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The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.

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Here is your host, t J
leaves Well, we are ready for

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a weekend and has multiple title fights, that has a Hall of Fame induction

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and actually has some very interesting nostalgia
anniversaries and much more. Hello and welcome

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aboard to another edition of the Big
Fight wee can preview. I am merely

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the somewhat competent host. He is
our insider from his Fight Freaks Unite substack.

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He's cooking along right now with Big
Fight Weekend dot Com as well.

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Hello Dan Rayphael as we get things
rolling here for another edition of the program.

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And I know there are special times. You are a Hall of Fame

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voter for the International Boxing Hall of
Fame, and this is always a special

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weekend. We're gonna get into that. We got a bunch of different fights

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to preview as well as we launch
it at the weekend. How I'm good.

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We got a bunch of good fights
this weekend, which you know makes

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up for her like last weekend where
he just had the one card of consequence

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with Claressa Shields. This week we've
got the legitimate junior welterweight Championship with Josh

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Taylor defending against Tiafimo Lopez in New
York. He got Sonny Edwards in his

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first fights and signing up with Matchromboxing, defending his flyweight title. We got

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Heimi Mongia, who I have been
extremely critical of just fighting one no hope

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guy after the other over the last
several years. But not to say that

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Sergey Defranchenko is prying for the upset
necessarily, but it's by far and away

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his best opponent that he's fought quite
some time, So we'll get into that.

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Sergey is a tough dude, and
even your good buddy Adrian Browner back

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in action on Friday night, Dan's
put on the rundown. We are going

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to talk about Adrian Browner and I
specified how long and he said a couple

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of minutes, okay, So that's
good. That's a good compromise on that.

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We'll bring that up as he's in
action. Also a showbox card as

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well for the weekend, depending on
when you're hearing us again, as we

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launch on Thursday nights late night into
Friday. Again, the showbox card is

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on Friday night. A lot of
these title fights obviously happening either Saturday at

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Madison Square Gardens Theater, the Hulu
Theater or in the afternoon in London on

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the match Room Show for the Sunny
Edwards World title fight. But you can

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always count on us, at least
for right now. We're doing the best

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that we can to stay current and
to stay consistent. That we're here with

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a preview that is out heading into
the weekend and then a Fight Freaks Unit

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recap off the weekend, and that
reminds me to remind you all to rate

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and review the show. Find us, follow, subscribe, Apple podcast,

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Google Podcasts, Spotify, rate us
and review us, especially on Apple podcasts,

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give us a five star review.
Somebody actually did a rat us and

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review us Ray Feel and said,
not surprisingly that you are the class and

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the dean of Insiders. But they
love my Mickey impersonations from Rocky. You

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went and got civilized rope, So
that's pretty good. I gotta give you

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props. It's not bad. Yeah, it's better than me singing. Put

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it that way. Anyway, Rate
us and review us put that in there.

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It helps more people find us,
and again the audience continues to rock

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on. So we'll get into the
fights of this weekend. The news of

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this week's some nostalgia that includes Lennox
Lewis my tyson anniversary from my hometown Raphael,

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Memphis, Tennessee. And you were
there for that one. But first,

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a little bit of a heavy heart
for you and a little detour away

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from boxing. That's because one of
the guys that you have enjoyed, especially

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a social media back and forth fund
relationship with and a Wrestling Hall of Famer

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in his own right, The Iron
Cheek, passed away. He had not

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been in great health, but the
professional wrestler, the Iron Cheek, who's

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known for several things, arguably most
known for losing the title to Whole Coogan,

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but also known for the evil tag
team with Nikolai Volkoff as the Russian

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and the Iranian, but also him
singing the Iranian national anthem and Volkoff singing

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the Russian national anthem that no one
could understand is all Time Classes staff forty

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years later, So we pay tribute. Rest in peace, Iron Chic,

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say a few words if you would. I mean, first of all,

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one of the greatest heels, if
not the greatest heel maybe in the history

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of not only WWF, which is
what it was called when I was growing

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up, or now presently WWE or
any of the various wrestling promotions that ever

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have been over the years, a
absolutely legendary heel. And by the way,

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before he became a professional wrestler,
he was a world class Greco Roman

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wrestler of Olympic caliber when he was
a younger guy. He actually was,

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and I didn't even know this until
I read some of the obituary material on

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the legend on Cheeky Baby that he
had, I guess been an assistant coach

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for the United States for two Olympic
teams, the nineteen seventy two United States

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Wrestling Team and the nineteen seventy six
United States Wrestling Team. And listen when

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I was, when I was a
kid ten years old up to maybe like

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fourteen or fifteen years old. This
isn't the early eighties to mid eighties.

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WWF at the time was still a
regional promotion. It hadn't gone yet all

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over the country and the way that
it ultimately became, and they were the

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wrestling promotion of the Northeast where I
grew up, and so countless times when

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I was in that early age,
besides just watching the television programs. I

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went to the shows, to the
house shows that not sometimes they were televised,

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but usually the non TV shows in
places like Glenn's Falls, New York,

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and Schenected in New York and where
my father lived in Poughkeepsie, New

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York. And went and saw a
lot of those matches on a regular basis,

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and and and the and Iron Cheek
was on some of those shows.

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So I saw him wrestling in person
when I was when I was a kid.

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But listen, anybody that's followed me
on Twitter or follows the sheet number

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one, the chic on on social
media as vulgar and the combination of vulgarity

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and endearing this altogether, it's I
can't really explain it, but he's a

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legends. As he would say,
you know, I uh, you know,

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there's only one man who's Iron Cheek
class. That's the Iron Cheek.

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So we had our our online feud
in quote marks uh. You know,

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he often accused me of drinking the
sprite. I don't know. I called

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him the mayor of JABRONI I only
asked this out of respect that I never

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understood the insult or the inside joke. Are you here to spill what exactly

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that meant that? It was just
meaning that you're playing What was the insult?

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It was just a joke that started. Actually I don't even remember how

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it started, but it was something
between myself and Iron Cheek and UH and

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our friend Kevin Iolie who's the boxing
reporter, the writer, columnists and MMA

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for Yahoo Sports. So it just
sort of became a thing, and also

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our publicist friend Fred Sternberg, and
it just sort of became like, you

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know, don't drink the sprite,
you know, I can't I listen.

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I was so sad when I saw
that he had passed, because he just

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as as back and forth as there
was every time I read his timeline or

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see his tweets pop up, whether
it was about anything or it was him

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going at me, which he would
just randomly do from time to time for

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no particular reason, just to stir
things up. The He just he made

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things fun and it was it was
like a diversion, and I just enjoyed

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it immensely and said to see him
go. I mean, as I said

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in my tweet about his passing,
at some point, I will have to

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hoist. I'm not a big beer
drinker, but in the in the in

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the honor of the legend, I'll
typical beer in favor in honor of the

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of the late great Iron Sheet.
All right, so I'll share a few

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things with you about this number one. A lot of times in the creation

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of Vince McMahon or of other professional
wrestling promoters, the evil heels, the

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foreigners were not really from the country
where they were from. Cheeky Baby was

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really a legit Iranian and at a
time again when they were able to play

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off the whole us I ran viewed, that was with the hostages and whatever,

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they were able to play off of
this because he was a heel or

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a villain from Iran legitimately and singing
the Iranian national anthem with the flag.

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And that's the same with Volkoff,
with the wrestler that that wrestled under the

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name Nicolai Volkoff also a Russian authentic
on both of those. So ill,

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yeah, I follow a lot of
I follow a lot of people and things

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on Twitter. I think of the
I don't know what I followed four hundred

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something three hundred something things. Following
the Iron Cheeker is probably the most fun

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thing. They're signally entertaining. So
I remember seeing them at a house show

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that was not televised in Tampa.
You know, I say that it was

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not televised. I don't think the
whole card was televised because they were wrestling

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a couple of nobodies, and that
may have been the televised part of it.

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At the at the what's what's now
known as the Yngling Center on the

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campus at the University of South Florida, they would wrestle there all the time.

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What was the Sundome where the likes
of Hulkogan, Macho Man, Randy

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Savage, all of those guys to
WWF. That's the same here. I

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covered a key fight at that building, that's correct. You and I were

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in the building when I were in
the building that night. We just didn't

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know each other yet. In twenty
fifteen and around the media area for thurmon

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Colozzo July twenty fifteen. But they
would wrestle at the Sundome probably once every

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ninety days. The WWF would come
down here and the Chic and Volkoff had

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the tag team titles. But they
were wrestling a couple of nobodies, and

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I think they were doing it on
TV. I remember it was one of

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those I went there two or three
times to see them the WWF, and

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so sometimes it was full television where
you know, all the all the lights

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are on and you could see Vince
McMahon and Bobby heen In doing the commentary

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one time. But then there were
other times when it was darkened in the

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arena and they were actually wrestling a
different a different match, or maybe the

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sheep was wrestling as a solo wrestler, let's say, for example's house,

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and it was not being televised.
It was only there for the for the

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card and for the build up.
But I remember he and Volkof very vividly

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with the belts. This is this
is probably eighty four or eighty five wrestling

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a couple of nobodies, nondescript,
seeing them and the heat, as the

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wrestlers describe it, the crowd,
the anger that either the cheering or the

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anger. The heat. The heat
was palpable on hating those guys, and

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the chic loved it and loved playing
it up. So that's one thing that

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I would say in addition to him
be an Iranian. But there's another thing

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coming up. To go ahead,
I think we need to get onto the

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box here, I'll have to put
you in the Chemel clutch. I understand

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it. But one more thing.
One of the all time breaks of cover

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ever is when they caught the Chic
and Hack saw Jim Duggan in a traffic

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stop with drugs in the car,
and it came out that they were riding

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together and they were buddies. That
was a big subplot and controversy and around

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there with the iron cheek, but
it came around after that. So yes,

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r I p to the Chic and
the Camel clutch forever. All right,

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So good stuff. Let's get into
the fights and we will we will

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kind of go chronologically, all right. So first of all, you obviously

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I have done some work with Fight
TV that's out there on on a freelance

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basis, on your many endeavors for
this Adrian Broner fight card that is Friday

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night in Miami. Broner and Bill
Hutchinson, who is literally a lawyer by

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trade in addition to being a boxer. All right, give me a little

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preview here because Broner's a multi time
divisional champion. I will ask this on

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behalf of the audience, why should
we care about this legitimately. Why should

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we care about this go ahead?
Well, it's not a matter of I

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mean, there's there's lots of fights
that are much bigger that some people care

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about, some people don't. Broner
has a certain fan base, There's no

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00:11:45,399 --> 00:11:48,559
doubt about it. Whether you love
Murray hate him, He's been one of

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the biggest names in the sport for
a number of years. As far as

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my involvement with Fight, I've known
those guys and done some work with them

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here and there over the years.
For this particular event, they did a

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sort of preview show, but instead
of running it as the full show on

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Fight on the app like they often
will do, they took it and they

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cut it up into a variety of
different spots to use on their social media,

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And it was I was hired to
do a thing with Don King,

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who was the promoter of the fight
obviously now has signed Adrian Brunner. So

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you know, I've known Don for
a long long time and we did an

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interview and that's been what they've used
for some of the promotion of the event.

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But just for the record, it
ain't like anybody at Fight or anybody

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at Don's office said anything to me
about you know, what to ask,

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That's all, you know. I
asked what I want to ask. I

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would never I would never take the
check from somebody if I couldn't ask what

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I wanted to ask at an event. No, why did they care about

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Bruner? Look, he's a four
divisional world champion. He's had a lot

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of struggles. At one time in
his career, he was obviously on people's

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pound for pound lists. That's a
long time ago. And I think everybody

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loves a reclamation story, a rebound, a recovery, whatever it is.

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And I don't know if he's going
to do anything with this opportunity, but

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he has an opportunity. I look
at this like like this DJ, he's

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a guy that that was basically you
know, left PBC and Showtime. I

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don't think they were like worried about
that. They're sort of like, don't

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let the door hit you on the
way out kind of situation. After he

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had layoffs and problems and then pulled
out of a fight on less than a

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week's notice, he said it was
for mental health reasons. UM a couple

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of times, and yeah, he's
had a lot of financial problems, jail

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problems. I mean, you know, weight problems, you name it.

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I mean he's had those problems,
and at least he admits it, okay,

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So that's one thing. And the
other thing about it is after that

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situation where he left showtime in PBC, he signed with fanfare, this three

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fight deal with b LK Prime,
which then went nowhere because they couldn't deliver

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anything for him with Noah's surprise there
and they're basically done anyway, and he

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was looking for like a landing spot, somebody to give him a chance,

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and lo and behold, here comes
Don King, who, in the twilight

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of his career at age ninety one
and without any real discernible talent in his

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stable or top names or anybody he
could build a show around. He figured,

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like, you know what, let
me give the kid a chance and

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maybe the two of us can ride
back into some kind of prominence together.

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So again I'm not advocating the show. It's you know, if you want

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to buy it, fine, it's
like a twenty five dollars pay per view,

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it's whatever. It's actually some okay
stuff on the undercard, but Broner

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is a name and some people are
interestaid. So he's fighting Bill Hutchinson,

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who, like you said, he's
a club fighter but an attorney by trade.

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He's talking a good game. He
hasn't lost in seven years, even

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though it hasn't fought anybody of consequence. And the hilarious part is they're making

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jokes about the whole lawyer thing,
you know, whereas Don King is saying,

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you know, Adrian Broner you know
has always uh you know, had

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never had a problem, you know, dealing with lawyers for his legal problems,

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and you know he's saying Broner saying, well, now that I know

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you're a lawyer, you know I
might need a good lawyer. So after

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I after, I know you'll put
up a fight against me. So after

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I beat you, I know you'll
put up a fight for me in the

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courtroom and I'll hire you. And
it was just very it was in all

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in good fun and all on good
humor. So listen, I'm not advocating.

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I'm simply saying, let people know
it. Adrian Browner, who had

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a huge following and was in some
big fights and was on the premium cable

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network's HBO and Showtime for a lot
of years, well he's back in action

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on Friday night, and that's that. There you go on that one.

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Likewise, the showbox card on Friday
Wall, we just go chronologically. We'll

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have a couple of light heavyweight showdowns. Ali As Mailoff in the main event

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against Charles Foster, and then a
guy that we got to talk to a

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little bit on Thursday as we released
the podcast in a very lively personality.

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Richard Van Sicklin is his name.
He's a fighter out of Seattle, Washington,

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grew up on the West Coast and
what a story, Dan Raphael.

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He's in the co feature fight on
Showbox in and out of homeless shelters and

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then later gets to college, got
a college degree and that's where he picked

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up boxing at the University of Washington
in Seattle. Richard was very perstable.

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We've written about him a little bit
on the side as we released the podcast.

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Here he's in the co feature fight
and I brought up to him,

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there's the opportunity for both of these
guys, for anybody they these two fights,

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because there are not a lot of
prominent American light heavyweights right now.

