The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host, t J. Leaves. Well, welcome into
a very interesting weekend, a weekend that does not have a fight on the
grand scale, on the big magnitude the preview. Nonetheless, we are still
here on the Big Fight. We can preview podcast because we cannot go without
all of the different news items that's going on, nostalgia that's happening, different
things. We are here for you, Peeves, fights, hey, but
news is good, debate will be good. The lively banter and humor of
Dan Rayphael will be good. Rest assured on all of this. I am
merely the somewhat capable host t J. Reeves. He is our insider from
Big Fight Weekend dot com. We gotta get creative, Dan rayphel good to
be with you. It's tough to preview fights that we're not having, but
we'll do our best. I mean, we can preview Brian McIntyre's jail say,
we can preview Daniel Duwa's ridiculous appeal. We can preview a you know,
at least not the fight itself in terms, because it's going to be
still a while away. But get into the fact that our good friends at
PBC and Top Rank we're finally able to make Shakor Stevenson, Frank Martin.
I shouldn't even say finally because it didn't really take that long. We can
preview or discuss the lunacy of the Tyson Furies recent uh, I'll just save
it. I'll save it for the t J boards. It is. It
is lunacy what Fury is up to, but what else is new with him?
Much to get to again, thank you for finding us, however you
did so, Dan Substacks social media link, Big Fight Weekend dot com or
if you've been following or subscribing you found out automatically that we had a new
show out Make sure that you are following, subscribing Apple podcast, Spotify,
Spreaker, Google podcasts. All the podcast outlets is where you find us going
into Friday, usually with a preview of fights. Again, there's not a
prominent fight card in the US, Europe, per se on a champion Ship
fight, etc. Dan's got all the obscure stuff on his boxing schedule.
Be all over the schedule at all times, whether it's to his Facebook page
as Substack, He's got the boxing schedule going side. At least, I'm
gonna just say one thing. On Friday and Friday Night, there is the
Eye of the Tiger card in Canada. No, I mean they're they're one
of the top promotion companies. The survivor play as the warm up act before
the fights. That's what I mean they do. They do have that unusual
name for their company, but you know, they do a good job up
in Canada put on a lot of events. They have a deal where they
work on some of these events with top ranks. So the card on Friday
night is going to be on ESPN Plus and Christian Mabilly who is a excellent
strong as a bull super middleweight contender and great condition, undefeated record, exciting
up and comers. So he's in the main event, not against a top
top opponies fighting demon Nicholson who is you know lost already to a number of
guys like Edgar Berlanga for example. You know it should be uh not a
complicated fight, but that is if you want to watch fights the very least,
you've got that. And also they have you know, the full complement
of the fights on that undercard. So there's for example, I consult the
ray Field schedule, and I know there's a Steve Plaguett versus Carlos Sanchez Valdez
fight junior welterweights also on that same bill because I cook the track of your
schedule here on the on the program. But again we realize this is not
the same magnitude of fights that we normally have, but that doesn't mean that
you're not going to be fulfilled. And let me go out. I'll give
a little shout out to to Alex Campanova from Southern California, formerly of the
late Thompson boxing promotion company that closed down after the big man there, Ken
Thompson unfortunately passed away earlier in the year, so he's now got his news
series. It makes its debut again, not fights that we would spend a
lot of time previewing in terms of the matchups. The main events an eight
rounder between sort of up and coming kind of guys. But they make their
debut for that series, which is available at least in the United States on
Fox topoort days in Spanish language. That's on Saturday. It's taken place on
Long Beach, California. So there's stuff to watch, just not so much
for us to have a big conversation about it, and again because I love
the ray Field schedule so much. That's Riga Berto her Massilio, if I
have it right, And Alexis de Luna and Rayfield knows these names and most
of us don't. But those guys are fighting as featherweights in the eight round
feature on that card. Fox deportis coming on Saturday night from Long Beach,
California. All right, so you have some obscure fights. We got plenty
of fight news. We put the podcast to bed. We put the bet
US show to bed. We got done with it. Well, we got
the best US show back last Friday. We put the podcast to bed.
Recapping the win by Chris Eubank Junior. We touted Brian bowmac McIntyre for his
job in the corner. Little did we know that on Sunday he was trying
to board a flight to leave the UK in Manchester, England, to fly
to the United States and Holly handgun in the carry on. Batman Holly loaded
handgun in the No, apparently A wasn't loaded, B wasn't in the carry
on. See that's I gotta check you. It was in his checked bag.
Apparently gun separately ammunition. Neither are good, but not the way you
explained it. Okay, but hold on, it was not through the normal
carry on. It was through he checked it through normal luggage. Just so
that I'm clear on that. That is, it was going in the cargo
hold. It wasn't like he was bringing it onto the of my understanding.
Having read the statement from the fine folks at the Greater Manchester Police Department who
put out their statement, I will read it for you if you care for
me to read a little. But we wrote it, we wrote about it,
and they and they. The interesting thing is this didn't get out Sunday.
This only got out Monday after we put the podcast out that this had
happened Sunday with him trying to board the flight. Well, probably because the
Manchester Police Departments, uh, you know, information folks, the media relations
people were probably off on Sunday, like most people in government type of jobs.
In any event, at around ten forty five am day on September three,
officers were called to reports of a possible firearm being found in a hold
luggage by airport staff at Manchester Airport. This is according to the Greater Manchester
Police Department statement. After initial inspection by security staff. GMP officers attended and
the firearm was seized. Subsequently, a fifty three year old man was arrested
for possession of a firearm who was taken into custody for further questioning. Brian
McIntyre from the United States of America was charged with possession of a firearm and
possession of ammunition for a firearm without a certificate, and then he went to
court. He was given a date of October nine for his hearing and he
was then put in jail. So instead of coming back to Omaha, Nebraska
via a flight to Atlanta, he is now a guest of the city of
Manchester for the next five weeks. Okay, so this begs the obvious fundamental
question, how did he get the gun into the UK in the first place?
Do we know any more about that? You and I've been talking of
the podcast this weekend. We've been able to figure that out. And the
first thing I thought, because there are a lot of people that fly private,
that have money and fly private, and you immediately pooh pooed that and
said, I don't think he flew private to Manchester. So it begs the
question, how did he get the gun into the country, which we don't
know the answer to. Apparently, Yeah, I mean we don't know one
hundred percent private or not private. I'd suspect it wasn't private. It wasn't
This was not Mayweather pack Yo kind of money fight. So there's only two
ways to say he's there here there Here are the possibilities. Let's say A
he brought it through in the United States on his way to the UK,
which means somebody fucked up at TSA here in the United States as he left
the country. B he obtained it in the UK, which is very difficult
because if you know about the gun laws and the gun rolls and Britains like
even their police officers, the Bobbies don't carry guns. Apparently, it's really
tough to get a weapon in the in the England. Again my understanding,
though not as though I have attempted to do so in my trips to England
over the years, not speaking from personal experience, which actually yes. And
and then the other possibility and this was something I could see rape feeling a
pub coming up to some chap Hey, anybody got a piece what do you
mean? Piece of what? Mate? Piece of what? Okay? Continue
I'm digress. I'm not talking about a piece of fish and chips. Uh
So. The other thing that was I hadn't thought about this, but somebody
mentioned this to me as as they were sort of like taking through what are
the possibilities, as outlandish or as improbable or whatever as it may seem.
Is they made the point that when you're a trainer and you're you're you're not
just traveling like with your bag, with your underwearing your socks and your pants.
You know what I mean. You got your gear, you got your
mits, you got a whole bunch of stuff, and you're gonna be there
for you know, a week plus, and you got all your gear.
Uh So it could have been in there unknowingly potentially, is what they said.
Perhaps you're also bringing other people's stuff, so it could have been mixed
in, and maybe it didn't belong to Brian. Also a possibility. Again,
these are all things everyone wants to jump to conclusions. Everybody's suddenly on
a Twitter x whatever is a I post this and got a lot of push
back on it, but I don't give a shit. Everybody's suddenly an expert
on the law and weapons and aviation. So My perspective is it sure looks
bad. And obviously they arrested him, you know, apparently with cause.
But you have to wait till we hear his side of the story, which
we've heard nothing. I don't know who his lawyer is yet, so there's
been no statements from the Brian McIntyre camp. We don't know if he's saying,
hey, it wasn't mine. I didn't know how it got there.
It was, you know, I think it belonged to so and so or
this or that. Anyway. Again, that's why we have courts and laws.
