Crime in Sports - #213 - With Both Hands Behind His Back... - The Improbableness of James Scott
Episode Date: June 16, 2020This week, we settle in with one of the strangest stories we've ever looked at. A man who never had a chance in life, and quickly screws up any chance he does have, somehow makes himself a le...gend while serving 30 years in prison. He was a light heavyweight boxing contender, while being incarcerated for many things, including murder. Did he get out of prison, and fulfill his destiny? This story is a whole lot of crazy!! Do eight years in jail for truancy, mess up your life, just when it starts to get on track, then become a legend from behind prison walls with James Scott!! Check us out, every Tuesday! We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: crimeinsports@gmail.com Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!! Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsportscrimeinsports@gmail.comfacebook.com/Crimeinsportsinstagram.com/smalltownmurder# See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Crime and Sports!
Yay!
Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.
My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host.
I am Jimmy Wissman.
Thank you folks so much for joining us this week.
We are excited as can be.
Hope you enjoyed last week.
We had, honestly, that was the craziest origin story in the history of crime and sports.
If you missed last week, guys, I'm telling you, stop now.
Go back.
At least listen to the first half hour of the show because you've never heard a crazier origin story of where a person came from.
It was literally 212 episodes, 211 before that.
Never had anything come close to it.
Unbelievable.
So craziness.
Completely unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable. to it unbelievable so craziness completely unbelievable absolutely unbelievable but this week we have one of the again this is wild and one of the wildest stories we've ever had on
crime and sports by far good it's one that i've been saving for a while you know just kind of
you don't want to burn up all the good ones up front so we have a bunch we've been saving that
are in the hopper here so uh it's going to be a good time it's a wild story so unexpected we've never had any of the
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I mean we gonna do
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for saying that
during the movie I thought
she was hot then and I'm like like
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she was 18 and I was like 16 at the time so she even that no yeah she's two years older than me, so I am allowed. She was 18, and I was like 16 at the time.
Was she even that young?
Yeah, she's two years older than me, so she was 18 when Clueless was made.
You pervert.
Yeah, I was like, what are you talking about?
I was an older chick.
No.
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right there were mean ones yeah or even just saying them just because they're accepted that's
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That said, damn it, let's get into it because it's a wild one.
I can't wait.
It's absolute insanity again.
We're stacking them, man.
We're stacking the crazy.
What sport are we running with? Well, we're racking the brain damage sports this week. We're stacking them, man. We're stacking the crazy. What sport are we running with?
Well, we're racking the brain damage sports this week.
We're doing boxing.
All right.
Oh, boxers are always fun.
And this is, wow.
I don't even know what to say.
So let's get into this right now.
Let's get into it with our main guy for the evening here.
James is his first name.
His middle name is Onkwe.
Onkwe?
Onkwe.
O-N-Q-U-E.
Not sure how you say that, but I know it's a family name because he's James Onque Scott Jr.
Oh, boy.
So, yeah.
If you're new to the show, let's say you just started listening because of last week.
We have a thing on Crime and Sports since the start.
Just an exorbitant, inordinate amount of,
first of all, our criminals are juniors,
and then they name their kids juniors as well.
There's so much junior-ness going on.
It's thick.
It's thick and weird, and we don't understand why,
but it's carried through for 213 episodes,
and it continues to now. I think we've got a pretty good gist of it,
just in terms of hubris and pride.
It's got to be a huge portion of it.
Why are they juniors, though?
I get why they named their kid Junior.
I'm famous, but how did you end up Junior?
That's what I want to know.
And your dad's legacy wasn't even something to run up a flagpole, but they did it.
Let's talk about it here.
Now, I got some good information from an article that was excellent that had some uh really in-depth stuff here called gold in the
mud by sb nation.com so i had to give them some credit for some details that everybody else didn't
have so uh basically okay let's find out when he was born because even this is a source of
contention oh james this is what i mean this is a guy born in the mid-20th century who we don't even know when the fuck he's
born.
I have multiple, I'm talking four different dates.
Not even close?
Let's find out.
One, it says, it's been said that he was born, he's born in Newark, New Jersey.
That's not up for debate.
Some Newark's records are fucked?
That's what I mean.
He's not born in fucking Ghana or in like Bangladesh or somewhere that would have back
then have had lesser record keeping skills.
Yeah, like some sort of like civil war torn country.
That's not where he's from.
He's literally from Newark, New Jersey.
So I don't know how the fuck we don't know how old he is.
That's how crazy the story is.
It starts out with this.
So indisputably born in Newark.
Okay, we have that.
Several different dates.
Now, one date we have is October 17th, 1951.
Don't know where that date came from,
but that's a date that's published often.
Okay, next time, the Miami Herald,
at one point,
they put his birthday
as October 17th, 1946.
That's five years.
Putting him five years younger, which is a big, but same day at least.
So that's something.
Five years older.
Yeah.
Five years older, but same day of birth at least, October 17th.
So that's at least a common thing.
Now, later on, his prison records have him being born on October 17th, 1947.
Okay.
So that's three different years and the same date.
Now, Wikipedia, which is probably the least reliable.
And his boxer-like record sites, too, which are usually pretty dependable.
They need an ID for those, right?
I don't know.
I'm not sure about that.
I don't know if they're verified accounts here nobody has a blue check mark but these like boxer record uh
sites they have and wikipedia they all have his birthday listed as march 14th which is a completely
different month and day season fucking everything that's not even close 1947 so they at least have
the one year that agrees with the prison but a different day
completely so we have no fucking earthly idea how old this man is or what day he was born on but it
was march 17th sometime between march 14th and october 17th 1946 through 1951 sometime in there
he was born this mom squirted him out that's there there. Wow. So, Grace. That's Grace.
That's a very confusing one.
It's confusing, and that's as good as it gets for him.
Life gets no better for him.
Hilarious.
Grace, from being born to not even knowing when, that's it right there, Grace.
And he's got to be dropped out of there in Newark, of all places, to be more confused.
And he lives in Newark of all places to be to be more confused and he lives in newark why is everything so slippery why is everything suck that's what's going on here that's why it's grace
in the first seven minutes of the show unreal so grace and we'll find out why uh he's the second
of 12 children born to his parents and this is they don't have a farm this isn't like hey you
know they're amish so they're all putting up...
This is...
They're born in Newark.
So we're talking 14 people in an apartment.
So this is a different...
And he had to listen to that 14 people being created.
Oh, absolutely.
He's the second oldest.
He had 10 more to go.
This is a Ghostface Kill-A-Lyric.
14 of us in a three-bedroom apartment right like what
the fuck listen dad plow mom every day all day i guess so to make more well i don't know because
uh not really because he his father's kind of gone as we'll talk about and uh let's talk about
it here is the only come back to make babies and leave? Well, yeah. His mom's name is Ursuline, which I love.
That sounds like a very Jersey.
No, Ursuline sounds like a like a B.B.
King song.
OK, doesn't it?
Like I can see.
Ursuline.
Ursuline.
Doesn't it sound like a 50s?
Like, fuck it.
I see. Little Richard could sing or a country song
where a guy's singing about uh an ihop waitress she brought the bacon crispy and lean my ursuline
she brought me out a plate of pork and beans my my my
my taters were smothered and covered with all that gravy and cheese
oh
holy shit so what a lady what a lady ursuline and of course james scott senior was his was his
parents they lived in basically the projects kind of just to begin that's like when the projects
were new yeah you know what i mean like just kind of the beginning tip beginning end of it
he has a quote that he'll talk about later in 1978.
He'll describe his childhood.
He says, quote,
My mother was on welfare.
The marriage broke up,
so the children sought an image elsewhere.
I wasn't attracted to pimps or narcotics dealers.
I was attracted to gangs and their leaders.
Which, is that good?
I don't know if that's better or worse.
I don't know which is worse.
I don't like crack cocaine.
I mean, I don't want to sell drugs or women, but I really want to fuck people
up.
Right.
Like, I don't know.
You know, I get it.
I mean, obviously, I understand that's the that's the people who are successful around
you.
So you look at, OK, everyone's poor except for that guy.
What's he doing?
So obviously, that would you would think that it's the same thing with, you know, back then,
you know, they would people go in the mob because they'd see that they go okay he's got a cadillac and people like him
my dad works 60 hours a week we can barely pay our bills that guy's got a cadillac and i never
see him at work i always see him just driving it driving smoking drinking like well what the
fuck man he's got a rocks glass of whiskey in the car this seems like my life i'd like to leave more than my dad's it's like
bronx tale i've never seen him sweat no never there's no reason to if he starts to someone
comes and fans him so uh he said that his uncle gave him his first pair of boxing gloves at 10
gave him a pair of boxing gloves but his uncle or his father neither of them like showed him
anything with them they weren't like now i'm going to teach you how to box he said they were you know
busy yeah dad had shit going on he wasn't around a lot his uncle had other stuff going on so nobody
really had was around to yeah to guide him but he had these gloves and he was like i guess i want a
box and do shit like that uh but he's got way more shit to deal with on the streets he's running around he's
getting into trouble and when we're talking about 12 kids it's easy to lose track of the second to
oldest especially if they're if they're second oldest if they're like 12 and back then 12 year
olds would run around i mean there's people wasn't you know you were allowed to be a child outside
back then so you know you would just be like, he can take care of himself.
He's fine.
I got to deal with the babies.
You know what I mean?
Because you're going to have a bunch of little kids too.
So yeah, I would think that's a sort of thing.
So he is out running the streets and not going to school is the issue.
And he is actually, this is fucking crazy that they would do this back then.
He is arrested for truancy.
Because back then you would be arrested for truancy at 13 years old.
That was a law.
13, though.
He's 13.
At 13, it's not the kid's fault.
You know what I mean?
At 13, you go talk to the parents.
You don't talk to the fucking kid.
The kid is 13.
Apart from murder, we talk to the parents.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
So he's arrested.
He is actually placed in the
jamesburg home for boys for truancy in jersey so yeah so he's putting like a very tough
fucking group home right essentially like a juvenile facility for truancy at 13 so what that
is is a how to put this it's a petri dish right for criminals yeah that's what this is this house
this jamesburg home for boys it's treatment versus the people that he's around and teaching
him other things and there's children so there's a lot of abuse going on there's older kids are
fucking with younger kids there's a there's a lot of bad things happening in these places
so uh he's got to learn to be tough generally here for the next five. By the way, this whole story is 1000% true.
No left turns on this one.
All of this is just crazy as it's going to sound.
Yeah, it's all fucking true.
You weren't about to tell us.
No, he was raped with a tulip.
Had his head stomped on with shoes.
He was attacked sexually by the Monsignor.
And then, well, that would be very believable. Had his head stomped on with wooden shoes. He was attacked sexually by the Monsignor.
And that would be very believable.
So that would be not even crazy.
It would have to be something that you wouldn't believe.
So for the next five years, five years from 13 to 18, he is kept in facilities.
For fucking truancy.
We think those years. Yeah, we don't know what years it could be 18 to 23 yeah well he's definitely 13 to 18 we just don't know what years this is
occurring it's amazing it could be occurring anytime from let's see 40 anytime from 1959 to
1964 for the next few years who knows sometime in there this part's awesome. It's fucking amazing.
That's my favorite thing ever.
No birthday.
I could see it like Del Fontaine was born in like 1908 or something. Or if we had somebody born, like we said, foreign country or some shit like that.
But this makes no sense.
Why someone born in a first world industrialized country in the mid 20th century wouldn't have a fucking birth date.
He wasn't born on a farm where they didn't register it for a couple days he wasn't born into slavery like the
lady from the underground railroad that's what i mean he's not born harry tundman jimmy yeah
i just had a thought that just exploded
that's the lady but we don't know when she was born no that makes sense though yeah he's
born 200 fucking years ago this is just happened so people are barely older than my parents you
know what i mean like this is crazy so wild shit so anyways bounced around for all these different
reformatories they put them in facility to facility annandale and border town board in town and uh but while he's doing that
while he's being bounced around uh board in town the one facility offered an inmate amateur boxing
program yeah which was good these kids need something to fucking do you can't just put a
bunch of 16 year old delinquents in a fucking room and be like well we'll wait till you're 18 like
and then let you out that's gonna go bad gotta teach them something so they have a skill when
they get out just you know so i'm 18 um did you graduate from high school oh
no no no jesus any college of course not no i did just get out of prison though so that's good right
where i've been beating the shit out of kids my own age it's pretty good yeah i'm pretty good at
it if you could need anything if you need like a a juvenile uh violence maestro. I think I would be your man. That's what I mean. So, yeah, he gets all into the boxing.
And by 18, he by the age of 18, he has an amateur record of three wins and two losses in jail.
So he kind of just, you know, making his way into it.
He didn't know what he was doing before that.
And he says, quote, I learned to box in jail out of necessity.
I got my head beat in a lot.
I first went to jail at 13 for truancy.
Truancy in there with rapists and murderers and stick up men.
These are the examples of manhood I had.
Well, I mean, they were teenage kids.
Yeah, but they're still murderers and rapists and stick up kids.
Yeah.
All those kids with the kid that didn't show up to history class.
It's all juvenile.
Yeah, it's all a juvie facility.
Yeah.
So he's saying, you know, if you're young and you're not in there for something crazy you're
gonna get fucked with you better learn to fight pretty quick that is unbelievable it's absolutely
wild uh so now in 1965 he is sent to well first of all in 1965 the courts declare him incorrigible, which is, to me, the most
hilarious thing that any court can say.
Basically, I declare this young man a pain in the ass of such epic proportions.
Incorrigible.
To be officially declared incorrigible is pretty fucking funny.
I don't know.
Not funny for what happens to him, but hilarious.
You should get a badge for that. On its own, yeah. Incorrigible. You're incorrigible. I know. I don't know. Not funny for what happens to him, but hilarious. You should get a badge for that.
On its own, yeah.
Incorrigible.
You're incorrigible.
I know.
I have paperwork to prove it.
As a matter of fact, a judge agrees with you.
The state of New Jersey agrees with you.
We use that now as somebody that can't stop making innuendo.
You know what I mean?
Yes, exactly.
And it's about a kid that literally is useless.
That's what the court seemed to match.
We can't do a thing with you.
Not a thing can be done.
Incorrigible.
You're either a useless teenager or a horny midlife crisis person.
But if you think about it, it's one or the other.
If you think about it, though, this is really fucked up, though.
This kid went in for skipping school.
Unbelievable.
He didn't kill anybody at 13 fucking years old.
And he's been in juvie halls for five years.
And now they're going to send him to Trenton State Prison because he's incorrigible.
He hasn't done anything.
What the fuck are you sending him to prison for?
I mean, you really fixed his problem.
He was late all the time or didn't show up.
Didn't show up.
You made him show up.
There you go.
Now he's there.
Problem solved.
He's 18.
Rather than just let him out because he's done his what the fuck.
It's truancy.
Now he's in his...
His debt to society for not going to school is five years in prison.
And then more prison.
Right.
And then prison.
So this is ridiculous.
And I call the elephant in the room here, but this is the 60s.
And I can't imagine, just can't imagine if it was some white kid in the suburbs skipping school, they'd be kept in juvenile facilities for five years and then sent to prison for it.
I just don't imagine it happening.
It's one of those things here.
I think definitely class and race are playing a major field issue
here yeah probably didn't have a chance he never had a fucking no kidding me no not by any any uh
economic structure from his parents either but on top of that there was nothing for him at 13
rather than someone take him aside and maybe guide him a little bit and you know because at 13 a kid
needs guidance probably you know more than they need jail nurturing sounds a little more acceptable than uh especially for truancy yeah it wasn't like
a violent felon or anything so and even then 13 is you can fix 13 13 you're still mushy oh god you
can you're still real malleable you can be a different person by the time you're you're older so anyway while he's there now this
is 1965 so i'm gonna say that the 1947 birthday is probably correct because they would send him
to prison when he's 18 which would be 1965 yeah so we're gonna say 47 is probably right i think
that was the one the record the prison had right so that's that could be going by their records
though so we don't know if it's real or not. But the prison thought he was born in 1947.
So they send him here in 1965.
If they get him when he's 13 and keep track of him for the next so many years, they should know exactly.
We're going to call him 1947.
I figure they probably looked at his teeth like a dog and were like, this one's not real.
How many rings does he have?
Yeah.
I don't know.
How many rings?
He's 13.
Who knows?
You know what I mean?
Like, yeah. Jesus Christ. That many rings? He's 13. Who knows? You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
Jesus Christ, that's terrible.
That's terrible.
It's sad that you said that because they are treating these kids like dogs, basically.
To be like, we found them on the street.
Right.
Put them in a cage.
I don't know.
Indefinitely.
That's how people treat dogs.
And actually, not even.
Because dogs even have, like, if nobody picks them.
Right.
There's an expiration date on that.
Yeah.
But like the Humane Society, it's I don't know, man.
I'm just I'm really pissed off about this whole thing.
I don't like this shit.
So anyway, he goes to prison and he's a, you know, he's a fucking teenager, but he spent a good portion of his life in jail, more than a third of his life or a third of his life.
So there he's befriended by a guy named al dickens now al dickens is in
the 16th year of a 51 year sentence for armed robbery he's gonna be there a while he's a hard
yeah that's a hardcore dude uh he was in the army al dickens and was an a boxer in the army
basically so that's how this started now he says al dickens says quote when i first saw Scotty, he was a tough punk running around breaking heads with an iron pipe.
But I got him thinking about boxing instead.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's 13.
