You're in big trouble, though, pal. I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.
You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
No.
Good morning. Welcome to Breakfast of Champions. This is season one, episode five.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's up, everybody? I'm one of your co-hosts. My name's Rene Floyd. I'm super excited to be here with you this morning.
I'm going to throw it to my co-host. His name is...
Parker Howard.
Parker Howard in the house.
He's not awake yet.
Still waking up, yeah.
I'm just trying to be super loud in his ears, right? Kind of annoy him a little bit.
Thanks for joining us. If you've never been with us, we are a podcast about breakfast foods and violence.
And we're super happy today because we have our first guest ever.
So I just wanted to shout him out right off top so that way it's not awkward when you hear him review our donuts.
So our first guest today is a man that I met through a school connection.
We both like to educate young people and just kind of make sure that history doesn't go untalked about.
My end on music, his end on history. So his name is James Gray. I met him out in Wetherford.
We were both educating at the time and we kind of connected on Facebook.
And I saw some of the things that he was doing in our community and some of the things that he's been doing with combat sports.
And he figured what a cool story and just a good guest to kind of get us kicked off here.
So welcome, Mr. Gray. Thank you for being here.
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me here. It's a pleasure to be here.
Yeah, it's good to see you. Parker and Mr. Gray have never met. So it'll be interesting.
It'll be kind of like me introducing friends to each other and us kind of catching up like that.
So thank you very much, OffRip, for being here. We're going to review some donuts.
We're going to talk about his life. We're going to talk about funny stuff, sad stuff, cool stuff.
Just slick stuff, neat stuff, you know.
We got one sad thing to talk about right off the rip.
We jinxed it last week.
Yeah, I'm real. Listen, formal apology to everybody that is a Dallas Stars fan.
I really apologize. We blew it. We really blew it.
We were so assured that they were going to make it to the Stanley Cup finals.
We really were just putting that positive energy out there and kind of trying to manifest that for them.
And we should have just kept our mouth shut. Kind of like a no hitter.
We should have just silently in the background let it happen.
Yeah, that's why we're not talking about any other sports.
There will be no other sports teams in my life that I will be speaking about.
So unless I hate them, I guess we could talk about them, right?
So yeah.
So I guess we should talk about the Celtics made it to the finals.
Screw them. But you know, they made it.
So rest in peace, Dallas Stars, rest in peace, Dallas Stars.
Also, we have been on the Internet for like two official weeks now.
We've dropped two episodes, episode one and two live.
And as we speak this morning when we walked in the door, episode three dropped.
And so if you haven't subscribed and liked and shared and told a friend and whatever liked, rated, reviewed it.
Put a five stars, subscribe, whatever the young jive is these days.
We honestly just want people to have a good time and listen to our podcast.
However they do that. So we made a website. You can go to rss.com.
slash podcast slash breakfast champs. You can listen anywhere podcasts are available.
And even if you don't like to listen to more podcasts available and you just like YouTube, we're on the YouTubes.
And maybe soon you'll be able to see us.
Yeah, we are speaking of manifestation. We wanted to manifest a cool location for like filming the podcast because the practice space that we're in right now is like it's seen better times.
It's a vibe.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like it's kind of like being in grandma's basement, you know what I mean?
Which is fine. You know, it's a vibe, but we're 40 now.
So we need to move out of grandma's basement and have a little bit more sophisticated look.
So catch us on future episodes probably with video at a cool location.
Yeah.
So Mr. Gray, you said you've never had Suze before, but you live in Weatherford?
I've never had Suze before. I'm familiar with the place, but just just have never, never been there.
Did you go to the ninth grade center slash high school?
I did. It was the high school.
Yeah.
You know, when I went to school there, Suze was the old Sonic.
That's right. I was going to say that. It was probably Sonic when you were there.
We just walked across the street for lunch.
And there is a Sonic that, a new Sonic that got built right next door to that old Sonic.
And it's funny because they still, if you go to Suze, they still have the frame for the car hop drive in.
Yeah, sure.
And I have a picture of Suze. We'll post it online.
And so when you first get to Suze, you're not really sure.
Like, is this still a Sonic or is this a donut shop?
So that reminds me of that new barbecue place, Ribby's over off of seminary.
I haven't seen it yet.
Oh, yeah, it's from the people who do Goldies, but it's in an old Sonic, but they painted the whole thing red.
Oh, ribs and fries. That's funny.
That's kind of how Suze is.
Exactly how Suze is.
Yeah, it's very cool.
So shout out to Suze Donuts.
I've mentioned them in the past.
Like I said, my family has donuts every Sunday without fail.
The first thing my son says when he opens his mouth on Sunday is it's on a day. It's on a day.
It's time to have donuts. It's time to have donuts.
There are many mornings where we just flat out can't get out of bed to get those donuts early enough.
And so we'll doordash donuts to the house, which is like such a power move these days because it's like, I'm ordering a dozen donuts for my bed.
And then they're there in 30 minutes or whatever.
But on the days that we don't doordash and we want to get out of the house, Suze is the place to go.
It's a nice drive into town. It's right off Main Street.
So if you've never been to Weatherford, Main Street is basically the main street in Weatherford, obviously.
The old high school was on Main Street. The courthouse is on, which we'll get into later.
The courthouse is on Main Street.
All of the most of the major restaurants that people know and love are on Main Street.
So she's got a prime location.
I mean, how a donut shop right across the street from a ninth grade center, like built in customer base every single morning.
So like, you know, just a good, a good place.
We were saying it's a former sonic. It's a cute little place.
Sue, I'm sure she is of some sort of Korean family that we talked about.
We wanted to plug the donut king once again.
That movie I watched most of the first half.
Yes. Last night we're kind of prepping for this episode.
Cambodian refugee Ted, Ted Goy and Nagoy came over, went through the Winchills.
Yes. Donut program and they taught him basically how to franchise the donut shop.
And he created an empire.
Created an empire. And so immigrants creating empires with donuts is one of those cool things.
And so Sue and her family have been in Weatherford for, I think, 10 years since it's about switched.
And like I said, we've been there pretty much every Sunday since then.
So let's dive right in, Mr. Gray.
We're not going to lady in the tramp share things with you.
We've got your own. So we usually start with a glazed donut.
So you're free. Feel free to reach in there and grab whichever glaze you'd like to go to grab.
I didn't want to say these look amazing.
And they smell great when you pop that box open.
And we do have our traditional three standard donuts.
We're going to have that baseline. You go for it. I'll talk.
You guys can munch and I'll talk.
We have that standard baseline glazed donut that we always start off with.
We have the classic strawberry with long Jimmy's Homer Simpson looking donut.
And then we'll follow it up with the blueberry old fashioned donut.
And so these two gentlemen are just giving it a quick taste and Parker, take it away.
That is a delicious, delicious glazed donut.
It's super light and fluffy. The perfect amount of glaze.
It's like sticky, but not overly sticky, not overly sweet.
We bite into it, spring's right back.
That is a solid donut or not.
Well, I agree. I agree.
Yeah. So, Mr. Gray, did you go up going to church?
Yes, sir, I did.
Yeah, most people around here do. And that's why I assume that.
Did you guys get donuts at church from time to time?
Absolutely. It was a staple.
So does this remind you of church donuts?
Yeah, I think that's why I like to do so much is that I personally no longer go to church or have any involvement with church.
But every Sunday we get donuts.
And so it kind of hits me a little bit.
You know what I mean? It just like it's just very nostalgic, especially if you grew up going to church.
One of the good things about it is you kind of knew that, you know, your Sunday school teacher or kind older person will probably bring a dozen donuts in.
And so this reminds me of that.
Parker, what do you think?
You said there was good spring back there.
Good sweetness.
Absolutely.
This is also something we haven't talked about before.
But there's like a little ring around the center of the donut that's a little bit lighter than the other sides.
And that means it was proof, right? It was fried perfectly.
It wasn't fried too long or too little.
And these had that perfect little ring around the outside.
I'm glad that you guys are enjoying Suze. That makes my heart happy.
I haven't told her that we're doing a podcast on her yet.
I kind of am scared.
Miss Suze is not somebody you play with, you know, she's just she makes sure you get what you want.
But get on out of there as soon as you're done.
But she's always been so kind to my kids.
They if you go in there during Halloween, she'll have a basket of candy.
You know, if you go in there during Valentine, she'll have a little Valentine's.
And so I was saying in the previous episode, if you guys want to dive right in, we'll go Homer next.
Mr. Gray, if you want to grab yours.
That's a good donut, man.
I go to the same places. I'm real boring, I guess, when it comes to certain certain kinds of food.
So Donna's Donuts is the place where my family traditionally gets donuts from.
That's a good donut, man. We may have to start checking out.
Yeah, check out Suze from time to time.
So her aprons.
She has the cutest like handmade like vintage aprons.
So if you ever go in there or if you even if you drive through, she's got a step that she steps up on when you drive through.
And so she she always has her apron on and usually it has like a cute bunny or a cute like a character.
It's in sometimes, you know, like I said, during holiday, she'll have like a holiday apron and stuff.
