Well off of a weekend that has seen not one, not two, but
three different intriguing fight cards from California to England and back. We are ready
to recap what has gone down. We are also gonna hear from the interim
WBC Super Middleweight title holder David Benavitez in a little bit. It is the
Fight Freak Unit recap we come off the weekend. I am the somewhat competent
host, TJ. Reeves. He is our insider from his Fight Freak to
Night substack a Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello, Dan Rayfield, Lots
to go over, Lots to discuss, some news and update on Shakur Stevenson
and why in part he may have looked so tentative in that awful title fight
on Thursday night in Las Vegas. Some good nostalgia as well. How are
you feeling coming off the weekend? Once again, I'm ready to go.
As always, I think we are both ready to go and we are ready
to begin after we tell you. Thank you for finding us on the Big
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help us out. So let's get into it. Let's begin with the
Matchroom Design Show in Inglewood, California, and Diego Pacheco did deliver the rising
contender, one of the top fighters prospects right now at one sixty eight.
Better than a prospect, he's a championship contender, and boy did he deliver
against a veteran in Coseras. So, Dan, your thoughts off the weekend
on what we saw Saturday night, well, Teja, going into this fight,
it was clear to everybody that pays attention to such things that, without
question, this was the most significant fight of this kid's career so far.
He's twenty two years old, and he looked excellent throughout his career so far,
but now he was taking another step up beyond the types of opponents he's
been facing. They've matched him well and it's not like they've given him nothing
but soft touches. He's taken steps up. He fought Overseas, his last
fight was in Mexico, fight before that was in England, and so now
he's taken on Marcelo Cosras, a very game, tough Argentinian fighter who had
fought for a world title in twenty nineteen, I believe, against Billy Joe
Saunders for the WBO title at one hundred and sixty eight pounds. He was
beating Billy Joe Saunders until he got stopped. And so, you know,
Billy Joe Saunders at that time was certainly one of the best fighters in the
way class, and he gave him a tough fight, and he's given other
fighters tough fights too. You know, that was the only time he ever
got stopped in his losses. And so Pacheco has taking a quantum leap up.
And so the thing is, how is he going to deal with cage
Erder, an experienced fighter who has a good punch who has a good chin.
They've they've want to see what he can do. They're they're taking the
gamble. It was his first time headlining in his hometown. You know,
this is at La Area. He you know, his lips grew up,
you know, a few minutes from where they had this match at the YouTube
Theater, you know, which is next to Sofi Stadium. Uh. And
so all his people were out there to cheer him on, and the kid
performed. It was a good fight, a lot of heavy action both ways.
Uh. You know. Uh, Pachecko did very well early on.
Casaras came on in the middle rounds landed a whole bunch of solid punches.
But Pacheco showed a good chin also. He took some heavy duty shots.
Uh. And he never stopped marching ahead and doing his thing. And finally,
uh the upper cuts uh and and in the hard right hands. You
know, it just was too much. And when Cosas finally went down on
the mat, you know, he got hit with a nice upper cut,
but okay, he's gonna get up. Because he was looking right at the
referee. He was not like discombobulated. He had his wits about him.
Uh, and he just stayed on a knee, and that tells you a
lot. He's like, you know what, I don't want to be taking
any more of those heavy shots. I'm done. The commentators on his own
agreed also, yes, he could have gotten up. We just decided not
to, which is fine. I'm not going to rip him for it,
but that's that's the name of the game. He knocked him down and he
made him submit on the shot. It looked like Casara's did see it,
and it definitely buckled him. He went down and then I'm with you,
he was watching the count and then once it got to like seven or eight,
and he wasn't making an attempt. I was a little surprised by that,
but again, we're not in there taking the uppercut. It's very easy
for us to sit back and be critical of that when it was a shot
dan, So you know, it was what we wanted to see was to
see the young fighter Pacheco tested and he was. So I'm looking at the
official squirrecard. One judge had it seventy six to seventy six, which is
maybe a little bit generous to Cosras, but he definitely won. You know,
some of those middle rounds. Another judge had it seventy seven to seventy
five in favor of Pacheco. The third judge had it seventy eight to seventy
four, for which is I had it. And in the end, those
three judges don't mean anything, because, as I like to say, Diego
Pacheco brought his own two judges, his right and his left, and he
got the job done, and it was a tremendous performance. And this now
is in prime for a huge twenty twenty four. I do believe we'll see
him in some bigger fights. You know. The interesting thing is at one
hundred and sixty eight pounds currently anyway, if you want to fight for a
royal title, you got to see Canelo Alvarez, and that's not so easy
to do. He fights twice a year. He's taking the biggest fights,
and so the titles are tied up. On the one hand, we as
fans and media, we want to see underspeeded champions. On the other hand,
if there is an unisputed champion, everybody else got to get in line
because that undisputed champions probably going to fight twice in the year, maybe three
times at the most. And you know, Pachecko was the kind of guy
at the moment anyway, who's not going to bring a huge amount of glory
and money to the fight, So he's gonna have to wait his turn.
But he's only you know, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves either.
By the way, he's only twenty two years old. It's not like
it's incumbent that he has to fight for a title in the next fight.
He's not mandatory just yet. I'm just making the point though, When you
have an undisputed champion that has a hammer lock on those belts the way that
Cano Alvarez does, it's hard to have other fighters fight for titles. And
in a different era or a different year, let's say, when the titles
were all splintered, perhaps we might be seeing him in a world title fight
in the next fighter too. That's probably not gonna happen at the moment,
but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Let the kid develop some more.
He's not a finished product than It was a great performance, so all things
considered, no doubt, five straight knockouts for him as well. Coming off
of the victory so earlier in the day, a couple of separate fight cards
won a Queensberry show and another a boxer show in England. Let's start with
the Queensbury and it was actually the co feature fight, but we previewed this
on the bet Us show. We did make mention of it on our preview
show going into the weekend. Nick Ball Isaac Dogbay featherweight eliminator for the WBC.
Ball gets the decision win over the veteran over the former world champion at
junior featherweight. Your thoughts watching Nick Ball's performance please, Well, Nick Ball
is a very fun fighter to watch. I've seen him fight several times on
some of these other Queensberry under cards. We all know about Isaac dog Bay.
He's usually in a good fight and so when they made the match,
I'm like, this is going to be a good fight. And guess what
it was. It was definitely a good fight, now was it? It
wasn't. I'll put it to you like this. If you're watching each round,
it's competitive round to round, But nick Ball was winning all of the
rounds. So when you look at your scorecard after twelve rounds, you're gonna
probably have it very wide for nick Ball. But that that does not tell
you that each individual three minute segment was competitive. You know, they were
both going at it. I mean, Isaac Doug Bay was in the rounds.
He just was not doing enough to actually win them. So when you
saw the final cards one nineteen one o eight one in eighteen one oh nine
one sixteen, one eleven, okay, it's all in favor of nick Ball.
But that again, Nick Ball will be probably the first to tell you
that was a real fight. He did knock dog Bay down in round four,
not a heavy knockdown, but a knockdown nonetheless. Uh, and he
just had a that was the biggest win of his career. Now he's mandatory
for Ray Vargas, who was the WBC's one hundred twenty six pound champion.
I believe he has another fight that will come before he would have to be
ordered for this mandatory. I believe that will be the fight that their at
least PBC hopes to do. I guess against Brandon Figueroa, who is the
WBC's interim champion at one hundred and twenty six pounds. But again, Nick
Ball, fun fighter. Stocky Strong comes forward. Seems like he's got a
pretty good chin. Twenty six years old, not an old Man nineteen and
zero and just just a really good performance. And the thing that was fun
about it is, you know, dog Bay despite the loss, you know,
had fought a very spirited fight. I mean, you gotta love Dogby.
