Well. Off a weekend that has seen my goodness, Tyson fury. What
was that an escape for him? A split decision. We're going to talk
about what happened with this fight with Francis and Nanu and what does it mean
for the future. Off a weekend that has seen a wild TKO win for
Oshaki Foster to defend his title, and it turns out he absolutely positively had
to have it, even though he wouldn't have had a way of knowing that
when he scored two knockdowns and got a TKO in the final round. We
got lots to talk about. We got news, we got nostalgia, we
got much more. I am merely the somewhat capable host TJ. Reeves.
He is our insider Fight Freaks Unit substech Bigfight Weekend dot Com. Welcome into
the Fight Freaking Night Recap Podcast. Dan Rayfield, I know your crotchety as
we tape this because the New York Giants have lost again on a Sunday afternoon.
My Sunday was spent traveling back from working at college football game Saturday.
Nonetheless, we're here to talk and much more. Are you gonna perk up
a little bit and get over the Giants. Here are we gonna, are
we gonna? Are we gonna get this going? And we all right,
here we go. I'm gonna perk up, but I'm still kind of cranky
because they lost the Jets, which is the crosstown rival. They had a
chance to win with the third string quarterback. They blew it at the end,
let them tie the game, and then they blew it in overtime.
And oh, just by the way, as it related to the thing you
just mentioned in the open about the Oshaki Foster fight against Rocky Hernandez, he
may not have known the exact score going into the final round when he scored
the knockout. We'll get into the details of the fight, but in Mexico
they use with the WBC Championship fight, they use open scoring, so he
and his team knew what the scores were after round eight, So he knew
he was behind the eight ball in a big way. And we'll get to
it. We get to that interesting, all right. And uh, I
got several comments on all of that, including the broadcast and the eleventh round
of that fight. We've got to talk about in the in a bigger context
coming up, all right. So again, thank you for finding us.
Make sure you rate us and review us. The Big Fight Weekend podcast feed
if you enjoyed the content, not just the preview podcast going into the weekend
usually out Friday morning, the recap podcast like you're hearing right now, that
is overnight Sunday into Monday. But you also get special guests that are with
us. You've heard recently from Oscar day La Hooya, you've heard recently from
Amanda Serrano, from Tim Zoo, on and on down the list, just
in the last two or three weeks. I'll tell people, I'll jump in
and I'll tell folks that coming up. So if you sign up and if
you subscribe to the pod, you'll get the alert. We have interviews coming
in the in the I don't know exactly which show we'll play it on,
but I have interviews with Shakor Stevenson, who's getting ready to fight for the
vacant WBC lightweight title in a couple of weeks. I have an interview with
the Mets Andred who was headlining the pay per view on Showtime pay per view
against David Benavidez coming up on November twenty fifth, And we're striving for other
interviews, so you'll have plenty to listen to, including TJ and myself.
And by the way, I interviewed Jamel Herring recently too. Herring is going
to come out of retirement. He's roughly year and a half re timeronment,
former world champion, and it's a special card involving US military and first responders,
police, amateur fighters, and he's in the main event as part of
the main event card. So we'll talk with Jammel Hearing about that too,
and that'll be on the podcast feed. But you make a great point follow
and subscribe because these podcast interviews might end up as their own standalone thing,
as the De la Hoya interview did, as the tam Zoo interview did,
and you need no other prompt and you know other reminder from us on that.
Okay, with that, let me set the scene this way. You
were much more plugged in than I was. On Saturday afternoon and Saturday afternoon
late and Saturday evening. I was working the college football national broadcast of Clemson
and NC State. We got off the air, we got out of the
stadium, we started making our way through the traffic, trying to find something
to eat. I will say I picked up the Fury in Ganu fight from
about the third the second or the third round on. I think the second
round on I had issues with the audio and the loud place that I was,
and I know you and I were changing a text message after it.
Okay, Dan, I think it's fair to say we are both we both
thought Fury would knock him out that didn't. Oh yeah, like we didn't
go exactly out on a limb there. Well, right, But I mean,
I don't think it's unfair to say that Tyson Fury damaged his own credibility
because he didn't look like he was in shape, or he didn't look motivated
to get him out of there. I don't know what that was. But
it ends up being a ten round fight and he gets the split decision.
Your thoughts, well, he never really looked comfortable in my opinion, from
the beginning of the fight he got. He did look a little more comfortable
once they got to around maybe round five or so, where he seemed to,
you know, work more office. You know, you box on his
toes and and and get his jab ironed out. But there's no excuse making,
there's no sugarcoating It was a terrible performance from Tyson Fury. He knows
it. He didn't even show up at the postfight press conference. As my
understanding, he did the entering interviews both with ESPN and with TNT Sports,
which was the broadcaster in in the UK, but did not come to the
post by press conference because he didn't want to face the music. He didn't
want to take the criticism. It's one thing to talk to your broadcast partner
and do a one on one for two minutes than it is to have to
face all the reporters that are going to ask presumably tough, not tougher questions,
but you know there's gonna be follow ups and it's going to be more
than a two minute interview, and you know, he wasn't in the mood
for that, so he didn't. He'd apparently didn't show up for that because
he knew the criticism is coming and it's warranted. So my perspective is that
Tyson Fury looked terrible. It's the worst he's looked in many, many years.
I don't know if it's because he just had a bad day. He
woke up with, you know, some issues that morning. He didn't feel
good, maybe he didn't take it as seriously as he proclaimed he was.
Certainly, as you made the point, didn't look like he was in the
greatest shape of all time going into the fight. Maybe it was on his
mind that he had this gigantic fight already signed with Alexander Ruzik and he was
trying to make sure he fought, you know, perfectly, and that maybe
led to not doing so well. But you got to give got to give
Nikanu credit. Man, right, this guy showed up in shape, proper
mindset, and I was go interject, maybe it was all of those things.
Maybe has all those things you just listed the combination and in Ghanu was
in shape. And I thought this was interesting because Tim Bradley was pointing it
out, I guess, and a couple of others who pointed it out.
In Ghanu was much more credible with his footwork, with his head movement than
I think a lot of people believe. What do you make of that?
I just make of that that you have a guy in Ghanu who was determined
and you cannot measure a man's will, heart and desire. I definitely in
the pre fight, even though I thought Fury would would beat him and do
so by knockout. Although I thought, as we talked about on the US
show, you and I both were in agreement that it wasn't going to be
a stomping in one or two rounds at because of what was at stake for
Niganu, his general athleticism and other factors, that this fight was going to
go deeper in the fight. So we both had the over five and a
half. I wouldn't That didn't surprise me whatsoever. But I think that that
Naganu is obviously better than we thought, and Fury had a terrible night.
So I look at it like this, and these things can both be true.
We had a heavyweight champion of the world that radically underperformed. We had
a novice boxer who was obviously a tremendous athlete from his mixed martial arts experiences,
who dramatically overperformed, and when you match that together, you get a
fight that's much closer. Now, I thought that Tyson Ferry still won the
fight, even though it was a shitty performance. I had him ninety five
to ninety four. I think a lot of people had a similar score.
I didn't think this was controversial. What I did think was that that,
and I've used this line on other fights too. When Batali Klitschkow had his
epic battle challenging Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight title, which I covered in Los
Angeles many years ago, my dear friend Larry Merchant had the great line after
that fight, summing it up as only Larry Merchant can do in those fifteen
seconds at the end of the show, that Lennox Lewis won the fight and
Tyson Battali Clichko won the event, and the same could be for this thing.
Tyson Fury won the fight, granted close, but Francis Nagan who won
the event? And why TJ because he was the guy that was doing what
nobody expected him to do. When you do something unexpected, or you fight
at a much better level than anybody thinks as possible, you win the event
and you came close to winning the fight, you know, to a lesser
degree, it's Sugar Ray Leonard against Marvin Hagler. Everyone expected Marvin Hagler to
knock Ray Leonard out in three or four rounds and just blow through him.
And when the guy is still standing there after, you know, six seven,
eight, nine, ten year watching him you're giving him all the credit.
