Nate Campbell - 3x Lightweight Boxing World Champion

Nate Campbell was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida and competed as a professional boxer from 2000 to 2014 amassing 37 wins over his career and a 3-time Lightweight Champion. He shares his incredible journey rising the ranks of the boxing world, his mentors, training, highs and lows, and the fascinating story of how "Duuuval" chant helped him win a fight no one thought he could win - even himself. We hear the story of how he became known as the Galaxxy Warrior which is now the name of the local gym they operate here in Jacksonville. This is an episode you don't want to miss!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AES_JK3fYw8

Brian Harbin: Hello, my name is Brian Harbin. Welcome to today's episode of the Grit.org podcast!

Today, super excited, we've got Nate Campbell III in the house. So Nate, welcome!

Nate Campbell: What's going on, y'all?

Brian Harbin: So tell you guys a little bit about Nate. He's a Jacksonville native and a former professional boxer, aka the Galaxy Warrior. He competed from 2000 to 2014. He turned professional 2000 and quickly stormed through his opponents, winning his first 23 fights in a row in boxing. He held the unified WBA undisputed IBF and WBO lightweight titles from 2008 to 2009, as well as having challenged for the IBF super featherweight title in 2005 and the WBO junior welterweight title in 2009.

He finished his career with 38 wins, 26 of which came by knockout. He currently works as a TV host and gym owner of Galaxy Boxing Refuge here in Jacksonville, Florida, and also does stand-up comedy. Company. So, uh, Nate, welcome. Excited for this.

Nate Campbell: Oh man, thank y'all for having me. Thank y'all for having me.

Brian Harbin: Definitely. And just a quick shout out for our sponsors. Today's episode is escrow.com. With over $7 billion in protected transactions, escrow.com is the world's most secure online payment method. From automobiles to electronics to business sales and more, escrow.com makes it easy to confidently conduct business online. Visit escrow.com today to learn more about how you can achieve trust, security, and certainty with every transaction.

So Nate, we'd like to start you know, early life growing up. So what were some early principles that you feel like were instilled in you early as a young child? Any specific mentors or family members that kind of helped shape your philosophies?

Nate Campbell: Yeah, I had a great group of men around me. My father, my great— my grandfather was my first caregiver, um, my mother's father. And I, my mother, he— I watched him have a heart attack and die on the front porch right on Beaver Street here in Jacksonville. And I never forget the last thing he told me. He never said I love you. That wasn't his thing. He wasn't that mushy kind of guy. He was born in the '40s. They didn't do that.

So he looked me in the face. He said, go to your daddy. I love you, baby. And so I ended up with my father eventually. And my father was my guy. He was my best friend always. He was— I was— he was my— I was his namesake. Um, he was a junior. I was a third and I want to be just like my father. I want to be just like my dad. And my dad was very sickly also. And he reached over and grabbed me one day in what is now Shands Hospital. He said, I want you to be better than me. You promise me you'll be better than me. You find something you're good at and you do it with all your heart. Promise me that. And that was a promise I made to my father. So when I found— when I really did realize how much I loved boxing, I threw everything I had into it and I think that's what propelled me to becoming who I was in the sport.

Brian Harbin: And, you know, reflecting back on your dad and granddad, anything specific you feel like that, you know, you looked up to them so much?

Nate Campbell: They were men. They were… there was no… I love the fact they were men. There was no softness with them. I was raised by men, the men around me, so it took me a long to time to realize that I had to adjust and be soft in areas, in other areas, because I was always so hard.

Now I think I'm still hard, really rough, but my daughters are like— my oldest daughter Jasmine, who runs my gym, she reminds me, he is, he's soft, he's a punk. I said, really, a punk? For these grandkids, you're a punk, Daddy. They just do you any kind of way. And I don't think that's true. I think that I've just learned another way to do it. And I have 4 granddaughters and 3 grandsons, and I think that I have— I've just found another way to do it. And I think the way now I do it is based on years of living, opposed to having to be always aggressive to get to life. Now I'm living life. I had to get to life. Now I'm living life.

Brian Harbin: Yes, you've evolved.

Nate Campbell: I've had to. You— I don't think at 53 you can be the same guy you were at 33 or 23, or you can't be that same guy. Like you said, I fought— my career actually spanned 24 years because I fought last year, so they give me all that time back. And I fought in Colombia last year, and I wouldn't tell anybody… I would do it again. I would do it one more time. I want to do it two more times, actually, but it is a part of me, so I can't not be that, but there's a— I do know that there's an expiration date on me doing it at any level.

Brian Harbin: I love that. Still looking to get in the ring.

Nate Campbell: So I just love… and I know that I'm— it's not gonna be a top guy. It's not— I'm not looking to fight a top guy. I would love to start it, start a deal where all the old guys get together and box, you know, because I watched James Toney box Donovan Razor Ruddock. And I was in— I just… that did it for me. I was so in love with watching them fight. And somebody's like, why? I'm like, if you don't understand that those two men got to live one more time, because the day that you quit boxing is the day that you slowly begin to die. As long as you got a fight coming up, you living every day. That's where we see it.

Brian Harbin: And so for you getting started, were there any early sports or kind of tell us about the progression up to boxing?

Nate Campbell: I played Pop Warner football. I was really good at Pop Warner football. They thought that I was going to grow some more, but…

Brian Harbin: Defense?

Nate Campbell: No. I actually….

Brian Harbin: Offense?

Nate Campbell: I played middle linebacker. I played safety. I played cornerback. I played wide receiver. I played quarterback one year because we didn't have a— I knew all the plays and I could throw the ball and get it there. I played powerful, I played middle, I played fullback and running back. So I just played wherever they told me to play. And it was spot one, so you just do what you're told to do. But basketball was actually my sport. That was actually my sport. I was really good at basketball. I put up All-American numbers. I could— I dunked at 5'4". I was a very athletic kid. I was athletic, but this is all I did. I lived in the weight room. Lifting… I worked on the leg machine, the leg press machine, every single morning, every morning, 7 days a week.

Brian Harbin: Is that how you developed the ability to jump?

Nate Campbell: Well, I could jump already, but I wanted to be stronger. The guys were bigger. I was small, I was 102 pounds, and I was physically strong. I can lift as much as most guys could lift, but basketball was physical. Basketball is a physical game in Florida. If you go to like New York, it's a more finesse game. LA is a finesse game. But in the South, every sport is physical, period. There is no— it's physical. I have a few kids that I train now that are from Connecticut, New York area. They're like, these guys are strong. Yeah, it's physical. Everything is physical here.

Brian Harbin: And so, so you played basketball and football kind of growing up, and then when did you kind of flip the switch to.

Nate Campbell: Well, I also ran cross country and ran track.

Brian Harbin: Really?

Nate Campbell: Yeah, I did anything I could do to get me out of the neighborhood. Any sport that I would have done— that swimming thing, but the water was the problem, you know, that water part. I mean, that I'd have a problem with. I can swim, but I don't like deep water, so I— that wasn't going to be my thing. I'm like, if the water's higher than this, I don't think I want to be in it.

So for me, I loved… I ran middle distance or cross country. And my thing was I ran like I fought. I had a coach say, this boy runs like he wants to kill the other man. And I only had one person that I could think of. I read up once… that, Preak Fontaine.

Brian Harbin: Yep.

Nate Campbell: He ran like he was— he ran with an anger. And I thought that was cool because I could run. I wasn't big as everybody else, but I could run with the anger. And I ran with that anger. And that just translated to everything I did after that. I fought with this chip on my shoulder.

So I tried— I was taught boxing at 5, and the same day I learned to play basketball. But there were no boxing gyms. There were plenty of basketball courts. So you do what you can do. And I tried it again at 17. They opened a boxing gym on the corner of… I want to say 6th and Main. Yeah, 6th and Main. It is now the World for Jesus building. It was upstairs.

And a guy named Sonny, God bless him, he passed away like last year, year before. Sonny was a little bitty white guy, and he's, come on in here, put you in the ring with one of these boys, we gonna see what you can do. And they beat the h*** out of me. They beat me good. First guy was a guy named Danny. He beat me up, bust my nose. I said, okay, I'm going back.

Then he put me with an old guy named Isaac, and Isaac beat me unmercifully. I was 17, he was 42, and I'll never forget it. He was hitting me with the overhand right so much, just kept hitting me over the glove, over the glove, over the glove. And I just kept saying, why is everything moving so slow? I didn't realize I was buzzed. I'd never been buzzed before. And he hit me the last shot and that's enough. And I never forget going to the corner. I wanted to say thank you so much and just gave him the biggest hug. I'm like, because he was gonna kill me and I think he was gonna let it.

But I went back to playing basketball for the next 7 years. I played ball off and on for the next 7 years. I got married at 19. And so life took off. Life was lifing. I had the life. And I eventually got the job I've been wanting, Winn-Dixie Warehouse, which was the kind of job where you could make a great wage and use your hands. And I was young, I was strong, I was physical. And I learned to drive a forklift. And I just fell into my thing over there. And I was working an 11-to-7 shift. And a guy named Jeff Hullett, call him Big Dog. And Big Dog talked like, see, I'm gonna tell you right now, you got pretty fast hands. And I kept getting in trouble for falling asleep. And one night I fell asleep and Jeff said— I said, man, I can't fall asleep again. I can't lose this job. I need this job. I got a new baby coming. I need this job.