I mean, you know, I know he's lost two fights in a
row because of this loss today, you know, on Saturday, rather combined
with the fact that in his previous fight he challenged Robasi Ramirez for the vacant
wo built in the same weight class. He lost a wide decision in that
one and again round to round. He's competitive, but he's losing all the
rounds. You know, I don't know if dog Bay is really I don't
know if he can make one twenty two still and maybe'd be better off if
he could go back down and wait or at one twenty six. This is
what he's going to be. But I'll tell you what, whatever, even
with these two losses in a row, he's still a kind of you want
to watch. He's still the kind of guy that can test anybody on any
given night. And in terms of nick Ball, like I said, fun
fighter, and uh, you know he took he took some solid shots too.
It wasn't like this was an easy win this decision when he got you
know, he got hammered with a couple of big shots during of course of
this fight also, and it was a you know, it was a tremendous
battle, but one sided in terms of how it came out. But it
was it was a good fight. I was glad to see it. Yeah,
ball on the way up. And you wonder if dog Bay is not
at a crossroads again. Navarate beat him twice a few years ago. He
had won what at least three fights in a row before Robas Ramirez beat him,
and now he's lost back to back fights. We'll see what dog Base
future as well. Go ahead, I just got a really I mean,
we're not going to get too deep into it. But in terms of the
main event was the British Midway title. Denzel Bentley was the Middleway the British
Midaway champion, taken on Nathan Haney, who was a huge underdog. What
a story heiny won the fight. Man, it was a good fight and
this dude pulled it out. It was he was overcome by the emotion afterwards.
It was a majority decision that Hainy won, but legit, I mean
it was it was a big upset. This was supposed to be, you
know, just a you know, ah, just a regular old defense for
Bentley. Uh, you know who had won. We had lost in twenty
twenty two at the end of the year to Jannadeck for the world title at
the WO had won one fight since and now he's making a defense against Hanney
and it was a clear loss. And uh, you know, you gotta
love an upset like that. Why we love boxing because it is, as
the great Larry Merchant, who you still stay in contactould always say, the
theater of the unexpected. Just when you think you have things figured out and
you're rolling along, you take a loss, or you take a you take
a sudden knockout or something like that happens. We love the unexpected party.
That was a good listen. That was a It was a long that that
Queensberry show that you were talking about. That was on TNT Sports in the
UK and on ESPN Plus here in the United States. It was a long
show, but there were some very solid fights on that show, culminating with
the Dog Bay nick Ball fight, plus the upset that Bentley took from Hany.
But it was it was a good entertaining show overall. Coming off the
weekend, we're recapping lots of fights against David Ben a Vidaz conversation with Dan
in just a few moments. It's Ben a Vedas Andred fight week in Las
Vegas. Coming at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Stand by for that conversation.
We're not done in England. In the afternoon US time in England,
the boxers Sky Sports main event was in Wolverhampton, England, and saw adam
Azeem get a late TKO over Frank Pettijohn to win the European one hundred and
forty pound title. A Zeem, again on the rise as a prospect,
looked good from what I saw again, I can see the full fight,
but of the highlights, etc. Tell me what you saw out of him
in the victory. I saw a kid that's going a long way in this
sport. You know, he's got charisma, he's got punching power. He's
got a good team behind him with Sean mcgwigan and as his trainer. He's
got a big broadcaster in Sky Sports behind him. He's got determination. By
all accounts, he has a good work ethic. I mean, the kid
has you know good looks. I mean, he really is the little package.
And as we get further and further in his career. I know it's
only ten fights, but he's passed all the tests so far. He's been
incrementally stepping up his opposition. Frank Pettijohn today was definitely the best opponent of
his career, a guy that was a seasoned veteran, you know, with
pretty good defense and uh and uh and you know, some good experience and
and and I have to look this up. But they kept making the point.
I guess they I guess it's accurate. But they were saying that by
by the by the victory and by Asim's securing the European title, that he
is the fighter that has won a European title in the fewest number of fights
and only his tenth professional fights. So even if it's close to that,
that's still quite an accomplishment. That the European title is a very traditional important
title in boxing. If you take a look at the history of who's won
European titles, many many of those champions of the europe have gone on to
become world champions. Uh. It's it's a it's an important stepping zone for
any fighter that has world championship aspirations, and this kid is like, you
know, this guy is. It's similar like Pacheco from from the standpoint,
they're both in their early twenties, they're both quickly on the rise. Obviously
Pacheco's got more fights than this kid. But Azeem did a good job.
Petted John seemed to be in defensive mode early on. I think he felt
the punching power from a Zem and covered up quite a bit, didn't really
want to throw too much back and worry about getting caught. But he did
get knocked down in round five. He did get knocked down in round ten,
at which point the fight you know ended. At that point, a
Zeem was not on purpose, but he did land a low blow and had
got a point taken away from But as the commentators were saying, as it
was very obviously at one point was not going to make a difference because Adam
Azein had won every single second of every single round prior to the knockout,
and it was just a great showcase. I was really thrilled about it because,
as we've talked about, the folks at Boxer who have their broadcast deal
on Sky in the UK now have a deal here for their events to be
shown live on Peacock streaming service. So they had their first event a couple
of weeks ago, but that was a very reduced card because their main event
had been canceled because of an injury. So this was the first one that
I was like, really, I want to watch this big time. So
you know what it was. It was great tuning it into Peacock and the
the simulcast of the skycard perfect quality. Uh you know, no no uh
no international version where they're doing why shots and you don't see the feature and
you don't see this hear that? I mean, it was like the full
the full throttle show. So it was a pleasure to watch that on Peacock.
And uh uh, I'll tell you what. My Peacock subscription will replace
my Showtime subscription, which will get canceled sometime come mid to late December.
YEP. With Showtime getting out of the boxing business, we need to also
do it justice. Uh, because we made brief mention I think only on
the bet Us Show. And by the way, we did well on the
bet Us Show. What was your official record coming off of it? I
believe I was what either what four and one for this? Think you were
four and one? You hit the over on the pa Checko, I got
the Pachecko Ko. As much as I get mocked for taking KOs, I
gotta like Ko on that one. We both had nick ball in the decision.
The other thing I think we missed together was we both had the Azine
and Pettijohn fight going the distance. I thought he was defensive minded enough and
might be able to hang it enough to take the kid the distance for the
third consecutive fight, partly because he had never gone twelve rounds. I'm thinking
he might want to try to conserve a little energy at the end of the
fight. So we missed that one. But we if you were following our
picks and you were making a few wagers, you would have done very well.
This we did well. But we made mention on the bet Us Show
Friday, where they are Fridays at one Eastern time, that there was a
Friday night card in Uzbekistan and Carlo's Quadris was on that card and did end
up getting a victory. Tell us more about the significance of that real quick.
Yeah, that was that was kind of like one of these weird kind
of things. I mean, Okay, So the WBC had had it's had
its convention in uz Bekistan, and so they did a boxing card that was
part of the festivities, and you know, it was in like one of
the main arenas and in in tesh Kent, use Bekistan, the capital of
the country, and one of the main fights. The co feature was Carlos
Quadras, a former champion in the junior banneweight division, taken on Pedro Guavarro,
who was a former junior flyweight title holder. They were battling it out
for the WBC's interim Junior bandaweight title available. I guess because the real champion,
Jan Francisco Estrada, has not box since last December when he had his
victory against Chocolate Tito gonzaz in their third fight, and there was a lot
of conversation that maybe this New year's time frame he might be in a unification
fight in Japan. I don't know if that's going to happen, but in
any event, the WBC allowed this interim title fight. It was a good
fight, and so the interesting thing was when I saw it on the calendar
and I saw the announcement that the fight was happening. I actually had texted
Mauricio sulim On, the president of the WBC, who was obviously in the
in uz Bekkastan for the convention, and I said, Hey, any idea
if there's any broadcast plans for the fight, and he was like, I
don't know yet. I don't haven't heard anything, but if I hear anything,
I'll let you know. And then wouldn't you know, on the day
of the fight, this is on Friday, as Mariso recounted to me after
the fact, that on the day of the broad on the day of the
event, the local promoter in news Bekistan made some kind of broadcast deal with
his own and so they didn't announce it. There was no publicity. I
kind of found it by accident, but they showed this boxing card on his
own, so it's there if you still want to catch the replay. Because
besides Quadras, they also had in the main event position the big Uzbek baka
deir Jaalalov, the twenty twenty super heavyweight gold medalis who's from Huzbekistan, who
went in there and just destroyed a guy in the first round in a knockout,
which is always fun to watch a big heavyweight due damage like that.
