Oh well, there off a weekend that has seen Alexander Usik become the undisputed
heavyweight champion with a very impressive near ko but ultimately split decision when over Tyson
Fury. We are ready to recap that the entire ring a fire card in
Saudi Arabia a plus, we also have an upset with another Ukrainian fighter winning
a world title in the top rank ESPN main event to go over. We're
ready to recap all the fights, fight news, fight nostalgia and more.
You found the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast. I am the somewhat competent host,
TJ. Reeves. He is our insider Dan Raphael back once again.
Fight Freaks Unite is his substack. Make sure you're subscribed. Make sure you're
on his email newsletter. Also make sure you're finding us and following us on
this podcast feed. I have had not one, not two, but three
different people already contact me as we release this pod Sunday night and the Monday
saying when's the pod out? Or I can't wait to hear what you guys
have to say about Usik and Fury. So with that, Dan Rayphiel,
welcome in. We've got lots to go over. We're gonna spend a lot
of time, obviously, because it's it's warranted, it's worth it to talk
Usak and Furick. How are things as we get things underway on the recap
pot, things are good. I'm glad we're not getting on this on this
conversation talk about the shitty judges or some controversy that we had a mega fight
that lived up to most of the expectations. It was a great matchup,
heck of a fight, the entertaining undercard, no controversy, close fight,
competitive fight, everything you want in big time boxing. And we don't have
to sit here and piss and moan and rail about some terrible judging or some
controversial referee call. Everybody did their job and it was a it was a
good dight, a good a good day for the sport. Someone say there
is some slight controversy on whether there could have been a stoppage or not with
the referee. We're gonna get into that some controversy before we're gonna get there.
I'm not that's I would do, but not over arcing big problem.
Controversy can always go just just a matter of a discussion. Point sure,
and also the judging and the decision is a split decision, and there were
a lot of people believing draw. We'll get into that. There were a
lot of people thinking at the end this could be a draw, but of
course the knock down round made it very difficult for how is the math going
to work out for it to be even and a draw? All right,
So a lot to get They find a way though, j sometimes they never
underestimate the ability of that, all right, So a lot to get to.
Again, thank you for finding us. We come your way. Preview
pod into the weekend, recap pod off the weekend. On most occasions,
I will say again, Rayfield, with summer coming up here, there may
be an occasion where there's not a pod as a previewer, as a recap.
We're going to do our best, but I can I can tell you
in my household there's an I don't even think I've told you this. There
is an upcoming cruise to Alaska for the Reeves household. So we are trying
and my wife is one of those we love our wives where she's planning everything
and packing everything now and we don't leave for another week and a half.
So that's kind of going on in my house while we do all this,
but I did. I did five fine time to be able to watch all
of this long day on Saturday. So let's get into it here, and
let's start with the best for last. I can tell you this that I
went with some other people and was able to see the fight because I had
it on the laptop, had it subscribed through PPV dot com. Wasn't able
to hear it as well. I've now rewatched with the commentary on it.
You obviously were locked in completely. What are what are your thoughts on Usik
getting the win, getting the decision and he's now undisputed for however long that
lasts coming up, TJ. My thoughts are to start off with what I
say pretty much every single week when we get going on on the recap of
the fights we have seen, and first and foremost always the single most important
thing is we got our money's worth, We got our times worth. It
was a tremendous card. The main event was the asked, which is the
way you want it is for the main event to be the best of what
was on the card. But it was a very it was a long undercard.
I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it was, like you said,
it was a long day of boxing. I started watching fights at literally about,
you know, a couple of minutes after a twelve pm Eastern time,
because I picked it up. I didn't watch the preliminaries, but I watched
the you know, from the beginning of the main card, and then when
it was over, I was writing, and then I was paying attention also
to the top rank card. So it was a good thing the family was
out of talent because I was useless to them today. They've been out with
my wife and my son at one of his activities for like the last several
days, so there was no no family obligations in terms of Saturday whatsoever.
So I could just devote it to the entirety, to the fight card and
to the other show. But the main thing was it was a good fight.
It sort of lived up to the hype, which is hard to do,
you know, when you get the first time there's an undisputed heavyweight title
fight in twenty five years, and and there's been a lot of expectations,
a lot of talk, a lot of anticipation, it's hard to live up
to it, you know, inevitably you're often gonna come away a little bit
disappointed. But I have to say, well, I don't think this was
the fight of the year or anything like that. There was great drama,
there was great personality, There was good action, There was good ebb and
flow. As we discussed many times that the the the odds makers and the
public thought this was a close fight. That's how it turned out. It
wasn't. It was a good judging. It was nothing crazy in terms of
you know, even if you thought that Usik was the winner, there was
no crazy like one eighteen scorecard that was the outlier that we often see.
You know, everybody did their jobs the right way. I thought. In
terms of the Zonne the broadcast, I remember I bitched and moan when they
had these long cards that they just have no sense of timing and they drag
stuff out forever and have a half an hour between fights. That's the pacing
for a card that was eight fights long on pay per view was excellent.
I mean to helped that. There were some early knockouts. So from top
to bottom, you know, you really can't get a lot better, Like
when you take into account quality matchups, good entertaining, actions, some good
knockouts, some you know, some back and forth and upset here there,
and then to top it all off, you know, a superb main event.
And by the way, it's all over at least for us here on
the East Coast anyway, at a very reasonable hour. Maybe not if you
were at the fight in Saudi Arabia where was the middle of the night.
But I wasn't there, so I'm not complaining. But in the end,
Alexander Usik made history. He becomes the first ever four belt undisputed heavyweight champion.
He's now only the third four belt undisputed male champion in two weight glasses.
He joins his other fellow pound for pound top guys in that small group,
which is Terrence Crawford. Has a welterweight, in a junior welterweight and
in a way as a bantam weight and a junior featherweight. Now Husik is
a undisputed champion. He had done it previously at cruiserweight, now at heavyweight.
When I interviewed him when he was about to make his heavyweight debut and
we talked about what his goals were, his thing was, I want to
emulate what my man Holyfield did. I've already done it as a cruiserweight.
I want to follow the footsteps and also become the undiscrited heavyweight champion, just
like he did. And that's now a few years ago, and then I'll
be damn the man did it, and did it in upset fashion, mildly
anyway, and got the job done, and didn't just get the job done,
made some got the job done with some emphasis because of the fact that
he almost knocked Tyson Fury out in the ninth round after having to rally because
he was behind, you know, in the first part of the fight,
and as a matter of fact, looking at the score cards, he was
trailing on two score cards after seven. He was even on another scorecard after
seven, and from there he basically won the rest of the fight, including
nearly knocking out Tyson Fury, and a lot of people could argue, not
controversially, but could argue anyway that Mark Nelson, an excellent referee generally speaking,
certainly could have stopped the fight and no one with a blink because Fury
was all over the place, he had no legs, he was laying on
the ropes. They held him up. He called the knockdown but the ropes
helped him up about ten times. And what can you say, Usick is
he's the man. Now he's the man. So let's get into a couple
of aspects for the first part of the fight. For the first couple of
rounds of the fight, Tyson Fury gave away rounds clowning around and not being
busy enough in the first couple of rounds. I thought, quickly, do
you agree with that? Before we then move into the fight was like in
stages, So the first stage is the first couple of rounds, and I
believe that Usik easily won the first couple of rounds because Fury was spending too
much time clowning around, et cetera to do much in those. Again,
I didn't quite have it like that. I gave him the first round,
but I think if I remember, I don't have my scorecard in front of
me, I could go grab the book in the other room. But because
I actually on this particular fight, actually wrote it down instead of just even
typing in, I wanted to have posterity in my score book that I keep,
so I have it written down of my round by round spart But to
my recollection, I believe I had the fight five rounds to one in favor
of Tyson Fury after the sixth round, giving Alexander Usak the first round.
So second round I did give to to Fury, but they were they were
kind of close ish, you know, it wasn't like a huge amount of
I don't think that Fury landed a significant punch really in either of the first
two rounds. And I finally started to land that uppercut. He landed one
of them like in the third and he and he certainly did in the fifth.
He got his attention with an upper cut in the fifth, and that
seemed to be a tactic he and sugar Hill Stewart, and the tactic was
trying to lure him in and hit him with like the bolo right uppercut if
you will, as a bigger fighter. And he was having success with that.
So he was in control in the middle of the fight. And then
he was so control I thought he's going to stop him at some point,
right, he was so in control, And and so why did it flip
handling, Why did it flip in your mind with him in control? Then
I think it's probably because he finally got touched up by USI's left hand.
He took a big shot, uh, you know, a couple of big,
big, not I can't say big shots, but shots that maybe got
his attention more than he expected, you know, if you go back,
and I think certainly before the knockdown in the eighth round anyway, took a
shot on the nose that definitely caused some some problems and he was trying to
deal with that. There was a little bit of blood, and you never
know how a guy's going to react, and that's that was not the greatest
reaction. He lost that round, and then he actually seemed to be coming
back a little bit in the in the ninth round, and as big of
a round as it turned out to be for Usik, it really wasn't until
the final thirty seconds where he did the bulk of that damage when he when
he just you know, landed a but man, did he do damage?
All right? Say, so let's go right to that. So the noses
bloody, he's been shaken up a little bit, and I thought, tactically,
give me your insight, but I thought this the right hook followed by
the straight left hand. We saw it repeatedly in the back half of the
fight, and that's what's set up Fury really on rubber legs, almost on
roller skates across the ring, and he caught him with that combination two more
times after the initial time. Right hook, straight left hand, right hook
straight left hand. What were your thoughts and and did you believe in that
moment, like many believe, this may be over right? Absolutely? First
of all, I do think that it took Usik a few rounds to settle
down. I mean, as experienced as these men are, both of them,
there's still nerves. You're still trying to get your sea legs under you,
so to speak. You still got to kind of get your flow going.
And certainly when you're in Usik's position and you're fighting a guy that big,
which is much bigger. Even though Usik has not got this was only
he's only got a handful of heavyweight fights. I mean, most of his
career was a cruiserweight. He had two kind of you know, softy kind
of heavyweight fights to sort of get to know you against Witherspoon and against Chesaora.
Then he went into the two fights against against Anthony Joshua, and then
he of course in the summer last year, had the Duba fight. So
that's it. That's the heavyweight resumes. It's a total. Going into this
fight, he'd only had two softies two Joshua and Duba. Five fights.
