Crime in Sports - #230 - It's EXACTLY Like The Wire! - The Omarness of Reggie Gross

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

This week, we find one of the craziest stories in criminal athlete history! He had a rough start, as his dad was stabbed to death when he was 3 days old. He had a decent boxing career, even f...ighting Mike Tyson, but he was also leading a double life, as an enforcer for a brutal drug gang in West Baltimore. The same gang that was portrayed as "The Barksdales" in The Wire. And you'll never believe who betrays him, and finally turns him in for his vicious string of murders! This one is something special! Box your way off the street & into the ring with Mike Tyson, remain on the streets as a no nonsense hitman, taking out the drug competition, and be turned in by one of the most notorious criminals in street history with Reggie Gross!! 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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Starting point is 00:00:34 A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Each week on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories 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.
Starting point is 00:01:30 I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today again. We are excited today. I gotta tell you, Jimmy, you don't know why you're excited yet. No, but I'm full strength. I'm excited about that. It is. That's true. Jimmy's feeling better from his rib injury. so he's ready to laugh it up and have a good time. I'm excited because this case is, this is, I've been saving this one and savoring it. This is like I've had an all-day Sunday sauce on.
Starting point is 00:01:54 Smoking this meat. I'm stirring it, reducing it. Hell yeah. It's so good. Just so good. I can't wait. Tender, juicy. Remember last week with Steve Skinner and people were like, oh, sounds like Omar and all that?
Starting point is 00:02:03 Well, wait till you hear this week. Let me tell you something. Quickly before we start though, those iTunes, not even iTunes, Apple Podcast reviews, they help a lot. Those purple icon reviews, I don't know why, but five stars, please give us reviews. They help a lot. They drive us up the charts, so you're doing
Starting point is 00:02:19 good work if you do that. Also, go to shutupandgivememurder.com for everything small town murder and crime and sports and especially get ready for october the 29th thursday and it's going to be playing for 48 hours after that you can still buy it we are going to do the virtual live show we're excited for this it is the prisoner dating game all violent felon edition that way every you know everybody in there has done bad, bad things. The worst. The worst.
Starting point is 00:02:45 And I make sure that I really look into the cases too. I make sure that this isn't like nobody got railroaded. I don't want to be making fun of somebody who's sitting in there. They have enough problems if that happened. Wait on their appeals. Yeah, no, we don't do that. We're trash. No, I'm like, that person definitely cut that other person's head off.
Starting point is 00:03:01 I'm going to put that on the list and see if Jimmy picks them. Great. So I give Jimmy four bachelors, four bachelorettes. He picks one of each. He doesn't get to see them at all. You guys will get to see them at home, but he won't get to see them
Starting point is 00:03:11 and we'll just give him their description on their little dating profile. He'll pick one of each and then at the end there, he gets to see who he chose. Not only that, we get to find out what everybody did and it's a shitload of fun.
Starting point is 00:03:23 So get on that. Shut up and give me murder.com. Do that right now. October the everybody did and it's a shitload of fun so get on that shut up and give me murder.com yeah do that right now october the 29th that's a thursday if you want to get more content you can do that very easily you can be a patreon yeah contributor and you will get lots of stuff for that number one jimmy will mispronounce your name you bet he will he'll try to pronounce it right but he won't that. That's what will happen. Number two. It's so depressing. Well, no. That's the thing.
Starting point is 00:03:49 People make fun of Jimmy for the names. Oh, look at this. Okay. Read 400 names quickly and have them not John Smith, Paul Jones. Have them be actual. All different ethnicities and cultures. And then sometimes it's a phrase. Do that. Throw some numbers in that bitch. See if you can get Straczynski on the first fucking try. You know what I mean? different old ethnicities and cultures and then sometimes it's a phrase and now we're do that and see if you can get straczynski on the first fucking try you know what i mean it's difficult
Starting point is 00:04:10 and then i'm kind of dumb yeah and you have bad handwriting so if you add all that in it's a rough stew and jimmy's trying his best so leave him alone no they like it actually but not only will you get that but you will also get a bonus material tons of bonus material you'll really really want last week's bonus show by the way it was uh sports team songs basically athletes singing about what they're doing not like shack foo not their albums but like the 86 mets singing let's get metzmerized yeah. Want to hear Lenny Dykstra rap? Want to hear Hulk Hogan rap? Want to hear Oral Hershiser rap?
Starting point is 00:04:52 Well, if you've ever wanted to hear any of those things and hear us make fun of them, you want to see that. And the Small Town Murder bonus, which you'll also get access to, was bonkers last week. Women trying to resurrect Jack the Ripper because one of them thought that she was Jack the Ripper's mother in a previous life. I'll leave it at that. And you can go from there. It's a good story. It's a good story.
Starting point is 00:05:08 It's insane. Patreon dot com slash crime and sports for all of that good stuff. And if you just want to be a wonderful person with good karma and throw a few bucks on PayPal, every dime is appreciated. Thank you so much. You can do that at PayPal using our email address. Crime and sports at Gmail dot com. Let's do this. Great. Let let's do this great let's get into this because it's a wow let's start out here story you've never heard of this guy i guarantee
Starting point is 00:05:32 although you've probably seen him fight didn't know it was him he was in a nameless kind of a faceless nameless uh group of people and we'll talk about what group that is okay no no of people who fought somebody and you've seen the fight, but you saw it, and it happened so fast you didn't even realize it was him. Great. We're going to talk about Reginald Gross. No. No, Reggie Gross?
Starting point is 00:05:53 No. Okay. I didn't either until I found him for the show, but Reggie Gross, the boxer here, he is born January 1st, 1962. Okay. All right? He's born in Baltimore,
Starting point is 00:06:04 and he is Baltimore through and through and through all the way from the start to the end and he is if you've read the david simon homicide book that i've talked about a lot you will recognize names in this story you'll recognize streets and yeah if you read that and if you watch the wire you could basically you could you basically know have in your head like a map of like the west baltimore drug areas it's the weirdest thing in the world and so this story i was like oh yeah i know that's this street that's where that guy got killed i know where like weird 80s baltimore drug murders happen awesome and this is like i've heard of these people that got killed. And it's a very, very, very crazy story.
Starting point is 00:06:45 This story really wild. So let's start at the beginning here when he was three days old. This guy, I mean, shit happens and tragedy happens and craziness happens, sometimes of his own volition, sometimes of no fault of his own. Okay. Right from three days old. Still got the salve on his eyes. Oh, yeah. Hasn't even lost his umbilical cord. Still got that paper clip. fault of his own okay right from three days old still got the salve on his eyes oh yeah hasn't even lost his umbilical cord paper clip they still yeah still yeah still got the plastic thing on his
Starting point is 00:07:12 they haven't even clipped it off his wrist yet this is what's going on here three days old um he's well we'll talk about a place called the last stop which was a little little bodega basically a little convenience store um wedge between an auto repair place and um you know like a city building it was just kind of a you know shitty little bodega basically and um there's an abandoned gas station near there this is a a shit neighborhood in west baltimore in the 60s it's it's had been it's declining very quickly and um basically uh this last stop it used to be a liquor store and now it's kind of an all-purpose convenience store basically if on the wire the uh one that uh what's his name was it fat andre there was the the one that uh they chris shot the lady in his store and then they hit him with the gun and made him say it's
Starting point is 00:08:03 omar oh that guy fat face andre i think him basically that's the store he runs the same store that omar was shot in um different story similar similar same thing exactly same shit got it the plexiglass with the plexiglass yeah the bulletproof glass and you know people come you can buy booze and whatever the fuck but they got a little bit of everything here. So this place, this corner, this area will play a big role in his life, starting with three days old and book ending later on. But at three days old, this it starts out. We'll let him say it. Quote, I was only three days old when my father was stabbed to death right in front of the last stop. So he was hanging out in front
Starting point is 00:08:45 of there you know just with you know some people hanging out and uh i don't know if a fight broke out or what the fuck it was but he got stabbed to death and right there when he was three days old so jesus that's tough he wasn't there though no he wasn't there luckily i don't think he'd remember it either couldn't even can't even see that shit at the first memory watching my dad bleed out on the sidewalk my vision came into focus right at that moment in time couldn't even smile yeah i was still holding on to somebody's index finger and happened anyway so yeah this is obviously a bad start it's terrible and it's kind of it's a it's a it's foreshadowing for the rest of his life here he says quote my mother said he was celebrating my birth. He's out hanging out.
Starting point is 00:09:27 Yeah, as you do. As you do. Yeah. Well, you know, whichever your whatever your arena is. Yeah. I mean, if it's a bar you hang out at, if it's a they hang out buying one of those. It's a boy cigars. You never know.
Starting point is 00:09:39 Well, that's well, in Baltimore, too. And on the wire, this is explained by bunny colvin when he's trying to talk about legalizing drugs at the time and he talks about the liquor in the paper bag yeah and he said that was you know on a on a warm night shit like that or even a cold whatever people are outside they want to hang out they want to have a drink that's like if in a poor neighborhood that's the tavern you know in a real shit neighborhood the corner's the tavern the corner is the pub bottles yeah yeah that's what it is there's no you know it might not be a bar that's right there that might be too expensive so you go buy that and you hang out on the corner talk to your friends and that's what people were doing okay so it was just like
Starting point is 00:10:17 that's just where to hang out and so he was out there probably hanging out with his friends talk about his son and uh there we go so my mother said he was celebrating his first son after having two girls they say my father was a real hell raiser probably he was a father at 15 and already looked and acted like a grown man good lord so yeah a harder a harder breed obviously coming from back then those were a harder people anybody born in you know or anybody that was is coming up in the late in the 40s projects yeah his dad 15 in the so his dad's probably born like you know beginning middle of world war ii right so i don't care where you're from that was just if you're from a farm the projects it doesn't matter how old was he when he died they were a harder breed of people
Starting point is 00:11:00 back then and with color creed everything else aside it's just different early 20s obviously when he died his dad yeah yeah he was on his third father of three father of three crazy yeah can you imagine that oh my imagine being the mother and uh he was also very young yeah so it's saying it's rough man and uh his childhood was tough on him and has a lot of kids, especially from this area. It's not easy. It's a tough way to be raised. And he said that just fighting was always what he was into, fighting on the streets.
Starting point is 00:11:34 And he's a big guy. He grows up to be 6'3", 220 pounds, muscular. He's an athletic, muscular guy. And he's got real quick hands and natural talent as we'll we'll talk about his amateur career didn't last very long because he was ready to start fighting pros awesome pretty quickly he had a lot of natural talent and he's been fighting on the streets so much he actually knew how to punch and knew what to do and knew how to take one he knew how to take one yeah he can take a punch if as long as it's not from mike tyson
Starting point is 00:12:00 as we'll talk about all right because boy oh boy that was a great fight that's the thing to get up to speed you'll want to watch the tyson reggie gross fight when we get to it it's on youtube do what do i know who that guy is is he uh kind of like a an afro is jerry curl no no who was that guy probably blood green he fought a bunch of guys like that. It was an early fight. Blood Green had the... He kind of looked like Gip from Goody Mob. He looked kind of shaggy and like string bean tall. That's Blood Green, man. Is it?
Starting point is 00:12:33 Really? It sounds like you're describing Blood Green, but he fought a couple guys like that, though. He fought a couple real kind of string beanie guys in his... It was like fight three or four. Okay, yeah, then it's not. He didn't fight Blood Green. And he crushed him. He didn't fight Green until like fight 20 or 19 or yeah it was early he didn't fight he like crushed him he didn't fight green to like fight 20 or 19 or some shit i think it's somebody else then yeah
Starting point is 00:12:50 so he said when he was a kid quote i was supposed to be home minding my two sisters older than him by the way and he's gonna take how the fuck does that work babysit your older sister now i'm leaving what how is he in charge that's how big he is i guess but but what so there's two of them so they have to be one has to be at least two years older than him at the least yeah so are you being governed by your two-year younger than you sibling maybe you're like fuck out of here with that i don't know so he's supposed to be doing that he said sharon and denise are his two sisters but I'd sneak out and join the guys on the corner.
Starting point is 00:13:27 This is as a very young child here. There's the guys on the corner. He's like eight. What are you doing on the corner? Every day I'd get in a fight and a gang would chase me home. But if I got caught or if I caught one alone, I'd beat the crap out of him. Then I'd go home and my mother would give me a good whipping. So he's going to get beat either way. may as well win this fight like yeah either i'll
Starting point is 00:13:49 get my ass kicked here then i gotta go home and get my ass kicked again so i better win the fight on the street because i'm not gonna win the fight at home that's gonna yeah i'm not even gonna fight back at home and let my mom kick my ass yeah i better win this fight i don't get two ass weapons today smart yeah you can only swing on one of these people. Yeah. And this is the thing, too. It's he's not. This guy has brains, man. He's not an idiot whatsoever.
Starting point is 00:14:13 Sure. He's very intelligent. He's got a lot going for him. He's got charisma. There's there's a lot going for this guy where you're like, what are you doing? Like later on, you're like, why are you are you doing this why what the fuck is wrong with you it's really disturbing it really is so 1975 comes around age 13 and he is already full-fledged running the streets you know you know the streets have him already at 13 so there's that uh he he's
Starting point is 00:14:41 out and does steal shit when he's 13. That's kind of his role. He's petty larceny, shit like that. It's generally the game. Yeah. He says, quote, I grabbed some lady's purse. Oh, no. The cops caught me with a gun. It was a toy.
Starting point is 00:14:54 He couldn't shoot anything, but he purse snatched, though, and he gets arrested for that and gets sent away. The judge says, you small, sir. Sure. Tiny, sir. Little buddy. Little buddy. Little sir.
Starting point is 00:15:10 Little buddy. You may piss off. You, little buddy, may fuck off. He does. That's fucked up. And sent him to Montrose, which was a youth detention center, for five years center for five years holy shit that's a long time past adulthood yeah that's no for these 13 to adulthood yeah to adulthood basically stay in there till you're an adult holy fuck till you know whatever the state wouldn't have to worry
Starting point is 00:15:38 about you then we can put you in prison when you do something is there general how they why they're doing that is that a good thing no i mean yeah that's that's a that's a that's a crime training facility right for a 13 year old in the in the mind of the judicial system it's let's get him off the street and keep him in a place where he doesn't think about crime but now we're putting him into a place where that's all it is is crime and criminals and not only that these kids prey on each other yeah i mean there's sexual assault like crazy there's fucking you know they're robbing each other stealing from each other beating the shit out of each other it's a this is a rough the judicial system thinks this is a great
Starting point is 00:16:13 great idea and a great plan but well for them it's he's off the streets right out of the state's hair for five years so when he's an adult like i said then you put him into the system and we don't have to worry about him anymore then if he does anything just throw him in prison and fuck him that's how the system goes we gave him a chance yeah that's a quote we gave him a chance we got him away from the criminals on the street and put him in here yeah you know with all the criminals the bad criminals they get caught yeah that's scarier people that's it that's horrifying he's fucking randy on the wire that's you can put that in he's the randy kid you know where he's like now he's in a fucking a home except randy didn't do anything wrong they just put him in a home this guy this is an actual detention center so this is uh this is rough so he says that's
Starting point is 00:16:54 where i first learned to fight yeah when you're 13 going in a place like that you better fucking fight or you're gonna be in trouble yeah you're never gonna you're not gonna have shit they're gonna pick on you oh i would say yeah but he was for him he was a pretty pretty tough kid and uh growing quickly as well it helps too to be taller they think you're older and people won't pick on you quite as much so that definitely helps he said when i got out at 18 i thought i was real tough i was working on a construction gang and bragging to everybody that i was another ali a couple of the guys knew mac lewis and his fighters they said if you're that good stop running your mouth and go prove it now mac lewis is a local trainer yeah he's a local manager trainer trains you know kind of undercard
Starting point is 00:17:36 rec league fighters kids youth he gets youth in the boxing fundamentals and and and he's dennis wise okay see what i'm saying that's this is all based on you'll see if you've watched the wire this is everybody's based on somebody or you know combinations of people characters yeah this is one of the guys who made the dennis wise character okay dennis wise is actually a real person too his name was dennis wise there's a real dennis wise but the different he had a different story than that okay he was like uh yeah i don't think he ever reformed dennis wise really no the real one i think just ended up being a piece of shit life in prison for murder type of thing just a product of his environment they talk about him in the homicide book as one of like the most you know badass gangsters on the
Starting point is 00:18:19 street and i think he got put away forever but this this guy is like you know he's got the picture dennis wise's boxing center that's what this is like you know he's got the picture dennis wise's boxing center that's what this is got it where he's going here so he gets out there by the way 1978 when he gets out at 18 right away he's convicted of a handgun violation really quickly a real one and assault with intent to murder oh boy so that's that's's, yeah. That's too, yeah. Right away. Or I'm sorry, that was 1980 because he just got out of Montrose there. So, yeah, handgun with intent to murder. But it's his first adult crime.
Starting point is 00:18:55 So they treat him liberally? So he gets put on probation. Okay. Which is, when you're 13, you have a toy gun and you snatch a purse five years. No intent to hurt anybody. No, no. It would have been impossible. Toy gun.
Starting point is 00:19:08 Toy gun. When you're 18 and you have an illegal handgun with intent to murder, then there's probation. Like, what the fuck are we talking about? Our system's a little backwards. Is that crazy? Yeah. An adult versus, rather than the child, you could maybe correct that by when they're 13 in a way.
Starting point is 00:19:29 I don't know. It's possible. By 18, it's over. Yeah. You know, pretty much. Is that just policy, correcting policy? Is that what that probably is? Over-correction?
Starting point is 00:19:40 Is that like an umpire that blows one on the outside corner, calls a strike in the dirt on the next fucking one? Like, hey, I got to give him one back? Is that what you're talking about? Wide receiver, calls a phantom pass interference because he blew the last one? Is that what you're talking about? It could be. It's weird.
Starting point is 00:19:57 They're playing with people's lives. It doesn't make any sense, that's for sure. It's certainly hypocritical and backwards. I would say so. It's not giving children a fucking chance. No, no. Well, well not these kids they don't give two fucks about these kids and they they don't they're throwing these these kids away they're like where they're from jesus they'll be lucky if they're you know they'll be dead when they're 30 anyway that's the way they thought about it it's fucking sad yeah so he spends the the time in the group home for juvenile offenders
Starting point is 00:20:22 a kiddie jail right so uh when he's there he'd meet somebody who helps him because he was always fighting but when he was in jail actually he met somebody that kind of got him interested in actually boxing though and he met what he called quote sugar ray leonard's sister's boyfriend oh my god is it there so who gives a fuck okay i met a car salesman who knows Sugar. Sugar Ray Leonard's sister's boyfriend. Fucking who gives a shit? That's what I mean.
Starting point is 00:20:51 But when you're really, think about it, though. In the 70s, if you're pouring from this neighborhood, you've met Sugar Ray Leonard? You know what I'm saying? You stood next to him? That's crazy. He was in the Olympics at that time. Like, you met that guy? Hold on a sec.
Starting point is 00:21:11 You fucked his sister? Like, you've had his dna on your cock that's amazing can you rub a little bit of it on me and then i'll just on my pants and then i'll just you know i'll get fighting i'll be better at it sure that's how it's thought for us i'm sure that's what happened right i don't believe you let me smell your finger hold on a second here yeah i don't see that you get her to send you a pair of her underwear i'm gonna do a compression thing and see if i can get just a just a speck of genetics out of them maybe i can be better fighter so but i mean that that was like oh shit you met you met that guy so i guess by the way, he never remembered what this guy's name was, just Sugar Ray Leonard's sister's boyfriend.
