The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host, t J. Leaves. Yes, we are
back aboard and ready to go over anything and everything with the Sweet Science,
including fights for this weekend in Las Vegas and Detroit and some in other places
as well. We go over everything that is pertinent that you need to know
as part of this program. In this podcast feed, I am the somewhat
capable, somewhat competent host t J. Reeves. He is our insider from
his Fight Freaks Unite, substack and Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello Dan
Raphael, as we begin another weekend with lots of news, some fights in
the ring, and even some nostalgia. How are we feeling, my friend?
You know, I'm about for ra a week because of my wife and
soner out of town at one of his events. So you know, I'm
just doing my thing. You are, and you're and you're and the phone
has been busy the last couple of days. It's me and the cat basically,
yeah, you and it's Lennox right, the cat and I'm in the
exact opposite which at this point I'm into like week five because the Florida School
system gets out much earlier than where you are in northern Virginia and a lot
of the Northeast. I'm in week five of the wife and the fifteen year
old twins and the dog being here all day, every day, and let's
just say I might be rooting for the school year to start back up soon,
because it is. Yes, we've taken a little vacation, but we're
around all the time. We're looking for things to do. Driving lessons still
in progress, Dan Raypheel with one twin swearing she's ready to go out into
traffic, and I'm on the other end going no, no, no,
no, not yet. It will be here, will be those who may
wonder. Yes, in fact, Lenox, our cat is in fact named
after my former by the way, in a back many years ago, my
former broadcast partner, when the two of us called Fights for Epics networking.
So, in other words, one of the long list of different dignitaries,
important people and whoever you've broadcasted with, and you've got to come way down
the list and lower yourself to be with TJ every week. But I love
that about you. I'm no Lennox Lewis in your world, but nonetheless we
have play to go over. Reminder, we're here with the preview going into
the weekend late night Thursday into Friday, depending on your time zone and where
you catch us. And then off the weekend, the Fight Freaks Unit recap
comes your way over night Sunday into Monday, usually Monday morning it's out.
And again, thank you for continuing to find this social media link. Dan
Substack. Continue to follow or subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify,
wherever you get podcasts to this podcast feed. And as we continue to
say, rate us in review us, and some of you have been doing
that and taking a screenshot or a social media screen grab of your rating in
review, We're going to give somebody, it could be you at random,
an opportunity to get a fight poster, a fight program Raphael. I haven't
decided yet. Maybe it's one of each. We'll draw someone at random and
maybe two someones to win, depending on how many ratings and reviews we get,
and some of them are coming in. Rate us and review us,
give us, give us a five star review, take the screenshot, let
us know who you are so that I get to tell you later. Yes,
that program and poster is not just any old program and poster. It's
going to be from Errol Spence Versus Terence Crawford. That's right, yes,
But I know I know that the program is done because I have written most
of it and just finished editing it and it's getting ready to go on press
program. I'm gonna give another pop from my boy Jay Sidon, who's who
you know, his company producers the programs. It's been my friend for twenty
five years and I've written for most of his books since then. In this
program, there are also going to be four trading cards, an Errol Spence
card, a Terence Crawford card. Wait, a medical cruise card. Wait
a minute, wait a card, and we're giving this to somebody I might
want one of the I mean, good gracious, this is trading cards and
the fight program, and thank you for picking me up there that it's the
Errol Spence Urge Crawford Fight at the end of this month in Las Vegas,
where all things being equal, Ray Phield and I will be in Clark County
together. The local authorities have been notified. Look out here we come for
them. So that's neat though about the program, and we're looking forward to
that fight. And by the way, some of the fight news that we're
about to give you pertains to the undercard now and a change from this weekend
to the undercard of Spence Crawford that in a moment, let's begin though with
the other news. And you and I did not rehearse this. I think
I know what your reactions about to be, but let's find out. Tyson
Fury has announced that he's back. No, it's not Whole Coogan, No,
it's not Santa Claus. Instead Francis in Ghanu, former UFC heavyweight champion,
one of the more decorated fighters in UFC in the heavyweight division, who
now is out of the UFC. His contract was up, he did not
renew, so he's available to do something. Raphael whatever, this is going
to be in lightness, and I'm curious, what's your reaction that, for
the first time in twenty twenty three, Furies back and it's not against a
boxer, it's against an MMA guy. Go ahead, well, when Francis
then Ganu's contract came to an end and he parted ways with UFC. He
signed with the PFL, which is another MMA outfit. But that agreement that
he did with them was because he has had this dream to pursue boxing.
Part of that agreement was that he would have permission or be allowed, or
ever you want to phrase it, to go and pursue a boxing event.
And of course he stood there in the ring next to Tyson Fury in the
immediate aftermath of his knockout victory in April of twenty twenty two, following the
win over at Dillian White, and they talked up that fight. You know,
it's sort of like, okay, maybe will happen, Maybe it wouldn't.
Obviously, Tyson Fury then went on at the end of the year and
fought Dereksura and all the other fights that he either was trying to make or
are just spouting the supposed attempt to make but didn't happen. Whether it was
the Alexander Ussek fight for the undisputed title, which is really what should have
happened, he blew that. In my opinion, there was conversation about fighting
Anthony Joshua that did not happen. You know, as Anthony Joshua said so
eloquently, he gave me like five minutes to sign the contract. Obviously,
it didn't seem like he was real, and then he mentioned fifteen other guys.
He would go to Australia to support his pal Joe Parker and say,
I'm gonna fight Demzy McKean, a top Australian heavyweight. Then he would go
somewhere else and say I'm gonna fight. You know, I'm gonna offer Andy
Ruiz to fight. Then I'm gonna offer that. Anyway, went through the
Lydney and obviously they have come to the agreement to do this matchup between him
and Francis Semgano. And I can't blame either one of them. I mean,
you want my reaction a couple of things. I don't hate it.
I don't love it. I'm not like overly interested in it. I have
no quarrel with boxers or anybody you know, legally making the most money that
they can and if they feel like this is the opportunity to do that,
especially for a guy like the Nagandu, who has made dick in terms of
his UFC pay, He's been probably the most underpaid professional combat athlete maybe in
the history of sports. So you know, and he comes and I don't
know Francis and Gando. I'm not a big MMA guy. But I've watched
some interviews with him, and just from that perspective, he's a very likable
guy, like really humble, and I have a lot of respect for the
way he spoke about his career. I've read about his upbringing in the hard
times, and you know how you're not happy for the guys. And as
they say, as the kids say, TJ, he's gonna make the bag.
Okay, so he's gonna make the back Tyson Ferry's already made a lot
of bags. But and so what. Here's the thing. I'm not mad
at the fight. I don't hate it. Anybody at this stage of the
game that doesn't know what they're expecting and they're gonna be mad if it doesn't
go the right way. Shame on them. We've been through this with McGregor
and Mayweather. There's been several other crossover type fights. You know, I'm
back in the day when when was Mayweather and and Connor McGregor. I mean,
my emotional outbursts about that, if you will, I was. I
hate I hated that. I didn't like that at all. I didn't have
a problem with the guys making the money, but I just felt like it
was a cheap you know, on the on the public, and you know,
Floyd carried him for several rounds. People want to talk about, who
oh McGregor did way better than expected. I felt like Floyd and the weather
could have knocked him out in the first round, but he carried him to
put on at Lisa show. So thank you Floyd for that. But whatever,
when that was over with, you're like, okay, we've now seen
it. But now everybody wants to come from And they made a boxing Why
because in M and A they don't make shit for money, but in boxing
at the highest level they can make a GAZILLIONCE. So let me let me
finish this. I gotta get through this, all right, So I have
no problem with them doing the fight. What bothers me about the fight is
a couple of things. Number One, it bothers me that Tyson Ferry spent
all this time teasing us about this fight, about that fight, and he
didn't do any of them, and he had the opportunity. There's no reason
why the ustic fights should not have happened, and they would have then hugely
paid for that. Also, maybe as I don't know what his exact pay
is, but I have to believe it's in the same ballpark of what he
can make for the USIC fight if the Saudis are bank rolling the event.
So that was what bothered me. The other thing that annoys me is that
while now I am told and it appears to be the case that this will
be an official, actual boxing match that will count on their records, that's
not what's going right right Okay, so that still hasn't been like formally announced,
but the WBC has said they gave him permission to do this fight,
so it will be a non title fight in the sense of the WBC.
