Norway’s “Konstantin “The One” Lesnik” at Mayweather Boxing Club – Interview

Introducing Konstantin “The One” Lesnik. A fully equipped, fully functional and proven dream seeker. He also has a sweet left hook!

As this article is being written he is no doubt soon to be waking up in Las Vegas USA and preparing to spend many hours training at what is arguably the worlds most celebrated boxing gym. But how did this young Norwegian amateur Boxer who is originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan, find his way to be spending his days surrounded by boxing royalty at the Mayweather Boxing Club and why is this so interesting?

To the unenlightened few, the name Mayweather may simply ring of spring, but to the rest it will will be synonymous with the highest paid athlete on earth, at the very least the greatest boxer of his generation and of course the kind of superstardom that comes only with being spoken of in the same sentences as Leonard, Jones, Tyson and of course Ali.

[pullquote]    “My name is Konstantin Lesnik and I was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I came to Norway with my mother and brother when I was 7 years old. Basically i´m just a young person who is striving for my own dreams.”
– Konstantin Lesnik[/pullquote]

Floyd Mayweather Jr is currently the most renouned Boxer on the planet and the legitimate face of Boxing. He is a five weight division, undefeated, eight time world champion and is generally accepted as the raining pound for pound king. His blood line is also synonymous with Boxing greatness with his father Floyd Mayweather Sr being a former welter weight contender who fought the great Sugar Ray Leonard. Both his Uncles, “Roger and Jeff Mayweather” are also well known names with Roger being a former two time world champion. The Mayweather family roles thick with both Floyd Sr and Roger having taken turns over the years as Floyds head trainer.

With an existing policy of “no endorsements” this crew of once struggling African Americans from Grand Rapids Michigan have turned the sports business model on its head and reinvested everything from promotion to sponsorship back into the family name. Rather than being used as a walking billboard for other people brands and having his career being dictated by a Don King, Floyd Mayweather insist on being as dominant in the business world as he has been in the ring. His fans are not wearing Air Mayweather’s but are strutting the Money Team logo (TMT), slinging street jive like “Money Power Respect” and dreaming of course to be a part of the “Money Team” its self.

Its no wonder then that the Mayweather Family Brand with its rags to riches street heritage and fierce refusal to take punishment in or outside the ring is also attracting a legion of fans that see the universality of this message.

It is here that it becomes obvious that armed with this inspiration that “all things are possible”, Konstantin, a first generation immigrant from humble beginnings not only retains but also shares some of these same emotional parameters. Its this that has paved the way for him to essentially grab hold of a his dreams and “Carpe Diem”. When we came to know that this young Boxer from Oslo, Norway was in actually in the USA learning the sweet science from the undisputed masters of the game it was time to act. We took our chance to have a chat with the man him self. See below.

Konstantin hitting the heavy bag at Mayweather Boxing Club 

Ok Konstantin, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who are you and where you come from?

My name is Konstantin Lesnik and I was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I came to Norway with my mother and brother when i was 7 years old. Basically i´m just a young person who is striving for my own dreams.

Why did you and your mum move over to Norway?

We moved to Norway because of possibilities in the future. If we would have stayed in Kazakhstan we would definitely have had no future since we are from a very poor family. I am the first one in my family from both sides to go to USA and to do this kind of thing. I don’t know what I would do if I still lived there. Probably either dead, selling drugs or working for smallest amount of money.

When did you start boxing and have you fought recently?

I started kickboxing and boxing when I was 12-13 years old. I haven´t fought in a little while since I had my complete focus on getting to USA as soon as possible, so I just trained hard everyday and worked so I could save money.

So how did you end up training at Mayweather boxing camp?

Well really, when I first decided to start training at Mayweather Boxing Club it just felt right obviously because Floyd Mayweather Jr. is my favourite Boxer. So I flew to Las Vegas, USA. It was a gamble for me because the gym is very private and not open to the public because of it´s fame and hype. So the first day I came to Las Vegas I just decided to run to the gym and it was when Floyd had his training camp for Canelo. And when I got there I met one of Floyd´s bodyguards and his cousin Dejuan. It was very surreal for me and exiting, so I asked Dejuan if I could start training with them and surround myself around them, and he respected me for flying all the way from Europe to USA, so he said that I could begin training with them. And then my training began there.  I´ve seen Floyd Jr. a couple of times but he is a really busy man, you don´t see him so often.

So what is your schedule?

My schedule is very basic and easy: The gym is open from 12pm-5pm monday-saturday. It´s all up to me when I come there as long as I get a hard workout but sometimes I train from 12pm-4pm straight and other days I train 1pm-5pm. So it´s 4 hours straight with hard sparring, bag-work, strength and conditioning training and mitt work. When Floyd Jr. has a training camp it´s completely something else. Normally the gym is not overcrowded because it´s private but when Floyd trains and has open days for public to come, its really packed and no one else is allowed to train at that time. He can train for 3-5 hours straight or just 2 hours but always 3 times a day. You never know when he will train though. It could be at night or morning, you never know.

