The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ Leaves. Well, we get ready for a
weekend that has some title fight action in Japan, that has a prominent super
middleweight headlining coming up this weekend as well. We've got fight news, We've
got Tyson Fury, nostalgia and more. It is the Big Fight Weekend Preview.
I am the somewhat capable host, TJ Reeves. He's our insider.
Fight Freaks u Nite is his substack Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello,
Dan Rayfield. Good to be back with you here on the pod as we
get ready to head into the weekend February almost done, March March. Of
course, we love college hoops, but March's gonna have some wild boxing as
well as college basketball. But we've got some interesting fights this weekend to preview
and get all about it. But I don't want to get too far ahead
of myself. Pleasant greetings, warm, warm salutations. How are things?
Things are good? Ready to go? You are all right? Keep it
on the phone. I gotta wait, wait, give me fifteen more minutes.
I'm talking to this person. I'm texting this person, finding out different
news and information. Very busy. I know you got. We get to
stay tuned for the news coming up after the fight, previews and the stuff
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going into Friday morning, come off the weekend with the recap going Sunday night
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All right. So with that, as I mentioned, let's just go
chronologically because it's going to be good. Go ahead, well, say you
got to tell them we got the big interview this week. Oh that's said,
that's true. We do have featherweight contender ray Ford, who is going
to be an action what March the second coming up as part of an ESPN
top ranked double header. They're going to hear from him in a little bit
busy show, a lot to get to on the program. So I look
forward to that conversation that you had with ray Ford here just recently that we're
going to play on the pod. But we got a we've got a Japanese
doubleheader fight hard coming up. Well, it's actually triple header right of championship
fights. Are we gonna go chronological or you do want to go more importance
because it's in the United States with Edgar Berlanga headlining the match Room Bizel show.
I let you, I let you decide on that. Did you look
at the rundown? I am looking at the rundown, but you got three
You've got three world title fights and it's happening before the Berlanga fight, and
you're usually a stickler like for chronology. So I'm just laying it out there
for you on whichever one you prefer. So you prefer Berlanga first in the
match Room Dezone main event with Padrick McCrory that is coming up for Saturday night
not far from me at Orlando, Florida, about seventy miles away near the
mouse. All right, thoughts on Berlanga's return here, because he's obviously a
prominent name at one sixty eight. Well, it's about time, number one.
Remember in June of twenty twenty two, he got a win against Romer
Alexis Angulo, and that was a fight that he won the decision but tried
to bite his shoulder or ear or whatever and got suspended by the commission for
six months and fine. Then he was out for a bit longer than that
because that was at the point where he separated from top rank Amicallely, but
nonetheless out of the contract early, so he was offer a year between the
suspension and that situation, signed with Mattrum. Came back in June of last
year, was supposed to absolutely pummel and destroy the smaller adjacent Quigley. He
won pretty handily, dropped him a few times, but still ended up having
to go the distance. So the guy that scored all these first round knockouts
like a crazy person at the beginning of his career has now gone a number
of fights without a knockout, and now he's coming back for the first time
since that fight last June, which was his only fight in twenty twenty three
to fight the undefeated. Very tough, solid, I think Pedrig McCrory.
I know he's not a big name, but if you follow it all the
Irish boxing scene, he know, he was with Michael Commins team, so
he and some of his fights and some of his stablemates were on some of
these ESPN Plus cards that top rank brought in from Ireland. You know,
he's not a big puncher, but he's not bad. I mean, I'm
not saying he's something spectacular, and he's a little bit older, he's thirty
five years old, but I think he's a pretty solid guy. I mean,
but Berlanga is supposed to win the fight, and for Berlanga's sake going
forward, their team is praying he gets a knockout for a change. I
mean, we went from them desperately trying to extend him past the first round
right and couldn't do it, And now they can't get him, you know,
to get a knockout, no matter whether it's the first round or the
last round. So what do we make of that? I mean, you've
been doing this for a long time. Is it just that the step up
in competition he doesn't have the same punch against better fighters. Is it.
Is it an anomaly that he's gone this long without a knockout really at all,
much less a personal knock part of it. I think it's a little
bit of both. I mean, number one, yes, he has stepped
up the opposition because you know, starting with the fight that he had,
what five fights ago or so, he fought Demon Nicholson, not a top
name, but a sturdy guy, an experienced guy. He did drop him
multiple times, but went to distance in the Cosaras fight. You know,
that was the fight where he had the bad bysip injury and got knocked out
for the first time. So you know, he made it through the fight
and so won, but with the with the with the injury, you know,
getting the knockout was probably unlikely. Steve Roles had only been stopped ever
by Triple G. No shame there, and that was you know, the
you know in all of his entire career, So again that was not a
terrible thing to go the distance with an experienced fighter like that. Then came
the Angula fight. That was another fight where he went to distance. Angulo
a very noted tough guy. I mean, he's fighting legit guys. The
guy that was the one that was like, dude, you got to get
an out against this dude that was the quickly fight. Now we knocked him
down four times total, twice including in the twelfth round. I felt like
maybe that fight could have been stopped in the laby going as a turnout.
The ref, you know, had his opinions and this is the only one
that counts, and so he ended up going twelve rounds. So it's just
been a matter of I think whether it was the injury with Cosras, the
better level of opponent, the fact that the ref decided to let the quickly
fight go instead of stop it. You know, you met, you mixed
all together, and so part of it's just bad luck quote unquote. Part
of it's because he's fighting better guys, and you know, and and when
we saw those first round knockouts, maybe some people got carried away that he's
the next coming of Mike Tyson and that's just not the case. So,
uh, he's in a situation now with McCrory, who is eighteen and oh
so he's obviously never been stopped, but not a big puncher, but a
competent opponent and they're looking to set him up for a much bigger fight,
perhaps Mangia, depending on what happens with Ninia. If he were to get
the Canelo fight. You know, hearn has thrown his name out there as
you know, Canelo should fight him since he doesn't have an opponent that has
set yet for May. Uh, there's a lot on the line for Edgar
Berlanga because whatever uh his future is going to be, he's he really needs
a good performances. You know. It's it's not that his a performance have
been bad or anything like that, but they've they've left a lot to be
desired for a guy that got as much hype as he did the Chosen One,
all the KO one victories. Time to kind of show out a little
bit and and uh and take it to your opponent. And uh, obviously
McCrory's gonna have something to say about that because he wants to win too.
But uh, that's what's that stake here is. You know, are we
going to see some evolution from Edgar Berlanger? Are we going to see him
do some damage, get a knockout, set himself up for a bigger fight,
Like I mentioned, whether it's the longer shot of a Canelo fight or
possibly a Mongia fight or something more significant. Well, and again we've may
mentioned this before, there is a real Puerto Rican fan base in Orlando.
Top Ranks has had some fight cards there, Matt Troom as well, so
Berlango will have some backing from the Puerto Rican community, not only just fighting
in New York or fighting in Miami for example. So we'll see if that
kind of boosts him along. And yeah, you're right, I mean at
some point you're gonna get questioned here on what's going on with why you can't
stop anybody in this in this situation in this way class? All right?
So what else on the court? Including Andy Cruz, the former Cuban two
time gold medalist, and do I remember correctly, he's been having promotional problems
and that kind of stuff. So what else is going on? Well,
he's a one time gold medals He's won a ton of gold medals in the
World Championships, in the America Games. I mean, he's one of the
most decorated amateur fighters of recent times. I mean at the very very very
top level, and with a whole bunch of victories in the amateurs against Kishon
Davis, who was you know, who kept running into him, you know
in the big tournaments. Matter of fact, he defeated him in the Olympics,
and Andy Cruz got the gold medal in and Kishan got the silver medal.
