Well off of a weekend that has seen Devin Haney look fantastic or you know,
he was really good and Regi's program was just really bad again too in
combination. In any event, Handy gets the title at one and now has
a lot of very interesting options. We're ready to talk about that. We're
ready to talk about Upset special. How about this Robisi Ramirez beaten upset Goodbye
featherweight Championship. We're ready to talk about that. We're ready to recap.
We got some news, we got some nostalgia. It is the Fight Freach
Unite Recap podcast Back from Atlanta. I am the somewhat capable host. I
spent the last thirty six to thirty eight hours in Atlanta, where my Buccaneers
have won dramatically in the NFL. But we're not here for that. I'm
in a good mood, but we're not here for that. Dan Rayfield is
here. I'm merely TJ. Reeves. He is Dan Rayfield, our insider
from his Fight Freaks to Night, Substack and Big Fight Weekend dot Com.
Hello, my friend, you are a report to me, breaking news to
me that you have been in a performance with your son. As we're getting
ready to tape this tonight. We've been all over the place, but we
were not going to miss out on recapping the fights. How are you.
I'm good. We're having massive rainstorms. Hopefully the power stays on what we
do the podcast. That's a good thing. And I have flown through some
of that. That what they were getting in Atlanta and the whole line of
nasty weather. And let's just say, I've got a as we like to
say, I've got a strong constitution. Is that a uh? That's like
a sixties term, isn't it like a fifties and sixties term? That means
you got a strong stomach, a strong makeup. I've got a pretty good
constitution. I always have a little little issues when we were doing the oh
the roller coaster taking off and then we were having some issues in flight where
everybody had to sit down and the uh and the pilot on the charter aircraft
for the Buccaneers is like, everybody, buckle up, sit down, okay.
But anyway, we're we're gonna tell you what. By the way,
yeah, been I've been flying for a long time covering boxing matches. Never
been a fan of air travel. You do it because It's part of the
job. So I've I've traveled, you know, who knows how many millions
and miles on my day. One thing I learned, as much as I
hate that travel, if you're hitting the bumps, like you're talking about the
up and down, I always make sure I keep my eye on the flight
attendant because exactly cool. I'm cool. I agree. There was a one
time, a long time ago I remember seeing on the flight attends kind of
freak out and I almost shit my pants. Exactly. That's like the signal,
Hey, let's bring it back to boxing, shall we. It's kind
of like Regius Progray's corner long about the eighth round where they began to crap
their pants and go, what's wrong with you? Or are we going to
have to stop this? Anyway? We'll get into that fight and much more.
Reminder, however, you found us social media link Dan substack his newsletter
through the email, follow or subscribe, rate us and review us we come
down the home stretch of twenty twenty three. Ratings and reviews do help with
the algorithms and people finding us. We again continue to rock along with audience.
I know a lot of people are appreciative I was getting feedback social media
and otherwise that people are appreciative of the fact that we're here still previewing going
into the weekend, we recapping coming off the weekend. If you like that,
rate us and reviewers give us a five star review. That will help
us out. With all of that out of the way, let's begin with
Devin Haney. Where do you come down? I mean, he deserves a
lot of credit, but how much of yes, for sure? How much
of this also is that Regi's Progray did all that talking, including to you
on the podcast, and just did not deliver on anything on cut the ring
off, change your tactics, throw a jab, do something, and Hani
put on a clinic That's what I saw. Tell me what you saw out
of the matchroom de own main event where Hani wins in a virtual shutout.
All right, listen, it was a situation where both things can be true
at the same time. It can be yes, one thousand percent that Devin
Haney put on a master class, an absolutely brilliant performance, not a boring
performance. I mean, that wasn't obviously an action pack fight, but that
was not Devon's fault. Devin had a lot of damaging punches Devin rock pro
race several times. He scored a knockdown in round number three, which to
me was kind of like the end of the fight in many ways. So
and Devin never ran, Devin stood in the pocket, hit and don't be
hit. I mean he did all that, and you can tell the copy
box that he had just watching the match. He actually looked as the man
moving up to another weight class. He actually looked bigger in the ring,
thicker, a little taller, maybe just bigger and stronger. And so yes,
you definitely give him credit for a great game plan from his father,
Bill Haney, who, as Devin talked about in the post fight, you
know, when he had Reis hurt, some guys would have gotten a reckless
and maybe jumped on to try to get the knock and you would like to
see that a little bit. But he listens to Bill Haney's instructions, and
Bill kept telling him, you know, stick to the game plan, and
so we would never let himself throw those extra two or three plushes to maybe
try to see if you again, that other I suspect he might have been
able to maybe get another knockdown. But I'm not gonna quit I mean,
I can't quarrel with perfection. I've seen a lot of big time fights that
were fights that were supposed to be somewhat competitive. Now, granted, Devin
was the favorite in this fight, but nonetheless, when I think of big
matchups where one guy just is a master and the other guy just doesn't really
show up, I think about one of the classic examples, and I remember,
while having covered the fight, Winki Wright doing that kind of performance against
Felix Tito Trinidad, sure dominating, one sided performance. I was there ringside
when Roy Jones did it against John Ruiz many years ago, and there's I
mean, we sat here and dissected all the top fighters. I'm sure we
could come up Floyd of course. How about we were there in Las Vegas
in late July or Terrence Claw for just one side beat down of Errol Spence,
and it was shocking is the word that I will use. I think
we were all shocked that it was that one sided. Now, this was
not a beatdown of that same type in terms of the power, the not
Londons, but still he dominated. I'm thinking of fights where lots of people
have opinions one way or the other that it can go either way, or
it's a close fight or whatever, and one guy doesn't just win, but
wins in a mind boggling kind of manner. You know, people thought,
sure, if Floyd could be corrals, nobody expected Floyd to score five knockdowns
and stop him in round ten. That's right. You know, people thought
Lomachenko was probably gonna beat Rigando. I don't think anybody thought he was gonna
pummel him and make him quit after like five or six rounds. Now,
we can go on down the list to those subsplines, but that's what HAINI
did. You know, Haney is putting together an outstanding resume. Keep in
mind, by the way, Devin Haney is only twenty five years old.
I mean, this is not an old, used up guy. This is
not a guy that's taken a lot of damage in those thirty one wins that
he has and zero losses. This is a guy who now on the resume,
has Regis program at one. In his first fight in the way class,
he has a win over the great future Hall of Fame three divisional world
champion Des Lomachenko. Yes, I know some people thought Lomba won the fight,
but he didn't. I mean, Devin, it was a close fight.
Devin got the nod fair enough. Two fights in Australia, virtual shoutouts
against Cambo's on the road Jojo Diaz win when Jojo just had the one loss
and it was you know, not that he was supposed to win Dias,
but it was considered like a reasonable matchup, you know, Jorge Lnaris at
one thirty five where he was still a serviceable opponent. You know, Gamboa
also at one thirty five where you know, okay, maybe that was a
little bit mismatching he wanted, but that was like the first big name that
Devin ever fought in his career. I'm like the point here that in a
row, those are all wins that this young man has put together. He
is a tremendous fighter. He's a pound for pound caliber guy. You know,
you can tell me where you want to have him, but he's certainly,
you know, in the top ten for sure. To me, it's
a matter of how high do you put him. And now, on the
flip side of what we were just talking about, so all credit to Devin,
any great performance cannot take anything away. Did what he said he was
going to do. And you know, I have nothing but the highest praise
from my like devon, you know that. I think he's been kind of
He's been dissed by a lot of the fans because for reasons that were not
his fault. He received the WBC lightweight title when lomon Chenko decided, and
that one accuse Lomachenko of ducking him, but he went and fought. I
gave up that title, accepted the franchise title, asked for the franchise title,
and went and fought a unification for a lot more money, a lot
easier fight to make against Tafim Lopez. So I don't say Loma ducked him,
but the reality was that was the mandatory. He didn't fight Hani.
Okay, fine, Haini got the belt like a bazillion other fighters get belts
when they when a guy doesn't fight the mandatory if they're an interim, So
it happens on a regular basis. I've always thought it was unfair that people
derisively called him an email ship. I think that's a bullshit term. I
don't agree with it. I think it's absolute, you know, nonsense to
say that. So nothing but the highest respect for what Haini did, and
we'll get in when we're done with my counting of Regis's fight, we'll talk
about what can be next for Devin Hainey and a very rich weight division.
Well, it's not going to take long to talk about Regis's pride. He
didn't do anything but go ahead, Yes on the segway go ahead. Regious
program looked terrible. I mean, there's no other way to put it.
And I look, I like Regis, and I have to say I will
give Redis credit for this. You know, when the fight was over,
he you know, he did not make any excuses. He didn't talk about
I had an injury. He didn't talk about I had trouble making weight.
He didn't talk about how he woke up with an upset stomach, or his
wife, you know, was mad at him about something, or his kid
you know, you know, was throwing up. I mean, you know,
whatever it is, he did not make a single excuse. All he
did was, uh, you know, keep it real. One thing I've
always liked about regis program is that, you know, when you ask him
a question in interview, I feel like he gives you an honest answer,
and he doesn't, you know, beat around the Bush and so I'm going
to give you the great quote that he gave in the interview he had with
Chris Mannix in the ring after the fight. This is one of many that
motherfucker is good. He's better than what I thought. I'm not gonna lie.
