The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host, t J leaves Well, we are ready for
a weekend and has multiple title fights, that has a Hall of Fame induction
and actually has some very interesting nostalgia anniversaries and much more. Hello and welcome
aboard to another edition of the Big Fight wee can preview. I am merely
the somewhat competent host. He is our insider from his Fight Freaks Unite substack.
He's cooking along right now with Big Fight Weekend dot Com as well.
Hello Dan Rayphael as we get things rolling here for another edition of the program.
And I know there are special times. You are a Hall of Fame
voter for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and this is always a special
weekend. We're gonna get into that. We got a bunch of different fights
to preview as well as we launch it at the weekend. How I'm good.
We got a bunch of good fights this weekend, which you know makes
up for her like last weekend where he just had the one card of consequence
with Claressa Shields. This week we've got the legitimate junior welterweight Championship with Josh
Taylor defending against Tiafimo Lopez in New York. He got Sonny Edwards in his
first fights and signing up with Matchromboxing, defending his flyweight title. We got
Heimi Mongia, who I have been extremely critical of just fighting one no hope
guy after the other over the last several years. But not to say that
Sergey Defranchenko is prying for the upset necessarily, but it's by far and away
his best opponent that he's fought quite some time, So we'll get into that.
Sergey is a tough dude, and even your good buddy Adrian Browner back
in action on Friday night, Dan's put on the rundown. We are going
to talk about Adrian Browner and I specified how long and he said a couple
of minutes, okay, So that's good. That's a good compromise on that.
We'll bring that up as he's in action. Also a showbox card as
well for the weekend, depending on when you're hearing us again, as we
launch on Thursday nights late night into Friday. Again, the showbox card is
on Friday night. A lot of these title fights obviously happening either Saturday at
Madison Square Gardens Theater, the Hulu Theater or in the afternoon in London on
the match Room Show for the Sunny Edwards World title fight. But you can
always count on us, at least for right now. We're doing the best
that we can to stay current and to stay consistent. That we're here with
a preview that is out heading into the weekend and then a Fight Freaks Unit
recap off the weekend, and that reminds me to remind you all to rate
and review the show. Find us, follow, subscribe, Apple podcast,
Google Podcasts, Spotify, rate us and review us, especially on Apple podcasts,
give us a five star review. Somebody actually did a rat us and
review us Ray Feel and said, not surprisingly that you are the class and
the dean of Insiders. But they love my Mickey impersonations from Rocky. You
went and got civilized rope, So that's pretty good. I gotta give you
props. It's not bad. Yeah, it's better than me singing. Put
it that way. Anyway, Rate us and review us put that in there.
It helps more people find us, and again the audience continues to rock
on. So we'll get into the fights of this weekend. The news of
this week's some nostalgia that includes Lennox Lewis my tyson anniversary from my hometown Raphael,
Memphis, Tennessee. And you were there for that one. But first,
a little bit of a heavy heart for you and a little detour away
from boxing. That's because one of the guys that you have enjoyed, especially
a social media back and forth fund relationship with and a Wrestling Hall of Famer
in his own right, The Iron Cheek, passed away. He had not
been in great health, but the professional wrestler, the Iron Cheek, who's
known for several things, arguably most known for losing the title to Whole Coogan,
but also known for the evil tag team with Nikolai Volkoff as the Russian
and the Iranian, but also him singing the Iranian national anthem and Volkoff singing
the Russian national anthem that no one could understand is all Time Classes staff forty
years later, So we pay tribute. Rest in peace, Iron Chic,
say a few words if you would. I mean, first of all,
one of the greatest heels, if not the greatest heel maybe in the history
of not only WWF, which is what it was called when I was growing
up, or now presently WWE or any of the various wrestling promotions that ever
have been over the years, a absolutely legendary heel. And by the way,
before he became a professional wrestler, he was a world class Greco Roman
wrestler of Olympic caliber when he was a younger guy. He actually was,
and I didn't even know this until I read some of the obituary material on
the legend on Cheeky Baby that he had, I guess been an assistant coach
for the United States for two Olympic teams, the nineteen seventy two United States
Wrestling Team and the nineteen seventy six United States Wrestling Team. And listen when
I was, when I was a kid ten years old up to maybe like
fourteen or fifteen years old. This isn't the early eighties to mid eighties.
WWF at the time was still a regional promotion. It hadn't gone yet all
over the country and the way that it ultimately became, and they were the
wrestling promotion of the Northeast where I grew up, and so countless times when
I was in that early age, besides just watching the television programs. I
went to the shows, to the house shows that not sometimes they were televised,
but usually the non TV shows in places like Glenn's Falls, New York,
and Schenected in New York and where my father lived in Poughkeepsie, New
York. And went and saw a lot of those matches on a regular basis,
and and and the and Iron Cheek was on some of those shows.
So I saw him wrestling in person when I was when I was a kid.
But listen, anybody that's followed me on Twitter or follows the sheet number
one, the chic on on social media as vulgar and the combination of vulgarity
and endearing this altogether, it's I can't really explain it, but he's a
legends. As he would say, you know, I uh, you know,
there's only one man who's Iron Cheek class. That's the Iron Cheek.
So we had our our online feud in quote marks uh. You know,
he often accused me of drinking the sprite. I don't know. I called
him the mayor of JABRONI I only asked this out of respect that I never
understood the insult or the inside joke. Are you here to spill what exactly
that meant that? It was just meaning that you're playing What was the insult?
It was just a joke that started. Actually I don't even remember how
it started, but it was something between myself and Iron Cheek and UH and
our friend Kevin Iolie who's the boxing reporter, the writer, columnists and MMA
for Yahoo Sports. So it just sort of became a thing, and also
our publicist friend Fred Sternberg, and it just sort of became like, you
know, don't drink the sprite, you know, I can't I listen.
I was so sad when I saw that he had passed, because he just
as as back and forth as there was every time I read his timeline or
see his tweets pop up, whether it was about anything or it was him
going at me, which he would just randomly do from time to time for
no particular reason, just to stir things up. The He just he made
things fun and it was it was like a diversion, and I just enjoyed
it immensely and said to see him go. I mean, as I said
in my tweet about his passing, at some point, I will have to
hoist. I'm not a big beer drinker, but in the in the in
the honor of the legend, I'll typical beer in favor in honor of the
of the late great Iron Sheet. All right, so I'll share a few
things with you about this number one. A lot of times in the creation
of Vince McMahon or of other professional wrestling promoters, the evil heels, the
foreigners were not really from the country where they were from. Cheeky Baby was
really a legit Iranian and at a time again when they were able to play
off the whole us I ran viewed, that was with the hostages and whatever,
they were able to play off of this because he was a heel or
a villain from Iran legitimately and singing the Iranian national anthem with the flag.
And that's the same with Volkoff, with the wrestler that that wrestled under the
name Nicolai Volkoff also a Russian authentic on both of those. So ill,
yeah, I follow a lot of I follow a lot of people and things
on Twitter. I think of the I don't know what I followed four hundred
something three hundred something things. Following the Iron Cheeker is probably the most fun
thing. They're signally entertaining. So I remember seeing them at a house show
that was not televised in Tampa. You know, I say that it was
not televised. I don't think the whole card was televised because they were wrestling
a couple of nobodies, and that may have been the televised part of it.
At the at the what's what's now known as the Yngling Center on the
campus at the University of South Florida, they would wrestle there all the time.
What was the Sundome where the likes of Hulkogan, Macho Man, Randy
Savage, all of those guys to WWF. That's the same here. I
covered a key fight at that building, that's correct. You and I were
in the building when I were in the building that night. We just didn't
know each other yet. In twenty fifteen and around the media area for thurmon
Colozzo July twenty fifteen. But they would wrestle at the Sundome probably once every
ninety days. The WWF would come down here and the Chic and Volkoff had
the tag team titles. But they were wrestling a couple of nobodies, and
I think they were doing it on TV. I remember it was one of
those I went there two or three times to see them the WWF, and
so sometimes it was full television where you know, all the all the lights
are on and you could see Vince McMahon and Bobby heen In doing the commentary
one time. But then there were other times when it was darkened in the
arena and they were actually wrestling a different a different match, or maybe the
sheep was wrestling as a solo wrestler, let's say, for example's house,
and it was not being televised. It was only there for the for the
card and for the build up. But I remember he and Volkof very vividly
with the belts. This is this is probably eighty four or eighty five wrestling
a couple of nobodies, nondescript, seeing them and the heat, as the
wrestlers describe it, the crowd, the anger that either the cheering or the
anger. The heat. The heat was palpable on hating those guys, and
the chic loved it and loved playing it up. So that's one thing that
I would say in addition to him be an Iranian. But there's another thing
coming up. To go ahead, I think we need to get onto the
box here, I'll have to put you in the Chemel clutch. I understand
it. But one more thing. One of the all time breaks of cover
ever is when they caught the Chic and Hack saw Jim Duggan in a traffic
stop with drugs in the car, and it came out that they were riding
together and they were buddies. That was a big subplot and controversy and around
there with the iron cheek, but it came around after that. So yes,
r I p to the Chic and the Camel clutch forever. All right,
So good stuff. Let's get into the fights and we will we will
kind of go chronologically, all right. So first of all, you obviously
I have done some work with Fight TV that's out there on on a freelance
basis, on your many endeavors for this Adrian Broner fight card that is Friday
night in Miami. Broner and Bill Hutchinson, who is literally a lawyer by
trade in addition to being a boxer. All right, give me a little
preview here because Broner's a multi time divisional champion. I will ask this on
behalf of the audience, why should we care about this legitimately. Why should
we care about this go ahead? Well, it's not a matter of I
mean, there's there's lots of fights that are much bigger that some people care
about, some people don't. Broner has a certain fan base, There's no
doubt about it. Whether you love Murray hate him, He's been one of
the biggest names in the sport for a number of years. As far as
my involvement with Fight, I've known those guys and done some work with them
here and there over the years. For this particular event, they did a
sort of preview show, but instead of running it as the full show on
Fight on the app like they often will do, they took it and they
cut it up into a variety of different spots to use on their social media,
And it was I was hired to do a thing with Don King,
who was the promoter of the fight obviously now has signed Adrian Brunner. So
you know, I've known Don for a long long time and we did an
interview and that's been what they've used for some of the promotion of the event.
