed me all the misalignments in my body and how I caused it. Showed me how I caused them. And I scrolled back and look through and a decade long of eating like an athlete eats chicken of rice six times a day and having all my supplements. Yeah, but I was having all these artificial colors, sweeteners, dyes from all the products I was taking as well, all the food. And eventually like aspartame, like what that does to your nerves. It's crazy if people don't realize it. And no doctors could help me with these things. They could label it, but they couldn't cure it. And then I started to see other things about myself that happened throughout my whole life that I kind of know. Don't remember that. Don't remember that. And one of them was a childhood experience. And that was the moment where I just closed off from everybody and really said that I would be one of the baddest motherfuckers on the planet because I wanted to be accepted. That's it. All I wanted to be was accepted and loved and not filled with shame.

So you felt this at that time or when you were younger?

No. So during insight, right? Yeah, yeah, I seen that my. Very. Well, it was my very first sexual experience as a kid. You know, kids just playing forever was with another male. And then there's an older kid on the street, not really old, a year or two, whatever. Right. And then I went somewhere else and I guess maybe I was trying to do something like that again. And I got called gay. And that from that moment, Cody never came out. And I said that I'll become the greatest fighter on the world because then I will feel accepted. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So that's why all these years, years of, like, my hand being raised and I couldn't make it out. Why am I still depressed? Why am I still sad? Why don't I feel some fulfillment? Yeah, it's because that whole entire career.

Was just a mask for sure, of acceptance. But it wasn't real acceptance.

It wasn't really who I am. Yeah, I don't want to just go and beat these dudes up. I put my whole life in it. I miss best friends birthdays, I missed best friends funerals.

It is a lot.

And all of that for something that I never truly, truly wanted to do. Yeah. And that's so. That's another thing I seen. And all of a sudden I started getting into a plant based diet, which then led to more about just whole Foods. Got into breath, work, meditation, yoga. Within three to four months, all those diseases were dormant.