Well off a weekend that has seen a surprising knockout in the Golden Boy main
event in California that has seen Jack Catterall take care of business. But I
don't know how much we can really say about that other than that in the
match Room main event in England, we are here for that. A seven
time world champion is also here with Dan Rayfield in a conversation and a lot
more. It is the Fight Freaks Unit Recap podcast. I am the somewhat
capable host mainly on these programs. Do my best is to tee up my
man, Dan Rayfield, the insider from his Fight Freaks Unit Substach and Big
Fight Weekend dot Com. Rayfield in a chipper mood because his New York Football
Giants somehow got a win despite lack of offense against the Commanders. Meanwhile,
my Tampa Bay Buccaneers can't find the end zone with Google Maps and a light
right now they've lost. I'm not that surly. I'm just a little surly
right now after this. First of all, how are you as we're ready
to get into the boxing mode recaps some fights. It's only the Giants can
find the end zone, you know, they only scored fourteen points and they
stink on offense. And as we New York Giants fans will say often,
no matter how bad we are, we're still better than Washington and we've proved
out again today. Way, don't you need to tell us tell our listeners
who this seven time champion I'm gonna be talking. That would be Amanda Serrano.
The champ is here later on here in the weekend. She's getting ready
to fight in a very interesting fight that is going to be twelve minute twelve
three minute rounds, which is unusual for women's boxing, which you've touched on,
and you're going to ask her about that. So we're looking forward to
hearing from her in a little bit. By the way, thank you for
finding us, whether you found us through a social media link, Dan,
Substack, Big Fight, Weekend, dot Com, all the outlets wherever you
get the podcast, make sure you're following or subscribing Apple Podcasts, Freaker,
Spotify, Google podcast Again. The audience has done tremendously well. Rate us
and review us, give us a five star review. That will help us
with the algorithm, and much more so, ratius and review us on that.
With that, let's get into the recap mode. First, I gotta
say flat out, you and I and I think almost everybody else believed that
Alexis Roche was going to roll in this fight, rising contender for a Golden
Boy Promotions, and then a funny thing happened on the way to a title
shot by the name of Giovanni Santayan. Santion was fantastic from the beginning of
this fight. I will use the word shocked. I was shocked at how
one sided that was. I won't speak for you your thoughts as Santi gets
the KO win, the upset KO win, Well, I can't say that
I'm shocked that Santion won the fight. That would be unfair. He is
a thirty one and oh guy going into the fight with good abilities, and
you know, we've seen him fight for the last few years, you know,
since he's been with top rank on all of their ESPN plus undercar So
if you're paying attention to their shows, he's been you know, active with
his you know, a couple of fights per year. But he so the
fact that he was the winner of the fight, you know, is not
a shock because as good as Alexis roach is, he's not a guy that
we think of as a talent for pound guy. He's not necessarily at that
same elite level of the welter weights that we've seen some of the greats over
the over the last number of years. However, what was shocking, and
it definitely was shocking, was that he lost in such a one sided ass
kicking, a demolition, a beatdown, however you want to phrase it out
from the first round, from the jump, from the first round when he
got his nose bloodied, I'm sure that had an impact on him. I
thought his nose was broken. I asked the Golden Boy folks about that after
the fight. The spokesperson said, no, it's not a broken nose,
So that's good. I mean, obviously don't want to see the guy with
a bust and nose. But he bled from round one. And the thing
that was so surprising again the beatdown first and foremost. As I say all
the time, it was a great fight to watch, hell of a fight,
very entertaining, but entertaining in a one sided way because I never felt
like Rocha was in the fight to win, but it was sort of like
the empty The drama value of it was can Santiine get him out of there
and and to roach his credit showing the kind of heart that he did to
deal with the the what I thought was a broken nose, but certainly an
injured nose and blood all over the place, all over his face, his
chest, whatever, combined with just the heart because he got up twice from
knockdowns in a round five and then of course was knocked down again when the
fight ended. But you know, he showed a lot of heart. I
mean, can't can't take anything away from that. And there was there was
a gamble. I mean, we talked about it in the preview. He
took on a reputable quality guy, even though he's sitting there already as the
mandatory challenger in the WBO for the Crawford title. You know, Crawford has
all the titles, but he stepped aside from the WBO mandatory to allow Crawford
and Spence over the summer to be for all four belts. If he really
wanted to have press the issue, there's a chance he could have gotten either
Crawford tripped to the title or some type of you know, accommodations for the
trouble. But he didn't, and he went and he risked that position and
Uh. You know, I give him credit for doing that. I wish
more fighters would. I applaud it exactly. I applauded he took a risk.
So I'll say this, whatever, whenever Alexis rochaw Is is killed up
and fresh and ready to go, by all means welcoming back, pay him.
You know, I hope he doesn't have to take a big pay cut,
but bring him back. He was extremely entertaining. He brought a crowd.
I can't believe that those fans would abandoned him just because he lost in
one of the one of the more sociding fights we've seen in the last bit
and uh, and and and come back and and start again. But Santion,
it gets a career victory. And the reason why it was so surprising
TJ was not again not because he won, but in the method that he
did so, because anybody that had been paying attention to watching Givanni Santion over
his last number of fights, maybe even this whole career. He's a guy
that came up. We've talked about the uh, the uh, the shuddering
of the Thompson Boxing Company. He was a guy that came up with Thompson
Boxing fighting on the on the ballroom shows on the Southern California club circuit,
not making a lot of money, and you know, he events and developed,
and eventually when he got the opportunity, Top Rank signed him and started
going on bigger shows, and finally they saw an opportunity here to put him
on this show. Because Golden Boy reached out, they put up a decent
amount of money and it was a great opportunity to fight a guy that was
ranked number one of the WBO. Because Top Rank doesn't make a habit of
shipping their guys out, but they're opportunistic when they see it when it makes
sense, and this was one of those opportunities that was kind of hard to
pass up. And you know, I talked to Brad Goodman, who was
the Hall of Fame matchmaker and one of my close friends for almost thirty years,
who was the representative for Top Rank at the fight on Saturday night,
and you know, he I can't say he was shocked at his guy won
the fight, but he was surprised in the way he won it also because
he and if you read the story that I wrote, he admitted when he
lost, not when he lost, but when when Santiong's last fight took place
in Jel. He thought a fighter named Eric Bonett, you know, a
journeyman, tight fighter, but a solid pro, and he gave him a
lot of trouble. Now, Santion won the unanimous decision, but it was
not his best performance, and even Santio, I'm sure would admit that some
might think that Bonet might have even done enough to win the fight, but
he had him hurt a couple of times, and just Santion looked bad.
And as Brad said, that was the kind of fight that kind of lit
a fire under him, because he did get to win, even though he
got hurt, and it was a struggle to get there. But he felt
like that was the kind of fight that pressed him in such a manner that
you know what, he really got the hunger and the fire lit under him,
and that helped him in this fight, and that you know, it
made him better and that he's going to go on to bigger and better things
because frankly, when he's won his fights, even though he was undefeated,
Giovanni Santition is not exactly mister excitement. I mean, I have one thing
that I'm curious about because I just noticed this. You've been doing this a
lot longer, but I've noticed this at times. It just looked to me
Santion looked a good ten pounds heavier than He looked like a middleweight. If
Roacha was a welterweight, if Roache was a junior middleweight, he looked like
a super middleweight. He looked a good ten twelve pounds bigger, thicker,
harder punching. What do you make of my observation, because I think that
was I think that was part of I think it was born out and how
powerful his punches were against Roachin. Yeah, I mean I don't I didn't
really notice it the way you noticed it. He looked a little bigger,
maybe, but I didn't see anything that was like made me think, oh
my goodness, there's a huge size disparity here. I mean, they both
obviously made the weight on Friday prior to the fight at the same level.
