Well off of a weekend at his seen Rafael Espinoza look absolutely fantastic in his
featherweight title defense in the top rank main event. It has seen some controversy
in the Saturday European Middleweight title fight as Tyler Denny wins by technical decision over
previously unbeaten Felix Cash. We're ready to recap the fights. We got fight
news. We got Bam Rodriguez right here on the Fight Freaks United recap podcast
coming up in just a few minutes. You'll hear from him as he gets
ready to take on Juan Francisco Estrada. My colleague, my guy, Dan
Rayfield. Thrilled to talk with Bam because this is a big time showdown here
between a smaller guys two of the bigger names that are out there right now.
You'll hear from Bam in his own words, Hello, Dan Rayfield.
Off the weekend. Fight Freak Joint is his substack big Fight Weekend dot Com.
We got a lot to go over and I'm looking forward to the conversation
there with Bam Howard. Things off the weekend, things are good. I'm
looking forward to yes, the action from the weekend. Not a lot,
but we got plenty of other things to discuss. Yeah, there's a lot
to talk about obviously on the show. Thank you for finding us. Make
sure that you're following, subscribing, Apple, Sprinker, Spotify. Twice every
weekend, we preview going into the weekend, we recap coming off the weekend,
rate us and review us. That will help us. Several of you
have been doing that as of lake. Keep doing that. It helps with
more people being able to find us. If you give us a five star
review and look, if you enjoy the content, help us out. Like
Devin Haney being exclusively on the pod here for this weekend, Hopefully you've heard
that interview. We pieced it out and put it out special up on the
podcast feed to hear his reaction in his own words, not just social media,
not just some statement from some mouthpiece on an email. You heard from
Devin Haney himself, if you were with us on the podcast feed, and
again, Bam Rodriguez coming up in a few minutes, I should just share
with you, all right, I'm trying not to be add I'm already a
little bit of add, as are you. We're just we're getting older.
But I've got a sixteen year old birthday party on a party bus in progress
Sunday night tonight for my sixteen year old to be twins. They turned sixteen
next weekend, but they couldn't work it out with all their friends for the
for next weekend. So Rayfield, we're doing this tonight. And the amount
of preparation, the amount of pink and estrogen and decorative and cupcakes and things
that are going on, and this party bus is is like something out of
the Hip hop Hall of Fame that these chicks are gonna be on later tonight.
So that's tying up my Sunday evening, my Sunday night ritual of being
with you. Thank you for accommodating me that it's Sunday afternoon. And your
phrase for the Sunday so far is better you than me. You've said it
to me, like eight times better you than me with all the estrogen that
I'm gonna be around later tonight because I've been hearing about this freaking party bus
for like three days. And by the way, we need to get some
more podcast sponsors so TJ can pay for the party bus. Never mind the
fact that Rayfield deserves a raise, TJ doesn't want to be in PC for
paying off. But you know my girls Riley and Abbey shout out to them
or turn sixteen. So that's what we're doing tonight. And is true love,
true love Raypael, not because there's boys, but true love because Dad
is going to drive in an suv behind the party bus with the gifts,
with the cupcakes and in the event, what's the over under because we love
to handicap that somebody gets carsick, because if they get carsick on the party
bus, guess who they're riding with if they're not feeling good. So that
is my role tonight. I'll interject and I'll say better you than me.
Yes, thank you. There's the ninth time you've said that. So anyway,
thank you for finding us. Thank you to Big Dan for accommodating me.
We're getting this done Sunday afternoon. All right, as we speaketh and
do the recap podcast, Let's talk first about the top rank show Las Vegas
on Friday night, and full credit to Rafael Espinoza. Now we wonder about
what's the level of this opponent and Sergio Chirino. Charino was a Mexican fighter
that we knew little about. Hey give him credit. He was taking some
shots and trying to fire back. What kind of caliber competition. Can't say
for sure. I defer to you for what you saw. But Espinoza did
his part to put the rematch in motion with Robes Ramirez and blew him out,
and it was just a matter of how quickly is he going to knock
this guy out? From about the second round on Dan, That's what I
saw. Tell me what you saw. I'll say two things can be true
at the same time. One you can say to yourself, well, Sergio
trino not much of an opponent, seemed to have an idea of what he
wanted to do but couldn't execute. Doesn't have a record to speak of at
all, even though you know he's got a glossy record. He's twenty two
to two now with the loss, so it's a nice looking record. But
he hadn't fought anybody. But he still he tried. I give him credit
for that. He came to fight. He just was completely overmatch and overwhelmed.
But you look at the level of where he's been, You're like,
Okay, not so sure what his credentials are first of all, so you
can maybe downgrade the victory if you want for Espinoza. But on the other
hand, the other thing they can be true at the same time. His
Espinoza's looks pretty good to me. I mean again, before he fought Robacy
in December and won this title, the WBO featherweight title, he was an
unknown guy with no real good credentials, a massive underdog, a hand put,
a hand pick guy that was brought in. But the first thing that
jumps out at you is one He's enormous. He's a huge, huge featherweight
in terms of his height, the tallest heavyweight, or rather the tallest featherweight
champion in history. I have not personally verified that in terms of going and
looking. That's what they were saying on the ESPN broadcast. I'll defer to
the ESPN stats crew, which does a good job with that sort of stuff.
I worked with them for a very long time. But anyway, tallest,
not tallest whatever. Six foot one featherweight is a mountain of a human
being for that weight class, one hundred and twenty six pounce and he's got
that long reach, and he's got it was very clear how much bigger he
was than his opponent in the rank, So it can also be true that
he's really pretty good even if we didn't know him prior to the Robucy fight,
because guys do emerge. And I will also paraphrase what my good pal
Mark Kriegel said, who works on the ESPN broadcast, is that it seems
to me that a guy like Raphael Espinoza falls into that exact category that we've
heard the old cliche in boxing, when you become a champion, you win
a title, you you gain that much more in terms of your abilities and
your respect and all that because of your confidence that you that you're suddenly twenty
five percent better, however you want to describe it, and because of that,
and he seems like a guy that's got that. He's got a little
swagger to him now, and he looked absolutely fantastic. I mean, whatever
you think about the opponent, but he went in there and he did the
job. I mean, he scored three knockdowns, was never in any kind
of danger, you know, busted up the guys. I don't know if
it was his nose or his mouth, but he was, you know,
on a bloody face, like I said, scored the three knockdowns and got
him out of there in over, you know, overwhelmingly dominating fashion. I
mean four rounds over and out. You know, what's the old saying,
you don't get paid for overtime in boxing, And that was the very impressive
performance now and truth set up for the big business down the road. We'll
get to that. You and I thought this would be a distance fight,
not knowing a whole lot about Chrino. We handicapped it that way, but
it was just obvious. And again I'm with you, we cannot over emphasize
here that we don't know a lot about this opponent. How good of an
opponent was it, But he blew him away. And that's twenty one knockouts
in twenty five wins, for whatever that's worth for us. He looked in
good condition, showed his the positive attributes that he has, like I mentioned
about his long reach, and he showed the power that his record indicates that
he does have. So certain there are times where guys just burst on the
scene. We didn't know about them, and they finally get the opportunity,
they take advantage of that and they become something. And we've s this is
not the first time this has happened, And I didn't mean to derail you.
The important thing is now what it sets into motion. Pick it up
on that would come in later this week, right, so later this year
you mean out of this year, yes, yeah. So of course,
when he had the fight with Ramirez back in December, one of the fights
of the year of twenty twenty three, probably the upset of the year in
twenty twenty three, a very dramatic majority decision victory. He had knocked him
down in round twelve, but he himself had been knocked down earlier in the
fight. And so when that fight was over and we talked about this on
the preview, the original plan from Top Rank was to do an immediate rematch.
The Espinoza camp was like, listen, we'll do the rematch, but
we'd like to have the defense first, and that was what so Top Rank
agreed to that. That's what this Chirino fight was. They gave him the
opportunity to defend the title. Now, coming up this coming Saturday on the
Undercart in the co feature, when Tiafimo Lopez defends the junior welterwey title Againsteve
Claggett. The co feature that night is going to be Robosi Ramirez in a
fight against Brandon Mine Benitez. And so now that Espinoza has won his fight
and dominating fashion, assuming that Robosi Ramirez gets through the fight against Benitez and
everything is good. Top Rank has said to me that they are making this
rematch for the fall, probably October, maybe November, but they'll be the
rematch now. In the aftermath of the fight on Friday night, when Espinosa
was asked about that, and by the way, Ramirez was ringside for that
fight, as was Bruce Shueshu Carrington, another up and coming featherweight undefeated fighter
that Top Rank promotes who has designs on getting a title shot in the in
the not too distant future. But they were talking up those two guys and
and Ramirez was I'm not Ramirez, but Espinosa was. He was, you
know, basically made the point, Letty. He saw both guys, He
paid respects to both guys. He knows that Ramirez wants to rematch. He
wants all three of those fights to happen. This is what they fight for,
et cetera. He didn't really commit to the to the rematch with Ramirez
in terms of his interview, but that's what's Top that's what Top Rank is
going to do. Unless something dramatically changes, We're gonna probably see that rematch
in the fall, as long as Ramirez does his job in the next in
the next fight that he has coming up on this coming Saturday. So that
that's a pretty good plan. Though. So if you've got Espinoza rematching with
Ramirez in a very outstanding and dramatic fight, and they got shoes shoe Carrington
waiting in the wings potentially uh for the winner, even if it's not the
next fight, but you know at some point in say the first half of
next year, that's that's a pretty good featherweight plan. And then the long
range goal obviously for any of those fighters is down the road at some point
to be waiting with the title to fight in a way in the in the
in the further away future. So oh yeah that name, Oh yeah yeah.
But even just just what we've seen so far, you take Ramirez,
you take Espinoza, you take Carrington. Uh, like Louis subord of Lopez,
he's got a defense coming up with his IBF featherweight. He's also with
Top Rank. He got Ruben Villa, who's an excellent contender, who's fought
for the title before and has a non title win against Lopez. All you
gotta know is that in the featherweight division and many other other than in a
way when he gets there, there isn't one big star in the division.
