"Now that I'm clear-headed, I'm so anxious to get back in the ring to rectify any wrongdoing, any nasty taste that's in people's mouth. I want to rectify that. Those performance wasn't me...I'm on a seek and destroy mission. I am on a mission to clear my name of any doubt that I'm one of the best welterweights in the division. I'm here to clear any doubts, Ben. You can take that to the bank. Now that I am clear-minded, now that I'm clear to everything, it's going to be trouble. I'm not a person who talks a lot of shit, but I'm really anxious to get back in there and just show people that that wasn't me," stated former multi-division world champion Devon Alexander, who opened up and spoke in-depth about going to rehab to battle his addiction to pain killers. You don't want to miss what he had to say in this exclusive interview. Check it out!



BT: Devon, what's good? I've been keeping up with the videos you've been posting on Facebook. I see you've been putting that work in.



DA: Oh yeah, getting back to the basics, Ben. I see things clearly now that my head's not cloudy. I'm back to my reflexes. I'm thinking more. At first, I was just fighting; my head was cloudy. I wasn't thinking about what I'm doing. Now, I'm just back to Devon Alexander.



BT: You said something similar when my man Luis interviewed you at Knockouts this summer. You said that the old Devon was back now that you took care of some personal issues that you were dealing with. Can you elaborate at all on what those issues were?



DA: Well, when you're guy came down to Knockouts, you know, that's when I was really going through the transition from what I was going through. (Long sigh) When he came, I was going through rehab. Three years ago, I had sinus surgery. Mind you, I never had surgery a day in my life. I was always scared to have surgery. When I fought Maidana, my sinuses were so bad, I couldn't breath. My nose was kind of swole. We didn't know what the extent was. I thought it was broke, actually, before the Maidana fight, but, you know, we was already in camp. I was using a nose saline spray, or whatever, to clear my nose up because it would get stopped up every other hour. The Maidana fight came, we got through it, we toughed it out, and then after that win, that was a big win for me, I said, "Man, I gotta go to the doctor. Something is not right with my nose. It's bigger than usual." On the left side, it was kind of swole, so you could tell it was something wrong.



Something was wrong, so I went to a nose, throat and ear specialist. We went there knowing that they were going to say my nose was broke because how it happened was I got elbowed. When I was sparring, getting ready for the Maidana fight, I got elbowed and after that, we were seeing some significant swelling. Knowing me, I'm a fighter, so I don't care. Okay, he hit my nose, but I'm knowing something done happened to my damn nose where it's looking funny because it's bigger than usual, and every few hours, I gotta put some nose spray in to just clear the breathing up. But after the fight, it wasn't broke. What had happened was it was a blood clot that got in my nose from that elbow. I got elbowed and it was a blood clot. I didn't know. Even the doctor that did the surgery thought it was a broken nose, but when he went in there to surgery, it was a blood clot. I was like, "Wow! Really? It was just a blood clot?" He was like, "Yeah, it was just a blood clot. Your nose wasn't broken." So we had the surgery after the Maidana fight and, you know, mind you, I did not take anything before this. I'm a clean individual. I don't smoke, drink; I don't do anything. I just didn't like nothing in my body like that. No medicine, no nothing. I never been through nothing like this [surgery]. I mean, it's just; all around, a new experience for me all around the board.



Before then, you know, they call you, they say, "Okay, we're going to call in a prescription for you. This type of medicine, antibiotics, this type of pain medicine, and this and that." So I said, "Okay!" So we had the surgery, it went well, and after, I went home. They had some stuff in my nose to heal it back from the stitches or whatever they had up in my nose. The pain medicine, you know, I had been taking that. It makes you feel good. It's a feeling that I can't explain. At the time, I never felt no pain medicine; never took it. That euphoric feeling. You can definitely tell that it transforms you and relaxes you. It somehow makes you in a cloud. I don't know how to explain it, but it makes you feel like nothing's there. I mean, you're just chilling and relaxing. It just makes you feel just...I don't know. At the time, I guess I can say I liked the feeling that it gave me. I knew from that point on that this is something that...I thought to myself, I said, "I don't want to get addicted to this stuff. Do not do it." But I kept taking it and I kept taking it and I kept taking it. And then after my last 'script was up, I ordered it in. I started taking that and I really didn't even need it really after that. I just took it just to be taking it because of the feeling. The pain was gone, but I just kept taking it. I just needed something. In my opinion, in my strong opinion, that doctor shouldn't have given me nothing that strong, especially me being the clean guy that I was. The clean person that I am, drug free, don't like drugs, and they actually gave it to me. I took it and I fell victim to it. No excuse, but after that, I got to telling the doctor I needed more and I'm still in pain, you know, when I wasn't. Just making excuses to get this same level of feeling that I liked. I didn't want it to go away, or whatever, and I wanted to keep feeling like this.