Starting point is 00:21:48 He's a big deal. Yeah. And I guess Sugar Ray had taught this kid some basics of training, just like, hey, this is how you want to shadow box. This is what you want. Just shit like that, training exercises and stuff, just because a kid probably said, how do I box? And he was like, here, do this.
Starting point is 00:22:09 Right. Here, fucking, yeah, yeah that's perfect you're doing great so he he ended up showing reggie this stuff and reggie said he learned to block punches and the shadow box a little bit and he jogged every day so when he was in there toward the end he was kind of training like he was a fighter and then he gets out on the construction site and starts bragging that he's going to be muhammad ali yeah but he's like you know laying concrete not training to box at all so it's kind of weird hilarious uh yeah so they told him why don't you go there at this point he's six foot three he's muscular it's like a hundred and you know 85 pounds or something still thin but solid and muscular and quick yeah you know too and athletic um he also this year when he gets out he has his first child oh no of four oh boy he's gonna have four this year this child the first one is a son
Starting point is 00:22:52 he names him philip okay good work red nothing to be proud of yet sir dodged a bullet on that one whew i got a little worried yeah reginald jr was coming but nope no jr all right he's doing well philip that's fine i don't know if it's a family name or what the fuck but trying to buy a lot of oxford shirts it's great philip philip the name is kid philip all right that's what's better than jr it is this is what i mean we can't we can't talk bad if they're name him jr they names if he could name him aloysius he could name any fucking stupid name he wants to over i don't give a shit fine yeah great it's better than reggie junior right so this is when he gets into boxing on the outside and it turns out this mac lewis guy is going to be what he calls one of the few positive influences on any that he's ever had in his life
Starting point is 00:23:38 this guy is treats him like a son yeah he's a trainer and he trains kids and it's a cool fucking name it's cool and reggie is a talented motherfucker that he can see right when he walks in the door he was like oh shit this guy's gonna be something so you know he really gives him a lot of extra attention as anybody would yeah uh so this the gym that he had it was converted from a dance hall into a gym so just like you know dennis wise style funny room room. This was, he had it for 41 years. Oh. Not when he had come in, but when it's closed finally. So it was open totally for 41 years.
Starting point is 00:24:11 He had some contenders, you know, some club fighters, like I said, kids, that sort of thing. He'd take, you know, pretty much anybody in there. He said that, though, he, gross, though, Reggie says the first time he came into the gym, straight from the, you know, straight from where he was doing time for assault there he said he'd done uh he's he has done a lot of time for assault over the years he says because he keeps getting put in and out he's always getting picked up for something yeah he said quote i came i came up these stairs a couple of times and i ran back down talking about about into the gym. He says, you know, thinking about it. He says, I smelled the sweat.
Starting point is 00:24:48 It smelled mean. I finally got the heart. I used to fight all the time. I was bad. Beating up girls. What? Reggie did? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:56 What? He said, I used to fight all the time. I was bad. Beating up girls. Yeah. Fighting anybody. Yeah. That's bad.
Starting point is 00:25:04 Beating up girls. That's not good at all. Why were you beating up girls and fighting anybody. Yeah, that's bad. Beating up girls. That's not good at all. Why were you beating up girls? Okay, I get if you're running the streets, you got shit going on. You know, even if you're into some like drugs and shit like that, you're beating up girls. What are you beating? Why are you in confrontations with girls? Bitch, I will punch you.
Starting point is 00:25:20 Why? For what? Because that doesn't sound like, you know, I had a girlfriend and we had domestic violence, which is bad enough. He's just beating up girls in the street. This is fucking terrible. So the guy that'll hit girls just on a whim is kind of a scary dude. I mean, usually that guy's a pussy, though.
Starting point is 00:25:39 Yeah, but this guy's not do it in front of people. That's true. That's kind of scary. That's that guy. I'll do some wild shit. Yeah. Yeah, probably probably that's like a he's got murder yeah eventually coming it's certainly on his mind if it's in front of people you don't care really what's this because really you can't expect anyone to judge that well yeah no one's gonna look upon that and go good job she needed it she needed that one i'll tell you what that's right you know the backhand was a bit much but
Starting point is 00:26:05 i think your general idea no one's doing that everyone's like oh my god what the fuck are you doing so that's a good way to get your ass kicked by a lot of people a shitload of people yeah because that's like the ultimate excuse of like he was beating up his girlfriend so we beat everyone so we all just kicked the shit out of him yeah i can see that everyone no one would have a problem with that so and anybody that stands by should get their ass kicked, too. That's what I mean, yeah. So he's beating up girls, fighting everybody. He said, I figured I might as well make some money doing it.
Starting point is 00:26:33 My way out is my dukes. Just like Jesse James and his guns, I'm good with my dukes. So put up your dukes. He's coming for you. Jesse James is like robbing folks. Well, so is he. I mean, what are we talking about comparison i think it's really apt for this guy wait till you hear later on jesse james would have been like jesus dude wish i was as good come the fuck down bro no he would have been like that
Starting point is 00:26:57 was fucked up he would make jesse james do this look and look away you know that look or yeah fuck man look for a second side eye and just i know, that look. Yeah. Fuck, man. Look for a second side eye and just, I can't even look at this person. That's what he would do. Jesus. Yeah. I don't know. He says, Mac Lewis says about him fighting, quote, Reggie was a good fighter and basically
Starting point is 00:27:16 he's a very quiet man. This I never see, by the way. I don't know who the fuck he's talking about. Yeah. I think he's just trying to be nice in the paper because Reggie's anything but a quiet man. He's a very gregarious, boastful kind of guy.
Starting point is 00:27:30 Yeah. Nothing quiet about him in boxing. Anyway, he says that, but whatever he did, he always did it on his own. So he said he always has like an independent streak to him. I admire that.
Starting point is 00:27:41 I admire that. Yeah. But in boxing, that's kind of tough because you're trying to keep this. You're trying to keep basically a runaway train on tracks when it's a boxer because it's a young, volatile person who's full of testosterone and confidence. And you're like, don't fuck too many women. Don't party too hard even though everyone wants to be around you.
Starting point is 00:28:01 Stay away from drugs. Even though that's going to help you. Even though they'll be free. They'll be free and will help you get more more women which you also want but you shouldn't have that's a lot to ask of somebody you know what i mean and then also when you're out you know people if they fuck with you you're gonna be able to kick their asses don't don't you take their shit and then don't fuck then don't fuck their girlfriend or take the drugs that she has like that's a lot to ask of a young person.
Starting point is 00:28:25 We're going to put money in your pocket and make you feel invincible. That's the other thing. Yeah. Make you feel like every decision you've made is correct because it must be. Look at my bank account. How much money do you have? Wrong motherfucker. Duh.
Starting point is 00:28:36 Oh, and if that's not good enough, I can just punch you better. So there's that. You couldn't be more wrong. Just look at your bank versus mine. And if that doesn't convince you, I'll punch you in the mouth. And then there you go. We got it covered. You win.
Starting point is 00:28:50 We've covered both, all sorts of different avenues there. Unreal. So Lewis said, quote, he has real athletic ability, but he's not very conscientious. And that's the thing about him is training regimens, he's not real. He likes to party. He likes to do his own thing and he he's he's got other stuff going on on the outside as we'll find out boxing is not his only profession he's got other shit popping off that most people would it would be a full-time thing and he's like
Starting point is 00:29:17 i'm gonna fight you know mike tyson on the side it's fucked man it's really fucked so he says though that that you know mac lewis everybody says was kind of a big source of pride reggie was a big source of pride for mac because he was like his he was going to be his golden boy after all the years this was like the best fighter he's ever had so he's very excited they said that the other kids in the gym you know were all like looked up to reggie and envied him like oh shit you know he's gonna be somebody um max says quote reggie could have been a doctor reggie could have been a lawyer reggie could have been an outstanding basketball player if he was right here right now you'd see the same thing he wanted to fight he wanted to
Starting point is 00:29:54 make a name for himself he's saying that yeah he had the brains to do anything he wanted to but he was interested in fighting so that makes sense okay you know as an amateur he says uh this is this is uh reggie talking in one month with mr mac i was ready to fight that mr mac it's mr lewis mr but he always calls him mr mac okay it's like call somebody coach i guess yeah yes man he oh and he uh mac lewis always brings it up as like a sign of respect like he's always been so respectful always calls me mr mac to this day never stopped calling always mr mac yeah but mr john is not what you call somebody that's what mr james that's what consuela on the family guy would call somebody you know that's what the yeah it would be exactly that yeah foreign thing it's a foreign thing yeah america we say mr and then your last name yeah
Starting point is 00:30:40 there's a difference so what are you gonna do bizarre so one month he's ready to fight he said in 11 months i turned pro 11 months i was 19 i wore pro kids for my first fight against a guy from virginia unreal he didn't even have like shoes for it he used the purse money for it to a couple hundred bucks to buy shoes finally cheerleader shoes he's wearing fucking pro kids which is what that was like what people wore for basketball back then that's wild fucking pro kids so that's what he was wearing on the street so he just wore street shoes in the ring which the other guy must have thought i'm gonna whoop this guy's ass he's in street shoes right and uh didn't quite happen that way we'll talk about him starting we won't talk about his amateur career he fought amateurs there you go uh his pro
Starting point is 00:31:21 debut january 7th 1982 is at the Steelworkers Hall in Baltimore. Oh, boy. That is horrifying. This is horrifying. This I picture like the Union Hall in season two of The Wire. Right. Where they go to actually sign in for the job. Not like Frank's little trailer there.
Starting point is 00:31:39 The actual hall. Yeah. They put a ring in the middle of that. Yeah. And there's a bunch of those guys going i'm room for the white guy there's a bunch of polacks sitting there going okay uh white guy win i don't know his fucking name you know his fucking name i don't fucking know beat that black guy up i don't know the fuck and the audience watching this fight is tougher than um the majority of yeah of the amateur fights around the country. This is like a no-holds-barred
Starting point is 00:32:06 Hulk Hogan movie situation. I feel like there's sparks in the background and people are doing foundry work around this fight for some reason. Somebody's grinding a refrigerator door for some reason. There's sparks everywhere. Welding masks on half the participants. One of those. They just stop
Starting point is 00:32:22 welding for five minutes to watch this fight. Hold on a minute we're on break it's a cnc music factory video come on white guy right i gotta get back to work in a minute hurry up and beat this black guy up and let me get back to this already come on fucking paul locks over there so anyway first fight steel workers hall he fights bluefort spencer yep blu fort bluefort good christ that's not a nickname his name is bluefort spencer yep b-l-u-f-o-r-t bluefort good christ that's not a nickname his name is bluefort which who the fuck names her kid bluefort wouldn't you just go by blue blue nope bluefort bluefort spencer who sounds it sounds like a guy who's got a bindle yeah on a stick or elderly as
Starting point is 00:32:58 fuck or you know this is my this is my uncle blueford right he's he was in both wars right he's always wanted to die this way would you please put him out of his misery This is my Uncle Bluford. He was in both wars. He's always wanted to die this way. Would you please put him out of his misery? He's hunched over. Coming at you all slow and shit. He woke up this morning and said he wanted a fat. I don't know. He's got a 7-5 career total, Bluford, here.
Starting point is 00:33:20 And Reggie knocks him out in the first round for a 1-0 fight. Reggie's got two. He's got footwork. He likes to circle. He's loose with his hands. He's an entertaining fighter to watch fight when he feels like fighting. Oh? Well, there's some times when he's a little lackluster,
Starting point is 00:33:37 and we find out why he was lackluster, and it's mind-blowing that he was even in a ring. Just didn't want to fight? No, not quite. I think he might have thought he was fighting well and just didn't realize what was going on because there was something else happening with his body. Yeah, that's nasty.
Starting point is 00:33:52 The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Ding! 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.
Starting point is 00:34:09 I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her alone. Okay, so, um... This is not a so. This is a period.
Starting point is 00:34:24 Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. 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.
Starting point is 00:34:35 The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice. Only on Freebie. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault,
Starting point is 00:35:01 or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from Smartless Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink roller coaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:35:43 You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So January 23rd, 82, two weeks later, he's in Virginia fighting at the Richmond Arena, and he fights Cowboy Charles Roy. Cowboy Charles Roy here. Cowboy Roy. Cowboy Roy has a 2- 14 career record christ he's better at cowboying yeah that's maybe why he's like i'm not a boxer i keep telling people i'm a goddamn cowboy nobody listens to me they keep booking me fights i just want a rope and ride jesus christ
Starting point is 00:36:17 and if i'm booked what am i supposed to do i mean i'm not thinking i'm on a poster i gotta show up people gonna be like where is he? So I keep showing up. I don't even want to do this every goddamn time. Jesus Christ. They gave him two wins just to build up his confidence. Poor fuck. I don't want to do it anymore. Please, somebody.
Starting point is 00:36:38 Somebody stop this, please. I just want beans in the open rain. Can I just suck, please? Jesus Christ. I got craps and I got to move the herd. I need to shit. Poor Roy. Roy.
Starting point is 00:36:50 Roy. Roy. This fight goes the distance, which is four rounds in these fights, but still goes the distance. Reggie wins by unanimous decision. I think the guy just probably had a good chin. Yeah. Cowboy.
Starting point is 00:37:02 He's a cowboy. Just ran around a lot. Yeah, he's like, come on, man. No, I'm serious. What the fuck? Dude. I'll let you fucking just stop trying to hit me, bro. Come on.
Starting point is 00:37:12 In the rodeo, eight seconds is a win. I've been here, it feels like 11. Just moving all around. Hey, back up, up, up. Listen, man, I don't want to. Shit. Okay, listen. Okay. He fights here april 24th 82 in richmond virginia again he fights john green who is a 2 and 12 career fighter as well so not good these are he fights a lot of
Starting point is 00:37:38 shitty fighters disappears uh yeah which makes sense he's a kid and he has very little experience so he's only been fighting amateur for 11 months so you don't want to put him in there with anybody too crafty because a lesser fighter could win in a fight against somebody who's way more talented just because they know a couple of tricks of how to keep the guy at bay and hold on to him for four rounds you never know so this one here uh this is a ko in the first round for reggie making him three and oh so he's having a pretty good time here. May 17, 82, he's really stacking them. This is quick.
Starting point is 00:38:10 In the first four months, he's got four fights. He's got four fights right away. This is at the Hilton Hotel in Baltimore. So moving up, I guess. No steel workers around, just mediocre food. Over here in the banquet center. Yeah, that's what it is. There's like weddings walking by in the background in the blue crab room yeah in the blue craze you see like
Starting point is 00:38:29 some giant train being carried by a bunch of bridesmaids as they look at the fight as they walk by he fights michael statten who's a three three and one career fighter in the end but he comes into this fight two and oh so it's two and oh versus three you know it looks like uh up and comer versus up and comer and it goes the distance all four rounds and reggie wins again 4 and 0 for him june 24th 82 resorts international atlantic city oh you're stepping up yeah your place with some gambling and shit like that he fights sunny crooms who sounds like he was just singing in the you know in the lounge room and he was like i gotta I got to end my show now, everybody. I got a boxing match to get to.
Starting point is 00:39:06 Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. Okay. Blue moon. Then he's like, all right. Now, seriously, seriously. They're announcing me. They're announcing me.
Starting point is 00:39:14 It's time. Pugilism. I have trunks on under this. I have to go. Sunny crooms. Takes off a reflective suit. Yeah. He's shark skin off.
Starting point is 00:39:24 He's got trunks on. Breakaway shark skin. It's definitely breakaway. Pow. He doesoms. Takes off a reflective suit. Yeah, he's sharkskin off. He's got trunks on. Breakaway sharkskin. It's definitely breakaway. Pow, he does that. That's what he does when he comes into the arena. He gets in the ring, poof, pulls it off. So he's a one six and one career fighter. Jesus.
Starting point is 00:39:37 So maybe he's a better singer. I'm not sure. He's only won one more fight than me. Yeah. And it was the last fight before this fight is the one he won. So he came in kind of cocky. Yeah. I'm going to win this fight than me. Yeah. And it was the last fight before this fight is the one he won. So he came in kind of cocky. Yeah. So I'm going to win this fight, everybody.
Starting point is 00:39:48 Yeah. And gets TKO'd in round two. God damn it. I was like, oh, back to the lounge. All right. 5-0 now for Reggie. July 9th, 82, at the Civic Center in Baltimore versus Charles Price. His career record, 4-13-1.
Starting point is 00:40:04 Ouch. This is just a parade of tomato cans. It's just shit. Just to get him used to punching people in front of other people that have paid in a legal fashion. That's all. Punch people with gloves on.
Starting point is 00:40:15 Practice doing that. There you go. This goes the distance, four rounds. Unanimous decision win. He's 6-0 here. September 23rd, 82. He must have taken August off that month. That's weird.
Starting point is 00:40:28 Every other month he's fighting. Very European of him. It's all here. It's a summer vacation. That's what it was. He was like, we're going to the south of France for August. You know. I like to August in France.
Starting point is 00:40:40 I August in the south of France. It's very nice this time of year. It's wonderful. The breeze is just... The wines in August are wonderful. The vintages that come out. They harvest in the spring. Oh my!
Starting point is 00:40:56 Much better than a Baltimore crack rock. Which is in season the rest of the year. Right. But not August. So... To come back from the Baltimore. Right. But not August. So... I want to come back from the Baltimore Old English. Yes, the Baltimore...
Starting point is 00:41:09 We do the Baltimore... It's a malt liquor. Yeah, Baltimore slits. I head to the south of France where I partake in many, many fine vintage wines. And that is my year. Just for August. That is my year, yes.
Starting point is 00:41:24 So September 23rd,rd 82 he's fighting here this is back at the steel workers hall in baltimore he's like god damn it here again he fights rick the bomber lanehart i don't know he's got a 21 and 28 career record though total so he's a journeyman he's not some you know pushover he's been in a lot of fights and he won five of his last six fights coming into this so he's on an upswing and this one goes all the way to the sixth round so it's the longest fight he's ever been in reggie but it's a tko win for reggie anyway for him seven and oh so look at this he's coming up here december 16th 82 steelworker hall again man he loves it
Starting point is 00:42:01 there this is verse fred brown 1839 and two for his career jesus that's like a tyson's punch out opponent that's fucking awful depressing the first guy yeah it's glass joe right 1839 and two this is a ko win in round two which sounds like last show as well eight no march 1st 83 civic center in baltimore. Okay. That's something. You know, people you know. Downtown. Yeah, people you know can come to that. It's exciting. He's fighting Prince Charles Williams.
Starting point is 00:42:31 Yeah. Yeah, of course. I don't think it's that one. Prince Charles Williams. We've talked about this guy once before. He's got a 37-7-3 career record. Jesus. And he knocked out Bobby Chez.
Starting point is 00:42:44 Oh, really? Yeah, so we we discussed him in the fight twice i don't remember if he fought him he might have fought him twice he was a tko and then he lost a decision right yeah yeah but prince it's because of the royalty that it rings a bell i think prince charles williams which at this point in 83 that was right after the royal wedding that was uh such a big deal he was trying to get like uh this is pre-internet trying to get hits you know like he's one of those fucking assholes that that advertises like for for stand-up shows that charlie sheen might show up yeah yeah those dickheads
Starting point is 00:43:17 it's a rumor yeah yeah surprise they'll never be there. Now, so Prince... Never. Ever. Your shit show. So Prince Charles Williams is a pretty fucking good fighter here. Like I said, knocked out Bobby Chez, who was a champ at one point, and 37-7-3 is a hell of a fucking record.
Starting point is 00:43:36 Reggie TKO's him in the first round. Oh. So this is a... People start taking Reggie seriously at this point. Everybody before was like, oh, he's fighting nobodies. Then he fought him. Everyone went, holy shit.
