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Well, it's my great pleasure to
be joined on our podcast to day by

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none other than the IBF Welterweight Champion
of the World, Darn Boots. Ennis

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Boots, thank you so much for
doing this. I appreciate your time.

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Now, how's everything going getting ready
for your fight? I appreciate Thank you,

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bav you know everything going great.
You can't can't win it, I'll

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you know, don't want in town. Well, let folks know you are

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scheduled to make your first title defense
Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center in

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your hometown of Philadelphia. You're taking
on the challenger, David Evanescin, who's

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thirty four and one with eighteen knockouts. You, of course, John are

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thirty one and oh with twenty eight
knockouts. What's intriguing him about this fight?

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A few different things We're going to
get to. First of all,

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you know, because you got thirty
one fights, feels, I think to

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a lot of people you've been around
kind of forever. But you're still only

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twenty seven years old and making your
first defense. But the big thing about

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is you get to go home to
Philadelphia to the Wells Fargo Center, your

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first fight with your new contract with
Mattroom Boxing. There's gonna be a big

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crowd on hand. Mattroom Boxing has
been saying there's gonna be well over ten

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thousand people in the tenants. We'll
see. There's still some time before the

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fight. But how big of a
deal is it for you not only making

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the first title defense, but to
do it, you know, in your

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in your hometown, the great fight
city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Oh,

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that's a very big deal, you
know, just the first fight at Wells

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Fargo Center, you know well,
and you know, it's a buzzing to

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be able to you know, fight
in the Wells Fargo Centnate, I had

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just running the bill in like March, okay, and I had told my

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edit, use the game, and
I told my my security, I said

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it. I said, one day
I'm sell this play out. And then

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a one or two later, you
know, I did the partnership with Metroom

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and you know now here now you
know, basically sell this place out,

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you know, in fight here in
my hometown to some my world side in

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my hometown. Yeah, and you
said it's the first fight at the Wells

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Fargo Center. Just so people are
clear, they renamed that building. They

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have had fights in the venue,
but since it's been that call call that

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this will be the first card and
uh, and you're the headliner and you're,

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like I said, you're taking on
Evanessian. But I want to ask

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you about this fact. Originally you
were scheduled to take on your mandatory challenge

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at Cody Crowley. You guys have
announced the fight, you had done the

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press conference. He was undefeated at
twenty two and zero. Unfortunately, Cody

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had an eye problem where he had
surgery and he was not medically clear to

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do the match and they had to
switch and find a new opponent for you

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in Evanessian. Do you have any
any sort of letdown in the change or

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for you with sort of Cody Crowley, fine, Avanessian finance all the same

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to you, what's your your take
on having the opponent change up on you

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like that. It's just always saying
to me, I'm just glad to be

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baking, glad to be able to
you know, fight. I told him

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before, I told Eddie before before
the fight even I say to make sure

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I have a backup just in case, and you know, you know,

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he did what he heels. I
want you know, I don't care who

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who who he would have filed.
I just wanted as long as i'na be

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able to fight, you know,
in front of my friend and his family,

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you know, on July thirteenth and
edelis Argos from the Beautiful Show and

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get a knockout. I ain't really
care who it was. So you mentioned

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about, you know, excited to
fight at home, fight the opponent you're

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fighting, defend your title. Before
you got the IBF title, you had

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won the interim title. The champion
was Terrence Crawford. He had become the

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undisputed champion last July with his big
performance and knockout against Errol Spence. After

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that was over, he declined to
fight you because even you were the manager.

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I don't think he was necessarily ducking
Boots Ennis, but he had sort

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of other things to do that was
put on him very quickly after the fight.

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In any event, that title became
vacant and you were then elevated to

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the full champion from your interim status. What was your take on that?

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Were you disappointed that he didn't fight
you, that you didn't get the opportunity

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to sort of win the belt outright
in the ring, against the reigning champion.

