Well off of a weekend and has seen a very spirited and I think we'll
see what Big Dan thinks. Controversial decision win for Natasha Jonas to defend her
title against MICHAELA. Mayer in the Boxer Promotions showdown for the IBF wealtheweight women's
title. We've got that. We've also got fight news. You've also actually
got a Japanese championship fight doubleheader coming off of this weekend for Tuesday to bring
up some nostalgia as well. Hello and welcome. It's the Fight Freaks Unite
recap podcast. I am merely the somewhat confident host TJ. Reeves. He
is our insider. Fight Freaks Unite is his substack Bigfight Weekend dot Com as
well. Hello Dan Raphael. We are ready to go with a lot a
lot here on this program. I know you're ready to go, especially because
that was a tremendous battle between Mayor and Jonas for this weekend. How are
you feeling as we come off the weekend. I'm good. I mean,
listen, we had a heck of a fight last week with the bandamweight fight
with Jason Maloney with victory and a tremendous You know, very very exciting fight
that you know, you couldn't ask for a better way to kick off a
year. And then we had this great White fight in terms of kicking off
the first significant fight in women's boxing for the year, and they kicked it
off with the hell of a start, so great fight and a competitive fight,
you know, as good as it gets. Yeah, we're gonna talk
a lot about that again. Thank you for finding us. Make sure you're
following. Make sure you're subscribing, whether you found us through Dan Substack,
his email newsletter, social media, Big Fight Weekend dot com. Make sure
you're following were and or subscribing Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, et cetera.
And rate us and review us. We love those, the five star reviews.
It takes you thirty seconds to do that. People often ask what can
we do to help spread the word? Rate us and review us. Those
things help with the algorithms, et cetera. And you get special different podcasts
sometimes that we haven't even promoted. If you're following or subscribing to the feed,
like you heard from MICHAELA. Mayer last week, I think later this
week John Writers fighting Haimima Gia will put that up as a standalone podcast.
You don't need any other reminder. If you're already following or subscribing, you
get it and then rate us and review us if you like us, and
I think you do. If you are here, all right, let's get
into it. You and I were on opposite sides of the aisle on the
bet US show. I believe, even in the hostile environment of Natasha Jonas's
hometown, that MICHAELA. Mayer would win. We both picked decision, we
both got the over. I have my feelings on this. I thought Mayor
won the fight, but you go first. What were your thoughts in the
recap mode as she got the split decision Natasha Jonas to retain her IBF Welterway
title. Well, as we talked about often, the most important thing was
a great fight, really exciting, entertaining, crowd pleasing fight. If you
spend your time, you bought a ticket, Let's say you didn't waste it
because they let it all hang out and they'd put on a tremendous battle.
It's everything you want to very experienced, to technically sound to two fighters who
are good boxers but have no fear of actually mixing it up and fighting I
want to see and both you know, with a big desire to win.
They came with credentials both former you know Botwall, Natasha as a current champion,
mayor as a former champion, both with great Olympic and amateur pedigree,
and they put on a great fight and that's what you want to see.
Now. As far as how the scoring goes, you know it was close.
I mean I think if you think it was ninety seven ninety three in
favor of Mikaela, I dare say that you achieved that score because there was
a few rounds in your mind that were sort of close. You're like,
all, I'm gonna give it to the mayor. And likewise, if you
were like me and had the fight ninety six to ninety four or four Natasha
Jonas, I know there was a couple of rounds in there that I was
like, Okay, that's a close round. I'm going to give it to
Jonas. So the scorers are the scores, but I think everybody, however
you had it, has to believe that those rounds, each individual two minute
segment were competitive and close. And when I added up the scorers at the
end, I had Jonas winning by one round. You know, if you
look at the official cards, you had one judge scoring it ninety six to
ninety four for Jonas, one having it ninety six ninety five for Jonas,
which means that judge, which was the UK judge, I might add,
had it a one even round in the fight. It was the American judge
also not the German judge. The American judge, who would we would think
based on the pre fight you know, discussions, that would be the person
that would be maybe predisposed to giving it to Mayor. But that judge gave
the fight to Jonas. So you got the American and the brit given it
to Jonas, and then the German judge is the one that had it ninety
seven to ninety three in favor of Mayor. It was a close fight.
I understand whoever lost that match was going to be disappointed. You know,
being at home, you know you're gonna get a little bit of an edge.
Perhaps it didn't seem like it came that way in the way that the
terms of the nationalities, that of the of the judges that were from the
foreign countries. Just a competitive fight. And you know what, instead of
cursing everybody out on social media and people calling you this or that because you
scored it one way or the other. You just give it up that people
are allowed to have a difference opinion in a fight that was clearly a close
fight. If you thought that Jonas won, it was probably because she got
off to the better start and banked a few of the earlier rounds and Michaela,
although did a great job in the last couple of rounds, she was
sort of, at least from my point of view, was always kind of
playing catchup and was never able to score a knockdown or do any kind of
significant damage to make it an eight round or something like that. So you
know, they didn't have a rematch clause on Mayor's end. They did on
if Jonas had lost, she would have had it. But it's like Michaela
said in her post fight interview, you know or rematch, it happened when
at warrants, and that was the kind of fight in terms of competition,
in terms of excitement, in terms of stakes, entertainment value, all that
go into it. That's a fight that warrant's a rematch great and I would
think that Natasha Jonas is never backed down from anybody that there's a pretty good
chance to you know, we'll see them talk about a rematch. It would
be another great fight. Okay, So a couple of my feelings on this,
because again I had Mayor winning the fight. I agree with you.
I thought Jonas won the first couple of rounds and I was able to get
the chance to see this one in its entirety. And then I thought MICHAELA.
