Well off of a weekend that, let's be honest, did not have a
whole lot to recap. We were not going to just a shoe disregard refuse
to do a Fight Freaks Unit recap podcast. We are here. We are
here for you peeps. Glad that you are with us. I am merely
the somewhat competent host TJ. Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks
Unite is his substack, Big Fight Weekend dot Com insider as well. Hello
Dan Rayfield, A little bit to recap. Kind of interesting that we're also
in the preview mode because before our typical preview show is out later in the
week, we do have Shakur Stevenson and Emanuel Navaratee in two world title fights
on the same card in Las Vegas on a Thursday, So we do have
a bunch to go over, including a former world champ one on one with
you on the podcast in Demetrius andre So. Off the weekend, how are
we doing better than the New York Giants? Let's move on. Yeah,
not good there. Least my Buccaneers got a Sunday win. Lots of NFL
football happening, and not a lot of boxing to cover. Here now before
we get to that. Thank you for finding out news but yeah I fight
cards though, no, uh, thank you for finding us social media link
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us with that again, not a stellar action pactor you got really not a
significant fight card in the United States. We did preview on our bet US
show, the Matchroom Prospect Card. Where do you want to begin with any
in the all recaps, including being the let's say, a dedicated boxing inside
or an observer you are. I won't call you a degenerate. I'll call
you another word with Dee. You did watch a couple of clips of James
Tony and Razor Ruddock after you said this was going to be garbage for the
exhibition, with both of them in their fifties and both of them being about
fifty pounds overweight. So what do you want to recap here? Off the
weekend you have the buffet go, well, I figure we'll just you know,
we'll go through the We'll go through the list. I mean, like
I said, not huge weeks. Well, on Friday night, I did
watch some of the card that Wasserman Boxing put on that in the UK was
on Channel five, so it's an over the air show like if we had
it here on ABC or CBS or NBC or Fox there, it's on channel
five here in the United States. It was available on his own and the
main event was Harlem you Bank, who is the cousin of Chris you Bank
Junior, the nephew of Chris you Bank Senior, who was there at the
show with him. I don't know if he's his manager, but he was
involved with the interview and you know, and hyping him up and you know,
doing what Chris you Bank Senior does. H and Harlem doesn't have the
profile of of Chris Junior, but he is now nineteen to zero with eight
knockouts. They they had this fight in Brighton, England, which is his
hometown. It was Harlem's first time fighting, I guess in his hometown.
First time there had been I guess since his professional debut. I guess back
about five or six years ago. In any event, he took on a
pretty compinent guy, Timo Schwartzkoff and I don't know how far Harlem you bank
is going to go, but it was a good performance, so it was
kind of a fun fight. He knocked him out in the eleventh round.
Uh, he did have a point deducted for a low blow in the middle
of the fight, I think the fifth round, buddy, buddy, But
he was he was sharp and uh, you know, I thought it was
interesting that after the fight he was calling out Connor Ben the same way his
cousin has been calling him out. So it's like a family thing they want
to have. They want to gang up on the on the Bens, I
guess. But so that was the Friday show and not again, nothing earth
shadow on that undercard, or actually he was after the main event. How
don't we call like the after card. I guess you had the third professional
fight of Roman Fury, a cruiserweight who is the brother of Tommy Fury and
Tyson Fury, and in that you know, the son of John Fury.
And it's the first time I saw him in is you know, three professional
fights. Now, first of all, you look at the kid, not
a kid anymore. He's like twenty seven years old, but he's young in
his professional career, and he looks like a Fury. I mean, he's
got the mannerisms he with, the way he holds his hands, the way
he moves across the ring, the facial expressions. He sounds like him to
a certain degree. So it is kind of uncanny. And you know,
again, I don't know how far he's gonna go, but he's not three.
Oh he looked good in a knockout. Is a very impressive punch that
got rid of his opponent of Bradley Davies, who you know, let's be
honest, was only one five and one going into the fight. So they're
moving him obviously, very careful. He's not gonna fight top guys, obviously,
but he's got the name. He seems to have a little bit of
a swagger, he had a big punch. Now he's three and zero,
and so I say this, I'm interested to see what he does next,
where he goes. I'm certainly interested to see what is next and where Harlem
youw bank goes. So that was That was the Wasserman card you mentioned about.
The Mattroom card, which was the main event was the junior featherweight up
and comer Shabaz Masoud, who's gotten a huge amount of hype over the last
little bit of time, particularly leading up to this card, but also in
general in the UK boxing circles. So the good thing is he won.
He's now twelve to zero with only four knockouts. The bad news is he
didn't really look particularly good taking on a well traveled journeyman in Jose San Martin,
who got a split decision loss, you know, and Masud got the
split decision win. But that fight really could have gone either way. So
you and I did not really preview this that much on our preview show.
We did talk about it on the bet Us show. One thing you brought
up you wanted to test Masud, see him against a veteran. His people
wanted to see that. So do you you think in some ways this exposed
some things that he's got to work on. Is it a tough veteran that
you just credit what would you say? Well, San Martinez been in with
some quality guys. He still is a guy with a good chin who has
only been stopped, you know, very infrequently in the course of his career.
He does have now seven or eight losses, now two stoppage losses.
Uh. You know, he has displayed a good chin, and he has
been you know, he's been in the ring with some very good competition.
Uh, Mauricio Lara for one, Kevin Gonzales for two. Uh, you
know, not in these are and these are real guys. Uh. David
Carmona, for example, is a tough veteran, not a great fighter,
but a guy's tough as nails thought him. So this was a test for
Masud considering the types of guys he's been fighting. Uh, you know,
and look, it's like, I'll pat what what Eddie Hearn said in the
post fight interview that I heard that he gave on his own after the fight.
You know, you got to win, and now you get back in
the gym and you work on what you gotta work on because he was lucky
to get out of there with the w But every every fighter on the way
up at some point usually is gonna have that kind of fight where you're gonna
maybe get by and it's gonna hopefully make you better, put a fire underneath
you to a certain degree, to hone in on the things you need to
work on. Give his his team, his training group to look at things
to work on, stuff in the gym. So, like I said,
the good news is that he won. The bad news is he looked like
a guy that on that one glance did not look like he has a huge
future. But again it's only one fight, so you don't write him off
after one fight and you know, hopefully he can get better from there.
But he drew a nice crowd for that show in Newcastle, England, you
know, along with some of the You know, I had a lot of
prospects on that card that that Mattrium is high on and you move on.
So again, it wasn't a huge matchroom show, but it was a very
little action. As we talked about going on this week and then you mentioned,
oh my god, the uh the heavyweight exhibition from Hell between Razor Ruddick
and James Tony and I did not buy the pay per view, No way
would I would I spend two cents on that. I did see some extended
clips of it on YouTube and on Twitter, and it was just kind of
pathetic. I mean, to the to the to the old guy's credit,
they did go at it like it was a real fight. It felt like
they were really trying to like knock the other guy out. Uh, but
there one you know, Razor is fifty nine years old, James is fifty
five years old. Both then, you know, are were dramatically out of
shape. Uh what can I say? I mean it was that is a
kind way. That's a kind way to put it. That's a kind way
to put it. And again this was in Jamaica, and you were saying
to me because again I've not seen it or covered it. Uh, no
exaggeration, friends and family. Maybe you could have vote somebody. Somebody's joke
that I heard and I love repeating is you could have maybe put the crowd
in a canoe. It was there were not only people there, Phil Again,
I didn't see the whole card. But if they weren't there for the
main event, obviously they weren't there for the undercard either. I'm telling you,
they showed these wide shots of the arena and where they did, like
I guess, in some sort of exhibition center or whatever in Jamaica. In
Kingston, Jamaica. There looked like you said. I mean, it wasn't
quite that bad, but there. I mean, I don't know if there
was one hundred people there. So I'm not sure where they're making money in
this. I was gonna say just that, how did they make any money?
