The future is bright. At Brightmotor Group, our brand new Bright Volkswagen Commercial
Vehicle Showroom is now open in the Bright Motor Campus at air Site Swords.
Visit the launch of our new showroom from Monday the third to Saturday the eighth
of April to discover the full Volkswagen Commercial Vehicle range, the California Camper Van
range and the all new ID Buzz. We have fantastic offers and you can
even pick up some free Bright gifts. Make the Bright choice. Visit Brightmotor
Group dot ie. Well off the weekend that has seen some exciting, interesting
and even dramatic upset outcomes. We are back in on the Fight Preach Unite
Recap podcast. Hello there or welcome back. I'm nearly these somewhat Kickbule host
TJ Reeves. You are here to hear the inside, the analysis, the
frivolity, the humor and all else from Dan Raphael our insider Big Fight Weekend
dot Com and also his Fight Preach Unite substack score. Stevenson victorious in the
Top Ranky ESPN main event. Bam Rodriguez victorious for the WBO flyweight title in
the Matchroom main event in San Antonio, but he suffered a significant injury in
the fight, and then what happened to Sebastian Fondora. Here's a hint,
Tim Burr at six foot six. We're gonna get into all of it here
on the program. Thank you for finding us however you've done so, Dan
rayphel How you feeling off the weekend? We had a lot of different stuff
go on, including a shocker that we'll get to in a few minutes in
California on the showtime PBC. How you feeling. I'm good. Busy weekend.
I think I watched about including the card from Japan. We know that
was on early early Saturday morning, late night, late late Friday night with
a lot of boxing, and you know it's I like a happy medium,
you know what I mean. I'm good with like two or two cards is
good, like even if they conflict. This was four cards on Saturday,
the one that was really early from Japan. Then had the three main US
cards all on exactly the same time. As a matter of fact, Shakoor
Stevenson in the ESPN top ranked main event and Bam Rodriguez in the main event
on the Zone and match Room's card. They were like getting in the ring.
I think it was that those two fights basically at the exact same time,
and then the Fandora fight, you know, a little bit later,
or maybe I have my order wrong. I just know two of those two
of those three fights were literally walking through the ring at the same time because
I was popping back and forth between my screens. And it's very aggravating when
that happens. And I watched a lot of fights, and you know,
for for a weekend where there wasn't like a big fight, but a lot
of like pretty good, reasonable interesting other fights. He had four titles change
hands or you know happen, and no, you got Fondora losing the interim
belt that we'll talk about. Got to Paulus with the opposite over at Mndali
about that undercard to win the unified titles at junior featherweight. And then Brian
Mendoza, well, I said, he gets to win over the with the
big upset. And then you also had Bam Rodriguez who wins the vacant flyweight
delta, his very guts victory which we're gonna get into. And then on
the Japan card even you have on that Undercardiat Takuma in a way, the
younger brother of Naioia in a way winning the vacant band away title of the
w BA. So I had to make a lot of changes in in my
champions chart. Let's put it like that, A lot of a lot of
roll call of fights that will get to by the way I neglected dimension.
Thank you for finding us, whether you did so through a social media link,
through Dan substack as email newsletter, Big Fight Weekend dot com website.
Thank you following subscribe. We come your way with the recap off the weekend,
and I keep getting positive feedback and we keep saying to you folks,
Dan and I are putting a lot of effort into this. You get a
preview going into the weekend, usually overnight Thursday into Friday, depending on your
time zone, your region of the world, whatever Friday, it's there,
and the recap the same way has consistently been there off the weekend overnight Sunday
into Monday. So thank you for finding us. Make sure you follow subscribe
on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, give us a rating, give
us a five star rating as well on the Big Fight Weekend podcast speed that's
where you find Fight Preach unite to recap. Let's begin with the top ranked
show in Newark. Shakour Stevenson did not disappoint in the main event. Let's
begin with the main event. He was really good against Yoshino, is Japanese
opponent, and he even got the stoppage. By the way, we should
make mention this has been rare you and I on the picks on the bet
Us show. It was a it was a blood bath, and we just
couldn't. We couldn't get the outcomes right, including Let's begin with Shakour.
It was not a decision, it was a ko. He was really good.
Give me your thoughts on that, and let's get into that top rank
ESPN card. My thoughts are I'm gonna I'm gonna be picking shakor Stevens that
might not got a lot more in the future. He was strong. But
yeah, as far as the picks go, what this was. We've been
doing the show on bet Us now, it's coming up on about a year.
This was by far. I've had one great week after another, so
I can't complain. This was the blow your brains that weekend where I because
we had two we had two huge upsets and oftentimes it's the how that gets
this and Stevenson on the how got us because we both thought decision. But
tell me what you saw. I think I was like one and seven.
I did a lot worse than Shakurse Stevenson did. But in all seriousness,
listen, Shakurse Stevenson is the future pound for pound king in waiting. It's
gonna happen. It's just a matter of time and you know, getting the
right fights and uh, you know, some attrition and this and that.
The guys at the top won't be there forever. He's making a quick march
to that position. He's a special fighter. Uh you know, you could
see glimpses of it as an amateur in the in the in the gold medal
match in the Olympics where you know, it's arguable that he beat Robesie Ramiers
in that final match to to to finish the Olympics. He got the silver.
He cried in his interview afterwards and was like, I'm never losing again
basically, and it doesn't feel like he's gonna lose for a long long time
to come. We're watching the evolution of the pound for pound future king.
He is that kind of fighter now I'm not trying to over rate or make
Yoshino out to be some uh, you know, incredible talent or you know,
huge, huge test for him. But he's a good fighter, and
he beat some solid fights fighters, and he was undefeated and he had a
good chin, so we thought, and he's done a good job. And
he traveled all that way and he wasn't coming to lay down in that fight,
and he just got taken apart. And it's not so much because of
the opponent. It's just the things that Chakor does that are the kinds of
things that the greats do. The vision, the footwork, the understanding of
exactly the right amount of distance, how to throw the short punch when he
leans one way, how to throw maybe the longer punch when he leans the
other way. It's like the nuances are ridiculous. We can sit here for
half an hour and just talk about his attributes, but he can do everything.
And now that he's put on a little bit more weight and he is
maturing as a person in terms of his physical being, I think he's getting
a little stronger, Like he just looks and you can just sort of feel
it when you're just watching him. That he's a stronger puncher, had one
hundred and thirty five pounds than he was at one hundred and thirty that he
wasn't one hundred and twenty six, you know, as he's gotten his man
strength. As they say, uh, there's nothing that he doesn't do well.
If he adds that little wrinkle of being able to keep a guy honest
with the punching power, he's an unstoppable force at the moment. I mean,
you know, everybody's gonna have their waterloo someday, but I don't see
it coming for him for a long time. I would favor him against anybody
in boxing from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty pounds probably,
And I think I think he could hang with the best guys at one forty
right now. And when when shock me if he beat any of them.
And I'm and again, it's no disrespect to the you know, to Kank
Davis or Ryan Garcia or Timolopez or Josh Taylor or Regis Progray or any of
these guys. He's that gifted. It's it's it's uh so to watch him
do what he did against Oshino. You know what, And I said this
in the pre fight, I wasn't tuning in to that fight because I thought
I'm seeing like an all time great matchup or a super competitive or dramatic kind
of fight. I'm watching that fight within my mind thinking I'm gonna see,
you know, a special performance from a great young fighter, and that's exactly
what we got. He brought in about ten thousand people to the Prudential Center
and his hometown of Newark, so now he's become not only a great fighter,
but a ticket seller and an attraction there also. And he just completely
took a part a quality guy who had, you know, come to fight,
dropped them two times, and the referee made the right call because even
though there wasn't some massive telling shot that caused the stoppage or a big knockdown
that concluded it, he's just rocking them left and right and he can't answer
back with anything, and it's like, you know, what are we doing?
Taking complete ass whooping, and the referee made the right call stop the
fight. But it was There are not enough superlatives in my vocabulary to explain
how great he was on Saturday, and that's and that's obvious, and that's
not praise and I can say this from having been around you now for the
last year doing these shows, preview shows, recap shows. You don't lightly
throw these things around with what you're saying. And anybody that's read you and
followed you and and seeing you on ESPN knows you don't. You don't flaunt
this that often on somebody that is still trying to establish on the ascent and
prove themselves. All right, So it begs that we know Devin Haney's gonna
fight Lomachenko next month, undisputed shot. There is a school of thought that
says, Okay, that's a tremendous fight for the winner, particularly if it's
Haney. There's another school of thought that says, maybe Haney, who's probably
moving up right to junior welterweight anyway, that Haney may not want any part
of Shaker Stevenson right now at one thirty five. I'm not saying that I
know that. I'm just saying that's conjecture that's out there. Give me your
thoughts. Well, my thoughts are if you listen to Mark Kriegel, my
good pal who does the ESPN broadcast, He spoke on the show about the
fact that he had texted earlier in the day with Bill Haney, who was
the father, the manager, and the trainer of Devin Haney, who was
pushing back on the notion that his son was going to move up and that
if they beat Lomachenko, he said, absolutely, he's stay in a lightweight
and he'd be happy to fight Shakor Stevenson. So if that's true and there
isn't a change of thought, and he does win the fight against Lomachenko,
and I think he's fired me up. When Mark told Shaquor that in the
post fight interview, Shakuor was like, Okay, that's great because he's like,
I'm gonna beat that guy, and I that's exactly what I wanted.
He wants the big names. And he made the point, and this is,
you know, I've heard the stories. You never know what's sure.
We're not. But of course, Stevenson and Devin Hanny had a lot of
sparring rounds together. They've been in the gym together plenty times. They know
each other for many years. Uh, you know, they're about the same
age, they come from that same group of amateurs and they've worked together.
So and you know, she course and I got the best of them every
time. Now, I'm sure if I asked Devin Hany the same questions,
you know I got that's a shekor every time. So you know, we'll
never know for sure unless we see some video. I think that might even
had an amateur fight against each other. Point is I thought I saw and
maybe we're wrong, but I thought I saw somebody say that Squor beat him
as an amateur, and maybe that's wrong. No, it's not necessarily wrong.
But the point is, amateur fight is amateur fight. It's you know,
rarely doesn't make a difference. Maybe you know, once in a while
you might find a place where it might have some some significance. I think
of like the rivalry between Shane Moseley and Vernon Forrest. He had beaten him,
that Vernon had beaten Shane and the amateurs, and it was a big
deal when they met his pros and the question was as he have his number
or is it gonna be revenge? And then he beat him in the pros
too, and then he beat him in the pros again, so he's three
and oh against him twice in the pros once and the amateurs. To me,
that's not an accident, but that's that's not necessarily the way that it
always goes. But the fact of the matter is Devin Haney if he emerges
from the Lomo fight, and you know, anybody that's discounting loma Chenko's chances
as an idiot, that's first of all. But if if Haney does win,
him and Shakoor is obviously you know, the epitome of a of a
boxing match, but an interesting boxing match, and if loma Chenko wins,
you know, I have no doubt that for the right deal, he'll fight
Haney. Also are rather a Shakoor Stevenson too, so he's going to have
a lot of good opponent possibilities because it's not just those two guys. There's
other guys patrolling the lightweight division and eventually at the junior walter weight limit also
Shakurse Stevenson. Though right now it's sort of like, just make a list
and you know, you can only fight one guy at time, go through
it, and you know, just pick off one guy after the other.
