The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ leaves Ah. Yes, we get ready for
what will be well kind of an interesting weekend, a lighter weekend because we
have tons of college basketball everywhere in the United States for this weekend. March
Madness looming. The American boxing cards of the next couple of weeks aren't as
big a deal. That's by design. But we are ready to preview the
Golden Boys Saturday Night main event with William Zapada and Maxi Hughes. It is
a lightweight eliminator for the IBF of the WBA. We're ready to do that
here as part of our Big Fight Weekend preview podcast. I am the somewhat
capable host. He is our insider, Dan Rayfield, a Big Fight Weekend
and his Fight Freaks U Night's substack also on this pod. However, let's
beef it up a little bit. Oscar Valdez, former world champ, getting
ready to headline for Top Rank Boxing on the ESPN Plus card at the end
of the month with Liam Wilson. Intriguing fight Oscar Valdez right here on this
podcast with Dan Rayfield in conversation, a little bit, some news, and
some nostalgia. Big Dan. Good to be back with you. Full disclosure.
I have been in Indianapolis, Indiana, the heartland of America. I
have returned from there, and I'm about to head to Vegas. No,
not for fights, but for more college basketball. But in the interim,
I can't get enough on my man Rayfield. So you are fitted in to
the schedule right about now for the big fight. We can preview podcast.
How are things? I'm honored, I guess by your devotion. We got
to get this stuff done. So I'm like with ray Phil, I'm like,
look, I got to slot here, a slot here, we find
it. We get it worked out. By the way, thank you for
following us and finding us. If you've not done so, make sure that
you are subscribed. You'll get our content automatically. Did you hear Tim Zuo
on the most recent podcast on the Recap podcast off of Weekend. Did you
get any kind of a notification? Well, if you're not subscribe, you're
not going to get a notification on what's up, including the Tim Zuo interview.
Good stuff with him, Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, wherever you get
podcasts and it does help us if you rate us and review us. Keep
those five star reviews coming. It helps with more people finding us. We
appreciate those, especially if you enjoy the content you're hearing the interviews, and
again, I see the podcast numbers DAN continuing to be tens of thousands of
fight fans week in and week out that are engaging with us. If you
love us, tell more about it, tell more about it, share it
out, rate us and review ers. Okay, so let's get into it
before we get to your conversation with Oscar Valdez in a bit again. Golden
Boys Show Las Vegas coming Saturday night, William Zapata, hard hitting lightweight for
Oscar dale Hoya's promotion, and Maxy Hughes twelve rounder IBFWBA lightweight eliminator. All
right, tell me more about this as we head towards the weekend. Well,
I mean, William's Apeta. He's one of the guys in the sport
right now. That's he's kind of the one guy that a lot of people
don't want to fight. It's very dangerous because he's a tremendous puncher. He's
a southpaw, which makes it even doubly complicated for a lot of guys.
Has had trouble getting the bigger names to fight him in the way class.
But he's a very good fighter twenty nine and oh with twenty five knockouts.
If you're a fan of action fights, he's exciting. He's the kind of
fighter it seems to me that you know, win or lose, it's going
to be fun to watch. So he's going to be the kind of guy
eventually when maybe somebody takes that o from him, would be a guy that
can come back because you're still going to want to watch him fight. But
right now, he's trying to hunt down the bigger names in the lightweight division
to get a title shot. To get an opportunity against a bigger name,
Max Hughes is willing to step up to the plate. They did not have
an easy time that Golden Boy trying to find, you know, a quality
opponent for him to fight. And if you take a look at the kind
of fighters he's been fighting, he's not fighting like terrible opponents, but they're
they're the best guys just unwilling to fight him. So in his last fight
that was in September, he absolutely pummeled and destroyed Mercedo Hestah, you know,
Arbolada him the Arba Leita. He blew away in two rounds again like
a fringe contender. Jojo Diaz took him the distance, but it was a
completely one sided fight. The former world champ rene Alvarado, you know,
took him the distance. That was a little bit more competitive, but he
beat him pretty handily. You know, is is he just can't get the
biggest names, and so now at least this is going to be the kind
of fight because two organizations are involved in terms of the elimination, it's going
to put him at least in a mandatory position. So at some point someone's
going to be forced to fight him, either a reigning champion or he'll get
an opportunity to fight for a vacant title. So is Zepeida's definitely kind of
like you think about all the all the Guyslet's like to look at the Golden
Boy roster. You think you like their bigger name guys. It's Ryan Garcia,
obviously, it's it's a real artiz. They just signed Jose Ramirez.
They've got Floyd Schofield who's on this undercard, another you know, top quality
up and comer. You know, they got to they're they're building a good
stable. And Zepaida is kind of the guy that you kind of forget about
sometimes because no one wants to fight him. He's not big, big and
vocal about it. I'll give Oscar de la Hoya, you know, his
props, because he's trying to drum some interest stuff. So he was making
his social media videos the other day, you know, basically saying sending a
message in this video to Chaquar Stevenson, Hey, you know, we'll fight
you with Williams of pay to give us a chance, you know, and
that's you know, that's an interesting fight just based on the styles. I
mean, you got the great boxer and Shakur Southpaw against south Paw. You
got the brawler and the banger and Williams of Peida. But he's you know,
he's probably not gonna get that fight anyway. This fight's not for the
WC eliminade anyway. And look, MAXI Hughes TJ kind of like the little
engine that could. No everybody picks against him. He's not supposed to beat
anybody. You know, he's fashioned together. Prior to his recent loss,
I had a really good streat going. He's come over from the from the
UK, also a south PA for this fight. His last fight against George
Cambosis, the former lightweight champion. That was a majority decision loss that took
place in July that a lot of people. I was on ESPN, so
it was widely seen a lot of people thought that he won that fight,
and he put in the kind of performance where even though he didn't get the
decision, he got a majority of decision loss. It made him viable as
an opponent for another one of the better lightweights. And so he's getting this
opportunity now. He's had a little bit of a rough week. He came
to the United States. They immediately put him on the plane and send him
back to England because his visa paperwork was not proper and he had to be
at a meander around England and then go to I think to Ireland or all
I know is he was all over the place for like about a week.
He missed he was going to get here two weeks before the fight. He
missed basically an entire week because he had to go all the way back deal
with the visa. They finally got it worked out you know, his people
and the team's work around the clock and get it done, got back on
the plane. Could you imagine you fly that long flight from the UK to
Las Vegas. You're in the airport for the tain for like an hour or
two and the whatever, and they stick down another airplane and send you back
and just go back to Europe. Yeah, that is a whole lot of
flying, by the way, to come right back where you just were.
Yeah, that's amazing. And then you got to go through the process of
getting the paperwork square away, and you're obviously missing valuable training time even though
you can work out where you are, but you're missing you're not with your
team. You know, you're trying to make the weight. You know,
you're obviously got a lot of other things on your mind, like the fight
itself. So you know, we'll see what I'm backing. That's a lot
of airplane movies going back and forth from Europe to Las Vegas. I mean
one thing, New York, but you got three more time zones to go
out in Las Vegas. Goodness. Meanwhile, zepaidas in Vegas. He's getting,
you know, get ready for the fight, so making his way training
that you know, the shaking out and being relaxed, and you know,
he didn't have to travel very far, given he's from Mexico, so it's
not like a long trip from where he's from. So you know, there's
been a lot of stuff going on for Maxi Hughes this week. We'll see
if it if it presents itself as an issue when the fight actually happens,
because it's hard enough to fight against Williams of Peta if everything is tip top
and perfect. If you've had to kind of travel week from hell and and
the and the aggravations of not even knowing if your fight's going to take place
because of the issues, you know, that's a whole different ballgame. So
we'll see how he performs under that kind of situation. In terms of Zapeida,
we always love doing this with you. Let's say he's spectacular and you
just laid it out for us, it's not going to be a title fight.
