The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
Here is your host Djwaves. Well, I am back from Arizona and we
are ready to go with fight cards every which direction. We welcome into the
Big Fight Weekend Preview Podcast. I'm somewhat confident Host TJ. Reeves, he's
our insider. Hello, Dan Rayfield from Bigfight Weekend dot Com and your fight
Freaks unit Substack. We get ready for heavyweight intriguing action. The real Big
Baby Jared Anderson is back in action in Corpus Christy, Texas. FAA Jogba
on the co feature heavyweights, lots of heavyweights. We've got a matchroom card
in Manchester, England, and more to preview. How are you as we
get ready for the weekend. I'm good, I'm ready to go. I
think it's a little bit of a light weekend, but the business will pick
off as we go along. But I am intrigued by the two parts of
these two cars like that. Yeah, I mean, there's uh, there's
definitely some interest whenever we talk heavyweights, that's for sure. Again, we
should remind everybody here that if you like what we're doing, make sure that
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it out social media, interact with us, et cetera, and we get
a lot of positive feedback on that. So the heavyweights, again, it
always kicks up a notch or two here, But there are a lot of
questions. I think it's fair to say as we go into this top rank
ESPN pay per View coming this weekend, there are questions around Jared Anderson,
who's not pay per view. Excuse me, not pay I got pay per
view on the brain. It's just a regular ESPN top rank. No dear
got reel as much as much as we've had issues with pay per view.
Uh, but Jared Anderson correct me if I'm wrong. Has he been arrested
once? Twice? Five times? How many times has has he been arrested
since the last time we saw him. I think I'm kidding. I think
there was two arrests. Maybe there were I forget, we know what,
it's not good. Let's put it like that. Now, he did come
out and was somewhat contrite and realize he needs to show some more maturity.
I was glad to see those comments that he made, and we'll see if
he can turn the corner and kind of mature as a person, because forget
about his boxing curd. You don't want to see the young man go down
to the wrong path in life. And obviously, if you're gonna be in
the spotlight as as a heavyweight of consequence potentially a heavyweight champion down the road,
you know there's gonna be a lot of eyeballs on. You're gonna have
to get used to it. I gotta grow with thick skin before we get
into the matchup. Is it fair to say you love to use crossroads in
terms of fight in the ring? Is this a crossroads moment for him?
I mean, because there's a lot of the reason I bring it up.
There's a lot of people to believe he doesn't love the sport, doesn't care,
and the actions out of the ring are maybe demonstrating some of that.
So you don't think it's to that level. Continue No, I mean because
he this is not at a crossroads event from the standpoint. Can he mature
himself, but that's not going to be seen in one fight. And just
so people back's back up for a second. He got arrested for evading the
police in a car chase, and before that he'd been arrested for having uh
if I'm not if I remember correctly to have a gun in the car or
speeding and marijuana as well, Yes you are not. That are not going
to be good for you as a person, much less as a professional athlete.
Uh So, he was facing distractions and obviously legal issues because of that,
but the career is proceeding. He is headlining this ESPN top ranked card
in Corpus Christy. He's taking on Read Mary, a one time second tier
level cruiserweight title holder who has not been excellent as a heavyweight. So if
you use the word crossroads, I don't view it at a crossroads fight because
Jared Anderson is a mega favorite in this fight. I believe I didn't say.
I didn't say cross roads fight. Is he at the cross of having
to demonstrate I really want to be a heavyweight contender, if not a heavyweight
champion. No, and I mean, you're not going to change his mindset
of that. He's not going to suddenly go to you know, I'm just
in this because of the money, and then I suddenly love the sport.
He has to have some love in somewhere deep in his reservoir to have put
in the efforts and the conditioning and the types of things he's done for a
number of years already to get to this point. But we'll see. He's
still a young fighter in his early twenties, and we'll see if he can
become what a lot of people think he can become, which is a legitimate
heavyweight contender and or champion. Remember he's twenty four, so they got sixteen
pro fights. It's not like he had hundreds of amateur fights. He did
very well, by all accounts, in some very serious sparring sessions with Tyson
Fury, who liked him so much, had him back in the camp on
multiple occasions, and he's been brought along I think, very very well by
top rank. He's gotten some victories against the types of guys you're supposed to
beat on the way up at Jerry Forest, the undefeated George Area, the
former IBF title holder, Charles Martin, you know, even like the grizzled
veteran that could handle himself like Ridenko, those types of victories, and now
read Mary in my opinion, is another guy sort of in that line.
I don't view him as anything much better or worse than that group of a
fighters I just mentioned. He does have a very good record at thirty two
and two with twenty six knockouts, But the fact of the matter is he's
really a career long cruiserweight and in his heavyweight time has basically only had three
fights. He's two and one. But what he's living on and the reason
why he makes sense in this spot and what got in this fight probably is
because in his most recent fight, which was in December, so he's not
coming off a long layoff either. TJ is that he won a split decision
over Tony Yoka, who was the Olympic super heavyweight gold medal winner for France
back in two thousand and sixteen, who has been an abject disappointment and failure
if you ask me as a professional, probably do it with his own issues.
There's been issues with missing drug tests and taking suspensions. In my opinion,
did not come in top condition for certain fights. In any event,
he hangs his hat on a win over the gold medalist against Yoka, which
was in December, So this is how he lands this fight with Jared Anderson,
and we'll see if he can do anything better in a heavyweight fight with
Jared than he can with Yoka, or you know, if you go back
before that, he did lose to Kevin Lorena, the fighter that had knocked
down Daniel Duba three times before suffering a loss. You know, Lorraine is
a pretty solid guideline, not an elite fighter in my opinion. So we'll
see. But it's Jared Anderson. This is absolutely a fight for him to
win and to move on. I can't make too much out of it.