Mayer was the more aggressive fighter. So I looked for two or three
things. When we always talk about this, who's the more aggressive fighter,
who's coming forward? That matters. The second thing is who's landing the more
significant punches. One thing I just want to interrupt real quick. It's also
effective aggresiveness. I'm with you on both, but the aggressive fighters should get
the edge, and effective effective it's ineffective. Okay. A fighter backing up
that's not effective is the same difference. So at least, at least in
terms of aggressive, I'm going to favor that person. And here we go
with effective. Who landed the more important punches as the fight went on?
How many times I'm not putting you on as the fight went on is not
relevant because you're scoring ten rounds, so if they scored effective under so let
me help you individually. From round four on. I gave Natasha Jonas one
round. Individual disagree that rown was the ninth round that was her most effective
round with landing more punches. You're fine to disagree with that. What I'm
saying to you is one fighter, Mikayla Mayer was aggressive and landing the harder
shots repeatedly in every round. You talk often about CompuBox and the volume of
punches that they come up with and the what is the word I'm looking for,
the amount? The amount doesn't necessarily tell who landed the harder shots,
the more important shots, and in this case, Mikayla Mayor walked her down,
hopped her with the right hand. You love it when I say this,
like Lionel Ritchie all night long, Natasha Jonas ate fifty right hands in
the last seven rounds of that fight, over and over and over again.
I didn't think it was particularly hard to score. I thought it was.
I thought I it was ninety seven ninety three. I thought it was ninety
seven to ninety three Jonas I gave the ninth round. I don't have the
scores in front of me, and maybe you do. Did all three judges
that. I don't know if all three judges gave Mayor the last round in
particular, but I thought it was interesting from her corner, they knew this
is close, go win the last round. I thought she won the last
round to seal it. And I'm just Mayor. Mayor's best round was the
tenth round. But I gave Jonas the ninth round. But the thing about
it is, again you mentioned CompuBox, you know, and I don't get
too caught up in that, but I do, I do believe strongly that
it provides a reasonable guide. And the reason why this fight can be viewed
in different manner is because while you have Jonas landing a few fewer punches and
throwing a fewer punches by quite a bit. Actually it was Jonas who landed
a much higher percentage, so she wasn't she was more economical, but they
were landing and Mayor wasted a lot of punches that didn't do anything. But
I think Mayor landed many more significant punches. I mean Jonas would hit her,
would hit her occasionally with the left, but Mayor, I mean again
over and over and over again, all right, so we have neither Neither
of these women were in any danger in my opinion of being dropped. They
are badly hurt. So you know, the the the power behind those punches
seem like somewhat equal. They both at times, you know, were stopped
in their tracks. There is you know, Mayor definitely landed some good shots
also, uh, but Jonas landed a lot of body punches that sometimes are
overlooked. She landed way more body punches and that we're doing some damage.
Look, it was a fight where I think reasonable people without calling each other
names, can and two of the things I want to see the rematch.
I'm with you and Mikayla Mayor has done enough. Now fight in the United
States, fight in the United States on your home turf, and maybe there's
a rematch. It's not won't come fighterr here. But she has now gone
twice and I know the other fight was against another American, Alicia Bomgunner.
But she's gone repeatedly to England and fought. Didn't get this decision. She's
got marketability in this country and the reason is very simple. Why she fights
in Britain and she even supoke about it, and I know she doesn't generate
any money here. The money isn't in the Britain. Fight Jonas in Britain
is big money. Jonas against MICHAELA Mayor in the United States doesn't show.
I don't disagree, Yeah, I don't disagree with that. If she's gonna
fight Jonas again, she fights there. But I you know, it's up
to her and her part of what she wants to do with her management team.
But I think you and I agree that we would want to see that
one again. All right? Anything else strike you from that boxer card?
That is a note or shall we move along? Off? We shall move
along because it was not a very good undercard, and you're being kind and
that's not always the case. I'm on the ripping like that. You're always
blunt, all right. We did spend some good time on the bet Us
Boxing Show because of the way the schedule fell. We did the live show
on bet Us and their platforms on Friday, talking about Keinshiro Taraji defending his
unified junior flyweight titles. Two championship fights also total that are going to be
on this Japanese card on Saturday, so we handicapped it. We talked about
it a bunch, but for the purposes, for the purposes or Tuesday,
what did I say, Saturday? Saturday? Those fights are coming on Tuesday
as we come off the weekend here. So but that doesn't mean that we
are precluded from talking about it here. We're both looking forward to this.
It is early morning on Tuesday in the US, Tuesday night in Japan.
So just say a couple of things, because Taraji is an action fighter that
has the unified one hundred and eight pound titles for the WBC and the WBA,
a lot of knockouts to his credit, including four straight knockouts in title
fights. So say a few words about this card because we're looking forward to
it on Tuesday as it falls. Yeah, most definitely, Taraji is not
only is it a unified champion of the WBA, in the WBC, he
is the ring magazine champion, He's the lineal champion. He's the man,
as they say, at one hundred eight pounds. Sever you want to cut
it up. You mentioned he's got the four knockout victors in a row.