He already took care of, you know, the guys like a Jamal Herring
could get a title. He took care of a guy like Oscar Valdez to
unify titles, which were two you know, credible, you know, well
thought of opponents. You know, Valdez was undefeated and had been a champion
at featherweight also, and he's just you know, as Santa Claus says,
making a list, checking it twice, he's he's on the way, all
right. So Shakour looked good. We've got that. We'll see what happens
for him in the future. Also not unexpected, Jared Real big baby Anderson
a win in a in a t KO stoppage that was kind of interesting because
they were going by committee in the corner between the reff the corner, the
doctor and and finally they elected to stop it. Sean Davis also victorious.
So give me more on the undercard, on the two expected undercard stars.
They did what they were supposed to do. Your thoughts right. As it
relates to the stoppage of George Arius in the corner, it was really his
trainer, Leon Washington, who was the one that was making the point that
we need to stop this, and he was having a conversation. He wanted
to see how was his man was doing. But he could tell he sort
of had his mind made up. And you know, the doctors and the
and the and the reff we're just sort of observing. And at the end,
you know, Lea. Washington did the right thing because at the end
of round three, when George Aius walked back to the corner, he was
first of all, he'd gotten just obliterated the last you know, twenty seconds
or so of that round, and when he was walking back to the corner,
you know, he was very unsteady, he was cut, and it
was the right stopage. You know. Jared Anderson has now had two fights
in a row against guys who I felt are credible opponents but obviously not at
his level. In December, he blew out Jerry Forrest in the second round.
Overcame a little bit of a rough moment in round one where he got
he got buzzed a little bit, but he came back, you know,
strong as a bull, and just destroyed him. And now you have George
Arius, who lasted into the third round or last of three rounds, but
was never competitive for a minute and had never fought anybody before. At least
Forrest had some resume to speak of and some good quality results on his record,
but Jared Jared Anderson is a guy that wants to fight bigger names and
bigger fights. Top Rank is looking to get him in the ring with a
much better name, a guy with a little more credibility and experience, and
they're gonna need to because you mentioned about you have the great young fighter and
s course Stevenson in the main event. You've got, at least from my
point of view, the two best prospect in boxing in the undercard fights,
meaning Anderson as my twenty twenty one Prospect of the Year Keyshan Davis as my
two twenty two Prospect of the year. The days of these three guys,
these special talents being all together on the same card are now probably over because
at least in terms of Jared Anderson, he's going to now move into a
main event status. That's not to say he would never fight in an undercard
again depending on the scenario. But the plan now was Top Rank is going
to bring him for his first professional fight in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio
on July first, which I had reported a couple of weeks ago, but
you know, reconfirming it last night with the Top Ring people. That is
their plan, and now they're looking for a good name a top guy,
like a legitimate opponent. I mean they're not you know, he doesn't,
he shouldn't, and he won't get the Furies and Joshua and Wilder and Joe
Joyce and those types of names, obviously, But there's another group that's a
half step below those guys who are the other contenders or former champions and that
sort of thing that top rank I think would be happy to match him up
with. It's just going to come down to who's willing to take the money,
and if they are, how much do we have to pay them,
how far do we have to back the truck up to get them to go
to the guy to come here and fight him, whether it's in Toledo or
somewhere else, you know, in the fight after the next fight. So
that's gonna be their hardest part. Jared's gonna do his part and stay hungry,
train, be in shape, come prepared. But now it's up.
This is where the promoter's job becomes complicated because they're not necessarily afraid to put
him in with a good opponent. But you got to find the right guy
who's willing to take the money. And it's hard, and you know,
if a guy prices himself out, what are you gonna do? All right,
we'll find out what happens there. Keyshawn Davis also victorious. It took
him a little while to get his stoppage of Anthony Jiggett. There was a
controversial moment too where he need Jiggett in the head where Jiggett was going down,
and I thought it was intentional. The ref missed it. They didn't
really belabor it, but Jiggett was clearly complaining he need he need me in
the head and play showdown how your thoughts as Keishan Davis gets the stoppage and
gets the win. I don't remember that being that big of a deal.
I certainly don't think it was on purpose. In my experience with Keishan Davis,
that hasn't really been his style. I'm not saying it's not, but
it's There's been no evidence of that thus far. So you know, he
gave a lot of right hands and left hands to the head is what caused
the problems, not the need of it. Keshan Davis is another guy that
he's he's he's on that same sort of path of a Shakor Stevenson he's got
that kind of ability, uh, in terms of the amateur career of the
silver medal, like Shakur also was a silver medal winner in the Olympics,
He's just a guy that knows the ring, that's got good defenses. That's
the thing about these two guys, they're they're so defensively mature for where they
are. That defense often is what comes after the offense. Guys, you
know, they have the offense, that's their thing. They like to fight.
But but perfecting or refining your defense, which is part of this,
you know, beingcoming a great fighter. Also for a lot of these guys,
they are ahead of the curve, let's say, and Keishan, with
just what eight fights now, has tremendous defense. But he's also got good
footwork, and at this stage of his career he's also a bigger puncher than
than Shakur was when he was you know, six or eight fights or ten
fights into his career. So you know, it took him a little longer,
like you said, but I thought it was it was he got in
nine good rounds. He took on a very competent and solid guy who'd only
lost you know, yget now is twenty six three and one. His two
previous defeats had come in world title fights, once against Roly Romero in an
interim lightweight title fight, and then once he fought for a title, you
know, up in the junior welterweight division. So this is not a guy
that had been losing to you know, regular guys. I mean when he
lost, he fought for a vacant junior bandumweight title rather or a junior welterweight
title. I mean when Ivan Barranchek was still you know, considered a pretty
good fighter, and he got beat by him in a knockout back a couple
of years, you know, a few years ago. But other than that,
if your only other losses to Keshan, who did a great job stopping
and he could have been stopped maybe earlier. He had him busted up.
He was just laying a lot of leather on him. And what can you
say? You had the three A sides, the three star power guys,
Shakur, Anderson, and Davis all looks spectacular in their fights and all did
the job. And if you're a boxing fan, all I know is that
those three performances made you pay attention and can't wait to see them back in
the ring. So it's gonna be July for for Anderson Keishan, you know,
probably around that same time frame. Maybe I'll even beyond the Jared undercard
for all I know. And Shakoor, you know, he'll wait to see
what happens on May twentieth, but you can count on him being back in
the ring sometime. I would think, uh, you know, end of
the summers or you know, somewhere about around there, and uh, you
know, these are the current generation of the best young fighters in boxing,
and we're getting to see them emerge and do their thing, and it's it's
a pleasure to watch all right, good stuff. Off the ESPN Top rank
card. We're coming to the stunning knockout of Sebastian Fundora in a few moments
here on the recap, but the world title fights take precedence, So let's
go to the middle of the country and the southwest actually of San Antonio,
Texas, where Jesse Bam Rodriguez did get the win for the WBO Flyweight championship
over Christian Gonzalez, and it was impressive display for a lot of reasons,
not the least of which is we have now learned. He admitted this after
the fight. He broke his jaw about halfway through that fight and gutted it
out. So Dan, your thoughts on that win, and then we'll get
to the Acmadalia upset on the co feature in a moment or two. But
first, a significant injury for Bam Rodriguez that he fought through and got the
decision win. So before you knew that he had a broken jaws, you're
watching the fight, You're sort of like, Okay, he's winning the fight,
there's no question about that. But once again, it's like, Okay,
it's not really like the most impressive performance. Part of that was gonna
I'm not gonna knock Bam Rodriguez for this. Part of that was Gonzalez who
was interested in, you know, and boxing him from long range and running
around and trying to get away from him. Uh, you know, which
I can't blame before that's the way you got to survive. You gotta survive.
But it wasn't like a tremendous performance from Bam and he said so afterwards.
But then when you come to find out that he has a broken jaw
in the sixth round and fights half to fight with a bad jaw. I
think if you can't give the kids some slack, then you're a heartless,
uh you know person in that sense. So I don't I don't in any
way knock Jesse Bam Rodriguez for that performance because you know, most people couldn't
fight for ten seconds with a broken jaw muscle. You got that right,
And there are a lot of fighters that maybe would have looked at that,
and it granted it's a world title shot, but it's a vacant world title
shot, and you got your whole career in front of you, and and
they're contemplating. I'm just saying, I gotta fight six more rounds with this
unless I get the knockout. I gotta fight six more scheduled rounds here with
this. That says something, that says something about him not wanting to disappoint
hometown fans, how much that win meant to him, all of those things
obviously. Yeah. So, I mean, you got a lot of tough
guys on Twitter that like to say, big deal he thought through a broken
jaw, which you know, give me a break. But I just know
this. He's twenty three years old, He's now a two division world champion.
He was the former title holder in the junior vandomight division, which he
won last year in his great twenty twenty two campaign, gave up the title,
went down and waited the flyweight division. Even with a broken jaw,
had no real issues winning the fight against Christian Gonzalez. Now he's a two
time two division title holder. He is the and this is an amazing stat
I was actually talking to my good buddy who I covered many fights with,
the long time boxing writer for the San Antonio Express, my pal John Whistler,
who was now retired, does some freelance for them occasionally and was at
the fight. So I called him up today because they I had heard Eddie
Hearn say this in the interview, but I wasn't sure if it was one
hundred percent. Sometimes promoters aren't exactly knowing exact comes to trivia. So Eddie
had mentioned or maybe I don't remember it was the commentators, but it was
mentioned that Bam Rodriguez, after winning that fight, was the first ever two
division champion to come from San Antonio. And San Antonio has produced a number
of you know, top fighters for many many years. And I was like,
you know, that's a great trivite question. So I called him my
man, John Whistler, who I've known for many, many years, and
I was like, John, who else would I call with a if I
had a question about San Antonio boxing history? And I asked him and He's
like, yeah, he's the first one. So not only is Bama Rodriguez
at twenty three, I think now once again the youngest act of champion in
boxing currently, he's also now a two division title holder in at age twenty
three, and also the first ever fighter from the from the great history of
San Antonio to be a guy with titles in two different weight classes. So,
you know, the broken jaw, hopefully it's just a minor setback that's
going to cost him, you know, maybe six months or whatever it's gonna
take, and you know he'll be better and he'll come back. I mean,
you know, More recently I've written about Oscar Beldez had a broken jaw
that kept him out of action for a little while. He overcame that.
