The right hand lands with the thwack! of a fastball hitting a catcher\u2019s mitt, one man\u2019s dream fast becoming another\u2019s nightmare.<\/p>\n
Cornelius \u201cK9\u201d Bundrage has just taken one to the jaw.<\/p>\n
The world champion boxer and equally accomplished trash talker fancies himself a dog in the ring \u2014 hence his nickname. True to his handle, Bundrage has done plenty of barking of late.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna crush that man right there, I\u2019m telling you!\u201d the Detroit native booms two days earlier at a news conference hyping up his hometown showdown with Las Vegas challenger Ishe Smith. \u201cI\u2019m gonna give that man the business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those are fighting words \u2014 and now he\u2019s eating them, along with a short left from Smith that precipitates a torrent of blows as Bundrage stumbles back into the ropes, his suddenly wobbly legs abandoning him like sailors fleeing a sinking ship.<\/p>\n
His opponent swarms, delivering a dozen punches in half as many seconds, attacking the head, then the body, his fists a blur of red leather, in a decisive Round 9 of their junior middleweight clash.<\/p>\n
Around 20 minutes later, the scorecards are read, and referee Sam Williams raises the challenger\u2019s arm in victory.<\/p>\n
Ishe Oluwa Kamau Ali Smith has just become the first Las Vegas-born fighter to win a world title, taking home the 154-pound IBF belt.<\/p>\n
A whole galaxy of boxing stars have lived, trained and competed in this world capital of the sport. This weekend, Canelo Alvarez took on Terence Crawford<\/a> at Allegiant Stadium in the kind of mega-event that this city has become known for.<\/p>\n But while plenty of title-holders have fought out of Vegas, no champs were ever actually from here. On Feb. 23, 2013, Ishe Smith changed all of that.<\/p>\n Inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame in August 2024 with a professional record of 29-11 with 12 knockouts, he remains Vegas\u2019 most accomplished native son in a sport long synonymous with the city.<\/p>\n \u201cDude, his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, it\u2019s incredible,\u201d says former middleweight champion Sergio Mora, who in 2005 won the first season of boxing reality TV show \u201cThe Contender,\u201d which also featured Smith. \u201cYou can ask any champion that\u2019s been in the ring with him, and they\u2019re gonna be like, \u2018Oh, s\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-, Ishe can fight.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was one of these throwback, old-school-minded fighters that didn\u2019t really do anything flashy,\u201d Mora continues, \u201cbut you respected his strength, his skill, his IQ. And that\u2019s the reason he became a world champion.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing about boxing, though: As arduous as it is to make a living in the ring, it\u2019s often tougher to make ends meet outside the ring. In this sport, there are no pensions, health insurance plans or safety nets of any kind.<\/p>\n When the fights end, a new kind of fight begins: survival.<\/p>\n \u201cBoxing is a very unforgiving, brutal way to earn a living \u2014 and most people\u2019s lives don\u2019t end so well,\u201d notes Lou DiBella, a promoter who represented Smith and helped shape the careers of champs including Sergio Mart\u00ednez, Jermain Taylor, Bernard Hopkins and Paulie Malignaggi.<\/p>\n \u201cIshe worked his a\u200a-\u200a- off at everything he ever did, and then he didn\u2019t catch a break,\u201d he continues. \u201cHe always understood that he couldn\u2019t count on boxing. He learned it the hard way, right? And then he got some real dropkicks in his personal life, man. I mean, he went through some horrible s\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-.\u201d<\/p>\n And now, Ishe Smith just might be the guy delivering your mail.<\/p>\n \u2018I don\u2019t hold my head down, man\u2019<\/p>\n It\u2019s just before 8 on a summer morning that could already use some shade. Heat emanates from the concrete surrounding the U.S. Postal Service branch on South Decatur Boulevard as we wait outside for Smith\u2019s shift to begin.<\/p>\n He\u2019s fairly easy to recognize, what with his \u201cGolden Girls\u201d-themed socks and neck tattoo of The Joker.<\/p>\n Mail carriers dread this time of year, lugging around phone book-thick stacks of advertising circulars in temperatures more suited for chicken nuggets in an air fryer.<\/p>\n Smith, 47, is just glad he gets to drive a newer model van equipped with air conditioning.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no AC in all these little mail trucks you see,\u201d he notes of the parking lot\u2019s array of mobile sweat boxes. \u201cIf it\u2019s 110 outside, it\u2019s like 120-130 in the car. It\u2019s just an old-school fan in there that you got on, blowing heat.