The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host, t J. Leaves Ah, Yes, it
is getting good. Now we get ready for a weekend and has fights all
over the plays, whether it's San Antonio, Texas, whether it's Newark,
New Jersey, whether it's they don't call it the punch board, call it
the war Grounds in Carson, California. Loads to talk about news of the
week, some great nostalgia and more. You have found the Big Fight Weekend
preview. I am merely the somewhat capable host TJ Reeves. He is our
insider from his Fight Freaks Unite substack from Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello,
Dan Raphael. I have survived Houston, Texas in the basketball Final four
and we have got action action all over the place that I'm anxious to preview
with you. How are you? I'm doing good. It's a I mean,
as we're gonna get to all these fights in a minute. I mean,
it's a it's a big weekend. There's a bunch of good cards.
Nothing that's like to me. As we keep it real, that's like a
must see. That's a big fight. But you got a lot of like
you know we talk about on our betting show, I like to singles and
doubles. I'm okay with that. I'd like to take the home run now
and again I would consider what we have coming up this weekend. It's like,
you know, fights that are like singles and doubles, But that's okay.
Are you implying that I keep swinging for the fences for the home run
and swinging and missing like Anthony Josh and one knockout. I was just making
the point that it's a weekend where there's fights that are worth your attention and
worth it if you're a fan to check out, but nothing that's like earth
shattering, Just good solid shows around. Speaking of worth it and worth your
attention, the podcast is worth your attention. In the preview mode as we
come into the weekend off of Thursday night into Friday, you find us.
You also find us in the recap mode off the weekend Sunday night into Monday.
And by the way, I've gotten some good feedback from a lot of
people that they are really getting in the groove and enjoying double the ray Field.
All the fund that you get the preview and you get the recap and
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and we think you're appreciative of the fact that we come in here in the
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We are somewhat dependable. I think we can say that right now on the
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you get, you don't, you don't have to worry about anything. It
will come your way when it's ready. When it's out, you will know
that it's there on Friday and on Monday. All right, So fights,
fights and more fights. Let us start with Jesse Bam Rodriguez back in action
this weekend San Antonio, Texas. He will fight Christian Gonzalez for the WBO's
vacant flyweight title. Bam has been a tremendous rising star championship success story at
a very young age. He's back in action here on the de Zone matchroom
card. Give me more, Dan Raphael about this one headlining in San anton
Saturday. Well, as you mentioned, Bam has been on a very upward
trajectory over the past year. He was a very strong candidate to be the
twenty twenty two Fighter of the Year, based largely on the two big wins
when he won his title by dismantling on short notice at a heavier weight than
he'd been planning to fight against Carlos Quadras, and then coming back in his
first defense and just absolutely pummeling and taking out strisakats our rngby side, who
was supposed to fight Quadras, but I'd become ill and that's why A Bam
got a chance to replace him. But so he had the big year,
made a couple of defenses and won that title and then maybe a mile surprise,
I guess he's decided to go down and wait, not up in weight,
so he vacated his title, had one hundred and fifteen pounds of junior
band and weight division and in this fight he now boxes for the WBO's flyweight
title. It's a hometown fight in San Antonio, a place that he wears
on his sleeve, you know, like emotional. He loves San Antonio.
It's where he had the first defense against strissakats a rugby side. Now he's
going back there to try to win a second title he's only had. This
will only be in his entire not that he's had that many fights, but
in his whole careers, only had. This will be his fourth fight at
home, So he's very excited about that. The fans he got a figure
will turn out for him. But he's just a dynamite young fighter. He's
he's exciting, he's interesting, he's he's he's only twenty two years old and
there's a lot, you know, you think there's a lot left in front
of him. And also if he wins this fight in the flyweight division.
The prospect of other fights of serious interest in that weight class are certainly there
for him. I mean, keep in mind, he's going to be the
big favorite here against Christian Gonzalez. He fights on the match room stable of
fighters. He's on the Zone and Eddie Hearner is his promoter. Eddie hern
just signed Sonny Edwards, who's the title holder of the IBF in that weight
class. He is also the promoter of Martinez, who was the WBC title
holder in that weight class, and these guys kind of want to fight each
other. So I think there's a good chance that by the end of this
year, or certainly at at this time next year anyway, then if all
goes well, that we probably will have a chance to see dam Rodrigueys participate,
you know, in one or more title unification matchups. So that's something
to keep in mind as you watch him perform against Gonzalez, who's not the
most known guy in the world, but by no means is he a bum
or anything like that. He's fifteen and one, he's twenty three, also
also a Mexican fighter. He's won nine fights in a row. He has
taken a step up in competition. But to me, the thing about this
fight that I'm interested in, And in a column that I wrote, I
could have sort of ranked the fights that are come up Saturday, you know,
the cards as a as a whole, sort of like because I said,
nothing is huge, but like, what's my personal interest? I ranked
the bammerat Regus card as number one for me personally, mainly because of my
interest in seeing Bam fight again and knowing what could be down the line.
And then you throw in the fact that he got the ac mcdalia of a
title defense of his unified title junior featherweight on that card against a good,
solid opponent in mandatory in Marlins Palace. But Bamer at Regus to me,
you know, obviously he's the star of the show on that night and it's
up to Christian Gonzalez to make anybody think otherwise. And again, Bam,
as you mentioned, is heavily favored. He's minus three thousand on the money
line. So we'll have an interesting time with this for you. Plug again
for the bet Us, a betting show that comes your way live at one
Eastern time on the bet us platforms, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and
elsewhere. When we make a prediction on this fight, so he's expected to
win. How realistic is the unification for later this year? Do you believe,
just real quick to wrap on him, that it's realistic that a Sunny
Edwards fighter or a unification fight, that that is what is being put into
motion here by seeing him go down to flyweight. Yeah, I think it.
Well, I don't know if that it's not. That's not the reason
he went down to flyweight. I mean, the unification was not necessarily something
he would have known when he decided to do this, but he felt like
he can make that way, so he wanted to win another title and so
therefore he's down at flyweight. But in terms of I think he can get
a unification, I think it's absolutely possible. Like I said, Sonny Edwards
has just signed with Eddie and he did so not to fight nobody. Sonny
Edwards has been very vocal about wanting to fight top guys. Julio Seesar Martinez
is also in the flyweight division with the title. Who's also with Eddie.
Who's you know, you know he's not unwilling to fight top guys. This
guy went up and waiting and on short notice in a non title fight and
took on the legend Roman Chocolate Do Gonzazi got beat but you know he came
back down to make the flyweight division. So I think what we're probably going
to see bait and this I don't basis on like some inside or information or
anything like this. This is based on the comments from Eddie and from Sonny
when the deal was announced that they had signed, and also knowing the type
of fights that Julio Seesar Martinez for so I think first off, we'll probably
see Martinez and Edwards unified with each other, you know, sometime maybe this
summer. And then if Bam is the winner here, I don't think it's
out of the question that maybe even in the next fight you might see that
winner go into another unification with Ban Rodriguez me you know, maybe one fight
in between. But the point is that's clearly the reason that Eddie Hearn is
now working with three of the top flyweights out there. It's maybe not the
highest profile or the biggest money, but they're good fights. They have home
crowds they can draw from, whether San Antonio or Mexican crowd or Sonny's crowd
in the UK. It's very, very logical and it makes a lot of
sense, and it's good news for boxing kens if they can get all that
done. But to answer the question, I do think it's very possible we
will see those fights in the next you know, in the next year or
so. Good enough on that, as you made mention of the co feature
fight is MJ. Madalaiah defending w BA IBF Junior featherweight unified titles. Marlin
to Polos to get it right to Polos is the challenger here again, Amidalia
is favored. What do we know about Tapaulo's his chances, about his punch?
We know amidalav can punch. What do we think about the co feature
Saturday Night, San Antonio? I mean, I mean akmandaie Is sort of
drives me a little crazy from the standpoint that of of of unified champions,
he's probably the least known, least charismatic, sort of like least interesting,
you know, doesn't spend a lot of time promoting himself. This it's just
he's an excellent fighter. He was a good amateur and he's obviously got some
nice wins on his record. He's you know, beaten solid guys. He
beat Danny Roman, he beat Ronnie Rios, for example. You know,
he's not an insignificant talent. I mean he's a good fighter. He's very
inexperienced as a professional. He's only got eleven fights, but he had a
big amateur career, and I'm not really sure what they're doing with him.
