Yes, off a weekend that is seen the silly Lomachenko reassert himself with a
dominant performance and win to recapture a portion of the lightweight title. It is
a weekend that has also seen a horrific ring announcer mistake in Australia. Rayfield
can't wait to launch on this a weekend that has also seen an Olympic gold
medalist from Wales, a female, Lauren Price, look dominant. We've got
lots of recap, we got news, we got nostalgia. It's the Fight
Freaks Unite recap podcast. Hello. I'm the somewhat competent host TJ. Reeves.
He is our insider Dan Rayfield from Big Fight Weekend dot com and also
his substack. Why are you not subscribed to his substack in his newsletter at
fight Freaks Unite. That's the name of the substack. That's the name of
this recap podcast every week. Good to have you here. We've had a
busy weekend. In addition to the fights, my wife has put up with
me for another calendar year. I saw you tweet that those that had the
under were sorely mistaken God on Mighty nineteen ninety six, we talked Hello,
Dan Rayfield. You're hanging in there. You're doing all right. Everything good,
Yeah, a little onto the weather, but I'm good a little bit.
We're gonna get through this. Now, we're gonna get you know,
you know what, we persevere for the peeps, the savages want the content.
We're gonna get you some inside analysis. You talked on the Friday Pod
about that heavyweight triple header in New York that included in nineteen ninety six e
Vander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Terrible Tim Witherspoon. And that was the night
before I got married. And I mean, my god, I don't even
remember that that part of the heavyweight landscape in that time frame. But that's
also twenty eight years ago. That ain't yesterday. So again, shout out
to Missus Reeves, Shout out to Missus Reeves, and shout out to all
the moms. We're doing this on Mother's Day, in the early evening on
Mother's Day. Your wife, my wife. Have we revealed to the audience
that we're both married to Jennifer's. We're a lot more alike than a lot
of people might give us credit for. We've got a little Mutt and Jeff
thing going on, but happy Mother's Day to missus Rayfield and missus reeves to
all of our moms and all the moms everywhere with that, Why are you
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Apple, Spreaker, Spotify. With that, I think the blinking headline is
Walmachenko appeared to be back. I have to confess I was not watching live
in the middle of the night my anniversary and Mother's Day weekend, but I've
seen the recaps. I've seen the highlights. He looked pretty dominant, and
from what I read, he was pretty dominant. You're the best one to
speak to it. How good did he look in Cambosa's, his home country,
in this win at his advanced age to get back in the lightweight title
picture as he's now done. Well, you said that Womachenko is back and
I never thought that he had left. So I mean, he lost a
couple of huge fights. But I know what you mean. Well, I
mean the huge fight that he lost against ti Fimo Lopez is now four years
ago. And I'm not taking anything away from tia Fimo's victory on that night
because he won the fight, no problem. But it's a fact that Lomachenko
had souldier surgery after that fight, so he was compromised in the fight and
it was still very close he'd you know, and that the same problem.
And they talked about this a little bit on the broadcast and they were dead
on, you know, Timothy Bradley and Joe tessitur that when he lost to
t Fmo Lopez fight, he just never got it out of first gear until
the second half of the fight, and he gave away so many the close
rounds. Even when he was coming on late, there just wasn't enough rounds
to catch up. And if you take a look at what happened in the
Devin Hainey fight, which is the other loss that could have easily gone the
other way, that was another fight where he lost on the on the slimmest
of margins. But in a fight where he probably gave away some of those
early rounds. So it's Costo, I mean not Rather, it's cost Lomachenko
when he started a little bit late. He didn't wait to do that against
George Cambosa's He came out in the very first round and started pushing him back
and letting his combinations go and and uh. And he was there not to
fight from round five on, or six on, or seven on. He
was there to fight from the opening belt. I don't think he wanted to
leave it to the judges in Australia, knowing what happened to him. In
his mind, he believes he was robbed against them and any I don't have
that personal viewpoint. I personally had that fight to draw. So yeah,
he had some tough losses, but the Haini loss, yeah, he got,
he got, he got the the other guy got the hand raised and
he didn't get the belts. But that was as close as a guest.
So his thing has really been injuries in the layoffs. Obviously, the the
Tiafimo or not Timo. I keep saying that the George Cambosis fight between Lomachenko,
that fight was supposed to happen back right before the war started between Russia
and Ukraine. If you remember, he was supposed to go to Australia to
challenge for the belts that Cambos has had. When he bailed out for these
reasons to serve his country. It was then Haney that took the opportunity made
it for the four belt unification. So this is a fight that for Loma
and for Camboss has sort of been a long time coming. I thought he
looked spectacular. Look I've said from day one, I've covered Lomachenko's entire career,
been ringside for many of his fights. I know people are going to
look at it and say, well, you know, how is he that
he's only eighteen and three and he's lost a couple of fights. I'm like,
dude, you just don't know if you watch what this man has done
and you put it in the context of the incredible amateur career that he had
three hundred and ninety six and one lost avenge, two gold medals in the
Olympics, multiple other big time amateur medals, gold medals. He's one of
the most skillful, you know, matrix like spighter that you'll see he is
Roy Jones ish in that sense, and I dare say that on his best
night. And I've been ridiculed for this, and I don't really care.
I will stand by this. I'm not saying he would win, but I
have made the point before been punished about it that at one hundred and thirty
pounds, the best version of Lomachenko and the best version of Floyd Mayweather is
an even type of fight. And I say that that's fair, that's fair.
You hear it again. You're not saying he's better than him. You
said even fight. You'd love to see it one hundred percent. I think
is a highly competitive, very fascinating, interesting fight, and that on a
given knight, that both guys would have a chance to win. Lomachenko is
a supremely special talent. He's a first ballot Hall of Famer, and if
there is any doubt about it, just he racks up another world title belt.
I believe that's his sixth world title over three different weight classes, from
one twenty six, one, thirty one, thirty five. Uh And frankly
it it other than him getting the stoppage in the eleventh round, the fight
was kind of what I expected. I figured Cambosis is a game fighter.
He's got a heart and he tries, but he's not a big puncher.
He's pretty one dimensional. He doesn't have a huge amount of speed. His
defense is just sort of like medio and he was played with by Devin Haney
over twenty four rounds in two fights, had no prayer. He did get
the win that he's been making a living off of against Lopez, a fight
in which Lopez, similar to the way that Lomachenko was compromised when he lost
to Ti Femo, Ti Femo was compromised when he lost to Cambos's in that
fantastic fight. And the one fight that Cambosis had after he defeated, not
defeated, but after he had the Hainy fights, he got what many of
you was a gift against Maxi Hughes. That was a fight that he easily
could have been on the losing side of that particular fight. So he's made
good for him huge amounts of money living off that one victory. He's like
today's day, you know, back when I first started, the guy that
made a living off of one big win and made millions and millions and millions
of dollars off one great win, but never won another big fight. The
rest of his career was Hassim Rockman. He knocked out Lennox Lewis and that
spectacular one punch knockout to win the heavyweight championship, got obliterated in the remat
but still continue to fight major fights and make major money against big names and
never won another big fight. I mean lost again to David two, lost
to John Ruiz right on and right now. Cambos Is is kind of in
that position, you know, good guy, but is not got the level
of skill to get over the hump of somebody that's supremely talented and healthy.
It seems to me like a Maceili Lomachenko. So it was a brilliant performance.
