Well off a wild weekend that saw an IBF featherweight title win for Luis Albertobopez.
It saw Williams of Pay To beat the daylights out of his Filipino opponent
in the Golden Boy main events Say Night. It saw some wild football all
over the place, including the NFL. We are here to mainly go over
Boxy, but I got a feeling Raphael is gonna be just a knock borderline
obnoxious about his giants here in a few moments stand by. It is the
Fight Freaks U Night recap podcast. You have found us. Thank you for
doing so off the weekend, as we're ready to recap everything in the Squared
Circle and anything else that comes to mind, including fight news nostalgia, lots
of Canelo Triple Gen nostalgia on this weekend multiple times in their trilogy. We're
ready to talk all about it. I'm merely the somewhat competent host T J
Reeves. I can see him and he's smiling ear to ear because his New
York Giants, his New York Football Giants had him all the way, had
to fall behind twenty one nothing to Arizona. We're tape the podcast just a
little while after the big Giant comeback. Are you going to fess up?
That's a Southern phrase. Are you going to fess up? Here? Are
you gonna try to act like that? You were glued to the TV and
rooting the Giants all on the entire way? What's the truth? Hello there?
Well, number one, they were early down twenty to nothing, but
who's counting outscored sixty to nothing in the first six quarters of the season.
They were down twenty zero at halftime. I texted you and said, every
Giant fan is in fire everyone mode at halftime of game two and we would
be hold they played the second half. Listen. The fact of the matter
is it shouldn't have gotten to that point. But you know, I'm glad
they want. Here's the thing, though, I because I live out of
market, you know, being a lifelong Giants fan, but I live in
the metropolitan Washington area. Depending on the way the networks go, we had,
of course, no matter what's going on, we always get the Washington
games, or are we usually and also get the Raisins games on CBS,
So I and the Giants and Washington we're playing at the same time. So
I did not have the Giants game in terms of the regular podcasts, But
would I do on Sundays? Is I tune into The greatest thing for an
NFL fan that you could possibly have if you don't have access to every game
is the NFL Red Zone. A man Scott Hanson who used to a great
job doing blow by blow when the PBC fight John Hanson, who I've known
for twenty five years. He used to be in the Tampa Bay market.
Phenomenal guy. And by the way, he's a boxing fan. We might
have to get him on the show. He did some commentary like you might
still he's still a fight fan even after he did the commentary, so we
might have to get him on. He was the guy that did the blow
by blow when Spike had the PBC fights, so I was I covered some
of those fights in person, and I got a chance to meet Scott and
get to know him a little bit and talk to him a number of times.
He's a he's a he's a great guy. I actually thought that if
he didn't want to do football and there was a broadcaster out there looking for
a more uh you know, full time blow by blow person, one hundred
percent he could hang with the top guys on any of the networks. I
don't care if you're talking about you know, Showtime, his own HBO at
the time, Uh you know whoever you know picked ESPN whatever. But anyway,
so I'm watching the Red Zone. I'm watching the Giants get their tails
kicked. I'm very irritated. Obviously. I saw a little bit of come
back. You know, you got Daniel Jones runs for a nice touchdown and
Sequan with the nice diving over the over the goal line to get a touchdown
and barely made it. H And then you know, Sunday night, sit
down with the family for dinner. It's back to school, back to work,
the whole thing tomorrow. So I left my office and they're losing by
two touchdowns, and all of a sudden, my phone starts blown up because
three of my pals who are Giants fans, also started texting me to see
the comeback. And then the Kuda gras my my friend of me when it
comes to football. My man Mauricio Suleiman, the president of the WBC,
who is a who's a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, and you knows, of
course I'm a Giants fan. And so the two of us go back and
forth. He wanted to make up bet with me on the first game of
the season when they when they lost last week, he said, listen,
the team whose team loses got to wear the other team's hat or jersey to
the way in for canello charlote. And so you passed on that. And
by the way, you were ducking Mauricio's call after the Cowboys beat the Giants.
So I know we're going to get to the fights, but this is
tremendous. The president of the WBC, who's been watching his Cowboys on the
other channel at the time we're taping beat the other New York team, the
Jets, has to make sure that he checks in with you on an NFL
Sunday night to see the Giants came back and won. Well, it wasn't.
It wasn't. We were not discussing anything related to boxing. It was
just right. So, as you said, I hope you saw the second
half, and I had to confess to him that while I saw much of
the second half via red zone, I did not see them actually get the
scoring plays that put them ahead. What kind of fan are you? What
kind of fan you You abandoned the Giants, they come back and win what
I mean, and Mauricio Solo Suleiman is having to chastise you as we come
in on the plot here. For this, all I can say is this,
if I have to choose between watching a Giants team that was down two
touchdowns, We're having a quiet Sunday dinner with the wife and kid before the
news school that she has been preparing. She's been hard at work preparing the
meal as well, so she made a beautiful dinner on Sunday night. Hudos
to her for us. I agree score points with the family and if the
I'll give you. Rico actually said, uh, it's hard to say,
but congratulations, you know Cowboys, So thank you, Mauricio. What you're
listening, Well, it's easier for him to say that because it was forty
to nothing last week on Sunday night football all right, So, by the
way, and his team won today also, yes they did. They beat
the Jets. So, by the way, I have worked buccaneer football.
Just for one more second, we're going to digress. It was literally,
ray Phil, I'm not exaggerating, like a hundred and seven heat index on
the field in Tampa. Raymond James Stadium disaster heat. It affected the Chicago
Bears. My Buccaneers have one. They're two and oh. So we're liking
that. A lot of two and no teams to this point. The Philadelphia
Eagles or two and oh, the forty nine Ers two and oh, Mauricio's
Cowboys or two and oh. So the Buccaneers off to a nice start.
I had to get in the pool to cool off a little bit. When
I got home, I'm refreshed and I'm ready to talk boxing with you.
All right, A couple of housekeeping things. Thank you for finding us.
It's the Fight Freaks Unit recap. We come off the weekend, we recap
the fights. We do everything we can to get to the recap by Monday
morning. It maybe a little later some in the football season, depending on
when Dan and I can take but we're making it happen, baby, We're
making it happen even in the NFL football season. Make sure you rate us
and review us. I mean, the podcast forms rate us and review us
five star rating and review does help us, so please do that again.
We preview going into the weekend on Friday mornings Thursday night overnight into Friday,
and then we recap coming off the weekend as well Sunday night into Monday.
With that being said, we had a Friday Championship fight card Top Rank ESPN
show, So it's been a couple of days since this took place. We
did preview it. Luis Alberto Lopez did get a win. Raphael would like
to point out he got the decision victory there where I was going knockout on
the bet Us show for Luis Alberto Lopez over the veteran Joett Gonzalez. All
Right, your thoughts on that and on the undercard in the top rank show
that took place for this weekend, Well, number one, it was a
good win for Luis Alberto Lopez and once again a good performance from Joet Gonzalz,
but not enough to win kind of what I suspected. The only disappointing
part was I think many people thought a TJ that going into this fight that
it was going to be a much more fan friendly fight. They both talked
about how we're Mexican Warriors, and we're gonna go out there and we're gonna
give the great you know, the fans, a great fight, et cetera.
And while it wasn't a bad fight or anything like that. I mean,
I've seen thousands of fights obviously way way worse than that. It wasn't
really particularly memorable. It wasn't you know, it was it was an okay
fight. It was you know, sporadic action, you know, decent,
but not what I anticipated. And part of that, as I'm coming to
realize as I watched Luis Alberto Lopez more and more, is while he does
have that ability to get into those kinds of fights, or at least bursts
in his fights where it's action packed and they'll go to toto, he's actually
kind of a slick fighter. He's got some very deft moves. He's very
good with his feet, he can slip punches inside very well. Uh.
I mean he's not I wouldn't say he's a defensive specialist, but he doesn't
ever really seem to take the full clean shot. He's he's good with the
distance to just even if he takes a shot, he can roll well with
it, or he can parry the shot off his gloves or his shoulders or
whatever. Like he's he's I don't want to say he's slick, but he's
slick ish. If you know what I mean, so from that standpoint,
he did a very good job because he was not letting go Joet Gonzaz really
do anything in the early part of the fight. Now, there were some
fake controversy because some people were like a gas that the wide scores two of
the square cards are rather wide. Now, personally speaking, I had at
seven rounds to five in favor of Jose of Louis Albert. I keep on
the calm Jose Luis Lopez, which is a wealthreaking tender from the late nineties
early two thousand. Luis Alberto Lopez U was never behind on my card.
