Well off of a weekend that saw some knockouts in Tampa, that saw some
knockouts in Tokyo, that has some fight news that has some nostalgia involving Hall
of Fame names. We are ready to go over it all. It is
the Fight Preach Unite Recap podcast. I am the somewhat rested good lord.
It was a long night and post fight as we do this on Sunday,
somewhat rested, somewhat competent host TJ Reeves. He is our insider Dan Rayphiel
Big Fight Weekend insider, but also Fight Freaks Unite is his substack. Why
are you not subscribing? Why you're not on the newsletter? Get Dan's inside,
his thoughts on the fights, his news, his reporting, all of
it. Good to be with you, my friend. I will say this,
lots of KOs to talk about on the pod as we bring you in.
How are things coming off the weekend? I'm good. You guys in
Tampa there had yourself a nice little show in Tampa that you attended. I
got to watch that on TV, but I got to go to bed,
you know, kind of quick afterwards. It did take a while for the
press conference for everything to get done, and look, these are first world
problems. I'm in my town, you know, like when you cover a
fight in your area, so it's not you know, back to a hotel,
back to an airplane, an air travel being a nightmare. But I
didn't hit the reeves of state until well after three am. The got in
the bed and then got up this morning with the family and the whole bit.
And here we are on a Sunday evening doing the pod to recap all
of it. By the way, make sure you're following. Subscribing to this
podcast feed Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, you get twice the ray Field,
twice the fun. We preview going into the weekend Thursday night and to Friday.
We recap coming off on Sunday night into Monday, and you get all
kinds of great interviews and conversations to that in Todd Grisham off the play by
play call on de Zone of the MVP Promotions Card. We'll be right here
on the pod after you and I recapped the fights in Tampa. I just
spoke with him earlier on Sunday evening. You know, I don't have the
clout that Rayfaield has. This just into the newsroom breaking news, so they
had the media in a different section from where the ringside commentators were, and
I could not unlike hul Cogan who was in attendance once you gotta do,
brother, he had the cloud to get by Grisham and sit ringside reeves on
his credential. Couldn't get near Grisham to do the interview last night. But
we've done it tonight and he recaps some of the fights here a little bit,
but that's after you and I go back and forth. I will say
at the outset here that I sent this message to you and I put it
on social media. I got in the arena just after eight thirty Eastern time,
and Tampa has been a fight town for decades. It was full,
brother, and you'll hear Grisham verify the same thing. It was full audience
at a thirty before the pay per view, before the first and then they
announced at the postfight press conference and Nikisa Madarian, who is the you know,
the co founder of MVP and Jake Paul's partner, business partner, that
they sold it out like seventeen five hundred and what makes that remarkable, I
mean crazy remarkable. I mean it's one thing. Jake's a big name,
and he draws fans love him or hat him. He draws people, you
know, as the old saying goes tj that he puts asses in seats.
But the thing that makes it more impressive than your run of the mill event,
so to speak, is that they only had four weeks to do this.
Remember Tyson and Jake Paul were supposed to fight Saturday night in Arlington,
Texas. Tyson had the situation with his ulcer come up in the first week
of June. Then they didn't know exactly what they're going to do. It
took a little while to get it situated. So then it took like a
couple of weeks and then they announced that they were going to stay on the
dates. So they really only had really like about a month and change or
so four weeks to promote the event. And so, you know, when
you do a big, big event, you know, or a pay per
view, you don't four weeks is very very compressed in terms of the timing.
You know, they had to make new fights, status, rejigger the
undercard. They had to switch from being an AT and T Stadium to UH
the Arena and Tampa, so you know, you got to give props to
the whole team over there for for pulling off the event and by the way,
making it in the end, you know, an entertaining show, which
we're gonna talk about. I mean, I know that people sometimes they rail
against it, they absolutely hate this, but you cannot deny that it brings
eyeballs. It puts people in their arenas where they do these events to fights
they not they may not be at the highest level, but as long as
you know that there's nothing wrong with that. I thought that Tyson rather the
Perry and Paul main event was extremely entertaining. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
And even that, you know, we'll get to the Serrano fight.
Even that beatdown was you know, exciting just because we haven't seen Serranto with
a knockout in a long time. And you know, we'll get to the
whole thing. But it was all told. There were some some clunkers also,
but it was it was it was worth the uh, it was worth
the time. And they were very smart with this, and we said this
going into the weekend, not only on this podcast, but the bet US
Boxing show. By the way, should I mention here reeves five and off
of this week four and oh last week. That's nine for nine. I'm
making you money, peeps, I'm savages. I'm making you money. On
the bet Us Show. Usually it's Rayphiel cashing your tickets. But I had
a big weekend again on the bet Us Show. But we mentioned they made
the tickets affordable, and I can tell you coming into the arena that instead
of charging fifty or sixty or seventy dollars to sit in the third level and
have the third level be a third full, they charged around twenty bucks for
most of the third level seats and it was full at the jump when the
pay per view began. So I don't know what the live gate insoj Yeah,
even if they did those tickets at a boxing match, it wonn't be
told up at the beginning of the cart, right. That's just a different
kind of When you'll hear Todd Grisham, you've done this one hundred times,
you've done it a thousand times. Todd Grisham says the same thing. He
goes all these fights that I've been working, he goes, it's never full
four hours before the main event. So Tampa showed out as a fight town
and again a different class. Nothing. But here's the thing, TJ.
It's really nothing to do with Tampa. I have covered fights all over the
United States of America, all every nook and cranny of this country. Doesn't
matter where you are, the fans do not show up until the real quote
unquote the main event fights start. Now. If you're in a location and
you've got a local attraction, or it's an ethnic kind of fight, or
you know some type of young fighter from the region that's you know, in
a turning pro or has a distinct fan base, they'll show for his fight.
I can remember. I'll take Barclay Center as an example. When Adam
Kanaki, the heavy we was coming up. He had a big fan base
in the Polish community. But Adam was not fighting on the top of the
cart. He might be fighting like in the third or fourth fight of the
night, and you know what, by then you look around and there'd be
like, you know, two thousand Polish fans wearing their red and white waving
their flags because of him. That happens in local places, but the rest
of the arena was still basically empty. Jake's events are different, That's all
You can say yeah, and again, I'm a crowd, a younger crowd,
a lot of it. So it's just interesting to be part of the
atmosphere, all right. So let's get to the card and again we'll hear
from Todd Grisham in a little bit. So let's start at the top with
the Paul win over Mike Perry. My thought is, being in the arena,
this could have been over very quickly. Paul got the knockdown. To
his credit, Perry was a tough guy. I thought Jake Paul got tired.
We'll get into that a little bit. It kind of ebbed and flowed.
There's reasons why, and then eventually he got the knockout. It was
electric in the building. There were there was I believe it was a pro
Perry crowd. They're chanting Perry Perry all over the building. I don't know
how well that came across on the Dizonne pay per view. So it was
interesting is it bled into the fourth round, the fifth round, and Jake's
trying to get him out of there and eventually he did. All Right,
your thoughts watching it there through the Dezonne pay per view and what you thought
of the of the Jake Paul win Well. I remember here, Jake,
call, tell me an our interview that we played on the podcast. He
was gonna get a first round knockout. And then I saw some of his
comments in the lead up during fight week, in the promotional stuff, in
the press conference and different other interviews. I'm getting a first round knockout,
first round knockout, and you know, and then he scored a big knockdown
in the first round with the right hand. I'm like, well, he's
gonna, you know, make the prophecy come true because Mike Perry tough dude.
Nothing but respect for Mike Perry in terms of the toughness and the heart,
just does not have the size or the skills to compete with Jake.
Now, not to say Jake is gonna make anybody forget about the guys at
the top of the pound for poundless in terms of his skills, but you
know, he's freaking Parnel Whitaker compared to Mike Perry. Let's be right,
Jones, I mean, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Patkal, guys like that.
Here's the thing, though, Perry has got a big heart and he you
know, knock him down he's gonna pop right back up. So he got
knocked down in that first round, he got right back up, but he
took heavy damage during that fight. His I got busted up. He got
dropped three times total, and even in the one round, I forget he's
even though he was So that's what I gonna say. So he was taking
punishment and even getting damaged like that. He was the one in that third
round, as you mentioned, that was you know, walking walking him down,
coming to him and and and landed a few decent shots. But I
didn't really ever think that Jake was in danger of being like badly heard or
knocked down or or or stopped for that matter. Uh, you know,
he kind of shook that off. And when he came back. You know,
Jake had his right hand that Perry could not avoid. He landed upper
cuts and body shots and jabs. I mean, he just was like wobbly.
It's like with every punch basically, you know. And at the end
of I think it was what the fourth round where it looked like the referee
was going to jump in there with about thirty seconds left and stop the fight.
That was a very big round, uh, you know for Jake you
know, even in around without a knockdown. So it was one of those
fights where highly entertaining, tremendous entertainment value, lots of fireworks, but an
absolut ass whooping, you know, of the highest order. And in the
end, you know, when he when he started punishing there in round six,
knocked him down for the third time. You know, he again he
caught up tough as nails. Man got to give him credit. But the
referee, uh, you know, did a good job and obviously he stopped
the fight properly. And that was all she wrote, and you know,
did to Mike Perry's credit. TJ when he was doing uh Jake was doing
the interview with Ariel Hawani and and Mike Perry was standing there with him,
and you know, he's like, look, I was trying to trying to
roll with those punches and what he say, hits your ass back, but
you're just too fast, right and uh and uh, I just couldn't.
I couldn't deal with the speed. And that's that was being truthful. He
was smaller, he wasn't as quick, and uh. You know, what
it does make you think though about this is what if Mike Perry had trained
as a boxer from the beginning of his combat career or when he was a
kid. What he could have accomplished. He just obviously got in bad habits
and didn't have the I don't think the right training for boxing. He had
some element of success in mma, it's a different sport even though there's similarities,
and then he took that and did things like try had combat. Now
he's obviously a big deal in the bare knuckle championships. But if you had
taken those types of things that you do well and your mentality and your heart,
and you had trained specifically in boxing, maybe he could have done something
and been like I would say, like around a light heavyweight. But at
this stage of his career and his age, you know, he has obviously
zero future as a boxer. But I'll watch him if he fought again,
because he's got a big art and he made a chunk of money, and
they were grateful. They were all grateful for him hyping the fight. Nikis
Sabaderian Jake Paul mentioned that again in the postfight press conference that Perry did the
best he could to help sell it. A lot of what you were seeing,
we know this was to try to sell the fight, sell the pay
per view, and Dan, I don't know if there's one hundred thousand people
that watch the pay per view. There probably was. I don't know how
many watched the pay per view, but you definitely you got your money's worth
out of the main event because they were trading and Mike Perry didn't go down.
