-I'm Liam Bialecki. I'm 10 years old.
-I am Skyler Bialecki. I am 13 years old.
-This is the home for the Bialecki brothers right here.
Since they could walk,
they've been having gloves on their hands.
We want to be the best in the world.
Liam has a tough fight. Some kid coming down from Phoenix.
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
-It is controversial because it was for me, too.
-I know it's dangerous. I'm still worried about it every time.
We train hard because I'm scared.
But we're ready for all that smoke.
And I'll put my kids up against anybody in the world
at the same age and weight.
Liam "Killa" Cage.
-When I fight, like, goes really fast.
I don't even remember any of it.
-Like a drum in your -- inside of you. It's crazy.
-Having us in the scenes is gonna help
protect our children.
This is what you have to do to be the best.
This is a lifestyle.
♪♪
-Gonna wake them up.
-Skyler Kane, time to wake up. Let's get your shoes on.
♪♪
Liam. Time to wake up, Bubba.
Let's go, Bubba.
Fight week. Let's wake up.
Up, up, up, up.
It's 5:10, guys. We've got to get in there.
Let's go.
3.5.
Okay, nice little warm-up, guys.
So I like to wake them up first thing in the morning
to run on the treadmill.
I do a 10-minute warm-up to get their mind going,
get their blood going.
Let's go.
I don't want to get them right into the sprints right away
'cause they're a little uncoordinated in the morning.
They're a little stiff from the hard workouts
from the previous day.
And then, yeah, we get into our sprints, some good fundamentals.
Good morning. Liam has a tough fight.
Some kid coming down from Phoenix.
Let's go, let's go, let's go.
-Skyler is 13 and Liam is 10. They're three years apart.
-Three, two, and running.
I've been around professional fighters most of my life,
and these guys are at higher level
than them with their discipline, with their drive,
with their love, with their skills.
I'm inspired with them every day.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
Hands on.
Good work, guys. Breathe. Bring it down, Liam.
-I don't know if I could jump up.
In the morning I usually run like two to three miles.
Then after that, I get off of school,
I usually like, eat, let the food digest
and then I train again.
-You ready? Go ahead.
-When I train, I usually, like, hit the bag.
Sometimes I spar, I do weights.
So this one is the USA.
I got fourth place in this,
but it's still like one of the hardest.
This is like the second-place boxing medal.
-What is it about boxing that you like more than wrestling?
-Just because, like, the adrenaline.
I don't really have that in wrestling as much.
And probably, like, punching people feels good.
-This is just like a recap of all the fights I did
at SoCal State.
I beat like three people back to back.
I have this one with the bronze medalist
for the Junior Olympics.
These are my wrestling medals.
Probably around like 300 in there.
A lot of people think, "Oh, he's just good on Instagram."
But, like, I'm actually good, like, outside of it.
-I started their Instagrams
as a way to kind of document their journey.
Skyler Bad Apple Junior. and then Liam "Killa" Cage.
Skyler wanted to start boxing.
The first age of competition was eight.
It's crazy, and it still makes me nervous now.
I still feel like I'm gonna puke every single match.
-One, two.
-Skyler started at 10, and at that point
Tyler had kind of started training him
as if he was a professional, and it paid off.
He won the local, the state.
He went to the regional level and won that,
and then at nationals he made it all the way to the finals.
-I started fighting professionally at 18 years old.
I picked it up pretty quick.
I fought for Bellator, fights on UFC Fight Pass.
I had eyes on me at times.
-I always said my kids would never do this,
but when they're around it and they see dad doing it,
it's like, how can we tell them you can't be like your dad?
-We had the advantage of knowing from me,
from when I was fighting, that we could have done differently.
You want to take it to the high level,
like, this is what we need to do.
-My dad would obviously be fighting,
and I'd see him MMA,
and I'd also go to my grandpa's house
and he'd have boxing all the time was on the TV,
and eventually I wanted to do it.
It's just like nice and flowy.
You see it, it looks cool. It's pretty.
-I did learn from my brother because he, like, did that,
and I kind of wanted to, like, copy him or something like that.
-Welcome to Bad Apple Boxing.
I made that sign, I made everything.
-We didn't even think twice. He said, "I'm opening a gym."
And I said, "Okay, I'm opening a gym with you
and we're gonna do this."
-This is the home for the Bialecki brothers right here.
-The best way that we can prepare them for
when they get older is to make sure that they become elite.
-In and out, in and out, in and out, in and out.
I always start off with footwork drills.
I believe that boxing always starts with your feet.
-They have two completely different personalities,
which is pretty amazing.
-When you're working the bag, work your technique
and stay behind your punches.
Working your rolls, your slips, your feints, Liam.
Okay? Sharp, happy thoughts in your mind.
Everything's landing, everything's working.
Victory, victory, victory.
-Skyler is a little bit more outgoing.
He likes the cooler, edgy stuff. Funny sense of humor.
-I'll run you through minute-and-a-half, short rounds.
Okay? Stay true to your training and have fun.
Nice warm-up. Build up to it.
-Liam is more of the introvert.
