The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host TJ leaves Well, Hello there and happy Sinco Demayo
weekend. May the fourth be with you and anything else you've got Kentucky Derby
Saturday, and Oh Canello Alvarez back and back in Mexico for the first time
in over a decade, a Saturday night pay per view that is coming against
England's John Ryder. We're here to talk all about that. Give you some
news. We've got lots going on here on the Big Fight Weekend preview podcast.
I am merely the somewhat capable host. He is our insider from his
Fight Freaks Unite substack from Big Fight Weekend dot com. He has been killing
it right now with great coverage and great insight. Hello Dan Raphael, good
to be back with you. Been a busy week already and it's a week
and a weekend that's going to culminate with one of the top names in the
sport, arguably the top name, not a heavyweight for sure, in the
sport, that is Canelo Alvarez. How are you, sir? And are
we ready to go? As the month of May is upon us? We
are ready, and as you said, he is the biggest star in the
sport. All due respect for Tank Davis, who says he's the new face
of boxing, He's not yet. He may be the face of boxing and
waiting, but Kennel Albert is still the face of boxing worldwide until further notice.
And Saturday is another opportunity to show if he isn't in fact still that
guy in a big homecoming fight in Mexico against writer. All right, moral
on that, and just a second reminder again, thank you for finding us
social media link Dan Substack Big Fight Weekend dot com website. Again, you
want to follow or subscribe because, for example, brother Raphael knocked it not
only out of the park, but he knocked it out of the stratosphere with
a one on one exclusive interview with Joe Goosen in the days after Ryan Garcia
has has parted with his former trainer of his last three fights. Goosen spoke
to whom he spoke to mister Raphael first and one on one. And if
you were following or subscribing, you needed no other prompting because you got the
notification of that podcast. So again, follow or subscribe Apple podcast, Google
podcast, Spotify Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. Well done on that. We'll
get to that conversation in a few moments. It is the podcast immediately before
this one on the podcast feed if you want to hear Joe in its entirety.
Also, Dan's interview with Canelo Alvarez one on one prior to fight week
is two podcasts ago as a standalone on this podcast feed. If you're following
slash subscribing, then you've got the opportunity to hear those when they come out
and you don't even have to be prompted for that to happen. All right,
So good stuff on that. Let's get into the fight card that is
coming up just outside of Guadalajara in the Estadio Akrone is how they say it's
acron in the United States, like the Tire City in Ohio. Estadio at
Krone seats fifty thousand or so for boxing. We suspect it's going to be
in the neighborhood of that. It's exciting. We're almost here for Canello's return,
first fight of twenty twenty three, first fight since we saw him.
You were there ring side to see him defeat Ganadi Glovkin in what was kind
of a trilogy third fight. Now Cannelo has had surgery on the wrist.
Now he is back. Your thoughts, Dan Is, the fight's about to
be upon us in the preview month. Anytime Dane Alvarez is in the ring,
I'm excited to watch him fight. I don't care who he's fighting,
whether it's a huge megafight or a let's call this a regular fight, not
a bad fight. I mean, Ryder has earned his stripes and is a
worthy contender in a division where Canelos pretty much wiped out most of the top
guys, with a couple of guys that may still be having business to do
with him down the road. But the biggest attraction to this fight is a
couple of things. One, how is his wrist after the left wrist surgery
that followed the Triple G third fight, which he had injured around the BiVO
fight, was still kind of giving him problems in the Gnadi Glovekin third fight,
which it's certainly you know, didn't pretend him from winning that fight.
You said it was a trilogy. You know, here's the thing about trilogies
and boxing, not that's not always the case, but often more often than
not, there's usually one fight of the three that's sort of a turd,
you know, there's a really I mean, usually the first fight's great because
that's why they do a rematch, and then who knows what happens. But
in this particular trilogy, you had the first two fights, which were fantastic
triple G Knello one and two and twenty eighteen and twenty seventeen, and the
third fight, which took a little longer than it probably should have to get
done for a whole variety of reasons, was not as memorable as maybe it
should be, and by the same sort of concept, take a look at
other fights, uh Gaddy Ward for example, first fight awesome, third fight
awesome, second fight good, not great, Ali Frasier first fight, legendary,
third fight incredible, second fight somewhat forgettable. You can go on down
their line. I mean, you've got Duran after the Moss third fight horrible,
one of the word by far, the worst fight of those nine fights
between the four kings anyway, but Canello he won that fight. He's now
on the on the on the next page of his of his story. He's
coming back. Uh, he's wanted to go home for quite a while to
have a fight. This is, like you mentioned, the first one at
home in uh, you know, more than a decade or so at least,
what a decade in Mexico, and I think about eleven or so years
in hometown of Guadalara before he became you know, the phase of boxing.
So it's a big deal for him. And I'm you know, and on
the podcast, if they go back and listen to that interview, we talked
about, uh, you know, the butterflies he's gonna have fighting back at
home. I mean, he's fought in the biggest fights in in the in
the world in his last many, many fights, huge events, seventy something
thousand at Cowboys Stadium, big megafights against all kinds of top names. But
you know, he admitted that I believe him, there's gonna be a little
bit of nervous excitement walking into a different atmosphere in that kind of crowd that's
your people from your hometown, your family, your friends, and there's that's
a lot of pressure. Rider obviously playing with house Monty so to speak.
So I think that Rider's gonna give him a good fight. I don't see
him win the fight. I think Cannello has got a very good chance to
stop him as long as the risk is solid and there's no real issues there.
Um. I think he wants to make a statement. I know he
was sort of disappointed that the Triple G fight didn't turn out to be the
fireworks that a lot of people hope for it like they were in the first
two fights. And you know, there's still the the specter of the loss
of people that sort of is still kind of nause at him. I have
to think he wants that rematch with Peble in the September fight. Can't get
there if he doesn't beat John Ryder on Saturday, and so you know,
I'll be the first moment. This is not the biggest Canello fight we've seen,
it's not even close, but it's it's when the number one attraction in
the sport and a guy that is who has been for a long time number
one pound for pound. He may not be there at the moment, but
he's still among that elite group of the top. You know what, half
a dozen or five guys out there. I'm watching, man, I can't.
I'm I'm excited for it. I don't. I mean the rest of
the card is nothing to really write home about, but you can you can
write me down for watching Kenelo Alberst fight. I actually would have liked to
go to waddle her for this fight. For different reasons, I did not
make the trip. You know, I haven't really missed too many Canello fights
were the last you know, ten or twelve years. This is going to
be one of them, unfortunately, But I'm looking forward to watching them fight
Saturday. I'm a Cannelo fan, I admit it, and I can't wait
to watch them. And for the record, he has fought five times on
the Sinco to Mile Weekend because I've been doing the research for some stuff we're
doing on Big Fight Weekend dot com website, and I dare say you've been
at every one of those from a mere Cohn Julio saysar Chavez Daniel Jacobs.
There's one other one besides B Bold. There's been five of them before this
one, so you've been to all of them, including the b Bull fight
which was in Vegas a year ago for the light heavyweight WBA version of that
title. Here's the thing in boxing, if you're if you're a journalist and
you're covering it, there's usually like, who were three guys whenever they're fighting,
you're I mean, you know, obviously there's reasons why you may not
cover this fighter of that fight, but in general terms, there's always that
small group of fighters that when they fight, you're going. So for a
long time, you know, when I was starting out, when Tyson was
fighting, I was going, When Oscar Dala Joy was boxing, I was
going. You know, a little later on it became when Mayweather and pack
Yeah were fighting, whether against each other or separate opponents, you were there,
and I had that same sort of feeling it with Bernard Hopkins. You
know a handful of those types of fighters, and in today's time it is
fighters like Tank Davis, Canelo Alvarez, fighters of that ilk that are both
outstanding fighters as well as popular attractions. All Right, so we've got a
lot on this fight. Again, we'll make some predictions on our bet US
Boxing Show one Eastern time on the bet us platforms, on YouTube, social
media, on Twitter, on twitch, etc. Canello heavy sixteen to one
favorite over under I believe it's eight and a half round. So we'll make
some picks on this fight. King John Ryder hang in or not? I
think it's fair to say he You know, he challenged for the super middleweight
title back two or three years ago, lost to Callum Smith. He also
has losses to Rocky Field Day to Billy Joe. Saunders has five career losses.
This would be a monumental upset. It's a bigger it's a bigger question.
Not so much of the upset, it's how long, like you said,
Kenny hang in. So we'll make some predictions on that. By the
way, I neglected to mention that we will talk shortly on this very podcast
to one of the broadcasters calling the fight on to Zone and their coverage in
North America, I'm not sure. I don't think it's the same announcers worldwide.
There may be a different announcers on the international feed out of Mexico going
elsewhere on to Zone. But Todd Grisham, the Latin Snake, Sergio Mora,
Chris Mannix on the call Sergio Mora with us in a few minutes on
this podcast to break down the fight as it as it all unfolded. Inch
a couple of other interesting notes. It's over forty one hundred days, by
the way, since he last fought in Mexico, Dan Rayfiel, did you
know, because again I've been dominating the numbers. Twenty two fights since his
last fight in Mexico. It hasn't been a while. So there we go.
