he said in a recent interview with The Mirror.<\/a><\/p>\nErich \u201cButterbean\u201d Esch in a victory over Adam Lawton in 1995. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been married for a long time and I\u2019ve always loved my wife, but that was something that I\u2019ve always had trouble getting over,\u201d Esch said. \u201cNow, I\u2019m good. I\u2019m confident in myself now. I don\u2019t have that problem. I\u2019m a good boy now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butterbean also detailed weighing over 500 pounds at one point and being unable to walk. <\/p>\n
Butterbean celebrates after a 1997 win. Getty Images<\/p>\n
In his prime, Butterbean stood at six feet tall, weighed roughly 378 pounds and fought some of boxing\u2019s biggest stars.<\/p>\n
Butterbean\u2019s rise to fame included a boxing match against Bart Gunn at WWE\u2019s WrestleMania XV, a first-round knockout for Esch.<\/p>\n
He also showed a willingness to move forward and take the fight to\u00a0legend\u00a0Larry Holmes in the legendary heavyweight champ\u2019s final fight in 2002.\u00a0Despite\u00a0a massive reach disadvantage, Esch scored a knockdown at the end of the 10th and final round, while losing in a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n
Eric \u201cButternbean\u201d Esch looks much better after struggling with obesity. YouTube CVV Clips<\/p>\n
But things went downhill once his fighting career ended. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you can\u2019t walk and you can\u2019t walk into the store and get something to drink, you do get depressed,\u201d Butterbean said. \u201cI was in bed for almost a year\u2026 got out of bed just to go to the bathroom. And I ate in the bed. I mean, I didn\u2019t even leave the bed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Esch became a cult-like hero during his boxing career. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Butterbean has since turned his life around, having lost more than 200 pounds, something he credits to former WCW and WWE wrestler \u201cDiamond\u201d Dallas Page, who has his own yoga fitness program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in the best shape of my life right now,\u201d he said adding that at one point he needed a wheelchair to get around. \u201cI\u2019m not in a wheelchair no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butterbean on \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d with Jay Leno. NBCU Photo Bank\/NBCUniversal via<\/p>\n
Last year, Butterbean revealed that he wants to be Jake Paul\u2019s next potential victim. <\/p>\n
\u201cButterbean\u2019s back for one more fight,\u2019 he said in a social media clip. \u201cThere\u2019s only one fighter out there that wants to fight retired, bald guys.\u00a0I\u2019m coming for you. I want to fight Jake Paul because he runs his damn mouth too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul has made a career defeating past their prime fighters in the boxing ring; something that was magnified after he defeated 58-year-old Mike Tyson who could barely stand up by the end of their fight. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cult-like hero and boxer Eric Esch, better known as Butterbean, has been fighting demons since his brief flirtation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,5277,638,82],"class_list":["post-15756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-jake-paul","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}