You're put in jail.
By the time you're 18, when you go to prison, you go, I got to make my fucking presence known.
I'm not getting fucking punked like I did before.
I'm going to start fucking cracking skulls and make everybody know not to fuck with me hard pipe hitting brothers that's a yeah absolutely
fuck yeah so he gets him into the boxing program and uh he spars with his first partner actually
in trenton as like an adult here and his first sparring partner hurricane really yeah ruben
hurricane carter is his first sparring partner.
How about this? Who, as we know from movies and fucking songs and everything else, he was the former middleweight title challenger.
He was a really good boxer.
And everybody knew who he was.
He was a famous guy.
And so they do a little three-round kind of a spar session.
And Scott, all he's done is some amateur you know without any real
training just putting gloves on and fighting a little bit in the juvie he lasts three full
rounds against hurricane wow which is a big deal like very few prisoners have been able to do that
against hurricane so at that point hurricane and this dickens guy said dude you should start
training like you got talent if you can hang with me you got talent like you know you don't even know what the fuck you're doing denzel's gonna play me yeah yeah
like you know i'm saying denzel's playing me i'm amazing yeah and if you can hang with amazing
then figure it out ames play him no it was it was i thought ving rames played no it was denzel right
i thought ving rames am i wrong by the i can't picture Denzel as Hurricane. I'm pretty sure it was Denzel.
Ving Rhames would make more sense.
Well, Ving Rhames is a lot more horrifying.
He looks more like Hurricane.
Hurricane doesn't look like Denzel. What was Hurricane's last name?
Carter.
Carter.
Reuben Hurricane Carter.
Harriet Tubman, Jimmy.
Right.
I'm an embarrassment.
I really am.
No, it's definitely him. Yeah. It's definitely Denzel definitely done no it's denzel okay all right so sorry i didn't want tweets later no no you're smart so i'm an
embarrassment no for that you are so november 5th 1968 he's released from prison ready to start he's
21 years old i guess that's as long as he
could be held from the juvenile system to the adult system is 21 so they let him out so he did
eight years for skipping school wow which we've had some people on some trumped up charges but
holy shit that's amazing that's your whole childhood more than a third of your life behind
bars because you didn't go to school
holy shit fucking break man jesus christ so he's released um yeah he's uh the amateur boxing thing
is there's a there there's a thing whether he's an amateur or not here because he boxes a four
round exhibition fight against an undefeated pro named joe burns in 1968 in new orleans which uh later on when he
turns pro people are like doesn't he have a pro fight but i guess this is an exhibition and not
considered a professional fight just uh whatever so uh yeah who knows but shit he's already older
than 20 or who knows how old he is we don't know know. This is great. This is fucking crazy.
So, yeah, his buddy, though, says that Dickens guy really got in his ear,
really telling him about boxing and fucking really telling him what to do.
And Scott says he really appreciated that advice.
He really did.
But he also says, quote, i guess i wasn't listening too
close when dickens tried to teach me about life though they let me out of prison on november 5th
1968 and it wasn't long before i was back busted for robbery doing 13 to 17 that's when i really
took up boxing holy shit so why would you even bother by now i mean you're doing 13 to 17 by
the time you get out you are well you can do 13 at the time you could get out in less than half of that so you'd have to do 50 of your time
still you're anywhere between 36 and 65 we don't know he could be 25 or he could be close to
retirement you know we're not sure he could be getting modern maturity magazine i love that the
state of new jersey whistanned your timeline yeah they have
no idea it sounds like me doing yeah the bonus episode i don't know yeah except this is all
official records they don't have any fucking idea so never feel bad about yourself jimmy because
they don't know any better either maybe one of my relatives was keeping fucking records in jersey
it'd have to be four of them because it's two all different places did one of them work for
the miami herald i would not be surprised one of them work for the Miami Herald?
I would not be surprised.
One of them work in the prison system, the other for the Department of Burts and Deaths
or whatever the fuck it is.
Keeping track of birth dates seems like something that's right up a Wisman's alley.
It seems like our skill set.
Go file this.
Sure, sure.
Got it.
Who is this?
Harriet Tubman?
I think I put it under the wrong name.
I don't know.
Worse yet, in my head, I was like, don't say Rosa Parks.
He's going to make fun of you.
Oh, my God.
Jimmy, Jimmy.
I'm doing my best.
You are doing your best.
Oh, man.
Wow.
He's trying, guys.
So in order to sidestep your left and right i said what's her
name what's her name i guy what's that one the lady with the sleigh you know you know that girl
you know the railroad and all super important to everything that is you know that girl she did a
lot of stuff they must have talked about her in school.
I don't know.
Worse than that.
Must have come up.
I watched a documentary about her last Thursday.
I bet you did, too.
And I super absorbed it, right?
You know everything.
Especially the name of the character whose story I'm watching.
She's not a character.
You know what I mean?
She is a real person. Yeah person yeah yeah that's what i mean
you know i don't know it's fucking broad i think she was like the 1800s or something
i don't know black chick pretty hot yeah it's pretty what the fuck something fucking amazing
it's something that took more balls and and brains and bravery than anything i've ever done and for that i won't even remember
it's great very nice
by being forgotten a week after a documentary is shown
jesus christ that's amazing so these does a robbery like within i'm talking within a couple months of being released yeah
he's back in prison for robbery 13 to 17 years that's a you sir may fuck off for sure and uh he
you know he admits this one this one he did this is uh you know he's did it and fucking he's got
to pay for it now and uh later on he will say quote this is he'll say this in 1978 from 1967 until now.
I beat up.
I beat everything in the prison houses when I was locked up when I was young.
I had no goals.
I had no values.
I spent 15 months in the room building, which is the psychiatric hospital grounds where they put.
Basically, it was for PC for protective custody and also for mentally ill patients and incorrigible.
It was their hole, basically.
They didn't have a hole.
They had that.
So they put him there.
He says, quote, My trainer was down there.
I spent 15 months down there in the hole.
That'll make you great at boxing.
Wow.
That's the worst place I've ever been in my life.
That gave me a chance to think.
I think when a man is forced with thought
under adversity,
you're forced to think.
What?
Whoa.
Hold on a second.
Say that again.
Let's wait one more time.
That gave me a chance to think.
Okay.
I think when a man is forced with thought
under adversity,
you're forced to think.
That's a lot of thinking.
Whoa.
Yeah.
That's when you... house am i on acid
what is going on that's when you believe begin to realize what you're going to do and what you
have to do i think it was then that i really decided i've got i've got to get a chance
i've got to make it no one uh nobody's ever went straight to the top this is unique the
possibilities of a prisoner getting a chance the fact that he's in prison maybe it's bad for public image but i think uh what will shine is that his good deeds outweigh
his bad deeds so he's trying to say there uh he also says quote i was placed in the hospital for
the criminally insane after con fights in this prison so he's just fighting everybody just for
shits and giggles i guess because he's a good fucking fighter so if you're a pretty good
fighter and that's the currency where you are yeah like hey if the baddest motherfucker in here
rules the place why not and i know i'm a bad motherfucker why not show it also there's he's
in there with people that have mental issues oh yeah like want to see your insides on the outside
of you absolutely at any cost and people who just don't even know what they're doing people who are
starting shit with you that don't even they're just they don't even realize what
they're doing it's a prison's fucking crazy and back then too though back then they would separate
the insane from the criminal you know what i mean they'd have your criminals and they would yeah if
someone was crazy they would put them in a fucking back then people got off on insanity please all
the time not get off because if you saw what a psychiatric hospital was like in the 50s and 60s is not so good it ain't getting off it's bad but it's not prison
so it's you know you get that whereas uh nowadays they just throw everybody in the same shit you
have to literally not know what planet you're on to be considered mentally incapacitated and have
to you know and be put in a hospital instead of prison you literally have to hear voices and not
know where you are and it's like you literally have to be on another planet rather than just, hey, this one's kind of fucking nuts.
Right.
And we should probably put them somewhere else.
This guy eats carrots and says they're apples.
Yeah, this is not good.
It's not quite.
So, yeah, he says 15 months I was there in protective custody.
They said in those fights, it was life and death.
Do you understand me?
Chaos. There were stabbings. I defended, it was life and death. Do you understand me? Chaos?
There were stabbings.
I defended myself.
I wanted to live.
I lived.
This is exactly my point.
Now in the same position,
now in the same prison,
guys are settling their differences with gloves instead of shivs.
He's trying to talking about getting a boxing system here,
going in prison because there's kind of the seeds of that happening right now.
The wait is over.
So far, you're not losing.
The only thing you're losing is my patience.
Quickly, I see that.
Bing!
The queen of the courtroom is back.
I didn't do anything.
You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face.
I see he's not intimidated by anything.
I can fix that.
New cases. She wanted to fix that. New cases.
She wanted to fight me.
Leave her alone.
Okay, so, um...
This is not a so.
This is a period.
Classic Judy.
Did you sleep with her?
Yes, Your Honor.
You married his cousin.
His brother.
That's not him.
Yes, ma'am.
I would make a beeline for the door.
The Emmy Award- winning series returns.
How did I know that?
I have crystal ball in my head.
It's an all new season.
It's streaming.
You can say anything.
Judy Justice.
Only on Freeview.
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So in the early 1970s, he becomes the light heavyweight champion of the New Jersey prison
system.
They have weight classes?
It's a whole program.
Wow.
Yeah, there's rankings and weight classes and the prisons go, you know, they bring prisoners to another prison to fight each other. It's a whole program to where there's yeah there's rankings and weight classes and you go the prisons go you know they bring prisoners to another prison to fight each other it's a whole
thing feels very jango it's jango but it's also it's also good for if they were having them fight
like in the laundry room and just having the guards better that would be different but cash
on the concrete this is like they're training and they're learning and they're taking them to and
they're having fights and then the prisoners are all watching the fights and they're like it's a they say like this really
helps everybody's sure mental and morale too it's something to look forward to and also for the
fighters it's something that they don't have any this guy doesn't have any skills the fuck skills
does he have if he can fight maybe he can box when he gets out that's something it's better than
nothing so but also you're making one of those you're making a terminator yes you know
what i mean this wasn't this program wasn't designed to like you know like i said to like
to jango these people this was no i mean these people like those people like that i mean prisoners
that's not the point of what it was jesus christ that's the most andrew jackson thing you've ever said no shit jesus christ you know what i fucking mean so it wasn't for that it was just it was literally for something
positive they were the 70s they were trying to come up with programs it's a form of rehabilitation
that's i mean they're trying to come up with programs in the inside that would get people
yeah you know so when they get on the outside they'd have something to do unlike now do they
do they don't do this shit today.
Well, not really this so much.
We'll talk about what happened here.
So, yeah, he was kicking ass in there.
Basically, there was no more opponents for him to fight.
He beat the shit out of everybody there was to fight in the system as a light heavyweight in his contention here.
So January 8th, 1974, he's released on a work release program.
See, this is what i mean you can do less time and
be released but you're technically still in custody but you're on a work release program so
you're you know whatever so he's released from raw way that's january 8th 74 and he's never had
a pro fight never had anything like that but the whole time he's fighting amateur he's writing
letters and calling boxing managers collect. Brilliant.
Calling promoters, writing letters.
I mean, he is really hustling in there, trying to get himself something for when he gets on the outside.
Because also, for a work release program, if he can show that people are interested in him, he can get out earlier and go do it.
So he's smart.
He knows what he's doing.
He's trying hard here.
A Miami architect.
Odd.
Yeah.
Miami, Florida architect named Murray Gabby.
He's a basically he's an architect who is he's a part of the this Miami Beach businessman group called the Mendoza Group.
And Mendoza is the name of Daniel Mendoza, who was an 18th century Jewish boxing champion.
That's where they get this from.
The name.
I thought it was like something Colombian.
It sounds like it sounds like drug.
I was going to say the Mendoza Group group they brought over 17 tons of cocaine in 1982 big cigarette boats big cigarette boats and you know they dropped it in square groupers you know
they dropped it in the water and you know what uh no it's actually an 18th century jewish boxing
champion you can't get any more different than that so he uh he basically he offers his managerial
contract on behalf of this businessman group that you know they're looking for investments
this all the time you see this these groups of businessmen that look for investments to do
and this is one of them pull their money pull their money and they do look for investments and
this guy the thing that makes him special that makes him be able to do this is this gabby guy he's got
political connections as well uh very good political connections as a matter of fact his
brother dan is a heavy hitter in new jersey politics so his brother dan basically arranges
to have scott paroled to the state of florida rather than new jersey so he can go be managed by
this guy's brother murray in uh in
florida so it's all very silver it's all very silver there's some silver going on here but
for to the advantage of this guy so that's good but uh it's silver yeah this guy deserves a
fucking break at this point jesus christ so basically while they're parole he's paroled to
them they're essentially his like parole officers basically like they're in charge of him they're parole he's paroled to them they're essentially his like parole officers basically
like they're in charge of him they're not in charge of him but they're responsible for him
like they have to tell the prison like you know he's doing fine he's checking in he's doing like
they have to like keep up with appearances like that so it's odd that a state would parole someone
to an architect in miami that's a that's a an adult and he's like very strange
award of this guy that's what i mean like bizarre it's bizarre and kind of creepy honestly it's a
it's a little it's very much we're on the floor we had that same situation we're on the floor
where billy martin who is the manager of the baseball team and very connected in every way
got him out of prison so he could play for the tigers and all that sort of shit it's kind of
the same deal uh now scott at this point he gets out of jail and he go they take him to where my muhammad ali used
to train which is the fifth street gym in miami beach and uh so uh basically um he ali was off
preparing to fight uh joe frazier at that point i think the thrill of manila was coming up the
second one and uh his brother at the time angelo d Dundee's brother, Chris, was running the gym.
Dundee is Muhammad Ali's longtime trainer.
And also Ali's personal physician is there as well, Dr. Ferdy Pacheco.
And he was on hand and he watched the first sparring that Scott did when he came in there.
His first fighting.
And this is a great quote.
He said this later on. Quote, this is Pacheco. It was right out of Warner Brothers. Awesome. His first fighting. And this is a great quote. He said this later on.
Quote, this is Pacheco.
It was right out of Warner Brothers.
Scotty had no money.
He was in basketball shorts and cut-off denims.
Basketball shoes and cut-off denims.
From odds and ends, we put them together.
Willie Pastrano's protective cup, headgear from another guy.
Oh, gross.
Yeah.
Oh.
And then James got in the ring with the resident
heavyweight a well-regarded fighter he didn't even have his own cup he didn't have anything
that's gross his own cup have his own headgear he didn't have shit i assume they sprayed it out
like they do bowling shoes but still it's not a guy's balls put on some dial on that sweaty balls
there oh boy so and then they put him in the ring with a heavyweight as well and he's a light
heavyweight he's like 175 pounds so this is a you know it's a big dude they just want to see what he was made
of basically so a well-regarded boxer exactly yeah well we're a good fighter just to see where
he's at why not so gabby his manager here marie gabby he says quote when scott started throwing
punches there was dead silence in the gym other fighters stopped and watched he went two rounds
had the guy out on
his feet everybody gave him an ovation it's very dramatic wow so he came out and everyone was like
where the fuck did this guy come from so this is just right out of a movie i mean the guy comes in
with a duffel bag with fucking you know cut off cut off levi's and some basketball shorts and no
gear shoes these shoes yeah he's like hey some converse and some daisy dukes and he's like i'm a boxer and they're like are you now yeah i don't even have a cup
and they put him in the ring against a good fighter and like yeah let's send this kid back
to where he's from and he fucking does great and beats the shit out of the guy and everyone's like
holy shit the guy out on his feet with his ass cheeks hanging out if this if this is a movie
you don't believe it at this point you're like okay yeah great oh he's such a bad yeah it's see it's ridiculous it's so good of a story that's
how fucking silly it is right how is that not a movie how is this right because boxers that are
that good are recognizable like if tyson showed up in there with cut off shorts and his balls
hanging out and he's like somebody got a cup for me mike we know who you are yeah exactly tattoo on your
face but even if they didn't know who he was and then he'd be like whatever and then he'd take he
could he could spar for he could hit the bag for five seconds and they go who the fuck is that right
like you boxing is like comedy you know it as soon as you fucking see it you see it there's a certain
papa guy has there's a certain certain something it's just like with a comic there's a so you can
tell when a comic's got it and you can tell when a boxer's got it it's the same shit
so uh he makes his pro debut so he got out of jail on the 5th of january i believe the 8th of
january 1974 makes his pro boxing debut january 22nd two weeks later two fucking weeks later i
mean he is wow you're not even acclimated to out of jail yet
right holy shit water still tastes different to him yeah he's still like you know doesn't open
doors for himself and shit because he doesn't oh yeah i can open that now like that's how he still
expects the water to shut off on a timer in the shower yeah this is bizarre where's the button
so uh this is down in miami beach where most of his fights in this era will take place
he's 178 pounds and he is fighting big john l johnson is his name and he is 215 pounds oh boy
so somehow they have some weird interweight class professional fight here i don't understand how
this works 40 pound difference yeah it's a lot that's a shitload especially if both guys know
how to fight that's silly you know like if one guy's a boxer and the other guy didn't know how to fight, who cares?
But they're both fucking pros.
Big John L. Johnson's 8-0 coming into this fight.
And he's undefeated.
He's undefeated.
But his career record will be 12-24-1.
Oh, so he was figured out very short for a session after that.
Yeah, he goes 4- 24 for the rest of his.