She's got a cute little bowl cut.
She's going all in.
Yeah. And I love her so much. And we love her donut so much.
She's got a huge case of drinks in there.
If you need drinks, she makes traditional collages even though, you know,
people around here call the Klobala nesks the the verse your collages and vice versa.
But if you go into her shop, because her donut shop is actually called Suze donut and collages on the top shelf,
she's got actual fruit collages with the crumble and like she does it right.
And she also has the Klobala nesks and the sausage rolls and that sort of thing too.
So that's impressive.
Yeah. So I'm going to take a bite of this.
You don't have to eat it all, Mr. Grand from.
I'm probably going to eat it all. This is pretty good, man. I definitely have eaten all of my haves so far this morning.
Normally, I don't eat all of the donuts, but these are excellent.
Strawberry. It is again, not overly strawberry flavored.
I think we've kind of established that strawberry donuts are not.
They're going to taste pink. They're not going to taste like strawberry unless unless you're getting a dream boat donut that has strawberries in it.
But yeah, it again, the donut itself is so good.
The frosting, the strawberry frosting while it doesn't taste like strawberry, it tastes like pink.
It is not overly sweet.
Yeah, I think I think our brain is filling in that pink flavor because I swear I think it's just been a lot icing.
Yeah, but it's delicious.
The sprinkle ratio on there is great.
Yeah, jam packed on there. There's no doubt about it.
Yeah, apologies for chewing on my maniac. I'm very sorry.
Munch on. I do have to admit, eating these sprinkled donuts, I was thinking about what you said on the last podcast.
I think these were made from beetle.
Yeah, probably have shellac shellac.
So we're eating beetle done.
Yeah, no, it's actually ground up.
Oh, it's what gives it that shine.
I remember the first time I actually found out about that was junior mints have that in there because I was like, oh, wow, junior mints are vegan.
There's no milk in these.
And someone was like, oh, no, it's it's not the milk.
It's the Beatles.
It's the dead Beatles.
Yeah, I was like, oh, that's weird that it's, you know, whatever year it was and they're using ground up Beatles.
Hilarious.
So final donut.
Again, you don't have to finish all of these, Mr. Gray.
This is not a challenge.
It's more just a taste and a lady in the trumpet or yeah, of course, I just wanted to get out of the box of that.
We'd have more space box every week.
Every week blueberry cake donut blueberry cake donut or blueberry opiation.
This looks great.
Also, remember, I said stamp on the box.
Love the stamp.
Doing it right.
Stamp on the box.
So, thank you to all of you who have donated and Colacci 1012 South Main Street, whether for Texas 76087.
Do not call this number, but if you do need to place an order 8177764778.
So thank you, Sue.
Thank you.
Sue's family, her daughters help her run that shop.
I've seen grandkids in there doing homework and helping run the shop.
And I've seen just the great way that her family has touched the community of Wetherford.
When I go into the shop, I see somebody else that I know from the community.
So that's how you kind of know that they're doing it right.
Anyway, thank you, Sue.
Thank you, Sue's family for the donuts.
Would you guys think of this blueberry old fashioned?
Yeah, blueberry donut is great.
You can tell it's got real blueberries and it's got the blueberry flavor really, really solid in there.
That is again, every donut has been great.
That's really light and fluffy.
A lot of times cake donuts can be heavy.
That's a good donut.
The blueberry is not overpowering.
Yeah, I agree.
The first time I saw their donuts, I was like, these are going to be some hefty donuts, but they're all very light.
Yeah, very, very light.
I could definitely put away six by myself, I think, if I was by myself and not full of shame.
By myself using performance enhancing drugs.
I got it.
So our grading scale is a little bit different.
We go from zero to six donut holes.
We've got four categories that we go to.
Let's start with sweetness from zero to six.
Six being the perfect ratio and zero being overtly sweet, disgustingly sweet or not, not sweet at all.
So Parker, let's hear your review on Sue's donuts.
And please don't be biased because that's my family's play.
No, this is solid.
I, oh, man, five and a half, like five point five, like across the board, like that is the board sweetness.
I mean, oh, just every, every category.
Oh, wow.
These are incredible donuts.
Ladies and gentlemen, first time ever, we had Parker giving it a five point five across the board presentation, sweetness, spring back, just in general.
Yeah, that is a great high praise.
You might have to come out to Weatherford and try some fresh.
Yeah, no, I will definitely make the drive.
Mr. Gray, do you have a rating from zero to six donut holes?
Excuse me.
I'd say, I'd say five.
Five solid five.
Yeah, that's those are good donuts.
Excellent. Excellent.
I'm not going to vote because I'm biased.
They're my family shop.
But Miss Sue, you know what?
You know what grade you got?
Six.
But now that you've given her phone number out on the podcast, she has to watch out for Muncho Man.
Muncho Man might give her holler and I apologize.
Muncho Man, please don't do that.
Call us instead.
We have a Google voice line.
You can fill it up with voice mails.
We've missed Sue alone, please.
Mr. Gray, you said Donna's donuts out in Weatherford is your go to shop.
Yeah, Donna's Donna's is a it for a long time.
It's been our go to.
They've kind of changed management.
So the doughnuts are quite the same.
They're still pretty good, but they aren't.
They aren't what they used to be.
Do you guys get like just glazed or do you get like the assorted or do you guys get whatever you want?
So it varies. I got a big family.
I know you do.
Usually you have to be like, all right, we're just going to get like two dozen glaze and make everybody semi happy.
But we kind of get, you know, we'll get a we'll get a dozen glazed and chocolate and then probably get another dozen of assorted donuts.
Some of my kiddos like twist.
Some of them like, you know, some of the assorted flavors.
And so we'll mix it up a little bit.
What's your very much a traditional chocolate doughnuts and glazed on us.
That's usually my go to.
Go to. Yeah.
If nobody was watching and you could go to a Dunkin donut and pick one donut right off the shelf yourself.
Would you just still get the glaze and chocolate or would you go crazy?
Yeah, I'd probably get get chocolate.
That's good. Yeah.
baseline.
I'm boring, man, when it comes to comes to stuff like that.
That's fine. You know what you like.
Exactly.
If you're glazed, you can't go wrong with that.
You can't go wrong.
I think we just established that if the glaze is bad, why would you try anything else?
Exactly.
It's like going to a good restaurant and like kind of getting a starter and if the starter is bad, you're just like, okay, well, yeah, I guess we're in for it.
I mean, it's like going to Waffle House and getting a bad waffle.
Right.
If you go to a donut shop and you get a bad glazed donut, it's like, no, no, no hope for the rest of. Yeah.
So let's thank you, Sue.
We're going to move on from the donut review.
I think next week we're going to have to take a break from donuts next week.
We've kind of donated out.
So we might have to do something.
We've had pancakes.
We've had donuts.
We might have to go breakfast tacos or something like that because, you know, just the sweetness.
I'd like to get the savory side as well.
So savory guys.
Maybe I'll just make us some recmasacas next episode.
Yeah.
Final words for Sue's.
Thank you, Sue.
Anybody have anything to say for her?
No.
Okay.
Sue, we will be trying Sue's out.
Yeah.
Try her out.
So Mr. Gray, we're going to kind of lightning round it here.
So we've never had a guest before.
So if you've been listening, we just kind of, this is our first time.
So we're kind of winging it, but we did have a, we talked about it previously.
Before hanging in, we've kind of got a list of questions that we'd like to ask every single guest.
And then, you know, after a hundred episodes, we'll have like a hundred different answers to these questions.
And we can kind of like super cut everybody's answers and maybe, you know, make a big list about, you know, the most.
So no pressure here.
No pressure, man.
So also most people that do interviews or that sort of thing, they usually throw the lightning round at the end.
Most game shows, most interviews, and we kind of wanted to do that off rip just to kind of get kind of into Mr.
Gray's head.
What he thinks, what he likes, what he doesn't like, where he's coming from.
And then we'll kind of get into his story a little bit later.
So since, since we're doing kind of lightning or anyone to go back and forth.
Okay.
I thought that would be fun.
And again, no pressure, Mr. Gray.
It's not a big deal.
Go ahead, Parker.
You can go first.
All right.
What did you have for breakfast today?
A donut.
Easy.
We're starting out easy.
What is your typical day to day breakfast routine?
Absolutely eat eggs.
If that's going to be a staple, it could be bacon eggs, it could be turkey ham, but definitely, definitely eggs and some fresh fruit.
Eggs.
What's your favorite way to eat an egg?
Scrambled.
Scrambled?
Scrambled.
I like us.
What's it?
Hard fried?
Over hard?
That's my favorite.
I like the little crispy skin.
That's my wife.
Oh, we.
I'm an over medium game.
Yeah.
You like a little run, a little run.
I like to get some hash browns and then put that over medium egg on there.
We just got chickens and ducks and I can't wait to have fresh yard eggs.
Oh yeah.
It's going to be a while because they're still babies.
I get some fresh eggs from my neighbor.
So yeah, they're all fresh.
That's the best.
It is the best.
All right.
What is your favorite all time breakfast cereal?
Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Hell yes.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Yes.