And then my tonsils went bad. I think it was the following year or the year after. I'll say 2 years ago...maybe 2 1/2...I had a tonsillectomy and they took my tonsils out and they prescribed me some more pain medicine. I knew that this was becoming a problem. I'm taking it too much. I'm liking it too much. I'm just blown away by it. I'm blown away and this is becoming a problem. Mind you, I have never taken a drug a day in my life, so it altered my thinking. It really did. It altered my thinking. I wasn't thinking clearly. Alls I wanted was, okay, I'm gonna take another one. I'm gonna stop. I'm not going to take it no more. After this one, I'm going to take another one. Then I take another one. Okay, this is not going to hurt, so I'm gonna take another one. Listen, it just kept going on and on and on, and then saying after, I'm not going to take it no more. So, you know, months and months, the doctors, they just kept prescribing it. If I say, "Okay, I needed more," they kept prescribing it and kept prescribing it. It just became an addiction, you know. It just became that it took over my life. It took over everything. It made me lazy. It made me not want to train; make excuses not to go to the gym. I mean, it just became part of my downfall for that time.



I hated myself that I kept taking it and I kept wanting that feeling. I'm knowing what I'm doing; I'm looking at myself knowing what I'm doing, you know. I'm saying, "Why? Why can't I stop?" But it was the feeling that I kept wanting and kept wanting to seek. After months and months, then I had another fight. I looked terrible. Had another fight, I looked terrible. You know, the Shawn Porter fight, I looked terrible. The Khan fight, I looked terrible. I was telling Kevin [Cunningham] how I couldn't remember anything that he said in that corner. If I would have bet a million dollars for me to remember anything, I would've lost that bet. I couldn't remember anything he had said to me. Nothing! Nothing at all! My head was so cloudy. I mean, me losing to Aron Martinez, come on. I mean, come on! I was supposed to blow him out of the water, but I couldn't remember a thing that happened in that fight. I couldn't remember a thing that happened in the Khan fight. I couldn't remember a thing that happened in the Shawn Porter fight. It just clouded my thinking, my judgement. It makes you not think about your family. It makes you not think about...just nothing at all. You just want to keep taking it and keep taking it and keep taking it and keep taking it. I'm knowing this is why I'm looking terrible, I mean terrible in the ring, I'm knowing, and I just couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop.



I would take it in the morning after I run. Then after the gym, I would take it again, you know, and it's messing with my respiratory issues, the breathing. Just looking back on it, it was messing with my reflexes. It was messing with my whole ability to think in the ring. My whole swag that I had before, it was like diminished to 20%, you know, and I'm just out there. I'm just out there just throwing; just throwing. I mean, terrible. I'm looking terrible, terrible in the ring, and it wasn't until after the fight, after the Martinez fight, that something happened while I was at home. My wife, you know, she was there and I had took some, um, took some pain medicine or whatever and, you know, something happened where I woke up in a damn hospital and I didn't know what happened. It was because of the pain medicine. I didn't overdose or whatever, but I just blacked out and my wife didn't know why. She would say little things as far as, "Devon, why are you taking that stuff? You don't need that! You don't need that!" She would say little things like that and I wouldn't listen. I would say something like, "I'm only taking it when I need it. I'm not taking it just to be taking it." Lying to her and lying to myself at the same damn time.



BT: Wow! I don't even know what to say, bro.



DA: It was killing me that I was keeping it from her, you know. Man, when you're taking that stuff, you're not thinking about the kids, you're not thinking about your wife, you're not thinking about your mom, your family, nobody. You're just taking it, not knowing that you could die, that your kidneys fail; just not thinking about anything. You're just thinking about just taking it and taking it and taking it. So me being the conscience person that I am, you know, as I was taking it in the years, month after month after month, I said, "How long do I expect to keep this up?" I said to myself, "Man, I can't do this forever." I'm a person who believes in God and I asked Him, "Do something in my life that's going to help me to stop this road that I was going down," because it wasn't nothing but a road to something heavy or something worse; something stronger. I'm hearing stories that people who start off with pain medicine get to heroine and ultimately overdose and die and this and that. I'm hearing these stories and I'm praying to God every night. I just keep taking it, praying, keep taking it, praying. Ultimately, I ended up in the hospital. It was this year; January or probably February, somewhere around that time that I ended up in the hospital. That day, you know, God told me; He showed me what could happen or could be worse next time.