And so we were doing our thing and I started shadowboxing to stay woke. I was doing what I learned over at Main Street Boxing to stay woke. And one day I was throwing combinations in the back. I started warming up and getting better with it. He said, you might want to try that boxing thing, you got pretty fast hands. I'm like, man, I ain't leaving my good job. I was making, by this time, like $11 some change, and I was about to get ready to make $13.65, which was top pay back in that day. That was a bunch of money. And I'm getting like 12, 13-hour days. I am not thinking about going to a boxing gym.

And one day I was driving down Riverside over where they have— right now, if you go down Riverside now, going towards Five Points, on the right there's all these apartments there. Those weren't apartments, those were little shanty buildings back then. And there was a picture of Mike Tyson, a cutout picture of Mike Tyson in the window. And I went by and knocked on the door one day, and the guy said, "Man, we'll be here at 5 o'clock."

A guy named Dino Ferrari. I didn't know his name at the time. And my cousin— I went by and nobody was there. And I had to go do laundry some weeks later, and my cousin came by and said, "Yo, cuz." I said, "What's up?" And they called both of us the same thing. He said, "Cuz." I said, "What's up?" He said, "That boxing gym is open." And I was putting my clothing in the dryer. Another Broken Egg is right down the way from where I was, right down the way from Another Broken Egg on Riverside. Put my clothing in the dryer.

So I put a dollar in each one of them so that I would have a little more time. And I drove around there and I met the guy who opened the door the first time, Gino Ferrari, and I met Frankie Menace. And that's when my career started. I got beat up every day for the next 3 and a half, 4 months. They beat me like— I joke about it, they passed me around like a joint. They wearing me out, Jack. I'm talking about, it was so bad. I would come home with a bag of peas on my face every night. It was bad. But the quitter that people would think you were, it wasn't in me. I refused to let them think that they won. I just couldn't let them win.

Brian Harbin: And so meanwhile, you're still working at Winn-Dixie.

Nate Campbell: Oh yeah.

Brian Harbin: And then you're training basically how many hours a day are you starting to train at this point?

Nate Campbell: Oh, I would be there. Gym open at 5, it would go to 9, but I would leave about 8 o'clock. I would get there at 5. By the time everybody tuning down at 8 o'clock, I'd be home because I got to be working 11 o'clock. So I would go home, take a shower, and I grab a nap, hour nap, and get up and I go to work. Then I fell in love with Tuesday Night Fights. Tuesday Night Fights. That was it. Tuesday Night Fights was the thing then.

Brian Harbin: And these were people you're fighting that are organized through the gym? Are you fighting other gyms?

Nate Campbell: This was regular sparring.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Nate Campbell: But Tuesday Night Fights came on every Tuesday night, and it would come on, and I had to be to work at 11 o'clock. And I'm like, dude, I gotta watch this fight, gotta watch this fight, gotta watch this fight, gotta watch this fight. So we got what we would call— I called his head to clock me in, and I'm gonna sneak in the back door. And that's what we do. And everybody started to really help me out. I started finding creative ways to fall asleep at work. I'm just going to tell you right now, I would cut the bottom out of a box and sleep sitting up in Indian style. Oh my God, with the topper.

And I would get the big Handy Foil box and I would sit down. I'd be about this much in Handy Foil box, put a false bottom in and throw some tops, cut tops in there and have a little hole cut through that I could see through all four ways. And I would go to… dude, I was creative about getting some sleep because I had to train, you know.

Brian Harbin: So let me ask you this. So you're training and you're getting just beat up continually. What do you feel like kept you motivated? Did you feel like you were getting better through that process?

Nate Campbell: I refused. I was stubborn. You got to realize something. I was an ordained minister at 22, so I left the church ministry to go to the gym, basically. I was a pulpit minister. I was a COGIC minister in a COGIC church. William Frank Robinson was my pastor, and I was married to his niece. His brother's the bishop. So this is a church family. The mother, everybody in the family is in the church. But I said, I want to box. I got to do it. It's something that's calling me. I had this thing in me that was pulling me to it.

So the more that Shane Gannon would beat me up, and Alton Madison, and Dino Ferrari, and Stacy Harris, and Lorenzo Cole, and all of them would beat me up— I mean, they would beat me up, and I refused to let them win. That's number 2 on your list. You know, and I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna read it because this is what it was. I don't find an excuse, I find a way. I just knew that if I kept doing this long enough, I was gonna be the best guy in the gym. Rather they left or somebody else came, I was gonna be the best guy in the gym.

Brian Harbin: Where did that confidence come from, you think?

Nate Campbell: My daddy. My daddy, man. My daddy was my guy.

Brian Harbin: And I said he would come and watch it. He had already passed.

Nate Campbell: He died on my 10th birthday.

Brian Harbin: But you were trying to live up to you being better than him and kind of that…

Nate Campbell: My dad was my favorite person ever. He was my favorite person ever. My dad had an alcohol problem. My dad was alcoholic. He drank because he wanted to. He was sick and he didn't know what was wrong. He was so angry about them not being able to tell him what was wrong with him. And my mother was a drug addict. She was a speedballer. She shot heroin and cocaine mixed together. Horrible thing, very addictive. But my mother was always a hustler. She always got out and did her thing. But my father was there with me, and he would drink to— I told somebody, I tell this joke on stage, you have never heard a man lie till he lies to God. You've never heard a man lie till he lies to God.

And I would hear my daddy get drunk, and he'd be over the toilet, God, if you get me through this, I'll never do it again. If you take me through this, Lord, I'll— I'm like, you've never heard a man lie. DM, lie to God. And my dad would lie to God, but he never lied to me. He never lied. And I'm like, how he lie to God? He don't lie to me. And he never lied to me. He always told me the truth about everything. He would never hide anything from me. And he loved me.

And my father told me, he said, I love you more than I love myself, and I want the best for you. And he said, you got to make me a vow that you never get hooked on this alcohol like me. I tried alcohol. I'm like, I don't see how he did this. And I never wanted to try drugs because I saw what the repercussions were for that. I never even thought about that, but it never was my thing. And I just wanted to please him. And then when it got to a place where it wasn’t about pleasing my father, I realized that in order to make sure my daughters didn't carry a bad name, I had to change it.

So this was going to be my way to change it. I was going to change my family's name. I was going to make my daddy— I was going to make his living not be in vain. I was gonna make my grandfather's living not be in vain. My mother was— so it was not about wealth for me, it was about changing my family's legacy. Making sure that the people around me, if they said Campbell, it meant something and not just the soup, because we couldn't get none of their money. But I just wanted them to know that they were special, that there was something special about them. So I think that I thought I could do it, and I didn't care what I had to go through to do it.

Brian Harbin: And that was kind of your overarching purpose. And so what was that decision to go pro then? At this point, you're working in the warehouse, you're training, you know, obviously not getting a ton of sleep, but what was kind of that tipping point for you where it's like all right, it's time to start competing and get in the ring?

Nate Campbell: I made the Olympic trials. I made the Olympic trials.

Brian Harbin: And this is while you're still working at Winn-Dixie?

Nate Campbell: Okay.

Nate Campbell: In less than 3 years, in less than 3 years, I became one of the best lightweights in the country.

Brian Harbin: And basically you're just doing like little circuit fights to the national championships?

Nate Campbell: Okay. But I was always in top 5 or something like that. I was one of the top amateurs in the country. I had less fights than everybody. A lot of guys come to the Nationals, they got 35 fights. I had 7 fights when I showed up to the Nationals. I had 7 whole fights. I went to the national championship, fought the national champion. I was 9-0. These kids got 200 fights and 100 fights and 78 fights and 90 fights. I'm like, I had no business even being there, but I was older, I was stronger and I was physical, and I made the trials.

And I decided that I got tired of them taking— I got disqualified out in Colorado Springs in a fight that I was winning like 22 to 5, and there was no way that boy was going to beat me. They disqualified me. Said I was leading with my head. Boy was 6'1". I was putting my head on his chest and making him fight inside, and I was winning the fight, and they disqualified me. That broke my heart. And I went home, and my foster mother— I call her Mama. I call my foster mother Shirley, I call her Mama, and I call my biological mother Mom. And they became the best of friends. I came in the house cussing. I didn't know she was in the house. I don't cuss in front of my mom.

She saw me, she said, get out. I said, I knew you was here, Mom. She made me get out. And I know this city when it was just this building. I've been in this city since just that building was downtown. None of this other stuff was there. I go back to when it was just that building, that building, and the Barnett Bank building over on the other side.

I remember when the biggest building downtown was the oldest building, which was the Independent Life Building. And I came from a time where you don't cuss in front of your mama, you don't cuss in front of your dad, you don't do it. She made me leave the house just east of here on Phelps Street and said, go for a run. And I was terrified. I was terrified of this woman, not in a bad way, but because I respected her so much.

So I ran 2 blocks up to First Street and 4 blocks over to Main Street and I ran 65 blocks north to Panama and back because I was so afraid that she was gonna be angry if I didn't run. I came back and she looked me in the face and she was sitting on the front porch with her favorite thing. She would drink beer on the front porch, chew gum, and eat peanuts, which was strange. Raw peanuts.

Brian Harbin: It was just strange getting peanuts stuck in your gum.

