Oh do we have a lot to talk about and go over. Sometimes ray
feel and I have to sell the show. Sometimes the show sells itself.
This would be an example of the show selling itself. Lots to get to
on the Fight Freaks Unite Recap podcast, I'm merely the somewhat competent host T
J. Reeves. He is our insider his Fight Freaks Unite substack. Ever
growing you need to subscribe to his Fight Street Effect Freaks Unite substack. Dan
ray Field also our insider from Bigfight Weekend dot com. It is the recap
podcast we have been anxious to do all throughout Sunday. You and I have
finally gotten together and have gotten all set up to record this. I've been
looking forward to it and so now whenever you're hearing us, thank you as
we release it overnight Sunday into Monday. So much to get to and we
will get to all of it. With Devin Haney retaining his lightweight titles in
a win over Vasili Loomachinko, that is still being debated and we'll probably be
debated for a while, including on this pod cast an upset win and yes
I saw you swatting people. Dan Rayphel. It was an upset win for
Shantell Cameron of England over Katie Taylor and her homecoming to Ireland. Cameron successfully
defends her undisputed titles. We're gonna get to that. We've got a little
bit of news off the weekend. We've got nostalgia and more. All Right,
how you feelings as we come off of this weekend with all the action
in the recap mode. I got a couple of things to say about that.
Number One, hide the women and children. There's gonna be enough bombs
tonight, there will be no I will be over under at seven and a
half. Can you keep it under? I'm gonna probably take the over.
You're gonna take the over. I'm checking them the bet you us. I'm
just I'm so, I'm so show. Yeah, I'm worked up. I'm
anxious to do this show. I'm cranky like a mother. Wait, just
before I pressed record, you said, missus Rayphel made a great meal to
night. Stir fry was delicious. Now you've got indigestion because you talking to
me. Now you're mad, Now you need pep. I'm not fired up
again about last night? Thank you? Yeah, cranky about about the post
fight commentary that we're gonna get to on the last night's event. Okay,
we got plenty. We got plenty on that. By the way, thank
you for finding us again, I say to the audience, thank you because
we continue to grow and grow and grow in audience and buy the thousands and
the thousands. Over the months of April and May, we have added more
audience. So thank you. Keep following, keep subscribing on this very podcast
feed, the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. We come your way with a
preview into the weekend, usually out overnight Thursday into Friday, recap overnight Sunday
into Monday. That consistency is paid off. You can't go more than three
or four days without Dan Raphael I always say, and you're gonna get in
right here here tonight is our insider. Okay. So with that, also
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a rating. Take thirty seconds and do that on Apple podcast. It will
help more and more find us like you already have. All Right, with
that out of the way, let's begin with the ESPN Top ranked show,
get right into it with the main event win for Devin Haney, a unanimous
decision win. I will say up front, I did not agree with it.
I know what you scored the fight. The floor is yours. Here
we go, folks, and start the counter on the f bombs, because
I don't know what's coming you and I don't rehearse this, so here we
go. Well, we didn't rehearsebout. What would you like to know to
start off with, because there's a lot to talk about. Where do we
want to Let's begin with decision to Devin Haney. Your initial reaction, you
thought it was a draw. So are you fine with a unanimous decision where
two judges gave it to him by one round and one judge gave it to
him by four rounds? Are you fine with that? I am fine with
Devin Haney winning the fight close. Like you said, I thought it was
a draw. And by the way, we discussed this many times on the
show. What I like to refer to it, I'm not the only one
the so called range of acceptable scores because not everybody's going to agree. That's
why there's judges. That's the whole point. It is a subjective situation.
If everybody agreed exactly, what fun would that be? But sometimes it gets
the point where it's so fucking absurd. Oh there's number one, so absurd.
Let me let me back up for a quick second. I don't consider
this in the top thousand controversial decisions I've seen. I don't consider it controversial.
You can consider Dave Moretti's is one sixteen and one twelve score card controversial
because it's stunk out loud and frankly not because he scored at eight to four
for Haney. I don't like that. I don't think I think that's a
little outside the margin. I believe the margin of acceptable scores is seven to
five either way or a draw. That seems based on my watching the fight,
and I rewatched it again on Sunday afternoon, that's the range of acceptable
cards. Murready, who has been a great judge for many years, it's
probably time to put him out to the baster because now this is the second
week in a row he's turned in that's been or not. I shouldn't say
second week, and I grow second big fight that they're in a row that
he's turned in some cought garbage. There's the scorecard that I'm gonna get to
on this fight. He's also the judge, if you remember, in the
knockdown round in Ryan Garcia against Tank Davis, he scored that round ten to
ten, which I'm still at a he still cannot fathom I understand the judge
that scored the round ten to nine in favor of of favor of Tank Davis
because the Garcia had so dominated the ten ten by bye mready blows my mind.
What more blows my mind is now if you fast forward to Saturday,
and this is why if there is so called controversy again, it's not on
the one sixteen one twelve, it's how we got to one sixteen to one
twelve. The devil's in the details. It's one thing to see a score,
it's another thing to look at the actual round by round scoring and find,
you know, the gotcha round if you will, what I and others
I've had this conversation with my poundbacks Kellerman many times over the years. The
smoking gun round, if you will, the smoking gun round on Maddy's piece
of shit squarecard is he scored the tenth round ten nine in favor of Devin
Haney, which and I'm looking at the squarecard, and I still can't actually
believe that that is the case, because that is the single most absurd squarecard
I've ever seen. Now, there's rounds that are obviously close, and people
can disagree fair enough, and that happens all the time, But there are
certain rounds that are so fucking dominant that if you scored for the other fighter,
you're either again to use the manacular of my old colleague and pal Teddy
the Alice, you're either corrupted or you or you're or you're stupid. So
I'm not sure which is worse. To score the tenth round in favor of
Devin Haney, even though I thought he won the you know that that even
though he on the fight and I thought it was a draw. Overall that
was in the entire twelve rounds, Vassili Loomachenko had two super dominant rounds out
of the twelve, two super dominant rounds, no doubt about it who the
winner of that round was. One of them was round ten, which he
gave to Haney, and the other one was even more dominant, which is
round eleven, where again compy box in terms of a guy to the fight
out landed him twenty to two, and it felt like that watching the fight.
I actually thought it was even a little more lopsided when I was watching
it back. So to give Devin Haney that round ten to nine and then
come up with one sixteen to one twelve in his favor, that's a real
problem. If he had scored that round correctly, which the other two judges
did, right I did, which most people, as scores I saw and
people who I respected you would have he would have had the fight seven rounds
to five in favor of Haney. If he has the fight seven to five
and it's seven to five across the board, I don't think there'd be the
kind of outrage is But people get so hull up on the one Shiit squorecard
that is sort of clouds and their judge another viewpoint on the entire event.
And I would say to you, I, even though I think the card
was bad, again not because he had it eight four, but because he
had an eight four in the way that he arrived at eight four, How
did he get there? Right? How did he get to it? But
okay, okay, here, while we're on one of the reasons, that's
one of the reasons why you have three judges because the other two judges had
it seven rounds to five, so no matter what Moretti's card was, but
didn't have an impact on the result of the fight. I'm WILLI on Nette.
What do you make because we're right here on it. What do you
make of what Egis Kleimus said after the fight, which is they were complaining
privately and they didn't do this publicly, but they were complaining Wednesday. They
were complaining three days before the fight that they did not want Dave Moretti as
one of the judges, and the Vegas Commission told him, nope, we
believe in Kleimus's words at the press conference last night, he's one of the
best judges we have and they were furious on Wednesday about this judge. What
do you make of that revelation that we found out about after the fight?
Well, there's there's Oftentimes you have a particular camp that is for whatever reasons
that they have, whether they're real or imagine, that they don't want a
particular judge assigned to their fight. Same goes sometimes for certain referees to assigned
the fights. If that referee or judge has a past history with that fighter
or a fighter in that manager or promoter stable or something along those lines.
I'm not sure particularly what egis Is particular objection to Mareddi was. I've known
Egas, you know, pretty much since the day he's been in boxing.
I'm sure that whatever his reason was, again real are perceived there, there
was something in his mind that was a reason he didn't arbitrarily just say I
don't want Dave Mereddi. Maybe it's the Davis Garcia. Maybe it's the Davis
Garcia controversy, even though it is a knockout and its other recent cards too,
but he brought it up. We did not want doubt judge. I
mean, I'm not going to speak for Egis s clemus, but I would
imagine the reason is nothing to do with Thank Davis or Ryan Garcia. That
if we went back and we searched past fights that involved Agas's top clients,
whether it was previous Machenko fight or maybe start get clov Left fight, or
you know, Alexander Voodzik fight, or you know any number of boxers that
Gas has worked with over the years, there is something there that, for
whatever reason, he did not care for now the commission with the people should
understand this. The Commission picks the judges and the referees in the following manner.
What they will do is before the fight happens, they will present to
both sides the pool of the possible selections. So they'll go to the Lomachenko
camp, they'll go to the handicamp, and then they will show their side.
Here are the three referees we're considering. Here are like a pool of
maybe it might be six judges were considering, and out of those three reffs
obviously will pick one, and out of those six judges will pick three.
And at that time, this again, this is weeks before the fight,
are you know, several days or you know, certainly within a reasonable timeframe
where they're allowed to give their objections and sometimes the Commission if it's if they
take it to be reasonable, they'll take that under consideration. And then when
they get to the Wednesday meeting, that jud's reference to actually make the assignments.
It's already known what's going to happen. Pretty much, that's just sort
of the rubber stamp and they make those decisions. So if there was an
objection to Dave Moreddi from theas from Eggas Clemis and Lomachenko's camp. That would
have been something that the Commission would have known about, not on Wednesday.
They would have known about that well before Wednesday. Wednesday was just a day
that formal assignment was made. I'm not aware of what the rational was or
the reason why they objected. Tom Ready, I just said to you the
reasons why I suspect it probably was. I don't make a lot of that.
Dave Meready has gotten a lot of top assignments for many, many years.