I mean, the obvious fight would have been him and Stephen Fulton, both
of them at two titles a piece. But you know, he was doing
what he was doing, and Fulton was obviously with PBC, had his eyes
on a much bigger prize, which was certainly the fight with in a way,
can't blame him for that. So he's back in the ring, you
know. Yeah, he also doesn't fight enough. He only fought one time
in twenty twenty two against Rios. That was a mandatory. He's got this
fight coming up against the Polace, it's a mandatory. Who knows what will
happen afterwards. Not the Polace, you know, is thirty six and three.
He's a He's a former title holder in a smaller weight class from the
Philippines. He's won like three fights in a row since he lost a fight
in this weight class back in Like I want to say twenty and nineteen,
and he's got some decent wins on his record, but again he's not a
well known guy. He's going to be the underdog obviously, but as mandatories
go, as a secondary fight on this card, and you know, MJ
whatever is star Powers, he's certainly one of the best fighters in that division.
Probably, I think most people would view him as number two behind Stephen
Fulton. So it's just a little depth on what I think is an otherwise
pretty decent card. Hey, we'll see what happens there in San Antonio.
Again, simultane we're all over the continent, as it turns out, simultaneous
in Newark, New Jersey. I am intrigued. Your intrigue fight fans should
be intrigued. Shakour Stevenson, two division world champ, fighting now at lightweight,
headlines the ESPN Top ranked card in his hometown Newark, New Jersey.
Shoichiro Yoshino is the opponent. All right, So give me more on this
main event again coming up Saturday night for Top Rank and ESPN with Shakur Stevenson
back in the ring for the first time twenty twenty three. Yeah, so
he of course, as you mentioned, two time a title holder, won
a belt at featherweight, unified titles in the junior lightweight division, and of
course anybody that remembers is that back last September, he failed to make the
wait for what was supposed to be a defense of those unified belts against Ropes
and Consosau. Remember, Shakur had defeated Oscar Valdes to unify the titles.
Valdez had owned a somewhat controversial decision victory in a title defense of his own
against Consasao, and so they were fighting each other and he didn't make away.
He got tripped. Knzasau had the chance to win the belts, he
did not win. He obviously was beaten by decision fairly handily by Shakoor.
So now he makes his official debut in the one hundred and thirty five pound
weight class. It is a WBC title eliminator of the winner will be the
mandatory challenger for the WBC belt, which will be the winner of Lomachenko versus
the undisputed champ Devin Haney. They fight in May, and so for Shakur,
he's going back home, same place where he fought Robson Quotas out the
Prudential Center in his hometown. You know, he's become a popular drawer.
They they did a nice crowd there for the last fight against Consasao, and
we'll see what happens with the fight on Saturday. But the thing about his
opponent is and Yoshino is undefeated fighter and he is very unknown. He's sixteen
to oh with twelve knockouts. He does does have two solid victories in his
last two fights that even though he's been fighting in Japan, American men's may
have heard of. He defeated a massive yuki Eto, who is a former
title holder in the one hundred and thirty pound division. That was in April
of last year. Then he came back at the end of last year and
he had a very impressive knockout against Naso Yishi Nakatani, who of course has
fought Loma Chenko and TV Teamo Lopez and and Uh and adds gained some recognition
because of those wins. A very tall fighter, and so he has this
opportunity against Shakur. And while those two wins I just mentioned are very solid,
Shakor Stevenson is a whole different ball game. He's one of the best
fighters in boxing, he has got skills to burn. Most people who watch
think he's going to be a pound for pound king in the not too distant
future. And so for him to go to the hometown, I can appreciate
the the the stones to do that, but you know, if it in
boxing, you know, as as our good friend Larry Merchant like to say,
it's the theater of the unexpected. But what is expected is that Shakur
should run rough shot over him and win, you know, pretty handily,
and uh move on to the next whether it's to fight the winner of Loma
Chenko Hany or perhaps if Haney wins and vacates, like many things would happen,
if he wins and goes up and wait, he would fight for a
vacant title. But you know, it's the the next step in Shakur's evolution
towards the probability of him becoming a champion in a third way class. And
if Yoshashino can knock them off that block that makes it even more interesting would
be a large upset. Again, as we talk about the odds on the
bet Us line, I was just looking at that a second ago. Shakur
is minus twenty five hundred. Yoshino is plus nine hundred nine to one,
is the underdog, and it's it's in Shakur's hometown, so anything he does
is going to be lauded, cheered, people going berserk. So it's gonna
be a tough task. One thing about this fight, it seems to me
that we're gonna have a very good idea in the first round how this is
going to go. Is he gonna be able to just play with him and
maybe stop him, or is he gonna have himself a tough fight, because
the last thing in the world you want to do is allow him to get
off to a quick start, because he just piles up those rounds and he
certainly can play defensive necessary is one of the best defensive boxers in the entire
sport also, And so I'm gonna be very interested to see how it go
in round one. Can can Yoshino put any kind of pressure on him?
Can he make him uncomfortable at all? And when then I say first round,
I really I guess I mean like the first like two or three rounds,
We'll have a really good idea of what's going to unfold. And it's
gonna be up to Yoshino to do some damage and slow him down a little
bit, because once she coor gets gets a lead, or gets into a
groove, it's it's super, super difficult to put a dent in that.
Also on the top ranked card two rising stars that we've been talking about a
bunch on the podcast. That those include Jared Real, Big Baby Anderson heavyweight
and George Arius that is a scheduled ten round heavyweight bout. Keyshan Davis as
well, the former silver medalist in the Olympics a year ago. And Anthony
yigg It jigget or you get jigg it jigg it all right? Can yiget
hang in with Keyshawn Davis? All right? So give me something on both
of those fights, because again these are two of the top rising stars.
That top rank has a Big Baby Anderson probably a little further along because he's
been fighting professionally longer. But give me some thoughts Dan on those on the
undercard in Newer and this is very simple. These are the for me,
if you go by my rankings when I do pass prospects at the end of
the year, they're the two best prospects in boxing period. Regardless of that
whether with the top rank or whatever company. When two thousand and twenty one
ended, I had Jared Anderson as the prospect of the year. When two
thousand and twenty two ended, I had him number two and had Keshan Davis
as the prospect of the year. They're both tremendous talents. You mentioned Keshan
Davis had a phenomenal amateur background. He won a silver medal in the Tokyo
Olympic Games. Jared Anderson turned pro. He was the number one ranked heavyweight
in the amateurs for quite a while. He's done nothing to dissuade anybody of
that thought. As a professional. They're both undefeated, They're both taken steps
up in competition. Jared is coming off a win in December. If I
was actually at that fight, he fought on the undercard of TaiMo Lopez against
Sandra Martin at Madison Square, Gardy. He got buzzed by by you know,
in the first round, by Jerry Forrest, and he's survived. You
know, I didn't get knocked on anything. We got he got rocked a
little bit, but you know, it's heavyweight boxing. Came through with it
fine and then put an absolute beating on Jerry Forrest until he stopped him,
which was you know, that was the best opponent of his career, and
he stopped him in round two. So whatever issues he had in round one,
it didn't last very long because he just fumbled him and knock him out
in the second round. And George Jarius is a New York fighter to eighteen
and oh kind of like built like a tank like squat and Naso so tall.
Honestly, I think this is going to be easy pickings for Jared Anderson.
And with Keishan Davis, what can you say pound for pound talent already
wants to fight for a title, been saying he wants to fight the big
guys. I don't have any doubt that, you know, you could pick
anybody in the laywe division, and even at this formidable stage of his career,
only seven and oh, I do I do say that, I don't
care what it is he can tell me Loma, Chenko, Haney, Shaker,
pick a guy. I believe that that Keshan Davis at least is good
enough to hang with any of them, uh, you know, and maybe
he'll lose given his lack of experience. I say that based on having been
you know, seemed like Loma Chenko a great amateur and that was become I'm
a great pro struggle in his pro in his second fight against a very experienced
fighter like Orlando Sledos, So there is something to be said about that pro
experience. But he's doing the right thing so far. He just you know,
took a shutout eight rounder on that same card in December that I mentioned
about the Jared Anderson fight. He whooped up on Juan Carlos Burgos, who
had fought for a world title and was vastly experienced. Now he takes on
Anthony you Get, who has also fought for a world title, has fought
in the junior wealter right division as well as in the lightweight division, so
you know, it's not like he gets some superstar, but he's definitely a
step up and the type of guys that have populated the resume of Keishan for
the first handful of his fight. So you know, both fighters are fighting
like reasonable opponents at this level of their careers. So to me, it's
not do they win, because I think honestly that you can ever say it's
a foregone conclusion, but clearly they're heavy duty favorites to win their fight.