Nate Campbell: No, she would chew the gum, drink a little bit, and then spit the gum out. She started eating peanuts. That was her thing. And so I came back to the yard and I kind of peeked around the cedar tree. I said, can I come, can I come back in the house? She's like, yeah, come on. And so I came to the porch. She said, have a seat. She said, before you sit down, go in the cooler and get your drink. So I opened it. My favorite drink is Cherry Coke. Ain’t no other way around. And she had two Cherry Cokes, and she said, you ain't got to fight for a while.

So I grabbed the Cherry Coke, and she said, here. She gave me some boiled peanuts, and we sat down on the porch. And she said, don't you ever let nobody make you quit doing what you love. By that time, I was just done with amateur boxing. I was done. That was March 9th. I got disqualified March 8th, 1999. I was home March 9th. That was March 9th, 1999. I never forget those days. And we sat on that front porch and we ate the peanuts and she told me, "Nobody make you quit."

So I'm still tossing up between going to Scranton, Pennsylvania for national Eastern trials or whatever, and I just made my mind up that I wasn't. I went to a few more tournaments and I just didn't have the same love for the amateur part of boxing. I wanted to have my own say in my career. And I couldn't keep eating those trophies. I was paying for these trips out of my own pocket for the most part. And I'm like, if I'm gonna leave my money on the table at my job at Winn-Dixie, I need to get paid for this.

So I had to make a choice. I took a chance. I took a chance. I had a choice. I had a choice. I took a chance. And I went pro February 2000. February 5th. And the rest was history. I just— I went through ups and downs in boxing.

Brian Harbin: And so to go from amateur to pro, what did you have to do to… [CROSSTALK]

Nate Campbell: I found a promoter. JC Koresh. He was a promoter doing a show in Tallahassee, and he had Henry Akinwande and a couple other guys. And Frank came in. This is my— I moved to Tallahassee. I moved to Tallahassee. At first I was living in my car and then went to stay with Frank.

And then me and Frank had an issue and I moved back in my car, slept in my car. I didn't know where to go from there, but I was fighting. I turned pro that night and I just made my mind up. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't make any excuses. I just found a way to make it happen. And I just kept fighting. I would take any fight they offered me. The first 5 fights me and Frank were together, I took any fight they gave me. 126, 130, 135, 147.

My first fight was at 147, but I was 126, 130 pounds. I didn't care. I just would fight anybody. The first fight paid me $400 plus room and food. So basically gave me $100 for gas. And they gave me $100 for food. So I gave Frank the $200 and I gave my wife then $350 of that money. So the next fight they paid me more. I fought in Miami.

Brian Harbin: You get paid $400 regardless if you win or lose? Okay, but you don't get paid extra if you win?

Nate Campbell: Okay. No. And my next fight was in Miami. I fought a guy— Alex Brians. We talk from time to time now. He was 1-1-1, and I think— I want to say they paid me $1,000 for that fight. They brought me in to lose. And we drove from Tallahassee. I think they gave us $250 for gas or something. Back then gas was cheaper. I gave all that to Frank, and I gave Frank 10% of what I made. So I gave him $100, but I gave him like $200, and I gave him all the gas money. And I gave the rest of the money to my then-wife, all but $50. I took $50 out of that check.

Then the next fight I got, Frank had got me situated with Jimmy Waldrop, who became my manager and later became my cut man, became a father figure to me. He was still a great man to this day. I love Frank. Frank has passed on now, but Jimmy's still alive. I'm taking my fighters to see Jimmy next month, as a matter of fact. Jimmy was instrumental in all the fighters for the last 50 years. Roy Jones, Winky Wright— if you came out of Florida in some way, shape, form, or fashion, he matched you. He had to do something with your career. And Jimmy— I'll never forget, nobody wanted to sign me because I was 28. By the time I had my first fight, I was 27 years, 11 months.

Brian Harbin: Boxers are probably what, early 20s, 17?

Nate Campbell: 17, 18, 19 years old. Yeah. And I’ll never forget it. Nobody wanted to sign me. Nobody would sign me. And Jimmy said, "By God, he's 28, he's a senior citizen in lower weights." And he brought me over and he put me in with a guy named John Trigg, who was a tough journeyman. 4-6-4 was his record, but he should have really been like 12-2. But he was the guy they brought in to lose.

John Trigg and me fought my first 6-rounder in my third fight, which is a quick turnaround. I stopped John in 4. A good fight, but I stopped him in 4, cut him up and stopped him. Jimmy said, "Okay, you beat old Johnny, boy, let's see what you can really do." Put me in my next fight, I was 3-0 against a kid that was 7-0 with 5 knockouts. I knocked him out in 6 too. He came to the ring and gave me a contract.

And Jimmy was honorable. He gave me a regular Florida State contract, and we sat down and we put that contract together. He didn't take more than he deserved. He didn’t take more than he worked for. He said, "I'll keep you fighting." Next fight I fought, I made TV. I fought on TV— Stevie Forrest versus John Brown. John Brown got his ear cut open or something like that, and I made TV. I had 5 fights the first year and I was doing well.

And the next year, Jimmy found me some work sparring and found me some other stuff. I ended up sparring with a friend of mine— I want to pay respects to my friend Ibo Elder. He’s fighting brain cancer right now. But I became his sparring partner. He’s the reason I have the Galaxy Warrior uniforms. We were amateurs together, so we knew each other. We were teammates on amateur teams. I went to Savannah, Georgia, was sparring with him, and things started working out. I fought 11 times in 2001 in 9 months. So my career really just took off, and I really stayed with what I was doing.

Brian Harbin: So what do you feel like, especially those first few fights, where did you feel like you had to improve more?

Nate Campbell: Everything.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Nate Campbell: I knew that I had a shaky left hook. I was afraid to throw the lead left uppercut until John David Jackson came along. I wouldn't throw it. I probably would have all knockouts if I threw the lead left uppercut. I was terrified of it.

Brian Harbin: Because it left you exposed?

Nate Campbell: I felt that it did, but there's a proper way to do it, and no one ever properly showed me the way to throw it— but John did.

Brian Harbin: So working on your technique, and that was your thing.

Nate Campbell: I always worked on my skill set. I always worked on it. I was what they called a basic one-two puncher. And that's all you really needed from me because I was long, I was lean for my weight, and so I was effective. I was an effective puncher.

Brian Harbin: And what about in terms of, like, did you do much prep in terms of knowing who you were going up against?

Brian Harbin: You didn't care. You would just get in the ring.

Nate Campbell: I didn't care.

Brian Harbin: You'd figure it out in the moment.

Nate Campbell: I didn't care.

Brian Harbin: And so when you're in the ring, when you're fighting with somebody, how do you quickly discern like how you're going to win, how you're going to make your— you know— land your punches?

Nate Campbell: John David Jackson had a great term for this. Somebody said, what film do you watch? John made me watch about 3 minutes of film. I watched a few rounds, I just couldn't get into it. Because he's not going to fight you. I was improvisational. My style is 100% jazz. Everybody else is R&B and rap. I am jazz. Everything I do is improvisational.

Everything I do is off the top of my dome. I'm a freestyle rapper. I'm a freestyle rapper if there ever was such a thing. I'm not the guy that's gonna say hip-hop. I'm not him. I'm doing this off the dome. And that's just the way I did it. I had things I would do and I would see if they worked. And if they worked, they worked. If they didn't, I'd find something to work. And that's what I did. John David Jackson said, we don't worry about what the other guy does. He got to adjust to us. Because…

Brian Harbin: Which gave you an advantage because you're unpredictable, right?

Nate Campbell: I was very, very awkward, as they call it. But it came from me growing up with a musical background. A bunch of musical men in the family that sang all the time. They were always making adjustments. My Uncle Bobby T grew up friends with Ray Charles, and they were very good friends.

Ray Charles grew up right here in Jacksonville for the most part. He played here all the time, and he used to stay at my uncle and my aunt— my family's house. He would stay there. I met Ray Charles when I was 6, and I didn't know how big that was. He came to the house. It's Bobby T. He came to the house, and I'm like, that's Ray Charles. And he's like, that's Ray Charles. And he came to our little rundown house, and he took Michael Bobby T out. They hung out all night, brought him back the next morning. There was a place downtown Jacksonville called Boston Chop House.

Ray Charles bought everybody breakfast from Boston Chop House— like 30 of us. He bought all of us food. And so for me, I was always in a room listening to bebop and hip-hop and jazz, and everything was improvisational. So when guys were moving very, you know, succinct this way, I was always giving you something different because that's what I heard. That's what I heard musically in my head. So that's how I boxed.

Brian Harbin: So music kind of helped you get in the flow. And for you, is there like a switch? Like, do you feel like you did better when they land that first punch, or do you feel like you get more momentum when you see that you've weakened them, if that makes sense?

Nate Campbell: I was aggressive. I was an aggressive counterpuncher. What it turned out being, I was aggressive. I wanted you to punch at me so I could punch back. But I also had to take the lead. I understood that I had to take the lead. I didn't want to be hit. Let's get that established. I wasn't one for being hit. I could take a lick, but I didn't want to take it if I didn't have to.

Brian Harbin: To…

Nate Campbell: So I would try to put as much pain on you as possible so you didn't want to hit me. Whenever a guy said, man, I gotta wait to get hit— it may be the only shot you get hit with, you know. I didn't want to— I never wanted to be the guy that was getting hit. Never wanted to be that guy.