More than likely in the next fight, maybe it will be. But
could he be in a title fight as soon as late this year or early
next year? Is he on that track? Yeah, I mean it's totally
possible. I mean a lot of it's gonna come down to uh, you
know who's available, you know, which of the which of the titles are
available. I mean, he's this fight that he's fighting on this particular card.
As I mentioned, it's it's an elimination in the w BA and the
IBF. Now the IBF they're obviously very sticklers when it comes to their rules
in terms of you know, ordering mandatories and making them actually you know,
forcing fights either happen or vacating whatever. So the WBC Championship course Stevens,
and that's not this eliminator, although Oscar you never know if maybe they'll take
him up on there for who that knows. The w BO time is vacant,
but this is not that fight. That's the Navarette fight that's going to
come up against. You know, they're gonna do that fight against Barentchik in
a you know, in May. So you're talking about the IBF title,
which is vacant presently. So it's a it's a you know, we'll see
how they I forget the fight that that's supposed to be doing to fill that
in, and then you have Tank Davis as the WBA champion and at the
very least it won't be Tank's next fight because supposedly, again this hasn't been
announced. It's not like I don't think it's one hundred percent done, But
he's going to be a pay per view fight against Frank Martin that's gonna come
up probably in June time frame. So you know, could he fight at
if he wins a paid up by the end of the year in one of
these title bets. Yeah, I think that's possible, particularly in the IBF.
But again, he's got to take care of the business. And you
know, it doesn't even if it's not a title fight, if you can
just get like a top name just to keep himself busy. Obviously, if
he wins and everything's good, no injury, he's gonna fight, you know,
at least at one more time, hopefully two more times in twenty twenty
four. We'll have to wait and see. It's on the right path,
sure, and especially he's an action fighter, fast hands, big punch.
Let's see, he's gotta be Maxi Hughes who you know, never even when
Maxi, even when Maxi is lose, has lost fights. Guys are not
in easy fights. To cam Boss fight was the majority decision, however you
thought it went out it was still very close. He had a long winning
streak before that. He lost a decision to Liam wash Back in twenty nineteen,
again gave him a tough fight that night. You know, he did
get stopped in a fight, you know, a couple of fights before that.
But he's a guy that's generally gone the route with guys and given them
competition even when he's lost fights. So he's a true vet all right.
On the undercard, Floyd Schofield's name is there? What else of note tell
me about Schofield? And what else of note on the Golden Boys show?
Well, you know that the Schofield's a guy that I've been pretty high on
that I've been I've watched him, you know, for the last several fights,
and you know, been been enamored by his potential. He's only twenty
one years old, fights out of Austin, Texas, and he's with Golden
Boy now sixteen to zero with twelve knockouts, and he's another guy, you
know, in the lightweight division that's making a name for himself. You know,
I don't think Golden Boy is gonna take an opportunity to put him in
the ring against the Paydi if they both win, they're not, they're both
at different stages of their career. But he's fighting a fighter at Sterry Sireo
on this guy who's not very well known. To be quite honest, I
think they're kind of having a little bit a hard time match in scorefield,
to be honest. This is the guy who's from the Dominican thirteen and one
with ten knockouts by far and away, if you look at his resume,
this is by far the biggest step up that he's ever had. And Schofield
is one of these guys where depending on who he's fighting, you know,
I've seen him look lights out where he's just destroyed a guy like in his
last fight, by the way, against Ricardo Lopez, he blew the guy
away in the first round. He dropped him four times. And then you
put him in with the veteran like a Haskell Rhodes in the fight before that,
and even though he scored some knockdowns that went ten rounds and he just
beat him up for ten rounds. So you know, you don't know if
Floyd's gonna be able to knock the guy out or it's going to go to
the route. But he's been dominating in his fights pretty much so far.
And so that's the co feature. You know, this has been a kind
of a snake bit card. They lost an elimination fight on the undercard,
the the women's title fight that was supposed to be there because well, they
had visa issues with Alanez, who was supposed to have the rematch with the
Sparza who they had fought previously to unify three the women's titles I believe in
the flyweight division. So that fight has been postponed. It will be rescheduled
for a future Golden Boy card. So the card was better on paper before.
By losing the women's fight and the Victor Morales elimination fight, you know,
kind of put a dent in it, but we still got to paid
it in the main event, who I said is always exciting. Still have
the out standing prospect in Schofield on the show. And on top of that,
you also have, which was just announced officially a few days I think
a couple of days ago, you have a fighter that Golden Boy signed who
a fighter named Joel Arte who was a Mexican American superb amateur credentials. A
lot of people have a huge amount of hope for this kid, seventeen time
national amateur champion, just you know, one of the one of the best
United States amateurs that there's been over the last couple of years from Bakersfield,
you know, Team USA member. You know, if he had stayed amateur,
probably could have worked his way towards the Olympics. But he's going pro
and he's making his debut on this undercard. And because I don't know if
they were going to originally put it on the main card, but because the
card took a couple of hits with the fights I mentioned being called off,
I think it's all five of the fights that are left on the show,
we're all going to be part of the main design broadcast, so you'll see
the kid's pro debut. All good stuff here with this and that again is
the Golden Boy Desonne Show, Las Vegas on Saturday evening. All right,
as mentioned, we have a former world champ on the podcast, Oscar Valdez
two division World champ will face Liam Wilson. That is headlining the top rank
ESPN Plus card coming up on March twenty nine from Glendale, Arizona. You
don't have to wait until March twenty nine for Oscar Valdez because you got him
right now. As part of the big Fight we came preview with Big Dan.
I would like to welcome back to the podcast none other than one of
my favorite fighters. I'm not ashamed to admit that the two divisional world champion,
former federweight and junior lightweight champion, two time Olympian, Oscar Valdez.
Oscar, thank you very much for joining me today. I appreciate it.
There's always a pleasure Dad. You know, it's always good talk with you,
and you have good to be back. Well, we'll tell the people
what you've got coming up. It's yet another Oscar Valdez fight, which I
think that means people are probably in for a very entertaining fight. You're taking
on Australia's Leam Wilson March twenty ninth in the top rank on ESPN Plus main
event at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. Obviously an important fight.
Both of you guys are in the title hunt at one hundred and thirty
pounds. You have a common opponent in Emmanuel Navarette. You know we both
suffered losses to but this opportunity for both of you guys to get back in
business. So I want to start off. I mentioned Naverette Oscar your fight
with him in August was was a tremendous fight. You lost the decision that
fight. Uh, I just wonder, how how hard is it to put
that kind of uh loss behind you. I know how much you had invested
in that, how excited you were to fight for the title again, and
uh, you know it didn't go your way. Well it was hard,
it was. It was definitely one of the hardest things that I have put
up for because I was so focused on that fight, so well trained,
everything was, camp had had gone perfectly well, and I was almost sure
I was gonna win the fight, you know I was. There wasn't a
doubt in my mind. It didn't go It didn't go my way. So
it crushed me, crushing me, uh morally, physically everything. You know.
It was just down as I've ever been. But you know does in
the past now. And I just said, you know what, well,
I feel blessed that I get another opportunity. You know, we know Boxton
is a cruel sport. You know, when you lose, you're almost out
of the window. So me being uh yeah, having another shot what means
everything to me because I know it's it's all or nothing for me. Yeah,
we know, whoever Wisdess fights is a step closer for for for a
World Tide to fight, and who we lose is takes a couple of steps
back, you know, three steps back, so it will be very hard
to come back from that loss. So right now I'm very focused on this
fight. You know, like I said, it was hard to accept the
fact that you know, lost against but I always I've always taught, I've
always thought that I'm a I'm a positive fighter, positive thinker, and you
know, I'm very positive right now physically mentally ready for this, for this
fight. Always felt that every time I you know, my back is against
the ropes, against you know, against the wall in these tough positions basically
basically bring out the better of me, the better ask all there. So
it's all or nothing for me. This fight me is the world to me.