Like, he goes with the flow,
he people-watches, but he gets really focused
in whatever he's working on, whatever it is.
But he's not necessarily like the kid that comes up
and makes new friends really quickly.
-When you're in the ring and you're, like,
moving without thinking,
it's just like your body just, like, runs like a machine
and just, like, keeps going.
-Okay, here we go. Let's go, let's go, let's go.
Hands up. One, two, three, two.
Choo, choo, choo, choo.
-My brain just, like, shuts off.
So I don't really remember anything in the fight.
-Two. Cut.
I'll take that. Good stuff.
-The crowd will sometimes go, like, quiet in my brain.
It feels like little nervous, happy excited.
It's a superweird feeling you won't get with anything else.
It's super slow in there.
I'll be punching fast, and it just feels like slow motion.
And then the time, it just feels like forever.
-All the other local gyms are looking at us, you know,
and everyone's watching us, as they should be.
They know we're tough, we're ready to get our hand raised,
and I'm ready to show this town what's up.
We're taking over.
-Boom, boom, boom, boom.
-Double. Boom, boom.
Good work.
All right, Liam, you're done, bro.
Good job.
[ Grunting ] Money.
Good job, Skyler.
My wife will be cooking breakfast for the kids.
Depending on their weight is what they could eat in the morning.
They're very disciplined. They want to do this.
They don't have to do this. They know that.
-We lived in San Diego for six years,
and we were traveling a lot with the kids for wrestling,
and then it turned into boxing,
and we were spending very little time at home.
So I had this bright idea,
because we had our RV here in Yuma,
we could go back and forth the opposite direction.
We figured we could save money. It was inevitable.
We won't be able to afford the travel for the kids
and still have this life.
Yuma is a smaller community.
It's a pretty tight boxing community.
That's how they get good.
You have to get them exposed to all the talent everywhere.
Their lunch is better at school here than in San Diego.
-Kind of. -Kind of.
[ Laughter ]
The transition from San Diego into Arizona
was kind of a culture shock for the boys.
There's a lot of wealthy people out there
and not a lot of crime.
We moved back here, and it's a border town.
It's a primarily Mexican, low-income community.
These schools out here, they have uniforms.
They do that specifically because certain gangs
wear certain colors out here.
And Skyler loves his style. Changed his whole world.
-I moved to a few months ago. It's cool.
It's, like, hot,
but everything's like so normal here.
They're, like, a lot more tough in San Diego.
Like, they mess around, act tough just for fun.
But if you do that down here, you'll get, like, beat up.
-I'm gonna go pick up the kids from school.
I moved out to Yuma when I was about 14 years old.
It was a completely total different way of living.
My mom lived in San Diego. My dad lived out here.
They sent me out here for my dad to straighten me up.
-We kind of grew up together,
and we got ourselves in and out of trouble together.
-I did have a few fights as a kid growing up,
got in a little bit of trouble at a young age.
I started hanging out with my older brother and his friends,
and they were kind of in some bad stuff.
I kind of followed suit in doing that,
and real quickly I got in trouble down here.
The cops, they found like over 33 baggies of cocaine.
They found a few pounds of marijuana,
whether it was mine or not, I said it was mine.
It actually led me into juvenile hall for 60 days.
I learned real quick that wasn't life for me.
How was school, guys?
I don't talk to my kids much about it, no.
He knows Dad got in trouble. Daddy messed up.
I know the temptations. I don't want my kids to be around that kind of stuff.
Finding some way to release
that bottled-up energy for these kids is a way.
I found it through fighting, you know?
Training and stuff, does it help you not get so angry?
-It was, like, good.
-It's like you're more energized.
Just make sure I don't end up like how he did at my age,
because he was, like, trouble, getting kicked out and stuff, getting in fights.
He wants to make sure, like, I don't end up going down the wrong path.
-It's the night before the fight,
and what we like to do is just kind of let the kids unwind.
If we're in town, we always come to my dad's to barbecue.
This is kind of where we grew up.
Anything to get their minds off of the fight.
-Whether we win or lose tomorrow,
we're just blessed for this opportunity.
And we like to get together and just celebrate our small wins.
And then we go tomorrow and just the rest is in God's hands.
-And my mom always does a little prayer
for the kids before the battle.
-Yeah, we hold hands, and they get in the center
and we pray over the kids.
I've had my fair share of injuries.
-Every mistake that we've made with Tyler,
I will not repeat.
Like, these kids are not going to repeat it.
-[ Speaking Spanish ]
-Well, it's somewhat inaccurate
because there's a scoring system involved
that actually incentivizes more body shots than head shots.
The sport that has the most concussions
is actually football.
It's not boxing. -Not boxing.
-So you have to, as a parent, look into the rules,
look into the game, see how it is,
and make sure that you're actually following,
you know, as a coach, following the rules.
-And monitor the sparring, monitoring the training. -Monitor the sparring.
-Know your athletes. -Use the towel.
-The towel in the corner is not just to wipe the kid's face.
-It's to stop that fight.
-If you notice that your athlete
is not as elite as they should be
and are taking punishment that's not necessary... -Stop it.
-...you are to immediately throw in that towel.