You got it.
Yeah.
Don't worry about it.
Harriet Tubman's got your back.
So basically, this Johnson guy puts Scott on the mat in the first round, knocks him down in the first round, just based on size alone.
But Scott basically gets up and just ends up pounding this guy for the next three or four rounds.
And I found an old article that says that he knocked Johnson out in the fourth.
But then I found on boxing record sites that it went all six rounds and it was a unanimous decision for Scott.
Either way, he won.
Either way, he won the fight.
That's awesome.
And it sounds like the reporter was probably there.
So I'm going to go with he probably knocked him out, basically, here.
So that's 1-0.
And his father was waiting for him in the dressing room.
What?
They hadn't seen each other in 12 years.
I'll bet.
12 fucking years since he's been in prison.
And now we're going to chat?
Never came and saw him in jail?
Right.
Jesus Christ.
Thanks, Dad.
I was in jail for fucking truancy.
Where were you then?
Where the fuck were you then?
You could have gotten me out, probably, if you would you said you'd take care of me and stuff and make
sure i go to school i'm sure so uh he said though they saw each other were like hey and before they
even got a chance to talk he got pulled back out into the arena because the ring announcer said
ladies and gentlemen let's bring back out james scott because they wanted to give him another
round of applause because basically everybody knew his story and it was his first pro fight and he got out of prison and at the same time
from the beginning it was a rocky versus ivan drago situation like he was noticeably smaller
and the crowd was rooting for him because he was spunky and then he ended up beating the shit out
of this bigger guy who put him down unbelievable that's a rocky situation the crowd fucking loved
him they were crazy feel good story and his scott and his scott and his style too is very aggressive he's very
aggressive very crowd pleasing he's not like a convict you know like a god well i mean he's not
he's not standing around waiting for you to come to him he's going after you he's taking the fight
to you people love that shit so february 5th 1974 weeks later, he's fighting again in Miami Beach.
He fights a guy named Hydra Lacey, which sounds like a He-Man villain.
Right.
Hydra Lacey.
Right.
Something that swims in the ocean.
Yeah, and then comes out and...
Right.
And sinks your ships.
It's like a sandworm and gets you.
He's 6'10 and 2 coming in, and James knocks him out in the third round.
So it's 2-0 for him.
Two weeks later, February 19th, they got him on a schedule.
74 in Miami Beach.
He fights Willie the Invader Johnson.
He's invading Miami Beach with a 20-34-2 record.
And this is a TKO in the eighth round for Scott.
So he wins again.
3-0, March 5th, 74.
So two weeks later.
Good Christ.
It's like every other Saturday.
He's fighting.
This is his fourth fight or third?
Fourth fight.
He just fought his third fight.
Right.
This is his fourth fight coming up before three months in his career.
It's been a month and a half.
It's been a month and a half.
Ridiculous.
A month and a half.
Still the same season.
It's fucking nuts, man.
So this is in Miami, March 5th.
He fights Baby Boy Roll.
That's not his real name.
His real name is Abraham Kirkwood, but he goes by Baby Boy Roll.
I would, too.
I don't know why, but okay.
He's 39-4 coming in.
This is a guy who's had some experience.
He's got 30 wins.
That's no joke.
Ends up 33-18-4 for his career.
So this is the downside of it.
Still, he's a fighter that knows what he's doing.
And this is, again, an eighth-round TKO win for James.
So he's 4-0, and now he's beat somebody who has 30 wins.
So, I mean, they're starting to look for him.
They're starting to look at him like maybe he's serious.
It's very impressive.
He seems like something.
Now, he's having a hard time, though, adjusting outside the ring. Inside the ring, it's fine. he seems like something now he's having a hard time though
adjusting outside the ring inside the ring it's fine he's he loves to fight he's good at it and
it's something that he's fucking good at think about if you're put in jail from the time you're
13 you're never supported you're never propped up and he's good at this and no one's ever done
that for you they didn't even make sure you went to school for christ's sakes and no one's ever
done anything this is something that he's by the first thing he's he's getting like actual praise for
from people that you know and it's not like a criminal enterprise either it's nothing like on
the streets this is a legitimate thing legitimate people are telling him he's great like that has
to feel wonderful but at the same time it's hard for him he says this is an interesting adjustment
thing quote in prison you get one spoon
that you keep with you in your cell and you take it to and uh to and from meals lots of times in
miami beach i'd automatically pick up a spoon in a restaurant and put it in my pocket and then i'd
look at the see the look on the waitress's face in her mind quote they're all the same all thieves
that's what he said so he'd just take a spoon and put it.
That was his normal thing.
Just habit of years of doing it.
And yeah, he said that he felt that would be like, oh, shit, everyone's looking at me.
And then he felt like the, you know, people thought he was a thief and people were being.
So I see that he feels uncomfortable in regular society because he hasn't really spent any time in regular society.
regular society because he hasn't really spent any time in regular society right if you're in jail from the time you're 13 to fucking 25 you have no you don't know how to interact with people
you know how to be an adult do they still do that today with the spoon no because then now it's a
shank so they would probably down in the cell now you're not allowed to bring got it silverware back
to your room good lord so you can dig with it there's all sorts of shit you can do with a spoon
that you know lord yeah but back then i that was a way to save on i don't know silverware i suppose washing it make them
wash it in their sink i guess yeah wash your own spoon keep fucking weird right so uh april 2nd
1974 in miami again he's fighting frank evans this time he's a 14-21-1 fighter coming in.
So, I mean, journeyman.
This is a unanimous decision win in six rounds for James, 5-0, April 23rd, a couple weeks later here.
He's fighting Sugar Ray Anderson.
Can't call yourself Sugar Ray. There's too many.
You've got to be really good.
This guy's not bad, though.
He comes into the fight 34-11-2.
Okay.
That's good.
It's not quite Sugar territory, but it's good.
Maybe Splenda?
Yeah.
You're not Robinson, Leonard, or Mosley at that point, but you're...
I'm some sweet and low in there.
Something, yeah.
He's sort of sweet Ray Anderson.
Hint of sweetness, Ray Anderson here.
So this guy's career, though, he finishes...
He's 34-11-2 coming in.
He finishes his career 35-19-5.
He only won one fight in his final 15 fights.
Wow.
He won one out of his last 15 fights, this guy.
So he held on way too fucking long.
Way too long.
And this is one of those fights.
And this is a unanimous decision win.
He's one of those guys that can go the distance probably.
He knows how to hang on, but he's done, this Ray Anderson.
It's over.
So 6-0 for James here.
And yeah, he said that outside the ring he was just,
he's always had his guard up.
He was very leery of everybody.
The only person, he had a woman that he's been with for years at this point
uh for a couple years now and he said she's the only one he can really let his guard down with
everybody else he feels very it's like he feels like the whole world's prison because his whole
life has been in fucking prison trust nobody exactly so yeah he said that uh you know he's
just having a hard time but with like reporters and everything he's really good he's sharp he's got he's uh he's easily happy to give a statement and his story is very interesting so he uh it's funny
because everyone says he's a dick to everybody except reporters he's nice to reporters he'll
give them a show and then he'll be like oh fuck you man like and get nobody else he can can go
fuck themselves like he's known as very surly it's awesome you know like a guy who's been in prison for a long time that happens um so yeah uh gabby murray gabby he said quote he was not
easy under any circumstances he said uh just once he would end his as you know once his training was
over he just didn't know he always felt like he was being cheated he always felt like he was being
taken advantage of he was always like looking over his shoulder like you would do in prison.
You know what I mean?
That's very understandable.
Half of his life.
And in the world of boxing, you should do that anyway, because these motherfuckers are shadier than comedy clubs.
They're shady as fuck.
They're shadier than prisoners.
Shadier than prisoners.
Shadier than...
They're worse than wrestling promoters.
Put it that way.
That's saying something.
I mean, I'm really laying it down there are very few boxing promoters or trainers that have a positive reputation all around because they've robbed people for years and years if you look at
like okay look at like vince mcmahon who's i mean obviously a scumbag i don't care if you like him
or not he's not even close you would never like trust that guy with a dollar of yours or he's a
clearly a scumbag i mean he's whatever many reasons for that you know for fucking you know
vince being a scumbag but like i don't know it's he's a scumbag but bob arum's 10 times worse put
it that way who's the big boxing promoter he makes vince mcmahon look like a fucking angel
you know never mind don king because arum's worse than him too so uh in my opinion anyway because he sues people yeah so uh
well scumbag is an opinion i mean obviously he's not a literal bag of scum that's that's a actually
used rubber i believe i think so there you go and no if you're being called that then can't be
sentient at that point it would be difficult and then try to be better
yeah it's a thing so they all said too as he got more popular he got more paranoid about everything
because now everyone i don't know why but he he didn't get more comfortable he got less comfortable
uh basically he couldn't he couldn't couldn't deal with it he had they they everybody said
he's walking a tightrope basically because he's he if he keeps excelling at this his life's gonna go well but if anything falls off this for
him he's fucked basically so yeah and he he seems to be very aware of that and uh that sort of thing
here he uh they said the fear was good for him in boxing but bad for him in life basically is how it was so may 1974 may 14th in
miami he fights coley uh coley valiente laela laia laia laia oh there you go six and five coming in
he knocks him out scott does he's seven and oh july 9th 1974 in miami again he fights bobby floyd
who's a 1927 and three career fighter this goes the distance
but james wins it and he's eight no so yeah he's doing fine here you know not doing too bad
and uh the problem was at this point he is he's pummeling people and the way he fights people
don't like to fight him because he's very aggressive so it's going to be tough to get
fights tough to find opponents and that's what the the murray gabby said he says uh quote it was a nightmare trying to find someone who would get in
the ring with him it was horrible what chris dundee had to pay people to fight that animal
so really that's what he said yeah he had to pay people an extra amount to fight him because he was
dangerous basically he's a you know he's not just going to stand there and jab with you for 12 rounds
that's awesome he's coming for. I've never heard of him.
It's fucking great.
Well, you've heard of him now.
You didn't know who Harriet Tubman was.
Tubman was an hour ago.
I may have heard of him.
Yeah, you've heard of him.
He watched a documentary on him two weeks ago, as a matter of fact.
Jimmy read a whole book on him.
So September 10th, 1974.
This is in Miami. He fights David Lee Roy royster who's six four and one coming in
and royster basically uh this fight goes on it goes into the sixth round scott is ahead on all
the cards and at that point he gets headbutted uh by royster so he responds rather than just
feeling his head and going to the ref like you can take
a fucking point or what.
He responds with an attack on his groin.
Oh, Jesus.
He responds by taking a couple of big punches at Royster's ball bag.
That's his fucking response, which is understandable.
An on purpose headbutt is in boxing.
That's the shittiest thing you can do is that on purpose fucking headbutt.
You open up cuts, which that's super cheating.
Totally outside of the realm of fucking what you're supposed to be doing in there.
So that's why Tyson bit Holyfield's ear, because he kept getting fucking headbutted over and over and over again.
So this time he gets headbutted.
Scott punches him in the nutsack.
Royster falls to the ground.
So he got wailed in his ball bag.
Lucky he didn't get kicked. The guy's a prisoner for Tyson wailed in his ball bag lucky he didn't get kicked
the guy's a prisoner for that's yeah who knows lucky he didn't get stabbed so uh the referee
deducted two points from scott for this instead of one he called it a severe low blow and deducted
two points for this now in the eighth round royster headbutted him again and uh this time he opened up
a big gash over Scott's
eye. Now this is when people really
get fucking pissed because a cut will
fucking end the fight and it's not from a
punch. It's from you. Now this
apparently he hit a vein here
on this or something and the blood was squirting
out, which can happen if you hit
the right spot. Right on the fucking
eyebrow? Yeah, so it was basically
pouring over his eyes and he
couldn't see shit that's the part that's the shitty part that's the shit part yeah you're
even if it doesn't hurt that bad no it doesn't hurt you don't feel you don't feel a fucking cut
in your eye like that if it's not something that that is for now causing you uh unbelievable pain
swelling it's the swelling and the bleeding and the blood in the eye you're crazy your eye closes
closes with the swelling and then blood fills it.
So it's like, fuck, I can't see anything.
So the ring doctor wanted to stop the fight.
Scott convinced him not to here.
No points were deducted from Royster for either headbutt.
That's fucked up.
Which is shitty.
A lot of times those headbutts don't get called because fighters are good and they know how to make them look like you're just moving around.
You know what you're doing, but the fighters know when it's intentional. You feel your good and they know how to make them look like you're just moving around. Right.
You know, you know what you're doing, but the fighters know when it's intentional.
You feel your head and you know where you're at.
Yeah.
So Scott's, though, the low blow on the point card.
This goes all the way to the distance and it turns out to be a draw.
So those two points that he got deducted were the difference between him winning the fight and draw.
Damn it.
So basically he got fucked on that one, too.
For nothing.
For nothing.
So he's eight. Oh, and one now and good and fucking pissed off oh i'm sure he's good and pissed off
uh afterwards he's getting stitched up the miami news talks to him and he says you can print
i'm venerable he means vulnerable by the way as his trainer later on said it but uh he said you
can print i'm venerable he said i'm not superhuman
yeah everybody can see i'm venerable i cut too he said it again he said it twice
which whatever he he i bet he knows who harriet dubman is so i wouldn't laugh too fucking hard
so also i'm impressed that he was even going to use that word being that he hasn't been in school
since he was 13 and before that for a long time because he was truant he probably hasn't been to school since the fourth grade so that's
not bad he got a v and it ended in a bowl that's not bad it's not bad in the context he was using
it we was correct we got what he was saying that's right and then his uh manager jumped in by the way
to like kind of because i guess plus he's been hitting the head a lot he's been head-butted
right um his manager gabby jumps in and says quote he plus he's been hitting the head a lot. He's been headbutted. Right. His manager, Gabby,
jumps in and says,
quote, he's not losing anything.
This just shows he's human,
that he's got blood,
basically.
Like, see, he's fine.
He's fine.
And Chris Dundee, the trainer,
he went out a little further here.
He called out the lightweight,
the lightweight champion,
Bob Foster,
light heavyweight champion,
Bob Foster,
with an offer of 100 000 to defend against
scott wow publicly he puts it out there so scott then said quote i'm gonna make history
secretary it doesn't run in a year like i run in a year like i fight in a month i'm gonna fight for
the title in 10 fights i'm so pregnant with this idea i'm going through labor pains i love it awesome i absolutely love you love this
guy i fucking like this guy he's impossible not to like that's the thing you gotta fucking like
him he's got a good spirit i'm having labor pain i'm having labor pains later on he'll use that
too he's he'll say i'm pregnant i need to deliver this baby he'll say it's fucking out there so at this point he's awesome
he's earned a few bucks he's earned about fifteen thousand dollars in the early 70s which isn't
terrible he gets his own apartment yeah he's got a girlfriend that lives in an apartment he's got
he buys himself a a new blue chevy car i don't know which model but he's got a blue chevy in
an apartment and a girlfriend he's not a chevettevette. He's doing all right. You know what? It's better than being in prison.
He's not in prison.
This is a fucking miracle that he can support him.
I mean, honestly, he's had no education, no chance.
Nobody helped him.
But now people, you know, he wants title shots.
People are looking at him like he might be able to get a title shot here.
He's, you know, an interesting guy.
November 19th, 74 in Miami.
He fights Raul Arturo Loyola.
And he's 15, 10, and 3.
This is another unanimous decision.
Win.
He's 9, 0, and 1.
And he's kind of getting bored with these guys.
He wants a big fight.
He wants a big fight.
He wants a title fight.
And he's bored in general, unfortunately.
Oh, no.
So basically, he's supposed to be in Miami. He's supposed to not leave the state of Florida and always be checking in with, unfortunately. Oh, no. So, basically, he's supposed to be in Miami.
He's supposed to not leave the state of Florida and always be checking in with Gabby.
He's technically still a prisoner, basically.
So, instead, what he starts doing is he starts driving back to Newark to hang out.
Oh, that's such a long drive.
It's all the way up the East Coast.
It's 12 hours.
You can do it in a day.
That's so far it's a far drive and it's also one of our main rules not to break is never go home so he goes home though and i don't even know why he's going back there too he hasn't
he has no reason people he knew when he was 12 like i mean i guess that he's comfortable there
and whatever his brothers and sisters are there but there's really no fucking reason for him to be going back there especially since it's against his his parole so he says that he went
there looking for better sparring partners which your fucking trainer is chris dundee if you need
sparring partners you tell the people that you pay a percentage of your fucking of your purse to
that's their job is to find you sparring but you don't go drive to new jersey to find your own sparring partners that's crazy so he uh he said you know that's that's what you want
there ridiculous so february 25th 1975 he fights jesse burnett who has the exact same record as
him they're both 901 coming in which is weird as shit it's hard to find somebody that has that
record at all yeah 901 both of them perfect fight uh this guy will end up being 25 17 and two in his career so not bad more wins and
losses this goes the distance as well and it's a majority uh win for majority decision win for
james great so he's 10 oh and one now which is pretty goddamn cool and then finally after 10
wins because he had to get to 10 you got to get to double digits before they're going to look at you for a title fight.
Magic number.
Yeah.
Nine is garbage.
So May of 1975, this is a big deal.
He gets told that he is lined up.
They've lined up a championship fight with him against John Conta of Great Britain, who
was the light heavyweight champion at the time.
So he is fucking psyched.
Sure.
Finally, he's done it.