This was a six heavyweight fight, and all the men he'd face as a
heavyweight were much smaller than Tyson Fury. Not to say that Anthony Joshua was
small, but I'm just making the point that if you put him next to
a guy like Tyson Fury, it's going to be a lot different. So
the point is he still it took him a few routes to sort of get
the geography, if you know what I mean, to figure out like how
he's gonna deal with the big, tall guy who's coming at him and has
what I think was touching him up with some pretty good power shots. So
he finally got a shit together basically, and when he started to land,
he realized, you know what, I can hurt this guy also, And
at that point his best combination, I mean as a southball is a right
hook and a straight left hand, and you know, Fury, it was
a big target. There's a lot there to hit, and he was able
to land those punches and Fury, as we have seen numerous times. Has
never been the sturdiest guy when he gets caught. I mean he's been down
a bunch of times, including against a real small heavyweight you know who was
a cruiserweight and Steve Cunningham years ago, you know, about a decade ago.
So yeah, I mean, didn't we talk about on the US show
what the odds are it was a half a knockdown right on the handicapping show.
Yep. Yeah, I said, there's a really good chance that they'll
be a knockdown. Now. I didn't necessarily think it was gonna be Usik
knocking down Tyson Fury, but hey, that's exactly what happened. And so
he asked me, did I think he was in the verge of being stopped?
Absolutely when he took the second like dip into the ropes. He was
really really hurt, really hurt in that moment, and I believe many many
referees would have stopped the fight. I'm not being critical of Mark Nelson because
obviously by letting it continue, Perry showed that he was able to continue,
and I think he was, if I can interject, I think he was
also aware and we talked about this numerous times. Like with the famous Chavez
Taylor ending at the Mildred Taylor at the end of the of the fight,
at the end of the round. I think Mark Nelson was aware that it
was the end of the round because you could clearly on the PA constantly hear,
even with the crowd roaring the clap clap, that you're in the final
ten seconds of the round. So he was giving the benefit of doubt.
Did it surprise you because even in the moment, this is not after the
fact and trying to be twenty twenty hind sight, I was surprised that Usik
didn't hit him one more time along the ropes, the Buster Douglas moment of
hitting Mike Tyson one more time to lay him out in the tankyo, he
no, Yeah, go back and watch. He goes to swing the left
hand and he stops. He stops and sees Fury in the ropes, and
if he follows through in that moment, which is not illegal, if he
follows through, I'm not sure that Fury gets up. I don't know what
happens after that, but I just believe live and I've I've reconfirmed watching it.
He could have hit him along the ropes and he didn't listen, so
that's supposed to me. Here's the main thing. Had the referee stop the
fight, mm hm, I believe there would have been no outrage from anybody
or anything like that. You know, maybe maybe Fury would have complained a
little bit, but in the end, you know, he was damaged Goods
big time. And he's very very lucky that when it was when he did
take the eight count, because you know, of course it was. The
reason was called the knockdown was not because Fury's on the deck. It's because
the rules say if the if the referee deems that the ropes have held you
up, then they can call a knockdown, which is the reason why it
was called. So he administered the count. Now, he's very lucky that
as soon as the count was over and he wiped his gloves off, the
round ended. Had the round had another you know, fifteen to twenty thirty
seconds left, you know, Fury might have been knocked to the canvass and
out out of the fight. So he did have the full minute to recover.
And you know, he has shown, as we talked about in his
career, the ability to come back and show resilience as he did against multiple
knockdowns, four knockdowns and all against Deontay Wilder, against I mentioned the Steve
Cunningham knockdown years ago. Anyway, he had the heart and the grit to
sort of get through it. So you know, I don't I don't view
it as a controversy. I viewed as an exciting moment of a very meaningful
moment in the fight, because here's the reality, TJ. If Busik doesn't
get the knockdown, the fight winds up a draw because the scorecard that was
one fourteen one thirteen would have been one fourteen to one fourteen, and that
would have been a split dry out of one judge scoring the fight for Fury,
one judge scoring for Usic, and one judge having the fight. Even
so, the knockdown saved the day all the more reason why if you can,
and this is just how it is in sports and how it is obviously
in a brutal sport like boxing, if you can end it, end it.
And he did not there, and it's then surprised me. Let's segue
on as we talk about this and go over it all. It surprised me
that he didn't press the advantage at the beginning of the tenth round. Let
me find out if he's still shaky, which I believe Fury was at the
beginning of the tenth and the lorder that Usik didn't press it. I think
Fury got his faculties back and got his legs back under him. Your thoughts
on that, No, I agree with you about that. I mean,
we don't agree on a lot. We don't agree on everything all the time.
But I thought you're right. I mean, he he didn't jump out
after him. He might have felt like, you know what, I'm in
control of the fight. I've had the knockdown. I'm ahead. You know,
we can't speak for what the mentality was. The one thing was at
the I watched the postfight press conference that they both conducted after the fact,
because the interviews in the ring were so rough. We'll get to that,
oh yes we will. But somebody asked him about you know, when you
heard that the fight was a split decision before the scores were announced, you
know, what were you thinking because they had announced obviously for a Fury won.
For he says I believed I won. You know, he says,
I do good work. I don't worry. So he seemed confident afterwards.
So uh, that's the mentality why I'm making the point where he didn't necessarily
rush after Tyson going into the beginning of that next round thinking he might be
able to get him out of there. You know, strategically it might have
been a good thing. Obviously, if you can get the knockout, it's
always better because you don't have to leave it in the hands of the judges.
And fortunate that the judges weren't good this particular fight, so you know,
that's kind of nitpicking. But look, he he had such a rough
start to that fight, and I tell you, like a lot of us
were, you know, going back and forth. I'm hexted with a bunch
of boxing people over the last twenty four hours, like he was in trouble
where you thought Fury might end up stopping him in those first seven rounds,
because that's how bad Usick was dealing with the size and the length, and
I never I never thought he was in serious trouble. Fury caught him a
couple of times with the bolo uppercut, but was not dominating him, was
not overpassed, certainly, not like the Wilder fights where Fury would just do
whatever he wanted walk him down. He wasn't walking him down. He wasn't
walking him down. I don't. I don't mean dominating him in a physical
sense where he's beating him up and busting him up. Just he's like slowly
but surely building up the momentum. He's touching him, touching him, touching,
and at some point that was going to take its toll. It hadn't
manifested yet, but I felt like I could see that coming, and it
wasn't until there was a dramatic change, uh in around the eighth round where
where it became the other direction and back in the back half of the fight.
Fury was not in tremendous condition again, that was obvious. He had
trouble putting punches together. He got his nose popped, he got hurt in
the ninth and Usick did the same thing to Anthony Joshua, which is the
back half of the fight. He outperformed Joshuae both of those and won the
decisions. I know you know that, So listen, alexanders Is, He's
an all time great fighter. I mean, I don't I've said this before
fight. I mean, before this fight, he was already a first ballot
Hall of Famer before he ever touched gloves with Tyson heartt. The guy's accomplishments
are as good as it gets. He's an Olympic gold medalist, which culminated
a monster amateur creer, which he did everything. You know. He comes
off that famed Ukrainian Olympic team where his teammate was his very very close friend
Lomachenko. They also had Alexander Vodzick in that amateur group who went on to
become a white heavyweight champion. Point is, you know, they don't mess
around, and he had the accolades as an amateur. He was able to
come into the pros and do big time work and become the undisputed champion at
cruiserweight and then move up to heavyweight become now the undisputed heavyweight champion. You
can make an argument in my opinion, and I wrote this on my social
media after the fight. For the last number of months it's basically been a
two man race who's number one pound per pound because we saw in a way
in offered last summer, have those two fights in very short order in the
span of a week between Crawford defeating Erl Spence and also in a way defeating
Steven Fulton and now and now of course in a way has done even more
because he's become the undisputed champion and in his way class and defended it as
well, even though Crawford hasn't yet had another fight. My point here is
this, it was basically a two man race, right. It's either however
you just order them. It's it's in a way and Crawford are your two
top pound for pound guys. Busik was a little bit of an afterthought because
he'd been kind of inactive. Well, he didn't look great against Dubois in
the summer fight last year, but after seeing what he did against Tyson Fury
in the way he did it, you really have to have a three man
race now. Like if you tell me that based on that performance, you're
gonna make Uhsik your number one pound for pound fighter, I could not argue
with that, So I guess the point is it's now a three man race.
And by the way, it's not always like this, but those three
guys are so are so good. They're all three of them are first ballot
Hall of famers already. Crawford in a way and and ou sick that.
You know, it's been a long time trying to think the last time where
you could really have a a real conversation about the reasons why you could have
one, two or three different guys pound for pound. Typically there's one standout
or maybe there's two. We've went through the year where people were debating between
whether it's Mayweather or pac Yao. There was a time, you know,
when I first started doing this where when Roy Jones was sort of on a
long layoff and not really in the ring much. There was conversations maybe it's
Bernard Hopkins, maybe it's Shane Mosley, things along those lines. But we
really have a three man race right now, and it's it's really cool to
see because there's such they're so great and they do such different things. But
one thing that they all do they all are consonant pros, they all well
rounded, they all they're not one trick ponies, which sometimes the pound for
pound guy can be like that to some degree. It's a beautiful thing to
see if you ask me, and Usik again, very very talented boxer,
very much tactical with this as the other guys are, like you're pointing out
and there was a lot of method to how he finished that fight off.
And again, you know, everybody goes back and forth about their cards.
I thought, going into the eighth round it was four to three Fury.
I had given Usik the first two. I gave him the fourth round in
a close round. Five, six and seven were definitely Fury's rounds and eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve. I can't believe all three judges
gave Usik the twelfth round. I gave Fury Fury the twelfth round because Usik
landed the most significant punch at the beginning of the round and at the end
of the round. Right at the end of the fight, he landed a
couple of significant punches. So that kind of sit a cross and that and
that and those cards, I mean it was hanging in the balance on one
of them. That gave Fury the win. The ten to nine in the
twelfth round on one card. All right, So they read the cards,
Okay, I love this. On the Recap podcast, when you heard split
decision, what give me your initial immediate reaction? Did you think, oh
my god, what did you think? I heard the one card for Fury
and the one card for it was sick, and even though I knew mathematically
it couldn't probably happen, I kept in my I swear to God, I'm
like, fuck, they're gonna call this one thirteen, one thirteen, even
though I know with the math mathematically, because of the knockdown, that's extremely
impossible to happen. But I'm so and it's so unfortunate that I'm so fucking
jaded, and I'm sure most people are that you just expect there to be
a fucking shit show. When they started reading split decisions scores or scores in
journal. One of the guys that I'm watching with me, one of one
of the guys that was watching it with me, is going, this is
going to be a draw, and I was explaining the same thing to him.