We are all in agreement here.
Classic.
S tier cereal.
You wouldn't believe it.
Yes.
That's my favorite as well.
If you were building the perfect breakfast sandwich, like if you could pick whatever
type of bread meets whatever you said, obviously eggs got to be on there.
Eggs got to be on it.
What kind of bread you picking on this breakfast?
You're going to go bagel, sourdough, just sourdough.
Sourdough bread.
With a little egg.
Again, the meat, it's got to have some meat.
It can vary, you know, but I do like ham or turkey bacon, regular bacon sausage.
It doesn't matter what kind of meat.
Just some meat.
What kind of sauce you put on there?
Probably plain, man.
You don't do a lot of sauce.
So yeah.
A little salt pepper.
I like to taste, you know, what's in the sandwich.
Not overpowered with the sauce.
I didn't know if you would go crazy and put like some jelly on it or something like that.
You know what?
Maybe a thin little bit, thin layer of jelly.
I'm going to put something on it.
Probably grape jelly.
Oh, I'm a grape jelly guy myself.
Yeah.
And everyone in my house is a strawberry jelly person.
Same.
I love grape jelly.
Exactly the same.
We never have it in the house because I'm the only one who eats it.
Everybody is like strawberry.
Yeah.
But oh, anytime there's like a packet of grape jelly, like waffle house or something.
It's like, that's mine.
Yeah.
I remember maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago when Facebook was like less, you know, less
the way that it is now.
But it was more like, you know, it was more like a Renee is and it had like, you know,
Renee is thinking this is like the worst way to interact.
But I just remember one time it was like Renee wants and I was like one loaf of white bread,
one jar of Jeff peanut butter, one jar of grape jelly.
And that's it.
That's all I wanted.
I just wanted like several peanut butter and jelly scene, which with the creamy Jeff
and the grape jelly, like just the perfect sandwich.
I like the great jelly with some, some biscuits and butter.
Oh, yes.
Great.
Okay.
So perfect breakfast sandwich for Mr. Gray.
He's going to have sourdough bread with scrambled eggs and probably some meat of some sort.
Maybe a thin little layer of grape jelly.
That sounds like a good sandwich.
I take that.
We put that on the menu.
The, the, the truck when we started food truck.
Yeah.
Be the Mr. Gray sandwiches.
Mr. Gray playing just a little simple.
Yeah.
All right.
What is your breakfast guilty pleasure?
Oh, cinnamon rolls.
Oh, cinnamon rolls, cinnamon rolls.
Yeah.
I have a special place.
Anywhere.
I like, uh, gosh, I try them from anywhere.
If you've got a cinnamon roll, I've tried it.
The one in Lake Worth.
What is it?
I don't know.
I haven't been sweet Georgia Brown.
I think I know.
They have a sweet Georgia Browns and there's something like that.
I'm going to look it up for you.
Please do.
I will travel for cinnamon roll.
Have you ever had a Sino-Hollux cinnamon roll?
I haven't.
They, uh, they don't advertise it, but they're all vegan and it's some of the best cinnamon
rolls out there.
Where could I get one?
The one, there used to be one on West seven, but it shut down.
Okay.
Um, I know there's one in Arlington.
There's one in Mansfield.
Um, they got, I think they were on Shark Tank like years and years ago.
And like, I'm funding from them maybe, but they do cinnamon roll cakes.
I have seen one of those.
I haven't had like, you can do it with fruit.
You can do it with like cookie toppings, like all kinds of, yeah.
Sino-Hollux is awesome.
Ginger Browns, not sweet ginger Browns.
Okay.
And they have a, I mean, just right off the rip order cinnamon rolls here is the first
thing you see there.
That lets me know that cinnamon rolls are good.
If that's the first thing on the website and they have that real thin glaze and it's warm
whenever you get it.
There's nothing like a warm cinnamon roll.
Yes, sir.
My son makes, uh, my son makes, so he's, he's kind of following in my mom's footsteps.
He wants to go to school for culinary arts.
And so, um, he gets up in the morning and every now and then he makes these cinnamon
rolls with a, uh, with an apple, apple.
I don't know what you call it, but pure a, some like that.
Man, that's, that's a good cinnamon roll.
So that's something that's good.
It's good.
Um, let's see here, what is your, if you're on the road trip and you get to pick what's
your favorite fast food breakfast where you stop it?
Number five at McDonald's.
It's a, uh, the McGriddle.
I already know.
You ain't got to tell me what it is.
I already know what number five is.
Yes, sir.
Cold marches are, uh, the dream road trip stop.
Man.
Yeah.
So we used to drive my, my folks and I used to drive, uh, to El Paso and I mean, back
in the eighties and nineties, there was literally nothing between here in El Paso.
We'd stop once or twice.
And I always knew we were getting closer to El Paso because in Fort Stockton, there was
only a gas station in a McDonald's and it never failed.
We stopped at the gas station, get gas, we stopped at the McDonald's and usually we
would leave like pre dawn because my dad liked to drive.
You know, we'd leave three or four in the morning.
So by the time we get to Fort Stockton, it's like, you know, just at 10 30 11 right there
at the breakfast time.
Right.
We're going to cut off.
Yeah.
Right.
So I knew like that road trips for me.
I knew like Fort Stockton McDonald's breakfast.
It's on.
We're almost to El Paso.
Then we'll have dinner with grandma later.
Hmm.
Favorite breakfast restaurant.
So talking like I hop waffle house or like if you've got a local mom and pop spot that
you prefer.
If you want to drop game on.
Let me think.
There's a restaurant in in Weatherford.
I don't know.
It may be franchise.
It may be, but a sunny street cafe.
I had never been there before.
It's been there for a few years and I finally went in there.
They have the best pancakes.
I think I've ever had street on main right across from Walgreens.
Is it what Walgreens?
Yeah.
In the same shopping area with what's the Mexican restaurant right there?
Real mom.
Yeah.
That sunny man.
Those pancakes are huge.
I know.
I told her I wanted a full stack.
She was like, are you sure?
I'd never been there.
You know.
And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna eat them all.
Man, those pancakes were about this big.
The stack was about that big.
I didn't finish.
I ate about two of them and had to take the other ones home.
Really, really good.
They even have pancakes made from cream of wheat.
A healthy version and those are good.
A cream of wheat pancake.
Cream of wheat pancake.
That's interesting.
It really is.
I couldn't tell you the last time I had some cream of wheat.
I love some cream of wheat.
We keep cream of wheat in the house.
Yes, sir.
We do, too.
We're a breakfast food family.
We have oatmeal, grits, and cream of wheat all the time.
Yes, sir.
I've been slipping.
I forgot about cream of wheat, bro.
No, man, we love some cream of wheat.
We keep cream of wheat in the house.
The way Heather makes it, she puts butter and brown sugar in it.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
You've already alluded to this, but I think I know the answer, but I think this is a good
question.
Is turkey bacon trash or delicious?
I like turkey bacon.
Yes, I like turkey bacon.
So, yes, it's good.
I like it.
Yes.
My kiddos don't care for it too much.
Some people just hate it.
They hate on it for it not being quote unquote real bacon, but Parker doesn't like it.
Parker don't like turkey bacon.
I should have known about it.
I'm also eating a lot of fake bacon.
He's had his fill.
That is also one of my questions.
One of the first questions I had was, is turkey bacon trash or delicious?
I like it.
I like turkey bacon.
I've had some that I don't hate.
I've had some that is whatever.
I guess it depends on which kind you get.
How you cook it too?
Yeah.
Not in the microwave.
Is oatmeal peasant food?
I have a friend who has a theory that oatmeal is peasant food and I eat oatmeal almost every
day.
So, oatmeal is the breakfast of champions nutrition wise.
You've heard it here first.
But it's probably a peasant food.
It's so delicious.
You know what's funny?
I don't want to ruin your appetite for oatmeal.
I wouldn't eat it for years.
For years I'd take cream of wheat over oatmeal and it's because of what it looked like to
me.
You like the bowl of the boogers.
I never would eat it.
And I actually started eating it until about five years ago.
Yeah.
But I love it now.
I'm also a texture guy.
If it's slimy, I'm just like, I can't do it.
I'm a big texture guy too.
I can't do it.
I usually don't put enough water in when I'm cooking it and then I add more later.
So, I can get it just to the right texture.
I get that.
This is a good one for us around our age.
This might not work for anybody about 10 years younger than us, but do you have a favorite
John Claude Van Damme movie?
If you don't.
Blossboard.
Yeah.
Yo, I...
Blossboard.
Heather and I watched this show on Amazon Prime last week called John Claude Van Johnson,
starring John Claude Van Damme, where he plays himself, but he's a secret agent named
John Claude Van Johnson.
It's very meta, very funny, lots of good action.
John Claude Van Johnson.
So yeah, if you're looking for a good JCVD fix.
Check it out.
Yeah.
Amazon Prime, it's awesome.
Blossboard.
I love that movie.
That's a movie I saw way too early in my life.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
The montage.
I was like, snap, did he just really do that?
But I'd have to say, Blossboard and Kickbox are probably...
Yeah.
