Well off a weekend that let's just say, did not have a lot of
action. It had some interest, at least in England, and we'll talk
a little bit about We do have a little bit of a recap, and
then we've got a very interesting conversation that one Dan Raphael has done with the
president of Top Ranked Boxing, Todd Debuff. We're looking forward to all of
that on the show. I hope everybody had a great weekend. We welcome
you into a new week It is the Fight Freaks Unite recap. I am
merely the somewhat competent host TJ Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks
Unit is a substack big fight Weekend dot Com as well. Hello Dan Raphael.
I am fresh back from New York, by the way, where the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers played the New York Jets the preseason, so I have made
my way back here. How are things with you? Off of a little
bit of a slower in terms of fights weekend? You know, I don't
mind there being the occasional Saturday night where there's not a lot of stuff going
on. I mean there were some activity some of the smaller shows on Friday,
the one Cardio Reference. I will do a short recap on from Saturday,
which was a matchrom Cardi in England, so it was over by the
early evening here in the United States. So it was a rare Saturday night
where there was really no boxing. As I like to say, no boxing
call your mother yes, And that is largely as we went over over and
over again. No archer better b of Unified light heavyweight title defense that was
supposed to have happened with Callum Smith because he had the jaw problem, the
jaw infection after oral surgery, so that got cast aside and has now been
rescheduled for January. So we didn't really have that. So here's what we're
gonna do on the show. First of all, thank you for finding its
social media link, Dan sub stack, etc. More and more of you
are finding us. Thousands and thousands and thousands of you have joined in in
the last few months of the podcast, either the preview going into the weekend
of the recap coming off the weekend. Make sure you're following, make sure
you're subscribing Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, Spotify, and by all means,
five star review always helps us. We're not bribing you at the moment,
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whatever. There could be future bribery that could be going on for ratings and
reviews. So do it not only because you love Raypheel, but do it
because you might actually get something in a little drawing or at Also, you
gotta have some TJ with it. You gotta take a little t J.
Yes, that's exactly right. So again, rate us, review us,
take ten seconds and do that. It helps us more people will find the
podcast, and a lot of you reviewing us has helped us, so keep
it up. All of that said, again, we're gonna get straight away
forth with post taste to you and Todd debuff. But we would not be
doing our duty if you at least didn't bring up this match Room next Gin
show right that was in Birmingham, England. Now full confession here. I've
seen the recap that Sadikahmed did and I saw your recapping of it a little
bit on social media. This was Gallia five featherweight main event, the undercard
featherweight main event. What did I say? I don't even know, I
don't know what's flyweight main event? Flyweight main event flyweight main event. And
again I was fully engaged in preseason football, but you're telling me there was
an undercard fight that was a tremendous fight. So the floor is yours recap
what happened here with the matchroom show, right, So this is their next
gen card. This is like their version of like a souped up showbox for
people. It's like there their top prospects. It's not the world title fights
that they often put on. It's that sort of next level down. But
that doesn't mean they don't necessarily make good matchups. They're just not the kind
of fights that they're going to get a huge amount of attention, at least
in the United States anyway, in terms of like previews and big storylines and
big interviews and things like that. But Galalia five was in the main event
against Tommy Frank, who was, you know, a veteran type fighter from
the UK. But galaliafi is worth paying attention to. He's one of the
best prospects in boxing. He was the Olympic he was an Olympic gold medalist
in Tokyo twenty twenty, and he's only had a handful of fights. So
now he's now five and a four knockouts, but he's older. He's thirty
years old. So they're getting things on a on a fast track for this
guy. But it looks like so far you can handle. So they put
him with Tommy frank Uh, you know, probably the best opponent he's faced
so far. And so what was most impressive was galalia Fi just absolutely nuked
him. I mean, he got rid of him in one round. It
was a tremendous performance from Yafi, who's on the fast track, and I
think if you're making an honest assessment of your let's say top ten prospects of
boxing, you're going to find a spot for him somewhere on that list.
So he pummeled him and forced a corner to throw in the towel in the
first round. It was a beatdown for you know, the one minute and
forty seconds that the fight lesson. So good for ye five. I mean,
he's he's an interesting prospect, I guess, even though he's thirty years
old. But so a good win for him in the main event, and
he got his fans excited. You know. It was in his home area
in Birmingham, Alabama, so Alabama and Birmingham, England, I'm thinking of
Sweethearts, but I've been to Birmingham, LA member for his fight, so
I meant Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, Alabama anyw. So that was
this Frank might have thought he was in Birmingham, Alabama from those knock mounds
on those blows. I'm just adding that to the conversation. But the fight
that really like, I don't know if we wouldn't necessarily talked about you if
I had had this fight I'm about to mention didn't take place. This was
the co feature of the card. I didn't really have any high expectations for
I thought I'd be like an okay fight. So there's a welterweight fighter from
England, Cyrus Pattinson, who has been in some good fights. He's only
now had after this fight he just had Saturday. He's only had seven professional
fights. But he's also older, twenty nine years old. So his last
fight that took place in March, which he won by a ninth round knocket
against Tris Jenkins, was an absolute slugfest battle royale War of War type fights,
you know, maybe a British fighter fight of Fight of the Year contender,
you know. And in that fight Jenkins this corner, forced to throw
in the towel in the ninth round with such a given the guy, such
a beating, but a great, great fight. So this was this first
fight's instant. So he comes up with a fighter named ConA Walker. They're
wealth Waits, by the way, and this was supposed to be like maybe
a little bit of an easier fight after that tough, tough battle that he
had. Not an easy fight, but maybe a little bit of a lesser
type of confrontation anything but because ConA Walker came to bring his best game and
Pattinson cannot help himself apparently from being involved in a slug fest. So they
were in a fight that I was like, okay, this will be an
okay fight turn into be like an even better fight in my mind than the
Jenkins fight. Just an absolute slugfest. If he didn't see it, you
can certainly call it up on a replay on the zone if you get the
zone on demand. Walker ended up stopping Pattinson in the eighth round. The
Pattinson, you know, the fight was waved off in the corner after that
round eight. He was down Pattinson three times in the third round in the
fifth round. In the sixth round, both guys got cut, both guys
were swinging away. Just a tremendous battle. So Pattinson, you know,
tough loss, but you know what, I'd watch him anytime. That's the
kind of fights he makes. Now, ope he can overcome this and you
know, put one loss aside. Uh, maybe tighten up the defense a
little bit. But his last two fights being Walker and Jenkins, are definitely
tremendous battles worth watching. Now, normally you don't care what I'm up to,
so I don't hear from you a lot of the time. Unlesster's boxing
related whatever. I didn't hear from you, But my buddy David Payne,
the boxing writer, sent me a message. I'm in the press box at
MetLife Stadium in New York for Buccaneers and Jets and the game hadn't begun,
and he goes, Wow, what a fight and what a finish and what
an upset here with the finish for Kna Walker. So check it out.
Check it out. So at least we have a couple of things. We
fulfilled the obligation of a recap. We just gave you a little bit of
a recap. Yeah, I mean it was it was just I mean again,
it doesn't have any bearing on pound for pound or world championships or rankings
of the weight different you know, the wealthaweight division and you know in terms
of like a top ten or so. But if you just like watching you
know, a good, a good old fashioned, you know fight, that
was a hell of a fight, and uh, you know, I loved
it, and it was I think sometimes it happens with these fights. There
are certain fights where you have expectations. You know, we expected Navarette and
Valdez to be a tremendous fight. We expected Terrence Crawford and Errol Spence to
be a great fight. Now it turned out to be a great performance.
Not necessarily a great fight, but in a fight like a ConA Walker against
Cyrus Pattinson, I mean the expectation, I think we're middling, not like
it's a bad fight or anything like that, but you're not expecting, you
know, the British fight of the year, and that's probably what we got.
So wow, hats off to him. It was a tremendous fight and
the uh, there there pension for the for the warfare and the combat was
appreciated at least by this guy overseas, and if this guy is saying British
Fight of the Year contender, at least for now through August, pay attention.
Pay attention on that. Okay, one bit of news, and then
we're gonna get to your conversation with Todd debuff. That is lengthy, but
there's a lot of good. Rayphael has been chomping at the bit to talk
to him, and then I get this, Hey, I thought it was
like ten fifteen, twenty minutes, and it turns out that it's six hours.