And we're gonna talk about a fight where a fighter went down on the
first punch and didn't get back up in the Japanese card, Mike Perry didn't
go down the first punch and stay down. So you at least had some
action in the main event. You know. In terms of what the numbers
would do on pay per view, I mean, I'd be shocked if it
was less than one hundred thousand. And I say that because Jake has that
type of audience. I remember this. You know, this was a DI
zone pay per view, so if you were a subscriber to the Zone,
you obviously could purchase it on the Zone, and they were offering a discount
for subscribers and that sort of thing. But keep in mind also it was
also widely available on all your normal uh uh television, cable, satellite,
PPV, DOT com Uh so it was. It was it was not like
you there were times where you could pretty much only buy it on his own
pay per view, and they might do like a soft thing on linear TV,
but they didn't even tell you about it. You've got to kind of
find it by accident. But this was promoted as a pay per view,
Uh you know again, they did it in a very short period of time
in terms of the window that promoted because of the postponement of the Tyson Jake
Paul fight. But I suspect this probably did pretty decent business based on that,
and uh, you know again, a lot the pay per view.
I think you got your I mean, you got your your money's worth for
the most part. We'll get to the other knockouts here in just a second,
just a little bit of the post fight aftermath. I thought this was
interesting in the ring, and I said to a couple of media media people
around me, Jake Paul kind of lets something slip out, maybe intentionally unintentionally,
when he said about the Mike Tyson fight, Mike signed the contract.
I thought that was interesting because what that alludes to is because they had to
change the venue date and new terms of some kind for November, apparently Tyson,
but then he you know, he played it off and kept saying I
look forward to fighting him, and I know Mike wants to fight blah blah
blah. I thought that was interesting. I think what that probably is.
I don't know this for a fact, but just my experience that because the
fight was in June supposed to be or I take it back, rather typically
if there's a rescheduling, well, first of all, most contracts, especially
of a fight of that level and that magnitude, would have rescheduling language that
the promoter has the right to reschedule for whatever the reasons are. Usually it's
you know, could be sixty days, could be ninety days. I suspect
because the fight was supposed to be in July and the new date is not
till November, that that November date is, is, my hypothesis, is
outside of that window of that contract cause, which would require new documents to
be signed. That's my impression. So that's sort of what I feel about
that. No, I mean, maybe I'm wrong about that, but I
still think this fight's whether it will actually happen in the ring or not,
you know, who knows, but of course they were going, they're going
to move forward with the events as Print promoted and put it on and you
know, we'll see what happens ultimately in November, all right. And then
another interesting thing from Jake. He said in the ring, and he followed
up in the postfight press conference because I was sitting there fifteen feet from it,
that he came into the fight with an injured knuckle on the right hand.
And here we go with that is the concern about a future fight of
could there be some kind of Andrey, I don't think that. It's not
till November. I understand that. But when he revealed that, you're like
okay, and then and then a couple of follow up questions were interesting that
you know, was the right hand bothering you because you were flicking the jab
and using the jab so much like in the fourth round, the fifth round,
et cetera. And he said, no, I was just trying to
measure him with the jab. So that's just another interesting component. I don't
think the hand was giving him trouble because he landed like right hands if it
was landed a bunch, and he landed a bunch in the sixth and final
round. Two. Yeah, if he was, if he was that dinged
up with the with the right hand, he wouldn't have thrown it as much.
So you know, I'm not going to I know you sparred with some
people on social media and this was this was a bit of a buzz to
on. Hey, he was so much bigger than Mike Perry to begin with.
How much credit did we give him? I will say this and all
of this is fair. And again, we're talking this up. They don't.
They don't pay us to talk this fight up. We're just giving you
this in the recap. They should shouldn't they they should, but they don't.
MVP Promotion doesn't pay us. But while we're talking this up and we're
giving you the the the analysis and insight that we both have. And I
was there. I thought Jake Paul was tired in the third round. I
thought he was tired again in the fifth round of this eighth round fight.
How much of that is him knocking off a bunch of weight because he wanted
to be heavier to fight Mike Tyson. How much of it was some illness
which that got brought up after the fight that he had been ill earlier in
the week. He looked tired to me early on in that fight. He
looked tired to me. Your thought on that, just real quick as we
wrap it up and get to the other fights. I agree, And just
imagine how tired Tyson's gonna look after thirty seconds at age fifty eight. So
it is what it is. He powered through it. He did a good
job and he got the win. Okay. So then we back up to
the co feature fight where the seven division world champ A man's talk about.
We called out the UFC light heavyweight champion, Alex Pereira. He called out
everybody but Santa Claus at this point, and Connor McGregor's on social media going
after him, and everybody's under the belief that that's because those two want to
fight. Who knows. Hull Cogan again was ringside, but he's in his
seventies. I don't think that's next for Jake Paul. After the Mike Tyson
fight, we'll find out, all right. So Serrano in the co feature
again a classic case of a world class fighter against a fighter, let's be
honest, that was overmatched and I cannot I mean, we knew what Mike
Perry was about just from his previous combat experience. There's plenty of video on
him from his UFC days, from his BKFC events, et cetera. So
not an unknown commodity. Stevie Morgan was not knowing what her other than what
we saw in her record. We didn't really have a lot of video footage.
And she was bigger, and she obviously has scored a bunch of knockguns.
But she was And I don't have anything against her as a person.
She might be the loveliest lady in the world and have a beautiful family and
be a great person, but strictly in terms of our abilities as a combat
athlete, I don't disrespect the effort. But she just did not have any
skills. I mean no offensive skills, no defensive skills, no head movement,
no footwork. Seemed overwhelmed by the moment of the spotlight people there,
so you could tell she was nervous lean up to the fight in terms of
the press things that she was doing. And you know, the difference between
her level and the Amanda Serrano level is a chasm that might as well be
the Grand Canyon times a billion. I mean Amanda Serrano quite literally. You
could perhaps argue is the greatest female boxer of all time, not saying she
is, but she's in the conversation world titles in seven weight classes, fought
everybody up and down the scale for you know, fifteen years, massive amounts
of accomplishment, and Stevie Morgan that's knocking out. You know, people are
dragging off the street in Columbia in the first real unknowns yep. So I
did think, and we talked about in our handicapping of the show on bett
Us and the preview. I thought that Amanda Torano would absolutely dominate and take
her apart. But I also thought she would hang in there for quite a
while in the fight, just because of her bulk and because you know,
you can kill two minute rounds pretty quickly relative to a three minute round,
and that she'd be able to hang in there for a while. I was
wrong about that because from the first on Twitter, like in the first thirty
seconds, you could see how one skilled she was. I should have written
in the first five seconds because the first punch was launched and you just knew
she was like a deer in headlights. And uh, the fact that you
even made it to the second round, I was kind of surprised, I
asked him the first round, Yeah, I took I asked Amanda immediately after
the fight in the postfight press conference, I said, it's easy to say
it, but in the first minute, did you realize? And she she
interrupted me and said, yes, I knew, size her up and take
advantage of what I'm seeing, and it's going to be a quick night.
I'm paraphrasing, and it absolutely it was a quick night. I believe this
would have been about a fourth or fifth round KO wear down or whatever.
And there was some you know, some in the arena were booing when the
when the referee jumped in between, but this was one of those what does
she need to hit her ten more times? That was she took me so
many clean punch I counted it was seventeen unanswered not all of them clean,
not all of them landa, but seventeen unanswered punches. When the referee jumped
in on do you, I mean, do you really are we that much
of a of a sadistic gore factor boxing public that we need to see her
get hit eight more times? It's over. It's obvious. So Jake had
the Tyson fight riding on the outcome Serronto had the rematch with Katie Taylor riding
on the outcome going into the fight. We both agreed. I think everybody
agreed that they were both huge favorites in their fights. If you could see
an upset in either fight, you could probably more likely see Mike Perry pulling
the upset against Jake Paul than Morgan pulling the upset against Serrano. But say
whatever you want about Perry and his lack of boxing skill, toughness aside,
Stacy Stevie Morgan was like, not even at that level. She was like,
I mean, I'm not trying to be mean, but she was kind
of pathetic in her abilities, like it was a growth. It looks it
looked like a fighter that has been used to fighting one sided, one round
fights where she doesn't have to do anything other than come across the ring and
land fairly quickly and the fight is over. And now now that you're in
with a world class fighter that can give you angles and movement and whatever,
you are lost with the capital l and the referee did the right thing,
and Amanda even revealed and I don't know how much the TV audio picked it
up. Maybe you heard it that the referee was saying, Stevie, show
me something. Stevie showed me something. She could hear that when Amanda was
pounding on her, and then they eventually stopped the fight. Okay, So
in the end result was like nothing against her, But I'm glad that she
knocked Morgan out because now we don't have to go with the nonsense. We're
gonna get the Taylor rematch. That's right. So that's right, and so
that's the big that's the big thing. We're looking forward to that one.
Uh. And good and good for her that she was that she was part
of this after what happened in Puerto Rico. I joked with you on the
beat Us show, she was ready to hit somebody Serrano when she couldn't fight
in March, and she looked she looked pretty decent at her new weight one
hundred and Fortyes, she only fought there once be four years ago, which
he won a title there and then quickly vacated it. Uh and now she'll
be Uh. She had come off for like a nine month playoff because she
didn't fight that night back in Mark, even though she had gone through the
training camp, so she was obviously in shape. But there's something that you
can't replicate the actual fight. And you know, for her was her fiftieth
pro fight, got her thirty first knockout, and you know, happy days.
And we move on to the big one, all right, And then
also on the fight immediately preceding this on the pay per view card, how
about Lucas Body of Canada? Is what I mean? Rayfield? That is
right now. I'm saying this your opinion, please, that's the knockout of
the year to this point. Now, something else may happen coming up in
the next five months. And I'll give you my vantage point. Those of
you that we're watching on pay per view and you've obviously seen the highlight.
Now on social media, you're at a much better advantage with slow moo cameras
that are right there in the ring showing you what happened. We were in
the corner on a platform where the ring walks took place. It probably about
a couple hundred feet from the ring. I had my Silve H two O.
Silve had his back to us. So the first with the right hand
where his chin kind of went up in the air, you couldn't really see
it as well. In our vantage point, but the left, Oh,
my lord, from two hundred feet away, you could see the left and
Tim Burr face first. And we've all seen it now on the TV replays.