So it's not about getting it's about getting the win in the long run.
But to me, but I want to see more than how these guys is
if they win, is how they win? You know, are we going
to see the dominant knockout or the big punching power from Jared Anderson? Are
we going to see those awesome skills uh, you know from from Keishan Davis
and just keep doing what he's doing it keep the chains moving, get people
excited, and just get the experience that they need. You know, Top
Rank knows what they're doing. And in the next you know, however many
fights, it's not there's no it's not a race. Uh, there's no
hurry. But but trust me when I tell you this, this time next
year, maybe we'll be talking about these guys in much bigger fights than uh
than these undercard They'll be in main event type fights I know already by the
way, probably this summer, come July. I want to say, Uh,
Top Ranks taking Jared Anderson to Toledo, Ohio is home down and you
can you can bet he's going to be a headliner on ESPN in his first
main event the summer time, all right, and both of them, as
you made mentioned, our heavily favored. They're both lifted on the bet Us
line. When we do the Friday predictions at minus sixteen hundred, we won't
be predicting these fights, And I'm just saying for the purposes of the betting
line interesting. On the big Baby Anderson fight, the over under is only
four and a half rounds in the scheduled ten rounders, so the belief is
it's gonna end, and it's gonna end before the medium range of the fight.
So well, you know me from our weeks and months and almost a
year now of doing the betting show, I always I shans have always,
more often than not, I'm inclined to take the over on those really short
over under props, like if it's a three and a half four and a
half, which you do see occasionally on some of these types of fights,
I usually go with the over. I haven't given my official picks yet for
our show first for Friday, but I kind of maybe go with the under
on a fight like this. Yeah, you are king of the over and
you've been hitting a bunch on this and it's just a matter of whether or
not the opponent here can take the punch in particular from real big baby.
What does what does George Areas have for chin and want to We will find
out Saturday night in Newark on the undercard. All right, Like I like
to joke with Dan Rayfiel as we continue on the Big Flight Weekend podcast.
This is like the nineteen eighties gins who stake knives commercials? How much would
you pay now? Nineteen ninety ninety five? But wait, Rayfiel, there's
more. There is more. We got showtime PBC, and not just any
main event. I'm always intrigued by the towering Inferno Sebastian Fundora, and he
is back in action putting up. He is interim one hundred and fifty four
pound title for the WBC against Brian Mendoza main event Carson, California. Again
six six depending on what you believe. Rayfiel believes he's like six five six
six is what he's listed at in all the publicity. I know he's taller
than I am. I'm like six feet even. He's definitely taller. But
and by the way, I'm six foot four and I know tall, so
he looks I don't know he looks. He looks to be every bit of
six five, if not six six, and that's uncommon from a mediumweight fighter
for a junior middleweight. That's the intrigue. All right, this is the
main event. Brian Mendoza is the opponent, scheduled twelve round fight. Give
me some takes here on Fondora waiting for his opportunity to get a world title.
He's got an animal world title right now. Thought's on this main event.
Well, as I like to say, Sebastian Pandora puts the fun in
boxing, because lu doesn't like watching Sebastian punder. He's a very entertaining fighter.
Part of his is sort of the the uniqueness of seeing a guy that
big fit into one hundred and fifty four pound body, and the wacky thing
about it is. And you know, I don't know if I necessarily believe
him, but there was a time when his promoter, Samson Lukawitch was telling
me because Spendora was saying it to him. They were sort of angling at
a time when Errol Spence was looking for a welterweight opponent. They were saying,
we'd go down to welterweight if we can get a shot at Errol Spence.
So now you think about a guy six six dropping all the way to
one hundred and forty seven pounds to get that shot. He didn't didn't obviously
didn't work out that way. But I don't I don't necessarily disbelieve him.
That he's twenty five years old also, so it's not like, you know,
it's he's uh, you know, he's a full grown guy at this
point. It's not like he was eighteen and it was still making weight.
Wasn't as big of a deal. I mean, at twenty five you can
still do it, but you know, you are what you are pretty much
at that point. But he's an exciting guy. He's got long arms.
What makes him entertaining sometimes is he doesn't necessarily always use that heighten that reach
who was advantage because he does like to get in there and mix it up.
So he makes himself smaller sometimes, which leaves himself open a little bit.
If you don't believe you, take a look at a few rounds of
that Ericson Lubin fight that was a candidate for Fight of the Year not that
long ago. But you mentioned he's waiting for a shot. He's got the
interim WBC title at one fifty four. There is an undisputed champion in that
way class in Charlo, who was first obligation when he returns, which should
have taken place in January, but because Charlo suffered the fractured hand in two
places, that fight with his WBO mandatory tim Zoo has been postponed. The
thought was they would be able to finally fight in June. Zoo took the
interim fight. Now the word is, I haven't heard anything official, but
there's a lot of a conversation, a lot of chatter that maybe Charlo won't
be ready till maybe you know, July August, even maybe you know,
Toad till the early fall. Who knows. So the point is here that
ability to get an actual world title fight is blocked for the moment because Charlo
is the undisputed champion. Obviously, I just interject, Can I just stop
set or can I just interject for a second, get these guys in the
ring. I mean, I know you didn't bring it up, but Jamal
Charlo hasn't fought in almost two full years. Get these guys in the ring.
And I understand that Jamal Charlo had an injury, but he proclaimed himself
on the broadcast of the Tim Zoo fight that he was healed. He was
ready to start training again. And if you are telling me that we're not
going to have a Zoo Jamal Charlot August or September, what are we waiting
on? He proclaimed himself healthy. But go ahead. I'm not saying you
got to defend it. I'm not saying you gotta explain it. I'm just
venting. Go ahead, Yeah, I'm not going to defend it. I
mean, first of all, fighters say things that aren't true all the time.
But here's one of the things I learned along right, that fighters often
say things that are not so much exactly the way they are the same way
a manager or promoter. What Also, they're all kind of in the same
lie. You say that all the time, and a lie. I'm trying
to be nice, but I always sort of try to give the fighter the
benefit of the dot because they're the guys that take the punches and put their
lives on the line, so they get a little bit of the benefit of
out there. But as it relates to Charlo, I have no idea.
Maybe he tweaked this hand. Maybe the story about him maybe not being able
to fight though a couple of months later is not true. But whatever the
case may be is he is the under street of champ and as it relates
to Fendora, it's just simply blocking his path. So this is a young
guy. He's exciting, he's got a building fan base. Showtime loves him.
I think a lot of the fans love him, and so you're not
going to just sit this guy in the shelf and not fight. So here
he goes. He's in the ring. I'm glad he's active. Hopefully gets
at least two more fights this year. He's fighting Brian Mendoza, who is
maybe not a top top elite you well known contender, but he's not a
scrub or anything like that. He's twenty one and two. He does that
fifteen knockouts. He's a younger guy, only twenty nine years old, so
you know, should be in the best part of his career. He has
won two fights in a row. He's coming off the biggest win of his
career and it was very impressive. Actually, he had a fifth round knockout
against Jason Rosario at middlewait. Jason Rossario had been the unified champion in one
hundred and fifty four pounds who lost those two belts to Charlo and their three
belt unification fight one step before he became undisputed. And uh, you know,
he does have a loss to Hazers Ramos, who was one of the
best up and coming guys who we just saw you know, get to win
over Joey Spencer on the on the on the card with Plant and Benivitia is
a couple of weeks ago. So you know, as is this an a
plus level kind of matchup? I don't think, you know, we'd be
lying if we said yes, But is it? Is it an acceptable matchup?
Are you interested to see Fandora fight? The answer is yes, and
yes, you know, you can only fight the guys who are available.
Charlo is not available to him. Uh you know, I'd love it if
they could get the top contenders who are mandatories to fight each other, like
to become a supermandatory if you will, But I mean you can't blame them
for not doing that. Tim Jo's got his fight locked up. He already
had a contract with Charlo, and Fandora is the next thing guy in line
after him, So, uh, you know, I'm not going to complain.