I mean, what else can you say. I'm gonna give him credit.
I'm gonna give Billy Bill had gifteen Hamy credit. I'm going to keep
the same energy. You know me, I'm still gonna keep the same energy
with what I say. What I mean, I'm going to tell the true
Devin Hainey is better than what I thought. I'm not gonna lie he is.
He was just better than what I thought. He was. His feeder
fast, he's quicker than what I thought he was. I'm not gonna lie.
I couldn't see him to get him, that's all. He was quick.
I mean, he encapsulated the whole fight in one sound bite. That
was one of the most futile attempts in a fight that I've ever seen.
Now, we spent a lot of time, as others on their podcast and
boxing fans in general, talking about how terrible he looked when he fought Zaia
in his first one kids a few months ago, and I even asked him
on the podcast in my interview, I said, look, a lot of
people say, if you couldn't cut the ring off against Zaia, how the
heck are you gonna do it against a fighter that's far superior against a guy
like Devin Hainey. And you know, Regis was like, ah, you
know, I had distractions with hometown situations because that fight was in New Orleans,
it was an off night. You know, this is different and he
you know, okay, and that's believable. But when when the bell rang
and he came out of the out of the know to make the match,
make the fight, you could actually, as sick as it is, make
the argue they looked better against Area than he did against Regis program. So
we talked about copybox on this podcast sometimes, don't we, TJ. Yes
we do. So let me tell you a little story about these copy box
snummer because they're mind boggling. Now, let's flash back just a few weeks
ago. We had a lot of conversation about the Igno Mini of Edwin de
Los Santo's landing forty punches in that ship fight against your course, Stephenson fight
so that was at the time. The forty punches landed were the fewest punches
ever landed in a in a twelve round title fight, cracked by Copybox.
In thirty eight years in existence, they've done thousands of world title off I
don't know the exact number, but it's in the thousands. Who would have
thought that that. Less than a month later, you have Regius Progra going
there, a known offensive fighter, a tremendous left hand, likes to fight
on the front foot, likes to go after his guy, likes to be
aggressive, has scored a lot of knockouts, only had one loss come into
this fight, and that was a super close decision loss in a unification against
Josh Taylor a few years ago when they were both at the top of the
one hundred and forty pound division, battling it out to unify the numbers that
he put up in copy Box. Now, Devin, like I mentioned,
he didn't run. He was there. He fought well, defense and offense,
dropped him and turned him whatever he had, and he had normal type
copy Box detections. Landed thirty five percent of his punches you know through you
know, close to four hundred shots. I mean you know, sometimes lightweights
are a little busier than that, but nothing to complained about. Regius Progray
landed in twelve completed rounds, out of three hundred and thirty six punches thrown,
he landed thirty six punches. That's ten percent. I can do basic
math, Okay, that is the fewest punches landed ever in the history of
a copy box title fight. He actually broke the record of De Loo Santos
and in fact, of twelve round fights period title fights or otherwise, it's
the sixth fewest. I actually checked into my pal Bob Kenobio from the copy
Box to find out what was the actual record, and on four different occasions
there have been twelve round boxing matches tracked by Copybox where the one fighter landed
in the fight four times twenty three punches. So this was close to the
all time record. They didn't quite get it. It was just incredible he
landed. He landed five out of two hundred and fifty one jabs, that
is two percent, landed two punches in six out of the twelve rounds.
He never landed more than five in any single round. So that's a combination
of great defense from Devin Haney, But I don't care. If you're Floyd
Mayweather, you're occasionally accidentally gonn to get hit with a jab. He didn't
even hit him by accident. I mean, so part of it was his
great defense from Haney, but part of it was just complete ineptitude on the
behalf of Preshville, right, and what I said, saving full in full
disclosure, I was watching the pay per view and watching on the big screen
that I had in my room in Atlanta for the Buccaneer game again this weekend
in Atlanta. I would had the top rank show on the big screen,
but I paid more attention even down the stretch of the fight. Is program
going to get back in it with a big punch, And it almost seemed
like by the ninth or tenth round, maybe even by the eighth or the
ninth round, he realized this is done. I can't hit him, I
can't catch up to him. It's not gonna happen. So all right,
so, uh, I mean, clearly, clearly he was all talk we
keep it real on the podcast. He was all talk about what he was
going to do, and he did none of it. That's the point.
That's the point. There a few minutes ago. I feel like when Devin
Heeney, he didn't just you know, it wasn't a flash knockdown where he
just got caught and he went down and whatever. I mean, he wasn't
down hard and he didn't stay down long, but he was definitely felt the
impact of the shot. Now, he said afterwards that that he gave Devin
credit for being a better puncher than he thought. That he thought he was
more of a light, light puncher relative to his reputation and all that kind
of thing, but that again, it wasn't like he's got this big,
devastating one punch knockgout power, but has Regis made the point because Devin has
such fast hands, it's the punch that you don't see that has the most
damage. And then he's right, because I can't tell you. Over the
course of my career of covering boxing times I've heard, in some form or
fashion a fighter say to me paraphrasing here, I'd rather get hit with a
big puncher by their best shot, but I can see, I know what's
coming. I see it coming. Then get caught by a fifty you know,
by a by a half assed punch by a guy that's not a big
punch, but I don't see it because that's what does the damage. The
right hand that Devin landed that knocked him down in three in the third round
was one of those kinds of punches where we just said he didn't see it,
but it definitely did damage. And by the way, there was another
time in the fight, I forget what around it was where he landed another
I think it was a left hook, this time where he did like the
shaky leg you know, you know, gummy dance. For a quick second
there he was on the verge of going down again. I mean, so,
anybody that's gonna say that Devin Haney can't punch, you know, talk
to Regis program. And I mean again, I've said I'm slightly biased because
I sat like five feet from the ring in the corner near where I was
sitting when he knocked out Antonio Moran in absolutely devastating fashion, cold for the
knockout of the year back you know, like four years ago or something like
that. So you know, he may not be you know, the murderous
punch. Sure, i'llah like the Glofkin or somebody like that, or or
other big time punchers but but Devin Haney is you know, he can keep
you honest, and he stepped up to the play man. He got the
job on. You know, he wrote to vacation. At his biggest moment
of his career, he had his best performance. So that leads obviously to
what we always ask, which is what is next? What's realistically next?
So Ryan Garcia is all over social media Saturday night immediately saying I would do
that fight next. Of course the talk has been Tea Fimo Lopez to unify.
He's got one of the one hundred and forty pound titles Realism Meter from
Rayphiel. I always love this. Realistically, what do you think is next
for Devin Hanne. That's a really good question. I really don't have the
answer now. If if Garcia and de la Hoye are true to what they're
saying, then maybe they'll go to Devon's team. Now, Devin, I
believe you know he said this on our podcast. He has a fine relationship
with the people at Matt Troom that he heard who promoted him for quite a
while. He then was a free agent. He went and had a good
experience in his three fight run with top Rank and Lou de Bella. So
you know, I think he can do business with anything. But he made
the point to me that while yet that he's now a free agent again,
so he's gonna be out there if he wants to Again. Maybe I'm wrong,
but this is what Devin said to me, that he is no he
is no ties to any promoter contractually or broadcaster. So from his perspective,
that's a great position to be in because here's a guy that's you know,
just moved up to one forty a red hot division, won a world title,
and now he's a free agent. You know, he's on the on
the verge of perhaps winning Fighter of the Year honors. I mean, so
there's a lot going for this this guy. So if you take a look
at who are the biggest fights, I mean, he's been calling out on
his social and staying and or I heard some stuff in the post fight from
Bill Haney, his father, you know who just was like, you know,
tank tank tank tank tank tank tank tank tank, Like he's not gonna
he's basically a joke. He's like, you know, Joe would stop saying
tank. Davis's gonna have to hit me in the mouth. You know,
they want to fight Tank Davis, which I under stand because Tank is a
smaller guy. You know, he's a guy at one hundred and thirty five
pounds who's got star power and got good power, but you know, still
hasn't fought the best of the lightweights. And so here you have a Devin
Haney that's a multi skilled fighter who's who's a larger guy. They would love
that fight. It's you know, would do good business obviously, so but
I don't think that's gonna happen because you know, until Tank tells his team,
you know, I want to fight the best guys right now. Again,
I'm no quarra with Tank Davis, but he's fighting big fights but where
he's a huge favorite. He's gonna make a lot of money, and there's
nothing wrong with that, but he's not fighting the other guys that are ranked
at the top, like Haini fought Progray Hainey fought a unification with Cambosis,
he fought Lomachenko. You know, uh, but Tank hasn't been doing that.
I mean, you know, he did, you know, fine,
he fought to Ryan Garcia fight, but other than that, we haven't seen
him take those steps to say I want that fight, So I don't think
that will happen. I love it if it did, so maybe he will
fight Ryan Garcia. Now Ryan said it on his social he's coming back to
fight in March. I don't think we're gonna see Devin Haney back that quickly.