\u201d<\/p>\n He leads us into the warehouse-like facilities where a shrill chorus of handheld mail scanner beeps soundtrack a rush hour traffic jam of postal carts piled high with packages.<\/p>\n Some of Smith\u2019s co-workers greet him with a playful nod to his fighting background.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t hit me! Don\u2019t hit me!\u201d a silver-haired safety inspector jokes, hands raised in mock fear.<\/p>\n As he sorts through his day\u2019s deliveries, Smith swears he\u2019s suffered more wear and tear in the four years he\u2019s worked here than in two decades in the ring.<\/p>\n \u201cI tell my co-workers all the time, in almost a 20-year professional career, I hardly dealt with any injuries,\u201d Smith says. \u201cI\u2019ve been here, and it\u2019s my back, shoulder, arm. I\u2019m like, \u2018Bro, you guys are getting your knees replaced, hips replaced.\u2019 This job is physically demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith can appreciate a demanding job \u2014 he just wants to get paid fairly for it. This was a beef of his with boxing.<\/p>\n He recalls one of his first big televised fights against the notoriously iron-fisted Randall Bailey on Showtime in January 2004.<\/p>\n Smith wasn\u2019t thrilled about his modest $11,000 purse to begin with \u2014 remember, fighters pay their team (trainer, cut man, etc.) out of their own pocket. And then Smith got his check.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like $3,000, just all these fees taken out \u2014 this fee, that fee \u2014 and I\u2019m like, \u2018How the hell am I gonna pay my team with a $3,000 check?\u2019 \u201d he says. \u201cAt least when I go to this job, it\u2019s an honorable job. A hard day\u2019s work rewards you with a hard day\u2019s pay.<\/p>\n \u201cBoxing is not set up for us to make it afterwards. That\u2019s why I\u2019m glad I entered the workforce. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t hold my head down, man. I really don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Before Smith leaves to load his truck, we ask about the flyers promoting some of his fights that he\u2019s arranged beneath the glass of his workspace.<\/p>\n \u201cI put these in here just to remember what I was,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd what I\u2019m not anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n A boy enters the ring<\/p>\n Ishe Smith was bullied into boxing.<\/p>\n He was 8 years old, getting picked on by the kids in his North Las Vegas neighborhood.<\/p>\n Smith never knew his father, but his mother had a friend who knew boxing.<\/p>\n \u201cHe taught me how to defend myself,\u201d Smith recalls. \u201cI was really small for my age, so I started going to the gym, learning how to throw punches in my bedroom and that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d soon graduate to the famed Golden Gloves Gym, a former steel warehouse near Cashman Field opened by late Las Vegas police officer and boxing judge Hal Miller. Countless underprivileged Vegas kids learned the sport at no cost at the now-long-shuttered gym.<\/p>\n Tons of boxing greats also trained there, and Smith was exposed to champs such as Terry Norris, Azuma Nelson, Mike Tyson and Riddick Bowe working out nearby, occasionally noticing the youngster.<\/p>\n \u201cI would try to imitate them,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWhen they started telling me I was good and that one day I would be champ, that\u2019s when I really fell in love with the game. I was seeing those pros at a young age \u2014 like, \u2018Man, I want to do what they did.\u2019 When I found out that Vegas never had a world champion, I wanted to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith became obsessed, recording every fight he could on his VCR, playing the tapes over and over, studying them, thrilling at Felix Trinidad\u2019s seemingly indefatigable will, Nelson\u2019s alchemical blend of offense and defense, Joe Louis\u2019 technical wizardry \u2014 all of which would inform the fighter he\u2019d become.<\/p>\n He\u2019d also learn to place an emphasis on evasiveness, which would become both a hallmark of Smith\u2019s career and a limitation to it.<\/p>\n \u201cMy trainer always taught me defense and to not get hit,\u201d he explains. \u201cAlways take less punishment as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n At Golden Gloves, Smith befriended another rising young local boxer, Augie Sanchez. The two became fixated on a shared dream.<\/p>\n \u201cMine and Ishe\u2019s goals were to become Olympians in \u201996,\u201d Sanchez, now a boxing trainer, recalls on a video call from Japan, where some of his fighters are competing. \u201cThat was our main focus after school. We\u2019d go to the gym, and we\u2019d train and spar. Both of us just had one mindset: trying to be an Olympian.\u201d<\/p>\n They would come closer than any other local fighters ever had.<\/p>\n In 1996, Smith, Sanchez and fellow locals Limmie Young and Charles Shufford, who called themselves \u201cThe Four Horsemen,\u201d became the first Vegas boxers to make the Olympic trials, held in Oakland, California.