Uh. And he's a little older. But you know, it took
more while to get here because of coming from Cuba and having to defect and
go through all the very difficult times of making his way here to be here
legally and to take care of all that. But now he's a professional and
at two and oh, he's Lomachenko ish in this from the standpoint that he's
twenty eight years old and only two and oh, but he literally can fight.
I would tell you right now you could put him in the ring with
pretty much any lightweight in the world period and he would at worst just compete,
and he probably would beat a lot of those guys too. That's that
kind of talent that he has. I mean, I know the pros are
different than the amateurs, but certain guys can make that adaption much more quickly.
You know, it took Lomachenko, you know, a couple of fights.
He won a role title in his third fight, you know, Andy
Cruz, if he had the opportunity, I have no doubt in my mind
that he could compete at the very highest level of the lightweight division. Do
you believe that he's going to be fast tracked in that regard where maybe here's
fourth fight or his fifth fight could be a significant fight, if not a
title fight coming up later twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. I mean
the title fight that's in some manner that's out of the hands of everybody,
because that's about who's available, what belts there are. Can you make a
deal broadcasters, promoters, the appetite for the opponent to fight you, so,
you know, part of its lock, part of it's your connections.
But in terms of just the ability to do so, yes, they will
fast track him. He's already fast tracked. Here's a guy that turned professional
against a legitimate guy in his professional debut against Juan Carlos Bergos. Yeah,
who's longer in the tooth. Fine, but the guy was in the ring
with everybody. He fought Keishan Davis. You know, he went the distance
with him, but he won, you know, ten to nothing on two
scard cards and eight to two on the third. Sport card. And then
in his next fight, he stepped up against another experienced, legit pro in
Giovanni Staffron Streifon, and and he won in a devastating third round knockout,
just blitzed him. And now he's taken on an experienced fighter Zama Rippa,
that was on a previous Matchroom card, and so this is another ten round
fights. So you know, most guys don't turn pro in ten rounders.
This guy's haven't. His first three fights are ten rounders, not four rounders
or six hunderds. You know, the opponent who I mentioned is brayon A
Zama Rippa. He gave a very solid account of himself and lost a split
decision to Angel Fierra, who was considered you a lower part of the top
ten type lightweight contender. So he's fighting legitimate opponents right now, and it's
not going to be too long until he's in real fights. You mentioned his
promotional problems. He doesn't have a promotional problem with Matchroom. They are co
promoters with an outfit called I Believe It's New Champion Promotions. They are the
outfit that he assued alleging that they misdirected funds meant for him that they took
that they weren't allowed to. Mattroom is in the lawsuit because they are his
promoter and they're the ones that had to under their contract make the payment.
But he's not in a beef with Mattroom. He's not looking for anything from
them except for them to fulfill their contract and put him in the fights.
What you're doing. The problem he's having is with the other folks. And
obviously right now, you know, any kind of litigation doesn't take you know,
two minutes to go through. He's got to wind this way through the
court system. So that is what is occurring. That lawsuit was filed,
I want to say, maybe like probably about a month or two ago,
and you know, but it's that's on the one side right now. For
him as the athlete, it's business as usual. He's going to get in
the ring and I suspect he's gonna look quite good on Saturday. And what
really gave me hope and excitement, frankly was in the last fight where he
just blew away his opponent, was he came out with a purpose. He
didn't come out like the stereotypical great amateur from Cuba. That's content to still
fight in an amateur style, which is to hit and run and not engage
and fight on the back foot and that sort of stuff and play defense most
of the time. Now, he really he stepped on the gas and he
went after the guy, which is all you can ask for. You know,
I'm not saying go put yourself in its kind of a dumb situation,
leave your chin out, you know, for it to be his. But
you there's something to be said for being defensively responsible, but also when you've
got an overmashed opponent, to let your hands go a little bit and step
on the gas and get the guy out of there. That's why we should
drive me absolutely freaking crazy about a guy like Riggando, as he would be
completely dominating, but if you would take one step forward and throw a shot
on you know, offensive minded, he'd get rid of the guy. But
instead he was you know, pitty pat back up and and you know,
play with his food, so to speak. I'm glad to see at least
in last fight, Andy Kruz did not do that, and we'll see if
he can continue that trend of being a more professional style fighter. And what
I said to you when we talked about his last fight, which I liked.
He didn't go to the Cuban school here in America to find that type
of trainer. He went to Philadelphia to train with with Boziannis, the father
of Jeron Bootsennis. You're gonna go spar in Philadelphia. They're not gonna let
you get away with that shit. They're going to make you fight, and
he wanted to become more offensive minded in terms of his professional career. So
the selection of Boziannis as his trainer, to me anyway, from the standpoint
of being defensively responsible but offensive minded, I think that was a great a
great choice. And in terms of the rest of the card, you got
a couple of w BA elimination fights in the welterweight division with shak kam Yasov,
who's fourteen zero was a good up and comer against the long in the
tooth Pablo sazar Cano. I'm not really sure how and why that qualified as
an elimination fight, but I don't make those rules. And then you have
the American Olympian one loss, Antonio Vargus, who is probably selling some tickets
for this show because he's from the Orlando area. He is an a WB
eliminator in the bantamweight division against Jonathan Rodriguez, who says the one loss that
actually kind of shapes up in my mind like it could be a sneaky good
fight in this card. So you know, it's not the biggest card in
the world, but there's different reasons to be interested in each one of those
bouts, and obviously Berlanga in the main event. All right, so we
have that again. Ray Ford coming up here in a few minutes with Dan
first, though earlier in the day US time, in fact, in the
morning US time. Saturday night in Tokyo, Alexandro Santiago, alex Santiago and
Junto Nakatani for Santiago's ws BC bantamweight championship is part of a three fight title
fight card. That's the main event. Santiago best known for having beaten Donito
don Ayr. You and I were there. I'm making rhymes. I'm making
rhymes. We were there together back last July. All right, So Santiago
against Nakatani, who we know had the spectacular knockout of Andrew Maloney. He's
had other title fight wins. Tell me more about this for Santiago's belt in
Tokyo's Saturday morning United States time. I mean, Nakatani is just a badass
basically. I mean he's he's a real kind of very exciting, entertaining,
crowd pleasing kind of guy. I mean, we all know the number one
boxer out of Japan obviously at the moment is in a way for sure,
but not you know, and then there's Karaji and they've got some really talented
fighters in there, there's Zayoka. But in terms of the younger guys,
how do you not love Nakatani. You know, he's won, you know,
some impressive knockouts. You mentioned the one that was a knockout of the
year against Maloney, But he's had a world title in the flyweight division,
and you know, he didn't defend that too many times. He moved up.
He won the title obviously against Andrew Maloney in the one hundred and fifteen
pound weight class. That was obviously you said that he completely dominated that fight
and then just one of the most frightening, violent, hillacious, just cataclysmic
knockouts you'll ever see in round twelve. Uh. And then he did defend
that title one time back in September, he actually went to distance with Rguie
Cortes, who is a very solid, good chin fighter from Mexico. But
now he's going up to Wait again to go for a title in a third
weight class against Santiago, who try to become the bantamweight WBC champion. And
as you mentioned, Santiago did win this belt, you know, in a
in a legitimate win against Donino Dunair. You know who is long in the
tooth. Uh. I think Santiago you know, is in a lot of
trouble though against Nakatani. But he surprises against don Air. You know,
we'll see what he can do. And you know, you never know how
a guy is going to react when he's moving up and wait. I suspect
given the bill that Nakatani has that he'll be just fine in that weight class.
