The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host? DJ Leaves Well, hello there, and we get
ready for the weekend. I would love to tell you that we have something
impressive and amazing to preview on the Big Fight Weekend preview, but we often
do our best to tell you the truth. I'm just saying at the top
here I'm the somewhat capable host. You know that that's the truth. TJ
Reeves, he is our insider. Fight Freaks Unit is his substack Bigfight Weekend
dot Com. Dan Rayfield, we do like to speak the truth. There's
just not on a much of a magnitude, not a huge fight card to
preview. But that doesn't mean we don't have a show. In fact,
welcome in, my friend, we do have a show, and in fact
we have a two division former world champion who's going to be an action shortly.
Who you've talked to that's going to be on this show. News,
nostalgia, How we feeling, Oh we're good. Look, there's there's there's
no major fights on the weekend. As I like to say, you know,
Saturday night, call your mother. She's worried about you. She'd like
to hear about how you're doing. You know, they're like, there is
a matchroom card the next generation. It's their version of sort of prospect showbox
ish on his own, but no major doubts that we would spend a lot
of time talking about. So we'll just check out the prospects. You know,
we can't. You want to preview the absolutely grotesque and hideous exhibition match
in Jamaica between the non legendary Razor Ruddick and the Hall of Famer James Tony.
I thought when I saw this on the rundown that it was part of
the nostalgia. But now you're telling me just before we hit the record button,
this is actually going to be an exhibition fight, and without looking,
are both of them fifty years old? Oh yeah? I mean, do
you want me to say it or are you going to say it? What
are we doing here? What is this? Rayphield? There is an exhibition
between Tony and Ruddick and we'll talk about it for a few seconds. What
are we doing here? Well, one thing I can guarantee you is that
the big Man will not be watching that. I mean, I got better
things to do with my life. Then watch Razor Ruddick, who has not
had a boxing match since twenty fifteen, which I actually saw that fight when
he got absolutely destroyed by nobody in three rounds. He hasn't been irrelevant since
the nineties. He's never won what I would consider a highly significant fight.
He has significant losses by knockedout in devastating fashion, to Lennox Lewis, to
Tommy Morrison, to Mike Tyson of course in his two most famous fights.
You know. So it's like a whatever. It's sick that he'd even be
thinking about being in the ring. He's from Jamaica. I think that's part
of the attraction. He's going home. Whatever. And James Tony, he
was a Hall of Famer and was at one time one of the greatest fighters
in boxing, a pound for pound caliber, you know, top two or
three or number one for some people, hasn't had a boxing match in twenty
seventeen. And on a more serious note, and I mean this from the
bottom of my heart, this man should not be in a boxing ring.
He is brain damage. He cannot complete a sentence without you struggling to understand
what he's saying. And I don't say that to be real cruel you know,
at one time I had a very friendly and fine relationship with James Tony,
so much so that in the year that he won the Fighter of the
Year award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, when he had a phenomenal
year which included his incredibly dramatic cruiserweight championship victory against Vasili Gira followed up by
a knockout victory against a still solid Evander Holyfield, he was the Fighter of
the Year, and and his team asked me to be seated with him at
at the at his table and the night that he received the awards, So
I sat with him and his team and and to think that he's still getting
in a box. How many and how many years ago was that that he
was the fighter shibbition or not that that that year he won the Fighter The
year was two thousand and three. This is now twenty years later, and
he was an older fighter then in twenty So I don't want to spend a
lot of time on this. If you want to waste your money in thee
you need you need to be doing better things with your life. Amen.
You know what can I say? So that that's that's my soapbox statement for
this show. And again, it's kind of interesting because of the scheduling of
the Shaqueur Stevenson a Manuel Navarat Championship doubleheader being next Thursday, we have more
time to preview that when we come off of the weekend, which we're gonna
do. You're gonna hear from shaque Stevenson coming up. But Dan, just
explain again why that fight is not this weekend and why it's not on a
Saturday of next weekend with what's going on in Vegas, et cetera. Sure,
I mean, first of all, from the standpoint of just making things
interesting, you know, I don't never I've never understood why we have that
every major boxing match on a Saturday night and sometimes on a Friday night.
There are seven days in a week, and I understand that there are better
days, you know, television wise and in terms of your gate and all.
But the big fights in the past, they were all you I always
get asked us on social media. You know, you see like an anniversary
of you know, a big Muhammad Ali fighter, a Sugar Ray Leonard fighter,
what have you. And oftentimes there are Monday nights, Tuesday nights,
and the reason you know, I've explained those reasons. They were closed circuit
fights. Movie theaters did not have a lot of customers coming in. That
was a way to bring in customers on a night that they normally wouldn't generate
a lot of money, So the promoters put the fights on on those nights.
In terms of the Vegas casinos, having the fight on the Monday was
a way to get your players to stay an extra night through the weekend,
meaning they're gonna gamble more at your tables, et cetera. But anyway,
so this particular fight between Chaquur Stevenson and Edwin de Los Santos, which takes
place this coming Thursday, it's the top ranked ESPN main event that's going to
be at the Team Mobile Arena with Navarette in a title defense on the undercard.
You have a situation where the in Las Vegas is the gigantic Formula one
race. This is the Formula one race week. It's the first year of
I guess a multi year commitment to do this and this F one race,
and so it's a it's a they have a lot of activities, a lot
of things going on in the city, and ESPN is the broadcaster of that
fight, of that of that race, and so you know, the network
likes to have what they call synergy. You know, having spent fifteen years
at ESPN, I know all about that. That's why Top Rank has for
most of its time doing fights on this the current incarnation of Top Rank Boxing,
they have boxing matches mostly in New York. Not this year, but
all the other years in New York City on the night that ESPN televises the
Heisman Trophy. This is the same sort of thing. They're in Las Vegas
for the F one race, and they like the idea of having another event
in the city, another sports thing that will bring out some fans and some
attention and some press and all that. I'm not quite sure this is going
to generate that kind of attention because the city is a wreck with traffic and
you know, because all the all the problems of navigating the strip because of
the race. It's I mean, when I was out there TJ for the
for the Canelo fight in September, and myself and a few of us went
to have dinner at a different property than where we were staying, it was
there was already you could see the stuff that was being blocked off in the
suite that was, you know, over a month ago. Because again so
that we explained, is the Formula War one road course is all around the
strip, yes, right down for Burns, and it's creating a traffic nightmare
for people that are working on the strip, much less the tourists, the
gamblers, the people that want to come to the shows and the events.
Uh. You know, the Raiders played a game last week against someone's giants.
The Raiders play again this Sunday against the Jets, and I was told
with somebody trying to go to that that it was an absolute traffic nightmare because
of everything being blocked off in anticipation of this race. I'll tell you what
happening next weekend. So it's a mess. Even the brief notion that I
had about maybe making the trip to Vegas for the doubleheader, because you know,
it's a good fight between Stevenson and de Loo Santos. Never Atte's always
funny. He's in with a good contender in Contoso defending his title with the
obvious implication from top rank that down the road they will try to set up
course Stephenson versus never Atte, assuming that they're both the winners, and never
at they would go up to lightweight and challenge for that title at some point.
And the reason was because I had, you know, for about two
seconds of from I said, you know what, since the Team Mobile Arena
open, I want to say, in twenty sixteen, I have covered every
single boxing event that has taken place there. This will be the first one
I would miss. So I was sort of like thinking, for myself,
maybe I'll go out there, And then I realized, you know what,
no offense to the card. It's not a bad show by any means,
but the notion of navigating that disaster. And also and I was told this
and checked myself. You know, we travel after to Vegas. I mean
it's not you know, got your plane tickets, you know, transportation,
meals, et cetera. The hotel rooms because of the race are off the
charts, like there's no deals to be had for these for rooms. So
I was like, you know what, I don't need that headache, but
I'll be happy to watch Chakor and neverte in their title fights on ESPN.
So anyway, the reason they're doing it Thursday is because they wanted something leading
into the to the race week and the team mobile was available. To a
lot of the other venues where they thought about putting it were not available.
So even though it's a really big building for that kind of card, you
know, they'll they'll dress it up. They'll obviously close down the top portion
of the of the arena. But you know what, it's it's a good
thing because not everybody is in home on a Saturday night watching boxing, and
Thursday you might attract a little bit of a different audience that's tuning in.