I knew, I knew it. I knew that. I knew it's
been over twenty fights. I knew it's been over ten years. You know,
you know this is this was the spot to do the homecoming. There
wasn't a big other fight out there for him. You know. People can
say, well, David Benavide as well, No, not really, it
wasn't nakable at this moment in time. He's looking at the Bible fight at
the end of the year. I'm not really sure what other supposed negafight there
was people talk about, you know, say Charlo, who's middleweight, still
hasn't fought in two years. I mean, when you just look at the
landscape of available opposition, this was the bright fight at the right time.
Technically, it's a mandatory even though he didn't have to do it right now,
and not that Canello is ever going to be pushed around by the organizations,
but it does check a box. Ryder was willing to fight him in
Mexico. He wanted to go home to Mexico, and this just seemed like
the perfect moment to do that and to leave some money on the table.
I mean, when Cannello is made the kind of money he's made, it's
not going to infringe on his livelihood in terms of how he supports his family
if he takes a bit of a haircut to have a fight in Mexico.
But I'm happy to see him wanting to give back to the fans at some
point. And you know, again we talked about Rider. The recent John
Rider has been pretty good. He's won four fights in a row. He
did have the stoppage against Zach Parker in November. That was not a great
performance, but the fight was just starting to get heated up. But the
fight ended because Parker had a broken risk or a broken hand and was the
fight was ended after four rounds. But that's not that's not John Ryder's problem,
that's Zach Parker's problem. Now. The fight before that, that was
in February of last year, so a little over a year ago. That
was a split decision against Daniel Jacobs that took place in the UK. Daniel
Jacobs a fighter that Canello had defeated. That was a questionable call. Let's
be honest. I kind of thought that Danny Jacobs won the fight. A
lot of people thought Danny Jacobs won the fight. John Rider was at home,
he got his hand raise. It was super close, but it counts.
So those are two good wins in a row, even if they were
not lights out kind of performances. The two fights before that were against just
lower level opposition, and then the fight before that he lot he lost a
pretty clear decision to Callum Smith and the fight you mentioned challenging for one of
the world titles. Callum Smith is a guy that got shut out essentially by
Canello when they when Cannello won that title from him as well as one of
the vacant titles in the first fight of that four fight run over eleven months.
That made Cannello the undisputed champion. So, you know, John Ryder's
got a big mountain to climb. I mean, he's a tough guy,
he's a good fighter, he's got a good chin. I think the one
knockout notwithstanding, but this is a very very heavy lift for him to win
this fight, particularly in Guadalajara. So he's certainly not the first guy to
go to a popular star's hometown and suffer the wrath of that fighter. I
think Cannello is very motivated to put on a great show for the hometown fans,
to show that a forgettable twenty twenty two is behind him, the combination
of the loss and the the win but not a not a not an exciting
fight against canadi A Gluftin in their third fight, So he wants to make
a statement. I'm ready to go back in the ring with Bebo or wherever
else they have for me, and I'm going to take care of my business
in front of the home crowd. And John Ryder better be ready to duck
or put his hands up as I'm gonna beat him up. That's why I
think Canello's attitude for this face, it's pretty succinct. We like that.
So why don't we get some more insight from somebody that again is there and
on the call. Let's do that right now on the podcast. Well,
have been looking forward to getting some insight from this guy. Always love the
Latin Snake whenever he can jump aboard. He is on the Zone pay per
view call coming up of Canelo Alvarez and John Rider on Saturday night. He
is in Guadalajara, Mexico as we do this interview. So Snake, welcome
back. Thank you for doing this. And I know the anticipation is building.
Whenever you say the name Canello. It's a big deal, but it's
an extra big deal that he's back in Mexico. Give me more on that
aspect of this. You've been around it now for a little while. The
momentum is building. What is it like in and around Mexico as fight week
continues. No, it's incredible, TJ. I wanted to come here extra
early. Normally they eat me here Wednesday at the earliest, but I decided
to come one day earlier Tuesday and spoke it all in And I mean,
it's it's up in the air. Everyone here, like the workers, the
people that live here, the locals there. You can see the excitement in
their face that they have. They're having Cannello. He's like the president over
here that Canello's gonna bring it home and make it accessible to his friends and
family and friends and everyone around. Yeah, it's magical, man, And
I'm glad to be a part of it because it's so hard to get tickets
right now I got family in Balla Lahara, I got family surrounding areas,
and they're asking me for tickets. I said, hey, man, listen,
Canelo's the man. He holds all the cards. So you gotta go
to the ticket master and you gotta do it right. He says, I
cannot help you this time. The Latin Snake is not ticket master. He
just wants to confine that. Here is part of the podcast. All right,
You've had the privilege to be on the call of several can Hello fights.
I guess just first of all, in general, what is that like?
Because this guy is different, This guy is one of the iconic people
in the sport for the last fifteen years. What's it like to call a
Canelo flight fight like you'll be doing on Saturday night. Well, it's incredible
because I've been calling all his fight since he came to the Zone. So
you know, they rolled the red carpet out for him and every single show
MATCHAMUM Promotions and Eddie Earn doing an incredible job with the pyrometrics and the promotion
of the stadium, whether it's in Miami or the Dolphins play with her ATNC
or in Vegas, anywhere he goes. It's incredible, you know. So
you're not only getting the aura of Canelo making the ring entrance of course of
fighting. We're getting a show. You know, the music, the band.
You know Canelo always has, you know, the center, Fernando de
Son Alekandra Fernandez. I know you don't listen to you know, that kind
of music, but it's iconic. Yeah, and he has he has everybody
from reggaetone music that soun die and you know it's incredible. Man, It's
a show, that's what it is, and you just enjoy it. Yeah,
we know who those people are. Because the mariachi band strikes up.
And you mentioned Vegas right, so special in Vegas. But you were at
at and T Stadium a couple of years ago for the Billy Joe Saunders fight
in the in the Cowboys Football Stadium. Take me back to that just for
half a second, because this may be similar, if not better, come
Saturday night that when they strike up the mariachi. What was it like in
Arlington with seventy thousand plus coming to their feet because you were there, I'll
tell you what it was, seventy two thousand at at and T and it
was an incredible spectable during the pen dinner. That's you got to throw that
in during a pandemic. So I can only imagine there's gonna be twenty thousand
people left here in the Akronson, but it's gonna be I think more passionate,
man, because it's gonna be the locals. You know, they's signed
to be as many people, but it's still gonna be rabid, hardcore Mexican
fans and everyone that came in to support writer as well. You know,
I've seen a lot of it as well. You know, they always traveled
brists across the Pond to support their the they're fighters, so it's a little
bit of both. But I'll tell you after the five team day, we
can do a podcast afterwards that I can tell you right now that the treml
is going to do to the roof, and I always videotape it and I
posted on my social media, so you'll get an indirect vicarious look at it,
you know, to social posting. I love that. From the Latin
stake. Sergio Mora He and Todd Grisham, Chris Mannex will be on the
call Saturday night to Zone pay per View, Canello and John Rider. He's
gracious to give me a couple of minutes here from Mexico. A couple of
more minutes. Okay, Canello heavily favored. We get it. Vastly experienced.
Hall of Fame first ballot, unanimous. John Riders got five career losses.
He was pretty good against Callum Smith and the loss a couple of years
ago. He was good and got a decision against Daniel Jacobs. If he
has any chance to hang in and make this interesting, put the analyst hat
on. How does or keep it interesting? Sergio? Now he's going to
keep it interesting because he's a physical fighter. He's a south tall, very
strong, the natural super middleweight. These are all things that you have to
respect. The fact that this is the main thing. I'm gonna be focusing
on the fact that John Ryder's writing momentum the two biggest ones of his career.
You know, he beat an undefeated fighter in Zach Park and he beat
whether you think he won or not, he got to win versus Daniel Jacobs.
The man, a man that I'm familiar with. I know how big,
how strong and powerful is John Rider was able to back him up perhaps
fight. That means that Rider's really strong and that south Fall Fantacy has good
timing. Canello's faced at all. So I'm not going to make a case
for a rider winning this fight because it will be lunacy. What I can
tell you is that he's gonna make a case or making a tough and difficult
fight for Canello, you know, for however long and Lass. I don't
think it goes to distance, but I do think it goes into the second
half of the fight. It will be physical and we'll see how the cards
fall, but it's gonna be a physical fight. And also one more,
anything Canello does, like I like to joke, even if he makes a
mean face at John Ryder, the crowd's gonna go crazy. Just anticipate for
me, what I mean, what is that like You've been in these settings
before where I mean, especially you know at and t Las Vegas. Anything
he does, his crowd, Canello's crowd. Canello's people go crazy, and
that's got to have an effect on this one Saturday night, right, Yeah,
but you know every hometown fighter has that luxury. I mean, can
you consider that same thing about Daniel Jacobs going across the pond to the UK.