In that case, he got to credit from the judges properly in my
opinion, but he still does something that no one anticipated. And Francis nc
Gann, who's got to get the credit for that? And Fury, you
know, he should take the criticism for not because he didn't win, but
because he looked like crap doing it against the guy that's never been a professional
boxer, against the guy that people are telling me that they've been saying this
for a long time, which I never bought this and drank that kool aid,
is that he's one of the all time great heavyweights. I never ought
that, because you can't be an all time great heavyweight if you're only victories
that really count in terms of all time greatness are a legitimate decision against the
Vladimir Klitschko, who was older at that time, in a horrible, horrible
fight, by the way, that was a big win for him, of
course, and then you're two zero to one against Deontay Wilder in great a
great rivalry, tremendous battles. What else has he done? You know,
there's other guys like people want to criticize Plitchkock because I just mentioned him.
Okay, fine, but he may have had like the all time rival.
But the guy reigned for ten years and fought everybody and never lost rounds in
the town in that second level reign, and then he was active regular.
Here you have a Fury who doesn't fight top opponents on a regular basis,
and when he does fight, it's sporadic. He doesn't fight two three times
a year. He's coming off an eleven month layoff doing a fight that people
received as like a side show cashing in. There's plenty of top contenders that
he's never faced as a agreed as a champion. So, you know,
Tyson Fury is taking a lot of criticism. It is deserved. Unfortunately,
a lot of people look at this and it's a Fury is sort of the
straw man. So people insult the sport of boxing, say there was a
terrible night for boxing because you'll let the the MMA guy come in and,
you know, basically almost beat your heavyweight champ. You know, in a
fight that was a set. You know, even if you don't think he
won, he basically went straight up with the heavyweight champ of the world,
which is you know, if you're a boxing supporter, seems unfathomable that the
MMA guy could do that. You know, people use it to continue the
ridiculous mma versus the role I got you, I will come back to you.
I just don't think he obviously trained seriously enough, or took it seriously
enough, or even took it seriously enough in the ring. Now to that
point when he got knocked down, and it was a legitimate knock down ahead,
how much do you think that altered things for the remainder of the fight
that now he's concerned in his vernacular, I could get kinned, that he
could get chinned later in the fight. Well, I thought it was actually
worse for for the Ganu because I think he like, oh, I can
get him again. And so the game plan that he employed, which seemed
to be working where he was, you know, not he was with a
high guard, you know, very uh going in on when he was going
on the offense, he was doing it very measured but effective. Uh.
And then once he had the knockdown, it seemed like he got a little
more wild because he's looking for the big shots. So maybe it took him
out of that a little bit. It might have been better for a guy
who not to get not to get the knockdown, although obviously he wins the
round and it creates a lot of excitement. It was the moment of the
fight. That's why people will remember this fight, because you know, the
unexpected happened. But I think that Fury, I don't think he was hurt
on the knockdown. I think he was more embarrassed because you know, when
the when the TV shot was there, they were looking right at his face
when he was on the floor, and he looked more like oh shit,
as opposed to like I'm hurt. He got up really quickly, right,
he didn't know. He shook it off pretty easy. I think it was
more embarrassment than actually being in a position where he get knocked out. Uh.
You know, in the post interview he did say, you know,
my legs were fine. He referred to as a flash knockdown. I think
it was maybe a little more than a flash knocked. Then it did kind
of catch him, uh you know, in a not illegally but kind of
almost almost on the borderline behind the head. Uh. So it was the
biggest moment of the fight. But I never thought that Fury is gonna,
you know, not be able to continue or going to get knocked out.
But it was a very memorable moment. It is the only most memorable moment
of the fight. Obviously, I don't know what fear where they go now.
I mean, let's put it like this here. You have the fight
that just ended where a lot of people thought that the guy lost even though
he got the win, and they're doing a face off with Alexander Usik in
the ring, you know, and there was like no excitement about that because
all they're thinking about is this guy does not knocked on his as by an
MMA guy. I think the luster for a Theory Usik undisputed fight, while
still historically important from the standpoint of being an undisputed champion uh to be crowned
with the winner, lost a lot of luster based on what happened there.
I mean, as I was somebody yesterday after the fight, the biggest loser
of the fight, besides Tyson Fury's rep vitation was probably Alexander Usik, who's
seeing a fight that's supposed to be this megafight is no longer as big as
it's you know, a couple like an hour earlier. But I mean,
in his defense and We've been over this and been over this. He's the
one that wanted to have the fight, and Fury messed around earlier this year,
and eventually Usak said enough with all the haggling and then went ahead and
fought Dubois instead. So I can't blame him. All he can do is
fight Fury whenever Fury gets in front of him. Interesting, Frank Warren said
in the aftermath, basically confirming it's not going to happen on the proposed date
of December twenty third. It's going to be much later, all right.
So what we are now, some sixteen hours or so after all this has
taken place, You've been doing a little digging. What is the Rayfield thought
process and timeline on when we might see this? And from what you think
here about digging, this is not digging. This is common fucking sense.
When they made the match in the first place, the folks that announced the
fight from Saudi Arabia, who bankrolling the both events, made it they did.
I never announced date because you can't announce a fight when you don't know
what's gonna happen on October twenty eighth. You know a loss number one,
obviously, but certainly. The other aspect of it was any kind of injury
or for you know, whatever may happen physically to Tyson Fury hard fight.
He got cut, not bad enough where it's gonna have like a ton of
stitches. This is not that kind of situation, but with the cut there.
Plus again, Fury's not a guy that's ever been like wanting to get
back to back to back fights. The guy's coming off in an eleven month
layoff, and now all of a sudden he's gonna jump during twice in eight
weeks. I never bought that for two seconds. I mean, there was
some talking about, you know, some of the folks from the UK who
are going crazy because the prospect of Fury versus Busick taking taking place on December
twenty third, and Eddie Hearn had been talking about possibly trying to get the
fight between Connor ben And and Chris Hubang Junior in the ring on December twenty
third, and I was asked, why do you think there's gonna be a
problem with them competing against you? Them like guys slow your role. Not
only are those fights not going to compete against each other, which is not
even remotely possibility given that they're attracting the same exact audience, and people are
not stupid and they're not gonna like slip their own throat for the finances on
the fight. Not only why I be surprised if it both happen on the
same day, I'm gonna be surprised if what happens on that date. And
now Connor Ben is not fighting you bank on that date, and Fury and
Usaker not fighting on that date, so you ask when will the Theory fight
happen? With Usik they have a contract. The whole point here was for
this second fight of the two fight deal with the Saudi's meaning the undisputed fight
to take place before the end of the read season festival in Riyad. This
fight between Theory and Naganu was the opening ceremony of that festival that lasts for
a few months, so it doesn't end until like the late February time frame.
So I think that's where you're looking. If it ends up happening,
you're talking about like late January, sometime in February. But Fury's gonna have
some say so over that depends how you know his health is and how he's
feeling. All right, and then the one more question and we'll move on
if you want to. Then we have the conversation where we talked about how,
you know, lots of people make a lot of plans and nothing actually
and then once the Sunday comes around, a lot of shit's different. And
then I say that to you in one of our shows. I think,
so, yes, this is exactly the same thing. There was all these
discussions about plans and schedules up until you know, uh, the fight on
Saturday, and now none of it matters because of what happened on Saturday.
So the whatever people are planning is all fucking bullshit because it doesn't matter until
the actual fight that we're all already coach Larry Merchant, who you've already quoted
this podcast the theater of the unexpected. It's always the theater the unexpected.
So one more point on this, then we'll move on. What kind of
future does in Ghanu have on the basis of this, if he even has
one? What he definitely happened, what you what's your take? Has the
future in boxing and he wants to pursue that, and it's pretty clear based
on his pre fight comments and his postfight comments that boxing is near and dear
to his heart. It's what he wanted the first place, before he ever
got into MMA. It says what happened. He was really good at MMA
and could make money in MMA, but boxing is what he always wanted to
do from everything he has been talking about. And so he does have a
contract with PFL in terms of Knicked Martial Arts, so he does have an
obligation there. I believe it's supposed to be his next event. We're not
sure you know when that will happen or who will a fighter under what circumstances.
But after that, I mean he's got the pick of the litter.