At 51 fights, I can still have a conversation with you. I wasn’t getting beat up. You are not beating me up. I've never been cut with a punch in my whole career. I've been cut by headbutts and, you know, elbows, but never been hit with a punch and cut. Thank God for that. But I got my share of dings and bruises, but I never was going to be the one that's just beat up.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And I wanted to ask you this too, because you mentioned this about when you were playing sports— that you would play angry. Do you feel like you fought angry too?

Nate Campbell: There was a controlled— there was a controlled anger. I learned to control that anger.

Brian Harbin: And so tell me more about that in terms of how you felt like you controlled your anger in the ring?

Nate Campbell: I put it on the end of my gloves. I put that on the end of my gloves. As I tell my kids at my academy, we would not be victims. We would not be victims for anybody. I refused to allow my kids to be victims. And they kind of look at me like, was I a victim one day? The first day of school, boy beat me up and ran me home, and my daddy made me go back and fight this boy. I've never been a victim since. You can't be a victim. So for me, I never wanted to be the guy— I was never going to be your punching bag.

Brian Harbin: And what was going through your mind typically during a fight in terms of— I mean, obviously you can go up to 10 rounds, I mean, potentially 12 rounds, you know, potentially what, 30 minutes in the ring?

Nate Campbell: No— 36 minutes in the ring, 48 minutes total.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. So do you feel like you were thinking at all, or part of the strategy is not thinking and just being instinctual? Was anything going through your mind at all?

Nate Campbell: For me, a lot of my boxing was instinctual, but I was sadistic. By the time I got to 135 pounds, I was so bitter. I wasn't making the money everybody else was making because guys wouldn't fight me. Nobody was breaking in there to get in the ring with me. Let's get that established. And I'm gonna say it— Pacquiao didn't want the smoke, Mayweather didn't want the smoke, they didn't want the smoke. I wanted the smoke. Marquez, I love him to death, but he didn't want the smoke. They were mandatories for my titles and I never got into fights with them. And I wanted those fights. So I had a chip on my shoulder.

So I figured I was never gonna get the fight anyway, so let's make somebody hurt. Because at 135, I only lost one time at 35 when I was on my way to the title. And everybody I fought either retired, moved up, or never fought again.

I just called one of my friends who I fought, Ricky Keyless. He never fought again after we fought. And I love him. I tell him I love him every time I talk to him. He's my big brother. He will always be my big brother. I was so hurt after we fought. It was ESPN Classic, one of the most vicious fights ever. And I tell him, I love you, bro. I love you. He said, I love you too, man. I'm like, man, you mean the world to me. And I'll never forget going in. There’s a running joke— he owed me money for a watch. He didn't pay me for the watch. I said, when you get the money, you give it to me.

Years later, we finally fought and he finally paid me after the fight. His joke is, all that over some money for a watch. Don't do that. Don't do that. We never didn't talk. We never stopped speaking. We never talked about it. I'm like, I understand how boxing is and what the game is, but this is my friend. My daughters call him Uncle Ricky. This is my friend. The one fight I never wanted to fight. I never wanted to hit him. And I'll never forget— Randall Bailey, Knockout King, in the corner saying, "F*** him," trying to get me to focus on hitting him, because I couldn't hit him. It was killing me. It was killing me to hit him. And I'll never forget after the fight, he said, "I forgot you punch like a mule kick." And even after the fight, I kissed this brother. I loved him. I hugged him. I kissed him. And we wouldn't let him leave our corner until we had made sure he wasn't bloody or beaten. Most of the work was done in our corner before he went back to his corner after the fight. And everybody in both corners knew each other. That's how crazy this was. And I wouldn't sleep, and no one in my camp could sleep till I knew he was okay at the hospital, because he had to go to the hospital. And to this day, that is the one fight that I wished I never had to fight.

Brian Harbin: Really? Galaxy Warrior, where does that name come from? I know there's a story behind it.

Nate Campbell: It is Galaxy with two X’s.

Brian Harbin: Yep.

Nate Campbell: And don't y'all be putting one X on my name. That name is special to me. Dino Ferrari, who lives in Valdosta now, had a computer store called Galaxy Computer, and the name of the gym was Boxing at the Galaxy. And he had a big mural in the back and we all took a picture in front of it after we won our first tournaments— the first Sunshine Games. I tried to buy the gym, buy the building, and they had already sold it to the people that put those apartments down there. So my little $50,000 wasn't nothing. I'm thinking, I'm really doing something. I'm getting 50 grand for this property right here. And people said, no, it's sold already. My heart was broken. And I went and picked up one of the rocks, one of the stones that was out in the yard, and I put it into my car. And I kept that stone for years.

Brian Harbin: And was his store with two X's as well then?

Nate Campbell: That was actually— Galaxy is his name. It's actually his name. I just tattooed it on my shoulder. I had a little tattoo on my arm— it said, because I wouldn’t put a little nothing on my arm because I was a small guy. Little warrior— had a set of gloves here and put “warrior” here. And when they tore the gym down, I put “Galaxy” over it. A lady saw it. “Oh, Galaxy Warrior is a great boxing name! Oh my God, it's a great ring name!” And I thought, wow, that is a great ring name. I get to represent my gym and I get to keep it alive. Nate the Galaxy Warrior. I’m like, okay, that kind of rang for me.

Everyone was like— because there was another Galaxy Harada, there were other Galaxies, but never one with two X’s. I'm the first one with two X’s. I did the historical research on it. There were other Galaxies— Galaxy Harada and those kind of guys— but it was for my gym. It was for Frankie Menace. It was for Dino Ferrari. It was for Alton Madison, Jim Leary. It was for Stacy Harris. It was for Lorenzo Cole. It was for David. It was for Joe Johnson. It was for Shane Gannon. It was for Charles Chico Williams. It was for those guys. Those guys that really birthed me. They birthed me, and they did so much for me, dude. The beatings I took were unmerciful. But there was a point to it. There was a point to it.

Brian Harbin: Exactly. And I love how, you know, that's been a theme over the course of this interview— like you keep talking about all these other people that were so instrumental, that were basically with you in the ring, that kind of gave you all that motivation too.

Nate Campbell: Jim Ray was about 6 foot, maybe 6'1", fought at 154 to 168 or something in that range. White guy, clean cut. Glenn County Sheriff's Department. I thought he was Georgia State Patrol, I think. I think Georgia State Patrol.

Brian Harbin: Wait, Glenn County, remind me where that is.

Nate Campbell: It's just north of here, in that area. Kingsland.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, yeah.

Nate Campbell: Up in there, I think. Up in there. Glenn or Camden, up in there. Yeah, he's up in that area. I think that's where it was. And every time I’d see his car pull down the ramp into the gym, in my mind, I’d be cussing because I knew he was going to beat me that day. I knew I was going to get a beating that day. And it went on until I finally came around the corner. I turned the corner and I could hold my own. But if it wasn't for guys like those guys— Manny, Manny, Manny, who's a fireman… I forget Manny's last name. His grandfather was blind. His grandmother made the best crab cakes in the world.

And when those people, those men, educated us in boxing, they taught us good old-fashioned boxing. Wasn't no pretty hand mitts. You learned to fight. The best way to learn to fight is to do it, and that's what you got. And I think that's the best way for it to happen. A lot of kids want the pretty handwork, the Mayweather mitts, and the Tank… you don't see none of them fight that way.

Brian Harbin: So let's go back to kind of your professional career. I think you'd had 7 wins at this point, on your way to 23 straight. You know, you're getting bigger and bigger fights, being on TV. So how did that change the whole experience as you become more famous in the sport? What do you feel like you had to start learning to adapt in that new environment?

Nate Campbell: Egos.

Brian Harbin: Other people's?

Nate Campbell: Yeah, or you gotta develop your ego. You got your own ego. We all had our own ego. And that's the start, dude. You can imagine being in the gym. I'm gonna give you one. Imagine you walk in the gym with Mike Tyson and Shane Mosley and Vernon Forrest and Angel Manfredi and Arturo Gatti and Tony Tarver. Me and Tarver clashed all the time at one point. I told Tarver I'd cut him. I'm gonna cut you. And now we're the best of friends. We older men now. But me and Tarver were always at odds. He was always fighting Roy, and Roy's my guy.

And so you just learn to deal with egos. And as you get older, you get mature. You mature more and you realize this man has a right to feel this way. He has a right to believe in himself. Nobody else is going to believe in him, so why can't he believe in himself?

So once I learned those things and realized that there's a low-level threat of violence between two men— a lot higher with fighters— you're in the gym and everybody want to bump. I've been in the gym with John David Jackson, Aaron Superman Davis, Allen Green. I've been in with some of the greatest fighters of my era all at one time, and everybody's respectful of everybody else. And we are the most vicious, most volatile practical jokers of the bunch. We are horrible to each other. But we get to be human beings and men with one another. We're all great at something. We're great at the same thing.

Brian Harbin: You're going through it together.

Nate Campbell: Going through it together. We're going through it together.