But that doesn't mean they couldn't fight a sect you know, later in
the year. And there's there's other guys. T Fimo Lopez is there,
but you know his he's in a in a in a little bit of a
no man's land at the moment, I mean top rank is. They wanted
him to fight on Saturday and in the in the ESPN card that Robes Ramirez
ended up occupying. If they had it would have been the Heisman Trophy cart
in New York City. He decided not to do that fight. They're making
moves to try to bring a h T Fimo back into the ring in February,
which is when he probably will fight. It's nothing definite. They've offered
the fight the Jose Ramirez, but he has turned it down. I am
told uh. But again, the Haini fight would not take place in February.
That would be a pay per view fight. Obviously. Uh, So
I don't have an answer for you, TJ in terms of like, who
do I actually think he's going to fight. I know one thing, based
on Devon's track record in recent fights, and based on what he said after
the fight on Saturday, and and based on how deep the weight class is,
Uh, he's gonna he wants a big fight. The other thing is
he's not gonna have a mandatory that's due right away or anything like that,
because he just he didn't take the title from as a vacantible. He wanted
off a reigning champion whose mandatory was not yet due. So he's gonna have
the opportunity to pick and choose the type of opponent he wants. And by
the way, this is something else you got to throw in their DJ Hainey
has said that he and his dad will think about the possibility of perhaps in
the next fight, fighting at welterweight to see how as he said, to
see where I fit in. So if he wants to go to welterweight,
that may open up another group of different places to me, But to me,
there's not a mega fight for him right now at welterweight. I mean
the bigger paydays would be to fight Lopez and certainly to fight Ryan Garcia,
and that seems to be much more realistic. That's the word that I used
when we first want a fight with Aaron Crawford at welterweight. What if?
What if most of our listeners could date a supermodel? I mean, I'm
but but that's not It's not an Outlandis kind of matchup. I think it's
I think it's a very intriguing matchup. But again, I again come back
to the realism meter, because as you said and others have said, Crawford's
looking at the possible rematch with Spence looking less and less likely, but he
wants a mega pay day, maybe against Canelo Alvarez. I HAINI could fight
Tea Femo, you know, first quarter of next year, and it's a
significant enough fight that now the winner goes and fights Ryan Garcia in the fall.
Call me crazy, call me logical, but that sets up great right
there at once. We'll see, we'll see. That's but I just don't
look, I agree with what you're saying. I would like to see those
types of matchups. I doubt that I'm not saying hany and Lopez won't happen.
I am a very strong believer that I will not next. I know
you well enough to use that phrase, probably because I believe that that Lopez
is going to be back in the ring. If top rank is going to
get done what they are planning to get done, that he'll be in the
ring against you know, somebody good, hopefully in February ish, and and
then after that perhaps now there's there's you know, nobody calls up the name
Sabril Mattias. He's a champion at the IBF, He's a tremendous fighter.
I don't know if he's going to go that route, not because he's scared
of anybody, but because Subril Matias doesn't have that kind of a star power,
that name recognition that can help carry a pay per view that Devin wants
at this stage. And you know, Devon's earned at this point that he
can go try to make the biggest fights possible. So we can get t
F, if can get Ryan Garcied, can get Tank Davis, if if
there's an attractive fight in the in the welterweight division. You know who knows.
But I just know one thing, whatever his next fight's going to be,
he's gonna make a lot of money and it's going to do very well
in terms of business. Look, I don't know what the pay per view
did on this on Saturday, but I know that they had sixteen thousand salad
out crowd at the Chase Center in San Francisco, which has never hosted a
boxing match before, and it was where Devon is from. And one of
the raps on Devin well he's not a draw. Well you can't use that
anymore because he just did sixteen thousand people at the gate. And by the
way, reis because of the maget the fight obviously gets some of that credit.
But being that it was at where Devin is from and he still has
family there, His mom lives there, still a sister lives there. As
he was explaining on our podcast, you know, he gets more of the
of the credit for bringing that crowd in. So he is a draw.
I mean that gate was around two million dollars from what I was told that
that's pretty substantial for that type of crowd. Now comparatively, when Tank Davis
fought in Washington, d C. In January at the Capitol Wunt Center Arena,
you know, half an hour from my house where I went to that
fight. The gate was like five million dollars, but that's an anomaly.
Two millions. Pretty damn good for that kind of fight in a city that
hasn't had a boxing event of any caliber since two thousand and one, when
Mayweather and Paco appeared on a double header on HBO together. Rest of that
card and then we're going to move on to the ESPN Top Rank card,
and we also had a Sunday afternoon WBO cruiserweight title fight in the Boxer Promotion's
main events. We got plenty to still recap here from the undercard. Liam
Parro victorious by ko Andy Cruz by ko Ebony Bridges upset in her women's world
title fight. Anything else of substance stick out to you off the undercard?
What's stuck out? If anything? Considering it was the sixty dollars paper.
I was very disappointed with the under card. I thought the Paro Montana La
fight was terrible. You know, in the end, Paro picked it up
and he did stop Montana. Love and credit to him. He keeps his
undefeated record. You know, Paro, I think the fight was bad,
not because of Para. I think his Montana Love is a fraud. I
mean, I'm just gonna say it, like, I think nothing against Montana
the person, just he's they built him up to be something he's absolutely not.
He's just a guy. I'm telling you. He's now had the disqualification.
He now got knocked out by by by a Paroh. You know,
he got a lot more hype than he deserved because he had a cool dog
that he brought into the ring, not because he could really fight like a
champion. Okay, yeah, so I mean, I mean that may sound
harsh, but you know, and you know, maybe it is, but
just have a feeling on a Sunday night as we're tapingists. In the other
fight though, you know, Andy Cruz, they were gonna match himup with
Hector Tanahara, which was obviously a huge step up for a guy that's one
to Oho. Hector got couldn't do the fight, so they put him in
with a journeyman named Giovanni's Staffron, who still has vastly experienced. He had
like thirty thirty five fights or something like that, thirty three fights and he
knocked on the secon round. He looked spectacular. I mean, Andy Cruz
to me. The question is not how good can he be as a pro.
It's gonna be is he gonna fight as a pro and attract fans in
a crowd. Where is he gonna stick with that amateur style that's been so
successful with the god him a gold medal, got him a whole bunch of
wins over Keishaan Davis. Or is he gonna learn to sit down on his
punches? I think I know the answer. I think he's gonna become more
of a pro as opposed to an amateur that turns pro. He's gonna start
fighting more like a pro. And I say that because he didn't decide to
go to the Cuban School of Boxing the United States to link up with a
Cuban trainer where to train in that sort of atmosphere. He didn't go to
Vegas, he didn't go to La This dude, he went to Philadelphia.
He'll fuck around in Philadelphia. He's in the gym with Bosey Nis. That's
Geron Ennis's father. They do real, real like hard spar you know their
Jim war is there. I mean, I'm saying that's not maybe the best
for guys necessarily. Hopefully they keep it under control. But when you learn
and you you go pro in that atmosphere, you're gonna learn to lose those
amateur traits quickly, I believe. And he looked spectacular in the way he
knocked out uh, you know, a staff front on the other night.
And so I'm hopeful that he'll develop into you know, from a great amateur
that won gold medals and was touch and move to a guy that will sit
down in this punches. He sure looked like a last night, and you
know, like the big rivalries him and Kishon Davis. They were on a
you know, Kishan and Eddie Hern got on a on a on a Instagram
live and Eddie was talking about how much respect he had for Kishan. But
you know what you you know, and non paraphrasing what he says, you
don't want to fight Andy Cruz because you know here to be to you know
a billion times in the amateurs. Look what he's gonna do you as a
pro. And you know, Kishan's like, bring it on, let's do
it by the end of twenty twenty four. Absolutely, So that's something worth
watching. But Cruz is an interesting prospect. They go either way. It's
got the amateur credentials just look goodness for his two prime prof fights. Uh,
but you know the jury is out. And the other fight you mentioned,
the women's fight Abony Bridges, she lost a big upset to Amila Yoshida.
Who how could you not like that heartwarming story. Here's a woman that
fought on a on loud de Bella Broadway boxing card not that long, you
know, just like what six weeks ago? Four weeks yeah, so yeah
it was. She fought November seven, so it was one month ago and
she lost somewhat, uh you know, not a great performance, but she
lost the decision. And she comes back a month later and drops into this
fight when when the Bridge's original opponent, Avrol Matthew dropped that with an injury,
she took it on short notice and she goes in and she wins the
IBF Women's title. And she's a single mom. They kept showing her daughter
there in the in the in the sitting in the in the audience with you
know whoever was with her, and uh, you know, she calls I
forget what her nickname is. She goes to like the single the single mother
or something like that. So it wasn't a great fight, but it was
it was a heartwarming story. You got to be happy for the lady and
uh, you know again something that those were the undercard fights, but I
didn't. There was nothing kind of spicy or sexy to meet me, not
I want to pay sixty perview worthy, not to say a perview worthy from
what we saw on that. So that leads us now to what was going
on all the way across the continent from San Francisco, all the way to
Pembrooke Pines, Florida, again a northern suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Miami,
where again in a very festive, hostile, loud, smaller arena, the
ESPN Top Rank Show took place, and holy guacamole, we get an upset
with Raphae l Espinoza, didn't you and I leave the bet Us show on
Friday saying rightfully, so we don't know who this guy's really beaten, even
though he's twenty one, and oh well we now know. And he put
on a tremendous performance in the back half of that fight, got a decision,
got a well deserved decision, and is now the new WBO featherweight champ.