Starting point is 00:43:47 He didn't last around with this fucking kid. Then we might be on to something here. This is when he really started turning heads. He remembers at one point here in March of 83. This will give you a hint of because we've just given you, you know, he's boxing. He's hanging out with Mac Lewis. He's training. He's doing other shit on the side.
Starting point is 00:44:05 Like I said, he's got a second life because probation didn't clean it up. No, no. It's shocking, right? There's not a lot of money in low level boxing. If you're fighting at the steel workers hall, honestly, how much money can you expect to get? A hundred bucks. I think it's probably 200 bucks, 300 bucks, some shit like that. Because later on, he fights like name talent guys and still doesn't get paid shit.
Starting point is 00:44:27 Really? Like, I don't know. Because Mac Lewis is a lower level guy. And he even says, like, I don't later on, I'll say, like, I don't blame Mac because it's not his fault. But if I had a manager who was savvier, she had some money. He trusted Mac. But he said, you know, Mac never negotiated on that level before to know to ask what to
Starting point is 00:44:41 ask for and what to get. So he would take, you know, eight grand for a fight that's on's on you know tv against someone who's about to fight for the title like that's bullshit you can get more out of that guy because he needs you for that warm-up fight so you can get 50 as much as you need him instead of 50 he'll get 8500 and it's like what how do you get 8500 he's on the undercard of tyson spinks which was one of the biggest pay-per-views of fucking all time. It was a giant pay-per-view. I remember it's the 92nd fight of Tyson knocking him out. But that made so much fucking money.
Starting point is 00:45:12 He made $8,500 for that fight. He's on the undercard. It's like, what? $8,500? Why would you? It's because he needed the money. Right. So March of 83, he says that he's talking about an older man than him.
Starting point is 00:45:26 Then he says a little older than him, a little savvier in the drug game and shit like that. A guy named Wimpy. Okay. Now, I think they've used that in The Wire, too, as somebody's name here. Now, Wimpy, he says, Reggie says, never knew his full name. Of course not. Just Wimpy. He says, Wimpy drove a dotson 280z
Starting point is 00:45:45 which was hot shit in 1983 it's pretty hot today it's pretty cool still it's pretty cool yeah it's pretty pretty dope little ride little it's so tight i know i can't they're so fast you can't fit in it i can't fit in it i knew someone as a teenager had one and i felt it felt dangerous it is dangerous i was like if this thing i'll never get out of here. I'll be wearing this thing forever. But it's a cool little car. If I survive it, I'll have a door attached to me. It's going to be bad. If you were my size, you'd like that car.
Starting point is 00:46:10 Oh, I want to fit in it. If I like it now and I'm my size, I just can't do it. I want it. Almost all the Zs, all the Nissans and Datsuns Zs are cool cars, except for maybe the new ones. The newer ones are kind of- Yeah, I don't want that. It's kind of stupid. The 80s, 90s ones are pretty dumb. Yes. the twin turbo yeah those are great those little hundreds those yeah yeah the
Starting point is 00:46:29 83 like 83 this time with the pop-up headlights right pop-up headlights and the long front end a little bubble cabin that you sit in kind of like look like the rx7 right like they have a cool car yeah those are those were cool sick little car as a kid i liked those i was like oh that's pretty fucking cool man i'd see somebody with one of those it's like a fast little aston martin yeah a cheap one yeah i get one just to put it in the garage now it's they're fucking expensive now yeah they'd be shit you can't get all right never mind it's the cars that you liked those are the ones that are expensive because other people right because everybody else is like oh i liked it too and i can't afford it but never mind all right I thought I'd get one for like 500 bucks or something.
Starting point is 00:47:05 No. Fucking just stick it in the garage. Probably five to 10 for one that runs. Oh, yeah. I'm not paying that. Nice ones. No, I got a kid in college. I can't do that.
Starting point is 00:47:14 All right. Never mind. So anyway, bursted my bubble on a 280Z that I could just look at and have fun. Try to crab myself in. Hey, look at this. Wave at people. Not going to happen. Shit. fun i've tried to cram myself in hey look at this wave at people not gonna happen shit so uh he says in march 83 he uh was driving with wimpy and in uh in this car and uh with it's wimpy's car gross is in the passenger seat they're going to atlantic city for a uh a fight between dwight braxton and
Starting point is 00:47:43 michael spinks they're going to watch they're're going to watch, yeah, which is a good fight. It's a light heavyweight fight. He says, quote, on the way up in the car, he showed me $80,000 in the glove compartment. Are those glove boxes that big? I guess so. Now, $80,000, first of all, in 1983, is a lot more than $80,000 right now.
Starting point is 00:48:02 Right. A shitload more, at least double. It's probably $200,000. Probably $200,000. Not not only that it's in cash not only that he has never seen that much cash in front of him before so this is like holy shit uh he said 80 000 exclamation point i was green man i was living with my grandparents i didn't know nothing he whipped the cocaine out it was raw good stuff one sniff and it made you want more i knew i couldn't do it he whipped the cocaine out it was raw good stuff one sniff and it made you want more i knew i couldn't do it uh but he did yeah he said i knew i couldn't but i
Starting point is 00:48:30 did uh he said quote i had uh i had did it but i stopped is what he said right i don't know about that you're not gonna for a while now yeah now he's like that felt good i don't want to do that anymore so he i tried that and the man that had that had 80 fucking thousand dollars i mean i think i can do that so you have magic powder right makes me feel great yeah and then on top of that if you sell that to other people then you get lots of money and you feel like you're magic at the same time drive a fun car hmm yeah why am i fighting i shouldn't do that you're right i should go to the steel workers hall to let a man named bluefort punch me in the face much better idea but the cops don't like what you do they're fine with what i do i think i fuck cops i don't care what they think and that's the thing it's not a very difficult decision especially if you're if you don't see
Starting point is 00:49:21 a lot of the you know if you if you come up in an area where you don't see a lot of positive, you don't see a lot of people like, oh, that's Mr. So-and-so and he owns his own business or that's Mrs. So-and-so or Ms. This-and-that and they own this and they started out. He used to live next door to so-and-so, but now you don't see a lot of that because it's hard to move up in that area. People leave and that's how they become successful. You don't see a guy with a bodega that's driving a z with 80 grand in the glove box that's what i mean so it's hard to say like work hard and do this when it's like well he doesn't work hard and he has more than you make in five years he's fat as shit that's what i mean minimum wage is like three dollars an hour back then or some shit like 350 an hour three dollars some i'll bet it was way lower probably lower it's like yeah that's what people are making.
Starting point is 00:50:05 He's got $80,000 in cash. That's literally... That's awesome. You could live on that for 10 years in this neighborhood. So it's fucking crazy. So he still keeps going to the gym, though, because boxing also is very lucrative. That's the other thing. If you can make it legit and you have a chance at it, why not try it?
Starting point is 00:50:20 So April 8th, 1983, at the the steel workers hall he fights bluefort spencer again for some reason the hell does blueford want with more yeah this goes to the seventh this time blueford figured something out but it's still a tko so he's 10 and 0 now which is that's a now it's a milestone anyway in the boxing game may 5th 1983 he's at the civic center in baltimore fights larry lane who needs a nickname yeah right that's not good no what can his nickname larry we had jeff green too like the yeah or john green it doesn't matter something boring fucking yeah the construction worker names are these are garbage throwaways larry lane larry lois lane it's got to be alliterative yeah larry lois that'll strike fear in the heart to the other fighters.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Fighting Lois Lane tonight. I think it's going to be a tough one. I'm going to go all 12 with Lois tonight. There's got to be something Lane that sounds better than just Larry. I don't know, man. Larry the Ligature Lane. He's going to fucking strangle you. So anyway, yeah, 12-5-1 is his career record.
Starting point is 00:51:24 This goes the distance. I think it's eight rounds here for a unanimous decision win for Mr. Gross here for Reggie. It's 11 and 0. June 27th, 83. Next month, Convention Center in Ocean City, Maryland. He fights Abdul Hakeem, who is a 6 and 6 career fighter. And this is a knockout in five rounds for Reggie.
Starting point is 00:51:43 So 12 and 0 for him. He's going to fight a couple more here. august 18th 1983 civic center in baltimore he fights franklin otts otts oh otts all right not enough vowels in there or something not the utts family not the utts the different yeah he's a 25 14 and one total career record. He won his last five before this fight. So he comes in on a big streak, and Reggie knocks him out in the first round. Reggie's good at this. He's good at this, and he's good at this when he, like, if it's a lackluster fighter he's fighting, he comes in lazy.
Starting point is 00:52:16 If he's fighting somebody he knows can fight that won their last five fights, he knocks him out in the first round. He's prepared. It's weird, yeah, where Bluford Spencer takes him seven rounds because he comes in, I already beat Bl blue for it fuck do i care about him also blueford came uh with a with a flat top guitar and was swinging it that's yeah you know how that goes it's it's a little more challenging it's a different kind of fight right there's a different fight like hound dogs attacking me it's not gonna work blueford so knock out in the first round for with otso 13 and oh not too shabby 13 and oh
Starting point is 00:52:48 february 27th 1984 he is at the sands casino in atlantic city now now we're casino fighting yeah it's in atlantic city but it's still better than the steel workers it is he fights marcus jackson another man who needs a nickname yeah come on marcus, Marcus. Isn't that 50 Cent's name? No, it's Curtis Jackson. Curtis, yeah. Marcus Jackson needs a nickname. He's 11-7 in his career, so more wins than losses. You've earned a nickname.
Starting point is 00:53:13 Right. This buddy gets knocked out in the third round here against Reggie. So Reggie's 14-0, and that is definitely, definitely grace. Hard grace. Hard grace. I'm talking like the the next month we're falling from it whoa yeah oh man is this hard and this is from someone who's already done five years right you know yeah we usually don't get five years in prison right out of your first 23 years and have
Starting point is 00:53:40 or 22 years and not even call grace yet that's a lot yeah you figure he did he did more than by the time he was 20 that he'd already done a quarter of his life in jail yeah which is insane to think about yeah that's that's very disheartening that's disturbing to think about a quarter of america yeah it's fucking wild we gotta fix that that's uh something wrong there i think yeah so for purse snatching For purse snatching. For purse snatching. That's the other part. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:07 It's a minimal crime. Nobody was hurt. I know there was no assault. It's an adult and their purse snatching. Put them away forever. I can give a fuck. Oh, I told you in the fryer. Right.
Starting point is 00:54:16 Fuck them. Remember? That was. But a 13 year old. 13 year old. You expect them to be stealing. Yeah. That's what I mean.
Starting point is 00:54:21 It's still a bitch fucking crime. I know a lot of 13 year olds did a lot worse than that, and they didn't go to jail for five fucking years. I know a 13-year-old stole a fucking SUV out of somebody's front yard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, in their driveway. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:33 While they were asleep at like 2 a.m. Is it horrible things? Falling over to pick us up. Yeah. I'm like, what? What is this? Why are you in the car? Why is this happening?
Starting point is 00:54:41 Who's is that? Is this the wire? car why is this happening is that is this the wire so um and this is this is this is of no fault of his own here that happens actually so sometimes you fall from grace of your own accord and sometimes things help push you over the grace mark uh so this particular day in the spring of 1984 reggie gets an emergency phone call telling him that his mother's house is currently on fire. Right now. Right now. It's on fire.
Starting point is 00:55:10 Did you call the police yet or the fire department? I hope you have. I think, yeah. I better not be call number one, motherfucker. I don't have a hose. So call people with hoses first, and then I'll get over there once the hoses are out. So he rushed over there to the scene. and then I'll get over there once the hoses are out.
Starting point is 00:55:24 So he rushed over there to the scene and by the time he arrived, family, like everybody in the house is being loaded into ambulances because they were burned in the fire. It's not, it's terrible. Like it's not everybody got out and they're fine and the house is just fucked up. Like people are hurt.
Starting point is 00:55:40 So everybody's going to the ambulances and it gets worse. Quote, my sister was eight months pregnant, but both her and the baby survived. My mother broke both her legs jumping out of the window. My boy, who's four years old, his son was in the house, got burned worst of all. He was a strong little kid and I thought he'd pull through. But one day his heart just gave out. His kid died. what a story yeah this kid was in the hospital for a while and his son died in the fire that's
Starting point is 00:56:11 i gotta be honest with you that's fucking brutal he's the worst storyteller of all time that's not a good yeah he just like he gives you a little bit of hope yeah he buried the lead he was like shouldn't have been like the day my son died is the worst day of my life. Here's what happened. Right. He made it sound like, you know, they're all right. And they pulled through my son. Man, he's tough. He got burned the worst.
Starting point is 00:56:30 He's a tough little guy. And then one day his heart stopped. He didn't even say that. He said his heart just gave out. Leaves you going, he died? And then they revived him, right? So to me, you leave him going, is he alive or not? God damn it.
Starting point is 00:56:44 Yeah. It's a terrible story. well like it's a terrible story it's a well it's a horrible story anyway but then he tells it badly also and then alliterated worse and then but i guess at some point maybe that's painful so he avoids the you know that's a way that he can say it and not navigate emotions yeah i could see that he has words that he doesn't want to really say so he said i always pictured me and my boy doing tv commercials like sugar ray leonard did with his dad it's exactly what it is james yeah he had hopes dreams and aspirations that were dashed and he doesn't know how to verbalize he doesn't know how to do it he can't say it he said after he died it just wasn't the same for me so yeah and it wouldn't be the same for anybody you lose your four-year-old
Starting point is 00:57:23 in the fucking fire that's everybody has sympathy oh god that's no way that you could be no i have a good mindset or a normal mindset or anything else that's fucking horrible and then making it worse is that he fights the next month stop it yeah he fights didn't even give himself a chance to grieve no his son just died he goes right back in the gym and he tries to fight through it and he needs money yeah now he's got to pay for a funeral he's got all the shit to pay for he's got his mother's house burned down yeah he literally said i needed fucking money so in his defense that may be fuel to to fight and that's the other thing maybe that keeps his mind off because if you're training for boxing you're you can't your mind is on what's in front of you because if it isn't you you can't do it. You have to focus on it that much.
Starting point is 00:58:05 So, you know, especially if you're sparring, a man's hitting you in the face. He'll wake you the fuck up. So he fights April 11th. This happened in March, Jimmy. He fights less than a month after. So, I mean, his son hung on for a bit in the hospital, too. This could be two weeks. A week after his son died.
Starting point is 00:58:23 We don't know. This is insane. He fights at the, poor guy, he fights at the national guard armory in pikesville maryland versus anthony witherspoon who has a 19 and 7 career record this fight goes into the seventh and the fight is stopped and uh with a tko loss for reggie he loses he couldn't have been focused i don't know how the fuck he would have won this fight. Unless he went in rageful and took the guy's head off in the first round. I think that's what he was counting on. Other than that, I don't know how else you can.
Starting point is 00:58:52 Even in boxing, if you've got a decent fighter, you're not going to do that. They'll avoid you, and then you're out of gas, and he's going to light you up. It's tough. I don't know how you'd be focused and do this. I don't blame him for this loss at all. 14-1. It's his first loss, too, which is a tough one, but I don't think anybody really, everybody kind of was like, hmm, it's okay.
Starting point is 00:59:11 You know, shit. May 23rd, 84. Next month, keeps fighting. I mean, he's just got to keep going. He has three other kids to feed, too, so he's got to do this. No, not at this point. Maybe two more at this point. This is at the National Guard Armory again.
Starting point is 00:59:23 He fights Jack Johnson. One of the most generic people ever. We've covered him before, too. No, no, no. point maybe two more at this point this is at the national guard armory again he fights jack johnson the most generic people ever we've covered him before too no no he the fighter this one had to have maybe maybe not this particular one i don't know it's jack johnson that's i mean there could be 30 yeah well there is so there's an old timer uh so 14 18 and one for jack here okay uh this this goes the distance this fight and reggie loses it by unanimous decision okay he needs to take a break he needs a break bad um and he does take a break for a few months here i think finally max said you need to get your head together motherfucker like you are rightfully so your head's not right your kid's dead calm down your family's burned
Starting point is 01:00:02 your kid's dead your mother's got broken legs right like you got a lot going on bro this is a fucking shitload so he's 14 and 2 he takes off from may to september so he takes the whole summer off june july august so maybe that's good spend some time whatever healing emotionally i don't know france for three months oh well yeah he's gonna well that's what he does obviously you know the saint bart's though for the first month come on he's not a fucking animal jimmy yeah he's not a barbarian he that's what he does, obviously. On the St. Barts, though, for the first month. Come on, he's not a fucking animal, Jimmy. He'll get those desserts. Yeah, he's not a barbarian. He goes down to the islands first and then heads over to Europe.
Starting point is 01:00:30 Absolutely. Jesus. So September 6th, 84, Civic Center in Baltimore. He fights James Reed. He has the most opponents in need of nicknames I've ever seen in my life. He was a four and seven fighter career. So they're like, here's a guy you can beat up go beat him up and he does this is a unanimous decision but it's a win so it goes longer than it
Starting point is 01:00:51 should but at least he wins the fight so they're like okay good for you back on track 15 and 2 for reggie now september 20th 1984 he's at the sands casino in atlantic city again and he fights a guy with two nicknames okay gotta make up for all these other guys all these like give somebody one of these nicknames he's fighting the boogeyman jesse thunder ferguson no you can't pick one dude jesus are you the boogeyman are you thunder which one are you you can't be the boogeyman jesse thunder ferguson it just doesn't work it doesn't work that's why a doctor can't be president because you can't be the boogeyman jesse thunder ferguson it just doesn't work it doesn't work that's why a doctor can't be president because you can't be dr president it's just a stupid title that no one is going to say it's stupid every time a doctor runs for president
Starting point is 01:01:33 he's not going to win no he will not i don't care if it's the greatest person in the world he or she will not win because no one is calling them dr president and you know they're not giving up that fucking doctor for shit they're going to be doctor president so and so vast majority of them jds though but we don't say jurors doctorate whoever the fuck no that's what i mean it's not yeah exactly that but doctor doctor we say that yeah a lot a medical doctor or something especially a medical doctor they're never going to stop saying that yeah who the fucking ben Ben Carson ran in 2016. And the second they introduced him, I went, nope, you're not going to win. People were like, yeah, it's all flawed.
Starting point is 01:02:12 I don't care what the fuck he's saying. It doesn't matter. This doctor president doesn't work. And people went, oh, yeah, that's kind of a. It's one of those you don't think about it. You think that would be an advantage. Right. I'm a doctor.
Starting point is 01:02:22 Right. Nope. Not at all. Wouldn't it matter if your PhD is in literature literature don't care doesn't matter can't be doctor president no one's going to work or president doctor that's even stupider it's dumb not gonna work so uh we elect no one who's been to medical school so the boogeyman thunder ferguson here is 26 and 18 in his career career he was a big up-and-comer and then he kind of fell off he started out hot like reggie did and then kind of went off when he started fighting quality opponents that happens to a lot of guys see a lot of guys start off 10
Starting point is 01:02:57 and 0 and then end up you know 19 and 12 for their career because they started fighting good fighters so this is uh this fight only goes three rounds. It stopped with a TKO loss for Reggie again. So it's not going well for him now. He got boogied and thundered in the same fucking bout here. Bad stuff. March 8th, 1995.
Starting point is 01:03:18 So he takes off from September to March. Don't know what he's doing. Have an idea, as we'll find out in a minute. But he's not training uh i guess he is for this fight he is because he fights uh this fight march 8th 1985 at the catholic youth center in scranton pennsylvania whoa oh boy that's where they used to have like uh wwe at the time wwf like c wrestling sea wrestling shows. Of course. I remember them advertised on it. Just because it held enough people.