No, it's not say hours, it's less than that. It's still
really good stuff. So stand by. We're getting to that. But before
we get to that, there is a news item. And I believe that
when we were sitting together in Las Vegas and you were watching the Empire Strikes
Back in the recap mode that night, after Terence Crawford had pummeled Errol Spence,
you use the phrase on Devin Haney, Regis pro Gray, it's not
done. When it's done, it's done. I do believe that was Dan
Rayphel saying that in the wee hours of that Saturday morning, July thirtieth into
Sunday, July thirty first, right, if I have my days correct,
whatever that was you said that twenty ninth, so into the wee hours of
the thirtieth you said it's not done. Rayphiel is back here on the Recap
podcast to say this fight is not done yet for late October or otherwise give
me the latest, okay. So it may still very well get done,
because that's what happens. You know, fights are done when they're done,
and this fight was not done. Now both fighters had said publicly that's what
they were striving towards. Devin Haney h conversated with the WBC as it relates
to his lightweight belt. They made him a champion in recess on the you
know, on his notification that he planned to go to one hundred forty pounds
and fight the WBC's junior welterweight champion, Regis Progra Progray was making social media
posts and video saying we're doing the fight. They were bickering over the date,
but the reality was while they had agreed, let's we're gonna do this
fight, and I and my understanding is that Regis had you know, from
what he said, he signed some kind of document that you know, his
side of the agreement that Haney side had, I guess agreed to what their
financial package was, but it still wasn't done, and because there was other
things that were still outstanding, there was some question whether, you know,
was it going to be a one off with Haney and the match room.
Matchroom wanted multiple fights, understandably so, and so they had to go through
anyway there. It just takes time. I'm not I'm not casting, I'm
not blaming anybody or calling anybody out or anything. I'm just saying it wasn't
done. It takes time. And so in the period of time in which
they were still trying to get everything squared away, the date that the fight
was supposed to take place on that they wanted it to take place on,
at least that's what match Room and what program we're thinking, was October twenty
eight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, which, as an
aside, and I wrote this in my column people can check it out of
my substack, was kind of a dumb date for this fight to begin with,
because this is a very good fight, obviously, but it's not gonna
trump in terms of the attention and the and the oxygen around a big event.
When you're going on the same day that the heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is
taking on Francis Nagana, which you can love where you can hate, but
you cannot deny that it's going to attract the huge amount of attention and it's
not gonna trump what's happening between Devon Hanni and Regius Program period. At the
end of a story, even though they're not going to take place at the
same time, one fights overseas and the Middle East and it will be on
earlier, it's still going to eat up massive oxygen within the boxing business.
And if you're trying to do that fight, which the Zone wanted to do,
I am told by multiple sources to put Devin Haney against Regis Progray on
the Zone pay per view. Now you're even fighting a more of an uphill
battle because your two pay per views on the same day. And I think
most boxing fans probably would go for the Tyson Fury fight given his name,
power and just the sort of match up against a guy. Yes, so
they'll putting that fight, And I wrote, you know people can again they
can read the column program against Haney is a good fight. I have no
problem with the fight. I like to fight fair enough, but as as
a pay per view proposition, it's insulting and it's kind of pathetic because I
don't know about you. I paid two hundred and twenty five dollars a year
for the Zone, and that's the kind of fight you expect as part of
your subscription. Frankly, it's not. It's a good fight, but it's
not like some mega fight. It's just a good fight between a top champion
in in Devin Haney was a pound for pound caliber fighter against an under a
top quality junior welterweight title holder who is very good, but not number one
in his weight class, coming off a horrible performance in his last fight.
Just a nice, goods quality, solid fight. Why am I paying?
Why would I want to pay an extra fifty or sixty dollars for that fight?
It makes absolutely zero sense. You know that I have your back.
If we're talking Devin Hanny Ryan Garcia, that's a pay per view. If
we're talking about Devin Hanny Dravanta Davis, that's a pay per view. If
we're talking Devin Haney against Tiafimo Lopez, it's a different story because at least
he's number one. There'd be a lot of heat for that fight, you
know. I mean ESPN with their tonnage, can back that and get a
lot of publicity the zone. It's not their fault, but they don't have
that as their own platform. They don't have that bandwidth to get it to
the masses. So anyway, the pay per view aspect is another part of
this thing. But the bottom line is the fight's not done. So whether
they're going to get it done for the twenty eight remains to be seen.
If they do, they're probably going to need a new site for the fight,
which then could theoretically move it to a new day. Part of it
was because I was gonna say, didn't you write, didn't you post?
You posted in the substack and you put it on social media. They have
a deadline for the building and the twenty eighth, or the deadline in the
contract that it has to be done, right. I just know that the
building is not is no longer available for them to do on the twenty eighth.
So when you now switch to a different than you, that changes the
parameters of what your gate might be and the money in the gate is significant
to the deal. Plus you have the disagreement by some involved over whether it
should be pay per view or not. And so now you have a fight
where it apparently both sides want to do the fight, but there are certain
issues that are not related to I want to fight the guy. I don't
want to fight the guy. What's the weight, what's the glove is?
What's this? What's that? This is things that are not related to the
element of competition. It's other factors involved in making this. So you know,
if they can get it worked out, fine, we'll see the fight
be very irritated if it's pay per view. Because let me just say one
more thing about that. By the way, if you put that fight on
the twenty eighth on pay per view against theory, it dies. If you
put it on a different date and it's not against fear, it still dies
on pay per view. In my opinion, that fight does nothing. And
I don't understand why I'm paying two and a quarter for an eight for a
Zone subscription when I can't get that kind of fight, Because as again,
as I pointed out to my piece, I'm fine with the Zone showing their
misfits stuff. I don't watch it, but okay, fine, I rather,
you know, I dig some of the smaller shows, like they did
this past weekend. We didn't really get into it, but they did the
MVP Prospects card on Friday night. They also did the OTX fight card on
Friday night, which, as an aside, also makes no sense for them
that to put them on at the exact same time. But nonetheless, so
I'm down with those shows. But I don't spend the two in a quarter
for ot X. I don't spend the two in a quarter for MVP Prospects.
I don't spend it for the Misfits, which I think is crapola.
I don't spend it for darts and all the other stuff. I don't spend
it for the shoulder programming. I spend it for live boxing events. And
I sure as hell don't buy the zone to get a main event like Jack
Catterell against the decrepted remnants of Orgy Lenaris. Okay, so I need a
top quality fight and Haney program is that. So that is a pay per
view was like a sick joke in my opinion, and again, still not
clear if they're going to ever be able to get the things squared away.
So hopefully they will. I'm kind of hopeful that maybe if it does fall
apart, I'm not hoping it does, but if it did, you know,
I'd like to see I'd love to see Haney and and Tia Fimo Lopez
get it on. That's a much better fight, in my opinion, well
laid out by you. So here we go with your conversation with Todd debuff
and just give a quick thirty second preview because you covered a lot of subjects
with him. This is lengthy but worth it. Just give him a quick
outline. Sure, So okay, So just to for the background, I've
I've known Todd for almost twenty five years. Uh, Todd and I've been
friendly for for a long time. Todd was a guest on my wedding,
for example, so we know we have a long history with each other.
He's put up with you for a long time and a lot I've put up
with him for a long time. So but Todd and I talk a lot
about the fights at top rank does not necessarily you know, sometimes for interviews
and things and quotes and stuff, but a lot of times just to shoot
the shit about this and that and whatever's going on with the events. But
I've been trying to put him down to do an interview for a while,
and so I knew this was like a light week in terms of what we
had to recap, and uh, you know, I appreciate Todd was like,
Okay, let's do it. So I figured, you know, we're
gonna spend like twenty twenty five minutes, max, and we're gonna go through
a bunch of the fights they've got coming up and some of the permutations of
their divisions that they're involved in this, and that it turned out to be
built longer. So it's like fortyes minutes. I've been doing this too long
with you. You can't read a menu in twenty or twenty five minutes.
I'm just bagging on you keep going. So so anyway, so I'll just
to let the folks know. I'll just give them the brief, brief aut
and so we we'll will start off. We had a conversation. I wished
him happy birthday because his birthday was this week, So happy birthday to Todd,
And uh, you know, we look back a little bit on their
tremendous fight they had just recently between Emmanuel Navarette and Oscar Valveez, which was
a great, great fight obviously, and we spend quite a bit of time
getting into their involvement and his thoughts about different elements of the heavyweight division.