I'm not going to minimize it. I'm not going to maximize it. It's
just another fight. But for Jared, as you mentioned, it's the first
fight after coming off all that, all those issues, and you know,
he took exception to the way that it was talked about on the ESPN by
the commentators, like they're not like what they're they're supposed to talk about it.
That's what's in the news. They were part of their state of boxing
and this is big news. And he's a guy, you know, he
doesn't understand that in broadcasting or in journalism, we're not here to raw rofer
you. We're happy when you do well, but we got to be real
until the truth. When shit happens and he got arrested and it was reported,
oh yeah, I got free advice. Stop screwing up and stop getting
arrested. We'll just keep it well, just keep it real here on the
podcast. Then they don't say bad things about you if you stay out of
trouble, So saying bad things are just speaking the truth or just saying well,
right. But I mean there was some questioning exactly what I led in
with you about decision making. How much is your head and your heart in
this? And that's all valid and that's all fair. But you know what,
if he comes out, he's spectacular and gets a knockout, then all
the other stuff goes away, at least temporarily for now. So that's obviously
the main event coming on Saturday night. And then there's a name that we're
interested in in fa A Jagba and another name former Italian olympian. Am I
right with Guido Vianello U And if I'm not mistaken. Vannello has been training
at some points along the way with Jared Anderson and maybe even sparring some in
and around the same gym or whatever. So this is an intriguing code feature.
Give me a little more on a Jagba vnell O top rank Saturday Night.
Yeah, a Jagua was a twenty sixteen olympian, as was a Guido
Vnlo, although vnl didn't turn professional until twenty eighteen. But here's the point,
though, this is two heavyweights with top rank. This is sort of
like we've given you what you've given you. A Jagua's got the one loss
to Frank Sanchez. A Vnllo's got the loss that was suffered that was really
a in his The defeat, the one defeat he took was really unfortunate.
He got stopped in the seventh round, but it was because of a cut,
not because he was getting beat up. But he's bounced back in one
two fights in a row since then and looked decent doing it. And a
Jagua, you know, has won a few fights, three or four fights
in a row, four fights in a row since he took the loss to
Frank Sanchez, which the loss of Frank Sanchez to me was a very forgivable
kind of loss because it was a bad style that if he got out boxed
by superior boxer, and that was a fight that I didn't think he had
a really, really big chance to win in the first place. So this
is now to talk about the crossroads. This is sort of it. This
is the line of demarcation for these guys. They're fighting another quality guy after
having suffered losses, and now it's a matter of can we take the next
step? Can it? Can v and Llo take the next step? Can
a jagua take the next step? Obviously a jaguas known for his big time
punching power, although Vnello is stop most of his opponents. Also, these
guys are not young fighters, but they're not old fighters. They're both you
know, you know, at a position in their careers where they should be
taking that stuff and should be doing something. They're both twenty nine years old.
They should be coming into their own and it's a very important fight and
I will be I'll put to you like this. I actually said this to
one of the people at top right. I was talking about the show with
them. I like the co feature better than the main event, because I
don't really think much of Anderson versus Mary, to be quite honest with you,
we keep it real. But a Jagua versus Bingello I'm intrigued by.
I don't know who's gonna win that fight. I kind of have my thoughts
about how it's gonna go. We'll talk about that on the bet US Show
when we handicap it on on all bet Us platforms, on Twitter, I
have YouTube, yeah, anyway, so I'm intrigued by the Vnello Aejoga fight.
Not to mention, by the way I do happen to think, based
on having watched many of their fights, should be pretty decent fight. I
mean, these are big, strong guys with a lot of knockouts, heavyweights,
heavyweights both with the amateur credentials. As you mentioned, Vanello an Italian
Olympian and a Jagua was a Nigerian Olympian, and you know, let's see
what happens. We'll see if they can take that next step. So that's
the co feature, and like I said, I'm much more interested in that
match than I am and seeing Jared Anderson probably whitewash Ryley Mary in some fashion.
Anything else on the undercard strike you or shall we move on to the
de Zone show that'll be earlier in the day. Well, I'll just say
quickly, on the other undercard, there is a third fight that's part of
the broadcast as far as I get, and that's the return of Robinson Cots
asal one hundred and thirty pound contender who has had some hard luck in his
biggest fights. Obviously, he's got the draw coming off a very close fight
with Emmanuel never at Ta challenging him for his title back in November. So
he's in the opening fight. And then if you watch the ESP portion,
you'll see if you watch it, you'll see one of the very best prospects
that top rank has and that's the Abdullah Mason, a young fighter is twelve,
I know, he's only twenty years old, absolutely tremendous town as a
lightweight. This is just a continued evolution of his career. And also on
that undercard you got the excellent featherweight contender Rubin Villa, who is on the
doorstep of a title fight. Absolutely can fight anybody right now for a world
title. You know, has a loss in a title fight against an Anuel
never at Day By decision, but also owns a victory pre championship against Luis
Alberta Lopez was a big win for him. Rubin Vee is a legitimate contender
and he's a very good boxer. He's just sort of you know, pob.
He's staying active, but he got to figure with top ranks heavy involvement
in the featherweight division. If he keeps it going, he's going to get
a title shot against somebody one of these days, and he'll deserve it because
is a very good fighter and he's got some credentials. All right. So
also on this weekend, as we're in the preview mode, is the match
Room des own card Manchester, England. Jordan Ill junior lightweight contender. When
last we saw him and an impressive win a knockout of Michael Conlin that coming
in December of last year. All right, so now he is back in
action headlining here. I would be less than honest if I told you that
in the audience that I knew a lot about Zelfa Barrett. This is what
we have you here for, So tell me more about the match Room main
event coming in Manchester. I feel like on paper, this is a pretty
like fifty to fifty is kind of fight. I can see reasons to look
at both guys. You mentioned Jordan Gill, who's got a very good record.