He didn't get the not his saver, he didn't get the judges on
his favor, the pants on his stable, and ultimately he didn't get the
decision, which he probably should have. So now John Dryder's terence to actually
be on the flip side of that point. You know it's gonna be a
fifty thousand plus again, you know, hostile environment. He's gonna have to
fight through it. That's the fight he did. Love the Latin Snake.
Sergio Mora gracious to give me time. He reiterates again, he does not
have tickets. Do not call him, do not tell him, do not
DM him. He does not have tickets for Canelo and Rider. But he's
good to give me a few minutes and break it down here on the Big
Five Weekend podcast. Thank you Snake. We'll all be watching Saturday. I
always appreciate you. Now you got a PJ anytime. Man, You're a
big boxing ton of gall of respectful what to do and yeah, and keep
on chugging along. Now, I love your podcast. The conversation continues in
a moment. First, a word for our friends at PPV dot com.
Coming up on Saturday night, it's the return of Canelo Alvarez defending his World
super middleweight undisputed championship against England's John Rider. The return to Mexico for Canelo.
And you need to watch it through PPV dot Com. Why because there's
no obligation. There's no subscription needed with PPV dot Com. No, a
one off purchase can be made. Don't have to make a six month commitment,
don't have to make a one year commitment. You just want to watch
the event. Do it with them, And there's even more reason to do
it. That's because they've got great interactive features, obviously in English or in
Spanish. The chat live video host that'll be part of it. It's all
with PPV dot com. Check it out, purchase the pay per view right
through their service. It is quick, it is easy, the stream is
effective. It's in crystal Clear ten eighty and greater HD. You don't have
to worry about a subscription, hassle or anything with PPV dot Com. Again,
Canello returns on Saturday against John Ryder of England. We want you to
watch it with our friends at PPV dot com. And again I'm very appreciative
that whenever I reach out, Sergio is always good to be with us,
and he's right there, as he was joking Dan Rayphael, stop hitting him
up for tickets. He's got no tickets. He's got family, he's got
friends, he's not ticketmaster, and it is going to be a hot ticket.
And what's what's interesting in reading some about this is there, obviously,
you know, floor seats on the stadium floor. It's a soccer stadium where
I think it's called c D. Guadalajara is the mexic Can La Liga La
Liga in Espanol, the big Mexican league. Guadalajara team in the top division
play soccer there. So they've got ringside seats and the lower level seats are
high priced, but for the upper level they're much more affordable. And it
is going to be quite an atmosphere in that building. And Sergio knows that
from what he was saying just being around town midweek. As now we accelerate
into Friday, we released this podcast, and we get to Saturday, all
of it will crank up. And I'm interested. He said, Hey,
we expect some of the Brits to be here too. For writer how big,
I don't know, but you know, as he gonna have ten people
there one hundred. You know, three hundred. I have no idea it's
gonna get drowned out when the mariachi strike up and Dan just relate this and
then we'll move on. You were there at at and T Stadium two years
ago at this time against Billy Joe Saunders. There were over seventy thousand in
there, and when they struck the mariachi up and the whole place stood up.
I'm sure at that moment Billy Joe Saunders is going, Okay, here
we go. Yeah, this is what I'm against. A writer, Yeah,
there was. I think I hunted a few Brits that were there.
But again, that was like a like ad a seventy four thousand, I
want to say it was or seventy three thou. All I know is that
the attendants that night at at and T Stadium shattered the indoor American boxing attendants
are gonna buy like ten thousand fans. The old record had been sixty something
thousand at the Superdome in nineteen seventy eight for the rematch between Muhammad Ali and
Leon Spinks. This fight blew that out of the water, and it did
so at a time when the pandemic was still happening. So when I was
there for the Billy Joe fight, we were still within the bubble in a
hotel. We couldn't leave the hotel. We had everywhere wristbands you had to
get tested for COVID. I had to, like, you know, when
I got there, I had to get the wristband and go to my room
and then I could come down and get my test in the morning before I
could be free to move about the hotel. And so there was still like
a lot of trepidation from a lot of people about being in big crowds,
but there was so much pent up demand and I knew this was going to
be incredible when I went to the Way In, which was outside at AT
and T Stadium on a blazing hot day in Texas, and they had an
area in front of the staging where all the officials were and where media was,
etc. But then they had an area for fans, and they had
a limited capacity. They limited the capacity in front of the stadium for the
fan area for the Way into five thousand, and it was absolutely full.
And I remember walking up to the up to there. Now, I remember
I'd been like every a lot of other people. I'd basically been home for
sixteen months in the house. When I saw those people, I swear to
God Teach, I almost like started to cry because I hadn't been hadn't seen
that many people in a year and a half. I remember the night before,
the night after I got there. I got there at night, and
the next day in the hotel, I had dinner with Adam Konaki, the
heavyweight, Chris Algieri, you know, the one hundred and forty pound former
champion now broadcaster, our buddy, Keith Idik, the manager for those two
boxers, Keith Connelly. We all had dinner together in the hotel because you
couldn't leave the hotel go anywhere. And I remember sitting down at dinner that
night and thinking of it's not Jesus, this is the first first time I've
sat down for a meal with anybody other than a wife and son in sixteen
months. And so I think that helped bring out a shitload of people for
that fight. It would have been a big fight anyway because of Cannello star
power and the fact that it was a significant title unification and all that,
but that combined with the fact that it was the first time in a while
where a full capacity crowd was allowed, you know, in Texas, which
had opened up a little bit more than some other states in the country,
and it lent itself to a mega atmosphere and just a Huger event, and
that would seventy some thousand. Now, even though the fight in Guadalajara is
gonna probably be around fifty thousand, I'm gonna tell you it's probably gonna be
a smilar kind of atmosphere because this is a pent up demand to have their
hometown hero back in the ring in their presence defending the undisputed super middleweight title.
It's a It's a big moment for Cannello Alvarus for sure, no doubt.
Okay, So on the undercard, the co feature l Ray, the
WBC flyweight champion Julio Cesar Martinez is in action. We would love to tell
you that we know tons about this fight, but a little inside baseball,
we don't know tons about the opponent or about the fight. We just know
that this is one of the more prominent smallest wave fighters in the world.
He's in action in Mexico. There will be a tension on this, so
it's worth mentioning here. On the podcast. That's the fight immediately before Canello
coming up Saturday night, right, Oh absolutely, I mean Julio Cesar Martinez
is exciting. He's part of that Canello stable with Eddie Renoso, etc.
And he's making his six title defense. So he's been handling his business for
a while now. People remember maybe there's the fight on Saturday. Then there
was a defense before that, But the fight before that, which was in
the early part of twenty twenty two, he was a late replacement when Juan
Francisco Astrada was ill and had to withdraw from At the time, what was
the next fight that he was gonna have with the Roman Chocoltito Gonzalez. He
filled in and he got beaten pillared a post by Chacoltito. But he also
moved up to Junior bannaway from Flywaight. Now he's back in Flyway. He
had one fight since then he won, and now he's defending the title again
on this undercard and he has listening for him. It's kind of a big
deal too, because he's getting a chance to defend this title at you know,
at home, maybe you know not in He's not from Guadalajara. The
way that canelo Is, but it's still a big deal anytime you know you're
a Mexican champion. He can fight a big time fight in on a big
time card in front of Mexican fens. He's from Mexico City, but there's
a lot riding on this for him if he wins this fight. We've discussed
this in the past on the podcast. He is also involved with match Room
Boxing. They now have the promotional contract with Sonny Edwards, who's the IBF
champion in that weight class. They obviously have dam Rodrigues who recently moved down
to that weight class and one the WBO title. Now he's out, you
know, till the end of the year, most likely because of the jaw
injury. But the main point is that Eddie Hearn has talked about in the
Boxers I've talked about now that all three of these champions are all in the
same promotional stable and on the same broadcaster, it's going to lend itself to
them making a unification fight. And so what order that happens, who fights
who first, etc. Is still up in the air, I guess.
But if Julio sees our Martinez comes through this fight, you can be sure
that he's going to get a unification fight. It would seem to me,
and if if Bam is going to be out for a little while, that
the logical step would be if if Julio sees our Martinez wins his fight against
Ronald Batista come Saturday, and Sonny Edwards takes care of his business that fight
was just that his next defense would just announce that's going to take place in
June. That would put them roughly on the same schedule. It would seem
logical to have them fight each other at the end of the year and then
let Bam Rodriguez come back from his jaw injury, probably get you one fight
under his belt after the injury, and then match up with the theoretically the
winner. If that fight between Martinez and Sonny Edwards takes place, a three
belt unification, that would be a fantastic plan in my mind, and a
doable fight each one of them by nat Room not I mean, the fighters
would make their best pay days, but it would not be at a level
of pay where it's going to break anybody's budget. There it would be affordable
for Matchuman for the Zone to do and I think that would be a great
plan. Now, Ronald Batista probably canna have something to say about that.
He's fifteen and two, he's got nine knock gods, he has been stopped
one time. He's from Panama. He's won three fights in a row.