Because they are, of course the co promoter of Tyson Fury, they are
bringing in onto their because of their ESPN relationship. They're bringing in the us
Duba fight that takes place on August twenty six, They're bringing in the September
twenty third fight rematch between Zang July and Joe Joyce like they also did the
first fight, and then on in the same night that they have next week
with the Duba Usi, they've got their own show here in Tulsa, Oklahoma
in the United States, a heavyweight tripleheader with Jared Anderson's returned to the ring
with a Jagua him in a fight in the in the top ranked debut of
their newly signed twenty twenty Olympic gold medalists Baco Deer Jola Law. So they've
got a lot of involvement in the heavyweight division. And then we just went
sort of basically kind of down the weight scale. We talked about better BF
and that post Bowman. Can we ever see a fight between him against against
Admitri Bibo for undisputed. We got into the kind of added of nowhere unification
fight they're going to do in October in the middleweight division between their fighter Janabec
and the newly crowned IBF title holder Julia Terry from Germany, and we got
into you know, his thoughts about Look, they spent there a long long
time, many years promoting Terrence Crawford and involve in his career, so some
thoughts from him at the Errol Spence fight. We got into all the different
things going on with their involvement because they're so deep at junior Wealthy and also
lightweight with Tiathimo and with the Shakor Stephenson, etc. And then we had
a good conversation to finish things off about another great top rank fighter and great
fighter period is Noia in a way, and what's up with him and his
impressions of where he falls historically and what we might see for him next and
so it was a very wide ranging conversation. I appreciate his time and I
think the fans and the listeners are going to enjoy it. Okay, So
again this is gonna be long, and then we got some nostalgia on the
back side of it, but well worth it. Here now is more on
Dan's get with the president of Top Rank. I'd like to welcome into the
podcast this week a man who I've wanted to have on the show for a
while now, and I'm glad we're able to get this together. I'm gonna
be speaking with my good friend, long time friend, Todd the Buff,
the president of Top Rank, who I consider the leading promoter in boxing these
days. Todd, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, and
he'd belated Happy birthday to you. Oh, thank you. And you're a
LEO two, so you're coming up as well. Well, I'm actually a
virgo, but I'm a little few days pass on the cuss on the cuss,
I guess. Anyway, Yes, my birthday is coming up in a
few days. Anyway, thank you very much for doing this. I got
we got a lot of topics. He got so much stuff going on at
Top Rank, which is good, so we got plenty to talk about and
i'd like to talk. I'd like to start off with a little bit about
the fantastic event that you just put on, which was a fight that has
a lot of people, you know, calling as a fight of the Year
candidate and a fight that a lot of people were anxious to see when it
was nate And that's the great battle that took place between the w BO Junior
lightweight champion Emmanuel Navarette who had the great decision victor and a totally action pack
fight against the former champion Oscar Valdez. Isn't that sort of like everything that
you want to see when you at the company put on those types of events,
you know, where people are excited going in. It lives up to
the billing, and there's a lot of good feelings afterwards, and both guys
conduct themselves like true pros and you know, no no, no controversy,
no nonsense, but just a great fight and a great event, and you
know, both guys move on. I mean absolutely. I mean, you
know, being in the business since I since nineteen ninety three, you know,
you kind of go through these moments that you're like, you know,
you know, you you all of a sudden, you see the cycle turned
back around and I see Eric and Eric Morhallis and Marco Antonio Barrera as part
of this this promotion and I'm like, oh my god, it reminds you
of you know, is it possible that we could execute on this that yet
no Barette and Valdez could be a Morales Berrera. And you know a lot
of times as promoters, we do things and we kind of drop our pants
a little bit, you know, trying to say this is the greatest moment,
so this is the greatness, but it really isn't. And you know,
and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you actually have a little skill and
is trying to think that the styles make a compelling match, and you know,
this was one of those matches. It reminded me as much as going
into it as Morales Berrera as it did at the end. And I think
that's what makes people keep coming back to the sport. And I think that's
what makes us all is people involved in the sport that you know, you
walk away from something like that and seeing all the fans touched by it and
over ten thousand people in Arizona going crazy and over a million people on the
platforms of ESPN tuned into it. It's just it's just great. It's great,
and it's gratifying, and it keeps us coming back for another day.
Well, you mentioned about having Morales and Errera as part of the promotion,
and I just love that because whether the fight lived up to that or not,
you know, that's a conversation anybody can have, whether they thought that
it did or that it didn't. But I just thought it was fantastic that
Top Rank a company that has put on so many historic fights, do you
and then been involved with so many Hall of Fame fighters, Brera and Morale
among them, and that you're able to bring those guys back to help,
you know, promote this event, and that they were willing and interested and
seemed excited to be a part of it. And I just love the fact
that you can mind the Top Rank history to get the legends involved. I'd
actually kind of like to see more of that. Is that something you think
we can see, you know, when it makes sense. I'm not obviously
you can't do that for every fight, but when it calls were I mean,
you have plenty of past fighters that would fit into those types of promotions.
Well, I mean, ye, yes and no. I mean I
think there's something about moving forward always and you don't want to keep people in
the past, and in those of us that we're able to you know,
want to give the guys to the future connect shod. We should we should
really concentrate about the future understand and I think that's first and foremost. But
to take us back, I mean selfishly, Eric was you know, was
a big piece of my career starting off. He was a big piece of
how to figuring out, you know, understanding and jumping deep into Mexican National
tr from US as a company. We had we had really just come off
of signing Oscar in ninety two, and we had had a nice run with
Carpo Hall in eighty eight that I came on the tail end of, but
a Mexican National was nothing that we really really were really embedded in. And
Eric was one of the first one. The funniest thing about it is is
when in real time I remember, like whenever I saw Marco Antonio Barrera,
I thought he was like the enemy, right, And I thought he was
like, you know, because I was so close with Eric, and Barrera
was associated largely, you know with the foreign boxing and you know, he
did his stuff. We were always across from each other. He was never
one of our fighters that we developed, so I always felt like he was
like a little bit there on the other side. But when I saw him
in Arizona, it was like I couldn't believe. It was almost like twenty
years a hat right, Like, Yeah, the friendship was there, the
respect was there. He Eric and I were giving each other a lot of
grief, and obviously everybody's gotten older and kind of fun to laugh at off,
but it was really true. Effic it was true effic to go down
memory loan, Yeah, I totally I loved it. And now you have
two fighters coming out of that fight, Navarette, who's probably never been bigger.
That was obviously his biggest victory. He's retained the title, Valdez despite
the loss a gallant and brave effort. I wonder, what is what does
the future look like for Navarette? There's not a lot in his weight class,
it doesn't seem at the moment. There's obviously a lot of talent at
one thirty five, So in my mind, I'm sort of figuring, you
know, he'll make a defense at at lightweight, I mean a junior lightweight
rather and then probably in the not through distant future, you know, go
up to the next weight class because he's you know, he's had his issues
making the different weights. What are you guys at the company think in terms
of his future? You know, I think, you know, a performance
like that the other night, which really was surprising to me, right I
you know, we talked about going into the fight a little bit, a
little bit like the bell chair fight, and you know that I thought that
Oscar's maybe his pedigree would would outclass him a little bit. I just thought
I didn't even think that. You know, I thought Navarette looked a little
sluggish in his last performance. You know, he got dropped, and you
know, I just felt like I felt like the tide was moving away from
him, not then not riding him, And all of a sudden, he
has that performance and you see him. He handled it so well and easily,
and I would not be surprised if he goes up to thirty five quickly,
and he won't. I mean, he he mumbled a little like he
would like Shakur. I mean, he wants to go for it, and
he's one of those kids. I mean I would assume what that would happen.
That would probably be after score Winter were to obtain I guess the vacant
WBC belt and then, like I don't think he would be there to fight
him for the vacant title. That would seem a little bit prettymature. Maybe
No, I mean I you used it long term, right, say tomorrow.
Okay, that clarifying, right, it's a long term I could definitely
see that being a possible fight in the future. I definitely could see it.