And there was you know, some other guys. There was a nurse nurse,
nurse Sultanolov in a WBC middleweight eliminator. So if you if you're into
it, whether the fight is in Englewood, California, or Wolverhampton, England,
or Manchester, England or tesh Kent huz Bekistan, who cares, it's
all the same. You're looking at the ring. It doesn't matter where it
is. We get to watch it. It's a beautiful thing and we do
a great job of recapping. Yeah, big time and Quadras. Quadras looked
about as good as he's looked in a long time. He got two knockdowns
in the fight. One was a legit knockdown. One he made him touch
his glove down on a shot in the fight, and you know he scores.
It was a split decision, although I don't really quite get how the
one judge had Guivara winning the fight one fifteen to one eleven. But the
more normal car of cards that seem more reasonable were the Quadrus cards that were
one fifteen, one eleven, one sixteen, one ten. So Quadras is
in that group like that round robin of Quadrius and Sir Rungi Sai and obviously
Chocolate Tito and of course one Francisco Astrada, and all four of them fought
each other through the years in one of the great foursome round robins in boxing
history among those little weights. And now Quadras is teed up for another shot
against One Francisco Astrata if he'll do the fight, But of course he's already
lost to One Francisco Astrada twice in past past bouts, one of which I
was ringing side for. We'll see what happens. Whether the title goes vacant
or he gets elevated, who knows. But it was good to see Quadra's
back in action and you know, getting a solid victory Anders Belt, no
doubt about that. Okay. So, as we have been mentioning, it
is fight week for David Benavitez, Demetrius Andred. We're looking forward to this
pay per view our friends at PPV dot com that are sponsoring us, but
also Showtime. This is the last Showtime pay per view as it stands.
Unless something dramatic changes in December. This is it. You've already had a
conversation with Dimitrius Andre that we played on the podcast. Let's get to David
Benavitez with Dan talking about this pay per view main event coming up Saturday night
in Vegas. It's a pleasure to welcome into our show today, the WBC's
interim super middleweight champion, David Benavitez. David, I want you to know
you are in the year and a half I've been working on this podcast,
my first three time guest. It does not get you any kind of special
bonus, however, thank you very much for doing this. How's everything going
getting ready for your big fight? Yeah, it's going good. Man.
Then I just want to tell you thank you. I respect you. You
know, you're one of the top sports shrinkers in boxing for a long long
time. So it's definitely an honor to be on here. And I feel
good, man, I feel amazing. You know, every camp has been
I've been getting stronger and stronger, faster and faster, I'm eating getting more
experience. So now for this fight, you know, we got another tough
competitor, you know, a lefty guy that moves around a lot. People
saying that he's an out box mean just like they said, Caleb Plann was
gonna out box me, but you know, I feel like I'm just on
a different level than these guys, you know, and then I'm going to
continue to show it. You know, he has a lot of experience,
but I have a lot of experience myself too, the professional for ten years.
I've been working with high class fighters when I was sparring with them when
I was thirteen years old, So you know, I have a lot of
tricks out my sleeves too. But I've been working hard. Man. This
is this is the fight where it gets closer and closer. Every fight gets
closer and closer the Canelo fight. So I just got to, you know,
stay working hard, stay motivated, and you know, I'm very excited
going to show the fans what I got to offer this fight November twenty fifth.
Well, I should probably mention that we're talking about the undefeated Demetrius Andre
and the two division world champion in the jingior middleweight and the middleweight division now
boxing in the super middleweight division. In this fight will take place, of
course, November twenty fifth, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, live
on Showtime pay per view. And when I was thinking about you know,
the types of thoughts about this fight. In my mind, I was looking
at your record and now early on, you know, you beat a couple
of undefeated guys way back, you know, when they were like two to
oh and that type of thing, and one fighter that was not a top
guy. But I think maybe it was about twelve and oh. But this
is before you were a top contender, you know, or at the championship
level. This is gonna be the first guy that you faced that is undefeated,
that's also an elite fighter. And I wonder when you go into a
match like this and he's never lost before, obviously you've never lost before either,
is there like added motivation just to be the guy that takes the o
because so many times today's boxing, at the top level, it seems like
fighters are are sometimes unwilling to risk that perfect record against another, you know,
top guy who was also undefeated. Yeah, it definitely gives me more
motivation to be the first one to say that, yeah, I beat Demetrius,
and it gives me more motivation to go in there and to do basically
put the to have the fight and look the way I want to have.
You know, I think I'm gonna go and there's gonna be a landslide.
Either I stop him late or it's gonna be a dominating performance. So,
I mean, I've been working extremely hard and you know he's undefeated, so
I'm gonna be the first one to say that. I could be the first
one to say that I beat Dimetris andres So, and that definitely gives me
more of a motivation as well. So he as I mentioned, he's a
two division world champion, he's undefeated. As we talked about, here's the
United States Olympian, He's a world amateur champion, got a lot of accolades,
but hasn't had the big fight yet as a professional. You are his
big fight so far, and I know from talking in previously that without question,
this would be his biggest win. Do you think that this would be
your biggest win? You've got some good wins, but I don't know if
I think that plants a bigger win than this one would be. What do
you think about that? Yeah, I think it'd be a bigger win,
definitely. I feel like every fight is getting harder and harder, but that's
better for me. So I feel like the more I go up in the
ranks, the better fighters I fight and the better fighters I beat. So
you're a guy between this fight that's coming up in the November twenty fifth,
your last fight in March against Plant that will have had you had two fights
this year, both against top level fighters at the upper echelon of your weight
class, both guys who are former world champions. One loss between them that
was Plants. Uh, you know, a loss to Canelouh, and you
take pride. I mean, a lot of guys even when they fight twice,
it's one maybe big time fight in one like a little bit of a
lesser fight. You seem to me at least this year anyway that I can
think of, is the is the the only guy at the top level of
the sport who's taken on two top guys in a row in the same year,
back to back, without like a lesser touch. Let's say in there,
does that give you pride that you're willing to do that and why are
you different than some of these other cats? Yeah, that definitely gives me
pride because I just want to show everybody that you know, I'm willing to
risk at all to prove myself to the fans. At the end of the
day, I want to prove myself to the fans and to myself that I
am the best in this division, and the only way I do that is
going up against the top opposition. Also, I've been professional for ten years
now. I turned pro when I was sixteen, and I feel like that
was just the groundwork to give me to where I'm at now. You know
that for ten years, It's not like I was fighting killers. You know,
my career Billy started picking off the past five years. So now that
I got all the experience and now it was just time to, you know,
really go off to the big guys and fight the best of the best
and beat the best of the best. So clearly this fight's a high class
fight. I don't think anybody's going to dispute that really interesting matchup different styles,
of course. But I wonder before this fight was finalized, this was
not like a rumor mill thing. This was your promoter Samson Luca Wit saying,
so, this was David Morrell's promoter or co promoter Liam Margerley is saying
so to me that the two sides had reached an agreement and that you guys
would fight each other and it didn't happen, And I was wondering, why
did that fight not happen, even though of course you got a good fight
in front of you with Andre. What happened with the Merrell fight? That
seemed like that was first on the agenda, at least for your promoter and
for his promoter. Well, yeah, they never talked to me about that.
It was on there pro motionless. But I never got to fight myself,
you know. I was trying to go out after Mugia first and then
Demetrisandre. The reason so because they're more established. Yeah, I feel like
these guys are more established in the boxing. That's why I want to go
after David Morreau. He has like ten fights. He's a good fighter.