What happened here to Robici Ramirez and all the plans because the plans are
out the window. Dan Rayfield, in the top run not only put on
a great performance in the end of the fight, he also did a great
job in the beginning of the fight because he was up four rounds and nothing
basically I think on two score cards and three to one on the other score
card. And it was in the middle of the rounds, middle rounds where
Robasi Ramirez came back, you know, big time. The funny thing you
just mentioned, you said going into the fight, he was twenty one to
oh. Suddenly two other wins popped up on his box trecks, so now
he's twenty four to oh. Apparently, I mean they must have I don't
know, I mean box they put up there if they get proof of the
fight. We I mean we brought this up briefly on our preview podcast and
again on the bet Us show. This was a twenty to one favorite situation
for Ramirez, absolutely supposed to win this fight, and yet here we go.
This is why we won boxing, This is why we lost a two
time gold medalist by by many people's views, including mine. Going into this
fight, he was the number one featherweight in the world. It's a hand
picked opponent. It's a guy who's been a professional for ten years, who
in ten years until Saturday, had never fought anybody worth the shit at all
period, not even close six foot one against a guy five foot six.
But the thought was, well, I mean, Ramirez, with all that
amateur experience, he's handled tall guys. He spoke about it. He'll look
at his last fight in Japan's against the the Olympian from Japan. Shamizu was
a big, tall guy. He destroyed him. So I didn't really think
much about that. But the other thing you failed to mention when we talked
about on the US show is who is this guy? I said multiple times,
just because he never fought anybody and doesn't have a big win doesn't mean
he's no good. We just don't know. Well now we know that he's
a very capable guy with a big heart. I mean, he said he
broke his foot in the second round. I'm just going to fight. He
says he fractured his foot and again will wait for the full verification. Then
he gets knocked down in what the fifth round. I'm watching both fights again
and it makes it even more tremendous. What he did in the back half
of the fighting. What we know now about that about fractured foot and a
knockdown where he very easily could have said that you and I had the Ramirez
knockout. We were looking good, babe. He got the knocked down,
But then the second half of the fight happened and Ramirez flat out fought or
Espinosa flat out fought robes Se Ramirez. So let's go back to the knockdown
Ramirez. His take is being taken to school by the way he's down probably
four rounds to nothing. Proven out at the end of the fight that he
wasn't fact down four rounds to nothing on two of the score cards, may
have even been the third. I'm not don't have the scuorecard right in front
of me. But here's the point. Though he was losing the fight and
being kind of outclass in those first few rounds, and then out of nowhere
right at the end of round five, he caught him with a beautiful shot.
I mean he One thing that Tim Bradley made the comment about is that
Espinosa, who was right handed, kept switching to lefty, and the danger
when you're a fighter and you switch dances is getting caught in between when you're
switching and being off balance and leaving yourself open when you switch to the other
side. And if the other fighter recognizes that. And Ramierrez is a very
intelligent fighter from all that amateur experience he has, he you know, you
can time a guy when he switches, and he did exactly that. So
when he switched, Ramirez dropped the right hook and bombed him on the chin
and went on you know, he laid you know, he basically came to
rest with his head on the bottom ring rope and you're like, oh,
this fight's over. He actually got to his feet and he then stumbled Trevor
Berbick esque, but instead of falling down because the nothing that was there to
hold him up, he stumbled forward, you know, chest first into the
ring ropes kitty corner on the other side of the ring right. A lot
of referees when they see that happen, if you if you stumble into the
ropes and are about to fall on your face, they immediately wave the fight
off. And that if the referee had stopped the fight at that moment with
him flopping around into the ropes after getting dropped by a massive right hook.
No one would have said boo about the not the stoppage. I don't even
think that that Espinosa said anything the stoppage. But Christopher Young, who was
the referee, who was frankly a referee I'm not that familiar with, handled
it really well. He assessed the man. You can always stop the fight
if you don't like what you see. But he didn't immediately wave his arms
when he fell into the ropes. He assessed him. There was only a
couple of seconds left and around that the clapper had already hit. I'm sure
he heard that, so he assessed him. And we now know, I'm
interrupting that the stumble is as much because he had busted his foot. He's
trying to get properly. Yeah, that was earlier in the fight. So
so the clapper hit, he got he got dropped, he got off,
he fell into the ropes. The referee did his job. He saw that
he was still, you know, okay to go, and he said let's
go, and then he waved him together and then the bell rang to end
the round, and he got the one minute rest period, and it did
him wonders. Now, at that moment, Ramire you know, Ramirez then
launched his comeback because after being down, there was Ramirez who pretty much won
most of those rounds from like six, you know, five, which was
a ten eight round six seven eight, where he got back into the fight
on the squarecards, and then again it flipped in the back half. As
you talk about. There were some back and forth. But here's the thing.
Fight on the table. Twelfth round. Mm hmm. Now, this
guy, by all rights, could have been knocked out in round five.
He has his best round of the fight. In the last round he lands
forty eight punches out of like one hundred and twenty and just goes bananas with
his punch out. But he ended up throwing almost like nine hundred and ninety
punches for the fight, almost a thousand punches. But in the tenth round
he was over one hundred punches in the in the twelfth round he was well
over one hundred punches. And you want to talk about don't leave it in
the hands, I mean he left it in the hands of the judges.
But give them no doubt that you got to give me round twelve, he
went out there and he kicked Ramirez his ass in round twelve and uh and
it was and he got a knocked down. You gotta knocked down in the
last round, and that was what sealed the fight because and it was dangerously
close to maybe a stoppage in the final seconds. We're back to the referee
again, who's very aware kind of Chavez. Taylor asked, we're in the
final round. We're in the final seconds. But he knocked Ramirez sideways for
half a second there where you're thinking one more punch here, he might jump
between them and it's a t ko forget the judges for Raffie l Espinoza.
Well, going into the last round, the corner of Espinola's both corners,
the audio that they captured on the ESPNN broadcast, both corners were selling and
telling them exactly right thing first of all, in terms of like the the
uh the uh raw raw, like you know, bullet your heartstrings, like
you know, hype you up, you know, make you one of runs
through a wall. You know. The corner in uh in In Espinosa's side
of things was like, you know, we got one more round, Come
on, son, do you want to be champed or not? I mean
he was really laying it on. You know, you're gonna be champion,
like getting them pumped up. And in the other corner, you know,
Ishmael Salaz, who's a tremendous trainer that works with Robasi Ramirez, he was
telling him, look, he's gonna come and get you. He's gonna come
looking for you. You know. Uh, you know, he wants to
do something special. Like he was making sure that Robasin knew don't take this
twelfth round lightly because uh, he's gonna be going all out. And he
just couldn't contain uh or Espinosa. It was a spectacular performance on the twelfth
round and and he landed. I counted on the replay, I was,
I mean, I couldn't get the exact number. It was at least a
dozen punches, most of them landed, and he put him on his ass.
You know, he got to a knee. I mean, and this
is when you know a guy's really hurt. Ramirez had to use the ropes
to help pull himself up. You know. It was Rocky was tired,
so he's hurt himself up, you know, and uh he's on his feet
and there was so little time left that Espinosa is similar to what happened in
round five, there was not any time for another punch to be thrown,
So the bell sounded, the fight ended, and now it goes in your
nail biting at the at the scores, and it turns out to be,
you know, a super close majority decision. But you know, he fucking
earned that win. Yes he did, and the right guy and the right
guy got the decision. But there is some controversy and some fans just before
you get there, I don't think this is gonna be the fight of the
year in terms of who actually wins, right you, when you start making
your list, it's going to be in the conversation of it to be.
It has to be. There was drama, there was action, both guys
down, both guys down in the fight. You have Espinosa revealing I may
have fractured my foot. We're waiting for the confirmation on that. And fought
at least eight or nine rounds with an injured foot apparently, and it and
it did not detur him from winning. I agree with you, it's in
the in the last second of the fight determined the outcome. That's a very
much so. But the thing about Robsi Ramirez, though, what I was
going to say is I've watched every single one of his professional fights. I
remember being at one of his fights in Vegas and he, you know,
he he fought like the like the stereotypical Cuban fighter where he just you know,
he half asked it. He knew he had a guy over match.
He never stepped on the gas. He was content to, as they say,
play with his food and just wouldn't take a step forward. And it
was a very very negative performance. And he had a couple of those,
but he's now had some performances like this where you can go and get the
man and knock him out, like he did with Shimizu in Japan. Obviously
it didn't work out for him in this fight, but he was had no
problem you know, going uh uh, you know, close quarters toe to
toe with Espinosa, so you know he can run hot or cold than that
restack. But you know, my tip of the hat for Amire is,
you know, he probably should have had to knockout him round five, and
he, you know, he didn't get discouraged and it was a tremendous battle.
