The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend now here is your host, DJ leaves Well. Hello there, and welcome in to another edition of our freeview podcast as we get ready Brave World Featherweight title fight. Hey everybody, it's Zerdo Ramirez. He's back at another different weight class. We're ready to talk about him as well in the preview mode, and we're gonna hear from the newly elevated WBO one hundred and fifty pound fifty four pound world champion, the junior middleweight world champ, Tim Zoo, the Australian one on one with one Dan Rayfield. I am merely the somewhat competent host TJ Reeves. He is the insider. Fight Freaks Unit is his substack, Bigfight Weekend dot Com as well. Hello Dan Rayfield, as we get ready for another weekend here in the month of October, I sat here contemplating just before we began. We only got about two and a half months left in the calendar year. We're kind of buzzing along at this point, but plenty to talk about. How are you? I'm good, We got plenty to talk about. It's like it's been it's like the hangover after the Canelo event. But there's still stuff going on and we got plenty to discuss. No good excited. You know one of my favorite times year hall of Fame ballots, aer I. We'll get to that in a little while. Hall of Fame ballots, the Canelo pay per view numbers that you've been digging on and doing some reporting on. We'll have that in a few minutes. Again, Tim zoom a little bit. We're gonna preview fights as well. Again, thank you for finding us however you've done so. Social media, link, Dan, substack, all the above. Make sure you're following subscribing. We come your way twice, double the ray Field, double the fun is. I like to say, preview mode Thursday night into Friday, recap mode off the weekend, Sunday night into Monday. So again, where a lot of podcasts maybe you're only there once in a week, either doing preview or recap. We love to be there twice. It's become effective. Many of you enjoy that. Thank you by the thousands and thousands and thousands as you continue to follow and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Spotify, Google podcast So again, with much to get to Let's get right into what we have and that is first up preview mode. Let's begin with the disown Matchroom Show Sheffield, England coming WBA Featherweight World Title Showdown two Brits Lee Wood Josh Warrington in action Saturday afternoon US time, Saturday night Primetime in the UK. There's a lot of build up obviously in the UK for this and in England for this. It looks like on paper a very entertaining match. That's me saying that your thoughts as we go into the weekend in the preview mode. I think it has a chance to be a pretty good fight. But I may not be as high on the entertainment value of Warrington as some are because I have fense some of his fights to be awfully sloppy, awfully messy, a lot of fouling, a lot of headbutts, and I don't find that to be entertaining. But they're both look, they're both around the same level. They've both been Champions League, but obviously has the title presently, they're both around the same age, both obviously Brits. You know, it's a meaningful fight for both guys. Obviously they're they're doing this fight. They're not doing it in one guy's home town of the others. They're doing it on a neutral turf in Sheffield. I think that was part of the agreement when they fought each other, to do it in a place where it wasn't gonna be the home crowd for either guy. But they can have their people travel. Another thing about both these guys is they do have fan bases. So the folks that come from Leeds, which is where Josh is from, presumably are going to be there and force. The folks from Nottingham, where Leewood is from, will probably be there in force. And I know it's just a it's a we'll call it it's a domestic dust up, but on the world level because of the fact that the title is at stake. And look, both guys have had their issues. Okay, in terms of Lee would he won the belt. There was all the issues of whether he was gonna fight Leo Santa cruzmember he was regular champion of the wa WBA, Santa Cruz was the super champion. They went through the song and dance on first bids and all the nonsense forever. Finally Lee would kept the regular title and or I guess the only title because Leo Santa Cruz vacated. It never happened. I wasn't surprised at it and occur anyway. He had the big win in the last minute comeback, last second come back against Michael Conlin, and he figured, okay, you know we would He's proven himself. Now he's got a little momentum. And what happened to Heja Conlin fight Conlin fight. He literally knocked Conlin out of the ring in the twelfth and final round in a knockout of the Year candidate, no doubt. I couldn't and by the way, he was losing on the cards going into that twelve threat, but then he couldn't. He couldn't validate it and ended up and in both guys case, they both have been stopped by Mauricio Laura. He couldn't validate it and got stopped by Laura in recent action. So that was the thing. He came off that great victory against Conlin. He had the fight with Laura in February of this year. He got knocked out in the seventh round. I mean, people remember his corner Ben Davison throwing in the towel. Some controversy. I thought it was not the greatest move, and it turned out to be for for Lee, a good move. Even though he took the loss, he had the rematch clause. He exercised the rematch clause. They had the rematch very quickly thereafter in May, and he went went out there and he won a very you know, fairly lopsided, very clear decision to regain the title. One other reason I don't like rematch clause is because it was very specific after that fight, Like the philosophy in the corner was, well, we have a rematch claus, so let's just call it a day and we'll come back and get the belt back. I don't buy that. I don't like that. But nonetheless, good victory for fur Lee. Nice guy. We had him on the podcast and now he's fighting Warrington. I mean, that was the fight that he wanted. It was kind of a big fight in Britain. Remember, he had to go to the WBA and he petitioned to get a special permit to avoid the mandatory Homatov which they gave him. The winner of this fight has to fight him within one hundred and twenty days. But they were able to make this fight. Now, in terms of Warrington's career, you know, I think Lee is probably in a little bit of a better spot than Josh's. And I'm sure you know what is favored by most people because Warrington, you know, he's kind of had up and down. You mentioned about lar. So he won the title, made some defenses, vacated, ended up fighting Laara in a non title fight after he got after he vacated the belt because he didn't want to fight the mandatory with the game, which was really not worth a lot of money. And what happened, He got absolutely abused, He got dominated, he got stopped, He got wrecked in the ninth round by Lara. They came back, he exercised his rematch right and it was a second round no contest because of a headbutt that left Laura bleeding all over the place. So in the meantime, Kid Galahad, who had got the title because he didn't fight Warrington and ended up winning the vacant belt, he goes and fights Kiko Martinez, who was supposed to be a hand pick. Soft touch brings him to his hometown and the old warhorse gets the knockout win in the seventh round and wins the belt, and so now Warrington fights Kiko for the belt. He wins. Now he's got the title back, and what happens back at home in his hometown of Leeis, England. He has his mandatory against Luis Alberto Lopez, and Luis Alberto Lopez goes to the hometown and he wins a majority decision. But if you win a majority in the other guy's home down you can pretty much say, hey, this was the legit winner, which he was, and so presently Lopez has that IBF title, but Warrington is getting this opportunity at Leewood's WBA title, and for Britain and for the British boxing scene, it is a very interesting fight, I guess to a lot of people, and so hopefully they put on a good show. That's my great hoping. And we'll say one thing that's interesting is Warrington has talked about leading up to this fight TJ is that he's having trouble or is I don't know about specifically for this fight, but he's making featherweight for so long he has said pretty much, whatever happens, you know, I'm going up to the next weight division after this fight. So if lee Wood wins. I assume he'll stick around and still defend the title. But that's, you know, all things considered, that's a pretty good matchup. It's too I mean, it may be for the WBA title, but if you're talking about where they actually rank in a pretty good featherweight division, you're talking about one guy that's probably in like, you know, the top three or four in Wood in a Warrington that's maybe more closer to the lower part of the top ten. But still a nice matchup. And again you gave us a good tip there, because once we released the podcast and it's out Friday morning, obviously England five hours ahead, they'll be doing the way in midday. Maybe there's a problem with Warrington. Maybe not. We kind of flew by this in the last fight with Mauricio Laura. Remember he was badly overweight and there was debate about whether the fight was going to be canceled, and they ended up having it as a one way title fight where Laura could not retain the title, could not keep the belt, but Wood could get it back if you want it. So will there be wait controversy? You and I don't know that at the time we're taping, So if they're listing later Friday, and you know about that, Dan, And I don't know about that right now. Just one other interesting factor first mentioned, we'll have the bet Us Boxing Show live on their platforms bet Us TV, the YouTube page, Twitter, Twitch, et cetera. This fight, by the bet Us odds makers is a true fifty to fifty fight, as Lee would only a one and a half to one favorite and Warrington only plus like one thirty, so they believe it's a fifty to fifty fight. They want it wagering on equal sides. Dan, Yeah, No, I mean, I guess I get that. I mean, I just feel like Lee Wood has been fighting at a better level in recent times. Yes, I know he got knocked up by Laura, but Lara's a very good puncher. Warrington has looked, let's be honest, pretty bad in his recent fights. Four one win for Warrington in his last four fights. Yes, I mean, I'm not gonna give them a lot of grief over the no content or the technical draw that he had in his although it looked like he was in for a rough night that night again like the first fight, so he kind of was, in my mind, sort of lucky that it got short circuited, but you know that that happens. Unfortunately. What one thing I don't like about it is that in Britain they called that a technical draw. Rather if that fight had taken place in the United States, would have simply been a no contest because four rounds had not been completed and it was stopped due to an accidental foul. So I don't know why they would refer to as a