<\/p>\n Smith fell two wins short of a spot on the team, eliminated by a close decision loss to future welterweight champ Zab Judah.<\/p>\n He was devastated.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that point, it destroyed me,\u201d he says. \u201cI came back. I realized I was only 17. I had devoted my whole life to boxing \u2014 no parties, no nothing. I never got in trouble, never did anything wrong. I was just like, \u2018Man, I want to be a kid.\u2019 And I started just hanging out.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith quit boxing for two years.<\/p>\n After graduating early from Durango High School, he hit up a party on Senior Ditch Day. It\u2019d change his life.<\/p>\n \u201cI was shooting craps with some of my friends, probably doing something I shouldn\u2019t have been doing, and a guy robbed me,\u201d Smith says. \u201cHe stuck a gun to my head and robbed me.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought to myself like, \u2018What am I doing? This lifestyle isn\u2019t my lifestyle,\u2019 \u201d he continues. \u201cI decided to start getting back to boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n Becoming a \u2018Contender\u2019<\/p>\n Smith turned pro in 2000, cutting his teeth locally at raucous club shows at The Orleans put on by now-defunct Vegas boxing company Guilty Promotions. He quickly became a main attraction.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was probably the best guy on our roster, the one that was going to go furthest out of anybody, tons of skill,\u201d recalls Brad Goodman, a boxing hall of famer who was Guilty Promotions\u2019 matchmaker and now does the same for Top Rank Boxing. \u201cPeople started really getting to know him over there. Out of the local kids we\u2019d always put on, he would bring tons of people. It would always sell out. It was fun, man.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was definitely a star on those shows,\u201d remembers recently retired journalist Kevin Iole, who covered boxing for years at the Las Vegas Review-Journal and is a member of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame. \u201cHe was definitely a big, big timer.\u201d<\/p>\n If those club shows bolstered Smith\u2019s popularity in his hometown, it was \u201cThe Contender\u201d that helped make him a national name.<\/p>\n He went against character to play the heel during the reality show\u2019s inaugural season in 2005, taunting other fighters from the very first episode \u2014 \u201cI always thought I was the best fighter on the show, so I never hid from the fact that I was the villain,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n Though Smith suffered his first pro loss to Mora during Episode 10 in a fight so heated we see Mora\u2019s mother cover her eyes at one point, the show\u2019s weekly audience of 10 million to 13 million viewers significantly heightened his public profile.<\/p>\n In more candid moments, \u201cThe Contender\u201d captured Smith\u2019s close relationship with his first wife, Latoya Woolen.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he gets in that ring, he\u2019s not fighting for him,\u201d Woolen says early in the first episode, flanked by Smith, who cradles their young son. \u201cHe\u2019s fighting for our family.\u201d<\/p>\n Bright future, dark days<\/p>\n The gun was right there on the table before him, loaded. He\u2019d gotten it for protection. Now, Ishe Smith was about to use it on himself.<\/p>\n \u201cI was one moment away from pulling the trigger,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI was so depressed and so sad. My childhood sweetheart was leaving me and taking my kids. I was sitting in that apartment just ready to kill myself. I was so close.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith and Woolen met as teenagers at UNLV, fell in love, married young and had three children together.<\/p>\n When Smith was grinding and making hardly any money early in his career, Woolen wouldn\u2019t let him take a day job, insisting that he stay focused on boxing. She\u2019d keep the house together.<\/p>\n \u201cMy wife is the woman that every man dreams about,\u201d Smith says earnestly in an episode of \u201cThe Contender.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s going to be there through bad times, and she\u2019s going to be there through good times.\u201d<\/p>\n But after 10 years together, the former began to outnumber the latter, and their relationship ended. Smith was crestfallen, suicidal.<\/p>\n Then he thought of his kids.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing that stopped me was thinking about growing up without a father,\u201d Smith says. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018This is selfish. I can\u2019t do them the way my dad did me.\u2019 And I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith got rid of the gun.