What's unfortunate for Brian and anybody is, even if it was his and
he is guilty, in the United States, he would have made bail like
that day or the next day, he'd have been out and wait for his
court dating, you know, and hired his lawyer and gone through the process,
and you know, like every every city citizen tel too. But this
is a different country and they have different laws in Britain, and so now
he is a guest of the City of Metro Metro Greater Metro Manchester Police for
what was a thirty seven days or whatever it is, you know, So
because he doesn't have a court hearing until the ninth, So he's I guess,
stuck in the in the Metro, in the in the Manchester jail for
the time game, which is unfortunate because I don't know about you, t
J. But if you're thinking, I'm gonna get on my flight and i'm
gonna, you know, presumably be in first class or business class, I'm
gonna have a nice rest, I'm gonna watch a little movie. I'm gonna
listen to my iPod, I'm gonna you know, read a magazine or whatever
i'm gonna do, and i'm gonna sleep for a few hours, and i'm
gonna land and i'm gonna be home instead. You're in jail, right And
obviously we haven't heard from him. We will find out. And the other
interesting part of this is in reading into it, which I did, the
I believe the minimum if there's a conviction, the minimum sentence is five years.
They are beyond strict with the gun laws in England. It can be
much more than that for just possession of this. Yeah, I read that
also so serious charge to say that either of us are I don't think experts
on British but based on my cursory reading on like the official like British website
about those types of things, it seemed like, yeah, you're talking about
a minimum of five years, so that's serious business. And look, I
don't listen. He didn't, He didn't. I mean, I can't tell
you that Brian and I are like best buddies. But I have known Brian
McIntyre for a number of years. I've sat at hotels during fight weeks.
I've had long conversations with him about things other than boxing. Like he's a
decent human being. In my opinion, I don't think he was looking to,
like, you know, use it, let's say. I mean,
I don't know what would possess him to bring it. But again that that
punishment, in my opinion, seems to sort of outweigh whatever supposed crime there
was. But again, you gotta let it play out. I mean,
for him and his family, you hope for the best and that there's that
there's a happier conclusion than five years in the camp. And we should make
mention of this because my father's in law enforcement and he's done this previously,
and it just it varies. You have to be in law enforcement. You
can't have your gun in your checked bag, if you declare it, if
you're in law enforcement, you have the paperwork. That's where you referred to
in the in the statement. There's no certificate for this, there's no permission
for this to be there. And the only thing that I kept thinking after
this was over, after you went on and on about whether we're going to
see Errol Spence and Terrence Crawford, and you know where I'm going. Brian
McIntire's the trainer for Terrence Crawford, and now if this mess is prolonged,
it prolonged in England and he's locked up in England, it complicates things for
a Crawford Spence rematch. I'm saying that, but I think I think I
don't agree with that at all. I mean, it would would be unfortunate
for everybody involved, and certainly for Terrence Crawford, because that's your coach and
he's been your coach for your whole career. But Terrence Crawford has an excellent
team around him that works with Brian that he's been with forever, also Red
Spikes and the rest of the gang. Again, it would be unfortunate,
but I don't think it would have any impact on him going forward with any
kind of fight, whether it's to get a fence or otherwise. You know,
Terrence Crawford is a is a great enough fighter where you want your trainer.
But he's got a lot some people there that he's worked with for years
that he knows, that know him, and they'll just go about their business.
And it's you know, it's unfortunate, but you know, life goes
on. Time moves on, all right. We'll see who's right about that
one, though, too. I got two fronts now about the deadline later
in a year and about that one. You know that situation more than I.
You're telling me if if if Crawford, you know, gonna see what
happens with this coach and for whatever reason that Brian is convicted, if big
if and he goes away for five years, that Terrence Crawford is not going
to fight for five years. He's not going to fight for five years.
If you remember my premise mighty one. I think it complicates a Spence rematch
in the short term, and you're telling me there's no complication whatsoever. I
always love your your unbottled optimism. And then you come back to two weeks
later when it's canceled and you're going, I can't believe it's canceled. So
I mean they weren't complication. It's I'm not saying it's not like a problem,
or it's not an issue, or it's not something that they got to
deal with. But I don't think the end result means that he doesn't fight.
All right, we'll find out. We'll find out it again for mac
and Tire. We'll see if he gets you know, American representation involved and
et cetera, et cetera to help expedite things. I don't know that he
can. You gotta follow the law on whatever it is. Okay, So
we move on to other things, including heavyweight comedy. I'll put that in
air quotes, Okay. Daniel Dubois and the WBA are now at odds.
Dubois has filed an appeal. He wants a no contest because of the low
blow or not no low blow controversy with Alexander USI pick it up from there
on what's next. And we've already basically said this doesn't have any likelihood of
succeeding. But go on. But I don't know if I would say that
they're in conflict. This was Dubois filing the protest, which the WBA,
as an organization, would take a protest at least received the paperwork from anybody
about something related to one of the fights they're involved with. The WBA is
the lead on this because even though the fight between Duba Usk was also for
the IBF title and also for the WBO title, it was a WBA mandatory
fight because Duba was the regular title holder and so therefore it was taking care
of their manager of any event. We all know what happened in the fight.
Luis Pebone, the referee called a shot a low blow on a on
a doult line, waistband, lower waist band, nave all, whatever you
want to talk about. In the fifth round, Ussek went down on the
canvas. He was given five minutes to recover and then later continued to utter
dominate Daniel Duwa and dropped him in the eighth round I believe it was,
and then stopped him, dropped him again. He got to a knee and
he looked at the referee and he decided to take the ten count and quit
in a totally one sided fight. Other than the moments that use took that
that punch that was ruled a low blow. Again, the arbiter of the
fight is the referee. He has the final say, Louis. I've made
this point many times. Louis Pebone is a vastly experienced championship referee. In
the split second, in the exact moment, he made the determination it was
a low blow immediately and Alexander Ussek was on the canvas and knew he had
time to recover. If he had called it a legal punch and began to
count, there are many that would say, yeah, we would have reacted
a lot differently. He would have got up from the punch, and maybe
he would have been a little bit under dress, but you know, he
would have carried on as best as possible any event. The appeal, it's
a six page appeal. I have obtained a copy of it. I don't
know if anybody else has gotten a copy of it, but I have a
copy of that. I have read it. I wrote about it on my
substack the other night, and they did exactly what you said. They're seeking
to have it overturned to an old contest, which, by the way,
no offense. Whoever wrote this thing or the Frank Warren people. But sanctioning
bodies don't. They could, as a matter of like almost like a trophy,
if you will, a just a way to make an asterisk in their
rule book or in their record book whatever. They could make it a no
contest in their bonds. But in official boxing in your record, the sanctioning
body cannot change a fight to an old contest. The sanctioning bodies, they're
there to oversee the titles, They control the belts, they control their rankings,
things like that. They do not regulate the fight itself. Now,
they may have input with a commission about, you know, giving their suggestions
about officials. Certainly they do carry some more sway in other countries when it
comes to having certain judges and referees that do a lot of their events appointed
to those fights. When it comes to actually deciding no contest, you know,
the out out of the fund that's up to the regulation. That's up
to the regulators on the ground, like whether it's in the vatast Athletic Commission
or in this case, the regulators that handle professional boxing in Poland, which
is where the fight took place. So to ask that they overturn it to
an old contest as a preposterous and just it's nonsensical as what it is.
So they want it to be overturned to an old contest. What they really
want is for the rematch to be ordered, and as a corollary to that,
in their statement they said, and also to have him maintain his mandatory
position, but that would really doesn't matter if you make a rematch. And
what they did was they made a lot of arguments in this appeal, like
I said, at six pages, really five pages, because the six page
is merely like a signature page for Frank Warren, who filed this on behalf
of Dan as his promoter. They made a lot of discussion about where the
punch was and things that were reaching and making inferences that you can't prove because
you don't know if he would have gotten up if he had rolled it up
a legal punch, as we were just talking about. So there's a lot
of stuff like that. They cherry picked the opinion of the California referee,
Jack Reece, who was a great referee by the way, and it's done
tons of championship fights. So and I've known Jack for many years, great
guy, great referee, and so he apparently appeared and I saw the little
video, but he appeared on a The Zone talk show and he gave his
opinion as a referee that he felt it was a legal punch, which is
I respect Jack's opinion, But they cherry picked that opinion because if they had
gone to like Petty Atlas or any other you know, a million other people
in the business. I didn't say Teddy because I saw his comments. There's
tons of people that that that whole hardly think it was a legit low blow
call, even if he did think it was borderline. So they cherry picked
that for their their appeal. And then they also made a big, big
stink about the fact that they claim and they went through a whole thing with
like a timeline of the minute by minute, second by second where during the
course of time that Alexander USA was on the canvas and then rose from the
canvas where they claimed that it was, Louis Pabone was quote unquote urging us
to take additional time. So maybe that wasn't the greatest thing for the refer
to do, to tell me add more time if he wanted it. But
the reality was I would only have a huge problem with that if that time
exceeded the five minute rule, but the time did not exceed he'd never in
the end from the time he got dropped to the time the fight resumed was
I don't know the I want to say it was around four minutes, correct,
and you have five minutes under the rules. So maybe Pobone didn't act
perfectly in saying he did have time if he wanted it, because because USI
was saying he was ready to go. But again, is za grounds to
actually change the result? No, No, in my heart, in my
great TJ voice, what are we doing here? You were gonna use it
later, but you would went to it right now? All right? So
two or three things. The first thing is the referee is ultimately in charge,
and so we can talk about sanctioning bodies and the commission, but the
referee made the ruling you said to us right after it happened. Judgment call
and time, and again these organizations stand by judgment call of the referee.