I gave every single round of the fight to Cambosis, I mean to
Lomachenko rather two. A couple of the judges gave Cambos's, you know,
a couple of rounds here and there, but he basically was down going into
that last round. I think he had gotten like one round or two rounds
at most. And the body punching, let's talk about the body punching,
Yes, sensational body punching from Lomachenko, who just was It wasn't just like
shots like the knockout and the knockdown prior to the knockout. He was really
stepping in with those left hands. I mean, just as brutal as they
get, just rough right, digging in and the perfect spot. And uh,
the reff was calling the fight just as George Singer, which is the
father of George and the assistant trainer. You know, he's thrown in the
towel enow his son was done. And uh, you know, I give
kem bo's' credit though he didn't complain, he made the point. Look,
you know, I may not have won the fight, but I always stepped
up to fight the best guys and you can't. Yeah, right, and
I you know, And it's a credit to negotiation because they had the automatic
rematch clause with Haney. He's done enough to hang around in the IBF rankings
to get this fight. But Lomachenko's a world class fighter, and you and
I analyzed it that way. We broke it down that way, all right.
So that leads us to the next part of this. If he's on
the ascension here in that division, what is next the names kicked around or
the likes of Shakur. Stevenson, Gervonte Davis on social media has even alluded
to this, I'll believe that when I see it. But still that's an
intriguing name. So what, in your opinion, what do you think is
potentially next? Because let's be honest, as good as he looked with the
case you just laid out against Cambosa's who's you know again a questionable world you
know, world championship fighter? How many more years at thirty six with all
this tread off the tires? Do we have Lomachenko? How long is he
gonna have to wait for significant fight? So go ahead, Well, I
don't think he's gonna have to wait because it's gonna be his next fight.
It's gonna be something significant. He's not gonna come back and defend against just
a regular old opponent. And are you encouraging me that I could get Lomachenko
Shakur like in the winter and like November December. No, let's back up
for a second, because he has the IBF title and I'm not sure where
it stands in terms of their mandatory situation. But if he signs for a
unification fight, then the mandatory will take a back seat because within the IBF
rules, if as long as you're within the time frame before they order the
mandatory, it's automatic you get the pass to do the unification. So that's
a good thing in terms of him having the IBF title. Now, if
you take a look at the landscape, he's got the IBF title. Next
week on May eighteenth, we will see Emmanuel never at Tay against Baroncheck.
They will fight for the vacant WBO title. Lomachenko and never atte are both
with top break. Never ATI's the big favorite, so that's one possibility the
winner you have. In July sixth, you got Shakhor Stevenson making his first
offense of the WBC title against Harttunian in Newark, another ESPN card. Now
that is going to be the final fight of Shakor's top rank contract. But
that's not to say that he can't do a short term deal or you know,
come up with something and stay with them or you know, for that
type of opportunity, that would be a very significant fight. And you just
mentioned the other title holder in the weight class, which is WBA title holder.
See me. Look when Hani became undisputed, and now we moved up
to one hundred and forty where he's got one of the belts, all the
belts splintered when they've all been filled in as we've gone. So, uh,
if Gervante Davis is staying on his social media that he's interested in that,
and he's never mentioned that before. It's always been, you know,
no interest in you. If you remember a few years ago, Floyd Mayweather
when he was promoting Gervonte, which he doesn't anymore, was talking about how,
you know, we're not doing that fight. They're looking to age.
That's a lily Lomachenko out correct. So he's got the fight on June fifteenth
against Frank Martin. So I don't think there's gonna be any decisions made about
what the next fight is for Lomachenko until a few things play out. We're
gonna see what happens next week. We'll probably see what happens in June,
which is, you know, barely a month away, and maybe even wait
until July, and so we'll see what happens with all three of those fights.
And they all know, by the way that a significant fight for any
of those three guys is Lomachenko. There's no doubt about it. He does
have a popularity. He does bring a lot to the table. You know,
Chakor and Tank against each other would probably be a pretty big fight.
But I'm not sure that any of those guys against Navarette is as big of
a deal as Lomachenko. Lomachenko. Really, other than Tank, who's the
biggest name, the next best guy in terms of bringing the money and bringing
the eyeballs is Lomachenko. And he's willing to fight anybody, like he said
him and again he's never run from anybody. This guy was willing to fight
whoever, no matter what I mean. You have to understand when he turned
pro, I've said this before. Yeah, he wanted to make money like
any profession, but he was never about the money. He knew the money
would come along with the titles and the victories and the accomplishment. He was
all about I want titles as quickly as possible and as many weight classes as
I can handle physically. That was all he was about. I mean,
I wrote my story on the prefight story on this about how when he turned
professional and he met with top rank, he wasn't looking for some gigantic,
crazy bonus. I mean, he hain't got money. Obviously, he got
nice minimums, but his whole thing was opportunity. Forget about the bonus.
Bob Aaron, can you get me a world championship fight in my pro debut?
Bob was like, listen, can't do it in your pro debut.
We can probably get something in your second fight. So in his first fight,
they fought a reputable contender, a ten round fight for a regional belt,
which he won, and then in his second fight he fought for a
world title. He lost in a fight against Orlando Solito where Solito did not
make the weight, got stripped, and then proceeded to hit him low about
five thousand times without any warring from the referee, in a fight that I
was ring site for it. I remember this specifically. I was sitting next
to Kevin Iol and Kevin Ili were keeping track of the low blows because it
was so blatant and so ridiculous. So he lost that fight on his split
decision. In his third professional fight, he toyed and easily defeated the undefeated
Olympian Gary Russell Junior to win the vacant title that he was allowed to fight
for again after what happened with Sledo. A guy and at that time,
Gary, who was a brilliant prospect and up and comer, was twenty I
think he was twenty four to Oher had tremendous you know, advantages in terms
of the number of pro fights, and Lomachenko took him to school and then
he went on and that became. With that victory, he tied the record
for the fewest fights needed to win a world title, and then he did
it. That guy's got a Hall of Fame resume. We know absolutely we
need the same thing in terms of fewest fights to win in two divisions to
unify, et cetera. Just a brilliant fighter. So you ask who should
be next? Look, if Tank is serious, that's the biggest fight that
Loma could have financially. I kind of suspect that we'll maybe se him against
Navarette, which is a probably a much more a makable sign up, sign
me up, fascinating style matchup with the length and the size difference, but
the skills and the speed, and they both are you know, good punchers,
although I reserve my opinion about the punching power of Navarette until I see
him fight as a lightweight, and obviously you can't count out Baronchek was also
undefeated and an Olympian and a good fighter himself. But even with Hani leaving
the division, even with Tiafima, Lopez leaving the lightweight division you know in
recent past, and then other fighters who have gone up and wait, Ryan
Garcia leaving the weight class, those types of names that have left the division
in the last couple of years. The fact that you've got still Navarete who's
come up to the division, Chacor who's come up into the division. Lomachenko
was still there, and Gervante Davis. That's for the most interesting names and
guys in that division that all do different sort of things. Lomachenko the cure
you know, technician, but punch is also he got the defensive minded,
brilliant tactician in Shakur, you know, the big, big puncher in Davis
and Navarette, you know, with the crazy angles and the all action style.
I mean, there's a lot of fun fights that you can make in
that weight class. And Lomachenko, by virtue of this win, he puts
some stuff right in the middle of all that, and as far as what
happens with cambosis, you know, I don't know what he's gonna do in
the future, but you've got a figure he's not retiring. He did make
another seven figure payday the other night. The one fight that's sitting there for
him at some point in time, I don't know when that's gonna be.
