Undefeated, NABC Super Middleweight Champion, ?Comanche Boy? George Tahdooahnippah (26-0-1) will be the MAIN EVENT at ?Xtreme Fight Night? at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tulsa, OK on Friday, February 25, 2011.
Tahdooahnippah?s opponent is a former World Champion Kickboxer and undefeated MMA fighter, Thomas ?Thunderkick? Longacre. Longacre, who is also Native American, will be making his professional boxing debut. ?It?s time for me to do what I do and win,? Tahdooahnippah said. ?He?s not in my league and February 25th, I will prove that when I take him to school in the boxing ring.?
Xtreme Fight Night again offers a unique blend of boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts. This exciting evening is also highlighted by celebrity guest, ?Irish? Micky Ward, whose life and boxing career is chronicled in the Oscar nominated film, ?The Fighter?.
I spoke with Tahdooahnippah on Wednesday evening. Here’s what he had to say:
LS: How did this rivalry between you and Longacre get started?
GT: Well, after my fight on November 12th at the Hard Rock, the promoter of that show, Dale ?Apollo? Cook, asked me to be on his radio show. I said ‘Yeah, sure’. So he called me, and the little DJ guy was asking questions, and he said, ‘I have a big question, the question everybody wants to know. Are you fighting a fellow Native American? Everyone knows him around Tulsa, Thomas ?Thunderkick? Longacre’. And I was like, ‘Who? No disrespect, but I never heard of him.’ He said, ‘He’s a world champion kickboxer. There’s been talks of you and him being matched up for a battle of Native Americans’. This is how I felt about everything; I believe he needs to get some fights, and then we’ll fight. If he isn’t an established boxer, why should I fight someone who’s 0-0? Then he told me that he fights at 145, and I was like, ‘Oh. He’s a little guy’. I said, ‘I fight at middleweight and super middleweight. I’m a big guy.? I didn’t even know who the dude was. Then that was it, you know?
Then I got a call from my manager saying that Dale Cook had called and said, ‘Hey, what about George and him matching up?’ My manager was the same way. He said, ?You know, this guy is 0-0 as a professional boxer?. We?re wanting to take that big step, kind of like when I was set up to fight Fernando Guerrero ?til it fell through. That?s where we?re at now in our career, and going backwards is kind of like a freak show. But [my manager] asked me about it. I said, ?Do we got anything better??. This was before I had the fight in January. So we didn?t have anything else going on after that fight and we started trying to negotiate then. I really didn?t wanna talk about it until after my January 13th fight because I knew that Suarez, he comes to fight. I didn?t wanna look past him, no distractions, or what not.
Then, at that time, [Longacre] came out with his little YouTube video calling me out. You know, I just thought it was funny. It was corny. (laughs) I thought that he must really need me if he?s going out of his way, out on a limb to make a video calling me out. I?ve been a fighter all my life. I?ve been fighting since I was four years old, so it didn?t mean anything. I was like, ?whatever?. I get haters every day. I just kind of thought it was funny.
Then, they started talking numbers after my fight. They were talking before, and they wanted to do 4 rounds at 160. You know, if I?m fighting at 160, I?m gonna fight for a middleweight title. That?s the only time I?m fighting at 160. And 4 rounds? You know, I should be fighting 10 or 12 rounds right now. There?s no way I?m fighting 4 rounds. I said, ?If he?s calling me out and he wants to fight me, then he?s gonna fight 6 or 8 rounds. I?m not a preliminary fighter anymore. I put in my work.
The second thing was the weight. I said 164. It?s right in the middle. It?s 4 pounds over the middleweight limit, and it?s 4 pounds under super middleweight. They said, ?No. He won?t fight nowhere over 160?. I said, ?Well, y?all want me?. I didn?t call them out. He does nothing for my career, just a little paycheck, and it isn?t that much money. They act like they?re paying me big money or something, but it isn’t even a whole lot of money.
Honestly, I’m ready to be put in there with whoever. I need a Fernando Guerrero. I need someone of that nature, and Thomas Longacre isn?t what I had in mind. Now?s the time for me to go fight someone big. Now?s the time for me to do what I can do, and show everybody. [My manager] was like, ?Well, let?s leave that as an option, and let?s see what happens after this fight?.
In the meantime, they came up with that second video. Another corny one. (laughs) I just though ‘Ah, whatever’. And then my community, all my Native American people were getting upset about it. His people started attacking me through Facebook, all his friends. His promoter Dale Cook was on my Facebook just talking smack. I still didn’t care. And they weren’t going about it in a professional way. I thought it was kind of high-schoolish the way they were doing things. I didn’t pay ’em no mind. I just told my manager, ‘Let’s do this fight in January, then let’s see where we’re at’.
After the fight, I was like, ‘Let’s get back to the numbers on this’. If I’m gonna help his career out by fighting him, I’m gonna maximize my profits by all means. We did what we could as far as getting the most, but like I said, it wasn’t a whole lot of money. At the same time, I had seen all his little videos. I had seen all his little fans on my page. I saw all kinds of comments about how his people were calling me ‘Injun’, and ‘Yeah, all you guys are is a bunch of drunk Injuns’, and ‘Everybody knows that Injuns can’t fight, and that’s why the Paleface took the land’. You know, saying all these racist comments. That riled me up right there.
I don’t have any friends that call my race ‘Injuns’ because I would knock ’em out right there. They know better than to disrespect me, and if they said it on Facebook, I’d delete the comment. Why am I gonna have some remarks degrading my race? That kind of told me his sense of native pride. He don’t have it. And his promoter leaves it on the page, and one of his friends was talking all this… You know, I found that really disrespectful, and it was just another thing that fired me up. That’s what really got me.
He did a video saying, ‘Oh, I’m a real warrior,’ and all this stuff. I’m like, ‘This guy, he’s got no pride’. There are people like that all the time, and they’re not proud of who we are. There aren’t very many Native Americans in the world, so to me, I carry myself as a Native American man first because that’s what my dad taught me. ‘Every day, you walk with your head up and be proud of who you are.’ So going into this fight, I am the Native American. He’s just a guy that’s part Native American. I’m representing the people, and I know all the people are behind me, the Native American people.
There are two different types of Native Americans. There are the ones that are Native Americans with Native pride, then there are the ones that are part Native American that aren’t proud of who they are or where they come from, and I think [Longacre] falls into that category.
We got through the negotiations, we worked everything out, and now it’s time to fight. I think he’s overlooking me. I’ve sparred a lot of great people. Grady Brewer has been my mentor. I’ve sparred Alan Green, I’ve sparred Ishe Smith, I’ve sparred Zab Juhah, I’ve sparred James Freeman… I’ve been in there with boxers, real boxers.
LS: He said he plans to finish you in 3 rounds.
GT: (Laughs)
LS: What’s your prediction for the fight?
GT: I know he’ll be a tough little guy coming at me, but I’m not gonna fall into a war because I’m a boxer. I’m just gonna box his ears off, and he’s gonna fall. He might fall early, he might fall late and he might fall often, but I’m gonna make him fall.