I have no idea, because they didn't sell a lot of tickets.
Number one obviously. Number two. I interact with boxing fans all the time
on social media, and I don't know, not a single person said to
me. First of all, nobody asked me really about it, other than
when I posted the way in picture. But nobody said to me, all,
I'm buying the show. They never really The promoters didn't do anything to
advertise it to the American public or the press, like I never got a
single press release announcing with the undercard or anything. I just got a thing
from Fight, which which was one of the streaming platforms that showed it here
in the United States. But it was just the main event, there was
like no, there was really no effort to publicize it. So I haven't
the foggiest idea. It seems. I don't know what the heck it was,
but I just hope it doesn't happen again because it was a man.
It was sad to see men. And the saddest, the saddest part of
all of this is that if you're doing that trying to still get some money
because you need the money, that didn't even happen out of this. So
with these former fighters, and as you mentioned, James, Tony's in the
Hall of Fame and uh, and this is going on. I mean,
I mean, from what I saw of it, like it was six rounds
they were they were they were two minute rounds, I guess, uh.
And and they were trying, which you know, listen, whatever you want
to say about their physical condition, but whether they should be doing this or
not. The lack of uh, entertainment value as far as I could tell,
the lack of interest from either the general boxing public or the people that
didn't show up. From what I saw, the one thing that the guys
have still as a fighting heart, because that's what they are, their fighters.
And they were going at it. They were trying. You know,
I give you a lot of credit because we just did like over ten minutes
when there wasn't a whole lot even there no chicken on the bone based nothing
in the United States anyway. So what do you what do you say that
we get to your conversation with the former middleweight world champ moving up to senior
super middleweight and fighting David Benavidez is in a pay per view at the end
of this month. Demetrious Andred with Dan right now in conversation building up to
this pay per view main event. I'm very pleased to bring in the podcast
this week. It's the former two division world champion, US Olympian, undefeated,
all around good guy, Demetrius Booboo Andre. Demetrius, Welcome to the
show. Thank you very much for doing this. Do you think that Dan
appreciate the love and support for you and what you've been doing for the sport
of boxing. I appreciate that the report, Thatching report. All right,
so we're here to talk about what I think, without question, Demetrius is
the biggest fight of your career so far in terms of profile and name recognition,
and that is a matchup against the WBC's interim super Middleweight Champion in November
twenty fifth at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, live on Showtime pay per
view. And as I'm looking at your record, I'm getting ready to do
the interview with that, I'm thinking to myself, Man, fifteen years into
your career, you finally have the marquee fight, or a marquee fight.
I know you've wanted for a very long time. And all I can think
to myself is, what the heck took so long? Yeah, same same
question. You know that's something that I can't into it. You know,
it takes two to tango. It was really the true answer. Takes two
to tangle. He had pretty much nowhere to go to, and I had
nowhere else to go to, and I didn't want to keep doing the lack
lustering thing for myself. And but at the end of the day, I
gotta stay busy. I gotta take fights that presented to me because I don't
have the luxury of picking and choosing whoever I want to fight to work like
that with me. But I think David and I knew that in his team
and realize, like this is nobody wants to fight. This is a fight.
He us fight. Okay, we have to take this fight. Did
you think that as you got on in your career, like I said,
fifteen years that this would just never happen and you'd be destined to finish as
a guy who we sort of all knew had a tremendous amount of ability and
talent and personality and all that, but just never had the chance to shine
on the biggest stage. Yeah. I mean I can only blame that on
you know, like networks motives. Some journalists not like putting more to you
know, to me per se when I can't tangle with the best that's out
there. But they have to also push that help build the situation where they
focus on other cavicters. And so now is the time for me to you
know, just do it for myself. Come three divisional world champion, because
this is a world champion. This is like an undisputed type fight for me.
Oh and this is how Cabby and this I always cavity myself to.
You know this, this gets me to the next best thing and hopefully after
this fight, a Canella fight can happen. If it doesn't, I thought
the best guy at one hundred and sixty eight pounds. Do you ever look
back on your career and think to yourself, a decision here about this business
deal, a decision there about this fight, and maybe things would have been
different, Like you know, if you had signed with a different promoter coming
out of the Olympics, if you had ended up doing the agreement with Showtime,
that would have resulted perhaps in a Charlotte fight. Or do you just
sort of say, you know what, stuff happens and here we are right
now. Of course, stuff happens. Nobody's perfect. Everybody make mistakes in
life. Can you bounce back from it? Clearly I have been bouncing back.
Oh any decisions that I made, and I'm here now. I was
with this at the end of the day. It's like, no matter what
happened then, like you just said, you said, child, you said
over here I went. I fought with his own and there was no excuse
not to make no fights happen, Yeah, no fight, Real money was
on the table, bill, everything was on the table, So there's no
excuse at that point. So looking back then, what do I mean.
You've been a world champion in two way classes, so obviously those were important
fights for your career. But in terms of the competition, I wonder when
you look back, what do you view as your biggest win so far of
your career and why do you think it is your biggest win so far?
I mean, my biggest win is every win to get me to where I'm
at now. But as far as like the people for saying just the recognition
was like, okay, bonus MONROSI for my title the wo Chimney thirty three
and oh two thousand and for Olympian. He was good, he was fresh
beatle. It's a big fight, big like coming out like defendedive Ryan Rose,
stopped Tim seventh Crown and then you know, the whole thing happened and
all this. You know things that people really don't know because you know there's
contracts and you know, lawsuits and a bunch of stuff that you know that
we went through. The stuff you can't talk about. Well, you're here
now, right, So that's the main thing. I guess. Okay,
like at the end of the day, I figured at the end of the
day, I knew what I was doing to get out situations to get in
better situations. So I did that. Yeah, so I look at the
matchup between you and Benevitez, and I see David is eight years younger than
you, he's naturally bigger. You, of course have come up through the
weights from one hundred and fifty four to one sixty eight. You're known for
your tremendous technical ability, being a real tough southpaw. He's known for being
a brawler, a good power, good durability. And so I wonder when
you look at the matchup, what do you look at as your path to
victory in the fight? Just overlaill skill of athletic ability, like you said,
Wayne IQ, and just of course like my power as well. I
don't think he have a like he's been in there with you know, you
want to fight, but I don't think he's really been in there with somebody
that's going to be able to, like know how to land the shots.