Maybe maybe Santine was like a little bit taller to him. I frankly didn't
notice that, And I think if you look at their records and their background,
it was pretty clear that roach has been the better puncher. Yes,
he's facing better opponents, and it's been knocking out better opponents, so again
for Santion to do what he did. Look going into the fight, I
thought, if Santition is going to have a chance to win, it's probably
gonna have to be a little bit more on the boring side, not that
we'll be like a fight, but that it wouldn't be like a total slugfest.
So to see him go in the ring and do what he did,
which has just stalk this man from the opening bell and throw a ton of
punches, he outpunched him. You know, he threw more punches, He
landed more punches. He outlanded Roacha in every single round of the fight per
copy Box. I think there was one round where they were even. But
other than that, Roacha was, you know, landed less punches in every
round than sant Down it was. I mean, I had some people say
it's fight of the year, fight of the year. Now I ain't fight
of the year. Okay, let's not get carried away. That said,
it was a really outstanding fight. If you tell me that at the end
of the year, somebody might have it on their honorable mention list or you
know, in their top ten fights. You know, fair enough, absolutely,
but it won't be the fight of the year. It's a little too
one sided for that in my opinion. But it was a great win for
santi and who gets a career of victory for Roacha. It's a very debilitating
loss. You never like to say a loss like ruins a guy, so
I don't think that's the case. But what it does do, it's a
pretty brutal ko to have to come back from in the short term. There's
talking about that. I'm even talking about the physical aspect. I'm talking about
the fact that he was number one challenger for the WBO, guaranteed a title
shot beat against Terrence Crawford or for the vacant title or whatever, and now
that's not happening because he lost the fight. So you know, that's that's
the downside when you when you take the gamble and you step up and fight
a real guy and you're number one already. The sometimes the negative part of
that is if you lose, there goes your position. But it's prize fighting
and these guys put this on the line every time they get it. You're
not saying this, but the argument can also be made, are you truly
the number one guy? If you get brutalized like that by a guy that's
maybe not even a top five guy coming in to that fight. So I
think there's an argument to be made there. I think you and I agree
we want more fights like this. I mean, I'm not saying he was
legitimately the number one contender by the public and the media, and I'm saying
that based on the way that you rise the rankings and sanction bodies by fixing
yourself to that organization, by winning your fights, by fighting for their regional
titles and things along those lines that advance in the rankings. He had done
what he needed to do within the wo to become the mandatory challenger, and
whatever you think of his merit as the mandatory challenger, he risked that position
and he came up Snake Eyes and he got knocked out, and he's no
longer gonna be guaranteed a world championship fight. Good enough anything else from that
card before we move on to the less than thrilling performance by Jack Catterall,
who got it done? Anything else from the Golden Boy design, I think
we gotta, yeah, we gotta give up all. We gotta give some
shout out to UH to John Scrappy Ramirez, the uh highly entertaining kinda.
Uh he's got a lot of swagger and he's a fun fighter to watch.
And that's like I said, John Scrappy Ramirez. He was in the in
the co feature on this on this fight card, he took on a fighter
name ronal Batista, who might be familiar to some people because, uh,
he had been a flyweight. In his previous fight, he had gotten knocked
out by Julio Cesar Martinez on the undercard when Canelo Alvarez fought John Ryder earlier
this year. He went up and wait and this was a WBA Junior bantaway
elimination fight to become the mandatory for the outstanding Japanese champion Kazuto Ioka. So
Scrappery Ramirez got the job done and he did it in style. He comes
in with a lot of squagger. I mean, he had his own his
own singers. You know a lot of guys they come in the ring,
they've got their rappers with them. He didn't have rappers with him. He
had guys who was absolutely hilarious. They were singing Michael Jackson's beat. It
it was the funniest thing I've seen in a ringwalk in a long time.
So he went in there, he scored a couple of knockdowns, he stopped
him in the fourth round. It was a very good performance from from Scrappy
Ramirez. He's got a very hut out kind of outgoing personality, a lot
of smiles, a lot of like just an exciting kind of personality and a
style in the ring. So you know, that was a big win for
him. He's still now, he's he remains undefeated. He's thirteen and oh
and you know, good for him. And the thing that's interesting about the
fight though, TJ is originally Scrappy Ramirez and Batista were supposed to fight back
two weeks ago on the undercard when Joe Smith thought zerdo Ramirez, but Bautista
did not get his visa. He's from Panama and his visa was not done
in time. It took a little bit longer to get the visa done,
so they delayed the knocked the fight off that show and they moved it to
the card on Saturday, which allowed Scrappy instead of fighting in Las Vegas on
that other undercart, it brought him back home to Los Angeles where he's from
so he had a nice cheering section there. So for him to win the
biggest fight of his career and to get a chance to do so in front
of his own fans there at the Forum, you know, it was a
pretty big moment for him because one would have to assume that if he is
going to get the title shot in the near future against Ioka, most likely
that's going to mean getting on the plane and going to Japan for the title
shot. So h this was his biggest win by far, and it was
it was, you know, pretty it was pretty impressive. He was winning
on every he won every round on one score card going into the fourth he
was up on the other two cards by one point. And you know,
Batista came to fight, but uh, he just could not deal with that
thunder that Scrappy has. And plus he got to love the nickname Scrappy I
do were you ever partial to Scooby Doo and Scrappy do? I'm just thinking
of that back of the cartoons, all right, it's not about that,
all right. So on now to earlier in the day, US time primetime
in the UK in Liverpool, where Jack Catterall did what we all expected,
which is win the fight with Jorge Lenares. I must confess to you because
of everything that was going on. I have seen the highlights. I've seen
the recap. So Caterall gets the win. I'll tell you this, this
is fascinating. Can I just say one thing, Yes, the highlights probably
couldn't have taken more than ten sevents. Okay, Now here's to your point
and to the joke. Usually when Dezone for match Room or Golden Boy has
a highlight reel, it's usually of a fight about an eight to ten minute
highlight reel. So I'm looking at this highlight reel before I press play,
and it says ten minutes. I exaggerate you not that at about the five
minute mark, they've shown some punches by cateral, they've gotten to like the
fifth or sixth round, and they just skip ahead of the post fight interview.
I'm like, did nothing of note go on after the fifth or sixth
round that was even worth a highlight on that? So I'm just saying that
full disclosure from me. You obviously watched this stuff blow by blow, round
by round most of the time. Was it a snooze fast second half of
the fight, because there was certainly no highlights. A fight stunk, Let's
just be honest about it. And by the way, when I say the
fight stunk, I'm not in anyway knocking the fighters. Because Jack Catterall did
what he does. He boxed very well. He's a consummate boxer. He's
never gonna be in the action pack kind of fights. And I always say
this, whether it's about a pay per view or about a fight or this
match or for that matchup. We talked about it with the Misfits. We
talked about it about how the perception of McGregor and Mayweather. As long as
you know what you're gonna as long as you sort of know basically what to
expect, you're not going to be disappointed. So when you know that Jack
Catterall is going to be in a fight, understand you're probably not seeing the
type of fight you saw with Giovanni Santition and Alexis Roche. The joke,
of course, when the Roacha and Santion fight started is that there was more
punches and leather thrown and landed in round one and then there rounds against Carol.
