Yes, indeed, off of a weekend that has seen Jeron Boots and has
successfully defend his IVF Welterweight championship, not unexpectedly, a weekend that sees an
elevated main event win for Raymond Murataia by decision, but not without some intrigue,
some drama in Las Vegas against Tevin Farmer. We're ready to recap those
fights here from Jake Paul, who is in the ring this coming Saturday.
Later this week in the Desne pay per view with Bare Knuckle fighter Mike Perry.
You'll hear from Jake Paul right here on this pod. I am the
somewhat competent host TJ. Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks Unite
is his sub stack here on the Fight Freaks Unit Recap podcast. Hello,
Dan Raphael, good to be with you, with a lot to go over,
and we're gonna hear from Jake Paul here in a little bit as well.
Yes, good, let's get it on, baby, Let's do it.
And by the way, full disclosure here, we're doing this late night,
Saturday night because I am out of town again on a cruise with Missus
Reefs. So thank you to Dan for accommodating me because it's been a busy
Saturday night at the time we're taping this, we're still releasing it on Sunday
evening in the Monday, and let's hop right in to our recaps. We're
just gonna go chronologically. We will get the boots in us in a few
moments. But first up Friday night, you did make mention of Chocolate Tito
Gonzalez being back in action off a nineteen month layoff. I saw some of
this fight. He does get the TKO over Robert Barrera in his home of
Nicaragua's home country. All right, your thoughts on Chocola Tito being back,
how much tread is left on the tires as well? From what you saw,
Dan, there's there's definitely tread left on the tires. Now, is
it enough tread to beat a boots I mean that boots on. Is it
enough tread to beat a bam Arrigez, which is one of the things that
was being discussed with him in his post fight interview. You know, I'm
not so sure about that. I don't like seeing a thirty seven year old
that's had a lot of wear and tear with a guy that's you know,
going to the moon. I mean that that's one thing. But can he
win a band weight title? Can he beat other top guys in the one
hundred and fifteen pound way class? Would maybe he want to have a third
fight against a Rungisi or you know, another fight against Quadris, that type
of fight. Yeah, I mean, he could definitely win those fights for
sure. If he's going to do a BAM fight, which was being discussed,
as I said, then it's going to be wanting to get paid a
shipload of money. Now. The thing there, of course, is that
mister Honda that is the promoter of Roman as well as the co promoter of
BAM. That's he's never been a promoter that's like to do those types of
fights. So and and the fighters are deferential to him. He's one of
the most respected, if not the single most respected person in the entire business
of boxing. They will listen to him. He will do the right thing
by his guys. So we'll see. But in terms of his performance,
first of all, now he's two to zero against the Barrera family because years
ago he knocked out Ronald Barrera, which is Robert's brother. The crowd was
wild in Managua was welcoming back of a hero, you know, like he
had fought you know, many many of his fights in Nicaragua early in his
career. He hadn't fought there since twenty fifteen. He had had even world
title fights back in the days when he was a strawweight champion, but it's
been a long time because after he got a little bit more profile, you
know, he had some world title fights in Japan with you know, on
mister Honda shows with Teak and boxing, and then of course he made his
way to the United States where he had some significant fights and finally got to
the big time with you know, several fights on HBO and then later on
his own. So this was the return from a year and a half layoff
or nineteen month layoff. After losing that third fight against one Francisco, A
shouted that was somewhat disputed and a majority decision. I could have definitely gone
his way, but look, it was exciting. He got a tipped the
hat to Robert because Robert Barer showed all the heart in the world. He
took an absolute fucking Shellaki rounds one through six. You're like, oh,
he's getting being up by the seventh round, I'm like, they need to
stop this fight. He got knocked down twice, once on a body shot,
once on a chin shot later and then then get the ninth round.
Finally, in round ten, you know the referee who had basically just been
a fan with a really good view of the fight up to that point.
I I mean it was almost two Is it gonna be Barrera's corner as well?
That just says they were terribly is this Is this enough in the ninth
round? Especially? But Chaco Latito gets the win and we'll see how soon
he's back. And you mentioned there's options, but I'll just say this.
You know, if you didn't see it, you know, check it out.
It's on ESPN. Plus. He's he's such an all time great.
I mean, he really could be considered with anybody in the history of boxing
in the smallest weight classes, let's say, from strawweight to flyweight. You
know, in those are the traditional places, I guess olso you got to
include now Junior vandam Waight. This was his debut with bandam weight, who
was one hundred and seventeen to one under the one that was the contract.
That's what he weighed but just a phenomenal fighter. Just knows how to throw
punches, has great technique, has great punching power, has a you know,
a good ability. You know, he gets hit, but he's able
to slip a lot of shots. You know, he did get hit a
little bit more than I sort of expected against a you know, not a
great fighter. But you know, what a pleasure to have this man back
in the I mean, I hope he chooses the right time to get out,
but I do think there's still a definitely least one or two more significant
fights left for him. Chaco Latito fan favorite, great action fighter for a
lot of years. We'll see what happens for him in the field. Yeah.
Wait, by the way, TJ, when the day comes to check
his name, when I get my Hall of Fame ballot, when he's on
it in a few years, and I know you will. Let's move on
to Saturday, And as mentioned, Jeron Boots in US was the big story
in Philadelphia and his return great atmosphere at the Wells Fargo Center where the seventy
six Ers and the Flyers play basketball and hockey in Philly, and in is
delivered. He delivered a stoppage that comes at the end of the fifth round.
In this one looked good. I won't say look great. I want
your thought. In a second, I thought he got hit a lot.