The one loss he had was against a fighter name Michael, a lawyer who
was a French fighter who was in the Olympics. That was back in twenty
nineteen. He got knocked down in that fight. That's pretty much what we
know about Ronald Batista. I haven't seen him. I can't be less than
honest if I said I knew him the way I know so many of these
other challengers. But he's been around for a bit, he's got a good
record. Got to expect he's gonna give a great effort. He's getting a
chance of a lifetime here on this big card to fight for the world title.
Smart money would be on Martinez. But the thing about Martinez, TJ
and anybody that's watched him, he can be a little bit inconsistent. You
know, he did lose to Chocolate Tito. He did have you know,
wins where he maybe need to look so great. But the onus is going
to be on him to come out there and produce the kind of performance that's
gonna make guys like you, me and regular fans say, you know what,
Damn, I want to see this dude against Damn. I want to
see this dude against Sonny Edwards. You know that type of excitement level,
see what he can do. All right, there we go. So that
is the card in Mexico for Saturday night. So we're gonna move on with
little news that a little nostalgia. Let's say, first again, great job
grabbing Joe Goosen as you did for the podcast again that is immediately before this
one. Some excellent stuff about the parting with Ryan Garcia. If first of
all, just pull the curtain back. You've had a long relationship with him.
You were trying to get a hold of him, and he accommodated you.
As it turned out, I'm getting messages in the middle of the night
from Raphael. I'm asleep. I didn't even see him till I woke up.
I got Joe Goosen, I got Joe Goosen. We gotta get it
on the podcast feed because Joe told you I need to call you after dinner
Pacific time, and he called you after dinner Pacific time. That's how it
worked, right. Yeah, So I mean, like you said, I've
known Joe my entire career. I had a very close relationship with Joe's brother,
the late promoter Dan Goosen, who Joe is going to join in the
Boxing Hall of Fame this summer, because Dan was inducted a couple of years
ago and Joe will be inducted this summer. Both very worthwhile. But I
had a very close relationship with his brother Dan for many, many years.
But I've also known Joe literally since I first started covering boxing in two thousand,
when I was hired to cover the sport for USA Today. And I've
always had a friendly relationship with him. I know a lot of members of
his family. Over the years, I've covered a lot of fights he's been
involved in, and you know, he's a good He's a great guy,
whether he's doing stuff as a trainer or as a commentator and darious capacities,
most recently on Fox Sports. But anyway, so I didn't see Joe.
Obviously, he didn't come to the press conference after the fight. That was
sort of curious. I was interested about that. But I also when the
news was coming out that Ryan and him had broken apart. I wanted to
find out what was going on. I texted him. He was actually in
the gym training other fighters. I mean, even though he's not worked with
Ryan anymore, he's still works with the other boxers and he's still busy to
getting their careers going and helping them get ready for their fights. And so
we were just looking for the right time to do it. So we ended
up talking on the phone prior to our interview. We didn't really talk about
boxing TJ. We talked for like a half an now or about other stuff,
our families, just other things in life, I mean, just because
we hadn't had that kind of catchup time in a while. But he said,
Okay, I'm going to get dinner. I'll call you back when i'm
done. I texted him like a little I said, just you know,
when you've done, give me a call back. Take your time. I
was up in the office. It was late, probably around midnight, eleven
thirty midnight Wednesday night, and he called me back and we knocked out the
interview and he said, you know, I haven't talked to anybody, and
I appreciated the words. And Joe, they'll hear him. You know he
has a trust in my professionalism in being fair and accurate, and you know,
anybody listens to the interview, I didn't hold back on the questions.
I asked him the point playing things that needed to be asked. And as
I described it, you know, every big fight, whenever something happens at
that level, you have to do with the autopsy, and this was the
autopsy with the trainer of the loser of the fight, who then ended up
finding himself being a sent in many ways, one of the fall guys for
that app for that situation. I will say this, I was very impressed
the way that Joe described the way that they parted, ways that he did.
Ryan Garcia is a stand up person. He did not not tell him
and just like let him twist in the wind and start training for another fight
and not bother to tell him. And he hears that he's training with somebody
else, which happens. He didn't have one of his people call and say
you're fired, or we're doing something different, or anything like that. He
didn't let anybody from the media tell Joe Goosen. And I say that because
despite my great respect and admiration for Oscar dal Lejoya. I still remember the
day when I was in a hotel in Houston, Texas, and I ran
into my good pal Freddie Roach, and Freddie Roach found out that he had
been fired as Oscar deal Ley's trainer because the reporter Dan Rafael told him that
was not a good feeling. As I thought, he knew that was a
bad situation. But that was a long time ago. But Ryan Garcia,
according to Joe, picked up the phone himself, called Joe and told him
he was gonna probably did he was gonna do something else, and I you
respect that and we should say this. He says it in the podcast.
He said it before in the other interviews that his relationship goes back to Ryan
seven years ago, being an amateur and being in Joe's jim as a seventeen
year old. And Joe even said to you in this interview again something he's
reiterated. He was encouraging Ryan, you need to go ahead and turn pro
He put an offer in front of him that Ryan and his family didn't take.
Instead, they got more money obviously, and felt it was a better
deal to go with Golden Boy. But Joe said we would constantly be in
contact over the years, he would call me and say, what did you
think of my fight? And furthermore, he believes that will continue. We
are still friendly, We are still friends, were on good terms, and
I think he'll still call me and we'll still talk. So that the great
stuff. That was even before Golden Boy, because Brian already had like seven
or eight fights before he signed with Golden Boy. This was when he was
first turning pro. He didn't I guess didn't like the offer or wanted to
do something different than any event. Look, you know, for all the
negativity that people keep on Ryan Garcia, the fact that he called him on
his own and did the deed man to man, how do you not respect
that? And you know, for Joe's side of things, Joe has been
around a long time, He's gonna He's trained class of great fighters. And
every fighter, every trainer out there has been fired or let go or change
have their fighter change plans one time or another. And as I mentioned the
fact that Ryan Garcia lost this fight and elected that for his purposes, he
felt like it was important to his career to do something different in terms of
his training situation, is not in any way a reflection on the legacy that
Joe Goosen has in this sport. Whether Ryan Garcia won that fight or lost
that fight, Joe is going to be inducted into the Boxing All of Fame
in June, which he deserves, and he'll have more good fighters in the
future. And it doesn't change the great fighters and great fights he's been involved
with, you know, in the year's past. This is just another one
of those things. They had a three fight run together. It didn't go
their way in this fight. But it's not a negativity in my mind anyway
on Joe or even on Ryan for that matter. I mean, it is
what it is. When guys losing, you got to be comfortable with the
trainer. If Ryan wants to do something different, he's sure as heck,
isn't the first boxing started beside the chain trainers. And by the way,
when we get to the nostalgia, Joe was involved in the corner with a
phenomenal fight that has an anniversary coming up, and Raphael was ringside for it.
There's a tease for a little bit later here when we talk nostalge in
a few minutes. First, some other news, okay, not the news
that Deontay Wilder wanted to be making but as it turns out, earlier this
week, late night Monday night into Tuesday, he was pulled over in Los
Angeles in his Rolls Royce and not only did they smell marijuana and cite him
for possession of marijuana, but they also took him into custody for having a
nine millimeter handgun. Illegal to have a concealed handgun in California, So again,
that's a serious thing in California. He did the only comment he's made,
he did put on social media, better to be safe than sorry,
like implying I need it for protection, for whatever that's worth. Kind of
a hip to comment. That's the only comment he's made, so a blotch
on the Wilder resume while we await to see when and where he might be
back, any other thoughts on that because he's the former heavyweight champel. First
of all, I don't maybe I'm wrong about this, but I don't think
having marijuana and California is illegal anymore, at least in small quantities. But
when when the police smelled it in the car that led them, and I
guess they also had pulled them, driving under the influence becomes a concern and
all of course, plus he had obscure license tags. I guess he had
tinted windows, I mean all that stuff. Whatever, The bottom line is
they found the gun when they searched the car. They said Deante was cooperative.
I mean that's good. He wasn't like causing trouble or resisting the situation.
My comment would be, if it's true, I mean an East inniscents,
heel proven guilty if that goes that far to a court case. The
bottom line is, if he wants to say better safe than sorry, and
he wants to have a weapon, I can't argue with that. It's your
constitutional right to have a handgun, I suppose if if you follow, but
you gotta follow the rules. So if he wanted to have the gun,
that's okay, but do so legally, not possession of an unlicensed firearm.
You got to follow the rules, and you got to know what stature in
and what the rule of where you are things. So if you're in California
and you have an unlicensed weapon for protection or otherwise, you're gonna find yourself
in trouble. And I would simply say, uh, you know, not
a good look to be If this is the case. Driving around La in
a fancy Rolls Royce, perhaps under the influence of marijuana, with a with
a with a weapon in your card, It's not a good look. What
do you expect is going to happen? You know, if you should get
pulled over. So look, Deante, I've always thought Dante was a good
guy. I like Deante. I've known him as I've covered his pro debut,
I've covered a ton of his fights, interviewed him a thousand times.