So no, it was not a good fight to watch. It was.
It was a lot of you know, good boxing and moving I mean,
but there's nothing wrong with that. It just it's not just nearly as
entertaining. That's you know, I don't think I'm talking out of turn,
but Caterall, listen, he did the job. He won. I thought
that the judges cards were way too wet. I thought that was like an
eleven to one, maybe twelve nothing, maybe ten two kind of fight.
We talk about all the time the range of acceptable scores, and to me,
on that fight, it could have been anywhere from a shutout to maybe
you give Lenaris two rounds if you really really wanted to really go out on
a limb and maybe you kind of, you know, blink your eye and
fell asleep for a couple of seconds, maybe you give him three rounds.
So one judge, in fact did have it one seven to one eleven,
which is in fact nine rounds. So three and two other judges I don't
know how they did this. They gave it an eight four score card,
eight one, sixteen to one, twelve. That seemed to be awfully that
was given Lenaris way too much credit. But yeah, it was not a
good fight. There was a moment in the fifth round when Caterall. You
know, he definitely hurt Lenaris. He landed out. You know, he's
a southa Cadall. He landed a clean left hand on the chin. It
sent Lenaris back to the ropes. He grabbed onto the ropes to sort of
steady himself, and then Caterall came at him and followed up with a whole
bunch of punches that had him kind of holding on. And you know,
Leonari is not exactly blessed with the best chin in the world. We all
know that. But to his credit, he did survive. But there was
no doubt that he lost a fight. And I've never seen a guy like
so happy in the loss before. He was talking like you know that he
was happy. He feels amazing and he just got his ass kick for twelve
rounds on the score cards. And you know, I think he was talking
afterwards that likely he'll retire, you know, hopefully that's the case. He
didn't need to be taking that fight. That was sort of like his his
I don't know how much money he made, but you know, a one
last pay day. Let's say he's lost now four fights in a row.
He hasn't been the same or a factor in my mind since he got knocked
out by the silly Lomachenko when he lost the WBA Lightwhite title. That was
back in twenty eighteen, a fight I was at that was a spectacular performance
from Almachenko to do what he did, you know, fighting so much of
that fight with a torn rotator cuff and and and not. He's only knocked
down, getting up and scoring his spectacular knockout of Lenaris in that fight.
The thing that drove me crazy about that fight, though, dude, seriously,
is if I had if I was like a drinker and I wanted to
have a drinking game and I put out the liquor in front of me or
the beers in front of me when the fight was happening, and I took
a drink. Every time somebody on the broadcast said or referred to Lenaris as
a legend in boxing, I'd have been absolutely fucking smashed to spin the rounds
because I understand. You know, you want to call certain guys legends.
That's fair. You know you're talking about pick that fighter. You want to
talk about Manny Packet or Floyd Mayweather. You want to talk about Oscar de
la Hoy, you want about Canelo, you want to talk about you know
whatever. There's plenty of guys that I think are are are rightfully prefaced by
calling them a legend, and they're going to talk about one later on in
the show. In Evander Holyfield. We talked about him some on the preview
podcast. Absolutely a legend. That's a legend, okay. Porge Lenaris was
a good fighter who had a lot of potential. He did win titles in
three way classes, although had somebody pointed out to me on Twitter, you
know, he did it in a way that is not maybe the I'm not
knocking winning three titles, but the reality was he I guess won all three
of his titles were vacant titles, so he never defeated the reigning champion to
grab one of his belts. But again, so that's not a knocking him.
He did what he was supposed to do. But to call Jorgelenaris a
legend, to me, I want to throw off. You want to call
him a good fighter, you want to call him a three division champion,
you want to call him a good dude, all that's fine. You want
to call him a guy with some heart, also fine. Veteran and you
even shook your head at grizzled Veteran when I said that on the bet Us
Show Friday. If he's a legend, then what does that say about the
definition of legend. What does his legendary win? What is his legendary performance?
Yeah, yeah, yep. So again, I mean, I'm not
trying to I get the I mean, book, we we I make my
living in the sport of boxing. I get it that there. That's a
hype driven sport in many respects. That's fine, but they must have called
Hohlenaris between the pre fight up and the actual event and even in the post
fight a legend a hundred times. I mean, Tony values my man and
everything. But come on, Tony, I mean the announcers and Eddie Hearn
and and and I mean I get it with Caterall, he's paying respects to
his opponent. I mean, that's fine, but I don't know. I'm
not trying to belabor the point. But well, I kept hearing legend.
I'm like, you give me a break, and can I just tell you
again, we give our own opinions here. We've got Devin Haney coming up
with Regis program, and Eddie Hearn kept talking about Caterall is gonna get the
winner Catgol. Catterall is going to likely get the winner of that or maybe
Josh Taylor. I don't know that that Caterall's done enough to get the winner
of Pro Gray and Devin Haney. It's because he signed as a match Room
fighter, and hearn's involved with match Room with the title fight that's coming in
December. But a couple of things about that. Number One, Obviously,
you know your connections are part of how you get certain fights. I mean,
the only reason that Devin Haney got the chance to fight George Cambosis to
become the undisputed champion a lightweight's because he signed with Top Rank and loud Debella,
and lou Debella had Cambosis and Top Rank had the contract with ESPN.
I mean, that's that's fine. But the reason why that Caterall would deserve
it is the man has one loss and it is an extremely controversial loss to
Josh Taylor, who at that time was the undisputed junior welterweight champion. So
I think there is a chance because of the connections that he could get the
winner of program against Handy. The other fight that he might get is a
fight with Josh Taylor. As any post fight interview, I understand that you
know is where he's at AED one hundred and forty pounds, and that Josh
Taylor, after has lost to t Femo Lopez in June when he lost the
last remaining of his belts the WBO title, said he was probably moving up
to welterweight. He threw it out there and said, look, we're fine
to do a catchweight. He said he'll talk to top ranks see what their
interest is. And from top ranks point of view, I have to think
they're going to be interested. There's no obvious fight out there right now.
It seems to me for Caterall coming off that loss to Ta Femo, that
would be as big of a deal as if he could fight against Jack Catterrell.
And that's about whichever, whether it's an ESPN event or a The Zone
event with Matroom, that's you know, I can see it going either way,
but that's the biggest fight for both guys. There's a lot of money
in that fight. There's a tremendous amount of fan interest, I'm sure in
Britain, and then you know in the in the entirety of the UK over
there for that fight, and Taylor is not sitting there teed up for a
big fight coming off such a comprehensive loss to tia Fimo. So I think
that there's a real strong chance that we could see that rematch, even at
a catchway. Kind of think about it like this, So like Lee would
beat Warrington and then vacated the featherweight title and they're talking about a rematch.
That rematch does not take on any less interest, I think to fans because
it wouldn't be for a title. The same way is if they do Caterall
against Taylor in a rematch, it doesn't lose any luster in terms of what
the fan interest would be because it's not very world title. Was there any
less interest in Again, we'll talk about fights that actually did take place when
they did. The two fights between Chris Eubank Junior and Liam Smith was not
a world time and there was huge interest in that fight. So, you
know, it's always cool if you can have a world title to sake.
