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off a weekend that has seen Geron and its deliver in Atlantic City, that
is seeing Floyd Scofield look as we thought he would headlining in the Golden Boy
Zone show in San Antonio. We're ready to recap those fights here from a
former World banomweight champion who is going to attempt to regain his WBC title.
You'll hear from No Nito don Air coming up one on one with Dan Raypheel.
I am merely the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves of the Fight Freaks
Unite recap podcast. He is our insider. The Fight Freaks Unite substack is
where he does damage on a regular basis, and you need to be subscribing
to his substack. Also find him on Bigfight Weekend dot com our coverage the
podcast more. Hello Dan raypheel Off, what's going on? We're all good?
Ready to the recap mode. Ready to hear from No Nito don Air
in a little bit um. A reminder to everybody, keep reading us and
reviewing us. Several of you have done that. Keep doing that. We're
bribing you. At the end of this month, we're gonna get you.
We have not decided yet, either in Errol Spans, Terrence Crawford fight Poster
or perhaps fight Quogram, or maybe we'll give one of each away to someone
that is rated and reviewed us. And again I make the stipulation because we've
gotten several reviews. Dan, I can't find you if you don't take a
screenshot and then give it to us on social media somehow through Twitter, Instagram,
Facebook, something that you took a screenshot of your review so that we
can find you later. If we draw you at random at the end of
the month. We're gonna draw at least one, and we might draw two
names. But it does me no good for Muhammad Ali fans seventeen that I
mean, that doesn't do any good on tracking you down. So take the
screenshot. Tag us on social media with the screenshot, we'll keep track of
that. We'll draw somebody you will win, so make sure that you do
that. Thank you for reading and reviewing us. Again, we recap off
the weekend Sunday night usually into Monday preview going into the weekend, and there
we go. With all of that out of the way, let's be again
with the review process and begin with what Jeron Ennis did. An impressive performance.
It wasn't an early KO, but it was a KO nonetheless of Roman
Villa in the showtime PBC main event in Atlantic City. All right, Dan,
so right away your thoughts on how Boots Ennis looked in this showcase fight,
as he's one of the top well to wait contendas. Well, since
it did go, it was not a short knockout, might be the time
for you to tell everybody how we did on the bet US show over the
weekend. Yes, mister Rayfields, wanting to teut the fact were you want
to Oh were you two? And oh? Three? And oh, sir,
I believe you were four and o on the show, including Ennis and
the over. I was ambitious with the under and so let's tie that in.
Was Via just that tough to solve? I know. Ennis even said
in an interesting moment after the fight, I wasn't listening to my corner,
maybe as much as I should have been. I was having trouble with the
angles. So what are we credit Via hanging in there for long as he
did. It wasn't anything of the sort. It was that Jeron Ennis is
a brilliant young fighter, but his opponent had a huge heart and a great
chin and is a durable fighter. And I had never, in the moments
in my at any moment in my entire thought process about this fight when it
was made, when it was happening, during the fight at all, that
this fight would not go rounds and it would go deep into the fight,
and that Ennis would do exactly what he did, maybe not as brilliantly as
he did it, but in the end he would break him down and stop
him. And that is exactly what happened. He laid an absolute beating on
him. And in the I remember a line from the great HBO legendary document
documentary series Legendary Nights, that back in the day had twelve weeks of profiles
of some of the biggest and best HBO fights, and one of them that
they that they did at the very end. It was the last episode of
the series, which was the most recent one that they had done, which
was Lennox Lewis versus Mike Tyson, and Tommy Brooks, who was a Mike
Tyson and trainer, had the great line that he had given him such a
beating that Grandma's lysol couldn't wipe it off. And that's the kind of that
kind of beating, that's the kind of beating that John Ennis gave to remind
Via, who has all my respect for his durability and his great chin.
You don't even know what you said when you just said that, because I'm
now going to get myself in trouble, but I'm gonna reveal something we will
go over on occasion. God, I hope she doesn't find out about this.
And when we pull in, my wife goes, oh, my mother's
been cleaning again with the lysol. The Pine Saul with something. So that
is a tremendous metaphor. The beating that Ennis gave Via, not even Grandma's
Lysol could get rid of it exactly. So John Ennis is as you know,
he we've known how good he is, at least from what we've seen.
The only negative about about Ennis, and it's not his fault, is
that he has yet to have the opportunity to fight the truly biggest names and
best fighters in the weight class. Not that he's looking to avoid them by
any means, but it hasn't been the case for different reasons. So he's
got, you know, some okay names on the record. Sergey Lippinetts who
we obliterated in a great knockout, Tomas the Laura May, a very tough
guy that's been around. We got rid of in the first round. You
know, Castillo Clayton, who was an Olympian that was thought, you know
it was undefeated when they fought each other up. Maybe he could go some
rounds, give him some competition. Got him out of there in like two
rounds. Then he had obviously the fight in January against Chakazi and that no
one ever really had heard of, who spent twelve rounds running around the ring
and trying to avoid him, went the distance for the first time, or
rather twelve rounds anyway for the first time, and uh, you know,
Bot Boots won every single round and won the vacant interim belt. And so
it's like, okay, now we stepping up against Va who was a good
fighter, who had one on that same undercard, and I think most people
thought going in, you know, yeah, I don't think people thought he
was gonna win the fight, but thought, you know, he would compete,
he'd maybe pushed Boots a little bit. He never did that for it
all at all. I mean, Boots Ennis, anything that you saw was
just him. I maybe getting a little lack of days ago and standing in
front of him like from a couple of seconds here and there. But you
know, here, here's all you got to know about what Boots and his
springs to the table. I think we all have ample respect for the great
Al Bernstein, the Hall of Fame broadcaster, been doing boxing commentary for forty
two years since the early eighties when he started on ESPN. He's now been
at Showtime as they're one of their ringside analysts now for about twenty something,
you're twenty plus years or twenty years or so. And Al is a very
knowledgeable guy. I don't anybody in the boxing business doesn't respect what he's done.
And he made a statement last night that even gave me pause when he
said something to the effect of boots and is the most offensively diverse fighter I've
ever seen in my four years of broadcasting. When says the word, when
that man says the word, that means a ton and he remember that's called
the big you know, he's called tons of h I mean, first of
all, he's watched all the big fights, and he's commentated on you know,
you know, many of those major fights. You know back in the
Haggler. Hearns days and all those early ESPN fights and huge amounts of showtime
fights. I mean, he knows what he's talking about. Forward to Oscar
Dale Joya moved forward to Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pachi, ol Canelo Lvarez.
He's saying ever on more. I didn't hear that comment, but that's quite
a statement time. Just the diverse offense. He can throw with both hands.
He's got good foot speed, he's got good hand speed, he's got
good defense. He's got ring smarts. He seems like he takes a pretty
good shot. You know, he's in great condition, wasn't really breathing heavy
after the fight. So look, he did what are supposed to do.
I mean, I don't want to make this out like he's a Hall of
Famer yet, because again we're talking about remain Via, who's not exactly a
household name and a guy that came in with a ton of titles and a
lot of accomplishment. But anybody that watched him fight knows he's a very sound
fighter, a solid opponent, a durable guy. And Bochas beat him up.
He beat him up. I felt like the fight should have been stopped
earlier. There was one round I want to say it was round seven where
I believe I tweeted something to the effect of this was a borderline ten eight
round without even there being a knockdown. He just laid it on him.
The shots were clean. Um they you know that the doctor had gone to
the corner after eight to check in on him. The referee went to the
corner after nine and said, if you don't show me something, I'm gonna
stop it. And then in the tenth round, uh, None of that
happened because the corner didn't stop at, the doctor didn't stop at, the
ref didn stop it. But it was he finally stopped. It was only
when Boots laid you know, a nice two punch combination that like leveled him,
put him on the canvas right up against the ropes that David Field,
the referee had seen enough and didn't bothered account and waved it off. And
it was a great win. And now the only question it's not a matter
of Boots and s you know, we know what he can do against that
level opponent. It's Wenzy gonna get a chance to fight the real deal.
We all know that the walter weight division is is is on hold because we're
all waiting for the megafight which is in a few weeks between Crawford and Spence
for the undisputed championship. But those guys, they're gonna take care of their
business. And when it's all said and done, you know, as I
wrote, uh, they're they're going for supremacy in the way class. They're
going for a pound for pound. But there's a man named Jared Boots and
his lurk from behind them, and he's not you know he's he's, uh,
he's gonna be a problem any welterre it. I don't care if it's
the winner of that fight or it's anybody else you want to name in the
weight class. So you know, Boots, I don't I don't think he's
frustrated at the moment. I know he's he understands the way the business works,
and he's he's biding his time. He's twenty six, not a lot
of mileage on him. You know, he gets it. He's got a
chance to make a lot of money and create a lot of legacy, and
win a lot of titles and do a lot of stuff. But it's you
know, he's gonna have to wait a little bit longer. But he's right
on the precipice of doing great things. And he's talking about if he can't
get the winner of the Crawford Spence fight, because as everybody knows, they
have a rematch clause in their contract and there's a very good likelihood that whoever
loses is going to ask for the second fight. But he was like,
I'll fight Stanionis, which would be a very good interesting matchup his dance partner,
and and uh, in the Virgil Artist, who we should be talking
about that fight today, but we're not. But he's willing to take on
Keith Thurman, willing to take on or Denis Ugas, and he was naming
all these guys. Now, I think if you know, Ugas and Thurman
have been tied together, there's a strong likelihood that they're going to fight each
other. But if he could get the winner of that fight, that would
be meaningful. So but he's he's in a good spot from this standpoint.
He brought in a nice crowd at the boardwalk call upstairs. They sold the
place out a little over three thousand, I guess from what they tell me.
So he's got he's got, you know, a growing drawing power.
He is a very telligent and kind of fighter. He makes good, you
know, fun fights even you know when you see a fight dat one sided
where he wins every single round of the fight, but it's still entertaining to
watch. I mean, that's a good thing. He didn't run, he
didn't try to you know, stink him out or anything like that. They
were both there to fight. And you know, it's like boot Stend In
the interview I had with him that we played on last week's podcast, he
felt like the Via style was made to order. He was gonna be in
front him, throwing big books and not moving his head, and and he
was gonna be able to take him apart. And that's exactly what he did.
And it was entertaining to watch. And he's gonna just have to buy
his time a little bit more. But he's with Showtime. He's got a
contract with the network, so they've supported him for a while. They're gonna
bomb sure put him back on after that performance. Why wouldn't you want to
keep going and get him a little more active. And he said he wants
one more fight, and hopefully that will be the case, because he fought
in January. Now he fought here in July, and hopefully he'll get one
more fight before the end of the year. And in this day and age,
you know, that's a busy year. Three fights, so good for
him, And to me, it's just a matter of who's next, because
whoever's next is a lot of trouble, is in a lot of trouble,
all right. Uh. And I have said this consistently, and there was
nothing Saturday night, Atlantic City that dissuades me. He is the most talented
hard punching fighter that doesn't have a world title right now, not yet,
and the and the IBF interim title could become a world title depending on what
happens. But that that did not do anything the other night to change that.
As far as I'm concerning any division, in any division, put it,
put him up against and I'll say one more, I have much love.
You see me hitting my chest even though they can't see me. I
have much love for Keith Thurman. But Keith ain't been active and I don't
know how much he really wants anymore. Jeron Nis whips up on Keith Thurman
or Dennis Ugas right now. I just believe that both of them right now,
I'll say this, I have a lot of respect for both fighters.
I've covered both their careers from the beginning, covered their fights in person,
I've interviewed them. I know them a little bit, Keith especially, Mum.
No disrespect intended at all. Uh And it might be both them in
the same night. Ooh. And and in Thurman's case, he was very
much on the rise h and then obviously lost to Paciol We had the pandemic
year. He's fought one time basically in four years. If this is Keith
Thurman, I'm just standing up for my guy represent Tampa Bay area. If
this is Keith Thurman of twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen against this present day Geron
and his Holy Cow, this this is not twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen anymore
in twenty twenty three. And I don't know, So we'll see, we'll
see. What Keith said. A good guy, and he was a hello
fighter in his when he was in his prime. I think Keith got a
little soft. He made a lot of money and nothing wrong with that.
By the way, I'm not not gonna you know, he didn't need to
get up, As Marvin Hagler would say, If I'm making all that money,
why do I get it up, get up at five in the morning
when I'm sleeping in pajamas and do my road work. I'm not saying he's
lazy. I'm just saying he doesn't necessarily have the hunger. They're comfortable.
And on top of that, he got Hi married. He got married.
By the way, injuries have been a big part of his problem, with
his arm and his shoulder and his elbow. Like can I tell you I
mean Ugas beat Pakil a couple of years ago and put on a tremendous performance
doing that, and then Spence took him apart over a year ago. Now,
Ugas don't want none of that. He may say he wants that,
but you don't want to know that what I saw on Saturday night at a
drown in US. And I don't work for Geron in US. I'm not
on his PR team. I'm just telling you you might be pretty soon.
I'll say that just what I saw. I don't know what else you can
say except that Jon Boots Ennis is a tremendous young fighter. And listen,
we've seen what he looked like. H we need to see him in with
the top level guy. Because again, I don't want to get too carried
away. I'm not ready to vote for for the Hall of Fame. It
was Roman Via. Let's just keep it in person. One thing, but
hold on. The eye test does tell you he's that talented. And then
when you hear things like al Bernstein said, why I have up most respect
for his opinions, that's meaningful. And Via did hit him on a couple
of occasions, and he hit him in a sequence where suddenly Marl Ronald out
personay went WHOA, he just got hit. And so I guess Keith's argument
if Keith, if Keith was here, or even Ugas was here, what
happens if I hit him? Then we get to find out, you know,
if you can hit him, then we get to find out what is
he made of? Have we seen him tested get hit? And what happens
when he gets hit? Ugus has never been known as a puncher. And
Keith Thurman, who went by the you know, goes by the nickname one
time, and that was because his big one punch knockout guy or you know,
big power, which he had for a long time. You know,
Keith Thurman. These days ain't one time Keith Thurman is you know, not
enough at the time. That's my line. It's not enough at the time,
Keith, not enough of the time, Keith Thurman sometimes, you know,
every now and then time, I mean, you know, and he
hasn't listened. And even though Keith, again he's a he's a terrific fighter,
he isn't. I'm looking at his record now while we're talking here on
the podcast. His last fight was a decision victory of Amrio Barrios, a
smaller man in February of twenty twenty two, went to distance. Fight.
Before that, he lost in twenty nineteen to Nanny Pacao. Previous fight again
against a smaller guy in Josasito Lopez, he won a majority decision that was
also in twenty nineteen. Then you got to go back to twenty seventeen,
which was one of his biggest wins in a unification where he won split decision
that really could have gone either way against Danny Garcia. Now go back to
twenty sixteen against Sean Porter in a terrific fight that he scraped by in a
very close decision. A lot of people thought Porter one. That was also
a decision. The last time Keith Thurman scored a knockout, the big Man
Rafiel was a ringside at the USF Sundome and Tan two fifteen when he knocked
out Luis Collazzo. We were both there each other, but we were both
there and that was where Colazzo got cut over the eye in a fight that
he was competitive in and said, I can't fight anymore. It's quit on
the stool with the cut. I wasn't a ko ko a knockdown all right,
so, but yeah, we spent a lot of time on this.
Let's see what's next for Ennis and depending on what happens here with Spence and
with Crawford and a rematch and all of those different variables, let's just we'll
wait and we'll wait and see all that. I rest of that card before
we move on, and I promised no Nito don are coming up one on
one with Dan rest of the showtime PPC card. What else stood out real
quick well? In the co feature, he had the middleweight heavily hyped up
Cuban prospect Joelvis Gomez, who was only six and oh going into the fight,
but very advanced for where he was in his career, and they matched
him up with a tough guy. But you know, nobody that really people
thought was going to give him a big problem. But a credible fight for
a fight with only six fights, and that was Marquis Taylor. And you
know what, it was an ugly fight. It was not the most entertaining
or crowd pleasing fight. But you gotta give props to Marcus Tell, who
endeared himself to me for life with the way he conducted himself in the interview.
He had after the fight with our friend Jim Gray from a showtime.
Look, he did what he had to do to win the fight. Again,
I said, it wasn't pretty, but you know, because he held
a bit and he kind of mugged him a little bit. And he made
the point in the interview with Jim afterwards that way he could win was to
stay really close and you know, in his chest because if he got on
the outside, he said, and he had you know, he said,
Gomez, when he hit him, he had crazy power, so he knew
that the safest place from the b was on his chest basically. But Marquis
Taylor, you know, he gutted it out. He got cut in the
first round. He scored a knockdown. Uh that was you know Jova's Gomez
said afterwards. You know, he thought he was off balance, but it
was a great shot that clean landed clean. That was a big moment for
him in the fight for for Taylor. And he got tired as the fight
went on, but he had put so many of those early rounds in the
bank that was able to hang on even when when he was a little tired
at the end and Gomez was coming on because Gomez was in his first fight
with the trainer Joe Goosen, who was telling him in the corner, you
know the right things, and certainly before the tenth and final round told him,
look and I want you to get a knockout, and uh, that's
that's Joe saying, go get a knockout, like I need a knockout,
right, And he couldn't do it. But in the end, Uh,
Taylor scores the upset. He wins ninety on one square card and then the
other two cards were ninety six ninety three, so it was close on two
of the cards. But for Taylor, if you look at the official cards,
he really won the fight in those first five rounds because two judges gave
him rounds one through five. Another judge gave him four the first five rounds,
and then one of those judge also I give him a five of the
first sixth rounds. So he was able to bank in off of those early
rounds and then just win you know, one or two down the stretch on
the other car to get the decision. So that's a big upset. That's
the biggest moment of his career. And he came off great in the post
fight interview and you know, again not the most exciting guy, but Albert
for him in the future because that was a that was a ballsy performance from
him and he did a good job. And then the other fight on the
card, which we have to spend about ten seconds on because the fight stunk
out loud. That was the lightweights edwin de Los Santos and a basically a
two shutout scores in a ten and nine and one score against Joseph and Dornio,
who I don't need to see anymore. I'm tired of him. It
was a terrible, miserable, a piece of shit garbage fight was Dalos Santos.