They'll always have that rematch with Tifi Malopez in the back pocket. Someday could
happen for him. But there you go on what the prospects are, and
there's a lot of good ones for Lomachenko. Can we have good things in
the lightweight division? Let's find out all right on the rest of the card.
You've been around for a lot of this, and this has happened before
where they announce the wrong winner or the wrong scorecard, not usually in a
high profile fight, but uh Ternika Johnson ends up winning the WBA Women's bantamweight
world title of Vernina Hughes and Tchernika is obviously the home country favorite, but
they the ring announcer and I know you're gonna go off here announced the wrong
winner. That's the most notable thing about her dominant performance. The thing that
we're probably only going to remember from this is that she stood there with a
stunned look on her face while Nina Hughes is celebrating, because again he read
one of the cards is ninety eight ninety two for Hughes on what planet?
And from what limited I saw on the recaps on what planet? Would anybody
have thought that Nina Hughes won eight of the ten rounds? Well, here's
the thing previously, there's something wrong there. And then the dude puts it
in reverse, like me on the five speed down into the right, put
it in reverse. Let me reread the cards, and God, Rayfield help
me. What are we doing here? You know what, Joe Tessitor said
that exact thing on this era. I thought he was listening to our podcast.
So the announcer is a guy named Lieutenant Dan Hennessy who has been the
voice of the major Australian boxing events for many years. I've never liked listening
to him. I think he's fucking over overblown. The gas bag he best
for it Forrest Gump. He's a literal Lieutenant Dan. He's a Lieutenant Dan.
Go ahead. I mean so, I've never been a fan of that
style. I mean, can we just have like you listen to, like
Jimmy Lennon, Michael Buffer, go back to the you know, back when
I was watching boxing as a as a younger guy. Uh, Chuck Hull,
you know people like that, Jimmy Lennon senior. I mean it's now
Mark Chanook right for top rank, and Mark Schnook does a nice job.
Also, David Diamantes a little over the top of times, but he's the
Mattroum guy. And last Diamantes never announced the wrong winner right Phield. But
the point I'm making it at the ones I mentioned are they do it in
an engaging and interesting fashion, but they don't scream at you. I don't
like screamers. You don't have to scream. I don't need screaming. Don't
give me a headache. He screams and he funks it up, so he's
bad on both counts. But the point is, even if you can put
up with the nonsensical stick, you got one job as the ring announcer,
well you got two jobs. Announced the fights, who's in the ring to
fight, and then announced result that right when it's over. So if you
go back and we'll get to this fight, in a minute. The earlier
fight, The first of the three fights on the top rank on the broadcast
was the junior bantamweight WBZ interim title fight between Pedro Givara and Andrew Maloney.
Yes, yes, so when he read the scores for that fight, he
read the scores, but in his last score that he announced, he announced
one thirteen, one fifteen, he fucked it up the way you normally reads,
so you kind of were confused. So he made that mistake. Now
that's not I've seen worse. That's not an atrocity. It sucks, but
it's like, okay, but now in the title fight you do it again.
An he's even worse. And here's the problem. When he read the
original scores and they announced the wrong winner, he didn't like say, excuse
me, ladies and gentlemen, I have it, we have a correction.
He just grabbed the mic again or held the mic and started reading the scores
again. And in the studio in Bristol or Yeah, where Tim Bradley and
then Joe Testdor were, I felt like they they they had announced their result
and they were talking about the result and they didn't realize because not her fault,
because they're in Bristol in the studio, and obviously the fights are taking
place on the ground in Australia. Say, they were not even aware when
he finally grabbed the mic to start reading again. So you didn't hear the
very beginning of that, that's right. And then he just suddenly announced that
the other corner, well what you see in the background, And again,
you're right when they're bizarre, when they're detached, they're on a remote location,
they're not sitting ringside, they're they're right now, they're incredulous. Wait
a minute, she got a she gotta and test towards even saying that she
got a ninety eight ninety two card in victory. And then you can see
somebody with Duke Tenant then in the background, which I assume is either an
Australian Commissioned person or who was it was the WBA's person that's standing there like
pointing to the card or whatever, and that's when he does the oh my
bad, but he just he didn't even do that. He just read them
again, like what the hell is going on? Well, he said something
like you can hear him in the background going ladies and gentlemen, ladies,
and gentlemen, because he's trying to say to the crowd, Oh, what
a dobble. It was really really, really really bad. Yeah. And
so now you've got uh, cor Anina Hughes, who thinks she's retained the
title, who's already like in the arms of her team and her trainer and
celebrating, and and Johnson who's like, now suddenly the champion again, uh
or you know, win or not that again, but wins the title,
right, and and everybody is confused. And Tim Bradley, you know,
was was his reaction was precious. You know, we got to get this
dude up on it out of here. And and Testatur, you know,
was basically Joe Testitaur was saying what every other person was thinking, like what
are we doing here? Which is what are we doing here when when it's
a one sided fight for the time. Now you asked me, have I
have I seen something like that before? I can think of two examples,
and it's definitely happened years ago. I was covering an Oscar dale Hoy fight
at the MGM. I believe it was when he fought Javier Castilleo, which
is a pay per view fight, and a lot of the two thousand Olympians
that Lou de Bella had signed were on that undercard, and Lou was running
the show for Oscar. This is when he had broken away from Top Ring.
It was being promoted by Univision Sports, and one of the young prospects
that Lou had was the bantamweights medal winner from Washington, d C. Clarence
Vincent, who was the nephew of the Hall of Fame great Mark two sharp
Johnson, and Clarence Vincent was a prospect at that time. I forget what
his record was, maybe he was three and oh four and oh something like
that. He had a four round fight or a six round fight on the
pay per view on the undercard, and they announced the decision, and they
announced it to the other guy, and we're all sort of like, WHOA,
what's that all about? And then a few seconds later, the rein
announcer who I don't remember who was re announcing that particular fight, alerted the
crowd. Within a few seconds we out, you know, a mistake or
a correction, and they then announced the correct result of the fight. So
not a perfect situation, but Lisa was handled to my red collection in a
pretty reasonable Manner. Now, another fight that I remember that was similar was
in and I looked this up because I just want to make sure I got
this right. The first time I ever went to California to cover dal La
Hoya Mosley one earlier in the day, that day you had the first fight
that took place between Stevie Johnston, who was then the WBC lightweight champion and
Jose Leui Castillo, who would go on obviously to have big time notoriety and
fame, but at that time was known basically as the as a top sparring
partner for Julio Sazar Chavis. And on that day in two thousand, Julio
Jose Luis Castillo outpointed ste Johnson to win the title. Ring magazine picked it
as the two thousand upset of the year. So three months later they met
for a rematch. This time it was in Denver, Colorado, which was
Stevie Johnson's hometown. And in the in that fight, in the remap this
was actually was on ESPN, you had the original scorecard had been added up
incorrectly, and so uh they it was the official scorecard eventually was declared a
draw and Castillo had won the title, but they had announced that Stevie Johnson
in front of the hometown crowd, had won the title back, which was
like a big deal by a majority decision. So he was right there the
crowds, whatever crowds, there is roaring for the hometown guy, Stevie.
