The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, Djwaves. Well, here we go with another weekend,
another preview, and a big time unified light heavyweight title defense for Archer
Better Babb a rescheduled fight against a former super middleweight world champ, England's Callum
Smith coming up Saturday. We're ready to preview that. We've got a a
former Ladies world champion and michaelam Mayer that you're gonna hear from in a one
on one conversation and news of the week and a lot more. Hello and
welcome in to our little preview show that could. It is the Big Fight
Weekend Preview. I am merely the somewhat capable host. TJ Reeves. He
is our insider Fight Freaks You Nite is his substack Big Fight Weekend dot Com
insider as well. Hello Dan Rayfield, as we get ready for what I
think is a compelling light heavyweight title fight. I think you're going to agree
with that preview, that fight card, and much more. How we feeling
good to be with you? Good? I'm good. I agree with you.
I think it's a very compelling and interesting fight and it's good to see
both of these guys back in the ring after layoffs. All right, so
we're going to get into that fight card in a little bit and again MICHAELA.
Mayer conversation coming up. We got news on Aerol Spence. Are we
ever ever going to see a rematch with Terrence Crawford after that beatdown last summer.
Let's to get to reminder. Thank you for finding us. However you
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does help us out, including sharing out the shows socially, etc. Let's
get into it, my friend, don't waste any time here. Archer better
b of his back rescheduled fight. He had what oral surgery right that went
wrong with an infection in the jawbone ouch Babe back a few months ago.
So because of scheduling and trying to get out of the college football mayhem,
they moved this to January, to this open Saturday night slot in January on
ESPN and the top rank main event Callum Smith again intriguing name. He has
to move up here from super middleweight to light heavyweight. All right, give
me your your thoughts on this and very interesting here better be of with all
the knockouts and three of the light heavyweight world title belt stan Well. First
of all, Callum is not really moving up for this fight. He moved
up like a year plus ago. This will be his third fight in the
weight class. But it feels like he's moving up because he's fought absolutely nobody
in this weight class. I mean, he's fought just the most you know,
lesser known, obscure, non threatening type opponents in his previous two fights.
So just to back up the intrigue, of course that I think most
people would agree that better Beev is the number one light heavyweight in the world.
All due respect to Beebel, but better Beev's got the belts, he's
got the record, he's got the knockouts, he's probably got a slightly better
resume in terms of who he's defeated, including Canelo Alvarez, so he has
that going. But they're the top two guys and obviously overshadowing I won't say
overshadowing, that's the wrong word. But in the background, let's say are
hovering. Let's say, is the very real, strong possibility that with a
better be a victory that comes sometime later this year in Saudi Arabia, there's
a better than likely chance that he'll be meeting up And the Brits love to
say, with the deep accent looking that fight is a potential about with Beevil
the go ahead. So it's not it's not something that that was asked about
or discussed at their press conference. Uh, not to say that he would
have gotten into it anyway, but that is there. That is a distinct
possibility, and obviously Calm Smith not only is trying to win the three world
light heavyweight belts, but try to disrupt that situation and make a huge splash
for himself. So it's a very interesting matchup. Both the guys are coming
off long laps better BF. Because of the dental issue that you mentioned that
the required surgery, he was limited to the one fight last year and it's
kind of unfortunately been a trend for him. So he hasn't fought since last
January. And if you remember back all the way at the end of last
January, he had that spectacular Fight of the Year candidate that was against Anthony
Art that was his WBO mandatory. This fight against Calm Smith is his WBC
mandatory. But that was a tremendous battle with you already stopped him in the
eighth round, but it was a back and forth fight. You know,
he did knock him down eventually and do what he always does, which is
if you follow them at all, he's nineteen to zero with nineteen knockedouts,
and of the act of world champions in boxing today, he's the only one
that is undefeated and having won all of his fights by knockout, so he
is one of the best punchers in the sport, and he's got a resume
too. It's not just like a guy that's knocking bums out. He's knocked
out Yard, He's knocked out Joe Smith devastatingly easily. He knocked out Marcus
Brown. He knocked out Alexander Wodzik in a tremendous battle to unify two of
the titles. He knocked out Adam Danes in a mandatory fight, who was
maybe not the most known, but a pretty sturdy guy. He knocked out
Callum Johnson in a shootout where he got knocked down but got up to knock
him out. He knocked out hot Rod, he knocked out when I was
there when he won the title against Rico Coling, and he's like, he's
into the twelfth round. You're like, is this guy going to extend the
streak? And in round twelve he got the knockout in Fresno, California,
onto the ESPN card where jose A Ramirez was the main event. So you
know, everybody that stepped into the ring with this man, he gets rid
of him. He's got devastating puncher, he's it seems like he takes a
good shot. The only knock I think that people can find on him is
that he is somewhat inactive. You know, one fight last year, one
fight in twenty twenty two. He did have the two fights in twenty one,
but it's been in activity, which has sort of been a problem in
my mind in terms of building your brand in your name. And some would
look at him and say, you know what, TJ. He's thirty eight
years old. He does get touched, he does get hit a little bit,
and they think that he's starting to show signs of age. I don't
really see that. And I've been seeing a lot of discussion during this week
leading up to this fight where people are going out on and saying, I'm
gonna you know, either they're giving cown Smith the huge chance or they're maybe
outright picking him. And I have respect for Calla Smith. He's a damn
good fighter. I don't take anything away from him from that standpoint. But
if you can take a look at the record, he also has been inactive.
He hasn't fought since August of twenty twenty two. He fought only once
in twenty twenty two. He fought only once in twenty twenty one. Those
are the two light heavyweight fights he blasted out, you know, a Porschnor
in his first fight in two rounds in the first fight. He then knocked
out a butater Leak in the second fight. And neither one of these guys
that was the eliminator fight, Neither one of those guys was a legitimate fighter
in my opinion. In terms of that, I'm not saying they weren't legitimate
fighters. I mean they weren't legitimate contenders, right that that really meant anything
edible. I'll help you forgettable forgettable names. Nobody knows, right, Okay,
So that was one fight in twenty two, as I mentioned, the
one fight at seventy five in twenty twenty one. He only fought one time
in twenty twenty. That was a shutout, not a shut up. But
he lost what ten eleven rounds against Canelo in fight for two of the super
middleweight titles. So that was a horrendous performance. He just didn't show up.
Before that, he had a decision win over John Ryder that some question
the result of that fight. And so you kind of gotta go back to
twenty nineteen. I was actually at this fight at Madison Square Garden when he
knocked out Hassan the Dam in a Super mid aweight title match, that Dom
really is was a natural more of a middleweight, and before that he had
knocked out George Groves and what remains his career best victory, which was to
win the Super uh the World Boxing Super Series Super mid Awaight Tournament and also
win the w the WBA title and the lineal title and all that point is
all respect to him, but I just don't quite grasp why everybody's given him
such a great chance. Now, I'll grant you that he probably I believe
him when he says this, given his height and and all that, that
he's going to be stronger at one seventy five, that he was struggling,
you know, in the later days of making one sixty eight. That's that's
a fair uh. I think that's a fair assessment. But I'm of the
opinion until I see someone truly take care of fuck their better BF, I'm
not sure how you can pick against him. And if I'm not mistaken on
that point, were you not ringside in the Madison Square Garden Theater in the
summer of twenty twenty two for that ball out with Joe Smith Junior, which
I remember you and I previewing that and handicapping that, and we thought competitive
fight. You know, Joe Smith might have a chance annihilation pick it up.
On that point, I realized it was nineteen months ago for Better be
a but you were right there a ringside and saw that. No, I
mean that was a that was a kind of I won't say nothing with Better
VF in terms of a knockout is shocking, but with Joe Smith again,
it wasn't a shock that he got the knockout. But I think given Joe's
background and it was his hometown and it was you know, he's already been
known to have a good chance to punch in his own right that you figure
if there's going to be a knockout, you know that he's probably going to
be able to take it a little deeper into the fight. And you know,
he just got clipped and that was all she wrote. So that was
that was almost over in the first round. As I recall, he dropped
him, had him in trouble and he barely survived the first round. So
so that was a unification. That was that allowed Better BF to unify three
the belts. The only one he doesn't have is a b boll fight,
which is why if they able to make that match later in the year.
If he wins this fight, that makes it obviously a huge fight on Callum
Smith. The one thing that Callum has going for him, I mean more
than one thing, but one of the things that Callum Smith has going for
him is I think most people look at him and have watched him fight.
He is a durable fighter. He has never been obviously, he's only got
the one loss to Canlo. He did go the distance with Canelo at one
sixty eight. I can't remember seeing him like beat up or you know,
knocked down a bunch of times or heard or anything like that. I mean,
you know, he does come from the from the boxing family, along
with you know, his brother Paul Smith who's now retired, you know Liam
Smith who's obviously still doing his thing. So you know, he's got that
excellent background. He seems very confident. I watched their news conference, uh
you know, from uh Quebec city today, so he's traveling, remember,
I mean better we have of course is you know, born and grew up
in Russia, but for his entire professional career he's been based out of Montreal.
He's a Canadian citizen. He's now fighting Quebec Gok City, which I
believe is probably by car, maybe like what less than two hours from Montreal.
He'll have a you know, they expect to you know, ten ten
eleven thousand there, which will be close to a capacity that I guess from
what they were saying, at least for what they put on sale. You
know it's going to be ninety nine percent there rooting for better V obviously,
so he's got all that going for him. Tolm Smith throwing his team that
he has a good, good team behind him. Eddie Hearns made the trip.