Starting point is 01:03:46 Yeah, 2,000. If it could hold, like, 1,500, they'd put the sea show there with, like, a couple of crappy guys. That's embarrassing. We'll be at the Catholic Youth Center in Stratton, Pennsylvania. Here he fights Jimmy the Lark Clark.
Starting point is 01:03:59 Oh, boy. At least he's got a nickname. At least he's not Jimmy Clark. We'd be saying he needs a nickname. What a tiny bird. Jimmy the Lark Clark. Oh, boy. For his entire career, he's 18-1.
Starting point is 01:04:10 And he comes into this fight 14-0. Oh. The Lark. This is his one loss. Really? So, yeah. See what I mean? The only loss is to Reggie.
Starting point is 01:04:18 That's it. Reggie's a good fight. When it's someone he needs to be up for, he's up for them. It's weird. That's incredible. This is a TKO win in round nine too so knock somebody out in the ninth round shows you really stick to it and you didn't fall off or get tired and that's impressive that's regimented yeah because he doesn't fought a lot of long fights so to be able to not just hang on somebody for the last couple
Starting point is 01:04:39 rounds is very impressive this brings him to 16 and three still contending this he's still okay and the whole boxing world knows kind of around the what happened around his losses okay so they look at his record and pass yeah they look at him as kind of 16 and 1 he lost to the one guy that was legit and the other two are right after his kid died so kind of got to brush those out yeah they're all like he was going through some shit and they're you know like, wow, it's amazing that he fought. He fought because he was already signed to fight. So he wasn't going to give the money away. So June 28, 1985, this is at the Rocky Glen Bowl in Scranton.
Starting point is 01:05:15 Gross. That sounds bad. Yeah. It smells like stale beer there, which Scranton kind of. It's named after Rocky glenn whoever the fuck that is rocky glenn bowl bowl anything that's oh i think it's named after a rocky glenn like a glenn that's rocky oh god i think that's what it is even dumber because there's mountains in pennsylvania but the bowl it's a bowl that's never a nice place the hollywood bowl is that a nice place
Starting point is 01:05:42 i don't know it's but i mean legendary i don't know if it's nice is it an arena what is that it's an outdoor thing yeah i hate those yeah i don't want to sit outside so there's nothing nice but they're all it's always a concrete block you've got to set your fat ass on that's it and it's always uncomfortable yeah it's a sound thing it's an experience it's one of those this is what they did in the 1400s great before they had air conditioning and we're sitting in the fucking side. If they had air conditioning. And speakers and amplifiers and fucking ways to make the sound so much better. Why are we sitting in the fucking concrete and sun?
Starting point is 01:06:13 You don't have to use gravity and physics to use for the sound to go through. We just blast it right into your fucking ear holes. That's it. Phil Spector invented this shit. It's beautiful. Yeah, that's right. Wall of sound and shit that too so uh he fights hector the mountain rodriguez okay so i picture a fat man yeah i think hector
Starting point is 01:06:33 the mountain has a a one and four career record that's his whole career and this is his last fight i think so reggie convinces him to retire by knocking him out in the third round making him a hill he's like i think i'll retire now yeah my mountain days are over so 17 and 3 for reggie so it's the summer of 1985 what do people do in the summer of 85 anytime yeah summertime the living is easy yeah that's right usually gershon said anyway yeah you know summertime is easy, unless you're in West Baltimore and you're fucked up and mixed up in bullshit in the streets because he gets shot. Reggie got shot. Summer of 85, he gets shot in the arm. Yeah, shot in the arm.
Starting point is 01:07:18 So he takes a bullet in the arm. They thought it might end his career because it's in the arm. And if it fucks up any of the muscles or nerves or anything, it'll end your career. But miraculously, he recovers fine. Miraculously, he recovers fine. And by January 86, he's fucking fighting again. Did they say why? Oh, we'll find out.
Starting point is 01:07:39 Was it a drive-by? No, it's intentional. He was cleaning it and it went off? Oh, he's mixed all up in this shit. Anything that he does or other people do is not an accident with him at all it's he's wait till you find out exactly how intentional this motherfucker is his other life is way scary it's fucking way scary so but boxing wise he's making his way up the ranks so january 31st 1986 he's at the trump casino in atlantic city uh he is fighting smoking burt cooper yeah and we've talked about burt cooper before because he's a he's a contender
Starting point is 01:08:12 uh he was 10 and 0 coming into this fight his whole career he ends up 38 and 25 but he's fought everybody he fought holyfield he fought george foreman he fought riddick bow he fought michael moore he fought ray mercer chris bird cory sanders he's fought all of these like heavyweight champions lost all of them pretty much yeah yeah but he's always a you know he always goes the distance and shit like that like he's a very capable fighter he's really tough he's a step towards the title yeah he's well not here he's an up-and-comer he's 10 and 0 and reggie's that guy who's gonna test the new guy basically they're like well let's see if he can beat a guy like Reggie Gross. You know, they throw him in there.
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Starting point is 01:09:31 You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. This fight goes into the eighth round, and Reggie stops him with a TKO. Really? And wins the fight, handing him his first loss. Right. Yeah, which is really impressive. And everybody was like, oh, shit, now we're talking. So much so, he's 18 and 3, that they start talking about maybe you could fight him with that new Tyson kid that's coming up right now.
Starting point is 01:09:54 Really? They start talking about it, yeah. Tyson's managers and Mack Lewis agree to a date. It's going to be after Christmas 85, somewhere around there. So he's like, he was psyched he was like i'm gonna fight mike fucking tyson now because he was like that's all anybody in boxing was talking about even though he was still a kid and wasn't even champ yet right he was he was the future of boxing story for a long time yeah he said he ran up and down the hills of druid hill park
Starting point is 01:10:20 basically uh running all around uh with uh vincent petwa petway who's the future world junior middleweight champion he's a guy who he'll who's also a mac lewis trainee and who we'll hang out with and we'll end up to vin petway we'll end up testifying for him in court one day as a matter of fact and uh also another boxer who was another mac Lewis protege named Warren Bordley. Warren Bordley. We'll talk about more plenty because Warren Bordley turns out to not have a boxing career, but a very lucrative career in another profession. That's much less legal than boxing. So Gross says, quote, I was in shape.
Starting point is 01:11:00 I've never been in shape like that before. I scared myself. He was in such good shape. He was just so impressive. Yeah. But what ends up happening is the Tyson fight gets postponed. He fights somebody else, and they push it back to later on in the year. That was his big payday.
Starting point is 01:11:17 He was going to make, I think, $30,000 or something. So that's a big payday for him because he hasn't had anything like that before. So he said what the fuck am i supposed to do now i don't know what to do um he fights burke cooper but he makes much less money than the tyson fight he said quote i needed money so i went out on the corner so here he goes um he's got a fight first here march 4th 1986 he's like i said he's been out he's not training as much he's on the corner a lot and shit like that he says uh here he fights is that resorts international atlantic city he fights henry
Starting point is 01:11:51 tillman this is going to be probably the worst fight of his career now tillman is a 25 and 6 fighter career but he's a bad he beat tyson twice as an amateur really so yeah and he's eight and oh coming in tillman did yeah so they're looking at tillman as he hasn't lost as a pro and he beat tyson twice as an amateur this guy's fucking dangerous you know you got to really take this guy seriously uh but over the course of an entire fight you'd uh gone the distance fight he threw less than 20 punches or less than 30 punches i'm sorry over an entire fight yeah tillman did no oh reggie oh that's not good he threw no punches he threw like 33 punches or something trying to be strategic
Starting point is 01:12:32 or no what's that fucking plan not doing it just didn't do it and he's 84 olympic champ was henry tillman like you gotta take this guy seriously uh petway there the other boxer from ringside um he was watching he didn't understand what was going on petway says that finally in the ninth round he screamed quote reggie if you don't punch him i'm gonna punch you what the fuck are you doing he just wouldn't do it he wouldn't fight about to be fighting two guys in a second yeah i'm about to come in and punch you in the back of the fucking head he said um yeah he said quote he just stood there he didn't understand it like well he was just standing there he wasn't doing anything he said
Starting point is 01:13:08 he can punch and just didn't understand why he's doing it um he says that uh in his mind though and this was the strategy because the tyson fight was still coming up possibly so he says afterwards quote they think i'll be easy now so he thinks by throwing no punches that will get tyson in the ring faster that seems counterintuitive he'll be easier to fight now they'll want to fight him because before he says they might have delayed it because he thought they thought maybe he was a little too good of a contender for right now so he thinks that if he shows himself to be weak weak then they'll want to kick his deal. It'd be an easy win. Then they'll want to fight him.
Starting point is 01:13:46 He's a fighter with a good record that they can beat easily and help Tyson. He says, quote, they've got the film of the Tillman fight. And now they know. Okay. It's a unanimous decision lost, by the way. Didn't throw any fucking punches. Good. He probably lost every round on every judge's card.
Starting point is 01:14:01 So he's 18 and four. And Mac Lewis says it like this he says quote reggie likes the women and this will come up a lot after a fight sure do anything celebrate but reggie is liable to celebrate before a fight that's not good yeah fucking all the time yeah he's just doing whatever he wants he says quote there are gyms like this all over the country there are people working to make a dream come true you've got to really want it that's what his answer was when they asked him about why did what happened to reggie in that fight he's like you know what there's a lot of people that love to be where he is and they're
Starting point is 01:14:36 gonna be because he doesn't fucking want it if he doesn't want it fuck him okay which i think is you know he cares more about fucking around and hanging out with women and all this type of shit so uh reggie though he says quote that was a setup so i could get the tyson fight that's what he says he like he says i didn't throw it but i just didn't try right so mac and reggie are both playing some some like negative chess at the moment yeah you know yeah well it works for him though because guess what next fight is tyson really he signed to fight tyson next he got it might have worked that lackluster performance might have been just what they were looking for so um yeah he's doing it and he says that they
Starting point is 01:15:14 talked to him about it and he says quote mike tyson is like a bull he comes right at you i eat bulls for dinner okay he's ready to do it. Here's the thing about that. Mike Tyson eats everything for dinner. No, he's brutal. He says, anyone comes at me, I knock him out. I don't care who he is. Michael Spinks, Larry Holmes, Looney Cooney. Talking about Jerry Cooney. So he's hitting the bag.
Starting point is 01:15:37 He says, Tyson fights like an amateur. He charges. He lunges. A man fights like that, and I knock him out. O-U-T. O-U-T-T. Okay. O-U-T. O-U-double-T. Okay. O-U-T-T?
Starting point is 01:15:48 It's still out. Yeah. That doesn't make it worse. Here's the thing about Tyson, though. He'll knock you out with a gut shot. I've seen him knock people over with punches in the arm. Right. It's dangerous.
Starting point is 01:15:59 He says, I knock him out with either hand. I knock him out with a jab. And so, yeah. Mac Lewis is there, and he's kind of laughing while Reggie's doing it. Because Reggie's just talking shit while he's training at the time. So he's doing like we described what Ted Williams would do during batting practice. I'm Ted fucking Williams. I'm the greatest fucking. Give me that bullshit, you cocksucking son of a bitch.
Starting point is 01:16:19 He's doing that sort of shit. Pump yourself up. Gross says, quote, or Lewis says, he's already won the fight, hasn't he? And he says, quote, I wish he would fight like he talks. That's one of the best lines from a boxing trainer we've ever had on this show. Gee, I just wish he would fight like he talks. That is wonderful shit, man. So Mac Lewis goes on to say, they think they can beat Reggie,
Starting point is 01:16:45 but they've got to pay to find out. He's talking about the payday. I'm not saying Reggie can't win, but a good showing is important. With a good showing, he can still make some money. Mac's just like, just go out, don't embarrass yourself, and you'll get some good high money fights. You'll get on HBO and shit, and you'll get some money.
Starting point is 01:17:02 But Reggie says, says quote i'm going to win and then i'll be making mega bucks he's really okay he's serious he believes in himself yep he says he's working out he says quote working out is hard whenever somebody says i gotta go to the gym i automatically get automatic sleepy but i know i've got to do it gotta get up at 5 a.m and gotta do my road work come to the gym got to be ready nobody thinks i can win everybody thinks he's going to knock me out a guy on the street asked me who you fighting i said tyson he said oh man tyson i don't know he said nobody gives me a chance that's what's so great my mother's friends are betting on tyson
Starting point is 01:17:40 they're betting the rent money they're betting the shoe money They're betting the rent money. They're betting the shoe money. They're betting the groceries. I'll bet you this cabbage. So he says, I'm going to buy some cheese. And when I win, I'm going to feed them the cheese because they're not going to have anything else left. Because they bet everything on Tyson. And they're going to lose.
Starting point is 01:17:59 And then I'm going to go around like some sort of Johnny Apple cheese spreading throughout the neighborhood. I don't know what's going on. What is happening? Okay. Jason Pell said he wanted to buy a bunch of bubble gum and hand it to the homeless of Detroit when he got booed. So they could have something in their mouth to chew on, but not get hungry or not get full.
Starting point is 01:18:22 But not get full. Yeah, that's what's going on here. Same thing. Same shit. Oh, my God. but not get hungry or not get full but not get full yeah that's what's going on here same shit oh my god so he said johnny apple cheese that's what he is johnny apple cheese is distributing he says that uh you know everybody's there he says quote i ain't afraid of tyson i'm betting on me okay he is ready to roll that's balls that's That's balls. Now, for his fight with Tyson, he has reportedly paid $40,000, which is the most he's ever made for a fight. He's very excited.
Starting point is 01:18:51 It's half of what that guy had for cocaine four years ago, though, still. So think about that. And he didn't have to get punched by Mike Tyson. That's what I mean. He didn't have to fight the scariest human being on Earth. So, yeah. But Lewis described him as a talker. He was saying, sure sure reggie talks too much
Starting point is 01:19:06 but that's reggie he's just an outgoing guy so now he's got to get in the ring june 13th 1986 this is and when you see this this is tyson he's young yep and he's nasty he's not fucking around he's one of when you hit him he doesn't even right flinch he's just he just comes walks right through your punches yep and fucking rips you. Yeah, and he's got that explosive punch, and he can knock you out with any punch, any hand, as we'll talk about in this. That left hop, and then the fucking right arm. Yeah, just that. He's going around, up and down, and then he can just explode.
Starting point is 01:19:39 His legs, all his power. Man, he was nasty. So for the occasion, Reggie buys buys a 500 silk suit and a pair of alligator skin shoes okay to wear to the fight because this is the real deal this is in madison square garden yep this is like so he spent two grand on clothes to arrive yeah because he's got to arrive and he's going to be interviewed by people there's going to be pictures taken it's you know people do that when they fight the champ it's what it is he says though he tells the press quote i was born for the spotlight that's why my teeth are sparkling white with my body six foot three 220 pounds and good looks i was made for
Starting point is 01:20:15 this tv he wants to fuck him i was made no no he wants people to want to fuck that's what i'm saying yeah he wants to fuck himself fuck reggie yeah reg fuck Reggie. Yeah, Reggie. I was born for this. I'm pretty. It sounds like a wrestling promo, though. It does. That sounds exactly like, I was made for this TV. That's hilarious. Look at this body. Look at this body. Six foot three, 220 pounds.
Starting point is 01:20:34 You're starting to go off into a superstar Billy Graham promo. You know what I mean? It's a shame I can't fuck me. Yeah, it's a shame I can't fuck me. Oh, man. So this is Madison Square Garden. This was huge at the time if you're too young to know about this like mike tyson mid 80s 21 and oh he comes in tyson he was the most famous
Starting point is 01:20:55 person in sports at this time more famous than michael jordan even than larry bird and i think magic johnson at the time i would say even all those guys. Big fucking deal. He's as big a sports celebrity as there is in the country at this time. And he is 19 years old. And he looks it. And he comes in. Now, this fight, people have different strategies against Tyson back in the day. There's a couple different strategies. Number one, you have to stay away from him.
Starting point is 01:21:24 Keep him away with your jab boxing strategy. Your Larry holmes would do this and about the best you can do that's wonderful if you're an amazingly perfect technical boxer and big perfect oh you have to be big enough to keep him away from you with the jab if you're larry holmes and you're six foot five you got six inch reach on him and larry holmes is one of the best jabs in the history of boxing so that's a and tyson still beat his ass but that was the perfect kind of guy to fight tyson keep him away with the jab but if tyson gets inside on you he's going to kill you if your arms are that long so that's the problem so anyway there's that fight of keep him technical away he's he's short keep him down there don't let him come in on you whatever and then there's the strategy of he's going to bum rush me, so I'm going to bum rush him.
Starting point is 01:22:07 Match him. Match him, and we'll just go toe to toe, and he's going to be throwing punches. I'm going to be throwing punches. I got a good enough punch. Maybe if I land mine, I'll get lucky and knock him out. You see that strategy very often. How'd that work for that Boston kid? I was going to say, watch Peter McNeely.
Starting point is 01:22:22 You got to give him credit because he stood he stood right fucking there and tried i gave him credit reggie has the idea to go right at him but he also has the thing remember we were talking about a uh the the hand hole in the bathroom on a plane gross it's got the tissues in it so if you have to throw something in there you like push it but pull your hand back like like like you try to beat the metal snapping back most disgusting part of an airplane you have no idea what's in there you can't even see it in there the back side of that is a minefield yeah we've discussed the the myriad bodily functions and fluids that could be on the other side so you like tampons you throw up retract your hand real
Starting point is 01:23:05 quick that's how he fights tyson like tyson's the handhold in the bathroom on the plane he comes in yeah punches him but he's already jumping back as he's punching oh that's there's no power in that punch he's not putting yeah his fucking hips into it at all he's punching but you can you're supposed to stick and move but he's moving before he's sticking oh that tape that paper towel is gonna be on the floor of that toilet it's gonna be every time every time so you could see him come in there like i'm not afraid of you but then he's like oh shit he's gonna hit me so i'm gonna hit him but i want to get the fuck back so his blows are glancing it's the exact same way i approach it i'm not afraid of you i'm deathly afraid yeah i don't
Starting point is 01:23:42 want to be it's exactly the hand hole he approaches tyson like the hand hole and he circles he'll hit him and just circle and circle and tyson just stalking like a fucking animal you know pop pop and tyson's like i will eat you for breakfast stalking him around the ring and uh he does a good job at one point tyson they get in the middle of the ring and tyson's kind of weaving back and forth ducking and reggie is hitting him with every shot as tyson's weaving reggie's got him pop pop i mean it's impressive i mean tyson's moving his head and he's fucking clocking him with every time really just nailing tyson it's you're like holy shit he's getting him not hurting him it doesn't look like yeah but he's sticking him pretty good and then out of nowhere tyson springs up with a left hook and reggie is on the ground so fast
Starting point is 01:24:26 you can't even fucking have it over no okay he gets back up but i mean it's just a spring left hook and reggie's just boom on his fucking back i mean tyson hits him once cleanly after he's getting blasted on the fucking floor this guy is he gets up standing eight count and you know looks all serious yeah gets in there tries to go back at him and tyson hits him with like two more lefts never hit him with a right clean put it that way hits him with two more lefts and knocks him into the ropes yep he falls sideways into the ropes and bounces into the ring and it is not good he is fucking out so uh that is that two knocked out oh yeah oh boy two of them pop pop in the head with these
Starting point is 01:25:05 big hooks and just fucking i mean they're vicious you'd see these they would kill a person if it wasn't a professional boxer these punches so uh it's two minutes and 36 seconds he lasts in the first round that's which isn't bad back then for tyson it's not too shabby so uh and reggie says about this later on 15 years later he says I say to myself oh my god I hit him when he started popping him good yeah he goes I hit that man on the chin that's what he said I say suppose I hit him one more time with this right hand I'm gonna knock his block off and that's when Tyson came up with the left hook and he and knocked him down yeah he said he didn't even know what the fuck was going on and then he said quote i say to myself oh my god i'm on hbo let me get up please he said he came to on the ground and went
Starting point is 01:25:51 where the fuck am i oh shit i'm on hbo get up i hope the fight's not over already like he didn't even know where the fuck he was is that me on the jumbotron look hey mom yeah crazy so wow yeah he's one of those early you know tyson victims if you watch his like greatest knockouts he said this is in it because the shot into the ropes looks really cool is the shot into the ropes on the north side of the ring do you know what i mean like i don't know what from the shot of the from the tv if you're looking at the tv and the far side of the ring would be north we're at south it's at the east side of the ring he falls in sideways over there there oh he knocks people through ropes a lot yeah he like falls into them the guy that i'm thinking about that looks like gip is on the north side of the ring he gets blasted into the ropes and then
Starting point is 01:26:32 blasted back into the ring yeah yeah okay so it's a different fight yeah this guy is just on the ground after that so that summer he makes himself 40 grand and so that summer uh you would think he'd be sitting at least you know he's a he just fought tyson at madison square garden yeah bills are paid and he's a known like a named fighter now people know who he is yeah um so he would be really concentrating on boxing uh but instead that summer the summer of 1986 in baltimore was a particularly crazy summer for street crime there was a uh rival drug gang war that summer between two factions and it's a very famous thing in baltimore this 86 because there was just bodies dropping everywhere they mentioned the the war of 86 in the homicide book like it was you know
Starting point is 01:27:18 they couldn't they were running all over the city finding people everywhere people who were drug dealers and shit like that so he says over the course of this summer reggie said he committed numerous street robberies all over baltimore um to in an effort to get money for drugs yes he's on drugs now yeah he's on heroin now oh no he's on heroin now and he's also going out, doing shit, getting money, stealing it, selling it, doing it. He's a fucking disaster. He's deep. Very deep. And his boxing buddy, remember Bordley that we talked about?