He was way out in front because he dominated in my opinion, the first
half or most of the first half of the fight. And it is interesting
on the official cards he was given seven of the first eight rounds by three
of the judges, and I think that had a lot of people surprised that
it was that. Why but you're saying that was probably running line with your
card as well. He built up the early league. Yeah, exactly.
So I think out of the first seven, I think maybe I gave Joett.
I think I gave him one round also maybe maybe maybe two, and
then I thought he did way way better in the second half, and I
gave him more of the rounds, and so by the time he won,
you know, those last you know, a couple of rounds and I gave
him suddenly it's seven rounds to five. But he never really had a chance
to win on my card unless he, you know, gets some knocked downs
or obviously gets the stoppage. So I didn't have a problem with the scorecards.
I just had a little bit closer. Some people were making out like
it's a highway robbery. Now, part of that was because my longtime pal
Mark Kriegel on the ESPN broadcast, he had the fight scored in favor of
Joet Gonzalez one fifteen to one thirteen. Now, Mark's my man. I
love Mark. I've known Mark my entire career, almost twenty five years.
I've known Mark practically. Uh, you know, I just I just dis
agree with his scoring that night. You know, it doesn't make him a
bad guy or make him wrong about this or that. He just you know,
yeah, I think he was in the general minority. There were some
people that did think that Joett maybe did just enough to scratch it out.
I didn't see it, you know, Luis Alberto Lopez was much much busier
with the punches, landed a lot more punches, definitely a heavier puncher than
Joett Wash and even Joett Gonzalez after the fight was over said it was his
work of his three title fight performances, because now he falls to Owen three
in world title matches. He said in his immediate interview with Mark after the
fight that this was the worst performance. I don't agree with that because he
got shot out basically by shake wor Stevenson couldn't do anything with him. That
was his first title fight. U the Emmanuel Navarette fight, which was the
next fight, which he lost a decision. That was a great fight,
I mean literal slug fest. Even though he was, you know, pretty
pretty well down. I felt like this was at least more competitive over the
second half of the fight. So Joett's got nothing to be ashamed of.
He's just one of these guys who's a likable fighter. He makes pretty good
fights usually, he's an honest fighter. He comes in shape, he works
hard. He just doesn't necessarily have the talent to get over the hump against
the best names. Now, in other circumstances, we've seen guys with a
lot less talent and ability than Joe at Gonzalez did. Because of the way
that they're matched with champions, they can win a title. But nobody ever
did any favorites for Joe Gonzalas because we can think about the guys he had
a fight to go into a title matches. One wish of course Stevens,
who some day probably be pound for pound number one, Manuel never at that
he was clearly established himself at this moment, at least my mind is one
hundred and thirty pound number one. And you know, another way class north
and now Luis Alberto Lopez, who's been pretty hot and fighting well and is
developing a nice resume, so no one's given him a soft touch to get
a title. They're not matching them up, you know, for vacant belts
against you know, an eighteenth rank guy that no one ever heard of.
So, you know, we'll see what Joe does. Hill. I'm sure
he's gonna still fight, whether he get another opportunity or he falls to you
know, just strictly opponent class at this point. You know, that's hard
to say. But for Louis Alberto Lopez, look, he gets to win
no controversy, not not a memorable fight, but he keeps him off in
line, and he said it after the fact. He wants Robes Ramirez,
who's the WBO champion, also with top rank, So it seems to me
that I don't know why Top rank wouldn't do that. They're in the business
of making the best fights. That's not a super expensive fight, but a
very interesting fight probably would drawn nice crowd. ROBESI will fight in November on
an ESPM cart in Lake Tao, which we spoke about on the podcast,
the Preview podcast. If he wins that fight, Lopez has done for the
year, it would seem to me that, you know, within reason,
even if they were to have one fight at the beginning next year, the
second fight maybe against each other. The point is that seems like an inevitability
because the other champions at featherweight are not necessarily the types of fights that Top
Rank is either a in position to make or that would be in heavy demand,
or that would make any more sense than doing a fight between Robes and
Lopez. Because the other champions are Ray Vargas, who's with PBC, who's
supposed I guess be fighting Brandon Figueroa, who's the interim title older sets like
a mandatory fight, and the other champion in the way Class A is a
WBA tide. All there was Leewood, who's got the defense coming up against
Warrington, you know in a couple of weeks, and you know that's a
the zone matchroom thing that it does not that it's a bad fight, it's
just there's no they're not going to make that over the match between their own
two guys. So let's see what happens. And by the way, I
did not make mention just before we got into the fight recaps. After all
the Giant talk, I got like a little excited that we were talking to
NFL. You're gonna hear from ericson lubin the hammer coming up with Dan.
You're gonna hear the back half of the two fighters, because you heard from
Jeseus Ramos on our previous podcast on the Big Fight Weeken preview. You're gonna
hear from ericson Luban who's meeting Ramos in the undercard battle coming up on the
Canelo Jamel Charlo card that is coming on September thirty in Las Vegas. So
the Luban interview in a few moments. One more on the weight. I
just I love to have fun with this before we get to the rest of
the card. If it is Lopez and Robas Ramirez, quick thirty second take,
who would you favor in that fight based on what you've seen of both
at the moment, who would you give an edge? True? Right now?
Well, I I respect for Lopez, you know, like I mentioned
before, he's kind of slick ish. Well, Robesi Ramiers is slick.
You know. Robesie Ramier is an all time great amateur fighter. He was
an Olympic gold medal winner. Uh. You know, I know we had
a rough start twist pro career with the loss. There's a huge amount of
extenuating circumstances, but that he's like, really really sharp, uh, in
his recent fights, winning the title, defending the title overseas in Japan.
You know, we'll see what happens in the November fight. I'm not really
quite sure yet who the opponent's going to be, but I would have to.
I mean, I reserve my right to change my mind depending on what
happens, but one hundred percent in my mind, that's the Robsi Ramire is
a victory. But you know it's it's not like it's a blowout. It's
it's a it's a good match. We'll call it the early edge. The
early edge, you would give the alright, it's just a nice uh,
it's a it's a a fine fight. I mean, I don't think any
boxing fan that that follows these guys in these weight classes would object to seeing
Luis Alberto Lopez against ROBSI. Now, Robesie early on was looked as an
underachiever because of his loss, even though he's come back and you know,
put that away. And Luis Alberto Lopez, I think too many is viewed
as an overachiever because when you watch him a couple of years ago losing on
Showbox, I guess it was to Ruben Villa, who you know, fought
on this undercard. You know you're you're not You're left thinking yourself, I'm
looking for, you know what, a guy that's gonna become a featherweight champion.
But you know what, he got himself together. He worked hard,
he went overseas and uh Tyson Fury's buddy Isaac Lowan and eliminator by knockout went
back and won the title by a close decision in Warrington's hometown and a legit
victory. Made his first defense in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and knocked out
impressibly Michael Conlin. So you know, he gained that confidence. Now he's
back in front of a crowd that was, you know, uh, fans
for both guys because he was Mexican and Joet's Mexican American. Of course they're
fighting corpus Chrissy, Texas big Hispanic population. So but he's got the confidence,
he's got some of that swagger. But you know, Robot here Mayor
is not going to be phased by that if they should get together all right.
Undercard, saw Xander Zaia is impressive. Saw one of the sons of
Fernando Vargas, also went impressions on the fights on the undercart and what stuck
out Friday well after the Xander Zaias fight, so Xander's eyes, the junior
middleweight just turned twenty one, had a fifth round stoppage against Roberto Valenzuela Jr.
Who was known as a pretty good puncher, and I think the general
consensus was, without question that was the best opponent that Xander was having faced
so far in his career, and I happen to agree exactly with what the
broadcasters on ESPN we're saying. I talked to some other boxing people in the
aftermath, some people at top rank, everybody sort of in agreement that was
the I texted with with xanders manager Peter Kahn after the fight. We're all
in agreement that that was the best that Xanders Zaias has looked in his professional
ker He looked sharp, he looked strong. He's twenty one, he's growing
into that man body. He looks powerful, in great, great condition,
you know, an educated jab which really did the business against against valens Ella.
And the biggest thing was he caught him so severely on the nose,
on the bridge of the nose. It was just he bled profusely. I
mean, and to all credit to Roberto Vealezuela on multiple occases, I think
it was three different times when the doctors on the reff checked him, he
wanted to continue, so I give him credit. You know, this was
a guy that was going to go out on his shield and eventually just got
too bad that the ref just there was blood flow and then there's that.