Let's talk about it.
Let's let him tell you about it.
He says, quote,
I had made it.
A title shot for $100,000.
He's getting paid $100,000 in 1974.
That's incredible.
That's a fuckload of money in 1974.
What month? That is May of may of 1974 months after prison release he's up for a year and five months oh okay 74 he was 75 but
still are you fucking kidding me impressive a hundred thousand dollars back then that's a
shitload of money that's probably eight hundred thousand dollars now nine hundred thousand dollars
some crazy shit like that a year and a half removed from prison not bad from the time from you were in from you were when you were 13 right so that's amazing
it's fucking amazing he said a title shot for one hundred thousand dollars my dream had come true
a press conference was set up for a thursday and we were going to announce the fight
on wednesday the police picked me up yeah he's got real bad timing really real bad time literally thursday was a press conference
announcing this title fight and the night before he gets arrested what did he do well let's find
out here uh this is bad stuff he was back in newark like a fucking dummy that's should don't
go back to newark don't go home criminal athletes don't if you get out of newark
never go back to newark whether you're from there or not.
Yeah, there's no reason for any of us to go to Newark, okay?
Let's just say that right now.
Really, there's no reason.
The Nets moved to Brooklyn.
There's nothing there.
It's fine.
Newark's fine.
They're trying to revitalize Newark.
It's one of those cities that's like, it's old, and so it's like you want it to be good,
but you also don't want it to be like cupcake shops and gentrified and shit.
I don't even allow my flights to go like cupcake shops and gentrified and shit.
I don't even allow my flights to go through their airport.
Yeah, that's smart.
It's probably for the best.
Staying the fuck out of Newark always.
So that's the only reason why Newark is there, so New Yorkers can go around traffic by flying into New York.
And if you're going upstate or something, you can avoid traffic.
That's the only reason why they're there. Fly into Newark and drive.
You don't have to do JFK or La la guardia or the pain in the ass ones so may 8th 1975 more accurately it's about midnight
on may 7th 1975 so just turning into may 8th so midnight in newark not great so uh there's a guy
named everett everett russ he's standing out in front of a bar on Howard Street in Newark with a friend of his.
Now, he's approached from what this is the state's version of everything.
This is the state's version.
There's multiple versions.
State's version says he's approached by James Scott and Russ climbed into a blue four-door sedan, which is Chevy.
He's got a blue Chevy, blue four-door sedan with Scott and a couple other people.
This guy.
Now, the car proceeded to the Lincoln Projects in Newark, which are projects where Russ led them to the apartment of a guy named Leo Skinner.
That was the that's the plan.
Okay.
Now, the way this Everett Russ told it it skinner uh the way you told what he told
them skinner would be able to buy drugs for them in the building next door so like you know where
we could get something yes he goes here this guy will get it for you you know how it goes it's
fucking you left florida to get drugs in newark right that's what i'm saying leaving florida you
left miami to get drugs which seems really counterproductive drugs in miami and we
don't know if it's drugs for him drugs for people where he's with either way no idea no fucking clue
here and they're not they don't drug test anybody back then or anything like that so i mean maybe
he wants to do a couple lines or something and celebrate or who the fuck knows what's going on
so basically uh in that building where the guy was supposed to go get the Skinner guy would be able to go buy them drugs over there.
Basically, they go to that building.
They get in the elevator to go up.
They hold the elevator door for a woman named Yvonne Barrett, who lived up on the 10th floor with her sister, Antoinette.
Now, Barrett, that apartment was the same place they were going oh which is interesting uh they were
headed up there so basically uh the leo skinner guy said we don't want to go up there for drugs
with the whole group banging on the door it looks bad so he's uh the the leo skinner guy stops the
elevator on the eighth floor and fucking gets out to say let's let them go up and then we'll go up
after them so it doesn't look like a whole horde of people coming to the drug dealer's house you know that goes so uh they do
that uh uh at at one point one of the guys that scott was with a guy named william spinks who is
not related to leon or michael spinks you're like jesus more boxers brothers? Fuck. This guy pulls out a pistol. Oh, no. Okay.
And he orders Skinner and Barrett, the woman there, out of the elevator.
Scott went with them as well.
Basically, Everett Ross rode down to the lobby and waited in the sedan with the other guys and for scott to come back now back in the building
on the eighth floor it said that spinks handed the weapon to scott who pistol whipped skinner
and ordered him to take his clothes off that's the yeah strip motherfucker so this is getting wild
this is getting interesting that was what that's what spinks told now spinks later on held a gun
on yvonne bear on yvonne barrett andrett and robbed her sister's 10th floor apartment as well, because that's where the drugs were, of $283 and a bunch of glassine baggies with fucking white powder.
So a bunch of Coke and $283, basically.
basically uh at about 1 30 that morning the the thing is uh about 1 30 that morning the blue four-door sedan is riding down one of the streets and they stop and open a door and push
somebody out yeah and it is the bullet riddled body of everett russ that gets pushed out of the
sedan onto the middle of a newark street now Now, problem was, yeah. So somehow Everett Russ, from going down to the lobby and getting in the car,
from there to the street, somehow was shot in the car or around the car
and ended up being shoved out of the car onto the street.
Oh, my God.
So you're fighting for $100,000 and you're involved in this shit?
This is what I mean.
This is why you don't go home.
Because even if you have the best of intentions, you just want to see your friends.
The people you grew up with aren't in the same shit you are.
Their lives aren't.
They don't have something like that on the horizon.
It's as shitty as it is.
Yes, if you have some people from where you're from or from your childhood or whatever that are decent people you want to take care of.
And I get that.
Bring them along.
But you can't be going back and pretending
like you're not what you are at this point in time.
And robbing drug dealers for their drugs and 283 bucks.
It's a dangerous game, number one.
You get killed like that.
And then the second part,
you can also have what happened happen.
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So, Everett Ross is pulling,
and he's dead on the street.
Multiple gunshot wounds
lying in the middle of the street.
Now, this is in the middle of the night in Newark.
So you figure no one's going to see that.
Problem was somebody watched it.
Yeah.
There was a car passing them up the street that saw it happen.
And this particular person at 1.30 in the morning decided to write down the license plate number of this car.
Out of your mind.
Which never happens.
Not my business.
In Newark?
Yeah.
Fucking, I don't know what
the fuck happened anything to do with those guys they're willing to dump a body on the street
what the fuck chance do i have well they took down the plate and called the cops and gave them
the license plate and the license plate is attached to scott's car so obviously they would like to
have a chat with scott since his car was seen dumping a fucking corpse out on the street.
Not great.
So May 10th, 1975, Scott, the police asked him, will you turn your car into us so we can look it over for evidence and blah, blah, blah.
He says, no problem.
So he turns his car over to the police.
Forensic files has not been on the air yet.
Oh, boy.
No, it's not great.
And also also don't
no if they get a warrant great otherwise don't volunteer shit if you're this guy ever and you've
been in prison i'd be very leery if i'm him he says and this is amazing that he thought this he
says quote i thought that i was a celebrity and there'd be no problem i hadn't done anything wrong
what did i need a lawyer for i figured to take my car down there, answer some questions and come back home.
Problem is he's arrested when he brings his car in.
Yeah.
His car had reportedly been seen in the area where the body was found, dumping it out.
As a matter of fact, the car contained bloodstains, a bullet hole as well.
Yeah, not great. Police heldott after he passed a lie detector test
that's the thing they they gave him a lie detector he passed the lie detector and then they held him
as a material witness okay anyway because they said he could flee and then eventually they end
up charging him with murder oh no so he yeah So, yeah, he passed a lie detector, though.
That's normally how they eliminate suspects, which is interesting.
That's fascinating.
So they said, what the fuck, then?
What's your deal?
His story is, he said the day before the murder, he loaned his car to a friend, the guy named William Sphinx.
He said William Sphinx returned the car to his girlfriend, Scott's girlfriend, the next day.
That's it.
Now, Sphinx, we'll talk about what happens. Is it Sphinx or Shinx okay this one says sphinx the other one says sphinx okay i'm gonna go
with sphinx because they made a reference to leon and the thing so it's probably not that so it's
probably sphinx yeah well it's two different things the difference is the x and the h got it
so anyway they have the the uh so uh sphinx will have his own problems later on, as we'll talk about.
But Scott told police he loaned the car.
He said, that's it.
I brought it in when he asked me to.
And then they tell him, you guys tell me there's blood in a bullet hole.
So he asked me questions.
I passed your lie detector.
What the fuck, basically.
So Newark police and prosecutors, they're trying to figure it out.
They're trying to figure it out.
He's basically, he's got his own investigators here, too, because he's got his boxing people are also looking into this because there's a lot of money on the line.
So they're basically turning into private investigators.
This one guy he investigates, the guy Ham is his last name.
Scott tells him that he's being framed for something he didn't do and uh you know what the fuck and so ham says that it's probably because
of scott's connection with a former prison mate who's running a robbery ring from from rawway
which steals from drug dealers got it and we'll talk about that too because that'll come up uh
now dan gabby who is murray's brother and the new jersey uh
you know he's into politics in new jersey he's also a prominent advertising executive
he uh he said that he learned the murder was connected to a drug-related robbery and that
he didn't hear that scott had anything to do with it so they're all saying that scott's innocent and
they're going to fight for him here uh basically sc Scott told this ham guy that he'd been he'd been indicted in order to pressure basically him into telling on other people is what his whole deal is.
And they made no other arrests right away.
Just him.
And he passed the lie detector test, which is weird.
Yeah.
Dan Gabby said through street contacts, he made inquiries about Scott's involvement.
How does he have street contacts?
He said, quote, There's an awful lot that doesn't make sense.
They don't know his involvement,
but they feel he had some knowledge
of what was going on.
Scott knows the law of the street.
Right now he's playing chicken.
Either he feels they don't have enough evidence on him
and he'll get off,
or he might crack if they have anything.
That's kind of what he's doing.
He's waiting them out.
Well, fine.
You're going to fucking charge me.
You don't have any evidence.
But they do.
They have only evidence for him.
They don't have evidence for anyone else.
That's the problem.
It's your car with bullet holes and blood in it.
That's yeah.
Absolutely.
And also, he said that Gabby also said his case is further complicated because of the
case of Ruben Hurricane Carter, who's also having his issues.
So that's not helping Scott any.
who's also having his issues,
so that's not helping Scott any.
Basically, Scott told him that he would defend himself if necessary,
but he wouldn't like when he's in jail.
He said, don't fucking do anything in jail.
He goes, if people fuck with me, I'm going to defend myself. I have to.
Now, the New Jersey public defender that he has said,
quote, we've had this problem before.
A lot of black people like Scott.
Think of us as blue-eyed devils or something.
Holy shit.
I understand Scott's kind of suspicion based on the environment he grew up with.
I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.
Okay.
He was put in fucking jail for five years for truancy.
Five fucking eight for truancy.
How is he not supposed to think that
i think it's been fucking proven to him over and over and over fucking again very consistent it's
very consistent the only thing consistent in his life actually is that you guys are dicks to him
that's it it's the only thing he's had in any consistency and family and anything else anything
the system will be a dick to him no problem so yeah so yeah the state theory
of the whole thing is that scott used russ as uh basically scott used russ just to find out
the location of narcotics basically like he rather than get drugs he wanted to just he wanted this
guy to lead him to drugs and then they were going to get rid of russ so russ didn't tell who the fuck
robbed basically that's how it was so they said that they shot him to death because scott feared
russ's knowledge of the robbery uh you know and was upset by the robbery's low proceeds too because
they only made 283 dollars yeah that's tough so basically everybody was mad and this russ guy was
pissed off now a weapons expert testifies later on that the bullet recovered from Russ's body was the same width as another found in Scott's car.
So, I mean, that's a it's not a ballistic match.
Also, this goal, Goldberg, who's the forensic guy, he said that an expanded shell casing expended.
I'm sorry.
Shell casing found in Scott's car was the same manufacturer
as unfired cartridges uh police found in scott's apartment so that's okay the same manufacturer
that's what they say not i mean who knows there's a lot of winchester this is very fucking yeah this
is all you think that they didn't make uh more than one box you know to turn a fucking profit
i mean scott is on parole and shouldn't have bullets or guns or anything but still that doesn't mean he murdered somebody
those are very different yeah yeah so they're talking about indicting him and all this shit
they're bringing him up for indictment of uh first degree murder they're talking about for him uh
yeah he says he doesn't have doesn't no shit i lent my car to that guy that's it uh he said that
now he comes out later on now that he's like charged
he's like listen i'll tell you more of the story oh fuck he goes uh he said i let my car to sphinx
i had nothing to do with shit uh basically this is a conspiracy involving the police against me
he said that uh sphinx's accomplice in the crime was someone from newark named blackjack
who's uh scott said that he resembled him in appearance.
He said, so I could see people thinking it was me
if it's Blackjack because we look a lot alike
and if it's my car and Blackjack,
they're going to think it's me when it's not.
He said that William, you know,
they're trying to find William Spinks
to get his version of it,
but they never do because a month later,
he is robbed in a stick up and murdered so they never get any murder blackjack black no no fucking
william spinks gets murdered oh shit so yeah he ends up getting murdered a month later he's stuck
up in the streets and murdered oh no so yeah they never got they never police never got him they
never questioned him they don't know shit.
This would help out Scott a lot if he's telling the truth.
But also, this case melts away.
Maybe it doesn't.
God damn it.
Well, here's the thing.
Leo Skinner, who's one of the other people there, he offered to basically the police. He talked to the police about Blackjack.
And this is questioned by the Essex County prosecutor here.
Basically, he said that Blackjack and scott quote could go for brothers they're so they look so close he said but uh he
said uh skinner also claimed there was differences blackjack was smaller and his hairstyle was
slightly different but from a distance in the dark you know uh so the question to him is did
blackjack beat you up the night of may 8th 1975
skinner says no sir he said did blackjack stick a gun in your mouth on may 8th 1975 he says no sir
he said did blackjack make you strip off all your clothes on may 8th 1975 skinner answers no sir he
says did blackjack threaten to throw you off the roof on may 8th, 1975. No, sir. Who did all those things to you on May 8th, 1975?
James Scott.
Oh, my.
That's what he says.
So, yeah, that's not great.
No.
That is bad for him.
He shug-nited him.
Yeah, that's naked.
Naked.
That's way worse.
That's fucking worse.
Holy shit.
We don't know if that guy's telling the truth or not but whatever hell
of a story i would fucking say so september 19th 1975 he's in jail awaiting trial rather than
fighting for the light heavyweight title of the world uh it's fucked up man he says he has
no money it's first degree murder armed robbery in violation of parole he's in for
and he's being tried for he He says he has no money.
He says he can't afford the lawyer who charges five thousand dollars in advance.
He has.
He says he's he's refused efforts by the ACLU to give him legal representation.
Why?
I don't know.
And as Scott wrote, he doesn't trust a public defender, which I don't blame him.
You shouldn't.
They're not.
They're trying to get you to take a plea and move on to the next thing they're busy you got shit to do yeah he says
quote uh or here other efforts to help him have failed uh basically murray gabby that guy uh he
says that he gave scott back his contract so he could so it could be used as ready cash for a
lawyer is what he says uh for parole purposes however the organization will still sponsor scott
they said if if there's possible but there's been no takers for the contract so nobody has bought it
it's there so uh scott basically uh is kind of fucked he's he's obviously kind of shit out of
luck and here is a letter from jail that he writes oh this is a letter from jail this is this is a letter from
camp this is a letter from camp this is how this started so there's only one thing to do we have to
do and in their own words in their own words quote let's see here i am innocent and the lawyer i want
costs money you know i don't steal hell there's more money to steal in miami if i wanted to steal
i'm a professional i can prove where i was with who i was uh the reason i don't steal. Hell, there's more money to steal in Miami if I wanted to steal. I'm a professional. I can prove where I was with who I was.
The reason I don't want to give my information to the police is because they scare your witnesses
and run them away.
The public defenders are even scared away by the state because they work for the state.
This is why I need a good lawyer.
Fair.
He's not wrong.
He's not wrong about any of that shit.
Yeah.
So he says, says you know what the
fuck he's he says that he's uh everybody's watching his case in jail he says quote all the prisoners
are what's the sense of a guy going home from jail doing his best to get out then when he makes a
record of decency for himself in society and society doesn't support him so he says all the
prisoners are rooting for him type of thing they want him to get off uh during his trial newer homicide detective thomas pussonato he uh passanato
he testified that scott admitted he and another man robbed two newark women it also he also
testifies that uh on may 9th scott took detectives to the apartment where the robbery occurred
this is very different from what he's saying.
They're literally saying not only did he confess, but he then took them on a fucking field trip to the place, which is way different than what he's saying.
He's saying, I didn't do shit and took a lie detector and passed and I'm fine.
So it's very fucking different.
Yeah.
So basically, that statement's ruled inadmissible, though.
So that's a big court fight.
But it's all the evidence we just gave you.
That guy testifies, Leo Skinner, that he says Scott did all this shit to me.
So it doesn't look good for him.
No.
Jury deliberates for 20 hours.
Okay.
And on the charge of armed robbery, they find him guilty of that.
Guilty of parole violation as well, obviously.
But on the murder charge, they find him tongue jury.
11 to 1 split on the jury.
Thank God for you, you angel.
They didn't say which side it was, but let's be honest.
It's one person like, I'm not sure he did that.
I don't know that we can do this to him.