You know, he's obviously got top notch coaches behind him. He's with
Buddy mcgert now his trainer, my old friend. His third fight with him,
but he's one of the top trainers in the sport. He's very confident
if you listen to him. But like I was saying to you, better
Beev is a different animal. He's got devastating power in both hands. He
throws that nasty right hand. He takes a pretty good punch. He can
fight forward backward. You know, people think just because he's a big banger
and he's not got artists that he doesn't have boxing seals, but that's bullshit
because he's got good boxing seals. This guy is a two time Olympian and
if you ever watch him when he's not scoring the big knockouts, he's pretty
subtle with the moves. He can slip some punches here and there. He's
got pretty decent hand speed. He's got a solid jab, So you know
it's a It's a big fight for him because of what it means on its
own, retaining the title and also what might come next afterwards. And it's
at home. And again I've been hearing all these people picking Callm Smith.
I just I don't see it. We can tell and better Beev's got the
big punch, and we'll see if Callum Smith could take that big punch he
took it from Canelo. Interesting in that Canelo fight, which was all the
way back in twenty twenty, during the pandemic craziness Alamodome right where it had
like ten thousand capacity or whatever, Canelo tactically did something very interesting that he
tried to repeat against Beebole and others, where he was banging away at the
left bicep and upper arm of Callum Smith over and over and over again with
punches to try to weaken his arm so he wouldn't throw the left anymore.
That was a tactic that worked, and I remember Callum Smith's arm being purple
black. Days later after the fight he put pictures on social media. But
Canelo didn't knock him out. Is my point. Now you're fighting better,
BV. That's the intrigue. We'll obviously handicap this first round French Rayphiel.
We'll handicap this more on the bet Us Show and make predictions one Eastern time
on Friday, Be with Us live on the bet Us platforms. But you
gave us a really good preview of what's at stake, what's gonna happen,
and the fact that this is a true road game for Callum Smith because he
is even though the fight is in Quebec and he's fighting a Russian and this
guy's got a lot of backing in that part of the world. And let's
see, let's see what. I don't think that Callum Smith was so worried
about that. I mean, this is a man that went to deep in
the heart of Texas and fought the Mexican superstar Canando Alvarez without reservation. So
now he's going to Quebec City to fight better be Of. But I guess
my upshot is, you know, I respect Callum Smith as a fighter and
what he's done and what he's accomplished in his whole boxing family. But until
I see somebody do something to better be Of, that's serious. You know,
I'm not going to be sold on it, you know, just because
he got touched up a little bit, you know, because he got dropped
by Callum Johnson, you know, four years ago or whenever that was in
twenty eighteen. Uh, you know, I need to be convinced more.
All right. On the undercard, the co feature fight is Christian Mobilion.
I'm interested. I don't know a lot about him, and he's obviously getting
an opportunity. He is a fighter that is primarily fought in France. He's
fought in Canada some, but he's obviously on this top rank ESPN portion of
the show. So tell us more about the co feature as we move along
on the card real quick. In the preview month, Well, he's fought
most of his fights in Canada, even though like you said, he is
from you know, he's he's actually born in Cameroon kind of like a like
a Francis Naganu, like he was born in Cameron But Mabilly though, has
you know, immigrated to France. He's now based in terms of his boxing
in Canada, where he has fought, uh, you know, many of
his fights over the course of his career, and he's been brought up,
you know, slowly but surely. But the thing about him, and the
first of all, the reason he's been there's a world title fight on the
card, which we'll get to in a minute with Maloney, but this is
the co feature position because he's the Canadian based guy and he's also this is
a co promotion between Top Rank and I have the Tiger. I have the
Tiger as the promoter of Mabilly. And if you've been watching him what he's
been doing over the last you know, say, like about two years or
so, you know, he's he's been fighting like good fighters, but not
great fighters, but he's been really dominating them. You know, he fought
guys. I'm gonna mention if you guys Ronald Ellis and you know the durable
Von Alexander, the older brother of Devin Alexander. He fought Carlos Gongoria,
who was a lot of people at high hoes for Demon Nicholson, who's been
the distance with Edgar Berlanga. And he's done very, very well against all
of those guys I just mentioned, either scoring knockouts or or getting decisions.
He is built like an absolute tank. He's ripped, he's in shape.
He's like I imagine if you walked into him on the street, you'd feel
hurt afterwards, like you walked into a wall. I mean, I remember
when I see the way he's built. It reminds me of one time years
ago being in Las Vegas, and I was It was before Lennox Lewis fought
Hassim Rockman in the rematch, and I was with Rockman and his brother and
one of the other two guys on his team, and we were getting the
elevator at the Mandalay Bay. We were going up to Rockman's suite because I
was doing an interview with him for a thing I was writing for USA Today.
That tells you how long ago this was for me. But that the
reason I remember that is because like Rockman bumped into me the elevator, and
I swear to God, I think my arm was like bruised for the rest
of the week. When I see him a billy and the strength that he
has as a super middleweight, I always think of like that, you'd be
like walking into a wall. That's the kind of build he has. So
he's twenty five to oh with twenty one knockouts, twenty eight years old,
so he's just coming into his own probably and he's on the precipice of being
a serious contender in the super middleweight division. He's tighty con Rohan Murdoch,
who's got a good record. He's twenty seven and two, you know,
from Australia, but doesn't have like a have a big resume or anything like
that. You know, if you heard of the guy he lost to Zach
Parker, who's been in like eliminator type fights. He got stopped by him.
Late he defeated a well known Australian fighter named Oars Isaac Hartman and his
la fight. So he's coming at candidate. I'm assuming to give the best
effort against mcbilly. But mcbilly is he's fighting so well right now. He's
like a tank, so he's exciting to watch and he's going places in my
opinion, and Mabilly is a twenty to one favorite by the way, on
the bet Us line. So the real debate you and I are going to
have is does this fight in early or not when we debated on the bet
Us show. I'm talking about because he's supposed to get the win and likely
to get the knockout, so we'll see if that is the case. The
many thing though, if you're interested to see new faces in the up the
contender ranks, let's say, but Billy's definitely got to watch because he's good
and he's exciting, all right. Also on this card, but not on
the ESPN portion of the card. Rayfield always got to keep me straight.
This is going to be on the ESPN Plus portion of the card. Jason
Maloney defends his WBO bantamweight championship. They get him a title fight in put
back one of the Australian Maloney twins that have been world champions. So this
is Jason Maloney, So tell me a little more about this fight that is
also on the card. So he and his brother, so you know there
his twin brother. They're celebrating their birthday this week. So Andrew is the
twin brother. Jason's defending the tesnil. Happy birthday to both Maloney's anyway,
So in May of last year he won the vacant Remember when in a way
vacated when he moved up and you know, in a way had become the
undisputed champion, he vacated all four titles, and so in May of last
year it was Maloney defeating by majority decision Vincent Australabio to win the vacant WBO
belt. He has not foughts intent, so it's been a little bit of
a layoff, not as much as the guys in the main event obviously,
but he's back in action to make his first defense on the road, but
neutral because he's from Australia fighting in Canada. He's fighting an opponent amed sal
Sawel Sanchez, who's a California fighter twenty and two with twelve knockouts, not
a big resume. This is the kind of fight in my mind where this
was, let's go down the ratings, let's pick a guy that we can
get away with and give our guy the best chance to win it. I
won't call it's not like a a celebratory homecoming kind of defense. But they
haven't exactly matched him with a known top contender. That makes sense. I'm
not saying that Sanchez is no good, but clearly in an optional kind of
defense, they're not looking to get the man beat first time out, so
you know he's going to be the big favorite. The opponent does not have
interesting on the bet if I interject, is you on the bet us line?
He's only a four to one favorite. It's not like he's a massive
favorite Malone. But by the same token, does Sanchez punch hard enough?
I mean, what's the intrigue here? Because you're right, clearly they want
Maloney to have a bigger fight later in this year, top ranked US.
Yeah. I mean the one thing about Sanchez, you know, who has
a list of opponents that is not impressive at all. The one guy that
might stand out to you is because of what he did recently is Jerico O'Quinn,
who was you know, was undefeated when they fought back in twenty twenty
one. He remembered just a few weeks ago, it was Jeriko O'Quinn with
the spectacular and shocking knockout of the Matchroom prospect on one of those cards in
a very big upset, and that was like kind of out of nowhere that
was from like a big stunner. He knocked out Peter mcgrail, who was
like heavily touted, undefeated, so he's got to win over him and he
but just for the record, he knocked out Quinn in round one. And
so if you look at Sanchez's record, he's one of these guys that spent
a lot of time fighting on good club cards, Like he fought a lot
of those cards that were at the Double Tree in Ontario, California, when
you know Thompson Boxing was around and those types of shows. He's fought on
some of the pro box cards that take place in South Florida. So you
know he's he's he's of that circuit. And so he's now stepping up into
the world class level. And look, I don't think Maloney is a world
beater, so I can't tell you it's an impossibility by no means. But
I don't think anybody on the Maloney team was looking to get this guy beat,
so it would seem like that would be a path to victory. I
just hope it's a good fight. I mean, Maloney are usually any in
pretty entertaining fights, and I haven't really seen much of Sawol Sanchez, but
it tells me if he's a Mexican fighter by heritage and he's fighting on the
club cards in South southern California, they like to put in guys that come
to fight. It seems like we might be in for at least an entertaining
matchup as long as it goes good preview stuff. As we mentioned, there
is a women's world title fight that will be taking place on January twentieth is
Natasha Jonas will defend her IBF Women's Welterweight championship against Mikayla Mayer and Mikaela Mayra.
Obviously prominent former US Olympian, former world champion, lost controversially to Alicia
Baumgardner at a lower weight division, now fighting at welterweight. Let's get into
all of that. Dan Rayfield had the opportunity to speak with her earlier in
this week. Let's bring you that conversation as she readies to travel to England
take on Natasha Jonas, who's a very popular prominent Britain championship fighter. Let's
go to that conversation right now as part of the preview. I'm very pleased
to Welcome into our podcast. This week, it is the former junior lightweight
world champion, Mikayla Mayer. Mikael, it's a pleasure to have you on
here. We're going to talk about your very significant fight coming up. But
first of all, how are you doing and how is camp going? As
we get closer to your January twentieth date with Natasha Jonas. I'm doing great,
great. I know every fighter says that about this time. I genuinely
feel this fight because of myself to sort of fill out and be more comfortable
weight, and so usually at this point camp, I'm lying right now,
I don't feel that great, but no, I genuinely feel good and strong,
still going good and is barring and I'll be ready all right, So
I'll tell the people you're gonna be going over to Liverpool, England to challenge
Natasha Jonas for the IBF Women's Welterweight World Championship that will take place January twentieth.
Like I mentioned, it's going to be on ESPN Plus here in the
United States, And as I was looking over your record, I realized,
you know, you've been fighting regularly, it seems like in the UK.
And I realized yes, this will be, in fact, your fourth consecutive
fight in England. I just wondered, is that is it something that you
enjoy doing and is it because that's just where the bigger fights are and the
money is or is there some other reason that you continue to continue to go
there? And how's your British accent these days? It's getting better but still
a pretty shitty. No, it's more of a strategic business thing. There's
most of my fights, most of my next big bumps and big fights are
against people out in the UK. So it's especially this fight, this is
where I need to be to get myself back in position. You know,
I started by not in the UK when we had that big women's card Close
the Shields versus Svanna Marshall and me versus Bomb Gardener, and that that just
so happened because who's got to be amazing to have a huge female card at
the O two Arena, and it was we sold it out, it was
awesome. And then from there I just I guess the BRIT's like me,
so I continue to fight out there, and now if you look at all
my big future opponents and then my big fights there against girls from that side,
of the pond. So now it's just sort of a business move.
I'm glad I've done it, so now I'm not so much of gunderdog.
So I mentioned this fight will take place in Natasha's hometown of Liverpool. The
other fights that you have fought in the UK were against women that of course
you were traveling from America to go there. But you fought in the UK
against another American in Bomb Gardner. As you mentioned, you fought another one
of your opponents was from Italy. Another one was from Sweden. But this
is the first time you're fighting a brit in Britain, not only in Britain,
but in her hometown. Do you have any pause about that aspect of
this matchup? That's true, I didn't realize. I guess this is my
first brit For someone who fights over there so often, this is my first
brit and it isn't our hometown, so that's new for me, you know.
I've I've always been on the A side, I think, you know,
and now I'm kind of going into enemy territory and I know that they
go hard for their people over there. You know, Natasha Jonas is very
well respected, so I don't know I don't know how the fans are going
to react to me. I also know that I have a big fan base
there now too, because I've foughten there so much in the last year.
But still, you know, I think the crowd is going to favor Natasha,
and that's okay. I'm okay with it. I've had all the experience
I need in the world. You know, when I by the time I'm
walking through that ring, I'm so zoned in focus. Second Matt bellowings,
Alganoi is going to go out the window. So if they boom me,
they boom me. I mean, I've been watching your entire career. I
was at your pro debut, I've been to many of your fights, I've
watched many of your interviews. We've interviewed before. I get to feel you
can if you want, you can play the heel really well if you wanted
to. Yeah, I could, But I don't know. It's hard to
build that type of I mean, you've seen me do it before with my
opponents, but it's hard to build that with someone like Natasha Jonas, who's
just so nice, like she's she's like a gem over there. Everyone loves
her, you know, she doesn't do anything wrong. She doesn't really talking
to smack about people, So you know, it would be out of character
for me, and I just wouldn't them right if I started going at her
heart in a certain way. So this fight is more, I think,
to two women. We're both olympians, we both have huge accomplishments, huge
amateur pedigree, former world champions, and so she is the world champion,
me and former world champion, but you know we we were pioneers in this
sport. So now this is this is a strategic fight. This is a
you know who who's gonna I think, because a lot of people are thinking
that one of us is at the end of our career and it's not me.
Well, she's thirty nine years old, and she was the one that
was in the Olympics, and I believe twenty twelve. You are thirty three
years old. You were in the Olympics in two thousand and sixteen. And
even though you do actually have a few more pro fights than she does,
you're going this is you have twenty pro fights, She's got what sixteen or
seventeen profights. So when you say that that, some people think one of
you is at the end of your career. I kind of take the viewpoint
that it seems to me that neither one of you are at the end of
your career, even though she may be older. You've both been fighting really
well. You know, yeah, why would why would you say that?
Though? I guess, I mean, I think there's a lot of agism
and sexism in this sport. You know, there really is. Like I
have thirty three and that I haven't heard a handful of handful of people say
that, oh, now I'm gona the tail end of my career blah blah
blah and declining. Yet you know, Canelo is thirty three and he's in
his prime. It's just so you have you get two different storylines. You
have one loss by like a one point split decision, and you're at the
end of your career. Thank you, thank you. I mean, I
don't I feel better than I've ever spelt, especially since I'm letting my body
fill out. Now I'm fighting in a more natural weight, I can put
on that muscle that you think about it. Most people, as they develop
into their career, by the time the thirty three, they've moved into three
different way divisi I've stayed at one thirty fifteen years, so it's time.
It's time for me to fill out, and I feel great. So I
was going to ask you about that. Did you go? I mean,
you you were a champion and unified champion at one hundred and thirty pounds.
In fact, the fight where you unified the titles against Hammaduche was one of
the great women's fights I've ever seen, one of the I mean, I
was ringside for that fight, so I don't know. Maybe I'm biased because
of that, but that was a hell of a fight. But here's the
thing, though, you were unified champion at one thirty after you lost the
belts to Bomb Garner, your next fight was at one thirty five. Then
you fought at one forty not title fights. Now you're fighting for a title
at one forty seven. So my question is were you moving up through those
weight classes so quickly because of as you mentioned, you were just wanting to
put the weight on it. It was making you feel better or stronger,
or was it more because you had the opportunity to go to welterweight to become
a world champion again. So a little bit of both. I immediately knew
I was moving to one thirty five. That next fight after bomb Gardner was
one thirty five, and my body's just letting my body fill out the tiniest
bit it wanted to keep going. One thirty five was still no different than
one thirty to me, that's what it felt like. So then I thought,
okay, let's then My goal was to stay to fight Katie Taylor,
who was unified champion at one thirty five, and I became mandatory for her
in that fight. But she's busy, She's caught up with Serrano and Chonshill
camera and like had all these fights vers. So I'm like, I can't
really stick around at one thirty if I'm not going to get this fight with
Katie Taylor immediately. So I'm like, okay, where can I get this
opportunity? Then Top Rank called and said, what about jumping to one forty
seven. There's an opportunity to fight Tasha Jonas. I said, okay,
Like I eventually thought I'd end up at one forty seven, so this I
didn't think. I jumped there so quickly, but tons Hial camera wasn't available
at one Katie Taylor wasn't available at one thirty five. It was just the
most immediate fight for me, and so the next fight I took at one
forty two, just slowly continue to sort of build that, you know,
build that strength and build my body out. So yeah, one thirty one
thirty five, one forty two, all to prepare for this. So a
lot of people would look at it and say, as you mentioned, you
fought most of your career in the one hundred and thirty pound weight class with
a smat you know, a few fights since or really just two fights since,
you know, in the heavier weights. But and then she's a champion
at one forty seven. She was a unified champion at one fifty four.
But the reality is, I was I didn't realize this until I started to
look at her record as I was getting ready to talk to you today,
that most of her fights, even though she's been a champion those heavierweight divisions,
really we're at one hundred and thirty, one hundred and thirty five.
And I also see on the on the listing, you're actually like about an
inch taller than she is. So you know, who's really the She's the
champion in the heavier weight class, but who's good who's the bigger woman,
so to speak, in the fight, I think I definitely am gonna be
She's had more time at that weight, so maybe she's a little bit more
comfortable there. You know, it takes time to reverse all what I've done,
what I've done to my body holding it down the web thirty for so
many years. It takes time to reverse that. You can't just build that
muscle overnight. So she has, you know, the experience there. But
you're right, most of advice at web thirty one thirty. She only went
to one forty fifty four because that is where the opportunity was. You know,
the higher you go in the waits a little bit less competition is maybe
a little easier. It is a snag of belt. So you know,
that's what she did. It's a strategic move, and she did that and
now she's come down to one forty seven and if you look at all the
women, that's where they're going. One forty seven is the next big division
for us. Yeah, I think you're right about that. I mean,
especially you mentioned like some of the other women you were talking about, Katie
Taylor is vacated now some of the belts at one thirty five. She's keeping
the belts at one forty. Got to figure before it's all said one she
moves up, You're obviously going to go up at some point, you know,
for this fight and perhaps beyond, you know, stay there for a
little bit. I just want to touch on one of the other fights you
had. We were talking about, you know, you having a bunch of
fights in the UK. The first bout that you had in that run of
fights over there was the fight with Bombgardner, which was, you know,
a unification fight was on that big card you mentioned with Claressa was a pretty
big deal. She barely barely beat you by, like I said, one
point on two of the score cards. You were well ahead on the third
score card since that fight and you, I mean, we all know the
back and forth that you women had going into that fight. Lot of you
know, bad blood so to speak, between you two guys and gals.