It's a ten round fight. I guess it's a real bout. I'll say
this, and I know people are gonna hate on me about it, but
fuck them. I don't care if he loses Tyson Fury, which he won't,
but if he did, even in a ten round fight, the lineal
title is still let stake if it's an official boxing match, So theoretically,
this could be one of the weirdest situations in the history of boxing where the
heavyweight champion has the WBC title and the lineal title loses the fight no longer
has the lineal title. But still has the BC and he got a big
guy from from the MMA world who's the lineal heavyweight boxing champion. So on
the along these lines clarify on the details as far as we know, ten
round boxing match. Fury had mentioned before about maybe not using twelve ounce gloves
or whatever they use it heavyweight fourteen ouns, but using the smaller type gloves
that a Gano used in UFC. That's not the case, right, No,
this is one hundred percent as they announced, unless they change their mind,
will be fought as they say, under official professional boxing rules in the
heavyweight division, heavyweights will wear ten ounce gloves. In the lower weight classes
from like welterweight and below, it's one hundred of their eight ounce gloves.
So no hybrid gloves, no weird ring, no weird cage h no grappling,
no submissions, none of the kicking, no biting, at least not
legally anyway. So it's gonna be a boxing match the way you would see,
you know, Alexander Rusk when he fights Daniel Dubar or Anthony Joshua against
anyway, it's gonna be the same rules, regulations, and apparently it made
it official, but apparently an official boxing match for the lineal heavyweight title,
but a ten rounder, and it's gonna take place in Riyad, Saudi Arabia,
which when the interesting part about that is most of the fights that have
been rumored for Saudi Arabia or that are being bank rolled in Saudi arab that
have taken place there are being put on by a company called Skills Challenge Promotions.
They're the folks that did the Andy Ruiz fight when he went over there
and fought the rematch with Anthony Joshua. They're the folks that bankrolled, for
example, when Jamitri Bebo fought Zerdo Ramirez. I mean there have been others.
This is that just did Jake Paul Tommy Fury earlier in the year as
well. Yes, that is correct, you know. And they recently signed
bad Dud Jack, who won the Cruiserweight belt on that undercard of Tommy Fury.
Anyway, this is being put on by an outfit called Read Seasons,
which is a affarently like this is gonna be the fourth year they do this
festival. At that time of year in the city of Riot, it's a
lot of sporting events and food things and music concerts, and other cultural sort
of stuff. And this boxing event is on the opening night of the festival
and is one of the cornerstones of this festival that they do in Rha,
Saudi Arabia where and let's not gloss over this, it must be mentioned this
is all about sportswashing. This is to make Saudi Arabia that can host these
big events and put on you know, these type of activities, the cultural
stuff, the concerts of sports in their cosmopolitan city and make it look good
to the world while ignoring the fact that they killed journalists, they abuse and
are anti women. They they are militant in the way they handle themselves.
They have the worst record in a you know, in human rights that you
could think about, and so that should never be forgotten. It is,
in my opinion, and very much blood money. Okay, So a couple
of other things on this the the ludicrous stuff that's being suggested that this would
somehow be a WBC title fight. No way, No. The next thing,
it's obvious Tyson Furies taking the easy, low risk way out to make
a bunch of money, and it is a waste of our time when we
could have had the USIC fight already and you were saying to me even on
a recent podcast. I think last weekend, you don't believe we're gonna get
the Usik fight next later this year, like into s see, you're shaking
your head right now. So he basically has thumbed his nose at the legacy
undisputed fight for twenty twenty three. And I don't get that. I don't
understand that. I don't even mind there's there's no fight later this year,
this fight between Fiery and Nagan, who was on October twenty eighth. He's
not fighting a second time this year. That ain't happening. He's gonna fight
one time in a fight against the UFC you know, or former UFC heavyweight
champion, I mean not only former because the title was stripped from him when
he left the company. So yeah, no, he's gonna fight one time,
and it's a huge disappointment. So here's here's what he's been having.
What his recent resume will have looked like. He'll have had this fight where
you know where the release that went out announcing it, who is the baddest
man on the planet? I don't. I mean, I think it's Tyson
Fury based on his status as boxing's heavyweight champion, but a win against France
and nagan who does not in any way enhanced that. I mean, it's
a different sport. People need to understand that. But his recent record will
be a Naganu fight will have been in December of last year Tsora, who
was the third match they had, who was just given his buddy at Payday
too and a complete and utter beatdown. Before that was a worthy fight,
a mandatory against a quality contender and Dylan White, and before that was a
long layoff following, you know, his most you know, exceptional fight of
his career in terms of the overall excitement and just action and everything, the
absolutely sensational trilogy fight against Deontay Wilder, and uh, it's a I guess,
like I said, I don't, I don't. I'm not like some
people. I'm not losing my mind over and I read some columns from my
my my boxing writing colleagues who you know, pounded their chests with righteous indignation
about how terrible this fight is for the for the sport, for fans.
I'm I'm over that. I'm not emotional about it. I'm not going to
rip on the fight. I'm gonna watch the fight. I like watching Tyson
Ferry fight. Frances Nano does intrigue me based on what I said to you
earlier about watching him and some of his interviews and having seen some highlights of
his fights in the UFC, and knowing a little bit of his backstory.
But um, you know, I know, I know what I'm getting into
when I buy the pay per view, Okay, And I just hope that
others who decide to do that don't go in there expecting that they're going to
see some kind of you know, King conversus Godzilla. King Godzilla fought each
other. They did it unequal terms. They did in the same There was
that section by the WPC. I can't remember was that twelve rounds or was
it ten? The only thing that I will say about this, and I
realize he's got immense popularity in England, etc. You're doing absolutely nothing,
absolutely nothing to stoke this in the US and have people be interested in this.
Yes they're UFC fans, but there's for example, I talked to a
hardcore UFC person and he said a couple of things, and god who had
a very bad knee injury at the end of his UFC career, and he's
thirty seven years old and he's never boxed before. So this is to say
this is a low risk fight. This is almost a no risk fight for
Tyson Fury. So if this is the only fight of this year, don't
come crying that you can't get a fight made about undisputed and how and have
the American public care and want to watch and want to pay for it when
this is what you've been messing around to end up at the end of the
rainbow doing. You're fighting a thirty seven year old UFC guy off a knee
injury that has never fought in a boxing match before. So and listen,
and I mean, the only chance he has in my estimation. I'm not
exactly going over new ground here. If he somehow, by a miracle,
happens to land a big punch, his reputation in the UFC. Again,
I don't follow it closely, but he's got talking about in Ghana, right,
What did I say? No, you didn't say anything. You said
If he you mean, and god, if he lands a big punch,
because he is a good striker apparently and has tremendous punching power. If he
can somehow land a punch like that on Tyson Fury, maybe he can win
the fight. But I would respond to that by saying, Deontay Wilder,
who was a longtime professional boxer, an Olympic medallist with a long amateur and
professional career with numerous title defenses of the WBC Heavyweight Championship, knocked Tyson Fury
down in their three fights. I want to say four times twice or four
times right the first fight he got him twice the first fight right, and
then twice, so he put him on his ass or on his back four
times in heavyweight championship fights. He's an experienced, high level professional heavyweight who
is probably one of the greatest punchers in the history of boxing period. You
know, for my money, I think he might be the single best punch
I've ever seen for one shot, pound for pound, except maybe Randall Bailey,
the former junior welterwey, who was a spectacular puncher any event, So
if he couldn't keep Fury on his ass and reach him enough times to keep
out a guy like Naganu who's never been in a professional boxing match, for
I find it to be a complicated situation. You know, I would give
France to Naganu a much better chance if he was fighting a different heavyweight who
was not the combination of size, power, skill and speed as here,
because he really does have a well rounded arsenal that Fury employs. Listen,
he got no chance. I mean. And you know, when when the
Connor McGregor Floyd Madeweather fight happened, I was rather I wasn't shocked, but
it was sort of irritating to me that the Nevada State Athletic Commission, which
always likes to pat itself on the back and talk about how everything they do
is all in name of fighter safety, would license a fighter from a different
sport who had never boxed before professionally, had a couple of amateur type fights,
had sparred a few times, but certainly not a professional And they went
in and they licensed him for this professional match, not against a regular guy,
but a twelve round fight. If I'm not mistaken, I believe it
was a twelve rounder against the guy who was the number one fighter in boxing
at the time pound for pound, number one forty nine and oh Multidivision world
champion, the number one fighter out there, and they licensed him like it
was no problem. So these things don't surprise me, but they disappoint me.
By all rights, Nagan who should not be licensed to fight the heavyweight
champion Tyson Fury because he doesn't have that boxing experience. So I felt the
same way about the McGregor fight, but far be it for me to keep
the blood suckers from making their money. On that note, let's move on,
so we do. We're about to get into the Showtime Premiere Boxing Champions
Las Vegas card that was always headlined by Frank Martin there rising lightweight, but
the co feature fight, and we had the interview, and it's good that
you played the interview. We played the interview on the Recap podcast. Is
past weekend with no Nito don are ready to challenge for the vacant WBC bannomweight
title that he previously held on a couple of occasions. Well, now that
fight, the Dawn Air fight with Santiago, has been moved off of this
card this weekend, So before we get into the card itself and preview it
a little bit, tell me more about what it went into the decision,
as it's now moved by a couple of weeks and This is an unusual thing.