He's twenty eight two to one with only nine knockouts. Not known as
a big puncher, but he did stop Michael Commin, as you mentioned,
in his last fight December. That's his big win, I guess, if
you want to call it that. Before that, he got stopped in somewhat
surprising manner in the fourth round by Keiko Martinez, who was, you know,
a good fighter for a long time, one titles and two weight classes,
but was very sort of long in the tooth at that point. So
I'm not sure what to make of Jordan Gill. Maybe the Common fight he's
getting a little too much credit for because Commlin had already been knocked out of
the ring by Lee Wood. So it's up to him to prove that that
fight, I guess, was not like fluky if you well, that was
back in December. Jordan Gill's got a great story though. He spoke very
eloquently after that victory against Common about being on the verge of suicide and getting
his shit together with himself and with his family and focusing better on his career
and really coming out the other end as they say, so props to him
for forgivness that very much, very likable figure. Can't help but root for
a guy like that. And Zelfa Barrett also has a good record thirty and
two with sixteen knockouts. Been a bit of good contender in the one hundred
and thirty pounds way class. His biggest fight was when he fought for the
vacant title. Remember when Joe Cordinia was the IBF champion and he got stripped
because he had a hand injury and he couldn't go through with his mandatory against
rock him Off, and so they stripped him of the title and it became
rock him Off against Zelfa bart for the vacant title with the winner the fight
Cordeina. Upon his return. In that fight for the vacant title, it
was it was a Rockhamov stopping Zelfa Beet in the ninth round. This was
on a card that took place in Abu Dabi was the undercard back in late
twenty twenty two where the main event was Dimitri Bibo against Zerdo Ramirez. But
this title fight on that undercard, Barrett did not have his best night.
He has won two fights in a row Sincent, but he does not really
have what I would consider big wins, although he does actually have the common
opponent of Keiko Martinez where he has a decision victory against Kiko in twenty twenty
one, and obviously Keiko has the win over Jordan Gill, so you know,
but that doesn't always mean a whole lot with Talckam boxing. So I
just think this is a very you know, it is a huge fight and
obviously not, but it's a it's a it's I think nice matchmaking, should
be a fun fight, and we'll see. I mean, like I said,
Jordan Gill very easy guy to root for it, not to have anything
against Zelfa Barrett, but we'll see. You know, it's a I think
it should be competitive either way. That's that's to me, always the key
and so h you know, I'll check it out on his own and again
we will make mention of that fight on the bet US show handicap it a
little bit more that in the afternoon Saturday afternoon Saturday night prime time in Manchester
or anything else of note on that quarter. Shall we move on ninety one
to the news, which includes big news for Matchroom. By the way,
whenever we're ready to move on, I mean, there's a women's one hundred
and twenty two pounds unification fight on that car between Elie Scotti and so Glean
le Fay. Can't really speak too much on that. Doesn't really do much
for me, to be quite honest. You know, I've got a couple
of the nice prospects that mattrom has been building up, the Jimmy Sayins and
William Krola, the brother of the former titlder Anthony Krola. But to me
anyway, the attraction of this particular cart anyway is certainly the main event.
With Gilan Barrett speaking of Matchroom, Oh as we go to the news,
oh, jeron Boots in us like the price is right, come on down,
new multi fight deal with Matchroom Boxing, all right, I defer to
you. Did you see this coming? I mean, what about this marriage?
Did you see this coming? That it was going to be Matchroom doesn't
shock me, doesn't shock me at all, to be quite honest, because
the fact of the matter is Boots Nis has, of all the things that
he has going for him, the one thing he didn't have going for him
was a real promoter that would really get behind him, that would erase his
profile, that would get him the right fights, that would keep him busy,
and that would scream his name from the rooftops. Eddie Hearn's going to
do all that. Say whatever you want about Eddie Hurt and Eddie Earn is
a very good promoter and he knows no interest because all he does is he
opens his mouth on five thousand youths of interviews and all of a sudden,
he's got boots is fighting Crawford, He's got boots fighting this guy's but boots
fighting that guyots fighting everybody. Yes, exactly, yeah, exactly. So
you know the problem with Ennis is he had been signed to Showtime and he
was being placed on PBC cards, So PBC didn't have any kind of vested
interest in him. So I mean, they put him on, but they
weren't going out of their way to help build them up or develop them or
publicize them or anything like that. And I'm not blaming them. That wasn't
their job. They weren't his promoter. TGB was not his promoter. He
was with now Boxing Promotions, which was the company of the late long time
manager before he became a porter of Cameron Duncan, And it was not a
real promotion company. Yes it was a company on paper, but they never
did their own events. They never really did one damn thing to help raise
the profile of Jaron and Boots Ennis. They were a glorified booking agent.
Basically, they got a deal with Showtime, they put him on the PBC
cards, and they collected their check. And so it was not a conducive
situation to get attention and build a profile and build a box office and do
things help raise up your fighter's position within the sport. We all know,
those of us who followed it closely know what an extreme talent Boots Ennis is,
but he still never really sold out a big event. He still never
had a truly big time fight. Not his fault, but he got his
title because Crawford was stripped because he didn't do the mandatory because he was contractually
obligated to the rematch with Erol Spence, so he ended up being stripped.