Congratulations he won. Let's move on, Okay, we shall move on
here to the de Zone Golden Boys show. San Antonio well documented the Virgil
Ortiz Amantas Stanione's fight canceled because of Ortiz's health situation, So then the Floyd
Scofield fight was moved up to the main event ten round fight with veteran Haskell
Roads, and Scofield delivered exactly like what we thought. We talked about this
on the preview podcast, we talked about on the bet Us show. Again,
I was a little more ambitious on Scofield getting a knockout. You went
the decision route and cashed a nice tasty ticket on the thirty plus three thirty
on the bet Us line. I thought, Scofield, tell me the truth.
I thought Scofield was gonna get him out of the air. Seventh round.
He scored the big knockdown, and Scofield even said give him a lot
of credit because that left that he caught him within the seventh round and then
Haskell double impacts smacked his head on the canvas. He got up from that,
got knocked down again, got up from that and fought on. He
deserves a lot of credit because I think a lot of people thought it was
gonna be over right there in the seventh round. Four knockdowns or three knock
thoughs I can't remember. It was three knockdowns over the whole time. And
he knocked him down with a body shot in the eighth round and had him
hurt, but again no stoppage. Haskell Rhodes made it to the finish line
for the decision. But Scofield very impressive. Your thoughts, including on what
could be next upcoming in his next fight or two look, Haskell Rhodes was
a durable veteran. I mean, he had been stopped before, but I
didn't you know, one stoppage does not mean you can't take a shot that
happens. So my feeling was because I like scho Field a lot. I
mean, as I've said before, I had him on my top prospects list
at the end of last year. He's now fifteen to oz with eleven knockouts,
and obviously that's a good knockout percentage. But having watched now a few
of his fights, you know, even though he's got the stoppages, they're
not against the top opponents. So I don't look at him as like this
big puncher. I hee more as a boxer. Maybe I'll change our opinions
as he moves on to his career and and faces better level of opponents.
He's only twenty years old. He's got plenty of time to grow into this
thing. He's a tremendous prospect. But Rhodes was a savvy veteran who had
a lot of heart, and so I wasn't surprised that he went to distance
or you know, even deep into the fight. That's why I picked the
fight to go the ten round route, and that Schofield would win. He
wanted to shut out and uh you know, look he got important rounds in
against the best opponent of his career. I know, he was happy to
be in the main event. Uh you know, although you know, certainly
offering his best wishes to the recovery for Virgil Artist because that was supposed to
me an event, main event. So as a main event Schofield and Hasker
Rolds was a huge disappointment because we all wanted to see the other fight between
Stanionis and Artis. But once that situation unfolded and now he got schoe Field
in the main event, you know, he did what he was supposed to
do. He looked good. I mean, he did everything but scored the
knockout. As he mentioned, he's got a bunch of knockdowns and you know,
autboxed, uh you know, a veteran opponent, you know, pretty
handily. H There was the one unfortunate incident I believe it was in the
last round actually, or maybe he was in the ninth round where there was
a terrible accidental headbut clearly accidental, and Haskell Rhodes and him came together and
roads his head hit Scoe Field on the cheek and it ripped open a very
very bloody, terrible cut like bad. And you know that's not going to
keep him out for a long time because it's like right on the flesh there.
But that was still a rough way to finish on the fight that you
were totally dominated to get badly cut like that, and after the fight,
what I dig about Schoolfield is a lot of guys would beat their chests and
I want a title shot, and I want this, and I want to
fight that. Obviously, the lightweight limit right now, there's only one champion.
That's Devin Haney, who's got a lot of mandatorious to deal with,
and he's got this to deal with, and nobody's sure if he's gonna stay
at lightweight or go to one forty. And if he stays at lightweight,
he's certainly not fighting Sploys school Field. And if he stayed, if he
goes up to one forty and the belts become fret fractured, Floyd's not in
a position to be fighting for one of those vacant belts anyway. So what
I like about him is that he's like calling out the next best guy who's
an up and comer with him, and that he was making noise afterwards saying,
come on, Keishan Davis, fight me. Keishan Davis, of course,
being the silver medal winner in the twenty twenty Olympics, an undefeated fighter
with top rank, who's getting back in the ring later this month, who's
another outstanding prospect in his own right. I picked him as the prospect of
the year last you know, at the end of twenty twenty two, on
the same I picked him number one on that same list where I had school
Field, you know, further down that list in the top fifteen. And
that won't happen obviously, but yeah, I like, let's be realistic for
three point nine seconds. It's not happening. But I'm only making the point.
Is I like the swagger, I like the mock scene. I like
the fearlessness to call it out. And I had, by the way,
have zero doubt in my mind that if their promoters, management or whatever went
to either Keshan or to school Field and offered in the fight, they would
sign on the dotted line, because they're the kind of guys I believe that
are willing to, you know, get in the ring and test themselves at
this point. But look, what do you say. I mean, it
was a one sided win, and it was It was a good showcase for
him. It wasn't the most exciting fight, but it wasn't bad. I
mean there was knockdowns and there was punching, and you got to admire the
heart that haskel Road showed so solid fight. The only disappointing fact was that
it was on opposite literally at the exact same time that the Draft Innis fight
was happening. So I was paying contention mostly to the Boutennis fight and went
back and watched some of the the fight between school Field and the Roads.
You were locked in there, and I was in a little bit of communication
with you because we were putting it up on the side. I was running
the recap up and actually they got about nine eight ninth round where that cut
happened before the Nis fight started. The nisfight ring Walks got in the ring
the introductions, and I thought we were going to get to the end.
So they only overlapped really a little bit. But if you I guess I
was. I was locked in on the Yoeva's goal mess fight. I guess
chill. But the bottom the bottom line is Scofield gets the victory and let's
hope again he's been very active four fights in twenty twenty two. This was
his third fight of twenty twenty three. I have to think they're gonna have
him back in the ring probably in the fall. Here, no question,
you got to market somebody, and why not market this guy. Also,
remember one thing, they have dates on his own and on top of this,
and you know this is one of the factors that goes into these situations.
Why younger fighters are typically more active is because Floyd Schofield fits the budget
right now. He's not. You know, he's making as his career goes
on and he increases his activity and fights more fights. Is his pay levels
increasing and he's making his biggest paydays, but they're still not what they would
be if he's a top world champion. So he as they say, he
fits in the budget right now, so they can keep on a little bit
more agave, but you're not commending millions of dollars for fights, and that
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E TNCs apply see website for details. Rude stuff and let's get to some
more good stuff now. Actually, you know, let's talk about Friday Night
before we get to your conversation fourth Width in just a moment with no Nito
don Air, the Friday Night Zone matchroom card from Mexico where super middleweight up
and comer Diego Pacheco did deliver a brown TKO over Manuel Guyegos. Tell me
more about what you saw real quick on Funday night and Pacheco's upside as well.
I saw, I saw a future Superman aweight world champion. And when
I'm thinking about this, you know, I wasn't thinking about this beforehand,
but as we're talking about it's here on the podcast. You had Pacheco was
taking care of business against a pretty solid opponent on Friday Night. Then on
Saturday you had what we talked about with John Ennis taking care of his business
in a very impressive fashion. And also about Floyd Schofield. Now Scofield is
on the younger end of the spectrum in terms of prospects. Pacheco's maybe a
little bit more advanced than him, and obviously Boots Tennis is a motified contender.
But you're talking about three undefeated young fighters, American fighters who have so
much future ahead of them. Boots obviously at the elite level and Schofield not
even at the Pacheco level yet. But Pacheco, you know, I refer
to him as sort of an emerging contender, a young emerging contender. But
that's three really good names that I think can be around for a while.
That will be maybe talking about on this podcast as it goes on. But
in terms of what Pacheco did, look, he's only twenty two years old.
