A Lie, this Tuesday Night

A Lie, this Tuesday Night

Back in the late nineties, I spent a few years knocking around the boxing circuit.

My nickname was "Sweet Yellow Cornbread."

Sweet, because I was lovable, because I was a student of the sweet science, and also because I could punch hella hard with my fists. I was hell with my fists. I never got the whole "sweet" = "Badass" but, you know, I just went with it. I put more than a few men down for the count with my fists. I was a student of the game, but mostly I was a puncher.

And I was called Cornbread because I was white. Let's face it. There aren't a lot of white fighters, nowadays. It was what identified me to fans, more often than not. So, that's where you get "bread." I gotta lot of "Wonderbreads" and "Whitebreads" and "Cracker" and "Blue-Eyed Devil" as I came up through the ranks. But I was known behind the scenes for cracking a lot of stupid, corny jokes. Hence: Cornbread.

And I was called Yellow because I was cowardly. I spent much of the fight running from my opponent. Screaming. Hands in the air.

It was very much my strategy to see if I could wear my opponent down by having him run himself stupid chasing me.

It's tougher than you think. You try screaming and running around your room for three minutes straight, and see if you aren't worn out.

Then try it with a mouthguard, being chased by a 248 pound man who's trying to punch you to death.

However, my plans worked on more than one occasion, believe it or not.

I had a record of 16-1 up until my last fight. That one loss? I lost on purpose. All I'll say is that I got hit in the gut one good time, and I felt a turtle head poke out. I wasn't sure what had happened back there, but I decided to take a ten count, just to keep from crapping my pants live on pay per view.

Yeah. Good record. I retired after I was beaten into a coma by Vitaly Klitschko, in our bout in 1999.

It's why everything smells like vanilla to me.