Don't get me wrong. I don't want to take anything away from he's a
great fighter. But I feel like that fight comes later. But yeah,
I mean, Samson can say whatever he wants, but at the end of
the day, we do what I want to do, you know, And
I wanted to get these fights. I want to get these guys out the
way and then we give moreau out the way. Yeah, I mean I
listen. I mean, like like you said, I mean, if you're
fighting andre great fight if you're fighting morell great fights. So to me,
it was sort of like, okay, as long as you're fighting another you
know, interesting matchup. So the thing about this fight also between yourself and
Demetrius in comparison to when you were getting ready to fight against Kayleb Plant,
I mean you know this, you were in the fight tons of trash talk,
a lot of bad blood, tons of disrespect, you know, a
lot of bad words between everybody on both teams. Seems totally different between yourself
and Demetrius. I know you're both compared. You both obviously want to win
and take the other guy out, but respectful at the press conference, you
know, complimentary of one another, of each each other's accomplishments. Why is
there such a difference in the way that both of you seem to be approaching
this fight in terms of the outside the ring business compared to the way it
was between yourself and Plant. It's because with me, to be honest with
you, I'm not really gonna go after a fighter like that and disrespect a
fighter until I get disrespected first. If I feel like there's tension in that
way, then I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna protect myself for you know,
defend myself as a man the way I seem Demetrius he was cool,
calm, collective. He's never said nothing bad about me. I've never said
nothing bad about him. So we're professionals at the end of the day,
you know, I'm not, you know. And at the end of the
day, we got to show the kids too. You don't always got to
have a big be for talk shit. You know, at the end of
the day, this is professional sports where both gentlemen and we could we could
take it the other way, and I'm still gonna try and knock him out.
I'm gonna try to take his head off. That doesn't that doesn't change
at all. But the way we could conduct ourselves outside I mean, one
fight, acting like this is kind of everybody that you know, Boxing is
a classic sport. This is a sport of gentlemen. It doesn't always have
to be shit talking or bad blood this and that, because at the end
of the day, if you're sometimes all that bad blood, it might lead
to a fight before the fight and it focks everything up, you know what
I mean. So we don't want that to happen. And you know,
I don't want to mess my money up, he doesn't want to mess his
money up, and we'll both want to go back home to our families after,
and you know, that's how it has to be. You know,
we've conducted ourselves like gentlemen and professionals. So one thing I also found interesting
about this is just the fact that your brother, your your older brother,
Jose Junior, he's going to be on this card. Also he's taken on
Jamal Charlot, who's returning to the ring for the first time in two and
a half years. He's the WBC Middleway Champion, although this is going to
be a non title fight, and his fight takes place right before your main
event, at least the way they announced the show, And I wonder,
do you get a little nervous with your brother also on the card where you
know, I mean, you're gonna be concerned about how his result goes.
And also the fact that because your father, Jose Sr. Trains you,
trains him, that he's gonna be busy in the ring with your brother taking
care of his fight as you're in the dressing room in the final preparations for
what's a very big fight for yourself. Yeah. So, to be honest,
I do get nervous. I get more nervous to my brothers than from
my own fights. I don't get nervous for my fights. But for him,
I think it's just that I have no control of what happens with him.
You know, he you know obviously, but he's been working extremely hard,
and I feel like this is a great you know, this is a
great comeback fight. Not comeback fight, this is a great opportunity for him.
Uh. I mean, I feel like my brother's gonna I feel like
he's gonna knock Charlo out. You know, everybody says I'm crazy, but
you know, I've been seeing my brothers. I've been smart with him,
and he's looking really good. So I think that's how it's gonna go.
But my dad has this assistant trainers that I could be working in the back,
you know, doing mites, warming up by the time he's finished.
And I will say this, you know, me and Demetris have conducted themselves
like gentlemen, But I think my brother and Charlo, they might go hiad
it at the press conferences. They might get a little spicy. I think
you're right, that's going to be. Yeah, that's gonna be a good
fight too. I'm very excited for that fight, and it's gonna be a
great fight. I can't wait to see it. Well, I guess you
can't really have Benevide's on a card and have no shit talk, right,
that doesn't work. Yeah, all right, you mentioned I want to wrap
up with this. You mentioned earlier about that you still hope, of course,
to get a shot at Canelo Alvarez. He, of course is the
undisputed champion in your weight division. You are the WBC's interim title holder.
You'll be his mandatory challenger eventually, obviously, if you keep winning your your
defenses here now. Before you even fought Caleb Plant, my perspective was,
and I think that of many boxing media and boxing fans, was that you
were the big fight for Canelo, the defense. He had other things he
did. He ended up fighting the other Charlote brother when the brother, Jamal
was unable to do so. I was hopeful, as were many, that
you guys would obviously fight each other in this spot. That obviously is not
happening. Maybe next year. But I keep thinking to myself that you are
I think the guy that most people says is like the legit number one contender,
Dimitrius is there also, and that the winner of the fight between the
two of you guys is gonna be the clear cut I call him the people's
mandatory. Whatever Sanxing Body says, do you do you agree with that?
And and how likely in your mind do you think is that, because of
course you're both with PBC, that he will fight you next year. I
definitely I do have a feeling that he's gonna fight me next year. But
like I said, we're gonna stay focused on what we gotta do, and
we gotta stay working, and I gotta come out and I gotta look good
in this fight, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. But I just
feel like I'm just knocking out everybody down. I mean, there's nobody else
that wants sixty eight that the people want to see Canelo fight. You know,
I've been a mandatory for the past two years. You know, I
won the title eliminator first, and I went into him belt and I'm still
haven't got to fight. I just feel like, you know, the people
want to see this fight. But it's fine if I gotta take everybody out,
you know, the top five contenders and the one sixty eight way class.
That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I'm not going nowhere, and at
the end of the day, I become more dangerous because I'm getting more experienced.
This is my second pay per view fight, the big fights for me,
big crowd, so I'm you know, I'm really getting used to this
and I'm I'm very comfortable right now. So whenever that fight happens, I'm
gonna be more than ready. And I feel like it's gonna happen next year.
I want to ask you this one more thing what I just thought of,
and I forgot to ask you earlier. You mentioned that you thought you're
gonna just go in there and knock Demetrius out, and I wonder, Uh,
you mentioned he's southpaw, He's got a great background, experienced, and
I wonder, how how is that like the style wise that you deal with
the southpaw style, the technical style, because your styles are so much different.
You're a guy that's obviously a pressure fighter, a lot of knockouts,
a brawler showing a great chin, but he used that technique. Maybe not
the biggest puncher, although he's got a ton of knockdowns. How do you
think that that What is it that you say that you believe in yourself that
you're just gonna be able to basically go in there and just get rid of
them that easily the way you make it sound, Well, no, I
didn't. I didn't. I didn't mean it like that. It's gonna be
a tough fight, you know. I think this is just my ego taking
over. But obviously I know it's gonna be a hard fight. I gotta
go in there. I gotta cut the distance. I gotta attack the body.