Uh, you know, it comes off it comes after a college football game,
so we'll have a good lead in to the boxing matches and uh,
we'll see how that works out for them. But all I know is cha,
course Stevenson is one of the best fighters in boxing back in action,
never at tay, one of the most exciting fighters and also a quality fighter
back in action. So you can do it on a Monday night, on
a Thursday night, on a Sunday night, but the big Man's gonna be
watching, all right. So we'll give a more of a preview ourselves on
our Recap Eric Quotes podcast coming off the weekend before this happens Thursday. But
they don't have to wait for more of a preview of this because right now
they're going to get a preview. You set it up nicely there, Shaquur
Stevenson. You spent some time with him here recently. This was good.
Chaqueur was good in this interview. He talked about I don't expect anything less.
I don't expect to be bad. If you're sending it and putting it
on in the office, I expect him to be good. Well, not
every fighter, as clib and you know, and Plane spoken at Cha cours,
you know, but we touched on a lot of the good topics about
about getting the chance to fight for a lightweight title, about the prospect of
a future naver At Day fight since obviously they're on the same card together,
but also about all the guys that declined, for whatever reasons, not to
fight him for this vacant I remember Hane, Devin Haney vacated the WBC lightweight
title because he's going two hundred and forty pounds to challenge Regi's program for that
belt. And so Hane wanted to fight I mean I rather Shakourt wanted to
fight Hani. Did not happen. So the guys that were lined up.
Lomachenko turned it down, well, Cruz turned it down, Frank Martin's team
accepted, then he turned it down. Finally Deal Los Santos accepted. So
we guy got Shakor's views on on all that business that occurred and lots of
good stuff. He's a I've known Chaqueur since before he turned professional and I've
always found it to be, you know, a pretty good dude to interview.
Excellent setup. Here is the conversation with Dan with Shaquur Stevenson right now.
But it's my great pleasure to welcome into the post this week. It's
a two division world champion, one of the best fighters in boxing. It
is Shaquurse Stevenson, scha Court. Thank you very much for doing this and
welcome to our show. It was good, Dan, it was good.
Everything good. Everything's good with me also, thank you so much. So
you're you're you're out in Vegas right now training. You have a very significant
fight coming up. You're looking to win a world title in a third weight
class, going for the vacant WBC lightweight title November sixteenth, that's the ESPN
main event at the T Mobile Arena. You're taking on Edwin Delos Santos.
It took a while to get your opponent, but you finally got one.
And my first question for you is, as I mentioned, you're going to
go for your title, for a title in a third weight class. You've
been a champion at featherweight, You've been a unified champion in the junior lightweight
division. You're only twenty six years old, You're obviously creating all kinds of
legacy for yourself. What would it mean to you to become a three division
champion, especially at such a young age in this sport. I think that
it would mean a lot for me to become a three division world champion.
I think that you definitely gotta put me higher up on the powerful pound list.
I mean, just be just winning titles in every weight class that I'm
just going to and dominated. I think that that's gonna put me higher up
on the list. So the higher up on the list, you know,
I think you. I mean, I have you on my pound for pund
lists for sure, But you're twenty and oh with ten knockouts, and you
mentioned about winning titles and doing so you know pretty easily. I guess do
you feel like through your first twenty fights, that you've had any opponents that
have really given you a difficult fight, Because when I look at your resume,
I see your best opponents. I think of guys like Oscar Valdez,
Jamel Herring, Robson, Konsiso, Jem Ryan, Nakatiya, Joet Gonzalez.
I mean, these are probably the best guys you faced. Off the top
of my head, you beat every single one of them very, very easily.
Has anybody given you competition? In your mind? Nah, Ain't nobody
give me no competition in a fight yet. But that's not to take away
from no fighters. I think that they all are really good fighters, but
I think the levels above them, so Nah, I don't think that nobody
really gave me a real compeiss yet. You became the mandatory challenger for this
title with your victory over Yoshino back in April. That was Devin Haney.
You know he was undisputed at that time. Did you think back then that
HAINI would fight you, And if not, are you at all disappointed that
he decided to instead? You know, he's pursuing the WBC title at the
Junior welterweight division against Regis program in December. Did you think he would fight
you? And are you disappointed with that he didn't. Yeah, I thought
that he would, just because he was calling in and doing all the things
that he was doing before I mean after my fight. So yeah, I
thought I thought that he would. But I think deep down inside I knew
that he wasn't ready to line it up with me, understood. I mean,
he is going, like you mentioned, you're going for your history for
a third weight class. I guess he looks at it like he's going for
his own in a second way class, having been undisputed in his weight division,
now moving up sort of see the reasons even if you would have liked
to fight him, I mean, I think he just knew. He knew
when I got there it was trying to go up and wait. I think
that fighting me would have been like a really big risk for him. Man,
coming off of the fight that he just had with Li Nchenko. I
think his confidence was really low. So he tried to like play around and
play a little social media games. But truthfully, I don't think like dep
down he wanted to get in the ring. Well, once he vacated and
went, you know, made the decision to go up and pursue the Regius
Prograde fight. The WBC went through its process. The title was vacant,
so they just go down the line. You were number one contender from your
victory over Yoshina. As I mentioned, Lomachenko could have been the opponent.
He opted not to fight you, take the rest of the year off.
Then they went to the Pitbull Cruise he turned it down. Everybody kind of
thinks that he said it to a rematch with Tank Davis in the early part
of next year. What did you think about those two guys not fighting you,
especially Lomacheko, which seemed like it would have been a super interesting fight,
a fight that could have been major, both with the same promoter.
A lot of people thought he deserved the victory against Hainy. I was really
disappointed in the fact that he didn't want to fight me. From what I
heard, he had got offered the most money in his career. He's at
the tail end of his career right now, so I didn't get the point
of not fighting me. I didn't see why not. The only thing I
could think of is he know that I'm the truth too, and he knew
that it would have been a hard tasked But why Pitbull cools. He already
shown several times that he got no interest in getting in the ring with me.
I think that his dad and his team is kind of scared. I
think that they don't really want to do that today self. They may have
something to do with the fact that maybe he can make a bit more money
against Tank Davis in the rematch. But understand, I understand your point of
view. I disagree with that because he was offered that before the rematch came
into play. Okay, well, the rematch, it is not the first
time. My last fight at Yoshio, that was my first fight at He
was offered that fight already. Okay, Well, once those two guys decided
they were out of the situation, then they went to Frank Martin, who
was next in line, the undefeated fighter who was aligned with Aerol Spence with
PBC TGB Promotions, and they actually made a deal with Top Rank to do
the fight. Looked like it was on the purse. Spid was canceled by
the WBC, and then suddenly he decided not to take it, not for
reasons that had anything to do with Team schakor Stevenson or Top rank, but
his own internal whatever was going on with his people. I saw you guys
go back and forth about it. I mean some would say he just flat
out duct you. What's your thoughts about his You know, he said he
would do the fight and then he didn't do the fight after they made a
deal. I agree with the people that said he just flight out ducked me.
Like I said with him, he was he was offered the fight.
He said yes, Clearly somebody on his team wanted to fight. They wasn't
scared for the fight that happened, or whoever accepted the fight wasn't scared.
So, man, I think I think that dude got cold. Het DM
that dude and had a conversation with him. Man, that dude was telling
me a whole bunch of rumors that he heard and not speaking no factual information.
But I told him the facts of the fight. I told him how
much the fight was gonna generate, what the numbers was, and I explained
to him. And the fact is he was offered quadruple more than he ever
made in his career. So if she wanted to sit there and act like
it wasn't a duck, that's the biggest line. So tell me if you
think that this is accurate. I think about it like this. You got
a chance to make the most money you ever made, no question. You
have a chance to become the WBC lightweight world champion, something that boxers covet
as soon as they think they want to become a professional fighter, to win
a world championship. And if you go in the ring and you quit yourself
in a solid manner, even if you lose, especially to a talented fighter
like sure course Stevenson, it's like your career is over. Meanwhile, he
turns it down, has nothing scheduled that I'm aware of, nothing even in
the rumor mill about something, and he may sit out the rest of the
year and not make a paycheck. Does that seem kind of crazy to you?
Yeah, it seemed crazy to me, because not only that, the
numbers that he fight in front of the crowds that I've seen and fight in
front of is like little small crowds. He never been on like a bigger
stage and been involved in in a big event, and him being in the
ring with me would have been like the biggest event that he ever been involved
in. I can't see why somebody would turn that down unless they knew like,
Okay, I'm loose. I think that's what he really was thinking.