I remember talking about how difficult it was with having the jaw wired shot and
having a basically eat and drink everything through a straw, you know, and
that was not an easy situation. It was just, he said, a
miserable experience. But hopefully Bam, you know, will overcome that. He's
young. He you know, other than the jaw, it's not like he
took punishment in the fight, even though he went twelve rounds, and there's
huge fights for him in his weight class. Eddie Hearns signed Sonny Edwards,
who's the champion in that weight class. They already the promoter. They worked
with Julio Sizar Martinez, who's the WBC title holder in that weight class,
and those are all interesting unification fights. The BAM called that Sonny Edwards.
Sony Edwards been calling him out. They've been going back and forth a little
bit on social media. Eddie hearn says he's absolutely open and interested to make
those kinds of fights. The only curveball, I guess is the fact that
because of the injury, it's going to throw off the timing and BAM is
going to be sidelined for a little while. So they just signed Sonny,
who you know, wants to get in the ring, and so they'll probably
get him some other fight, be it a maybe they'll make him and Martinez
or Eddie brought up the WBA title holder Dolackian, they'll make type of fight.
But but the point is, once Bam is healthy and good to go,
some some permutation of a unification fight or multiple unification fights should be available
to him. And because Bam has a hometown and brings some attention and brings
a little more money than your average flyweight, I would think those fights are
makeable because those unification fights compared to in the heavyweight division with Fury and Usk
or Errol Spence and Crawford like these are great matchups and it will pay these
flyweights their biggest purses they've ever seen. But they're still affordable for the promoter
and the network. They don't cost twenty five million, fifty million dollars.
You know, there are low seven figures that type of money. So in
the scheme of the budget they can make, they can be made without too
much of an issue. So the main thing is Bam good performance. Wins
outright one eighteen one, one seventeen, one eleven on the other score I
think was one sixteen to one twelve, and you know he's he's gonna take
some time off, get himself together, he'll up and hopefully we'll see him
back in the ring. But it was great to see him go home.
You know, it was not a large venue. It was only about twenty
five hundred people, but they sold it out, and you know, good
for him, and I hope he gets better, get better quick. And
by the way, just for their record on Sunday, we taped this on
Sunday night. Earlier Sunday, I was texting with Robert Garcia, who was
BAM's trainer, and just to check in because we knew that he had said
he thinks he broke his jaw and Bam said it in one of his social
media posts, but I didn't know one hundred percent is it actually broken and
what's the deal. So, as Robert explained to me in our back and
forth, he stayed over Bam in the hospital on Saturday night, he is
staying over the hospital on Sunday night, and he's scheduled to have surgery to
repair the job, which Robert said was diagnosis being fractured in two places.
I'll have the surgery sometime on Monday. All right, So there's the very
latest info as we released the podcast, and look, we're not doctors.
Would just play them on the podcast. On the fight freaks, night recap,
etc. A broken jaw. I have not had one of these.
I don't know that you have not had one of these, but I know
people that have had them. I know athletes that have had them. They
are generally about six week injuries to fully heal. You mentioned it is very
aggravating at least for the first few weeks because you're not able to eat solid,
solid food for the first few weeks because they have your jaw wired shot.
Now, the interesting thing is he could continue to train, not spar
but train with the broken jaw. You have a busted hand like we've been
talking about with Jamil Charlo, that can affect you. You have a busted
knee, Daniel Dubois, you know, busted foot whatever, that's different.
So he could get back in a gym in a few weeks, in a
couple of weeks weeks if you wanted. So you really don't know that.
And the reason I say is because I asked Robert about, like, hey,
what's the prognosis and in terms of how long he's going to be out
or what the situation is. Robert is like, we just don't know,
right, he won't know until the doctor tells us after the surgery, right,
but you we're just not sure how bad it is or what the what
the status of that is a great a great reference point. It's the WBO
Cruiserweight champion, right, help me, Jai Opataia is the is the guy
from Australia. If I haven't right, that beat breed us and he suffered
to help me the bilateral fracture, which means he fractured the jaw all the
way across. And that has been like six eight months ago and he's not
been back in the ring. So you're exactly right on. You don't know,
depending on the severity, how bad it is um and so I'm not
making any diagnosis on there you go. As I said, that was a
disclaim at the very beginning. We're not doctors. Would just play them on
the podcast. We don't know. It's not our jaw and he'll be back.
I'm east all right anyway, hope the bottom line knows tj uh.
If if Bam Rodriguez or his team is listening, you know, good luck,
he'll up champ and yeah, see you back in the ring, and
he'd be back in the ring, hopefully in a big time fight by the
fall. Let's hope that's the hope. All right, upset special in the
co feature of again m j Akmadaliev, the unified champ beaten by Tapaulas from
the Philippines. All Right, so you and I we are first ones to
admit we do well most of the time. But you and I got this
one wrong. How and why did we get this wrong? How did Tapolas
win this fight? In particular down the stretch of this fight? He took
it in the end. Well, he didn't from the stretch though, TJ.
He took it in the first six rounds of the fight. That's where
he won the fight. Did he not? Did he not win enough though,
of the of the final couple of rounds to put himself on What I'm
saying is I mean, if you take a look at the way the scorecards
were, let's back off before we argue. Sure, good, very good
win for to Polas. He is a former BANDOM title holder. He goes
now into this mandatory fight which he's been waiting for. It's like a year
overdue. He's been desperate to get the fight. Uh. I know from
because I talked to his his co promoter, Seawan Gibbons, sometimes and you
know, he's told me, you know how frustrating it was for them to
get this lined up and took a while. They finally got the guy trained.
His rare end off of the fight. And also, let's be clear,
it was a shitty fight. I mean, you know, as I
wrote in my story, it was not a good fight to watch. It
was a rather sloppy fight. But in in in the in the memory banks
of Marlin to Polis will be an all time classic because hes a two division
champion. He knocks off an undefeated fighter who had a lot of credentials and
a lot of skills and talent. And not only that, he doesn't just
get one title, he gets two titles. So you know that's a that's
a big win. Now, as far as win and how he won the
fight, he if you if you take a look at the official scorecards,
uh what went down? I mean, mj Ackmandali if he basically pulled like
what Lomachenko did when he fought against Tifi Molpez, he just didn't fight for
the first half of the fight. Basically. You know, one thing you
don't don't understand is this in boxing, if you win round one, close
ten to nine. It counts exactly the same in the end is if you
win round twelve, because you go in there and you win it big,
it's the same thing. It's ten points to nine points. It doesn't matter.
So if you add everything up and you're you know, it's irrelevant how
you do it. You just got to win the round. So he edged
out a bunch of those early rounds and he opened a big enough gap where
Akmandalia, who had a big second half of the fight, simply could not
overcome that. So if you take a look at the way the scoring went,
you have two. First of all, one judge gave the fight to
Acmandala of one eighteen to one ten, which is ridiculous. I mean,
do you want to have a close fight? I can. I can live
with a close fight. And I know I say this all the time about
how you know you might see a fight where round by round is competitive and
one judge just giving it to the same guy. But some of these rounds
weren't really that competitive. That's the thing where it was very clear as day
when Akmadaliah throws like nothing in lands nothing and the other guy, you know,
lands several and throws several that he should win the round, So one
eighteen to one ten to me, is a ridiculous outlier. Now, the
other two judges had to fight one fifteen to one thirteen in favor of the
Polace, which is very reasonable. You know, I could certainly understand that
that seemed like a pretty good, pretty good way to score it. Now,
the thing about it was the eighteen ten scorecard was all over the way
out of act that the two judges, who each had at one fifteen to
one thirteen, had the identical scorecards. They called or they scored all twelve
rounds the same, So that to me shows that there were some pattern that
made sense that the other judge didn't see. So you asked, how did
he win the fight? He didn't close strunk. What he did was on
the two judges cards, he won to Polish the first six rounds, so
he's up six rounds to nothing on two cards. He loses round seven,
and then those two judges also gave him round eight, so after eight rounds
he's up seven rounds to one. So he loses now every other round of
the fight. Because Akmadalia finally got his ship together and came on really strong,
late and was finally landing punches and being a little more aggressive. But
because he couldn't get a knocked down, and he certainly couldn't get a knock
out he was he just there wasn't If it's a fifteen round fight like the
old days, maybe he wins, but there just wasn't enough rounds for him
to close that gap. So he loses because he didn't do shit for the
first six rounds behind. I got you fell too far behind. He was
in a too deep of a hole. All right, fair enough, And
again I know you were distracted by having multiple fights on multiple screens, all
going off at the same time. I understand that, so I know you
weren't able to scrutinize it as closely. But justifiable that to Poulos won this
fight, fair decision. Justifiable, not not that he not that he should
have been an overwhelming winner, but justifiable that he beat out Medala. You
have an upsetting I mean, and because I just because I wasn't watching it
closely live. You know, I have gone back and of the stuff that
I was not able to see, not every single fight, but this fight
in particular, and one of the fights on the showtime card that we'll get
to. I went back to make sure I saw what I needed to see,
because I was mostly like, my intention was when the night started that
I'm going to focus on the Bam fight. But because of the timing and
I got involved with this one, and I had part of the undercard story
already written, I wanted to just get one done. So I stayed with
the with the ESPN card and followed that through to the end and was able
to publish and write this core business and the undercard first, and I was
watching Damn Live, picked that up a little bit into it, and then
went back and watched the beginning that I had missed, and then I got
absorbed with Fondora. So I was like all over, going back and forth.
But I have watched everything but all three main events, the entire ESPN
card, the Aquadalia full fight, most of the Campa and Brandon Lee fight.
Didn't pick too close attention frankly to the Prospect fight in the showtime opener,
and but also because it wasn't conflicting and we'll talk about it for a
minute. I watched the entirety of the ray Ford fight against Jesse Magdaleno,
which was on the Zone card before the Aquadalia fight, So it was a
lot of boxing going on. But in terms of did to Paula's deserve that
win one hundred percent yes, And I have to say Akmadalia for all of
this. The talent he has the big amateur background, the Olympic bronze medal
for Uzbekistan in twenty sixteen, ever since he made his HBO debut back when
he was like four, and oh this is like twenty eighteen. I want
to say. I mean, yes, he won a unified title, but
here is in my recollection, and somebody please correct me if I him wrong.
I can't think of a more like unknown, kind of boring, kind
of pedestrian unified champion in Boxing's a He's a talented guy. Obviously, he's
got the amateur credentials, but he doesn't have any particular drawing power, certainly
not here in the United States and Dakistan. Obviously, I'm sure it's much
different. Doesn't have like some big story to tell, at least not that
we've heard. Doesn't have a particularly exciting style. Hasn't been very active.
Fights once a year, maybe he fought twice year, barely, you know,
has been like a couple of okay guys, but doesn't have like a
big resume. It's just like just he's just sort of there, and you
know, now he's not there. And to Paulas for whatever you want to
say about him, is a more entertaining fighter. It seems to me he's
now a two division champion. He's gonna have a bigger fan base because the
Filipino fans, they're gonna love him and oh crazy for him now that he's
won another championship, and very humble and you know how happy to be there,
that sort of thing. And you know, hard not to root for
a guy like that, thirty one years old, you know, been uh,
you know in the business a long time, is you know, not
never made a lot of money even though he had a title. And now
he's got a big win under his belt, and you know, we'll see
if he can maybe make some hat But he did say in his team,
you know Sean Gibbons as I mentioned his co promoter, talking about how you
know, obviously the big fight that everybody's gonna want because you're gonna get paid,
is to fight the winner of the July fight between Steve and Fulton,
who's got the other two titles in the weight class. And in a way,
and if you if you have the winner of that fight, fight him,
you got now a don't dispute a champion in the junior featherweight division.
