Boxing & Baby Oil: Homer Lee Gibbins, Jr. - Part 2

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It's time to man up. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up with Nikita Koloff. And I am honored, I feel honored to have back as a guest again today, Homer Lee Gibbons Jr., World Boxing Champion.

And Homer, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Nikita. I really appreciate it. Well, you know, first time around, we covered a number of things. I mean, we talked about some of your early life and being a wrestling fan and some of the guys you remember. And your story about being in the audience and cheering me when I was wrestling Sting and the woman essentially threatening you if you didn't stop was a great story. I appreciate that. I've heard others like that in the past as well, but that brings back a great memory for me.

So I appreciate that memory jogger. And, you know, we talked about your family and I didn't really ask, but I know you've got seven children and we talked about, you know, how you've taken them on mission trips and those sorts of things. And do they all live around you or are they kind of spread out all over? Where do your children live? My two oldest ones are out and they are 29 and 28 and they live within 15, 20 minutes from us.

And then we got five at home, 15, 13, 11, 10, and four. Yeah, the four year old. Yeah, the four year old. We always say, and then there was Esther because she is. Okay. Is she your biggest challenge? Oh, she, I came home one day and she comes into the kitchen and drops a wad of hair that she cut off the side of her head.

She looked like Larry Cyrus. I'm going, oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. All right. So, so she would be your, sounds like she is your biggest challenge out of all seven. She, she, she definitely gives me the most trouble, but there's nothing that she does mischievous.

He is just, that's her nature. Right. Right. Absolutely.

Now. She looks like me. It's funny because she looks like me and my mom's like, yeah, you're just giving back what you deserve. Oh, payback, huh?

Payback. Yes, sir. Oh my goodness. Well, I don't know if you can identify with this or not, but my youngest daughter, Colby, when she was little and that age four, four, five, six, everyone thought she was like my spitting image and like even like walk like me in her eyebrows when she'd squint her eyes. And she still kind of has dad's, dad's eyes and, and, but fortunately Homer, here's my, fortunately she, she grew out of that and she's blossomed into a beautiful flower.

So she still has some of my characteristics, but I like to say she fortunately doesn't, doesn't look like she did like me when she was younger. So, well, so just, no grandkids yet? I have two grand, granddaughters. My son has a granddaughter and my daughter has a granddaughter.

Okay. And, and grandchildren are special, aren't they? They are. I'm learning to embrace, you know, it's kind of hard when you have a young child at home and then you have granddaughters that are older than your daughter. So it's a unique, unique situation there. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, and grandchildren, I know for myself, we just had our ninth grandchild.

And so our, our, my quiver continued. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow is right. It's like, I'm trying to remember birthdays. Like I used to have, I had my four daughters birthdays down, but man, trying to remember all the grandkids birthdays and stuff has been more challenging, but I'm still working at it. I'm still working at it. So that many. Yeah. And I put everything in my phone. So if my phone goes missing, I'm in trouble.

You and me both. I'm like, I can identify with that for sure. I'm like, if it goes down, I don't have, you used to memorize phone numbers, right? Some of our listeners might not be old enough to know you did that, but yeah, we used to memorize phone numbers. And I mean, I still know my mom's phone number is, you know, six, one, two, five, eight, eight, five, nine, four, six. I mean, I just, you know, it's just from 50 years ago, you know, you just remember, right? Phone numbers don't, by the way, don't call that number. Cause it's not my mom's anymore.

So just for the record, I don't know who will answer, but why in Homer? We, we talked to, I hope you didn't mind, but you know, at the end of, of our last show, I rattled off one of your poems that you said that was for your wife. Oh, yes, sir. Well, that was beautiful, by the way. I hope I did a good job.

Like I say, it was, it was one of those things where I was just, you know, when you, when you meet someone and you're, you have all these emotions going through your head and heart and, you know, and that's, that's the way I felt about her. And I put everything down, down in poetry. Maybe one day my kids can read it and say, oh, this is what my dad was feeling at the time we met my mom, or this is what my dad was feeling whenever he was boxing in front of millions of people. You know, this is what was going through his head.

So hopefully it's something that they'll be able to look at later. Well, I think that's phenomenal. I mean, you know, the, the, the buzzword, especially among men is, you know, leaving a legacy, right?

Want to leave a legacy. And you're, you're certainly doing that if, if, if not with your poems, you know, we, we talked about how you not only an accomplished poet, but an accomplished artist from, from, from making sculptures to drawings to, to, to paint painting. And so there's no doubt you have made well use of your hands, Homer. I appreciate it. Like I say, God gives me some good hands. Well, yeah. And this is something I want, I want to talk, cause we're going to talk about another way you used your hands.