I mean, it was disgusting and again a credit to the referee. I
think it's Mark Nelson, right, Marks, who gave him every chance at
the end of the fourth round to last the round, to let the corner
work on the cut. And then they sat in the corner, We're gonna
give you a chance here. But this is I'm paraphrasing, this is a
bad, bad cut and it's bleeding everywhere. But they also he was gained.
But the blood, I mean, I agreed with that stoppage. The
blood was just disgusting and it lived to fight another day. On that they
thought that the nose was broken. He had been knocked down in the first
round twice, although the second knocked out was sort of the combination of a
punch andy push, but it was scored a knockdown, and Mark Nelson,
who has been one of the better referees in boxing for a long time,
gave him every opportunity to stay in the fight. In fact, it felt
like, you know, because it's a doctor is the one that can stop
to fight. The I mean, I'm sorry, the referee is the one
that can stop the fight. The doctor can offer his recommendation. At one
of the points where they examined the cut, Mark Nelson seemed to be getting
a little irritated with the doctor. He just asked him find out, you
know it was he good to continue, and Mark was when he kind of
nodded before the doctor could s anything else. Mark was like, yeah,
let's go. Like he didn't even want to hear what the doctor to say.
After that, he's like, you know, you're messing up my fight
here. Let's say if you say he's not in danger, And it seemed
like it was okay. He was on the bridge, you know, at
least when they checked at the first I'm leading into his eyes. Not bleeding
into his eyes was the critical part there in the fourth round when they were
looking at it. But eventually it so much blood but also not getting into
your mouth and you're throwing. But so Mark, you know, who's experienced
with these types of things, he is like, all right, let's go.
Uh and but it got to a point where you got to stop it.
But so Xander, that was a tremendous performance from the young man.
He's probably gonna fight up one more time this year. He's now what's seventeen
and oh with eleven knockouts and uh, you know he's calling for a bigger
fight. He wants to fight for a title. I get the youthful exuberinst
There is no title presently available but those titles. With Charlot going to fight
Canello, you know, I know what he's saying. Maybe he'll come back,
but you know, it's not impossible. But the logic would say that
at some point those belts are gonna be splintering and he's positioned. He'll be
very well positioned in some of the sanctioning body organ you know rankings, and
uh, you know, Xander's eyas is gonna get his opportunity probably is for
a bigger fight next year. There's only not a lot to keep holding him
back. You mentioned about Fernando Vargus, his son Emiliano the lightweight. Uh,
you know, what can you say? He did what he was supposed
to do. He scored a third round knockout against Alejandro Guardardo, who was
an undefeated fighter. But kind of kind of look putting lipstick on a pig
because those undefeated fighters that he had fashioned, that the undefeated record that he
had fashioned had come against all fighters that were under five hundred or you know
type of records. But again, Vargas is only a nineteen year old fighter
U really in the formative stages, didn't have a huge amateur career, and
he's got a potential star power. He's got a good look about him.
He's obviously got the bloodlines with his father, who's in the corner, Fernando
Vargus. You know, it was a top champion in Big Star in the
in the nineties and early two thousands. And the kid looks like he can
really fight. I mean, you know, he's he's been He's he's learning
on the job to some degree, but he did what he's supposed to do
is target practice. He's getting confidence, he's speaks well as handsome. I
mean, he's got the possibility if he's got the goods in the ring where
he can become some kind of, you know, star power type of fighter.
And then of course those are the three fights on the broadcast and on
the on the ESPN plus part of the cart that's some important fighters getting back
in their end. You had the lightweight Jamaine Ortiz, who had not fought
in thirteen months since he gave Lomachenko a super tough close fight. H really
made his name. He had previously defeated Jamal Herring. But when you go
h that close to Lomachenko, you know, you make your name even bigger
in a lot. So he came back against you know, Antonio Moran,
who's you know, a journeyman but a very experienced guy. Uh. He
had he had given Uh. This is before Devin Haney was world champion.
I was actually at this fight at the National Harbor near where I lived,
that was over the bridge in Maryland. Scored the knock out of the year
against Antono Moran, So he can be he can be stopped. But Jamaine
Ortiz, he won pretty wide. He's he overcame some some tough, tough
moments in that fight. He was hurt in the fifth round. Uh.
You know, it looked like he might be on the Virgil losing that fight,
but he got himself together and came back and won a pretty clear decision.
So you know, he's definitely a guy who's gonna be uh in the
in the thick of things in terms of where the titles shake out once tight
and once Haney's titles are all vacated, you know, he's a very quality
contender. Ortiz and then the other fighter on the undercard who won in eight
round decision. Is ruben Via, the featherweight contender who's only lost. Uh
you know, was in a title fight against Navarette and in a gave him
a good fight and he'd got to win over Luis Alberto Lopez who was in
the main event. So ruban Va is well positioned to be in another world
title fight. Well, you gave us a ton there on the undercard.
All great stuff. This is why we love the recap again. We're coming
to the Luban interview in a little bit. Let's move on to Saturday.
In the chronology, the Golden Boys show Commerce California, the Commerce Casino and
Williams of Payta delivered. You and I both thought knockout and he was as
advertised again a lot of firepower for the lightweight contender. He got his ko
against Marcito Hesta of the Philippines. Your thoughts watching that as he now gets
a twenty fifth knockout in thirty one fights, z A pay to clearly a
serious title contender, I would think at this point in the lightweight division.
Yeah, he's now twenty nine and a twenty five knockouts, so you're giving
a little extra credit, but still tremendous record. Look, Hesta, you
know, I don't think anybody expected that that Marchito Hester was gonna win the
fight. But he's a very respectable fighter. He's only lost pretty much of
the best guys two times in the world title fights. You know, veteran
contender, you know, knows his way around the ring, not afraid to
fight anybody, always showed a good chin. You know, this was not
like, you know, the type of fight you'd say it's it's a great
match or anything like that. But Hesta is a he's a solid professional guy.
I mean, as a as a fighter that's waiting his turn to get
a bigger fight. Taking on Hesta is not it's not anything that's uh,
that's that's not a joke. It's it's you know, it's it maybe not
be a pay per view fight, but it's you know, it's a perfectly
legitimate fight. He made Mercita hest To look like it didn't even belong in
the ring with him. I mean, he just went to town. And
you know it's not like hestafod badly Hesta. If you look at his his
punch stats or example, we're perfectly in line with what you would expect for
the length of the fight and the weight class that he fights in. You
know, he threw it, you know, obviously a lot of punch He
landed a lot of punches, but he was in with a guy that just
was like, you know, it was like watching a guy and if you're
if you're watching like a video or whatever, you were hated and fast forward
because he just never stopped with the pressure and the punching, clean punching.
I mean, the punch stats that he put together, I mean they're not
just like good, they're overwhelming, overwhelming. So check this out. The
fight lasted five and a half rounds, almost like one minute thirty to one
seconds. I believe it was a round number six with a fight was stopped.
I barely missed the over on that that hurt. It would have been
four and oh this weekend four and on the bet Us show instead of the
kid here ended up getting the under by a second. I'll take it on
the KO go ahead. In five plus rounds, he threw six hundred eighteen
punches, which and if it goes and landed, if it goes to twelve
round distance, he's going to be well over a thousand because it looked like
he was losing any esteem at all. He landed two hundred eighty six punches
and five plus rounds, and by the way, that's forty six percent.
If you're landing anything above forty that's tremendous. If you're landing like above thirty
five, that's really good. So in terms of overall, that's what he
did. Not check this out in the power shot category, now that's anything
other than a jazz was absurd. He landed two hundred forty two of four
hundred and fifty four power shots fifty three percent. That's like Mercito Hesta getting
in a car accident every single round. I mean, it was ridiculous.
Did you sense that this was really target practice? Because I started watching any
of this is target practice, like after the third or fourth round, and
really could have been stopped because I just I sensed, what do we know?
We're watching, we're detached, we're away from it. He doesn't he
doesn't believe that Hesta can hurt him, and it's now just target practice.
He's in the pocket, just pounding the guy. It's a matter of when
it's gonna get stopped. Right. Testa was one of these guys and he's
very savvy like this. He knows what's happening. He knows he's taking a
tremendous amount of punishment and in big shots, but he has the heart to
want to stay in the fight. And so the referee, which was Jack
Reese, was looking really really closely on a number of occasions, and just
when it looked like Jack might stop the fight, has to manage to get
off two or three shots just to sort of, you know, not not
really hard shots, just sort of like to show the referee I can still
I'm still got my wits about me. I can still get off some punches.