I'm not even upset about the assignment per se. I'm still annoyed about
the situation that occurred in the ten ten round. But he showed with that
round last night. It reminded me of the smoking gun round in quote Marks,
you gotta go back. This is before I was even writing about boxing
nineteen ninety nine. Let's talk about the round I can't remember was the fourth
round or the third round or the fifth round in the first fight between Evander
Holyfield and Lennox Lewis for the undisputed the Way title and the New Jersey Judge
Eugenia Williams gave you know, I believe it was holy Field a round in
which Lennox Lewis had probably his best round of the fight and just totally dominated
and then because of that it ended up being one of the reasons why that
fight turned out to be a draw, which has gone down as literally one
of the single worst decisions in the history of professional boxing. The Devin Haney
scoring and getting the close decision against Lamachenko. It does not come in the
same stratosphere, universe, galaxy whatsoever compared to what happened in Holy Field against
Lenox number one. So again back to the scoring of that round, that's
the problem. But I will say in the overall scheme of things, as
much as that round being scored in favor of Haney stinks too high heaven,
it didn't actually change the result of the fight, which sometimes it can if
there's a swing round like that. Of course, it can also the outcome.
But when you take the other two judges, David Sutherland from Oklahoma who
has worked a lot of fights recently and the Vada and Is I think,
based off the top of my head, done a very good job. And
Tim Cheatham, who was one of the best young judges in boxing in my
opinion. He also had that fight seven rounds to five in favor of Debon
Haney. I don't have a problem with that. Again, I had a
six to six, but their work close rounds. Bernardo Osuona, my my
good Pala, long time colleague from ESPN, was talking about I believe it
was on the post fight show where you know, and he does sort of
what I do you take your scores if you were putting him on paper or
typing him into your your laptop or whatever, and you'll make an exclamation point
or a circle. What's the close round? He said in this fight he
had seven circles because there was that many close grounds. So if there's that
many close rounds, and theoretically they can go either way to come up with
seven to five or even eight four for either side, it's not outrageous.
I saw a couple of people whose opinions I respect that added eight four for
Lomachenko. I don't agree with that, but I don't think that's like crazy
talk. That's not, you know, tinfoil on your head kind of thing.
All right, So on this subject, I had it for the Big
Fight weekend card at seven to five, and I thought Lomachenko won the twelfth
round. I know the Comfy Box numbers show that Haney landed more, but
I thought listen the twelfth round. Okay, close round. I understand,
close round, but I thought Lomachenko won the last three rounds live on my
card. Just as you said, I've rewatched it now, and once you
once you know what's happened, it's different. You know this. We all
know this. Okay, so we we we rewatch, we see what we
see, we know what's coming. Uh. What's interesting here is you mentioned
Cheatham and Sutherland, and it's always funny. I'm just saying this. I
don't know him. Whenever you hear the name Cheatham and it's a judge or
somebody's supposed to be a partial, and that's how you pronounced the name,
It's just it reminds me of Archie Bunker in the old sitcom and his lawyers.
Uh, it was either Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz or do we cheat
him? And how that's that's it's lawyers. It was Tim Cheatham. Again.
I'm sure I'm not like best buddies with Tim Cheatham. I do know
Tim Cheatham. We are friendly with one another when we see each other once
in a blue moon. Uh, you know, not about judging, but
about because we're both boxing fans, you know, we'll message one another once
and again once in a blue mood. But Tim is a very knowledgeable boxing
person. I think generally speaking, he's done a fine job. He's been
he's he's started on the ground level like a lot of these judges. He's
worked his way up and to get these made event assignments, and he's done
a hell of a job in my opinion. All Right, So Cheatham and
Sutherland both had Haney up by a point entering the twelfth round. So and
by the way, every boat gave Haney the twelfth round. And I was
about to say that it was everything that Haney won that round on their cards,
because had they given it to Loma Chenco, you have a majority draw.
You have two judges that would have scored the fight one fourteen, one
fourteen, and even if okay, even if only one of them gave the
round to Loma Chenco the twelfth, then Haney wins by majority decision. He
would have gotten two of the cards, which would be okay right now?
Would most people would be okay with that? Okay? So in any event,
let me make one of their statement here, by the way, if
this is the case an enemy championship fight, if the champion gets a draw,
he keeps the title. It's like, that's part of what your benefit
is of being the champion. You're not going to lose your belt. Even
if you get the drawing your record, it would still be the undisputed champ,
even if the two judges that you mentioned were scored that round in favor
of Lomachenko. But again it is subjective. That round was close enough where
could have gone either way. There was a bunch of rounds in the early
going that could have gone either way. There was not that many definitive rounds.
There was the two rounds and I said, we're definitive for Lomachenko except
for the tenth round in terms of the opinion of Dave Moretti. And there
was a couple of rounds for Haney also earlier in the round in the fight
where they were not dominating rounds, but they were clearly he was the guy
that was doing the work and the damage. And I just but there wasn't
a lot of close rounds. Again, I just thought, though we've always
heard this and always talked about this, go win the last two or three
rounds, and andre Ward was talking about that on the coverage. He said,
I consider the last three rounds ten, eleven, and twelve the championship
rounds, and I thought Lomachenko was the better fighter overall and in all three
of those rounds. So to not even get one of the cards, that's
obviously a bitter pill too. Just is why doesn't mean shit. And the
reason it doesn't mean shit is because listen, Jake, if you win round
one, tenth to nine, close, and you and the other guy wins
the twelfth round, big, guess what, it's still won. The one
that's true. We'll forget. People thought you were scoring twelve individuals under I
understand that, but also we remember what we see last. We also talk
about Finnish strong. I thought it was interesting too that Bill Haney in the
corner was telling Devin Haney, you're winning the fight. He told him that
in between the ninth round, and in between the ninth and tenth, and
in between the tenth and the eleventh, I told him the same thing that
that was the worst. That was the worst advice I've ever heard. And
so and so there you go on that point, because again you want to
finish strong, to put the last impression on the judges. So we'll see,
uh, you know, will the ultimate the ultimate part of this is
it was that close of a fight on two of the three cards that the
eleventh and the twelfth rounds both mattered immensely. I'll tell you what else that
is undeniable on this there's one fighter and as much and I'm gonna splot back
at you as much as you were on me about he is he passed his
prime? Is he at the end of his prime? Let me ask you
this, who looked like the fresher fighter at thirty five years of age in
the final three rounds of that fight. Who looked I'm not going back hold
on, who looked like he was back on his heels, who was scoring
with combinations? Who was one shot at a time? I thought Loma Chinko
was the fresher, better fighter at the end of the fight, and that
surprised me a little bit that he had more left at the at the end
of But again, and you're talking to the guy that had the fight,
even whether he looked fresher and was walking the bigger guy down at the end
of the fight, the winning the round is still only worth ten points,
the same way it was when Hay was winning like round four in a close
round. It's math, it's twelve individual fights. It doesn't matter unless're getting
knocked down there or something to make it ten eight. It's still going to
be ten nine. And so the people that are freaking out like this is
some kind of like cosmic robbery. This is Pernell Whittaker getting hoseable win against
man Pachial getting robbed by by the judges. For Tim Brown, this is
again not even in the same stratosphere. Because even the people that think that
Loma Chenko won I think acknowledge it was a closest fight. No one's saying,
well, it's one thing if you thought Loma won ninety three and they
gave it to the other guy seven five, this is not that case.
Well, Loma won a close fight. Yeah, the rounds there was like
six or seven close rounds, and Hainy happened to get the scorers on the
rounds. Uh. He was the one that for a large measure of the
fight was making the fight. And yes, you're right, at the end
of the fight he maybe got a little tired, whatever the case, or
maybe there was some desperation from Loma Chenco that he's the one that was coming
forward. But even Loma Chenco, I think I saw something where he said
in his post fight press covers that he thought he was winning any kind of
backed off in the twelfth round. And if he did that, then that
makes him a fucking idiot, because you don't back off in a fight like
that and challenge, especially when you're the challenger trying to take the belts.
So if that's the case and he thought that was the case, he's ahead
and he backs off in round twelve, that's just as terrible as Bill Haney's
telling his son, you know you're winning the fight, because it was that
close. There was no indication there was going to be a knockout. Neither
guy was damaged in terms of being dropped or were badly the injured or anything
like that. That was a tight, tight, high level fight. I
thoroughly enjoyed it. The bullshit about the scoring I find to be people just
don't have anything fucking better to do with their time on a Sunday heading home.
Are you it's not that hippy? You were in there used to be
a night club buck in the day. I hated the doors and all some
Hollian's in there. I remember this one time. The belt Out podcast lets
you pose your day on press play on Northern Ireland stories, a fresh perspective
on the most talked about topics. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts,
Belfast Telegraph, tell it like it is well, but I'll tell you but
I'll tell you this. The lack of accountability is another problem. We sat
here seven days ago and talking about Tony Weeks and the early stoppage in the
Romero Barroso fight. This is the same commission, the Nevada State Athletic Commission,
that didn't make him available and basically has no accountability, won't say anything,
no accountability, And so now you've got the same thing going on here.
Where where's the accountability on this judge that they're going to sanction him.
I thy gonna let him still be a judge. Where's the accountability? I
ask out to everybody, not just you, and what do you think of
that? I think there should be accountability. Now that is a totally separate
that is wanting to have an accountability from Dave Maddy is one thing. And
by the way, and I'm not like a lunatic, I don't expect there
to be like, you know, insane statements and lots of the discussion.
I believe it is reasonable to allow the commission and the judge to have a
conversation or do whatever they do. And it doesn't have to be on Saturday
night or Sunday morning. You know, if it was on Monday or Tuesday,
that'd be fine in my mind. But here's the point though, the
accountability and expectations of accountability as related to that one particular squarecard, that is
one topic for discussion, and I agree with that there should be some accountability.