No, his team known him a long long time. A good guy at
heart. H feels like this was a bad decision to ride around with the
gun in the card that was unlicensed. Having the weapon is not the issue,
although I'm not a gun guy, but having it perhaps and not being
legal, that's the problem. You got to follow the rules, is the
bottom line. Well, and it is different, as you mentioned, in
every state. I'm in the state of Florida, where it's a lot more
lax in terms of carrying concealed a lot of the southern states it is.
And this is another important distinction because every state is different. Even though you're
licensed in some states, you have to get a license in other states to
carry the weapon concealed as opposed to just having possession of it in your home,
etc. In the event of a self defense argument or whatever. So
you're right, I mean, he's going to be in some I don't know
what the outcome of this is going to be a TG but it wasn't like
a misdemeanor. This is apparently the charge of this possession, for whatever their
reasons are, rose to a felony level. Could put himself in some trouble.
Now, I don't know what the what the typical rulings are on these
cases, like how they're sentence said. You know, he's it's not like
the Leonte is a habitual offender and he's been now arrested four or five times.
It's you know, it seems like a blip on the radar in that
sense. So hopefully at the end of the day they work it out,
he learns the lesson. You do the right thing, you follow the rules,
and put the bullshit aside. And we spent a lot more time talking
about Deante Wilder getting ready for a big heavyweight fight then whatever legal issues he
may have in a California courtroom because he was holding an unlicensed weapon in a
car on a late night in Los Angeles. All right, good enough,
some other news. Homi Mongia is back. I hesitate to even bring this
up. When is he going to get in front of a world championship caliber
fighter or fight. Here we go again. He's in the main event for
Golden Boy with Sergei de Revanchenko, who has been in with some champs in
some championship fights. Gave Triple G all he could handle in that fight.
But that's been over a couple of years ago. AGAINO won that fight.
There you go. But I mean, at this point for Mungia, what
is up you're on? Yeah, you're being on a fair Why I have
been the biggest fucking Mongia critic in the world. He's fought nothing but shit
for the last few years. Okay, And I've written that, I've said
that, I've bitched and moaned to Golden Boy about it. I don't know
if it's Mungia's thing, or it's a Golden Boy thing or his co promoters
in for promotions. He turned down mandatory opportunities. When he went from one
fifty four, where he had a world title and he vacated because he was
a champion. He moved up to the next way class. He could have
had a mandatory defense, mandatory shot at that WBO title multiple times. He
didn't take it. He thought a bunch of nobody's very disappointing. Now,
at the very least, now he's moving up to one sixty eight and he's
taken on Devin Jeno, but a devin Chenko he's also moving up and wait,
so at least from that standpoint, it's even now. Sergey devin Chenko
is a little bit older, I grant you, but his losses have been
to the elite of the elite. He has a split decision loss against Danny
Jacobs, close close fight. I was ringside. I thought Danny won,
but it was really really close. He's got the loss to Triple G,
which I thought, which first of all, was a fucking great fight,
and I thought he won the fight, and I wasn't the only one I
was at that fight. Also, he has a very competitive decision loss,
but a clear loss to Charlow and a challenge for the WBC title. And
his only other loss was against Carlos Adamas, who was one of the better
middleweights out there. He now holds an intern belt. He's actually gonna headline
a Showtime card coming up this summer. Those are the losses. So he's
fought the best guys and out of those four losses he could be two and
two. I understand why people think he might have beaten Jacobson, certainly Glofkin.
You know, he lost competitively against Adamas and Charlot, but he was
never knocked out. He wasn't dominated in any of those fights. And for
a guy like Mungie who's fought direct for the last three years or so,
to take on Devin Schenko, even an older Devon Schenko. I granted,
this is a big step up for him. Now. There was no title
fight available to him at the moment. If he wants to fight at super
middleweight, there's a man we've been talking about who's the undisputed champ. That's
Canelo Alvares. So on the Himimungi a scale where his recent fights had been
like ones and zeros and twos, he's fighting like now, like let's call
like a seven or an eight. So is it the greatest You're being awful
numeorous on seven or eight. I mean he's lost all of those I'm talking
about. On the Hemi Mungia scale. He's a name, But if if
Mungia beats him, isn't the general reaction unless you're a huge Mangia fan.
So what this guy already lost all these other fights. No, I don't
think that's fair. I mean, it depends how he beats him. I
mean, if he stops him, that's impressive, because no one's ever stopped
Devin Jego, even in those losses against the very best guys, um,
you know. And we'd be having a different conversation if he gets the call
against Triple G like a lot of people thought he should have, this would
be a totally different conversation. So I don't agree with your assessment. Do
I think that Mungia should handle him because he's a little bit older, Absolutely,
But do I think that of what's out there and compared to the garbage
that fucking Mungie has been fighting, this is a very solid fight. I'm
happy that it's happening. It's certainly better than some unknown you know, uh
uh, you know, public service person. I mean, or a cab
driver or a you know, a school teacher or a trash collector electrician.
Okay, Turgey Devin Schenko is a bona fide professional fighter who was a tremendous
amateur and has been a very good pro. All right, and I will
say once again, Heimi Mungia's career completely mismanaged. For the last three years.
They've wasted three times. Well, you do agree on that that fight
in June. In June, Golden Boyd his own main event. Okay,
top rank, by the way, has won a purse. Bid you report
it on this or archer better BF to defend against Callum Smith. Can I
just say something about this because pick a lane, pick a lane. WBC
usually you're the biggest critic, but pick a lane. So we have this
criticism of Dmitri b Bole that they want to stand in the way of b
BOL fighting better BF because the Russians can't be fighting for the WBC title.
But here's the reality, it's not the fight they want. The fight they
want, obviously, is with their number one guy, Callum Smith. So
it's okay for Better B of the Russian to fight somebody you wanted to fight.
So pick a pick a lane, pick a lane on it. Listen.
As you know, I can certainly be very critical of sanctioning buddies,
and I've been critical of the WBC numerous times. In this case, I
don't. I don't think it's a matter of Pickolane, because if Bevo was
not Russian, they would have given a better b of the exception to do
a unification, fright, if that's what he approached them to ask to do,
so, I don't think it's got to do with that. They had
at least been consistent in their rejection of the Russian fighters boxing for their titles.
Now, the reason why it's okay for better BF to have the WBC
title as a Russian born fighter because he's he has He's Russian by his birth
and his heritage, obviously, but he has boxed his entire professional career out
of Canada in Montreal. He is now a Canadian citizen. I believe he
is a Montreal bass fighter. For as long as he's been a professional,
he fought, you know, he boxes under the Canadian flag. He's introduced
us from Canada, and that was even before what happened with Ukraine. So
that is okay in the terms of Bevol. I mean, I don't.
It's not like Bevo's out there supporting the war or anything like that. He's
certainly spoken out again to some degree, but they've been again. I'm big
on consistency. Don't do one thing for one person and do it different for
the other. At least in the WBC's case when it comes to this situation,
they have been consistent and so that's the reason why that Better BF than
B will fight, at least for the moment, is not happening. Now.
That said, as as a backup plan, there's nothing wrong with him
fighting Count Smith. Couna Smith is a former super middleweight champion. The only
loss of his career was the decision to Canello when he lost the belts to
lost the belt to him plus for the vacant w BA title or one of
the doll figet which belt it was, but he lost the fight that was
for two titles. And you know, this is a good matchup. He's
looked good at light heavyweight. It is two wins by knockout and here he
goes to fight better BF. He's gonna have to travel from the UK Top
Ranks plan. They don't have an exact day yet, but you can bank
on it being scheduled for July. It'll be on one of their top rank
ESPN cards and listen Top Rank was very aggressive in their bidding. They bid
over two million dollars to win the first bit two point one million dollars they
beat out and barely edge by the way. The other there was only one
other bidder that was the calun Smith team of match Room Boxing bid two million,
one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. So Top Rank one the bid.
But when you think about a two million dollars plus bid for them to have
only one by fifteen thousand dollars, that they very very small margin. And
here's the other thing. Match Room's bid of two point you know, two
point one million was extremely aggressive because they only get thirty percent of that money.
You know, what people don't realize is that in purse bids, the
promoter who has the champion can go with the champion. They can work out
a deal for a payment of what their purse is going to be, and
that allows them to have some flexibility the promoter, so they can bid enough
to make sure that that the challenger comes to their promotion and does the fight.
So I don't know if better BF has some kind of deal with Top
Rank under that circumstance. But the point is, if you're the challengers promoter,
and you're bidding and you only have thirty percent whatever you bid on in
terms of the number, you have to give seventy percent of that money to
the champion. So Matroom was very aggressive and they made a very strong bid
to win the win the bid, But losing by fifteen thousand is pretty surprising
when when there was so much money that was bid on the fight. But
end of the day, for what boxing fans care about. Yes, it's
not the Bevo better BF fight, I get it, believe me, but
it's probably like the next best fight that they could do in the way class
I think, don't you think? I mean better B has already defeated Joe
Smith. He just had a great fight with Anthony Yard. You know,
better Bevo. We know why it's not happening like It's not like there's a
thousand other great light heavyweights out there from the fight. But Callan Smith is
certainly one of the better fighters in that division. He's made some good fights.