She tested positive in a subsequent fight for a banned substance, which you know,
anytime that happens, it's going to make some people think that if you
tested positive for that fight, that you maybe weren't clean for previous fights.
In other words, you know, when you get caught once, it's not
necessarily the first time you ever did it. I wonder what your thoughts were
when you saw that she had tested positive for a banned substance. Yeah,
I thought, I think her whole legacy is a question now, not in
although her body was so ripped. She claims to be a very hardcore Christian,
So I literally never thought that she would do something like that. But
I believe it's true because if you look at the levels that she tested for,
they weren't just minimal traces like something you accidentally got makes it to your
protein powder. I mean, those are really really highlight levels of testosterone and
another black market drugs that you really can't even get in America. So you
know, she's guilty, and I'm disappointed because you know, there's no going
back in reversing like how that's affected the division, the one hundred and thirty
pound division over the last two years since she came out of nowhere, which
is another little hint probably that she wasn't natural. But you know, you
can't. That's that's just you know, you can't go back. You can't.
You never know. A whole legacy is in question at this point,
and now it's up to the commissions and the governing bodies to strip her,
make an example of her, and get lay some type of punishment down which
they have. That's the pointing part. If she is eligible at some point,
would you want to have a rematch with her? You're not person to
asking me that, and I honestly have to consider whether I want would want
to give her another opportunity. Right now, she's going around calling out someone
like Clorisa's shields because she knows that she's you know, needs to stay relevant
somehow. She should be stripped right now. I don't think she deserves any
of us champion or top you know, pound and pound all these top girls
right now in this generation. She doesn't deserve any of our attention or any
of our respect until she clears her name, which I don't think she's want
to be able to do. She should have already been stripped, So I
don't know, you know, we'll see when it comes down to that.
Right now, I'm at one forty seven, she's still at one thirty.
She talks about coming up. But I got Tasha Jonas right now in front
of me and all the other girls that are already at one forty seven,
that I'm that I'm thinking about. Well, we mentioned a bunch of the
top of you know, women fighters, yourself and Bombagarner at that time,
Shields obviously, Natasha Jonas, Sorono, Katie Taylor, Cameron. You mentioned
all of these people I have mentioned. You're all fighting each other in the
biggest fights that you can make in your various weight classes. And when the
fights are made, they usually are done so with not a lot of drama
as far as you know, the fight comes up, it might take a
couple of weeks, a couple of months to hammer it out, and no
must, no fuss, and you get in the ring and take care of
your business and it's on to the next And it seems like a regular occurrence,
at least in the female side of boxing. I wonder why do you
think it seems to me anyway that it's so much easier for that to happen
with the female boxers, And it is when it comes to making the biggest
fights with many of the men's boxers, because us women have more to prove,
you know, we haven't had the opportunity, we haven't had a platform,
we haven't had like all the supports and the networks just a handful of
us are now getting that, and if we want to continue to grow that
and show that we belong and improve the good decision, we have to make
the big fights happen we want that. Does it excites us? I don't
know. I think the men maybe have been a little bit spoiled in the
sense where they can kind of co through take one big fight, pocket millions
of dollars and kind of you know, take a few two nut fights in
here and there. I just don't think the women have had the privilege like
we're here trying to prove that we belong in the sport and in orders we
have to put on the most exciting fights possible, whether it's stated well or
not well enough or not. You know, hopefully the next generation will,
but we're going to be doing a lot lot of things that we're not really
going to reap the benefits of. So, you know, I was wondering
about this. You know, I've always just adored Al Mitchell, your trainer.
I've known him for many many years, one of the best guys I
know in the whole sport. I wonder how excited does he get to see
you go on these types of big fights and have opportunities to fight in for
titles and heavier weight classes and move along. I mean, you know he's
got to. He was, you know, he's you know, he's trained
a lot of uh, a lot of great boxers, a lot of guys,
a lot of mostly guys, have a lot of really bad Eastern boxers
who were really accomplished and skilled. And here I come one day and my
walking into this gym, my little pink, juicy suit. And he never
thought that I'd be the one, because if you look at the group of
people he's had in the gym, even the group he had in the gym
when I walked in, he would never expect the one to make it this
far. And I'm the last one standing, you know. So he tells
me all the time, and I always believe I'd be in this position.
And maybe don't exactly how because we've been you know, plowing away and a
path, but I always believed i'd be here, he says, never expect
it. You just never expected. He just wanted me, you know,
maybe make a little money and then never wanted me to turn pro. You
know, just makes some ninete sponsors and blah blah blah, so he's definitely
happy that I'm here, and he just wants He's tells me all the time,
just you know, a few more years. You take these big fights,
you win them, you take money, so you're set for life and
just go on and commentate to fight anymore. So yeah, exactly, you
know he's bobbing me, but he doesn't want me doing it forever. Well,
I remember distinctly being at your professional debut in Los Angeles. I believe
it was the Loma Chenko under card when he fought Mariaga, and where we
were seated in the media section was right near your corner. And your fight
lasted probably what ninety seconds in your debut, and the entire ninety seconds,
Al was screaming at the top of his lungs, use your jab, use
your jeb. And now you're twenty fights into your prokra I wonder how many
times do you figure he's yelled at you to use your jeb. You guys,
it's so funny because to Chaw just sort of letting me loose, but
I mean letting me loose like for you know, going into my last not
this past year, but my last few fights at one thirty and stuff,
and he collecting those belts. I'd be in the gyms, borings Warren's barn.
I mean, for that first half of camp, I wasn't even allowed
to throw my right hand. I mean just really really hard discipline, really
hard on me, you know, not letting me throw silly punches. Everything
had to be behind my job. Everything had to finish with the hook and
so. But that's what got me so technically sound now, you know.
So, I'm grateful for it, but still telling me this, I mean,
I can't I hear it in my sleep. I'll hear for the rest
of my life. Well, I suspect that. Come come your fight against
Jonas on January twentieth and Liverpool, England Live on ESPN Plus. You'll hear
al yell and use your job quite a bit. Michela, thank you very
much for the interview time, and I wish you good luck in the fight.
Thanks so much, good talking to you you too, Take care,
good stuff with her and again she would love to at some point obviously at
her hands on bomb Gardner if she can, But for right now that has
not happened. Does not like it look like it's gonna happen anytime in the
short term. So now I give her a lot of credit, by the
way, because she has obviously understood it and it's more lucrative apparently as well,
go fight where the money is, go fight the bigger names, go
fight in England, etc. And she's willing to do this again. A
couple of wrap up thoughts from you. Yeah, it's like we talked about,
it's gonna be her fourth fight in a row in the UK, and
it's mainly because of the opportunity. I mean, she says she likes it
if you listen to her speak about it. Bomb Gardner is not so much
on the radar because she's jammed up with her own problems with the drug testing
situation and Mikaela. As she talked about, she's been fighting, had been
fighting at one hundred and thirty pounds for a very long time since she pretty
much was starting out as amateur, and she's now moved up two weight classes
in her last two fights and now she's gonna be a full fledged walter weight.
So she's gone from one thirty now at one forty seven in the past
two years or you know, year and year and change, year and a
half, I guess, and we'll see. There's lots of big women fights
out there, and Natasha Jonas is a is a very solid opponent. They're
both Olympians. She is fighting in Natasha's hometown and we'll see how it goes.
I think these are two of the of the better. This is to
me, this is like two of the best lightweight women fighting as welterweights.
That makes sense because that's where Jonas spent most of her career. And then
even though she's also won a title up at one fifty four, but she
dropped down to fight and she ended up winning a title at welterweight. And
we'll say it's the main event on the boxer card. It'll be on ESPN
Plus in the United States, Sky Sports in the UK. And it's good
to see, you know, two of the top women out there are going
to get some attention in this main event, the same way some of the
other best women we have seen in recent times, whether it's Katie Taylor and
Serrano and Chantel Cameron and Claressa Shields, and I don't want to leave anybody
out, but you know, those all those excellent female boxers that we've talked
about, and this is an opportunity now for them to be also in a
main event and once again reinforces we bring you newsmakers, bring you fighters,
bring you promoters, bring you personalities. We love that here as part of
our Big Fight weekend podcast, the preview podcast, the Fight for each U
night recap that comes off the weekend, and even special conversation. This is
why you've got to be following and subscribing as well, because when you suddenly
were able to wrangle the interview with Virgil Ortiz in advance of that fight,
if they were following and subscribing on the podcast feed, they needed no other
prompt They immediately got that interview. We went ahead and put it up on
the feed, and here again you hear from Mikayla Mayer in advance of her
fight. Again, that fight is not this weekend. It is next weekend,
January twentieth in the UK, Saturday afternoon US time. We'll have more
time to preview it obviously, as we rock on in the next week.