Brian Harbin: So as you get better and better and you become more famous— you talked earlier about having a chip on your shoulder— but as you started to get more famous, did you still create that chip on your shoulder? How did you transform your…

Nate Campbell: I went through a great depression. When I lost to Casimero, which I won the fight, and I don't care what they say, I won that fight. They took that fight from me. I went through a depression. I lost several other fights because I was depressed about that fight. And I was blacking out because I couldn't make 130 anymore, and they kept holding me there. I kept blacking out and blacking out in the ring.

Brian Harbin: Come to because you cut too much weight?

Nate Campbell: I was cutting too much weight. That 1 pound for me— when they say too much weight, they think it’s a lot. When you’re a small fighter, that’s why the weight classes are so close. Like, think about it— it goes from 105 to 108, 108 to 112, 112 to 115, 115 to 118, 118 to 122, 126, 130, 135. So think about what I’m saying— those weight classes are very, very close. But the bigger you get, the more they spread out. 130 to 135, 140 to 147, 147 to 154, 154 to 160, 160 to 168, 168 to 175, 175 to 200 pounds.

Now look at that— the bigger you get, the more space you have. But the smaller weights, smaller space you have. And those weight cuts— for me, that 1 pound was killing me. It was— dude, I was lethargic. It was killing me. And my body was— I was in my 30s, man. I was trying to grow. And I’m telling my body, no, no, no. And my body’s like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you in.

So I lose my first fight by stoppage. I black out and I don’t even see the shot coming. Everybody thinks I’m taunting this guy, but what happens is I black out— physically black out. I remember saying, oh my God, he’s gonna hit me, because I know I’m coming forward and I’m in the fight. And Robbie cracks me— pow. And I don’t see it. But I’m so relaxed that it doesn’t hurt me as bad as it would have hurt me another way. I bit my tongue with my mouthpiece in. I bit the whole side of my tongue on the right side. And I never could— I made the weight again, but then I financially couldn’t do certain things. There was just so much going on.

And I went through a Great Depression, dude. I was sleeping on my friend’s floor because my back was so messed up. I moved to Tampa with Terry Trakers, who’s my savior. He was like my savior, man. Terry Trakers was my savior. He was everything to me. He was my big brother. And without Terry, I don’t become champion.

Brian Harbin: So how did you overcome it in that low moment? I mean, what was the motivation to keep going?

Nate Campbell: I remembered everything. I remember Aaron Pryor telling me never quit. I remember my mother telling me never quit. I remember my father telling me we don’t quit, we don’t give up. I remember my grandfather telling me you’re meant to be special. But there was one person that stuck out in my mind— my father’s mother, who was always mean to me. She was so mean to me. She was tough on me. She told me I was built for something.

She said I was born to be something special. The last time I saw her, she hugged me and she kissed me. She said, “You were born to be special. My job was to make you tough.” And it was at that moment I realized that I was built for this. I was built for this, and you can’t break me. And I just remember saying that. That didn’t stop me from— I tell people this— I was only afraid of one fight in my career.

Brian Harbin: Which one was that?

Nate Campbell: That was the Kid Diamond fight. I was afraid for that fight because I had lost already and I was coming off a loss and I was coming up in weight. And I’d been telling people I need to go up in weight because you—

Brian Harbin: At this point you go from 136…

Nate Campbell: To the 130, 135.

Brian Harbin: Okay, 130 to 135.

Nate Campbell: And I tell myself, this ain't just a regular fighter. This kid just drew with Casimero, who beat me. They gave him the fight, and this kid was the hottest thing in boxing at the time. And I'm fighting him on pay-per-view— Roy Jones, Top of 3. And I'm nervous because I know if I lose, my career is over. I hear people saying, "He got one foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel." And it's true. It's true. But I've been training the whole time, but my back was hurting. I had a flare-up in my pinched nerve. I didn't know I had a pinched nerve. I just knew my back would get stiff and tighten, but I didn’t know how to press. I was afraid to go to the doctor because if they told me what the diagnosis was, I could make an excuse.

But if I don't know, I just hurt my back this time and it'll be okay. And my daughters— I had my daughters. I was behind on everything, dude. I’m telling you, I had never missed a payment on my child support by this time, but I was behind. I was 6, 7 months behind. I needed this money to catch up. And my daughters— I mean, I'm sleeping on the floor. Nobody wants to hire me because they know I’m Nate Campbell and they know I'm gonna leave when I get a fight. Nobody wants to hire you nowhere because what fame I had was killing me. It was killing me.

And I'll never forget, I was living in Tampa with Terry. We were living in Cephas, Valrico. A little small house. Terry’s giving everything. This man— he's mortgaged his life for my career at this point. He looks me in the face and I'm like, I took the fight with Julio Diaz because I felt like I could see a way I could beat him. But I didn't see any way to beat Kid Diamond.

And I came home and Terry had the contract. He said, "Well, you know, Julio pulled out, but this is who they want you to fight." Slid it over and I looked at it. Alamazbek Raimkulov— Kid Diamond. Oh God. Just the one guy I didn't want to fight. I don't want to come back with him. Maybe not because I'm afraid of him— I'm like, I don't know if I'm ready to step up into these… he's a heavier guy normally, but I fought as high as 147. But I've been campaigning the lower weights. I'm going through all these things in and out, but I'm in good shape. I'm already at weight. I'm like 138. I've been eating what I wanted, and it's a week before the fight. It’s a week out, so we got to make a decision about this.

Brian Harbin: And is that typically the amount of time you need to train for a fight?

Nate Campbell: No, this is a fast turnaround.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, I was gonna say, typically you…

Nate Campbell: Need 6— 6, yeah, 6 weeks. 8… 6 weeks.

Brian Harbin: Okay.

Nate Campbell: And I looked at Terry. I think he saw the reservations in my face because I'm afraid now. I've been going through this. I'm afraid. I'm afraid. I'm so afraid that if I lose— I've quit my good job at Winn-Dixie. I'm 20-something. What do I do here? What do I do here? What do I do here? Is what I'm thinking. And I kind of look around, and Terry's like, "Slick, you got this. I know you're not afraid of this guy. You don't need to come up for this guy." I like it. He believes in me so much that I'm ashamed of myself.

I'm truly ashamed that I don't believe what he believes right now. I said, okay. And I signed it. And I went to the gym the next day, and Mr. Jimmy Williams— God bless him— he came by the gym and said, "I hear you fighting this fight, baby. You fight this fight. He ain't got enough dirt on his fingernails for you, baby. He ain't built like you." And Mr. Jimmy came through. John David was training Shane Mosley, so I was training with Lenny Perez. So I'm not training with John David, I'm training— I'm like, oh my God. Mr. Jimmy calmed me down. He just calmed me down and he said the things I needed to hear. And I went out and crushed my sparring that day.

Fight came around. Go in— I missed weight by a quarter pound, so they go, let me go over and take it. I ate breakfast, which is crazy. I ate a whole breakfast and I was only a quarter pound over, so I was supposed to be at this weight. I go over and I make weight. I come back and I get on the scale, and Kid Diamond makes a statement that totally rubs me the wrong way. This is the first time I am starting on HBO pay-per-view. I plan to make— I'm like… Jeff Lacey standing off to my left, my now-roommate. And I'm talking to him— my teeth clenched, lips not moving. "Oh, I'm gonna knock him out. Oh, I'm gonna knock him out."

Brian Harbin: Oh, he gave you just the motivation you needed, right?

Nate Campbell: That wasn’t it. That wasn’t the last of it though. So back in that day, you’d go to a table that was huge and there’d be a phone on that end and a phone on this end. You’d pick the phone up and all the Associated Press would be on the phone— like a big Zoom call, but you'd be on the phone. I’d been having some bad, bad times and fights, and I wasn’t doing all that well. I had a couple fights, I slipped. They thought I was done. And nobody asked me any questions. Nobody. Not one person. Nobody even said hello. One guy said, "Hey, how you doing?" I said, "I'm good." And they talked to him. He was the dark horse— I remember I was the belle of the ball. And now he is. And my feelings are hurt. And I’m like, "Is it… you guys… can I go?" "Yeah, you can go, Nate." And I hung the phone up, and they kept talking to him.

And I was in the Downtown Hyatt— I think it was the Hilton now— it was the Downtown Hyatt. That’s where we were staying. And I walked down, I went to my room. The guy was like, "How many minutes?" I said, "I'm good." My heart was broken. I'm like, I gave up everything for this. And this is how they see me now. But I'm okay with that. I went up to my room and I couldn't sleep. I finally did fall asleep. And I woke up, it was early in the morning. I went down, grabbed a little bit of breakfast— not a lot. And people were whispering. And I could hear them. And I know they were whispering. You could really see them whispering about me. "Oh, he's gonna get knocked out by this kid." "Oh, his career’s over." You can hear it.

And I was walking around the corner and there was someone talking about how this kid was gonna break my face. "He gonna break Campbell. Campbell’s done." And I just took my plate and went back up to my room and I sat down. I ate— I think I ate 2 eggs and a piece of toast. That was my breakfast. And I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep. I had to get a haircut that day. And I lived in Tampa, so I knew where I was going. I got up and I went to the barbershop— Will and all the guys at the barbershop. And in my mind, I just made my mind up: he got to kill me to win. He has to kill me to win.

Nate Campbell: And I was sitting in the chair and I said, bald fade, guys. Get my haircut, bald fade. He said, what you gonna do now, man? I said, I'm gonna go have my last meal. I said it just like that— my last meal. He said, do you mean your last meal? You keep saying it like that. I said, I fight tonight. I'm not eating anything else. It's my last meal. But the way I said it, to them, it sounded like my last meal— like I was going to the gallows. And that's what I felt. And I said, I'll see y'all tonight. Y'all coming to the fight?