That was coming off of a knockout loss to Masamichi Yabuki where he lost this
title. All right, at least he lost the WBC title. He met
him in an immediate rematch that was in March of twenty twenty two. He
knocked him out in the third round in the rematch to let's take revenge and
to regain the bet. And then in the next fight that came at the
end of twenty twenty two, in a fight where he was the underdog against
his fellow Japanese champion, hero To Kayaguchi, who was on a great run,
he knocked him out in round seven to unify the titles. That was
his big, big win, and he's then won two more fights against solid
opponents, including Hecki Budler, a former world champion. That was a fight
that took place in September. He's been on a great run. He's a
two time title holder, as I mentioned, because of the fact that he
had that one fight interruption with the loss that came by a bit of an
upset. But I think if you take a look at the opponents that he
has been facing, the manner in which he has been dispatching them, and
the activity level that he has had, because you know, he's not a
guy that only fights once a year. He does fight usually at least twice
a year. He's a guy that you can, arguably, without I don't
think too much pushback, find a spot for in the lower part of the
top ten pound per pound. He you know, in a way, is
the number one guy in Japan. Obviously, he's the number one fighter out
of that country for sure. Some people think he's number one pound for pound,
he's probably number two at worst, beyond Crawford. But the bottom line
is once you get beyond in a way, I think it's fair to say
that at this moment, it is Taraji that is the number one fighter coming
out of Japan at this moment in time. And he's taken on Canazalas,
who is a good puncher and has been a regular title holder in that way
class, and it shapes up like a like a kind of a shootout kind
of fight. I think Taraji is the more he's, the more versatile fighter,
he's got the better experience against the better fighters. He's a you know,
been on a really good run, as I mentioned, and the one
loss that Canna Zalas had was by a knockout also the way that that uh
Taraji had, but that was a that was a rough one. He get
you know that was against Esteban Bermudez. Maybe not as top of a fighter
as the guy that Taraji lost to, but he's also won uh some fights,
you know, four fights in a row since, including three of them
or two of them rather by a knockout, but just not against the same
caliber of opponents. But they both harry, you know, good punching power
in the small way class. It's a it's an interesting fight, and I'll
probably wake up early to watch at four o'clock in the morning for the card
in the United States Eastern time, but the main event probably not till about
seven o'clock Eastern time, so even if I do get up for that main
event, I'll wake up. We were joking on the bet Us show that
the over under is set for Dan Rayfield at six thirty five am, and
there were several people in the live chat going back and forth. I think
I have the over. I think I have the over, you know,
give or take when the undercard ends, and we do have a co feature
title fight that we'll briefly mention in a second. But look, that's a
lot better than it being four am Eastern time, and I realize if you're
in the Central time zone or beyond. In the US, it's way early
to get up and watch. But you know a lot of people, a
lot of people are up anyway, getting ready to go to work, at
the kids to school, et cetera. That's where I'm gonna be. That's
the mode I'm gonna be on Tuesday morning. I'm getting my two ready to
get out the door, and I'll have the fight on and Taraji usually does
deliver. One other interesting thing about Canazales, he won't be probably intimidated about
being on road. We made mention of this also on the bet Us Show.
He is Venezuelan, but he has fought in Mexico, He's fought most
recently in Argentina, and he fought even early in his career in Japan.
A couple of times. He fought in He's fought in Malaysia, he fought
in Mexico, He's fought in the in like you mentioned, in Argentina,
in his most recent fight against an Argentine that was in the eliminator that got
in this opportunity. So yeah, I mean, he's a road warrior.
There's no doubt about that. He's fought all over the place. Listen at
the end of the day, these may not be the biggest names in boxing,
but if you follow it closely like you and I do, this is
a very worthy, solid quality fight if especially if you like the smaller way
class. And as you say, this is the guy at one Yeah,
yeah, for sure. So now let's see what he looks like in this
title offense. All right, So the co feature fight has a Ukrainian fighter
that is older, that has been fighting sparingly as of late, and that
as Ardem Delakian. Dalakian is fighting a Japanese opponent. I have to admit
I don't know a whole lot about either guy. You've been ringside before for
a Delachian fight. He's got his WBA flyweight title on the line. Give
me a little bit real quick on that one as well. In the preview
mode off the weekend, well, the opponent which is segu Yuriaki, I
don't even to say this last time. I believe it's a kui AKUI.
He's eighteen two and one. I mean, he doesn't come with a tremendous
amount of notoriety or big wins or anything like that. The one thing that
he does have is I looked at his record. I mentioned too that the
guy that knocked out Taraji, who then Taraji knocked out to regain THEO it
was a boxing named Masamichi Yabuki in twenty eighteen, disapponent that's going to take
on Delakian at one hundred and twelve pounds. Now, remember this fight against
Delachian is at that same weight, not at one o eight. But he
knocked out Yabuki in the first round in a just a eight round or non
title fight in twenty eighteen, so he's got that on his record. The
other name you might recognize on his record was the fight before that, that
was in twenty seventeen. I think we're all fans of Unto Nakatani, the
great Japanese young puncher who's you know now won some titles in different weight classes.
Knakatani knocked him out in round six. So those are like the two
big names quote unquote on his record he's won and one against him. But
d'lachian has been around a long time. You know you mentioned I was ringside.
