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Chris Byrd Responds To John
Ruiz's Comments!
His Faith Keeps Him On The Right Track!
His Faith Keeps Him On The Right Track!
By Will "The Thrill" Trillo
By now we have all seen that WBA Heavyweight Champ John Ruiz and his comical sidekick "Stoney",( isn't he still suspended?), have called out IBF Heavy Champ Chris Byrd. It's been posted on almost every website including our own!
By now we have all seen that WBA Heavyweight Champ John Ruiz and his comical sidekick "Stoney",( isn't he still suspended?), have called out IBF Heavy Champ Chris Byrd. It's been posted on almost every website including our own!
What you won't see on another site is Chris Byrds initial
reaction to Johnny and Stoney's comments.
You will however be able to read those comments here and only here, because we went straight to The Champ to see what he had to say about all this, along the way we spoke to Chris about his Christian faith and what it means to him as a fighter and a man.
Well, I guess by now you know that John Ruiz, and his foul mouthed manager/head trainer, Norman Stone are all over the internet today, calling you out. Do you have any response to the comments?
We fought amateur together, we were room mates on two trips, I know him real well! Let me tell you this, I duck nobody! He can call me out all he wants, if it's right for the fight and they are ready to do it, give me a contract and I will sign it. I don't even look at guys and then say Yay or Nay! It's always Yay, let's do it! I have never had a game plan, throughout my career I have never had a choice of who I got to fight! Everything has always just fallen into place! I pray about it and whatever the Lord has in store for me, James Toney, John Ruiz, I really want to fight Klitschko, they are possibilities that can be done with Don King for my next fight! But whatever happens, really! I don't care who it is, where we fight or what it's for, I just want to stay active and keep fighting!
You will however be able to read those comments here and only here, because we went straight to The Champ to see what he had to say about all this, along the way we spoke to Chris about his Christian faith and what it means to him as a fighter and a man.
Well, I guess by now you know that John Ruiz, and his foul mouthed manager/head trainer, Norman Stone are all over the internet today, calling you out. Do you have any response to the comments?
We fought amateur together, we were room mates on two trips, I know him real well! Let me tell you this, I duck nobody! He can call me out all he wants, if it's right for the fight and they are ready to do it, give me a contract and I will sign it. I don't even look at guys and then say Yay or Nay! It's always Yay, let's do it! I have never had a game plan, throughout my career I have never had a choice of who I got to fight! Everything has always just fallen into place! I pray about it and whatever the Lord has in store for me, James Toney, John Ruiz, I really want to fight Klitschko, they are possibilities that can be done with Don King for my next fight! But whatever happens, really! I don't care who it is, where we fight or what it's for, I just want to stay active and keep fighting!
You mentioned praying about it, in your last fight
before the decision was read, you and your foe, Jameel McCline
got together and prayed. You certainly take your faith very
seriously, can you tell us about that?
This is my ministry more than anything! And I firmly believe
that now more than ever, and it starts back to the amateurs, I
wasn't a Christian back then, but a year after The Olympics
someone led me to The Lord and I got saved. I was a skinny 165
pound middlewieght, but I got this notion that I wanted to be a
heavyweight, and I would pray to the Lord that if He let me get
to the Heavyweights, I would represent Him. I was a new
Christian, so I don't know if I firmly believed that The Lord
would do something like that, it was too hard for me to put on
weight, put the next thing you know, I am 195 pounds, I said ,
"Whoa, this must be real!" I wanted to be a heavyweight, but I
never thought I would ever get there! Over the years everything
started to come together and I learned to trust Jesus for
everything! And He opened up and revealed to me that this is my
mission. And that is more important than the boxing! The boxing
is something you do, it's something you are blessed with, but
letting people see Jesus is something that tops everything else!
And I firmly understood that this is the reason why I am here!
How do you keep firmly grounded in this business of
boxing, that has a reputation for being everything but pure and
innocent?