All Right, some news and then a little bit of nostalgia, including some
birthday nostalgias. All Right, Eryl Spence, I've been interested to talk about
this ever since I saw him putting all over social media Instagram and Twitter about
his injured right eye, his cataract problem in his right eye. The Spence
said he had had a rack surgery, that this is something that had been
coming on. He even made mention that this was something that was apparently an
issue even in and around fight time last summer with Terrence Crawford, not that
he was going so far to make it as an excuse. All right,
what do you make of all of this? And does this basically rule out
that Crawford and Spence is going to be the next fighter? What do we
make of this? Well, I mean, it is going to keep Errol
Spence on the shelf a bit longer than maybe people might have thought. But
if there's a silver lining for Errol is that he had the surgery apparently this
week, and it's about a two month recovery period, so maybe a little
bit shorter, maybe a little bit longer. Obviously, every person's going to
have a different exact recovery time. That's going to be for his doctors to
talk about. But if it, let's say it's about two months and he
had the surgery in early January, that would put him back at least in
the ability to train and everything in early March, and I don't think anybody
was expecting if there's going to be a rematch with him and Crawford, that
it was going to take place in March anyway. So I don't know if
it has any direct impact on that match particularly, but obviously it's another setback
for Spence from the standpoint of going back. You know, he had the
terrible car accident a few years ago, right then had a fight scheduled against
Manny Pacao that got knocked out at the last minute, like the week of
the fire, like ten days before the fight because in his in an eye
coincidentally, in an eye exam, it was found the dead he detached redna
in one of his eyes. He had to have surgery and pull out of
that fight. And now so that we're clear that was the left eye,
I believe I went back and look and this is the right eye. It's
not the same eye. So we just need to keep it as far as
we're not optometrius. We're just playing this on the Big Fight weekend in preview,
but we believe this is the other eye that's got the cataract problem.
Yeah, so that means He's had the surgery on one eye for a retina,
and now he's gonna he just had the surgery on the other eye for
a cataract. So I mean that's not a good thing obviously. You know,
eyes are serious business, and if you're a boxer getting hit in the
face, it's maybe even more so. I would imagine it just feels like
again that arrow sort of just he's just breaking down in different ways. I
mean, he's you know, and he admitted in some of his social media
posts, and this was not a secret among people that know him and follow
him, he wasn't living the right life in terms of what you need to
do to be at the top of your game. You know, he would
like to party, he liked to drink, he liked to you know,
stay out late, do his thing, and that you know, maybe cost
him a little bit of time on his career. Not to take anything away
from Crawford's performance, because Crawford was ready to go. He did make mention
when he posted about the surgery in one of his Twitter posts about you know,
why do you think I got hit with so many hooks and shots like
that? And because he couldn't see that great the right eye. So I
don't want to say that was an excuse, but he was making the point.
You know, why do you think I got hit with so many jabs
and hooks? Well, yeah, obviously he can't see them coming. It's
going to cause you some problems. So I mean, look, the spense
that was in the ring against Crawford was not the pound for pound guy that
we'd been watching for all the his previous years. He got obliterated by Crawford,
who was a great fighter, fine, but that was not the guy
that we've been used to seeing. He got knocked down three times after having
been as thirty as could be for most of his career. He didn't win
more. Maybe maybe one, if you were generous, Maybe maybe he won
around against Terrence Crawford, you know, two if you really wanted to be
super generous, I guess. But no, it was an absolute one sided
ass whooping and a knockout. And you know, as we've talked about,
I know the rematch has been exercised, as we've discussed, but you and
I are both a little skeptical if it will ever actually get in the ring
and take place. You know, Crawford's been on social media the last on
a rampage last couple of days yapping about tia Fimo Lopez, who called him
out, said he wants to fight, and which, by the way,
is not an unusual thing for the lineal real champion at one hundred and forty
to call out and want to fight the guy that's the same situation at one
hundred and forty seven. It seems like that would be a natural fight.
You know, Crawford is the welterweight world champion, tia Fimo is the was
the junior welterweight champion, and by the way, they were both champions at
lightweight, so it's not like there's some humongous difference. Yes, Crawford's obviously
more advanced in his career, is older, he's got a lot, you
know, more fights and that sort of thing, but that that would seem
to be a natural kind of progression fight for them in terms of what could
be made about Crawford also was looking, I don't think he wants to stick
around at welterweight. If he's gonna fight, I think he wants to go
and fight a big name in the heavierweight division. You know, on Charlot
Or he's called out. He's talking about want to fight Canelo or whatever.
You know, I don't know about that happening, but he got this Spens
thing that's kind of like there, and there has been no clarity about it.
You know, PBC everybody's on silent mode. Or I joked around with
somebody that everybody related the PBC is an airplane mode right now, and you
know they're they're just of the off the grid, so to speak, because
they're like shut down. I know they're starting to work and with Amazon Prime
Video to ramp up their schedule and what their situation is gonna be, what
the fights are going to be, what the production is going to look like,
and there's a lot of work to be done. But we're not going
to see anything from them in terms of in the ring at the earliest until
March. You know. There's been rumors. I don't know if they're like
how legit that that the whispers that maybe they won't even commence until April.
I suspect it will still be some time in March. But the point is
right now PBC is like on a break. Let's say, I mean they're
they're they're out for the next couple of months, So Crawford and Spence,
you know, is just one of a number of different things that they need
to address and when it happens, hopefully by that time, whatever happens,
that Errol will be back in terms of this health of his eye and he
can go back and get his thing. Whether he fights Crawford or not,
I can't tell you for sure if I'm sure he's you know, he's not
retiring. Even made the point in one of his posts about that that if
he doesn't fight Crawford again, you know, get yourself a good, solid
fight to get back in the ring, show us that you still have plenty
of fight left in you and uh and move on from there. I wish
I'm a healthy, uh, healthy healing and but then again, you know,
maybe this is one of those defining fights where Terrence Crawford and I was
there with you, Terrence Crawford beat the daylights out of him, and maybe
it's one of those that at this stage he doesn't recover from. You hate
to say that, but he doesn't recover at the highest level from, especially
when you've got more physical problems. And we can't I'm not making excuses,
we can't emphasize this enough, that spectacular car crash where he had the concussion,
the broken jaw. He's lucky he was not killed het jaw. He
lost a bunch of teeth, though I thought I thought he did have the
broken jaw as well. We'll have to double check on that. I thought
I remember writing something about that. But nonetheless he had to have, you
know, basically a facial surgery in that, and there was real concern as
the fight was going on, the disfigurement of his face, et cetera.
Getting beaten like he did by Crawford. He's got a left to overcome.
And now you got another eye problem there as well. So there you go
on that front. With that, all right, let's move on on the
news. What else the two twenty twenty three Boxing Writers Association of America Annual
Awards. The nominees are out, so they haven't given the awards out yet,
but they have the voting. I know you've done all of your individual
awards, but just touch on this real quick, because we've gone over this
a lot at the end of last year in the beginning of this year,
about the awards that you gave out for Fight of the Year, Fight of
the Year, etc. But go ahead. Okay. So the BWAA is
an organization that's been around for almost one hundred years, and it's I think
most people when they see the awards come out. I mean, listen,
all the websites and all the bloggers and reporters and columnists and everything, the
YouTubers and everything. We all give out our awards, but I think you
know, the ones that carry a certain element of prestige in terms of the
history of the sport are the Boxing Writers Association of America because it's collective vote
by the Writers Association, and the Ring Magazine has been putting out their awards
for like one hundred years. Also, so I'm a member of the BWAA,
as I have been for the more than twenty years. So on Saturday
that just took place, myself and others from our membership were on a zoom
call and we ran through all the various awards and did the nominations and voted
and blah blah blah, and who would make the ballot? Generally speaking,
it's five per category, doesn't always have to be that, And so the
nominees were done. They will be voted on over the next couple of weeks
by the membership on our website, and uh, there's no day yet,
but sometime come the spring, probably situated around a major fight, as is
usually the case, you know, whether it's New York or Vegas or wherever,
we'll have the annual banquet a couple of nights before that big fight,
and everybody who wins will get there get their awards. And that's been going
on for years. I've been to many many of those dinners. Some are
better than others. But nonetheless, the candidates that we that we nominated and
then voted on from the membership to go on the ballot then should not come
as a surprise. So I'll just run. I mean, to me,
the big two we're obviously the Fight of the year and the Fighter of the
year. In terms of the Fighter of the year, it's and this is
alphabet alphabetical, not a surprise to see who the five guys that made it.
They're the same, you know, five guys among the guys that I
put in my list, and I've seen these people mentioned everywhere. And that
was again alphabetically, David Benavidez, Karen S Crawford, Travonte, Davis,
Devin Hainey and Noya in a way, I mean a very good group of
fighters. You know. It seems to me based on everything I've been reading
and seeing from others, you know, in a way and Crawford are the
two favorites, you know, from most people who are picking such things.
And Haney had a hell of a year also, And in terms of the
fight of the year, you have better bv. Yard, which we discussed
a little bit. That was a great matchup Joe Cordina in his great war
against Rockamov, the huge upset, but was also a great fight between Raphael
Espinoza and Robasi Ramirez that was in December where Espinoza won the WBO featherweight title
in a tremendous battle. He had the Haimimongia Sergey devron Chenko fight, which
was a great battle, also came down to a knockdown in the last round.