But it's definitely an intriguing fight if you like the smaller weight classes,
if you're interested in the bantam weights and Nakatani, you know, pound for
if you're making like your pound for pound list of guys who are exciting,
I would say one hundred uh, Nakatani would be somewhere or should be on
your list, somewhere. So that's the main event. I'm very interested to
see that and how it unfolds. He's twenty six, nineteen KOs in the
twenty six fights. I do remember, I do listen to you. I
do remember you saying that you didn't have a lot of long term championship prospect
hopes for Alex Santiago. In fact, you said it would not surprise me
if he drops the title right away to somebody that's legit. Okay, let's
see if he shows something here I mean, and it's to his credit that
he's going to Japan to fight Nakatani. Here interesting first rest where the money
getting money? There? We go go where the money is first reference will
handicap this more on the bet Us Boxing Show one Eastern Time on Friday,
that Nakatani despite being the challenger, you would think he's favorite, but he's
favored like five and a half to one over Santiago. That's interesting for the
main event there on that fight card, and let's see, let's see what
happens on that. On the immediate co feature. This is the brother of
Naoya in a way to Kuma in a way, and he's fighting in a
WBA banhamweight title defense against a familiar name, a veteran name in Jerwin and
Hahas tell me more about this one. So when Naolia in a way vacated
the bantamway titles after he become undisputed to go up and ultimately become the undisputed
champion in the junior featherweight division, one of those belts he vacated was the
WBA title, and his brother was in line to fight for that vacant belt,
which he won in April of last year against le Boreo Solis. Thee
was the vacant belt he won that fight, and now this is going to
be his first fight since then in the ten months. And you know,
if you're an American boxing fen and you're watching your showtime cards where you're watching
ESPN cards, you know on Cajas he was with Top Rank for a long
time. Now he's with PBC and and amany Pacio product, and you know,
he's moving up where he had been. He'd been the longest reigning title
er in the junior bandamweight division when he held the title, you know,
for a few years, and now he's going up in wait to try to
win another title after having lost his title at one fifteen and then losing again
to his conqueror in a rematch. So this is a great opportunity for him
and for in a way, obviously he's got that last name, doesn't have
the ability, the skills, the talent, the popularity of his brother,
but he's still a pretty good fighter, and this is a this is a
worthy fight. I mean, you know, Acasa has been a good fighter
for a long time, getting opportunity in another weight class and in a way,
you know, like I said, has the great name, and uh,
he brings attention, and this is that fight. And you know,
again we don't I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but if you're
gonna have two bantamweight title fights on the same show, and they're sort of
all within the same group over there in Japan, particularly Nakatani, and in
a way, you know, I don't know if they'll do it immediately,
but at some point you would hope to think that the winners of these two
fights would fight each other to unify the titles. That doesn't always work like
that, but that would be something that would make a lot of sense.
And it's not the first time we've seen in Japan where they'll have multiple world
title fights in the same weight class on the same card, and so this
is all about the bandam weights in those two top fights, all right,
and then a vacant junior banhamweight title fight also on that card as well,
Tanaka, and help me with the name base Gua correct. I don't know
anything about Christian Bakasagua or however you say that in the junior bantam weight division.
I defer to you on those, but that's also on this same card
from Japan ESPN Plus from Tokyo. Well, Tanaka is one of Japan's best.
Also, he's nineteen and one. He's going for a title in his
fourthweight division. He's won the titles in the smaller weight classes. And I'm
not that familiar with the opponent either, so I'm not going to tell you
if I think he wins or loses or draws, but he's clearly this is
made for Tanaka to have the opportunity to go for the fourth title. But
I you know Tanaka is you know in terms of what he's done before.
His only loss is to Ioka, who was to me. Anyway, I
think he's got a pretty good case already to be a Hall of Famer,
and Ioka stopped him. This is back in twenty twenty. That was in
one hundred and fifteen pound world title fight. So you know this is the
opening I'll call it. It's not even the open. I think there's a
total of four fights on the stream, but in terms of the world title
bouts, this will call this the appetizer for the bantamweight fights. Good enough
on all of those. Are we ready to get to it? Let's do
it. You spoke recently with Ray Ford, who is fighting for the vacant
WBA featherweight title on March the second. It's the main event of the top
ranked ESPN plus a featherweight title doubleheader in New York. Let's hear your conversation
with him right now in the preview mode for that fight coming up here soon.
Well, very happy to welcome into our podcast this week is the featherweight
contender ray Ford. And Ray you have a very important fight, the most
important fight of your professional career so far. You'll be taking on odeback Comatov
for the vacant WBA featherweight title Mark second at the main event of the ESPN
plus card at the Lovely Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, New York.
And you know, it's your first really big opportunity to be seen, I
think by a big audience. I know you've had a lot of your all
your fights pretty much on his own, coming up on these undercards. But
now you're step into the main event in a world championship fight, and I
wonder if you could. But because a lot of people, right, I
mean, I've watched you your whole career. I don't think a lot of
people have really necessarily gotten a chance to see you so far. So for
those who don't know ray Ford, describe your style and what they can expect
to see from from the way you fight, I guess you could say I
got like a flashy style boxer. I'm sure I guess I got I got
some pop, I'm exclusive, fast, got good defense. Yeah. So
that's that's basically my style right there. And the south paw to right and
a south pawa south paw two yeah yeah, the south yeah yeah, south
bo. So you're fighting Komatov for the vacantile. You guys both come into
this fight undefeated. You're fourteen oh to one with seven knockouts. Komotov he
is twelve and oho with eleven knockouts. Uh So, like you said,
there's some pop there. He's not that he's not very well known either.
I've watched some of his fights also, and he was he was most impressive,
I thought when he knocked out Martin Ward, which was the fight that
got him in the position to challenge for the title before Lee would vacated.
That was the last march in the eliminator. I wondered, did you see
that fight, and what were your thoughts about that fight and and just about
your your opponent in general. Yeah, I've seen that fight. I watched
whatever I could find and you know, dig it up on him on YouTube,
so I definitely watched it. I didn't think much of it. I
think Ward was actually giving him some problems, to be honest, I think
he was touching him up at times, and uh, I just think Ward
didn't have enough to you know, keep him off of him. And I
think he didn't fight the proper style to deal with Komensov. But Clemensov is
a side of fighter so far from what we've seen against the opposition that he's
been up against. What type of fight do you expect. I mean,
you you are a boxer, but you can also fight. He seems like
he's he likes to really fight, but he's got that amateur background, which
you know he's also a good boxer. I wonder in your mind when you
guys run through the how you think it will go, and you go over
the game plan with your with your team, what type of fight do you
guys go in there thinking it's going to be. I think I think early
on, I think he's going to try to, you know, see what
I want to do, and I'm see what he want to do. And
then I think, you know, as browns on Son going and I start,
you know, to pick up a little bit more, I think he
might start trying to, you know, change up game plan and try to
you know, stet to me a little more. See if I'm a if
I'm a full debt. But I think he gonna he gonna he gonna run
into some things that he's not gonna be expecting. So we're just gonna have
to wait and see them. What would winning title mean to you? I
mean that's the dream of every young fighter to become a world champion. Yeah,
it's gonna mean everything to me. This is where I've been working so
hard for all my life, So it's gonna mean the world to me.
But I'm not gonna be like satisfied with just this world title. I'm not
gonna be one of those guys who's just trying to hold on to one world
title. I want to win more so and go up in different divisions and
you know, face the best fighters up there, you know. So that's
that's the awesome and google But you know this is just a you know,
a step in the right direction. Well, you actually brought up the next
question I wanted to ask about. You're the main event of this card,
but they're calling it the featherweight world title double header because the fight before you
and Kolmotov get it on. In the main event, you've got the IDF
champion Luis Alberto Lopez. He's gonna defend his mandatory against Raya Abe from Japan.
So you've got the two world title fights at stake, you know,
on the same event. Uh, So you'll be getting ready for your fight.
You're gonna peek at the monitor or check out what's going on in the
main event, because you know it's your division. It's another championship. No,
I when I fight, I don't really watch the other fights. I
just I foolus on what I gotta do. I'm in debt, warming up.
