The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host t J Lees Well, believe it or not,
it is the final show of the month of May already, and we have
got a business. We've got huge fight news Spence Kawford, anyone we're ready
to talk about that. We've got world title fights. Dan talking to a
former champ who's trying to get one of those titles back this weekend in lee
Wood. You'll hear that conversation one on one. Thank you for finding us
wherever you've done so. As part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed.
It is the preview show that is out overnight Thursdays into Friday, and we
always come off the weekend as well recapping on the Fight Freaks Unite recap.
I am merely the somewhat competent host. As mentioned, he is our insider
from his Fight Freaks Unite substack and Big Fight Weekend dot com Dan Rayphael.
Sometimes we got to sell the show, as we like to talk about the
show sells itself and then some I do not want to be here until Tuesday
on the podcast, but we could probably be here until Tuesday if we wanted
to how are you, my friend? I'm good. We got a lot
to talk about, So forget the nonsense. Let's get into it. My
friend yet yes follows, Subscribe to this podcast feed and let's go. Let's
get into it again. Lee Wood coming up, Wood Laura about to fight
in a rematch, and a fairly quick rematch, only about three three,
three and a half months since they fought last in a featherweight world title fight.
That's one of the fights we're gonna be previewing. You're gonna hear from
Leewood in a few minutes. But as we tape this and as we launch
it overnight Thursday into Friday, it has happened. It's not Jim Lampley screaming
it happened. It happened about George Foreman over Michael Moore. But it has
happened, with both fighters confirming it. Terrence Crawford and Errol Spance. Is
that the Hallelujah chorus I'm not gonna sing that I hear playing in the background.
Finally, finally they have agreed. Eight is July twenty nine. You're
gonna have more on all of his I guess the first thing is how and
why did it get across the finish line. Now for late July undisputed World
Welterweight Title fight mighty one. How did it happen? It happened because Errol
Spence wasn't taken no for an answer. It is really very similar to what
went on in the fight that we had a few a month or so ago
between Ryan Garcia and Tank Davis, where Ryan Garcia was just not taking no
for an answer. Errol Spence, to his own detriment, has missed out
on at least one fight in the rotation because he just was not going to
walk away. Remember he ended up letting Crawford go forward to have that fight
with David evanission and he didn't take a fight because he told Al Hayman,
his adviser head of PBC, he told his people, I want this fight.
And you know what, it echoed to me something that Errol told me.
I think it was before he fought Dane Garcia. I had done an
interview with him. I wrote a piece about that in advance, was a
story for what was then the print issue of The Ring magazine, and I
distinctly recall, and I could dig up the quotes. I'm pretty sure That
was the fight where Errol told me very specifically, I can't leave welterweight division
with unfinished business. If I leave without fighting Crawford, I won't be complete.
This is my legacy fight, he acknowledged. I think if I recall
this as Crawford's legacy fight, and even though it took a lot longer than
it showed up, we should be working on the third fight of a trilogy
by this quint it seems to me. But the reality is Errol Spence just
really was the driving force. He wasn't taking no for an answer, and
he wouldn't let it go. And you know, I think he drove his
own people a little bit crazy to continue to work with Crawford to figure it
out. Crawford as somebody that was involved in the making of this fight very
directly and all through the whole process, I think, half jokingly and half
seriously said to me earlier today as we taped this on Thursday, when I
asked a specific question like, what was it that changed between getting the deal
done now then what it would have What was going on back, you know
a few months ago, you know, before Crawford took the AVONESC and fighting
it was so close, and the response to me was Crawford ran out of
things to ask for it. So that gives you an idea of what was
going on. So look, Terrence Crawford, I'm glad he took the fight.
It does take two to tango. He gets credit for finally making it.
But the guy that was driving the bus was Errol Spence junior on this
fight, and he gave up. I'm sure you know. I don't know
how much he gave up personally, but he just wouldn't allow this fight to
get away from him. So in the in the end result is this DJ
And I'm not even being overly emotional or exaggerating or or hyperbolic. This is
I can't tell you what it's going to do in terms of like the bigness,
as far as the commercial success or not take its pay per view,
all that business, but I can tell you from historical perspective. I'm going
to put my bird Sugar hat on for a quick second, please, in
honor of my dear departed some time mentor the great bird Sugar, and I'll
put on the hat of my dear friend of today, Larry Merchant, and
I will tell you that This fight between Errol Spence Junior and Terrence Crawford,
from a historical perspective, is one of the most significant fights in the history
of boxing, and certainly in the twenty plus years I have covered boxing.
It is an astronomically historically important fight. And the reason is because you can
go through history for a year, certainly of the multi belt era for sure,
and it is extremely difficult to find fights that involved two undefeated fighters who
are both champions fighting for undisputed who are universally considered at worse like the top
five pound for pound, who are finally going to meet. And yes they're
a little older in terms of their chronological age, but neither guy has shown
any slippage. They both looked phenomenal in their fights. Errol, who wins
his fights handily, he doesn't fight as regular as we liked too, partly
because of trying to get this fight done. Obviously, he's had some injuries
and same kind of thing with Crawford as far as the lack of activity.
But this is as high class as it gets, There's no question about it.
So to me, there is no better fight. It's the bottom mind.
This is the summit meeting of Summit meetings. When Tommy Hearns fought Ray
Leonard, which is a comparable welterweight championship fight in my mind, they were
not both undefeated. Ray, as great as he was, had been defeated
by Roberto Durant. The only fight I can think of, and again this
was not for undisputed, but a fight that comes to mind when Tito Trinidad
fought Oscar deal La Joya. They were they had two of the welterweight title,
one had one title, one had the other title. They were both
undefeated, they obviously were younger, and they met for what was considered supremacy.
They were both among the top pound for pound fighters in boxing. But
it's really really hard to find these types of fights it, you know,
if you take a look as a recent example, take for example, the
Junior welt undisputed fight that took place two years ago this week, Jose Ramirez
against Josh Taylor for all four belts. They were both undefeated and that was
a huge matchup and no knock on either Josh Taylor or Jose Ramires. But
at the moment that that fight was consummated and put together and finally took place,
in the ring, they were neither one of them were considered top ten
or top five pound for pound guys. That's the difference here is they're undefeated
champions and they're considered at the absolute elite level of the sport, both men.
And it's an awesome, awesome fight, and I'm so happy it's happening,
and I will look forward to being in Las Vegas in July and I
just can't get can't can't wait for the fight. I mean now, I
mean, I know, I was kind of down and bitter about this fight
not happening, and I was not emotional about it because I said, if
it happens, it happens. I wasn't going to get caught up in it.
But now that it's done, I'm all pumped up for it. I
think everybody else should be. I love the reference to what Leonard and Hearns
was back now some forty two years ago, that that took place in nineteen
eighty one. My god, were getting old that they were in their early
twenties. Now. One of the interesting things is, obviously Leonard had been
an Olympic champion, and boxing was so much more mainstream and being and being
covered differently in terms of national significance Front Page News, etc. Etc.
And the fighters fighting on network TV with fifteen million, twenty million, at
times thirty million. If they fought in primetime, which Leonard did, watching
them on TV, it was a much more magnitude significant fight. But it
does bring up a very interesting comparison with both of these guys undefeated and at
the top of their game. I'm gonna tell you sure, go ahead.
It won't shock me at all because the people that are involved with Showtime and
PBC who are going to do this fight on pay per view TGB Promotions,
they know the deal. I would be very surprised if you don't see Tommy
Hearns and Ray Leonard hired and brought in to help with the promotion of this
fight because a lot of the comparisons of this are going to be made to
their great fight from nineteen eighty one. There's no doubt my mind about that
that is going to be a talking point for this fight, and it,
you know, other than the age difference, yes, but it they are
comparable in the sense of what those guys were. Now. I don't know
if anybody is like the puncher that Tommy Hearns was. But they both are
good punchers, and they both obviously are great boxers. And even though Ray
was a gold medalist, you do have and and Tommy was also a top
notch amateur. In this case you have both guys. Crawford and Spence were
both excellent amateurs, not Olympic medalists. But Errol Spence was an Olympian.
He did advance to my recollection, to the quarterfinals that year. And you
talk about network television, I mean, obviously it's not the same today as
it was then. But Crawford has performed in front of big audiences on ESPN.
Errol Spence has performed in front of big audience. Remember he had a
fight that took place on NBC in the slot. This is back when PBC
was still doing fights with NBC. He had a fight that had the glory
that the perfect spot purposely done. He thought a fight was actually his eliminator
fight to get his first chance to fight for a World TI. He fought
in the slot right after the United States won the men's basketball gold medal live
on NBC on a Saturday late afternoon. So you know, he has gotten
that kind of notoriety he's fought a big fights. He's you know, at
and T Stadium. He's had several pay per view fights that have performed pretty
well. Maybe not at the million level obviously, but I'm gonna tell you
right now, Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, I'm not sure it necessarily guess
at the level of a Tank Davis and Vane are Vante Davis and Ryan Garcia
in terms of the pay per view of the one point two million because they
brought in so many fans that were not traditional boxing fans. But I don't
have any doubt that if you're a boxing fan, how are you not buying
Errol Spence Terence Crawford. If you don't buy that fight, what are you
doing? And I think it will get more mainstream coverage as June becomes July,
it will start to get more mainstream coverage on ESPN and through Fox Sports
and through all the other outlets Yahoo, etcetera, etcetera. And what we
do, it'll get more mainstream coverage though of those different outlets and including newspapers
will care all over the country big time and give it some push. One
of the reasons for that, and we discussed this in the build up to
them trying to make this deal, it was very important to everybody if it
was going to happen. They wanted this fight done and in the ring before
the end of August. And the reason was because once you get training camp
going with NFL and you hit you know, the playoff drive in baseball and
college football starts to have their practices and kick off the season and all that,
you start to be squeezed out of the of the oxygen of the sports
landscape starts to be taken away. If you're fighting a fight like this and
it's going to take place, you know, at that time of year,
what July twenty ninth, I mean, football is still a few weeks away
from anything. There is no basketball or hockey or college sports at all.