I get that, but there's also just fights that that fans want to see,
and this is one of them. I think the rematch between Taylor and
Caterall, So I do think there's a reasonable chance that will happen, and
I disagree with you. He does deserve that kind of fight. He may
not be the most exciting guy in the history of the world, but he's
an excellent boxer and a lot of people felt he got absolutely hose and rob
of the undisputed championship that night. I don't need to see Jack Catterall fight
Devin Haney or Regis Prograde before Tafi Mo Lopez fights him. If you can
work that out, and I realize that's the street and I can listen,
and because of the styles, by the way the way the Jack fights and
the way the Devon fights, they're very effective and very very outstanding of what
they do. But if you put those two guys against each other, that
now you're probably asking for a snooze fest. What's not going to be a
snooze fest is your conversation with Amanda Serrano, who's in action coming this Friday.
Dan talked to her recently, including the intrigue. This will be a
twelve round not a ten round, twelve three minute rounds world title fight for
Sir Serrano against Danila Ramos. So let's get to your conversation with her,
I just want to tell you one thing about that as you set that up,
about the fact that this has been approved by the Florida Commission. Again,
the fight takes place on Friday night, October twenty seventh. It is
the main event on the de Zonne card that Jay Paul Folks are putting on
in conjunction with one of their prospect cards at the Curb Royal in Orlando.
But there hasn't been a women's championship boxing match schedule for twelve twelve rounds since
and three minutes per round that Again, I don't know if this is one
hundred percent, but based on the research that the MVP people did my own
research, the only thing I have been able to come up with then that
they came up with is that there was a female boxer who's been around for
a long time named Laila McCarter, who had two lightweight title bouts under those
rules in Las Vegas in two thousand and seven. So I don't know if
there's been a fight that's been a twelve round women's fight where the rounds were
three minutes since seven. I know there's been fights that have been three minutes
that it does happen occasionally in certain jurisdictions if both sides requested, it can
happen, but not the combination of the three minutes and the twelve rounds.
So with that said, one of the most entertaining female fighters in the world
is on the podcast right now. It's my great honor for the first time
in my career to interview this lady, Amanda Serrano, the undisputed women's featherweight
champion of the world, a seven division champion, one of the best women's
fighters we've seen. Amanda, thank you so much for doing this. Welcome,
Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you for allow the amazing
words. It's honored to be here with you, an honor for you.
You you bet my pleasure. So we're here to talk about your next fight,
which is going to be October twenty seventh at the carib Royale Resort in
Orlando, Florida. You will headline a card on de Zonne an MVP card
your promoter. You'll take on the interim title holder Dana Leah Ramos for your
featherweight championship, and of course, you know, first and foremost, anytime
you get in the ring, it's going to be interesting the boxing fans.
But this one, I think has created even a little bit more attention because
of the fact that, for the first time in a long time in boxing,
we're gonna see a women's championship fight that is going to be scheduled for
twelve rounds and for not two minute rounds but three minute rounds. So this
is going to be just like just like the guys do it just like the
boys. And my question is, how did that come about? Like was
that your idea to try to press for that, Like what was the genesis
of saying, hey, let's do something a little different that hasn't been seen
for a very long time since the mid two thousands last time that happened in
a women's title fight. Listen, I'm telling the guy on this show,
I'm just an athlete. I say, I'm the actor in this big,
amazing movie that my trainers manager joining Mo Andato. He said that, right,
So it was as craziness. You know, we want to always do
something outside the box. You know, it was his idea to become a
seventh division world champion. I just roll with it, and I decided let's
do way. So I've done pretty much everything I wanted to do in my
career boxing. I'm the Swinish Champions seven division world champion, and now it's
time to, you know, just get the set and standard for the women's
in the future of the sport of women's boxing. And the only thing I
haven't done is that's fall from minute around and we decided, you know,
that's let's do it. We trained for it, just like the men.
And you know, now that I have the platform, the exposure, the
team that is backing me up, we can show that women aren't really incapable
of Tony. So there have been a few different women that have been vocal
about the fact that they would like to see the women's fights be on the
same sort of rules and playing field as the men's fight, which I can
understand. But I also think to myself, you have these great women's tennis
players. For example, they play the best of three sets in their Big
Grand Slam tournaments, in any tournament, and the men played best out of
five in the w n b A. There's great female basketball players, but
they use a smaller basketball and the men use a larger basketball. And you
know, I don't think that it takes anybody's They don't say that, you
know, Serena Williams is not a great tennis player a great athlete just because
she's playing less. So I wonder, uh, is do you do you
understand why that the people were like, well, why do the women want
to go twelve to three minute rounds and not just do it the way they've
been doing it. Well, we've been criticizing the past for oh, you
know, they get paid to what they get paid because they're only doing two
minutes. They're doing, you know, a minute lesson in a fight.
But you know it's not it's not all about that, you know. I'm
also am an MMA fighter and the MMA girls they fight five minutes. My
first fight was five minutes round three, five minutes round. So I've done
it and I've seen that they are capable. And like you said, this
is not the first time women have Well, my sister actually for Leila Mocarza
a minute round and didn't got twelve rounds, but it was six of the
sixth founders, so it's been done. Women want to show that we can
do it. Ay, I think we can show a little more because we
have the two minutes are exciting yeah, And I don't mind fighting with two
minutes because see it runs in benefits for me. But I think three minutes
will also benefit for me because I have a long avount. But I think
it's exciting. But I think three minutes will also help us get you know,
one knockout or just showcase our skills. Right, well, it is
it is something new. I can remember many years ago covering a Mike Tyson
event in Michigan, and I found out that weekend that women's boxing matches back
at the time, they were three minute rounds, and Lei l Ali was
on the card in a fight. It wasn't a twelve rounder or even a
ten rounder or even a title fight. It was a six round fight.
But the fact is they were going three minute rounds. And there are some
states here in the United States where the default is two minutes, but if
the two athletes request from the commission to go three minutes, they will allow
it. And so I wondered, do you know, because you said,
I know, it was Jordan, your trainer and manager, that was responsible
for sort of helping get this squared away, do you know if it was
hard to convince Ramos to go along with it to also have a twelve round
fund. Honestly, it was it was really for two seconds. It was
really fast to get her a team. So really to it because a lot
of the women now they're they're willing to do it, and I guess it's
just to show that that we here. We want to prove that we're women,
we're serious in this sport, and we do the same thing to treat
the three minutes. You know, I sport three ten minute round ten minutes.
I'm ten round three minutes. So it's nothing different. Like I told,
I go to the gym and then the standard boxes. Thats three minutes
thirty seconds. So I'm not going to go and say, oh, listen,
I'm a woman, so she's about two two minutes. No, they
give I have to do what I have to do in the gym, so
I three minutes. So this fight is a championship fight. You will to
be defending most of your belts, the IBF title, the WBO title,
and THEBA title. The WBC has for many years declined to entertain the notion
of having women's title fights be twelve minutes or three minute rounds, and they've
made their point. They've explained that I've had conversations over the years with Mauricio
Suliman about that they're respectful about it, it seems, but pretty steadfast,
and that they don't want to extend the length of the rounds or the fight.
So your WBC belt is not going to be sanctioned for this fight.
So I'm curious your opinion about the WBC's viewpoint that they don't want to have
women go the longer rounds, the longer fight. I respect that decision,
you know, it's been their decision for a bit long time. My job
is to go up there and perform and show that we are. One day
in the future they will change their mind. So it seems to me that
when you fight these days, it's pretty big news, you know, being
the name that you've become over the last you know, a couple of years
with some of the big events. Uh. And this of course is getting
in a little bit more attention, I think because of the the interest in
the fact that this is going to be a longer fight from the standpoint of
the rounds and the length of rounds. But you've also had a big promotional
push over your last number of fights because of your alliance now with m VP
and Jake Paul and the Kisa Badari, and I wonder what of those two
men and their promotional company meant to your career because you were always you were
already a top fighter even before you hooked up with those guys. Yeah,
So now I say I've been the best decision I've ever made in my career.