I'm I'm either either watching my pony for a little bit. Well,
I normally watch my opponent before I go to a meaning, but I either
watching somebody else that I like to watch, like either like it's your cool
or a boost in this or you know somebody that you know I like watching.
So but other than that, I'm just training. And uh, we're
not training, but you know, warming up and you know, locking in
so is uh you know down the road. I mean, I know you're
not with top Rank, You're with Mattroom and this is you know, they
they have the fight because of the deal that was made. But I wondered,
is it is it in the back of your mind that you know I'm
gonna win this title and you know what, I like to fight a unification
with the winner of the other fight on this show. And have you talked
to Matt Troom Boxing about about what maybe in the future, depending on if
you win this matchup now, I haven't talked to any anybody about my you
know, about the future after this. You know, he's just been focused
on, you know, this fight. But if the if it makes sense,
if the money is right and everything, I unify against anybody. I
can fight the other Mexican that they got, the tall guy, Raphael,
Yeah, I can fight him. I'm gonna fight anybody who is either gonna
bring a lot of money or another title, anybody. And Espinosa probably is
headed towards a rematch or the Ramirez in the summer. Uh So we'll see
if that could possibly happen. When you were coming up in your in your
uh when your first turn pro, you know, you look really good.
You had some uh you know, you were getting the job done and you
were learning the ropes. And I've and like I said, I've watched all
your fights. To me, anyway, it seemed at times you were a
little inconsistent. You know, you had an eight round draw in one fight
that I know must have been disappointing to you with Aaron Prez. This is
back in twenty twenty one. Then you come back, you look fantastic in
a knockout again to re Spallati, then the split decision against Vasquez. Do
you agree that at times in that early stage that there was inconsistency to your
game. Yeah, but just learning experience. That doesn't define who I am.
You can clearly see like those fights, and then you see my other
fights where I'm performing on the whole different hy level. I don't even in
those fights. I'm not even fighting the scene. My my footwork is not
there. I'm not as as sharp, like it's not even it's not even
a comparison like. So it's like, it's just it comes with It comes
with the learning experience. Everybody gonna have rough fights and tough fights and things
like that. You never know what nobody's going through. So I feel like
a lot of the boxing worlds sleep on me for that reason, and he
judged me off of that, but they don't really they're gonna they I don't
know. All I can do is, you know, just focus on myself
and coming there and do and know and do what I know how to do
best, and that's be sharp and you know, be myself. Well,
I was to say, moving beyond those matchups I mentioned where some were outstanding
and others were not bad or anything, but maybe not at the same level
of those other matchups I mentioned in your last fight, which was last April,
you were supremely impressive. You won a twelve round lopsided decision against Jesse
mcgalena, who used to be a junior featherweight world champion. You dropped him
two times. I thought you looked terrific in that fight. What did you
think of that performance? Did you think that's the best you had performed so
far in your pro career? Is it the best? Certainly the biggest name
apponent that you had faced so far. Yeah, he's the biggest name.
But I feel like I could have stepped on it. I could have did
a lot more, like put the ring off as far as like, you
know, when I was on my ways and stopping them, you know,
keeping the pay step. But I feel like I let him slip away,
get away. But you know, Magdalena's he's he's a vet. He's been
at the world title stage before, so you know how to survive. Like
he started, you know, to use his legs, and it was kind
of difficult for me to you know, catch up with him on top of
me not wanting to run into shots too. So like I still had that
in the back of my mind, like I could you know, blit him
in Russian. But I don't want to really get like run into something I
don't see, so I was kind of like being a little more cautious.
But yeah, I feel like I don't know. I feel like I definitely
could have performed a little better. I could have got to stop it if
I, you know, just picked up a little bit more. Like I
watched the video and I seen the rush he was about to jump in it
at times, so that that was like my only, uh, pretty much
mistake in that fight. I feel like when you finished that fight, did
you feel like, you know, because again, he was your biggest name
opponent anyway, uh, the first former world champion that you had faced.
When you're finished with the fight and they raise your hand, do you feel
like, you know what, I'm now ready to fight for a world title.
I feel I was. I felt like I was ready before that fight.
Okay, me going twelve rounds, I'm like, all right, I
know I can do twelve rounds in the gym and things like that, But
in a fight, you know, it's different. You know, you're dealing
with different things. You're dealing with camras, you're dealing with nerves and stuff
like that, so it's a different thing. It's a different you know,
difference in your mentality and things like that. But me getting at twelve rounds
out the way I felt, I felt good. I wasn't tired at all.
I felt like I was in shape. But once I got the twelve
rounds, I'm like, all right, now, I know for effect,
like I can go twelve rounds and do a world title fight and I'll be
good. So you came into the fight against Magdaleno, you had only had
the one fight in twenty twenty two. He was your only fight in twenty
twenty three, And I don't know the reason for this. Was there a
reason for the inactivity the fight into I had more than one fight into twenty
twenty two? Is that right? Okay? Maybe I just read your record,
but certainly only the one fighting three you are correct in twenty twenty three,
it was just a one fight with Magdaleno. Was that because of a
particular reason? Was there an injury? Was there some kind of issue,
or it was just a scheduling thing or what? Nah? It was just
it was more like just a business part Like I think my team they just
wanted me to you know, wigh and see what's going on with the belt,
because you know, Lawer headed then Leewood got it, then he fought
Larrenton, so and then we had to wait on what was it bet So
it was just like it wasn't really me and my fault. I wanted to
fight, you know, but my team just thought it was best for me,
you know, just to you know, wait and see what's going on
with the belt. Well, I guess that worked out from that same point
because here you are fighting for the for the vacant WBA World Championship. You
know, you're You're from Camden, New Jersey, and as the reputation of
a really rough place to grow up. I suppose, uh, what was
it like for you growing up in Camden? It was it was rough.
I used to get into a lot of fights, got expelled from every school
that I went to in Camden, getting in a lot of trouble. My
mom she moved just because she was like scared that I was either gonna end
up dead or in jail. So she moved us to a Sclaville. We
lived out there for a few years, and then we moved to Philly.
I started getting in trouble again out there, and then I actually went to
Julie and then my mom moved back to Camden, and when I was sixteen,
so when I came home, I started getting in trouble again, so
she sent me to move with my dad. And I've been with my dad
since until I was like, what was seventeen, And then I was eighteen,
I got back into boxing, and yeah, that's when I started,
you know, taking this serious again. And I turned pro like a year
and a half later. So pretty much staying out of trouble since boxing became
your thing, I guess, yeah, pretty much. One thing about Camden
and I don't know if I want to ask you if you're familiar with this.
You're just the latest in the line of of professional boxers to come there.
It has produced some very famous fighters, most notably the former heavyweight world
champion Jersey, Joe Walcott, the great Hall of Famer Dwight, Mohammad Kawei,
and others. More recently, Jason Sosa, for example, are you
familiar with that, let that that tradition of Camden, New Jersey. Yeah,
yeah, I haven't really watched too much of like the older guys fights,
but you know, I've been in the gym with me, and we
trained in the same gym when he was active his last few fightspar Sosa,
So yeah, I'm in tune with like, you know, who's been champion
and things like that in the city. So what it would then be,
even I know, you want to win the world title, be even a
little more meaningful than to carry on the what I guess is a tradition of
of of your city producing some top notch professional fighters. Yeah, and I
want a statue in my city. They just put up a statue of Jersey
we'll cut down at the at the waterfront, So yeah, I want to
statue up there next time. So maybe someday we'll go to Camden. We'll
see Jersey Joe's statue and the ray Ford statue exactly. Yeah, for sure.
Well, I guess the check my kids and my grandkids and stuff.