I said, the problem is the ten to eight round is going to
keep it from being even after twelve. It's not a problem though, that's
a good thing. Well, yeah, right right, the problem with the
idea of a drawing. I'm just glad that he brought his own two judges
for the knockdown, yes, because it saved the Just imagine twenty five fucking
years to try to get an undisputed champion and they finally fucking fight and they
put on a good fight. We have a year and a half way to
get the fight. You you can't even really if it had been a draw
without the knockdown, you couldn't really even I wouldn't even call that controversial.
That was like legitimate scoring because with with with the way the scores were,
it was like a six to six ish or seven to five kind of fight.
And by the way, also, I'm thinking in my mind when we
had the first fight, this is going back, you know, a couple
of years ago, but it's not that long ago, and it's still kind
of was fresh in my mind because of what was happening when Jamal Jamel charlot
And and Brian Castango had their fight the first time, when they met for
the undisputed title at junior middleweight. What happened, it was a draw and
it took another period of time for them to have the rematch. Now,
in this particular case, well, Wilder Fury, Wilder Fury was a draw
after the knockdown, true, and I did that, but yeah, number
one, that was not for the undisputed But here's the here's the reason why
it would have been even more of a disaster then your average draw in this
kind of high profile fight. Because even though they had an automatic rematch,
whatever the result was draw, win loss. However it goes like they do
presently, they could have had the rematch, you know, in the next
fight come October, which is when they're planning at. October twelfth, is
a date that's penciled in. Here's the problem, TJ. If they had
done the rematch, it would not have been the undisputed title because, as
I have said a thousand times and people are finally starting to listen to me,
the contracts stipulate that the IBF title is going to be vacated. So
that would mean that that belt will not be on the line for the rematch,
whether it's off a draw, it won't be on the line. In
a USIK theory two based on an Usik victory, because June first, Philip
Herkovic and Dania Duwa are fighting for the IBF title and it's only matter I
don't know the exact date, but sometime in the next two weeks that title
is going to become vacant. End of story. So we would have waited
all that time, had a hell of a first fight that was a draw,
maybe they would have the rematch and it still wouldn't have been unisputed.
But none of that happened. On the hypothetical. We got a we got
a victor. We got a clear winner, I believe, and you believe.
Congrats to Usakh. Let's get to the post fight. Oh enough.
Oh, And I wanted to say Fury did bitch and moan a little bit
about it, and he did, and I thought was a well, let's
gary it. Let's get I'm gonna say after the after the fight he basically
said in the ring interview anyway, he basically said they gave it to Usik
because everybody felt sorry for him because his country is at war, which was
absolutely preposterous. And you know, Frank wal didn't say this. He was
basically sticking up for Tyson Fury. That shit gets said, and you know,
please don't make a big deal about that. But look, he's responsible
for what he says. He's, you know, a public figure, and
he's coming off of the win and the ara coming off of the fight anyway,
and and he was asked his opinion and he gave it. So I
thought that was as a first reaction to think that some judge is going to
give Alexander Usik a favorable score because the people in this country in a war.
I mean, that to me was ridiculous. Yeah, you're just grasping
at anything because you got beatn up. Is beaten up, so you're grasping.
But that said though, other once that was done and he's at the
press conference. Other than that, feury was Actually I wasn't sure how he
would react to a loss. He reacted a lot better than I thought he
might have. He was was, he was okay, He's like, look,
we got a remass clause, we made a lot of money. I
respect him, and I'll talk to Frank and we'll see what's going on.
They didn't really commit to the rematch right off the bat, even though it's
in the contract, at least not for October anyway. All right, Well,
I will say this though, after the fight and you come at this
and you preach your resume and how long you've been doing this. So I'm
just sharing with the audience. I've been in broadcasting for thirty two years.
I've done this at the national level for over twenty years. I interview people
every weekend in the national Football League after a game, losing locker room,
winning locker room. I have spent my whole career doing interviews, even in
tough situations. So I'm laying all of that out, not trying to be
right by the way Ryan I got you, But I'm about to come with
something here stand by so as somebody who does this for a living. I'm
not being just arrogant and giving you my resume just to give the audience my
resume. I'm saying I have credibility with what I'm about to say. Horrific.
Horrific job by Ali Oladipo of de Zonne after the fight. I do
understand it's chaotic when you've got a lot of people in the ring and you're
trying to get the interview. But the man just won the undisputed heavyweight championship
and you don't ask him a single question about the fight, including the moment
where he almost scored the knockdown. I'm sitting back going this is horrible.
A I can't emphasize enough a horrible job to not ask the new champ something
anything about the fight. How did you win? Did you know you could
set him up for the big left? Did you think you had him knocked
out at the end of the ninth Ask him, did you think you had
won the fight in the twelfth round? You didn't fight maybe all out in
the twelfth did you think you There was not a single question about the fight.
And I'm going back through the pantheon of our lifetimes, of the people
doing those ring interviews, from Larry Merchant to Jim Gray, on and on
and even you know worldwide, Howard Cosell used to go up in the ring
and get the interviews. Tim Ryan would go up in the ring and get
the interviews. Rayfield, you gotta be you want me to say it?
What are we doing here? And then he turns immediately to Tyson Fury,
and I realize there's a big influence by Frank Warren and Queensberry Promotions and that
relationship and the Brits, and there were Brits on the broadcast with Todd Grisham.
I get all of that. But then he's asking Fury about the fight.
He's asking Fury about the blood. He knows he's asking Fury about landing
the uppercut. I'm like, why did you not ask Goosick anything about this?
Well, so there where I come down on that all right. First
of all, turn to Fury. I kind of get that because he's there
and you don't know if he's gonna leave. True, So that's important.
You know, you got to take what you can get. I've I've talked
to these different people that do those interviews over the years and understand the position
they've been in. And I've done not necessarily for TV interviews, but I've
interviewed a thousand guys and sometimes you got to grab somebody we can get them,
So that's correct. I can't really, I can't really come down on
that part of It's a language barrier. Ustic does not his English is not
the best. He got somebody that has to translate for him. He speaks
in broken English when he does speak. I'm not knocking for that. That's
just the reality of what happens. Uh, But yeah, it look ADDIE's
a good dude, but he was a little overwhelmed. I think in the
moment. Yes, you know, to be to be, to be quite
honest about it, when you're doing entering interviews, it's a lot different when
than when you're in a studio or you're standing on a host position. It's
a different animal because there's a lot of people around you don't know what tech's
going on. These two guys just laid it out for twelve rounds and and
all that. But yet I would have liked the The quotes were not great
from from Oostik. You can't tell them what to say, but you can
set them up to say something that's going to be informative because you ask him
something about what went on, he didn't and so that's a a horrific miss
as far as I'm concerned on that, and otherwise, I mean, I
thought it was a good broadcast. They had a lot of people on it,
and I thought Todd Grisham did a fantastic job, because again, most
of the time, when we're in the United States in one of these fights,
we're seeing a different broadcast than what they have on his own. Mike
Costello is their play by play guy. Their guys Barry Jones and it's Darren
Barker right were also they were all for live Mike on the call Costello,
you were only hearing every once in a while the play by play guy make
a comment. But Todd Todd did a great job of setting the other guys
up and saying what do you think, what's going on? What's going through
your mind? I thought he did a really good job. The property,
I mean mostly the owne is you know, US and and Britain based.
So what they did was they took the two main crews that do the show
was in the States and in Britain, and they merged them together and then
had other people to talk, whether it was you know, you know Kate
Abdo as the host or or or Addie who did interviews and and other things
in the broadcast. Obviously Mannick, Chris Mannix was there doing his things,
scoring and being part of the host position as well and doing his general you
know, Jack of Vaalta. I guarantee Mannix would have asked Alexander Russick about
something about the fight. I know that. I do wish they would have
had, you know, Chris in that position after the fight, because when
I think about entering interviews in tough moments or after big moments or big fights
or significant things, the first thing I always think about in that and this
is the master class of the interview. There's two master classes that come to
mind. It's Jim Gray finally getting Mike Tyson after he bit Evander Holyfield's ear
when he had to go back to the jets room and get him. And
I think about Larry Merchant with his arm around Busker Douglas was about to cry
because of what's been happening in his life and he's overcome by emotion. Has
just won the undisputed title against Mike Tyson. Uh, and those those if
you're a broadcaster, those are masterclasses in the way to deal with different kind
of moments. One guy was angry, one guy was happy. But I
mean, you're still dealing with human beings were highly emotional, and and the
way you can let them say their thing and guide them along me, that's
brilliance. And uh, you know we didn't see that on Saturday unfortunately.
All right, but it doesn't dissuade the performance by Usik. All right.
So you've already made mention and laid out there is a rematch clause, and
it's been described as an automatic immediate rematch clause. Fury said in the ring
and after the fight, we want to do this in October. Here I
go with my ray field meter. What's the likelihood that we are seeing this
again as soon as October? Which by my count, is about four and
a half months away. Yeah, that that that that's a little tight in
today's boxing era, particularly when they just went through a very grueling fight and
they just made, you know, a ship loads of money. Uh,
they did say what they said in the interviews, in the in the in
the ring commentary. If you watch the press converences, both of the guys
did not It's not that they didn't commit to the fight, but they definitely
didn't commit to October. Fury was like, look, I'm gonna, you
know, go home. I'm gonna in adult things that fighters say, I'm
gonna, you know, relax. I mean, look, he made the
point. This is not like they went through one camp and had a fight.
There was multiple training camps because of the cut, forcing the fight to
be postponed, so there was a much longer than normal camp. Uh.
You know, he was away from the from the from the family for a
long time because he trained a part of the time in Saudi Arabia. Uh,
you know, and he's just off an emotional emotional subter. He just
took his first loss. So look, he you got to give him a
couple of weeks to decompressed. So I would say two three weeks. You
know, him and Frank Warren will have the conversation. Uh. You know,
maybe Turkey al Hik will have his uh a conversation with them to see
what's up, because they want to do this fight as part of the opening
of the next read season's festival. Uh and Usik his, I did the
same thing. And look, I've been in training, training, training,
he goes, I missed my daughter's birth I missed the birthdays, I missed
the family holiday, all because I've been training and so focused on this fight.