draw. That rule in the United States was changed, you know, a number of years ago. I think they still have that rule. In Puerto Rico would be the same thing, but in America it would have just been a no contest. So it's kind of like an unfair blemish on both of the records for each of the guys. But nonetheless, Saturday is a new day for Warrington and for Leewood, and let's see if they can give us a good fight. I hope they do. It's a it's a it's a great deep weight class presently with a lot of talented guys. Those are two of them, and you know there's others of course in the weight class with other belts and everything. So, like I said, hopefully we get a good fight and just one more mention Cecilia break Who's legendary fighter of Hall of Fame fighters in the co feature fighting Terry Harper at junior middleweight. Cecilia was at welterweight forever for some twenty five plus title defenses before Jessica McCaskill beat her. So that's the co feature. Something real quick on that before we move on. Well, Cecilia. Cecilia has been, you know for a long time, like she's one of the greats of all time in terms of women's boxing. She made something like I want to say it was exactly twenty or twenty four something like that, title defenses of the of the of various you know, you know, for a long time she was undisputed, but obviously for part of the time she just had various belts in the featherweight division or in the welterweight division rather until she was able to fully unify them and then she did have the loss. She's been off for a while. Remember, this fight was supposed to take place back in May. It was supposed to be on the undercard of the other big women's fight between Shantell Cameron, the undisputed champion at one hundred and forty who was defending against you know this be the lightweight champion, Katie Taylor, and that was sort of like a big women's double header, and unfortunately for both Terry Harper, the WBA title holder at one fifty four and Cecilia, who was supposed to challenge her for that title. On the morning of the fight, Cecilia woke up feeling a shimmy, ill, dizzy whatever. She described some of what she felt like at the press conference this week, and in the end, she just could not She was not read, she couldn't fight physically. So that fight was canceled literally the day of the fight, and they were able to reschedule it for this date. You know, she gave Harper and her team a lot of credit because they could have moved on and fought somebody else. But I think based on what Harper was saying, she knows what the name Cecilia Braccos brings to the table and her legendary status, and so she wanted that name on her record. So those two women will go at it that the age difference is to one thing that stands out. Cecily is forty two and been around a long time. Harper is twenty six. Now she's come up a couple of weight classes. When Terry won her first title, she did so in the one hundred and thirty pound weight class. She pretty much skipped over everything went right to one fifty four. I think there was one fight in between that was in a smaller weight class. But you know, she looks good at the wight anyway and in any event, so we'll see what they can do. I mean, neither one of these women are big punchers, you know. Cecilia, for all the victory she has, she's only got nine knockouts and thirty seven wins. Harry Harper has six knockouts and fourteen wins. It looks like distance, but we'll see who's got the better skills. Certainly CeAl Cilia has massive amounts of experience. Let's see if she can find one more great night as a great fighter and see if she can win a title back in Otherwise, if Harper wins, she gets one of the best names you could possibly get on your record if you're a female boxer, you know in and around, you know, say from forty seven to you know, in the forty to fifty four. I mean, it's there's not many bigger than that. So that's the cool feature and I'm glad they were to reschedule. Both those women deserve this type of fight and so I'm happy to see it. Good stuff there again, Tim Zoo coming up one on one with Dan in a few moments. But another fight card to preview, and that's the Golden Boy Desonne main event Las Vegas at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. This is Zerdo Ramirez now debuting as a cruiserweight. He was trying to fight at cruiserweight in his last bout when he flew by the one hundred and seventy five pound weight limit by more than three or four big max. So that fight was six He was literally six or seven pounds past one to seventy five. What's say he missed that exit on the Highway. Yes, I keep saying that by three exits maybe on the high All right, So now Zerdo and Joe Smith Junior as cruiserweights in the main event. What do you make of this? We know Joe Smith has previously had a portion of the light heavyweight world title. Ardur better Biev blew him away in a in a title fight recently. Okay, so what do you make of this his own main event, with Zerdo trying to come back from disgrace from weight disgrace here and fight as a cruiseweight. Well, not only the weight problem, but in his most recent fight before the weight problem, when he was supposed to have the matchup was ultimately canceled. Remember, he got absolutely toyed with and played with and and just totally dominated in what amounted to a near shutout loss against Dimetri Bibel. Remember he had been the mandatory challenger for quite some time. You know, he was a guy that I think a lot of people gave a good chance to defeat Bevo for the title. It didn't quite work out that way because they went over there to Abu Dhabi and Dimitri Biebo put a boxing lesson on Zerdo Vermerez that day and it didn't even come close. I mean it was very very wide on the cards. Not a particularly good fight unfortunately. And then, as you mentioned, he was supposed to have this return fight. He came in, missed the weight by a lot, and the fight was canceled. Obviously moving up to Cruise right now. The interesting thing is this fight is contracted at a catchweight one hundred and ninety three pounds, so it's not the full cruiserweight limits, which is two hundred pounds. Both of these guys, I think, are happy to put the extra weight on. Obviously, Zerdo Joe Smith has never had problems in terms of coming in overweighted his fights. But you know, as an older fighter, I know it wasn't easy to keep getting down to one seventy five. You know you mentioned his last fight, he hasn't been so so both of these guys. The other thing about it, by the way, coming off losses in the light heavyweight division, Zerdo haven't been wiped out in a decision by Bible in a WBA title fight. Joe Smith has been out of action since June of last year, so it's been a little bit. It's been over a year since his last fight, almost a year and a half when he got obliterated I was the ringside for this fight in the second round by Better be Of. This was a unification. Better BF held two of the titles. Joe Smith held the WBO title and like you said, got blown away. So they're both moving up in wait to one ninety three max. They're both coming off losses trying to get things going again. It is sanctioned as a WBA eliminator, so the winner will be in a good position in terms of getting an eventual opportunity to fight for a title at the cruizeweight limit. The other thing that should not be overlooked is that in terms of Joe Smith, one of the reasons for the layoff is the very sad situation that occurred with the murder of his brother. He was very close to, you know, you know, outside a restaurant or a bar like late night. I mean, I don't by all accounts, it wasn't like he was causing trouble. He was like just there and he was leaving. I guess something happened and he was murdered. They arrested I guess somebody for that situation. But whatever the reason however went down. Obviously that's a terrible situation for Joe, who's you know, is quite devastated, understandably, so he's, you know, he's been dealing with a lot of stuff in his life professionally, you know, suffering his first uh uh, you know, losing his world title and pretty devastating fashion, and then having this situation occur with his brother, so you know, I hope Joe is you know, in a good spot at least mentally right now, to at least get back to work and and I'm not saying he's gonna get over it, but at least to continue on with his life and career. And we'll see, because that's a difficult situation. But the point is in terms of the boxing match listen, as I just outlined, there's a lot of stake for both guys. You know, you don't want to be losing two in a row moving up to an away class. It is a good matchup though, because one thing is they're good names. I mean, the cruiserweight division is not the most popular division these days. There are some good fighters in there, but at least in America kind of anonymous. The better guys are probably more known over overseas. You know, you got who are you know Chris billim Smith? I guess has a belt now and and they got the you know, uh, you know some other fighters over who won. Yeah, he's from Australia, but his his defense over this past weekend was in in England, and he's the he's probably the he's the lineal champion and probably the acknowledged best guy in the weight class. Uh. And then you got the French fighter. Uh. Who is the WBO WBA champion who the winner of the fight between Deserto and Joe Smith will theoretically be mandatory for. And that is a fighter named Arson Woula Marian who is extremely unknown and has never been televised in the United States. I don't think you've been. I'm laughing because when Rayfield says he's extremely unknown, that's big trouble because most of us don't even have a clue on that name. And if you're saying it's unknown, he's a real unknown. So. And then the other title in the weight class, so you mentioned Opatai, he's the ib F champion. Hula Marian is the w B a who's going to be in a situation where he may have to fight Saturday's winner Chris Bill and Smith had the victory. A popular fighter in the UK. He has the WBO title, in the WBC title presently he's vacant. So do we know? Can you just clarify real quick? Badou Jack gave that up why he won it, But what do we know? Why give me some insight if I haven't. Yeah, I wrote about that a while ago. I guess a couple weeks ago. So what bad due Jack is doing. And he, of course he won that belt off of Macabou in a kind of a dramatic upset actually in the last round fighting in the co feature back earlier this year when the main event that was when Tommy Fury and Jake Paul had their fight over in Saudi Arabia. Anyway, bad Dude Jack's and I actually messaged with bad Do when I was writing the story about that. What he is doing is they are he is going to go fight for another the WBC. What they did was they made him the champion in recess because he is moving up to the bridgerweight division, which is you know, the one that's only the WBC. The weight limit is two hundred and twenty four pounds. The champion in that weight