I know early on in the fight with Sean Porter on the commentary on his
own with Sergio Mora, they both mentioned how much David Avenisin was scoring,
especially with the right hand. All right, there's my take. Boots gets
the win. He admitted after the fight, Dan, I was a bit
rusty. Tell me what you saw in the recap mode. Well, he
was coming off the year layoff, which is unfortunate for a fighter that's as
talented as he is. But I don't disagree with you. I mean,
I thought he looked good. I don't think he looked great. And as
I said, you're right. Before we started taping the show, when I
was watching the fight and I'm seeing him do his work, and I'm seeing
Avanescian land a few shots, and when I was saying with Avanestian, into
my mind came Shane Mosley. Of course, when he had his final fight
before he retired, was a loss in twenty sixteen against Avanessian. But I
remember the Shane Mosley that I covered at in his absolute dead prime when he
when he you know, went from the lightweight division into the welterweight division to
scored you know, a series of big wins and defeated Oscar de la Hoya
to win the welterweight title and was pound for pound number one to most people,
you know for a period of time. And I'm like, that's Shane
Moseley in my opinion, is runs boots centers out of the ring, like
beats him up. So all respect the boots. He's a heck of a
fighter, but I think his his the the the overwhelming like concept that he's
this generational future hall of famer, like all time great in waiting, you
know, pound for pound number one in waiting. I'm not saying that it
can't happen, Okay, So don't take me wrong and don't take me as
a hater, because I think very highly of Nis. He's a tremendous young
talent. He's a personal guy, pleasure to deal with in terms of,
you know, doing interviews and things like that. So I have zero bad
to say about him, but I think that the overwhelming complimentary things have not
they're a little bit ahead of where he is, Like it was he hasn't
had the opportunity yet to fight other fighters, and I suspect if he gets
a chance, say to fight a Mario Barrios in a unification or to fight
uh A Stanionis in a unification, that those are fights that he'll be heavily
favored to win. Uh. And when Eddie Hearn comes into the ring after
the fight and starts talking about let me put him in with Terrence Crawford,
that's that's a that's a tough one on me to see. I know Crawford
is obviously he's a few years older, but he fights at such a high
level there's been no degradation in my opinion from what I have seen of Terrence
prep Now, he hasn't fought a lot in recent times. But uh,
you know, I don't know if I would would I would pick EN's to
beat him. But it was a good performance. He he he turned up
the offense. I was also surprised they called it the way they do when
the when the fight was stoped, but it was I mean, yeah,
he took some shots, but they weren't they were mostly we don't know this,
but the left jaw was swelling some so there might have been a situation
there with a fracture, and he had gotten knocked down quick knockdown with the
counter left and the corner just like right away, exactly your right hand or
the right hand right on the back. Okay, all right, but at
the corner right away is telling the referee as soon as the bell rang for
the fifth that's it. He's not coming out for the sixth round. So
uh, And he was game. He took some shots, took a hard
low blow in the first round, took some other shots throughout the first three
or four rounds. I'm a bigger Boots proponent probably than you are, and
I will be the first one to say he's got to be a lot better
than that at the world class level. On getting hit. He got hit
even in the fourth and the fifth round. He was still getting hit and
maybe it was ring rust and we'll give him a bit of a pass for
that and see what it looks like down the road. So one other thing
about it, okay, Number one, you know, he get he get
the He did get the job done, even if it wasn't spectacular in the
way he wanted it to be. I mean, but one thing, you
got to give him credit for and Natural Boxing, who did a good job
promoting show. They put asses in seats, So let me give you let
me give you a great stat here. In the pre fight, the conversation
was, are they gonna, you know, be the biggest attendance in Philadelphia
in several decades? And Eddie Hearn spoke about that the record, and I
don't know if it's not the record, but in terms of the most recent
times. In nineteen seventy eight, in a non title fight that took place
at the Spectrum where Rocky Balboa may have fought a couple of times, he
had a notch. It's just exact rum, right, he had a So
I don't know if I don't know what the attendance was for a Balboa and
Creed, But the point here is in a real fight in nineteen seventy eight
at the Spectrum, a big, big fight was not even for a title,
but it was still a big, big rivalry fight. Marvin Hagler,
who fought a lot of his earlier before he was a top champion. He
ran through a ton of guys in Philadelphia, even though he wasn't from there
anyway. He fought Benny Briscoe and the fights through fourteen, nine hundred and
thirty people to the spectrum. The fight on Saturday Night between Boots This and
David Avanescian was the biggest crowd in Philadelphia right boxing match since then, which
is forty six years fourteen nineteen. So the people turned out for Nis against
an opponent I guarantee you ninety nine percent of the people in that building never
heard of so, you know, and the one it was electric, it
was electric in there. I would have liked to see how Boots would have
how the how the fight would have unfolded. And you know, I'm not
making excuses, I'm just this is I think this is a legitimate point.
If Evanessin had the full training camp from day one, he only had about
a month to get ready for the fight because remember Crowley had dropped out because
Cody Crowley had the eye injury and was not medically cleared. So Evan Assen,
I mean, a month is a good amount of time, but it's
not the optimum when you're fighting that type of opponent. So it just begged
the question like, oh, what if he had a full camp, you
know, would he have been a little better, maybe lasted a bit longer,
maybe been able to find a bigger punch, you know, or you
know, thread of the needle to find a cleaner shot. We'll never know.
But you know what, Boots gets to win. He defends the title
for the first time. They're gonna, I'm sure go back to Philadelphia and
if Deacon drew fourteen thousand plus and have him win like that, I'm pretty
sure they can draw a crowd either the same or bigger next time around for
whoever they fight, you know, even hopefully will be a better opponent.
But uh, you know, I'll give Bouts. I'll give him a B
plus how about that? And he gets the stoppage. He was not hurt
in the fight and didn't incrued on the over man. Well, hey,
one of us cashed on that after the conclusion that I was concerned that we
were going to go into the sixth round there and it was going to be
close after the bet us pignostication that we were doing. And by the way,
kudos he got it done were previously for Eddie Hearn and Mattroom Subrio.
Mattias didn't get it done last month and his title defense in Puerto Rico and
before that, Regis Progray last year in a New Orleans title defense on Mattroom
and his own for Eddie Hearn didn't look good at all. He got the
decision, but didn't look good at all at least on this one. Boots
In is delivered. It wasn't a spectacular ending, but it's a win come
by the way. Yeah, he does get to and I know he said
in the pre fight it didn't matter to him, but it's still to me.
It was what I was sort of looking for. He got him out
of there quickly than Terrence Crawford did, maybe not as spectacularly because when Crawford
knocked out Evan sn in the sixth round, it was a spectacular knockout.
But he got him out in round six, I mean before the round six
started. He got him out of you know, on the stool in round
before, you know, after round five, when I was a little confused
about when I saw the fight stop, I thought it was the corner stopping
it. When when David Diamante, the ring announcer, announced it, you
know, and I'm sure he got this from what they told him, which
was that it was stopped on advice of the ringside doctor. So I'm not
quite sure that maybe maybe and uh again, but I mean I I clearly
heard the chief second whoever that was, say to the referee he's done.
So they were in agreement. They were in agreement on that. So there
you go, and it gets that win. That's the Matter Room show again,
Jake Paul conversation with Dan Rayfield coming up in a few moments. But
wait, there's more on the Fight Freak Night recap podcast. And we put
this podcast to bed Thursday night into Friday, not knowing the situation with Jannebec
and Lim Connooley, the two belt middleweight world champ who was slated to defend
those titles in the Top Rank Boxing main event in Vegas. So then you
and I did the live bet Us show, and just minutes before that show,
the news did break that Alim Connuley Janebec had been hospitalized due to dehydration
and the fight was off, with Mikalovich his opponent no longer, no longer
even gonna fight, gonna attempt to fight. All right, So we'll get
into the Raymond Morotaile Maine event. But do we know anything else because you
and I are now talking about thirty six hours later about jannebec uh being treated,
et cetera. If you do know anything, but it was shocking to
everybody what we found out. He was released from the hospital on Friday morning,
you know, after being there for a bit. He had stayed over
I guess Thursday night, and at that point the fight was canceled and they
spoke about the aftermath during the ESPN Plus stream of the card, and they
talked about how that they had gone through the same sort of weight cuts,
you know, the way they normally would do it, and when he got
to a certain level, he just could you know, it wasn't working the
way it always worked, and so at that point they were working extra hard
and he did pass out. Uh. That's their story. They had an
interview also with Mikailovitch because he had he was still in town. He did,
you know, he was up on the on the on the stage area
with the you know, at the desk with Mark Kriegel speaking to him,
and you know, he was very you know, pissed off, and understandably
so because as they made the point, this man traveled seven thousand miles from
New Zealand, was on weight uh and ready to fight and goes home without
a chance to fight for the unified world title, doesn't get his purse now.