I'm not sure he did that. I don't know that we can do this to him. I'm not sure he did that part.
So, yeah.
Because the other, I could see them saying, seeing a guy on the stand going, he did this
all to me.
And them going, okay, I believe that guy.
He's telling me what he did.
But he didn't say, then I saw him murder the guy.
Right.
So that's the thing.
It's like, they're shaking on that.
So it's a hung jury on the murder charge, which is good for now because he's not convicted
of murder.
jury on the murder charge which is good for now because he's not convicted of murder but there's it also that's also kind of shitty because obviously if it's a hung jury what can the
prosecutor do yeah fucking retry you whenever he feels like it and now it's just a murder charge
and if you get that murder charge you've also got the aggravator of the armed robbery yeah
which fucking that's death babe that's yeah yes well not then because the death penalty was
yeah wait we don't even have it now i don't know if they have it now but back then nobody had it
because there was a national stoppage of the death penalty for years we came to our senses for a
minute so anyway um very rare it happens it's fleeting in this country it goes fast don't
worry and then we fucking roll it all back we also tried not to get sick for fucking a month and then we rolled it back we rolled it back now everybody's sick it doesn't
matter so fucking disaster this place is unbelievable so on the uh so he split 11-1
so found guilty on robbery hung jury on the murder so now they have this they can anytime
they want they can retry him for murder yeah if at least they found him not guilty then they can't
retry him obviously that's double jeopardy but if this now they've got him rocked up on
robbery charges uh he's going nowhere we have all the time in the world exactly that's how they look
at it no problem oh jesus so uh yeah they asked him about that in december of 1975 and this is the
uh assistant prosecutor says quote it's still up to the prosecutor's office to decide whether to try him for murder the second time.
And, yeah, they said that the murder and the robbery were related.
So that's it's a good there's a good chance of it.
Basically, on the phone, Scott, though, he does an interview and he says he insists he's innocent on both charges.
He says, quote, how did they how did this just impossible or incredible or how they did? did this just impossible or incredible or unbelievable how
they did this is just impossible or incredible or unbelievable to me should be and yeah but uh he
said all they convicted me on was the testimony of two witnesses for the state one took the fifth
amendment to selling and using narcotics and one has a record as long as the fifth street gym
so he's saying which also fair if you got some guy with a fucking record of mile long they
can go to him hey maybe we make a couple charges disappear maybe you look the other way he's a
fifth street gym is the gym really really long or the people that are fucking criminals i think
he's saying there i that's a good question what the hell is he trying to physical distance or uh
inhabitants right or fucking combined rap sheets yeah combined rap sheets
fascinating little statement you just laid out there scott no shit man jesus christ uh so yeah
scott says that he uh never told detectives about a robbery and he doesn't know how they connected
him with one so they're saying he took him to the goddamn they scott actually took them to the apartment and showed it to them and he's saying
i didn't do any of that i don't know what you're talking about so we have very there should be
records of this this is why you record things and there's video cameras and stuff now uh he says
that uh a quote if i knew that about how they connected him with one if i knew that i'd be on
the streets right now there's a deal involved here.
Since it involved narcotics, the only way these people, the witnesses, can exonerate
themselves from the charges against them is to make a deal with the prosecution.
Also very true.
He says, quote, one of the newspapers, the Newark Star-Ledger, against the objections
of my counsel, made statements in the paper that weren't true.
It said defendant confesses to robbery and people
were taking the papers into the courtroom over the warning of the judge my lawyer objected to
the judge and my joy my lawyer objected and the judge said he would tell the jury to disregard
it but that's like saying you can ask a person to strike this or that from their memory that's
almost impossible right on suck a dick i dare you it's hard to figure that shit out that's a bell you can't
unring it so yeah well it's hard to hear the major piece of evidence and then say disregard that it's
like well walk in on somebody fucking your mom i dare you and see if you can erase that ever
oh i don't want to even i want to erase the fact that you brought it up
that's what i want to erase i got up you brought it up that's what i want to
erase i got up to go to the bathroom when i was everybody thought everything was never the same
nothing's been the same since then it's been going bad badly since then so march 1976 is
sentencing yeah here and uh they ask him what he thinks about it. He gets to make a statement. And he says, quote, Nobody knows who killed Mr.
Ross.
It's a tragic affair, but I didn't do it.
With all I've done to rehabilitate myself, it seems you can't get no justice.
And the judge says, You, sir, may fuck off.
Sentenced to 30 to 40 years.
Wow.
That's a lot.
That is steep. That's steep because of his previous record of robbery Wow. That's a lot. That is steep.
That's steep because of his previous record of robbery.
So that's a lot.
Oh, boy.
That's a fuckload.
30 to 40 years.
I mean, technically, I mean, yeah, well, I get it.
It's a lot, man.
Yeah.
It's fucked up what he did, too.
If he did it, yeah, it's fucked up.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a terrible thing, especially considering he's up.
I mean, he's good.
I don't know, man. It's all in the fucking game. Yeah. He didn't. It's a terrible thing, especially considering he's up. I mean, he's good. I don't know, man.
It's all in the fucking game.
Yeah.
He didn't.
It's like an Omar situation.
It's like, oh, it's all underground shit.
Like, it's all underworld shit.
If you're a fucking drug dealer, part of that game is you might get robbed by drug dealers.
You know what I'm saying?
You might get robbed by people.
You might get robbed by people that don't deal drugs.
That's what I mean.
That's part of the.
They don't.
They just want your money. That's part of the they don't they just want your money that's part of the fucking game so it's like for no one should
go to jail for this this is all like intramural why is he everyone's floor that's my point if
everyone's in the game it's all intramural and he's not in the game so he shouldn't be in the
fucking game he should be in florida his game is boxing and he's up yeah 100 grand tomorrow fuck man so may 27th 1977 he's sent
to raway state prison uh finally that's going to be his final place here inmate number 57735
uh yeah so he gets in never stops training yeah uh yeah what we'll find out he didn't give up
nope uh one of the dickens who's one of the the guys who's at Rahway, one of his friends, he says that he trained, quote, like a Spartan.
And he sure wasn't out nights fooling around.
Basically, he would run for an hour in the prison yard each morning.
Basically, do that.
And then he said, quote, and let me tell you, it gets boring with nothing to look at but that wall, which makes sense.
During the same period, they estimated that he did about 51 000 push-ups 16 000 sit-ups and punched the light
bag non-stop for 30 minutes at a time and then followed that up with 10 rounds on the heavy bag
jesus so he has all the time in the world to train and all he's doing is training that's it he's just
training training training harder than he ever has because he's in great shape has nothing else to do nothing else to distract him with great shape to rot away that's the thing
but the prison recently had sanctioned fights to highlight one of its work programs and showcase
its progressive rehabilitation system that's what they're trying to do there's a superintendent
named robert hatchrack who's trying really hard to, you know, have these people have
again, people in prison, have these people in prison, have a fucking place to go when
they're out.
You know what I mean?
And have something to do.
He says, quote, I would say a good 60 percent of the inmate population have never had a
real what you might call a bona fide job.
They've earned money wherever they can.
Catches catches catch can,
but to be a professional,
they could not call themselves that.
We found that once a man feels
that he's learned to trade,
he's become a mechanic
in whatever field or area he wants to,
he has a different outlook on life.
He also has a lot more respect for himself
and carries himself in a way that shows it.
Absolutely true.
He said, we've got dozens
of important rehabilitation programs at Rahway,
and boxing is only one of them.
I admit that teaching inmates to become professional fighters
and cut men and trainers is unique, but why not?
If we can teach them to lay brick or build a house,
why not teach them to box?
One man takes a college course, another man learns to throw a jab.
The results are the same.
When they leave here, they take something very important,
a way to earn an honest living,
a sense of self-respect, and the tools to become a useful citizen.
Yeah.
Teach a man to fish, give him a fish.
All that's true.
Yeah.
And that's what we don't fucking do anymore.
Some states try.
Arizona is one of the worst.
Yes, of course.
It's one of the worst.
The prison system here is one of the fucking worst.
We have nothing for these people.
Nothing.
No fucking edge.
Dick. Unless the inmates for these people. Nothing. No fucking edge. Dick.
Unless the inmates run it themselves.
That's the only time they have anything
is if some inmate decides
that he'll teach a history course or something.
That's it, though.
Other than that, who gots?
And then we discharge him into Bisbee
and get him back into society that way.
And I just found out yesterday
that Fuckhead is running for sheriff again here.
Again?
In 2020.
Oh, he's going to lose.
He's 90 years old he lost the senate
primary and we don't say who to vote for who not to vote for on this show not that one joe arpaio
is a unmitigated unquestioned piece of flaccid dick skin he can fuck himself there is no reason
to vote for him i'm so happy that since he's been gone in maricopa county have you heard anything from the sheriff god damn silence no you know why because they're not being sued
for 100 million fucking dollars every 10 minutes for basic shit that you can do just so our pie
can have a big ego and go out and say how tough he is meanwhile all you're doing is costing us
shit loads of money you fucking old cocksucker the The last thing I heard. Enriching yourself. The last thing I heard from Penn Zone was there's a new sheriff in town.
That's it.
The night he won.
That's it.
Done.
That's all I want to hear.
I don't want to hear your shit.
I haven't heard lawsuits.
Six years?
Eight years?
What is it?
Four.
Fix the shit.
It's fucking unreal.
But yeah, this fucking idiot.
All that shit was his own profit.
Even the pink underwear.
It was like, oh, ha, ha, ha.
He only did that so he could then sell pink underwear as souvenirs.
Guess who made the profit?
Not the state of Arizona.
That was his personal thing.
All the vending machines in there.
His personal shit.
He even had a cut of the fucking phone shit in there.
Personal.
Not the fucking county who's being sued because of his irresponsibility constantly and fucking
hemorrhaging tax money. Not that
in his fat fuck pockets.
How do you get that? Suck a fucking
dick, you motherfucker. That's what I hope he does.
That should be illegal. Oh, it is.
That's the point. That's how fucking
corrupt it is and shitty here. So anyway,
off our soapbox here,
we will not apologize for saying we
hate Joe Arpaio. He's a terrible man. Ever.
He's a piece of shit.
Fuck him.
My favorite.
If you like him, it says something about your character.
You're an asshole.
There's no debate of like, oh, we like it.
If you like him, you're a bad person.
Don't listen to the show.
Don't fucking interact with us.
I'll tell you to fuck your mother every time.
Fuck you.
Piece of shit.
My friend on the radio talked about him, he went and had had a whole detail of
officers tail the morning show the wrong morning show oh my god so incompetent and fucking corrupt
incompetent and corrupt we need to make that a one word and that's who he is
we have a fucking detail of deputy that we pay for to go tail to do his personal bidding right
to fuck with people who didn't even have nothing to do with it on fucking real and that is so you'll
hear you could hear a trillion stories like that just like it basically he thought this was he
thought he was boss hog and this was fucking hazard county and he's gonna get them duke boys
i'm surprised he didn't petition the mayor or governor
to change Maricopa County to Hazard.
Hazard, yeah.
I'd like it to be Hazard County.
Can we make everybody drive Dodge Chargers?
Yeah.
That would be great.
That would be wonderful.
We'll just suck money out of them.
We need tanks, more tanks.
And that's the other thing, too.
People can say,
oh, well, these programs cost money in prison.
You know what costs more? Being sued for a hundred million fucking dollars six times a year
because you can't give people basic civil fucking rights maybe that's what you should do i'm sorry
but it's cheaper for the kind of money i'd love to see i'd love to see a fucking thing for how
much money this county paid out in fucking lawsuits and how much they made versus what
prisoners could have been living in their own two-bedroom fucking condos downtown and a high rise for the fucking cost we're paying for people
are you kidding me meanwhile they don't have fucking food so this fat fuck can make money
oh my god jesus christ okay i gotta get off there i'll talk about it the whole fucking time i hate
him so much he's the fucking worst he's a monster oh he's he's the worst person we've produced as a
nation i can't you name me a worst
person and i'll fucking tell you 10 things this guy did that's worse you can't name someone more
racist you can't name someone more fucking disgusting cheap corrupt crooked ugly he makes
fucking andrew j never mind i'm fucking i'm done anyway so this guy, he started, the HatchRack guy also started the Scared Straight program,
which you might know of from TV shows that are still on the air.
From Oprah.
Yeah, they still make that show.
It's still on Hulu, I think, here.
But yeah, the Scared Straight program, which is maybe my favorite thing in the world.
It's awesome.
It's pretty amazing to watch a kid who thinks he's hot shit go up and have a prisoner tell
him, I'll fuck you in the mouth.
There's something about that.
But I'll knock your teeth out first so it'll feel better.
There's something about that.
A hardened 25-year-old criminal saying that to a 13-year-old is amazing.
And they're like, oh, wow, I don't want to be here.
Oh, I thought it was just, okay.
I was afraid of the cops.
Never mind in here.
A black Sergeant Slaughter going to yell at me. This is entirely different. This. Right. I was afraid of the cops. Never mind in here. A black Sergeant Slaughter
going to yell at me.
No, no.
This is entirely different.
This is different.
I never heard Sergeant Slaughter.
Yeah.
Sergeant Slaughter,
I don't know if I believe,
but he never said
he was going to fuck anyone
in the mouth either,
so I might have believed that.
So, yeah.
The added sting of tooth removal.
Yeah.
Just to make it better.
A little easier for you.
Oh, my God.
So, yeah.
He said that there was a bunch of, bunch of shops and classrooms and all this shit that they opened and everything to try to give them a shot outside.
Basically, for Scott, though, he didn't have a lot of sparring partners.
That was the problem there.
Correction officials borrowed the heavyweight champ of the Trenton State Prison and brought him in.
You want to fight with him?
And Scott broke three of his ribs and fucking sent him back on his way so he wasn't anywhere near as good as scott was so uh hatchback said quote enough of this we can't have
scott busting up the prison population no more inmates because then they have to pay for the
medical care so like we can't do this he's just fucking people up breaking bones yeah he said
we'll bring someone in from the outside.
That's how they said they were going to do to prison.
So one of the people that they brought in was Royster, the guy he fought with the head
butts and all that.
That guy.
Yeah.
They brought him in and to spar against against Scott.
Scott knocked him out and he never came back.
So that was that.
He's probably mad at him too
and then another guy named jc brown he's a new work heavyweight he agreed to work but
only three days a week and three rounds at a time he would only go with scott because scott was
wanting to fight a lot more than that and this guy was like rounds a week yeah i'm not getting
punched much more than that thanks so uh yeah he wanted to be able to fight more than four rounds
scott because a real fight would be more than four rounds.
So he said, quote, it's a mental barrier, a barrier.
It's like a miler trying to break four minutes.
You get afraid of it.
The fear you can't do it.
So he's like, what if I get to four rounds and I can't go anymore because all I've been doing is four rounds.
So he really wants to be able to fight.
to be able to fight uh basically uh the miami news here uh paper john crittenden he wrote a thing that said he wrote quote he had a typewriter and a tape recorder and a list of names of people
who knew him before he went to prison newspaper reporters television announcers gymnasium
acquaintances and friends he wrote letters uh basically he may collect phone calls to every
promoter kept doing all this shit to try to get
interest in him from prison uh he says quote they told me you're not going anywhere so i'm not taking
you on because he said he got a hold of don king bob arum and they both told him you're not gonna
get it you're not getting out dude there's no money to be made yeah i can't what am i gonna do
with you so uh one promoter from uh from jersey actually said he fell in love with the whole narrative, and he took a chance on him.
This was Murad R. Muhammad, who was a member of Ali's entourage at one point, too.
He agreed to promote fights from Rahway Prison.
He said, let's see if they'll let us do that.
So this Muhammad guy, he recently transitioned from the fast food business into boxing, which is an odd transition,
and worked for Bob Arum and Don King
and then started his own promotional company there.
So that's how that works.
And he actually somehow pulls together a fucking fight in Rahway State Prison.
Unreal.
May 24th, 1978, Rahway State Prison.
It's Scott versus Diego Joe Roberson,
who's a 2-6-1 fighter coming in.
And Scott knocks him out in the second round.
So he's 11-0-1.
But more than that, the fight doesn't matter.
They just had a fucking televised fight in prison.
In a prison.
That's insanity.
So it happened.
I can't believe Joe Arpaio didn't figure that out to make money, too.
But yeah, he wouldn't give any of the prisoners any of it.
Or yeah, what am I going to fight fight for you he'd figure out a way for
him to make the money personally fucking scumbag utter scumbag oh but yeah don't invest child
fucking sex charges either let's not do that because we have to round up mexicans that's
much more important lab work is expensive yeah they out how years, 10 years worth of cases he wasn't fucking even investigating
child sexual abuse charges.
Meanwhile, doing giant roundups of Mexicans that he could put on television and go, see,
told you I hate Mexicans.
Fucking asshole.
We know.
We know.
We got it based on all of your actions.
So he wins the fight.
You know what?
Scott got paid for that fight.
Zero.
A prison steak dinner.
Oh, God.
Prison steak.
Oh, Jesus.
That can't be good.
That's a flank steak, right?
I don't even know if they're getting flank.
That's like odds and ends.
The burn ends and they mush it together and call it a steak.
Tape it up.
Why is there Scott's tape in here?
Don't worry about it.
This tape has ropes in it.
What the fuck?
Is this duct tape?
Oh, my God. There's strings coming out. Wow. This tape has ropes in it. What the fuck? Is this duct tape? Oh, my God.