We've been kind of jumping all around it, but we hadn't really got to it. We're going to talk about your, your boxing career. You mentioned on the other show about taking all your children on mission trips. I mean, you've been going on mission trips every year since I think you said 1996, right? Yes, sir. And you've worked with, with the youth at, at Oak Hill Baptist Church in, in Griffin as well since 1996. That's amazing. I got, I got asked to go on a mission trip with the kids. And I know, you know, they said, you know, you can, you, they thought that didn't work because you got a box.

You don't have a real job. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, oh really? Yes. Yes.

I can, I can swing it for that. And we're on this mission trip and I'll just perform the gospel in a unique way. And I was like, wow. And then I started, I started becoming involved in, in, you know, I have a drama background.

I graduated from high school. I had scholarships for acting and art. And so I started tweaking certain things that they did. And next thing you know, I was the drama director of this group of youth that traveled the country and presented the gospel in a unique way.

And some of our stuff's on YouTube, so it's pretty cool. That, that's pretty amazing. Wow. I mean, you have such a story, really life and career. And so let's, let's segue into how else you used your hands and your boxing career. I know you said, you know, you had an amateur career from 1976 to 1990, and then, and then you segued from 1990 to 2007 into a professional career. Now, were you just kidding when you said like, when you came off the couch of the flying headbutt to your dad, he said, and he's going to take you to the gym and teach you to box and whip you into shape.

Is like that the real deal? Or how did you, why boxing? What intrigued you about boxing? Talk to us about that. Well, he took me with all intentions, me going to the gym and getting smacked in the mouth and me wanting to quit that foolishness.

But I went there that Wednesday and I enjoyed it. You know, I enjoyed, I enjoyed getting in the ring and they said, Hey, well, we've got a fight this Saturday. If your son wants to fight. My dad's like, do you want to fight?

I'm like, yeah, why not? How old were you? How old were you? Six years old. Six?

For real? Yeah. Yes, sir. Okay. Keep going. And when they brought me out to the ring, I walked to the ring, just like you guys do for wrestling. And you know, they had music playing. I was like, this is for me.

This is for me. And I actually lost my first fight, you know, because I had no skills yet. Well, you're sick. The gloves were up to my elbows and so was the other guy, but I mean, we just swung to one another and accidentally I learned actually how to box over the years. I won the regionals three times and won 25, 132, 147.

Evander Holyfield was fighting here in the air, preparing for his fight to move into the heavyweight. And I fought that night. I guess the guy that I grew up with, me and him went to school together. We were good friends. But we had to come to bed and beat each other up. And I just, I all boxed it. Were you still good friends after the fight? It took a while. Okay.

It took a while, but now we're back. I love this guy. I really did.

Well, you know, people want to talk and they want to get, you know, you never can judge what somebody else is saying because somebody else may embellish something that's said. But yeah, me and him are good friends now and I love him to death, but we had to fight. Well, Lou Duva, Evander Holyfield's manager or trainer, saw me that night, gave me his card and said, give me a call if you ever want to come over to our training camp. And Evander told me, he said, you ought to give him a call.

So that summer I did call him and he invited me up. And how old were you then, Homer? 20. 20. Okay. All right. And then when I came up, he started talking about signing the contract and I forwarded the contract to Evander.

Evander looked at it. He said, don't sign this contract. My attorney said, this contract is no good.

I said, so what am I going to do? He said, I'm going to manage your career. Oh, Evander did?

Yeah, he managed my career for the first three years. Come on. Okay. But the thing is, like Evander, there's boxing and there's the business of boxing. Right. That's what people don't understand, the business end of boxing. And if you don't sign the contract with one of the promoters, then they don't care if you make it.

So they're not getting none of your money. Kind of true with most professional sports, but yes. Oh yes, most definitely. Yeah. So I had the opportunity to fight for the World Boxing Federation title against a guy that, I mean, great fighter, Kenny Vice. He actually killed a guy in the ring, Brian Baronette. He hit him with the right hand and the guy never woke up.

Wow. And they gave me the fight with Kenny Vice and they assumed that he would beat me. And I was able to get him out of there in the seventh round. And I won the title, and then once I had the title, I was like, I want to fight number one, number two, I want to fight this and this. And they're like, well, you got to fight this guy. So this guy, how much am I going to make for this?

They said $5,000. For a title defense? Well, you're not going to defend the title, you just got to beat somebody. Yeah. And I was like, what? I got a belt.

I mean, this is my belt. Right. It don't matter. What it was is that they didn't want to promote me because I wasn't under promotional contract with them. Okay. And I didn't understand the business end of boxing. Right.