That fight with Spence didn't happened because the time frame expired, but that was
after he had been tripped to the pedal. I don't think he was going
to fight Boots anyway, because it was not the kind of money fight that
he has in his mind after making the kind of money and the big event
that he made against Errol Spence. So Boots inherited the title and now it's
up to Eddie Hearn to do what these other guys were not able to do
is put it in the right position. It's going to hopefully put him in
Philadelphia, his hometown, maybe Atlantic City, which is right nearby. Supposed
to be back in the summer. My sources time, we were talking about
July. He has a mandatory that's due next Now, what's interesting about the
mandatory. His mandatory is against Cody Crowley, who's a very exciting fighter,
great chin been in some very good rough battles. They had made a deal
and they notified the IBF. This is when PBSTE was still involved, and
the IBF canceled the purspit saying okay, the two sides claim they have a
deal. Now that he's no longer in that position, it remains to be
seen if they're going to still honor that agreement or maybe it will have to
head back to a PERSPID. We'll see how that goes over the next few
weeks, maybe Cody will not take the fight. I was always kind of
skeptical that Crowley would take it because he was offered six hundred thousand last fall,
turned it down, and the new deal that he was offered was less
than that because there's less money there now, because there's no more showtime.
You know, I was not an economics major in college, but that doesn't
compute that you would do the fight a few months after you turn down six
hundred grand for less money. I agree with you and listen, no offense.
But Cody didn't go to college, So there you go. So I'm
not sure what the status of that, if that will be the case,
but it seems like it's going to be a mandatory next which is reasonable,
and then hopefully Eddie can get them some bigger fights. Obviously, if you
sign with mattrom and you look at their talent, their roster of talent,
they're not blessed with deep welterweight talent. Nobody. Can we cut to the
chase? Can can we? Can we cut to the chase? Can we
get a boots in us? Terrence Crawford undisputed World welterweight title fight like late
this year. Why can't we have good things? Why can't we have a
good thing? Is going to pay for that? That's not a big giant
fight. If Terrence Crawford is involved, it's big. I want to say
giant, but it's big. But the point is that Crawford wants a certain
amount of money that doesn't exist for a boots in a fight. So on
the stop Crawford. Wait, Crawford wants big money for anything and everything,
and he's fighting, like Hayley's comment, once every year, So listen to
who is the big fight? Ben? If it's never say never about Crawford.
But it seems highly unlikely. Number one, I believe that Crawford probably
will go up to one hundred and fifty four pounds my opinion, he may
stay at well to eight. But if he does, I doubt he's fighting,
and it's certainly not immediately the quote unquote fight that Eddie Hearn can make.
Well. The caveat to the Crawford fight is if somehow he gets the
Saudis involved and they want to decide to pay a big money, which is
possible, but I still don't think that's happening. The big fight if you
look at who he already promotes is Connor Ben. Because Connor Ben is licensed
in America, he still can't fight in the UK because the yukond folks and
the BBFC won their appeal. So he can bring Ben to the United States,
put Ennis on against him. It would do pay per view business in
the UK and they would have whatever they can drum up here on his own
in America and they can make again, is it a gargantuan mega fight?
But for what's out there, that's a pretty substantial fight for Boots Ennis.
Okay, of course something favors to win. So here's just one more adenum
to this and then we're gonna move on. Obviously, Terrence Crawford has fought
no one so far this year, to my knowledge, doesn't have a fight
with anybody this year. Maybe he is going to move up to one fifty
four, but to me, this is wasting time and it seems like that
would be that's a very compelling fight him against Jeron Ennis. However it gets
made Sauni Arabia, United States or Pluto, why can't we Sam, I'm
sure Boots would take the fight. This is not about that. This is
about Crawford being no I might even listen. Anybody that thinks Crawford is ducking
Ennis is ridiculous because Crawford is not ducking anybody. But Crawford has a certain
amount of money he wants to make and he's his prerogative and I'm okay with
that. If they can make the fight, fine, I just don't think
it's going to happen. There's not Listen. You and I are boxing doors.
We know Ennis. The public at large doesn't know Ennis. It's now
Eddie Herne's job to make that happen, and hopefully he can do that over
the next couple of fights because the contract on Fold is only a three fight
deal, so he's got his work cutoff for him now. Just to back
up for a quick second, there were negotiations with PBC, but they they
were sideways on those conversations for what I'm told, and they were not able
to come to an agreement and they went their separate ways. Top rank had
inquired the price point that they were interested on the boots end, who's been
making seven figures for fights. They just felt like that was not realistic based
on where he is right now. So no harm, no foul. They
weren't going to pursue that, and Golden Boy did not even pursue him at
all from what I am told. So it really came down to either doing
a deal with PBC, who had been putting him on their shows for the
last while anyway, and now just making that relationship official with TGB Promotions and
PBC, or going with matrim and Eddie. Listen, Eddie knows how to
get the guys to sign, and Eddie does a hell of a job to
build these guys up, and that's what he needs and he's going to get
it big time, all right. Fair enough on that you mentioned about a
promoter passing away, Bootseniss promoter passing away, and this has also happened again
now with Gary Shaw, who I'm a little familiar with, but tell me
more. He has died recently at the age of seventy nine since last you
and I talked. Give me more on this. Well, I knew Gary
Shaw very very well for many many years. Covered the bulk of his promotion
career. He started off in boxing. He was a commissioner on the boxing
board in New Jersey, broke out into promoting later on. When I first
met Gary goes back to the early like two thousand or so when I first
started. The great promoter Dan Duva had died and his widow, Kathy Duva,
was left with children and a business to run and was also going to
law school, and you know, she needed help at the company, and
she hired Gary Shaw to basically run the day to day operations of main events,
which at the time was still a massive boxing powerhouse. They were the
promoter of Lennox Lewis, they were the promoter of Arturo Gatti, Fernando Vargas.