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So we'll see what happens in the
show box card that's in and around the

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hall. Of Fame weekend setting.
I know you've touched on that. That'll

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be a Friday night, all right, right, they're taking the fights are

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taking place at the Turning Stone Resort, this you know in Verona, New

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York, which is literally like about
ten minutes down the highway from the Hall

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of Fame in Canastota. But the
induction ceremonies for many years, the induction

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ceremonies took place at the Hall of
Fame in front of the building in this

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big open area. Last year because
they had this huge class of three classes

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at once because everything was delayed because
of COVID, and now again this year

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they're doing the actual induction ceremonies in
the arena that's at the Turning Show where

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I have covered several fights over the
years. So the activities will take place

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in the same spot where the boxing
matches are Friday. They try to do

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a show around the Hall of Fame
every year. And I am interested in

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the card from the standpoint, not
so much specifically for the fight that you

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mentioned with the with Van Sicklin and
the co feature, but the main event

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that the other light heavyweight that's the
so called A side if you will,

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But I guess they're both a sides
because they're both undefeated. That's Ali Ismailov,

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who is ten and oh thirty year
old. He's from Russia. He

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lives in Detroit. He's part of
Salida Promotions, where Salida has a number

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of Russian fighters that have based themselves
out of Detroit. He is fighting in

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the main event against Charles Foster,
who is twenty two and oh with twelve

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knockouts from Connecticut. And they're one
guy, you know, Ismaelov is thirty

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Foster or thirty three, so they're
not young guys. If they're going to

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do something, it's time to get
a move on, and it's sort of

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like the winner of the fight,
it seems to me, is going to

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have an opportunity to really step up
into a bigger fight, because, like

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you said, there's not a lot
of prominent American light heavyweights presently. I

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guess the most unless I'm missing one, I guess the most prominent. I

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guess would say is what Joe Smith
who's been out riving for a year now

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since he got beaten by by a
better be up in their unification fight last

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June. So there's a chance in
look light heavyweights. Sometimes they can provide

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a lot of good action. It
seems like these guys are the types of

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fighters that you know, I think
will come forward and hopefully make a good

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fight. And uh, and even
if I didn't know that, just knowing

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the way that Showtime and Gordon Hall, who runs the series, go about

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trying to match these fights, particularly
on a big weekend like the Hall of

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Fame weekend where there's gonna be a
lot of boxing folks around. Uh,

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you know, at the fight,
et cetera. They want to put on

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a good show. And so you
know, I always love showbox cards and

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this is a pretty nice one if
you ask. And again, Vince Van

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Sickling, because we talked to him, is twenty nine, So again to

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your point, he's not a spring
chicken either. They gotta get going.

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These guys know that right now at
this point in their career. So let's

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see, he's taking on He's taking
another undefeated fighter, one Carilla Carreo,

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who was a thirty Also he's a
twenty and sixteen olympian from Colombia. So

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you know, they seem like pretty
solid matches to me. I mean,

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we'll find out on Friday night after
I watched them, but uh uh,

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you know not, I gotta be
honest, Not every Showbox like catches my

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fancy. This is this is a
card that I looked at him, like,

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you know what, I'm actually want
to see these two and what are

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they up to? They're up to
over fifty is it over seventy? Is

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it over seventy five future world champions
that have fallen on that series over the

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last twenty twenty one years. It's
a ton that eventually more than that.

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I mean, they like to uh
you know, they always advertise it in

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their press announcements, and I know
they keep track of all that. But

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suffice it to say, there as
dozens of fighters that went from being on

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Showbox as prospects to becoming future World
Champions. There's numerous guys on that on

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that series. Love that, all
right, And we'll get more into the

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Hall of Fame, which the induction
again is on Sunday as they lay it

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out, because there are fight cards
this weekend, including one in New York.

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Let's get to that highly anticipated now. As we get to the weekend,

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Josh Taylor defending the WBO version of
the one hundred and forty pound title

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used to have all the belts.
He's the lineal champions, that's the bottom.

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But he used to have all the
belts, and then he said discard,

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discard, discard. He in the
last year is now discarded three of

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them, still as the w BO
title, and he will take on Teya

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00:20:02,079 --> 00:20:07,160
Fimo Lopez, former unified champion at
one thirty five in a very intriguing fight

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again Hulu Theater adjacent to Madison Square
Garden for this main event Top rank ESPN

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main event. All right, give
me some more as we build towards this

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as we released the podcast and get
ready for Saturday night in New York.

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I mean, it's a it's an
excellent matchup. They're both guys who have

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shown you great talent and great ability
to have some big wins on their record.

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But they also are both two fighters
that enter this fight with a lot

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of question marks around them, which
is sort of what makes it interesting.

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Like if they fight as if they're
at their best that we've seen them at

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in the past, you know it
could be a really dynamite fight. Now,

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of course, Tiafimo has made his
name as a lightweight, not as

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a junior wealth rate. He's only
had two fights in the junior wealth rate

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division and there weren't They were not
the kind of fights where you would necessarily

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00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,279
want to so call the right home
about them. He had the debut in

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00:20:56,319 --> 00:21:00,799
the weight class, which was August
of last year, again Pago Campa.

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Now he did stop Campa, kind
of a journeymanish type of guy. Didn't

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00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,119
look great, but look good enough. You know, he was coming off

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00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:08,119
an injury, coming off, you
know, a long layoff after he had

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lost the lightweight titles in that fantastic
fight with George Campbosis in the big upset,

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but he got to win under his
belt against Campa. His next fight

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took place in December in New York. Also that was a more of a

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00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:22,400
struggle. He got knocked down in
the second round. He ended up winning

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00:21:22,559 --> 00:21:25,680
a decision against Sandra Martini when a
split decision. It was an awfully close

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fight. He was so emotional after
that fight, talking in the ring to

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nobody in particular to why I still
have it anymore? He was so fragile

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00:21:33,599 --> 00:21:37,880
after that fight mentally that his team
and top rank would not let him come

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00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,000
to the press commerce as though we
were going to show you know, ask

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00:21:41,079 --> 00:21:45,079
him nasty questions that would you know, put him further into a hole and

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00:21:45,079 --> 00:21:47,799
anything he didn't show up at the
press commers. I mean, I gotta

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tell you, I've covered boxing a
long time. Unless the guy's got an

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00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,519
injury, I don't remember there ever
being a guy that was the winner not

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00:21:52,519 --> 00:21:56,119
coming to a press commerce. So
take that for what it's worth. So

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he's got a lot, he's got
a lot of proven to do because he

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00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,400
was admitted by the way, he's
got other personal problems. He's now divorced

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00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:06,920
since then, So there are a
lot of question marks about him between the

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years, no doubt. But the
thing about it is also if Tifimo was

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at his best, which we've seen
him look absolutely spectacular against fighters like Richard

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Comey, who he started in two
rounds also in New York to win the

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first of the lightweight belts he won, we saw he looked the way he

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00:22:22,839 --> 00:22:26,759
looked when he had the big upset
against Vasili Lomachenko to uh, you know,

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win in their unification fight that took
place, you know, in the

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bubble back in during the pandemic in
October of twenty and twenty. So if

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00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,599
the Tifimo Lopez that fought the way
he did against guys like Richard Comey and

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00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,640
Vesaile Lomachenko and obviously several of the
other fighters that he was blown out of

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00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:42,559
the water, you know who are
pretty good fighters like Diego Magdalena who he

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00:22:42,599 --> 00:22:47,359
destroyed and you know Mason Menard with
the one punch knockout. And you know,

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00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:49,799
even even though it was a struggle, a very solid win against Maso

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00:22:49,839 --> 00:22:53,880
Yishi Nakatani that was in the elimination
fight like that, Tifimo Lopez, you

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00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,839
know, is the real deal.
And with Josh Taylor, you know you

356
00:22:56,920 --> 00:23:00,839
ask. So Now Tifimo goes into
his third fight in this Way division.

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He is the mandatory challenger from the
w BO and he's taken on Taylor,

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00:23:03,839 --> 00:23:06,680
who is undefeated at nineteen and oh, coming all the way from Scotland to

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00:23:06,759 --> 00:23:10,839
do this fight. He has a
tremendous resume and there's a reason why most

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people have had him as the number
one guy in the Way class for a

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00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,480
while. You know, go back
before he was a champion, he had

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beaten a guy like Victor Postal when
Victor Postall was still really really good.

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00:23:18,319 --> 00:23:22,200
He was then in the tournament,
you know, the World Boxing Super Series

364
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:23,640
you know, kind of got an
easy win against Ryan Martin in that first

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00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:29,200
round of that tournament. But then
he won the IBF title in a very

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00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:30,799
good performance against Ivan Branchik, who
was always in good fights, who was

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undefeated at the time that they fought. And then he got into the final

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and he met the undefeated Regious program. They put on a fight of the

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00:23:37,599 --> 00:23:40,960
Year caliber fight. Josh Taylor won
a majority decision. You know, there

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00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:41,440
are some that would say, you
know, hey, if that fight was

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00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:44,720
in the United States or it was
not in his you know, in his

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00:23:44,759 --> 00:23:47,920
backyard in the UK, maybe Regis
gets to win. But whatever it was,

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I mean, I don't consider that
to be some kind of like hugely

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controversial fight. Was just like a
tremendous fight, super close, and Josh

375
00:23:53,519 --> 00:23:56,119
gott his hand raise. So that
was a great win for him. You

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00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:59,119
know, he had a little bit
of layoff because of the pandemic, so

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00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:03,480
when he came back he had this
extraordinarily unworthy mandatory from Thailand who had just

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00:24:03,519 --> 00:24:07,079
pummeled in one round. But then
he came to the States. I mean,

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00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:08,359
so he's kind of a road warrior
in that respect, and that was

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00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,400
to meet Jose Ramirez who had the
other two titles at the time when Josh

381
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,680
had the other two belts, and
they fought for the undisputed championship, and

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00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,440
he scored two knockdowns against Josier and
Marrison an otherwise dead even fight, and

383
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:22,279
when it was all said and done, he wins unanimous decision, one fourteen

384
00:24:22,319 --> 00:24:26,000
to one twelve on the three cards. The difference obviously from a victory in

385
00:24:26,039 --> 00:24:30,279
a draw was those two knockdowns,
and so he's riding high. He's undisputed.

386
00:24:30,319 --> 00:24:33,680
It's like a big deal in Scotland
where he's from. You know,

387
00:24:33,759 --> 00:24:36,400
his idol was Ken Buchanan who had
done it as a lightweight. You know,

388
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,559
so he enters sort of Scottish boxing
history and the lore of the great

389
00:24:40,559 --> 00:24:45,359
fighters from Scotland. And so he
then had his one of his mandatories to

390
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,160
do in the WBL, which was
against Jack Catterall, who was an undefeated

391
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:52,720
British fighter. They put on that
fight in February of last year and then

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00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,000
sort of the ship hit the fans, so to speak. He won a

393
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,960
split decision. It was a razor
close fight, but he got the call

394
00:25:00,079 --> 00:25:04,240
and it became a if you think
that people thought that like Lomachenko and Haney

395
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:08,599
was controversial. This was off the
charts, like the British fans and medium

396
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,480
went absolutely hog wild on this.
By the way my hands up from a

397
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:15,000
distance. I thought Catterall won that
fight. He also knocked Taylor down.

398
00:25:15,039 --> 00:25:19,640
There were some controversial points taken away
from each fighter by our friend, the

399
00:25:19,680 --> 00:25:23,720
referee, Marcus McDonald, who always
seemed to get it was messy. But

400
00:25:23,759 --> 00:25:29,599
I thought Catterall won that fight.
And Taylor came out of that fight with

401
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:33,160
a lot of people saying you didn't
beat him, And then the tango started

402
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,559
with is there gonna be a rematch? And the tangoes like fifteen months in

403
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:44,440
counting Raphael Well, so what happened
was he looked And this always drives me

404
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:48,400
crazy about boxing fans, and you
know it happens oftentimes. Josh Taylor was

405
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,000
not the judge of the fight.
Jack Catterall was not the judge of the

406
00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:53,160
fight. Those two guys went in
the ring and did their job. They

407
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,799
thought the best that they could and
so whatever the result is, no blame

408
00:25:56,839 --> 00:26:02,640
should be cast on either boxer.
But unfortunately people take their ire out on

409
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:04,319
the guy that gets to win that
maybe they don't think he deserves to win.

410
00:26:04,599 --> 00:26:07,960
So Jack Catterall took a lot of
criticism. Okay, so he didn't

411
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,119
then maybe have his best fight,
but it's not like he was the guy

412
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,200
filling out the scorecards after each round. So I always get annoyed when when

413
00:26:15,279 --> 00:26:18,640
fighters, uh you know, get
dumped on by fans or media for that

414
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,720
matter, because of things that are
out of their control. So in my

415
00:26:21,759 --> 00:26:25,240
career, I'm proud to say you
you can go and search my archives for

416
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:29,000
twenty three years of everything I've ever
written, I've never taken a shot at

417
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:33,920
a fighter for a control controversial decision
and somehow blame them for the result.

418
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:36,599
You know, talk to the judges
about that. But the bottom line was

419
00:26:36,839 --> 00:26:40,640
he was so affected by that that
he wanted the rematch. So you know,

420
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:42,440
that was the reason why he ended
up vacating or being stripped of the

421
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:47,279
three other belts because they had other
he had immediate mandatories and other organizations.

422
00:26:47,279 --> 00:26:48,359
He was like, no, I
don't want that. I want to take

423
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:52,119
on Jack Catterall in the rematch,
and and you know, right the you

424
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,559
know, make sure that I proved
that I really did deserve that win.

425
00:26:55,599 --> 00:26:57,759
And also, by the way,
because of the controversy of the other fighters

426
00:26:57,799 --> 00:27:02,079
that were available for him those other
mandatories. The Catterall fight, from a

427
00:27:02,079 --> 00:27:07,079
financial perspective and a high profile perspective, was clearly the biggest fight. They

428
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,160
had multiple deals to make the fight. There was a lot of things that

429
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,160
happened. Both guys had injuries,
there was I think a COVID related situation.

430
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,200
There was like a logistical thing in
terms of the date where they had

431
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,440
to move it because of sky,
and it got postponed several times. And

432
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:25,160
then the last draw was when Josh
suffered an injury to his foot and it

433
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,240
was going to put the fight off
another month or two. And at that

434
00:27:27,319 --> 00:27:32,279
point this is going back I guess
late last year earlier this year, and

435
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:34,480
the WBO stepped in and said,
listen, we've given you a lot of

436
00:27:34,559 --> 00:27:38,440
rope on this, enough is enough, and they called the mandatory against Tiofimo.

437
00:27:38,559 --> 00:27:41,880
I guess it must have been earlier
this year because when Tiofimo defeated Sandra

438
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,240
Martin in the fight we just mentioned
a few minutes ago, that was the

439
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:52,079
elimination fight. So Tiofimo becomes the
mandatory and tired of waiting for that title,

440
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,680
to be active. They ordered that
fight, so he goes instead of

441
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,559
fighting the rematch with Catera, who
then switched promoters. He's not with matcham

442
00:27:57,599 --> 00:28:02,799
whatever. Now we have Caterell doing
his thing, and we've got Josh Taylor

443
00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:06,119
coming back to the United States to
fight Tifimo Lopez in New York, which

444
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:10,519
is where Tiofimo was originally from.
And it shapes up like a really interesting

445
00:28:10,559 --> 00:28:15,000
fight between two excellent fighters, both
of whom have a lot of questions.

446
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,839
Is Jack Catterall still I'm at Jack? Call Josh Taylor as good as we

447
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,319
think he is the way he looked
when he beat Jose Ramirez or Regius Program

448
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,440
or you know, blew out the
mandatory from Thailand? Or is he going

449
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,640
to struggle again when he looks so
great against Jack Caterall? And now he's

450
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,680
had, you know, a year
and a half off because that fight against

451
00:28:32,759 --> 00:28:36,079
Jack was in February of last year, so he's coming off a tremendous layoff

452
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:38,839
and he's been you know, he
had talked about maybe going a welterweight,

453
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,319
maybe there's a weight issue, who
the heck knows. And then you got

454
00:28:41,319 --> 00:28:45,519
Ti Timo, who has been more
active, fair enough but he's got two

455
00:28:45,519 --> 00:28:48,319
fights where he looks particularly great,
and before that he got beaten in a

456
00:28:48,799 --> 00:28:52,960
very brutal, harsh, difficult fight
of the year kind of fight against Cambosas.

457
00:28:53,119 --> 00:28:57,079
So there's a lot of question marks
about about Tifimo also, especially now

458
00:28:57,119 --> 00:29:00,400
that he's not as a lightweight anywhere, but now he's fighting one hundred and

459
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,960
forty pounds. So two guys who
have been among the best out there for

460
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,279
the last several years, but both
with a lot of questions, and I

461
00:29:06,279 --> 00:29:08,599
think that leads to a highly intriguing
fight. And by the way, I'll

462
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,759
just interject us, I know what
you meant with all of what you said.

463
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,200
Catterall got screwed out of this whole
thing because the hymning and hauling with

464
00:29:15,319 --> 00:29:18,480
where's the date, what's the fight? And then the champ gets hurt,

465
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,920
and then the champ suddenly decides,
Okay, I gotta go fight a mandatory

466
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,880
and fight somebody else. Uh yeah, I can I can appreciate where he's

467
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:29,160
frustrated at this point because he's wanted
a rematch for over a year instead of

468
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:33,400
I think, yeah, he may
have been, but he was he was

469
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,799
ready to go earlier this year and
they were supposed to have fought earlier this

470
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:41,799
year, but that wasn't wasn't That
wasn't Taylor's fault though, that was you

471
00:29:41,799 --> 00:29:44,559
know, there was one of the
times when I got postponed, but I

472
00:29:44,599 --> 00:29:47,880
believe I'm correct. The recent time
is a tailor foot injury, like you

473
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,880
said, which put it off earlier
this year, or they would have fought

474
00:29:51,119 --> 00:29:55,759
and before somebody else. But before
that it was neither it was an injury

475
00:29:55,839 --> 00:30:00,440
or anything to either fighter. It's
because the the broadcaster in the UK,

476
00:30:00,599 --> 00:30:02,720
which was going to pay all out
of the freight, which was Sky,

477
00:30:03,519 --> 00:30:07,279
they decided there was some other fight
that was being postponed and they opted to

478
00:30:07,279 --> 00:30:11,160
do that fight instead of the other
fight, and they pushed off the Tailor

479
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,640
and Cadarell rematch. So there's you
know, it's one of those deals where

480
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,279
it's not the kind of thing you're
gonna blame anybody. It's not the fox.

481
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:19,720
The boxer got injured. Maybe one
of the boxers, I forget if

482
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:22,039
it was. There was one that
was a COVID and there was a network

483
00:30:22,119 --> 00:30:25,160
thing. I mean, it's just
one of those things where it was sort

484
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,279
of like snake Bit and listen at
the end of the day. Hopefully down

485
00:30:27,359 --> 00:30:30,240
the road, you know, whatever
happens in the fight on Saturday, and

486
00:30:30,279 --> 00:30:33,960
whatever happens with Catterall going forward.
He did just come back on his first

487
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,480
fight with Matchman, get a victory
in the last couple of weeks that someday,

488
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:41,160
you know, whether it's at one
forty or at one forty seven,

489
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,519
for a title, not for a
title, just because there is that question

490
00:30:45,559 --> 00:30:48,160
about who should have rightfully won.
That they can at some point in their

491
00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:52,079
careers before they're done, have a
rematch, But in the meantime it's more

492
00:30:52,119 --> 00:30:56,319
important. Right now, the big
fight is Josh against Tiefimo Lopez, and

493
00:30:56,319 --> 00:30:59,440
it should be a good fight,
all right. It should be some kind

494
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,559
of atmosphere real quick. On the
undercard, Xander Zayas is there, and

495
00:31:02,599 --> 00:31:06,000
what else on this undercard Top ranks
Saturday Night in York. Yeah, well,

496
00:31:06,079 --> 00:31:07,640
Xander's eyes is in the core feature. He's in an eight rounder,

497
00:31:08,799 --> 00:31:11,640
you know. And the reason,
one of the big reasons that the fights

498
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,319
in New York is because this fight
is on Puerto Rican Parade Day weekend,

499
00:31:15,359 --> 00:31:18,119
and obviously the main event. One
guy from Scotland, one guy who's a

500
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,160
background you know, he's an American, but his background is from Honduras,

501
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:26,960
which is where he represented for the
for the Olympic Games. But Xander's eyes,

502
00:31:26,039 --> 00:31:29,880
he's the He's the Puerto Rican star
and waiting. He's undefeated, so

503
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,000
they wanted to kind of have him
and have some of his people have something

504
00:31:33,039 --> 00:31:33,759
to come out. Now. I
don't know what's gonna happen with the parade

505
00:31:33,759 --> 00:31:37,440
New York now that I think about
it, given all the craziness with the

506
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,400
air quality of what's going on.
As everybody knows in the East Coast.

507
00:31:40,519 --> 00:31:42,640
You know, we've got a terrible
air quality here down in Virginia where they're

508
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:47,119
canceling all the outdoor activities for the
schools and and all that kind of business.

509
00:31:47,119 --> 00:31:48,359
But it's the same in New York. But the bottom of the belief

510
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:52,160
as we release the podcast is it
will be better Friday afternoon Friday night,

511
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,640
according to the weather people, and
especially by Saturday. That a lot of

512
00:31:56,640 --> 00:32:00,319
it is allegedly supposed to I'm just
giving you a meteorological update. If you're

513
00:32:00,319 --> 00:32:02,960
in the Northeast and listening to us, it's allegedly supposed to be better as

514
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:07,240
Friday turns to Friday night, and
to Saturday, so maybe they can have

515
00:32:07,319 --> 00:32:08,839
it. We don't know, that
is your point right now. Yeah,

516
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,880
but Xander is on the card for
that reason because the top rank people and

517
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,880
the Madison Square Garden people view him
rightfully. So at fifteen and oz and

518
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:22,880
a very young man as having uh
the ability in the future. You know,

519
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:24,119
he's only twenty years old. Xander's
eyes, I mean, he's a

520
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:29,119
tremendous you know, talent that this
is his first time fighting on the Puerto

521
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,519
Rican Day weekend. It's an important
deal for him and for his people.

522
00:32:31,519 --> 00:32:35,000
And so he's taken on Ronald Cruz, which is a little bit of a

523
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,000
step up for him. That's the
co feature. That'll be the second fight

524
00:32:37,039 --> 00:32:42,640
featured on the on the ESPN broadcast
obviously everything is on ESPN Plus. And

525
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,640
then we got somebody other Puerto Rican
prospects. A kid like Henry Lebrone is

526
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:52,839
on there. Another Puerto Rican fighter
they have put him on the show.

527
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,400
They have another kid undefeated fighting name
Omar Rozario is tenan O on there,

528
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:00,519
so he's on there. So they're
featuring top ranks some of their undefeated and

529
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:02,200
up and coming Puerto Rican kids.
But there's other good prospects on it.

530
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,559
Also Bruce shoes Shoe Carrington, who's
a New York fighter, a featherweight.

531
00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:12,000
This kid is if you were ranking
like the top prospects at top rank beyond

532
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:19,799
Jared Anderson and Xanders Aias and Keyshan
Davis, you would definitely have Bruce Carrington

533
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:22,480
on that shortlist, no doubt about
it. He is seven and oh was

534
00:33:22,519 --> 00:33:25,960
a good amateur, dynamic kind of
fighter. So there's a lot of talent

535
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,440
on the card. He got Jermaine
Ortiz coming back off of his loss against

536
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:34,799
tie against the Silievo Machango. This
is the first fight of the deal that

537
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,720
he did a co promotion now between
his promoter Jimmy Birchfield and Top Ranks,

538
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:44,279
so he's back in action. Robinson
Consasal one hundred and thirty pounder, former

539
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:50,279
world title challenger twice against Oscar Valdez
and shok Course Stevenson Olympic Olympic gold medal

540
00:33:50,279 --> 00:33:52,680
winner. He's on the card.
So you know, there's some a lot

541
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:53,759
of talent on the car. But
the only two fights on the main ESPN

542
00:33:53,759 --> 00:33:59,079
broadcast are obviously the world title fight
and then Xanders Aias, But a lot

543
00:33:59,079 --> 00:34:01,960
of talent on the show, and
I always enjoy watching the way that Top

544
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,079
Rank brings along its prospects courtesy of
the matchmaker, Brad Goodman, who goes

545
00:34:07,079 --> 00:34:07,719
into the Hall of Fame. We'll
talk about the Hall of Fame a little

546
00:34:07,719 --> 00:34:10,320
bit later in the show, but
yeah, that's the that's the top rank

547
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,599
card, so I look forward to
checking it out. We are looking forward

548
00:34:14,639 --> 00:34:16,119
to that, and again it's in
the Hulu Theater. It should be quite

549
00:34:16,159 --> 00:34:21,360
an atmosphere in there, especially with
Zaia's fighting in the co feature and then

550
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:24,320
Tea Fimo in the main event.
Let's move along, and we do have

551
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:29,480
some some news and some nostalgia before
we're done. We're not done yet though,

552
00:34:29,639 --> 00:34:32,199
with the intriguing fights. Let's swing
all the way out to Ontario,

553
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:37,239
California, where Saturday night, the
Golden Boy main event is himI Mungia,

554
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:42,320
the former WBO one hundred and fifty
four pound champ, the former number one

555
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,880
rank contender by the w BO for
over two plus years, who never fought

556
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,000
for the WBO title. Here we
go, and I see you shake on

557
00:34:50,079 --> 00:34:52,840
your head with career mismanagement. So
now this is actually a super middleweight fight

558
00:34:53,119 --> 00:35:00,360
with Sergei de Revanchenko. That's the
main event. And okay, so it's

559
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,599
a it's as you said at the
top of the podcast, it's a bigger

560
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:08,199
name that he's fighting. But the
the overarching theme is the mismanagement of Mungia

561
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:12,800
to this point, finally fighting a
reputable name and can we finally get him

562
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,000
in the ring against a world champ
if he's victorious, like we expect that

563
00:35:15,039 --> 00:35:19,320
he will be in this sometime in
our lifetime. Well, I mean,

564
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,599
listen, I hope so, because
he's a good fighter, he's very exciting.

565
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:24,880
And the thing that just blows my
mind about the way they've handled his

566
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:28,360
career when I say they it's I
mean, part of it's on the kid,

567
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,880
because you know, he's a grown
man. He's got the ability to

568
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,960
have his opinion. But he's got
two promoters and Golden Boy and and Zan

569
00:35:35,039 --> 00:35:37,199
for promotions. Um, you know, he listens a lot to his to

570
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:42,280
his trainer, Eric Morales, the
great Hall of Famer, and for whatever

571
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,679
reason, they've been reticent to match
him solid. I mean, it's really

572
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:47,440
kind of shocking to me because,
Okay, maybe he's not like pound for

573
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:51,199
pound material, but the Duke can
brawl and fight he's got a chin.

574
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:52,719
I mean, he makes great fights. He's got a certain fan base.

575
00:35:53,119 --> 00:35:57,559
And you know as a junior,
well a junior middleweight when he was when

576
00:35:57,599 --> 00:36:00,679
he won his you know, his
world title back to eighteen, Like he

577
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,360
didn't fight great opponents, but he
you know, he won the title from

578
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,639
Saddam Ali. That was a legit
win. Ali was coming off the victory

579
00:36:07,679 --> 00:36:12,039
against Miguel Koto. He beat Liam
Smith, which is now even that was

580
00:36:12,039 --> 00:36:14,239
a good win at the time.
It looks even better now given what Liam

581
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:16,519
Smith has been able to do in
the last few fights. And uh,

582
00:36:16,559 --> 00:36:20,039
you know he had a couple other
defenses in there, and okay, so

583
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,760
things were moving along, no doubt. Trajectory was up. Yeah, and

584
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:28,360
now he's baby, what are we
doing? So he goes up to middleway

585
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,360
in two thou and twenty and ever
since then he's fought one guy with no

586
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:37,760
prayer after another. So Gary Spike, O'Sullivan no prayer. Now. Triano

587
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,679
Johnson was the one guy that was
like at least a solid professional, had

588
00:36:40,679 --> 00:36:44,679
a lot of injury problems and never
really got to the promised land, but

589
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:45,920
he was an Olympian. He was
you know, he had a lot of

590
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,559
injury issues, but he was a
pretty good fighter, so I won't even

591
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,440
knock him for that. That at
the time seemed to me like a pretty

592
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,800
reasonable matchup. But ever since then, you know, Zarametta who had been

593
00:36:55,880 --> 00:37:00,119
smoke you know, smoked by Triple
G, who was never blown. I'm

594
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:01,639
going to fight in the first place. You know, all due respect to

595
00:37:01,679 --> 00:37:04,920
our good friend gab Brizzatto, but
that was not a real fight. It

596
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,079
was a complete mismatch. Demitrius Valor
was undefeated, but on test that he

597
00:37:08,119 --> 00:37:12,559
got smoked in three rounds. Uh. You know, British journeyman Jimmy Kelly,

598
00:37:12,599 --> 00:37:15,599
pathetic match, Gonzalo gastone Korea,
even more pathetic match. That was

599
00:37:15,599 --> 00:37:20,400
his last fight in November now finally, and then then they make all this

600
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,800
stuff that like calling out Charlo and
we're calling out this guy, and we're

601
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:27,559
calling out Canello and we're calling out
TRIPLEG. And give me a break to

602
00:37:27,679 --> 00:37:30,480
fucking fight a real guy. So
okay, they those guys for whatever reason,

603
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:32,800
didn't want the fight, didn't take
the fight. I don't really blame

604
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,559
them. Charlot has been out for
two years, that doesn't even fight at

605
00:37:36,559 --> 00:37:38,840
super middleweight. You know, Canello
calls his own shots, he's the champ.

606
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:44,159
Triple G is basically in at least
I referred to an a semi retirement.

607
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,639
They did actually call Tripleg's people at
about their interest to make a fight

608
00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:52,719
for this particular slot that obviously did
not come to pass. So now you

609
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,320
look around who's out there that we
can make a fight with reasonably that at

610
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,679
least is a step up, who's
a good fighter, who has some name

611
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:01,920
wreck ignition, And that's where deveren
Schenko comes in. So now they're both

612
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:06,360
going from one sixty to one sixty
eight, So it's not like a benefit

613
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,800
for either guy. They've both been
middleweights and instead now they're fighting in super

614
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,599
middleweight. So I don't see there
being any kind of you know, super

615
00:38:13,639 --> 00:38:19,199
cries out because it's unfair because of
the size advantage or disadvantage Defenschenko. You

616
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,480
know, it's a step up,
that's the truth. Is it a top,

617
00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:24,199
top, top guy. No,
he's not a world champion, And

618
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:29,800
and we've discussed this in the past. I respect Sorget deveren Chenko. He

619
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:31,960
should have had his hand raised that
night against triple G and won the middleweight

620
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,599
title. Addison Square Garden, a
fight that I was at was a great

621
00:38:35,639 --> 00:38:37,840
fight, fight of the Year candidate, but he didn't get to win.

622
00:38:37,039 --> 00:38:39,599
He's got four losses. There are
three of them are in world title fights,

623
00:38:39,599 --> 00:38:43,679
all in close called decisions, and
he has another loss that was on

624
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:45,639
a title fight, put to Carlos
A. Thomas, who was a ten

625
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:50,239
rounder when now I was the interim
WBC middleweight champion. And I think eventually

626
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,840
probably will be elevated, you know, because who knows what's going to happen

627
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:54,480
with Charlo. But the point I'm
making here is this, and I've said

628
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:59,199
this before about other fighters. I'm
always skeptical about guys whose reputation is built

629
00:38:59,199 --> 00:39:02,119
on losses, solely built the losses. Devin Chango doesn't have a single win

630
00:39:02,159 --> 00:39:06,039
on his record against a top guy. But what he does have is a

631
00:39:06,119 --> 00:39:09,199
highly competitive loss to Danny Jacobs in
a fight where it could have gone either

632
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:13,320
way. He has the loss that
he probably should have won against Lufkin.

633
00:39:13,519 --> 00:39:15,920
He challenged Charlot Jamala. Charlo for
the middleweight belt, gave him a great

634
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:20,639
fight in twenty twenty, has the
majority decision loss against a Damas. So

635
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,000
he's got these close losses, but
at some point you got are all losses,

636
00:39:23,039 --> 00:39:27,079
amen, They're all losses. Yeah, but it is a step up

637
00:39:27,119 --> 00:39:30,840
for Mungia. He does come to
fight. He has been involved in some

638
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:34,639
exciting fights that have been highly entertaining, and the Triple G fight being the

639
00:39:34,679 --> 00:39:37,519
one that's most memorable. Even the
Charlot fight was a heck of a fight.

640
00:39:37,519 --> 00:39:43,800
Also, So if Mungia is not
fighting the top elite guys, at

641
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:49,840
least he's fighting a recognizable opponent who's
got a body of work that is solid

642
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,920
against good opposition. And hopefully if
he if Mungia wins, we will see

643
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:58,159
him in a real uh not I
shouldn't say a real fight, but a

644
00:39:58,199 --> 00:40:00,480
bigger fight against a better name.
And if Devin Chenco happens to get the

645
00:40:00,519 --> 00:40:02,440
win, great upset for him.
Good for him. You know, he's

646
00:40:02,679 --> 00:40:07,920
a very likable guy and has had
some hard luck losses like I mentioned,

647
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:12,239
and I suspect by the way Mungi
and Devin Chenko has got a chance to

648
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:15,159
be a really good fight. So
it may not be a world championship fight,

649
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:16,719
it may not be the biggest names
of all time, but I think

650
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,079
that's got a heck of a chance
to be something that we'll be talking about

651
00:40:20,119 --> 00:40:22,760
on the recap podcast is hey,
that was a hell of a fight,

652
00:40:22,039 --> 00:40:25,800
all right. We'll find out again
that's the main event, Golden Boy later

653
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:31,079
in the in the evening main event, probably somewhere around the main event time

654
00:40:31,119 --> 00:40:35,360
of Taylor and Lopez. We give
or take how long the undercard takes,

655
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:39,199
because again that's in the West.
On Golden Boy Taylor Lopez one, that's

656
00:40:39,199 --> 00:40:43,840
pretty easy to figure it out.
The ESPN main card broadcast is at ten

657
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,840
PM, and the first fight is
an eight rounder and they'll they'll, you

658
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:50,199
know, type it up and if
it goes to distance, you got to

659
00:40:50,199 --> 00:40:52,880
figure Ti Fimo and Josh are in
the ring about eleven o'clock, you know,

660
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,239
if the opener is an eight rounder
and it doesn't take that long.

661
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:59,079
And they're gonna do their preview stuff
and I'm sure they're gonna do a nice

662
00:40:59,079 --> 00:41:01,559
segment on on Timothy Bradley going in
the Hall of Fame, who obviously is

663
00:41:01,559 --> 00:41:06,159
not going to be there because he's
gonna be uh in Cannistoda for his first

664
00:41:06,159 --> 00:41:09,039
induction ceremony. And then, as
you mentioned, the Mongia card that's on

665
00:41:09,079 --> 00:41:12,519
his zone. They get on the
air at nine o'clock Eastern time, and

666
00:41:12,519 --> 00:41:15,880
they've got a four fight card altogether, so there'll be three preliminaries that you'll

667
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,199
see and then you know, back
it out. I mean, yeah,

668
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,840
Unfortunately, they're gonna probably be around
the same time. That's life, we

669
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:22,840
all. But if the undercard fights, if the undercard fights are Golden Boy,

670
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:24,840
go a little longer because there's more
of them. It will be later.

671
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:29,039
And if I'm trying to remember,
if I'm remembering correctly, the ROACHA

672
00:41:29,159 --> 00:41:35,559
main event was well after nine Pacific
time, well after midnight Eastern time Ian

673
00:41:35,639 --> 00:41:37,159
California, just a couple of weeks
ago. We'll see, we'll see when

674
00:41:37,159 --> 00:41:45,719
the Mongia on the timeline fight takes
place. But my um, the way

675
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,119
I will handle things is the priority
is Taylor Lopez. No, it's not

676
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,119
a knock on Monia, but that's
that's the real Junior Walter Wild champions in

677
00:41:53,159 --> 00:41:57,880
that fight. And listen, there
could be a non title fight that is

678
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,800
just a much better fighter, much
bigger name that if it was a world

679
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,599
title fight. I'm not basing it
solely on the names or the titles,

680
00:42:04,599 --> 00:42:07,440
but in the case of Taylor and
Lopez, it's the real title in that

681
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,679
weight class, and they're two of
the top guys. And in the case

682
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:13,119
of the other fight, I'm interested
in the fight. I think it's going

683
00:42:13,159 --> 00:42:15,079
to be a good fight, but
it pales in comparison in terms of significance.

684
00:42:15,119 --> 00:42:19,840
So I'm rolling with the world championship
fight. That's what I'll pay attention

685
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,599
to on that night, and I
will certainly make it a point to watch

686
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:27,679
the mongia A fight as well and
then and I'll get to that when I

687
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:29,559
get to it. Now, if
we get somehow it gets, we get

688
00:42:29,639 --> 00:42:32,599
lucky and they don't somehow overlap,
then that's just a bonus, all right,

689
00:42:32,679 --> 00:42:37,239
one more championship fight to talk about
them. We'll get to a little

690
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,400
hall of fame and a little nostalgia
before we're done. Sonny Edwards h the

691
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:45,960
IBA flyweight champion and Andre's compos who
I do not know a whole lot about.

692
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,440
That's a good one. One Ladder
come back. This is the main

693
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,679
event of the match Room show earlier
in the day, US time, prime

694
00:42:53,719 --> 00:43:00,199
time in London. Edwards again has
got he's got some flash, he's good

695
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:01,719
on the mic. He's not a
big time puncher. Give me a little

696
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:07,440
more on this from earlier in the
day on our timeline. Well, first

697
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:09,280
of all, you said you know
about his opponent, Andrea's Campos, who

698
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:13,679
was fifteen and oh from Chile.
I'd be lying if I said I knew

699
00:43:13,679 --> 00:43:15,400
a lot about him. I know
a lot about a lot of fighters.

700
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,199
He's not a guy that I'm not
familiar with. But they're both undefeated.

701
00:43:17,199 --> 00:43:21,800
Sonny is nineteen and oh. He's
an excellent boxer, as you you described

702
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:24,119
them perfectly. He's got a great
gift for the talking on the mic and

703
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:29,079
h and hyping himself up. But
he's more of a boxer than a puncher.

704
00:43:29,079 --> 00:43:31,639
Obviously, he's a very technical fighter, and he's defending his flightwaight title.

705
00:43:31,639 --> 00:43:36,079
But the key here is this,
he just signed with Matchem. He

706
00:43:36,199 --> 00:43:38,719
was, you know, he was
one of the guys that was with I

707
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:43,159
guess Probellum that became free after all
that business went out, you know,

708
00:43:43,199 --> 00:43:45,239
after MTK went out of business and
then Probellum went out of business. So

709
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:51,280
Sonny Edwards now finally got himself a
real promoter who has fighters in his weight

710
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:55,639
class. So the ideas he hasn't
fought since January. Not January, Sonny

711
00:43:55,679 --> 00:43:59,639
Edwards, I'm saying hasn't fought in
a while, hasn't fought since the end

712
00:43:59,639 --> 00:44:01,880
of two twenty two, so it's
about a seven month or so layoff,

713
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:06,360
not a huge layoff, but the
idea here is get back in the Akit

714
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,199
defense and if you win now we
go into a unification fight at the end

715
00:44:09,199 --> 00:44:13,320
of the year. So rather than
a wait to go a year without a

716
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,000
fight, get this fight in chake
Off whatever Russer might be, you know,

717
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:19,880
show the new audience what you can
do, because he hasn't really been

718
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,440
on his own or on the matchroom
cards. And after this there's a very

719
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:28,559
good chance that they will make a
fight between Sonny Edwards and Bamadriguez in a

720
00:44:28,679 --> 00:44:32,760
unification where possibly against Julio sees Our
Martinez and for two of the other titles.

721
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,559
But the point is he's gonna get
one of these bigger fight sets what

722
00:44:36,639 --> 00:44:39,960
Eddie wants to do, and those
are good matchups because they pit the boxer

723
00:44:40,079 --> 00:44:45,199
in Sonny and either if it's Bam
or it's Julio sees Our Martinez, they're

724
00:44:45,199 --> 00:44:49,880
more of the brawler types. They
would probably both be quit pretty appealing fight.

725
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,159
So this is his chance to go
in there, have a showcase,

726
00:44:52,639 --> 00:44:55,599
and you know, we'll see if
Campos is fifteen to old record it means

727
00:44:55,599 --> 00:45:00,280
anything or not. All right,
we will find down in that one match

728
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:05,719
room show again, main event Saturday
afternoon in the US, Saturday night Primetime

729
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,559
in London for Sonny Edwards and for
that card. All right, Then on

730
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,320
Sunday, as you've already alluded to
a couple of times, and we've talked

731
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,320
about leading up to this, the
Hall of Fame induction will take place.

732
00:45:15,159 --> 00:45:20,159
Timothy Bradley, Carl Frog, Raphael
Marquez or all part of it. I

733
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:22,639
know this is a special time.
Say a couple more things about it,

734
00:45:22,679 --> 00:45:24,639
because the induction ceremony Sunday, well, I just love the Hall of Fame

735
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,320
inductions. I mean, you know, people like to come, like every

736
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:30,440
boxing family likes to bitch and moan
about this guy Sholgain or that woman sh

737
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,079
again and or this person doesn't deserve
it whatever. All I know is they

738
00:45:34,119 --> 00:45:36,880
got a great class going in on
Sunday. I've been to the Hall of

739
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:38,519
Fame induction ceremonies before. I've been
to All of Fame many times. I

740
00:45:38,599 --> 00:45:42,239
grew up not that far from there, and I would just say to anybody

741
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,519
that's listening. That's a boxing fan. And if you're listening to our podcast,

742
00:45:44,559 --> 00:45:46,800
obviously you're a boxing fan. Put
it on your bucket list, make

743
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:52,480
it, make it a goal or
a you know, a plan for some

744
00:45:52,639 --> 00:45:55,119
time. It's a nice weather at
this time of year. It's a beautiful

745
00:45:55,159 --> 00:45:58,960
part of upstate New York. And
I'm maybe I'm biased because, like I

746
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:00,159
said, I grew up not too
from there. It's a beautiful part of

747
00:46:00,159 --> 00:46:05,039
the country. And and take in
the Hall of Fame because you walk through

748
00:46:05,079 --> 00:46:07,519
the doors and it's not a big
museum. It's pretty small, and they've

749
00:46:07,519 --> 00:46:10,920
got a you know, a couple
of areas to look at all the exhibits

750
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:13,920
and all that. But if you
go on the Hall of Fame weekend,

751
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:15,360
you have the benefit of the weekend
plus all those stuff at the museum.

752
00:46:15,679 --> 00:46:19,199
It just I mean, you walk
in, the history just flows from that

753
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,440
place. You look to your side, there's Sugar Ray Leonards the road when

754
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:27,239
he was fighting for the title.
There's the handcat they make the fists casting

755
00:46:27,559 --> 00:46:29,519
of all the great champions. When
they go to All of Fame, there's

756
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,000
you know, the fifths of all
the great Champions. There's Burt Sugars typewriter.

757
00:46:32,159 --> 00:46:36,440
There's you know, this championship belt, this photograph, that video plane

758
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,320
in the corner. Just just a
remarkable, incredible place. I used to

759
00:46:40,039 --> 00:46:44,400
cover high school and college sports in
my early days as a sports journalist,

760
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,280
and oftentimes would have to travel across
New York in the car to go to

761
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:51,280
the western part of the state to
cover one of our teams, either in

762
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,239
a playoff game or something like that. And you just drive straight out the

763
00:46:53,239 --> 00:46:57,000
New York stay through away from where
I was working in the in the Capitol

764
00:46:57,039 --> 00:47:00,679
District in the Saratoga area, and
I would purposely leave early to make my

765
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,440
Like I got to go to Syracuse
to cover like a high school football game,

766
00:47:04,639 --> 00:47:06,400
and I would leave a little early, and I would make it a

767
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:08,440
point because the Hall of Fame is
literally right off the highway, like a

768
00:47:08,519 --> 00:47:12,360
couple hundred yards. You can see
it from the highway. And I would

769
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,320
go to the Hall of Fame,
walk around for like forty five minutes,

770
00:47:15,639 --> 00:47:17,239
have a little lunch or you know, take a leak, and then get

771
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,119
back in the car and head off
to my ball game that I got to

772
00:47:20,159 --> 00:47:24,000
cover. So I have a long
history of devotion and love for the Boxing

773
00:47:24,079 --> 00:47:29,480
Hall of Fame way before I was
covering boxing. But the latest inductions that

774
00:47:29,559 --> 00:47:31,719
take place this weekend. The main
event, if you will, are the

775
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:37,400
three modern in the category they call
modern men, and that's great champions.

776
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,199
I you know, I covered all
three of them. They were in some

777
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:43,440
tremendous fights. They're all worthy Hall
of Famers. I voted for all three

778
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:46,199
of them, and that's Timothy Bradley
Jr. Two division world champion at junior

779
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:52,159
walterweight and walter wait only loss of
his career were to Manny pacya Carl Froch,

780
00:47:52,559 --> 00:47:55,559
former unified champion in the super middleweight
division. If you take a look,

781
00:47:55,599 --> 00:48:00,360
go on box wreck. Look at
Carl Fratch's record from the time he

782
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:04,119
fought for his first world title against
John Pescal at one hundred and sixty eight

783
00:48:04,199 --> 00:48:07,480
pounds to the end of his career, which I want to say spanned about

784
00:48:07,559 --> 00:48:14,079
twelve fights thereabouts. Literally every single
fight he had was like against King Kong,

785
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:16,360
except for one fight he had a
little bit of a walkover in a

786
00:48:16,679 --> 00:48:20,960
soft touch against u Sef Mac But
every other fight out there was tough,

787
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,960
whether it was in the tournament against
nickl kester twice where he split those two

788
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:30,719
fights but avenged the loss against andre
Ward obviously a loss in the tournament final.

789
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:34,760
But he also beat Arthur Abraham,
and he beat George Groves two times,

790
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,480
and he beat a Lucian Boutet,
a fight I was ringside for that

791
00:48:37,599 --> 00:48:40,480
was a spectacular event where he was
the underdog in his hometown and he scored

792
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:45,519
the knockout to win back one of
the titles. I mean as worthy.

793
00:48:45,559 --> 00:48:46,920
Him and Bradley are as worthy Hall
of famers as you can get in my

794
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:51,559
opinion. And yeah, I wrapped
the al Marquez who was probably most famous

795
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:54,639
for the four fight series, really
three fights, because we talked about the

796
00:48:54,679 --> 00:48:59,400
fourth fight the way we talked about
Rocky five or Star Trek five. We

797
00:48:59,559 --> 00:49:04,320
just this vow that that fight.
But the first three fights between Raffael Marquez

798
00:49:04,639 --> 00:49:08,400
and Israel Vasquez are three of the
greatest action fights of boxing ever. Uh

799
00:49:08,559 --> 00:49:12,800
kind of underrated. I mean they're
right up there with the level of Barrera

800
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,920
Morale's, Gaddy Ward. I mean, pick an action fight from our our

801
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,719
times and it's right up there.
So those were what he's most famous for.

802
00:49:20,199 --> 00:49:24,639
But he also had a long and
distinguished uh uh track record as a

803
00:49:24,679 --> 00:49:28,000
band away champion, which is really
was when he was at his best.

804
00:49:28,039 --> 00:49:30,719
Actually he made like eight or nine
defenses. I think he won all of

805
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:32,880
them by knockout or or most of
them by or I think every one of

806
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,000
them by knockout point. And he's
he's he's one Daniel Marquez's younger brother.

807
00:49:37,119 --> 00:49:38,840
That's not the reason he's in the
All of Fame. But what it does

808
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:43,440
is it is the uh, not
so common occurrence of you know, two

809
00:49:43,559 --> 00:49:45,760
championship brothers in the Boxing Hall of
Fame. And Rafael Marquees, by the

810
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,280
way, made it to the Hall
of Fame by losing his professional debut,

811
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,480
if I'm not mistaken, which is
not that you talked about that before,

812
00:49:52,639 --> 00:49:54,079
right, Yes, you talked about
that before, about overcome that's that's not

813
00:49:54,199 --> 00:49:57,280
the most common thing in the world. So, you know, for him

814
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:01,719
to to come back from that and
carve himself out a Hall of Fame career,

815
00:50:02,039 --> 00:50:04,519
you know, and he's been on
the ballat for a few years.

816
00:50:04,559 --> 00:50:07,119
This is not a guy you know, Frach and Bradley, you know,

817
00:50:07,199 --> 00:50:08,199
they they're getting in and there.
They've only been on the ballot for a

818
00:50:08,199 --> 00:50:12,239
couple of years each. But Marquez
has been on for several years. But

819
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,599
but Raphael, he got stopped in
his professional debut and he went out to

820
00:50:15,639 --> 00:50:19,320
have a really outstanding career and made
some big time, excellent fights. And

821
00:50:19,639 --> 00:50:21,440
I'm throw for all three of those
guys. Like I said, I got

822
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:23,000
to cover all three of them.
I've I've interviewed all of them. Uh,

823
00:50:23,119 --> 00:50:27,039
you know, I've known Bradley and
Frach in particular, you know pretty

824
00:50:27,039 --> 00:50:30,760
well over the years. Um couldn't
be happy for those guys. And then

825
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:32,519
so that's those are the main the
main attraction, if you will. But

826
00:50:32,559 --> 00:50:37,679
then there's so many other deserving candidates
that that made it in in the very

827
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:39,079
you know, there's other categories.
Obviously, there's the women's category. You

828
00:50:39,119 --> 00:50:43,880
have Alicia Ashley going in, Laura
Serrano in the Modern Women, and then

829
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,559
you have there's also nine participants,
and there's observers. You've got people like

830
00:50:46,679 --> 00:50:50,679
Tim Ryan, one of the great
voices of boxing on CBS. You I

831
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,719
know you and I grew up listening
to with the team of Gil Clancy on

832
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:58,519
CBS for all those years. Just
a great broadcaster. You got Seth Abraham,

833
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:02,920
who if you ever grew up watching
what I consider the heyday of HBO

834
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:07,599
Boxing, which is really like the
eighties to like maybe two thousand, you

835
00:51:07,639 --> 00:51:10,119
know, mid two thousands. Seth
Abraham was the boss of HBO Sports for

836
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:15,079
most of that time, and he
created the the the tradition, if you

837
00:51:15,119 --> 00:51:20,079
will, of the way that HBO
was perceived by most people as the behemoth

838
00:51:20,199 --> 00:51:23,000
of boxing in the United States and
putting on and bank rolling literally the biggest

839
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:27,559
fights that there have been. And
he also had a staff that worked from

840
00:51:27,599 --> 00:51:30,599
I mean, think about the guys
that he managed that he was their boss,

841
00:51:30,639 --> 00:51:34,079
who became you know, superstars in
their own right, Loud Debella,

842
00:51:34,599 --> 00:51:38,400
Ross Greenberg, Mark Taffett. I
mean, these are all guys that were

843
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:43,599
on his staff. That was a
you know, a very uh professional and

844
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:47,360
just extraordinarily talented group of managers and
executives that he worked with. But Seth

845
00:51:47,519 --> 00:51:53,320
is a great guy, smart,
uh understood what it took to have that

846
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:59,320
cohesiveness. He's the guy that you
know, uh allowed his people to do

847
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,719
their things. So when Ross Greenberg, who was executive producer, you know,

848
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:07,960
decides let's put Harold Letterman, this
was the groundbreaking let's have an actual

849
00:52:07,119 --> 00:52:10,519
judge be the unofficial judge Seth was
like, sounds good to me, and

850
00:52:10,599 --> 00:52:14,679
he was the one that allowed that
to happen. You know, there was

851
00:52:14,679 --> 00:52:16,719
a lot of things that they did
to innovate the way that we see boxing

852
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:22,559
intelligence because of his position. That's
part of the reason box would be another

853
00:52:22,679 --> 00:52:28,519
thing they introduced that with the conobios
and the technology that now suddenly we have

854
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:34,039
a quantifiable look at how did that
round go with punches thrown and punches landed.

855
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,239
It came out of the heyday of
HBO. There's no one more interesting

856
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:42,239
thing at the point in time in
which Don King and Seth Abraham got along.

857
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:46,840
That was the World Series of Heavyweight
Boxing, remember from the nineteen eighty

858
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:51,679
seven and early eighty eight where they
had the undisputed fight eventually where all the

859
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,079
champions eventually fought each other in a
semi final and then a championship and Tyson

860
00:52:55,119 --> 00:53:00,519
eventually won the undisputed championship beating Tony
Tucker. That all came about because Don

861
00:53:00,639 --> 00:53:02,679
King and Seth Abraham logistically worked it
all out with who could fight who.

862
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:06,320
Well, here's here's your thing about
Seth And this is why Seth sets a

863
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:07,920
real When I say he's a real
man, okay, and to take that

864
00:53:08,039 --> 00:53:12,760
this is what I mean by that. In today's boxing business or any business

865
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:15,760
for that matter, if you've got
a guy that's like the money maker,

866
00:53:15,079 --> 00:53:19,480
that's the star, so to speak, you know you're gonna basically bend over

867
00:53:19,559 --> 00:53:22,679
backwards to do whatever you can.
Seth Abraham stood up to Don King,

868
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,639
and when Don King tried to get
Larry Merchant fired from HBO from his commentary

869
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:30,400
position because he was unhappy with his
commentary about Mike Tyson, which was totally

870
00:53:30,679 --> 00:53:35,159
within the realm of reality. It
wasn't like Larry was on him saying the

871
00:53:35,199 --> 00:53:37,559
things he was saying about Tyson when
his entire career in life were falling apart,

872
00:53:37,599 --> 00:53:40,199
and he was, you know,
acting in a terrible way as a

873
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:45,079
person, and Larry called him out
for it, and they basically, you

874
00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:47,719
know, King tried to flex him
and say, listen, it's either me

875
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:52,639
and Tyson or Larry, and seth
Abraham goes go. Let the fucking door

876
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:54,840
hit you on the way out,
and Mike Tyson and Don King left and

877
00:53:54,880 --> 00:53:59,400
went to HBO. And at the
time it was like, yeah, they

878
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:02,599
went to showtime. You know,
you just let the biggest heavyweight star and

879
00:54:02,679 --> 00:54:06,760
the biggest star in the sport walk
out the door. What are you doing?

880
00:54:07,039 --> 00:54:09,280
Well? Guess what? After Tyson
left HBO and went to Showtime.

881
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:13,079
Yes, obviously was helpful of the
Showtime. He ended up going to prison

882
00:54:13,119 --> 00:54:15,800
and all that when he came out
and got some big, huge mega events.

883
00:54:15,159 --> 00:54:20,360
But after Tyson left HBO, I
believe HBO had its greatest day as

884
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:22,239
they ever had. That was with
the creation of Boxing after Dark. That

885
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:24,880
was in large measure from Lou de
Bella, but the type of thing where

886
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,599
Set gave Lou the rope to do
it, and they made a ton of

887
00:54:28,639 --> 00:54:31,000
good fights. They invested in the
smaller weight classes, they increased the number

888
00:54:31,039 --> 00:54:35,280
of fights they did. It wasn't
just quality that was also it was quantity

889
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,360
and quality. And again Set is
a largely responsible for that. So I

890
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:43,400
have nothing but praise for him and
what he did at HBO. Boxing boxing

891
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:46,320
could use more executives like Set paperm
in my opinion. So that's another guy

892
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,760
that's going in who has been on
the ballot for a few years, who

893
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,719
I have steadfast they voted for.
I am thrilled to death that he is

894
00:54:52,719 --> 00:54:55,119
in there. I like Sep a
lot personally, you know, when I

895
00:54:55,199 --> 00:54:59,719
first started at USA today in two
thousand, he was nearing the end of

896
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,480
his before he left HBO. But
I dealt with him quite a bit in

897
00:55:02,559 --> 00:55:06,960
those first thing about that first year
or so of my time that USA did,

898
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:08,719
and I have kept in touch with
him every now and again over the

899
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:12,960
years. Just a smart guy who
I have a tremendous amount of respect for.

900
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:15,119
I told you about Tim Ryan,
and we got the two top ranked

901
00:55:15,159 --> 00:55:19,960
guys now going in Brad Jacobs,
who is the behind the scenes guy that

902
00:55:20,039 --> 00:55:22,880
basically, you know, figures everything
out. He's the one that created their

903
00:55:23,119 --> 00:55:28,239
COVID protocols, He's the one that
handles all the venue stuff. He handles

904
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,239
basically any problem that you could possibly
imagine. And he's one of like the

905
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:35,599
only people I've ever known in boxing
in my entire career that not only can

906
00:55:35,639 --> 00:55:38,199
you not really find people that will
say bad about him if you mentioned him,

907
00:55:38,199 --> 00:55:42,320
they will come out and say nice
things about him. Sure, that's

908
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:45,559
just the kind of guy that Brad
is. He's a diligent worker, he

909
00:55:45,599 --> 00:55:49,039
knows his shit. He's highly professional, and it's not just top ranks,

910
00:55:49,039 --> 00:55:51,840
not the only place he's been.
He worked for other places. He was

911
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,360
the guy that ran Roy Jones's business
when he was at the top as a

912
00:55:54,400 --> 00:56:00,119
pound for pound king. He was
involved with you know here he started off,

913
00:56:00,159 --> 00:56:02,639
he cut his teeth and your Arie
in Tampa. And but he's also

914
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:08,119
well known for the guy that was
essentially the rand The people remember that you're

915
00:56:08,199 --> 00:56:14,079
a little our age. Maybe not
you know, the younger kids, but

916
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:16,840
the great series Tuesday Night Fights on
USA. Now, yes, Rad was

917
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:21,119
the guy that booked those fights.
He ran that show and traveled the country

918
00:56:21,159 --> 00:56:24,199
for you know what fifteen years or
so running that show, which was tremendous

919
00:56:24,239 --> 00:56:28,000
for boxing. So he's done a
lot in the sport. And then,

920
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:30,079
you know, as we talked about
last week, my very close personal friend

921
00:56:30,119 --> 00:56:34,320
Brad Goodman, the top ranked matchmaker. We don't have to rehash all that,

922
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:36,880
but he's being inducted. It's a
well deserved honor. He, in

923
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:38,639
my opinion, is the best matchmaker
in business. And if you take a

924
00:56:38,679 --> 00:56:43,599
look at the prospects, the top
rank has developed from the zero and zero

925
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:46,880
out of the amateurs to world championships
and stars over the last twenty years.

926
00:56:47,639 --> 00:56:51,840
You know why I say that,
because Brad Goodman is largely responsible for those

927
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,920
decisions of matching those fighters with the
guys that they did to get them where

928
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:59,519
they went. So the combination of
him and of course working with his mentor

929
00:56:59,639 --> 00:57:02,360
of the Hall of Famer and also
a great matchmaker, Bruce Trampler, Brad

930
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:07,800
has taken his place in Kandistowa alongside
of Bruce Trampler. And it's a great

931
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:10,039
class. And I had not be
remiss if I didn't mention the trainer Joe

932
00:57:10,079 --> 00:57:15,559
Goosen, who was also being in
this weekend, has trained plenty of champions.

933
00:57:15,559 --> 00:57:19,119
You know, built up the Ruellis
brothers from zero and zero at the

934
00:57:19,119 --> 00:57:22,559
old Club shows that his family promoted
in southern California. Of course, his

935
00:57:22,679 --> 00:57:27,360
older brother Dan Goosen, the late
great promoter. And besides being a great

936
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:29,960
trainer, by the way, Joe
Goosen went out to have a distinguished career

937
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:31,400
as a broadcaster. You know him
from his Fox days, but he also

938
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:36,000
did a lot of the fights on
tv KO HBO, which was the precursor

939
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,360
to HBO pay per view back in
the day. Of course, who could

940
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:42,599
forget this is just one example of
him being in the corner of what I

941
00:57:42,639 --> 00:57:46,599
consider the greatest spite of all time
when Diego Caralis made the comeback against Jose

942
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:51,760
Luis Castillo with the classic line you
better get fucking get inside on him.

943
00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:55,239
Now that's not quite Angelo Dundee saying
you're blowing its something, but it's right

944
00:57:55,320 --> 00:58:00,280
up there in my mind. So
great class in the Hall of Fame for

945
00:58:00,280 --> 00:58:04,320
everybody that's getting in and cauring gradualations
to everyone. Well said, And with

946
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:07,960
all of that, let's get to
some news items and then some nostalgia because

947
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,880
speaking of Tyson, we got Tyson
Lewis Anniversary, we got a packie out,

948
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,840
Timothy Bradley Anniversary, all of that
this weekend, my goodness. All

949
00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:19,159
right, So on the news front, Eddie Hearne and match Room. Herne's

950
00:58:19,199 --> 00:58:22,840
been talking about this in the aftermath
of the Sunny Edwards press conference. They're

951
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:29,639
they're looking to make Anthony Joshua and
Deontay Wilder, but there's a lot of

952
00:58:29,719 --> 00:58:34,000
scuttle but still that Tyson Fury wants
to fight Anthony Joshua what before the All

953
00:58:34,039 --> 00:58:37,239
right, so give me a little
more on this because Herne was going on

954
00:58:37,400 --> 00:58:44,760
and on on Thursday afternoon about how
he doesn't think that Frank Warren and Queensberry

955
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,079
are really serious, and it's He
didn't say waste of time, but he

956
00:58:47,159 --> 00:58:52,519
was almost implying waste of time that
they're looking instead for Anthony Joshua What to

957
00:58:52,599 --> 00:58:55,119
fight Deontay Wilder if they can later
in the year, go ahead, listen,

958
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:58,719
whatever goes on with Fury. I'm
not even gonna get into that because

959
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:01,840
it's so stupid this point. I
mean, the Saudies they would like to

960
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:06,360
do the megacard with the two big
heavyweight fights. I think they probably still

961
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:08,280
go forward with one of them.
And if it happens to be that it's

962
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:12,239
not involving of Tyson Fury, so
be it. I mean, you know,

963
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:15,239
not my you know I can't figure
out Tyson Fury, So forget that.

964
00:59:15,599 --> 00:59:19,960
This is about the prospect of Joshua
Wilder, a fight that I don't

965
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,199
care if it's for a title or
not. This is a fight I wanted

966
00:59:22,239 --> 00:59:24,039
to see for years. I would
have preferred it to be for the undisputed

967
00:59:24,119 --> 00:59:28,440
championship when they were both undefeated and
between them they held the three titles.

968
00:59:29,239 --> 00:59:31,039
It didn't happen. They try to
make it at the time. From you

969
00:59:31,119 --> 00:59:35,079
know, both sides, in my
opinion, had fall to go there in

970
00:59:35,119 --> 00:59:38,599
the different times they tried, but
now the discussions are serious. So it's

971
00:59:38,639 --> 00:59:44,480
still unclear if Joshua was going to
fight in August. They've talked about him

972
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:46,039
doing a rematch with Dyllian Weight.
Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't.

973
00:59:46,199 --> 00:59:50,000
Who the heck knows, But there's
more of a movement to do with

974
00:59:50,039 --> 00:59:52,719
the fight, which is a much
much bigger fight for him to fight Deontay

975
00:59:52,719 --> 00:59:55,039
wild They're both in terms of profile, in terms of money span interest all

976
00:59:55,079 --> 01:00:00,039
that. For Joshua and Wilder fight
in Saudi Arabia in December, maybe be

977
01:00:00,159 --> 01:00:01,639
part of that so called megacard.
Who knows, if they can get the

978
01:00:01,679 --> 01:00:06,599
other fight done, great. So
what the news of the day, I

979
01:00:06,679 --> 01:00:08,360
guess is that Eddie Hearn is saying. And by the way, today as

980
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:13,840
we taped this Thursday, is Eddie
Hearn's birthday show shout out to Happy Day.

981
01:00:15,039 --> 01:00:17,320
So Eddie was saying that the folks
from Skill Challenge Promotions were so the

982
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:21,480
people that put up the money in
Saudi arabe that bringing some of these big

983
01:00:21,519 --> 01:00:24,280
events like they've done with previous Joshua
fights, like they did with Tommy Fury

984
01:00:24,320 --> 01:00:30,199
against Jake Paul, etc. So
the day had sent an offer to him

985
01:00:30,559 --> 01:00:34,360
for a Joshua Wilder fight, not
an actual contract, but at least the

986
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:37,760
terms are the basics of it.
So he's waiting on a contract, which

987
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,159
sounded good to me. Okay,
at least that's a start, and he

988
01:00:40,199 --> 01:00:44,199
got to start somewhere. Who's still
a long way from being as signed agreement

989
01:00:44,239 --> 01:00:46,079
obviously, but at least they got
the ball rolling. So I wanted to

990
01:00:46,119 --> 01:00:49,639
know what's going on on the Wilder
side. So before we started the tape

991
01:00:49,639 --> 01:00:52,960
this, I spoke to Shelley Finkel, who was the manager for Deontay Wilder,

992
01:00:52,239 --> 01:00:55,039
and Shelley's perspective was, look,
we haven't received an offer yet,

993
01:00:55,159 --> 01:00:59,639
certainly not a contract where we'd like
to get one. We have been talking

994
01:00:59,639 --> 01:01:01,719
to them while we're very interested to
do the fight. We want to fight

995
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:07,000
Anthony Joshua, so we're just waiting
on them and uh, it's you know,

996
01:01:07,199 --> 01:01:09,000
the balls in their court where we're
happy to be dealing with them and

997
01:01:09,119 --> 01:01:13,679
we want to make this match.
And if in fact they did send an

998
01:01:13,719 --> 01:01:15,800
offer to Joshua, that seems like
a good sign. Hopefully we'll get one

999
01:01:15,840 --> 01:01:21,119
suit also, So it seems like
both sides at least what they say publicly,

1000
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:23,519
are interested to do the fight.
Obviously, there's a ton of details

1001
01:01:23,559 --> 01:01:27,880
that have to get ironed out.
But you know, and I'm not in

1002
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:30,400
you know me, TJ. I'm
not getting too hyped up until everything's done,

1003
01:01:30,519 --> 01:01:35,079
especially on something this elaborate. But
at the moment, at this moment

1004
01:01:35,159 --> 01:01:37,639
in time, things are pointing at
least in their right direction. I'm not

1005
01:01:37,679 --> 01:01:42,039
going to get too hyped up.
Hopefully will happen. And again Wilder is

1006
01:01:42,079 --> 01:01:45,400
also in that category. Jamal Charlo
is another one. I mean, how

1007
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:50,280
much mothballs Wilder's floted one round a
one round fight with Robert Helenius in basically

1008
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:52,360
two years as we approach this fall, so let's get him back in the

1009
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:57,000
ring somehow, some way. All
Right, a couple other news items,

1010
01:01:57,039 --> 01:02:01,880
then some nostalgia. Errold Spence and
Terence Quawford will start their media tour next

1011
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:06,679
week. A little more on that. The hype will begin. Well,

1012
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:08,639
listen, you heard a lot of
people say I think I'll believe it when

1013
01:02:08,639 --> 01:02:12,320
I see the fight, or at
least when there's a press conference. Well,

1014
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:14,280
now we have our chance to see
the press comments. So this fight

1015
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:16,920
is real. The two fighters will
embark with their teams and the folks from

1016
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:21,960
a Showtime and PBC. They will
go to two cities starting on Tuesday,

1017
01:02:22,199 --> 01:02:24,679
where they will be in Los Angeles. Then they will be in I'm sorry.

1018
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:30,559
Tuesday, they will be in what
is looking at the schedule here.

1019
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,239
Tuesday, June thirteenth, they're in
Los Angeles for the kickoff press conference.

1020
01:02:34,679 --> 01:02:37,280
Wednesday they're in New York City for
the second press conference, and then of

1021
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:40,000
course the two guys will then go
back to their training camps. But that's

1022
01:02:40,039 --> 01:02:43,360
a good thing. They'll meet the
media. It's unfortunate they're not open to

1023
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:45,840
them to the public. A lot
of times when they do these press tours

1024
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:47,679
for the big mega events, they
have the ability to have fans there if

1025
01:02:47,719 --> 01:02:50,920
they do maybe an outdoor thing or
they put in a big, big place

1026
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:53,679
to have fans there to sort of
help hype it up, which is always

1027
01:02:53,719 --> 01:02:59,280
makes it more fun. But the
media will be there and these guys will

1028
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:00,719
start to talk and talk and talk
about the fight and try to hype it

1029
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:05,320
up and make you know, we
oversell things and boxing come times, some

1030
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:07,119
things we undersell things. I don't
think you can oversell this fight. We

1031
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:09,679
talked about it a couple of times
when they made it, we talked about

1032
01:03:09,719 --> 01:03:13,840
it after the fact when they finally
made the formal announcement. This is as

1033
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:16,039
big and significant and historical fight as
you can think of in a long time.

1034
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:20,920
And this is going to officially kick
things off where it we'll start to

1035
01:03:21,000 --> 01:03:22,880
hear in a meaningful way from the
two fighters. You know, they've done

1036
01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:25,599
a few interviews here and there,
but this will be you know, a

1037
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:30,320
much more widespread attention. I'm hoping
that some mainstream outlets will cover it like

1038
01:03:30,400 --> 01:03:32,559
it would be a beautiful thing if
you could go to a New York press

1039
01:03:32,559 --> 01:03:36,440
conference and you know, for the
fight of this magnitude, you know that

1040
01:03:36,519 --> 01:03:38,320
the New York Post and the Daily
News and the New York Times and and

1041
01:03:38,480 --> 01:03:43,199
and big outlets like that would cover
it. And same goes for when they're

1042
01:03:43,199 --> 01:03:45,400
here in Los Angeles. But it's
a huge fight, and this is gonna

1043
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:47,559
get that drumbeats started. It's going
to be about a month and a half

1044
01:03:47,559 --> 01:03:52,000
before the actual fight, plenty of
time and can't wait here with these guys

1045
01:03:52,039 --> 01:03:53,639
have to say. But but I'm
looking forward to. The most DJ is

1046
01:03:53,719 --> 01:03:57,360
to get that, you know,
the money shot of the two guys knows

1047
01:03:57,440 --> 01:03:59,800
too, knows for the first time
once they have a deal. We've seen

1048
01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:03,400
it four you know, and more
lesser situations like when they've been at fights,

1049
01:04:03,440 --> 01:04:05,920
for example, But this is the
first time. I'm sure they'll be

1050
01:04:06,119 --> 01:04:10,360
dressed up in a suit, knows
to knows and then you get the blood

1051
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:14,199
going, like I can't wait for
this fight. Let's hope. So Top

1052
01:04:14,320 --> 01:04:17,679
Rank made it official earlier in the
week. Emanuel Navarat Oscar Valdez, Glendale,

1053
01:04:17,719 --> 01:04:20,920
Arizona for August. We've been talking
about that. Now we know it's

1054
01:04:20,960 --> 01:04:25,920
officially happening. We got some really
entertaining fights. Oh yeah, this summer

1055
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:30,159
unfolds. I think that for a
pure fight, as far as action goes,

1056
01:04:30,559 --> 01:04:32,840
I think Eryl Spencon Crawford's gonna be
a great action fight also because of

1057
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:38,239
the way that those guys conduct themselves. But in terms of savagery, pure

1058
01:04:38,320 --> 01:04:42,719
unmitigated violence, the prospect for a
bona fide fight of the year, for

1059
01:04:43,039 --> 01:04:46,280
drama, for knockdowns, for blood, for all the things that make for

1060
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:53,039
a dramatic encounter. I think that
Oscar Valdez challenging Emmanuel never Read for that

1061
01:04:53,079 --> 01:04:58,239
one hundred and thirty pound w BO
title has every chance to be a special,

1062
01:04:58,400 --> 01:05:00,440
special fight. I mean, ever
know if it will turn out that

1063
01:05:00,559 --> 01:05:05,039
way. But if you were looking
down the list of contenders and champions in

1064
01:05:05,079 --> 01:05:10,440
different weight classes and you said to
me or somebody that's knowledgeable about the different

1065
01:05:10,559 --> 01:05:13,719
top guys in each weight class,
said, come up with like your five

1066
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:16,800
best action fights, I think you
might have. I don't think I'm I

1067
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:21,800
would definitely have Navarette against Oscar Valdez
on my list because they both have a

1068
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:26,079
history of being in great fights.
They both want to make a great fight.

1069
01:05:26,159 --> 01:05:29,400
They both talk about the history.
They both invoked the names of Eric

1070
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:32,599
Moraleson and Mark Antonio Berrera. They
fight in the same weight class that morales

1071
01:05:32,679 --> 01:05:36,920
and Brera fought in at least for
their third fight. This is going to

1072
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:41,679
be a great fight. I mean, if you you know, I remember

1073
01:05:41,719 --> 01:05:45,920
one time when Felix Trinidad fought Fernando
Vargas, which was, you know,

1074
01:05:45,039 --> 01:05:47,519
too many people the fight of the
year that year, even ahead of Gaddy

1075
01:05:47,599 --> 01:05:53,679
ward One, just an awesome fight. Larry Merchant talked about how if you

1076
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:56,760
were like at a restaurant and you
were looking at the menu and you try

1077
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:00,840
to make the best fight you could. You picked Vargas versus Trinidad. I

1078
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:02,760
feel like if you had a menu
in front of your fights for action fights,

1079
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:06,119
and Valdez versus Navarette was one of
them, you'd pick that fight to

1080
01:06:06,199 --> 01:06:10,800
make a great action fight. So
I have huge high hopes for this fight.

1081
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:14,559
And again it's official August twelfth,
not pay per view, regular ESPN.

1082
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:17,360
Gonna be awesome here here on that
and Navaratte again give him a lot

1083
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:21,159
of credit because he's an explosive puncher. He was very active for a while

1084
01:06:21,199 --> 01:06:25,239
and he was in a wild fight
with the Australian Liam Wilson earlier earlier this

1085
01:06:25,360 --> 01:06:28,320
year. Was down in that fight, got up, was down and was

1086
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:30,400
in trouble, got up and won
that fight on a TKO, which I

1087
01:06:30,519 --> 01:06:32,920
think it should be in the conversation. I'm not saying it is, but

1088
01:06:32,960 --> 01:06:36,199
it should be in the conversation for
fight of the year because one of the

1089
01:06:36,239 --> 01:06:40,159
big, one of the big names
for top rank and the lower weight classes

1090
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:44,519
was clearly in trouble against an underdog
Australian that night, So forget all good

1091
01:06:44,559 --> 01:06:46,280
stuff. On the night of that
fight against Leam Wilson, it was supposed

1092
01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:48,639
to be Oscar Valdez in the ring
that night for the Vegant title, but

1093
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:51,800
Oscar was injured, so he was
promised the next shot. You know.

1094
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:56,360
He came back at his shake Off
the Rush fight in a pretty good fight

1095
01:06:56,360 --> 01:06:59,639
against Adam Lopez in their rematch that
took place on the Hainey and Lomachenko undercard.

1096
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,880
And now here we go, Navarette
versus Valdez. It's not happening in

1097
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:05,880
February when it was supposed to.
Instead, it will happen in August,

1098
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:09,960
but so be it. And real
quick, I want to go back to

1099
01:07:10,039 --> 01:07:14,320
the Spence Crawford card because you're reporting
an undercard fight. This is your reporting,

1100
01:07:14,360 --> 01:07:15,639
not officially announced yet, but you
found out about it real quick.

1101
01:07:16,039 --> 01:07:19,039
Yeah. No, I'm told that
the co feature is going to involve Isaac

1102
01:07:19,119 --> 01:07:23,559
Pitt Bull Cruz, the lightweight contender, who obviously people know from having the

1103
01:07:23,719 --> 01:07:30,159
very exciting and somewhat controversial loss by
decision he went twelve with Jervonte Tank Davis

1104
01:07:30,199 --> 01:07:31,559
back at the end of twenty and
twenty twenty. He has won two fights

1105
01:07:31,840 --> 01:07:38,199
by knockout since he knocked out the
remnants of year Archis Gamboa on the previous

1106
01:07:38,320 --> 01:07:43,320
Arrow Spence undercard went Errol fought or
Dennis Ugas and then he blitzed Eduardo Ramirez

1107
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:47,599
in two rounds when Andy Ruise fo
Luis King conwartis So he's going to be

1108
01:07:47,639 --> 01:07:53,679
on this undercard also, and that's
a smart move because he brings a different

1109
01:07:53,719 --> 01:07:57,360
fan base to the to the table
than what you get when you get Spence

1110
01:07:57,400 --> 01:08:01,400
against Crawford. He'll bring a certain
back of the Mexican and Mexican American fans.

1111
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:04,039
But hopefully they put him in with
a solid opponent. I think they're

1112
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:08,039
gonna I think if he wins,
I don't think it's out of the realm

1113
01:08:08,079 --> 01:08:11,840
of possibility that when Tank Davis is
out of jail and he comes back maybe

1114
01:08:11,840 --> 01:08:13,760
at the end of the year and
maybe we see a rematch between him and

1115
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:15,800
Pitbull Cruise when shocked me at all, that's such a good first fight and

1116
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:20,079
very close first fight, Isaac Pitball
Crew is very exciting fighter to watch.

1117
01:08:20,159 --> 01:08:23,880
In a nice addition to this card. It hasn't been officially announced, as

1118
01:08:23,920 --> 01:08:26,800
you mentioned, and I think what
will happen is they'll do the media tour

1119
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:30,520
next week and they'll wait and they'll
try to get you more attention, and

1120
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:32,319
they'll wait till like the week after
that probably or even two weeks after that,

1121
01:08:32,600 --> 01:08:36,840
and then they'll finally announce the undercard. But if that's if he's in

1122
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:41,600
with a halfway decent opponent, that's
at least a good a good beginning of

1123
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:44,359
what they're going to put together for
the rest of that show. Great stuff.

1124
01:08:44,680 --> 01:08:47,479
Let's wrap it for the final couple
of moments here with some nostalgia today

1125
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:51,520
Thursday, as we released the podcast
overnight Thursday night into Friday, June eighth,

1126
01:08:51,640 --> 01:08:55,560
two thousand and two. It was
twenty one years ago in my hometown

1127
01:08:56,600 --> 01:09:00,560
in the in the arena where my
basketball team, my college to the Memphis

1128
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:03,199
State Tigers, would always play,
the Pyramid in Memphis, which, by

1129
01:09:03,239 --> 01:09:06,680
the way, Dan ray Field in
nostalgia, you probably don't know this realizes

1130
01:09:06,680 --> 01:09:10,880
it's not even an arena anymore.
It's now a bass pro shops. It's

1131
01:09:10,920 --> 01:09:15,039
the bass and I've been in it. It's unbelievable. What's in there,

1132
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:18,960
uh, In terms of the aquarium, you can stay there, they have

1133
01:09:19,199 --> 01:09:26,560
hotel, accommodations to stay there,
retail clothing, the guns, the different

1134
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:31,439
UH hunting items that they have,
fishing items that they have. It's incredible,

1135
01:09:31,479 --> 01:09:35,279
but it was a box that once
they once they built the FedEx Forum,

1136
01:09:35,279 --> 01:09:39,800
they didn't need it anymore. That's
correct. I did cover a few

1137
01:09:39,840 --> 01:09:42,640
fights at the at the Pyramid,
because not only did Mike Tyson fight Lennox

1138
01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:46,680
Lewis there, he also fought against
uh uh Clifford etty in there and there

1139
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:51,119
was there was another fight I think
I was out there that Escapes Big Time

1140
01:09:51,199 --> 01:09:56,239
Magnitude World Heavyweight title fight in Memphis
in the River City, and you were

1141
01:09:56,359 --> 01:09:59,640
ringside for Lennox Lewis. We have
talked about this before on the podcast.

1142
01:10:00,039 --> 01:10:03,239
He had been waiting for such a
long time and it finally happened twenty one

1143
01:10:03,319 --> 01:10:06,760
years ago in two thousand and two. If you think there's problems making Spence

1144
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:12,680
Crawford, or you thought there was
problems making pac Yao against Floyd or any

1145
01:10:12,720 --> 01:10:15,560
other fight, that was a very
complicated, difficult you know, Kennello versus

1146
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:20,199
TRIPLEG number one pick a fight.
That was the fight that everybody wanted to

1147
01:10:20,279 --> 01:10:25,000
see that there was a lot of
issues and it just was like an agonizing

1148
01:10:25,039 --> 01:10:28,399
soap opera. To get to the
ring and get to the actual fight.

1149
01:10:28,960 --> 01:10:32,720
Mike Tyson challenging Lenox Lewis for the
heavyweight title was every bit as complicated and

1150
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:36,039
difficult as any of those fights,
except for maybe Mayweather and Pac Yaw.

1151
01:10:38,560 --> 01:10:41,640
That was in a time when HBO
and Showtime were the two dominant forces.

1152
01:10:41,680 --> 01:10:45,640
They both had each guy under contract. Lenox was with HBO, Tyson was

1153
01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:48,239
with Showtime, and the late great
Jay Larkin, who ran Showtime Boxing,

1154
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:54,319
who I miss every day, uttered
the classic line Lewis Tyson will happen when

1155
01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:58,800
pork chops grow on the palm trees
of Tel Aviv. He said that quote

1156
01:10:58,800 --> 01:11:01,479
in the New York Times. And
you know, about a year later,

1157
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:03,720
I guess I must have been or
something like that. The fight finally happened,

1158
01:11:03,760 --> 01:11:08,600
that two networks were able to work
out an agreement. And it happened

1159
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:13,000
because Lennox went to the bosses at
HBO and basically was like, look,

1160
01:11:13,159 --> 01:11:15,159
this is my legacy. I want
this fight. I must have this fight.

1161
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:19,880
Please make this for me. Meantime, Tyson was in a situation with

1162
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:24,800
Showtime where they had fronted him so
many millions of dollars in loans and they

1163
01:11:24,920 --> 01:11:27,520
needed to get their money back.
They had no other option but to make

1164
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:29,920
the fight. So they kind of
had no choice, but they go and

1165
01:11:29,960 --> 01:11:32,520
try to make the best deal they
could. But they're so proper to get

1166
01:11:32,560 --> 01:11:36,319
there. Remember, the fight was
cant. I was off because I was

1167
01:11:36,359 --> 01:11:40,720
there at that press commerence that never
actually happened when they were going to announce

1168
01:11:40,800 --> 01:11:44,600
the fight and Lennox Lewis stood on
the stage and Tyson walked across the stage

1169
01:11:44,600 --> 01:11:46,920
and they ended up in a brawl
and Tyson bit Lennox Lewis's leg, and

1170
01:11:47,039 --> 01:11:51,640
Nevada refused to license Mike Tyson because
of that situation, so it got kicked

1171
01:11:51,680 --> 01:11:55,760
out in Nevada. They had to
delay the fight. Finally, we called

1172
01:11:55,800 --> 01:11:58,880
it the outlaw fight because Memphis,
you know in Tennessee, which was not

1173
01:11:58,920 --> 01:12:00,640
the strongest commissioner role, they agreed
that, you know, do the fight

1174
01:12:00,720 --> 01:12:04,960
as again, I'll quote my good
friend Larry Merchant. Memphis wanted an injection

1175
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:10,119
of money and a party, and
they got both because the town was filled.

1176
01:12:10,119 --> 01:12:12,119
I was there the entire week.
I got there like on a Monday,

1177
01:12:12,159 --> 01:12:15,920
I think I had come home from
Atlantic City from covering from covering a

1178
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:20,640
Vander Holyfield against Hassim Rockman. On
Saturday. Did my laundry on Sunday and

1179
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:24,760
went to the airport on Monday and
flew to Memphis for the fight, and

1180
01:12:24,960 --> 01:12:27,880
everybody was there. The whole world
turned out. Uh, this is how

1181
01:12:27,960 --> 01:12:30,479
big of a fight that was,
TJ. I don't even think people understand

1182
01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:33,199
it because it is twenty plus years
ago. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

1183
01:12:33,520 --> 01:12:38,520
was like the big you know,
after you know, after the late local

1184
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:41,960
news, you know, entertainment show
with all you know, the Tonight Show

1185
01:12:43,560 --> 01:12:47,960
they had Dave Chappelle, big star. He was hired for the week to

1186
01:12:48,119 --> 01:12:53,680
be like the quote unquote Tonight Show
correspondent. So every day for the week

1187
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:58,039
they would do like these funny bits
for the for the Tonight Show of roaming

1188
01:12:58,079 --> 01:13:00,279
the streets of Memphis. I remember
that it was hilarious. So, but

1189
01:13:00,520 --> 01:13:03,600
that's as mainstream as it gets when
I'm what I'm trying to explain to you.

1190
01:13:03,880 --> 01:13:08,079
So at the time, that fight
set the all time record for pay

1191
01:13:08,119 --> 01:13:13,279
per view buys and and money and
and gate and the whole nine and you

1192
01:13:13,359 --> 01:13:15,840
know, all of its time,
it was the biggest fight that there had

1193
01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:17,960
been in boxing. Now, I
never understood why everybody wanted to see Louis

1194
01:13:17,960 --> 01:13:23,880
Tyson, Fine Lennox was still,
you know, the a formidable heavyweight champion,

1195
01:13:24,600 --> 01:13:27,119
and he only even though he only
fought one more time after that,

1196
01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:30,479
at the moment that the fight happened, you knew this is the best heavyweight

1197
01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:32,520
in the world, bar none.
Mike Tyson was already at that point,

1198
01:13:32,600 --> 01:13:36,239
like you know, several years past, you know, being a quality heavyweight.

1199
01:13:38,159 --> 01:13:41,000
But you can't argue. People want
to see what they want to see,

1200
01:13:41,239 --> 01:13:44,680
and everybody knew that that era.
I always look at it like this,

1201
01:13:44,840 --> 01:13:49,119
the seventies of George Foreman and Ali
and Frazier. They were the lynchpins

1202
01:13:49,119 --> 01:13:53,079
of what I consider the greatest heavyweight
era. I'm not the only one that

1203
01:13:53,159 --> 01:13:56,960
thinks that, Kenny Norton and plenty
of guys that were in that era,

1204
01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:00,800
but the second best era of heavyweight
boxing that ever happened in the history of

1205
01:14:00,800 --> 01:14:04,439
the sport, in my opinion,
is that nineteen nineties Lewis Tyson, holy

1206
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:11,199
Field, Mercer Riddick, Bow,
Tommy Morrison, the second coming of George

1207
01:14:11,239 --> 01:14:15,640
Foreman, Razor Ruddick, I mean, Michael Moore. I'm maybe repeating myself,

1208
01:14:15,640 --> 01:14:17,840
but those guys, a ton of
them that that made some big big

1209
01:14:17,960 --> 01:14:23,439
fights. Uh, this was like
two thousand and two when the fight happened,

1210
01:14:23,680 --> 01:14:26,039
So it was sort of like the
end of that era, even though

1211
01:14:26,079 --> 01:14:29,399
it like lapsed over a little bit
into the next decade, if you will.

1212
01:14:29,800 --> 01:14:31,920
But the thing about it was it
was a huge fight that everybody wanted

1213
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:36,560
to see and when they finally met, that kind of ended ended the era.

1214
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:42,359
And essentially you knew now between the
round robin of Lewis, Holyfield and

1215
01:14:42,399 --> 01:14:45,279
Tyson, even though it wasn't all
when they were in their primes, that

1216
01:14:45,479 --> 01:14:47,920
Lennox Lewis emerged as the guy on
the King of the Mountain, and he

1217
01:14:48,000 --> 01:14:51,760
did because he splatted Mike Tyson.
What was your manage point on that big

1218
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:55,319
right hand? Was it coming at
you? Were you on the side of

1219
01:14:55,399 --> 01:14:59,560
it? It was right in front
of my face? Wow, I mean

1220
01:14:59,600 --> 01:15:01,800
if there I actually, if you
go on my social media, I posted

1221
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,800
this on Twitter today. In terms
of the anniversary, so a week after

1222
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:06,760
the fight, or you know how
many days after the fight, the new

1223
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:11,319
issue of Sports Illustrated came out,
and in Sports Illustrated following the fight,

1224
01:15:11,359 --> 01:15:13,760
they did a pretty big spread on
the fight because that's how big it was,

1225
01:15:14,039 --> 01:15:16,199
and so they ran a two page
spread to like introduce the article,

1226
01:15:16,359 --> 01:15:20,600
and it's this great shot from overhead
of shooting Lennox Lewis with his arm raised

1227
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:24,680
in the victory, but it shot
from the vantage point that you see into

1228
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:28,239
the media section, and on the
right hand side of the second page you

1229
01:15:28,359 --> 01:15:31,399
see Raphael black shirt at the last
see you I see the social media pick

1230
01:15:31,479 --> 01:15:34,880
here. Yeah, I got that
white towel over my shoulder. And the

1231
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:39,239
reason for the white towel over my
shoulder is because it was in summer,

1232
01:15:39,319 --> 01:15:43,319
because it was June, and it
was hot as hell in Memphis, Tennessee,

1233
01:15:43,560 --> 01:15:46,239
and the arena that night in particular, was overbearing. I always have

1234
01:15:46,399 --> 01:15:48,560
a towel in the bag, just
in never knowing you might need it.

1235
01:15:49,359 --> 01:15:53,720
And it was so fucking hot in
the arena I had to towel over my

1236
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:57,600
shoulder to swab the sweat because everybody
was just fucking dripping because it was so

1237
01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:00,439
hot. And so you see,
I mean people can look at it.

1238
01:16:00,479 --> 01:16:04,560
I was sitting right there pretty much
in the second row behind the TV people

1239
01:16:05,359 --> 01:16:09,319
in the most perfect view you could
have of that fight, and Lennox,

1240
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:13,159
with that big right hand, put
Mike away and then Mike, as he

1241
01:16:13,239 --> 01:16:15,319
stated so eloquently after the fight in
his interview, that he was going to

1242
01:16:15,399 --> 01:16:19,520
maybe fade off into Bolivian. He
did fight a few more times, but

1243
01:16:19,640 --> 01:16:24,079
basically his championship career went and Lennox
bought us one more time to fight against

1244
01:16:24,239 --> 01:16:26,880
U. I'll tell you a funny
story about that real quick. I know

1245
01:16:26,920 --> 01:16:30,119
we're getting along here. At the
postfight press conference on the night that Mike

1246
01:16:30,199 --> 01:16:31,800
Tyson and Lennox had their fight,
I went to the post fight and I

1247
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:35,880
was sitting there and Lennox had come
to the podium, and just by coincidence,

1248
01:16:35,880 --> 01:16:39,560
I was sitting next to Lennox's mother, his mother, Violet. It

1249
01:16:39,680 --> 01:16:41,359
was a very nice light. I
didn't know her well, but I had

1250
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:43,479
met her a couple of times and
she kind of knew who I was,

1251
01:16:43,560 --> 01:16:45,640
and so we would start making small
talk. Congratulations. You know, he

1252
01:16:45,680 --> 01:16:49,760
fought a great fight, and he
was asked quite a bit at the at

1253
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:51,960
the press conference about you know,
you just climbed the mountain, you beat

1254
01:16:53,000 --> 01:16:55,880
Tyson, you beat in Holyfield.
You know you're not any you know,

1255
01:16:55,920 --> 01:16:57,880
a young man anymore, you know, are you're gonna retire? What do

1256
01:16:57,880 --> 01:17:00,520
you want to do? And I
never forget that. Lennox's mom leaned over

1257
01:17:00,600 --> 01:17:03,720
to me and she whispered in my
ear. She says, I hope he

1258
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:12,920
retires, and I'll never forget that. Lennox's mama time, right, So

1259
01:17:13,359 --> 01:17:17,840
that was that. My memory is
of his mother, Violet leaning over to

1260
01:17:17,920 --> 01:17:20,640
me and telling me at the postfight
press conference, sitting right in front of

1261
01:17:20,680 --> 01:17:24,960
her son of the dais that she
wanted her boy to retire. And it

1262
01:17:25,119 --> 01:17:27,520
is hot in the summertime in Memphis, by the way, I would spend

1263
01:17:27,640 --> 01:17:30,199
lots of summers in Memphis, and
it is commonly very high. I still

1264
01:17:30,239 --> 01:17:35,600
remember taking my twins as a classic
story. This was in early July,

1265
01:17:36,119 --> 01:17:40,119
not July fourth, but like late
June, early July, right around their

1266
01:17:40,119 --> 01:17:45,520
birthday. We went to the Memphis
Zoo one hundred degree day and with the

1267
01:17:45,640 --> 01:17:48,039
heat indecks one hundred and twelve and
the tiger at the Zoo's up up to

1268
01:17:48,159 --> 01:17:53,079
his neck in the moat. It
can get hot in Memphis, that is

1269
01:17:53,119 --> 01:17:56,239
for sure. And by the way, one more nostalgia piece, and then

1270
01:17:56,279 --> 01:17:59,279
where I promised, we're moving on
and we're wrapping it up. My long

1271
01:17:59,399 --> 01:18:02,800
time thirty five year radio buddy in
that market. Dave will Oceaners the voice

1272
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:06,159
of the Memphis Tigers football and basketball
and radio, but a radio personality there

1273
01:18:06,199 --> 01:18:11,159
since the mid nineteen eighties. He
was there that night as you were in

1274
01:18:11,239 --> 01:18:14,920
the media section, he wasn't as
close as you were, with kind of

1275
01:18:15,000 --> 01:18:19,800
like the overflow local media, TV, radio, and where they were sitting,

1276
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:25,119
there were some other accessible seats,
and he tells the fantastic story that

1277
01:18:25,159 --> 01:18:29,000
I will condense now into about twenty
seconds, that they're sitting there in the

1278
01:18:29,079 --> 01:18:32,039
media section the whole night for the
undercard, and about twenty minutes before the

1279
01:18:32,119 --> 01:18:38,600
main event, the Leonardo DiCaprio and
the Toby maguire Spider Man, and I

1280
01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:42,680
see you nodding your head. Come
in and sit down right next to them

1281
01:18:42,880 --> 01:18:45,399
in the media section, about four
or five rows back. And he said,

1282
01:18:45,600 --> 01:18:49,640
everybody everywhere knew who those guys were, and they even struck up a

1283
01:18:49,760 --> 01:18:54,479
conversation or two with them as the
fight was going on, Who's winning or

1284
01:18:54,520 --> 01:19:00,159
whatever, And he overheard DiCaprio saying
to McGuire, McGuire's doing Spider Man,

1285
01:19:00,199 --> 01:19:03,880
DiCaprio's got all his big movies.
That the plane was already ready for them,

1286
01:19:03,960 --> 01:19:08,560
to be back in La for the
party they were going to in La

1287
01:19:09,039 --> 01:19:12,000
after that fight. And I joked
with Wolo by radio, buddy, how

1288
01:19:12,039 --> 01:19:15,960
did you not sneak a seat on
the private plane because you were right by

1289
01:19:15,039 --> 01:19:19,720
him to get to La to the
post fight party they were flying. Memphis

1290
01:19:19,800 --> 01:19:24,039
was wild that week. I mean
it was that they wanted a party and

1291
01:19:24,079 --> 01:19:26,760
they got one. I was saying
the hotel right there off of Bill Street,

1292
01:19:27,119 --> 01:19:29,600
and it was it was loud,
like twenty four hours a day pretty

1293
01:19:29,680 --> 01:19:31,439
much. Uh listen, let me
tell you, I mean not that it's

1294
01:19:31,479 --> 01:19:35,239
the main thing of the of the
nostalgia that we're talking about. Manny Pakia

1295
01:19:35,359 --> 01:19:40,359
was on that undercard. By yes, he was a recent his debut right

1296
01:19:40,520 --> 01:19:43,439
really on a big time I'm talking
about in a big time fight card or

1297
01:19:43,560 --> 01:19:46,000
HBO or whatever was that night on
the HBO pay per view. Right,

1298
01:19:46,479 --> 01:19:50,039
you're in correct. His HBO debut
was on the undercard of an Oscar Delloy

1299
01:19:50,159 --> 01:19:53,880
fight on pay per view. But
HBO was so impressed by how we look

1300
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:58,399
when he won the junior title against
Laylo Vadwaba from South Africa that they wanted

1301
01:19:58,399 --> 01:20:00,439
to bring him back and because of
the situation with making the deal with Showtime.