Whicher has never been in the four belt era. Uh and I'm not even
sure there's ever been one of the three belt here at off the top of
my head. So he's got a chance to maybe being in bobb in that
kind of fight in MJ. I guarantee you we're gonna see him take a
long lay off because he always takes a long lay offs. I mean,
who knows, but uh, you know, well you would think he would
be motivated for a rematch whether they can make that happen, and if you're
to Polish, you want to wait. You want to wait for the possible
undisputed shot like you're talking about obviously that fight. A good thing about this
is that because it was a mandatory defense, unless they signed something in their
contract that said to the contract, my understanding is there is no rematch plause.
And thank god, because it was a shitty fight, and who wants
to see that again? It wouldn't generate five sent I mean, that type
of fight is nothing more than an expense for the promoter. It didn't tell
one ticket, it didn't do any kind of like big international television. The
Zone controls the rights pretty much worldwide. Maybe they carved out one country,
the Philippines or something like that, but even if they did, not a
lot of money there. So you know, it's just the notion of a
rematch, even if they want to do it for an optional reason, is
not gonna happen. They're gonna the Polis team unless they're ordered to make some
other mandatory which I'm not sure what his schedule is. They're gonna know,
and as they should. He just fought a twelve run fight. They can
wait till July to see what happens in that big fight coming up between Stephen
Fulton and Away. All right, Ray Forward, before we move off of
this, I don't you want to say something about how well he fought Saturday
Night in San Antonio before we're done with the match room show from Saturday night
in the recap mode. Yeah, listen, Ray Forward's a featherweight, an
up and coming kitty, twenty four years old, a south ball from Camden,
New Jersey, he's now fourteen oh and one with seven knockouts, and
I saw him in his I think I've pretty much seen every one of his
fights because he's been with match Room from day one, and he's been on
their stream every time he's fought, whether it was on the early card and
now then he moved up to the main card. But he's a very talented
fighter, but he sort of like was one of these guys where you watch
him and you're like, maybe he can go either way. He's either gonna
shit the bed and not amount to anything, or maybe he's got a chance
to become like a real serious contender and maybe even a champion. And then
he had a draw, you know, maybe his like seventh fight, and
you're sort of like, well, okay, I mean you're not gonna write
him off as of a draw, but you're like, you're like, you
need to see something because he wasn't quite impressive. So on the on the
card Saturday, on the undercard of the bamrad Rigs fight, he fought Jesse
Magdaleno. Now Jesse Magdaleno maybe not at his best anymore, and he was
a champion for a minute at the you know, in the featherweight division,
or in the junior featherweight division I should say, and or maybe it was
even the featherweight division, but regardless, the fact is he was a quality
professional. That was the level of opponent that Rayford had never fought before.
So I was sort of intrigued. I'm like, okay, can can you
do something here? Now? Magalano had won, like I don't know,
you know, three or four fights in a row coming into the fight,
and Ford didn't just win because the win was expected. So I wanted to
see, is there a spark? There is there something that I can see
that's gonna be like, hey, this guy is ready to take the next
step. And he did everything you could possibly do to win a fight but
not get the knockout. But he had Magdaleno in trouble. He knocked him
down in round four, he knocked him down in round eleven. He used
body punches, he used headshots. He fought a brilliant fight. He showed
some aggression when necessary, he showed some ability to show poise. His defense
was solid, like he's a well rounded fighter and he's getting better. And
in the end he won very wide. He won like you know, what
was it one nineteen to one oh seven two of the cards. Obviously the
two knockdowns get some extra points there, and then like one sixteen one ten
on the third, So that's a big win for him. It was a
WB semi final title loin here, so at least it pushes him closer towards
the possibility of a title shot. And I also enjoyed, you know,
the chirping the swaggery showed after the fight where he's calling out guys. He's
you know he's promoted by Matcham when he's saying, Eddie, don't you know
I want to fight the winner of Lee Wood and Mauriceo Laura too. Don't
give it to that bum Josh Warrington, who is a loser. All he
does is lose. He doesn't deserve it. So he was he was slagging
Josh Warrington big time, and he was also calling out the winner of that
upcoming fight, and I love that. So Ray's got a lot of talent,
He's got a lot of skills in the I think he may have,
at least from my point of view. I can't speak for everybody else,
but what I thought about him was that win against Magaleno. I felt like
he kind of turned the corner where I now view him more as like a
guy that, you know what, he really does have a chance to become
a top featherweight to win a title. And we talked about on the podcast
a couple of weeks ago TJ about the depth of the featherweights at the top,
with the champions and their four guys, and everybody's got something interesting going
on. We'll throw Ray forward in there in term as a contender, you
know, right below those guys, to make things maybe a little interesting.
So that was a very good win. I was quite impressed with his performance.
Good stuff off the match Room show. I have one more card to
get to, some fight news, some nostalgia, and then we're gonna be
done. We have waited long enough. The upset of the weekend was twelve
to one favorite, Sebastian, the towering Inferno Fundora being knocked out in a
fight that he was dominating. Once again, we say this all the time.
You've been saying it forever. I've been saying it forever on this podcast
and elsewhere and doing sports radio for so many years. Boxing is just different.
There is a twenty one point touchdown for the fourth quarter of a football
game, there is a nine run home run. If you're a baseball fan.
There is a fifteen point shot if you're a basketball fan. It's called
one punch. And my lord, did Brian Mendoza land the one punch that
stood Sebastian Fundora straight up, stunned, and then bam bam with a one
two he knocked him down. Fundora's head slammed on the ground and he didn't
make it up by the count of tan. He was sitting there in the
seated position. He's not what is it? Should I do? Should do?
The quote sho did Apperson. He's not getting up, Jim. He's
not getting up Jim from Roy Jones Junior on many parts. But he wasn't
getting up. But he also wasn't face first like many but he was still
une. He could have counted fifteen. He wasn't getting up. No,
he was sitting. And I mean here's the thing. I saw him sitting
there and some people were again the trolls and the dummies on social media making
reference to oh he quit, dude, he didn't quit. He was gone.
He wasn't right. I don't know where he was, couldn't get up.
Yes, yeah, no, no, I mean it was I call
it the feel good story when you see a guy like Brian Mendoza and I
and I kind of feel bad for Fendora, but that's the life they chose.
I mean, they're professional boxers and those types of losses can happen.
But if you go and take a look, you know what, three fights
ago, Mendoza is just a guy. PBC feeds him to Hazer's Ramos.
He loses a decision, you know, doesn't look particularly good. He's like
enoughhing, you know, he's just a guy basically, you know, okay,
but you know he's still hard working guy. You give m another chance.
They throw him in there with Jason Rosario. Rosario is supposed to win
that fight, former champion in one hundred fifty four pound division unified. They're
not fighting at middleweight, big puncher, and out of nowhere, he knocks
him out, you know, very impressive. Sends Rosario into retirement, so,
you know what, he gets the opportunity. As we discussed at length,
the previous to the fight, Fondora was sort of in a holding pattern.
He's kind of running in place. He's there sitting as the WBC's interim
WBC interim title holder at one fifty four, Charlo is undisputed. He's going
to get a shot at him at some point, but he's backed up.
Charlo is off with an hand injury. He's out for a bit, maybe
till the summer. He's got two other mandatories that will pume before the WBC,
and I'm not even sure of the status of the w BA, but
I know for sure that tim Zoo was supposed to be next, and then
Backram of the IBF is next after that, and so he's looking at like
at least three fights. Charlo is lucky if he's gonna fight once this year.
And my point is that fights at least a year away, so we're
not gonna just not fight. You gotta make money, you gotta your name
and all that. So they've took like, you know, I don't even
consider it like a gamble. They matched him with Mendoza, considered a regular
fighter, and they looked like they were doing the right thing because, as
you mentioned, Fendora was tattooing him with the uppercuts, and you know,
we won every single round. It was six to nothing on two square cards.
One of the judges gave a Mendoza a courtesy round in round one because
really nothing happened. So it was five one on that card, and it
looks like it's just gonna be a matter of time. Maybe I'll knock him
out, maybe I'll win a blowout decision, and then all of a sudden,
you know how it happens. Man, He landed a left hook,
you know, a big overhand, like is like a half hook, half
overhand, just right on the button. And you said he stood straight up,
He actually buckled and his knees did the dipsie and he was all that
he could stand, like I feel like if he doesn't, he had him
standing. It was almost like with slow motion. So his legs buckled badly.
And if you don't throw another punch, he looks like he's gonna fall
down without even anything else happening. But Mendoza, you know, protect yourself
at all times, and you don't stop throwing punches till your man's on the
ground. He threw two more hilicious shots. He caught him with another right
hand and another left, and he was flat on his back. I mean,
I don't even think those two punches obviously punctuated it. But I don't
even think he needed those shots to end the fight. And he sat up,
but he was gone, man, and they counted him out and head
again, the double impact, the head hit the canvas, and when he
sat up, he was gone. He was not there. To use your
word, what a knockout. What a moment. This is about. Now,
this is interesting. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking, even though it's
a Monday morning released the podcast. When Fondora fought Ericson Lubin in their tremendous
fight, Lubin hit him a bunch and knocked him down in that fight.
I am not saying that that this was bound to happen, destined to happen,
etc. Except that even early on in this fight, a couple of
times Mendoza caught him with a punch where he's he's wailing at him, but
he's open and he's egg and he's he's wide open to take a counter.
And that's kind of what happened here. He was open. Boom, the
shot, the shot lands, and man, this is why we love boxing.
It can turn. Two things about that. Number one, when when
he got knocked down by Lubin, he knew he had been hit and was
in trouble. His mind was right, and he purposely took a knee because
he knew we needed a respite to sort of collect himself. So I thought
that was you know, despite giving up the knock, and I thought that
was very intelligent. So this was different. This was not like he took
any of This was he got, you know, annihilated. Different, big
difference now in terms of getting hit the way he got hit, and it
happened in the Lubin fight and obviously happened in this fight. The thing that
makes Fandora a fan friendly kind of fighter, as I like the joke he
puts the fun in boxing Fandora because he's a six foot six guy, but
he doesn't use his height. That's and I've had I've had that conversation with
his promoter, Samson Lukewitz before about he has these incredible physical attributes, the
wingspan of the heavyweight, the height of a heavyweight. You know of a
big heavyweight, six foot six, a big man, very very tall,
and he'd never used the height. He never put that to his use.
He bends over, He makes himself small. In boxing, you improve yourself
by making yourself bigger and taller and longer, and that's that's going to help
you, you know, control where your opponent is in the distance of the
fight. But that's one of his things that he's not been able to perfect.