They had tons of champions, tons of great fighters, and they were
very busy. They were very closely aligned for a long period of time with
HBO, and Gary came in to sort of help run the show, and
eventually that ran its course and he ended up going his own way and opening
his company, Gary Shaw Productions, and had a ton of I mean,
i'll just list off some fighters he worked, but he put on a ton
of shows on both HBO and Showtime. He promoted at various stages, Lennox
Lewis, Diego Correalis, including carralscastel One as the co promoter, Shane Mosley,
Winky Wright, and Onnido, don Air Gaddi, Fernando Vargas, Vernon
Forrest, Jeff Lacy, Vic Darcinian, Chad Dawson, and tons of other
guys. He was the promoter of record for Lewis versus Tyson, which was
the biggest fight in boxing at that time, broke all the records. He
promoted a couple of Tyson fights at the end of Mike's career. I mean
he really worked with everybody. He was along with Frank Larren and the late
Hall of Fame Showtime Boxing executive Jay Larkin, the three of them were the
creators of Showbox. That was partly his responsibility. If those who go back
this far know that in the early two thousands when Showbox first debuted, it
was a late afternoon show, four o'clock Star Time in the US, and
what they were doing is was every two weeks they would do a show in
the UK with Frank Lauren, which were like his primetime UK shows, which
is why we saw the early fights of Ricky Hatten and Tyson Fury and fighters
like that. And then Gary Shaw would promote the cards in the United States
and they would do shows like in Atlantic City, and that's I remember that.
I remember they became a prime you know, then became a late night
show on Friday nights at an event. Gary was very involved with that.
And even though I don't cover mixed martial arts, Gary was out of boxing
for a little while and was very involved with elite XC, the promoter of
the MMA promotion, brought women's promotion, women's MMA into the fold, did
the first network shows of MMA with elite XC. You know, was the
promoter for Kimbo Slice, who was a like a cult legend in MMA.
You know, he had a lot to do with that, with the growth
of Nix marsh Arts in some respects, but boxing was his main thing.
Like I said, I knew Gary for many many years, always enjoyed his
company. Like anybody you deal with for a long time in boxing, you're
gonna have your scrapes. As I joke around in a piece I wrote,
you know, always got along with Gary, except for that one time where
he tried to get me fired from ESPN and threaten to assume me. And
to be quite honest, I said that to somebody. I swear to God,
I know that that happened, but I don't remember what had him so
pissed off. Made those stress me. But if you can put that aside,
Like I said, we joked about that later on in years. We
would text each other talk to each other. He kind of got out of
boxing. Remember he had at one point was selling his company to Rock Nation
when they were involved in boxing, and he was going to promote their shows,
and that deal fell apart and they basically stopped the deal. It never
went through, and shortly after that he pretty much kind of got out of
boxing, and in terms of a full time basis around i'll say two thousand
fifteen twenty sixteen, he and I still kept in touch with him. He
got back involved to some degree because he was close to a lot of people
in the sport and GILBERTA. Mendoza from the WBA was looking for some assistance.
He basically hired Gary to be his chief of staff. He was helping
the WBA go through some different issues and he was involved with that for quite
a while. But then unfortunately late last year, and I didn't know this
at the time and now know why, I hadn't heard from him in a
while, even though I had reached out to him, that he had a
heart attack or some kind of heart problem. Well he never sort of really
recovered from that, and there was the heart failure of the heart that caused
his passing that took place. And you know, if his legacy is you
were you were a hell of a promoter. People enjoyed your company. You
put on a lot of great fights, and you were fun to be running
for me anyway, made covering boxing more fun because he had a bigger than
life sort of personality. Like that's a pretty good way to be remembered.
So you know, I like, and you're a great history and to go
over all of that, because most people don't know all of that, I
will say that I was in and around the Winkie right Jeff Lacy fights that
he was promoting, like late nineties, early two thousands at times in Tampa,
etc. So I remember him, and I appreciate you educating me more
and catching me up more on how big a deal he was. So you
got to remember this in peace to him and thoughts and prayers to his family.
Yep. He had most of the shows on Showtime for a long period
of time. They were doing big time title fights yep. And he was
the promoter of virtually every one of those shows for a long time, as
well as the Showbox events. All Right, couple more news items and then
we're going to get to some excellent nostalgia Anthony Joshua and Oscar de la Hoya
Pernell Whitaker nostalgia still to come. So, speaking of premier boxing champions,
they did make it official in the Canelo Mangia undercard for May fourth. Give
me a little more real quick, Yeah, they announced the undercard fights.
I can't say they're totally shocking to me. One fight that's now set to
be the co feature is the WBC's interim welterweight title holder, Mario Barrios.
She's always in good fights. He's kind of grown on me over the years.
I always never really thought a whole lot of him was always annoyed.
Not that it was his fault that when he won the WBA Secondary ten at
one forty, I always felt that he got a gift. But he's shown
himself to be, you know, a quality fighter, a good dude.
But he's fighting Fabian Madonna, who was unfortunately not Mark was Madonna. Marks
Madonna is his brother. Baby Madonna has never even fought in a in a
twelve round fight. Just yet, he's not very accomplished. You know,
I have no real problem with the fight. It is a little questionable for
me that this is the co feature on such a big time fight, but
be that as a baris always is a good watch, and the next fight
down the card, which is when I had previously reported on this one,
did not come as a surprising me. All. I knew this fight was
happening, that was going to be on the show, and that is Brandon
Figureo coming off of about a year or fourteen month playoff. He'll be fighting
Jesse Magdaleno in defense of his WBC Interim featherweight title. That should be a
pretty good fight. I mean, Brandon figure Out always brings it. His
only loss was in a hell of a fight that was razor close could have
gone either way when he went to unify at one twenty two against Stephen Fulton.
Magdaleno is a quality fighter. You know, hasn't been super active,
but he doesn't have uh you know, he's got a good resume. Not
not a guy that's been uh you know, badly beaten or anything like that.