Starting point is 01:27:54 He is now basically Avon Barksdale, which is why on the wire, Avon Barksdale was an amateur boxer that bought gold gloves. Remember that? Yeah. That's how they found him. It was the poster. That's Bordley. So it's for real. This is Av avon barksdale the real avon barksdale jesus yes so that's what i'm saying he uh he they they they do the whole thing and they end up with a basically declaring war on the downers which were a couple of brothers alan downer and what the hell is the other one's name spencer spencer and alan downer which were rival kingpins this is them taking out they are trying to overtake the downers
Starting point is 01:28:30 to take over the drug trade in west baltimore basically the wire just combined them uh yes two people into one person exactly joe yeah kind of he's one big fat one bit well he's a three people yeah the downers is two brothers they just smushed him in but uh not even prop joe he's like whoever the hell was because prop joe's east side they're like he's like a different league basically so they don't fuck with him so basically it's like this would be like two people in the same yeah this would be who they got the towers from got it and you know they all sell in the towers whoever the fuck was there before them this is how they got it basically so uh this takes place over the summer months and it's uh the boardley's gang here turns into basically what the federal prosecutors will later call one of the most profitable and violent
Starting point is 01:29:15 drug gangs in baltimore history and uh like the barksdale's same thing i mean it's exactly like that he uh he gets deep into this shit uh reggie does uh boardley is earning at the time for himself over fifty thousand dollars a week in the 1986 that's awesome that's amazing fucked up that yeah the reason he's getting it but it's that's impressive that's when people see that they go oh why do i'm yeah school well i mean they see that or if they see i don't know if their dad's a fucking some kind of fucking stock swindler or something i don't know what the difference is there's not much besides the street shootings victims but there's still you're you're putting people out of their homes if you're that kind of
Starting point is 01:29:56 person and this i don't know it's at least you have to do something to put yourself in this situation to be you know in a drug war whereas you know if you're just your 401k gets drained because some assholes played stock fucking right uh what's it called the the three card monty with the swaps then what the fuck you know the shell game with swaps heroin's a crazy game too because your customer's never gonna revolt you know what i mean no they're very calm they're it's a very calm base and you know they're not necessarily in fighting shape uh they're very calm. It's a very calm base. And, you know, they're not necessarily in fighting shape. They're very weak. You can shove them over like a rotten tree.
Starting point is 01:30:29 Kind of a meek opponent. Just the whole trunk crumbles. So, and anyway, he's managing to train and fight and do heroin and do all this shit all at the same time. Oh, no. Reggie, he's a fucking disaster. So, September 25th, 1986, he is arrested. Reggie, he's a fucking disaster. So September 25th, 1986, he is arrested. Reggie is. This is just three months after fighting Mike Tyson in a major card here.
Starting point is 01:30:52 Basically, police have been searching for him for more than a week when they were looking for him here on the strength of statements by two eyewitnesses who identified Reggie from a lineup. Now, what he is accused of is murder. Oh, no. He is accused of murdering Andre J. Coxon, who is 32 years old. Coxon was standing at Fayette and Fremont Avenue, Fayette Street and Fremont Avenue, which if you've read The Wire, if you've read the homicide book, you know a lot about her. If you're from Baltimore, I'm sure. It's about 8.30 p.m. on September 12th when someone walked up to him as they
Starting point is 01:31:26 walked by, just suddenly pulled out a.38 caliber revolver and shot him. This was before he could even react. He didn't even see it coming. Shot him in the upper body. He managed to run a little bit, Coxon did, and fall down on the street and was crawling away. As he's crawling away, the
Starting point is 01:31:42 murderer caught up to him, stood over him, and fired three more shots into his head. Jesus. Execution, cold as a motherfucker. Stood right over him, pumped three in his head, calmly walked away. And somebody saw it and said it was him from the lineup. Yes. Yeah, fell to the ground, all this shit.
Starting point is 01:31:59 And a Western District officer who was investigating a report of a stolen car a block away heard the gunshots. Oh, no. Got in the car and went to the scene. He found Coxon and called an ambulance. Coxon was dying. He says the homicide detective, quote, said it had all the signs of an execution, especially with the shooter standing over the man, finishing him off with two shots to the head. You know, like an execution. You know, an execution. Yeah, a street to the head. You know, like an execution.
Starting point is 01:32:25 You know, an execution. Yeah, a street beef. You take one shot, you run away. But this is, we're getting him. And all the signs of an execution. Yeah. Based on the execution. Based on the four gunshots, three to the head.
Starting point is 01:32:40 We feel it's of only that person. Pretty sure that wasn't a lucky shot. Yeah, he seemed to be shooting at him on purpose, I feel like. That cop needs a raise. I'm not speaking out of turn. Mark, Detective Mark Tomlin. Good for you, Tomlin. Good for you.
Starting point is 01:32:57 Way to put that training to work. Really fucking... Jesus Christ. She's making the department proud with that one. Really? That's just good police work tomlin so coxson's taken to university hospital where he is pronounced dead at 9 10 p.m without ever regaining consciousness and um yeah they said that at no time was there any conversation between witnesses said between the shooter and cox and it was just i was walking by pulled a gun out shot him and then made sure to finish him off and walked away um so the problem the thing that's weird about it is is
Starting point is 01:33:31 one block from the last stop where his dad was killed when he was three days old this happened shit really walk away so yeah this is this is where he lives and dies man this is the way it is uh and this is a drug area too it's fremont and fayette i've even heard i even knew that's a drug area so definitely a drug area and uh so the cops are looking for reggie they looked several places on the east and west sides they kept things under surveillance he has a row house in the south section south of charles village they did that they looked there one of the cops so this is tomlin again we didn't want to arrest him at home at his home and perhaps get some innocent
Starting point is 01:34:10 people hurt so we figured the best thing would be able it would be to find out where he might be training and wait for him to come out probably also they're thinking he might be armed in his home he's coming out of the boxing gym probably not going to be holding the gun on him he's probably going to have and if he does have one it might be in a duffel bag it's going to be difficult for him he's not going to be ready to fire shots because he's going to be feeling pretty confident when he comes out of there that if anyone comes up to him they better fucking fire because he's going to whoop their goddamn ass so yeah they want an autograph or and also he might be fucking tired that's the other thing so it's not it's it's a good idea actually so tomlin said that
Starting point is 01:34:43 lewis's gym was added to the place of to watch five minutes after they it was tomlin and four special tactical operations patrol officers arrived at the gym within five minutes they saw him leaving and headed for his car it's an 82 cutlass yeah which he's very proud of it's very cool very cool he said quote we arrested him as he was about to place something in the trunk of his car is what tomlin said they handcuffed him and all that sort of shit all the fighters gathered to watch like what the fuck's going on out there he's driven to police headquarters and they charge him with murder uh they also at this point find there is an open warrant out against him from february so he was fighting mike tyson at madison square garden on on television with an open warrant
Starting point is 01:35:26 from february so not from five years ago from a few months before the fight for breaking into a woman's apartment jesus christ why is he doing that why are they not fucking catching him when he's on television but it's baltimore on the air yeah yeah there's a lot of shit going on that's true that's true he'll be back he'll he coming. Don't worry. He'll shoot somebody. So, yeah, obviously he's arrested. His car was impounded and searched for incriminating evidence. Yeah, they said within two or three days of the murder, police received several pieces of information. They said they never found the gun that was used, because I'm sure he tossed it.
Starting point is 01:36:05 Yeah, he knows to throw that shit away. That's why you have revolvers, because the shells don't come out. That's it, man. Reggie said, quote, I knew one of them, a sergeant, Andre Street. He was waving a gun in my face, shaking like hell and saying, don't move or I'll blow your head off. I wanted to know why they waited almost two weeks to arrest me. They had already searched my car and didn't find anything. They where i live for my driver's license why didn't they come for me in my house at 2 a.m i'm usually bringing a girl home he's like i'd have been home with
Starting point is 01:36:33 some broad man he could have knocked on the door and come and got me they said they checked the gym the day before and everywhere else but they didn't want to uh apparently they uh they were going to burst in there but then they saw there's a lot of kids training so they said we can wait for him to come out i guess it'd probably be easier um now uh mac says quote i've never i've never seen a real mean streak in reggie he's just always like a big kid in the gym it's always mr mac it's more like a father-son relationship i can understand him i was a street person myself reggie's no angel he's been in a lot of jackpots but he's no killer so he'll fight and fuck around in the street but not a killer
Starting point is 01:37:10 march 1987 he goes to trial he's charged with first degree murder and the use of a handgun and uh could be sentenced to life plus 20 years this is serious shit here um like we said the murder site only a block away from where his dad was stabbed to death. Jesus Christ. He's only 24, by the way, Reggie. That's crazy. He's been through a lot. That is bananas.
Starting point is 01:37:31 He's had a full life in 24 years. This is a fucking lot. 24 years old, charged for murder, and he's fought Mike Tyson. He's fought Mike Tyson, been charged for murder, been in jail, in and out. I mean, he's been shot. He's been shot. His son's died. he's had a son's died he's got four kids yeah his four kids one of them died in a fire like he's had a lot of
Starting point is 01:37:51 heartache and crap and shit christ man he said uh of the opener the opening sentence or sentence opening statement yeah that's the word i'm looking like, it's an S word that means to talk. Fuck. The opening statement here says, quote, Andre Coxon was executed, shot six times as he begged for his life. Gunned down like a dog in the streets of your city by Reginald Gross. So they're setting this up as brutal. That's how they set it up. They bring some witnesses, which we'll talk about in a minute the jury comes back deliberates for three hours on a friday recesses for the weekend and then delivers uh comes back on monday and comes out and says they're deadlocked so the judge declares hung jury what mistrial hung jury retry and there are two eyewitnesses um and they in the homicide book they talk about this a lot the baltimore city juries
Starting point is 01:38:45 will not convict for murder on circumstantial they don't trust the police at all they don't trust the cases if there's a murder they go okay well where's the fingerprints on his gun then right show me that and i'll convict him because that's what i've seen on tv there's a very handsome black man in the back of the room giving me googly eyes through his gorgeous glasses. Not even that. And I don't want him or his friends to hurt me. That too. Oh, the wire. Yeah, yeah, the wire.
Starting point is 01:39:10 Yeah, it was Stringer Bell back there. No, it's true. He is very handsome. Incredibly handsome. It's true. Pulls off an American accent very well. Not bad at all. Not bad at all.
Starting point is 01:39:20 Pretty fucking good. The best of all the English people on the show, I think. Maybe of any show. He's really fucking good at it. But really great on that show. It's not bad at all the best of all the english people on the show i think maybe of any show he's really fucking good really great on that show it's not bad yeah so but they said like they have this thing of where by even by the 80s they've seen a lot of tv they've seen detective shows right if there's no murder weapon fingerprints or confession it's hard they don't believe that guy well what is that guy who's he the jizz he might have some shit to say or maybe the cops fucking talked him into it right you know they don't believe a
Starting point is 01:39:49 confession either because they're like who would confess on purpose they obviously beat it out of them so it's one of those things where if you for a lot of good reasons they don't trust the police in this area because they put 13 year olds in jail for snatching purses i think is the problem that's not the police that's the system but But still, they don't trust the system. Exactly. At all. So the state says that they will retry this ASAP. Like, he is coming right back at them.
Starting point is 01:40:14 And May 1987 is his retrial. And, yeah, he says that he showed there's a, you know, the defense attorney said that they're going to show extensive amount of reasonable doubt. And the fight for Reggie's freedom is by no means over. We're going to do this at the trial. Witnesses were there. The witnesses were cousins who were waiting for a bus after visiting friends in the area, and they testified that they saw him shoot Andre Coxon several times with a large caliber handgun. After walking by him briefly near the corner of Fayette and Fremont, they said that Coxon staggered. We told you that he shot, shot him.
Starting point is 01:40:54 Apparently, there was subtle inconsistencies, inconsistencies in the testimony of the two witnesses. And so that was a different thing. That was a tough thing that they were trying to the the jury was trying to decipher well the defense attorney was really trying to point out these little subtle inconsistencies in their stories and things like that uh vincent petway was one of the witnesses here he's a boxer who obviously we talked about him he's his buddy he said that he was with reggie at 8 30 p.m at the gym so he said i was training with reggie at the time of the shooting so couldn't have been reggie no way i was with him
Starting point is 01:41:30 um he said that they were jogging in clifton park at the time with nobody seeing them obviously because they're jogging in a dark park at night two large guys yeah running around that's how it is so um they were never able to establish a, which you don't need to establish a motive. But juries like motives. They like fingerprints, weapons, motives. You add all that in and then they go, oh, I can see it happening. But legally, motive doesn't mean shit. They don't care about motive.
Starting point is 01:41:56 So that's a problem. And there was apparently a lot of people within a few hundred feet of the intersection. It's a drug fucking corner. Like, there's a lot of people within a few hundred feet of the intersection it's a drug fucking corner like there's a lot of people there but these two at the bus stop are the only two people that agreed to come forward and testify which if you read homicide again they say they can't when they go into a crowd after a murder they can't get anybody to say a fucking word for shit they know everybody saw it no one will say shit they have to live there yeah you know what i mean especially if it's a fucking drug execution do you want to piss those people off they do drug executions why would you be any different and if you're in the neighborhood
Starting point is 01:42:32 a lot you know them they know you yeah where you live why the fuck would you or your family you're in there visiting friends well now your friends are going to get you know like it's scary shit so uh there's no murder weapon or other physical evidence. So that's the problem. Faust also is another guy, a friend of his, Faust, who's a 36-year-old sanitation worker. He says that Reggie was training the night of the murder and then joined Petway Jogging in Clifton Park. Because he said he trained with him at the gym and then he went with him to the park. He said they continued their road work. And this is what Petway said, that they were alone jogging. This guy came in and was like, no, no, I was jogging with him in the park he said they continued their road work and this is what petway said that they
Starting point is 01:43:05 were alone jogging this guy came in and was like no no i was jogging with him in petway because the witnesses don't see each other's testimony god they had something worked out that could get fucked up like yeah he said you were training there and then he was trying to fill in his time i trained at the gym he jogged with me over to here somebody was with me the whole time but petway was just like no i was with him and we were alone they were like so you were alone then you had no other boxers with you no i was like okay looking at the jury like they brought out this other guy saying i don't know what to tell you guys it's one of those here yeah uh they asked faust about him and he said quote reggie's got a lot of potential as a light heavy. He was as good as Tyson. I really agitate him when he's not putting out talking about boxing, not fucking.
Starting point is 01:43:48 Um, he said, but he never loses his cool. You can't read minds, but I do think he's a violent. I don't think he's a violent person outside the ring. And so, yeah, they said that he was with him. He knows that he was with him because he was sparring with him that night and he's a lot smaller than Reggie. So he remembers getting his ass kicked by Reggie and he said it got a little heated and you know it was fine so uh he said after we did our running that night reggie came by my house to watch some fight
Starting point is 01:44:14 tapes he loves watching himself fight and then uh he said that he didn't leave his house till midnight so that's how that went and the prosecution witnesses are a little different they produced four eyewitnesses in the end here. They said that two of them, Alexander and Earl Booker, the cousins, they said they saw Reggie dressed in a red jumpsuit, approach Coxon by a phone booth, pull a gun out of a pouch and shoot him. And then they described how he killed him. He said that basically, oh, my God, this is amazing. This is the Baltimore Sun saying this. In the end, their testimony would be clouded over with doubt by the court theatrics of Glazer.
Starting point is 01:44:51 That's the defense attorney, Glazer. Quote, Gross's silver-haired attorney. Get out. Jimmy? That is fantastic. Gross's silver-haired attorney. Silver-haired, middle-aged white man-aged white man it's in print by the baltimore sun baltimore sun thank you baltimore sun this is fucking beautiful silver that's
Starting point is 01:45:14 awesome ah it's good this attorney had recently been portrayed in a television adaption of deadly intentions about a tucson arizona case in which patrick henry uh who was a doctor in baltimore was charged with murdering his ex-wife in tucson in tucson so yeah that's the thing there so anyway alexander is another guy he's a part-time cab driver he said that his cousin had told him about seeing reggie shoot andre so now they're letting hearsay in to prove that he didn't just say it when the cops asked him about it but but he told his family members about it, too. They said that Alexander was returning from a visit with his girlfriend. He said he noticed two men standing on the corner, the red suit, all that shit here.
Starting point is 01:45:55 They had him point Reggie out. He pointed him out, all of that thing. They said that they heard six shots fired and all. They said the victim came to rest two or three feet from the yellow line in the middle of the street so he's crawling to the middle of the street and this guy came middle of the fucking street stood over and pumped three more in his head that's terrifying that is cold cold ballsy ballsy yeah that's i i'm such a bad motherfucker i'm doing this in front of everybody because i know none of you motherfuckers have the balls to say anything. That's how much I run this bitch.
Starting point is 01:46:28 That's what he said. That's confidence. That tells you what he is in the neighborhood, though. Because if he was nobody, they'd be like, fuck that guy. He's a bad motherfucker. And they're afraid of him, though. Yeah. So then they said, apparently, they initially described him as weighing about 150 pounds.
