The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ Leaves. Oh well, hello there, and
we are back and we are ready to go with a women's world welterweight title
fight. A plus, we're going to hear speak to you of that fight
in England. By the way. Speaking of England, we'll hear from a
British a super middleweight of interest, John Ryder, a guest on the preview
pod coming up. I am merely the somewhat competent host TJ Reeves. He's
the man that you're here to hear from our insider. Fight Freaks Unite is
his substag Bigfight Weekend dot Com. Hello Dan Rayfield. Much to discuss,
including fight cards filling out in Saudi Arabia. By the way, we also
have Ryan Garcia and Oscar de la Hoya not on the same page. What
day is it shocking? What year is it? We've got a lot to
go over. Nostalgia question for you, Yes, my friend, go ahead,
you always ask me the questions. Is is a tiff between Ryan Garcia
and Oscar del Loyd does even qualify as news? That's not news, okay,
but it is entertaining when Oscar puts out who the next fight is going
to be and Ryan Garcia puts out that ain't happening, So we got to
talk about that later on. We'll get to it. It's all for our
benefit on social media. It's highly entertaining anyway. However, you found us,
Thank you for doing so. This is the preview pod that is usually
out late night into Thursday into Friday morning. We often come back almost always
with a recap podcast off the weekend as well. On this here very podcast
feed. Make sure you're following, make sure you're subscribing all the podcast outlets,
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the algorithms. More people find us, and again, a lot of you,
by the thousands and thousands and thousands or with us on every show.
Tens of thousands of you were with us obviously, show after show In December,
we appreciate that. I think the fans appreciate Dan the fact they put
up with us twice. It seems like every weekend they put up with this
previewing and recapping and seem to enjoy. You know what, We're still here
special. It's a special week because we have if they don't want to hear
all the stuff around it, we have the Mikaela Mayer interview from a few
days ago that says its own standalone episode that they can correct and listen here
right way, I'll do your job. If they were subscribing, they would
have gotten an alert. That's correct, they would have already known about this.
And plus I'd much rather listen to her than listen to you anyway,
So I may go back and listen to that. But in any event,
good stuff. Michaela ready to go with Natasha Jonas and why don't you know
what? Excellent segue, intentional or not, Let's go right there. It
is the upcoming IBF Welterweight championship fight that you and she were previewing. Michaela
moving up in weight. This is the boxer card. It will be on
here on ESPN Plus in the US, Sky Sports in the UK. Find
your own outlet if you're elsewhere listening to us to be able to see it.
All right, your thoughts here. As again, MICHAELA sounded confident and
listening to that interview, I like the fact that she said that, in
all honesty, she would lie a lot of the time that she was not
doing well actually on trying to cut weight, make weight, and she would
lie and say I feel great, I'm ready to go. Now she actually
means it. I'm paraphrasing her. That's what she told you on the podcast.
All right, so your thoughts and she gets ready to fight Natasha Jones
if she's being truthful this time, but I'll give her the benefit of the
doubt. So she spent most of her career virtuale overcr as an amateur and
as a professional, fighting about one hundred and thirty pounds. She was a
unified champion at one hundred thirty pounds. Obviously, she lost that delta in
a unification somewhat controversially to Alicia Bomgarner by a one point split decision, and
subsequent to that, after another fight, Bombgarner had a positive drug test,
So it certainly throws into question whether or not she was Quan for the fight
against Mayor. But nonetheless, Mikaela did come back after that fight. She
want to fight moving up to lightweight. You know, cruised to a pretty
handy, easy decision back in April of last year. She then went up
to one hundred and forty contract weight of one hundred and forty two pounds later
in the year. This past September, she won another fight very handily,
and ringside for that fight that was a shoutout of that one was Natasha Jonas.
That was the fight that was the opportunity for As I talked about whether
she was I asked her about moving up and weight, you know, was
it a matter of I can't make the one hundred and thirty pound is it
I just want to go up? Is it because there's where the opportunities were,
and the money and all that. And as she explained, which I
was not surprised here, it's a combination of those those two things. I
don't think she necessarily thought she would be fighting for a Walter Way tighter right
off the bat, but that was the opportunity that presented itself, and it's
a good matchup and it's obviously a good payday and it's a main event,
and you know, these are similarly sized women, even though Mikhaela is moving
to the heavier weight division and Natasha she has the DIBF title as a walterweight.
She actually had come down where she had been a unified champion at a
junior middleweight, but by and large, Jonas's career was spent in the junior
lightweight and lightweight divisions. A matter of fact, Michaela is also a bit
taller than her, which I saw when it was listed on the stat sheet,
and then when you take a look at the photographs that came out of
the out of the news conference that took place on Thursday, clearly Michaela is
the taller woman. It's got a longer reach. And look, these are
two decorated female boxers in terms of their amateur career, both our Olympians.
They have had good professional careers with lots of world title experience and fought you
know, pretty much the best women around and in their weight classes. And
I love the fact that, you know, whether it's business reasons or otherwise,
Michaela is fearless about going overseas. She's now fighting. This will be
her fourth consecutive fight in the UK. I reminded her in the interview,
or pointed out to her anyway, that while it's her fourth fight in a
row in England, it's the first time she's fighting another brit in England.
The other women that she faced, one was an American and Bomb Garner.
Another woman was from Sweden. I think another one was from Spain or Italy
or something like that. But I often like to say an important distinction by
Dan Rayfield that she's actually fighting a British fighter who will presumably have a lot
of centiment behind her no matter what she does. Yes, absolutely, and
she's fighting is not just fighting her in England another bridge, She's fighting a
hometown fight in terms of going to Natasha Jonas's hometown of Liverpool, where she's
a hero. She's a beloved figure in the UK. She is royalty,
you know, not actual royalty, but close enough. I mean, she
is a beloved figure. And you know, obviously Michael has made some fans
over in the in the in the UK over the last several fights, but
I don't think there's a lot of people in that arena in Natasha Jonas' hometown
rooting for her. So you know, that's that's that's the backdrop to it.
And in terms of what will happen in the fight, Look, you
have two women who are excellent technical boxers. Natasha Jonas she does have some
knockouts, you know, nine knockouts in her fourteen victories, but she's also
been stopped in one of her two losses. So I've never I've seen a
lot of her fights actually through the years, and while she has scored some
knockouts, I've never viewed her as like this big knockout puncher. She did
go the distance against Katie Taylor a couple of years ago in a lightweight title
challenge and she lost a competitive decision, so she can hang with the best
of them. Her draw is against Kerry Harper, who's been a world champion,
also another good fighter. And you know, Michaela's only loss was the
one point split decision to Bomb Gardner, So they've been these are two women
that have fought, you know, quality fighters. You know, one of
the best women's fights I've seen, and I was actually ringside for that one,
was when Mikaela unified titles at one thirty against Hamaduscha in Las Vegas.
That was the night before a big Canelo Alvarez fight. So these are experience
championship challenge you know, women that have challenged, that have been in world
title fights, that have won world titles, you know, and and and
women's boxing. You know, the best fight the best on a regular basis
is not like a once in a while thing like we see sometimes with the
men. Uh, they don't mess around like their promoters and the athletes.
They're able to make the deals. Uh, they get their biggest money and
they talk about this coming up with the Saudi Arabia stuff. You go where
the money is, and the best fighting, the fight fighting, the better
fighters, those fights are where the money is. So bravo on this.