When you had that fight with him last summer, there was so much
hype around that fight, so much expectations it was going to be like Barrera
Morales. That's how Top Rank promoted it to the point where they even had,
you know, Marco and Eric there to to be ringside to and be
involved in the promotion. I know both of you. I never at they
both you know, admired those two fighters. I know you're a fan of
both guys for sure. And the fight, you know, maybe it didn't
live up to burn Ross, but was one hell of a fight. I
mean, a lot of people had on their fight of the year type lists
at the end of twenty twenty three, and it was a really exciting,
entertaining fight. So even though you lost, I know how it's important always
has been to you to please the fans that at least take like a silver
lining that you know, maybe I didn't get my hand raised, but we
gave the fans a memorable fight that they're not going to forget. You know
what. At first, I didn't think about it like that, but because
you know, you know, I take my losses very hard. I was
very hard on myself. You know, went back home, just stay in
my house. They want to go off. Every time I will step out,
you know, go off to the streets or something, to grosseries or
whatever. I will see people as people will congratulate me and tell me they
saw the effort that I put that kind of helped me, helped me a
lot. Knowing the fans, we're we're grateful for for me trying to put
up a good fight. So that that that that day helped me bring up
my my my spirit back into a sport. So so yeah, I mean,
like I said, I wasn't I wasn't happy for my performance. I
think one of the biggest mistakes also is trying to knock out my opponent in
front of a crowd. And that's a big mistake you do in boxing,
you know, looking for the knockouts like looking looking looking to hit the home
run with the pictures is he So I made that mistake, So you know,
we got to go back to study on that, to stay on the
game plan to win the fight. And you're back in the same arena.
So on the one hand, it's like maybe it's got some bad memories,
but on the other end, you can maybe erase them by getting a win,
is it is it like a yeah, well, at least the world
to me to be back, and like I said, I truly feel blessed
to be a position in this position again, you know, fighting the same
arena or my same crowd. I guess a tough opponent for Leal Wilson,
who we share like the com was close to winning that fight. Yeah,
I'm on the canvash I long. It's not even gonna be easy fight.
But I'm not looking for an easy fights. I'm looking for an opportunity,
this opportunity for me to step back into the position that I want to be,
which is those title fights. Right, So you went, You went
to twelve round distance in your fight with never Atte didn't get the decision.
He got stopped by never at in the ninth round, but he did score
a knockdown against him, kind of coming out of nowhere. He was from
Australia, not known here at all. I'm not even sure he was that
well known in Australia, to be quite honest with you. He was a
fourteen to one underdog and surprised a lot of people. Matter of fact,
you know, people should know he was in the fight because you had an
injury that forced you to delay your chance to fight never at Day. So
he stepped in and they made it into a Fight of the Year candidate,
the same way that you and never at Ay you're fighting into a fight of
the your candidate, but he's not coming in taking anybody by surprise anymore.
I mean, you obviously know how he performed against Navarete. When you did
you see you watch that fight? I know you were, You were their
ringside, knowing you're going to get the shot against him if you wi uh,
you know, if he won. So what's your take on William Wilson
as a fighter in that performance? Always there in that fight. You know,
I know he's a he doesn't give up, and he carries a punch
he he uses, we reach advantage and that's why he clipped. And you
know I hear everything. I got to the ghetto. I didn't feel like
I didn't feel like I moved him as much as Leo Wilson did. So
you know, we're keeping on eyeing that. We'll keep an eye on that
left hook. Dig's walk to the body. This is well his jab is
one two distance. So we're studying everything, you know, charline from my
own mistakes as well. You know that I getto I didn't watch a lot
of film on him. I thought I watched a couple of times. I
said, okay, I know just enough. But this time I'm studying my
opponent more. I'm focusing the same focus on the game plan, so I
don't make those mistakes again in the fight. But those are things you just
learned over time when you're fighting. You know, I am considered a veteran
down the sport, got more than ten years professional boxer, Yeah, boxing,
So I do got that experience on my side. So I'm gonna give
my best. Like I said, I take it. I take each of
very fight very seriously. I'm definitely taking this fight very seriously because I know
it's a career to fighting. Fight. Well, I was gonna answer about
that. I mean, I was gonna ask you, like, what is
your greatest advantage? You mentioned your experience. He's only got I think fifteen
professional fights. You obviously, like you said, a probe more than ten
years, uh thirty plus fights, two time world champion, You're gonna be
in front of a very friendly crowd. You're you grew up in Arizona.
It's gonna be a big Mexican crowd, obviously you're from Mexico. Uh,
what do you think is your best advantage? Then? Among all those different
things, I experienced a two time Olympius, like you mentioned it, I've
been in. I've been in several fights. You know, there's there is
some some talk out there, you know, I hear I hear people saying
that I've been through some wars and that that take a toll, but I
don't. I don't feel it. You know, I feel good. I've
been fart of some good amateur fighters, twenty year olds and good prospects here
in San Diego, and I feel on the levels for speed, agility and
everything. So I do feel I do feel good. Still, I still
feel good. So which I just showing that that day. You know,
I got the experience, I got the whole package. So the one big
thing that is, you know, I ain't fighting him. I'm pretty much
a hometown Arizona. That that's a big plus. There's a big plus.
But at the same time, it could help me sometimes, you know,
I get excited there. I get excited in the people, the people getting
hyped up and they want to see a good fight. But this time I'm
very focused on the game plan, game plan and waiting to fight. See,
that's the thing I've watched your entire career, Oscar. I know you
love to mix it up, and that's one of the things that's made you
a fan favorite, But you're also a very capable boxer if you can stick
to that plan. How hard is that to do when you get into the
battle. I mean, Lee and Wilson got into a battle with Neverretta.
We know what he can do. We've seen you in plenty of those types
of fights. It's almost easier to get into a brawl than it is to
stay more in a boxing mindset. Is am I wrong about that? How
do you go about making sure that you don't get crazy with the war?
You know, well, it's one of those things that are easier said than
done. And you would think, you know, I have so much experience
in it. I walk on the streets of Mexico and walks in the streets
and wherever I go, and one of them I'll put an example my grandpa.
I'll talk to me, and my grandpa tells me, Miko, you
have to fight. Don't fight for the fans, don't give on, just
just win to fight. Choose the technique. And in my mind I'm telling
I'm thinking to myself, Grandpa, you don't think I know that. I
know that it's easier say than done. Once I'm in the ring, it
sometimes. Yeah, guys, guys, just a little focus because of the
crowd and everything. I want to give them a fight, fans what they
want. That's one of the things that helped me out. When COVID was
around. There wasn't no fans, and I was listening to each and everything
I put. My corner was telling me. And you know, it's one
of those things Easier said that, don't you have the burch olt Win was
in the in the bubble. That's maybe your greatest victory. And you were
an underdog in that fight. You knocked him out and you focused. You
didn't get into a crazy battle. And you think that was because there was
no now, no big crowd. I want to just blame it one hundred
percent of the crowd. You know. It was a game time the part
that's part of it, That was part of it. Yeah, every time
I will because there was a point when Boshe he told me this got I
told myself. I looked at it. I said, all right, his
goat and I was gonna go forward. And Carrie, I heard my father
and my training ended and I was don't do it, go back, you
know, and they were and it refreshed my mind I said, nope,
okay, going back, going back. In that round, I dropped him
for the second time. So I was like, Okay, sticking to the
game plan was working. But I could have easily fell for that trap if
the people maybe hyped up that they want to see a fight. Because he
told me let's go, I said, all right, let's go. So
you know, if Liam Wilson's about to drag you into that sort of battle
like you're talking about Burchelton and we're talking talking about can you is it?
Do you have enough in you to remember this conversation all the things you just
said to me about don't do it? Yeah, box be smart. Well,
it depends, It depends on all the situations. And you know,
you know, if it's if it's working and the incide it's the fight to
go and and giving the failies they want what they want and he's still winning
the fight. Well that's a plus for me. But if I have to
box to win the rounds, and that's something else that I'm looking forward to.
But you know what Leo Wilson's style, I can see it, you
know, I can see him me and him going going to a great style
of of of a fight because you know, if you know, we need
a dacy partner. And I thought it was gonna be a ghetto you know.