You know he's gonna give a good effort. His brother Liam Smith is
on a good run right now. They're from the fighting family. So I
got no problem with this. I'm glad it's happening top rank happened to be
the winner. I don't care who the promoter is. So the only difference
to me is when I watch it, it will be on an ESPN platform.
And if it had been Matriom that wanted I to watch it on a
Zone platform. And uh and again from your reporting, more than likely to
fight in either Montreal or Quebec City. To your point about him being a
Montreal resident, that will go there and have it. So it's not going
to be in the United States, for example, I mean in the UK.
But a leader and better be of has fought. He fought at Madison
Square Gardens Theater right when he beat Joe Smith, and then he fought in
England when he fought Yard. He'll now come back and fight in either Montreal
or Quebec City, depending on where they work it out for later this summer.
So there you go. I mean this this will be U you know
h it probably be in Montreal. I mean they have until August. I
believe it's like August fourth or August second or something that to put the fight
on. You know, if it's shifted by like another week, the WBC
wouldn't really give them too many problems, but most likely you're looking at it
day in July gives Callum Smith and better Be have plenty of time to get
ready. I mean we're here only in the early part of May. They
got plenty of time to get prepared for the fight. And it's a good
matchup. I mean it's h And can you know Montreal is a good fight
city. I mean when they have popular fighters and I'm better b have has
you know, been there for so long? You know, he hasn't had
a kind of a hometown fight in a while. I mean, I think
one title fight there, but most of his other fights have been in the
United States. He did have one fight, you know, a few years
ago in Russia, you know, before all the Ukraine business started. Um,
but they turned out. I've covered some fights in Canada and when John
Pascal was riding high as like the king up there, his fights would draw
big crowds. When Lucian Boute was super middleweight title holder, he drew huge
crowds at the Bell Center in Montreal. They were they were you know,
big deal events. H And I suspect that if he's fighting, you know,
this is a very first class fight between better B Evan and uh and
Callen Smith that they'll draw another good crowd there and it'll be good TV.
And uh, you know it's a good matchup. All right. Good enough
on those so plenty of news. Let's get to some nostalgia and wrap it
up, shall we? As we keep mentioning Cinco de Mayo Weekend has always
had tremendous fights, and you want to go back to a couple of them
in the nostalgia that you were ringside at for both, let's talk first.
You mentioned Joe Goosen about May seventh, two thousand and five and the phenomenal
Corals Castillo one, just a tremendous battle. Pick it up from there on
a fight that was now eighteen years ago. I don't even know where to
start when I talk about that fight, because I always I get emotion when
I talk about that fight. It's like if you've ever seen like a movie
that made you cry, or a play that made you cry, or some
type of event a play, a concert, a film, something that brought
out some emotion in you. That was that kind of fight when I was
there ringside Mandalay Bay. I will never forget it. It is the greatest
fight I've ever covered, not even close, and I've covered a lot of
great fights. It's, you know, arguably the greatest fight in boxing history.
It was obviously the fight of the year in two thousand and five.
I think you can make the very reasonable argument it's the fight of the decade
for the two thousand to two and ten, two thousand and nine. It
is just And here's the thing about it, TJ. Most people who remember
the fight remember the tenth round where Chico Corrales gets knocked down twice, the
whole stuff with the mouthpiece coming out and pulling it out and getting to put
back in a little controversy to for good measure, but he's basically out first
knockdown. I'm sitting there and I remember this as clear as fucking day.
The fight's over. I turned to whoever I'm sitting next to. We're like,
okay, fight's over. He gets up. Okay, it's it's not
over. It's not over. But like you know what, five ten seconds
later, he gets knocked down again. Now you look again to the guy
next year, Yeah, now it's definitely over. Fuck, it's not over.
He gets up again, At which point you mentioned Joe Goosen, who
has the famous line that's caught on the audio on the Showtime broadcast where they
bring, you know, Tony Weeks. The referee brings Chico to the corner
to have him replaced the mouthpiece, and he prints his the mouthpiece. He
puts it back in, and he looks at him and he literally just says,
you better fucking get inside on him now. And of course Joe wearing
the nice Hawaiian shirt obviously, and what happened is such a moment for what
happened right after that, absolutely in Castillo got stopped. It was here's the
thing. I can't really reiterate this or presless and strong enough terms. Briar
to round ten, rounds one through nine, it was already the greatest fight
in Showtime history. It was already going to be the fight of the year,
It was already a fight of the decade. It was already the greatest
fight I'd ever covered. It was all of that rolled into one, and
then the tenth round happened and it just went to like an entirely other level.
Now it's not only the greatest fight you've ever seen or covered and the
most it's now like the most dramatic thing you've ever fucking seen it is,
I think not just in boxing. I think you can make a very strong
argument that it might be the greatest comeback in sports history. The guy was
fucking out, he's done, He's down twice in what had been an absolutely
savage, savage, savage, violent, fucking fight. He gets off the
deck twice, got a little controversy with the mouthpiece for good measure, and
he stops him on his in a devastating fashion. I mean, I can
tell you as clear as day, eighteen years ago, what I was wearing,
where I was sitting, what I was doing, and I'm gonna tell
you, and I think I've told this story before. I will never forget
this. I was still writing for USA today. There was more media at
that fight than normally would have been, and the reason was because the night
before that fight at the Mandalay Bay was the annual Boxing Writer's Association of America
Awards dinner, and obviously I attended that, and then a lot of us
that attended it. We covered the fight, and as a matter of fact,
myself and a few others we stayed for the entire week in Las Vegas
because the following Saturday, at the MGM down the road from the Mandalay Bay
was the fight between Felix Trinidad and Winky Wright. So I spent like ten
days in Vegas. But the thing I remember, very, very, very
vividly is when the fight was over, you know, and you're just like,
you're so emotional. I was sweating like a fucking crack addict when that
fight winned it. I mean, I can't even expressed to you. It
was I've done something I have never done in my life before that or since
I was so emotionally spent from watching that fight and I was part I was
along with Tim Smith, who at the time worked for The Daily News in
New York, and our pal Dougie Fisher, who now was the editor of
The Ring magazine, who at the time was at max Boxing, one of
the early internet websites for boxing, back before they had Steve Farhood doing their
unofficial scoring showtimes production folks would select people from the media and ask them if
they would be willing to contribute their round by round scores to have like an
unofficial media panel of three people scoring the fight. So for that particular fight,
Dougie, myself and Tim were the three unofficial scorers score that fight,
and so I was paying even closer attention than I would normally pay to the
fight. So when the fight ends, and I'm like, Okay, now
I got to write my story because even though the USA Teddy didn't publish and
tell Monday, I was writing why for the website on late late night Saturday
night. So you're you're on a deadline. You got to get your shit
done. M I was so emotional and so spent from watching what I saw,
like I had to, like I felt like I was going to hyperventily,
like I had to like catch my breath from it. And I was
so like emotional. I'm like thinking to myself, how can I possibly write
this and do this fight justice in the next like twenty minutes, Like you're
I'm thinking, I'm writing the first draft of history of maybe the greatest fight
that has ever taken place, and it's important because of what we do.
And you know that I'm a thirty year veteran radio TV with the journalism a
greenhole and the whole bit. So you need to understand this. As the
fight fans, you are thinking that storyline is Castillo Castillo, Castillo Castillo Castillo
is one, and now suddenly it has one eighty reversed in dramatic fashion,
and it's a whole different story. And now you've gone through it as you're
mentioning, and now you've got to rewrite the narrative that you would know.
I wasn't thinking that. I was just thinking I just saw the greatest fucking
fin I've ever seen with all the drama that happened. So what I did
was and again, I've never done this before this fight. I've never done
it since. I literally put my pen down or what I was using my
score book, I pushed my chair away from the ringside table, and I
kind of just put my head in my lap for like literally probably like a
good like two actual minutes, and just took a couple of deep breaths to
kind of collect myself. How am I going to do this? And you
take a deep breath, you know, normally when you see the end of
a fight, the general and kicks in and you just start to write.
I've done it a million times, and you'll learn how to write on deadline
and to produce a decent story, you know, under that kind of duress
when everything's going crazy in the crowds making noise and all that. It's not
the most conducive atmosphere too, thinking clearly, but you you will learn how
to do it over the years, and I have learned how to do it
over the years. On that particular fight, I needed a couple of minutes
to collect myself because of what I had just seen in front of me.
It was as unforgettable as anything I've ever seen. Now fast forward a couple
of days. I mentioned to you before, a bunch of us were staying
for the week to go also for the following week to cover the Tito Trinidad
Winkie Right fight. So Gary Shaw, who was the promoter of Chico Corrals,
they were all staying obviously at the Mandalaid Bay and then he was also
involved with Winky Wright as the promoter, so he was now going to be
over at the MGM. So I want to say, like that Monday or
Tuesday before the whole Trinidad Winky fight week really got started. I can't remember
it was on a Monday or the Tuesday. But Gary who had one of
those big giant apartments in the MGM, beautiful plush apartments where they put every
you know, the big wigs up for the week. You know, I'm
staying in my normal like little small little room with the shitty water pressure.