They would be always be able to go there, you know see that and
you know, be proud of them. So yeah, for sure, Well
that would be pretty cool. And I guess the first big step to the
possibility of that happening is coming up on March March second, with your fight
against Kolmotov for the vacant title. Ray thank you very much for doing this.
I appreciate I wish you best of luck in the fight. Thank you,
I appreciate you. All right again, Ford and Kolmotov and and a
lot of people are very interested in Kolmatov for this. This is an interest
you talked to you. This is intriguing vacant title fight coming up here for
sure. Yeah, this is the belt that Lee would vacated. Colmotov was
his mandatory when he vacant to go up to one hundred and thirty pounds.
Ray Ford was the next leading available contender, also undefeated like Komatov. And
I think it's a good style matchup because if you I've seen both guys fight,
Homatov is a kind of a brawler that can box and ray Ford is
a boxer who can brawl and is more of the technician. So style wise,
you know, he's a left hander. There is some you know,
different style to the way that they fight each other. And you know,
ray he's coming off as we talked about his biggest win against the former title
holder at junior featherweight in Jesse Magdaleno, and you know he's got this opportunity.
Now. The interesting thing is like he's a match from boxing fighter.
This is a top rank card. They signed Coma Tov, but Top Rank
got the rights of this in a purse bid. So they're putting this fight
on in the main event, and they got a good undercard fight. In
terms of for I don't know if how competitive it will be, but in
terms of the landscape at featherweight, you've got the WBA title in the main
event, you've got the Luis Alberto Lopez defending the IBF title in the in
his mandatory defense on the undercart against the Japanese mandatory against Raya Abe, and
obviously if you're top ranked again. You know we were talking about with the
Japanese cart, they are two weight classes the same. I'm not saying it
will be the next fight, but if their two guys win, ode Bekkomatop
and Luis Alberta Lopez, it's not out of the realm that they would fight
each other. They're gonna have more action in the featherweight division later this year,
because it's not done yet and there's no date official, but they're trying
to or they're going to do a rematch between Robessi Ramirez and Rafael Espinozo,
who defeated him in that great, great fight, upset to have their rematch.
So there's gonna be a lot of top rank action in this weight class,
and it's all being set up for the eventual arrival you would think next
year of Noya in a way to that new weight class. And these are
important fights on their own as well as what it may project to down the
road. All right, good stuff on that with ray Ford, and you
got to stick with us because Dan's knocking out some other interviews. I know
as you put it out on social media, tim Zo, you have talked
to and there's some others that are coming in the pipeline here with these fights,
especially in March. So stand by, be subscribed on the podcast feed,
be following in and subscribe and you may get some of these a standalone
interviews, is my point, outside of the preview, outside of the recap.
So good stuff there, all right, onto some news. This is
interesting that the Devin Haney Ryan Garcia fight we knew would be for April twentieth,
that was announced, the location had not been announced. I will point
blank say to you, I was surprised that it's not in the West at
least in Los Angeles, if not Las Vegas, Barclay Center, Brooklyn,
New York. How surprised are you that it's not at least in the West,
if not Las Vegas, but instead in New York. Well, I'm
not totally surprised, because there's always it's always hard to find the venues,
particularly at that time of year when you got the NBA Playoffs coming around and
the NHL Playoffs, and a lot of these buildings have blockout dates, you
know, even if their teams haven't officially made the playoffs, so it's really
really hard to get those dates on those Saturday nights. So look, Oscar
de la Joya when the fight was made, said it's going to be Las
Vegas. He said it to me on the podcast that we had with him.
It was gonna be Las Vegas. What'd you call that? Yess And
he was hoping they could work it out. Obviously, if you're going to
do this fight in Vegas, you know, you're talking about three buildings for
a fight at this level, you probably have to rule out Mandali Day,
it's probably not big enough. So you're talking about the team Obile Arena,
MGM Grant and Thomas Knack Center, which is not affiliated with the MGM,
which is the ones who usually buy or put up some kind of money or
ticket buy for these types of fights. So in the real world, that
meant to me T Mobile or the MGM. Oscar floated the idea of Allegiance
Stadium, but that was Oscar being Oscar. I never believed that was going
to happen. They will host a fight at Allegiance Stadium someday, I am
sure, but it's not going to be for a fight like Devin Hainey against
Ryan Garcia, which is a very good fight, but it's not that kind
of fight to bring in that kind of crowd. That's going to be for,
you know, a really really big fight. So the issue was not
so much that the venues are necessarily filled with other activity on April twenty.
It's a matter of the way that the deals work when you do these types
of events in any place, is that if you're doing another event that's very
similar, then they have the ability to block out things that come before it,
so they don't cannibalize their ticket sales. PBC has a lockdown on May
fourth for a proposed Canelo fight. Now there's no official opponent yet. But
Canelo, they know he's the big draw, He's the big daddy over in
Vegas, and so they weren't going to release that date to allow Golden Boy
to put that fight in either building. I think they talked to PBC tried
to get them to do that. It might have been easier to do if
they had made a deal between Canelo and Mangia as part of that, because
they're the promoter of Mangia. They could have maybe somehow figured that out.
But in the end, they weren't going to be able to work it out,
and so they needed another building. And Barclay Center in Brooklyn is as
good of a venue as any place in the country, in the world for
that matter, to host a boxing match. They've hosted something like fifty or
so fight cards, plenty of major fights with big names for the last you
know, almost fifteen years they've been open. I have covered most of the
events that have taken place in that building, and so I'm absolutely fucking thrilled,
even if it was for the wrong reasons because somebody put the block on
them doing the fight in Vegas. If the byproduct of that meant they're coming
to the East to do a fight in New York. It's a wonderful thing
in my opinion, because even though Devin Haney is born in Oakland lives in
Vegas, and Ryan Garcia is from Victorville, California, lives in Los Angeles,
both West Coast fighters. Obviously, they're big enough names and big enough
stars that they can definitely do a huge crowd and make a big event in
New York City. And New York City is desperate for a big, big
fight. I mean, in the entire calendar year of twenty twenty three,
there was not a single boxing match at the Barclay Center. The previous fight
to my recollection, which I was at, was October of twenty twenty two.
Main event was Deontay Wilder's first round knockout against Robert Lnius. That was
a Fox pay per view of it, and you missed it right in the
main event in exactly Wilder right hand bomb. Yes, And there hadn't been
a fight in Madison's. I mean, there's been a lot of activity in
the Madison Square Garden Theater, but that's the smaller arena, that's the one
that holds you know what, five thousand or so, But in terms of
the famed arena if you will, the big main arena. You know,
they've had a lack of activity in that building also. I mean, I
mean it's hard to get dates there also because they've got concerts and the you
know, the the hockey team and the basketball team, and they host college
basketball and all that kind of stuff. Right, the last time they had
a fight card in the main agrena at the Madison Square Garden. Again,
I was also at the fight talking about December twenty twenty. That was when
Tiafimo Lopez had the very big struggle but won the close split decision against Sander
Martin. And that means the entire calendar year of twenty twenty three, there
wasn't a single boxing event in the main arena. Like I said, there
was other fights of worth in the in the smaller building, you know,
including Ka Femo when he defeated Josh Taylor to become the junior wilterweight champ.
So for that city, such a bastion for boxing since you know, boxing
has pretty much existed in this country. Finally we get a big fight back
in the in the big Apple and Barclay Center is just as good of a
place to have a boxing match as anything. So I'm really happy about that.