Well, Delo Santos manned up and he took the fight. I've seen him
fight a few times. He's got a couple of solid wins in a row
on his record. He's got the nice knockout against Jose valan Zuela, who
was undefeated, was considered a rising prospect, rising kind of contender. He
has that win over Adornio by decision. Uh, what is your perspective on
Delo Santos' abilities and and uh, and just the fact that he took the
fight, and I am on record saying I think it's an easy fight for
sure. Of course, Stevenson, to be honest with you, if you
come to the ring the way you typically do. And I'm not just kissing
your end because we're doing an interview. No, I think that Dela Santos
is a great fighter. Oh, I can't taint nothing new wis from Dela
Santo's Uh, from a little bit of film that I did see on home
far as I think I'll watched his fight with Josepho, and I've seen his
fight with Vinna whatever his name is Valan Zuela. Yeah, yeah, that
guy. I think that he performed good. I mean he's a boxer puncher,
he got great movement, and I think that he possesses a more difficult
task than the public I c. So we'll see though, Yeah, we
will see. One thing that intrigues me about the card, besides just seeing
you guys in the ring for the title in the main event, was your
co feature on that show? Is the WBOS Junior lightweight champion Emmanuel Naverette,
a title that you once had is gonna He's already won titles in three wad
lass As his opponent that night, he's defending against Robson Coosasaw, a guy
who you very easily defeated not that long ago. It seems pretty obvious to
me and anybody that pays attention to such things that top ranks laying the groundwork
for who they think will be the WBC lightweight championship course Stevenson to eventually take
on Emanuel never Atte when he moves up to lightweight. Is that something that
interests you and am I on the right path there? Yeah, it definitely
interests me. I think a lot of people think that this dude is a
boogeyman and he's he's a hell of a strong fighter that they think that he
is and knocking out guys and beating up guys quote unquote worse than me,
right, which I disagree with, Like you really go pay them guys is
winning rounds with him, and there's a lot of with me. They was
losing a lot of them arounds. So honestly, yeah, I'm definitely down
for it. Uh, we both got to get past the task that we
got in front of us come November sixteenth. From me, he got a
good fighter and Robinson cause they says our front him, and I got a
good fighter in Edwin Della Santo's. So honestly, I think that we just
got to stay focused and the fight should the next when you're getting ready for
your fight that night, you're gonna be peeking out on the TV screen in
your dressing room checking out what he's doing. Nah, I ain't gonna be
checking it out. I already seen him fight several times. Uh it's the
same shit. Uh, strong and slow, slow as fugged. Though,
I had somebody suggest to me when that fight, when when he was put
on your card, and it seemed clear that the that the plan moving ahead
as long as everybody wins between you two guys on the sixteenth, that that
it reminded them the matchup between yourself and Averette as what might be this era's
version, if you will, of a top ranked fight from years ago style
wise, anyway, when Floyd Mayweather fought Jose Luis Castillo, you know,
was a brawling kind of Mexican fighter with a good reputation and a and a
fun style to watch against a really technically skilled black American boxer who had all
kinds of talent. Do you kind of see where they're coming from? Do
you see that at all? Aar No. I think Castillo was more defensively
sound and more tighter than Navarrete Narette is re op Wow, Noah, I
don't. I don't. I don't think that's a similar fight or a similar
to compare that to me and I say not, Okay, that's fair.
I just wanted to wrap up with this. I know that this fight is
kind of an unusual night. It's a Thursday night, uh, not the
normal Saturday night for the major main events, and the reason, obviously is
because of everything that's happening that week in Las Vegas. They have a huge
event with the Formula one race and they've got other activities around it, your
boxing match being one of them. Do you have any thoughts about, uh,
the fighting like on that on what is a huge week for the city
and also you know, your first time in the main event at a place
like the Timobile Arena, which is the premier venue in Las Vegas at the
moment for boxing. Uh, I'm just focused. I'm ready. I'm ready
to put on the show. I'm glad that I'm getting a chance to fight
on a big stage. I'm appreciative of Todd Rank, I'm appreciative of everybody
that said this of up. I can't wait to show out. I can't
wait to watch a show out. I appreciate you taking the time to talk
to me today about it all, and I look forward to watching a fight.
Shakura, very good luck in the fight coming up November sixteenth. Gotcha,
And we got to keep reminding everybody that fight is not this weekend.
Don't be looking for it this weekend, even though we're playing it here on
the preview podcast. That is coming next Thursday in Las Vegas, a Thursday
night Championship doubleheader that includes Navarata. I promise again we'll talk more about these
fights Sunday. This is not complicated, folks. We don't have fights to
really recap this weekend, so we're gonna spend some more time on Shakoor and
on Navarata. Coming out with that, let's get to some news and troubling
news involving Jared Real Big Baby Anderson arrested early Monday in suburban Toledo, Ohio
or suspicion of driving under the influence and also possession of a handgun. Bonded
out of jail. Not good? All right? What else do we know
other than what I just revealed? They're unbeaten, prominent, arguably the most
prominent American heavyweight, certainly the most active American heavyweight, at least in terms
of the higher rated ones over the last two or three years. All right,
Dan, Rayphael, what else do we know? Now? I think
you meant seeming prominent, up and coming of it, because I'm not sure
he's more prominent than Deontay Wilder. And yes, I use the word active.
I use the word active active. Go ahead. What else do we
know? Well, active or not It's not a good thing when you are
what's the old saying, nothing ever really good happens after like one am or
something like that, two am. My world, we're getting older. It's
like after eleven am, yes, or like eleven pm, but yes,
one am, two am never good. And this is late night Sunday into
Monday morning that this happened. This is Monday. This is at the according
to the official police if you look at which I looked at on the county
jail records, he was arrested at one fifty two am technically Monday, you
know, or late Sunday night, early Monday morning. And as you mentioned,
he was arrested for DUI and in the course of the traffic stop they
found a handgun in the glovebox. It's just not a good thing. I
mean, somebody in like a joking half serious, but I kind of understood,
like the gallows humor of it all. When when name athletes or any
public person or whatever has these types of things happens, usually it's after they've
made a big name for themselves, after they've in boxing. When this stuff
happens, you've already usually become a superstar, you've made millions of dollars and
your notoriety has gotten to a certain level. And they made the point that
Jared hasn't even gone to that point yet, Like if he can't handle what's
going on in his life right now, what, he's not a superstar,
He hasn't been a heavyweight champion, he hasn't made the million dollar persons.
It doesn't have a giant entourage. Like, what's it going to be like
if he ever should get there? Is the point that this person was making.
And so you hope that you know, he's a young guy, he's
only twenty three years old. Do you hope he learned from this that you
gotta take care of your business and be professional and be an adult. Because
if you're gonna drive around with open bottles of tequila, which is what it
said in the police report, and you're gonna have a gun in your car,
and you're gonna be doing this on a late night, it's not a
good thing for your career. And the thing about it that's already turns a
lot of people off about Jared Anderson not about his boxing style. He makes
fun fights. He's obviously a huge puncher. He showed, you know,
some some good heart and ability to recover when he had a brief problem against
Charles Martin in one of his fights over the summer where he was hurting that
fight, but you know, otherwise came back and besides that problem one,
basically every round scored and knocked on on his own. So you know,
and Tyson Fury, who was the heavyweight champion, of course, has done
nothing but rave about the great work that Jared has given him in the training
camps that he starred with him, And Jared was one of the one of
the guests that was in attendance when Tyson fought against France and Naganu in Saudi
Arabia a couple of weeks ago. I mean, so the guy has a
bright future, but you got to keep your personal life and all the other
stuff on track. And uh, you know, he obviously had this issue
come up and it's not a good thing. But one of the things,
one of the things I thought you were going to hit on, is why
do you not have a driver? If you're out doing this and you're a
high priced, prominent athlete, why do you not have some dude, you
don't need a driver. You have a fucking app on your phone, press
the button calling uber. It takes time. I'm with you, but a
lot I mean a lot of these fighters. I'm like Devin Haney got in
trouble on a on a gun charge. Uh, and that was in southern
California. It eventually that was droped. But nobody else was driving, is
my point. Somebody else was driving him, so and the thing about to
stop in the first place, according to the police report, was that he
was He wasn't stopped because he was weave in and out of traffic or whatever.
They stopped him on a normal speeding He was in a forty mile per
hour zone. They clocked him doing fifty five. Seems not unreasonable at that
late hour. Uh. If you're speeding like that in that kind of zone
that a cop is there is going to stop and and check things out.
They got their quota to make for tickets that month. With the head nose,
so you know, it's a normal traffic stop. And then you walk
up to the driver and it stinks like tequila. Now you got a problem,
and like marijuana. By the way, that's yeah, they smelled the
burnt marijuana. So now you got that issue. So you got the alcohol.