And listen, at the end of the day, how do you not
be happy for a guy like uh Espinosa, you know, as when they
say he's uh it took ten years to become an overnight sensation. And by
the way I was talking to I was talking to people at Top Rank on
Sunday and uh, there there's and both fighters talked about it in the post
fight. I think there's there's a very good chance there's gonna be an immediate
rematch, not because there's a rematch clause. Hot Rank doesn't do that too
often. As the one of the people said to me, you know,
we do rematches when they make sense, and this makes sense. And Aspinosa
said, I will give him a rematch for what it's worth. He gave
him the opportunity, all right. So several people brought this up at the
time on social media. A couple of people have contacted US et cetera and
said, will you address the delay in reading the scores. So just in
the chronology again, the pro Gray Hainy fight was ending, the post fight
they were almost ending at the same time the post fight was going on.
There was not much drama there and a shutout win for Hani. This fight's
ending with the crazy drama in the twelfth round that has maybe now won the
decision for Espinoza. So ESPN is showing the main broadcast post Heisman Trophy,
and they do what they have typically done, which is say we're going to
take a quick commercial break and come back and read the decision while the tabulation
is going on. So that took about three to four minutes for the end
of the fight. Go to the break, come back from the break,
the fighters are still walking around. There's no cards. I went back and
looked on because you can go back on the on demand, and look,
we're now to the six minute mark, the seven minute mark, and finally
Joe Tessitur brings up we've got a delay. Apparently the commission and the WBO
are going over the scorecards. This is where people immediately start to go,
what the heck going on here? I mean, I'm not saying that there
was anything nefarious, but this is where you get people suspicions up. And
then it went for another couple of minutes where they were obviously tabulating a close
score on two of the cards. And I'm saying this, you said it
earlier, the right guy won, but this is this is where people's antenna
go up. When it took that long to get the decision. Read.
So there we've addressed it. Do you have anything else to add to that?
Because it did take a while much ado about nothing. You're quoting Shakespeare
night on the podcasts. It's share. Uh So the right guy does get
the win and in and in the case of two of the cards, that
was the difference. He was up enough on the third card that the ten
eight round only added to it. He was tied on one card the ten
eight rounds a two point win, and I believe the other card he was
up by one and one by one. It was one thirteen, one thirteen
correct, one fourteen, one to twelve and favorite espos and one fifteen one
eleven in the favorite espos. Those were we we've numerous times on this so
down so on that calculation. Down one on one card he wins, going
on and down two on another card. It ends up a draw with the
ten eight round for us minos. Oh yeah, with the day exactly.
So what I was gonna say, though, is we talk a lot on
the podcast, or I do anyway, but what are the range of acceptable
scores? And this this these three judges turned in what I felt like is
the range of acceptable scores. Now, I knew the result. I didn't
have a chance to watch it alive because I'm watching Hainey and program. I
knew the result of the fight. But I did go back in my earlier
day on Sunday because I still wrote a piece about it from my substack newsletter,
which you can go read right now. Please do and subscribe. Uh
And I wrote about it, but I'm not gonna write the story before I
watched the fight. What, first of all, terrific fight. I felt
like, you know what, those score cards are are pretty good. I
have no problem with that. I thought that Russell the card one fourteen,
one twelve seemed pretty fair. That seemed quite reasonable. But a draw or
a little bit wider for Espinoza, you're giving a little bit more credit for
maybe some of those early rounds. I had no problem with that. But
it was a It was a great fight. They both showed tremendous sportsmanship afterwards.
They both are very likable type of characters. Uh. You know,
watching my man Mark Kriegle's interview with Tramirez talking about his uh you know,
his daughter that he had to lead behind in Cuba and leaving his parents behind,
and you know his father's had some sickness and hasn't able to see them.
I mean, you know, it's emotional stuff for a lot of the
Cubans who defend to they're not get a chance to see uh, you know,
wives or or children or parents. It's hard. So you know,
if you are not moved by his story, you know you're a heartless person
number one. Uh. And if you're not moved by the drama of that
fight, plus the the never say die attitude of of what Raphael Espinoza was
dealing with in that fight, I mean, that's why we watched the show.
I mean, that's why you watched the boxing match just for that reason.
I mean, you know, he Fernando Beltron from Zanford Promotions, who's
done a tremendous amount of business with Top Rank over the years. He's the
promoter of Raphael Espinoza, and he was standing with him in the interview where
they had their arms around each other, and he said, you know that
this is Espinoza talking through the interpreter, which was Bernardo Souno, who does
a great job translating the interviews on ESPN when he's interviewing the guys talking about
how when Fernando Beltro called him and said, you know you're fighting for a
world title. You know, he's like, he started to cry, Yeah,
ran my daughter for a kiss and made his dream come true. He's
like, I'm gonna win the title. And he went out and you know
he did it. God bless him all right, rest of that card real
quick as we move along on the recap here, including Xander Ziez looked very
impressive, including with the body work to get his knockout. Other thoughts,
other other thoughts on what you saw out of the top rank show for a
long time when Xander was coming up, I know he was very young,
seventeen eighteen nineteen. You know, you're not sure if it could go either
way. Is he gonna be is he gonna completely flame out? Is he
going to develop into something? You know, we just didn't know they were
matching him. He was winning sometime, he looked great some and then he
looked just very average, and you just don't know. I now believe after
seeing his recent fights this year in particular where he stepped up to a better
level of opposition, that you know, I'm not saying he's going to be
like the pound for pound guy here. He's going to be a Hall of
Famer. But Xander's eyes is going to be in the conversation for some major
fights and title fights and against top guys, you know, for the next
several years. This is a guy that's getting better. His opponent, Joy
Fartia was not exactly a bum by any means. Very solid fighter, real
legit pro, and he destroyed him. He worked the body, he looked
strong. You know, he's twenty one years old. Now, this is
a different physical man than he was when he was a seventeen year old boy
when he turned professional. He's got a great attitude. He works his ass
off. You know, if you listen to the podcast interview I had with
him that we played a couple episodes ago. I asked him about being seventeen
and being a professional boxer, not hanging out with your friends, not going
to the school dance, not going out you know with the fellas, not
doing this, not going to the concert, just not going out here.
And he's like, you know what, I never had it, so I
don't miss it. And when i'm you know, later on, when I'm
more satisfied in my career, I can kick back with my family and friends
and have the money and do those types of things. But he missed out
out his childhood and it's paying off because he's becoming a very top pro.
And by the way, this is a situation now that this fight is in
the bank and he got to win no injuries and had a spectacular knockout.
Two body shots knocked him on in the round five round one. With the
first knockdown, his next fight was already signed going into this fight. He
just had to make sure he won and came out with no injury. So
he's now set up to open up what I think is going to be a
much bigger year in twenty twenty four because they're going to have him fighting at
higher level fights. I suspect, by the way, that by the time
next year ends wouldn't in any way shock me at all if we saw for
the first time Xanders Eyes in a main event. But in the meantime,
he will be back February sixteenth. He will fight at the Madison Square Guard
Theater where there'll be a lot of Puerto Rican fans. As he even said
when he made the comment about it, you know, I'm going back home
to MSG, you know, because he's spot there a few times, right,
he will be in the co feature on that night. The main event
we've talked about Oshaki Foster. His his first fight was announced as the first
fight with top Rank, which will be a second defense of the WBC one
hundred and thirty pounds world title. He'll defend against Abraham Nova, my Albani
brother. That's the main event, and in the co feature will be Xanders
Ayas and he's stepping up, he said in our interview, and he mentioned
this name. He wants to fight, you know, contenders, former champions,
but you know name opponents on the rise. He's gonna fight the former
WBO Junior middleway champion, Patrick Decida, you know, who's got a great
record and has fought a lot of good quality guys, fought Carlos Damas,
fought some others, and that's a you know for Lexander at this stage of
his career. You know, De Sita may not be on the top of
the food chain anymore at one fifty four, but he's still you know,
a solid opponent for a young man like that to fight. So that's the
that's the co feature. So I think that's a reasonable test for this guy
at this stage to open up next year. So he had a great win
and on the under a card. Besides him, he has some great performances.