So I go down to Simply Good— a place called Simply Good. A friend of mine named Sharon owned it. Now I wouldn’t do this now because I teach the Muslim school, so I act better now. But I’m a big reader. I know that when a man goes to the gallows or the death chamber, he can eat anything he wants. The last meal can be anything he wants.

I went down there Saturday morning, like 11 o’clock. He opened the door and said, hey boy, I thought you had a fight. I said, yeah, but it’s my last meal before I fight. He said, why you saying it like that? I said, my last meal— meaning my last major meal before I fight. He kind of looked at me and said, I don’t like the way you saying that.

I said, here’s what I want. I want chitlins and collard greens. I said I want an extra side of chitlins, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, rice. I want a slice of red velvet cake— the big slice you got. And I want one of them big sweet teas— what we call ghetto gallons. Half lemonade, half tea. He said, all right, cool.

He put it all in a bag. He didn’t want to take my money. I said, take the money and the tip. I paid him. I put it in my Ford Expedition and drove back. I got out lugging this bag of food. I went up to my room and sat in the middle of the bed and did something I never do. I ate every grain of rice. Every single thing on that plate, I ate it. I was resigned in my mind that this might be the last time, and I love chitlins, so I was gonna eat every one of them.

And I reached over to the nightstand. You know how hotels give you a pen, a Gideon’s Bible, some paper— six or eight sheets—and an envelope. I wrote my daughter Jasmine a letter, telling her if anything happened to me, don’t hold boxing accountable. This is what I wanted. I wrote my daughter Janae one. I wrote my daughter Jade one. And I wrote my last will and testament, which was four pages long.

I folded them all up individually. Put Jasmine’s name on her letter, each one of them. I put my will in there. I sealed the envelope and wrote on the front, Jimmy/Terry. I put it in my bag. I packed my bag. Jimmy came up to get me, and we went over to Ty’s Palace. Back then you had CDs, so I burned me a CD…

And when I get to the Greg O'Quinn song, I Told the Storm, I go pray. Whatever gospel song I’ve got set up, that’s when I go pray. That’s more than likely the time for me to go pray. It’s usually at the end of the CD. And I went and I began to pray. Only two times I’ve ever released emotion— had an emotional release—in a fight was Kid Diamond and Juan Diaz. Never had another time where I shed tears at all. I prayed. Jimmy came in, we prayed, got everything together, and I reached over in my bag and I gave Jimmy the envelope. I said, I need you to take care of this for me.

And I’ll never forget Jimmy— by God, I don’t want that. Jesus Christ. He was going in, and I wouldn’t let him. I said, if you don’t take it, I’m not fighting. He snatched it out of my hand, not with anger, but with, “We don’t need this. You got this.” And I’m like, but just in case, I need my daughters to know that I was thinking about them. I need my daughters to know that I love them. And he took it and put it in his pocket.

Then they come in and they say, well, you don’t have a song. You don’t have a song. You’re like, DMX, something DMX. And I look, and I think this is what really made them understand how serious I was. I said, I want a gladiator’s— I want a gladiator’s death tonight. I said, if I’m going out tonight, I want a gladiator’s send-off. He said, what’s that? I said, I want no music. I want to walk to the ring and do my job. No music. No fanfare. I want to be remembered for peaceably walking to the ring and doing my job tonight. And the guy said, are you sure, Nate? You sure? Usually it’s DMX. We got all the DMX. They know me. By this time, everybody knows I’m Nate Campbell. They know me. I said, no music. I looked him in the eyes. I said, no music. Nothing. He said, nothing.

HBO comes to get you. They take you out. Everybody knows I’m fighting from Jacksonville by this time. Ain’t nothing but cheap seats. There’s 20-some thousand people in this arena. And when you walk out, you can hear a pin drop. His music is going off. He’s in the ring already. I’m coming out. And as I come out, I get to the edge and the lights hit me— boom—and everybody can see me down at the bottom. There was no music. I was walking, taking my time. I was cracking my neck. I was bouncing. I was doing my thing, warming up.

And out of nowhere, I heard the most beautiful thing I ever heard in my life. And I’m old-school Duval. Y’all messing up. Stop saying Duval. That’s not the way we say it. The reason we say it the way we say it is because Bigger Rankins used to do it every day when he came on the radio. He’d put that reverb on. Cool Runnings. And when I heard that, something in me snapped. I felt like I could win anything at that point. I looked up and you could faintly see people with their hands over their mouths. And I smiled for the first time in days. And one of my boys said, dude, we heard you put your hands over your gloves and do it back. And it was boom.

Brian Harbin: Oh, you did.

Nate Campbell: And I did it like 3 times as loud as I could do it just for them to know. That’s cool. I’m repping Jacksonville Hilljack. You get this. This is our war cry. Y’all think it’s the Jaguars. This ain’t that. This is about being born in the River City. This is about being born before— being here before there was a Jacksonville Landing. This right here is when you used to play downtown at Stanton, old Stanton Number 1 in the yard when they closed it down. This is about being native Jacksonville. That’s what this is about for me.

And I went in there and I broke this kid’s face. I did my job. And people don’t understand something— that was the moment when my career changed. That was the moment that I knew I was gonna be champion. I still had a stumble along the way, but this is when I knew I was going to be champion. This is when I knew there was nobody better in the world than me at that point in my career. I still had to change and get back to John David and fix a few things and tweak. I lost one more time— a fight that I knew I won— but this was it.

So boxing for me, there were so many different complexions to my career because it changed over and over and over. Boxing for me was more than just a sport. It’s been a way of life. It has been my way to represent my city. And I don’t care how people feel about me. I don’t. And I make sure they know I’m the best boxer to ever come out of Jacksonville. You ain’t gotta like it. You ain’t gotta agree with it. But I’m him.

And I’m him because I was born on the shores of Jacksonville. I was born on Jefferson Street at Duval County Medical Center before there was a University Hospital, before there was a Shands Hospital. I was born when Blodgett Homes was made of brick. I was born when Durkeeville was made of brick. I was born when Brentwood was made of brick. I was born in a town where you didn’t go get a pistol to get home. You had your cousins make sure nobody jumped you, and you fought your way home. I was born when Jacksonville was a town. Let’s get that established. We was a town. Daddy sent the constable out to Commonwealth because that was too far outside the city limits. That’s when I was born.

So I believe that I represented my city better than anybody else ever represented their city when it comes to boxing. Jacksonville— this is my city. I was born here. I plan on dying here. Even if I move to Colombia and buy property there, they’re gonna lay my remains somewhere in Jacksonville because this is all I know.

And when I heard Duval, that made me remember who I was. That made me remember what I was supposed to be. It made me remember that I used to make fudge downtown at the Fudgery. I used to make gyros at Euro Wrap downtown in Jacksonville. I went to West Riverside when I was in my first school. I went to Oak Hill. That moment made me remember everything I was supposed to remember about who I was. And sometimes it just takes that one thing to ignite the fire it takes to go the rest of the way.

Brian Harbin: Isn’t that unbelievable? I mean, all those things you had done leading up to that moment, and for that to be the thing you heard that sent you over… that should be— and hearing that story is phenomenal too. I’m from Atlanta originally. We’ve been here about 18 years now. There should be a clip of you walking into that fight hearing Duval, and you should be the guy kicking off the Jags each Sunday.

Nate Campbell: That's me. I love Jacksonville. I'm not going to lie to you, I love Jacksonville. As a foster child, I've lived in the hood, I've lived in Greenland, on Greenland Road. I've lived in Arlington. I've lived in Kernan. I've lived in Jacksonville. I was at Baptist Home for Children, not far from where I teach now.

Brian Harbin: Well, yeah, I wanted to talk about that as well. So now, you know, I know you host a show, but then you also have your training gym. Tell us a little bit about how Galaxy Boxing Refuge came to be and what you guys do there.

Nate Campbell: Jiles Wiley owned Jack's Muay Thai and he sold it. And I don't think I fit. I think I'm too rough. I was too rough. Jiles let me be rough, but I'm a tough old-school Mickey-type trainer. I'll let you have it. You might get cussed out some days with me if you mess up, especially because a lot of these young men are so emotional. "You hurt my feelings." Shut up. Men don't have feelings—not when it comes to this thing called boxing. You got to leave those things outside the ring.

And I understand that sometimes I gotta hug my fighters and make sure they know I love them. But when that bell rings, you gotta be devoid of any emotion when you're doing this, because if your feelings get hurt easy, those people say some mean things around that ring to you.

So for me, when I started it, I realized that boxing was my refuge. It was the only thing that was ever 100% true and real to me—boxing. The coolest thing about boxing is it's the only woman that has ever loved me truly. And there were a lot of people like, "Huh? You've been married twice?" I'm like, she didn't love me like boxing, because boxing was 100% honest, never would lie to me.

I have a tattoo on my leg that says "truth machine." Boxing is the truth machine. It's going to let you know exactly what you put in, because you get exactly what you put out. You don't get any more unless you give what you put in. You just got to be willing to put it all in to get it all out.