So now I don't want to talk about another fight. I just won,
you know, the undisputed title. I'm going home. I'm going to
enjoy my family, my friends. I'm going to church, and I'm gonna,
you know, just relax, which he has every right to do,
by the way, that's right, and then we'll see. So, you
know, could it happen in October? Like the thoughts aren't Yeah, what
is sure? Is it? Like a three on the ray Field meter for
October? A four? You give me a five? I give you like
a five and a half. Like in other word, it's a little bit
better than fifty to fifty that it does happen in October. I do think
it's gonna happen. It's if they have to push it back, you know,
a few weeks or a month or whatever, it wouldn't be a shocker.
Look, remember this fight was supposed to be in December after Fury Naganhu
and I always thought even if Fury went in there and drilled the guy,
that it was a lot to ask for him to be back so quickly and
uh and uh, and obviously didn't happen, and you know, it got
pushed into the to the new year, and then it got delayed because of
the cuts. So I do believe the fight's going to happen. There's a
lot of money at stake for both guys. It's something that the Saudis want.
It was also the kind of fight where you know, when you see
an automatic rematch, like I mean it was, the loser had to exercise
that option, which Eryl Spence did to use that as one example. But
there was no way to make that actually happen because who in the heck wanted
to see it. There was no way it was going to make any money
in terms of pay per view. It just no there was no public demand
at least in terms of Fury and Usik having a rematch. There's gonna be
a lot of people that would want to see that because it was a very,
very good fight and they put on the heck of a show. So
I don't think anybody's gonna object to that. I want to see it,
but I don't know that it's going to be much different. It wasn't much
different in the Anthony Joshua rematch. I think there is a strong argument too,
give me your quick opinion that we're going to move to the rest of
the card and then we're going to get to the ESPN top rank card and
another Ukrainian upsetting Emanuel Navarate is a seven to one underdog late Saurday night in
a forgettable fight. By the way, what about the argument we've seen the
best of Tyson Fury previously and uh and Saturday Night only maybe gave you a
taste when he's in against a skilled, talented fighter, that this is what
we're gonna see in the rematch along those lines, I Francis well, I
mean, if Francis and Ganu gave him problems, which he did, and
now this is the next fight. Hold on, hold on, they're totally
different. He didn't train for Nagana that and that's on him, So I'm
not it's not the over in the overarching point. Have we seen the best
of Tyson Fury when he was putting it to Deontay Wilder in the aftermath when
he beat Dillian White. Do you believe he can summon it again? What's
your take? Well, I think we have seen the best of Tyson Fear
and the best of Alexander Ussik. We've seen the best of Anthony Joshua and
the best of Deantay Wilder. These are older heavyweights. They're not what they
were when they're at their best. But one thing I'll say about Tyson Fury,
and anybody that's followed me, or reads me, or knows me or
listens to me knows, I've never been like a big Tyson Fury defender.
I find them to be borish about a lot of things. And there have
been times where I've not been a fan of his. Uh, But I
give the man respect me because when it came to do the rematch against Deontay
Wilder, I remember specifically I asked him, I said, you know,
when he when he's talked about how he was going to fight the rematch,
and he said, I'm gonna come out there blasting away and I'm gonna go
get this man. He had switch trainers at that point, even though he
was coming off a draw, and he went with sugar Hill. I said,
why are you going to make the change? You know everybody thought you
won, but you know it was still a draw. You didn't lose.
And he's like, because I didn't win, I got to do something different.
So he said, I'm going to go get the guy we all thought
he was full of shit. He went out there and he got him.
I'm making a point here, and if somebody is capable of changing their style
to fit the need that they have to fight in to get a win,
Tyson Fury is that guy, in my opinion. And it's not like Alexander
Usak's getting any younger. He's actually older than Tyson Fury. So and it
wasn't like he had an easy time he got. I felt pretty dominated in
the first half of the fight, and but for a knockdown and we have
a draw and everybody keeps her title. So I don't think he has to
make massive adjustments to get a victory over Alexander Russik. He's not unbeatable,
So yeah, do I think we've seen the best of him. We both
win the rematch, absolutely, yeah, right, And and we both thought
Fury would win going in, and Usik proved us both wrong. And I
think he solidifies himself right now in the modern era of the last let's say,
seven eight years. He's the guy because if you thought Anthony Joshua was
the guy, Usik beat him twice. And if you thought Tyson Fury's the
guy because he beat Wilder twice and Usik handled him. And again, I
don't We're not going to keep going over. I don't think Fury dominated the
first half of the fight. I thought Usik won the first two rounds and
I thought he won the fourth round. So clearly Usik dominated the back half
of the fight. And there's questions about conditioning and all of that. I
heard a couple of people say, hey, Fury's going to come in much
bigger in a rematch and try to use that to his advantage. I thought
this was an excellent point. Too late, late late, lad, and
you were probably still watching. I was trying to go to bed in the
east and I'm watching the ESPN State of Boxing show on ESPN Plus, and
Tim Bradley made a very interesting point. I thought that I didn't even really
hear on the his own broadcast, and we should eliminate it just here real
quick. Fury has had a lot of success tactically with leaning with all that
size and weight on fighters including Wilder and others, and he could not really
do it because Usik mainly wasn't letting him do it for much of the fight,
wouldn't get close enough to him to get grappled, held leaned on,
and and Bradley's point was he could not wear him down doing that when he
had worn other guys down doing that, And I thought very insightful comment there,
quick take, and then we'll go on from here to the rest of
the other part. Quick take on I think Bradley was right about that he
didn't really lean on him. The one thing he did try to do because
obviously if you watched other Usik fights, certainly if you watched the Duboi fight,
that the one place where he maybe there was vulnerability in Usik was body
shots. And if you look at the copy box, he landed like seventy
body punches in the fight. He really targeted Alexander Usik's body, but it
is to no avail. He took the shots. Well. Now, he
didn't land like the perfect digging shot like we've seen you know, certain guys,
uh you know, score knockouts with where you hit him right on the
liver. But he was trying, and he was landing some of those shots,
and it and it really uh you know, it didn't it didn't work.
And and and uh, you know, Fury, Fury tried to go
to the body. I made a mistake on the number. It was Usik
that landed a number of body shots, but Fury landed. I don't think
he landed. I don't think he landed seventy. Yeah, my bad on
that. He he he, But he was targeting the body. He may
not have landed, but clearly part of his strategy was to go downstairs and
see if he gets softened him up having seen what he saw and Usik,
I think it was just a matter of I don't think he was targeting the
body, even though he landed a number of them. He's the one that
the landed the seventy body shots. I think that wasn't so much part of
the strategy. I think part of it was because Tyson here is so damn
big that that was what was available, right, So he was tried in
there because a lot harder to hit him in the in the in the in
the face and the chin when he's so much caller than is when the guy's
you know, trunks, you know as uh you know his torso is right
there in front of you. But uh, yeah, I mean in the
end, TJ. The bottom lines, we had a hell of a fight,
and we're probably gonna see it again, and we'll get back and we'll
have another conversation about what we think is gonna happen. Everybody look at what
happened in the first fight and uh and make their assessments. All right,
so we went, we went for a while on that one, all right.
Rest of the undercard, we saw ji Opataia defeat Marius Bradis for the
second time, validating his previous win. For the record, Reeves had the
decision and the over on the bet Us Show on that one. Although Braidus
Uh once again suffered the broken nose and you were wondering, is he gonna
be able to survive nose rebroken again? He did I saw the tweet by
the way that Opa Tyle was also in the hospital after the fight. They
took a tweet where both of them were there getting checked out. Opa Tile
was in a hospital gown in the in the bed behind Braida's taking the photo.
They were both there together. Yeah, So give me thoughts on that
and what else stood out on the undercarter as we go down piece by piece.
Well, in terms of that co feature, high class fight, excellent
matchup, a remash that I think a lot of us wanted to see.
He broke Opataia's jaw in their first fight when they fought back in Opataia's home
country of Australia, and Opataia persevered through it and won the lineal title and
the IBF title by beating by beating Bretist in that fight. Now, Bradest
hadn't fought since, and even though Opataia had been off for quite a while
due to the injury, he had fought two times since. Of course,
he had two fights, one in England where he defended the title, and
then the fight with Elizera, which is a first round knockout, which is
why he got stripped of the IBF title because of the nonsense with the IBF,
but an end, he fought for his old belt. It should have
been a defense, but he won it back against Greatest. But here's the
thing about Bredest. He's a real solid, top level cruiseway and has been
for a number of years now. He's getting on in years in his late
thirties. I think he's thirty nine years old now. But if you go
and look down the career of Alexander Usse and you said to yourself, who's
the toughest ever had, maybe if you put Fury to the side, you
would say it's probably Mayris Braidis who gave alexand usk a very difficult time,
not in terms of physically beating him up, but in terms of just out
boxing him in long stretches and winning rounds and coming off the close to defeating
him. It was Usik that had to go to Latvia, which is where
Braidest is from, and eke out a split decision, but a legitimate one.
But that was a very hard fight. That was a unification during the
World Boxing super Series. So my point is that Braidest is no joke.
If he can go essentially straight up with a prime Usik at cruiserweight. You
know, he's a real fighter, and he showed a lot of grit and
heart because, like you said, he had the nose broken. Opatai is
a heart puncher and a guy with good stamina and very sturdy, and he
was getting his ass kick basically for the first eight rounds of the fight,
not necessarily physically other than the nose, but losing every round on the scorecards.
And he never gave up. Man, he came storming back. He
won probably the last, you know, three four rounds of the fight,
and he inflicted damage on Opataia. Kind of fight where I'm watching it and
you think you're something very good. Yeah, what if we were still in
an ear where there were fifteen round fight, would Opataia still be standing when
the fight was over? I'm not so sure about that. But the end,
as Opataia said, he goes he broke my nose. Iyebusted his nose.
I mean they both had their they both got their pound of flesh,
so to speak. It was a It was a good fight. All respect
to Myris Bradis. He's a warrior, Opataia the same thing. But Opataia
can not move on from Bradis and see what else he can do. He
mentioned that he would like to unify. He said Bill and Smith against Okoli.
He misspoke. He meant Bill and Smith against Rie Kapoor, who fight
in their mandatory coming up uh you know, uh later, you know,
in a few weeks from now, which would be a good fight. But
he has designs on unifying in the weight class, and you know, it's
just a matter of time. Like Usik, he's gonna move up to heavyweight
at some point and see what he can do there. And by the time
Opataia is done doing his business at cruiserweight, you know, figure another you
know, year, year or two in that weight class by that point,
you know, Fury, Usik, Wilder, Joshua of those guys, I'm
not saying they're all going to be retired, but they'll have petered out probably
in terms of you know, at the super top level, and there'll be
a spot for some of the newer guys and some of the newer blood in
the weight class, and I figure opata is gonna fit right in there.