I've finished a world champion, unified champion for so many years. But
it's a Nikisa and Jake Paul MVP to shine that spotlight on me and just
showcase not just me but women's boxing that we're right here, that you know
when we go out there, we give it out all. And because of
them, I've made lots of money. I've been treated really well. I've
been getting amazing sponsorships, which I've never gotten before. You know, I've
done this far for forty years. I've been fighting every day. I died
believe I was supposed to fight pace in Akisa and Jake Paul fall For shining
that light on me, I beg truly, truly blessed. So I want
to just wrap up with this. And I know you get assets a lot.
I have not heard you say anything about it lately. Anyway, you
had that huge fight with Katie Taylor that was for the undisputed the lightweight champing
you moved up. It was a super close fight. It was probably for
my money anyway, and I'm not alone. I think probably considered the best
women's championship fight we've seen in the sports history. And of course there was
a lot of conversation you you women would do it again in a rematch.
Different things happened that prevented it at you know, when it was supposed to
take place. I wonder, you know you're going on this route. You
have this defense against Ramos, she has been defeated by Cameron. They're having
a rematch this fall. Also, I wonder do you think that we will
ever see you two women in a rematch? And that I say that regardless
of what happens when she fights Cameron, whether she loses again or wins the
title at one forty, or what happens in your fight. That because there's
so much fan interest in seeing what you guys did the first time, to
see it again, you think, no matter what, we're going to see
that someday. Yeah, I would definitely love you know, I enjoyed every
moment and that build up to that fight with Katie Taylor. She's an amazing
dance fund and amazing champion and I would love nothing more than to share the
ring with part again. You know, I just switching her all the best
in her next fight. I to love camera as well. She's a great
fighter, so she's going to be a great fight, and I just hope
they both come out well and maybe in the future we can get that roommatch.
Well. I sure hope that we do see that rematch someday, whatever
happens in your fight and Katie's fight coming up, Amanda, thank you very
much for doing this today. I appreciate. I wish you great luck October
twenty seventh in your fight. Thank you, thank you, and just remember
a scheduled for twelve three minutes doesn't have to go twelve three minutes. As
they say, you don't get paid for overtime. Oh yeah, actually,
thank you very much, Amanda. Thank you okay again coming Friday, as
you laid out there in Orlando for her latest title defense. And part of
what we've been saying in the setup to this is part of the argument is
if the rounds are longer, not so much that it has to be a
twelve round fight. But if there were three minute rounds instead of two,
you might see stoppages or knockouts happen more frequently. You gotta be careful with
safety, etc. But that the longer around goes, the chance for knockdown
to turn into knockout or a fighter being stunned or hurt being stopped becomes a
little greater. So I think that's worth throwing into the discussion here. And
Serrano a very talented fighter. There is no disputing that with all the success
she's had good for her, she is a bona fide first ballot Hall of
Famer. When she decides to call it a day, whatever happens between her
and Ramos, obviously Amanda will be heavily favored. We'll pay attention to see
what happens in the coming weeks when the remains between Chantel Cameron and Katie Taylor
takes place for the undisputed title at one hundred and forty pounds that Cameron has,
but either way, Katie is the lightweight undisputed champion. And I know,
as as a man that spoke about and Katie has talked about also,
you know eventually, no matter what happens between Serrano and Ramos or Chantel Cameron
and Katie Taylor, at some point, because the fans are gonna want it
and the money is going to be there, there's you gotta figure somehow,
some way that those two women are going to have a rematch together. They
were supposed to have one, it didn't happen, but their's is the is
now the bar set for great women's boxing matches, and I think that the
fans and the two women deserve to see a rematch. So I do think
down the road will see Serrano have a rematch with Katie. It's just a
matter of how long down the road. Hopefully sooner than later. They're neither
one of them is getting any younger, so hopefully it will happen. Some
news and then some nostalgia. All right, So you have news about Oljara
Davies and an upcoming fight. You've mentioned this a couple of times before.
Tell me what you have learned on where that title fight for he will land?
Okay, So the WBA one hundred and forty pound title holder is a
Roly Romero, but he is sidelined because of a back injury. And the
WBA, which eliminated their usage of interim champions with thankfully because they would just
crown them for no apparent reason, is going to utilize one in a way
in which I agree with it's okay to use an interim championship in the case
where the champion is injured. And because according to the medical medical report that
Roly Romero's people sent to the WBA, he's going to be sidelined probably till
next spring because of a problem with a disc in his back. So in
that case, O'Hara Davies has been his mandatory challenger and was sitting there supposed
to get the next fight he just recently signed with Golden White Promotions. Ishmael
Barroso, who, as we have discussed a multiple of times on this podcast,
was completely done wrong by the referee Tony Weeks when his fight against Roly
Romire for the vacant title was stopped for no apparent reason in the ninth round
in a fight that took place back in May, so they were fighting for
the vacant title, Romero won and Barroso could not get the immediate rematch.
Davies wasn't getting the title shot as the mandatory because of what happened with the
injury, so the WBA approved the match between Davies and Barroso for the interim
title. Presumably the winner of that fight will have to fight really when he
makes his return, but Davies and Barroso, which is a fight I had
been asked about by some folks on social media several times over the last a
couple of weeks. What's so, I guess O'Hara. Davies has like a
very vocal minority of fans in the UK. We're fascinated and interested of when
he will fight, particularly having signed with Golden Boy, figuring that means his
next fight will be in America, and in fact it will. It will
take place again. The deal's not done yet, so there's always a chance,
like anything in boxing, that won't actually come to pass. But what
I am told by folks involved is that Golden Boy and miraculously the folks at
PBC, remember they don't do a lot of business together, but they are
working out a deal where we'll call for Davies and bars Barroso of Courson with
PBC. That de fight will take place on December two at the Toyota Center
in Houston. It will be the co feature when Ryan Garcia makes his return
against Oscar d'Arte and obviously depending on how long Romero was out or just setting
up things for the future, it puts on a possible future opponent for Garcia
on his card where he could then fight for a title. It also is
in a good situation because if something should happen and Duarte gets injured or has
a COVID test or whatever, and you need to get a new opponent for
the main event, at least he got other quality junior Walter Rate's also on
the same card, and maybe they can push somebody into the main event from
that. So that's what it looks like. That'll be the co feature.
All right, good stuff on that you have been talking about. You mentioned
it a couple of times on this podcast that it would not necessarily be that
on the Saturday night of the Heisman Trophy presentation for college football's top honor in
New York, that the usual top rank show following it immediately following it on
the same television network on ESPN would not necessarily be in New York. You
even mentioned that it could potentially be in Florida. Give us the further update
of what you found out. Okay, So, since they've been doing those
annual Heisman Trophy Night cards on ESPN, all of them have taken place at
Madison Square Garden, either in the main arena or the theater. This will
be the first year that won't be the case. Remember, Originally December ninth
was ticketed for tia Fimo Lopez's first title defense following his June victory over Josh
Tayler to become the WBO and Lineel Junior at Welterwake champion. But tia Fimo
Lopez is not going to fight for the rest of the year, and as
we detailed in the last podcast in my interview with Oscar de Laoya, there
is conversations taking place between Golden Boy and Top Rank about the possibility again nothing
done, but maybe that when Tiafimo does come back, it could potentially be
against Ryan Garcia in February. They're trying to do maybe a card on Super
Bowl weekend or something like that, So you know that's off in the distant
future. But the point is that that left them with this February I mean,
rather I'm sorry with the December ninth date. Where they didn't have an
attraction that they can put in New York and fill up the arena that night.