It doesn't go on all the time where you just suddenly push a fight
back by a couple of weeks. And it's basically for scheduling and to try
to bring up the quality of the pay per view, if I understand it
correctly. So give me a little more on what's going on, all right?
So originally, okay, so we discussed so Frank Martin fights hard to
coon In in the main event on Showtime in Las Vegas as a lightweight elimination
fight. We'll get to that in a minute. The co feature of that
tripleheader was supposed to be Don't Air against Alexandro Santiago for the vacant WBC bandam
White Tindle, one of the four belts that the undisputed Champia in a way
vacated when he moved up. And wait, so if you now fast forward
to July twenty ninth, on that card, we know the may and then
is obviously Spence Crawford. The co feature is pit Bull Cruz. Uh you
know he has taken on Giovanni Cabrera and the third fight down the card was
supposed to be the Outstanding Junior Middleweight Prospect up and comer twenty no Hazers Ramos
against the very experienced Sergio Garcia and Hazers Ramos. In the last few days,
I guess suffered a hand injury of some kind and it forced him to
be dropped from the card and you know, pull off the show because he
couldn't go. So, as you mentioned, they have to do something to
add to that card. So they've made the decision, and I'm glad they
did this. Actually, uh it does make the pay per view better.
Uh they added the don't I mean, I'm assuming they had to talk to
Donaar and Santiago to get their permission, because it's hard, you know,
when you're bannom weights and your you're just a few days away from making the
weight and now you got to wait another You got to maintain your weight essentially
for two more weeks. That ain't easy to do when you're when you're one
hundred and eighteen pounds. So kudos to Donaire, always a top pro.
Same goes for Santiago, who's getting this great opportunity also. But the two
guys were excited to move to the show based on their public statements, and
so in fact this will now take the place of the Ramos fight on the
Spence Crawford pay per view, which I think for the for the viewing public
and for those of us that will be inside the arena, it's a good
thing. And so besides that, you also had a scenario where the original
undercard fight of the pay per view, the heavyweight fight between Victor Faust and
and Gergen Hovenisi, and the up and coming prospect Faust had a back injury,
so they took one of the other fights from that undercard and they moved
it up onto the pay per view. And then if you go back to
the Saturday card on showtime that we have coming up this weekend, you have
a scenario where now that you've lost the Donair fight, you know you have
to replace that on the broadcast. So they took one of those undercard fights,
a fight between an undefeated prospect named freydis Rojas, a welterweight and it
is ten and oh with ten knockouts, and then moved his fight with Diego
Santiago into the televised portion of the show. And just the backtrack for a
second, the fight that's moving on to the Spence and Crawford fight is also
you know, it may not be you know, you're not going to necessarily
recognize all the all the names of the guys because they're they're they're not household
names. But the thing is they're going to give these guys some tremendous exposure
by by having them in this big spot. So that means that you're going
to get a chance, I guess, to see somebody that you wouldn't have
seen before. So Sergio Garcia, when Mention was supposed to be the opponent
for Ramos, he's going to stay on the cart. He's a very experienced
fighter from Spain who's you know, he fought Fandor. He's been in the
ring with some good opponents over the years. You know, has a tremendous
record. So they're putting him in the ring with this twenty three year old
Cuban fighter named Tlez who was a train being trained by Ronnie Shields. So
he's only five and oh with four knockouts, but obviously, if you know
anything about the Cuban system, he's clearly gonna be much more advanced than what
you would think of as an ordinary five and oh guy. We'll see how
it goes because he's taken on a real guy in Garcia. We saw what
happened to Joelvis Gomez, another hot shot Cuban who only had like fights.
He got beat last week, so there's some intrigue there. So you know,
I would say this, given the problems when you've got multiple injuries that
affect the pay per view, I feel like the PBC folks and Showtime and
TGB promotions never even involved, feel like they did put their best foot forward
to beef up the pay per view as best as possible. I still think
it's I actually think it's slightly improved. Nothing against Ramos, but I liked
seeing Don't Air in a World Championship fight on the paper view better. And
in terms of the Showtime card, it's on Saturday. You're seeing another prospect
just take the place for another you're taking you see him take the place of
the Don't Air fight. But that wasn't the biggest show in the world to
begin with, So I'm okay with all of it. Okay, so we'll
get into that show. And just one more second about Frank Martin headlining it.
Just because you are who you are. Can you recall even in recent
history where they went to a couple of fighters who are trying to make a
weight at one eighteen and days before their fight, say no, no,
wait a minute, can you do this in two weeks? Keep training?
Because a lot of times these guys, without going into all of it for
fifteen more minutes, these guys are timing their weight cut and their preparation around
dates. Certain a week from now, seventy two hours from now, we
were within seventy two to ninety six hours, seventy two hours of the way
in for sure. So can you recall another one of these that for promotional
reasons and other reasons, let's wait two weeks. You keep training. It's
not an injury for either guy that we need to wait a month or two.
You keep training, and we're gonna do this in two weeks. Do
you recall that at all? You know? I really don't. I mean,
I'm sure if I really, if I researched and spend time, I
mean, we could find an example or two over all the years I've been
writing about boxing. But it's it's no doubt, it's highly unusual. And
now I don't know this to be the case, but I would say this,
they're moving from a what I feel like was a very low budget kind
of Showtime fight to one of the biggest fights of the year, if not
the biggest fight of the year. It certainly it's going to be a major
pay per view and it's going to generate millions and millions and millions and millions
of dollars. So it would not surprise me. I don't know this,
but it shock me is if hey, guys, would you be able to
wait two more weeks? By the way, no Needle, here's an extra
hundred here you go, Uh, Santiago, here's an extra hundred whatever.
In other words, maybe give them a little extra sweetener in their purse to
make it worth their while, because I guarantee you there's a lot more money
in a Crawford Spence event in terms of the budget than there is in a
Showtime Championship boxing card for this weekend. So and I, yeah, I'm
not I don't know that to be the case. I would hope that to
make it work, that that there would be uh that that uh situation where
the guys could get a little more money to make it worth a while to
make the switch. Um, I don't know for sure. I'm gonna I'll
ask around about that actually, see if I can figure that out. But
that would that would seem to be the right thing to do. Um.
But in any event, that's the case. So the show goes on and
it's still a good looking pay per view card, and Showtime's card on Saturday
is obviously a little weaker because there's no Donair. But still, you know,
the main event is Frank Martin. That's still in place, and that's
what we've got. So let's get into that little bit more. Martin obviously
off the win over Michelle Rivera in a head to head showdown, So give
me a little more on this, including the opponent and then the rest of
the card real quick in the preview mode coming in Las Vegas. Well,
Martin, as you mentioned, he has that big win against the previously unbeaten
Michelle Rivera. I remember when that happened last year and in December on Showtime
also and also at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. That was like considered like
a dangerous fight for both guys, Like a lot of people were surprised,
like they've got these two younger guys up and coming. Both were undefeated and
they both gambled there undefeated records against each other, which is you know,
I think that should happen more often. It is prize fighting after all,
but you know it's not too common these days. But they took the gamble.
They weren't making huge money for that fight. As it turned out,
Frank Martin, you know, just completely dominated the fight when you know,
a near shutout, like it was a shot out of one card that you
know. One judge gave Rivera two rounds, one gave him I think three
rounds. And of course afterwards Rivera had a positive drug test which he was
suspended for. But Frank Martin looked tremendous in that fight and one going away
in a unanimous decision. So now we comes back and he's fighting in a
WBC lightweight eliminator against Artin Harte Tunian, who was a German an Armenian born
fighter, but he's based out of Germany. He was a medal winner in
the twenty and twenty Olympics, I take that back, in the twenty sixteen
Olympics for Germany and also undefeated twelve and h was seven knockouts. He's obviously
was a good amateur, has been a little bit not as active as maybe
you'd like to see. He hasn't, like I said, hasn't had a
lot of fights, but this is the opportunity for both them. It's gonna
be his first fight at least as far as I look at his record like
against like a real guy like his, he really hasn't fought anybody. I
mean, I mean, he's fought some undefeated guys in this net, but
really nobody's ever gone anywhere. It's gonna be his first fine fighting outside of
Germany. So you know, props to him for coming to America to do
the fight. But uh, you know, I've liked Frank Martin for the
last couple of years since I've been watching him, had him on a prospect
list. You know, he's out of the Errol Spence gym. He's one
of the Derek James guys. Errol Spence's Man Down Promotions actually promotes him.