class is a boxer from Poland named Lucas Rosinski Rozanski. They've only had two champions since they created the division. Oscar Revas, who was injured and ended up being stripped because he could no longer fight. Razanski won that title and so he is going to uh be due Jack is going to move up and he's going to try to win the Bridgerway title because for him that would mean for his career and he's near the end. He knows it, and he's not looking to stay in this business forever. He has been a super middleweight champion, he has been a light heavyweight champion. He he is in recess champion, had won the WBC Cruiserway title. So for him, for his goal before he calls it a day, is to win titles in four weight classes. So you know, you can snick or laugh, say whatever about the bridger weights, but for bad Dude Jack, it's meaningful because he has the chance to become for better or for worse based on your situation in terms of how you acknowledge the bridgerweight division. To win a belt in a fourth weight class, so that that WBC title be won by somebody else, and then if Bad do Jack win or lose, whenever the fight with the for the Bridgerway title happens, he'll have the option whether he wants to return and challenge for his old title. As the in recess champion, he can get the first shot. So that's why that title is vacant. We spent a lot of time on cruiserweights. My friend, no doubt, And again for Zerdo and Joe Smith, you're now suddenly okay, we recovered nicely. I knew all that ship in the back of my mind, whether I go yeah, and Opataia looked very impressive last weekend right away here off a long way off with the with the badly broken jaw and promotional changes, et cetera. So there's some relevance in the cruiserweight division. I think he's as fun a fighter to watch. He comes to fight, man, he's physical, he's got a good power, seems like he's got a good personality, kind of a no shit, you know, don't take any shit attitude, and didn't have a problem traveling from home in Australia to fight over in Britain. Of course, Uh you know, he won pretty easily. But uh, one thing about the cruiserweights, whether the guys are well known or not, usually when those big guys get in there, they make pretty good fights. I mean, there's a long history of nice fight let's hope. So for Zerdo's sake, with all this hanging out there especially, I mean, we understand what Joe Smith Junior is going through outside the ring, but for Zerdo's sake, you'll see if he looks good and interesting. Another reference on the US line, Zerto is a four to one favorite. For what it's worth, he's right away installed as a four to one favorite. We'll talk about that more from a handicap. Let me tell you one other fight of that. My takeaway, my takeaway on the matchup. Besides the possibilities of a title fight because it's an eliminator and trying to shake off a loss and all the other things I mentioned, the main thing in this fight to me the Golden Boys show is the winner between Zerdo and Joe Smith immediately becomes one of the top names in the way class whatever having a title on having a title because they have name recognition from previous major fights. They've both had world titles prior, as you mentioned Joe in the light heavyweight division, Zerdo, you go back a few years. He was a title holder for a while at super middleweight. So the winner becomes, uh, you know, should have no trouble lining up a bigger fight because they bring a certain level of name recognition to whatever fight they're part of. Love all of that, all right, good stuff on the previews without further delay, he is not fighting this weekend. It is Sunday afternoon, October fifteenth, Saturday night, October fourteenth in the US. The Tim Zoo is back in the ring already in Australia. But before we get to Tim Zoo in the ring, he went one on one with Dan Rayfield. Let's get to that now as part of the podcast. I'm very pleased to bring into the podcast this week my first ever one on one interview with Tim Zoo. And as I was saying to Tim before we started to record this, Tim, when I do interviews like this, I feel a little bit old because I covered your father, the great Kasta Zoo, the Hall of Famer undisputed junior welterweight champions. So I'm happy now to talk to his son, also a world champion. So thank you very much for doing this. Appreciate that. So we're here to talk about you got to what is going to be your first WBO junior middleweight title defense. You'll fight October fifteenth and Gold Coast, Australia. You're from Australia, as most people know, that will be Saturday night, October fifteenth here in the United States for your fight that will be on showtime you're taking on Brian Mendoza, you know, of very solid fighter coming off a big win the WBC's interim champion. Uh. One thing I was actually interested in. So here as we do this interview, this fight, like I mentioned, is going to take place in your home country of Australia, but you're in Las Vegas training right now and gonna you know, he made the trip over here to do that, and now you're gonna go back to I'll show you for the fight. So I wonder what was it about it to uh to bring the training camp to America instead of at home, you know, because you fought in America before, but this fight's taking place at home, but you're training here. Yeah. Well, first of all, you're coming in with the team and you sort of zone and lock in this plenty of inspiring. We're familiar with the Las Vegas area, with the gym, We're able to get some good rounds into. It's just a mixture of boys, I guess some in Australia uncomfortable at home and sometimes getting away from that and just getting locked in into into that uh fighting spirit before the fight. That's that's important to me. Well, when you had this fight, announced by your promoter, George Rows from No Limit Boxing. In some of his comments, he said, when he you know, mentioning what was happening with your event and and going forward, he said that this would probably be your last fight in Australia for a while. I wondered, is that because you plan to come back and fight more regularly in the United States? Yeah, I think I think professional boxing has been always in America. We've done a great job in Australia. We've uh got that big audience and uh, I think we've we've tipped over that all the bucket list top stuff that we've done in Australia has already been accomplished. So I think it's time to move on. Uh the last ray in Australia, the finale, and then I guess it's a new chapter in Mercury when I when I come here and fuck, is that kind of like what your father did? Your father had a lot of his early fights and title fight, et cetera in Australia, then made his biggest fights, his biggest name, his most money fighting here in the United States. He went back for a homecoming against James Lea after the fact, But is that are you sort of following Is that like the family playbook? I think I'm blessed and lucky to be able to capture that that audience in Australia. So it was, it was, It was a great momentum. I was able to keep fighting on. You know, even during COVID, we just kept things going and activity was a big part of line in my career to be able to progress and keep moving on and step by step and you know, everything everything aligns with each other. And I think my dad's blueprint of of how how to do things in Australia, I think we're following it in an maybe in a little bit of a different direction, but the similarities are still there. So of course, everybody who follows you or follows boxing knows you were supposed to have. It was a pretty big fight in January against Jamel Charlotte for what would have been the undisputed junior middleway champion. You were the longtime WBO mandatory challenger, been waiting for a bit to get the fight. The fight was set signed, supposed to be in Las Vegas, and then he broke his hand. He was out for quite a while. You know, there was a lot of talk mall we're gonna get rescheduled for June. That obviously did not happen. So I know you fought since then a couple of times, But how disappointing was it to not get the shot at all the belts at once against the guy that was arguably the number one guy. I don't even think arguably because he had become the undisputed champ in the weight class, and to suddenly have that go away, yeah it was. It was a big opportunity to be able to present myself and for all the models. You know, not many people get that opportunity. So yeah, I was quite disappointed. But at the same time, I don't dwelling that. I just move on and let and let and create my own destiny. And I said, I was able to to make a roadmap, and here we are now fighting for my third time. Rather than sitting out and waiting, I kept them immentum going and everyone's interested and we're making noises. Well, like you said, you have fought two times since that situation. You won the interim title by a knockout against Tony Harrison back in March, the only guy that ever hung a loss on Charlotte, even though he avenged it. Then you had, of course the second fight of that group of fights, where you had a I don't know what was it, seventy seconds a knockout in the first round against Carlos o'campo. You know, he had won the interim title defended it. So, I mean, obviously it seems like it was the right decision to keep active. I mean, I think that activity at this level is so important for fighters. I mean, obviously you agree with me. Can you speak about that for a little bit. How it just keeps you sharp and zoned in and focused, because you know, you looked obviously extremely sharp against Ocampo and similarly sharp against Harrison. Yeah, it's it's you do so many training camps. You know, it's training camp after training camp, and that's where growth happened. It's not an actual fight. It's in the training camp, the twelve weeks of hard heart grinds. You know, where you're your sparing, different sparing partners and just adapting if feel comfort into uncomfortable. So you're just chilling on the sideline. It's it's not the right way to go. You know, you're in the sport for ten years, so you're going to make the most of it. Bank as much as you can, fight as much as you can, and enjoy life. Well, I mentioned no Campbell, which is the most recent defense in the summertime, and it just made me think, I have to ask you about this. Everybody still talks about the dog bite. It's again whatever, whatever, the legacy of Tim Zoo becomes like the dog bite's going to be part of like the legend of Tim Zuo's career. But he got bit by a dog, had like an arm surgery and then like a few weeks later fought the guy and by the way, knocked them out in the first round. Uh, what was it in your mind that made you say, you know what, forget about this dog bite. We're fighting anyway. How to be painful. Oh man, he's the Scot. It's quite big. Well, just so people know, I let the listeners we're doing this on a zoom call. And he just showed me the scar on the arm. Yeah. I don't know how many stitches. I think I had like thirty to forty