They're probably 1A, 1B.
Yeah.
I'm the same way.
I love them both.
Yeah.
All right.
What is your worst injury due to a fight, whether a training, regulated fight or a street
fight?
Probably just stitches, gashes.
Y'all can probably see my eyes all gashed up.
I had about a two inch gas.
Big enough I could stick my finger and it took about nine stitches to close it up.
I took an elbow in an MMA fight.
I actually had the guy mounted and he elbowed me from the bottom and gashed me wide open.
So as far as aesthetics, the way that looked, that's probably the worst looking one.
But as far as pain, man, I fought for a title MMA in Oklahoma in 2014.
I took four leg kicks.
Four.
And my leg hurt worst than anything I've ever felt in my life.
I couldn't walk the next day.
So as far as pain wise, those leg kicks, I've never felt anything like that.
I think that's the thing I'm most scared of.
Somebody who knows how to kick kick.
It's legit.
I think I heard Joe Rogan say something like, just let John Jones kick you to the leg one
time and you're just done.
No, you just honest to God, it doesn't take very many, you know, I was rewatching Connor
and Nate DS2.
And that was the whole game plan for Connor was to just obliterate his lead leg.
So that way he could he could just not punch.
So those I could just imagine how, like you're saying, you just take four and you're just
done.
My leg felt like the muscle was going to burst out of the skin.
It was so tight.
So yeah, yeah, leg kicks.
No, sir.
Did you have like your favorite finishing move whenever you're fighting?
Like, did you have enough fights to where you could like develop a like your favorite
way to finish a fight?
Or did you have like enough fights to be like, I really like knocking people out.
I like knocking people out.
So my soft box longer than I've done MMA.
Right.
I actually have more MMA pro MMA fights though.
So it's kind of kind of odd, but I'm traditionally a boxer.
So I like finishing things on my feet with my hands.
So perfect.
Perfect.
What is your favorite fighting arcade game?
Street Fighter.
Which first one to two?
I think that was Super Nintendo, right?
Yeah.
Super Street Fighter.
Let me get, was it Balrog?
Yeah.
Balrog or Orchid or, man, when I was in college, we used to just sit in the lobby and have
tournaments all day long playing Street Fighter.
Street Fighter is amazing.
Yeah, that's probably it for me.
I have, I still play a few video games, but the one that I play religiously is Fortnite
and a couple of years ago, they released skins that you could buy that were Street Fighter
skins.
And so now I can play Fortnite as Ryu or Chun-Li.
Let's go that.
And what's funny is, you know Chun-Li, how she's dressed and she's thick.
There's a couple of emotes that are disabled that she's not allowed to do because of how
she's dressed and how thick she is.
That's funny.
So shout out Street Fighter.
I'm a savage.
She can't do that one because it's like, dude.
I don't understand.
You can have me in the room with my son later on like, hey, put that Fortnite game on.
Let me see what's on there.
Were you into professional wrestling?
Absolutely.
If you were, who was your favorite wrestler era or event if you have any of those?
The 80s, the Von Erick's, Junkyard Dog.
So my fight name is the Junkyard Dog.
JYD and Iceman King Parsons.
Those were my all time, Carrie Von Erick of the Von Erick's was my favorite Von Erick
and the claw was.
Have you seen the movie?
I just I watched pieces of it a couple of nights ago.
I kind of fell asleep during the but I just haven't watched it.
It was pretty good.
I've been waiting to hear from someone that I've known that seen him the movies.
That's kind of how I watch movies as I ask people.
Like, did you like is it worth watching?
I watched it a couple of weeks ago.
You saw it.
Yeah.
I sat down and watched the whole thing a few weeks ago and it was really good.
Very sad.
I mean, you cry.
I didn't cry.
I teared up a couple of times.
I'm going to cry.
Yeah.
I already know that I knew I was going to cry from the trailer.
I was like, there's no way.
I can watch this movie.
You'll definitely cry.
And I mean, knowing the story, knowing the area where everything took place, like it
hits a little bit harder.
Yeah.
So you know, it's tragic, but some of the stuff you I didn't realize how how many issues
they really had.
And you know, as a family unit, you know, so and yeah, it is.
Yeah.
What's crazy is I think they leave an entire brother out of the movie.
Yeah.
Like they don't even touch on everything that like went down.
Like he was just the black sheep and they were like, yeah.
Like maybe even two brothers.
I think there's one or two brothers that they also didn't wrestle.
So yeah, I know one of them.
I didn't realize the younger ones.
They were on a diet.
They had a brother.
They really were cursed.
Is this like it was.
It's a very sad story and there's only one living Von Erich.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
Rest in peace.
Von Erich families that have passed away.
Go ahead.
Let's see thoughts on trash talking while fighting.
Are there any rules when it comes to that sportsmanship respect?
So I do think that there's a line that shouldn't be crossed, you know, anytime you involve
family members or someone's religion or I think that that goes a little bit too far
when it's just trash talk about your opponent's abilities.
You know, I think that that's a that's fair game.
Just leave families and religion and politics that that sort of thing out of it.
It doesn't have any place in my opinion.
I think we we talked about this.
We were talking about this on the back of a few fights that were kind of very disrespectful
to people's families in general.
And we were kind of we were also talking about like Ryan Garcia and like exposing Nita Agdahl
on Twitter and that sort of thing as far as like that's kind of where that question came
from.
And I'm glad you you said that because I have a theory on that and it's most people without
kids feel that there are no rules and most people that have kids because they have kids
that's kind of changed their minds whether or not, you know, and so we have families
and so we know like leave the family out of it.
Otherwise, this is a different thing.
This is this past competition.
This moves to, you know, you're threatening my family now and that's a not a no go.
Now that you mentioned that now it now it seems like it's it's a so the point of trash
talk is to get somebody out of their game.
But what is what's the best way to get somebody out of their game?
You know, other than talking about their family or the other.
Yeah.
I never really even thought about it like that.
So it's very intentional, you know, I think that they go there with a Connor.
The whole deal with Connor McGregor and could be that kind of that kind of set the tone
in my opinion.
You see a lot more of it now.
And I think that that fight when he, you know, talked about his religion, Islam and I think
that kind of set the tone now.
You hear a lot more Sean Strickland.
He, you know, you see these fighters delve and more into that side of it now.
And I think that that's that's a little disrespectful.
Yeah.
But I think it's it's for you.
You know, they think that they're getting into their opponents head.
My favorite part of what you're talking about is the Connor, the Connor and Habib and when
Habib is just on top of them and he's just saying, let's talk now.
Yeah.
You don't have much to say now.
Yeah.
Let's talk now.
That's my favorite.
And you could clearly hear him on the broadcast saying that.
And then Joe Rogan was like, he's talking trash.
Yeah.
Let's talk now.
That's the kind of trash talk I like.
Yeah.
He didn't say one word about Clonix family or anything.
He just, yeah, I think if you're good at it, you're great at it.
Like Shale Sonnen is the best.
Never lost trash.
Yeah.
And then he's one of those ones where like, yeah, he said like Brazil is dirty, but he'd
you know, like he kind of like nationalized that a little bit, but like he was never super
disrespectful.
He's never like calling out people's family and their moms and this and that.
And he also never really cusses or curses at all.
That's impressive.
Yeah.
He's very clever with it.
You know what I mean?
And so.
All right.
So we have two or three more and then we'll get into your personal history.
Did you watch or do you have a favorite movie show or anime?
Hmm.
Training montage.
I'm sorry.
I missed the last part.
Training montage.
So like if you had a movie, like whether it was like Rocky when they're in the snow and
he's about to fight Drago or if you watch any anime and you know, you have like, we've
got a few in mind, but we're hoping to hear from other people.
Or like with Mark.
Obviously that's classic.
I just saw.
So my boys are big on anime.
I'm not, I don't know the names, you know, as much as they do.
I kind of watch it in Glancing or something, you know, they'll have, hey, dad, come watch
this.
But I just saw, they just showed me one.
I don't know what it was.
It was Dragon Ball Z.
Yeah.
So, is it not Vegeta, but he trains in the hyperbolic time chamber.
Yeah.
So they, they've shown me that.
And then I saw another one the other day.
It was a, it was boxing.
It was a.
Was it Bakki?
I'm not sure.
I'm going to have to ask them.
Was it a girl?
Is it a.
I haven't watched a lot of Bakki, but it's really popular and it's like a fighting anime.
Yeah.
Man.
And she, that, that kind of got me hyped.
I mean, maybe one.
There's no, there's some like, I am, I grew up watching like Dragon Ball Z and like Gundam
and the Toonami stuff, but my son also has gotten really into anime.
So he'll show me cool stuff.
This happened.
Yeah.
And Bakki is one that I've kind of gotten into.
Like I'm going to have to check it out.
It's on Netflix.
And yeah, it's just a fighting anime.
Like the whole point of it is there's like different like boxing fighting.
I bet this is it.
I bet that's it because it's, it's something fairly new.
It's something I haven't seen them watch very much and it was legit.
