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regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. The countdown is on t Bight Time.
This is Big Fight Weekend. Now here is your host tjes Well,
Well, we have reached the final weekend in April when we got lots to
get you on the latest edition of the show. Now I will tell you
upfront there's not a Big Time World title fight. But the big Man,
Dan Rayfield and I were not not gonna sit this point out. We are
here. We are here, and Dan's got Canelo Alvarez in a conversation coming
up on the Big Fight weekend preview. Also we will recap Gervante Davis and
Ryan Garcia. Their pay per view numbers will put all of that to bed
here in a little bit, a very interesting pay per view numbers did very
well. That and some other fight news, some nostalgia. We are here,
we are back. Hello, Dan Rayfield speaking of back back from Las
Vegas and covering everything with Davis Garcia. All right, so again we do
we do have a show this weekend, and that is what the do Zone
matchup that is in Arlington, Texas. William Zappela and himI Arboleda, Arboleda
Arboletta, help me on that go through this every week. Arboletta and Zapeta
are lightweights. That's the Zone main event on Saturday. But we would be
less than honest with the audience that we don't have a big time fight this
weekend. We were maybe gonna have Fury and Usick, but that went away
long ago. That went away like six weeks ago that that was not going
to happen on April to twenty ninth, on Saturday. Anyway, how are
you feeling. You look rested, you look refreshed. I was. I
was concerned for you, like on Monday, when I hadn't heard from you
by about two Eastern time. But then I'm like, you know, I
think my man's still on Pacific time before you checked in with me on Monday.
It's good to have you back here on the podcast. How are you,
Dan, Raphael? I'm good, And let me tell you of all
the things I've learned through the years of making those trips to the West Coast
for fights, as I've done for a long long time. Unless there's something
absolutely has to get done or some kind of dramatic thing that needs to be
dealt with. When I get home late on a Sunday night, and my
flight was, you know, a couple of hours late Sunday night. Anyway,
I sleep in on Monday morning. I don't get out of bed.
I don't you know. I'm just you know, I've traveled, i've worked
the fight, I've done my thing. I slept like one o'clock on Monday,
and I still live bit on the Pacific time, but I'm good,
I'm refreshed, I'm i'm I wish there was a big fight this weekend,
but there isn't, and that's not the worst thing in the world. I
mean, we have a little bit of a letdown. I mean, we
do have that the Zone show you mentioned, which I will watch and I
actually expect it could be a fun fight. But uh, you know,
we'll reconvene in the coming weeks. We've got some big fights coming up,
some ones I'm I'm totally psyched for, whether it's Devin Haney against Vesta Loma
Chanko May twentieth, I'm excited about a couple of you know, a few
weeks after that, we have, well, he got Canello next week.
It's not maybe the biggest Canelo fight, but of course he's you know,
a much must watch star. And then a couple weeks after that, Haney
and Loma. I'm anxious for mid June. That second weekend, Tiafimo Lopez
challenging Josh Taylor for the Junior welterweight ROLD title in New York City, a
fight that I will be attending looking forward to that. So we got some
good stuff coming up. We do, we do, and you'll hear from
Cannello Albres in a few minutes from a recent Dan interview that he did with
him. It's gonna be Canello Fight week next week in Guadalajara, Mexico.
England's John Ryder is the opponent, and so they'll be much covered on that.
Again, I say this all the time, but we don't do this
lightly. Dan. We just set an audience record for the big fight weekend
preview off of this past weekend, off the Recap show, off the Fight
Freaks to unit recap. Thank you to the audience. Keep findings key and
make sure you're following or subscribing in all seriousness here because there's great content on
this podcast feed. We've been getting a lot of new audience, more of
audience and rightfully so, Dan and I put a lot of work into this.
Thank you to you folks for finding it. We get a lot of
positive feedback from people that enjoy it. They're almost like addicts at this point.
Ray feel? Where is my ray feel? On Friday morning? I
need my fix? Where is my ray feel? Off the weekend? But
tell me what's going on? I don't know if it's where's my TJ at
this point, but listen, thank you to the audience, follow or subscribe.
That's the easiest way to get the content because sometimes again here's another example,
like last week, you grab Steven Spinoza of Showtime Sports to talk to
him not only about Davis Scarcia, but the possibilities of a Spine Krawford World
Walterweight showdown, and we didn't have a lot of lead time. You kind
of promoted it socially, but there were a bunch of people that found that
interview and heard it because they're following and subscribing, and they got an automatic
notification that the plan on that was, like I'm gonna grab Espinoza in the
media center at the Tank and Ryan fight, and I'm gonna get him for
like, you know, we'll sit down ten minutes, we'll talk about about
that fight, and we would just include it in one of our normal episodes.
But Steve is the kind of guy who likes to talk and he's never
had a problem doing an interview. And I've known Steve forever and we have
a good rapport, and he was into it, and I felt like I
was asking him some pretty good questions about not only the Tank and Ryan fight,
but then when we moved on to Crawford Spence. The point was,
it turned out that he gave me like thirty thirty five minutes and we got
a lot of good material. And you and I had, you know,
behind the curtain, should we run it in the show, should we do
a separate and we decided, you know what, we're gonna do a full
show anyway previewing the fight, let's run it separate. And you know what,
I'm happy to the audience enjoyed it. Yes, you gave a little
inside baseball and the making of the deal. I believe that we have the
kind of ardcore fans who listen to us yammer on that like that kind of
detail that Steve offered up about those two negotiations and deals and fights. So
I was thrilled that we were able to pull that off. And that's one
of the reasons besides just writing an article here. You know, as you
go through the fight week, that's the reason why you show up at the
event, because you're able to be in front of people as opposed to like
just being on the phone or a zoom call or something like that. Good
access on that and again you're gonna hear from Canelo in a few minutes.
We will preview that fight card in Arlington, Texas. All right, let's
get to it, though, I mean, Steven Esponota's Esponosa's got to be
thrilled, Oscar day La Joya and Golden Boy have got to be thrilled.
I know they're thrilled at the Team Obile Arena for the promotion because PBC it
was a massive success on pay per view and live Gate. Now, I
know you've done some reporting on this too. How accurate is it that the
live gate is somewhere around twenty seven or twenty eight million dollars, which is
what is the number that was being floated. How accurate is that now?
I mean it's close to something like that. A lot of accurate, was
it? No, you're you're just so slightly off the live Gate report,
and this is accurate. Twenty two point eight million dollars. That's ticket sales
to the fight. So Tmobile Arena holds like a little over twenty plus thousand
for a boxing event, and they announced the attendance on Saturday night to the
press during the show twenty thousand eight hundred and forty two. What that does
not include is that there's also another two thousand plus people who are in the
various suites that they've built in the Team Mobile to bring in additional revenue,
and so they sold. So the number that twenty two point eight million dollars
comes from eighteen thousand, two hundred and fifty two tickets sold, another twenty
another two thousand or so that are in the suites. And this is the
stat I think is amazing. If you look at the manifest that tells you
all the you know breaks down the you know where, you know which price
levels, tickets are sold out, etc. They were actually, believe it
or not, seventy three unsold tickets out of the twenty thousand plus arena,
which means here there there there was like an unsold single seat, not unusual
even for the biggest events. I found that to be hilarious. But anyway,
that's still a monster number, twenty two point eight million. Let's put
that in perspective. Now, granted we're not taken into account inflation. You
know, fights years ago, if you did a buy inflation, that were
some of those megafights at the outdoor Arena and Caesar's Palace might be at the
same level. But if you're just talking apples to apples, which is the
dollar figure, and the fights that I'm going to mention to you are somewhat
recent vintage the last you know, certainly within the last ten years. The
twenty two point eight million dollars puts the gate for Garcia, for Davison Garcia
in number five all time in Nevada history. Now, think about all the
big fights that have taken place in Nevada. That's a big number. So
the number one of all time, which is the outlier, which is the
one that's not only the biggest ever in Nevada, but it's the biggest one
that I'm aware of in the history of boxing period, no matter where or
when or whatever inflationary Uh you know, thing you want to use was Mayweather
versus Pack. Yeah, that was at the MGM Grand a fight that I
was at. The live gate for that fight was over seventy two million dollars,
Absolutely ridiculous. In second place, that's all the ticket sales in the
arena. The pay per view, yes exactly, not pay per view,
not closed circuit, not T shirts, not international television sponsorship, not parking.
