Well off of a weekend that has seen Canelo Alvarez successfully defend his undisputed super
middleweight titles yet again against a game but out gone in the end, Heimi
Mungia. We are ready to recap that, the entire fight card and much
more news, some nostalgia involving Floyd Mayweather and Oscar de la Jolla, and
a lot more. Is the Fight Freaks Night recap podcast off the weekend.
Good to be back with you. I'm merely the somewhat competent host TJ.
Reeves. He is our insider Dan Rayphiel, who has been there on location
in Vegas. But wait a minute, not just past tense, dare I
say he is still there in Las Vegas, And we're about to explain that.
First of all, proof of life. You are still good. You
are still alive, even though you still reside at the moment in Clark County
and not back at your home in Northern Virginia. You're hanging in there.
You're doing all right. We're gonna explain everything in a moment. You all
right, you go, yeah, I'm having a first real problem. Let's
put it like that. Okay, we're gonna explain that in a couple of
moments, thank you for finding us. Make sure you rate us in review
us again a huge audience already to start the month of May, closing out
April with all the Ryan Garcia controversy after his win over Devin Hainey. Now
we had the Canelo preview. I suspect the same thing. You know,
how you help us rate us in review us Give us a five star review.
Take thirty seconds and do that. If you enjoy the banter back and
forth, the recap, the humor, the insight that Dan gives you especially,
give us a five star review Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, etc.
And make sure you're following in subscribing, because you get us twice every weekend.
We have been very diligent with this. I will say to the audience
that coming up, as the summer goes on, we may have an occasional
miss on either a preview or a recap because Rayphiel and I are trying to
do some vacation stuff. We'll try not to make it around one of the
biggest fight cards, but gotta have a little vaca this summer with the Fams
and that kind of thing. We do our best to be with them though
on Fridays with Monday Box. Yeah, I would do the pod from Vacation.
Okay, I will tell you the Pod from Vacation, right, But
I'm gonna tell you I once went on a on a Disney cruise with my
family years ago and some I forget even what the story was, but and
I have my laptop with me, some big story broke, and I swear
to god, I was we had a beautiful cabin on this boat. And
you're writing about the story. But listen, I was sitting on the balcony
on the ship that I had my room at, right, and it was
so sunny and beautiful. I've been overlooking like the Caribbean, and I have
like a towel over my head so I can see my screen on my computer
because otherwise you couldn't see it with the with the sunshine. And I wrote
my story on the on the on the deck of the of our you know
our room is it is? You know what you gotta do, what you
gotta do, you do, all right, So let's get into that.
We're gonna talk Canelos win over Hoimi Monkey on the entire PP see fight card
from Vegas. Dan was there until the wee hours of the morning. Again,
we do this Sunday evening and you're still there and that that was not
supposed to happen. You did detail on this podcast that you were leaving early
Sunday, so you thought and for the first time maybe ever not a NonStop
flight, and oh boy, uh you're still You're still there in Vegas.
So pick it up from there, because are you operating like still on only
uh Friday night's sleep, because you don't only go to Bay. I mean,
what's the what's the update with this? Because you're still in Clark County,
You're still at the MGM Grand while we're doing this, right. So
I came back to you know, when all the hoopla and everything was done
from the press conference and everything hanging out afterwards, I came back to my
room and I packed up, and I you know, did a little work
and I washed up, and I was like ready to go. What time
is this Pacific time? Probably about two am Pacific time? It was probably
it might have been even slightly later than that. It's not that, you
know, I I tidied up my story. I set up some stuff that
I was going to do coming up in the week point was the like normally,
as I said on the previous one, for all million years, I
take the single NonStop flight on American where I have all my miles, which
goes from Las Vegas to Washington. There's one stop at one NonStop a day,
and likewise one stop, one NonStop a day from DC to Vegas.
Could not get that flight for this trip because it was sold out, so
I had to go with the connection. So I picked what I thought the
action was to take this one the more the early morning flight to Philadelphia and
then you know, quick flight from Philly to d C. I don't love
that, but whatever, it seemed better to me than to go to San
Antonio or to Chicago, take the long flight out sleep and then the quick
hop for the one hour to d C. Wasn't going to go to sleep
after the fight because I was like still so wired that which is normal when
you're doing these big events. So all right, I'm working on my computer,
I'm doing my thing. I got the TV. Yes. Another big
variable with the early flights is you don't want to miss your early morning flight,
so you're trying to a way do I just stay awake and do I
not risk missing my early morning flight. And by the way, staying awake
not my first roadio. I've been doing this for you know, twenty five
minutes, not not a not a new concept of getting on the plane and
going to sleep. And I, you know, I packed up on my
stuff that's been you know, thrown all over my room for the last four
or five days. So I'm sitting there and I get the text. You
know, I got the text alert set up for the airline, and I
got a text alert telling me my you know, some update on the flight.
So I looked at the phone. I seven o'clock or seven oh five
flight. I was gonna go to the airport like you know five, I
was gonna check out like five thirty. You know, five o'clock got to
be you know, boarding it. Generally speaking, the text at three am,
three thirty am Pacific time is not usually a good thing. Not usually
oh usually. I think it was just to tell me, way they're up,
they'll tell you. It was like a reminder when I looked at it,
instead of seven oh five, it's now leaving at nine o'clock. So
on first plance, I was like, that sucks, but okay, whatever
I mean. At least I haven't already gone to the airport. A two
hour delay not the end of the world, US, they'll be home around
like thirty at night whatever. And then I actually looked at it again.
I was like, oh shit, I'm not on the non stop. So
I looked again, and I realized that that flight leaving at the time that
it did would get me to Philadelphia one hour after my connection would already have
left. So at that point, yeah, problem. I can't like go
back in time, so that was an issue. So I started to look
on the website and try to figure out what I'm going to do, and
it got a little confusing. I actually had a call to talk to somebody,
which was actually easy to get a person because it was so freaking early
in the morning because it's four am Pacific or three thirty am Pacific, and
who's working Sunday morning at you know, six am, six thirty am Central
the battle station. So anyway, so not to make it a make the
longer story short, but in the end, there was literally no flights from
I got to Philadelphia on that flight, I would have been stuck in filling.
I had to stay over there because there was no other flights that would
go from Philadelphia to Washington other than that flight, and I inquired about every
other flight either the like I said, the Phoenix won the Chicago one.
I think there was a Charlotte one. No seats anywhere anywhere NonStop otherwise coach
first didn't matter. So the option was I thought about, I'm gonna still
go to Philadelphia and maybe I'll just get on the Amtrak and go back to
DC. But that seemed like a bit of a schleft because you got to
get from the airport to the train. I hadn't looked at the train schedule,
don't I wasn't wearing was gonna then even if I get back to DC.
Instead of being much closer to my house at the Reagan National Airport,
I'm all the way in the district on Capitol Hill at the Union Station.
So that's leaven more of a problem to get home, especially at that time,
you know, in the morning, with the rush hour and everything all
right, So I was like, fuck it. There was still the non
stop on Monday from DC back to Washington, and you can change your flight
with no charge because they're the ones that had the schedule problem. So whatever
the ticket difference was I was gonna have to pay for it, so I
was able to snag I was able to keep my first class seat, snagged
the last seat in first class on the Monday flight NonStop that leaves at twelve
to twenty, and staying in extra day in Vegas. And then when I
spoke to my peeps at the MGM and called up the front desk and said,
hey, I'm still in my room. Here's what happened. My flag
got counceled. Can I extend my stay by one night? Right? So
for the for the low low price of just seventy nine dollars, I got
one more night at the MGM. I like it. And I even when
she started to tell me the price plus like the forty dollars resort fee,
which is nonsense, I like threw myself on the mercy of the court because
I was so cranky and so sad about everything that had transpired. I told
her my like in like thirty seconds of my sad story, and they waived
my resort fee. Listen. So I got the night for seventy nine bucks
plus tax. So, and that's probably cheaper than what the train ticket would
have cost me to go from Philly to DC anyway, not to mention the
cab or the uber to get from the report to the to the trains.