I think it's one that not Varette kind of licks his chops for and
he was he was smiling about it in the ring. He kind of mumbled
it to us and and I was like, whoa, that's my pr guy
guard. He came to me and I said, you know, he has
the physical size and he's so unconventional in his style. Who knows it would
be something very interesting in the future. And what about for Oscar? It's
a tough loss, but really, I mean, there, you know,
I don't don't't think you could take shame and losing an all out slug fest
like that North thing. You take too much out of losing, you know,
being outboxed by shakor Stevenson. So those are going to losses. He's
still, you know, a fighter that I think evokes emotion from fans.
I think he's always been classy, he's always put on a great performance when
you talk about somebody being telegemic, and I mean that I and him grow,
you know, just really gutting it out at the end. And there
was a point in the back half of the fight. I don't know if
it was nine or ten or something like that. I'm like, he's got
a real chance here, He's coming on again. Where's this coming from?
Right? It wasn't. And I was like, I think he hurt Navarette
late in the fight, and he's such a warrior, he's such a classy
kid. I think you know, it got it. You know, an
injury like that, an orbital socket injury, has to like, he's got
to get some time, take it off, reset see where he wants to
go. But there's there's always going to be a promising opportunity for him because
he brings it every time he gets the right And the good news was,
from my understanding, it was not broken. It just needs a little time
to rest up, was all right. I want to jump now about one
hundred pounds north and talk heavyweights, where top rank is very involved. Uh,
you know has many of the top fighters, top up and comers,
and is involved with some of these fights that are coming up. So you
obviously co promote Tyson Fury the heavyweight champion. You don't promote Alexander Usik,
and you don't promote Zang July, but you are doing because of your top
rank ESPN alliance bringing in both of their significant fights onto ESPN Plus. So
you have Usik's going to defend history belts against Danga Dubois on August twenty six.
In September, on September twenty three, you're bringing in the fight between
Zang July rematch with Joe Joyce, also for the WBO's interim titles, so
you have you have involved in all of the dose top heavyweight fights. And
then of course next week on Saturday, the twenty sixth of August, you
have a triple header that will be a couple of hours after the Usk fight
with Duba where you have the top prospect undefeated Jared Interested against Andre Ridenko,
Faa Jagba, an Olympian against zen Kosabutski, and your new signing the twenty
twenty Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist of Baka Deer Joalolov in his first fight with
top ranks. So in terms of the heavyweights. First of all, I
mean, this is clearly all this action is by design. If I'm not,
I mean, it can't be an accident that you're doing a heavyweight championship
fight on the same day that you're doing uh, you know, the young
then I wouldn't call them young necessarily, but the night of like the heavyweight
newcomers or the up and combers, however you want to describe them. So
tell me a little bit about your your thoughts about the deep involvement you have
now in the heavyweight division. Well, I think, you know, I
think you're you're hitting on something that not only is the heavyweights, but it's
been a little bit of a strategy for us since Trate, you know,
and how we've looked at it, and we've we've acknowledged and recognized that the
sport is bigger than one of us, and their fights all over the world
that are happening of significance, and we felt that through our experience and expertise
and relationships in the space, that we could build out and get the fans
in our environment with ESPN a great platform to get a bite of everything right
and to be able to see the USK fight because twenty years ago. I
remember when you would call me if I can't believe I can't see this fight
from Europe. I got to watch it over here. You're trying to get
some way to figure out and somebody send you a tape. And I think
that's the beauty of today's modern media, right that we're able to stream things
seamlessly. We're all pick up quality productions from all over the world, and
we're able to look at things no different than the world of soccer when you're
seeing a bundest League match or a Syria match or a Premier League match.
That is what boxing is. It's that big. And this just happens to
be the heavyweight division, which is always the most exciting division and one that
we've found ourselves in the center of, anchored around Tyson Fury, and we
love the Jared Anderson young prospect, and we love the jabble off opportunities,
and we love, you know, getting him being able to show music.
I think the last time we saw music was when he was doubled up with
with he fought with Lomanchenko, right, yeah, that was here in my
neighborhood here. Yeah, that was back in DC, right when we did
this whole you know, and we haven't seen him on our platform, and
we think, like, hey, if eventually a use Fury fight could happen,
it would be great to expose the audience, the biggest audience in the
United States, to him. So, you know, with our partnership,
within relationships with the Queensberry they had Dubois, and with our relationships with the
music people, we were able to work this out. And obviously, you
know, Detroy saying fight just kind of timing just kind of sets it all
up. So you have these great matches hitting just between now and the end
of October that are going to keep people on one platform and you know,
on the edge of their seat. So do you think that if if things,
if Usik wins and he's the heavy favorite, you don't know what nothing
against Daniel Dubas Tyson Fury, of course, and we'll get to that in
just a minute. He's got his fight, his crossover fight, if you
will, with Nagan who was coming over from MMA to fight him in a
boxing match. But I mean, a lot of us wanted to see the
understood the title fight, which hasn't been a case in the heavyweight division where
there's been a undisputed title fight for many, many years, going back to
the late nineties with the vander Holeyfield and Lennox Lewis, and the fight didn't
take place to spring like a lot of us hoped it would. Do you
think that if all goes well, there's still that old door open for that
big fight to take place. I think, so, I mean, I
don't. I never thought there was a reason why it didn't happen the first
place. And I think there's a lot of people to point the finger,
but I'd rather not just point the finger. I'd rather do something about it.
And I think that's what everybody has to do, is do something about
things rather than talk about things. So I always felt like Fury and music
should happen, and Fury and Joshua should happen, you know, just they
just it makes too much sense and makes too much money, you know.
Yeah, well, I mean senses. You know. Sense is my my
in my lexicon is equals money. At times. If it makes dollars,
that makes sense, right, it makes dollars and sense I mean, I
mean sense meaning that you know, the economics can be very good for everybody,
and sometimes you just you got to go through. You know, you
got to. Sometimes they it's not a direct line, I mean, and
we wish it was, but sometimes it isn't. So I'm optimistic, Okay.
So I Fury goes forward with this October fight against Francis Naganu, A
lot of fans absolutely hate it. A lot of fans are somewhat intrigued because
of nagan who's prowess as a puncher and MMA, and even though we've seen
these types of fights before, there's still some sort of fantasy aspect to it.
Others like myself are sort of like, Okay, I'm not like,
I don't hate it. I don't necessarily love it, but it's okay.
I you know, I'd rather see Usik, but I kind of get it.
They're gonna make a huge amount of money and all that. But where
do you stand on that? On those types of fights where you've got the
MMA fighter coming over into boxing once again, And I mean, I know
you would have preferred to see Usik and Fury or Fury like Joshua like you
just mentioned, But tell me your stand about your thoughts on these types of
crossover fights, particularly when it involves the heavyweight champion who's not taking this fight
because there's no other big fight for him. He has the opportunity. He
could have done a fight with Joshua, he could have done a fight with
Usik. I listen, we can get in a conversation that you're saying he
pass. I'm not blaming something. I'm saying. I mean, I don't
want to. I don't want to go that way because I have a lot
of insight into those matches being made, and I think there were everybody was
he He either could have made these matches or people could have not made the
match. Okay, then take the part take the part of that. I
just don't believe there's one perspective. I think the thing is is Tyson arguably,
and then we could say is the best heavyweight in the world. And
you know, people know how dangerous he is as a fighter. He's big,
he's very quick handed, he's got a great i Q. And nobody
disputes his talent at all. Right, what I'm saying is to make matches
for him isn't the easiest thing because a lot of guys don't like that risk.
Right, you know how it is riskverse reward, and that makes it
complicated. So do I like do I like the in GNUF I wasn't my
first choice, understand it, right, Obviously, Joshua and Musick make a
lot for us. It's been boxing purists makes a lot of sense. But
you know, there are people and you know, not in our space and
people. Ever since this got announced last month, I've had many of people
that are not They said, are you involved in the Ghana Fury fight?