That is different than thinking it's a controversial decision because one squarecard seemed a
little fishy, but the other two were perfectly reasonable. And again, if
you win on two scorecards, you win in the fight, regardless of what
the third judge says. So if it doesn't alter the outcome, loma Chenko
is still gonna lose the fight. Hany's still gonna win the fight. So
that's why it's ridiculous. The focus of the controversy is because one card was
eight four instead of seven to five, had Dave Moreddy had scored a tenth
round for Haney but came up somehow with a draw on his card, or
seven five for Loma or seven five for Haney, we wouldn't be having this
conversation. Everybody would have been maybe annoyed that they thought Loma one. But
I think most people could reasonably accept a Loma Chenko lost by split decision or
Haney win by a majority decision. They're pissed off because there was an eight
four squarecard in a fight where it didn't change the outcome of the fight.
I'll give you an example. A number of years ago I covered the fight
and that's that wasn't It was a very close fight, and that's a great
fight. The first fight in Atlantic City between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez,
tremendous battle. This is before the rematch when he not when Paul Williams knocking
out in the second round. In that fight, most people would say that
was a super close fight. They exchanged knockdowns, great matchup, two scorecards
where you know, extremely close. Paul Williams ended up winning. I forget
if it was a majority or a really close unanimous decision. One judge including
in a round in a fight where Martinez knocked Paul Williams down, had it
eleven rounds to one in favor of Paul Williams. You don't want to talk
about hot garbage, hot fucking garbage. That was it. That was ridiculous.
So the result wasn't I mean, if you thought that Pauliams one,
fine, but there was no way you could have that fight eleven rounds to
one. This is sort of a similar situation, just not nearly as wide.
And obviously this was a fight on a much higher profile, let's say.
And the outrage I think is more so because a lot of the people
that are in the camp on this believe Lomachenko won the fight. However,
we get there, split decision, unanimous decision. He deserved to have his
hand raise, and look forget about you and me. I mean, there
were there were numerous numerous current fighters, I mean over and over again,
current fighters, former great fighters, that we're all saying the same thing.
Lomachenko won that fight. I mean Oscar dal la Joya, who does not
have either one of these fighters, is sitting ringside and he said, if
you think that Devin Hanny won that fight. You don't know crapola about boxing.
Regis Progray chimes in and says, horrible, Lomachenko won Abner Marez two
division world champ. Who's the showtime commentator again? They don't have anything to
do with this. It's a top ranked card, they're fighters. He said,
I don't ever do this on Twitter. That that's a bad distivision world
champion, free division world champion, forgive me, and on and on It
went last night with one current or former world champion fighters saying Lomachenko won the
fight. Forget about t J. That's guys that have been in the ring
and have one titles and lost titles saying this is who won. All right?
So let's because I want to bring it to other things on the podcast,
we could talk for another thirty minutes on this. Let's bring it to
go longer. Where do we go from here? Because many are saying they
should fight again, and it's complicated because Haney may want to move up.
Haney is now a promotional free agent. So where do we go from here?
What is your tank on that? Do we want to see it again?
Do you want to see it again? Dan Raphael? I mean I
wouldn't. I'm truggly not opposed to a rematch. I mean, I understand
if Haney wants to do something different. This was a mandatory fight that satisfied
one of the organization's mandatory situation. There was no rematch clause whether Hany won
or Loma Chango won, so that was fine. This would be the kind
of fight where if there was a rematch, it wouldn't be because there was
something, not a piece of paper. This would because there would be public
demand, and obviously that would mean a financial windfall and all that. Look,
they sold a place out according to the top rank. It was a
complete sell on fourteen thousand plus fourteen four at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
I am not opposed to a senior rematch. I rather enjoyed the fight.
If they wanted to do rematch, fine. Obviously there's a built in storyline
to promote the fight with which is the perceived controversy about what happened in the
first fight. And by the way, it was a good fight to watch.
If you bought it and you watched that fight, you were having to
be satisfied with the action and all that. But I doubt it's going to
happen because Haney is I think probably gonna move up. I mean, I
can't say that for sure, but there's so many other fights that he can
make potentially in the weight class that would be for similar money and give him
a chance to fight somebody different. You know, Loma had his chance,
and he's the one that said he took the twelfth round off and that's his
fault. He was in tears after and I kind of took that as maybe
this was my last big hurrah here I may not get another shot like this.
How did you take that when you saw the tears in the in the
locker room after, well, he explained it. I heard Christina Poncher,
who does a great job behind the scenes doing the ringside reporting in the locker
room reporting on the top rank. She said that that the reason is as
a woman had said to her that numerous times during the pilled up to the
fight and on the day of the fight, he was getting messages from his
son who kept saying, remember Dad, and the new and the new.
In other words, he was expecting to bring the belts home to his son,
and that the tears game because he felt that he had disappointed his family
and didn't do that. And I'm sure, look, there's a lot of
pressure in this situation. I mean, he kind of let it all go
at once. I mean, fighters, uh, you know, half their
job is to make the other fighter in the ring think they're not hurt,
you know, hiding their emotions, hiding their feelings. And it got to
a point where it sort of bubbled over for him. And you know,
she was doing an interview with Bill Haney as they're showing Loma Chenko sitting down
on the couch in the dressing room and rubbing his eyes and breaking down,
and then you couldn't see who it was, but somebody else realized that camera
was on him and walked over to Loma and just tossed one of the towels
over his head. That was a real kind of a rent, I wrote
on Twitter. That was like a wrenching scene. I mean, you know,
and you got to make the point that these guys are not robots when
they go in the ring. Womachenko, you know, has been like a
robot in terms of the way he goes gone about taking care of his business
for all these years. But he's flesh and Blood's a human being. He's
got emotions, he's got feelings. Obviously, he was extremely disappointed. He's
worked very hard for this moment, as did Dead and Hainey, and they
are people. We all have our feelings and our emotions and it's sort of
spilled out. He's just happened to take place in front of the camera as
opposed to in private, you know, in the locker room or in a
dressing room, or in his hotel room or wherever. So I don't think
he's I think Womachenko is gonna still continue to box. He didn't show any
reason and after last night why he shouldn't continue to fight. He's still,
in my opinion, a great fighter is going to be a first ballot Hall
of Famer. I've you know, covers entire career. He's a tremendous fighter.
But as far as what Haney's gonna do, you mentioned he's a free
agent. If he had three fight deal with Top Rank and lou Debella,
that is now up here, the two Cambos, his fights, and now
this fight. Um look. Top Rank obviously has the horses for him to
fight. They've got guys at lightweight, They've got plenty of guys at junior
welter, right, if he opts to move up, which I think he
probably would do based on his weight making situation, but the number of opponents
that are out there for him that can be made within just forget about fighting
a Tank Davis or a Ryan Garcia or someboding like that that's outside of the
top ranked universe. I mean, look at the guys I have in and
around the weight class. Certainly at one hundred and forty they've got the Tiefemo
Josh Taylor winner or loser, depending out the fight goes. They have still
Arnold Barboza, they have Jose Ramirez. I mean, they've got they've got
guys in one hundred forty pound weight class, and at one thirty five,
obviously Loe was there. If they wanted to do a rematch, they asked,
of course Stevenson, who was one of the top lightweights in the world,
if not maybe the maybe a guy that would be favored to beat Devin
Haney. Frankly, he's a mandatory in the WBC. That's a great matchup.
Let me put this out there and don't call me crazy. Just on
the surface, he's a promotional free agent. He's the undisputed one hundred and
thirty five pound champ. Why don't you figure it out with Jervonte Davis for
this fall at some point. Obviously Davis in the short term has the ninety
day home, confinement house, asked, whatever you want to call it.
But even if you have to go do a one off, which we've seen
Canelo Alvarez doing and we've seen others doing, Even if you have to go
do a one off with premier boxing champions in showtime, you have all the
belts, you arguably are the A side in that fight. To negotiate right
now, that is not well. But I mean, if you have all
the belts in this discussion in terms of leverage, I mean, here's the
understand box office. I understand what you mean on box office, but just
on belts. On my point here, that would be a humungous, lucrative
fight for Devin Haney and he's now freedom make it, and he's got all
the belts. You're correct, crazy in boxing, you are the A side
because and I'm not. I have nothing but respect for Devin Haney. I
love the kid money Trump's belts. When you're dealing in the business side of
things, But here's the point though, they both bring something very important to
the party. Devin Haney brings the hardware. He's the fucking champ, that's
right, end of the story. And it's Givanti Davis who's the mandatory challenger
because he happens to have the second tier WBA belt. So that's a mandatory
the same way Shakoor is a WBC mandatory. Now, Givanta Davis, he
brings the power of the of the economics. He's the one, along with
Ryan Garcia, that did a twenty two point eight million dollars gate at the
Team of Arena the gate now even though they sold out at the MGM according
to top Right, I haven't seen what the gate figures are, but I'd
be willing to bet you that the dollar figure. Keep in mind twenty two
point eight million for Tank and Ryan, the gate at the MGM for Loma
and Tiney sold out, I would estimate would probably be under five million.
That's a big difference. It might even be four million. That's a very
very big difference in must in money. Secondly, the pay per view for
Davis versus Garcia one point two million buys the first million plus pay per view.
We've seen him boxing in a long time, other than Roy Jones,
Mike Tyson exhibition. The pay per view for uh, Lomachenko and Haney.
Now, they're not going to announce the numbers, but I would bet you
pretty much anything that if it's a Grand Slam, the first number of that
pay per view will start with a two, which means on a good day,
Davis versus uh, Davis versus Garcilia did roughly a million buys more.
So don't talk to me about fucking a side, because he's got the belts,
the guy that brings the money. This is a business and a sport,
but business Trump's all. All I meant that it could be done.