I'm gonna be able to land on him well because overwhelmed from his pressure and
power where it suits me. Okay, So you have had only one fight
so far in the super middleweight division, as many fights as you had obviously
in your other divisions. So in your January fight where you want to shut
out on the undercart of the tank, Davis Hector, Luis Scarci at pay
per view. How did you feel fighting at one sixty eight? Did you
feel like it suits you? Did you feel like, uh, waking weight
was easy, that the power. You didn't have a knockout in the fight,
of course, but did you feel like you could carry some power against
these bigger opponents. Yeah, I mean I haven't thought that was that was
all for like what thirteen months? Yeah, maybe all the less. I
don't know. I'm not too sure, but you know, I got it
in, evaluated myself. That's you know, did what I need to do,
get the rust, a little rust of distancing the condition see see how
its demony consume was a game dog that you know that I learned from when
it came to the one sixty eight class, and that that was big as
for education purposes, and so we did we need to do to try to
build up. But it just this is the best I think where I'm at
right now. So I see comments from people all the time Dimitris andreds boring
he can't punch, uh, you know, and I think, well,
you know what, he doesn't run. He's a great boxer. If you
look at the record you got maybe not a ton of knockouts, although you
have scored three knockouts in your last six flights, but you have a ton
of knockdowns against almost everybody in recent fights. Why do you think you get
a bad rap from some folks because I don't get it, to be quite
honest, and I'm not kissing your We're in We've had this conversation in private
before. I have I have no I have no clue. It's because I
can beat your favorite fighter. It's because you like what I could do and
you're mad you can't do it. Like, I just don't understand this whole
boxing fan thing all of a sudden, Like, dude, don't you want
the best fighting the best? Don't you want, like, if you really
know boxing, don't you want like the most time to fighters fight each other
or whatever? Not just because your favorite fighter says, oh, he's not
there or that, Like these are just excuses, you know, at the
end of the day, not to make the fight happen. If somebody's boring
and therefore his records good, Yo, he's just I'm a faster, I'm
a busy guy. He's slow. He ain't really gonna I have to beat
him, take his gero in resume and not beat somebody that was undefeated and
all this other shit. So enough with excuses because that just goes that's like
bizarre. Just I just don't understand that. The girls love me, that's
your woman. Like God, there there's handsome hit like yo, I hear
that. Whatever, I must be doing something right. I would agree with
that. When when he was getting ready to fight Kayleb plant back in March,
they had a onn of trash talk. They got into it at the
press conference. No respect until after the fight, there was some grudging respect.
Uh, when you guys had your press conference, which I looked at
was all he was all about respecting you. He called it the biggest fight
of his career and he's been a champion and you know, two times.
And what did you make of that? That that uh, he he really
did show Demetris Andre the utmost respect. I mean, why would why would
anybody show me respect? Well, he didn't show I'm only saying he didn't
show Kayla planting Andy and he'd been a champion also and was undefeated you besides
Canelo's fight, Yeah, personal reasons and in the day they you know,
you watched the videos they was fighting in the gym. That's that's a different
situation. I don't I don't calvy myself in a way like you know,
fuck you yo, yo yo. The boxing is rough and top yo.
Man. Congratulation youngers is you know saying glad yo? Whoa? That's how
I whatever book it cause when it we don't. We don't need to trash
talk. You have the two division I mean you have two time champion in
your weight class. I'm two divisional looking to go up to the sixty eight
yo. Have nothing of respect for you. You have nothing before respect for
me. But we're going to fight, right, that's it. We don't.
The fight is already sold. No little dude shy like, fuck you
me? All right, thank you? Half nice days. Well, okay,
so you are man like yo. We got the two best fighting.
There's no there's no build up to talk ships more like, Yo, We're
going to fight. You are gonna fight, and I'm gonna wrap up with
this. Demetrius. You obviously both would love to fight Canelo Alvarez. He
is, of course, the young disputed champion in the weight class. Just
come off a very lopsided win over Jamelo Charlotte. He has not fight faced
either of you guys yet. Obviously you have. You famously came to the
press conference after the Billy Joe Saunders victory. I was tearing the room and
you guys got into it a little bit, and I thought you were really
polite, and he kind of attacked you eventually. I think maybe because more
or not because of you, maybe because some of the comments that your father
had made. In any event, he has not fought you. He has
not fought David Benavitez and uh, and that's his decision to make. So
you guys fight each other. So I look at it and I think to
myself, do you believe that the winner between yourself and David is really the
people's mandatory challenge or whatever the organizations say that that because you two are the
next best guys in the division behind him as the champion, that, of
course, if the winner of this fight is going to be the one that
the public demands, the media demands that, Caneli fight next? Yeah?
For sure, I mean everybody has to push it. Is he gonna do
it? No? I mean, well he listen, can has luck you
to do whatever he wants me? So that my hat goes off to him
because of that. Well, this is the fight right here. This is
the fight of course, like we've talked about me is Canelo. This is
definitely an icon on the cake for anything that has to be said about either
myself or David. So it's just gonna be a great fight, and I
think it's the best fight at one succeed between the two top elite guys.
At the end of the day. Well, I wish you the best luck
in the fight, Demetrius. I've known you a long time and I'm happy
to see that you finally got an opportunity for a significant fight. I wish
you good luck and I thank you very much for doing this. Thank you
too many, and God bless you. And hopefully it goes well. All
right, Thanks a lot, Demetrius, appreciate that. Peace so good stuff
there, and again we're headed towards that pay per view at the end of
the month, just a couple of weeks away in Las Vegas. Final thoughts
before we move on on Demetrius Andrea and you're getting a chance to talk with
him. Dimitrius is a hell of a fighter. That's the first thing.
As people heard him you know, and I was sincere when I said this.
I'm glad that after all these years, he's been a professional almost fit
teen years and he's finally, finally, finally getting what you can consider a
marquee fight. So now it's time to see. Uh did it come too
late? Is it coming at the right time? You know, he is
a little older. He is a fighter that relies on on rhythm and and
and defense and speed. He looked pretty good in his in his first fight
at super middleweight that took place in January on the undercart of Givonta Davis's fight
David Benabiez is a tough, tough opponent. Though he's a He's a sturdy,
physical guy, strong as a bull, good chin. Uh. We'll
see. But I felt that the way that that Dimitrius sounded. I have
seen some of the some of the footage from his training camp. Uh.
You know he's working at the at the Snack outfit in San Mateo, California,
where you know he's involved with the Victor Conte, the former Uh.
You know pe dp peddler very much reformed these days. Uh, and you
know he looks like he's an absolutely unbelievable condition, feels like it's got It's
a very tranquil training camp, like they're really down to business. And I
think this is going to be a pretty good fight. I have to tell
you. If it's too good of a fight, that's probably bad for Demetrius.
But from the interview, you know, I know he's amped up and
excited to have this caliber of a fight. It's spent a long time coming.
Good stuff on that. And again you've also talked in the preview mode
with David Benavitez. We'll hear from him coming up as that fight gets closer.
But peeps were here for you with the one on one conversations, etc.
And it's another reminder to make sure that you're following and subscribing because we
will put these interviews up from time to time as standalone outside of the preview
podcast or the recap podcast, and we'll do that with the Andred interview coming
up as well. So rate us and review us and tell us that you
enjoy that. If you like hearing the likes of andreid or Oscar Dale Hooyo
or Tim Zuo or on and on different fighters that we have had on promoters,
etc. If you enjoy that, whether it's Ryan Garcia, Trainers Etca,
Derek James, I'm just going off the top of my head here,
Joe Goosen and others that you've had on RATUS and review Us. I got
a second plug in for you to rate us in review Us, Dan,
so we'll be good on that again. On the Friday bet Us show on
their platforms, we did preview the Shaquur Stevenson Edwin Della Santos WBC BACONT lightweight
title fight world title fight coming in Vegas this Thursday. We also previewed the
e Manuel Navarate title defense with Robinson robson conssal So, but we'll touch on
it a bit here again because even though it's usually a recap, this is
happening before we typically preview again later on in the week. So give me
give me a couple of thoughts here on this again. You interviewed Shaquur Stevenson
recently on the podcast as well as he goes for a third world title here
in a third different weight division. Some thoughts Dan on this coming Thursday in
Vegas. Well, my thoughts are very simply in terms of the main event
that although Edwin de Los Santos has shown himself to be a very good fighter
in recent fights. He looks sharp, he's looked good, but he hasn't
thought guys, even though he's looked good in the wins he's had. Joseph
Adornio, for example, he won very handily in terms of a one sided
ten round decision. He had a what I would consider not a huge upset
but I guess a mild mild plus upset against the undefeated Jose Valezuela that was
in September of last year. He's knocked him out in the third round.