Stevie think wait a minute, but wait, so Stevie thinks he's won the
title back, and you know, that fight by a close decision, again
in front of the hometown, which makes it sometime the way that they handled
it even worse. It was not till several minutes later, when the boxers
were already back in their dressing room, that one of the scorecards had been
added up incorrectly. That was originally was one fifteen to one fourteen in favor
for stev was in fact one fourteen one fourteen, which allowed Castillo to keep
the title on a majority draw. And Castillo and Johnson were already in their
dressing rooms when they were notified, so they had to go in the dressing
room and take the belt back from Castillo, who from Johnson, who wasn't
keeping the belt but he was there to use it for photographs and that sort
of stuff. And it was just sort of a big mess, okay,
And I have made reference to this before, and we'll just bring it back
up briefly because it relates in my area to the Wink, Ronald Winky Wright
Saint Petersburg, Florida by way of washing DC, but he's been in Saint
Pete, Florida for forty years of his life. Now. The Wink had
a famous WBO super welterweight title defense against Harry Simon that went in South Africa,
and we've talked about this before and it was the same thing. We're
announced in the ring. The fight is a majority draw because I'm looking at
it here on the box Wreck Rundown, which means Wink retains the title.
However, they have a scoring error and it's the same thing. They came
later to the locker room out of the ring, came to the locker room
and said the cards are wrong, that one card is wrong or was red
wrong, and it's actually a draw on the draw on the second judge's card,
which I think was Julie Letterman's card I'm looking at it here on box
Wreck, was actually Harry Simon winning one fifteen one thirteen, and because of
that, one judge it scored for Simon. The ring announcer read, two
judges have it a draw. Winky retains the title. Because I remember Dan
Birmingham and telling me this in specific, it was one of the most heartbreaking
things. He said you could ever go through. We've celebrated to an people
who is Dan Birmingham is his longtime trainer who basically discovered Winky came into his
gym in Saint Pete as a teenager and molded him into an amateur fighter and
then a professional fighter. So Dan said, we're in the win the dressing
room and we believe we've retained the title. And they come in the dressing
room and say there is a scoring mistake and we have to take the belt.
Harry Simon has won the belt because the error means that Simon's won two
of the cards, the second card being one fifteen, one thirteen. I
will just say this you, as you said just a few minutes ago,
you have one job to keep this straight, add it up correctly, and
announce the correct winner. Well, just hold on the ring. Announce is
not adding it. I understand that. But the commission, the commission people
have one job to add it up correctly. And the ring announcer has one
job, which is get the right winner's name. Okay, but here's the
thing. In the example of the Stevie Johnson and Jose Castillo rematch, and
the example that you gave of the Winkie Right Harry Simon fight, that was
the ring announcer reading the correct scorecard has given to them because it was the
commission that screwed off the addition of the cards. In the case of what
happened with our boy Lieutenant Dan, he read the sport cards, he read
the right scores, he just read the wrong winner. That's the fucked up
part. So that was on him, not the commission. You can't blame
it, but still just overall the job. But can we get this right
because the fighters again are in a serious dangerous sport laying it on the line.
We get to the end, we're waiting for scorecards. Can we get
that part right? Just in general? And on on Saturday night, Trinika
Johnson did not deserve that, even though it was quickly corrected. It's so
boxing, is the point. I know. So there's the women's title,
all right. And then the other fight saw Pedro Guivara of Mexico really come
on in the second half of the fight, and we've learned more about why
he rallies. He wins a decision in comeback fashion. All Right, so
a split decision win cards presumably added up correctly, right winner announced Guivera Givar
victorious. All Right. Some thoughts on that, including Andrew Maloney after the
fact saying that's it. I'm done. First of all, it was a
good fight. That's the first thing. I mean, we always talk about,
you know, the male some important thing is do we get our time's
worth or if in the case of a paper view, our money's worth.
They put on a good show. I knew it was gonna be probably a
pretty good fight based on having watched these two guys before. The Maloney's are
you know, him and his brother Jason, sometimes they just cannot get over
the hump. You know, It's a rough week for the Maloney family because
not only did Andrew lose that very close fight to Guevara on Saturday night,
but we go back to Monday of last week and you had his brother Jason
in Japan losing the w BO bantamway title on the in a way Luisnary undercard.
So that's a rough week where the brother loses the world title and then
the other brother loses a chance to win an interim title. So it's probably
not two happy dimes in the in the old Maloney household gat But it was
a good fight, and like you said, it was really Guivar coming on
very strong in the second half of the fight. The body punching was supreme.
I'm looking at the coffee box stats. He was landy land almost like
over eighty body punches in the fight, and that's definitely gonna take its call.
Sometimes professional judges don't give enough credit for body punching. In this particular
case, I feel like they did, so I had no real particular quarrel
with the result. Maloney did say after the fact that he felt like he
was in total control, which he was in the first half the fight.
At felt A, he said he had a biceps injury that he came into
the fight with that he couldn't throw his left hook the way he wanted to,
but he felt like he didn't need to throw the left hook, So
I'm not sure he can blame the loss on not throwing the left hook because
he felt like he was winning without it. He just said I used it
once in a while when I needed to, but I didn't really feel like
I needed to. So I think he sort of maybe misjudged, you know,
whatever perceived dominance that he had. And it was, like I said,
it's a close fight. I can't even call it like controversial. It's
like one guy was was blasting away to the body. It was one fifteen
to one thirteen on the two score cards that gave it in favor of Guavara.
One judge had at one sixteen to one thirteen in favor of Maloney.
Not out of the Roman possibility. You know, we all discussed the route,
the range of acceptable scores that seemed reasonable to me, and Guevara gets
the title. Now. He said he was going to retire when he was
in the ring, and he dropped a couple of you know after that title.
Well, the first the first thing is they talked to Gavara through the
interpreter and he said, I'd give him a rematch. It's a it's a
split decision, close fight, let's do it again. Then we go over
to Andrew Maloney and his des I'm retired now. Later in the program,
Bernardo Osuna, So while they had from ESPN, he had a test tour
and Timmy Bradley up in Bristol calling from the studio. They did send Bernardo
Osuna to be on the ground in Perth to provide, you know, what
was happening on the ground, to do interviews before and after and just basically
be the reporter to make sure that they could have access to whatever they needed
to do. And he then went and interviewed Maloney in the dressing room after
his entring retirement, and he he didn't totally like say I'll come back,
but he did say maybe for a rematch, I would do it again.
My perspective is very simple, very very very rarely do I really truly believe
a boxer when he says in the ring I'm retired. Not because I think
in their mind at that moment they think it's true, but when they have
a few days or a few weeks, has sort of really assessed the scenario,
Hey, hey come back into or they get the call on being paid
how much? Okay? Exactly another part of it, right, Yeah,
I think it's if I were a betting man, I would say Andrew Molney
will be back in the ring, perhaps in a rematch, perhaps something else.
And if he is hopefully this time he's clearly both Maloney's are older,
they're twin brothers, they're both older. They've suffered some losses. We'll see,
but I mean it was it was a fight. They're popular in Australia.
It's a fight that makes sense to do a rematch in Australia. Probably
is listen to me playing amateur promoter matchmaker. Probably is an undercard fight.