You got the drugs, you got the gun. It's the fucking triple
crown, and not in a good way. And by the way, besides
that, you know the thing that's turned some people off of Jared I was
making the point before, and not fight style. It's a fun style to
watch, and you know, you want to see the guy in action as
much as possible, and he has been as uh as we like to talk
about activity. He's had several fights this year, uh, but he's been
in his one interview after another where all he does is talk about how much
he dislikes boxing. Now he's only in it for the money. And I
have no problem with a boxer being in it for the money, but I
want to see boxers. Yeah, be in it for the money, make
all you can make, but also have some passion about what you're doing,
because you want to be the heavyweight champion of the world. You want to
make a makeup mark, you want to be a Hall of Famer, you
want to have a legacy, you want to be in big time fights.
You know, you can say whatever you want about a Floyd Mayweather who made
a billion dollars as a boxer, but Floyd Mayweather had a burning, burning
desire in his heart, deep within the recess of his being to be a
great fighter and be a champion and be a pound for pound king. And
he did it. And that's not just Floyd. You could you know,
we could talk about chapter and verse about most every top fighter out there,
even guys who are at the top fighters, they still have the desire to
do it. That's why they may not have great records, but they have
that that that reservoir of will and heart and desire. And I'm not saying
Jared doesn't have heart when the when the stuff starts happening in the ring,
but the combination of telling everybody every five minutes how much you don't like boxing,
and then having these types of troubles, it's just it's a it's a
bad look, it's a turnoff. And I just hope that he gets a
shit together, takes care of this problem, lets it be a lesson,
and comes back and has a great career. And again, he bonded out
of jail. He's got a future court data. I'm sure there'll probably be
some kind of intervention program that he can go through. That's the case in
most states, depending on if you're a first time offender that kind of thing.
What do we know about the time line about when he would be back
to fight, because he was not slated to fight for the end of this
year right now. But what do we know, if anything, and does
this hamper it? Do we know anything about that? No, I don't
think it hampers it, because not like he's gonna go away to prison or
anything like this. I mean, there may be, like you said,
there'll be some type of you know, first of all, he could end
up, you know, being found in a center or whatever for whatever reasons.
But no, don't I don't think he has an impact on that.
I mean unless he's, like, you know, got a drinking problem,
which I don't. I don't know if he does or not, But if
he does, maybe that would cause an issue. But at the moment,
he, like you said, he wasn't scheduled to fight for the rest of
this year, and I would imagine he would have been on top rank schedule
and you know, sometime in the first quarter of next year. I don't
think that's one hundred percent set yet. Obviously they have to you know,
get their calendar worked out with ESPN. I don't know what stage that is
in then they got to figure out the type of opponent and that type of
thing. So yeah, I mean, I don't think that's gonna have an
impact Hill, It'll probably still fight the first quarter. All right, fair
enough on that, all right, let's move on. We did also learn
this week Jake Paul we already knew turning in December on his own not on
pay per view in Orlando, and they announced the opponent Andre August, who
is a boxer and not a household name. So my initial reaction to this
was kind of okay, and I think a lot of people's reaction is kind
of on that opponent. But give me your insight here, because it's not
an MMA guy, it's not a big brand name MMA guy. It's not
a celebrity goofy thing. But what about this fight? For this Jake Paul
is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. So I'm with you.
We did the whole thing about the MMA fighters. He had the Nate
ds fight, Tyron Woodley. He did this fight, you know, he
did. Finally, there were times we've discussed many times about how he tried
to fight boxers, whether it was a hassim Rockman Junior type fight that didn't
happen for reasons that were not Jake Paul's fight. That was because of Rockman's
situation. So he fights the Tommy Fury fight or an actual boxer. I
mean, maybe you can say what you want about Tommy's talent level or you
know, now he's involved with the you know, the Misfits, you know,
that kind of thing where he did and you know, being more famous
probably for being Tyson Fury's half brother than for being you know, a true
fighter. But at the end of the day, he's a professional boxer who
didn't compete in other sports, and Jake stepped up and fought him, lost
a really close fight. They both made a ton of money. Good for
them. So now coming off that, he goes and he fights in ads
and people were sort of lamenting, oh shit, he's back to fighting these
MMA guys. You know, meanwhile, he's cashing checks. You know,
he made a huge amount of money that would have did a great pay review
number. It did a big gate. So but what I respect and admire
about Jake Paul is the following and I liked what he said when they made
the statement about this announcement for his fight against August is that he said,
look, I've already made like a ton of money and I've already done the
whole pay per view thing. But he wants, and I'm paraphrasing what he
said, he wants to be a champion. Okay, we'll see if that
ever happens, that's a different story. But he wants to give it his
best effort to see if he can get to that level. And the only
way you can do that is by experience and testing yourself and climbing the ladder.
This is a guy in Jake Paul who's seven and one, who had
one amateur fight, so this is his amateur career in essence. If he
was just a guy that you never heard of, that you didn't care about,
this matchup would be like a mid level ESPN plus preliminary, you know,
before the bell on his own, you know, type of show where
it's just this, here's this anonymous up and coming seven and one cruiserweight trying
to make a go of it. We've matched him with a ten and one
and one cruiserweight and let's see what happens. And no one would even blink.
It wouldn't register. But because Jake is famous, and because he's done
these big events and he has a huge fan following. The choices where do
I continue down the path of the MMA fights, which, yeah, they
become events and they make money. It's getting a little played out. Or
do I go, you know, let my bank account fill up, and
I'm going to try to make a go of it and let me get the
real experience on need. I'll trust my matchmakers and my team to match me
with an appropriate level opponent. And keep in mind this is the most important
thing. It's one thing to ask the public to pay money for a pay
per view fight. The fight against August is not a pay per view fight.
It's a regular Zone fight. It is only the second time in Jake's
career that he's not on pay per view. His professional debut was on a
matroom boxing undercard on the Zone. Every other fight he has had has either
been the main event of a pay per view or an undercard of a pay
per view, And now he's on regular Zone. And also because he fights
on an event like this not on pay per view, it's not like it's
it's interesting because we'll see how Jake does against a boxer. Yes, but
remember, the undercard that they're fashioning together has a worthwhile Women's championship fight for
the vacant WBC Supermanial Television Shadeza Green and a franchion Cruiz Desern, who is
the former undisputed champion. So again, I submit to the people who want
to rip Jake Paul and want to just hate to hate for hate's sake?
What do you want from this person? You don't want to watch him against
an MMA fighter, you wanted to fight a boxer. Check. You don't
want him on pay per view because it's too much money. Check, it's
just a regular part of a subscription to the zone. Which you're a diehard
boxing then you probably have the zone, or at least you should. He
wants to develop, he's not looking to con anybody. He's fighting a boxer
who's similarly experienced, had a layoff, but he just fought a few months
ago and got a win. I mean it should Jake win the fight.
Of course, his matchmakers aren't fucking stupid. They're matching him in a fight
they think he can win. But the idea is to show him different styles,
keep him active. We talk about activity every single show. This is
checking every box, solid undercard, not pay per view, real boxer,
somebody that can help him learn and grow what he wants to do. And
don't make any fucking mistake about this. He's leaving money on the table because
if he wanted to, he could have fought another a rematch with Na Diez
or some other MMA guy, or try to go in the cage and fight
somebody in that in that sport. So again, I don't want to be
viewed as like the ultimate Jake Paul ask Z. I respect what this guy
is doing. He's doing it the old fashion way. He's fighting a your
professional boxer, not a superstar. But he wants to get better and learn,
and he's putting himself out there, so I don't. It's like I
said, damned if you do, damned if you don't. If he thought
a fucking MMA guy, he'd get ripped. If he fought on pay per
view, he'd get ripped. Now he's doing the opposite, and people are
ripping him anyway haters, and I'm not ripping him here in this instance.
I'm actually I'm giving him and I'm giving him the credit because I said to
you, I'm good with him fighting MMA guys, I'm out. I don't
have to watch that anymore. So now we're back to fighting boxers and if
it's the true intent to try to move up the ranks, and there'll be
another subsequent fight with another boxer in a few months. I'm still in on
this so joining with and they are paying us to say this, we're just
giving you. I wish they were because I'd take their money, no problem.
But here's the thing. I'll read you part of Jake's quote when they
when they announced fight. I'm a professional boxer and I want to be a
world champion. Okay. I mean, we can argue about whether I think
or not whatever that that's his desire. But the only way he gets there
is starting with fights like this that progress him up to that. We know
that, we understand. So he says, I need to pursue a path
towards greatness against Bengal who have been boxing their entire life or their whole life.
So far, my entire boxing career has been on pay per view.