So I made the refuge. I made it boxing—Galaxy Boxing Refuge—because I wanted kids to know that even when you come in this gym and you don't have enough money to pay, I do my best to help these kids stay in the gym. There's never been a kid that told me they lost their job or didn’t have all the money that I would ever turn away. This is a refuge.

And my daughter Jasmine—I love her so much—she puts so much work into keeping the doors of this gym open. And we finally got, like, a nonprofit... I know, not nonprofit... I forget the term she uses for it now. It's not 501 yet, but it's the one right before you get there.

Brian Harbin: I got you.

Nate Campbell: Yeah. And we're working on getting that, but people can make a donation and they can write it off. I just want to help kids stay off the street. There are grownups that come to my gym. There was a guy that wanted to commit suicide, came to the gym. He ain't thinking about that now. I'm tough on guys. I believe in tough love for men. I believe men deserve and need good old-fashioned accountability. I believe that until we become more accountable, we'll never fix the problem in the streets with the shootings and the killings. We gotta start with that.

I think that if young ladies know that they're accountable for every decision they make, we can keep the teen pregnancy rate down. Those are things that I want to do. I want to attack those things, not in a bad way, but I want them to know that they have another choice.

So it's a refuge because if you don't have a job, I'll try to find you a job. If you can't feed your kids, I'll feed your kids. I do it out my pocket if I have to. I had a guy come by once after we had a sparring session, a big Saturday morning sparring session. He was hungry. I was locking the gym up and he said, sir, I'll clean up. Anything you need me to clean up. I'm just hungry. He had never met me. He said, I didn't know where to come.

I said, I got you. I went in. I've been selling cheesesteaks all day and I had to reheat the griddle. We gotta let it cool off again. But he was hungry. Buying him food would have probably been crazy, but I got food right here. I could cook for this man. So I cooked him. I said, anything you want, tell me what you want. He said, I eat anything. I said, no, you tell me what you want. He said— I said, we got cheesesteaks. He said, you have cheesesteaks? Yeah, I make cheesesteaks. I made him two cheesesteaks.

I gave him money. I said, you need to take this and make sure you're okay for the rest of the day. Tomorrow you gotta eat again. A friend of mine once told me, remember, I bleed for my money. Don't you go spend it on drugs. That was something Arturo Gatti once told a guy. I bleed for my money. Don't you go spend it on drugs.

I gave him the money. I gave him food. I gave him drinks. He's come by on multiple occasions, asking if there's anything he could do until he found a way and got in a better position. I'll clean your windows. I'm like, okay. He came by and cleaned my windows. People just need a chance.

Nate Campbell: And I think that the problem is that we are so caught up in what's he gonna do with the money or what— dude, if you're gonna bless somebody, bless them and shut up. Bless them and shut up. Otherwise, get out of the way, you know. So for me, my boxing gym is more than just a gym. It's a family affair. It's a refuge. For those that don't have anything to go to or any other. And we don't charge as much as we could. I had a friend of mine tell me, dude, you know you can charge $250 or better an hour in New York? Just come up here and work for like 2 weeks, dude. You can make 20 grand. But I'm like, then who gonna take care of my gym? I can't leave my gym.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And the fact that you're doing that for young people— I know you have a training program that you, you know, work at a local school as well teaching self-defense. And, you know, just love that you do that for, you know, pouring into that next generation. A couple questions here I did want to ask because I want to be respectful of your time too, but—

Nate Campbell: They let me off this. I can come off and I come back when I'm done. And they're going to watch this. You're going to have a big Muslim group going to watch this program. So we're going to try to make this, blow this up among my kids.

Brian Harbin: I love it. They'll learn the GRIT Creed, right?

Nate Campbell: Yeah, I want to take this back to school and make copies of it.

Brian Harbin: So I wanted to ask you, you were mentioning earlier Mike Tyson's story. Tell us your Mike Tyson story.

Nate Campbell: Okay, so Mike— you got some.

Brian Harbin: Great too, by the way. Impersonations. Yeah.

Nate Campbell: My Don King probably is one of the best in the world. I fooled his son with my Don. I tricked his son with my Don King.

Brian Harbin: All right, well, let's hear that first then.

Nate Campbell: So we were— first time I met Mike was…. I was getting ready to fight Daniel Alves, and I was fighting for the NABA-NABF unification. So 130, I could make weight, I was doing great, I was signed to Main Events, I was him. I knew I was him, and you couldn't tell me otherwise. I think it was my 22nd fight. It’s the De La Hoya-Vargas undercard, the first fight on TV, and the fight after me was going to be beating Miguel Cotto. So this is a huge fight.

So I go in, and Mike and Buddy are talking because Mike wanted Buddy to train him. I want to say it was Golden Gloves Gym, and we walk in, and they're like, "What's up, Nate? What's up?" And Mike is over in the corner. I'm calling my brother, who's the biggest Mike Tyson fan ever. My brother's name is Mike. He's a big Mike Tyson fan. Greatest fighter of all time, baby. I said, "Guess who I'm going to—" He said, "Who?" I said, "Mike Tyson." He said, "F you," and hung the phone up on me because he was angry he wasn't meeting him. He's like, "I can't believe you meeting Mike Tyson. I ain't meeting him." I said, "I love Mike." He's not like me. It's like this thing.

So we go in, and Mike had on the original Jordan mules, like flip-flops but with the closed toe. White and blue. Mike is huge. He's like 300 pounds, but he's just big— forearms look like this. And Buddy’s sitting down, and I go in, and Buddy’s like, "Yo Nate, what's going on, baby? Come over here and get ready." I walk over to Mike, I say, "You know I ain't scared of you that much, right?"

He said, "See, Buddy already told me you were going to be a jerk. He already told me you were going to do that." And so me and Mike became best of friends that day. We became so good together. Like I say, if I was doing 20 years and Nate was doing life, he'd have to be my roommate because he's hilarious. You can't imitate him because you imitated me. Whatever.

And so we just— again, we were men. We love each other. We understand that we're fighters. We love the fighter in one another. And Mike is a good guy. He's always been funny like that. He has always been the funny guy that you guys are seeing now. He's just gotten comfortable in his own skin.

A lot of people don't know that Mike Tyson is probably one of those guys— if there's anyone that could be bitter, he should be bitter, you know, but he's not. And I love Mike Tyson. I think Mike Tyson is just one of the greatest people in the world.

And Roy Jones and me are like best— that's my best friend. Didn't even know that his father— me and him are related on my mother's side. His father— it was 12 brothers, and they all went out— they're Joneses out of Georgia. They had all these kids, and he's one of them. Eddie Jones, Pac-Man Jones, Roy Jones, Nate Campbell— all of us are related to those 12 brothers.

Then on my father's side— my father is a Campbell, but his grandmother, my great-grandmother Lenora, is a Patterson. Floyd Patterson was our first cousin. So whenever me and Floyd's son Tracy see each other, "What up, cousin?" I'm like, "What up, big cousin?" Mind you, I'm bigger than him— "What up?"

So on both sides of the family I have boxing, and I didn't know it. It wasn't something we talked about. But boxing has been great to me because boxing saved my life.

Don King— Don King was the best big promoter I ever had. Everybody talks about how he's a horrible person, but he's not. Terry Triggas was my— he was my lifeline. He's the best promoter I ever had, period. But if you're talking big promoters, Don King was the one that paid me everything he said he was gonna pay me. Now, we went through our stuff, but Don never lied to me. He always told me the truth.

Don called me to come work— called me to come commentate. I've commentated for him. I've worked fighters for him. I've worked shows for him. Always paid me, always made sure I got everything I needed.

We joke about Don King, his son. They're like, "Do me a favor, Nate. Get Carl, trick Carl, trick whoever to come in the office." And I go, "Hey, do me a favor, I want you to come in here in my office and bring that paperwork for that next fight we got coming up. And when you do it, make sure you bring me some Grand Marnier out there. Bring me a drink." And people like, "Okay." And they come in— nobody's in his office. "Where's Don?" "I called him, come down." "No, I'm in the other— I had to go to the other office down there." And his son like, "I can't believe he sound that much like my dad." And his daughter.

If you listen, Don King is probably the most prolific man I've ever been around. He's not the most legendary— Ali is the most legendary. I was blessed to meet Ali. Angelo Dundee made sure that I met Ali. Angelo Dundee was like a big Nate Campbell fan. I was a big Angelo Dundee fan. And Emanuel Steward and all the great trainers— they would get me together. Jimmy Williams— they'd get me together and put me in the corners and talk to me about, "Let me tell you about the old days." And they would just break it down.

And I tell them who my boy was— that Charlie Dog Williams. That's when I told Angelo Dundee who one of my trainers was.

Nate Campbell: That's why you fight the way you fight, kid. You got the old school— the old school. He loved the fact that I was trained by somebody that fought on Black Murderers Row.

So I've been blessed throughout my career to meet such great people. And Don King is one of the greatest I've ever met. I don't care who don't like that. They can talk all they want. They don't know him.

DK— he's business. He's a businessman. You can't take that from him, and you shouldn't want to. You shouldn't want to separate one from the other. But at 94 years old, Don King has done more for boxing than any other person in the history of the sport.

Brian Harbin: That's incredible. And tell us about meeting Ali.

Nate Campbell: Ali was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was December 20th, 2003. Yeah, so '03. Right?

Brian Harbin: You were newly pro at this point?