And neither did Evander realistically. Right. So it was a learning experience. Like, I fought guys and beat guys, and I just took whatever fight they'd give me. It didn't really matter. I mean, I just wanted to fight. Yeah. I loved being in the ring and throwing and making the fans happy.

So I didn't really care. Yeah, and you were good at it. Homer, I'm looking at your record here. First, I'm looking at your amateur record. So for our listeners, 226 wins, 23 losses, one no contest with over 100 KOs. Over 100 knockouts, 15 Georgia State Golden Glove titles, three Georgia State Silver Glove titles, two regional titles. The only fighter to win the regional Golden Gloves in three different weight classes. Those of you listening out there, you're getting the picture here.

Am I painting the picture? The best boxer in the state award, the best boxer award in the region award, a bronze medal in the Eastern Olympic Trials in 1988. All feet agree. Clemens carpet is where you need to be. With carpet, vinyl, tile, and hardwood from the top brands. Clemens carpet does it right from beginning to install. Voted number one by you in the Reader's Choice Awards. Doug, Chad, Benny, Pee Wee, and the team at Clemens carpet look forward to seeing and serving you soon.

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DriveCrescent.com. Homer, that's an amazing amateur record. To give you a little highlight of something else, like I said in the first segment, God always gives me an ability, but at the same time gives me a handicap. I was born with a condition in my neck I should have never felt.

It was evident now that we look back and we had a doctor go over everything. I'd go through national competitions and I'd be knocking people out. It looked like I'm poised to win the whole thing and just looking amazing, but then all of a sudden, I just come unraveled. My body was just, because of my neck, it wasn't allowing me to do things. In my mind, I was telling my legs to move, move, but it wouldn't. My dad would get on to me like, if you're not going to give it your best, then you need to quit. I'm thinking about what you, because you're reminding me of something about me, but with my neck, but is that what you're referring to?

Are you referring to like you had, I guess you had, I don't know how recent, but you had admitted to, in order to box, you admitted that you lied just because how much you love boxing and against better judgment because of that condition in your neck. That could have paralyzed you, right? Yeah, but when you're in your 20s, 25 years old, you don't think about longevity. No, 10 foot tall and bulletproof, right Homer?

That's right, you're bulletproof. So you don't think about things that are longevity. It wasn't until I was 37 years old and my son was coming in September of that year and I was able to say, you know, I got the chance to fight for another world title.

I won the title and then I had to go on Judge Joe Brown to even get my title, my belt. And I was like, my wife said, I just don't think God is using this anymore. And I was like, I had to start thinking about the fact that all the times in the Bible, God tends to use people who weren't extraordinary. Right, right. They were just common people. Those were the ones that used the fishermen.

Tax collectors, right? Yeah, right. I mean, things that, you know, and that's the way God tends to work and I've done more stuff for God. I thought that if I got on the national scene and was able to praise God, that I'd be able to win more people to Christ.

Right. But he's used me more in these little small groups, teaching kids drama and traveling to mission trips than he ever did when I was boxing. Well, you remind me of Lex Luger's story again, because Lex, through a spinal cord injury, he's lost 100 pounds. And he said, the Lord showed him, he goes, Lex, you don't need that muscle suit in order to be used by me.

And on the same token, he has done more from many times, whether in a wheelchair or he has the ability to stand and walk some, but the Lord clearly showed him, you don't need that in order to be effective in helping build my kingdom. And it sounds like you have a very similar story. Well, in 2000, my boxing career ended in 2007, and I was able to walk away.

And then in 2013, they say, you know, I'm diagnosed with a mass in my lung. And I didn't want my wife telling nobody about it, because I grew up in a time where you didn't reveal anything that was a weakness. Right. Right. That's just what you did not do. So my wife came home, she's kind of teary-eyed, and said, you know, we can have people praying for you, but here you are being stubborn, you don't want me to even talk about it. So then I started just letting it out, letting people understand what was going on, praying for me. Right. And they cut me open, come to find out, they said, I must have aspergated a vegetable.

Okay. Now, an inch by three-quarters of an inch, vegetable thing was in my lung. The doctor showed me everything, he goes, I thought this was cancer.

I don't know what to tell you. I said, well, all I can tell you is that I have people praying for me in Romania, I have people praying for me in California, New York, Houston, it's all over this planet. I have people praying for me. I said, you go to cut it out, you saw cancer, you did all the tests and you said it was cancer, you go to cut it out and it's not. That just screams that God's good.

He is. And for those listening out there, you know, I think the enemy loves nothing better than for us to keep things hidden or tucked away or left in the dark, so to speak. But once you bring it into the light, once you're vulnerable, once you open up, once you let others, I mean, there's power in prayer. And so once you bring those things, lean on others and we carry one another's burdens that we can see, just see the hand of God work. And so that's a great, great part of your story, Homer. It really is.