Bruce Shoeshoe carry in the Brooklyn featherweight Love People, Love People. He
looked great second round knockout against a former title challenger who went the distance in
a tough fight against Oscar Valdez and a featherweight world title fight, and Shoeshoe
just blitzed them, completely annihilated him. You know, you cannot, uh,
there's it was a flawless performance. I mean there's I know that the
fighters and the trainers will always find, you know, things that they want
to work on, but I'd be hard pressed to give you something specific from
that fight where you're like, well, he needs to work on this or
he needs to work on that. He's now ten and zero. That was
his first schedule ten he only needed two. And you know he's another young,
top ranked prospect to keep an eye on. And prior to that fight,
Richard Torres Junior, the heavyweight who's been killing everybody in the first couple
of rounds. He was in his first scheduled eight round fight and the match
him somewhat aggressively. I mean, not super aggressively. But Curtis Harper is
a reputable journeyman who's uh, you know, he's he's His record is terrible,
but he's been in the ring with a lot of quality guys. He's
given around those. He's tough as nails. You know, he shouldn't be
just remembered for walking out of the ring against a jagua. So when that
fight was me we talked about on the bet Us show. Somebody asked me,
I need to get back early. I said, I think this fight's
going a long way. It's not gonna be a one or two round,
you know, smackout for Torres. And sure enough, Curtis Harper lasted into
round eight of the eight rounder, and eventually Torres, with the blood coming
down his face from a cut in the same exact spot where we had a
previous cut I think from a headbutt, he got the knockout and finished a
really nice closing flurry. So Torres is coming along good win with a nice
knockout. Shoosher looks tremendous with that knockout. Xander's eyes is really picking up
the pace. He got a knockout against a good, solid opponent and then
we had just a barn burner and drama and upset special in the main event.
That's a good show and it didn't cost sixty bucks. By the way,
it did not, and I liked it for that reason too. Got
to see it as well. Live good recaps on all of that, and
let's not leave out because it deserves it. On Sunday afternoon, and full
disclosure here again, I've been working in the NFL all Sunday out afternoon,
have flown back Sunday night. I have not seen this, but I've read
the recaps. I've seen a highlight of the shot that Chris Billim Smith landed
on Mosternoch, the Polish challenger to his WBO Cruiserweight Championship. He gets the
knockout, he landed a shot to the ribs and right after the bell rang
to start round eight, Monster Dot could not continue. All right, So
let's recap this a little further, whatever else you'd like to say, because
Billim Smith, like you like to say, keeps the change moving. He
defends his title, gets a good payday in front of the home fans,
gets a ko win. You take all of that on a Sunday. Yeah,
I thought this was a pretty solid that's going in. I know Masterneck
is not exactly the household name of anybody that will be watching that fight in
the UK, but he's a reputable challenger, been around a long time seventeen
years, had fought some good quality opponents, only been you know, hadn't
been stopped in quite a while. When he did get stopped, you know,
it was way way long ago. But when he fought other probably the
best opponents of his career, as like Tony Bell. You that was one
opponent that he went to distance with. He fought Joni Oldridekos who was a
tremendous puncher who was a former Cruiserweight Unified champion the distance with him. So
I think as we talked about, I figured this fight's going along way.
Bill Smith's not known for being some murderous puncher, you know, big heart
and you know, likes to mix it up, but not not a huge
puncher. But he stopped a lot of guys. But now he's nineteen and
one with thirteen knockouts, and I think you actually can look at the if
you look at his overall record, this is probably one of his best wins.
I mean, he obviously he won the title against the undefeated Larrence o'colly,
But I think this is probably his next best victory. Besides that,
he was down on two score cards going to that seventh round. I guess,
I guess the eighth round because it ended at two seconds into the round,
but he hit him with a with a nice shot that obviously caused some
kind of rib injury, and Masternek decided that he was unable to continue.
A rib injury is brutal, you you know, you just you can't breathe
much less to move around a rim. So I can't get on his case
about that. You know, Bill and Smith had a cut over his eye,
and you know he was in trouble fights going along. He's in in
front of his hometown, but they love him there. He got to win.
He you know, landed the shot that did the damage. And now
you know, it opens up some bigger opportunities for him this year because there's
been a lot of conversation from the folks a boxer about him eventually fighting Richard
Riacapore, who was also a quality contender. That's with boxer as well,
potentially a rematch with Lawrence o' clolly, which I don't I can't get too
excited about that. But the point is BILLM. Smith is He's a fun
fighter to watch. He's got a good story, he's got great fans,
and I'm thrilled that here in the United States we can watch these shows on
Peacock. When I was I was as I was out for much of the
afternoon uh NVOB was something with my son. But when I came home before
we did the show, I popped onto the on demand on my Peacock app
and I was able to watch you know, a large chunk of that fight,
including the way that it ended, and what a pleasure. I mean
we talked to that as far back in the day. You know, I'd
have to I'd like wait like six weeks. And I used to trade VHS
cassettes with somebody in the UK to see what he got right. I would.
I would send them the videos in NTSC format, which was our format,
but they could play them on their machine in the UK, and my
trading partner he was able to convert them from the pa L system to the
NTSC system so I could watch them on my VCR and this gave me a
lot of initials. It was painstaking and it took weeks, correct, you
really had to be dedicated. Now I'm out for the afternoon. I'm watching
you know, I'm doing an activity with my wife and son, and I
come home and I sit down on my at my office desk. I go
on the Peacock app. I could have done it on my phone, I
could have done it on my television. I ad opted for the office.
I popped open the app. I fast forward to the beginning of the fight
on like a four hour show. It took me like four seconds and boom,
I'm watching the fight. So it's amazing. It so blows my mind
that I can do that, and I was being able to do that,
you know, half an hour before we're gonna get on this podcast and talk
about it and go watch some you know, random cruiserweight title fight from England
between Chris Bill and Smith and Mattheus Masterneck and be able to have a cojin
discussion with you about it, you know, forty five minutes later. Very
cogent and a good win for Bill. Like that, I do like all
the words of the vocabulary. We're rocking. We're rocking here tonight, all
right, some news and some nostalgia and then we're done, so showtime we'll
close things out and full disclosure. Will talk much more in the preview mode
later in the week of the final showtime PBC card to be headlined by David
Morrell, but they're expanding the card, so real quick, what else is
on this for Minneapolis coming up? So they announced the three fight show.
We all knew that they had actually put up the fights on their pay per
view broadcast of David Benavide's against Demetris Andre, and then they never sent down
like the lead release, which was kind of unusual. They usually would announce
a card on a Saturday pay per view and like Monday morning or maybe Tuesday
morning, you'd get the full release with some quotes from the guys and all
the particulars and you know, ticket prices and the whole thing. But that
didn't happen. I was sort of confused, and now I can I guess
why. The reason because besides the David Morrell fight against senneg that going,
besides the KOFE between Chris Cobra and Jose Bealenzuela in their lightweight rematch, and
the title defense of the WBC flyweight champion Julio Caesar Martinez against Angelino Cordova,
which was the original triple hader. They have added, Okay, are you
ready for this? I'll just can tell you this. I know what's coming.
I know what's coming. On twenty twelve called they're looking for some help.
They're doing a rematch between forty year old former champions Andre Berto and Robert
Guerrero, which when they fought the first time, by the way, in
two thousand and twelve, I believe it was yeah, twenty twelve, November
twenty twelve, and Guerrero won a unanimous decision, dropped andre Berto twice.
This was a WBC interim Welterwave title fight. So that's how many years ago
you can do some basic math. Eleven years ago. They're doing a rematch
for what particular reason. I have no idea. Was there a faction clamoring
for this that we're unaware of. I think the clamoring was andre Berto wanted
a rematch, and Berta and Guerrero wanted to fight. And actually, I'm
gonna tell you a funny thing. I don't know, maybe like a year
ago, maybe nine months ago, whatever it was, you know, I
messaged Andre berdo well, I've covered his entire career. He's a good dude.
I've known him for since he turned professional. Covered you know all of
his big fights against Victor Ortiz, against Mayweather, you know plenty of his
fights. I was ringside for good dude, and I was like, you
know, and I saw a video of my guests on one of his social
media's and I actually was I was like, I hadn't heard about andre in
a while. I was like, are you retired? So I asked him,
I said, you know, Andrea, I saw your training video.
Are you are you training for a fighter? I thought maybe you had retired?
What's up? And he was like kind of like, not in a
negative way. He's like, no, I'm not retired. I'm I'm getting
ready to make the comeback. Now. I know COVID knocked him off like
a lot of guys, but andre Berto hasn't fought since he went won in
twenty eighteen against Devin Alexander, so now he's coming back off that long layoff.
Now, Guerrero, he's a guy that has been around. These are
both former Floyd Mayweather opponents who Floyd be at the end of his career,
at least with Guerrero, he fought in twenty twenty one after a two year
laugh, and he came back in another one of these Hey twenty twelve called
he had a fight against Victor Ortiz that he eked out a victory in uh,
you know, two years ago. So for what reason they're doing this?
I have no idea, but hey, is there any concern in all
seriousness that the Minnesota Commission, et cetera is going to say, wait a
minute, what are we doing? Or no? I mean, g Guerrero
just fought, not that you know, relatively speaking, he fought in twenty
twenty one, but Berto hasn't fought in five years. It's forty years old.
It's a legitimate point that Guerrero's forty years old. Also, I mean,
where where I would have concern is if if Berto or Guerrero were coming
back at forty and being matched with an up and coming home at twenty two
years right, that's the point at least they're fighting a similarly aged and experienced
person to the fact they fought each other, you know, eleven years ago,
and now they're doing it again. They both I haven't seen Guerrero,
but I watched some of the training stuff that Andre put up on his h
his social media, and I mean, I'm Berto always was in tremendous condition.