Like it was, it's hard for me to watch movies or shows that involve fighting because it's
so over dramatic and it's so, you know, dude can take 900 punches to the face and come
back and win, you know, but this anime was legit.
The training that they did, you know, it really caught my attention and it was, it was pretty
neat.
A little montage.
So I love that.
Cool.
So you said you've had some professional fights.
Do you have walk on songs?
Oh yeah.
What's what what's your like favorite walk on my favorite one is motivation by TI.
I've walked in probably more than more than any other song.
Do you have a favorite fighter who has a like your favorite walk out?
Who has your favorite walk out song do you think?
You know, it's not necessarily the song, I think it's a combination of both just his
aura, the song.
When you when you heard the B drop, you knew it was him and that's Anderson Silva and DMX
is a no sunshine.
You just knew it was, I don't know.
I heard the song a thousand times prior to him walking out to it, but it's kind of like
the Undertaker.
The bell really is, you know, it's him, you know what he's bringing.
And so that's kind of what we're talking about in this question and like Dustin Poirier,
you know, James around the man, you know, he switched it up.
I like it.
I like how he came out of this song.
Yeah.
I mean, just like there are some fighters that you hear their songs and it's just like,
yeah, you know, here we go.
Yeah.
It's giving me chills now.
I even think cool walk up songs in baseball are very effective as well.
We're big Philadelphia Phillies fan and if they're at home and Stott's about to come
up that everybody in the park is singing like living in a beautiful world.
And it's just kind of a nerve to pitchers to hear like 20,000 people sing the same thing
at the same time, no matter how happy it is, it's still pretty probably intimidating.
Well, that has been the lightning round your first official lightning round for breakfast
of champions.
I feel like it wasn't very lightning II, but you know, we'll get better at it.
So we wanted to get more in depth in here kind of for Mr. Gray's life and we're here
in Fort Worth normally, but he is and I am residents of Weatherford, Texas, which is
about 25 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
So if you're unfamiliar with Weatherford, we're out past, you know, just head west
like your head towards Abilene.
You're going to hit, you know, go past White Selma, go past Alito, go past Willow Park,
Hudson Oaks, and then you're right there in Weatherford.
So there's a lot of little towns between us and Weatherford.
But my first ever interaction from Weatherford, I was just telling my kids this because Allie
likes to take the kids on a drive sometimes and we got cones from Brahms, you know, the
little twist cones that are like a buck or whatever, and we're taking a drive down Maine
and then we just pulled off and we're taking a little around about the football field.
They have the high school football fields on Main Street at the ninth grade center.
And I told one of my kids, I was like, yeah, I used to come out here and play football.
And Allie was like in high school.
I was like, yeah, we played in high school.
And she was like, I didn't know that.
I was like, so I played on that field in high school and my daughter was the Bluebell captain.
And so like kind of full circle, I danced on that field with her during half time for
Bo Bell for four years on the road.
So like in high school, I was playing on that field and now we live in that town.
And so my first interaction with Weatherford was on a high school bus going down past in
the old Walmart and then turn in a right and playing football at that field and then get
right back on the highway.
And Main Street was really all that I had from there.
So tell us about how your family's kind of been in Weatherford for several generations.
Is that right?
Yes, sir.
Five generations.
My mother's side of the family.
Yeah.
So that's amazing.
Most people don't have that lineage around here.
Don't, you know, don't have five generations.
There's a lot of moving, but particularly in Weatherford, I don't know very many families
that have five generations that have stayed in Weatherford.
You hear of them, but a lot of their families have kind of come and gone.
And so I think it's very cool that you can say that your family has been in Weatherford
for that long.
Have you lived in Weatherford your entire life?
Majority of my life, but I did move away.
So my dad's side of the family, originally from Alabama, but they are relocated to the
East Coast, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.
I was actually born in Connecticut.
So I've lived on the East Coast a little bit.
When I went off to college, I left a little bit, but ended up coming home.
So the majority of my life, I've lived in Weatherford.
Okay.
Did you serve in the military, though?
I didn't.
I am one of two men in my family that didn't serve.
I'm the same way.
Most of my family served.
And so typically folks that are in combat sports or folks that are interested in that
sort of thing after sort of like the 20s and 30s are men that have served.
And so I didn't want to disrespect your service and mention that if you had served.
So how did you kind of get into combat sports?
I didn't get into it to fight it all, believe it or not.
I was headed off to go play football in college and I'd been working out all summer.
And a friend of mine was going to a local boxing gym there in Weatherford and he asked
me if I wanted to come and try it out.
And so I was kind of using it like a supplement to, you know, lifting weights and running
and thought it'd be good for hand-eye coordination, you know, footwork, that kind of thing.
And so I did it all summer.
This is Jared Kemp, the Kemp family out by Weatherford Lake.
He had a gym out there.
Had been there since 88.
I'd never heard of it.
I'd wanted to box my whole life.
But at that time, most of the gyms were here in Fort Worth and my dad, he wasn't driving
me to Fort Worth to box.
If he was going to drive me anywhere, it was the work, you know.
So I didn't get that.
I have to drive you somewhere and pay for it?
Right.
Yeah, if you're going to work and you can pay for it, that's another thing.
But I did that for the summer.
And right before I left, my coach, Coach Jared Kemp, asked me to take a fight, you know.
Like you've been working hard all summer.
Might as well try it out and see, you know, see what you think about it.
And I fought and that was it.
I fought through college and when I was done with football, I started fighting full time.
So the intention was never to fight.
It's just kind of funny how it took.
Supplemental to your other sports.
So what were the sports that you loved growing up playing?
Oh, man, I played everything.
I come from a really athletic family.
Baseball, baseball was the sport.
My father wouldn't even let me play anything else other than baseball.
He passed away and then I kind of got my opportunity to play football and found out
I was good at it.
Basketball, baseball, anything with a ball.
Yeah.
We were outside.
We were outside kids, you know, in the yard.
Playing with a ball.
So you didn't take any karate or taekwondo or anything?
So I did take my so my brother was a taekwondo instructor when I was about 12.
Oh, OK.
And so right off of Northman Lou Lou Anger Lou Anger, I think was his name.
I think so.
That sounds familiar.
And my brother was taught one of the classes there.
So because I was his brother, I got to take it for free.
Sure.
So I wasn't there long though.
I maybe about four months, but I did pick up a lot of the basics.
Yeah.
That I ended up using later on in MMA.
So it's funny how everything kind of lays it out, you know, pays the role for what
you do later on.
So I did have a little bit of a background.
So you took a little taekwondo but love sports just where athletic in general and then kind
of got bit by the bug whenever you had your first fight.
Yep.
Like, hey, let's try it.
I tried it and it was that was a wrap.
Did you have siblings growing up?
I'm only told.
Same.
Yeah.
So you mentioned you have siblings.
I mean, you don't have to give too much personal information, but you have brothers and sisters
or two brothers and a sister.
I've got an older brother.
I was the middle child.
My mom had my, I call him my little brother, but he's a giant.
But she had him at 40, you know, he there was a big age gap between us and him.
And so it's me.
It's my brother, oldest brother, me, my sister, and then my younger brother, Walter.
The junior, older brother kind of tussle a lot all the time.
Yeah.
I tell a story.
So we were always having to, you know, have to have the house clean, especially during
the summer before my mom got on from work.
So it was always some back and forth.
He watched the dishes.
No, you watched it.
I watched him last time.
We got into it in the kitchen one day and he side kicked me and I thought he broke every
rib in my body.
Every rib.
I don't think I've ever been kicked at all in my life.
And so that's kind of what got me taking Taekwondo.
Yeah.
I think we have to have a sibling violence episode because...
We'll have to get Heather on because she's like one of eight.
Ali's got some good stories about her and her sister and almost everybody that I know
that has a close, close and age sibling.
There's like some good fight stories there.
They stopped us from sparring in Taekwondo because it would go from technical sparring
into brawling.
Like, you got me in trouble.
You didn't watch the dishes.
So yeah, y'all can't spar with each other anymore.
Y'all got to spar with several, you know, different people.
So going up in Wutherford, we kind of talked a little bit about this previously, but previously
to recording, but your family just kind of get into it just straight up.
But your family's one of the fewer black families that were in Wutherford at the time.
And so I'd imagine that that kind of created a little bit of tension for your family, like
going to school and getting, you know, certain things going and that sort of thing.
So I did want to touch on that, were you ever affected by some of the racism that goes on
in Wutherford?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It was, you know, being, you know, minority in Wutherford.
Yeah, you're going to deal with racism.
Yeah.
It was prevalent.
I want to also say, you know, as much as racism as we dealt with, there were other people,
you know, that kind of helped shelter us.
But oh, yeah, it was, it was, it was absolutely.
Yeah, I did want to touch on that because that's something that, you know, like we love
Wutherford and like Soos and Q and like great schools and stuff like that.
But I can just know that that for you and your family is another layer of like a barrier
venturi of just having a good life.
And so there was probably some, sometimes that you probably had to fight just because
of that.
And so, and so we did want to touch on that a little bit.
So growing up, you had siblings, you were playing sports.
You went off to college and you got into combat fighting.
Did you you said you had boxing fights and MMA fights?
