Part 1 of our conversation with Dewey “Black Cobra” Cooper was about the fighter—where he came from, how he developed his identity, and the years that turned a kid from Los Angeles into a world champion.
Part 2 is about what happened after people started depending on him.
Coaching world-class fighters, helping build a professional boxing league, watching his daughter begin a life of her own, and confronting a period of depression he never expected all come into the conversation. So does health. After turning Dr. John Pierce down for two years, Cooper finally agrees to get his blood work done, opening the door to a broader discussion about physician-guided preventive wellness and what it means to pay attention to your health before something forces you to.
That part feels especially appropriate for a man who has spent much of his life reading other people—watching fighters for weaknesses, recognizing fatigue, adjusting strategy, and knowing when someone needs to be pushed or pulled back. Yet, like many people, Cooper admits he was less eager to examine what was happening inside his own body. At Ageless Forever, options such as the Bronze Wellness Program with comprehensive laboratory testing and physician follow-up are designed around establishing that kind of personal baseline rather than waiting for symptoms to provide all the information.
Becoming a Coach Before Anyone Called Him One
One of the most revealing parts of Cooper's story is how long he did the work before the title caught up with him.
Coaching did not begin with a famous athlete walking through the door. Cooper describes years of working full shifts, spending hours teaching children and fighters at the gym, then getting by on only a few hours of sleep before doing it again.
There was no guarantee that the sacrifice would lead anywhere.
That period helps explain the kind of coach he eventually became. Cooper had already learned how to teach when there was no spotlight, how to stay consistent when nobody was measuring his influence, and how to invest time in athletes who were still trying to become something.
Jessica Rakoczy was one of the fighters who helped change how people saw him.
Rakoczy had a highly accomplished boxing career, and the UFC later described Cooper as the coach she began working with when she transitioned into mixed martial arts. For Cooper, her success reinforced something that had been developing for years: he was no longer simply a fighter helping people at the gym. He had become a coach capable of guiding athletes at the highest levels.
The transition may sound obvious in hindsight. It rarely feels that way while it is happening.
Sometimes a second career has already begun long before a person recognizes it.
Coaching Francis Ngannou Through the Biggest Stage in MMA
Francis Ngannou gave Cooper an entirely different kind of challenge.
In the conversation with Dr. Pierce, Cooper recalls working with Ngannou beginning with his first fight in America and remaining part of the process as Ngannou climbed toward the UFC heavyweight championship.
That climb was anything but smooth.
Ngannou suffered a decision loss to then-champion Stipe Miocic in his first UFC heavyweight title opportunity in 2018. Three years later, the rematch looked very different. Ngannou stopped Miocic in the second round at UFC 260 to become heavyweight champion, then successfully defended the title against Ciryl Gane in 2022. Those results are part of Ngannou's official UFC fight history.
For a coach, that gap between the first title fight and the second may be more meaningful than the belt itself.
Losing at the highest level exposes problems immediately. The fighter has to decide whether to make changes, and the coaching team has to determine which changes actually matter. More training is not automatically better. The goal is better preparation.
Cooper's philosophy throughout the conversation comes back to that idea repeatedly. A coach cannot simply demand intensity. He has to observe, communicate, correct, and understand the person in front of him.
That same principle applies outside professional sports. Training, nutrition, recovery, sleep, body composition, cardiovascular fitness, and other health variables interact with one another. Measuring some of those factors can provide useful information, but the numbers are more valuable when someone helps put them into context.
That is one reason Ageless Forever's Silver Wellness Program combines physician consultations and laboratory monitoring with assessments that can include DEXA body-composition scanning, Resting Metabolic Rate testing, VO2 Max testing, DNA analysis, and other performance-focused measurements. The purpose is not to turn every patient into a professional athlete. It is to better understand the individual in front of you.
The Boxing League That Started With a Conversation on an Airplane
Then there is the story that sounds almost too convenient to have happened exactly this way.
A conversation between two strangers on an airplane eventually helped set in motion what became Team Combat League and, today, Team Boxing League.
The current organization describes itself as the first team-based professional boxing league. Instead of building an event around one traditional fight card, teams compete across a series of short contests, accumulating points toward an overall team score. Men and women compete as members of the same team, and coaches make strategic decisions about which fighters return during later rounds.
It changes one of boxing's oldest assumptions: that the sport is fundamentally individual.
A fighter still enters the ring alone, but now his or her performance contributes to something larger.
For Cooper, the concept fits.
His career had already moved from personal achievement toward building other people. A team-based boxing league takes that idea and gives it a structure. Individual skill still matters, but so do coaching, strategy, roster construction, consistency, and the ability of athletes to contribute when their team needs them.
The organization has also continued to evolve. The league that appeared in earlier coverage as Team Combat League is now officially branded Team Boxing League, with professional teams representing cities including Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, and others.
And there is an obvious Las Vegas connection.
Cooper coaches the Las Vegas Hustle, which competes as one of TBL's Western teams. In a city built around combat sports, it gives local boxing fans another way to follow fighters as part of a hometown team instead of only following individual bouts.