That's so interesting? That's the layman, the sports fan. So it does
hit. It does hit a piece of the audience that we may not normally
see follow them. Oh, there's no question. I mean, my perspective
is there's lots of people that think it's very interesting and lots of people that
don't love it, and then there's peoples that are sort of like, Okay,
I mean, I'd rather sequencing, but I'll take sort of this interesting
crossover fight with the MMA star alight at the end of it. At the
end of the day, Dan, I think the sport is better off with
activity, right, And I always out of sight, out of mind,
right, And I'd rather see the guys in the ring fighting and engaging with
their fan base and building their fan base or building the people to hate them,
right, getting some passion to vote as a result of what their personality
is or their skill set, and keeping them in the space. And I
think that's always a good thing for the sport. I think it's a good
thing for fighters to keep sharp and to keep their profile up there. All
right, So sticking with the heavyweights for just another minute. You have,
as we mentioned, that Jared Anderson headline card August twenty six that's gonna follow
what happens in Poland between USA and Dubas, and Jared, of course is
the guy in the main event against Rodenko, and I just wonder what you
you know. Jared is coming back on rather quickly by our standards today fight
August twenty six, having come off a victory over Charles Martin on July first,
and I just wondered your take on the fight with Martin, because look,
he won the fight. It was a late replacement. He still won
going away in the cards, but clearly it was about as difficult to fight
as there was for a guy that one basically almost by a shut out.
What were your thoughts about the troubles, at least briefly that Anderson, some
might say, was exposed others would say, Wow, he overcame and persevered
and now we know a lot more about him. Where do you fall on
Anderson's development based on what you saw against Charles Martin? I think I think
what you saw is exactly what you want, right. You want a fighter
who's young and to have going with the kg experience guy and you want them
to have adversity. You wanted to get him off of the of the stool
in rounds seven, eight, nine, ten. You want to see how
he responds. You want to see how his cardiovascularly does. You want to
see him have different looks from a guy that's gonna give him different looks as
a fighter who has been at the thought at the highest level. And that's
part of that, just fine tuning that our matchmakers are really good at and
for to take to have that fight and to perform the way he did and
to come back in the quick nature is just going to make him that much
of a better fighter over the long period of time. That is an important
element. The frequency and the ability for him to be active in staying in
the gym and coming back is going to accelerate him so that he could be
fighting at the highest level right in with the top guys quicker than fighting twice
a year. And if he can the more fights he can get in in
a year and learn his trade and get the experience, the better he's going
to be. And that's all you want to do, is you want to
get these guys, put them in position to be prepared so that when that
door opens, they step through it and they either take advantage of it or
they don't, but they're prepared for those big fights in those big moments,
all right. So moving down from heavyweight we get to the light heavyweight division.
Very unfortunate that you had to postpone the Arthur better Be a light heavyweight
title defense against Callum Smith, which was supposed to be just this past weekend.
It's rescheduled for January thirteenth. A very good fight obviously. And I
wonder though, I mean, we've seen lots of unifications in the sport.
You have some coming up on your calendar, you just did other ones,
There's been other ones in the sport from other companies. How realistic do you
think it is to make really the biggest fight in light heavyweight division that diehards
definitely want to see, Which is another undisputed championship fight between Arthur BEDDERBEV and
Dmitri Beebo, who's sort of gonemia since being the consensus fighter of the Year
for twenty twenty two, he's not fought this year, unfortunately, so.
But that's obviously attractive fight. But I know it's not the easiest fight to
make it. Maybe NOD doesn't have the biggest ability to generate the kind of
big time money that these two guys would like to make, and as well
as the promoters and everybody else involved. But how do you handicap the prospect
of we are ever getting to see that fight in the near future. You
know, I think there's you know, I think we've we've had conversations about
doing the fight, and when you have conversations, I always consider that to
be the right first step. You know. It's when there are no conversation
stations and people are dismissive, you know, when we talked about the old
ear of cold Wars and one guy not walking from one side of the street
to the other side of the street, I think we're seeing less of that,
which I think is good for the overall sport and for the good for
getting the best fights on for the fans that are right craving for it.
So I like the fact that we're having conversations or if we've had them,
how serious are they though, Well, I mean, it's it's it was
kind of hard to have a serious conversation when we knew there was a mandatory
right that was sitting there. So just just having an open dialogue is very
important and just saying hey, let's just see how things come out and things
and my team and has been in regular contact with them and just discussing possibilities.
And I think that, you know, at some point it does make
sense. But I think that you know, it's one that obviously obviously has
to be facilitated by the economics and what everybody thinks the fight is worth and
where we when we can do it and where we can do it. I
got you. I mean that's pretty clear. I think. I mean,
I mean, befall, you know, came off of a brilliant performance against
arguably the biggest attraction pay per view attraction single athlete that we've seen over the
last decade, and that was Cannella, and therefore he has certain expectations.
Well, and then he followed then he followed it up by the way that
another big time paid in the Middle East against Zero Ramirez. You're a former
fighter, Yeah yeah, but regardless, I mean I'm really seeing you know,
so you know, it's you usually see the natural progression and the expectations
of athletes and everybody is when then right, when you beat this guy,
then you right, you, then your profile everything goes up. So I
think those are things that you know, we have to consider and everybody has
to try to manage to get think a big match. So here we talk
about the prospect of that unification. You've done other ones. We've just discussed
that before, about all these different possibilities, and here we go down in
the middleweight division, which is in my mind pretty desolate. I just wrote
a column that that outlined how desolate the middleweight division is in terms of the
lack of big names, the lack of star power, particularly with the Triple
G basically being I'd say semi retirement is how I term it. So you
have your fighter, jannebec the WBO champion, the unknown obscure who nobody's ever
seen, who wasn't even televised in his own country when he won the vacant
IBF title. Vincenzo Gulatieri, who won the IBF belt not that long ago,
beat your guy, Keeva Falca, and now suddenly you're making a unification
between the two guys, and it sort of like came out of nowhere.
Uh? Is it a matter of like neither one of those fighters has like
a natural opponent in the weight class. There's not a lot of star power.
I presume that relatively speaking, it's not a super expensive fight by unification
standards, and it was sort of like, hey, why not do this
and and maybe one of these guys can raise their profile. Yeah, I
mean, I think I think one of the things, one of the things
that we you know, we manage here is you know, I always say
this, right, it's like I don't chase the money. We kind of
create the money, right, And if we can create something around janebec which
is obviously he you know, it's it's it's a skilled fighter in a weight
class that doesn't have much opportunity or much you know, much high profile names
that you could are natural. People called him the book in the end of
the division because he's dangerous and he's got quick hands and he's got skill.
So what we do is we just try to do the best we can,
and in going through the opponents, you know, why not try to rally
up the you know, the best available guy with a title that means something
to janebec right and his team was very interested in doing the fight, and
we felt like, listen, if we're going to do that, why not
if we're just going to get an opponent, or we can get an opponent
that has a little hardware around his way his waist, it makes it sexier
and it makes it more compelling, and it's better the Fighter's what the fighter
wants and his team. So we facilitated and that, you know, by
a unification standards. Maybe I'm wrong because I wasn't there in the room when
it was getting made, but from where I look at, kind of was
made pretty easily and pretty quickly. Yeah, I mean I think it was.
It was made pretty easily and pretty quickly because, like we talked about,
the opportunities for somebody who was relatively an unknown that wins the fight,
you know, against Falco, who had a little profile but largely from his
Brazilian roots, you know, made it possible if he didn't have that many
other opportunities. You probably wouldn't have taken the fight, and he took the
fight because of as as you just said, money exactly exactly. Now,
I want to ask you about a fight that you didn't You didn't promote,
but you in some ways had a lot to do with making it become what
it became. You promoted Terrence craw for most of his career. You guys
did a lot of his fights, from the time he was lightweight champion,
through the undisputed junior welterweight title, and through his welterweight Tyleerraine. We don't
have to rehash the history there. There was a lot of demand and interest
on the fans behalf to see him fight Errol Spence. It did not happen
for quite a while, but they did finally fight. Top rank was not
involved. He dominated, He looked fantastic, Hall of Fame level kind of
performance, stopped Errol Spence, and the fight also had significant commercial success.
I just wonder what was your thoughts about about raw I mean, I know
you always thought Crawford was capable of that type of performance. You and I
have talked about that, you know, privately and many times over the years.
