Well off of a weekend that has seen Richardson Hitchens have a little bit more
difficult time than what we may be thought in the Matchroom Boxing main event.
It has seen Diego Pacheco in the co feature in Las Vegas have a little
more difficult time than what we may have thought. We are ready to break
down those fights. We have the WBC Junior well toweight world champion Devin Haney
on this podcast as well and much more. It is the Fight Freaks Unit
Recap. I am the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves. He is our
insider, Dan Rayfield, back aboard from his Fight Freaks Unite substack ind Bigfight
Weekend dot com. Big Dan. Good to be back with you. You
know, it doesn't really matter actually where we are, but I always like
to give the audience a peak, pull the curtain back. I am doing
this show while in Glendale, Arizona, hanging out here at the men's basketball
Final four, doing a bunch of broadcast work for tune in, etc.
For the men's Monday night NCAA Championship game now Connecticut and Purdue. So good
to be back with you, even though I'm in the desert I'm now on
Pacific time. I'm totally screwed up on what day, what time? You
do this all the time routinely, and I travel a bunch too, But
I'm West Coast TJ right now or whatever this is considered out here in the
desert. But it's good to be with you. Hope. The weekend was
good and we got some interesting fights to go over, some news and some
Marco Antonio Berrera nostalgia, Little Muhammad Ali, little Buster Douglas nostalgia. How
you doing? Are we gonna talk about the eclipse? Yeah? So what's
going on with where you can see it? Because this is the valley of
the Sun. Actually know that? All right? So I saw the diagonal
line of demarcation in North America. I know we got an audience outside of
North America, but I'm not able to see it in Arizona. Am I
correct? Are you able to see it in northern Virginia or what's the deal?
It's supposed to be not the full blackout of the sun here in Virginia,
but we're in the realm, so Virginia, Philly, Baltimore will have
some of it, apparently. So it starts as I've read in Mexico,
and it kind of does like a northeast. Uh a minute, I'm near
Mexico, but I'm not near enough to diagnose the eclipse. I looked on
the map. I don't think you are, but it's gonna go diagonal from
where it starts in that area in Mexico, sort of up through the I
guess the south, like the northern part of the southeast. I guess if
you want to call like that through the northeast, go up to Canada,
and I know, like some of the best spots you'll be able to see
it is they listed like Syracuse, Rochester, my old near my old stomping
grounds and uh. But the reason I'm like, I'm into it, I
kind of know about it is because I've been reading about it, but also
because I've been getting like a thousand things from my son's school where they have
to have the kids get a permission slip to get the glasses so they got
right right. Remember, well, we totally digress, and I promise we'll
get the boxing in a moment or two. By the way, this is
the kind of stuff you want on the podcast. Right here, What Ray
Phil and I are doing with the nostalgia state tune because it involves a welding
helmet. It involves a welding help we're boxing experts and we're astronomers. Yes,
don't mess with my teas. This involves a welding helmet in Little TJ
stand By. But anyway, rate us, review us, get a five
star review going for us here as part of what we do on Apple Spreakers
Spotify, join us if you want more science, yes, and if you
if you want you know h H two O and what that stands for and
you know what kind of chemicals blow things up? Also, Devin Haney,
I promise coming up here in a few minutes the Ryan Garcia pay per view
around the corner. Dan talk to him about that. Uh so, you
know, we'll get to the fight recaps. But anyway, did you like
me When we were in elementary school, we were much younger, and there
was one of these full lunary eclipses. We were probably like third or fourth
grade. Because you and I are or solar this was this was a solar
eclipse. Well, however, you define it with the moon moving right in
front, so no, no, no sunlight in the middle of the day.
So so solar lips. I remember vividly my family living in Texas,
and they with this was so primitive. They let us put on a full
on welding helmet, got a full welding helmet on, trying to look up
and see half of the sun. Now, maybe I was partially blinded by
that, by the school system allowing us to do that, but I do
remember it. Did you do anything like that? Do you remember that we
had? And this was what they were going to originally do in my son's
school, which why I kept getting the different notes, and then they changed
where they're going to provide all the kids with glasses. But what we did
is what the kids were doing, which you take like the cereal box and
you caught like a pinhole in it and look the CEO through the pinhole,
so you don't get the full force of the sun. Well, I remember
you charge you actually to like send send like an empty like cherios box or
whatever to school. He's literally looking through a box of cereal. I know
we're not going to do that, though they didn't. They decided against that.
So they're gonna give them the official glasses. What is the official glass
like that? The ones that are like like helmet helmet. They're like a
specific kind of sunglasses that all the kids are going to be able to use
that are provided by the school that are safe to look at the eclipse.
I mean, what the full I know. All I know is a lot
of people get the boxing. Yes, a lot of people seem to think
that we wander around in darkness frequently, so an eclipse is perfect thrust on
a Monday, so everybody be well, can they see this? They can't
really see this other than like North America, right, it's in that section
of North America. So when the article I was reading saying that it will
be in an area that will encompass around thirty five million people will be able
to see this thing, I still remember, just one more and we'll go.
This happened a few years ago, and it was like the best viewing
spot was was Carbondale, Illinois, in the middle of Illinois, and they
had the whole town hosting all of these parties. Because it was in the
middle of the day, it was going to black everything out for like two
minutes or like a minute and a half however long. And so one more
thing at its peak, apparently this will block out the sun for four minutes.
Four minute, animals will go crazy and the plants will shut down and
the bugs will do shit. Okay, they've remade, They've remade the ghost
Busters movie. So are you quoting doctor Peter Veinkman, Bill Murray or my
cats and Dogs living together mass hysteria. Whatever happens tomorrow, nobody crosses the
streams because this would be bad. Bad isn't bad? Or bad isn't good?
Good line? All right, let's get to the boxing. What's up
with Richardson Hitchins having this kind of problem with Gustavo Limos. We you and
I previewed this. We handicapped it on the bet us A boxing show this
past Friday, but this was a much tougher fight. Limos was hitting him
frequently and even though he got the decision. I come away from this with
more questions here than answers, maybe about Hitchins as a big time world title
contender. That's me saying that you analyze it more, what do you?
I don't come away with it that I come away with with. We've wanted
to see Hitchins pushed because he's so easily beaten the opponents he has faced and
he's fot some solid guys, whether it's Zepeida or Alamo or Boosa. I
mean, and he has he has the amateur credentials behind him. He beat
Malie Hawkins, who was at one time a top notch prospect. He's got
to win over granted he was a little long in the tooth, but the
victory over our Genis Mendez, a former world champion, granted in in the
lower weight class. All I'm saying though, is in his seventeen fights going
into this fight, he had faced some solid opponents given his brief professional career,
and he made all of those fights look relatively easy. You wanted to
see what's going to happen when somebody is able to get back at him.
And so, yeah, you say there's questions. I actually I got a
lot of my questions answered. You know, he does as he said in
his post fight interview, do you think I've got dogging me? Now?
He does have dog in it now. He grabbed and held and Frankly,
Rabalkayes Junior, who's typically an outstanding referee, the son of another outstanding referee
in robal Kay Senor, never once that I could ascertain warn him for the
dramatic amounts of holding he did. But you know what's still saying, if
they're not gonna call it, you keep doing it. I mean, that's
that's the bottom line. So I assume if the referee had warned him,
he would have been forced to stop or give up points, which could have
certainly swung the fight given how close it turned out to be. But I
felt like Richardson Hitchins answered the questions to me, he does have toughness.