But there's a lot of really good, interesting guys that can make good fights,
uh, fight for belts, and and you can mix and match him
in top rank. Uh you know, has pretty much most of the top
guys involved with their company. So if you're a fan of featherweight boxing,
I mean, we got some nice fights that are probably gonna happen, and
I feel like they're gonna make They're gonna make all those matches up. So
if a guy loses so bit, they'll match him up with the other guy
and they'll just round robin them for the next, you know, a few
years. And it seems like a pretty good group of fighters that that we
can see some good fights with and and you know what, I feel like
every guy in that group has a chance to win or lose depending on the
matchup and on the given night, you know what I mean. So and
then you know, because they've done business with with with Frank Warren and that
sort of thing. Maybe they get a nick Ball involved and there's a Saudi
situation, you know, and to bring in some other exciting matchups at the
way class, uh, you know, so it looks good. And then
then the other featherweight we got Ray Vargas with the WBC belt. He's probably
gonna fight Brandon figure out who's his mandatory and also the interim champion. That's
one of the PBC fights coming up. There's a lot of good fights and
get getting made in the featherweight division. I feel like a lot of these
fights are gonna happen over the next bit. Another waight division is cooking all
right again. Going back to Friday Night and the rest of the card,
Andre's Cortes gets a decision over Abraham Supernova, your guy. I have to
confess, with all that I was doing on Friday night, I did not
see most of this fight. I picked it up interestingly late in the ninth
round and saw the ninth round, the tenth round, and then the decision.
I do know this that even picking it up in the ninth and the
tenth round that Joe Testaitur and Tim Bradley on the call were talking about they
believe Nova has won the fight. Believe at the end of the tenth round
he deserves the decision. They announce in the ring, Mark Chinook announces unanimous
decision. And you're shaking your head right now at me because I can see
on video the winner is Andre's Cortes, the unbeaten Las Vegas fighter. And
I even have on my rundown. You don't normally do this. It says
shit decision. Next to the courtest, I just noticed that the Cortes Nova
fight okay on a scale of one to ten. Is this an eight,
a nine, or a ten on how bad this decision was, Because I
have to confess, I can't really speak to how bad it was. It
was closed, but all three judges gave it to Cortes. I mean,
I can't tell you. It's like, I'm not gonna lose my mind over
it, and it's an to give it a number. I'm just gonna say
I'm pissed off about the decision because the wrong guy won the fight. In
my opinion, Abraham Supernova won the fight. Cortes did well in the first
probably three or four rounds, and I felt like after that it was basically
all Nova. Uh Cortes was lethargic. He came first of all, I
came in overweight. They had to make a side deal to go forward with
the bout because there was a I mean, they would have done that anyway,
but there was a a regional belt that was on the line that Cortes
was no longer eligible to win. But he was nearly a pound over.
Uh, it turned out he was up point eight pounds over. You know,
either I don't know if he tried or couldn't whatever, The bottom line
was he that was his final weight was one thirty point eight, so he
is over the minim over the maximum. Nova made the weight and uh,
you know, on Sunday, I saw a top rank post on their social
media that was that it was court. They were wishing Cortes a happy birthday
on Sunday. And my point on my social media was he got an early
gift for his birthday on Friday night of this victory ninety seven ninety three on
two score cards. Didn't love that, didn't love those score cards. I'm
gonna get to a part of that in just a second. Ninety six to
ninety four. I mean, I guess if you had bent over backwards in
every conceivable way. Maybe you could find six rounds to give Cortes, but
certainly the second half of the fight, Nova kicked his ass. I mean,
that's just the bottom line. The other guy was fading and Nova was
picking up the punch. As he's a very experienced fighter. He's fought for
a world title, coming off of a very close loss to Oshaki Foster in
a challenge for the WBC one thirty title that was in February, and his
other loss was the one time he got absolutely pummeled, and that was when
he lost to Robes Ramirez in the eliminator for a title shot at one hundred
and twenty six pounds. But the thing about it was you mentioned that you
came in and watched the ninth and the tenth rounds. The ninth round and
this is the one that really sticks in my crow. Abraham Nova almost knocked
Quartz out in that round. He absolutely cracked him with the right hand.
That changed his life for a moment there. He beat the crap out of
him in the night round. And even if you think that that that Cortes
deserve to win the fight, whatever, and you and you scored it the
way you scored. I can't imagine you would have scored round nine in favor
of Cortes. Y. That was the biggest round of the fight for Abram
Nova in a fight in which he won most of the rounds. In my
opinion, except for Dave Moretti, who's been judging now for about four thousand
years, I think he judged Kine versus able. Uh. He gave Cortes
the ninth round. That's the tele round. I call it the tele round.
That's where you just it's like you're in the bank for a guy.
It's almost like it's just you know, I'm not I'm not saying he's literally
in the tank. That's just lazy and not paying attention and not doing your
fucking job. I will say that I did not see the whole ninth round.
I've not gone back and rewatched. But Cortes did hit Novas some in
the final minute that I saw. Now, he wasn't hitting him as much.
But the big round of the fight. What Nova had one hundred and
twenty punch output if I'm not mistaken, and landed like thirty something of them,
and Moretti still gave the round to Cortes, sounding like that you're like
an eight and a half on how bad this decision was, maybe nine.
I'm not know if I'm gonna go that far. I mean, I mean
again, I know, first of all, judges don't have access to copy
Box. I say this every time we talk about compyx compy Box is not
the end all be all it provides a reasonable guy. It doesn't show you
the the the quality of punches. It simply shows the quantity of punches.
But over the thirty five or forty years or whatever copy Box has been in
business, the numbers generally are in tune with what the results should be.
Now. I mean, there's definitely not times when they're not. Anymore case
though, he almost you know, Nova threw so many more punches, way
more punches, seven hundred and eighty three to four hundred and ninety seven and
landed many more punches. Also, three hundred more in a ten round fights
a bunch. That's a lot. So when you see a guy who's pretty
much, in my mind, took over the second half and almost you know,
at least scored a knockdown, if not a knocked out in round nine,
and one judge who is a probably the most experienced judge in Nevada on
their panel of their pool that they choose from gave the ninth round to Cortes.
It almost tells you that Nova had no chance to win the fight.
So, you know, again, is it the biggest controversy in boxing?
No, but I felt bad for Nova coming off of a loss in a
world tip to fight where you put it himself extremely well against Oshaki Foster,
and then Cortes, who remains undefeated, who was a talented guy. I'm
not trying to knock Cortez because I say this again, I go back to
days where you got controversy and the ire of the fans or the media for
whatever reason, turns towards the boxer that gets to win. I'm not blaming
Cortez. He went in there and did his job, but he's not scoring
the fight. So it's kind of like the old you know, when Tim
Bradley got the win against Manny Packet and everybody threatened Bradley and said terrible things
about Bradley. Don't he wasn't the guy judging the fight. You know,
it's the hands of the judges. So all of my iyer is not in
any way directed toward Andres Cortez. I mean, he does deserve criticism or
not making the contract wait for the fight, but he can. He went
in the ring and he thought what he you know, he did the best
that he could. But in the end I thought the Nova won the fight.
End of story. I mean, it's not that complicated. Do you
think we see it again because of the controversy that it might be worthwhile with
Nova being a formal world title challenger or is it just one of those things
that we have to chalk it up the bad judging and Cortez more than likely
he's going to try to get a title shot or angle for a title shot
and not messing again with Nova, who you and under believe that he lost
anyway in that fight. That that's a question. I would have to ask
Top Rank what their appetite for it is. I mean, they're the ones
that ultimately are going to control whether there's a rematch or not. They promote
both fighters, even though they were keen to do a rematch immediately between Robasi,
Ramirez and Espinoza, even though they ended up doing the interim bout for
both guys, and they're going to do the rematch in the fall top rank.
Through their history, has never been a company that jumped into immediate rematches.
It's very rare. Even when they've then they've done plenty of rematches.
I mean even take for example, like not a big deal, a huge
fight, but like they got Nico Ali Walsh who suffered a loss, Uh,
they didn't do anmedia rematch, but he's got the rematch coming up,
so eventually they got around to it. When they were doing Barrera Morales,
they took you know, two two and a half years between their fights over
the course of their trilogy, so they'll do rematches. But I just and
this was not that big of a fight, so you know, I'd be
surprised. I mean, but I think Nova deserves it, and you know,
Cortes can maybe a prove a little bit more, they'd be make the
weight. But you know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna freak out about
it. It just it was just disappointed. It was turned out to be
a pretty good fight in terms of entertainment value. I just thought the wrong
guy won, that's all. And I wasn't the only one also on that
card. Troy Isley, you built this up a little bit in our preview
podcast. We also talked about it on the Friday bt US show, that
Isley fighting Javier Martinez, that this was kind of a make or break fight
for both guys, kind of in terms of are you going to take a
step up and be a bigger commodity here in top ranks? What did you
think of Isley's ten round decision win they're on the card. I thought Oley
did a good job. I thought Oley looked good. I thought Osley did
what he was supposed to do. I thought he was the better fighter going
into the fight. We didn't make the official pick on the bet US show,
but I know I was asked about it during the Q and A.
I definitely said that Ozzley should should. I picked Eley to win this fight.
I feel like just as a professional, he's been a little bit better
in his pro career, he's a little a little uh more well rounded.
He's recently changed trainers and now he's worked with Brian McIntyre and he's been training
with Terrence Crawford and in that camp, and you know, that's about as
good a camp as you can get. And that's not a knock on Martinez,
who works with Robert Garcia, but it was it was just it was
Troy Isisley had had the better night. I mean they you know, the
storyline going into this matchup was that they had split four amateur fights and high
level competitions. It was Isley who won the first two and it was Martinez
that won the second two, even though Iley was the one that went to
the Olympic Games in twenty twenty. But I think all through their pro career
so far, on a consistent basis, Iley has generally looked better. Martinez
was awfully flat. It seemed to me, didn't have a lot of snap
on his shots, didn't really have a lot of it, didn't seem like
he had much enthusiasm for the fight. You know, body language does count
for certain things. Iley was pretty amped up for the fight, was looking
to go get him, and then it showed in the end he won.