I'm gonna enjoy watching the Towering Inferno do his thing home Saturday, watch
Brian Mendoza, see if you can pull the upset and what will be will
be what happens after that, you know he can't control an injury and the
politics of what goes on with the organizations. Okay, So that is the
main event of the Showtime PBC card. Brandon Lee is in the co feature.
I've always been intrigued by him and we've had him on a couple of
times on the Big Fight Weekend preview podcast previewing his previous fights where he was
on Showbox or on the undercard of one of the other Showtime cards. Give
me something on Brandon Lee and his co feature fight, if you would.
So he's fighting Pedro Campa, who might be best known to to die hard
I mean, first of all, he's not that known to the non diehard,
but to the diehards he will be known because in his last fight,
which was in August of this past year, he suffered a I believe an
eighth round knockout, seventh round knockout against Tiafimo Lopez, which was Lopez making
his debut in the one hundred forty pound weight class coming off the loss to
George Cambosis, so you know, he you know, he's coming off that
loss. But Brandon Lee is not nearly his experience. It doesn't have the
level of accomplishment that Tiafimo did, who had been the champion, the unified
champion in the lightweight division. The theme about randomly is this, He's got
good power, he's got some charisma, he's a good fighter, he was
a good amateurs. You know, he's twenty seven to oh with twenty three
knockouts. But to me, we're at a point with Brandon Lee. And
it's not anything against Brandon. He doesn't pick his fights. He just goes
and does his job. It's time to step up, and I'm tired of
keep hearing oh, he's so young. Then a lot of guys are twenty
three and fighting top notch fights. I mean, you know, take a
look at Devin Haney. He's about twenty four maybe, and he's twenty five
at most. He's been fighting, you know, in title fights for a
while, so there seems to have been a reticence to step him up.
I'm not sure where that comes from. I know Showtime loves him, and
I'm sure they love to see him step up and do a bigger fight,
But when it comes to see him Brandon Lee against Pedro Campa, honestly,
I'm just not that interested because I kind of I know pretty much what's gonna
happen where we talked about. You know, it's not pre ordained, but
I know what's gonna happen in this fight about as well as you can predict
a fight other than having seen it take place. So when Brandon Lee fights
a bona fide guy, please let me know. I like watching him,
but I'm getting tired of the constant, just regular pedestrian nonsense kind of fights.
So I do know. I do know because this was related to us
previously in one of his Showbox series situations where they were going over opponents with
him. And for whatever it's worth, this is probably two or three fights
ago, because he fought on the undercard of the Spence Helped Me Here Spence
fight last year when Spence returned, he was on the under card of that
fight, So this is not then. This is back when he was on
one of the Showbox cards that they presented a list of like five quality names.
These are the names, These are the good fights, These are the
fifty fifty fights. And he and his father, the management, if it's
if it's mostly the father, whatever went no no, no, no,
no no. And they looked at him and went, why are we having
you on the series? Then if you don't want to fight any of these
five guys, so, I mean, I don't listen it's I'm sure it's
not Brandon himself. Fight, ye fight. So if it's the dad,
maybe, if it's the manager, maybe, if it's a promoter maybe.
All I know is this, he's got twenty seven pro fights, and he
had a decent, good amateur career and at some point you kind of gotta
shigg it off the pot. Now boxing is not like it was, you
know a million years ago, when Marvin Hagler is fighting for the middleweight title,
you know, after like fifty fights or whatever it was. I mean,
is not the same sport anymore. And when you have guys who are
fighting for titles, you know, in just a handful of fights, especially
if they come into the pros with, you know, with some establishment background
and credentials. And he's not nineteen or eighteen, he's twenty three. So
again, he's young. I'm not saying he shouldn't, you know, step
up and fight the top top guys. I'm not even asking for a fifty
fifty fight. I get that, But can we get like, I don't
know, seventy thirty fight, because I'll be honest, Brandonly against Pedro kappas
like an eighty twenty kind of fight, do you know what I mean?
It's sort of like it's just whatever. I mean again, I'm not knocking
anybody. I'm not mad at showtime. I'm not added Brandon Lee or anything
like that. I just know, on a weekend where I've got a nice
menu of a lot of different fights I can watch, seeing Brandon Lee against
another regular guy is not my thing to worry about. That's sooner or later
step up. Yes, Like I'm more interested, Like I know what's going
to happen in like a Jared Anderson in the Kishan Davis fight. But I'm
more interested to see them because I think they're they're already stepping up and they
only have a handful of fights, you know what I mean. It's it's
a different sort of situation. He's just sort of jogging in place the last
handful of fights. So like the guy he's fighting again in Campa, is
not any real big difference in my mind than he's fought in his last couple
of fights. So I like to see at least a guy taking incremental step
up. And I don't want this to come off like I'm I'm mad or
I don't like Brandon Lee. It's not even remotely the thought. I'm just
saying, I don't need this fight in my life on the weekend. And
again, he's a rising star, but you gotta fight better fighters, and
that's all we're saying. And let's see if that if that happens after this
co feature fight card in the showtime PBC show in cars in California. So
there you go, three different fight cards in three different locations, San Antonio,
Newark, and in California. Some news of the week, as expected,
as we've been talking about, the WBA did go ahead and order that
Alexander Usik, the unified heavyweight champ who has the WBA's belt their world title,
to fight their secondary champ and top contender therefore in Daniel Dubois in a
mandatory title defense next all right, so that we knew was coming. The
real question is how soon do we believe that this can happen? Dan,
what do you know? What do we think? Well, I think that
if everybody has it their way, and it's very clear that the USA camp
is going home and ready to go to do this fight, they're not looking
to avoid the mandatory. In fact, I exchange emails with Alex Grasciak,
who is the promoter for Alexander Usik, and just to sort of get their
view of what's going on, and they were like, look, we're you
know, the Fury fight may be off, you know, the Tyson Fury
fight that fell apart because of Tyson furies insanity on the rematch clause. But
that he said, Look, being undisputed is still Alexander USI's priority. But
you know, you can't get blood from a stone, you can't make Fury
fights you on a fair deal. So they're content to maintain his three other
belts and hopefully get an undisputed fight in the future. But in the meantime,
the WBA is next up in the rotation, and as as Alex said
to me, you know, he needs to keep his belts and if that
means mandatories, so be it. You know, WB is next up,
and the fight got ordered on Monday, as we talked about, so we're
working on it. So I'm the thing that I find interesting about it is
that Alex will work with as the promoter of us that kill. Now have
to deal with Frank Warren who was the promoter of Daniel Duas, who he
also was dealing with as the promoter of Tyson Fury the co promoter, and
they get along fine. There's no issues with them. And I think Frank
Warren would be the first one minute. It wasn't him that tried to block
the Fury fight. He was encouraging Fury to make the fight, but Fury
had his own ideas of what the term should be for that rematch clause and
it wasn't too uh Tyson's liking when it when it got pushed to shove.
So now they make the dud Well fight. You know, the question also
is what is the health of dubuis needy. So my understanding from the w
BA is that they have asked the British Board, which is the governing you
know, the overseer regulator of boxing in the UK two PRIs present them with
a medical certificate to explain to them what his status is if he's going to
be ready to do this by the summer. So I'm I think they're still
waiting to get that. But by all accounts, this fight should be if
he's healthy ready to go, like you know, July ish all right,
so we'll see if is healthy enough to train and does the fight still end
up in the UK at a lesser price for Usik here I'm sure that that
will be in the UK. I mean where else are they going to put
it? Right? And and and the draw there would be dubuis his home
country and it would be more lucrative. But lem don't underestimate the drawing power
of usk. I mean, Number one, he's a he's a great fight
and anybody that watches boxing knows that. Number Two, he loves England.
He won his Olympic gold medal in England. He beat Anthony Joshua twice,
who is the British star. He beat him once in the second fight,
I mean in the in the second fight, in the first fight in England,
the second fight right exactly, so he fought there also, so there's
no issue, and it was he also beat Shaura in England correct. He
beat Hurrah along the way before he fought Joshua. He's fun. At the
point is he's fun in England enough to where he's the name. The British
boxing fans no like and respect us. They may not root for him against
their guy at Joshua, but they definitely respect him. They know he's a
great fighter. And so this is a fight that I'll put it like this.
I would tell you that usk is probably a better known commodity from the
British to the British boxing fans even than Daniel Duways, even though Daniel is
British and has this secondary title, because Usik has been in bigger fights in
the UK than Duways. I mean, Duwa did have a couple of you
know, he thought Joe joyceon and and that was a pretty big fight.