He signed with match Room Boxing. Out of the amateurs, they've had
him since he was seventeen years old. He's been he was as Eddie Hearn
made the point when he was talking on the z own broadcast, and I
think he's right about this. He was I think literally the first American fighter
that match Room Boxing signed, when they know they had signed Danny Jacob's years
before that. Boot I'm talking about once they had to deal with the zonn
and they were going to start doing regular events in the United States. Diego
Pacheco was one of the first guys, if not the very first guy that
they signed. So he has been with them and they've built him from the
ground up. He's now nineteen to oh with sixteen knockouts and that was just
a very impressive performance. I mean, if you remember back in on March
of this year, that was his first fight of twenty twenty three. He
was supposed to being an undercart in the UK. The main event was canceled
and he was pressed into action fighting a British fighter in Britain, and there's
a lot of questions, how's he going to deal with that new spotlight on
the road fighting of the British guy who was a pretty experienced fighter in Jack
Collin. And what did Diego I do? He absolutely, you know,
just scorched him in four rounds and looked spectacular. Now he comes back against
Diegos, he headlines one of the smaller matchum cards that they do, you
know, a series of these events in Mexico and again fourth round knockout against
Manuel Guyegos, who was, you know, a rugged dude and he just
took him apart. He ended him with a body shot that was spectacular left
hook, and that's all she wrote. But Diego Pacheco, he looks the
part, he fights the part. He's got that youthful exuberance. He's got
a good amateur background, he's got good size for his weight class. He's
obviously got good power. Feels like from what I've seen, he takes a
decent shot. Again. I think that this guy, as I tweeted,
we're watching the emergence of a potential champion and potential star in Diego Pacheco.
And now after that victory, the plan for him, according to match Room,
as Eddie stated on the broadcast, is that he will fight again in
the fall. And instead of going around all these other places Mexico and in
Liverpool, England, and he fought on an undercart in Arizona, They're gonna
fashion some kind of event around him in southern California. He's from Los Angeles,
and see if they can start building him up to bring out his people,
his fan base to support him. And you know, I look forward
to his his continued emergence. I mean, he's not ready obviously to fight
the likes of a Canelo Alvarez who's the undisputed champion. But you know,
I don't think he's that far away from fighting like a top contender or real
guy. Good stuff. Let's get to more good stuff, and that includes
upcoming vacant WBC Bannom weight title fight that will be this Saturday between No Nito
Donnair and Alexandro Santiago. Donaire already holds the distinction of being the oldest Bannom
weight champion ever at thirty eight. He lost the title after gaining it at
that age to Naola the Monster. In a way, now it's vacant again
because in a way vacated the belts to move up. So No Nito is
looking to better his own record and become the oldest again. Yes, well
he did it once, Yes he can't get it again in the in the
last time he won the title. Now he can break that record for the
third time at age forty. So he's a remarkable athlete, a remarkable person,
a future Hall of famer, a four division champion who everything that he
does from now on is just icing on the cake of his of his cren
No Needo and I spoke about that in the interview, and uh, I've
known Nonedo Donair pretty much his whole career. I've covered many of his major
fights. I know him pretty well and his wife Rachel, they're they're they're
wonderful people, and he is a great, great fighter. Let's get to
the conversation now, Dan one on one with Nono. It's my great honor
to welcome to our podcast this week a man I've known for many years.
When I when I know he's still fighting and I'm still writing, it makes
me feel still young. It is none other than the four division world champion,
future Hall of Famer, I might add, if I may be so
bold to say, Nonedo Donair, No Needo, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for doing this. Thanks for having me. Dan,
always great talking to me. Man. You bet so. We'll tell the
people why you're here. You have a big time fight for your career.
I think icing on the cake of a great career. Frankly, you're gonna
take on Alexandro Santiago. It's on the showtime card. It is on July
fifteenth from the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. A nice home game for you,
since you live in Vegas. Don't have to make a long drive to the
arena at any event. You're fighting for another world title, and it's sort
of you know, I mean, you're forty years old. Obviously you're closer
to the end in the beginning, but another great opportunity. Can you just
first of all, just tell me what it means to you to get this
chance That is not necessarily something that coming off of a loss that a lot
of fighters may have gotten. But your track record is so tremendous and you're
in position in the ratings with the WBC that this is happening. Yeah,
I'm very happy that this is happening. You know, it was Jason Maloney
at first, and you know they went their different route, and so you
know, getting this opportunity to fight for the title, I mean, that's
that's what every box. I mean, even though I've been doing this for
quite some time, it's a sills me. Still is that thing you know,
to be able to fight for a title? Well, we're gonna do
it all. Some statistics here for a second. You're forty two and seven
with twenty eight knockouts. This is going to be your fiftieth professional fight at
age forty and I wonder, did you ever, in your wildest imagination think
that not only would you still be professionally boxing at forty at a high level,
I might add, and going into your fiftieth fight and fighting for yet
another world title. It seems like would be crazy if you actually thought that
would be the case. Nope, not a single thing ever less still be
fighting. Man. You know, it was just one of those things that
I started to just enjoy what I do. And you know, I know
that it's not something that I will be doing for the rest of my life.
You know. For me, I just want to keep going every day
when I wake up in the morning that I'm excited. I'm still on it,
you know. So I don't know how long I can do this or
how how fast it may be, but you know, right now, in
my head, I want to break Hotkis records. That's my head right now.
So you know, by any moment that I don't have that joy to
wake up in the morning, then you know, then I'll hang that levelow.
Well, when you say break Bernard Hopkins's record, you mean to be
the fighter to become the oldest world champion, which he did in his I
believe he was forty six and then broke it again when he was forty eight.
I'm not sure going to be an another eight years. Uh, you
never know, a Dan, You know, a challenge is a challenge again,
you know, that's something that's that's making me go and wake up and
be inspired, you know. And so every man has to have a purpose,
and then that's my purpose right now, to keep me inspired and motivated.
So during your twenty third year as a professional, I wonder when you
started off in two thousand and one, how long did you think this was
gonna go. What did you think was going to be the long term view
of your career. I didn't even think I was going to be that long,
you know. I thought that after I get a title, um,
that was it for me. You know. Um, I was contemplating for
a very long time when I first got my I'm just fight here. Maybe
I'll stop, you know, But here I am again. You know.
But I've never thought, never even thought that I'll be fighting for this loan.
So you mentioned you said you'd get a title and maybe that would be
it. So I don't know if you if you know this, or you've
thought about this, or you realize this, but I'll tell the people who
are listening. We're doing this interview on July sixth, that is one day
shy of the sixteenth anniversary of when you scored that spectacular left hook knockout Victorty
and to when your first world title, the IBF Flyway built. Do you
remember what do you remember about that great moment? And can you believe that
we're both still doing what we do sixteen years later? I oh, man,
man, you're making me, you know remember all this stuff. Man,
it just feels like you listens yesterday. You're telling me, no,
you know it's it's uh. I mean, I remember just being this hungry
kid and all I wanted to do was just get this titled. No matter
what, you know, it in my head it was like break my heart,
break my legs. I'm still gonna try to buy you to death if
I need to. You know. It was just that mentality that no matter
what, I wasn't all quit. That was quite the knockout, and you
used that left took a lot of times and in the years that came after
that. Obviously in your last fight you suffered the knockout loss in the rematch
to in a way in the second round. That was a three belt what
bandon wite unification fight, and I wondered after that was over. I remember
watching the video that Rachel, your wife, had posted on your social media
on YouTube. I think it was um and you know, it felt like,
you know, you were realizing that maybe this was the end in that
retirement maybe, Beck And can you tell me a little bit about what changed
your thoughts from maybe I'm going to retire to you know what, I'm not
only gonna make a comeback, but I'm gonna get myself into another world championship
opportunity. Well, I think that after the fight, for me, it
was just like, you know, I'm I'm done. I think I'm done.
You know. I was very heartbroken, you know, and I talked
to the team right there and then that I think this is it. This
is it, you know. And then for a couple of hours, I
was like, you know what, I don't think that was my best.