You know, you can't stop the fight because I'm throwing. And so
that's that's the way I looked at the way that that fight was going,
where he did just enough to not have it stopped until it had to be
stopped. I mean, I thought maybe after round five, when they had
like a lot of conversation in the corner and the fight could have been stopped,
they let the fight go into the next round, and then within a
few seconds at thirty seconds or so, uh you know, or a minute
whatever, they ended up stopping the fight. But the volume punching the chin.
The power on those punches his own, you know, uh sort of
motor. You know, the stamina is just ridiculous. I mean I talked
to Eric Gomez, who's the president of Golden Boy after the fight, and
he said that he's the busiest fighter in boxing and that and that quote.
His volume punching is unmatched, and yeah, he's the promoter, but it's
kind of so you know, sometimes motors they want to spin it their way
and obviously make you know, put put a bright picture on it. But
it's really hard to disagree with what Eric Goman said about that because the volume
punching is ridiculous. The volume punching is almost his defense because he doesn't give
you a chance to fire anything, you know, two two damaging back in
himount He does get hit a little bit, but that's boxing. Plus he's
a southpaw, I'm gonna tell you right now. We talked about the lightweight
division a lot, and we talked about Haney, who's been undisputed now he's
got three of the belts. We talk about other top fighters, Davante Davis
and and Vissilly loma Chenko and you know, I mentioned Jamaine Ortiz who fought
on the card the other night, and there's you know, there's a lot
of good talented fighters in that weight class. Us. It's probably one of
the deepest weight classes in the whole sport. I'ma and nobody ever really mentions
Williams Zapata. I refer to him, I think either on our previous podcast
or maybe on the bet US shows. He's like the division dark horse.
Everybody talks about Haney and Loma and and Tank and and and some of the
other guys in the weight class, but they don't really oh yeah, oh
yeah, yeah, Williams Zapata. Well, they better start mentioning and Williams
a peta because he's a bad boy and he's gonna be any of these guys
trumble. I don't care if you're Devin Haney, David Davis not necessarily saying
he's gonna beat all these guys, but trust me, not a lot of
guys are gonna be calling this dude out. A left handed fighter with that
kind of power, with that kind of stamina, with that kind of just
monst output of punches. I mean, it is it's that's not really a
stuff like that. I mean, you know, talking by the way,
I mean the other guys in the way class shook course Stevenson now in that
weight class ed, when Delos Santos, George Cambosa's pit Bull Cruz, Frank
Martin. I mean, that's a pretty strong quality bunch of guys in this
weight class, and I dare say there's not a single one of them that's
gonna say, hey, give me William Zapeta. They're gonna have to force
the issue. Golden Boy and Zapeta gonna have to get to get in the
position with the organizations and just have this dude keep getting out there every few
months and putting a beating on somebody until the fans and the press the man
that get the guy get a shot. Well, he looked that good and
right, I know we're talking to him up. We don't work for Golden
Boy, but he I mean, I just kept thinking this when you were
saying it, you might watch a guy have an outstanding twelve round fight and
not laying two hundred and fifty power shots. Five plus rounds two hundred and
fifty power shots. We're right out. And here's the thing that goodness,
I don't want to make Mercito hast out to be like, you know,
some superstar. But Marcino hessays a vastly experienced fighter who's been in a world
championship fights, who's acquitted himself pretty well, who's you know, got some
decent wins on the record. He's not a bum. This is like a
really solid pro who when he was coming up a lot of people thought would
be a champion. I had somebody mentioned me and I don't know, I
can't remember the name, but on the on the comments section of my sub
stack, because I wrote a story about the fight on Saturday night, made
the interesting point of view and suggestion or thought that maybe Zapeta could be like
the Jose Luis Castillo to Shakoor Stevenson like the Floyd Mayweather, which I thought
was a very intriguing comparison. And the reason why it's interesting is because as
great as Floyd was and as great as Shakour looks like he may be the
Floyd. You know, his kryptonite, if you will, was in the
fights with Castillo where they were both were very close. A lot of people
thought he lost the first fight. He did get the decision. It was
the one time where there was ever any real element of controversy in terms of
Floyd Mayweather on this s work cards and uh, you know, I'm not
saying that's the case, and but it seemed like, you know, kind
of an interesting thought. So I'm just throwing that out there. Yep.
All right, So we'll see you the future for zape to. One thing
we have in our future is Dan's conversation with again the second part of that
upcoming co feature fight for Charlo and Canelo Alberts Canello and Jamil Charlo. That
is ericson the Hammer Lubin looking forward an entertaining fight. You heard from Hazew's
ramos on the last podcast on the preview podcast, now here's the guy that
he's going against. Well, I'm joining today on the podcast by the junior
middleweight contender, ericson Lubin. Ericson, thank you very much for doing this.
How have you been You're getting ready for a big fight on the Canello
undercard again, Charlo, I'm good man, I'm good. Training can has
been great, I feel good. Ready to rout two more weeks. I'm
glad to hear that. So just to let folks know you're fighting the young
contender. Hazew's Ramos and the co feature Big Spot on September thirtieth on Showtime
Paper you at the Tmobile Arena, and I have to ask you when when?
Uh, you know, people were very excited when they heard about Charlot
fighting against Canelo, and then they came the announcement of the undercard fights,
and when they when I when I heard from different boxing fans and even other
people in the business, and and the co future was announced, It's gonna
be eric Son Lubin against Hazews Ramos. I think the universal reaction was,
Wow, that's a that's a pretty good fight. That's a really good fight.
What's your take on, Like, how good a fight that is?
I mean, you you follow boxing, that's a good fight. Yeah,
it's a great fight. It's a great fight. It's a fight I asked
for. I'm sure he probably asked what I heard him say something about him
ask and put his fight a fight before he even fought Joey Spencer. I
think he's a he's a he's a good fighter. He comes to fight another
south pause with the South Pass South Paul matchup, and it's gonna be fun.
What was it about Hazews Ramos that made you think of all the different
guys in the weight class, that was somebody that you'd like to fight.
I felt like he was the best available. You know. The guys I
wanted to fight were like Sebastian Fandor. I obviously want my rematch with him,
I want my rematch with Charlow, you know, and those fights wanted
available. Ask for Tim Zoo and he's fighting Brian Mendoza and he had other
plans. So I said, give me the next, you know, best
thing, and that's Brant, not Brian Mendoza Ramos. So when he was
doing some of his media discussions and talking in different interviews and things like that,
and I talked to him also one of the things that he had said
with a lot of respect towards you, but he said, a win for
me against Eric Sanlubin means that I'm ready for a title shot. And that's
a huge statement. And I wonder from your perspective, what does a win
against Hazers Ramos, who's the younger up and coming guy, where you're the
more established veteran. What is a win over that that over HAZs Ramos,
what does it say for you? It's solidifies that you know, top top
three, you know, top three guys in the division, or even top
two in a division. You know, I feel like he's a he's a
he's a great young fighter, and I don't feel like, you know,
he's beating Bran and those are already He's the w BC champion. So I
feel like a win over Hayes's Ramos is uh, it's pretty big. It's
uh. It shows that you know that I'm still here, still one of
the top guys, and I deserve a title shot. Well, I said,
you know, you're the You're the more veteran fighter in the fight.
He's twenty two years old, but it's not like you're an old man.
You're only twenty seven years old. For a lot of guys, they just
be coming into their best. You know, you've already had you know a
number of fights against a lot of name guys and some good wins. And
I looked at your record just to refresh myself before we were getting ready to
do the interview. Listen, you got knockout wins against Jason Rosario, who
was a former unified champion. You have a knockout win against eh Smith who
was a former champion, and and a fighter who was in a the top
of the weight class for a very long time. You have a good win
over the Olympian Terrell Gachet, who fought for a world title even in your
last fight. Now most people wouldn't say Luis Arius as a super top contender,
but you were the first guy to ever stop him, and Lewis Arius
is known for being a real solid, tough guy. For some reason,
people just seem to remember your two losses, which was a fight of the
Year candidate against fandor that you mentioned him, which was a super close fight.
And you know you got caught by the best guy in the division when
you were a very young fighter against Charlotte. So how do you change sort
of the the take that people have on ericson Luban that you know you're about
more than just a couple of longs's sleep on me, sleep on me?