I don't know that it's a main event fight. Maybe it is, so
who knows. The thing about the thing about Guivara though, is like he's
having like a late career resurgence, because if you go back, he had
this WBC title in one hundred and eight pound weight class twenty fourteen, twenty
fifteen, and now he's a couple of weight classes north of that, and
he's got a piece of a belt again. And even in a loss a
couple of fights ago against Carlos Padres where it was also for this inter belt,
he performed extremely well. He lost a split decision, but it could
have gone either way. He got the opportunity because Quadras had a achilles injury
had bounced him out of the fight with Maloney. In the meantime, gar
had come back with a Mexico victory back in February, and now he's back
in the ring before not you know, I maybe close to a career victory
against Maloney the stage certainly at this stage it opens up options for him,
all right, And then one more note again on the Boxer Show Sky Sports
and Peacock, Lauren Price did win I noticed you left me alone on my
on my anniversary weekend and didn't text me. Told you? On Lauren Price
off the bet Us Show getting the stoppage as it turns out of Jessica McCaskill
for the WBA Walter Wait, it wasn't really a stoppage. It was a
technical decision, okay, because of the cut from the class it was.
It was the clash of heads had and they went to the cards had They
had had a head butt in the fifth round. And now Lauren Price,
who was the Olympic gold medalist for a Whale or for Great Team Great Britain.
She's from Wales in the twenty twenty Olympics, really outstanding technical boxer.
They had a head butt in round five and mccaskell's eye. Her left eye
was swelling and swelling and swelling, and she looked like, you know,
Quasimoto. Eventually it was really a rough swelling. She you know Tomcastal's credit,
she's tough and she was fighting through it, but you could tell she
just could not really see much out of that eye. And it got so
bad that they rang the bell to start the ninth round, and immediately they
called the fight. So now the ninth round is over. And this is
kind of a stupid rule because literally two seconds into the round they hadn't even
gone to centering to throw a punch yet. But the judges are instructed to
score the round, so presumly it goes to ten ten. Did score a
ten ten round, which doesn't impact the ultimate scoring, but Price had won
every other round of the fight. So she ends up winning UH ninety to
eighty two technical decision and wins the WBA and the Ring Magazine Women's welterweight title.
Uh. And she deserved it because she totally dominated by thirty nine years
old. You know, she's been a good fighter, and she's been an
action fighter, but she did not have the skills to deal with her because
even before she was sort of compromised by the headbutt, even when when she
was clean, she was getting toyed with right and just was getting unfortunately looked
like a thirty nine year old fighter against a young, younger, sharper fighter.
You know it was. I'm not even willing to say it's a matter
of age. I just think it's a matter of talent. The Mecasto has
always been the kind of fighter who has been an overachiever. Ent her credit.
She won, you know, the undisputed title, and she's been in
some big time fights, and she's made pretty decent money, but she always
got more out of what she had, you know, because like I say
this all the time, if I was like the boxing scout, I would
rather sign the boxer who was the B talent but with the AHRT and work
ethic than the A talent, but the person that's not necessarily as committed.
Mcaskell was that kind of fighter in the sense that she wasn't the A talent,
but she was committed and she worked a rear end off in the same
thing be said for any number of fighters, and there's plenty of fighters we
can come up with that supreme talent who pissed it away. Adrian Broner,
for example, a plus talent but a ten cent head and no work ethic.
So give me the give me the fighter with the work and the B
talent. And so mccaskell had that. But Lauren Price, relative to her,
is probably the A talent, and she's obviously much younger, and it
was the home crowd, and you know, she did a heck of a
job. It wasn't a particularly good fight. There was a lot of mauling,
a lot of holding, a lot of nonsense, but in the end
she was winning all the rounds. And again from a Caskell, she has
a career defining upset of Cecilia Break. Who's when break? Who's hadn't lost
a fight in a quarter of a century, I'd no ten years, but
twenty five world title fights. Incredible, the Castle beater and Mecastal is actually
really good on the commentary on his zone too. Listen to me playing network
executive. I like hearing her. So she's got a future with that.
But there we go, all right, so something off of that card.
So there we are in the recap mode. We've got some good news,
We've got some nostalgia let's get into the news here off the weekend. The
Top Rank officials made it official this weekend, Rafael Spinoza, WBO Featherweight champ
is back, and let's go over the opponent and the card because it's coming
here in June. Go over everything there. So Rafael Spinoza, I refer
to him as like the current boxing Cinderella Man because he comes out of absolutely
nowhere, unheard of, unknown, and you look at me, like the
six foot something dude at featherweight, skinny as a rail, supposed to be
like cannon fodder for Robas Ramirez in a WBO title defense, and what do
you know, We've got a fight of the year near the end of last
year. Absolute drama. Both guys get knocked down, he pulls out a
majority decision and he wins in a huge upset to get the belt. And
it was a tremendous fight, and you're like, everybody's now in love with
Rafael Spinoza because of the way he fought, the way he showed heart,
the way he pulled off the upset. Just a terrific fight. And originally
Top Rank was going to do and I reported about this. The plan was
okay, you know, immediate rematch, and which top rank does not off
to do immediate rematches, but in this particular case, for whatever reason,
they felt like that was the best plan for everybody, and they were going
to do that in the next fight. But apparently it was Team Espinosa was
like, look, we're happy to give robes Si Ramirez a rematch, but
we want a title defense first, not an unreasonable request. So they are
giving him that defense and that will take place June twenty first. It will
take place that the new casino in Las Vegas called the Fountain Blue, and
he will take on a countryman named Sergio Chirino, who has got an excellent
record. He's twenty two to one with thirteen knockouts. His only loss,
you got to go all the way back to twenty eighteen, he did get
stopped by Mauricio Laura, who went on to become the WBA Featherwave title holder.
So that's the fight that they're going to do. The Mexico versus Mexico.
Like I said, June twenty first, and it hasn't a yet beneficially
now I have written about this as well, but Robasi Ramirez is gonna fight
in June. On June twenty ninth, he's supposed to be on the co
feature when Tifimo Lopez has his next title defense. The plan though, is
if Ramirez h is the winner of the fight against Trino, and if Robas
wins his tune up fight or you know, his interim fight, then we
will see the rematch between these two guys come the end of the year.
All right, good stuff on the Top Rank card there by the way,
a couple of decent They also announced a couple undercard fights for I want to
know. Uh, he got the two sort of up and coming junior lightweights
who are both with Top Rank Andres Cortez who was unefeated, Abraham Nova,
who's coming off of a very spirited loss in a world title fight against Oshaki
Foster. They're fighting each other in the co feature. They've been kind of
calling each other out. That's that's a pretty interesting matchup if you ask me.
And then the other fight, which this one kind of took me a
little bit by surprise, two of the young prospects that Top Rank's been bringing
along or you got Troy Isisley, the middleweight who was the twenty twenty United
States Olympian who comes from Alexandria, Virginia, which is the next town over
from where I live. So I kind of pay attention to what he's up
to because he's kind of my hometown guy. And they're gonna match him up
with Haavier Martinez, the Middleway prospect from Milwaukee, and I had not realized
that, but they fought four high level amateur fights in the various national championships
and that sort of stuff, and they're two and two, and so they're
gonna fight in a row. To me, it's like the pink slip fight.
And what that means is the guy that wins this fight's going on and
the guy that loses his fight probably gets cut from top ranks, cut,
you know, top rank, you know, unless unless they put on a
great, you know, some kind of spectacular type of fight. But this
is just a high stake, sort of big time fight for the careers of
both these young men at this early stage of their careers to fight each other.