I don't know, you know one thing about the fight. Well, it's
a classy matchup, and it's I'm glad they're doing the match obviously, and
they're both very likable fighters. I just don't expect it to be like action
packed. This is more kind of the fight where you have to probably have
the appreciation for the sweet science. I think it's going to be a lot
more uh boxing than than than brawling, let's say. I mean that's just
sort of the styles of these two women, you know what they bring when
they have their fights. But it's a worthy fight, I'll put it to
you like that. And for MICHAELA it's a huge opportunity to win a title
in the second way class. Now you are working the segway earlier in the
show, I'm going to segue right here. You'll hear us handicap it more
on the bet Us Show one Eastern Time Friday on what will happen in this
scheduled ten rounder. Again, you make a great point that if Jonas is
in her hometown, whatever she does, there're gonna be roars from the crowd.
How will it affect the judging, et cetera if the fight does go
the distance, and it probably will, so we'll handicap all of that on
bet Us, their platforms, their YouTube at one Eastern time. We look
forward to that and again remind everybody about fight time because it's afternoon US time,
primetime in the UK, so they're showing a bunch of preliminary fights on
the ESPN Plus card, but the stream starts at two o'clock Eastern Obviously in
sky Sports in the UK it'll be in the evening time, So the main
event probably won't come into the ring till around five o'clockish, you know,
Eastern time in the United States anyway, something like that. All right,
So we look forward to that fight card that is coming up. Again,
we got a lot. Let's that's all we got this weekend. Really,
that's well, all right? Now, I should say that we will have
a Japanese championship fight doubleheader including Taraji defending his what unified junior flyweight titles.
That's actually on Tuesday, what say you? And I preview that a little
more coming off the weekend because that's not until Tuesday US time, Tuesday morning
US time, so we got some time for that. But yes, that's
pretty much it for this weekend in terms of significance on Saturday, all right.
So we've got news all over the place, We've got nostalgia, but
we've also got John Ryder here. You had the opportunity to speak with him
earlier this week. Coming up, he ventures to Phoenix, Arizona to fight
Haimi Mungia. This is the Golden Boy to his own main event on January
twenty seventh, and so you spoke with him this week in advance the fight.
Let's go to that conversation right now on the preview pot. What's my
pleasure to bring into the podcast today my old pal John Ryder, John super
middleweight contender for a long time. He got an important fight coming up January
twenty seventh the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona, taking on the undefeated Haimimongia
in a fight frankly I think can't miss for fans. Frankly, just in
terms of the action that you two guys bring to the ring. How you
doing it? How much excitement do you have for this level of a fight.
It buzn't to be it, Dan, Thanks having me on. It's
great to be here and involved in another big fight against an undefeated opponent in
parlon Gia, and something for me is to show redemption. I had the
fight with last year. I think that planned, so it's great to start
when it's twenty four with a bang against another big name. Well, you
just mentioned that it's an undefeated. You know, himI is an undefeated opponent.
He hasn't lost anybody's hat some close calls, I guess, including his
last fight against Sergei devin Schenko. How do you prepare yourself mentally or However,
you go about getting ready for fight, thinking about taking an undefeated record,
how do you go about that. I don't really train any different.
We just we'll train one way. We trained hard. Obviously, Harvey's had
a change of camp lately, and it's Freddie Roach, so we're expecting new
things from paying Short for sure. But so we trained diligently. We need
tournament camp and nothing changes. We trained hard and we're prepare for the hardest
battle possible. So in his last fight that took place in June, as
I mentioned, he fought Sergi devn Schenko. A lot of people picked that
as the twenty twenty three fight of the year. I made it number two
on my list. I mean, it was a really outstanding, you know,
all action, very exciting fight. He's it was a close decision that
Haimi won. He came real, real close to losing that fight. It
was a really tough fight for him. He took a lot of punishment,
as did Sergei in that fight. He's coming back to fight John Ryder,
who's never made it easy for his opponents, even in fights that you have
lost. I mean, do you think that maybe you're getting him at the
right time coming off that kind of battle potentially is a round level fire tough
man. And yeah, i'm him and get pooled out the bag in the
last round, but I dropped him and in his favor, So he's got
that in the locker. He's dangerous through that. So you got give him
the tough respect. But like I said, I've trained hard and ready for
a toss four rounds here, I'm going to put all the line. Chan
well, as you mentioned, you're you're also coming off of a defeat.
You're coming off of a defeat in another fight that was very tough, hard
fight in your world championship opportunity against the undisputed champion, Canelo Alvarez. He
knocked you down. You were bloody in that fight. He showed such a
big heart. I wonder how in the world did you get through that fight,
because it looked to me like there were times where if you had packed
it in, I don't think anybody would have said a bad word about you,
because that's how tough of a fight it was. It was tough.
Yeah, my nose broke in the second round. Don't sorry for myself for
a few rounds after that, and then I just got dropped and bit don
come out swinging. I took a ton of credit from that fire. Like
you say you you can go to certain places and people give their credits so
to getting up and carrying on and he goes to these places. You don't
carry on this then talking about you back? Would you prefer? What do
you want from this? And send? I don't want too many hard fars
like that. I don't want to be set sat there my lady is thinking
about these hard farts I had and reaping the benefit of the not the benefits,
the reaping the harm they've done. So no less dabmish the best.
But it's great to put all the line against an allow us and I'm winning
to still the same gets time the gear up. You know, do you
think that because you know, even though you lost the fight, because you
put in such a tremendous effort, so such heart made it such a great
fight that even with the defeat, it kept you viable for a high profile
fight like this one, because if you had maybe been knocked out or didn't
show the kind of heart you did or make it such a good fight for
the fans and everybody watching, that maybe they overlooked rider and you don't get
picked for this particular assignment. Yeah, for sure. I think the saying
it was I didn't win the fight, but I won the night. Yeah,
I won a ton of fans, a lot of Mexican fans come on
board off don't fight, and that's a lot of credit from it. So
there was a hundred spirits event. Now, you went into that fight against
Canelo, you had won four fights in a row. The fight you lost
going you know, before that streak started was in twenty nineteen. You had
a really including by the way in that streak, you had that close win
against Danny Jacobs, but the loss in twenty nineteen was a super close fight
where a lot of people thought you deserved to be the winner against Callum Smith.
That does that one sort of still eat away at you at all,
get you bothered because that was a lot of people thought that was really not
a great call. Yeah, it's a bit of b I think I'm over
it now. Can't hang on that one for too long. But it's Aulimately
I've got the shot at the man in Canelo, So that's what I was
doing it for. I probably would have gone come away from the kind of
fight a lot more financially set having gone in there as world champion. But
certain regardless, I've got in there against the best. I've pitched myself gets
the best, and I didn't win, but I still throw a tow away
winner. Now you have one over the course of your career, two interim
titles, if I'm not mistaken, in the super middleweight division. But I
have to believe that any boxer that's still going on that the ultimate goal is
to win a major world title. Do you still harbor those dreams of winning
a major championship? I know this fight with Heimi is not a world title
fight, you know, although it might as well be for a lot of
people, but it's not. But does that still one of the goals that
you have before you call it a day? Yeah, I mean that's still
the dream that still keeps the fire burning. Obviously, we know all the
titles are tied up now with and whatnot, but just got hope that in
the in the coming months putting those in good positions, and who knows what
a lack of the titles some make like men that we can get shut vacant.
You know, I mentioned before Callum Smith, I wondered he had just
had his fight where he got the opportunity at light heavyweight to fight for the
Unified championship against Arthur Better BF, and you know, he really got taken
apart. I wonder if you saw that matchup in what you thought about your
old your old foe, you know, getting it handed to him in that
match. Yeah. I watched it, and I thought Simon was right for
Callum. I thought he could come to it well champion. But BET's bev
was he was sensational that night, and he doesn't like he jumped off the
pace at all. I was worried and concerned where it had the injury and
respond to the fight. But listen, I think he showed that he's still
got it. So as you go into your fight with Himie, like I
said earlier in the in the in the conversation, you know, you like
to come forward, and you've never been afraid to mix it up with your
opponents. Gia obviously has never been a problem with him mixing up with his
opponents. I look at the matchup when this was announced and I thought to
myself, I mean, I just see no way this is not going to
be a fan friendly kind of fight. Do you have that sort of the
same opinion you You know what you're in for, don't you. Yeah,
I think I know We've prepared. Like I said, we're in force,
So I think the fans are in for a treat. And yeah, sent
you down the candidate. I think you might be right about that. Well,
you are thirty five, and this is a great opportunity for you.