It wasn't controversial in any way. I mean, he won ninety seven ninety
one on two cards, ninety six ninety two. There were some each of
the guys that had point deductions for fouling. There were some low blows and
things like that, but overall, this was a good fight, and this
was this was This was Isley taking a step forward and and doing what he's
supposed to do. So he keeps his undefeated record. He's now thirteen and
zero and in the middleweight division, as we've talked about a number of times,
not the deepest way class in the world, but he's on track.
I don't know if it's going to be the next fight, but I would
think that with another couple of fights at the sometime next year, let's say,
Uh, you know, if he keeps doing his thing, he's probably
gonna get a chance to fight for a title they promote uh Jannebek, who's
got two of the belts. So there's there's a there's a guy there that
needs challengers. I'm sure he'll rise in the sanctioning body organization with this victory.
And so if you're waking up this weekend and you're Troy Isisley, you're
feeling good about your career, uh and your performance it was it was it
was really good. More on the middleweight division and being berefed devoid of the
biggest names in a few moments when we talk about the matchroom show, uh,
anything else from the top rank or shall we move on? Are we
good now? We can move on. I mean we those were the main
fights of interest. I'll say this just one o thing. They have a
young prospect on that undercard, Stephen Navarro, which I believe this was his
first fight since he signed with Top Rank and uh and the kid looked pretty
good. I mean, he's got a bright future. It seems to me
what division on Navarro? What do we remember off the top of our head.
I'll double check. I didn't mean to just pop you, just to
pop you. Let me double check on my trustee Dan Rayphael boxing schedule.
Navarro as a junior bandam weight. By the way, he comes from a
boxing family, is his it's his uncle that is Josey Navarro, that was
the United States Olympian A faught for world title back a couple times in the
early two thousands. But this was, uh, this was a good performance
from this kiddy. He uh he went. You know, First of all,
it's unusual for guys to go six rounds in their in their professional debut.
Usually start off, uh, you know, in the in the four
rounders. But this is now. This was a Navar's second fight, but
he's fought and scheduled six rounders in both of those pro fights, so right
off the bat they were you know, he was starting kind of a little
bit ahead of the game, and you know he went out there and he
got to win against uh, you know, a guy with a good record
in terms of for a young kids seven and three in Mesa, but just
a young top ranks got a lot of guys in their pipeline of young prospects
coming through and he is the latest one. He turned pro in April.
This was a second fight in June. They'll keep him busy and uh,
he's definitely a guy to keep an eye on. And speaking of junior banham
Waite, we will hear from Jesse Bam Rodriguez in just a few minutes.
Just sick with us here on the pod here in just a second. Let's
in the chronology though, go next to the match Rooms show Birmingham, England,
seven afternoon in the US, Saturday night in the UK, where surprise
surprise, Tyler Denny gets the win over Felix Cash. I don't know that
you could call it a massive surprise because Cash had been off for a year
and a half hand injury, mental health issues, et cetera, was trying
to get back on track as an unbeaten middleweight fighting for the European middleweight title.
And I will just say this, I said at the time I put
this on social media, I did not understand why the fight had to be
stopped. When it was stopped, there's my feeling on that they went to
the cards because of the eye of Cash. Denny gets the win. Dan,
what are your thoughts picking up from there on the win by Denny?
But more importantly, was it prematurely stopped here for Felix Cash? I feel
that way. What do you think? Yeah, I feel like it was.
Also I'm not a doctor. I'm not there looking right at the eye,
so take that with a grain of salt. But I've seen enough fights
where there's been these types of stoppages or cuts or this and that where you
know, there you can compare them, you know, if you've got that
uh, you know, reservoiring your memory of what you've seen in other fights
before. So I felt it was premature. It was just a disappointing fight.
I mean, it had a lot of promise. You know, Denny
did a good job to box him. This was a you know, to
let people know this was the the Zonne main event for Mattrow. They're fighting
in Denny's home area in Birmingham, England, and uh, you know,
he comes in and he and he wins the fight. He was definitely ahead
when they stopped to fight, There's no question about that. It wasn't like
he was totally dominating, but he was ahead. And they had a head
Look, Cash look sloppy. Cash started looking tired. So these are all
factors. Go ahead, and then we have a class. It's also this
is also you know, this is the first part of the fight. You
know, sometimes you've been off that long, it's gonna take a few rountes
to get into the groove. And so you know, he got twelve rounds
to work with, and uh and he's coming back, like you said,
after the eighteen months off and and uh, you know, he kind of
really did not know what to expect from either guy from for that for those
reasons of what was going to happen in this fight, and I just feel
like we were rob of like what could have been an interesting, like second
half of the fight when when you know, they separate them boys from the
men, so to speak, and uh, you know, it was disappointing.
They had a head clash early on, he got to cut and they
let it go for a couple of rounds and then they stopped the fight.
I really, I just didn't I didn't really quite get that they had another
They had another clash, and then immediately after the clash, a split second
later, Ginny landed a left hand and then they they took Cash over to
the ringside doctor and you're you're clear on this, and we've talked about this
over and over again. The ringside doctor is there to give his opinion,
but ultimately it's up to the referee on whether or not the fight can continue.
And we'll name the referee. Mark Lyson, is a veteran championship referee
in the UK. I thought he should have let Cash continue just because the
eye. Again, we don't take the punches. I get it. It's
easy for you and I on a podcast to say let it go on,
and I and and Cash didn't protest a whole lot. He was like,
he was sort of like, he wasn't rant, and but you could just
tell by the way that they did he was not happy with this licen In
that case, I don't think would have been out of line to say to
him the eye is damaged. You got to show me something or this fight
is over. Now it's on the fighter to show you something. And then
it's over because the eye again is not swollen shut. For God's sake,
we were gonna joke about this. That gruesome cut on the head of Tim
Zu bled for ten rounds profusely into his eyes. And I know that's a
championship fight, a pay per view fight, I get it. But it
went on for ten rounds kids, with him bleeding like a faucet in his
eyes. So yes, and so I would have liked to have seen Mark
Lyson say to Cash and his corner, I'm concerned about the eye. You've
got to show me something. Or we're stopping in on a technical decision to
go to the cards and then let's see what happens that didn't happen. Is
it the most egregious? You love my vocabulary sometimes on a Sunday afternoon.
Is it the most egregious thing I've seen recently? No, but I would
have liked to have seen the fight go on. And I don't care who
wins between Felix cash And and Tyler Denny. But all right, So then
that leads to the follow up, is Denny Now, we had theorized if
Cash one and one by knockout, like you and I thought that he's now
back in the picture middleway title shot down the road. What does this mean
now with Denny getting the win, I mean the factor, I mean,
I guess he's a factor. I mean you're the European champion. I mean,
just by the virtue of being European champion, you usually are at least
in the conversation for h to be considered for a world title fight. I
don't think this is the type of loss though, that that severely damages Cash
because of the circumstances in which happens. You know, he did get in
some rounds. Again, he didn't look greaty he was losing the fight,
but again it was only five rounds of a twelve round fight, and it
was a stoppage that was sort of like weird, as you mentioned, So
you know, not to believeror the point, but I think they kind of
Denny takes this small step forward. I guess he did get the win.
Credit to him. I don't think it's a very damaging loss for Felix Cash,
who you know, hadn't wasn't at the level of he wasn't European champion,
he wasn't a top contender, was looking to come off the long layoff.
So I guess hopefully both these guys get back in the ring, you
know, in fairly short order. You know, certainly when the when the
eye in the cut is healed up. And uh and maybe, I mean,
I don't think there's me a rematch or anything right away, if if
ever, but let them go on and and make their bones do it,
do something else. But uh, you know, Denny, Denny was better
than I thought he would be, and Cash wasn't as good as I thought
he would be. But again, the circumstances of the stoppage were annoying.
It's one thing if a guy gets cut and the ref stops it immediately,
that happens. I didn't feel like the cut was getting worse, That's the
thing. It wasn't like sometimes you see an injury like that, or there's
a head clash or something happens, and as the couple of rounds go on,
it starts to get worse and worse or the other the fighters targeting that
injury. In the case of the injury to Cash, I didn't feel like
it was that much different from when it occurred to the point where they ended
up stopping the fight. So I was I was really frustrated with that fight.
I mean, I'm I'm not knocking either guy. I was just frustrated
with with the way the whole thing went down, all right, And interesting
that Eddie Hearn, who promotes Cash said afterwards and almost like a message to
the fighter through the media, is he wanting to still fight? He said?
Is it? You know? Is he committed to the life, committed
to the life of being a fighter. We'll find out for Felix Cash from
here after the long wayoff and what happened in that. One more interesting thing
from this, and our colleague Ricky Carroll shout out to him wrote about this
on Big Fight Weekend dot Com that the undercard fight again, this was way
down on the card. It may have even been the first scheduled fight on
the card, was supposed to be the first the open of the main card
on his own, Yeah, the opener on The Zone's broadcast was a Keeb
Faez and Kane Baker. You're saying, why are we talking about a keep
Faez and Kane Baker. Well, it got pulled a couple of hours before
the broadcast and before the door's opened. It got pulled, and the reason
that got pulled is a sensational interesting story. And Eddie Hearn talked afterwards after
the broadcast was off the year to several members of the media IFL TV and
others and said openly, I'm going to tell you we pulled this fight because
there was a gambling irregularity involving Faiz, who's a twenty four year old what
twelve and one, and Baker who's had about forty fights. And Eddie Hearn
said it will come out. The British Boxing Board of Control is involved,
and in my fifteen years, I've never had to do this as a promoter,
but we pulled the fight due to betting irregularities on Fiez and Baker.
So you and I are sitting here as we do this on Sunday afternoon.