But just for the record, it ain't like anybody at Fight or anybody
at Don's office said anything to me about you know, what to ask,
That's all, you know. I asked what I want to ask. I
would never I would never take the check from somebody if I couldn't ask what
I wanted to ask at an event. No, why did they care about
Bruner? Look, he's a four divisional world champion. He's had a lot
of struggles. At one time in his career, he was obviously on people's
pound for pound lists. That's a long time ago. And I think everybody
loves a reclamation story, a rebound, a recovery, whatever it is.
And I don't know if he's going to do anything with this opportunity, but
he has an opportunity. I look at this like like this DJ, he's
a guy that that was basically you know, left PBC and Showtime. I
don't think they were like worried about that. They're sort of like, don't
let the door hit you on the way out kind of situation. After he
had layoffs and problems and then pulled out of a fight on less than a
week's notice, he said it was for mental health reasons. UM a couple
of times, and yeah, he's had a lot of financial problems, jail
problems. I mean, you know, weight problems, you name it.
I mean he's had those problems, and at least he admits it, okay,
So that's one thing. And the other thing about it is after that
situation where he left showtime in PBC, he signed with fanfare, this three
fight deal with b LK Prime, which then went nowhere because they couldn't deliver
anything for him with Noah's surprise there and they're basically done anyway, and he
was looking for like a landing spot, somebody to give him a chance,
and lo and behold, here comes Don King, who, in the twilight
of his career at age ninety one and without any real discernible talent in his
stable or top names or anybody he could build a show around. He figured,
like, you know what, let me give the kid a chance and
maybe the two of us can ride back into some kind of prominence together.
So again I'm not advocating the show. It's you know, if you want
to buy it, fine, it's like a twenty five dollars pay per view,
it's whatever. It's actually some okay stuff on the undercard, but Broner
is a name and some people are interestaid. So he's fighting Bill Hutchinson,
who, like you said, he's a club fighter but an attorney by trade.
He's talking a good game. He hasn't lost in seven years, even
though it hasn't fought anybody of consequence. And the hilarious part is they're making
jokes about the whole lawyer thing, you know, whereas Don King is saying,
you know, Adrian Broner you know has always uh you know, had
never had a problem, you know, dealing with lawyers for his legal problems,
and you know he's saying Broner saying, well, now that I know
you're a lawyer, you know I might need a good lawyer. So after
I after, I know you'll put up a fight against me. So after
I beat you, I know you'll put up a fight for me in the
courtroom and I'll hire you. And it was just very it was in all
in good fun and all on good humor. So listen, I'm not advocating.
I'm simply saying, let people know it. Adrian Browner, who had
a huge following and was in some big fights and was on the premium cable
network's HBO and Showtime for a lot of years, well he's back in action
on Friday night, and that's that. There you go on that one.
Likewise, the showbox card on Friday Wall, we just go chronologically. We'll
have a couple of light heavyweight showdowns. Ali As Mailoff in the main event
against Charles Foster, and then a guy that we got to talk to a
little bit on Thursday as we released the podcast in a very lively personality.
Richard Van Sicklin is his name. He's a fighter out of Seattle, Washington,
grew up on the West Coast and what a story, Dan Raphael.
He's in the co feature fight on Showbox in and out of homeless shelters and
then later gets to college, got a college degree and that's where he picked
up boxing at the University of Washington in Seattle. Richard was very perstable.
We've written about him a little bit on the side as we released the podcast.
Here he's in the co feature fight and I brought up to him,
there's the opportunity for both of these guys, for anybody they these two fights,
because there are not a lot of prominent American light heavyweights right now.
So we'll see what happens in the show box card that's in and around the
hall. Of Fame weekend setting. I know you've touched on that. That'll
be a Friday night, all right, right, they're taking the fights are
taking place at the Turning Stone Resort, this you know in Verona, New
York, which is literally like about ten minutes down the highway from the Hall
of Fame in Canastota. But the induction ceremonies for many years, the induction
ceremonies took place at the Hall of Fame in front of the building in this
big open area. Last year because they had this huge class of three classes
at once because everything was delayed because of COVID, and now again this year
they're doing the actual induction ceremonies in the arena that's at the Turning Show where
I have covered several fights over the years. So the activities will take place
in the same spot where the boxing matches are Friday. They try to do
a show around the Hall of Fame every year. And I am interested in
the card from the standpoint, not so much specifically for the fight that you
mentioned with the with Van Sicklin and the co feature, but the main event
that the other light heavyweight that's the so called A side if you will,
But I guess they're both a sides because they're both undefeated. That's Ali Ismailov,
who is ten and oh thirty year old. He's from Russia. He
lives in Detroit. He's part of Salida Promotions, where Salida has a number
of Russian fighters that have based themselves out of Detroit. He is fighting in
the main event against Charles Foster, who is twenty two and oh with twelve
knockouts from Connecticut. And they're one guy, you know, Ismaelov is thirty
Foster or thirty three, so they're not young guys. If they're going to
do something, it's time to get a move on, and it's sort of
like the winner of the fight, it seems to me, is going to
have an opportunity to really step up into a bigger fight, because, like
you said, there's not a lot of prominent American light heavyweights presently. I
guess the most unless I'm missing one, I guess the most prominent. I
guess would say is what Joe Smith who's been out riving for a year now
since he got beaten by by a better be up in their unification fight last
June. So there's a chance in look light heavyweights. Sometimes they can provide
a lot of good action. It seems like these guys are the types of
fighters that you know, I think will come forward and hopefully make a good
fight. And uh, and even if I didn't know that, just knowing
the way that Showtime and Gordon Hall, who runs the series, go about
trying to match these fights, particularly on a big weekend like the Hall of
Fame weekend where there's gonna be a lot of boxing folks around. Uh,
you know, at the fight, et cetera. They want to put on
a good show. And so you know, I always love showbox cards and
this is a pretty nice one if you ask. And again, Vince Van
Sickling, because we talked to him, is twenty nine, So again to
your point, he's not a spring chicken either. They gotta get going.
These guys know that right now at this point in their career. So let's
see, he's taking on He's taking another undefeated fighter, one Carilla Carreo,
who was a thirty Also he's a twenty and sixteen olympian from Colombia. So
you know, they seem like pretty solid matches to me. I mean,
we'll find out on Friday night after I watched them, but uh uh,
you know not, I gotta be honest, Not every Showbox like catches my
fancy. This is this is a card that I looked at him, like,
you know what, I'm actually want to see these two and what are
they up to? They're up to over fifty is it over seventy? Is
it over seventy five future world champions that have fallen on that series over the
last twenty twenty one years. It's a ton that eventually more than that.
I mean, they like to uh you know, they always advertise it in
their press announcements, and I know they keep track of all that. But
suffice it to say, there as dozens of fighters that went from being on
Showbox as prospects to becoming future World Champions. There's numerous guys on that on
that series. Love that, all right, And we'll get more into the
Hall of Fame, which the induction again is on Sunday as they lay it
out, because there are fight cards this weekend, including one in New York.
Let's get to that highly anticipated now. As we get to the weekend,
Josh Taylor defending the WBO version of the one hundred and forty pound title
used to have all the belts. He's the lineal champions, that's the bottom.
But he used to have all the belts, and then he said discard,
discard, discard. He in the last year is now discarded three of
them, still as the w BO title, and he will take on Teya
Fimo Lopez, former unified champion at one thirty five in a very intriguing fight
again Hulu Theater adjacent to Madison Square Garden for this main event Top rank ESPN
main event. All right, give me some more as we build towards this
as we released the podcast and get ready for Saturday night in New York.
I mean, it's a it's an excellent matchup. They're both guys who have
shown you great talent and great ability to have some big wins on their record.
But they also are both two fighters that enter this fight with a lot
of question marks around them, which is sort of what makes it interesting.
Like if they fight as if they're at their best that we've seen them at
in the past, you know it could be a really dynamite fight. Now,
of course, Tiafimo has made his name as a lightweight, not as
a junior wealth rate. He's only had two fights in the junior wealth rate
division and there weren't They were not the kind of fights where you would necessarily
want to so call the right home about them. He had the debut in
the weight class, which was August of last year, again Pago Campa.
Now he did stop Campa, kind of a journeymanish type of guy. Didn't
look great, but look good enough. You know, he was coming off
an injury, coming off, you know, a long layoff after he had
lost the lightweight titles in that fantastic fight with George Campbosis in the big upset,
but he got to win under his belt against Campa. His next fight
took place in December in New York. Also that was a more of a
struggle. He got knocked down in the second round. He ended up winning
a decision against Sandra Martini when a split decision. It was an awfully close
fight. He was so emotional after that fight, talking in the ring to
nobody in particular to why I still have it anymore? He was so fragile
after that fight mentally that his team and top rank would not let him come
to the press commerce as though we were going to show you know, ask
him nasty questions that would you know, put him further into a hole and
anything he didn't show up at the press commers. I mean, I gotta
tell you, I've covered boxing a long time. Unless the guy's got an
injury, I don't remember there ever being a guy that was the winner not
coming to a press commerce. So take that for what it's worth. So
he's got a lot, he's got a lot of proven to do because he
was admitted by the way, he's got other personal problems. He's now divorced
since then, So there are a lot of question marks about him between the
years, no doubt. But the thing about it is also if Tifimo was
at his best, which we've seen him look absolutely spectacular against fighters like Richard
Comey, who he started in two rounds also in New York to win the
first of the lightweight belts he won, we saw he looked the way he
looked when he had the big upset against Vasili Lomachenko to uh, you know,
win in their unification fight that took place, you know, in the
bubble back in during the pandemic in October of twenty and twenty. So if
the Tifimo Lopez that fought the way he did against guys like Richard Comey and
Vesaile Lomachenko and obviously several of the other fighters that he was blown out of
the water, you know who are pretty good fighters like Diego Magdalena who he
destroyed and you know Mason Menard with the one punch knockout. And you know,
even even though it was a struggle, a very solid win against Maso
Yishi Nakatani that was in the elimination fight like that, Tifimo Lopez, you
know, is the real deal. And with Josh Taylor, you know you
ask. So Now Tifimo goes into his third fight in this Way division.
He is the mandatory challenger from the w BO and he's taken on Taylor,
who is undefeated at nineteen and oh, coming all the way from Scotland to
do this fight. He has a tremendous resume and there's a reason why most
people have had him as the number one guy in the Way class for a
while. You know, go back before he was a champion, he had
beaten a guy like Victor Postal when Victor Postall was still really really good.
