“The night of my fight, I went back to the dressing room and watched Kenzie Morrison's fight, my opponent, with Hasim Rahman Jr.. That was my first time ever watching any film on him. I don't like to study my opponents that much because I know I have a different style than any other heavyweights. It's very slick. I like to move a lot and throw combinations, which you don't see a lot with heavyweights and that's what tricks them: heavyweights like to just fight and not think.
I'm watching the video and say, ‘This guy can't fight going backwards.’ I knew that my coaches wanted me to move in this fight, but I knew I had to walk him down because he's got 18 knockouts - but all when he's coming forward. He’s stepping into his punches and his footwork is bad. I put it into my head that the fight was going to be easy for me even though I knew I couldn't get caught with any punches. With heavyweight fighting, that can happen at any time. I knew if he didn't get me out of there in the first three rounds, it was over for him.
So, after I watched the film, we started having a good time. We turned on the music. I started having fun back there and enjoying the moment because you don't get many opportunities to fight for a title and the opportunity to bring a world championship belt back to Saginaw.
I heard a loud roar during the fight before mine and probably five minutes later, they came back and said, ‘You’re on.’
I've never been one to be nervous about fights, because at that point when you’re about to step into the ring, it's like whatever is going to happen, is going to happen. You train so hard for a fight, so getting into the ring is the fun part. So I locked in and knew it was time to have fun. I put my Squid Games mask on, buried my emotions, went in and said ‘It's time to take this guy out.’
The bell rings and I knew from the beginning that I had to take his jab away, so when he threw his first jab, I countered it with a right hand. I wanted to let him know that if he threw his jab the wrong way, things were going to be bad for him. He's only got a one-two punch, so that threw him off.
I tested his chin and he had a very good chin, but I realized that I could outbox him for the eight rounds. Eventually I knew he was going to start breaking down and I saw it in his face everywhere. Every round, I would watch him walk to his corner and I could see that he was already defeated.
In Kansas, nobody knows this, but they show you live scoring in the corners, so when we got to the end of the fight, I knew I had already beat him. I still wanted to make sure, because you never just never know.
The fight went eight rounds, and that final round, I knew that I finally did what I set out to do. Not only did I make myself proud, but I showed my kids that all those nights I was gone and all the events I missed because I was at the gym training was finally worth it. I didn’t want to go through a whole career and not bring anything home from boxing that let them know that.
You get checks, but it doesn’t make up for that time that was missed. But this belt is never going anywhere and the title of me being a champ is never going anywhere. At that moment, I thought, ‘I actually did it.’
I had this dream probably about 50 million times—what it would be like when they finally raise my arm in the air and say that I was the champ. I actually thought I would cry.
But when they raised my hand, it was just pure joy. I was too happy to cry.”
– Robert Simms, World Boxing Council USNBC Heavyweight World Champion
Saginaw, Michigan
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