But now it's about more than business. Now I want to build my experience
in the ring against seasoned fighters, and that's what he's going to do,
and let me tell you your thing. His business partner at MVP, their
promotion company, Nikisa Badarian. I was talking. I texted with him a
little bit, and I also read his quote that he put out when they
announced his fight, and I'm going to give him credit. You know,
he really kept it realingness. It's not a knock on the fighters I'm about
to mention. But his point is well taken, as he points out in
his comments when this fight was announced. When Terrence Crawford turned pro his ninth
this is going to be Jake's ninth professional fight. He's seven to one with
four knockouts, his opponents ten one and one with five knockouts, and he's
coming off a knockout win a couple of months ago. He says. This
is Nikisa Badarian's comment. Terrence Crawford in his ninth fight, fought opponent who
was nine, fourteen and one. When Canelo Alvarez was in his ninth professional
fight, his opponent was zero to one. When Dravonte Tank Davis was in
his ninth fight, he fought an opponent with thirty one losses. Quote.
But Terrence Crawford and Gervonta didn't have the whole world watching Jake does. And
so he's once again putting it on the line, taking on a ten to
one and one opponent. And that's truellaid, because all of that's valid.
Brawford and Canelo and Davis, nobody knew them or cared about them at that
moment when they were fighting their ninth fight. They were in annymous in you
know, anonymity, trying to make their way, build them up, get
experience, and learn the ins and outs of professional boxing. Jake has done
it in front of the whole world, and it just so happens that,
you know, he's famous more than those three guys are, who obviously have
become, you know, top fighters. But he's fighting a guy with clearly
better record, you know, so be it. I mean, all right,
that's the way it is. So in December, and look, a
lot of and a lot of people are going to benefit on the undercard for
this and the fight series that he's doing. He's looking at out for other
fighters. There's something to be said for that too, by the way,
including Amanda Serrano talking about the millions of dollars she's made in the last couple
of years being associated with he his promotions, his cards, so there's something
to be said for that too. Give him credit there, and again they're
not propping us up to say this, We're just giving you our honest takes
on that announcement. So that's coming in December. We got plenty of more
time to talk about that. Let's get to the subject of Showtime closing things
out. December sixteenth show you've been talking about in Minneapolis, and now David
Morel, the headliner, has an opponent. You've learned this tell us more
about that for December as well. So my reporting says that his opponent for
the sixteenth, which is not signed yet to my knowledge, but this is
the opponent they are focused on in targeting and likely will be. The opponent
is a fighter a named Senna Agbeco who is twenty eight and two with twenty
two knockouts. He is from Ghana Fights out of Nashville. Has been on
Showbox in the past. If people remember back in April, he was supposed
to be the challenger against David Morrell, who was the WBA Secondary Super mid
Away title holder. They were supposed to box on the co feature when Ryan
Garcia and Tank Davis had their big fight April twenty second at the T Mobile
Arena, and shortly before that fight occurred, there was a medical issue related
to Senbeco's medical exam and he was withdrawn from the fight and he was replaced
by Yamaguchi Falcau, who, then, of course, Morell went in the
ring and absolutely decimated in the first round. Now, as I am told
by sources that whatever the medical issue that Senategbeco had that prevented him from being
licensed for that fight has been resolved, and therefore he will be permitted to
be the opponent and challenge Morrell in this fight the sixteenth, which will be
the main event of what is supposed to be the final Showtime boxing card,
And I would imagine that in the next I don't know how long it will
take, but in the not too disinfusion, they'll announce that event. It's
supposed to be a triple header, but that would be the main event,
and that will, I guess, be the final fight we see on Showtime
before they are out of business in terms of paramount their pair of company pulling
the plug on Showtime Sports. And let me say, by the way,
as disappointing and upsetting as it was to see them bell out on boxing.
As I come to learn just yesterday one of the shows that I'm a big
fan of on Showtime, not a boxing show or anything, is the political
show called The Circus. I found out that that guy canceled also, so
now I'm definitely canceling my Showtime subscripsion. Yeah, they've been mixing a lot
of different things. That's a great show. And my understanding too from having
a source within all of this through Paramount, is they're eventually going to extinguish
Showtime altogether. Oh yeah. Now that may not be next week, it
may not be to the middle of twenty twenty four, but eventually Showtime itself
is going to cease to exist as well. The first steps of this are
being taken with what they're pairing down, including getting rid of the sports division.
Interesting because I did see this in the Fight Freak show Night substack and
in the newsletter, is that you have with Showtime going away. You have
been doing your and you have discovered that On the docket for the Nevada Athletic
Commission hearing is a pay per view and TGB Promotions and Premiere Boxing Champions are
involved with this. For January so tell me more on what you have uncovered
that's going to be discussed next week. Yeah, I mean, listen the
Nevada Commission when they have a meeting, they have a meeting every single month,
and within I guess it's usually two weeks ten days before the meeting,
they put out the agenda. So I'm on their mailing list. I have
been for you know, twenty something years. I get their agendas and I
read them. It tells you, like, you know, which amateur team
is asking for a grant to help them pay for their expenses. It talks
about, you know, when hearings are scheduled, if a guy has a
failed drug test, pointing of judges and referees for major you know, for
any championship level fight or made event type fights, the requests for dates from
promoters and all that kind of stuff. And this was one of those things
on there where I'm just kind of reading the agenda like I always doing.
This one kind of jumped out and it was a fact that you have TGB
Promotions, which is the house promoter for all PBC events, asking the Commission
for a date request of January thirteenth at the MGM Grand And it says on
the thing. It says, specifically, this is not what TGB wrote.
This is what the commission wrote on the on the agenda, you know for
you know, because they considered I mean, these are all like rubber stamps
essentially when they ask for these dates most of the time. But the bottom
line is they're asking for that date, and it would stated that it was
in the reason was it was, you know, for a pay per view.
Now, a lot of times when you see that I've been reading these
agendas for a long time, it'll say for an ESPN pay per view,
it'll say for Showtime pay per view. It'll say for a Fox pay per
view back when they were doing or HBO pay per view when they were doing
this, did not say that. This just said for pay per view.
So obviously, anybody that's been following what's been going on knows that that the
PBC folks are either looking for a new deal or have a new deal but
having yet made that fie, and that they're doing an event on January thirteenth.
Now, it has been mentioned to me that by somebody in the industry
that the thirteenth did not seem like the likely did for a pay per view,
So it is conceivable that is an error by the Commission in terms of
listening as for a pay per view, But it doesn't change the notion that
that TGB is seeking a date on the thirteenth to do an event. So
whether it's a pay per view or not a pay per view is not really
relevant. The reality is that they're looking to do an event. Obviously,
they're not the kind of outfit that's doing events that are not being televised or
streamed or have some type of broadcast PLAYFLL. I can tell you in my
world that's the NFL Playoffs first Saturday that weekend. That's going on on Saturday
night, the thirteenth of January. So let's see what it is in fact
they're going to do. I mean, the speculation, shall we just speculate
we didn't have fights to preview? You already played, We already played your
conversation with SHAKR Stevenson. Is this maybe where Gervonte Davis re emerges to headline
that pay per view, which he has fought I believe the last two Januaries
on pay per view, at least last January. I know he fought on
the VIC. There is there is that possibly what this is to headline Maybe
I don't know the answer to that. I mean, if it in fact
is a pay per view, which like I just mentioned, it doesn't.
It's not necessarily a pay per view just because it was on the commission agenda.
But if it is a pay per view, one would imagine that that
would be the spot because, like you said, Tank fought in January of
this year, that was the Hector Luis Garcia fight. He then had the
huge fight in April against Ryan Garcia. Then he spent a few months,
you know, in jail courtesy of the Baltimore folks, and now it's been
obviously several months since he's been out and you know, be ready to get
back in the ring. So yeah, I guess that's it's not out of
the realm of possibility. I've not heard that specifically. I also know there
are a few fights that are sitting around the PBC was trying to do or
hoping to do, that aren't going to get done for this year. Like,
for example, we talked about the possibility of a Lara versus Danny Garcia,
the possibility of a Montas Stanionis against Keith Thurman, those are just two
of those type of fights. If it was a Davis fight, that wouldn't
be a surprise. There's been a heavy speculation that his next opponent will probably
be a rematch against Isaac Pitbull Cruz, and maybe that will happen. And
by the way, he fought Cruise in December of twenty twenty one, right
before January. A year later he fought in January, and interesting, he
also fought Euryoki Scamboa in late December of twenty nineteen. So it's just for
whatever it's worth, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I'm just trying
to connect dots. Who knows, who knows on that one, and we'll
see what else they have there. By the way, while we're just on
the subject, showtime and PBC and the pay per view for David Benavidez and
Demetris Andred it has now been officially rolled out and the full pay per view
undercard has been finalized. Anything else there of note, Well, they heard
him up there, he announced the pay per view fights. What they did
earlier this week was they announced the rest of the card of the non pay
per view fights, and of course, for most people, that means what
are the fights that they show, Which has become sort of the standard way
that Showtime and PBC have done things, is that there's the pay per view
that starts with you know and has usually four fights, you know, three
plus the main event, and they'll usually do certain number of fights, usually
two, maybe sometimes three. They'll do it where they show them as as
on a free platform to sort of help lure people to buy the pay per
view. They put them on their Facebook page, they put them on on
their YouTube channel. So they're usually prospect related fights. But the fights that
have going on for this one are fights that I could see being on television,
like on an undercard. Like they're not pretty decent matchups. So one
of them is a fight I reported about a while ago that was not going
to be on the pay per vot I report it is on the card is
Sergey Lippinet's the former IBF one hundred and forty pound champion, against Michelle Rivera,
a lightweight who was coming off the loss to Frank Martin and a positive
drug test, but he's moving up in weight. So lipinik lipinets against Rivera
on you know, trying to come back from the loss that's one of those
fights on the YouTube channel. That's actually like a solid preliminary, Like I
would watch that for sure. That look, it's like a pretty good fight.
