AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 17
David Cadieux is a professional boxer from Canada, who competed in the heavyweight division.
Transcribed:
Hello there boxing fans around the world.
Thank you once again for joining us on the scoop featuring the champ old array.
We’Ve got a great episode lined up tonight.
We’Ve got a live guest waiting in the background in the green room, waiting to be interviewed and uh.
Here we go i’ll, leave it in your hands.
Champ who do we got cheers um? It’S nothing shy of an absolute honor uh to get to interview this guy.
I haven’t seen this guy in like going 14 years 14 years, it’s been since i’ve actually laid eyes on this cat um.
We, he two-time uh national champion as the amateur super heavyweight champion, um former canadian heavyweight champion.
Also he is the fighter that delivered me.
My first loss as a pro and yet we’re friends um.
It brings me great joy and to introduce today, mr david cadill.
How are you all right? Hey, hi, champ, it’s uh hi, graham, it’s an honor for me too, to be here on the show tonight.
No, thank you very good.
Thank you.
It was uh like we’re talking.
I was getting carried away in the green room, just uh reminiscing about yesteryear and whatnot um, but you know what i’ll i’ll digress.
First and foremost, how are you, how is life? How is life post boxing well uh, i retired after my loss to you in 208 and and i was a little desperate and i got a little down.
You know when you’re such on a high as a heavyweight champion canadian heavyweight champion and then you lose and and you re reconstruct your life.
So that’s what i made i i went back to school university level.
I got my university degree uh in communications, and now i work for my the city where i live in charlene, again, city very happy.
The kids are going well and even with the coveted thing you know, i i’m trying to stay healthy and and in the shape good for you.
How? How how are you you’re, good nice to see you? I i can’t complain.
Um things.
The whole world is upside down, there’s like um, while you’re in in recreation.
Um gyms here are completely shut down and i teach boxing also compete and stuff, but i teach so my income is is flat line, i’m not doing anything right now, but um outside that same thing.
You know trying to stay healthy, try to stay active um.
It’S the only thing.
That’S going to keep me sane, you know, yeah only thing is that it’s going to keep you sane yeah, i’m glad to hear this that you’re still you know on the on the sports on the boxing scene, very happy to see that.
Actually, i was supposed to have a fight the day that the lockdown began, the first lockdown um march 14th.
Last year i had driven out to moncton new brunswick 17 hours to muntin new brunswick.
Oh yeah got out of my car unloaded.
My car took my dog for a walk around the block at my friend’s place and when i get came back, he said yeah the fight’s cancelled um, the ministry of health has cancelled all gatherings of 100 people or more.
They couldn’t have told me 24 hours earlier and i would stay home, but okay, it was yeah, that’s part of the game yeah but yeah.
Sadly, but yeah you’re right.
How did you get into boxing? I got in boxing yeah.
You know a good question.
I i when i was a kid i i did judo for like six or seven years that at 16 years old i began boxing just because of interest and to maybe to uh because of a lack of self-confidence, and i i was i saw boxing at at This time you know in the beginning of the 90s as a boxing as a way to construct in a way to improve myself so uh on and on i i.
I got two losses: uh in my first fights in the amateurs uh, but then i i began to want to win then uh golden gloves, quebec, i’m i live in quebec, uh, obviously, obviously golden love in quebec and then i i you know suddenly after two years Or three years i will i work like woke up in the nationals, canadian amanda nationals on the senior level uh with shane hinton in front of me uh.
He was the defendant defending from alberta.
He he was the defending uh canadian champ at this time.
So i experimented uh real punches fast hands and you know he was.
He was a tough one and then a couple of defeats, but i in the 2000s yeah 2001 the olympic cycle of 2000 to 2004.
I was on the on the olympic national team and got a few like maybe a 20 or 30 international fights.
Did you really see? Okay? So you i remember in 2004, the olympic year, all i heard about, was there’s a big tall.