I said, "F that!" I said, "F that!" It scared the shit out of me because I didn't know what happened. What happened? I woke up and my wife said, "I had to call the ambulance. You blacked out!" I was like, "What? Huh?" My wife's like, "See, I told you. What are you doing?" I came clean with her and I just told her everything about the surgery, where it started from and where it stemmed from. After that, the doctor...this is St. Louis. St. Louis is small. Everybody knew me. Even the doctor knew me, but they didn't know the extent of what I was going through. So my wife got on the Internet and she looked up the class. It was by our house and I went to the class. From that day forward, I haven't touched them, not even thought about them, because it scared the shit out of me. It scared me straight because I have way more living. I have way more things to do. I'm 29 years old. There's no way that I should be not in the ring making big money, one of the hottest fighters in the game. I got the skill, I got the ability, but I'm dealing with this and looking bad in the ring, so it's turning people away from Devon Alexander. I'm just seeing everything clearly now. I can see how it impacted everything, you know, my decision to continue to take that junk, as I call it now. Now that I'm thinking clearly in the gym, I see every punch. I can do anything that I want in the ring now, anything.



That medication, those drugs, it altered everything. I mean everything. My skills were diminished the day I started taking that stuff. I just kept taking and kept taking it. I started going to classes two times a week, well, three times, and just talking to other people. Mind you, I have never been a person to even take drugs, so I'm here sitting in this damn class like, "What the hell have I gotten myself into? How did I come from being on HBO to making money to this? How did I come from being in a group talking about drugs and talking about addictions and why they did it?" It really opened my eyes up to what I've been doing, and good thing. I'm thankful that it stopped when it stopped because it could have went further and further. Like right now, I could still be taking it. I'm just thankful that God stopped it when He stopped it because it could have been worse. Now that I'm done and I went through it, I see it as a blessing. I can help. I see a lot of athletes going through it and I can help. I want to become an advocate for it and all that, Ben. I just want to help as many people as I can because this experience gave me a whole new look on life, a whole new motivation to train even harder, a whole new motivation to just live and be all I can be. I just want to beat everybody that I can get in the ring with. I just want to beat every guy out there because I see clearly now. I mean, before, I was just going through the motions. I was just going to the gym. I was just not giving it my all. I was just doing it; just going through the motions.



It's fucked up when I think about it, that I went through it, because I'm mad at myself. I'm mad that I made my wife go through it, I made my kids go through it. I'm mad that I let my team down, Kevin down; my mom. Everybody in my family see me as the clean-cut, never do nothing type of guy. The straight person who's never taken drugs. I'm mad at myself and I'm disappointed in myself that I even let myself get involved in this arena. I ain't even supposed to be in this situation, but I allowed myself to get in this situation and now I'm here to rectify anything that I have messed up in the process of me doing whatever I was doing. I'm ready to rectify it. I'm ready to get back to where I was at in my career. You can tell in the gym that without the medication, without the drugs, I'm still the same Devon Alexander that's been whoopin' ass since I was 8 years old in the boxing ring, so I'm still there. Reflexes are still there. Everything is still there. Like I said, I'm 29 years old, I'm still at the prime of my career, and I'm just looking to just go get back in there and show people that Devon Alexander is still here, still got it, still the best skilled fighter in boxing. I got power too. I don't know why people would mistake my power or don't think I got power; I got power too. I'm just here to be an advocate for the drug abusers of the opioids. I'm here to tell athletes, tell whoever is going through that that you can make it through it because I've been through it. It's not worth it. I'm here to tell people it's not worth it because you losing instead of gaining by taking that junk, you know.