Baseballs and the you know the dog days. You know, there's a pay
race, but that's the daily thing. It's not like it's gonna take up
that much oxygen. You know, I have to look and see, you
know, I don't know the dates of like the the big you know,
a golf or tennis race, tennis tournament or something lad or auto races,
but basically the fight has will have a chance to breathe. They've got it
done in plenty of time. Here we are, we're not even at the
end of May. Yet they got a full two month runway to do what
they gotta do, and I know they're gear enough for what I think will
be a great promotion. I know that both boxers, from what I am
told, understand they have responsibilities that are willing to embrace that in terms of
doing their uh you know, fan interactions and media obligations and social media presences
and all that stuff not really a big thing with Spence. He's good at
that, even if he's not got the most boisterous or outgoing personality, but
he's great with his media. Crawford has not always been so great. But
I think he's going to be geared up for this kind of megafight and he'll
enjoy that attention and the discussion about this being such a huge fight. And
listen, here's the thing. The winner of this fight walks away as the
undisputed welterweight champion of the world, and I think de penning out the fight
goes very very likely will be considered not just by some people because right now
there's a debate. Some people might say it's Beevil. Some people might say
it's in a way. Some people might have h Crawford or Spence or but
I mean the point is there. It's an open discussion right now who's number
one pound for pounds since the defeat of Canelo Alvarez and the first in the
fight with Beevil. I think the winner of this fight, it's gonna really,
you know, assuming it's a clean decision or knockout, pretty sure that
this is going to be one of those deals where okay, that guy's pound
for pound. That's a universal sort of situation, and uh, you know,
it's a huge, huge, huge fight. We can't overstand enough.
I had two more points on this, and then we're going to move along
due there is a rematch clause, so we're probably I was coming to that.
You gotta you gotta let me get in because I was coming to that
right The first thing. The first thing is I wonder, and you may
and I've I've talked to a couple of people. I wonder how much it
helped that the Garcia, the Davis Garcia pay per view did as well as
it did, and it helped infuse maybe some money, some revenue to help
lay out some guaranteed money, because again, if we go back in the
chronology of this last fall, Roll Spence talked about neither one of us are
gonna get guaranteed money right now for this fight, and Crawford would not go
along with that. He ended up taking guaranteed money from BLK Prime, who
put the pay per view on for his title defense. So I wonder on
that point, before we get to the rematch part, do you believe that
the Davis Garcia's success and the financial windfall for PBC and Showtime help get this
across the finish line, because maybe they have a little more guaranteed money or
some guaranteed money that they didn't have last fall. By their own admission,
the answer to that is the answer to that is no. And despite some
reports that are out there, I am told by people directly involved in this
fight that that has not changed. There are still no guarantees. Wow.
But I think both boxers and everybody involved knows that the fight's gonna do well
based on what we just talked about with the take and right fight. What
do you need to guarantee for? How would it matter if you, let's
just mean making this up. You guarantee Crawford and spense like seven million dollars
a piece or something like that. The fight's gonna do enough business where they're
going to make that much easily. It's like not even really that much of
a risk, it seems to me. So at what point, you know,
would you be satisfied with the guarantee. So I think by not taking
guarantee, they both are going to be cut in for a substantial, obviously
amount of the revenue. They've worked out a way that it's going to be
accounted for in a way that Crawford is comfortable with, because that was one
of the issues that caused the thing to go downhill the last time around.
And so they're going to go out there and do their job, which is
twofold threefold. Train your ass off, do your appearances, your media and
your promotion, and then go in the ring and give it all you got
and put on a great fight. And so then the follow up is what
you alluded to, is the rematch, because I had heard, and again
you're much tighter and around the circles that the big hang up was that Terence
Crawford only wanted a one off here and did not want this to be a
two fight situation with a rematch, if not an automatic rematch. What do
we know as we sit here with this being announced on is there already an
automatic rematch clause for either one or both of them in the event of whoever
wins, and did they get that worked out where there's gonna be a second
fight? I wonder about that. My understanding again from people involved in the
event, is that is it that that that the loser of the fight has
the right to an automatic rematch, and that that automatic rematch, if they
elect to go forward with that automatic rematch, should they, you know,
whatever happens, that that rematch must take place by the end of the calendar
year of twenty and twenty three, so basically a fight in July and whatever
happens, you know, obviously I don't know the details as far as like
if there's an injury or that type of thing, but in general terms,
the rematch, if there is one and the loser opts to have it,
which you gotta figure probably would um that it will have to be in the
ring before the end of this year, which means that you're gonna have those
guys are going to have you know, they haven't fought that many. That's
that's a quick turnaround for guys that are usually off for a year, you
know. But still, if you have to find in late July and you
go five months to the end of you know, Novamber or in December or
pick a date, you can do that no reason. I mean, really,
what it will come down to is it means that both Crawford and Spence
will have fought two times in twenty twenty three, which, in this day
and age, for a fighter of that level, two times a year is
normal. It's what's not normal is that it's two times within that short space
where there's been a long lay up before that. But the main thing is
hopefully it's a great fight, because we're gonna end up having to see a
rematch, and sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad. As an example,
uh, you know, we're gonna probably end up seeing a rematch between Joe
Joyce and zang Zilei for example. I mean, it was a pretty one
sided kind of fight. I mean, I don't know if anybody's totally amped
up for the rematch. We've seen examples of that in the past of fights
that there was a rematch and you end up having to see the sequel.
We did it with with Devin Hainey and George Cambosas where it Steven Heeney ran
him out of the ring in the first fight, but we were subjected to
the second fight because of the contract. So you know, you can't have
it both ways. So if the rematch happens and everybody in the first fight's
not what they hoped it for, I don't want hear anybody bitch and moan,
because if you don't have the rematch, quause you don't get the first
fight, and the first fight's most important. Amen. Amen. And on
that point, like Fury and Wilder agreed to a two fight deal, had
the fight in February of twenty twenty, and then the COVID nineteen pandemic craziness
happened, which delayed things, but ultimately because they had agreed to a rematch,
it got enforced and we got a great third fight, a great follow
up fight. So who probably the best, Well, yeah, it's it's
definitely the best of the three, and it is one of the best heavyweight
fights. Uh, it's certainly the last twenty five years of what of what
went on? So who knows with the rematch. So we're excited obviously about
this. Now there's much more to get to world title fights, etc.
But before you and I do the breakdown, you talked to the former champ
who's looking to get his belt back. We're talking now about Lee Wood about
to fight Mauricio Laura of Mexico in speaking of rematches, in an immediate rematch
from a fight early in twenty twenty three. Now they're right back in the
ring here in late May, Laura stopping Wood with a big left hook,
knocked down and then and then Wood's corner throw in the towel. Dan Rayfield
spoke with Lee Wood about getting the rematch opportunity, trying to get the w
BA featherweight title back, and more. Let's go to that conversation right now
in the preview book. I'm very pleased to welcome to the podcast this week.
It is the former WBA Featherweight Champion of the world. It's Lee Wood.
Lee, you got an important fight, a rematch with Mauricio Laura coming
up. Thank you for doing this. How's everything going getting ready for this
very important fight? Yeah, but really really good preparation this fight. I'm
extremely confident and said that it's called up for me and people bla whoa saving
since the last fight. I'm ready and I can't wait to get in now.
Well it is a quick turner on. I'll just remind people you're going
to fight Mauricio Laura in the rematch, the immediate rematch. It's going to
be on the zone this Saturday, Manchester, England, and you're hoping to
regain that title. And if we go back and take a look at the
first fight, you said it's been a quick turn on. The first fight
was on February the eighteenth, so not a lot of waste of time.
First of all, how quickly did you go back into camp after that fight?
How much time did you take off? Well, the week after that
holiday book with my kids, so I went to the buy for just a
week. But if he runs out there to just to kind of tick over,
didn't want to get fat and put weight on, so I just did
a few runs, came on finish to the average level. I came back
and training and not him for five days and then the following Monday I went
back into training twice a day in Essex pretty much straight away, and the
massive break which is good. I feel I do feel good. I feel
fresh. I didn't feel labored and like I said, ready to go.
So he stopped you in the seven round of that first fight. You were
ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stop, but you were
up fifty eight fifty six on two of the scorecards and fifty nine to fifty
five on the other scorecard, And obviously you were doing very well on the
fight. I wonder when that when the stoppage occurred and you then had to
sit down with your people and talk to Eddie Hearn, your promoter, and
make a decision about whether you were to invoke your right to an immediate rematch.
Did you ever have any second thoughts and maybe about doing something elsewhere?
Was it always there was zero doubt you're going to do this to fight again?
Ye had never another no doubt. I wanted that rematch straight away.