He can take a punch, He does have smarts. If he has to
sit there and bang it out with a TRD dozed, very rugged, very
aggressive opponent, he can do so. And if you're gonna be fighting Sabrill
Mattias for the IVF title, which this was the eliminator to earn the mandatory,
so he's in line to be the next mandatory against whoever wins between Mattias
and Liam Paro in their June fifteenth fight, and it happens to be Mattias.
This was actually like a good fight to get ready for that, because
you know that's an aggressive puncher. But we saw on Limos and Hitchins will
be facing a similar guy in Sibril Matias. If that fight happens, So
give me how much do you believe he was hurt? It was the eighth
round, right, how much do you think, if at all, Hitchins
was really hurt because he was backing up and it was being he was absolutely
hurt. But it's boxing, you get hurt. And as he made the
point, he goes, yeah, you know, he got me with a
good shot. But one punch doesn't win a fight. Obviously, if you
get knocked out, it doug, but in that case it didn't. So
yeah, that was a very big round for Gustavo Lemos, and I know
that nobody really gave much of a chance. That was based largely on two
factors. One, he had twenty nine fights against twenty nine nobody's other than
the fight against the feather that had come up Lee Selby would come up from
featherweight to lightweight. And also because he had such dramatic amounts of inactivity.
But what I did say in very specific commentary prior I don't remember it was
on the podcast or on our US show, talking about my experience for my
time. If you were from Argentina and you're at this level, I don't
you're a tough dude, you can you can fight, and you got a
chin usually and Gustavo Loemos was in phenomenal condition props to him, tip by
hat which I'm wearing a tremendous condition for this fight when at one hundred miles
an hour from the opening belt. Now, I've seen that a million times.
Guys can go all out full blast for you know, two, three,
four, five, six, seven rounds, but then they get tired.
Lamos never really seemed to really lose that energy. He was able to
do that virtually the entire of the twelve rounds, and you know, credit
to him. And as Eddie Hearn said after the fight, you know,
we want to see him again. Absolutely. I mean, I know he
lost the fight, but absolutely want to see him again. And there's a
lot of people out there that felt he won the fight. So we can
talk about the scoring. Just for the record, I scored the fight one
fourteen to one fourteen and gave Lamos round number twelve, which got him the
draw on my scorecard. But if you take a look at the official score
cards, you know it was a little bit of an uphill battle for him,
because you know, he obviously lost. Tim Cheatham who typically is a
very good judge, had it one seventeen one to eleven in his favor.
Most people criticize that dramatically because, as they say, we see it all
the time, there's always that one wacky outlier score that can drive people absolutely
crazy when it comes to the way that these fights go. But the other
two scores were one fifteen to one thirteen in favor of Hitchens, and I
felt like those are perfectly legit now grant them. Like I said, I
scored to fight a draw, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with
that. But Limos won the twelfth round on my card. I can't figure
out how the all three judges gave Hitchens the twelfth round, which obviously made
him go to us to win the fight, you know, seven rounds to
five. But listen, it was a close fight, and neither guy has
anything to be ashamed of. They both bought their asses off, clearly.
Limos was the more aggressive fighter, definitely the heavier puncher. But the one
thing that he was able to do was he roughed up Richardson Hitchins, What's
no one had ever been able to do before. He hit him in the
body quite a bit landed like over sixty body punches way more than Richardson did.
But richards and Hitchins he grabbed maybe excessively, but it worked because the
ref didn't call it, so it's not his fault. He just kept doing
what he was getting allowed to get by with. He also had a very
heavy jeb Richardson Hitchins showed he's always had a good jet, but he really
stuffed it down the middle against Limos in that fight. And it was a
matter of style, what do you like? And you know, the pure
aggression that wasn't all effective or a little bit of a lesser pace, but
a guy that was fined in a home for a tremendous number of jabs and
uh, you know, it was a good fight. And and Richardson Hitchin's
gonna go on and fight for a world title and potentially it's superal Mattias.
We'll see he's now at the Mattroom umbrella. Maybe that is that's the man.
Maybe that is next for later this year. We will find that out
in the coming weeks and months after that defense by Mattias, all right on
the co feature the same kind of thing. You and I both very high
on Diego Pacheco. We both thought knockout and he did not get it.
How much again, same kind of question, do we credit Sean McCalman.
I loved your phraseology on your sub stack. You do realize I do read
your stuff you send me here. I'm even out in Arizona and we're going
to talk about Buster Douglas later. And when I read the phrase heretofore unknown
didn't didn't either Jim Lampley or Larry Merchant use that with Buster Douglas something like
that. I love my feel paceology. I love that I remember the phraseology.
But you know, look, this is exactly the kind of fight that
a young fighter like Pachecko on. He's twenty three, so they here too
more unknown. As Sean McCalman is named from Denver, how much did we
credit him? Or was Pacheck go off some? Was it a combination of
both? What do you think? I think it's a combination of both.
Here you have a fighter that was there to try to win. So credit
to Sean McCalman, who did what he when he came to try to do
a good job and do what he was best at. He was awkward,
he had a hard head. He took some good shots, he moved his
head, his defense was pretty sound, and Pachecko may have been a little
bit off, but maybe it was because he had a hard time because the
guy in frunt of him was was was not scared. He was there to
win. And I know you got to give the guy credit. I mean,
I know he never fought anybody and he never even fought a ten round
fight before. All his previous fights were eight or less, no real distinction
on his record. A little bit older, you know, at this level
in his career, he's thirty years old, already had never done anything yet.
But you know, like guys, I say this on our podcast,
I sat on our betting show. I've said it a million times at my
time of writing about boxing. You know, you can measure the stats.
You can look at the record, you can talk about, you know,
their knockouts, you can talk about the level of opponents safe face. What
you can't measure is the desire that a person has inside their heart when they
get into their ring man or woman. And Sean McCalman was there to try
to win. Now he was outgunned, and I know that that he gave
Pacheco a little bit of trouble, but I don't want it. This is
not like the hitching situation with Lamos, where it was life and death kind
of fight. It could have really gone either way. You know, he
was awfully close to losing. In the end, Diego Checko won this fight
going away. One judge did have it six rounds to four, one added
seven rounds to three, the other headed eight to two. I felt like
eight two seven three is the right card. And the rounds that mcalman won
were in the first half of the fight, so you could have maybe had
the fight two rounds to two and you're like, okay, we got a
close fight. But by the time the second half of the fight rolled around,
it was all Diego Picchecko. I mean, yeah, he didn't knock
him out, and credit to the chin of mcalman, but this was not
a Richardson Hitchin situation whish and this was a a Diego Pacheco that got himself
in the groove, that settled down and found the rhythm, that started to
make a few adjustments to use his length, and in the end was taken
a two McCalman and clearly was the winner. Of the fight with no questions
asked. All right, So Pacheco fought four times a year ago, very
active, he wins here. Would you anticipate, we don't know. Would
you anticipate that we're gonna see him again in the next ninety one hundred and
twenty days, right back active again like what we saw in twenty twenty three.
Uh, I don't know what the exact time frame is. I mean,
I don't know. You know, if he's come out of this particular
fight with any kind of injuries, it can seem that, but you never
know for sure. Certainly nothing was mentioned in the immediate of the you know,
in the post fight interview or anything like that in terms of an injury.