And I really feel that the doctor shouldn't have gave me anything that strong. I would've been fine with Tylenol or Ibuprofen, but still, they just prescribed me that strong stuff and I just fell victim to it. No excuse. No excuse, Ben. I'm not trying to make an excuse for myself or nobody. I take full responsibility. I want to say sorry to my fans, say sorry to my family, my coach, everybody, but I'm here to rectify the problem, rectify anything that I messed up, and I have no doubt that I'm going to be back at the top of the welterweight division. Being clean, Ben, I'm right back to where I was at in my career, getting back what I lost. I have no doubt, I'm 150% sure that I can beat anybody as long as I'm staying right there clear of everything because those drugs had altered everything in my arsenal. That's how...I mean, everyone seen it. Come, on! I was supposed to blow him out the water. I really was. It was supposed to be just a tune-up fight, get through that, and something big on the horizon, but me, Ben, taking all that stuff that I was taking, my reflexes, I didn't care, I didn't understand what Kevin was saying in the ring, I can't even remember, but it happened and he got a victory over me. It kills me to see that. It kills me to see that I could've beat Khan. It kills me to see that I could've beat all of them if I wasn't on these drugs. My skills was way better than every fighter I done fought. Three losses I done had, I could've beat, but I let this drug take over me, just alter me, and I'm sick; I'm sick about it. I think about it every day. Every time I go running, every day I go to the gym, it's just more motivation to get back on top. I know it's not going to be easy, but I am definitely up for the challenge. I am definitely up for the challenge and whenever, I don't care whoever or whenever, whoever they put me in the ring with, they're not going to get what they've been seeing, so they don't want to make the mistake of thinking they finna get something else. They don't want to make the mistake and think they finna get the Devon Alexander that they've been seeing lately. They gonna make the mistake, but I'm here to tell you, Ben, and all my fans, and all my non-fans that I'm back, I'm motivated, I'm strong, I'm back hungry, and I'm ready to get back out there and show everybody that I'm still one of the best fighters in the world. Still! I've been going through all of this, all of what I've been going through, I'm still about to be one of the best that's in the game, and I can promise you that!



BT: Wow, man! That's really deep, bro! Really deep! It's crazy how one moment, one incident, or one wrong decision can drastically alter the future and the path of someone's life.



DA: Absolutely! And that's what it did, Ben. I mean, like right now, you know, I'm thinking about everything I'm saying, but if I was to do an interview say when I was taking that stuff, I couldn't understand anything and don't even remember what I said. Like now, I'm alert and I'm understanding everything that I'm saying. I'm just motivated and talking with confidence. I'm just here and I'm thankful that I didn't let it get too out of hand because it could have. I was just reading the statistics and all that on drug abuse; just 19-year-old and 20-year-old college students and people going through this. It's terrible how fast that they went from pain killers to heroine that fast. That's why I'm speaking up now. I definitely want to become an advocate in this, Ben, because it's an epidemic out here with the pain medicine. I'm reading that they came out with a new pain medicine that's just as potent as the ones they got out here now and that is terrible. That is terrible! They're making tons of money off this junk and it's terrible. You know, people are losing they're lives, people are dying and overdosing; I'm just thankful that I was strong enough to stop when I did after the hospital. I'm just thankful I was able to just stop the pain medicine altogether.



BT: Was the process of rehab difficult? I mean, I know you said you were scared straight, so I'm sure it wasn't difficult to start, but once you did, was it hard to actually kick the addiction?



DA: Um, not as much as I thought it would be because I wanted to. It wasn't as difficult. I think, in my opinion, if you want to stop something, you're going to stop it and you're going to stop it even if it takes a few weeks for you to feel back normal. If you really genuinely want to get back normal, to get back right, to get back to where you was at, you're really going to stop, and that's where I'm at. I mean, I feel so rejuvenated, clean. I got that bounce back that I had before. Like I said, when I went to rehab, I was just sitting and looking at all these people like, "What have I gotten myself into? What the heck? How did my life get to here? How did I let myself get to this point? And why? All because of a feeling; all because of some damn doctor prescribing me some medicine that altered me, that had me thinking that I want to feel this feeling all the time." Just to put it in a nutshell, I wanted to feel that feeling all the time. I didn't want that feeling to go; a feeling of no care in the world. Me going through it, I can see it now. It's the feeling that they want. It's not so much the drugs that they want. It's the feeling that they want; that there's no care in the world. You're just happy and don't gotta do anything; it feels good and that's what it was. I see how people can become addicted to things now. At first, I was just judging the person of that, but I can see now. I can see clearly the feeling that they want, the feeling that they seek when they do take it. I can see how they can get addicted and don't want to get off of it because it gives you no care in the world. I can't explain the feeling, but it's a terrible feeling because it's not real. It's a drug that's making you feel that way for a second and then it's gone. It's not real.