stitches. So it was part of it was part a big, big Scot. But it just shows you, man, if if you're dealt with shitty situations is just do it, you know, just there's always a way around it, and uh a lot of people wing and sook. Just get on with it, you know. Well, I mean in retrospect, it was the right decision because you drilled him in the first round. But had something gone wrong or you lost or further injured it, there'd be a lot of second guessing about like what are you doing fighting coming off of an armstirt a couple of weeks before the fight, Like did that ever like enter your mind that, like, you know what, we can maybe sit this one out. Yeah, I was never a risk. I mean, listen, I love That's the best attitude you could have. Uh. So you're going into this fight with Mendoza, Yeah, you know he Uh he come off a huge knockout victory against Sebastian Fandora a bit of an upset. I think most people thought he was losing that fight, but it was a spectacular knockout. I think a lot of people, uh will look at it as a as a knockout of the year type of knockout type of the year. Uh. What does he bring to the table for you, other than obviously what seems to be some dangerous punching power. He's got awkwardness, he's hot to hit. He's not that straight up said he's gonna be hot to hit. It just presents another challenge you not being able to handle what's in front of you. Do you take him as in your mind, like, this is the best guy I have faced so far in my career, Because you have also faced some other pretty reputable opponents, whether it was the fight against against Tony Harrison or certainly the fight against Terrell Gachet, an olympian who put you on the mat in the early part of that fight. Where do you sort of in your mind put Mendez among the guys you have faced. H fight, I take is going to be my toughest fight. That's how I said. So I trends super hard, and it's my job to make it look like the easiest. So man, I'm not. I'm estimating Mendoza as a as a worthy challenger, as my hardest test. And that's the tougher mentality that I'm bringing. And you go into this and you'll have been elevated to the WBO full champion. There's some people who are listening, No, we're taping this before the fight between Canelo and Charlotte takes place. The ruling that the WBO made is as soon as the bell goes for their fight September thirtieth, and even if it were for some reason be postponed or canceled, they would still make the same ruling, which you will become the WBO is full champion. You've been active, you've been defending the interimt title. Is it does it? Is? It like an unusual thing to think like they're just they're giving you the belt. Do you feel like, you know what, I took care of my business because Charlot didn't fight me and I knocked out Tony Harrison. Yeah, well that Tony Harrison part was like a world title fight for me, you know. So it was all that that stakes. He's a world title caliber toype of opponent. It wasn't just some hand picked top ten top fighter. It was it was a serious contender, you know, someone that beat the man. You know. It wasn't just some bomb off the street. It was a worthy challenger. So it's shit. It's for me. I would have loved to beat Charlie. I really for me, it wasn't about what belt I hold or how many belts I got. For me, it was the the names on my resume, on the list, and that's where I want to keep doing, is keep doing that risume. So if all goes well against Mendoza and whatever happens with Charlot and Canelo, you know, he's he's uh, still gonna, I guess hold some of the belts at one fifty four if he decides to return to the weight class. Is that somebody that no matter what down the road, you know, whatever happens with his fight, that you'd still like to get in the ring with him at some point. And it's it's it's the biggest thoughts that that interests me. You know, there's plenty of big names out there in the divisions coming up, even a few divisions upset. You never know, the opportunity is endless, and you know you're you have the WBO world title. I just wonder, have you thought for a moment about what it's like to have joined your father now in the in the pantheon of world champions, the father and son dua, there's no I mean, look, there's not a lot of them in boxing. There's some, but not a lot. Yeah, it's a cool achievement. I guess it's part of our legacy. It's building our last name and we're continuing it on. You know, the last name Zoo from the ancestors was built long, many, many, many years ago. You know, we're just continuing the traditions of the way we're born and what we're brought up to be. And so does becoming a world champion then, does that allow you? I mean you're already in many ways out of the shadow of your father. You've made your own path, You've become your own guy in Australia and a bigger name and all that. And you know he's been retired now for a number of years. But now that you have a title, does that sort of take one more step out of whatever shadow there may have been? Yeah, a little bit, I guess. But at the same time, I'm quite proud. I'm a very proud son and the white my dad was able to do his things, and he's a legend, whole famer, and you know, to be able to be with the same name and recognition with him, you know, that's a that's an honor for me. So you had the name and when you came into the pros. You know, obviously people are gonna pay attention because of what your father accomplished, but it's still you got to prove it on your own, and so there was a lot of people like, I don't know my watching him because he's his father's son and his father was a great fighter, And of course you started to prove yourself. You've done so, it seems to me, and become your own fighter and your own right. You probably knew that you were good, but you had to convince other people of that. Now it seems like you have done that by the types of victories you've achieved in recent times, in the status that you have gotten to. How satisfying is that To still, of course be associated with the great name of your father, but to now, like I said, carve a path of your own where people know you as Tim Zuo not just Tim Zuo Costa's son. Yeah, yeah, I think it's a it's a proud of hitting from myself first of all. But it's uh, I think when you start boxing and you start as your own name, it's it's it's different. But when you start with pegspects that I had, people thought I was gonna be here straight from the get go, you know, and it takes time to do it up. And his whole boxing journey is a whole process, and it's the journey of destination. So for me, it's been it's been fun caving that pop for myself, and I'm just enjoying doing what I'm doing. Well. I'm glad to hear that, and I wish you good luck against Brian Mendoza, and I look forward to whatever happens after that that we're going to see you back here in the United States taking on the biggest challenges. So I look forward to it, and I thank you very much for doing this, to appreciate it. Thank you, and as Donald Schwitzeningker once says, I'll be back. I love it. There you go, Tim Zu, thank you very much, and good luck in the fight. Thanks man. Okay, we got to give this guy a lot of credit for a couple of things. Number One, his last fight could have maybe called it off the dog bite, didn't didn't do that. And let's hear it again for being active. Third time he's been in the ring this year. Now there are financial reasons why, but give give Zoo credit. At least I'm saying this for being active taking risks. How much of a risk you can debate that. But he's back in the ring again. Here Dan Rayphiel one more time. Yeah, I mean he's fighting Brian Mendoza, who's you know, he's got the big upset knockout on a fight he was losing against Fondora, So he's interesting. I don't think it's a particularly challenging fight overall for a zoo. But you know, the things you just mentioned, if you listen to the interview, people heard it. We talked about the activity, which is something he's all about. You know. I love his attitude. He's like, you know, you're you got about a ten year time frame to make your bones, So go out there and fight as much as you can, as healthy as you can, make as much as you can, get as much legacy as you can, and and and try to get it all in as quickly as you can. So I like that attitude, I have to say, you know, and you can hear us joke around about it kind of a little bit at the beginning of the interview. You know, when I do interviews like that, I kind of I feel a little old, but I kind of am kind of amused by it because I covered his father and when I'm talking to Tim, I swear to God, I feel like I'm talking to Costazoo because Costazo had a very similar sort of attitude, sounds very similar to him, and not just because it's an Australian accent, but because of the type of Australian accent, right, And you know, his father was a great fighter. And you know, one thing I also like about Tim's attitude is, you know, when he came into the business as a fighter, you know, obviously everybody just recognized him because he was the son of the great champion. And he's done his part to sort of carve out his own spot in the sport, which we talked about a bit, but he he doesn't run from that. He embraces his father's career and is proud of him, but also is happy to be able to carve out his own spot, but isn't going to turn his back on all the great accomplishments that his father had, who you can argue, you know, over the last let's say, you know, twenty five years, thirty five years, whatever, probably the number one junior Walter Wait that's been in the sport. I mean, he was an incredible fighter in his day his father, So I am a Tim Zoo fan. I remember watching him and thinking to myself, do I think this is a real guy because he is, or am I just gonna be, you know, bamboozle because he's got the great name. And I made the determination when I was doing a prospect list however many years ago, that yeah, he's got the famous name, but he is a legit prospect, a legit guy, and I feel like I had been proven right. And he's looked very sharp. You know, he's got some nice wins between Gasha and Tony Harrison, and now he's got Mendoza coming up. You know, I can't really give him whole lot of credit for the Ocampo fight and ko one, I love this attitude. If you listen to the interview that as we were talking about the reasons to go through with the dog bite, you know, we joked around about that a little bit. So I just like everything about his attitude in his fighting style. And we cannot stress enough. I realize we're not there down Under, and when you're talking about cricket, when you're talking about rugby and the fame of those athletes, this guy's the most famous fighter in Australia right now. He's the hottest name. He sells out main events, he's got a preview cache. This is a big deal in that country down Under and for those people, and that's a huge, long standing last forty to fifty years, legions of fight fans in Australia, and Costazuo was part of that as his adopted home in Australia