<\/p>\n He later remarried, had another son with his second wife and adopted her two children. The father of six had to learn how to be a dad on the fly.<\/p>\n \u201cYou try to do your best as a father, try to do your best as a fighter, and try to lay it on the line,\u201d Smith says. \u201cBut sometimes life is just life. You can do your best, but just like some of my fights, sometimes I thought I won and the other guy got it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you can totally give your all in life,\u201d he continues, \u201cand sometimes you don\u2019t get the same courtesy back.\u201d<\/p>\n Hard fighter, hard sell<\/p>\n \u201cLet your hands go!\u201d<\/p>\n Eddie Mustafa Muhammad is getting frustrated, and Ishe Smith\u2019s trainer is not the only one.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s not throwing punches,\u201d HBO color commentator Bob Papa notes with audible exasperation during the broadcast of Smith\u2019s 2009 bout with future middleweight champ Daniel Jacobs, noting how Smith had thrown 200 fewer punches through Round 4.<\/p>\n Though Smith catches Jacobs with a hard left jab in Round 3 and rocks him with a left hook later on, Jacobs earns a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n The loss was emblematic of many of Smith\u2019s 11 pro defeats: He simply didn\u2019t press the action enough to impress the judges.<\/p>\n This was always the knock on Smith, that he was too risk-averse in the ring.<\/p>\n But Smith says that\u2019s because he wanted a life after the ring.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I was a little bit too defensive,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cI should have let my hands go a little more sometimes, but I mean, it was just about taking less punishment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you take a lot of punishment, there\u2019s fighters that you wouldn\u2019t understand them sitting here doing an interview with you right now \u2014 and that\u2019s sad,\u201d he continues. \u201cThat\u2019s a story I didn\u2019t want to have for myself later in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n But boxing fans don\u2019t splurge on pricey pay-per-views or fight tickets to see a defensive-minded chess match.<\/p>\n Smith\u2019s methodical, counterpunching approach made him both a tough out for opponents and a tough watch for anyone looking for action-packed brawls.<\/p>\n \u201cI was that style of fighter, but I was that style of fighter because I didn\u2019t have power,\u201d notes Sergio Mora, a slick, crafty boxer himself. \u201cIshe has power. Ishe hurt me in our fight; he hurt me in sparring.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the guy can punch,\u201d he continues. \u201cHe just wouldn\u2019t put himself in danger to land that punch \u2014 and if he did land it, he wouldn\u2019t go for the knockout. Now, mind you, Ishe wouldn\u2019t get knocked out, either.\u201d<\/p>\n And so Smith\u2019s fights could be grueling endurance tests for competitors and viewers alike.<\/p>\n It eventually caught up to him: When Smith followed his loss to Jacobs with another defeat to Fernando Guerrero in a bruising battle, DiBella tried to get Smith on an upcoming ESPN card and the network rejected the fighter.<\/p>\n \u201cLou really defended me and went off. He was like, \u2018I don\u2019t believe this.\u2019 He\u2019s cussing them out,\u201d Smith recalls. \u201cAnd then he said, \u2018Kid, I\u2019m not gonna hold you back. Obviously, I can\u2019t do for you what I thought I could.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Dibella released Smith from his contract, even though the fighter owed him a couple of thousand dollars in expenses. Smith vowed to pay him back as soon as he could.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was hard for me to get fights,\u201d he recalls. \u201cNobody was calling anymore. For about a year and a half to two years, I had nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n A title shot at last<\/p>\n If big-name boxers never exactly lined up to fight Ishe Smith when the TV cameras were rolling and win-loss records were on the line, they did the opposite during their training camps: With his high ring IQ and cocksure toughness, Smith was one of boxing\u2019s most sought-after sparring partners.<\/p>\n \u201cAt one point, he was probably considered the best sparring partner out of anybody,\u201d Goodman says. \u201cHe was, like, that main sparring guy.\u201d<\/p>\n The amount of champs who sparred with Smith could fill a wing of the Boxing Hall of Fame. To name but a few: Pernell Whitaker, Shane Mosley, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins and Fernando Vargas, who was so impressed with Smith that he mentioned him to HBO early in his career to help him get on the network. (Vargas\u2019 son, Fernando Vargas Jr., lives and trains out of Vegas and fought in the co-main event of the Alvarez-Crawford card.)<\/p>\n In early 2012, Floyd Mayweather joined the list when he recruited Smith \u2014 whom he\u2019d known since their amateur days \u2014 to help him prep for his megafight with Miguel Cotto that May.