So it's very interesting in that particular matchup. All right, So that's
coming June twenty first in Las Vegas. A. Right. We did talk
on the Friday podcast about Middleway possibilities. You brought up. You brought up
Jannaback, who has two of the belts, the WBO and IBF middleweight titles,
so we've now learned what his next defense is. And oh, by
the way, we were talking about newly elevated WBC champ Carlos Adamas. So
at the same time, something I suggested is actually gonna happen. So let's
go over what we know. You've got your reporting on who Janebec's fighting next,
and then we have what the WBC middleweight title fight has now come together
fairly quickly like I thought it might. So let's go over both of those
in the middleweight division first. So go ahead, Yes, So July third,
and I had written about the date and the site previously that the date
penciled in for Janebec, who is the unified WBO and IBF middleway title holder.
He was going to fight July thirteenth at the Poms Casino in Vegas as
a main event on one of the top ranked ESPN cars, but he didn't
have an opponent yet. So in my reporting is that Top rank approached the
team of Carlos Adamas to try to make a unification fight, which seemed like
a pretty interesting matchup, especially when you talk about sort of the dearth of
names and top fight's in the weight class. So that would seem like that
would be something pretty interesting. But the conversations did not go very far because
they were just separated by as I referred to it, the difference there was
they were not in the same galaxy on the money, of course, and
so there was no reason to even continue the conversations. You know, if
you offer X and you know you're you're separated by one hundred thousand dollars or
something like that, you know, there's usually ways to get over the ump.
But in this particular case, I don't know the exact numbers, but
it was a substantial amount that they were not even in the ballpark on.
So they go their separate ways, and so unfortunately we're going to see janebec
in with I'm not saying this is the guy's no good. I just he's
unknown completely. He's high up in the rankings of the IVF. You know,
they leave their number one and number two spots empty in case of an
eliminator. So this is the guy that's number three in the IVA franking.
His name is Andre the Kalovich. He is a twenty one to zero from
New Zealand, and so this is the opponent now for janebec in that in
that card. So all right, now the interesting card, the interesting fight
on that card. The more interesting fight anyway, at least on paper,
is the young lightweight contender that Top Rank promotes named Raymond Maretaya. They have
signed to fight him. I think they're still trying to work out the details
on the Murratai side, but they got the opponent signed, and that's the
former junior lightweight title or Tevin Farmer, So that that would mark a pretty
good step up at least in terms of the name of the opponent for Murtai
to face on that particular night. So if they get that, I'll wrapped
up on the Murrati side, that's the co feature Murti versus Tevin Farmer and
in the middleweight title fight in the main event. You mentioned about Carlos Damas,
I told you, yes, did I not say Thursday night into Friday?
Wouldn't it make a lot of sense to get him on the June fifteenth
pay per view that PBC is already doing with Amazon Prime, PPV, dot
Com and others and Lo and behold Rayfield, what do we got? Yeah?
I mean he's one of the guys when you look at the PBC roster
of champions and top level guys that has been ridiculously out of the rank for
no reason. They had to get him a fight. So they they have
not analyzi yet. My understanding is they're still the PBC TGB. They're still
trying to wrap up the particulars on the contract. But so the WBC may
have jumped the gun a little bit. But Dayan now it's in their daily
newsletter that that a Damas who had just been elevated to the full title holder
last week when Jemal Charlotte was stripped for his recent arrest and all the issues
that he's had, So adamas As sends to the full title holder. He
will defend that belt for the first time no longer inter on the June fifteenth
pay per view that's headlined by Tank Davis against Frank Martin. He will fight
the Olympian Terrell Gachet, who has primarily fought his career as a dream middleweight,
probably best known for scoring a knockdown of Tim Zoo before losing that fight.
I don't think that's particularly like a earth shattering kind of fight. But
it's good to see Adamas back in action, and at least he's fighting,
you know, a good quality, reputable profession. It's a fight that would
have worked well last winter when Adamas should have been elevated as the midway champ,
so that he would have a more significant fight now by the summer of
this year. But here we are with that, so that he I mean
again, it makes sense put him on that card. You got a month
to let him make a title defense. There you go. And you know,
when I talk about like that, I don't love the fact that it's
guchet I. Actually I can't really criticize it too heavily because okay, they
were far apart of making a Janovic fight, but the middleweight division is so
stinky right now. Like I'm not even sure who else they could have fought
that I could tell you was much better than get At least he's a competent,
capable fighter, and he's a PBC fighter, and it's easy to make
and it's not the main event. It's part of a card they're already doing
so correct, it makes too much sense to not do that. So they
did do that? All right? You have more reporting about an August title
defense for Luis Alberto Lopez, the IBF champ. What else you got on
that? So, like as we're talking about most of these fights, it's
like top ranks just lining up these events they just we talked about. They're
lining up Best Bonosa in the featherweight division. They're obviously lining up you know,
the young guy Morotaia. They're lining up Jane beec So the other featherweight
that they promote, and they just announced this of course Stevenson fight and some
other events. But Luis Alberta Lopez, who's the id F featherweight title older.
But I think all these featherweights are sort of biding their time and trying
to keep their belts in waiting for the big money fights that presumably will come
around next year for some of them when in a way goes up to featherweight.
In any event, you got Louis Alberta Lopez, he is gonna make
his fourth defense, and this is a very interesting fight. To me,
this is like out of the blue, but I love this matchup. He's
going to fight the former WBO title holder Angelo Leo, who is gonna and
he's lives in Vegas, but he's originally from Albertquerque, New Mexico. So
they're gonna take this fight. The champion once again is gonna fight on the
other guy's home turf. Remember when when Lopez won the title, he did
it in uh in Josh Warrington's hometown in England. When he made his first
defense, he went to the hometown in Belfast, Northern Ireland to defend against
Michael Conlin. Yet again, he's had a neutral territory kind of fight.
But now he's going to be in Angelo Leo's hometown to fight him in this
defense on August the tenth at the Tingley Coliseum. That's a really good matchup,
you know, Angelo Leo. You know, he did lose the belt
to Stephen Fulton, but he's won some fights since he was he's been fighting
on the pro box carts and he stayed a little busy. I think he's
won like three fights in a row, and so this is like an interesting
massup to me. So that's gonna be a nice man of that August tenth.
All right, one more news item than some nostalgian and we're gonna be
done. Wait a minute, Rayphael, the WBC is telling David Devin Haney,
you gotta fight mandatory challengers Sandor Martin and begin negotiations. I realize with
all of the controversy it's been in the news about Hani getting beat and Ryan
Garcia testing positive for a PD afterwards, But the WBC is treating this like
the McDonald's drive through line on ordering him to fight the mandatory challenger here three
weeks after his other fight. I say again, where was the WBC for
almost three years ordering Jamal Charlow fight someone or we're going to strip you.
I further say, David Benavidez has been the number one and the interim guy
for a year to fight Canelo Alvarez. Where's the McDonald's drive through on ordering
him to do that? What what I mean? That's what are we doing
here with the WBC. I can't disagree with that. I will just say
this though, Sander Martin's position as that mandatory this is not a surprise.
Everybody knew before the Ryan Garcia fight between him and Haney that this was going
to be the next was going to be ordered. It was just a matter
of time, and that was happening. So I don't disagree with you on
some of my issues with the WBC come down to this is the inconsistent not
that they're ordering this guy to fight that guy or they're not ordering this other
guy to fight that another guy, is the inconsistency of the time frame of
when they do it. That's right. In other words, like you said,
if they're gonna order Hany a month after his fire, mean, let's
just have a little more consistency, that's all. I'm not saying that they're
you know, the mandatory seemed to be okay in terms of the matchups.