He only fought. He fought three times in twenty twenty three, but
he had fought at the end of twenty twenty two, So he did fight
four times in the span of I guess eleven months. But I expect him,
you know. They they talked quite a bit in the postfight about,
you know, they got this kind of good learning fight out of the way,
get the rounds to go in, and they would like to fight a
top ten type of opponent. Who that would be what. You know,
we all have different definition of who's a top ten and were talking about a
sancxing body with bad rankings, or we're talking about sort of an unbiased group
of rankings who the best guys are. But look, Diego Pacheco, to
me, is ready to fight the top guys. I mean, you know,
yeah, he didn't get a knockout, but so what, he still
won the fight going away, and I make the point on his maybe on
his worst night, he still won seven out of ten rounds. So I
didn't think it was a negative situation. It was it explosive. No,
was it like super exciting. No, but you're not gonna have every fight
it's going to be like that. So to me, if you're a Diego
Pacheco's fan or supporter or you think he's got a lot of potential, this
was okay. This was exactly the kind of fight that that you need to
have a little bit of a a of a of a pushback to have a
guy that's there not to fall down. And you know what, I know,
mccalluman lost and he's disappointed, I'm sure about that, but that was
the kind of performance and go in the distance with that kind of guy winning
some round, showing that he was there to try to win, and pushing
this young fighter, you know, in a good way. He's going to
you know, keep your phone on because it's gonna ring. He's gonna get
opportunities for other kinds of fights. We like that, all right. Rest
of the matchroom card that included Sky Nicholson winning the vacant women's featherweight title and
also Gallia five victorious as well. What else stood out real quick in Vegas
on the matchroom card? Well, in terms of Sky Nicholson, So she
had been the interim WBC Women's champion. Obviously Amanda Serrano was the undisputed champion,
and when the WBC declined to approve the title defense of Serrano for twelve
minutes twelve rounds at three minutes apiece, she vacated the title because now she's
in a position where she can call some shots and she wants to fight three
minute rounds and fight championship distance of twelve rounds. So the other organization are
okay with that. Her opponents have been okay with that, but the WBC
did not want to do that, so the title became vacant. Now normally
in that scenario, the interim champion would just simply be elevated to the full
title holder. And I did not know this until they talked about on the
broadcast the other night that Sky Nicholson said, no, I want to fight
for the title. So she went into the fight against Food, who was
a former title holder of the IVF in that way class, whose only loss
was a decision to Serrano in a unification fight. So Nicholson said, I
didn't want to just be elevated to the champion. I wanted to hear them
say in the ring, have my moment in the ring and the new WBC
featherweight champion. And she did that because she took it to Mafood, who
frankly just looked absolutely horrible. I mean, she lost every single round.
One judge actually gave her around. My boy Steve weisefelt so maybe I have
to ask Steve what Rowndey found to give hercause I didn't really look at the
scorecard yet, but to me, that was a ten to nothing shutout with
no rounds that were even that close. And Sky Nicholson wins the title,
and you know, she did make you know, the normal nonsense about how
Serana was like avoiding her and she knows that's not true, but that's you
know whatever, It makes you sleep well at night. But in all serious
no, Sky looked good in that fight. She she took it to what
I felt was an opponent in Mafood who was completely overmatched, an outclass And
it does show you, frankly, sometimes in certain divisions and certain fights,
the lack of depth in the women's boxing, because an equivalent of Food would
never have a world title in men's boxing. She's just not at that level.
In any way, she performed Sky Nicholson. You know, she's improving,
she's still young, she's an Olympian. She was in great shape.
She looked like she could have probably gone, you know, fifteen rounds at
two minutes, you know, but she did a good job. She did
exactly what she wanted to do. She was having fun in there, she
was smiling, she was dancing around, and let's be honest, she's good
looking, she's marketable, she can fight some so this helps. This helps
absolutely elevation. But the main thing she's got the title. And you mentioned
some of the other undercard fights. So Galalia Phi, who was the British
twenty twenty Olympic gold medalist, So he's moving really quickly because he's already thirty
one years old, so they're not wasting any time. He turned prone a
ten rounder. He was in another ten rounder defending his regional WBCA belt and
matched him ouver with a tough dude, Augustin Gatto, who's twenty one and
one, and you know, he knocked him out. He looked good.
But the thing is if I he admitted in his post fight interview that sometimes
he gets a little too excited and he leaves himself exposed and he gets tagged
and makes it exciting for the fans. But he needs to tighten that up
because it's going to cost him against a better caliber of an opponent. If
he's fighting, for example, they were talking after the fight, maybe he
would fight Sonny Edwards. It's a fight that Mattrium is interested to make.
You know, maybe not the next fight, but in the not too distant
future. And you know, Sonny's not a big puncher, but if he
cracks you like that, as the top professional he has been for a long
time, you know, you might have some troubles. So he doesn't need
to tighten that up. But he's exciting and he's going to move very quickly,
and you know it was it was a good win. And the other
fight that was on the main show was one of my favorite prospects, and
that's a junior lightweight, Mark Cashrow, you know, big time amateur.
Now he's twelve and zeros, a pro getting the reps. Had a good
performance against Abraham Montoya. Montoya was a good opponent. You know, he
is a guy that has a victory a few years ago over the pre world
title holder Louis Alberto Lopez. He's got a clear win against him going back
a few years ago. That's a solid victory in Castro. You know,
again, he had a little trouble here and there, but basically he won.
You know, one judge had at ten to nothing, one eight to
two, one, seven to three. He won basically eight or nine rounds
of the fight. And it was a good learning curve. And I'll tell
you what I got to give the props to match Room Boxing and their matchmakers
and the people that put these fights together. Every one of the favorites,
every one of their guys won and gals won their fights, but they were
not in walkover fights. They were in with competition that was competitive that pushed
them. It didn't matter if it was Hitchins at the top against Limos in
a solid fight. In the main event, Scott Nicholson was the one that
was a mismatch, but he start to argue with the opponent because she was
a former champ whose only lost was to Serrano. Castro was in solid with
Montoy, who's got to win over the ragning IDF champions, and Yfi was
in with a guy that is absolutely not a bum in any way, shape
or form. And they all came through. But it was good matchmaking.
These are the kinds of victories and the kinds of fights for every one of
these people I just mentioned that is going to help them improve. And also
Diego Pacheco also well, I didn't mention same situation from the count. It
turned out he was better than a lot of people gave him credit for a
little awkward like I said, but push Pachecko. That's good matchmaking. It
It was a pretty good show to watch, frankly, and the main event,
other than the holding, was a heck of a fight, really good
fight, especially Dona Stretch. One other recap to get to and then we're
gonna hear from Devin Hainey. I just have to know I didn't know this
answer. We didn't. We didn't go over this. We didn't hurst this.
Did you get to see this? Where Bachram won the vacant IBF Junior
Middleweight Championship over Jack coldk Saturday afternoon US time to fight in Germany. We
bemoaned you lovely words back at you. We bemoaned the fact, where's the
live feed on? How do we see this? Did you get to see
this or did you have to just wait recap form highlights and that kind of
stuff of the Bachram win. Apparently it was televised. I don't know if
it was live or on tape the leg, but it was shown on ESPN
Knockout in Spanish language in Latin America. Wait, I'm not really fight with
Bak the fights in Germany, and of course you can see it through ESPN
Knockout, So I didn't see that as it happened, but it is available
on YouTube. So I did watch some of the fight all right, and
it was a good close fight. While it was going on, one judge
did have it very very wide, but the other two judges had a close,
which again I'll admit I didn't watch the entirety of all eleven rounds,
but what I saw it looked like a somewhat competitive fight. But in the
end, the knockout that he had in the eleventh round where he dropped him
very, very hard, was quite impressive. You know, kul Ka has
always been a guy. He's now got what five losses, He's been a
guy I like to say, good enough to lose, like, he's a
solid, good professional, had a good amateur career, but now as the
loss in this title fight. The Bakram after a long winning streak, but
he had lost to Sergei devron Chenko, who we know as a world class
fighter, wasn't a title pumpan he lost to him. If you go back
a few years before that, he has a loss to the long time contender
Celeski, and before that he lost in a world title fight against Dimitris Andre.