What a knockout? Really out of nowhere? He was losing the fight
and both it was a four punch combination that just like you said, out
of nowhere. Now they kept saying three punches, it was four. He
landed a right hand that started it, and then immediately landed another right that
was the big one. Came back behind it with the left hook that was
just ruined him, and then as he's falling, he hit him with another
shot as he was falling down with another left hook. But body was like
sixteen and oh coming in fifteen knockouts, maybe slightly aggressively matching Silver who was
eleven and oh going into the fight with nine knockouts twenty years old. He
had won every single second of the fight and absolutely got wrecked with that last
you know combination. And I made the point last night, and I believe
this, and it's up to him the show different. I do not believe
that Ashton Silve will ever be the same again. It's like when you pull
that thread out of the sock and it never stays up on your ankle the
rest of your You know that you have it. It just you can never
get it back to what it was. It was that brutal of a knockdown.
Now let me guy stamp out back for knockdowns, but I'm saying that
knockdown, that type of act absolutely complete ruination, knockdout. Let me let
me take you inside what I saw. And I don't know how much TV
it showed, so enlighten me. The first thing is that was bizarre,
and I texted you is body is running around the ring and trying to jump
up on a turnbuckle, okay, and the referee who's waved the fight off
has gotten up from Ashton silv and is chasing him around the ring and grabbing
him by the trunks, but running around the ring with him to keep him
from jumping on the turnbuckle. I've never seen that in fifty years of watching
boxing, I've never seen a referee so concerned with the fighter is away from
where the knockout is and wants to jump up on a turnbuckle like we've seen
a thousand times and wave his arms and celebrate with the crowd. And this,
and I'm gonna say it, this clown referee is acting like he's somehow
endangering something or whatever and is pulling him off. And I really thought when
he pulled him back, because we had a good vantage point, that body
might take a swing at him, like who are you and what are you
doing? The referee was Michael DeJesus, and he should have been acting like
the referee, not the sheriff. Yeah, okay, so he gets body
over the corner. Here's the other thing. Ashton Silv's father and family members
were around, and two of them were trying to run towards the doctors and
their security guards grabbing them and and grappling them to keep them away. Initially
from the scene of where Silver is laying face down. They were they did
not, but I mean he laid there a couple of minutes. And then
here's the other stupid thing. I'm sorry, they're making him walk all the
way back to the to the back area and he's staggering walking towards us and
I oh, and they put him in an ambulance and took him to Tampa
General Hospital right by the arena to check him out. But what a knockout
in your right. I think it's a fair argument. We never say never.
He's a young guy, he's what twenty years old, But those are
the kind of things that can be career altering, that kind of a knockout.
I'm not saying he's going to be retired necessarily from boxing. I'm just
saying the trajectory has been altered. You know, it's you don't have to
prove it. I mean I can't, you don't. You can't say for
sure, but I can't think of anybody, especially a prospect. Remember this
is a young kid. I mean, he had a lot of amateur fights
and was you know, won a bunch of national tournaments and things. But
he's not an experienced professional. And he's fought you know, you know,
roughly a dozen fights or and now he has a dozen fights actually against you
know, nobody in particular. Body was the best guy he ever faced.
You're just not going to be the same after that, both in terms of
what it took out of you, both in terms of your confidence and all
that. But remember they the MVP. They hype this kid up bizarrely,
I you know, the whole h two oh thing. I was never into
that he's asht himself. You know, you don't deserve a nickname like that.
You've kind of proven something in my opinion. Nonetheless, I never never
really considered him to be a a A plus level kind of prospect. In
other words, he was known to me when he signed. I never put
him on my top fifteen prospect list. Now, I don't have anything against
the kid. I just never saw, you know, the the glimmer that
he's going to be some future star. And although he did a nice job
out boxing Body with the speed and his reflexes obviously were supreme compared to Body,
here's all you have to know. I looked up the copy box stats
from that particular fight. He landed one hundred and one of two hundred and
forty nine punches he landed on Body at forty percent. And in that in
that full fight where he landed over one hundred punches, you had Body landing
thirty eight punches out of two oh seven, barely eighteen percent. But he
landed the only four that metter. That's right, is different box doesn't matter
when that happened. Well, And and we'll talk with Todd Grisham in a
couple of moments about the one punch or the combination thing can just be the
end. And that's why boxing is different and we love it. So all
right, what else you mentioned? We got off to a slow start on
the night with Julio Cesar Chavez Junior off along. This was a terrible yeah,
beating Ryah Hall. Not much going on. The crowd was even murmuring
and booing some I'll tell you this. I was around Chavez, including post
fight. He looked one hundred and eighty five pounds. I mean he was
more than that big he was yeah, I mean was a cruiserweight fight.
Oh, it was a cruiserweight fight. I mean he he was larger than
what we've seen him fight before. He looked slow at times. He luckily
was in there against a very uning He's never been fast, correct, He's
against an inexperienced fighter. I know, I had to laugh at Nikisa Baderian
at like one thirty in the morning. I think I was punchy and he's
going, well, you know, look how these fights go. Look at
look at how Chavez has had sixty professional fights, have been a world champion,
and look at how much trouble he had with a with an MMA guy
who's one professional fight, and I'm going that's because he's been out of the
ring for three years. He's out of shape, his timing's off. That's
why that looked. First of all, he was at his when he was
actually a pretty decent fighter when he beat Andy Lee, who was a good,
solid pro and a former champion and a top amateur. That was for
the WBC middleweight title defense. He was a champion, a title holder,
a belt by the way, that was gifted to him because they've they they
they robbed him. They've robbed Surgery Martinez of that belt by stripping him and
allowing uh Chavs to fight Sebastian Zibbik for that title many years ago. Uh
that was one hundred and sixty pound fight. Chaves has had problems with drugs,
alcohol, mental health problems, banned substances, all kinds of issues.
Certainly not not making weight has been a thing that's just been a destructive thing,
a destructive thing to his career. You know, he can't make one
sixty, couldn't make one sixty when that was the way limit was over other
times, numerous times, had a lot of people, you know, uh,
sweeping things under the rug for him for this fight. He was going
into the ring, I mean at the weigh in one ninety seven point eight.
So yeah, so he looked at he had to tire around his middle.
He just did not look in condition your eye. Hal is not a
boxer, he's a former MNA guy. But he looks you know, he's
an athlete. You can tell he's cutting, you know, all ripped up
in the way that he but he's thirty nine. He didn't have reflexes.
It was a bad fight. It was so vas trying to make the comeback.
I mean, on the one hand, after the long layoff two and
a half years, you're expecting to see some kind of russ. But you
know, even before the layoff, Chavez was not doing much of anything.
He was struggling. So you know, if this is a way that he
can keep himself together as a person in terms of his his drug use and
his mental health, and he's going to do boxing to help him deal with
that, you know, good for him. But I don't need to watch
that shit on my pay per view. You know, I feel like I
should get a rebate of like ten bucks for having a sisty that shit.
Give me, a credit, me a credit. He did mention the name
Jake Paul after the fight. Who And I'm gonna tell you right now,
and I'm not even joking. I say this, okay, and I buy
Jake Paul fights. I'm not a hater. I enjoy his events. I'm
perfectly willing to say that I write about it. I take grief from some
of my followers on social and people that are on my newsletter. But I
can tell you a couple of things. Number One, when I write about
Jake Paul, the traffic that I generate is a lot is very good compared
to a lot of things I write about. And I've never been like a
clickbait whorror at all. Secondly, while I do enjoy his events, if
they ever actually put Jake Paul in the ring with fucking Chavis, I'm literally
not only why not buy the fight, I may actively like go after rail
against against it. Okay, So forget that shit and it's not happening,
by the way, thank you. Okay. So there we go from the
fight card in Tampa, and you're gonna hear more about that. Now we
are going to talk about the Japanese Championship fights. Including Nakatani with a huge
first round body punch knockout. That's upcoming here on the recap. But right
now, the guy that was on the call for his owne is with us
in the post fight aftermat Well. I love any opportunity that I get to
say hello to this guy, even virtually, but I got to say hello
to him in person in Tampa on the Dezone MVP Promotions call of the pay
per view Jake Paul ultimately victorious over Mike Perry. Was a night of knockouts.
At the end of the pay per view, Hello Todd Grisham, good
to have you back here on the pod, my friend, Hello TJ.
Good to see you in person this week and here on zoom. Thanks for
having me. Yeah, I know we're right there by each other. We
can't make the interview in person happen, So Todd travels back to his home
a couple thousand miles away from me, and we make it happen virtually.
Whatever. It's like. We're both we're both cohered, okay. So Dan
and I have been talking it up. I just I staged it as a
night of knockouts there at the end. What is your impression the Badi knockout
is a devastating one. Serrano gets her first knockout in three years. We
expected it was probably going to be a Jake paul Ko and eventually was what
are your impressions now? About twenty four hours after this is all over with
with the Fear No Man, Fear No Woman MVP Promotions card in Tampa.
I thought it got off to a slow start. I was a little worried
after the first two fights that went the distance. You know, the crowd
seventeen thousand fans and they sold it out in four weeks. The promotion in
four weeks. That's almost unheard of. You know, usually boxing it's two
months, but four weeks to find an opponent, get the thing going,
and having seventeen thousand fans there and the crowd was just ready to explode.
They were all in such a good mood. It's a different boxing crowd that
you normally see a lot of young people there. Everyone dressed to the nines,
dressed to impress, famous people everywhere, so it's a different crowd.
Everyone just kind of wanted to have a party. That's the atmosphere I was
feeling. And after the first two fights, they were getting a little restless.
They were like, wait a minute, we didn't come here to watch
these fights go ten rounds and no one get knocked down. And then all
of a sudden, the Lucas body knock out happened, and that changed the
whole demeanor of the place. And I know you were on the call with
gab Rizzanto, Tyrone Woodley and also Ariel Hillwanee, and that was a one
sided fight, wasn't. It wasn't as if Silve H two O silv was
dominating, but he was winning. And then suddenly, this is why boxing
is different, Todd. We talk about it all the time. There is
a ten point shot, unlike a three point shot in basketball. There's a
ten point shot or a twenty one point touchdown or an eight run home run.
It's called a punch or two and good night. Wow. Yeah.
Indeed, in fact, I mean I disagree with you. I think H
two was dominating that fight. I mean from start to finish. That's why
his hands were down because he was starting to play with his food a little
bit. He was tenderizing it. I've been said on the broadcast, I
think the referees are starting to take a close look at body and maybe gonna
intervene here in a little bit. He was getting beat. Pillar to post
the CompuBox statistics, I think it was three to one punches landed in favor
of h two. Oh, but you never count out a puncher and this
guy, I think he'd knocked out uh, maybe eleven proponents in a row
or six in a row, but before that, whatever it was, but
uh, he had plenty of power and man, he finally landed it.
And that was one of those stunning knockouts I've ever seen, not just because
of the violence of it, but because no one ever saw it coming.
It'd be different if maybe you know, he buzzed him a little earlier in
the fighter. He'd landed a couple of shots here and there, and he
thought, whoa, but he hadn't really touched him. And then all of
a sudden lightning, big night for Canada and Lucas Badi with that koe.