And Sander Marty. You know he's got the win. Uh you know,
he's he's got the big win over Mikey Garcia a couple of years ago.
He did have a very close decision loss where he's scored a knockedout against uh
tia Fimo Lopez. But he is the number one challenger now and so this
is a fight that's been ordered. And because Hani retained the title because Ryan
Garcia was putting the putting the drug test stuff aside, the mere fact that
that Garcia didn't make the weight meant that he was not eligible to win the
title. And because the WC rules meant that that whatever happened, that Haney
couldn't lose the title. So it was just sort of like a not a
really a title fight, but I guess a non title fight ended up correct.
But he's still with WBC champion and Santa Martin is still supposed to get
his opportunities. So they ordered that negotiation. They've got until June eighteenth.
If they don't make a deal, they'll have the pers bid on June eighteenth.
And you know, one of things I do like about the way the
WBC handles their purse bids. It's a seventy to thirty split between the champion
and the challenger. But what they do is they take ten percent of whatever
the winning bid is and the WC keeps that in like escrow, and that
ten percent of the winning bid goes to the winner as a bonus. The
remaining ninety percent of the bid, that's what gets cut seventy thirty between the
champion and the challenger, so whoever is the winner gets you know, we
don't know what the number as yet because the bids not have not yet taken
place, and of course they could still make a deal, and in that
case it wouldn't be a purse bid, but there is that sort of tarrot
of the bonus, which I kind of like. And we'll see what Haines's
appetite is. I mean, I'm sure he's not going to vacate the title.
You know, that's that's his calling card. He still has the belt
after that loss to Garcia. And just because they ordered the purse bid doesn't
mean that suddenly the fight's gonna happen like you know, a couple of weeks
later. They'll take a few months to have it all come together. But
you gotta figure if that's what he wants to do in terms of keeping the
belt. That Devin Hiney's next fight later this year will be against and or
Mark. But then we go down the road to step aside money if there's
something else, and that could happen too, so who knows, who knows
if that gets worked out? Also, all right, some nostalgia and then
we are ready to be done on Sunday, as we do this on Mother's
Day, May twelfth, two thousand and one. You have talked a couple
of times, including recently, about the atmosphere in and around Felix, Trinidad.
William JOPPI this is the twenty third anniversary of the fight. As we
really the podcast Sunday night, May twelve, two thousand and one, you
were ringside, and you continue to rave about that atmosphere that night. You
know, I went back when I knew we were going to talk about this
a little bit, and I went back and I just looked at a few
minutes of it on YouTube, and it just brought back so many memories because
I wish, you know, everybody could experience all the fans could find a
fight that had this type of atmosphere that they would remember for the rest of
their lives. This fight is twenty three years ago. Yes, I know,
I know this was such a spectacular atmosphere now, maybe partly because I
was still sort of newish in terms of covering boxing and hadn't yet experienced that
the level of mega fights that I have currently, you know that I have
in you know, in ensuing years, you know, been privileged to be
ringside for. But this was as good as a guest. This was a
massively popular Felix Trinidad. He was the unified title holder at junior middleweight.
He had knocked out Fernando Vargas in a spectacular fight, one of the greatest
fights I've ever been that ringside for sensational fight of the year type fight.
At the end of two thousand and so, he's gonna move up to the
to the to the middleweight division, and Don King and HBO worked out a
deal. Was very hard to do and very complicated. Everything with Don King
is complicated, but they had the four top middleweights, or I take the
back day, the three top middlewaights. To remember, this is at a
time where he needed the three belts to be undisputed. William Joppi had the
WBA title, Keith Holmes had the WBC title, and Bernard Hopkins had the
IBF title. And Felix Trinidad was the guy moving up and he was really
the star that this was constructed around. The idea was he's the lynch pin,
and we'll see if we can get Tito Trinidad the undisputed middlewaight championship,
and we'll see if these other three guys have something to say about that.
And so the first semi final of this tournament, it was like a really
big deal. It was Bernard Hopkins against Keith Holmes, which I also was
ring signed for that was in the Madison Square Garden Theater. Bernard Hopkins,
you know, won very easily, not a particularly great fight, so he
moves into the finals, and a couple of weeks later you have Tito Trinidad
against Joppy in the main arena at Madison Square guard on pay per view as
opposed at Hopkins and and Keith Holmes, which is a regular HBO fight,
And the hype on this was enormous. You know, Joppy was a good
fighter, a good champion, you know, had been in with some solid
guys, was rough, was tough, strong, and so a lot of
people gave him a chance to win. I definitely gave him a chance to
win. And Trinidad and him met, and let me tell you something,
TJ. The atmosphere was absolutely electrifying. It's because all like every Puerto Rican
in New York turned out for the fight. There was like, you know,
nine William Joppy fans and you know, sixteen thousand Puerto Rican or Trinidad
fans. And I've said the story before, it's it's in my top two
or three or four all time atmospheres I've ever been in. I can still
as we talk about here, the air horns and the rafters going off.
I've told this story about all the flags. I've told the story about going
to the arena early because I wanted to buy my programs and posters and bring
them back. I was standing in a hotel across the tree from the garden
and put them in my room so I didn't have to have them at ringside
getting off screwed up. So I went over and taken. You don't want
that to happen either, or stomped on or messed up whatever. So I
went and I got all my merch and I went back to my room,
dropped it off, and then walked back across the street to go to the
arena for the under card. This is like late afternoon because Don King would
have these crazy long shows and I's got as my witness. There were cars
parked on Seventh Avenue right in front of Madison Square Garden, right where the
you know, the train station is also Penn Station, and they were tailgating.
They had the Felix TRINETD flags like on the on the on the cars.
They were drinking their fuck their drinks out of like the you know in
the in the in the paper bags, and the cops were looking the other
way, and they were tell like sitting on like chairs in the like right
off the street, in the off the curb. And you know, it's
one thing to tailgate, and you're in a stadium, you know, in
a parking lot in a football game or wherever you're at. They're tailgating on
Seventh Avenue, mid down. It was the craziest shit I've ever seen.
And then they're afternoon in the parking lots of Bryant Denny Stadium, Tuscaloosa,
Alabama for Alabama against Tennessee. Not the same setting, No, and Tito
Trinidad went in there and absolutely destroyed William Joppy. Dropped him in the first
round, dropped him in the fourth round, dropped him in the fifth round,
and ended the fight. And the crowd, like I said, it
was all Puerto Rican And the only thing I've talked to many peeny people who've
had experiences at Madison Square Garden and big fights, and they compare Trinidad and
Joppy. The only other fight they say matched that sort of electricity was the
night in the early eighties when Roberto Durant headlined at the Garden and he defeated
Davy Boy Moore to win the Jerior Middleway title in a fight that he was
not really so much expected to be the winner at and just people would absolutely
lunatic and the joppy in Trinidad was like that. And now you'd say like
because Trinidad was not a big star, but it was just the love for
Trinidad, the passionate. He was moving up in wait, he was winning
a title in his third class. It was huge and it is as memorable
as an experience as I have ever had at a boxing match. Ever.