He was then in the tournament, you know, the World Boxing Super Series
you know, kind of got an easy win against Ryan Martin in that first
round of that tournament. But then he won the IBF title in a very
good performance against Ivan Branchik, who was always in good fights, who was
undefeated at the time that they fought. And then he got into the final
and he met the undefeated Regious program. They put on a fight of the
Year caliber fight. Josh Taylor won a majority decision. You know, there
are some that would say, you know, hey, if that fight was
in the United States or it was not in his you know, in his
backyard in the UK, maybe Regis gets to win. But whatever it was,
I mean, I don't consider that to be some kind of like hugely
controversial fight. Was just like a tremendous fight, super close, and Josh
gott his hand raise. So that was a great win for him. You
know, he had a little bit of layoff because of the pandemic, so
when he came back he had this extraordinarily unworthy mandatory from Thailand who had just
pummeled in one round. But then he came to the States. I mean,
so he's kind of a road warrior in that respect, and that was
to meet Jose Ramirez who had the other two titles at the time when Josh
had the other two belts, and they fought for the undisputed championship, and
he scored two knockdowns against Josier and Marrison an otherwise dead even fight, and
when it was all said and done, he wins unanimous decision, one fourteen
to one twelve on the three cards. The difference obviously from a victory in
a draw was those two knockdowns, and so he's riding high. He's undisputed.
It's like a big deal in Scotland where he's from. You know,
his idol was Ken Buchanan who had done it as a lightweight. You know,
so he enters sort of Scottish boxing history and the lore of the great
fighters from Scotland. And so he then had his one of his mandatories to
do in the WBL, which was against Jack Catterall, who was an undefeated
British fighter. They put on that fight in February of last year and then
sort of the ship hit the fans, so to speak. He won a
split decision. It was a razor close fight, but he got the call
and it became a if you think that people thought that like Lomachenko and Haney
was controversial. This was off the charts, like the British fans and medium
went absolutely hog wild on this. By the way my hands up from a
distance. I thought Catterall won that fight. He also knocked Taylor down.
There were some controversial points taken away from each fighter by our friend, the
referee, Marcus McDonald, who always seemed to get it was messy. But
I thought Catterall won that fight. And Taylor came out of that fight with
a lot of people saying you didn't beat him, And then the tango started
with is there gonna be a rematch? And the tangoes like fifteen months in
counting Raphael Well, so what happened was he looked And this always drives me
crazy about boxing fans, and you know it happens oftentimes. Josh Taylor was
not the judge of the fight. Jack Catterall was not the judge of the
fight. Those two guys went in the ring and did their job. They
thought the best that they could and so whatever the result is, no blame
should be cast on either boxer. But unfortunately people take their ire out on
the guy that gets to win that maybe they don't think he deserves to win.
So Jack Catterall took a lot of criticism. Okay, so he didn't
then maybe have his best fight, but it's not like he was the guy
filling out the scorecards after each round. So I always get annoyed when when
fighters, uh you know, get dumped on by fans or media for that
matter, because of things that are out of their control. So in my
career, I'm proud to say you you can go and search my archives for
twenty three years of everything I've ever written, I've never taken a shot at
a fighter for a control controversial decision and somehow blame them for the result.
You know, talk to the judges about that. But the bottom line was
he was so affected by that that he wanted the rematch. So you know,
that was the reason why he ended up vacating or being stripped of the
three other belts because they had other he had immediate mandatories and other organizations.
He was like, no, I don't want that. I want to take
on Jack Catterall in the rematch, and and you know, right the you
know, make sure that I proved that I really did deserve that win.
And also, by the way, because of the controversy of the other fighters
that were available for him those other mandatories. The Catterall fight, from a
financial perspective and a high profile perspective, was clearly the biggest fight. They
had multiple deals to make the fight. There was a lot of things that
happened. Both guys had injuries, there was I think a COVID related situation.
There was like a logistical thing in terms of the date where they had
to move it because of sky, and it got postponed several times. And
then the last draw was when Josh suffered an injury to his foot and it
was going to put the fight off another month or two. And at that
point this is going back I guess late last year earlier this year, and
the WBO stepped in and said, listen, we've given you a lot of
rope on this, enough is enough, and they called the mandatory against Tiofimo.
I guess it must have been earlier this year because when Tiofimo defeated Sandra
Martin in the fight we just mentioned a few minutes ago, that was the
elimination fight. So Tiofimo becomes the mandatory and tired of waiting for that title,
to be active. They ordered that fight, so he goes instead of
fighting the rematch with Catera, who then switched promoters. He's not with matcham
whatever. Now we have Caterell doing his thing, and we've got Josh Taylor
coming back to the United States to fight Tifimo Lopez in New York, which
is where Tiofimo was originally from. And it shapes up like a really interesting
fight between two excellent fighters, both of whom have a lot of questions.
Is Jack Catterall still I'm at Jack? Call Josh Taylor as good as we
think he is the way he looked when he beat Jose Ramirez or Regius Program
or you know, blew out the mandatory from Thailand? Or is he going
to struggle again when he looks so great against Jack Caterall? And now he's
had, you know, a year and a half off because that fight against
Jack was in February of last year, so he's coming off a tremendous layoff
and he's been you know, he had talked about maybe going a welterweight,
maybe there's a weight issue, who the heck knows. And then you got
Ti Timo, who has been more active, fair enough but he's got two
fights where he looks particularly great, and before that he got beaten in a
very brutal, harsh, difficult fight of the year kind of fight against Cambosas.
So there's a lot of question marks about about Tifimo also, especially now
that he's not as a lightweight anywhere, but now he's fighting one hundred and
forty pounds. So two guys who have been among the best out there for
the last several years, but both with a lot of questions, and I
think that leads to a highly intriguing fight. And by the way, I'll
just interject us, I know what you meant with all of what you said.
Catterall got screwed out of this whole thing because the hymning and hauling with
where's the date, what's the fight? And then the champ gets hurt,
and then the champ suddenly decides, Okay, I gotta go fight a mandatory
and fight somebody else. Uh yeah, I can I can appreciate where he's
frustrated at this point because he's wanted a rematch for over a year instead of
I think, yeah, he may have been, but he was he was
ready to go earlier this year and they were supposed to have fought earlier this
year, but that wasn't wasn't That wasn't Taylor's fault though, that was you
know, there was one of the times when I got postponed, but I
believe I'm correct. The recent time is a tailor foot injury, like you
said, which put it off earlier this year, or they would have fought
and before somebody else. But before that it was neither it was an injury
or anything to either fighter. It's because the the broadcaster in the UK,
which was going to pay all out of the freight, which was Sky,
they decided there was some other fight that was being postponed and they opted to
do that fight instead of the other fight, and they pushed off the Tailor
and Cadarell rematch. So there's you know, it's one of those deals where
it's not the kind of thing you're gonna blame anybody. It's not the fox.
The boxer got injured. Maybe one of the boxers, I forget if
it was. There was one that was a COVID and there was a network
thing. I mean, it's just one of those things where it was sort
of like snake Bit and listen at the end of the day. Hopefully down
the road, you know, whatever happens in the fight on Saturday, and
whatever happens with Catterall going forward. He did just come back on his first
fight with Matchman, get a victory in the last couple of weeks that someday,
you know, whether it's at one forty or at one forty seven,
for a title, not for a title, just because there is that question
about who should have rightfully won. That they can at some point in their
careers before they're done, have a rematch, But in the meantime it's more
important. Right now, the big fight is Josh against Tiefimo Lopez, and
it should be a good fight, all right. It should be some kind
of atmosphere real quick. On the undercard, Xander Zayas is there, and
what else on this undercard Top ranks Saturday Night in York. Yeah, well,
Xander's eyes is in the core feature. He's in an eight rounder,
you know. And the reason, one of the big reasons that the fights
in New York is because this fight is on Puerto Rican Parade Day weekend,
and obviously the main event. One guy from Scotland, one guy who's a
background you know, he's an American, but his background is from Honduras,
which is where he represented for the for the Olympic Games. But Xander's eyes,
he's the He's the Puerto Rican star and waiting. He's undefeated, so
they wanted to kind of have him and have some of his people have something
to come out. Now. I don't know what's gonna happen with the parade
New York now that I think about it, given all the craziness with the
air quality of what's going on. As everybody knows in the East Coast.
You know, we've got a terrible air quality here down in Virginia where they're
canceling all the outdoor activities for the schools and and all that kind of business.
But it's the same in New York. But the bottom of the belief
as we release the podcast is it will be better Friday afternoon Friday night,
according to the weather people, and especially by Saturday. That a lot of
it is allegedly supposed to I'm just giving you a meteorological update. If you're
in the Northeast and listening to us, it's allegedly supposed to be better as
Friday turns to Friday night, and to Saturday, so maybe they can have
it. We don't know, that is your point right now. Yeah,
but Xander is on the card for that reason because the top rank people and
the Madison Square Garden people view him rightfully. So at fifteen and oz and
a very young man as having uh the ability in the future. You know,
he's only twenty years old. Xander's eyes, I mean, he's a
tremendous you know, talent that this is his first time fighting on the Puerto
Rican Day weekend. It's an important deal for him and for his people.
And so he's taken on Ronald Cruz, which is a little bit of a
step up for him. That's the co feature. That'll be the second fight
featured on the on the ESPN broadcast obviously everything is on ESPN Plus. And
then we got somebody other Puerto Rican prospects. A kid like Henry Lebrone is
on there. Another Puerto Rican fighter they have put him on the show.
They have another kid undefeated fighting name Omar Rozario is tenan O on there,
so he's on there. So they're featuring top ranks some of their undefeated and
up and coming Puerto Rican kids. But there's other good prospects on it.
Also Bruce shoes Shoe Carrington, who's a New York fighter, a featherweight.