He did lose. Unfortunately he was during COVID, so there was able to
be fans in attendance for that fight. All I'm saying is if this fight
happens, you can expect it to be in the UK, and I would
say would probably generate a pretty good crowd and quite a bit of buzz.
All right, we'll find out in the coming days and weeks. When does
it get signed? When is it on four? With Usk back in the
ring has not been back in the ring since last August to defend three of
the heavyweight title bouts. We do know this what's looming next as a prominent
fight. One of the more prominent fights of the first half of the year
is Jervonte Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia. That's coming in a couple of weekends
here in April, and the undercard is now filling out. Give us a
little bit on the undercard on News of the Week, please, Well,
the first thing I would say too is it is not one of the most
anticipated fights of the part of the year that we're up to. It's the
most anticipated fight so far, probably because there is no fear of USIC fight,
but also because it's just a fight that a lot of people want to
see. So it's got a tremendous amount of height and they're they're doing their
thing. Travanta Davis is you know, went through his media work out this
week. They've got you know, I think on Thursday actually when he had
it, so they'll be I'm sure some stuff coming out of that. Ryan
will have his coming up also, so they're doing their job of trying to
sell this fight, and now they put together the undercard and to keep it
real. It kind of left me a little bit like, Yeah, I
mean, don't get me wrong. I love the main event obviously, and
that's what sells the fight. That's that's obviously the most important. The undercard
is I don't know, I'm not I don't think it's like terrible anything like
that, but it's just sort of like it leaves me a little bit sort
of like when we're giving it a grade, is it a C the undercard?
Yeah, I think that's fair. I'd say it's a see. That's
a see. Morrel is on the undercard, right. So the co feature
is David Morrell. He is defending his uh WBA Regular super middleweight title against
a fighter from Ghana who is fighting out of Tennessee named Senna at Becco,
who if you've been a fan of Showbox, you've seen him on the Showbox
series. He's twenty seven and two with twenty one knockouts. He's thirty one
years old. He's won four in a row. His one loss are the
most ys two losses. The most recent loss, he thought the undefeated Vladimir
Shishkin, who was a rank contender in that way class as well. Morrell
hasn't fought since the very unfortunate incident that happened last fall against Idosi Erbasinuley where
he knocked it out and unfortunately yerbus Newly suffered a very bad brain injury put
him in a coma for a bit. Fortunately he survived and was able to
go home to Kazakhstan, although his career is obviously over, so it'll be
interesting seeing how David rebounds from that situation. And David Morrell is a very
likable fighter. He's a very exciting fighter. He's an interesting fighter. I
love the fact that here's a kid that comes from Cuba that settled in Minneapolis,
you know, which is completely different thing the type of place you'd expect
the young Cuban to settle. But he's been adopted by by their community and
by the boxing fans there and has a has a lot of drawing power when
he fights in Minneapolis. So I definitely am happy to see Morrell on the
car now. The good thing about it, they haven't said this, but
it seems very clear based on the comments, based on my interview with David
Bennavities that's on the previous podcast. If he wins this fight, they're setting
opposite situation where we'll probably see later this year David Denivides against David Morrell,
which is obviously a tremendous fight up that Dan. Yeah, because I listen
if these guys aren't you know, they're both of those guys are are mandatories
for Canello. Morrell as the regular champion and Denavides as the WBC's interim champion.
So they're right there on the doorstep of fighting for the big fight against
Canelo. But Canello is on this speo. He's fighting John Ryder coming up,
you know, in May. After that. He has said that he
wants to fight the rematch in the fall against Dmitri BiVO at light have you
weight, not at super mettle weight, So that will put the two mandatories
a little bit further behind. I don't think the organization will move to strip
him or anything at this point. Um. And by the way, just
to give a little a little a little advanced keys on a future podcast,
we will have the interview that I conducted with Canello Alvarez this week from his
training camp in Mexico. Very nice on Ryder fight and one of I'll just
give you a little hint one of the things I did ask him because there's
been a lot of conversation about if he does get the Beavo rematch of View
beats Rider, does he want to do that fight at one seventy five or
there had been some conversation maybe Beevo would be interested to fight him at one
sixty eight because he can He's always said he can make the weight and for
him it would be a motivation to try to become undisputed at super middleweight.
Canello was very clear with me. He said absolutely, I'm going back to
light everyweight and I'll fight him in that weight class. So we'll see what
happens with that. But the point I'm making is Morrell and Benavides are not
getting Canello this year, so they can make a big fight, a relatively
big fight anyway in that weight class by fighting each other. And David,
you know, showed what he could do against Cable Plant. Morella's look very
good in his fights hopefull you know, for his sake, if he can
shine on this undercard, that would be and the opportunity it's going to be
a lot of people watching this fight obviously given what the main event looks like,
So that that makes the co feature a little more palatable to me because
of the caret of the big fight coming after that with Benavides. So that's
the co feature, and then the other two fights. He got the opener,
which is the middleweight fight between Elijah Garcia, who kind of burst on
the scene with that impressive fight, you know, a few weeks ago,
and he's taken on Kevin Salgado. So it's good to see what a guy
who could be a top star, but you know, still a top level
prospect in the opener, And the one that kind of is the reason why
this undercard left me sort of like not that impressed was because the the fight
before the Morrell fight is David is a Gabriel Rosotto against Beck the Bully back
here Melakuziev, and I'm like, why now Rosato was lost I don't know
what his five of his last six fights or something like that. The one
win that he does have he's been hanging his hat on for like the last
two years, is he has a one plunge knockout against Beck the Bully,
who was a very heavy duty favorite. When they fought each other, he
stopped him in the third round with a great shot. And now they're having
a rematch. Golden Boy, which is the promoter of both of those guys,
and who were involved with this obviously because they're the promoter of Ryan Garcia.
They had Rosato supposed to be in the ring against Gilberto's or too Ramirez
a few weeks ago. Ramirez didn't make the weight and not just by like
missing by a pound or pound and affords something. He missed by what was
it, like ten pounds or seven pounds or eight pounds, whatever it was,
And so the fight got canceled and they had said, you know,
they promised to get Resotto back in the ring as quickly as possible. He
had put in a full training camp, he did nothing wrong, he made
the weight. He's a good guy and you know, a hard work and
all that. So they kind of looked around him and they and they decided
to put him here in this make a fight that they could make, and
they give him the rematch against against against the bully. So you know,
it is what it is. I mean I don't love it. I mean
I would have rather seen the original. They were talking about putting Williams a
paida on the card. He's gonna instead go on April twenty ninth in the
slot as they try to save the show that was impacted by the postponement of
Standyonis and Virgil Ortiz. There was conversation that would maybe put Floyd's school Field
on a pay per view in a in a spot there as one of their
best, as their best prospect. Probably. I think he's on the card,
just he'll be on the preliminary part of the card, not on the
pay per view. I mean, so that Risotto goes from being at his
own main event against Risotto, which was bad enough, now he's here on
the pay per view in a rematch with Becta Bully. So you know what
can I say? There you go, that's the undercard of Davis Garcia coming
in two weekends for that one in Las Vegas. We got one more news
item and then I promise we're talking a little nostalgia and we're done in the
nostalgia's great nostalgia about Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler a mere Khan.
We have learned two year band for failed drug test after the kil after the
call Brooke fight. Give me more on this real quick. One thing is
whatever he took it hurt didn't help him because he got pummeled in that fight
by kell Brook. And the silver lining that I find here is the following
the fact that he tested positive and took a two year band, which are
really amount to one year band because it's backdated to a data in April twenty
twenty two, which is when he was provisionally suspended by Yukon in the first
place. When you're out for that long on that kind of suspension, it
probably takes away the probability of him making a comeback from retirement, which I
think is a good thing, but just hugely disappointing that Amir Khan, who
again I've liked and covered and enjoyed for many years. Good dude. We
had him on the podcast a while back when he retired, had a wonderful
conversation about his career. I've always liked the guy. You know. He
says he didn't take anything knowingly. But I've never met an athlete that has
tests a positive or a band substance that said anything other than that, So
I don't know what to believe, but you know, unfortunately that's part of
the deal. And here's the difference between like what happened with u cod and
and some other outfits. You cood accepted the fact that he didn't take it
knowingly, but they subscribe to the concept of strict liability, which the WBC's
clean boxing program does not subscribe to. And what's the difference the differences in
the WBC's program, which can't actually suspend a fighter from having a fight because
that's up to a commission, but they can do what they did to Connor
Ben and they reinstated him into their rankings as because they said because it was
unknowingly in their opinion based on their investigation, that they wouldn't have any kind
of harsh punishment. In the case of UCAD, which does it the right
way when it comes to this situation, it is tric liability. And the
reason that what that means is if it's in your system and it's not supposed
to be knowingly or unknowingly, it's irrelevant how it got there. That's why
when it got there, it's there, and that means you're in trouble.