If you're a promoter, I don't believe he's got any promotional ties in boxing.
PFL is his MMA promoter and he's a partner with them on that deal.
If you're Frank Warren, if you're top rank, if you're Eddie Hearn,
if you're Al Hayman, if you're Oscar del Oya, if you're anybody,
how could you not want to be involved with the guy. He's got
a tremendous amount of ability, he's got charisma. He put up a great
performance against you know, the guy that's been the number one heavyweight for a
while. He made it, you know, entertaining. He's got a tremendous
story, A very likable guy in terms of his personality and the way he
carries himself. Uh, you know, I'm a Francis and the guy who
fan. I didn't really know much about him. I don't watch MMA,
but all the build up to this fight, and and and and seeing him
in interviews, and then watching the match, and I've gone back on YouTube
and watch a couple of fights that he had in UFC. I mean,
a likable guy, no doubt about it. So I'm going back to somebody.
I'm going I'm going back to Willie Sutton when you're robbing the banks.
That's because that's where the money is. He just made reportedly, I saw
this in the British media, guaranteed over eight million dollars. He didn't make.
I know this, he didn't make eight million combined in his last three
UFC fights, because those fighters don't make that kind of money. By the
podcast, ten million dollars for this fight, gar so ten million. That's
before the points on the paper view that might that might have that might have
been five or six MMA main events. Under the ultimate fighting model, and
how they don't pay the fighters anywhere near what the big time boxers make.
So he's at my point, absolute lutely going to be back in a boxing
ring somewhere down the road to collect another eight figure pay day of some kind
with down the road. All right, other thoughts, No, I'm just
saying, like I think that if you made him with any of the forget
you know, first of all, the Fury rematch will always be there,
and I think that should happen at some point. A lot of people will
want to see a number one, but he could be in the ring with
anybody else. You know, you want to tell me you were to make
in a Francis Nano against Deontay Wilder, I'm in. You want to tell
me you're making in against uh Anthony Joshua count me in? Uh? I
mean those are interesting matchups, you know, pick a pick a cop contender.
Uh. You know he is, He's a real guy. He's shown
he can do it. He came off a two year layoff essentially right and
a knee surgery and injury. He never performed him before, and he basically,
you know, at worst lost by one point to the Heavyweight champion.
Rest of that card before we move on to the Dezonne match Room Mexic Coast
City World title card there what else? What else from this? I mean,
the undercard was a disappointment. I thought on paper was better than it
turned out to be. Uh. The co feature was the Fabia Wardley David
Adelai fight for the British title that Fabia worldly held and the vacant Commonwealth title.
A meaningful fight in British boxing. Both guys you know, on the
rise in their in their mid to late twenties. Both guys were undefeated some
bad blood because of the brawl that they and their teams got into at the
kickoff news conference in London a couple of months ago before you know, when
they were announcing this event. But it did not surprise me that Wordy won
the fight. He looked pretty good. He scored a seventh round knockout in
a pretty dominating fashion. And you know, Wardley is Uh. I don't
know if he's the future heavyweight Chamber of the world, but he's certainly a
guy that can find himself in some more significant fights, you know, as
he moves on with his career. Uh. You know, Adelier made a
very very bad mistake at the end of the fight where he he the referee
saved his life probably, but he pushed the referee in the ring. He
can't put your hands on the official. He's gonna probably take a fine and
a suspension for that. But for Wardley, this was a career biggest win
on a big stage. Good for him. Uh, you know, he
scored a knockdown with a real nice combination. There was a good right hand
left hand to the head. You know, Adelaide looked like he was wrecked
on that. He was laying with his head on the ropes. There was
blood that filling up his mouth. You know, he was wearing on white
mouth piece that turn basically pink and red. And so he, to Adelie's
credit, he beat the count. I mean, it was a hard knockdown,
but he was pretty much done and Wordley jumped him and just you know,
he was teeing off on him when the referee approprily stopped the fight and
then he pushed the ref and that was not cool. But for Wardley,
uh, you know, I say it's uh, he got the last laugh
because when they got into that brawl at the news conference, it was Wardley
that walked away with a cut on his eye and a cut on his chin,
and this is the time when they did it for real and it mattered.
He knocked the guy out, so good win for Wardley. And then
the other fights he had Joseph Parker, you know, the former WBO champion
who was a good friend and training partner of Tyson Fury. He blew away
Simon Keen. It was I thought I wouldn't say it was a fight that
I thought was gonna be a classic and that it was a super you know,
competitive close fight, but I figured Keen would hang in and give competition
to Parker for a few rounds. Did not turn out that way. Joseph
Parker looked pretty good, scored a third round knockout, beautiful uppercut that ended
the night. Put him on his on all fours and you know he's kind
of done and no way he was beating that count. And the one that
was the blatant mismatch of the of the more experienced fighters was the Machmandov fight
where he blitzed Junior right in what one minute and ten seconds, I want
to say, just blew out a complete stiff and the prospect that Frank Warren
put on the card. It was the very interesting guy to take a look
at the British South pop Moses Etama, who's only eighteen years old. He's
now six to zero with four knockouts. He beat Istavan Bernath on a first
round knockout, and you know he's a he's a guy to watch. I
mean, I didn't really draw anything because he wasn't facing any kind of like
real quality opponent, but he certainly has physical attributes that make you interest to
see how he develops. All right, let's move on to that match room
des own show for Oshaki Foster's WBC one hundred and thirty pound title. We
did talk a lot in the preview mode about what kind of fight would we
get from Rocky Hernandez level of competition, et cetera. We handicapped it on
the bet Us fight. You and I believed in Foster ultimately by decision.
We touched on this a little bit at the top of the show. Let's
let's get into it now again. Full disclosure from me because by the time
I got done with the dinner, et cetera, I joined this fight late.
I've not seen the entire fight. The only the only thing I've seen
is the outrage at the scoring, in particular the one judge that had an
eleven. Nothing for Hernandez. Give me the ray feel insight, because I
know you were on this from the jump, well from the jump. I
did not watch it live from the first about six or seven rounds. Also
because I was finishing writing the Tyson Fury story and didn't you know, so
I was kind of paying half assed attention to it, going back and forth
on my browser to look at that and then write a little bit on my
theory and the Ganu story. But in the end, as I say every
week when we talk about the fights, when we do the recaps, the
main thing was it was a good fight. If you spent your time to
watch this fight, you came away had to be satisfied. It was a
more entertaining actually than I expected. Not to say, I thought it would
be a pretty good fight, but it turned out to be even better than
I anticipated. Because O'shaki Foster, even though he has a lot of boxing
skills, you know, he's not afraid to mix it up. And Rocky
Hernandez, who maybe doesn't have the greatest skills in the world always wants to
mix it up, and that's exactly what happened, and so they kind of
collided. But Rocky Hernandez, he did a hell of a job and he
was winning the fight. We'll get into the scoring. I don't think it
was as much of a blowout as at least one of the judges had it.
But going into that eleventh round and then obviously into the twelfth round,
wors O'shaki ultimately got the knockout. They they as I mentioned at the beginning
of the show, because in Mexico, the WBC fights are used open scoring,
which means everybody knows what the scores are after round four and after round
eight. So after round eight and also after round four, Foster and his
team know that they're losing at least on two of the scorecards, and they're
losing somewhat wide on two of those score cards. So the urgency, if
you will, is there to make sure that you take care of business or
you going to lose your championship in your first title defense, and Oshaki Foster
went after it, and rock Herenendez obviously he knows the scores too. He
wants to make sure he preserves his lead and so he was still going after
it. Also, he doesn't have the kind of skills where you can just
sit on the lead and just you know, move around. I remember one
time, years and years ago talking to Shane Mosley about open scoring, which
I'm not a proponent of at all for a lot of different reasons. One
of the reasons that sticks to my mind is because what Shane Moseley said that
that he goes if I'm in a boxing match. This is when Shane was
coming off the win over the second win over Oscar de la Hoya and was,
you know, one of the top pound four pound fighters in the world,
and he was the reigning junior middleweight world champion, and he visited our
office at USA Today to talk to the editors and he was doing some publicity
and it was like a little break and he was literally just sitting with me
at my desk and we were shooting the shit and open scoring was in the
news and I asked him about it and he was like, you know,
what, if I know I'm winning a fight after eight rounds, I said,
I've got the kind of ability where I can make sure I don't get
touched for four rounds. And I'm just gonna do what I got to do
to win the fight. And that made me think to myself, Okay,
well that's not going to make for a very appealing right right. You've talked
about that before that it can backfire on guys decide to go on cruise control
because they know they haven't won. Now, in this case, that obviously
turned out to be the opposite of that, because it kind of forced Foster,
although he probably must have realized he's losing the fight anyway, wasn't like
that complicated in terms of who's winning, even if you don't agree with some
of For clarity, the one judge gave every round all the way through the
first eleven, so he's obviously got at eighty seventy two after eight rounds.
The other judge that had Hernandez winning after eight rounds had him up six points
seventy nine to seventy three. The third judge that ended up having Foster ahead
going into the twelve round, he had to fight even at seventy six each,
So just for clarity, that's where it stood after eight and then came
the dramatics, in particular that eleventh round. My god, so Foster is
really pressing because he knows, you know, it's kind of kind of he's
got to get the job done if he's going to keep the title. And
you know, we saw round eleven. I know there's still a couple of
months left in the year and anything can happen. There's still plenty of fights
to go, but you're gonna be hard pressed to find a more dramatic and
action packed round than round eleven between Oshaki Foss and Eduardo Rocky Hernandez. These
two guys just tore into each other, but the drama was because Foster knows
he's trailing. He's beating the living shit out of Eduardo Hernandez has him probably
literally one punch from the fight being top. The referee, Hector Afu,
who's a very experienced referee, is looking he's about to jump in. Rocky's
barely getting off a punch here and there. I'm like the fight at this
point, obviously, I'm watching the fight closely. The fight's gonna be stopped
and Foster's gonna win the title, and I'm pissed because we had to go
in the distance, and uh, we're gonna lose out on that. You
know. By around on the show, we did have the over. We
did have the over, as by the way, we ended up losing on
that on the decision by twenty two seconds or whatever it was. But in
any event, so he's beating him up bad, like the fight's gonna be
stopped. Hernandez is bleeding, He's all over the place. At one point
he turns his back sideways. Frankly, the referee could have stopped right there,
that's right. He turned his back and amazingly at the home where you
think the fit's over and the ref's gonna stop it, and he's turning his
back and he's bleeding, and he's all over the place. He can barely
fucking stand up. He comes back and he starts beating the shit out of
Foster, who maybe got to either punched himself out a little bit or maybe
got a little over confident and left himself open because he thinks he's about to
get the knockout. And he comes back and has Foster badly hurt in the
round, and then they're just teeing off on each other. It was a
really amazing round, epic round. I don't know, you're you're the greatest
resource. Is there another round that came to your mind immediately, that is
in that category for this year. I can't think of one, and we've
been doing this all year long, but I couldn't think of one that jumped
out immediately. Especially I thought of the back and I think this is the
fight between Navarrete and Liam Wilson. Yes, there was there was around there.
You're right where now Barante was maybe almost out of it, and I
think he knocked Liam Wilson down. So that's this is why you are who
you are. But that what I texted to you, because I said,
I'm in my hotel room, I'm trying to relax. I had already taken
a shower. I'm not gonna get TMI here, good waterflow pressure by the
way, and rolling withth Carolina. I'm trying. I'm trying to relax.
And I sat up off the couch watching that and went, Holy cap And
I texted you and said, that's in the neighborhood of Hagler and hearns it's
not the same. It's not Hall of Fame fighters. But folks, I've
I've put two or three people already last night in the day on to go
watch this replay and watch the eleventh round. Go see the eleventh round of
this fight. To that end, I think Foster was legitimately hurt too,
where he's maybe a moment from going down or in danger of being head In
the post fight interview, he talked about like, you know that he caught
him real good and that you know, he basically gave Rocky Hernandez credit for
being every bit the puncher he was built up to be, and and so
you know he he so that that was the eleventh round, and now the
twelfth round starts, and he still has to think I need the knockout.
I mean, maybe he won, at least I thought he won the he
did the corner say afterwards, again, I'm deferring to you. I don't
know this that they definitely knew those scorecards and he definitely do I need a
knockout because I don't know how where he was or Yeah, Bobby Benton,
his his UH trainer was definitely tell him to go after it. I just
don't remember what word he used as far as like how urgent it was.
But clearly he can't take the chance. You can't take the chance. Plus,
you're in Mexico, you're in the guy's backyard. That's right. You
know you're not going to mess around. And you know again to O'shaqi Foster's
credit. He know the deal and he knows he's on the road and he's
not the crowd favorite, and no one's doing him any favors. It's rock
Heronandez is a matxroom fighter, it's a matchroom event. Oshaki Foster is a
promotional free agent. No one's doing him any favors, and so he took
Matt. You know, I'm sure he's not the only boxer to ever say
this, but the one I remember seeing at first I always think about is
Lennox Lewis. I'm bringing my own two judges. That's right. He holds
up his right hand, he holds up his left hand. Well, O
Shacqie Foster brought his own two judges to that fight last night because in a
round twelve he finished what he started around eleven. He got him out of
there and did a great job. And I thought the referee was really generous,
benevolent, whatever you want to use that. After the second knockdown,
because Hernandez did not respond, did not put the gloves up, he wobbled
that that could have been over right there. He let him get hit some
more. And I'm not over dramatizing this. That's where somebody can get seriously
hurt, because I think part of it was let him finish, if he
can finish the round, we're close to the end. But man, uh,
just great dramatics. It turns out he needed it. Shout out to
Corey Erdman on the play by play, Now the Latin snake was not there,
Sergio Martinez or Sergio more excuse me? On the commentary, who is
the James if you know, he kept saying James, and I joined it
late. Whoever the James was, that's obviously a former fighter in the analyst
he was screaming over the top of Erdman in excitement. I think it was
Gay Risotto. Maybe it was I thought he said James, and I'll defer
to you again on who it was. Maybe it was Gay Brisotto and he
had Claudia Treo's right. I was Risotto Claudia. So they were animated,
and that that added to the drama and added to the moment. I get
that. It's just the analyst was screaming over the top of Corey. A
lot of that eleventh and twelfth round. That was a little much, but
this was dramatic stuff. Folks, give it credit, give it credit for
what it was. Huge win for Fosse, so as I always do,
what happens next now for Foster, after this win, he's become like a
kind of guy that you want to watch. I mean, he when he
was coming up and he was on Showbox and he had a couple of losses.
I mean, I'm not like holding the losses against it, but he
was not in the most exciting, entertaining fights. I thought the fight against
Jacobov that was in Dubai when he got the one the eliminator, that was
maybe not classic fight of the year, but it was a pretty solid fight.
He scored a twelve round knockdown against Jakabov to you know, I mean,
he won pretty wide on the cards, but he didn't know for sure
that that sealed it up for me. Won and he got the knockdown in
the last round, and he won the vacant title against Ray Vargas, who
he handed his first lawsuit. That was in February of this year on Showtime.
Again, not the fight of the year, but not a bad fight
at all, and now he comes in to fight on the road against Rocky
Hernandez and has an exciting fight and a tremendous finish in a round of the
year. You know what Oshaki Foster is. He's kind of grown on me
over the last several fights. As far as what's next, he did what
he did in the pre fight. He called out Joe Cordina. He wants
unify with the IBF champion. Cordeina fights next week in Monte Carlo on his
own in a fight that he'll be a heavy favorite in. Mattroom is the
promoter of Rocky Ernandez and did the show on Saturday. They're also the promoter
of Cordeina and are doing the show next Saturday. As I mentioned, is
my understanding that although he fought on the Mattrium card, he's not signed to
mattriom. Mattrium did the fight with Hernandez because Mattrium Boxing won the purse bid.
But I think if he can get a fight with Cordina, it seems
like a very doable fight. No reason why they can't make that. You
know, he has the IBF title Cordeina. But if you make if you
make a unification and you're not in your mandatory period. They'll definitely approve the
fight if you go by if you follow their their rules to get an exception.
It's literally in their rules that they'll allow a unification before a mandatory as
long as it's done before the mandatory is ordered. So if he wins next
week Cordina, I don't see any reason why they can't do that fight.
It's probably the bigger, biggest fight that Cordeina can have at the moment of
what's available as a unification. Oshaki Fosster was clear as day. If it
means going to the UK to do the fight, fine, you know,
as he said, you know, the ring is the ring. You know,
it's still the ring, no matter whether you're in the in the United
States or if you're in the guys hometown. It's all the same. So
I like that attitude and I would like to see that fight. I think
actually based on watching O'shaki in his last couple of fights and the kind of
puncher and kind of exciting fights we've seen Guardina in like rock them Off for
example, I think that's a heck of a fight. You know, one
more one more quick thing. So the judge in question and this was all
over social media. I believe that this person is more of a referee than
a judge. And you've often talked and we discussed this. They sometimes use
referees as judges, and then they referee another fight, and then a referee
that was earlier is now a judge in the next fight. That's the judge
in this case that gave eleven straight rounds to Rocky Hernandez here, which again,
where is the accountability at some point on that card even his two colleagues
when you talk about the range of acceptable scoring. When I picked this thing
up in the seventh round, I fought, Foster won the eighth, the
ninth, the tenth, and the eleventh round. All right, his colleagues
on the cards. The one judge that still had Hernandez ahead, gave him
the eighth, the ninth, and the eleventh, then give him the tenth.
The other judge that had Foster winning obviously gave him every round eight,
nine, ten, and eleven. And then you you have a judge that
doesn't give Foster a single round where he's behind eleven nothing. When I heard
that score, and I have to tell you what I always think about about
those types of Horendus Scores. Yeah, and I'm I'm sure this is not
the only example, but I think about it because it was a fight that
I covered at ringside and remember having a really close fight, a great fight,
a fight of the year type of candidate. And that was the first
match between Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez. This is it was not even a
world title fight. It was before Sergio became the middleweight champion. Right,
you've talked about this one before. Go ahead, Yes, this is in
Atlantic City. Uh, this is actually the fight right before Sergio defeat Kelly
Pavlock to win the middleweight title. So this is December of two thousand and
nine at the small room upstairs at Boardwalk Call in Atlantic, say, not
the big arena where he fought Sergio Martinez in the rematch. So Paul Williams
Sergio Martinez won tremendous battle. By the way, as an off shoot,
if you've never seen that fight, worth your time. Right, you've told
us about that, right, great fight. So they trade knockdowns in the
first round, both guys are on the deck. Phenomenal fight, and Sergio
Martinez, or rather Paul Williams wins the fight by a majority decision. I
had Sergio winning very very close fight. The judges had it close one fourteen,
one fourteen. The other judge had Sergio winning one fifteen one to thirteen,
which was perfectly reasonable. I had at one fifteen one to thirteen in
favor of Paul Williams and Pierre Binnoi's the judge in a fight where they both
were knocked down in separate rounds. By the way, the only round he
gave to Paul Williams, I mean, rather a surgeon Martinez was the knockdown
round and it was yet at one nineteen to one ten for Martinez. He
gave him eleven rounds. Same thing as we're talking about with this this wacky
scoring in the Foster fight, and that was even a much closer fight.
So it's there's always, as they say, there's always that one fucked up
score. It just seems to happen so all the time. I never forget
that particular score as long as I lived again. Just once more, I
know you're not saying this, where's the accountability on? You're not using any
more world title fights, You're not touching any more world title fights. So
Mauricio Suliman, who was the president of the WBC. Obviously the WBC title
fight, but he was in uh Saudi Arabia at the at the Tyson Fury
fight, who's the WBC heavyweight champion, and they were involved in that event
to a small degree. So Mauricio and I were texting early in the morning.
He was early in the morning in Saudi Arabia. It was very very
late night after the fight here in the United States, and he and I
were texting about it, and I had asked him, you know, we
were just kind of going back and forth about the fight that we had just
watched with the theory, and so I mentioned about the Foster fight, about
what a great not what a great round Round eleven was. I said,
I wasn't sure if you were able to watch it while you're over there doing
your stuff there, but you know, you got to make sure you check
it out. And then I mentioned about the scoring and and he said that
that just does not sound right and that when he went back and looked at
it later he texted me and said that was unacceptable, and uh, you
know, they'll be I forget the word he use, but there'll be consequences
or something to that degree, which he then later posted something on his Twitter
account similarly, and so hopefully there'll be some you know, I'm not even
saying you gotta like fire the guy or discipline the guy. But let's get
it. Let's get an explanation. Let's hear from the judge. What did
you see that made you be off by that many rounds compared to your colleagues.
That's all you asked for is is h is transparency. So I think
there will be some repercussions on that scorecard. Good on that. Also,
one more thing before we get to the news. Amanda Serrano did successfully defend
her titles. I have to confess again, I've not seen that. I've
seen the recaps. Give me a couple of quick things from that, because
this was not unexpected. She was a massive twenty to one favorite, so
go ahead. It was an entertaining, one sided ass kicking because Daniell Loramos,
who was her opponent, the WBO interim champion and her mandatory challenger,
showed a lot of heart, put up a lot of a lot of resistance
and you know, tried and she went after but she was just outclassed because
Amanda is a much better boxer, and a more skilled fighter, and a
bigger puncher, and you know, pretty much of you were going down a
checklist of who had the better in each attribute, you know, you'd probably
find an entire checklist filled with check marks next to Amanda Toronto's name, except
maybe heart, because she did show a lot of heart. Maybe they'd be
equal in that department. Anyway. So Serrano defended the title one twenty one
aweight on all three scorecards, and that sounds a little interesting when I say
one twenty one weight for a women's fight. And the reason why this was
a big deal, as we talked about in the preview, is because it
was the first time you've, or at least since that we can figure out
anyway, since two thousand and seven, that there was a women's world title
fight that went twelve rounds and three minute rounds. That I don't even know
if that that title fight was three minute rounds, but it was a twelve
round fight. But in terms of at this level, in many, many
years, a women's championship fighter or women's fight any kind, twelve rounds,
three minute rounds. They wanted to be like the guys. Serrano's team pressed
for it. Ramos was totally willing. She even talked about that in the
post fight. The Florida Commission agreed to do it. This fight took place
in Orlando, and you know, it was a little bit of a history
making thing in Toronto. Is looking for other things to motivate her because she's
accomplished so much, and that was a big deal for her. And she
made the point very clear after the fight that she intends for this not to
be the only time she does a twelve round fight at three minutes in length.
We'll see what other commissions are open to it, or if she continues
to fight in Florida. And so from that standpoint, you know, like
I said, good one sided fight. And on that same card they announcedaid
that when Jake Paul comes back and fights in December, it will also take
place there in Orlando and that sort of stuff. So so you know it,
it was pretty good. I'm glad they didn't conflict on the Saturday because
we already had a busy day with Theory and with O'shaki Foss. So let's
spread it out. I mean, there's seven days in a week. I
don't know why everything's got to be on a Saturday night, but do some
Friday nights as perfectly fine. Also a little more for us to enjoy and
not be all crammed at the same time. So I watched it. It
was good in they not listen. There was on the undercard of that fight,
not that it was like the biggest deal in the world, but the
co future on that card, by the way, was a fighter named Damien
les Kai who's now like six to oh I guess, fighting an opponent named
Ray Barlow who was seven and three going into the fight. Sport a gigantic
fight of the year, like knockout of the year kind of knockout in the
ninth round. Definitely worth checking out that highlight. All good stuff. Now
some news. Interesting, Why don't we follow up because you just mentioned Jake
Paul and the December fifteenth date that Most Valuable Promotions has also announced another fight,
even though Jake doesn't have an opponent yet for the date they announced another
fight, So follow up on that part of December. Yeah, so,
right before they started the pre fight intros for the main event between Serrano and
Ramos, they brought Shadeza Green and Franchion Cruise deserned into the ring and announced
that they will meet in the co feature of Jake's fight on December fifteenth.
They will fight for the vacant WBC women Super Middleweight title. Remember, Savannah
Marshall was the champion. She had beaten Franchion Cruise for the undisputed title,
ended up being relieved of or however you want to describe it. She no
longer has the WBC title because of an injury, so she's the quote unquote
champion in recess. She was supposed to have a mandatory defense against against Green,
but when she could not make that and went into recess because she's injured,
she's going to be out till like April, at least with her injury.
So they made Green and Franchion Cruz, who got off to a start
by talking some shit in the ring, They'll make that match. I mean,
look, Franchion Cruise was very unimpressive when she fought against Savannah Marshall,
and she's been, in my opinion, pretty unimpressive for most of her fights,
except maybe in her pro debut, which he lost, but it was
a phenomenal four round back and forth battle with Claressa Shields. But she's in
position to now try to regain this particular belt. Green is thirteen and ozer
with eleven knockouts. She was on I think it was on Jake's last undercard.
I was kind of unimpressed after despite all the hype that she's been getting.
But they are two of the better women in this weight class, and
they seem to have a beef with each other, and so they'll go after
it for the vacant WBC title. That's going to be the co feature.
And the good thing about the Jake Paul event that's coming up is for the
first time he will not be on pay per view. This is going to
be a de zone show where it's not a pay per view. He's going
to fight an actual boxer. I think the reason why his opponent has not
didn't announced yet, from my understanding, is because they had an opponent,
but that opponent came up with some kind of injury before they could announce the
fight, so they're trying to get a new opponent for Jake. Jake's got
problems with an opponent that doesn't want to fight after the the deal for whatever.
I who knows, but a real boxer that's a similar level of experience
and record. There you go, they're searching for that. Continuing on the
news, I saw something about this on ead Your Inside. Keishawn Davis tested
positive for marijuana in his recent fight in Texas. So explain what all of
this means, including for his short term future here. I know he took
to social media and was saying, didn't deny it. Was saying, hey,
it's actually legal where I am. But that's not the whole story.
Give me some more, right, So he defeated or you know, on
the undercard when Janebek defeated Gualtieri to unify two of the Middleway titles. This
is from a fight that took place on October fourteenth. The fight was in
Rosenberg, Texas, the suburb of Houston, and he won the fight on
a majority decision. I thought he dominated won pretty easily. But after the
fight, they took the normal drug test and it came up positive for marijuana.
He'd say, Okay, like you said, marijuana is legal, and
then he plays is it's certainly not perceived in any way, shape or for
him as a performance enhancing drug. It is legal in many places in the
United States. Why would that cause him to have the result of the fight
change from a victory like the Commission and Texas did to overturn it to make
it into a no contest. And on top of the no contest, he
took a ninety day suspension. And the reason is because their rules are antiquated.
But it's still on the ban list and you still face a discipline if
you test positive for it. So that's the thing you have to I mean,
you may disagree with it, you may not like the rule. You
may think it's antiquated and ridiculous, which I happen to think is the case.
I don't smoke marijuana. It's not my thing, but again there do
it, and yeah, fair enough, and it's legal, but you've got
to be aware and cognizant of the rules of the Commission you're fighting it.
So I thought that, and I have been covering Keishaan Davis since he turned
pro. I picked him as my twenty twenty two Prospect of the Year.
He seems like a pretty mature, grounded young man. I've had the occasion
of interview and speak to him be around him a bit. First of the
early fights in his career, so I was a little kind of surprised when
he went on his social media and he said, I'm going to read the
exact quote, so I get right, I apologize to my family and friends
that I can't perform December ninth. But and then he put this in all
capital letters, but I will not stop doing something that is legal and being
sold in America. So I would take issue and believe that to be a
very immature statement because while you may agree with it that it's ridiculous to take
a disciplinary situation because of a of a of a minor marijuana thing and have
your your your victory overturned to a no contest. The reason why it's immature
is because if you're going to keep doing it, you're and you're going to
fight and commission places that that that that tests for marijuana. You're going to
be suspended again and again and again and again. You got to follow the
rules where you are. So I use it like the same thing. Where
I live. You go on the highway to speed limits sixty miles an hour
I think are sixty five miles an hour, but there's other places where it's
seventy five. You're on a highway in Texas. But if you're doing sef
we're you get to take it. You got to follow the rules where you
are. I would recommend Davis if you want to smoke weed, either make
sure it's out of your system before you fight, or don't fight in a
commission where they're going to test for it. I hope they changed the rule
at some point, but he's going to take a suspension. He mentioned December
ninth. The reason why that's also important. Normally, if you take a
three month suspension as a professional boxer, it has zero impact on your schedule
because that's such a short period of time. As it turns out, Kishan
Davis was supposed to be back on December ninth to fight on ESPN on a
televised main you know, on the main card, on the undercard when Robas
Ramirez defends his featherweight title against Rafael Espinoza. These are fights and cards that
haven't been officially announced yet, but that's what's planned. It's taking place in
Pembroke Pines, Florida, and Kishan will not be fighting that night, and
that's unfortunate for him. He was supposed to fight Jose Pedraza, the former
two division world title older. I am told by top rank that when he
is eligible to fight again, they will reschedule that fight, but it'll just
be sometime in the early part of next year. But it's still uh.
I don't know about you, but I'm sure Keishaon Davis wouldn't mind getting a
nice paycheck December ninth though for those Christmas presents. But you screwed it up.
You screwed up. And I will just say this just in general rules,
Yes, follow rules, but in general terms, I've been around professional
sports, covering it for a living at many different sports, many different levels,
and the best of the best in all of these different sports don't do
recreational drugs. So you need to outgrow that. I'm just saying in general,
you need to outgrow that if that was in your background. The best
of the best are not recreational drug users. You got to move on from
that. Be mature enough to move on from that. And if you're going
to be a big I mean I I smoke marijuana, okay, Well,
so that and that, you know that may be that And I don't know
how many of them do it in training, and I don't know how many
of them do it, you know, well after their careers over Mike Tyson
obviously continues to do it. But at most of the elite levels of professional
sports, they're not recreational drug users. They aren't. They aren't regular recreational
drug users because that that begins to become a factor, it begins to become
part of their life, and it begins begins to become a big problem.
And we've seen it a hundred times. So I'm just making a bit hotleaxically.
My advice to Keishaw, not that he asked for. My advice is,
looks, follow the rules and you'll be yes. All right. One
more thing, there's an injury to Takuma in a way for his upcoming November
title of fanse that is now off. Details on that, well, that
was a bummer. So Takuma in a way of course, as the the
younger brother of Noya, in a way who when Noy. When Noya vacated
the undisputed bantam wait title and moved up and ultimately defeated Stephen Fulton to win
two of the belts at junior Feederate, his brother won the one of the
belts that that his brother vact he won the WBA title. He was scheduled
to make his first defense against Sherwin and Kassas, who was the former title
holder at junior Vanda Waite, who was one of the better fighters for a
long time in that weight class, and that was supposed to headline of card
in Tokyo that was gonna be on ESPN Plus here in the United States with
a second title fight between the flywaight w B champion Artem Delakian against a Japanese
challenger. Anyway, the fight is postponed. There's no said date when they're
going to reschedule it because to coom in Away suffered a rib fracture getting ready
for the fight in his training camp, and so now the entire card has
been postponed, which is a bummer because, as we've discussed many times as
the degenerate I am, one of my favorite things in boxing is those overseas
Japanese cards, especially now that there's all readily and easily available in the United
States on ESPN Plus. So I really enjoy those cards, and we'll just
have to wait probably a little bit of time for them to reschedule it.
Don't use the strong word degenerate. I just think that you're well rounded.
No, I say I'm a digen you call yourself that, but I have
a higher opinion of your veracity of viewing the sport and watching the sport all
right, So that that is a bummer, right Nostalgia time here to wrap
it up on the podcast, and one of the one of the fights for
all time right now in boxing that you know by the nickname the Rumble in
the Jungle is approaching fifty years ago. It's forty nine years ago coming on
Monday here as we released the podcast Sunday night into Monday, October thirtieth,
nineteen seventy four, Muhammad Ali in the Jungle of Zaire, Africa scored.
I think you wrote it as arguably one of the most famous boxing matches in
history. It's arguably his most famous fight. You could have that debate.
What about the Rumble in the Jungle almost fifty years ago. Well, of
course famous because Ali employed what became known as the rope ad dope strategy,
which means let George put him on the George Foreman put him on the ropes
and punch himself out. You know, it's not the wisest idea necessarily,
especially you don't have a good chin. But Ali was blessed with maybe one
of the greatest chins in the history of the sport. And in fact,
George Foreman, you know, very aggressive, punched himself out and allowed Ali
to come back and not I think more than just knocking out because of a
heavy punch, but also had him so mentally broken and so messed up and
so you know, confused and frustrated. That that led to part of what
happened when he dropped him in the eighth round and ended up getting the knockout.
But you said that I think that it I think my I mean,
yeah, there's I think it's universal that people would say it's one of the
most famous boxing matches in history. My my personal viewpoint is the Rumble in
the Jungle is the single most well known fight that ever took place in the
history of the sport. I say that above the Thriller in Manila. I
say that above Ali Fraser one. I say that above any of the famous
fights from the you know, early part of the you know, the twentieth
century, whether you know a Jack Johnson or pick a fight, you know,
the ones they've called fight of the century. And because it had the
combination of everything, it was the modern times where it could be seen across
the globe via satellite. It was taking place in an exotic location. Muhammad
Ali, who was a obviously a huge name, was a huge underdog.
He had been an underdog before, but never to that level, so that
was part of it. Foreman was a devastating heavyweight champion at the time.
He had hummeled Kenny Norton. He had pummeled Joe Frasier early knockouts. How
in the world is Muhammad Ali gonna survive? They had the whole thing because
they went to Africa with the festival. The postponement of the fight. That
led to a lot of the lore of this fight because Foreman had gotten cut.
It was delayed for six weeks. Good nostalgia on that and a lot
of people so the young crowd we always talked to, the millennials, the
under thirty year olds, the gen z s, whatever you want to call
it, take into account here. The magnitude boxing is a mainstream, prominent
thing. Ali had made it worldwide because he was fighting in Europe in titled
defenses. Previously was fighting all over the place. So now they're coming to
fight in Africa, and you're right, George Foreman suffers a cut in training
in September of seventy four, and there was real fear that he was going
to leave Africa and go back there. They wished to Texas and so Ali.
As the story and from what I've read and and seen it heard about,
Ali did a lot of convincing with George that you need to stay here,
we need to follow through, we need to have this fight. It's
that big of a deal because there was some fear that if he left,
they weren't ever gonna fight in in the in the after the fact, because
Ali won first of all, at the time, it's still to this day
one of the biggest upsets in boxing history because again George was a huge favorite.
Ali made a certain amount of history. Because now it's become a little
more common in the years, others have done it, but at the time,
no heavyweight champion it ever regained the title other than Floyd Patterson, and
by Ali doing the win against George, he became only the second heavyweight to
ever regain the heavyweight championship, which is a big deal. And by the
way, it wasn't just some random like I regained the w b C or
the IBF or the w BO uh you know, or the or the WBA
title. That was when there was you know, one champion basically right there
was champion of the World Beachampionship and he regained for the second time. So
it was a bit. He would go on, of course to become a
three time heavyweight champion when he defeated Leon Spinks in their rematch. But the
reality is all the things we've just mentioned, the setting, the stakes,
the upset, the action, uh, the delay, all of it,
you know, the fact that the world could watch via satellite, it just
made it to me it's the most storied fight out there because even of Ali's
other big fights, of which he's had many, this is the one they
did documentaries about more than any other. This is the one that that became
the biggest famous fight ever, it seems to me. And it was a
huge upset and it was Ali doing what nobody thought he could do. We
talked about what frances na Gan who did with theory. Now he didn't win,
but people thought Ali was going to get destroyed, and he won.
He did win and tactically There's one more thing here, and it's interesting too
because Angelo Dundee talked about this forever where he said, very truthfully, I
was not in on the whole ropodope thing that was Muhammed's thing during the fight.
And there's even I guess there's some film or whatever where they could you
could hear Angie saying to him Angelo Dundee, get off the ropes a couple
of times in the corner, get off the ropes. But one of the
things that Ali was doing subtly and tactically is he was grappling Foreman around the
head and the neck and wrestling him and leaning on him. And he did
it not just once, not just five times, he did it fifteen,
twenty twenty five times, trying to wear him down, wear him down,
punch him out, and then eventually sprung the big right hand on him out
of one of those exchanges. So there you go. So what that you
just jogged my memory on something years ago. I was I was with George
and we were doing I was writing a piece. I was ghost writing a
piece for George for a thing about Angelou Dundee, and I met with George.
He had we were in Atlantic City for an HBO show, and after
he did it is a production meeting at the fighter meetings for George and I
had schedule time, so we found we did. We met in a conference
room in the casino in Atlantic City and we sat for about, I don't
know, half an hour forty five minutes, and we discussed Angela. So
I was taking notes and recording this because I was going to write this piece
as George, you know, as told George's words, but I'm the one
that's going to write it, you know, a ghostwriter. So the whole
idea was to write in George's voice, you know what Angelo Dundee meant him
and you know, because Angela trained him later in his career. And one
of the stories he told me, which I had not known at that time,
and you just brought it up to me. He remembered that all through
that fight in the Marumbo and the Jungle that we're talking about, of which
the forty ninth anniversary is on Monday, that the whole fight, he said,
I kept hearing this this voice yelling at Ali, you know, get
off the ropes, Get off the ropes. And it was driving me absolutely
crazy. And so when I made my comeback and I was going towards fighting
for the title again, I'm like, I want that guy in my quarter
because I want that brilliance and I don't want him to be against me yelling
the same shit to my opponent to do that. So he went out.
Because of what happened in Zaire, he purposely pursued Angelo would be interesting to
work his corner and be with him on his team because of the brilliance that
he did tactically with Ali in doing that in the fight against him. You
know all those years earlier in Zaire, and uh, that's one of the
one of the most famous fights, if not the most famous fight in the
history of boxing. All Right, one more quick take then we're moving on
to one more piece of nostalgia. Just give me a thirty second answer.
I loved I obtaining you. I'm giving you my opinion. I love Will
Smith as Muhammad Ali in the Michael Man you know documentary, going back and
looking, did you like Will Smith playing Muhammad Ali in that movie, including
in the Rumblin Jungle? What's the Rayphiel opinion? Quickly? First of all,
that was and it was not a documentary because it was an act.
It was not an art. It was not a documentary. But it was
like a recreation of Ali's rise Tuesday, and it actually ends with that fight.
They don't do the thriller in Manila, they don't do the end of
his career, but go ahead. Will Smith, of course, was brilliant
as Ali. He had the mannerisms down, he had to look obviously,
he had the voice down. He you know, he got himself in that
kind of physical condition for the fight, so he could, you know,
correctly make himself look like Muhammad Ali physically. So from that standpoint, he
was great. I didn't care for the movie because it was done in a
non dramatic way. It was basically a resuscitation or a recitation rather of Ali
in chronological order. There was no story. Why would I watch that when
I can just go watch the fights and the real documentaries and things that happened
at that time, the real thing instead of this two or three hour thing
that was just like less interesting than the actual fights. The movie. You're
supposed to dramatize things, make them interesting, make them more entertaining, bring
a little drama, a little pizaz with whatever your you know, way you
shoot it, the music, whatever it is. And I just never liked
that film. I mean it's not like the worst I ever saw. But
there are so many options if you want to watch a long form thing about
Ali's life for career, I don't need a Michaelman movie with Will Smith imitating
Ali when there's tons of archival footage available and numerous documentaries. I could give
me the When We Were Kings, for example, which is about the Rumble
in the Jungle, which is a documentary that's phenomenal that I think one Oscar
Awards. But that's just about this. But I think, in fairness,
there are a ton of people that aren't even sports fans, much less boxing
fans that gravitated to the movie because of Will Smith and about the story of
Ali. We are hardcore boxing, so it's not the same for us.
So I get that. I think Will Smith. Will Smith did a great
job, but I would give him like a nine and a half I would
give him. And he got nominated for an Academy Award for playing Ali in
that movie, so go back. That movie's now almost twenty five years old.
But yeah, the movie, the movie, his performance was obviously Oscar
worthy, but I just didn't I wasn't care for the movie overall, all
right, you know, I can watch the real thing, all right.
Twenty five years ago, Tuesday, Halloween, Halloween. We covered this,
by the way, on the bet Us Show. You would not come clean
on dressing up for Halloween. We were talking about I was Evil Caneval with
a bed sheet as a kid, a football helmet and riding around the bike.
You wouldn't come clean about dressing up for Halloween. Anyway. It's Halloween,
everybody, Tuesday. I did dress up for Halloween. I just don't
remember what the costumes were. I really don't. You didn't as the heavyweight
champion of the world with boxing gloves on and go doors brow. It didn't
happen. Uh So, if you what you want, maybe maybe even I'll
do is I'll call my mom and I'll have I'll have her to look in
the family album and see what my photos look like. Fair enough on that
Halloween is Tuesday. Halloween is also the twenty fifth anniversary of Rayfield Ringside for
a Prince Nassim Hahmed and Wayne McCullough. And why is this prominent and special
for you twenty five years ago? The fact that this is twenty five years
ago is sick that I'm at a point now in my life where I can
say I was ringside for fights that were twenty five years ago. I know
that closed my fucking mind. So the reason why this was a big deal
is Okay, number one, A Mad's a Hall of Famer, and I
mean just in terms of his star power and being featherweight world champion. I
mean just on that alone, it was memorable for me being there. But
it did and it wasn't like this particularly great fightle though he hit Wayne McCullough
with everything, with the kitchen sink, as they say, and Wayne mcculluugh
has one of the greatest chins in the history of boxing in that ali level
who just never wavered and went the distance and lost a decision. But it
meant a lot to me because that was a time period in October of nineteen
ninety eight. I was in a four month time frame from August of ninety
eight till the end of the year of ninety end of December, where I
had left my newspaper that I worked that full time in Bingham to New York
and I relocated to the Washington, DC area to work at USA Today in
a program that was called a loan because my newspaper in Binghamton was owned by
the same company that owned USA Today, and they had a program where they
would take either very experienced, kind of older journalists that were looking to maybe
recharge their batteries or you know, pick up a little training and sort of
you know, do something different for a change, and they would send them
to this loan program. And the other folks that they sent to the loan
program were people within the company that I identified as up and coming journalists that
had a chance to go do something, you know, more significant in their
career. I was fortunate when I applied when my newspaper in Dinghamton came up
as one of the papers in the company GNNET that was supposed to give somebody
to this program for four months. I was selected, and I left New
York and I went and I lived in the Washington, DC air where I
still live today, and I worked at USA Today for four months. And
I remember in the first meeting that they called all of us in. It
was myself and like eleven other people in my group that worked in all different
departments of the paper, and they told us flat out, we're going to
work you to death, basically. But if there's things that you want to
do besides what we've assigned you to do. Let us know. And if
you're completing your assignments and you're doing a good job, you know, we
will definitely let you and we want you to expand your horizon and go do
other things. So I was assigned at the time when I got there,
this is at the end of the summer into the fall. I was assigned
to the baseball desk. And what was happening in nineteen ninety eight. It
was the Great home run Chase between Mark maguire and Sammy Sosa. So my
job on a nightly basis, on a daily basis, was reporting and writing
about things related to the home run chase on an every day like as a
matter of fact, you know, that consumed my life for those couple of
months. But I was getting everything done. I was getting good reviews from
my bosses and my editors. But I wanted to do boxing also, so
I had suggested a couple of stories to them. They let me do it.
I knew that they liked my work when they had called me in and
asked me if I would write a particular story on a boxing event when it
happened. I was like, okay, that's cool. I came in on
my day off to work on it. In any event, when Ahmed was
fighting McCullough was taking place in Atlantic City, so I thought, okay,
that seems like a cool thing. I asked them if I could go cover
it, and they were like, yeah, go cover it. So I
went to Atlantic City and I caused my first HBO fight. It was it
was only the third boxing event I had ever covered fore action Ever, I
had covered the your first card I ever covered. A couple of years earlier,
I had covered a Mark Johnson world title fight in Oneida, New York
at the Turning Stone when I worked in Binghamton. I convinced my boss to
let me go because it was a day trip for all the people that lived
in our community and it was their first ever boxing event. And now here
comes Haamed. This is now my first time at a big fight. Really
because it's HBO, it's Atlantic City, I and so I have so many
vivid memories of that entire three year, three days I guess that I spent
in Atlantic City. I met many of the HBO people I met, you
know, many of the people involved PR people and stuff. Some of the
people I'm still friendly with and deal with on a regular basis to this day.
And so it was a very meaningful fight. It was very exciting to
be there. Ahmed won the fight. You had another world title fight in
the junior featherweight division in the co feature the excellent South African champion Vianni Bungu
with with with a significant victory against Daniel Romero. So yeah, when I
hear that that's twenty five years ago, it's absolutely mind boggling to me.
And of course, if you ever go back and watch watch any of that
particular fight, you'll see the legendary ring walk that the Prince made that night
where he came in in a graveyard mock graveyard Jackson's Thriller, which was a
wild and that was taking place, I think, if I remember correctly,
pretty much right behind me. So it was, you know, pretty legendary.
And also on that card, it wasn't on HBO, but I got
a chance in person for the first time to watch Marco Antonio Barrera. He
won the vacant WBO one twenty two pound title off television. It was on
internationally in the UK and other places against Richie went in in an early knockout
and oh, by the way, a young man from a Manchester, England
who was eight and oh that night going in the ring very early in his
career, who knew what would become of him. But Ricky hadn't won on
that card in So you know again it may not be the biggest deal for
most people. In my personal journey in this sport and covering it, it
is among the most meaningful events I've ever covered. And like I said to
my wife when I told her we were going to be talking about it,
and I couldn't believe it's been twenty five years. I said, I remember
more from those three or four days twenty five years ago than I remember what
we did yesterday. That's crazy. It made that big of an impression on
you and shape to be. But that's a great program, and that's what
internships. It doesn't exist anymore. Mentoring programs are for what do you want
to be? And a young Rayfield didn't want to write about baseball and home
run chases. He wanted to write about boxing. No, I listened,
the rest is the rest. I know you liked baseball, but your passion
is boxing, and this helped you get on the road to be what you
became. I was twenty eight years old and I had a full time sports
trading job in Binghamton and enjoyed that very much, but aspired to a larger
audience, to a bigger deal beat as opposed to covering minor league baseball and
college sports and things along those lines. I did this thing in USA pay
for the four months. I wrote a handful of boxing stories while I was
there, and when I left it went home to back to my gig at
at Bingington. When the four months were over, I stayed in touch with
my editors at the USA Today. I wanted I didn't you know, I
wanted to go back there and work desperately. And you know what, like
a year later, it paid off because they called me and they hired me
to be their boxing writer. So that's why that's an important event for my
life, no question. All right, we love all of this, some
great stuff with the recaps, the news, the nostalgia. As always,
you know what we're done for October basically this is it. We'll be back
in November with the big fight weekend preview coming this weekend down the stretch for
the final two months of the year. Great stuff here on this and anything
else. I think we're good. I think we're done here on this.
Are we good? Yeah, we're good. I mean we got some we
got some solid fights coming up that we're going to be talking about, obviously,
and I'm looking forward to that. We got to you know, I
think the biggest fights of the year are pretty much in the books at this
point, but we still got some good action coming up that we'll talk about
it. I'm looking forward to seeing Borgina for example. We preview going into
the weekend Thursday night and the Friday. We recap coming off the weekend,
which what you're listening to right now, Sunday night into Monday, and again
us great guests as well coming up that we'll have on the podcast feed.
Thank you to the audience, Rate US, Review, US, Apple Podcasts,
Freaker, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Dan, have a
great week. Thank you, my friend, you too, my friend.
I will talk to you all right. Happy Halloween, all the trick or
treaters, everybody being safe on Tuesday as well with Halloween coming here in the
US. For now, we are good. You've been listening to the fight
freaks unpe Recap podcast