Just the ticket seventy two million, one hundred ninety eight thousand, five
hundred dollars. Wow. And that's just the official number according to the Nevada
State up but a commission. So that was in two thousand and fifteen.
Now, if you go to the second place fight, it was another Floyd
fight. It was his grand finale against Connor McGregor. That was two thousand
and fifteen. Another fight, or rather, i'm sorry, two thousand and
seventeen, another fight that I was at. That fight. I'm looking at
the exact number. Fifty five million, four hundred and thirteen thousand, eight
hundred and sixty five five dollars and seventy nine cents. Okay, you gotta
get that seventy nine cents in there still. I mean that's massive. Okay.
Now we get into the now, there's a handful of fights in Nevada
that have been a north of twenty million dollars. This is the third best
of them. The other two that were twenty million plus that were better than
the Tank and Ryan fight were the first and second installments of the rivalry between
Canelo and Triple G. First fight in twenty seventeen, slightly over twenty seven
million dollars. Second fight in twenty eighteen, you know, a bit over
twenty four million dollars. And then the next one, number five is the
fight that took place last weekend, Ryan Garcia against Tank Davis at twenty two
point eight million dollars. So that just goes to show you that these guys
just they touched a nerve an emotion whatever you want to call it, with
the public that had them shell out big money. And and just for the
record about it, the way that they got to the twenty eight million TJ
is that the tickets were priced on face value. Now this is not based
on the gate numbers, not based on what the secondary market sold, and
some of those tickets went for obviously much much more than the face value.
The face value of the tickets for this fight were between a small amount,
but there were some two hundred dollars tickets to get in at the highest you
know, up in the bleed up in the nose bleed area, all the
way to five thousand dollars for some of those ringside tickets. So the official
ticket prices ran the gamut from two hundred to five thousand, and when they
sold all of them except for seventy three. It generated twenty two point eight
million dollars. And listen, that is a big fucking number for a gate.
Yes, and again, the simple math I went to public school again,
is if you got twenty thousand, that you're counting twenty thousand, even
twenty two thousand, and the number is right at twenty two million for the
live gate. And that's telling you roughly a thousand dollars a ticket on average,
not that all of them were priced that that's still seventy five million from
Mayweather Paciol in the same type of setting. That tells you that it was
north of like four thousand right per ticket on average for every ticket in the
average ticket price. Incredible, incredible numbers, incredible math. Now let's get
to the pay per view. What you're reporting on the on the pay per
view, because I think that exceeded everybody's expectation by a lot. Tell us
more on Garcia Davis scoring even bigger, even more revenue on pay per view,
den what can you say? He was a huge number. And I'll
be the first to admit in a long time of handicapping or prognosticating pay per
view numbers, I'm actually pretty good. I mean I used to have this
conversation with Mark Taffett, who was the long time senior vice president of HBO
Sports who ran HBO pay per View, essentially was involved in the creation of
modern pay per view, and you know, he would always compliment me because
we would always have our pre fight conversation, what do you think it's going
to do? And and frankly, more often than not, I was right
there in the wheel asks of what these fights would do. So but I
can take d l once in a while because I gotta give it up.
I got to admit what I'm wrong. So when it came to Ryan Garcia
and Taint Davis, I did think it was going to do a very healthy
number. We talked about it on the one of the preview podcasts, I'm
sure, I did some of us interviews with my friends at some of the
YouTube channels and we talked about it. So in my mind I kept thinking,
it's a slam dunk to do a half a million. And you know,
if they really did a hell of a job and people really you know,
it touched them and they wanted to see this that you know, it
had a chance. Maybe it get to like seven seven fifty would be in
that realm. I did not believe for a lot of different reasons that it
would in the metric I had in my mind, or the comparison I should
say that I had in my mind was the rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay
Wilder, which again to me, was the greatest promoted pay per view event
I have ever covered, because of the tonnage from Fox and ESPN, the
way that the two companies came together worked seamlessly, the way that the boxers
just promoted the heck out of each other, two A sides, both with
huge charisma, big fan bases. Uh, never stopped talking, never stopped
doing interviews on you know, whether it was on social media with traditional outlets,
with YouTube, with Internet whatever. It just never stopped for two months
talking about that fight. And it did a huge gate, and the pay
per view was a little disappointed at eight hundred fifty thousand, not because it's
not a good number, but there, you know, the the thought was
there so much piracy that people watched it, but they didn't necessarily pay for
it. But so that eight fifty and then you looked at the Canelo Alvarez
fight against Caleb Plant, which was another well promoted fight, big time fight,
high significance. Remember Fury and and uh Fury and uh and and Wilder
was the rematch for the heavyweight Championship of the World that had had an excellent
first fight with all the knockdowns that uh you know that Deonte scored and Fury
surviving anyway, a lot of reasons that people are going to tune in for
the rematch. Then I talked about the Caleb Plant fight against Canello, again
big time fight, well promoted h by our friends at Showtime and PBC,
and it was for a historical kind of fight. Canello was going for undisputed.
Plant obviously could have been undisputed also, but he Cannello had been very
busy racking up the belts. He got to the last one with Caleb Plant
and another fight that did very well on pay per view based on today's era
that's so filled with piracy. It did like eight hundred and thousand plus pay
per view buys. I'm like okay, and as Espinoza and I had talked
about, eight hundred thousand was like the new million. So when it came
to Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis. My thinking, Okay, it's a it's
a really interesting matchup, but it's not as big in terms of meaning,
let's say, as the heavyweight Championship of the World or you know, Canello
fighting Caleb plant with a chance for the number one star to become the undisputed
champion to culminate what had been a very active period of his career. You
know, this was like his fourth fight in eleven months. So I kept
thinking to myself, Garcia and uh and Tank is going to be a big
number, but it probably won't quite get to the level of those two fights
that in my mind were bigger deals. Well, I was fucking wrong,
Ry and it happens. So there obviously were a lot of people besides the
diehard boxing fans, And I'm happy about this because it's good for It's great
for the sport when you put eyeballs on a big event like that. So
the fight ends up doing one point two million pay per view buys. To
me, and I think to most people who observe and are involved or are
write about it or whatever, it's an astronomical and a totally unexpected number.
And I kind of got the feeling after my predictions. Let's say that we're
heading to a monster because on the night of the fight, I talked to
a person involved in the pay per view industry, somebody that was with pappv
dot com who was telling me even now, the people that anybody that does
an event on digital, they know their numbers immediately. This is not a
time where the numbers that are not known are the cable systems because they got
to go through a lot of other accounting procedures. It just doesn't show up
on a on a computer screen and tell you how many buys are. It's
much more complicated to get final numbers for a traditional pay per view on linear
television. But when the PPV dot com people tell you the night of the
fight, they don't tell you the number, but they're like, we know
already this is our biggest pay per view we've ever had. Now you feel
like something special is going on. So I had the feeling on the night
of the fight, as I'm seated in the T Mobile arena that this may
be a little bit bigger than I maybe had given it credit for. Even
at that a million, okay, then I hear a million two, And
now nobody tells you the number outright. There was no formal announced, but
after a lot of the industry people leaked it to media, people like myself,
you have Oscar Daal La Joya and the people at Golden Boy put out
their own statement today which is Thursday as we tape it, where they acknowledged
that it was one point two million, and they basically gave themselves a pat
on the back about the gate, about the prey preview, did a little
victory lap because they have been involved in some of the biggest papers. Oh
we're getting we're getting to patting yourself on the back here in a few minutes,
just a second, when you're done about Oscar and about the zone and
about that whole thing, and buy so the back to the pay per view.