But this was a good win, a worthy co feature. Maybe not the
all out all action of the first fight, but certainly interesting because of the
way that Bradist came back in the in the last part of the fight,
all right. Also on the card, we now know more about this name
Anthony Kasachi, who ends up getting a Kasachi. He ends up getting the
TK over Joe Cordina. There was some controversy though, because he hurt the
Cordina with a punch that was clearly on the break, and the fight changed
after that. I believe it was the third round that he hit him on
the break. The referee didn't really do anything, and Cordina not the same,
eventually down and eventually down again and stopped. Shocker, shocker, what
about it. I don't think it was dirty. I don't think it was
on purpose. I think that shit happens in professional boxing matches. Like Kasachi
said after the fact, you know, it wasn't dirty. It just had
you know, that's what happens. I thought the referee, Bob Williams,
was awfully slow. He did not physically get between them. I understand if
you say break, you're supposed to listen, but the onus is also on
Cordeena. You know, I remember covering Floyd Mayweather against Victor Ortiz and this
became a big thing. Protect yourself at all times, and Cordeena did not
do that, so it's on him. And in the end, Kasachi,
you know, was able to take advantage and he was able to score the
knockout. But even before that, it wasn't like Cordeena was light the lighting
the house on fire and the way he was fighting. You know, Kasachi
was not known as being a big puncher, but he got the job done.
I think, honestly, I know cordeana't make a lot of excuse about
this. This is my opinion, so I'm not saying Cordeena is bitching and
moaning about it. I think he's really tight at one thirty and he probably
should have maybe moved up, but he had the opportunity to defend the title
on this cards. I think we're going to be hearing about Cordeina moving up
and wait in the not too distant future. Baddie, you gotta respect to
you know, he came in and no one gave him a chance, a
big, huge underdog and never faced anybody, even though he has a nice
record and I only had the eight knockouts or the seven knockouts rather in the
twenty twenty one wins coming into the fight, got the job done against a
fighter that a lot of people thought was like that. I don't the division.
I don't know what it was on our bet us line, but I
think I saw you could have cashed a plus sixteen hundred ticket for a CASTETCHI
knockout of Joe Cordina. This is why we love boxing. They talked about
a rematch a little bit. I don't know if we're gonna see it make
the way can Cordina? I think on your point on that, and let
me just say, I know you're not saying it, but let me just
say this. When you have a punch like that, when a guy is
relaxed because you've said break even for a half second, and it changes the
fight last night like that, there has to almost be an astisk. But
beside what goes on after that in my mind, because that's a given,
I'm saying for me, that's a different fight from that point on. He
I don't think he really recovered after that punch. I thought, shit happens
in boxing matches. You have to be prepared, you have to be ok.
I got you may give you a hypothetical, let me get hold on.
I'm the one gonna beak. I'm making my point. I'm making my
point. I'm making my point. I'm making my point. If he goes
down on a knee after that punch and says I can't get up, what
happens. One of two things happens. It's either a d Q, which
probably wouldn't have happened, or we're gonna call it a technical draw because we
haven't gone to four rounds if that happened, because the referee, the ref
well, if he had gone down, if Cordeina had gone down on a
knee after the punch, you would have had a mess in the ring because
he clearly said break. Everybody could hear it. The punch is after that.
And if Cordeena had gone down and not gotten up, we got a
mess on our hands. So it's not an insignificant you are making. You
are making an assumption that the referee is gonna call it a foul because he
said break. I don't know if that's he would have a hard time reeling
it back in when he said break, and the punch is after that.
And again this is a questionable referee, by the way, but seeing the
way of the Referhenandile. It wouldn't shocked me at all. If he went
down on a knee, that fucking guy would have gotten counted out. Now
there'd have been a controversy, I guess on the counter, but it still
would have gone down as that's my victory for Casachi. So you know,
my opinion is that you're making a little bit too much of it. All
right, we have different opinions. All Right, you did put on the
rundown. My boy a Gekaba Yelle also wins on this undercard. How impressed
you should embrace your boy. Now it's a knockout of Frank Sanchez with body
blows and I know it's gonna be a while, but does it put him
in the mix twenty twenty five, he's he got to win another fight or
to what I mean to get him in the mix. He gets a significant
win on this card. It's a hugely significant win because he's now the official
mandatory challenger for the WBC Heavyweight Championship. So when the next time they called
the mandatory, he's the guy that's gonna fight whoever is holding the belt.
Now that's the good news for a g Cabil Your boy the problem is the
WBC is not coming up in the rotation anytime soon. And there's other fights
that are gonna take place because you're gonna see the rematch most likely between Fury
and Sick, which will still involve the WBC title. And there's other fights
that are out there in the in the ether that that that that I think
are going to happen at some point that you know, let's just go detective
work off the top of our heads. We know the ib F is next.
That's the reason why there's the strip. We know the w b A
was last summer and that's how the Dubois fight happened. Would the WBC be
next, Would the WBO be next? I guess that's the rub Well you
got it back in up. It would be next, right. The previous
WBC mandatory was when uh Fury fought against I believe it was when he fought
the Dylan White fight. That was a WBC mandatory. So by the way,
the w BO, who knows, But they can also they can ask
for exceptions, they can try to do other things. There's willing and dealing.
I guarantee you one thing, a g cabil your boy is going to
have another fight before he fights for the title. The good thing for Caviel
is that he's now ingrained to a degree on the Saudi Arabian cards because he
had this win against Frank Sanchez on the card. His previous fight where he
beat Makmandu in very impressive fashion, that was on the December card in Saudi
Arabia. So he's part of that heavyweight landscape. I know they spoke about
it in the in the in the broadcast, because even though he's WBC mandatory
doesn't mean he can't go get a shot at some other belt or some other
fight. They talked about the prospect of maybe him against Joseph Parker, who
was part of the broadcast, who's now the holder of the WBO's interim title,
who's going to be waiting a little while for his own title shot because
of like you know, the the rematch that's going to take place. So
he's the next up in terms of the WBO mandatory. But the main thing
is Cabiel scores a career victory. He looked absolutely terrific. Now Frank Sanchez
did not fight like the Frank Sanchez that we used to Now I'm not making
excuses for he was wearing the knee brace. Clearly his right knee was fucked
up. He was not moving like he normally does. He came into this
fight compromise, no doubt about it. But I'm sure he went through with
it because of the stakes, because of the money that was on the table.
Thinking Cabriell is not necessarily a guy that I can't handle. That was
obviously a miscalculation because not only did he lose, he lost basically every single
round and then he got knocked out. This was a very, very very
bad loss for Sanchez, not that he lost, but the way he lost.
For Cabell tremendous performance. He's strong, he's got stamina, he threw
a lot of punches. Looks like he takes a good shot based on seeing
recent fights. He's a guy in my opinion, that's coming into his own
that the more he fights the better opponents. He's more confident in himself and
he's doing the or beating Feary or beating all these guys, Joshua whoever.
But I would not mind seeing him against any of these types of guys.
You want to put him in the ring with Joe Parker, I'd be happy
to watch that. You want to put him in the ring against Deontay Wilder
against his Jang Whin. You know, the winner of that fight, or
any the heavyweights that are not theory and usick as they go towards a rematch.
Cabiel can probably hang and make a fun fight with any of those dudes.
All Right, anything else on the Ring of Fire card that stands out?
Or shall we move on to ESPN top rank and the Barren chick upset
of Navarate. Well, I'll mention that the future of the heavyweights we saw
possibly in this fighter, the nineteen year old British fighter named Moses Atama,
who I don't think is hugely position in terms of his size as a heavyweight.
But one thing I did notice now he wasn't fighting like a top guy.
He buzzed through mezen keV in like two rounds, very very easy knock
that win. But the one thing that stands out when I've seen most is
a tom of fight. I've seen him now he's nine and no now I've
seen him several times. He has super fast hands, and as a heavyweight,
you know, you can do a lot of damage if you've got super
fast hands because even if you're not the biggest puncher, if guys don't see
the shots coming, you can do a lot of damage. So that was
impressive with the way he did that. And the other fight that was kind
of sad to watch was watching the the Here Too four unknown Robin safar At,
a cruiserweight who was in the ring as the hand picked opponent for the
former light heavyweight champion now fighting at cruiserweight, Sergate Kvallev, who was two
years past his the most recent fight his first fight at cruiseweight. Look,
every single one of his forty one years got absolutely dominated. And to put
the cherry on top of that, he had Safar scored a big knockdown in
the final seconds of the fight and the bell ended the fight. And it's
just a it's such as there was a time when Skvallev was one of the
most dominating pound for pound forces in the sport. He was a guy guys
did not want to fight. He was a devastating puncher, the crusher.
He was on big time fights on HBO, beating quality guys, whether it's
Pascal or Bernard Hopkins, and just destroying opponents. Three time light heavyweight champion
obviously he lost the title for the final time when he got drilled by Canelo
when he was already passed his best days. But to watch him as a
as an old shot cruiserweight, you know, in the second fight of a
long, long eight card eight fight Carr pay per view, was kind of
sad to see watch him get wrecked like that. I hope he calls it
a day bother time waits for no one And we talked even on the bet
Us Show on Friday when somebody brought it up, does he have any tread
left on the tires? And the answer now is no, all that.
But these guys always, they always, they always keep going. So I
don't know if Covid level keep going. He's a guy that's gonna wind up
on the Hall of Fame ball and I think he's got a good chance to
be elected a Hall of Fame. But certainly that was not a Hall of
Fame type fight we saw from it at the end of his career looking terrible,
Okay, I won't use the word terrible. How about less than attractive
as a phrase. The main event of the ESPN Top Rank Show all the
way past midnight Eastern time, justure time zone Accordingly, some twelve hours after
the Ring of firecard began at noon Eastern time, we finally had it in
the ring and Denise Barancik did win by split decision over me I Manuel Navarate
vacant WBO lightweight title, the top ranked main event in San Diegh. Your
thoughts, I'll have a couple, but your thoughts mainly watching that it certainly
was a bookend with a Ukrainian fighter winning a world title after Usik had done
it a few hours earlier a continent away. Yeah, I mean a huge
couple of two weeks for Ukraine obviously, because two weeks, you know,
the previous Saturday, Lomachenko from Ukraine won the IBF lightweight title in Australia on
the George Cambosis home turf in Australia. Then you had what happened with Usik
becoming undisputed, and I guess the cherry on top was the unknown brand chick
in the biggest fight of his career against the best opponent he's ever faced,
you know, granted he was the Olympic silver medal winner, was undefeated,
but had a very very inactive schedule. I'd never fought anybody coming to overseas
to enemy turf. Navaret's the big favorite, and you know he he deservedly
won the split decision. The first thing I thought about when they went to
the cards was a split decision, unanimous draw, whatever it is. It
was ring of boredom, that ring of fire. I mean, that was
a great some real stinkers. That was a give me your impression. I
thought Navaraate looked slow. I thought he was tired the back half of the
fight, and I kept saying too much weight, doesn't have the punching power,
not in shape. I thought all of those things. What did you
think. I may disagree with you about a lot of shit, but I
agree with you one hundred percent on that. He did not look like he
was in shape, a little flabby at lightweight. You know, I under
not the same puncher either. I mean, he was connecting and he just
yeah, I mean, no, guys, he was laying out as a
lightweight, I mean as a junor lightweight, a featherweight. Barentshak was like,
he laughed at him. Basically, what do you you know? That's
nothing. I mean, it's a guy that's fought his career in that weight
class and never at that. Remember he started his career as a junior featherweight.