Top rank said to me that he'll get something. They're gonna take.
They're not gonna give him his whole purse, but they will give him,
uh, you know, a portion of his purse just for trouble coming here.
Good for you know, whether that you know? So again, I
don't know what his exact first was. You know, maybe they give him
like fifty grand for the trouble, I mean something along eyes lines. Again,
that's my conjecture. But he'll get something. But the other thing,
TJ. This is important. He's still gonna be the mandatory challenger in the
IBF and the WBO will be inquiring and he'll have a couple of weeks,
I guess to decide. He's back in California, that which is where he's
based out of Janebec. He'll have a couple of weeks to determine. Am
I gonna you know, is there a reason that it happened? Can I
still make one sixty? And they'll try to reschedule the fight because it is
the mandatory for the IBF, or will he ultimately vacate the belts and move
up to one under sixty eight. Kalvich is what the pain out. I
appreciate his perspective, but this won't happen. He's like, because Mark Kriegel
asked him, well, what do you think they should do? When he's
like, they should trip him and give me the belts. Now, that
won't happen. But if he does give up the belts, he'll get the
fight at the very least for the vacant IBF title. He wasn't number one
in the WBO. We'll have to wait and see. And I'll tell you
one thing. If if janebec goes to one sixty eight, he's not getting
a title fight anytime soon because he's not even on the radar of a Canelo
Alvarez or even the guys that have the secondary titles. And I don't know
what top rank would do with him at that point. You know, to
me, the best case scenario for him is he he can still make middle
eight without you know, being hospitalized and be healthy and perform, in which
case he can make this, you know, this some mandatory and then see
what else is out there. Like I said to you before, and they
talked about possibly making it a Damas fight, with PBC or something like that.
So we'll have to wait and see, all right, So that was
to have been the main event. Excellent explanation on that. So then the
Raymond Muratia Tevin Farmer fight lightweight bout was elevated two main event status. Intriguing
because Murratia on the rise. Farmer had been a former champ. Farmer had
been off for three years at one point twenty twenty to twenty twenty three,
had come back and had some fights, all right, and then this,
I mean, Muratia did not look good saay night as we're doing this off
the cuff. We're doing this about forty minutes, forty five minutes after that
fight has ended. He didn't look good in the first half of the fight,
slow, tired, whatever. He looked a lot larger than Farmer.
My lord, he's so much bigger. He looked ten or fifteen pounds bigger,
at least in that ring. Okay, Then he came on down the
stretch a controversy with a point being taken away. Muratia wins the decision.
Dan Your thoughts on his victory, Well, First of all, the point
deduction from referee Thomas Taylor in round eight. The commentators, you know,
were kind of railing against it, not in any kind of significant way.
I know Tim Brawley made the point that, you know, he didn't love
that. Same with Krigel. I didn't really think there was that much of
a big deal about it, because the reality was he was blatantly, blatantly
holding number one had him wrapped up like to hold the arm, and you
just can't do that. But more significantly, Tom Taylor had already worn both
guys in the part of the fight for holding. So once you've made a
certain number of warnings, at some point you got to follow through, and
he had no Ie felt he didn't you know, you couldn't have let it
go. Yeah, I guess. But at that point it's like, okay,
you know, I gotta keep control of the fight. You keep doing
this, And it was it wasn't like a little hold. It was a
like almost like an arm bar type of thing, like a wrenching of his
arm. You got to take the point now in the in the end,
while at that moment in time, you're like, oh, boy, that
could really have an impact on the end result of the fight. As it
turnout, it didn't impact the score because he got docked to point. But
the final scores are ninety seven to ninety two, so that would have still
been ninety seven to ninety three. The other scorecard was in favor of more
time in ninety six to ninety three, so that would have been ninety six
to ninety four. The only one that would have made a difference was the
third one would have made it ninety It was ninety five to ninety four.
That would have been a draw, so that instead of more Tai winning a
unanimous decision, he would have won a majority decision. So does that make
That doesn't really change the result of the fighting any significant manner, and so
he still would have won the fight. I thought Farmer fought a good fight
against a tough opponent. Farmer, you know, unfortunately for him, you
know, he's gonna be he if he hasn't already become, he's gonna be
if that's the way he wants to continue with his career, He'll be a
stepping stone. He'll be a guy that can absolutely test the younger fighter.
You know, maybe pulling up set here there. Still have a career,
still make some money, the huge money in this weight class. But he's
got a good name, he's got a good attitude, he's got you know,
he's got good skills. I mean, he was not out of his
depth against Martai. He competed. I thought ninety seven ninety two might have
you know, yeah, maybe it probably was more like six to four,
but it was okay. Uh, but you know, he's he's you you
need. You need guys like Dada in boxing. You need veterans that can
push younger fighters. Are you concerned for how Murataia looked in the first half
of the fighter? You just talk it up to slow start, because he
was clearly better at the end of the fight and almost I mean he had
him hurt in the tenth round, had Farmer tired and hurt. But are
you concerned with the Muratai you saw at the beginning of that fight in the
first few Yeah, you know, I'm really not. And the reason I
said is because every young fighter, he's not young in terms of his age,
but in terms of his experience level, everybody's got to go through that
at some point. He was. He was in with a very reputable,
solid, sound, experienced former world champion that is absolutely still a good fighter.
And you're not gonna just have your way every time. I'm glad when
I see these guys have those kind of problems. Uh. And even though
he had the issue is it wasn't like he was getting beat up or knocked
down or you know, caught or anything like that. Just a little bit
of a slow start. Robert Garcia, who's the trainer, was all over
him after about round seven with some urgency. You know, you got to
put more pressure on him, and and you know what, he listened.
That's another thing you know, the word for about about Maritia, if you
know the word on the street, as they say, he's very coachable and
he you know, he'll listen to the instruction, and he showed that he
did do that. He's got a good attitude about it. So if he
was fighting a bum, then I might be concerned. But he wasn't fighting
a bum. He's fighting a good quality professional fighter. You know, Tevin
Farmer deserves credit for being able to force him to have that type of performance
in the first part of the fight, and Tomara TIA's credit in the second
half of the fight. He really picked it up. You mentioned in the
tenth round he I thought he was gonna get the knockout, he really hurt,
and he blasted him with a right hand, right right. I thought
Rayfield might get the late eleventh hour cash on the Ko. The anytime Ko.
I was looking right at the clock when he clipped him with the punch.
It was one minute and eight seconds left. It was bad rocked.
And then you know, there was still about thirty seconds left. He hit
him with another big got shot and again it was another right hand, and
I thought he was gonna maybe get him out of there with thirty seconds up.