All I meant by that at one thirty five is he could fight somebody else
like Shakur Stevenson and defend all of his titles. So from a leverage standpoint,
he has something that Jervonte Davis would want. He has four some things
all at once that Jervonte Davis would want if Davis wants, I will say
this, but I'm not sure that Davis wants them. Gervonta Davis. Again,
I'm not knocking his competitive spirit, but he hasn't really shown a desire
and this is just is based on the facts, not in my opinion,
because if he did, he would have gone after certain other opponents. He's
not really shown much to a really want or a hunger, let's say,
to have the real world title bouts. I'm not saying he wouldn't like to
be a champion, but for him, and this is fine, I'm not
knocking this. Don't take this the wrong way. For him, it seems
as though making the bigger events for the money is a bigger dealfeno. He's
talked about this just while we're on this and then I promise we're moving on,
but he is more I'm not done yet, but hold on. He
has talked though, too, about one of the reasons he was upset with
Mayweather Promotions is that the fights became Isaac Cruz and Roli Romero and where's the
blockbuster fight? Okay, now he's had a blockbuster fight, kids. You
know this, kids, An undisputed world title fight right now with an unbeaten
Devin Haney off of beating Lomachenko is a blockbuster fight. To me, sitting
back hearing you say that, I mean, that's crazy. That you wouldn't
want that fight if it could be made, and the impet a mint of
top rank roadblock is apparently not there for the fight to be made. If
Haney wants to do the one off and come over to them at Premiere Boxing
Champions in showtime, they can make that happen. I'm not saying it will
happen. It's I'm not I'm not knocking that fight. I'd love to see
that fight. I think that would be a fantastic fight, and I hope
that Devin Haney gives out a lot of thought and maybe he goes to talk
to them about the possibility. But it takes two to tango and Davis is
gonna want to do the fight. Also, they're gonna and they're not gonna
be able to listen. We've discussed this at length before. Ryan Garcy ate
a lot of shit to make that fight happen. I know Devin Haney also.
And while Devin Haney may have an intellectual understanding that Tank brings a little
more or a lot more more, frankly, in terms of the dollars and
cents he brings the titles. Ryan didn't bring titles to their fight, but
Haney does bring a lot, So you're not gonna be able to push Haney
around in the in the boardroom the way they were able to push Ryan Garcia
around. He wanted this fight. You're gonna have to treat the Devin Haney
a little bit differently. He's not gonna eat as much shit as Ryan did.
That's number one. Number two. If you're and Haney, you basically
had the walk year that Aaron Judge had. Aaron Judge was going to be
a free agent, he said all the records with the or the American League
home run record, had you know, one of the great single season in
the Major League Baseball history, and became the MVP, and and had bet
On himself turned out a big giant contract New York hank in the spring training
of that season, and then you know ended up getting like whatever one hundred
million dollars plus more in the contract. Well, Devin Haney did boxing's equivalent
because he'd just beat Lomachenko. He previously went to Australia twice and became undisputed
and defended the title, and here you now have a unite at a unified,
undisputed lightweight world champion, American undefeated fighter now a free agent only twenty
four years old, who fights in the lightweight division, which is loaded,
definitely can fight in the junior welterweight division, which is loaded, and now
he can go where he wants to go. So he has a tremendous amount
of leverage. And it would seem to me that every promoter top rank included
the Natchroom Boxing Golden Boy Frank gar a PBC. I mean, you pick
pick one of the top, you know, the top tier promoters in the
sport, you'd think they would all be chasing that after this kid, he
can sit back and see what happens. He's obviously not going to fight obviously
for a few months and take a little rest. But he is sitting in
the cowbird seat unhappy for him, you know. And this is not a
kid that came out. This is not a guy that came into the pros
with a big bonus out of the Olympics and was coddled by a promoter and
featured in four rounders on TV and had all the trappings of a bonus baby,
if you will, a first round draft pick. This was a kid
who with his father, did things the hard way. After a really nice
amateur career but not one that ultimately ended up in the Olympics, went to
Tijuana, Mexico and fought and bars for like a few hundred dollars and he
and they built this themselves. And you have to give Devin and his father
Bill credit. They saw this, they built it, They believed in themselves.
They created their own company. They got a wonderful break from our friends
at Showtime, Gordon Hall, who put them on show Box and helped him
get some mainstream exposure. He parlayed that to a big deal with match Room
Boxing, who gave him a bunch of fights for a lot of money.
He was able to win a world title a Lomachenko walked away from a mandatory
to fight Tifimo Lopez. Instead, he defended the title, defended the title,
and now finally he gave loma Chenko the shot. He's now made eight
title defenses, he's undisputed, has made two undisputed title defenses, and like
I said, he's twenty four, he's undefeated, and he's got the world
at his feet. He's gonna make the shipload of the money next and whether
it can get a deal done with the Javata Davis, or he goes to
a Ryan Garcia, or he stays with Top Ring and does the TV femo
a Taylor winner, or he gives Lomachenko a rematch, or whatever. He's
in a wonderful position. I'm gonna finish up by simply saying, David Ready
Square cards stunk out loud because of the tenth round, but I don't consider
the overall result to be controversial at all. I scored a draw. I
got no problem with Haney having his hand raised. Fair enough. All right,
we'll move on rest of the top ranked card. We will talk about
Shantell Cameron's upset win over Katie Taylor, and then a little news and a
little Instaligia before we're done. Rest of the top ranked card, where just
to run it down, win for Oscar Valdez by decision, win for Raymond
Murataya, who you talked a lot about on the preview, by stoppage,
which here we go again where that to me looked like a premature stoppage,
and earlier in the evening, Juneto Nakatani ends up dominating Andrew Maloney for the
WBO Superplyweight title and a devastating knockout, which we will get into a scary
situation with that knockout. So give me more on the undercard fights. What
do you like off the buffet? Go okay? Well, if you go
down to the co feature, which was Oscar Valdez, I thought it was
the perfect kind of fight to get him ready for the was probably gonna be
the August championship opportunity against Emmanuel Navarette. Remember they were supposed to fight in
February, but Valdez was injured and he ended up not doing the fight and
we saw a Navarette instead fight the replacement for the vacant title against I was
trying to be a great fight against Liam Wilson from Australia. Valdez watched the
ringside knowing he's gonna have a comeback fight, shake off the rust, make
sure his injury is good, and they're going to fight this summer, and
fighting Adam Lopez was the perfect kind of fight. I thought, you know,
I don't I know that Oscar didn't want the year off. It was
caused largely because of the injury, but I think the year off thirteen months
did him good. He looked recharge, he looked refreshed. He looked sharp,
his jab was snappy, he had good movement, his punches were all
there. I mean, obviously he's fighting Adam Lopez, not an elite fighter,
but Lopez is a tough as nail's guy. They had fought once before
in twenty nineteen on short notice, when Lopez moved up the cart into the
main event and scored a knockdown in that fight, ultimately got a stoppage.
But in this right look, he dominated. He won like you know,
eight of the rounds, probably in the ten, got in the good work,
shook off the rust. It was a it was a good one sided
fight to watch. Lopez is a very tough kid, and so Oscar is
now moving on to the world title fighter. So this was like the perfect
sort of way to do that. You know, a big spot, solid
opponent, a guy that you know that he was able to handle. I
thought, look sharp, seemed to come away with no problems, no injuries.
And you know, I expect top rank and then never at people and
dal does to get this done, and we're gonna see a tremendous battle between
those two guys. Come now you talk about the moratime fight. He was
stepping up. He's a lightweight Robert Garcia train stepping up against Jeremiah Jeremiah Akatia.
From that Nidia, who has thought some good guys and experience and has
a lot of fights under his belt, had pretty much ended the craveman Guilbert
Shelt, you know in his previous two fights ago. And you say that
you think that was premature. All I know is this, Raymond Martie hit
him with the right hand. I believe it was forced him into the corner,
had him hurt bad on the one shot, and then proceeded and I
went back in counter. I believe it was eight unanswered punches, all eight
of which landed, and his head was rocked around with a rag. Though,
and to call that a premium store premature stoppage, to me is just
bizarre. That was a stoppage that, if anything, I thought it could
have been stopped. The punch before it was stopped. The guy was badly
hurt. He threw a cross in the corner, he threw a punch back,
and he hadn't been knocked down. And look, we agree eight unanswered
punches. I would rather see it stopped a punch sooner than a punch later,
we're gonna get to that with Nakatani coming up. But to me,
he hadn't been knocked down. You know what, we have never discussed this
in a year of doing these. I've talked to you like more than I've
talked to my wife in the last year. What's wrong with me in a
year of doing these. We are both contemporaries and we're old enough. Whatever
happened to the standing eight count? Whatever happened to I know, whatever happened
to jumping between a guy that's getting belted along the ropes but isn't down and
saying, Okay, I'm gonna give you the count of eight like it's a
knockdown. I'm gonna evaluate you, and I'm gonna give you one more chance
here and then I'm going to stop the fight that used to exist, that
doesn't exist anymore. I understand that it's not in the rule book. I
understand that most of them have been done away with it. But this was
a perfect example where those could This is a perfect example where he had not
been knocked down, where if you gave him a standing eight, you could
evaluate him and maybe you just stop the fight while you're giving him the eighth,
but there's no reason to try. You either stop the fight or you
let it go. If you if you feel it's enough, if the guy's
not on his ass and you feel like it's a time to step in,
you're not stepping into a value. You're stepping into stop. Okay, can
fight. One more point on this, because we love going back and forth.
Nakatia throws a punch right as the referee jumps between him, and Nakatia
is immediately protesting, So he's not that incoherent where he's on the verge of
getting seriously hurt. If A he's throwing a punch and b he's protesting one
second after the fight's being waved off. That's all I'm saying is that there
wasn't a knockdown to me, and it wasn't obvious he's in imminent danger.
Of what we saw in the Nakatani fight, I thought he was coming in
danger just because he was able to get a half as week punchback. He
was absolutely getting his clock clean. He'd been staggered by a right hand,
He'd been hit seven or eight times cleanly. He stayed up on his speed
fair enough. The standing account does not exist. If you're going to step
in, you stop it and you're out of valuating. And to me,
it was the right stoppage. He was gonna get badly hurt in my opinion,
and I thought Martia, he went next for him, and he did.
He made it. What's next. He's the first guy to stop the
man now, Maritaia, I love the audacity, he said in the interview
after the fight. I want the winner of the main event. Obviously that's
not going to happen. But I like the kids. Uh. I like
his He's not aiming low. He's looking at the top. So tomorrow I
don't know if that's happening either. Look, I've been a fan of Retia
for a long time. He's cut in and under the radar prospect for top
rank because he wasn't a kid that came in with these you know, crazy
glittering amateur uh credentials. He's not a big or at least he hasn't been
a big, outspoken kind of guy. Uh. He just goes in there.