And you know, some guys can carry it up the scale. Uh.
I'm not saying that Never Never at they can't carry up the scale.
But if he's gonna come in that kind of condition, it's not going to
be that it's not going to do the damage because he just wasn't in top
shape. And I don't, I don't. Look, that's your job.
You're going for a world championship and a fourth day class. You're looking to
join a pantheon of great Mexicans that have done for divisions people you know or
superstar fighters. You know Marquez for example, you know Eric Morales. I
mean there's a lot of you know, not a lot, but several of
the of the of the more modern legends in Mexican boxing. And you know,
we I didn't feel like he showed up the right way for that fight,
and the combination of that loss plus the less than spectacular performance in the
one hundred and thirty pound title fight he did last fall when he got a
draw with Consints out. No, maybe we've seen the best of Emmanuel Never
at that at the clarifive for me, did he vacate the one hundred and
thirty pound title. That's confirmed. We know that he could. He could
go back down, get in shape, and go back down if he wanted.
Here, I am playing amateur manager and career advice, but it would
seem to me get in better shape and go back down to one thirty where
your punching power is going to get better, because that was sloppy and I
don't know what the future is at one thirty five. They also talked after
the fight about his his hand being hurt and he's been plagued by injured hand
broken hand before. He didn't use that as an excuse after the fight,
Dan Navarat, I don't know about the hand, but in terms of the
title, he still owns the WBO one hundred and thirty pound title if he
does choose to go back to that weight class to defend the title, which
I kind of find I mean it's possible, I guess, but you know,
he always struggled with the way. If he does go back there,
what it does is it makes the prospect most likely that they'll have a rematch
with Oscar Valdez, who won the interim title back a few weeks ago.
You know what happens in boxing today, which is different than it used to
be, is when guys are holding belts and they change weight classes, the
organizations moved to fill those titles quickly with interim titles and then elevate the guy
as opposed to let the title become vacant then order the title fight. So
in case of the undercart fight, which we're going to talk about, that's
what Brian Norman and Santian we're fighting for, which is, in essence,
what will soon become the vacant WBO title. So when when Valdez fought Liam
Wilson not that long ago and won the vacant WBO interim title at one thirty,
everybody was like, yeah, because Navarrete is going to go to thirty
five and stay there. But if he does decide to retain the title come
back, the WBO was gonna order the rematch Beting and Navarette and Valdez,
which, for my money, I mean, yeah, Valdez lost. The
first fight was a heck of a fight. I mean, there's worst fights
you could have rematches for. That would be a fun fight. Again,
I'm not sure the two guys are too interested in doing that, once again.
But we'll see what happens. He's got to make those decisions, but
he's not gonna be effective at lightweight in that kind of condition. Yes,
and Navarate has got some marketability. You mentioned Mexican fighter, multi division world
champion, that would be big. That's the first loss for him since twenty
twelve. How much do we credit Baroncheck for being tough enough to hang in
versus I mean, we shouldn't down that versus Navarate being sloppy and seemingly out
of shape back half of the fight. Yeah, I mean, and listen,
I think we spent too much time on this fight because it sucked.
It sucked the bone. Basically, it was a ship fight. So can
we move on to the undercard? We can, But Barncik deserves credit.
He got his hand raised and emotional for Ukraine and the whole bit, and
there we go, all right. So on the on the iratulation to Barnchick,
he did the job absolutely. On the undercart and the co feature fight,
we saw a a relative I gotta say this, a relatively unknown American,
but the son of a former fighter, a former US fighter in Brian
Norman as a welterweight put on a heck of a performance against Giovanni Santion.
Santion, a San Diego native, with the crowd roaring with him beginning to
end in San Diego. And I got some thoughts on this, but give
me your impressions on Norman getting the KO stoppage with the two brutal knockdowns in
the tenth round after he had cutting him up and busted his nose. Go
ahead, well, this fight was made, you know, however long ago,
a month or two ago when the fight was made, and then it
was only a few days before the fight that they got the sanction for it
to be for the interim WBA welterweight titles. So these guys were going to
fight regardless of whether it was a championship level fight or not. But like
I mentioned, this is basically the WBO filling the welterweight title before it's actually
vacant because Terence Crawford, who's going to be fighting in the one to fifty
four pound weight class when he takes on Israel Majumov for the WBA belt on
the big reat season card that's going to be in Los Angeles, August the
third, there's a high, high, high probability that Terrence Crawford is going
to stay in that weight class. He's not coming back to welter wake.
You never say never, but it's highly unlikely. So in essence, Brian
Norman is gonna in the next you know, a couple of months. Once
that situation is taken care of, he's going to become the w BOUH welterweight
title holder full you know, not no interim tag. And the same thing's
happening with the other organizations. You know, we've seen them be filled over
time, whether stanionis or you know, Boots Ennis did his thing, and
now you know Santana is in that position. And if you take a look
at the other, uh, you know what's the other What did I miss
the w Norman Norman is in that position. You meant to say, by
winning the fight over Santion, Yes, exactly, yeah, no, And
I mean also but if you but here's the point. Crawford became the underspeeded
champion, and slowly but surely they're all being filled, even though he hasn't
vacated everything he got stripped to the IBF that was filled by interim champion garon
en Is being elevated. Brian Norman now took over the WBO interims. He'll
become the full champion when Crawford vacates or or whatever happens there. And then
you also have Mario Barrios, who was the WBCs interim champion. He'll be
elevated. He just had his victory, you know, on the card a
couple of weeks ago, and Stanionis will become as the regular champion of the
BA. He'll become the only title holder in the way class. My point
is that you know it was fleeting for undisputed and now all of a sudden,
the welterweight the division has had a full facelift and Brian Norman's the latest
guy. Now you mentioned an obscure fighter that you never heard of. He's
twenty three years old, the son of a former fighter. He has been
fighting regularly on top ranks UNDERCRS as one of their fighters that they had signed.
I have seen Brian Norman fight numerous times, numerous times, and it's
so it stood out so much to me that actually made comments about this to
people about how unimpressive he had been in the fights I had seen where they
hyped him up and I watched the kid fight. I'm like, this guy
is what you're talking about. He's not much. I was super disappointed every
time I would watch him. But when he finally stepped up to the big
stage and got a chance to fight for a belt, to do it on
the main card, not on the on the preliminary card, and having to
go do it in Santion's hometown of San Diego, where everybody was cheering for
Santion and he's the one that brings in the big crowds. He rose to
the occasion because not only was he winning the fight consistently on the cards,
then as you mentioned later in the fight, is when he did the damage.
He popped him with the shot. I believe it was the end of
the eighth round. The blood came streaming, a lot of broke noses as
we get boy, I think we got three broken noses I can think of,
uh and so that was a problem. And then the blood was all
over him, I mean streaming it was. It wasn't quite the level of
Ra and Tim Zoo, but it was getting close though, because it got
all over the referee, who we're going to talk about in a minute,
it was all over Norman, all over his chest, his shoulders. It
went for a two rounds, still bleeding there in the ninth round, and
then he finally, you know, just the two absolutely devastating uppercuts that ended
in the tenth round. So you got to applaud the young man. He's
twenty three years old, he stepped up to the plate against a good veteran
and uh and now he's going to become a world champion and then not to
distant future. Based on the interim, I thought, and I put this
on social media. Here we go again on name the name Ray Corona was
the referee. I thought he did a poor job. I loved I go
back to when David Benavitez was brutalizing Demetrius Andre and we caught the referee mic
of Thomas Taylor coming in the corner telling the Andre corner, I can't see
another round like that. I'm gonna stop the fight. I thought after the
eighth round he could have easily come over to the santition corner because Norman was
scoring. He had busted his nose. I can't you know you're cut up.
I realize you know, I'm saying all of this. You're not gonna
say it in the corner, but taking it all into account, I realize
you want to try to win. I realize it's an interim situation, but
you're taking a brutal beating and I'm just gonna go a step further. This
is how people get seriously hurt. I thought he was done in the ninth
round. I thought to me, what did you think on Santition. I
thought he was done, and then we have a tenth round where there's a
knockdown and Corona doesn't stop it, and then we got a brutal second knockdown,
and I'm just saying on the Fight Freak to Night recap podcast, We're
lucky that that wasn't more serious injury on the second knockdown. So where I
stand in that is I felt like I was okay, okay, okay,
and maybe it should have been stopped after the first knockdown of the tenth round.
At that point, I'd have been fine. The second knockdown seemed a
little gratuitous because it was a fucking brutal shot. Yeah, you could see
a couple of mile away Santion was done and he's got a warrior heart.
He wasn't gonna quit, and Norman's not that big of a puncher where he's
gonna just ice him with one shot. He's gonna have to kind of keep
beating on him to take care of business. And that's the way it sort
of seemed to me. And after that first knockdown in the tenth round,
you know what, that could have been the time to pull the plug.
But you know that's the way it goes. Hey, it's a brutal sport.
It is a brutal sport. But again, if we're gonna preach I'm
not saying you, if we're gonna preach fighter's safety, then everybody's got to
be on board, including the referee. And no one, including his camp,
can say that he had a realistic chance to win. In the middle
of that ninth round. Blood flow everywhere from the bus to nose cuts,
not fighting back very much, taking punishment. It was done as far as
I was concerned, all right, So just one more real quick Norman now
becomes a possible player for unification. Does he have to fight another fight and
then maybe a unification fight, But again, this is largely out of nowhere.