It was for one of his fights. It feels like it was a
lifetime ago. It's when he won the vacant the title that he holds today,
which is the WBA Flyway title was vacant at the time, and he
fought Brian Valoria, the United States Olympian and multi division champion. This was
back in February of twenty fourteen, and I was there at the uh It's
it's before Rayfield went gray, and it's when Reeves actually had hair back in
twenty fourteen. That's twenty eighteen, twenty eight eighteen. I'm sorry. So
that was on the undercard of one of the superfly cards that are our good
pal Tom Whfer promoted on HBO, that had in a main event won Francisco
Lestrada against Risk at Star Rungbi side. This was one of those undercard fights
and Dalaki won the title by decision, and he's been the champion of the
WBA ever since. But the problem he's been very inactive after that busy year
of twenty eighteen when he won the title. One fight in twenty nineteen,
one fight in twenty twenty, one fight in twenty twenty one, no fights
in twenty twenty two, and one fight in twenty twenty three. Now granted,
part of that, obviously was due to COVID like affected a lot of
fighters in twenty twenty and even into twenty twenty one, and part of it,
of course, is because of being from Ukraine, where he actually had
been fighting regularly. Obviously, the boxing business is non existent at the moment
because of their involvement in being invaded in a war with Russia, so it's
impossible for him to have fight started, which is why he's been on the
road. The last couple of fights. He fought in January of twenty twenty
three in England on Frank Warren Carr. Now he's going to have this match
up in Japan, and while I can't say that I know this for sure,
it strikes me as a reasonable possibility or something to at least entertain as
a possibility, is that they have a flyweight champion on the undercard of the
junior flyweight champion Taraji, which might be a method in which to give the
Japanese audience a look at a flyweight champion, and at some point you'll see
Taraji, if he is successful, move up to the flyweight division to challenge
for this belt in another weight class. So I think that's the reason he's
on the card. Unfortunately, Galakian as good of a technical boxer as he
has always been. There's a reason why I won't be waking up early in
the morning to watch him fight, because if I did, you'll probably be
back asleep pretty short order. It's like an ambient He's thirty six, a
Koui is twenty eight. We'll see what happens in that. And again we
gave you some good preview mode there for those two title fights from Japan Tuesday
morning, US time Tuesday night. But TJ, what do I always say
about the Japanese cards? You said you're a sicko for these you love I'm
at the dinner, I'm at the Jenner Nitor And this one again Taraji in
the main event. I know we're selling it, they're not paying us to
sell it. This should be, you know, an action with him landing
big punches we would think against Canazalees. So look out, let's see what
happens for those on Tuesday morning. All right, some news. When we
put the podcast, the preview podcast for Mayor Jonas and the John Ryder interview,
etc. To bed, you were still doing some phishing, you were
doing some phone calling, you were working your sources, and so now you've
put it out on your substack. Since last you and I talked on the
podcast that Premiere Boxing Champions and Amazon have zeroed in on a date to start
their new deal. Elaborate on what you have found out. Sure, well,
I mean everybody who follows such matters knows that with Showtime exiting Boxing,
PBC was in dire need of a new broadcast partner. They found that in
a deal that was announced not that long ago, announced in early December that
they will take their events to Amazon Prime Video. I think they're still looking
for another partner. This is not an exclusive deal, but they are going
to be doing their events regularly with Amazon Prime, including their pay per view
events. And at the beginning they said we will launch in March. That
was not like in the press release, but that was what their people were
telling a lot of media members. So as they say on background, you
know this is what's happening, and that they were going to do between twelve
and fourteen shows annually. So my sources tell me, and I had multiple
sources when I wrote it, and ever since I wrote it, I have
even more than have confirmed it from within that tell me the same thing.
You always know you nail something right too, when you put it out and
no one calls you to bitch and moan and complain that it's wrong. So
I knew I had it dead to rights. And since then I've collected,
you know, at least a couple more sources that said the same thing.
Anyway, their first event's going to be on March thirtieth. That is the
plan. Now. The interesting thing is that the idea is they would like
to have it as a pay per view. Now, I personally think that
if you're going to kick off a new broadcast deal, to have your very
first event as a pay per view is a terrible idea. I agree,
at the very least put a fight on regular non pay per view and at
least promote your pay per view to that new audience. But that's just me.
They're going to do the March thirtieth event. They'd like to do it
on a pay per view. However, there is still a small possibility that
would not be a pay per view because the people at Amazon are still building
out the platform on which you will purchase the pay per view. Because if
you can't buy it, you know, or it hasn't problems or bugs.
They got some issues. What they want to do is give this a test
run for a paper that won't be a mega pay per view, but it'll
be, as it does described to me, fights you'd want to see,
even if they're not necessarily the big, big fights, because what the real
goal is here is to make sure everything works flawlessly for May fourth, which
is when they're going to do a big pay per view with Canelo Alvarez in
his first fight of twenty twenty four. Remember he has two more bouts left
with PBC. Who he fights still not determined. But the point is that's
going to be a paper that they're going to really promote and get behind,
and they don't want to go into that without having under experience what's going to
exactly right. So whatever happens on March thirtieth, I think we're going to
a good card in terms of the makeup of the show. I'm not sure
what the price point is supposed to be if it's a pay per view,
yet I'm sure it will be less expensive then we'll see for a Canelo fight.
But put this in mind again, the fights themselves have not been one
hundred percent set to my knowledge. However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist
to take a look at what they were trying to do at the end of
last year, that they kind of ran out of dates for guys who have
been massively inactive and are desperately needing of a fight. I think that on
that first show there's a very good strong chance you're going to see somebody like
a Montastanionis back in the ring defending his WBA Regular welterweight title. There's probably
a decent chance we'll see Carlos Adamis, who was the inactive WBC's interim title
holder. There has been noise coming out of Australia that Tim Zou may may
be fighting in March. It's not going to be the early part of March.
Now, maybe it gets shifted to the end of March and we see
him on this card. There's been a lot of conversation and chatter about him
defending his WBO one fifty four title against Ericson Lubin was coming off of a
victory controversial as that may have been on one of the recent pay per views.
So those types of fights. Now, if you told me that it's
a pay per view and it was going to be like a Zoo against a
Lubin and Adamus and a decent fight, and stanionis in a decent fight.
Like I can get down with that as a paper got all love it,
but I understand it's more sellable. It's more sellable. Now, what about
the speculation, What about the speculation that that's another sixty days from now and
it's maybe Jervonte Davis? Do you what do you? What do you make
of that? I am told it is not going to be a Tank Davis
fight period. Now, that's Al Hayman r. Al Hayman changes his mind
about things on a regular basis, like it could change twelve times between now
and even the time this podcast is posted. Twelve But yes, I can
understand, yes, it could be fifteen. I'm just making the point that
at this moment in time, that is just not in the plans to be
a Tank Davis fight. He'll be back, I'm sure, you know,
in the first half of the year, but I just don't think it's going
to happen on March thirtieth. One of the problems Tank may have is that
his trainer, Calvin Ford, is in a legal problem and has been in
jail for a allegation of some kind of assaulved problem that took place in Las
Vegas that had him picked up by the police in Baltimore and jailed and awaiting.