He looked a little inconsistent at times in some certain fights, even though
he was winning. But I feel like now that with that kind of victory
against Zach Solid of an opponent, you're gonna start seeing him on television in
the main card, like in the opener, Let's say, over the next
couple of fights, and look, he fights in a great division also at
lightweight, I think the top rank of you know, with the advisement of
Robert Garcia, who does a great job getting his guy's already, uh,
the kids, he's going places. It seems like he's gonna be right in
the thickest things in a great division. That seems over the next you know,
a couple of years, all right. Nakatani from Japan remains unbeaten,
wins the WBO one hundred and fifteen round title over a game and probably two
game for his own good Andrew Maloney of Australia. So we built this up
that he was trying to join his brother and win a world championship seven days
apart from his brother Jason winning the week before in Stockton, California, winning
the one hundred and eighteen pound w BO title. Impressive win for Nakatani,
a fight that he was pulling away in the final rounds in delivering punishment in
I really thought and I'm not I'm joking around here, half joking around.
I had the nakatani ko prop and I was fully ready to send you the
text message whenever they stopped it. So you know that because you had him
on decision on our bet Us show. But I thought, I thought,
in the eleventh round, this could have been over because he's way ahead.
He's obviously way ahead. His own corner, Maloney's own corner, was contemplating,
let's just in this, especially if you don't show me something. And
then the booming punch happens in the final thirty seconds that lays Andrew Maloney out,
and I was scared. I was scared that this was serious stuff.
Your thoughts please, well, I understand the corner. You know they were
a little torn on it. I mean, Maloney he was losing, no
doubt about it, and you know he's never been a big puncher, so
you have to sort of think about that. Does he really have a legitimate
chance to go out there with the you know what they call the one hit
or quitter in the last round would seem unlikely. But I also know that,
you know, Maloney had made such a big thing about it's twenty years
I've been working for this, it's a third chance at the title. Is
he gonna get a fourth of you loses? Unlikely. Uh, there's such
a big part of the story, like you mentioned about joining twin brother Jason
potentially as also or a champion within a week of each other, that that
may have tugged them a little bit. I can't blame them that much.
I mean, he guess I could. I wouldn't have been upset if it
was stopped. I didn't think it was over the line where they couldn't send
him out and he was. He was losing, but he was still hanging
in there, and there was like I said, there was only twenty seconds
left in the round. And you know, you got to give Knockatani credit
because this was a man who just did not want to lead without the KO.
He was a end us a puncher. As a flyweight champion, he
certainly showed he still has the power at junior band away with his victory.
He's twenty four years old, he's ndefeated. I think we're gonna be hearing
about Nakatani for the next few years as as a predominant figure in that weight
class or you know, in those in and around those weight classes. He's
a he's a handful. He's gonna, he's gonna. We're gonna maybe look
back and say, losing a Nakatani, it ain't so bad if you're Jayson
Mooney, you know, sometimes lost his age better as they go along.
A lot of people may not know Nakatani today, but I think a couple
of years from now they may look back and say, well, you know,
Maloney had a good career. He lost in Nakatani. Nothing wrong with
that. Um, I feel bad Maloneia. There's such nice people, that
whole team. Yep. Um it kind of has to tug at your heart
about that. But Nakatani then he got the job done. It's the hurt
business and uh he puts him hurt on and he carried out the business.
And uh, you know, I'm glad Maloney's okay. He did get taken
to the hospital. He was released after observation, just to get checked out.
So thank thankfully he's okay. That's gonna be a very long and this
is confirmed by top rank. He had two perforated ear drums. And I
don't know if all of that was the accumulation or some of it was the
knockout blow as well. Uh. It was just brutal there in that moment,
a brutal reminder that the sport can be. It was scary. I
was fearing that he was seriously hurt and rightfully so uh there, and I'm
glad where he related that he's not seriously hurt. So absolutely. Listen a
couple of things about that. Number One, it's definitely even with what six
months and change left in the ear, one hundred percent will be at least
in the conversation for knock got to the ear, if not the right winner,
I would think that's the first thing. Number Two, I'm thrilled he's
okay. Uh hopefully, Um, you know, if he decides to make
a comeback, I'm not sure what what the route is because, like I
said, he's lost now three World Championship fights in his career. It's it's
not the most common thing to get a fourth. Uh you know. So
the family, on the one hand, they're thrilled that Jason got his title.
Uh obviously not so happy about what happened with Andrew. But it's a
tough loss. There's no doubt it's a big setback for his career. Um.
But you gotta you gotta admire the heart. That's all you can say.
The guy, he went in there with the termination. He's a real
professional. He tried to guide himself through the fight as best as possible and
stave off that because I thought maybe the way that he was taking shots,
I thought maybe that fight didn't get knocked down earlier in the fight too.
He did. He got knocked down the second round of the fight. It
could have been over quick. I thought I was gonna be over maybe inside
the first few rounds. And you know, you got to give him credit
for hanging in there. But the you know, the that's what happens you
get the later, the later rounds and the and the there's that separation between
the guys that are just really good pros and the guys that are better than
just really good. Makatani showed that. So that was a good, entertaining,
one sided fight that was not on the pay per view but the final
bout on the regular part of the ESPN show. And it just goes to
show you that even though the junior bandonmweight division, which had you know,
it's galaxy of little stars for a while there with chuckle Tito Gonzalez and mon
Francisco Estrada and Carlos Squadross and surround said they were like the four horsemen,
so to speak, of the flyweight and junior bandoweight division for a while.
You know, Nakatani at age twenty four brings some new exciting blood into that
weight class as he's now moved up from flyweight. Maybe around for a while
and we'll see what Maloney does, all right, So we put that to
bed the ESPN top ranked show with the world title fights there. Let's move
on to earlier in the day, our time in Ireland and the Matchroom Boxing
Show, the homecoming of Katie Taylor, who had never fought professionally despite being
an Irish gold medalist in the Olympics and being the undisputed Ladies lightweight champion.
She moves up to one hundred and forty pounds and fights the undisputed one hundred
and forty pound champion, Shantell Cameron of England, and Cameron was the better
fighter. Now I have to confess to you that here we go with our
personal lives, pull the veil back a little bit. I was with my
family at a graduation party at the time of the year right now, there
are a lot of high school and college graduations going on in the US.
I was at a graduation party of a family friend's son, so I was
not able to sit there Ray Faeld and riveted look at Taylor Cameron while it
was happening. I obviously read the recaps. I obviously saw the highlights.
I've now rewatched the fight. After it is over with us we go to
talk about again. I put this out there for me that taints you greatly
as far as I'm concerned, I already know what happens. I already know
who won. You're trying to watch and evaluate. So there's my part of
this. But I thought Cameron did enough to win the fight surprisingly and take
the decision in Taylor's home country. Your thoughts and how surprised are you that
she was able to go in there and get a decision over Katie Taylor.
Well, I'm glad the judges didn't, you know, do anything crazy like
like we've seen in so many other fights. Look personally, I mean,
it was a weird day. I had, Like I said, I had
the the Haini Loomchanko fight, a draw. I had the Taylor in Toronto
Taylor Toronto, Taylor and Cameron a fight a draw. Also, I had
a ninety five, which one was the same score that one of the judges
had ye and the other two judges had at ninety six to ninety four.
It was also a very close fight. You know, could just shade one
round the other way for Cameron and make the winner on my card, Yeah,
for sure. So I'd have a problem with with the scorecard giving her
the close call. Look, it just goes to show you that if Katie
Taylor can lose the national treasure of Ireland, her long awaited Irish homecoming where
she had never fought before for reasons that are out of her control since she's
been a professional in twenty and sixteen as one of the most decorated athletes in
Irish history, and she finally comes home and everything is there for her to
win, and it's a close fight, and it's a great fight, and
she doesn't get the call, and nobody's claiming like robbery or controversy. Even
Katie very classy and defeat the judges for all we rip on them and bust
their balls about how bad they do in certain situations. He had to tip
your hat. The judges did a good job in this particular fight. And
by the way, the judges could have easily gone the other way and scored
for Serranto against Katie Taylor when they had their big fight at the Madison Square
Garden in New York around this time last year. So, as I've said,
sometimes you're the win shield, sometimes you're the bug. And so in
this particular case, Katie lost a close call. She does have a rematch
clause, they indicated in the interviews afterwards her and her promoter Eddie Hearn,
it will exercise that rematch clause, will probably see this fight come the fall
time period, and we'll do it again in Dublin. What it does,
though, is that the biggest loser in that scenario, besides Taylor losing her
her perfect record and not winning the undisputed one forty til to become an undisputed
champion simultaneous, say into weight classes, the big loser as a man's toronto,
because she was kindably gonna get the rematch in the fall. And now
the attention will turn to Katie Taylor having this rematch against Chantel Cameron. It
was a great fight. I maybe wasn't the same level of excitement and action
and intensity as her fight with Toronto. But this was a outstanding fight,
you know, women's fight of the year type of fight. I thoroughly enjoyed
it. And I have to say, uh, you know, I like
Katie Taylor on a personal level. She's a very nice and humble person.
I thought she handled the defeat as well as you could possibly handle. She
she was like, I'll see you again. But she gave her credit.
She didn't cry, she didn't moan. You know, she took like a
man. She was a pro. She was a propro, she was a
sportsman. After it was over. Interesting, the three judges in the fight
where all foreign in that two of them were from the United States. Patrick
Morley had the fight even Craig Metcalfe of Canada and Raoul Kayez of the US
had at ninety six ninety four, so they weren't ultimately overly influenced by Katie
Taylor and her coming back. And I'm just looking at their scorecards, um,
just for this. In that final round, they all three gave the
final round to Katie Taylor. It was an action packed final round. They
all three gave it to Katie Taylor. But it didn't matter on two cards
because on two cards Cameron was up by two points. It did matter on
the third card to make the fight a draw. For what it's worth.
