Before Mike Tyson & Creed, There Was Vietnam | Jacob "Stitch" Duran, Legendary Cutman, USAF Veteran

About this story

Before he was the cutman behind Mike Tyson and the Creed films, Jacob "Stitch" Duran was a broke kid from a California migrant camp and almost nobody knows he's a military Veteran.

That's the story he never really gets asked about, and it's the one Ronnie Long wanted. In this episode of Vegas Veteran Voices, Ronnie, a 3/5 Marine, sits down with Stitch, an Airman, across two generations of the uniform for a raw, funny, unfiltered conversation about the fifty years that started not in a fight, but in a field.

Stitch grew up working the crops in Planada, California, chasing the one way out a kid like him could see: pro baseball. When that dream died, the Air Force opened a door he never expected, and shipped him to a country he'd never heard of. Thailand, 1974. He walked into a Muay Thai fight, and something clicked that never switched off. That night became the calling that would carry him for the next fifty years.

What came after sounds impossible for a farm-worker's kid: teaching himself to close cuts when the old-timers guarded their secrets to the grave, opening a kickboxing school on a credit card, a move to Las Vegas, and a phone call from Dana White that put him in the corners of Mike Tyson, the Klitschko brothers, Tyson Fury, and a generation of UFC legends. Today he's the most trusted cutman in combat sports, and he plays himself alongside Michael B. Jordan in Creed I, II, and III.

But this isn't the fight-world interview he's given a hundred times. Underneath the fame is a Veteran who got fired by the UFC for telling the truth, who's spent years standing in front of service members talking about resilience and mental health, and who gives them the same thing a cutman gives a fighter bleeding in the corner: the belief that you've always got one more round.

This one's about the fights before the fights.

▶ Watch, then tell us in the comments, what's your "one more round"?

⏱ CHAPTERS

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Legendary cutman Jacob "Stitch" Duran, U.S. Air Force Veteran, Vietnam era, on Vegas Veteran Voices, the Las Vegas nonprofit podcast telling Veterans' stories the right way. Cutman for Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul, the Klitschko brothers, Tyson Fury, and boxing and UFC's biggest nights, and the cutman in Creed and Rocky Balboa. From the migrant fields of Planada, California, to Hollywood to the biggest stages in combat sports, this is his story of service, resilience, and one more round.

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In their words

“Conversations like this, to know that you’re not by yourself. There’s a lot of people there to cover your back.”

“Don’t ever give up, man. And when you ever have doubts, think about yourself and saying, you know what, Stitch says go that one more round.”

Chapters

1. 0:00 Cold open
2. 1:00 Meet Stitch : the vet nobody knew
3. 3:30 Growing up in a migrant camp in Planada
4. 5:03 The recruiter who changed his life
5. 5:44 Joining the Air Force
6. 8:35 Shipped to Thailand "I didn't even know what it was"
7. 11:14 Discovering Muay Thai
8. 13:53 The splits story

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9. 20:00 Learning the cutman craft & the ethos
10. 24:13 Visiting the wounded "I'll give you some energy"
11. 27:22 "Can you hold my leg?" dark humor & sacrifice
12. 41:37 Thailand, the coconut bong & "I accepted death"
13. 54:35 Moving to Vegas & the call from Dana White
14. 56:24 Getting fired for speaking out
15. 1:00:00 Creed, Michael B. Jordan & the nickname
16. 1:10:00 Mental health, giving back & "one more round"
17. 1:12:03 A message to the Veteran watching