Anyway, So Garry great Fields in the typical one hundred and fifty square foot
hotel room with the bed in the desk and me And meanwhile, Shaw is
in is in something that would have like a president come and visit him,
right, like a two thousand foot like a two thousand square foot apartment.
I mean, listen, first world problems. I can't complain him an veg.
You know, you got what are you gonna complain about? But anyway,
so he invites the the media guys that had stayed for the week.
They cater like a lunch. They got the big giant, you know,
huge HDTV and all that, and they get a DVD of the fight,
and they invite us up to the big suite in the in the apartment and
Chico Carralis, who says he hasn't been out of bed since the fight because
he's so fucked up from the fight. When he walked in the room,
he still had the big giant red spot in his eye from the damage from
the fight. And Chico and his wife now his widow, Michelle Corrals.
They come in and the media guys, we sit down on these nice couches
and we watched the fight together and Diego Corral is sitting in the middle of
all of us. I'm sitting like six feet away from him, and he's
giving us blow by blow of the fight. It'd be like if you've got
a DV your favorite movie and you put on the director commentary to listen to
the commentary about the film, except the director's doing it live, sitting right
there with you, which is and I wish to god that I had like
an audio or a video of that. It was absolutely incredible because he's telling
it to us from the point of view as the guy that's taken the damage
and doing the damage. But if you knew Chico Corrals, he was a
big, big boxing fan. He just loved boxing as a fan also,
so he was into it like almost like he was removed from what was happening,
watching it like a fan, but then realizing, Okay, I'm the
one that's getting hit and I'm also going out the punishment. So to hear
him describe blow by blow like a commentary for the entire ten rounds and then
what he was thinking and how he was feeling and all the stuff about the
mouthpiece in the whole nine yards was one of the more amazing experiences of my
career, and I think I could say the same for the other handful of
guys that were there in the room that we're able to watch him go through
that commentary about the fight. Now fast forward a couple of days later,
It's the day of the press conference for Winkie right in Feelix, Trinidad,
and the news comes down that from a month earlier, James Toney has failed
a drug test for his heavyweight WBA title fight against John Ruiz, which happened
to be the very first boxing event I covered when I left USA Today and
went to ESPN, So when I covered Chico Corralis, I was that was
one of my first fights, one of my early fights for ESPN, so
Friday Night Fights was still on ESPN two at the time. They wanted to
do an interview with Diego Corralis to talk about this great fight you just engaged
in, you know, seven days earlier, but they also wanted to have
me as the reporter, do a report about James Tony's failed drug test.
As another one of their aspects of the studio portion of the show. They
only had one crew in Las Vegas. On the producer and he says,
listen, here's what we'd like to do. We're doing this talk back with
Diego Carlis about the Castillo fight, and we'd like you to do this report.
Do you think you could go to Corralis's house so we can have our
crew in one location, we can do our interview with Diego, and then
we can come to you when we can do the report. So I said,
I can. I can try to work that out. So I called
up Michelle Coralis, which was Diego's wife, and I explained to her what
was going on. She said, no problem, come on over. So
she gave me the address. I got the you know, a taxi,
and I went out to Diego's house and that the production folks were there setting
all the stuff up. And it takes a while when you want to set
up these live shots. It's not as easy as it looks. The bottom
line was I spent like five hours hanging out with Diego Corralis, like six
days after the fight. He's still all fucked up with the eye and he's
still in pain and taking medication and the whole thing. But you know,
they his mother in laws and making lunch for the crew, and Chico takes
me upstairs. He's got this beautiful little mini mansion in a nice area outside
of Las Vegas. He shows me all of his amateur trophies and we watched
some of the I saw a couple of videos of him as an amateur fighter.
And we sit down and we're watching. And by the way, HD
television is sort of still a new thing at this time, right, I'd
never really watched HDTV except when we watched the replay in the in the Gary
Shop two thousand and five. It's very it's very prayer. Not a whole
lot of people had it, right. So we're sitting in Diego's like trophy
room and he's got the TV on and he's like, have you ever watched
HD television? I'm like, you know, maybe a couple of times,
but not really. He's like, I want to show you this. So
he's like, there's a basketball game. So he's like, here's what it
looks like in HD, and he switches over to SD and you can obviously
tell how much greater the picture is in high definition. So the point here
is this, he goes and I love what. I'll never forget this.
It's like it brings in my ears to this day, the glee in which
he said this, and the smile on his face. The greatest thing about
watching stuff in HD is when you watch boxing, you can see every drop
of blood. I'll never forget that. And it was like that was just
the type of guy he was. He loved the sport, but he was
you know, he wanted to be in great fights. If you ever knew
him, he always talked about I want to be in great fights. Like
his team was, come hell or high water, I'm gonna do what I
can to win that fight. And and the coda, the ps if you
will, off of this incredible battle that he had a couple of things.
He was never the same after that fight. He and then he died in
a motorcycle accident because he was under the influence. Two years later to the
day. That spooky, unreal, I mean, you want to talk about
And it happens that the day that he died May seventh is also my mother's
birthday, which is also the anniversary of the fight. But the fact that
he engaged in that kind of battle. You know, most people would break
them to be in that kind of fight. He cooked joy and glee and
being that level of violent fight. It was the last win of his career.
He came back and had the third fight with Castillo. He got or
i should say the second fight. The third fight never ended up happening.
He got knocked out in the fourth round when Castillo was dramatically overweight. He
then lost a split decision to Joel cassibody or in their third fight. Then
he went to welterweight in the early part of OZ seven and he got his
ass kicked by Joshua Cloudie, who was still at the top of his game
at that time. And you know, his career was pretty much at the
coming to an end, and very sadly, you know, he died only
about a month after that that fight against Cloudie in a motorcycle wreck. And
the fact that had happened on the same day as that fight is just amazing
to me. And the fact that that fight is eighteen years go, you
know, is mind bobbling. I I have said this number of times.
I've broached the topic with Steven Espinosa as showtime. If there's ever a fight
that needs a documentary treatment of some kind of the Diego keralis Jose Luis Castillo
one needs that. Now. Obviously Diego is not here and he cannot be
a part of that. But Castillo was here, Gary Shaw is here.
Journalists like myself who covered it are here, the announcers are here, Diego's
widow, yeah, Joe Goosen this here. The point is there's a lot
of people that were around, that were at that fight that could speak to
it, and it would be it's the greatest fight in showtime history. They
should spend some time honoring the greatest fight that they ever broadcast. And if
you think about it, the fight was in two thousand and five. That
means in two years will be the twentieth anniversary of that incredible fight. And
I will tell you I probably washed that fight about, you know, three
or four times a year. It's it's a remarkable fight. If you've never
seen it, you know you're doing yourself at the service off you're a boxing
fan. It is a glorious, glorious fight. And by the way,
it wasn't just in any old fight. It was a lightweight tibal unification.
The winner of that fight was going to be known as the number one lightweight
in the world, clearly, not even a shadow with doubt about it.
And Odieva Cross won and you know, it may have been his last win,
but for that brief time, he was on top of the world as
the greatest lightweight in the world at that moment. All right, great stuff
there, and we've got one more anniversary. So that anniversary is coming this
weekend on Sunday to seventh. Sinco Delmayo, as we released the podcast,
has had great fights, but on the actual May fifth date, two thousand
and seven, is Floyd Mayweather Oscar Day. La Joya. You were there
for that one. It's fair to say Mayweather's biggest win to date in his
career was that night. And I still vividly remember you were there. So
you're going to speak to it more. Him with the sombrero on, with
the Mexican flag, mocking trunks on. Floyd Mayweather a fight Oscar, and
then he backed it up. He outfought him and he beat him. And
I don't want to accept that that was sixteen years ago, but that was
sixteen years ago. Well, I'll say this about that fight. It was
Floyd's biggest win up to that point, but I think obviously the Pack Yo
fight when Trump that down the road. But it was a big win for
Floyd. But the thing about it was he was moving up. He won
another yet. You know, he had started his career as a champion at
one hundred and thirty pounds and where he won his first title. He'd won
the title had one hundred thirty five against Caspio, who we just spoke about.
He won a title out one hundred forty when he defeated zab Judah I'm
tom sorry, when he defeated Arto Gaddi. He then won a world title
at welterweight when he defeated zab Judah. Now he's moving up and he's fighting
Oscar for the WBC's junior middleweight title, which he had won in his previous
fight or in a great performance against Ricardo Mayorga, and this was at before
Mayweather pack Yow. The biggest fights I can think of in the time I
have been around covering boxing since two thousand, you know, there's usually like
one gargantuan fight like per decade, let's say, so early on it was
Lennox Lewis against Mike Tyson. The next biggest fight after Lewis Tyson, which
set the records for pay per view and revenue and all that, was Oscar
dal La Joya versus Floyd Mayweather. At the time, it was the all
time pay per view record. It was the first fight to exceed two million
pay per views. Off the top of my head, the fight generated over
one hundred and fifty million dollars and grows, both in terms of pay per
view and revenue of the gate and all the other stuff that goes into the
total pot. It was as big of a fight as there was. It
was the front cover of Sports Illustrated. It was on mainstream news channels,
on mainstream publications. You know, it was covered by everybody. Now.