If there was some investigation of corruption, some investigation that he was derelict in
his duty, that's different. He made a judgment call that it was a
local as a matter of fact. So in the in the appeal, they
actually make the statement, I don't have it in front of me, but
they actually said they're not accusing Pabone of corruption. Ry one thing they did
make the point about was and this is also I guess a problem, but
again not the kind of thing that would rise to the level we're going to
change. The result of the heavyweight Chambership fight is that they claim that Pabone
in the dressing room instructions never specifically pointed out the line of demarcation for what
constituted a low blow or a legal punch even and that Don Charles, who
was the trainer for Daniel Dubois, had called to attention with the referee that
he felt like us, liked to wear his chunks a bit high and wanted
to make sure he looked out for that. But then when they got to
the center of the ring before the fight began, you know, we've all
seen a million fights where the referee goes through the instructions and he actually says,
here's a low blow. I mean I can picture, like you know,
Kenny Bayliss or Tony Weeks or the late great Steve smog or any they
literally tapped the spot on the trunks or on your waistband. I'm gonna call
low here. Here's good. They make it real specific Louis Pabone for whatever
the reason was in the lead up to this fight, as they sent as
they were in center ring that he did not do that. But my perspective
is if the referee doesn't physically show that the athletes and the audience for that
man or where the line of demarcation is, the default is the navel,
it doesn't change. I mean because guys do wear their waistbands at different levels
by you know, an inch or two here or there, so it doesn't
change where your navel is. That's still the line of demarcation. So it's
a laughable appeal I read it. I'm not even joking when I say this,
Okay. I was literally like like chuckling to myself as I'm sitting in
my office reading this and getting ready to write something about it. It was
just it's so pathetic. And I think the reason why it's so pathetic,
besides just a being pathetic in general, is that most people look at and
say, yeah, but he lost every second of the round and then he
quit. Yeah, So it takes away like the whatever gravitas the appeal might
have yes, and and the other thing is that's what Frank Warren is doing
on behalf of his guy. He's almost going through the motions and they realize
Daniel Dublai is more than likely not getting a heavy weight. And so what
I point out when I point out what a what a ridiculous thing is because
I took a small screenshot of the first two paragraphs of the of the of
the appeal, of the first pages where it says, you know an essence
that that you know for not for the referees bad call, you know Daniel
dawas something like he's the uncrowned heavyweight champion. I'm like laughing. So I
screenshot it and I wrote that, and also they put in about how they
wanted it to be made into a no contest, and I wrote, you
know that the bullshit from Frank Warrens appeal starts in the second paragraph, and
I'm pointing out factual information where you know the sanction anybody's not making those types
of things. And so what does Frank do, the low class guy that
he always has been. He takes another critical shot at me because I'm a
fat guy. I come with facts. He comes with my weight, and
I mean it's like, come on, what great are we in here?
I'm coming in fats and with silver. I keep I keep pointing out Frank
always has a glass of wine. So I don't know. But in any
event, two more things that I want to point out. So number,
when the referee is in charge, we understand that the rematch, they're not
going to order a rematch. We know this, so you play you play
it out. They're not going to order a rematch. And the other thing
with Jack rees I don't know him. You know him, and I regarded
him, regarded past tense as a much better referee years ago. Jack Reese
has made mistakes too, where he's been out of position, been slower than
whatever. And him watching remotely is not the same thing as the guy that's
in the ring. And most importantly, there is conclusive video evidence that that
punch stops starts landing below the belt line, below the ruffle of Usik.
It's landing in the nether region right up parts and it was an uppercut,
but it lands well below the navel and well below that belt line. It's
a low blow period and they have no hope of getting a rematch, which
is what they ultimately want out of this, and Usik should just move on.
So we spent a ton of time on that. Oh oh, we're
back to another Frank Warren fighter co promoted by Queensberry and by top rank Tyson
Fury. So Fury I kicked off more promotion of the Frances in Ghanu flight
at the end of October, so you can share a little bit about that.
But more to the point, apparently Tyson is done now fighting boxers and
this has Rayfield bonkers about non boxers. So go ahead, please let me
let me hear you. Let me hear your year voice, I mean your
voice. What are we doing here with Tyson Fury and not boxers? Okay?
I didn't go. Okay, So they had the press conference in London
on Thursday to make to you know, to have them come face to the
base. I mean obviously he had announced the Nagan who fight you know,
back a few weeks ago. But today was the news conference and they had
Bob Aaron was there and Frank Warren was there, and the two fighters were
there and uh, you know, the officials from the Read Seasons, which
is the festival in Saudi Arabia, which is gonna make this fight one of
the cornerstones of their big international festival. Uh in all that business and you
know, so okay, it was cool to like I watched the clips of
it. I saw some of the press conference. You know, one thing
I will say and I said this before and we talked about with this fight.
Francis than Gando is a very well spoken guy. He seems he seems
like he comes from the heart, like you know, he really wants to
do this in terms of give boxing a try. I respect that. I
mean, that's you know, and he's making more money that he you know
that the estimates are that he's going to make more money for this one fight
against Tyson Fury than he has made. If you took every single dollar he's
made in his purses from his entire mixed martial large care and you combine them
together, he's gonna make multiples of that. So, you know, good
on uh Nagan who for forgetting this type of opportunity. I've got no quarrel
with that Fury, of course, like he often likes to do, stripped
his shirt off, doesn't look like you know, again, we'll talk about
fat guys. You know, he doesn't look like he does not look like
he's been training for this fight at all. Let me tell you, I
don't know how serious he's taking it, but even by Tyson Fury standards,
he doesn't look like Tyson Fury. Uh. You know, he looked like
he was doing a lot more pizza eating to use Frank Warren's image than he
was necessarily sparring or working out. But in the event they came face to
face to had a little back and forth. You know, Furies amusing in
that respect, and so they're gonna do this fight. But so okay,
and again I have not I we've talked about it when he made it.
I'm not I don't. I don't hate the fight. I'm kind of just
disappointed that Fury went for this route. I'll go a step further than you.
I hate the fight because it's instead of an undisputed fight with Alexander Usik.
He fooled around, he botched that negotiation. Now he's fighting a non
boxer and it doesn't do a whole lot for me, and we're sacrificing an
undisputed title fight. So I'm going stronger than you are on this, which
it bothers me for that. So but like I was, thank you,
I can't. I can't argue with the ability for somebody to make that kind
of money, even at the expense of undisputed as much as we want to
see where I do have a problem with it. So I'm willing to overlook
and let him go through and do this fight because it is intriguing to some
people to see the heavyweight champion of the world against the guy that was the
heavyweight champion of the UFC, stripped of that title but still considered, you
know, the number one heavyweight in that sport fight each other. You know,
it doesn't mean that the winners the baddest man on the planet, as
they're trying to claim, because it would be one sport instead of the other.
But the thing that gave me cause, or gave me pause, I
should say, is when I saw the clip. I guess before the news
conference commenced on Thursday in London, he made an appearance on First Take with
stephen A. Smith at ESPN and stephen A was asking about this fight,
and stephen A's questioning was actually very good. I mean he was asking,
you know, we want to see undisputed about about Usik. He asked Hi
about would you fight you know what about Anthony josh Actually I don't if he
asked about Husi specifically, but he did ask him about Anthony Joshua, to
which Tyson Fury called him a bum and you know said you know, no,
no, no big deal. And then he was asked about, you
know what about a fourth fight with Deontay Wilder, and he said, I
already smashed him three times. And then stephen a appropriately he said, well,
I don't know about the first fight. I did call it a draw,
but then Fury shot back while he stopped him, the second fight stopped
him. The third fight fair enough, that happened. And then he said,
to which I almost like pissed myself that after the after the Nagano fight,
which by the way, I'm okay with, I've said that it's what
he wants to do. After the Naganu fight. There was no mention of
I want to fight Joshua, I want to fight Usi for the undisputed championship.