And it's to our benefit because it makes it a lot of fun.
It's to his non benefit because he got knocked the fuck out and he did
okay, and to his credit class and even Jim Gray put the question to
him, hey, you took a fight here that you didn't really have to
take and you got knocked out, and he immediately said he had his wits
about him that hey, you know, I'm paraphrasing here, You've got to
have fights, and so I took the risk and I will be back.
I thought that was any credited Mendoza for the knockout, and I thought that
was a really good attitude in defeat here. And I have a feeling we're
gonna see this again now on the heels of the knockout, because Pundura is
a guy they were trying to promote, push, move him up, move
him up in status, and now he's been beaten. So the rematch has
intrigue for that reason, kind of not unlike in this same Division when Tony
Harrison upset Jamil Charlo in the first place. Now the rematch has intrigue for
the WBC version of the title when they rematch it, which it took eventually
a year later. So those are my thoughts on that, any any closing
thoughts on the knockout win and at a potential future rematch. I think a
rematch is possible. I mean, you know, Mendoza's gonna want to get
paid. Obviously, Fendora I'm sure would take it. I mean, I
don't know if that's next. I don't know if it's in their contract.
That wasn't a mandatory fight. You'd figure if they're doing their job that they
probably did get a rematchplause. I don't like rematch clauses, but frankly,
this was the kind of fight where if there was no remissplause it would probably
make sense because again, miss Mendoza, he was talking about Charlo also,
but he's in the same boat. He's not getting that shot either. It's
not like suddenly he cuts to the front of the line. He's in that
position of having to wait a couple of fights at least to get that shot.
Anyway, So a rematch might make the most sense. I could certainly
see that happening. That's something we'll have to see how it plays out.
But I had like, I felt bad for Fendor because he's such a likable
guy number one. So you know when you get that that's a hard knock
that's a rough knockout, that that's a but that's not just like, you
know, I got caught and they stopped the fighter. I got knocked down,
and you know I got a little the guy. You know, I
kind of overwhelming in the follow up attack or whatever. This was a hilacious,
brutal, monster k with the year kind of knockout. So in that
sense, you feel bad, But on the slip side, Hockey again not
feel good about a guy like Mendoza. He made the point in some of
his post fight comments that you know, not that many fights ago, three
four fights ago, he's fighting the walkout about like a swing fight, where
you don't know, you're gloved up, but you don't know if you're going
to go in the ring early, if the fight goes short, or if
you're gonna maybe wait till later in the fight. Later in the car,
talking about how I'm a swing fight I don't even go on till after the
event and nobody's there, and it's like nobody knows why, and nobody gives
a shit. And now making any money money exactly now here, he is
not that much. In the future, he's on the main event on showtime.
He scores a huge win. He made eighty five thousand dollars for the
fight, which is not a lot of money in boxing at the highest level,
But for Brian Mendoza, I can assure you that's his biggest payday.
He wins the fight, they give him a beautiful belt. I mean,
it's not the real title, but for him it's a big deal. He
talked about I want to go put this around my mom. You know who
was there in the crowd, you know, watching the fight. I guess
he was in the carter, not at home. Give it to mom um.
And you know, this is like will be whatever happens in his future.
He if he goes on it becomes the undisputed champion. This is like
you saw like one of, if not the biggest moment of this man's life,
at least in terms of his profession. You know, unfold before you
and how do you not feel good? And happy for a kid like that
that was nothing nowhere busted his ass. You know, no one gave him
anything. He got the win over Rozario, so he incense earned the opportunity
against Fandor even though he was a huge underdog. So from that point of
view, you gotta be throwed forman. That's one of the things I like
about boxing that, you know, what's the old saying, You know,
yesterday's nobody is tomorrow somebody, and that's Brian Mendoza this weekend, no doubt
about that. And bring it back, Bring it back like in August,
September something like that. Give give Fondora some time to recover. But now
you've got some sizzle on a rematch here between these two. I want to
see the towering Inferno try to try to get the stink off of him,
get the L get the l stink off of him. And we often say
this in sports, and it's true in boxing. Now we're going to find
out about Sebastian Fundora one way or the other. Adversity reveals character. We
found it out about Mendoza, like you were just talking about, he didn't
let losses and having to fight him walk out fights, to find him at
this point, and he has now scored a huge win. Now we'll find
out about Fondora. What does he have here? And I know it's podcast.
I'm pointing to my heart. I'm pointing in my chest. You can
hear my vibration in my voice. What does he have right here? We're
about to find that out. If he can go in a rematch and get
it back, or what happens next with him, we will find that out
or anything else. I know Brandon Lee won the co feature there from Carson
and the Dignity Health Sports Complex. Anything else on the showtime PPC card or
we good on that and ready to move on to some news. Well,
just it relates to Brandon Lee. I mean he was in with Pedro Kampa.
Tough dude, this you know it was. I didn't really think it
was that great of a fight. I mean it was as I expressed to
you earlier that the Campau constant of these types of opponents has been kind of
annoying to me. Campa was, I guess, is a little bit of
a step up and Brandon, like frankly, didn't really look very good.
So he got some too, which is a concern. So I think,
uh, like, I've always had Brandon as a high regard in terms of
his prospect level, But I don't know, maybe the luster is off a
little bit. I don't know. I mean, I thought the scores were
a little wide. I mean, honestly, they one judge had at ninety
one. I thought Campa did much better than that. Ninety two seemed a
little wide. You know, I could live with ninety seven ninety three.
That didn't seem out of the realm um. But I can understand why Campa
was upset by the way the scores were. Um. You know, Brandon
Lee's got a lot to look out on that video to see what he can
what he can gather, and you know, if he can get another uh
test type of fight with a with a little bit of a better level of
opponent Wasso, where he goes. But I have to be honest with you,
whatever prospectness that people thought of with Brandon Lee over the last couple of
years, he's edging two more of suspect as far as I can tell right
now. It doesn't mean he's not a good fighter and he can't go on
and and and and make a good career and do some things, but I
think there's more questions now than there have been based on the way he's performed
in recent fights. That's just me. I don't have anything bad to say
about him as a perple. I've actually met Brandon Lee a bunch of times
known as team and you know, interviewed him a couple of times. A
nice guy, uh, good amateur and all that. But you know,
boxing is uh, you know, show me. It's what have you done
for me lately? And he hasn't done much. Well, we got to
see him do it in a future, bigger fight against a bigger name,
So we'll see a So that wraps up the showtime PBC card. On the
recap, let's get to some fight news and a little nostalgia before we're done.
So Top Rank did make it official. What you had been reporting and
what had been rumored in it now has a date as well. June tenth
will be Josh Taylor Taya Femo Lopez WBO Junior Walter Waite world title fight.
This will be at the Madison Square Garden Hulu Theater, not at the main
Garden. And it was interesting Taylor was in new work on site with Mark
Kriegel but Taya Femo Lopez was not there. He was at the UFC pay
per view instead, so that was a bit odd, but he was there
on video hook up. They did. They did the traditional usual trade insults.
It's kind of it's kind of not the same when one guy's via satellite,
as we like to say, sitting somewhere else. All Right, so
the fight is official. Your thoughts on this, as we're gonna get this
now in a couple of months. Well, I got a few thoughts.
Number one, the fact that Tifemo was not there didn't make a difference to
me. The fact that they were being able to do it on a video
thing. I mean, go back to the heyday of HBO pay per view.
They'd come on a live show when the two guys would be both on
locations and they would do them on the split screen. So I actually thought
that the back and forth between them was extremely amusing. They were talking shit
with each other, but it wasn't like the nasty, terrible kind of stuff
that was being said between like, for example, most recently Benavides and Plants,
when they were just very profane in their in their back and forth.
I thought that the way that Josh and and Tifemo handled it. It was
just enough, like you know, f you kind of they didn't say the
bad words, but it was they were chippy, but they were funny.
I actually I got the feeling they kind of liked each other. Actually,
even though Taylor did Taylor call him? Who called Who's sweetheart? Did Taylor
call him sweethearts? I forget who said with that, but it was I
mean, if you haven't seen it, it's like, you know, it's
about five six minutes in the middle of the Top Rank show, before the
before the I think before the main event, correct, But it's definitely worth
watching because it was very amusing and you know, you'd like to see how
they're going to size each other up. So I got the distinct feeling that
they kind of even though I don't think they know each other, but they
kind of like respect each other for taking the fight and all the stuff that
goes into it. But of course they both want to win very badly.
But the thing that was to me the intriguing part is the June tenth date
at the Garden was not a surprise, as I was told all along.
Before they could make any official announcement, they needed to figure out can we
get Josh Taylor in the United States. The problem wasn't making the fight.
The problem was because like many or all of the fighters that were associated with
MTK before they went out of business, was that association because of the involvement
of Daniel Kinahan. If you don't know what that's about, it's your google.
The bottom line is a lot of the fighters from NTK and people that
were involved with them are not allowed to travel to the United States because of
the government's bounty. Essentially they have on Kinahan for five million dollars in his
associates that they want for all kinds of terrible crimes. Not the fighters,
but I mean, but people who are associated with that group for whatever reason.
So they had like two hundred fighters, and so Josh Taylor was one
of them, and so light Tyson Fury, like Tommy Fury, like any
number of other guys. He was not allowed to get to the States.
They had to get the paperwork situated. So top rank kept it really quiet.
I knew that they were trying to work that out, and that before
they were gonna ounce a fight, as it was said to me, We're
going to do a test run. We're gonna try to get him here,
get him all of his medicals, make sure all a set, and then
we know we can get him back in. The visa is no problem.
And they were able to get it done this week and he was able to
come to Newark, and so now they're not going to have a problem presumably
having him return to the States come early June to have this big fight.
So the other thing you mentioned about it was it's going to be at the
Madison Square Garden Theater, and my first thought was, boy, that's at
the Madison Square Garden Theater. That's a much bigger fight than that when Tiafimo
Lopez fought in December and a fight that I went to against Sandra Martin,
which was not a big fight but just the Fimo back in action. But
that was in the main arena and it actually drew pretty well. There was
probably like, you know, nine or ten thousand for that for that event
on which you know, big baby. You know, Jared Anderson fought in
there, as did Keishan Davis. Anyway, as I have come to find
out the reason that it's at the Madison Square Garden theaters not because they don't
think he can sell or it's not a great event. It's because Madison Square
Garden can't give them the main arena because it has a booking hold, because
it is on a Rangers potential playoff date. New York Hockey Rangers. So
the NHL and the NBA schedules for playoffs always take precedent over a boxing match
or a concert or any other activity that may take place in the Madison Square
Garden. I'll even go a step further with you. The hold there by
guy the whole right because of the lightning and because the NHL, the hold
would be that's the Stanley Cup Finals. So the Rangers may have aspirations to
do well in the playoffs, but the hold is there. Of okay,
that Saturday night would be a Stanley Cup Final. And if I'm not mistaken,
this may be wrong, that may be Game seven already mapped out by
the television networks, by ESPN, SLASH, ABC and by Turner that that
would be Game seven. And so what you're saying, just for the boxing
fans is the Garden is told top rank and the fighters and the camps,
Hey, we cannot, we cannot commit to that date. That date is
on hold. So if you want to fight on that date here, now
have it in the Hulu theater, and they're gonna probably up the ticket price
in the Hulu Theater because it's a more premium ticket because it's fewer seats.