Is that right?
So I started out with boxing and I actually started at a late age in boxing.
If you intend to make a career out of it, if you want to be a world champion, you typically
start much younger, eight, some as young as six, 10 years old.
I started at 19 and that's considered, you know, kind of late.
And so I started off boxing first.
I boxed for a little bit, had a few amateur fights.
When I went off to college, they didn't have a boxing gym.
That's this is how I kind of got into MMA.
There was a youth wrestling facility there that I went to talk to to see if they had had
boxing and they didn't.
They had MMA training.
So I took that kind of as a way to kind of keep me in shape for combat sport, you know,
for boxing and kind of keep my boxing sharp.
Of course, boxing isn't everything, but it is a part of MMA.
And so I thought I could kind of keep it, keep it sharp.
Well, kind of the same thing happened.
I trained MMA and then Coach Les Mayo, shout out to Coach Les Mayo.
He's a youth wrestling coach there in Stephenville.
He talked me into taking a fight.
So I didn't I fought as an amateur in boxing.
I didn't I just turned pro at, you know, in MMA and I had a little bit of success.
I won my first three fights and then so I wasn't big on the ground.
I'm decent on the ground, but that wasn't my base.
And so once people started finding out I was pretty adept, you know, on my feet, you know,
they start going to the ground.
Take it.
So I got submitted.
So I've got seven, I'm sorry, eight pro MMA fights.
And I've got three pro boxing matches.
I've boxed for 20 years in a May for 13, but have more MMA fights as a pro.
I had over 30 amateur fights.
So I have more boxing matches, but more as a as a pro in sure.
So on days of fights, did you have good breakfast or were you too nervous to eat?
No, I wanted to ask that to everybody.
I'm really, I'm eating.
I'm look when I get nervous, I'm gonna eat.
If I'm sad, I'm gonna eat.
If I'm happy, I'm gonna eat.
So we always wonder like, what is the day of the fight?
Like, because typically some fighters and the professional ranks and even all the way
down to imagers, they're cutting weight to make weight.
And so they're kind of like replenishing with fluids and that sort of thing.
And so my whole thought is like, take Alex Pereira, for example, he cuts to 205,
everybody walks in at like 230.
And yeah.
And so my whole thing is like, if you're putting on 25 pounds of water weight in a day, do
you have enough room in your tummy to get like a good nourishing meal?
So.
So I never really had to cut a whole lot because I fought it.
I'm short, but I fought in heavy weight.
Super heavy weight as an amateur.
If heavy weight in MMA and I cut down.
This is a difference.
So I never had to cut a whole lot.
When I fought it, like, like heavy weight in MMA, I walked around about two 15 to 20.
So I don't only have to cut 10 pounds.
Yeah.
And that's that's an easy cut.
Yeah.
So I always got to eat what I want.
You know, I didn't have to.
I didn't have to.
I only had to cut one time.
That was a boxing match.
I fought at Cruiserweight and I had to cut down.
That was just below 200.
And so yeah, it's still wasn't a crazy cut.
So I I've gotten to eat.
So I can't.
Now I've been I've had teammates that I fought on the same car with that, you know,
struggled to cut a lot of weight and they couldn't eat, you know, up until way in
and typically weigh in the night before.
Right.
And then they spent most of their time trying to rehydrate like you were saying.
And so you eat light, you know, they would eat light, try to get protein, as much protein
and and and complex carbs as you can the night before.
But if you're if you're having a rehydrated light, it is hard to eat.
Yeah.
For athletes, how big is nutrition?
Like how big is the diet?
It's in my opinion, it's it's 60, 60, 70 percent of it, my opinion.
You know, we're all trained to fight.
So the skills aspect, that's a given.
The nutrition is is everything, particularly if you have to cut weight.
You need you need the proper nutrients, you know, to help fuel you.
And I think so.
And I can speak to this because I used to eat terrible because I didn't have to
cut as much weight and you can actually feel the difference in your body between eating.
You know, if I had a chicken fried steak tonight before, as opposed to, you know,
some whole wheat pasta and some type of.
Carb that that was a little bit healthier.
You can feel the difference in their cooking.
You can feel the difference the next day.
You know, you eat a fried food, you're lethargic, you don't move as quickly.
I even think you're thinking is a little bit slower.
And so nutrition, nutrition is huge.
I have a book that I use now with with my fighters and kind of get some ideas from it.
It's by Chris Algeria.
Chris Algeria was a former world champion boxer.
He's also got a master's in nutrition.
And so he wrote a book, Food for Fighters.
Fighters.
And it kind of it breaks it down and it talks about how important nutrition is.
And so I try to get my fighters to to read that book.
We'll read, you know, different excerpts from it to show them how important nutrition
really is because I think that I know for myself, I came from old school coach,
the old Marine.
All he all day long, man, he eats a piece of toast and drinks coffee.
That's his that's his food.
This dude is 50 years old with eight pack, but it's just genetics, you know, and he's,
he's not big on nutrition.
And so I had to kind of learn that on my own.
And so I try to be big with that with my own fighters, like nutrition matters.
I got to check that book.
I just wrote it down.
Yeah.
Because I again, with a food background, I love learning about nutrition and I like
to use myself as a guinea pig.
So like I'm not a fighter.
We've talked about in past episodes, I have never really fought, but I like to
weightlifting.
Oh, yeah.
And so I can tell when my diet's locked in, I can see the results.
Faster results.
Exactly.
I can feel it.
I recover better.
Yep.
Like everything.
So I'm sure with fighting, it's exact same thing.
Like, oh, hey, I had chicken, rice, broccoli, spinach, and I had more protein.
I had, I didn't have all this stuff.
Or oh, hey, the cheeseburger, like the way your body feels.
It feels absolutely wild.
Inflammation, you know, certain, certain meats can cause inflammation in a joint.
Like it and you can feel it.
You like that book.
That book has got a ton of recipes in it too.
Awesome.
Yeah.
I just Googled it, saved it so I can go back and look at it later.
I love that.
I think that's something that you like, especially like for us that are combat
sports fans, we do get to see a lot of like the fighting and behind the scenes and
the training. You have seen a good job of that in like the embedded.
You get to see it, their meals and the apex and that sort of thing.
Actually, we'd like to get one of their chefs on and see just kind of pick
their brain about that as well.
But just kind of the nutrition part is one of those things that's kind of slept on.
And I think that, you know, you can kind of tell where fighter is kind of by that
aspect of their life, you know, if they're really locked in on their nutrition
and they're making sure that that part of their life is taken care of, then it kind
of bleeds over into everything else in the life.
And you see those guys that are really on it, you know, they've got it down to
the microgram of like everything, you know, all their macros and everything like that.
So one thing that we kind of want to touch on here in this program too is like,
yeah, breakfast food is good, donuts are good and stuff like that.
But also, like you said, taking care of your body is, you know, you can feel the
difference, you can see the difference in your results.
And so nutrition, particularly for people of color, is hard.
Hard to talk about, you know.
And so again, you know, we don't really, you know, my family, whenever we get
together, we just eat and eat and eat.
Like what?
And, you know, it's one of those things where like taking care of your body is
important, not just for athletes, but for people in general.
And so that's a great book.
Thank you for that recommendation.
We'll check that out.
You, when you were fighting, did you have like a manager or an agent or were you
just handling all that by yourself?
So I did have a, had a, actually a friend of mine I went to college with,
who was a business, graduated with a business degree.
He, he managed my fights for me.
He, he reached out to promoters and, and that's big because that's an aspect
that you don't have to worry about, you know.
That's why I ask.
I know that there are some fighters that are, you know, just they're like,
I do it all myself.
But like, I know that for, you know, somebody that that's something that you
just is a completely different.
It's almost like a full-time job trying to market.
It really is.
It gives you more time to train and focus on the actual fight as opposed to
having to be on the phone, taking calls, trying to negotiate a contract, trying
to get on a card.
And so I see a lot of parallels between playing music and kind of like,
you know, name a true fighter.
You know, you're, you're mainly trying to focus on writing songs and
perfecting those songs.
But then there's that whole other aspect of the business where you're like,
well, we've got to play these songs somewhere and maybe try to get a little
bit of money for it.
You know, and so.
Exactly, right.
It kind of puts a weird, you know, taint on the fun part of or like the exciting
part of it because you do have to handle your business.
So, you know, it's a business.
Yeah.
Somebody's getting paid off of you.
Right.
You know, you know, you fighting.
And so I did want to, I was interested in how, how like amateur fighters kind of
go about getting their fights.
I didn't know if people, you know, reached out or if you would have to do all
of that on your own legwork is kind of big deal.
So your coach, your coach is pretty, a lot of coaches act like, act, stand in
and act as managers.
And so my son fights for James Vic.
James Vic was a former contender in the UFC and lightweight division.
And he trains out of peak performance in Kella and James Vic MMA.
Shout out.
So he, he gets the fights for my son.
He's got connections.
Obviously he's, he's fought in the UFC for, you know, many years.
And so it's, it's easy to have someone like that to get fights for him.