In the ten round flight, I thought Katie was having to get her way
back into the fight. So, like you said, whatever happened in that
round twelve, Uh, they work round tend rather Yeah, that Katie was
not gonna be able to get enough to actually pull ahead. Uh. You
never know. If it was a twelve round five like men's championship fights are,
maybe that wouldn't have been the case. But look, it was a
great fight. Um, you know the great fighters lose. It's now it's
about Ken you see, he can come back. And by the way,
you got to be thrown for a Chantel Cameron. Keep in mind this was
supposed to be Katie Taylor of in Toronto. Katie Taylor ended up not fighting
saronos Ronto with jewf an injury, and as we discussed in the pre fighting
and I talked about it with Katie in the interview I had with her that's
on the on the preview podcast, she very politely clawed out Shantel Cameron on
social media. She very politely asked Addie Hearn to try to make the fight.
A few days later, they actually amazingly made this fight that can never
happen. It seems like in men's box, in the way the politics and
the nonsense goes on. And Cameron so got the call pretty much not expecting
it, said final, I'll come fight you when you're in your homecoming into
the Lions Dead of Ireland. She went out there. She put on a
great fight the pressure that she applied. Now, Katie Tayler is an action
fighter. She comes forward, she throws a ton of punches, and she's
a very aggressive, a very aggressive fighter. Chantel Cameron made her look lack
of days ago. She just out like a ball of fire and just never
stopped pressing her. She used her size or length. She's got a good
chin. She took a lot of heavy shots from from Katie Taylor. One
thing I realized also, and I've never really had like a super strong opinion
about whether win's gonna be two minutes or three minutes, but I was watching
this particular fight and it struck me like just when the action was really starting
to get going at a high level, somebody the bellow ringing it's over.
So whoever has maybe the edge, whether whichever woman it did, that that
edge doesn't last because the round is suddenly over. And I think that might
be a reason why we've seen somebody these women's fights lend themselves to such good
action because they only last two minutes and not taking damage for that last minute.
Obviously, the fights are much shorter, and even if you are hurt,
you suddenly the round ends and you got that time to recover, as
it was to taking another period of time where you're getting beat on for prolonged
another ten seconds, thirty seconds, forty seconds, a minute, whatever.
But look, it was a great fight. Everybody was handled themselves like professionals.
Cameron gets Now, look, Cameron, you gotta give the woman credit.
Now she is eighteen and oh with the undisputed junior welteraway titles. She's
coming off now a huge victory against Katie Taylor, one of the biggest names
in women's boxing history. Prior to that which she became undisputed, she had
retained two doubts, had won the other two that were vacant. She'd beat
Jessica McCaskill, who had been the undisputed welterweight champion. It would dropped down
in a wait to challenge her, and Cameron beat her non controversial. That
was a fight card that took place in the Middle East, so she now
has it and backed back wins. She's beaten two of the best pound for
pound women's boxers in the world, Jessica McCaskill, who was a bigger woman,
and Katie Taylor, who was as decorated as a fighter as there has
been. So Cameron, She's not the headline because it was more about Katie
Taylor was homecoming, but Cameron was there in the ring two doing her job,
so she put on a great show. I can't wait for the rematch.
I'll be watching and I look forward to it. We look forward to
seeing what's gonna happen there in those ladies fights. By the way, quick
note that when we previewed things, and we've been talked on our beat Us
show a little bit about this fight, it looked like that we were going
to get a Terry Harper Cecilia break Who's fight, and this is very odd
and very rare, but break Who's woke up Saturday morning with what she described
as the flu as fever, sore throat, sore ear, respiratory problems and
said I can't fight. So Terry Harper unable to defend her title. They
went into scramble mode on what can we do and we should say to the
audience as we now released this podcast. Mattchroom Boxing announced on Sunday night that
she will be fighting this coming weekend in Manchester. Fascinating dynamic that Terry Harper
will now fight. I beIN a Habbazin, who is a former championship fighter,
a championship challenger. She lost to Claressa Shields a couple of years ago
in a world title fight. So they've scrambled together put that fight to here.
This is one interesting dynamic. Dan They made weight, so then obviously
for Terry Harper, she could rehydrate, eat a bunch of food, get
ready for the fight, and suddenly on Saturday you're told there is no fight,
but there's potentially a fight next Saturday, and you've got to literally maybe
knock off five pounds or seven pounds or something like that. Again, that
is a fascinating dynamic. But good on match Room to find an opponent and
because of the timing and the schedule. She can now fight in Manchester on
the undercard of the Mauricio Laura Lee Wood Fight and match Room did announce tonight
right before we began with the podcast. That will be the opponent. That
rarely happens. You've done this for a long time, that rarely happens on
a day of a fight. Illness sudden. I mean, I can't think
one off top of my head, but I know that definitely it has happened.
Is we've seen it with COVID nineteen in the twenty twenty and twenty twenty
one where suddenly somebody's got COVID nineteen on the day before a fight or the
week of the fight, but a lot of times on the day of the
fight, it is highly unusual. That's the phrase. I know. I
know what a big opportunity that was for Cecilia Ricus, who has been a
great fighter for so many years, a future Hall of Famer without a doubt,
looking to move up to one fifty four and become a two division ambien
and h you know, hopefully hopefully she gets better and hopefully, depending on
what happens with Terry on the Leewood on the rematch undercard with Laura and Wood.
You know, hopefully they can either reschedule the fighters, Cecilia can get
a shot if Terry loses to Hobbazon or or some other one of the title
holders out there. But Cecilia Breakcost has been you know, she she's not
necessarily of this year because she's a little bit older and she lost her titles
to McCaskill. But before the age of McCaskill and Katie and Cameron and Claressa
Shields and Savannah Marshall and Bomb Gardner and Micaelamar and all the young uh and
top women that we see around now, breakkhost was that dominant before them.
So I hope she gets another opportunity. She's been a credit to boxing for
a long time. It is interesting just in his whole dynamic. And then
we're gonna move on. So they were having a charity five k road race
and Eddie Hearne was participating. Rayfiel, you know where I'm going with is
Eddie Herne was participating in the Saturday five k road race when suddenly he got
a notification, Hey, this is an emergency. We need to talk to
you. Okay, I'm now stopping in the five K. It's not a
competitive thing. He's just out there getting some exercise. And there were thousands
that participated in this five K, this charitable thing from match Room Boxing.
So one of the first things they tried to determine is how sick is Cecilia,
And if Cecilia thinks she can recover in a day or so, can
she maybe fight next Saturday? If we do this in Manchester, can we
leave it on? And the word back quickly was she feels awful. She
cannot get out of bed, as you saw on that social media posting,
and she is liable to be sick for several days. She cannot fight.
She cannot even fight next weekend. So now they went into full scramble mode.
Find an opponent, blah blah, there you go, and maybe Brakcos
will be the opponent down the road. For the reason you mentioned, all
right, one more fighter and fight you want to mention is Jose Felix on
that same card stood out to you give me something real quick on that.
Well it wasn't I mean Felix. Jose Felix, who was a long time
I'M top ranked fighter who they had high hosts for you know, he's become
more of a journeyman in recent times, and I just hope that if Eddie
hern is trying to keep his young fighters from being beaten, don't bring over
the Mexican ringers, because he's had too many guys recently that he's had brought
over Mexicans and gotten his young guys bumped up. But Jose Felix, the
old war horse, was a big, big underdog against what a lot of
people thought was one of the best young lightweights out there. We talked about
how deep the lightweight division is, and it's the same way at the championship
level as it's been at the prospect level, where you've got guys like off
Top I had Keyshan Davis for example, and some of the good young lighter
lightweights Raymond mor Tie we talked about. But in Ireland, Gary Culley was
one of those type of prospects, good amateur background, sixteen and ozh ten
knockouts. He had signed not that long ago with Matchrom Boxing. He had
gotten one win and looked good doing so against a good experience, undefeated guy.
Now he gets match up with Felix, who's supposed to maybe get him
some competition getting some rounds, but certainly Colley's supposed to look look impressive and
win the fight. What happens, jose Felix didn't read the script he got.
He knocked Gary Cully down and beat him up and knocked him out in
the third round, very impressively. You had him with no legs and just
just just take care of me. I lost two in a row. He
had lost a bunch of fights over the last few years, and uh,
you know what, you gotta be happy when the when the guy like that
springs the upset. So hopefully Colley can come back. He's the exciting,
an interesting personality. But hopefully jose Felix lives to fight another day after that
kind of a big win for him. Anything can happen in boxing, as
we always say, all right on the news front. Match Room also did
announce on that card. Their July fifteen show will be in Detroit. Alicia
Baumgardner, who was in attendance in Dublin, will be defending against Christina Lindartu
and Lin Dartu was the fighter that got nixed for being for having the eye
problem from being able to fight in the UK. But they'll be able to
fight in the United States, and also Richardson Hitchens and Montana Love is on
this fight card as well. Tell me more about that fight card real quick
in the news. Well, I mean I had, I had frankly broken
the story that this was going to be taking place, you know, a
week or two ago, but we didn't the opponent quite yet for a bomb
guarder, they had finally worked out the deal. Will Landarto, who is
the woman that Katie Taylor defeated to win a junior well to the weight belt
a few years ago when she went and moved up to the one hundred forty
pound way class for one fight, beat her and then vacated and went back
down to defend her titles at lightweight. But what makes this somewhat compelling if
you're a Lisa bomb Garner is that she only has one loss in her career.
She lost two Christina Lundarto. This was a split decision fight that took
place back in like two thousand an eight round her in twenty and eighteen,
So she's looking for revenge. That's the storyline, if you will. Lundarharto
is still a good fighter, so she'll headline this card. It's in her
hometown of De Detroit. She goes home as the undisputed women's champion in the
in the junior lightweight division and a very fascinating fight on the undercard Richardson Hitchins,
who was a guy that has been with Matchum for not that long.