You don't want to do a Heisman Night card where you don't have a
real, big time main event that brings in fans. So what they're going
to do is instead of having in New York City, they're going to take
the show on the road, and they're going to do it the venue that
I that I'm told it will take place in. You're going to be our
on site reporter since it's in your neighborhood, relatively speaking, South Florida.
They're doing it in the thirty two hundred seat Charles F. Dodge City Center
in Pembrooke Pines, Florida, which I looked it up on their website.
It looks like a pretty cool place where they have. You know, it's
like the same size as the It's bigger than the Cosmopolitan where they have fights
in Vegas. It's around the same size as the MGM National Harbor, where
I have covered many fights, you know, not too far from me in
Maryland. I got to confess to you, I've lived in Florida for forty
years. I know about Pembrook Pines down in South Florida. But I've never
heard of this arena, but it doesn't mean that it's not a night yeah
arena. And we'll see what kind of uh turnout there will be because they're
going to fill this card up well, like you were mentioning before, with
some fighters, especially the Cuban Roba c Ramirez. That is a huge Cuban
population if he's the guy, So that's the whole point. So because Robac
is going to be defending the again, the card and the site haven't been
officially announced, I'm assuming that will come, you know, in the next
you know, gotta be the next couple of weeks. I guess they're still
getting the paper done with the with the venue. But Robas Ramirez is the
WBO featherweight champion. Uh, he's gonna be making a second title defense against
Raphael Espinoza. And again he's Cuban, and you know, the South Florida
is obviously the biggest Cuban population probably in the world other than Cuba, So
you got to figure some Cubans will turn out for him. It's not that
big of a place to fill up. And then another fighter that's going to
be on the card is Xander Zayas, who is a Puerto Rican who lives
in Sunrise, Florida, which is, you know, a short car ride
away from Pemburg Pines. So the combination of his Puerto Rican heritage and the
Puerto Rican fans being so loyal to their fighters, plus he's a local fight
or any whatever nationality is, you know, the combination of the Puerto Rican
from Sunrise, Florida. And you throw in also the champion Robas Ramirez,
who's a Cuban that based out in Miami. You know, you can have
a decent chance of bringing a decent crowd for a show like that, And
so that's the plan. There. Good stuff. Another note before the nostalgia,
and this is on the two time IBF bantamweight champion Emanuel Rodriguez. What
do we know about this because I see here on the rundown he is,
I mean, retirements in boxing aren't always in stone. But what do we
know here about a possible retirement? Well, I mean, yeah, nothing
in boxing is in stone. But he went on his Facebook page, you
know, a few days ago and said he was retiring. He gave a
nice, you know statement that you know, boxing, how much it's been
meant to him and how he's accomplished, you know, what he's dreamt about
doing and things along those lines. And if you remember it was back you
know, first of all, he's been a professional since twenty twelve, so
it's been you know, over a decade, about eleven year career. Not
that long compared to some champions, but not like he's only been around for
two seconds. But back in August, I just mentioned the MGM National Harbor.
That was the venue in Maryland where he fought in the main event on
showtime against Melvin Lopez, and he won a very lopside a shutout one twenty
to one oh five and all three scorecards because he actually scored three knockdowns in
the twelve round and really was pretty much the only exciting part of the fight.
But he won the fight handily. He won the vacant IBF Bantamway title,
which was the title he used to hold when he lost it in his
first title reign. He got knocked out by a Noya in a way during
the World Boxing Super Series and you know, got just blitzed in the second
round in that fight. That was back in two thousand and eighteen or nineteen
so he regains the title. So he's a two time champion of the IBF
and he just won in August, so you know, he's very surprising for
a guy to coming off a world title win to call it a day.
But that's exactly what Emmanuel Rodriguez has done. He's a Puerto Rican fighter,
he's only thirty one years old. He hasn't had huge amounts of fights,
twenty two wins, two losses, and thirteen knockouts and called it a career.
So anytime a world champion announces his retirement, you know, you got
to pay some attention. We'll see if it actually sticks for good. You
know, obviously if he made a comeback at some point, I don't think
it would surprise anybody. But the reason is even more surprising than your normal
boxing retirement is because he is a reigning world champion. So we'll see it
last longer. It's weird. It will see if it lasts longer than Tathimo
Lopez's retirement right which he said he was retiring, which some of that is
legal proceedings with a divorce, and he was wanting to give the title up.
He never gave the title up, so you're absolutely right on that,
so good news. Now some nostalgia before we get out of here and head
into a new week. It was eleven years ago this past Friday that you
made mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that the Barclays Center in Brooklyn,
New York had not won Raphael not two excuse me, four world title fights
on the same card on showtime, and you there as a witness at ringside
for this go ahead. So in twenty twelve, the Barclay Center in Brooklyn
opened its doors. It's the home ice of the NHL team, of the
NBA team, and plenty of concerts and all kinds of stuff. But when
the owners put it, you know, when they discussed what they were going
to do with this great facility, boxing was going to be a big part
of its future, and it has been that for most of its existence.
From twenty twelve, it's been very lackluster. The last year or so.
They haven't had a fight there since October of last year, when Deontay Wilder
made as less than one round cameo appearance in a knockout against Robert Alnius.
But even before that they hadn't really been doing a lot of cards. I
think part of that was COVID related, but the reality is part of it's
because they changed owners who have less of an interest in putting boxing events on.
But for a period of time after their opening, they were one of
the busiest arenas in the country for boxing. Every single big fight that was
thought about or talked about always was mentioned as a possibility for taking place at
Park Lay Center. They had developed that much of a national reputation for their
boxing in a short period of time. They probably have hosted during the time
that they opened for boxing with that first card in October of twenty twelve.