I want to do a fourth fight with Wilder. I want to fight
you know whoever Andy Ruiz or you know, the winner of the Joe Joy's
a liary match or whatever some other like legitimate heavyweight. No, he went,
I want to fight John Jones, John Jones, Jones bones jes So.
And then I saw another interviewer says, I would fight John Jones in
the cage. I mean, he's not gonna fight John Jones in the cage.
The TJ in person, what are we doing here? What are we
doing? I you know what, I need to have a we gotta have
a T shirt to say what are we doing? Likes on it? I
would agree what are we doing here? So all I can think about is
like it feels to me like Tyson Fury, and I I don't I don't
like dislike Tyson Fury, but I just am making the point in his career.
Now it feels like he sort of jumped the shark, Like I get,
you want to do this big money fight. Uh, you know that's
the hybrid kind of fight. But after that, now you're gonna you're going
to Jake Paul rap. Now, Jake Paul's a novice. Jake Paul is
not a heavyweight championship contender. He's doing events. People like it. He's
got his fan base. I mean that's whatever. That's that's boxing at the
other end of the spectrum, and I've never had a problem with that.
We're talking about the fucking heavyweight champion of the world. You know, if
you're gonna do this is the truth. He's getting a massive pay day.
There'll be a lot of attention about this. To fight a low risk fight
for him against a non boxer, that's what this comes down to. But
then to suggest I want to fight another low risk fight against the non boxer
and Bones Jones. Bones Jones and Tyson Fury are both about a couple of
fries short of a happy meal. That's that's interesting in and of itself.
You're turning this into a circus, is what you're saying. You're turning it
into a circus. When Floyd Mayweather did the Connor McGregor fight, that was
a one off at the end of his career. He had been retired for
a couple of years. There was a gargantuan amount of money. Connor was
the biggest superstar in in the uf see MMA, was still a huge,
you know, historic name in boxing, and he came out of retirement.
He did a want to fight. It didn't impact world titles. It didn't
impact the pound for pound list. It was just a what turned out to
be a huge, huge event. Tyson Fury is the reigning heavyweight champion.
You should be defending your title. That's the point. Now. If you
want to do with the Naganu fight, okay, that's cool, because he
did, you know, for better for worse. He did defend the title
twice last year against Dillian White and against Jassore in the unnecessary third fight.
But whatever, those were at least legitimate boxing matches. Now, you're gonna
fight Nagano, Okay, I'll give you a pass on that. You go
do your thing, But come on, bro, after that, let's fight
a real fucking fight. Who's sick is the fight? Baby? And by
the way, there's there's a ton of ship load of money in the Middle
East to do that fight. Also, uh, it's not like you know,
you're not gonna It's not like someone saying to you, you know,
fighting Aghano for you know, fifty million and fight Usik for you know,
five millions. I mean, I don't know the exact numbers, but it's
the disparity of the finance in terms of what he can make to fight us,
or what he could make to fight one of those other non boxers in
the Middle East. It is probably not a whole great deal of money,
and he's already made nine figures. So you know, as they say,
give the people what they want. If you want to respect as the heavyweight
champion, act like a heavyweight champion. I agree. I agree on all
those fronts. Okay, So that's the pressor kickoff for that. Let's move
along with the news. We do have some nostalgia before we are done.
We were talking on the Recap podcast about Shakoor Stevenson Frank Martin and that is
now happened. They have made a deal. Elaborate on that and win.
Do we have a win as of yet or what do we think? Well,
we don't have an exact date. But the folks at Top Rank,
which promote Shakor Stevenson, the point person, Karl Moretti, the vice president
of Top Rank, and Tom Brown from TG Promotions, who obviously spends a
lot of time working with PBC and with Errol Spence's team at Manned Down Promotions,
which is the official promoter Frank Martin, they were able to come to
an agreement which meant that they didn't have to do the per SID. They
you know, they made a deal and notified the WBC that they had made
a deal. And so therefore the first bid that was scheduled for Tuesday was
canceled. That was supposed to take place later in that day. And so
it will be a top rank promoted fight. And again there's no set date
yet for it, but the two dates and the two locations that are in
the running. One of them is going to be a Thursday night in November,
which is a Thursday night. You say, why a thursdaynight when most
of these bigger fights are on Saturdays, you know, occasionally on Friday.
And the reason because in Vegas on November nineteenth is the Las Vegas Formula one
Grand Prix, which is like a huge deal in Vegas are like repaving the
strip and they're you know, going to be a gargantuan event for the city,
and so they're looking to do potentially they have a date on hold,
I believe at one of the MGM propertis, I can't remember it was the
MGM or the Mandalai whatever, where they would do the boxing event on the
Thursday night. Well, while there's a ton of people in town during f
one week, So that's a possibility as November sixteenth, on the Thursday night
in Las Vegas. The other possible is the annual date the Top Rank in
ESPN always want to see a big boxing match on, which is this year
December ninth. They do it on the same night at Madison Square Garden,
where in a different part of the city they're presenting the Heisman Trophy Award,
and so they have the Tisman Trophy Award in New York City and then they
throw to the boxing folks at Madison Square Garden for a big boxing event later
that night. So that's the other possibility that they could go on December ninth,
immediately following the presentation of the Heisman Trophy. So that has not been
settled yet. But what I do know is that according to Top Rank,
they told me they have sent the contracts to TGB Promotions to get everything signed,
sealed and delivered, but they had agreed to a fight and if it
happens, you know, it's a very interesting matchup. Shakrza was the number
one contender to fight Devin Haney for the WBC title belt that he had become
the mandatory in an eliminator that took place in his most recent fight against the
Yoshino back in April. And Devin Haney is apparently moving up to one hundred
and forty pounds where they're trying to close down the deal with him to fight
Regis Program for the WBC belt that division. So the WBC made him the
champion in recess. The belt is now vacant. The other two fighters that
were ahead of Frank Martin the WBC rankings, one of them was Vasalivo Machenko,
who told everybody that he's taken the rest of the year off after his
good performance but close lost to Haney that took place in May. The other
one was Isaac Pitt Bull Cruz, who about you know who declined to being
popped in that particular negotiation. The reason most people think that he's headed towards
a rematch with Jervonti Davis, who's the holder of the WBA's regular lightweight title,
And so that meant Frank Martin was next up. And Frank Martin is
a fellow south Pot like Shakur, He's undefeated like Shakur, He's a little
bit older than Shakir at twenty eight two years older. But he's coming off
some good performances against Michel Rivera, who he scored basically shot out against,
had a very solid win over Artem Hart to tune in where he scored a
twelveth round knockdown to take care of that business. So you know he'll be
the underdog for sure. But that's a good matchup. I mean, he's
two two quality fighters, Shakour looking to become great. I mean a lot
of people think he's going to be pound for pounds someday, but Frank Martin
is no joke. He's a good, solid quality Contender's got his own hopes
and dreams and aspirations. And you know when you put two guys that are
hungry like that in the ring for a for a very coveted belt like the
WBC lightweight title, you know hopefully we'll get some fireworks and a great performance
from both times. Yep. And so we'll look forward and then again that
f one weekend is going to be wild because the track, as you mentioned,
going all the way around the strip and around the MGM Grand and the
Team Mobile Arena, all that hope to happen in New York. I mean
that to me is a ton of a bigger deal in New York because it's
home and it's exciting on heisan the weekend and all. But we'll say we'll
find out what they're doing. Speaking of New York, a fighter that's finding
out of New York and has had a lot of success and rising and at
least raising up her profile, etc. Is Amanda Serrano and a very interesting
title defense now coming for her in late October, in that we've talked about
this on occasion here on this podcast, that when the prominent female fighters get
together and get it worked out amongst each other and with a commission that's willing
to go along with it, that you might see three minute rounds. So
it's been announced that Serrano's next unified title fight with her opponent Daniella Ramos will
be a three minute per round and it will be a twelve round fight,
correct, not just a ten round fight. Schedule a twelve round or so
go ahead with more on that announcement. So if there have been times where
there have been three minute rounds, as you mentioned, and there are certain
commissions in this country where the default is two minute rounds, So if one
side says we want three and the other side we says we want two and
they can't agree. The default is two minutes. Now I can remember,
and I'm sure there's other examples, but I mean years and years ago.