He's very tight with Errol And uh, you know that gym loaded you got
in. Frank Martin getting ready for fight, Anthony Josh, We're getting ready
for the fight. Erroll Spence getting ready for a fight. Charlot getting ready
for a fighting. Even though he's gotten ready, not getting ready for a
fight. Ryan Garcia has been their training now with there, that's a phenomenal
gym with those level guys all there together. But Frank Martin may be the
least known of them, but he's a really good looking young fighter at seventeen
and oz. And it's a second straight showtime main event. I think part
of that's because, as I mentioned before, he fits in the budget.
But I expect Frank Martin to put on a tremendous performance. He's a really
good fighter. He's very well rounded, he has good punching power, he's
got good skills, he's got smarts. I like him a lot, and
you know, I mean again, it's not the biggest fight I ever saw,
but I am interested to watch Frank on Saturday and see how he performs
on the undercard. Also, now Elvis Rodriguez and Victor Postall are there as
well. Give me a little quick thought on that before we move off,
so that before all the changes got made with the injuries that we were talking
about. That was the original opener of this of this telecast. But Elvis
Rodriguez, you know, he he's been a guy that was considered a prospect
by a lot of people top rank Adam. They were making him out like
he was the next big thing. I was never that impressed with the guy.
Uh, not that he was bad, but I didn't I didn't see
like superstar when I was watching watching him. He's a south ball from the
Dominican Republican trained by Freddie Roach. He's fourteen one and one and he's looked
okay since his most recent fights since he's joined PBC. UM. He got
you know, Joseph Adorno, who we saw you know, get beat over
last weekend. That was his most recent fight in February. He won against
him in a competitive fight, but he knocked him down a couple of times.
But now he's taken like I think, you know, not a huge
It's a step up for sure, uh compared to some of the other guys
he's fought. But Victor Postal is a is A is the if you could
put in in the dictionary a picture next to the definition of grizzled veteran,
that's Victor Postal. Guy was really really good, fought a lot of good
guys, you know, had a world title, lost it in a unification
against Terrence Crawford years ago in twenty and sixteen and got white doubt, but
he's never ducked anybody. Also fought Josh Taylor, he thought and gave a
lot of people thought he beat Jose Ramirez when he challenged him for the unified
two belts at one forty back in twenty twenty. He took a close I'm
not a not a close loss, but each round to round I guess was
kind of competitive defeat against Gary Antoine Russell. That was his last fight,
that took place in February of last year. So he's coming off of a
long laugh. He's one of the guys that's had been in that's been impacted
by what's happening in Ukraine, which is where he's from, but he trains
out of southern California. Also has been with Freddie Roach for many years,
and so it's it's kind of a step up because it's the most experienced guy
that Elvis has fought. And one thing about Victor Postal, you know,
he may not beat the top guys these days, but he's only been stopped
one time and uh, you know, he gives a great effort. The
only guy to stop him was Gary Antoine Russell has got really good punching power.
That was his last fight, so he's coming off the t KO.
So this is again it's like what you would consider a crossroads fight. It's
the young guy who's looking to make a name for himself, get to get
a quality name like Victor Postal on the record, a former title holder,
and Victor post All looking to hang on to his career. And if he
can take a win against a guy that a lot of people think is uh,
you know, got a future, that would be a big, big
statement for him. So that's the co future and then the undercard. This
is the fight that's moved onto the card once done Air exited the event.
As I mentioned, there's a young weltervate named freydis Rojas who's ten and oh
with ten knockouts. He's a Las Vegas southpaw, knocking everybody out. He's
I think he's passed. He's had a couple of fights where one of them
was on like one of these uh you know, tape delay type show was
on cable TV, etc. He's fought in different countries, has even though
he's from America, he's fought in Costa Rica in places like that. So
this is the chance for him to finally get an opportunity to be seen by
a much larger audience, you know, from the United States. So you
know Diego Sanchez, you know, a Mexican fighter with some losses, but
hopefully he'll give him some competition. And you know, I can't say no
a lot about the guy, but hopefully we'll see a good fight. What
can I say? So there's the showtime PBC card in Las Vegas, and
moving right along, let's go to the match room to zone show. This
is Ladies Undisputed Junior Lightweight title on the line. Alicia Bomb Gardner puts her
WBC, WBO, IBFWBA titles up for grabs. Christina Lindartu, who we've
talked about before on this podcast, had trouble with the boxing British Boxing Board
of Control getting license because of eye problems. No such problem apparently, here
licensed and ready to go as a challenger at one hundred and thirty pounds for
bomb Gardner, who's most known for winning the undisputed title by beating MICHAELA.
Mayer. So she's headlining in Detroit. Tell me more about this and the
undercard coming Saturday night in the Motor City. Mighty one. So a couple
of things. She didn't win the undisputed title against Michael Is. She unified
against Michael and then she became the undisputed in the next fight against which I
have you here to keep me straight in the audience, right, thank you?
Are you going? The other thing is Lindarto. I would not term
her issue in licensing in England as eye problems. She's had a a artificial
lens in her eye for many many I think her whole career practically never been
a problem. That's fought in the UK with it before, when she fought
and gave Katie Taylor a solid fight. She's fought in other countries. For
whatever reason, they flagged it there and they wouldn't let her fight, but
it didn't give her a problem before. It hasn't given her a problem at
any point in her career to my knowledge, and there was no problem with
her being a licensed here in the United States, so that seemed like an
anomaly. So I just I just don't like the term problem. She has
an artificial lens which they said you can't fight with, which she had when
she fought there last time, so that when you I'm just saying in general,
wouldn't you think they did some kind of vision exam and that's what concerned
them and or medical So they had to them. But they had to them
if they I'm just saying common sense. If they licensed her before for having
this and then they come back around and they wouldn't do it, it had
to be some kind of change. Here's the analogy, teach. I've been
traveling on American airlines for twenty years, all my miles thousand trips literally like
probably one hundred and thirty to forty trips to Las Vegas in that time period,
I've traveled with the same black roller bag every single time, literally every
single fucking time I've had You've explay years iron Man performance by that piece of
luggage, Yes, you've been playing. Yes, So I know how to
pack that piece of luggage, and I know how that piece of luggage fits
on the airplane, and I know that it fits in the overhead been and
I've traveled with it in the overhead been a million times. And on my
last trip to Las Vegas, the motherfucker at the gate the TSA agent was
like at the tsage at the American Agent, you gotta put it in the
little box to make sure it fits, and I had to kind of jibble
it down there a little bit, and and they didn't like it, and
they made me fucking check the bag, same fucking thing. Her eye was
fine all that time. And one dick said, you can't fight same thing
with my airline bag when I know, goddamn well it fits in the fucking
upper head on the overhead the way, I have not heard this story about
the airline bag until this moment, But brother Raypheel is going are rated with
the tirade here, by the way, I had to say, but the
only thing I understand what you're saying. The only thing is with your vision
and being licensed to fight. I'm speaking from experience. My vision is getting
worse, Raypheel, I'm almost there. I'm gonna have to have readers.
I'm gonna have to have readers to be able reading glasses to read. So
when we're talking about your vision, that's what makes me think they did some
kind of test in their concern. Otherwise, why did they license her before
if it's If it's not some kind of vision tests hypoetical with my roller bag
for twenty years and then, but I can tell you, because I just
live this with American Airlines and we're gonna bang on them. And this is
the reason why I'm not gonna fly them anytime soon. They have put in
new restrictions with the types of planes they have recently. And this is what
got explained to me because I paid for and checked a smaller bag and they're
they're people that were standing there. I was not going to be able to
take two things on the plane. There are people that were standing there.
Didn't say to me, what you have right there is too big. Put
it in that box over here, because you're not gonna be able to take
it on the plane. And so I took it upstairs, got through security,
went to the gate, and then American hit me with what they hit
you with, with no I understanding. So here's my thing. I complained.
I complained, I complained at the time they're charging me. I've complained
online and to this second, nobody has ever answered me on my complaint in
my example, So they're dead to me, like mafia terms. Americans dead
to me. You can keep flying them if you want to. But that's
well, that's because I got all my mis I get the premise, I
get the analogy. I'm just saying, with your vision, you you can
see your vision gets worse. And maybe he was part of this. He's
had the lens her whole career, never been a problem. Let's get on
to the fight. She's fighting Bomb Garner for the undisputed title. The intriguing
fact about this fight, if you considered intriguing, does that Alicia Bomb Garner,
who is coming off of becoming the undisputed champion and she is one of
the best women's boxers out there. She is fourteen and one with seven knockouts.
Is is a homecoming fight in Detroit. They're having it at the Masonic
Temple, which is a historic facility that has had some boxing matches in the
past. And instead of going home and just picking nobody to sort of celebrate
and do a victory lap and and you know, celebrate your championship in your
accomplishment, they picked Lendartu, who is the only woman to ever beat her.
In twenty eighteen, they had a boxing match, an eight rounder that
took place in Louisville, Kentucky, and Lendartu one an eight round split decision.