I just don't think that was my best. I mean, I didn't have
anybody to warm me up during that fight. You know, I felt like,
um, everything was just not properly and it was just a matter of
time that that UM that for me whether I still got it. I wanted
to try it for this fight, and this fight will be the one to
remake me realize was that was? Was that just my it was? Is
this just my my selfish, um desire to keep going? Or or do
I still got it? You know? And And because with Innuay, he's
a great fighter in great power, you know, in that level, anything
can happen, you know. Um, But this fight right here, um,
Alejandro Santiago is a great fighter, is a tough guy, but he's
not in the level of Innuay. And and I I I expect victory with
this fight, you know, And and anything shy of that means it's done
for me. So you mentioned though before about you know what I'm gonna I
think you were joking. Maybe you were serious about want to break Bernard Hopkins's
record. But here's one record you can break. I told you he broke
his own record for being the oldest to win a world title. What you
can do if you win this fight against Santiago is that you will break your
own record as the oldest fighter to win a bandom Way title. What does
that mean to you? I mean, I know you like records. What
what person in sports doesn't right for me. It's just again, it's just
another way to motivate myself. You know, I believe I'm not really the
kind of guy that collects things or put things in my head. I've always
just been the kind of person that when it's done, it's done. You
know. I can celebrate in this moment, but when it's said, it's
said, we too, we tend to get things in and so in order
for me to be motivated, I have to kind of set myself that I'm
doing it again, and I'm gonna keep doing it again and keep doing it
again, you know, And that's my motivation. But again, you know,
if if anything that is not to my liking or to not to the
team's um effort that we did because we are great in the camp, if
anything less than that, you know, then boxing is not for me anymore.
But I believe that that I have a lot left and this is why
I'm so excited about it. Well, as I said, you've won world
championships in four different weight classes, and I want to go over a couple
of things because you've got a career littered with accolades. Here's three, and
I cantancing myself somewhat of a historian, and I have trouble finding anybody that's
done all three of these things other than No Needo don't air. In two
thousand and eleven, you were you were, you were. Most people picked
you as having won the knockout of you know, by the knockout of the
year. That was when you knocked out Fernando Montiel in the second round to
win his unified dannom Wit titles. The first time you were the bandamweight champion.
Two thousand and twelve, you were pretty much the universal fighter of the
year by all the big publications, the boxing writers of America. That was
you had four wins, you unified the junior featherweight titles, and in twenty
nineteen, even though you lost the fight in your first matchup with in a
way, you gave them by far a stuffistfight as a pro and it was
voted pretty much by everybody as the fight of the year. Which one of
those three things? I mean, that's that's a lot of stuff right there,
But is there one of those that means the most of those three accolades?
Um? I think just the twenty twelve because it was just something that
UM the highest I guess the highest thing that that the fighter can have is
becoming the fight at the year, and I proved that by fighting all these
great champions and then taking all the belts, you know, taking taking whatever
bults I can take. Um. So to me, that was just I'm
really proud of that moment because I was very motivated in capturing everything that year.
Well, you said that that that was the highest thing that a fighter
can do, But I believe there's one greater thing, and that is the
election to the Boxing Hall of Fame. A few weeks ago they had the
inductions in Cannistot. I watched them on their excellent streaming their YouTube channel and
watch all these you know, great fighters, Timothy Bradley and Carl Frout and
Raphael Marquez. They were the three main from the modern men's category be inducted.
Listen, you're a modest guy, but it's you're an inevitable Hall of
Fame candidate. You're going to be elected. I have zero doubt. I've
been voting for twenty plus years, no doubt in my mind, you're going
to be elected on the first ballot. For that matter, have you ever
taken a minute or longer or less to think about your own potential Hall of
Fame election, because it is a bigger thing in the pantheon than being the
Fighter of the year, it seems to me. Right. The only reason
I haven't said that yet is because I'm out there yet, So I kind
of guid that in this moment in time, that's where I live, you
know, and that is me being an active fighter. So I don't really
think about the future in that sense, and just I don't think about the
past, thinking about the psire too much, and think about what's happening now
for me. And that's why to me in that moment, if I have
to recollect, because I haven't gotten there yet, you know. But in
overall, yes, that would be that the biggest thing in in achievement for
any fighter. Um. But I have not thought about anything of that except
for just keep getting, just keep getting those titles, keep beating these guys,
and you know, again, become the undisputed. I That's always been
something that I that eludes me, and this is something that's given me the
opportunity now, you know. But it starts with with Santiago fair enough,
and I'll just wrap up with this, No Needo. Uh, if everything
goes good for you in this fight with Santiago, you win the WBC Bandomway
title. Uh. It strikes me that it's You're not going to be of
the mindset I'm gonna just win this belt and retire. You're gonna want to
defend the title and uh and go as far as you can go as you've
mentioned, have you thought of I mean, the Bandomway division has become a
little bit um not as big of names because I mean you're still there,
but in a way has left that was obviously the big one for a while.
And if you want to become on dispute, you kind of have to
start over with the different guys that are picking up these belts. And maybe
there's somebody from a smaller weight division. Is there some other Is there a
big fight out there we've talked about in the past about you know, you
had said to me how much you love maybe to fight like a Chocolate Tdo
Gonzalez, if you could come up with the right weight situation or somebody like
that. What is there some other like big fight in your mind that you
would love to have before it's all done. Well, that's well right now,
the thing in my head is becoming a disputed getting all the belts.
But if there is a chance to go down to the one fifteen to get
my fifth division, it doesn't matter who it is in that division. You
know, for me that would I would drop down that that division and get
the type and come back, all right, a man that knows what he
wants to do. Nudio, thank you very much for doing this today.
I appreciate. I couldn't wish you any more luck in the fight come your
matchup with Santiago, Thank you very much. Always great man, Thank you.
Good stuff there, very personable, and you got to say something about
one other thing to touch on here. He continues to be able to make
that weight when a lot of other fighters at thirty six, thirty eight forty
would maybe move up to one twenty two or even higher, he can still
make one eighteen. Here's here's what's remarka about don't air. He was champion
at flyweight. He spent a little bit of time that junior bandom wait,
never got a title shot one in room tunnel, and then decided to go
up and won a title at one twenty two unified titles at one twenty two
multiple times, went to one twenty six and won a world title, was
you know, was beaten in that way class eventually by the much bigger,
big powerful Nicholas Walters ended up coming back and then went back eventually back to
Bannomwait. He got an opportunity to go into the World Boxing Super Series and
drop down back to Bannomwait, and everybody wondered, all, how can you
still make that Wight after all these years? And he's been making it ever
since. So he's already gone all the way to twenty six and been a
champion. And this is the kicker. As we spoke about a little bit
in the interview, and I've talked about him, talked about this with him
in the past. He never got a real title out one hundred and fifteen
pounds. That eluded him because of the way that the the you know,
the schedules were working, who the champions were, etc. So he whatever
happens if he doesn't retire after this fight, winn or lose, he still
says, I can make one fifteen and I'll go down and fight one of
the guys there. He had spoken to me at one time about wanting to
fight Roman Chocolatedo Gonzalez or Estrada. But he would set I'll fight anybody for
a title one fifteen if we can make a deal, because that's something I've
never accomplished, and that would make me a five division champion, which has
never been done in the history of the Philippines other than Manny Pacio obviously,
and that would be a big feather in his cap and something that he could
as you know, as I have joked with him privately, that could be
just another thing you can put on your great Hall of Fame resume. But
oh look he's got He's going to be the favorite against Santiago. It's on
that it's a the co future of the Showtime card that's at the Cosmopolitan of
Las Vegas. Frank Martin is in the headliner, the lightweight in an elimination
fight. But for me, nothing against Frank Martin, who's one of the
top young fighters out there. But I'm interested to see what my man Nonido
don Er can still do. He's had a tremendous square list and pay about
this Fighter of the Year in twenty twelve loser, but in the Fight of
the Year in twenty nineteen, and then prior to two thousand. I want
to say it was two thousand and eleven, maybe it was or twenty and
ten, I forget what year. But he was also the winner of the
fight that in which he scored the knockout of the year when he had this
spectacle that was two eleven, a second round knockout against Fernando Montiel fight.
I was actually at at the covering at the Mandalay Bay. That was the
night where he won the VANDAM White title for the first time, and he
won two belts that night. Um, I don't have enough words to talk
about how great noneo, don't aris he would thrive and be a great champion
in the smaller weight classes in any air of boxing. In the conversation with
Carba Hall and Ricardo Lopez and a Roman Gonzalez, and I mean, pick
pick a smaller weight fighter that that strikes your fancy and you know he's in
that same ballpark, same conversation. Good stuff. News now and then some
nostalgia. Okay, follow up, you have been doing some digging and what's
the latest with Stanionis and the WBA and what it means for staniosis his future
and how soon if you know, could he actually be in the ring because
he was ready to go. Can they get him a new opponent in the
next month. I don't know how realistic any of this is. What have
you been able to find out in the last couple of days well as far
as what Stanionis will do in the in the in the future. You know,
when I spoke to his manager, Shelley Finkle about it, they were
just still assessing their situation. Uh, Shelley reminded me, and he's one
hundred percent read about this, that Stanionis h stepped aside to allow the fight
between Crawford and and Uh and Arrow Spence to go forward because he was already
the mandatory in the WBA and to have all the belts at stake. They
don't. They weren't looking to screw that up. So but now the this
fight was Stanionis and Ortiz is not happening. They want to assert their rights
and they want the winner. I mean, look, a lot of guys
want to winner. Bootsennis wants the winner. He's the IBF mandatory. Obviously,
whoever wins can only fight one fight at a time, and it's most
likely a rematch. So we'll see how it all shakes that with the belts.