When Your Child Starts Building a Life of Her Own
Some of the most memorable moments in this episode have nothing to do with championship belts.
Cooper talks proudly about his daughter, Shaolin, and her music career. Then the conversation shifts.
When she left for college, he struggled in a way he had not anticipated.
For years, Cooper's life had structure. Fighting provided structure. Coaching provided structure. Being a father provided structure.
Then one of those roles changed.
Parents know that children are supposed to grow up and become independent. Understanding that intellectually does not necessarily prepare someone for the emotional impact when it actually happens.
Cooper describes falling into depression after his daughter left.
What makes the story powerful is not that a successful fighter experienced a difficult emotional period. It is how surprised he was by it.
People who have spent decades being physically tough can still be caught off guard by grief, loneliness, identity changes, or depression. The ability to absorb punches does not provide immunity from emotional health problems.
The National Institute of Mental Health explains that depression can involve persistent sadness or emptiness, loss of interest, fatigue, sleep changes, difficulty concentrating, withdrawal, appetite changes, irritability, and other symptoms. Not everyone experiences depression in the same way, and symptoms that persist or interfere with daily life deserve professional attention. NIMH provides additional information on depression, symptoms, and treatment options.
Cooper's experience is his own. It is not a diagnostic template for anyone else.
What it does illustrate is how dramatically a change in purpose can affect someone who previously thought he understood exactly who he was.
The Search for Something Bigger
Cooper's response was not simply to find another project and stay busier.
He began searching.
That search eventually led him to Islam, something he discusses openly with Dr. Pierce as part of the process of rebuilding meaning during a period when his normal sources of identity no longer felt sufficient.
The conversation does not treat faith like another performance strategy, and it should not.
For Cooper, it is personal.
What makes that part of the episode relevant beyond any one religion is the question underneath it: What holds your life together when one of your central roles changes?
Athletes eventually stop competing. Children leave home. Careers change. Bodies change. Relationships change. Sometimes the habits and identities that carried someone through one stage of life do not provide everything needed for the next.
Cooper spent his career learning how to adapt inside a ring.
This was adaptation of a different kind.
Dewey Finally Says Yes to the Blood Work
Dr. Pierce had apparently been trying to get Cooper to do something far less dramatic than entering a ring: get his blood work done.
For two years, Cooper declined.
Eventually, he agreed.
There is something almost funny about that dynamic. Here is someone who willingly spent decades getting punched, kicked, exhausted, and tested physically, yet a routine health evaluation took persistent convincing.
He is hardly alone.
People often pay close attention to health when there is an obvious problem but know surprisingly little about their baseline numbers when they feel reasonably well.
Blood testing cannot tell you everything, and it should never be interpreted in isolation. Depending on what a physician orders, however, laboratory results may provide information related to metabolic health, cardiovascular risk factors, hormone levels, nutritional status, blood counts, thyroid function, and other areas that may deserve attention.
That is especially important when symptoms are nonspecific. Fatigue, changes in sleep, reduced motivation, changes in weight, or problems with concentration can have many possible causes. Mental health concerns and physical health concerns can also coexist.
Blood work is not a test for depression. The NIMH notes, however, that certain medical conditions can produce symptoms that overlap with depression, and medical evaluation may sometimes include an examination and laboratory testing to investigate other possibilities.
The goal should be understanding—not chasing a single number or assuming every problem has a hormonal, nutritional, or metabolic explanation.
That broader approach is also central to Ageless Forever's concierge medicine program in Las Vegas, where longer appointments allow patients to discuss laboratory findings alongside symptoms, medical history, medications, sleep, stress, nutrition, exercise, cardiovascular concerns, and preventive priorities.
More information is useful when it leads to better questions.
A Different Side of the Black Cobra
He became a coach before most people recognized him as one and went on to help guide championship athletes. His career eventually expanded beyond coaching when he became involved in building a new way to present professional boxing. Away from competition, Cooper watched his daughter begin creating a future of her own and faced depression during a stage of life when he did not expect it. Faith became part of how he worked through that period. After two years of Dr. Pierce asking, he also finally agreed to take a closer look at his own health.
Those subjects may seem unrelated at first.
They are not.
They are all about transition.
Sometimes the next chapter is another training camp. In other cases, it means becoming the teacher instead of the athlete or building an entirely new organization.
It can also mean admitting that something you have been avoiding finally deserves your attention.
For people thinking more seriously about their own health, the same principle applies. You do not need to wait for a crisis to learn more about your body. Establishing baselines, discussing changes with a physician, and deciding which testing actually makes sense for you can be part of a more deliberate approach to aging and long-term performance.
For those who want a more comprehensive level of testing and ongoing physician guidance, the Gold Wellness Program at Ageless Forever brings laboratory monitoring together with body-composition, metabolic, fitness, cardiovascular, genetic, and advanced preventive assessments.
Dewey Cooper has spent most of his life preparing people for fights they knew were coming.
Part 2 of his conversation with Dr. Pierce is a reminder that some of life's biggest adjustments do not announce themselves that way.