You went back home planes, trains and automobiles at that point trying to scramble.
So the better the discretion, the better part of it is just stay
there, stay where you are. Have an extra day in Las Vegas to
soak all all this in recap all of this. Get here's the bonus.
Here's the bonus for the fight fans who read my substack right because I hadn't
done one because there was just no time. Uh, when I was sitting
in my room before we got on the podcast, like an hour ago whatever,
I wrote a story about the in a Way and Neary fight that's going
to be on Monday morning, that's correct, which we're not going to talk
about, which we should. You know again, we should make mention most
of you are hearing this Monday morning and the inn Away fight is already over.
We previewed it on the last podcast. Dan and I are good,
but we don't have any idea what happened in that fight. When it's twelve
hours from now at the time that you and I are doing this on Sunday
night. So read his substacks the bottom line, check his social media.
We both have our opinions, but we'll see what happens. So no,
no, the substack has the preview. I don't know if I'm going to
have time to write the recap. Well, you'll be flying all day.
You can write a recap while you're flying the same way, and we'll obviously
have more on it as the week goes on on whatever happens, you and
I believe he's gonna win. So and when can I tell you? It's
just something very funny. As we're talking and I'm doing this podcast on my
iPhone, I just got an alert because I still haven't disengaged. Oh no,
no, no, no, I haven't disengaged the alert from the other
flight that I'm no longer on. It just landed in Philadelphia right now.
Yeah, like literally this second, which again is uh several hours what five
hours? I break out to mention that Philly flight that was delayed, that
was delayed. I got multiple more attacks afterwards. It was delayed two more
times. That was like ridiculous. So it wasn't even like one hour late.
It was now like three hours late. Wow, all right, what
a mess, but you solved it. And again, whatever happens with the
monster you and I don't know that people hearing us as Monday morning becomes a
Monday afternoon already know because your fight fans, what happens with that? Just
read dance, substack, read the recaps. Read is social media, and
we'll have more on it later in a week and we'll obviously people like I
hope they like my travel trails. Yes can I can? I just say
this. I do this all the time as well. And this is just
an overall commentary on this. It has gotten worse and worse with the airlines
condensing the number of flights and the personnel and trying to screw the consumer and
the flyer, even though they got billions ray feel with a b of COVID
nineteen money to help them survive. That's our money, by the way,
it's out of tax money that they are being given that. And the customer
service is terrible. I'm talking about across the board. Flight cancelations, flight
delays that screw up your connections are frequent. It is a disaster that should
be further The PSA for me is and I just made this mistake because I
didn't book early enough. If you can avoid a stock, of course,
I didn't even care if it cost more money. I don't, I don't.
The only reason I was doing the Philly stop was because I really had
no other choice, right, you didn't have a choice first. But the
problem is the problem is probably seventy five percent of the flights every day have
to go somewhere and they're not non stops. They go to a different place
and you get screwed up. And this has been happening more and more.
I've in the words of Shaka Khan in the eighties, I feel for you,
and I won't sing anymore. I do feel for you. I'm just
try to liven you up a little bit of making all right. We've waited
long enough. Canelo Alvarez wins. I've got my feelings on this, but
you know what you've been through a lot. You go first, you were
there t Mobile Arena. It's another win for him. What is this crap?
And I'll use the word crap. I'm not even surly. I'm just
saying crap. What is this crap that somehow Haimi Mungia got robbed. I
keep seeing that all over social media, zombies on social media among Zaya fans,
his family. He didn't get robbed, he got decisively beaten by a
future Hall of famer. That's me saying that you were there, give me
the insight, tell me what you saw go. I mean, anybody thinks
timy Minghee won the fight, it's a fucking idiot. First of all,
I mean his family included. Here's the bottom line. He put up a
great fight. He won, you know, legitimately three four maybe on the
best case scenario, five rounds, but probably we talk all the time.
The range of acceptable scores seemed to me, based on my opinion and all
the other scores I've taken in of other people and people I was there covering
the fight with how they scored the fight. Who to paying the respect?
You know, it was a nine to three fight, maybe an eight to
four fight. He won three, maybe he won four rounds. He put
up a great effort. The rounds that he won were primarily in the first,
you know, part of the fight. You know, between the first
and fourth round you might have given him, you know, maybe two maybe
three rounds. There was I think it was the ninth round where I thought
he won also, So I had given him two of the first three rounds
and then I think I was the ninth round off the top of my head
that I gave him also. But look, it was, first of all,
starting at the beginning, it was a very good fight. It was
exciting, it was entertaining. It was a lot of punching. These guys
were not taking back steps. I mean they were going towards each other.
They were both going for it. That was not a surprise. We all
expected that that's the way these two men go. It lived up to that
sort of building. It's not going to go down as a fight of the
Year candidate or anything like that. But it was a highly entertaining, high
level, you know, very significant fight given that it was for all the
titles in the super middleweight division. It was on single Demia weekend, so
it was obviously the two Mexicans. It was a big Mexican crowd, and
you know it was it was a terrific fight. But to think Hamimia one,
I'm not even going to go there, but just just a couple of
things. You were in the arena, it seemed like there was a lot
of sentiment from Mongia a lot of cheering for him when he came to the
ring and got introduced, and when he started to score on Canelo in that
third round. What did you sense in the arena since you were there?
It was like a fifty to fifty kind of a crowd. Now, I
mean, maybe not fifty to fifty. Definitely was there more Canelo fans there,
but there was definitely a loud, vocal, passionate group of people that
were rooting for Heimimongia, and it was expressly, you know, little electric,
if you will, in the early rounds where he looked like he was
going to do damage and he was getting to Canelo and he he rocked him
at one point. You know, to see Canelo even remotely rocked is like
a big deal because it doesn't happen. You have to go back many years
ago, I mean to that Josehoto fight, which is obviously the famous example.
You know, maybe was there a time here, a time there that
I don't remember specifically, but if you rewatched the fight, you might find
that moment against uh, you know, in all the rounds he had against
Glovekin, maybe that happened a couple of times, but it's certainly a rarity.
So when he was visibly uh knocked back by by a big, long
right hand, the crowd kind of went absolutely bonkers at that moment. But
one thing he did show throughout this fight, which is the thing that we've
talked about a lot going into it, and he just proved it yet again.
He's going to go down as a guy with one of the great chins
in the history of boxing. He is he he I believe when he got
knocked with he got hurt by Jose Miguel Coto. I was talking to Jim
Lampley about who was there sitting in you know, right in front of me
at the fight, because he does the the chat with our pal Lance Pugmyer
for the PPV dot com live stream, so he was doing that where I
was sitting. And afterwards he had mentioned about having called many of Canelo Alvarez
his fights, of course when he was on HBO, and he made to
mention that in that Jose Miguel Cota fight that and I don't remember this,
I have to go back and look at this that it was actually called a
knockdown, nots Canelo was on his back or on the floor, but because
the ropes had held him up when he got knocked into the ropes and that
was officially school you know, scored a knockdown by the referee. But the
point was that in all the years that he has fought, at least in
terms of in the public eye as a you know, from that point forward,
I can't speak to what happened in the first you know, several fights
that were not televised or anything like that. But I don't think Canelo Albertz
has ever been on the deck. You know, the knockdown with the ropes
is one thing, but on the floor by me on his back, on
his face, never been that way. And has fought a litany of top
quality punchers in varying weight classes throughout his career. So he and Himan McGee
is one of them. And he showed even though he did get you know
that one or two big shots like that that he took has a world class,
historically outstanding chin. There's no doubt about that. And uh, you
know, for Heimiman Gia, who we've seen hurt before. We saw him
hurt against Devron, Chanko and Rock. We've seen him in a little bit
of trouble here and there over the years, although also I had never been
down before. But when Canela fired off that uppercut, what was that?