There's never any other option in my head. I didn't even take me time
to get out the ring because if his interviews you can watch with the zone,
I was sit in the ring. He asked me about that as I
won the real much and I want it straight away. You know, I
felt like I was not only winning their runs. But you know I was
breaking down. I was established myself really well, and in fact, the
round six was too well. I started learning big shots, and I went
away from what was setting up them big shots and just looking for the big
shots on their own. And he was breathing heavy. I went away from
the set up and started holding my feet and paid the price. Now when
you you know, you got stopped, but it's not like you were out
cold or anything like that. You got up, the referee was wiping your
gloves off. It felt it felt like, and watching the fight live,
that the ref was absolutely going to allow you to continue. You seem poised
to go forward. There were six seconds left in the round. I know
that you and your team don't know exactly the number of seconds left, but
I know experienced boxing people have a rough idea. So two things about that
number One, did you think you could continue? You felt it looked like
you were ready to go. Yeah, But I'll rather a card out to
be honest. You know, I'm always I haven't got a quit in there.
I don't never want anyone to the fight on my bit off, you
know. But that's why that's why about cornments want too. Sometimes you need
to be saved by yourself. And that's why Benz is there to look after
me. He knew that very much wars and regardless of we're never I'm going
to know if Marcella would have come over and you know, promote me and
knocked me out, or he could have punched himself out, try and knock
me out and then out of back into the fight, or the bell would
have gone and out have been our eye. And but I'll say legs for
a bit of it turned the round again. You know, we're never gonna
know, But in my head, I rob we get comed out one on,
one eye, one leg, whatever, just keep on going. That's
that's my mentality. And that's why ben is to look after me. And
I understand that completely. And that's the you know, the trainer has to
be those eyes and ears for the fighter. Obviously, um I was a
little surprised, to be honest with you, just and not because it was
one knockdown. You were up ready to go. It seemed like that the
referee was about to let you go. There were six seconds left and like
I said, Ben doesn't know exactly the time, but he's an experienced trainer.
He knows there's not much time at all. Um, So okay,
he stopped the fight. You obviously acknowledged that, you accepted that. I
just wonder when it was all said and done, you guys reconvened, did
you guys ever have a discussion about his reasons or what made him do that
or your thoughts about that and how did that go? Yeah, because of
course we spoke straight away, and we spoking the changing, spoking the gym
as well, I thought, And it's so much stake you need to put
to take the risk when you got remuch, when you don't need to take
that risk. We didn't want to find out what was going to happen.
I just wanted to be safe, pacey. If you had the real much
clause, why risk it? And that's been the point of view, is
there to look after? Why take the risk when you don't need to.
So, as we just mentioned, you were winning the fight doing so seemed
kind of handily to be honest with you, I mean you said you were
breaking them down. That's kind of what it felt like in terms of watching
it from my point of view. And then it was the left hook that
that really did the damage. And was able to be responsible for putting you
on the canvas and ultimately the stoppage. So I wonder as you go in
you have to be confident because you were handling him in a very good way
prior to that shot. Is this just a matter of, you know,
what we were doing really well? We got to fix one thing and that
should just make sure that every single moment of this fight we're aware of his
left hand. Is that really what it comes down to. Yeah, it's
not quite that simple, but we made some adjustments to do an even better
job this time. You know, I was felt like I was in control
after the first two three Ryans. You know, he's always dangerous and he
will sling shots and is a bit predictable. But as soon as that first
initial put him out in stage of his fight, which is quite full of
energy, it goes it's all my fight, and there is things that I
need to be careful of. And I made a mistake last time. I
know why I did it and where did it, what happened, and how
I should not go about that and make sure I didn't do it again.
So it's not really a case of just not do one thing again. It's
more of do more of this, take away his moments of that, do
more of this that will take away moments of this, and I'm going to
be pretty much after a little bit of time. I'm after that being complete
control of this fight. Now, I want to just go back, prior
to this fight being made, you were supposed to fight Leo Santa Cruz that
dragged out forever. He was the super champion in the w BA. You
know, we don't rehash all the back and forth, but you were the
regular champion. The fight was ordered, he'd been off for a long time.
You were the de facto champion because you were the guy that was fighting
an active You had the big win over Michael Common and he was not even
fighting in the weight division for the last few years. How annoyed were you
that he dragged it out or their side dragged it out for a song.
I mean, it felt like you guys were ready to do the fight if
you could work it out, and he just took it to the last minute
and ultimately vacated. And you know, you ended up making this match up
the first fight with Mauricio Lara. Uh did the whole Santa Cruz things just
sort of like irritate you the way that it was handled. Yeah, it
did. It was hi me a little bit, you know. Um,
fun As did it four years I think since he last popped that way,
which is crazy. It was like three years plus. Yeah, I can
went up on the world title. Um, I considered myself to be the
world champion. That's how if I want to be Zukhan and then on the
match and fight com, that's what I decided. That's what I well,
you know what, he is an active I'm in the one. I'm board
champion, and we tried to make that five many times. It just never
materialized. And I was willing to do anything to meet that fight as well.
So I think after that, I'll just considered myself to be board champion
the godless of what everyone else said, especially getting the good good wins and
if the zoo com was a good win and mile column is a good win
as well, so like that limit legitimized it. Yeah. Absolutely. I
want to ask you about that Colon fight, because people still talk about that
fight. They still rave about it and talk about the knockout and talk about
your comeback and just how great the fight was. On people picked it as
the fight of the year. I picked it as the knockout of the year.
A lot of people did you stopped him in the twelfth round. You
were behind them, you know, in the card the fight against Laura,
you were winning on the cards. To fight against Michael, you were down
on the cards, but you had this incredible comeback, one of the best
ones I can think of. And I've been doing this for a very long
time. What was it like for you just emotionally to not only make the
comeback, but to score that kind of knockout, keep the title, do
it at home in front of the home crowd going absolutely crazy. Uh.
That sounded like a kind of moment that any I would think, any professional
would really dream about that situation. To be honest, I think it's going
to be a fight in a moment that lives with me the rest of my
life. You know, everywhere I go people mentioned that fight my friends and
my family no matter where it is or someone always stops that fight. But
it was a magical moment. I put so much into that camp. There
isn't the way I was going to walk away from or give up or when
things got hard. You know, that's not me anyway. But that fight,
especially after the needle, after him what was said to build up what
was on the line. There's so much into it, being in my own
city and just a special night and what ended up being a special when in
the way that woman as well, no question, So I just want to
wrap it up with this. Then you're fighting a really hot division featherway.
It's it's uh, there's as many interesting and exciting guys and guys that claimed
titles, you know, it's been in quite a while like that. So
you fight the rematch with Mauricio Laura, try to get that title back on
Saturday. Coincidentally, I guess just up the road, so to speak,
in Belfast, Michael He's gonna challenge the IBF champion Louis Alberto Lopez for his
belt on the same day. There's also Robesi Ramirez who's a recent you know,
had recently won the WBO title. Ray Vargas has been around for a
while with a WBC title, just a one loss out of the weight class.
There's Brandon Figuero with the interim champion. Point is, there's a lot
of exciting guys, a lot of guys you can mix and match and make
a whole bunch of good fights. So I think to myself, what's the
big fight out there that Lee Wood dreams about? You know, if you
get your title back, and I have to wonder if Michael wins on Saturday.
Man, isn't the rematch between you and Michael like the biggest fight in
the division. Yeah, I think that is the biggest fight and noticing the
division, but it's one of boxing's biggest rematches. If we both have a
world title as well, and you know, I'm not sure if Michael chows
not being manager for that belt or not, I'm not sure what that anans
an answerment, but if that can be made and provide them both confer on
Saturday night, which I'm confident I can. I'm looking at at that fire
I do and pick me to win that fight. It's a massive fine.
It's one that would I would be up into going forward me and forward taking
and it would have to be the city ground there you guys that have a
big, big crowd there, no doubt about it. But first you got
to take care of your business on Saturday. I mean there'll be a big
crowd there in Manchester, I'm sure. Anyway, Lee, thank you very
much for joining me today. I appreciate it. I wish you nothing but
the best on Saturday. Brilliant and like I said me, I want to
stand confident and I get his job done and in great fashion as well.
To make sure you tune in and then when ilse watching and make sure you
tun and Saturday night. There you got everybody there is Leewood looking to regain
the WBA featherweight title on Saturday. Lead good luck, thanks a lot,
cheers, nice job, and thanks again to the folks at match Room Boxing
and with Woods promotional team, et cetera for making that happen. You've been
killing it as of late with the guests and getting them on here on the
show. All right, you were able to talk to him and get the
breakdown there from him. It is kind of it's unfinished business for him and
it's a real risk for him that if Laura beats him again immediately here just
I mean, he didn't take a fight in between, He took an immediate
rematch. Here we go again with rematches, Dan Raphael, So here we
go with this one on Saturday afternoon US times, Saturday Night coming up in
England. Yeah, the main event on his own like the first fight was.
And listen, this is not like the type of situation where we just
talked about, like if the rematch comes after a fight where there's really no
reason for rematch. This was a kind of fight where he certainly can understand
a rematch. Lee Wood and Laura had a very good fight the first time
around. That was on February the eighteenth, and Lee Wood was winning.
He was up on all three score cards, and he was kind of start
to break Maurice Laura down. He felt like that when he talked to the
interview, as you heard, I sort of thought that when I'm watching it.
But he came through with that big left hook and he put him on
the floor, and Ben Davison, the trainer for Lee Wood, elected to
stop the fight. The one thing I didn't love about the interview, and
I can't I don't blame lee Would for this, but I didn't love the
fact that it was in the mind of him and the trainer where if I
stopped the fight were good because we got the rematch in our back pocket.