We don't have any real more information other than that, other than that's a
really big deal when the promoter is saying I had to pull this fight and
I'm in in consultation with the British Boxing Board of Control about gambling irregularities on
an undercard fight. Well, promoters don't like to cancel fights. Number One,
one would assume that Fayez, you know, as the as the the
up and comer, if you are twelve and one, you know, probably
sold a few tickets for the event. You know, he's fighting a journeyman
in Kan Baker. Like you said, he's got like a beating that quite
forty fights. He's nineteen eleven and two. I don't know what the betting
irregularity is, but that would normally would tell you there was a weird thing
about an over under or or or around grouping. We talk about round groupings
that suddenly there's a ton of money. Clearly fay is the major favorite to
win the fight. He's only got The interesting thing is, if I'm correct,
he's only got one knockout in all of his wins. So I'm with
you. Let's hear the British Boxing Border Control tell us what was the irregularity.
Was there suddenly a ton of money on like the under or was there
suddenly a ton of money on Baker to win when you wouldn't think he would
be favored to win. I'm curious now they've peaked my curiosity briefly, I
understand that. I mean, listen, here's the thing in boxing, it
really is any combat sport. You know, you'd say the same thing about
MMA also. It would be the literally the single easiest sport to fix because
it only takes one person to fix the fight, as opposed to you know,
if you're playing basketball, you know there's points shaving and things of that
like things of that nature, but you can't unilaterally make the outcome the way
you want to fix the outcome. In sports, right right, if you're
the guy that's taking the punches, you can be like, okay, I
quit after two rounds and you bet the under you know what I mean,
And it's whatever you can. You can easily do that. So obviously there's
an honor system. Uh. You know, I never had a problem with
fighters betting on fights. If they bet on themselves, you know, to
win, I guess, I guess that's okay. But so I'm not I'm
not saying this is what happened in this particular fight. I don't I don't
know the particulars. Were just saying that in general terms, a boxing match,
you know, it really just takes one person, and it takes either
the opponent or you know, either of the two men or women in the
ring, the combatants, and and and frankly, the referee also if he
was going to be corrupted, because he could unilaterally at any moment stop the
ftop the fight right right, fix the outcome. So we'll have to see
what comes to this. But the fact is with all the legalized uh gambling,
you know, more so in America in terms of like the apps and
online gambling and things like that. It's so pervasive in our society now the
way it used to be. Another great word, I love it. It's
just inevitable. There's gonna be these issues. We've seen it happen recently with
umpires. We've seen it happen in baseball. We've seen it recently in the
NBA. You know, the organizations that run these leagues, the sanctioning bodies,
the commissions, they all have to get a grip on this because it's
not when there's going to be some gargantuan scandal, or I should say there's,
it's not if it's just simply a matter of way, and we're seeing
them already. We're seeing NFL players get Sandy and Bakers does not the rise
to that level, because that's just a you know, like a lower Can
I tell you something, when you listen to people that that do these investigations
and the authorities and the they say, look for the non descript fights and
the irregularities in this fight, because one of the first things then we're gonna
move on to Bam Rodriguez because they don't need to hear me blather anymore than
as opposed to hearing Bam. We'll hear from Bam in a second. But
what they say is when you suddenly see I'm just gonna throw a number out,
fifty thousand US dollars, one hundred thousand US dollars suddenly come in or
even more on a non descript fight and a specific outcome, ding ding ding
ding ding. Bells start going off, red lights start flashing. Wait a
minute, does somebody know something? It's because of that. Yes, I've
seen articles and reporting about those types of things that happen in like some anonymous
second round tennis match in like a lower level tournament. That's right, they're
not doing it on the final. It's like the you know, the the
second round that's being played at eleven o'clock in the morning in front of nobody
at the point, you know, and and it's like boxing. Here we
go again where it only takes one of the two participants who decides, I'm
in on this. I'm gonna hit the ball out, I'm gonna hit it
long, I'm gonna hit it wide. I can't get my serve in all
of a sudden, and now it's incumbent on the authorities and the officials to
go is this legit? Here? Is he legit screwing this up? And
suddenly, oh, there's suddenly one hundred grand on him to lose in straight
sets that otherwise would have probably generated like ten thousand. Correct. And as
my father, we'll see what the British court has to say about it.
I brought my father in law twenty five years in law enforcement in Saint Petersburg,
robbery, homicide, robbery, forgery, did a ton of different investigations
forgery, investigations, gambling, all kinds of different things that they would do.
They're all master criminals until they do something stupid that gets them caught.
And so we'll see, we'll see what the British Board of Control comes up
with. And maybe maybe it's somebody that just got frisky and thought they knew
something and bet a bunch of money on an outcome and they can't verify.
I'm just speculating here. They can't verify that that person actually knew anything.
Who knows, but it was enough to yank the fight. And Eddie Hearn
talked on the record coming off the weekend about yanking a fight for the first
time in his promotional career in consultation with the bb BOC. He's got I
mean, I would think Eddie's got nothing to hide in this particular case.
The authorities came to him and said, here's what's up, and he made
the decision to pull the fight, especially when they especially if they come to
him hypothetically and say, Eddie, we got one hundred or two hundred you
know euros being bet on an undercard fight on a certain outcome. This is
this is stupid, it's irregular, and it's it's all digital, it's all
instantaneous where they can tell now, So who knows? All right, Stay
tuned, stay tuned for the info on that without further delay. Very intriguing
coming up in Phoenix. Speaking of de Zone, the Zone will have the
main event coming up on Saturday in Phoenix, Jesse Bam Rodriguez, Juan Francisco
Estrada. It is fight Week, coming off our podcast for this week,
you don't have to wait for the rest of the week. Right now on
the pod, here is Dan with Bam. Well, it's my great pleasure
to be joined on our podcast today by Jesse Bam Rodriguez, two division world
champion looking for another title belt. Bam, you're taking on what I consider,
I guess, a very stiff challenger, a future Hall of famer.
Frankly in the WBC Junior bantamweight world champion, Wan Francisco Estrada. This is
a fight I think a lot of people have been looking forward to. He's
the lineal champ, He's a WBC champ, Like I said, future Hall
of famer. You're gonna face him June twenty ninth at Footprint Center in Phoenix.
It's the main event live on his own. Thank you very much for
doing this. How's everything going, You're getting ready? I think this is
the biggest fight you've had. I think in terms of name recognition. Would
you agree with that? Yeh, sir, this is definitely the biggest fight,
the biggest opportunity in my career, I've never faced a fighter like Estrada,
so I'm coming more than ready for this fight. So let's go back
a little bit in time to December when you had what was probably your biggest
win. I guess you had a unif cation fight against Sonny Edwards. You
guys were fighting to unify the WBO and the IBF Flyway titles. Uh bam,
you had a spectacular performance at night. You stopped him in the ninth
round. Uh. You know, in a fight that a lot of people
liked going in thought, you know, it could go either way. Both
guys very skilled, with a lot of possibilities in terms of how it would
unfold. What was your take on your performance, because you really, you
know, you took him apart and left no doubt with a very emphatic victory.
Yeah. I feel like I showed people I can box. A lot
of people considered me the come forward fighter, but I was able to hang
in there with his speed. So I mean, after that first round,
I already knew it was gonna end in my favorite So what took so long?
I'm just joking. He was a tough fire. I gave a lot
of credit Sunny He was a tough fire. He took some shots and he
just he never stopped. So it was a good fight overall. Yeah,
I'm not knocking him. He showed a lot of heart, like you said.
Yeah. So the question is, so when you won that fight,
you were able to unify the titles in the flyweight division. You had already
been a champion previously in the junior bandomweight division, and so my question is
when you won the fight, was it always your intention to vacate and go
back to junior bandon weight or were you looking around to see maybe what else
there could be in terms of the business and the legacy in the flyweight division.
No, the plan was always to go back to one twelve and win
the WBO vacant and then I did that, and I did want to unify
with Sonny, so we ended up doing that. And I mean even in
training camp, we already knew this was the last fight at one twelve.
So after that fire, it was just trying to move up. And when
you decided to do that, was it always sort of the plan as you
discuss things with maybe with Eddie from that room and Robert Garcia was the target
always to try to get the fight against Estrata for the WBC belt, which
used to be your title. Yeah, I'm not too sure on that.
That's something Robert and Eddie probably can speak on. But you know, I'm
a I'm a true fighter out fight. Whoever, if it was for any
boat, I would have went in there and fought him right away. But
was Thetrata because he was the biggest name. I guess was that the guy
that you were looking at? Yeah? Yeah, Nostrada definitely the best fighter
in the division. And that's what I'm here to do, fight the best
fighters and just pick up belts along the way and come June twenty nine,
that's what I'm going to do. So, as I mentioned this the belt
that you're going to fight for. As you know, he's also the lineal
champion because of his victory over Roman Chocolate Tito Gonzalez and their trilogy fight.
But the thing is you you already had the belt. So I wonder is
your mentality like he's just borrowing it and you're going back to get it because
you gave it up, you know, back before you went back down to
the flyweight division. How what is your assessment of that? Is it is
it your mentality? You're going like the champion because you never lost that belt
in the ring. Yeah. Yeah, I mean he's a champion. He
has a belt, he has the Ring magazine as well, so you know,
you gotta give him credit for that. But like I said, I'm
here to collect bugs and beat names along the way. So I'm just here
to take with mine. I think everybody who follows boxing knows the strata looks
at him and says, man, he is a great fighter, truly,
he's a future Hall of Famer. But you're twenty four years old. He's
thirty four years old. There's no I don't think anybody would debate that he's
in the twilight of his career, even though he's shown himself to be outstanding
when he's been fighting, and he's got a lot of hard fights along the
way, being a decade younger like you are, being fresher. How big
of a role do you think that might play in this fight, especially you
know, as it gets deeper into what probably will be a tough fight.