And so this is a bomb Garner's opportunity to have a homecoming fight,
defend the undisputed title for the first time, and in the same fight,
attempt to get revenge for the only loss of her career. So that's the
story line period. And but Landartu she's I don't know if i'd say she's
on the level of uh, you know, the the elite pound for pound
women out there, but she's certainly not far below. She has own set
of accomplishments, and like I said, she gave Katie Taylor a very tough
fight in two at the end of twenty nineteen, and she's being some other
women with names. She did defeat Bomb Garner. She's got to win over
Candy White, who was on the feed to spot for the title just a
couple of weeks ago. A title. She has also lost a Delphine Pursuona
as one of the top women out there who I thought beat Katie Taylor when
they had their first fight. That was a fight I was out of the
garden on the I believe it was the Anthony Joshua Andy Ruise undercard for the
first fight. And anyway, so as women's boxing matches go, this seems
like a perfectly fine legit solid fight for this event. The disappointing part about
the event is that Richardson Hitchens was supposed to fight Montana Love in the co
future in a few weeks ago. That fight was called off because of the
fact that Montana Love, I guess had some type of injury and was not
able to go, and I guess there's some plans to try to reschedule that
later, you know, into the early part of the fall. But it
did kind of leave let's be honest, you know, it left this card
a little bit thin. So he got Bomb Garner in the main event.
He got the co feature is a ten round fight in the lightweight division,
which is the Olympic gold medal winner Andy Cruz, who's known as an amateur
not only for his gold medal, but he's also got like four amateur wind
over the tremendous prospect Keishan Davis. So he's fighting the useful veteran Juan Carlos
Burgos, who at the end of that year was beaten pillar to post and
a one sided route by Keishan Davis. So that's why they picked him to
make that comparison. So here's my thing about Andy Cruse obviously a very talented
fighter, great amateur fighter. I've seen numerous of his amateur fights and if
you want to watch him, there are a lot of them on YouTube and
watching his various Olympic games and all that. He fights like the stereotypically Cuban
in the sense that he is not crowd pleasing, he is not fan friendly.
My hope is that now that he's in the professional ranks with the smaller
gloves and you know, it's more about doing damage to your opponent than just
touching him in a point and running away, that he'll become more of a
crowdpleaser and follow in the professional Cuban ranks of the guys who have been crowdpleasers
at times, like a like a Joel Cassimayor who made some tremendous fights,
or in the heavyweight division with uh, you know, King cong Ortiz,
and not like some of his countrymen like a Rigando or an Arislanny Laura at
the early stage of his career. We'll see. So that's that's like a
very nominal co feature to me. It should have been. Obviously they didn't
really upgrade the card when that other fights. Just a quick comment I thought
it's unusual too. It's a pro debut right for Andy Cruz, and it's
a ten round fight, so that's interesting too, so say, but a
ten interesting. Yeah, he's taken that Lomachenko route where you know he's gonna
move quickly. According to match Room Boxing, when Eddie Hearns signed him,
he said, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna, you know,
get him. This is not a guy that's gonna have, you know,
a whole bunch of fights before he's fighting for some type of stakes unless he,
I guess loses. So by example, Keyshawn Davis was fighting six round
fights rounds or eight round fights the first couple three fights. This is just
a ten round fight, just so we let people know. In Cruise's debut
on this undercard continue one, yeah, I mean Cruizes. Cruise is much
older than Keishan. Keishan was a much younger fighter, uh, and everybody's
got to go at their own pace. Keshan needed a couple of those types
of fights early on, and Top Rank realized very quickly that he didn't need
them anymore. And that's why he's you know, now fighting in higher profile
fights against better opponents than the guy that he fought in his most recent fight.
I mean, what's Keishan now? Nine and no right now is the
same guy that cruises fighting this pro debut. So okay, that's the co
feature. And also, and they've really not publicize this at all. I'm
not not really sure why. But Jermaine Franklin, the American heavyweight who was
from from Detroit or from sagan On, Michigan, but you know in Michigan,
his last two fights were pretty high profile. He lost a very good,
outstanding battle with Dylan White in November of last year. That was a
really good matchup. His next fight after that, he came back on just
five months later, four and a half months later, and he fought Anthony
Joshua. When Joshua was coming off the loss, it was sick. It
was Joshua was first fight with Derek James, and he gave you know,
he didn't win the fight, but he gave Joshua a solid fight. He
lost, you know, fair and square in the cards, but it wasn't
like he didn't try and it wasn't like a terrible fight. And uh so
now he's coming back on this card. It's sort of like a get well
like, let me see if I can get a win and you know,
move on with things. So he's taken on Israel. Munio's in the co
feature, I mean not the co feature, but the third fight down the
card, and you know he gets some heavyweight action. We'll say, but
again it's uh, it's uh, it's let's just be honest. It's if
you like bomb Gardner and she's worth watching, then you're in for probably pretty
good fight. If you're not, uh, it's it's it's a rough one,
this one. It's a thin fight card, that is for sure.
And by the way, keep it real, and I understand that's what the
fans appreciate it. We both keep it. We both keep it real.
Hitch Hitchens in against uh against Luve made the Hitchens Hitchens Hitchens in love.
But we will talk about hits and Son. Oh Hitchens. Yeah, you're
right, Hitchings Hitching Richards Richardson Hitchens. There you go. We will handicap
these fights, by the way, on the bet us show, including the
Frank Martin Showtime PBC main event and the Bomber Gardner main event. So'll be
with us Friday one Eastern time, depending on when you're hearing us. Bet
us platforms will be good on that. All right, let's move on some
news and some nostalgia before we get out of here quickly. On the news,
hey tell a female Lopez not vacating the WBO one and forty pound title.
Who saw that coming? Okay, how can this be? No,
it's exactly what we thought, which is when push came to shove, he
didn't give the belt up. Give me more real quick. What a waste
of everybody's fucking time. I mean, he texted Paco of our Parcel,
the WBO president, and said, I'm vacating the title. The WBO didn't
accept that as a formal abdication of the belt. He said, bright,
ess a formal letter, okay, fair enough, And he didn't do it.
He didn't do it. And then finally the WBO was like, okay,
they did a resolution a few days ago, said you have twenty four
hours to notify us if you're going to keep the title or not. Then
that, by the way, that's not unreasonable at all. And so in
the end, they had a nine o'clock deadline on Thursday night and he notified
them, you know, soon before that said he'd elected to keep the title.
And then I spoke to his manager, David mcgwater, who said,
look, and he said what I said, even if Tifimo actually wanted to
retire, just to head your bet, just in case you change your mind.
Since he's not enclumbered by a mandatory, there's nothing that he has to
do at the time. He could sit on his title for six months and
really think about what he wants they were eight months or whenever, his next
mandatory would be doing like a year from now, and not give up the
title. So mcgwater's perspective was, hey, let's just not give up a
title. You can still retire if you want, but no reason to give
it away for nothing until you have to. So the decision was made between
David and Tiofimo and Tifimo's father, Tiofimo Senior, that he would keep the
DELT. They notified the w BO okay, and and mcgwater was saying,
well, he still might retire, he still might retire, Okay, fine,
And then of course, like within forty five minutes of me and Dave
having that conversation, you know, Tifimo and Devin Haney are getting into it
on on Twitter, and he's saying I'm not coming out of or I'm coming
out of retirement. You know, why don't you you know, uh,
you know, I want to fight you because you know, look, there's
been this rivalry, not that they were in the ring together, but the
whole controversy. And I wrote about this in my piece about it. Tiafimo
Lopez claims that he had been the undisputed lightweight champion. There are those of
us, like myself that says, you're a hell of a fighter, and
you were the unified champion, you were the lineal champion, but you were
never the undisputed because you beat loma Chenko, who gave up the WBC title,
took the trophy belt of the franchise title. You did win that when
it wasn't even supposed to be transferable in the ring, as outlined when the
WBC announced its creation, and it was to no fault of Devin Haney's that
he was the interim champion. Wanted to fight Lomachenko, who, understandably and
I don't fault him for this, said I'm not going to fight Haney,
who was not really that. I wanted to bring a lot to the table,
was with a different promoter. I'm gonna go fight the big fight with
Tifimo Lopez, who was at the time the IBF champion Weeking Unify. It's
a big deal for ESPN, for top rank, there's a lot more money.
There was a fight that fans wanted to see. So he went and
he fought Tiafimo, and Tifimo beat him and he got the belts, but
he didn't get the real WBC belt, which was Haney's because he was elevated.
And then Tiofimo lost his belts to Cambosis, and then Cambosis lost twice
to Haney, and then Haney also beat Loma Chanko, And so the question
is who's the real undisputed lightweight champ at that time? It was it Haine
or was it Tifimo? I say, and I know I'm on the right
side of history. It was definitely Devin Haney. Now, Tifimo was rightfully
the lineal champion in the WBO, champion in the junior welterweight division off the
victory against Josh Taylor. So to match those two guys together, especially when
Haney's been talking about moving up and wait, that's a pretty big fight.