Heavy uh super heavyweight from quebec.
Just like me and i was coming out.
I had just won ontario, so yeah.
I was expecting to see you only to get there.
It was a bunch of crickets guys uh bermane stravern berman yeah.
He was on the 91 kilos category per man.
I beat up uh steve gallagher from ontario in like in 2002 or preparing for the olympics, but never did.
I did didn’t class didn’t classify for the olympic games in 2004.
.
Yeah, i didn’t say i didn’t see you there for me: yeah um, steve gallinger, for you me i i yeah.
I had two fights in the 2002 and three uh against steve gallagher.
He beat me on.
He got a decision in the still in the amateurs uh in my hometown, 12 year and again, canadian champion championships and then a year later, i i beat him up uh and i believe it was the insania ontario.
Oh, it was uh yeah, so i qualified.
So i i made my you know: i made my way on the national teams team, canada number two and then and then the number one you know after one year or two of uh in and out and then there was patrice lerner on the patrizler, a big Heavyweight from here from from the mauricio showing again quebec, where i live now, coincidentally, patrice was on the national team.
That was surprising because he was no big, big guy, not very fast in on the national amateur team that was surprising yeah.
How many fights did you and patrice have? I had patrice and i fought like nine times in the amateurs.
That’S incredible.
He won five out of nine.
You know i was the guy from twitch.
He was a guy from charlene gandon, it’s like 40 kilometers, 40 kilometers between the city.
So there was a reality revolver between two big heavyweight, i’m six foot, six.
He was six foot four, but two hundred and seventy seventy seventy five yeah yeah it was.
He was strong, so uh yeah for for the people for the boxing fans.
That was, you know, for an amateur and a matter card.
That was a fight.
You know heavyweight fights, it’s always spectacular, we’re not heavyweights we’re not the the finest ones but uh, not the finest one, but you know, but it it.
It’S spectacular real power yeah and i learned a lot with patrice that is was he was aspiring partner for like 10 years? You know we knew each other uh very well, so in the pros in 206, i i beat him.
He was the defending champion on the pros here in troy and uganda, yeah, uh and uh.
You know i prepared that’s ironic.
I have to tell you this story for patricia who was a big uh right-handed puncher.
I i went to prepare in vegas in las vegas, with chris byrd, chris ben, who was southpaw small heavyweight champion of the world, but you know he was 208 and i was fighting.
I was preparing for patrick slater, who was 265, maybe 270 pounds, and chris bird told me david you all you have to do.
You know his move.
He was boxing champion moving, you know defensive.
That was all yeah now, but what’s ironic here is uh.
Chris byrd was exactly uh, the opposite, the reverse.
You know of what i was looking for for a sparring partner, but i was a sparring partner.
He was a champ, so i learned a lot for one month in vegas in may uh april and may uh 2006 and then on the 12th of may i i i was in the ring with patrice and won the canadian pro championship defending yeah defending the last.
The next year and 207 against him and then losing to you on my last fight on the professionals yeah that fight may 12 2006 was arguably the most incredible um display of boxing i’ve seen uh yeah.
You were there in canada.
It was we came in because i was patrice’s sparring partner and yeah.
That’S right.
He kept telling me that your footwork wasn’t great.
What you’re gon na do is your your fast hands and you throw a lot of straight punches.
I said.
Well then, i understand why they used me, but i’m not gon na stand there and i i didn’t stand there and let patrice just maul me.
So i just moved.
I moved a lot and i punished him from the outside and i was i was concerned from him.
He was confident like this.
He knew him.
You guys had so many fights against each other.
He knew you.
He was confident he was like.
No, i’m ready.
I’M ready for this, we go into the fight.
Patrice was when, when i saw patrice the last two rounds him – and i did, he turned it on like like he was angry or something, and he came after me, and i said, okay, that guy is going to walk through you and lo and behold.
I’Ve never seen, i call it the kadu triple hook, those hooks that you were landing on him.