and this is his son now in action. So great stuff with that conversation. All right, some news and nostalgia and then we are done. You reported midweek about the Canelo Charlot pay per view numbers and what you've been digging around to find out and where it's going to end up. So go ahead and share that with us, including your take on whether it was as good as expected, should it have been a little better? What have you found out and what is your opinion? Well, from what my sources tell me, and this is multiple sources who would be familiar and understand, what the numbers were was that at worst it would be around six to fifty, it could get to as high as seven hundred thousand, and in my mind that was like pretty good because in my mind, I thought that was a little higher than I had expected. My mind told me it was going to maybe be like between five and six. And it's done better than I thought, and it's that's a good number. Now, I don't care who you are. I mean, yeah, we can talk about how Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia did a million point two. That was an outlier because that was such a fight that appealed to such a wide swath of people, boxing fans, non boxing fans, young people, die hard you know, older boxing fans, black people, white people, Hispanic people, East coast, West coast. I mean, it really had every It checked a lot of boxes, is the point. Even if there wasn't a world title. In terms of Canelo, he has his die hard fans. Obviously, most you know, mostly come from the Mexican fan base. Charlot, who's been a heck of a fighter, has never really had a big fan base. And the people that maybe were on the fence, I'm sure looked at it and said, look, Charlot's a really good fighter, but the guy's really coming up two weight class, not one weight class, two weight classes. So some people just decided they didn't want to buy the fight because they didn't think it was competitive. And to get a number like that on a fight that you know is a big fight, but it's not, and that it's not one of the biggest fights that Canilo has had, that's a damn good number if you ask me. I mean, so you're talking about a fight that generates, you know, on the low end, If it does six hundred and fifty thousand buys over fifty five million dollars in pay per view revenue, that's just in America. That doesn't include international broadcast rights and money that was generated overseas. If it does all the way up to seven hundred thousand buys, you're talking about close to sixty million dollars in revenue. So that's a pretty good number. You cannot argue with that. The other thing about that, by the way, let me just finish this one thing. It's three PBC Showtime pay per view fights from April to the present. April twenty second for Garcia and Tank Davis, July twenty ninth for Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, and then this fight on September thirtieth between Canelo and Charlot. That's a lot of pay per view in a short period of time, and all three of those fights did huge numbers. And again stars tend to bring that out. But one clarification, and maybe you know the answer, maybe you don't. Was it a pay per view in Mexico And that's not factored in to what you're pointing. So it was not a paper view in Mexico. But obviously there's a lot of people that tuned in. Their sponsorship. The live joyt was good, so they said that they didn't give us the exact figure, but Steve Bestpinoza from Showtime in the pre fight Wednesday afternoon press conference said the gate would exceed twenty million dollars, and again that means. There have been three boxing events at Team obil Reina so far in twenty and twenty three. There'll be a fourth one with Shaquurse Stevenson on the week of the f one that Thursday night. That's a smaller fight. They're only doing it in that building because that's pretty much all that was available. No one expects that to be a huge ticket selling thing in terms of the three big ones though, tank Ryan Spence, Crawford and Canelo and Charlo. You're talking about again three fights in the span of like less than five full months, all at the same building, all PBC, all show tenme pay review, and all I've done gates in excess of twenty million dollars. I mean, that's pretty damn good. That means there are people that will come out and pay ticket money to see these big events. I mean it should give everybody in boxing, not just showtime in PBS. If you make the fights that people want to see, all the big names and big stars, people will turn up. Now, I'm not saying there was massive, heavily public demand for Canelo and Charlote, but it was a good enough fight. We're intrigued a lot of people. Unfortunately didn't turn out to be all that interesting in the ring because Canelo was so dominating and Charlo really didn't come to fight in my opinion, in a meaningful way. But nonetheless you had, you know, very successful events. And so the thing that I also found interesting is that the numbers for Charlo and Canelo compared to Spence and Crawford are very close that in the end it appears as though and it could change because again this is not one hundred percent. They're still counting up a lot of the numbers. Some of those tallies are by extrapolating based on a couple of early cable numbers and that sort of thing. But it should just barely nose out in front of what Spence and Crawford did. But it just shows you the star power of Canelo, who as essentially an a side with an opponent who's a good opponent but not a big name, still can bring in sizable audiences. And also, let me tell you one other thing about that, when he does it with a company like Showtime, which has a linear television as well as other networks that they deal with in their in their company, they get much more attention than if you're doing in the only in the dizone only silo where they don't have a linear partner. So that when you take a look at the numbers he's done with two fights with Showtime in the recent times. I'm not talking about earlier. I'm talking about in the last couple of years, this fight which is going to do a big number, and then even a bigger number that he did, and that was probably because it was for such bigger stakes for the undisputed title against Caleb Plant That fight did around eight hundred thousand buys when he was fighting like Triple G. In the third fight on his own where they didn't have a big promotion, it barely did five hundred thousand. So the pay per views on the Zone. You know, I'm not faulting anybody, I'm just being factual because they don't have the extra layer of the linear channel to help promote their event that the numbers and pay per view are reflected in that way. Yep. And the drawing power is still there, and I believe, and we'll have more time to talk about this, it will build up with David Benavita's being more active and more and more active means more relevance. What we were talking about with Zoo. If he's more active, he wins impressively against Demetrius Andre for example, that only heightens the interest in a Canelo Benavitaz fight. I'm not telling you you don't already know this. People understand that too, So that's good stuff. So that's a good segue. Still into the news category, you now have the tentative showtime schedule. It looks like for the rest of this year, and again, as we talked about at length on the previous podcast, and there was a lot of interest in this. The belief is this may be the final two or three months here of Showtime boxing as we know it. Future uncertain, but give me, give me more here on what you've learned in the last two or three days since our recap podcast. Yeah, I mean it does feel that way. I mean, look, as I mentioned in the last podcast, even at times, even more than the fight between Canelo and Charlotte, the biggest thing that everybody was talking about in the media room, you know, around the hotel, if you ran into other boxing people, was the future of showtime boxing. And I make the point that, yeah, Canello and Charlo was the big deal of the week, but that's a one night stand. Showtime in boxing is a you know, a thirty seven year relationship, not a one night stand. So the potential ending of that was a bigger deal I think to a lot of people, at least in my line of work, than the particular boxing match on that given Saturday night. So, you know, the Showtime people don't even like, they don't come out and say, you know, we're done. Maybe they haven't even notified one hundred percent, but they don't even try to push back on it. Anymore. It's almost like they're defeated. And I feel bad for a lot of those people that work there because some of them are gonna end up losing their jobs, obviously, and that's never a good thing. I don't root for that. I want everybody in boxing to be successful, to have jobs, to have good shows, to have platforms to do their events on. For the fighters, for the promoters, for the managers, for the writers, you know, for the commentators, for the production people. I mean every body to be able to make their living. But it seems like, you know, we're coming to the end. I would anticipate if it's truly the end, there'll be some announcement at some point. Got to be in the next few weeks, I suppose. But you're looking at again, this is not one hundred percent. This is sort of talking to a few people and sort of understanding what's happening with some of the dows that are are supposedly on tap. So you're looking at the show from Australia that we talked about with Zoo and Mendoza. That is next Saturday on September or yes, October fourteenth, United States time, Sunday in the fifteenth in Australia. So that's the Showtime Championship Boxing of the month of October. Now, there had been a lot of conversation that there would be a Showtime Championship Boxing, but on November fourth, I am told that is not happening. They have a bunch of fights PBC does that are ready to go. They just have to get them slotted in. So the November fourth card that's gone a way now they are looking at. It hasn't been announced yet, mainly because I don't think they had one hundred percent figured out the venue. And that is November twenty fifth, That is the Thanksgiving Saturday where the main event is supposed to be David Benavide's defending his WBC in terms Super MIDDLEWA title against Ametrius Andre. That is a fight that I wrote about when it first happened. I broke that story that they that they had a deal that they were getting close to finalizing. So that would be the main event. One of the fights that's been discussed as an undercart fight. The co feature is the potential return of Jermal Charlotte, the WBC's middleweight champion, to fight against Jose Benavitez Junior. Which is the younger brother or the older brother rather of David Benavide, so to be a Benavid's family Affair show, and then whatever else they decide to put on the cart so that pay per view looks like it's going forward. Now there are two other possible dates at the end of the line for Showtime, which, by the way, they're