And that's another thing, Ben. While I was going through the process of just taking it and taking it, I was reading on how to stop. Occasionally in my private time, I would get on the Internet and look how to stop taking this pain medicine or if anybody else was going through not stopping. It was a lot of cases on there. It was the withdrawals that kind of kept me from not wanting to stop because they said that was even worse than being on them. That's even worse. The after effect of taking it after awhile is the withdrawals, you know, the creepy crawlies, the night sweats, everything. That scared me to not want to stop either. Just seeing videos and hearing stories on withdrawals and just all these symptoms, you know, diarrhea; just quitting just makes you sick for awhile, for a few months. Actually, like a year into it, I tried to stop. That week was the worst week ever in my damn life. That's what made me say, "Oh no! No way! I cannot stop this right now." That was worse than being on it. The withdrawal symptoms were terrible. I mean terrible. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop moving. I stayed up two days in a row; just couldn't sleep. I mean, just terrible; constant diarrhea. So I tried to stop for a week and I said, "Oh no. I gotta keep taking these." After that, everything went back to normal. Not saying that was normal, but I could sleep. Luckily I found this class and I was strong enough to say, "Nope! No way! I'm not! I'm done!"



Most importantly, I hate that I let my family down. I let my coach down. Because Kevin don't think I can do no wrong, he wouldn't even think I would touch a drug. Anybody that hears that, they're going to be shocked to hear it. Don't nobody expect me to be going down that path, but I did. It was a mistake. I live up to that mistake. I own it, you know, and like I said, I'm going to be a spokesperson for it. Whoever else I could talk to to get off of that, if I can help whoever I can by this story or just me continuing to talk about it, I'm going to do that because it's big. It's huge. A lot of professional athletes are taking this stuff. Just recently, Prince was taking pain killers or whatever. It's big.



BT: Dev, I just pulled up your record to see how far back that Madiana fight was. Man, you had 6 fights after that fight. That was a big chunk of your career where you were fighting and dealing with that addiction.



DA: After the Maidana fight, it was a gradual thing for me, taking the medicine. It was a gradual thing. It wasn't worse, but as time went on, it just got worse. I started taking it more. Just like anything, if you keep doing something, you're not going to get the same effect as you would when you first started taking it, so I started taking more of it to get the same feeling and it just became worse and worse and worse. Like Kevin said, even my body was different. I was skinnier in my last fight. During camp, I would be big still, but I would be down on my weight and still be toned and defined. But that last fight, in October, that was the skinniest and worst I ever looked. I didn't see any muscles on me. You know, of course I still had muscles, but it wasn't me. You could tell the difference between me being off of that and being on that.



Kevin would say, before all this transpired, he would say, "Something ain't right about you. Something is not right about you. You're not acting like yourself." He would say little things like that. "Something is not right. You look different. You act different. You don't act motivated like usual. Something is different about you." Me knowing what I'm doing, me lying to myself would say, "Oh, ain't nothing wrong with me. I'm good." You know Kevin. "Yeah, right. I know you and this and that." And I was acting different. I was lying to myself saying that it wasn't different, when I'm knowing it is. I mean, you can look at the fights and I'm just uninspired and just there. I'm just there, not moving, not even trying to get out of the way of punches. I'm just there. I was clear-headed when I told him. I told him and he was like, "Wow! Whoa!" It blew him away, but he knew something was wrong. I guess he was kind of relieved too that that's what it was and it wasn't just my skills done diminished. No, that's what it was. Now he's happy in the gym. He's excited back at the gym, anxious to get a date to rectify anything, just like I am. Just anxious to get back in there to show my skills again; show the true Devon Alexander as opposed to the head clouded, zombie Devon. The robot Devon. That shit wasn't me them last fights. That wasn't me. What you saw in the Urango fight, what you saw in all the rest of the fights, that was me.



Now I'm in the gym, I'm just seeing everything. I'm just back to normal like nothing never happened. Just like now, my muscles are back to normal. My muscles are defined and back. You know I always had the rock, but it's back to normal. At first, my muscle tone, my muscle definition decreased tons. I mean tons. It kept me from wanting to eat too. You didn't want to eat taking that stuff. It kept me lighter than I usually be and that wasn't good. It was just an all-around bad experience. Bad experience! Something that I shouldn't have even been able to do. But I'm learning that it was a blessing that I didn't take it even further. It's a blessing that I'm still here to talk about it. It's a blessing that I'm still 29 and my career is still at the grasp of my hand and it's up to me to go out there and show everybody what I still can do and what I'm capable of doing, so it's just up to me.