And you spending any time with Floyd Sr?

Oh yeah, I meet Floyd Sr. everyday at the gym and we talk and have some fun when we are resting after or before training. He is part of my normal day now. He is an really humble and down-to-earth person in my opinion and he is a legend for sure. And he teaches me sometimes as well.

So you had some time on the pads with him?

Yeah, he is very expensive as a trainer and normally he trains only professionals who are in The Money Team and Mayweather Promotions, but I had one mitt session with him and one with Roger Mayweather.

But Konstantin … why didn´t you go train with Freddie Roach?

Floyd Mayweather Sr with a message to Freddie Roach

So you pick up the shoulder roll and some other Mayweather defence tricks?

Definitely the shoulder roll, I can say my boxing style has changed a lot since I came to the gym. I learned the professional Mayweather boxing style, which is to hit and not get hit… and the shoulder roll is part of my style now.

What does the future hold for Konstantin the one?

Well, my plan now is to head back to Norway and consider what I do next, I really want to move down to Las Vegas and become a official part of The Money Team, and I know the people so I had a talk with them about it, and in that case they want me to come back and stay there so they can train me and go professional. But there are fighters coming from everywhere and their all trying to get into the Money Team so they only sign professional fighters. So I am going to consider making a pro debut after a couple of more amateur fights in Norway, and when I am already a pro I can move down to USA, and get signed.

If we look longer in the future, Konstantin “The One” is soon to be the next champion of the world!

Russell Brand has taken part in a world wide protest against corruption, austerity cuts and surveillance named the ‘Million Mask March’. This protest was organised by the hackivist group ‘Anonymous‘. Russell Brand was seen in central London rallying fellow participants.

Russell Brand has recently gain significant international attention after his interview with the BBC and his guest editorship of the New Statesman in which he called for Global revolution.

Circus Bazaar has been following the real world indicators of this significant effort. Check out our WIP Indicator page. Click here 

Organs to print. It reads and sounds utterly incongruous. Even suggesting it less than a decade ago would likely have resulted in a patronising chuckle and perhaps some humorous commentary about technophiles. Yet today that is precisely what is occurring in cutting edge research.

The possibilities of printed organs using the recipients own cellular material is now emerging from a far off potential and into reality. Patients dying of organ failure could receive organs printed from their own tissue averting both rejection issues and often terminally long organs transplant lists.

In recent years regenerative medicine has already implanted lab-grown skin, trachea’s and bladders into patients. These body parts were grown slowly using artificial scaffolds and living human cells. 3D-printing technology however, offers both greater speed and computer-guided precision in printing living cells layer by layer to make replacement skin, body parts and perhaps eventually organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys.

“Bioprinting organs for human uses won’t happen any time soon. But for tissues we’ve already implanted in patients — structures we’ve made by hand — we’re now going back to those tissues and saying ‘We know we can do better with 3D printing.”

– Tony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

[pullquote]    “The smart aortic graft has the potential to not only extend a patient’s life, but also to provide them with mobility, comfort and a reduced need for carers.”  
-Dr. Philip Breedon  [/pullquote]

Already though 3D printing has moved from printing vascular structures to skin and now even heart tissue. The key difficulty arises in the number of cell types in the tissue being printed as well as their structural arrangement. For example skin is largely one cell type and is layered in flat levels so its relatively easy to print. Blood vessels are tubular and made up of two cell types and so pose a larger challenge while larger hollow organs like the stomach and bladder each with integrated functions and interactions with other organs are significantly more difficult to print.

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Finally liver, kidneys and the heart pose the ultimate problem with very large numbers of differentiated cells, highly articulated structures and multiple function, integrations and complexity. But some labs think they can dispense with the artificial scaffold, which can be problematic in both injecting and dissolving, by talking advantage of cells self organising capacity and simply layer the cells in the correct order.

“If you do what we do with putting cells in the right place, you don’t start with anything structural to hold things up. For us, the challenge is the strength and integrity of the structure.”

– Keith Murphy, chairman and CEO of Organovo, a startup San Diego-based company.

But the biggest challenge so far is the seeding of blood vessels through the printed organ to allow it nutrient and blood supply. What is this technologies probable success in creating functioning organs? Organovo seems highly confident listing itself on the NYSE in July of 2013 and gathering fresh investors despite the bearish stock market.

And 3D printing is not solely restricted to organic based structures, but also artificial prosthesis as well. 
Researchers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in the UK have designed a 3D-printed electronic smart pump to assist damaged or diseased hearts to function better.