Nate Campbell: No, I had 23 fights. It's right before I lost to Casimero. As a matter of fact, I went to the Casimero fight. He fought— I want to say Yanni Vargas. There was a big fight down in Miami, and they were doing something for Fifth Street Boxing Gym. Ali was there, and Angelo Dundee said, "Kid, I want you to come down to this fight they're having down here. They're going to bring the champ. I want you to meet him."

He brought him over to me. He wasn't the tallest guy in the room, but he was the biggest guy in the room. It's like he was floating. He reached down and said, "Hey, Angie told me you could fight." I'm like— I'm groupie-ish. I was as big a groupie— there were only two times I ever been that big a groupie. When I met Hagler and Duran the first time. That was the only time I was as groupie-ish. And I met both of those guys the same day. But I was so groupie-ish. I was super groupie-ish. This was before they were doing cameras on phones, really. So you gotta remember this. I shake his hand. He said, "You got big hands for a little guy." I said, "Yes, sir." I was just in awe of this man.

And Angie— I asked him a question. I went back and asked him, "You once said that if a man of 50 still sees things the way he did at 20, he's wasted 30 years." He said, "Yeah, you ought to grow. You gotta grow. You can't be the same guy. You gotta see things different." He was so kind. He was just Ali. He was everything they said he was. And his philosophical piece was as great as his boxing— was greater than his boxing.

I met the greatest fighter of all time. Not the best, but the greatest. I met the man that made my father believe that a man should be a man. My dad said he was a man. He gave it all up for us. He was willing to stand up for us. He was willing to give up his career for us. And that's what made Black people love him— because he was willing to say, "No, I'm not going. I shouldn't have to go. If the rich boy ain't got to go, I shouldn't have to go. I shouldn't have to go over and kill people."

My dad was staunch on that— that he was right. He was right. And that was my dad's belief. He was right, and they were wrong. Turned out that he was right, and they were wrong.

And to meet him made me understand I had made the right choice. I made the right choice. I was glad I met him when I did because I was getting ready to go through hell, and I needed that. I needed those moments to grasp and hold on to— to get me through till I was able to, you know.

There were so many great fighters I met that paved the way. Aaron Pryor— my favorite fighter— helped me to understand that boxing wasn't gonna be easy. It wasn't gonna be easy, bro. And if you're gonna do it, you're gonna have to do it and deal with what comes with it.

My grandmother said, "You got to take the bitter with the sweet," and that's what boxing is. Sometimes it's bitter, sometimes it's sweet, sometimes it's just bland. You just gotta be— you gotta be— you gotta be willing to take it. Yeah. That's boxing.

Brian Harbin: It's the truth teller, right? Yeah. Well, and I love too what you said about Ali because it really comes full circle to why you respected your dad and granddad so much—because they were men and standing up for what they believed in. And just the fact that boxing teaches you so much in the span of that 20 to 30 years.

Nate Campbell: And boxing is life, man. Boxing is life. I wouldn't want my kids to box—my sons to box. If I had sons, I’d want one. If they wanted to, I'd teach them, but I don't want them to. I wouldn't want them to.

Boxing is— it's a beautiful enigma wrapped up in a conundrum. It is. I keep telling you, I love boxing. Boxing is the only woman that has ever been truly honest with me. And people don't get that. But boxing is beautiful. It is beautiful.

And one guy actually said, "If you could do it all over again, what would you do different?" I said, I'd have started at 5. I'd have never left. I'd have stayed with it at 5. I'd have hoped to have been in another place and started at 5 and never left. It was what I was meant to do. And it's what I've been constantly good at. It's what I've been good at.

Brian Harbin: And I wanted to ask you, so our last question here is the Grit Creed. I know we've talked about it a little bit throughout the show, but these are 12 principles that we really bake into the next generation through the things that we do with our summer sports camp and internships. But which one do you feel like kind of resonates most with you and why?

Nate Campbell: I don't find an excuse. I find a way.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's been kind of your theme, right?

Nate Campbell: Yeah.

Brian Harbin: Figuring it out.

Nate Campbell: Yeah. You have to. And you know what? One of my guys—like, it's not just about being Black. I don't know about anything else. I only know about being a Black man in America. In an era where I'm the first generation of Black men in this city that could walk through the non-colored entrance. My father walked through the colored entrance. My sister's 62—she had to walk through the colored entrance at one point in her life.

So basically, when she was born, they were walking through the colored entrance. When I was born, they weren't. But we're the same generation. I'm in that first generation of kids that could. But my dad would take me downtown Jacksonville and show me all the places where he had to walk through the colored entrance. So for me, I watched Jacksonville mature and grow and become something different. Something new. Something good. Something bad sometimes. But still—Jacksonville. It's still my home.

I watched the skyline grow. I had a guy talk about—"Man, y’all downtown is trash, look how small it is." I remember when it was one building downtown. I said, "They started building that building when I was born—1972." And now you got other buildings downtown. If anybody wants to know what my greatest desire is for Jacksonville—I want to buy the old Barnett Bank building downtown. Somebody said, why? I want to buy it… and I want the clock. I want to fix the clock that’s on top.

Nate Campbell: So I said, why? Nobody can see it. I said, it's something I want to do. They said, why? I said, because when I was a kid, that's how I went to school every day. That it would blank the time, digital time, and I know it was time to leave and go to my bus stop.

And that was… I'm Jacksonville through and through. I'm never going to change. I don't want you to change me. I'm not going to change you. I think Jacksonville is the greatest. I'm not saying it's the best city in the world, but it's the greatest for me. I would love to live 6 months a year in Columbia and 6 months a year in Jacksonville. You choose which one it is. I don't want to live in Jacksonville, Louisiana, because it's getting a little too cold for me now.

My joints banging a little bit. But I love Jacksonville through and through. My family's here. My daughters are here. My grandkids are here. I've left, and every time I've left, I've longed for it. I don't, as y'all know, I don't do a bunch of swimming, but I need to be near the beach. I need to be able to go fish, even though I've only fished a few times. It's just things that I'm able to do that I, that, you know, I wouldn't be able to do anywhere else.

Yeah. I just love Jacksonville. I love my Main Street Bridge. I love the old Hart's Bridge. I love the, I love all, I love the, before they put the new bridge in, I love that one too. I've been in Jacksonville. I was in Jacksonville before the Dase Point Bridge was in Jacksonville. Let's talk about that. I'm in the fabric of this city whether they like it or not. This is my city, my town. I'm gonna always be here in some way, shape, form, or fashion. And my boxing gym is just the way for me to show that.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. Well, Nate, this has been unbelievable just being able to hear these stories from you and your journey through boxing and how you give back and, you know, your Duval moment, which is classic. And, yeah, excited to— I know you're doing some stand-up. Love to hear more of that. And, yeah, how do you, you know, people find out more about you? Anywhere you want them to follow or go check out?

Nate Campbell: You can, if you really just want to see me, I'm on, because I'm not good at this, my daughter— I'm still old school when it comes to this thing here, but let me pull some stuff. You can hit me on Instagram. You can hit me on, my Instagram is— they have, I have two pages. I have Nate Campbell, I have the Galaxy Warrior 2, and I have the Galaxy Warrior. Galaxy Warrior and the Galaxy Warrior 2. T-H-E Galaxy with two X's Warrior 1 and 2.  Well, Galaxy Warrior and then Galaxy Warrior 2.

On Facebook, Facebook is— I have two pages there, but I'm usually on my one page. I'm Nate, Nat Turner Campbell. And I used to have Galaxy Experience, the Galaxy with Nate Campbell, which is a page that I use. I come on, it's a forum type page, was my name of my podcast when I was doing it. You can also hit me up on TikTok.

Yeah, they got me on everything now. They got me on TikTok, and I'm learning. I'm truly— I'm learning how to get along with— I'm truly learning how to get along with these things. I'm trying to coexist, right? I'm figuring it all out. Yeah, Galaxy Boxing Refuge as a page. At that page, Galaxy Boxing Refuge, and there's a lot of stuff you can see on that page.

But also it's the Galaxy Boxing Refuge. It also has its own Instagram page which just has the boxing logo, Galaxy Boxing. You can come by my gym at 5538 Normandy Boulevard. My daughter Jasmine Campbell runs it. I just get to tell people what to do in the ring. Jasmine runs the— she runs the business. We’re forever doing something community-wide. We're always trying to do something for the community. We're always trying to figure out ways to build a brand.

And if you go to any of those things we do, I do t-shirts, I do jackets, I do everything I can to put the money back. I have not drawn a check from Galaxy Boxing since I opened it. I've consistently put every dime back in the gym. It's not that I don't get a check from Galaxy Boxing. I have not. And because I'm working at the school, I don't even do my private sessions anymore.

So I'm— what I'm— my daughter's— you really are— I'm really doing this for the gym. So I really want to build better relationships with other gyms in the city, the country, the state, so that we can have more and more boxing in the city of Jacksonville. That's my goal.

Brian Harbin: Well, we appreciate all that you've done for the city of Jacksonville and just, you know, being a Jacksonville legend. So thanks again for being on.

Nate Campbell: I don't know if I'm a legend. Don't think that. Legends in a bed.

Brian Harbin: And well, thanks you guys for tuning in to today's episode of the Grit.org podcast, and we'll see you guys next time. Take care.