I do want to rectify it and I did want to get it out there. I hate that it happened. I hate that I let people see that side. I hate that my fans had to see that. I hate for people to even think what they're thinking about me. It's burning my ears to even think of the thoughts that some people are thinking. I can imagine. But everything happens for a reason in my opinion. Everything. I don't care what it is, everything happens for a reason. You know, you seize the opportunity and you just go in there; all you can do is just go in there and do what you gotta do and get back up. That's all I'm thinking about, Ben. That's all I'm thinking about. Now that I'm clear-headed, I'm so anxious to get back in the ring to rectify any wrongdoing, any nasty taste that's in people's mouth. I want to rectify that. Those performance wasn't me. It wasn't.



BT: At one point, you were one of the top guys in the division; even Floyd Mayweather named you as a possible opponent. How difficult has it been for you knowing that while you were addicted to pain killers, you lost to Shawn Porter and Amir Khan, only to see them go on to have big, high-profile fights with likes of Adrien Broner, Keith Thurman, and Canelo Alvarez?



DA: It kills me! To be honest, I don't want to watch. I don't watch fights because it kills me on the inside to watch this knowing that I was right there. Me being over here knowing that I got the ability to be at the top of the welterweight division, knowing that I was there in that mix, it's killing me. It's really killing me. I really hate to even watch the fights because I see myself in there. I'm supposed to be there. I'm a competitive person. I am a competitive person and I hate it. I'm happy for the guys, they did what they had to do and they continue to win, but I hate it. I hate it with a passion because I know that my skills are way better on any day than anybody that's out there right now. I done fought way more better competition than Aron Martinez and I let him get this damn victory off on me. It was just terrible to watch and know. Shawn Porter, I mean, come on, I could've boxed circles around him. He was a last minute opponent; it was supposed to be Brook. It just kills me. I could've just used all my skills, my angles, turning, just using my ability to beat him. The same thing that Brook did to Shawn Porter was the game plan for Shawn Porter; you know, keep him on the outside, keep him at bay, turning him and spinning him, and just keep him from coming in with that wild shit.



Take for instance Amir Khan. My head was so clouded in that fight. I was at 20% or 30% thinking. You can tell in the fight he was scared. Even me being at 20% or 30%, he still was scared to engage. I mean, after awhile, he saw that I wasn't all there, and he was still cautious about that. I knew I was down in the Amir Khan fight and the last round, I still didn't even go for it. I don't even know. I was just out there just going; not even caring. I looked at a couple rounds of that fight and I was like, "What the? What is that? What the hell?" It disgusts me because I know that's not me. It just digusts me. I did it to myself and it was disgusting. I wasn't even there and it kills me to see this...just to see...all of this is motivation to me, Ben, all of this. Every last bit of it is motivation to me. Just wait patiently. I know what the problem was. I know what my skills is capable of doing. I know what's about to come when they do announce this fight date; when they do give me another fight, I know what's going to happen. But to answer your question, it kills me to see it because I know I was there. I was right there and I still can be right there, and I am going to get there, Ben, you watch and see, because I'm confident in my skills, first off. I'm confident in my skills and I know with Kevin in my corner; Kevin is the best trainer out there to me, in my opinion, he just don't get the credit he deserves. But we are going to get there one way or another, I promise you that.



I should be in that position, but I let myself fall victim to some stuff that I wasn't even supposed to be doing. I fell victim to it, I had these lackluster performances, and it took me out of the position I was in. We all know in boxing it takes one good fight and then they back talking about you again. I'm on a seek and destroy mission. I am on a mission to clear my name of any doubt that I'm one of the best welterweights in the division. I'm here to clear any doubts, Ben. You can take that to the bank. Now that I am clear-minded, now that I'm clear to everything, it's going to be trouble. I'm not a person who talks a lot of shit, but I'm really anxious to get back in there and just show people that that wasn't me. What you saw wasn't me. Have you ever saw that commercial, "This is your brain on drugs." That was me. My head was frying and it wasn't me. Now that it's months and months of being clean, I just see everything; everything that I need to be doing. I got the tools to get back to the top. I got the tools to show people how I can get back to the top. I got the skills to show people why I'm still one of the best in boxing.

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