He's not even the champion yet, so there's no unification he just had
but likely will be. Are they not? They gonna make him fight a
vacant title fight, is my question? No, no, no, no,
no, He's gonna when Crawford is whatever happens with Crawford, when he
decides he's no longer a welterweight, whether it's he loses the fight against Magiumov,
or he vacates ahead of time, or he vacates, you know,
within the couple of weeks after the fact. The reality is Norman's gonna become
the WBO champion period, end of story. He's not gonna fight between now
and then anyway, It's not like he's gonna have a fight in you know,
before Crawford fight. So right now he's gonna sit back and watch what
happens, and sometime later this summer, he'll become the WBO champ. They'll
have a ceremony for him, the'll probably invite him to Puerto Rico. They'll
give him the belt and they'll have a big thing about it. And then
they'll go about the process with top rank of planning a fight for the fall,
which will be theoretically his first title defense, and then we'll see what
happens. I mean right now, there's no reason to think anything about what's
out there. It's not gonna be a unification fight. In my mind,
the top rank does not have the guys in that weight class right now.
The other guys are dealing with their own stuff. Barrios just fought, you
know, Uh, Stanionis just fought on that same card. Uh. There's
belief that the two of them may fight down the road because they're also be
the same umbrella. Stanionis and Barrios. We'll see. So you know,
there's no there's no obvious fight. That the the problem and not I shouldn't
say a problem, but the But the main thing is that in the in
the welterweight division, it's not super deep like it once was. I mean,
the guys I mentioned to have the belts are sort of at the top.
Uh. And so you know, he's not fighting Jian and John and
this is off doing his thing. He's got to fight coming up to summer
in Philadelphia, so they'll look around, and I wouldn't. I don't think
his first defense his They're not looking to put him in some mega fight.
There isn't a mega fight. They're gonna get a regular opponent. We try
to make a thing, try to like get him some attention. You know,
he comes from the Augusta, Georgia area, and maybe they'll look to
bring him to the hometown like they did with Jared Anderson in Toledo, like
they're gonna probably do with Keishaan Davis and Norfolk at some point, like they
did years ago by bringing Kelly Pavlick to Youngstown or Terence Crawford to Omaha.
You know, fish where the fish are, see if you can build them
up into a little bit of an attraction. And Atlanta twenty three years old.
And Atlanta is a fight town too, by the way, Conyers,
Georgia is where he's from. The northern suburb trains and fights out of Atlanta.
So maybe he gets up, he gets a fight in Atlanta. And
top ranks done shows in Atlanta as well. So let's see, let's see
what it all looks like. All right, some news because we've been here
for a little while, and then some nostalgia. Uh, speaking of Santion
who had that big win over Alexis Rocha and a Golden Boy main event.
Another top Golden Boy fighter is William Zapaida. Give me more on Zapeida's fight
coming in July real quick. I mean I had reported like a last week
or sometime that his date was going to be on July six to headline to
his own card, and then on Friday, Golden Boy announced he would be
fighting Giovanni Cabrera in the main event of that card. It'll take place in
Ontario, California, and they're just going to keep Willmings Debta going. He's
a very exciting fun fighter to watch, big puncher from Mexico Southpath to boot
thirty, you know right now, with twenty six knockouts, and they're just
looking to keep them going and see if they can line them up for a
big fight. I don't think Cabrera qualifies as a quote unquote big fight.
You know, he didn't look particularly good in his one loss that he's coming
off of. When he lost. It was a split decision, but I
didn't really think it was that close. He lost the Pitbull Cruise they boxed.
You were there on the undercard of the Aarrow Spence Terrence prodist fight.
You know, it's just a chance to see Zepeda continue to do his thing.
See if Cabrera can score the upset. But one thing about Zapeta,
he's a hard puncher. He throws a bazillion punches, and he's been going
through guys like you know, like like yeah, through a goose as they
say, he's been entertaining, that is for sure. So we'll see him
again in July. Oh, he pound it out with your last fight.
He just beat the little thing with Jesus out of Maxi Hughes, who is
coming off of a fight where a lot of people thought he'd beat Cambosis.
So that's what what Zepeta does to his opponents. All right, more here,
let's back up to June and the Gervante Davis Frank Martin pay per view.
You have learned that Gary Antoine Russell is going to apparently be part of
that card. What have we figured out here, Well, they are in
the process of finalizing this fight between Gary Antoine Russell, who was an undefeated
fighter and who was an Olympian and is the brother of the former featherweight title
holder Gary Russell Junior. The boxing family. Gary Antoine's schedule maddens me because
he's mega, mega talented, maybe even better than the brother. But like
the brother. He's just fighting like once a year. It's just it drives
me absolutely crazy. No injuries that I'm aware. I know he took time
off because his father had passed, and that's totally understandable, but that's that's
been a while now and he just doesn't fight enough. But I'm glad to
see he's coming back. He's gonna be on this pay per view for the
for the like you mentioned, the Gervonta Davis Frank Martin Carr June fifteenth at
TMGM Grant. It's the PBC on Prime card, which will also be on
PPV dot Com, and he's gonna take on Alberto Pueo, who was the
undefeated Dominican fighter that at one point was the WBA title holder in one hundred
and forty pound way class, but of course he got stripped when he felled
the test. This fight with Orlando Romero was canceled, so he's had one
win since then. He's served the punishment and a penalty. So they're matching
up these two undefeated fighters. They're gonna fight for as much as it annoys
me, the WBC's interim title one forty I get the usage of certain interim
titles. This one seems to be quite ridiculous in my mind. And I
say that because Devin Haney has the one hundred and forty pound title of the
WBC, didn't lose it even though he lost the fight to Ryan Garcia because
he was Ryan Garcia was overweight there, and so he's still the champion.
And on top of that, they just ordered the Devon Haney mandatory to start
their negotiations for him to fight Sandor Martin. So you've got a champion that's
been active, it's not injured, that has a mandatory order that literally went
out like last week. So why are we making an injurim pedle say,
don't you know what we're doing here? So that drives me a little whacky.
But but put that, put the bullshit aside of the title. At
the very least, uh, it's at least a quality matchup. It's two
undefeated guys. Toueyo is an experienced fighter, been a champion, and Russell
is a superb young talent and uh, you know, we'll see if he
can stay undefeated. He's seventeen and oh with seventeen knockouts. Toyo's not a
puncher like that. He's twenty two and oh with ten knockouts, but as
a as a third or fourth fight down, that pay per view actually would
be the fourth fight down because you're looking at the two main fights with Tank
and uh and Frank Martin. He got the David Benavidi's light heavyweight fight with
Vodzig. Then you've got after that. It's gonna be with Carlos Rodonas exactly
taken on UH. So he's defending the middleweight belt for the first time against
uh Who's his opponent again, it's Carol Gachet. Then we'll see Gary Antoine
presumably that's going to be the order of fights, and then the other fight
it's not going to be on the pay per view, but it'll be one
of the free streaming fights that are part of the prelims that they've done a
really good job. HEBC of these recent fights they've been doing with Prime Video.
They're going to reschedule Elijah Garcia. It was one of my favorite prospects,
a tremendous talent, twenty one year old middleweight. They were supposed to
do Garcia versus Kyron Davis was supposed to be a streaming preliminary on the night
that Tim Zoo fought Fundora back in March. But a couple of days before
the fight, Garcia came down with an illness and they had a postpone a
call off that fight. They put the young kid, kermel Mouton in that
spot on the prelims. Now they've rescheduled Garcia and Kyron Davis to be one
of the prelims on the night that Tank and Frank fight each other. So
those are two more very solid fights that are going on that card. All
right, to the nostalgia, and it was thirty four years ago. I
remember this fight on day as we released the podcast into Monday, May nineteenth,
nineteen ninety. Then Unified lightweight champ Pernell Whittaker beating another fellow future Hall
of Famer, A Zuma Nelson, who was the WBC's one hundred and thirty
pounds champ. Huge HBO Maine event. Great win for sweet Pee Whittaker.
We love being nostalgic about these fighters, late eighties, early nineties. Here
we get thirty four years ago. Goodness, I mean, Parnel Whittaker.
This is this is notable because he defeated a Zuma Nelson by decision this fight.
It was in his next fight after that that he was able to defeat
one Nazario by a first row knock got to become the undisputed lightweight champion.
He was just one belt shy at that point, back when his three belts,
but a Zuma Nelson, you know, he had the loss in like
eight years, he got to go all the way. Only he came into
the fight with Parnell having had one loss as a guy who was maybe like
what fourteen or fifteen fights into his career, unknown at the time, just
an absolutely obscure fighter of Africa on that night and he lost the Salvador Sanchez
r. The great Hall of Famer, in what was Sanchez's final fight before
he tragically was killed a few weeks later in a car accident. But as
Zuma Nelson pushed him all the way in that fight in a very very competitive,
outstanding fight before the Great Salvador Sanchez stopped to Zuma Nelson in the fifteenth
round. But as Zuma Nelson came back and made a name for himself,
became a champion and was doing damage at one hundred and thirty pounds and was
one of the best fighters in boxing. He moved up to one hundred and
thirty five to take on Colonel Whitaker in this fight, and at the time,
I don't think it was as hyped as what when you look back and
you see, my goodness, these were like two great Hall of famers that
fought each other. Back at that moment in time, it wasn't perceived like
this is an all time pairing. But if you go back and you take
a look at the career of Colonel Whitaker, and he had a lot of
big fights, and he fought a lot of top fighters. I dare say
that you could make the argument it's maybe not the greatest win of his career,
but this is in the upper echelon of the victories that Parnel ended up
having over the course of that long career. You know, it was not
an easy fight. He did win decision, It was somewhat competitive. You
know, Whittaker was, you know, a pretty good favorite in that fight,
and you know it was when you look back, you realize that this
was, you know, too legitimate all time greats against each other. Peano
would go on and become the number one fighter in boxing pounds for pounds for
many, many years. Azuma Nelson had long reigns as a champion at one
hundred and thirty pounds. You can argue a lot of people do he's the
greatest African fighter of all time. You know, had some classic battles and
you know at the time it wasn't of that magnitude, but when you look
back, you realize, wow, we were lucky to see this kind of
fight between these two legit all time greats doing their business on a fight that
wasn't a pay per view, that was regular old HBO. We often say
this to the kids. YouTube it up, right, That's what the kids
say, Oh, YouTube it, YouTube it up and got exciting fight.