You've had the opportunity against Canelo and the biggest fight you could have in your
career in that weight class. And I just wonder how much how much longer
do you see yourself going on or do you just sort of at this point
take it fight by fight? Yeah, fight by fight. There's no there's
no real long long term plan. I mean, I'm enjoying boxing at the
moment, and at the moment, I still feel like I'm getting more from
boxing than boxing to get from me. So as long as that continues,
and I'll be in these in around these shows. But as soon as I
feel like boxing, sakee a month mid and I'll obviously down my team and
we're cool today, so then I'll wrap up with this. When you go
into the ring against Monkey on January twenty seventh, do you have a sort
of a thought in your mind of how you think the fight unfolds, how
you think it goes, and we know there's gonna be a lot of contact,
but beyond that aspect of the fight, yeah, No, I see
myself in my hand getting raised if it comes from a stoppage or a point
to me. And I think that the judges will be will be fair here
and I think we we saw that in the Derek Trinco fight and it was
a close fight, but I think we saw and we agreed that the last
round won it for high and so I've got faith in the judges. But
regardless of I'll week happ and do what I've got due to get the win.
Well, I would say, whatever is going to happen the night of
that fight, I think the fans, like you said, are going to
be in for a treat. Should be a great matchup. I wish you
the best of luck, John, You've always been a stand up guy.
I appreciate your time and I wish you the best of luck. Thanks Dan,
you bet John? All right, So good stuff. It's obviously a
challenge for Rider now bigger though than fighting Canelo in Guadalajara, so he faced
that you talk to him about obviously, well, what this will be coming
out of fight Mongilla, what are your thoughts having talked to him in that
conversation. I think that we'll see a John Ryder that we always see that
winner Lowise. He's gonna give his best effort. It's going to make a
good fight. And we already know the kind of fighter that Mongia is.
He makes great fights. Even if he's in with easy guys, hard guys,
whatever, He's always in an action fight. Saw him in a fight
of the year contendered what I picked number two last year against Devyn Schenko.
Certainly the Canelo fight against Ryder, it may not have been the fight of
the year, but it was entertaining, and one of the reasons for that
was because the big heart that John showed. So he knows he's in for
a tough fight. And you know, as we discussed, he knows that
because even though he got basically shut out essentially by Canelo Alveras, but because
he gave such a great effort and made it such a good fight. When
fighters do that, even when they lose, it keeps them viable for these
types of main event, you know, bigger money kind of fights. So
even though he lost, it's a kind of loss that you can overcome.
Some fighters they don't realize that they think their career is over. John Ryder
lost again. He's lost this. He's got six losses, but he's never
cheated anybody out their out of their time or money. So, you know,
good for him. I think we'll see a good fight. All right.
We're looking forward to that Golden Boy to his own main event for next
weekend, the twenty seventh, that's the headlining fight. They're from Phoenix,
Downtown Phoenix. Plenty of news that we always love to go over. So
they had to kickoff press conference in London this past Monday for Anthony, Joshua
Francis and Ganu. Give me your impressions. This is now going to be
a reality in March, and they met with the media. So tell me
more about what you saw, please. I saw two very very big men.
That's the thing that jumps out at you. Joshua was actually bigger.
Ni Ganhu was like wider, I think, but Joshua was taller. And
and it's just two very intimidating looking fighters when they stand across from each other.
But look, they both know what's that stake here. I think we
know, not just Tyson Fury, but the whole boxing community, the fans
of the sport. Nobody knew what to expect from Nagano when he fought Fury.
Most people thought it was a joke that yes, he's a great athlete
and was a tremendous MMA fighter, UFC champion and a very intimidating and outstanding
fighter in that sport. But if he comes over to box, he's got
no shot against a heavyweight champ, an experienced fighter with good power and you
know, good quickness, and you know, tremendous experience and all the things
that checked those boxes. And we found out differently because whether part of it
was because Fury didn't train the right way or whatever, all I know is
that in the third round, Tyson Perry was on his ass. And when
the ten rounds are over, there was a lot of people that walked away
saying that for Insantigan, who got robbed and he should be the new lineal
heavyweight champ of the world, Well, he's not sneaking up on anybody for
this fight. So I think Anthony Joshua knew that he was looked very very
serious when he was having his making his comments and doing some interviews and that
sort of thing. And for Naganu, it's like he's playing with house money.
If he loses, I mean, he's going to make a bag and
he's going to have had in the in the span of what you know,
four months, the two biggest names in the heavyweight division and back to back
fights and Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. I mean, that's uh, that's
playing playing it right. I guess uh. I expect it to be a
good, interesting fight. I'm excited for the card. I'm excited for the
fight more so, I guess than I was when he fought Fury. And
you know, people are like, well, you weren't excited for Fury,
Why are excited for that? Well, the reason is because I fucking saw
what happened in the Theory fight. You know, things are fluid, you're
allowed to change your mind. Things don't stay stagnant forever. So if I
let's be truthful, let's be true. Let's be truthful. Most people thought
it was a goofy, you know, sideshow type thing. What is in
ghan who gonna look like as a boxer. I mean point me to the
people that believe he was going to be sharped and polished and knock Tyson Fury
on his butt in the first couple of rounds of the fight, because they
don't exist. So now now we have people acting like that. We should
have seen that, and we should have known that, and we should have
been more excited because of that. I agree with you, there is why
intrigued because of what we did see. Yeah, I agree. Why wouldn't
you be Why wouldn't you be more excited to say this? Plus, I
think most people view generally. I don't necessarily subscribe to this, but I
think the general boxing fan population views because of what's happened before. Joshua has
a more vulnerable guy than Fury. So maybe if he's got a real chance
to beat Fury like he showed he could, maybe he's got even better chance
to beat Anthony Joshua. Now, Joshua, of course, is gonna have
had Now this will be his fourth fight in twelve months. He obviously is
coming off the three wins in a row that helped probably restore some of his
confidence after the two losses to Alexander Usik. He's working a second fight.
That was the other thing that came out at the press cover, So I
think we all sort of suspected it, but Joshua made it official he will
stay with Ben Davison to train for this fight instead of returning to Texas to
continue to work with Derek James, although he did say he still talks to
and is in touch with Derek. But that's obviously different than who's going to
be in your corner and who's in your camp for the whole time. But
as I said before, when he went with Ben Davison for the auto whaling
fight, you know he can't really go wrong. I mean, they're both
excellent trainers, and it just so happens that Ben is in London, and
you know, Joshua can can train at home for this fight. So okay,
there you go. He's staying with Ben Davison. I don't think that
comes as a huge surprise, but it's an intriguing fight, and I for
one am excited to see it and what it is. It just continues the
avalanche of these major shows in a fairly short period of time that are taking
place in Riad. Because it started with the fiery Usik fight, I mean,
I'm sorry with the Fury nagan Who fight. It took place in October
very quickly thereafter, and the Christmas weekend was the Day of Reckoning. That
was Joshua and Wilder in the double header that was supposed to be fiery Usik
but didn't happen because he had to put it off because of what happened against
Naganho. But we got that card. Then we got February seventeenth with fiury
Usik for the undisputed championship, and then three weeks later you got Joshua against
nagan Who. When every one of the cards that I've mentioned all have definitely
interesting and important and intriguing in the fights I'm looking forward to that we're on
those undercards. So you know, would I rather see these events be taking
place in America, Absolutely, But you know what, They're not taking place
here, So I'd rather have them happen and be elsewhere than not happen at
all. And that's what we're looking at, agreed, That's where the money
is. Now. While we're on the subject of that card, you reported
about July Jiang being part of the card, we now know they announced this.