You just had to feel sorry for him um.
I just i.
I still couldn’t believe what i saw, because that that david wasn’t the david that i saw when you and i fought the first time when you got the death.
That was not the same david.
You were so much better this time and so much more prepared – and i said okay, so that’s what it looks like that’s what, when it comes to becoming a canadian champ, that’s what you have to get to because you were.
You were on point.
You were amazing that day it was your day and you just had to feel sorry for patrice, that’s kind words, uh champ uh.
I appreciate much and i have to uh.
You know former boxers uh uh, giving compliments, but i have to pay.
You tribute patrice and you you you also uh, were working in champion when i, when i wa, i was in the ring with you on on 207.
In my hometown twilight defining defending the title.
You came out of the dressing room like a roaring lion.
I don’t know it was you know how it was intimidating.
You know what you described of me against patrice on my window.
Then i felt you know it’s like changing the changing the the changing the flame.
You know transferring the flame because i i wasn’t at the same level that night anyone yeah.
So that’s that’s that’s boxing at the championship level.
You have to be on the on the peaking level.
No, i don’t know, and again, even that day i had to uh.
I have to thank you for that, because, at the end of the day, i’d already experienced a loss to you by that point in time yeah, and i knew that i had.
I had three, i think, three months to get ready for that fight and i’ve never trained so hard even still to this day.
Actually, that’s not true recently, but prior to recently, i’ve never trained in my whole career as hard as i did for that fun.
To get that canadian title um, if i didn’t think that there was a huge man in front of me, i would have taken the fight a hell of a lot easier um getting ready for that fight.
I was so nervous.
I was so nervous.
I had nobody to spar with that.
Look like you.
I sparked with do you know a fighter by the name of nevin piketch nope.
Oh, you know um arthur benkowski, yeah, art binkowski.
I know yeah.
I fought him twice.
Those guys are not six foot.
Six.
Is that what you mean yeah and that’s all i had and that’s all i had so.
I was actually really concerned as to what my timing was gon na look like longer punches whether or not you’re going to be light on your feet.
I don’t know, i don’t know and i blew through my sparring well their sparring partners i blow through them easy, but then the fight’s a real thing and i was oh man.
I may have looked confident, but i was nervous.
I was good souvenirs yeah, that’s good to it.
You know, 14 years after this big event, these big events, you know i’m looking at back back with no regrets and – and maybe you felt you feel the the same – no regrets some things could have been done better on my you know on my side and but No rigorous, you know i’m happy yeah and but that’s a tendency what you said: uh right.
What what you said is uh hard, the challenge for heavyweight fighters to to find some good sparring partners in aspiring partners that that resembles the opponent that they are going to face in a couple of months for for who they are preparing.
That’S a challenge and yeah astronomical um.
For me, i had the tallest fighter i ever fought.
Actually i’ve fought uh two fighters taller than me in my career and both those fighters.
My sparring partners were under six feet.
It’S insanity, i won one.
I lost one against tight, uh thai fields um, but it wasn’t like it was it.
The sport needs to develop.
Actually that and that’s what being doing what you do currently.
Are you still in the boxing world? Do you still affect boxing currently, not at all, for for like 10 years i i’ve been on the depression, but on a down about boxing, maybe uh uh? Maybe i i felt you know when you, you know when you’re doing uh a way of like boxing is a way of life.
It’S not only a sport, it’s a dedicated sport, so it is a sport of dedication and you have to believe it and and put all you have in it.
So maybe uh, maybe i i did like.
Maybe i felt like a letter over burn or you know what i mean.
I don’t know the word in english, but now i’m talking to you, remember good souvenirs and you know like it’s covered, i’m i’m i’m thinking when when we’re we’re gon na have the rights to to go back for to normal normal uh activities, i’m going back to Coaching or i’m going to uh, you know i’m going to visit a couple of boxing gyms and you know get my in in my old shorts, all shorts and all gloves just for just for, for training and for the the kids or you know the teenagers young Adults that that wants that that want that needs uh uh, some kind of uh, coaching or skills.