Is it the same level? A fight as if Tiofimo or to fight a
Tank Davis or Ryan Garcia, or if Devin Haney fought one of those two
guys. Know, but it's a tremendous matchup. It's a very makeable fight.
Tiofimo was with Top Rank. Hany is a free agent but has been
with Top Rank for his last few fights. I don't think it will be
you know, they're all They're all gonna drive a hard bargain, but in
the end, both guys are at a similar level of earning in their career.
Neither guys made massive money, but they can afford it. It's a
pay per view level of fight. They've both drawn okay crowds. They've both
done well. Tfmal's got the one pay per view under his belt with Lopez,
which did nice business. It's just a very makeable, very interesting fight
that I believe could do very well on pay per view. Let's see if
they can actually get that shit done. Okay. So that was going on
on Wednesday night, and that's how Wednesday night began for Devin Haney and Wednesday
night ended for Devin Haney early Thursday morning, Pacific time, with him being
arrested for possession of a semi automatic handgun. The details are these. LAPD
did a traffic stop outside of a nightclub where Haney had been and they found
a handgun. I believe Haney notified them there was a handgun in the car.
Nobody would claim whose it was because the car was regi to him and
Haney was not driving the vehicle. They took him into custody on a felony
charge. Now, his father, Bill Haney, has given public comments here
saying it's all a big misunderstanding, something new. It always something something new
from those that are arrested. It's all a big misunderstanding that'll be straightened out.
But this is a felony. It's a felony for having possession of a
semi automatic concealed weapon in a vehicle in California. So when we add that
to the soup here reading in reading the report from TMZ which broke this story.
They he was coming out of a club midnight, young kid in Los
Angeles. He wasn't driving the car, sitting. They actually had video of
him getting in the car and all that, and apparently the cops pulled them
over or pulled over the car, not him. I mean whoever was the
driver of the car for an unsafe lane change and failure to use a turn
signal. So I would just say to all of you out there that are
going to have a weapon in your car, make sure you use your blinker,
make sure you don't change lanes on safe you know. So we get
stopped in again. And by the way, if you've watched enough of this
with these now reality shows, the new the new one is called on patrol,
the other one is called live PD. Typically, law enforcement will come
up to whomever they're dealing with and say, do you have anything in the
vehicle? And so that that is again what happened here. They said do
you have it? And he said there's a loaded gun under the back under
the driver's seat, I guess, And so that's how that came about.
This is it's very reminiscent. I'm actually not sure what the end result was.
I actually need to make a couple of calls and check on this.
But I mean, it's not that long ago. What is it like a
month ago, a month and a half ago. We're also in Los Angeles.
The aunt a Wilder with his tinted windows got pulled over for that situation
and also was found to have had I believe it was definitely a gun.
I guess a loaded gun in that Carlie he was accustodying Elanie charge and is
now dealing with that. So I don't know. These guys are are are
the great fighters in the world, who can can can snap your neck with
one shot? Why do you got to carry a weapon? I mean,
I mean, and if you're going to carry a listen, and that was
I mean. I'm being facetious when I say that. If you're going to
carry a weapon, which I look, I'm not a big gun guy.
I'm not into that stuff. But if if you feel like you need to
have a weapon, just do it legally, that's all. And it's tougher
in some states. You know, the state that I'm in, not the
State of Confusion, but the state of Florida. There are more relaxed gun
laws on what you're allowed to carry, what your security guards allowed to have,
that kind of thing. And he did have security with him at the
club and in the car. My family this week, my wife and son
are in Texas, which is the biggest open carry state in the country.
Incorrect, So it just varies and in California, not unlike New York.
There are different rules and different laws for you to have that. So hopefully
and hopefully from what what Bill Haney said is I hope, I mean I
was being facetious before about that. I do hope it's a misunderstanding and there's
some type of reason and that if it isn't, that it wasn't. Actually
Haney's gone, and you know he's good to go. Uh. You know,
you don't want to screw up your career. He's a tremendous fighter.
And in my knowledge of Devin Haney from meeting him many years ago when he
was a kid, basically, you know, he's a solid citizen. He's
not a troublemaker generally, I don't know him to be. He's not getting
in bar fights, and he's not disrespecting everybody and and doing terrible things or
cursing people out. You know, he's a young kid that's enjoying his fame
and his wealth, but not a not a bad guy by any stretch.
All Right, we'll get to the rest of the news in nostalgia. Here
we go. So Anthony Joshua and Dillian White is official. We talked about
that on the Recap podcast. They didn't have their press conference this week to
get things rolling. Anything noteworthy there or you know, we're getting ready for
the fight in another month that that will take it. I mean, it's
just it's always interesting to see the two guys interact with each other. I
guess it's interesting. Can I interrupt that Dillian White actually showed up for the
news conference, So this one, unlike the Tyson Fury fight where he was
not there, only his likeness was there. So it's good. I mean
he's there, yes, but he was fine when he promoted the Jermaine Franklin
fight that you know, that was an issue that he had over his pay
and some motor things. But Dylian's a pretty a pretty chill guy. Are
you talking about when he got the largest paid of his career to fight Tyson
Fury that he couldn't bother to show up for. Okay, yeah, there
were reasons, but anyway, he was there. There was a good press
conference. I sensed more of a chip on the shoulder of Joshua towards White
than there is from White towards Joshua, Like Joshua seems to think that they
hate him, and it's all this terrible bad blood and white. It's like,
look, I respect your brother. I mean it's business. You know,
we're gonna have a good fight. But he doesn't, Dylan, I
don't think, really hates anybody. He's just a if you ever met the
guy, he's a very likable, very gregarious, very sort of like like
you just want to He's a kind of guy you love to go have a
beer with, go hang out with, you know, go to lunch with.
Just a just a very nice guy. And I like josh w also,
but a little bit more high strung, if you will, in that
sense. So there was the interest of watching the two of them playing of
each other at this news conference. And look, their first fight was very
one sided in favor of Joshua scored a knockout, but it was a super
exciting fight and I've heard a lot of people complain about it. In my
perspective is that the fight with Deontay, while they're still on the table.
I spoke to while there's manager Shelley Thinkle last night about it, that is
still the plan. It could however, as he mentioned, there's a good
possibility it winds up in January. But they're nervous. They need Joshua to
win. They don't want it to mess up their situation, and we'll see
you. I mean, it's Anthony Joshua. I believe sometimes it's still sort
of mentally fragile and you just never know. I think he'll win the fight,
he should win the fight. But you can't count out a guy like
Dylan White, who's got big balls in a huge heart, and he's still
got good power and he wants to avenge the loss. He knows he can
screw up those plans of Joshua's and there's a lot of pressure on Joshua.
So let's see how they both had up. But I suspect in this year
where there haven't been the heavyweight fights we want to see, this is not
a terrible replacement. As I said on the podcast, the iyer from some
is not that the fight's happening. It's that in the UK it's a twenty
six dollar welcome welcome to it. Because he was a pay per view guy,
Joshua on Sky Sports for all of his stuff, and this was part
of his lifetime deal to go to his own views in the United States and
every other market in the world other than Ireland than the United Kingdom. It's
on your regular zown subscription, So I'm down with that. We're good with
that, okay. Speaking of the heavyweights, the Unified champ Alexander Usik met
with Daniel Dubois over a couple of different press conferences. The second one was
in London on Wednesday of this week, and I guess the big takeaway and
this is not surprising. Here we go again with it's all a big misunderstanding.
Not surprising that an injured fighter says, oh, I'm one hundred percent,
I'm good to go, which is what Dubois keeps saying about his injured
knee at an ACL injury last December in the right knee in that fight,
and he is proclaimed himself ready physically ready for this fight coming up at the
end of August. He still got another five or six weeks to be fully
ready for this fight. So that's my that's my takeaway. Anything else worthy
from the startup media coverage of Usk Dubois this week. Yeah, they met
each other in Poland for the first press currents on Monday, then they went
to London on Wednesday. Took a lot of nice pictures, have a lot
of you know, things to say. You know, look Usik and do.
While they're both respectful guys, I don't think you'll see a lot of
trash talk between them. You know a lot of what Usi talks about is
to try to, as he says, bring glory to Ukraine and and put
them on on a on a good level in terms of international exposure. Wants
his fights to be like a way for his countrymen who are busy fighting their
war that if they can have a respite for an hour to watch the fight
of his and get some pleasure out of that, that's what he would like
to do. Um. You know, Usik is a is a I think
he's a pretty good guy and he's a hell of a fighter, and I
just think the dubois is in over his head and uh, you know,
we'll see if he can hang in there with him. But you know,
I don't. I don't after seeing the way he reacted with the Lorraine fight,
the one you mentioned that's where he hurt his knee and got knocked down
three times when was lucky to escape with that secondary title. Uh, you
know, I don't think it bodes well against Alexander Usik the one good thing
about this matchup is that at long last, it will once again reduce by
one the number of extraneous titles of w BA has. But it's always been
more of a thorn in terms of the heavyweights because that's the division that gets
so much of the attention. So they'll be down to only one heavyweight champion
within the w BA. And uh, you know, I've found it interesting
TJ, because we talked about the lack of activity in the good matchups in
the heavyweight division in twenty twenty three and it just was weird to me.