Just your your take on Crawford doing what he did a guy you know
very well. And also the commercial success of the event, which was always
sort of a thing that there was questions about when Top Rank was promoting because
you never had the opportunity to put him in the biggest fights. Well,
I mean, I that's I'm not I'm not sure about that, but well,
I just mean you didn't have you didn't have the top names. That's
all I'm saying. It doesn't matter. It's like it's like listen, it's
you know, it's it. You know, we pride ourselves on trying to
make the biggest fights out. They're regardless if they're under our umbrella or not,
all right, and that's our objective. And you know, and sudden
people don't want to do that. And I think the I think it was
an obvious thing. We always liked Terrence, My matchmakers always liked Terrence over
Errol, and I think the other side of the street, and you realized,
like, hey, the risk is too much for us. We don't
want to take that risk, and so they just held out and held out
and held out until Terrence became available and went ahead and did it himself and
that's their prerogative, that's their game plan, you know, and sometimes it
lines up and sometimes it doesn't line up. I'm not surprised he looks.
So I'm a little surprised he dominated the way he did, right, because
I felt like we always felt like Errol had. You know, Terence was
relatively a smaller guy moving up and wait and you saw with the Porter fight.
You know that when bigger guys came at him, you know, he
you know, they were tough fights for him, you know, the physical
n We thought Errol would always have that physical advantage over him, but you
know, he took He just took full advantage of him. You know,
from was a round two on. I mean, I think he was pretty
dominant. And I think more than anything, I was more surprised by the
dominant performance. Thought he would always win, but didn't think he would just
dominant the way it ended up. Again, a reminder, you're listening to
Dan, Raphael and Todd the Buff here a lengthy conversation about top ranks plan.
But this is good stuff. Plenty more of that conversation, and we're
back with some nostalgia on the back side of this that Dan is particularly pumped
up about stay tuned for that. But back now to his conversation in progress
here, and what about your thoughts on the You know, what they say
is of a significant commercial success, which Arrol has had commercial success, but
not at that level. And Crawford, Uh, you know, it's been
well document that it wasn't. I mean, whatever the commercial success is,
it's it's kind of a black box. I don't know, and it's about
my event. I don't know exactly what it did. But I reported six
hundred and fifty thousand pay per views roughly, so it's it's it's and by
the way, and at twenty one million dollars, whatever the results are,
it's positive because it just shows the job that we had done elevating you know,
obviously Terrence's career, and the job that PPC had done, you know,
building up Errol Spence and just showed that when you put a good fight
on and they have fans not necessarily want to just see guys fight SOCO opponents,
they want to see him fight the best guys. They'll show up and
they'll pay. So I think that's a big, very big success and probably
a little bit of a template for all of us to follow. So while
you don't have a ton of guys in the welterweight division now that Crawford is
not with you anymore, but at one hundred and forty pounds, you have
the champion to your female Lopez, you got uh top contenders. I know
Josie Ramirez. Uh, you know whether Arnold Barboza is going to be afraid
or not. You know, I'm not quite sure what the status of his
situation is. But the point is there's interesting fights to be made there.
You've worked with Devin Haney, he's moving up to one forty. I know
there's issues and finalizing the fight that supposedly was happening with program, And I
just wonder, is there a chance that maybe we could see Tiafimo against Devin
Haney in the next fight. Might we see him against Josie Ramirez? Might
we see him against Barboza? Has he taken the rest of the year off?
I mean, what's his status? Well, we put we play play
a very big piece in the one hundred and forty pound division, the hundred
and thirty five pound division, which is growing their forty pound division. Right.
Tiafimo's performance over Josh Taylor was you know, you looked like the old
Tiafimo back right. We hadn't seen that that one in that performance and that
fight Jurne in a while, and it was good to see it. And
I think his performances, I think, you know, the def and Haney,
obviously, we have a relationship with him, and we tried to make
either matches with Shakur or a match with Loma, and he chose to move
up in wait. But obviously we would love to see him in two and
the Jose Ramirez is out there, the guys of one forties, just there's
just so much opportunity. And by the way, you know, I see
Shakur and I see how big he is. I wouldn't be surprised in twelve
months from now if we're talking about him moving up, right, I'm thinking
more in the shorter term. So, I mean, I know we've listened
to a female situation has been well documented. He was going to retire.
He's having his issues outside the ring in terms of dealing with his divorce and
the custody and all that business. And that's obviously personal and important that you
got to take care of that. But do you think we're going to see
him in the ring before the end of the year, and if he is,
can we see him one of those bigger fights, particularly Haney if the
program fight isn't finalized. Listen, we can only give opportunities to the leads.
They have to decide if they want to take them. So obviously we
want to make sure his mental well being is the best, and he's got
his personal stuff. All sort of situations sword out, so he's going to
make some decisions. We would hope to see him before the end of the
year, but those are going to be decisions that he and his family and
his team are going to make. It understood, And you mentioned about your
core. Now he may, like you said, maybe he will be one
hundred and forty in the not too distant future. I'm sure he will be.
But right now he's at lightweight and with Haney being made the WBC's I
Guess Champion in recess, which opens up Shakur to fight for the vacant title
against whoever their next leading contender is. What can you tell me about what's
in store for him the next fight. I can tell you he's fighting in
the next couple of months. I'm not going to tell you who it is.
That's to I let's make a little news. I mean, obviously,
I'm not going to tell you who it is. Do you do you know
who it is yet? I'm not going to say can I can't give to
be all my secret. You haven't given me any yet. I'm gonna keep
it that way. I mean maybe a Loma Tako, I don't know.
I have to take a look at the WC ranks, and Alma's up there
pretty high up. And he's your guy. Also, Yeah, well we're
gonna we're gonna try to We're gonna try to close some matches. Yeah,
we close some of the stuff out in the next week so that we could
bring some some Relli appillion stuff. And you know, Shakur is just so
elite, so elite, I mean todd, he's a favorite. I mean,
no offense to anybody else in boxing and those weight classes, but from
I don't know, one hundred and forty below, he probably would be a
heavy favorite against anybody, including Timo Lopez, including against Devon Ainey, including
against Regis program. You name it, am I wrong? I listen?
I he he has a he is brilliant in the ring. He is absolutely
brilliant. He's got incredible offense defense i Q you know he he just keep
showing it and the better of the fighters, the better he shows up.
That is so obvious with him. And the other thing that we're seeing,
I think even more importantly is what we saw early on when he came out
of the Olympics was he wasn't he hadn't grown into his body yet. Well
he has now now where he has now and you can really see that maturation
really coming to and it puts it all together. That's what makes him probably
one of the best fighters in the world. So our recent fight that you
were involved in, and I want to wrap up with this particular topic,
is you are the American promoter for a Noya in a way who looked absolutely
spectacular in knocking out Stephen Fulton just a few days before Terrence Crawford did what
he did against Arrow Spence. I know that you're a big in a way
supporter, you know you think the world of him. Just tell give me
your take on where this guy fits in, because he has been spectacular from
one hundred eight pounds now all the way up to one hundred and twenty two
pounds and just looks like a machine. You know, I would say this
three years ago when I saw him for the first time live. I think
it was three years ago around that when he thought Maloney in Las Vegas during
the COVID he had this a he has a swagger about him that's amazing.
He just comes in has this very competent swagger. But just to watch him
fight live, it's a little different when you see somebody alive and then you
know you're watching it on TV because you don't have the announcers giving the hyperbole
about each job and each right hand, and you see him and you see
the power in both hands, the speed, the positioning, his aggressive nature's
this is just phenomenal talent, phenomenal and you know, also a mindset that
is so determined just to take over whoever and whatever stands in front of him.