If he wasn't armed with the rematch, you know, he'd be forced to
sort of go through a little bit more adversity and see what could happen,
because as him and I discussed, I know there was this was somewhat controversial.
He got knocked down, he got up, he seemed okay. They
were wiping his gloves off, the referee was about to let them go and
he then Davison threw in the towel and Leewood immediately looked at the trainer like
what are you doing? And that was the end of it. So it
felt like in that moment, and also, there's only six sections left in
the round. Now, I know that the boxer and that the trainer don't
know exactly how much time is left. But trust me, Ben Davison didn't
experienced trainer and boxers know in their mind a three minute interval. They know
that they cured the clapper or whatever to signal ten seconds. You know there's
a few seconds left that it's pretty much the round is coming to a close.
So I didn't love that part of it. But at the end of
the day, he got stopped. He didn't, you know, get two
upset with his trainer. He said, he took a couple of days with
a family vacation and was right back in the gym and he's ready to go,
and so it should be another good fight. Lara has gone to England
before and pulled the upsets. He's done it against uh you know, obviously
he did it in this fight against uh Leewood the first time around. Um,
you know, he's gonna be not like his first rodeo so to speak.
He did it against Josh Warrington when they met the first pass in twenty
twenty one. Look, it's a it's a very good it's a very good
featherweight title fight. That one of two very good featherweight title fights. We'll
talk about the other one, which is the Luis Alberto Lopez Michael Conlin fight.
That's, as I like to joke, up the road if you will,
in Delfast, Northern Ireland, across the river, across the water,
I guess also on Saturday. But Leewood and Laura is a good fight.
I don't know if there was a bigger fight that that Lee could have done.
He said he never hesitated about about taking the rematch, and as I
said to Lee when we were talking about it, to here at the very
end of the interview, if he wins the fight and regains the title,
and Michael Conlin comes through against Lopez. One of the biggest fights you could
make is a rematch being Leewood and Michael Conlin after their classic that happened last
year. Again, we will make predictions on this fight. The first plug
that we have for the bet Us Boxing Show that we do Friday's live one
Eastern time. Depending on when you're hearing us on this podcast, you may
see that later on in replay for him later Friday or Saturday, but one
Eastern time we're live talking Laura Wood and the rematch. Listen. We were
on the recap podcast. We were on the front end saying both of us
disagreed, thought thought that fight should have continued, and it is fascinating.
I don't know in that moment how much they were thinking we got a rematch
here as much as Davison was concerned, my fighter is hurt, maybe overreacted
throwing the towel in trust me, Ben, Davison knew that. You knew
that it is I know that he knew that, but in that very moment,
I don't know. But in any event, here it is here,
it is with the rematch, and all of it's on the line there for
that. And by the way, just real quick, while we're on this
car Jack Catterall is also on this card, real quick before we move off
of it. Anything else besides Catterall here. Well, it's just it's gonna
be good to get Jack back in the ring. I mean, he hasn't
fought in a while. He was supposed to obviously that there was so much
talking discussh met him having the rematch after his very very controversial defeat against Josh
Taylor. That was in February of twenty twenty two. He has not fought
since then. They tried to make that rematch several times. There was different
issues, whether it was scheduling on behalf of the network or it was an
injury. Obviously Josh Taylor had the foot problem, and once that happened,
it was postponed yet again. The WBO ordered Taylor's mandatory against tithe Me Lopez.
Taylor ended up taking that fight. Catterall actually switched promoters now he's with
Eddie Herr and Natural Boxing El. Anyway, it didn't happen, and so
you know, he had to get back in the ring at some point.
So fortunately he's back in the ring on this card with Laura and Lee Wood.
You know, he's not fighting like a big name. It's sort of
like bet back in the ring and see what you can do shake off the
RUSS against darg Foley. And if he comes through the fight, you know,
I think Jack Catterall will do him is a very possible opponent for Regis
program, one of two. Frankly, look, Regis, as we all
know, signed with Matchrium. He's got the fight coming up against the late
replacement dan Alito Zaria because the original opponent in and Liam Parol dropped out with
an injury. So if he wins that fight, he's then going to fight
later this year. It's got a second fight coming up this year. The
obvious candidates that Eddie Herness spoken about and also that that Regis told me in
our interview that played on the podcast not that long ago. The two guys
that are obvious, it's one is Catterall who's also with Natural, and the
other one is the winner of the fight that was just announced between Richards and
Hitchins and Montana Love. So those two guys would seem to be the logical
choices. And if if Catterall can come through on Saturday and look pretty good.
He can put himself in a pretty good position to get that shot,
and he would you know, he would probably deserve it, all right.
Moving on also Saturday afternoon US time. This is BT Sport in the UK,
ESPN Plus in the US, Saturday afternoon Louise Alberto Lopez Michael Conlin mc
Conlin for Lopez his IBF featherweight title. And this obviously does tie back as
you mentioned to Lee Wood having scored a spectacular knockout in a back and forth
fight with Conlin where he'd literally knocked Conlin out of the ring, knocked him
out and knocked him out of the ring in the final round of the fight.
So Conlin back in a world title fight in Belfast, which second week
in a row where Bellfast in Northern Ireland, Dublin in Ireland on the very
much worldwide landscape here in terms of boxing. All right, So give me
some more on this Lopez and Conlin here in the preview mode. Well,
the thing about Louis Alberto Lopez is he kind of has come out of nowhere
in many ways the same way that Mauricio Lard did. You know, he
was just sort of an unknown kind of guy from Mexico, who had a
good record that you know, could fight a little bit and made a good
fight and had a good punch and all that, but really hadn't had a
chance to fight the top names. Wasn't all that well known. But what
happened with Lopez is a couple of things. One, he was put on
an ESPN show as the opponent for Gabriel Flores Junior, who was the undefeated
up and coming prospect at the time. This is in September of twenty twenty
one, and he won a decision against Flores, but he really beat him
up and took him apart, and uh, he looked really good in that
fight. So that was the first where you're like, Okay, who's this
guy Louis Alberto Lopez. His next fight, he traveled to London. He
took on Isaac Low, who was the good pal and and part of the
camp of Tyson Fury. Fought him in his home, you know, in
his backyard. Basically, this was the IBF elimination fight. This is a
couple of months later after he beat Gabriel Flores, and he didn't just beat
Isaac Low, he easily beat him. He stopped him in the seventh round,
he dropped him, you know, like two or three times, knocked
him out with the body shot, and okay, so now he's beating Gabe
Flores, undefeated guy that he's traveled to the UK. Knocked out the hometown
guy, Isaac low pretty impressively, stayed busy, ended up going was with
you know, Top rank was keeping him actively because he was the mandatory at
that time, but the fight wasn't ready to happen, so we won a
couple of more fights. Then he got the shot the mandatory against Josh Warrington
and once again, have bag, have glove, will travel. He traveled
to First Director Arena in Leeds, England, which is the home arena,
the fortress if you will, of Josh Warrington, and he won what was
called a majority decision, but everybody knows he won very handily. It wasn't
really that close, and that gave him the world title. And in the
meantime, Michael Conlin had become you know, had had rebounded from his loss
to Lee Wood and they're both with Top Rank and this fight was made and
so once again here you go. He traveled for the fight against Isaac Lowe
and the eliminator he traveled in the world title fight against Josh Warrington and won,
and now he's traveling again in his next fight to have the title defense
against Michael Conlin in Belfast, which is Michael's hometown, and it's a really
interesting matchup. Michael Conlin is a very popular figure there particular, you know
for sure, and this is another opportunity for him. I mean Michael Conlin,
who was an Olympian. He burst on the world stage. He became
famous because he gave the judges the finger in that terrible, terrible decision he
got robbed of in the Olympics. Signed with top rank, had Connor McGregor
walk him into the ring in his pro debut. I was there at Madison
Square Garden theater. Was one of the most amazing pro debut guys I've ever
seen. It was it was a pro debut and like I think got four
or six rounder or whatever with a guy against a young prospect, against just
a regular guy nobody ever heard of. And the atmosphere was like being at
a big fight at Vegas or New York City, like in the big room.
Just a remarkable atmosphere that tells you the kind of popularity that Michael had
with the Irish fans. In any event, he took that loss against Leewood.
It was a tough loss. He was winning the fight in the twelfth
round. He had dropped Wood earlier in the fight and he, like you
said, got knocked out of the ring and the spectacular knock that. I
picked it as the knock out of the year. A lot of people picked
it as the fight of year. It was certainly not my number one,
but it was on that top few fights of twenty and twenty two. He
has won two fights since and looked pretty good doing. He took a part
Mariaga, who a very experienced guy. He knocked out Graphee in one round,
devastating shot, and now here he gets the world championship fight. And
it's a look. Ever since Michael term pro, people have expected he's going
to win a world title. I mean, he's got his second opportunity now
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guy that is absolutely fearless, who's got good punching power of his own.
This is to me, and I mean to me, it's like a fifty
fifty kind of fight. I mean, it's a it's a hard one to
handicap. I mean, I know we'll get into the more detail of it
tomorrow on Friday when we do the bet Us Show. But this is a
very good fight. It's like I'm seeing that like I'm seeing like double vision,
because there's so many similarities between Lopez against Conlin as there is in the
other fight with Laura and Lee Wood that they're almost like the two sort of
very similar kind of fights and both really good fights. You know, you
gotta I hope they're not on exactly at the same time. One is on
his zone. One is on ESPN Plus. But you can be sure I'm
gonna watch both fights for sure on Saturday. Yeah, we're gonna have to
have extra eyeballs. As I'd say, it's almost like the NCAA Tournament when
you got all these games going on in March Madness and college basketball in the
US. It's like, Okay, wait, minut I can't watch that while
I watch this and I watch that. You gotta have the DVR going.