I want to tell you that they've probably I don't know that I could count
it up, but I'll tell you it's probably forty more than forty, but
less than fifty boxing events that they have done there. I have covered in
person probably ninety percent of the fights that they've had there. I've missed a
few, but I've covered most of them. And they've had a lot of
big fights. I mean, they've had a ton of the big PBC Games
because they had a kind of a deal with them where they were the main
provider, But there were some other non PBC events there as well. But
you know that first card though, it was the rematch between then unified Junior
welterway champion Danny Garcia against Eric Morales, which turned you know, he had
defeated him in the first fight when Morales did not make weight, so he
ended up winning the vacant WBC title. He ended up winning another belt,
the WBA title, when he knocked out a Mere Khan, and Eric Morales
had the right to a rematch, but Garcia took one fight in between,
and this was a massive knockout on a left hook that Danny Garcia had against
Eric Morales, which turned out to be Eric Morales' final fight. He's obviously
a Hall of Famer. There was a lot of controversy, by the way
about it because Morales had felt a two drug tests for clembuterol, and because
of technicalities, as we often see in boxing, he was allowed to fight,
he claimed, and there were some people that believed that it did not
seem out of the realm because Eric had never had any kind of issues related
to drug situations in his career before after a very long, great Hall of
Fame career. But he was one of these guys that said, look,
it's the same thing i've been. You know, the tainted meat in Mexico
was a big deal. And again he had the kind of levels in his
system where if the test was taken today, he would have not been the
flagged as a positive test. Kind of the same situation with Canelo. In
any event, that was the main event, two big names. Even if
Morales was passed as prime than they had a bunch of other fights on it
had Pauli Malinaji won a decision of the exciting Pablo Caesar Canoe to retain the
WBA welterweight title. The paul of courses from Brooklyn. They loaded this card
up with Brooklyn fighters. He had Peter Quillan, Kid Chocolate, also a
Brooklyn fighter. He wins a decision against Hassana Dam and won the WBO middleway
title. He had Devin Alexander, who was still a very top fighter at
that time. He scored a decision against Randall Bailey, one of the great
punchers we've seen of recent times. He won the IBF title. Wasn't a
title fight, it wasn't on showtime, but he had Danny Jacobs post his
cancer diagnosis, coming back and winning a fight on that undercart and I just
I remember being there was a pretty big event. It was a lot of
excitement. Hadn't been world title boxing in the in the borough of Brooklyn for
decades, like over fifty years or something like that, so it was like
a huge deal. And they went on from there and had, you know,
tons of big fights. They had, you know, Bernard Hopkins fought
there, tons of Deontay Wilder fights, Eryl Spence, Sean Porter, Danny
Garcia, Keith Thurman, I mean, Ruslan Pervadnikov, Chris Algery, Amir
Khan fought there. I mean like nigg El Coodo fought there. They have
had a ton of top fighters fight there, and it's one of the best
buildings in the in the that exist for boxing. And I wish they would
pick up their schedule a little bit more, but it started eleven years ago
and that was a huge show. Good nostalgia. There one more piece of
nostalgia. We wished to Evander Holyfield happy Birthday last week and talked a lot
about him. The anniversary thirty three years ago coming this Wednesday, October twenty
fifth, of him capturing the undisputed heavyweight title. Came with one booming right
hand ray Feel against Buster Douglas as he captured that title after Douglas's upset had
happened what some eight months earlier against Mike Tyson. Now, Rayfield was not
ringside for that one. Do you remember what did you watch this one live?
I remember where I watched this one live because I talked about being in
college all the time. Do you remember where you watched it live or did
you see it live? I don't think I saw this live because I also
was in college and it was it was hard to watch those fights. This
was not on show. It was on pay per view, and I don't
remember I remember watching like some pay per view fights, but it was not
easy to find a place for pay per view fights when I was in college.
So what I do remember is seeing the delay broadcast later on showtime,
but knowing the result. But we didn't know. It's not like there was
YouTube or internet or your phone or whatever. We watched Sports Center and saw
still photos and so in this case, a friend of mine, a college
classmate of mine, had the pay per view box. We were talking about
this on the preview podcast about how this is the early days of pay per
view in the home. Not everybody had it. Not every capability in every
cable system had it. But I watched this pay per view in the home
at the friend's house, or about five of us there that were watching,
and it was obvious that Douglas was not in good shape. You've joked about
that before that as soon as he took the robe off at the way in,
everybody was running to the window to take Holy Field. At the Mirage,
we know about the booming ko where Buster laid there and rubbed his nose
and looked skyward at Mills Lane, I think it was mills Lane right counting
over him and said I'm not moving, I'm not getting up. That's it.
And then it was electrifying for Evander Holt. Now what's interesting but he
threw he threw an opera cuff from like ten miles away and got counter with
that shot to knock him out booming all right. Now, what's interesting about
this in the nostalgia is that that summer, the legal wrangling had gone on
for a couple of months with Douglas and his management Jim Johnson is his name,
had sued Don King on two different points. The first point is for
King and Mike Tyson trying to overturn the knockout in Tokyo. But another interesting
point I didn't know this till I had read up on it, was they
believe that Don King, and they were able to prove it was in breach
of the contract with Buster Douglas because he had not given him enough fights over
the course of a two year period. Douglas was supposed to have fought five
times. And this is back in the day when Buster Douglass wasn't making a
bunch of money. And so his contention was, what contract do we have
if I have a deal for five fights? And I think the Tyson fight
was only the second fight out the out of the deal, all right,
So they sued, They haggled back and forth, and you always love the
specific details because I'm looking at this right now. Here's what got worked out.
A few million dollars gets thrown around for everybody on this. Don King
ended up getting step aside money to not be able to promote the Douglas holy
Field fight in this instance, and I think he got four million. Donald
Trump had put up money for the rematch of Tyson and Douglas, and so
he was given two million in this instance, and that came out of a
sixty six zero million dollar deal that Steve Winn had done with Buster Douglass.
He shaved off much like Rayfield he shaved off. He shaved off six million
dollars off his sixty million to fight Evander Holyfield. And he didn't even have
two fights. He only had the fight. They had to fight at the
Mirage, which was a big deal back then. It was kind of a
new place. They were trying to bring attention to the Mirage in Vegas.
The Mirage was actually the promoter of the fight. This was back when hotels
and resorts were acted as promoters. Now Main Events was involved to a degree
because they had Holyfield as the challenger and that was their longtime promoter, and
they obviously had done many fights in Las Vegas. But the Mirage really was
the company that put it on. And you mentioned about the money that Steve
Winn put up. I didn't remember that amount of money. But the bottom
line was, even though it was a historical fight and Buster got laid out
and Evander became the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Remember he had been
the undisputed cruiserweight champion. But unlike an Alexander Usak, who's we had like
want what two fights at heavyweight, denfaw for the title. There's other kruserweights
that have gone immediately had gotten a chance to fight for a title. Evander
when he went from cruiserweight to heavyweight, had like six fights at heavyweight before
he got the opportunity. He was there as Tyson's mandatory. He was supposed
to fight. Tyson obviously got knocked out by Buster. So it was within
boxing and within the fans it was a little bit of a letdown because everybody
had anticipated seeing Tyson against Evander, and instead they got him against the Buster,
who obviously had scored the Humong's upset, and so that's what happened.
But the fight itself, because it wasn't the sexy match above Tyson and when
wanted to bring attention to this grand new facility that he had had built in
the Mirage, took a fucking bath. Lost millions and millions and millions.
I mean, the pay per view did well, but not at the level
that anybody thought it would. And it was a gigantic boondoggle, and they
he got crushed financially on this particular deal, and it wasn't a good fight
and Buster Douglas, you know, it wasn't even like the kind of loss
where you could like, you know, they put up a great fight and
everyone wants to see a rematch or see him against somebody else. He went
out so meekly, that Buster, you know, after that was over,
you know, he basically wasn't you know. He took his gigantic amount of
money that he earned from his cut of that that gigantic deal, and he
didn't fight again for years. I mean, he he that was nineteen ninety
he got knocked out. Everybody thought he was done forever. He did make
a comeback in ninety six and had several fights after that, but he was
coming off a six year layoff. So that fight essentially ended the real part
of Buster's career. One more interesting thing, and you know that I love
to go deep in the weeds on the nostalgia, just like you do when
you go back to the aftermath. In the hours after the upset of Tyson
in Tokyo, Jim Johnson is on those interviews saying We're gonna fight at vander
Holyfield next. They already had the deal. They they were already saying there
will not be a rematch with uh And by the way, when when win
won the purspit, it was one of the biggest purs bids in the history
of purspins. I mean, well, King's contention. King's contention was that
he had a two fight deal and there was gonna be an automatic rematch for
Tyson. But it's John Johnson. Excuse me, I can't speak. John
Johnson was saying after that fight, We're gonna He's saying it in the botwels
of the Tokyo Dome, We're gonna fight Commanded Holyfield next. I find that
fascinating. But this is the thing about it was, Remember we talked about
Remember what was the gigantic purspid when the purspit for Tyson Fury? What was
that fight where they where they bid some like astronomical amount of money in one
it was it was Fury and Dillion Why Dillion White? And it was forty
plus million dollars right, oh, by Frank One. That was the biggest
perspid win ever. But for many, many, many years, the largest
perspit in the history of boxing. Now, perspits have not always been around.