I mean still maybe not in his prime necessarily, but still a pretty
solid fighter. He's only got the two losses. He had the ray Ford
decision, which when you look back at Itt ray Ford obviously went on to
win the title in a tremendous battle Junior Featherway title by the upstart then undefeated
uh Isaac Dogday by a stoppage in the eleventh round and what was a very
good and close fight. And so that's Magdaleno and he's won some he's won
Before the raymond Ford fight, he had won a bunch of fights. Arow,
I just hadn't been that active, but style wise anyway, I feel
like figure Over versus Magdaleno should produce a pretty fun fight and then the opening
fight. Thank god that he's back in the ring. My man Amanta stanionis
the WBA regular Wealth Rush whose career was turned sideways by his own appendecamy and
the medical ailments of one Virgil Ortiz Junior. Their fight was sort of snake
bit, canceled, postponed twice before that. He'll be getting back in the
ring. It'll be about a month shy of a two year layoff for him.
He's defending that belt against Gabriel Mayastri, who's coming off the devastating blowout
against Trey von Marshall. That was on the one of the Showkim cards that
was actually I went to here in the Virginia area. What a terrible card
that was. But he did pull the upset on that show and it was
a big win for him. Now, he's an older fighter. He's like
thirty seven, two times Olympian for Venezuela, but he has been so inactive.
He's thirty seven years old. He's only got seven professional fights since turning
pro in twenty nineteen. Unfortunately, he's probably best remembered for being at the
at the at the vortex of that crazy decision where he got a gift decision
against Michael Fox that actually had the ABC about to shut down the WBA.
So that's why many people believe the fix was in on that flat that night,
because a member of his corner was related to somebody with the WBA.
You had it was a scandal. Somebody else associated with the WBA was involved
as one of the judges, and he got an absolute joke decision. So,
yes, we do remember that name. So he's thet I don't blame
the fighter for that, but that's the fighter we're talking about. So but
his wins always, even though he's been very inactive. You know, he
did knock out Marshall, was undefeated a lot of people out of hioas from
me Inja's knock out. He just obliterated him. And before that he finished
off the the remnants of unfortunately a once top level fighter, and Devin Alexander
stopped him in the third round. So that's the opening fight and I'm glad
to see Staniona's back in action. He's a very good fighter and Olympian,
a young guy still and uh, hopefully he can get his career kickstarted.
So that's your undercard, Figuoa now Galno Barrios Madonna and the co feature and
Standiona's mastery in the opener, and uh and that's your pay per view.
Yeah, not bad for the Canelo Mongia pay per view on May four.
And one other quick news item as well before we get to the nostalgia,
and that is Chako la Tito is going to be back in the ring.
We love Chako la Tito for all the action fights and the knockouts, and
he's going to be back. When what are we looking at? Yeah,
they just announced that on Thursday. There was a press conference in Monoguin,
Nicaragua, which is where he's from. He's a Nicaraguan legend and a hero.
Former pound for pound King one World Championships at one hundred and five one
hundred eight, one hundred and twelve hundred and fifteen four division champion, broke
the record of the three division champions by his legendary countryman and mentor, Alexis
Argueo, who actually was Chuck with Tito's trainer early in his career and sort
of discovered him in the amateurs in any of them. He's returning July twelfth
as a junior bantamweight, still in that weight class. I think that I
was talking to Tatiko Zabala, who is the promoter of the card, and
he told me that the weight will be junior bandam weight, but it could
be plus, it could be a pound or two over, that could be
one sixteen one to seventy, but basically a junior bandamweight fight opponent TBA.
He said, they're talking to four or five different possible opponents and it's going
to be a beautiful thing to have Roman Gonzalez back in action because he is
one of the most fun fighters you could ever hope to watch in the sport.
He's been off now for quite a while. He hasn't thought since he
had a majority decision loss in his trilogy fight against one Francisco Estrada, which
was in December of twenty twenty two. So he's coming off that layoff and
we'll see if he can, you know, recapture some glory. He wants
to go for a title in another weight class, so if he can put
this win under his belt, you know, it's not out of the realm
that he can get back in the ring as a bandon wait and maybe go
for a belt in that weight division. He's already a Hall of Famer.
Obviously, he was a pound for pound number one, and if you ask
me, in the entire history of when men have put gloves on their hands
and fought, he is probably in the top two, three, four of
the littlest guys you know, saye like from flyweight down. Just a phenomenal,
phenomenal fighter with a legendary career, great history, great fights, great
accomplishments, beat a lot of top guys, and an absolute personally speaking,
having had the opportunity to cover most of his American fights, an absolute fucking
joy to cover and to be around him and his team. Just a beautiful
human being, So that leaves nostalgia. It was eight years ago, earlier
this week, on Tuesday, April nine, twenty sixteen, that Anthony Joshua
became heavyweight champ, at least partially one of the belts of the unified titles
that he had, winning it over Charles Martin obviously has gone on to be
a two time unified heavyweight champ. So Dan Rayphaiel, what do we reminisce
about here with Anthony Joshua, who's still very relevant obviously in the present day.
Yeah, still one of the biggest heavyweights and biggest heavyweight names, if
not the biggest in the sport. You know, him and Fury obviously are
the two biggest names you know at that time. Remember Joshua, you know,
he was like fifteen sixteen and oero at that time, he was coming
off you know, he had won the Olympic gold medal. He was becoming
a major star in the UK. He had defeated Dylan White in his previous
fight by seventh round knockout. That was to avenge an amateur loss. And
now it was sort of like okay, what's next. Now, remember you
go back to that period of time, you had a scenario where Tyson Fury
had defeated Ladimir Klitschko to win various belts. He ended up quickly vacating the
IBF title because he had a mandatory that was due against a fighter named Zar
Glaskov. And obviously he didn't take that because you know, the rematch between
him and Clitchkow never came to pass, obviously, but at the time he
owed him a contractual rematch, so there was no way that he could hold
on to that title. And then obviously, you know, hold on to
the title and also face the mandatory. So and obviously fighting Glasgow, who
was an undefeated guy but really not well known, was not even close to
the same ballpark in terms of the money, So the finle became vacant.