Round three? Round four? He got the knockdown, and Macgia I thought
was winning the fourth round and then suddenly the exchange boom boom, he's down
again. I love your insight. You're right there. Did you sense here
we go? He may put him away now that he knocked him down.
What did you sense watching that in the fourth round when that knockdown happened,
If you recall, there was just a few seconds left in the round,
So when the when the when the you know, he gave him the mandatory
eight count. He you know, he had gotten up pretty quickly. He
didn't seem that that hurt, but certainly felted. Uh, But there was
I don't to my recollection, there was ten seconds. There was maybe ten
seconds left in the round. So there was not really enough time. Once
he wiped the gloves and did the count and everything, there was not enough
time for Canot to launch any kind of significant offense, and so there was
no way to really follow up immediately. So what you look for in that
particular instance, or any instance where you have a knockdown and you think you
have your man hurt at the end of the round, you jump on him
at the beginning of the next round to see if he's still got any cob
webs and if you can take advantage. I didn't get the feeling that Canelo
ever did that he was concerned about what was coming back, you know.
I asked him about that at the postfight press covers. He said, I
have twelve rounds to go in there. You have to be careful. So
I didn't get the feeling that he really tried to press the you know,
the fast forward button if you will, when the fourth round started, to
see if he could really get him out of there so he was able to
survive, because I do suspect look, if he had dropped him with,
you know, a few seconds into the round as opposed to just a few
seconds left and round, perhaps it would have been a different story. But
that's the way it goes. I mean, it's kind of the same way
when Canelo had the problem with Jose Miguel Cotto. He was lucky that there
was no time left in the round, because if he had been in that
kind of shape in the first few seconds, we might not be talking about
Canelo oliver Is because maybe he would never become what he became. So you
know, you can't you can't script that. That's just how it goes.
Uh. But Magia he did a good job to recover. Uh. The
one thing I liked about Mangia in the fight, when he knew he's behind,
and he knew, you know, after that fourth round and with a
knockdown, I felt that from rive that Canelo really took over the fight.
Yes, and composed himself. He got into a rhythm, He started to
CounterPunch beautifully. He when he did come forward, he layded a lot of
hard right hands and uh. And at that point some guys might pack it
in and they're like, you know, they're gonna survive. They're gonna pull
Jamel Charlot and just be there for the paycheck and and not not put themselves
in any harms. Way, one thing and I will respect always about Homi
Mangia, he fought like in the true way a Mexican fighters, uh,
the the way that people expect them to fight, which they've done historically,
which is he never stopped trying to win. Whatever the issues were, he
went there to win the fight. He didn't but he went and he gave
everything he had. He showed his heart. He took some big shots,
even late in the fight when he was, you know, I think tiring
a bit. You know, he still was landing some punches. But Canello's
got that awesome chin, and uh, you got to respect that. And
you know what, can I say, he thought pretty good fight. The
one thing that Canelo did say, which is true is even though he's a
heavy puncher, Canelo said he was able to get away from those shots because
he saw everything coming. Because he's he's just not fast. He's a slower
fighter compared not you know, he's faster than you were me, but compared
to your to your above average super middleweight, he's a slow And I thought
on that point, I thought, as the fight got into the late rounds
and you and I, full disclosure, both believed knockout. We were both
on the bet Us show going under the ten and a half, I thought
he was going to wear him down and get to him. And I thought
Mongia looked tired in the tenth. In the eleventh, the punches weren't coming
as fast anymore. But again to his credit, he hung in there.
He was just in there with a Hall of Fame fighter. That's what it
took down to. That's what we're saying, and the Hall of Fame fighter
was better than him. And I'm not so sure if they will fight four
more times that the Hall of Fame fighter doesn't beat him all four more times.
That's me saying that, go ahead. Yeah. So a couple of
things about what you're mentioning. The first thing is one of the things I
spoke about was when they asked you how you think the fight's gonna go,
I said, not only on maybe on our podcast, on the US show,
maybe on on a couple of YouTube things I did that I felt like,
whatever happens, it's going to be competitive early. And it was because
Mongilla was winning early rounds and he was in the fight because he did have
that freshness to him and that excitement and that that confidence and the undefeated record,
and he's in there with this guy that he that he knows he can
make his entire career in life if he beats. So from that standpoint,
that kind of played out the way that it did. It didn't quite play
out the way at the end because I did think that he would wear him
down. It turned out that he didn't, and that's a credit to Mangia.
Maybe maybe Canello. I can't say he took his foot off the gas
because he was still throwing a lot of punches, but there was no doubt
in my mind when the fight was over that he had won. And I'm
going to say this also, and Mongia sort of, you know, alluded
to this in his own comments after the fight in the press conference. If
Mahaimi Mongghee that we saw on Saturday night was in the ring with any other
super middle in the world other than Canelo Algarez, there's a very good chance
that he walks away with the victory. I heard that, Yeah, I
know, And that question got asked by Jim Gray, and they were saying
it on the broadcast. The Moro Ronalo, Joe Goosen and Abner Morrez kept
saying it. They said it two or three times about how he looked.
The only name I kept thinking of, and we'll talk about this name in
a few minutes, is David Benavitez. That would be very interesting if he
was fighting Benavitez. But there was definitely the sentiment being sold that if he's
fighting anybody else at one sixty eight he would have won. I don't know,
but he's fighting a Hall of Fame fighter that was ready for him.
I'm not saying he would have beaten benavide right, I don't think that the
way he showed against Canelo, you could say with any certainty that Benavidez would
beat him. I agreed with that. It wore that it would be a
fight, it would be a fight, it would be a fifty to fifty
fight. I agree, I agree. So I thought that was that was
interesting from that the way that you think about it like that. And one
other point, and Oscar de la Hoya mentioned this at the press conference about,
you know, Haimi his future because he did lose. It's the first
loss. That's tough to take, obviously, But the thing is he was
thinking and he made this point that maybe what will happen with Mungia is what
happened with Canelo when Canelo suffered his first loss, and his first loss was
a much more one sided, embarrassing like completely played with by Floyd, Whereas
Mongia may have lost in terms of the scorecards the way he did, but
he was in the fight because he was landing punches and it was, you
know, back and forth. He was just losing the rounds, whereas Canelo
was outclassed against against Mayweather. But when Mayweather beat Canelo, Aldarez, who
was a very young fighter, much younger than Mungia Munggi is twenty seven.
I believe when Canelo lost to Floyd he was like, what twenty two something
like that that he went to school on that it made him a better fighter.
He learned from it, He learned from being in the big moment.
He learned from a lot of different things in that fight, and it helped
make him the fighter that he became. And the point is that maybe that
the silver lining is that Mia can take from this loss learning lessons. He's
got a great coach and Freddie Roach. They'll be able to go over the
videos and talk about what they need to do and what they need to change.
He definitely needs to move his head a little bit more. He definitely
needs to stay more committed to the jab. When he jabbed Canelo, it
gave Canelo a lot of problems, not because he was hurting him with it,
but because it was he just couldn't get away from it, and it
opened up Mongia's right hand because he was kind of blinded by that job,
so he would do that extremely well, but then he would abandon it for
like the second half of the round, where he would not throw it for
the first half of the round and find it a little bit at the end
of the round. You gotta stay consistent. That's a great weapon. Jimi
has a very good job. He just needs to use it regular My point
is that's one of those kind of lessons that when they go back to the
soap called drawing board and figure out what the heck is dexed and how can
they improve when they come up against another top quality fighter. Those are the
types of things that they're gonna have to preach and learn and discuss and think
about all the time in the camp. And I think Heimi, he's so
only twenty seven that he's got a chance to become a legit superman aweight champ.