I thought the Star was gonna adapt for something better, and it wasn't
you know it, Star was too awkward. Maybe I couldn't. I couldn't
figured them out. By the time I kind of figured him out, it
was too late in the rounds. So now Leon Wilson, maybe his style
and my style will adapt for a better fight. Well never at also through
like over a thousand punches, which can definitely be a part of that you
mentioned about, you know, hearing whispers of people saying, you know,
maybe you've been in too many wars and you know, maybe you're not what
you were at your best. But you say you feel good even though you
know you like you mentioned before, you've been a pro ten years and all
those amateur fights. You're thirty three. This is gonna be your thirty fourth
professional fight. How much longer do you see yourself doing this? I know
you say you feel good now, but is this a long term thing?
Are you taking it fight by fight? Like what's in your back of your
minds by fight? Because I know one thing I know, I know one
thing for sure, I think the fighter is the last person to realize it's
time to hang up the gloves. By me knowing that I lived, I
would leave to the decision always my father, because my father is the one
person who will always tell me the truth. It will tell me all right,
son, it's time to hang up the gloves because maybe it's not working.
Maybe you're taking too mich shots. If he feels All'm okay, I'm
okay because I feel good. And I know also some fighters who say they
feel good and they're not doing so good. So I'm just thinking to fight
by fight, day by day. You know, I've been joining every single
day of the camp. You know, I've been joined the work. I
hasn't been doing them. Like I said before several times, in boxing is
my life. I love doing this. But if it's time hanging up the
gloves, when it's time, then I will obey my father. One person
will tell me the truth. Well, and I'll just I'll wrap up with
this. Then are there other goals that you have and you want to win
this fight? I mean, maybe this fight will include an interim title possibility,
maybe there'll be another world title fight for you. But is there another
goal? Top Rank has O Shaky Foster, who is the WBC champion.
That's uh, you know that that's your old title. Uh. You know
what's in the back of your mind as far as what you'd like to do
going forward, If you're going to continue to do this world championship, that's
my mind, that's my mind. You know. I think if you're a
professional boxer and being a world champion isn't your goal, then what are you
doing in the sport? You know? Right now? You know, my
main focus right now is Neil Wilson because I know that's a step for a
world type shot. So you know, first things first, will fight back,
fight Leo Wilson, then who knows, maybe a remass with who knows.
Maybe they meant Bosher Foster now that he's from top rank. But I
don't like mentioning these names because I'm very focused on this guy right here that
I got in front of you, because I don't think. I don't think
it's easy fighter, but I'm gonna do it whatever it takes to eliminated.
Once that, then we'll talk as far who who can we fight if that's
even but I'm almost positive that is just staying very focused on the one thing,
win this fight and then live for the world time fight. All right,
well, you're gonna try to win that fight. March twenty ninth on
ESPN Plus. Oscar as always, thank you very much for your time.
I appreciate it very much and I wish you nothing but the best coming up
in a few weeks soon, Thank you very much. Oscar has been kind
of an interesting career, as you've been detailing with us in advance and even
in the conversation there with Oscar definitely on the trail of trying to get a
world title again. We saw a Manuel nab Rat handle him pretty easily,
but Oscar's won some big time fights as well. Oscar Valdez, we're talking
about final thoughts after the conversation there is he gets ready to headline here in
about a week and a half. You're a boxing fan and you don't like
watching Oscar Valdez fight, then I don't really consider you a boxing fan.
He's everything you want to see in a fighter. He knows how to fight,
he's got good background, he was a two time Olympian, He's got
skills. He likes to fight, but he's able to box. He's willing
to fight the best guys. He's fought a lot of the best guys.
He's been in some tremendous battle, some extremely dramatic fights, been a champion
at featherweight, been a champion at junior lightweight. You know, was willing
to fight your course Stevenson in a unification when nobody wanted to fight Cha Court.
A lot of people still don't want to fight Shakor. He did it,
and he's the kind of guy winn or lose. He's going to give
your money's worth. You mentioned the Navarete fight. That was the fight that
he lost. His most recent fight that took place in August, a tremendous
battle, you know, lost. The decision was you know, competitive at
times, but clearly he lost that fight. So he's fighting Leam Wilson,
who also has suffered and knock out. Well, Valdez went the route with
Navarette loss a decision. Liam Wilson was stopped in the vacant title fight against
Liam Wilson. That was the fight that happened because Valdez had been injured and
he had to get a replacement to fight Naverette. And then now they both
fought Navarrette. Now they're trying to regenerate themselves by fighting each other. One
of the things I always give the credit the top rank for is, you
know, when these guys have lost, they're not just you know, they
don't just immediately get rid of you. If you give an effort or you
make a good fight, they bring them back. And they're putting these guys
coming off, you know, those types of situations to climb the mountain again
and fairness, and Valdez obviously knows this. In your conversation, Liam Wilson
had Navarante down and in trouble, and so there is real credibility here with
this fight and with this challenge for Oscar no kidding, yeah, I mean
absolutely, And the winner of the fight is going to take a big step
forward to being in position potentially to fight for one of the belts at one
hundred and thirty, you know, depending on how it goes. And obviously
Navarrete has his own fight coming off the for the title the vacant that lightweight,
so it still remains to be seen. He's going to come back down
in wait. But whether he does or he doesn't, the winner of it's
not enough it's not an official eliminator. By the time the fight takes place
on March twenty ninth, it very well could be a sanction as an eliminator.
It's not out of the realm that, because of Navarrete's schedule that the
wbaa sanction for the interim title, knowing that if he stays at the weight,
the winner will become the actual champion. So there's a lot at stake
in this fight. It may be currently just a twelve round non title fight,
but you know between now, when the time the fight happens, things
could change. So it's an important fight for both of these for both these
guys to take that next step. All right, good stuff on that too,
So some news here. Then we get to some good nostalgia as well.
A Jesse Bam Rodriguez, the current unified flyweight champ of the WBO and
the IBF, is now going to move back up to junior banham Way,
tell me more because he's getting the chance against a huge name moving up up
in weight. Here, tell me more about this situation and what you've learned.
Dan, Okay, So this fight, I'm about to tell you that
it's not one hundred signed sealed and delivered, but it's probably going to become
signed, sealed and delivered. Bam Rodriguez, his side is all set.
So, like you mentioned, he had been the WBC champion in the junior
bantamweight division. He vacated that title. He dropped down and he won a
flyway title and then in his last fight that was a tremendous performance. At
the end of last year, he had the fight against Sonny Edwards and he
dominated and knocked him out to unify two of the titles, the WBO and
the IBF belts in the one hundred and twelve pound division. And he's set
all along, Bam that you know, for the right fight, for the
opportunity, for the money, whatever it is that he can go between the
weight classes. He's going to have the opportunity now to return to the junior
bandamweight division and fight for the WBC belt that he once had against the great
Wan Francisco Estrada, who won that vacant title when Bam went down in weight.
He got that when he had the third fight with Chalcotito Gonzalez. But
even before he got that vagant belt, he was already the lineal champion from
his controversial second fight victory against Chocolatito Gonza. So this this is a class
matchup. This is the young star in Bam Rodriguez, you know, with
a with a burgeoning resume at a very young age, when doing a lot
of good things, winning belts, you know, going between weight classes.
You know, Wan Francisco Estrad who's coming off a long layoff, but he's
a future Hall of Famer. You know, he's won titles in multiple weight
classes, unified titles. He's been in that great trilogy with with Chocolatito that
I mentioned that he won two to one despite the controversy in the second fight.
And so they're trying to wrap up this decide on the Strata side.