I gotta throw a lot of combinations, you know. I gotta,
you know, cut the distance with the jab. But I didn't you just
basically do what I always do, you know, start at the head end,
at the body, cut the ring off. We you know what he's
gonna do. But if he wants to brawl, we could go that way
too. I mean, at the end of the day, I feel like
I'm the bigger, stronger, I'm the more natural one one sixty eight pounder,
you know. I I think I'm faster, I'm definitely stronger. So
I don't know, we're gonna We're gonna see what's gonna happen. The thing
about me is that this every camp I have their tremendous camp. So I
go into these fights with so much confidence. You know, I've done twelve,
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen rounds, three four five different sparting partners,
so I have tremendous confidence. If it's gonna happen in the first if it's
gonna if I'm gonna hurt him the first couple rounds, I'm hurting the first
couple of rounds. He definitely is gonna get hurt in this fight. It's
just that, you know, we gotta do. We gotta do what we
gotta do. We gotta cut the distance, we gotta put them in the
uncomfortable situations and catch them with the shot. And it's worked for every other
fighter, you know what I mean. So I have a lot of confidence
in myself and my combination. So when you get this job done, well,
I'm looking forward to this fight. I think it's a classy matchup,
a great style matchup. I wish you the best of luck, David,
and I thank you very much for doing this and best of luck. On
November twenty fifth, yes, sir, thank you, and let me publicly
say you are hustling. We're bringing the fans all kinds of newsmaking fighters,
promoters, etc. You've heard from the likes just recently of Shakur Stevenson,
Tim Zoo, even Oscar de la Joya, and now David Benavita's here,
so great stuff. Keep it up. I even got a chance to talk
with Jamel Herring in an interview. So fans, if you're enjoying hearing from
the fighters and the newsmakers, make it a point to follow and subscribe on
the podcast feed. With everything that's going on, we will obviously preview more
specifically the Benavitas Andre fight. But how did you find him in that conversation?
Is this is obviously a marquee spot for him to be in. It's
a great interview, first of all, I mean, he really gets it.
He's wonderful with his meat, with his meat and his pr He's an
exciting fighter and a fun fighter to watch, and he's a pleasure. And
interviewed him many times. I think he's actually our first ever three time guest
on the podcast, which I joked around with him. People heard of the
interview. I said, David, you're our first three time guest and that
doesn't get anything extra for you for being on again. Anyway, No,
David's a David. You know, he really understands, you know, what
he wants to do in the sport. He's he's gotten more mature, you
know. W he started out as a as a twenty years old when he
when he I think won his first world title at twenty, he was the
youngest ever tybe he was twenty one whatever was he was the youngest ever super
midleweight champion. He obviously, you know, he got stripped because he you
know, he made a bad mistake by by testing positive for cocaine, which
he seemed very apologetic for. I actually believe the way he went at that,
that that he that he did, you know, knows he did the
wrong thing. And I think he's gotten some maturity now. You know,
he's now married with the family and so you know that can change the way
people are. But anyway, he's very much excited about this fight, as
people could hear in his voice, just looking forward to getting down with Andre.
You know, you know, they respect each other, they know that
it's a tough fight for each of them. They bring different styles and it's
just a it's gonna be I think it's gonna be a really good fight in
David if he can win, or advice versa for Andred, as you heard
in the previous interview we had with him on the podcast a couple episodes ago.
You know, they hope that with a victory they get themselves into position
to get their name called the fight against Canelo Alvas. And you mentioned about
the interviews, you know, besides Benavidez, we've got some good ones coming
up. We got some that were ready to go. We got we got
Regis Prora coming up. We got Xanders Ayas coming up. We got Ryan
Garcia coming up. We got some good shit coming up. We do that
should be on a bumpus sticker right there. The conversation will continue in a
moment. First, a few words about our friends from PPV dot Com.
This coming Saturday night, it is the Super Middleweight Showdown main event from Las
Vegas, as former one hundred and sixty eight pound world champ David Benavidez takes
on former WBO World middleweight champion Demetrius Andre and you can watch that event through
our friends at PPV dot com with no long term commitment, that's right,
stream the payperview as a one off with PPV dot com. They've got tremendous
features, high quality broadcast, including interactive commentary from different announcers, and most
importantly, you don't need a six month subscription, much less a year long
subscription to be able to see David Benavidez and Demetrius Andred square off and also
an outstanding undercard with other world title fights as well coming up from Las Vegas
on Saturday night. Again it caps off Thanksgiving weekend. It is Benavitas and
Andred and you want to stream and watch with our friends at PPV dot com.
High quality streaming broadcast, a one off purchase, no subscription necessary with
PPV dot com. Good stuff. And again, more on Benavidez and Andred
in the preview mode later in and around Thanksgiving. And that title fight or
that interim title fight is the headlining payperview for Showtime and UH and PBC on
Saturday night from Las Vegas. All right, some news and then some nostalgia
and we're done. Uh. When we left the podcast on Friday, I
gotta keep all my day straight. Here we we were, we were wondering
as we put the late night Thursday Night Championship double header to bed what was
up with Shaquur Stevenson. So there is some reporting out there about what's going
on, what may have been the cause of him being Uh, let's let's
just say this, Uh, how can we be polite? He was not
Shakoor, he was not very active, not doing a lot, very dull.
Let's just let's stop. We just say the fight sucked. That part
of it is, I'm trying to be politically correct, but it did.
So we did say coming off of that, was there an injury? And
now there's some reporting about this. What's the latest? Not excuse making,
but what's the latest about what was going on? Yeah, I mean it's
not a surprise because if you watch the fighting, you know the difference between
you're right and your left. You notice that of course, Stevenson for pretty
much the entirety of twelve rounds barely through his left hand, which is,
you know, a weapon for him, and he didn't use it at all.
So you wondered they were They were commentating about it on the show,
wondering and speculating. And I will give Shakurt credit as bad as if I
was. He didn't make excuses about it and didn't call attention to an injury.
Said, I don't want to talk about it. You know. He
just said he didn't feel good. You know, he felt bad coming into
the fight. Okay, but that that's what it is in any event.
Uh, my good buddy. Keith Idac from Boxing Scene, who was at
the fight, spoke to Bob Aaron, the Top Rank promoter, and Bob
said that Shaquor had a bum shoulder and that two three weeks before the fight
he had to see the doctor and he almost pulled out of the fight.
They thought he might pull out of the fight. He went through with the
fight. Obviously, he was hampered by the left to the left arm that
did not work very well, or that he didn't use, or that he
favored or whatever you want to however you want to say it. And uh
uh he got the win. He got a lot of a lot of tremendous
negative response from social media, you know, from fans on social media about
the performance. He knows it was a terrible fight. He even said so
afterwards. He never aw a guy who just became a three division world champion.
Uh. Seemed less happy than Shakequart Stevenson after the fight, so he
knows. And I've said, steadfathlete, see as horrible as the fight was,
as absolutely shitty as it was, uh, I do chalk it up
as an anomaly. I do not think this is the Shaquart Stevenson we'll be
seeing on a regular basis. Every fighter, at one time or another is
gonna have a shit fight. It just so happened that it came for Sha
Court when he's fighting for a world title on a national stage, in a
main event in Las Vegas, on national television at a huge arena, you
know, et cetera, et cetera, on a and following the tremendous battle
between them, never Rette and Kansas out, which makes your fight look even
worse when you just follow it up, you know, one of the better
action fights of the year, and so again. And I believe that the
arm was injured because he didn't throw it. So I don't think Bob's pretty
shit. I think that he had some kind of issues, and uh we
hopefully he'll he'll hill up and we'll see him in better seat. And you
know what, in boxing, man like more than any other sport, I
think, And the problem is there's so much time between each fight that we're
all going to hear. Every time Shakurt comes up for the next however many
months and hell he fights again, a lot of it's gonna be centered on
what a shitty performance that was against Edwin de los Santos. You know,
if he was coming back out to fight next week, it'd be's quickly forgotten.
But when he comes back in the ring whenever that is, you know,
let's say, in the in the first part of next year, and
he does a better job in that fight, you know what, all is
forgiven and people will forget because we can sit here in cite chapter and verse
of all time greats who went in the ring and put on you know,
laid eggs and had terrible fights. You know, let's not make it like
Shakour is the only you know, great fighter that had a shitty fight.
I mean, there's plenty of them. I mean, I can think of,
uh, you know, pick any superstar out there that you want,
and I can tell you there's probably a fight in their in their resume that
you would never want to pop the video in or call up on YouTube or
whatever. All Right, a couple more news items, then we get to
the nostalgia. Speaking of Top Rank, they did announce Oshaky Fosters agreed to
a multi fight deal with them. The WBC Junior Lightweight champion was in that
great fight just a few weeks back, so they have in tim and unification
could be possible. Here, just give me a little more on that announcement.