Valon Zuela was undefeated and a lot of people had high hopes for him,
maybe more so than Delo Santos. But Delo Santos is a good fighter.
He was a good amateur. But I'm gonna tell you, I don't care
if edwin Delos Santos or you know, edwin Rosario. Okay, Chaquee.
Stevenson is a different, different ballgame. So I'm not the only one that
feels his way. This young man Chuck Course Stevenson. At age twenty six,
he is undefeated. He's won world titles in two way classes. Statistically
speaking, he's an elite defensive fighter. You can just tell that by watching
him fight for two seconds offensively. He may not be a thunderous one punch
knockout artist. He only has a fifty percent knockout ratio, but he can
hurt. And I believe as he grows into or moves into bigger weights and
mature is more as a as a as a physical being, he's going to
have better power. This This is a guy that's going to be at some
point in the future. I don't know if it's going to be next year
or a year or two after that, but people are going to talk about
him as one of the top couple of pounds for pound fighters in the world,
if not number one. Right now, he's on the list. He
just hasn't had necessarily the caliber of victories to get him to the highest positions
there, although he does have. He's fashioning a very solid resume when you
think about it, knockouts against Jimmel Herring, who he took the title from
a one sided decision with a knockdown against Oscar Valdez, a clear cut decision
over Robston concerts that he's in the co feature now. Granted, in that
fight he didn't make the weight He was tripped of the unified title at one
thirty, which moved him up to one thirty five. He destroyed Yoshino in
the fight in April, which was the elimination fight to get this match for
the title, he wanted to fight Devin Haney. Devin Haney vacated because he
was going up for a big game, bigger game hunting, let's say,
against Regis Progra. Point here is this, I think Chakhor Stevenson is already
one of the best fighters in the world, and with respect to Edwin de
los Santos, a good fighter. But to me, this is gonna be
a lopsided chequurse type of victory. And again it's not a knock on De
los Santos. I just don't see anybody in the small you know, from
let's say one hundred and thirty or lower up to one thirty five that's gonna
hang with Shakur, except maybe Hainey if he was going to come back to
the weight class, and maybe just on muscle memory because of how great he
is Vesililo Machenko, but I don't necessarily think I would pick him to beat
Devin to beat a Chaquor. So I would say this. Hopefully we get
a good fight, but I'm gonna be watching it because I want to see
brilliance. I want to see domination. Very reminds me so much of the
young Floyd Mayweather. I know it's kind of a cliche, but it's the
fact. Uh, he's just a brilliant fighter. Shakur all right in the
cole feature and again, we spent some time on the bet Us show.
You can go back and watch the video previews too, but he man will
not rate, is back in action. He is fighting Consasao, who you
just referenced here, the Brazilian. This is the WBO Junior lightweight title.
It's the co feature fight at the Tmobile Arena. I don't mind admitting this.
I'm thoroughly entertained whenever I watch Namorate fight. I think a lot of
people feel that way. And he's been very active. This again is his
ninth fight, his eighth title fight since the beginning of twenty twenty. Let's
hear it for activity here, and he's back in the ring Thursday night.
So a couple of quick thoughts on that one in the preview mode. Even
though it's a recap show. We're serving both purposes, Peops. You know,
we don't have to label the show. The show is understead. The
show is the show whatever is going on, and we talk about so as
far as this will be, Like you said, he's active. Third fight
of the year. That said, he only had one fight in twenty twenty
two, so he sort of I guess making up for a little bit of
lost time in an event early in the year. He was supposed to fight
Oscar Valdez in February, but he was injured still, so he fought Liam
Wilson in a fantastic fight, knocked him out in a fight of the year
candidate won the vacant title WBO title at one hundred and thirty pounds. They
rescheduled the Oscar Valdez fight that was in August. They put on a sensational
fight. A lot of people that would be the fight of the year.
I didn't quite live up to that level in my opinion. Some people think
it did. But regardless, it was a tremendous battle and in the end
it was never at day that scored, you know, the pretty decisive victory.
You know, he just throws so many punches and he's so busy and
he's a good puncher. And now Robson Contao is standing there. I think
we'll see a similar kind of performances that we have seen, where the activity
level and just how busy he is is going to be a real problem.
Constele is a consummate boxer and a good fighter, was Olympic gold medalist.
But you know in the end he's seventeen to two when he's lost on the
biggest stages. When he stepped up. He did lose very lopsidedly to Shakur
in their title fight that Scar had been stripped of the belts because of the
weight. He also had a much closer decision loss. Some people thought he
won. I didn't against Oscar Valdez. Never at Day again, and we'll
see if he can put together the punch is awaited against the Valdez, but
that was a real tough fight against and I expect him to to do some
damage here against Concassau. We'll see if he can get him off his feet.
I mean, the one thing about Consts, even in the losses,
he's showing a very good chin. Uh but uh, this it's a it's
a classy bike, is whatever you think about contint. Like I said,
the only losses are the two top guys and and they've gone to this,
you know, gone the distance, so it's it's a worthwhile fight. And
keep in mind, by the way, this isn't even like the main event.
It's the undercard fight. So this is uh, this is that's a
nice show for a Thursday night, which we don't see a lot of it.
As we've detailed, it's because of the F one race that's taking place
this weekend in Las Vegas. It's another ESPN uh uh event that's in Vegas.
They sort of like to play off each other because the race is taking
place in Vegas and also is televised by ESPN. But it's a it's a
good opportunity for for everybody in the show to uh to continue doing their thing.
And they got like and this is not exactly uh something unusual TJ.
And that is that top rank as they often will do almost always do,
is they put on some of their better prospects on the undercard. Who you
know, we can all watch the regular on the prolmenary portion of the card
rather on ESPN. Plus I'll just name a couple guys They got Emiliano Vargas,
who's the young son of Fernando Vargas, who's a lightweight that's looked tremendous
in his brief career. He got the welterweight Brian Norman, who's coming along.
You got Floyd cash Flow Diaz, a junior featherweight who's looked good and
is on the way up. People remember when he was a little kid,
basically in the twenty four sevens with Floyd Mayweather. He got the Olympian middleweight.
Troy Isisley's on the card. The a kid that's probably like quickly becoming
one of the top handful of prospects in the whole top rank stable is Abdulla
Mason. I think he's only nineteen years old. He is a lightweight.
Just a lot of talent, is the point. And I'm looking forward to
Navarata and that big left that left upper cut in particularly in particular will he
will he be able to land it and will it do damage? That's part
of the intrigue. All right, moving along, very interesting. You were
reporting this weekend about this December twenty third date that we keep hearing about,
and now it's in Saudier and it looks like some things are coming together.
I'm intrigued by what I see on my rundown. Go ahead, what have
you found out? You know, most recently here we had the Fury in
Ganu card. You kept talking about and saying to everybody this is part of
Riodd's season and the big events they want to have, And so now they're
rolling out some fights and you found out some names. Go ahead, Well,
sure, so December twenty third, as everybody knows, what's supposed to
be the date for Fury against Usik for the undisputed heavyweight championship, And that
was sort of in pencil prior to the Nigan Who fight, And I said
this on the show. We talked about it many times. Well, I
mean, how can you say the fight's definitely on the twenty third when you
have no idea what's going to happen on the fight that took place October twenty
eighth. So even though Fury did win, the fight barely eked it out,
got knocked down, came out with a swollen eye, and I got
banged around in a fight that a lot of people thought Nagan who won,
you know, barely eked it out. The point is that it was very
clear from the moment that that bell ended to end that fight. There was
absolutely zero chance in hell that Tyson Pier is going to be back right in
camp, you know, within a few days or a week to be ready
to fight for the undisputed title against Usik on December twenty third. So,
as expected, the fight is gonna not take place until at the earliest,
probably February, which is if it does take place February, be like at
the tail end of the Read Season festival, they wanted to have another event
so they're gonna still do an event on February. On December twenty third,
And as I have reported, I broke this story and it's I was shot.