His opponent is Joseph Parker who upset Deontay Wilder Day of Reckoning back on
December twenty third, and there's another title fight as well. So all this
was announced another WBC featherweight title fight. So fill us in on all the
details. I mean, look, it's another deep card. I mean,
as you mentioned, the idea was if Joshua and Wilder had won on December
twenty third, they had signed contracts to fight each other and that would have
been the main event on March eighth. Deontay Wilder was you know, outclassed
completely and lost basically every round against Joseph Parker. And so for his you
know, his victory. You know, when you win, that means something.
So he dances to another highly significant fight that will pay him a lot
of money. They'll take on Jang July, you know, our Zilla Jang
for the for his WBO interim heavyweight title. So you're talking about between Jang
and Parker. I think I don't think there's really a lot of dispute or
debate about this. I think if you're doing honest, unbiased, non sanctioning
body rankings of the top heavyweights in the world, you would have Jang and
Parker in your top five and they're fighting each other. So while we're seeing
one and two fight in February, when it comes down to Fury and Usik,
now we're gonna see Joshua, you know who's probably is in that top
five bus So he's telling Niganu. So there's three of the guys in there
that are in action. And then you go to Jang and Parker probably the
next two guys behind them, and they're fighting each other. So you have
an active top of the heavyweight division and they're not just fighting, you know,
nobody's you know, four of them are involved in real serious fights against
other top contenders. And say what you want to the matchup between Joshua and
Naganu, but he's waiting for a bigger fight because he can fight for a
title at some point, and he's been very active. And as we've talked
about, especially when it came to that run that Canelo went on, you're
allowed to take the quote unquote softer fight. Now, I'm not saying nagan
who's a soft fight. I don't give him respect for what he did to
Fury, but clearly it's not a guy that's an established fighter, like if
he was fighting Pergovis, let's say for the vacant IBF title or what will
become eventually, probably the vacant IBF title. You know, that's fine,
but I have no problem with him making you know, tens of millions of
dollars for Naganu and I fight that I think a lot of people will be
interested in based on the Fury performance while he's waiting for the heavyweight at the
top. Fury and Usik to sort out their business, and frankly, Jiang
and Parker to do their business. Because if Joshua beats Naganu, he's right
there to be involved in any of the major fights in the weight class.
So I say, bring it on. I love all this heavyweight action.
We went through a twenty twenty three where the heavyweight division was a piece of
just just just a piece of garbage because nothing was happening, because the fighters
were bad. His weren't fighting. It wasn't until the very very end of
the year where a couple of guys finally got in the ring, you know,
in meaningful matchup. I'll say it with few facts, Tyson Fury wasted
our time because not only did he mess around and cost us the Usik fight
back in the spring. Usik then walked away and said I'll fight someone else,
and then Fury waited all the way to October to look like that against
in Ghanu. So a lot of it is on Tyson Fury as to why
none of this went into motion and he looked as bad as he did against
in Ghanu, and he's got to show something to me and everybody else come
February. Yeah, twenty three was like a lost year. There we go
and so and listen. So the rest of the card, you know,
with the Joshua card, as you mentioned, so that's obviously an interesting main
event. We talked about Jang versus Parker. You mentioned about the featherweight title
fight. That's Ray Vargas who has the WBC title. He'll be making his
first defense. Remember he won the title against Magxioh and for his next fight
he went to one thirty. He lost to Oshaki Fosster in a decision for
the vacant Beltlin said he would return to one twenty six, So that's what
he's doing. He's taken on the British contender, Nick Ball, who's looked
very good and had a very good win against Isaac Dogbay where he looked excellent.
That was an eliminator fight, So now he's gonna fight Nick Ball for
that title. That one kind of comes out of nowhere. I think most
people that identified Ray as a fighter that's been for the last several fights with
PBC. I'm not sure what his status with PBC is at the moment.
When the bottom line is PBC has no shows of any kind until at least
March, and so this will at least take care of one of their guys
by going there, and I'm sure being paid handsomely to do so. And
then the rest of the card shakes out with some other you know the you
know, Gavin winning Mark Chamberlain in a lightweight fight there, you know British
fighters, got the Australian up and coming heavyweight Justice Hooney's on there, Tyson
Fury's half brother, Roman Fury, who's you know, in the infancy of
his career as a cruiserweight, and a few other fights. So that's that's
a pretty darn good card if you get Jang. Look, I don't want
to sound like a Carnival Barker or or a promoter of myself, but I
can't tell you how many times I've been to a news conference or read in
a press release or heard from a promoter, Oh well, this undercard fight
could be a main event in its own right. You know, usually they're
full of shit. But you know what if a promoter stood up on a
dais and said, we have Zang July against Joseph Parker, and that could
be a main event in its own right. Ya damn right, it could
be. And frankly, Ray Vargas against Nick Ball is the kind of main
event that we probably would have seen on a showtime kind of card considering what
they've done on their network over the last couple of years before they decided to
get out of boxing. Good enough, And you know that I love the
joke like this. This is like the old Ginshu Steak Knives commercial. But
wait, there's more, because Turkey ala Chik, the Saudi like rain maker
for boxing. Right now, he was spewing more plans, more thoughts,
including undercard fight as well for the fury Usik fight. So give me more
about what he was talking about at the Joshua Enganu presser, about what else
he would like to do, except well, he didn't get into the specifics
of the February seventeenth under card Usak and Fury. That's just been things I
have reported, and I think the others also. But the thing that he
did was before he wasn't at the Dais, but he was like in the
balcony and before they started the formal proceedings they turned the microphone over it for
him to basically welcome everybody and have his say and you know, do a
little of a promoting on his own, just to you know, tell everybody
what a great show was and do his thing as sort of the rain maker
of this whole event. But one of the things he said was, you
know, he had two more things he wanted to see happen in twenty twenty
four at least, and that was one he wants to do a card.
And remember Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn, who are bitter rivals in the British
boxing scene, have been for a long time, who very rarely do business
with each other and when they do it's like kicking and screaming. But they
are involved with these Saudi events. Frank has been the lead promoter and Eddie's
had a lot of his guys on there. Obviously, Joshua was with Eddie,
so he's an important aspect of the show is there also. So they're
getting along and you know, a ton of money for everybody usually will help
make you get along with somebody. So they're sitting up at the day Is
next to one another. When Turkey A. Laschk went to the microphone and
among the things he said was that he wanted to do a card in which
they find five Matchroom boxing fighters to square off against five of the Frank Warren
Queensberry boxers, you know, Queensberry versus Mattchroom for a card where then they
have plenty of fighters in their stable. Both guys have deep car deep stables
of a boxers and I'm sure they can find five fights that would be interesting
to make between their two companies. And as soon as he said that,
immediately Frank and Eddie shook hands and said done simultaneously. So I think we'll
see that. I mean, that's interesting. It may not be the Mega
fight, but that's sure, we'll bring a lot of intrigue. And the
other one he said this has not come as a huge surprise, but he
was the first time I've heard him speak publicly about We've heard others say it
that he wants to make sure that they get the better bv. Dmitri Biebel
Undisputed like heavyweight title fight done. He's going to talk to Bob Aram.