And we should mention you you were on the call for the Joshua Ko of
Benganu. The heavyweights and the heavyweights are a different thing. Jang knocking out
the bronze bomber Deontay Wilder. You've seen some KOs so far this shit,
that's probably the KO of the year right now as we sit in July.
Who knows what happens the last five months, but that one that you called,
that might be the KO of the year right there, Lucas Badi.
Yeah, and you know, Joe Martinez was the ring announcer. You were
their TJ. I don't know if I've ever heard a ring announcer basically say,
let's all pray for this guy. May God be with him and his
family. That's how scary that knockout was and how surprising it was. Yeah,
get I get excited, but I've never had a knockout where literally my
headset flew off. I was so jarred by it. I grabbed it,
I caught it in mid air and like almost held it like a handheld microphone
instead of a headset. That's how stunned, stunning it was. And then
you know, to see H two film. I don't know if you saw
this from where you were sitting, but when he kind of came to,
he was throwing punches on his back on the ground, he was trying to
fight the people waking him up and including his dad. I mean, that's
how scary it was yeah, and he was down a good two minutes or
more, not moving. There was a lot of concern. I was saying
to the media people around me. And again I make mention I was on
a platform where the media area was back by the ring walk area in the
lower level, so we were a little distant, but we were able to
see. And I kept saying to the people around me, I don't know
if they're not going to bring a stretcher, paramedics and a stretcher to carry
him out on the board or something else, just to make sure. So
we're glad that it appears he's okay. They took him to Tampa General Hospital
downtown Tampa to check him out. But it appears that Silva was okay after
that knockout, all right. So that led to Amanda Serrano and this this
had mismatch written all over it, but I don't think a lot of people
really believed it was going to be that quick. She's just that good.
She's a world class fighter, and she sized up Stevie Morgan and you barely
probably got into your material ten two minute rounds about all of the about all
of the praises for Serrano and the fight is basically done with a big barrage
of punches. Your reaction to that real quick. I just I love it
when a superior opponent just goes in there blows them out. I've seen too
many of these guys, even Sir Kerse Stevenson. Now, his opponents have
been way better than Stevie Morgan, don't get me wrong. But you sit
there and watch your curR and you're like, get this guy out of there?
Man, what are you doing? You know he's just jabbing at this
guy. Can't hurt you to see her going there, not with reckless abandon
but you could tell within third she was like, wait, I'm way better
than this girl. Let's get her out of town. And that's what I
loved about it. Yeah, And some are saying, well, maybe it
was too quick, but I mean, how much more did you have to
see of her hitting her eight or ten more times? Where Morgan doesn't know,
not skilled enough, how to cover up, how to defend, how
to grab fights, to do something. So and we're stoked obviously for Serrano
Kaylee Taylor Katie Taylor the sequel, which will be coming in November. I
know you guys were talking that up she was talking it up. That's next,
and I can't wait for that one. And I know you've seen him
way. Someone asked me, I don't know. This week, I was
playing golf and they said, what's the best fight, best best boxing fight
you've ever covered? And I said, Katie Taylor man Is Serrano. Anyone
who was in Madison Square Garden that night. There weren't eveny knockdowns. There
were no knockdowns in that plight, but the atmosphere was fifty to fifty and
I mean it was like almost like a World Cup soccer game in an arena,
and it was just back and forth and just they threw so many punches
and just you know, towards the end, it was just like almost like
the Mac Collaway justin Gaetchee, you know, the dan in the middle and
just beat each other's brains out. And that's what they did the entire fight.
And I mean, I don't know what the second fight's gonna look like,
because let's be honest, you know, Katie's lost since then. She
got it back, but Amanda's a couple of years older now. But if
it's anything close to that first one, and it happens at Texas Cowboys Stadium
in front of seventy thousand. I mean we're talking about, you know,
Hagler Hearn's type of stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's gonna be tremendous
build up and anticipation for that. So that leads us to the main events.
I've already given some thoughts. Dan's given some thoughts. What were your
It was not over although it looked like it could have been in the first
round when Mike Perry went down, I think everybody was wondering, is this
over in a round or less? Third straight time for Jake Paul. So
we credit Perry to that degree. That's me saying that, what are your
thoughts now that you've had time to digest it? On Jake Paul getting the
eventual knockout, Well, I'm just glad that Perry didn't just go out with
a whimper. You know, when he got dropped in that first round,
I like you, I was like, oh man, really this crowd wanted
to see. They want to be entertained. But he got back and got
back into it, and you know, he ended up getting dropped two more
times, and he didn't really have any electrifying moments. Mike Perry, but
he did get the crowd on his side and we got some chance. And
I mean my nephew drove down with his fraternity brothers from the University of Alabama,
like an eight hour drive. Yeah, but he called me the day
of we want to come, Can you give me tickets? So I'm scrambling
to get him tickets. But afterwards they said, man, that was one
of the most fun events we've ever been to, and these guys have been
to Alabama football games. I mean, it was just it was just a
really cool, entertaining night. And that say what you will about Jake Paul,
but all of his fights are entertaining one way or another. It's it's
it's entertainment and that's what it's all about. And that's why seventeen thousand people
showed up and he uh and he obviously got the win, but he had
to battle for it. Perry was tough. I thought, I thought,
to me, you were right there closer ringside. I thought he looked tired
at times, having the weight cut from trying to much heavier if he's fighting
Mike Tyson, And he admitted this after the fight, that he cut about
twenty five pounds because he had to get to proximity of what Mike carry was
going to weigh. He looked tired at times. They talked about him being
sick earlier in the week. What were your impressions ringside just of him.
I mean, he gets the knockout win, that's the only thing that matters.
But what were your thoughts? Well, I I yes, I agree
with all. He did look tired, he did look winded, you know,
I said he was sick. But at the same time, that was
a very high energy fight. They weren't just you know, playing slap and
tickle in there. And the thing was Jake Paul seemed to have him in
trouble so many times that he was going for the knockout. So he was
constantly throwing power punches to try and put this guy away. And that takes
a lot of energy, especially for someone like you said, who had to
cut twenty pounds in two weeks. Love Todd Grisham with me for just another
moment or two, and we can't emphasize enough. Here was my thing.
When that's when that Serrano knockout happened. The anticipation building up to Paul and
you've done this so many times in big time fights. I've been around enough
big time fights. The anticipation is there anyway. But I kept remarking to
everybody, and I texted some people too and said, everybody in this building
is standing right now way I mean said before the fight, before the ring
walks. So you really had the building stoke. Just emphasize that one more
time from ringside looking around, it's not all the time that the building is
completely full with everybody standing and ready to go in anticipation. And Jake pol
and the Kisa Baderian and MVP Promotions, they deserve a lot of credit for
picking the opponent, perry him helping it hype it up, and you add
everybody into it, and that's what it's all about if you're promoting a fight,
right. Yeah, Well, I've seen big fights for the whole arena
standing up and excited for the big fight. But what I rarely ever see
is the place packed out at nine o'clock. Yeah, you know, the
first fight was yes, packed out, and you don't see that. That's
because it's a different crowd. So for all the haters of Jake Paul out
there who think he's doing a disservice to boxing, and he's making a mockery
to the sport. He's bringing in new fans to watch the sport, and
these new fans aren't nearly as snobby as boxing fans. You know, I'm
not gonna get there to the Comain event. You know, we'll have dreams
and will show I ain't coming there for the early stuff. These guys are
like cool boxing looks fun. Let's get there early and have a party.
And that's what they did. They had a party last night and it ended
with Jake Paul jumping out of the cake. And there you go. And
we're gonna see one of the premier fighters in the world coming August third,
and you will be on the call of Terrence Crawford going for a junior middleweight
role title with Israel madram Off. I know you're looking forward to that next
Broadcay. You've been on a lot of big ones, the USIK win over
Fury already this year, the Ryan Garcia upset and the whole debacle out of
the ring with your upset of deabth Hate, and now we've got August third
coming. I know you're gonna recharge the batteries and be ready for that.
In a couple of weeks. Man, hey, god left, Todd Grisham
right, I am living the dream TJ. I mean, you know who
wouldn't switch seats with me in a minute, in a heartbeat. I'm very,
very privileged to have my job. And man, I sometimes have to
pinch myself the fact that I get to see Crawford and Isram a dream up.
And that entire card, I mean, Andrew Ruiz's back, Jared Anderson
versus Bakoli, That to me is the most fascinating fight. East Cruise is
on the card. I mean, just top to bottom, just murderers row.
It's going to be a night to remember out in Los Angeles. All
right, look forward to you on that one. We got to go hit
a golf ball at some point. If you're back in Tampa, I'm where
you are or whatever it is. Keep up the great work, and it
was. It was a thrill to be in and around that whole event.
You were obviously on the call. And we'll see what happens now on August
the third, We'll see what happens with Paul and Tyson later on in the
year. That's down a row. We got some other great action before that.
Todd Grisham, thank you keep up the great work on dez Own and
all the stuff you do with their coverage. We thank you for hanging with
us here on the pod. You got it, man, Hey, I
think Tampa's become a boxing hot spot. You know what I mean. You
sell seventeen thousand seats to a fight in four weeks. They'll be coming back
again, So we'll see you soon. You know, he's one of the
many that we're walking around. Well, where's right feel? You know,
it's not a big time event if ray Fiel's not here. But the good
news is you're supposed to be out in Los Angeles for this Crawford fight coming
in a couple of weeks, and you'll be there with Todd Grisham for that.
He's been on a roll, like he mentioned, of big time fights
including the Usk and the Fury, Haini, Garcia, et cetera. And
he got to call knockouts, you got to call exciting endings to fights.
If you're Todd Grisham, just one more time here on his own and you
can speak more to those guys. He and Gabbrizato, Tyron Woodley, Ariel
Hilwane. They were on the call because you were on the pay per view
while I was there in the arena. But and I know Grisham's your former
colleague at ESPN as well. Good on him. Good on him to hop
on the pod and give us a little bit in the recap mode. Yeah.
No, Ton's a good dude. Like you said, we were colleagues
back in the day at ESPN. I did various Sports center things with Todd
over the years, like talkbacks, and you know, and Arieljwani is my
former colleague at ESPN also, he was covering M and A, I was
covering boxing, and we collobed bring on a few projects, so you know,
respect for those guys. And again he'll be out there for the Crawford
main event, in that whole card from Riod's season and out in La on
Dezonne. So we appreciate Todd hopping on. All right. We joked about
Saturday morning US time, corn flakes and Japanese Championship Boxing. Can I confess
to you we always pull the curtain back here on the pot. I'm trying
to get you know, you've been having your deck replaced at the Rayfaeld estate
by the guys that are deck, and they are now done. Hallelujah.