Listen. It's it's a great signing because he was a free agent.
The reason he boxed against Rocky Hernandez on a Matchroom card is because he was
a free agent at that time. He didn't have anybody to back him.
Rocky Hernandez his promoter as Matchroom. They won the purse bid and so therefore
he was bound to them for that one bout. And then he was a
free agent after the bout and he was talking to different promoters and Top Rank
made him an offer and he accepted. And this is a good signing for
him because it's a good It's good for Oshaki because now he's gonna be on
national television on ESPN and helped build his own profile, make some good fights
and all that kind of stuff. And also it's good for Top Rank because
it gives them another champion who you know who they don't have to invest heavily
in there. He's a made guy already, He's got the belt and and
he is in the prime of his career. He's been in some very interesting
and crowd pleasing kind of fights. But he's also a good boxer, and
more importantly, they have guys that they can match him with, you don't
you know. It's one thing if a guy's talent and you can sign them,
but then gotta figure out what the heck do we do with him?
Right in terms of Oshaki Foster, this is not complicated. You know,
I'm not saying this is going to happen next or what the order is gonna
be, But certainly at one hundred and thirty pounds, if they want to,
they could make a unification fight with Navarette. Let's say he fight,
Let's maybe he does a rematch with Concas out. The winner of that fight
could certainly square off with Oshaki Foss in a unification. They now control both
of those belts. You have Oscar Valdez, who's still a quality contender in
that weight class. He could put him in there for a title shot.
Some of their fighters that they promote at one hundred and twenty six pounds at
some point will probably rise in a weight I'm talking about guys like Robessi Ramirez
someday will be one hundred and thirty pounds. Luis Alberto Lopez will probably go
up and weigh at some point, and so that would give him a name
in that weight class. Or if Oshaki Foster decides he you know, let's
say he loses, or he goes up and weight or whatever, there's guys
at one hundred and thirty five pounds that he could tangle with, whether it's
Chuck Course Stevenson down the road, or other talented fighters like the Lomachenko or
whoever. I'm just making the point that the one hundred and thirty pound weight
class is such a prime spot because you got the quality guys at twenty six
that are probably going to come up. You got good guys that are already
in your weight class that you can tangle with or are already with your promoter.
I will er check the name Emmanuel navarate top rank fighter. Exactly are
you not paying attention? I just spent like five minutes talking about that.
Well, yeah, but I mean, is Navarati going to stay at one
thirty? Is he going to try to move up to one thirty five,
So you're right, that's not even relevant, right, But the point of
any of the guys at twenty six that move up, he fits in with
any of the guys already currently at one thirty, especially the wise with his
own promoter, which are good guys he can fight. And if he just
decides to go up to one thirty five, he'll up opportunity because they've got
talent there also, So it's it's a it's a match that works well,
I believe for Oshaki Foster as well as for top rank. He won't fight
the rest of this year. We'll see him back in the ring, most
likely in February defending his title. Stuff. One more news item. We
didn't really cover this yet, but we do it here. We do our
best to get back around to it. So the WBC has put this out
there, and let me just say at the outset, these kind of things
draw criticism, etc. But with what we're about to talk about, boxing
fans, I'm speaking to you. I'm not speaking just to Dan Rayfield.
I'm speaking to you. How many of you can name fighters six through ten
in any ranking in any weight class without looking my hand is up. By
the way, most of us don't know who any of them are without looking.
So the fact that the WBC has ranked Francis and Ganu number ten,
I mean, I saw some reaction on Twitter. They was like, oh
my god, again he's ranked tenth, And I get the fact that it's
one fight against Tyson Fury. So some of this is to drum up publicity.
But to me, I'm just giving you on the front end my take.
Now I want yours. Most of us don't know six through ten.
A lot of us don't know three through ten in any of these rankings.
Even in the heavyweights, we don't know the ranking. Go ahead. You've
probably heard of some of those guys. But it's like a it's there's two
ways to look at it. Either one, like you said, they think
that he really deserves it because he basically he basically beat the heavyweight champion to
a lot of people. At the very worst, he was, you know,
one point away from beating the heavyweight champion in his pro debut, including
scoring a knockdown. They do respect his combat history, maybe not as a
boxer, but as one of the top fighters in mixed martial arts. So
I'm not saying that's boxing, but that's part of the reason because he has
shown a championship level ability in that sport and like most importantly, like I
said, he went straight up if not beat the heavyweight champion of the world
in his pro debut, and it's you say, publicity is part of it
when he fights, if he goes into an eliminator or our regional titles or
something like that, it will bringing publicity and money to the organization. And
the negative way to look at it would be that the heavyweight divisions think so
bad that a guy in his pro debut could go oh to one and go
into the top ten, because that's how weak the second part of the division
is. I think it's kind of a mixture of both, and I saw
the criticisms that you saw about it. Personally speaking, I have no problem
with it because A it's not like he's fighting for the title in his next
fight. B. He essentially defeated the heavyweight champion, and even though he
technically his own one, his one fight those ten rounds is still probably better
than what most heavyweights have already done, certainly in that lower part of the
top ten or into the top fifteen, and you know what, he is
already a star, and that you get there are privileges when you're a star
in athletics, and I don't have a problem with it. It's not a
big deal to me. You know, they want to associate themselves with frances
nagan Who. I get that. Again, it's business, I understand.
I don't think it's strictly a business decision, but certainly if you were making
a laundry list of reasons, it's part of it. And I have no
problem with Francis Nigano being ranked number ten. And one more important point,
this is math, this is reality. Can we help everybody out one more
time? If he's tenth, there are nine other guys, the WBC says
that are more deserving of the shot than a rematch for Naganu against Tyson Fury.
Everybody relaxed. I mean that means he would have to win several like
more than a couple fights back. No, I mean well, but I
mean I'm just saying if the number two guy beats the number three guy,
or the number three guy beats the number two guy, then then in just
in general, that should be worth more than what's going down in the in
the bottom down in the six through ten. But the way that there should
wait it that way, the way the rules work is by being placed at
number ten. He now can be an optional defense for the champion. But
we sort of already saw that. We say it wasn't it wasn't a fitly
for their title, but but now it could be if there's a rematch.
Again, this is a lot of if in what and we'll see Tyson Fury
is fighting Alexander Usik for the undisputed title coming in February. The WBC was
very specific at their convention when they went through all their divisions and did their
mandatories and all that. They did not make a mandatory in the heavyweight division.
It's open ended at the current time. They'll reassess it after what happens
with the Wilder and Joshua doubleheader. They'll wait to see what happens with Usik
and Fury. In the meantime, if Tyson Fury wins against Usik and there's
no rematch and he wants to try to do a Nagano rematch, he now
was qualified according to their rules to challenge for the title. They didn't They
did not sanction the first, you know, the October twenty eighth fight for
the title, you know, for obvious reasons. But now he's number ten
in the rankings based on ten rounds of excellent performance against the champion, and
so now they could theoretically sanction that as a heavyweight championship fight. Legit,
twelve rounds for the belt as opposed to ten rounds only for the lineal title.
All right, onto the nostalgia and then we wrap it up here three
different pieces. The first one a nineteen ninety showdown thirty three years ago on
Saturday this past weekend, Chris Ubank with a knockout of Nigel Ben in their
first fight. He won the WBO Middleway title, which was a brand new
correct that was like within the first little bit of the WBO's existence. Yeah,
about the just tremendous fight, tremendous fight, go ahead. Nobody really
considered in nineteen ninety the WBO to be a legitimate title. You know,
if you now that we look back on it, it seems like, okay,
it was a title fight and it was for that for that belt,
and in Britain it was more easily accepted than it was here in the United
States. Or many other places in the world. But put that aside.