Not the most exciting fight, but if you're into like like the ultimate sweet
science, particularly the type of Perno Whittaker fights that he would put on,
this was you know, this is up your alley for sure. Okay,
we go from like the ballet and the artistry of what Pernell Whitaker was to
some heavyweight brutality. It was twenty four years ago Monday, as we released
the podcast, May twentieth of two thousand, that there was an HBO double
header in Atlantic City that won Dan Rayfield was ringside for olag Moskaev and also
Hasim Rockmand separate fights. Both fought in the doubleheader. You were there,
What do you remember about that? I remember a lot about this first of
them all. When you think about the names that we mentioned, this was
a doubleheader on HBO typical boxing after dark heavyweight doubleheader. Four good solid contenders,
you know, all who had sown some vulnerability, but all who were
you know, fun to watch and made interesting fights. Think about of the
four guys that were in those two fights, three of them won world titles.
Hassim Rockman obviously became the legit lineal Big Time champion when he knocked out
Lennox Lewis. That was obviously a huge win. His opponent that night,
Corey Sanders, ended up winning the WBO title with his upset knock at he
against Vladimir klitchkow Oleg Maskiev, you know who had ended up with you know,
got two knockout victories against Hassim Rockman down the road. Uh. But
he also actually one of them was before this, the other one was after
this, But he became the WBC champion and the only guy that didn't was
Derek Jefferson, but he was in some exciting fights and fought some good opponents,
including a fight against Latimir Klitschow. Were a challenge for the title at
one point. So these two guys met, and you know, this was
classic at the time. Sedja Kushner, the late great Sedria Kushner, the
promoter who had all the top heavyweights for the most part and mixed and matched.
These guys made a very very fun double header. And uh he had
Ola Maskiev knocking out Derek Jefferson in the fourth round of a fun fight,
a fight where Derek Jefferson so all kinds of heart and balls because he got
knocked down and apparently broke his ankle early in the fight, but got up
and hobbled around and was able to still stay in the fight for a couple
of more rounds before obviously he had to be stopped. Wow, because he
just couldn't walk on the on the on the foot anymore. And in the
other fight he had a Rockman and Sanders. They duked it out. This
is a very underrated like shootout heavyweight fight. And in this fight there's a
double knockdown that the referee missed where Rockman grabbed onto the ropes, but touched
his knee down and Cory Sanders ended up on the canvas, but ultimately Rockman
was able to win by a seventh round knock at Corey Sanders, who died
several years ago from He's from South Africa, tremendous punching power, big time
puncher, and Vladimir Klitschko will attest to that he's a southpaw, which makes
it even tougher. But this was a very fun, exciting double header.
And the reason why I remembered so clearly is because I was still very new
on the boxing beat. I've always I've spoke many times about my first ever
experience of covering a big fight at ringside when I had gotten hired to be
the reporter for boxing at USA today. I've said it many times. That
was lennyx Lewis Michael Grant in April of two thousand. The second one I
ever covered, which was this card, which was in May of two thousand
in Atlantic City, So not the same magnitude of event, but really exciting
and fun in the ballroom there at Balley's on the Boardwalk when it was doing
lots of fights, and to see these guys up close like that and put
on those types of fights, particularly that main event that's a very underrated kind
of I call it a closet class and go YouTube that bad boy a tremendous
fight. And also what I remember my first boxing trip to Atlantic City as
the full time USA Today writer and my wife at the time, my girlfriend
says to me, you know, my dad loves saltwater taffy. Could you
pick them up a box? Say yeah, I can pick a good old
dad with potential future father in law. I get it. I get it,
no doubt about it. So the morning of the fight, that Saturday
morning, I must have gone up like Thursday or Friday for the show.
I go out on the boardwalk and then got all those shops and stuff on
the on the boardwalk, and I went to one that was right by the
hotel, and I plopped down the money and I bought a box of the
saltwater taffy for my future father in law. And when I was coming back
to the casino, and I went up the steps and I had like a
bunch of change in my pocket and I stopped by. I never in years
and years and years, I don't gamble at casinos I don't play cars,
I don't play black jack. I don't play the slots. But when I
was first starting out and I was going to casinos for the first time,
and this was actually my very first boxing trip to a casino, you know,
I played a little bit, not like crazy money. I didn't couldn't
afford it back then, but I dropped a little bit of money in the
slow machine when I walked back into the casino after buying my father in law
the saltwater taffy, all right, and TJ, I put a seventy five
cent bet in that slot machine. I won like one hundred and fifty bucks,
probably still ahead after all that time you were set seventy five cents.
It's like my mother in law on the slots, God lover. She loves
to go hang out in the slots on trips and whatever, and she doesn't
talk about the fish that got away, but invariably she will be playing the
quarter slots and hit one for seventy three dollars and we all applaud because I
love my mother in law the same way you got saltwater taffy for your father
in law. But the fights were better than the saltwater taf but that was
that was a really fun story stuff everyway, good story. And by the
way, one more nostalgic nugget that fry was the sixty eighth birthday of Ray
Charles Leonard. Sugar Ray Leonard sixty eight years young. You and I I
still have him number one all time as far as I'm concerned. He was
my fav He was my I've been talking about favorite fighter. He was my
favorite fighter, Sugar Ray Leonard sixty eight. I did see Roberto Duran was
at the Ring of Fire. They were interviewing him on his own, so
you know those four Kings go ahead. Yeah, Well, the reason Duran
is at those shows is because he's Turkey's all time favorite fighter. So Turkey
brings me down to the events. So that's why Duran is there, and
you know, he's always welcome at these big shows because you can make the
coach an argument that either Durant or Leonard is our greatest living fighter currently and
of course obviously they have their fights together, but they both have massive accomplish
But in terms of Sugar Ray Leonard, you know, my I divided up
in who I was a fan of when I was a kid, and then
when I became a more savvy boxing fan and became an adult, and even
when I started to report about boxing. But as a kid, Sugar Y
Leonard was my guy. When I first watched boxing on the network in the
late nineteen seventies early nineteen eighties, and then I was obviously like most people
of that day as a high school student, I was a gigantic Mike Tyson
fan, but Sugar Ray Leonard was my guy. I remember in the remember
the old like Inside Sports and Sport magazine which will come out every month.
Of course there were Sports Illusterated. I used to get all those magazines and
they would do a lot of boxing cards. I always used to clip out
the pictures of Ray Leonard and I had them like hanging up on my bedroom
door and that sort of thing. But yeah, Ray, and let me
tell you, sixty eight years old, but I still see him, like
do some video. Still looks in great shape. One of the great joys
of my career was the chance to get to No Ray, to meet him,
to work with him as a broadcast partner when we did fights on Epics
back in about about ten twelve years ago. And still see him every once
in a while. I remember hanging out with him plenty of times on those
shows. Just a wonderful guy and a fucking killer in the ring. Just
as big of a star as there was at that time. He was everywhere,
commercials, late night talk shows, you know, cameo appearances in this
show, hemeo's on that show, and and and in the ring. You
know, indomitable, I mean, one of the greatest fighters ever. And
you know, we talk a lot on this show because it's part of what
we grew up with, the Four Kings fights with Ray and Roberto Durant and
Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler. But the Four Kings, if you really want
to be know the truth, it's really Ray Leonard and the other three princes.
Oh yeah, because he was the guy. He was the lynch pinch,
he was the straw that stirred the drink. He's why everybody wanted those
fights, because he was the money man. Of course, he's everybody gravitated
towards it. And if you take a look at the nine fights that the
Four Kings fought against each other, Sugary Leonard was in most of them.
They ran to anybody he fought times and he won. Yeah, he won
four of them. He's the only guy that won four of them. Duran
won one and Hearn's won one. The draw aside with Leonard and Hagler won
two. Oh, but the four Kings don't exist with an au sugary Leonards.
I agreed, that's what made it go. And uh, happy birth
Happy birthday to Ray Leonard. So with that, and by the way,
you made mention of Vladimir Klitschko and we did not bring it up, but
a poignant moment, What a moment for him to be in the ring with
Usik. He was there obviously in Saudi Arabia on the invite. Why not
you want him there? For all the different reasons. We should not gloss
over the fact that there is still hell on Earth going on in Ukraine.
And so that moment of Klitchko being in the ring with Usik and the embrace
and the whole thing, that's not lost on me, you or anybody else
that's sports big time. They know each other well. One, they're both
Olympic gold medal winners. They've got that in common. Two they both are
you you know, have been heavyweight champions. They've got that in common.
They're going to be in common when they're you know, Vladimir's already in the
Hall of Fame and Usik is going to be in the Hall of fame.
But when when Alexander Usik turned professional, he was with K two Promotions,
which is the company that was owned by or is owned by the Tally klitchko
On and Vladimir c. So I'm not sure what their involvement is at the
moment, And Vladimir was never really involved on a day to day basis,
But the point is he's been He's known Usick for his entire career and was
involved with them promotionally from the beginning of his career. And so what I
was happy about not only for Vladimir, you know, and everybody knows I'm
a huge Latimir fan, but Vladimir because of everything's been going on in Ukraine.
And even though he's not an elected official, he's obviously the brother of
the Tally who's the Mayor of Ukraine, who was a very high level political
person. So Vladimir has sort of been like his unofficial guy. He's he's
come on trips to America, for example, to meet people in Washington,
to lobby at New York. Yes, he's done a lot of that to
sort of in a non official capacity in terms of being an elected official,
but as an envoy, let's say, of the brother to make connections and
you know, glad hand and try to drum up support for Ukraine because of
his relationship with his brother, but also as a well known famous athlete for
his time as the heavyweight champion. But he hasn't really been around boxing events
for quite a while. You don't see Vladimir had fights in Europe or other
places in Saudi Arabia, other fights in America. He's not been around at
all. He came to a boxing writer's dinner probably five six years ago,
and he's largely been out of the public eye in terms of boxing for a
long time. So I was really happy to see him be at the fights,
and you know, for his sake, his guy win the fight,
love it, and again some things transcend. We are detached from that because
we're in the United States, but it is still awful in that country and
for these fighters, for Lomachenko, Usik and now even to the lesser degree
Baron Chick to get world title wins tremendous for them. And tremendous for the
people there. Listen. We've done a bunch great stuff as always, and
I look forward to us having a great week here. Anything else In closing
Gamayfield, do we leave anything else out? I think we're good at this
stage. We covered a lot man, We got a lot of stuff in
the next week with Bob Catterro and Taylor two, and then after that we've
got the five to five right back in Saudi Arabia again. Tremendous stuff.
Tremendous stuff, Dan Raphael, thank you, We thank all of you for
listening and finding us. Again. We come off the weekend with the Fight
Freaks Unit Recap podcast. Follow and subscribe on the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed.
We preview going into the weekend, we recap coming off and again everybody
have a great week for Dan Rayfield on TJ Reeves. Thank you for being
with us.