The old saying is I remember this back on a previous case. You know,
one of the commissioners telling it was Antonio Margharito. They used the same
concept of trict liability when they were suspending him and revoking his license. Actually
for the hand rapping scandal about the Shane Mosley fight, you are the captain
of your ship, means whatever is there, you're responsibility period, end of
the story. So yeah, we believe you that you didn't do it on
purpose, but you're still going to sit down for two years. And that's
the bottom line. Now, the problem with this is YUCOD in general,
is that it's absolutely fucking absurd that we have to wait a year to find
out that this happened. He had that fight with kell Brook in February of
twenty twenty two. Now they had his test back and provisionally suspended him in
April of twenty twenty two. So that's a reasonable that's not crazy. Then
they went to like some tribunal that obviously they did a good job of keeping
secret. And so the point that they finally finished the case this week Monday
of this week and they announced the two year band there's ten months later,
ridiculous. I make the following point. There is a happy medium about everything
in life. So when it comes to the drug testing situation, on the
one hand, you don't want to railroad somebody and rush through an investigation and
don't get him a chance to defend themselves and do it, you know,
on a knee jerk reaction. You'd give the chance to have their say and
do an investigation, you know, and do it in an appropriate manner without
jumping to a conclusion. I have no problem with that. And if you
want to take I don't know, six months to do that, fine,
but the science does not need two years or I should say fourteen months handled.
So again, happy medium, don't railroad a guy. But there's no
reason to drag it out for as long as they dragged it out. I
mean, there's due process, but it shouldn't take fourteen months. So that
pissed me off. And this is the same Yukat that pulled the same exact
shit when Tyson Fury had a positive test years ago. It took so freaking
long for Yucat to deal with that they ended up giving Fur a backdated suspension
he took. It took so long for them to adjudicate that case that he
already had beaten Klitchko for the title. That was ridiculous. So he fought
Klitchko after having a positive test and not having yet been punished. It is
absurd. And I even have, yah, I even have punishment. That's
not punishment exactly. I understand what you're so and in this case, you
know, I guess technically it's punishment. But he kind of already announce his
retirement anyway, So it's gonna amount not too much, I wouldn't think.
But it's again unfortunate that Khan had this come up in the final bout of
his career and bring it to one more thing fourteen months to make this cannot
bring it to one more thing, and then we're gonna move on to learn
Haggler, which is happier thing. Why have they not dropped the hammer on
connor Ben but the same premise, the same presid but still I mean,
it's the British Boxing Board of Control, right and was the UKad Was it
not a YUCOD test in the UK I need to explain this to you.
Please handed out the punishment after going through the process that they have in their
rules and regulations. The connor Ben situation, the test that he failed was
a VODA test. It is not a UCOD issue cast. So the British
Board has to go through its process. And but what the problem here is
that KHN was a license holder of the of the British Board. Connor Ben
gave up his license when he was found to ask. Doesn't allowed to do
that? It allowed to do that to avoid punishment. But here's the other
thing, though, here's the very important thing. Connor Ben, whatever the
semantics art is he suspended? Did he give up his license? Did he
have a vocation? That doesn't mean anything. What means something is that connor
Ben is not permitted currently to fight in the United Kingdom. But that doesn't
mean that he can't go to Abu Dhabi, as Eddie Hearn and Natural Boxing
are planning for June three. But the British Board has no sway over what
happens in a commission that is not in their country. Now, real commissions,
real countries, real regulators will honor those types of things, right,
so we will not find for example, help help help me, help me
on one point they actually hold on? Have they actually suspended him? Have
I missed that? Did they Okay, they can't suspend a guy if he
doesn't have a license, I said, but that's gaming the system that I
know that, I said, stop with the semantics. He doesn't have a
fucking license. You can't suspend him. But what you can do is you
can put pressure of your Office of the Establishment of the British Boxing Board of
Control and you talk to the other regulators in other countries and in the United
States, so they talk to places like the ABC, who has issued a
I don't know if it was an official memorandum or just hey guys, by
the way, whatever it was, the commissions in the United States, tribal
and state have been made aware that if connor Ben were to come here,
they shouldn't license him. Now that doesn't mean that they can't if they want
to, because there's nothing that says they have to follow the rules of what
the ABC says. But as an example, Nevada will not go against the
ABC. If connor Ben tried to get a license in Nevada, he would
not be allowed to even have a hearing probably to get a license. They
would just say no, thank you, clear up your shit at home and
then come back and talk to us. But that's different than what goes on
in a place like the Middle East in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates,
where it's not as strong boxing commission, where they rely on outsiders and
frankly to run some of their events. When they were doing mega events like
Joshua Versus Ruise, like Joshua versus Ousik, like the World Boxing Super Series
back a few years ago with James de Gale and George Groves, I mean
they were using largely personnel from the British Boxing Board of Control and other established
European commissions. So I agree with what you're saying, but the British Board
cannot make some other country do what they want, which is they can go
there and fight. Here's what they can do. They can say to Counterbandon,
to Eddie Hearn, if you go and do this to circumvent the system,
we're not going to license you, or we're not going to license you
for this amount of ton of our rules. Maybe it's gonna be two years,
maybe it's gonna be three years. You can't fight in the UK.
Is that they have to make because they actually made that clear that not only
would they have a bad taste in their mouth if they saw that they went
against their rules that he would have a hard time coming home. But whoever
his opponent is, and like, let's say the rumor is that he's going
to fight Chris Eubank Junior. The British Board not may not take kindly to
that either and have a problem licensing you bank if you should come home because
he took place, he took part in what would be considered a renegade fight,
if you will. So there are trade offs. So my perspective is
the following. You know what, maybe Connor Ben wants to go there and
make a big payday for June against whoever he fights. I guess I can't
do anything about that, but I don't have to license you at home.
So the question I would have is it worth the trade off to get a
big payday to fight a renegade fight? Have your reputation continue to stay absolutely
ruined and not be able to come home. And here's the reason why you
might be able to go to Dubai or Abu Dhabi or wherever somewhere else in
the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, wherever. You may be able to fight
there, you know, once or twice or whatever. But you're not going
to make a market in Saudi Arabia. You're not going to become like a
regular there. Your home base is the UK. So while you can get
a payday or two maybe in one of these exotic locations, you can't make
a career there, right, So you got to make the trade off.
My thought was, take your fucking suspension, do your time and come back.
People forgive, they may not forget, but you'll get another chance.
How many guys have to ail drug tests who've gone on for good careers after
that and had the opportunity to make, you know, big fights and make
a lot of money. So I think, as I've said, from day
one, team Connor Ben has handled this like a fucking hand grenade terror from
day one. I've said also, if I was teaching your class now not
to handle the situation like this, I wouldn't even have to do anything because
I showed them what comes, all right, that is a good way to
cap all of that nostalgia. So on Thursday, as we released this podcast,
it is made a mistake by the way beat that George Grossing it wasn't
against the Gallo was when Georgia Grows fought against Calum Smith. That was in
Saudi Arabia where that's the British Board and others were helping regulate that event.
In my bed, the record is now correct. That's fine today as we
release this podcast. Thursday ninety to Friday is the thirty sixth anniversary April six,
nineteen eighty seven of one of the great fights of the nineteen eighties,
two of the greatest fighters of all time in the non heavyweight divisions Hall of
Fame Fighters, the last fight ever for Marvin Hagler. As it turns out,
Sugar Ray Leonard comes out of a three year retirement and upsets the undisputed
middleweight champion on April sixth, nineteen eighties. Now, you and I we
disagree a lot of the time. Not all the time, but a lot
of the time. You and I are actually an agreement on this. We
have always believed Sugar Ray Leonard won this fight. However, there are a
lot of people that believe that Marvin Hagler won this fight. It is still
debated and talked about four decades later. Dan Rayfield, give me some more.