He said he wants to fight. He'd like it by June. Now,
June might be a little of an issue because, as Bob Aaron pointed out
in the aftermath of Better Bf's victory this past Saturday, he will observe Ramadan,
which ends in April, and then he would need three months, which
would put that fight at the earliest in mid July. Turkey was saying he
wanted to seed in June. Listen at the end of the day, a
few weeks here there, I'm sure they're going to be able to work that
out. There's no way this fight doesn't happen, in my opinion. And
so that's just two things on top of what we already are seeing. And
you can probably bank on the fact that you know there'll be more stuff coming
later in the year, particularly when the read Season festival begins again come October.
And on that Usik Fury Undisputed title card. We've been talking about this
that Jaio Pattayah and Marius Bradst they are going to fight. Tell us more
specifics here, and there's another title fight on that money talks. We're lining
up the fights. I like it, keep going well. It was just
stupid the way the IBF handled it, because they all along said that they
would fight each other when Bradest was good to go, and they would do
the fight in February, and the IBF did not accept that, so Opataia
had no choice but to vacate. He defended a lineal title on the on
the on the recent card, scored a spectacular first round knockout, and they
had ordered for that vacant title, Brightest to fight Zerdo Ramirez and they were
talking about it. But but when that happened, the Zerdo Ramirez team in
Goldenway were already in conversations with Arson Gula Marian, who was the WBA Cruiserweight
champion. So when the perspid was scheduled, you know, they were exploring
both and seeing what was up. They were happy with the direction things were
going in with Goula Marian and so when the purspit was supposed to take place
earlier this week, they notified the IBF that Rozerto would not be participating because
of their other direction they were going to go in. So at that point,
the IBF does what they do. They look down their rankings and well,
lo and behold. After they dropped him, you know, as he
after he vacated the title, who was next up? It was? It
was it was a giant Opataia. So they're going to fight each other,
but it just won't be for Opataia's IBF belt. It'll still be for his
lineal title, but now they'll fight for the vacant IBF title. It's just
a stupidity situation, but they will fight. It'll be a rematch. What
was a tremendous battle if you watch that first fight was terrific. Opataiah won
the decision. He fought through a bust of jaw for a long period of
time in that fight. And so while that's happening on February seventeenth, it's
not been officially announced, but don't trust me, that's what they're gonna do.
That'll be the co feature. You have a scenario where now Zerdo Ramirez
are and his people are trying to finalize everything for the Gula Mariian cruiserweight title
fight. If they get that done. You're looking at a fight that will
take place either March twenty third or March thirtieth on a Golden Boy to his
own cart. You know, site to be announced or be determined, but
that means that you'll see Golden Boy with two you know, two dates in
the month of March. Because this another item will get to they're also looking
this is more the Zerto Goula Marian fight. That's not done yet. They're
still working to get the things squared away. Goula Marians having some issues with
his promoter in France that they're trying to get squared away. That really has
nothing to do with Zero or with Golden Boy. But the other fight that
they're gonna do in March, this is a really solid fight. I can't
really argue with this. He got the very exciting, big punching Mexican lightweights
Williams of Peeda. You know, he was ready to fight anybody in the
weight class. But it's kind of jammed up a little bit at the top.
Right now. He's going to take on Maxi Hughes, who gave a
tremendous performance in a recent fight where a lot of people thought that you know,
frankly that he got a raw deal and so he's getting another. That
was against George Cambosis, you know he was. He was lucky Cambosas to
get that victory. So we'll see Zpeida against Maxi Hughes and they will fight
again in at the Zone. Main event that'll take on that will take place
March sixteenth. It'll headline a Golden Boy card in the Zone, will take
place at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. As a matter of fact, just
a little bit before we started to tape this this show, I saw the
Nevada agenda for their upcoming meeting and one of the items on that agenda was
the Golden Boy date request four March sixteenth at the Cosmopolitan, which tells you
they're down the line with that. So that that's a solid fight for Zepeta
and a great opportunity for Hughes. So you're talking about so much goodwill and
good stuff with Golden Boy, et cetera. And now we get to Oscar
Dale Hooya and Ryan Garcia yet again, as we joked earlier in the podcast,
not on the same page. And it doesn't look like a fight with
Devin Hainey's gonna happen, and apparently, and so now Oscar's putting out there
who he wants to fight to be with, and that's Jose Ramirez, which
we've talked about who they've signed, and Ryan garcias swatted it like right away
on social media Thursday morning, Dan, Dan, you want me to say
it? What are we doing here? I knew that was coming. I
mean, we're doing what we always do when it comes to Oscar and Ryan.
I'm gonna put it like this. I do give Ryan Garcia credit for
being a guy with a great sense of humor because even though Ryan, you
know, he's gone back and forth and there's always some drama. Ryan is
a pretty self aware guy. I've known Ryan for a long time. He's
he's pretty self aware, and so he knows all the back and forth.
He saw what Oscar put out there. I don't think he particularly liked it
because it wasn't true. Because even if Oscar was talking to Ramirez about doing
that fight, which I can understand, he just signed Ramirez. He wants
to get him the biggest fight. Obviously, if you're at Golden Boy,
what's the biggest fight at one hundred and forty pounds it would be fighting Ryan
Garcia. Well, that may all have happened, but apparently Oscar never had
a conversation with anybody on Team Garcia, which you can't make that kind of
fight without at least getting the aok from the ACI to pursue the fight.
You know, everybody thought he was going to pursue Hainy that went away.
They ended up trying to pursue Roly Romero. Don't know what happened there,
you know, Oscar. You know I had made a tweet without mentioning names
previous that about how people like to price themselves out of fights. You know,
I don't know what the deal is there. We'll see if anything comes
to light on what was offered, but I do know this. When Ryan
then made his post on his social media that it was just not true,
where if you took a look at his Instagram, he basically wrote a message,
no, Ramirez, sorry, that's just not going to happen right now.
Let me make that clear. And then later on his Twitter, excuse
me, he wrote, and this was hilarious, and that's why I said,
he's self aware. This is Ryan Garcia's own words, on his own
on his own post Ryan Garcia versus Oscar de la Hoya at this point with
a you know, with a face palm type of picture. I mean,
it is what it is, Okay, So clarify if you know how much
longer is left on this relationship, because I know they've been in mediation.
Do they have multiple fights? Do they have multiple years? Do we even
know? I mean, how is this going to go on? I can't
tell you the exact length or number of fights, but it's more than one,
is my understanding. So they would have to get through whatever they're going
to do for him in the spring and then probably at least one more fight
this year. So look, and the thing about it is, this is
not I I don't perceive this as as bad for the relationship as I saw
some of the other things that went on between them, particularly some of the
words that Oscar had about Ryan, you know, you know after his loss
to Jervonta Davis. This this doesn't seem there's no name calling, there's no
you know, terrible back and forth. It just feels like they're just not
on the same page. There's there's a lack of dialogue, there's a lack
of communication, and that's a problem. I mean, you have to you
and this is not just about Oscar Dell Loyd. This was any promoter.
I don't care. This is just business in general. You you can't go
making decisions and making things public without letting the other people know first or talking
to them about it first, Like take care of your shit internally before you
go put it on your Twitter feed to a million. This function, it
is dysfunction, and it's uh. It may be good for us to talk
about and give us clicks and everybody else clicks and and things to to you
know, go over while we're looking for things to talk about within the sport
of boxing. But it's just not a good situation. I mean, in
a perfect world, they would make a fight against one of the big names
and instead of the back and forth between boxer and promoter, we'd be talking
about what the big fight is for these for this, uh, for the
spring for Ryan Garcon. I was very interested and excited for a Devin Handy
fight, and it obviously fell apart. Because I'm just saying this out of
speculation. Obviously Ryan Garcia probably priced himself out of that. I would I
don't think so. No, I think this is a matter of Floyd Mayweather
getting in his ear on their Las Vegas run and him explaining to him the
way of the world why it was a better move business wise to go fighter
Roly Romero, which happens to be Floyd's fighter, than to fight Devin Haney.