They're done with the Rayfield deck this summer, getting it all replaced and safe,
and the steps and the railing and the whole bit. Meanwhile messing.
The chair is back there, and I look forward here invite for a summer
barbecue to be determined down the road. I'll tell you what, since we're
discussing this in honor of this very expensive but very awesome looking new back deck,
because the other one was rotting in a bucking mess. Now that it's
done, the celebration is that we're grill dinner tonight. Are you cutting a
ribbon like a ceremonial ribbon for the deck and then having some grilling out at
the Rayfield Path tonight later? No ribbon, no ribbons, but we got
the grill going in there, right, We're gonna have some nice all right.
So I gotta I gotta share this with you. I was being domesticated
this weekend, like the guy's fixing your deck, and I was actually having
to pressure wash driveway sidewalk at the Reefs house because the homeowners association is on
my case about clean it up. It's got to look better. So full
disclosure. I did part of the job Friday night, and I was doing
the rest of the job Saturday morning because it got dark Friday night when it's
much cooler. So I'm out there before it's one hundred and fifteen in Tampa
Bay on the Saturday of the Jake Paul fight day, trying to get the
pressure washing done. So I was not on the Nakatani main event card live.
I came back and relived the main event and then went back and watched
a little bit on ESPN Plus. But good Lord Rayfield, I didn't miss
much at the main event with Vincement Astrolobbio because it was over with before you
could it is your fruit loops, froot loops and box I was having I
don't eat froot loops. But here's the thing. When it's like in in
a way, I usually will make it a point to actually wake up and
make sure I see that live. For this particular card, my plan was,
you know what, I'm not gonna wake up on purpose and accept my
alarm. And when I wake up, whenever that may be, I'm gonna
not know the result. I'm gonna go right to my my my ESPN Plus
and I'm gonna watch the card. Maybe I might fast forward and get to
the main event, but I'm gonna I'm gonna not know the result when I'm
watching it. As it turned out, because my wife and son were had
one of my son's activities very early on Saturday morning. They had waken up
very early and left, and I kind of heard them leave, so I
kind of woke up, fell back asleep, but I hasn't really all the
way back to sleep. Here's the point, At like seven point thirty,
I did wake up, and I immediately put on my phone and I literally
picked up the card as the boxers were coming to the ring. Jimmy lenn
and my man you know, was bringing them into the ring for the main
event. So I watched that. In like five minutes later, I was
back like it was over because Nakatani, you were you were like Vincent Astra
Labbio. You were done quickly. Oh my goodness, two minutes and thirty
seven seconds. Knakatani, we we both thought he would get the knockout,
but I thought Astral Lobbya, with the career he's had, even if it's
not at the highest level, absolutely a durable guy. Gonna land, gonna
land, uh you know, gonna take this fight deeper in into the into
the into the rounds. But what happens when you get hit with that shot
right in the pit of the gud. I don't care who you are,
you could be, uh just a nobody or a great fighter. If you
take that kind of body shot, there's a good chance you're gonna get knocked
out. He took a You cannot throw a straight left hand to the belly
better than what Kna Katani did. Caught him right on, like right above
the belt line, right on the name right in there. The wrestling term
from the late great wrestling announcer Gordon solely doing Championship wrestling from Florida and World
Championship Wrestling was the solar plexus in the solar plexus Rayphiel And so it was
a so that he got up lower than the solar plexus. Actually maybe maybe
a little bit, but he got up at the count of Thomas Taylor's not
about how about our man? Thomas Taylor flew all the way to Japan to
work two minutes and put the count on Astralabiyo. But he got to the
count of nine Astralabio stood up and then immediately crumbled back down like he was
done. Man. So a one punch body shot win. And what does
this mean now for Nakatani now that that happened, Well, okay, Nakatani
is a three division champion. He's retained now the WBC title in his first
defense. He is twenty eight to oher with twenty one knockouts. He's probably
arguably the second best fighter out of Japan currently active, other than Noya.
In a way, he was obviously number one. And what it does is
number one, it's very impressive. Number two. It sets up some very
tasty possibilities and and you know how impressive he is. It hasn't been announced
yet, but even though he's with uh with Teak in boxing in Japan which
puts on he shows, but they have a close relationship with Top Rank,
which brings their events in for ESPN plus, Top Rank is Gonna is doing
a co promotional deal with Nakatani. There's a very good chance that in his
next fight he's fought in America before, like when he knocked out Andrew Maloney
in the twenty twenty three knock Out of the Year that was in Las Vegas
that he'll come to fight in the United States in the near future. So
that's a good thing if you're a boxing fan. But in terms of where
he goes, first of all, the bantamweight division now is owned by all
Japanese fighters. The four belts. That was obviously when Noi in a way
was undisputed. He was Japanese, he had all four belts, but he
was one person. Now that he's moved up in wait and they've gone to
other people in fights have taken place, they're all held by Japanese. But
the big deal fight that he talked about that's getting hype as we speak is
for Nakatani. I can't say it's the next fight. Maybe will be the
next fight for him to have a unification against Takuma in a way, which
is Naiolia's younger brother, who's the w who won the WBA belt after his
brother left the weight class. Big time fight. But the beauty of it
is if you're na Katani, the possibilities for huge events are endless in a
way. Not against a kumin In away is a big deal to unify separated
only by another three pounds. Is Noya in a way at one twenty two.
Now, that's not that big of a deal particular. I mean considered
that Noya started his career at one hundred and eight pounds, So even though
Nakatani has come up from one hundred and twelve pounds, they're similarly sized guys,
it seems to me. And on top of that, and I think,
and I wrote this on my social to me, anybody else can have
their own opinion. This is for Dan Rayphiel boxing fan for my life,
who's been doing this a hell of a long time. If you said I
can have one fight, to me, that's the most interesting fight in boxing,
exciting, competitive, don't know who's gonna win, and badass matchup.
You give me at one hundred and eighteen or one hundred and fifteen if they
decided to do that. You give me Nakatani against Jesse Vaan Rodriguez and I'd
probably give you one of my fingers or toes for that fight. Okay,
you don't have to go that far. Uh And by the way, it's
not that far beyond the realm that it could happen, all right, So
stay tuned on what's next off of that knockout what else from the card.
I know, we joked, we joked about one of the fighters in one
of the fights not only missed the weight by as I like to say,
a couple of exits on the interstate. He ended up in another state on
the interstate in missing the weight, you're gonna expect that, so and what
else on the rest of the car. So the fight that was canceled at
the weigh and on Friday, this was supposed to be the WBO Junior bandamweight
champion Cosey Tanaka, an excellent fighter from Japan who was won titles in four
divisions. He was supposed to make the first offense of this belt and his
challenger was from Mexico, Jonathan Titan Rodriguez. He was dramatically overweight to put
him mildly, So Tanaka makes the weight one fourteen point eight right in the
you know, a little bit under the weight limit, and Rodriguez apparently didn't
realize he was fighting a junior a junior what do you call it? A
junior bandnamweight title fight that he thought he was fighting a what a junior featherweight
title fight. So he comes in and change overweight six point twenty five pounds
over which is massive at those levels, huge one hundred and twenty one point
five pounds, not by any means the biggest. We were actually having a
back and forth with a few people on Twitter about some of the weights that
have happened for guys who've been overweight. I recalled one fight where a light
heavyweight, Sean Estrada, who was the United States Olympian, was supposed to
box on an ESPN two card years ago, came in like literally twenty four
pounds overweight. I mean, why did you even sign a contract anyway,
But if you're a if you're in a little weight class like junior Banham weight
and you're six and changeover, that is gargantuan. So anyway, the bottom
line was so that fight got canceled, but that left other fights that were
still on the show. So in the co feature in this and I think
it was only in the co feature because Rudy Hernandez, the trainer from California
who's a great trainer, very underrated, the older brother of the former junior
lightweight champion General Hernandez, who died several years ago. Rudy is a great
boxing guy. I've known Rudy for probably twenty years. He is the trainer
of Nakatani, but he also was the trainer for Anthony Alaskagua, who was
in another title fight, but rather than have the two fights back to back
because they wanted Rudy, I guess to have some time in between if necessary.
Plus Uh the junior featherweight tension. UH Nasikawa, who's the big kickboxing
star in Japan that's now pursuing a boxinger. He's got huge popularity, so
that fight was the co feature. It also kept Rudy separated by one fight
in between. So in that co feature, he had not Nasokawa, who
might be familiar to American fans because when Floyd Mayweather had his first ever exhibition
after retiring, he fought around New Year's time in Japan against Nakasawa, who
had not fought as a boxer yet and he was outweighed by probably twenty five
pounds Floyd's one hundred and forty seven one hundred and fifty four pounder, and
Nasakawa was fighting in kickboxing like around one two eighteen, and Floyd absolutely destroyed
him in one round. It was kind of like wild, just how he
pummeled him like that. But Nasakawa has put that behind him and he is
turned professional and is trying to pursue a real boxer. And let me tell
you, the kid's getting better. He's only he's a very young fighter,
relatively speaking. He's only twenty five years old after a long kickboxing career,
which by the way, he was like forty something to oh in kickboxing.
But he's coming along. He's you know, he beat up on Jonathan Torres
Rodriguez, not to be confused with the one that was six and changed overweight.
This was a guy with twenty plus fights seventeen to three and one now
after the loss, and he pounded him out very impressively in the third round.
So you know, he's a definitely guy to keep an eye on.
He's going to move quickly, I think in terms of this, he's got
four fights now. He's not if he's going to fight for a world title,
he's not going to be a guy that's gonna need, you know,
fifteen fights. He's probably gonna do it inside ten fights, I would guess.
So that was that fight, and then the other fight was the other
world title fight, which I mentioned. The other Rudy Hernandez fighter Anthony alas
Cago, who was in his third fight in a row in Japan. But
he lives and he's a Los Angeles kid, young fighter. When Bam Rodriguez
gave up the unified Flyway to remember he beat Sonny Edwards to unify the IBF
right WBO, he gave those up. So alis Cogo was matched with a
Japanese a south pot named Marie Ku Kano to box for that vacant WBO Flyway
title. And you know Alisicago, who had lost a title fight in the
junior bandamweight division, I mean in the in the junior flyweight division rather two
fights earlier, had gotten stopped. He moved up in weight, he won
a fight, and then he got another title shot. He's only gotten owt
eight fights. I'm not sure how they maneuvered that, but the bottom line
was he took care of Kano and he did it very impressively. He scored
a big knockout with a left upper cut knocked out in the third round,
won the title. And he's a stablemate of Knakatani. They trained together in
Los Angeles, so they were both celebrating together afterwards. But he's a fun
fighter to watch. I'm not sure you know what the long range future is
for him. Haven't seen him get knocked out previously. But maybe he's better
at this weight. He's twenty five years old, you know, and now
he's got a world title belt, so maybe he'll become better, more confident,
the way some guys when they win belts, you know, they say
a lot of people, you know, oh, he's twenty five sent better
because of the title, because you get that confidence and you know that you
can do it, and you're you're performing in front of bigger crowds. So
he's definitely got to keep an eye on also. But that was a you
know, for that whole card, when you're seeing one knockout after another,
I was, uh, I was not disappointed by the action there. What
about cap'n Crunch? You don't like foot loops? What are you an American?