When you do that, many pay per view buys and you charge eighty
four ninety nine. And by the way, just so people are clear,
we're not talking. We're not doing the wacky de zone math where they're including
pay per views around the world like they like to mix up apples and oranges.
We're doing traditional apples to apples. Compared to every other big time pay
per view that we've known of in the old HBO Universe and the Showtime Universe.
It was on Fox pay per view, on ESPN pay per view whatever.
This is North American, not Mexico necessarily for some Canelo fights, but
basically the number derived for a Tank and Ryan includes the United States of America,
Canada, and I believe also Puerto Rico. That's where that one point
two million comes from. And in eighty five bucks to popt in most places,
you're talking about a fight that generates just in pay per view review.
This does not include the twenty two plus million dollars at the gate. This
is a one hundred million dollars plus revenue night for everybody. Now, the
cable operators and the satellite services and the partners, they get their share.
Now. For many many years it was almost like virtually fifty fifty. Maybe
the promoter would get a touch more. But the way that it works now
is there's a lot less that goes to the cable operator, so it makes
up for it. This was a big, big night for everybody involved.
And by the way, the boxers, I'm not sure what their take is
in terms of just I was just going there. I was just going there.
But that just gotta be for I mean conservatively, if you're talking about
eighty ninety million dollars just off the pay per view plus the live gate.
But the pay per view in specific was where everybody knew this was this was
going to make them significant money. If it was gonna make it, you
would have to think that the fighters are getting at least ten percent of that,
at least maybe more. You can't put a percentage on it. You
don't know what they're doing. I would have to think they're not worth the
speculation. TJ. It's different every time I know more about than this.
On on this with them, I gotta believe that Jervonte Davis made at least
eight or ten million off the pay per view until somebody disproves that. And
he may have made and he may have made fifteen or twenty million off the
pay per view. Now, Ryan Garcia may not have made his high a
percentage A side versus B side, but I'd be shocked if Ryan Garcia didn't
make like five percent of the pay per view, which again on the math,
would be it's not a million. It's not about how much you make
on the pay per view. It's about Now Again, I'm assuming we don't
know the details. So we're getting into an area I don't care to spell
right, but I don't know anything I'm talking about. But if it's run
like a normal way, there probably was some kind of guarantee. We're not
talking about the Crawford Spence mess where they were going to do a no guarantee.
There was some kind of guarantee. Now, normally what would occur is
that the each boxer with their team would agree to a base purse at the
worst case scenario, and it could be very low, could have been like
two or three million dollars or whatever. But where you really make the money
if your event hits is you get X number of dollars per buy over a
certain threshold. So for example, if the fight does over five hundred thousand,
you get eight dollars a home over five hundred thousand. That's just one
example. So yes, I am sure that Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia made
a tremendous amount of money from this event. Golden Boy probably made its successful.
It's probably a successful year for them, frankly, based on what they
can make on this fight and for PBC and TGB and everybody else involved.
They've had probably their best score in a long long time, because even though
they've done other pay per views, like for example, Deontay Wilder against Robert
Lennius, I mean, they barely probably covered their expenses and that kind of
fight, even if they maybe even they might have lost a little bit of
money. That's just the way it goes. When I talk about the Tyson
Fury Deontay Wilder rematch, that fight generated in astronomical amounts of money, but
the guarantees that were given to Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder made it such that
if you talk to the promoter folks, they'll tell you that they didn't make
money on the then because so much of that went out to the boxers that
they that they kind of lost money on the overall event. And by the
way it was public, it was public. You wrote about this and others
wrote about this that they're guarantees for the third fight were north of twenty million
dollars each guarantees before you got to the split. But we're talking about the
second fight. The second fight was they were guaranteed my recollection as twenty five
million a piece. On the third fight, they were guaranteed north of twenty
million each. One of them. It was in the contract for the rematch
already in advance. It got put into place, the whole thing, so
I do remember so that I'm talking about it, but I'm talking about the
success of fight number two number. Fight number three did not do as big
of a number, I'm sorry. Fight three did not do as big of
a number as fight too. Fight. Of the three fights at Tyson and
Beant, they had, the first fight, which was a showtime pay per
view, was like, you know, maybe maybe two eighty three hundred something
like that. The second one was the monster at eight fifty ish. The
third one I think did very well also off thought may I don't remember.
It might have been over seven to fifty or something like that, but it
didn't reach the level of the second fight, and the tees in the third
fight my recollection, we're not as great as the guarantees in the second fight.
But whatever, the point of it is still uh it's I mean,
it's a it's a huge win. Is the is the overall arching point for
everybody involved. The mune was raked in on this. Everyone they have they
have their their take of that of that hundred plus million on the pay per
view in the United States, Like I said, a big, a good
percentage that goes to the operators tens of millions of dollars, but they're still
got a shipload left over. Then there's the gate what we talked about.
Now there's expenses to pay for that, an expensive for the whole event,
etcetera. But then there's also all the foreign television. Remember if you were
watching this fight in Japan, or you're watching it in next story, you're
watching it in in France, or you're watching it in Kazakhstan, whatever,
those outlets in those countries paid something for the right to have that broadcast.
So if you add it up country by country by country, uh, this
fight probably didn't do gargantuan numbers internationally because the way you get the real good
money internationally is if it's a title fight, and this was not a title
fight, so in certain countries they wouldn't necessarily be that interested, but it
still was. There's obviously still international broadcast rights that go into the into the
into the pot. And by the way, all the people that were there
wearing T shirts, all the people that were there wearing you know, tank
Garcia hats. You know, if you bought a poster in the gift shop
for fifteen bucks or whatever it was, or you bought a program, or
you bought whatever alcohol that money alcohol. By the way, they had sponsors.
The big George Foreman movie was a sponsor. They paid a fee.
There were you know, the uh, the new I forget, I don't
even forget what it is, but it was some some new sports drink the
Gatorade was putting out. They were a sponsor of the event. And anyway,
every one of those sponsors and all those those logos you see on the
ring bat all of those people pay six figures most likely to be involved in
the event. So you add up every single one of those revenue streams,
you're talking about a fight that's probably in the hundred fifty million dollars range.
All in. Wow, tremendous. All right, So let's spend a minute
or two on this because it's worthwhile. The mess, the absolute mess that
Do Zone was for I think it's fair to say more than a few and
probably hundreds, if not thousands of people that we can probably tangibly point to
that we're either having trouble logging on through to Zone to buy the pay per
view. Davis Garcia we're talking about, which again, primarily it was a
Showtime promoted event, but de Zone and Golden Boy were also promoting it.
Buy it through to Zone, all right. So I can't say with any
certainty that there were five thousand, that there were one hundred thousand, that
there were two hundred thousand people trying to buy through to Zone. I don't
know how much it was, but people have come out of the woodwork to
say I had trouble logging in and streaming it, and then they kept encouraging
me to buy it again or log in again and have now double and triple
charged me for the pay per view. And here we are Dan sitting on
Thursday. Numerous ones of these people that have contacted us on Big Fight weekend
are saying that even as of Wednesday and Thursday, they've heard from no one
on how do I get my refund and they're having to look into voiding it
through their credit card company, etc. So this was a mess not for
everybody, but for a lot of people trying to log in through the Zone.