You gotta have a little playback feature because there's a third world title fight,
a cruiserweight title fight that's also going on in the afternoon that we're gonna get
to in a couple of moments as we speed along here previewing everything of Saturday.
Okay, so later in the night US time, California time, Alexis
Rocha, welterweight for Golden Boy Promotions, who was in the conversation to maybe
fight Ter Crawford earlier this year if Crawford couldn't make the fight with Spence.
There was talk about Crawford against Rocha in a Golden Boy promoted title defense.
Okay, that didn't come about. So now Rocha is taking another fight.
While he sits and waits for a possible title opportunity for whoever wins Spence and
Crawford, especially if that were to be Crawford. But again, as you
mentioned, there's a rematch clause, so we're not talking about a twenty twenty
three thing for Alexis Rocha. But give me a little more because he's back
in action. He has scored a couple of impressive wins for whatever it's worth
at the contender level, give me a little more on the Zone Saturday Night
Golden Boy Show. That's yet another fight card and main event fight that we're
previewing for the weekend. So Rocha, you know, he's an improving fighter.
He's still pretty young. He's only twenty five. He's twenty two wins
and one loss. You know, he's got a nice little winning streat going
as one loss was a really close decision against Rashidi Ellis, who was showing
him something to be a pretty good fighter, although he did lose his last
fight on the Tank Davis undercard get to place in jam anyway. In any
event, he had become the mandatory challenger for Terence Crawford. One of the
things that had to be done before the fight between Crawford and Spence could be
made. Was that the WBO and Golden Boy and the ROACHA team had they
had a conversation with them about stepping aside to allow that to happen. And
I know, look, Rocha is the kind of kid that has a chance
maybe to be a world champion, but he probably is not ready for a
Crawford at this point. And you know, not many guys are ready for
Crawford, even if you're at your best. So they were willing to do
that. They didn't want the look. The way it was also turned to
me is a Golden Boy like, Look, we're boxing fans also, we
want what's good for the business, and our guy we don't necessarily think is
one hundred percent ready. He could use another couple of fights, so we'll
step aside. He's gonna fight Anthony Young in the main event on Saturday.
He is the WBO mandatory Challengers. Hopef he wins, he'll retain that status.
And you mentioned there's a rematch clause that if that rematch between Rollin and
Terrence S. Crawford happens at the end of the year. The way I
look at it is whatever happens in that rematch and Frank it could happen after
the first fight, depending on how it goes. But those guys are not
staying in one hundred and forty seven pounds. They're both going to go up
to the junior middleweight division. And if that happens, Alexis Roach will be
there to fight for one of the VACAN titles. And if you're the team
ROACHA or a Golden Boy, while you might make less money to fight for
a vacant title against whoever, you have a better chance to win and maybe
and build something and put something together. And if you just take for one
pay day against So that's their deal. So he's gonna stay busy. Hopefully
for his sake, he performs against Young and if Young pulls the upset,
good for him. And that's the main event. And by the way,
I was looking at the name Georgia, she was the opponent and my god,
did Rocha annihilate him with one big booming overhand right in a ko in
his last bout. So we'll see if he follows up spectacularly here in this
fight and waits for his opportunity as a contender being pushed here by Golden Boy
Promotions, in the welterweight division. All right, as I mentioned, there's
one more title fight. What is it? I wonder you and I have
been doing this for over a year. Have we had three separate world title
fight cards that we've been previewing, with none of them in the United States
in the same weekend, and all of them in the same region, not
in the United States, which is in this case again in England, on
the coast of England in Bonnemouth, England. Lawrence o'coley, who only fought
a couple of months ago, like eight weeks ago, he was back as
the w BO Cruiserweight champion defending against Chris billham Smith, a popular WBO contender
out of England. Twelve rounder w BO cruiserweight title fight. That's also Saturday
afternoon. Talk about extra eyeballs US times Saturday night in England and in the
UK. All right, so give me some more on this. O'coley has
got a couple of recent wins, but has not been impressive. Let's just
lay it on that thought. He hasn't been impressive. I'm going to ruin
your thesis about there not being any of those title fights in America because it's
not maybe the biggest title fight we did really discussed or preview, But on
that undercard of the Alexis Rocha Anthony Young fight, there actually is a world
title fight is the w BO straw waight title defense of Melvin Jerusalem against Oscar
Collazzo. So there you go. Why you are who you are to know
that. But still, I mean, this is cruiserweights, this is o'coley.
I think you have to agree with me. O'coley has shown little to
nothing in the decision wins that he's had his last couple times out Bill him.
Smith is a popular fighter, a scrappy guy, So give me more
on this. So o'coley, he has that WBO title, he defended it
in the early part of twenty twenty two, and then he had the beef
with match Room Boxing. They had their issues whatever. He had a mandatory
against David Light. So he actually he's only had the one fight since going
to Boxer that took place just a couple of months ago. That was in
March, and now he's back literally two months almost to the day to fight
Chris Bill and Smith. So the fight you're thinking of was the abomination against
David Light, where you know he won, you know, a lopsided decision,
but it was a shit fight. It was as boring as anything.
I mean, I'd rather gouge my fucking eyes out than watch that shit again.
But now it takes on Chris Bill and Smith, and for those who
are interested, it actually is available in the United States as part of the
Fight Plus package. And the Fight Plus package is not a pay per view
of two where you spend ten or twenty dollars on the pay per view.
It's like a monthly thing for like seven or six or seven dollars and you
get all this stuff on Fight Plus, which I actually recently have subscribed to,
so I will actually have access to watch that fight anyway. But o'colee
and Bill and Smith are good friends. They've known each other for years.
They sparred a bazillion rounds together. They know each other like you know as
well as you know you know the guys in your gym, and they've been
in the ring a million times together, So that's part of this. This
is at an outdoor stadium in that part of England, not a big stadium
my understanding. It's only about fifteen and sixteen thousand, but they'll have a
great crowd there and it'll be it'll be. The way the boxer has spoken
about is it will be the largest event crowd wise to take place in that
stadium other than a soccer event. So that's a pretty good thing. So
there is a popularity level for this particular matchup when you look at it,
though, billam Smith is a guy with a couple with a loss. He's
more of a guy that will come to you and brawl it out and try
to knock you out, where Ol Cooley is really a pure boxer. He's
got some knockouts, but he likes the box and you know, depending on
the type of opponent, he yes, he can put you to sleep in
a hurry, and I don't mean with a big punch. All right.
Interesting that billam Smith is one what nine fights eight or nine fights since the
loss. He fought armand Joe Hodje I remember that name, and got a
fifth round knockout in his last bout last December. So again, WBO Cruiserweight
World title fights Saturday afternoon. As Dan mentioned in the US Saturday Night for
billam Smith, it's a shot at a world title. Oh. Cooley,
by the way, has been calling out some others to unify a cruiserweight.
Somebody's got to show something in this world title fight, so we're anxious to
see that one as well. On Saturday afternoon. Okay, time for some
fight news. May if we had enough on this show a lot of stuff.
Absolutely not, because the purse bid has taken place for Alexander Usk and
Daniel Dubois, like you've been talking about. That purse bid took place on
Thursday, and as it turns out K two Promotions, the U six promoter,
did win the purse bid. Dan fill us In and what that means
for where this fight will be, well, I was a little surprised by
the spread of dollars in the purse bit usually even I mean, it's hard
to know exactly, but a lot of times, you know, the promoters,
they know the revenues, they know what they can sell. They have
an idea of their broadcasters, what their sponsors, maybe what their gate will
be, they know the sort of ballpark, and a lot of times they
come in at similar numbers. Even if you're the promoter that's only going to
get twenty five percent of the side of the money. But in this case,
the split is seventy five twenty five in favor of Usk his team at
K two. They bid a whopping eight million, fifty seven thousand dollars for
this fight. Now that said, everybody always has to remember that when you're
talking about a purspit, it is entirely possible, if not probable, that
before they went and handed in that particular envelope and made the bid, they
had a deal in place with Alexander Usk already for what his money would be,
because they wanted to make sure to bid a high enough amount to make
sure they could get the other side to come to the fight and that they
would be able to control it. That happens all the time in purse bit.
So, even though the winning bid would technically entitle us to five point
six million dollars in change, i'll take that back six point something million dollars
on the winning bid, there's a chance he may have made a deal with
his people to take less just to make sure they got the fight. So
that's one thing to always keep in mind. But the other purse bid that
was put in for this fight was made by Frank Warren and Queen's Brand Promotions.
They bid they're the promoter for Daniel Dua. They bid five million,
six hundred twenty thou fifty dollars. It's a seventy five twenty five split.
So if that will entitle on the winning bid, Usk his team will have
to pay out over two million dollars to Daniel Duwa. But as you asked
it out in terms of the timing, I had an email ex change with
Alex Krascia, who was the director of K two Promotions, essentially Alexander Usk's
promoter, and there even though they were working with Frank Barren to try to
make a deal before the purse bid took place, to do this fight in
Poland, which borders Ukraine, which is Alexander Usik's home country. He hasn't
fought in Ukraine in a number of years. In any event, they're going
forward with that plan in this fight. According to Alex he told me we'll
be taking place on August to twelfth in war Class, Poland and the war
Claws Stadium, which is the same stadium which was being built, and I
believe it was like the first event they ever had there. Are certainly the
first boxing they ever had there. You got to go back to twenty eleven
when Vitali Klitchko had a very big heavyweight WBC title defense against the Polish superstar
Thomas Adamec, and this will take place in that same stadium in that same
city of war Claw, Poland. And you know, we'll see what happens.