And God's grace and mercy, right? Just operating in and through us at all times. Let me just real quick transition to your professional career and get a comment or two from you on that. Forty-four wins, 16 losses, 31 by knockout. You beat Olympian Todd Foster. You went the distance with legendary Hector Macho Camacho. Come on, man. And you fought Olympian Jean Pascal.

I hope I'm saying that right. And you won some championships. Give us a highlight or two from that professional career.

I mean, I already named some things, but any others? Well, you know, the Camacho fight was, you know, being in the ring with a legend in the mirror to go the distance. And them thinking that he would take me out within three rounds. It was great, you know. And like I said, I did win two world titles. And just being around Evander, getting to meet Ali, Frazier, Holmes, Foreman, all the guys that I grew up watching in the sport.

It was just amazing. I'm so very thankful that, you know, God allowed me, even through my arrogance and ignorance, to accomplish what I did. Well, boy, you hit on something there. I mean, I think any one of us could identify with that through our arrogance and our ignorance. We all have, I believe, those moments.

And then the Lord finds a way, it seems in my life anyway, a way of bringing us back to earth. You might say, and humbling us, right? But quite a career you've had. Quite a life you've had up to this point, Homer.

Amazing. Well, I appreciate it. Like I say, I'm not done.

No, you're not. I mean, for one thing, you've got a four-year-old. So we know that four-year-old is going to keep you on your toes, it sounds like. Oh, yes, sir.

Always. And what do you do? So retired from the ring, just in our last couple of minutes here, tell us what Homer is. Outside of raising children, a quiver full of children and a couple of grand, what else is Homer currently doing? What are you doing? Well, I'm still working with kids at the church. I'm a building manager.

I do the maintenance work for our dwell store and also Piedmont, taking care of medical facilities. And like I say, it's a ministry as well because people need my services and I take care of them. And it opens doors to talk about Jesus Christ and to talk about what God is doing in my life. Everybody knows I'm married.

Everybody knows that I've got a house full of children. And it's a way to treat other people with respect. Hopefully they see it as well as my children see it in me.

Yeah, absolutely. What would you say to our listeners out there? Maybe there's somebody out there, Homer, that doesn't have a personal relationship with Jesus. They're listening to your story. I mean, if they listen to part one, part two, and just all that you've accomplished, in 60 seconds, what would you say to that person? Why should they consider surrendering their heart to Jesus?

Well, I'm a person that wants to do everything by the book. So I want you to try to disprove that God is real. You try to disprove it and you'll prove that He is who He says He is and that He's real. That's good, because to my knowledge, I could be wrong on this.

I hadn't done any depths of research on this, but to my knowledge, Lee Strobel and others, anyone who has set out to do what you just said and just prove that God is not real, and in fact were professed atheists, at the end of the day, the facts were just too overwhelming and they ended up surrendering their life to Jesus. And you've tuned in today. We've had Homer Lee Gibbons Jr. on the show for part two and listening to a storied boxing career, world champion, more than one time, father, husband, man of God, missionary, and artistic in more ways than I can even count.

Homer, it's been great to have you on the show today. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Well, we may have to have you back again sometime. Would you be up for that? I would love to, sir.

All right. Homer Lee Gibbons Jr., thank you for dialing in, tuning in to the Man Up show today and hope that you were blessed by Homer's story. And from his heart, if you didn't sense him, he's such a tender-hearted man, even though he was in the ring knocking people's blocks off, their head off their shoulder, you can tell that the man just loves Jesus. And if you don't have that personal relationship with Jesus, man, today would just be a great day to make that decision because there is no promise of tomorrow. Just confess, repent, ask for God's forgiveness, and invite Him into your heart.

Thanks for dialing in. It's time to Man Up. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at Man Camp pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, godly husbands, and godly fathers.

God appeals to you. Give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Pastors, if you would like to bring Koloff for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to koloff.org and email me.

Remember this, it's time to Man Up. Now, Kita Koloff here. If you're needing to buy a car and have marginal credit and considering using buy here, pay here, that's worse than taking the Russian sickle. Winston-Salem motor cars will put you behind the wheel of a car you can rely on while helping rebuild, repair, or establish your credit score. If you're located on Silas Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem, be sure to check them out today at wsmc1.com because you are number one. We so appreciate our listeners. If you will support this program with a financial gift of any amount, I will send you a personalized copy of my latest book, Nikita, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to koloff.net, that's koloff.net, koloff.net, and make your contribution today. This is the Truth Network.