According to the NTU website, the pump takes the form of an aortic graft, manufactured from an electronically sensitive ‘smart material’ surrounding a woven tube. It is powered by a small battery which causes the smart material to expand when an electric current is applied. This artificial 3D printed graft would replace a piece of the heart’s large artery. It would contract and expand in response to the hearts own contractions and expansions effectively controlling the diseased heart’s blood flow. The smart pump can shrink to increase circulation to the heart and also expand to deliver oxygen to the rest of the body. By using MRI scans, the researchers believe that they will be able to customise their pumps to fit the size and shape of each individual patient.

The system once completed will be a self-contained unit which no longer requires that patients be hooked up to external equipment. Dr. Philip Breedon, the research team leader and an expert in smart technologies at NTU’s School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment, explains how the pump can both increase the mobility of patient’s suffering from heart disease as well as saving countless lives:

“This device could really be ground breaking and more effective than any other therapy currently being used around the world. Chronic heart failure is a major health challenge and up to 40 per cent of sufferers die within the first year. The best form of treatment is a heart transplant, but the demand by far outweighs the supply as around 160,000 people require one in Europe each year, but only 600 donor hearts are available. The technology currently used to help people with acute heart failure can only be used for a few days and involves the patient being attached to large external machines which need to be plugged into the mains power supply. The smart aortic graft has the potential to not only extend a patient’s life, but also to provide them with mobility, comfort and a reduced need for carers.”

So cybernetic like fixtures like the NTU smart pump could also allow heart patients far better quality of life and buy valuable time until transplants or printed hearts are available. And it doesn’t stop with just the heart. The recent ‘home’ printing of prosthetic limbs using MakerBot Replicator-type home 3-D printer is both promising and controversial. Criticism of the practice has been that the scanning process to create a comfortable fit is not always ideal or possible making for a generic fit that does not always fit or work well at the joining interface with the body. But in the third world the choice between a mediocre prosthesis and none makes this a far more attractive option, especially when added to the lower price point where knees have been made for as little as $20 U.S.

The rapidly declining price of laser scanning and its technology – combined with 3D printings’ increasingly cheaper price point is music to amputees ears and signals a time of far less capital investment per prosthesis by medical organisations. And that means much greater access for the worlds poor and disadvantaged.

Some researchers though, postulate that experimenting with printing such relatively simple tissues as cartilage, which does not need extensive access to blood vessels to thrive may well be the entry model for a real mass adoption of 3D printing by the medical industry . A Scripps Translational Science Institute researcher, Darryl D’Lima, who is involved in a project to print cartilage, told NYT in a separate article.

“Printing a whole heart or a whole bladder is glamorous and exciting, but cartilage might be the low-hanging fruit to get 3-D printing into the clinic.”

Other firms such as Organovo are printing strips of various tissues for invitro experimental use or layers of liver cells for testing. Using 3D printers the University of Illinois is building “biobots,” which are miniature inchworms made of cardiac muscle cells that slide forward as the cells beat. These ingenious devices could travel around within a patient’s body to deliver drugs or find and destroy toxins.

The prodigious list of medical devices already made by a technology still so wet behind the ears is staggering. 
Lives by the thousands are being saved or greatly improved by 3D printing in medicine and at the risk of sounding theatrical, this is truly only the beginning.

[pullquote]    “I’ve taken the right, I don’t need the right from you, I don’t need the right from anybody, Im taking it!”    
– Russell Brand[/pullquote]

As soon as we saw Russell Brand deliver a knockout blow to the BBC´s usually indestructible Jeremy Paxman we knew something special had occurred. On a global forum a man carrying the legitimate claims of a whole unawakened  movement of potential ‘in waiting revolutionaries’ was able to communicate a few specific sound bites of absolute truth. Namely that these people, as all people are are under no obligation to earn, ask, be given or just wish for the right to demand real political change.

He said he was “taking that right”, and there he took it, simple as that with the whole world to see.

This interview released just hours before his feature editorial-ship of the “New statesman” and a 4500 word manifesto on revolution has become a fast social media hit with just about everyone that sees it talking about it and passing it on. He will even soon appear on the Joe Rogan Pod Cast in the United States.

We were, as so many others have been, so impressed with the interview and its subsequent response that we have chosen to report on it from a key indicator perspective to try to see whether the social media cables on revolution have any real life basis.

Below you will find the interview and a series of key indicators for the strength of the Russell Brand Revolution of which we will try to periodically update and expand in this article.

The full interview below.

Thorbjørn Jagland, (The secretary general of the council of Europe, Chairmen of the Norwegian Nobel committee and former Norwegian Prime Minister) getting ready to speak to the world not so long after the announcement that the 2013 Nobel Peace prize would go to the OPCW (The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons).

The announcement of the Peace prize is actually a very simple and small affair. There is not so many people watching. No visible police or security, no search or shakedown.

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