So whenever he stepped up to that top level, he's been defeated.
And Bachram, who's been the mandatory since like twenty nineteen and did a multitude
of step asides with Jamel Charlotte waiting for that mandatory fight and making a living
fighting in you know, the lesser fights on his undercards and other PBC cards
while he stepped aside, got the world title, and he did a very
solid job advice. You know, that's a big win for the for the
Main Events promotion company, which were at one time was one of the dominant
forces in world boxing. I mean, they promoted everybody, Cernel Whitaker and
Evander Holyfield, all those eighty four Olympians. They had Artiro Gotti and Fernando
Vargas. I mean, I go on and on and on and on all
the champions that they had. But they've fallen on hard times late, like
a lot of their guys have you know, retired or lost. And they
had covid Lev he was like their last top notch fighter and they're basically out
of business. But they still have Bakram and they got a big win the
other night because if he can defend this title, or even if he doesn't
do well defending the title, it's going to get a big payday. And
you know, good friend, it was you know, it was good to
see. Uh. Not that I'm rooting for promoters, but Main Events has
been a stalwart of this business for a long time. So you know they're
not dead yet. As the way I look at it, there you go,
all right and again. Sebastian Fondora currently has the other two belts prominently
as unified champion at at one p fifty four. Bachram now is a player
with one of the titles at Junior Middleway. That leads us to this.
Speaking of title holders, the former undisputed lightweight champion of the world is Devin
Haney. Upcoming, he fights Ryan Garcia April twentieth pay per view from Dezone
and PPV dot Com Barklay Center in Brooklyn, New York. You don't have
to wait for that to find out what's up with Devin Haney in this defense
and Ryan Garcia and the back and forth on social media. You get it
right now with Dan Well, it's my pleasure to be joined on our podcast
once again. Now. I used to call you the lightweight champ. Now,
Devin Haney, I got to call you the WBC Junior bout the way
champion. We're here to talk about you are a very big fight you have
coming up April twentieth to Zone pay per view at Barclay Center in Brooklyn,
New York, against Ryan Garcia. Devin, thank you very much for doing
this. Have you been yes, sir, thank you for thank you for
having me. I've I've been good. I'm excited for the fight, you
know, another fight at one forty where I'm much more comfortable, much more
stronger, and I'll look forward to it. All right. So before we
get into the conversation about that fight that you have coming up, I want
to ask you. I was looking at your at your box wreck in terms
of what you've done in your career as a lightweight, and I think it
kind of gets like downgraded by some people, and I can't really figure that
out. I look at I see you're the You were the first undisputed lightweight
champion since the legendary Parnell Whitaker did it in nineteen ninety. You're the first
ever four belt undisputed champion in the lightweight division. Overall, you made seven
title defenses, including two of the undisputed crown, and you beat you know,
good name guys like Gamboa, Lenaris, Jojo Diaz. You beat Cambosas
twice in Australia, then you beat Lomachenko. What do you when you think?
When I you hear all that stuff. I just said, what do
you think is your lightweight legacy? No, I mean, I'm that all
makes you smile just hearing it, because you know, I worked hard to
make the best fights happen. You know, I've always said I wanted to
the best fighters in the world, and you know, if my resume chose
yeah, I mean it's I mean, I think if you if if they
had been willing to fight you, you you probably you would have definitely fought
a Tank Davis, Tfim Lopez, you know the other you know, good
names that are in that weight class. I can't imagine you wouldn't have seen
the type of guys that you were going to step in with. Am I
wrong about that? No? One hundred percent. Every guy that I called
out that that's that I stepped up. You know, the fight has been
made. But all that's here and there now. You know, Ryan Garcia
has stepped up to the play and that's the fight now. So after you
left behind the lightweight division and you went up in December to move into the
junior wealthweight division and you fought for the WBC title, Devin, you didn't
just beat Regis program you and take the title. You dropped him, you
shut him out. It was one hundred and twenty two hundred and seven on
all three scorecards. Now, I know that you were very confident in winning
that fight, and program sounded confident that he was going to win the fight
also, But there wasn't even really any rounds that were close. Did you
even in your mind, in your best imagination to think that you'd be I'm
not going to say it was easy, but did you would make it look
that easy? Vietnam? That was? That was you know, the game
plan to go in there, to execute, to handicap them and make it
as easy as possible. So I kN know if I stuck to the game
plan, and you know, I trusted the game plan that it would work
out, and and it did. But Devin twelveth to nothing, Come on,
yeah, I mean that's that's what I do. That's what I pitched
shutouts, and you know, I go in there and I'm taking away the
guy's best thing that they that they do. And once you once you,
once you do that, once you handicap them, they they have no answers.
Ye, I mean, that's that's a good point. That was.
I mean, you know, of all your fights that you've had as dominating
as you were against cambosis and some of the other fights you've had. Obviously
Loma made it much closer. But I think it am I wrong to say
that, at least to me looking at it, that's the best performance you've
ever had. Was because of the caliber of the opponent, the moving up
and wait winning win. Another title was that is that the best performance you've
had so far? Do you think? Yeah? I mean I think so.
I think up to day for sure that was my best performance, especially
because you know, be for the fight. They were saying that, you
know Reges was was was number one guy in one forty. Now, you
know they they they act like he was just any Joe blow. They said
it was just you know, he was It was set up for me to
me, for me to go in there and do that. But at a
point he was the number one guy who a lot of guys were duck and
a lot of guys weren't didn't want to fight. So I went in there.
I think I went up to one forty, didn't you know, take
a tune up fight or anything like that, chose the best guy and uh
pitched a shutout, went in there and heard him, you know, beat
him and and now so yeah, definitely that that was my best performance.
You're only twenty five years old, and we just listed off all of the
various accomplishments that you have had in the kinds of opponents you have beaten.
And at twenty five, for a lot of fighters, they're not even in
their prime, or at least they're just entering their prime. Do you feel
like you're in your prime yet? Are you? Are you entering your prime?
I mean, and you've already know, You've got thirty one fights,
so it's not like you're a young fighter in the game in terms of the
number of fights. But where do you where do you view yourself in terms
of the arc of your career? Yeah, I mean I'm still too you
know, young, I still got a lot of growing, a lot of
mature to do in a ring. I'm getting better and better each fight,
getting stronger, getting more mature outside the ring and in the ring. So
I don't think I'm in my prime yet, but you know, I'm definitely,
you know, I'm you know, on upwards, like you know,
I'm on the upwards for sure. Yeah, I would agree with that.
Before you guys were able to make this match between yourself and and Garcia.