But Farmer, look, he's been stopping for but he showed the toughness,
and you know, to me, it was like crappy first half of
the fight in terms of his performance and just as a as to watch as
a fan, and then much better in the second half. Now, I
couldn't pay us close attention in the first half. Maybe that's why I'm saying
this, because I had up the two screens and I was more paying close
attention to the Ennis fight. But I had him both up to and I
didn't see Murataia putting punches together, et cetera. Farmer's corner, by the
way, picked up on it right away. Hey, he's tired, he's
frustrated. Take it to him. So that was interesting, but the fight
was a different fight the second half. In the long run, Yeah,
this is exactly the kind of fight that's gonna serve Raymond Marrattaya well. In
terms of his future, he is on the cusp of a world title fight.
We'll see if Top rank can get him something. He mentioned in the
post fight interview that after Dennis Baronchek won the w BO belt, he had
mentioned Martia's name. I don't remember that specifically, but I'll take his word
for it. He's like, I want him too, so maybe they can
make that fight. He also mentioned Chaquarse Stevens's name that obviously is not happening.
Cha Court is no longer with Top Rank. In fact, Sha Court
was in the house in Philadelphia and interviewed on his own. He's gonna meet
with Eddie Hearn. They're gonna go over you know the possibility of what they
might be able to work out together. Golden Boy is interested in them about
matching him up with Zapada. Eddie would like to do him with Zebaida also.
Obviously that would take Golden Boy to work with them, but at least
they've got the common broadcast or anyway. The point for Maretias he's not going
to get Choquarse Stevens, and at this point, if he has still been
with top rank, it might have been more of a possibility. All Right,
we'll see what happens there. Then there was an upset on the top
rank undercard, sorry night in Las Vegas. Before we get to Jake Paul,
what happened to Ruben Villa. I did not see a lot of the
fight, but again you talk about demoralized. He looked demoralized in the corner
late in the fight. What happened here is as he was beaten in the
on the undercard. Well, first thing about via Rubin via Is was a
top notch amateur, super silky boxer, you know, not not super exciting,
not big puncher, but really good, excellent boxer. Remember, he
owns a victory from twenty nineteen where he beats straight up and did so rather
handily against Luis Alberta Lopez, who would go on to win the IVA featherweight
title. That's that's his you know, his big win on his record.
He did suffer a competitive loss in a vacant world title fight when he fought
for the w WBO featherweight title in twenty twenty against Emanuel Naverette. So he
beats Lopez clean and he goes, you know, into a very competitive fight
and lose Neverette. Those are two of the better guys that were in that
weight class and and Lopez is still there with the title. So he is
a very credible and reputable fighter. And you know, he's been with top
rank, he's been fighting on these undercards, on the prelims and not getting
a lot of attention, not fighting particularly top names, and it was a
similar kind of performance, are similar kind of opposition. Today he's fighting Inagawa,
a sixteen to four to one fighter, you know, kind of a
journeyman type of guy, a Ugandan native who actually comes from Silver Spring,
Meland, Maryland, which is, you know, not too far from where
I live. So he's known as we call here the DMV in the district
Maryland, Virginia boxing circles. He's fought in this area plenty of times and
he's a South baw and he got a heck of a big win. Big
win, no and not even a dispute, I mean clean eight to two,
seven to three, six to four, and even if you watched back
the broadcast after the scores renouns, even even Via nodded his head and smiled
like he knew he got licked. He knew that that this guy won the
fight. So back to the drawing guard for him, I'm not sure if
you know what his future is, at least with top rank. This could
have been one of those type of losses where you get the pink slip.
And in terms of the other guy, Sagawa, I'm not sure he's going
on to become a world champion. You know what, he's a very serviceable
guy. He's sturdy, he's got a good chin. I think only been
stopped one time, you know, and he's he's a he's a guy that
just will come forward, He'll make a fight, will force anybody to work
hard for the win. So you know, he may be able to do
something. And if you're ever going to be, you know, a featherweight
in today's boxing, you know, top rank is probably where you want to
be because they are pretty much run the division. All right, great stuff
on all of the recaps from Friday and Saturday. What say we move along
here to a conversation that you had Jake Paul will be in the ring.
Go ahead and keep the date on July twentieth, this Saturday in Tampa where
I am. He's fighting Mike Perry, primarily a MMA fighter, but he's
been a bare knuckle fighter for the last couple of years. Let's get into
this now as Paul gets ready to fight Perry. Here with the Mike Tyson
fight now on Ice slated for November because of Tyson's health concerns. Big Dan
talked with Jake Paul in the build up here for this this disowned pay per
view coming on this Saturday. It's my great pleasure to welcome back to our
podcast for another appearance. It is the one and only Jake Paul. Jake,
you're one of the few guys I get to interview who actually has two
fights on this schedule at the same time. But we'll talk about the reasons
why we'll get into this. Your first fight coming up, you're taking on
the bare knuckle star Mike Perry. You'll headline the pay per view July twentieth
on his own pay per view in Tampa, Florida. That, of course,
is the date you were supposed to fight Iron Mike Tyson coming out of
his long retirement to take you on in the fight at at and T Stadium.
Obviously, you know he is sidelined because of his medical issue. You're
gonna fight Perry instead and look forward to rescheduling with Tyson in November. So
let's get into first of all, in terms of that fight with Mike Tyson,
can you express me just the disappointment you had gone through the press tour.
I've seen your training videos, I've seen them back and forth between you
and Tyson on your social media, and then the fight gets postponed for several
months because of his medical situation with his ulcer. Can you just talk about
your disappointment and having a change up the way you did. Yeah. Look,
I mean it was definitely heart wrenching, and I felt so bad for
everyone on the undercart as well. And I knew how much of this meant
to me, and I was so focused on it. This was like my
one singular focus and then you have to like shift your mind set away from
that all of a sudden, and so it was a massive l But we
love to turn RL's into w's and that's what we're doing here with Mike Perry.
Keeping the train rolling, staying focused, staying in camp, staying you
know, in the gym, getting that experience that I need because I started
boxing so much later than everyone, and so I need to stay ready and
stay fighting. How do you, though, avoid what would be I guess
a natural come down if you will, in terms of motivation, mentality,
And again it's nothing against Mike Perry, but it's a big difference going from
Mike Tyson to Mike Perry, it seems, at least in terms of your
mentality. How do you avoid the pitfalls? Yeah, it was definitely emotional
for a couple of days there, but you have to realize that you can't
control a lot of what happens in life, and you just have to roll
with the punches, pun intended, and stay committed to your goals. If
you have true one hun commitment, then whatever happens doesn't matter because you're just
gonna stay working towards the goal and committed to the goal. It's like on
fight week when I'm cutting weight and people a lot of fighters don't like when
people eat food in front of them while they're cutting weight, Like someone will
have Chick fil A and a lot of fighters get pissed off, And it's
like, why are you getting pissed off if you're not fully committed to your
goal and have the will power to know exactly what it is that you're doing.
That Chick fil A shouldn't even bother you, And this is a another
situation like that, Like this that doesn't bother me. I'm staying focused on
what I have to do. Well. It's interesting that you just brought up
the situation with cutting weight as you do, so I wanted to ask about
that you were going to fight Mike Tyson in a heavyweight fight. In other
words, whatever you were going to wait presumably you know, a little bit
over two hundred. He was certainly going to be over two hundred pounds.