I think that's actually I can't. I can't believe the financial offer from
Floyd or anybody else would be that much better to go fight roll Now.
It's not making a financial Coffert. This is what I don't even back to
my premise. Let me stick to my premise. I have to believe that
a Ryan fight with Devin Haney is a much more lucrative fight. But it
must not be the money that Ryan wanted or Ryan would agree to it,
because Devin Haney continues to say, I'm willing to fight you, but you
don't want to fight me. So listen, I don't know what the money
offers to Devin Haney. I don't know what they were offering Ryan Garcia.
It's not even I'm not gonna say it's not about the money. But whoever
Ryan Garcia is gonna fight, he's gonna make millions of dollars. So I
think that and this is intelligent if you forget about the the the business card
for a quick second, in terms of just the competition when the ring,
when when you're in the ring and the bell goes, I think I'm not
talking out a turn here. Ryan Garcia has a better chance to beat Roly
Romero than so that, I think is what Floyd was telling him. Fight
the fight that you can still make a shitload of money in, but a
fight that's not as complicated. But then, but then we lose out.
We lose out as fans, as interested observers, you know, take the
less risky, less important fight. We lose out on that one. Well,
some would say it's not less important because would let him a WBA belt
if he won, And CJ, I'm just telling you the facts. You're
giving me a devil's advocate argument. And if you have the WBA title and
you then fight a unification, it makes your WBCWBA unification a bigger deal commercially.
I'm just saying for no belts and it's a bigger fight. That's my
retort to that. Here's the bottom line. I believe that before it's all
said and done, and not when they're old men that Ryan Garcia and Devin
Haney will probably fight each other. They have too much history with each other,
six fights against each other. Both have said on a multiple of occasions
they want to fight each other, and sometimes we have to put on our
big boy pants and realize that just because we want something doesn't mean we're going
to get it right away. And these are not old, used up guys.
This is not a fight that's gonna you know, it's happening like way
past its sell by date. They're still doing their thing. You know.
It takes time. I know people don't like to hear that shit, but
I don't get too emotional about these things anymore. It's in due time.
Will happen if he does a fight against Roly Romero or Jose Ramirez or whoever.
There's nothing wrong with those fights. They're competitive, solid, good fights,
you know. And I think Floyd's probably right if it's what he told
them that Haney's a much trickier, much more complicated fight, that's right.
You don't want to be losing that fight. That's not something that Floyd exclusively
would know. We all know that that Ryan was more open to listening to
Floyd gets in his statue, it's a much more lucrative fight. And I'm
telling you, follow the money. We keep talking about this. The money's
not there, or they would make the fight. They would have they both
wanted to fight. But here's the thing about wanting to fight. Yes,
it's about the money. But if you're Ryan Garcia, and he made a
very good point about this. The reason why he didn't fight the Duarte fight
on pay per view, he has said time and again and it's basically following
what Oscar used to do. Not every fight's a pay per view, So
we take the big fights on pay per view, like a Devin Haney would
have been, or a Tank Davis would have been, and maybe even a
Roly Romero would have been for sure, And for a Douarte level fight,
which is still a solid but not a big name, we give it to
our fans and he don't charge the extra money. My point here is this,
Ryan at this stage of his career, is not showing himself to be
the athlete that's looking for every single dollar available. He's willing to take a
little bit less for certain situations to just keep his name out there. And
that's what Oscar, you should do. He'd fight a huge fight against Pearnel
Whitaker on pay per view and then be back on HBO four months later,
you know, fighting a lesser name, but still a solid fight. And
that's what they're doing. So, you know, whatever, we'll see it.
We'll see Ryan hopefully at least twice this year, and at least one
of them will be a big fight. And if he has to take a
little bit of a smaller fight, so be it. I'm fine with that.
Stay tuned, nostalgia, and then we are done. A couple of
birthdays from this past week, January seventeenth, Buddy McGirt sixty years of age.
Marco Antonio Barrera the same birthday, ten years later, fifty years of
age. You have much affinity and you've told us before about Buddy McGirt,
and as it says on the Rundown, and he's a big reason why you
went into in do a boxing writing career for Buddy mcgart so this has this
is something near and dear that he's turned sixty this week. Well, I
will not say he's a big reason why. I believe what I wrote on
the rundown was he is responsible for my career of covering boxing. That's pretty
definitive. It's not like he guided me and said you should do this.
But as I have told the story, first of all, happy birthday to
Buddy mcgerty, one of my favorite people in boxing. A Hall of famer
as a fighter, as a as a two division world champion, was involved
in a lot of big fights and fought Parnel Whitaker, fought a lot of
top guys, a great boxer, came out of New York City and just
you know, had a lot of had a good fan base, and you
know, just just a real student of the game. And you know,
it's funny when you look at the guys who are Hall of Fame fighters,
there's a lot of there's become a lot of top trainers in boxing. But
when a lot of the top fighters become trainers, they're not necessarily hugely successful
ass trainers. Buddy, he's one of the rare guys that became a Hall
of Famer as a fighter and is now also at a top level as a
boxer. So take an example of like a f roach, all time great
trainer. But it was just like a you know, an average kind of
journeyman fighter. You're hard pressed to find the elite world champions that have begun
on to become top trainer. Buddy is sort of kind of one of the
guys that's kind of breaking that mold a little bit. But anyway, so
happy birthday, my man, James Buddy McGirt. I've told the story before,
I'll give you the short version of the reason why he means so much
to me is because the very first professional boxing match I ever covered in the
summer of nineteen ninety six, and I was a sports writer at the Saratogian
newspaper in upstate New York, where we were located down the street from the
horse racing track, which had its meat every August. And every August the
city would fill with lots of rich people and people coming for the you know,
the meat, to rent departments and rent houses and spend other money and
go out to dinner and go to the bars. They always looking for things
to do at night, and there was a it was like an annual thing
that one of the local promoters would bring a card to the City Center,
which was a small arena right in the center of downtown, and put on
a boxing event. To have a place where people could go at night after
the Horse Racist and they did that in the summer of nineteen ninety six,
and it was literally I could see the building from the office window at my
desk inside the Saratogin and I was one of a very small sports staff there
and I asked my boss, hey, can I cover that? Because I
was like a general assignment reporter and covered all kinds of different things, and
I say, yeah, go for it. And so I covered that show.
And to make a long story short, in the tenth round of that
fight, where I was having a very enjoyable time in my first ever boxing
match hitting ringside, Buddy mcgert was fighting the billed as the new England middleway
Champion I believe it was, or maybe it was a new England welterweight champion.
Nonetheless a man named George Heckley, and it was a terrible fight.
But in that tenth round, George Heckley got nailed with a big punch from
Buddy mcgert and George Heckley's blood thanks to Buddy McGirt's punch, flew out of
the ring. It nailed this poor woman who was like a floor manager for
what was the Prime Network broadcast of this. They were taping it to show
later on delay, and she had that high new jersey hair and her hair
got sprayed with blood and it was like a shield and blocked the most of
the blood, but literally one drop of blood went over her hair and landed
in the middle of my white notebook paper that I was taking notes on.