Do you like cap'n Crunch? Is that acceptable? Absolutely? I would.
I absolutely like Captain Crunch, little Peanut butter cereals. But I but
if I do, if I'll say this, I do go for the breakfast
cereal. I usually stick with my old standbys and be like because we always
have some in the in the pantry, corn checks, rice krispies, that's
my go to it. Those are good raisin bran, yes or no goods?
All right, love that. I don't need a lot of sugar cereals.
Listen, I am a cereal connoisseur and have been for fifty five years.
We got a bunch of cereals in the cabinet. Understand, you got
an eleven year old son. They like this, sir, there you go.
They pound the stuff. Uh okay, So there's breakfast go corn flakes.
Japanese boxing, we got that covered, by the way. We do
acknowledge the Friday Night win by Alexis Rocha and the Golden Boy main event.
We talked about it some on the pod. On the preview pod. He
did get the victory look impressive. Santiago Dominguez was huge, I mean physically
literally. Sergio Mora even said, man, he is ten pounds or more
bigger than Rocha, and Rocha handled that coming off the bad knockout. Does
Roacha get in the mix for a welterweight title somewhere down the road, who
knows? But he did win the Golden Boy Friday Night fight, and he
wanted, he wanted going away. It was like ninety nine ninety ninety ninety
two. But it was a fun fight. And you know, he's won
a couple in a rownow since that very harsh loss. And as I said
previously when we were talking about in the in the preview, the welterweight division
has seen attrition because bigger names have left and gone to other weight classes,
and it's been a transition. You know, that always happens when you get
it on disputed champion. So Crawford, you know, put the hammer lock
on it when he knocked out Arrow Spence and it wasn't that much longer afterwards,
where now all the titles are f Actually, you have the new group
of guys that have those belts that are trying to make their name, whether
it's Stanionis or Mario Barrios or Boots Ennis Santian. You know who got defeated.
You got the young kid that beat him, Brian Norman. So there's
there's new blood in that weight class, yep. And Roacha is not new
blood in the weight class, but he's still there as a good quality contnner.
Just because he lost to one fight does not mean he's got two losses,
but I'm talking about in that fight that was more recent. You know,
he still can contend and still get involved in the necks and seems like
a hard worker and makes good fights. And he did. He had a
good crowd there in Indio and got the win. All right, So there's
the Golden Boys. So we've covered all of that on the recap. Let's
get into some news and then we'll be done with some nostalgia. Raphael I
thought we were gonna get Tank Davis and Vasilli Lomachenko and what is this?
What is this? Now that this may not be happening. I saw the
statements from his from his camp here, his manager. How do we take
this? How do we what do we make of this? I'm gonna tell
you what happened. I guess Klimus, who was his career long manager,
spoke to the boxing reporter Steve Kim, who I worked with at ESPN for
a few years years ago, and he told Steve, and Steve posted it
on his social media that Lomachenko had informed him that he did not want to
fight again this year, that he was going to lay off. And so
now keep in mind for the last several weeks, Top Rank and PBC have
been negotiating Gervonte Davis against Lomachenko for a unification fight that was being positioned for
the month of November. By all accounts the negotiations, I've talked to both
camps. I've talked to the PBC people, I've talked to the Top Rank
people. Both sides in separate conversations, and they have no love for each
other. But yeah, things are going good. We think we're going to
get it done. Everything was good, they hadn't gotten everything tied up,
and obviously they didn't enter the negotiations without the two boxers saying do it.
So Lomachenko was on a board at one point, but he's an old,
tired fighter like and he just wasn't going to go through that if he didn't
feel like he could be at his best. So people want to, you
know, rag on him. I've seen the negativity director towards Loma on social
media and all that. But here's the bottom line. This is a fighter.
When he fought cambosis a few months ago and he won the vacant IBF
title and went on the road in Australia, he was clear at day in
his conversation before and after that fight that he didn't even really want to do
the fight in the first place. He was basically talked into it by his
father, who's his trainer and as his hero is Idol, who taught him
out of a box and did everything and all that. He you know,
has massive respect for his father. Obviously, he said I did it for
my father. He didn't know if he wanted to fight again after that.
One thing I'm going to tell you about Vasalla Lomachenko. I've covered his entire
career. If there is a singular boxer in the history of boxing who literally
it's not about the money, it's Lomachenko. The money, yeah, it's
important because you get paid and it makes your life easier, but he's never
been money first. Money first. He's the guy that didn't want a bonus
from top rank if they could deliver them a world title fight in their first
in his first fight, and Bob Aaron was like, I can't get it
for your first fight, but I can probably give you a world title fight
if we play it the right way in your second fight. He was never
about the money. The money when you're as successful as a guy like that
is going to come with the with the you know, as a reward for
the big wins. So he was always about the accomplishment. And if he
can't get himself up mentally to go unify the titles, I think he might
very well be done unless he finds that hunger again. He did it for
his dad. He got the job done. And this is not even though
he only has now what barely twenty professional fights, four hundred amateur fights plus
you keep saying two Olympic gold medals, ye, and the country of Ukraine
going through what is going on with family and fighters there, that's definitely wearing
on it. I was coming to that that we should not just pass that
off as an insignificant thing. That it's this point if if his attitude is
I've accomplished what I want to accomplished, I've made the money I wanted to
make, and we are still in a war torn situation and I want to
be with my family, then I'll I'll say it bluntly, screw the screw
the boxing fan that says, well, you're chickening out fighting Jervonte Davis for
whatever, and to that, to that fan, please, and I'm not
knocking Dravonte Davis. But they you can't deny what's happened in the past.
There was a period of time four or five years ago when Loma was much
better than he is today, even though he's still really freaking good, where
the the Lomachenko team was trying to make that fight and Floyd Mayweather was the
promoter of Tank Davis at that time, who had world championship level experience at
that point and when and there's a video you can find it on YouTube.
It's not a secret. It's not some like off the record conversation. He
said it to the press. I heard him say it myself. We're not
fighting Lomachenko. We're gonna do it on our terms when we're ready. Blah
blah blah. They knew he wasn't ready, So if Tank ducked him him,
then now they want to say that Loma is ducking him. Now.
All I know is it's going to be like there are two ships passing in
the night. They're from different generations primarily, even though they've they've dovetailed with
each other in what they've done. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
Now, maybe Loma will wake up on January first, and it's a new
year and decide, you know what, I'm good to go, and they
try to make the fight. What about on your ray field meter, I
love this one. It's never going to happen. Ten. It absolutely happens.
What if there's a change of heart, still time to do that in
the next few weeks. Could it still happen November December? Do you put
that at two, at one and a half, at zero at five?
Could he have a change of heart in a few weeks and still get the
fight back on the answer to that is no. I know the loma Chenko
team and I know Top Rank well enough to know that if Vegas Clemus went
to top rank on Friday, and I know just because Steve wrote that,
Not that I didn't believe what Steve's reporting was, but I made my own
call to the people at Top Rank and I spoke to them and they said
they were informed by Eegas on Friday that Lomachenko would decide he's not fighting the
rest of this year. That means he's not fighting the rest of this year.
That ain't gonna change that. I mean, I guess you never never
say one hundred percent, never but that's like a ninety nine point nine nine
nine percent. He is not fighting the rest of this year, And you
have concern, and I think a lot of fight fans are now joining in.
Maybe we've seen the last of him. What else is there to prove?
For me, it's not for me, it's not a concern. It's
not a concern. If Loma's done, he's done. I mean, as
I like to say, boxing's not a sport to just be pretty good at
you know what I mean? You get hurt that way. There's nothing This
man is not accomplished. He has won titles, he's made money, he's
won Olympic gold, he's made fans, he's he's been an absolutely brilliant fighter.
And whenever his last fight is three years hence, he will be in
the Hall of Fame, period, end of story. And I've been ripped
about this and raged on it, and I don't give a fuck. I'll
go to my grave. The best Lomachenko at one hundred and thirty pounds or
even one hundred and thirty five pounds is right there, neck and neck in
any fight with Floyd made. Whether that is best, love that, that's
the kind of skills that man. Both of them have. Yes, the
matrix, the man has spoken here, Dan Rayfield would know all about that.
Okay, So that segues into the other interesting aspect here, where is
Shaqueur Stevenson gonna land since last we did the podcast? Now we talked about
this on the bet Us Show because Oscar de la Hoya put a social media
video out saying, Okay, we're not gonna sign Shaqueure Stevenson. Interesting that
Stevenson has rebutted I wasn't gonna agree with you anyway, and we're gonna ye
fight back and forth, back and forth. But Stevenson said, we're gonna
announce soon where we're going. All right, How hard is it to connect
the dots that maybe the three letters PBC are in the factor and Shaquur Stevenson,
Gervonte Davis could happen. Maybe not the next fight, but maybe that's
in the offing. What do you make of all of this where Stevenson needs
a home and Oscar de la Hoya says it's not going to be a Golden
Boy home. Well, a couple things about that. Number one oscars reasons
for that is because I guess he heard the comments that Shaquor has made,
including after the herd Atunian fight, where I don't fight for the fans,
and Oscar was not down with that. Yeah, of course you should fight
for the fans. Now. Your style is your style, but you can't
disrespect the fan base because they're the ones that essentially pay your purses, because
that's how we figure out how we can pay you, because that's what we
base it on. Ticket sales, paper ed force, television license fees or
streaming service license fees and the light. So that did not go down well
with Oscar, who always did fight for the fans. From that same point,
he fought for the money too, but he made great fights and fought
everybody and then made crowd pleasing events, which is why he was the face
of boxing for his generation. But it doesn't mean it's entirely impossible that Oscar
and Schakor could do one fight together because the reality is, of course Stevenson
is the WBC champion and Oscar's boxer Williams. The PAIDA is the WBC mandatory
that it's a fight that has been ordered by the WBC now, so Paida
doesn't have to go through with it. Shakur w have to if he doesn't
want to be stripped. But Zepeida is in a position that is not a
position that a lot of fighters will find themselves in. He's not only mandatory
or number one contender, I should say, in one organization, but he
happens to be in a rare situation number one in all four. So Oscar
made the point in his video that they'll announce what they're going to do,
but he's going to have other options. Now. If Loma is laying off
for the rest of the year, clearly he's not going to be fighting for
the IBF title. But that also opens up the prospect of if Tank Davis
needs an opponent, maybe they make Zepaida against Davis. I'm not saying that's
going to happen, but that would be a heck of a fight. And
maybe, like you said, maybe Shaquor ends up fighting a different opponent because
they'll have a new mandatory appointed because they paid a goes in a different direction.