And then the other fight that they're gonna have on that part of the
card, which is the second of the two fights, I guess that's the
first of the two lippin it so will be the second fight on the in
terms of the chronological order, but they have that the junior middleweight up and
comer of Vito mil Nikki, only a twenty one year old kid fifteen and
one, and he's taken on Alexis Salazar, who's kind of battle test at
twenty five and five as a loss as Andrews eyes. But that's a solid
matchup also for that level of the show. So anybody who's either buying the
pay per view or not buying the pay per view, you can watch those
two fights for a free So that's a good thing. That is a good
thing, all right, free fights. We like that. We always like
that. Okay, speaking of fights we do, we can go over the
Jamel hearing Win. We heard from him last week on the preview podcast that
he was making his return. Former world champion after an eighteen month layoff retirement,
he fought an up and comer in Nick Molina and demolished him in one
round in the Broadway Boxing Heroes on the Hudson card for obviously the fact that
Herring is a marine. It's a Veterans Day weekend this weekend in the United
States, so this was earlier in the week. But he wiped Molina out
inside of a couple of minutes in this fight. So I fought or two
from you, Dan Rayfield before we moved to nostalgia. Well, listen,
I mean happy for Jamel. He's a good guy. I think, as
we've talked about leading up to the fight, there's I don't I've never been
anybody among the other boxers, writers, promoters like everybody likes Jammel Herring.
You know, there was a reason why he was selected as the captain of
the United States Olympic team, because all of his teammates respected him and liked
him. And you know, he'd been out for eighteen months. He had
taken two losses in a row, a pretty one sided ass kicking in a
knockout loss against of course Stevenson that cost him his belt at one hundred and
thirty pounds. Then he fought a lightweight fight and lost that decision, you
know, and then you know, that was a fight against Jermaine Artist,
who has emerged, you know, with a close loss for Lamachenko. Anyway,
Jamel retired and he was out of the ring for eighteen months. He'd
been doing some commentating for some of the top rank cards. You know,
their internationals are some of those early morning shows that we see when they do
events from Japan and that sort of thing. But he, uh, he
decided to make a comeback. He's thirty eight years old, see if he
can make another go. He's now being trained by Wayne McCullough. Uh,
the former Banham Way champion and Irish Olympian. Uh. You know, would
you know was one of the most fun fighters to watch in his in his
day back in the saying like the nineties into the early two thousands, any
event, the match they didn't right match Jamel soft, I mean, and
Jamel is not known as being a big puncher. He's now twenty four and
two with only twelve knockouts, so a fifty percent ko ratio. His opponent,
Nick Molina, was thirteen and one thirteen and oh with five knockouts for
a Broadway boxing show on a Tuesday night. That seemed like a halfway reasonable
matchup. So even if you figured, okay, let's see what Jamel has,
but you figure he's gonna win just based on his you know, muscle
memory, if you will. I don't think anybody would have expected Jamel Herring
to get a first round knockout. And he dropped the guy twice and got
the knockout, So he's he's quote unquote back. He talked about after the
match in his post fight interview about you know, having interest of maybe going
overseas to the UK to fight one of the names over there. Lee would
or you know somebody of that ILK and Josh Warrington, somebody at one thirty.
Uh, well, see if he can land that kind of fight.
But uh, I was listen, I'm happy for him. Like I said,
Jamel is a really likable guy and not good for him. And by
the way, he revealed something to us and it's pertinent for Shakour's title fight
next week. He told us in the podcast. He may have told others,
but hey, we're going to take credit for it because he told us
in the podcast that we ran here he sparred some with Shakur Stevenson in this
training camp for Shakur leading up after they fought each other. So Shakur called
him up and said, Hey, I want to go over some stuff again
with you. I enjoyed battling you and fighting you for real with the lights
were on and the big money and the title. So that's just kind of
interesting that he was he was part of that. And uh, Jammel again,
Jammel is as personable as anybody that we can deal with. We can't
say that enough, by the way, is because like you said, he
likes and respects Jamel. But more importantly, you know, he's preparing for
for deal Los Santos, who was a left handed fighter, and Jammel is
also a south bass. So it was good good sparring and good training for
for for Shirkur getting ready for his championship fight for the WBC lightweight tittle.
But was probably also excellent to go in there with Chiquart for Jamel herring because
no matter who he is fighting Nick Moline or whoever, it wasn't me any
better than chickquar So he got probably pretty good work coding. You know,
you have that kind of sparring, it's not as tough when you're in the
real fight. It's productive for both. I like that, right, speaking
of productive for both, nostalgia always seems to be that, let's go.
Let's start first with Sergei Kovalev becoming the unified light heavyweight champion. So this
was nine years ago, twenty fourteen on Wednesday. You were ringside for this.
What are the memories in the nostalgia of this light heavyweight title fight?
Well, like you said, I was ringside for that fight in the Atlantic
City and Borderwalk Call, And if my memory serves by the way, you
know, I have covered numerous fights at Boardwalk Call. I think this is
like the last time there was like a really significant fight in the in the
main arena at Borderwal Call, which just tells you how long ago it was.
Nine years ago. You know, I used to go to Lantic City
pretty much like every month or every couple of months, and it's been fewer
and far between. I've covered some shows there since then that we're and smaller
casinos and smaller venues and that sort of thing. But you know, Boardwalk
Hall was the home for a lot of big fights, you know, including
you know, several Bernard Hopkins fights, his his great victories against Kelly Pavlick
and against Antonio Tarbar were there, but that old magic was not there when
he fought against Kovialev. Remember Bernard at that time, he was forty nine
years old, but he was still going along the old man river. He
was, you know, had the guile, had the experience, had the
defense, had you know, the mental advantage over most of his opponents,
a way he could play with their minds. And you know a lot of
people thought he was gonna be coval Lev because Covialev was this killer, this
knockout machine. Who had you know, Bernard had. He had unified the
titles, the WBA and the IBF titles, and in that moment against Schumanov,
he had become He had already set the record for being the oldest champion.
He had set a bunch of records age related. When he defeated Schumanov,
he became the oldest fighter to unified titles. Meanwhile, he had Kovalev,
who was knocking everybody out. He had gone overseas, he had on
his title by devastation against Nathan Cleverly. He had defended it a few times
and uh, and they were both on HBO. They made the match.
And even though Covilev was the young guy, the strong guy, the powerful,
big giant knockout puncher, a lot of people were giving Bernard a really
good chance to out box him with the skills and the and the smarts and
all that. And even those who thought covil would win thought, Okay,
you know, Bernard's always had a good chin. Bernard's been you know,
very solid defensively, like even if he loses, you know, this fight's
gonna it's gonna be competitive at least at times. And co V dropped him
in the first round. You know, Bernard had only been knocked down and
you know, Bernard had a total of like almost seventy fights, I want
to say, off the top of my head. You know, he's got
knocked down a few times, but nothing like you thought he had a bad
chin or anything like that. But he got dropped in round one and Covialev
basically beat him up for twelve rounds. He did, he did go the
distance, but at the end, UH Covidev won that fight a shutout one
seven on two scorecards, one twenty to one. Oh six on the third
work hard hard to argue with any of those, and uh, you know,
he became the three belt unified champion. This is covid lev you know,
who still had several more fights that he was knocking everybody out before he
you know, met his waterloo if you will, against Andre Ward in a
first fight which I thought he won even though he didn't get the decision.