I've said to you more than once that if there is a rematch,
I think there's a good, good possibility that if it happens, all the
belts won't be at stake. WHI wouldn't be an unprecedented would not be unprecedented.
I mean when you know, and this is just one example off the
top of my head, when and this is back at time, you know,
going back fifteen years ago or so, when when Bernard Hopkins and Jermaine
Taylor had their two fight series, their first fight was for undisputed. When
they got to the rematch, by that time, Taylor couldn't had a honor
certain mandatories and he was stripped of a belt or whatever. Or maybe two
point was the rematch was not for all the belts like it had been the
first time round. So that could happen and standy Onis or Boots whoever could
fit in to getting one of those other belts. But in any event,
the main thing, the upshot of what happened with Ortiz being not medically fit
to fight on Saturday, and the fight had already been postponed because of what
had been postponed three times are now canceled three times, once because of standi
Onis's medical issue, which was minor in the scheme of things I've been deck
to me where he was fined after a couple of months, but twice because
of the situation with Virgil that the I spoke to the WBA president, Gilberto
Mendoza, who said to me, in a vote of their Championships committee,
and the paperwork will go out that they voted to to strip Ortiz of his
mandatory position and allow Stanionis to go forward and do any kind of you know,
optional defense he wants under the rules of how that works. So but
here's the thing about it. Stanionis wants to winner. They're not going to
go scheduling a fight until they see what happens in July twenty ninth, and
Ortiz is probably not going to ever fight again at walterweight. The good likely
it is when he does come back, his manager, Rick Murgion has been
saying he wants to get him back in the ring and he's healthy by the
end of the year, but certainly that most likely would be at one hundred
and fifty four pounds. So the main thing here is that Stanionis and Ortiz,
which was a very interesting fight that many of us were super interested in
that probably is not ever going to happen, and Stanionis is free and clear
to go do what he wants to do. But we'll have one on the
other on the outcome of Spence and Crawford and Ortiz. Hopefully he gets better,
heals up, no problems, and comes back strong and goes to junior
middleway. I'm just saying, and I'm playing amateur matchmaker here. Could he
be back in the ring quickly, like in August Standingonis against somebody somewhere that's
a that's a picked opponent because he's already in shape, and as you have
aptly pointed out, he hasn't gotten a check in the ring in a year
and a half, So there would be financial reasons to also get in there
against somebody because you're not gonna get your hands on the winner of Spence and
Crawford more than likely, until if it even happens a year from now,
probably or at least nine or ten months. You got you gotta look at
somebody, and he's in shape right now, so I think Look, I
think August is unlikely because the schedule for August is pretty much done at this
point for Showtime, which is where he would fight, given that he's a
PBC fighter. I won't say it's not it's not impossible, but look,
that's something that is going to be a conversation that takes place between Thinkel,
the Fighter, Hayman, Showtime, you know, the PBC folks, and
try to figure out one thing that I think would be very popular among fans.
I don't It wouldn't be in August obviously, maybe later in the year.
Uh And it was something that was suggested by Boots Ennis Uh in his
interview both in our in our interview that I did with him prior for the
podcast, as well as in the post fight that he had on Showtime with
Jim Gray. When asked about it, you know, he mentioned he wants
the winner of Spanson Crawford. He wants to fight um you know Ugas or
Thurman as he mentioned, but he said I'd fight Stanionis on the heartbeat,
So that would actually settle some things that would be that's not a pay per
view, but that's like a big deal Showtime place. You'd have the IBF
interim Welterweight Champion and the w BA or regular champion. Stanion's basically like the
two the two of the four mandatories fighting each other because they're not getting the
shot at the big guy, you know, whoever wins, because it's not
there for them yet. So uh, that would be a very interesting fight
stanionis against against Boots Ennis, because stanionis unlike Roman Villa, He's he's a
he's has a better he's got the same kind of like he can punch,
and he's got a good chin and all that, but he's a better boxer,
he's a more skilled he has a goodmateur career. I would definitely be
down for seeing a Boots Ennis against against Stanionist. Would be a tremendous fight.
Whether the Stanionists camp would take that, I'm pretty sure Ennis would do
that without a problem. But then it comes down, Okay, how much
can we make and I mean, so, you know, let them go
through the process. But I would suspect that certainly Stanionist, whoever it's going
to be against, we'll see him in the ring before the end of the
year. He's not going to go the rest of this year without a fight.
Well that, yeah, that's crazy that I think you could you could
get a fight off again. I'm playing amateur matchmaker and we're moving on.
You could get a fight off here in August, like mid August, work
it out figured out late August, and still fight again late in the year.
Here's the problem, depending on the reason why, the reason why your
your instincts are correct. The problem is TV rules all and there is no
spot for him at the moment. They have to make a spot for it
because the August fights are basically maybe he's a cold feature against a lesser somebody
on something else they have in late August early September, But I don't know
that would be ideal. Obviously, that would be ideal. Remember he was
going to fight on the Zone, not because he's a the Zone fighter or
with Naturum or Golden Boy. That was going to be on the Zone only
because Golden Boy Promotions, which was the promoter for Ortiz, won the purse
bit. So he's obviously back now with showtime in PBC. Hopefull listen.
At the end of the day, I just want to see the guy get
a chance to fight in and put something else, put another fight in the
ring, and you know, for his sake, you know, make a
paid after fifteen months, a couple of other things, then some nostalgia before
we're done. You have learned speaking of showtime about August the twelfth, we
already know about Anthony Joshua Dillian White Heavyweights on that date, match Room to
Zone show showtime also coming on that date. What have you learned for that
date? I've learned that I'm probably going to be ringside because this fight is
going to take place on August twelfth at the MGM National Harbor in Oxen Hill,
Maryland, which is right over the Potomac River into or not the Potomac
r but right over the river into from Virginia into Maryland. In other words,
I live like thirty minutes from that casino. It's a very close by,
and I've covered in many fights there. But they will put on a
triple header. It's not like a supercard's. It's obviously a little bit budget
conscious, is the way. Let's be nice and call it a budget conscious
show. The main event is supposed to be a member because, as you
mentioned earlier, in a way vacated all the ben and White belts and left
all the you know, as he goes up to fight Stephen Fulton at junior
featherweight, that all those four belts had become vacant, some of them had
been filled. One of them will become filled by the main event on August
twelve, and that is between the Nicaraguin fighter Melvin Lopez twenty nine and one
with nineteen knockouts, and he will take on the former IBF titleholder Emmanuel Rodriguez
twenty one and two with their team knockouts, so they will square off Rodriguez,
of course, a Puerto Rican fighter. They'll fight for that vacant belt
in the main event. And then you have two other fights on the card
that will feature fighters from the Washington, DC area, so they figured they'll
how bringing some of the fans. One of them is Gary Antoine Russell,
the former United States Olympian undefeated brother of the former featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr.
Who was a tremendous talent. Gary Antoine, he's taking on a reschedule
fight against Ken Cruise, who was undefeated. That's the kofe uh. You
know, Gary Antoine has been off for a while, over a year by
the time they get in the ring, but he's coming off his biggest win
against Barthelomy, who we stopped. You know. Look to me, it's
not a matter of if if Gary Antoine can win a world title. He's
got all that talent, is is he ever going to get busy and and
be more serious in terms of his schedule than his brother was, Because he's
dying on the vine right now. I'm not sure why he's been out for
so long. So that'll be the co feature, and then the other one
is a very interesting welterweight prospect, twenty two year old kid from Capitol Heights,
Maryland, which is also where Gary Russell, Garry Antoine and his family
are from. A guy named treyvon Marshall eight and oh was seven knockouts,
who's looked very impressive and they're being aggressive with him. They're matching up with
Gabriel Maestri who was only five and oh with a draw. But people who
follow boxing know, first of all he's a two time then azuelling Olympian,
so we obviously has the big amateur grenagials. He was forced was the fighter
that got that crazy decision win against Michael Fox that created the ka around the
WBA, which led to them eliminating in their whole horrible robbery. Yes,
but it's still a step up for Marshall. Even though Marshall's got more pro
fights. My estuy is in his mid thirties and has got a vast amateur
experience. So that'll be the opening fight, and we'll see if Trevon Marshall
is for real. A lot of people think he's uh, you know,
one of the top young fighters in boxing. I'll put it to you like
this, if I'm doing my top fifteen prospects list come the you know,
the end of twenty twenty three, there's a pretty good chance the guy like
Trevon Marshall, what he keeps on win, is going to be on that
list. So you got those two undercard fights and the title fight in the
main event. So that's August twelve. They haven't announced yet. I suspect
there'll be announced, you know, in the coming weeks. Okay, one
more little bit of nostalgian it's about to be over with. With the death
of Ken Thompson of Thompson Boxing, they have now announced that he is long
running fight series, which you dub the number one fight club series really in
the country for the last couple of decades, will come to an end,
not this weekend, but the following weekend follow up on that as part of
the news. Yeah, that that was just a real disappointing thing when they
announced that on Friday. As you mentioned, Ken Thompson, who had you
know, made multi multi multi millionaire, huge wealthy man from southern California made
his money and I believe it was in the construction business, in different business
he was involved with. But he was a die hard boxing fan. He
really you know, he nobody wants to lose money and nobody wants to get
taken for a ride. But Ken Thompson's involved in boxing from my knowledge,
I mean I had met in any times and know the people that worked with
him. He was not in it to become like, you know, a
big rich promoter. He he made his money doing things. It was super
wealthy, you know, as long as he didn't lose crazy amounts of money.