It was made available through the Zone and buy the pay per view,
and by their own admission, to Zone apologized during the broadcast that they knew
there was a problem with the massive amount of people trying to log in and
view it on to Zone. It was causing it to be slow. It
was blocking people from being able to access it. But I mean, there
are examples that people have sent to us. Here's my bill. They charged
me three times for the fight and I still couldn't see the fight. There
was one guy where they charged him nine times. He tried it. It's
like Ferris Bueller's day off. He's missed nine times on school nine times,
nine times. Nine times. They charged this customer for the pay per view
trying to watch it, and he still doesn't have a refund days later.
What a what a mess? And I got aggravated, and you're aggravated a
little bit as well. There's a reason why when this fight was being negotiated
that Showtime did not want to allow the Zone to be involved. And this
is one reason. Now, it was their product on the Zone's platform.
And obviously, if you were already a Zone subscriber, be it for a
month or for a year, it made sense to buy the fight on de
Zone because you're going to see the same Showtime broadcast. But and this was
something that Espinosa spoke about an hour preview podcast. The retail price of the
paper views eighty four ninety nine. But if you're already an annual subscriber or
multi subscriber to Zone like I was, why would you buy it for eighty
five bucks on linear television or on PPV dot com or on satellite dish or
any other place that sold it. Not because they're not good services and then
don't do a good job or anything like that. But there it's eighty five
bucks, but he already a subscribed to the Zone, it's only sixty okay.
And that was something that Espinosa talked about, like they had to deal
with. You know, there's a limited number of subscribers on the Zone,
so they felt like it was that was something they had to give up in
the negotiation to make the deal happen. So I, for example, I
may be an anomaly, but even though I was there ringside, I still
bought the pay per view because when I came home, what do I like
to do TJ. I'm a fight a collector. I wanted to make a
DVD of it. So if I buy it on the Zone, no problem.
Like I've done with the Canelo fights and other things. Now I get
the Zone through my cable as an app on our box, I can easily
make a DVD of it through the Zone. I figured, no problem,
That's what I've done for previous Canelo fights. As a matter of fact,
I even asked one of the Zone people, Hey, is this like Canelo?
You know the replay? I can? I can if I buy the
pay per view, I can still watch the replay like you can basically anytime.
Yeah, of course, no problem, Like I've done on ESPN Plus.
You know with the Tyson Fury against Dyllian White at or Sean Porter against
they had him sitting there as an archive died them for certain exact play it
you just you just hit the button and you can watch it again. So
on the night of the fight, when I was in the arena, I
went on to Zone just to make sure because I had purchased the pay per
view for sixty dollars through my Apple Pay on my phone, and I was
sitting on my laptop and I and I was like, I said, I'm
watching the fight live, but I checked to make sure everything was good,
and sure enough, there's there's the fight. Okay, cool, Everything's good,
no problem. Now I go home. Uh Sunday, I get home.
As I mentioned a couple hours later, I was already a little cranky
from a long day of travel, tired, and already running a couple hours
behind schedule. So I was not in the best of moods. But when
I finally got home and I settled in and I was unpacking, I was
doing stuff, and I was back in my office, I went on to
Zone again just to see what was up with the pay per view, and
I wanted, actually I wanted to rewatch the fight a little bit, and
you know, just sort of relax. Here's some of the commentary, do
my thing. And I'm looking and and there's no fucking fight. So I
see a section on the Zone school page that's Garcia, Davis Garcia. You
know they break it up. Okay, well it's there, and I'm scrolling
through, and like you can watch them before the belve parts like those two
prelim fights with Vito Milnikki, etc. That were on Showtime's Facebook and YouTube
channel. You could rewatch the way in. You could rewatch the press conference,
like I watched the little interviews that they carved out. You could watch
they had a file that was like fight highlights. There was like fifteen fucking
things on there to watch and there was no event, and what the fuck
is going on here? So it's still not there? I thought, you
know what, I actually give them benefit of doubt. Maybe there was some
issue, like you know, they took a day or it took a little
time to put it back into the archive, and that does happen occasionally.
But I mean, I'm I'm a pretty chilled guy when it comes to that.
So when it wasn't there again, now I'm reaching out, I'm like,
hey, what's up with this? And nobody still has fucking given me
an answer, and I'm not again. This is four days later, and
by the way, you are who you are, and you and you're already
upset that you don't have it, and they have to know. They have
to have a brain cell or to know that you're about to publicize that.
One of the I don't think it's too strong of a word. One of
the things that you can be accused of fraud about is that you're offering to
people there's gonna be a replay, there's gonna be a discounted price. You
know, you're gonna be able to do whatever. And if you start overcharging
people and you don't have a replay, you you're talking there's there are fans
talking about a class action lawsuit against them, and I don't know if there
is one yet, but go ahead pick it up. Well, I I
have asked about it. I have not yet received a satisfactory answer. Joe
Markowski from the Zone, if you're listening, go check your DMS please.
So it's just so that I'm not I'm not even blaming like the PR people.
One of the PR people from one of the PR people from the Zone
that I was talking to basically was like, we'll get you a refund.
I'm like, I'll tell you what. And I've done this. I got
a credit card since I was like eighteen years old and went away to college.
Okay, I've done this maybe like three times in my life. I
went on the website for my credit card and I disputed the charge because I
will die before I give them my sixty dollars for that. Okay, So
did I understand this? As of Thursday, when we're releasing the podcast,
there is still not a replay of the fight. It's not there. I'm
gonna use the word that is inexcusable. Now, I think the reason that
they didn't tell you the reason, No, no, no, I understand
what you're saying. It's fucked up because they tried to make it like it
wasn't going to be the case. My impression, and I don't have a
clear answer, so if I'm wrong, you know, Mia Copa, My
impression is because it was a Showtime event that they were using on their platform.
That because Showtime has the rights to the replay, which they will not
of the They're not going to replay the entire event. They're going to replay
the Tank and Ryan main event yes Saturday Night on their regular Showtime service,
along with the epilogue episode of their all access show. So they didn't want
that to be available. So I'm assuming maybe I'm wrong. If somebody's out
there that is with Showtime or do Zone knows the answer, let me know.
You all have my phone number in my email and my text. All
that is that that they didn't have the right to do that because Showtime Now
is the exclusive owner and that how do you not tell your customers that?
Yes, but I'm just talking about in general, how do you not tell
your customers with a disclaimer. The replay is not available until this date,
which would probably be what April the thirtieth. Son not available all right now,
but it's not available at all. But how do you not tell them
it's not going to be available? If it is available until after the showtime
replay on Saturday night, it may not even be available after that. And
at that point, why am I spending the money? So here's the point
I make. I bought it on sixty dollars to Zone because I wanted to
tape the replay. Had I known there was no replay, I just sucked
it up and I'd have bought it for the eighty five on a different platform
and and dv art it. You know what I mean. Yes, So
again I have not gone on social media and punished them yet. I'm waiting
to see how it's resolved. But you're doing it here as you showed.
Fuck with me is the point, and that's what a lot of people are
saying. And you're better off than the ones that have been charged in this
case over two hundred and fifty dollars for a fight that they couldn't get through.
Again, we had numerous people say I was charged twice. I was
charged three times, and I gave up trying to buy it. And by
the way, at least in my case, I at least got to watch
the fight because I was there in the arena, so I got to watch
it fair enough. But imagine if you bought the fight on pay per view
for sixty bucks, got charged three, four or five, six, seven,
eight, nine times and still didn't get a chance to watch it even
though you're already at the Zone subscriber. That is the most fucked up thing
I can think of. The Zone has done everything possible in the last while
to completely grew over their fans, people who I want to defend them.
I want to love them overall. The concept of their service I like.