And the fight that I picked as the fight of the year a junior
featherweight eliminator between Luis Neary and a Zat Jovanissian and ultimately that was a TKO
in the eleventh round. That's gonna get Nearie in that position where it's not
done yet, but most likely in the May fight he's going to challenge in
a way for the undisputed junior featherweight title. So those were the two big
awards. And then in the terms of the Trainer of the Year, we
nominated Bill Haney, Shingo in a Way, which is Nioia's father, Andy
Lee, Shane mcgwigan and Brian McIntyre all excellent trainers. I picked Brian McIntyre,
but all those guys have a head a hell of a year. Manager
of the Year we nominated just three people, Keith Connolly, Bill Haney and
Igus Klemis. All three had accomplishments. I voted I picked in my awards,
I picked Keith Connolly, and the reason for that is if the trainer
of the Year and the fighter the yere tj are based on what you do
in the ring, what you win, on how you perform, the Manager
of the Year doesn't fight. The manager of the year's job is to put
the fighter in the best financial position, make the best deals and also work
with the promoter to make sure they get the right opponents. And if you
took a look at the things that Connolly did in terms of the money,
he was able to secure the deals. He was able to secure promotion for
his fighters, for example, having an amical parting of the ways between Berlanga
and Top Rank and getting him way way more money to go with Mattroom,
getting him out of a very promoter one sided contract with Philip Herkovic, doing
a direct deal with the Saudis for eight figures, and making the IBF stipulate
that he's next up. I mean, I can go on chapter and verse
on the guys that he's done that with over the last year. So that's
why I picked Then. We also have some other awards, like the Good
Guy Award, Sam tab Broadcast Award. This is a very deep class of
guys he got Tim brad This is the TV award for the people involved with
the television side of things. Timothy Bradley, the announcer from ESPN. Obviously
the Future are a present Hall of Famer as a fighter. My good pal
Jim Gray, my good pal Dave Harmon, the long time producer at HBO
who probably should have won this award, you know, a decade ago.
Maro Ronaldo obviously the outstanding announcer and everybody's good friend and podcaster and host and
Jack of all trades, James Smithy smidt Uh, you know, one of
the guys that's very well liked in this business, long and meritorious service.
You've got guys like Gordon Hall from Showtime, Pritchard, Henry Haskup who's a
great historian from in the Jersey area who has done so much over the course
of his long career, the great historian Don Majeski, John Shepherd who runs
box Wreck, Bruce Silverglade, a very beloved person that's run the fame,
Gleason's Jim and helped out any number of fighters for decades out of that New
York Shrine. Just to run down some of the guys nominated for the Good
Guy Ward got John DeSanto from you know, a well liked guy that that's
a record keeper and has helped any number of fighters through the years, and
different people in the business. So many people that I'm very fond of is
uh. They're they're they're nominated as a duo like Peanut Butter and Jelly and
that's our pr friend Sam Jackson Andrew Roberts who have done so much great work
for Swansea Communications. Anybody that's in the media knows them and I'm sure been
befriended by them and helped by them. Our other good pow that works with
them from the PR company b z A that does a lot of the pr
for PBC did for Showtime for many years and for credentials, and that Steve
Pratt, We love Steve Pratt. Shout out to the man Pratt. Jose
Ramirez, the boxer who has been so charitable with his people in the Central
Valley in California, has done incredible work. A very well liked guy.
And the former light heavyweight contender John Scully. You know he's gone into his
own pocket and many times to help out other you know, fighters in need,
et cetera. You know, also a trainer these days. So that's
that award. And then you have also the the award that we call the
John McCain Bill Crawford Courage Award for people overcoming adversity in this sport. It's
it's a lot of great people get nominated, but it's not the kind of
uh, frankly, it's not the kind of award you want to be nominated
for. And that was people the Mexican boxer who's had her problems that she
tries to overcome. Alejandro Ayela Pritchard, Cologne and Family is the nominee.
Portchard of course, is though you know, has suffered that terrible brain injury
a few years ago. Amazing what he's been able to do in the recovery
with the help of that family. You know, my good pal Billy Dibb
overcoming his cancer diagnosis with a smile on his face. Lisa McClellan, the
sister of the injured fighter Jerald McClone from years ago, who is his caretaker
twenty four to seven. She should have got this award decades, you know,
decades ago. And again another guy that I think everybody in the business
knows and likes a lot, who's overcome his own battle with cancer. And
the great photographer edmul Holland, who you've seen his pictures from mat from boxing
and other He's shot a lot of fights in the day for HBO. Also
another great guy. And so those are the nominees for the big awards.
And then there's other awards like the we give out a women's Christy Martin Female
Fighter of the Award, the Nat Fleischer Award for Career Excellence in Boxing Journalism,
which I was honored to win in twenty thirteen, but those are awards
that are voted on by separate committee, so that was not part of this
nominating process. You gave us a ton there on that and again that's coming
what Mark aprils somewhere around there will no, no, it'll probably it'll be
probably no earlier than they may. Okay on uh on the twenty twenty three
awards from they take their time, they do it the right one. We're
gonna vote on them in the banks of the whole bit and then the reveal
I got you, I got you on what you guys are doing? A
couple more notes than some nostalgia and we're done on this preview podcast. Oh
dear God, mock moodchar good before you introduce should should I? What are
we doing here? Mock moochar is on the rundown w B A what is
this? Rayphaiel w b A regular heavyweight title of fans Kubrat POOLB. Do
I need this in my life? Do we we have this in our lives?
Apparently coming. Our job on the pod is to bring people the news
and thoughts, good or bad. Correct me if I'm wrong. Mighty one
wasn't the w b A doing away with the secondary titles and all this other
stuff? Why do we have to have a w B a regular heavyweight time.
I'm glad you asked. I've been asked that question a little bit today
because I when I when I tweeted about what as a curt and I agree
with you, it's terrible. But and and and the w BA, to
their credit, and you can look at the at the statistics, they've done
a very good job of reducing the titles. They actually now have fewer interim
titles in the WBT. Wait a minute, it just hit me, there's
a there's a legal reason why they have to do this. Thank you.
So never let it be said that I don't listen to you on these podcasts
and I don't read you on these podcasts. I've had a lot going on.
But it literally when you were setting this up, he just now hit
me, there's a legal reason that you're about to explain why this fight,
what are we doing here actually has to happen for the WBA continue, right,
So, so if you go back to the summer when Usik fought Dubois
and Usik got the knockout, and now he's still the unified heavyweight, you
know, with the with the three belts. Dubois entered that fight as the
WBA regular champion, and when when he was knocked out, regular title went
away, and then suddenly, like I forget the period of time, maybe
it was two weeks later or whatever, it was really short period of time
after that that man Macmodshar was re instated as that title holder. He had
previously had that belt and been stripped for problems with making the deal visa not
doing the mandatory et cetera. He sued the WBA. Part of this settlement
was to be reinstated as the title holder. So even though the WBA spent
an ignortant amount of time over say about the last two years, reducing the
number of extraneous titles, which they've done a good job. They got rid
of all the interim titles. Now they only have one interim thing and that
was a legit reason due to injury. That was the interim title that just
took place over this past weekend on the on the fight that you know,
because Roly Romero was injured. So that was the Barroso O'Hara Davies fight.
So they got rid of all those, and if you take a look at
the lineup, they're down to just a two you know, three or four
of the secondary title belt that they're dealing with, and as I mentioned,
fewer secondary titles and interim titles in the WBC. But in this particular case,
for the legal reason, they had no choice but to reinstate that.
Now, when they did that, the stipulation was that he had to fight
a mandatory in a certain period of time. It was supposed to be Jerald
Big Baby Miller. That did not come to pass, and then Miller ended
up taking a different fight, getting knocked out in Saudi Arabia then allegedly,
you know, beating up a guy in a car dealership and trying to steal
his repossessed car. Anyway, but when that happened, shar was then allowed
to have a fight a defense against a top you know, I guess ten
or fifteen guy in their rankings who brought Pulev, who has been a quality
heavyweight for a long time, gave a pretty good go for a few rounds
against Klitschko back in the day, you know, went nine rounds or ten
rounds or so in a title shot against Anthony Joshua just come off a win
in California about a month or two ago, so he was the guy they
settled on. He brings a big amount of money and a crowd in Bulgaria
where he's from. So this fight is being sorted out. The date is
not set, but it's on target. It's it's penciled in. Let's say
they're trying to do the match. The contracts are signed. It's supposed to
be in the March timeframe in Bulgaria. Not that part of it's not one
hundred percent done, but the fight is signed, all the terms are agreed
to, everything, and so look for better or for worse. That's what's
gonna happen. The winner of that fight, well at least have a solid
win on their record, right and it will just be another name introduced into
the heavyweight mixed And it wouldn't shock me at all is if whoever emerges from
that fight with the second tier belt will wind up in some kind of fight,
maybe on one of the big Saudi heavyweight cards. In the meantime,
Poulev's gonna have a big crowd, you know. Routman in Bulgaria. Char
is getting what he should have got based on the rules from a few years
ago, but got screwed out of by the WBA and Don King. And
you know, look, not everything we talk about on the podcast is is
ice cream and soda and pizzas. Right, Sometimes you got to you gotta
take a by the way, he was Manual char This is the same guy.
He's now known as mock Moochart. It's the same guy. And again
we've given this way too much time. It will be sometimes we got to
bring the people the news, of course, and this and then and this
again fulfills the legal obligation that the wb A has because of the shenanigans that
were going on. He but I just I laugh in thinking of this phrase.
You and I are nostalgic. We are of the same age. We
remember the people's court. And remember the court reporter. You don't remember the
name the court TV reporter h Rusty was the bailiff. The court TV reporter
was Doug Lewellen, remember that same and was Doug Lewellen's line, don't take
the law into your own hands. You take him to court. That's what
Mockmoodchart did. He won some kind of settlement, some kind of ruling.