This kid is if you were ranking like the top prospects at top rank beyond
Jared Anderson and Xanders Aias and Keyshan Davis, you would definitely have Bruce Carrington
on that shortlist, no doubt about it. He is seven and oh was
a good amateur, dynamic kind of fighter. So there's a lot of talent
on the card. He got Jermaine Ortiz coming back off of his loss against
tie against the Silievo Machango. This is the first fight of the deal that
he did a co promotion now between his promoter Jimmy Birchfield and Top Ranks,
so he's back in action. Robinson Consasal one hundred and thirty pounder, former
world title challenger twice against Oscar Valdez and shok Course Stevenson Olympic Olympic gold medal
winner. He's on the card. So you know, there's some a lot
of talent on the car. But the only two fights on the main ESPN
broadcast are obviously the world title fight and then Xanders Aias, But a lot
of talent on the show, and I always enjoy watching the way that Top
Rank brings along its prospects courtesy of the matchmaker, Brad Goodman, who goes
into the Hall of Fame. We'll talk about the Hall of Fame a little
bit later in the show, but yeah, that's the that's the top rank
card, so I look forward to checking it out. We are looking forward
to that, and again it's in the Hulu Theater. It should be quite
an atmosphere in there, especially with Zaia's fighting in the co feature and then
Tea Fimo in the main event. Let's move along, and we do have
some some news and some nostalgia before we're done. We're not done yet though,
with the intriguing fights. Let's swing all the way out to Ontario,
California, where Saturday night, the Golden Boy main event is himI Mungia,
the former WBO one hundred and fifty four pound champ, the former number one
rank contender by the w BO for over two plus years, who never fought
for the WBO title. Here we go, and I see you shake on
your head with career mismanagement. So now this is actually a super middleweight fight
with Sergei de Revanchenko. That's the main event. And okay, so it's
a it's as you said at the top of the podcast, it's a bigger
name that he's fighting. But the the overarching theme is the mismanagement of Mungia
to this point, finally fighting a reputable name and can we finally get him
in the ring against a world champ if he's victorious, like we expect that
he will be in this sometime in our lifetime. Well, I mean,
listen, I hope so, because he's a good fighter, he's very exciting.
And the thing that just blows my mind about the way they've handled his
career when I say they it's I mean, part of it's on the kid,
because you know, he's a grown man. He's got the ability to
have his opinion. But he's got two promoters and Golden Boy and and Zan
for promotions. Um, you know, he listens a lot to his to
his trainer, Eric Morales, the great Hall of Famer, and for whatever
reason, they've been reticent to match him solid. I mean, it's really
kind of shocking to me because, Okay, maybe he's not like pound for
pound material, but the Duke can brawl and fight he's got a chin.
I mean, he makes great fights. He's got a certain fan base.
And you know as a junior, well a junior middleweight when he was when
he won his you know, his world title back to eighteen, Like he
didn't fight great opponents, but he you know, he won the title from
Saddam Ali. That was a legit win. Ali was coming off the victory
against Miguel Koto. He beat Liam Smith, which is now even that was
a good win at the time. It looks even better now given what Liam
Smith has been able to do in the last few fights. And uh,
you know he had a couple other defenses in there, and okay, so
things were moving along, no doubt. Trajectory was up. Yeah, and
now he's baby, what are we doing? So he goes up to middleway
in two thou and twenty and ever since then he's fought one guy with no
prayer after another. So Gary Spike, O'Sullivan no prayer. Now. Triano
Johnson was the one guy that was like at least a solid professional, had
a lot of injury problems and never really got to the promised land, but
he was an Olympian. He was you know, he had a lot of
injury issues, but he was a pretty good fighter, so I won't even
knock him for that. That at the time seemed to me like a pretty
reasonable matchup. But ever since then, you know, Zarametta who had been
smoke you know, smoked by Triple G, who was never blown. I'm
going to fight in the first place. You know, all due respect to
our good friend gab Brizzatto, but that was not a real fight. It
was a complete mismatch. Demitrius Valor was undefeated, but on test that he
got smoked in three rounds. Uh. You know, British journeyman Jimmy Kelly,
pathetic match, Gonzalo gastone Korea, even more pathetic match. That was
his last fight in November now finally, and then then they make all this
stuff that like calling out Charlo and we're calling out this guy, and we're
calling out Canello and we're calling out TRIPLEG. And give me a break to
fucking fight a real guy. So okay, they those guys for whatever reason,
didn't want the fight, didn't take the fight. I don't really blame
them. Charlot has been out for two years, that doesn't even fight at
super middleweight. You know, Canello calls his own shots, he's the champ.
Triple G is basically in at least I referred to an a semi retirement.
They did actually call Tripleg's people at about their interest to make a fight
for this particular slot that obviously did not come to pass. So now you
look around who's out there that we can make a fight with reasonably that at
least is a step up, who's a good fighter, who has some name
wreck ignition, And that's where deveren Schenko comes in. So now they're both
going from one sixty to one sixty eight, So it's not like a benefit
for either guy. They've both been middleweights and instead now they're fighting in super
middleweight. So I don't see there being any kind of you know, super
cries out because it's unfair because of the size advantage or disadvantage Defenschenko. You
know, it's a step up, that's the truth. Is it a top,
top, top guy. No, he's not a world champion, And
and we've discussed this in the past. I respect Sorget deveren Chenko. He
should have had his hand raised that night against triple G and won the middleweight
title. Addison Square Garden, a fight that I was at was a great
fight, fight of the Year candidate, but he didn't get to win.
He's got four losses. There are three of them are in world title fights,
all in close called decisions, and he has another loss that was on
a title fight, put to Carlos A. Thomas, who was a ten
rounder when now I was the interim WBC middleweight champion. And I think eventually
probably will be elevated, you know, because who knows what's going to happen
with Charlo. But the point I'm making here is this, and I've said
this before about other fighters. I'm always skeptical about guys whose reputation is built
on losses, solely built the losses. Devin Chango doesn't have a single win
on his record against a top guy. But what he does have is a
highly competitive loss to Danny Jacobs in a fight where it could have gone either
way. He has the loss that he probably should have won against Lufkin.
He challenged Charlot Jamala. Charlo for the middleweight belt, gave him a great
fight in twenty twenty, has the majority decision loss against a Damas. So
he's got these close losses, but at some point you got are all losses,
amen, They're all losses. Yeah, but it is a step up
for Mungia. He does come to fight. He has been involved in some
exciting fights that have been highly entertaining, and the Triple G fight being the
one that's most memorable. Even the Charlot fight was a heck of a fight.
Also, So if Mungia is not fighting the top elite guys, at
least he's fighting a recognizable opponent who's got a body of work that is solid
against good opposition. And hopefully if he if Mungia wins, we will see
him in a real uh not I shouldn't say a real fight, but a
bigger fight against a better name. And if Devin Chenco happens to get the
win, great upset for him. Good for him. You know, he's
a very likable guy and has had some hard luck losses like I mentioned,
and I suspect by the way Mungi and Devin Chenko has got a chance to
be a really good fight. So it may not be a world championship fight,
it may not be the biggest names of all time, but I think
that's got a heck of a chance to be something that we'll be talking about
on the recap podcast is hey, that was a hell of a fight,
all right. We'll find out again that's the main event, Golden Boy later
in the in the evening main event, probably somewhere around the main event time
of Taylor and Lopez. We give or take how long the undercard takes,
because again that's in the West. On Golden Boy Taylor Lopez one, that's
pretty easy to figure it out. The ESPN main card broadcast is at ten
PM, and the first fight is an eight rounder and they'll they'll, you
know, type it up and if it goes to distance, you got to
figure Ti Fimo and Josh are in the ring about eleven o'clock, you know,
if the opener is an eight rounder and it doesn't take that long.
And they're gonna do their preview stuff and I'm sure they're gonna do a nice
segment on on Timothy Bradley going in the Hall of Fame, who obviously is
not going to be there because he's gonna be uh in Cannistoda for his first
induction ceremony. And then, as you mentioned, the Mongia card that's on
his zone. They get on the air at nine o'clock Eastern time, and
they've got a four fight card altogether, so there'll be three preliminaries that you'll
see and then you know, back it out. I mean, yeah,
Unfortunately, they're gonna probably be around the same time. That's life, we
all. But if the undercard fights, if the undercard fights are Golden Boy,
go a little longer because there's more of them. It will be later.
And if I'm trying to remember, if I'm remembering correctly, the ROACHA
main event was well after nine Pacific time, well after midnight Eastern time Ian
California, just a couple of weeks ago. We'll see, we'll see when
the Mongia on the timeline fight takes place. But my um, the way
I will handle things is the priority is Taylor Lopez. No, it's not
a knock on Monia, but that's that's the real Junior Walter Wild champions in
that fight. And listen, there could be a non title fight that is
just a much better fighter, much bigger name that if it was a world
title fight. I'm not basing it solely on the names or the titles,
but in the case of Taylor and Lopez, it's the real title in that
weight class, and they're two of the top guys. And in the case
of the other fight, I'm interested in the fight. I think it's going
to be a good fight, but it pales in comparison in terms of significance.
So I'm rolling with the world championship fight. That's what I'll pay attention
to on that night, and I will certainly make it a point to watch
the mongia A fight as well and then and I'll get to that when I
get to it. Now, if we get somehow it gets, we get
lucky and they don't somehow overlap, then that's just a bonus, all right,
one more championship fight to talk about them. We'll get to a little
hall of fame and a little nostalgia before we're done. Sonny Edwards h the
IBA flyweight champion and Andre's compos who I do not know a whole lot about.
That's a good one. One Ladder come back. This is the main
event of the match Room show earlier in the day, US time, prime
time in London. Edwards again has got he's got some flash, he's good
on the mic. He's not a big time puncher. Give me a little
more on this from earlier in the day on our timeline. Well, first
of all, you said you know about his opponent, Andrea's Campos, who
was fifteen and oh from Chile. I'd be lying if I said I knew
a lot about him. I know a lot about a lot of fighters.
He's not a guy that I'm not familiar with. But they're both undefeated.
Sonny is nineteen and oh. He's an excellent boxer, as you you described
them perfectly. He's got a great gift for the talking on the mic and
h and hyping himself up. But he's more of a boxer than a puncher.
Obviously, he's a very technical fighter, and he's defending his flightwaight title.
But the key here is this, he just signed with Matchem. He
was, you know, he was one of the guys that was with I
guess Probellum that became free after all that business went out, you know,
after MTK went out of business and then Probellum went out of business. So
Sonny Edwards now finally got himself a real promoter who has fighters in his weight
class. So the ideas he hasn't fought since January. Not January, Sonny
Edwards, I'm saying hasn't fought in a while, hasn't fought since the end
of two twenty two, so it's about a seven month or so layoff,
not a huge layoff, but the idea here is get back in the Akit
defense and if you win now we go into a unification fight at the end
of the year. So rather than a wait to go a year without a
fight, get this fight in chake Off whatever Russer might be, you know,
show the new audience what you can do, because he hasn't really been
on his own or on the matchroom cards. And after this there's a very
good chance that they will make a fight between Sonny Edwards and Bamadriguez in a
unification where possibly against Julio sees Our Martinez and for two of the other titles.