But I mean, Usik is gonna be a big favorite against while we'll
look terrible in his last fight and got knocked down three times in the first
round and suffered that knee injury. But the good thing is Usk gets back
in business, whether it was against Tyson Fear or otherwise. I'm disappointed the
Fury fight that happened, but at least he's fighting. And also, you
know me, TJ, I can't stand all the multiple belts by the w
BA, and I has it been discussing with GILBERTA Mondoza. This is yet
another fight that will erase a regular titlist from their ledger and I believe if
this fight goes through as it's supposed to, it will leave the WBA only
now, I believe, with four divisions with multiple titleholders. And again we
should make mention as we've talked about previously. Here Poland borders Ukraine to the
north geographically and there were hundreds of thousands, if not several million dollion now
that have fled Ukraine because of the Russian invasion into Poland. And there were
already a lot of Ukrainians that lived in Poland that had immigrated to Poland anyway,
and so it is almost like a home away from home situation for USA
to be able to fight somewhere. It's ridiculous to even suggest that he could
ever fight in Ukraine right now with any of this going on. This is
the next best thing to fight, this fight somewhere regionally close, especially when
his last two fights were England and Saudi Arabia beating Anthony Joshua. So that's
a that's a fascinating point on this. And then one more thing again,
Dubois with the knee injury, the ACL knee injury. We're not doctors,
but that's usually a six to nine month recovery. This is somewhere in that
timeline December now to August. Let's hope he's healthy. They turned in medical
stuff to the WBA saying he will be healthy, Dublin be ready to fight
this fight. And I think it's fascinating too. You mentioned Frank Warren bid.
What did you say again, five million? Right at that when he
got his hands on the Tyson Fury Dillian White fight, it was for eight
times as much. It was for forty million at Wimbley Stadium. So it
tells you this one was not as big a priority for Warren Coup because I
didn't think they could make as much. It's not a matter of being a
priority. It's a matter of being able to do math. And if you
do the math, they knew that they had a big number for this fight
in terms of what they could sell at wimb They knew they were going to
get a pretty good amount of money from their broadcaster in the UK. Uh,
you know with pay per view. They knew they were going to get
a big I shouldn't say that they were going to get a number of people
to buy the pay per view on bt Sport box Office. They also knew
they had seven figures coming from ESPN to put it on the ESPN platform.
Uh, you know in the United States. You know that was a pay
per view also here, so they day a lot of revenue streams for that
fight here. He Dillian White was a much bigger fight USIG against Duwa,
not nearly as much. So obviously, Frank's not stupid. He's been in
this business for a long long time. He knows how to with. The
finances for these types of events are so even even at five million, that
seemed like a much more reasonable bid to me than the eight million. But
that's why I suggested that there's probably a very likely chance that that that the
USA team at that promotion company worked out a deal ahead of time with him
to make sure he just shows up and they get the Dubai in the ring
and will pay him on his end of the first bit, but don't necessarily
have to pay us the full seventy five all right. A couple of other
things. Rank did make an official announcement that Archer Better Beef is back to
fight Callum Smith, who's the WBC's number one contender. This will be in
Quebec City, interesting, not in Montreal. They've been debating it back and
forth, maybe one maybe the other, so they did announce August nineteenth,
Quebec City. Again. Better BfV is a Russian but has now lived trained
and even you said to us now has Canadian citizenship as well, so it's
kind of a homecoming situation. For him to fight there in Quebec. Give
us a little more on that three belt lightweight, light heavyweight excuse me,
title defense by better BF later in the summer. Well, he hasn't had
a he's only had let's pu like that. Since he's had a world title,
he has only had one defense in Canada and that was in two and
twenty one when he had the Montreal home coming in he he bloodied and stopped
Marcus Brown. That was at the end of twenty twenty one in December,
if I remember in any event, now he was going to Quebec for this
fight because all of his fights, he's had one pro fight in Russia,
but every other one of his fights were either in the United States or Canada.
But in terms of the title fights, he had one title fight in
Russia, all the restaur in the United States, and he had the one
that obviously I just mentioned that was in Canada. So he's very pumped up
based on his comments about this fight being finally made. Not a surprise,
I mean, this has been We've sort of known that this was going to
be August in Canada ever since they did the purse bid. You know.
However, many weeks ago. We just weren't sure of the exact date.
I suspected all along that it was going to wind up as the nineteenth once
I reported about what was going on in August to twelfth, which is that
Daldez Navarette fight, which we'll get to in a minute. In any event,
this is a good fight. I mean, look, we would like
to see better Bi against Bevall, I think like anybody. But if he's
going to go through the order, and he polished off Joe Smith to unify
with the WBO belt to add to his collection, then he had that great
fight against the WBO mandatory Anthony Yard, who was a good, solid contender,
was an excellent fight. Now he's taken on count Smith, who's a
worthy contender or former super middleweight champion. His only loss was a decision against
Canelo in their unification fight what was for the w BA plus one of the
vacant titles. So that's his only defeat and now he's going to fight better
BF. I mean, he's looked good in a couple of the light heavyweight
fights, granted not against the top names. He's been uh you know,
he did score a knockout in the eliminator and he's got his chance. He's
not scared to travel, as he talked about. I've been in England,
but I fought in the United States before. He's fought in the Middle East.
He's fought, uh, you know, outside of his comfort zone.
Now he's going to Canada. Not a problem for him. Should be a
good fight. It's a it's an ESPN main event, a nice summer,
a nice summer tilt as they say, indeed, all right, a little
more fight news here. We're just let me just say one our thing by
the way, Yeah, to me, the fascinating part is, even if
you're a supporter of better b if you think he wins the fight, this
is the first time in a while where I can really see a guy maybe
last in the distance with the guy because he's knocked out of all of his
opponents, he's only boxer that's active currently with the world title. That's a
perfect knockout percentage. But Callen Smith has a good beard and has never been
stopped. He's probably been down, but you know, Canello didn't come close
to stopping him. He's been in the ring with plenty of good guys to
my recollection, never really been in any real danger, all right, So
that's a fascinating subplot to that one coming in August again, tons and tons
here on the preview podcast in the news department. You did report also Wednesday
night and we put it up on the side as well on Big Fight Weekend
dot Com. The Hainey Lomachenko pay per view numbers coming in at around one
hundred and fifty thousand pay per views. Again, put it in perspective that
is usually typical right now of where a lot of these have done, some
have done better, but obviously the Jervante Davis and Ryan Garcia pay per view
did roughly almost ten times this with over a million pay per view buys.
So give me a little more on your reporting and where this came in,
because we were interested to find out those numbers. Yeah, I mean,
obviously, comparing it to the Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia fight's unfair. Totally
different kind of fight. I mean, the other fight was a much more
mainstream fight. They have much larger fan bases. Tank has been on pay
per view several times in the past. It's it's not a fair comparison,
even though there you know, all the guys and three of the four guys
are you know, top young fighters. Obviously Lomachenko the older fighter, but
certainly with a great reputation. But in any event, I mean, I
think most people and that I talked to in the lead up to the fight
that know the business, that understand what the economics were, they figured and
I was one of them that figured, you know what, this fight would
probably be considered a success around one hundred and fifty thousand, and they should
think they would probably be close to a home run if somehow then the first
number of the fight was a two, and so were there to come in
from my reporting to be around one fifty maybe a little bit. One person
that was involved in the business, that's involved in the business that knows the
deal said it was actually, maybe it's gonna be a little it's gonna be
more than one fifty. How much more, I'm not sure, but the
point was one fifty as your floor, that's a pretty good number. When
you take into account what the purses were for the main event, you could
estimate what the promotion cost, you know, sort of a ballpark, what
the gate was. Did the fight make a huge amount of money for the
promoters? Not? Probably not, but it doesn't seem like they were going
to lose money, and they got on a good event, obviously the main
event fighters. They split up seven million dollars four million for Haney, three
million for Lomachenko. Of course, Devin Haney going on Twitter, not too
pleased about the fact that because of his ill advised hard shove to the chest
and the way and got five four got fined four hundred k by the Nevada
Commissioner f That is, as you put it to me in a text message,
that's an expensive shove. That's one of the largest finds that I can
recollect in boxing. For that something that's not related to like a drug of
fans, a PD, a peed or something. I mean, a four
hundred thousand dollars shove, is what Haney says. They find him not to
take. They're not going to take any shit like that. There was no
reason for it. You saved that shit for the ring. And look,
I love Devin Haney, I think he's a tremendous young fighter. I like
him personally, but that was just not a great move, I mean,
and hopefully this teaches him a lesson with the with the reporting hands to yourself
till the bell rings. Correct, keep your hands to yourself and protect yourself
at all times to you, just real quick, and then we'll move on
with this concern ESPN and top rank in the least that Devin Haney on pay
per view unless it's a humongous name, He's maybe going back to ESPN plus
for the next title defense, depending on who the huge name is, or
do you believe he's a pay per view entity from here on now that he's
done one? What is your read? My read is that's a misnomer.
Just because you fight on pay per view once doesn't mean you're there forever.
Some fighters have attitude, it's not the case. It's what's the matchup now.
Certain guys get to a level like a Canella where you can pretty much
put any fight on pay per view. It's gonna make money, but not
everybody. And the great example who is the master of this? And you
gotta go back in several years obviously, but I remember these days was when
Oscar de Lajoie was the star of boxing, in the face of boxing.