He had been for many years with Mayweather Promotions, an Olympian, a very
outspoken guy, a lot of skills in New Yorker. Anyways, fighting Montana
Love was coming off the DQ loss for a throwing your boy Steve Spark over
the top rope like he was in the WWE. Hitchins will be a big
favorite in this fight. He's got a lot of ability, a lot of
science, a lot of skills. But a solid undercard fight and what makes
it somewhat interesting, even more than just a matchup itself, is and we
talked to Regious Program in the podcast the previous week, there's a very solid
chance that the winner of this fight is going to be the second opponent of
Regious Program's Matchum deal, assuming he wins the fight in June, assuming they
find a replacement opponent for him. So that makes this fight with yet another
reason to check it out. And then the other fight that they announced is
going to be the professional debut of the Olympic gold medal winner Andy Cruz,
the lighted lightweight who is a phenomenal amateur out of the Cuban system who was
now here in the United States. He's going to be turning pro in a
ten rounder and they're not wasting time, and I'm sort of I know exactly
what they're doing here. They matched him up with one Carlos Burgoslan carlos Burgos
at the end of last year got his clock cleaned and a one sided route,
although it went to distance. He lost in a shutout against Keyshan Davis
and a I was at and I asked Keshan Davis half he was dominating him
so much? Were you board in there? And he admitted that he was.
Why this is interesting is because they obviously want to send Cruise in his
professional debut against the guy that may not be what he once was, but
for a long time was a good contender at fought for a world title.
But more notably, they want to compare how Andy Cruise is going to do
against Wyan carl los Burgos to way Keishan Davis did. Why because Andy Cruise
has four amateur victories against Keshan Davis at the highest level in the Olympics,
you know, in major amateur tournaments, so they're already getting their pro rivalry
going here. They've been, you know, chirping a little bit between the
match room and Eddie Hern and Keishan and Andy. Cruise is now going to
take on a guy that went to distance with Keishan Davis not that long ago,
and if he ends up getting a knock out, believe me, you're
gonna hear a lot about the comparison is continuing, all right, the Cuban
gold medalist Cruise on that July hard One more news item involving Ryan Garcia,
and then its nostalgia time before we're done. Ryan Garcia has a new trainer,
and you have been all over this and in communication with Derek James,
who is that new trainers are gonna be more Well, yes it is Derek
James. I spoke to Derek at length about it the other day and I
will I'll be writing something about it. I was a little busy doing these
other fights this weekend, but I'm definitely gonna write with Derek had to say
about how it came a doubt. What I found interesting is because I wasn't
really sure. Okay, So he broke up with Joe Goosen right after he
lost the fight to Dank Davis, and now he's in the market for a
new trainer. Now, Ryan's had you been with good trainers? He obviously
was with Eddie Reinoso for a while, who's got a lot of a lot
of top guys and obviously the trainer for Canelo Alvarez. He went to Joe
Goosen, who was going to be inducted into the boxing all the fame,
this jew and so he's another guy with a tremendous amount of credentials and a
lot of experience, a lot of championship level of guys. And so you're
wondering, okay, if he if he didn't work out with between him and
Eddie, and he found a reason to walk away from Joe, who is
he gonna get? Well, guess what he got. Derek James, who
is the reigning trainer of the year according to most people, including the Boxing
Writers Association of America. Most people had him as the trainer of the year.
He trains the undisputed German champion Charlow. He's the trainer of the unified
walter weight champion Errol Spence. He's the trainer of the outstanding lightweight undefeated up
and comer, up becoming contender, Frank Martin has got a hell of a
gym. There a lot of guys, and he's you know, he was
a former pro fighter himself. And it struck meeting right off the bat as
well. This is kind of an unusual move. When I spoke to Derek,
I'm sort of like, well, how did this come about? Because
they didn't really know each other except maybe to say hello. As a turnout
the way it happens because Ryan Garcia is friendly with Errol Spence. Remember they
had that that that bet they made of the twenty five thousand on a fight,
and uh, Derek could say, by the way that Ryan paid up
when he lost a bet to Errol Spence. That Errol and Errol and Ryan,
while not like best buddies, they do have a they have a developing
sort of like I guess, some friendship or at least, you know,
more than just your basic acquaintance. Anyway, what Derek told me was that
Ryan had contacted Errol. Obviously they have each other's number, and he asked
them if he could send them the contact information for Derek because he was looking
to train with him and he needed to see if there was any interest.
And he had to sort of get Errol's okay. You didn't want to,
like, you know, kind of be an interloper in the gym. Derek
said that Errol came to him and talked to him and he was okay with
it, and so Ryan last week went down to Texas and said he wanted
to hire him. They had a long he told me, they had a
very lengthy not a session in the gym, but they went out to eat
dinner and just to sort of talk things out and find out, what you
know, feel each other out from kind of what page are were on.
They did end up working together in the gym a little bit. I guess
they both came away satisfied with it. And so now Derek James is going
to be training Ryan. He was actually in this past weekend. Ryan was
still in Texas was going to work out of the gym well. And by
the way, Derek James is also the trainer for Anthony Joshua, who Derek
told me was due back in the gym on Friday, I must have spoke
to Derek maybe like a Thursday night maybe or something like that. The next
day, Joshua was coming back. Not because he's going to be training for
a specific fight. There's gonna a lot of conjecture that he's getting ready for
a specific fight. He said, that's not true. We're not sure what
he's gonna be doing. But what we are going to do is we've only
been together for the one fight. We're gonna work on stuff in the gym,
and this is when you do it between fight, when you're not training
for a specific opponent, when you just work on different things and drills and
philosophy of how you want to carry things out in a fight. Whoever,
maybe again, So he was due for let's call it a mini camp in
Texas this past weekend. So, to the best of my knowledge, Errol
Spence is there because he stinks he's preparing, hopefully for a Crawford fight.
I had a lengthy tax exchange with Errol a couple of days ago and we
talked about that a little bit. So he's in the gym working out with
Derek, getting ready for when he hopes is a Crawford fight. Ryan Garcia
is there just getting to know him and work on a few things. AJ's
back in town in a so called mini camp, getting ready for things.
And then you got Charlow who said who he said, is not sure when
he's gonna be back. But he's still rehabbing the hand. He's still not
able to use that, but he's in the gym doing things other than using
in the hand. So he's got and Frank Martin he told me he's getting
ready for a showtime fight that is penciled in for July fifteenth. So he's
got all his guys in the gym, you know, each has their time
with him, and he's busy. But obviously he's attracting some of the better
fighters out there, and uh, you know, I think for Ryan Garcia,
hopefully this works for him. I mean, obviously it didn't work out
great in terms of what happened with Joe Boost. I'm not sure what happened
there. It certainly had issues with Eddy Knows at one point or another.
But Ryan has a lot of talent and I hope this is a match that
works for him and for Derek and that hopefully they can do great things together.
That's some kind of prominence in that gym. By the way, if
all of those guys are there at the same time. And I'm very curious
on the Jamil Charlo thing, you're gonna stay on the trail because, as
we've talked about, has he reinjured the hand and it is incumbent on them
the team Charlo, somebody to tell us what is the status and when are
you back in the ring? Coming up? That to be we talked about
his league but soon right we talked about it a couple of days ago on
the previous podcast that the WBO was giving him They not just about to make
the fight, but be in the ring to fight the fight by September thirty.
All right, so the rubber is gonna hit the road at some point.
So if he's not in the ring at the very least he'll be the
you know, the w WBO belt will be vacated. We will find out
about that with Jamal Charlo. All rights, touch of time before we're gone.
It was twelve years ago, coming Monday, May twenty first, Bernard
Hopkins defeat Jean Pascal in Montreal in a rematch and you were ringside. Give
me more about this, about this nostalgic fight twelve years ago. Well,
this was one of the more fun fights I've covered from the standpoint, not
necessarily to doubt itself, but just the whole build up and the activity and
all the things that went on in the hype around it. Remember, at
the end of two thou and ten, Bernard Hopkins and John Pascal fought at
the first time they had their fight. They fought in Quebec City and they
fought to a majority draw. That was also a light heavyweight title fight.
John Pascal retained the title and there was then a ringmatch that took place five
months later. Instead of being in Quebec City, it was in Montreal.
And by the way, I covered a ton of Bernard Hopkins fights. I
had come off of a stretch where I must have covered like ten fights in
twelve weeks or something. It was like ten below zero. You couldn't get
a direct flight to Quebec City, and I just was like, you know
what, fuck it, I'm not gonna go to I'm gonna write about the
fight, but I'm just not gonna travel. I was absolutely dead exhausted,
and I stayed home and I didn't cover the first fight, and I didn't
want to go to Quebec city when his ten below zero and couldn't get there
in a reasonable way. But I was more than happy to go to Montreal
in May, where it was absolutely beautiful and one of the nicest places you
can be on the earth at that time of the year. And they had
this fight. And the reason why it was a big deal is because this
was the fight in which Bernard Hopkins not only the feet to John Pascal by
a close decision, but he became by winning that decision, the oldest boxer
in the history of the sport to win a major world title. At age
forty six. He broke the long time record of the great George Foreman,
who had become the heavyweight champion. But this was now Bernard Hopkins breaking the
record. And if you remember, one of the great highlights or crazier things
you'll see during the middle of a fight is Bernard Hopkins, who was probably
twenty years younger than John Pascal at that time, late in that fight between
rounds, gets down and starts doing pushups to show that he is the vigorous
old man and he still has got plenty of energy left. While Pascal is
sitting in the corner looking like he's exhausted, and Bernard is doing push ups
in the ring. I'll never forget that. I don't know that I've ever
seen that in a title I've never seen it before or since You're exactly right
in indelible and always Bernard, Bernard wins the fight, becomes the oldest champion.
And on a personal level, I always talking about like I've had a
lot of fun covering these big events, but what I always remember, even
more than the fights, are the personal moments you have with the different people
associated with the event. It could be a promoter, could be a manager,
could be a fighter, could be a young you know, undercard fighter
that you're meeting or dealing with for the first time. But I've had my
ups and downs with Bernard Hopkins through the years, but uh, you know,
I can Bernard and I become like friends these days. I believe that.