And so Charles Martin and Zar Glaskov, who were the top leading contenders in
the ib OF ratings, they fought each other in a boxing event that I
was actually at at the bar Play Center in Brooklyn. And if you remember,
Charles Martin was considered like a good up and coming fighter at the time.
In Glasgow again was also undefeated and the fight was going on, and
like literally TJ when I tell you, nothing happened, nothing happened. And
then suddenly, in the third round zar Glasgow, without getting punched, without
getting hit, with nothing of any consequence happening, he literally just fell to
the canvas. He had blown out his knee. He could not continue.
And so therefore, without throwing a real punch and landing a real punch,
he was you know, he lost the fight by a TKO. And suddenly
Charles Martin, with having done zero, is now the IBF champion. And
at that point, you know, they're looking around and they're like, okay,
what can we do for our next defense? And the Joshua people were
interested in and the Martin people were interested And I remember very distinctly before the
fight was done. You know, it's easy to look back right now and
say, oh, you know, Joshua destroyed Charles Marty, blew him out
in two rounds, beat the living crap out of him, dropped him twice,
big right hands, and just obliterated him. Well, when I tell
you that, going into that fight, there was a lot of legitimate concern
on the camp of Joshua, is it too soon for him? To be
in that kind of a fight. Remember, like I said, he only
had you know, fifteen fights or so, and you know, he hadn't
fought anybody obviously, other than Dylan White, who at the time was not
He wasn't knowing what he would become as a professional. I can have a
very distinct memory of Eddie Hearn calling me on the phone shortly before they made
the deal to fight the fight for the title against Charles Martin, and Eddie
asking my opinion, you know, what do you think? I said,
Hey, I can't tell you what to do. That's your call. I'm
just a reporter in this situation. But my opinion is if it's me,
I'm like, you're getting an opportunity to fight for the heavyweight title against the
guy who's gonna come to your you know, to your guys town. I
don't know how you turn it down, right. That was the tenor of
the I mean, the conversation lasted a lot longer than that, but that
was the upshot. And I said, you know, you know, let
me know what happens. I wanted to write about it, whatever happens.
And you know, shortly thereafter they made the match and Charles Martin went to
London, fought at the O two Arena, made a huge payday around four
to four and a half million dollars or something like that for that fight,
and you know, lost his title. It was one of the shortest heavyweight
title reigns in the history of boxing. He had won the title against Glasgow
in January of twenty sixteen. He lost the title in April of twenty sixteen,
as we're talking about on the anniversary. But what a great sport to
Charles Martin where he didn't do anything to win the title the first place.
The other guy falls over and hurts his knee and you ended up getting a
four or five million dollar pay day. I mean, that's boxing, I
mean. And Anthony Joshua obviously parlayed that into what has become a tremendous professional
crew because besides that victory that he that he scored against Charles Martin to win
the IBF title that had been vacated by Tyson Fury, you know, he
obviously went on and had a whole series of humongous fights through the years.
I mean, besides that, doubt, you know, he had a couple
of like fights that were you know, in the regular arenas, like he
had defended against Dominic Brazil, who was an undefeated fighter at the time in
the United States Olympian. He had, you know, a couple other fights
between Brazil and Eric Molina, and then came, of course the massive one
against Glitchkow where they put you know, ninety or whatever it was eighty some
thousand in Wembley Stadium. I was at that fight, yeah, and then
started fighting regular times. He was fighting in like the big stadium in Kardiff
eighty thousand or whatever, seventy five thousand against Joseph Parker, similar kind of
attendance Wembley Stadium for a pavecan. So he went from being like a novice
winning an Olympic gold medal to winning the title, to then fighting Klitchko and
all these other big, huge heavyweight events, you know, in just a
span of I don't know whatever, it was about six or seven years or
so, and that was the start of the title run. And you know,
we know that how the history of of Anthony Joshus unfolded since then.
But at the time I was like a big deal for him to get the
shot at that formidable you know, or that formative stage, I should say
of his pro career live on Showtime in the United States, obviously big deal
over in the UK as well, and that was when he was fighting you
know, Eddie Hern was doing a lot of business with Showtime and it was
a great It was a great performance because Charles Martin has shown himself to be
pretty solid and he's lost here and there, but he's generally competed well even
when he's lost. But Joshua ran through him. Like I am giving Dan
Rayfield thirteen percent credit for helping with the matchmaking and the go ahead of the
Anthony Joshua fight. For just gave my opinion, Sha, I'm giving you
that credit, Okay. So Anthony Joshua was heavyweight title. Victory's reign began
earlier this week, eight years ago. Now we go all the way back.
I remember this fight and I don't want to accept it was twenty seven
years ago. As we released the podcast on Friday, April twelfth, nineteen
ninety seven, Oscar de la Hoya defeats Parnell Whittaker and wins the WBC welterweight
title. Again. I'm trying not to accept my age right now, and
you're my contemporary, you're the same age that was twenty seven years ago.
I actually that was one of those deals where I'm counting the years TJ.
And I find myself doing this often these days, and I'm doing our little
rundown that I send you for what we're going to discuss on the podcast,
and I was doing the years, and I was like, twenty seven.
I seventeen. I'm like counting, right, seventeen, It's got to be
seventeen, right, No, twenty seven years ago? Yes, Yeah,
that was a little wild. So that was a big win. I mean,
in the end, a lot of people felt like Parnel Whitaker was the
rightful winner and that Oscar got a kind of a gift. I totally disagree
with that. I thought Oscar Delight won the fight. Colonel Whitaker was a
great fighter, a Hall of Fame first ballot guy, a long time conference
pounting. Not nothing but love for Parnel Whittaker. But he didn't win that
fight. He spent too much of that fight clowning around and not doing a
lot, you know, posing and fainting and not throwing punches, certainly,
not landing punches, certainly not doing anything to hurt Oscar del who definitely did
more in my opinion in that fight to you know, gain what was a
close decision. I mean, it wasn't like he routed him, but it
was a you know, the judges saw it one sixteen to one ten on
two cards, one to fifteen to one to eleven on the third card.