I covered like a Mike Tyson fight when he fought Andrew Glata in Auburn Hills,
Michigan. And Laila Alie, who was still active at that time,
she boxed on the undercard, and I want to see him like a six
or an eight rounder, and the rounds are three minutes, but it wasn't
a twelve round fight, it wasn't a big world championship fight, but they
went three minutes. And there were still certain places where they were three minute
rounds where women's fights, they've had them in Las Vegas years ago, where
you could go three minutes depending I believe. I believe New Jersey is one
of the jurisdictions where they have the option that you can go three minutes of
both sides agree to it. And then the other thing is the women's distance
fights for title fights or ten rounds. I've never really seen a movement to
make them twelve. There is an example of a female boxer named Layla McCarter
who's been around for a long long time, who's won various titles, who's
fought everybody. Back in two thousand and seven, she was in a lightweight
title fight. I believe it was a WBA women's lightweight title fight, and
another organization that it's like a lesser organization. And she boxed two fights that
year that were in schedule twelve rounders and both of them used three minute rounds.
There hasn't been that since then. Now. There was one example of
a I believe it was a flyweight title fight that involved Marlina Esparza who was
with Golden Boy, that they used three minute rounds, but it was still
a ten round fight. This is the first time that I can think of
since what the folks at at you know, Jake Paul's company, MVP announcement,
they put out the house of this fight that it's a fight that's not
only a twelve round fight for women, but also one that will utilize three
minute rounds per per round. So that's unusual. And so that's the fight
that's happening October twenty seven. It's going to take place at the carib Royal
Resort in Orlando, Florida, which has been hosting a lot of fights.
They've been doing some of the Jake Paul Prospect shows, They've done some other
cards, and so that makes it interesting. Amanda Serranto has been very outspoken
about being treated equal to the men, and there are those that say,
hey, in women's tennis, it's best of three sets, and men's tennis
it's best of five sets. And the w NBA they use a smaller basketball
than they use in the NBA, and that there are differences between men and
women, and I can appreciate that, but I can also appreciate somebody like
Serranto and obviously Ramos to go along with it, who is the WBO's interim
head older so this is a mandatory fight to say, look, we want
to we want to go three minutes, we want to do like the guys
do it, and so we're gonna go twelve rounds. I was speaking with
Nikisi the Darien, which is All's partner on MVP promotions, and I asked
him about the getting this set, and he said they spoke with the Florida
Commission and they were supportive of it when they made their requests and went through
their reasons, and so therefore this fight will be a twelve minute, twelve
round three minute per round fight. Now, the interesting thing, of course,
Serranto was the undisputed champions. She olds all four of the major titles,
but in this particular fight, the WBC will not sanction the fight.
They are on a record, and Mauricio Suleiman has talked about it. I've
talked to him about it lots of people. There's an interview you can find
the clip on social media where my good pal Chris Mannix interviewed him about this
very topic and Chris made some valid points and Mauricio made his points that they
don't support women's boxing being twelve round fights or three minute rounds. They say
that they've had various studies done with medical professionals and there's reasons where they opt
not to do it, and they're not going to change. And they don't
have anything against the Mana Srouno. They wish her well, she's still their
champion, but they're not going to involve themselves in this particular fight. So
it, I guess technically is not for the undisputed title, but her other
three belts will be interesting. And so that's all because let's just check it
off. There's a health concern. But part of the argument of could women's
boxing take another step is there are not as many knockouts. There are fewer
knockouts obviously in title fights, especially because the rounds are not as long,
and female fighters have talked about this. This isn't me saying this. Female
fighters have talked about this that if the rounds were a little longer, when
you've got somebody wobbled or maybe they get fatigued, perhaps you can finish them
off in that round. It's been a common criticism. Well, now we're
going to see it in practice here. And I think ultimately, if the
two fighters agree and they pass the medicals, and you have paid professionals in
terms of ringside physicians, paramedics, referee overseeing it, corners overseeing it,
I think you can do this if everybody wants to do this. But I
understand right now there's a limitation. So there you go. So now you
know me a while At this point, you know, I pretty much have
an opinion about everything in boxing. Right on this particular issue, I don't
have a strong opinion one way or the other. If if they want to
do twelve rounds and three minute rounds or even a ten round, three minute
round. Like, Okay, I mean, I'm not against it, but
I don't like really think much about it. If they want to keep it
the way it is, I'm fine with that. Also, Like I don't
really have a strong opinion. So if if the women want to do it,
and it's it's okay with the sancting bodies and the local regulators and the
television networks that are putting it on et cetera, et cetera. You know,
Okay, I mean, but this will be a litmus test in some
respects because it has been many years since we've seen this, at least in
a higher profile women's boxing match where they will have an altered round number of
rounds and minutes per round. And so I saw after this was announced you
had people like Chantel Cameron saying that, hey, why if they can do
it, why can't we do it with my fight with Katie Taylor in the
rematch? So there might be a movement if other women, uh, you
know, make make noise about it and that sort of thing, and then
maybe it will become more prevalent. I'm I guess my best to kind of
split the baby if you will is to kind of do it the way I
mentioned, where the default would be two minute rounds and ten rounds maybe for
a championship fight. But if the two sides agree, then okay, extended
to ten and twelve. I mean, are you know twelve and three rather?
I mean again, I'm not married to it either way, but if
it's cool with the women and everybody involved in doing the event, so be
it. It'll It'll tell you one thing it's gonna make, at least for
this specific fight, probably get a little bit more of attention from the mainstream
than idea. That's the idea. And they want knockouts, they want stoppages
and knockouts, and it will help with that. So there you go.
All right, we'll move quickly through a couple more things and then some nostalgia.
You also have learned that the IBF, well, the IBF did order
Jose Ramirez and Arnold Barboza to become the mandatory for Subreo. Mattias is forty
pound champ and Chip, tell me tell me more about this, because you
did put on our rundown. You don't think this is likely to happen this
this fight or what do you mean by that go ahead, Well, I
don't think ultimately will happen. So just to back up, so Sabrillo Mattius
is the IBF Junior welterweight champion and so to order, the IBF ordered this
fight back a little while ago between Barbosa and Josie Ramirez, who's the former
a former unified world champion in that weight class. They didn't make a deal
by the time that the deadline was supposed to be, and so they've ordered
a purse bid to take place on September nineteenth coming up, and the winner
of that purse bid would would put on the fight and the winner would become
the mandatory for Subrillo Matius. But what complicates matters is a few different things.
Number One, Barbosa and Ramirez are both managed by Rick Murrigian, so
he'd have to have to work out how he's gonna handle that if he's got
both guys. Two. Top Rank, which is the promoter of Josier Ramirez
has been the longtime promoter of Barbosa, but isn't anymore as he is a
free agent. They let him out of his contract early at his request.
They had a first last on anybody that would offer him a deal, but
apparently nobody's offered him a deal because Top Ranks says, no one's ever come
to us from Barbosa's team saying we have this offer for x y Z.
So he's hanging to hang it out there and the reality is they don't feel
like that's a big, big fight and what they do prefer on the Top
Rank side. And I'm pretty sure if you asked Jose Ramirez this question or
Rick Marigian, who would probably rather do one of that to mention than put
his two guys in against each other for a lower stakes fight, because all
you're going to get out of the winner is the chance to fight Mattias,
which is a not a huge fight financially, and B means most likely you're
gonna have to go across the street at the showtime for a PBC fight.
The fight that they'd like to do with Josie Ramirez, again, it's going
to be up to the other fighter. I'm about to mention, they would
love to match him and do a much bigger fight between Josie Ramires to challenge
Tiafimo Lopez for the w BO and the lineal title. So for a lot
of different reasons. I don't think that Barbosa Ramirez is going to happen to
IBF. It's one thing for them to order it and schedule a perst bit.
Whether anybody actually show up and DIDs, and even if they do,
if anybody signs for it is another matter. Now, this is the interesting
thing. So when I saw the letter that I got a copy of about
what the IBF when they posted or not posted when they put out the letter,
and I took a screenshot, I posted it on social media. Arnold
Barbosa, who's a good dude. I like Arnold a lot. He quote
tweeted me on the picture of the letter that I posted and said, first
time I hear about this, but I'm all game like. So even he
didn't know that ordered his purse bid for a fight, you break news to
everybody. Even the fighters sometimes fight out about these things. Did happen If
Ramirez and Barbosa actually did occur, which again I don't think it will,
that's a pretty solid fight for a weight class with two really quality contenders.
By the way, this is the point in the podcast where I point out
that you went back and forth with Rick Maridgian about what are you guys doing
passing up on the Regions Prograde title fight about a year ago at this time,
or at least ten months ago at this time, and now you're chasing
trying to get it another title fight a year later. So maybe it'll happen,
maybe it won't, but they passed. They passed on the title fight
with program. If the end result of this situation is that Ramirez gets a
chance to challenge Tiofimo Lopez, and if he then were to bow out of
the Barbosa fight and Barbosa was ordered to fight somebody else in an eliminator,
you know that would be an okay sort of scenario where Barbosa still gets to
fight the eliminator against whoever to get a chance to fight for the IBF title,
and Ramirez got an opportunity to fight Tiofimo for the for his title.