You know, he was gonna maybe fight Roly Romero. They had a deal
and then really kind of left them at the alter, so to speak,
and he went and took the fight against Pitt Bull Cruise. When that was
sort of unfolding, what was sort of like your backup plan if you weren't
going to get Ryan Garcia. I know you're fighting him now, but what
was in your mind as far as what you may have done if you weren't
able to land that big fight. Yeah, I mean I was looking at
a guy like Mario Barrios at one was prematured talks. But we were looking
at a guy like that, We were looked at that, We were looking
at a few different guys. So it's very very, very very premature talks.
Understand Uh. It seems to me like you have sort of you and
your father, you know, Bill Haney, your manager, your trainer.
Did you guys have kind of taken a page out of the Canelo playbook and
if you go back even further, the Sugar Ray Leonard playbook. Where you
work with different promoters, you've done short term deals. Obviously you were with
Match room for a period of time. But then you went over and you
had you know, three fights under the deal with Top Rank and Debella.
That was so you could get the Cambosas fight, and you fought Lomachenko.
Then you went back to Ed who you're with, I believe on a fight
by fight basis, even though you know you continue to work with them.
Uh. How empowering is that for you as a fighter, to know that
you and your father can really do what you want to do in terms of
the types of opponents and where you can have fights. I mean, that
was all part of the plan. It was. It was for me to
you know, not be able to you know, be handicapped and not be
able to not make the biggest fights happen, you know, not not not
get the big money fights, not have those excuses, be able to control
our own destiny. And that's what we sells to uh since day one,
and that's that's what we're doing. It is easier said than done, though,
isn't it. Oh? Yeah, I mean for sure, you know,
you know, especially in the beginning when I wasn't making making any money,
but you know, trusting the process and you know, seeing the bigger
picture and knowing that, you know, not to sign a long term deal
then because I because I didn't have money, but to you know, not
not sign a long term deal when I didn't have money, to just you
know, stay disciplined and just you know, just trust the process. So
now you've got to fight with with Ryan Garcia coming up. And then I
follow you on social media and I've watched some of the things I saw some
of your media day. You know, you're it seems to me like the
Devin Haney that I've been covering for a long time is having a normal training
camp, preparing hard, getting ready for the fight. And your opponent,
Ryan Garcia, uh is off making like crazy amounts of social media videos and
posts every single day, wild posts about all things that are not boxing related,
and to a lot of people, seems like he's just having like a
meltdown. Uh what do you make of his behavior as the guy that's gonna
go in the ring and fight against him? Yeah, I mean, he
he is, his page's his is his platform. You know, my main
focus is to continue to remain focus and you know, keep training and prepared
to dominate him no matter you know, if he's if he's all the way
there and I can't. I can't get to an emotion attached to that.
I got to just focus on being the best meet Devin. There was one
post that he put on his social media where he literally said, quote,
his mission is to kill you in the ring. That that that offended me
to be fight ho us. I've been doing this a long time. I've
been at fights where I've been at fights whereout that Yeah, yeah, I
did. I mean, I've been at I've been at boxing matches where it
unfortunately, men have died because of this sport. Uh. You know,
I like to see a good fight, I think like anybody, but I
certainly don't want to see anybody die in the ring or get seriously injured.
It's it's not fun to cover, it's not fun to watch. It's bad
for everybody involved, the person that's injured, the opponent, the whole industry,
the fans, everything. When you see that your opponent says that without
any like smiley face or saying he's joking or anything like that, how does
that make you feel? When he says he literally his mission is to kill
you. Yeah, well we know that that. Ryan Garsi is a tike,
toker, YouTuber, actor, whatever you want to call himself. I
don't knowing that he says series at the end of the day, this this,
this is a brutal sport. And every time, every time we go
in there and we risk our lives and we know that. So you know,
whatever, what what, whatever he's playing is set out to do,
it won't work. He won't have no answers for me on any So let
him say what he want to say. I'll uh, I'll just you know,
take it out on him, uh, patunita and make and make a
lot of people happy. Do you feel like that he is doing all this
crazy behavior, whether it's the videos and the post and just sort of the
kind of off the rails behavior to somehow sell a fight, or do you
think he truly is sort of like unstable and need some help. I don't
know, I said, I, you know, emostly involved in that.
I don't know. I don't know. My main focus is just focused on
me, you know, similar to when I was starting a guy like like
Mama Loma didn't he wasn't saying anything, he wasn't talking. We weren't here
from for hearing from him. But I had to chose focus on being the
best meed that I could be so similar to this, you know, he's
doing a lot of talking the same thing, just tunnel vision to keep up
blind his own stay focused. You've always struck me Devin as the kind of
guy that tries to not get too high, not get too low, and
really just sort of maintain like an even keel and leaning into your fights in
the boxing match itself, is that am I am? I right on the
on the sort of your mentality about going into things and dealing with the fight.
There's always a lot of drama with Ryan though, whether it's you know,
be like for example, the Tank Davis fight. Before and and during
and after and after the fight, a lot of people said that they thought,
because of the way that the fight ended that he when he went down
on the knee got knocked down, that he quit, that he could have
got up, that he didn't seem hurt, that he was looking at the
referee and he just decided to not fight on. Do you think that he
quit in that fight? Absolutely, to watch the fight. As soon as
the guy, as soon as the rep was done counting, he got right
up. I just seen I just think that he was you know, I
felt like he was over a match. I don't know if he maybe he
did, maybe he did have some you know, distractions going into the fight
before, I mean going into the fight. So once he you know,
he felt like he had no answers. He just was like, all right,
I'm done. You think you can make him do the same thing?
And I asked you that because it seems to me that once a boxer decides
to quit in a fight, it becomes easier to do it the next time.
If it comes to that. Yeah, I mean once you once you
quit, you know how to quit. You you've seen it that that that
is an answer, that that is a solution. So, like I said,
I don't think that April twenty for being any different. I think I
see him quitting. I see you know him him quitting or you know,
his coach carling the fight off when it when it gets hot. Now.
I saw some stuff recently that the New York State Athletic Commission wanted to give
him a mental health evaluation because of all the stuff that was going on.
As we've been talking about, are you are you confident? I know you're
training, You're gonna be ready for the fight. Are you confident he's actually
gonna make it to the ring that night? And if he doesn't, is
there a backup plan? For example, I know, like the excellent contender,
undefeated Arnold Barbosa is on the card. Or are you was all the
eggs in one basket with Ryan making it to the ring? Yeah? No,
I mean, I don't have any question that Ryan is going to show
up Ryan. Ryan is going to show up on to the fight right now,
Ryan, whatever go playing for But I don't see, I don't see,
right, Okay. When they made the match, I think a lot
of people Devin were surprised that it wound up taking place, uh and being
placed at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, which is a very excellent arena.
They've had a lot of boxing events there, but most people thought this was
going to be in Vegas. What are your thoughts about coming east for for
a world title fight? Your last fight was all the way on the other
side, back in you know where you were were you born in in the
Bay Area. Yeah, I'm excited for it. That's great. I will
always come back to New York and I think I think it's gonna be be
a bit, it's that type of fight. It was. It would be
a big event no matter where we fought. So I'm not mad at I'm
not mad at at New York one bit. I'm glad to hear that it's
a It's like I said, it's a great arena. You know. One
of the big talking points in the fight, besides all the craziness that's been
going on with Ryan leading up to the fight, is the fact that you
guys are very familiar with each other. You know each other a long time.
You had the six bouts in the amateur ranks where you had split the
fights three and three. Do you think that that has any bearing on what's
going to take place April twenty third. Is it just good for you know,
fans and writers to talk about. Yeah, I mean I don't think.