So usually, usually coaches, most coaches are former fighters and they're
connected with a lot of promotions.
And, and so they're, they usually are the ones who, who get your fights.
Now as you turn pro, you want to, you want an actual manager or actual agent.
If, if that's your career path.
So yeah.
Excellent.
So you mentioned your son, D'Shawn.
He currently holds the belt.
Is it Bantam weight?
It is lightweight.
Lightweight?
155.
Okay.
So he is a current belt holder for F3.
Is that right?
The promotion?
Okay.
So that's kind of why we invited you in.
We, like I said, we're friends on Facebook.
And so I see all these amazing things that you're getting to be a part of.
And I see his fights, you know, on, on your, on your page.
And so just very impressed with, with just the passing down of, of the martial
arts skills and, and, and the striking skills and just your enthusiasm for your
son is just contagious.
And so we wanted to shout out to Sean.
If there's anything that, you know, he has coming up, we definitely want to plug
it and make sure that we're locked in with him and make sure we're, we're, we're
promoting his fights as well.
We're behind him as well.
Appreciate it.
I know he doesn't really know us, but you know, I've been
cheering for him for the past like a year, like ever since you came to school,
everything you're doing.
When you invited me, I told him, I called him first, man.
I got invited to this podcast, man.
I get to, so yeah, he knows about you guys.
So shout out to Sean.
We're, we're rooting for you.
We're, we're cheering for you.
Hopefully we get to go to one of your fights here in the near future.
See that thing live instead of, instead of watching it on your dad's Facebook page.
But do you help coach to Sean?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I was just over there last night.
I worked with him with his, with his boxing.
Okay.
And so he'll come, he'll come to Weatherford, you know, once twice a week or I'll come,
I'll go to Keller to peak performance and train over there with him, help him do his boxing.
Beautiful.
And so, so yeah.
And then we, we sparred, that was it, Friday, last Friday.
So I have, I've got seven kids.
They're not, my four oldest aren't kids, but they're kids to me, but they're,
they're all young men in their twenties and they all fight some in some form or fashion.
And so it's good to have sparring partners, you know, and they're all around the same weight.
So we just, we'll meet and spar at the gym.
Family sparring?
Work out, yeah.
Leave out of there with, you know, bloody noses and black eyes and go to Waffle House and go eat.
I love that.
That's amazing.
He gets, I brought that up because he gets good training from his brother.
So his brother's helpful a little bit too.
Very athletic, you know, and so he gets a different look from, from each one of them.
I've got my son Matthew is probably the best boxer.
Deshaun is probably the best kickboxer and my son Tyler, he just kind of picked it up the last
couple of years.
He actually just went and sparred over Travis Looters last night.
And, and he's, he's a little bit of a hybrid, you know, and so he gets,
he's a pretty good trainer.
That's wonderful.
I love that family.
Family.
It's a family affair.
It's a very well rounded too.
Yeah.
You get a little bit of, a little bit of look from everybody.
From everything.
Yeah.
That's great.
Do you know if he's got, he's got something coming up or?
So we don't have a date, a specific date, but he's got to know what's going to be.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, he may not, he may, so we may just turn him pro.
So he's, he's got over 30 amateur kickboxing matches.
He's undefeated.
He held two belts.
Kickboxing and this was his first belt MMA and James wants to go ahead and turn him pro.
And so we think he's going to have his first pro fight in July.
We just don't have a date solidified yet.
And that's probably going to be a K.O. live.
You guys familiar with that venue?
That's a pretty nice venue.
It's fairly, fairly new venue.
Yeah.
I kind of like that.
It was my first time being there at his last fight, but that's going to be in July.
We just don't have a date for it yet.
And keep us posted.
Yeah, for sure.
Absolutely.
One of the things I'd also like to say, we're going to, so he's, we're going to try to get
him as many, he's got a couple different offers.
He's got an offer for karate combat.
Y'all familiar with karate combat?
Is it the one that's like down?
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
It's in Orleans based out Orlando.
His coach James Vic will be fighting, I believe next month in karate combat.
And so he's gotten an offer from them and for pro kickboxing and for MMA.
His, his goal has been MMA.
And so that's probably the route we're going to take unless karate combat, you know, offers
at the end of the day, it's a business.
Sure.
You want to make as much money as you can.
This is a dangerous sport.
Exactly.
But a point sometime in September, I want to fight one more time.
I haven't fought in probably two years.
I fought two years ago.
I got robbed.
Honestly, I know fighters say that all the time, but I got robbed and even, even the
announcers were saying it was one of the worst decisions they've ever seen.
And I want to fight one more time and I want to fight on the same car with my son.
I don't know that that's happened very often, you know, kind of a passing the torch type
deal.
And so he and I talked about that last week just out of the blue.
And I think that that'll be some time in September, October, give me enough time to
kind of get in shape.
And so I want to go out, you know, my last fight with fighting on that same car.
So whatever, whenever that is, wherever that is, we're going to be there for you.
Cool.
I'd like to love for y'all to come.
Yeah.
I would love to be there on that.
We might do a little like live remote from outside the parking lot.
So you have been coaching for some time.
You have been fighting for some time.
You may have one more professional fight coming up.
I love that.
Do you have any favorite combat sports moments, either professional or amateur?
Do you have one maybe that you were involved in and then maybe one that you've seen like
as a spectator?
So as a spectator, it's got to be what really put the UFC on the mat was Forrest Griffin.
And Stephen Bonner.
Yeah, that I don't think before then anybody's seen a fight so back and forth so evenly matched.
On the list that I just sent you last night, it is the final fight.
So we're going to do the UFC just released 11 days ago, 10 fights that will make will
guarantee you to make you a fight.
Okay.
And the first one that I just mentioned was Connor and Nate Diaz too.
That's how it starts.
But it ends with Griffin and Bonner.
Griffin and Bonner.
That fight is what?
I'm glad you brought that up.
That fight was amazing.
They saved the company.
Yeah, it really did.
And it really did.
And it was from two guys that at the time were kind of lower tier.
They weren't big names in the UFC and to put on their kind of performance for both of them was
it was historic.
All time scrap for me for sure.
And maybe when you were involved in, do you have like one that you I think you just got Rob.
So yeah, yeah, that one makes me mad thinking about it now.
One of my favorite moments was I fought a guy and was a hint in Oklahoma on a reservation up
there, five tribes casino and I was going to fight it like heavyweight, which is 205.
So I cut this way, you know, to be able to fight it 205.
I get there for the way he ends.
We weigh in my opponent doesn't show up.
So they have another heavyweight.
They have another guy mark.
I mark something.
And he was a heavyweight big guy about six, six, two, 30.
His opponent didn't show up.
So they're like, well, you guys are trained.
You came up here, you know, would you fight each other?
Catch way.
And I'm like, yeah, I didn't come up here, you know, to, you know, to not fight.
I got little man central.
I want to fight all these big dudes, you know, to prove a point, I guess.
You know, so I'm like, heck, yeah, I'll fight him.
But the commission would let me fight because I was under underweight.
I needed to be 206.
Or in up.
So, man, I had to go across the street to subway.
I had to eat two footlongs chicken breast sandwiches to get over the weight.
So I could win and then, or so I could, you know, be accepted for the fight.
So we get in there and they walk me into this guy and they asked him if you wanted to fight me.
And he goes, this is who you want me to fight?
You know, really just dismissed me, you know, like this little bitty dude.
Long story short, I ended up stopping him, knocking him out with some elbows on the ground.
The next, you know, the next night of the fight.
So that was a big, that was a big moment for me.
That's great.
He just completely dismissed me, man, overlooked me like, okay, I got something for you the next night.
I love that.
What a great story.
Someone just completely overlooking you and just not even thinking that you're even worth their time.
And then you just go ahead and elbow them, stop them.
Plus having to eat two footlongs icing on the cake.
Well, I tell that story, some of my friends, you know, they're like, that's the most impressive part of the story.
You ate those two footlongs.
That was it.
Exactly.
Y'all, I drove up here in a pro fight like that because you still came, you still get paid.
And I could have taken the money and gone home, but.
Show money or whatever it is.
Work my butt off and train camp, you know, and I didn't come up here to sit and watch.
And so I'm glad they even offered that.
It was even sweeter, you know, what it transpired between me and him.
So yeah, that was that was a that was a feel good moment.
I love that feel good moment.
And that's sports.
So lastly, the way that you and I kind of got introduced into each other's lives is
you came to the school that I teach at to talk about the history of kind of African American life in
Wetherford in particular.
And you have also been involved in some activism in our community.
There is still to this day a Confederate statue on our courthouse lawn.
When Brianna Taylor got killed, whenever George Floyd got killed, a lot of people in Wetherford
were looking for a place to put their sadness and their anger.
And you were one of those people that we could count on to kind of always hold point for us.
And so give us a little bit of insight on how you I know you've been involved in this
I know you've come to activism a little bit later on in your life.
Do you want to give us a little bit of rundown on like how you kind of got involved?
Like what was the tipping point for you to kind of get involved and say I need to step up and be involved
and have my voice heard?
So I'd like to say this.
It actually I've kind of been doing this my whole life.
