​What's Next for Cam F. Awesome, Boxing's Funniest Vegan?

A week ago, America still had a chance to send a vegan comic to Rio de Janeiro as part of its Olympic delegation. But Cam F. Awesome, the 27-year-old super heavyweight boxer, fell one fight short of his goal. He lost a 3-0 decision to Ecuadorian Julio Cesar Castillo Torres, knocking him out of the final Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

The decision ended a 10-year quest to represent the United States in the Olympics that began when Awesome took up boxing to lose weight, and saw him rise to become a four-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympic trials champion. This was the second straight time missing out on the Olympics for a fighter who gained some social media attention a couple years back when he called himself "the Taylor Swift of boxing" in a post-fight interview. (He lost the fight).

"Immediately I'm like, what the hell am I going to do with my life now?" Awesome said over the phone a few days after his loss to Torres. "For 10 years, I've been the dude who was about to go to the Olympics. That shit got real. My head became light after I realized I am not going to the Olympics, and I need to figure out what I'm going to do."

Luckily, there's always a lot to do if you're Cam F. Awesome: the Kansas City native has utilized his charisma and athletic ability to open a wide-range of doors since missing out on his first shot at the 2012 London Olympics, back when he fought under his birth name Lenroy Thompson.

In 2012, Awesome (then Thompson) missed his Olympic shot because of failures outside of the ring. He failed to inform the World Anti-Doping Agency of his whereabouts and did not complete the necessary drug tests to qualify. Afterward, he decided to reinvent himself. He changed his name, became vegan, started doing standup comedy, became a motivational speaker, grew a steady social media following, and started looking at a life beyond the ring.

That was back then. Back when Awesome was first learning to harness his outgoing personality. This is now, and the now-former Olympic hopeful is saying he's done with the sport of boxing. It's time to find opportunities to put his attitude on display. That's not to rule out giving boxing one more shot down the road, he says. Just not in 2020.

"I feel like it may jump back in when I'm 45 years old, drunk in a Denny's, telling people stories about how I used to be great," Awesome said. "Whatever dude you went to high school with that still talks about that one football play, I'm afraid I'm going to become that dude. I just need to do something. Whether I won or lost at the Olympics, I was going to be done with boxing. But now I'm in a panic, because I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do now."

Where do you turn when you feel like the last decade of your life has been pointless? Or when a dream you've convinced yourself would become a reality is suddenly squashed? Before Awesome even hobbled back onto American soil, he was listing every possible answer.

"I make lists in my phone," Awesome said, reading off some of the things he's written down to accomplish. They include everyday things like running to the bank or owning a dog. But they also contain much larger career milestones he hopes to one day reach, like hosting a TV show, earning a WWE developmental contract, or getting certified as a nutritionist so he can deliver motivational speeches to a whole new audience.

The list, which Awesome refers to as his "STD List" (which stands for "Stuff to Do," of course), has helped him move forward after losses in the past. It also already has led him to some unique opportunities. In the week after losing out on his Olympic bid, Awesome filmed the first episode of his new cooking show, called "Cooking Con Cam: Cheap Date Series" for a new YouTube channel he's starting with friends. Awesome's lengthy pitch on the premise of the show includes him finding a date on Tinder and cooking her a $10 meal from Wal-Mart in under an hour.

"These are the types of things I'm doing to keep myself busy and not thinking about stuff," Awesome said. "I'm also trying to open some doors. I want to be Regis Philbin. And by Regis Philbin, I mean "Regis Philbin 2.0," which is Michael Strahan, who played a sport and now is loved by people every morning."

In conversation with Awesome, you'll find he often compares himself to other public figures. As the world already knows, he's the Taylor Swift of boxing. Next, he wants to become the Strahan of afternoon talk shows. But inside, Awesome has the heart of Jamie Foxx.

"He was a good comedian and we're like, alright you're good, you can stop now," Awesome said. "Then he's like, no, I want to be a good actor, so he became a good actor. Then he was like, I'm going to be a great comedian and I'm going to be a great actor. Now he's making albums. He can stop, but he's probably not made like that. I want to be one of those people."

It's that same feeling that led Awesome to pick up boxing on a whim to lose weight and then become a four-time USA Boxing national champion and four-time Golden Gloves super heavyweight champion.

"I've trained 10,000 boxers at least and he has the biggest warrior mentality of all of them," his coach John Brown told ESPN in June.

That mentality drives him to become great at everything he does, but it's also one that leaves him feeling empty no matter the accomplishments he's racked up. That's the way some people are wired, Awesome laments. Some people always keep going and find bigger obstacles to climb, but they never find one that's big enough.

Awesome sincerely believes he has a future as an entertainer, whether that's comedy, television, motivational speaking or some other uncharted territory. But there's no telling what height he'll need to go to in order to erase the haunting memory of his final—for now—fight. Ten years gone in three rounds. Ten years and no Olympic medals to show for it. Not even the honor of calling himself an Olympian. Ten years that right now feel wasted, but have undoubtedly led him places he never would have gone without the Olympic dream motivating him.

On the outside, Awesome's personality has continued to live up to his name since the fight. He's laughing and making jokes out of everything in sight. On the inside, he's reeling from the biggest loss of his boxing career and likely the one that ended it.

"I don't know how genuine these laughs have been," Awesome said. "I think I've tricked myself into a positive state of mind. This could just be a part of grieving, I don't know. I don't think I could just skip over to acceptance so quickly. AA wouldn't be around if people could just skip steps."

One week after the loss, Awesome has just tried to remain busy, checking as much off his list as he can. He's constantly writing material for his standup, writing scripts for another YouTube show, seeking out contacts in the professional wrestling industry, or anything else to help his new career—whatever that winds up being. He's even playing Pokemon Go.

Anything that will either make him enough money to pay rent or distract him the disappointment.

"My fear is that my greatest accomplishment will be boxing," said Awesome, in a rare moment where jokes were nowhere to be found. "My life fails if boxing was the best thing I did in life."

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