Another show, another positive drug test. This time it's heavyweight Joe Kusomano,
and hey it's another matchroom boxing show. I keep pointing this out that over
and over again, we keep having this, all right, so and this
is well, after this fight took place, his knockout of Adam Konovski,
give me give me more, what if we find out what did we learn?
Well? I do think it's unfair of you to bag on a match
Room for that because they're not the ones you want the list? Do you
want the list? I start going down the list of all the fights,
and all I know I wrote them Dylan, don't Dylan White, Kusamano,
Alicia bamb Gardner, I mean Robert Band last year, Robert. But there's
the list. But the match Room people are Again I'm not kissing match Room's
ass, but I'm not going to bagging them either. They're having their fighters
or their guys on their cards tested. Just for the record, Kusamano is
not a match Room fighter. He is promoted by Jimmy Birchfield. He was
signed for this as a one off as the opponent to fight Adam Kunaski.
So match Room's only involvement was they're the ones that put the bout on.
They're not his promoter. They were not the promoter of Dylan White, they
were not the promoter of Robert Allennis. They were booking these guys on their
shows to fight against boxers that they did promote. So it's not like somebody
from Matchroom Boxing is going to Robert Helennius or or Dylan White, or to
Kusamano or to Alicia or whatever, and saying here, you know, take
these pds. I'm not saying that they are I'm saying that I mean,
they're catching people on their car, that's true. But they're catching them well
after the fact though, too, because there was this fight. How long
ago was the fight? Okay, So this fight took place on June twenty
fourth at Madison Square Garden. This was the undercard when Edgar Berlanga fought Jason
Quickly. Here's the thing. This was not VODA testing or some other organizations.
This was a standard free fight and or post fight test issued by the
New York State Athletic Commission. It's coming after the fact. There's no rush
to get the result right away because the fight's already happened, and so that
would cost a lot more money, and they're doing it on a shoe string
budget. So the fact that it took that long to get the result back
is not a shock to me, because there was no urgency. The fight
already happened. It just sucks that it happened, and you saw Konaki take
a brutal loss in a stoppage in a in a hlations battle. And I
feel for Adam Konaski because and I talked to him. You can read the
quotes in my article on my sub stack where in his mind he's like,
fuck, what am I supposed to do here? I've got four losses in
my career, two to Robert Hellenius and one to Kusamano. The three times
like knocked out one guy pop positive for a PEED and Helenius even though he
didn't test positive an hour fight, he just got busted for PD use in
a loss they took to Joshua a couple of weeks ago. So in his
mind, I've lost three of my fights to guys who were dirty, so
that's unfortunate. So Kusamano is going to be you know again, he's got
to go through the adjudication process, but sat my first rodeo. The chance
of anything changing from a B sample or anything other than he actually had this
in his system is highly unlikely. So what the Commission will probably do is
they will move to revoke his entire purse. I'm not sure if they'll be
successful in that, but that's something they'll try to do at the very least
he'll be fine, he'll be suspended, and they will, as the actual
people that can do such things, they will change the result of this fight
from a victory and Kusamano's record to a no contest. And that's plenty of
president. I mean, first fight ever covered for ESPN was when John Ruiz
lost the WBA heavyweight title to John to James Tony back in like two thousand
and five. I want to say he tests a positive a few weeks later
for that type of test. This is back before there was a lot of
VODA testing in those types of things, and they changed the result of the
fight to a no contest and James lost the belt. So this will become
a no contest. But it doesn't help Adam Kannak. He took eight rounds
of beating and uh and it now feels agreed because his opponent and should retire,
I mean he is. He has been litally beating he's been brutally beaten
up as it is. And on the argument of Hellennious Lennius was cleaned for
the two fights with Kanaki, so he didn't fail any tests. He didn't
have voted testing for that fight. Well, but we can go on for
another five minutes if you like. But he didn't fail any other way.
Don't make a mistake them advocating for Konak not saying I'm not saying. I'm
making the point that if you're Adam Konaki in your mind, you're really pissed
because you've suffered three losses, two guys who are associated with using performance enhancing
drugs. That is true for a later date, a couple more news items
than I promise we'd get to nostalgia, and we are done. And unfortunately
the passing of Mike Stafford, a long time trainer with a lot of different
fighters, especially recent names that you would know. Say some more about this,
please, Well, Mike was just a really good guy. I don't
think you can find people to say bad about this man. Uh, you
know, I can't say I knew Mike well, but I definitely knew Mike
over the years. A class guy he worked with. He's a Cincinnati guy.
He worked with a lot of good fighters, a lot of mainly PBC
fighters, but not that that was the only thing he ever did. He
was the longtime trainer for Adrian Broner, was with him in the best of
times when he won uh, you know, all the various belts that Dadrian
won. He worked with Robert Easter, who became a lightweight champion. He
worked with Rashi Warren who became a bantamweight champion. He worked with Jamal Herring,
who won a world title in one hundred and thirty pounds. He was
a Cincinnati amateur boxing fixture. He was very deeply involved with USA Boxing.
He worked with a lot of young amateurs and kids and basically did what a
lot of coaches do try to, you know, point these young people on
positive path and kind of helped keep him out of trouble by making sure there's
a place in the gym for them to learn about boxing and and and have
a structured and activity. You know, he was a well liked person in
the business, a hard worker. And I've been reading some of the uh
posts and things from the guys that he worked with, like uh like uh
Jamel and others that knew him, and you know, it's a great loss.
He's only sixty seven years old and apparently he had been ill. I
didn't know that, but he is passed and uh, you know, it's
a loss not only for the professionals who found him, to be a quality
trainer to help them get to their level that they got to. But definitely
for the younger fighters that he worked with, the amateurs uh that that he,
like I said, opened up the gyms four in Cincinnati and and uh
and helped to steer these young people to a better lifestyle and also to coached
amateur kids to as they you know, potentially could become Olympians. I mean,
like Jamel was an Olympian, Rashi Warren was an Olympian. You know,
Robert Easter and Browner all were both top amateur fighters as well. So
it's just a it's it's a sad day for the sport and a you know,
just the loss of another quality person in the business. And truthfully,
again are these are the ones where it hits hard when they're growing the sport
at the grassroots level and opening up a gym like you mentioned for amateurs and
teaching them, et cetera, which is what Mike had done for years as
you mentioned. So rest in peace on that. Speaking of Jamal Hearing,
while we're just on the subject, he had announced his retirement in boxing.
We often know, depending on what the offer is and what your interests are
and if you suddenly get bored again and you don't want to go back to
the real world and doing whatever, you're back. And so Jamal Herring is
apparently going to be back in November, so tell us more. Well,
he took the loss by knockout to Shakur Stevenson when he lost his bio titled
one hundred thirty Pounds No shame of losing the sport. Stevenson came back in
his next fight and at the time Jamine Ortiz was considered a guy that he
was supposed to beat, and he lost a decision to Jamine Ortiz. So
that was two and row. Jamine has established himself now as a good contender,
gave Lomachenko a super tough fight in a closed loss in any event,
so he took the two losses. He retired, and now eighteen months later
he's going to be back in the ring. He announced on social media back
in like a month or so ago or whatever that he was coming out of
retirement and that his new trainer was going to be Wayne McCullough. He had
been working with Top Rank for the last few years. Before that, he
had been with PBC for quite a while. After you know, Jamal was
known to everybody, well liked by everybody, had been the captain of his
Olympic team and ended up winning a world title. You know, kind of
like he was one of those guys when he came out of the amateurs,
was not expected to be a world champion. He sort of like was overachieving.
He suffered a loss or so earlier in his career. Anyway, everybody
likes Jamal Herring. I wish him good luck. But he's now coming back.
So he's got an event hasn't been announced yet, but my sources tell
me it will headline a Debella Entertainment cards, So I'll work with Lou Debella
on this fight. He'll take place at the Edison Ballroom in Manhattan, which
is hosted a bunch of fights over the years, and I'll take on an
undefeated fighter named Nick Molina who's thirteen to o but hasn't really fought anybody thus
far. It's an any rounder, and it'll be te streamed on the Zone,
and he'll make a comeback and see what he can do if he's got
anything left to give at what is he thirty seven years old now at this
point or so, and see if he can, you know, try to
make a climb and get another shot at some of the bigger fights. And
I have fondness for this guy. We've had him on the podcast previously a
couple of times Semper five and he corrected me because I have family members and
others, and he says, don't call us X marines were Marines for life,
just say just say we're Marines. So he had two tours in Iraq
and again in his story. I'm not saying that there aren't other difficult stories,
but Jamel was the gunner on top of a tank in Iraq, and
he has been open about this. Dan Raphael, where he would say that
you would you would wake up in a morning and wonder, is this the
day I may die? Where I am up on top of a tank as
a gunner and somebody a sniper, an ied, or something happens to me.