So we saw the Zang fight against Joe Joyce, that was a pretty good
matchup. Obviously there was an upset in that fight. They're doing a rematch,
but besides that, the division has been so lacked lesser this year.
And then all of a sudden, in the span of two days, you
had the formal announcement of Joshua Versus, Joshua versus White, rematch Us against
Dubois in the mandatory, and obviously Tyson Fury against Frances Zan Ganner. So
you have all the all the big names other than Wilder are in action.
They have got fights scheduled now, and yet none of the fights that were
announced are the fight that most fans want to see. It's not like they're
like, I again, I don't have a all with us fighting Dubois.
It's a mandatory dua. Other than that terrible performance against Lauren, it's not
like he sucks or he's no good. He's still a very good fighter.
His only loss was to U Joe Joyce. It's not like the rematcheing Joshua
and White is some terrible matchup. And you know, we've already had our
say on what we think about the Younganu Tyson Fury fight. So but again,
you got all these supposed big fights announced, and not one of them
is like the actual fight that like ninety nine percent of the fans would prefer
to say that's boxing very good, and that leads us to a little nostalgia.
To wrap it up this week, is this correct? You have this
on my sheet? Julio Caesar Chavez Senior. We're talking about he's sixty one
years old, how about that? And we've been talking about him a lot
recently on these podcasts, including his US Network TV debut. The anniversary of
that was just this past weekend. From back in nineteen eighty five when he
killed Roger Mayweather. One of the great fighters of all time is now.
First, we had Tyson turning fifty seven, we got Julio Caesar Chavez his
sixty one, and he'd still kick your ass. Well. Probably he's a
He's a Hall of Famer and a legend, no doubt. I will take
any opportunity to talk about the greats, and Julio Caesar Chavez among them,
obviously. And I mean he's been retired now for a long time. You
know, even when I started writing about boxing, he was playing out to
string. He had. He fought a few times during my early days of
covering boxing, but they were behind him. But he's been out of the
ring now on a permanently since two thousand and five. The last few fights
were kind of difficult to watch, let's be honest about it. But in
his hey day, man, there was no more fun, exciting fighter in
boxing, no more honest fighter in terms of I'm just gonna go there and
beat your brains out, break it down, and knock you out. I
never consider him to be a devastating one punch puncher, but he was what
people would call a thumper. He would just beat on you, and beat
on you, and beat on you. Would finally he would follow, would
he'd bring the axe and chop you down over the of you know, a
bunch of rounds in the fight and punch and take a punch from the best
of the best. I mean, he's got six losses and he got stopped
four times, but they were largely at his last fight of his career.
He got stopped in when he was an old man and totally used up.
He got bulitzed by Costas Do at the end of his career in a in
what was the last world title fight that he fought in two thousand. Um,
you know, he he quit on the stool and the rematch with Oscar
dala Ohio gave him a beating in their second fight. But I mean,
he you know, and he got stopped obviously on the cut in the first
fight by Dalaya. So he never but he never ever went out like I'm
down for the count and I'm on the canvas knocked out. So yes,
it reflects on his record the s four stoppage losses, but none of them
were of the you're out on your you know, you're just out cold type
of situation. One hundred and seven wins, six losses and two draws.
Started his career at eighty seven and oh and was eighty not was it eighty
nine and one before he suffered his first loss to Obviously he should have the
first loss in the Yes, Adam o'dome thirty years ago. I daresay,
I don't think I'm going way out on a limb. Don't make fun of
me. You're never You gotta be careful. I always joke like this,
here comes my line. Be careful of words like never, Be careful of
words like forever. Always be careful of the phrase I love you. Be
careful with all of those. You're never gonna see a world champion fighting at
the highest level. Eighty seven and oh again, you're not gonna see somebody
fight that many times probably period ever again, much less he easily had,
wouldn't you say, just off the top of your head, and you got
the list in front of you, twenty world title fights in and around fights
sixty to fight eighty where he was getting to eighty seven something like he fought.
I believe that he has the record for participating in the most world championship
fights in boxing history, which is North of thirty fights, and so when
he lost his first fight against Frankie Randall in what was a big upset.
This is in nineteen ninety four when he lost the WBC's one forty title,
he did a venge it in an immediate rematch. Obviously, that first fight,
uh was actually the very first main event of the very first boxing match
to take place at the what at the time was brand new MGM Grand Gardnerina,
which has gone on to become one of the most famous facilities in boxing.
They've hosted as zillions of huge fights there for many many years now.
I have covered, you know, like I don't know, eighty events at
the MGM Grant something like that. But when Chavez was in his heyday,
he was active, he was exciting, He brought in crowds. He appealed
to every every if you didn't like Chavez to watch him. He might love
him or hate him, but he wanted to watch him because he was very
exciting, and he also fought all the top guys, and he had an
attitude and a chip on his shoulder. And you know, I've been fortunate
that because after his career was over as a professional fighter, he was at
ringside for numerous numerous fights that I covered, and I always ended up sitting,
like, you know, in close proximity to them, you know,
in near the ring. In the first few rows. He was doing the
broadcast for a lot of this, a lot of the Spanish language broadcast.
I would see chav Is like in every fight. I got to talk to
him a little bit, you know, we joke around with each other.
I just love the guy. I mean, that's not like we're best buddies
or we're close friends or anything. You know, he knows me, I
know him, we see each other, he gives me a hug. It's
like a beautiful thing. I just love the fact that I you know,
I got to see a lot of things and got to do a lot of
things as a boxing writer. But if it said to me, you know
my younger days as as just a die hard boxing fan, you know,
when I was a teenager in my early twenties, you know, down the
road, you're gonna get to be a ringside and you're gonna hang out with
Julio, sayzar Chis, iould get the fuck out of here. I expect,
like one of the most fun things you can ever possibly imagine to go
into a press room and have Chavez the Great chav Is come over to you
and slap down the back and give you a hug it like I want to.
I just think that's like one of the most awesome things ever that you
could do. And I'm just super excited and happy that I could experience that
numerous times in my life. He's a wonderful, uh guy, a phenomenal
fighter. Just I mean, if and I'm we can have this argument on
the whole show, and you want to talk about a four person boxing now
Rushmore, Okay, I believe one of those four faces of that Mount Rushmore
would have to be Julio, says Oar Chavis. And you know there's others
you could argue about. Obviously, people are gonna say Muhammad Ali. Those
two I think are probably Sugar Ray Leonard there because you and I, Well,
that's the thing. Is it gonna be Ray Leonard? Is it gonna
be Joe Lewis Is it gonna be uh, you know, Floyd Mayweather.
Is it gonna be a Manny Packett? Is it gonna be No, It's
not gonna be Canna Oscar No, Yeah, no, Yeah, I mean
you only got four spots. He got four spots. But I'm telling you
to me and this, everybody can have their own opinion. It's there's no
really wrong answer unless you don't agree with me. But uh, I think
that Chavez would fall into that where because he's of this. We throw around
legend and icon a lot. This guy is still twenty years after his heyday
career, twenty five years after his heyday career, a legend, an icon
eighty seven and oh with all the world title fights and Taylor dramatics included.
Arena when he when he's at the at the fight doing the broadcaster, he's
coming into the press room, it doesn't matter what's going on. The people
flocked to him to take pictures to talk to I mean, I mean,
I remember one time. I forget what fight he was at. This is
like kind of earliest in the card and he comes in to do the broadcast
with his partners he was doing it. I forget which he was on,
like Televisa in a next score. Maybe it was Asteca, one of the
one of the big Mexican broadcasters. You know, it was early part of
the undercard, so the arena was not really full, or I think there
was like a smattering of people there and he walks in and the few hundred
people that were probably there all of a sudden started chanting, chav Is.
Chav Is just as he's coming to take his position to do the broadcast on
some of the early some of the early fights. So you know, happy
Birthday chob is incredible fighter. Meldrick Taylor won one of the most memorable fights
in the history of the sport. He got the win, great comeback,
most dramatic stoppage ending, and I think in all of boxing history. So
if I'm making my mount rushmore, the Birthday Boy is one of my four
guys, no doubt about it. Love that one more piece of nostalgia.