And the way I changed that September thirtieth, you know with a statement win
against zus Ramos. You know, a statement win is on a very huge
stage. It's a you know, Canelo versus Charlotte's on a pay per view
comin event. So the way I changed change your minds is going in there
and being my best and coming out with it with a statement victory, a
convinction win. Do you think that that attitude that a lot of people have
is sort of unfair? Like it seems to me like, you know a
guy that's that's willing to fight everybody, that's got some very good wins,
that's got some tough losses, but one was super close fight of the year,
Like, is it a kind of an unfair way that they position you
in some fashion? I don't think of it too much. I don't think
of it too much. I just, you know, guys like myself,
they'll they'll appreciate me more when I'm retired. You know, they'll appreciate me
more when I'm retired. And you know, no, I feel like I
feel like I'm always I've always been willing to fight the best in the division.
I've always been willing to fight the best guys. So I don't know,
I don't really think of it too much. I don't really care about
it, Okay, fair enough. I remember thinking at the time, by
the way, and I covered that fight that you had with Charlot in twenty
seventeen, and I remember, you know, Eric Son Lubin. I had
you as my pros back to the year, back in the day, and
I thought you were just one of the best young guys I've seen in a
long time. And when you when you got that fight with Charlot, I
have to admit I did think maybe you'd been off a little more than you
get you at that moment, just because of the lack of experience, and
obviously it didn't go your way the way that it ended. When you look
back on it, do you sort of think, you know what, maybe
I did take that a little bit too quick and I would have been better
served with a couple more fights of say apprenticeship and sort of, you know,
work my way into a championship fight, or you know, or are
you just too young and hungry? And you know, weren't thinking like that
during the time. I was just feeling like, man, I'm just you
know, this is my time to shine. You know. They put that
fight in front of me. But now I think about it, maybe maybe
it was a little bit too early, And I feel like when I when
I look at haz and Stramos and I look at what's going on and how
the media is taking the fight, I kind of feel the same way.
Like I feel like everybody's you know, you know, they're doing the same
things they were. They were saying about me. They're like, you know,
he's young, and he's gonna do this, he's gonna do that,
And you know, I kind of sit back and I laughed at it because
you know, it's like, it's the same shit I was going through.
You know, it's the same shit. I see a smiling about it too.
It's sort of like the shoes, like the shoes on the other foot
now in a way. Yeah, yeah, it's I don't know, man,
i just I'm enjoying this though. I'm I'm enjoying this whole thing.
I get the proved out is wrong. You know, they got me as
the B side. I'm the underdog, and I'm just embracing it. I'm
embracing it because I know I'm coming out there and you know, with my
experience, my skill set, this has been a great training camp for myself.
You know, I just bought ten weeks ago, so you know,
me being active was one thing I've all I've asked for for the past couple
of years. You know, I've been fighting just once a year since twenty
twenty, and now they got me, you know, right back. So
I always told them that this this brings the best out of me, and
it has shown September thirtieth, So a lot of people even a year later,
year and a half later, I guess at this point, they still
talk about the fight. Yeah, with Fendor, it was a very close
fight. Uh you know, you know, you both were on the deck.
It got stopped. A lot of people thought it was the fight of
the year. Uh. You know, Kevin Cunningham, your trainer, elected
to stop that fight. Do you understand it was after the ninth round?
Are you cool with why he stopped it? Did you understand why he stopped
it? I know you said you wanted to get that he stopped it for
sure. Yeah, I understand why he stopped. You know, he's just
looking out for me. You know. Kevin Cunningham, he's a he's competitive
as well, and that's why we fished so well because he's he's very competitive.
And you know, it's a fight I was winning. If you look
at the score cards, I was up on all three score cards, winning
by I think two rounds. And you know it's boxing though, it's boxing.
My face didn't react. Well, I had a I had a my
ac joint was was messed up and my shoulder. Yeah, I understand why
he stopped it, but you know those up to me, I was gonna
keep fighting. Well, while you're answering that question, I did look at
the scores. You in fact were ahead eighty four eighty five to eighty four
on two scorecards, and the third scorecard actually was even at eighty five eighty
five, so it was close. And like you said, you know,
you understand what happened with your trainer. I wonder is there is there any
kind of like silver lining to know that a big part of your reputation is
that Errison Luban makes great fights and that was a fight of the year candidate.
And you know, I find that as as time passes, the fogginess
of like who actually won the fight sometimes goes away. The fans remember it
was a great fight. I'll ask a fan, Hey, how about that
Mickey Ward Arteraro Gatti fight, And they're like, oh, those are great
fights. They don't really remember who won the fight. They just know that
they thought it was an awesome fight. That seems to be the kind of
the way that that a fight like Fondora will be remembered in the future.
Okay, well, hey, I see, but it was a great fight
FDA. He's a he's a good fighter. He's a great fighter too.
All. I feel like the fight with him and buy him and doza.
He's winning that whole fight. Like people writing him off for a little bit,
I don't think they should. So now that you know I'm gonna now
that you got this fight with Jesus coming up, I'm curious, just briefly,
how do you expect the fight to go. I'm expecting just follow the
game plan and being my best and coming out with the win. That's it.
Coming out with the win. However, got to get it understood that
I would just wrap up with this. I got to ask you about the
main event. Look, Charlot beat you. He became undisputed at one hundred
and fifty four pounds, but he's stepping up two weight classes to fight Canelo
Alvers, who's the undisputed champion in his weight class at super middleweight. So
I wonder, how do you think that the main event goes and what happens
and how close are you watching? Because you did mention that at some time
in the future, you would like to have a rematch with Charlo. Absolutely.
I feel like I feel like people are sleeping on Charlo. You know,
he's always alive dog. You know, he has a he has a
great i Q. He has a beat IQ than what they what they think,
you know. I just feel like if the if the old Canelo you
know, is back in that ring, then maybe a little bit more than
what he can handle, but what Charlo can handle. But I feel like
he still has a shot, do you ask me? All right, Ericson,
thank you very much. I guess September thirtieth, it's hammertime, right,
yes, sir, all right, man, I appreciate your time,
and I wish you good luck in the fight and I look forward to seeing
you in Las Vegas. Appreciate it, all right, So there we go
again. As I mentioned, you got back half of the interview Ramos on
the last podcast. Now, lub and I know you said a lot on
the preview podcast, but just repeat it again here real quick for a few
seconds. We're looking forward to this fight on the Cannelo Charlo undercard. Well,
this is a really good co feature, no doubt about it. And
like I've said, if you if you follow my viewpoints, you know I'm
very hard on undercard sometimes that I feel like promoters don't necessarily always go out
and do the best that they can give the consumer of value for their money,
and with this type of undercard that they've put together, I do feel
like that is the case. And this particular fight between Luben and Ramos,
to me, anyway, he's very interesting because if number one, I feel
like it's going to be a very good fight. Number two, I love
the fact that it's Ramos, the young, hungry guy, twenty two,
undefeated, looking to really put a really quality name on his record, even
though he's already got some good names on his record, like Brian Mendoza,
for example, who is now the interim title holder of the WBC. And
you got Luban, who's not an old man. He's only twenty seven.
You know, we turn eighteen when he's turned pro at eighteen, so it
feels like he's been around forever. But Arison, Luban's you know, he's
got some good wins. He's got some tough losses to Fendora and to Charlot,
but you know he's looking at they heard in the interview. You know,
yeah, he's the veteran in the fight, but you know what,
he thinks that he's kind of being overlooked a little bit and you know,
not being given the proper credit maybe for his position. And you know,
he's excited because he knows a win can put him back in a great position.
So they both have the right attitude. I think they're both gonna be
in great shape for this fight. I think it's gonna be one heck of
a good fun fight. Love that news and in some nostalgia before we are
done so. On the Top Rank broadcast Friday, they did confirm an interesting
fight Emanuel Navarat back in the ring. Give me more on the opponent,
note noteworthy opponent and what is the date and what card? Give us the
details. Well, the thing with Navarette is that you know, he's he's
obviously coming off such a big victory against against Oscar Valdez that was obviously a
very very much anticipated fight, and you think, well, he's gotten to
a certain point where he is in his career, like you're not going to
see him on an undercard. But you know what, because this is a
big spot for a top rank on the formula one week. They're looking to
make that Thursday night on their regular calendar because F one is going to be
in Vegas annually now and Top Rank of course has the boxing contract, and
ESPN is involved with Formula one, and so it's gonna be, i think,
become a regular sort of thing as they look for these these spots to
put these sort of tent pole events, if you will. Way they've done,
whether it's a single demayo or it's a September with the Mexican Independence a
weekend. They've done it with fights on Heisman Knight on ESPN. They've done
it plenty of times with their Puerto Rican boxers by going in New York City
on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade. So they have this date
now where they're looking to sort of build it into something on the F one
week and so they have a matchup between Shakoor uh you know, and it
wasn't the Frank Martin fight they thought they were gonna get, so it's gonna
be uh you know, still still not a it's not a not a bad
fight ornything like that, but they got him against them. Maybe the lesser
known Edwin de los Angeles. But now they're gonna have Navarette on the undercar
and he's not fighting a bomb. He's fighting Robinson Konzas out from Brazil,
who was a gold medal winner who has had you know, two his only
two losses were in world title fights. But he lost to Shakor Stevenson in
a little bit of a competitive fight, but it was a fight where Stevenson
had the unfair advantage of having not made the weight, so that was sort
of like an asterisk. And that one that was two fights to go back
in September of last year, and then in the other title fight, which
was September of twenty twenty one, he obviously had all two things happened there.