I'm definitely gonna be covering that fight come April, and uh, that's
why it's in New York City and they're gonna they're gonna put on a big
show there and I think that it's gonna do a very very healthy gate,
probably sell out in my mind. You know, it's a pay per view
here in the United States. I mean, you'll you'll see a lot of
marketing, I'm sure for that fight. They've got Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia
and their teams are headed out on their media tour. They're gonna hit a
press conference in New York on Tuesday. They're gonna do Los Angeles on Wednesday,
and there should be some fireworks with that. These guys are both theatrical,
you know, they're both a little bit have the pension for drama,
perhaps a little diva ish. It's gonna be interesting to watch watch how they
do with each other. And they know each other so well. I mean,
well, we saw them last at the Super Bowl radio row, not
exactly exchanging pleasantries as they were departing from the radio row with the video cameras
rolling. It's a ring as well as outside the boxing ring. Yeah,
we'll see if we'll see if some of that happens. All right, if
you did make mention of this, we know Canelo Alvarez is fighting, we
still don't know who it is. And this is one of the things you
were working on Thursday evening before began the podcast that apparently David Benavitez he's maybe
involved with Canelo, but has also now got a backup plan in place and
it involves him moving up to light heavyweight. Explain more about what you've found
out here in the news at what we know now as we release the pod
overnight. All right, So the benavites people, and that's David and his
father and Sam Selukawitz, the promoter. They're obviously very convinced that Canelo has
no intention is not going to fight them come May, which see they're probably
right. I mean, no matter what, they're just not going to get
that fight. They weren't going to just allow Canelo to dictate their life.
So what they've done is they're going to maintain their position as the mandatory challenger
in the super middleweight division in the hopes that whatever Canelo does in May that
he'll fight he'll win, I guess, and then fight them in September on
the Mexican Independence Day weekend. But in the meantime, David has gotten the
approval from the WBC to go up to light heavy because it's the interim champion
and the mandatory they're going to make the WBC's interim light heavyweight title available.
David certainly has the build to be a light heavyweight, and he's going to
fight the former unified champion and lineal champion who's been on the comeback trail and
won a few fights since his retirement that lasted not all that long, in
Alexander Vodzig. So that fight is apparently, according to Samson Lukwitz, who
I spoke to on Thursday, that is their bad agreement is signed and that
fight is approved by the WBC, which put an announcement out on Thursday evening
that they had approved that fight and they'll fight for the WBC interim title.
No date specific, but what Samson was telling me is probably early JUNI you're
looking at the likelihood of another Amazon Prime pay per view fight, which really,
right now, it seems like that's all they have right now. Are
pay per view fights in the pipeline, but as Samson explained, Canello has
an offer in front of him from PBC to fight David, he has not
yet officially ruled it out. He has not yet accepted it. He had
given a decision one way or the other. They're assuming he's going to say
no. When that happens, that will then make the Vozic fight definitely the
next fight. If Canelo accepts that fight, obviously things would change. But
I doubt it, and the reason is because I think Canelo wants Fodic to
get the opportunity against Benavides, because Vodzik is part of Team Canelo. He's
with their promotion company, and he's been on Canelo's recent undercards like he's part
of the group. So I don't know if Canelo is going to go looking
to ace his guy out of that fight. So we'll see how that works.
But the likelihood is that Canelo will fight whoever come May fourth, den
Aviz will fight Fozick, you know, sometime in early June. As Samson
said, if he wins, he'll come back to one sixty eight in the
hopes that he can line up as the mandatory, which Hopefully the WBC at
that point will order the fight and make it where you either got to fight
Bavid or you're gonna get stripped, and we'll see that big mega fight in
September. But a lot of don't know. I heard thes we don't know.
But maybe connecting the dots, maybe it's give Vodzick the chance here while
Canelo fights somebody else, because you're setting up to fight Benavidez in September.
We could hope that the only thing I'm gonna say. You want me to
say it, don't you If he's not fighting Benavidez and it is going to
be Jamal Charlow who he picks Canelo, what are we doing here? I
mean this, this to me is just a waste. But and we've said
that many different ways. We don't know, But yeah, I don't know.
Oh yeah. I would encourage anybody that listens to us to read my
column from like Wednesday night into Thursday, where the whole it's all my random
thoughts and it's pretty's lot of stuff in there. I think it was actually
a really good column, to be honest. But the top whole section is
all the thoughts about what are we doing here about fight Benavidia's it's not rocket
science. Yes, they're all doing these mental gymastis about why he's just fight
this guy? Why he should? You know what, I'm gonna go ahead
and say it. All right, So part of the legacy at the end
of his career has got to be are you going to fight somebody of note?
Because the last two five it's John Ryder. Okay, you fought him
in Mexico. Return to Mexico. Jamel Charlo garbage, garbage guy that moved.
I don't have a problem with that. I didn't have a problem with
that one for a reason. What do you mean, Jamel Charlow. Yeah,
no, Jamel Charlo's a garbage fight because he's not a super middleweight.
He moved up to weight classes. We are allowed to disagree, disagree with
Okay, Can I finish the point? Can I finish I'd love to finish
my point. It's my point. I'd love to finish it. Can I
finish the point? So if the third fight after that is Jermal Charlo,
what are we doing here? Agreed? That's it now? I finished the
point. Go ahead, Okay. No, I was only gonna say we're
allowed to disagree in the merit of the Charlot fight, the first, the
Jermeal Charlot fight. But we agree, and I think universally boxing fans and
media agree that Canelo versus Jamal Charlot in this spot in time is a gutter
bys On that note, a couple of other news items, and then I
we're getting some excellent nostalgia, which is Tyson Fury Deontay Wilder II where my
man Rayphiel was RINGSI on and that fight still resonates at the moment with the
magnitude of two nostalgies. Yeah, we got excellent nostalgia, all right.
So Golden Boy had another announcement and that involves Zerdo Ramirez challenging for the WBA
Cruiserweight Championship coming up also in March, and it will be on the same
night of the Amazon PBC card with Zoo and Thurman and the undercard elsewhere.
This one will be in California and Arson Gula Marian or Gula I get it
right, g La Maurian, Okay, I got that right. We'll be
defending the cruiserweight title. He's unbeaten. Tell me a little more about this
and how intrigued are you by this? I mean it's fine. I mean
it's there's nothing wrong with us at all. I mean Zerdo won the elimination
fight against Joe Smith. He looked really good when he made his cruiserweight debut.
Gl Maarian has been a very inactive fighter, but he's undefeated and he's
been an active largely because he's had a beef with his promoter in France.
I think, I'm not sure if it's been worked out, but it's been
at least worked out enough where Golden Boy was able to make the fight.
I know they were having some issues there. You know. I wrote about
this fight and reported about the fact that this was likely probably a month ago,
but it's taken a little bit of time to get through all the ups
and downs and trying to make the deal and all the bullshit that's been going
on with it. But now it's a done deal. March thirtieth at the
YouTube Theater in Inglewood, which is in that plaza that that area that that
part next to the Sofi Stadium, sort of near where the Forum is,
and they've built the whole conflex there and this is Goldenway's had a fight there
before, and so It's a great opportunity for Go Mari to finally get back
in the ring defend this title against a known opponent, which he hasn't really
done so far. Great opportunity for Zerdo to challenge for a title in a
second way class, you know, because he had held the title in the
one hundred and sixty eight pound weight class. When he fought for the title
in the light heavyweight division, he got wiped out by people and that didn't
really work out well for him. But now he's gone up to a cruiser
weight. He looked really good at the weight when he fought Joe Smith,
and you know, this is a very worthy main event. I can't argue
with that. And the only thing I'm disappointed is that it's going the same
night as the uh As, the uh As, the Tim Zoo fight against
Keith Thurman. But uh, what are you gonna do? That's that's the
way it goes. And you know, you've got to make your choice.
What are you're gonna watch live if you're gonna even support the pay per view
and buy it, or you know, whatever you're planning to do. But
this is a there's nothing wrong with this fight. Zerto against Glamarin is uh,
you know, I can't say it's like the number one fight on my
on my on my to do list. But I got a problem with this.