Just not on the scale that it that it happened, you know, with with the statue and things of that nature.
I've always been aware of that statue.
My parents have always made us aware since we were young.
When MLK Day became a national holiday in the U.S.
I'll never forget when Wetherford wouldn't recognize it.
And so as students, we we protested.
We wouldn't go to class, you know, until they recognized we just stand in the hallways
and the teacher would be running around.
We got to get them in class.
We got to get them in class, you know.
And so we've always done things like that.
And so it was just natural.
So honestly, we got invited to a protest by a couple of Wetherford High School students
for George Floyd.
It was a Black Lives Matter protest where we walked from Walmart all the way down South
Maine to the courthouse and walked around the courthouse.
And as we're walking around the courthouse, my brother turns to me and he says, you know,
this is next.
And no, he asked me what what what is it that we want to do next, you know, because we we need to do something.
And I remark, you know, the statue is next.
And so we started working on on talking to those in power there in Wetherford about
removing that statue.
Like I said, we've always always known what it stood for, the ideology behind it.
And we're a small voice in Wetherford, you know, most of those people there who live there have
relatives on the other side, you know, that this is heritage.
This is my heritage.
And so we were always fighting an uphill battle with that.
And a lot of the African American community there is kind of afraid to speak up.
And so we just felt it was our duty to give a voice to the Black and Brown people there who
do feel differently about that statue.
And so we felt compelled to say something.
And so we're still we're still working on it.
And we haven't had as many public protests.
We've kind of tried to change how we went about it.
We have we have created or we were involved in the making of a documentary about it called
the courthouse line.
We did this two years ago.
We filmed it down in Howlitzville around their courthouse.
The production company that we are that we use to shoot the film was pretty nervous about
shooting it in Wetherford.
So they wanted to shoot it somewhere else that looked like Wetherford, you know,
so Howlitzville is where we ended up shooting it.
And so it was hard for us to get the story out of Wetherford.
Anytime we went to any of the politicians there, it was, you know, hush, hush, don't
talk about it.
And we realized once we started protesting, it made national news and started effecting
money around the square.
So money is the that's where you got to hit.
You know, you know it.
Yeah.
You know it.
And once we realized that,
then they were inviting us to sit down and talk.
Then, you know, and we were a little bit too trusting, I think we thought that they had our,
you know, the best interest in mind.
And I learned a lot about politicians like everything, everything is true, you know,
about about politicians.
But we're still we're still working on it.
We we are Judge Judge Dean, who is the county judge there, just text message him two weeks
ago, and we're going to my brother and I went sat down and talked with him about the statue
and about the lynching.
I don't know if you're probably very familiar with that.
I had two ancestors who were lynched on the courthouse line and their bodies were dumped
in a well on the courthouse line and their remains are still there.
So one of the things we want to do is get the county to give us a permit to GPS or GPR
to see if we can locate them.
We've been in talks with Texas State Forensic Anthropology Department and Dr.
Oh, gosh, I just went blank.
He has told us he thinks that the remains are still there because they filled the well
in afterwards.
There were four.
They weren't young men.
They were boys, actually.
The youngest was 13, the oldest was 17.
And he thinks that the remains are still there, they're just what are called co-mingled because
they were thrown on top of each other.
They kind of fused together.
But the remains are there and we want to try to recover those remains and bury them with
dignity and respect.
That's kind of what we're working on now.
Well, that's half the reason I wanted you on the program.
I know that you're into combat sports and you're into food, but the other reason is
because we live in the same city and I wanted to make sure that your voice goes beyond Weatherford.
And I know that this podcast is just getting started and is small.
But if anybody out there is listening that is familiar with North Texas, Weatherford
is a city that still deals with racism to this day.
But guess what?
They've got a mayor and they've got people that are on boards and all that stuff like
that.
And they've got email addresses.
They've got phone numbers.
So if you feel a certain type of way about the fact that a Confederate statue is still
on the courthouse lawn in downtown Weatherford, Texas, or if you feel kind of away about the
fact that there were four boys that were lynched on that same lawn and that their remains remain
there to this day, just send an email and let them know.
Like you said, Mike Dean is the judge.
I'm sorry, not Dean.
No, you're right.
Mike Dean is a pat Dean.
Mike Dean is the synthesizer player that plays with Kanye West.
Pat Dean is there.
Yeah, Pat Dean is the judge there.
And so, yeah, thank you for sharing that part of your life with us.
Thank you for having me, allowing me to be able to share that.
That means a lot.
You've got two things that I wanted to plug.
You've got a shirt that's available that I think your daughter made.
My son.
Your son.
So my son drew, yeah, it's a silhouette of an African American child and it's got the
names of the black neighborhoods in Weatherford.
So yeah, that's a powerful shirt.
I saw that.
I wanted to get one of those.
But I also didn't want to like appropriate any sort of culture or anything like that.
But that shirt was very powerful to me.
It is a silhouette of an African American person and it has a, you haven't seen it.
It's got the street names of all the neighborhoods that African Americans were living in in Weatherford.
And so you also have a thing for baseball, right?
Are you doing that still or?
Well, no, as far as I thought, I saw you had like a charity or you're sat on a board or
something like that for.
Well, no, I'm actually on two nonprofit boards, not specifically for baseball.
I thought I saw something like that.
Probably so.
I got CTE, man.
I ain't no telling what.
Yeah, but I, yeah, but you also teach boxing classes.
I teach boxing.
But the two boards are really important.
One of them, we started actually one of them, actually three boards, I think about it.
We started two of them.
The Parker County Black Historic Heritage Society, we started that one.
And the Parker County Peace Coalition.
Okay.
And I'm on the executive board there.
And I'm also on a board here in Tarrant County, the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and
Justice.
Okay.
Well, thank you for your service and that and always bringing that to light.
If and I follow you on Facebook.
So I see all of the old newspaper clippings and all of the, I mean, this is not no cap,
no like hyperbole.
This is our real history in Weatherford and your family's history.
And so I did want to bring that to light, but thank you very much for coming in.
I appreciate that.
I'm looking for a boxing class.
Mr. Gray teaches boxing classes in the parks in Weatherford usually.
So I used to have my own gym.
The owners of the gym wanted to go a different direction with the building.
So we ended up going to the park.
I had a boxing part nights in the park.
And now I am at Rev 180 Fitness in Pista.
And so we have a men's and women's class there.
One day in Thursday, 530, 630 is the women's class and then 630 to 730 is the men's class.
So if you're out west of us here in Fort Worth and you need to take some boxing lessons,
Mr. Gray has no got to go see.
He's out in Pista at Rev 180.
Is there anything you want to plug?
Any like you want us to follow you or go buy anything?
You can let me get a...
Yeah.
Well, he does that.
Parker, do you have anything to add or you've been just kind of listening and just listening
and all that?
No, I wasn't aware of any of this.
I've been to Wutherford maybe three or four times.
So I'm not super familiar with Wutherford's history.
So I've just been kind of taking it all in.
And what's crazy to know too is that like it's not just Wutherford.
It's about like every other city that's surrounding like...
Yeah, I mean, all the small towns.
I'm sure there are stories in Azel and Springtown and Pista and Brock.
I mean, there's just every single one of those towns.
And leading into Tarrant County.
That's why I kind of got involved.
The people on the Tarrant County Peace and Justice Board kind of found me and we found
some parallels between some of the families in Wutherford and some of the families here
at Fort Worth and how they kind of...
There's some history there.
And so those surrounding towns and cities and leading into Tarrant County.
So yeah.
Plug anything you want to plug and we'll get you out of here.
I want to plug my son.
If anybody was on Instagram, his name is D'Shawn the dog gray.
His handle is the dog and that's D-A-W-G underscore MMA.
And I want to plug also Pete performance, MMA in Keller.
Paul, I can't remember Paul's last name.
He's the owner and James Vic MMA.
James Vic former contender in the UFC lightweight contender.
He's the MMA coach there.
So wonderful.
High level coaching, great family atmosphere.
If you want to get your MMA game up, that's the place to go.
Excellent.
Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Gray.
We appreciate your story.
Maybe we'll have you again after your fight in September and hopefully we'll be able to
celebrate you again.
Thank you so much.
This has been breakfast of champions season one episode five on behalf of Parker and
Mr. Gray.
We want to say thank you for listening.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, all that other drive.
We have podcasts everywhere we are.
If you want to give us a phone call and let us know how much you've loved this episode,
it's 682-2940-101.
Mucho man, I'm ready for your next message brother.
We're going to get you on this podcast and we'll just throw all those reviews on there
and we love V for calling in mucho man.
So thank you very much.
If you've got a comment, tell us where we need to review next breakfast wise.
Tell us about your favorite fight.
If you've been in a fight recently, if you're about to go to the UFC.
If you know anything like that, I'm still hoping that Kevin Holland reaches out to us.
Trailblazer, I saw your stoppage this past weekend.
It was amazing.
You snapped a dude's arm in half and that was so awesome and Fort Worth 817 represent
Kevin Holland.
Again, thank you so much for everybody for joining us.
Parker's out.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.