But you know, I'm assuming they're going to get this done. Remember Strada,
they were moving him towards he was hoping at the end of this past
year in December on New Year's Eve, they were trying to make a fight
a unification between him and your boy Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Oh my boy,
my boy. That deal was not able to get finalized, so it
didn't happen. So Astrada didn't end up fighting in all that year and Ioka
ended up fighting a different opponent and on his normal uh, you know,
he fights on New Year's even Japan, the same way we see somebody like
I say, like Canelo fight on you know, single or the Mexican Independence
weekend in September. So he's gonna keep coming off the layoff. But this
is, this is a good matchup. If it gets squared away, it's
gonna be June twenty ninth, on his own. It'll take place once again
at a place we talked about a lot, the Desert Diamond Arena and Glendale,
Arizona. Uh, the same place where we're gonna be talking about the
Valdas Liam Smith fight. And this is uh, it's like the this is
it's got it's got the feel of like you know, some people will look
at this as like the Estrada Golden parachute. You're getting the big bag at
the end of your career. You know, you're older. Uh, he's
been around. He's only thirty three, but he's you know, that's in
dog years and boxing years for for a fighter in this weight class, that's
pretty ancient. And we'll see what he's got left. He's been in some
hard, tough fights. Bam is a fresh young guy. You know,
coming back up to that weight class is not an issue. He's dominated in
one big fights in that in that weight class, still undefeated, coming off
a great per performance. So but the name value to be able to be
able to get the opportunity to fight a future Hall of Famer like that at
the stage of his career. You know, you might see a beatdown,
but maybe the old man still got something in him and he tames the young
lion. I mean, that's the intrigue of the fight. But one thing
I can guarantee you is that when they do step in, for as long
as it goes, it will be one hundred percent. This will be a
good action fight. I have no doubt about it. So they got to
get it wrapped up though, but it looks like it's going to take place.
And oh, just to clarify, I spoke with Robert Garcia, who
is the manager and trainer for Bam Rodriguez, who was telling me that on
their side, everything is done, wrapped up, and that they're told that
the Strata side was finalizing their side of the deal. Let's hope that one
does get done for Jesse Bam Rodriguez. Exciting, good fight, exciting young
fighter. And I had to overcome obviously recently the broken jaw as well to
keep pressing on as a world champ. You got more news. I jokingly
have put this out there on social media and off the Big Fight Weekend website.
I thought shir Cor Stevenson was tired. No, nobody, nobody believed
that, not even for five seconds. Shakur is now apparently going to be
back and making his first title defense of his WBC lightweight crown. And this
is coming in? When is this coming? And we don't do we know
the opponent. We don't know the opponent yet, So give me the particulars
on what you've been able to find out. Yeah, no, no oppony.
And I reported that that the date that's let's call it penciled in dark
pencil, July six distinguishing the shades of pencil versus inc on the pods.
Keep going. Yes, the Top Ranks plan is for this fight to take
place July sixth at the Crudential Center in Newark, which is, you know
that Shakur's hometown where he has fought previously. He set the gate record for
the Prudential Center for a boxing event back in one of his four recent fights
that took place last year, you know, and that's sort of the old
saying. You know, you fish where the fish are. And Shakur is
always going to have a constituency in Newark where he's a beloved figure and he's
been a great for the community. He's done a lot of work with the
with the the youth in that area and they love him there, and you
know, he'll get a lot of love. And you know what after the
last bomb that he laid in the fart that he laid in the last fight
in November against Edwin de los Santos, which was Chakor's fault and de los
Santos's fault, where they put on one of the worst fights you'll ever see
in the history of your life. That you'll never get that, you know,
fifty to sixty minutes back. But nonetheless he did win. It wasn't
really you know, controversial, right me, If I'm wrong, I am
recalling this. I'm getting older. He hurt his shoulder, one of his
shoulders, and was able to say the left was unable to throw the well,
he didn't throw the left, was it left? Correct? He didn't
throw the left like for the last ten rounds of the fight or something,
or tried to beat the guy whatever. I don't want to think about it.
All I know is that Edwin del Los Santos set the record for I
believe it was fewest punches thrown or landed in a round title fight or whatever.
We've already talked about that fight much more than it deserves, but hopefully
the bottom line was hopefully Shaqueur's got it straightened out here coming in July.
So Shakur won the fight. The fight netted him the WBC vacant I remember
when Devin Hainey vacated the undisputed title, all the belts became vacant and uh
and and Shakor foss Delo Santos for that belt. That was when your boy
Frank Martin declined the fight after agreeing to the fight. His team anyway agreed
to it, and so he won that belt. So this will be the
first defense who the opponent is still to be determined. Uh And, as
I mentioned you before, you've got Oscar del Loway out there saying, you
know, come on fight me, you fight you fight my boy as a
paida you know, listen as the pieda goes in the ring on Saturday and
just Blitz is the guy and has no issues. There's no reason why he
couldn't come back and fight in July whatsoever. That's definitely not a big deal.
I doubt what happened, but we can put the pressure on and talk
about it. I would like to see that, of course. Yeah,
that was complete bullshit all along. Yeah, it's boxing. We don't ever
get to enjoy good things for very long. So shakur back. You know,
I was just choking because my twins when they were a little younger,
they used to love the colored pencils. So are we talking a lot like
purple on the colored pencil. It's not ink we're talking. I blew.
My only point was it's not one hundred percent, but it's probable. That's
the fun with you. And by the way, the other thing about I'm
not in the mood for fun today. The deal the deal with this thing
also, and this is gonna be a part of the promotion or not.
I'm not on top ranks desire, but people that like me, that write
about it, you can't ignore it. This is the last fight on of
course, Stevenson's Top Rank contract. He's already turned down a lucrative extension.
We'll see if you know, if he's gonna stay with Top Rank, if
they're gonna make a new deal before this fight, if they gonna just do
the fight and then maybe try to make a new deal after the fight.
Is he gonna go for agent and talk to everybody else and then come back
to Top Rank sign with somebody else. I mean, we'll see. I
mean, he's been with Top Rank his entire career. Seems to me that
the relationship has been fruitful on both sides. But you never know. I
mean, he's gonna go probably one was definitely where the best deal is,
and we'll have to wait and see. So but that's going to be something
that's gonna be interesting during the build up to the fight. Let me be
profound. Can I be profound on the podcast? Not trying to make her
laugh? But he better look a whole lot better than the last fight in
this fight. If he's trying to a free agent to be and turning down
a multi fight offer from Top Rank to stay, I'm going to look a
whole lot better for the marketability that's obvious at this point, a little more
news. What is this? MMA guys are on the rundown. Nate Diaz
and uh George Masvadal are our MM, a UFC legendary fighters. They're now
going to fight in a light heavyweight boxing match. Uh the uh the fight
will be in Los Angeles on June the first. They do have a background
in UFC as well. How intrigued are you this is on the list?
How intrigued are you that these these guys? I mean, we saw Diaz
go the distance with Jake Paul. He didn't come close to winning. He
survived for a lot of the fight. Uh. But what what are your
thoughts here on this is It's a it's a legit light heavyweight. This is
not an exhibition. This is an actual bout. You know, as you
mentioned, uh, Nate Diaz, you know, one of the most famous
UFC fighters in the history of that company, made his professional boxing debut.
It took place last August. That was the fight you mentioned where he lost
a ten round decision to Jake Paul. Wasn't particularly competitive or close, you
know, Jake dropped him in the fifth round and ended up winning the fight.
And then you have so he's he's oh and one as a professional boxer
for Hey Masvedal, who's another guy that's known for big time UFC fights.
He's actually one and oho is a professional boxer, which I didn't actually realize
he'd had a professional fight when I looked it up on box wreck. He's
actually listed as having had an official boxing match in two thousand and five and
he won a four round decision in that doubt that took place in Miami.
Obviously he's now you know, it's nineteen years between professional fights, so you
know, it might as well be his professional debut. They're fighting, as
you mentioned, at the Forum in Inglewood, California. It's a pay per
view, and the thing about it that a lot of people this is probably
being targeted. You know, we'll see what they put on the undercard.