Starting point is 01:46:43 And then they changed it to 150. They changed it to 150 and to they changed it to 170 so the their gross's lawyer was like said quote you juiced it up didn't you you're trying to make it so he fits him now yeah but you can't tell somebody's weight from across the street they're shooting and they're wearing a jumpsuit who knows dark who the fuck knows yeah that's what i mean uh he says but they said quote if you watch a person get gunned down it's a whole different thing that's what the witness said you watch a person get gunned down you remember it you might not remember how much the guy weighed but you remember the shooting so may 2nd 1987 in court this is the verdict and it comes out first degree murder not guilty oh acquitted acquitted of first degree murder charges absolutely fucking acquitted
Starting point is 01:47:26 done they said they did not believe jurors said they didn't believe the witnesses left a body in the middle of the street acquitted they thought the witnesses must have had something going on charges of their own they were trying to get dropped that's the other thing they know how the system works a lot of these people so they go we don't know what they're trying to get for themselves and shit like that not like you know oh i'm sure they were being good citizens like no i'm not sure about those motherfuckers they could have been up to something for themselves that's how the system stays dirty that's right so seven women five men is the jury and uh one of them here this is uh yes this is a juror from pimlico area of northwest baltimore he said there were a very strong six who were
Starting point is 01:48:06 adamant about the jurors that he was innocent he said they felt that there were inconsistencies with the eyewitnesses and they harped on them he said the other six jurors including himself believed that reggie was guilty but were eventually run over by the arguments of the others in other words eventually they were like all right i gotta go home i'm not fucking this doesn't matter enough to me this isn't to change your mind. It's not going to change my mind. I'll just go with you because there's consequences for everybody going with me. That's what I mean.
Starting point is 01:48:31 You think of juries as like this fact machine that'll come out with an answer and a little ticket will come out and it'll go guilty. No, no. There's a lot of politics just in the internal of who's got bigger personalities in the jury room who can bully people. Think about it. You can't figure out what kind of cake you're having on fucking birthday day in your office. Let's say when you were married, you're having problems with your fucking wife and you're
Starting point is 01:48:53 texting back and forth and all this shit and you guys are fighting and you have something going on at work and then you're in a jury thing and you think somebody's fucking guilty and someone's not guilty, not guilty. And you're going to be there another day. You're like, you know what? Fine. I'm not guilty not guilty and you're going to be there another day you're like you know what fine i'm not guilty i don't fucking care and you go back to your phone because you're pissed and you have your own problems you're gonna find out what time my fucking mother-in-law's coming over this weekend exactly i don't care about this i don't want to
Starting point is 01:49:15 know so the witness there petway um he says quote uh you don't get too close in the gym but reggie is one of the guys i know we're good friends The prosecutor tried to say that's why I covered up for Reggie. But when you're telling the truth, you remember it. And I'm not going to risk my boxing career for a friend. So, yeah, the reaction afterwards from Reggie, he's mad. He said, all the time in jail, I read the papers and heard on TV, gross is up for murder. They even mentioned it before a fight on ESPN. Apparently, they said, yeah, it's a sports news network.
Starting point is 01:49:48 That's what they do. That's exactly right. And said, prosecutor Clavin's called me a cold blooded killer and they wouldn't give me bail because they were afraid I'd go after the witnesses who all told lies. It was all he say, she say, now that I was found innocent, where are all the apologies? Someone's got to pay. I mean, innocent is the apology. Yeah, I that I was found innocent, where are all the apologies? Someone's got to pay. I mean, innocent is the apology. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't want to.
Starting point is 01:50:10 You know what I mean? Yeah. This would all sound really reasonable if he probably didn't do it. That's if I thought he didn't do it. That's the thing. But we find out that we'll find out later what actually happened here. So he says he will restart his boxing career and make the most of his second chance he said now it's like starting all over it's going to be rough but i'm
Starting point is 01:50:29 26 now i'm running out of chances jesus christ first day out of jail he went to mac lewis's gym and started fighting again august 25th 87 he's got a fight coming up against frank bruno who's a big fighter uh in a few days. And he's still pissed about the trial. He says, quote, they owe me eight months of my life and my money, $27,000 from the Tyson fight. I spent all of it except for the $5,000 I used to buy my 1982 Cutlass and for a sharp lawyer like Harold Glazer. I was going to buy my mother furniture and clothes for my daughter nikia all the time all the time in jail i read in the papers and heard on tv gross is up for murder he's pissed yeah can't buy his daughter furniture now all he's got is a cutlass got an 82
Starting point is 01:51:15 cutlass your sweet ride it's a sweet ride it's all right sweet ride man it'll do it'll do august 30th 87 he's in spain okay i'm gonna get out of the u.s because they're just people are gonna they know in spain they don't know 87 august 87 august he's europe so i mean he's like well it's the 30th i'll travel down from france i guess it's fine he fights frank bruno who's a real good fighter, 40-5 in his career. That's right. This is a TKO loss for Reggie in eight, but he hasn't fought in a while, and it's kind of understandable. He's 18-6 now.
Starting point is 01:51:56 This is 15,000 bucks he makes for this fight. It's not bad. That's something. He needs something. He just got out of jail. October 11th, 87, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Jesus. Going down there. Fights Adelson Rodriguez.
Starting point is 01:52:12 Oh, first man. Adelson Rodriguez. Jesus. His career record is 77-7-1. Oh, that's a great fighter. That's a great fighter. That I've never heard of. What?
Starting point is 01:52:24 No, South American guys, they fight. There's a million guys that have fought 100 fights down there. That's unbelievable. Yeah, it's a great fighter uh that i've never heard of no what south american guys they fight there's a million guys that have fought 100 fights down there you have no idea about yeah it's a lot this is a majority it goes the decision and it's a split decision but it's a loss for reggie so probably fought a good fight if he at least won one of the judges over right and he makes 10 grand for it as well not bad that's fine january 6 88 balt, Baltimore Arena. He fights Harry the Spoiler Terrell, who was an 18-18-1 career. He lost to Doakes two fights earlier. Michael Doakes from a few episodes back there. This is a knockout win for Reggie in the seventh, bringing him to 19-7.
Starting point is 01:52:58 So next he fights. This is June 27th, 88. This is on the undercard of Tyson Spinks. Okay, big pay-per-view event. Tons of people watching. Convention Hall, Atlantic City. He fights Donovan Razor Ruddock. Really?
Starting point is 01:53:12 Who, yeah, at the time was an up-and-comer and turns into a very, very, very good fighter. Gave Tyson a run for his money. He's 40 wins, 6 losses, 1 draw for his whole career. That's impressive. That's a bad man. Yeah, this is a tko loss in the second don fucking ruddick fucks him up ruddick's nasty and he was coming up strong here uh so he's 19 and 8 now he makes 8 500 for that fight and i hope he hangs on to it because
Starting point is 01:53:39 a few months later he's got problems november 4th, 1988. He is under arrest and taken into custody at his stepfather's house at around 4 p.m. No struggle. They didn't do the whole thing at the gym this time. Why did he get arrested? You may ask. I'd like to know. Well, let's put it this way. Let's take this from the Baltimore Sun.
Starting point is 01:53:59 Quote, because Gross lived a double life. He was an enforcer for one of Baltimore's most violent drug gangs. Federal prosecutors are accusing him of serving as, as a paid assassin for a heroin dealer who waged a bloody war to control drug commerce in and around a West Baltimore housing project that no longer exists. By the way, remember the housing project and knock down that's from that.
Starting point is 01:54:20 Uh, and an indictment aimed at busting that drug gang, a federal grand jury pinned three brutal street killings on Gross, all occurring in September 1986, just three months after his main event with Mike Tyson. Three months after. He was murdering people three months after that in the streets. They're saying, this is the whole wire takedown of the whole organization. That's this. Wow.
Starting point is 01:54:41 That's the whole season one of the wire going after avon and taking people down for murder and getting these people that's what happened that's what this is all based on and he's like the kukulinski of baltimore yes he is the well we'll talk about it even more with his snoops partner he hangs out with he's kind of like that he's kind of like a wee bay is what i get okay the best thing i can see is he's a wee bay all right like he's a like a kind of a he's an enforcer and that's what he does we didn't do anything with business we bay was just all right we're gonna kill that motherfucker now that was his job so uh he'd give it to people once he got bigger but either way he was in the muscle end of the business now to be more specific
Starting point is 01:55:19 the grand jury alleges that he was a paid assassin, like we said, shot and killed three men and assisted in the wounding of another for Warren Bordley, who's the leader of a ring that sought to gain control of the drug trade. The same thing. We Bay went way back with Avon. It's the same shit. This was at Lexington Terrace and the Poe Holmes project. You know this if you've watched The Wire, all these places. Mr. Bordley and eight others were also indicted yesterday.
Starting point is 01:55:47 It was a sweep. They did a whole giant investigation. And this, when you read the homicide book, they talk about it because the guy Ed Burns, who's one of the executive producers of The Wire, was the guy running this investigation. And he had taken a couple of the homicide detectives,
Starting point is 01:56:02 like one was Harry Edgerton, with him to do this big, long federal investigation with wiretaps and shit, which is the basis of The Wire, the whole show. That's the whole reason for the name of the show. Exactly. So, in addition to Reggie, there's another one, Fields, and then Floyd Drunky Grace also are described as enforcers. They're the enforcers. They're like the bird and we Bay and, uh,
Starting point is 01:56:28 who's the other one? Fuck. I can't remember now. So I, the, I don't know names. The indictment alleges, I know the plot.
Starting point is 01:56:35 That's great. I tried so hard. There are so many fucking, there's a lot, a lot of moving. Everything changes. Every episode has two, three things that are key to the plot that you need to know for the next show and if you miss any of them and you start the next show
Starting point is 01:56:49 you're like i don't get it you gotta re-watch this shit it's always better to watch all the episodes twice yeah always better because then you go okay now i'm grasping everything because in addition to that like sarah just doesn't know a lot of east coast street lingo because you're not from the east coast right so i have to translate some of the shit for her to tell her what the fuck they're talking about because they don't, it's not made, they're not simplifying it so you're going to get it in Indiana.
Starting point is 01:57:14 There's talking how people talk and you either understand what they're saying or not. So there'd be a scene and she'd be like, I have no idea what just happened there. And I'd be like, okay, I got to explain it. And it would be something where if you don't know like the street lingo, you would never know it. And if you get the street stuff with Avon and Prop Joe and all those guys, once they get into the fucking Polish guys in the union stuff, the lingo changes entirely.
Starting point is 01:57:36 It's a completely different thing. It's an entirely different thing. Totally different. Talking about cans and girls getting smuggled. It's crazy. It's insane. You have to know doc language. Now you're a doc worker like what's
Starting point is 01:57:46 happening but union stuff i get so that yeah that helped for you my favorite season so yeah that i didn't i hated that one because i didn't know anything about fucking and that dip shit i loved it all ziggy yeah i don't know anything about the union stuff i know much more about drugs and then unions so come into that so this uh one this alleges that that drunky grace shot spencer downer who was one of the downer brothers that we talked about uh one of three brothers who arranged c3 into prop show who they had to make him fat who ran the rival gang this was on may 2nd 86 this was right before the tyson fight yeah so that's crazy gross participated in a second shooting of mr downer on august 26 1986 mr fields and mr grace allegedly were involved in the attempted murder of
Starting point is 01:58:33 alan downer another brother who was shot june 22nd 86 which was like right after the tyson fight i can now see why he thinks he can beat mike tyson yeah he is a fucking cold-blooded killer he's going around killing motherfuckers. He feels invincible. Is Tyson walking around in the Catskills killing people? No. He was hanging out with an old guinea. Right. Watching tapes of Flight Patterson, probably.
Starting point is 01:58:54 On me in Baltimore. That's, yep. He ain't shit. And then he found out. That left hook is worse than the gunshot. Oh, I'd rather get hit with a.38 than that left hook. I got a better chance. He's got a.38 in his bicep fuck that stung so the uh the other two murder victims here they're talking
Starting point is 01:59:11 about and these are the main ones that were that reggie is charged with were killed as they sat on the steps of a house at the 600 block of gold street in west baltimore at 6 15 sitting on the steps it's a drug there it's a little drug operation like we've seen on the steps there uh one of them apparently one of them collapsed on the sidewalk when he was shot and shot several more times in the head and the other one was killed as he ran down the street this is this is reggie's deal uh so it is boardley and christopher burrows are the two leaders that is avon and stringer bell right and uh four lieutenants a drug supplier and two other enforcers were charged with racketeering conspiracy various narcotics violations mr boardley was also charged with murder in aid of racketeering so is reggie by
Starting point is 01:59:57 the way really so this is like organized crime murder he's being charged with like big deal yeah he's being charged like he's gotty or some shit so okay kind of yeah so boardley and burrows were arrested along with two other alleged members of the organization that were also indicted uh calvin ford and nadir abdullah were also uh also known as uh dython roberson apparently changed his name they're being held without bail the indictment is a result of a two-year investigation by the fbi just like the wire uh criminal investigation division of the internal revenue service and baltimore homicide detectives so the indictment identifies uh charles mo fields thomas man ross and james papa smurf queen pop sm is his nickname, as being involved in the distribution end of the business here.
Starting point is 02:00:48 So all these names, if you can kind of put them in a pyramid and kind of see where they're going, enforcers, leaders, lieutenants, distributors here. Prosecutors identified them as lieutenants in the organization. The indictment alleges that Reggie Gross killed three men as an enforcer for Bordley. Jesus Christ, trying to stamp out competition here. The prosecutor in announcing the indictment, he called the group a major heroin trafficking organization that controlled the drug trade in West Baltimore in the projects and said it randomly and routinely used violence.
Starting point is 02:01:23 We will not allow our streets to be turned into the trenches of drug warfare. Wow. Okay, grandstanding. It's a bit late, sir. Calm down, chief. Calm down, homie. You got yourself a pandemic, sir. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:01:34 Pandemic! Shouting it out. And we don't mean COVID. No. So charges here against him. Reggie's charged with racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering and conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine those are big charges those are a lot he's arrested like we said at his stepdad's house which was the 2500 block of holland street um yeah the boardley
Starting point is 02:01:59 apparently according to the indictment boardley uses the street name Black, apparently, which is, I believe, didn't fucking somebody say that Avon went by Black back in the day on the wire? That may be a thing. I want to say they said that. That could be a thing. Yeah, and it's a weird thing. Back east, I knew, growing up, I knew three kids with the nickname Black. Really? So you get Little Black, Black, Big Black, and Black Black.
Starting point is 02:02:20 That's how it was, yeah. Oh, my. That's what they called themselves. Jesus. I don't know. What's your name? I'm Black. All right, all right what's up black what are you supposed to say to them i don't like calling somebody black or big black i don't either but if you got three blacks and you don't know and i mean three guys named black not three black guys they are three black
Starting point is 02:02:38 guys but the three black guys that say their name is black where am i supposed to go i'm not going to call you by your name that's the difference between arizona and new york yeah out here if your name is blackie you are an old fat white man yeah yeah that's blackie hey blackie well yeah i remember that guy rides a motorcycle yeah absolutely and is and i knew three knows no black people right so uh they say that boardley was the one giving the orders here um so they say that was the war against the downers that was the the downers group they're the two the three brothers they said that uh he used intimidation and violence to eliminate all these people they said that uh they included runners stash holders paid assassins all you know a fucking drug ring
Starting point is 02:03:23 so they said they would uh they would not say how much reggie was paid for the murders but i'll tell you in a few and it is very low not not near as much as you think no no it's more lucrative to get punched in the head five grand we'll talk about oh not five though oh no really they say that reggie used a Mac 11 submachine gun to murder Zachary Roach and Rodney Young on September 23rd, 1986 at Golden Edding. He fucking lit up a drug corner with a fucking machine gun. That's insane. That's wild shit, man. That is wild.
Starting point is 02:03:59 Gross was paid the sums of two or three thousand dollars for the for each of the murders there in 86, which are ordered by Bordley. Wow. That's why you get caught. You know, I mean, I would say so. Klinsky was taken. Yeah. Six figures or five figures. The upper end of that.
Starting point is 02:04:18 The upper end of that. This is near one hundred thousand dollars a hit. This is just putting a few bucks in your pocket. And that's the next hit. Yeah will get you to the next hit. That's it. And so has he been training during all this? Well, since the Razor Ruddock fight, Mac Lewis says, quote, Reggie has not been in the gym since that fight. Mac said he was alarmed by this latest development.
Starting point is 02:04:41 He said, no father wants to see children in trouble. I've tried to be a father and an example to each of these kids i'm really sorry what has happened it hurts to know this so why hasn't why wasn't he just training why was he doing all this let's let him explain it quote i was strung out on heroin by that time you needed drugs i was doing drugs hard i was robbing people just to get fixes i overdosed once was taken to the hospital to be revived after a month and a day of getting high i had my car and my house and my girl and everything but she didn't know i was going around robbing she used to fuss at me all the time and find needles in my shoes street hide them uh we've been robbing people all over the city all month for drugs
Starting point is 02:05:25 money and for more drugs that's his fucking thing and he said on gold street quote there wasn't supposed to be no killing because that's a drug corner so you don't kill on a drug corner because that brings attention to that shit you don't want to do that you go down a fucking alley that's bringing the heat right so yeah so i mean he is fucked in a big way oh yeah this isn't we got two witnesses that were blah blah blah this is federal investigation wiretaps two years worth which means they've waited till they had really had you to get you you are fucked yeah and he is so fucked you know he needs an attorney he needs something he needs something and he finds a man for advice for him and it's not an attorney which is the odd part about it.
Starting point is 02:06:07 He needs an attorney. You'd think maybe you'd go to Mac Lewis for advice. It's not even Mac Lewis. Good start. He finds the only man who could possibly help him out there. You know who it is? Who's that? It's Adam Pacman Jones, the Rugal, a connoisseur.
Starting point is 02:06:21 And he says, well, how is it that you've come to arrive here i don't understand why you're here why would they put you in here you're clearly a professional an athlete of of a certain degree i would say and this is ridiculous you're you walk it's a very crowded street so you're you walk by maybe you're you're. You're walking. You're doing exercise things. And a man gets tragically murdered. How is that your fault? Maybe you're in the area. It's a small, it's tight knit.
Starting point is 02:06:55 It's tight knit. You were helping the man probably. Did you attempt to give him like a CPR possibly? I would say so. That's what there was a mistake. They said, oh, he shot. You were just giving cpr to the gentleman and this is what i don't understand it's ridiculous breaking into a woman's
Starting point is 02:07:11 house no i'm sure maybe like it was windy a potted plant fell off of her stoop and you said ma'am ma'am you know return it to her like geez man is this forgiving golly geez man i'll tell you these people don't know what they're talking about accusing people of things i jesus i gotta get out of here i'm so angry right now poof and a poof of arugula and very fine topsoil he's gone vinaigrette yeah with vinaigrette and and reggie's like what yeah he gets it. Motherfucker. Eleven more of him. Shit. Eleven more of him in the jury box. Get him in there. Fuck, he doesn't live around here?
Starting point is 02:07:49 Shit. Never mind. Find him in the Atlanta airport. Fight him in the Atlanta airport. So 1989, the trial is going to come up. And this is a fuck. He's fucked. He's got this is a mountain of evidence. And then if you go, well, that's not true.
Starting point is 02:08:03 They go, OK, well, here's you telling someone it's true. There true there's a wire tap and i got another one yeah and then here's a guy say it's too much so at the last minute he pleads guilty really he decides to plead guilty because they have a piece of evidence that besides all the wire taps and everything else something he cannot overcome and it's an informant oh no you know who that informant is oh no larry donald andrews do you know who that is no the real omar what the real omar the man who omar is based on it's all in the game baby it's all in the game baby i got the shotgun that's it briefcase that's it that's who they're gonna trot in larry Larry Donald Andrews, the baddest motherfucker on the street, has flipped. He got busted for a murder.
Starting point is 02:08:50 He started, David Simon sent him articles that he wrote about the things that were going on in jail. Right. Just in case. So Omar, we'll just say it's Omar. It's going to be confusing otherwise. Omar started sending david simon letters back giving him info oh shit on he's like you seem to know shit what about this you check this motherfucker out check all this shit out so david simon got all this info and
Starting point is 02:09:14 then after a while here he decided to flip and become an informant right go out on the street get info wear a wire all this shit right believe me go look at mike mike's heim parts that's it so so look at uh so omar quick background on him the real omar how that came about he's not gay by the way the real right as we'll get into which is awesome marries a woman later on um well it's not awesome he's not it's awesome that they made the character. Yeah, I know what you're saying. People are going to be like, Jesus Christ, Jimmy. Fuck. He's not gay? Awesome.