Well, it wasn't for the undisputed title because even though Haggler was considered
a Dutch champion. It was only for his WBC belt. He had given
up or been shripped of the other two belts back in the day. That's
semantics in any event. Look, I always thought that Ray Leonard won the
fight, and I'm a huge Ray Leonard fan, and I'm a huge Marvin
Hagler fan. I remember that fight when it happened. I wasn't as a
diehard back then as I became, but that was the kind of sporting event
that transcended just boxing. I mean, you know, I was in high
school and kids talked about it at study halls, talked about in the library
or in the gym, or you know, in the home room or you
know, lunch room whatever. I mean, that was like a big deal
cover of Sports Illustrated before the fight, when Sports Illustrated, you know,
was still a big deal from page of newspapers. People asked me when I
put up the thing about the being the anniversary, why was it on a
Monday night? As we said before, back then, big fights were on
Monday nights all the time because the movie theaters are empty and that's where people
went to watch close circuit, and the movie theaters are looking to have some
play some way to get people in besides just on you know, the Friday
Saturday night type of weekend activity. So putting a big event on a Monday,
it was good for the bars and restaurants and good for the movie movie
theaters to bring customers in. And it was a huge deal anyway, Sugar,
Ray leard, like you said, out of a big, long retirement.
This fight had been you want to talk about over cooked at the time,
how we've been dying for like Mayweather pack yea, or now it's you
know, Errol Spence and Terrence Crawford. This was that fight of that time
pariod. Remember, Ray had put off this fight for years and years,
a lot of teasing and a lot of taunting, and you know, Haggler
wanted it so bad he even showed up at at at a ceremony thinking that
they were gonna you know, Ray was gonna say, I'm gonna fight Haggler,
and with Marvin there, he embarrassed to shoot out of him because he
said, I'm retiring. And Marvin made the trip down to you know,
uh Maryland to watch the ceremony thinking he didn't get the fight, and he
walked out of there with the guy retireing. He made him look like a
fool. So this was a long time mean, people need to go back
and started their history, not just get cut up in the nonsense of what
goes on today with Spence and Crawford, those other kinds of fights. We
want to see Fury and Joshu or whatever. But so this was a huge
deal. It had been put off for years and years and years. And
when Ray Leonard went and watched Marvin Hagler fight his previous fight against John the
Beastmogabbi, a fight where he scored and eleventh round knocket in one to retain
at the time the undisputed title. It was at that time where Ray who
was the super intelligent boxing mind, saw things in Marvin Hagler's performance and says,
you know what, I can beat that guy. He got together with
his team, they put together a perfect game plan and Ray Leonard won that
fight. And I maintained and I'll go toe to toe with anybody on this
anytime they want. That fight was one fifteen to one thirteen for Sugar,
Ray Leonard. You got to give him the first four rounds of that fight,
and you can say what you want, but Marvin Hagler gave them away
in the key. The Tell if you will was Marvin Hagler coming out as
a south Park to try to disrupt Ray Leonard, which to me, he
told me he wasn't confident going in fighting the normal way that he would normally
fight. So he gives away the first four rounds. And I've broken this
fight down. I've watched it a thousand times and come up with the same
thing every time. I gave round five to Haggler, so now he got
four rounds to one. Sixth round to Leonard gives him even a deeper edge
seven, eight and nine. Haggler makes it closer round ten, Sugar,
Ray Leonard wins it. I always note that as a very close round,
but I like Leonard in the fight, and now you got a close,
close, dead even fight. Ray Leonard wins the twelfth round. Not even
close in the twelfth round. I mean, I clearly thought he won the
twelfth round and closed the show. He won the crowd, he won the
judges, he won the event, he made the fight. He didn't turn
southpaw and do cockonae me things out of out of his norm. They had
the brilliant strategy and This is well documented later and sertainly in the HBO documentary
Legendary Knights, where he made sure that his team Sugar Angelo Dundee and the
corner made sure he knew by hitting and yelling or whatever they did to make
sure he knew there was thirty seconds left from the round. Because he finished
around stronger, the judges are more apt to give it to you over what
happened in the first thirty seconds, and so he made an impression on the
judges. In the final routes, he showed enormous toughness because he did take
some licks and he hung in there a smaller guy. Everybody thought he wasn't
getting knocked out in like the first he was still standing after five or six.
Everybody's thinking Ray Leonards already won the fight, even because he's not losing,
and so everything a doubt. The way it went, Ray Leonard won.
He won on the scorecards deservedly in a close fight. Hagler never fought
again. But it was a massive, massive event. It was a tremendous
fight, and it was one of the great super fights of boxing history and
what can you say, two all time legends and for the greatness of Ray
Leonard, who was one of the greatest handful of fighters who ever lived.
Whatever you thought about him because of the way he avenged the loss at d
Ran, or beat Benitez for the title, or you know, knocked out
the primo Tommy Hearns when he was undefeated. All the big wins at Trigger
Ray Leonard had in his career, nothing tops what he did by coming out
of that retirement and beating the great Marvin Hagler closer or not. That is
the defining moment in my mind of Sugar Ray Leonard's career is a phenomenal fight
in a great win, and that is saying something with what you just listed,
the revenge win over Duran, the win over Hearns, all the things,
an Olympic gold medal, This is the moment two or three things from
me. So again I followed it very closely. I was diehard Sugar Ray
Leonard fan. Did not have access to the pay per view because again not
every cable system at a pay per view, so I had to listen on
the radio for the updates, no live play by play for the updates as
teenage TJ what happened, and then you turned on ESPN and ESPN was rolling
through the coverage, not able to show you the fight. They're showing you
still photos Dan Ray feel and remember when you de press conferences and then you
had to wait a few days to see the replay on HBO of the fight.
And again, this was front page news, not just and again when
newspapers were videaled, not just front page of the sports section. This was
front page news that Leonard had scored this win Sports Illustrated cover. It was
nationally a massive deals in the day, every bit as big then as like
the NCAA Final four that just happened a few days ago, or you know,
pick, I mean it wasn't as big as the Super Bowl or the
World Series or something like that. But you know what, we have the
Masters going on this week. It was just as big as the Masters.
That's not bigger or the Kentucky Derby or the Indianapolis five hundred or any of
those things. Right us opened Wimbledon D five hundred. Pick whatever sport you're
watching, like, whatever their big deal is, Daytona five hundred. It
was as big or bigger than any of those events, except for maybe the
World Series. In the Super Bowl, it was bigger than like the NBA
Finals. The NBA finals back then weren't even on live television away in the
in the mid eighties, in the late eighties, so it was bigger deal
than than the NBA Finals. And by the way, NBA Finals that were
featuring you know, superstar players like Magic Johnson and well, let me correct
you. You love at Craig mate. They got to live TV by the
mid eighties, but the early eighties, you're right, they were on tape
delay. They were on tape delay. And this and this again back to
the documentary The Four Kings. It's phenomenal how they got to this point and
when Leonard figured out, especially after the mcgabi fight, that Haggler is a
lesser fighter, after the Hearns fight and after this mcgabi fight, now is
the time. Now is the time if I'm ever going to fight him,
to make the deal. And one monilog, Yeah, no, I was
gonna say. There's three. There's three pieces of media besides just watching the
actual fight. If you want to know more about what happened, about the
fight, how it came, about what happened the aftermath, and just delve
into the history of the matchup. The three main things that I would point
to that I have watched many times are read that are half to that if
you want to know more, and just it just interests you, not just
about well, I mean really this fight, but also just about the Four
Kings era in general. You must watch the HBO documentary. It's a thirty
minute documentary about this fight and the build up to Haggler or Haggler Legendary Knights,
Right, Legendary Knights. What did I say, No, you just
said the HBO documentary. You mean the Legendary Knight just giving the name.
Ye, yeah, so they did. Uh. That's a twelve part series,
but they have one episode that is devoted solely to the tale of Leonard
and Hagler. Tremendous documentary. The other thing, of course, is what
came out last year is the section of the multipart documentary that was on Showtime
about the Four Kings. But there's a big chunk of that devoted towards this
fight, and and the whole documentary takes you to the career and lives of
all four Kings, Haggler, Leonard, Hearns, and Durant. And the
other one that is phenomenal, and I would and I always get asked by
by boxing fans all the time, like what's a great boxing book to buy
or to read or to bower or whatever is. I cannot give my stronger
recommendation to the great, great book called I believe it. The title is
The Four Kings, which is written by the late great George Kimball, who
spent decades writing for The Boston The Boston one of the big Boston newspapers was
The Boston, not the Boston Boston Herald, not thest Harold Right to vote
for the Boston Garld. George was a friend of mine early in my career.