Number one, he lost the decision to Oscar Valdez when Oscar was the
WBC's one hundred and thirty pounds champion. But two things. Number one,
a lot of people thought that Robinson Quotsasa won the fight. Number one,
and number two, there was the massive controversy because Oscar Valdez had failed the
drug test prior to the fight. But the reason the fight went on and
this is still something I could argue with people all day about, but I'll
just make it very brief, Oscar Valdez tested positive for a substance that was
banned by Vada, who they had contracted to do the fight. But the
Arizona Commission went by the water rules, and under the Water Code, the
particular substance that Oscar tested positive for was permissible in competition and out of competition.
He has a positive out of competition for the substance, and under VADA
rules there's no delineation between in competition or out of competition. So there was
the fact that the commission rules did not jibe with what the rules of Vada
said, and so the commission didn't have any reason to not allow the fight.
Now, certainly the organization could have not sanctioned it, blah blah blah.
In any event, Kanta Sao has been in two fights where there's sole
an element of something working against him. One a guy fought with UH perceived
or depending on which rules you follow, a bad drug test, and the
other guy didn't make to wait, so he's getting another bite at the apple
against Then you'll never day to see for the third time as the charm form
if he can't win this world title. So he's a he's a good contender,
like I said, Olympic medal winner, a gold medal winner, and
uh, there's a second title fight on the show, so they they've beeped
that up. And I don't know if you remember it. When we were
talking about the core situation on the podcast the previous episode, I did say
to you that I felt like Top Rank was going to put another title fight
on the card. Uh, you know, to be I'd be less than
honest. I didn't say I knew that this was happening, but I was
not permitted to say so because of no I mean, listen, when you're
right, you were being cryptic because you were not allowed to talk about it
and you didn't want to burn who helps you in the past. Understand I
sort of found out about it, and you know, if somebody tells you
something, you have to One of the ways you you know, you you
live and die in this business is if to keep you know, you don't
You don't want to throw anybody under the bus, and you don't want to
ruin a relationship. So if they tell you something and they've told you you
can't say anything and it's off the record, meaning you don't report it,
you don't like it, but you got to kind of accept it sometimes.
So every now and then you gotta, you gotta, you know, dance
with the devil. And I wasn't allowed to say. So let me put
it to you this way, just in general terms. A lot of times
in your in your a lot of work, and I've done this now for
thirty years, in all forms and facets, you will find out something from
someone who says to you, you can't go with that right now yet,
but I will take care of you somehow, some way, some other time.
Just can't report that yet. And in this case, you do your
digging and you just waited. And so now we know about this fight,
and somewhere down the line, you're gonna get something else for that. This
is how it works. This is relationships. You work your sources, and
if somebody tells you you can't go with that yet, you're an idiot because
you're never gonna get anything out of that person. Again. The only way
you burn that is if you just don't give a shit about that person.
But I go over this with young broadcasters, young journalism people on if you're
trying to find out a story and if you're trying to find out an information.
What you have to weigh is am I going to be an idiot right
now and ruin my relationship with whoever this is this source for a long time,
if not for good? And is it really worth it to do that?
In ninety nine percent of the time, it's not worth it to do
that. So you're not a great point you make how you do my you
know, thirty years or so as a reporter, you know, beyond just
covering boxing, uh A Manuell Neverett to Agans Hubson Constasu was not worth the
adjectate would have cost report that appen. But all you're saying, all you're
saying is you got tipped off. There's gonna be another title fight there.
You got told it's involving Navarrot, and you you got told to wait,
and so you waited, and now we're talking about it two days later.
And also, but hey, listen, life, and we're about to find
out a couple of things that Dan has found out and confirmed on his own
that we're not waiting to tell you you're about to find those out. In
fact, in fact, let's get right to it. Dmitri b Ball is
on the rundown. Do we have hope that he's fighting. Do we have
folk that he's fighting this calendar year? What is your ring saying? Well,
this is not exactly like a trade secret. And the reason I say
this is because during the The Zone broadcast on Friday night that they did from
Mexico, which happened to feature a very exciting main event between the lightweight Angel
Fierro and Brian What's Zamarripa. But during during the course of that broadcast on
The Zone, Eddie Hearn, who was the promoter of the card and was
there, but did an interview with the broadcast team with with those guys,
and he mentioned when he was going through the calendar with the interviewer, he
mentioned, you know, his schedule coming up with all you know Josh Warrington
fight, that we've mentioned, a whole bunch of other fights, and he
made he made the point that one of those fights would be he thought would
be the Dmitri Vivo coming back on December the second, But he didn't like
it was just kind of he glossed over it. But I heard it,
and so I reached out to Vadim Kornilov. Eddie was obviously in transit on
his way back to the UK and uh Datim, who was the manager of
Demitri Bevo. We had a back and forth texts exchange or the last you
know, I guess, starting on Saturday morning and he said, yeah,
that's what we're looking to do December second in the United States, which was
not something that Eddie mention Er confirmed. And then that he started talking about
the types of opponents that they're looking at. One of them is Lyndon Arthur
from the UK. The other one is hot Rod Collegic who's down in your
area. The Bosnian fighter who's lives in the Tampa Saint Pete area. Interesting,
they talked about again, this was something that came up a while back.
I doubt this will happen, but they're they're still open to what the
Zone was proposing at one point, which is himI Mongia. I just don't
see that Mungie would have to move up another weight class, and you know
he he's barely done anything in supermiddleweight. But it would know, whatever the
Zone puts up enough money, I'm sure he would do it. They said
they would go down to one sixty eight and fight David Morrell to get the
mandatory against Canelo. Which if the WBA could order that potentially, I don't
think so. But that they're fighting, they're fine with doing it. So
those are the types of opponents that they were talking about. But what they
really want is the fight against Art they're better b which would be for the
undisputed title, you know, and I feel that deems paying. He said,
Look, that's what we would like to do, but he knows also
that he's he was tied up with back to back mandatory fights, plus he
had the injury, so that fight, you know, even if it could
happen, it wouldn't be until probably next spring. And as I said to
him as we were discussing this, look, I think the fight's very makeable
from the standpoint of Matt Room as well as from top rank. It's just
that everybody on both sides has to be more realistic about the financial expectations.
And he agreed with that. So that gave me some hope that once Dmitry
fights the fight in December, that they can all get together and make this
matchup. Remember podcast fans that all the way back at the beginning of the
year, I think probably eight or nine months ago, you began to hear
about Okay, they're having some kind of conversation. Maybe they could fight.
And Vadim Korloff told you in an interview, the money is just not right
for us to have an undisputed title fight. It's not worth it. We'll
seek out something else. Well, frustratingly, big phrase, big adverb.
At this point, they haven't been able to make a fight with anybody else.