It always irritating me that they called it. At that time, we just
finished with all this nonsense with Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia at the time the
fight to save boxing, which was bullshit, but it was a catchy catchphrase.
I guess Sports Illustrated put that on their cover, which always pissed me
off, and where we just talked about the greatest fight I ever covered in
Karrals and Castillo Deloya Mayweather. It wasn't like a bad fight or anything.
It didn't live up to the hype in terms of being a great fight.
But was in Floyd. That was not the style that he fought in.
He was if he was in a great, great fight, it was probably
bad for Floyd. Floyd was a great defensive fighter and you know, was
always on his game in that sense. Oscar de Loyd did really, really
well in that fight. For the first half, he was winning that fight.
In the first half, he was dominating Floyd in any regards with his
jeb and then he forgot about it for the next half of the fight,
and Floyd ended up winning, you know, a competitive, a close decision.
Officially they called it a split decision. I didn't think that was necessarily
appropriate. But Floyd won. It was the biggest fight of his career.
He took the short end of the stick and the money and all the different
things, and he never forgot that. So when he got to be the
guy that could dictate to his opponents, he took the deal la joya route
and he dictated hard to his opponents. But that was a megafight, two
million plus pay per view. The atmosphere in Las Vegas, TJ was all
ridiculous that week, every movie star, every sports star, I mean you
that, you know, the hookers came from all fifty states. To me,
it was this is what you get on the podcast. Lines like that
from Raphael. I love that there's one of the lines. And by the
way, there was no team mobile arena, so everything was at the end.
Did you okay, okay, but take me to the ring walk?
Did you have any knowledge? Did anybody have any knowledge that he was going
to come out Floyd with the sombre and the Mexican flag trunks, because that's
all time pro wrestling heel or bad guy move, that's phenomenal. So nobody
really knew that. And so your reaction when you saw that because I cracked
up. I cracked up, and I went, now there is there is
an in your face. I am a heel. Bring it on moment,
bring the heel, bring the heat from the crowd, bring it all on
me. I want it all on me, and I will still beat Oscar
Dalahya. Maybe I'm wrong about this, and I'm sure are a stute listeners
could attest to this. I want to say that his uncle Roger, when
he was a professional, had done the same thing when he fought one of
the many Mexican opponents that he fought. I don't know about the trunks,
but he frequently he was known for a while by the nickname the Mexican Assassins,
and he would wear the sombrero. Right, I think I put the
Mexican flag colors on your trunks and the sobrero to fight Dal la Joya and
Sicco de Mayo. I'm just thinking, and then there's that. I'm just
thinking that Floyd got maybe the idea of them Roger, who was obviously Floyd's
long time trainer. But the thing that I remember about that fight was was
the way In. Now, I've been to a lot of way Ins,
but this was to my recollection. They had opened up the arena and brought
in many It was not the entire arena like they started to do later with
bigger with other bigger fights like Mayweather pac Aw and Canello Mayweather, but they
used to open up like half of the MGM and the ring was being built
behind the curtain and they packed it in. But the thing about the way
In that I found so memorable. I was at ESPN at the time,
and not was I writing stories, but I was also a Sports Center correspondent
for those bigger fights, and we worked and we did you know hits,
you know, all through the week on the different I remember watching you before
and after that night, and here we are sitting together sixteen years later.
Keep going. So here's what I remember about that. So I'm on the
stage for the way in like not in the front and center, but I'm
going to have to do a report lie for Sports Center, basically right when
they get off the scales. So what I can remember about it, and
it was just amazing. It's still like I can still sort of picture to
my mind standing there on the stage as the guys are getting off the scale
to pose for the cameras and the flash and I'm watching and I'm looking out
at the crowd and the flashbulbs and the phones were just going crazy, and
like I had like stars on my eyes because it was so bright and you're
inside of the lights run. But I just remember thinking, like, holy
shit, there's all these people and the just it felt like the lights and
the flashes just wouldn't stop. I mean, there's probably a few seconds,
but it felt like an that the flashbubs are going on, and it sort
of hit me like, this is a big, big fight. I mean
I knew that. And the other thing about the fight, by the way,
that helped make it into the monster that it was in terms of what
it generated. That was the first fight where HBO did twenty four seven.
Now twenty four seven kind of it got to a point later on where it
was sort of played out like how many times can you watch Manny Packet run
the mountains with the dog? It kind of got boring at All and All
Access on Showtime, which you know, basically tried to copy that format.
They do a nice job with it, but they don't. It's usually only
one episode, maybe two. If they do an extra one, it's after
the fight with the epilogue. But twenty four seven was real time in camp,
like real shit. Not like it wasn't nearly as superficial as some of
the other build up shows, at least in the early goings of twenty four
seven. It became a little more superficial later, But those early series that
they did, they would show it on a Sunday night back when HBO was
the powerhouse, and they would put it on like between you know, before
Sex in the City, like after sopranos. I mean you would like they
would have episodes of twenty four seven that would do a bigger audience than a
live boxing match. Yeah, And so it became a huge thing, and
it was a lot of that was because of Floyd with them, and they
were running it like for three weeks. You'd get three episodes to build a
four four to build up to the weekend of the fight. That's your point,
and that helped with building the audience and not everybody. It not only
did it get everybody pumped up for the fight, it brought the promotion to
like a fever pitch. Now again I'm not knocking other build up shows.
I'm not knocking All Access, but or even the later twenty four sevens,
the early twenty four sevens and day La Joya Mayweather being the first one.
You would watch it as a journalist. You would watch it on Sunday night
and there would be news made in the show, and you would write a
story because they revealed something on the show from the camp or from the build
up from the press tour that you didn't know about that was newsworthy. Like
again, the later series and All Access, they don't really come up with
things that are newsworthy anymore because it's very, very much more control. HBO
had a little bit more free reign in the camp back in those early days
of that show, and that's why it won a ton of you know,
Emmy Awards and had the great theme music and that would just made you,
you know, just want to you know, you know, pound your chest.
You were so excited about it. But they broke news and it helped
make that fight into a monster and Oscar and Floyd is, without question,
at least in my time of doing this, in that top you know four
or five events that I ever covered, just in terms of the sheer,
excitement and magnitude and mainstream exposure the fight had. It didn't turn out to
be a great fight, but it was a good fight and it was a
huge win for Floyd. It really he went from doing you know, the
three hundred thousand type numbers on pay per view like he had done with like
Carlos Baldimere and against zab Judah and against our Taro Gaddi and now after Oscar
the Rainmaker, now he is a million pay per view plus every time out.
Basically Oscar's fight with Pack, you'll put pack. You went to that
strame, same stratus here. I liken it too. If you're a superstar
in wrestling, and you know you take on the younger guy and that guy
wins, you put him over. Oscar put Floyd over. Oscar put Pakyo
over. And for all the animosity that there's always been between Floyd and Oscar,
not really between Oscar and Pacyo, but Floyd Mayweather should he should be
respectful and thankful because Oscar put him over and helped him make the probably close
to a billion dollars that he's earned in all those years since. And all
of that was May the fifth, as we released a podcast of two thousand
and seven Cinco de Mayo two thousand and seven, go look that one up
to man. We have had a full show, and of course Floyd obviously
fought Cannelo Alvarez and that's one of Canelo's two losses early early in his career
as well. So it ties back to Canelo who's in action on Saturday.
We remind you again as we wrap up on this podcast, whatever happens with
this weekend, and that includes the undercard that includes obviously also there's a British
fight card with Joshua Buatzi in action as a light heavyweight in the feature.
Whatever happens, we'll be back to recap it all on the Fight Freaks Unite
Recap podcast Sunday night into Monday morning. We also remind you be with us
on the bet Us Boxing Show as you hear us now releasing on Friday live
Friday one Eastern time. Be with us for predictions inside an analysis on these
fights in Mexico, in particular, bet Us Platforms, YouTube, etc.
Will be there for that. And with that, Brother Raphael, I think
that's a preview for this weekend. Excellent stuff here from you. Let's see
what happens with Canello against England, John Rider and everything else this weekend.
And with that, I think we're good, my friend, We're good.
Hope everybody enjoys the fights this weekend should be a lot of fun. Thank
you also to the Latin snake Sergio Moral with us. He's on the call
with Todd Grisham and Chris Mannix of the de Zone broadcast of Canelo and Writer.
We thank you for finding us as well. Again, great content on
the podcast feed. You heard this week from Canelo Alvarez one on one with
Dan, the special exclusive with Joe Goosen with Dan as well. If you're
following or subscribing to The Big Fight, we can podcast feed you get this
content on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or Spotify. For now, we
are good. Read the site Big Fight Weekend dot com. Let's see what
happens for Canelo and writer for Dan, Raphael I'm tja. Read We'll talk
to you after it's over. On the Fight Preach Unite recap. For now,
you've been hearing the preview the Big Fight Weekend Preview podcast and we're good
for now with Canelo and Ryder coming up. By