He would have a big megafight against Felix Trinidad, or a huge fight against
Parnell Whittaker, or a big fight against Hector Camacho or any of those types
of guys. I quarte, but he also understood that not all fights are
created equals. So when he's fighting Patrick Sharpentier, where he's fighting Obakar,
where he's fighting those types of opponents, he's back on HBO. So inside
the eight or nine or ten or two twelve million dollar guarantee, he's taking
his three, his four, his three, his four, and he's making
his money and he's keeping his name out there, and he was active and
he understood that not all fights were created equal. Now with Oscar got to
a point in his career where all of his fights were on pay per view,
but it took a little while to get to that point. So unless
Devin Haney is fighting like another big time name, if he's fighting shakor Stevenson,
if he was fighting a Tank Davis for example, or somebody like that,
then I think he'll be back on non pay per view. But it's
not necessarily with Top Rank because his contract with Top Rank and lu Develop,
they were co promoters for three fights that is now expired, and he will
be a free agent and he can shop around and see what he wants and
the great thing if you're Devin Haney is he's in. I consider it like
he had the Aaron Judge Walker in baseball. He is still an undefeated fighter
at twenty four, he's the undisputed champion. He is a guy that just
did a pretty decent number on pay per view. He sold out along with
his partner in crime in this fight, a Lomachenko. He they sold out
the MGM Grand Gardner in according to top rank over fourteen four at the event.
And then you put into account of that and you look at the different
promoters and what they have in their stables. He fits in with anybody that
you'd think all of them would be interested. You know, if he goes
and he makes a deal with PBC, for example, there's a possibility of
a Gervada Davis, Golden boy Is Ryan Garcia Naturroom Boxing. They just signed
Regis Program at one forty. They've got other guys at top rank. Obviously
they're loaded. They've got Loma Chanko for a rematch possibly. They obviously have
the winner of the Tiathemo Josh Taylor Junior welterweight title fight. They aster,
of course, Stevenson was one of the mandatories. This guy's because he can
fight in either weight class. Either he may stay at thirty five or you
know, he's had the wanting to go up for a while because of making
weights becoming more restrained. But he's got great opponents because one hundred and thirty
five and forty are two of the best weight classes, if not the best
weight classes in the sport. So he's gonna have a lot of options.
He's gonna, you know, sit back and I think, see what's up.
I think everybody's gonna want to talk to him. I know Top rank
is interested, Eddie harn is certainly interested. You gotta think PBC would have
an interest to for the right fight. I think the kids got a real
chance to be a breakout guy at some point. Now. Is he the
most exciting fighter of all time? He isn't, but he's he's not a
stinker. He's not boring. I like watching Devin any fight and guess what,
and he doesn't run, and he's got all the belts. He's an
undisputed champion, so well if he moves up, obviously, but right now
it has cash at one thirty five. If he wants to make a defense,
he can easily get a couple of million dollars for a defense right now,
because he's got all the I'm being his agent, he's got all the
belts. Make a deal, be a shitty agent, you'd be a shitty
agent because he's not coming for a couple million. It's gonna cost more than
a couple million. What depends on who it is. We'll see, all
right, News, you did make mention just a second ago, Emanuel Navarante
and Oscar Valdez. You are reporting they have a date, they have a
site. Tell us more on that. Just a great matchup that is exciting
as you can get. They're gonna have that fight in Glendale, Arizona.
Uh in the in the Desert Diamond Arena down there into in that place where
we've seen the third fight between Chocolateito and the Roman Gonzalez. They'd been some
other boxing events down there, Paul Jake, Paul fought there recently against Anderson
Silva a year ago. I mean they've they've had a number of fights,
right covered a couple of fights there back in the day, Costa Zoo fight
years ago. Anyway, you know, Oscars grew up in the Tucson area,
not that far away. Navarette obviously is a Mexican, big, big
Hispanic population. Should be a great action fight, like a classic Mexican kind
of battle. And look, this was not a surprise that they scheduled this
fight because all along remember they were supposed to fight back in February. Oscar
Valdez had not recovered he had the back injury and he ended up having a
pass on this fight for the vacant WBO title at one thirty, So they
put a Navarette in against the guy they could get on short notice who was
highly ranked. That was Liam Wilson, and as we remember, they put
on a tremendous fight, a fight of the year kind of fight, and
Oscar Baldez sat there at ringside knowing he's going to get the winner, but
he had to win the inner and fight. He did so and looked pretty
good. It looked sharp, looked like the time off did him some good,
and he was sharp as a as a as a knife against Adam Lopez
and their rematch, he didn't stop him like he did in the first fight,
but he won a very a lopsided decision. That was the co feature
on the undercard of Hainey against Lomachenko, and so here we go. The
rematch between not the rematch rather, but the fight the mandatory for him against
Navarette is going to be good to go. They haven't announced yet, but
it's always been said to me. It's gonna be August. That's a date.
And so if you're boxing aficionado and you're watching fights in the dead of
summer, you got August twelfth with this fight. Then you got the following
week another fight with a better BF against Calum Smith. Also, the Osick
fight is going to be in August. It's going to be a you know,
August has been for a long time was kind of a month where a
lot of people just sort of like laid off because it's a dead of summer.
But I think the powers that be, the promoters and the networks realized
that they can get good audiences and good interest at a time on the calendar
where there's not a lot of other sports going on, so they might as
well take advantage before you get into the very very heavy duty sports seasons in
the fall with football, college sports, at the beginning of NBA, NHL,
the baseball playoffs, etc. So August has come a much more popular
time to do these kind of fights, So listen for actions, action purposes
for just a thrilling kind of potential battle. Navarette Oscar Maldez is maybe at
the top of the list on the boxing calendars. It would be an action
fighting again, as we were discussing remember on the podcast on the purse bid
and on the dates that you're talking about. The USIG Dubois fight would be
in the afternoon US time, Polish time in prime time, and then this
fight Valdez Navaratte would be the nighttime fight through top rank, ESPN, etc.
On August the twelve. Are we pretty well good? I know you
had one other note to claressa shields kind of homecoming battle in Detroit at the
Little Caesar's Arena for June third, not this weekend, but next weekend.
She needs a new opponent because her opponent failed a Vada Free fight drug test.
You got something on that real quick. That well, she doesn't need
we have we have all kinds of news. She's got a new opponent.
Yeah, she would say she doesn't need a new opponent. They have one.
So her original opponent, which was Hannah Gabriels, which is a rematch
of a fight from a few years ago where Shields was in a title fight,
but she won very easily. But that the talking point, the hook,
if you will, which was kind of bogus, but what it is,
what it is. They made the rematch because Kenna Gabriel's scored the only
knockdown that Claressa has ever taken as a professional or amateur, even though she
wasn't really hurt and it didn't really do anything in terms of the outcome of
the fight, but they made the rematch. And so Hannah Gabriels came up
with a VADA positive test that was done under the umbrella of the World Box
of the the WBC's Clean Boxing program. She tested positive for a antabolic steroid
that is known to be performance enhancing. Now the interesting thing, and I
mean I've we've all heard a lot of stories about reasons why people say they
may have failed the test. She failed the test for a substance called close
to the ball, which is a form of testosterone that, as I read
on the definitions of it, is a performance to answer. It is also
used to fatten cattle. Take that for what you want in any event.
In talking to her promoter, loud de Bella who showed me pictures of this.
She claims that, and I guess she's told the authorities or the WBC
that this is the case, produced pictures of her doing it. I guess
her. Don't shoot the messenger. Okay, Her dog had some kind of
like serious surgery, and as part of the dogs like care after the surgery,
she had to on a daily basis, maybe multiple times, they rub
a certain kind of cream on the wound that was being pitched off, and
in that cream this substance and it was absorbed into her system. And that's
why she says, or her team says, she came back with the positive
result. Again, don't shoot the messenger. I mean, you know,
I got to deliver the line. We have the dog ate my homework and
then the dog failed my VADA test. Is that what you're telling me that
she had frame for a wound on the dog. But the bottom line is
whether whether that is legit or not legit is not irrelevant to get we talk
about. It's in the system now. The WVC their clean boxing program rules,
and I've read the rule specifically state that they do not adhere to strict
liability. But it's too soon for them to adjudicate it. So even if
they get her, even if she's off the hook and they say it was
accidental based on her explanation, and they'll do whatever investigating that they do,
the reality is it's too it's not happening. She's not fighting for the title
next week because of the situation. So what they've done is they got a
fighter name Marcella Cornejo, who has had three previous world title fights, two
at middleweight, one and super middleweight. She's lost two very close calls and
one that was a more one sided, but she's fought top women. She
fought Franchion Cruise Desern lost her twice, once by a really super close I
believe it was a split decision. She also lost to Kaylee Reese for a
vacant title, which is a majority decision that was back in twenty sixteen.
Anyway, she is number one ranked by three of the four zation, so
she was willing to take this fight on short notice. So she will stand
across the ring from Claressa in the Detroit Quasi homecoming fight on the Zone June
third, Little Caesar's Arena, first ever boxing match. They've had in that
building, you know, boxing card. And look, this fight was never
about Gabriels, it was never about Corneo. This is about Claressa fighting in
front of her her Michigan and Detroit and Flint people, defending her title.