He's got to get in the ring with somebody, because Danny hasn't fought
since last November to stay active and get paid. Well. Also, I
understand where he's coming from. But here's the guy that was the fighter of
the year by all consensus after defeating Canelo in an upset and then you know,
easily beating by you know, pretty much almost a shutout, the number
one undefeated contender, and Zerto Ramirez that people thought had a chance to win,
and he won going away. And so you come off of those two
big victories, you get the Fighter of the Year award, and then you
don't fight for it will be going on a year. Like you said,
so, they may have said it wasn't makable with the money in terms of
what was going on back a few months ago. Would better be a But
the longer you sit perhaps the less expectations you have because you haven't fought or
made a payday for a while. So I'm assuming that they'll get a fight
done for December. I don't expect it to be against one of the better
names on that list. I'd be pleasantly surprised if it was, and we'll
see him back, you know. If it's a Glyndon Arthur or somebody along
those lines, I mean, so be it. But the main thing is
hopefully it leads to the bigger fight because of course in January, because the
fight was delayed because of the problem he had with the infection of his bone
and his jaw after a dental surgery. Better be about a delay his mandatory
against Callum Smith, So that will be January, and if he can be
Callum Smith, which is no easy fight, although I think most people think
he probably will win. If he can win that fight and people can take
care of whatever fight he has come December, then I think at that point,
with nothing else happening in that way, class, what are you waiting
for? I mean, there's gonna be some money there. You're gonna still
make your biggest payday let's get it on. I agreed with you. A
couple of more news items real quick, and then the nostalgia before we are
gone. This is not until December, but interesting that Juan Francisco Astrada and
kaz Ioca apparently are in discussions right tell me more well. Number one,
that is a just a spectacular fight that kind of can't say comes out of
the blue, because there's always been rumblings that that was something that was sort
of on the minds of these guys because they were looking for the biggest fight
in that weight class, which that would be because you have a Strata who
hasn't fought since his victory and fight number three late last year against Chocolateito Gonzalez.
But he's the lineal champion of that weight class. He's got the WBC
title, you know, and Ioca he had would have had the two titles,
the WB on the WBA, but because they draw he had with Joshua
Franco, he decided not to take a mandatory so he gave up his belt
and he fought Joshua Franco in the ringmich Anyway, he won the other belt.
So they're the two best guys I think at this moment other than Roman
Gonzalez in that weight class. And so they're looking at doing this fight in
Japan and doing it on New Year's Eve, which in Japan, New Year's
Eve is a very big moment for boxing in that country. They've always had
big fight cards on the New Year's New Yar's Eve holiday, and so that's
totally normal. That would be a pretty big fight. I mean, so
he would Astrada would would travel there if they can get the deal done.
I'm not I don't know why they wouldn't get the deal done, because I
think everybody goes in with their eyes open. There isn't some big pot of
gold fight elsewhere. I think both fighters would actually raise their stock whatever happens,
because I mean, Astrada is probably already a Hall of Famer with all
his accomplishments, plus the two wins, even if they were dicey against Roman
Gonzalez. And if you take a look at Ioka, now, people in
America don't really know a whole lot about him, but that dude's got four
He's won world titles in four way classes. He's being a ton of good
guys. He's unified titles. I mean he's he's probably and I'm not going
to make the mistake I made on the last podcast where we're talking about we're
the best fighters in Japan, and I talked about Nakatani and I talked about
Taraji and I forgot about in a way. But if you take away is
number one, and we're gonna see I'm I mean, Taragi and Akatani are
in action on Monday, so I'm saying this before their fight takes place in
a few hours from now. I guess the next best Japanese boxer out there
is probably Ioka. I mean, he is probably has a good chance to
become a Hall of Famer, and if he could beat up one FRANZOSTRAI probably
puts the puts the hammer lock on that vote. So it's just a first
session. I hope they get I hope they get the fight done. As
as I've said on the podcast many times teaching, I'm a giant dork for
these small way class fights in Japan, and you do it in Japan with
these top champions, and you put it guy like one Francisco Strada in on
the other side, and I'm even gonna be more of a dork for that
fight. Good stuff. All right, one more, he's Adrian Broner on
the rundown. Hell yeah, Hell yeah, Adrian Broner is on the rundown.
What's going on before we get to the nostalgia. Well, your man
Broner. You know, he was out for quite a while. He has
had a lot of his own issues outside, more legal problems than fights.
Let's just say recently. Yes, when I say the problems, I'm not
referring to his nickname of the problem. He just had a lot of troubles
in boxing, a lot of stuff outside the ring. But he did sign
with Don King. He did come back and have a fight in June.
He got a win at walterweight. He won a ten round decision, almost
a shutout against Bill Hutchinson. Kind of surprised he didn't get the knockout,
but so be it. So he's coming back for his second fight. When
I had seen Adrian and talked to in person when I was out in Las
Vegas at the I guess it was the I can't here if it was the
errols Spence fight, and I guess it was. I guess it was the
spenceon Crawford fight in July and I spent I spent a little time talking to
Adrian and he told me he was gonna be back in October. That has
been pushed back. He will be back. They Don King, his promoter,
announced this over the weekend November the fourth, same location as he had
the Hutchinson fight, at the Casino Miami Highlight in Miami, Flartiso. As
our Southwest correspondent or Southeast correspondent, I should say for big fight weekend,
I expect you to be on handwriting. He wanted me to be at the
Miami Highlight. So he will go into the ring for this fight and he
will take on a fellow Cincinnati fighter, Chris Howard, not a well known
guy, eighteen two and one with eighteen knockouts. By the way, he's
won four fights in a row. But is that competition has been very,
very low level. But you know they're doing the right thing. Don King
is trying to bring Browner back to more prominence and they got to get him
some activity, get him some confidence, get him some wins, and that's
exactly what they're doing. So you know, Adrian Browner, listen. I
give him respect for continuing to work at it. I mean, he's had
a difficult moments. A lot of the problems have been brought on by himself.
So it's not like I feel sorry for him, But he's trying to
pick himself up by the bootstraps and and and get back to doing what he
does, which is to be a professional boxer. And if him takes some
of these types of fights to get back in the groove and see if he
can, uh, you know, do something before his career is over,
you no good for him. He is still only thirty four. I mean
he's maybe an old thirty four because he hasn't really treated his career with a
lot of respect and hasn't taken care of himself and has obviously done a lot
of bad, dopey things outside the ring, you know that have costing time
in jail and things like that, financial problems or whatever. But you know
what, I give him credit. He's you know, he's trying what can
I say, all right, nostalgia time. And it is, bro what's
up with that? There's one of us that cares about Adrian Boner fighting anymore,
especially against a guy that's a lawyer by day. And now some guy
named Chris Howard. You can keep up with that, have fun, knock
yourself out. Let's move on to the nostalgia. You like that, I'm
coming strong. Canell Lettle and Triple G. Mexican Independence Day weekend has been
littered with Canelo Triple G fights, all three of them as a matter of
fact, including the most recent one a year ago at this time. So
wax nostalgic about these just one more time, real quick. So yeah,
all three of the fights were all at the team Obile Arena in Las Vegas.
The first one took place six years ago on this Saturday, that just
happened yesterday as we tape this. The rematch took place five years ago on
this past Friday, and the third fight took place one year ago Sunday,
the day that we're taping us. All of them clustered on the se Mexican
Independence Day weekend, all of them at the Timolareena in Las Vegas. I
was fortunate enough to be a ringside for all three of them to cover that
trilogy and their careers, you know, very closely, and I think that
that trilogy will be looked back upon more. I mean, people know the
controversy of the first fight and that's never gonna fade. I mean even to
this day. They talked about the controversy of whatever fight you want to mention
that's controversial. We talked about it last week on the podcast with Pernol Whittaker
and Julio saysar Chabas, you want to talk about, you know, any
any fight where there's been controversy. But this trilogy as a whole is gonna
define, in my opinion, a certain part of this era because those were
the first two fights anywhere, all time great fights. The third fight and
this is like every trilogy pretty much with rare exception. You know, there
are exceptions Vasquez Marquez, even though they fought four times, you know,
Boll holy Field, all three were awesome, but there's always one that's sort
of like, I was the a stinker, but not as not on the
same level as the other fights for this trilogy. That was the fight that
was one year ago, the third fight when Gnadi Glofkin moved up to the
super middleweight division to challenge Canello for the undisputed title, and Canello whipped him
and did so with a bum hand. And Gnadi has not fought yet.
He's kind of gone out with a whimper. It feels like he's going to
retire, even though he's never made that statement. So but but that was
a fight that, even even if it was kind of like spoiled milk or
past its sell by date, however you want to describe it, it had
to happen just for the sake of closure. But the first two fights are
what people will remember for a long time because the first fight was sensational,
unfortunately marred by the ridiculous draw because of one of the scores was so absurdly
wide in favor of Canelo that even Canello and his own people like Oscar dale
Oya, you know, pretty much disavowed that score. So that was a
problem. But it was a great fight. And then the second fight,
Canello got up by the slimmest of Margins in a fight that many of us
at ringside thought either Glove can won, I mean sorry that that yeah,
that glove or was a draw, and as it I thought it was a
draw. That was a legitra on my mind. So they obviously they had
the third fight, but the trilogy is also littered with their their friendship and
respect for one another going into the first fight, where they talked about how
when we're retired, we can see our kids playing together. To going into
the second fight, because there was so much acrimony and bad blood because Canello
had failed the drug test that caused the fight to be postponed and him to
take a suspension for you know, testing positive for clembuterol, a test which,
by the way, if he took it today would not result in a
foul test because the Watter code has changed the level you're allowed to having your
system. So that was kind of a paper tiger, if you will.