And he said you had to grow accustomed to facing death paraphrasing Jamal's words
on a regular basis, that something could be happening to me today that takes
my life, and once you've done that, whatever's happening in a boxing ring
is kind of secondary to that. In terms of violence or thinking about what
could happen to you. I enjoy him on the commentary as well. I
don't have to see Jamal Harry. If he can get big pay day or
two, okay, great, but I don't have to see him fight on
because I'd love to see him still be a commentator and go that route.
What do I know? But now he's going to be back in November,
So there's my thoughts on him coming back. One more news item and then
the nostalgia. I promise we've had like fifty seven news items. We didn't
have any fights. First of all, there might be a lot of people
listening that want to hear the news items they don't care about the nossalga.
Well, but the nostalgia is still coming. But one more news item is
Otto Valen and Murat Gassiev. If you knew that name Gassiev, it's because
he was a cruiserweight. So this is a heavyweight fight. What have we
learned on when this is and where this is? Well, so Gassiev was
the undefeated, unified title holder at the cruiserweight when any day loss is only
fight to usk for undisputed. When they met in the finals of the World
Boxing Super Series in two eighteen. He then moved up to the heavyweight division.
Uh and he you know, he has won four fights in a row
in that weight class, but it's been starts and stops. He's that injuries
and promotional issues and there was the pandemic and a lot of things have sort
of kept him not that busy. And Otto Wellen, you know, had
the one loss, but it's the one he got the most attention for because
he gave Tyson Fury arguably the toughest fight of his career except maybe Deonda Wilder.
In any event, they're both looking for like a name opponent to fight
and something or other to do while they try to position themselves for something bigger.
And so I am told that by Leon Margalis, who was one of
the promoters involved with the event, that they're going to fight each other on
September thirtieth. It will take place in like this resort town in Turkey.
To remember the name of it. It's a uh ant ant Anto Yaya,
Turkey, I guess is what it's called. I'll take your word for it,
but anyway, it's kind of like an under the radar, kind of
kind of like sneaky good kind of matchup, like, I don't know why
I lean against Mamurrak Gossi. It kind of comes out of nowhere. It's
not the kind of fight you'd think about and say, oh, why I
gotta see that fight, but then somebody says you, hey, how about
this fight? And particular in a year like this where the heavyweight action has
been pretty bad, I mean, other than largely Garbo, other than the
activity of Anthony Joshua, there's been really nothing else to write home about,
frankly in the heavyweights other than the fact that we're going to see Joe Joyce
and Zang jul I fight for the second time. So this is kind of
like a sneaky, interesting kind of heavyweight fights. So anyway, that's not
not not huge news, but it's just a matter of fact that this is
This is supposedly taking place September thirtieth. Okay, Nostalgia Time involves heavyweights and
involves Mike Tyson. It involves his return to the ring to become heavyweight champion.
He already had a return fight, which we talked about recently with Peter
McNeely. He came back to championship prominence air quotes, winning the w BA
heavyweight title twenty seven years ago on thurs Day as we released the podcast September
seventh, Was it a punch? Didn't look much like a punch against Bruce
Selden and the booing was lustily made a rounding booze you will knock out of
Selden. Could you imagine if Twitter or social media of any kind existed in
nineteen ninety six, right, this would have as they say, like we
saw what happened just in the wake of the Is it a low blow?
Is a legal punch with us against against Dubach. Mike Tyson's one hundred times
as big a name as both those guys put together. And this was a
major heavyweight title fight on pay per view in the United States. It was
set pay per view, the old name for a showtime pay per view,
big mega fight you know, or promotion anyway, at the MGM Grant in
Las Vegas, and everybody's geeked up for the to see Tyson back. Remember
this was a fight where yes he was fighting Bruce Seldon for Seldon's belt,
but Mike had been out of prison and had had fights, but not a
tunnel fight. He had fought mcneally. He had fought Busterer Maths, He
had Beaten and Frank Bruno in their rematch for the WBC title, but then
vacated the title because he was basically ducking Lennox Lewis, who was the mandatory
and and and paid Lennox a ton of money to not fight him and ended
up instead, as you know, giving up the BC title now fighting Bruce
Seldon for the WBA title. So it was a very big promotion and the
fight starts and like and felt like about five It was really what I'm looking
here at the one minute in forty nine seconds, and the question is did
Selden get hit? There were so many people that believe that that Bruce Selden
just literally took a dive in that fight. I never thought he took a
dive. I just thought he was absolutely fucking petrified and unch looked like it
hit him in the shoulder. When you go back and watch the replays,
it doesn't look like it hit him in the head. And that's why people
have always thought dive. As soon as he was going to hit with something,
just laid down just a left hook. He was looking for a saft
spot on the campus. I don't disagree with that. I think it was
more out of being petrified than of a true punch, fair enough. But
the thing about it was when that happened, people went absolutely ape shit.
Now, if you weren't around back then, you know now we pay eighty
five bucks sometimes if you buy a pay per view for like a spence across
the fight back then, you know, it was like fifty bucks probably or
something like that. But that was still considered like a premium price for a
pay per view fight, because there were lots of other fights that were like,
you know, twenty nine ninety five and thirty four ninety five and that
sort of business. But this was like on the higher echelon of the costs.
I'm a pay per view and people went absolutely nuts. There was talk
of, like I don't know if they actually followed them, but like a
lawsuits because of like fraud, and a lot of people were getting refunds.
May tell you what I've definitely remember. I remember Jim Gray doing the interview
in the ring, and the crowd, which had paid thousands of dollars for
ringside seats, just raining down the booze. I don't remember them throwing debris
because they were showing on those big TVs which were fairly new, the replay
when they were trying to portray this as a knockout and a punch, and
the people were booing and you had a scene there because they basically got less
than two minutes of a heavyweight title fight and a non punch And I vividly
remember that twenty seven years ago. Wow, you can go back and releven
was you know, I think most boxing fans understand that the prospect of a
first round knockout exists, and that's just the way it ghosts. It's the
fact that they felt like it was it was a sham, that it wasn't
legitimate, that it was completely fraudulent. You know, if you get a
guy gets clean clocked in one round, I mean, that's life. But
they were pissed off because they felt like Bruno just I said, or that
n Bruno Brucel Meldon just just laid down and wasn't there too. And just
to give you, to give you an idea, again, we've talked about
this over and over again. Tyson emerges from prison. He fought Peter mcneelely
on pay per view, but the fight with buster. Mathis right, and
you have that in front of you that was on over the air TV on
Fox. They outbid everybody. And I still remember seeing this that it had
over forty four zero million people watching on network TV. Forty million, remember
the exact number, but there was a big deal. Over forty million.
That tells you how big a deal this was. And it did get a
lot of scrutiny on the Selden fight here on ESPN and elsewhere of was it
a punch the frank brutal fight before the Seldon fight that was a big pay
per view fight. Awesome? Yep. So there's the nostalgia from twenty seven
years ago and one more bit of heavyweight nostalgia and then I promise we're done
here and that is the tally Klitch Go and what turned out to be his
final fight. The anniversary is Friday the eighth, eleven years ago, September
eight, twenty twelve. Tell me more about that final fight. Well,
last week's podcast, if you remember the last episode, we talked about how
Manuel Shar had been reinstated by the WBA as their regular title holder after the
Dua Whosi situation eliminated that delt but they were settling a lawsuit that Shar had
filed. And now he's back. Like Jason, you can't get rid of
him from the Friday the thirteenth movies. But if you go back to this,
this was the first time he fought for a real title, not the
sham title he fought batally at the time when he fought Vitali Klitchko. You
know, now, I don't think anybody considers Manuel Shar to be any kind
of like serious contender, if you will. But at the time that he
fought Clichko, he may not have been that irreputable, but he was twenty
one and zero Vitali was fighting him. You know, they were not fighting,
They were fighting a neutral territory. The fight took place in Moscow,
Russia, even though Klichko, of course was from Ukraine, was brought up,
you know, as a base out of Germany. Shar was fighting out
of Germany's originally from Syria. But anyway, so they did this fight.
It was on HBO in the United States and Klichko, no surprise, dominated
He dropped Manuel Shar in the second round, or now he calls himself mock
mood. Shar in the second round. Then he was just Manuel Shar and
he opened up You remember the hallmark a moment, one of the hallmark moments
of Vitali Klitchko's career was suffering that gaping wound over his eye in a cut
against Lennox Lewis and him desperate to continue in the in the in the fight
being stopped by the referee in the doctors as the cut was so severe.