I think they do have a good fight schedule generally speaking, I got no
problem with it. But when you raise the prices in such a dramatic way
that they've done multiple times over a short period of time, and you can't
deliver an HD signal, you can't deliver a replay of a pay per view
that you said there'd be a replay for, and you have all these other
people that can't even access that at all. You have myriad production problems time
and time again, because you're trying to spend three cents instead of the ten
cents to make a good show. And I believe me. I know that
from people who have been involved in production, who've told me, who have
worked on the Zone events, who have also worked on Showtime events, how
much they cheap out to save any money they can on the production. Why
do you think there's instability with some of their shows? It's one problem after
another, and they better take care of this shit. They better take care
of all those refunds for those people. And not only should they give them
a refund, they should make good. We're gonna give you an extra couple
of months of the Zone just because we feel bad about it. Have a
concept of customer service. You know, if you get a customer that likes
your product, they don't have a problem paying for it. They'll embrace it.
They'll they'll continue to use it, they'll tell their friends about it.
But they'll do likewise the opposite, continue to take advantage of them. Oh,
I agree, And there are angry people four or five days later that
I'm just about it now. You got me really going? I understand?
Okay, So there's a negative. Let's go to a positive. Let's go
to Canelo Alvarez. Do I even dare say that it's on the Zone coming
up? Cane pay per view coming on. By the way, I must
say, I must interject. If you're gonna watch the Canelo Rider fight on
pay per view, obviously it's a the Zone pay per view and the same
kind of deal. It's a certain price if you subscribe. But if you
don't want the problems, I'm going to give our people a little plug here.
Either buy on in demand on your regular TV for a couple of dollars
more, or buy it on PPV dot com. There's one thing I can
tell you for sure. Uh, the chance of you having a problem getting
it on ppev dot com compared to the Zone are almost zero. The ppev
dot com signal is strong. It's easy. I've watched watched the fight the
other night on ppbo com. I logged in, I streamed. I had
no problem for the two or three hours there that I was watching it.
But you can't. Unfortunately, you can't say that about the Zone. I
mean, and it shouldn't be the case. It's their problem and they okay,
But dare I say Canello Rider May sixth, the week from Saturday,
will be on The Zone pay per view, and let's brighten it up a
little bit. Here is Dan Raypheel with the undisputed super middleweight champion who's defending
his titles against John Rider of England. Let's hear their conversation now had recently
in advance of Canelo fight week. It's my great pleasure today to welcome into
our podcast none other than the undisputed super middleweight champ of the world, the
biggest star in boxing, Canelo Alvarez Canello. Welcome to my show. I
appreciate you joining me. I'm looking forward to your fight. We're gonna talk
about that, but I gotta ask you to get started here. Don't you
just love being introduced as undisputed super middleweight champ. I knew how important that
was when you were striving to get all the belts. Yeah, I like
I like to hear that. I like to hear that because you know,
it's something special for me. In eleven months I turned on disputed champion.
That's that's history for me and that I like. I like to hear that,
no doubt about it. All Right, let's tell the people why you're
here. Coming up on May sixth, you have an important fight defending your
titles against your w BO mandatory, the interim champion, John Ryder. It
will be your first fight in Mexico in a decade at the Akron Stadium in
your hometown of Guadalajara. It will be May six live on the Zone pay
per view. And as I was looking at your record, Canal and realize
just how long it had been, not only since you had boxed in Mexico,
but since you had boxed in Guadalajara, why was this sort of the
perfect time for you to have this homecoming fight. I think it's a perfect
time because you know, I'm right now the best fighter and champion on disputed
champion in one sixty eight. I want to bring my people who support me
in the beginning of my career, a great show, a great fight.
So that's why it's important for me, and the people is happy to have
in me in well, Laha, So I'm so happy. What do you
think it's gonna be like? When you, like, I know you have
your press conference in Guadalajara, so you've got a sort of a sense of
maybe the passion of the local folks there of what it's going to be like
when you actually have the fight. But how do you and you've been in
big events for many, many years, but do you think it's gonna You're
gonna even have maybe a little more excitement or butterflies or whatever walking into a
stadium filled with people in your hometown where you know people root for you everywhere
when you fight. But this is going to be I think a little different
without having had a fight there since twenty eleven, since your junior middleweight defense
back against Kurmit Centro, and that was in Mexico City. Yeah, like
you say, I've been in big fights and big events before, but I
think this is this is different because he's in my home, doown my people
who really wants to see me fight fight, and and there's a lot of
people can go to to to USA to to for some reason and they are
so excited. So I think it's going to be a little a little bit
different. I'm gonna feel more butterflies in my in my my so much now.
You always have the pressures of these big events, people tugging at you,
But is it going to be a little bit more difficult with the distractions
that come with home fights. I've talked to different fighters over the years.
Some fighters they like fighting away because they don't have that sort of everybody you
know after them, uh and and and the distractions that go along with it.
Some thrive. What is your perspective? You know, you know,
you know that I thinking about I think about it before I decide to fight
here in how I think about that that situation. But the discipline, the
discipline fighter I am. I just need to be focused on my five and
I'm training right now and I'm like a camp really, Cam, No,
don't go outside your training and focus on the five. So but yeah,
it's a little difficult. It's a little more more difficult for the situation.
But you know, when you know what you want is is that the situation
go more relex So now you have this fight with writer. You sized him
up at your press conferences in both Wattle Art and in Standiego. It's a
little haller than you. He's got good experience, he's thoughts some good fighters.
Just if you just quickly your general thoughts about him as an opponent,
sturdy guy. Only Ben stopped once years ago, but you know he's he's
he's been in a lot of would fight. Uh, he's been a lot
would fight his salpo u. And you know, I'm focus and training like
for the best fighter, you know, because right now that people is talking
about this, it's going to be an easy fight, But they say the
same thing when I fight with with the bold, right, you know,
you never know him in boxing. So I'm gonna drink a hundred percent and
focus and do the correcting and just do my job, all right. So
you brought up Evol like you said that was people consider that an upset.
He obviously is a tremendous fighter also, um, And if all goes well
between you and writer, which I know you expect it well, is your
plan, your your desire still to have the rematch with Dmitri come September?
And if it is the case, do you want to do that at one
sixty eight or at one seventy five. Yeah, that's my goal. Everybody
knows that. That's my goal to fight, to fight, to have the
match with Eval. If not happening, we'll see, we'll see what happened.
But that's my goal. And and in the same way class one seventy
five and the same place, everything the same, so you would go back
up to wait, back up and wait to fight him. Okay, yeah,
what is it that so compels you for the rematch that makes you so
much water rematch? Because you know, I I what, I what I
what? I know I'm not one hundred percent and that fight, so I
want to make sure I'm better than him. Was that because of your wrist
injury that you had surgery on? Yeah, and and plus done. I
have four fights in eleven months or my my hand get worse, right,
really really bad? But uh, as I fighter, I say, no,
it's fine. One more fighting and then we'll see. And I have
I'm not being able to train one hundred percent. That's why I feel like
like I need to to to prove I'm better than him. All right,
So if that is the case and you do have this rematch with Dmitri comes
September, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you as we wrap up
about David Benivites. He looked really sharp against Caleb Plan. I know you've
been asked about him a couple of weeks ago. You obviously knocked Caleb Plan
out. He came awfully close. But Caleb's got that kind of heart and
determination. He is undefeated. He will be your WBC mandatory. Oh,
I'd like to know if you would agree that you are the undisputed champion.
But do you believe that at one hundred and sixty eight pounds he's the undisputed
number one challenger? And how are how interested are you in that fight at
some point in the near future after a bibol rematch. You know that I'm
being in easy to situation a lot of times, and and I'm good with
that. I'm good with that. I don't I don't care who is there.
I just want to make fights and make history. But right now,
look, I think the wall is just my goal right now. But uh,
in the future, was he what happened with that fight? Something that
interests you though? Yeah? Of course, very good. Canell. Thank
you very much for taking time to talk to me today. I really appreciate
it. Look forward to watching you on May six. I wish you're nothing
but the best. Thank you. Then, great job. As always,
they're talking with him and again it's about to be fight week. It is.