But this fight with Mike Perry is now a two hundred. I think I
was at one ninety or two hundred, two hundred, so it's the cruiserweight
limit. So it's it's a little heavier than what you have been fighting at
in general, but you still have to make a weight compared to the Tyson
fight, Is there any problems there because you look, you know, you
were talking about how you would put on some pounds and shown off your new
physique in the videos that you had posted, and that there is now a
change that it's a different weight class. Yeah, so you know, I
was getting up to like two thirty five and now back down in to the
two fifteens. And that's just part of the sport, you know, managing
the weight up and down, and when you know how to cut weight and
do it the right way, it's actually really easy. And so we'll just
shave the rest of that off over the next twenty something days here now.
In terms of Mike Perry, he's undefeated in bare knuckle Fighting Championship. He's
five and oho three knockout. He's had several MMA fights during his career.
He did have one boxing match quite a number of years ago where he lost
by a knockout in the fourth round, but that was a super midweight fight
way back in twenty fifty. Not sure you can put any stock in that.
But before you made the fight with him, and obviously the fight with
Mike Tyson, you talked about taking on, you know, real boxers who
were of a similar experience level as you are more and fighting those couple of
fights that you had, you scored quick knockouts, and I'm wondering when this
fight with Mike Tyson got postponed, what was the motivation to go into another
so called, let's call it, a non traditional boxing match, I guess,
compared to the more traditional ones, that route that you seem to be
interested to take to get that experience. Yeah, I wanted to give a
big fight to the fans. Both my last two fights, I was doing
what everyone wanted fight, a real boxer fight, a real boxer fight someone.
Yeah, and then you know I did that. First of all,
easy work, first round knockouts, but also just the hype wasn't there,
And to me, yeah, that's part of the reason I'm here and in
this sport is to bring the hype, to bring the big fights. And
so my fans and my haters even realize that they probably didn't even actually like
those as much. So I was like, Okay, this guy is violent.
Mike Perry is a killer, He's a mini Mike Tyson. The fans
love this, the fans have been wanting this for a couple of years,
So let's make this happen. And that's really where the motivation came from.
Now, I've heard you say in the past, Jake, talking about Oh,
I would do an MMA fight under the right circumstances. You were talking
about maybe doing a rematch with na Diaz in the cage. I wonder,
Okay, I don't know that obviously has not come to pass. Would you
could you consider doing a bare knuckle fight the way Perry does? Yeah,
I mean I wantn't do bare knuckle. I think it's uh. I don't
really think it's a sport. I think it's like me heads just mauling each
other. That's part of the reason I love boxing. This is the sweet
science. Bare knuckle is just drunken bastards, like on the tail ends of
their careers, just trying to get a check, is how I look at
it. So I'm a boxer and I would venture off into MMA because I
have a wrestling background, But I wouldn't do bare knuckle. I just don't
look at it as a real sport. Fair enough, In terms of the
Mike Tyson fight, if you I know, it's a big event and obviously
everybody's gonna make a lot of money. There's a huge amount of fan interest,
mainstream interest, and I keep thinking to myself about your position in that
fight, that you're you're trying to make a big matchup. I totally get
that, but you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't.
If you know what I mean in the sense that if you lose to
a fifty eight year old Mike Tyson who has not an actual boxing match and
what will be about twenty years, that'll make you look bad and you probably
won't get a lot of credit. But if you beat a fifty eight year
old guy that hasn't had a fight in almost twenty years, as big of
a name as Mike is, obviously, well you're supposed to do. So
how do you square that circle? By not leading a life trying to please
others. I could give a fuck what anybody thinks or wants me to do
or has an opinion on, and I encourage everyone to live their lives that
way because I'm doing this fight for me to be able to tell my kids
one day that I was in the ring with Mike Tyson. It's such an
honor. He's a legend, and if he wants to fight me, I
am more than down and to me, that is what it's all about,
and creating history, creating legacy and fighting on Netflix the biggest entertainment platform in
the world. I could give a shit what anybody thinks. Listen, I
can appreciate that for sure. I'll say this, there's a lot of people
that come from my age group. I'm a bit older than you, of
course, to remember watching Mike Tyson in his prime, when he was champion,
even before he was championing, all those incredible knockouts, and of course
the end of his career, before the comeback, and uh, you know,
I think me and others that look at this matchup have a hard time
thinking to themselves to see that remember that prime Tyson, about the prospect of
Jake Paul, the YouTuber, the social media guy, the disruptor, the
Disney actor, all those things that they call you beating the all time icon.
So I have a hard time with that. But what would that mean
to you, whatever his age is, to just know that you, whatever
his abilities are, that you could potentially beat iron Mike Tyson one of the
most iconic athletes in the history of sports. No, and that's exactly why
I'm doing it. Is the honor that I have for that man, and
to be able to go to duel and to war with someone who's channeled the
energy of the gods of war and is one of the most respected, legendary
iconic names of all time. It's going to bring the best out of me.
And I know he's a formidable opponent. I know he still has that
power. He looks sharp as ever on his Instagram, and I'm going to
be putting myself to the test. His age is the equalizing factor because he
has more experience, but he is not going to be in his prime.
And so I look at this as an amazing matchup. And for people who
don't maybe want me to beat him or whatever it might be, like,
including yourself, Well I'm not saying I don't want you to beat him.
I'm just saying the mentality of seeing you right right, You're right, all
right, I've got no I like both of you guys, you know.
No, not saying don't want but like accepting that that's a possibility. I
would just say to look at the overall goodness that this is doing for the
sport. It's bringing in so many young fans on the biggest entertainment platform that
will grow into boxers one day and maybe the next. Mike Tyson is inspired
to go into the gym because of this fight, in this moment, it'll
be the most amount of eyeballs on a fight in the past couple hundred of
years. And so I think that's the beauty in the silver line and of
this fight. That's a fair point. I'm not rooting against you. I'm
not rooting against Mike. But I covered Mike's end of his career when he
was getting knocked out by guys. So I actually think you should win this
fight. But that's a different story. But you mentioned about the Netflix thing.
I know that the Perry fight is a de owned pay per view fight.
The fight with Mike Tyson is on Netflix, along with yourself and Mike,
and obviously the great rematch between Katie Taylor and Amana Serrano. What does
it mean to you? I mean, I look at like this, there's
room for both platforms. There's room for pay per view fights. There's obviously
room for fights that are not extra money on a subscription service or even on
free television for that matter. But uh, what give me your thoughts about
being the group you know you and the keys of your team MVP to bring
Netflix into boxing, at least for this big event when no one else has
been able to do it so far. Yeah, we had always been talking
with them and developed great relationship with them through my documentary that we did on
Netflix, and they always liked working with us. We always liked working with
them, and we shared a similar vision of bringing boxing to Netflix and making
it a massive staple moment, and they entrusted in us an MVP and Nikisa
to bring that vision to life on the biggest way and the biggest scale possible.