I don't know if he's already been sent there or he's awaiting to send
him out to the DATA. So, you know, not to say the
Tank would be incapable of having a fight with a different trainer. He has
other people on his team, but that would seem to be possibly an impediment
to him fighting in the month of March. I mean, that's just my
thought about that. I'm not saying it's impossible, but by all accounts,
Tank, even forgetting about what the problems are with Calvin, my understanding Tank
is not in the line to be on that first pay per view card.
ZU would make a lot of sense, you know where I stand on Carlos
Adama. I mean, I'm gonna go ahead and say this, Uh,
the WBC has done a total disservice to him. They should have already stripped
Jamal Charlo, certainly with Charlo talking about in the ring after the fight,
I want to stay at super middleweight, and all the talk that he's gonna
be the next guy for Canelo Alvarez, just follow through elevate adamis strip Charlo
with a title that he hasn't defended in going on almost three years. I
gotta say one thing about that. I mean, the rumors are rampant that
it's gonna be Canelo versus jam Charlow so and I have I mean, listen,
they're gonna do what they want to do. But I just think that
is a very very hard cell fight. I just don't give a shit about
that fight, to be quite actually, it's a hard fight to sell.
You know, if the brother Jermel had put up even like a halfway decent
fight, maybe you know, you could promote it like they did with the
Klitchko fights of years past, when it was Revenge of the Brother after Corey
Sanders you know, fought him, or you know, Revenge of the Brother,
or when Chris Bird you know, beat Battalion, then they promoted Vladimir
Revenge of the Brother. Okay, whatever, But one Charlo shit the bed
and the other Charlo hasn't fought about one time in two years and didn't look
particularly great in that Let Me Do, Let Me Do by Rayfhael. That's
a separate argument. That's a separate thing the WB what are we doing here?
What are we doing here? What are we doing here? That the
WBC should have already stepped in because Charlo's fight was back in November on the
Benavitas Andre undercard, and they should have already said, you're not you haven't
defended, you're not gonna defend. Make a Domis the full champ and let
him defend on this hypothetical at the very least March thirtieth. I can appreciate
the words from Mauricio Suliman from the WBC about wanting to support Charlotte because of
all the things that were going on as personal life with the mental health,
and I can respect that, which is fine. But what they probably should
have done, which would have made me feel better about it, probably would
make you feel better about it, would make a Domis feel better about it,
regular boxing fans feel better about it, and would also be fine with
the WBC, and I think Charlott would be accepting of it as well.
Is They could have easily been like, listen, deal with your problems.
We're gonna make you there in recess champion. When you're good to go and
you want to come back, you get the first shot and that's that and
you're still but that's not tripping you. I understand that ship sailed last year
though too. I mean late last year. He didn't even defend his title.
We went over this. We're going over the same ground. We went
over this already. He didn't even defend his title on the November thirtieth card.
Listen, here's my hope. But a Damas. I'm interested in a
Damas who I like maybe being on the March thirtieth card. That's why I'm
bringing this point up. Yeah, I mean again, I don't know that
for sure. I'm just speculating about the guys who have titles. Thought in
June he's been waiting for Charlo. He hasn't. As it relates to May
fourth, which is the Canelo date. That's the date that's on the agenda
for the Tuesday meeting of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, where it's TGB requesting
May four for a pay per view at either t Mobile or MGM. That's
the Canelo date. But I just satainly say one more thing about that.
Uh, if it's Charlo, I'm going to be super disappointed. In a
perfect world, would see Benavide's I believe that will be September. So if
it's not going to be that fight between can when Benavide's in May, you
know what would be a good fight if Mongia beats Ryder next week and then
could somehow make it deal with Golden Boy, which I know is hard to
do with Amen and Golden Boy dealing with one another, but that would be
a great matchup between Canelo Alvarez and Himimongia. Can't miss action, exciting fight,
you know, Mexico versus Mexico. You know that would be a lot
to a lot to like on a promotion like that. Stay tuned, be
locked in on Dan Substack, be subscribing to the newsletter, et cetera.
Locked in on this podcast. You'll have more reporting on whatever's going on March
thirtieth and with Canelo and fighting somebody sinko de myo weekend. All right,
let's continue with some news and then we've got some nostalgia and we're done.
The Boxing Writers Association they have their awards that you were telling us about before
and they have now come out with their award winners. So go down it
really quick, because we've gone back and forth some on Fight of the Year,
Fighter of the Year, those kind of things. So go ahead and
give us the twenty twenty three BWAA awards if you Yeah. So no surprises
here, and I, frankly you know most of these people are ones that
I did, in fact vote for the fact that Naya in a way won
the Fighter of the Year not a surprise. Probably the stiffest competition was Terrence
Cruffin. I don't know what the order of the voting was, but in
a way I picked him. I saw the Ring Magazine picked him. I've
seen other people have picked them in different columns in the stories. So a
worthy winner. The interesting thing though about it, when you think about this,
this is how big of a deal this is. The Ring Magazine has
been given out a Fighter of Theye award for eighty five years. He's the
first Japanese fighter to ever win the Fighter of the Year. That's a big
deal, yep. And they produced a lot of great fighters in Japan over
the decades. So my understanding is, in a way is so honored and
so excited and so happy to get that award, even though his fights were
in Japan, that an effort will be made for him to travel from Japan
for this spring to attend the banquet. When to get the award in person?
Which would be which would be a great thing. In terms of the
fight of the year I picked for my awards that I put out on my
newsletter, I picked the great matchup between Luis Neri and a Zadahoevenissian that was
one of the nominees. My number two was Haimi Mungia is very dramatic decision
over Sergei Devrenchenko. In terms of the Boxing writers vote, which by the
way, so people understand, it's voted on by the membership. It's not
like one person or just a small group of people. You know, there's
you know, dozens and dozens of people that get a chance to vote.