When when Canelo's done holding those titles and and become one of the big
popular, more popular, bigger names among Mexican boxing. Because once you put
Canelo off to the side, you know it's not there's great Mexican fighters,
but who's there to take the mantle as the star and maybe maybe it could
be Mangia. Still, he had a big crowd there, but it was
a terrific fight. You know, he didn't he didn't embarrass stuff, you
know, very well against one of the best guys of the era, if
not the best guy of the era. And you know there's pit Bull Cruz
and there's others who are top, top exciting Mexicans that are excellent and have
titles, that are talented. But you know, he's among the bigger names
in the bigger weight classes. You know there's still Zerdo Ramirez who's got a
cruiserweight title, but he's got a chance still, even off the loss.
I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, he lost the fight, but
a lot of times in boxing, a loss helps make you bigger and you
become more popular, you get more known, you make more money. And
I think this is the kind of loss that is going to help build Munkey
into a much more known fighter, a bigger attraction, more popular guy.
And for Canelo, look, he just keep doing what he does. When
he made another title defense, he pulled in another forty million dollars pay day,
and you know he's still great. All right, We're gonna get to
the undercard here in just a couple of seconds, a couple of thoughts from
me. One. I mean, we differ sometimes on these opinions. You
obviously have done this at the highest level. You were there the whole bit.
You have much more insight than most, including me. To me,
this is me saying this with my opinion sitting back here. Yes, I
think the division is going to be a little more wide open whenever Canello moves
out of the way. But to me, I don't know if we haven't
seen the ceiling of Jimimongia at this point. He's an offensive fighter. I
don't know how much he can change getting hit a bunch and defensively, maybe
he can. You laid out a convincing case on this. To me,
he looks like a blown up middleweight. He I mean, I think he
would be better served as a middleweight. Don't know that he's ever going to
go back to middleweight. He's now had three fights at super middleweight. I
understand that. To me, he looked slower, He looked tired at the
end of the fight. I don't know what kind of great shape he's in.
Is certainly when you look at the mid section et cetera. I don't
know. I don't know what he's future. Ultimately, here's the thing.
At one, I just I'm not ready to pull bore. There's very few
fighters that he's going to come up against in that weight class. That's true.
And you talk about but if you talk about hold on, if you
talk about David Bennavide's, you talk about let's say David Morrell, Both those
two guys have moved up Apparentello Yeah, I mean, uh, he didn't
fight either of those guys, and they got tired of waiting. So Benavidez
is fighting Alexander Bodzik and and David Morell is fighting on the on the on
the August third card in his light heavyweight debut. They're not going to be
coming back down and wait. And so those guys are out of the way,
and and he's just fought the number one guy. So beyond that,
the super middleweight be coming a little bit more open. So he's going to
be able, I think, to do some damage in that division. And
by the way, there's not a whole bunch of top guys in the shitty
middleweight division that's be reft of big names and talent that are going to be
coming up to super mid eight anytime soon. Even if you take the top
younger guys like the Animal Williams and the Shiraz, we're going to fight each
other. There's been no conversation about there looking to leave the way right Jana
back? Is Jaab going to move up? Right? I mean the one
guy out there at super miniweight that just pop of mind. That's interesting,
that's exciting, that's got a good power and has a great record and is
in a position with the organizations. That's Christian with Mombilly the fighter, the
fights out of Canada, or who's promoted with top rank or Berlanga or Berlanga.
If Berlanga gets in the mix. Now, let's talk about what's next
for these guys. I mean you talk about Hey, let's talk about what's
next in particular for Canelo. We all are wondering, go ahead, Well,
you brought up Berlanga, so I kept thinking about, like what you
know. They didn't really get into a lot of the commentary afterwards at the
press conference and then the interviews focused mostly on Benavid's which to me at this
point and I mean I love to see the fight. Of course, I've
written about it extensively. I'm not you know, I'm just getting tired of
it. Number one, number two, it's no longer legitimate that it's going
to happen anytime soon, be us, he's going to the next weight division.
I know he said he would come back down and wait for the right
offer. I don't know if that right quote unquote right offer is ever coming
for Canelo for that fight, and so I just don't think that's happening.
So if you if you posit that he's out of the division and he's not
fighting Canelo. And same goes for David Morrell, who was never really a
true name for him anyway, just because he had no name recognition, and
strictly as a business proposition, it just didn't make any sense, uh,
for the risk that was there. Who else is out there? So m
Billy is there? I mean it's possible, but probably highly unlikely. And
if you just it's not gonna be Aero Spence like which was in the original
PBC contract he has, which I think this was the one fight deal when
they redid it, But the original three fight deal was Jermel Charlotte, who
he already beat. It was Spence who was not even on the table because
he's completely you know, off the radar as far as a supermanotent title fight
after getting a obliterated at welterweight, and there's still a lot of rumors that
persist he'll still fight all Charlot, the one sixty title holder, but he
opted for Mangia, as he said, because he realized that there was so
much non interest from the public and the press in that fight that what's changed
all that's gonna have changed. Carlo's gonna have been off a lot longer and
caneloscuring, you know, coming off a more exciting win. So if it
was dead on arrival as a pay per view for September, how in the
world you know, or may how in the world is now all of a
sudden for his fight coming up this coming September, you know, going to
be focused on Charlotte. It's not an economically viable fight in my mind.
So if you just keep checking off all those names that I've just mentioned,
the one guy that's still sitting there that wants to fight, that is available
for the fight, that will fight for the money that will be given to
the opponent, who oh, by the way, is the WBO's mandatory challenger.
Not that that's the reason that Canelo takes fights, but it's just one
reason why you make a laundry list of reasons. And oh, by the
way, he's going to fight on the Mexican Independence they weekend, and oh,
by the way, what a big show they can make if he's fight
mouthy undefeated Puerto Rican fighter, and who is that? TJ. Edgar Berlanga,
Thank you, sir, who, by the way, was at the
fight. So all right, maybe that's connect the dots on what's next for
Canelo and important we don't have to go down the road. Also, also,
Berlanga's manager was at the fight, that's right. And the important thing
too is Canelo is a free agent here for a broadcast deal, promotional deal,
whatever. That's not going to hinder him here. And for the love
of God, let's stop uttering the name Jamal Charlow. Absolutely just stop stop
with that, all right, So good stuff on that. Let's get to
the undercard, which saw both Mario Barrios and Stanionis win their fights. Again,
we keep it real here. Neither one were thrilling bouts. The guys
that were favored to win did win. In the co feature fight in particular
May Donna and I know, Mario, I know you couldn't hear the commentary.
Marl Ronalo just went on and on about this guy's not trying to do
anything. This guy's not trying to fire at him. He's not you.
You talked about Mungie at least going out on his shield and trying to win
and not just survive. All right, you were in the arena for both
of these. Let's go over both of them because there's a distinct possibility they
could be fighting each other Barrios and Stanionis who both won. But go ahead,
go ahead first with the Brios winn. Okay, So Barrios, as
I've said in the previous podcast, like he's sort of growing on me.
Like you know, I was never like real high on him. I didn't
really think much of him early on. I thought he showed a lot of
heart and competed with Tank Davis. When he lost that fight, you know,
there's no shame in losing to Keith Thurman, who's you know, been
the standout welterweight of for a long time in unifying titles. You know,
even if he was coming back from a long layoff. Those are like what
I would say, You're like, oh, those are forgivable losses, if
you know what I mean. Look good against Santiago and when he then you
know he's unfortunately he had like a lot of the fighters you know in today's
day and age, they have layoffs. But you know, he got the
the Santiago win. Now I'm not saying san Diego is anything spectacular, but
he he got robbed against Adrian Broner. In my opinion, he should have
had that victory. And then when he came back after that, he looked
superb. In the last fight prior to this one in September of last year,
which is also on another Canelo card, when Canel fought Charlow. One
of the other fights on that show was Barrios, who took a part or
daniz Ugas. He busted him up, He hurt his eye, dropped him
a couple of times, and won the vacant interim title that he defended against
Madonna. So those are pretty two nice, good little wins in a row.
And Brios, I mean, I know it wasn't a great exciting fight.
I thought Madonna was a poor opponent from the standpoint that he just had
no accomplishment. You know, the only thing that was notable was that he's
the brother of Marcosmydonna, the former title holder at one forty seven, who
also was at the fight. Just as an aside, when I was coming
out of the media center after the press conference last night, there was this
huge swarm of people that suddenly like popped up a few feet from our standard,
like quo deck is that I looked and it was it was his brother
marcous who was surround by all the fans who had recognized him in any event.
But Barrios, you know, he will looked good. I thought the
scores, all three scorecards were one sixteen to one eleven. Maydonna had gotten
knocked down in the third round, you know, I thought maybe he could
finish it. That didn't come to pass. As we talked about Madonna with
everything about his skills, like many of the Argentines that fight in these types
of high level fights, it's got a great chin, there's no doubt about
that. Uh. And Barrios did. He sucked it up. He showed
some some balls because he had a badly swollen eye that was getting worse in
the final couple of rounds of the fight where it could have remember a factor
for a lucky punch. I don't remember when that occurred, that swelling started.
It was like what the middle of the fight, roughly correct, but
he to get through that, you know, he spoke, it was it
would hamper him, but he did the job. I mean he won clear,
he won decisive, you know. And whether you love Mario Barrios,
you don't love Mario Barrios, you don't know anything about him. All I
can tell you is this, He's going to become a significant factor in the
division just based on his position with PBC with the title, because in the
same he's gonna go for Stanionis. Barrios has the interim title. Stanionis has
the regular WBA titlehum August. When Crawford makes the move to fifty four.
At some point, either shortly before or shortly after win or lose, I
believe he will be vacating his belts, so that will make Stanionis the WBA
champion because there won't be any other guy in the White division with the belt.
Barrios will be elevated from the interim champion. That will be the only
WBC champion with the interim tag removed from his record. And so now you
have a situation with these two PBC fighters who are entertaining fighters for the most
part, who are still on the young side, who've got good records,
who are establishing solid resumes. Again, I'm not saying it's gonna happen next,
but I think there's probably they keep these belts. There's a pretty reasonable
chance we might see that them fight each other. And to take a look
at the Stanionis fight that opened the Deep Review, yep, so he was
fighting for the first time in two years. I mean, this guy was
just in just terrible layoff situation for reasons that we're not really to anything other
than I feel is like bad luck. He had an appen deck tomy that
caused the Virgil Ortiz fight to be postponed. Then Virgil had his relapse of
his blood disorder that caused it to be postponed again. And then when it
was finally rescheduled and they were supposed to go do it the next time,
this time it was the fight week and Virgil passed out from problems making the
weight with the dehydration, and it got canceled. And so it put him
into a two year laoff, and it's kind of sad when he was off
two years and the guy who pulled out twice because of his problems fought twice
since danion his thought because Virgil has now fought two times already this year,
the January fight and then the one that was just a couple of weeks ago.
So poor Stanionis, who was very exciting, undefeated, had the title,
the regular title when he won that against the Tide was a sensational action
fight, so he said afterwards, I felt a little rusty, and that's
to be understandable after that long of a layoff. And Master is not anything
spectacular, but he's sturdy and he's a little tricky with the way he punches
with his angles. He was all arm punches though Stanionis was really laying hard
punches on him. My astery really didn't really seem to have much team on
those shots. You know, he beat him in the amateurs, he beat
him again in the pros. Was pretty decisive. You know, one judge
had it eleven rounds to one, one judge had it ten rounds to two,
and one judge had it nine nine to three. So that's that's pretty
decisive there, and so it's a good win for STANDI onus, it's a
good win for Barrios and Uh, I'd like to see them fight each other.
I know they don't have big names, but the winner of that fight
can maybe launch themselves into a bigger name, because I guarantee you, guarantee
you if Barrios and standing on his fight, that will be a good,
excellent, entertaining action fight for sure in my view. And then the winner
obviously has two of the belts, which is the whole point for leverage for
a bigger fight with a bigger name down the road. All right, So
Brandon Figueroa also victorious once again. A body shot ko for him against Jesse
Magdalena. When we left the podcast, we didn't obviously know this. Magdaleno
missed the weight in that interim featherweight title fight. So thoughts on the figure
roll will win what it sets up for him? Anything else off the car
before we're done off the car, Yeah, I mean for figure out again.
It's like a broken record. He was coming back from a fourteen month
layoff, but he looked I thought for that length of a layoff, he
looked pretty sharp and Magdaleno, I've always thought it's a good fighter, maybe
not the elite top fighter. He was coming off of a decision loss to
ray Ford, who then went on after that victory to win the WBA featherweight
title. But he thought okay in that fight against ray Ford, So I
actually liked this matchup. This to me, on paper, it was an
interesting matchup. I was disappointed that Magdaleno didn't make the weight. That kind
of sucks the life out of a fight when a guy has the disadvantage and
the other guy doesn't make the weight and then the title is not at stake
and blah blah blah. But in the end, it was a close fight.
Magdaleno fought well, figure out fought well going into the knockout run.
I'm looking here at the scurse. It was seventy seven to seventy five on
two score cards, in seventy eight to seventy four on the third score card.
Brandon was winning on all three. But it was certainly competitive, and
as Jesse said in his post fight comments, you know he was more pissed
that he got knocked out because the fight was so darn close at the to
the knockout because he was competing really well in the fight, and you know,
figure Out he had kept pushing him to the ropes. He's you know,
he's the guy that swarms you and and doesn't give you an inch to
breathe, and he's always on top of you. And he's talking about how
he's throwing punches, and he keeps seeing that Jesse's kind of dropping or picked,
you know, moving his arm around, and he knows he's going to
be an opening. He's trying to time the opening and kept trying and trying
to try it. And right there at the end of that that that ninth
round, there was like one second left when the ref waved it off.
He got the shot in and it was a perfect, perfect shot. You
know, Magaleno felt all four us and you know it's just you're just not
getting up from that. You'd much rather be with a hedgehot than that kind
of body shot. It was a perfect shot, and Magaleno was, you
know, we was just done for you know, he was he could have
got up after maybe like fifteen or sixteen or eighteen seconds, but he wasn't
getting up in ten seconds. And look, it's a good win for figure
Out and he'll I'm not sure where he goes next. He is supposed to
be the mandatory still for Ray Vargas, you know, who had the draw
with Nick Ball. So that's a fight that was talked about by PBC last
year. It did not come to pass. Maybe now they'll make that fight.
I don't know, you know, that could be a good car,
a good fight on one of the these big pay per views that they continually
roll out. If they ever get around to doing non pay per view fights
on on on Prime video, that would seem like a very solid reasonable moment
for one of those types of shows. But it's a good win for Figaro.
Uh. He's a fun fighter to watch and he got a good win
the other night, a right Hazus Ramos also a TKO win, and Vito
mil Niki also gets away. Anything bult remarkable from those two fights prior to
the pay per view, well, in terms of Veto, that was the
opening preliand fight. You know, he scored two knockdowns one you know,
pretty clear decision. I actually, because there was so much stuff going on,
I got into the arena in about the third round of that fight,
so I was sort of setting up my stuff and you know, getting getting
squared away. So I wasn't paying too close attention, to be honest with
you, there was like about twelve people in the arena at that moment about
how was one of them? It seemed like, uh, but the Ramos
fight, look, he that was a pretty good fight, but it was
you know, it was all Ramos and he scored a nice knockout and he
bounced back from what I thought was a shitty decision that he got his first
floss in against Eric Slupin. And he's still to me one of the very
best young fifty four pounders in the world, and he's going to be in
the mix you before too long fighting for titles. All right, So that
leads us to the news now. And oh, by the way, you
were mentioning who all was there in attendance. Gervonte Davis obviously there because he
will be up next for Premiere Boxing Champions on their pay per views with Amazon
Prime ANDPPV, dot Com, etc. Making his first appearance of this year
ever since the Ryan Garcia fight. So you were at the press conference that
they had with he and Frank the Ghost Martin as well as David Benavitez,
Alexander Vodzik. They were having that presser on Saturday. We did things get
a little testy there. They were trying to drum up some interest. That's
always the case. But what about this now they've set it up and you
were there for it in Vegas? Well, I mean, first of all,
Saturday press conference to announce another fight on the day of a big fight,
when there's a lot of meata, there is a good normal thing happens
all the time. I've been to a million press conferences on the Saturday of
a major fight in that same media center. So they just changed over the
signage and put up the step and repeat for the new fight. And yeah,
the only thing that was ridiculous was that they called it for twelve o'clock
noon to start, and by the way, it didn't start to like about
five of one, which I get that things happen in boxing and it's late,
but I found it extraordinarily disrespectful when all the people that are covering your
event have to be at the arena because it's a long freaking day for the
card to waste our time. They don't care about our time, They don't
give a fuck about our time. They never have and they never will and
it pisses me off, but I understand. But when they did get started,
it was a good press conference. And I had to tell you when
I knew that they were making Tank against Frank Martin, like I never thought
it was a bad fight. I was always sort of interested in the fight,
like that's cool, and even the Benabiditias and Bozen fighters like that's an
interesting fight also. So I liked the two fights, but having now attend
to the press covers, it got me even more kind of pumped up for
the fight because those two guys were from the second they both walked in the
room. It wasn't like a nasty press covers. They didn't punch each other.
It wasn't like horrible like sometimes you see with the really stupidly personal things
and all that kind of stuff. But there was enough tension and enough shit
talk to make it like, Okay, these guys are gonna gonna get down
and then do some damage in that ring. It was so that from that
point of view, it was a good press conference, interesting fight to me,
Like you mentioned Tank, uh, you know, he even brought it
up. I haven't been in the ring in a minute. Since I was
in jail and all the stuff that's been happening, house arrests and all that.
But now he's got the chance to be back where he's comfortable, which
is in the boxing ring, and he's taken on a good opponent. I
mean, they kind of laid it on a little bit thick about how Frank
had done everything in the division to earn the shot, and then that's nonsense
obviously, because Frank's got like, you know, one one good win against
Michelle Rivera, right, but that doesn't take away the fact that he's a
talented fighter. Based on this the eye test. I've seen him fight,
you know, a few times over the last couple of years. You know,
he's obviously a good up and coming fighter. They apparently had sparred at
one time, and there was this whole back and forth between them about the
video of how that sparring went down, so that I'm sure will become a
talking point during the build up to the fight. So they they did their
job talking and then on the on the flip side, he got Benavidez and
Bojick, who definitely look like it's going to be a good fight, but
they were much more respectful to each other. You know, David's David's not
the kind of guy to ever say bad about the opponent unless they start with
him. And Vojick is like the most businesslike, uh and friendly guy you'll
meet. So that's also going to be an interesting fight because Benavidez is moving
up and wait, he's fighting a good opponent. People forget. I mean,
Ojik hasn't really been in the consciousness of boxing fans for a minute,
but at one time he was like one of the very very best guys.
He had beaten uh, you know, Adonna Stevenson to become the lineal champion,
and he had a tremendous fight with Arthur Better BF to unify the titles.
That's his only loss. He went into the like what the tenth eleventh
round of that fight and got stopped and then retired right right, and then
decided in his retirement. He's now won since the ending of the kind of
thing, He's won three fights in a row. He's part of the team
Canelo, I guess, and he's back in business. He said, you
know, when I ended my retirement, my goal was to get back into
this level of a fight. And now he's got it, and uh,
the winner is going to be in a tremendous position. And the Tank Davis
against Frank Martin fight, the winner of that fight is gonna have a lot
to say about the future of the weight class. Obviously, Tank will be
the big favorite. So I think this has a chance because they're taking two
good commodities in terms of their name in Tank and Benavides, who have different
fan bases. Obviously, you know, Tank appeals more to the urban crowd
and to the to the to black fans and that sort of thing, where
Benavide's fan base is more you know, Hispanic crowd, right, and you
bring them both together for the same event, and that, you know,
just makes it a bigger deal because they've both Obviously, Tanks done his pay
per view numbers, you know. But I know people want to make Tank
out to be like this massive, massive megastar, and I know he's got
the following on social media and and that, and his one mega fight was
the Ryan Garcia fight. And all due respect to the Tank, who was
a big reason why that fight was the success that it was, it is
just as much Ryan Garcia's popularity in his fan base that made that the Juggernaut
fight that, yes, but on his own against other you know, decent
names, Tank's never done big numbers, big numbers, you know, the
worst in a fight like against Yildrum has done more than the Tank Davis fights
other than Ryan Garcia. So Tank is definitely a pay per view attraction because
he can do you know, in the high two hundreds on pay per view,
And David has had two pay per view fights, both against Andre and
against kayleb Plant From my reporting those fights, did you know in the one
fifty one seventy five kind of range. Now you bring the two of them
together on a pay per view where they're drawing from some different fan bases.
Obviously they overlap and the die hard boxing fan base. But the point is
you can make make hay out of that. You put him in with good
opponents, uh, you know, and make just what our two quality fights
where yeah, the the A sides, Tank and David are the clear favorites
in those bouts. But if there's an upset in either one of those fights,
I'm not going to be shocked at all. I mean, I might
be a little more shocked to voz be Benevitez than I would if Frank Martin
were able to be a tank. But point here is that these A sides
are in with reputable opponents, they're making it a big event. They did
a great press coverence. Hopefully they'll add other interesting fights to that undercard,
and they're in business for June fifteenth at the MGM Grand for yet another prime
pay per view. And I'm still waiting for a non prime pay per view.
It has come to my attention while I've been here talking to people involved
there's probably not going to be now a non pay per view in the month
of June, which they were supposed to be. So now we're going on
half the year with not a single non pay per view paper from from PBC.
And while they can do these types of shows, you know, for
the for the next event, at some point you can't just put the event
on a pay every event on here, it doesn't work in the long run.
End. The story they can get the business model is you're not going
to continue to score on pay per view. Uh, and you've got too
many fighters too, and so you've got to work that in. Well.
The biggest part is that the biggest part is you're not developing the next group
of paper tree fighters. You've talked Davis became a pay per view because he
fought a billion times on showtime and people saw him and the same people pick
any fighter out there that's right pay per view attacks and Floyd mayother thought probably
you know, had thirty plus fights before he became a big paper He can't.
He's at some point the wrap the guys today, they're not going to
be pay per view guys anymore. Who's coming behind them? As the question,
it's still very much up in the air Premiere Boxing Champions and what they're
doing as they go here, uh with twenty twenty four and their television.