That's where the ego could get some coaches.
But this isn't Rocky Balboa.
This is youth boxing. -We're not trying to be -- yeah.
-How does it feel when you get punched?
-You don't really feel it unless it's in, like, the body
and it's like a super clean, then you feel it.
But in the face you don't really feel it.
Get hit in the body, like, ooh, like, it hurts.
Thank you.
-I know there's injuries gonna happen,
but we're trying to be the best we can
and we want to be the best in the world.
Becoming the best in the world
is also being the best in the world
at protecting yourself at all times.
I'm hoping it's God's willing, but I hope we get in
and get out unscathed.
-I feel, like, excited.
[ Bell rings ] -Box!
-Cool as a cucumber. He loves this.
He's a very quiet kid, but this is his favorite thing.
He's all in when he fights.
-Today I wasn't able to fight.
I'm pretty sure it's because I have so many fights,
and down here, it's not really, like,
as advanced as, like, San Diego.
So I think that's why I couldn't fight.
Liam only loses top contenders. So down here, he should win.
I'll shake him up, make sure his arms are good.
Just make sure he's warm.
Just make sure Liam knows what to do.
Make sure he's ready.
Good luck in your fight.
It's cool because I have a little brother
that's following me on my way,
so it's cool to see him, like, doing the things I did.
-High knees. Go.
When I'm done, he should have a light bead of sweat
on his nose or his forehead, and then my job's done.
Hard as you can. Keep working.
Hard as you can. Push, push.
Three, two, and time. Good job. Get your gloves on.
-You're now officially representing Bad Apple Boxing.
I think, for me, that's a little more nerve-racking
because we're the new kids in town down here.
We have to prove why we feel like we're the best.
Nice and tight? Is it loose anywhere?
-Oh, here we go.
-I'm prepared. I'm ready.
I think I'm gonna win this.
-Great round with these two young warriors.
-Stay loose. Your time, big dog.
Eyes on the prize. This is your time, Liam.
Chin down. Time for you to eat.
Liam "Killa" Cage. He gets to come out to play. Let's go.
Ready, Liam. Go!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-When I get in the ring, I kind of like
raise my hands, do a little dance
so the judges could, like, vote for me a little bit more,
they, like, go on my side a little bit.
You go in there, you look at each other's eyes.
I say a prayer at the start.
[ Bell rings ]
-Go!
Just, like, kind of like zone out
and listen to what my dad said.
-Quick -- quick jabs, jabs.
Now work that body. -Time doesn't really slow down.
But when I fight, it, like, goes really fast. -Slip him!
-I don't even remember any of it.
-Good round, Bubba. -Good round.
Okay, I want you -- Same thing. Tighten them up.
I want a smaller window. Don't wing them.
-Good volume. Let's get that volume in.
-A lot of coaches and managers don't care about the athlete.
Turn it up. [ Bell rings ]
-Let's go.
And then they're putting you in fights you shouldn't have.
When money's involved and all the promotion are involved,
that's when they don't give a shit
about the safety of the fighter.
They start treating them like monsters at that point. -Yeah.
-We're in this 100% for our children and for safety. -To protect them.
-Go out. Circle out, Li.
-If they want to do this, they need to become the best,
because that's the best way to avoid injury.
Perfect.
[ Bell rings ]
-Make him miss. Make him pay.
Don't let him touch you this round.
I need fast, I need speed. Okay?
When you're dealing with your kids' heads
and getting hit in the head and other body parts and organs
and stuff, you take it seriously.
[ Bell rings ]
-At this age, they're so little.
They don't hit very hard compared to an adult.
That headgear kind of really minimizes the shock.
So it might look bad,
but the ones that really look scarier to me
are like the liver shots, the body shots, you know,
because it's like there's no protection there.
-Clean them up, Liam. Jabs.
-Dreams do come true if you foster them,
if you work at them every single day.
You're never too young to start.
When they're telling you
that this is something they want to do, why wait?
-Explode, Liam. Rapid.
Rapid fire, Liam, rapid fire!
Way to go, Liam. Way to go, Liam.
-Rapid fire! -Again, Liam!
-Rapid fire! Let's go!
[ Bell rings ] [ Cheers and applause ]
-We do have a decision.
Your winner by unanimous decision,
boxing out of the red corner -- Liam Bialecki.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Attababy!
-Go to the doctor.
-He got it done. Like, that's it.
I'm happy for him. I'm glad he did that.
-First of all, good win, Liam.
Proud of you. It looked very good.
I thought you won it across the board.
I love the body work and that you listen.
We got room to grow. That was a great fight.
Let's go, big dog. Good stuff.
Anyway, how do you feel about it?
-I got tired. -Yeah? But that's normal.
Different climate.
But you know what? You pushed through.
I'm proud of you, bro. Good job.
They have good hearts.
Ever since they were little kids,
they always look out for each other.
I got blessed with pretty good kids,
not being like little stinkers.
I don't know if that comes with being good parents
or always being there for them since day one,
but the kids are super cool.
-Thank you Jesus for allowing this to go well.
Thank you for keeping the kids safe.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
-Amen.
♪♪