Or it would be out of the realm of possibility that Shakur could go
to the WBC and ask for an exception. I'm not sure if it'd be
granted or not, because they would have perhaps the opportunity to unify against Tank
Davis where he might fill in that spot. Now, all that is,
you know, there's a lot of have to happen, right right. I
don't see Tank the run in the fight Chakour at the moment, not because
he's scared of him or anything like that, but because it's just not as
big of a fight economically as a Loma fight would be in my opinion,
and it's it's a tough fight. Also, Chakour isn't as a as a
superb boxer. We know that. You know, this is one of the
rare times that I'm gonna stop you and say I disagree. I think the
Shakour fight, with him more in his prime than Loma Chenko is a more
compelling fight. Now, whether the sides can't agree and it ever happens,
that's a different argument. But I would be more interested in a prime Shakur.
Let's see what he can do with Davis and that and honestly, Ryan
Garcia side, that's probably one of the best fights and fighters that Davis would
have been across. And so I know, I mean that would be that
would be the case if he was fighting, If Tank was fighting Shakur or
fighting Loma, it'd be the best fighter he's faced. Uh, I mean
Loma. I don't think it's a it's a I'm not making an outrageous statement
here. He makes far more crowd pleasing fights than Chakur does. And I'm
not knocking Chikur. He's great at what he does. But I believe strongly
that from a commercial point of view, a Tank against Loma would be much
larger financially than the she Court fight. But if listen, if they want
to do the fight and Shaquort can get around the mandatory in the WBC,
what means I'm not I'm not saying I don't want to see it, but
I'm curious from you. You're plugged in as anybody is. Have you heard
anything as we put the pod to bed and start a new week that Chaquur's
on the radar for Premiere Boxing Champions to make this simple, Have we heard
any of that or it's all conjecture at this point? Who knows? I
haven't heard that because it wasn't only it was only on Friday afternoon that PBC
was notified that there isn't going to be at Loma fight so I don't think
they've had a chance. Maybe over the weekend, and I haven't made any
calls on a Saturday or Sunday, do it, I frankly to be honests.
Got a lot better shit to do with my life. Got to get
the deck finished and go cook dinner here in a few minutes, gods over.
So I mean, maybe those talks will will commence at some point during
the coming days. I suppose that's possible, at least to feel out to
see where you're at. I've heard nothing about the prospect, of course signing
with PBC. I don't think that they're looking to increase their stable with high
price talent, and I don't think Score is necessarily looking to go to a
place that is already struggling to keep their own fighters that they already have under
contract busy. So I don't think there's any animosity between the two camps or
anything like that. But I just don't think they're the right fit for each
other in terms of where where both the fighter and the company are at this
point in their thing. Here's here the reality, and I mean, I
don't know how it's going to play out. It seems very clear to me
that the best place for a record to be for a whole million different reasons
is probably to be able to work out a new deal with top Rank.
That's my opinion. I'm not kissing ask for top rank. I really don't
care about your course science. I'm gonna watch and cover his fights wherever he's
at. But that seems to be the one that's most logical because I just
don't see PBC there. You know, they've talked about a Mayweather promotions.
I don't really see what they have to offer him because they have no TV
agreement that I'm aware of. Boy Oscar made his statement, so it seems
like they're out of the picture. Natural obviously is in the mix, I
suppose, and that would be perfectly fine if he could go there too.
But the grass is not always greener on the other side of the mountain.
As the point, Okay, good stuff on the news, Nostalgia time as
we wrap it up. So it was forty two years ago, on Sunday,
July twenty first of eighty two, nineteen eighty two, that one of
the great young future Hall of Fame fighters, Salvador Sanchez, fought for the
final time. We didn't know it at the time just twenty three years of
age, a tremendous fight with a Zuma Nelson where Sanchez eventually got a TKO
in the final round, the fifteenth and final round at Madison Square Garden,
and then just three weeks later in nineteen eighty two, would be killed in
a car accident at a high rate of speed his fault driving. Killed and
gone at twenty three. This was his final fight July twenty first, forty
two years ago, nineteen eighty two. I still remember being a young kid
and Salvador Sanchez fought repeatedly on Network TV in the United States against Danny Little
Red Lopez and had another had another title fight. I think, yes,
the closed circuit thing was coming into effect as well, but they would always
taken a close circuit fights. Those those fights were repeated on the network on
network to even though people knew the result, there was only three channels,
so people still watched it, you know, they had maybe seen the closed
circuit. So he made he made a lot of fans that way. So
this fight, like you mentioned, this was what turned out to be his
last fight. It was that Madison Square Garden and as Zuma Nelson was like
a late replacement in the fight, completely unknown fighter coming over from Ghana in
Africa. No one really knew anything about him. He only had a handful
of fights going into this fight. The only forget his record maybe like fifteen
sixteen and oh something along those lines. And so it was a real kind
of eye opener when you see them put on not only a spectacular fight,
but this guy that no one ever freaking heard of, is going you know,
right with right with Salvador Sanchez, who was already an established legend at
that point when I looked it up. As Zuoma Nelson was in fact thirteen
and oh going into that fight. But they put on an all time classic.
Like you mentioned, we didn't know it at a time, but it
was his last fight of his career, but he scored a resounding victory in
a great fight that that aged well because a Zuma Nelson who got knocked down
in that fight against Sanchez twice before he got stopped in the fifteenth round,
was down in the fifth, seventh round, was down in the fifteenth round.
Just a tremendous battle. But Sanchez dies, but as Zuma Nelson went
on to become an all time great. Also like again, he had no
idea at that time that this was Sanchez matching up with a great But in
the reality is, if you look down Salvador Sanchez's record, maybe besides the
Wilfredo Gomez fight, Sanchez, I mean Nelson might be his best opponent that
he fought, even though he fought a lot of top guys like including Lopez.
Like you mentioned, Nelson went on and won titles in the featherweight division
and moved up and won the title twice at one hundred and thirty pounds and
actually just celebrated his birthday a couple of days ago. Awesome fight. Love
this fight worth watching. Fifteen round classic, you know, didn't quite make
it to the end of the fifteenth round, close and competitive. I just
looked up the scorecards. They were only separated by that by It was actually
a split decision going into that last round. One judge had Nelson winning,
two judges had Sanchez up very closely in the two scorecards. And what do
we always say, if you can in the fight, do not leave them
in the hands of the judges. And the great Rabbit or Sanchez did that
in the fifteenth and final round. If you can end it end it.
The interesting thing is after this fight was over and Sanchez had secured the victory
against Nelson, don King, who was the promoter and promoted a lot of
Sanchez's fights and Nelson fights through the years, had announced, like at the
press conference after this match, that Sanchez was going to fight one the Port
in a rematch, another fight that was going to take place that fall at
the Garden, And obviously it did not happen because unfortunately Sanchez three weeks later
wrapped his Porsche around whatever and was killed. And you know, like you
said, a one car accident, just going way, way too fast.
And the fact that he was only twenty three years old is just mind boggling
because he had almost fifty fights and was already like one of the greats of
all times. And I realized the newer boxing fans maybe don't appreciate this.
He was a he row at twenty three in Mexico. You watched the footage
of the funeral and the morning and the tens of thousands of people that were
devastated in the town where he was. Uh, they're carrying literally his coffin
his body through the streets by hand, the public by the thousands, passing
the coffin. I'm not exaggerating. This is not a movie passing the coffin
from group of people to group of people to carry. I mean, he
was beloved hero. It's faded now forty years later. We bring it up
in situations like this with and Alga just but that that was such a devastating
thing at that time. But he was such a great fighter at that time,
cut way way too short, great skills, great heart, great power,
great ability, forty four one and one at age twenty three before he
died. I mean, you know, you don't know how much longer he
would have been around because he already had a lot of fights, obviously at
a young age. But you got a figure he would have you know,
that was back in the day where it wasn't uncommon for the top grades to
maybe have eighty fights like he could have been around for another, you know,
another seven eight years fighting against top guys, and you know, who
knows if he would have moved up to one hundred and thirty or lightweight and
try to do some uh uh some damage up in those weight classes. He's
one of the biggest what ifs in boxing. What would have been he was
already great, but how much horrible tragedy when it happened. Shocked, But
that fight is just phenomenal. Just go watch it on YouTube, do yourself
a favor. Go check it. Okay, So advanced forward to July twenty
second of nineteen eighty nine, seven years later, now thirty five years ago
on Sunday Night. My Tyson's last win before the Buster Douglas Upset is a
ninety three second ko of Carl the Truth Williams in Atlantic City. I still
remember this, and I actually relived it maybe last year in watching it because
I'm always fascinated with all the Tyson stuff. We bring it up in the
nostalgia, and there was so much personal turmoil going on with him, with
the Don King breaching, the relationship with Kevin Rooney who got booted, and
Bill Cayton who they were suing, and then he's getting divorced with Robin Gibbons,
his wife, and then this fight is a big Tyson punch. It
was a big left, right and correct and Carl Williams gets up and doesn't
respond to the referee saying are you okay? And the referee with Carl Williams
standing in front of him. The truth just waves his hands and says that's
it, and there's people raining booze down and going for you know, I
never really thought it was I never really thought it was a bad stoppage because
he was out of it, like he didn't really know what was He got
up and he's still being in front of the ref while the count's going,
and it's what it's Randy Newman, not the musician, but the referee.
I think Randy Newman not to be confused with I Love La. I'm not
going to sing anymore. But the bottom line is what he said after the
fight, the referee. I looked in his eyes that I could tell,
I'm a former fighter. He was done. I think a lot of people
were blood thirsty that night. They wanted to see a little more of Mike
Tyson. Besides ninety seconds and one punch. I mean it was ninety three
seconds. It was the This was the this was really what you would I
guess, because he lost the buster in the next fight. This was the
end of the peak Tyson. This was the end of that. We didn't
know it at the time. We obviously didn't know it at the time,
but yes, obviously yeah, just like we didn't know that Sanchez was going
to die three weeks later after he fought as Joe Nelson. But this was
a night where Tyson was at his typical destructive ways by scoring a ninety three
second knockout. He was the undisputed champion. He'd already uh not only was
on disputed with all the belts, he was lineal because he already beating Michael
Spinks to clear that situation up, and he was just doing damage everybody.