You know, Parnell had been a long time champion in that weight, last
seed won titles, and you know, all the way down at lightweight,
junior welterweight, welterweight, he's making his ninth defense and this is de la
Hoya. This is like prime Oscar. This is Oscar having destroyed Chavez in
their first fight, had won the junior welterweight title, had defended the junior
welterweight title in a beautiful performance against Miguel Angel Gonzalez, who was an undefeated
fighter at top Mexican forty one to zero. Well, a lot of people
thought might be on his way to the Hall of Fame, and Oscar absolutely
destroyed him in terms of a decision, but won easily. And now he's
moving up to welterweight. Now. There's been a lot of criticism over the
years of Oscar's career pre welterweight where he was very very carefully matched, even
though he had some names. He's fighting like a Jennara Hernanez at lightweight,
but Gennaro was that his best at junior lightweight. He's fighting at James Leja
at lightweight, where he was better in the lesser weight class, and you
know those types of things. You know, he had some people thought he
got a gift against John John Molina obviously had destroyed Rafeo ro Wellies to unify
titles at lightweight. But when he got to welterweight, that's when the brain
Trust top Rank Bruce Tramp or the Hall of Fame matchmaker his team, that's
when they turned Oscar loose because he had done what he needed to do in
the lesser weight classes, and once he got to the level of welterweights,
now he was a developed fighter. You know, he was on point,
he was in great shape, and he was grown into that body. And
they put him in with Pearnel Whittaker, who at the time was still a
very very formidable fighter. Now remember he had almost lost in his previous fight
in that great comeback he made against Hurtado where Oscar sitting ringside and Hurtado's kicking
Parnel's ass and on the verge of a massive upset that's going to shut this
fight down and send it down the toilet, and Pearnel Whitaker comes back,
you know with a shocking and I mean shocking late round knockout out of nowhere
to preserve the fight. So there was definitely the thought that maybe Parnel had
seen better days, but he was still champed and maybe that was just an
anomaly and he gave Oscar some trouble. But in the end, this was
a very, very big, big victory. Oscar actually went off in that
fight as a favorite about three to one there abouts, earn a huge payday
ten million dollars, which was for Oscar his biggest payday at that point,
I think, even more than he made for the Chavez fight. You know,
Whittaker was making you know, five six million dollars for the fight.
You know, he did get dropped by Whittker on a flash knockdown late in
the fight, but it showed you how far ahead he was that it really
had zero impact on the score. It was sort of like he was kind
of off balance more than a real punch, but he touched his glove down
on the canvas, so it wasn't like he was hurt, but it would
did. It did go down as an official, official knockdown. But this
was a This was like a a a If you look at the great career
of Oscar and you look and you make a list of the great victories,
He's had a lot of big victories, yeah, a lot of losses.
This is one of those victories that in the in the pantheon of the Dale
Hoya career may very well be at the very top of the list because this
was a bonafide Hall of Famer. He won the title from him. He
went on a very impressive title reign as a welterweight, beating you know,
several good fighters, staying very active. This you know he had beaten after
this, you know, he made some mandatory type fights and lesser fights,
but he'd beaten Camacho Rivera Chaviz in the rematch Coorte was a huge fight.
Ovacar probably the best welter rate of that time to never win a title,
and then got robbed against Trinidad, but still fought well in that fight.
So this was the start of that and beating Parnel Whittaker. Colonel Whitaker,
granted near the end of his career, still a very very very big win
for Oscar. And again, both of those guys were Olympic gold medalist.
It was a big I remember all of that with a big deal. And
you have repeatedly said this, and it's true. To wrap it up Oscar,
whatever you want to say. Oscar fought everybody and beat a lot of
them, including on that night twenty seven years ago against sweet Pea Whittaker.
We did get a lot of agree from some of the media, including my
old time friend, my mentor in some respects, Michael Katz, a very
powerful voice for the New York Daily News, who hung the tag of Chicken
de la hoya on Oscar Mites I never thought was fair, but that was
in reference to Oscar's refusal to give Colonel Whittaker a rematch. Interesting Chicken de
la hoya. Uh, but I don't know that I would ever call it
that, but I guess that's what Mike. That's what Mike was, and
that's what he did. But again, he didn't shy away from fighting all
kinds of guys down the road. Now maybe not a rematch, but Chavez
it was a rematch shortly thereafter. Great stuff on the nostalgia all the way
back at the beginning of the pod, we gave you the preview Jerry Real,
Big Baby Anderson headlining Top rank ESPN in Corpus Christy Again. The Jordan
Gill main event for Matchroom is in the afternoon US time primetime, Manchester,
England in the UK. Here comes the latest mentioned will handicap those fights on
the bet US Boxing show. Check us out one Eastern time bet Us platforms.
Dan and I are back live in Living color at one to handicap those
fights on Friday afternoon. As I always like to say, whatever happens,
We're off the weekend with a recap podcast right here on this podcast feed to
talk about whatever happened to any other news of the week, et cetera.
Other than that. Are we good? I think we're good. Thank Let's
have a good fight weekend. Let's do that, and again we thank you
all for finding us. Follow along, subscribe, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify
here as part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. You've been listening here
to the Big Fight we can preview for Dan Rayfield. I'm TJ Reeves.
Enjoyed the fights and again we talk to you live one Eastern time on bet
Us TV, but keep it locked in here on the podcast feat for the
previews and the recaps. For now, enjoy the fights. Thank you for
being with us on the big fight we can't preview