I mean, I know him well. Uh you know, I've met
his family, He's met my family. You know, he's taking pictures with
my son when he was a baby, and met my mom and met my
dad and things like that at different different events. So I've a good relation
with Bernard and that night after the fight. Bernard wanted to celebrate. I
think I've told the story before. Uh, there was no big post fight
party. It was like, you know whatever, one thirty in the morning,
two o'clock in the morning, Saturday night, a Bernard is starving to
death. Uh, he hadn't eaten anything. None of us had really eaten
anything. So we're looking for a place. At two in the morning,
Barnard invites me to go along. We're in the van riding around with a
couple of cars. I was it was Bernard told you told us before,
because this is the cheesecake, right, this is the cheesecakes. So a
few of his a few guys on his team as cutman is, you know,
different people associated with Bernard, a few of the people from Golden Boy,
his promoter. Anyway, we finally find a place in in downtown Montreal,
somewhere a few minutes away from the from the Bell from the Bell Center
with the arena where the fight took place. And we walked in. They
were open. They had just a normal, like you know diner, arsh
kind of menu, and they had what I think would attract the Bernard.
Actually, when we walked in the door, they had all these TV's on,
and every TV was tuned on to like the local I think it's like
tsn UP in kind of like their version of the ESPN. But they were
showing repeatedly the highlights of the fight. So Bernard like, we watched the
highlights, you know, several times. Anyway, long stories. What everybody
got, bar food, pizza's, burgers, fries, whatever, And Bernard,
you figure he's gonna like indulge. He just had the championship fight.
He'd been in training camp for the last two months, has been you know,
watching his diet and making sure he's in great shape for the fight.
You win the light heavyweight championship in the world, you know, have a
slice of pizza, go over the bars and the onion rings of the burger
whatever. Bernard had the waiter come out and again, can you make me
this special thing? Like he wanted pasta with broccoli and a little bit of
garlic, and the guy was like, yeah, we can do that.
So Bernard was like eating the way he was eating in training camp. Meanwhile,
everybody else is like pigging out on fries and you know, and burgers
and pizza and chicken fingers and that kind of shit. But finally when it's
over, Bernard Hopkins is like, you know what, fuck it, I'm
getting dessert and Bernard And this is where I learned that Bernard's cheat food when
he's in camp. His favorite dessert was cheesecake. They brought out a cheesecake
that was like the size of your foot, and uh, I was sitting
across the table from Bernard, and I snapped a picture on my phone and
it's Bernard Hopkins wearing by the way he's dressed up, he looks like Urkle
from the Old showed me the photo. You showed me the photo glasses.
What was that sitcom called Felling that family matters right with Ercle? So he
looked like Ercle. He's wearing the cap and the glasses and the the the
bug the button up shirt. Anyway, he jabs the fork and he puts
the cheesecake up and he smiles and Bernard at the gap tooth and you can
like see that it's like a like a caramel's cheesecake and the Carmel's like dripping
off the fucking fork. And I snapped the picture and it's like it's like
I put it on Twitter. This is early in my Twitter days. That
thing got like tens of thousands of like likes and views and whatever. And
uh so my lasting memory of that historical night wasn't so much just because this
great fighter, Bernard Hopkins, future all the favor of all time great,
became the oldest boxer to win a heavyweight championship or I'd rather any kind of
championship rather as a light heavyweight champion. It's a couple hours after the fight,
being at like an empty sort of dinerish restaurant in downtown Montreal and the
wee hours watching highlights, having having a late night meal and watching Bernard Hopkins
indulged in eating a piece of cheesecake like it was his last meal. He
was going to the chair. We love that. By the way, You're
always great with the nostalgia. And I help out wherever I can help out.
So that is today. That is Sunday, the twenty first, on
that anniversary you're talking about from twelve years ago, thirty years ago Monday,
as we released the podcast, the Roy Jones Junior and Bernard Hopkins fought at
old RFK Stadium, Washington, DC, where the then Redskins used to play
football. Where the Washington Senators used to play baseball for many years. They
fought outdoors thirty years ago on May twenty second, nineteen ninety three, Roy
Jones first world title win, a decision win over Bernard Hopkins. And I
remember that fight and I don't want to accept that that was thirty years ago.
At least yours was twelve years ago. The Roy Jones Browt Hopkins first
fight and the second fight really should be disavowed the way Star Trek five is
about. Uh. But that fight took place Yadi Shack gree too exactly.
Um, Rocky, what is it, Rocky, Rocky rock Yes, Uh
so I live like maybe half an hour from RFK Stadium. I didn't live
here in the area at the time. But that fight was, like you
mentioned, it was outdoors at that fight at that at that stadium. Two
things about it. Number One, it was actually the undercard fight on the
night that Britick bo defended the heavyweight title. Uh. And more notably the
Roy Jones Bernard Hopkins fight. This was Roy Jones getting a victory against Bernard
Hopkins basically one handed, but a fight. You know that, And you
look back and like this was two of the greats meeting when they were young
in their career. As you mentioned, it's the first world championship fight for
you know, both world title for both guys title fight. It's Roy's first
world championship TJ. This was a horrible, horrible fight. I mean a
terrible, terrible fight to watch, dull beyond comprehension. It looks good only
when you look to get up in their records. If you actually spent the
time, you will come away saying I'd never get that full And Roy had
admitted after the fight he had hurt his hand in training, but followed through
and he was just it was his right hand. He was just using the
jab, using the left hand. Jab, move, move, move,
and don't let me tell you another thing. Yeah, another thing about that
fight. That was a big deal. Bernard Hopkins became a crusader for fair
treatment from fighters and promoters, for there to be some accountability, some transparency
with contracts, etc. And this was a fight that really started that because
he became later on years later like the only boxer to go to testify in
front of the Congress Committee that was organized by the late John McCain, who
was obviously a big boxing fan and big boxing supporter and was one of the
architects of what became the Federal Muhammad Aliliac, which is still a part of
the federal law. It's it's not perfect, that there's not a lot of
heath to it, but it does at least spell out what is something that
you need to do if you're a promoter by law in any event. Reason
why this fight between Roy Jones Burnard Hopkins is significant in respect to that law
and what became something that fighters can lean on to make sure that they're treated
fairly is because it came to Bernard's attention, you know, after the fact
years later that butch Lewis, who was his promoter at the time, and
he asked, why did Bernard Hopkins He ran to a ton of promoters,
had issues with everybody. Butch Lewis got for his side. For the Bernard
Hopkins side of the fight. I'm not sure what the Roy Jones side got,
but HBO, which televised this bout as part of that RIDDI bocard,
they paid butch Lewis a fee to deliver Bernard Hopkins of six hundred thousand dollars.
Bernard Hopkins of that money got sixty thousand dollars and to me, and
I think anybody with half a fucking brain would say that for the boxer who
puts his life on the line to only get ten percent of the total money
involved in the fight was fucking criminal. So I'm not saying the promoter shouldn't
get paid. Obviously they should. They should make good money also, but
the equitable distribution is not ninety to ten in favor of the promoter, who
was not at that time and under any obligation to tell all the boxer what
they're getting. That would not happen today. Bernard Hopkins freaked out about that,
understandably think that I just put my life on the line. I only
got sixty grand and my promoter got six hundred thousand and paid me nothing out
of that. So the for as horrible and miserable as the Roy Jones Bernard
Hopkins won thirty years ago was Uh. If there is a positive out of
it, it's that these two young future greats met and that it helped pave
the way for what became the federal law. Mommad Ali, I can by
the way, I'll we'll pull we'll pull back. The Colonel then before we
do the show. We don't say what we're gonna say, but I send
you a rundown of our general hoops and we take it from there. This
was not on the topics chiefs. So everything I'm telling you about Jones Hopkins
Ones is coming out of this. I'm with you, I'm with you.
So yeah, so yeah, Roy Jones had and by the way, good
on the government to get involved. Good on that to get straightened out.
And not surprisingly, Butch Lewis was basically done as a promoter not long after
that, because when you're doing that to fighters, nobody wants to work with
you anymore. When when they find that stuff out and there you go.
That was thirteen. I knew, but I knew Butch a little bit before
when I first started. He was still kind of around the fringes. Um.
He died a few years ago. Uh. And I and I'm not
I don't I'm not going to speak ill of him, but I must say,
in my few interactions with Butch Lewis, from the moment I ever met
the man, he rubbed me the wrong way. What can I say?
I'm just being honest. And and Bernard Hopkins would agree with you. Uh,
Okay, there you go away, I do. I will be tweeting
now at some point. I do have the poster from that fight, and
I will tweet it out a little bit later just for fun. Again.
That anniversary is Monday as we released the podcast. The Hopkins Pascal was Sunday
as we were recording the podcast with that. It has been a busy show.
We are chocked full as always, lots on this one and then we've
got title fights, et cetera for later this week. We've mentioned Laura and
Wood for later this week in UH in England in a very quick rematch,
didn't even take ninety days for them to get back in the ring. That
will be upcoming for those two to be fighting later on this this week,
and we'll be ready to preview that on the Big Fight Weekend preview in the
bet US Gambling show. Yes, my friend, I would say it's the
weekend of the Featherwits because besides that very intriguing rematch between UH Mauricio Lara and
Lee Wood for the WBA title, you have taking place at the same time
on the you know in the United States that that that Leewood Mauriceo lars A,
the own fight, but on ESPN Plus in Delfast, Norddriler not that
far away. You got the another excellent Featherwick title fight. You got Louis
Alberto Lopez defending the title against Michael Commin. Those are both two great fights.
I don't even know which one I'm gonna be able to watch live because
I'm figuring they're gonna start right around the same time. We'll we'll dice that
up and talk about that on the preview later on this week. Now,
week is all about the feather weights for this week. For now, though,
I think we're good. Full show here, David, Devin, Hanny's
victorious got his hand raise, Chantel Cameron victorious got her hand raise, Juneto
Nakatani victorious by knockout got his hand raise. I think we're good recapping all
of it off the weekend. Dan, We always thank you for hanging here,
great stuff, and we will get back at it later this week with
the Big Fight we came preview as the week rolls on. Thank you,
my friend. There is the one and only Dan Ray. Feel again,
Rate us, subscribe, follow us, Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify
on the Big Fight Weekend podcast. We preview going into the weekend out Friday's
will recap with the Fight Freaks Unite recap coming off the weekend. For now,
we are good for Dan Raypheel. I'm TJ Reeves. Talk to you
later in the week