And in that case, it was Mongia versus deviren Chenko that won. So
Golden Boy Promotions, you know, I think, to the view of many
put on the two best fights of the year, which was Mongia devren Chenko
and that Jovinisian dramatic fight against Ney. But it was Mongi and Devin Chenkoh.
You know, I can't argue with that. I had a number two.
I mean, it was a hell of a fight Trainer of the Year
I think is pretty obvious. I voted for him. I know it didn't
come as a surprise that he won. On the Boxing Writers it's Brian McIntyre
had the great victory with Terrence Crawford over Errol Spence. But more so,
I think even more impressive than that was the fact that he was able to
take Chris Yubank Junior. He had gotten knocked out by Liam Smith and then
he took over as the trainer for Chris Hubank and led him to a knockout
victory in the return match. So when you do that, people notice,
and it's kind of a big deal. And the Manager of the Year was
Bill Haney, who's done an expert job of guiding his son Devin, maneuvering
him with two big pay per view fights in twenty twenty three. The win
over Lomachenko, which coincided with free agency, got himself a great deal to
do the fight with regious program and now can call a lot of shots,
so he gets that. And those were the main awards that were voted on
by the full membership, and then there was other awards that were voted on
by committees, including the women's Boxer of the Year, which was won by
Amanda Surround, who I also picked on my newsletter and what I wrote that
she had a hell of a year, not only retaining her titles and winning
three fights, but one was a Fight of the Year candidate against Erica Cruz.
She also made a lot of news about her fight about equality for women
versus men in terms of the sport by insisting on doing fights that were championship
fights that were twelve rounds three minutes in terms of the duration. So she
is a worthy winner and a future Hall of Famer. Good stuff. Love
wrapping up the year, It was an exciting into the years. I didn't
go through every single award, but we just shout out Gordon Hall from the
you know, Showtime Sports no longer exists, but if you knew Showtime Sports,
Gordon Hall, who was a longtime senior vice president of their department,
of the Sports department, he was the executive producer of Showbox the New Generation,
that is the Prospect show that he nurtured from day one for more than
twenty years. And he is a very very rightful and appropriate winner for the
long and parritorious Service to Boxing awards. So I know it sucks for him
and for the rest of the Showtime colleagues that Showtime Sports no longer exists.
But I'm glad to see that a guy like Gordon won this award. It's
well deserved. And further, it's a shame they didn't get to have a
goodbye show in the last ninety days. You and I agree on that,
But good recognition for Gordon on that one. A I two other items and
then we'll get to some nostalgia. Chris Billum Smith, the WBO Cruiseway title
holder from England from Bournemouth, England, has had now one title defense.
He's going to make his second title defense coming up. Tell me a little
more real quick. Yeah, this is going to be a really good fight.
So his mandatory challenger is another top British contender, undefeated big puncher Richard
Ria Kapore. They're both with the Boxer promotion and so Ben Shalom, who
runs Boxer, had said to me in an interview that we're going to play
on a podcast upcoming that the next fight for Billim Smith will be the Ria
Kaport fight. The one thing the caveat was they were hoping to do it
for the spring. But because Bill Smith that's such a hard, tough fight.
In December when he defended the title for the first time against Masternek that
he's dealing with a nothing major, Ben said, but some small little injuries
that he just need a little extra time on. So rather than have the
fight take place maybe April ish, it's probably going to get pushed back till
around June. But these guys are going to go at it. And in
terms of the cruiserweight division, this is a very very good fight and it
also who has a good storyline because if you go back to twenty nineteen,
before Billan Smith was a world champion, these guys met in a regional title
bout on the undercard when Dylan White fought Oscar Reeves, and it was it
was a regional title fight, not for a world title. And in that
fight, Rickapore he dropped Billin Smith in the seventh round. He won a
ten round split decision. So these guys have a history. They had a
very competitive, close fight, and Bill Smith went on to win a world
title, and now Richard has worked his way into be the mandatory. It
just shapes up as a really good, exciting, fun fight and they're going
to do a big crowd wherever they put this fight in England and Bill and
Smith again a great story. Not the most talented fighter, but works hard,
fights tough, kind of blue collar mother, very ill with cancer.
It's a heartwarming story that he was able to win a world title while she's
still living and hanging in there. So there's a lot of good heartstrings being
tugged at too with Chris Billin Smith. One more note speaking of the Bridge
and Joe Joyce the heavyweight and twice by July Jang he is going to be
back. Give us details on that real quick. Yeah. So in twenty
twenty three he had the two knockout losses you know that we're we're pretty rough
against is Angely one. He got his eye all busted up and lost in
April, which was for the you know, he lost the vacant or what
lost the interim WBO heavyweight title. They had an immediate rematch and instead of
just having his eye get busted up and getting stopped on his feet, he
got knocked out and got dominated in an even easier fight for Jang in the
in the rematch. So now he had back to back losses to to Jang,
So he's gonna make his return. He's not in the main event,
but he's the probably the biggest name on this card, which looks like a
real good, evenly matched kind of show top to bottom that Frank Warren is
doing on They called they did a show with like seven title fights, not
world title fights, but the regional titles and the British titles and the Commonwealth
titles, and they called it the Magnificent Seven. It was a popular show
that took place in November, and you know, it was well received.
They put on some great fights on the show. So now they're doing the
sequel, they're gonna call it the Magnificent Seven Ride again and instead of you
know, they're gonna do another you know, batch of like seven types of
fights like that. So this one's gonna be March sixteenth in Birmingham, England,
and one of the undercard fights we'll see Joe Joyce back in action against
a fighter named Cash Ali who's twenty one and two, to try to help
him bounce back from you know, those two very tough loss. Their real
concerns as to whether he has anything left and his age, yes, of
course, thirty six, thirty seven and Jang beat him decisively badly brutalized him
in the second knockout. And the main event of the card is is the
British middleway title. That's Nathan Haney, who had a big upset against Denzel
Bentley on the on the November Magnificent seven. So he's going to headline this
in a title defense of the British title against a fighter named Brad Paulus.