That's just the business side of me thinking out loud. Agreed, No,
yeah, I mean the reality is any building in the United States or at
Canada wherever there is a professional meaning NBA or NHL franchise, part of that
business arrangement with those arenas is they have to have the playoff dates on hold
unless you're not in the playoffs obviously, but the Rangers are going to be
in the playoffs, and if you're in the playoffs, so you would theoretically
have a chance to win the Stanley Cup. So that's the way it is.
So the thing that would suggested to me, and I don't think that
this is for sure, is that if the Rangers were to be eliminated in
short order, or it was very clear that you know, within a reasonable
time frame before the fight that they weren't going to participate or be involved that
level, that there's maybe a chance they could switch it to the big room.
That would cause a little bit of havoc with people that maybe have already
purchased tickets, etc. But it could theoretically be done, is what I
was told. Obviously, we'll have to wait and see what happens with that,
But the bottom line is that's a really good matchup. It's a really
good fight. It is for Taylor's WBO title. It is also for the
lineal title he was undisputed for different reasons. Obviously he vacated or stripped to
the other three belts that have now been passed around from you know, and
other guys have picked them up. But I know Taylor looked bad in his
last fight against Catterall Tiffimo Lopez. Obviously a lot of struggles when he came
back in terms of the way he performed. He beat Cajo Kampa, the
same fighter that gave a lot of problems to Brandon Lee. He scored a
knockout in that fight in his debut at the Way Class that was last August.
Now he comes into the fight in December against Sandra Martin and he struggled
in that fight big time. He won, but he got knocked down,
and you know, he was such a basketcase emotionally after the fight he didn't
come to the press commerce that's off of a victory, so clearly they knew
there were some issues there, and so there's question marks about both these guys,
you know, and so, but it's still for the title, and
it's still two good personalities, and it's you know, should be a pretty
interesting fight. So I'm super excited for that. I'll definitely make the trip
to New York for that one. There we go June tenth on that I
had two more news items than some nostalgia and then we got to get out
of here. You were notifying me. I was not aware of this because
I don't keep up as much with Instagram. My twins keep up with Instagram
and tell me what's going on that. Anthony Joshua has put something Sunday Evening
on Instagram about his future details. Please, what's the latest with the former
unified heavyweight champion. Well, it was kind of a cryptic kind of post.
I guess it wasn't a video. It was just like a written message
in a picture for him where he said that. Well back up to like
last week, he had won the fight against Jermaine Franklin in a very uneven
performance but a victory nonetheless, and after the fight was over, there was
massive conversation from him from Eddie hearn that We're gonna get Joshua back in the
ring, hopefully three times this year, and I'm definitely fighting in the summer.
He said it multiple times on the broadcast and subsequent interviews. He's coming
back and fighting in like July. No opponent yet. Okay. Now,
the hope wasn't maybe could they make a Tyson Fury fight. He's he gonna
take a smaller fight or is he gonna take like maybe a Dylan White rematch?
I mean, but the point was he's you know, he's in a
new situation. He's not fighting in title fights season with a new trainer.
We need to get reps. I'm coming back into the ring. I'm going
to fight this summer. Sounds good to me. And so then, like
you mentioned, it comes along on Sunday and he posts that I Am not
fighting. I'll be back in December. Okay, you just spinish on any
calendar. Is not the summer. Yeah, it's not the summer. And
so you know, he spent all the time over the last you know,
weeks since the fight, like in the immediate aftermath of the fight, talking
about how he's gonna fight in the summer. But the problem why, I
think people were sort of irritated by it. Not that he doesn't have the
right to make his schedule, however he wants to make it. I mean,
I don't have a barrow with that, obviously, but you didn't give
a reason. He and I'm looking at it. I just called Instagram,
he wrote simply, my next fight is descheduled for December. Not ideal,
but everything is part of a bigger picture. Could you be more fucking cryptic?
Yeah, So, we don't think this is an injury. We don't
think this is an injury. We haven't led to believe it'd be an injury.
We don't know if there is a qualifier, if there is an injury.
I'm saying this. If there is an injury, that makes a difference.
But if this is more of the games of let's play the waiting game,
let's wait and see if a Tyson Fury fight shakes out. I mean,
he's not fighting Alexander Usk again, no matter what, not right now,
not anytime soon. So this has to be does it not? Mighty
one? This has to be that he thinks the Tyson Fury fight could shake
out, and why take a risk between now and a Fury fight shaking out?
Just connecting dots. Yes, so number one, if it was an
injury, just say so. You don't have to give the details of the
injury. If you want to keep the secret, just say, you know,
I got some I got a physical situation from the fight against Franklin and
it's going to keep me out until December. I mean, I think most
people would accept that, But when you make it so cryptic like that,
all you do is pretty much you pick, you know, you kind of
pick. You piss people off with that. Yes, Depmber November December is
the time frame when supposedly Saudi Arabia is amenable to a big fight. That's
the reason why Usick and Fury did not happen in Saudi Arabia and April,
because they weren't going to do an event there for their different reasons, part
of it maybe being rod On and for other reasons, but that they wanted
to do that fight, but maybe you could wait till September, and that
wasn't going to work for Fury or Usic. It wasn't going to work for
the organizations with the mandatories, and you know, they tried to do the
deal for April. It obviously did not happen. But if they're in the
market for a big time fight come December, maybe it won't be for the
end disputed title, but from a worldwide exposure, interest, money all that.
The bigger fight is obviously Joshua versus Tyson Fury for Tyson Furies lineal title,
the WBC title. That's as big a fight as you can make in
boxing. So if that's the reason, I can accept that. But once
again, I'm kind of pissed off that he would put up a cryptic message
like that, not really spell it out. I mean, but if that's
the way it's going to be, that's the way it's going to be.
I mean, I hope he's okay. I wish him nothing but the best,
but you know, could you be more cryptic? It's kind of annoying,
all right? Edgar Berlanga also is going to be bad quickly on that
that was announced on the match Room show, correct, because he's done a
deal with them. What is it? Where is it? When is it?
Well? I mean, as you remember a couple of months ago,
Berlanga was in the news because he was made a free agent after he had
a separation agreement with Top Rank. They were not seeing i'd eye on the
direction of his career and he became a free agent. Golden Boy was after
him, Al Hayman and PBC was interested in him. Obviously, match Room
Boxing was interested in him. He met with different people, you know,
they talked to PBC whatever, and he decided on accepting the agreement from Matt
Room, who wants to follow what he wants to do, and what his
management wanted to do was to you know, get him a couple of fights.
He's gonna have been out of the ring for about a year since he
had that incident where he bit the opponent on the shoulder or tried to anyway,
and got suspended by the commissioner and fine and then made the separation agreement.
But their plan is to get a couple of wins under his belt and
then try to make a fight with Cannello alvarezm We know Canello is gonna have
a lot to say about that, obviously, but he can put the pressure
on and you know, we'll see. He obviously has a good relationship with
Eddie Hearn. But anyway, so Berlanga is gonna come off of the layoff,
going to have the first fight of the new contract. He's gonna go
back to where he's been fighting regularly, which is the Madison Square Garden Theater
once again. So there'll be two fights of note in that building in the
month of June. One will be on June tenth with the welterweight Junior welterweight
title fight we just talked about with Taylor and Lopez, and then two weeks
later on July, on on June twenty fourth, he'll take on Jason Quigley.
Now Jason Quigley is an interesting situation because, first of all, Berlanga
being a Puerto Rican from Brooklyn and Quigly being Irish, what are the two
biggest constituencies for boxing in New York City, the Puerto Rican fans and the
Irish fans. Now you put them both together, and as Eddie Hearn made
the point, now, it's not going to be like that big, but
it's gonna be you know, he was drawing the comparison to you take the
Irish Katie Taylor and you put her in the garden against the Brooklyn, Puerto
Rican Amanda Serrano and they make a massive event. Now this is not that,
but trust me when I tell you this may not be a big time
world title fight or anything like that, but that place is gonna be sold
out. It's gonna be rock and there's gonna be a lot of people there.
It's gonna be a lot of buzz because the Irish are gonna come out
and the Puerto Ricans are gonna come out. Brian has already been a good
draw there and quickly you know he's got a pretty good reputation. He's been
a pretty good fighter. He just got a win last week. I think
that was probably in part because they wanted to get him back in the win
column as they were looking forward to potentially making this agreement. But he had
not fought since the end of twenty twenty one. That was when he got
knocked out in the second round challenging. This was down at middleweight when he
challenged to meetris Andre for who then held the title. He got blitzed night
and then he fought the fight that I just mentioned that was last week.
He fought that fight had super middleweight. So he's now moved up and listen.
The bottom line is it's the perfect match for Berlanga coming off of the
year layoff. And then, don't make any mistake the Irish and the Puerto
Ricans both turning out and making this into a bigger event. And notwithstanding,
this is about Edgar Berlanga. Nothing against Jason Quigley. So they've taken a
smaller guy who got knocked out pretty badly by a non puncher and Andreid.
They put him in the ring against a sub five hundred opponent. He went
ten rounds with the guy want to shut out, and now he's stepping in
with Berlanga. And the idea from Natrum's point of view and from team Berlanga
is let's get a credible opponent, which quickly is credible, but let's get
a guy where we can get back to knocking guys out. Because remember Berlanga
started his career with sixteen consecutive first round knockouts, so we need to look
spectacular. So we're gonna go in there. We're gonna blitz this dude and
start the drum beat. People say, yeah, we want to see him
against Canell'll get all the Puerto Ricans all hyped up. You know, get
the fans hyped up, you know, bark a little bit, put on
some big punches. That's what this is about. That doesn't mean it can't
be exciting, can't be fun, but that's the deal here. He'll take
on quickly. If everything goes well, he'll have probably one other fight and
then they'll try to make that Canella fight. We'll see good enough, all
right, one more nostalgia piece and then we're done on the recap. And
that includes a battle that took place twenty two years ago for Marco Antonio Barrera
and Prince Nacim Ahmed and one Dan Raphael was ringside for this one when Barrera
he not only got the win, but he destroyed the aura around Prince Naz
that night and and really ended it ended it for Prince Naz kind of surprisingly.
Prince Naz quit soon after that, right, so the aura around him
was over with that night, and you were there. I was, and
I will never forget it. He did fight one more time. People forget
it was like Dakota. He came back on a like fourteen months later and
had one kind of smallish fight in the UK and one and then so he
goes out on the wind. But the Barra fight was the culmination of his
HB contract. It was a fight that was heavily hyped. A lot of
people were looking forward to. You know, they wanted to see him fight
one of the bigger names. So I thought, wasn't I going to fight
Berrera? Can I get Morales? I mean, those are the two big
guys at the time in that weight class, and un Nasimamed was knocking everybody
out he had. He really should have been the very first fighter to be
the undisputed champion and have all four belts. Now that was technically at that
time there was four belts, but nobody really considered still the WBO as the
as a as a fight, as a title that was needed to be held
to be undisputed. People were respecting the WBO because Ahmed was considered a champion
of the WBO and therefore, you know, his name got that organization credibility.