Yeah, that's a huge role, definitely, especially with the layoff he's been
on. I think it's in almost two years. I feel like that does
going to play a huge factor in this fight, but I'm not leaning towards
that. I know he's gonna come ready more than ever, I feel like
he has a lot to prove a lot to lose as well. So I'm
expecting the best Strata and I hope he's expecting the best. Bam. Madriguez
will be coming off an eighteen month layoff, and it's not like his last
fight was any kind of easy pickings. That was I'm not mistaken. That
was the third match against Chocolate Tito Gonzalez, which is a very tough fight.
He's been known to be in some rough slug fests. I mean,
watch his trilogy with with with Roman, and you can watch plenty of other
fights some guys. You're familiar with quadras and surround V side people like that,
And we know the type of fighter you are. We've seen you said
you wanted to box against Sonny, but we've seen you brawl it out also
with guys. Do you think that this can be anything other than at least
some type of slug fest type of fight. Oh, I can see myself
out boxing him. To be honest, I have a lot of skill.
I showed that in the Sunny fight, but I feel like I didn't show
it to my full potential. So I feel like this fight will make me
a lot smarter, you know, saying no disrespect to him, but he
didn't have the power to keep me off of him, so I wasn't as
cautious. But against the fire lights Strout, I feel like I'll be more
cautious, more elusive. So I feel like I'll show more boxing skills this
far. Like based on his background, you probably go in even though obviously
haven't felt his power yet. I guess you look at knockouts he's had and
the types of opponents he's face, and have the healthy respect for the probable
power that you'll feels what you're saying, Yeah, of course, of course
with a record like as Jolie, you gotta respect power, whether it's real
or not. You go in there with the mentality that he can, you
know, knock me out. So, like I said, he's been in
a lot of tremendous fights, And I wonder, you know, when you
when you watch boxing and you think about what you may do in the future,
were you a fan of this guy at some point before it even became
a possibility, Like, hey, maybe down the road, I might fight
this fighter. Were you watching his trilogy with Chocolate Tito? Were you a
fan of his? Even before I was professional, I was watching his fights
like you said, against Charlotte Petrow, Rungvisage, Quadras, I was watching
those fights and I wasn't even pro yet, so I would I wouldn't.
I wouldn't say necessarily a fan, but I did enjoy watching him. He
put on a lot of great fights. So I honestly never saw as an
amateur, never saw myself fighting him. Once I started kind of thinking about
fighting him, was when he started mentioning my name. When I beat Quadras,
he kind of discredit it might win against him in Rungi Sai, So
you know, it was just a matter of time before we met in the
in the ring. So you mentioned some of the guys that he fought.
Now, if you go back, like I guess, maybe over the last
decade or so, the four big names in this weight class and also from
the flyweight division, because these guys have you know, moved up. Also
is Wan Francisco Estrada, is Roman Gonzales, it is Quadras, it is
Swiss cat Sarungby said, you've beaten two of them, You've beaten Quadras,
and you've beaten Sir Rugby. SI. I know you think you're gonna beat
a Strata come June twenty ninth. That would leave like just one more guy
out there, Roman Gonzales that you would not have faced. He's coming back
later this summer. I know that. Mister Honda, you know, your
co promoter from Teaking Promotions, is very close to Roman. Obviously he has
an affinity for you also, But do you think that and he's never shown
an interest to make that fight, But do you think that's a fight that
maybe someday before Roman, you know, hangs him up, that might also
happen and you could potentially go four for four against those four top notch guys.
To be honest, I don't ever see it happening. Just because Misterron
was very respectful with this fighters, doesn't you know, like putting him in
with each other. So I don't ever see it happening, to be honest,
would you like it? Yeah? Nah, there's too much respect between
us and there's really no point. Fair enough. A lot of people have
or Jesse Bam Rodriguez rightfully so in their top ten pound for poundless, especially
after the way that you took care of Sonny Edwards. A lot of people
thought he would do a good job boxing against you, but we just discussed
as you took him apart. How important is that pound for pound list recognition
to you as a fighter. I mean, you've won the titles, and
you've made a name for yourself, You've been in the running for Fighter of
the Year, But what's it mean to you to be considered in that top
ten pound for pound at this point? It means a lot to me.
Before I was even on the list, I never really care for it care
for it, to be honest, But once I was put on it,
I came to the conclusion that it is a huge accomplishment and it's something that
I want to Uh. It's a list I want to stay on for the
rest of my career. I know winning this fight will bump me up even
higher, so I'm more motivated than ever just being on that list and being
mentioned with those top ten boxes on the list as well. Now I think
about when you fight this fight, when you fight in San Antonio, You've
obviously been the big hometown favorite because that's where you were from when you're fighting
somebody like Sonny Edwards who comes here to your country and fights in a largely
Hispanic in front of a Hispanic crowd. Him being from England, obviously you're
the big crowd favorite. But when you go to Phoenix for this fight against
Estrada, you're both Hispanic. He's he's a from Mexico. He's got a
ton of fans there. Obviously you've got your fans here. I wonder who
do you How do you think the house is gonna be? Is it gonna
be a Bamar Rodriguez house or a one Francisco Estrada house. I think it's
more one Francisco Estrada house. There's a there's a huge Mexico game the next
day, so I feel like there's gonna be a lot a lot of Mexican
fans. They're gonna lean towards his strata, just because you know he's a
He's born there, So I mean, there's no there's really no problem with
that. I have my people going as well, so at the end of
the day, it's us two in the ring. The crowd doesn't really make
a difference at on my end, but you know that there's nothing, nothing
to worry about. You're talking about like there's a soccer game I guess going
on. Yeah, yeah, it's a huge soccer game, got you.
Okay? I follow boxing, not soccer, so sorry about that. Yeah
yeah, I don't even I don't know soccer. But they've been telling me
that there's like a Mexico versus Ecuador or something like that. Yeah, okay,
yeah, all right, I just want to I want to wrap up
with this. I know that you obviously are going to focus and concentrate on
taking on as Strata. As we've discussed, we think we can agree that
it's the on paper anyway, the toughest fight that you've had. But I
wonder, you know, what are your goals beyond winning this title and taking
care of a strata? And I wonder is it about unifying additionally within the
junior bandamweight division with the other champions who are not maybe the most well known,
at least not on this side of the pond. Is it maybe moving
up to bantamweight at some point to go for a title and get another weight
class. There's some good fighters there. Nakatani's also with this Honda Takuma in
Away, the brother of Noia in a way like what sort of like in
your mind that would is the pathway that you think is going to happen as
you continue your career. Okay, so after this fire, I do have
a rematch clause with this strata, So if that were to end up going
through, then I would fight a strata again, and then I would love
to fight the winner of Ioka and Martinez. If the WBO presents itself,
I would go for undisputed as well. But I mean, I'm still run.
I'm only twenty four years old, so I don't want to wait too
long on that. So I definitely will move up to one eighteen and see
who's there at the time. But the immediate future then is one p fifteen.
Clean up that weight class as best as you can, and then to
bantam weight. Yes, sir, And just one more thing, do you
have a dream fight? I know you mentioned maybe Ioka, Martinez or you
know, one of those guys, but is there a name out there that
that you're like, You know, man, I'd really love to fight that
guy for the money, the recognition, the titles, whatever the case may
be. Yeah, I would love to fight in a way in Japan.
You know when we're actually in the same way class, not now obviously,
but down the line a few years from now. I would love that fight.
Now you're talking that's a big time fight. Ye see how mister Handa
likes that one. And just to the last question here, do you think
he can stop one Francco Estrada. He's showing a durable chin during his career
and you're a good puncher. Yeah, he's a great fighter. But I
believe I do have what it takes. I'm not going into the fight looking
for it, but if it happens, it happens. But I just know
in the back of my mind I do have what it takes. That sounds
good. We'll leave it there, Jesse, thank you very much for your
time. Can't thank you enough, and I wish you the best of luck
in the fight. Thank you once again. I prop you nice get And
this guy's very intriguing. At the time that he won his world title,
what a couple of years ago. He was the youngest world champion in boxing,
I believe at that time, and a name and Jan Francisco Estrada a
big name obviously as well. And they're about to square off coming up other
impressions. Having talked to Bam Rodriguez. Look, he's a motivated young guy.
He has his eyes on like hall of Fame type accomplishments. He's gone
a lot already winning a title in this weight class at one hundred and fifteen
pounds, went down in weight, won a flyweight title, was going to
move right back up, but had the opportunity for the unification fight against Sonny
Edwards, which was his last fight in December. Looked spectacular and that fight
absolutely pummeled Sonny Edwards, who's going to come back from that lost fight on
the undercard of the fight on Saturday, and now he's going after Estrata,
So he's going after the belt that he used to hold, which is the
WBC title, but also now the lineal title because of the fact that you
have one Francisco Astrada having had the third fight against Chocolatito Gonzalez that put that
lineage back together. So it's a very important fight for both fighters. But
as I spoke to him, people heard the interview, the big difference here
as tremendous a fighter as won Francisco Astrata has been He's going to be in
the hall of Fame someday at this weight class in particular, it's really hard
to look past the ten year age difference, and dam and I both were
in agreement that could be a huge factor in this fight, especially with Estrada
coming off of a long layoff. But you never can overlook a star veteran
like that with a great accomplishment. But one thing I think everybody can a
grant whoever you think is gonna win the fight. They're gonna throw a lot
of punches, They're gonna be a lot of action, and that's what we
like to say. And Bam Rodriguez is in a position to be probably in
terms of these lower weight classes, the number one at least in terms of
American bas fighter in that in those in and around the flyweight ish area Junior
Banhamwaight. And you know, at twenty four, he's gonna if he wins,
the accomplishment is going to be so massive. Already he's already on the
Hall of Fame trajectory at a young age, and he's a very motivated guy.
He's got a great team behind him. He's got you know, he's
in the camp with Robert Garci, who's Adam since the beginning. Mattroom Boxing's
done a good job with him. They put him in the right spots for
his fights. They've gotten him the quality, the name opponents, and for
a strata. You know, you gotta tip your cap because he doesn't need
to be messing around with a guy ten years younger than them. But obviously
they made the right offer. And you know he's a warrior. And we'll
see you. I hope you see a great fight. Looking forward to that
one in Phoenix. We'll preview it more later in the week. But you
heard from Bam Rodriguez right there as part of our recap pot here coming off
the weekend Okay News and Nostalgia, Tank Davis and Vasilly Lomachenko. The conversations
are continuing. What are you hearing here on the ray Field meter? Right
now? Where are we ten? It absolutely happens when it never happens?