The title was not necessarily the main thing about it. It was that it
was a phenomenal fight, probably one of the best fights in the history of
British boxing. It's a legendary fight to this day. It's why there's so
much interest, frankly, and why they want to see. The fans over
there are so intrigued and interested in the prospect was seeing their stuns Chris Eubank
Junior fight against Connor Ben because it carries on the family legacy of the incredible
rivalry that these two guys had with this first fight coming in nineteen ninety that
was a phenomenal fight. To have this rematch that turned out to be a
draw in a super mid aweight titled unification fight in nineteen ninety three. But
the first one, of course was the better of the two. You know,
they did it in the arena in Birmingham, England, a big build
up to the fight, tremendous action, huge deal. And the thing about
it was the fight was never broadcast in the United States. This is way
before they were streaming. There was no YouTube, there was no anything.
It wasn't on one of the boxing channels and therefore it wasn't around. But
in the UK it was on free television in prime time on ITV, which
is like the British equivalent of an ABC, a CBS, that type of
thing where it's over the area. Plug your TV and you get it.
ITV, you know, for many years, showed top quality boxing matches for
a long time. This was a match room card. They did regular fights
on IA TV at that time, with Barry hearn Eddie's father as the you
know, the front man promoting the event, and they just put on a
spectacle. It was a tremendous fight and if you've never seen it, it's
worth watching. This was This was, you know, one of the classic
nineteen nineties fights. Great stuff. And again I've relived that and watched that
and it's not that unheard of. Again, we often mocked the gen z
ors, the under thirty year olds. They used to have fights on network
TV in the United States regularly every week every month, and in England it
would be the same way too, And things then began to move to pay
per view and different pay services and whatever. But that's a that's a nice
perce. I gotta tell you how different it was back then. Because that
fight was not on television in the United States, you really didn't know it
was even happening very much, except maybe, like because you saw a thing
about it in like the Ring magazine or the magazine or whatever. There was
a lot of boxing magazines back then that you could find on your newsstands,
and it wasn't like a huge event for American boxing fans. So even if
it was covered in the magazines, it was not a lot about it.
Number one, number two. It wasn't the kind of thing because it was
such a huge fight that it was covered in your local newspaper or sports you
know, if you're watching like the late news like eleven o'clock at night or
whatever, or even on Sports Center back and then then in those days,
so even if you knew the fight was happening, it was hard to even
find out what what the result was, so you might have to wait to
get like the Ring magazine a few weeks later, a month later. If
you lived in Britain, maybe you get the Boxing News which came out every
week. You know, there were some people that might get the boxing news,
you know, delivered to them to the United States, but even that
because it was on paper and it took time mailed, you know, not
first class, but it took a couple of weeks to get her anyway,
you know, so you might have to like, you know, call your
buddy on the phone in England and it would it would make this people can't
fathom this. No, it was like your your your buddy would say,
hey, I watched the ben U Bank fight. Did you see it ben
You know ben Uh got knocked out and u Bank looked great and it was
a fun fighting. You tell your friend and that's the way you know you're
boxing. People would find out through word of mouth on telephone calls. There
was no you couldn't text somebody. There was no instant message, there was
no email. It was like ancient times. We're only talking about fucking nineteen
ninety's that long ago. I mean, yeah, and it's a circumstance again,
and we're about to move on. But it's a circumstance again where there
wasn't a US broadcaster who was willing to pay to even show the replay.
So, as you use the word unfathomable as we do this podcast, I
watched a term world title fight from fucking Uzbekistan in the present day, but
it's unthinkable that you did not even have somebody to show the replay. So
if you had not seen this live, there is no internet, there is
no YouTube, There's not a way to see it until many years later when
now we have YouTube and somebody puts it on YouTube. There were people that
probably never knew the fight was happening, had no idea what occurred, and
three, four or five weeks later, the local convenience store or the book
shop or the magazine stand bought a copy of The Ring or some other boxing
magazine and popped it open and read about this great fight from England between Nigel
Bent and Chris Hubank. Now in twenty twenty three, you can go on
your phone and in twelve seconds putching that trap on YouTube. You know U
Bank Ben one, and you can watch the entire broadcast in its entirety,
in its glorious different time, that's for sure. So move forward to seventeen
years after that, November eighteenth of two thousand and six, again the anniversary.
This past weekend, you were ringside for Manny Pacquiow in his third matchup
with Eric Morales, laying him out. You were there for that one.
What do you remember? I remember a lot. They had had two fantastic
fights. The first fight's a sore spot for me. That was in March
of two thousand and five. It was supposed to be the first fight that
I went on the road to travel to cover after I started working for ESPN.
I got sick. I could not travel. I missed. In my
entire career of covering boxing, there are two bouts that I was supposed to
travel for that I got and I don't. I don't get sick a lot.
I got sick like twice in all those years. I happened to miss
two of the greatest fights you'll ever see. I got sick and miss Gaddy
Ward one. And I got sick and I missed Eric Morales Pakia one,
which was an absolute classic, incredible battle. You know that Eric Morales won
that fight, and you know, a tremendous, tremendous fight. I was
at the rematch, which was another great battle. Pacio got the revenge.
And now they're going for the third fight. And by the way, the
fascinating thing, by the way, about that trilogy, which is a very
underrated trilogy, A tremendous trilogy. They fought three times, all in one
hundred and thirty pound weight class, and not one of those fights between these
two legendary Hall of famers or you know, Pakia is not in all fame
yet but will be when it's time to be voted on. Do you believe
that not any of their three title uney, their three fights were a world
title fight. That is mind boggling to me. They were all either regional
dogs. You would get a lot of people on that trivia question. They
filed three times and none of them were title fights. Pa and Eric Morales.
The first one was for the WBC International title. It's a regional title,
the second one was a WBC one hundred and thirty pound title eliminator,
and the third one was again for the WBC International one hundred to thirty pound
titles. So these two great spot three times, none for a world title.
But anyway, when they went into the third fight, uh they're one
and one. They're doing the trilogy. Uh and uh, you know,
Manny Pacya was like a man possessed a night. Morales said, seen better
days and it was. Uh so it was a pretty dominating situation where he
put you you said he laid him out. He didn't really lay him out.
What he did was he knocked him down in the third round, but
he had given him so much punishment leading up to that, and Morales was
the underdog going into the fight, not a huge underdog, but he was
definitely the dog. And it got to a point when he went down.
Uh he sat in the in the in the ring and he put his arms
basically around it. It was very reminiscent you if you could do a side
by side photograph and look at the way Eric Morales looked when he got dropped
by Pakia, and then next to it put the picture of the way Alexis
Argueo. Yes, I agree, you were going there because he has the
arms wrapped around the knees in the seated position and it's just like I'm done.
It was the mirror image of a great fighter in Argueyo and a great
fighter in Morales just knowing they can't beat this guy tonight and saying that's it.
I'm done. And it happened when he fought the rematch against Aaron Pryor
for Argueo, and it happened in the third match between Manny Pacio and Morales,
where Morales looked over to his father, who was also his trainer,
and was like, Dad, I don't have you know. He didn't say
this, but you could just tell the look on his face. I'm just
done. And uh, that was a huge win because Eric Morales, by
the way, the last word you'd ever used to describe Eric Rowse was be
like as a guy who's a quitter. I mean, this is a guy
who's as you know, as ultimate warrior as there is. But on that
night he just had nothing for Manny Packet, who was about to begin or
was in the in the early stages of what became like an absolutely legendary run.
You know, this is a couple of fights before he fought the first
fight or the rematch rather with Marco Antonio Brera. Then he had Marquez,
David Diaz de la Joye, Ricky had and Miguel Coto. I mean,
it was just but this was at the that third fight with Paco and Morales
was sort of the indication that that Pakia was going to be moving on to
bigger things beyond one hundred and thirty pounds and some even bigger fights, and
and uh, but that that Pac Yao was so electrifying that that you could
not take your eyes off this guy and what he did to Morales. He
Morales had had, you know, he had lost before, but not like
that, not not as complete like you know, like it was a like
a tsunami just coming over him. It just couldn't do anything. It was
any great performance in a very memorable night at Thomas and Mack Center for me
and anybody else that was present. And one more nostalgia moved forward seven more
years to November nineteenth of twenty sixteen, which the anniversary was Sunday. Andre
Ward defeat Sergei Coviallev in their first fight and captures three of the light heavyweight
titles. You were there for that one as well, again, mister nostalgia.