And for Bernard, you know, it wasn't his last fight of his career,
but it was basically the end of his career because he then was off
for about two years or whatever it was before he made the return against Joe
Smith and got knocked out of the ring in the fight that we've told the
story about how I helped make that fight. But the Covid Left fight was
a big event for Atlantic City. It was a big event for boxing,
big event for the light heavyweight division, and uh, you know, it
was sort of the end of the championship road for for Bernard Hopkins, who
you know, goes down as one of the great champions in boxing history in
the middleweight division for sure, and then had you know, some very big
wins in the light heavyweight division also, and h and ultimately, you know,
retired after that Joe Smith fight. Kval Lev, like I said,
had a really good ring. I mean, you can say which one about
coval Lev in terms of those losses he took against andre Ward. But he
does have a case to be made that you know, and when he gets
on the Hall of Fame ballot, I'll really study it more. But I
definitely think that he's he's done enough in the eyes of many that he should
be a Hall of Famer, if not, at the very worst, he's
a borderline Hall of Famer, certainly good enough to make the ballot, and
if he does, this is one of those signature victories of his career because
anybody that beat Bernard Hopkins. You know, even when Roy Jones beat obviously
much much younger Bernard Hopkins, he didn't win twelfth to nothing. You know,
he won eight to four. This was as comprehensive a one sided ass
kicking as you could get without scoring a knockout. He did get the knockout,
but not the knockout, and so that was a pretty big deal.
And you know, Coviallev had that big, big name on his record that
he needed to help set him up for a future Business. Continuing on the
nostalgia timeline, you were also ringside as we released the podcast Thursday into Friday
here sixteen years ago Friday, November tenth, two thousand and seven, Miguel
Coto defeats Sugar Shane Mosley. You were there for that one as well.
I want something from you on this one. Also, what do you got
Well? When Miguel Coto fought at Madison Square Garden, it became an event,
and he had a lot of fights at Madison Square Garden and I covered
all but two of them. And the reasons I didn't cover those other two
was because I was at other fights on those nights. One of them was
Bernard Hopkins against Antonio Tarver. One of them that I missed was because I
was at Iron Mike Tyson against Kevin McBride. But I was certainly at the
Miguel Coto Shane Moseley fight. And for all those fights of Miguel's I covered
at Madison Square Garden, this was one of the most electric crowds you could
ask for. And when I think about all those fights I covered of Miguel's
at the Garden, the three that popped in my mind in terms of this,
the excitement level and the anticipation, Sugar Shane Mosley being one of them,
the rematch against Antonio Margarito being another, and probably the great matchup we
had with Zab Judah. But when he fought Moseley and Judah, if I
remember correctly, they were back to back fights, this was Miguel Coto at
his absolute best. And Miguel Coto had his absolute best, was a tremendous
fighter, a pound for pound level skill, a pound for pound guy,
huge popularity, exciting fights. And even though Sugar Shane Mosey was maybe not
at his absolute best of his career at that time, he was still pretty
freaking good when he fought Miguel Coto, and he gave him a tough fight
that night. It was not like, you know, Miguel co didn't walk
over the guy. This was a very solid and tough fight and it was
a very exciting fight, nip and tuck all the way. And you know,
Coto did get to win and he deserved it, but he was made
to work that night in a big way. Crowd going crazy, I mean,
that was the great thing about it. Even if the fight stunk,
the crowd for a Codo fight was just phenomenal. It was a truly tremendous
fight. And you know it does it does it rank up there with the
you know, the Miguel tour or the Ricardo Torres Fight of the Year shootout
fight, or you know the Margarito rematch that was such a dramatic thing because
of he was going for the revenge of the knockout, or you know,
the the anticipation when Miguel fought and lost in that great battle with Nanny Packap.
I don't know about that, but this is a first class fight.
It's one of those sort of under the radar kind of fights. Again,
you didn't see it like you should do yourself a favor and go back because
you had two Hall of famers because now they're both in the Hall of Fame
going at it for in a world title fight, you know, with an
incredible crowd. And as I've always said, one of the great thrills of
my time of covering boxing is to be able to have bit a ringside for
so many great fights and so many great fighters, and when you see two
of them against each other, that makes it more special. And being honest,
Koto and mostly We're always two of my favorite guys to talk to and
to interview and to cover and to be around. I always had like like
missed emotions that like like I never really rooted at fights. Like people can
say what they want, but I always played it straight. I mean,
in your heart, you might have an idea who you want to win,
but you know whatever's going to be is going to be. You kind of
learned that when you start doing this gig. That was a night Tho where
he had sort of like mixed emotions because you love both guys so much and
you respect both guys so much, and you want to see both guys do
very well, but there's one winner, and on that night it was the
younger, fresher, more explosive Miguel Coto and who you know. And the
thing about it, cHj, was when you went into that fight, you
were thinking to yourself, if Miguel's gonna win the fight, it's probably gonna
really have to put it on Shane and maybe get a knockout. You know,
Shane was going to have such a great chin, and that Shane,
even that at being older, still had you know, a lot of speed
and reflexes. But on that night. It was Miguel that that would had
the little bit more to get the job done. And in the speed department,
in the in the aggression department, and all the things that checked the
boxes, he just did a great job. I still say, if you
take a look at Miguel's entire career in terms of the best win he ever
had, I think it's the Shane Moseley fight. Some people might say it
was the Juda fight. Some might say it was the vengeance against Margarito,
some might say it was walking through the fire to get the knockout against Torres
as a young champion. But for my money, Miguel Coto, if you
were drawn like the line graph of when you reach your peak and the ups
and the downs, the high point of Miguel's career in terms of as a
as an overall package as a professional prize fighter, was the night he beat
Sugarshae Mosley. This's why we love you for the nostalgia, and we can't
get out of here without making mentioned forty years ago, Rayphiel, forty years
ago, Friday Marvelous, Marvin Hagler, Roberto Duran, one of the mini
fights of the Four Kings series, this one probably in the power rankings,
though down near the bottom in terms of action drama. Hagler got the win.
It would eventually set into motion Marvin getting to fight Thomas. Hearns.
I do think it's interesting too. A lot of people believe when you go
back and look, it's a long fight, it's a fifteen round fight that
Duran won a lot of rounds off Hagler. Hagler's fights were tough to score
for him or for the opponent a lot of the time, so Hagler got
the decision. I do remember al Bernstein, I think I'm going to go
ninety eight percent that al Bernstein told us he was on the pay perview as
an analyst for the first time ever for a pay perview on this fight,
and he said he had Duran win the fight late into the fight, and
Hagler won the last couple of rounds on his card to give it to him.
So, anyway, give me some nostalgia from what we remember back in
our youth, back forty forty years ago. Look, this might happened.
I can still remember, like you know, seeing it on the cover of
Sports Sports others. Right after this fact, I was thirteen years old.
I was in my early days as a boxing fan, but not a diehard
boxing man. But certainly when you had the big names. You know,
at that time, you're talking about the Four Kings, Hagler, Leonard Duran,
and uh obviously Marvin Hagler fighting, it made news you were, you
were cognizant of it because it was on the local news. You'd see it
in the newspaper if you looked at the paper, you'd see it on the
on the sports magazine covers, if you know. I used to go,
like you'd be like a weekend, like a Saturday afternoon, I would tag
along with my mom to the grocery store. She do like the jopping for
the week for the family, and I would go to the magazine section.
I would I would leave through the In our youth, we were never helping
pick out the food. We were going to read the magazines exactly, looking
at like Sports Illustrated, I'm looking at the wrestling bags, the boxing bags,
and so you know, anytime you see the boxing magazines, I always
see Haggler or Duran or some former fashion of a picture of them on the
cover. So that's what this era was. And uh, you know,
you mentioned that it was maybe if you took a new account the nine fights
that occurred between the four kings, and you were ranking them in like the
power rankings, and from the best fight of the batch, which of course
is probably most people would say would be either Hagler Hearns or probably Leonard Hearns
one that that Hagler versus Duran might be at the lower echelon of that.
And I have to tell you I always sort of thought that, and I
guess I could have to I'd have to do my rankings. I were thinking
about it. Certainly number nine the worst of the batch was Duran. Horrible
fight. But but I actually not that long ago, like in the last
week or two, I went back and I watched Hagler against Duran. It's
a much better fight than my my recollections had been. Like, it's not
super explosive action, but there's a lot of subtle skills and a lot of
back and forth between these guys. It was a really close fight. Remember,
Roberto Duran had made like a career comeback, if you will. He
was, you know, he had lost like to Benitez. He had been
upset by Kirkland Lane and he had gone on like a kind of a tour
where he've got a two wins in a row, didn't really look spectacular,
although he did stop the Pinoquavis. Now he gets the opportunity in nineteen eighty
three, this is a few months before he fought Hagler, he gets the
opportunity to fight Davey Moore for the WBA one hundred and fifty four pound title.