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I always wonder how fighters process that
when that happens. I mean,

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you always want you always want to
take the boat, you know, from

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the champion, and that was the
goal took about from the champion in a

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phil better that way, better you
know about beating him up and things like

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that. But you know, you
know it is what it is. Nothing

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I could do it. It was
out of my control. Were you of

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the opinion that he was somehow avoiding
you or you understood sort of like the

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business choices that get made in this
business, in this sport. Honestly,

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I don't even know. I don't
know, okay, fair enough, Well,

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one thing you may be familiar with
if you're studying up on David Avanessian,

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is that you know that it was
in December twenty twenty two, two

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fights ago for David, that Terrence
Crawford knocked him out in the sixth round

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to retain his title. At that
time. David has won one fight since

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then. And even though you're not
fighting Crawford, he got evanesc In.

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But I know you would have liked
to fight Crawford, is it at least

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sort of maybe mildly in the back
of your mind that maybe I can show

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up Terrence crawfor a little bit by
knocking David Evanestin out even more quickly than

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Terrence Crawford did. No, I
really don't care about it. I'm,

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like I said, if I'm excited
to be begging the ring, and that's

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my main thing, being back in
the ring, putting on the show for

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for in the family and uh,
you know, and being thrown in a

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big statement with a big knockout.
I'm going ahead, fun and put on

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a show. Now. I really
really don't care about But he's the the

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guy that be knowing now when you
when you prepare for Evans and sort of

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what is your scouting report on him? What have you seen if you've looked

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at video, or what's your take
on his style? I know you obviously

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believe very strongly you're gonna win and
win the fight by a knockout, but

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can you just give me your team's
thought process and the type of fight that

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he brings into the ring. I
mean, he kind of fight like my

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last opponent will. You're just not
as big pressure as it. You know,

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right in front of you. Don't
move here. Uh, it's gonna

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be a long night for him.
Gonna be a long night or gonna be

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a short night. If you do, it's gonna be It's gonna be along

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with short night if you do what
I'm saying. I get what you saying.

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You think you think you're gonna end
this fight early. I think is

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that. I mean, that's how
I hear the confidence in your voice.

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I know Evans from having to watch
him plenty of times. We saw what

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he did with Crawford. You feel
like, I mean not to say your

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take him lightly or anything like that, but you think this is I get

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the feeling you think this is easy
work. I'm definitely not taking it likely

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lightly at all. You know,
I'm going to them on show, have

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fun, wech smart, taking my
time, beating up, you know,

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breaking down in uh, filling a
beautiful show. Like I said before,

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You know, I don't take nobody
lightly at all. You know, I

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mean, focuses him right now,
that's it. That's all. Get him

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up out of or away and at
dom Victoria's. You know, makes carry

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they you know it's bigger and meditation. But I main focus is David Evan

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Eedian So I had mentioned when we
were just starting out the interview that this

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is gonna be your first fight since
you signed with Eddie Hern and matrom Boxing.

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Prior to that, you had been
fighting regularly on the PBC cards because

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you were associated with with Showtime and
they were doing all those events when Showtime

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came to an end. Uh.
My understanding is that you know you had

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been and involved the conversation possibly signing
with PBC. Obviously that did not work

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out. Can you say what happened
in that situation and what was sort of

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the the sales pitch if you will, that Eddie gave you that that made

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you decide, you know what,
I'm gonna go sign with Matt from boxing.

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I just want I just want what
was best for my career, you

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know. I like to stay actives, you know, and that's to be

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my whole thing. Stay actor,
stay busy, you know, Steve Shirt,

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you know, do you feel like
that would not have been the case

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that you've been with PBC, Oh, that you wouldn't have been busy?

