"My tongue was messed up somewhere during the 2nd round, but I noticed I was getting like nauseous from swallowing so much blood. I was getting really, really nauseous. And then every time I would go to take a deep breath, I would inhale and a lot of blood was going down and it was choking the mess out of me...We said he was slow and he was slow, and we said that I would beat him easily and I think, for 5 rounds, I was beating him easily," stated heavyweight contender Amir Mansour, who talked about his disappointing loss to Dominic Breazeale after nearly biting his tongue off during the bout. Check it out!
PC: First and foremost, how are you physically, Amir?
AM: I'm good, man, just my damn tongue is sore. I got 36 stitches in my damn tongue, man. Other than that, I'm fine.
PC: Talk us through the fight and what you felt was going on in there.
AM: During the course of the fight, it was like I said, he was slow, he was very easy to hit, and every attack that I mounted, I was able to land it. I was real comfortable. I got a little careless here and there and allowed him to land some shots that a big slow dude like that should never land on me, but I got that warriors mentality and I felt alright. I felt comfortable. In the 2nd round, I have a bad habit of clinching my tongue in between my teeth when I fight and my trainer been told me to get an upper and a lower mouth guard so that I don't do that. We usually joke about it after every fight because we look inside my mouth and see my tongue all bloody and jaw all bit up, but at the same time, never anticipating something as serious as this could happen. I actually clinched down on both sides of my tongue and I got hit with a decent shot and both sides of my tongue was just wide open. And now I'm swallowing blood and at the same time, trying to breathe and it just wasn't a good combination, man.
PC: So your tongue was already split before the knockdown?
AM: My tongue was messed up somewhere during the 2nd round, but I noticed I was getting like nauseous from swallowing so much blood. I was getting really, really nauseous. And then every time I would go to take a deep breath, I would inhale and a lot of blood was going down and it was choking the mess out of me. At the end of the day, after about the 5th round, we getting ready to go back at it and here comes the doctor and he got in my ear and we made the decision that the risk wasn't worth the reward. I really didn't understand what was going on. I knew my tongue was cut really bad and I knew I was swallowing blood and it was choking the hell out of me, and then the doctor had told me I was bleeding out of both ears, and that scared the shit out of me too. But what had happened is, when I'm blocking punches, that red tape that they use out here on the west coast, that shit will cut you up. So when I was blocking punches, it left my ears with a bunch of scratches and nicks. So I wasn't actually bleeding out of my ears; I was bleeding around my ears. And of course when you hear that your bleeding out of your ears, you thinking that your damn brain is bleeding, so that was information that I wish I wouldn't have gotten in the heat of battle. But at the end of the day, I knew the media was going to spin it as if he did some miraculous shit in there and made this miraculous comeback, but come on, man, he didn't win one round. It wasn't nothing triumphant that he did in that ring because he didn't win not one round of that fight.
PC: I never thought I would see you not get off of the stool to continue a fight. How difficult was that to do and how difficult is that to live with right now?
AM: Man...I was in my hotel room this morning, man, ready to throw a fucking iron through the window and jump off of the damn 18th floor. It's definitely the lowest point of my career. It's a decision that, in retrospect, you wish that you didn't make it, but it's something that I have to live with. You gotta be smart and be able to live to fight another day. My trainer talked to me. He obviously was upset. Nobody wants to see their fighter not be able to make it to the end of the fight, but we all understand that it's always about health first, and we didn't want what was happening to get worse because the blood started to get really, really dark and once that blood starts to darken like that, you're usually looking at a fracture. It was almost like black. It's just stressful; very, very stressful reality. What makes it worse is you know you were dominating a fight and the other fighter is not a better fighter than you are. And everybody knows that fatigue ain't going to stop me from fighting; ten rounds ain't nothing. It had nothing to do with fatigue or some kind of way I would come in out of shape or nothing like that. That's ridiculous talk. It's just a decision that I felt like needed to be made at that time. Our camp live by this; every decision that you make, no regrets. I say it jokingly when I say I'm thinking about jumping out of a damn window or whatever, but at the same time, I just want it to be understood how hurtful it can be to make the right decision in that ring. It's very hurtful sometimes when you gotta make the right decision and give a guy a victory that you know can't beat you and you know is not a better fighter than you.
PC: Also, there are no timeouts in boxing. By the time you're on your stool and you've been checked out, you have about 30 seconds to make that decision.
AM: When he told me that...the doctor was saying some crazy mess, man. It was very discouraging. It's never going to be a decision that I'm comfortable with. It's never going to be a decision that I can say I'm glad I made, but at the end of the day, sometimes decisions like that be the hardest ones to make.
PC: Was there anything about Breazeale that surprised you during the course of the fight?
AM: We said before the fight that dude come to rumble. He was everything that we said he was. We said he came to fight; he definitely came to fight. We said he was slow and he was slow, and we said that I would beat him easily and I think, for 5 rounds, I was beating him easily. But a fight is a fight and I don't want to take nothing away from him because I knew it was hard for him to get up from the deck and keep fighting. From a spectator standpoint, they want to see a rematch. I heard someone from his team say rematch and I heard somebody from PBC say rematch and I think it would be a beautiful rematch. But of course if somebody whoop you for 5 rounds straight, you're not going to be dying to get back in there with him. But hopefully we can make that happen because I would hate for this type of loss to never be redeemed; not on something so simple, but at the same time, so serious.
PC: Is it just about letting your tongue heal and going back to the drawing board and getting back on the horse?
AM: At this point, the only adjustment I'm going to make is getting a damn upper and lower mouth guard (laughing). Other than that, to be honest with you, man, I want to get back in the gym like tomorrow. I'm ready to just get back at it and jump back on that horse like ASAP!
PC: I know that was a tough decision for you to make. I'm glad you are okay and I'm sure you will be back. Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go?
AM: Fox told us we had a high rating and we found out that my fight spiked the ratings again. That just tells me that a lot of people are supporting me and a lot of people are behind what I'm out here trying to do and I am grateful. I got a lot of Latino and Mexican fans; best fans on the planet. They are just as dedicated as the Polish fans. I'm just really grateful that people are behind me and they are really supporting me and they appreciate when I do get in that ring because they know I give it all I got. I used to laugh at this because I did used to always have a mouth full of blood understanding that this is something that I repeatedly did. I chew on my tongue and chew the inside of my mouth up when I fight. You could hear them in the Kassi fight say I had a mouth full of blood, but you didn't see Kassi busting my mouth up. I just totally disregarded getting that upper and lower mouthpiece where I couldn't do that. But never in a million years would you anticipate this happening. My tongue swelled up 3 times the size of its normal size. It took them 5 damn hours to sew this motherfucker back together, man. We definitely appreciate y'all at FightHype. Y'all are the only boxing website that keep it 100. Y'all don't put words in people mouth, man. Y'all don't make shit what it ain't and I love y'all and I appreciate y'all for that.
[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]