I went to bed like after writing it, woke up the next morning
and like my phone like exploded with texts and emails and tags on social media
and everybody you know writing about the story. It's not done yet. Let
me emphasize not done, not signed unless something's happened as we're taping this.
But there's contracts in the works, and everybody's you know, at least on
board before they've signed. But they still got to go through some things,
at least in terms of the top couple of fights. But this would be
a card on which Anthony Joshua would headline in read against Otto Whalen, who
everybody knows is a good contender, gave Tyson Firay hell of a fight.
Anthony Joshua defeated Otto well in two times when they were in the amateur ranks.
I actually found one of their amateur fights on YouTube and watch it the
other night when they were very young. Obviously, so that would be the
main event. That's an intriguing fight. That's a fight that would put the
winner in position for a vacant IBF title fight, perhaps against Philip Perkovic,
who was also going to be on this card. Because Otto got a victory
against Gassie have made him number two. Kergovich was already number one. Joshua
I believe his number three. If he wins, it'll set him up to
fight for the vacant title against Argovich. But anyway, so that's not that
he needs to have that because he can fight for a title just because of
his name as long as he wins. But anyway, that would be the
main event. That's a very solid fight. The co feature or you know
our co made event, if you will, is supposed to be Deontay Wilder
against Joseph Parker, another former title holder, who also has had a unification
fight against Joshua and lost, and so on the one hand, you have
a lot of people who are like, what the fuck are they doing?
Why can't Joshua and why they're just fight each other. I'm not gonna use
the F word, but what are they doing? And why can't they just
fight each other? I mean, exactly, that's the question. I mean,
I wish I had a reasonable answer for you. They're gonna be in
the same building, they're presumably both making a lot of money. We've been
talking about this for years, Yes, you're just talking about a year years.
Why are they fighting somebody else at this stage between two of them?
I wish I had a coach and answer for you on that. I mean,
of course, I would love to see them fight each other, I
think, and I don't. Even my reporting says to me that even if
this doubleheader are the two main fights on this big card we're talking about take
place, it's not even a guarantee that they would fight each other next.
In other words, a lot of times we're gonna do these types of shows
where you've got the two guys on the card together. It's all as a
prelude to them fighting each other. You know, there's a ton of examples.
I mean, you know, Top Ranked named a doubleheader that included Chavis
Senior and Oscar de la Aya prelude to glory it was, and they had
signed for the big fight between Oscar and Chavez. So this was clear as
day that they were doing preluatatory like before we get the big one. And
then when they finally fought each other in the next fight, they called it
ultimate glory. I mean it was set up to do. Let's put them
on the doubleheader together. They thought, like, you know, softer opponents
than than Otto Whalen and Joe Parker obviously, but they won their fights and
they went on to have the big one. And that's just one example of
a thousand times that's happened. In the case of this situation, they don't
have anything signed, sealed and delivered to do a fight against each other.
Now that said, the Saudis have the money and the desire where they can
do it whenever they want because they've got the money to do it. Like
people make a misunderstanding about what they're doing here. When promoters put on big
events like this, they want to make money. They obviously think they can
sell a certain amount of pay per view, bringing a certain amount of ticket
money, bring in sponsors, and you know whatever. You want to talk
about all the different revenue streams, international television and well, I don't think
that people that are b bank will this from Saudi Arabia, which is the
General Entertainment Authority, that is the governmental office that is responsible bringing in not
just boxing matches, but they did UFC, they brought in wrestling, they
brought in golf, auto racing, whatever, the big events, sports or
entertainment, concerts, whatever. It's not about let's make a profit. It's
like you're a company and you buy an ad in the Super Bowl for thirty
seconds for seven million dollars. It's for advertising purposes. They want to put
on big events in Saudi Arabia. We can just you know, without discussing
the political reasons why they're doing this. The bottom line is they want to
make Saudi Arabia look to the rest of the world as a place you should
go and visit because they've got all this stuff to offer. Sports, culture,
music, food, whatever, and that's why they're doing this. And
they've got as much money as anybody. So for them to spend fifty million
dollars or eighty million dollars or whatever for this card, it's like if you
and I went and bought a cup of coffee, it doesn't mean anything.
It's like they have endless amounts of money, so don't worry about whether it's
profitable or But anyway, so this card has a chance to be a huge
card. So yes, we would like to see them fight each other.
They're not fighting each other, but at least they're fighting like actual legitimate opponents.
I mean, say what you want, but Otto Whalen and Joe Parker
are real guys. Well you partially answered it. We don't know what the
guarantees are. But if if Anthony, okay, if Anthony Josh was making
five million dollars to fight Auto Vallein, way more than that, okay,
But I mean just stick with me. And Deontay Wilder is making five million
guaranteed to fight Joseph Parker, why was there any incentive for them to fight
each other. If they can make that on this card, to take a
low risk fight for both of them. So well, you're telling me now,
if you're telling me they're making eight million or ten million guaranteed, when
the guaranteed money doesn't seem to be out there big time anyway to fight somebody
that's not a champ, not a number one contender, And what I will
deem is a low risk fight for both of them. Now we begin to
understand the reason why they're not fighting each other. You know that Anthony Joshua
and Deontay Wilder, if this event had weapons, Anthony Joshua will make well
in excess of ten million dollars. I believe Deontay Wilder would probably be making
around ten million dollars. And you can say what you want, but I
don't consider Parker and Auto willing to be like, gimme a wins. I
mean, yes, they'll be favored. Obviously, these are not either one
of them or legit threats for Joshua Parker or for Joshua Wilder. Is either
one of them a big enough puncher. Is either one of them a big
enough punchers. Where I would come from from that to where you would say,
wow, that guy's a threat to beat JOSHUAA that guy's a threat to
beat Wilder. I don't think that about either one of them. I'm just
saying it's heavyweight boxing. These are real guys, They've had championship level experience.
Otto Wellen is a south Pod, not Anthony Joshua's favorite style to fight.
Deontay Wilder is not exactly a young man anymore. He's had some brutal
knockout losses. Not to say that Joe Parker didn't take a tough knockout loss
against Joe Joyce. I'm only making the point that is this, if they're
not fighting each other, which I want them to be doing, these are
reasonable opponents for them that are maybe they're the top guys, but these are
at least like the secondary be guys. So, but that's just two fights
on the card. The rest of this thing is insane. If they get
it all done. Now, we'll see if they all get if they all
get close. Because my understanding is why they're all have paper out on these
different fights. Nothing is actually one hundred percent signed, sealed and delivered.
You're gonna have Philip Hergovic, who's the number one contender for the winner of
Usik and Fury. He's gonna fight an opponent to be determined that has not
been announced, or nothing's been announced. Nothing in my recording, they told
me he didn't have an opponent. Of the various people I spoke to,
you have Dmitri Beevill, the light heavyweight WBA champion, is supposed to be
fighting Richard Rivera to pop by the Sailor man who's with Star Boxing, who
gave bad Dude Jack a tough fight. Dmitri Beevill, who hasn't fought since
last November, who hasn't fought now and going on thirteen months. If he's
on this December card, go ahead, so that would be a title defense
for him. And then you've got three other heavyweight fights. You have the
possibility of Daniel Dubois coming off the USIK knockout loss against Gerald Big Baby Miller,
who's you know, has his own checkered history. But no less,
that's actually a fight where I have no idea who wins that fight. You
have Frank Sanchez, the outstanding undefeated Cuban fighter who nobody wants to fight.