still not clear whether they will still perhaps do some pay per view events next year, just not doing the linear network shows, because they still could do pay per view events with Canelo, they still could do pay per view events with Benavids. They could still do pay per view events of course with Tank Davis. But in terms of the rest of this year, there is and this was something I heard about from a couple p but when I was in Las Vegas, a possibility of a December ninth pay per view fight at the MGM Grand Apparently the MGM is interested in commemorating and or celebrating what I guess would be it's one hundredth boxing event that they will have hosted since they opened in the like the mid nineties. And I actually if that's really truly one hundred cards, I have to go account because IVE probably been to like eighty of them amazing. So that was a card and again not said in stone, but you're talking about the possibility. One of the things that was put to me was it may be on that show. I guess it would be in the main event position Floyd Mayweather, who has meant so much of the MGM over these last number of years, in an exhibition match, and then the other the quote unquote real fights would see potentially Danny Garcia against somebody at junior middleweight, Keith Thurman against somebody on the undercard, and that sort of thing, and then they would have potentially one other I guess technically, I guess it will be the last Showtime Championship Boxing. If in fact they are done, that would be some other date in the month of December. And again, as far as what's on all these shows we're talking about, and I'm talking about the November pay per view, December ninth possibly, and whatever that other date is, they got a bunch of fights that they can make or that are made, that they've won at PERSPID, so you got to figure they'll be sprinkled out among those shows. And I'm talking about fights like sybril Matias against Erguys chav which is the IBF Junior welterweight title mandatory which TGB Promotions won a per spid for. I'm talking about the WBA one hundred and thirty pound mandatory between Hector Luis Garcia and Lamont Roach, which TGB won a per spid for because they work now with Canelo, they are interested or to make a good relationship with Eddie Renoso. He won a purspid, but he needs a place to put the fight, and that's the rematch between the WBC flyweight champion Julio Caesar Martinez and the interim title are McWilliams a Royo. So that's a fight that's ready to go. There's a fight that is also sitting out there, a mandatory which is actually a pretty good fight between the WBC featherweight Champion Ray Vargas and the interim champion Brandon Figaroa. So those four bouts plus the potential of Thurman or or Or Garcia, Floyd and the exhibition potentially these that's like the pool of and there's also a straweight fight. I think that that TGB is supposed to put on. The WBA consolidation fight between the regular champion and the super champion. These are all bouts that in some former fashion you have to figure will make up whatever shows they do end up doing between now and the end of the year. So where each one will land, I can't tell you. I don't even think they know one hundred percent. But those are basically the kinds of fights you're looking at in some former fashion over these next few shows that I guess could bring a curtain down on Showtime Championship Boxing as we know it unfortunately. All right, So you gave us a lot previously and there and it's a weight and see including I mean, obviously they have multiple fights PBC does with Canelo. You still have an Aerospans Tarage Quawford rematch that's out there, not such that's gonna happen. But that's what's my thought. There we go on, what's the money, what's the venue, what's the outlet? How do you make that work? If show Time is out of the boxing business. We've been talking about that, all right. Two more things than some nostalgian and we're done. Hall of Fame ballots are out. Ray Field's eyes got big and he's smiling at me because he mentioned it. Earlier Hall of Fame ballot came to you. You've been looking it over. Give me a couple of quick thoughts on seeing the twenty twenty three version and what's on the list. Well, the first thing that jumped to my mind was that, well, number one, I've been voting in the Boxing Hall of Fame for quite a number of years, for probably over twenty years at this point, and there's always somebody on the ballot that's on for the first time. Usually that jumps out of you as like, Okay, that's a lock first ballot Hall of Fame guy. This ain't that year. This is in my initial reading of the ballot, and it's not a knock on the fighters they put on. But none of the three newcomers to the ballot are anybody that. First of all, I think there's other guys that should be on the ballot before these fighters. I'm about to mention, and uh, you know, I give my viewpoint to Hall of Fame. They asked my opinion. I give it to them, and sometimes they take it, sometimes they don't. But I just found the I'm gonna put you like this, I'm gonna go out on a limbit. I'm gonna tell you, in my humble opinion that none of the three newcomers are gonna be elected on the first ballot. And the three newcomers on the first ballot are the longtime WBO lightweight title holder Arthur Gregorian, uh the long Tai Japanese Tai bantamway champion via Paol Saprom, and the again Japanese longtime bantamway champion Shinsuki Yamanaka. All good fighters, all fighters I watch. Arthur Gregorian, his one loss was to my second favorite fighter of all time Assileno Popo Freighters when he lost his title, and Saprom was around forever, won multiple titles, wonner world title like his I wanna say is like fourth to fifth fight as a pro, and then had multiple reigns. And Yamanaka was a stal war in Japan, only lost two fights. But they don't jump off the page of me as Hall of Fame guys in terms of like the resumes, I think most would say that yes, as as a first ballot lock, no, I agree with No. I don't think any of those guys is getting in, not only in the first bout. I'd be kind of surprised. Frankly, if any of them get in period. That's my initial reading of the ballot. So, but the reason why I tell you this is because they're the guys that replaced the fighters that were voted in last year, because that's what they do. They replace the ones and that meat that leaves another like thirty five ish or so fighters that have been on the ballot that are now the holdovers. So this is one of those years where guys, because there are like about a dozen guys in the bout I would like to vote for. Now, the way that it works is you are allowed to vote for five boxers. They will elect either the top three or as many fighters get over eighty percent of the vote, which doesn't really happen. It could happen in a loaded year, but the chances of they're being more than three fighters getting eighty percent on a on a ballot like this is very very tiny. So figure it's going to be three guys are going to get elected out of the five I vote for, or you know that everybody votes right now. I used to play games. I used to play games like let me just vote for these guys and not vote for the other two. I want my guys to you know, I don't fuck with that anymore. Now. It's like I'm voting for five guys who I believe should be in and whatever happens happens. So but it gives me the opportunity to vote for some guys again who I have been voting for, and others who I've voted for in the past but didn't maybe get my vote in the last ballot or two because you had other greats that had to vote for ahead of them, a guy like a Roy Jones or Bernard Hopkins or Floyd Mayweather, Vladimir Klitsko, Wan Manuel Marquez. I mean, these are guys that were, you know, in the last few years that have been inducted. So when I look over the ballot, I'm not going to read you every single name, but guys who I have voted for at one time or another in the past, or who I am strongly considered voting for, and this may be a year I can at least mark at least a couple of their names. I'm talking about guys like Nigel ben and Chris Ubank, Joel Cassa Major and Diego Corrals, Asteleno Fredos, Ricky Hadden, Genera Hernandez, Darius Mikolchewski. There's a bunch of guys like that, will fred O Vasquez Senior, who I have voted for, who I think is dramatically underrated. He may not be the number one, two, three, four five Puerto Rican fighter of all time, but he's probably in the five to ten category in Puerto Rican boxing. Three, you know, three division world champion and just just a tremendous fighter. But I'm very confident that at least one of the guys that I have wanted to vote for for a while is going to get the NOD when they put that out. Because the first year guys, they were top champions in their time, but they're not in my mind, jump off the page. Be like. You know, when I got my ballot and I saw Larry Holmes on there, I'm like, yeah, I gotta vote for Larry Holmes. That was not a hard pick, you know what I mean. When I get the ballot, it's got like, you know, Floyd Nae Weather or or that ain't a hard pick. When I get a ballot, it's got Arthur Grigoryan via pos op prom and Shinusuki Yamanaka. You know that that's I gotta I gotta really think about that one and again. So those on the timeline, when does this get paired down? What's the process? Just real quick? So the voters have to return their ballots by October thirty first, and then they'll put out the announcement of who the new electors the electees are. I believe it's like late December, early January, and then in June they have the induction ceremony. So the most popular and most significant category, if you will, is typically the modern men, and that's what we were talking about. And then there's other categories non participants and observers and that sort of thing. So there's a couple of other folks. I'll mention that got on the bout that I was super happy to see some people that I mentioned when I was giving my opinions to the Hall of Fame. Uh. You know my good pal Tim Dalberg, who is the longtime boxing writer for the Associated Press, columnist. You know, just a great writer and a great guy. Glad to see he makes the ballot. I think he'll probably get in. You know, everybody's friend, the great publicist Fred Sternberg, is making his debut on the ballot along with people. And this is in the in the observe, in the non participant category. Dal Berg is in the in the observer bat also along, by the way, with the great broadcaster from the UK, John Rowling. But in the in the non participant you're talking about the managers who are well known Louis the Kouba senior, Jackie Callen, Uh, doctor Flip Homanski who is a long time ring doctor in Nevada, and Fred of course who I mentioned and uh and those are those are people that I think people who followed the sport well, you know, have heard of or know. Certainly a lot of the voters have worked with with people like Fred and have dealt with the managers and that sort of thing. Uh. The disappointing