I know they're looking to do some legit boxing matches on that undercard, even
though they didn't announce anything and don't have anything one hundred percent set, but
this is sort of the This will be targeted, I'm sure to the MMA
fan base because Diaz and Masvedal had you know, a huge, huge,
huge fight in UFC that what they call it the BMF title the you know,
the whatever it was. It wasn't like an official world title, but
it was sort of like a made up thing. Uh, and use your
imagination to fill in the other two blanks. Yes, so that happened in
uh was it? Uh? I forget the year that was, but it
was nineteen okay, And so uh, this is the rematch of of of
that situation. So I think there'll probably be a lot of you know,
I mean, you asked me if I'm in my interest. I mean,
I'm mildly interested, you know what I mean. But you know, let's
see what they put on the undercard. I don't know if I want to,
you know, buy a pay per view of this. I spent enough
money on pay per view. It's not something I have to see. But
I'm not a mixed martial arts you know, devote I don't watch it regularly.
I haven't. I never watched when they had their pay per view fight
the first time around. Uh. But they are certainly big names, I
mean in the sport of m m A. And if you're coming into boxing,
I just find it kind of funny because you got all these MMA guys
who want to rush to boxing to make a big bag against a boxer.
Now you've got the MMA guys coming at boxing and for each other for whatever
money they can make. So you just don't hear very much or very rare,
very rare about the boxer going to fight in MMA. It's just not
a thing that that goes on too often. So, uh, you know,
we'll see if they can make it work. I assume they'll have a
good crowd there. I mean it's a lot a lot of fans. I
don't know. I forgive me if you said it. Who's the promotional element
that's behind this, that's behind the pay per view? What do we know
about that? For June? First part of it is the is the Game
Breed Promotions, which is maz de Dell's company, but it's also the pay
per view outfit called fan Meo, which has been involved with some of these
sort of you know, kind of offbeat kind of events. They were involved,
I think in one of the Mayweather exhibitions and and and that sort of
thing. I'm still not sure if they're gonna it'll it'll be available on their
platform, but whether they all make it available like on a whatever it is
on like in demand, your satellite or cable or a PPV dot com which
is their digital arm that they know our great sponsor wherever. I'm not sure
what that. I don't know if they've even figured all that out yet.
But the fight is happening and you know that is what it is. Figure
we out to tell the peeps about it. You know. There you go,
you gave him the good news. Update. One more item here.
Top Rank Boxing, speaking of them, does have an interesting signing here as
a super middleweight. And we've talked about this guy, including on the bet
Us Handicapping show Christian Nobili tell me more about him now and inking this deal
it's a co promotional deal, right, yeah, it is. I mean
he's been promoted by I of the Tiger, which is the outfit in you
know, based out of Montreal. But because they have an affiliation with Top
Rank, because their shows, they have a deal with Top Rank to have
their events that take place in Montreal to stream in the United States on ESPN
Plus. And the Billy is one of their main guys right now. We've
seen him on ESPN Plus several times and he's been very impressive. He's very
exciting, very entertaining, great puncher comes you know in the you know,
incredible, incredible condition, and you know Bob Aaron from Top Rank you know,
has seen him fight in person and liked him. They work closely with
the Tiger on different events and they need some help kind of trying to move
him. Top Rank was willing to put up, you know, their resources
to try to bring him into the fold. You know, they don't have
a lot of super middle weights that they work with. But you know what
the one thing is, he's exciting and he'll get activity. We'll see him
featured. He you know, and he's not he doesn't come out of nowhere.
I mean he's he's he's entering his prime. He's twenty eight years old.
As I mentioned, he's undefeated twenty six and oh with twenty two knockouts.
He is born in Cameroon, but he lived and began his career as
a boxer and bought out of France, which he represented in the twenty sixteen
Olympics. Now he fights out of Montreal because that's where I the Tiger is
based and also where his trainer, Mark Ramsey was one of the more renowned
trainers in Canadian history. That's where he's based at him so he's making a
fan base and a home in Montreal, and he's, like I said,
he's uh, he's a legit guy. I mean he's highly ranked and all
the organizations. Uh, you know, there's no reason why he can't.
I mean, look that getting a title shot at super Middleway is very hard
now because you know, for all, it's one thing when the when the
belts you're all sped around, there's you can go a lot of different directions.
You know. The downside if you're a fighter or a fan that wants
the different title fight says, you know what, you got one guy named
Canelo Alvarez who's got all the belts. But you know, you got to
figure at some point, either they'll be stripped or he'll lose or whatever will
happen or whatever, and they'll be opportunity. In the meantime, he's with
a top notch promoter. They'll keep him active, they'll keep feature him,
the'll help build his name up and uh, we'll see him do his thing.
They'll they don't Uh, they didn't announce his next fight specifically when they
announced the promotional contract. That'll probably be announced in probably the next you know,
a few weeks where they'll they'll situate him for an event, but uh,
it's a good signing and he's got a chance to do some damage in
the super middleweight division. We did talk about that Murdoch fight in the preview
mode briefly on this pod, but also on the at US show that he
won back in January in Quebec by sixth round stoppage. So yeah, intriguing,
intriguing name, intriguing fighter. You always keep us up to speed on
who's doing what deal. We love that about you. My goodness, do
we have a lot of things on the nostalgia list. Interesting that Wednesday,
March thirteenth, which was just a couple of days ago, as we released
the podcast Thursday night into Friday. Now you're most of your now hearing this
on Friday, March thirteenth, resonates several times with names like Michael Carblehall,
Lenox Lewis, Winky Wright, Evander Holyfield, how am I doing so far?
Manny Paciow Sugar, Shane Moseley. There's some names that are on this
list. First of all, let's go back in the chronology. March thirteenth,
nineteen ninety three, is Michael Carblehall, scoring a dramatic knockout. You've
made reference to this before to become Unified Junior flightweight flyweight world champion. The
former Olympic gold medalist in nineteen was Carbo Hall eighty eight. Carbol Hall was
eighty eight, but he became the Unified Junior flyweight champion on March thirteenth,
nineteen ninety three, in the first of a wild trilogy with Chiquita Gonzales.
I must correct you in terms of his Olympic situation. He was the I
believe he was the He was the silver medalist in the Olympic Games in Seoul,
silver medallist in Seul. I caught on the team that it featured.
I mean this was a great team. I mean when you look back at
it, it was Michael Carball who was in the Hall of Fame, Roy
Jones who was in the Hall of Fame, Riddick Bow was in the Hall
of Fame. I mean it was a great, a great team that he
thought A Ray Mercer was on on that team also. But car greatest tall
guys in the history of the sport, without question, in my opinion,
his opponent Humberdo Chiquita Gonzalez, also in the Hall of Fame, and largely
they're in the Hall of Fame because of their rivalry with each other, but
they also had their own accomplishments besides fighting each other. The one cool thing
about Michael Carball that is pretty awesome is that he's one of the few guys.
In his final fight of his career in nineteen ninety nine, he knocked
out one of my all time favorite fighters, Korte Arse in the eleventh round
to win another world title at you know, WBO Junior Flyway title and never
fought again. I mean, there's very few guys that you know, win
a championship like that in a very dramatic kind of manner in a fight by
the way, that Michael was losing badly. He was down like seven eight
points on all three scorecards, and he he and he knocked the RC out
in the last round in the eleventh round to win the title. But if
you got to go back a number of years before that, the first fight
he had with Chaquiita Gonzalez is a fucking classic, that's the only way you
can put it. I mean, they were the first fighters in the junior
flyweight division to headline, you know, a major pay per view card.
They had fan followings. You know, Michael was a very popular figure from
the Phoenix area. Chaquiita Gonzalez had a big following in the La area.
They fought in the Hilton in Las Vegas. Spectacular fight. I mean,
you know it actually in my mind, you know, I always think about,
like we talked about Bara Morales and Gaddy Ward and Craus Castillo, and
but when holy there's so many great fights we talked about those mentioned I mentioned
happened to be trilogies. He ended up having a trilogy with Chiquita also.