It is and I've been at numerous fights at Madison Squaground. I've covered virtually
every single fight that's taken place in the MSG Maine Arena since two thousand and
that's the best atmosphere of all. And that includes having covered fights with you
know, Anthony Joshua against Andy Ruiz, and having covered other Felix Trenad fights,
having covered virtually every one of Miguel Coto's fights that taking placed there,
including the remaster of Antonio Margarito, and those are all great atmospherres, but
this stands alone. Love it one more piece of nostalgia, and that's on
Monday, May thirteenth, two thousand and six, which is now getting on
eighteen years ago. Ricky Hatton, there's only one you're singing now, you're
singing Boston is where he fought Luis Colazzo eighteen years ago Monday, you were
there. Besides the singing of the British fans, which you've often talked about
around Ricky Hatton fights, what else stands out? So Ricky had made his
name in this big victory over Costazoo with stoppage in June of two thousand and
five, live on Showtime, but it was super late at night in Manchester,
England, which was Ricky's home down because they were showing a live on
Showtime, so they made up for the time difference by bringing it to us
in prime time, so it was much later. Anyway, He gets that
career defining victory over Costa Zoo, becomes the Junior Wildway World Champion. His
next fight that took place later that year, he fought a fighter named Carlos
Mausa. He knocked him out. He unified the IBF and the WBA titles.
He ended up either giving up or being stripped to the IBF because of
their nonsensical mandatory situation. But at that point he had made a deal.
He signed with Art Polulo from Banner Promotions. They had done a very significant
contract with HBO. He was going to be leaving Showtime going to HBO and
for his first fight, he was going to step up to the welterweight division
and challenge the WBO WBA champion, Lewis Colaso. They were going to bring
it to Boston, figuring, you know, the combination of the ritz who
are there. Irish just seemed like a place that had not been serviced by
a big Maxie match for a long time. They added the TD Garden,
which is where the Celtics play right arena in that city. I of course
went to that fight, and uh, you know, Ricky did not look
good that night, as good as he as dominating as he was against Zoo
and stopping him, as as good as he looked in terms of getting the
knockout against Malsa. Here you have Colaso. You know, no one's going
to confuse Colasa with a Hall of Famer, but he was tough as nails
and was willing to fight anybody. He was making his second title defense and
it was a really close fight, and when it was all said and done,
I and many others had Closa winning this fight. As it turned out,
they gave it to Ricky had in one fourteen, one thirteen, one
fifteen, one twelve to the scorecards. He had knocked Colaso down in the
first round. But other than that, I thought that Colaso was the was
the dominating fighter relatively speaking, But nonetheless it goes down as a victory for
uh for Ricky. Now, he went back to the junior walterweight division after
that and and you know, had a string of fights in that way class.
But this was one of those deals where you kind of feel like he
was the house fighter, even though he was from another country. You know,
it was a big HBO fight. It's his first fight of a new
contract. It was sort of like, if it's close, he's going to
get the call. And Ricky's going into the Hall of Fame in June.
And it's not because of this victory. That's obviously because of other things he
did, but this was the one where there's a little bit of a dicey
situation. I remember a lot of people were, you know, the fans
had turned out for him and singing his songs in the you know Blue Moon
when he comes to the ring. But like I said, many of us
at ringside really felt that that closet got a raw deal that night, and
presumably the scores were added up right and the right winner was announced on that
because Lieutenant Lieutenant Dan was dinant. Then h with that, we have come
to the end of the recap. We've started. We've started Tyson Fury Alexander
Usik fight week now for this week, God willing, we still have a
few days and it is Tyson Fury undisputed heavyweight title fight for LA this week.
I know we're anxious about getting involved with that. You're gonna be writing
about it on your substack, lots of previews and here we go from Saudi
Arabia allegedly this Saturday for four B so negative about it. I'll say this
whatever, because I thought, Okay, you've teed it up and I'm gonna
do it later in a week. Because Tyson Fury screwed around and cost us
this fight a year ago. At this time, he further screwed around and
fought Francis Enganu and looked shaky and maybe lost, and then they scheduled this
fight, and then he has a cut over his eye. So why would
I or any other reasonable person be a little skittish about fight week. I
just can't hear some reasons why. Once you get to the fight week,
it's highly unlikely that anything would go wrong. It's happened, we know that.
But if you look at any of the video or photos that have been
of Tyson since he's been in preparation for this, I gotta tell you,
man, dude, his looks in the best condition he's ever been in period.
End of story. Well let's see, let's see. Let's see what
looks like. All right, all right, let's see what it looks like.
Let me take this. Several of the top ranked people and others associated
with this fight are on flights from Perth, Australia on their way to re
Ed. So check this out way no no wait wait wait by way of
Tokyo earlier in the week. Check out this itinerary this week. Okay,
So Bob Aram from top rank, Brad Jacobs from top rank, and I
think others also. They went from the United States to Tokyo for the in
away fight. Then they went from Tokyo to Perth, Australia, which is
as long as a trip that you'd think like it's you know, you just
look at Japan to Australia. It's not that far. But dude, trust
me, the trip from Tokyo to Perth is like, and I think you
got to stop somewhere. Is the same sort of distance if you're going from
like the East Coast United States to Tokyo. It's a long freaking trip.
So they went to to Tokyo, then they went to Perth. Then they
said three days later, three days later, keep going right, So the
fight in Perth happened. It was like twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the
afternoon on Sunday in Perth. Many of them got on flights Sunday night,
Perth time, at ten ten thirty at night Perth time to fly the roughly
twelve hours from Perth to Doha, three and a half hour layover in Doha,
then Doha to Saudi Arabia for Read for the fight week for Tyson Fury.
Now, when the Tyson Fury fight week is over, some of those
same people are going from Read to Leeds, England because Top Break also has
Josh Taylor against Catterall in the rematch. So aarm is going to go from
Saudi Arabia. Aram's ninety two years old, by the way, unbelievable.
He's going from there to England. For that that one's a little more reasonable.
Saudi Arabia to England is not like a twelve hour flight. Now,
the original plan was after the Caterall fight, they were going to get back
on the planes in the UK and go back to Read for June first for
better via than Bivil. That fight has been in post post so they're not
making that second Saudi trip. They'll go back to the United States and then
they've got the card on in early June at the Madison Square Garden Theater on
the Port of Parade weekend where xanders Aias headlines at the Madison Square Guard Theater.
So they're basically going from United States, Japan, Perth, the Doha
Read England back to America and and skipped another REACT trip in the middle there
because of the fact that the fight was postponed. Rack up the frequent flyer
miles want to save travelow was like Vegas to you know, DC to Vegas,
Vegas back to d C with an extra day in Vegas because my fight
was all messed up last week after the Canelo fight. But you got it
done. You got it done, You're back. We're all good. I
celebrated my anniversary, we had Mother's Day. We're all good. And now
we march on to Fury and Usik and the undisputed heavyweight title fight week in
Saudi Arabia. Much more on that Red Dance substack, Big Fight Weekend dot
Com, and we will have the preview podcast out in the US show handicapping
all of this later in the week. With that feel better, my friend,
I know you a little under weather. Feel better and let's have a
good weekend. Get ready for Fury and USA. What do you say?
I say, that's it was good. We love it. We thank you
for finding us here as we recap off the weekend. And again, congrats
to vasili Wimachenko. Let's see what happens in the future for him and all
the other actions we recap this weekend. For now, for Dan Rayphiel,
I'm TJ Reeve. Thank you for being with us on the Fight Preach Unite
Recap podcast.