But the point is he's gonna get one of these bigger fight sets what
Eddie wants to do, and those are good matchups because they pit the boxer
in Sonny and either if it's Bam or it's Julio sees Our Martinez, they're
more of the brawler types. They would probably both be quit pretty appealing fight.
So this is his chance to go in there, have a showcase,
and you know, we'll see if Campos is fifteen to old record it means
anything or not. All right, we will find down in that one match
room show again, main event Saturday afternoon in the US, Saturday night Primetime
in London for Sonny Edwards and for that card. All right, Then on
Sunday, as you've already alluded to a couple of times, and we've talked
about leading up to this, the Hall of Fame induction will take place.
Timothy Bradley, Carl Frog, Raphael Marquez or all part of it. I
know this is a special time. Say a couple more things about it,
because the induction ceremony Sunday, well, I just love the Hall of Fame
inductions. I mean, you know, people like to come, like every
boxing family likes to bitch and moan about this guy Sholgain or that woman sh
again and or this person doesn't deserve it whatever. All I know is they
got a great class going in on Sunday. I've been to the Hall of
Fame induction ceremonies before. I've been to All of Fame many times. I
grew up not that far from there, and I would just say to anybody
that's listening. That's a boxing fan. And if you're listening to our podcast,
obviously you're a boxing fan. Put it on your bucket list, make
it, make it a goal or a you know, a plan for some
time. It's a nice weather at this time of year. It's a beautiful
part of upstate New York. And I'm maybe I'm biased because, like I
said, I grew up not too from there. It's a beautiful part of
the country. And and take in the Hall of Fame because you walk through
the doors and it's not a big museum. It's pretty small, and they've
got a you know, a couple of areas to look at all the exhibits
and all that. But if you go on the Hall of Fame weekend,
you have the benefit of the weekend plus all those stuff at the museum.
It just I mean, you walk in, the history just flows from that
place. You look to your side, there's Sugar Ray Leonards the road when
he was fighting for the title. There's the handcat they make the fists casting
of all the great champions. When they go to All of Fame, there's
you know, the fifths of all the great Champions. There's Burt Sugars typewriter.
There's you know, this championship belt, this photograph, that video plane
in the corner. Just just a remarkable, incredible place. I used to
cover high school and college sports in my early days as a sports journalist,
and oftentimes would have to travel across New York in the car to go to
the western part of the state to cover one of our teams, either in
a playoff game or something like that. And you just drive straight out the
New York stay through away from where I was working in the in the Capitol
District in the Saratoga area, and I would purposely leave early to make my
Like I got to go to Syracuse to cover like a high school football game,
and I would leave a little early, and I would make it a
point because the Hall of Fame is literally right off the highway, like a
couple hundred yards. You can see it from the highway. And I would
go to the Hall of Fame, walk around for like forty five minutes,
have a little lunch or you know, take a leak, and then get
back in the car and head off to my ball game that I got to
cover. So I have a long history of devotion and love for the Boxing
Hall of Fame way before I was covering boxing. But the latest inductions that
take place this weekend. The main event, if you will, are the
three modern in the category they call modern men, and that's great champions.
I you know, I covered all three of them. They were in some
tremendous fights. They're all worthy Hall of Famers. I voted for all three
of them, and that's Timothy Bradley Jr. Two division world champion at junior
walterweight and walter wait only loss of his career were to Manny pacya Carl Froch,
former unified champion in the super middleweight division. If you take a look,
go on box wreck. Look at Carl Fratch's record from the time he
fought for his first world title against John Pescal at one hundred and sixty eight
pounds to the end of his career, which I want to say spanned about
twelve fights thereabouts. Literally every single fight he had was like against King Kong,
except for one fight he had a little bit of a walkover in a
soft touch against u Sef Mac But every other fight out there was tough,
whether it was in the tournament against nickl kester twice where he split those two
fights but avenged the loss against andre Ward obviously a loss in the tournament final.
But he also beat Arthur Abraham, and he beat George Groves two times,
and he beat a Lucian Boutet, a fight I was ringside for that
was a spectacular event where he was the underdog in his hometown and he scored
the knockout to win back one of the titles. I mean as worthy.
Him and Bradley are as worthy Hall of famers as you can get in my
opinion. And yeah, I wrapped the al Marquez who was probably most famous
for the four fight series, really three fights, because we talked about the
fourth fight the way we talked about Rocky five or Star Trek five. We
just this vow that that fight. But the first three fights between Raffael Marquez
and Israel Vasquez are three of the greatest action fights of boxing ever. Uh
kind of underrated. I mean they're right up there with the level of Barrera
Morale's, Gaddy Ward. I mean, pick an action fight from our our
times and it's right up there. So those were what he's most famous for.
But he also had a long and distinguished uh uh track record as a
band away champion, which is really was when he was at his best.
Actually he made like eight or nine defenses. I think he won all of
them by knockout or or most of them by or I think every one of
them by knockout point. And he's he's he's one Daniel Marquez's younger brother.
That's not the reason he's in the All of Fame. But what it does
is it is the uh, not so common occurrence of you know, two
championship brothers in the Boxing Hall of Fame. And Rafael Marquees, by the
way, made it to the Hall of Fame by losing his professional debut,
if I'm not mistaken, which is not that you talked about that before,
right, Yes, you talked about that before, about overcome that's that's not
the most common thing in the world. So, you know, for him
to to come back from that and carve himself out a Hall of Fame career,
you know, and he's been on the ballat for a few years.
This is not a guy you know, Frach and Bradley, you know,
they they're getting in and there. They've only been on the ballot for a
couple of years each. But Marquez has been on for several years. But
but Raphael, he got stopped in his professional debut and he went out to
have a really outstanding career and made some big time, excellent fights. And
I'm throw for all three of those guys. Like I said, I got
to cover all three of them. I've I've interviewed all of them. Uh,
you know, I've known Bradley and Frach in particular, you know pretty
well over the years. Um couldn't be happy for those guys. And then
so that's those are the main the main attraction, if you will. But
then there's so many other deserving candidates that that made it in in the very
you know, there's other categories. Obviously, there's the women's category. You
have Alicia Ashley going in, Laura Serrano in the Modern Women, and then
you have there's also nine participants, and there's observers. You've got people like
Tim Ryan, one of the great voices of boxing on CBS. You I
know you and I grew up listening to with the team of Gil Clancy on
CBS for all those years. Just a great broadcaster. You got Seth Abraham,
who if you ever grew up watching what I consider the heyday of HBO
Boxing, which is really like the eighties to like maybe two thousand, you
know, mid two thousands. Seth Abraham was the boss of HBO Sports for
most of that time, and he created the the the tradition, if you
will, of the way that HBO was perceived by most people as the behemoth
of boxing in the United States and putting on and bank rolling literally the biggest
fights that there have been. And he also had a staff that worked from
I mean, think about the guys that he managed that he was their boss,
who became you know, superstars in their own right, Loud Debella,
Ross Greenberg, Mark Taffett. I mean, these are all guys that were
on his staff. That was a you know, a very uh professional and
just extraordinarily talented group of managers and executives that he worked with. But Seth
is a great guy, smart, uh understood what it took to have that
cohesiveness. He's the guy that you know, uh allowed his people to do
their things. So when Ross Greenberg, who was executive producer, you know,
decides let's put Harold Letterman, this was the groundbreaking let's have an actual
judge be the unofficial judge Seth was like, sounds good to me, and
he was the one that allowed that to happen. You know, there was
a lot of things that they did to innovate the way that we see boxing
intelligence because of his position. That's part of the reason box would be another
thing they introduced that with the conobios and the technology that now suddenly we have
a quantifiable look at how did that round go with punches thrown and punches landed.
It came out of the heyday of HBO. There's no one more interesting
thing at the point in time in which Don King and Seth Abraham got along.
That was the World Series of Heavyweight Boxing, remember from the nineteen eighty
seven and early eighty eight where they had the undisputed fight eventually where all the
champions eventually fought each other in a semi final and then a championship and Tyson
eventually won the undisputed championship beating Tony Tucker. That all came about because Don
King and Seth Abraham logistically worked it all out with who could fight who.
Well, here's here's your thing about Seth And this is why Seth sets a
real When I say he's a real man, okay, and to take that
this is what I mean by that. In today's boxing business or any business
for that matter, if you've got a guy that's like the money maker,
that's the star, so to speak, you know you're gonna basically bend over
backwards to do whatever you can. Seth Abraham stood up to Don King,
and when Don King tried to get Larry Merchant fired from HBO from his commentary
position because he was unhappy with his commentary about Mike Tyson, which was totally
within the realm of reality. It wasn't like Larry was on him saying the
things he was saying about Tyson when his entire career in life were falling apart,
and he was, you know, acting in a terrible way as a
person, and Larry called him out for it, and they basically, you
know, King tried to flex him and say, listen, it's either me
and Tyson or Larry, and seth Abraham goes go. Let the fucking door
hit you on the way out, and Mike Tyson and Don King left and
went to HBO. And at the time it was like, yeah, they
went to showtime. You know, you just let the biggest heavyweight star and
the biggest star in the sport walk out the door. What are you doing?
Well? Guess what? After Tyson left HBO and went to Showtime.
Yes, obviously was helpful of the Showtime. He ended up going to prison
and all that when he came out and got some big, huge mega events.
But after Tyson left HBO, I believe HBO had its greatest day as
they ever had. That was with the creation of Boxing after Dark. That
was in large measure from Lou de Bella, but the type of thing where
Set gave Lou the rope to do it, and they made a ton of
good fights. They invested in the smaller weight classes, they increased the number
of fights they did. It wasn't just quality that was also it was quantity
and quality. And again Set is a largely responsible for that. So I
have nothing but praise for him and what he did at HBO. Boxing boxing
could use more executives like Set paperm in my opinion. So that's another guy
that's going in who has been on the ballot for a few years, who
I have steadfast they voted for. I am thrilled to death that he is
in there. I like Sep a lot personally, you know, when I
first started at USA today in two thousand, he was nearing the end of
his before he left HBO. But I dealt with him quite a bit in
those first thing about that first year or so of my time that USA did,
and I have kept in touch with him every now and again over the
years. Just a smart guy who I have a tremendous amount of respect for.
I told you about Tim Ryan, and we got the two top ranked
guys now going in Brad Jacobs, who is the behind the scenes guy that
basically, you know, figures everything out. He's the one that created their
COVID protocols, He's the one that handles all the venue stuff. He handles
basically any problem that you could possibly imagine. And he's one of like the
only people I've ever known in boxing in my entire career that not only can
you not really find people that will say bad about him if you mentioned him,
they will come out and say nice things about him. Sure, that's
just the kind of guy that Brad is. He's a diligent worker, he
knows his shit. He's highly professional, and it's not just top ranks,
not the only place he's been. He worked for other places. He was
the guy that ran Roy Jones's business when he was at the top as a
pound for pound king. He was involved with you know here he started off,
he cut his teeth and your Arie in Tampa. And but he's also
well known for the guy that was essentially the rand The people remember that you're
a little our age. Maybe not you know, the younger kids, but
the great series Tuesday Night Fights on USA. Now, yes, Rad was
the guy that booked those fights. He ran that show and traveled the country
for you know what fifteen years or so running that show, which was tremendous
for boxing. So he's done a lot in the sport. And then,
you know, as we talked about last week, my very close personal friend
Brad Goodman, the top ranked matchmaker. We don't have to rehash all that,
but he's being inducted. It's a well deserved honor. He, in
my opinion, is the best matchmaker in business. And if you take a
look at the prospects, the top rank has developed from the zero and zero
out of the amateurs to world championships and stars over the last twenty years.
You know why I say that, because Brad Goodman is largely responsible for those
decisions of matching those fighters with the guys that they did to get them where
they went. So the combination of him and of course working with his mentor
of the Hall of Famer and also a great matchmaker, Bruce Trampler, Brad
has taken his place in Kandistowa alongside of Bruce Trampler. And it's a great
class. And I had not be remiss if I didn't mention the trainer Joe
Goosen, who was also being in this weekend, has trained plenty of champions.
You know, built up the Ruellis brothers from zero and zero at the
old Club shows that his family promoted in southern California. Of course, his
older brother Dan Goosen, the late great promoter. And besides being a great
trainer, by the way, Joe Goosen went out to have a distinguished career
as a broadcaster. You know him from his Fox days, but he also
did a lot of the fights on tv KO HBO, which was the precursor
to HBO pay per view back in the day. Of course, who could
forget this is just one example of him being in the corner of what I
consider the greatest spite of all time when Diego Caralis made the comeback against Jose
Luis Castillo with the classic line you better get fucking get inside on him.
Now that's not quite Angelo Dundee saying you're blowing its something, but it's right
up there in my mind. So great class in the Hall of Fame for
everybody that's getting in and cauring gradualations to everyone. Well said, And with
all of that, let's get to some news items and then some nostalgia because
speaking of Tyson, we got Tyson Lewis Anniversary, we got a packie out,
Timothy Bradley Anniversary, all of that this weekend, my goodness. All
right, So on the news front, Eddie Hearne and match Room. Herne's
been talking about this in the aftermath of the Sunny Edwards press conference. They're
they're looking to make Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder, but there's a lot of
scuttle but still that Tyson Fury wants to fight Anthony Joshua what before the All
right, so give me a little more on this because Herne was going on
and on on Thursday afternoon about how he doesn't think that Frank Warren and Queensberry
are really serious, and it's He didn't say waste of time, but he
was almost implying waste of time that they're looking instead for Anthony Joshua What to
fight Deontay Wilder if they can later in the year, go ahead, listen,
whatever goes on with Fury. I'm not even gonna get into that because
it's so stupid this point. I mean, the Saudies they would like to
do the megacard with the two big heavyweight fights. I think they probably still
go forward with one of them. And if it happens to be that it's
not involving of Tyson Fury, so be it. I mean, you know,
not my you know I can't figure out Tyson Fury, So forget that.
This is about the prospect of Joshua Wilder, a fight that I don't
care if it's for a title or not. This is a fight I wanted
to see for years. I would have preferred it to be for the undisputed
championship when they were both undefeated and between them they held the three titles.
It didn't happen. They try to make it at the time. From you
know, both sides, in my opinion, had fall to go there in
the different times they tried, but now the discussions are serious. So it's
still unclear if Joshua was going to fight in August. They've talked about him
doing a rematch with Dyllian Weight. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't.
Who the heck knows, But there's more of a movement to do with
the fight, which is a much much bigger fight for him to fight Deontay
wild They're both in terms of profile, in terms of money span interest all
that. For Joshua and Wilder fight in Saudi Arabia in December, maybe be
part of that so called megacard. Who knows, if they can get the
other fight done, great. So what the news of the day, I
guess is that Eddie Hearn is saying. And by the way, today as
we taped this Thursday, is Eddie Hearn's birthday show shout out to Happy Day.
So Eddie was saying that the folks from Skill Challenge Promotions were so the
people that put up the money in Saudi arabe that bringing some of these big
events like they've done with previous Joshua fights, like they did with Tommy Fury
against Jake Paul, etc. So the day had sent an offer to him
for a Joshua Wilder fight, not an actual contract, but at least the
terms are the basics of it. So he's waiting on a contract, which
sounded good to me. Okay, at least that's a start, and he
got to start somewhere. Who's still a long way from being as signed agreement
obviously, but at least they got the ball rolling. So I wanted to
know what's going on on the Wilder side. So before we started the tape
this, I spoke to Shelley Finkel, who was the manager for Deontay Wilder,
and Shelley's perspective was, look, we haven't received an offer yet,
certainly not a contract where we'd like to get one. We have been talking
to them while we're very interested to do the fight. We want to fight
Anthony Joshua, so we're just waiting on them and uh, it's you know,
the balls in their court where we're happy to be dealing with them and
we want to make this match. And if in fact they did send an
offer to Joshua, that seems like a good sign. Hopefully we'll get one
suit also, So it seems like both sides at least what they say publicly,
are interested to do the fight. Obviously, there's a ton of details
that have to get ironed out. But you know, and I'm not in
you know me, TJ. I'm not getting too hyped up until everything's done,
especially on something this elaborate. But at the moment, at this moment
in time, things are pointing at least in their right direction. I'm not
going to get too hyped up. Hopefully will happen. And again Wilder is
also in that category. Jamal Charlo is another one. I mean, how
much mothballs Wilder's floted one round a one round fight with Robert Helenius in basically
two years as we approach this fall, so let's get him back in the
ring somehow, some way. All Right, a couple other news items,
then some nostalgia. Errold Spence and Terence Quawford will start their media tour next
week. A little more on that. The hype will begin. Well,
listen, you heard a lot of people say I think I'll believe it when
I see the fight, or at least when there's a press conference. Well,
now we have our chance to see the press comments. So this fight
is real. The two fighters will embark with their teams and the folks from
a Showtime and PBC. They will go to two cities starting on Tuesday,
where they will be in Los Angeles. Then they will be in I'm sorry.
Tuesday, they will be in what is looking at the schedule here.
Tuesday, June thirteenth, they're in Los Angeles for the kickoff press conference.
Wednesday they're in New York City for the second press conference, and then of
course the two guys will then go back to their training camps. But that's
a good thing. They'll meet the media. It's unfortunate they're not open to
them to the public. A lot of times when they do these press tours
for the big mega events, they have the ability to have fans there if
they do maybe an outdoor thing or they put in a big, big place
to have fans there to sort of help hype it up, which is always
makes it more fun. But the media will be there and these guys will
start to talk and talk and talk about the fight and try to hype it
up and make you know, we oversell things and boxing come times, some
things we undersell things. I don't think you can oversell this fight. We
talked about it a couple of times when they made it, we talked about
it after the fact when they finally made the formal announcement. This is as
big and significant and historical fight as you can think of in a long time.
And this is going to officially kick things off where it we'll start to
hear in a meaningful way from the two fighters. You know, they've done
a few interviews here and there, but this will be you know, a
much more widespread attention. I'm hoping that some mainstream outlets will cover it like
it would be a beautiful thing if you could go to a New York press
conference and you know, for the fight of this magnitude, you know that
the New York Post and the Daily News and the New York Times and and
and big outlets like that would cover it. And same goes for when they're
here in Los Angeles. But it's a huge fight, and this is gonna
get that drumbeats started. It's going to be about a month and a half
before the actual fight, plenty of time and can't wait here with these guys
have to say. But but I'm looking forward to. The most DJ is
to get that, you know, the money shot of the two guys knows
too, knows for the first time once they have a deal. We've seen
it four you know, and more lesser situations like when they've been at fights,
for example, But this is the first time. I'm sure they'll be
dressed up in a suit, knows to knows and then you get the blood
going, like I can't wait for this fight. Let's hope. So Top
Rank made it official earlier in the week. Emanuel Navarat Oscar Valdez, Glendale,
Arizona for August. We've been talking about that. Now we know it's
officially happening. We got some really entertaining fights. Oh yeah, this summer
unfolds. I think that for a pure fight, as far as action goes,
I think Eryl Spencon Crawford's gonna be a great action fight also because of
the way that those guys conduct themselves. But in terms of savagery, pure
unmitigated violence, the prospect for a bona fide fight of the year, for
drama, for knockdowns, for blood, for all the things that make for
a dramatic encounter. I think that Oscar Valdez challenging Emmanuel never Read for that
one hundred and thirty pound w BO title has every chance to be a special,
special fight. I mean, ever know if it will turn out that
way. But if you were looking down the list of contenders and champions in
different weight classes and you said to me or somebody that's knowledgeable about the different
top guys in each weight class, said, come up with like your five
best action fights, I think you might have. I don't think I'm I
would definitely have Navarette against Oscar Valdez on my list because they both have a
history of being in great fights. They both want to make a great fight.
They both talk about the history. They both invoked the names of Eric
Moraleson and Mark Antonio Berrera. They fight in the same weight class that morales
and Brera fought in at least for their third fight. This is going to
be a great fight. I mean, if you you know, I remember
one time when Felix Trinidad fought Fernando Vargas, which was, you know,
too many people the fight of the year that year, even ahead of Gaddy
ward One, just an awesome fight. Larry Merchant talked about how if you
were like at a restaurant and you were looking at the menu and you try
to make the best fight you could. You picked Vargas versus Trinidad. I
feel like if you had a menu in front of your fights for action fights,
and Valdez versus Navarette was one of them, you'd pick that fight to
make a great action fight. So I have huge high hopes for this fight.
And again it's official August twelfth, not pay per view, regular ESPN.
Gonna be awesome here here on that and Navaratte again give him a lot
of credit because he's an explosive puncher. He was very active for a while
and he was in a wild fight with the Australian Liam Wilson earlier earlier this
year. Was down in that fight, got up, was down and was
in trouble, got up and won that fight on a TKO, which I
think it should be in the conversation. I'm not saying it is, but
it should be in the conversation for fight of the year because one of the
big, one of the big names for top rank and the lower weight classes
was clearly in trouble against an underdog Australian that night, So forget all good
stuff. On the night of that fight against Leam Wilson, it was supposed
to be Oscar Valdez in the ring that night for the Vegant title, but
Oscar was injured, so he was promised the next shot. You know.
He came back at his shake Off the Rush fight in a pretty good fight
against Adam Lopez in their rematch that took place on the Hainey and Lomachenko undercard.
And now here we go, Navarette versus Valdez. It's not happening in
February when it was supposed to. Instead, it will happen in August,
but so be it. And real quick, I want to go back to
the Spence Crawford card because you're reporting an undercard fight. This is your reporting,
not officially announced yet, but you found out about it real quick.
Yeah. No, I'm told that the co feature is going to involve Isaac
Pitt Bull Cruz, the lightweight contender, who obviously people know from having the
very exciting and somewhat controversial loss by decision he went twelve with Jervonte Tank Davis
back at the end of twenty and twenty twenty. He has won two fights
by knockout since he knocked out the remnants of year Archis Gamboa on the previous
Arrow Spence undercard went Errol fought or Dennis Ugas and then he blitzed Eduardo Ramirez
in two rounds when Andy Ruise fo Luis King conwartis So he's going to be
on this undercard also, and that's a smart move because he brings a different
fan base to the to the table than what you get when you get Spence
against Crawford. He'll bring a certain back of the Mexican and Mexican American fans.
But hopefully they put him in with a solid opponent. I think they're
gonna I think if he wins, I don't think it's out of the realm
of possibility that when Tank Davis is out of jail and he comes back maybe
at the end of the year and maybe we see a rematch between him and
Pitbull Cruise when shocked me at all, that's such a good first fight and
very close first fight, Isaac Pitball Crew is very exciting fighter to watch.
In a nice addition to this card. It hasn't been officially announced, as
you mentioned, and I think what will happen is they'll do the media tour
next week and they'll wait and they'll try to get you more attention, and
they'll wait till like the week after that probably or even two weeks after that,
and then they'll finally announce the undercard. But if that's if he's in
with a halfway decent opponent, that's at least a good a good beginning of
what they're going to put together for the rest of that show. Great stuff.
Let's wrap it for the final couple of moments here with some nostalgia today
Thursday, as we released the podcast overnight Thursday night into Friday, June eighth,
two thousand and two. It was twenty one years ago in my hometown
in the in the arena where my basketball team, my college to the Memphis
State Tigers, would always play, the Pyramid in Memphis, which, by
the way, Dan ray Field in nostalgia, you probably don't know this realizes
it's not even an arena anymore. It's now a bass pro shops. It's
the bass and I've been in it. It's unbelievable. What's in there,
uh, In terms of the aquarium, you can stay there, they have
hotel, accommodations to stay there, retail clothing, the guns, the different
UH hunting items that they have, fishing items that they have. It's incredible,
but it was a box that once they once they built the FedEx Forum,
they didn't need it anymore. That's correct. I did cover a few
fights at the at the Pyramid, because not only did Mike Tyson fight Lennox
Lewis there, he also fought against uh uh Clifford etty in there and there
was there was another fight I think I was out there that Escapes Big Time
Magnitude World Heavyweight title fight in Memphis in the River City, and you were
ringside for Lennox Lewis. We have talked about this before on the podcast.
He had been waiting for such a long time and it finally happened twenty one
years ago in two thousand and two. If you think there's problems making Spence
Crawford, or you thought there was problems making pac Yao against Floyd or any
other fight, that was a very complicated, difficult you know, Kennello versus
TRIPLEG number one pick a fight. That was the fight that everybody wanted to
see that there was a lot of issues and it just was like an agonizing
soap opera. To get to the ring and get to the actual fight.
Mike Tyson challenging Lenox Lewis for the heavyweight title was every bit as complicated and
difficult as any of those fights, except for maybe Mayweather and Pac Yaw.
That was in a time when HBO and Showtime were the two dominant forces.
They both had each guy under contract. Lenox was with HBO, Tyson was
with Showtime, and the late great Jay Larkin, who ran Showtime Boxing,
who I miss every day, uttered the classic line Lewis Tyson will happen when
pork chops grow on the palm trees of Tel Aviv. He said that quote
in the New York Times. And you know, about a year later,
I guess I must have been or something like that. The fight finally happened,
that two networks were able to work out an agreement. And it happened
because Lennox went to the bosses at HBO and basically was like, look,
this is my legacy. I want this fight. I must have this fight.
Please make this for me. Meantime, Tyson was in a situation with
Showtime where they had fronted him so many millions of dollars in loans and they
needed to get their money back. They had no other option but to make
the fight. So they kind of had no choice, but they go and
try to make the best deal they could. But they're so proper to get
there. Remember, the fight was cant. I was off because I was
there at that press commerence that never actually happened when they were going to announce
the fight and Lennox Lewis stood on the stage and Tyson walked across the stage
and they ended up in a brawl and Tyson bit Lennox Lewis's leg, and
Nevada refused to license Mike Tyson because of that situation, so it got kicked
out in Nevada. They had to delay the fight. Finally, we called
it the outlaw fight because Memphis, you know in Tennessee, which was not
the strongest commissioner role, they agreed that, you know, do the fight
as again, I'll quote my good friend Larry Merchant. Memphis wanted an injection
of money and a party, and they got both because the town was filled.
I was there the entire week. I got there like on a Monday,
I think I had come home from Atlantic City from covering from covering a
Vander Holyfield against Hassim Rockman. On Saturday. Did my laundry on Sunday and
went to the airport on Monday and flew to Memphis for the fight, and
everybody was there. The whole world turned out. Uh, this is how
big of a fight that was, TJ. I don't even think people understand
it because it is twenty plus years ago. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
was like the big you know, after you know, after the late local
news, you know, entertainment show with all you know, the Tonight Show
they had Dave Chappelle, big star. He was hired for the week to
be like the quote unquote Tonight Show correspondent. So every day for the week
they would do like these funny bits for the for the Tonight Show of roaming
the streets of Memphis. I remember that it was hilarious. So, but
that's as mainstream as it gets when I'm what I'm trying to explain to you.
So at the time, that fight set the all time record for pay
per view buys and and money and and gate and the whole nine and you
know, all of its time, it was the biggest fight that there had
been in boxing. Now, I never understood why everybody wanted to see Louis
Tyson, Fine Lennox was still, you know, the a formidable heavyweight champion,
and he only even though he only fought one more time after that,
at the moment that the fight happened, you knew this is the best heavyweight
in the world, bar none. Mike Tyson was already at that point,
like you know, several years past, you know, being a quality heavyweight.
But you can't argue. People want to see what they want to see,
and everybody knew that that era. I always look at it like this,
the seventies of George Foreman and Ali and Frazier. They were the lynchpins
of what I consider the greatest heavyweight era. I'm not the only one that
thinks that, Kenny Norton and plenty of guys that were in that era,
but the second best era of heavyweight boxing that ever happened in the history of
the sport, in my opinion, is that nineteen nineties Lewis Tyson, holy
Field, Mercer Riddick, Bow, Tommy Morrison, the second coming of George
Foreman, Razor Ruddick, I mean, Michael Moore. I'm maybe repeating myself,
but those guys, a ton of them that that made some big big
fights. Uh, this was like two thousand and two when the fight happened,
So it was sort of like the end of that era, even though
it like lapsed over a little bit into the next decade, if you will.
But the thing about it was it was a huge fight that everybody wanted
to see and when they finally met, that kind of ended ended the era.
And essentially you knew now between the round robin of Lewis, Holyfield and
Tyson, even though it wasn't all when they were in their primes, that
Lennox Lewis emerged as the guy on the King of the Mountain, and he
did because he splatted Mike Tyson. What was your manage point on that big
right hand? Was it coming at you? Were you on the side of
it? It was right in front of my face? Wow, I mean
if there I actually, if you go on my social media, I posted
this on Twitter today. In terms of the anniversary, so a week after
the fight, or you know how many days after the fight, the new
issue of Sports Illustrated came out, and in Sports Illustrated following the fight,
they did a pretty big spread on the fight because that's how big it was,
and so they ran a two page spread to like introduce the article,
and it's this great shot from overhead of shooting Lennox Lewis with his arm raised
in the victory, but it shot from the vantage point that you see into
the media section, and on the right hand side of the second page you
see Raphael black shirt at the last see you I see the social media pick
here. Yeah, I got that white towel over my shoulder. And the
reason for the white towel over my shoulder is because it was in summer,
because it was June, and it was hot as hell in Memphis, Tennessee,
and the arena that night in particular, was overbearing. I always have
a towel in the bag, just in never knowing you might need it.
And it was so fucking hot in the arena I had to towel over my
shoulder to swab the sweat because everybody was just fucking dripping because it was so
hot. And so you see, I mean people can look at it.
I was sitting right there pretty much in the second row behind the TV people
in the most perfect view you could have of that fight, and Lennox,
with that big right hand, put Mike away and then Mike, as he
stated so eloquently after the fight in his interview, that he was going to
maybe fade off into Bolivian. He did fight a few more times, but
basically his championship career went and Lennox bought us one more time to fight against
U. I'll tell you a funny story about that real quick. I know
we're getting along here. At the postfight press conference on the night that Mike
Tyson and Lennox had their fight, I went to the post fight and I
was sitting there and Lennox had come to the podium, and just by coincidence,
I was sitting next to Lennox's mother, his mother, Violet. It
was a very nice light. I didn't know her well, but I had
met her a couple of times and she kind of knew who I was,
and so we would start making small talk. Congratulations. You know, he
fought a great fight, and he was asked quite a bit at the at
the press conference about you know, you just climbed the mountain, you beat
Tyson, you beat in Holyfield. You know you're not any you know,
a young man anymore, you know, are you're gonna retire? What do
you want to do? And I never forget that. Lennox's mom leaned over
to me and she whispered in my ear. She says, I hope he
retires, and I'll never forget that. Lennox's mama time, right, So
that was that. My memory is of his mother, Violet leaning over to
me and telling me at the postfight press conference, sitting right in front of
her son of the dais that she wanted her boy to retire. And it
is hot in the summertime in Memphis, by the way, I would spend
lots of summers in Memphis, and it is commonly very high. I still
remember taking my twins as a classic story. This was in early July,
not July fourth, but like late June, early July, right around their
birthday. We went to the Memphis Zoo one hundred degree day and with the
heat indecks one hundred and twelve and the tiger at the Zoo's up up to
his neck in the moat. It can get hot in Memphis, that is
for sure. And by the way, one more nostalgia piece, and then
where I promised, we're moving on and we're wrapping it up. My long
time thirty five year radio buddy in that market. Dave will Oceaners the voice
of the Memphis Tigers football and basketball and radio, but a radio personality there
since the mid nineteen eighties. He was there that night as you were in
the media section, he wasn't as close as you were, with kind of
like the overflow local media, TV, radio, and where they were sitting,
there were some other accessible seats, and he tells the fantastic story that
I will condense now into about twenty seconds, that they're sitting there in the
media section the whole night for the undercard, and about twenty minutes before the
main event, the Leonardo DiCaprio and the Toby maguire Spider Man, and I
see you nodding your head. Come in and sit down right next to them
in the media section, about four or five rows back. And he said,
everybody everywhere knew who those guys were, and they even struck up a
conversation or two with them as the fight was going on, Who's winning or
whatever, And he overheard DiCaprio saying to McGuire, McGuire's doing Spider Man,
DiCaprio's got all his big movies. That the plane was already ready for them,
to be back in La for the party they were going to in La
after that fight. And I joked with Wolo by radio, buddy, how
did you not sneak a seat on the private plane because you were right by
him to get to La to the post fight party they were flying. Memphis
was wild that week. I mean it was that they wanted a party and
they got one. I was saying the hotel right there off of Bill Street,
and it was it was loud, like twenty four hours a day pretty
much. Uh listen, let me tell you, I mean not that it's
the main thing of the of the nostalgia that we're talking about. Manny Pakia
was on that undercard. By yes, he was a recent his debut right
really on a big time I'm talking about in a big time fight card or
HBO or whatever was that night on the HBO pay per view. Right,
you're in correct. His HBO debut was on the undercard of an Oscar Delloy
fight on pay per view. But HBO was so impressed by how we look
when he won the junior title against Laylo Vadwaba from South Africa that they wanted
to bring him back and because of the situation with making the deal with Showtime.
The way that they configured it was we got the main event, they
only did three fights on the pay per view. Showtime gets to do one
fight. They opted to go with their young guy, Jeff Lacey, and
HBO went with Mandy Pakyo and so ye had a Jeff Lacy fight on the
undercard on the pay per view, Manny Pacyo, who knocked out Jorge Alstier
Julio in defense of his one twenty two title, and then you went to
the main event with Lewis and Tyson. That's why you are who you are.
By the way, say it correctly. That's Saint Petersburg, Florida's Jeff
Lacy that was on that and I would never have known that, but the
man Rayphield knows these things about that. All Right, two more nostalgia items
and we don't have to go a long time on them, but I just
I want to get the dates right that it's tomorrow, it's Friday as we're
taping this two thousand and seven. That's Miguel Coto knocking out zab Judah and
you were there. That was part of the Puerto Rican Parade at the Puerto
Rican weekend in New York that time for that knockout as well, real quick,
this is this is this is in my opinion, this is Miguel Coto
in his dead prime. Remember he had become a champion at one hundred and
forty pounds. He had beaten some quality guys there, including Pauly malin Adjie
for example at Madison Square Garden. He then moved up to welterweight. He
defeated and knocked out Carlos Quintana, and he's on a roll. He beats
Acta Erkal, who was a good contender in Puerto Rico. That was the
time I went to Puerto Rico to to see Miguel fight. And then he
went on the great run where he had probably arguably he's too big as victories
where he knocked out Judah and he knocked out Shane Mosley. I'm sorry,
he knocked out Zab Juda. He outpointed Shane Mosey in back to back fights
at Madison Square Garden. But the Judah fight because he was fighting another New
Yorker, but of course he had the Puerto Rican fans from New York on
his side. That was a spectacular event, and I don't know if the
record still stands. I'd have to double check, but at the time when
he fought Zab, that was the largest crowd to ever be in the building
for boxing, maybe ever for anything at that point in that construction of Medison
Square, guard over twenty thousand, like it was from the rafters they were
hanging for that fight, and it was a sensational fight. Zab gave a
great account of himself. He obviously got stopped in the eleven throut, but
Miguel retained that title. He went on to defeat Moseley, Alfonso Gomez and
then Net you know his waterloo if you will, in the first fight against
Margarito, where I will go to my grade believing that Margarito cheated with loaded
gloves. By the night that it beat Zab Judah to retain the title was
a huge event. It was a great performance, a great fight. And
you know, if I said to somebody, you know what's Miguel quote all
about, tell me a couple of fights of his I should watch, I
would tell you watched the Ricardo Torres fight, watched the Shane Mosey fight,
but definitely make sure you watched that zab Judah fight, love it and one
more piece of nostalgia as well. And we've talked about this frequently as one
of the worst decisions at least in modern times. Timothy Bradley is going into
the Hall of Fame. Kudos to him. But it was June the ninth,
twenty twelve, eleven years ago on Friday, as we released the podcast.
Then you're shaking your head and I am too. Manny Paciol won that
fight, speaking of pac Man ten years after being on the Lewis Tyson undercard,
and we've said a lot on that one, and Paquil subsequently did get
revenge and got a decision win after this one. But that was the Bradley
victory that night, June ninth of what twenty year many went out and beat
him two more times. In fact, the last fight of Timothy's career was
the third fight against Manny Packers. So he went officially one win and two
losses, the only the only two losses that Timothy Bradley ever see. People
say, how could you vote for Bradley for the Hall of Fame? Like,
you know, he got a gift against pack him And I try to
explain to people I don't, and I joke around with Bradley about this.
He knows this because him and I've had a back and forth about this for
years. When I talk about Timothy Bradley is a Hall of Famer and believing
I was kind of driving that bus in that advocacy for his election to all
of Fame, I strongly believe that he belonged to there. I'm glad he
got elected finally. But the bottom line is, when I make my case
for why Timothy Bradley should be in the Hall of Fame, it's not because
he got a bullshit victory against Manny Pack him. I don't include that in
my raising, in my rational why I thought he should be in, or
why I voted for him. I consider that, in my mind a distinct
loss. But if you take away the fact that his only times he's was
beaten was by the prime Nanny Pacyao, and he beat everybody else, and
he beat a lot of good fighters and unified titles and you know, one
titles and multiple weight classes. So yes, the Bradley Packyo One fight was
as controversial as a guest. There may have been worse decisions I have seen.
I've discussed Joel cassamayor against Armando Santa Cruz, for example, Jose Armando
Santa Cruz, which is the brother of Leo Santa Cruz. So I've seen
worse decisions, and there's probably some others I could think of, but bad
decisions combined with the magnitude of the event that set off the entire world of
losing their fucking minds because of how bad it was that was this fight.
I mean, Bradley didn't barely compete, much less win the fight, and
it was just shocking that they gave him. That was a scandalous that stayed
in the headlines for I mean, think about what the what the scuttle butt's
been since Loma chenko Haney, which I don't even consider controversial, right,
this Pacyao against Bradley was like a billion times more than that and warranted.
That's how disgusting that decision was. So again, when I say Bradley is
a worthy Hall of Famer, it's got nothing to do with him. You're
getting a so called victory against pack accounts, I guess officially on the record,
but he had beaten guys like Junior Wider Overseas, Kendall Hole, made
Campbell Lamon Peterson when he was on the feet of Devin Alexander to unified titles.
Cassa Mayor granted an older version Provadnikov in the Fight of the Year in
a World championship defense Juan Manuel Marquez, by the way, I mean,
he beat a lot of good guys, Jesse Vargas, Brandon Rios, blah
blah blah blah blah. But the Pacio fight was horrible, and I'm glad,
I'm sorry we have to finish the podcast on that negative nostalgia compared to
all the other great fights we talked about. But hey, if he's going
in the Hall of Fame, he will have the He will have the anniversary
of June the eleventh Sunday forever of going into the Hall of Fame Timothy Bradley
along with Karl Frost. And but I'll just say this as everybody else,
if any of our younger listeners get up in arms and get ticked off about
a decision they may see in the future or one may have seen in the
recent past, do yourself a favor and go on your old web browser and
Google up, or as as my son would say, as your daughters might
say, search it up, search it, search up, search up,
google it search up pack Yell Bradley one. You can read my stories and
others that covered the fight, and uh Yo, you want to talk about
you want you want to talk about real contrary. That's real contrary, not
to confine bullshit about Ainy Lomachenko. And by the way, Pernelle Whittaker Julio
Caesar Chavez automobile in nineteen ninety three joke, horrible button and a lot of
people believe that fight was fixed by Don King. I am saying it on
the podcast because King is still promoting a lot of people time to believe that.
As horrible as that is, horrible, no argument. At least they
didn't rob Whittaker of his title because it was a draw. He kept the
belt because he was the defending champion, the same way you talk about what
happened with Lenox Lewis against Evander Holyfield. They were both champions. It was
a draw, horrible, horrible decision, but they didn't lose their belts.
Manny pack Yo lost the world title in that ship decision. That's what was
a big part of that controversy. He shouldn't have been a guy that walked
in the ring with a world championship and exited without the title. Busy,
Busy show tons here and again. The Hall of Fame induction is Sunday,
after the championship fights Taylor and Lopez again the homemun Gia main event for Golden
Boy in California. Sonny Edwards in action earlier in the day US time in
England. We gave you a bunch on this one, my friend. Thank
you, as I always like to say, make it a point fight fans
to be with us, because whatever happens, we will be back off the
weekend with the fight Freakshoe Night recap podcast right here on this podcast feed.
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Have a good weekend, enjoy all the action. We'll recap it off the
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