He wanted to support grassroots boxing. He loved boxing, he loved the
fighters, and they did a great club show for twenty three years. Most
of the shows that took place in Corona, California, and also at the
Double Tree Hotel in Ontario, California, and they ran one of the great
club shows ever. I mean, but in modern times anyway, where that
middle class boxing is you know so squeezed. Now you're either at the very
top on that you know, with a big output deal with a network,
or you know you're fighting on on a no TV in a dark cart,
you know, in the middle of nowhere, for no money. They were
able to at least eke out in existence in the middle and they and they
developed a lot of fighters in that in that company over the years, most
notably the Hall of Famer Timothy Bradley Junior. He started there and did a
lot of his early fights and you know, even was talked about Ken Thompson
in his Hall of Fame speech. They developed Daniel Roman who became a unified
champion in the junior featherweight division. They developed Posa Sea Lopez who's been around
for a long time and fought Canello av SPAFORED titles. They were the promoter
for many years of the current featherweight contender who recently signed with top rank Rubin
Villa. The point is they were important to the development and certainly in the
grass roots of boxing, where guys could get regular work and developed their skills
and you know, frankly bringing some good fights because they were never really What
I liked about Thompson Boxing is sure they would maybe try and they didn't want
to get their guys beating necessarily, but they didn't sign a lot of guys
two contracts. They would a lot of times on these shows just try to
make a good fight and if a guy won, then they would use them
again. And they did that for a long long time. And when Ken
died in February at age eighty five, it felt like they were going to
continue. Alex Campanova, who was a great boxing guy, he was the
general manager of the company and also the matchmaker, said we're gonna go on.
They didn't. I think they've done one or two shows since then,
but they put out this surprise announcement at least surprised to me and I think
many others I've talked to over the weekend that they're gonna end their run July
twenty first with a card at the Double Tree in Ontario, and they're gonna
cease operations and close up shop. And honestly, it's just a tremendous loss
for the sport. I know it's not We're not talking about big events like
Showtime or PBC or Golden Boy matchum in his Zone cards or Top Rank in
ESPN, and those are the big ones that we all know, but this
was a very important series of events that took place. You had what they
do on the West Coast. You have got the sort of club shows that
are done on the East Coast by promoters like Loud Debella with his Broadway Boxing
or Joe de Guardia with his Star Boxing series of events they put on in
Long Island. And I could come up with some others that are in the
country, but what Thompson Boxing did you know? It is a going to
be a big hole. And I hope there's a promoter somewhere in that southern
California area where there's so many good fighters and so many great fans that can
fill the void, frankly, and maybe make a deal with the Double Tree
in Ontario or find a place where they can build up and do the shows
and put on these good events. And look, they always had a good
reputation for being honest brokers and for just putting on first class events. And
like I said, it's a it's a terrible, terrible hit for the sport
and again that last card will come next weekend, not this coming weekend,
but the following weekend on July twenty first, with a couple of lesser known
but contender type fighters on the fringe. Louis Lopez is a welterweight that will
headline in Georgia. Costa, a super featherweight, will be in the co
feature for Thompson, by saying that again has been at this for twenty three
years. Speaking of nostalgia, we're kind of a downer here. I know
you want to you want to at least commemorate the passing of Emmanuel Stewart,
Hall of Fame, trainer and and everything that that he represented with all the
different fighters, because it would have been his birthday, So say a little
more about all of that, because I didn't know him real well. Emmanuel
H was would have been seventy nine years old this past Friday, July seventh.
He's one of the most revered people in boxing history. I've never met
anybody that didn't like Emmanuel Stewart. He was known as a great trainer.
He was a great manager obviously for the younger people that are now not so
young anymore anyway. But he was from many years one of the great voices
on HBO as a commentator, just a just a great, great guy.
He was like I always joking them. I referred to him as like the
Pied Piper of boxing, because I couldn't tell you how many events that I
would be with that Emmanuel or would be like making, you know, a
conversation or having a meal together or something like that. And no matter where
you went with the guy boxing, fans would follow him. I mean he
would suddenly there be three people, then ten people, then twenty people,
then fifty people. And here's the thing about Emmanuel. I never saw him
one time not being a good mood to talk about boxing. If there was
fans to take the picture, to take sign the autograph, just hey,
you know, you know I love you know the Tommy Earns is my favorite.
Kronk Jim. You talk about the old fighters, you know, obviously
he trained some of the greats of all time, whether it's Tommy Earns,
Lennox Lewis, of Vladimir Klitchko. We can go on and on. And
the thing about Emmanuel that made him so great was he could either a take
a guy from O and O and build him into something he could bring on
a be brought on later in a career of a fighter that was already made.
Guy like when he did with Lannox, or with Klitchko, or with
Oscar dale Oya, guys like that. And he could also you know,
when he was with you, he could adapt to you. You would adapt
him. He could just just make you into a better fighter. He was
part psychologist, he was part x's and oh's, he was part conditioning.
He was a joy to be around. And anyway, when I saw that,
when I realized that it was his birthday, I figured, you know
what better thing. There's not a lot of other anniversaries to talk about,
but that was a pretty big one. His birth was a big deal.
And you know, I love the guy. I got to know him very
well. I considered I'm a friend of mine. He to this day remains
the only trainer that ever cooked me dinner. As I joked, yes,
yeah, this. Just to make that real quick, I visited a Lenox
Louis his training camp up in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, about a two
and a half hour drive from where I live in Virginia. He was in
this training camp for the Mike Tyson fight, and I swear to god,
Emmanuel probably had been there for like six or seven weeks and really hadn't seen
anybody outside of the immedia camp. So when I got there, it was
like a fresh face. He was so thrilled to see somebody different than the
same folks he saw every single day. I had gone up to interview Lennox
and to do some stuff ahead of the Tyson fight, and I stayed overnight.
You know, I had my They were like at the Brookdale Resort in
Caesar's Brookdale, and I had my own like room, like his cabin or
whatever. But Emanuel had almost like an apartment in the woods, basically,
like this rustic sort of cabin where he was living on their property. And
he's like, you know, come on, Dan, come over to my
cabin and I'm gonna make it dinner. We're gonna we're gonna talk boxing.
And uh, I went over. You remember what he made? He made
some kind of chicken. Wow. And then you'll listen he cooked for all
the fighters. I mean he chicken, vegetables. You know, he would
have fruit, he would have he just he did it all. He would
have like the shaken bake. I mean, so I always remember so wet
dinner and we're talking boxing and he bust out the old this isn't whatever year
that fight, what the fight year was that fight? So he this is
not everybody was using there was no streaming, not everybody was watching DVDs at
the time. Emmanuel had a VCR vhs go look it up, youngsters.
Anyway, he had videos with him from his collection, and he busted out
a video and we watched the video, and on that video was amateur fights
of Thomas Hearns, you know, when he was in the Olympic trial,
and we watched some of that stuff and it was just you know, I
I just have great memories. And I loved Emmanuel Stewart. I mean,
I know everybody that knew him loved him, and you know his He should
be remembered forever. He's another great legend. And what you were talking about
with Thompson boxing, remember this was a time frame in the late seventies and
the early eighties when fighters did not make very much money at the local club
level, and he had a tremendous deep stable of fighters out of that Cronk
gym, numerous ones of them either a challenged and or won a world title
in and around helmer kenty And you know, he worked with Gerald McClellan,
and he worked as I mentioned, Oscar Deloy, He worked with Oliver McCall
the then he switched to Lennox Lewis, and then he was with Vander Holyfield.
I mean tons of fighters through the years at the Crunk Gym, which
is you know, you know, and the ones that carried that on in
his name. You know, one of his disciples Jonathan Banks, who became
a you know, who was a you know, like a second tier sort
of heavy weeke contender. But now he's been training fighters for a number of
years. His nephew sugar Hill Steward, who obviously is well known now as
the trainer for Tyson Fury and others. So the Cronk line lives on.