You know i’m gon na share back what the sports uh.
You see a lot of kids, a lot of kids looking up to you in the in uh schwinn, again and schwingen and tua riviere, and all that whole area.
I bet a lot of them still remember your fights and whatever the case may be for me um.
I see a lot of young fighters coming up and they telling me nothing.
Tickles me more.
Nothing um gives me more pride than when you when you see a fighter come up and tell you.
I saw your fight with x, yeah um.
You know andrew cooner, yeah, andrew cooner, and i was talking to him one sunday night and we your our fight, came up the canadian title fight and he goes yeah.
I remember i was right there for that fight and the very fact that they remember us doing our craft.
I take that as a badge of honor.
You know um we’re changing history, hence one of the main reasons why i wanted to get you on the show.
Um because you affected history, you did great things: um two-time national champion as an amateur uh canadian headboard champion as a professional.
These things, you should be celebrated and people should know who you are in the boxing world, like yeah.
That was 14 years ago.
Still, i still think that you deserve that lineage, you deserve that respect and um.
Like i said again, i can go on for hours about how honored i am to have you here, but i think i i hope that you continue on with uh, with your involvement with the sport.
I think you do great.
Have you ever coached before not really? I coach uh, like i coach two years ago, three years, that’s a another uh story, interesting story.
I went back for training for one month because a friend, a friend of mine, who is a of a first nation here in in northern uh northern of the region, uh speaks speaks, is uh his uh, his language he’s a you, know, nation language and – and i Didn’T want him to get beaten up he’s in heavyweight, so i i sparred with him two years ago, i’m former i’m a former professional fighter.
I remember and he beat he beated me.
I was out of shape.
You know with a belly like i’m, like 35 pounds overweight at that time, and he you know, he’s a beginner, not even one fight in the amateurs.
He was not be really beating being beating me up, but i i mean i was out of shape and doing two or three rounds.
Two minute runs, and i was i was done.
You know i quit that was funny, but i i i showed i showed him.
The defense and they have every india the heavyweight division, even in the amateurs, i believe it’s all about the defense and the defense.
The defensive skills are long, it takes longer and it takes much more dedication to uh.
You know to up up your game on the defensive level and offensive everybody can punch on the offensive level they just have to.
They just have to put on the effort, but defensive skills.
It’S technical.
You know in the in the the heavyweight it changes it changes.
The game you you, you went to camp with chris byrd, the most defensive, heavyweight of all time, yeah, so yeah totally chris.
He was uh.
He was preparing for a vladimir klitschko in germany at that time and i asked papa bird in the car.
He was driving a nice suv, merced, mercedes suv, pepper bird.
He was a driver and a coach, and i and i i asked him – we were all the aspiring partners there were.
I don’t remember the name of the guys, the other guys that were that was parent partners, but i asked him: hey peppa bird, why are you going to fight over germany? You know chris say he’s the sh.
He is the champion.
He is the ringing champion.
I believe it was the ibf champion.
He was the ibf champion in the heavyweight division and he told me pepper, told me because of the money son we’re going there because of the money he was fighting via vladimir in berlin, so yeah chris bird.
He was the champ he was.
He had three sparring partners me and the other one.
He was experiment.
You know a guy with a nice record.
I don’t remember his name, no big stars, but the guys were tough, a guy from uh from uh, australia and uh.
Michael meehan, if i remember correctly, yeah so big guy, big guys like me, calling me and we were like uh clones of uh, vladimir tesco and uh chris byrd, he was playing with us.
Three uh four runs each.
You know he was doing 12 rounds of boxing with us on the with big gloves, but i mean i know with 16 or 18 ounces of gloves, but he was playing with us.
You know we could manage a little.
You know we were not that much beating up, but he was a champion.
He was, you know doing whatever he wanted.