And it was sixteen years ago coming as we released the podcast here on Friday,
July fourteenth, two thousand and seven, where HBO had a split title
card. Now this used to be something they did back previously in the only
one one title fight of the two but split split card that HBO had,
But they used to do this with title fights like the old ABC broadcast on
Network TV would have title fights on the same night on their network in different
locations. In fact, they had a triple header before we get to your
nostalgia, had a triple header that involved Sugar Ray Leonard and it involved Big
John take getting knocked out in Knoxville, Tennessee Tim Burr. And then there
was like a light heavyweight title fight also in Las Vegas. Three different title
fights, three different broadcasters, broadcasting the fights in three different locations, all
on the same network on ABC in the same night. How about that.
But anyway you want to go back sixteen years ago, because it also involved
one of your guys, thunder Gotti, as part of this split different locations
card on HBO. So not really a happy memory in that sense because the
card was I was in Atlantic City, this is July fourteenth, two thousand
and seven at Boardwalk Hall, and it was what turned out to be and
Gaddy was the favorite to win the fight, but he was so shot at
that point, you know, it was not, I guess in retrospect,
not a shock that he lost. But Artura was coming off of having lost
by upset challenging the then lineal welterweight champion of Carlos Baldimir and getting stopped in
that fight. And this was the next fight like a year later, hadn't
fought for a while, and now he comes back and he's supposed to have
supposedly an easy night against Alfonso Gomez, who had created some fame from his
appearance on the Contender reality period during their season one on NBC, and much
to everybody's surprise, at least at the moment, maybe again not in retrospect,
Alfonso Gomez beat him up pretty bad, stopped him, cut his lips,
severely, stopped him in the seventh round. And as I always like
to say, even though he got stopped in that fight, like Gaddy always
did, he was getting off the deck when the ref and everybody stopped that
match. But you know, he retired in the dress room when he called
it today. He never fought again. That was a you know, a
sad moment for me and for a lot of Gaddy fans. That was his
house, a boardwalk call. He had fought there, you know that many
many times in a row post the first Mickey Word fight, all his fights
had taken place there. You know, he had lost to Floyd they Weather
there, but he also had some big wins there as well, including against
Mickey Ward in the rematch and in the third fight an event. So that
was the first fight on that show, and then HBO went out to Carson,
California for I believe two other fights, but one of them involved the
main fight on the card. That was just a barn burner. Had you
had a Kermit Cintron fight was out there also, but that was not very
memorable. But the big card, the big fight on that card, the
main event of the broadcast was a welterweight championship fight between the then WBO title
holder Antonio Margarito was you know, this is pre hand wrap scandal where he's
just a badass and nobody wants to fight hard. You know, nose guy,
great power, great chin, big size, and he was matched up
with a fighter that a lot of people had a lot of hopes and promise
for, but it was still relatively untested, and that was Paul Williams,
who was freakishly tall for the way class, also very rangy with great power,
and everybody was like, Okay, this is gonna be a badass fight,
and it was exactly that. It was a badass fight. Paul Williams
was a slight underdog in that fight, but they put on a war and
Paul Williams got to win and won the WBO welterweight title in just a tremendous
battle, and at that moment became a guy that nobody wanted to fight because
he was one of the few guys he Basically it was like this, everybody
thought Margharito was the most avoided fighter in boxing, and when when Margarita lost
to Paul Williams, then nobody wanted to fight Paul Williams either, and he
became the most avoided fighter in boxing. And uh, but that that main
event on HBO, I think is a is a criminally underrated fight between two
of the top guys of that time, in that mid to mid two thousands
era, you know, which I covered so closely, was just a hell
of a fight. I would encourage, so enlighten me because you covered the
first that the Gaddi fight was the first fight of the night, correct in
the double header. So you're doing the post fight, working your job,
doing the postfight, and then do they have HBO on in the interviewing room
or in the press room where you're now watching the call of the second fight,
and everybody now becomes like a fight fan because you're not covering that fight.
You're not there that's that. That's an odd thing. That doesn't it's
not usual. That's not you doesn't usually. So what happened was the the
um the Gaddi fight and did and he had been stopped, and you know,
I wrote, you know, me and others who were their ringside,
I wrote my story about that fight, you know, and and you file
your story, and they didn't have my recollection is because our tour had gone
to the hospital because he had it as lip stitch stuff. Whatever. Post
I don't remember. I don't remember there there. I'm sure there was a
post fight press conference that Gomez appeared at. I don't remember the specifics of
that. And if he did do a post fight you know, they had
their room was sort of if you walk from where you were sitting at ringside,
you kind of walked up onto the stage until like a little uh there
was like a back room there where they did all the post fight interview stuff.
I don't remember that postfight press conference. If they did have one,
I don't think it lasted very long. But remember well by the time it
ended, they still had another fight on HBO to go before they got to
the Paul Williams fight. So if I went to the press conference. I
probably didn't stay very long. I had filed my article from ringside, and
so in Boardwalk Hall, towards the front of the building, there's an official
press room. And in that room where they had people who were still working
in the folks that ran it, they had a large TV set up in
there, and they had the HBO broadcast on. So when I was done
at ringside, or even if I had gone to the press carts, I
went into that press room, and like you said, I checked over my
story. But I'm now there just as they say, I'm off the clock,
and we just sat around. You know, other guys are working,
so you're respectful of not making noise and letting them do their work. But
we were able to just sort of relax for a little while and watch the
Paul Williams Margarito fight in the press room at Boardwalk Hall. One mores more
one more Curious one best of your recollection, Lampley, Larry Merchant. And
would that have been Emmanuel Steward or would have been George Foreman. Were they
doing your fight at Boardwalk Hole or were they doing the California fights on the
Split Crew. You can't be in two places at once. What's the best
of your recollection. My recollection is that they split up their crew. Remember
they had I believe this to be the case. This this is George was
already gone from HBO at that point to my knowledge, they had I don't
remember how they how they give it it up, but they had. Papa
had done some fights for them, Max Kellerman was doing some of the boxing
after Darkness, Rory Jones, Jones. But they listen, they had a
great group of guys A Lampley, Merchant, Kellerman, Bob Papa, Emmanuel
Stewart, and again you'd have to look at the video some former fashion.
They split those crews up and they handled very professional problem handling those two fights.
Um uh, but I just remember watching and listen. The bottom line
is Margareta Williams to me is one of the lost classics of that mid two
thousands. It wasn't the fight of the year, but it was a hard
hitting, really good fight at a high level between two guys that nobody wanted
to fight in a classic division, and uh it was. It was a
way to take the edge off after watching your favorite fighter get his ass kicked
in his last fight and then unfortunately, and not to get you know,
dwell on this for too long, but like two years later, almost to
the day, uh, you know, Arturo Gotti died unfortunately. I mean
it was a very sad situation. Um to think that was his last fight
and two years later he was gone, very depressing. A lot of people
thought his wife was involved. I'm one of those people. Whatever the case,
maybe uh you know, he was, he was no longer here.
Two years later, Dodd, He's it was ruled a suicide. Goddy's family
has never believed, has always maintained that it was not that it was not
in that the that was cover up involved with the Brazilian authorities. And uh
so there it remains, it remains to be debated. He died, Uh
you know what twelve twelve years ago, Uh this this week, and I
hate to break it to you. Fourteen years ago, nine is fourteen years
ago, were kitting old? We're getting fourteen years ago was his death,
and sixteen years ago was the last fight. And of course also the other
fight we're talking about, which is the Williams in the Margrito fight. So
we've given you a ton here news wise previews again Showtime PBC card in Las
Vegas has Frank Martin headlining. Alicia Baumgarner defends all of her titles at Women's
Junior lightweight in Detroit. We will again talk about those fights and handicap him
a little bit on the bet US Boxing Show Live one Eastern Time on Friday
on the bet Us platforms. With that, we're good here. As I
always like to say, as we head into the weekend. Whatever happens coming
off the weekend in the ring news, we're ready to recap it coming overnight
Sunday into Monday. With that, Dan Raypeel, have a great weekend.
Anything else. In closing, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna give a little
plug you mention. We're gonna talk about all these fights and whatever else happens
or the weekend, but I'll give a little plug on that show Sunday night
on the podcast, my interview with Stephen Fulton, who is now in Japan.
He arrived there a few days ago for his very big fight defending the
unified Junior featherweight title against the great Noya. In a way and what is
one of the best fights on the schedule. You'll hear Stephen Fulton on this
podcast an interview I conducted with him before he left for Japan. Love that.
You'll get that if you're following, if you're subscribing to the Big Fight
Weekend podcast feed, that's the fight preached unit, recap off the weekend for
now. I will talk to you on the bet Us show whenever they're hearing
us. That's Live Friday at one. I always love being when you have
a good weekend, Dan raypeel you, tuj there we go. I am
merely TJ Reeves again. Follow subscribe, find us on the Big Fight Weekend
podcast feed. The preview going into the weekend, the recap coming off the
weekend. For now, We're good. Enjoy the fights.