I don't think it matters. I think, you know, we're familiar
with each other, but the pros is is definitely different, and I'm a
much better fighter than I was at amateurs. I don't forget Ryan has gotten
much better, but that's for me show. You know, this is when
he counts for Autumn Marbles for every game, just the one that that really
means something. Yeah, no doubt. I mean I think they're saying this
one counts. I saw in some of the taglines on the artwork and stuff.
Uh, you know, besides, besides the matchup you have with with
Garcia, in the fact you already defeated program, you're in a really you
know, good weight class that's got a lot of talented fighters in a T
team. A lopezz is a champion of the w BO, the lineal champion.
He got Sabrell Mattias, who's the IBF champion. You know, Tank
Davis has fought in this weight class before. Perhaps he'll move up. You
know Roly Romero and Pitbull Cruiser in the weight class. What sorts of big
fights do you have in your mind? If everything goes the way you expected
to go against Ryan Garcia and you come out with yet another victory and still
undefeated and still champion, all those guys, all those guys are my head.
Honestly, my main focuses is Ryan, but all those guys are Ken
King King. You know, Bospoile fights right after this one. Now he
stuck around at lightweight for a long time and then you obviously came up.
Now you're in the junior welterweight division. You feel like you're gonna stick around
in this weight class for the number of years or you also have your eyes
you know, in the nearer future on the welterweight division. Yeah, no,
I want to. I want to. I want to buy that both.
You know. I want to make the biggest fights happen the best fighters
in the world. So wherever, wherever that that takes me, it takes
me. But I'm interested in the one division right now, you know excites
me. Ski's fights to be made and we'll see, Well, we're going
to see and I'll tell you one thing. I'm looking forward to seeing you
and Ryan Garcia in the ring call on April twentieth, his own pay per
view. I think it's gonna be a very interesting fight. I appreciate your
time very much, Devin, as always, you're a gentlemen. Thank you
so much for doing this, Yes, sir, thank you. All right,
WBC Junior welterweight title is on the line there with Devin Haney. I
always like to ask it this way. You know, we're still a couple
of weeks away from the fight. You got to see him and interact with
him a little bit on the video hookup, et cetera. So your thoughts
seeing Devin in advance of all the all the promo and the publicity that they're
going to do here over the next couple of weeks. In this particular interview,
I actually didn't see him. We run at the phone host, so
I didn't. Usually I'm on the zoom with these guys in this particular case
because of where he was in his schedule and everything we did the phoner.
But it was good. I mean, Devon is always engaged in energetic interviews.
You know, I have a report with him. I've known him for
many many years. I've interviewed him many many times. He was in a
good mood. I've been working his ass often as they people heard like there's
all the craziness that's been going on about Ryan Garcia, But yep, Devin
Hainey. I like the attitude. He's like, whatever, you know my
problem, I'm I'm I'm preparing for my fight. I'm gonna go and be
the best Devin Haney I can be. And whatever he's doing, so be
it. And you and I always go over this and I don't wish ill
on it. But right now, on the Rayfield meter is the antenna up?
Because we're kind of now in the zone with two weeks to go for
this fight, that something could be up with Ryan Garcia. What about the
Rayfield Antanna just coming off the interview before we get to the news and nostalgia,
we what do we think we all right for right now? There's always
there's always a chance something whacky happens. But it seems to me, at
least right now that we're talking about business as usual. They have his coming
up early in the week, and you know this is gonna come out Sunday
night into Monday. I believe he has Ryan has his media day in Dallas
day, so that's still on the schedule. And unless something happens that we're
unaware of, which with Ryan you never know, it seems like business.
I sure hope that that might happens because I just finished my gig that I
do because I was helping my good pal Jay Seidman right right, and produce
the program for this event that I was been working on and going over page
proofs and everyday. Let's be honest on paper, this is a very compelling
fight. You just heard from Devin Haney. It's gonna have a lot of
marketability because of Garcia's popularity. There's millions of dollars on each side here in
this. Can we get in the ring place? Can we get in I'm
not saying you're saying there's some pleasure, but can we get in the ring
place? Let's hope so with Hainey Garcia, that will be coming up,
all right. News items Natasha Jonas Mikayla Mayer. They're talking about a rematch
from their Fire eight back on January twenty, to be a little more IBF
Women's World Welterweight title fight. What do we know, Well, we know
that their first fight in January was a hell of a fight, very close
fight, tremendous action, took place in Jonas's hometown of Liverpool, England.
And they're talking about a rematch. I mean, it's the biggest fight out
there for both of these women, and I think the fight will get done.
Will get done. To me, the only question is and from what
my sources tell me, it's just a matter of when it could be in
June potentially at an early side, it could go into September, depending because
boxer asked some other events. They're shuffling around, whether it's the Chris billam
Smith defense. They've got the adamasim A fight that he's going to be doing
coming up. They've got some other things that they're working on, so it's
just sort of where can they fit this in. They're going to, you
know, perhaps a fabuo worldly rematch in that fight, So they're just they're
trying to lay out their schedule and it depends how things fall, what fights
wind up on their pay per view, what fights wind up on regular Sky.
So I think right now the idea is let's get the deal done and
we'll figure out the date later. But it looks like that fight's gonna happen,
and I'm sure that if it does happen that both these women will come
in great shape and put on another hell of a show that I did the
first time. Mikaela Mayer is always in entertaining fights for sure, Natasha Jonas,
so we'll see when that one comes about. News about the WBO s
trolweight champ Oscar Colazo of Puerto Rico Golden Boy's gonna have him back in the
ring fairly soon. Here. He's again we've made mention of this. He
was the fastest world champion in Puerto Rican boxing history. Was it six six
or seven title fight? A six or seventh fight that he won the title
in. He's going to be back here coming up. Klaso. I mean,
Klaso is a very exciting fighter. I mean, I know strawweights are
not exactly the most popular weight class in the world. They're small guys,
the smallest weight class in the sport. But if you've watched Oscar Colaso,
he's got some swagger to him. He can punch, he's got a great
amateur background. He's a very exciting young fighter, and so they are bringing
him back. He wants to stay busy. He's going to be headlining the
June seventh cart at the Turningstone Resort Casino in Verona, New York. And
why that's important is because that coincides with the fact that they always are tried
to do anyway a big time boxing show on the weekend of the Hall of
Fame induction ceremonies. The Boxing Hall of Fame is a few miles away in
Canastota, but they have a lot of the events that take place at the
Turning Stone. So he's going to be headlining on that card, you know,
on that very you know, significant weekend. Obviously it's the Hall of
Fame, so there's gonna be a lot of boxing royalty if you will,
he'll defend he's now nine to o. He'll be defending it against a fighter
named Heraldo Zapata who is fourteen and one and one from Nicaragua. And you
know, again as the biggest fight in the world. No, but it's
still an exciting young champion and he's on a very big time date of the
Hall of Fame weekend. And then again, it was his seventh fight,
the fastest ever in seventh pro fights to win a world title in all the
great Puerto Rican lineage of champions. And this would be a fourth fight if
it comes off this summer in roughly a year. What do we say,
ray Phael and a recap podcast. Let's hear it activity, We like it
lead for activity, all right? So next on a rundown, does this
include nostalgia because it's news, but it's also nostalgia. This is news,
this is news, but it's involving Muhammad Ali. It's involving the greatest,
the latest, the late greatest, and the and the WWE recognized him as
part of their WrestleMania, their fortieth WrestleMania that Ali was involved in the first
WrestleMania. You were there for that, but they recognized him and they put
him in the WWE Hall of Fame this weekend during their UH ceremony prior to
the two night pay per view that's been going on in Philadelphia, and you
were there for the first WrestleMania with the Hawkster Tampa's hull Coga not finished,
and Mister T and Roddy Piper and Paul Lorendorf and who else, Cowboy Bob
Orton and Superfly Snook and a young Rayphael was there for all this, and
Ali was there as like the guest referee, and so they put him into
the Wrestling Hall of Fame. So I go to Madison Square guarded these days,
and fortunately because of my job as a journalist covering boxing, I am
very fortunate to sit ringside. But in nineteen eighty four or eighty five,
I gets eighty four, I guess it was for WrestleMania. One little fourteen
year old Rayfiel or thirteen year old Rafield whatever at the time, was up
in the high rafters way off top. I had gone to WrestleMania one with
my father and a friend of a friend of mine and Muhammad Ali, like
you said, was the special guest referee for that very famous main event involving
Mister t Paul Cogan Orndorf and Cowboy Bob Orton. And he made other appearances
over the years, at least a couple more, I guess for a WWE,
but that was the one that was a big deal. I mean,
you know what the criteria are to make the w W Hall of Fame.