All right, So you talked about the light heavyweight division and the news came
out late on Friday night that in the Saturday that the June one undisputed light
heavyweight title about Archer, BETTERBEV and Dmitri b Bolt not happening again. We
thought we were going to get this before and then remember HBV had the jaws
surgery or had the oral surgery and had the jaw infection that delayed things for
his fight. So it delayed the timeline of fighting Bivol after So now this
is that fight is off. It's an injured it's a meniscus injury. And
I have a little insight into this, being in the pro sports world,
being in the football world. I don't have a meniscus injury myself, but
I've heard athletes talk about this, I've seen the case. These are not
simple things. So without being surgeons, and we're not playing one on the
podcast, it's not like he would be ready in July to fight. More
than likely it's going to be much later in the summer before he's ready to
fight. And so now they're scrambling to put an opponent in front of bevol
because you still got a month for him to be on the card in Saudi
Arabia, Dan so go ahead. So they termed in a ruptured meniscus,
which certainly anything you which means a surgery. Yes, when you hear something
is ruptured, that never a good sign. I don't think no. But
that said, I was told by folks involved with it that that. Again,
I guess they don't know. You can never know for certain, But
the rough timeline was he might be able to return by September. I'm a
little skeptical of that, just because he's a tremendous fighter, but has been
a little fragile in terms of being able to thirty nine trying to recover after
a surgery. That's another valid point. I just don't lose. I hope
we don't lose this fight for good because it, like it literally was the
best fight you could make in the sports. So many people had that opinion
to clashing styles, so huge stakes. So on the one hand, you
know, it's good they're going to try to you know, keep Eople from
having to lose his date and you know, not defend this title and not
not stay active, not get paid in all that business. So we'll say
what they do with that. Uh. The good thing is that they're they're
not going to cancel the card because it was such a loaded card anyway that
these Saudi cards, if there's an injury like that, usually you're not gonna
end up having a cancel anything because there's such a deep show besides that.
So if if Bevo fight's great, he'll just have his title defense. Uh.
If he doesn't fight for whatever reason and he's off the show, the
undercard is still tremendous. They're just going to take the five on five fights
and it will be its own event, which it could have been its own
event even without the light heavyweight fight, So you'll just see. I guess
we'll take Deontay Wilder and Jang July. That's likely. That's likely your main
event, Wilder and Jang. Now even if Beebles still on the card,
you would think, but we'll well, that's up to them to figure that
out. But whatever the order of the fights is, there's still going to
be a good event on that date, June first, because the five on
five is still a very compelling group of fights. So they'll they'll go through
with that and hopefully, you know, better be able. We'll heal quickly.
Good luck to him. I hope he does, and hopefully we'll see
that fight before before too long. All right, and one more news item
and then we'll get to some nostalgia and be done here. We've talked a
lot about the Jiron NSIBF welterweight title defense with Cody Crawley. It now is
official, it has a date, it has a location. Goal ahead with
that, well, it means they probably signed the contract, which there was
a lot of time that I thought he might not actually go through with that.
So yes, they did the deal he signed. Ennis was always going
to be fighting this summer. It was just a matter of who was going
to be against and the mandatory Cody probably signed the agreement. So Mattroom Boxing
will have their first event with Jaron Ennis having signed with the company, you
know, a few weeks ago, July twenty third, live on his own,
and obviously it'll take place at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. They're
going right for the big arena. They're not going to mess around with a
smaller venue like I thought they might. Well as Fargo Center is the biggest
arena in the city. It's where the seventy six ers play. Correct,
it's the major league arena for that city, and they've i believe from my
understanding, it's never had a boxing match take place there. So that's a
feather in the cap of Jiwon Ennis to go home. I'm assuming they'll do
a good job promoting it. Philadelphia, of course, historically a great fight
city, a great sports town, and they've got their own homegrown champion in
Jiwon Ednis, and hopefully they'll put on a big show. It's a you
know, it's it's funny because there hasn't been, at least in my time
of covering boxing. Obviously, back in the day, there was a lot
of big shows in regular boxing in Philly all the time, and there are
still a lot of like smaller club type shows that take place in and around
the city, but there hasn't been a lot of like world championship level boxing
there in a while. I think about my own coverage, and I've been
to several fights in Philadelphia, but not nearly as many as some other places,
and it's been a while since there's been a really big one. But
this will be the biggest show in Philadelphia for the last several years, and
you know, I'm happy to see it because as if you know the main
event is Ennis against Crowley, you know, you gotta figure match will put
on some other other young guys. I'm kind of hoping, and I know
that he's still got to take care of his his well, I guess they're
not going to do that, because I was thinking as Andy Kruz trains out
of the Philly gym with John Ennis, that maybe he'd be on there,
but I just realized that's not gonna happen because he's on the August third card.
If this is not going to fight July twenty third and then right right,
But there's still other guys that that that Mattriom has in the stable that
they can make a nice cart out of this, So that's exciting. I'm
happy to see it. I think it's a you know, Cody. I
don't think Cody Crowley really has a huge chance to win necessarily, but because
of the style he fights, and it could be a fun fight to watch.
And I am on the record that I believe this guy is a star
already. I kept calling him the biggest star in boxing without a world title.
Ennis now has one bestowed on him here at the moment, but he's
he gets a chance to defend it. I love the skill set, the
punching power, the Philly background. They don't pay me to say this.
I'm interested in watching the fight later this year. Let's get him back in
the ring, and let's get bigger fights going in the welterwhite division. I
agree. I mean, he hasn't fought in you know, He's fought in
a lot of different places, and he has fought in the Philly area,
but he hasn't actually fought in Philadelphia since twenty eighteen. Which is way before
he was, right right, much less than a title holder, but even
like you know, top top contender, that was still back in his sort
of prospect days. So you know this, hopefully for him it will be
a big coming out party, be a big homecoming extravagans, and hopefully you
don't get caught up in the hooplah. And I've seen guys get caught up
in that hooplah the homecoming and forget oh, by the way, I gotta
fight and ended up losing. I was there when the name Regis pro Gray
come to mind recently with his title defense in New Orleans. That was an
ambient. It was you just no, at least he won the at least
he won the fight. Though, I'm thinking of like when Jared Hurd had
the homecoming right you know, in the next town over roughly where I lived
in Fairfax, Virginia, and it was a celebration of Jared Hurd's career.
And yeah, exactly, Williams, you gotta you gotta watch out for that,
you know. Agreed, all right, speaking of hoopla, let's do
some nostalgia and let's get out of here. It is seventeen years ago on
Sunday the fifth, as we released the podcast Cinco de Mayo, and really
the first mega one of these on Cinco de Mayo was Floyd Medwether Oscar de
Lo Hoya. You right there, No, it wasn't no, not to
this extent. All right, we'll give me one that was bigger before that.
Then there's a ton of fights that took place in segu Tomo. This
just happened to be the biggest fight in the history of boxing at that moment
with money, which is what I just said, Thank you for paying attention.
It was the biggest one two date to that date because of the pay
per views it did and the amount of money that it did seventeen I misunderstand
there's been lots of major fights on single Demayo agreed, But to this point
in seven, this is the one seventeen years ago. I don't want to
accept that. Seventeen years ago, before my twins were born. You were
there, yes, I was, and when Floyd came out, and I'm
still sitting in the same hotel, but you've not been there. You've not
been there for seventeen years since the Floyd fight. It just seems like it.
I'm here for you. But when Floyd came out of the sombrero with
the red, green and white trunks and shoes to go right full villain right
at de la Jolla. That was tremendous in the buildings. But you were
there for all of it. Go ahead. He had been full villain the
entire promotion. That's one of the things that built the fight. I mean,
he you know, he did all through the press store. He did
it when he was calling Oscar out before they even had the fight made.
This was a megafight of megafights. It was so you know, it crossed
over to the mainstream. It was on the front cover of Sports Illustrated the
fight to save boxing, which was complete bullshit because boxing didn't need saving much
less from this fight. But nonetheless, that's some of the popular narrative of
the time. They called it the World the Weights, which was hype but
actually was kind of true. Am I not correct? This was the first
time? You will correct me if I'm wrong that HBO did the twenty four
to seven and did the build up. I believe it was the first time,
and it was phenomenal in hyping the fight for that couple of weeks two
or three weeks before the actual one, because the twenty four to seven access
with the fighters, I think that was the first time they had done it,
and it was wildly successful in building the fight up, which was the
whole idea. Twenty four to seven was fantastic, absolutely fantastic, and that
was the first one. I mean, it got to a point where twenty
four to seven was now doing of shows and you know, mini series.
This was a four part series, but they would do them over and over.