And it's morbid and disgusting and I'm not proud of it. But that moment,
I've said this, it's crazy. It's absolutely fucking crazy. That is
like of my professional life. Is the seminal moment of my life because from
that moment on, that blood made me from like a normal boxing fan but
also loved other sports, you know, many better than boxing, made me
a fucking boxing lunatic. From that moment on, I was absolutely obsessed with
boxing and have been ever since. For the blood thirsty Dan Raphael Born that
night out of the DNA of another fighter flying out of the ring in a
Buddy McGirt fight. So I went back to the office with that notebook paper
up on the bulletin board in my sports department. My colleagues who were still
working that night after it, because I was it's so close and there was
no internet that was really dependable at the time. I had one of those
shitty trash eighty you know laptops, as I'm sure you remember. So I
just walked back to our office to write my story after the show and attacked
that notebook paper up on the Baltimore. To my colleagues thought I was an
absolute lunatic because it was covered with blood or you know, one big red
spot of blood, including at the time the woman that became my wife,
who was one of the editors in our newspaper office. They all thought I
was crazy. Unfortunately, when I came to the office the next day,
that piece of paper was missing. Somebody had thrown it away off the Baltimore,
which pissed me off because I would have liked to keep that Rayfield collection
right now. Yeah, it was where I was taking those Yes, I
was writing stuff and there was the big blood on the notebook. Anyway,
so that changed my life. And it's it's because of Buddy mccurt So now
fast forward. That was in the summer of ninety six. Now you get
to the early part of two thousand. I'm hired to you know, be
the boxing writer at USA today. You know, skipping a couple of steps
in the middle there, and I now am covering a boxing event in New
York City and Buddy McGirt is the trainer of Arturo Gaddy, who was fighting
on the undercart and Artur was my favorite fighter, as everybody knows who listens
to this podcast or has ever followed me for two seconds. But and so
I didn't know Buddy well, but I had interviewed him related to that show
and knew him a little bit. I had seen him in some other fights,
but never had a chance to talk to him. So I saw him
in the hotel lobby we were staying at across from Madison Square Garden, and
I went up to Buddy and I said, Buddy, I need you to
indulge me for a couple months. I got to tell you a story.
And he looked at me like I was a fucking lunatic, like what are
you talking about? Like, I mean, I don't know. I don't
know if he really knew who I was at that moment, right, but
he does now obviously. But so I told him this story about this young
journalist that goes to cover his fight against George Heckley in August of nineteen ninety
six and what happened in the blood And by the way, that's why I'm
here because that made me a boxing junkie and just obsessive. And it's all
because of you and that punch you landed in that terrible fight. And we
had a good laugh about that. And even though he thinks I'm a looney
tune, and that's the story. And so without Buddy mcgert, we wouldn't
be doing this podcast. I love it. And he was working as recently
as last saur. He was in the corner of Callum Smith as a matter
of fact, stopped off for the better BF fight in Quebec for the light
heavyweight title. So good stuff on it. I two more real Quick Marco
Antonio Burrows. As I mentioned, as it turns out Barrera, born on
the same day ten years later is now fifty years of age. That's another
legend, and we've talked a lot about him on the podcast. How would
you say about Buddy McGirt real quick? Yeah, everybody knows now as a
trainer, but people really kind of down great, or I shouldn't say down
great. They don't really know about his career. This is a man who
had seventy three wins, six losses in one draw, forty eight knockouts.
He is a guy that fought for a long time. I mean he turned
pro in nineteen eighty two and fought all the way to nineteen nine. So
think about that length of a career and getting in that many freaking fights almost
you know, eighty fights and one of you know, world titles, and
fought some of the biggest fights out there. So, you know, the
George Heckley fight that I talked about was at the end of his career.
He only fought a few more times after that. He was sort of on
a comeback after, you know, having taken a loss, and it was
sort of on his you know, on the downward trajectory after he had lost
the second fight to Perno Whitaker. But people should look up his boxing career
in terms of him in the ring as opposed to just the great reviews and
notoriety that he's received as a trainer. Anyway, my my pontification about the
great Buddy McGirt is not over there. You go, Barrera also say some
words about that. You were a lot of his classic fights, just real
quick, let's go, Oh yeah, I mean Barrera, I mean the
baby face assassin, you know, the just one big time win after another,
one of those guys that was always in great fights, has you know,
multiple Fights of the year candidates on his on his resume, pulled off
one of the great one of the most satisfying victories I think for people that
wanted to see Prince Nasim have his mouth shut after being so mouthy and and
so egotistic over so long, and he went in there and went from being
the consummate brawler turned boxer like few boxers I have ever seen in my time
of watching boxing, much less covering boxing, who you can see really change
their style in one fight to make it easier for them to win a certain
fight. And he went from that brawler, all out you know, assassin
to a boxer puncher and he toyed with Marco Antonio Brera that night. I
was at that fight ring side. It was a mesmerizing performance from Brera.
And despite the fact that he has has the two big wins against Eric Morales
in their trilogy, he lost the first fight, but won the second and
third fights and number one and number three for arguably two of the best fights
in the history of boxing. I still think that the victory over Ahmad is
the biggest win of his career. He may disagree and think that it was
perhaps the third fight to get the win in the rivalry against Barrera, I
mean against Morales, but it just shows you that we have the conversation about
those caliber of victories of this what this man has done. And then not
only that, but he overcame two losses back to back to Junior Jones,
who was like a borderline Hall of Famer. He had the absolutely phenomenal fight
the very first main event in HBO's Boxing After Dark series history that really kicked
that series off, when an unbelievable bang when he had the absolutely incredible,
one of my all time, all time, all time favorite fights against Kennedy
McKinney. I would urge you to seek that out on YouTube if you have
never seen it. It's a brilliant fight. And he just had one fight
after another against the best in the business. And he fought Nanny Paco,
and he fought Eric Morales three times, an he fought Rocky Wares twice,
and he fought one Daniel Marquez, and I mean he fought Amir Cohn when
he was an older fighter, and you know, even though he lost,
won a bunch of titles and just fought everybody and never, never, anybody
left the Marco Antonio Breyer fight saying they want their money back. And you
mentioned nineteen ninety six, I got to be ringside for Barrera and Poison Jones
in Tampa on an HBO doubleheader and often have joked and I think on this
podcast I made you laugh that I had to try to look around the biggest
purple pair of leather pants ever from the late basketball star artist Gilmore who played
back in the eighties, who was there as a celeb and in the media
area, and I'm and the artists kept standing up, and I'm trying to
look around artists to see Poison Jones and Barrera. That's when back in nineteen
ninety six, the same year that you hooked up with boxing and Buddy mcgarth.
Nostalgia. Yeah, because Barrera still is around the fight cards a lot
because of his time doing some commentary for Mexican television. I've seen Marco on
many many occasions post his you know, once he was done as a boxer
in the ring, which that ended in twenty eleven, So he's been retired
now for a number of years, but he's still very very frequent person out
ringside doing the Mexican boxing commentary and always a pleasure to see him and talk
to him. And just if you don't love Marco and Tonio Brera as a
fighter, I don't know what in the world you're watching boxing bot. He
is the consummate, exciting, entertaining, talented fighter. Just tremendous series.
Great series with with Eric Morales and by the way, artist Giel Moore living
my mistake, Artist Skill Moore still alive, but I was around him that
night in ninety six. How about that? I am one more nostalgia from
this week Deontay Wilder in the present. I think a lot of people believe
career at the end or close to the end. But the big coming out
for his career happened on the same day this past Wednesday, January seventeenth,
twenty fifteen, nine years ago, where he beat Bermain Stavern you were ringside
and became the first American in many years to regain a portion of the heavyweight
title in Montreal, if I'm correct, where they fought. Tell me more
about that nostalgia. I don't where you thinking about Montreal. They did not
find Montreal, well, Las Vegas, Las Vegas. Staverne from Montreal.