Are we three? Are we five? Are we six? What are you
sensing right now? You love these meters? I do? I love the
meter. I need my meter on a Sunday. I mean, I think
this one, at this moment in time actually has a real chance to happen,
So I guess i'd put it at like an eight wause. But there's
the reason why, because I don't see any reason why it wouldn't happen.
Because remember, first of all, let's put it in perspective. Okay,
go back four years ago, three four years ago, and there's like you
can watch the videos on YouTube of Mayweather saying we're not fighting Lomachenko. They
were protecting Tank Davis. That was when Lomachenko was pound for pound level and
Tank was still a young fighter, not a lot of accomplishment, even though
you know he had won and been exciting. I can't I have to pinpoint
the exact time, but the point was it was very clear that when Tank
was working with Mayweather Promotions, which he is not anymore, that they had
no intentions of doing that fight. They were gonna do it on their time
frame. Well, now was the right time frame. Tank is twenty nine
years old, he's nearing his peak, he's in the top of his game.
He's coming off a big win over Frank Martin, a spectacular knockout.
He come off a humongous win, you know, the fourteen months earlier because
of the you know, he had the knockout against Ryan Garcia and then obviously
had his issues. But if you're not going to be fighting the names now
when then? And Lomachenko was coming off a big win against Cambosis in Australia
where he looked really good and he turned back to clock to some degree.
But you have to also remember it was Cambosis. It wasn't you know,
an eight plus type of opponent. Uh, he's an older fighter. He
didn't even really want to do the Camboses fight. It was only because,
as he's talked about, his father wanted him to come back and win another
title. So I'm not really entirely sure what the continued motivation for Lomachenko is.
So they they look at this is now the right time. If Lomachenko's
gonna still fight, you might as well go out in a big one and
try to unify, try to make the most money you can. Obviously,
if you look at the landscape, the biggest money possible for Lomachenko combined with
what he always wants, which is Belts, even more so it seems to
me than the money. Uh, this is the fight that makes sense because
you get a chance to unify, which is important to Lomachenko, and you
get a chance to make by far and away, your biggest person of your
entire I think he'll make more money for this fight than he would have made
for any fight he's ever had in his career. I agree, And he's
going to be the big He's going to be the favorite as a as a
younger guy, as a fresher guy. I would imagine it would wind up
as a as a PBC card, maybe a we'll do some kind of joint
situation and you could, you know, buy the PBC card on ESPN or
something like that. But but I the the the the the barriers that have
often existed between making fights between Top Rank and PBC, and all the nonsense
that's gone into that seem not to be so severe at the moment. As
far as we know, Lomachenko is still married to Top Rank after the Campos
has win, so it would have to be worked out. He's not a
promotional free agent, No, no, he's definitely with Top rank and and
and Tank is uh, you know, does his thing with PBC. So
but if the this is this is as old as boxing. If the two
sides really want to make the shan, they can usually figure out. How
we saw it. We saw it with the Hatred of Oscar de la Jolla
for Al Hayman and PBC. They worked it out with Tank Davis and Ryan
Garcia. Now Garcia was willing to give in on everything, but they worked
it out. So I just I think of this tress that you gave it
an eight. I thought we were getting like a six or interesting. There's
no other big money, big, big stakes fight for Loma to have at
the moment, and the same goes for now Tank pick anybody he wants,
But what's bigger than that? I mean, I think eventually Tank will fight
a rematch with Pitbull Cruise. But Pitbull currently is in one hundred and forty
pounds and has a fight schedule for August. So if Tank, if pit
Bull fights August third, it you don't know what's gonna happen if you're trying
to set up a fall fight. So I think that we'll see Pitbull against
Tank if pit Bull wins down the road in AREASA at one hundred and forty.
But for the next fight for for Tank, you might as well go
for the for the unification. I mean, that's what what else are you
in boxing for? You're a star fighter. You're putting on big events.
You need big names at some point, and you're making a lot of money,
and now you can make even more money. And my personal viewpoint is
that this fight is a couple of years past when it would have been at
its best. So it that annoys me because they are they are they have
tried to age out Loma, which they're doing, but he's still really good.
He's just not what he was when he was the pound for pound number
one, and so they're they're doing that's I can't I'm not I'm not saying
that I don't like the matchup, and I'm disappointed that they're going to fight
each other. If they make the deal, I'd like to see it happen.
It just I know what happened going into this, that they tried to
age Lohm out. You've done that. Look anyway, I got you.
Anybody that paid attention to Floyd Mayweather's final five six years of his career,
this is what he repeatedly did, which is, let me get every angle
possible, including aging the other guy as much as possible. That's why the
Pacquiao fight took three or four extra years, five years to make the package
five extra five extra years whatever, But all right, so you'll keep us
on the on the Substack, be locked in on Dan Substack and his social
media. Will these talks heat up? Obviously? The other name is Shakur
Stevenson, but I'm with you, Shakur is not as big a name as
Lomachenko or Javonte Davis if they get together and fight for a pay per view.
So let's see what else is there? What else is cooking with that?
Hey? Speaking of Matt troom and in the ring in Birmingham, England,
it was interesting in by design that Eddie Hearn had Jack Catterall in the
after the win by Tyler Danny. Different fighter, Hey, Jack, guess
what we got? This fight signed with Regis Progray coming to Manchester August twenty
fourth, interesting because Caterall has the win now over Josh Taylor. Taylor back
in twenty nineteen beat Pro Gray. Regis Progray's got a lot to prove here
because he comes off of a beating at the hands of Devin Hainey. What
do you think of this matchup? Though? That was announced Saturday night in
the UK Catterall Progray for August. I think it's perfectly, perfectly legit.
It makes a lot of sense for both sides, as they both spoke about
in their comments. If you go back a few years ago, this was
a fight that was discussed. It didn't happen for different reasons. They do
have the common opponent and Taylor, obviously with very different results. Although a
lot of people could argue very clearly that you can absolutely make the argument that
Regis deserved the win against Taylor that night. Lost really close, so it
was a hell of a fight. So look, I mean, I thought
what Jack was saying in his comments was that he he wants big fights and
doesn't want to wait around. He already costs himself time by by the time
off that he had after the Josh Taylor controversial first fight. He doesn't want
to go through that again. He wants to stay busy. So let's find
the best possible opponent, the biggest possible name, title or no title.
Let's get it on. Uh. You know, these guys have limited shelf
life in their careers. We're just thirty five years old, you know.
For him, it's time to do whatever he can do. Uh. You
know, not that Catterroll is not as old as Regis is. But the
point is he doesn't want to have to just sit around and wait and not
fight the biggest fights possible. So if there is no title fight available,
and apparently at this moment, there isn't a title fight available to either one
of these guys. Obviously, in terms of uh Regis, there's no way
he was getting a title shot off of that, the shutout loss to Haini
where he lost his belt back in December, and let's be honest, he
looked terribly. He looked terrible against Zoria in the title defense before that.
Regis has got a lot to prove here that he's not washed at this point.
That's the truth. Yeah, But if you but if you're if you're
if you're Catterall, who's coming off the big win over Taylor uh In just
you know in the last like what a month or month or two ago last
where he got the win. But you know, the downside was he didn't
get any belts because Taylor had subsequently lost the titles when they had fought in
the undisputed fight, so he didn't get the belts. But if you look
at the division, Hainey is WBC is up in the air, he's got
a mandatory that's been ordered and they had a purse bid for his fight,
so you know, whatever he does that that title belt fight for that title
is out of the out of the question at the moment. Tifi Malopez is
the WBO and the champion. He's got a fight coming up next week,
so who knows what's gonna happen there. You aren't gonna wait around and then
try to suddenly try to schedule that for later this year. Uh Liam Paro,
who was also with mattrom Boxing, just won the IBF belt literally one
week ago. He's not thinking about his next fight right away for August.
And then Pitt Bull Cruz, who's the WBA champ, He's already got a
descent schedule for August third on the on the Riete season card in Los Angeles.
So the point is, there is no other title fight of the main
titles that you can go for, so be best is to get your ass
in the ring against a good quality name, a good quality guy in Regis
who's also in dire need of a good name and a good win. They're
both with Mattroom for this fight, and there you go. Manchester, England
is the home region of where where Catterall is from. He comes from a
town has about maybe you know, thirty thirty forty minutes away thereabouts. It'll
be a big Catterall house. But Regis has never been a fearful guy.
I'm fighting the other guy's home down. He fought Taylor in the UK,
he fought Devin Haney in his birth city of San Francisco. So he's always
been a guy to you know, not not worry about going on the road
or anything like that. So look, it's a classy matchup. It should
be a good fight. I hope it's a good fight. I hope that
it's a better fight than it was when Devin Haney, you know, absolutely
schooled regious and that Regis is there to find some offense and you know,
and and you know, Catterall fight's gonna be a little messy at times.
He's not the most crowd pleasing guy. Hopefully they can make a nice fight
and we don't have to wait long for it, which is the point too.
August twenty, it's not a pay per view, thank god. For
sixty days. There you go. One more news item in our nostalgia before
we're done. Mario Barrios. I read my Dan Rayfield fight for each Unite
substack. On the substack you wrote about this, and now we're going to
talk about it. Mario Barrios officially elevated to full WBC welterweight champion status.
They've they've made Terrence Crawford the champion in recess or the franchise champion or whatever
whatever terminology recess. All right, So the interesting name is the name Manny
Pacquiao, which is what I was reading on your substack, Rayfield. Pacquiao
is gonna be what forty three years old? He's forty five at the moment,
he's forty five. I even sold that short. All right, how
are you gonna get Are you gonna ask me? How legit though? Is
this that Barrios Paqui How it's legit that this could actually be happening with Paquio
off of a three year layoff in an actual A couple of things about that.