We've covered a lot of fights together, a tremendous countain of knowledge.
I had a great time getting to know him over the years. He covered
all nine of the Four Kings fights to around Robin they had with each other,
and he has a book that is devoted to that series of fights.
There is a chapter on each different fight with tremendous amount of background material,
the fight itself, the aftermath, but there's a whole chapter specifically on that
fight that is just unbelievably detailed and just glorious to read. I find myself
going back to that book on a regular basis. Matter of fact, as
soon as we've done with this podcast, I'm gonna go up to bed later
on, I'm gonna keep the books literally in my bedside nights. I'm gonna
bust a book out and I'm gonna reread the chapter on Leonard and Heckler.
It's a gill in the anniversary and I should mention too that on this podcast
feed on the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. A couple of years ago,
on the anniversary of this fight, we did talk with another author, Brian
Dugan who's in the UK, and Brian Dugan wrote an entire book called The
Super Fight just on this fight the build up on it, and Brian spent
the better part of a year going through everything, all the interviews, all
the build up for the super Fight. Sugar Ray Leonard did talk to him
for the book. He got an opportunity with Leonard he unfortunately could not get
with Marvin Hagler, and Marvin Hagler obviously passed away a year ago for the
book, couldn't work it out, etc. But not again. It but
a plug for Brian Dugan's book The Super Fight, and he talked to us
at length on this podcast. Folks, again, I realized we're thirty five
plus years on. This was a massive, massive deal. This fight.
It was bigger than any heavyweight title fight that was going on in and around
it because Larry Holmes didn't have a massive opponent to fight against, and Mike
Tyson wasn't on the scene yet as the heavyweight champion. He was on the
scene just with Fringe. Yeah no, no, no, he had already
won the title in eighty six, but he had won the undisputed title.
Yeah, it was later that year. It was later when it was later
has been dethroned. And probably the biggest fight around that time was like Tyson
when he knocked out Homes. The point is, but that was that was
not until lighty eight, That was not until after this. What I'm saying
too is the Haggler Leonard, Duran and Hurns still commanded the most attention other
good days in the sport, and this matchup itself was huge. And by
the way, I covered a lot of fights with the Brian Dugan back in
the day. I forgot about his book My Bad. He's a great writer.
And the fact that Marvin went talked to him for the book. Does
not surprise me, not exactly his favorite topic. It's a miracle in my
mind that they actually convince him to do I sit down interview to talk about
it when he did the Legendary Knights uh episode. And the reality is because
the Regendar Knights also covered the Haggler Hearns fight. They probably you watched.
You can tell how he's dressed. They did both in the same interview.
They got one shot him Marvin, Let's talk to you about Leonard and then
we'll spend ten minutes talking about Hearns. Let's talk about it. I probably
probably boarded him up and talked about the Herns fight first and then moved on
UHL. But Brian Dugan's book is out there. We plug him again and
we interviewed him again on this podcast. Just search his name Brian dand ogg
A N d O O g A and if I spell it right on this
podcast feed and you can go back and hear how he I said to Brian,
I said, why did this captivate you so to want to write a
book, And he said, because at that time I was kind of fledgling
sportswriter and I wasn't even able to come to the United States and cover this
fight, but it just so captivated me because Las Vegas seemed like a movie,
It seemed like another place. These seem like movie stars like Rocky,
like Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weather's fighting on a big screen. Yet it actually
happened, and it just it intrigued him so much to want to write about
this. So again, we spent probably thirty minutes talking Leonard Hagler. Search
his name on this podcast feed Brian Dugan, d O O G A N.
You'll hear that full interview. Put it in the search bar on any
of your podcast outlets. It will come up under this podcast For more plug
go on YouTube and watch the freaking fight and score it. And yes,
and the biggest thing that with what you did, and you did a great
job of talking through how it all went is Marvin Hagler would break fight after
fight after fight. He would break the other fighter. He'd break the opponent,
he'd break him down, he'd stop him. He could not break ray
Leonard. He couldn't get to him, couldn't hurt him, couldn't knock him
down, much less knock him out. And that's as big a testament as
anything. The one thing that Hagglers did speak about in the interview about this
fight was and he made a great point here. He's like, just when
I had him going, which he had him, you know, it wasn't
like it was a lopsided dominating win. I mean, he hurt Leonard a
bunch of times, and you know, back them up, and had him
on the ropes a bunch of times. But he made the point that every
time I felt like I had him, just when I started to finally get
to him and tee off on him, the doll would ringing around with in
and you know, there's and there's one more sequence. I think it's in
that ninth round or tenth round that you're talking about. I think it's the
ninth round where he's gotting trapped, he's hitting him, hurt him. Go
back and watch this and Leonard comes off the ropes with a bage of like
fifteen punches, and it's like that was the moment where Sugar Ray Leonard said,
you are not going to break me, you are not gonna knock me
out. I'm about to demonstrate how you're not gonna knock me out. I'm
not gonna let you knock me out. So just a great fight to go
back and relive. I don't want to accept that that was thirty six years
ago. It was thirty six years ago. Ray Field, Sugar, Ray
Leonard, Marvin Hyer, Hall of famers, don't remember. I was in
high school. I was a junior in high school. Like talking to the
kids in classes, you and me both. I stayed up till like one
am. I wasn't allowed to stay at that late, watching all the post
fight stuff live on ESPN and CNN Sports Tonight with it, and then you
were so intrigued, When do I get to see the replay on HBO?
Because we had HBO. I'm trying to remember. I don't know if they
showed it again on network TV like ABC or one of those that next weekend.
I think it was only on HBO. I think maybe maybe they eventually,
but it was a long time later. But if you wanted to see
it without having bought the pay per view or the closed circuit ticket, yeah,
HBO was where you had to watch again. This was This was a
time people need to understand is when not every cable system offered pay per view
and you couldn't see it if you had the capability to go to a theater
or a ballroom. Yes, but all over the country cable systems didn't all
have pay per view to be able to watch it. So you're like in
the dark. You're in the dark. What happened if you if your cable
system did allow you to get the pay per view, you had to physically
go to the cable company, pick up a special box, bring it home
and you know, easy plug it in at the whatever in the back of
into the wall, and then a couple of cable tables right and then when
it was over, yeah, to bring it back because that box only worked
on pay per views. You're exactly, I do remember that box, but
we didn't. It was I don't even think it was available. Then you
have to be committed to wanting to see the event if you're going to go
to the trouble of driving to your cable company, waiting online, picking it
off, and falling it bringing it back. You got to order. I
mean, but people did it because it was that big of a deal.
People if it was necessary to do that for like something like the Super Bowl,
they would do it. That's how big the fight was, you know,
as we keep saying, not to beat the dead horse here, but
it was. It was just a different time. There was no phone,
there was no smartphone, there was no computer, there was right, there
was no nothing. You know, maybe you call up the eight nine hundred
line on the score line to find out what happened for fifty cents if you
were lucky. If you didn't see it, you're going back to the sports
phones that were fifty cents a minute, ninety nine cents a minute to find
out, and then sitting and watching all the stuff after it was over.
I still remember, I want to say, it was like Chris Berman sitting
there with Bob Lee on ESPN. I can't remember who was lying in Vegas,
because I don't think Charlie Steiner, who you know, when you were
around a bunch, I don't think Charlie Steiner was working for them yet.
I don't know who was in Vegas. I don't know Burman was in Vegas.
But I still vividly remember watching for an hour two hours late night on
that Monday night, April to sixth, all the aftermath it was that big
of a deal. Great reminiscing on Leonard and Hagler again, three different fight
cards in San Antonio, Newark, and in Carson, California. To go
over here. A great job with that. Dan Rayfiel will pick some of
these fights coming up Friday, one Eastern time, depending on when you're hearing
us one Eastern time. Bet us Boxing Show on their platforms, their YouTube,
their Twitter, their twitch. Find us will make some boxing predictions,
some gambling predictions on the fights. What's say that we come off the weekend
and recap all of it here Sunday night into Monday. Deal off the weekend.
Good, I'm good? All right with that? We're good on the
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are done for now, let's see what happens in these different title fights with
bam Rod Reguez also main event fight for Shakour Stevenson, main event fight for
Sebastian Fundora. Will recap all of it off the weekend. For now,
We're good on the Big Fight Weekend Preview by