Right, he's Haitian, he lived in Canada. He's a magic world all
right. Yeah, but that night a huge night and the bronze bomber was
born on the biggest stage that night. Yeah, I mean their their first
fight took place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Deontay Wilder. Remember,
he was an Olympic bronze medalist in twenty twelve, and when he went
into the fight against Steverne, he was undefeated. He had knocked everybody out.
He was thirty two and zero, and nobody knew if he could really
fight. Nobody knew if he was gonna be able to step up because he
had a career that started as a pro debut all the way to the point
where he was fighting for the title where he really didn't fight anybody of consequence.
It wasn't until he fought Steverne, who was a top heavyweight at that
time, one of the top handful three four guys in the world, plowing
off to win over Chris Ariola to by knockout in their in their vacant title
fight that took place, you know, previous, you know, several months
earlier, and we're like, okay, what's gonna happen here? I mean
there, Severne was a big puncher, Wilder was a big puncher. And
the whole question mark was, you know, is Deontae gonna be able to
get into the deep part of the fight because he'd never really gone you know,
more than a handful of rounds. He was just killing everybody, but
he wasn't being match with anybody. And that was the first time he went
to distance. But he went to distance in a fight where he absolutely dominated
beat up Bermain Stevern one handily won every single round. I mean the judges
I think gave maybe Severne one or two rounds. One judge I know how
to shut up. But the point was he won the title as a guy
that came in as the ultimate knockouts and it forced him to go twelve rounds.
But he he showed he could do the twelve rounds and he beat a
good fighter that night and became the heavyweight w And if I'm not mistaken,
broke his hand at some point, including late in the fight, and fought
through it could have maybe given up, could have said that's it, but
fought through it, dominated him. I honestly don't have a recollection of that
about him breaking ahead. I know that Severne ended up in the hospital because
of some dehydration after the fight. But from there on he went on that
run where he made ten title defenses, you know, won most of them
by knockout, except for the draw against Fury in their first fight. And
he did ultimately fight Severne again in a rematch, which was a mandatory fight
that took place in twenty seventeen. That was a devastating first round knocket.
After going twelve rounds with the man and winning the title, he then goes
less than a one round in a monstrous knockout against him. So at that
point, you know, he had knocked out everybody he had ever faced.
But the fact that that fight's not long ago, now, you know,
you're right that you know we what we saw between Deontay and Joseph Parker,
you know it. I think, you know, for his sake, hopefully
he can rebound and come back, but he's not getting the younger. He's
near forty years old at this point, thirty eight, I believe it now
nine years ago he won that belt, and if it is the end of
him in terms of being a top heavyweight. You know, people like to
diminish and tell me that he didn't fight anybody, was no good, and
yeah he got beep I fury. You know, I hate people who do
revisionist history. It drives me absolutely fucking crazy. Bermain Staverne was a top
three or four heavyweight at that time when he beat him. You know,
he Suvern only had one loss going into that fight, and he won every
single round and then for good measure, beat him in a rematch. And
yeah, did he have a couple of softer touches in the beginning of those
title reign. Yeah, like everybody does primarily. But then he had a
monstrous knockout against Arthur Spilka, who was a quality contender at that time.
He also defeated Ariola, who had given Staverne a pretty tough fight when they
met for the Vagant title al Away, Brazil with one punch, Yeah,
no doubt about it. Gerald Washington was undefeated when they fought. Luis Ortiz
was undefeated and that was a tremendous battle the first fight that they had.
Then he had to draw against Fury. Now, look, I know it's
an unpopular opinion, and I don't really give a fuck, to be honest
with you, I was ringside for that fight, and I was not alone.
I was in the minority fair enough. But I scored Wilder as the
winner of the fight against Fury, and I will stand by that till the
day I die, because where that fight changes is, yes, Fury dominated
over the second half of that fight other than you know, when Fury got
knocked down. But in the first four or five rounds of that fight,
they were some close rounds. I gave some of them to Wilder and that's
why I had him winning a close fight. But I cannot take or believe
anybody if they tell me that they gave Wilder no rounds in the first four
or five rounds of that fight. I just don't accept that. So that's
my story and I'm sticking to and I have rewatched it because I'm like,
did I really fuck that one up? And yes, there's always a fight
here and there where you watch back and maybe, like, you know,
I didn't score that the right way. I'm fine with my score on Wilder
against Fury. One I definitely thought he won close, and it's because of
the early rounds, but nonetheless, you know, and then of course he
had the Brazil fight that you mentioned in the rematch of the Ortiz and then
of course meant the Waterloo where he did get stopped and dominated by Fury,
and really hasn't ever been the same since then. But nine years, you
know ago, he won the heavyweight a heavyweight title and was one of the
dominant figures in the sport for a long time and generally speaking, a good,
solid guy to deal with, made for exciting fights, tremendous story,
tremendous story, like so many guys coming out of out of poverty, meager
means and become a heavyweight champion and making millions of dollars and a thunderous right
hand. And I continue to say this for all the history revisionists, Anthony
Joshua wanted no part of that right hand in twenty fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen, And it came later that he was interested in it, much
much later, after Fury had done what he did to him. So the
other thing about Deontay is he didn't really I mean, his dream was to
be an Alabama football player, like every other correct sports craze kid that's living
in the South in Alabama like that. He didn't have the ability to do
that, and he didn't turn to boxing until he was later into his you
know. And it is not a kid that picked up boxing love at age
seven or eight or ten. He was like I think it was maybe late
teens and maybe into his twenties already, you know. And he was good
enough. He made the Olympics with a very little experience, got a medal
and turned pro. And he did it. And the reason was not because
he had this great affinity for boxing. He needed to make money. So
instead of working as a dishwasher, you know, at the local ihop,
which is part of his story, he had a daughter that had medical problems
that needed to have certain treatments and that costs money, and he can make
more money knocking guys out. Hey, early on in his fight career was
he was still delivering adult beverage beverage truck. He was part of a beverage
distributing company that was doing the deliveries while he was still a professional fighter.
So a phenomenal success story. There is no for all the negativity that some
keep on Wilder. Yes, he's made some excuses with fights. His body
armor was too heavy, blah blah blah. You know what, in the
totality of my experience, having covered many of Deontay Wilder's fights from his I
was at his professional debut, all three of the Fury fights and many others
in between, including fights in Alabama, et cetera, but both Luis Ortis
fights, all the Barclay Center fights. I tell you my viewpoint as somebody
that has dealt with him and his team for a long time. A stand
up guy in my opinion, always like Deontay him, money's worth from him,
Yeah, and we've always had him on here and he's been great to
deal with. I just unfortunately, I think it's he's at the end,
and it happens for all, for all professional athletes. Sooner or later,
father time catches up. I don't know. I don't know for certain,
but if it is the end, he's a walk away with a lot of
money in his bank account, no no doubt about it, and deservedly so
listen Busy Podcast again. We'll be back on the bet Us Show to talk
about Natasha Jonas and Mikaela Mayor from a handicapping standpoint, good stuff with John
Ryder, that fight with Haimi Mungia coming on the twenty seventh, not this
weekend but next weekend. And other than that, lots of fight news and
why don't we do this? Why don't we recap whatever happens this weekend?
And then we'll talk more about the Japanese double header of fights Tuesday morning,
US time, including Taraji in Action Unified Junior Flyweight title coming up. All
of that off the weekend on the Fight Freaks Unit Recap podcast. Are we
good? My friend? Are you ready for the weekend? I'm ready for
the weekend? Baby, I think we are again. Bet US Boxing show
coming at one. You've been listening to the Big Fight WEEKD preview for Dan
Rayfield. I'm TJ. Reeves. Thank you for being with us. Enjoy
the fights.