This is the fight he gets, and then we'll see if there's any relevance
again. Poolev knocked out by Anthony Joshua a couple of years ago, previously
knocked out by Clitchko older. Those are only losses, but he's older.
We'll see whatever this is in March, and when March comes around, we
may or may not. It's definitely, you know. And one of the
reasons I put this on the rundown, other than that it's a little bit
of slowly because you wanted me to say exactly, I like the week doing
here, by the way, and the the other loss that that pool that
has was in twenty twenty two, which was a very close call, a
split decision against Derek Tasor in a pretty good fight. Okay, one more
thing, Bachrum and cole Ca Jack Colekay for now the vacant IBF Junior middleweight
title. They did have a purse bid for this fight. This is Jamel
Charlow being told, Okay, now you don't have the IBF belt any longer.
Tim Zuo has the WBO belt. Helped keep me straight. He has
a WBO belt. So at the moment, Charlo still has the WBA and
the WBC belt. So the vacant IBF middle Junior middleweight title will be up
for grabs with Bachrum and cole Ca. Date to be determined, but they
were having a purse bid so just to elaborate on this and then we'll move
on to the nostalgia and be done. Yeah. So if you remember,
it isn't that long ago where there was supposed to be a per spid between
you know, for the fight between Charlot and Bachrams. Bachram had was an
undefeated Russian fighter. He hasn't really been seen a lot, but he's been
His last few fights have been on PBC undercards as part of the step aside
deals that they made, you know, with him and his team. Who's
you know, he's promoted by main events, but obviously PBC has an interest
in and because of all the money they paid him and the step aside fights,
which is why they were the other bidder in the purse bit scenario,
not main events, even though they'd be working with main events. I guess
on the fight when it happens, But the point here is that on the
day that that perspid was supposed to take place, that's when Charlot finally said
no, can do, and he ended up vacating the title. So he
waited up until, like you know, the morning I guess of that per
spid to basically bail out on the fight. And so when that happened,
Bachram, who actually I said was twenty zho's actually twenty one to oh.
He was then ordered to fight the next leading available contender in the ivy of
rankings, which is Jack Kolke who's from Germany thirty three and four or he's
fought some decent guys. He fought Dmitris Andred years ago and lost. Anyway,
there was the purse bid. His promoter, Agon Sports won it with
six hundred and sixty six three hundred dollars. They beat the only other person
offer, which was from TGB Promotions for a half a million dollars. The
split on the on the on the purse bid, because it's for the vacant
title, is fifty to fifty, so each fighter based on the PERSPID number
gets three hundred and thirty three thousand, one hundred and fifty dollars. The
fight has to have contracts back to the IBFUH within two weeks or so,
and then they do the match no later, you know, then I believe
sometime in like late March. I believe it's like ninety days ninety days from
the date of the of the fight roh of the purse bid so has to
take place by April tenth. Anyway, contracts have to be back by January
twenty sixth. So we're gonna see this fight most likely in March, probably
in Germany on an Agon Sports card, and the winner will become one of
the Junior Medawake title holders. And and especially if it's Backrum still be undefeated,
set himself up from some bigger business. He's gonna have to fight,
to fight on cole K's home territory, but so be. It not the
biggest fight in the world, but it's a chip because the winner is going
to be in a very good position. Does Jamel Charlo lurking still with a
couple of belts if he stays he's not fighting Ja Charlo's not fighting, don't
even do it, I understand. But Tim Zoom has one of the titles.
There's others that have names at one fifty four, so I see what
you mean. Nostalgia. George Foreman, Big George seventy five years old,
God bless him. And also Felix Tito Trinidad, both of those on the
same day, both of those on January tenth, So all right, two
Hall of famers. Obviously, Foreman had a second career after a long retirement
as well. All right, so thoughts on both of these. First Big
George here in the nostalgia get nostalgic with me for just a second. But
who doesn't love Big George, especially the second coming of Big George, because
in the early days when he was you know, he didn't really endear himself
to the fans. He wasn't so great with the with the fans or with
the press. He always had the scowl right and kind of looked like he
was in a bad mood and was very stoic, and you know, and
all that. And then of course that was when he was knocking everybody out,
became heavyweight champion, got humbled by Muhammad. Ali was involved in some
of the biggest fights in history of the sport, whether it was Ali or
Fraser. You know, the Rummel in the Jungle, I would submit to
you is maybe the most famous fight in the history of boxing U and that
was the fight that certainly in the top two or three, probably absolutely,
and so still holds fifty years later exactly. And eventually he retired for like
ten years, and so his comeback is one of the greatest comeback stories in
life, probably much less boxing sports or otherwise. For him to he had
been out that long, he was taken. I mean, I don't obviously
I was a young kid when he was still active before the retirement. But
when he made the comeback after like ten years, and they put him in
these like against leet heards basically, and he was fighting and knocking guys out.
He was you know, obviously he wasn't in the great cut shape he
had been in the years past. You know, he'd put on some weight.
He was, you know, he whatever he was, he was forties
taken. It was taken as a joke when he when he when he embarked
on the comeback, he was, I believe in his late thirties. But
when he when he started that, he was taken as a joke. And
he started to knock guys out, and he started to do his thing,
and you know, he got some TV time. This is back when USA
Network was going strong, and they featured George quite a bit on some of
those shows. And as a matter of fact, the fight that put him
on the map where I think really made believers that that maybe he actually could
do something in this second career because it was written like a farce. If
you go back and read some of the clips from the newspaper columns and the
and the news reports of the day. But in nineteen ninety this week,
on January fifteenth, nineteen ninety, he was matched up with Jerry Cooney who
was granted in his waiting days in his career. But Jerry was still a
formidable guy. He still could pun still had a big name, and you
know, they kind of took their gamble he had he had not fought for
you know, two and a half years. He had lost by a knockout
to Michael Sphinx. But that was you know, that was what happened.
But he's still People thought, Okay, he's a big puncher, he's much
younger, you know, maybe he can do something. Well, let me
tell you, ma, if you go back and watch the clip, and
again we're talking about Georgia because it's the seventy fifth birthday of one of the
all time greats. But that fight happened also be you know in nineteen ninety
this week it's one of the most devastating second und knockouts you'll ever say.
And the clip is so incredible. When he knocked out Michael Moore to regain
the title, it was like the shortest right hand he ever saw. It
was almost like a throwaway punch. He barely saw and he was on the
canvas knocked out. The way that he knocked out Jerry Cooney, he liked,
nonchalantly like he was going for a walk, you know, in the
plaza or to go get a coffee, and walks across the ring and throws
like he had knocked he had knocked Cooney down. And now do you know,
mister nostalgia. Do you know, mister nostalgia, where he got the
move from that he put on Cooney? Or Am I gonna teach you some
oh oh oh, oh wait a minute, I'm gonna teach you something on
the podcast, but finish your thought on what on what foreman did and then
I'll tell you where he got it. Okay, So he nonchalantly, like
I said, he's out for a walk in the park. Literally, It's
the funniest thing in the world, and he just walks Cooney into a monstrosity
of a right uppercut and then turns around and throws another overhand to finish him
off. And it was a spectacular knockout. So the final punch the right
hand was a big shot, but the uppercut was just like, all right,
where did that come from? So I'll tell you where it came from.
He was a historian of the sport. He had studied fights, He
had studied fighters as he got older, and that was a Jersey Joe Walcott
a couple of times, and Walcott used it, I believe in the heavyweight
title win over Ezra Charles where he faked to the right, much like Rayfiel
on the playground with the crossover dribble in basketball. He faked with a jab
step to the right like I'm going right, and then just ignited with the
left uppercut that you mentioned, and Jerry Cooney was out timber on his feet
when he hit him with the right hand. So I I don't know how
many times this has happened on the podcast. I just gave Dan Rayfield some
nostalgia that he got that knockout move from Jersey Joe War. You're allowed to
everything. Once in a while, I contribute on this. So that was
that and that and that anniversary is this week nineteen ninety thirty three years ago.
And that set into motion the holy Field fight at Oh, I'm gonna
get to that there so where he definitely was credible in that fight. I
remember that night and it wasn't a joke anymore. So after that victory against
Cooney, he then fought four more times and like a year and four months
later or so, in April of nineteen ninety one, he got the shot
against Holyfield, who was the undisputed champion, the Battle of the Ages they
called it because Georgia was obviously much older and Evander was much younger. This
was the first ever fight of the modern pay per view of the of what
became HBO pay per view, which was TVKO, and it was this new
product basically because homes were more easily wired with the ability to get a pay
per view signal, you still a lot of people got to still go to
the Camembery. People would go to the cable company to get the box to
plug it in, and they had to bring the box back after the fight
was over. In any event, the HBO executives and and Main Events and
Top Rank, which did this fight together because Top Rank worked with George and
Main Events had Evander, and of course the people at HBO, my goodpal
Mark Taffett, Lou Debella and all those crew. They thought they found the
license to print money. Because this is in a day and age where at
the time, I want to tell you, there might have been you know,
twelve million addressable homes or fifteen million addressable homes or something like that.