But the biggest name in terms of non the non only British scene of like
the world level. Let's say it's the return of the heavyweight contender Joe Joyce
to see what he's got left some nostalgia to wrap it up, my friend,
And it was twenty three years ago on Saturday, January twentieth, two
thousand and one, Floyd Mayweather wiping out Chico Corrals to retain his junior lightweight
title. Right, you were ringside, and you really believe you've said this,
you've mentioned this before in Floyd's fights, that you really believe this is
the performance for Floyd. Tell me more about that nostalgia and being there.
Well, I think it's the greatest performance that Mayweather ever had. And he's
obviously you know, retired undefeated as a guy that won titles from one hundred
and thirty pounds all the way to one hundred and fifty four pounds. Obviously
one of the all time greats in the history of the sport, some of
the biggest events, the biggest events in the history of the sport. But
in terms of the performance in the ring, and he fought a lot of
great fighters. Mayweather, this was a guy in corrals that was just destroying
everybody and had had held a title. Also, It should, by all
rights have been a unification fight for Floyd's WBC title and what should have been
Chico Carrals's IBF title. But to make the match, Chico gave up that
IBF title because the IBF does IVF things and they were not going to allow
that. They wanted him to fight the mandatory Steve Forbes, which would have
been worth about ten dollars instead of millions he made to fight against Mayweather.
The other thing about this matchup when they went into the fight, remember they
were both on the rise. They had been on a double header together.
HBO liked both of them. This is before Mayweather became the big, big
superstar. They were fighting for the HBO contract. The belt was important,
and the money that was on the line in the contract was just as big,
if not bigger, that the winner of the fight was going to get
a very lucrative HBO contract. And Mayweather fought the best fighter you ever had.
I mean, people sometimes want to say, well, Chico was compromised,
he was having weight problems, he was facing a prison sentence after the
fight because of a domestic violence situation he had been convicted of or pled to,
so he was going to go away for a period of time afterwards.
But nonetheless that's not Floyd's problem. Floyd went in there and put on a
masterclass. Now Floyd was not known. You know, he'd knocked a lot
of guys out when he was fighting in the in the in the lesser weight
class in terms of the weight, but still nobody I think expected him to
turn in this kind of performance, which was a devastating performance where he knocked
Corrals down three times in around seven like if I could have maybe been over
there two more times in around ten, and so five times total. Finally,
it was Diego Kralis's trainer and stepfather who threw in the towel and you
know what Tachico's credit, We all know what it were he was. He
was complaining about the stoppage and you know, kind of gave us his stepfather
a shove. Was really pissed off that the referee stopped to fight, but
it was the right thing to do, and I think again Floyd Mayweather's finest
performance. He would of course go on and win titles in a bunch more
weight class and have huge, huge fights, but this was a big fight.
They were both undefeated, they were both young. I'm not even sure
you could say they were in their prime just yet. You know, you
had the boxer in Mayweather, you had the tremendous one punch, knockout puncher,
and Corrals. It turned out that Mayweather turned into the puncher on that
night with the five knockdowns and absolutely brilliant fight. It was the second ever
fight of Floyd's I covered, of all the fights of his I covered had
been at his previous fight a few months earlier in Detroit, when he fought
the very tough journeyman Emmanuel Augustus, who gave him everything could handle. People
would know he later changed his name to Burton uh And, but Corrals that
was the That was a big deal and I have a lot of memories of
that fight. There were so much bad blood going into that fight. You
know, you had the manager for Floyd Mayweather, James Prince at the time,
and Floyd they were they were really uh getting very personal with Corrals and
talking about his domestic abuse situation. I remember them saying it the press conference,
you know, Floyd saying, I'm gonna beat you for every battered woman
in America. That was a commented done out of age. Well because I
didn't remember that, but yeah, what a hypocrite as a turn, because
himself went to domestic violence later on. But it was, it was It
was just a brilliant you know in terms of put the not the domestic stuff
in the outside of the ring and the legal issues, uh you know,
they're not saints obviously, but in terms of the boxing. You know,
I don't know if Floyd ever had a more brilliant night then. And I
like to say, you know, I joke around with Leonard Ellerby of course,
was you know, one of Floyd's you know, main guys for you
know, for twenty plus years. You know, it's the only time I
ever picked against Mayweather. I picked Carrals to win that fight, and Leonard
hasn't let me forget it in the twenty something year since then. And also
one on on a personal note, which was, you know, I didn't
know it at the time, what a big deal it would become in my
own life is I have covered probably one hundred events literally at the MGM Grant.
That was the first time I ever covered a fight at the MGM Grand.
I had covered a couple of other events in Las Vegas prior to that,
but they were both at Mandalay Bay at the end of two thousand.
So my first time ever at the at the MGM Grand was for this event
in two thousand and one in January, and I remember, and I've been
there many, many, dozens and dozens of times since, but I was
like a big deal. It was amazing and it was a great, great
performance from Floyd, a great performance. Still an amazing place, and ye,
it's got so much history in and around boxing. And so that was
twenty three years ago, two thousand and one. On Saturday, eight teen
years ago on Sunday, that's Manny Pacquiow beating Eric Morales in a rematch with
a tenth round stoppage, the second of their three fights. You were there
for that one. More nostalgia, please, brother Rayphiel. Well, this
one wasn't at the MGM. This one was at the Thomas and Mack Center,
which they should knock down with a crane and get rid of that building.