But it's a fight that doesn't get to kind of love it should get because
it's that good carball once again, down on all three scorecards had been knocked
down. In the second round, Gonzalez was cut. I mean, it
was a back and forth kind of fight, but Michael was losing and at
the very end of round seven he knocked out Chaquiita Gonzalez to win the fight
in a spectacular fight. They got picked by many people, including the Ring
Magazine as the nineteen ninety three fight of the Year. Obviously, no shock
at all whatsoever that it led to an eventual second fight unfortunately the second fight
that took place. You know, there were some fights in between where because
guys were active back in those days, they fought a second fight in nineteen
ninety four. That was a fight that Michael lost the titles to Gonzales by
split decision. Then they fought again later in nineteen ninety four, and a
third fight that he lost by a majority decision. But those two fights too,
three were not the memorable kind. This was not a trilogy where there's
anything other than the classic first fight to really kind of hang your hat on.
But the first fight is one of the most spectacular fights ever, especially
in the smaller weight classes. So that was just an incredible action battle.
And in Carble Hall and Chikeda both in the Hall of Fame, and uh,
you know, I don't I've never I've might I've met Chiket Gonzalez once
or twice through the years at other events, but I've met Michael a few
times also and talked to him. You know, we we talked to each
other occasionally on Facebook. Just a cool guy. I'm glad he's doing.
You know, he's had a not the easiest life in the world, a
lot of family issues in this net but doing well and I love to see
it. They bring him out. He turns up with some of these fights
to take place in the Phoenix area where he's you know, a local celebrity
and a still beloved Rayfield thirty years later. You know this in that area,
no doubt, and you know he's a he It's not I mean people
throw around the word great a lot. He is. He was truly a
great fighter. If you were to look at boxing history, let's say from
flyweight down, you know, fly weight, and then of course they created
the junior flyweight and the straweight divisions. Later he's he's on that sort of
like Mount Rushmore ish type of level of those weight classes. I mean that's
you know, he and he drew fans. He's the first time ever,
I think it was the rematch actually with Schakdah where was the first time guys
in those weight classes made a million dollars for a fight That was unheard of.
Yeah, before that happened. I mean that was just absolutely crazy.
I mean, both of them made I think it was not just in their
weight class, it was the first time ever in the history of boxing that
boxers in a fight the under the featherweight division made a million dollar purse both
in the Chida and that was because of the popularity of this incredible first fight
that we're talking about and what the two guys meant to the sport. So
you move forward six years and March thirteen, nineteen ninety nine. Wait,
and here we go Lennox Lewis capital r underline rob in beating Evander Holyfield.
Instead, it's a draw Rayfield. Wright's one of the worst decisions ever.
All right, is wrong. No I about saying you're wrong, but it
definitely it's it's a robbery. Lennox Lewis won that night over a Vander Holyfield.
He knows Holyfield knows he didn't win that night. Didn't He got a
draw out of it? All right, So what that's now twenty five years
ago. It's incredible. It is nuts. That's the fight where you have,
you know, kind of rough I mean Chris Stanley, Chris Adulu,
who is a well known judge and refereen for many, many decades. He
got it right. He gave the fight one sixteen to one thirteen in favor
of Lennox Lewis. I'm not you know, obviously he hadn't even round in
there somewhere. Then you had the wacky, ridiculous, like unacceptable draw score
card by Larry O'Connell, who was a British British judge who scored the fight
wildly one fifteen to one fifteen, which is a score you do not see
very often under any circumstances. And he was the guy that after the fact
apologized for scoring it the way he did. At least he had some accountability,
even though he could the worst part. But he got cover that night,
and Chris Adulo got some cover even though he got the right winner.
They got there. They both had not great sporecards, but they got covered
because Eugena Williams had. If you were making like I mentioned about Mount Rushmore
small wait fighters, if you're making the Mount Rushmore of the worst fucking judging
assignments and scorecards for a big fight in the history of boxing, one hundred
million percent, she's on that, on that, on that Mount Rushmore,
she scored the fight one fifteen, one to thirteen in favor of Evander Holyfield,
including one of the rounds that was probably Alanix Lewis's best round of the
fight, where he almost knocked Evander Holyfield down and possibly even out, and
she scored that round for uh in favor of Evander Holyfield. And it was
one of the I mean, if you weren't a round watching at the time,
I know this was as scandalous as controversial as you can imagine. And
because hold on, because it took place in New York City, it was
even that much higher of a scandal because of the the intense spotlight of the
New York And it was absolutely a grotesque decision. I will tell you that
we often talk about this. This goes back to the days when I was
doing five day a week sports radio in the Tampa Bay area before starting to
do national stuff, and this was a topic. I do remember this,
about that draw and about that pay per view and all the continued hammering on
is this stuff fixed? Did they fix it for holy Field so we wouldn't
lose no matter what? Big topic even on Tampa Bay sports radio for a
day or two, and the investigations that were, you know, held on,
is this just incompetent? We always question this, right, what is
incompetence versus is their corruption? Was somebody bought there was something? So go
ahead, Yeah, there were suggestions that Eugena Williams was well, you know,
incompetent brass, but that perhaps there was some some corruption going on here
because she had gotten uh you know, uh, I forget how how it
actually how what the what the particulars were, but there was some allegations that
somehow she had received money in some former fashion. Not to say it was
for the scoring, but you know, if you're gonna do that, I
don't think when these things occur, anybody says I'll give you X if you
do why, it's more of like wink wink, you kind of know what
they mean. So I'm not saying that she did that, but there was
a lot of people that made that accusation in the wake of this terrible,
terrible situation, and in a true boxing form, they ended up doing a
rematch, and that was the fight where Evander Holyfield did way way better and
some people actually thought he won, even though Lennox I thought Lenox won the
rematch, he got the decision and that frowned the undisputed champion. This is
remembered. This is the three belt the era where you still were only required
to have the three belts, even though the WBO existed at the time,
nobody considered that necessary to beat the undisputed champion, and Lenox got that and
he got the three belts. And so when Tyson Fury and Alexander Usk finally
fight on May eighteenth, the winner of that fight will become the first time
they'll be in undisputed champion since Lenox Lewis won the Holy Field rematch. But
he should have gotten that status by winning officially anyway in their first fight.
And you have to understand also, by the way, and I try to
as big as people try to make it out that Tyson Fury and Husig is,
you know, maybe it is that way in the UK. I don't
feel it here yet. And obviously the fight taking place in Saudi Arabia doesn't
help the magnitude in terms of what you feel like here in America. But
when Lennox Lewis and Evander were getting ready to do their first fight, you
want to talk about a mainstream event, this was as mainstream as I guess.
Oh yeah, Mega HBO, pay per view, Madison Square Garden.
It was on all the sports pages, sports News, sports Center, you
know, every newspaper was covering it. The wire services. This was a
big, big, big deal. Again in the timeframe he had beaten Mike
Tyson previous to this twice Tko stoppage and then the crazy earbitding disqualification that happened,
and that made holy Field and his second resurgence of his career such an
immensely crossover popular figure. To think about it is though again we keep we
keep conveying this to people that boxing was so much more mainstream and the heavyweight
title, especially with the American champions, made it so much more mainstream,
where the coverage was NonStop of something like this building up to it. And
then you had the controversy of the draw. But you had both both a
Vander and Lenox who had done good things and were on good runs. But
we're running out of there. There was nobody left the fight really, I
mean Vander, I mean rather Lenox had just done like a very decialtory mandatory
defense against Zelko Mavravic that nobody gave a ratsass about. That was in like
a you know, in a in a tent basically at the you know,
the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. That was not very well received. Vander,
you know, he had looked good and regained in terms of unifying his rematch
against Michael Moore, but then was in a garbage match against Vaughan Bean that
nobody gave a ratsass amount, and they were they couldn't put those types of
fights on pay per view. They weren't making fun and it got to a
point where they finally just had a And if you know, you talk to
people around back then about the efforts that went into things to get them on
the same page. For HBO to sort of help broker this deal between King
and Main Events, which was Lennox Lewis's promoter at the time. Oh my
goodness, I mean it was a hard you think. You know, we
all have social media now we can track of all them, the newsho of
these deals. But back then, you know, if social media had existed,
this would have been like the daily things the way we've seen when they
were trying to make pac Yao and Mayweather or you know, more recently,
when they're trying to do whatever fight may Involva, you know, whoever pick
a start, you know, Ryan Garcia or you know, a Tyson Fury
and all that stuff. It's just been absolute craziness and it was when they
finally made the fight. The hype was so enormous and then besides the bad
decision, it was a terrible fight. So it did not live up to
the massive hype. And on top of that, you got kicked in the
face with a garbage decision. Okay, we have talked in the past about
Saint Petersburg, Florida's Ronald Winky Wright twenty years ago on this past Wednesday,
March thirteen, two thousand and four, and his tremendous performance against Sugar Shane
Mosley, winning a twelve round decision. And you were there ringside for that
night where Shane Mosley did not have to put the belts up against Winky,
gave Winky the opportunity. And I know there's a lot of respect from the
Winkie Right camp, etc. That Mosley was willing to do that and Winky
Wright put on a great performance. And you were there that night, and
what is this on the rundown. You also survived your bachelor party as well
that weekend. Two for the price of one on the Nostalgia twenty years ago.