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I know. I say that.
I just like the way that Eddie move

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move his guys and things like that. You know, you know, fight

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frequently, so see keep keep the
shirt right and it seems like it's been

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a pretty good promotion, Like because
they said they've talked about that there's going

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to be a huge crowd, and
since you've never really fought in a big

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arena in Philadelphia, I think you
got to be pretty excited about the fact

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that they are going to have,
you know, that big, big,

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big throng of folks. And so
what other thing I was thinking about is

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when you go and you walk out
for your ring walk Wells Fargo Center,

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your first title defense, big crowd
for you cheering you on? Is that

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the kind of and you're as a
champion, as a reigning champion, is

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that sort of like the moment as
a young fighter coming up that you dreamed

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about, Like can you envision how
that's gonna feel, just emotionally when you

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have that happen, you know,
on fight night. Uh, there's going

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there's still amazing, you know.
Like I said before, I just rung

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the bill, you know, and
in March at the Sixers game, and

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like I said, I told you, I told my security all we will

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say the place out and now I'm
doing it. So it's gonna be a

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blessing. It's gonna be everything,
you know, everything I've you know,

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I'm jined of you know, and
I can't wait. You know, I'm

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ready. I'm ready to recite it. So at twenty seven years old,

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it seems like in boxing for the
most part, fighters are you know,

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in their prime, approaching their prime, or right in the middle of their

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prime. Do you feel like at
your age now with the title, uh

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getting involved in bigger events that you
that you are now in your prime of

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your career. I definitely feel like
I'm getting here. I feel like I'm

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getting there here yet, I definitely
feel like I'm getting here. So beyond

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evanescent because I know we've discussed that. You think it's gonna be a long,

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short night as we discuss stuff.
What are the kind of goals that

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you have beyond you know, just
obviously retaining your title? Is it?

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Is it making the pound for poundless? Is it maybe moving up and weigh

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at some point and winning titles in
other weight classes? Sort of what's what's

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sort of on the laundry list,
the checklist for Jian Boots, and that's

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about the things that you would like
to accomplish in your career before it's all

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over. Oh well, they don
Victoria's you know, make sure they not

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looking at it a demon and he's
in it, or you know, stand

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focus left in. But my main
goal is to be undisputed at one forty

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seven at this fight, you know, I want to collect the rest of

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the bolts and then move up to
fifty four into the same thing at fifty

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four and the sixty against sixty eight, maybe sixty eight. Oh you think

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you can go as high as one
sixty eight? Wow? Yeah, I

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mean I know I can. I
would have to see how my body feeled

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or you know, being a being
a heavy. Okay, So I just

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want to wrap up with this and
uh, you know your goal you've established,

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as you just said, you'd like
to somehow figure out a way to

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navigate the politics and become the disputed
champion. But I wonder along the way

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to doing that, what do you
think is sort of the big fight for

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you at welterweight. Terrence Crawford is
not coming back to that weight class.

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Obviously, you have the WBC champion
Barrios, Mario Barrios, he's supposedly in

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conversations perhaps to be fighting against Manny
Pacao. Stanionis is there. He's undefeated,

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obviously a good fighter, maybe not
the biggest name in the world.

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Brian Norman is probably about to be
elevated from the WBO once the Crawford belts

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are all vacated. So when you
look at those group of champions, besides

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yourself, what do you view or
maybe there's something else as your big fight

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quote unquote big fight in welterweight angle
all of them, you know, because

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the all big fights that you all
have a boat, so one of them.

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So you think that you can maybe
run the table and then hey,

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that's that's yeah, that's that's you
know, I said, Don Victorious,

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you know next Saturday. That's the
quote you a ton of ton of unified

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if you understand its collect you well, I guess before you can start collecting

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all the other belts that you don't
have, you got to take care of

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your business against David Avanes and you
say it's going to be a big win

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for you and a beautiful performance,
as you said in front of the hometown

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boots. I wish you nothing but
the best in your performance in your fight

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Saturday at Wells Fargo Center live on
his own. I thank you very much

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for your time. I wish you
the best of luck, thank you,

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I appreciation you, Bet Boots,
thank you so much. A