Barrios was elevated from interim to full WBC champion, you know, in
the last several days. But in the WBC back a few weeks ago,
reclassified Terrence Crawford as the in recess champion because he was going to be fighting
in the junior middleweight division for the August third fight, which is for the
WBA title, but also being sanctioned I guess as a WBC title eliminator.
You know, take that for what you want. But they didn't immediately elevate
the interim champion, which is the normal way that you would do that with
the organization. So they waited a couple of weeks for whatever their reasons were,
and then they took the vote of their board and that was what happened,
you know, in the last several days, where they elevated Barrios from
their interim champion to their full champion. So my thought and people you can
read the contram I spoke to Mario about it at length on Friday, and
even though he's thrilled to be champion, obviously, who wouldn't be, you
kind of lose something where in boxing you want to be in the ring and
have the ring announcers say and the new and you get all the accolades,
and you get the party, and you get the memorable moment that did not
happen, as he said to me, was he had been at an appointment
with his girlfriend. They're expecting a baby. They were having like the sonogram,
and he's driving. You know, he's from San Antonio, but he
was I guess they were a little further away. He was driving back to
San Antonio from the appointment, and he was in the car and found out.
I guess he had stopped and he read it on Twitter when he saw
that this had happened before even got the official notification from the WBC. So
that's not the best way to find out your champion, even though you're happy
about it. But he is in that position. Look, he looked good
defending the interim title back on the Canelo undercard not that long ago, last
month, and now he's got the full belt, and as he said,
there's now going to be open for some other significant fights, and there's some
that have been mentioned. You know, he said about Stanionis, which would
be unification he fought on that same car. He even said I would fight
Bootsennis. But the name that has come up and the camps have talked is
to fight Pacio. Now. He said, Look, Pacio is a little
older, he's ripe in his age. I think it's not the best move
for him, but I respect Manny. He's a great fighter. I would
absolutely do that fight if they come to me about that. Pacaw has wanted
to come out of retirement. People make the mistake that when he retired after
the Ugas loss, which was a world title fight, that it was like,
I'm retiring because I'm old and i can't do this anymore. Let's not
have Monday Morning quarterback or amnesia one. It was a competitive fight, even
though he lost two. The retirement was because he was running for president of
the Philippines and he could not run for the presidency and also still maintain his
position as an active fighter. That would not have gone over in his country,
of course, So he retired from boxing, and everybody fully expected that
if he lost the election he would come back to the ring. He did
lose the election. Now he has not made an official comeback, but he's
been itching and looking for the right fight for a while since that. There
was all the conversation about doing a Connor benfight. That did not come to
best because Connor is now suspended and can't get a license, so that went
out the window. So he's looking for something that is meaningful where he can
make money and fighting in a world title fight against Brios is on the list,
and so they've had the conversations. And as Sean Gibbons, who is
the president or the CEO or whatever the title is, but basically runs MP
Promotions, which is Manny's promotional company and has been Manny's right hand man for
a number of years. As he explained to me, look, we are
talking, they have they have a very good relationship with PBC and Al Hayman.
They've worked with them on a number of fights. Barrios is with PBC.
We just got to see if we can figure out a way to get
this so it works for everybody in terms of the money and the win.
Obviously the win is going to be this fall because Pacao previously before he ran
for a president, he served a term as a congress person as he and
then after that he served a term in the Senate, which is even a
bigger job than the congress person. He lost the presidential election, but according
to Sean, Manny is going to run for a second term as senator,
but the campaign won't begin until around February, so his idea is to get
in the fight September October and then begin the Senate campaign in the early part
of next year. So if they can work out the financial elements of it,
I absolutely think this fight can happen for Barrios. It's a huge opportunity
against a great name, and you just hope that if it does come to
pass, you don't get the you don't see a fight like a lah Larry
Holmes against against Muhammad Ali or some type of fight like that where you have
you know, a top young champion, you know, beating the the snot
out of the older you know guy that shouldn't be even in the area.
Yeah, he did not look sharp, he looked reflex wise and whatever.
A lesser fighter three years ago in August. It's impossible, impossible to believe
that he will be better than that coming three years later at forty. But
I'm just making an assessment about I think it should or should I'm just saying
that's what's in the is what they're discussing, and it seems like there's a
reasonable chance the other big payday for Barrios. If it's not. This is
another point that you've been hinting about. Other it's and other so that I
mean, but it's and that's a good matchup to younger guys. But that's
not like a mega fight. That's that's that's just it's a good fight.
And same thing with the bootsanis who's with a with Matchroom again, that would
be interesting, that's the very interesting name. But there's not. But there's
not some pot of gold for that fight. There's way more money in a
pack that fight, sure, because PACs tell a huge name, a huge
star, all right, and he's goin to happen with that. He's got
an exhibition whatever that is with a kickbox or coming up Manny Pakiellen. Then
we'll see. So that was that was noting about it. So he would
look to use that that exhibition as a way to sort of shake off the
rust against this uh I guess the Japanese kickboxer who I've never heard of,
but uh Chihiro Suzuki, which is taking place in a three rounder that's going
to take place later this summer July twenty eighth in uh In, Saytama,
Japan on a on a rizing card. And then if he comes through that
and he doesn't get injured, there's no issues, then he would theoretically consider
himself to be dusted off from the rust I guess to to go into a
fight potentially in the in the fall against Marios. Possibly more on the pac
man here in just a second. Let's get to the nostalgias, shall we
for this weekend? And in fact, it was twenty three years ago today,
June twenty three, two thousand and one, where Oscar de la Joya
beat up Javier Castillo. Noste Leo Caste Lejo. My mistake there on that
Javier Costello is who he beat for the WBC Junior Middleweight title at the MGM
Grand You were there, but the name Manny Pacquiao also came into the consciousness
of one Dan Rayfield and many others. What do you remember about that that
whole anniversary. So let's break it down. This was this was the same
card, but we'll take it fight by fight. So this is like you
said. June twenty third, two thousand and one, at the MGM,
Oscar had split with top rank. He was being promoted by Jerry Prencio from
Univision Sports. You know Univision Sports in Prentio Prentio was one of the biggest,
you know, billionaire business people in the entire United States. He had
bank row Ali and Fraser One back in the day, a massively well known
business person and Oscar was working with him. And you know, for Oscar,
this was a chance to win not only just another world title because he
had won a bunch of titles already, but to do it, you know,
and become the lineal champion in this weight class. It was his second
fight after parting with Top Rank. He had done the Arturro Gotti fight that
was a regular HBO fight. Now he's on pay per view. They actually
hired even though it was Parentio was company that was in charge. They hired
Lou de Bella to sort of be the face and do all the talking and
help Mete the undercard and all that, and they put this on. It
was an HBO pay per view event. And you know, Costeleo was no
joke. He wasn't like some superstar fighter, but he was the real champ
of the way class. Oscar was moving up. He had fought Daddy at
one hundred and forty seven pounds. Previously, he had lost in the title
fight to Shane Mosley also win the welterweight division, so Oscar was making his
junior middleweight debut. This was a big part of that entire promotion of that
and they fought to fight an Oscar. You know, he looked good in
that fight. Casteleo was coming in, he was making like his fifth defense.
He'd beatn some solid guys, and an Oscar toyed with him. Oscar
won basically a shutout, like one to nineteen on all three score cards.
He had scored a to put the cherry on top of a complete one sided
ass kicking. He knocked Castello down in the twelfth round of the fight with
just a few seconds to go, and he won the match and got the
belt. And so for Oscar, this was a very significant victory because he
didn't just win a title he was it was the lineal title, and also
because he now picks up the WBC title, it set in motion what we
all felt like was going to be coming just a matter of not if,
but when, because his next fight was the fight that everybody wanted to see,
which was the big, big mega unification showdown against Fernando Vargas and their
you know, very heated rivalry fight. But he wasn't going to get to
that point if he hadn't have gotten this title against Casteleo. So he does
his job there, So it wasn't a particularly great fight, although it was
a very dominating performance from Oscar. But as you mentioned to the next part
this whole scenario, it was Manny Pakea who stole the show on the undercard.
And by the way, it is mind boggling to me when you think
about the fact that here was Oscar on this night fighting for the junior middleweight
title at one hundred and fifty four pounds and an unknown at least in this
side of the world, Manny Paco fighting for a junior featherweight title. What
thirty pounds less use? He was fighting one one hundred and twenty two and
now Oscar's thirty two pounds heavier that eventually this man pack would be the biggest
star in boxing essentially other than Oscar and fight Oscar at one hundred and forty
seven pounds and make a mega fight. I mean, it's just nobody would
ever guess that an a shrillionaeier y right, just that they coincidentally were on
the same undercard together when they did this match. So anyway, Pacyao was
not supposed to be in this fight. So Layelo led Wabba from South Africa,
who was a top champion in the weight class. I was a big
fan of his. And you know, he had fought on the Hassim Rockman
undercard against Lennox Lewis when Lennox lost the title to Rockman, and he impressed
on that card and he looked like he had a real future. He was
supposed to fight. My memory serves he was supposed to fight a former title
holder named Enrique Sanchez, and Rique Sanchez pulled out of the fight, I
mean three weeks before the fight something like that. And Manny Pacou who had
been a flyweight champion back a few years earlier but was now moving up to
the one hundred and twenty two pound way class. As the story goes off,
my memory serves he had come to the United States in combination of a
vacation just California, and also to look at some other gyms and get some
work in look for an American trainer to hit him his team. We're thinking
about maybe coming and fighting in the United States. He walks into Freddie Roach's
gym one day, and you know, the story is very famous. They
hit the mits and Freddie Roach feels like he found like the guy walked in
I found like the next superstar of Box. And they hit it off immediately,
and obviously the proofs and the pudding of what they accomplished together. But
they'd only been together a couple of weeks hit in the midst and actually Packet
was supposed to leave to go back to the Philippines, and my memory serves
his trip was delayed for whatever reason, about like a day or two,
something to do with the travel. Hey, hey, wait a minute,
Manny, before you go back to Manila. No keep going. So in
that period of time where the trip was delayed, they got the call on
three I believe it was three weeks notice and Freaky Sanchez is out. We
need an opponent to fight for the title against led Waba on this card.