factor though, is that they left off certainly some people that probably deserve to have been on about a long time ago. In the men's category, Chris Bird Uh. Uh, there's there's others. There're Marlon Starling, I mean, guys who just never got the opportunity to be on. That just doesn't make sense to me, you know, Vernon Forrest another guy. Uh. And again I'm not knocking Gregorian or Safrom or Yamanaka. But to me, you've got to put those other guys on before you put these guys on, because they're just becoming some of them just becoming eligible or have been, but not they're not just becoming eligible. They haven't waited nearly as long as these other guys I mentioned, you know, and and and we now have in the Hall of Fame a women's category, which was tremendous because a lot of the great women that were not given the attention they were elected over the first couple of years, people like Leila Ali and Christy mart and Lucia Riker and some of the greats like that. But now we've gotten to the point where there's no depth at all. And so I sent my ballot in of the Women's bout last year. I signed it and didn't vote for anybody, even though i know they're going to elect to women. And I'm going to probably do the same thing this year because it just does not rise at a level of Hall of Fame in my book, I will send my Hall of Fame ballot blank this year on the Women's bout. Now, in a few years, when the crop of the women that are boxing today, you know, you're Katie Taylor's and Claressa Shields and Amanda Serrano and I can name a few more. When they become eligible, of course they're going to be voted into the Hall of Fame. But right now we're in that lull where we voted in the women who deserve it, and right now there really isn't that group. So in my perfect world, and I don't run the Hall of Fame, I only give them my opinions. I would like to see the women's category until there's a deeper pool to vote from, to not have to vote for them every single year. Why not do it every other year at least to say theoretically there could be others like you that leave their ballot blank, not saying that many would do that. And if you do, then they don't rise to the threshold of being there. That's the problem. There's no threshold. Wow the top the top vote getters. That's another thing. And I've had my conversation with them my opinion. You know, they're entitled to do it how they do it. I vote because I think it's important to preserve the history and I like to have my opinion be part of that. But I would like to see the Hall of Fame. And I've written this numerous times over the years. Use as you mentioned, a threshold, whatever you decide, seventy seventy, whatever it is, and if there's ten people, good, If there's none, that sucks. But that's the way it goes. Right now, it's not that threshold. It's the top three vote getters, at least in the men's modern category. And I had have to look on the ballot to see how many it is. I think it's two in the women's category, and that seems to be overkilled because frankly, I just it cheapens it because they just don't have They just don't have the depth. And it's not a knock on the on the and the women that are on the ballot, they went out there and did their job, but that doesn't mean they should be in the Boxing Hall of Fame in my opinion. Great stuff. One more news item. You've been talking a bunch to us about Ryan Garcia's return. It is now a fit showal give us the particulars real quick, and then we're going to wrap with nostalgia. Go sure he will fight December second. It'll headline a Golden Boy Show. On his own. Remember they're doing this event while the two of them are in a litigation. They have an a mediation coming up later this month. But whatever happens at litigation, they're working together. On this December second card, he will fight you love to swat me, So I have to swat back at you. What's going on coming up is not actually litigation, it's marriage counseling. I keep telling you this. Ray Phil, the mediator is trying to get them to work it out. He's trying to get them to solve it without using the cord and et cetera. So I will swat back at you because it is litigation because Golden Boy filed a lawsuit in understand what's going on. What's going on there is not a judge. It's not being the gavel the cases. So they're trying to work. I'm saying in a playful way, it's doctor Phil. Don't you love him enough to try again? That's that's that's what this is, to try to work it out. Meanwhile, if us makes Ryan angry enough, he wants to go punch Oscar Duarte a different Oscar is what you're saying on December second, as I have talked about a few times since this came up. The two candidates that were at the top of the list. First it was Pedro Kampa. Oscar Duarte was on that list. Also, they decided on Oscar Duarte, which is a solid fight. As I've said, I mean, whether it was Camp or Duarte for a fighter fighting his first fight with a new trainer coming off of a knockout loss, Duarte is a good puncher. Camp is a little bit of a sav event. I mean, either one would have been fine with me, but Duarte is fine. I'm not saying that Ryan Garcia is not going to be the heavy favorite to win, but it's not like a complete joke or anything like that. So that's the main event. Duarte, just for the record, is twenty six wins, one loss, one draw. He has won twenty one of his fights by knockout. He is on an eleven fight winning streak. The last time he lost was a ten round split decision against a fighter named Adrian Australia. That was back in February of twenty nineteen. And the one thing that is still outstanding is the date. I mean, the eight said, but the location is not one hundred percent in talking with the folks at Golden Boy, they say will probably either be in a location in Texas or a location in u in California. Now, Oscar de la Hoya went on the record and told ESPN that it was going to be in San Antonio, and I was told by multiple people that worked for him that that is that Oscar's office rocker, and so I tend to believe those people. That Oscar doesn't use to us on twelve two in San Antonio. We don't have that right to say in San Antonio. But when he told, when he told the ESPN that that was where it was going to be, it simply wasn't accurate. And for what that's worth. But anyway, and what do you always tell the audience, it's not done for the second in San Antonio, it's not signed to be there, it's not there yet. It may be. But the bottom, the most important thing is that somewhere in the United States, probably in Texas or California, there will be a twenty by twenty foot ring set up in Oscar Duarte will be standing across the ring from Ryan Garcia and we'll see the kid back in the ring. You want one more, Doctor Phil from me before we go. What were you thinking? Always on the Doctor Phil Show when trying we got Doctor Phill and we got what are we doing here? Yeah? What are we doing here? What we're doing here is wrapping with nostalgia on this day that we released the podcast. October fifth, ten years ago, fresh off a gold medal in the London Olympics, Anthony Joshua would turn pro and obliterated some guy we never knew, never heard of, and don't care about. But the highlights actually I saw were on social media. I remember going back and seeing this years ago when he wiped out his first ever opponent. But he made his debut. He later Unified heavyweight world champ. Whatever you think of him, he regained the unified title after he loss at Danny Ruiz, two time unified world heavyweight champ. Made his debut ten years ago. Worth oating. Yeah, I mean, we're not so much being nostalgic about the fact that he knocked out a dude name Emmanuel Leo, who was eight to zero in the first round. It's more about the fact that it's been ten years. Anthony Joshua was in a professional and I was thinking, when I know that the date was today that we taped. This was the anniversary of the debut. How important he's been to the business of boxing and to the sport for ten years. I mean, the decade has flown by. And if you take a look at his career, yeah, you know, he's got some losses to Usik into Ruiz, and he's not a perfect fighter, but he's pretty damn good heavyweight. And he made a lot of fans, and he put a lot of fucking asses in a lot of fucking seats into a lot of states, and won a lot of titles and brought a lot of entertainment to a lot of people, and has been, for my money, a stand up guy. I've always liked Anthony Joshua and you know, he's been a credit to boxing in my opinion. He's not ducked the top fighters. Even if he's lost a couple of fights. He went right back into the jaws of the line after he got knocked out by Ruiz. Even when he took on a very different kind of tough fight against Alexander Usik, he went right back in and fought him. He has He was the winner by knockout of the twenty seventeen fight of the Year against Vladimir Klitschko in a spectacular all time heavyweight fight. I was fortunate to be ringsighted at Wembley Stadium for that myself in the ninety thousand of my friends. Just one of the great events I've never covered. You've always talked about it. I mean, just a phenomenal event. And I'm going to hit you point blank because I love this. I love this on the podcast, im I hit you point blank. If he does nothing else, is he in the Hall of Fame right now? I'm curious your point blank opinion off the cuff. We didn't rehearse this. Is he in the Hall of Fame right now? If he does nothing else? Anthony Joshua for my vote, I'd have to really think about that. I would say, and I don't get a vote, I would say yes. I would say he's done enough with title defenses, regaining the title. I would put him in. It would maybe be debatable, but in the modern men, you can make an argument about him being as good the last decade. But it's a debate. It's clearly debate. Some people would say it's it's a little bit watered down, and there are some that are in the Hall of Fame that aren't deserving. But I also look at it. Yeah, it's not like baseball where it's so stat driven in like what you've done in the postseason. You got to talk about a guy that's been at the top of the sport for a very long time. He's fought huge events, the pressure, the amount of money involved, but one after another, Wembley Stadium, Principality Stadium, Wembley Stadium, gone Overseas, Saudi Arabia, New York City, Madison Square, Garden. I mean, he's fought a lot of quality guys, He unified titles. I mean, I think there's a good chance. The good thing about is I don't have to make that decision because he's not done yet. But when you take a look at his resume, like let's just say, for example, in this era of heavyweight boxing, the three mot well, you gotta, I guess put Usak in that category. Two. So the four heavyweights of our time, and Usk's only been around in the weight class for a few years. Mainly he did his most of his biggest work as a cruiserweight. But the four guys were talking about our tyson Fury Alexander Usik, Deontay Wilder, and vladimirk Klitchkow at heavyweight, I