As a non wrestler in the company. How do you get Ali to be
involved in not having the Hall of Fame? I guess, but it was
pretty cool that, you know. The people that inducted him were his widow,
Lonnie Ali, lovely woman, a wonderful woman, and the Undertaker.
I mean, that's quite a combination, right The iconic Undertaker was it Mark
Callaway who has been the Undertaker for the better part of years. He's a
huge fan, die hard boxing fan. I have seen him. I've seen
him had some big time fights over the years, a very very legit,
huge fight fans. So him and and Muhammad's widow did he the w W
Hall keep up with this, maybe a little more. Id did he ever
lose at WrestleMania. He was undefeated for Everett WrestleMania and that was but event
he won like the first twenty times at WrestleMania. Thing was the streak.
It was the streak for the Undertaker. Still it got to be in the
top three, if not the top two for ring walks where they would triple
h Hunter Hurst Helmsley. Yeah, but in any event, the Undertaker ring
walk when they would dim the lights and do the gong and then the ball
bears walking out with the with the looking it up while it turns out he
won twenty one consecut matches at WrestleMania, So that was like a big deal.
And by the way, we should let some people in on this.
That was script. It was planned. It was script that he won the
twenty one in a row. I mean, it's not the same thing as
like Devin Haney winning twenty one world title fights in a row. That's not
Vince McMahon on a pad and a pen saying yeah, you're gonna win again
here at WrestleMania. All right, So good good on that for Ali Ali
being part of that. Do you remember I've seen what the ticket prices were
where they're fighting at Lincoln Financial Wrestling at Lincoln Financial Feel for the WrestleMania,
and it's ridiculous because the face value on the tickets is like two hundred and
fifty. For the ones down on the field around the stage, sitting in
the raptors, you had to have paid twenty bucks maybe probably something. Well,
this is a ray Field collection, Go find a wrestler, and we
were way up at the top. Anyway, I'm just saying it was probably
twenty bucks to get in the garden. I think my dad was sold out.
I think my dad's oh, I know it was sold out. So
but I'm saying we didn't buy them at phase value. I think my dad,
oh, he bought him on the secondary market. I mean, we
don't pay like crazy money for them, but more than whatever the face was
on him. Interesting, all right, other nostalgia twenty three years ago today,
You don't we talked so much about Sugar Ray Leonard and I did hear
from a couple of people giving blowback about Leonard Hagler. The anniversary being Saturday
at April sixth, were not a Sunday to seventh, but you and I
again covered this went over this. We believe Sugar Ray Leonard won that fight
all time iconic. So twenty three years ago on Sunday, Marco Antonio Barrera
and Prince Nasim Hmed, And you were there April seventh, two thousand and
one, as Barrera took it to Hahmed, the constant promoting loudmouth who could
back it up with a bunchet. He couldn't back it up that night against
Barrera though, And you were there, Oh yeah, listen, that was
That was a really big fight, very memorable. He had the uh the
one thing that always Hays stood out. I think we may have even talked
about this at one point. The thing that stood out is after a delay
of getting him in the ring, there was some kind of issue with his
glove in the back before they made their ringwalks. You know, the Prince
was known for these crazy ringwalks and then when he would get to the ring,
you would do the front flip over the ropes into the ring. That
was like his stick when he got to the ropes on this night against Marco
Antonio Brera, by far and away, you know, the biggest pressure ized
fight for him. I think in terms of like a big deal and so
much talk about this matchup. He didn't do the flip over the ring ropes,
and a lot of people kind of remember at ringside thinking, well,
you know what's going on here, like maybe there's something's in his head and
it's not his night. I mean, I mean it's injury. I would
have thought, is there an injury as to why he didn't do something just
the way he didn't go in the ring like he normally would, like you
change up like that the last minute his biggest moment. You kind of think,
I wasn't thinking about an injury. I was thinking about more mentally.
And look, Marco Antonio Brera was the consonant brawler face first, typical cliche
Mexican fighter, just go in there and try to beat the shit out of
his opponent, and in this time he turned boxer puncher, still was aggressive,
still like to brawl when necessary, but really just outboxed him and took
him apart. And like the famous line in the in the broadcast, I
always remember Larry Merchant somewhere late in that fight, when Brer's kicking his ass
and they're talking, Larry Merchant utters the fantastic line on paraphrase. I don't
know if I have the exact wording talking about Prince Nasimhmed, his moment of
truth has turned into his hour of torture, because that's basically what Brera did.
He changed his head into the turnbuckle late in that fight, which was
in the twelfth round, and got a point deducted for intentionally slamming his head
and burd and give a shit because he was so clearly going to win on
the cards, and he won the fight. He became the lineal featherweight champion.
I mean, Ahmed had collected all the belts at one time or another
but ended up being stripped there vacating. But this was for all the marbles
at featherweight and it was a huge, resounding victory. And I will say
this, both of them are in the Hall of Fame, and rightfully Sohamed,
even though he lost his fight with still a great fighter. It was
disappointing the only one more time after this, But Barrera had a ton of
great wins. McKinney obviously two out of the three against Eric Morales. You
know, plenty of big time wins in this man's career. But I think
the Hahmed fight is the defining one, even bigger than his victories over Eric
Morales. And am I correct? I don't have it in front of me.
Ahmed retired one fight later. We just said that he thought one more
time, my bad, So he fought once more and that was it.
Exactly a year later, fourteen months later, fought one fight in the UK
and you ever fought again and Barrera put it on him that night that was
now twenty. I still remember that because again we talked about this numerous times.
He was electrifying with the punches that could back up the mouth. But
Barrera beat him that night, all right. Also on Sunday, April seventh,
twenty eighteen, six years ago, Jarrett Heard won a dramatic split decision
over Eras Landy Laura to win two of the Junior Middleway titles, with a
twelfth round knockdown turning out to be huge. And you were there wingside for
this, and and what happens to give me more on the nostalgia, Well,
this was that this was at the hard Rock in Las Vegas, which
is not called that anymore. This was a showtime maing event. It was
a unification fight. Arislania Lara came in with the WBA title, and it
was it was Jared Hurd that had the IBF title. I've told the story
about on the night that he won the IBF title in in Alabama on a
Deontay Wilder cart of just coincidentally being in the same car with him going to
the airport the next day, and he was wearing the belt in the car.