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce we started talking during camp, he was like, \u2018Man, this isn\u2019t right, how boxing has done you,\u2019\u200a\u201d Smith remembers Mayweather telling him. \u201c\u200a\u2018I\u2019m gonna make sure you fight for a world championship, and what you do is gonna be on you. But I\u2019m gonna get you the opportunity.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019d live up to his words: After arranging a pair of fights for Smith at the Hard Rock Hotel in 2012 \u2014 which enabled him to pay back DiBella \u2014 Mayweather\u2019s promotion company scored him his shot at Bundrage\u2019s belt the following year.<\/p>\n \u201cThirteen years! Thirteen years!\u201d an emotional Smith bellowed in the ring after his win, tears and sweat intermingling on his face as he reflected on how long it took to earn a title fight.<\/p>\n But Smith\u2019s championship reign was short-lived.<\/p>\n After his win against Bundrage, he was supposed to headline his own card in Vegas. But Smith cut himself during the last week of training camp, and the fight was postponed.<\/p>\n Instead of waiting for another headlining opportunity, he agreed to fight Carlos Molina on the undercard of Mayweather\u2019s highly anticipated bout with Canelo Alvarez that September, resting for just two weeks before starting another full, two-month training camp.<\/p>\n It was too much for his body. Smith was drained. He dropped a split decision.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it would be exciting to fight on Floyd\u2019s card and all of that, but I wish I would have just said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna have my own show later in the year,\u2019 \u201d Smith says. \u201cI just had absolutely nothing that night. I was completely dead. I was so angry that I lost. I fought so stale. I had no pop in anything. I was just out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith earned a solid $250,000 payday, but he\u2019d never get another title shot.<\/p>\n Tragedy strikes again<\/p>\n On March 19, 2017, Latoya Woolen was shot in the back of head and killed, her body found in a parking lot near UNLV. She had been shopping at a nearby Dollar Tree, targeted for no reason.<\/p>\n A 55-year-old man was soon arrested and pleaded guilty to her murder.<\/p>\n Three of Smith\u2019s children were suddenly left without a mother. He was now their sole provider, a full-time parent of six.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you grow up with somebody like that, you share that many memories with somebody, to have them senselessly murdered like that was hard for me to deal with,\u201d Smith says. \u201cThat was a hard point in my career. It made me refocus, really. I realized that now I\u2019m fighting a different type of fight.\u201d<\/p>\n But life didn\u2019t get any easier in the ring.<\/p>\n After Woolen\u2019s death, Smith lost two in a row to rising talents Julian Williams and Tony Harrison, fighting well but coming up short.<\/p>\n As he trained to face another young contender in Erickson Lubin, Smith knew the end was near: For the first time in his career, the sparring started getting to him.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember telling my wife like, \u2018These punches hurt,\u2019 \u201d Smith says. \u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019m not having a good camp.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n The pain was prescient: Lubin dropped the 40-year-old Smith four times in three rounds. Referee Jack Reiss called it after that. \u201cI\u2019m glad he did, because I would have just kept going out,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n After a 20-year career, his last fight resulted in his first stoppage.<\/p>\n He might have tried to soldier on, but Smith\u2019s youngest son \u2014 then 8 years old, the same age his dad was when he started boxing \u2014 told his father he didn\u2019t want him to fight anymore.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at him, and I realized that I didn\u2019t want to be the guy that couldn\u2019t talk, couldn\u2019t comprehend his family, didn\u2019t remember people, didn\u2019t remember life,\u201d Smith says, \u201cA lot of fighters experienced that, and I didn\u2019t want to be that guy. I told him, \u2018All right, I will never fight again.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Embracing the 9-to-5<\/p>\n Ishe Smith slams shut the back door on his mail truck, just happy to have a truck at all.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore I had this route, I had a walking route, and that\u2019s more wear and tear on your body,\u201d he says. \u201cSummers are really hard when you have to deal with walking to every house, especially on ad day. If you\u2019ve got a walking route that consists of a thousand deliveries, you got a thousand ads you have to deliver to every house.