What do you remember about that night? I remember that was a huge
fight going in. They were both undefeated. Covid Lev was the three belt
light heavyweight champion and was a devastating fighter. Was knocking everybody out. I
was, you know, doing damage to everybody that he faced. Andre Ward
was the super middleweight champion coming up in wait, had won you know,
the tournament, the Showtime Tournament to you know, had defeated Carl Frotch and
and stood atop the King of the Mountain in that way class, and now
the question was, you know what is next now? He did this was
not this was not the next fight after that or anything like that. He
did fight several fights after he won the tournament, you know, including knocking
out Chad Dawson who was the light heavyweight champion at the time that had come
down and wait and then knocked out. Then he had a couple of smaller
fights, and people are sort of getting frustrated because Ward had had you know,
he had problems with his promoter and he was on the shelf for a
while. He had some injuries. He had had kind of four fights in
a row against just you know, regular kind of opponents. I mean,
he did beat Solo Umbrera in there that was undefeated at the time, but
not big time fights. And finally they made the match with Covi Lef So
again you got the undefeated super middleweight champion who was high on people's pound for
pound less. You've got the undefeated Sergei Kovalev who was destroying everybody, and
it's a great clash of styles. You got the Consuma boxer, technician of
andre Ward against just all out, you know, rip your head off,
but also with solid boxing ability in covial Lev. And they made it.
They made the fight for Team Mobile Arena. This is again twenty sixteen.
It turned out to be a very good fight. Andre Ward got the toughest
fight of his career that night, and I, along with many, many,
many other people thought that even though it was a close fight, that
Covelev won the fight. I scored that fight one fifteen to one twelve.
All three judges scored the fight one fourteen to one thirteen in favor of andre
Ward. I did not like that. I think to myself, if the
if the judges had gone the other way and given it the covi Lev,
what that would have been. In terms we talked about the moments that changed
boxing, I always bring up if holy Field and Roy Jones had fought instead
of Roy Jones going back to light heavyweight to fight Tarvar those types of very
significant things that changed the trajectory of history of boxing, or certainly for a
particular fighter. I think things would have been a lot different for Coviallev.
There might there might not have been a rematch which he ended up getting knocked
out in controversially because some people thought it was a low blow that scored the
knockout or led to the knockout. But this was this is a big fight.
Now. It didn't do huge business because neither guy was you know,
had had a track record on pay per viewed. They didn't have any of
them the huge fan bases. But they did put it on pay per view.
Didn't do very well. But in terms of the significance, you know,
at that time in twenty sixteen, you couldn't get a more meaningful fight
when you're talking about the two champions from their those two weight classes, who
are both basically you know, one two or three on the pound for pound
list in that in that ballpark, and uh, you know, it's still
to me is a fight that kovi Lev won, but at least andre Ward
in the rematch, he got the knockout, and that was to Andre retired
after that fight, and you know, retired undefeated and is now in the
Hall of Fame, and cove Lev, you know, his career kind of
went downhill to a degree after those losses. You know, he's never he
was never really the same, and now he's still trying to make a go
of it as a cruiserway, and I've been I've been hearing the rumors that
there's a good possibility that he'll he'll next fight on the undercard when Tyson Fury
and Auxander Usik have their fight in February day. Tyson, Usik and Kovil
shared the same manager in Egus Klemas, so that would not be a shocker
to me. But but he had such an up and down after those losses
to to andre Ward. But he should have got the win in the first
fight in my opinion. Wow, we have had a busy show off of
a busy weekend. It is now Thanksgiving week. It is Benavidez Andred week.
We heard from David Benavidez earlier in this podcast with Dan again, we
thank our friends at PPV dot com for sponsoring a showtime in PBC will be
TELEVISINGPPV dot Com as well on a streaming service for that. Before you and
I do this again, we got Thanksgiving coming up, so we got Thanksgiving
for later this week. We spend some time going over, go back and
relive the bet Us show. Because at the end of the question and answer
on the bet Us YouTube show, I began to query you about why don't
we just do it right here, We'll take two minutes, We'll do it.
We did it already. This is this is like a This is like
a comedian going through the same jokes again, like the same routine, night
after night. After that, I asked you on the bet Us Show Turkey
or Ham. You mocked me and said right away, of course Turkey.
I hate him all right, so I like both, but Turkey would probably
be my preference. We both agree on the same one side. If you
can only have one side with the turkey for Thanksgiving, it would be I
mean, I didn't even think this was like a real question. Of course,
it's got to be stuffing, yes, and you kind of eschewed.
I'll use that word late night. Cranberry, cranberry sauce, cranberry dressing.
I'm not a cranberry fan at all. It's disgusting to me. My oh
my my son likes cranberry sauce. I could I couldn't care less, not
my thing. And then I asked on the bet Us Show, could you,
if if you had to, in a pinch, prepare a turkey,
cook it, buy directions and prepare it. You were hesitant, you copped
out and said Missus Rayfield could do it. And I said, I'm not
asking you about Missus Rayfield. I'm asking you. Can the big fella come
through in the contract? Like I said, I could probably read the directions
and figure out. I don't think it would probably come out that good.
It'd probably be like not quite the frost, but enough. I don't know.
I'd be better off going to going to the restaurant, ordering it in
the restaurant. But then I and then I turned the tables and I asked
my man TJ. I said, no, I'm gonna ask you a question.
On Thanksgiving? Is it either at home with the family or do you
go out? And in this case, we're going to my mother in law,
one of the in laws later this week for her home game, and
she can cook, so she will be dynamic with all the food. I
look forward to that, the desserts, the whole bit. So everybody gorge
yourselves, have a good time, spend time with the family. And then
we got fights. We got fights for this weekend. We're looking forward to
everything's gonna happen with that. For us, we're a mixture. Sometimes we
go and have the home cooked thing and we go visit my mom and my
sister, and then other times we go out. This year, we're staying
home and we're going out. Got a we got a reservation. They make
a wonderful dinner at the place we're going. We've been there before for Thanksgiving.
And then of course we watch some football. We take care of all
of that, and then we'll get to the boxing as well with Benavidez and
Andrea pay per view, which is a good pay per view with the undercard,
etc. We're gonna be previewing that. Mister Rayphiel, have a good
week. It's an interesting week because a lot of school out of session all
over the country, so it's kind of a different week, vacation week,
etc. We're gonna be right here, peeps. We're gonna be previewing going
into the weekend, recapping coming off the weekend. Will be here for you
just as well. Have Bike's got plenty of boxing to cover because the pay
per view, we got Katie Taylor's rematch against Chantell Cameron coming up on the
weekend that's over in Ireland. Those are two pretty big fights, not to
mention the undercard fights that are taking place on the on the pay per view
with the return of the Jamal Charlotte after two plus years out of the ring.
Some real matias in the title defense at one hundred and forty pounds.
Hector Luis Carcia in a title defense at one hundred and thirty pounds. So
you know, and I even go so far to say on that scene November
twenty fifth, we got the big mega fight in South Africa, South Africa
for the WBC Interim bridgerweight title. You really did just add that at the
end of the That was sort of good job, but you went you went
there, all right. Listen, have a good week, great stuff as
always, Thank you Dan Rayfield. We'll be reading you on your sub stack
and we appreciate the time here on the Fight for EACHWU Night Recap pod.
Yes, sir, have a good Thanksgiving there is Dan Rayfield. Everybody do
have a good Thanksgiving. Be safe, especially with those that are traveling again.
We'll get ready for Benavidez and Andre coming later in the week. Make
sure you're following or subscribing to this podcast feed. We love it to take
a Fight weekend podcast feed. I'm merely TJ. Reed. If you've been
listening to the fight for each to night, reaked out