Well, if you if you as bad as that cut was, he opened
up cuts almost as bad or worse on Manuel Shar in this fight. And
so that's why this fight was stopped after or in the fourth round, because
the cuts that Manuel Shar had were just brutal. I can picture there's the
scene on the broadcast where they show Manuel Shar not only is his bloody face,
but he's literally his entire chest is just shrieked with blood because it's been
pouring from the wound. But the thing about it was when Klitchko had this
fight, going into the fight, he said, this is my last fight.
I'm going to retire. Now he was still fighting at a very high
level. He was making something like his ninth title defense of this second title
ring. Because if you remember when he regained the belt, and then he
was supposed to have a mandatory against Hassim Rockman. He had a back problem
and he probably retired for like four years almost there's thereabouts. He came back.
He was put in recess by the WBC when he was better, and
he decided to return. He thought Samuel Peter in his first fight, he
absolutely beat the living shit out of Samuel Peter. Regained the WBC title after
that long laff, and then went on a stretch where he, you know,
beat a lot of good, solid of guys, you know, Shannon
Briggs and nolany Or Solis and Thomas Adamek and Derek Chisora and you know Kevin
what he called, Chris Haariola, Juan Carlos Gomez. Anyway, he was
beating all these guys and there was no reason why he needed to stop.
You he was still at a high, high level, but he was going
to devote his life to politics. And I find it to be kind of
amazing that here we are talking about this on the anniversary of this fight that
took place in Moscow, I might add, and now he is the mayor
of Kiev in Ukraine. He's one of the towering political figures in that country,
pouring up by war against Russia, and he's on like the pooh and
hit list, and he has emerged as a literal hero to his people doing
what he's doing to, you know, for to make things better as possible
in Ukraine. And you know, I guess other than their president Zelenski,
he's probably the most well known and popular political figure in the country. And
that was his last fight. So we spent the last eleven years voting himself
not only forget about boxing, since inducted into the Hall of Fame, but
his life is now not known as a as a great Hall of Fame professional
heavyweight champion boxer, but as a as a top political figure, you know,
fighting for peace and for democracy, you know, his home country of
Ukraine. And keep in mind, I've said this on the podcast before,
and we've talked about the other things related to Klichko. He doesn't have to
do this. He made crazy money in his career, nine figures. He's
got children, he's got a wife. Obviously. His brother was a former
heavyweight champion in Vladimir Lchko, and he spent a number of years if his
you know, back at this period of time in his life living in California,
in the LA area, enjoying life. You know, one of his
at least one of his children is born in California, and he decided to
go back to Ukraine and to get involved with this so he could be in
the United States. And you know, being a businessman working in the sport
of boxing, if he wanted to do a lot of different things, making
a lot of money, but he gave all of that up, including the
heavyweight championship, to go back and try to make his country a better place.
And I always respect you. And by the way, just one more
social comment and world news and world platform comment. That conflict has been going
on for a year and a half and just because it's not on the nightly
news in the United States and not prevalent everywhere, it is still life and
death every day in Ukraine. I mean, there was another incident this week
where there was a tomahawk missile or a cruise missile or whatever that killed dozens
of people, including women and children in one of the Ukrainian towns. It's
not an ongoing nationwide every single day on slot, but this occupation where the
Russians have taken parts of Ukraine. They're attacking other parts of it. It
has gone on for a year and a half and the clitch Goes have remained
there to your point, and remain firm that they want Ukraine to be free
and they want the Russian armies to be run out, the Russian Army to
be run out by whatever means necessary. So that continues to go on,
is my only point. A year and a half later, and I don't
know how much longer. I mean, it might go another I hope not.
It might go longer than that that that battle has gone on. And
so there you go. So some good nostalgia on the final fight of former
heavyweight champ Bialy Clitch. Going with that, we are done with a preview
that did not have prominent fights again for this weekend, so we will get
creative give a quick plug because there are not prominent fights and in part because
I am traveling back part of my broadcast duties with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The regular season is underway. We're playing in Minnesota, the Great White North
in Minneapolis. We are traveling back Sunday night, and because of the lateness
of the hour and the fact look we love Seinfeld. We saw Seinfeld out
in Las Vegas. Jerry Seinfeld, hilarious comedian and the show about nothing.
He made his empire about nothing. Sunday Night show was going to largely be
about nothing. You just heard a great deal on this preview of what the
Sunday Nights Show was going to impart probably be, so you came up with
a plan B plug away on that for Sundays, so you're not going to
have me and TJ recapping fights. It didn't take place, but we've discussed
a whole shipload of news now. I guess it's possible that between now and
then something else. We'll just have to save that for later on. So
what we have for you listeners is actually what I think was a fantastic interview
that I conducted this week with the manager Keith Connelly. And he said,
well, why are you talking to the manager Keith Connelly? And the reason
I've talked to Kick Connelly, the manager who doesn't really do a lot of
interviews for that matter, because he is involved with so many different fighters who
are in the news. So we talked about pretty much everybody. We went
through what's going on with Philip Hehrgovich, for example, who's you know,
these are all people that Keith managers. He is the manager of Hergovitch,
who was right in the middle of all this business in the heavyweight division because
he is the IBF mandatory and that's supposed to be the next fight for Alexander
Usik, so we discussed that situation. He is the manager, of course,
for Adam Knak, who just had the situation unfolded with Kusumano on the
positive drug test, so he's on the bad side of that where his fighter
fought the guy that had the bad drug test and lost. He's also the
manager, we talked about this at length, the manager for Alicia Baumgarner,
the undisputed women's Junior Life weight champion, who's on the opposite side where she's
the one that just had a positive drug test return where she was positive in
a recent fights, So we discussed what's happening with that situation. He is
the manager for Edgar Berlanga. We discussed what's going on with his career and
the prospects of this potential fight that he's in conversations with with everybody involved to
make Berlanga against him. Mangia. He is the manager for Daniel Jacobs and
for Sergei Devrnchenko. We talked about what the future might all for those guys.
We mentioned Chris Algeri, another fighter who is kind of quasi retired,
what his appetite for another fight might be. He's in doing this thing,
doing a lot of commentary, so we'll see if we talked about whether he
wants to fight again. He's got a number of quality young fighters prospects on
the rise, such as Mark Castro, khalil Co a light heavyweight, and
Russhat Maddy the welterweight hand. We also got into a little bit about his
junior welterweight that he is the manager for Richardson Hitchins, who is an excellent
young fighter, undefeated, an Olympian who's going to be in the main event
on his own coming up against Jose Zapaydent. What's a very solid match up,
a contrast of styles, definitely the biggest step up for Hitchens, who
was supposed to fight Montana Love but Montana claimed an injury. The feeling for
many is that he just didn't want to smoke, so to speak. So
anyway, Conley as the manager for all these different fighters had a lot to
say on all these topics. So we bring to you a lengthy interview where
we get into all that which that will be what we have for you on
what was supposed to be a recap show, but it'll just be my interview
with Keith. It will not be a show about nothing. It will be
a show about something with Keith. So we're gonna hear that Sunday night into
Monday, and we promise you if something blockbuster does happen, we will address
it on the podcast feed because brother Rayfield, that's why they got to follow
and subscribe on all the podcasts at let's to the outlist of this feed because
something may come up and we'll come back and you and I will converse about
it and whatever it is. If not, we'll go into the preview mode
for next weekend, the next time that you'll hear from us. So listen,
great stuff on this, have a great weekend. What do you like
to say on Saturday? Without big time championship fights? Cole who call your
mother, call you mother, do something with that. I'll trust again.
Check in with your family, Go go have a meal. There's lots of
college football that's on that you can watch, etc. We will have a
little bit of boxing Dan again on his substack and on Big Fight Weekend dot
Com we'll have something about the smaller cards that are going on. Again,
no bet Us show because there's not prominent fights. There's not a bet Us
Live Friday show at one like there typically is one Eastern time on Friday for
this week. It'll be back next week for the prominent fights. For now,
though, I think we're good Giants Cowboys on Sunday, Ny Giants Cowboys
Sunday Night. You're gonna be in thralled with that. I'm flying back from
Minnesota after the Buccaneers the Vikings, so you and I will reconvene next week
with a preview. I look forward to hearing that interview with Keith Conley that
will suffice on the recap podcast. It comes off the weekend. Again.
We preview going into the weekend, usually on Friday morning. Recap usually out
on Monday. With that, have a good weekend, Dan, Rayphael,
enjoy yourself, enjoy your trip to Minnesota and the books. Yeah, there
we go Minneapolis in my future. For now, we're good followers. Subscribe
Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, Spreeker Spotify to the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed,
and again we love the fact that thousands and thousands of you have found
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U Night recap coming off the weekend, Ye