You know, we like to do nostalgia on the programs. It is
gonna be a little bit nostalgic because he hasn't fought in Mexico and over a
decade. Am I correct? Because you always correct me. He's not had
a world title fight in Mexico or was it only an early career world title
fight in Mexico's It was an early career title fight. I believe it was
the Kermit Centron fight. But it's been it's been a long time, not
only in Mexico, and it's been even longer since he's fought in Guadalajara,
which is his hometown. So you know, Cannello was really stoked for it.
I mean when I was talking to him, and the thing is when
people hear those interviews, I could see Canello because we're on a zoom call,
and he was as chipper and as happy as could be. He's so
excited to be fighting at home. I maybe it's not the biggest megafight in
terms of Cannello's career obviously, but you know what, he left money on
the table to take the fight home, and he wants to give the fans
a big time fight. He's, like I said, he's taking the haircut,
so you know, it's not like he's fighting for free. Obviously,
but he's not making the kind of money he's made so much money he can
do that. And you have to understand, I'm not saying you, Dan
you to the public. He cares as much because you've told us this before
about this not only being on pay per view. But if I'm not mistaken,
what didn't you tell us that the Triple G third fight was also on
over the year Mexico TV. He insisted on that in the negotiation. I
don't remember if that's the case, but a couple of times his pay per
views have been that way in Mexico because he wants to give back to the
fans that maybe can't afford to pay per view. This is a humongous deal
in Mexico that he is fighting in Mexico, and it's huge for him to
be able to fight back in Mexico. That's one other thing about the Canello
Rider fight is that in a lot of territories around the world where the zonas
in those countries you know they're in like one hundred and eighty or two hundred
marks or something like that, the vast majority of them are not pay per
view. So if you are I believe this is the case, If you
are interested to watch Canello versus Rider, and you live in like Italy,
it's not a paper. You just get it as part of your subscription.
The same way here in America, we got the first fight between Chris you
Bank and Liam Smith, for example, we got that as a regular part
of our just his own baggage. If you were living in the United Kingdom,
that was a sky Box Office pay per view. So depending on the
country you are, it's not necessarily on pay per view. So look,
Canello, as he said in the interview, he was excited to be going
home, you know, and he's looking forward to being in front of that
big crowd at home. He's given Rider the proper respect that he deserves.
I know, Writer may not be a superstar, but he's a solid component
contender slash mandatory slash interim title holder. He's been in the ring with some
good guys. He's coming off back to back solid wins against Daniel Jacobs and
against Zach Parker. And you know, when you are at the top of
the game the way Cannello is, you're not going and you're also active.
Every single fight is just simply not going to be against number two or number
one or King Gong or whatever. And so he's coming off the year where
he lost to BiVO. He had the big win although overcooked against Scannadi Glofkin,
he had surgery on the wrist. This is the first fight since the
injury, so to me it made sense. It doesn't. I'd have no
problem with him going home testing out the hand, possibly setting him a much
bigger fight later in the year against a Bible for example, in a rematch,
or or if there's something else, but taking this match on in this
spot at home. It's going to be a big event and good for Canelo.
You know, he's running his career the way he wants to do it.
He doesn't have to answer to anybody except for himself and his people.
He's doing it his own way. And I take my hat off to him
for that, because he has given us most of the biggest fights that we'd
wanted to see. Good enough, if it'll be Canelo fight week next week
as part of Sinko Tomile Weekend, Sinko Tomio on Friday, and then obviously
the Saturday night title fight on the sixth in Guadalajara, Okay. Usually on
the preview. We have different options or at least we have one prominent world
title fight, et cetera. We don't really have that. For this weekend,
we do have Williams Zapeta lightweight main event. Timi Arbelada is the opponent.
Give me more on this one in Arlington, Texas for this fight,
car, give me a little bit on it real quick. Then we'll get
to some fight news, some nostalgia and be done. Sure. I mean,
Williams Zapeta is one of the best lightweights out there. I mean he
may not have the name recognition or the fan base, let's say, or
the or the high you know, pound for pound or divisional ranking of other
fighters in that weight class, like Devin Haney, the undisputed champion, or
Shakur Stevenson or Vasili Lomachenko or some of the other better well known lightweights.
But he's a dangerous guy. He's a south pot with great punching power.
And when they were plotting out the calendar, originally Zapeta was supposed to be
on the pay per view in the Golden Boys spot that was on the Tank
Ryan Fight last week when the fight between Virgil Ortiz and the WBA Regular title
holder Amanta Stanionis was postponed for a second time because of the ongoing medical issue
that Virgil Ortiz had. Golden Boy wanted to keep the show alive. They
have a lot of undercard fighters they wanted to get active. They have obviously
want to be able to put on events, so they worked things out with
the Zone to substitute to keep the card together, but a new main event.
Williams Zapeta was moved off of the pay per view and now they have
him fighting Arboletta in the main event, and so that's what he's doing now.
I know that Williams Epeta is a fun fighter to watch. He's twenty
seven and oh with twenty three knockouts, and Arboletta, while maybe not a
huge name, he's got a good record nineteen and two with fourteen knockouts.
He's one of a few fights in a row. He did get stopped by
Chris Colbert in a jew or lightweight interim title fight back in twenty twenty,
but he's not a bum or anything like that. So is this the biggest
main event we've ever seen? No? But I actually think it's not a
bad fight, and you know, maybe not the deepest undercard ever, But
again, if you're looking for boxing on Saturday night, this is it.
I don't have to put out a tweet that said there's no box and call
your mother because there is a card to watch on that show. Obviously,
I would much prefer seeing the fight take place finally between Standionis and Virgil Ortiz.
That'll be that's being rescheduled for July, as long as everything is good
with Virgil ortiz as health. But Williams the Paid is one of these guys
in the lightweight division who's making some noise and looking for some kind of big
opportunity, and Arbiletta is like a decent opponent for him to face. I
mean, he did come off his biggest win. Williams Petty defeated Jojo Diez
in his last fight and then just beat him but you know, pretty handily
routed him and on the scorecards. So he's just kind of keeping things going
and he's in there with a solid opponent and what can I say, It's
again not the greatest fight of all time, but you know what, it's
a watchable fight. Like I like watching Williams the paida because you don't see
a lot of South paw lightweights with that kind of punching power, the fight
with the kind of aggression that Williams a Paida does. So I'm looking forward
to watching them fight. All Right, good enough on the one fight card,
some quick fight news and then some nostalgia Alexander Usik. We know that
Daniel Dubois is the mandatory challenger, the secondary buildolder for the WBA. You
have been digging and it looks like his fight is becoming more of a reality,
including the where, and interesting on the where this might happen. Go
ahead and give me a little more on that. So Alex Krassiak, who
is the promoter for Alexander Usik, has been trying to work things out with
this fight, and it's one thing for him to go make a deal with
Frank Warren, who is the promoter for Daniel Dubois. I mean there,
I don't think there's any question they're gonna be able to get something done.
I think most people figure, you know what, it's going to wind up
in the UK because he was gonna fight Tyson Fire in the UK. He
fought Anthony Joshua in the UK in one of their two fights. You know
he's he loves the UK. He won an Olympic gold medal in the UK.
But it turns out that it may not be in the UK because Krasiak
has got a relationship with one of the top promoters in Poland who puts on
regular shows, did a show last week and they're talking about the possibility of
having this fight this summer, which has always been the timeframe to have it
take place in Poland. And why Poland? Now? You can't really do
a professional boxing in Ukraine right now, given what's happening with the war with
Russia. But there's anybody that follows the news for two seconds knows there are
literally millions of people who fled Ukraine and went over the border into Poland who
are now settled in Poland and living in Poland. And so the closest place
he could probably do a fight to being at home in Ukraine will be to
do a fight in Poland. So the conversation has been to do possibly do
his mandatory against Ubad this summer in Poland, which, obviously if they did
do that would be a very large Ukrainian crowd. I'm sure to come to
watch him fight. Gonna impress you here, We'll do a little geography thing
as it relates to this. So Poland is a northern neighbor to Ukraine.