I'm I'm interested, I'm interested in it. It's a title fight,
all right. One more news item and that is Manny pakiaw We haven't heard
from her about the pac man in a little while. Retired, Uh,
but now it was interested in potentially fighting later this year in the Paris Olympics,
but denied by the IOC. I have a couple of thoughts here on
this whole thing about professional versus amateur, but get into what the the denial
was based upon here and then we'll debate it real quick and then move on
to nostalgia. Yeah, so he wanted to at age forty five, represent
the Philippines and the Paris Olympics. The IOC which now uns the boxing tournament
because of the incompetence and the corruption of the the you know, the i
EBA, who had done it for many years. I mean, they're a
freaking joke. So now the IOC, which is not exactly the bastion of
following the rules, but nonetheless they're now in charge. So the boxing tournament
for many years had an age limit of I believe it was thirty seven years
old to compete. It seems like a random number. I don't really know
why they selected that age, but in any event, that was the cutoff
for a long time. Then it was raised, I want to say in
around twenty thirteen or twenty fourteen it was raised to forty. But Pacyao was
seeking to have them either raise it again or give him an exception because he's
forty five to compete in the Olympic Games. And the IOC said to the
told the Filipino delegation or whoever made the request or went through the procedure,
no, can't do you know, sorry, that ain't happenant So Nanny Paco's
you know, apparent recent dream of being an Olympian and winning a gold medal
is not going to happen. And he still has an exhibition coming up.
There's still a lot of talk from his camp about for the right deal,
for the right fight, he will come out of retirement. You know,
he hasn't fought since he lost to Ugus. He's had one exhibition fight since
he's been retired. You know, he's no longer involved in politics a Senate
seat. You know, he didn't run free election. He got wiped out
in the presidential election. He didn't even think he finished third or fourth.
So many is a guy who's a wonderful human being and a philanthropist and just
obviously an all time great fighter. But I think he's kind of struggling with
what to do with the rest of his life. He's still a young man
at forty four. Well, he obviously has options to promote and managed fighters,
a broadcast, etc. Whatever he would like to do. Now.
Interesting on the Olympics point, just on face value, they allow professionals in
many other different sports in the Olympics and have for years. Professional basketball players,
professional hockey players, even the track and field skiers in the Winter Olympics.
They're paid professionals, and they're old. I mean, the whole notion
of the amateur being like a college age student, late teens, early twenties,
that's been out the window for a long time. The only objection that
I really have is when you start getting into thirty year old, thirty two
year old, and are we still letting them fight an eighteen, nineteen or
twenty year old. I think you got to regulate that in terms of boxing
when you're talking about a combat sport like this, So I don't really have
full understanding. Are they going to allow that wide of a range where an
eighteen to twenty year old could be in the ring with you know, that's
an amateur could be in the ring with somebody that's been a professional at least
in part in the past, that's so much older. That's crazy to me,
just on face value, one hundred percent, because there was professionals that
I've been allowed in the past Olympics recently. This was not a matter of
allowing a professional in the Olympics. This was a matter of allowing a professional
to fight beyond the age limit that they've established. The exception or one of
the exceptions they were making in the past Tokyo Olympics was if you were qualified
as a amateur and then because of all of the mayhem and the Olympics being
delayed, you decided to turn pro Keishawn Davis was in this category and you
had professional fights. They were allowing some of the fighters to come back as
professionals. Now my understanding is they're letting professionals come back. My concern would
be the age range. Are you concerned with that? Where I don't want
to see a nineteen year old have to fight a twenty eight or thirty or
thirty one year old. Don't I want that. I don't think that's good
either. I think you know, look, say what you want about basketball
or hockey. I think that's worse shit too. But whatever, I don't
care about that. I'm talking about boxing. Boxing in the Olympics is for
amateurs who are trying to achieve the highest level of amateur status, which is
to win a medal or even just compete, and for some of them who
are at that level to use it as a launching path to the next level,
which is obviously a professional career, which has been done, you know
for decades and decades and decades. You know, talk about the greatest fighters
in the history of boxing. You know, Muhammad Ali was an Olympic gold
medalist, Sugar Ey Leonard was an Olympic gold medalist. You know, we
can go on down the line. There's been a huge amounts of Oscar de
la Joya. Of course, there's tons of guys that became great fighters from
the Olympic gold Lomachenko was a gold medal winner. You know, you got
guys like Floyd Mayweather, was Alexander Us, Anthony Johnson, Lennox Lewis gold
medal. I mean there's tons of them, uh, and so they were
able to use that as the launch pad. So I don't. I don't
like the idea that a fighter who has been an established pro, or even
a younger pro to come back and you know, you've done your time in
the amateurs. You had your opportunity to win a gold medal, whether you
didn't win it or you did win it, whatever. Now you're a professional,
do your pro career and let leave leave the amateurs to the younger fighters.
We're going to still make their way. So I don't I'm not I'm
not a fan of seeing the pros in the amateurs going for a gold medal
and Manny Pak yeah, I mean the guy was a world champion eight way
class. The guys made literally probably gross close to a half a billion dollars
in his career, even if he's wasted a lot of the money or given
a lot of the money away, not for bad reasons, because he's so
charitable, he's given a lot away. But you've done your time, leave
it to the young kids to get there, to make their name. You've
had your Your name is etched in history forever. A gold medal doesn't change
any of that. Well said, all right, so nostalgia time and let's
get after it. As we released this podcast, you and I are taping
it on Thursday night, the Thursday being February twenty second. February twenty second,
four years ago, just before all of the craziness of twenty twenty began.
The heavyweight title was on the line, the WBC Heavyweight Championship, the
rematch Tyson Fury Deontay Wilder II, the first fight ending in a controversial draw.
There was no controversy really in the second fight because it was all Tyson
Fury. I guess controversy from Wilder's point of view that he didn't think the
fight should have been stopped. You were right there, he's the only side.
Yeah, well, you were right there ringside to watch all of it.
It is fairly recent. What do you remember. What do you remember
the most about that night in Vegas? Now? I remember it being a
great promotion. I mean, the first fight kind of came out of nowhere
and it was a good promotion. But this was the one where ESPN and
Fox came together and it was just it was like caught fire. And I
can just remember thinking how big this fight's going to be. When I'm standing
there in the media center in the MGM Grand and you look on one side
of the room and on the big TV is an ESPN program and they're promoting
the fight and talking about it on whatever show was. And you look on
the TV screen that was on the other side of the dais and they had
on one of the Fox FS one sports programs and they had their team talking
about the fight, and it was massive. This was the last big fight
before the pandemic. This was one of my final fights that I go,
was the last big fight that I covered before I left ESPN, and it
was a really wonderful promotion. I've said this time and again to me,
and maybe the numbers didn't reflect that because there's a lot of theft. The
fight still did well over eight hundred thousand buys, but it didn't hit the
million mark, even though this was a legitimate, significant heavyweight championship fight,
a rematch, both guys were undefeated. You had one guy from England and
one guy for America. A black guy, a white guy. Two guys
with massive personalities, massive size, you know, lots of punching power.
Had everything to make a mega fight and a phenomenal promotion done by these two
big networks that were behind it. And you had Top Rank coming together with
PBC, who were the two biggest promoters in the game. I mean,
it really had everything going for it, and it turned out to be a
complete one sided beat down. You know, they did this fight not because
there was a rematch clause from fight one. It's because people wanted to see
it. There was controversy, and so this was finally made. They had
done some separate fights. Fury had signed with ESPN, or rather with Top
Rank, who was with ESPN, and all through the promotion, Tyson Fury
is telling the media how he's gonna do the fight. I'm gonna go right
to him, I'm gonna knock him out, and we're like, you're full
of shit, you're lying like usual, and sure enough, Bucker did it.