Is he at his weight? Do you think in terms of Whinny keep
going up higher? Or is one twenty two? And I say that because
I covered pack yow going from you know, I first covered Packy at one
twenty two, even though he'd been a champion at one twelve. But all
the way through, you know, when he became a title holder in the
German middleweight division. I don't know where in a ways, where do you
think his ceiling is in terms of the wait, I think twenty six I
could definitely see. I'm not sure about thirty, but twenty six I could
definitely see. And I think they've even said, yeah, twenty six is
our limit. I think after the Bolton fight they said something like one twenty
six would probably be the max we would go to. But you know,
speaking of pack Yow, you know, I was looking at him like he
is. Is he a pack out fighter? Is he's similar? He has
that explosiveness, but he's different. He has he doesn't get hit as much
as Manny did. Manny would walk into some shots. He darts. I
think a little bit of their legs, the way they dart in and out
is similar. But I think overall, in a way just has Probably he's
a more he's a more conventional fighter than Manny who had this awkward nature to
being the south paw where he was darting in and out and hitting me with
powerful shots from those sides. So it's the next fight that we see for
in a way, I mean the rumor, the word on the street,
so to speak, is come that that December New Year's time frame where there's
always big fights in Japan. That'll be in a way versus Marlin to Polace
to become you know, for the undisputed title, because the pols as the
other two belts. Yeah, I think that's I think that's what they're leaning
towards. I mean, that's what they I mean obviously talked about in the
ring right after the fight. He was there at the ring side. I
think it's a fight that in a way would love and I think that's Pallas
people would like it. So let's hope that we can help facilitate make that
match and sometime in December, who's number one pound for pound in a way
or Terrence Crawford, Well, come on now you can do it. Yeah,
I I you know, I'm I'm in a in a very very difficult
situation. I would because I know I know what I would say, But
if I say it, then I'm going to be like, oh, you
know you Yeah, listen, I'll just say to this and I'll tell the
people who are listening, I've known you for over twenty years and we've had
numerous conversations just on our takes on boxing, and it is my opinion,
and I don't know probably thousands of conversations that you are You're honest when you
assess your fighter, sometimes to a fault. So if you tell me you
think it's in a way, I will believe you. I think I think
I think that, in a way is the best the best fighter I've seen
in my thirty years as a professional fighter. That's as a promoter. You
mean as a promoter, Yeah, since I've been in the business, So
that includes Pack, my two Hall of Fame matchmakers. If I was crazy
for thinking that three years ago, and they reminded me after the Fulton fight,
they said, you are not crazy for thinking that he's that good.
That's just are my feelings. Okay, So just I want to be clear
about that. You're You've been in the promotion business about thirty years, and
in that time frame, you have promoted Manny Pack, how you have promoted
Floyd Mayweather, You have promoted obviously Terrence Crawford, You have promoted any number
of Hall of Fame fighters. We can go on down on a massive list.
You're saying to me, you think that that, in a way is
numero above, Floyd above, Manny above. I think for my eye,
for my eye, which is I like an aggressive fighter. I've always loved
the guy coming forward and being powerful, and think, to me, he
is to me with power in both hands, speed, IQ, defense,
offense, pressure key. To me, is the best fighter I have seen
in since nineteen ninety three. But that's just my opinion and my my butt.
My match makers did tell me I wasn't crazy. Well, I mean,
look, I mean you mentioned you're two holiday matchmakers, Bruce Trampler and
Brad Goodman. They obviously know what they're looking at. Yeah, I mean,
he's just you know, I said to this originally, and I'll never
forget when the first time I saw a Costa Zoo step in the ring,
I was like, whoa, this is amazing. I mean he just had
he he flipped over the rope. He had these powerful like each each hand
was bam bam like speed and power. It was the wow factor, similar
wow factor. But this kid's got even more, way more. Well hopefully
you can make that the police fighting will see him potentially be in two division
undisputed champion, which seems to be all the rage of these days, given
that Crawford just did it, and Charlotte is going to attempt to do that
against Canello and maybe we'll see in a way try it against to Polis,
you know, to becoming disputed in the second weight class. Yeah, well
we will see. And I think he if anybody has a chance to see
him in a way live, it's really a pleasure. It's something special.
If you watch him on TV, enjoy it too, because it is special
there too. Yeah, no doubt. Listen. I got a chance to
see him live when he had his first fight in the United States in California
several years ago, and you knew there was something special. I don't know
if I thought it was this special, but you could definitely tell he was
a little bit different than your normal you know. And and let's go we
can talk about the heaters, the people that go go get negative. You
know. I was at the Je Naro fight, the first one, and
you know, you look at the performance he had and assume he was only
at sixty percent because when he got hit in the second round, he fought
handicapped for the rest of that fight, right because he had the orbit he
had the eye thing. So he I mean, which was it wasn't nothing
illegal, no excuses. But what he's how he's still performed under those circumstances
was just miraculous, unbelievable. Like you said, terrific fighter, and uh,
you are the terrific one. I thank you very much for your time
and going over all these topics. Look, I thought we were gonna do
not quite this long, but I appreciate it very much. I'm glad we're
gonna You told me fifteen minutes, so you owe me forty five minutes back
in my life. Yeah, well we'll get it. We can't carry that
down the road anyway. Thank you very much for doing this. I appreciate
it. All right, you got it. Bye bye. So once more,
that was lengthy worth it. We thank him for his time. He
was at your wedding. That's fantastic. You've had a long relationship with him,
and you could tell in that conversation that's a lot of good stuff for
fight fans. There's no doubt. Oh yeah, listen, I mean you
know one thing. I you know, when when people talk top ranking,
it's usually Bob Aram. You know who's the boss. That's his company.
Todd is his stepson. You know, Bob does a lot of the public
face stuff, a lot of the speaking. You know, he's got a
great quote. Obviously, I've interviewed Bob with thousands of times probably in my
career. Todd has generally kept a lower profile when it comes to doing uh
interviews and having a lot to say publicly, Let's put it like that,
even though he's doing a lot of the work behind the scenes. So it's
good to hear hear from him also, uh, you know what he thinks
because he's got a lot to say so over the direction of that company,
over the types of fights that they do, the type of money they spend,
the type of fighters that they sign, and uh and does a lot
of that day to day kind of stuff. So you know, his opinions
and what he thinks is realistic in terms of what top rank can do is
every bit as important as anybody else at the company. Love it. One
final piece of business here, and that is nostalgia. And it was good
lord forty two years ago that we've been talking a lot about Salvador Sanchez recently
on these podcasts, and unfortunately the anniversary of his death was recent in the
car accident back what forty one years ago So this is this is arguably his
most famous fight that we're about to talk about. Monday is the forty second
anniversary of Sanchez. Is TKO of Wilfredo Gomez and ray Fael lit up like
the fourth of July. I get to talk about Salvador Sanchez Wilfredo Gomez,
and I've got a tie in with my memorabilia and what I'm looking for.
Yes, I know you are pumped to get to talk about this for a
couple of minutes, So go for it. On the legends, on the
legend Salvador Sanchez and a tremendous champion in will Fredo Gomez that he beat forty
two years ago Monday. Well, first of all, I don't even think
you could say it's arguably his biggest win or his biggest fight. I don't
think there's absolutely any question about it. Salvador Sanchez was forty four one and
one with thirty two knockouts, and that was definitely his biggest fight. That
was a huge fight for boxing, for his legacy. Well, Fredo Gomez,
I don't think people are gonna appreciate him either when he First of all,
a couple of things. Number one, it's not the first one,
and it certainly wasn't the last one, but it's maybe the most at least
at that time frame in the in the like late seventies into the eighties,
without question, like the quintessential Puerto Rico versus Mexico rivalry fight. I mean,
there's a lot of conversation anytime you see that type of matchup and boxing
at a high level, whether it's you know, Canelo Alvarez against Miguel Codo
in you know, somewhat recent times, there's a lot of fights like that.
We could talk about Jabez against Camacho. I mean, there's a ton
of those types of fights. Wilfredo Gomezo against Salvador Sanchez. Again, it
wasn't the one that kicked off the rivalry, but it was it's sorted the
poster child for the rivalry in many ways, so obviously Gomez being Puerto Rican
and Sanchez being Mexican. Wilfredo Gomez, by the way, going into that
fight was thirty two zero and one and at a long track record as the
junior featherweight world champion, one of the greatest punchers that we've ever seen in
boxing. I mean, he finished his career Wilfredo Gomez with forty four wins
and won forty two of them by knockout, and he lost three times,
one of them by knockout the Salvador Sanchez. So this was a big time
fight. This is like the legit junior featherweight champion going up and wait to
fight the legit featherweight champion in Las Vegas at the Fames Caesar's Palace Sports Pavilion,
the indoor spot, which I unfortunately never got a chance to cover a
fight in. My only experience was when they used that building as the press
room when Roy Jones fought John Ruiz. But it's a very famous location.