1302
01:20:00,720 --> 01:20:03,319
The way that they configured it was
we got the main event, they

1303
01:20:03,359 --> 01:20:06,199
only did three fights on the pay
per view. Showtime gets to do one

1304
01:20:06,239 --> 01:20:09,680
fight. They opted to go with
their young guy, Jeff Lacey, and

1305
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:12,800
HBO went with Mandy Pakyo and so
ye had a Jeff Lacy fight on the

1306
01:20:12,880 --> 01:20:15,359
undercard on the pay per view,
Manny Pacyo, who knocked out Jorge Alstier

1307
01:20:15,439 --> 01:20:17,880
Julio in defense of his one twenty
two title, and then you went to

1308
01:20:17,920 --> 01:20:20,840
the main event with Lewis and Tyson. That's why you are who you are.

1309
01:20:20,920 --> 01:20:24,720
By the way, say it correctly. That's Saint Petersburg, Florida's Jeff

1310
01:20:24,800 --> 01:20:27,000
Lacy that was on that and I
would never have known that, but the

1311
01:20:27,079 --> 01:20:30,600
man Rayphield knows these things about that. All Right, two more nostalgia items

1312
01:20:30,600 --> 01:20:31,680
and we don't have to go a
long time on them, but I just

1313
01:20:31,800 --> 01:20:35,520
I want to get the dates right
that it's tomorrow, it's Friday as we're

1314
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:42,279
taping this two thousand and seven.
That's Miguel Coto knocking out zab Judah and

1315
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:45,159
you were there. That was part
of the Puerto Rican Parade at the Puerto

1316
01:20:45,239 --> 01:20:48,359
Rican weekend in New York that time
for that knockout as well, real quick,

1317
01:20:49,000 --> 01:20:53,079
this is this is this is in
my opinion, this is Miguel Coto

1318
01:20:53,159 --> 01:20:56,640
in his dead prime. Remember he
had become a champion at one hundred and

1319
01:20:56,640 --> 01:21:00,159
forty pounds. He had beaten some
quality guys there, including Pauly malin Adjie

1320
01:21:00,159 --> 01:21:04,079
for example at Madison Square Garden.
He then moved up to welterweight. He

1321
01:21:04,199 --> 01:21:08,239
defeated and knocked out Carlos Quintana,
and he's on a roll. He beats

1322
01:21:08,279 --> 01:21:11,560
Acta Erkal, who was a good
contender in Puerto Rico. That was the

1323
01:21:11,720 --> 01:21:14,520
time I went to Puerto Rico to
to see Miguel fight. And then he

1324
01:21:14,640 --> 01:21:17,960
went on the great run where he
had probably arguably he's too big as victories

1325
01:21:18,279 --> 01:21:23,079
where he knocked out Judah and he
knocked out Shane Mosley. I'm sorry,

1326
01:21:23,079 --> 01:21:26,520
he knocked out Zab Juda. He
outpointed Shane Mosey in back to back fights

1327
01:21:27,000 --> 01:21:30,119
at Madison Square Garden. But the
Judah fight because he was fighting another New

1328
01:21:30,199 --> 01:21:31,800
Yorker, but of course he had
the Puerto Rican fans from New York on

1329
01:21:31,920 --> 01:21:36,800
his side. That was a spectacular
event, and I don't know if the

1330
01:21:36,840 --> 01:21:41,359
record still stands. I'd have to
double check, but at the time when

1331
01:21:41,439 --> 01:21:45,720
he fought Zab, that was the
largest crowd to ever be in the building

1332
01:21:45,840 --> 01:21:48,880
for boxing, maybe ever for anything
at that point in that construction of Medison

1333
01:21:48,920 --> 01:21:53,880
Square, guard over twenty thousand,
like it was from the rafters they were

1334
01:21:53,960 --> 01:21:57,319
hanging for that fight, and it
was a sensational fight. Zab gave a

1335
01:21:57,359 --> 01:22:00,560
great account of himself. He obviously
got stopped in the eleven throut, but

1336
01:22:00,760 --> 01:22:03,399
Miguel retained that title. He went
on to defeat Moseley, Alfonso Gomez and

1337
01:22:03,439 --> 01:22:06,600
then Net you know his waterloo if
you will, in the first fight against

1338
01:22:06,640 --> 01:22:10,960
Margarito, where I will go to
my grade believing that Margarito cheated with loaded

1339
01:22:10,960 --> 01:22:13,960
gloves. By the night that it
beat Zab Judah to retain the title was

1340
01:22:14,039 --> 01:22:16,439
a huge event. It was a
great performance, a great fight. And

1341
01:22:17,000 --> 01:22:19,439
you know, if I said to
somebody, you know what's Miguel quote all

1342
01:22:19,439 --> 01:22:21,560
about, tell me a couple of
fights of his I should watch, I

1343
01:22:21,600 --> 01:22:26,439
would tell you watched the Ricardo Torres
fight, watched the Shane Mosey fight,

1344
01:22:26,479 --> 01:22:30,520
but definitely make sure you watched that
zab Judah fight, love it and one

1345
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:33,960
more piece of nostalgia as well.
And we've talked about this frequently as one

1346
01:22:33,960 --> 01:22:39,119
of the worst decisions at least in
modern times. Timothy Bradley is going into

1347
01:22:39,159 --> 01:22:42,720
the Hall of Fame. Kudos to
him. But it was June the ninth,

1348
01:22:42,880 --> 01:22:45,279
twenty twelve, eleven years ago on
Friday, as we released the podcast.

1349
01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:49,000
Then you're shaking your head and I
am too. Manny Paciol won that

1350
01:22:49,119 --> 01:22:53,920
fight, speaking of pac Man ten
years after being on the Lewis Tyson undercard,

1351
01:22:55,119 --> 01:22:59,560
and we've said a lot on that
one, and Paquil subsequently did get

1352
01:22:59,640 --> 01:23:02,159
revenge and got a decision win after
this one. But that was the Bradley

1353
01:23:02,279 --> 01:23:06,640
victory that night, June ninth of
what twenty year many went out and beat

1354
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:11,079
him two more times. In fact, the last fight of Timothy's career was

1355
01:23:11,199 --> 01:23:15,640
the third fight against Manny Packers.
So he went officially one win and two

1356
01:23:15,720 --> 01:23:18,479
losses, the only the only two
losses that Timothy Bradley ever see. People

1357
01:23:18,479 --> 01:23:20,359
say, how could you vote for
Bradley for the Hall of Fame? Like,

1358
01:23:20,479 --> 01:23:23,840
you know, he got a gift
against pack him And I try to

1359
01:23:23,920 --> 01:23:27,680
explain to people I don't, and
I joke around with Bradley about this.

1360
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:29,800
He knows this because him and I've
had a back and forth about this for

1361
01:23:29,920 --> 01:23:32,880
years. When I talk about Timothy
Bradley is a Hall of Famer and believing

1362
01:23:32,920 --> 01:23:36,000
I was kind of driving that bus
in that advocacy for his election to all

1363
01:23:36,000 --> 01:23:39,520
of Fame, I strongly believe that
he belonged to there. I'm glad he

1364
01:23:39,560 --> 01:23:43,119
got elected finally. But the bottom
line is, when I make my case

1365
01:23:43,239 --> 01:23:45,800
for why Timothy Bradley should be in
the Hall of Fame, it's not because

1366
01:23:45,840 --> 01:23:49,680
he got a bullshit victory against Manny
Pack him. I don't include that in

1367
01:23:49,800 --> 01:23:53,359
my raising, in my rational why
I thought he should be in, or

1368
01:23:53,399 --> 01:23:56,039
why I voted for him. I
consider that, in my mind a distinct

1369
01:23:56,159 --> 01:24:00,159
loss. But if you take away
the fact that his only times he's was

1370
01:24:00,199 --> 01:24:03,119
beaten was by the prime Nanny Pacyao, and he beat everybody else, and

1371
01:24:03,159 --> 01:24:06,800
he beat a lot of good fighters
and unified titles and you know, one

1372
01:24:06,840 --> 01:24:12,079
titles and multiple weight classes. So
yes, the Bradley Packyo One fight was

1373
01:24:12,159 --> 01:24:15,000
as controversial as a guest. There
may have been worse decisions I have seen.

1374
01:24:15,039 --> 01:24:21,760
I've discussed Joel cassamayor against Armando Santa
Cruz, for example, Jose Armando

1375
01:24:21,800 --> 01:24:26,239
Santa Cruz, which is the brother
of Leo Santa Cruz. So I've seen

1376
01:24:26,359 --> 01:24:30,399
worse decisions, and there's probably some
others I could think of, but bad

1377
01:24:30,479 --> 01:24:34,479
decisions combined with the magnitude of the
event that set off the entire world of

1378
01:24:34,600 --> 01:24:38,760
losing their fucking minds because of how
bad it was that was this fight.

1379
01:24:38,840 --> 01:24:43,199
I mean, Bradley didn't barely compete, much less win the fight, and

1380
01:24:43,279 --> 01:24:46,119
it was just shocking that they gave
him. That was a scandalous that stayed

1381
01:24:46,159 --> 01:24:50,439
in the headlines for I mean,
think about what the what the scuttle butt's

1382
01:24:50,479 --> 01:24:55,720
been since Loma chenko Haney, which
I don't even consider controversial, right,

1383
01:24:56,119 --> 01:25:01,000
this Pacyao against Bradley was like a
billion times more than that and warranted.

1384
01:25:01,159 --> 01:25:04,960
That's how disgusting that decision was.
So again, when I say Bradley is

1385
01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:08,840
a worthy Hall of Famer, it's
got nothing to do with him. You're

1386
01:25:08,880 --> 01:25:12,199
getting a so called victory against pack
accounts, I guess officially on the record,

1387
01:25:12,399 --> 01:25:15,359
but he had beaten guys like Junior
Wider Overseas, Kendall Hole, made

1388
01:25:15,399 --> 01:25:18,399
Campbell Lamon Peterson when he was on
the feet of Devin Alexander to unified titles.

1389
01:25:18,560 --> 01:25:23,079
Cassa Mayor granted an older version Provadnikov
in the Fight of the Year in

1390
01:25:23,319 --> 01:25:26,560
a World championship defense Juan Manuel Marquez, by the way, I mean,

1391
01:25:26,640 --> 01:25:29,399
he beat a lot of good guys, Jesse Vargas, Brandon Rios, blah

1392
01:25:29,439 --> 01:25:32,319
blah blah blah blah. But the
Pacio fight was horrible, and I'm glad,

1393
01:25:32,439 --> 01:25:38,079
I'm sorry we have to finish the
podcast on that negative nostalgia compared to

1394
01:25:38,119 --> 01:25:40,680
all the other great fights we talked
about. But hey, if he's going

1395
01:25:40,760 --> 01:25:44,640
in the Hall of Fame, he
will have the He will have the anniversary

1396
01:25:44,800 --> 01:25:48,239
of June the eleventh Sunday forever of
going into the Hall of Fame Timothy Bradley

1397
01:25:48,279 --> 01:25:53,239
along with Karl Frost. And but
I'll just say this as everybody else,

1398
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:57,319
if any of our younger listeners get
up in arms and get ticked off about

1399
01:25:57,760 --> 01:26:00,920
a decision they may see in the
future or one may have seen in the

1400
01:26:00,000 --> 01:26:04,039
recent past, do yourself a favor
and go on your old web browser and

1401
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:08,920
Google up, or as as my
son would say, as your daughters might

1402
01:26:09,000 --> 01:26:11,920
say, search it up, search
it, search up, search up,

1403
01:26:13,039 --> 01:26:15,760
google it search up pack Yell Bradley
one. You can read my stories and

1404
01:26:15,840 --> 01:26:18,640
others that covered the fight, and
uh Yo, you want to talk about

1405
01:26:18,640 --> 01:26:21,479
you want you want to talk about
real contrary. That's real contrary, not

1406
01:26:21,560 --> 01:26:26,880
to confine bullshit about Ainy Lomachenko.
And by the way, Pernelle Whittaker Julio

1407
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:31,560
Caesar Chavez automobile in nineteen ninety three
joke, horrible button and a lot of

1408
01:26:31,600 --> 01:26:35,079
people believe that fight was fixed by
Don King. I am saying it on

1409
01:26:35,119 --> 01:26:38,880
the podcast because King is still promoting
a lot of people time to believe that.

1410
01:26:39,720 --> 01:26:44,479
As horrible as that is, horrible, no argument. At least they

1411
01:26:44,520 --> 01:26:47,039
didn't rob Whittaker of his title because
it was a draw. He kept the

1412
01:26:47,079 --> 01:26:50,640
belt because he was the defending champion, the same way you talk about what

1413
01:26:50,720 --> 01:26:55,479
happened with Lenox Lewis against Evander Holyfield. They were both champions. It was

1414
01:26:55,560 --> 01:26:58,520
a draw, horrible, horrible decision, but they didn't lose their belts.

1415
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:02,359
Manny pack Yo lost the world title
in that ship decision. That's what was

1416
01:27:02,720 --> 01:27:06,039
a big part of that controversy.
He shouldn't have been a guy that walked

1417
01:27:06,079 --> 01:27:10,960
in the ring with a world championship
and exited without the title. Busy,

1418
01:27:11,079 --> 01:27:15,000
Busy show tons here and again.
The Hall of Fame induction is Sunday,

1419
01:27:15,039 --> 01:27:19,800
after the championship fights Taylor and Lopez
again the homemun Gia main event for Golden

1420
01:27:19,840 --> 01:27:24,039
Boy in California. Sonny Edwards in
action earlier in the day US time in

1421
01:27:24,199 --> 01:27:28,079
England. We gave you a bunch
on this one, my friend. Thank

1422
01:27:28,159 --> 01:27:30,920
you, as I always like to
say, make it a point fight fans

1423
01:27:31,000 --> 01:27:34,680
to be with us, because whatever
happens, we will be back off the

1424
01:27:34,760 --> 01:27:39,800
weekend with the fight Freakshoe Night recap
podcast right here on this podcast feed.

1425
01:27:39,840 --> 01:27:43,079
Following subscribe, you'll get it right
off the weekend for Monday. Bet Us

1426
01:27:43,520 --> 01:27:46,600
Boxing Show will make predictions on these
fights for this weekend live one Eastern time

1427
01:27:46,640 --> 01:27:50,079
Friday, depending on when you're hearing
the audio podcast here, find us live

1428
01:27:50,199 --> 01:27:55,119
one Eastern time for the bet Us
Boxing Show on YouTube and their platform Twitter

1429
01:27:55,239 --> 01:27:58,119
Twitch. Even if you didn't find
it live, find it later in the

1430
01:27:58,239 --> 01:28:01,119
day or on Saturday. I'm bet
Us Boxing with that, my friend.

1431
01:28:01,199 --> 01:28:03,399
Have a good weekend, enjoy all
the action. We'll recap it off the

1432
01:28:03,399 --> 01:28:06,520
weekend. Damn, Raphael, all
right, that sounds good. We are

1433
01:28:06,560 --> 01:28:10,720
all good here. Thank you for
finding us and following us. As part

1434
01:28:10,800 --> 01:28:13,760
of the Big Fight we Can podcast
network, we've been previewing it all in

1435
01:28:13,800 --> 01:28:14,880
the Big Fight we Can preview