Now, we've been on this show plenty of times talking about the atmospheres
at Madison Square Garden that I had been fortunate to be in, and those
are fights that involved people like Miguel Coto, Felix Trinidad, and especially for
the Trinidad fights, the crowds are just it's just incredible. Like I can
still sort of hear the noises in my mind's eye. But if you talk
to people that were around at the time in the in the early eighties for
the fight between Roberto Durant and Davey Moore, they'll tell you that as great
as those atmospheres were for Trinidad, that the atmosphere for win Davey Moore fought
Roberto duran because Durant was such a hero that it was on that same level,
if not greater, and so he knocks out Davey Moore to win the
title and kind of have a rebirth in his career. And off of that
fight, he gets the opportunity to go up and wait to challenge Hagler,
who was the undisputed champion, and he acquitted himself in a fight where he
was not, in any way, shape or form the favorite to win incredibly
well, I mean he was not. He was a four to one underdog
in that fight, which is pretty big by boxing standards, and so people
expected Hagler to win pretty easily, even though they were both great names.
And if you ask Marvin Hagler or anybody that watched that fight, and like
you said, with lots of folks that watched that fight, yeah maybe they
thought Hagler won. But this was a tough, tough, close, hard
fought fight and absolutely I'm thrilled that it happened because it gave you that you
know, we got to see all the One of one of the magical things
about Hagler, Leonard Durant, and Hearns is that they all fought each other.
There was no fight of the of those four men that did not occur,
Like I always complained to this day that we never got to see Eric
Morales fight Juan Danuel Marquez when you talk about the force of Pacio and Morales
and Marquez and Barrera. But so these guys did fight. And Hagler,
you know, he got one of his toughest fights of his career in that
in that fight against Roberto Durant, who eventually did go up and and uh
and and win win the title when he defeated Iran Barkley in a huge upset
you know, three four years later after that, right, So just just
a tremendous battle, I mean, uh, just a classic fight between two
of the all time greatest fighters to ever put their gloves on. They did
it, and the you know, the the quintessential location of fights of that
era, the outdoor temporary arena at Caesar's Palace, which they you know,
pretty much filled up. I think it was around fifteen thousand, three pay
per view days, mostly close circuit, you know, which al Bernstein was
on that call. HBO of course was there and had a call of the
fight, which they showed on delay a week later with the team that we've
come to know, you know of Barry Tompkins and Sugar Rain Leonard and Larry
Merchant. But just just just a great matchup between legends. And like I
said out in rewatching it, it's a lot better than I kind of had
recalled it because I did go back and rewatch it. It's a good fucking
fight. And again the Duran legend. You love this with the nostalgia.
I do have to say this for the late Davey Moore who died in a
in a freak accident. Years later. He died while working on an automobile
Rayfield. I don't know if you know this or remember this, where the
automobile was up on the suspended up above him while he's working on the automobile
and something happened and catastrophically it fell on him and killed him. So that
that happened while he was still in the prime of life. That night at
the garden, it was electric. It was all Duran, et cetera.
There's one import in peace to that, and that is Duran. Absolutely one
thousand thumb Davy Moore in the left eye, causing his left eye to shut,
and then Duran bombed him with right hands for about four rounds. After
that until the fight was finally stopped. Always Duran was always at the line
or across the line on those different on those different things and different Let's also
let's put the we'll put the timing of the Duran Hagler fight, which,
as you mentioned talking about this because it was forty years ago this week.
In terms of the timeline, this is Marvin Hagler still after he beat Roberto
Durant. He's still not it's still three more fights till he gets to the
Hearns fight, so we're still striving for that. Duran would fight Hearns the
summer of the next year, which we've talked about on the anniversary, and
destroyed and destroyed him. So we actually lost two fights in a row.
You know, he lost a very close call against Hagler and then he took
on Tommy Hearns and got splattered in the second round with one of the greatest
right hands in his one more piece of nostalgia. Then we're almost done here
with this. If you go back to the Four Kings documentary that our guy
Matt Whitecross and his team did a phenomenal job the Showtime documentary The Four Kings,
What durand says is that after that Hagler fight, he had made so
much money. Again, he didn't win the fight, he wasn't taking training
seriously, etc. So when it came about to maybe fight Thomas Hearns,
he was saying to whomever was offering him, if you can get me one
million dollars by midnight tonight, I will sign. If you can give me
a one million dollar bonus and get me a million by to night. And
whoever it was said, I can get you half a million. As the
Durand stories go exaggerated. Whatever, the guy could get him a half million
by six am the next day, And so Durand got a half million dollars
while badly out of shape, to sign. And then he confided to the
documentary people, I was so badly out of shape. It was all I
could do to try to get in any kind of shape to make one fifty
four. And Hearns destroyed me. Hearns destroyed me in part because of it.
But I thought, I thought that story was fascinating where they were trying
to work that out, And that was because he was back off the Davey
Moore win. And then the controversy of Diddy beat Hagler or not November tenth,
nineteen eighty three with the four Kings. What a great what a great
time for sure. And one more thing before we go. Don't get too
sappy on me, in too nostalgic. But your guy Lee Samuels with Top
Rank is retiring after what forty speaking of forty years, forty years am I
correct with Top Rank boxing and associated with them, and I know you've been
longtime friends with him thirty six. If you want to be technical, as
he did many many years with top let's round up for Lee give him forty
go He left for He left for three or four years and was working at
the Hilton, the sports book at the Hilton, and then came back in
a too, you know, and then switched from PR to to the coordinating
part of the company in twenty seventeen. But if you want to round up
forty years, but the bottom line forty years, thirty six years, whatever
it's been, I wish Lee Samuel is nothing but happiness and good health and
RETI retirement. One of the greatest people I've ever met in my time in
boxing. It'd be a loved figure, one of the great PR guys of
all time worthy member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. I met Lee
was probably one of the first pr people I ever met when I started covering
boxing, the kind of guy give you the shirt off his back, as
helpful as could possibly be, whatever it was, whatever you needed. I
can't think of too many people in this business that you could talk to who
who have never had a bad word set about them. It may sound cliche
in boxing, especially like most people have somebody that wants to motherfuck them about
something or other. I guarantee you there's a lot that would have that to
say about me, which is fine, not Lee Amiels, Because all those
people that would mf me, and who I would mf, we would agree
that Lee Amils is a great guy and and a lovable figure. And you
know what, he just loved the fighters, loved the boxers. And you
know what, I hope he's still even if he's going to be off and
joined retirement, I hope he's still going to be paying attention on watching the
fights. You know, this guy just just loved everything about the sport,
whether it was seeing the guys in the hotel, having this cup of coffee,
you know, getting ready for away, in taking the fighters over,
you know, dealing with setting up a press conference, dealing doing conference calls,
helping out with an interview, getting quotes, you know, adding just
giving you, like a little bit of insight to what a guy was doing
in his camp. Just give you that little extra nugget for the for the
story to get a little color, you know, if you couldn't be there
to see it for yourself. Just a beautiful human being and we're all going
to miss him on the job at top Break. Love it. Great tribute
there from you busy busy with the news, the nostalgia and the Shaque Stevens
interview. Again, I joke it's a preview podcast. We didn't have really
a big time fight card to preview. We will have the bet US Boxing
show Friday one Eastern time, or will handicap. We'll handicap the Matchroom main
event on that show. We'll also handicap obviously because it will happen before the
next bet US show, the Shaquee Stevenson and Emmanuel Navarate Championship doubleheader in Law
Vegas. So be with US one Eastern bet US Platforms, bet Us YouTube
on Friday afternoon. You and I will come off the weekend that doesn't really
have notable fights. But that doesn't mean that we are gonna have a lot
to talk about because we'll preview even more the Stevenson and Navarat fights. There'll
be more news, there'll be more nostalgia. You don't have to apologize we're
having previous We always got shit to talk about. We absolutely do. It's
just we got to get more creative with the recap off of not really having
a lot the recap. But you and I will do that. We will
do that off of the weekend. In the meantime, have a great weekend.
I'll see you on the bet Us Boxing Show. We'll be back here
coming off the weekend into Monday to get ready for Stevenson Navarate Championship fight week
Dann Rayphiel, thank you you bet I'll see on the bet Us show.
There is the Insider Fight Freaks to Night is his substack Big Fight Weekend dot
Com. I'm merely TJ Reeves for now, We're good with the Big Fight Weekend preview