He looks like he's in great shape. And so the final showtime will
start off with a blast from the past kind of rematch, which from an
entertainment point of view might actually be kind of fun, I suppose, and
then they'll get into the other fights on the show. But it was just
a weird kind of thing. I mean, they had announced it, Berto
had said something a while ago, and then it didn't happen, and now
it's happening. I think what it really comes down to is that, you
know, Al Hayman has his favorites. Berto's always been a guy that he
looked out for. Guerrero is one of those guys he looked out for.
Also, he gave them both Mayweather fights, and now he's given them,
you know, a bouquet, a nice little Christmas bonus if you will.
They're not making a lot of money for this kind of fight, but they
are hungry to get in the ring, and you know, it is what
it is. I'll enjoy it. I mean, I covered both these guys
a long time, and I don't think it means a whole lot, but
we'll say, you know, made the best man win. Berto said in
his comments, you know this fight's been nagging at him since he lost,
you know years ago. He wanted to do the rematch, and so be
it. I mean, they're doing it sequel. I was thinking to myself,
I know, I don't think it's the record, but when I saw
that they were fighting, I kept thinking, to myself, what's the longest
in boxing history between fight one and fight two? Ray Leonard and Hearns,
for example? Eight years between? Right? We talked about the rematch between
duran and and Uh and Uh and Ray was about what eight years or so?
I think maybe it was nine years, right, it was nine years
the difference George Foreman Uh fought Uh No, who was it? There was?
There was some wacky fight where there was a long long time. Larry
Holmes, Larry Holmes in like the early in the in the nineteen eighties,
defended the heavyweight title against James Bonecrusher Smith and then away at the end of
Larry's career. James had come back and was still kicking here and they fought.
It must have been made have been fifteen years difference, But I'm just
making the point that find me some guys that fought rematches where there was literally
an eleven year spread between there between their two fights. That's the thing that
right right talking to me. So anyway, that's what's happened on Showtime,
you know, and more on that card as the week goes on, and
we'll get very nostalgic for this weekend, et cetera. It's the final Showtime
PBC broadcast and PBC obviously will continue on, so we'll we'll talk that up
a little bit more later on. By the way, I just looked it
up while we're talking that there was fifteen years between Larry Holmes defending the heavyweight
title against James Smith in nineteen eighty four and then having a whatever that was
rematch where he stopped them in the two K nineteen ninety nine. So that's
kind of crazy. I think that might be the record. I don't know.
I mean, it seems like fifteen years apart. It's a long time
to have. Sure, all right, one more top rank note that's some
of the start home. We're done heavyway, so they're not worrying about weight.
Andre Berto and Robert Guerrero this fight was I mean promoters do wacky shit,
so I don't know for sure, but this fight was announced as a
welterweight fight, and when they fought back in the first fight, you know,
all those years ago, he was also a welter right fight. So
these guys have had a stay in on weight and in condition relative to you
know, the heavyweights between Larry and Bone Crusher, because their heavyweights didn't matter
what their weight was. All right, one more Top Rank announcement in some
nostalgia to finish up here on the Recap podcast, and that announcement is a
March featherweight title doubleheader, right. Yeah, So a couple of weeks ago,
a week ago I reported about how Top Rank had won the per spid
for what will be the vacant WBA featherweight title. That was the belt that
Lee would gave up to the moving up to wait till one hundred and thirty
to fight. And so his manager is quoteback Kolmatov, and they did a
pur spid where he is supposed to now fight for the vacant title against Raymond
Ford, a matrom fighter. Top Rank won that per spid and I was
told at the time that they had signed Clmatov and that he would probably fight
in March, and I wrote that. And then Luis Alberto Lopez, who's
the IBF featherweight champion, who's with Top Rank, he had a mandatory due
against a Japanese fighter, rey Abe, that did not go to perspid because
Top Rank and mister Honda from taking promotion who they have a close relationship with,
they made a deal and so the two fights will take place. But
Top Ringer is putting them on the same cart. So you got Lopez in
action against Abba in the mandatory for the IBF. He got Clomotov against Ford
for the vacant WBA, And obviously we saw what happened with Robasi Ramirez.
He lost in the WBO that we talked about against Espinoza. But there might
be a remeas there. But the point is Top ring is heavily involved in
the featherweight division, and the winners of these two fights, I think people
will probably say they should do a unification. Who knows that that will actually
happen. They don't have kind of big enough names. I don't think where
that would probably be the case. What they are probably doing is there setting
the table for later next year, perhaps in the twenty twenty five for the
inevitability when nooa in a way after he gets done mopping the floor with Marlon
de Topolas on December twenty sixth, of moving up to the featherweight division to
chase after more titles, and they'll have the winners, well not ray Ford,
but if Lopez or Kolmotov win, and of its abbie who wins because
they have such a close relationship with Honda that they'll be sitting on a silver
platter to make big money fights for the superstar in away. All right,
so we'll keep our eyes on that. We've got some time until March.
Nostalgia. We did not talk about this, even though the anniversary would have
been around the time frame of our preview podcast. But it was twelve years
ago, actually eleven years ago. I'll do the math. It says twelve
on your rundown December eighth of twenty twelve. That yeah, Raoul Marquez absolutely
starching Many Pacquiao in a yeah yeah, Did you say Raoul Marquez? Did
I say Raoul Marquez? Or which one? Manuel Marquez? I got?
My Marquez is I got? I got? Showtime on the brain with Raoul
Marquez one Manuel Marquez fourth fight, Many Pacquiao the right hand bomb. That
Really, that was one of the nights where social media took on a life
of its own with that knockout, the memes and all the reaction because Twitter
slash x was fairly new at that point, and that knockout you were there
ringside. It still resonates eleven years later in their in their fourth fight for
a lot of reasons. So pay it, pay it the proper, uh
respect here for a minute or two on the acid. Was such a spectacular
night. Now I am one of the few fortunate. Probably I don't know
how many. There can't be that many of us. Uh. I was
ringside for all four of many Pacy one manual Marquez fights. And when I
tell you know, we talked about there's always a stinker in there sometimes when
there's trilogies and that sort of thing. But all four of the Marquess Paca
fights were outstanding fights. I mean, you know, you can rank them.
Maybe they're not all the greatest necessarily, but they're all high level,
exciting, interesting back and forth kind of competitive fights. Uh. You know,
the series ends to one and one in favor of Packcat, but there
are those who might argue that marquees should be up four to nothing, they
were that close to those types of fights. The fourth fight wasn't even for
a world title even though the other three had been for titles at featherweight,
at junior lightweight. I forget what the other one was. It was another
world title fight also, but this fight was a welterweight fight. And the
whole perspective, the whole point of view, the whole reason for this fourth
fight, at least in the eyes of the boxers, was they both said
this time and time and time again, was we want there to be clarity.
There had not. The third fight was a welterweight title fight. This
was not for a world title between these guys, so they thought a featherweight
title fight, a junior lightweight title fight in a welterweight title fight. And
now the fourth fight's a non title fight at welterweight. But the point here
is that the two fighters were in dire desire, as were fans, media,
everybody, to have a conclusive ending, because whatever you thought of the
previous results, they were not conclusive. There was an argument said one guy
won, or was a jar or this fight number four was conclusive. First
of all. Leading up to the sixth round when this fight ended, it
was already a spectacular action fight. I mean Paco had been down in the
third round, Marquez had been down in the fifth round. They were battling
back and forth. Marquees was getting damaged bad. Paco looked like he was
on the verge of getting an actual knockout win. He was the one that
was going to get the clarity by stopping his man. He was beating the
living shit out of Marquez over the last couple of rounds of this fight,
including in the sixth round, and then the clapper hit for the ten seconds
and Nanny like relaxed for a split second and boom, massive, and I
mean massive, overhand right, absolutely flatten pacal face first. Roy Jones with
the legendary part of the commentary, he's not getting them getting Jim again the
right right right now. At that time, he had Mitt Romney who had
just I guess he had just dropped out of the presidential race or had just
been beaten in the election. I guess correct, lost lost the election in
November to uh Obama, and he and his wife and were ringside and if
you if you look at the footage of the knockout of the or the still
photographs, like Manny Paco was faced down and Mitt Romney's got his hands up
because many Packia almost fell into the lap of the Republican presidential nominee who has
just been beaten. So that was just incredible. And I asked all the
time, what are the best knockouts you've ever been to? And I always
it's it's it's in the top three. I always talk about Many pacyaw knocking
out Ricky hatton Ault Williams getting knocked out in the rematch by Sergio Martinez,
and this fight here between one Manuel Marquez and many Paco, a spectActor knockout.
It was all that. It was obviously the knockout of the year,
right, it was the two thousand and twelve fight of the year, and
I and others picked it as a twenty tens fight of the decade. That's
how great fun this why it was when it happened, did you think,
for a second, Paki, how is seriously hurt? And there's a reason
I'm asking that. Do you remember fucking that even for a second he seriously
seriously hurt. So this happened directly. It did. Happened on the opposite
side. I was sitting in the media section at ringside. He got knocked
out the opposite side of the ring in front of Romney was on the TV
side, and where we're sitting, they were shooting behind us, so many
Pako's feet were to our face. His head was, you know, into
the looking into the crowd, and I thought, I thought he was seriously
injured. I mean, he wasn't moving. He clearly was knocked out.