\u201d<\/p>\n Those ads can come in handy every now and then, though: One day, Smith was charged by an aggressive dog and the circulars he was carrying saved him. \u201cHe grabbed the ad and ripped it up,\u201d he recalls. \u201cLucky it was ad day.\u201d<\/p>\n Truck loaded, Smith is soon zipping around back alleys and parking lots in a warehouse district near Chinatown.<\/p>\n He seems to genuinely enjoy his job. \u201cI love my customers,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n When he retired from boxing, Smith didn\u2019t envision himself in this position, punching a time clock each morning.<\/p>\n He\u2019d made decent money, had some investments and was never a big spender.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that I had made enough to be OK,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then the pandemic hit, and 2020 was, like, the worst for money and businesses and retirement accounts. My kids were having health and mental issues as far as their mom passing, and I had no insurance for them whatsoever. I\u2019m just looking around like, \u2018I gotta get in the workforce. I\u2019m gonna go get a job and be a man and make sure I could take care of my family.\u2019 And that\u2019s what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n Why become a postal worker?<\/p>\n \u201cI was online, and I was just like, \u2018It\u2019d be pretty cool to be a mailman,\u2019\u200a\u201d he says, before delivering an inadvertent pun. \u201cIt just kind of hit me.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking back, moving on<\/p>\n Ishe Smith opens a large Gucci bag at a Summerlin Starbucks and spreads his life out all over the table.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I ever really got to look back at everything I\u2019ve done until probably today,\u201d he says on a Sunday afternoon as he removes stacks and stacks of newspapers, magazines, notebooks, even a laminated sign that he made for himself in high school computer class. \u201cThis is kind of the first time I actually went through it.\u201d<\/p>\n There must be over 100 articles, with Smith splashed across the pages of Ring Magazine, USA Today, Muscle & Fitness, TV Guide, the New York Daily News, and dozens of stories in the RJ.<\/p>\n He brought them all here because we asked him to, thinking it might be interesting to see him interact with his past.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t feel like something he\u2019s naturally inclined to do \u2014 not because he\u2019s reticent to share his feelings. Smith is an open book. It\u2019s just that there are plenty of moments in his life that he\u2019s been eager to turn the page on.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve dealt with so much trauma and pain, I probably need therapy, but I\u2019m, like, scared. I don\u2019t want layers pulled back,\u201d he acknowledges. \u201cI\u2019m kind of functioning now, and I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m ready to deal with those things where I\u2019m at in life right now.\u201d<\/p>\n He remembers that during \u201cThe Contender,\u201d competitors were required to speak with a therapist.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in the office crying like a baby,\u201d he says of the experience. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m ready for that yet, but I know I can use it. But I\u2019m functioning right now. I\u2019m OK.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith somewhat seems to enjoy reminiscing over decades-old articles in his high school newspaper, teenage photos of him and Augie Sanchez, a program from the \u201996 Olympics, a pair of handwritten letters from Floyd Mayweather sent from jail.<\/p>\n \u201cThis brought back a lot of memories,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was good to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n But he expresses some ambivalence over doing so. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of sadness,\u201d he shares, \u201cbecause it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it really, though? Does Ishe Smith need a ring to be a fighter? Did he ever?<\/p>\n \u201cPeople sometimes think that everything\u2019s about who got the biggest bags, who wore the jewelry, who got all the s\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-,\u201d DiBella says. \u201cIt\u2019s also about who had the longevity, who had a life where they had ups-and-downs, but they were able to steady the course.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s different ways to look at winning,\u201d he continues. \u201cA guy that\u2019s out there working, earning a living, still supporting his family, able to redirect his life when he had to earn money, go out and get a job. That is f\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-\u200a-\u200a- life. That is winning.\u201d<\/p>\n Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com<\/a> or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76<\/a> on Instagram.<\/p>\n \t\t\t