And that's exactly what we're gonna do and did and had ready and planned
for at and T Stadium and now it just is on a little bit of
a rain delayed for November fifteenth. But that's why, you know, the
name of the business is Most Valuable Promotions, because that's exactly what we are,
what we represent, the standard that we hold ourselves to. And so
I'll wrap up with this. Then Jakie first comes Mike Perry. Your last
two fights were first round knockouts against supposed, you know, full time boxers.
Mike Perry is not that, even though he's very successful in BK.
Do you think that fans will be looking to see another first round knockout?
What's your expectation for the result. Yeah, I think it very highly likely
could end in the first round. I think very highly could end in the
second round, and no more than three rounds, that's certain. And he
just doesn't have anything in the skill sets and the defense and the footwork to
be in there with me longer than that. There you go, we'll leave
it there, Jake, thank you very much for your time. I'm gonna
look forward to seeing you fight Mike Perry and then of course look forward to
seeing you in Arlington, Texas in November for the big fight with Mike Tyson.
Jake, thank you very much for your time. Thank you man,
appreciate it all right. A couple of things. Number One, we know
that you heard a lot of the cockiness that's always been there. I did
talk to a source with the Amili Arena, the Downtown Arena in Tampa,
that's where the Tampa Bay Lightning play hockey, and the tickets are moving for
this They are expecting in excess of fifteen thousand for this one, and it
may it was full at nineteen thousand and December of twenty twenty one. I
don't know that it gets there, but they're moving a lot of tickets for
this for whatever it's worth. I had a thought as the Jake Paul Fight
Week begins Amanda Serrano, who's in the co feature as well, but thoughts
on hearing from Jake Paul. You know, I was interested to hear from
Jake about his thought process about doing this fight with the Tyson fight still being
rescheduled for November, so you know, he wanted to stay busy. I
found the interesting part about the question I had for him is if you go
back a couple of fights ago, was the fact that he was talking about
how, you know, he had done all these sort of non traditional types
of fights fighting MMA. You know, former MMA fighters, and people were
like, you know, fight a real boxer, build yourself up, and
he sort of embraced that sort of concept. And he did that two fights
in a row against fighters that had experience, that had amateur careers, that
had pretty good professional records, and he went in the ring with them and
he wiped them out. They were not pay per view fights, and nobody
was really all that excited. Jake wasn't all that excited. There wasn't as
much publicity obviously. I don't think he was making as much money, even
though you know, he was saying, the money is not the end.
I'll be off for me because he's made so much and has other businesses and
other things besides just with his boxing events. Uh, And he was like,
you know, we were all kind of sick of that. So I
asked, you know what, why go back to the Mike Perry type fight.
You know, who's known as a BKFC fighter crossing over to boxing whatever.
He's like, he goes, we want to make events, and then
people wanted to see this type of thing. And you know, I'm not
saying and I'm never going to fight another boxer again, but you know what,
this is what we're gonna do. And uh, you know, I
wanted to do this while we're gonna wait for the Tyson fight, so I
can respect that. At least I felt like he was honest with his assessment.
And by the way he got off of prank and what else put it
on social media. I forgot about prank called Perry as you. Yes,
he was acting like he was you, and he's always called you Dan Rafael
instead of Ray Feel And he even said to Mike Perry, this is Dan
Rafael of ESPN, and Perry believed him. Now you can believe what you
want to believe. Maybe it was stage. It was it seemed I don't
think that. It seemed pretty natural to me because Perry was going on and
on with his answers. He thought he was talking to Dan Raphael of ESPN
in the Jake prank you can see on social media, you know, so
I didn't I when they when MVP posted the clip on their social they didn't
tag me, so I didn't know about it. And then I started getting
these people that were texting it to me and sending to me, and and
and you send it to me. You're like, look at this, and
I saw it. Here's the thing, though, this is not the first
time he's done that, right, he did. So he does this prank
apparently before every one of his fights. So and I don't know what he
did before the two boxer the real boxer quote unquote fights, but those are
not these types of events. But if you go back before he fought Tommy
Fury, he did the exact same thing. He called John Fury, Tommy's
father, and pretended to be me. So I said to Jake, Actually
I had messaged Jake after I saw the first one. I said Jake,
that was hilarious. But you do realize I haven't been with ESPN for like
four years, you know, But whatever I thought it was funny. I
took it with good humor. And by the way, I guess there's worse
things to happen for to have their well, you know, I am as
a as a combat reporter, and and to use my name instead of somebody
else's name. So it's all good I have. Let's put it this way.
You can tell that Mike Perry thought he was talking to legitimate journalist,
journalist Dan Raphael, because he went on and on and on with the answer
he gave to the point that they sped it up on the film with Jake
making fun of him. And by the way, the way these things always
end is Jake asked a very rude question about it, what's gonna be like
when you get knocked the fuck out? Yes, obviously I would ever ask
a person that question, and I would not ask the question with that language
anyway, even if I did so, the end result is that that's like
the punchline to make him realize he's not really speaking to me or an actual
journalist. So you know, it's still Good wants to if you want to
use my name for those I'm I'm down for the joke. It's I'm good.
I'm telling you one more time that people that think that this thing's not
gonna sell tickets, it's selling tickets again. So let's see what the crowd
looks like. We're saying it's not gonna sell tickets, I'm not exactly it
is, and I don't know how many people are gonna buy it on his
own pay per view, but let's I mean said from the beginning that when
if the Tyson fight actually takes place, the reason it's in Cowboy Stadium is
because they're gonna break the record for a fight in Cowboys Stadium. I mean
that is a record of seventy six thousand or so with Canelo when he fight
against Billy Joe. So owners, I believe that Tyson against Jake Paul it's
gonna break that record. Yeah, I mean they're gonna sell some seats,
okay, So that we have that, and we'll wind it down here again
Saturday night late. We're going into Sunday, but you and not doing this
just after the fights on Saturday, so there was fight news on the match
rooms show. They made the announcement social media and on the show of three
upcoming fight cards real real quick. You want to run through those as part
of the fight news. Yeah, and then and then they send out the
full pressnouncement on Saturday morning. I'm not you know, I can see why
they did it at all at once, to announce three shows at the same
time. Maybe they give it a little more heft and maybe make you not
realize that it's all not that impressive, to be quite honest to you,
I mean, you know, I'll just keep it real. I mean,
if they were great shows, I'd say these are great shows. But there's
not one match in this three main events that really has me excited to be,
to be quite honest with you. So August thirty first, it'll be
in Carson, California at the Dignity Health Park. You have the excellent super
midlewaight prospect, who with my prospect of the year at the end of twenty
twenty three. It is definitely a step up farm He's fighting u Celeski,
who's been in the ring with some good fighters, the metris Andre for one.
But you know, it just is just not an exciting fighter at all.
You didn't say that. You didn't say that in the prospect is Diego
Pacheco, but against masage Celeski. I mean it's a step up, but
it's not like when I saw the name, I wasn't sort of like overwhelmed,
like, oh, I'm super pumped up for that fight, right,
Uh, maybe that's just me. You're there, you're there to see what
Checko does or doesn't view, so it's it gets a learning type of fight.
Then they're gonna take their show on the road to Mexico with Rocky.