Starting point is 02:09:49 Good. I'm glad he's not sucking cock, because I was fucking grossed out anyway. I was so offended. I was really offended. No, it's the best part of the fucking show. That guy's gay. He grew up in the projects in West Baltimore, physically abused by his mother, and at age nine, witnessed a man get beat to death for 15 cents.
Starting point is 02:10:09 What? 15 cents. For like, the money in his pocket was just 15 cents? Yeah, didn't want to give it to somebody, so they beat him to death for 15 cents. So that's, he was, I think, nine when that happened. So he's got a certain view of how the streets are played and how everything is and how you have to be if you're going to be running around in these streets. That shows you the temperature of the world.
Starting point is 02:10:32 Oh, yeah. That's a good gauge of the thermostat. Exactly. Somebody's murdered for 15 cents. All right. I see. Ice cold. That's how you got to be.
Starting point is 02:10:39 He became a stick up artist who robs drug dealers. That's what he does so that just like omar and his code of ethics he was known in the streets for never involving women or children which was always omar's thing too and that was actually a thing he was known for that like he doesn't fuck with women he doesn't fuck with children he was known uh to police for armed robbery and drug dealing in the 70s and early 80s and um finally uh he was on heroin andrews was omar and warren boardley convinced him in 86 because he needed money for heroin to go partner up with reggie gross and take care of the contract killing of zachary roach and rodney young how about so it was omar and reggie side by side. Wow. That was who killed these people, okay?
Starting point is 02:11:29 So afterwards, apparently, he felt bad. He felt guilty. There was some sort of something about it that didn't sit right with him, and he surrendered. Really? Omar just surrendered to Ed Burns, who's the guy who ends up being the supervising consultant for The Wire, whatever the fuck he is. Just gave him everything. He's David Simon's partner in The Wire. He's like, I don't want to do these two these two bother me which was a homicide he was the homicide detective there and he ends up working with burns and he agrees to wear a wire to go undercover to implicate boardley to get the kingpin and to get reggie
Starting point is 02:12:00 gross as well that's fucking crazy um. He black was his nickname, too. That was Warren Bordley. And then the other one. OK, so, yeah, this he does all that. The judge agrees to recommend early parole for Omar in an attempt to repay him for what the U.S. attorney called his significant and courageous cooperation. In other words, we can't do this shit without you. We can't. No no they couldn't um they and in the prosecutor made an early parole request for him after he credited omar andrews with providing absolutely critical evidence against boardley
Starting point is 02:12:35 and hitman reggie gross and other gang members they say the prosecutor said andrews work as an informant helped the government crush the violent drug organization that dominated the cocaine and heroin trafficking in the Lexington Terrace Poe housing projects in 1986. This is all Baltimore Sun, by the way. Andrews was in the witness protection wing of a federal prison for almost two years. He told the FBI in 1987, that's when he confessed to the Gold Street murders from 86. Once he was put away, that's when he said, I did that shit with Reggie, which is what Reggie got arrested for. Then he went undercover to get evidence. He ends up Omar here, ends up pleading guilty to a single charge of murder in aid of racketeering at a closed court hearing and agreed to cooperate in return for a life imprisonment recommendation from the government sentencing uh not a life imprisonment recommendation so uh yes he confesses to these murders he goes
Starting point is 02:13:32 into graphic detail tales on how he and reggie used 38 caliber pistols and mac 11 machine guns to murder these guys together that's how that he got two one on the ground and one running down the street because there's two of them right um they also gave details of the rest of the gang's activities get let prosecutors and grand juries to convictions of all these fucking people the uh prosecutor said of omar here that he went into the mouth of mouth of the lion virtually unprotected he linked together all the pieces of the puzzle okay he went in and got everybody to admit on recording of who they were and what they were doing and put it all together for them in a neatly wrapped bow basically just like omar kept doing on the wire when he didn't
Starting point is 02:14:16 like somebody he gave he give them shit it's the same exact they really made him like that a lot so it's it's weird here it's a strange thing it's just you don't gotta you don't gotta dress it up with how fucking dangerous of the thing he did he was doing dangerous he was doing heroin and street murders he's a dangerous man in the first place that's what i mean dangerous environment going into the mouth of the lion unprotected that ain't shit yeah they weren't gonna they weren't suspecting omar but putting the wire on him if they see that he's certainly dead so that's kind of like putting a little salt and pepper on the steak in the in the lion's mouth true anybody gonna strip search omar no hell no no i don't think so good luck yeah i see hmm i like that also credited omar with becoming drug free in prison the prosecutor did after years of heroin addiction with studying to
Starting point is 02:15:03 become an electrician and uh with working at a paying job in prison. The prosecutor said his life has changed dramatically. Omar wept and spoke in broken sentences as he thanked, quote, Mr. Sheeler, who's the prosecutor and all the agents for standing behind me throughout his undercover work. He said, quote, They showed me opportunity that I'm a much better person than I thought I was. I did a lot of wrong things in my life, but that's the way I was brought up. I want the opportunity to show them to show my mother and my wife that I could be successful in society. Oh, my God.
Starting point is 02:15:35 Make those words ring. So everything that's perfect. That's the solution to our problems. Is that sentence? Yeah. No. perfect that's the solution to our problems is that sentence yeah no when people don't feel desperate uh and and at the mercy of their environment yeah it's weird that they will uh strange be positive influences in life weird right jesus christ given the opportunity i changed my life to not have to do this it would yeah i could do better so weird if the case went to trial they had another
Starting point is 02:16:05 witness named richard ivory williams who was prepared to testify that he had discussed with gross and boardley the murder of andre cox and the guy he got acquitted of uh it is i don't know how this works because he's been acquitted of it but now there's new evidence but he's already been acquitted of it so they're going to pin it on the other guys, too, who ordered it, I guess. And so anyway, he says that he witnessed Gross gun him down that day. Donnie Andrews, who's Omar, he said that he heard Gross on another and another enforcer discuss a twenty five thousand dollar fee for the Coxon killing. Of that, he said Gross received three thousand dollars. Yeah. The guy that does all the work gets an eighth that's what it is
Starting point is 02:16:47 that's well it gets more here uh donnie andrews also admitted to the 86 august of 86 shooting of a boardley rival spencer downer at the bus stop in west baltimore he said he was at a bus stop he's a drug kingpin hell you doing at a bus stop he's yeah he said he used a 38 caliber handgun provided by reggie gross and then then he paid reggie gross a thousand dollars so yeah i'm sorry that reggie gross paid him a thousand dollars for the hit from boardley right he was the middle man in that one and then he admitted to teaming with gross for the close range shootings right up fucking point blank for rodney young and zachary roach in gold street in west baltimore and uh andrews says that gross uh that gross and boardley gave him two thousand dollars
Starting point is 02:17:31 for both the hits only two grand he got because he was fucking on heroin so they were like he'll do it for less so um yeah that's jesus christ scummy now he admits to everything he doesn't admit to the killings. Gross said that he only said he pled guilty on the advice of his attorneys and because of pressure from other people in the drug crew. Right. It's like on The Wire, they want people to take fucking deals and get in jail and shut the fuck up and don't do anything. Or don't take deals, fight it, but don't talk. Right.
Starting point is 02:18:01 Whatever you're going to do. If you do talk or if you become a problem, we'll fucking ratchet your ass to a door handle so he said deals were being cut among gang members through the grapevine he said he heard some threats from people about you know you better take a fucking deal and all that uh he says quote there was talk that if i didn't take the deal my kids would be hurt or killed he said if anyone hurts this plea agreement man we gonna kill babies wives and mothers i was the only one who had babies these i find that hard to believe their whole drug crew no one's slip one past the goalie a bunch of 30 year old guys a bunch of dudes it's a bunch of 30 year old guy you get 10 30 year old guys one of them has kids no they're all
Starting point is 02:18:40 responsible couple of them have a couple you know like couple. Any 10 friends I can think about that I know that are 30 years old or older, more than one of them has kids. Any group of 10. The amount of them that don't have kids is way less. Way less, yeah. It's staggering. Yep. Gross had three daughters now because his son had died. His youngest was just an infant.
Starting point is 02:19:01 He says, quote, my family can't defend itself. So the plea here, he pleads guilty to three murders, but he denies involvement in two of the killings to a court investigator who was preparing the pre-sentencing report. This isn't good for sentencing. His lawyer, though, says that his client does not deny that he took part in the double murder. He only denies that he was one of the gunmen. He says that he was the wheel man just a driver of the getaway car here so sentencing comes around and reggie has some things to say he said i've made some huge mistakes i can't change the past i can do better in the future
Starting point is 02:19:36 that's what he says to the judge here uh he said i know that i will be going away for a long while i just pray that it will not be for the rest of my life and he says that he's not he's not quote that person portrayed by the prosecutors he's actually a nice guy with three small children blah blah blah okay the judge on the other hand yeah he says quote you fell from a most promising career as a boxer we call that grace we call that grace exactly thank you your honor for getting our backs on this one. This is great. A Baltimore sun with a silver-haired look. I'm telling you, dude, they're all coming around.
Starting point is 02:20:12 Right. So he says, unfortunately, you elected a life in which you were subsequently to pursue some of the most brutal crimes. He described the killings as premeditated, malicious, and cold-bloodedoded which they usually don't do before they give you a light sentence uh he said that the judge made uh let's see here blah blah he says you sir may fuck off three life terms oh my three and we'll talk about it this is uh yeah uh the life because he won't admit to it too that's the judges don't like that shit he made two of the life terms consecutive to bang him double, too, because otherwise it's like 20 or 30 years on those. He goes, let's stack it, make it 60. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:20:54 Which means that he will not be eligible, eligible for parole for at least 20 years, which is a third of the sentence, which would be three 20 year sentences. That works. So let's see here uh he's pretty fucked the judge went beyond the prosecutor's recommendation ouch that they didn't recommend three life terms uh two of them to run consecutively that's like the prosecutor was like well damn oh fuck i asked for a playstation i got a playstation and an xbox this is great thanks mom that was fucking terrific and the defense is holding his hand going i am so sorry so i didn't you should have just admitted to it that's the thing here and it says that uh under guidelines
Starting point is 02:21:35 that existed at the time of his crimes his sentence is viewed as 60 years by the u.s parole commission he'll be eligible for parole after serving a third of that about 2009 but it will be difficult for a hitman to win of that about 2009 but it will be difficult for a hitman to win parole at his first eligibility especially one that won't even fucking admit to doing right and show any remorse your daughters are going to be retired before you get out man yep uh howard gersh the assistant prosecutor assistant state's attorney said as it all shakes out he'll die in prison yeah that's his prediction. And we'll find out how that goes. Now, when he's in Atlanta for a while.
Starting point is 02:22:09 That guy Clairvoyant. Yeah, he's Clairvoyant, all right. So he gets moved around. Federal prison, they ship people all over the place. He's in Atlanta at one point, and he gets up to more than 300 pounds. He gets real fat in Atlanta. Then he loses some weight, a little bit here. He loses a little bit of weight, and he ends up going to a couple other prisons. Nothing in these jails, though.
Starting point is 02:22:31 He exercises, but you can't even shadow box. You're not allowed to do that. So 2001 interview in prison with the Baltimore Sun. He's in Edgefield, South Carolina in prison here. Yeah, it's bad. That weather's nice. Yup, he's in a two-man cell in a maximum security place at the outskirts of Strom Thurman's rural hometown, it says. Just where you want to be if you're fucking not good.
Starting point is 02:22:58 Is that Aiken? What? Is that Aiken, South Carolina? I have no idea. Oh, it's his hometown. Who knows? Hometown, yeah. My aunt lived down the street from that fucking guy. Oh, God. Yeah. is that Aiken South Carolina I have no idea that's oh it's his hometown hometown my aunt lived down the street from that fucking guy oh god yeah he hasn't had a visitor a good yeah he
Starting point is 02:23:11 hasn't had a visitor in seven years really no one's because he's in a place yeah no one goes so no seven years he said he hasn't seen his daughters in 12 years he said that uh as at all he said it doesn't know if he's ever going to get parole. Nothing. He says it's bullshit. They should let him out because he's been good in prison. Let's let him explain it. Let's give them it in their own words on this one.
Starting point is 02:23:33 What do you say? He hasn't talked to anybody in here. Come on. It's hard to find a 38. Jesus. He says in their own words, quote, I haven't had any fight. No violence. He says, I don't bother nobody. I keep to myself. I mind my own business and nobody bothers me they know i can fight ain't no use in me going
Starting point is 02:23:51 around bragging or none of that stuff i don't do that a lot of people say man why are you in prison you don't belong in prison man they say that because of my personality because i don't bother anybody except for people that you shoot on the outside. He won't admit to his crime still. Even at that point, he says, quote, I'm not going to admit to nothing. I didn't do. He says, I'm innocent. I didn't pull no triggers on nobody. He says he's had two meetings with federal parole officers since being in prison.
Starting point is 02:24:19 You know, does a pre thing each time he's supposed to. You know, they say, OK, well, you pled guilty, but you're saying you didn't do it. And he said, well, yeah, I didn't do it. And they say, well, then why haven't you committed to more of an effort to get your case reopened and, you know, get out from under a false murder conviction? And he just, that's it. That's Morgan Freeman and Shawshank, how that shit works. That's what I mean.
Starting point is 02:24:44 It's like he says quote they want me to admit it i'm not going to admit to nothing i didn't do i was young and i guess easily influenced or i wanted to make an impression to people i thought was that i thought was i was that thought i was tough if i knew then what i knew now i wouldn't be in this well yeah a lot of people feel like that he had declined to attend his last hearing in april that's not good no he said they talk too mean to me oh boy you're a boxing murderer what are you talking about they talk too mean to me and i can't say nothing back they talk mean and nasty like they want me to blow okay that's the idea they gotta see the point is they're gonna
Starting point is 02:25:23 see if on the streets if someone's a fucking asshole to you, will you react to it? Because if you'll do it with the parole board, you'll do it with literally anyone. Yeah. So that's, it's literally just the first test. You'll do it for a dick to you. Who's for your freedom. It lays in their hands.
Starting point is 02:25:38 What about the guy on the bus that fucking steps on your foot? That's what I'm saying. That's the first thing is they have to be able to take that. He they talk too mean to me and i can't argue oh yeah okay he does make phone calls to mac lewis though really uh yeah he writes frequent letters to mac who's in his 80s at this point enjoying you know they're talking about old times they uh they talk about hasim rockman who was from baltimore at the time he knocked out Lennox Lewis, and that was a big deal. He says that Reggie earns $200 a month in the prison factory, which is a lot in prison. That's really impressive.
Starting point is 02:26:14 Sewing buttonhole plackets on uniform shirts for the Army and Air Force. Really? That's what he's doing. So I feel like if you're doing shit maybe for federal, they pay you a little more. I'm not sure. Federal prison might have a better pay rate. That's the reinforcement around the buttonhole, right? Yeah, I think so.
Starting point is 02:26:28 Yeah, little strings there. That's cool. Yeah. They said that he uses a good amount of his money to make phone calls to Mac Lewis. That's who he talks to. He has nobody else to talk to. He says Lewis was also the last person to visit him in prison and remains his only contact from the old days. He says, Mac Lewis says, I hear from him all the time.
Starting point is 02:26:48 I really feel sorry for him, but you do what you can. I can't correct everybody. I mean, he sounds like he feels sorry for him, but he also understands, you know, he did what he did. He feels some guilt, too. Maybe some of it's his fault. Who wouldn't feel that way? And, you know, you got to feel kind of bad for the old guy for that. I mean, I feel bad for him.
Starting point is 02:27:07 I really do. But not nearly as bad as I feel for Reggie Gross, CFO at Telos Wealth Management in Yakima, Washington. Put that diversify your shit, motherfucker. Pop, pop, pop. Yeah. Fucking busting shots into people. I said bonds okay jesus portfolio's weak bitch weak ass portfolio uh reggie gross uh senior paid media manager
Starting point is 02:27:37 in germany reggie gross male tech at elite print services in muncie indiana reggie gross industrial worker at bhp in adelaide australia and finally reginald or i'm sorry reggie gross dishwasher at pizza hut rocky mount north carolina who possibly could be him god yes that's what he'd be doing uh in prison he's earned his his ghd which are GHD. I looked down and saw an H and said G and then I'm like, that's not the right thing here. I have one. He earned his GED. That seems much less impressive than a GHD.
Starting point is 02:28:17 GHD sounds important, doesn't it? It's good. Yeah. Also learned to operate a forklift and completed a course in pest control and attended numerous counseling programs including one for drug abuse and he's taken part in the scared straight program with south carolina and georgia at-risk teenagers so what you're telling me is he's useless yeah he's very scary and he will scare a teenager into not wanting to commit crimes which if you see this guy and he's like you don't want to be in here with me you're like no i don't
Starting point is 02:28:43 you're right and he knows when the civil war was that's right and his team won the prison basketball championship as well i believe that very successful man here he's very successful so the last visit to gross that was years ago was mac lewis with pet petway that other boxer there and his two youngest daughters visited him in 1992 when he was in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. None of the girls have seen him since, and he hopes for a transfer closer to his hometown. He says, I get frustrated. I want to talk with my kids. I want to talk with my family.
Starting point is 02:29:16 I can't do it all the time. In a letter from prison last summer, he said, quote, I have a contract with my mother, brother, sisters, nieces, nep nephews even the 18 new ones that were born since i've been in oh i have contact he says even the 18 new ones that were born since i've been in prison i love them all dearly though i can't i don't call that much when i do call they ask me the same thing when are you coming home we love you we miss you that's more than one a year yeah that's a lot so he's saying it's too painful to call home because they just act like they miss him.
Starting point is 02:29:45 Or if he calls Mac Lewis, they can just talk about old boxing shit and it's fine. And the family's growing and there's shit that's happening that I don't know about. That's what he said. I feel like I'm missing it. I don't know shit. I don't know any of these fucking people. He says he watches television and follows sports. Yep.
Starting point is 02:29:58 Says anything from Baltimore I root for. So 2007, he's still in prison. Omar is well on the outside omar not only got out of prison he worked as a consultant on the wire and even had a star a really good role on the wire too so he's very well paid yeah he played uh omar's friend butchie the blind old man who he uses a bank his right hand man who's kind of an older like kind of chubby big guy with like a backwards kangle hat all the time that's omar that's real fucking omar that's the guy that testified yeah that's the guy when omar is uh scoping out in the car scoping out that condo on like the
Starting point is 02:30:37 fifth floor that he ends up jumping out of the window of the guy who's in the car with him the older guy they're just listening to the old soul music. Yeah. That's fucking Omar. That's his boy. That's the real Omar. So he had a good life, did that. 2007, he gets married. Oh.
Starting point is 02:30:53 David Simon is his best man. Stop it. Swear to God. Omar's life just turned completely around. What the fuck? Yep. Give an opportunity. McNulty was at his wedding.