There's strings coming out.
Wow.
It's put together, though.
So, yeah, he got a stake for that.
So then this Mohammed scheduled his next fight against a guy named Fred Brown.
This time, Scott could earn $600 for a win.
Okay.
So the first time, he had to do it for free just to show we were doing a fight in prison.
Right.
Basically, like,
we're all doing this
on spec kind of a thing.
The second time,
yeah, he fights
September 9th, 1978,
Rahway Prison
versus Fred Brown,
who's 12-2 coming in,
but he's 18-39-2
for his career.
So, yeah,
he went 6-37
after this fight.
Oh, Lord.
It's not good.
This is a TKO win
for Scott.
It brings him to 12-0-1.
Not bad.
Muhammad then reached out to the, at the time,
number one ranked light heavyweight in the world,
Eddie the Flame Gregory.
Okay, now Gregory was a big fighter
and he was in line to be the champ here.
They offered him $15,000 to face Scott in prison here. here and uh you know so that's how it goes 15
grand they offer gregory um yeah so this is a big deal and uh because he fought a couple bums before
this but this guy's like in line for the title so this is a huge deal and it's a big deal and hbo
signs on to televise the fight wow this is in is in the early days of HBO when they broadcast.
HBO made its name by broadcasting the thriller in Manila.
I actually just read a book about this like a week ago.
That's how they became HBO Boxing or HBO Sports.
HBO Sports.
That was one of their first things.
They also used to broadcast WWF Wrestling for Madison Square Garden because HBO is a New York thing.
But they also that
was their first big thing they had that was their they had set this satellite up and everybody else
was not showing this fight live from manila they were all like you know they'd come back with fly
home with videotapes to show the highlights they broadcast it live to the world this was like the
first pay-per-view so it was a a huge deal. That's what made cable explode.
Because people went, holy shit, they can do that?
And people ordered fucking cable when they heard about that.
Thank you, Muhammad Ali.
I want to watch a fucking fight that's not on the wide world of sports or whatever.
And clever, too.
They put box in the fucking name of the whole thing.
Well, it was Home Box Office.
But yeah, it ended up just being a good coincidence.
And they're still doing it.
So this is a big deal.
They sign on to
televise the fight uh scott's purse for the fight's 2500 but is being seen on national you know on hbo
doesn't have rent no that's the other thing and it's a big deal because it's it's it's everywhere
that hbo is going to broadcast a fight from prison it's a very with a wild with a contender that's
sick a 12 round right uh they
called it basically kind of a tune-up for gregory because he's a you know a contender here so
october 12 78 this is before the fight uh he's in there uh scott is in the in an office in the
in the prison oh no basically waiting he's got a bunch of his friends around him who are inmates
and uh he says quote we've only got four rounds four rounds or else we're got a bunch of his friends around him who are inmates. And he says, quote, we've only got four rounds.
Four rounds or else we're in a lot of trouble, as he was saying.
He told everybody that he can only fight four rounds, basically.
Now, Eddie Gregory's in the other room.
He was just happy, basically.
He had a $50,000 title fight lined up with Mike Rossman, who's the new champion.
This is a tune-up.
He's getting 15 grand and just beat some prisoner up.
Gregory says, quote, they say Scott is tough, but how tough can he be?
Oh, boy.
So he fought a couple of stiffs inside the walls, and he knocked them out.
He hasn't had a real pro fight in almost four years, and now he wants to fight a top contender?
You know he's got to be crazy.
He's been in here too long.
It happens when you stay in these places too long.
I'll carry him for 11 rounds and knock him out in the 12th it'll be a good workout oh boy so this guy is
confident as fuck of all fuck here uh scott got some final advice from ali's former physician
pacheco there uh he says quote don't try to think out there this is the fight this is the advice he
gives him don't try to think out there fight by. You are an animal caged up in here and you want to get out.
Go out and fight like an animal.
Snarl like an animal.
Climb all over him like an animal.
Jesus.
Can you stop calling me an animal, please?
I'm a human being.
I'm a fucking man.
Can you not call me?
I get what he's trying to say.
You're a caged animal.
Before a fight, it doesn't matter what you're saying.
Whatever gets someone jacked, they'll come up and say,
hit me in the fucking face.
Whatever gets them to the point where they want to kill is fine.
I'm going to finger fuck your sister.
Yeah.
Whatever makes them crazy.
Fuck yeah.
So Pacheco later said, it was hot in that little room,
but when I looked into Scott's eyes, I suddenly felt cold.
I felt sorry for Gregory.
So Scott's pissed, basically.
Larry Merchant, who was the longtime boxing announcer forever, he was one of the guys calling this fight.
He said, quote, James Scott is a very, very unusual man, and so is the boxing program here at Rahway.
Last time we came here to take an inside look at both phenomenon, a very inside look.
Stoned walls do a prison make here, and inside them dwells a community of outcasts.
I'm trying to get all fancy there.
Take it easy.
Yeah.
He says, quote, or Scott said this.
I'm sorry.
Merchant said this.
He says, Gregory.
I'm sorry.
Jesus Christ.
Who the fuck said this?
I am losing my mind.
Fucking Scott says this.
Gregory is just an opportunity to expose the public that there is somebody lurking behind the shadows waiting for his opportunity.
I think about this all day long.
24 hours a day.
I eat, sleep, and drink this.
He's got his hours at the gym.
Girls.
He's got to duck all that.
All this publicity on him.
Psychologically, I can't see him being ready.
And if he is ready
i'm ready we're gonna fight this guy's got this guy's got to kill me to win that's what scott
says he's that very first part sounded like something a robber would say yeah no shit so uh
so the fight night there's 450 people buying tickets to see this to go to prison right from
the outside.
This is the same auditorium.
I think it was seven years earlier where there was a big riot and prisoners took a bunch of hostages, including the warden.
Awesome.
In the same exact place.
So the entire inmate population is watching on three large screens set up in the drill hall is what they call it there.
They have Larry Merchant, Don Dunphy, and Sugar Ray Leonard on the commentary.
Sugar Ray is fresh from the Olympics.
He's not even a fucking pro yet.
He just started being a pro.
He just came from the Olympics, but he's very famous at that point.
So this is the first pro fight ever televised from prison.
Interesting shit.
It's the coolest.
Yeah.
So Merchant says to the other guy, Don, you've seen a few million fights in your time have you ever heard of us have you ever even
heard of a situation like this and he says not really larry i haven't if you were to ask me if
scott had much of a chance i'd have to say off the cuff i don't think so i just can't conceive of an
inmate in prison defeating the number one light heavyweight contender however the important thing here is that scott thinks he can do it true uh gregory is being in he's got his
robe on there surrounded by fucking corrections officers as he's full of shotguns yeah literally
being waiting waiting to go out there but he said he's comfortable he says quote this is gregory
quote this is like a homecoming for me uh He said, everybody knows I've done a little time myself.
No problem.
Just going to be me and James Scott.
I'm not fighting the whole prison system.
I'm just fighting James Scott.
Then they said, what kinds of things did you do?
What kind of time did you do for what?
Gregory smiled and said, quote, small things.
Burglary, harassment.
I beat up four cops.
Small things like that.
That's a fucking great answer. So fight this is against eddie lee gregory known as the flame and later on will be known as eddie mustafa muhammad when he changes his name he comes into
this fight 29 3 and 1 he's a real no shit guy finishes his career 58 and 1 wow it's a bad
motherfucker uh so pacheco the doctor he said quote when the
opening bell sounded Scott roared
literally roared it startled
Gregory he told him go out
there like an animal he did he
said it startled Gregory he looked at him
like oh shit after that
James was relentless I'd never
seen him like that those three years
away from boxing all that held back emotion
he let it ride
that night by the fourth round one of the don dunphy one of the commentators said quote off of
what i've seen so far i have to wonder if eddie gregory took this fight seriously gregory's no
longer smiling he's run into a buzzsaw so it changed and then the drill hall the inmates
chanted for round after round they chanted kill the cocksucker over and over for the whole rounds every round i'll bet i could have guessed with like five
guesses what the chant was yeah so they're rooting for him yeah let's just say i would
have said kill that motherfucker kill the cocksucker close enough it was probably uh
they had to really figure it out right they had like the heads of the blacks the heads of the whites the heads of like the latino mobs all together like what are we going
to say here guys they had to all work it out all the gangs black guys like call him a peck of wood
we're going with cocksucker he's not he's not white we're going with cocksucker everybody
has no racial undertones it's slightly uh you know offensive to a homosexual and so it's it's
a lot it really works for us
in prison is what we're getting we'll try to wear down his psyche calling him a homosexual you know
that for the next 12 rounds just over and over again so apparently scott from the start was just
super aggressive i'm you know both hands fucking him up doing the whole deal in the fourth round
a big lump came up under gregory's eye which is which is bad and that's when fighters start to
panic because they can't control that.
Scott said, quote, I threw everything I had at him, but he's too smart.
I knew then I was going to have to go the full 12,
and I thought, oh, no, you better pace yourself.
A good fighter like that, even if you can swarm them,
they know how to hold on.
They can hang on.
They're smart.
They know how to play defense.
They know how to get away from you.
They know how to waste time. It's a thing. They know how to get not not knocked out i'm riveted uh yeah
so this goes the full 12 uh here at the end the corner was screaming for him to go to a knockout
but gregory held on in the 12th round scott said quote from the third round on he wasn't trying to
win the fight he was just trying not to get hurt um he ends up winning a unanimous
decision against him james scott that's fucking crazy uh even the the referee was the only guy
when talked about it afterwards was he's the only one who saw it even closer he uh he gave it to
scott six to four with two rounds even but harold letterman who's he's still doing that shit on HBO, he had it judged nine rounds, nine rounds to Scott, two to Gregory, one draw.
Not even close.
Not even close.
Fucking blowout, basically.
Unbelievable.
Blowout.
The other judge called it 9-3.
So same thing.
He won nine fucking rounds, basically.
And Scott said he wants a title fight.
He's saying to the interviewing he wants a title fight with Rossman.
He said, quote, it won't go four rounds.
I'm going to fuck Rossman up.
Bring him to the prison.
Bring him to my fucking cell.
I can't go to him.
Bring him to me.
Bring him to me.
Afterwards, Larry Merchant said, quote, you've been dreaming of this for years, working toward it, a lonely vigil, a lonely journey.
What are your real feelings inside now
he said well and he said he paused and put his head back and said quote i hope mr hatcherack
will let me go home now he just wants out of prison but he thinks he earned freedom maybe
i'll go home now that's all i want uh now harold letterman about that fight said quote on that day
he was one of the judges he said on that day that day, I thought James Scott was the greatest light heavyweight I ever
saw in my life.
That's how great he was.
On that one day when he beat Gregory, he was the best light heavyweight I ever saw.
I never saw a performance like that anywhere.
I don't think Bob Foster was as good as that.
I don't think Archie Moore was as good as that.
Archie Moore is a fucking legend.
He was prepared like I've never seen in my life. What happened
just ruined the career of a possibly great
athlete. There's no doubt that he was
his own worst enemy. He probably
ruined his own life. He has nobody to blame
but himself. It's a strange story.
They want him to
go home and end it all. Right.
Poor Gregory. Well, the rest of it
was about Scott, I think. It's a strange
story. Probably ruined his own life. Yeah, that has to be. On, the rest of it was about Scott, I think. It's a strange story. Probably ruined his own life.
Yeah, that has to be.
On the way out of the prison, Rossman, the champ, who was there to scout,
Rossman's father was there, Jimmy DePiano, his name is.
He was there to scout for his son, for who's going to win this fight.
He said, quote, it's going to take an awful lot of money before I'll let my son in the same ring with that monster.
So he literally said, he's going to maul so it's gonna he's better have to pay for it
basically that yes scott says quote the rise of a champion from prison house to lightweight
heavyweight championship of the world has it ever been done before no i'll die if i don't get that
title shot i'm pregnant i've got to deliver this child he's pregnant damn it
he's got to deliver he's more tracy morgan than tracy he is he's fucking great he is tracy jordan
he's like 30 rock tracy morgan he's wild so uh november of 1978 the wba comes out with their
rankings and scott is ranked number eight in the world in the light heavyweight division.
And number one in prison.
Number one in all of prison ever, ever anywhere.
So March 10th, 1979, in Rahway, fights a guy named Richie Cates, who's 35-4 coming in.
He's a good fighter.
He's a badass man, but Scott knocks him out.
TKO win, 14-0-1.
I mean, he's, you know, fucking trying.
It's at this point that he starts trying to petition to get out of jail.
He starts saying that he basically he's got a petition saying that he's an exceptional case, basically.
And that was on CBS.
That fight was national broadcast television.
And yeah, so he's he thinks he might have a chance.
The Hatch Rack guy is going to support him.
Problem is, a month later, Hatch Rack gets fired as superintendent and reassigned to a desk job.
Oh, no.
They don't like what he's doing.
Nothing.
Listen to this.
This is County Corrections Commissioner William Favre said Hatch Rack was, quote, too interested in the publicity surrounding his Scared Straight program and criticized his management of style, saying, quote, you have to run it like a prison, not
Hollywood.
So he's saying it's not bad enough.
It's not shitty enough.
People are coming out.
They're like they want to have jobs.
They have confidence.
We really need them to come out broken people.
We need to demoralize who come right back in when they're done, because we have a business
for running here.
Jesus Christ.
This shit of correcting children before they do anything wrong, that does nothing for us in the future.
You're a real asshole.
Picture him taking them aside and going, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.
I see what you're doing, but if they go out and they don't come back in, what do we do?
Right.
Where are our jobs?
It's essentially a shift manager at McDonald's telling people how great Weight Watchers is.
The shittier your prison is, the more job security you have, because the more you're assuring that people are going to get sent right back to you.
And you'll always have a job fucking watching over them.
Just hawk the fillet of fish and shut up.
Shut the fuck up.
So, yeah, then he learned of his replacement of who Hatch Rack was.
His replacement wasn't.
Shit gets worse, basically.
of who Hattrack was replaced.
His replacement wasn't.
It's shit gets worse. Basically, apparently when Scott was in Trenton State State Prison a while back, a guard brought
assault charges against him for striking another inmate with a pipe and Scott was sent to the
hole.
Basically, this guard back then, this was in the 60s.
Sidney Hicks is now worked his way all the way up to he's promoted to the Rahway superintendent.
Remember me, motherfucker?
So he hates Scott.
He ain't helping him at all.
Basically, there's no more talk of getting any help with the judge to call it an exceptional case.
None of that shit.
Scott says, quote, they locked me up.
I came to prison.
I just about punched my way out of prison.
But then they got me going every which way.
This administration says I'm not an exceptional individual. I came to prison. I just about punched my way out of prison. But then they got me going every which way.
This administration says I'm not an exceptional individual.
And the only way they can grant me full minimum is if I was an exceptional case.
If I'm not an exceptional case, I don't know who is.
If a guy can pick himself up in a place like this, the mud of civilization, if a guy is able to rise above that, then that should be what they're trying to encourage every inmate to do fucking duh yeah i would say that's probably good for everybody if so i mean and it's all over
the place too this story's everywhere i found june 24th 1979 i found the rochester new york tv
listings from the democrat and chronicle and he is on channel 13 pm Magazine, James Scott, Boxer Behind Bars.
This is sandwiched in between two other stories.
One is a piano playing duck.
Is that the lead in?
It's PM Magazine, Piano Playing Duck, James Scott, Boxer Behind Bars, and then Benefits of Buckwheat.
Those are the stories that they sandwiched.
The actual Buckwheat not not the little guy yeah
the little guy from the little rat not the little rascals buckwheat no so he's literally got a
a skiing squirrel lead-in that is ridiculous tough competition at seven o'clock in rochester
though on channel eight you got crosswits i don't know what that is channel 10 you got tic tac doe oh i mean that
game show uh channel 21 new york pm which is the the replay of that last one i think uh channel
two you got the dating game oh channel three mary tyler moore show channel five newlywed game nobody
put that after the dating game and then channel nine the odd couple how are you gonna compete
with all that i'll watch any of those things, really, probably.
Nobody watched this poor fuck.
No, it's crazy.
That newspaper was weird to see, but what was even weirder was the sales, Jimmy!
Oh, the sales!
Let's see what we got here. If you happen to be in Rochester, New York on June 24th, 1979, you need to stop on by
Reem Something for a furnace cleaning.
You need to stop on by Reem something for a furnace cleaning.
We power vac furnace burner, heat exchanger, warm and cold air pipes, register smoke pipe and chimney, check and adjust burner and controls, $15.95, regularly $30.
That's a great deal.
That's a deal.
Peace of mind.
Also, best beef on the block.
Oh.
USDA prime, top government grade, meat city is the name of the
phone number yuck meat city i didn't tell you what cut it's just we got a lot meat city that's
what cut we got and then finally mark kitchens get down to custom theater custom formica fabricator
which in the 70s was a hot business. Custom?
All of it's custom. Formica.
Jesus.
Kitchen drawer and drawer fronts from $395.
Unbelievable deals.
But not as big of a deal as color TV picture tubes with free installation.
This is just the tube inside an old TV.
$99.95.
Any size.
In case your TV breaks.
In case it breaks.
They're all the same price?
All the same price.
Any size.
And then Ridge Electronics, you can go over and get JFD antennas and Alliance rotors.
Some big antenna for $109.
So you got that.
And then, what is that?
Yeah, these.
Oh, my God.
The JFD antenna and alliance rotors.