Yeah after after when i, after i won the canadian title, i started going around the world uh in training camps, anybody who was fighting the klitschko’s.
I was in camp with the with them too yeah, so it was great.
I i got to see the world um i got paid for it, it was.
It was sensational um.
I remember um sparring with david haye right david, hey yeah.
I was with him twice and yeah.
You start, you see the difference.
You see the difference in level yeah, but they’re in control.
Yeah.
There are champions like that.
Like david, a or guys at that level, they are in the con, they have control.
You know on the tenth of a second yeah reaction, tenth of a second reaction, yeah, oh, what’s going on yeah, i was in camp with him several times where uh in europe for sure europe in europe, yeah yeah.
That was i was there.
I wasn’t jeremy at one time.
I was there for six months, just trading camp after training camp after training, camp um, but yeah you did a lot yeah a lot of these of these training camps.
I believe oh yeah, i did uh.
I was probably in 12 12 camps, i’ve i’ve been to russia with povetkin.
I’Ve been to well david haye, chicago um.
I was down in new zealand with uh dave tua david tua, ariel oh in new zealand yeah.
He invited you to a yeah that was in his yeah.
He was fighting um alexander houston, you know he he was uh la david too.
I sparred with him in tampa bay.
Okay, he was preparing.
I don’t know if uh henry aki one day is that he was preparing for a big uh, big african guy, a strong guy, so he called me and you sparred with him.
Did you find he? He was short.
David tua was like five foot, ten except for sure, but but uh like mike tyson.
You know he was moving in and out, like uh super super fast, okay, so my story with david tua, i wan na hear the first time we went down.
It was a 22-hour flight to auckland 22 hours.
I land at six o’clock in the morning auckland time now, every other camp i’m go to.
I get one day off you get one day to acclimatize and then you spar the next day, but i get here like um yeah, we’re gon na get you to do a couple rounds with them.
Uh tonight like tonight, yeah! Okay, when is the other sparring partner? Coming he’s, this is now a tuesday he’s not going to be there until saturday.
So it’s just me and i’m like okay.
This is going to be interesting now because i’m the only sparring partner, he has i’m, assuming that it’s going to be a feel out.
You know nice just tactical sparring yeah and it was, i believed that it was remotely close.
I walked into the gym, he pointed to where the change room was.
I said.
Okay, i changed.
I just so happened to wrap my hands in the change room.
I came out he’s already in the ring they put two gloves on me.
I had just enough time to go one two ding ding ding and we’re sparring.
Then i’m moving with him and at the time he was about 275 280 pounds.
Five, nine and i asked him this is the shape you want, like he had four weeks till his fight, and i assume that he was looking at coming in maybe 250, but he came on and he came on hard now for the most part i just ran.
I just ran good luck finding me, but then i was not in shape yet so after four rounds i was dead, tired and then yeah.
They said.
What’S how many more rounds you got? He goes two more rounds, so we go two more rounds.
He threw in the fifth round he threw one missile that came by and i just missed it.
And then i came back with a five punch.
Combination, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
He got a little mouse under his eye.
I thought this was going to settle him down.
It did not settle him down.
It was a big final round, that’s what he came.
He was cautious, he was cautious and then the 32nd bell went and he turned into the tasmanian devil and he starts swinging like i owed him money and boom catches me and i’m on the deck.
I’M like uh, not vicious, but he could be.
I remember he.
It was uh, it was hard times he he gave you, you earned your money for sure you earned your money for i’m like this is my sure date.
What if this is first day of our training camp, i’m like okay, i’m gon na get you i’m gon na, get you, and it just so happens that, like the next day, two days later, we start again, and that was nothing.
I just ran um, but then two days after that, julius long came so it’s now julius and i and he ends up pulling his ham um his calf, his calf muscle.
So the fight got postponed now they said it was going to be postponed for four weeks.
So they flew me home, but i ended up being postponed for 10 weeks.