It's more of a more modern thing since the advent of the more modern
days of the sanction bodies. But at the time this fight was the mandatory
between Buster and Evander that we're talking about. It went to a purspit and
the Mirage Casino. Again, I told you they were the promoter of the
fight. They won the PERSPID for thirty two million, one hundred dollars and
they beat a per Spid. That's the biggest person of all time. The
losing Perspid was the It was the second biggest person off of all time,
and that was put up by Main Events, which was a Vanders promoter.
They bid twenty nine point one million dollars on the fight. That's how big
of a deal this was. You don't see purse bits for that gigantic money
these days. You might see, Yeah, we all flipped out when Triller
won the purse bit for tia Fimo against Cambosis for like six million or whatever.
This is thirty two million, and this is in money thirty years ago,
third nineteen nineties money, nineteen ninety money. Yeah, huge, And
again it one more part of this. It ended Don King's stranglehold on the
heavyweight division. And that's and that means two things. Number One Mike Tyson
ended up being in prison anyway, but for years and years he no longer
could promote the World Heavyweight title fights because he didn't have the rights. When
all of this worked out, because in that settlement that I was referencing,
King was supposed to be able to promote Douglas Tyson in the event that Douglas
beat holy Field, he didn't have a contingency I holy Field won, and
Holyfield won the fight and all the other thing. So the transfer of the
title, notwithstanding, anytime you have a transfer of the heavyweight title, one
of the biggest parts of it. It's not only for the athlete that wins
the fight and wins the title. It's the business that goes with it.
So in this particular case, you had a changing of the guard. So
Douglas was like the you know, he was a brief sort of placeholder champion
for our very brief time host. You know, he beat Tyson and then
lost to Holyfield, and what that did was totally change the landscape because once
a Vander was the winner, and now he's the champion and Main Events is
running the show. They took him to HBO and that began a long run
of his fights on HBO, so Showtime, which had been you know,
heavily involved with King and and all that they thought they were going to be
back in business doing heavyweight fights. They did the one fight that you know,
and now because Tyson previously had been on HBO. But now here you
go with Vanders now champion, he goes and he has a series of fights
with them. He does the George Foreman fight, which we talked about as
the advent of modern pay per view, which in this fight that sid did
one point four million buys in a day and age when there was maybe what
ten million convertible homes in America in terms of pay per view of being plugged
in for pay per view with your box. Then he had you know,
several other fights in HBO, Bert Cooper, Larry Holmes then came to the
Ridding Bow fight and you know an in between fight, then the Michael Moore
fight or the other Bow fight, the second one Michael Moore. Anyway,
the point is it changed the landscape of the business because it kept HBO as
the ruler of the heavyweight division because of a Vander and it was all because
he knocked out Busser with that gigantic shot after he leaned in with that uppercut
from eight miles away and got countered until he was knocked out. I still
keep saying this to you in so many different ways. I still don't want
to accept that was thirty three years ago, on October twenty fifth, nineteen
ninety. It was for holy Field's booming right was I was twenty and I
was as well. You and I are contemporaries. Some are older than us,
some are younger than us. But that's that's one of those moments.
If you've seen the video of that fight, one of the sort of images
that you know there are certain and this is not just about boxing. You
could talk about your any kind of big, famous event that's happened in your
life, but in terms of boxing specifically, when I think about like the
image, I think about Tyson like looking for his mouthpiece on the canvas when
Buster knocked him out. I think about when when Lennox Lewis regained the heavyweight
title and Hassim Rockman is laying in the middle of the ring and his head
is on the Don King Crown logo. Where you think about, you know,
Richard Steele stopping the Chavez Meldrick Taylor fight, waving his arms and the
look on Meldrick Taylor's face like those those images. One of the images I
also think about in boxing is Busser Douglas, as you mentioned, laying on
the canvas rubbing his nose as referee is counting him out and he's losing the
heavyweight championship. He's looking up and he's not getting up. He did not
get up. And the myth, well, the lore, the brief comet
existence Buster Douglas was over with in the next fight eight months later. I
mean, we can't convey enough when we got a guyut of here, We
can't can't convey enough how massive the upset was of Tyson. And this is
the guy that upset Tyson, and he's fighting an Olympic guy, an unbeaten
guy who's moving up to heavy. There was great intrigue in this and boom
goes the Dynamite ended it thirty three years ago, October twenty fifth, nineteen
ninety. With that, there is a Fight Freaks Unit recap podcast off of
this weekend, including good stuff with Amanda Serrano who will be in action on
Friday, Rayphael. It's Tyson Fury, Francis and Ganu. Week we are
ready to see whatever this is going to be. The WBC and as you
like to point out, lineal heavyweight champion fighting in Ghanu, the former UFC
heavyweight champion, who again, I keep talking to UFC peeps and they're like,
this guy was washed a couple of years ago. I don't know why
you boxing people care this guy was watched a couple of years ago. I
mean, we're about to see, We'll see. I don't know if boxing
people quote unquote. I think it's more because it's Tyson Fury and whenever he
gets in the ring of commands attention. But I mean most people are not
that interested in it. It becomes a little more interesting because he has the
Usik fight signed. So if he didn't have the Usik fight signed, it
would be sort of like who cares? But now the idea is, Okay,
how quickly can he get rid of and Ganu so he does not in
any way jeopardize via injury or some other reason the fight against Usik, which
is supposed to be the next fight, perhaps as soon as December twenty third,
which I'll believe that when I see it I've keep thinking about one scenario,
which we'll talk about more when we preview it next week or on Friday
rather, and that is in the lunatic possibility of if Tyson Fury should lose
to France's Naganhu, that he would still be the WBC heavyweight champion, because
this is not a twelve round sanctioned heavyweight championship right or that belt. But
if Naganu wins, he would be the lineal heavyweight champion, which is not
reliant upon a belt or about a number of round scheduled. It's a matter
of a man who beat the man who beat the man, and if he
were to defeat Tyson Fury, he would be the man who defeated Tyson Fury,
who defeated Vladimir or you know, who defeated Ladimir Klitsko, who everybody
coalesced around for a long period of time because he was the dominating figure for
a decade in the heavyweight division and beat everybody other than his brother, who
was retired for four years and obviously was not going to fight the brother.
The point is that would be an unprecedented situation where the heavyweight champion lineal title
changed his hands but the other guy still has the sanctioning body title. I'm
glad you covered that contingency on the realism meter, not really registering. We'll
sing, yeah, but I understand it could I can only talk about it
like this, But tumplified happens if he doesn't lose. I just find the
whole thing amazing. And I love your man, Bert Randolph Sugar. He
had the line with me too. Aliens could land on my front lawn,
young man in about five minutes, doesn't mean it's going to happen, he
would say that to me. So there you go. That's the fight for
later this week. Again, good stuff with a man Serrano. We gave
you a full recap. We gave you some news and some nostalgia. Dan
rayphiel As always, thank you for the time here. We want them to
read your fight preach Unite substack, read you on Big Fight Weekend dot com
there as well, have a good want them to review our podcast. Please
you the podcast. Yes, if you enjoy hearing us well, whether you
find us on apples, Freak or Spotify, whatever, give us a five
star review. We love that as well. We're here going into the weekend
with a preview usually on Friday mornings. We're here as best we can to
have the podcast out in the recap mode on Mondays. You've been listening to
the Fight Freaks Unite recap