He's being mashed if it all gets done with Junior fa who is the New
Zealand fighter that was you know an up and coming guy. He did get
knocked out by Lucas Brown and kind of a freak knockout, but it was
still a rough first round knockout loss. He hasn't fought since. Then.
You have a fighter that we saw on the undercard of the Tyson Fury Nagan
who fight Joseph Parker won by knockout an undercard. Another fighter that won on
that Undercarter is arnslow back Mahmadouf, who is the Russian fighter based out of
Canada. He is going to be on this card. We'll see you know
who they match him up with. And then you also have the possibility of
ji Opataia, the cruiserweight champion, fighting on this card. Also again no
opponent said he has a mandatory that he's supposed to have with Maris Braidest,
But there's a possibility that braidest Is injury may not be altogether healed, so
if he's not able to go, he'd probably be allowed to have an optional
defense, and that would probably be what would happen on this card. If
the Greatest is ready to go. I do not believe that that mandatory would
happen in this card, and he probably would not fight so you know,
there's a lot of moving parts. The interesting thing there is this, and
what I was told by multiple folks involved, is that the Saudis who are
doing this event, and Frank Warren would be like the on the ground promoter,
but they've got a million different promoters who would involved from the standpoint of
having their fighters on this card. As you're talking about, you're talking about
they won't have a press conference, you know on Wednesday of this week.
Oh by the way, Mama, Dude's opponent is supposed to be your boy,
Ajit Kabil, the European heavyweight chance my boy, Yes, your boy.
So they got a lot to pull together between now and Wednesday. Now,
it doesn't mean they have to have all eight of these fights signed,
but if you're going to have a press cards, at the very least,
you're gonna have to have probably Deontay Wilder and Joshua done to do any kind
of news conference. But they still got a few days to do it,
and they work quickly. Look, when the Saudis have the money, you
know, money talks, as they say, and they can make shit happen
real quick. So you know, I saw some interviews with Eddie hearn post
his card in Newcastle, where you know how Eddie loves to talk about everything
under the sun. Even as fairly tight lipped about this, he didn't want
to give away any details. But uh, I'm proud of my efforts to
report and ferret out this entire card and that story. And if it happens,
you know, I know people are gonna they're gonna bitch and moment because
Joshua Wilder not fighting each other, and I totally get that, but as
an event unto itself, putting that one significant fact to the side for a
quick moment. I get on promoters all the time when they put out press
releases and all that stuff, and they say, oh, it's a stacked
card, and it's like a piece of shit. This actually is a stacked
card. If it happens as we're talking, I would agree with you.
That's a lot of big names and some and a title fight too with the
with the Beavil. Just clarify, bevill fight would be a title fight,
yes, you have yes, and would also be a title fight if it
happen. So the breakdown is like this je Joshua and Wilder and legitimate separate
fights. Four other heavyweight fights of varying degrees of interest, but nothing that's
a complete joke. And two other world title fights beevol against Rivera, who's
only loss was a very competitive loss to that do Jack and Opataia possibly,
although we don't have an opponent on the books yet. So that's a big
show of pre uh, you know, pre Christmas at a time in boxing
where there's very very rarely there's any activity over the Christmas holiday, and if
there is, it's nothing, nothing at this level. So it's interesting.
Look the Saudi's and what they're doing. They're changing the paradigm of a lot
of what happens in boxing. Now how long they're gonna do this for?
I mean they could be in today and now tomorrow, but it seems like
they're in this for the time being and money is of really no object.
We'll see if they can can get continue to do this, because they're gonna
host Fury and Husick come early next year, so that would mean Naganu fight
plus this fight card plus that fight they did, the Joshua Ruiz fight.
When they did the rematch, you know a few years ago, they had
had that experience, so Joshua Usik rematch as well and Ruiz. It was
both Joshua Ruiz rematch George you said first, and then Joshua Usick as well,
and the Jake Paul Tommy Fury for whatever it was worth. So clearly
they're dipping into into boxing and big time events go where the money is,
and there is money there, like what you shared. All right, one
other piece of news before the nostalgia, and again we cover this. I
keep making reference on the bet Us show on Friday, we covered this,
but it had happened after we had taped our podcast that you learned and then
reported later Thursday night about Terrence Crawford being stripped. It's now official that the
IBF says you're no longer our world welterweight champ. And oh, by the
way, Jeron Boots in Us is our world welterweight champ. So give me
on this podcast your reaction to that. Going on, he fought Erl Spence,
he became the undisputed champion. He knew and everybody knew that he was
gonna have Mandatorius to do. And the keeping titles together is very difficult,
and because they're the contract between Errol and Crawford had a rematch right, and
and Errol Spence exercised that rematch right. The IBF is crystal clear in their
rules they do not deviate from this. Uh. They do not allow immediate
rematch clauses in contracts. And so if Karence Crawford is going to go forward
in his next fight against am you know, for a rematch against Spence,
that's against the IBF rules period, end of the story. And so when
the IBF communicated with Terrence Crawford's representative, they were told that that was the
case. And so therefore, uh, they got around to finally doing what
they were going to do all along. It figured with with respect to them
having a rematch clause, they were going to strip him unless he you know,
went against the rematch clause, which then puts him into a legal problem
and then too probably a lawsuit. And so they were like, you know
what, he stripped and uh tron Ennis, who we allowed to win the
interim title. Uh, he's been elevated. And that's that's not unusual.
This is the way things operate in the IBF often. Uh, And so
it's unfortunate, but it's not unexpected. I mean, the thing that drives
me a little crazy, is that we all want to see undisputed champion,
and it takes so long to get there, and they fight this guy and
there's all the mock and it just it's a long and arduous process to get
to the undisputed champion, and then you finally get it, and one guy
has all the belts and there it's just impossible to keep them for any length
of time. The fact that Canelo Alvarez has now made three defenses of the
titles undisputed is really nothing short of a miracle. Now, of all the
times that there have been four belt champions and no, no, none of
them has ever made more than more than two defenses except for Canelo, who
just made his third in the victory over Charlotte, who was part of the
same situation where he was undisputed at one fifty four, and after that fight
began, he was stripped by the WBO because they had an obligation to Tim
Zuo, who was owed to fight, and they just followed what their rules
were. They let it wasn't a secret, it wasn't they did this underhandedly.
It was well known and boken up prior to the fight, so it
doesn't It doesn't impact Crawford in any negative way other than he's not undisputed,
but does not change his accomplishments that he has been the undisputed welterweight champion,
he was previously the undisputed junior welterweight champion, And actually, if you want
to know the truth, all that does is save him three percent of his
next person when it comes time to pay the piper on sanction phase. Hey,
good for Annis that he gets elevated. And I don't know if it'll
ever happen, but I would love an Ennis Crawford fight. If we're just
fantasy matchmaking, don't know that that would ever happen. If Crawford wants to
try to be undisputed again and go get the belt back, you know,
find my man. With respect to Ennis, you know he's a great talent.
We know that we've seen him fight many times. I kind of feel
bad for him, though, because you work your whole career the idea I
mean, you want to make money, of course, but the idea you
want to you want to go in the ring, you want to beat your
opponent, you want to win a world championship, and you want to hear
the ring announcer say, and the new raise your hand, and you get
to celebrate. Hould the belt up, have a nice party, you know,
and and celebrate to a degree. And unfortunately, and I'm not saying
this in a put in a negative way, like a lot of people said
about Devin Haney, he got his title in an email. Basically he had
become the interim champion, which is exactly the same way that Haney won the
WBC Interim Championship. And because of decisions that were out of his control or
in this case, out of Ennis's control, the champion was doing other things.