Not my favorite place to cover a fight, but a fantastic battle.
Remember Morales and Pacyao had fought in two thousand and five in the first of
their three fights in their Memorable trilogy, and that was a fight where Morales
scored the decision win. I guess kind of an upset beat, you know,
beat Pacio on that night back, you know, was was, you
know, just coming into his own but I think a lot of people thought
he would win that fight, and I remember they were talking about doing a
rematch, and Aram Bob Aram, who was the promoter, said, look,
we're gonna They did a card in between where they put them on in
separate fights, and the whole talking point was if they both win, were
doing the remat So they won. So Morales beat him in the first fight.
They they I'm sorry, Pacyao and Morales. They had the first fight
and it was Pacyao who lost in the first fight. They set up a
card in between to set up the rematch, and it turned out that Morales
ended up losing on that card. In Bob God bless him, was like,
fuck it, We're still going to do the rematch, and so that's
what they did, which is the fight we're talking about from January of twenty
twenty one, our January twenty first, two thousand and six, rather at
the Thomason Max Center. And as the first fight that I mentioned, that
was a fantastic all time classic. The second fight maybe not quite as good,
but pretty fucking good, pretty spectacular, all time great action, and
it was Pacio that got the revenge. Them even up the series one to
one. He stopped He stopped Morales in round ten, dropped them two times.
And I can tell you I have covered a number of events at the
Thomas and Max Center. The crowd that night was so excited and so hot.
You know, even though Morales was Mexican, had a lot of fans
there, there was a lot of Hako fans. He had made such an
impression on just the general boxing public, you know, leading into that fight.
You know what happened in the first fight against Morales, there was a
ton of Filipinos there, phenomenal atmosphere, a great fight. I kind of
an underrated fight, if you ask me, because when people talk about Pacyao,
you know, I think the first thing they think of is the Marquez
series of fights. They might think about Mayweather, which was not a great
fight but such a mega event. They might think about the first Morales fight.
They might think about his performance against de la Hoya, you know,
which was one side, but a brilliant performance that Ricky hadn't not got.
Like, there's so many fights of Manny's to think about, and if you
think about Morales, your first thought is you think about the Morera trilogy,
you know. So there's other fights you're thinking about, and sometimes Morales Pacyo
two kind of gets lost in the shuffle, but it shouldn't because it is
every bit as worthy of any of the great fights that these two guys have
had against each other and others. Great fight. And let me also go
what you just said. One of the things that made all of this so
intriguing, so fun is they all fought each other, and they were willing
to fight each other, in some cases multiple times and have rematches. What
a novel concept now that we're twenty years later, to be active and to
have the desire. I want to test myself against the best, the other
best that are in and around my era, maybe a weight class above or
a weight class below. I want to test myself And that is something in
the nostalgia. Professor Rayphiel here is holding class that I think we need to
have as part of the curriculum. The best fighters back in the day and
even as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago understood fight the other best fighters
and maybe fight them a couple of times, and that was the coming and
Morales. Of course, they fought a third time with again a fight in
between. But then Paco you know, took a tum Morales and stopped them
early. But remember when the Morale Paco trilogy was occurring, no one in
their right mind was thinking, Okay, many Pack is going to become an
all time legend and beat Oscar and beat Hadden and go up and win titles
the way up to you know, to the junior middleweight division. This was
really the start of his memorable kind of fights. So yes, he had
had the first fight with Marquez, he had already beaten Barrera in their first
fight. He had the draw of course with Marquees, but it was after
Morales and then when he finally fought Barrera the second time Marquez, it wasn't
really until a couple of years later he went to lightweight and knocked out David
Diaz. That then the trajectory went wild and he went up the weights and
started beating you know, dal La Hoya, Hattan, Miguel Coto, et
cetera. But the Morales trilogy has its very important place in the great history
of Manny Pacou, and that second fight of him avenging his loss to Morales
was the start of this phenomenal winning streak. I mean, he had won
the fights before that, because he had lost the first fight. He won
obviously the fight in between, but that second fight really is what like launched
him into this crazy long winning streak against so many of the greatest fighters in
the sport. And for Morales, you know, he actually came back after
having lost that fight and had some other big fights himself. So when I
think about all the great fights that pakiam Raus both had, I always think
about their first couple of fights, But the second fight because I was there.
I missed the first fight. I was ill and was not able to
go. But the second fight, very special fight, tremendous battle. Love
that and that was January twenty first, two thousand and six. As we
come off the weekend, listen, we've had a busy show again, the
controversial decision Natasha Jonas retains her title. We've discussed that again. Tuesday is
the Japanese Championship doubleheader. Taraji is the feature fight to Raji fighting Carlos Canizales
in Japan, WBCWBA Junior Flyway titles on the line. I know you'll be
running about that on your substack. We'll be running about it on Big Fight
Weekend as well. A lot of good news, some nostalgia. I'm looking
forward to this week, my friend. I'm looking forward to Jimimongia, John
Ryder, and again we'll put the John Ryder interview that you did with him
on the podcast. We'll put it up as its own standalone thing midweek this
week, as well, as we look forward to that Fighting Phoenix coming later
this upcoming weekend. On the twenty seventh listen, great stuff, great stuff
off the weekend. A lot here for the fight fans, let's keep blocking
along. In January, Dan Rayfield sounds good to me. I am looking
forward to see Monkey and Rider. I'm sure we're gonna have sumission things to
talk about post fighting and pre fight for that, no doubt, no doubt
leading up to that one. For now, we are good. Make sure
you're following subscribing here to this podcast p the Big Fight Weekend Podcast Weed.
We come on to the weekend with the Big Fight Weekend Review. We come
off the weekend with the Fight three two night weeknap. We're here for you,
pets for Dan Rayphield. I'm TJ. Reeves. Have a great week