Ukraine is as south of Russia. But that you're right, that's where a
lot of people fled. The equivalent would be like in the United States if
you went north to Canada. Let's say if you went up to Canada and
one part of Canada. So this is realistic that he would have a lot
of fans at that fight. This kind of makes sense. What kind of
time frame are we talking because I still have concerns we haven't heard this.
I rely on you, but I don't know when du Block can be ready
off the knee injury house. It's going to be, But what do you
hear? By all accounts, this fight probably if it gets finalized, would
probably be you know, they got to figure out the venues and the dates
and everything. You're looking at probably July or August, which fits within the
time frame. Uh that that USI spoke about that Alex Crosser gets spoke about
that, the WBA is okay with that, DAWA supposedly gonna be okay to
go h so that it'll be a summer fight. And you know one thing
about him fighting in Poland. You know, he fought a lot of his
early fights of his career in Ukraine. But if you take a look at
the record of Alexander Ussek, he is literally like one of the most ultimate
road warriors we've ever seen because he won when he became undisputed. You know,
he won his first title, if I'm not mistaken, he did it
in uh in Latvia on the opponent and h Myer's bread as this home turf.
He fought in Germany against Marcle Hook. He when he became the undisputed
champion, he did it in Russia, you know, in his opponent's hometown
to unify. You mean the guys fought in the United States against Americans.
I mean, the guy is the ultimate road warrior. Like I said,
he thought Anthony Joshua in Britain. I mean, he is the best when
it comes to have gloves, will travel. So for him to be able
to even get close to Ukraine, where you know there's gonna be Ukrainian folks
that would support, would be a very big deal for him, I think.
I mean, it's it's one thing to win all these fights, but
to do it in front of people that are that are your fans. Is
a big deal. And by the way, I have to imagine that the
Polish fans, given the relationship between the two countries, the Poles are going
to root for him also if he's fighting against a Britain all right, So
we'll wait to hear on that. We do have a top rank announcement that
robes Ramirez is going to be back defending his newly won WBO crown and this
will be on the undercard of the Fulton in a way rescheduled fight for later
in the summer, correct, yes, July twenty fifth, As you know,
they rescheduled Fulton versus in a Way to take place in Japan. That
was after in a way suffered a knuckle injury, so that fight was rescheduled,
you know what, a couple of weeks ago. And to round out
what we'll see here in the United States on ESPN Plus obviously on the channel
where they showed it in Japan, they wanted to add another significant fight and
so they've done so. Robesi Ramirez looked great when he won the title against
Isaac dog Bay back on April first, and this will be his first defense.
He's going overseas. He's going to fight a Japanese fighter, Shimizu,
who is a guy who's eleven and one with ten knockouts. But he's well
known to the Japanese fans because he was gained fame as a two time Japanese
Olympian. He won a bronze medal in the two thousand and twelve Olympic Games.
And as a matter of fact, in those Olympic Games, when Chamizu
won his medal, he actually defeated dog Bay, who is the guy that
that Robesi defeated for the vacant title and he ultimately lost to the did the
eventual gold medal winner Lou Campbell, who would go on to become a top
lightweight contender, fight for the title, have a have a big fight with
Ryan Garcia, knocked him down, get knocked out. So the guy he's
fighting maybe a little older at thirty seven in Chimizu. Satoshi Samizu is his
name. But for our first defense, you know we're again Robisi. Ramirez
doesn't have a big fan base in America. They're looking for a title fight
on this Japanese card and it made a lot of sense. So if you
wake up super early in the morning on July twenty fifth, not only do
you get an awesome matchup between Steve and Fulton and Noya in a way you
know, you see, uh, Robii Ramire is making this first featherweight title
defense against a fighter from Japan that, at least in Japan is a is
a well known commodity, and Ramira is obviously very impressive against Isaac dog Bay
back a few weeks ago here in April. I'm gonna be right back in
the wing in July, back in the ring in July as we should saying,
Hey, let's hear it for being active, because by the way,
you help your own plout. Yes, go ahead. If he wins the
fight on July twenty fifth, Robi Ramis, you know he's going to be
back in the ring at least a third time this year, because they're not
going to keep him on the shelf, I don't believe unless there's an injury
or something. So you'll see probably most likely Robesi Ramirez back in the ring
if he wins, you know, in the later part of the year.
All right, quickly, Sonny Edwards, by the way, newly signed by
match Room, will have a defense coming in June also tell us more about
that. Yeah, so he signed with match Room Boxing after being freed from
Robellum and all that stuff that was going on. He's an undefeated fighter with
a big personality, good boxer, and he signed with match Room Boxing.
And the thing was, the idea was he wants a unification fight, which
is something that's very doable in terms of Naturroom because now they are the promoter
for Sonny Edwards. They are the co promoter of Julio Cesar Martinez, who
was the WBC title holder, and they are also the promoter for the WBO
Tide holder, which is Jesse Bammar Rodriguez. Scranted Bama. Rodriguez is going
to be sidelined most likely until the later part of the year because of the
jaw injury that he suffered. But the point is things are set up for
these unifications, but they couldn't. They didn't want Sonny to just come in
and have to wait several more months. So they got him a fight in
June and shake off the rust and look forward to a unification most likely after
that. But before that happens, he's got to take on an undefeated fighter
named Andre's Campos from Chile. It headlines the mat Room card on his own
June tenth. If Sonny Edwards outboxes the guy like I think most people expect,
he will, I think we're going to see one of those unification fights
at the end of the year. Probably not Damn Rodriguez. He will probably
won't come back into that caliber or fight off the jaw injury. But Julio
Cesar Martinez is in the co feature defending his title on the Canelo John Ryder
card. If he comes through that fight, it seems to me there would
be no reason why Matchum wouldn't move forward and try to do Sonny Edwards versus
Martinez, which, by the way, stylistically is a fascinating fight because Edwards
is the pure consummate boxer. Martinez is the comb straight at you gunslinger,
and we'll see who style can be imposed on the other man if it happens.
All right, I love this too, because we're just going over things.
You wanted to make sure that we make mention that Floyd Mayweather's going to
have another exhibition, and you even use the word mock. We need to
be able to mock this fight. Is this legit? He is going to
fight an exhibition fight against the grandson of gangster John Gotti in the United States,
the deceased gangster. This is legit. This is not make believe,
you know, just for attention, they're actually allegedly going to have an exhibition.
We're taping this podcast on Thursday, and before we started taping this,
I actually went on the link and was watching a little bit of the stream
of their press commerce that they had in Miami. So, yeah, Floyd
Mayweather will have his seventh exhibition match since retiring in twenty seventeen after defeating Connor
McGregor, in which many people would view that as an exhibition match also even
though accounted. But yeah, John Gotti the third is in fact the grandson
of the late mobster John Gotti. He's actually had two professional boxing matches.
He is two and oh with one knockout. He's thirty years old from Oyster
Bay, New York, which is on Long Island. Before he turned to
professional boxing, he was five and one as an NNA boxer, and now
he's fighting an exhibition against Floyd may Weather. And I guess my first thought
was, I wish they could have done a rematch with my with your boy
DEGI just to make it. I'm joking. I mean, look, it's
one of these things. I mean, I've never had a quarrel with Floyd.
If he can get the money to put on these types of events where
he has no chance of losing quote unquote because they don't render scores anyway,
then go do it. But my question is what did the promoters ha in
it? How can they make money exactly? Who are the looney tunes out
there that are buying this? Because I'm the biggest degenerate in the world,
and I have to admit, like I've I've watched some of Floyd's other exhibitions,
but after like the first couple, like I didn't, I stopped buying.