Same thing with a guy like Joe Calzaggie. The clich goes came along,
they held WBO titles. In any event, he should have had all
four belts because he won the WBO, he won the WBC, he won
the IBF, he got stripped of this. He then fought Wilfredo Vasquez,
who had been the WBA, but got stripped because he fought him at and
he won all those fights, but because politics, he didn't get all four
belts. So the people that say Hahmed was overrated, fuck them, because
he was the best featherweight of his time. Barrera and Morales, he had
beaten all the top guys besides them. He had some very good wins,
big excitement. The only guy I've ever known that could sell out of building
in England without knowing who the opponent was that happened. He made some great
fights to Kevin Kelly fight we've talked about, just an unforgettable battle. In
any event, he finally gets the big one against Mark Antoniobrera, who people
know as a Hall of Famer, been in the great fights with Morales,
had a lot of accomplishment, you know, fought everybody. Had the awesome
fight against Kennedy Dan McKinney that we've talked about. But I don't I saw,
like when I was posting pictures of like the program and posters and all
that stuff on my social media on the anniversary which was you know, a
couple of days ago, ah Hahmed, You know it, It wasn't a
big surprise to me that Barre beat him. Are you kidding me? He
was a big underdog. Everybody thought that Ahmed wasna as Berrera. You know,
he was obviously a top notch fighter, but he was not what he
what he was before. He had had suffered some losses in this that pot.
People thought Hmed was gonna just take him out, but marc Antonio Brera
showed his true greatness that night. He was already going to be a Hall
of Famer even before the Hummed fight. But what he did was he went
from being this straight ahead brawl or banger, you know, the baby faced
assassin as he was called, he completely changed the style he's Instead of just
going straight ahead and just trying to whack him out, he became a very
poised boxer, puncher, controlled the ring, box him, you know,
fought when necessary obviously, and just dismantled, undressed, embarrassed, whatever word
you want to use. Did it all to Prince na seem and at the
end of the fight, late in that fight, got him in a headlock
when he was you know, chirping with him, and he rammed his face
into the turnbuckle. I mean, people loved that. I don't of that
not. It wasn't the most sportsmanlike thing I've ever seen, but it always
makes me remember the great line from my dear friend Larry Merchant, you know,
talking about the Prince. You know, they're taking his moment of truth
and it's become an hour of torture. That's what Barrera did to him.
He won a decision. It was close on the I was gonna say,
how shocked were you ringside, because again, this guy had been flamboyant,
and he had been backing it up. He had been backing it up with
big knockouts, and now that didn't happen. How shocked were you at ringside
as this was unfolding, very much so, because everybody that I can remember
was picking Hahmed to win pretty handily. And you know, while the cards
looked a little close, one fifteen, one twelve on two cards, that
was would have been one sixteen, but but Barrera got a point deducted first
slamming his head into the turn book, or the other judge had at one
sixteen to one eleven, so it would have been nine rounds to three.
But it was obviously Barrera won the fight. I kind of had a little
and I've had conversations with my with one of my colleagues from ringside or you
know, years ago about this Zach thing. I'm about to mention where even
though we all thought Ahmed was going to win, there was two things that
happened that night that sort of put in your mind like, Okay, this
maybe not the same night that we're all expecting. Something is going to happen
that's not expected. Two things. Number one, it took forever to get
the fight started, and the reason we found out was because they had to
keep changing the hand wraps in Hahmed's one of his gloves in the in the
d I don't know if it was both, I'd forget, but they had
to change his glove out and change the raps. Not because there was an
accusation of you know, foul play or the Margarito situation with illegal pants.
He couldn't get comfortable in the wraps. I couldn't get comfortable in the gloves.
My thought about that was these guys are pros, they've been around for
a long time. To me, that's nerves. That was what I felt
like in my mind, like he's he's really uptight about this fight. He
knows it's a dangerous fight compared to some of these other things. So when
we got word at ringside that that was what was causing the delay, that
was something in my mind. So now the finally the fight's gonna get rolling
and he makes his ring entrance. Now, how mad? Of course,
if you watch back then, and I was a huge Hmmed fan, his
ring walks were like the biggest part of the show is other than the knockout,
you know, he had these flamboyant dances and it was crazy. I
remember first Hamed fight I covered when he thought Wayne McCullough in Atlantic City on
Halloween night walking through the fake graveyard to Michael Jack and Thriller and knocking the
skulls off where you're there? Were you? I was gonna say, were
you there? The ninth he came in on the magic carpet like a lad.
He wasn't there for that one, but he came in on a magic
carpet one night. He was flamboyant about all of that stuff. It was
part of Yeah. The second thing besides that, I felt like he was
uptight because of the glove situation. Was the big thing about Naz was when
he would make the entrance, he would then do he would clear everybody out
and he would pull forward and he would do the flip over the rope into
the ring. He wouldn't just step between the ropes, or if you're a
real big heavyweight, step over the ropes. He would do a front flip
into the ring over the top rope. That was like his trademark. That'd
be like, you know, going to see the Undertaker and wrestling and having
not finished off with like the you know, where he pile drives the guy,
you know, does the you know, the the tombstone or the whole
Coogan leg drop if exactly. I mean, you know, the guys have
their finishing move. But Ahmed the rings. The flip over the ring was
like his starting move. So when he got to the ring apron and he
went to do it, he didn't do the flip. He pretended to do
it, and then he just stepped between the ropes. So in my mind,
and I don't think I'm like some kind of genius. I'm like he's
freaked out because of the gloves, and to me, him not doing the
front flip was like he was acquiescing to the moment. It was like the
moment was bigger than than we thought it would be for him. And so
at that time, even though I was picking him the win, in retrospect,
I'm like, there was something there, and that's you know, he
was unsure of himself. And sure enough, Barrera, who was the pro's
pro and you know, one of the greats of all time, you know,
just beat his ass. Now. The thing that I actually and I
always liked him, had a lot of people hated him because he was brash
and he would just he could be a real prick about things. For whatever
reason, I had a good report with the guy. I had interviewed him
several times. I had covered you know, fights prior to the fight between
him and Barrera. I had been there for Augie Sanchez and had a lengthy
interview with him. I had covered the fight against McCullough uh in Atlantic City
anyway. So again I'm not saying we're like best buddies, but for whatever
reason, we had like a pretty good and I never took all the nonsense
he said seriously, Like I can't remember sitting in a press contro the med
for the Hamed Augie Sanchez fight, and he said something wildly outlandish, and
the and the British reporters that were there got all indignant and pissed off,
an upset. And I was sitting there like in the front row looking at
him, and I had like a smile on my face, and he caught
my eye and he nodded him and he like kind of smiled like I knew
he was just doing it to put So I was never like offended by by
Hamed's nonsense. So the thing that really impressed me though about him was when
the fight was over and we went to the postfight press conference. You know,
to me in boxing and in sports and in life, frankly, you
mentioned this about Fendora when he lost. How are you going to react?
How you're gonna are you going to show? So the brashest guy in boxing,
the biggest fucking loudmouth, who would chirp off about everything, who would
insult his opponents, and you know and talk about I'm going to give you
a dirt nap, and you know you women to wipe off your You know,
why don't you get advertisements on the soles of your feet so people can
see when you're laying stretched out, when I knock your ass out, like
all that kind of stuff that Imed would say, you never saw a more
respectful and humble and like lovable guy at the press conference. He gave it
up to Brera. It wasn't my night. He's a great fighter. He
got me. I was like flabber gases. But to me, that earned
the all time respect because he didn't go off with the brashness and the stupidity
and you know I got robbed or I want to rematch or this. He
just gave it up to the guy, as he should because Brera kicked his
ass that night. You know, one guy wins, one guy loses.
He do you believe and will rap shortly? Do you believe now looking back
on a twenty plus years later that he was at the end kind of had
my fame, had my stardom, had my titles, had my money and
get it wasn't important to him anymore? Do you believe it you're looking back
to it that that was just the natural. Okay, somebody finally beat me
and now I'm good. I don't have to keep doing this for another five
years, knocking heads with whomever I think that's absolutely a possibility. I think
there's no doubt that that's part of it. I mean, he was still
in his twenties, so that he was not like an old shot guy.
He had had you know a little bit of like some issues. You know,
he had broken up with the promoter, and he had this problem in
that problem. But but he was that's that's part for the course in boxing
for top fighters. I mean, but I think he got you know,
the Marvin Hagler disease. You know, it's hard to get up and run
when you're sleeping in silk pajamas, that type of thing. Like he he
had made millions and millions and millions of dollars huge money. By the way,
every single guy out there in the featherweight divisions, like in those smaller
weight classes, Manny pack Yow in his day, Floyd Mayweather who came after
him, he wasn't a featherweight, but you know, junior lightweight, those
smaller weight classes. It never generated the massive money. And now guys like
the Loma Chenkos and Hainey and Shakoor Stevenson and others who have you know,
are in the on the pipeline who's making lots of money now, Dad never
and even Brearon Rallis later in their careers. Marquez is another example. Those
guys never made big money in years past. If they got a half a
million dollar paycheck, it was a big fucking deal. Prince not seem ahmed.
Every single guy that's been a big deal in the say the thirty five
and below, should should put up a fucking picture or poster of Prince Nasim
in there in their house and and thank it every day because he's the one
that paved the way for these guys to make the kind of money that they're
making, and he doesn't get the respect for that. I even have people
that say he shouldn't be in all of fame, and to me, that's
absolutely in a lunacy. He's one of the great featherweights of all time.
He's one of the great punchers of all time period. And my point is
he lost one fight against another all time great. You know, I would
like to see him continue, but he elected not to. That's his decision.
And so that was a great event, a moment in time. And
I have to say also for the greatness of Barrera, because we spent most
of this time talking about Ahmed. You know, Barrera has a lot of
accomplishment in his career, one titles in a bunch of weight classes, when
involved in some of the greatest fights in the history of boxing, the Morales
Trilogy never to be forgotten, the McKinney fight, other fights he was involved
in and fought a lot of other top quality guys. But the fight that
definds Marko antonio'brera to me is the Hummed fight because of the way he changed
his style. He never was indignant about being the underdog. He took shorter
money and he went in there and he took care of business, and then
he went on. After having suffered loss us a Junior Jones, he recleaned
himself up. He changed the style in that fight and went on and had
some of his biggest nights ever until he was pretty much put away at the
top level by Manny Paco, who was a rising star at that time.
So Barrera at his height and at Hamed's height, I'm mad was thirty five
and O go into that fight and most of his wins by knockout, and
Barra did the job, and I was privileged to be there. I will
never forget it. It was a It was a great, great experience to
cover that fight. It was one of my favorite events I've ever covered.
