Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals friendship with late boxing champ Arturo Gatti, offers advice to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had some interesting things to say about late boxing champion Arturo Gatti and NASCAR star Ricky Stenhouse Jr. On Dale Jr. Download this week, Earnhardt looked back on his friendship with Gatti who died in 2009. He also offered advice to Stenhouse who was involved in a fight with Kyle Busch after the NASCAR All-Star Race on Sunday night.

“[Gatti] came to my 30th birthday party and went down to my boxing ring at about three in the morning and threw some punches,” Earnhardt said. “He’s like, ‘Here, throw some punches. Throw a combination.’ I throw it and it takes me five seconds. …Then he showed me how to throw the same punches in a third of the time.”

Earnhardt continued: “The first punch you don’t sort of recoil to just throw it. You just bring it. It’s got to come from wherever it’s at. Wherever your hands at, the punch just goes. He’s like ‘When you’ve got the first punch out there extended, you’ve already started the second.'”

Earnhardt brought Gatti up because they were talking about Stenhouse’s fight with Busch. “I think Ricky could go maybe get some training some that he could in that moment have gotten a combination in and not telegraph the first punch,” he said.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. says the fight between Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch was ‘entertaining’

Earnhardt also shared his thoughts on the fight. “When I watched that it was entertaining,” Earnhardt stated. “I know that Ricky went around and did some interviews and he’s out there talking about it. I don’t know where Kyle is personally about it. Probably more annoyed than anything.

While Earnhardt enjoyed the fight, he did not love NASCAR giving a big penalty to Stenhouse. In a bonus episode of Dale Jr. Download, the two-time Daytona 500 winner said that Stenhouse should appeal his fine, especially since Busch was not punished for his actions.

“I think there’s enough history to say look, I would go in there, and I would even walk in there with him if he wanted to me to, and I would say, listen, here are some other examples of this sort of same activity. Here’s the repercussions from those,” Earnhardt said. “…How much publicity this sport has gotten from this moment, and think about dropping it down a notch or two and saying hey, if it gets down to [$50,000) or [$25,000], I think that’s fair and I think that’s what he should go do.”