Enough to tell the truth, I don't know if he's a DEGI.
I don't know if he's a DEGI one, but it's the most recent one
that he had in London that I that could not could not have made anything
because there was no one there at the O two arena. They barely had
a couple of thousand, if that, they may not have even had fifteen
hundred people at that end. By the way, now this will probably have
more people there. I understand that in Florida. It's going to be in
South Florida coming. What's that I need to know if my boy TJ is
going to cover it, since you would want me to regionally go, make
time to go down for for Mayweather Gotti the Third, not the Mayweather Gotti
three fight. They haven't fought twice for Mayweather Gotti the Third? Is he
so so? John Gotti was known as teflon Don because they could never convict
him of anything. What is this? Is this teflon light? Is that
his nickname? Teflon uh? Imitation Teflon? I don't know what this is
for John Gotti. Here here's the funny, the funniest thing about this exhibition.
And we've probably already given it like more than it desserts. But I
gotta tell you this. In the press announcements that I received, did I
stop you, hold on? Hold on? Are you going where I think
you're going? I just saw what they're calling this fight? Is that where
you're going? Let me go there? Tell them, tell them they're actually
have the audacity to call this fight as like a title. Last names matter,
like any anybody gives a shit that he's that John Gotti, like like,
if you like, does anybody care that John got well? But you
know they're playing off the whole social justice Black lives matter or is it all
lives matter? I don't know. This is last last names matter is the
name of the promotion, and we've now given it like three minutes two and
a half or three minutes here on the podcast for Mayweather and Gotti the grandson,
John Gotti the Third. I thought, like, it's it is he
fighting a rematch with my my dearly beloved long uh, the late great Arturro
Gaddy. But no, it's with an a oh, Gotti Gotti with an
oh. Anyway, I just think that because you are our big fight weekend
regional regional correspondent to Miami, that I need to be at Mayweather Gotti the
Third, I have a suggestion at the four Game place, and before you
go to cover this great event, did you line up an interview with your
boy Degie to talk about what it's like? Now we can move on,
all right, let's move on some nostalgia. By the way, this is
the anniversary week. It was on Thursday of Rocky Marciano's epic one punch knockout
of Jersey Joe Walcott, which I realized we're going way back. This is
your grandfather's boxing, your father's boxing, your grandfather's boxing back in the fifties.
But that is still Raphael. You got to agree. It's a glacious,
booming knockout where Jersey Joe Walcott, who was winning that fight for a
lot of it, is knocked out sitting on a knee and then topples over
face first onto the ground after that punch. Epic punch, epic photograph.
We wrote about it actually in the nostalgia on Big Fight Weekend dot com.
All right, so anyway, that is this week, that anniversary from the
nineteen fifties, good lord, virtually eighty years ago, but more recently than
that, a fight you were at, this fight, this James Tony fight.
Give me more nostalgia from this week, and then we got to get
out of here. I mean, listen, James Tony. This fight we're
talking about was on April twenty six, two thousand and three, so twenty
years ago. This past went on Wednesday of this week, and to this
day it's still one of the greatest action fights I've ever covered at ringside.
It was at the Foxwoods Casino, James Tony challenged the then IBF cruiserweight champion
Vasilli Jiroff, who had won the gold medal in the nineteen ninety six Olympic
Games, was voted as the winner of the Val Barker Trophy, which is
the most outstanding boxer of the tournament. He was an undefeated champion. The
cruiserweights got even less love than than they got now, but James had made
a comeback and they put this fight on. It was on HBO, and
it was an absolutely hillacious fight. If you ranked the best fights in the
history of that great series Boxing after Dark, this would definitely be, you
know, in your top few, just an absolutely sensational fight, super close
fight. It felt like everybody that was there. As it turned out,
James won a fairly wide decision, but if you go and watch the they
have a great audio capture of his trainer, Freddie Roach in the corner after
round eleven where Freddie clearly felt like his man was down and was like,
James, you got to put this guy in his ass. I'm serious.
And James Tony went out there and put this man on his ass. And
the commentary that night from Emmanuel Steward when Jim Lampley they were working by themselves.
Larry Merchant missed that show. There was some reason he couldn't be there,
a family function or something that had come up. So it was the
two of them. But Emmanuel and Jim were like fans. They were like,
oh, look at this, can you believe It's like they really made
it an enjoyable experience. So I didn't see that till after the fact,
obviously when you're there. But I have to say because of where we were
sitting in the media, and they were in the very small room the Fox
Theater at the Foxwoods Casino, which might only held about two thousand for a
fight if that, and it wasn't even full. It was a really bad
atmosphere. Actually, we were sitting so close to the commentators, right behind
them. I could actually hear the commentators as they were speaking during the call
of the fight. I could hear Harold Letterman giving his scores between fights.
That's how I was sitting right behind them, so I actually was able to
hear a lot of what they were saying as it was happening. But they
put on a great fight. Harold, by the way, had to fight
a draw at one thirteen to one thirteen, which I went and looked up.
But this is one of the all time great fights and what it did
was it launched James from being the cruiserweight champion, which he never defended.
He immediately went up to heavyweight. Later in that year he ended up knocking
out Evander Holyfield, and that was the combination of the holy Field victory,
which was a big deal at the time, plus the winning of the cruiserweight
title against Giroff. It was considered number one in that weight class and it
was all It was just a tremendous battle. James Tony became the two thousand
and three Fighter of the Year by most outlets, most organizations. I actually
sat with him at the Boxing Writer's Dinner in two thousand and four when he
got that award, and it was a great fight. And I think if
you look at James Tony's career, he's in the Hall of Fame. He
obviously had some issues with some peed tests later in his career, etc.
But that stacks up as one of one of his great moments of his career
was winning that fight against your of a great fight and if you didn't see
it, twenty years ago on Wednesday, go back and find it on YouTube.
Is there awesome, awesome fight? Maybe TJ in the conversation as one
of the top two three cruiserweight fights of all time. I would put it
right there with the Vander Holyfield's great win against Dwight Muhammad Kawee when first world
final ass from the eight fifteen round Barnburner that was on ABC. But there's
there's a few cruiserweight battles like that, and this is absolutely one of them.
Love it, Love you with the nostalgia again, I might fire that
up this weekend because we don't have a lot of action. We do have
the Golden Bullet card. Yeah, it'd be perfect week gonna do. We
got the Golden Buncher Boy. Did you over to watch? All right?
You stop? Last names matter? Okay? That is a full show again,
great job with Canello Canelo fight week next week, you and I we
will come off the weekend with something some form of a recap including the SEPETA
main event. As again, Golden Boy has savaged that card in Arlington,
Texas. We do need to say because of the lack of I haven't said
this earlier in the podcast, because of the lack of big name fights,
there's not a bet Us Boxing show live one Eastern time on Friday on their
platforms. We'll come back for Canelo Fight week for that with bet Us as
well for Canelo Rider next Friday at one Eastern time. We're typically there Fridays
at one Eastern time. For now, though, I believe we are good.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend, Dan ray Field, that's going to
have lots of playoff action. It's gonna have NFL Draft stuff, It's gonna
have a little bit of boxing, but good stuff with Canello. Have a
great weekend, and we'll talk to you coming off the weekend as well.
That sounds good. Appreciate TJ. There is Dan ray feel still wanting an
answer from de Zone about his money and his rayplay. Like a lot of
other people, I'm merely TJ Reeves. Thank you for finding us. Follow
or subscribe to this podcast feed The Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. Wherever you
get podcast Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, you get all of our
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get a lot of stuff a lot of times in between right here on the
Big Fight Weekend podcast feed for Dan ray Feel, I'm TJ Reeves. Everybody,
have a great weekend as we close out April. It's Canello Week next
week we'll be talking about it on the Big Fight Weekend podcast Feed.