So by the time you had seen say Floyd or Manny pak Yah or
one of the other popular fighters that was on pay per view in their you
know, multiple chapter of twenty four seven, it kind of got redundant and
repetitive. They still was produced beautifully, but the first one was spectacular.
Was put it like this, It actually made news those of us who were
boxing journalists, you because we didn't know the We didn't see the episode before
it aired. They might have pre you know, because they were doing it
in real time essentially right that you would have to watch it when it aired
live on Sunday night. And by the way, ad that time, HBO
was still a juggernaut with like the Sopranos, and Sex and the City,
and they would put twenty four seven right in the wheelhouse of that Sunday night
programming block and it would do a huge numbers. There were there were episodes
of twenty four to seven, both in terms of Oscar and Floyd as well
as some subsequent series that the ratings for the preview would do bigger numbers than
like a live fight. And it's obviously much much cheaper to produce, you
know, a half an hour you know, docu series like that than to
produce and pay license fees for gigantic boxing matches. So that was a really
big deal when it happened out in terms of the and also they did a
big press tour. Remember they came. One of the stops was in Washington,
DC, So obviously I went into, you know, to take that
in and they did in the Union Station, which is the big train station
and right on Capitol Hill in Washington, and there was like a million people
who just travel through there every day that knew about this fight because of the
fact that they were doing this in front of them as they're walking by,
I mean, just non boxing people. This was an astronomical fight and when
it was over, it had. You know, it's been subsequently broken obviously
by fights like Floyd Mayweather and Connor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather against many pacap But
at the time, this fight shattered every single record you could conceive of,
whether it was the gate, the sponsors, the pay perview overall. In
fact, it was such a big pay per view and it's the only time
I can ever think of that this ever happened. I think it is the
only time that's ever happened. That was back when they would announce the pay
per view numbers, especially if they were usually successful, they'd put out a
number on this fight. I believe they announced two point two million, which
had never been a fight that had exceeded two million, So it blew away
everything. And it was like the highest pay per view of time too,
so the revenues were like off the chart. A few months later that the
pay per views are still coming in from various sources. They actually sent out
an amended announcement that raised the pay per view total from the two point two
that I believe was the initial announcement to two point four million pay per views.
They made crazy, crazy, crazy money in this fight. Oscar had
made huge amounts of money previously career, but this was the one that was
his biggest payday by far and away. And the twenty versse seven was so
great because he had the back and forth with Floyd's senior and with with Freddie
Roach and the two fighters, and you know, the totally different kind of
personalities. The fight itself, eh, it was good, but it was
it was not great, and Oscar had a tremendous opportunity to beat Floyd Mayweather.
His jab was superb that night, and it was like he knew it.
He had won a lot of rounds in the first half of the fight
and like his jab became a rumor after like round six or so, and
Mayweather ended up winning. It was just if I recall it was a split
decision. One of the judges actually gave it to Oscar de l Hoya by
two points, but the other judges gave it to Floyd by seven five and
six four. So that's about his closer calls Floyd's had in his career,
and he had a lot of trouble with Oscar, who was mobile, who
was taller, who was longer, and when he used the JEB gave Floyd
all kinds of fits. So I'm not gonna say Floyd got lucky because obviously
the onus is on Oscar to get the jab rolling and keep it going.
But uh, you know, Floyd was close to losing that night. But
it's a signature win, one of the signature wins for Floyd. Oh you
want to talk about you want to talk about the star power. I mean,
you could not walk around the castlle what do you what do you recall
about who was around you and who was there around ringside that night? Give
me some names? Oh, I mean, I mean I get a lot
of the mixed up because I've seen so many of the superstars over the years,
but I mean all the Hollywood A lists, you know what I mean,
Like Gazelle Washington would frequently be at those fights. Yeah, I mean
those I don't know if he specifically was there, but certainly Tom Brady.
I don't know who they were, but I'm telling you it was like,
remember like looking around, like everybody was there. I think it was like
Brad Pitt and Angelina and Joelie were there. You know, Tiger Woods was
there and ye all kinds of from sports and from you know, from from
Hollywood and whether you're a TV star or movie star, these guys brought out
I mean it was huge, you know, just huge, huge anticipation for
this fight. Like among you. If I was making a list of the
forget about how the fight happened and what happened in the fight, whether it
was good, bad or otherwise. Just in terms of public anticipation for fights
I have covered, this was in the top few that there have been.
Love it all, right, one more piece of nostalgia. And you didn't
know that this was coming, but I did look it up because you love
this whenever we have it. So Monday, as we released the podcast,
is May the sixth. May sixth, nineteen eighty nine. One of the
all time greats, Roy Jones made his professional debut off the Olympics from the
previous year obviously in Seoul, South Korea, fighting your boy Ricky Randall,
and he knocked out Ricky Randall in the second round. The Hall of Fame
career of Roy Jones, I do not want to accept it. Rayphael began
thirty five years ago Monday, May sixth, nineteen eighty nine. How about
that with a little nostalgia. Well, on the podcast, I'll tell you
what about that. I have that program in my collection from Roy Jones's debut
What you Do. As a matter of fact, I and it's a valuable
program. I think I have three of them, actually, so one of
them is reserved for if I can get a trade or something that that's really
wants something like that, and I take an item, I'm I'm definitely willing
to trade one of those Roy Jones. Then there only you would have three
programs from his pro debut. Was that Pensacola his hometown? Was it Pensacola?
Fought so? Okay, thirty five years ago that Roy Jones debuted.
How about that? Well, I'll say this. I mean we were just
talking about Floyd Mayweather and his victory against Oscar de la Hoya. When I
think about the greatest fighters I have covered, I always say that it's Roy
Jones, and it's like he gets a slight, slight edge over Mayweather.
Not because in terms of their overall like Floyd probably will be ranked greater than
Roy in terms of the all time pound for bound. For me covering fights
of theirs in their prime, my perspective on who I believe was the most
talented fighter I covered at the time when they were still at their best,
right, I never seen and all listen, I'm not in any way,
so to stop with your IML Floyd hater bullshit. I have all ample,
massive respect for what it accomplished in his abilities. He's a great, great
fighter. My personal viewpoint is the most talented guy I ever saw with my
own eyes at ringside was Roy Jones period, more so than Oscar, more
so than Pacquil, absolutely well than anybody else. Pick I mean on Pacio
Hatton, I mean Paton, Patio, Oscar Hopkins, you you name it.
I mean Shane Movery, Winky Wright, all the talented guys I've covered,
you know, the lower weight guys like Morales, Barrera, Marquez,
you know even Roman Gonzales and U and Ivan Calderoon. And take any of
the great skilled fighters that you want to talk about. Give you Roy Jones
Junior. Yeah, I mean just an for a period of time, untouchable
literally and if he didn't have a good ching, he didn't know it because
he never got hit. Love it, Love the nostalgia. I don't love
the fact that you had to spend an extra twenty four hours or so in
Las Vegas, but we made the most of it here on the pod,
Safe Travels, My Friendfully, it's not planes, trains and automobiles on Monday
as you make your way back to the eastern part of the United States.
Hopefully these are our travels. Yeah, well, we want you to be
on the flight and get out of there. And again we make mention just
once more as we did at the beginning of the podcast. We know that
you know, if you're a fight fan as Monday is going on, what
happened in the Naway fight. Read Dan Substack for his thoughts, social media,
etc. Will probably have a word or two to say about it on
the preview pod coming next weekend. Next weekend, Loma and Cambosis in action
in Australia two weeks from now. Fury Who's six week for the undisputed heavyweight
title. We love it and again make sure you're following subscribing Apple Podcasts,
Freaker, Spotify, Big Fight Weekend Podcast Feed Dan Rayfield, Safe Travels,
my Friend. Thank you great stuff on the pod about the Canelo win and
all else that went with it. I appreciate it as always, Thank you,
sir. There is Dan Rayfield. I am merely TJ Reeves, you
have been listening to the Fight Preach Unit Recap podcast