If Bucker walked out to the center of the ring and went right to
Deontay Wilder, because everybody was sort of thinking and I was one of these
people, It's like, well, you got to draw in the first fight,
and most people thought you won by boxing and doing what you did,
so why wouldn't you do that again and get better at judging. And he's
like, well, I didn't get my hand raised. It was a draw,
so I need to do something different. And he was at that point
he's with sugar Hill Stewart as a trainer was more offensive minded than Ben Davison,
and he went to Deontay Wilder and he from the second round on,
yeah, just beat him up. And you know, he was the lineal
champion going into the fight, but by the victory, he got the WBC
title. Also, it was his first you know, organization belt since he
had been stripped or vacated after his big victory against Vladimir Klitschko. So this
was a really huge fight. Now that contract had the rematch clause, which
is why we eventually saw the third fight, despite the fact that Wilder took
an absolute one sided ass whooping that he then blamed on wearing a ring walk
at five pound costume his own self inflicted doing, and well we should say
this too. Wilder was generous to Fury, but generous to the standpoint he
wanted to get paid a bunch. He was generous because he didn't have to
give Tyson Fury a rematch, but he did, and in Fury eat him,
and then the rematch had already been agreed to on both sides no matter
who won. And then it took forever for that one to finally come off
because of the pandemic craziness and then litigation. It finally did come off as
a third fight. The reality is Deyonty Wilder has never been the same since
this fight because he did, you know, he nearly won the third fight
and dropped Fury a couple of times, but he ultimately took a lot more
punishment and got knocked out in that fight, and he's only had the one
fight since, or the two fights since. One. It gives a first
shown knockout against Helenius, which really didn't mean a whole lot. And then
of course in the recent fight in December, you know, he was beaten
pretty handily by nothing. Right, So that night, sitting there watching this,
what do you remember going through your mind as the fifth round became the
sixth round and Fury's just putting it on him and eventually Mark Breelin, who
was fired almost immediately after this was up on the ring Apron with the towel
saying that's enough. What do you remember about that whole scene and watching that
unfold, I remembered, really, and to this I'm still kind of an
awe by is that Tyson Fury told everybody exactly what he's gonna do. He
did exactly. You know a lot of guys they tried, they're not gonna.
I don't want to divulge my game plan. I don't want to say
he said the whole promotion. I can still remember sitting with him, you
know, a few days before the fight, when he was doing like a
scrum with some of the writers, and he's like, I'm gonna go out
there and knock him out. I'm gonna go right to him, I'm gonna
brawl him, I'm gonna beat him Up'm gonna knock him out. I'm were
like, no, you're not by even bothering to say this, You're such
a liar, That's what I'm thinking. And sure enough, all I could
think about was he went right to him and did exactly what he said,
and he looked great. Then that was you know, I don't think it's
fair to Monday morning quarterback and whatever fury becomes of him in the future,
or or whatever your issues are with the way he's handled himself, whatever,
I'm not ever gonna take away what he did that night is the point.
And he turned around and did it again and validated it even after getting knocked
down in the third fight. Must of the time. So there we go
on that one, all right. One more piece ofness to algia. That
is also on Thursday, February twenty second of two thousand and three, back
up twenty one years ago, and Mike Tyson got his final win and it
did not take long, and it was in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.
All right, so tell me more. You were ringside for this,
give me, give me more on the fight that didn't last a minute in
Memphis forty nine seconds against Clifford the Black Rhino atm you know, who was
an okay contender, but you know was had a glass jaw basically, and
Tyson made him look that way because he obliterated him. It was Mike coming
back from his knockout loss against Lennox Lewis, and there was a lot of
conversation going into that fight that maybe if he looked good. That there's you
know, he had a rematch clause against Lewis. He didn't exercise it,
but there was the possibility that if he wanted it, he might do a
rematch with Lennox Lewis, which I don't think would have been as big of
a fight, obviously, because when they fought the first time, it set
all the records. Tyson got the quick knockout. There was never a Lennox
Lewis rematch. He knew better than to do that. And this turned out
to be the last win of Mike's career because he still fought after this,
but he lost those last couple of fights. But the craziness of this fight
was the forty nine seconds that happened in the ring, and it was a
great punch and notck Clifford out. Was all the shit that happened before the
fight and after the fight was over. That's what made the story. The
fight itself was almost like a side a side light because going into the fight,
and I remember this clear as day. I reminded my wife of this,
and she remembered this also leading into the fight, this is when Tyson
got the tattoo on his face, right and there was a lot of conversation
the fight was going to be canceled. In fact, I remember talking to
the late great Jay Larkin, who was running Showtime at the time, and
he was he had called me on the phone and said the fight was going
to be postponed. I was like, okay, and I mean, where
I live in Virginia whatever, we were having like a wild blizzard, snowstorm.
I was worried about making my fight if I was able to get out.
And he calls me and says, we're going to postpone the fight.
Okay. Like later in the day he calls me back, he says,
all right, the fight's back on. I was like, all right,
when's it postponed? He said, no, it's still this Saturday. So
I'm like, oh fuck. So I had a like get to the airport
and what was what was the debate about whether this was the reason that it
was going to be off? What do you recall Because because Mike had gotten
that tattoo and Ettien thought that the fight was off, and Ettian went out
and drank and had sex and did whatever, and he was gonna because he
got it. Because Tyson got the tattoo, he would have thought it was
going to be off crazy, okay, So and he was, and he
was. He wanted more money. It was a whole big thing. The
bottom line was it ended up getting put back on. And I remember just
as vivid as a fucking the hand in front of my face waiting for Mike
to come into the media room where we were located in the hotel to do
a press conference, and nobody had seen anything other than the Fox News pool
photo of the he of the tattoo. We all wanted to see the tattoo.
You get a fucking tattoo on your face, you know, foxing map.
That doesn't sound like a good situation. And sure enough Mike shows up
and you could have heard a pin drop and he walked in that room.
I mean, it was absolutely wild. So that was that part of the
fight. The fight happened, It got it happened finally, and then afterwards
he had the very famous exchange with my man Jim Gray in the ring where
you know, we asked them about what happened and he goes, I broke
my back spinal, Well, what do you mean you broke your back?
No spinal? I mean it was it's the most viral clip you could see
but Tyson interview. It was fucking wow. So the fight itself was like
the least of our concerns. It was the craziness before the fight, and
it was the craziness after the fight. So you're saying Etn fought the forty
nine seconds like he was drunk and had been having sex this week and the
whole thing's a circus, all right, So some good nostalgia on that on
all fronts with respect to the heavyweights, that's for sure. Listen, we've
had a busy show here. On the program, we previewed the upcoming fights
Edgar Berlanga main event, match Room de Zone show in Orlando's Saturday night,
also the triple header in Tokyo headlined by Junto Nakatani going for the WBC bantamwaight
title held by Alexandro Santiago that Saturday morning US time. ESPN Plus will have
it for that triple header. You heard from ray Ford on this podcast Featherweight
Contend They got a bunch on this podcast. Are you ready for the weekend
and all of this donefold, I am, sir, And by the way,
we'll be back one more time before the fights happened on the bet Us
Boxing Show at one Eastern time. We'll do some handicapping on the championship fights
and probably some more nostalgia about Mike, Tyson Tattoos and Tyson Fury, et
cetera. Find us at one Eastern time. Bet US's platforms, YouTube,
social media, Twitter, Twitch, etc. For now, we are good,
Dan Rayfield, have a great weekend. I'll talk to you on the
bet US Show, my friend. I look forward to it. Thank you,
sir. There is Dan Rayfield. I'm merely TJ. Reeves. Follow
or subscribe right here to this podcast feed as we come your way. Previewing
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et cetera. Right here on the Big Fight Weekend Preview