And Karl Williams, by the way, was a really good fucking fighter.
This was not I mean, people like to say Tyson never fought anybody.
That's fucking wrong. Because if you take a look at like take a look
at like the ring saying that, a lot of people say that shit to
the ring, go to the ring magazine rankings, from like anything. Spinx
is in the Hall of Fame, Larry Holmes is in the Hall of Fame.
What but rayfhaiel, what are we doing here that he's going They'll say
that Spinx was a fucking light heavyweight, that that should have lost the Holmes
and got lucky to get the wings in the Hall of Fame. You're asking
me what the argument is. I'm fucking telling you Larry Holmes is off a
long layoff in kind of old at that point, even though he fought for
many more years and Tyson destroyed him. But Carl Williams was a very solid
quality fighter. Tyson, as I said, he was undisputed he had made
Uh this was his ninth defense of that title. He ended up making nine
successful defenses of the WBC title and then obviously picked up the other belts along
the way. And uh, he just knocked him out. And it was
the type of thing where back if this was happening today, probably beyond pay
per view, this was just a regular live HBO fight back as it normally
in those days. And you know we took him out. Took place in
Atlantic City in a fight sponsored by the casino that Donald Trump owned at the
time. And this was this was Tyson when he was doing all the damage
that you could want. This is like when I remember this, this is
the time when I'm like a teenager, I'm like, you know, eighteen
nineteen years old, and you know everybody wanted to watch Tyson. You had
made sure you were home. Remember this is not there was no fucking YouTube,
there's no smartphones. HBO was showing the fight back in those days.
They showed the fight once. There wasn't like fifty replays. It was it.
You missed it live and you were sol shit out of luck. So
you made sure you were in your TV, in front of your TV that
Saturday night, and you know he did the job, and that was that
was the hs tape if you weren't in front of your TV with your VCO.
And by the way, there was many nights because at that time when
I'm a teenager, so this fight was July of nineteen eighty nine, so
I am a month shy of my nineteenth birthday. So while I couldn't tell
you, I don't I did not watch this fight live. I believe I
did set the VCR. I probably was working at my job that I worked
to make a few dollars and watch it when I came home from that job
on it. I honestly, I don't think I watched this one live.
And again it was a different time because there is no internet. They didn't
have seven HBO channels back in the day. HBO doesn't exist anymore, Dan
doesn't. HBO stills exist, but now they extinguished the HBO brand. It's
just called Max now. I mean really, because when I put on my
cable guy it still says HBO. Yeah, but they've extinguished it. But
I mean, this is fucking stud Let's have go on. I'm gonna go
on a like a very brief hand, quickly, quickly run that company.
Are the stupidest motherfuckers who ever lived who took an absolutely one of the most
iconic brands in DA in the history of the existence of the medium, like
HBO, which is associated with great production, great entertainment, great series,
great events, sports movies, you name it, and they threw it out
for what are they call it? Max? Max? The fuck is that
Warner Brothers Discovery, which by the way, is in fifty billion dollars debt
stupid fifty five zero. So anyway, Tyson gets that KO doesn't take long
to relive it. You can be the judge for yourself whether Carl Williams could
have gone on but Carl the truth went down that night and one more piece
of nostalgia advanced now forward another eighteen years, that is, seventeen years later,
on July twenty first, seventeen years ago, on Sunday, Bernard Hopkins
and Winky Right sat Pete, Florida's Winky Wright battled for the lineal light heavyweight
title. You were their ringside. Give me a little nostalgia and what you
remember for July twenty first, two thousand and seven. One thing I remember
is when the fight was made a lot of people were critical about it because
even though they respected the great abilities of Winky Wright and of Bernard Hopkins,
neither one of them was the type of fighter that would light up with excitement
when it came to making those fights. I mean, they were tech the
goal and you know, very smooth boxers and you know, did not mix
it up. And now when you take two fighters that have a similar kind
of style like that and you put them together, like the pushback was like
this fight's gonna suck. And so the promoters they kind of knew they were
kind of up against. They were putting this on HBO pay per view,
and knew it was kind of a hard cell middle of the summer. You
know, guys who were good names, but not huge stars with styles that
would not necessarily compliment one one another. I believe, if I'm not mistaken,
they named the fight coming to fight, like playing off on the fact
that, like they're actually gonna come to fight, they're not gonna stink it
out. So that was lying somehow that they were coming to do something else
like board or basketball. Here's the thing, Well, it didn't turn out
to be like some all time classic. It was way better than I think
a lot of us expected it to be. Now, Bernard he was the
established lineal light heavyweight champion. Two fights earlier he had lost the middleway title
to Jermaine Taylor, or three fights earlier, i should say, and then
in the rematch he lost again. Then after that fight he went from one
six he moved up to one seventy five, and he scored the big upset
over Antonio Tarver in two thousand and six, a fight that you'rs truly picked
one of my best picks ever. And then in his next fight, he
didn't have a belt, but he was defending the lineal title and they were
looking for a name opponent and Winky Wright, who had never fought above one
hundred and sixty pounds, he was coming off of a scenario where he had
he had been ike Quarte, a fight that Reeves was at at the facility
where Jake Paul just pummeled Mike Perry. What was the Saint Pete Times Forum
the Downtown Arenas now Theamily Arena. So he beat Quarte, so he's kind
of in position as a name. But in the fight before that, he
had fought to the draw with Jermaine Taylor for the unified middleweight title in Jermaine,
of course, had beaten Bernard Hopkins, so they had a lot of
that common aspect. Then he had obviously beaten Quarte in a very good performance,
and so they he makes the decision he can't land a big fight after
that. There was no one that was willing to fight him. Bernard was
looking for an opponent, you know, aigh light heavyweight. So what they
did was they decided, okay, we'll fight each other, and so they
made the fight. You know, Bernard didn't really have trouble making one hundred
and seventy five pounds. He could easily have come down to super middleweight if
he wanted to. In the end, they made the fight at a catchweight
of one seventy so it was still for the title at one seventy five lineal
speaking, and he came down a few pounds where he had fought Tarvor Whink.
He had gone up to ten pounds because he never weigh heavier than that,
and it was a close fight. I actually looked this up Harold Letterman,
the Great former unofficial score of the Late Great Harold Letterman Hall of Famer
on HBO. He actually scored the bout a one fourteen to one fourteen draw,
and a lot of people had it awfully close, you know, a
seven to five in favor of Bernard. Winky Wright complained a lot afterwards because
he had had an accidental head button round two that he said, had you
know done, damaged him and you know didn't quite make it right for him
in that fight. But in the end, this will go down as one
of the top wins on Bernard's record, aside from the famous wins that knocking
out dal La Joya, the huge upset over Trinidad, well, the upset
over Pablicit over uh, like I said, Tito Trinidad and Antonio Tarveror.
But this fight was another top Hall of Fame name that he got in Berni
Trent. I don't care what the size different was. Winky Wright was a
tough dude to fight, no matter who you were uh and excellent defensive fighter,
hard to hit. We always do these things. Why my one major
memory though of this this was at the Mandalay Bay. Wasn't so much from
being ring set on the night of the fight. It was the previous day
at the Way. Now, I was working for ESPN at that time and
we were covering this fight. Not only was there there writing for ESPN dot
Com for the website, but we were again it was the middle of the
summer, there was a lot going on, so ESPN decided we're going to
cover this fight for Sports Center. So I was the one of the Sports
Center guys covering the fight on television as well, and we were taking the
way In live on SportsCenter like we would do for some of the bigger fights.
They knew the fight was having trouble selling because of the reason I just
outlined to about how they were you know, styles that weren't going unncessarily make
for a big fight, not big huge fan basis. So Bernard Hopkins had
the brilliant idea, it's like, we gotta spice this up. So he
basically ignited a nonsensical shoving and fighting match at the Way In which was a
big fucking mess. The problem was Rayphiel is miked up. I'm supposed to
be there to do when they come off the scales. You've seen this a
thousand times. They bring the guy off the scale and he goes and does
like a two second you know interview. You get two questions with Bernard and
two questions with Winky exactly. So I was doing that role for Sports Center
that day. So I'm gonna interview both guys coming off the scale. They
they they are about to They've waded in. They're now gonna come speak to
me, and Bernard takes a swing at Winky Wright and the whole fucking place
up. Now I'm standing on the stage at Mandalay Bay. The problem was
I'm miked up. I've got the earpiece and I've got the shit in my
back pocket, like the the you're tethered. You're tethered electronically, Yes you
can. My range of motion, I only have like a radius right I
can move It is maybe like three or four feet or I'm gonna be pulling
can down and I couldn't get away. I'm like about to get run over
by these fucking beasts. So we're going crazy on the stage, so I
almost felt big security day. I almost it would have been an absolute disaster.
I would have been very badly injured. Thank God, they've talked about
this before. Didn't you eventually get a question in? Didn't we calm it
down? Or did you ever get a question? No? I don't remember
if I did or not. Maybe I got in with one guy and then
Bernard did it. After that, it was a fucking mess though it's a
haze. I just remember being worried I'm going to fall off the fucking stage
because these guys are crazy. At the way you lived to be there the
next night and be part of that fighting. You've lived on now since then.
But that's to talk about it seventeen years later. There you go,
Hopkins and Winky Wright. Check it out from seventeen years ago. It is
by the ways he shows, by the way, that was Winky's loss.
He then ended up finishing with his career with two more loss after it,
So he finished his career with three losses in a row. But this was
what started that downward spiral because he lost to Bernard, lost to Paul Williams,
lost to Peter Fuillen, and then called in a day. But in
terms of Bernard Hop after he beat Winky Wright, you know he was not
done. He went on and even though he lost his next fight to Joe
Kalzagi and lost the lineal title, he went on had other big wins,
including the big upset against Kelly Pavlick. So this was a lot of stuff
going on in this era, no doubt, love my man the Wink Hall
of Famer as well, love this show thanks to Todd Grisham of his own
being here. All right, go celebrate out on the patio. I'm gonna
have some dinner with the family on Sunday night. Here We're ready for another
fight week coming up this week. Look forward to everything Coloressa Shields in action
later this week and much more and only a couple of weeks away from Terrence
Crawford going for a junior middleweight world title. And we have Joe Joyce coming
up this week also with your Bay Joe Joyce coming up your boy in England.
So we got a lot, We got a lot later in a week,
right now, good stuff, really good stuff. Off the recap.
We covered all of it from the Jake Paul fight card, the Japanese fight
cards, gave you some nostalgia, the whole bit. We encourage everybody follow,
subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify to this podcast at the Big Fight
Weekend Podcast podcast be dan rafeel have a great week, go enjoy the patio.
Thank you you Bet, and we thank you for listening to The Fight
Preach You Unite Recap podcast