Hernandez is always in an exciting fight, I guess. The day before this
fight was announced, matrim announced that they had signed Rocky and Nansway contract extension,
and then they announced his fight the next day. He's taken on Thomas
Matisse, who you know has got some experience. Again, not a bad
fight, but not the kind of thing where I'm like, oh, I
have to make sure I'm at home and sit my ass on the couch and
make sure I'm watching a live you know what I'm saying, Like, it's
not the type of appointment viewing now obviously with his own you know, if
you're out, you can watch on your phone if you want. I'm just
making a point that it's not appointment viewing in my opinion, it's just like
okay. Now that said, if you look a look at the cards that
that that Matrium has put on in their Mexican shows where they're doing, you
know, a few each year, most of those those shows usually are pretty
good. So, like I do think the fight itself will be pretty solid
and we'll see what they put on the undercart. But again it didn't blow
me away when I saw that, and then I guess this is more for
the for the the British folks to get pumped up about they have. This
is the fight that is going to be in Sheffield, England. Dalton Smith,
who was a top up and coming one hundred and forty pounder. He's
going to fight for the vacant European title against the Spanish one time top prospect
John Fernandez. That will be the main event on September twenty eighth. If
I didn't mention it, Rocky Ornandez and Thomas Matisse is September thirteenth, and
the Diego Pacheco against Aeleski fight is on August thirty first. So they announced
those three cards. Uh. To me, it's more quantity than quality.
Well, and obviously they are involved with the re odd season card on August
the fourth, with the Terrence Crawford card and all the fuss August third,
excuse me, on the Saturday night that's a zoo perview anyway, that's nice,
and that's now you can get that fight even without a subscription, So
I don't count that fight, right, correct? Uh? And then and
then you also have the Anthony Joshua pay per view as well, so there's
gonna be again pay per view. Correct. There's gonna be a lot from
match Room though, is part of my point on that. So they're just
theird. But I I will want quality for my two point fifty or whatever
I'm paying a year for my Dissonne subscription. But check O Seleski, Hernandez
Matiz and Dalphin Smith, John Fernandez. Those are not eupremium fighting. My
friend, you haven't been getting quality for a couple of years now on just
his zone without the pay per view you have no But that's not fair.
I mean I'm gonna be I'm gonna be even handed. We got to you
know. Boot Sennis made his debut we got a good fight with Yes,
what's is that one? What's the fight you just mentioned before with the loss
in Puerto Rico with Mattias and Liam Park With Mattias we got we got Bam
Rodriguez against the Strata that was obviously worthwhile. So it's not like they're all
bad. It's just that when they announced these three left like with met because
you've also you know, had like Richardson Hitchens and a couple of other ones.
You gotta get more. You gotta get more and more better fights.
All right? Uh? With that some nostalgia to wrap it up on the
recap pod as we released this July fourteenth, twenty twelve, twelve years ago.
On Sunday, Danny Garcia unifies the WBC WBA Junior welterweight titles at the
Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I was just there for other work duties earlier
this week. What do we want to say about the ko over a mere
con that night just over a decade ago. Well, Number one, this
was a very significant fight at the time HBO main event. I actually was
not in the building. I would have normally traveled for this fight, but
that was back in the days when I was doing broadcasting work for Epics and
I was on the call that day for I went and looked it up.
It was David Hay versus Derek Chesora. We were doing you know, we
did those fights in the studio in New York City. So I remember doing
that fight in New York, taking the train home from Manhattan right after our
show and literally got into my house as they were walking to the ring to
watch it on HBO. But this was a fight that was for the bonafide,
not only to unify the titles, but this was really to determine who
was the number one fighter in the one hundred and forty pounday class. I
mean a mere con a lot of people, you know, because he had
some really harsh losses and you know, had a very polarizing sort of career,
but people do forget that at one time he was very highly regarded.
He was a legitimate top guy in that weight class. Garcia was making his
first defense. Con was defending his title. They were fighting for the vacant
you know, the ring title, the lineal title, however you want to
look at it. Garcia was a little bit of an underdog and and Con
was kind of having his way with him early on, but uh, Danny
Garcia, because he's got that blessed with that incredibly good left hook. In
the end, he was able to really do some damage against Con and get
him out of there and stop him in the fourth round of you know,
what was considered an upset and you know, once again exposed the chin that
that was always going to be a mere CON's downfall. But this was a
you know, this is when these guys were young and you know, entering
their primes if you will, you know, it was a scenario also where
if you remember back Cohn had lost a controversial decision to Lamon Peterson and he
had lost his h the WBA title, and Peterson had later had a failed
drug test and eventually Con was reinstated with the WBA title, And that was
just a few days before this fight. So it added extra oomph to the
fight that it was for the two belts instead of just a one belt.
That makes sense, all right, So that one twelve years ago, and
Danny Garcia is the name that we knew much more, also fighting as a
welterweight too later on in the but his best days were certainly as as one
hundred and forty pounds. But the thing also about this is that if you
take a look down at his record now con not Con but Danny Garcia,
you know he had had a good win, let's say, against Kendall Holt,
who was a good fighter at that time. This is before he won
the title. He then won the vacant title against Eric Morales when Morales had
gotten stripped because he missed the weight for their first fight. His first defense
was against Con, so we immediately went from that into a real fight.
He didn't take a tune up or a soft touch or an easy homecoming fight
or something like that. Then he was forced to do the rematch with Morales
because Morales had that right, and he knocked him out and ended Morales's career
with the spectacular left hook. And then he went on a nice run.
He beat zab Judah in a highly significant fight, and then he was the
big underdog against Lucas Mattia. Against Lucas Matisse, he defeated him when Matisse
was like the oh, you know the boogeyman if you will, and then
he then he barely beat Mauricio Herrera. But that was the prime time.
That was Danny at his best, and that started basically you know, the
Morales fight, yes, because it was a big name, but the first
real big quality, you know, even up kind of fight that he had
was this fight with Kind. It was a big deal back then, HBO
main event. All dozen whistles, love all that. One more piece of
nostalgia and we go all the way back twenty three years ago. On the
night that we're doing this and putting the pod eventually to bed, July thirteenth,
two thousand and one, Mickey wore Mickey Ward out slugging Emmanual Augustus.
But I've got on my ray Field notes he was then Burt Burton, em
Manuel Burton. Well remember he was Emmanuel Burton, and later he took his
his the last time father, okay, and he became I didn't really know
about Emmanuel Augustus or this fight, and I got to look it up now,
but he was a man I got teacher at that time. And you
have here. This was two thousand ones fight of the year and probably the
greatest action fight in the legendary ESPN Friday Night Fight series that went on.
Tell me more about Ward and Burton, pleas no fantastic fight. I mean
they fought like they were It was like a video game on fast forward.
I mean it was the Ring magazine fight of the year for one. I
picked it as the fight of the year for USA Today, which is where
I was working at the time. A spectacular fight. They did the fight
in a in a in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, in a small casino.
Wow, typical typical Friday night fights, kind of main event, not
a big title fight, but you know, two guys that came to fight.