By the way you just chogged me that the let me double check on the
timeline. Probably about four or five years before that, I had been ringside
at the Poison Jones Junior Poison Jones Berrera title fight because it was in Tampa,
Florida on a Roy Jones undercard on h B O. And then and
by the way, while we're doing nostalgia, that makes me remember you remember
Artist Gilmore the basketball player. Not everybody's an old school basketball player. Artist
Gilmour was a Floridian, longtime NBA veteran basketball player, ABA player, NBA
player, humongous human being at seven foot two, always had the huge afro
when he played, and had the huge facial hair beard menacing. Could have
probably been a pro wrestler boxer and would have had a great intimidation factor.
The night of that Poison Jones Berrera fight that you just jogged my memory on,
Artist Gilmore sat in front of me in the lower level press area and
had on the largest pair of leather purple pants you've ever seen. Visualize this
in your life, because he kept standing up, and it's like, I
gotta see the A train is in fun I mean, artist, I gotta
see poisoned Jones around these purple pants of artist. Gilmore. You just jogged
me on the nostalgia with Marco Antonio Barrera. I gotta tell you what about
one other thing about the Brera the Brera amendment. It's so memorable to me.
Also, it wasn't so much the fight itself, but that fight week
prior to the fight, The week of that fight was in The fight was
in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, which so it was set up for a
boxing event, you know, with the way that the stets were in the
in the ring and all that business. They coincided that fight week early in
the week, like on the Monday or the Tuesday of the fight week.
They used the setup of the ring and they filmed the fight scenes for the
mock fight in The Ocean's eleventh film, the fake fight between Les Slamir Klitschko
that served as the backdrop to the bank robbery. Yes, when they turned
the power out, they turn the lights out. Yes, okay, So
I was there for you. I was still working at USA today at the
time. So I was going to Vegas to cover Barrerahmed, but we were
able to, you know, get killed two birds with one stone. Like,
let's if we're going to spend the money on the triple, let's get
as much out of ray Phil as we can. Right. So what I
what I was doing was besides going to cover that fight in Ocean's eleven,
Vladimir Klitchko was the boxer against Lennox in the fight. I actually in my
office here across the room, I have my my mock credential from uh,
Desert Storm Lewis versus Klichko. Uh, you know the credential. Uh.
And Vitali Klitchko was there because Vitali to travel with his brother because he was
one of the guys that was in the corner for that fight. And and
uh, and Lennox Lewis was there with Emmanuel Stewart. That's the fight where
when when Lennox Lewis wasn't properly training to prepare for the Jassim Rockman first fight,
which was like two weeks later, he was having a good time making
a Hollywood movie, not in training camp. But the reason why that week,
So I had two great experiences in my career that I were always memorable
to me. Besides just Ahmed versus Berrera. It was a being on the
site the set for Ocean's eleven and seeing Julia Roberts and seeing all the movie
stars in George Clooney, all these different people that were around, and but
it was also the first time I ever met Vladimir and Vitali Klitchko in person.
I was doing what was assigned to me as a pretty major story for
USA Today, like a profile on these fighting brothers who were not that well
known at the time. We knew them as boxing fans, but they hadn't
really been known to the American public. But it was obviously very interesting to
have two big heavyweight contenders, you know from Ukraine, who are you know,
guys with PhDs and they're in this movie and there's just a lot of
stuff to write about. So I met with them, I had launch with
them, met with their management, and spent some time with them in the
trailer, did interviews with them, and you know, reported on my piece,
and spend time with Emmanuel Stewart also there because I was friendly with him.
He was obviously not with Klitschko at that time. He was still the
trainer of Lennox Lewis. But uh, yeah, so I had, you
know, and I've maintained a you know, a friendship frankly with Vladimir Klitchko
anymore. I mean, I don't know vatally nearly as well as Ladimir,
even though I know him, and you know, we know each other,
respect each other. But that's really even though I had covered previous Hitchco fight,
that's sort of like where I developed a relationship with Ladimir and we're still
in touch this day, not all the time, but even you know,
as he goes through the situation with the war in Ukraine. You know,
there's a WhatsApp text every now and again, and you know, every now
and again we'll chat or whatever. But uh, that was that week was
a lot of stuff going on, right and you know, going to the
press commons for Lewis Rockman, where at that moment, I'm like, I'm
picking Rockman to win because Lewis I see, you know, in the backstage
area of the movie instead of practicing is where he's throwing his punches, he's
eating doritos um. It's a huge week, man. And that was and
the and the culmination was that incredible fight from Barrera beating him in. So
that was twenty two years ago. Okay, so by the way, we're
gonna get out of here, you trumped my artist Gilmore purple leather pants story.
That's a great story. But I mean, I'm just saying and that
that was five years earlier. Missus nostalgia because to me it runs My love
the nostalgia, the fans love the nostalgia. And we're gonna stay here for
another minute or two because you're gonna give me this as well. Missus reeves
top five movie of all time is Oceans eleven because of George Clooney and Brad
Pitt and the whole thing. So this begs the follow up question because I've
never heard this answer anywhere. When they do the lights out scene during the
bank robbery and the mayhem happens in the ring, did they do multiple takes?
My guess would be they did multiple takes on the running of the ring
with the lights going off because they're shooting it from different angles. They're filming
up with angle. Did they do two takes? Did they do five takes?
What's your recollection being they must have done fifty takes? Wow? God,
Okay, I was there for like the entire hours, like a long
time. This was like normally for a fight like Ahmed Burr, I would
have gone to Vegas on Wednesday, but because of what was going on and
with my meeting with the klitchkoes An the whole thing, I think I got
to Vegas on Monday, and I'm pretty sure that we spent I want to
say, the entirety of the day on Tuesday on the set doing something.
I mean, I could have left any time. It wasn't like I was
part of the cast right what it was having a good time and enjoying myself.
And I was doing my interviews with cho because there's down time when they're
changing things out. But they filled up the arena, or at least a
big section in the arena with extras, and they'd set up the arena the
right way. But they did take every take, every take, and so
let me tell you funny things. So now I'm like, oh, this
is pretty cool. I can't you know. I knew it's not a boxing
movie. But if you're seeing the Heavyweight chances again, if people have not
seen it the premises, they walk to the ring, they start the fight,
the bank robbery happens, and then the lights go out and a complete
World Wrestling Federation circus of a bunch of people run in the ring and they're
trying to separate everybody and ring the bell, and that is part of the
mayhem of them robbing the place. And so what we're talking about is they
did that rehearsal of everybody running. They would yell action and everybody runs.
The lights go out, and everybody runs in the ring, and they did
it over and over again. That's what Dan's talking about. It go ahead.
I was sitting, like, you know, five feet from the ring
watching this all unfold, like in my little table there with you know,
a couple other invited guests, and like I said, had Mike credential from
the fight that you know. And the thing if we also remember this,
Vladimir Klitchko and Lennox Lewis are squaring off a thousand times in the ring during
these takes. But everybody knows that the now Lennox hadn't fought the tally Klitchko
yet, But everybody kind of knows that the big big fight down the road
probably gonna be Lennox Lewis against Vladimir Klitchko. Now it never came to pass,
but so, but they were getting nose to nose with each other,
and because the Tally was there working with Vladimir, he was sizing up Lennox
when they would go to Center Ring and all that and see each other around.
So it was you could kind of feel the tension even though it's,
you know, it's supposed to be fun Hollywood movie. So to see sort
of the electricity between the Lennox side and the Klitchko brothers was something that was
very It was palpable there during the thing. But when you talk about the
takes they did, so let me tell you one real quick funny thing.
So I watched now this entire day of them filming like a thousand times,
these boxing you know, elements of the of the film and the crowd and
the run in and the whole thing. And so now when Oceans eleven comes
out, and plus it's loaded with movie starts, I'm like, I gotta
see this movie. I watched the movie. I'm like, they must have
spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars doing all the business that I just
talked about. TJ. Tell me if I'm wrong, I mean, I
haven't seen the movie in a long time. Your wife, as the big
fan of the film, it probably knows. I want to say that those
boxing scenes that they spent all that time and money on like days at the
MGM doing this ship was in the movie for like what a minute, Noah,
probably about three total, not ten, not five probably, but it
was like, but it's an intricral comity. It's an integral part of the
end of the movie because they're blacking out the lights and the whole hotel resort,
including in the arena, to commit the robbery. But they show the
whole ring walk of the fighters that got Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant talking it
up. They have the bell ring and the fight start and then the robbery
happens, and then the whole mayhem of the blackout happens, and my man
Rayphael was right there. And that's the week of the Barrera Ahmed fight and
two weeks two years ago, I'm knocked out, Oh my gosh. And
we've told that story as well in South Africa on nostalgia as well. Great
stuff as always again, go back and relive that fighter, go back and
relive the movie. So you're you're hanging just one more time. You're hanging
in like Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts or their ringsiders are doing takes with them,
and Elliott Wild and all the other celebrities. They're doing takes with them,
kind of ringside right there when all of this happens on the quote unquote
fight night where the blackout in the bank properties happening in the movie. I
can't say I was hanging with them, but I was seated like in very
close proximity to them, like in that same you know, I kind of
like when I've been in Vegas or other places where big fights and you see
movie stars and you know, I met Nel Gibson or I met you know,
Meg Ryan, and you know a few people like that over the years.
But yeah, we were like they were there taking their direction. Andy
Garcia and Julie Roberts are sitting like maybe ten feet for me. I mean,
it was pretty cool. I mean, listen, I don't I'm not
a starstruck kind of guy. I don't get that hyped up about that stuff.
But I have to say that was really cool. I'd never been on
a movie set before. For you know, I was a lot of new
experiences in that whole week, both with the boxing in with the Hollywood stuff.
So it was it was a lot of fun. I mean, I
enjoyed myself absolutely thoroughly. I got a great story out of it about the
clich goes. I got a great fight to cover a hum edbury And here
we are twenty whatever, twenty two years later. Yeah, but we get
all the stories on the who knew podcast didn't exist back then? Who the
hell knew I'd been doing a podcast twenty years? And who you are with
me? And we're rattling off in nostalgia. And by the way, that
movie is a mega movie that launched the whole franchise of the Oceans eleven,
twelve, thirteen, and and all the rest. And that's still a trip.
I'm gonna send you it after we're done. I'm gonna I'm gonna send
you a text of the picture of Mike Credential. That's fantastic. All right?
With that, I think we are good. We've done all the damage
we can do. We haven't done as much damage as Brian Mendoza did to
Sebastian fundor Oh. I said that I went there but it was a knockout
and it was worth the recap. All of this worth the recap again.
Followers subscribe on the Big Fight we can cast feed you get Fight Freaks Unite
off the weekend. With that, I think we're good. Everybody have a
good weekend. Rayfield, You're good. We're good, baby. All right,
we are good here again follow us. Subscribe on this podcast speed we
come your way off the weekend, usually out by Monday morning. On the
Fight Freaks Unite recap for Dan Rayfield, I'm TJ Reeves. Let's have a good week