The crowd went orer opted because obviously there was a huge amount of Pacyao fans
there, but there was also a lot of Mexican fans there, so they
were they were very vocal and excited when that knockout happened. And I remember,
uh seeing Pacio down, but I couldn't see him because there were so
many people that flooded the ring in front of us, so you're just sort
of know he's in that pack of people. What I do remember, because
you could see him very clearly, is I turned to my left and on
the other side of the ring you got one Danuel Marquess standing on the ring
ropes with his hands in the air in victory and so I was looking up.
I was looking at Marquess because had a clear view of him from my
seat, and he was celebrating. And when he turned around, and I
don't forget this, he came down off the ropes. Remember his nose was
all fucked up, he was bleeding, and Kenna, I mean, I
don't know if he was looking at the media on purpose or whatever, but
he looked towards us. And I just remember seeing one Daniel Marquez with bloods
just streaming down his face, but with a smile, and Pacia was laying
face first, you know, in a you know, somewhere over on the
other side of the ring, and a mob of people that were attending to
him. And I'll give a shout out to Gail Falkenthal, who we love
talking to. She now writes in one of her roles with New York Fights
dot Com. She has been a podcast guest with us, and she talked
about the story of being given the opportunity to go cover that fight because somebody
else was ill or couldn't do it, and her immediate thought, she was
higher up than you were. She was on the same side, I think
the media section, but higher up her immediate thought was he just killed him.
He's not moving. She's going to herself. She said this to us,
Oh my god, he's dead. He's not moving. So thankfully they
rolled him over. He moved a little bit, and I guess, you
know, for those that were ringside, I remember Pachiel's wife completely freaking out
and screaming and running in the ring. That's vivid from the whole thing when
you relive it. Amazing the fact that many pat remember, Larry. When
I watched the pay per view after I came home from that trip to Las
Vegas, Larry merchants closing remarks about whereabout will we ever see the great packet
when the ring again after that? And had had the Mayweather fight been killed
for good because we hadn't fought Floyd yet at that point, and the fact
that many after such as devastating a knockout as you could ever see in the
history of boxing, and then it was all time great already at that point,
obviously he already won the titles in the eight weight classes, He had
already run through the litany of top opponents. For him to get planted face
first like that, you had the thought, you know what, that's the
end of his career. Amazingly, after that knockout, he came back.
He'd beat Brandon Rios, He'd beat Timothy Bradley in there in their rematch.
He'd beat Chris Algery and macau. He then had the Mega fight with Mayweather,
which obviously he lost. But even after the Mayweather fight, he still
scored some big ones. He'd beat Bradley again in their trilogy fight. He
won another title off Jesse Vargas at Walter Wait. In another fight, he
had the bullshit controversial loss that he didn't deserve against Jeff Boy In Australia,
he had a win over Tisay, who he retired. He beat Adrian Broner.
I mean, he'd beat welterweight champion in the history of Boxton, and
then he lost a competitive fight to Ugas. But the fact that he was
able to have that many high level fights win most of them posts that devastating
knockout is remarkable. But well, I've talked about this like the moment that
resonates in your mind the most, because you could, like the the the
you hear it and you feel it like the energy just exploded in the arena.
I always talk about that knockdown that Martinez had against uh or that he
suffered against Julio Sesar Chavez Junior in round twelve, where a fight where not
much was happening and suddenly a boom and the whole place just goes absolutely crazy.
Now, there was a lot of excitement and a lot of noise and
excitement and packing out in Marquez four because it was such a fantastic fight.
So imagine a fight where the level is already at a din you know,
at a at a tremendous, excited, electric kind of atmosphere, and then
that happens. That was like the roof blown off, the roof blown off
the roof. That's the way that was. So it may not have been
you know, mock five from zero to a billion like it was with Chavez
against Martinez, but that was a pretty special moment when Pakio got drilled like
that. All right, one more piece of nostalgia and then we are done.
And that is that on Sunday, it's eleven years ago. Actually,
you got your math all backwards here too. It was actually twelve years ago.
If it's twenty eleven, December tenth, twenty eleven, Lamont Peterson's win
over a mere con and you and you have specified hugely controversial oh and a
split decision win. Give me a little more on that one in the way
back. I mean you have to remember at this time, these are the
you know, among the two best junior walter right throw. We talked about
how loaded the weight class is right now, Well back then it was pretty
freaking loaded. Also, conn was the WBA champion, Peterson was the IBF
champion. H And there was other quality fighters in that weight class also and
and I was respected the here for this because he didn't have to do it.
He was the clear a side. Uh. He came to Washington,
d C. Which was the hometown of Lamon Peterson fought him at the Convention
Center and I remember having a conversation with him here before they announced the fight.
H He actually asked my opinion, you know, do you think I
should go to Washington? And I sort of jokingly said why, I hope
you do, because I lived like a half an hour from the convention center.
And we had to laugh about that, and uh, you know,
he showed a lot of a lot of uh. Some people said it was
a stupid move, but he came to Washington to fight this man, and
it ended up causting because I will go to my grave believing that the referee,
Joseph Cooper was an absolute hometowner in the bag lamon Peterson, and he
deducted two ridiculous points from Amir Kan for pushing, which honestly tj. I've
been watching boxing since I'm like, you know, ten years old, or
probably thereabouts seven years old. I've watched thousands of fights. I've covered thousands
of fights. I can't say I've ever seen a point deduction for pushing which
wasn't even like that bad or that deblatant. It was just an absurd point
deduction, and he did one of them in the twelfth round, which was
just not called for. It's like, that's the most ticky tack bullshit in
the history of boxing to take two points for pushing in a fight like that,
and anyway, it ended up costing Khan his title. I had con
winning that fight one fourteen, one twelve. Most of the media, Harold
had him winning that fight. Most of the media that was there had in
winning the fight. It was a good fight and nothing against Laman, who
I also enjoyed very much but kan Kan got the chef that night. But
it was very, very controversial because of what the hometown referee did. And
remember they were supposed to have a rematch because it was so controversial, and
they were all set to do it, and it didn't happen because in the
days, like I think it was less than a week before the fight,
Uh, it got canceled because Lamont Peterson failed to drug test because of not
just elevated levels of a testosterone, but like like I don't know what's the
word like off, I mean off the charts levels that were way way beyond
what they should have been the same amount of as an elephant for example,
a late Sunday night, right, whatever it was, it was canceled.
The one thing I remember when the fight was canceled, by the way,
when it was canceled the rematch, I used that opportunity. I had never
been to a UFC fight before, and as it turned out, the UFC
was having an event that took place at a at the George Mason University campus,
which is only a few miles from my house, and they were going
to be in town and I was free that Saturday night. There was no
boxing the fight was canceled. I wasn't you know, my plane ticket I
canceled because I was no longer flying out there. And I knew some of
the PR guys at UFC, and I called them up and I explained to
them what was going on, and I was like, you know, if
you'll have me, I would actually like to come to your event. I'm
thing about writing a column about being a boxing guy, you know, going
to my first UFC fight. They love the idea, and so on short
notice, I ended up instead of doing a rematching, Amir Khan and am
On Peterson went cover my first every UFC fight, you know, in a
arena, you know, fifteen minutes from my house. But the first fight
between Cohn and Peterson was a very good fight, and amer Khan got the
royal chef that night. But I always have huge respect that he had the
stones to come to Washington, DC to fight an outstanding fighter in his prime
like Laman Peterson. All Right, we have given you a bunch late Sunday
into Monday to set the table for this week with the resorts again of Haini's
win of the upset of Robi Ci Ramirez, Chris Billim Smith's win. We
gave you some news from this DOWNEA. You telling me you got more,
you got more to say. I was Peterson was like a ten to one
dog in that fight. That's the point. And so that was in the
nosalgia Rafia Lspinoza's gotting beat. Though as a twenty to one man, Ramirez
was a twenty to one favorite. I don't know on the bet Us line,
for example, I don't even remember if Ramirez was twenty plus two two
one hundred there in that instance or plus two thousand in this instance. But
he might have been like plus fifteen hundred to be able to win if you'd
had it as an upset. But that's why we love boxing. It is
different than any other sport in terms of things can switch around with one punch,
knockouts, knockdowns, It does it differently. Listen, great stuff here.
We want everybody to read your substack for more. This week again the
Showtime PBC Finale, Showtimes Finale is this week. We've got Jake Paul back
in action. We just had him on the podcast feed. You'll hear that.
Make sure you're following or subscribing. Dan ray Phield, have a good
week this is excellent stuff here in the recap, follet, and I know
the fans appreciate it. Thank you for the time here, all right,
somewhat capable hosts, you have a good records song. Yes, indeed,
we're all good. I'm happy and my Buccaneers gonna win as well in or
very much playoff relevant, which we like. For now we are good again.
Follow, Subscribe, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcast, et cetera.
It is the fight for each to night recap coming off the weekend fight
us on the Big Fight weekend podcast feed. For now we're good. For
Dan Rayfield, I'm TJ Reeves. Have a great week