I always never forget that. So he's defending the title and also trying
to unify, and they put on a spectacular fight. Now, Laura is
not known for being in great fights because he had a couple in his career.
This was I think because he was a little bit older and he couldn't
kind of you know, the legs weren't as great as they once were,
and him and Jared Hurd just teed up and duked it out for twelve freaking
brutal rounds, and in the twelfth round it was Jared heard that scored by
the way he went against his He told the story about how his corner was
telling him to just you know, box him and play you know. I
don't know if they said they were playing safe, but you know, you're
good you won the fight, and he was not going to leave it the
chance. He's like, absolutely not, and he went out there and he
took it too. Lardie put him on the floor and that knockdown gave him
the victory and what was a split decision. So he defied his corner's instructions,
did what he felt he had to do, got the knockdown, won
a split decision. It was such a great fight, it turned out to
most people. I know. I picked it in the I think the I
can't remember if it was the Ring Magazine or BWA. There was a split
there, but it was picked by very very a lot of different outlets as
the twenty eighteen fight of the year. What's memorable besides that was on the
undercart there was a rematch between Caleb Truax and James de Gale in an IBF
title fight, and I was in that arena. You're much closer the way
they set up the media seats and even the fans, You're much closer to
the ring than usual. We were right on the ring basically, and when
the blood started flying from the cut on the Gale, I went all over
my arms, all over my laptop. It was all over us. In
the ring side, one of the guys I was sitting with was taking pictures
and has the picture of like my bloody arm with James de Gail's blood all
over me. Anyway, but the main event really stole the show that night.
Fantastic fight, and unfortunately, as I was knowing we were going to
talk about this, I just went back and I just had looked prior to
the to the show to sort of just look and see where Jared Heard had
gone since then. And you know what, it's fair to say, I
think that he has never been the same since. That's right, because he
suffered an injury shoulder I believe it was, and he had some time off.
He came back against like a very lower level opponent and he knocked him
out. But then he had the loss in the upset to Julian Williams,
which was a hometown fight for yes, Jared Hart, because he lives very
close to where I live, and so that fight took place in Fairfax,
Virginia, very close to where he is. It's like the closest possible venue
to my has like eight miles from my house. And he lost the hometown
fight to Williams. That was a great fight, bar type fight and Jay
Rock out fought him. Yeah, but then he lost. He got to
win over the very lesser opponent in Francisco Santana, and then he lost.
He lost to Arios, he lost to Razendez. You know, he came
back in December and you know, scored a win over a journey. But
the point is, ever since he became the number one fifty four pounder in
the world with the spectacular victory in the fight of the year, that took
a lot out of it, and he'd been a lot of tough fights before
that. He's now he's never been the same since that fight back in twenty
eighteen. But on that one night, he's the best fifty four pounder in
the world. He beat a very quality opponent in Arisloni Laara, and he
was on top of the world as the unified champ and it was a very
memorable experience to be at that fight. Good stuff on that and also a
birthday, a birthday for James Buster. Douglas Buster sixty four years young on
Sunday still holds the distinction of what's not just heavyweight. I think the greatest
upset in boxing history with that win Tyson I will go on, not just
heavyweights. I don't think anybody considered its boxing history period. So happy birthday,
Buster Douglas, because we're still talking about that Tyson win thirty four years
later. Wow, they'll talk about the Tyson win until the world doesn't exist
anymore. It's that memorable. I mean, you know, I often wonder
to myself, would you rather have been a guy that had the title for
a while but didn't really have a big name, a big fan base,
you know, and you just sort of went through and you know, you
had a nice career, or have that one glorious moment where you're the biggest
thing in the world. We've talked about this before. Buster Douglas overnight was
the single biggest name in the world, not just in sports. This was
a worldwide front page global story, not for one day, not for two
days, four weeks. He made a million appearances, He was on magazine
covers. Was it was unavoidable to see or hear about James Buster Douglas.
Obviously he let it go to his head to a certain degree because he didn't
really get himself prepared. Because eight months later, in his first defense and
a mandatory against Evander Holyfield. He did not come in shape, either physically
or mentally, and he got clipped and knocked out with an upper cut in
the third round. But for those eight months, there was not a bigger
name in sports than James Buster Douglas. And you know, he he fulfilled
a lot of promise that he had never shown before. And it was a
great victory. And you know what, I've seen Buster at some boxing events
in recent years. You know, they brought him out. For example,
he was part of a group of heavyweights that the promotion brought in to Los
Angeles when Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury had their first fight. They brought in
some past great champions. This was also around the time that ESPN was doing
their thirty for thirty doc about his upset of Tyson. I got a chance
to like talk tough for a few minutes, and and I had never met
him before until that time, and cool guy laid back. Understand the thing
that I'm glad about Buster is this, you know, it may not have
been easy to get there, but he understands his place in history. He
had the greatest night you could have as a professional athlete, and it didn't
last long. But he's not like tired of you know, I don't know
if like I don't know if a day goes by where it doesn't come up,
But he's he's used to it. He's okay with it. He doesn't
take it like this is what defines him as a human being, but it's
what will know him for. And he seems comfortable with that. And two
more quick things. He had health problems diabetes and had ballooned to like almost
four hundred pounds. There were serious concerns about his health. So he's gotten
back in better shape, lost weight, and lived a lot longer than what
A lot of people were concerned that Buster wasn't going to be with us back
that happened, yea't. He made a comeback to the boxing ring. That
was in the aftermath of that. But he did come back. I mean,
he was off after the holy Field fight for like six years, but
then he had a series of fights. He fought for a few more years
and obviously, you know, he finally ended where he got. He got
knocked out by lu Savaice in nineteen ninety eight. He fought two more times
than that was it. But after all those terrible health problems. He did
get himself together and he was good enough to be able to come back and
still have a career. And you know what else he's been doing. He's
been working with kids in Columbus, Ohio and boxing clubs and helping teach boxing
and giving back some Bravo Buster Douglas on that as well. Happy birthday to
him here as we wrap up the pot All right, so we've covered everything
the match rooms show, we covered the back room idle week. We heard
a little Devin Hainey here as he gets ready for Ryan Garcia. Anything else
off the weekend? Or are we good? Now? We're good? We're
good? Do I get a national title prediction? Yukon Purduance is Yukon back
to back? Here? It's ever? I think it's probably. I'll say
this, it's probably Yukon, and I guess I have to root for them
because my nephew is a freshman there well. And the other about that,
The other thing is it's a connection to Bobby Hurley and Duke Duke back to
back titles ninety one ninety two, Danny Hurley the coach, his brother,
his younger brother. What's gonna happen here? For Connecticut. Going back to
fact, Dan Rayfield, I appreciate it as always. I'll make my way
back from Arizona and we'll regroup later on in the week and have a preview
pod as well. For now, have a great week, my friend,
you too, enjoy the game. There you go, there's Dan Rayfield.
I'm merely TJ. Reeves. Thank you for being with us. We give
you this twice a week, Fight Freaks Unite, a recap coming off a
weekend, big fight week in preview going into the weekend. For now,
we are good. Hope you enjoyed everything here as part of the Fight Freaks
United Recap podcast. Everybody, have a great week.