In that case it was Momachanko, in this case it's Terrence Crawford.
And so therefore the title becomes vacant, and you are elevated, and you
don't get that moment where they raise your hand and call you the new champion.
Now he got this hand raised and got to be called the interim champion.
But I never met a boxer in my twenty four plus years of doing
this, or almost twenty four years doing this, that said my dream in
life is to be the interim champion of the world. Right, they want
to be a fucking champ. And he never got the opportunity for that,
and Devin Haney didn't either, and there's plenty of others, and so that's
the downside of this. In essence, his interim title fight was for what
would have been the vacant title. I guess they just they put the carpet
for the horse and it happens all the time. Okay, well, well
done laying out all of the news. Let's get to some quick nostalgia.
Here's We've had a busy show and it's getting a little later here for us,
for both of us, and we're getting ready for a fight week here
that includes again that championship doubleheader coming on Thursday. We're gonna be right back
with that, and then fights on the weekend as well. Okay, nostalgia
time, and some of it involves Sunday and some of it involves Monday.
My goodness, forty one years ago today, as we released the podcast Sunday
Night into Monday. Sunday is the forty first anniversary of one of the most
phenomenal bouts, especially non heavyweight bounts, but with all the intrigue in and
around it political in the ring, great fighters Alexis Arguayo and Aaron the Hawk
prior Orange Bowl in Miami, and I just set it up this way.
I've told you this before, We've said it to the audience we've had Barry
Tompkins, the Hall of Fame broadcaster on from HBO. Tompkins said to us
more than a couple of years ago Dan Rayfield that of all the big time
fights that he has gotten to do, he probably points to this one as
the most memorable for all the different reasons and the action and the drama and
the controversy after. So here we go, here we go, give me
a little bit more on this. While we were kids when this happened,
and now we're old, but we still remember. For yourself, I want
to go with seasoned. On a Sunday night, we seasoned. Okay,
okay, season I mean very simply put, if you were ranking the top
you know, fifty fights in the history of boxing, this is probably in
the top five of all the first I will say that, yes, you
know, it's not number one, it's definitely not number one, but it's
way way, way way up there in terms of the best fight in the
history of the sport for a lot of different reasons. Because it kind of
had everything in terms of I wasn't there, but what I have heard and
what you can see if you watched on the on the on the on the
video, that the atmosphere in the crowd, huge, huge stakes, two
great fighters, two Hall of Fame fighters. Uh and the battle when the
bell went was just mind boggling how good it was. So to set it
up for those who haven't paid close attention, I tell people all the time,
I have obsessed over the Four Kings fights. You know, for most
of my life, I've kind of obsessed over Urgueyo prior for a long time.
Also, here you had Aaron Pryor who never got the opportunity to fight
the biggest names, Sugar Ray Leonard, for example, Tommy Hearns. He
fought Tommy Hearns and the amateurs. He was supposed to fight Sugar Ray Leonard
in the pros, but that was before Ray suffered the REDN injury and the
fight never ended up happening. So he didn't get that fight. But he
you know, he was making a way. He was knocking a lot of
guys out, making exciting fights. He would get knocked down, he was
always in something dramatic, but he was a WBA junior welterweight world champion.
He had made five defenses and he still hadn't had the big fight. And
here you have Argueyo, who was a beloved figure, you know, the
royalty in Nicaragua, if you will, had won titles at featherweight, at
junior lightweight, at lightweight at that time. And here we're talking about nineteen
eighty two. No boxer. Now it's become I won't say commonplace, but
lots of guys have done it. But at that time, nobody had ever
won world titles in four weight classes, and so it was a really big
deal for him to be attempting this, to go up to one hundred and
forty pounds to win, you know, the a bonafid world title in a
fourth waight class. I mean even three was you know, very young.
You know, it was pretty unusual at that time. You know, you
had a few guys that have done it, Henry Armstrong for example, who
had them all at the same time. So this was a big fight at
the Miami Orange Bowl, obviously a huge stadium, you know, big crowd.
Arguayo the big favorite, given the Latino turnout, and they just put
on a spectacle. It was as brutal and but with skills, if that
makes sense, that you could ask for a lot of back and forth.
Both guys showed just great chintz and they just they just battled tooth and nail,
and finally Prior in the end just was a bit too much and he
he scored a dramatic fourteenth round knockout. Now, of course there's the controversy
that took place that we can talk about with the you know, Panama lewis
the trainer for Aaron Pryor. We get to that in a second. The
worst thing is the first thing is, you know, Argueyo was known for
the Adam Baum right hand, as I like to say, constantly knocking people
out. And he hit Aaron Pryor with that sledgehammer right hand on three or
four occasions where a lot of lesser fighters would have been knocked down, if
not knocked out. So Pryor was taking the punch, was firing back at
Arguayo crowd roaring over forty thousand plus in attendance in that outdoor football stadium,
and then it kind of segues into the controversy in the championship rounds of a
fifteen round championship fight. So pick it up from there about what we would
later learn was behind Panama Lewis and no, no, give me the other
water bottle, the one that Okay, So this is very famous. This
is between rounds thirteen and fourteen. The HBO audio you know, was doing
their job and they heard Panama say to the other second in the corner,
as he was going to give Prior what we thought is water, give me
the bottle, meaning give me the water ball, and then he gives them
one. He says, no, the one I mixed, and so that
became like a a controversy like, well, what do you mean the one
you mixed? What was in it? Now there's been a lot of rumors
about what was in there. Uh, I guess one of the popular ones
is like it was peppermint schnapps or something like that to wake them up.
I don't know what the deal was. Obviously some people might have thought it
was some kind of illegal drug, but he wasn't a stimulant. It was
stimulating. There's others, there's others that were trained by Panama Lewis that said,
yes, he put it in my water too, and let's just be
clear. Hanama Lewis is known as like literally the biggest scumbag maybe in the
history of boxing. This is the man that took the glove padding out of
out of the padding of one of his fighters. Uh. You know that
caused you know, major damage to the other fighter, and you know he
was basically suspended for life, uh from from the sport. But in terms
of what was in there, like I said, some people say it was
schnapps to supposedly calm down Aaron Pryor's stomach, as you said. Others thought
me there was some kind of illegal stimulant. In any event, whatever it
was, that was after round thirteen, and in around fourteen out of a
fifteen round fight, Aaron Pryor was able to score the knockout against it.
And by the way, it was a great fight, and we mentioned how
great it was. The Ring magazine picked it as the fight of the decade
for the nineteen eighties, so that's a pretty big deal. And they also
ranked them laughing because it's a fight in nineteen eighty two and you had eight
more years of the decade. That's why I'm laughing. And and oh,
by the way, well they named it at the end of the decade,
at the end of the decade, right, but it also is a decade
that had Haggler Hearns in it three years later, So it just tells you
how great this night was. Yeah. Yeah, you can argue that it's
a better fight than Hagler Hearns because it lasted longer. It's a longer,
more dramatic fight for sure, and the combatants were on the same level there
are. Hagler and Hearns are obviously great Hall of Fame fighters, but so
were prior in ARGUEO, so they all It kind of checked a lot of
boxes. But it didn't just go three rounds. It went for fourteen that
were just ball you know, balls to the wall for the whole fight.
So I can tell you is that if you've never seen it, it's on
YouTube the HBO full broadcast. I've seen. I have a beautiful DVD of
it in my collection, and as you know TJ, with my memorability obsession,
I actually posed this question on social media earlier because because it was the
anniversary, I posted some of the stuff I have from the fight. One
of the things I do have in the fight is a program you think,
all right, it's a program for the fight. They had it a big
stadium, you know, like you said, thirty forty thousand people whatever,
big you know, huge title fight, you know, historical attempt for argueo,
a defense for prior Hall of Fame level guys. You think, okay,
that ain't a hard program to find, Well, let me tell you.