#1, I take my Wife everywhere with me, #2, I don't sweat none of the stuff, sure there are certain times in my career where I got down, and my Wife would ask me, " Have you took it to The Lord?" And I can honestly say, I didn't! I wanted to do it on my own, and things didn't work out, so I started praying about it, if I truly trusted Him, I would pray about it, and He will see the right way through, not my way, but His way, His will be done. And I can tell you, there are so many cases in boxing, I was The Christian , so I was not getting the play, I was getting the negative stuff! But taking it The Lord and not worrying about it, and staying true to what I believe, He would always see me through, and most importantly, it glorified Him, and that's what it's supposed to do! It ain't about me, everybody in this business knows I'm a Christian, everybody knows how I live and everybody knows I got my wife with me all the time, I'm a family guy! Usually in this sport those are thing that are a no-no. But the Lord sees right through those people who point fingers, He says, " You just keep representing Me, and I will show you greater things!" And I firmly believe that because He has got me to a point right now where I am the best Heavyweight in the World! And that's crazy because I only weigh 210 pounds and I am in the land of giants, and they are getting bigger! It's funny, after a fight like the one with Jameel, I end up weighing 200 pounds when it was over, I lost 14 pounds during the fight! I am not supposed to be here, it doesn't make any sense. It's not from me, when people look at me, they have to see Jesus, I get emails telling me to leave that religious stuff at home, you and your Jesus and all that! And I think to myself, "Whatever, you've seen Him, because you wouldn't have brought Him up if you didn't see Him, my point is getting across to you, it's making you think!"
#1, I take my Wife everywhere with me, #2, I don't sweat none of the stuff, sure there are certain times in my career where I got down, and my Wife would ask me, " Have you took it to The Lord?" And I can honestly say, I didn't! I wanted to do it on my own, and things didn't work out, so I started praying about it, if I truly trusted Him, I would pray about it, and He will see the right way through, not my way, but His way, His will be done. And I can tell you, there are so many cases in boxing, I was The Christian , so I was not getting the play, I was getting the negative stuff! But taking it The Lord and not worrying about it, and staying true to what I believe, He would always see me through, and most importantly, it glorified Him, and that's what it's supposed to do! It ain't about me, everybody in this business knows I'm a Christian, everybody knows how I live and everybody knows I got my wife with me all the time, I'm a family guy! Usually in this sport those are thing that are a no-no. But the Lord sees right through those people who point fingers, He says, " You just keep representing Me, and I will show you greater things!" And I firmly believe that because He has got me to a point right now where I am the best Heavyweight in the World! And that's crazy because I only weigh 210 pounds and I am in the land of giants, and they are getting bigger! It's funny, after a fight like the one with Jameel, I end up weighing 200 pounds when it was over, I lost 14 pounds during the fight! I am not supposed to be here, it doesn't make any sense. It's not from me, when people look at me, they have to see Jesus, I get emails telling me to leave that religious stuff at home, you and your Jesus and all that! And I think to myself, "Whatever, you've seen Him, because you wouldn't have brought Him up if you didn't see Him, my point is getting across to you, it's making you think!"
So how are you enjoying your holidays? Doing anything
special?
I promised my Wife I would come back to Michigan every year, it's been a tradition for her and her Grandmother, but her Grandmother passed away a week before I fought, so this will be the last year we come back here. I am going to start my own tradition with my kids, and it's all about, " He is the reason for the season!" My kids know about Jesus Christ, and if wasn't for the birth, there wouldn't be the death, and if it wasn't for the death, there wouldn't be no resurrection. As Christians, we are glad He was born and died for us. We realize that, and we try to realize it everyday! My message to the World is not the baby in the manger, it's that grown man who died on the cross for your sins!
Questions or Comments? Please Contact Will "The Thrill" Trillo
I promised my Wife I would come back to Michigan every year, it's been a tradition for her and her Grandmother, but her Grandmother passed away a week before I fought, so this will be the last year we come back here. I am going to start my own tradition with my kids, and it's all about, " He is the reason for the season!" My kids know about Jesus Christ, and if wasn't for the birth, there wouldn't be the death, and if it wasn't for the death, there wouldn't be no resurrection. As Christians, we are glad He was born and died for us. We realize that, and we try to realize it everyday! My message to the World is not the baby in the manger, it's that grown man who died on the cross for your sins!
Questions or Comments? Please Contact Will "The Thrill" Trillo