This is literally a van with a saddle with a fucking giant antenna off the back of it.
It's like to hook to make your van.
Like, if you park it, you can then like broadcast a signal.
Bro, look at this shit.
That's the thing.
Look at the picture.
It's coming out of the ass end of a van for $109.
$109.
You can outfit your fucking car.
Oh, CB.
Oh, CB radios.
Hell yeah.
Your choice, AM FM cassette or a Trek stereo for your car, $69.95.
Deal.
So there's that.
July 1st, 1979 at Rahway, he fights Bunny Johnson, 52-11-1 coming in.
No joke.
She sounds tough.
She's a tough one.
This is stopped in the seventh round as he wins. Oh. Scott. 15-0-1 coming in. No joke. She sounds tough. She's a tough one. This is stopped in the seventh round as he wins.
Oh.
15-0-1.
Not bad.
The guy's still undefeated.
I mean, still undefeated.
Yeah, no one's ever beat him.
He says, quote, I'm paying to be in jail now.
I've made a little money from the TV fight.
I've been able to hire an attorney.
I took my parents off federal assistance.
That's good.
And 10% of what I win goes to an organization which benefits victims of violent crimes. able to hire an attorney i took my parents off federal assistance and that's good and ten percent
of what i win goes to an organization which benefits victims of violent crimes i pay two
thousand dollars for my living quarters here per year i think it's for training and shit all that
stuff because he food eats different everything's different i pay 106 a month to eat that's for his
food there uh it's only 85 if i don't eat eggs i'm supposed to be in here for
rehabilitation right boxing is the only thing that i can do uh that can do for me in this place look
around you there's nothing else here nothing but grief there's the tv the marijuana smoke floats
around with the pills and the homos what that sounded like a dmx lyric that yes quote the marijuana smoke
marijuana floats around with the pills and the homos so i swear to god dmx has said that yeah
with the pills and the hobos yeah he said that shit probably yeah i don't know that's that just
caught me off guard i haven't seen that written like that about 20 a month for
eggs that what is a dollar a dollar a dozen that's a shitload of eggs yeah he's probably
he's training he's probably eating holy right in a dozen a day protein 20 a month that's the
only place you can get protein probably more than meat i would think so many eggs he said
the wall libraries and reading rooms aren't crowded anymore. Must be the homos.
What the fuck?
I don't want to smoke in the pills.
So August 26, 79, from Rahway, he fights Ennio Cametti, who looks like an Italian Burt Reynolds, basically.
Kind of like Luigi, basically. He's got a mustache.
It's Ennio Cametti.
He is 30 wins, 4 losses, 3 draws coming in.
Problem is his career.
He's 30 wins, 9 losses, 3 draws.
So this fight stopped in the fifth.
James wins, 16-0-1.
WBA lists him as the number two contender at this point in the fucking world here.
Unreal.
It's at this same point light heavyweight champ Victor Galindez is stripped of his title for pulling out of an ABC televised event.
There was another guy, Yacui Lopez, who's the number one contender.
And basically, the Muhammad guy, his promoter, Scott's promoter, already had a fight set up between Scott and Lopez to be on NBC.
And but Scott's promoter said, hey, can we change the fight to a fight to a 15 round championship fight if this guy's going to get the belt?
And that's when things get a little a little, little, little dicey, little dicey.
Yeah.
He wants a title shot.
And that's when the WBA goes, do we want to champion in prison?
Yes, you do.
Well, they all meet in September of 1979.
And basically, they say for the first first time they bring up his criminal record suddenly they
say the notion this is what the wba says the notion of a jailhouse fighter at least this one
sets a bad example for the sport and fighting in prison puts his opponents at a disadvantage
which that's sort of true yeah but it's always like money or not that's the thing they held a
vote of whether to uh to you know keep let him of whether to keep his earned rating, and they vote 60 to 1 to strip him of his rating and his contendership for the title.
60 to 1.
What the fuck?
WBA was very happy, and then they reinstated the other guy as champion, too, at the same time.
In protest, Scott retired. He said, fine, fuck you guys, and I retire. happy and then they reinstated the other guy as champion too at the same time uh in protests got
retired said fine fuck you guys then i retire that's that um he told the new york times the
wba stripped me of my ranking and will not let me fight for the championship as long as i'm in prison
so as long as i'm here i won't fight the week before they denied me the week before last they
denied me bail last week they took my rating away.
I worked so hard for it, and white folks just took it away from me over a conversation.
They waited for me to win a lot of fights and then just took my rating away.
The black people all over the country don't get justice.
If the WBA wanted me not to fight
they should have never raided me wow yeah it's pretty fucked up what they did that's fucked up
they they loved the publicity and then they got to it's like oh we don't really want to have him in
jail he's great for boxing as long as we don't have to fucking co-sign on him plus the the champ
has a little more control also so they don't want some prisoner controlling so it's it's it's shitty
man that's fucked up so uh yeah but he decides he is going to fight again, though.
He does decide to fight again.
October 26, 1979, he's going to fight the next day, and he's pissed off.
Now he's mad at Murad Mohammed, his promoter, and he says that he's, quote, no good.
October 27, 1979, James Brown is in the crowd crowd really james brown is there at the prison uh he
is seated some distance from the ring uh they they announced him and he stood up and acknowledged
the cheers and the announcer called for him why don't you come down and sing the national anthem
so he said no no no no i'm good and they said no you have to come on to everyone and the crowd's
going crazy oh my god james. James, James, James.
Oh, my God.
So now he's got to go sing the national anthem.
This poor bastard.
So he's got to go up there.
Okay, fine.
He waves.
He gets up there.
He's standing there and gets up near the ring.
He doesn't know the words.
And this is the reporter.
He looked at him.
He said, hey, Godfather.
And he said that James Brown looked at him and rolled his eyes and snorted and let out a low moan like the Addams Family lurch.
Once he began to sing, it was obvious why.
He didn't know the words.
James!
He faked his way through it.
Hell yeah.
What a purist might consider one of the worst renditions of the anthem you'd ever want to hear.
In his defense, he didn't know he was
supposed to sing it to learn it you don't just i mean you know he would have practiced probably if
he knew he had to sing the fucking thing i imagine which is amazing pretty amazing the fact that he
even went down and gave it what was he thinking on the way down there i hope i learn all the words
by the time i get to that microphone i've got 35 steps to figure this shit out okay now i've heard
it before right every damn sporting event they play i've heard if i could just get
the from the back of my brain i just need that first word what if i can
some shit and home of the bride i know this the brave's home and shit so that i got
and then he was so frustrated he beat the shit out of his wife on the way home.
And ran three states away.
So Scott's fighting Jerry Celestine, who's 17-4-1.
It's a unanimous decision win for Scott.
He's 17-0-1.
December 1st, 79, again in Rahway, he fights Yaqui Lopez, who's known as the Indian.
He was the guy who was supposed to fight before for the title.
He's 47-8 coming in.
This guy will finish his career 61-15.
That's a lot of fights, man.
Unanimous decision win
for Scott again. So that's the guy
who they were giving the belt to. He just beat him.
18-1. Or 18-0-1.
Sorry. May 25th,
1980 in Rahway.
He fights Jerry the Bull Martin jerry had trained in joe
frazier's gym in the 70s he was a philly guy and had trained there uh he's 18 and one coming in
wow pretty good fighter this fight goes the distance all 12 rounds and it's a unanimous
decision loss oh no for uh for james here so not wonderful he's not thrilled about that uh 18 one and one he is
july 13th 1980 he asked the sky the judge to basically drop the pending murder charge because
the prosecutor has brought that murder charge back up and say they're going to charge him now
and try him again five years later so uh the judge here uh or he's uh just put a continuance for later on
uh he says quote i'd been sent to raway for a robbery charge and three years later when i was
starting boxing they reopened my murder trial the judge said i was to say nothing in the courtroom
in my defense the television rights brought me 104, which I never received a dime of.
They said it all went to my public defender.
Wow.
They just robbed his ass to state.
That is gross.
He says, the Bob Arums, Murid Mohammeds, and Don Kings are not liars.
They just don't tell the truth.
It's such an injustice how I can be trusted to walk to this gym each night and get a ride
back and not be set free.
That was very impressive. was wild they don't they
don't lie they just don't tell the truth what the fuck is they're just bad at truth stuff
jesus christ so august 10th 1980 they ask him press asks him basically there's two fighters
matthew sad muhammad and uh eddie mustafa muhammad who's eddie gregory yeah he's changed his name
they won't fight each other because they're both muslims and they asked scott about that how he
feels he says quote i'll fight a mao mao a klansman anything religion has no place in boxing
he don't give a fuck a mao mao a klansman anything he's he's ugly you put a motherfucker in front of
me i'll hit him i don't care put gloves on him let's
go let's go get him in the ring so uh the court comes up his murder trial comes up they're
charging with first degree murder he does not testify it's a jury of seven men and five women
according to testimony scott asked russ to lead him to the drug dealer like i said we know the
testimony here yeah uh apparently this new testimony is when
scott returned to the car he shot russ to conceal the robbery they said and then they drove a little
bit with him and then pushed him out here uh now his lawyer tried to attack the credibility of
state's witnesses and urged the jurors not to be stampeded into accepting the case just because
this guy's already in jail which makes sense so the jury took four hours to deliberate a murder
charge and found him guilty of murder he uh his sentencing comes around the judge says you sir
may continue to fuck off life 30 to 40 years to run concurrent with his no concurrent oh that's
great with his so it's nothing right with his original 30 to 40 years so it's no added time
murderer he's just now he's now it's harder to parole when they go so you're a murderer it's nothing with his original 30 to 40 years. It's nothing at all. So it's no added time. He's just a convicted murderer.
Now it's harder to parole when they go, so you're a murderer.
It's easy to go, yeah, I robbed a guy.
Then, well, yeah, I fucking killed a guy.
So yeah, now 30 to 40.
But the thing is, he made a lot of money and he does a lot of things.
So he's got certain advantages at the prison.
And because he's boxing and doing all this shit, they say they're going to give him a different cell.
Basically one that he can work out a little bit in.
Because otherwise they have to take him.
They have to bring him to this gym.
Bring him back.
Take him for the meal.
They have to do.
It's a lot of stuff.
They say, let's just make it so he can even have some food in his room.
So we don't have to do all this shit.
He just needs a total redo.
And who do they get to do that?
They call in Dexter Manley, interior decorator from new york city and he says how is it you've come to arrive here seriously oh my god this place is fucking gross it's gross
like i'm looking around i went just like bugs like people are everyone's like oh mean and they're like oh you this and you that and they're like i'm gonna hit you and it's like
just relax what are we doing it's a lot of wet concrete what are we doing yeah but it's like
you're here like you know what i mean we're all here let's treat it like it's you know like we're
all on some sort of like maybe like a bahamas like club med type thing you know what i mean
let's i'm thinking of that in this room. But what have you done?
Seriously, you go out.
You're 13.
You don't go to school.
That's fine.
You're 13.
I get it.
I didn't want to go to school either.
I get it.
It's so annoying there, the teachers and everything.
I understand.
It's okay.
But they put you in jail.
You get out.
You're robbing people.
My God.
You get in here.
You, sir, you're white trash.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
You're in and out. And your family you're white trash. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're in and out.
And your family's not that great.
It's trashy.
It's white trash is what it is, really.
I just see there's just engines hanging from trees and shit buckets everywhere.
It's just disgusting in your brain, isn't it, sir?
So I'm sorry.
But what is it?
Oh, poof.
And he sees another prisoner who he said he found interesting.
And he disappears in a poof of glitter and purple boa.
He's gone.
And James is very confused.
Very confused.
Sure.
As you might fucking know.
So March 14th, 1981, he's in court trying to get let out to fight on the road to satisfy people.
Because they said they don't want people to fight in prison.
It's a disadvantage to the other fighters. So he said said let me out to fight then and then bring me back so a judge told
him on tuesday that he cannot take his prize fighting career on the road until he qualifies
for work release status because you're a murderer because you're a convict you just got convicted a
murder like a year ago they're not going to let you out anywhere even if you i don't think he did
it but either way he's convicted of it so they're probably not going to let you out anywhere even if i don't think he did it but either way he's convicted of it so they're probably not going to let you out he asked the judge he said quote if prisoners don't
have anything to look forward to then rehabilitation is a myth and the judge said yeah you get it now
and fucking moved him along you get how shitty the system is yeah yeah doesn't work at all right
perfect we're going to continue to do it forever so So, yeah, he said that he wants to. He's going to have to.
His next step should be to secure a minimum security status status at a hearing.
He can do that.
Then he can move toward work release.
Basically, he said, quote, you win some, you lose some.
That was when they took him away to prison.
So the thing to say for somebody that was possibly wrongfully convicted.
Yeah, that's that's the thing.
And the new prison superintendent, Peter Fenton, said he would consider putting up a tent for
boxing outside prison walls if Scott received minimum custody status.
But it's still at the prison, which is what the WBA doesn't want.
Basically, a minimum custody inmate under the law may reside outside the prison wall
or in a work camp at one of several trailers near the prison.
So to get out of the actual walls, you'd have to do that.
So the lawyer for the Department of Corrections said the regulations apply equally to everybody.
There's no individual and Davidius discrimination.
I'm not looking at Scott as an individual, but as one of 1300 inmates, everybody in the
world is not a fight enthusiast, but somebody but anybody could have a son or daughter in
prison.
OK, fair enough uh yeah he says that you know obviously the murder conviction is not fucking
helping him but he did say the concurrent sentence helps him out a lot he said that the judge quote
he was looking for a way to give me a break but the law is clear if he wanted to jam me he could
have given me a consecutive life term which is fucking true the guy did do that here because i mean i don't know uh he says quote time is of the essence now i don't see how they could
wait until i'm too old to do anything but pursue a life of crime when i get out when i'm 40 what
the fuck do you think i'm gonna do 40 50 if i can't fight where do you think i'm going uh yeah
so uh obviously this is this is getting bad here uh by the way, this is around the same time
that Norman Mailer, the writer,
championed a prison author named Jack Abbott.
He wrote The Belly of the Beast.
Do you know that book?
It's a famous book about prison written by a prisoner.
And he's such a good writer that Norman Mailer,
who's a very big American writer,
basically petitioned to get him out of jail.
He's so talented.
He's this guy.
You got to let him out. So he actually got out of jail. He's so talented. He's this guy. You got to let him out.
So he actually got out of jail for it, this Abbott guy.
But the problem is, this was in 1981, so it's right there.
Six weeks after being released, and the same day his memoirs came out,
In the Belly of the Beast, and received a favorable review in the New York Times,
this guy got in an argument with a waiter over using a bathroom
and stabbed him to death. Unbelievable.
Get out of here.
That's real? That's real.
What the fuck? The guy, he's all rehabilitated, everything's
great, six weeks, stabs a waiter to death over
an argument. The bathroom?
Over the bathroom. Not even over the bill.
Not even an argument. Not even over money.
Wow. Crazy shit.
So, August 10th, 81, still fighting in Rahway.
He fights David Lee Royster, who's the guy with the head there.
Round seven TKO win, 19-1-1.
September 5th, 1981 in Rahway, he fights the Camden buzzsaw,
Dwight Braxton, who turns into Dwight Muhammad Kawhi,
who's a really good fucking fighter when he gets out of prison.
This is when he's in prison before he's a pro.
Oh, really? So this is, he was kind uh scott kind of was this guy's mentor at boxing in the in
the prison here uh this guy's 14 one and one coming in he'll end up 41 11 and one and having
a really good career this goes the distance but scott was losing the whole fight uh yeah uh dwight
dominated in the whole fight he was just a younger guy it's like a younger version of him basically dominated him the whole fight it's a unanimous decision loss
so 19 two and one there and it gets worse for him november 1st 1981 uh the fbi they find out
failed to tell federal prosecutors about information linking james scott to an alleged bank robbery ring
that was disclosed in u.s district court that day uh assisting u.s attorney terrence flynn
conducted a grand jury probe that led to a conspiracy racketeering indictment against 17
members of the new world of islam sect accused of robbing banks to raise money for their religion
and he said he never knew about the information because a page was missing from the FBI report that was given to him.
And it had his name on it.
And it had James Scottshulth's involvement in a bank robbery ring.
Who took that out of him?
So it was missing.
We don't know.
That's impressive.
One page missing from a report, and that's the report.
It happened to be the one that benefits him.
So much shit.
Well, it hurts him.
Or it benefits him.
Yeah, it wasn't in the probe.
So it's so much shady shit going on here.
Wild.
Because he does convert to Islam.
At some point, he takes on the name Rajan Muhammad, but he doesn't really use it ever.
Okay.
It's never used publicly.
He always says he's James Scott.
Wow.
It's very weird.
1982, his younger brother, Evan, is amateur boxing, starting in 1982. James' younger brother, Evan. I don and is amateur boxing starting in 1982.
James's younger brother, Evan.
I don't know how much younger.
Yeah, because I mean, 82 Christ 1984.
He is transferred.
Scott is from Rahway to Trenton State Prison and then later to Southwood State Prison.
Basically, reporters kind of forgot about him.
Once he retired from boxing, they just left him alone. Fucking forgot about him after once he retired from boxing they
just left him alone fucking forgot about him um that was that he didn't give a lot of interviews
after that august 7th 1985 is the debut uh pro fight for his brother evan and uh he wins by ko
versus a guy named ricky simmons who has a career oh-2 fighter. But he won't have another pro fight until 1991.