With the boxes, the thing did one point four million buys, and people
would astonished, like I can't believe this, like we found the recipe,
but to find on pay we print money. Now. They were humble when
they did their next fight, he did like thirty thousand. They took a
bath, but George Foreman gave, as you mentioned, an extraordinarily credible performance
in the fight against Evander. Evander was the winner, rightfully so, but
it was it's a very underrated, exciting action fight, and you know,
okay, so George lost, but then he went on and eventually again this
was at a time when the WBO was not really considered like a true title,
but he did win it. Against Tommy Morrison in what was a big
win for him. This is like three four fights after he fought Evander,
and then after he got the win over Michael. After the win over Tommy
Morrison, like a year and a half later, he directly lobbied the then
president of HBO Sports Seth Abraham, who was also his boss, because George,
remember was also doing commentary as an HBO broadcaster, to fight Michael Moore,
who was the real champion at that time, who had beaten Evander Holyfield
for the titles. He was down to only two belts, but that he
was the lineal champion, he was the recognized champion, and they made the
match and they did the fight on live HBO, not pay per view at
the MGM Grand And of course if you no boxing, George Forrman was getting
his ass handed to him for every single round. And in the tenth round
he landed again one of the shortest right hands in the history of the world,
and he knocked Michael Moore out and he knelt in one corner and our
dear friend Jim Lampley, it happened. It happened. It had almost twenty
years to the day practically when he lost the title in Zay to Muhammad Ali,
so he loses the title. This is such a remarkable person for his
achievements, and that's not even including the things he's done outside the right.
October thirtieth, nineteen seventy four, he gets knocked out by Ali in round
eight, loses the heavyweight championship, takes off ten years, comes back,
gets to the top, gets a shot against holy Field and loses, gets
a big win over Michael over Tommy Morrison, and finally gets another opportunity against
Michael Moore and wins. And I mentioned that was October thirtieth, nineteen seventy
four. November fifth, eighteen ninety four, twenty years and a few days
later, he's now heavyweight champion of the world again, and it was one
of the most remarkable achievements in the history of sports. Now he fought several
more times, four more times after that, and ended up retiring and has
gone on to make crazy money in his non boxing life as far as as
a pitchman, mainly for the grill. I'm coming there all right, point
blank. You ever owned a forman grill on my communist of course, we've
only actually had two of them. I think I've had three, or no,
I take it back, I've had two. Or I've had one and
my wife had two. So I think between us, what we still have,
we still have like two left. So do you have because there's two,
there's two or three different versions? Did you have like the countertop smaller
version. Yes, I actually had the bigger version that you could actually grill
on outside, the electric grill, the under one. So when I was
still single and a bachelor and I was doing some of my own cooking,
like when I was living by myself and doing my thing, I used the
girl I don't know, three or four times a week, three four times
a week probably you know, it made him tens of millions, hundreds of
dollars individually. Maybe he made hundreds of millions off of it. But when
he sold the naming rights, it was a nine figure deal. Lucrative.
And by the way, besides what he's done as a boxer and he's a
business person, George Foreman is one of the most charitable people you will ever
meet. He has given tens of millions of dollars to foundations and to support
charitable causes. And I listen, I know, not everything in his life
has been you know, peche keen, but my interactions with him and those
many who I know just absolutely adore George. Uh. You know, I
didn't get a chance to cover his career as an active fighter, but I
definitely spent a little bit of time with him. There was one time where
there was a tribute boxing event being put on in the honor of Angelo Dundee,
who was George's trainer. Uh in the later part of his career.
He had and I've told the story. He kept hearing Angelo's screaming at Ali
about stuff going on in the fight against Foreman, and when it came time
and the comeback to shore up his own quarter, He's like, I don't
want that guy ever against me ever again. Plus he's great. I want
him a my corner. And he hired Angelo Dundee to work as trainer.
Anyway, he was doing a charity. They were doing a card to honor
Angelo's boxing training career, and I wrote for the program that they put together.
And I remember meeting George in Atlantic City. We were there for I
was there covering at whatever HBO fight it was, and of course he was
part of the broadcast group. And when they were done with their fighter meeting.
Like on the Friday before the fight. You know, I spent like
an hour with George. It was like it was this story was George Forman
has told to Rayfield because he told me and I wrote it, and that
was just one of the coolest things you can do is just basically hang out
Me and George together alone in a conference room in Atlantic City's shooting the shit,
having some jokes and telling stories about his time with Angelo Dundee. Was
one of the most fun things I've ever gotten to do. But again,
Happy birthday, Big George. One of the greats of all time. Just
just occupy such a special in boxing history for his accomplishments in the first part
of his career, as well as what he was able to do when he
came back and all the great things he's done for so many people after his
boxing career. You know, I just love the guy. And you know
he's by the way, he's a great follow on Twitter when he decides to
be active on there, he's great. And you know the other one we
should talk just a minute, Like you mentioned Felix Trinidad fifteen, Joe Trinidad,
you've talked a lot about some of his biggest moments and biggest fights,
and we cannot overstate what a hero, what a tremendous power puncher he was
for a lot of the newer fight fans. Again, I often liked to
joke, there are a lot of fight fans that listen to us that think
that boxing started in two thousand and eight. Go back and watch Felix Trinidad
in the in the mid to late nineties, the early two thousands. It's
funny some more on him. It's funny to pick two thousand and eight because
that was when Tito had his last fight of his career, which by the
way, was two thousand and eight January nineteenth, so that anniversary is coming
up. When he was beaten pretty decisively by Roy Jones in the in the
final in the Summit Medium between the two great superstars. That should have happened
many years earlier. Anyway. Felix Trinidad a very very long rating welterweight champion,
devastating punching power, unified titles at welterweight. When he had the controversial
victory over Oscar de la Hoya, went on an absolute rampage in three fights
at junior middleweight, won a title by destroying David Reid, destroyed the mandatory
Mamadou TM in the Mandatory in his next fight, then had the classic battle
against Fernando Vargas. I was very privileged to be both at that them fight
and at the and that the Vargas fight covered the rest of his career.
Felix Trinand is one of my absolute favorite fighters ever, as humble and as
excited to be around boxing fans, and happy and smiling and a terror like
I've never seen a boxer so happy to come to the ring. You can
watch any Felix Trinidad fight you could possibly think of, and the man had
a big smile on his face walking into the ring. I don't know of
any other boxer that took as much joy as getting his butt in the ring
to go to war with his opponent. And that's what he did with the
great left hook, and had some humongous wins and some exciting wins. Was
part of some big mega events like the obviously the Oscar fight, which it's
funny we're talked about George Forman now they did one point four million buys in
the very first you know, a real HBO pay per view fight. The
fight that ended up tying that number was the Felix Trinidad Dale Away fight,
which took its place as the highest selling non heavyweight fight, did one point
four million buys in nineteen ninety nine, and then, like I said,
Trinidad went on just a great run with the run I mentioned at junior middleweight.
I'll say to this day, arguably the greatest boxing atmosphere I have ever
been in for a fight, and I have covered tons and tons and tons
of big fights, was the night of May twelfth, two thousand and one
Madison Square Garden when Tito Trinidad went up to middleweight and absolutely destroyed William Joppy
to win the WBA title. Absolutely spectacular. He's part of one of the
most famous knights ever in boxing, which one of the saddest nights was the
first boxing event or first sports event in New York City post nine to eleven
that had been postponed because of the terrorist attacks. It took place two weeks
later at the Guarden, where he finally was defeated by Bernard Hopkins in an
upset and only fought you know a few more times in his career, but
just again one of the one of the all time great Puerto Rican fighters in
history. He's on that short list of Puerto Rican boxers for my money,
top ten most exciting fighters you could think of, probably at least in my
time. I just look like I said, I'm a huge fan of George
and a huge fan of Trinidad. And the fact that I got to cover,
you know, a bunch of Tito fights, you know, down the
stretch of his career. I think I covered maybe like eight of his fights
or something like that. Just you know, I'll never forget it. He's
a great guy and I love him both. Love all the nostalgia here.
And you did tell us about that Joppy anniversary last May and how electric it
was. They can relive that, and I'm sure we'll bring it up again.
I covered I was. I got the opportunity to be ringside for seven
of Trinidad's final eight fights. The one I did not cover was the post
Hopkins fight where he fought back in Puerto Rico and beat up on Hassin Sharifi,
the former title holder. But I'm gonna tell you another one, by
the way, when I talk about that atmosphere for the Joppy fight. It
ain't that far back in the list, and that's the night that he came
back after the sharif If I came out of retirement and had the knockout victory
in a very exciting fight at the Guard against Ricardo my Orga. He towed
Trinidad fifty one. Happy birthday to him as well. Man busy show again,
we will come your way depending on when you're hearing us here. As
we released the preview podcast on bet Us one Eastern time every Friday, we're
talking better BF Callum Smith handicapping that really the top three fight cards with that,
and then we look forward to handicapping those fights. We'll watch what happens
with those and whatever happens this weekend, my friend, we come off the
weekend and we recap it with the Fight Freaks U Night Recap podcast off the
weekend, sir. So I'm looking forward to all of that here, Dan
ray Fiel unfold. Whatever happens in Quebec City, Canada, with those fights,
we'll be talking about it, and we look forward to everything off the
weekend as well. Anything else. I think we're good. I'm looking forward
to the fight also. I actually think that should be a fun card,
Yes, no doubt about that. Again, the bet Us show comes your
way at one Eastern time. We're in the preview mode Thursday night, in
a Friday on the Big Fight Weekend preview, the fight for each night recap
usually out Sunday night late into Monday. You get us twice each and every
weekend, and we're thrilled to have everybody continuing to join us following subscribing in
twenty twenty four. For now, we are good. Enjoy the action this
weekend For Dan Rayfield. I'm TJ. Reeves. You've been listening to the
Big Fight Weekend Preview