Starting point is 02:31:01 Kima was at his wedding. He had multiple. Yeah. Everybody's there. No, only three people were there. No? I can't remember the third, but it was Kima, McNulty, at his wedding. Kima was at his wedding. He had multiple. Everybody's there. Only three people were there. I can't remember the third, but it was Kima, McNulty, and somebody else were at his wedding. And then David Simon was the best man. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:31:13 He said that he married this woman, and we'll talk about it, that they turned it all around because his new wife is a former junkie that was on heroin and was a prostitute and all this type of thing. And she says, Donnie is someone I can relate to because we both came from the street. We understand each other's language. Apparently, they were hooked up by Ed Burns, the homicide detective. Apparently, she was doing something. He had surrendered and all this type of thing burns and simon had been interviewing her miss boyd they call her for the book that would become
Starting point is 02:31:52 the corner the hbo miniseries they were interviewing her for that and they said that um you know it was just for some reason they gave they gave him her phone number they thought they'd get along uh andrew what does it say here yeah he says quote from the very first call i could hear in her voice that she wanted help uh she was looking for a way out this is what donnie says about her and he said he was a former user so he understood and they talked for four or five hours at a time getting three thousand dollar phone calls and shit like that so So, yeah, he would write letters and stuff and everything, and they ended up getting together, and he helped her detox and all this type of shit
Starting point is 02:32:31 when she got out of jail, and they ended up exchanging photos, and they liked each other, and they end up getting married here. He says that David Simon says, everything has a second and a third act. He says, and everybody gets to write their endings. Not Reggie Gross, unfortunately for him.
Starting point is 02:32:51 But Donnie did. He just wrote it a long time ago. Yeah. Now he's acting it out. No shit. 2008, Reggie's in prison and he's still saying he didn't get a fair trial. He's saying that the whole thing is bullshit. And he just said he's saying that the whole thing is bullshit and you know he just said he's he's
Starting point is 02:33:05 fucked he's talking about he's had a tore knee ligaments at one point and can't get good help for it because he's in jail because you're old yeah yeah and they won't give him like good he's talking about uh he can't get this operation for his all this stuff he's talking about prisoners needing better medical care which is which is true um he says though uh uh there's always new medical staff like every three months now you're charged to be seen by medical you have to pay two dollars to be seen and you have to fill out a request slip and put it in a medical box and then wait three to five days to be seen so you have to pay two dollars to request to go to medical that's rough if you don't make any money yeah um he says that this is reggie's closing here he says
Starting point is 02:33:44 quote i'm truly regretful for my past i can't change the past i can better the future for me if you don't make any money. He says that this is Reggie's closing here. He says, quote, I'm truly regretful for my past. I can't change the past. I can better the future for me and my family. When I make parole, I'm not going back to Baltimore. I'm moving to the South for the better. And I am and have been preparing myself for this day.
Starting point is 02:33:59 He's getting out of Baltimore. Finally, we always say don't go home. He never left home. He just stayed there. December 13, 2012, Omar dies. that's sad real omar died yeah real omar here he died uh following heart complications while in new york city where he was attending an event as part of his efforts to promote non-profit outreach foundation there he was 58 years old here to the end huh yeah after all of it he really did yeah he came he never went back
Starting point is 02:34:25 to anything he just was solid straight citizen after the whole you know murder thing sure that happens after all those so september of 2019 reggie petitions the u.s court of appeals as he believed he was eligible for mandatory release after 30 years as his crime occurred before the sentencing reform act of 1984 came into effect. So the court found, in fact, that the Bureau of Prisons, who argued that because he is serving two consecutive life sentences, he would, in fact, need to serve 30 years on each of his two life sentences. So they had him for less than he should have been.
Starting point is 02:35:00 Actually, they were going to get him eligible for parole in 20 when actually it's not no now they're saying no no no it's for each so now yeah so if you get paroled on one you still got to start the other yeah they said that uh he's not eligible for parole he said under that under the act a prisoner such as gross is entitled to mandatory parole consideration after serving 30 years of each consecutive life term ouch so in 60 years you're eligible that'll be good for you um he believes that his two life sentences should be treated like a single sentence and that he should be eligible for mandatory release they disagreed explaining that under the act uh he needs to serve 30 years on each of two so he appeals at all this shit and uh by the
Starting point is 02:35:43 way one of the justices in that is amyoney Barrett, which is how fucking strange is strange that that shit happens. Right. When I never I didn't know the fuck that was. Right. Three months ago. I've never heard of her. Very strange. And now we've got to deal with her.
Starting point is 02:35:55 It's very weird. And more than one matters. So as of 2019, that time he was incarcerated at Terre Haute facility in Indiana. And now, as of right now, I looked at a federal inmate search. He is at the Springfield. Where is he? Springfield, Missouri. MCFP Springfield and Administrative Security Federal Medical Center.
Starting point is 02:36:16 So I think he's in some sort of medical at this point. It has 858 inmates there. His release date is his tentative release date, November 1st, 2048. Ouch. Jesus Christ. Not good. It's over for him. It's bad.
Starting point is 02:36:32 Like Gersh said, he's going to die in prison probably. But he's young, though. You never know. He might be able to hold out. Yeah, man. No, he's getting up there. He's in his 50s now. Yeah, he's getting up there.
Starting point is 02:36:42 He's almost 60 now. He's going to be 60 in 2022. And he's at a medical center. He's probably not doing great. No, he's going to be 90 by then. Never mind. It's over. He's getting up now he's almost 60 now he's gonna be 60 in 2022 he's at a medical center he's probably not doing great 90 by that never mind over he's dying he's dying can't get enough well uh we can go to boxing treasures where you can get a picture of mike tyson knocking him knocking him down it's him mid-fall with tyson like he just punched him it's pretty awesome it's pretty awesome picture i gotta say a man just falling you can see it as he's not even looking at tyson he's like i don't know where the fuck i am this is 24.95 and uh it's worth every penny of it it's a snapshot of his life right there it's perfect so that is reggie gross everybody blew it and uh yeah it's october
Starting point is 02:37:21 so i figured we'd throw a couple murders at you here. Murder, murder, and then we had just serial rape before that. So what can we find next week? Who knows? Fuck. I think next week we'll just do Kurt Angle and get it over with. That'll be fun. That'll be fun. We'll get into wrestling.
Starting point is 02:37:34 It's been a while. Good. We need to kind of cleanse the palate here a little bit. Yeah. So if you enjoyed that show, let us know about it. Get on Apple Podcasts. That purple icon. Give us five stars. God damn it. It helps out the show a lot. I us know about it. Get on Apple Podcasts, that purple icon. Give us five stars, goddammit.
Starting point is 02:37:46 It helps out the show a lot. I can't tell you how much it does. For some reason, it drives you up the charts. So if you haven't done it, please help us out there. Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for everything crime and sports and small town murder. We have it all, Jimmy. Merchandise. Yeah.
Starting point is 02:38:00 Tons of stuff. We have merch. We have things and stuff and information. Tickets. Tickets. Tickets to the virtual live show. October the 29th. It's Thursday. It'll be up for 48 hours, though, if you're a little late to the party or busy Thursday, something like that.
Starting point is 02:38:15 Get on it. We are going to do the all-violent felon edition of the prisoner dating game for bachelors, for lucky bachelorettes. I show them to Jimmy. They're all incarcerated for horrible crimes you guys get to see them but jimmy only gets to hear their description until of course he picks one lucky bachelor and one lucky bachelorette and then he will see the pictures and then more importantly he will hear why they're in prison and oh they're all terrible trust me i pick some of the worst ones and it's basically j basically Jimmy's shell game of avoid the pedophile.
Starting point is 02:38:47 So that's it. Check it out. It's going to be so much fun. Shut up and give me murder.com. If you want to get yourself tons and tons of bonus material, that's very easy to do. You can be a Patreon contributor. You can have Jimmy mispronounce your last name. Screw it all up.
Starting point is 02:39:01 I mean, just fuck it to shit. It's going to be great. It's going to be all fucked out. It's going to be fucked out. out thrown in the bad bin everything so uh yeah he'll mispronounce your name and you will get access to all of our wonderful bonus material which i gotta say we have our bonus stuff is great it's fun man i'm proud of it it's fun shit last week's bonus that's up right now is the sports songs yeah we got to hear brett hart sing a song about like leaving a woman which was weird but it was like made by wrestling surprisingly macho man isn't so bad he's not bad um kevin mitchell is a fine rapper fine rapper
Starting point is 02:39:39 lenny dykstra not as good no uh oral hersheiser not a good rapper kevin mitchell let you know where he's from. Hulk Hogan. Yeah, he will. There's so many of them, all these sports teams where we got to make fun of guys dancing and doing bad things, and we had a blast, laughed our asses off. And Small Town Murders was three young ladies who decided that, one of them decided that in a former life, she was Jack the Ripper's mother and let him down in some way, so she needed to resurrect him.
Starting point is 02:40:04 Make it up to him. By murdering someone else. Super fucking weird story. Hilarious shit. Check that out. ripper's mother and let him down in some way so she needed to resurrect him make it up to him by murdering someone else super fucking weird story hilarious shit check that out everything there at patreon.com slash crime and sports uh or if you just want to be a good person not get the bonus stuff but still have jimmy mispronounce your name you can go to paypal trust us every dime counts thank you people give a dollar and then they apologize. We're like, are you kidding me? You just gave us a dollar. PayPal took a cut.
Starting point is 02:40:27 I'm sorry. Dude, you gave us a dollar. You went out of your way to give us money. Thank you. Thank you. Whether it's a dollar or 50, we're like, holy shit. These people just, they said, you know what I'll do right now? Rather than watch TV or eat something or do something that's beneficial to me.
Starting point is 02:40:43 I'm going to log on to a PayPal. I'm going to log on to this and give people money. That's an amazing gesture. So we really do appreciate that. And you can do that on PayPal using our email address, crimeinsports at gmail.com. You can get a hold of the show at crimeinsports at gmail.com. Or you can do it on Twitter and Facebook at Crime and Sports on Twitter and Facebook at Small Town Murder on Instagram. With that said, damn it, Jimmy, I need to hear the list of people who would never, ever
Starting point is 02:41:11 shoot us multiple times in the head while we crawled into the middle of the street. Hit me with them now. This week's executive producers are Shelly Frels, Ellie Kamak, she's in Texas, she's terrific, Kristen Anderson, Lisa Neuberger, Allie Shirley, Gwen Steele, Leif Steinmetz, she's in texas she's terrific uh kristen anderson lisa newberger uh ally shirley gwen steel lafe steinmetz lizzie wolf ashley bowen uh baraclaw baraclaw baraclava uh nicole blair jesse plotkin carol braun is back thank you carol thank you carol amanda berry thank you very much she just quit her job and uh donated what did she don't it was like it was oh her leftover pto she donated that was fucking so much so sweet thank you amanda uh joanna joanne ahern alex etch uh chrissy chrissy ann costaldi obviously christine warner and jordan bennett
Starting point is 02:41:56 thank you guys so much some of our favorites truly yeah and in those was a bunch of words about about how they wanted to help uh how sick I was. Oh, well, you guys are sweet. Truly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, guys. Thanks for thinking of us. Taylor. Other producers this week are Taylor Halfpenny, Sarah Dugan, Amanda Freetag, Rowan with no last name, Dale Lewis, Galia.
Starting point is 02:42:17 What is that? Oh, boy. Hornado. Jesus. I think it might be Gala. All right. I do really terribly with writing. Jack Tufford, Chris Caton or Caton, Amanda with no last name, Michael Von Tomaszewski,
Starting point is 02:42:34 Chris with no last name, Sarah Chee or Chai, Caitlin Franklin, Vivian Goroski, Dan what the, Viglietti, yeah, Viglietti. Dan what the? That's an Italian name i should have known ashley exactly ashley murworth uh joe would know last name britney poxon uh shy or she miller i think it's shy uh allison new newbold yes megan would know last name kyle williams deborah would know last name dana reed kevin schrader amy sprinkle alex uh cinabaugh sinsabaugh uh heather elbert uh it's like a wine right no what is that sounds i don't know what that is it's a neat name madeline greenfield
Starting point is 02:43:12 jason covert sam uh sure sure bubble sprite kyle juarez uh ruben tirado uh jess anderson donnie richardson owen is that? Olwen. Olwen Searles. Ollie would know last name. It might be Allie. I don't know. Allie. Olivia Crutcher. Monica D'Ossi.
Starting point is 02:43:33 D'Ossi. Micah Shai. Taj Alise. Aliji. What is that? I don't know if I wrote a J or an S. Look at this. Is that an S or a J?
Starting point is 02:43:42 What is it? Because they could be different, could be the same. You don't know. That's how bad it is. Well, thank you. Josalia Adams, Connor Smith, Victoria Lauren, Ralph Haas, Michelle Warriner, Sarah Rachel, Matt Scarborough, Catherine Ziegler, Amanda Teague, Ty maybe, Chris Launer, Taylor Swanson, Jenna Bradley, Julia Schuster, Sean, oh, what did I do? Fury, Christy Hilton, Lindsay Phils, Files, Jared McCluskey, Sean Sinclair, Daniel Trupp, Wendy Gonzalez, Valerie Yon, Young Yonkins, Kevin Bartlett, Carla L, Beth Shockey, Melissa McCutcheon, Jerome Becker, Lauren Bradford, Cameron Cleary, Chris Adams,
Starting point is 02:44:35 Nicole, Chris Adams, like the gentleman, right? Yes, like the gentleman, Chris Adams. Nicole, with no last name, Cole Mellon, McKenna Mattel, Tlen uh what is this ellsworth sean turner joe faden faden sean uh delori hayley or hallie god damn it catherine osario uh sarah ratcliffe versailles or vasal what the fuck santa radcliffe nope that's hannah that's santa yeah it's probably hannah more than more than likely and kelsey. There's some poor Santa sitting out there going, thanks a lot. I guess I don't exist. Carly Kradjevic. No, I think.
Starting point is 02:45:11 Vicky Serrano. Joe Galapo. Galapo? What is that, James? Italian. Yeah. Fucking wrong is what it is. Jennifer Taylor.
Starting point is 02:45:21 Olivia McQueen. Richard Berman. Probably Boomer's brother. Jesse Henske. Stevievie james zane brown glenda pippenich uh april whitner stevie james is that the steve james the director of stevie awesome damn it april whitner uh cecilia nope that's celia bolin uh christina christina durant nicola master antonio uh macy skull skull scallop it's italian god damn it just call him scallopini and get it over with you know you want to i'm sorry macy annie uh blandy uh shay prince stephanie acres it's a fucking mess uh james warner mike carpenter martin
Starting point is 02:46:08 colbert corbett corbett corbett nicole uh aqua aquari aquari god damn it michael mccombs mike mccombs flatula lee roth that's easy because it's not real. Carol Goley. Valerie Siprit. God damn it. Joanne Johanna Mullen. Isaiah McAlexander. Carissa Kreft. Christopher Brown. Chris Keys. Brandy Lee. Kenzie Brown.
Starting point is 02:46:40 Selena Guerra. Christy Stutz. Jericho Von Brugger. The Jezebel567, see how hard this shit is? Phil Snodgrass, Anna Jenke, I think, Guz Z, Kimmy Parks, Greg Hill, Chad Percy, Ryan Swift, Hannah B, Mitchell Barros, Janice Melchiori, God damn it, Suzanne Wager, Katie Fahey, Travis Bender, Jennifer Johnson, Mark Schaefer, Joshua McNamee, Jay Henry, Tiffany Ehrlich, Ellie Gonzalez, Stephanie Phelps, I think, yep, Alexis Totus, Chris with no last name, Audrey Ingersoll. David Vineyard, Vineyard. Yep.
Starting point is 02:47:27 Mr. what is this, Rin213. Sure. Mindy Swigert, Lurkey McLurkison, Lurkerson. All right. Sasha Saunderson, Saunders. God damn it, Leslie Valerio. Rangers JT, Jamie Keck, Tituba. Patrick Murphy, DJ, Amanda Kesner,
Starting point is 02:47:53 Caitlin with no last name, E-Rock, Tremaine Lasley, Jenny with no last name, Adam Beaton, Stephanie with no last name, Joel with no last name, Danielle Sheeter, Lona, Iona, Iona Singh, Olin Miller, Justin Hoffman, Sam Metz. What is this? Auntie? Hallopanin? No, it's never happening. Sean Corbin, Adel Hansen, Emma Ratcliffe, Chuck Brooks, Jane Parks, Emmy Schilperort, Ness Sims, Lindsay Keeler, Jerilyn Munson,
Starting point is 02:48:23 Boris Kurbanin, Lauren Brennan, Kent Sipanewski, God damn it, Elaine Frudiger, Luke Sheedy, Eric Schiller, Shy Bam Blocker, Taylor Collins, Megan Asbill, John Engel, Justin May, Samantha Leipert, Robbie Luna, Grayson Bancroft, Matt Smith, Alfred Hitchpenis. Got it? Because cock is fucking, it's a dirty word. Catherine Fromm, Dana Kizala, Megan Cox, Carrie Baker, Carolyn Dunn, Lori Scar scarpa because it's italian of course same sam lori thomas alana krinnert kriner i don't know dennis uh avalas uh chris reber and his wife uh it's their anniversary sarah happy anniversary megan lynch chowning uh chat what that can't be right gerald
Starting point is 02:49:22 l uh nope that's an n it's hope so steve chanel thanks steve uh matthew uh adorno because it's italian jason ab ammerman god damn it caitlin stupec judd jude kendall elizabeth burko dick minge uh brendan ables dakota harrington ashley vio suzanna platt isa kefina janice Janice Kraft, Casey Shatters. Happy birthday, Adam Graham. And also, it was Susan Olgis' birthday. Hey, happy birthday, Susan. And nobody told us to tell her happy birthday, but happy birthday anyway. You're terrific.
Starting point is 02:49:52 Hell yeah. Gerald N., Matthew Adorno. I said that. Thomas Smith, Jill Calhoun, Michael Calhoun also. John DeLong, Peyton Meadows, Julia Usher, what? Usher, Murray. Heath Mauger, Amanda Knight, Charles Stump, James Marder, of course, Burton Heiss, what is that?
Starting point is 02:50:12 I think it's an I. Linda Timer, Lindsay Trotter, happy birthday to Sarah Flumeria, what? That's not right. Sarah Flumeria? Yeah. Sounds like a good one. And Kathy Jackson. Those are from Susan. What the fuck? Susan's birthday. Hey, happy. She's telling people happy. Happy birthday, flumeria yeah and sounds like a good one and kathy jackson those are from susan what the fuck susan's birthday hey she's telling people happy birthday flumeria ridiculous unbelievable julia mccauley and read it next i don't know what that is i wrote that down it's
Starting point is 02:50:34 something tatiana whoop titanova titanova berez hawawa i don't know her name's got tid in it and that's gonna ruin everything it's gonna distract you a lot i feel like richard hope uh richard and hope rod armor it's their anniversary sebastian martin kyle juarez war what is this maureen jones uh zachary kipfer steven stadler krista walker john and mary katherine buck uh katerzina niazolka hey i found out the i is pronounced like a w uh frank crowley aaron baker and janice hill and of course all of our patron donors you guys are amazing thank you thank you everybody thank you thank you so much you guys are the heart and soul of this show and we fucking we just appreciate the shit out of you guys honestly thank you we love you more than omar yeah i'm telling
Starting point is 02:51:21 you it's the shit jimmy what if they wanted to get a hold of you? How could they possibly do that? You can find me at WismanSucks, W-H-I-S-M-A-N sucks, on Twitter and Instagram. And now you know that I have seen The Wire and you needn't yell at me any longer. Yes, to watch it anymore. Another podcast was ripping off the idea of yelling at the other host because they hadn't seen The Wire. Really? So I figured, you know what, I should probably just watch it and abandon this bit if everybody else is doing it
Starting point is 02:51:48 so I've seen it it's fine where can they find you oh I'm at Jimmy P is funny just copy and paste my name it's much easier than figuring all that shit out but thank you guys so much for everything honestly we hope you enjoyed the show yeah they said
Starting point is 02:52:04 this was one I was kind of saving for a long time because it's pretty fucking cool, honestly. It's pretty goddamn awesome. So hope you have the same opinion and thought it was awesome. And keep coming back next week. We will be here live from the Crime and Sports studios. We will see you next week. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
Starting point is 02:52:36 Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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