That is six years.
He'll wait six years.
I don't know if he ends up in prison or what the deal is there,
but he'll lose by TKO, and that'll be the end of his career.
One and one.
Because those six years mattered.
They mattered a lot for Evan Scott.
Yeah, that sucks.
I mean, he didn't really have too much chance boxing.
So, I mean, that sucks for him.
I feel bad for him. But, I mean, Jesus,'t really have too much chance boxing. And so, I mean, that sucks for him. I feel bad for him.
But I mean, Jesus, his brother had it much worse.
Oh, boy.
I feel bad for all these people, Jimmy.
But not nearly as bad as I feel for James Scott, director of education and school excellence at Arizona Department of Education in Phoenix.
James Scott, director of oil and gas job search ltd in charlotte north carolina
uh james scott production manager at zumit plastics james scott stud welder at corrosion
engineering in phoenix another phoenix there and james scott senior partner at scott family law
firm in san diego which he could have used very much wasn't that also
the name of the uh first captain or the first the guy on star trek wasn't his name james scott that
beat me up scotty wasn't that james scott i don't know i never watched his name i have no fucking
idea i'd have to google it i've never watched star trek so i don't know but uh yeah he's uh
he could have used that law firm there so may 1986 1986, there's a rumor that Tony Ayala, remember him, crime and sports enthusiast
from way back?
Tony Ayala is one of the worst people we've ever had.
Shopped up his wife?
No, but I think he was the guy who broke in, rapist.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's one of those guys.
Who was the one that beat his wife and stabbed her in the...
Everybody.
A hundred of our people.
The other boxer. the other everybody so he is seeking to be transferred from trenton state
prison where he's been jailed since 83 to raway where uh scott had established a boxing association
ayala wants to fight professionally behind bars while he's there all the judges are like
fuck that guy nobody lets him do it because they hate him because
there's no there's no public interest nobody wants to watch a rapist fight that's what i mean like
like a hardcore yeah i all as a scumbag and he was also on heroin i believe and all this shit like
terrible man nobody wanted him to fight so they had no interest in him whereas the scott had a
story like this interesting story it's different uh late 90ss. By the late 90s, James Scott is just kind of anonymous in prison now.
None of these young guys know who the fuck he is.
They don't care.
He fought 20 years ago.
Fuck that guy.
They don't care.
He says, quote, I'm in a cell with two other guys, and James Scott doesn't mean anything to them.
I'm not popular anymore.
He said, but I've done my time 27 years of it i should
be out but this is the hand i've been dealt it's a bad hand but it's my only one yeah you have to
look through the manure to find something good jesus do you do you i don't know is that is it
everything good in manure it's caked in shit i haven't been digging there maybe maybe that's
where it is you know what i haven't found, so maybe I need to dig in more shit.
He says, you have to look through the manure to find something good.
You know the old saying about the world being a stage and we're merely players?
Well, I believe I have a part to play, and this is my destiny.
That was Shakespeare, I think.
There you go.
Yeah.
Also Rush.
What the fuck?
It's in a Rush song.
I didn't know. was slime late so uh 2005 he is released on
parole finally 2005 finally 2005 time served release not even on parole so he's 30 years 30
years he did he did a full fucking 30 so uh yeah and then from, you don't hear much about him. 2012, he's inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.
May as well.
So that's like kind of his last big public thing is he's honored there.
And, you know, people remember his story because it's a crazy fucking story.
It really is.
He was just overshadowed by Hurricane.
That's all it was.
And 2014, he's placed in a nursing home in New Jersey, suffering from dementia.
Of course.
He's got brain damage.
He's been being pummeled in the head since he was 13.
Right.
So, I mean, he's been in prison fights since he was 13.
Who knows what kind of...
He's in his goddamn 70s.
Yeah.
Who knows what kind of shots, or 80s, or 60s.
We don't know.
You never know.
So, he's in there with dementia.
We don't know how old he is.
May 18th, 2018.
He dies in a nursing home at an indeterminate age.
Yeah.
We don't know.
That is depressing as fuck.
Mad depressing.
That's his life.
Can't get enough of James Scott?
Yeah.
I can't, honestly.
He's awesome.
You can get, and I believe it's eBay here.
Yeah, honestly. He's awesome. You can get, and I believe it's eBay here. Yeah, eBay.
You can get an autographed, signed index card from him
that he wrote a note to somebody
and says, sorry...
What is it? Sorry I killed your son.
Sorry so late
with this write. I've been very busy.
So please take...
Please...
Prison handwriting? Please take busy so please take please what the prison handwriting please take something with good
feelings because i do care what you think and i value your opinion of me that's what it says
1995 for that little gem that's a deal that's a deal so james scott that is james scott
that's what it's one of the most unlikely stories we've ever done, right? It makes me want to rethink everything.
I feel so bad for him.
Everything, yeah.
That's not enough to convict somebody, right?
Well, we don't know.
The only thing that we're sure that he did ever was that 1967 robbery that he said he did.
Outside of that, we have no fucking idea what he's ever done.
He passed a lie detector saying he wasn't involved in that and you know he i could see him alone in his car to somebody for the night
especially if he was going home like come on hang on he's like now you can drive my car but i'm
going home i could see that shit happening or chevy that's paid for paid for baby i could see
that happening and uh i mean the truancy thing that is just disgraceful that's unbelievable to
have a kid in jail till he's 21 from 13 because he didn't go to school is remarkably fucked up and just wrong.
Honestly, unconscionable.
It's the fucking worst.
That's destroying a kid's life for nothing.
It's insane.
I've never heard anything like it before.
But that's James Scott, everybody.
Holy shit.
If you like that story, you can tell us.
And you know what?
You can tell the whole damn world about it very easily by going to Apple Podcast, that purple icon, and give us five stars.
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It doesn't fucking matter.
Say you don't know what year you were born.
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It really does.
We don't understand why, but that's the way it works there.
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And on top of that, if you want to get tons and tons of bonus material, no bonus crime and sports this week.
We did one last week.
We do them every other week with crime and sports.
Small town murder.
We do three or four a month.
one last week we do them every other week with crime and sports small town murder we do three or four a month so you're gonna get like probably six to eight episodes a month of bonus stuff if
you do that uh you can do that very easily over at patreon.com slash crime in sports and it's
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they were awesome i had a great time personal ads from the 80s and 90s were fantastic personal ads in the
paper cowboy a little cowboy there was a little guy oh my god there was so much good stuff in
there and then the newspaper from the 1890s that we read on small town murders bonus and you get
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email address crime and sports at gmail.com and with that said damn it i need to hear the list
of the people who i do not wish to be incarcerated for very little reason. Please, Jimmy, hit me with these people like an overhand fucking right.
This week's executive producers are Vanessa Castillo,
Neil Jones, Melissa Turner, Salvador Sanchez,
Lisa Neuberger, Brandon Martinez, Keaton Phillips,
Zeandra Nwem...
Oh, boy.
Nwadim...
Nwadim Pinka?
No.
Nwem...
Valiant effort you're giving here, Jimmy. Yep, that was the one. He's trying for you. Zeandra, you'm not. I'm not. I'm pink. No, no. I'm valiant effort. Yeah, that was the one. He's trying.
You're fantastic. Ethan Judd, Jessica Shannon, Marguerite Hogue, Alex Faulkner, John High, Dragonfly Girl, Shauna with no last name.
Chantel with no last name. Will Bailey, Hugo Onuku. No, Laura, doubt it. Dou Serena D. Kane Simmons
Jennifer Jansen
Clay Thorson
Catherine Conquera
Rick Sykora
in memory of Jeremy Sykora
thank you very much
Neilu Rafsanjani
Jordan Bennett
Shauna Rogers
and Jackie Sukup
thank you guys so much
other producers this week are
Joe Cassidy, Asia Music Leonard Sanchez, Matt Bjork, Mallory
Treist, Nicole Morris, Brian Cusino, I think, Matt and Gail Richards, Neil Cooper, Brian
with no last name, Rebecca Spears, Haley Geismanzman no ruby revira uh arc rick mcalpine michael scrooke
uh stephanie bobby allison uh shearing josh mcgrew lisa maria sorelli sorelli tyler sheldon
don becker jess with no last name dana Roberts. Sasha Trapko.
Dave Tantist.
Hall.
Damn it.
Kenara with no last name.
Ainsley is 32, but doesn't look it, I'm told.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday. Kaylee Martin.
Roxanne Spaziano.
Happy birthday.
And that's from Gianna DeLuca.
Anna with no last name. Harry Jules. Gianna DeLuca. There you go. Anna would know last name.
Harry Jules.
Gross.
Michael Gores.
Hang in there, Michael.
Jesus, what did I do there?
Oh, I tried to make that one name.
Maticus.
Heidi would know last name.
Bill Scott.
MJ.
Jeremy Gordon.
Kara Hyman.
Are he man?
Derek Riesbeck.
Subaru ASE Tech.
That's somebody that's certified, man.
Yeah, they are.
Coffee Cat, John Crowfoot, Mary-Therese Onosku, Jennifer Kuhn, I think.
Damn it.
Amanda Hendricks, Jennifer Prater, Lori Taylor, Wyatt H., Sam Anderson, Andrew Herdig, Thomas Blair, Jessica Bautista, Ashley Furman, Sophie LaPlaine,
David Thornton, Rebecca Peete, Maddie Weissman, Tyler Schlepp, Jessica Widmer, Josh and Jen
Hust, Eric Hack-Barty, I think.
God damn it.
Kendall Hanson, Elvia Castaneda, Wright Olson Laura Stickney
Amy Kyler
Chantrell Meyer
Debbie Salmi
Bobby Sons
Katherine Henderson
Jeremy Gordon
Jenica
I think
that can't be right
Martin
Natalie C
Ben Williams
Al Entrigam
and Tringham
Haley Bennett
Jackie
with no last name
Eric Schaus Kevin Lutz Jr. Seth Collins Scott W. Katie Grabham haley bennett jackie with no last name eric schaus uh kevin lutz jr seth collins scott w
katie grabham uh shandy schneider uh lillian shup ray boys christy durham nicole with no last name
mary keenan keenan brown lindsey stuckless amy mathis yes uh donald laboe uh elizabeth Yes. Donald LeBeau, Elizabeth Mitchell, Samantha Roy, Stephen Barella.
Yeah.
Keith Ross, Victoria Miller, Stevie Reiter, Samantha Thompson, Rebecca Ness, June Fearfire.
God damn it.
Michael Sutherland, Amanda Clocky, Ulysses, Adam Urania, Marlene Cole, Jessica Boyer, Margie Stevens, Mo Titus, Angela Catricks,
Keith Reeves, Duana Washington, Macy with no last name, Jordan Brooke, Sherry Monday,
Carly G, Eric Rodriguez, Jan Dimes Casey, Ian, sorry.
There you go.
Lauren Malone, Nicholas Charles, Katie Isbell, Lindsay Pereira, God damn it, Melissa Scott,
Marissa Scott, Michael Faherty, Tom Bonima, Jamie with no last name, Sal with no last
name, Dana Sparks, Melissa with no last name, Austin Sellers, Michelle with no last name,
Heather Hall, Blair Romis, Mary Beth Lally, Michelle with no last name, Deja, Markton, Graham Lee, Echi Angel, Brandon with no last name,
Melissa Henry, Josh with no last name, Christy Pucco, Sammy Lipkowski,
Lipkowitz, that's not even close, Heidi Schmillen, Samantha Stafford,
Melissa Romella, Amy Levesque, Luke Miller, Ulysses
Portillo, Stacy Stepson, Alex turned 15.
Happy birthday.
Hey, happy birthday.
Melissa Westgard, Adriana Tomasian, Stephanie Simon. Tomb Asian? I don't know. That's how it's spelled. Eric Granato.
Chase Prather.
Randon Jones.
Hannah Suckert.
Greg Gottlieb.
Dylan LaValle.
Tomb Asian.
That's my favorite of the day.
It's not wrong.
I enjoy that.
Ashley Durbin.
Rachel would know the last name.
Tony Patrick.
Beth Young.
Connor Panton.
Jill Hubbard.
Alexandria Gilmore. Alexandra. Barbara Carr, Kelly with no last name, Aaron Lynn Reed, Jessica Tupin, Tupin, Trappin, Rappin, Rapin.
I don't know what I wrote there.
And I'm Dapin, Pappin.
Dan Lynch, Stephen Curry, Kasia Garcia, Jess Cam, Lena Sears, Richard Berman, Sarah Icho,
Stacey Chaney, Linda Lesterson, Tess Fury, Hunter Thompson.
That's a real name.
Lucky bastard.
I know.
I looked it up.
I don't know if his middle name's Stephen or some shit.
Stephanie, maybe.
Sorry.
Something else. or some shit stephanie maybe sorry something else uh karen elmore um michael or mikhail neil john wogenar amy hansford jm cgb uh jennifer walker jessica baldwin lex swanson christopher
tobish uh whitney with no last name joseph martin uh elizabeth zingarelli yep joe herbert uh schmoop
mcdote mcdoodle wrote a great email thank you bridget fox jake davis
andrew mcdonald danita or is that danita haley i don't know what i wrote i apologize jack becker
rob with no last name brian paul brie s joe judd spade spade morgan bartolomey bartolome, Bartolome. Hey. Probably not. Jason Rogers.
Ricky Lee Roselle.
Maggie Williams. It is.
Is it?
I know.
Andrew Hunt.
Brendan with no last name.
Jessica Lucas.
Grace Holtkamp.
Trina with no last name.
Jessica Barfield.
Ryan Conrad.
Trevor Dickey.
Hope Hoopla.
Hopey Hoopla.
Jeff Mahoney.
Tara Buckwalter.
Ann Wittenmeyer.
Eva or Ava, Don Sickles.
I don't think that's right.
Jenny Jones, I hope.
Okay.
Especially with the Scared Straight references this week.
Yeah, really.
Justin Clark, Joseph Kreider, Alan Fallon, Christian McCall, Grace Holtkamp.
I said that, Justin Clark.
There you go.
James Newman, Audrey Cantrell. Damn it. Carolyn Favan. Nice email. Thank you very much. that justin clark uh james newman andre cantrell and audrey cantrell damn it carolyn fava nice
email thank you very much uh jeff buckholz uh rebecca marie ashley vo steven gregor gregor
uh jorge vega anthony with no last name logan melville jeremy green liz vasquez lindsey miller
pierce andrews pauline walton susanna platt beth Beth Charlton, Zach Tuttle, Aaron Otto, Paige Christine
Holtz-Norenberg.
Holy fuck.
Yeah.
Peyton Meadows, Sarah Hunt.
That's an actual real person, by the way.
That's interesting.
Dylan LaValle, Rebecca Bookout, Taylor Kratke, Renee with no last name, James Martyr, Becky
Toey-Vonin.
No.
BDT Projects, Hurts So Good.
I'm not sure what that means.
Taylor Champion, Gart Fartington.
I don't think that's a real name.
I think Hurts So Good has a better chance of it being a real name.
You're probably right.
Will Kirkpatrick, Maria Gold.
I don't think that's a real name.
Jennifer Visconti, Alex S.
Margaret, no last name.
Jess Kopp, Jennifer Hay, Andrew Parks, Don Peterson,
Kaylin Edwards, Candice Ganilka.
No.
One of those letters is silent.
Kyle with no last name.
Kira Gochul, Stacey Ingram, Melissa Glidewell, Brianna Mattingly, Kay Schmer, Megan with
no last name, Bill Metty or Matei, Joshua Sanders, Jamie Brown, Jessica Talbot, Tom Hamilton, Katie Owens, Lindsay Hardy, Charles Boucher, Janice Hill, Sin with no last name, Mariah Knight, Bob Bupre, Paul Navarro, Michael Kelso, Liz Leatherland, Brittany Scherzer, Red Gingerson, probably not a real name uh katherine cantieri deborah mcconey
allison morris steven otey the second uh james hart haber paul bilne god damn it stacy would
know last name chris clark brett stoker rob dennison his badass wife abby krista walker
uh home stretch like nine left j Josh Cole, old Dick Minj,
Jill Locan, Heather Murphy,
Adam Udaini, Demetrius
Fries, Darren Mehal,
Mark Leiter, Carl Kirschner,
Shelly Roberts, Rebecca Bath,
Jude Kendall, Sarah Minto, Mark Burrows,
Sachin Vats.
That's a tough one.
Suckin' butts? No, it's Sachin
Vats. Oh.
I heard suck and fuck, and you heard suck and butt butt and then it's neither of them we're sorry about that
such and bots such is a fantastic person cameron skinner happy birthday and all of our patreon
supporters you're fucking amazing thank you everybody thank you thank you so much for
everything you do for us and we're going to continue to really hustle and really try to
do a lot for you on the bonus end.
We really try to do different stuff.
We just want it to be different.
We want to change it up.
You never know what we're going to throw at you.
We just want it to be funny.
That's the only thing we'll promise you.
It's going to be something funny.
That will give you right there.
Interesting.
Interesting and hopefully funny as well.
So with that said, Jimmy,
what if somebody found you interesting and funny?
How could they find you?
You all know where it is. where do they find james you fucking copy and you know
how to find us jesus christ we've been on this is four and a half years you know how to fucking
find us names are in the description of the show you know how i am damn it google them as kramer
would say you know who i am damn it so that said jimmy i think there's nowhere else to go no put
the fuck out of here
live from the crime and sports studios we will see you next week
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