And as Freddie Roach tells the story, if Manny had gotten on the plane
when scheduled, he would have been back in the Philippins. We would have
never got the title. Show one who that knows what the trajectory of Pakiao's
career would have been. As it turnout, they had been working out in
the wild card and he was not had not left, and they accepted this
fight on very short notice, and they went into their very first fight together,
the great combination of Nanny Packoo and Freddie Roach and led Waba got his
fucking clock cleaned. It was like he didn't even know that he was fighting
a southpaw. He got absolutely destroyed. And I was like, this was
like a shocking Now tell the truth, Tell the truth. Did you know
and advance much at all? Because he was working with Freddie Roach about Paqiao?
Or were you sing their open mouthed like most everybody else that was watching
it, Now, who is this guy? No, that's put on him.
What I knew all about pack yet because knew him from when he was
flyweight champion, I understand. I mean I wasn't a casual. I had
videos. You had seen him, Yeah, you had seen him. I
had like the vhs. But still part of you has got to be going
holy smokes. When they took the fight in the first place and they made
the switch, I definitely distinctly was like, oh, he's fighting the former
flyweight champion. And he wasn't just like any old flyway champion. He was
the lineal flyweight champion. They had won some fights in between. He wasn't
popular or well known in this part of the world. But I was a
fucking door getting right right from Hesia and watching the VHS, so I knew
about him now that said, dude, I think he's gonna beat leed Waba,
who at that time was largely considered number one at one hundred and twenty
two pounds and who I was a big fan of and used to talk to
my friends at HBO all the time about putting him on. They would always
ask my opinions, I'm making you put a little Wabba on, and put
wabb on and uh so, no, I didn't expect destroid so and by
the way, led Wabba had had held the title for a while. He
was making like his fifth or sixth title defense, and in the end,
Pacyo it just pummeled me, knocked him down three times, broke his nose,
you know, had taken this fight on like two three weeks notice,
and just absolutely beat the living crap out of him. And it was so
Pacyo was so unknown. And then the clip is hilarious. You can find
it on YouTube that the great team of Jim Lampley and George Foreman and Larry
Merchant on HBO made a joke on the air to themselves because they kept sucking
up how to say Pacio's last name, because at the time, you know,
it was Picayo Paciawo. I mean, nobody really knew what to call
him, and they kept screwing it up. But that's how unknown he was
to the public at large, and he puts on a star making performance.
It blew everybody away. The HBO executives were blown away. They were like,
we definitely want to have this guy back on our air, And as
it turns out, they did bring him back and he ended up fighting you
know, a million fights on HBO and HBO pay per view, of course,
but it doesn't happen without the start of this fight because in his next
fight they put him up as a you know, on the main network,
there was a unification fight against Agapito Sanchez. It turned out to be a
draw because of a headbutt, a technical draw. But then they still love
Paka. They gave him a prime slot. Remember, if you fast forward
to one year after lovel of Wabba fight June of two thousand and two,
HBO and Showtime are doing the Tyson Lennox Lewis pay per view, And the
way the pay per view worked is that each network got that they only did.
If I'm not mistaken, they'd only a three fight telecast. It was
the main event and the two other televised fights. Each network got to pick
the guy they wanted to put on the broadcast. Manny Paca was the HBO
pick and they put him against where Lsi Julio and he knocked him out.
And point is, the Lied Wabba fights started the next level of Manny's career
where he became an attraction and a popular figure in the United States. But
without that destruction of the Waba, that does not happen. And that was
twenty three years ago. And the fact that we're here twenty three years ago
later to the day talking about he may come out of a three year retirement
to challenge a welterweight champion first title this fall is fucking mind boggling and shows
you how fucking crazy boxing can be sometimes. But the Led Wabba fight was
a start. That was back before Patio, you know, was even a
complete fighter. They had to work for a long time, you know,
on on certain punches that he had to put together. He was largely a
one handed fighter back then, but Freddy molded him. They were such a
great combination together and he went on an unbelievable one of the greatest runs in
the history of boxing, and it started by winning that title at one hundred
and twenty two pounds on the same night that Oscar became the lineal and WBC
champion in one hundred and fifty four pounds. So at the time, yeah,
it's like another fight card, you know, a nice card, you
know, big star in the main event, winning for another going for another
title. And when you will look back on it twenty three years later,
you realize how significant that it was, the historical significance of it dripping.
That was twenty three years ago on Sunday. Fast forward now four years later,
June twenty five, Tuesday is the anniversary of Floyd Mayweather beating somebody's guy,
Artural Gotti in his first pay per view main ev you got to bring
this one up, do you well? I mean, it's on your sheet
here, it's nineteen years ago. It's nostalgic. You were there in Atlantic
City, all right, What do you remember about Floyd that night putting it
on Gotti? Real quick? I remember saying Arturial Gotti is my all time
favorite fighter, and he has no chance to win this fight. I mean
I just saw no way that it was gonna happen. And he got absolutely
outclassed, outbox outbeat out, punched out everything, and Floyd was totally dominating
and stopped him. And it was not even not even a real contest.
I mean, it was just a pummeling. I mean it was started at
the beginning of the fight with a knockdown. And you know if after the
fact, but did you sense this is gonna be trouble for Gotti because of
floyd skills or did you not know? Did you genuinely get shocked at how
one sided it was? No, I'm not shocked at all. I just
said that I totally expected. I mean it as a as a as a
fan of Arturro is my all time favorite fighter. It hurt, but watch
it, but you know, you're, oh, you know, you know,
you know what's gonna happen. You figure you know what's gonna happen,
and you're watching unfold. I mean, Gotty lost every second of every round.
It was. It was the disparity in skills and speed and talent,
uh were you know, are not measurable. I mean, Archer always had
the heart but it just he had no chance. He was the he was
the champion of the WBC at that time on one hundred and forty pounds,
and this was a fight They've been talked about for a long time. Uh
it was. It was the first pay per view fight in what became a
long line of massively lucrative pay per view fights for Floyd Mayweather. But it
doesn't happen without getting this fight because Gotty was the A side. It was
the last time I think, other than when he fought Oscar that Floyd wasn't
the A side of a fight. Never. Floyd was going through some uh
legal problems at that time. There was a lot of issues in scheduling the
fight. A lot of it was a very contentious uh negotiation. Uh,
and but they finally made the match, and uh, you know, it
did good numbers on pay per view, and and from here Floyd went on
to have some very very big fights. But Gaddy, Uh, you know,
he put on you know, he didn't have to take this fight.
He did it because he wanted to fight the best guys. He made a
lot of money for the fight. And actually after after Arturro lost this fight,
Uh, the crazy part about it is he went on, uh to
still have you know, some other some other wins. He still got another.
I mean it was at the end of his career, but he still
won his next fight. He then got another chance to fight Valdimir for the
for the the lineal title, the WBC title. But this was really in
my mind, this was like the end of Gaddy, his second coming post.
Like after he had lost to Oscar, he had rebuilt, he had
had the Mickey Warred trilogy, he had won another world title. Uh,
and this Bloyd Mayweather fight kind of drew the curtain on that part of his
career and then he was sort of just playing out the string the last you
know, last three fights or so. But but when Floyd knocked him down
in the first round, it was like a punch he never saw, had
no chance. The speed was just so so dramatically different. But it was
an important fight at the time because it was the launching pad for Floyd is
a pay per view star. You know, he came to Arturo's home area
where he was and from New Jersey, but that was New Jersey was his
that was his turf where he was a star, where he packed the building
and and he kicked his ass, and it was I was there. I
wasn't. I wasn't. You know, nothing against Floyd, but I was
sad, just as a fan of our tourists. But it wasn't like I
was shocked. I knew it was coming. It was inevitable. What are
you gonna do? Well? It was great that night. Uh, it
was great every night after that, and he was nineteen nineteen years ago June
of two thousand and five. All right, full show man. We gave
you a bunch with the recaps of the top ranked main event win by Espinoza,
the featherweight champ, the controversy in England with the Tyler Denny Winn.
You heard from Bam Rodriguez. It's Bam and Estrada this week Teya Fimo Lopez
defending his title. Later this week, we're gonna have a bunch of preview,
some good news and nostalgia around it. Anything else that we haven't covered
before. I am off with my teenage daughter's night long birthday party on the
on the party bus again. These are sixteen year olds. Everybody, get
the images out of your mind. They're just having fun going out with their
friends and the parents get to you know, do things like carry all the
gifts, the cupcakes and pay the bill. But at any event, anything
else before I depart for that, my friend, I only have one thing
to say, and that is good luck with the party bus. Yeah,
if this should be our final broadcast, because I am ruined by whatever has
transpired, I threatened, I'm just kidding. They're gonna have a blast.
They're turning sixteen, they can't drive yet, they haven't taken the driving test
yet. But we're gonna have fun with that. And you can say it
one more time, you want to say it one more time, better you
than me, go ahead, get it, better you than me. Have
a good time. That's going on tonight. My thanks to Dan. Listen.
If it is the last one, at least we gave them, like
we always do, a very full show, all kinds of stuff. We
covered, the recaps, the news, the commentary, the nostalgia, and
off you go to estrogen, the absolute estrogen that I'm gonna deal with later
tonight. Listen, we had a blast as always. They need to follow
subscribe on the podcast beat, read up on the Fight Breaks to Night a
sub stack as well. Why are you not subscribe? To that we'll be
back soon enough. Previewing the weekend, we go into the weekend previewing,
we come off the weekend and recap twice every weekend. You get us on
this speed. Then Dan, have a good week. Thank you, my
friend, you too, bet are you? Then there you go, there's
Dan Raphael, I'm nearly TJ. Reeves. We thank you for being with
us on the fight for each to night recap