But nonetheless it created a lot of problems with Ganati and it turned into like
a very raging, bitter rivalry, and so they put on the second fight,
another tremendous battle, and you know, all the all world title fights,
the first two for middleweight titles, unified, third fight, like I
mentioned on dispute, and people ask me on Twitter and asked me all the
time, howd you have the fights? Because I covered all three of them.
I mean, yet if I didn't, I would still have watched my
television and rendered my own scoring. So as much as people know, I
like Canello and I'm a fan of Canelos and think the world of him as
a fighter. The reality is this to me, Gnati Glofkin, is that
the trilogy should be one one and one because I thought Gnati, like most
people, clearly was the winner in the first fight. I scored the second
fight, they draw, and Canello wins the third fight. So for me,
it's one one and one, and the actual official record records it as
two wins, no losses, and one draw in favor of Canello. And
unfortunately Gnati, I think a lot of people would view his career differently had
he had his hand raise on the night where he deserved to have his hand
raised. And by the way, this in Mexican Independence Day weekend littered with
all kinds of title fights, including the anniversary on Monday is Dalea Joya Trinidad
as well, which speaking of Oscar dal La Joya, he still regrets now
a quarter of a century later, that he didn't finish that fight off.
He's still talking about that I saw four years ago. I mean, that's
amazing. It's I mean, he basically fought a brilliant eight or nine round
fight and then didn't try to win any of the last three rounds, and
lo and behold, here would go with scoring again, it ends up it
ends up costing him so but you could have gone it several different ways.
Besides just the trilogy of Canelo and Triple G, there've been a lot of
great fights. This weekend talked about just for a minute on Deloyer Trinida out.
That was just before my time of writing about professional boxing. But obviously
I was a boxing fan and I was covering other sports and watched that,
you know. Unfortunately they never had a rematch, I mean though was talked
about many, many times the Trinidad's camp and Don King, who was Trinidads
per Their perspective was just take the original contract from the first fight and flip
the numbers, and Deloya still felt like I'm the attraction bigger than you,
even though I lost, you know, controversially, I may add that we're
not going to do it that way. So they talked about it. It
just never came to the pas. Don King and Bob Aaron could never make
the deal. That was still when Bob was promoting Oscar Deloya. But the
thing about it was, you want to talk about, like Canello a Triple
Get that we're talking about their first fight lived up to the billing. It
was a tremendous fight. Fight of your candidate, second fight, great fight.
Uh, you know, it lived up to what they advertised. Deloy
at Trinidad was supposed to be a spectacular fight. They were both welterweight champions.
Oscar had the WBC title, Tito was the long reigning IBM champion.
It was supposed to be, you know, as Mexico or Mexico America versus
Puerto Ricans, as the Mexican nationals would talk about, you know, we're
going to adopt Oscar for this fight. They were both young in their twenties,
you know, in there in there, in their midsh twenties. I
mean, it had everything you wanted to see in a big megafight, and
the hoopla around it was gigantic, and unfortunately the fight did not live up
to the expectations. That said, however, it still turned out to be
at the time, the biggest selling non heavyweight pay per view in history.
It did one point four million buys. That was an extraordinary number and still
even to this day, doing one point or million is nothing to sneeze out,
even though several fights have surpassed that over the years. But that's still
one of the highest selling pay per views, particularly for non heavyweights, and
it really unfortunately defined a lot about Oscar, about losing controversial and Trinidad getting
the win in that fight. You know, there are other fights and maybe
Oscar, maybe some people think he should have lost, but he got the
win. Kind of everything sort of evens out. I guess cosnically, but
this was one of those nights where Oscar deserved that victory. It's still amazing
that they didn't fight again. They could not ever come together to fight.
It's amazing, but that never happened. Here we are Toscar went on and
you know, moved up and waited and had other big fights separated from Aram.
Trinidad went on a different direction. You know what you mentioned about the
Mexican in the Men's Day Weekend. Another fight that the anniversary is coming up
on Monday is when Oscar went to middleweight and challenged had the balls to challenge
the then undisputed champion Bernard Hopkins. Now that was actually the first ever four
belt unification fight in the history of the four belt era, because at the
time, nobody really said you had to have the WBO to be undisputed.
Bernard had the other three titles, but Oscar had the WBO belt, which
he had won in his previous fight, and a double header with Bernard in
a somewhat controversial decision that he took against Felix Sturm, but he entered that
fight. He had two middleweight fights in his career, one against Sturm where
he got that belt gift that they're not and the one against Bernard where he
gave by the way people thought Bernard was gonna absolutely destroy him, and he
gave Bernard a very, very credible fight for most of that fight, and
he was in the fight and he got hit with the body shot and got
stopped. But Mexican Independence Day weekend is littered with huge fights. There's another
fight, the rematch between Meldrick Taylor and Julio Saysar Chavez was on this weekend
back in the day in nineteen ninety four, what twenty nine years ago.
Of course, the first fights is super famous, one of the legendary fights
of all time. By the time they fought the second time, Meldrick was
pretty much done and and Chavez, you know, beat him up and stopped
them in the eighth round. You know when they waited for him to be
completely finished before they actually a second time. But again it was a big
Deltrinidad fought on that undercard back when the big undercards were loaded with big time
fights. But yeah, there's there's just chapter and verse of big time fights
on this weekend, no doubt. By the way, another one, the
rematch between Oscar and Chavez, was on this weekend back speaking of bloody messages,
that was a literal bloody mess too. That was nineteen When was that?
That was the fall of nineteen ninety eight. There you go, man,
Yes, a lot of a lot of nostalgia in and around this week
or this weekend. Great stuff. It has been a busy show. We've
covered everything from Mauricio Suleiman going back and forth with you about cowboys and New
York Giants, recaps of title fights, ericson lubin on this podcast, fight
news, fight nostalgia. You get it all, peeps. If you enjoy
it, make sure you're following, subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Google podcast,
Spotify. We come off the weekend with the Fight Freaks Unite recap. Again,
we've got the Japanese title fights that have already taken place. By the
time you're hearing this, that are on Monday morning, so we've got that
going. But usually we get the fight previews to you, and we did
preview those fights back on Friday. Hopefully you were with us on Friday when
we released the preview podcast. We preview on Friday, we recap coming off
the weekend? Anything else? Are we all good? Are we good and
done? Yeah? I mean we're getting into now. It's gonna be getting
busy. I mean we've had, like, you know, a couple of
weeks where there wasn't huge mats of fights. Even this past weekend wasn't like
loaded, but we got a lot of stuff coming up. I mean,
oh yeah, I haven't mentioned it. Knello. You spoke to Canello recently.
Canello on the preview pod coming later this week. They need to follow
and subscribe. They'll hear from Canelo the week before the Canello Charlo fight.
Yeah, you're gonna hear dance conversation with him. And we've got some good
fights to talk about. I mean, you've got the rematch coming up on
the weekend with Zang July against Joe Joyce. Plenty to talk about on the
preview, got what I think is a pretty interesting matchup on the Zone later
that night, because of course Zan July and Joe will take place in London,
so that'll be in in a late afternoon. But in the evening you
got the Zone Fight with the main event of Richardson Hitchins against Jose Zapeta.
You know that's that's sort of a big step up for Hitchings, but uh,
you know, we all know Zapeta as a warrior and then involved with
tons of top guys and that's a pretty good main event and some other of
the up and comers, and you know women's title fight with McCaskill and Sandy
Ryan. Anyway, we're getting back into the groove and then of course the
week after TJ Vegas Baby for the big one, Vegas for you, for
Canello and Charlow. Looking forward to all of it. Dan, have a
great week, Thank you as always, great stuff, including with the nostalgia.
We'll be reading you on your substack as well as Big Fight weekend dot
com with the news. Thank you, sir, you got him. I'm
in He's smiling here to hear for a lot of reasons, including its giants
getting a win my Buccaneers or two and now by the way too, they'll
be on Monday Night Football next week either we're on Thursday Night Football. How
about that? So lots of football, lots of boxing. You got it
all here on the program, including ericson lu been fighting has us Ramos Again?
Follow or subscribe to the Big Fight Weekend podcast You get the Fight Freaks
Unite recap coming off the weekend every weekend for Dan Raphael. I'm J Reeves.
Thanks for being with us m HM.