would say to you that Anthony Joshua of those four boxers has the best resume, because while Usik has defeated A Joshua twice, the rest of US heavyweight resume doesn't really that. But he beat He beat Chas Witherspoon coming up, and wait, he beat h Chasis. So I mean, those are not terrible wins by any means, but that's not star studded stuff, you know, but the Joshua wins were big for him. If you they get to look at Deontay Wilder, you know he's got a lot of wins over like second tier type of contenders or even top contenders, like he did beat Luis Ortiz two times. You know, he does have the draw with Tyson Fury controversy or not, you know, he's being some other You know, he did beat when Bermain Steverne was the title holder and was still considered very good. He did beat him before he you know, crushed him in the rematch. So but that's not a deep, deep resume if you ask me, and if you look at Tyson Fury of course, he's got the great wins against Wilder in their great trilogy, the two wins he has officially, and he has a win over the older Vladimir Klitchko had been offer two and a half years in a fight that was absolutely horrible, where I always turned it as one guy was bad and one guy was worse. But that's pretty much the amount of his resume because it's hard to give a lot of credit for wins over Derek Chhasora in the third fight. Okay, I'll give him credit for a nice win against Dylan White, but it's been pretty lackluster. I mean Otto Whalen, Yeah, that's an okay win, Tom Schwartz, that's a meaningless win. So when you look at those guys and then you compare him to what John again, comparing to Joshua, Joshua has gone in there and he beat Dylan White when Dylan White was you know, coming up. Also, he did dethron a reigning title there in Charles Martin by knockout. He beat an undefeated Olympian top contender in Dominic, Brazil by spectacular knockout. He defeated Ladimir Klitschkow in a great fight that was a twenty seventeen Fight of the Year. He took a part the warhorse Carlos Takam, who was known for having a great chin, and he stopped him in round ten. He unified titles in a very impressive performance against Joseph Parker. He had a win over Alexander Pavekin by knockout when the only loss that Pavekan had going into that fight was a decision to Vladimir Klitchko years earlier in a world title fight. He evengaged a loss to Andre Luiz by knockout. All right, you know, I mean that when he got knocked out, his decision a lot by decision in a totally one sided route Kubra Pulav he knocked out. The only loss at pool i It ever suffered was years earlier to Vladimir Klitschko, also in a world title fight. I mean, he's got a better resume than fury Ooh, Sick and Wilder as a heavyweight. So to answer your question, I think there's a very good chance he will be elected golf. And now that I'm talking myself into it, and if you went just right, if you went from just right now, which was my premise, but we got much more because Fury and Usik are going to fight, and presumably Anthony Joshua was going to fight Deontay Wilder. Although I continue to be right, I'll believe that when I see it, I agree. So let's stay tuned, Stay tuned. But it's good for the debate and I love the But I guess the upshot here though, is this. It's been a very interesting ten years of Anthony Joshua as a professional. I mean, he's brought a lot to the sport and I appreciate it. All Right, one more piece of nostalgia, and that is coming this weekend. Twenty three years ago Saturday, Pauli Ayala Johnny Tapia in what was at that time the fight of the year. It was a rematch of their fight of the Year and Ayala ends up getting the decision. So, and I do remember back three years ago during the pandemic year, when Showtime was showing their classic fights when they didn't have other fights to show. We got the chance to talk to Pauli Ayala right here on the Big Fight Weekend podcast about that those two fights and about beating Johnny Tapia. But give me a little more on the nostalgia about this from twenty three years ago. Now, Wow, they're two fights with each other are kind of like forgotten classics in many ways. They don't just don't get the hype and the commemoration and the adulation of some of the other fights that we've seen. Maybe they're not at the level of Bara Morales, those types of fights it gets so much attention. But their first fight in nineteen ninety nine, which was when Pauli was the WBA or was a WBA bantamway title fight that was like a big time fight, I mean in terms of action. It was picked by many people as the nineteen ninety nine fight of the year and that was when Tapia was the WBA champion and it took the bell from it in a very very close fight and it was just a great battle that was you know, the these are fights that are associated with showtime. So they had a rematch that was a couple of fights. They both had interim fights. But when they fought again in two thousand, that's the anniversary fight we're talking about. Also, that was a first fight was at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I cand fight at the MGM, but the rematch maybe not at the same crazy action all time level as the first fight, but was a Fight of the Year contender as well. In the rematch, they that was a point where both guys, particularly Ayala, was no longer comfortable making bantam weight, so they actually met at a catchweight at one hundred and twenty four pounds. Wasn't a title fight, but still turned out to be one hell of a fight, and Ayala again got a very close decision. There are those who will you know, die on the hill that they believe that Tapia deserved both decisions. I thought that Tapia didn't win the first fight. I can understand more of the argument in the second fight that he should have been the winner, but nonetheless they had a pretty deep rivalry. Tapia lost his mind after the second fight because he, you know, he was so upset with Top Rank. They were both with Top Rank that he attacked or as it was Tappy as his brother in law who punched out Todd the buff who was the president of Top Rank. He was so incensed by what had occurred, uh and ended up getting arrested. I mean, so the post. I wasn't at the fight, but I I know all this stuff from hearing and talking with people about But uh, all the all the all the nonsense about the decision and what it sued afterwards does not detract from the fact that these are two guys that put on tremendous fights, and you know Tappy as a Hall of Famer, uh Ayala probably falls just shy, but he does have the two wins over Johnny Tappy and PAULI was always one of these guys that was an absolute fucking animal in the ring and as nice as sweetheart outside the ring as you could ask for in the sport of boxing. And he's still around occasionally. I still see him every now and again, I'll be at a fight for some reason or another. But uh, you know, by understanding, he's doing well in retirement doing his thing. He's trained guys, and I remember talking to him. He was training I believe his son for a while and he is still training young fighters and is still connected to the sport in ten and he talked, he talked on the interview with me and with us on the podcast about still being attached to the sport, being involved in the sport, and that that was still something that was fun for him and important to him. In his in his post in the ring days for Pauli Ayala, how about I'm glad that that he is doing well. I mean had a heck of a career. Ayowa thirty five and three with twelve knockouts. You know, has the two wins as I mentioned, also had two great fights with Bones Adams were that were very good action fights at the time. Again, these are fights in the early two thousands. He got the opportunity to win, but he also was in a big time fight against Eric Morales. He was so proud. I remember being at the I didn't I remember being at the press conference. Mean when they announced that fight, Pauli Ayla was so thrilled because to be in that position to be able to make he was making a one million dollar person for that fight for a guy that had come from the bandam weight division that never had made too much money. And now he's in with the ring against Eric Morales on pay per view, who was one of the stars of the lower weight classes with top rank and and Aaron had promised him a million dollar person. He got his million dollar person and he also got you know, he finished his career with a loss to Marco Antonio Barrera, So he has the losses to the legends and Morales Andbrera. He's got two nice wins over Bones Adams, who was a good champion for his time. Those were close, good fights. One was a split decision. He's got the two epic battles against Johnny Tapia where he got the wins, and both of them could have maybe been one and one, but he thought those are like those were the stalwart guys of those smaller weight divisions back in the early two thousands. So when I see an anniversary like this pop up, when I look on my calendar, I feel like they may not be the biggest names, but I like to remember and to let other fans who may have missed those fights say no, that there was more about boxing than what you see today, and that those guys are worth going back and watching these great fights. And I'm happy that the anniversary was now because we get a chance to talk about these great fighters. And again, if for the gen z ers, the sub thirty year olds that think that the sport began in twenty ten, back, go back and watch this stuff. When we're talking about this stuff, you will not be disappointed. Here on the twenty third anniversary of that rematch and their first fight. That was the fight of the year for Ayala and the late Johnny Tapia. With that, my friend, that is a preview. We began talking about Lee Wood Josh Warrington in the Matchroom featherweight world title fight Saturday afternoon US time, Saturday night in the UK again, Zerto Ramirez Joe Smith Junior late Saturday night, Eastern time, Primetime in the West from Las Vegas. Also we previewed you heard from Tim Zoo, the WBO Junior middleweight world champ, who is in action, not this weekend but next weekend. You got fight news, you got nostalgia, you got all of it. What say we reconvene later on Friday at one Eastern time on the bet Us Show and do a little handicapping on the Wood war Warrington fight and also Zerdo Joe Smith Junior. We'll do that at one Eastern time on the bet Us platforms and then whatever happens, as we always say, we're off the weekend with the fight Freaks U Night recap. Other than that, I think we're good, Dan Ranker, we are good. I will see you on the bet Us Show and I hope we have some good fights this because we do hope the same way. Thank you, Dan, We thank you for listening. Find us again on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google podcast, and follow and subscribe. You get the preview going into the weekend. You get the recap coming off the weekend. Here as part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed for Dan Rayfield, I'm TJ Reeves. Enjoy the fights.