I think the last fighter that's still active that worked with Manuel I don't I
don't know if he's the only one that's left, but certainly one of the
more prominent ones, and you know he's coming towards the end also, and
that was Tony Harrison, the former Junior mid aweight title holder. You know,
So yeah, I say Happy birthday to my man Emmanuel Stewart, one
of the one of my one of my dear friends. One more piece of
nostalgia. And we could go on for half an hour about this. And
we have talked in the past on the podcast about bo Gelatta one and the
Mayhem the Riot after Galata got disqualified in a fight, that we should not
forget that he was winning. He was winning decisively and had and had Riddick
bow in trouble on a couple of occasions, but kept hitting him low and
just could not, for whatever reasons plural keep it clean. Kept hitting him
low repeatedly, and eventually, after being worn and having points taken away,
hit him low one more time and got DQ and then Mayhem in the ring.
On July eleventh, nineteen ninety six, speaking of VHS, I taped
that fight on VHS. I believe I've told this before, and I passed
that thing around like the offering plate on a church. I mean, I
had like half a dozen people that wanted to see and watch the Mayhem the
Riot afterwards, because it was ten or fifteen minutes of chaos after that fight.
Dan So one more time regroup on the nostalgia especially the riot and just
one of the craziest things in boxing, and Riddick bow was involved in two
of them. One was the riot obviously after this fight, and then you
go back a few years before that when you had a man parachute into the
ring during his rematch against Evander Holyfield. So he was part of the fan
Man and part of the right of the Garden. Obviously the ride of the
Garden was more dangerous in the end result because there was people injured and you
had a free for all, you know, in a major Natropolitan arena with
tens off and let me inter jack, he had a a corner person,
Hinchman friend whoever, who was involved in both of those situations with his walkie
talkie phone or whatever, who comes over to fan Man in nineteen ninety three
in Vegas and bashes him on his helmet. And he's the same guy coming
across the ring in nineteen ninety six to get to Galata first. So that
was the action too. About that, I mean Riddick bo was, I
mean going into the fight, He's coming off of the knockout in Fighting number
three against Vander Holyfield. And even though when holy Fieldman both fought each other
the third time, neither one of them had a world title belt. They
were still consider if that was politically motivated in that sense, but a lot
of people, most people considered them to be the number one and number two
heavyweights in the world. And so when Riddick Bo beat Holyfield buy a knockout
in a tremendous battle, an underrated fight, I mean, their trilogy is
phenomenal. All three of the fights were epic. The third one was as
violent and brutal as any of them. But Riddick Bo came out of that
fight, Okay, he's the number one heavyweight in the world. It's always
coming back into the ring, you know. About eight months later, the
match him with Glatta and a little known contender from Poland who had been in
the Olympics, but not with a big reputation. And it's supposed to be
an easy night, and it wasn't an easy night. I mean, and
Rick Bow obviously he showed the degradation from what it had occurred in those battles
with Holyfield and the rest of his career. And Glatta was, you know,
on point that night, except he couldn't keep the punches up and he
gave him an absolute beating, and he ended up winning the fight by the
you know, Bow did by the disqualification, and they obviously the crazy thing
about it was and when they had the rematch, you know, at the
end of that at the end of nineteen ninety six, like five months later,
he Bow won again by disqualification. That was pretty much the end of
Bow because after that fight he retired and didn't fight for it like another eight
years, and they had a very brief comeback where he dallied and had a
couple of two three fights. I dare say, can I just throw this
out there. You're not gonna find another sequence of back to back fights where
the fighter who was dominating the fight got disqualified in both fights the same way.
I challenge anybody, you're the mighty one. I challenge anybody to find
something else in a in a situation where it's a rematch where the guy that's
dominating in both of the fights gets dcute the same way with low blows.
And that's what happened with both of us, especially that name value of the
ridic Po had. I mean, it was just absolutely nuts, and I
mean I'm like everybody else that was watching. I mean, at that time,
you know, I'm in I'm in uh you know, uh, like
the normal boxing fan. I'm watching it on HBO, and suddenly there's a
right, you know, my man Jim Lampley suddenly is running up in the
rafters and reporting from up top, and they're showing the scenes and George Formers
trying to keep people out of the ring, and they're showing Lou Duva,
who's there being dragged out on a on a on a gurney because he had
some kind of heart issue because he had, you know, been in the
ring obviously as one of the co trainers of Galata, and they were worried
for his health. And meanwhile the chaos is happening. And as as I
stole to this day and many of us joke around if you watched the video,
because that was a main events card they were involved with with Andrew Galata,
so they were one of the promoters of the event. Karl Moretti,
who we all know now is one of the top people at Top Rank,
their vice president of boxing, but at the time he was the matchmaker and
the top guy at main events, and he's in the ring trying to help
scp rate stuff and but he suddenly gets dragged into it, and if you
watch the replay, you see him throw a weak right hand at somebody and
uh, we we've many of us have taken the screenshot of Karl's pathetic attempt
to drow and mocked him mercifull. One thing that did come out of that
is more and more this became a big issue in the eighties and into the
nineties of keep all of the hangers on and all of the entourage people and
people that don't belong in the ring out of the ring with security. And
that was that was the culprit from it. That was where guard is the
problem with the fight was over and people who were What I'm saying is the
problem is lack of enough security force. There was no New York for you
would go back and watch all of this and all the analysis of all of
it. The YPD readily admits we were not invited there, They were not
paying for our officers to be there. And so this was garden private security
that did not get up on the ring apron to stop people from getting in
the ring. And so now suddenly you have thirty or forty people literally in
the ring trying to fight each other with four or five peacemakers who are completely
overwhelmed number it broke out into the rest of the ring. Of course,
night you had you had a Black fighter against a Polish fighting. Course I'm
saying is before the right they began to learn and evolve, get up on
the ring apron with a show of security force immediately to keep people out of
the ring at the end of these fights. And now you regularly see that
everywhere at the biggest fights of keep people out of the ring. I mean,
I still I still remember after the chaos of a couple of the you
know, like the Tyson knockout of Michael Spinks, they can't get the ring
cleared and Michael Buffer makes like two different announcements, please clear the ring,
people, please clear the ring. Because they don't have enough personnel to get
people out of the ring. It became a joke. And it was part
of this that they could not get it under control because there were too many
crazy, hyped up lunatic people in the ring fighting with each other. So
security has changed over the last two or three decades to keep people out of
the ring, show of force, security guards, cops, whomever. People
in the ring you And I've said this, I think in previous time.
I was ringside for Zab Juda versus Floyd Mayweather YEA and two six at the
Thomas and Mack Center, and when they had their near riot that because all
those nonsense that went on when you know, Zab hit Floyd low and there
was a confrontation when Roger Mayweather got into the ring to complain, and then
Uel Judo got in the ring and it was like a free fraw. What
prevented that from becoming much worse than it could have been was because security,
armed police officers got up on the ring ape and immediately, and I've said
this before, I'll never forget this as long as I live, because I
was scared. For a quick minute. I looked to my left and there
was a guy trying to be line into the ring who had no business being
in the ring, and the cop that was there, we were sitting sort
of like to the left of the stairs, very close to the ring,
and the cop looked at the guy and he tapped his weapon on his side
arm, you know, on his holder, and the guy didn't get in
the ring, and I was like, thank god that and so they quelled
that pretty quickly. But the thing at the garden. I would encourage anybody
that that doesn't know the details, or doesn't really remember it or never saw
it, is go on YouTube and find you can find the live coverage,
the podcast, or better yet, get the full story. Watched the HBO
Legendary Nights half hour doc on Bogolata and it will explain a lot of what
occurred. But listen that the fact that that's that long ago is wild.
Thankfully, there's never been anything like that since that I can think of to
that level. But that was a huge that that was one of those unfortunate
stories that went off of the sports pages and just unboxing and became a front
page headline on national news around the world because it involved the superstar heavyweight.
It was Madison Square Garden, it was New York City, and it was
extremely violent rate stuff on this show. As always, there's some nostalgia you
heard from No Nito Darnair. You got fight recaps, you got all of
it. Make sure you're following or subscribing here to the Big Fight Weekend podcast
feed. We come off the weekend with the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast.
Great stuff Dan Rayphel, let's have a good week and we look forward to
all of the action, including Donair in action with Santiago going for the WBC
Banomweight Vacant Championship later this week. We'll be talking about in previewing that fight
later in a week. Other than that, have a great week. My
friend, I would say same to you, altebre he was listening. Make
sure you rate review because you got a chance to win some good ship from
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go with that. We're done on the latest Fight Freaks Unite Recap podcast for
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