Lots of great fights in the seventies and eighties took place there. Larry Holmes
against Kenny Norton. There's a million great fights. It took place wilfred Benitez
around that time as well. And yes, uh no doubt about it when
uh you know, on that undercard Marvin Hagler with a draw against Antapharmo for
the title, which was a terrible decision. Anyway, we'll get that's a
that's a nostalgia for another day, I guess. But anyway, so this
was a big time fight, and it turned it was a hugely hyped up
fight. If you ever watched the video, you had like the battle of
the bands before the fight, where you had like the mariachi band and in
favor of Sanchez against the I guess it was a salsa band playing for for
Gomez and they were trying to play at the same time. It was,
you know, a don King spectacular and uh, you know, I have
obsessed about this fight for a long period of time in my life, so
other than my obsession with the Four Kings fights of Leonard and Durant and Hagler
and Hearns and collecting the memorability and watching the videos and watching the documentaries and
talking about it and studying it and reading the books about it, like Gomez
and Sanchez. Maybe not to me at that level, but it's one of
those fights where I have obsessed about it. And it turned out to be
a tremendous fight and staphere there were. Sanchez won by eighth round knockout.
He scored knockdowns against Gomez in the first round in the eighth round, and
you know, like you said, it's as big as win. So I
just love that fight. It crowned him as whatever you thought about Sanchez going
into the fight, he proved the point against the undefeated Gomez in that fight.
So I still remember watching Salvador Sanchez fighting on Network TV on CBS,
and he fought Danny little Red Lopez in one of those and one may have
been on ABC with Howard Cosell, I think, and the other one was
on CBS, but they were on network TV. That's where you were getting
introduced to him. I can't remember. Maybe you know it on the spot
or not. Was this one live network TV or was this like a pay
per view type thing that they did days later on tape delay on that weekend.
I can't remember. This fight was actually originally shown on closed circuit television,
so if you wanted to watch a live you had to go to a
movie theater or a restaurant that had a closed circuit some little close certain locations.
They showed it at race tracks and at movie houses and some sports bars
and whatever. There was no back in nineteen eighty one. You know,
there may have been some small group of homes in the United States and had
access to a pay per view in their home. I don't think it was
extremely extremely rare. You gotta go. And by the way, it wasn't
like it wasn't an affront to anybody. That was if you followed boxing,
the biggest fights, like we have pay per view that where you can call
it up on your phone and then back you know, not that long ago,
most people would just click it up on their TV and do it like
that. Back then, you know, you went out to the to the
movie house or to the to the restaurant of the bar or whatever you and
you watched it. It was a small cover charge and you watched the fight,
and that was what Savador Sanchez and Afredo Gomez did. I believe it
was shown later on tape the lay basis on one of the networks, and
I think it was Howard coach Sell if I if I remember quickly, it's
I think yeah, and the original call it was not. It was the
was the Don King's announcers, the current Colonel Bob Sheridan and the guys that
he worked with. Uh. But I just like I said, I'm obsessed
about the fight. So some people obviously if you listened to the show where
you read my subsect, you know I'm a memorabilia collector. So for a
long time, some of the things on my on my must have list and
things I was trying to hunt down where things associated with the Savador Sanchez Wilfredo
Gomez fight, that ment a ticket, a credential, posters, whatever ephemera
there was associated with the fight. Uh. And I looked for a long
time, and I just you know, you could if you could find it,
it was in shitty condition, or it was way over price for the
condition it was in. And to me, it wasn't even a matter of
the price. I just wanted to be in top level condition, even if
I had a pay handsomely for it. For some reason, the program is
like ridiculously scarce, Like you just don't find them, I mean, and
if you do, they're fucking ratty as shit. I mean, finally,
I mean, and I when I say this, I'm even joking. Like,
And I looked probably in a regular basis at with dealers that I know,
with other other collectors that I know on eBay, you know, different
auction houses. I always looked for the program. I act long had you
been looking? I had looked on a regular basis for that program for probably
close to twenty years. No. Five I let you go, say like
five right Field Collection has been on a twenty year crusade to find this program.
So in those twenty years been probably like eighteen years something like that.
In that period of time, I might have seen that program three times.
One that was like destroyed it was I wouldn't even want it, to be
honest, with one that was kind of banged up and way over priced for
the condition it was in. And then the one that I bought for a
good amount of money but not crazy. I mean it was within my thought
process, like what I might have to spend on it on eBay from a
reputable person who I had bought from before, and we're able to to and
and I won that program in the auction, and I made sure that I
did enough where I was I was not losing that program that night. I
was just not losing it. And uh, it's in the collection and it's
a beautiful program. It's in immaculate condition. So I was very happy to
have that a couple of months later, and I still have looked. There's
two versions of the poster that are most known. It's the closed circuit poster
for the fight. One is in English and one is in Spanish. The
English one is normal, you know it's super I think it's a super feather
super bannomweight championship. The other one is in Spanish. The name of the
fight was Little Giants, so you know it was in Spanish. Anyway,
they're very similar with the artwork, just different in terms of the language.
I finally found one in nice shape, and I wanted on an auction for
a reasonable price. I was fucking thrilled. And how about this? After
searching for years and years and years and years, I find that poster,
the English version, the English version. Like a week later, I find
a dealer friend of mine has the Spanish language and lets me know and those
I want to buy it, and so we work out of deal and I
now have A week later, I find the second one after years of hunting
for one or the other. And on top of that, I end up
with a press pass for the fight. And for some reason, I don't
even know what was the reason that that was made, but don king I
think it was handed out to people or some form of fashion. It's like
a very large like round sticker that's probably like four or five inches in diameter.
That's like a thing a logo of the fight that I also have,
so I still don't have a ticket for the fight, but I've got everything
else and it's like literally among the cornerstones of my collection. And that fight
forty two years ago. Incredible fight and people should watch it on YouTube.
The passion from the fan bases is remarkable, and they're two Hall of famers.
Both were at a very very high level. Like I said, Gomez
was undefeated, had been a long reigning champion in one hundred twenty two pound
weight class, knocking everybody out, and Sanchez was like this Mexican machine that
was going through everybody. He wasn't that well known to the American fans at
that time. It was after that fight that he found himself on HBO in
fights, and he only fought Unfortunately, after that big victory, he fought
only the three more times. Because we've we've talked about before. He died
just a few weeks after the Azuma Nelson fight that was in It was one
year later, so he fought Gomez in August of eighty one. In July
of eighty two was when he had to fight against Azuma, and then three
weeks later he passed in the car crash, sold in a car crash at
twenty three, and he was fighting this fight at twenty two years of age
and was clearly a rock star in the smaller weight classes. So again,
go dial that fight up again. We would argue, like we know,
we've talked about this before. People who's the greatest Mexican fighter of all time?
And most people at this moment would say chob Is, but a lot
of people will tell you at Salvador Sanchez and if they don't say sanche As,
they say he's number two. And it's not even just about his country
of origin. If you want to talk about the greatest featherweight champions in boxing
history period, I don't think it's unreasonable to say Salvador is number one.
And now you've got all the memorabilia too. Busy, busy, recap a
lot of at the interview with Todd de buff Hopefully you enjoyed that. At
the President of Top Rank, we gave you some news. Hey, it's
a heavyweight title fight week. Unified champion Alexander Usik back after a one year
layoff to fight Daniel Dubois later this week in Poland, so that'll be a
big topic that we're running about on Big Fight Weekend dot Com. You'll be
writing about it on your substacts. We've got that in the preview mode later
in a week. We did well coming off the weekend. It didn't really
have a significant fight card, so we're good. And we got the other
heavyweights that top rank we'll have with the triple H Real Big Baby, Real,
Big Baby, FAA Jagua, they're on that dollar from Tulsa. Yeah,
and Jollo off as well. So plenty to get to later in the
week again, follow or subscribe. Find us here on the podcast feed on
Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify search the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed fight
Freaks. You unit is your source on the recap mode after everything is over
with anything else in closing or are we good? We're all good. I
think I think we've covered a lot for a weekend where there was a lot
going on, very true and some great nostalgia at the end, including I'm
just glad that you're sleeping comfortably tonight knowing that you've come up with the program.
A twenty year search for the ray Field collection for Salvador Sanchez or Fredo
Gomez. I love that I still don't know why it's such a scarce program,
but I mean, look the building where they had it only holds like
five thousand people. Not many people. Not many people obviously kept their program
where if their collectors still had them or care and cough cough program. Yeah,
but you were able to get it. Listen, have a good week.
Thank you my friend alight Man, appreciate it. There goes Dan ray
Field. I'm merely t J Reeves. We're back later in the week talking
more about USA Dubois and much more on the big fight. We can preview
for now. You've been listening to the fight, Preach you Night or recap five