And I think she can still put on a good show whether she's fighting Handing
Gabriels or Marcella Cornejo. All right, and you will appreciate this because you
love giving the insight on when you've been in arenas and venues. I've been
in that little Caesar's Arena doing college basketball postseason in March back a couple of
years ago, a couple of times for the Horizon League. That's where the
Detroit Pistons plays, where the Detroit Red Wings play. It replaced Joe Lewis
Arena where the Red Wings would always play hockey and the Pistons used to play
basketball years ago. State of the art, nineteen thousand seat facility. I
don't know how many tickets Claressa Shields is going to say, what kind of
atmosphere. Maybe it's six thousand, maybe it's ten thousand, maybe it's more.
I don't know. I was talking. I was talking with U with
Claressa's manager, Mark Cafett on Thursday when this news came out that Canna Garybel's
had been booted from the fight because of the drug test and they'd replace her
with Corneo. And I asked him about that, and he said, you
know, they were. They're really very pleased. He said, with more
than a week to go, they've already got over six thousand sold and look
in June with not a lot going on, if the weather is decent and
it's a it's it's getting some good promotion. A lot of you know,
a lot of places are walk up cities. Detroit is like that. There's
a really good chance they might put in nine or ten thousand. Obviously they're
not just setting this up for nineteen thousand. They don't expect that. But
I think everybody that's involved in this promotion, uh Solita Promotions, the Zone,
Mark and his team, and Claressa. I think everybody's pretty excited and
happy how the promotion has gone, even with the change of opponent. And
understand, she's a hero in that part of the world from the Olympics and
has the undisputed title, so there is a draw there from that standpoint,
My lord, have we had a show with news Info. You talked to
Lee Wood earlier on the show in the one on one interview for his title
fight. We do have one little piece of nostalgia that we've got to get
out there today as we release this. Fifty eight years ago the controversial heavyweight
title rematch of Muhammed Ali and Sonny Listen. He became Muhammed Ali was Cashious
Clay in the first fight. Did you know pop quiz trivia? He originally
was not Muhammad Ali in and around this time when he converted to Islam,
the Nation of Islam, and I want to say, it's Herbert Muhammed that
was the head of the Nation of Islam. I believe I have that right.
He bestowed the name Mohammed X. He was Muhammad X for a little
while, from a month or two, and then Herbert Muhammed again then said
no, and you're Muhammad Ali. So Muhammad Ali fought for the first time
as Muhammed Ali against Sonny Liston in a f that they were originally trying to
have somewhere in the Northeast. They were trying to have it in Boston at
the Boston Garden couldn't have it there. They ended up in a hockey arena
ray Feel in Lewiston, Maine, because did you believe them, they wouldn't
give them a license. They had to go to Maine to have a heavyweight
title fight Dan ray Feel on the Red. The amazing thing about it is
that fight now. First, for people know, we're talking about a fight
fifty years ago. I know we're old fuckers. We weren't born then,
We were not. You did not, I was not on the planet anyway.
So that parents hold on. My parents had met, my parents were
dating, they were not yet married. So the fight ended up for that
that type of historical fight that people still talk about many years later because of
the controversy of the first round knockout, that how he had um and like
you said, he was Ali in his mind and a lot of people's mind.
But there was a lot of assholes out there that refused to call him
by mom at Ali and insisted on being disrespectful and calling him cash his play.
But besides that, but they only fought in front of like a little
over two thousand people on lewis Than Maine. And that that's when you think
about I mean the magnitude of that kind of rematch after he shook up the
world and won the heavyweight championship to only have twenty two hundred or whatever it
was, you know, it's kind of a shocker. But yeah, it's
a very famous heavyweight fight. There's still people can still debate and argue about
was it or what he did? He square real knockout? Did Sonny Listen
take a dive because of the Mafia ties? And by and by the way,
those are two great things, and they're separate things. First of all,
was it a punch? And second of all did he just lay down
after the punch? Those are two separate things. I believe it was a
punch, but I believe Sonny flopping around like a beached whale while Jersey Joe
Walcott is trying to figure out what the count is highly suspicious at best,
highly suspicious. But what it did to do in that fight besides give Valley
a heavyweight championship defense and send him on his way to you know, obviously
continue his legendary career, it produced one of the most iconic boxing photos in
the history of the sport, of any sport, and of course that is
the very famous photo that you know if you follow boxing, oh, I
can't imagine, never seen it. It is the shot of Muhammad Ali standing
over a fallen sunny listen with this glow and listen sort of with his head.
And you see in the in the stands like that they it's shot into
where some media and broadcasters were seated and between Ali's legs, and like the
second row you see a gentleman with his mouth like, oh my god,
what has happened. That's Larry Merchant. It is some Larry Merchant. And
that's a great trivite question. But I will say this also, everybody that
listens to us, or that reads me, or knows anything from following me,
knows about my memorabilia and my boxing collecting lunacy. So with all the
posters and stuff I have in pictures and this and that, I don't have
a lot of it displayed. There's a couple of things hanging up in my
office, but in my rest of my home there's literally one boxing item that's
hanging on a wall. So if you've walked into my house and you weren't
in the space where most of my posts aren't were in my office, you
wouldn't know you're in a location where there's like a boxing looney tune, Except
there's one photo that hangs in the foyer of my home near our kitchen.
That is a beautiful large format black and white photo, that famed photo of
Ali standing over the fallen sunny listen in a beautiful framed in mat that has
autographed by Muhammad Ali. And that's the one big boxing things I've hanging up
in my in my home. And again, Neil Lifer, that's the name
of the foot of the photographer that took that famous photo for the Associated Press.
It ended up in Life magazine, newspapers all around everywhere with Ali gesturing
at listen to get up while he's flaid. And Neil Lifer, by the
way, is one of the most famous sports photographers of all time. He
is especially well known for his boxing photography. He tracked Ali's career. He
has got huge amounts of Ali photos in his library. He became friendly with
alium. I actually was I trying to remember where I was. It wasn't
that long ago. I was at a I was at dinner, I was
I forget what fight I was at, but I was at a fight and
there was probably about a dozen of us. We were invited to a dinner
and I was sitting with life Frame. We had a you know, I've
met them several times over the years, and uh and Neil and I had
a good conversation about some of this great iconic photography. Is he's a you
know, one of the great photographers of all time. You know what I'm
gonna do for you too. There's something because I go down the rabbit hole
of YouTube in the nostalgia, because you gotta appreciate one thing, and then
we're gonna get out of here. We've been here a while on the podcast.
In this time frame, there was a closed circuit broadcast of the fight.
But it's not like the local news or the national news ESPN doesn't exist.
This is the nineteen sixties, kids. There's no Internet. There's no
way to see this fight until days later when they replayed it on ABC's Wide
World of Sports. They got the replayer rights right maybe weeks later, and
got the film. It's interesting. I'm gonna send this to you because if
you go on YouTube, there is a black and white version of You've seen
it up Wild World of Sports with how would co sell Rocky Marciano and Jack
Dempsey where they're debating, I have interject, do you think I'm not gone
down the YouTube? Right? I have no idea what you've seen or not
of that black and white with the grainy video, And it's like the film
of the Kid of the assassination from a couple of years earlier, where they're
trying to figure out is it a punch or not. They didn't really go
down the road. I guess they were deciding to stay away. The Mafia
was a big was a big deal, and for a lot of decades,
including in the sixties, they didn't really go down the road of was the
fight fixed? And did Listen flop around on purpose because he was he was
throwing the fight in the first legitimate punch. He was gonna get knocked out
in the first round, because that's what all the Mafia gamblers wanted to have
happen. But in any event, it's just to go down the rabbit hole
and watch that where I've always by the way, yeah, I've always been
of the My opinion is that he took a dive in that fight, and
it's pretty and it's and it's pretty obvious when suddenly he's flopping around. I
mean it's almost like he was confused. He's flopping around. The count happens,
Oh I'm knocked down because it's his arms were above his head and he's
laying down. But then suddenly, because Jersey Joe Walcott, the referee is
confused, and you've got the person counting for the knockdowns yelling across the ring,
up on the apron, come here, come here. Walcott leaves the
shot on the film and they start fighting again, and Sonny Listen's not knocked
out anymore because he's defended himself. He's throwing a punch and Walcott comes back
in and goes, okay, now the fight is over. It was just
lunacy. How this fifty eight years if there was twitter back then, Oh
yeah, fifty eight you think do you think there was controversy in chaos and
stupidity about Loma Chenko and Hainey's outcome? Imagine that? Yeah, go down
the rabbit hole and watch all right, great stuff here that that Ali Listen
and I love that about the photo hanging in the house. Iconic photo for
sure. Tremendous stuff with Leewood. Will see how he does with Mauricio Laura
and again dueling featherweight world title fights with Conlin. Luis Alberto Lopez will predict
all these fights on the bet Us Boxing Show Friday one Eastern Time Live bet
Us platforms, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, etc. Where they're live making
predictions, gambling help you if you see. If you don't see the fight
preview and prediction show live, you can see it later on Friday, etc.
Bet Us And whatever happens Dan Raphael off of all these world title fights
this weekend, we'll recap it coming off the weekend on the Fight Freaks Unite
Recap on this very podcast feed. When we're done for now, have a
great Memorial Day weekend. You and I are going to talk over Memorial Day
and release the podcast coming off the weekend. For now though, I think
we're good, my friend, ready to enjoy all the action. I'm most
sure Liam and I will see you. Let's tomorrow on our Friday bet Us
show. We love that again. Check that out again. Followers subscribe here
on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, Spotify at the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed.
Enjoy all the action Fight Freaks Unite recap. He's off the weekend.
Everybody have a safe Memorial Day, and we'll talk to you again soon here
as part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed h