Off a weekend that has seen Emanuel Navarati win a tremendous fight in Arizona,
that has seen Anthony Joshua eventually get he has knockout of Robert Hollanius, that
has seen another Bandom weight title win free Manuel Rodriguez, and Rayphiel was ringside
of that. When we're ready to recap all of that, give you fight
news, give you nostalgia and more. It is the Fight Freaks Unite Recap
podcast. Thank you for finding us as part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast
feed. Wherever you get your podcast Apple Podcasts, Google podcast, Spotify,
we come your way off the weekend Sunday night into Monday, depending on when
you hear the show. Full disclosure, we're doing this late Sunday afternoon.
It has been over one hundred and eleven degrees with the heat indecks in Tampa.
I have been in the pool in North Tampa. Rayphael has a story
on his own. I know how hot it is there. But you have
a showed you have disregarded. You have decided against a ten doing something on
a Sunday afternoon. First of all, how are you a busy fight weekend?
How are you how are things. I'm good. It was a busy
fight weekend, real busy. Three three shows took cover in the same time.
So, like you said in the intro, I was ringside at the
Showtime event headlined by Emmanuel Rodriguez winning the vacant IBF bantamweight title against Melvin Lopez
in a terrible fight and frankly a terrible card unfortunately. But look, I
went not because I thought it was the best fight of the weekend. All
I'm always happy to go ringside and see my fellow ringside colleagues and my friends
at Showtime and PBC, etc. Because that casino where they held that fight,
at the MGM National Harbor in Oxen Hill, Maryland, is about a
half an hour from my home, so it was easy to go over there.
But I watched during breaks in the undercard and during the really uninteresting preliminaries.
I had my laptop, I'm and I was watching the Joshua fight against
Robert LENNIEUS and writing my story from ringside, and that's how I handle it.
And I even saw a Rayphiel tweet that you were watching the beginning of
Naparate and Valdez on ESPN from the car in the parking lot, am I
correct on the phone. I wasn't read what the timing was going to be
of the events now in terms of showtime, because of the fact that the
first two fights lasted a less than a total of three rounds and then the
main event went twelve rounds though, but they're telecast was done pretty quickly,
so it didn't last like deep into the night relative to your typical better so
that was not a big thing. So I was resigned to the fact that
I was probably gonna miss it live and watch it without knowing the result.
I would have known, I would have like not gone on Twitter or not
check my email. I would have just gone straight to my either my office
for ESPN plus on my computer, gone to my you know, DVR from
ESPN whatever. But anyway, the point was I was going to watch that
fight not knowing what happened however, whatever. But I looked at the timing
and when I got to my car at the parking garage at the MGM National
Harbor getting ready to make my you know, roughly thirty in a drive home
with which was easy at night because there's no traffic get at that time of
night. Uh. I immediately went onto my phone to see what was up,
and literally as I popped onto ESPN plus his feed of the event,
they were standing in the ring and my man Mark Shanook was doing the ring
introduction. So I'm like, I got the most perfect timing in the row.
So I sort of had to make an executive decision there. So I
had my car on, I got the AC rolling, and I sat in
my car for the next you know, fifty minutes or so. Wait,
I didn't know that I watched the whole fight that way. Oh yeah,
you didn't just watch the beginning, make the drive and then come back and
go back to the beginning and watch. Okay, watched. I sat in
the car and I watched the entire fight. Did anybody come up at any
point and tap on the windows? Everything? Okay? No? Parking National
Harbor. There was a million cars there. The place is open twenty four
seven. There was you know, there were still tons of people there.
I mean, I was minding my business. I wasn't like loitering. I
wasn't like having like open cans of years. I have to have fun with
you. Did you let out a couple of exploit is holy you know what
on a couple of those rounds, because there was obviously action in the ray
Field automobile. Were you will you shadow boxing a little bit the driver's seat
here? What's going on? Come on, I was not shadow boxing.
I was in my car. The car was running, I had the air
condition on, the windows were ropping. I'm sitting there and I'm watching the
watching the fight on the same phone that we're doing this zoom to record today's
podcast alone. Let me let me tell you this, by the way,
as far as what you mentioned earlier that I'm skipping something, we were talking
about this off the air before we started to tape this, and I told
this to my wife many years ago. You know, when you're married and
you have kids, and you know this because you've got twin daughters. I
have a ten year old son. They have their friends, and there's a
lot of fucking birthday parties. There's always a fucking birthday party. I mean,
there's been weekends are already flying and it's because the birthday party keep going.
There's been weekends where there's two birthday parties, three birthday parties, whatever.
So today not unusual. There's a birthday party that says swim party at
the community pool of one of my son's friends from his one of his activities.
And so my wife and my son went to the birthday party from I
believe from four thirty till seven to thirty, which gives us our nice window
of fight in my house to do this podcast. And uh, but I
told my wife a long time ago, I'll do a lot of things,
and you know, I love my wife and I love my son, but
I'm not doing fucking birthday parties. I'm not doing it now. I'll go
if it's like close friends of ours, like our neighbors or people that were
close to like and they've got their kid having a birthday but day, I
have no problem. I'll go. But when it's like some kids that my
friend that's my son's sort of like, you know friend, but you know,
not best buddy or closest friend, just somebody from the activity. Rayphiel
doesn't do that shit for you. Okay, So that's like the undercard fights
birthday parties. If you will, I will say two things. First of
all, birthday birthday parties are crazy, especially with little kids. So those
are the parents can identify. We get that. We get that. The
second thing is if it's a birthday party at a place now you said,
like a community center with a pool, but like for example, I'm gonna
give them a plug even though they don't sponsor the podcast. And I promise
we're getting to the fight recaps in just a second. But you have not
gone through torturous. They should use this on trying to interrogate the terrorists.
They should make them go to a place like Chuck E Cheese on a Saturday
night for a birthday party, because my god, my god, I've done
that. You've done that, and those that are parents that have done that
are nodding along and cheering us on right now on recap because the night that
I was there, there were more people there than we're at some like sporting
events that I have been to, and there had to be twenty seven birthday
parties because they were lined around the perimeter of the place with birthday cakes.
And I said to my wife then, much like Raphael, never again,
never again, are we doing this. So Number one, my son says,
the pizza at Chucky Cheese is good. We'll teach you all right.
Number two. In April that just passed, we had my son's birthday party
at a kind of a high, kind of upscale bowling alley that also had
games and stuff that was actually a lot of fun. The food was good
and parents had a good time. There was a Rayfield was down with that
type of birthday party. I like it. Yes, that was the That
was the day that the Joe Joyce Zang July fight took place and I lost.
I was able to watch, and then it lost my connection in the
car, so I didn't. I wasn't able to watch until I got home.
I knew what happened. I would have been my wife was driving.
I could have watched it in the car, perfect timing. It didn't work
out that way. And uh so, yeah, I don't. I don't.
I don't do the birthday party thing. The worst part. You talking
about doing them at places, and parents will know, if they're listening what
I'm talking about when they have it, not at a chucky cheese or a
swimming pool or something, when they go to like the climbing place or the
gym mrie type of place, the ball pit, which to me, it's
germ pit. Like I'm washing my hands like eighty six times because I've been
there done that where they jump on the fucking trampolines for forty five minutes.
That's like a that's like a that's like a Petri dish. There was places
but laser tag and I'll get it with the birthday parts, all good stuff.
Let's get to the fights here, Let's get to what happened. Let's
start with Navarat Valdez and we'll get it. We'll work chronologically to Anthony Joshu
was knockout winning the match Room to Zone card in London, and then work
to your card as you mentioned, where Emmanuel Rodriguez did win the IBF bannom
weight title that he once held before. Tremendous fight and we said, you
said, this has the chance to have fireworks and be really good. Navarante
was the better guy. Out slugged as the phrase that I kept using.
He out slugged Valdez that I was brutal from about the ninth round on.
I was frankly surprised that there wasn't more concerned to stop the fight in the
eleventh or twelfth round, especially because of the eye. Those are my thoughts
Navarante gets arguably, would you not agree the biggest win to this point in
his career. Probably your thoughts on what you saw on the win. It
was as advertised, it was a great fight. Yeah, it was a
terrific fight. I mean, certainly your highest profile win of his career.
And the fact that I thought it was gonna be an action, exciting fight.
It wasn't like I was, you know, uncovering you know, the
cure to cancer or anything like that. That's pretty much what everybody thought was
going to be the case. And it wasn't very subtle on behalf of Top
Rank, who had Marco antonio'brera and Eric Morales helping out with the promotion and
being involved in the event as being that people thought this was a throwback to
their great trilogy, which you know I covered in person Fight number two and
Fight number three. Uh, they were, you know, tremendous battles and
they're all time great fighters, and uh, you know, it's wonderful that
you can have that sort of sense of history. We don't do that enough
in boxing. And we talked about a lot of the nostalge on our section
at the end of the show. But when you go to like the All
Star Game in baseball and they have the old timers come out and they introduced
the All Decade team, or they bring out this pass grade from the hometown
that's hosting the game. Those types of things. I mean, so I
wish they did that more in boxing, so having Barrera and Morales part of
it, and then the fight to live up to the expectation from the standpoint
of the action. Now, granted, this is not going to go down
as a Barret Morales fight, but it is they bonified, can tender for
the fight of the year. In my opinion, these guys laid it all
on the line. They just threw a bazilion punches. I agree with you
about Oscar Valdez's right eye was so badly swollen and so messed up. I
was kind of disgusted, to be honest, that nobody from the commission,
the doctor never went one time to my knowledge that I can tell, to
either examine the cut or the the in the problem between rounds or at any
point in the fight called the time now to have the doctor examine it.
You know, the referee you call it fim out to have him examine it
at any point. And Oscar Valdez's credit, this is a man that would
never quit. He'll go out on his shield every time. And I say
that based on his history because I was there in Carson, California in the
driving rainstorm, although I was underneath the arena in the media room because we
couldn't work at ringsidecause it was so rainy, but where he laid it all
on the line and fought Scott Quick, who had come in dramatically overweight.
He went through with the fight anyway and fought when he didn't have to fight
and made a twelve rounds, about nine of which he did so with a
badly oken jaw that was wired shot for six weeks after the fact for something
you know in terms of how long it was wired shot. So this is
a guy with a huge heart. And Navarett, by the way, he
got hit with all kinds of clean left hooks all night long, and amazingly
he comes out of the fight. He didn't look like he had a glove
late on him. But he took punishment also, but Valdez took more,
and it was it was a little surprising to see the scores as wide as
they were. One of the judges had at one nineteen to one on nine.
Lisa Jampa who we'll get into. That, we'll get into. Yeah,
Chris Wilson had its one eighteen to one ten. Zachary Young had at
one sixteen to one twelve. I had at one sixteen to one twelve.
That felt like the consensus. There was a few people that had it maybe
one seventeen, but but the ten to two, eleven to one seemed a
little disrespectful to Valdez. I kind of get it. He Valdez's best time
in the fight was really those middle rounds, partly when it feels it felt
like that Navarette was having more issues with his damaged right hand, and he's
a degree yes, but uh, in the end, it was a tremendous,
tremendous fight. It was what was advertised. They wanted that kind of
fight, they said it before, and they lived up to it. They
fought like the Mexican warriors that we know that they are. They honored the
great legacy of Bram Rows and every great Mexican fighter that fought those types of
fights, every great fighter that fought any of those types of action fights,
to be honest, whatever their nationality was, but Mexico is obviously such a
big part of the tradition in boxing, and you know, I loved it.
It was It was a tremendous fight. The one thing though that I
kind of was sort of like, didn't really quite get, is that by
the ESPN broadcasters, primarily Joe Tessater, who I have a lot of respect
for it has been a friend of mine for twenty years, was the constant
pushing of a third fight of the of a trilogy fight. But first of
all, before they even had the first fight, and then when the fight
was over, I mean, maybe there'll be a rematch down the road.
And Navarette was asked about that in the post fight interview and he was like,
yeah, if the fans want to see it, I'm out fight anybody,
which I'm pretty sure he will. But I'd be less than honest if
I said there was a real need or desire for a Reynax woman. It
was a great fight, but it was one sided enough where it seems like
it would be entirely unnecessary at this point, not to say that there wouldn't
be a reason in the future where both guys might come together once again for
different reasons if they earn it or there's a reason to do it, but
at the moment, there's not going to be an immediate rematch, and I
don't think there should be, all right. So there's a lot of meat
on the bone that you gave me there, all right. So first of
all, navarrote we had some drama. He was scoring early and then clearly
again. And he's had hand problems before, injuries in fights and even having
fights delayed, and I believe it's mostly always been with the right hand.
So he's having a problem. As Tim Bradley observed, he's shaking the hand
after he threw the punch. We even saw one moment where he tried to
pull the glove with the other hand to try to get the padding maybe back
on that knuckle to not hurt as much. And then it became the whole
thing of okay, how much can he use the right hand? Now we've
got some intrigue, brother ray Field. Now, I mean, Kenny use
the right hand. Can Valdez take advantage of that? Well? He went
when times where he stopped using it, I mean, like ninth round,
I threw it at all. But you know the great fighters, I've heard
this, they'll say they get a hand injury or something. It hurts when
they do it, they let us settle down. They don't use it for
a little while, it kind of calms down, and then they're able to
get off in several shots with it before they have to take a little breather
on it again. The biggest thing is he understood I need to make sure
I win these championship rounds ten, eleven, twelve, And boy did he
ever. He was the busier fighter, the harder punches, and you could
just see him wearing on Valdez his face with what he was doing after he
supposedly hurt the right hand, Yeah, go ahead. In the twelfth round,
which has been you know, it's already been a tremendously grueling fight.
He's thrown nearly a thousand punches at that point in Everette has He had maybe
one of his best rounds of the fight in the twelfth round, where he
landed the most punches that were landed in the fight thirty four punches, which,
according to the copy box statistics, is the most punches that Oscar Valdez
ever got hit within a single round in his entire career. And look,
we talk about it all the time. Copybox stats do not make or break
a fight. But they're a guide, and they're a reasonable guide most of
the time. According to their statistics, you have Navarette landing two hundred and
sixteen of one thousand and thirty eight punches only twenty one percent, but a
lot of punches landed, and a tremendous amount of output, like overwhelming amount
of output, and judges noticed that even if not everything is connecting. And
Valdez, who's always been like sort of economical with his punches and usually lands
at a good rate in his defense, actually has improved over the last several
fights since he's been with Eddie Renoso. He landed one hundred and forty a
four hundred and thirty six. He had a much higher percentage and thirty two
percent of landed punches, but he only he threw like way, way less.
And when you see a guy windmill and just throw from all angles with
both hands and just landing and throw from the heels and all that, and
you're landing far less, like Valdez landed quite a few punches less. The
judges noticed that it wasn't I didn't think it was a hard fight to score,
So there's no conference here. The only thing I would say is that.
You know, it felt like they'll certainly deserve to win more than maybe
two rounds of the fight on the score cards, but never approved this point.
This was his second fight at one hundred and thirty. Ruggled in the
Liam Wilson fight, which was supposed to be him against Valdez back in February,
but Valdez was coming off of an injury and was out. He looked
terrible in the Liam Wilson fight. Has great of a fight as it was,
he got knocked down. He struggled the fight before that. He had
a lot of weight problems with bays. Looked like, you know, like
looked terrible in that fight before he finally got him with one shot, was
down on the you know, was head and losing. Uh. But he
he was in shape, it seemed like for this fight, and they both
let it all hang up. They're both in great shape, and you know,
that's a hard, grueling fight to go through. Man. I thought
Valdez he was interesting. Eddie renaults on the corner. I was given Valdez
or early advice, He's gonna wear down Navarrotte because this is what this is
what happens to him. He kept giving him that advice, and what Navarrotte
demonstrated, he was in triman to shape because he was the better fighter with
more output down the stretch of that fight. He's a guy that can He's
a guy that could go. When he's in that kind of shape. He
could go fifteen rounds. Oh sure. And and I thought the power was
still there. Laid in the fight too with that left uppercut. Especially now
does So showed a good chin but ready Renoso. Look, I think he's
been a tremendous trainer for a long time. I felt like he didn't really
give any advice that mattered, like anybody could said. He was a cheerleader
those last couple of rounds. You gotta go out and win the fight.
Well, that doesn't mean anything into what fighter you're you're supposed to as a
trainer. Tell him one or two things how you can win the fight.
You know, use your left to the body, use your you know,
let's try to you know, jab him to the to the you know,
on the right side. You know, let's let's let a lure him in
and counter him. I mean, give him some type of anything, one
or two pieces to hang your hat to tell a guy that just got there.
You have to win the fight. That doesn't mean anything. Yeah,
it doesn't mean And I could say that. You could say that, of
course, so that I thought that was not the greatest delivering the pizzas and
the birthday parties of Chucky Cheese. Could say that the trainer aspect of the
corner was not in my in my opinion on that night, it was not
ideal in the in the last rounds where he really Valdez could have used a
more specific piece of advice, not to say it would have worked, because
he was in with a real rough dude. The bottom line. The bottom
line is navarant is now twelve and Ozho in the last five years in championship
fights with eight knockouts. He needs to start getting a lot of credit for
consistently delivering in title fights and questions some of the competition. But he canna
question a lot of the competition. That's fine, but he's he's one enough
and he's been active enough. And that's a two time world champion that he
handled. And one of the things that you keep coming back to is he's
long, with the long arms, and he's got that left upper cut and
he was kind of modifying it. Listen to me getting all technical, throwing
it as a hook, sometimes, faking sometimes and throwing it and people obviously
are having a hard time solving it because they can't they can't withstand it when
he's in shape and he's right, And that was another case there last time,
go ahead. He has thought though pretty spotty competition. He's he's had
some good wins, like the Ruben Via win looks a lot better now as
good as Ruben has developed as a as a solid contender. That was a
good win from that. That was one of the few fights that he actually
went twelve in obviously, you know, he had the two wins over Dog
by his other fights. In terms of his defense is a junior featherweight.
We're all against like what I would consider lower level opponents, Nobody that really
was gonna turn your head or make you think they had a chance. You
know, he thought a guy like Joet Gonzalez and Christopher Diaz and featherweight title
defenses, those are good quality, professional, solid opponents, but they're B
level type guys, not an A level fight. He looked terrible against Bias,
who we did defeat, who was also like maybe a C level guy.
Liam Wilson obviously turned out to be a pretty good fighter, but was
completely obscure and unknown. And Valdez that's the biggest one he's had. I
think, I don't think we can argue about that. There's no doubt.
And to me, the big question is what's going to be next for him
when, because we're pretty sure there's not going to be a rematch. And
one hundred and thirty pound weight class has Now you know, four different guys
with titles. None of them are with top rank, none of them have
big names, at least in this country. So you're talking about a group
of champions. O'shaky Foster who has the WBC title, who's just was ordered
to make a mandatory defense. Ye have them. Manuel Neveret Day of course
has the WBO title. Joe Cordinia from the UK, he has the IDF
title. That would be a great fight, but that's different promotions. It's
different from it's not even different promotions. If there's money, they can do
the deal. But there's not like that. That's not some huge, mega
millions fight. And then you've got the WBA champion, Hector Luis Garcia,
who's in a mandatory situation against Lamont Roach, who that fight I just wrote
a few days ago was just has been. He's been given a two month
reprieve in terms of the extension because of an injury. So now at the
earliest that fight would be wouldn't be till October, So there's not a lot
of action let's say at the top of one hundred and thirty pound division and
other guys who have been in that way class most specifically, like I should
cour Stevenson has left the weight division, and even if he hadn't, that's
like the worst possible matchup for an Emmanuel Neverette. So I'd still love to
see that fight. I mean, let's make that. I mean, it's
not going to happen, but I would still love to see that fight,
and I would love to see a bigger fight for him. Yeah, it
would be a very intriguing one. I don't know if that's gonna don't.
I don't know this to be the case, but it feels to me like
maybe Varette will have like another defense at one thirty and then probably make his
way to one thirty five. I mean, he's had trouble with wait,
no matter what division, he's in and there's a lot more name fighters and
talented fighters, and certainly top rank, not top guys at one thirty five,
So I think he's going to be at one hundred and thirty five before
too long. And for Valdez, he's kind of maxed out in terms of
where he can handle at one thirty, it seems to me. So he
could be in a position where if Navarette went up or something like that,
maybe he can go after one of the vacant belts or something along those lines.
But you know, he's not gonna retiring or anything like that. But
his immediate future I think it is sort of it's unclear the type of a
point, and he would fight understood on that two more points and on the
Joe Tessatour thing. Again, I do this for a living and I do
play by play. I don't know him. I have respect for everybody that's
doing it at the national level. But I've been saying this. I've even
mentioned it one time previously on the podcast. I've been saying it to others
privately. I don't know how much encouragement or egging on he's getting from top
rank or others to sell sell sell but one thing that's become annoying is stop
yelling about everything that's happening in the fight, even oh a jab, it's
a jab, you know if he owe a jab. Oh he backed him
up. Yeah, he backed him up. Yell at the right in appropriate
times. It almost becomes the point in time when I'm picking up the remote
to turn it down. Is not a good thing because I don't want to
hear yelling about things you don't need to be yelling about. And I get,
but you are to sell. So are the professional play by play among
Yes, us too, So I don't have to comment on that. So
I'm just I'm just saying I get that he's I think some of it is
being encouraged to be enthusiastic sell, sell the trilogy. Thing they want him
to say that. They're trying to hype, they're trying to promote. Get
I can say this for certainty, though. Okay, I spent fifteen years
working at ESPN. I did a tremendous amount of television, not play by
play, but I worked on a lot of shows. I co hosted Friday
Night Fights for a couple of years. I made countless appearances on Sports Center
and I will tell you I dealt with a lot of different producers for the
years. Nobody ever told me what to say or trying to try to set
me up. They would tell you what our topics were, where we were
going, but no one ever said we would like you to do this or
we would like to do that. That never came into the place. My
point I'm making is while the producer may mentioned something, it's certainly not top
rank that that is up to the play by play person. And it doesn't
have not just to play by play. It's Joe, it's Tim Bradley.
What he says? What? What? Uh? You know? Any of
them say what? Markducer? All of them right right? You know they
think they think for themselves. The point and in one more point on the
one nineteen one oh nine, that's Lisa Giampa's card, and I assume this
you're the one that I bowed to and defer to. That's got to be
daughter of Chuck Giampa, the long time official in Nevada. And I don't
I don't care male or female. We have bagged judge after judge over and
over again on this podcast. That card has to be scrutinized. Eleven one,
because valde has clearly won at least two, if not three, of
the middle rounds of the fight, and he clearly won the ninth round of
the fight. In fact, the other two judges that gave Navarati the decision
gave Valdez the ninth round. She did not. That needs to be scrutinized.
Explain here we go again with accountability, because when I heard one nineteen
one O nine, I'm thinking, you know, that's that's that got caught
up in whatever. I don't know how you just we talked about TJ the
We've discussed this several times over the time we've been doing this show, the
range of acceptable scores, and I feel like one eighteen to one ten is
the outer limit of the acceptable score. Another is I don't agree with that,
but I can see that. I mean, Valdez probably had those two
rounds in the middle of the fight that he clearly won. And if you
want to give everything else for different reasons than Everett, maybe you were impressed
by the output even if it wasn't necessarily all landing. I kind of can
get that. But again, it's a range of acceptable scores. So the
range of acceptable scores on that fight. We're probably somewhere between, you know,
on the on the good side for Oscar like I had it, which
was eight to four and perhaps tend to two. And maybe you know in
there are a couple of people with the nine to three, but eleven one
is a little bit pissed. Port agreed. This is not a controversial cony.
We just like to piss and moan over. The bad cards are ones
we perceive as being bad. Agreed, And that's why you have three judges
as well. And Mauricio Suleiman, by the way, at that dinner,
I ever tell you this. He is a big advocate in these biggest fights.
And he said it to me. He said, I've been saying it
for years and they won't listen to me. That for the biggest fights have
five judges. That's Mauricio's point, so that if you have an outlier bad
card or two, that it can be offset by other ones. I don't
know that that ever gets any traction. I just found that fascinating. He
just said it to me while he was talking to me. Ye, so,
but I don't know. You said that a bunch of times. I
mean, I can't say I'm like one hundred percent a post to it.
I'd like to I'd have to hear like a dissertation about why it's necessary.
I'd also like to know hold on, I'd like to know where they're going
to seek them. The whole point of having right three is you've have four
sides of the ring. Am I'm not correct in amateur boxing? Haven't They
had five of f shoals at times in the Olympics and amateur boxing, and
you got to come up with the logistics of what you can. By the
way, how do you fit them around the ring? If you think scoring
in professional boxing is a travesty, sometimes the scoring in amateur boxing it sucks
worse than anyone A great great we don't have to go there, all right,
so good enough on that. Let's move on. Let's move on to
London and the heavyweight uh Trilogy triple triple header that they had. Anthony Joshua
capped it off. He did get the knockout with Robert Hellenius. Al Right,
my thoughts as I set you up here are he got the win,
he got the knockout. It took nine rounds before he got the knockout,
took seven rounds. Was it seven. My battles seven, it seemed like
nine. Well, we'll double check they took it took a lot longer.
It took a seven. Seemed like seven pagans of the seventh round. Full
thank you, Full disclosure that I am in a restaurant literally with my wife
trying to see the end of the fight because we got seed. It was
not chucky cheese on a on a Saturday night, and so I lost around
by the time we got seated, got in and I'm looking at the fight
and then and then he's down. So in any event, it took seven
rounds. Deontay Wilder got him out of there in a fair comparison, in
just one round. I thought Joshua at times looked tentative to let his hands
go, was waiting picking his spots. There is some criticism out there,
including in the British media, that is he ever going to be the explosive
Joshua that we've seen before. He ultimately got the big bomb knockout, so
that's the result they wanted. He got that. All right, your thoughts
on that, and then we'll go over the card real quick for the match
Room to z Own show in London. The fact that he went seven rounds
and no way shape or for him gives me a problem at all. He
got the knockout, so what the Deontay got him in one? Deanty Wilder
is one of the greatest punchers in the history of boxing. That happens.
He landed a perfect shot on Robert Lennius and he put him out, and
it took Anthony Joshua a little longer to do that. It was good for
Anthony Joshua to get those rounds in. Now in this past you know,
several months, he's had the seven rounds against Robert Lenny's, he had twelve
rounds against Jermaine Franklin. As he continues to have to walk back to the
corner and listen to Derek James to his you know, a trainer. Now
they've had two fights together. It's a building process. I'm gonna have talked
to plenty fighters to say, you don't really jell with your trainer. It
could be, you know, a couple of years before you really are on
the same page. So you know, they're working out a little bit of
an accelerated pace between Anthony and Derek. You know. Look, the other
thing about is when people talk about you mentioned like, you know, the
British press bagging on because they don't know if he's ever gonna get back.
You know what he was. I'm here to say and this is not an
insult, this is not a negative. I don't have anything bad, said
Anthony Joshua. I've said this many times on this show. I like Anthony
Joshua as a fighter, as a person, as a personality, as a
star. He's good for the game. But what people have to understand is
he's not gonna be that guy again. That guy's gone. He's never coming
back. He's never been the same since the Klitchko fight. And if he
thought he was, he's never been the same then for sure since the first
Indy Rui's fight. But that's okay. Everybody has a level where they go
to at the at the apex and then you know, you start to go
down the hill. To me, it's a matter of how quickly do you
go downhill? So no doubt, I think Anthony Joshua would be the first
to admit that he's not the guy that he was when he was packing stadiums
and defending titles and beating you know, pretty good fighters that guy's gone.
Now, it's about what can you still have left to go forward and still
be a significant fighter in this weight class. And he does have that because
of his star power, the right hand that he saw debtonate on Robert Lennis
his chin, he still has flashes of that. So just because he's not
what he was a few years ago, it doesn't this shouldn't be an insult
to say that in for people to wonder, well, where's that guy,
Well, don't be an idiot. The guy's gone. I mean, boxing
and anything in life, time waits for nobody. So this is the version
of Joshua that we have now, and I would say it's anybody just enjoy
it because it's still entertaining to watch. There's still a storyline there, there's
still drama. And if he didn't like seeing that big bomb, if you're
a boxing fan, that's what people like to watch boxing for is to see
that kind of knock out. You know. And by the way, let
me say also about Robert Lennius. He took this fight on you know,
one week noticed, I mean like a couple of hours after he fought last
Saturday. He came in pretty good shape. I thought, based on the
normal way. He looked so and he gave it a good effort. He
had some moments he I don't I don't think. I don't know what the
final scores were. I think he might have won one round in there if
he if he was if you were being generous. But he wasn't like outclassed.
He's a big guy, he's strong, he's experienced. He's sparred with
Joshua before, so they have at least a little bit of a recognition of
one another. And uh, you know, I'm not going to dump all
over Joshua because his opponent came to fight. You know. Sometimes his opponent
was bleeding hellenneus from the nose and kept fighting for several routes and bloods.
So you had a little bit of drama there, and you got the knockout
and the end result and two other things. You know, as anybody ever
happy like you can't please everybody. So Joshua was said after the fight,
you know, hey, let me have my let me have my moment here,
you know, let it breathe. You know, I'm paraphrasing what he
said that there's a lot of pressure involved, and he delivered the knockout I
get that, and I was just thinking this when you were saying this.
The Mike Tyson post the Lass to Buster Douglas is the great reference point that
he was never really the same as far as an intimidating force, overpowering force.
After that, then he goes to prison, he comes back after prison.
Certainly the Mike Tyson of the late nineties and the two thousands as he
got older, it was definitely not the same Mike Tyson of the late eighties.
We know this is what happens, is that you're making the Tyson I
covered was the Tyson at the end. Yes, you know when I started
to cover Mike, I mean, you know, I actually joked around with
Mike one time about this. I forget the exact record, but I think
in fights I covered of Mike's he was something like like one in four or
something like that, or you know, one in three minute, no contest
or whatever, because I you know, I came on board and at Usaka
towards the end of his career. But yeah, that happens to every fighter
that there is. You can we can go back and fight along and you
one, we can find a guy and look at his record and find the
line of demarcation. Father Time waits for who for nobody and neither does this
show? All right? The Father Time undefeated? Yes, and let's the
rest of this card. All right? First of all, Philip Hrgovic gets
the win. Can I just say this, He's been unimpressive in the Jiang
fight and now in this fight. And look, we do need to say
this. He had the death of his father, and correct me here if
I'm off on this. Isn't his father, the guy that helped train him
with his career at least has been key to his development. And so now
we're talking about serious stuff, serious life and death stuff that since the death
of his father, he hasn't looked good in either one of these fights.
He was okay in this fight. I thought he should have got McKeen out
of there much earlier. He ended up stopping him in the twelfth round with
the barrage along the ropes. Of course, we once again have this referee.
While we're bagging on people, we have this referee. What is it,
Marcus McDowell, I believe, is the referee. He doesn't jump in
there to separate the fighters, He doesn't stop the fight. You got McKean
draped over the road and he lets Hergovich wail with a big rabbit punch to
the back of the head, which is dangerous. That's dangerous on the stoppage,
all right, So there's that stoppage. Give me a thought or two
on Hergovich. Please. Hergovic is a good fighter, but to me,
he's not necessarily an elite fighter that's going to be the heavyweight champion of the
world. But what this win did was one he's better than McKeen. I
mean, even if it wasn't an exciting fight, he pretty much I don't
again, I don't know what the exact sport guards where, but he was
clearly winning the fight. But it was an incredibly important fight to Philip's career
because now and he already was the IBF mandatory challenger, but now his next
fight will be for the IBF Heavyweight Championship unless something absolutely freakish happens, because
he has already been the mandatory based on the eliminator win against Zang July.
The IBF doesn't mess around. They've already put the order out saying that that
they will order against Usick pending wins by both of them. I'm not sure
why they didn't say that about Dubas. Maybe it's because he's the WBA's a
regular champion, and it's while you have to assume he's going to also take
the IBF belt if he wins the fight against who said the IBF can't say
that till it actually occurs. I guess in any event, his next fight's
going to either be against the winner of that fight, or it's gonna be
for a vacant title unless something freakish happens. So it was a very big
important win for Hergovich, and I'd like to think that when he fights a
better guy, maybe he can rise to the occasion. This was a guy
who was a phenomenal amateur, big time amateur record and it's one of the
best in the world for many years. One of a medal in the Olympic
Games, and other than the two fights you've mentioned, you know, he's
looked pretty good in his proper Granted he's not fighting the elite fighters, but
he's a he's a great physical specimen. He does have punching power, and
uh, you know he's gonna get his All you can ask for in this
sport is for you to get your opportunity, and he's going to get that
chance in his next fight. And again, do you buy just one more
quick comment, do you by that maybe part of this is still grieving,
still getting over not having the dad around, and maybe that's part of this,
could be part of it. Yeah, I mean I've never I've actually
interviewed Herkovic a few times, and he speaks perfect English, you know,
even though he's from Croatia, uh, and he's he's he's got a funny
sense of humor. But I get the feeling, uh that that that aspect
of what you're mentioning. That's part of it. And also, look,
it's not it wasn't a perfect situation either that he hadn't fought for over a
year and McCain was tough too. McCain he did, so he had been
off you know, it'd been since last augustin right, so it'd been fifty
one weeks since his previous fight, which you know, in boxing these days,
unfortunately that's not an eternity. But it's still the longest lay off I
think of his career, and it's you know, it's never good if you're
offered that long. And it wasn't like he was injured, you know,
so, But what happens in boxing, unfortunately, is when you take a
lot of fights and you build yourself up and you get to a certain level,
and then you get into a mandatory position, or you get close even
to the mandatory position, it things slowed down because things take time to play
out with eliminators, and then nothing's more complicated and difficult in making the heavyweight
title fights. So he's just sort of been caught up in that a little
bit, all right, You do have it on the rundown. Derek Jasura
did win on a ten round decision against Gerald Washington. I was in communication
with my guys that are writing on Big Fight Weekend dot com, Ricky Carroll's
Sadik Ahmed, and they were they were much worse than I was, And
I just said, you could sum it up in four words, this is
a waste of time. They're giving these guys a payday, neither one of
them or anything other than an aged, faded opponent at this point. That's
we said. You said that on the front end. So well, First
of all, they actually put this fight in the co feature slot originally when
the fight was announced, they positioned it as though the Hrgovich fight was the
fight before the main event, and then during the week of the fight,
when they sent out the running order, they turn out that they put Shasora
and Washington in that's position, probably because Jasa is a fan favorite of the
Brits and and the other two fighters were not the most well known. But
he didn't get the crowd rev up. There was just not in the action.
It didn't rev the crowd up. I gotta be honest, I didn't
pay super close attention to that fight because I was I was I was arriving
at the National Harbor. I was watching, uh, you know, one
of the younger guys in an undercard fight. I did have it on my
screen. It looked like, you know, two faded heavyweights doing their thing.
I thought I saw a lot of because I didn't score the fight round
by round. So I don't want to bullsh of the people, but I
saw some people on when I looked at Twitter after the fact talking about how
they felt like Jared Washington got robbed in the fight. I can't speak to
that, whether it was a good decision or bad decision, but you know
what, like you said, in the end the fight, it doesn't mean
anything to the from the standpoint of what it has to do at the top
level of championship boxing, it sure means a lot. I'm sure to Tasora
and washington U and Chessora. He'll probably fight again. I mean he probably
shouldn't. I mean, I hope it doesn't. You know that it's not
one of these guys that really badly catches up to later in life. But
he's been in a lot of rough, tough fights. He's not getting any
younger, and he's got a lot of losses and certainly he's been active enough,
including with the big payday for Fury which she he gave him what last
year? He should have some money now that should not be the issue.
We don't know these guys finances. Could he should have some money for Yeah,
it's different. It's boxing. I mean a lot of guys day waste
their money unfortunately. Okay, so there's the heavyweights. Let's move to the
card again that you were at the showtime PBC show at the Crisino in Oxon
Hill, Maryland. Again. Emanuel Rodriguez is the winner of the vacant IBF
one hundred and eighteen pound title. The bannamweight world Titley. He previously held
that belt before Naolia in a way lifted it off of him in a knockout,
so he gets it back. I thought, okay, so full disclosure
on our bet US show. I thought at the eleventh hour and the fifty
ninth minute, aka the final seconds of the twelfth round, that I was
going to lose out on the Rodriguez decision. You had Lopez for the upset.
He knocked him down not once, not twice, but three times in
the final forty seconds of the fight. The final knockdown coming in the final
like ten seconds of the fight. I thought I was gonna lose my decision,
pop off the best US show, and it stayed, goes the route.
The referee didn't stop the fight, and it goes the route for Lopez
and it's a decision win. So your thoughts in that last knockdown, you
know, the the rule is in boxing like you can't be saved by the
bell, including the twelfth and final round. That last knockdown happened in a
time where the bell should have sounded if there was there was no knockdown,
and it went beyond when the bell would have rang so as soon as he
rose at the candle like whatever, it was like eight, immediately they rang
the bell because the round it would have ended four or five seconds earlier.
So that's how long he waited to get those knockdowns. But this was a
terrible fight. It sucked. Let's be honest, we don't bullshit the people.
It was like one monotonous round after another. Melvin Lopez was absolutely inept.
He had no idea what he was doing. I was really disappointed.
I thought he would come to fight a much better fight I gave him.
I picked him just because the number was so great and so tasty, as
you would say, and also I just never have thought, I mean,
I don't disrespect the Mango Rodriguez. I'm not. I don't have anything against
the guy. I've watched a bunch of his fights, and he's never been
a guy that I looked at and said, Wow, that guy's something special.
I just thought he's just a regular fighter and that Lopez would have a
chance. But it was sort of like he just he did what he does,
which was one speed, and Lopez had no idea what to do.
He even when he landed, he didn't really seem to have any steam on
the punches, and Rodriguez, you know, was able to just do very
basic things score points, and like you said, I thought, here we
go. In the round twelve, he's just gonna play out the last round.
You know, the crowd started booing in like maybe the tenth or so,
because there was like they were just pop bobbing and fainting and doing nothing.
And like you said, in the last forty seconds, he clipped him
and he dropped him, and then of course he was a little discombobulated,
so he got him down again and then again He's never like badly hurt.
So I didn't think the referee was derelict than not stopping the fight. I
had no problem with that. And so the exciting part of that entire twelve
rounds was the fact that it was forty seconds of some action. And other
than that one twenty to one oh five, you don't see that at one
twenty one oh five on all three cards. The judges couldn't possibly mask that
him. I actually gave Lopez one round in the fight, but that would
probably be the as we say, the realm of acceptable scores either zero rounds
or one round. Did it surprise you though that Rodriguez his right eye was
such a mass with numerous rounds left in the fight, and Melvin Lopez could
not take advantage of it tactically or otherwise. The other thing about it,
Yeah, you're right about that also, And I haven't gone back to look
at it, but they told us at ringside that it had been ruled that
had the swelling had been caused by punches from Lopez. The way that the
swelling looked on his eye, in my experience, seemed like had all the
hallmarks from a Headbut so I have not yet gone back and looked at the
showtime tape and analyze whether it was a headbut or not, I'm sure if
it was definitively they would have said it. And you know, we were
sitting right behind one of the showtime pr people who would tal turn around and
tell us some stuff like that on the broadcast. So they told us that
they had been informed that it was from punches, So we knew that they
didn't have to make us guess. You know, if you're in a place
like in Las Vegas, for example, when there's that type of situation,
the executive director or some other person from the commission assigned to do so,
holds up a sign at ringside that you know, red or agreeing to tell
you if it's a headbutter or punch that type of thing. No such thing
in Mary interesting, so we only knew that it was from punches based on
the content that was told to us by one of the showtime people who had
a headset. I'm listening to the broadcast and then being informed of what happened.
But look, he gets to win. Rodriguez, he was very excited
to become another world champion from Puerto Rico, you know, which has a
great boxing tradition. They had gone a little while where they didn't have any
male champions and now they've got four, plus the women's champion Amanda Serranto.
So it was a big deal for him. And now here we go Naya
in a way, who was the number one Bannon Waite. He unified all
four titles, including getting one of the belts when he knocked out Rodriguez very
easily in the twenty nineteen during the World Boxing Super Series, put all four
belts together first ondisputed bandowight champion of two to three or four belt. Here
in fifty years vacates all the titles in January, all becomes splintered. Now.
By Rodriguez winning that title belt, he became the last one of the
belts to be filled in that weight class, and the weight class is very
anonymous right now, there's no specific unification, and I'm desperate to see now
in the aftermath of this fight, and I think this will happen because what
else are they going to do with these guys. They don't have a lot
of places to go on money to make. It seems very likely that the
next fight, unless there's a mandatory that intercedes, which I don't think one
is due at the moment, Amanuel Rodriguez probably will fight Alexandro Santiago, who
won the vacant WBC title against Nono Dunair back a couple of weeks ago on
the Spanson Crawford on it in Las Vengas. It seems logical. What do
we know, It seems logical that would be now in Japan a couple of
days ago, there was actually the IBF elimination fighttor Place, that's I forget
the fighter's name who won, but that becomes his mandatory challenger. But I
don't know if that mandatory is due just yet. So what I'm saying here
is in the bandonweight division, you have Santiago, who you know, showed
himself to have a pretty good performance against Don't Air to win the vacant WBC
title. You have Emmanuel Rodriguez who won that IBF belt on Saturday night you
go to Japan. You have Nyla Anyway's brother, younger brother, Takuma in
a way, who won the vacant WBA title not that long ago, on
the undercard of a bigger fight. And then you have the WBO champion,
Jason Maloney, who won that belt you know from the Australian. You know,
among the two twin brothers, he got that belt. So they're all
good fighters, I guess, but there's no superstars in that group, and
there's no like fights you're dying to see. I don't know, am I
correct? Rodriguez beats and Rodriguez beat Maloney back in twenty eighteen and his one
title defense that he lost in a way, so if you follow him again
it would be there would be a rematch angle potentially, but again it's different
promotions. I mean that it was a split decision. They were both in
the tournament at that time. I mean, I guess that if you had
to come up with the storyline, it might be it because it was a
split decision and it was super close and blah blah blah. But I mean,
who cares, really, I mean, all I'm saying here is this
that bandon weight division in terms of star power and even like pound for pound
talent is bereft at the moment. So good for me. He gets a
big win for his career, for his family, for his country. Leave
me out of it, though, I like that word bereft, all right.
Anything on Gary Antoine Russell and Gabriel mastre Boat scoring quick knockouts again,
you got to the main event quickly, so that's a good thing that allowed
you, as we said earlier in the podcast, to sit in that parking
lot and see the whole Valdez fight because they got to the main event quickly
with two easy early knockouts. So both of those guys, I'll make our
brief brief comments on the undercard to showtime fights that were the quick HEO.
So Gabriel my estry is how you say it. He's a two time Venezuelian
Olympian, who's now still undefeated. He's got to draw six and oh with
one draw, but he's also like thirty six years old. He was brought
in to lose this fight. He was fighting the undefeated Trayvon Marshall, who
was from Capitol Heights, Maryland, which is very close. You know,
it's in the same region as the casino right over the over the river,
so you know it's a DC crowd. They did not bring in Gabriel Astray
at age thirty six to lose, I mean, to win against the local
guy. But Gabriel my Astra blitz this dude. They had a competitive first
round and what he did was proved that Trayvon Marshall was not ready for prime
time. And I gotta be honest, I mean, I have lots of
good things to say about Showtime. The construction of this card is not one
of them, though, I know, I know was a budgetary sort of
thing. It was a cheap card that was not a fight that should have
been on Showtime. That was a fight that would have normally been like on
the stream or not even televised. But it's very obvious they don't have the
money because their shows, the shows that would have had fights on a stream
are now on broadcast. The fight said are the main event like a Lopez
Rodriguez typically would have been the opener on a broadcast or a co future at
best. And now they're headlining these shows because they're you know, they're kind
of hiding the fact because they're doing the megafights like Spence and Crawford and Canello
and Charlotte coming up, and they did obviously, you know, Jervonte Davis
against Ryan Garcia, those are all pay per views. I'm waiting for a
big time, a level fight on the network and it's been a while.
And this card was a example of they're trying to make good matchups. But
when you have such an unknown commodity who had no track record, sometimes that
shit happens and you got the guy who's thirty six comes and pummels the local
guy and knocks them the fuck out. But still but still at least they
were knockouts, and at least they were quick. I mean, in the
in the matchroom case, the faught that you know this, the fights were
droning on and on with Hrgovich and McKean and then in Washington, so we
can't complain that at least if it was a mismatch, it was over quickly
and spectacularly, and at least had something to talk about. In the case
of Gary Russell, that was a mismatch on paper in my opinion, and
it was a mismatch in the ring. I know Ken Cruize was undefeated going
into that fight, but that was a smoke and mirrors undefeated record. Gary
Antoine Russell is a real serious talent. He comes from the family of real
serious talent. His brother, Gary Russell, who turned out to be kind
of disappointing, not because he wasn't talented, but because he just didn't fight
and never really had that seemingly hunger to fight the best guys. But let
me tell you when Gary Junior was coming up and I picked him as a
prospect of the Year back in the day, he's one of the most extraordinary
talents I have ever seen. Hand speed as good as anybody that ever lived
in my mind. And Gary Antoine is a better puncher than his brother,
in my opinion, fights in a heavier weight class. You know, his
brother was a featherweight. Gary Antoine is a junior welterweight. Also, like
his brother, was an Olympian. He's now undefeated seventeen and oh with seventeen
knockouts, he can make some serious noise at junior welterweight. I just questioned
his desire to do that, because, like his brother, this was his
first fight in thirteen months, and to my knowledge, he was not injured.
He did, I think at one point bypassed the opportunity perhaps to fight,
you know, for an eliminator or a bigger fight. So I'm not
sure what's gonna happen with him, but in any event, he's still destroyed,
can cruise in the first round, body shots, uppercots just put him
away out of his misery real quick. And I just hope, because I
like watching Gary Antoine. He's a tremendous talent, and he's exciting and he's
talent, is skilled and all that, that he doesn't go another thirteen months
without having a box man. I mean, I hope he fights. I
mean, honestly, here's the reality. He should be able to fight at
least two more times this year. I'm skeptical of fight even one more time
this year. But he took care of business in a cameo uppearance. Only
you're only hurting yourself and your own own marketability. If you're not doing that,
and Gary Russell Junior was a prime example of that, you're fighting at
least when Gary Jr. Was making title defenses, he was making you know,
a lot of money, like at the very worst, high six figures.
I know some of his persons were into the seven figures. His younger
brother, who's never won a world title and as much younger and still undefeated,
he's not making that kind of money. Probably, I don't know what
his first was, but was he making maybe you know, a couple hundred
thousand at the most. I mean, I guess, I don't know.
I don't even know what he was making that much, right, we don't
know. All right, good stuff on that. Let's get some news and
then we're gonna be done with some nostalgia. Match Room Boxing made several announcements
upcoming for their events, including on the broadcast, they confirmed that they the
flyweight unification title fight that you were talking about on the preview podcast will Happen
with Jesse Bam Rodriguez and Sonny Edwards Sunny Edwards. Sonny Edwards was going on
and on about Bam Rodriguez didn't come over here to my fight. He didn't
come over here. He didn't pay me respect. Why why would bam Rodriguez
care to come over to England to your fight? We were just selling,
just to sell. But anyway, I saw that particle talk. Sometimes that's
what go ahead, go ahead on the announcements. So that was not an
announcement that was unexpected. What that was already announced that they were fighting.
What was announced specifically what I actually reported a few days ago, which is
that it is a done deal for December sixteenth. It will take place in
Glendale, Arizona, at the same arena, the or Diamond Arena where the
Navarette and Valdez fight took place on Saturday night. So that's a that's a
marquee kind of fight in the small way classes. They're probably the two best
flyweights in boxing. They are both undefeated, they both have contrasting styles.
Sonny's coming from the UK to fight in Bam Rodriguez's home country, and while
he's not fighting in San Antonio, Uh, you know, you can be
sure that it's gonna be a big time Bam Rodriguez crowd, because obviously you're
fighting a Mexican fighter in a Mexican hot dead location against a brit So,
uh, you know, good for Sonny to have the stones to do that
and come over here. So that was the That was the marquee fight of
that and the other ones were like okay. So one of them was another
fight I'd reported, which is a good fight, but again sort of like
showtime in a in a world I used to live in, this would have
been like an opening fight, maybe a co feature. Uh. It is
the talented one hundred forty pound fighter Richards and Hitchins, one time Olympian,
taken on the always tough former title challenger and longtime contender Jose Zapeta that will
headline a card on September twenty three in Orlando. These are all regular zone
fights, not pay per views or anything like that. And that card also
will have a women's welterweight unification fight between Jessica McCaskill and Sandy Ryan. So
McCaskill had been undisputed. She ended up getting stripped of two of her titles
because she went down and fought at one forty and lost to Chantel Cameron and
Sandy Ryan picked up one of those belts, so now they're fighting unify three
of the titles, but the one Ryan has is the one that that that
Jessica mccaskall never lost in the rings, so you know, you know,
it's still a solid matchup among if you're a women's boxing fan, but you
know, the title situation is a little bit weird because it was her delt
without losing it anyway. And then they have another fight on the card that
they announced, which is the always interesting Austin Amo Williams in a middleweight fight
against the experienced Steve Rolls, you know, who got drilled early by TRIPLEG
but gave him some solid competition for a couple of rounds and you know,
a tough, tough journeyman. You know, it's it's not a bad matchup
for Williams. So that was that event for September twenty third in lovely Orlando,
Florida. Maybe you can go cover it for Big Fight Week not too
far from where you live. And then the other one they announced as one
of their Mexico shows, which will take place in Tiahuana, and so it's
the lightweight contender Angel Fierro against Brian Zama Rippa. Not a high level show,
but those Mexico shows, while they don't get filled with the big names.
I've watched all those Matchroom shows, they always produced good action. And
then the other fight they announced this will be November eighteenth. Eddie Hern alluded
to this back when Diego Pacheco had his last fight, this is the excellent
young super middleweight up and comer that they would take after he won his last
fight, that his next fight would be at home in Los Angeles, and
that's in fact what they're gonna do. So November eighteenth tail headline against Marcello
Cosarras, who people follow boxing closely. No, he gave a very tough
fight to another Matchroom fighter, although back when he was fighting for top rank,
which was Edgar Berlanga, when he fought Edgar Cosarras did that was a
fight where Cosarras knocked Berlanga down in the ninth round, but it was also
the fight where Berlanga fought through a a badly uh messed up biceps ended up
having surgery on that. So but Co Sarras is is that's a for Procheco
at this age of care. That's definitely the most credible opponent he's faced.
He gave a tough fight against uh edgar Berlanga. He fought for a world
title against Billy Joe Saunders and ultimately was stopped in the eleventh round of what
had been a very competitive fight. So that's at least a good step up
for Pacheco, it seems to me. So that's that's pretty solid. But
uh, you know, for the for the company that came into this thing
in America, uh, saying they're gonna, you know, put everybody out
of business and and sign everybody in all these million, you know, huge
shows and we got a billion dollars, that lineup is not commensurate with that
that braggadociousness. You're being kind on that. That's garbage. Uh, I'm
not gonna say it's garbage. I mean, that's not very None of it
is title fights. None of it's gonna make anybody well. The unification with
Sonny Edwards and we gotta wait all the way to to December for that one.
One look, put Sonny Edwards and Router gets aside. That's an excellent
matchup. Clearly, Hitchen Zapada is a nice fight, but it's fight.
No, that's not fair. It's not a garbage. Hitchens is supposed to
demolish him. It's not a fifty fifty Nobody demolishes Jose Zapeta. All right,
that's a bumper sticker or T shirt that you're gonna make, Like nobody
demolishes Nobody puts baby in the corner. You know that reference. It's by
far the best opponent that Richards and Hitty will have facing this career. But
again, that's like to me Co future material fadlining the Mexic Goo fight with
Fero. That fits the bill of what those types of shows are. So
I get that one, but you know, and Pacheco, he is taking
a step up. But come on, it's just not what we expect.
I'm paying two hundred and fifty dollars or whatever it is for my zone.
So I pardon my French, I expect more. Period. You don't even
using French there, But all right, so let me say I fucking expect
more. That should also be a bumper sticker. By the way, Canello
and Jamil Charlo will meet with the media for the first time this week as
we released the podcast overnight Sunday and the Monday. They'll meet Tuesday in New
York and then do an amazingly similar thing in Beverly Hills on Wednesday to kick
off the press tour for their September thirtieth showdown. So look for a lot
of shoulder content from us on Big Fight Weekend dot com. You with the
Fight Freaks Unite substack subsequent podcast. Here comes the media tour, Raphael.
Yeah, so it's on Tuesday. They're in New York City in Times Square
at at a theater there. Unfortunately, these are not open to the public.
You know, for a lot of the bigger fights, they used to
have them open to the public. I mean I remember going forward. This
is just one example. When Floyd Madeweather and Oscar Dale Loyo had their massive
megafight, which at the time became the second It set all the records actually
at the time for a pay per view and for revenue and all that.
They did a multi city tour and they actually came to Washington, DC,
where Floyd is immensely popular, very obviously heavily city. Leonard Ellerby, who
was you know, his longtime advisor and there not advisor but the CEO of
his promotional company. Anyway, Leonard is from Washington, DC. So they
wanted to come to Washington. And so what they did was they did the
press tour in Union Station, which is our train station that's right on Capitol
Hill, and there was a million people there. It was incredible. You
know, when Canelo Alvarus fought Floyd and they weather, they had a big
theater, you know, in Washington, DC where they filled it up.
And I remember my wife was going into the city with my son, and
so she drove me to the to the theater where the thing was happening and
dropped me off, and and we weren't quite exactly sure where it was.
And suddenly I realized, yeah, we know exactly where it was because we
took the turn. The line to get in was like all the way down
the street. I said, this must be it, and sure enough,
that's what it was. So they used to and that was just those two
examples. They would do these, you know outdoors in LA and you know,
big places in New York City, and they would have huge amounts of
fans turning out because that would really get the word of mouth and really helped
the pay per view. In my opinion, I'm not sure what the reasons
are, but they're not doing it for this fight. They didn't do it
for the Errol Spence Crawford fight. They didn't do it for the Tank and
Ryan fight. To my recollection and have any public availability at these events.
They didn't do it for the Benavides and Plant fight, which another good pay
per view from earlier in the year in terms of the matchup. So the
habit in the theater in Times Square. Then they'll get on their plane and
they'll go to LA they'll have a Beverly Hills press converents on Wednesday, and
from their perspective, it's a good thing for them because not that it would
have made that bunch of a difference, but there was not a lot of
action next week anyway on the calendar. The one fight that there was was
the Better BF fight, which was postponed because of his jaw infection, and
so there's literally no other fights that people are gonna be ramping up for this
coming week. So Canello and Charlote are going to have all the boxing oxygen
that they can handle for this fight. Good enough, let's move on to
the nostalgia and then we are done. Unfortunately, it's been forty years we
commemorate the death of Salvador Sanchez a fantasty one years forty one years ago.
August twelveth of nineteen eighty two, forty one years ago Saturday killed at just
twenty three years of age. Fantastic smaller weight fighter, still to this day,
revered as an icon five decades later. Now, so we commemorate his
career, his memory with the anniversary of his death in a car crash.
He was he was at the wheel, speeding in a sports car and shocking
that he was dead at twenty three, because this is a guy that could
have easily probably fought ten more years and had dozen, maybe a dozen more
important championship fights and gone way too soon back forty years. People should look
it up. Look up with Little Red Lopez, Danny, Little Red Lopez.
Look up the Azuma Nelson fight that we talked about recently that had the
anniversary that was his final fight, and that was what about three weeks ago
he was killed in the car wreck about three weeks after that Azuma Nelson fight.
Looked those fights up, peeps in the nostalgia. Salvador Sanchez is one
of the greatest fighters of all time. The fact that he accomplished what he
did and he was only twenty three. Twenty three years old is amazing.
He was forty four wins, one loss, one draw, thirty two knockouts.
And to this day, most people say Chavez, Julio Seesar Chavez is
the number one Mexican fighter of all time, and a lot of those people
will tell you Salvador Sanchez is number two at worst. He's certainly in the
top couple, you know, maybe in the long uh, you know,
down the road, and we may consider Canelo, you know, in that
same realm, but in a pantheon of great fighters that come from that country,
whether it's Barrera, Morales, Marques, Salvador Sanchez, Canello, Chavez,
Ricardo Lopez. I mean, we can go on and on Napolis.
There's plenty of great Mexican fighters to talk about. Salvador Sanchez is absolutely revered.
His win over Uh, and we've talked about this, I think before,
I've obsessed over this fight for like ever. Is his incredible victory against
Wilfredo Gomez, which was really one of the quin essential Mexico Puerto Rico battles.
I mean, there's been lots of Mexico Puerto Rico fights since then,
and before then, but that one really set off the rivalry to some degree.
To make a little more mainstream. That was a massive fight. Gomez
was the twenty two pound champion, Sanchez was the twenty six pound champion.
They met at the famed Caesar's Palace Sports Pavilion in an epic fight. Uh
and uh, I've been a huge Salvadoor Sanchez fan for many years. I've
you know, people know I collect a lot of memorabili A lot of his
material is very expensive, hard to find. If you're out there and you've
got a nice program or poster from the Zoom Nelson fight, hit me up
because I'm looking for one. If it's a nice shape, I'll spend on
it. A problem looking for the Nelson Sanchez poster, which would have been
July eighty two, is what you're looking for? A ticket, a program,
a post or anything from those that was at the garden, So you
knew your keeps that are longtime fans. Uh. If you're looking for it,
let me just say this. When you go back on the YouTube and
watch like Howard co Sell, how would co Sell was doing the whole Wide
World of Sports recap of his death and showing the funeral and when they're carrying
the coffin Dan through the streets in Mexico, whether it's Mexico City or whatever
his town was, and there are thousands and thousands that are in the streets
carrying the coffin to the church for the service with the flag over it.
It tells you what an idol he was. Yeah, they showed it on
TV, you know, national television. It's like, I mean, I
don't if it rose to the level of like if you remember when Muhammad Ali
passed and it was on all the news channels here in the United States on
the networks, they showed his memorial in the funeral Sanchez died. That was
sort of what was like. I mean, he was a revered figure and
he's grown in stature over the years and just an awesome fighter, what can
you say, period, no doubt. And also an anniversary from this weekend
of Pernell Whittaker becoming undisputed lightweight champion. That's thirty three years ago, nineteen
ninety August eleventh of nineteen ninety for sweet Pee Whittaker the Hall of Famer,
and it was quick. It was a first round. I've watched this because
it didn't take very long, the quick knockout of Juan Nazano. Come on,
TJ, can we learn how to say the fucking names? Please?
Nazario Nazario one Nazario. Forgive me that he blew out in one round.
Whether there wasn't a lot notable about him because he didn't last very long,
he didn't last well. He was a champion going into that fight. And
this is back in the three belt the year in nineteen ninety. But the
thing about it is that Pernel Whittaker became the undisputed champion on a first round
knockout, which is the antithesis of the type of fighter that Pernol Whitaker was.
He's one of the greatest defensive fighters of all time, never known for
big power, certainly not for a lot of you know, big knockouts,
and he blew Nazario away. This was in late Tahoe. It was a
triple header on HBO that was the main event. And you know, we
talked about like the lineup of fights that he give us these days. So
that card also had Meldred Taylor in a fight. There was his first fight
after losing to chab As Senior. That was another fight on that card.
They had all fight to turn out to be a shitty fight in the ring,
but on paper was a decent matchup. They had Hector Camacho against Tony
Baltazar. That was a fight where it was for a w BO one hundred
forty pound title. This is back in the day when nobody really considered the
w BO at that point. But nonetheless that was the fight. But that
was the triple header. But for Pernell to go and do what he did
and become the undisputed champion. Remember he was champion at thirty five. He
became a champion at junior welterweight. He became a champion at welterweight, and
he was so untouchable at welterweight at that time in his career that to find
some type of competition, he took a one fight jump up to junior middleweight
and he won a title there too, and just came back down and ended
up winning all those you know, all those titles, and it was a
pound for pound number one for a long long time. And you know,
unfortunately he passed a couple of years ago and tragically in a car accident.
But the thing about when he became undisputed lightweight champion. That was in nineteen
ninety. No one had become the undisputed lightweight champion since then until Devin Haney
did it last year and won all four belts. That sounds how hard,
you know, and think about all the great lightweights that we've seen through the
years, whether you know, you can name a lot of top got Oscar
Delloy he fought as lightweight, Shane Mosey was a lightweight champion. We saw
jose Lewi Castillo, we saw Floyd Mayweather, we saw Diego Coralis. I
mean, you can go on and on. We saw Desli Lomachenko. Obviously,
Devin Hainey was able to get the job done. But we've seen a
lot of tremendous lightweights through the years. But uh Parnell was one of the
best of all time. And that is a fight. And that if you
want to watch out on YouTube and watch one of the all time greats score
first unknocket that win a historic fight. It won't take you very long because
it lasted less than three minutes, no doubt. Check that one out from
this weekend. With that, I believe that's a full show for you.
And maybe once again because we've covered everything from big battles with Mexican stars,
to birthday parties, to nostalgia to everything else that's going on. All right,
listen, great job on this again. We've got a lighter week this
week without that better BF Callum Smith fight, We'll still be creative and we'll
still be back with a Big Fight weekend preview podcast for later on this week.
We always appreciate the peeps engaging with us going in and coming off the
weekend, so I think we'll have to recap thenel first conference and we'll see
what else is going on this weekend as well, and we might even have
an interview you never know, You never never know we might have later on
in the week. It's all it's all part of why we do what we
do. Listen, have a good weekdand ray Feield. We thank you as
always on the Fight Freaks, you unite, recap all my man, talk
to you later. There is Dan ray Field. I'm merely TJ Reeves again.
Follow, Subscribe, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify. You go
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