Okay, you know got home, i started training like i was fighting for a world title and when i came back, i got david.
I gave it to dave.
I unleashed everything i had on him made sure no, i paid back david yeah tenfold, so i love that story between the uh beating we got between uh.
That makes me think that you know sparring with guys like that.
You know that are maybe on the 10 top 10 contenders in the world, and us you know former canadian champs we were.
The margin was not that much the story.
You’Re told you know it reflects a little a little yeah yeah.
Exactly what i what i lived.
I was, i was, and you were, we were, you know, as canadian canadian heavyweight, maybe lacking a little a a little of uh of sparring, but the margin was was thin it it’s a question of uh, like i said, the uh tenth of a second in reaction, But that’s yeah that’s possible to reach you know for for the next generation following us.
You know the guys that are mahmud of or oscar rivas canadians or i don’t know the guys in the west or in ontario.
But i knew i know some names, but it’s possible for them to you know to go to go to uh the top level and make very much make big money.
No very much so like that’s one thing i did learn in going around.
I sparred with um former cruiserweight champion in the world um juan carlos gomez.
He turned heavyweight, he was getting ready to fight um who’s, he fighting, he was fighting vitaly klitschko and i was in camp with them.
It was just like i can beat this guy.
I can beat juan carlos gomez and i, like i, didn’t get hurt in camp.
That’S one thing i tried most definitely not to do they couldn’t if they ever threw a punch and i got rocked.
I just ran – and i said i’m not going to get hurt, but i could beat these guys.
I have yeah for sure to be right there.
So no the guys you’re absolutely right that the margin between the the elite in canada and world champions aren’t is not that big at all.
It’S not that big! It’S it’s an opportunity! Sometimes it’s a question of timing and a question of sparring and coaching, but and maybe relations you know you can’t go to a training camp in the states, uh a recruiter, a co scout, you know, looks at you, maybe he’s making you an offer and then boom You’Re you’re uh on the top level uh or maybe not, and of course, if you win all your fights and you’re spectacular, you’re gon na climb the the rankings uh really fast, but i believe it you know you you had as you were such close.
I was you know guys like berman steven steven from montreal.
He won he, he he went to the the states and then he won boom.
He was the world champion for a little time, but he got the talent and the heart and the skills, and he was at the good play the best place.
You know he was at the good place at a good moment awesome.
I think that i i’m so proud of him.
He was my second last amateur fight and i beat him at nationals.
Actually i beat him in in toi revere it was.
It was in 12 year um.
I beat him at the box house, okay, yeah and then i don’t see him.
You see, you know, he’s a world champion the only worth champion and probably millionaire yeah and known uh.
You know uh uh, world recognition, recognition and it’s the question of of talent, skills.
Dedication he’s got it all, he got it all and and got the heart and the gods to go to the states and do it, but you can’t do it in canada, but i mean that boom.
He was at the right place at the right moment.
It’S also luck.
He was there at the right place, the right time yeah.
So no that was amazing.
No, that was amazing david.
I see the time is running and this is amazing.
I can sit here and talk to you for another hour, but um we got to let you go um.
I want to thank you so much for coming on to my show um this was it it’s incredible.
It’S like no time had passed, um just sitting back and talking to you.
I please come back again now i’d love to have you on the show talking about that yeah, but but i will stay in stock.
We’Ll stay in touch with stay in touch for sure.
For sure – and it was an honor tonight like i said thanks very much for inviting me – thank you, you know and uh.
If i’m uh going by uh your hometown, i believe you’re you live in toronto.
Uh.
You still live in toronto, so i say hi for sure when everything goes to back to normal to normal.
Maybe i i’ll go or i’ll go see you and you know, and we can and we can talk about the the good memories and actual boxing scene, international and canadian boxing scene.
That would be a pleasure that’d be an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So much and for the boxing world david cut you my.
I would like to thank you and have a good night, my friend um thanks.
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