Mickey Ward was known for making pretty good fights at that time. He
wasn't the legend he became because of the Gaddy fights, But this is kind
of what started it. It was just, I mean, balls to the
wall for ten rounds. Now in the end it was it was a Mickey
Ward getting the decision. There was actually some people that thought that it was
Emmanuel Augustus it might have deserved the decision. I don't know if I agree
with that. But what I remember very vividly, and this was a ten
rounder at one hundred and forty pounds, is that somewhere in the middle of
that fight you had Teddy Allis, who of course was the analyst on the
Friday Night Fight series at that time. Basically between rounds was like between rounds,
go call your friends, go call your your dad, go call your
people, go call your buddies. Tell them because you're seeing something. You
are very very special. He knew early, no rounds maybe like three four
five, that you're seeing like an extraordinary fight because they stood there and just
beat the living shit out of each other in an absolutely epic fucking fight.
Now no knockout, but just an amazing fight. Now after now he had
Mickey had struggled in previous fights. He had been a couple like he had
come back against a nobody and got a win. He had lost to Antonio
Diaz on HBO in a fight and you know it was kind of spinning his
wheels. Before that, he had told the big win if you remember in
the UK against Shane Neary knocked him out in the eight round. That was
the fight that was the basis for the movie The Fighter where they said he
won a world title. You know, that was sort of them taking some
liberties because it was the very lightly regarded WBU title, which you know was
not really a real world title. But anyway, but after he beat Augustus.
He got another opportunity on HBO and he lost a technical decision to James
Leiha. But a lot of people thought that James Laihak kind of shammed out
the way he did the way that fight ended, and they brought him back
and what was the fight They brought him back for it because it was a
good performance against Leyah. That was the first Artaro Gotti fight. There you
go. So with this, with this Augustus fight, it led to you
know, it paved the way, if you will, for what became the
final three fights of Mickey's career against Arto Gotti. And this fight against Augustus
is every bit as action packed as as any of those Gatty Ward fights.
And again, if you're searching for it, Ward Burton is how it was
billed. Augustus was the name that he took later and it's two thousand and
one if you could find it from Friday Night Fights on that And by the
way, I did see this that a couple of days ago. It's the
twenty eight the anniversary of Bowl Alatta and the Mayhem at Madison Square Garden,
which we've talked about before with the DQ and everybody in the ring and the
mayhem of that night. So yeah, one of the things, by the
way, about this Mickey Ward fight, as I just looked this up,
I mentioned about what Teddy was saying in the fight. He scored a draw
and Burton had gotten knocked down in the ninth round, So Mickey, I
guess, was able to on Teddy's card anyway pull out the draw. I
guess where they late knocked them. So some good nostalgia on that one twenty
three years ago, the tacular fight, man o one check a thing.
Like I know, a lot of times when we do the nostalgia we talk
about really really famous fights, you know, Hagler, Hearns and Tyson fights
and Oscar deel Ai fights, and Floyd and Pacio and Canelo and you know,
the big superstar names, or even Gaddy for that matter. But sometimes
there are fights that don't necessarily have to involve Hall of famers, are megastars
or even before world titled to have it be worth us discussing because it should
be a fight that people don't forget. I actually pulled out my program from
this fight, which I didn't have at the time when it took place.
I actually found it years later and bought it for super cheap. But to
me, it's one of the coolest programs I have because they definitely didn't make
a lot of them. It's in perfect shape and this is like one of
Like I said, Friday Night Fights existed as a series on ESPN two.
I want to say it started in nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety eight.
It lasted for like what they you know, fifteen years thereabout something the last
seventeen years whatever, and it was on every week as the reliable Yeah anything
amazing. I think this may very well be the greatest action fight in the
entire history of the series. As you mentioned earlier, it's good stuff.
By the way, what was the program and you still haven't found it yet?
Did you look again from the last time? Are you reminded me?
Well? No, have you looked? We talked about two days ago,
but you haven't looked for it again? Or go I have? Oh no.
So it was to remind people we were discussing the Evander Holyfield Dwight Muhammad
Kawih when holy Field won his first world title in a spectacular fifteen round war
on ABC, which we made a mistake. We should tell people it was
not called by Jim Lambler. The mistake. I made the mistake what I
said, I'm on the team. I'm on the team. Jim Lampley was
not on the call that day, even though he was doing boxing at that
point. Was right, and Alex Wallow on the call that great fight.
But the bottom line is you were saying you can't find the program. I
looked in someplace, have a catalog. You don't know where it is.
I it's you know what, I'm in my office right now. If people
had the video, they'd see it in my office. Visualize people visualize,
and I have you know, you don't see it in this if you know,
if we had the video. I have some boxes of my programs in
this room, and I have some other programs in the cabinet, in et
cetera. And it's here somewhere. I just don't know which one it's in.
And I've got fucking like three thousand programs. So no exaggeration, oh
no, not exaggeration, over three thousand programs. So somewhere it's been misplaced
because it's not with my Evander Holyfield. Just out of curiosity, and we're
going to go in just a second, do you have them by fighter?
In other words, would there be a box with holy Field programs or do
you categorize them by year? Or how do you basically try to keep track
of it. It's not the perfect situation, but by and large it is
by the fighter. And you say, well, what if they, you
know, like holy Field versus Tyson, is it with the holy Field programs
or and if I like that, I usually the way I've done it,
and I do the same thing sort of with my posters, not one hundred
percent of the time, sort of like the way I want to do it,
but mostly I do it by the winner. So if so, my
holy Field Tyson programs are with holy Field programs right as opposed to the Tyson
programs. Not always doesn't always work like that, but generally speaking, so
for the bigger name fighters and those type of things, they are pretty much,
you know, handled by the fighter. I've got like on my Roy
Jones programs together my main weather programs, by De la Hoya programs, my
you know, Canelo programs, whatever, But the rest of them are generally
in chronological order. But the holy Field COWI program that we're talking about took
place before I was collecting everything and going to fights and getting them like every
month and putting them in chronological so that should be in a separate area that
I have for what I consider the most significant fights of the rare programs that
type of thing. And it's not where it's supposed to be. The search
is still on. Uh, the APB is out, the all Points bulletin
for that holy field. You're gonna have to keep updating the all right,
we will, we will, we will keep it up there with that,
you just made mention of the other program that you have there for the Mickey
Ward fight and just prompted me. All right. Uh So, as I
mentioned, I'm off on a vacation with Missus Reeves for three or four days.
I promise I will be back in time for Jake poll fight weekend in
Tampa later this week. You heard from Jake on this podcast against Mike Perry
that is the designed pay per view for Saturday night out of Tampa. Uh.
Let's have a good week here. We recapped all the fights, uh,
and we look forward to everything that's gonna happen later this week with a
preview podcast, et cetera. My friend, have a good week, Dan
ray Field all good stuff and have a good trip with the missus. There
we go. H for all of you again, make sure you follow,
subscribe, We come your way twice, previewing going into the weekend, recapping
coming off the weekend. Right here on this feed for Dan rayheld on TJ
Reeves. You've been listening to the Fight for Each Unite recap podcast