I've been looking for programs from that fight for like going on thirty plus
years in my entire life. I've seen three of them. I own a
beautiful in my collection that I paid very dearly for and I don't regret it
at all. And I've seen two others over the years that were not in
even close to that kind of condition. And the thing is, it's to
me a mystery, why in the world is this program not not around?
It was, like I said, it was a big stadium. They made
memorability, they made merchandise for the fight. I've asked people from top rank
who promoted the fight, why was there? Why can't you ever find a
program in this fight? They have no idea what the answer is. So
did anybody out there knows a great mystery of why a program from this specific
fight with that huge crowd that they clearly made programs for you don't even see
ratty ones. Like I said, I've seen three, and I've talked about
like with other dealers, collectors, eBay, auction houses, other people in
boxing. I know they don't exist. Interesting, So that's that's like an
interesting scillite. And yet there are Your point is there are other fights around
that time period, whether it be the Leonard Durand two fights or Leonard Hearns
around that time period, or Larry Holmes Jerry Cooney helped me with anything I'm
leaving out. I know there were those longest fights in and around that time
and there's plenty of programs that you could find or get your hand. I'm
not saying dozens or hundreds, but you can easily on around that same time
period, get your hands easily on a really good program. Some of them
are scarcer than others. But for all those types of fights you just mentioned,
if you really stick to it, you're gonna find multiple examples, have
your pick of different conditions and prices. And with this particular fight, for
whatever reason, it's just they don't exist. I mean again, I'm thrilled
to have one in my collection. I posted a picture of it. But
I wish I knew the answer to that. Why two other things? Again,
the controversy was only the beginning of the end for Panama. Lewis with
that, and Aaron Pryor got the signature win of his career that he'd been
waiting for. And by the way, it's a phenomenal call by Barry Tompkins,
the Hall of Famer on the play by play call, because prior is
just waylaying, alexis ARGUEO and the fight is finally stopped. I love the
referees later a judge, I think he's still working professionally right As a judge,
I don't know so much as a referee, Stanley Christa Dulo is his
name. He eventually jumps between the fighters yelling no, no, no,
that's it, and Barry Thompson's call at Argueyo's slumps to the canvas. It's
just a great moment and a great ending there. If you want to know.
Some believe it's tainted by what happened in the corner with the stimulant.
It more than likely was in the water, So learn more about the fight
if your character, first of all, And like less than a year later,
they had a rematch Ye and Argueyo got knocked out in the tenth round
and you just realized he couldn't win. And there's the famous scene, the
moment of him sitting on the canvas with his arms wrapped around his knees,
just sort of shaking. He said like, I can't possibly beat this guy.
It's the same sort of scene I always think about when I think about
the third fight between Morales and Paco, where Morales was in the same exact
situation. I just can't beat this guy Paco, and he just basically called
it a day, sitting on the canvas. But the HBO twenty the HBO
Legendary Knights thirty minute documentary is on YouTube. It is absolutely phenomenal. The
whole series is phenomenal, but the episode on Argueyo prior was as one of
the better ones and worth watching if you want to know some of the backstory
of the fight and how it unfolded with the controversial things we're talking about,
really good stuff. I again do not want to accept that that was forty
one years ago prior Aguayo one. Also on Monday, Bow Holy Field one,
you touched on the trilogy when we were talking about the fan Man Anniversary.
It is amazing that all these fights were around the same time in November
in and around those so Bow Holyfield won another great one to watch. And
also Pacquiao Margarito thirteen years ago Monday, you were ringside for that one.
There's time we could go for another hour on the nostalgia just off of these
last two or three days. Well, Paccio Margarito was and I've said this
before, if you were drawing a graph of a great fighters, a scent
up the ladder to greatness and then when he maybe goes over that backside and
starts to go down more to earth than Peter's out. I've always considered the
Apex the absolute best of Manny Pacio was on the night that he defeated Antonio
Margharito. You know, he was just an unstoppable force at that point,
and this was the dead middle of his prime, or I guess the end
of his prime based on what I'm saying here, But that was an extraordinary
event. It was the second time that he fought in a row at Cowboys
Stadium, but it was a bigger opponent, a bigger name opponent in Antonio
Margarito. They were fighting for the vacant WBC one hundred and fifty four pound
title, So by winning this was the record setter for Pracio, gave him
a he'd already had the record at seven weight classes. This made him an
eight division world champion all the way from flyweight to junior middleweight, and he
never fought at junior bandam weight or bandam weight, So theoretically, had he
decided to fight there in campaign, maybe he could have won titles in ten
different weight classes. And he didn't just beat Margarito. He beat the living
shit out of Margarito, broke his face. Margito was never the same after
that fight. Late in that fight, you know, you could see him
motioning to the referee Lawrence Call, are you going to stop this fight?
Or I need to kill this man? You know, Lawrence Call should have
stopped that fight. Pagio should have had a knockout in that fight. Margarito
showed huge amounts of toughness, but he just This is also the kind of
fight where the craw was. There was a lot of Pacio fans, but
certainly because of bit where it was in Texas, huge Margarito fan base from
the Mexican fans that were there, and the thing that always strikes me is
that, yes, they were fighting for the junior middleweight title weight limit one
fifty four, but because Margaret was so much bigger than Pako, there was
a catchweight in the fight. The contract was one to fifty, so Margarito
made one fifty. It wasn't a huge thing for him. He had been
a welterweight for a long time. He made one to fifty. But Manny
Paco fighting for the junior middleweight title one hundred and fifty four pound max weighed
in like a schmidge over one forty four, so he was at welterweight but
really almost down closer to her, halfway between welterweight and junior welterweight. And
he still beat up the Jesus out of him, and it was just a
dominating, very impressive historical performance. They give him the titles in the eight
way classes. You know, he won like twelve, eleven and ten rounds
on the three judges scorecards, and it was an extraordinary accomplishment for Manny Pacio,
historical in nature. You know, they say everything's bigger in Texas,
including Rayfield showing up. It's always bigger if Rayfield shows up, including at
at and T stateiument. I've shared this with you before. They've had other
world title fights since. Obviously Erl Spencer has fought pay per views there in
the recent so is kind of mellow Alvarez and you were there for that.
But that photo is up in the football press box of Cowboys Stadium at and
T Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play. This Pacquiao Margarito photo. It's a
huge like roof top looking down photo that's there and it's got the name played
on the bottom of it with the date November thirteenth, twenty ten. That
photo is there amongst all the photos of concerts Dallas Cowboys, big wins and
big moments in the Cotton Bowl that they now play in that stadium. So
it tells you what kind of big event that was thirteen years ago, and
you were right there. You were right there for that. Great stuff on
the nostalgia, great stuff with Demetrius Andre And now we have this championship double
header, so we have that coming later in the week, and then we
got more fights to preview on the weekend. So we've had a busy show.
We've got again Shakur Stevenson e Manuel Navarati in separate world title fights coming
Thursday in Vegas. Going to be a busy, busy weekend weekend, my
friend, anything else, it's good. I like it. We do like
it. We do like it when it's good. Stuff with Demitrius Andre and
again a subsequent upcoming interview with David Benavitez as well. That we'll be around
the corner for now, my friend, have a great week this week.
Thank you Dan Rayfield for hanging out here on the Fight Freak to Night Recap
podcast. All right, let's have a good week, my man, Let's
do it. I'm merely TJ. Reeves follow Subscribe to this podcast speed rates
and reviewers please. It is the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. You've been
listening on the weekend, coming off the weekend to the Fight Freaks You Night Recap