So one thing about Shane he always was willing to fight the best guys.
I mean and whether it was against a tough opponent like a Winky Wright
where he didn't have to do the fight. It wasn't a mandatory. Winky
did have the IBF title and Shane had the WBA and the WBC title,
so again they were meeting for what was considered the undisputed championship at that time,
still where it was three belts to become undisputed. He had come off
of a somewhat controversial victory in the rematch against Oscar de la Hoya, which
I had covered. I thought that Oscar won the rematch, even though Shane
clearly was the winner in my mind in the first fight, which he got
to claim the welterweight title, and they tried to make a De la Hoya
rematch, and Shane was going to stick to his guns because he felt like
the amount of money was offered, like eight million dollars or something for the
rematch, which at that time was like, oh wow, you better take
that. It's a great offer. And Shane thought, because I beat him,
you know, just because you beat the man, you don't become the
man. But Shane had different ideas, and I think he thought, well,
I'll show you Oscar and he turned down the opportunity to have a third
fight with De la Hooya for a huge amount of money, and instead he
took a much more dangerous fight because he already beat Oscar twice at that point
officially, and took on Winky Wright, who was, you know, a
handful for anybody, and took you know, basically half the money four million
or so maybe a little more to fight Ronald the Winkie right, and Winky
you know, put on a clinic. He won the fight, you know,
clear as day. I think two of the judges had at nine to
three, one of the judges at at eight to four. He ended up
losing a rematch to Winkie also when they did the immediate rematch. But the
first fight at the time was promoted as a huge, huge deal because there
hadn't been an undisputed junior middleweight champion like you know, I like thirty something
years or maybe longer, whatever it was, so it was a big deal.
You know, you're talking about two pound for pound guys. Winki's getting
the first time the opportunity against a very big name. Shane was an established
fighter. You mentioned my bachelor party. So the night before the fight I
was in Vegas covering the fight, obviously, and friends of mine out there
threw me a bachelor party at a place that shell be shall remain anoymous.
That we went and had a nice time, and it was then my My
wedding was two weeks later. But I obviously was not in Las Vegas the
week before my wedding, So yes, I had. I had the combination
of the bachelor party the night before. How much then? How much of
the bachelor party did you remember the next night at the fight. I know
it's twenty years later and you may not remember a lot of it. Now,
did you have some break spots in the recollection from the night I remember?
I'm not ho listen, I've never been. I'm not I was out
there getting drunk or anything too much. I'm not. This was not like
what is it Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms and Zach Galifanikas and the hangover.
It was not that it was not Doug's bachelor party and we lose Doug on
the roof. It was not that I did not wake up the next day
with Mike Tyson and a tiger in my in my hotel room. That's for
sure, but it was a memorable Tigers are allergic to Centnamon. I remember
though, the people that ran the media center in the Mandolai day, who
you know, we're always uh, you know, uh personable and good to
work with and funny and everything. They had in the media center leading up
to the fight, like every day you'd walk in on the wall, they
had a countdown clock for the days, hours, minutes until you know,
the fight was supposed to start. And when I came in the media room
after uh, the fight was over for the press covers, they had changed
the clock and they put like a handwritten sign countdown until Rayfael's wedding, you
knoween days, you know, X number of hours. So they had a
good time with that. That had a good sense of humor about nuptials.
You're pending nuptials after Winky Wright did what he did to Shane again, beloved
figure in this Tampa Bay area even to this day as a world champion and
a Hall of Fame fighter in the Tampa Saint Pete Clearwater area, Winkie fighting
out of the Saint Pete Boxing Club, and I just remember here we go
back again to my sports radio days and I was just about that was the
timeframe when I was going national on Sirius Exam and I actually talked a lot
of boxing on the different shows that I did there, and the Wink winning
these fights, in addition to the Felix Trinidad fight, et cetera, made
him much more prominent in our area. And good on him, and I
do again, I do not want to accept that was twenty years ago,
but that's the fight that put Winky on the Hall of Fame path because if
Shane Mosey doesn't agree to fight him, it's highly unlikely that he gets in
there. Not because he wasn't a great talent, but he wouldn't have got
the rematch. He probably wouldn't have ever gotten the Felix Trinidad fight. He
knows if he would have gotten some of the other bigger fights he had,
uh, you know, if you know, he got a fight. He
got a chance to fight Jermaine Taylor for the middlewhite title, which turned out
to be a draw. He had a good win against like Quarte, but
the wins that he hangs his hat on are the you know, and he
had some solid wins before that, like he had fought Fernando Vargas. But
the fight that he really hangs the hat on, are those back to back
runs against you. That's because shame gave him the opportunity. All right,
quickly, two more, Uh, Manny Pacia. You did mention this when
we were talking about at and T Stadium, uh and covering fights you were
ringside now fourteen years ago. This past Wednesday, March thirteenth of twenty ten,
Manny Pacquial defeats Joshua Claudie and retains the WBO welterweight title. That's the
first ever big time boxing card at AT and T Stadium. You've been there
for a bunch. What do you remember about that night with the pac Man?
Well, I remember, and I'll say it right now. I wonder
if Joshua Claudia is still if he has still thrown a punch yet, because
he even throw any punches that entire fight. It was such a disappointing performance
from Claudie because he was a strong, rugged guy. I mean, I'm
not saying that you were thinking he was going to defeat Manupac, who at
that time was pretty much considered by everybody pound for pound number one, but
he put on such an absolutely horrendous performance, and he just wouldn't throw punches
at all and got completely you know, alt class. Remember he had had
in his previous fight before he got the shot at many Pat Well go back
two fights. He had gotten a nice victory by a technical decision, but
a well deserved one against zab Jutter that gave him the IBF welterweight title.
He ended up vacating that and in his next fight, he wasn't defending the
title. He was fighting in a WBO welterweight title fight against Miguel Coto at
Madison Square Garden and he lost a split decision, but he gave Miguel Cota
a really really tough, you know, hard fight. Coto had knocked him
down early in the fight, but it was not an easy fight for Quoto,
so he even though he lost, he's now considered like our very top
level welterweight. He can be in there with anybody. And they matched him
up with Pacyao Well, like I said, was the king of the world
at that time, and you're like, this is a rugged dude. He's
got a good power, you know, he's got a good chin. He's
going to make this interesting and Pakia ran him out of the ring, partly
because he did Josh wouldn't throw a single punch. In the end, it
was eleven to one on two cards and twelve to zero on the other cart.
It was as disappointing as it gets. But they had a huge crowd
there. You know, a big part of the promotion was the fact that
this new building, you know, the you know, the eighth Wonder of
the World, if you will, in the atem stand, They're going to
have a big boxing match for Pacyao. You know, in the main events.
It was a huge deal. And the other thing I think about,
you say, what was it like being at the fight, is that that
date was supposed to be because the fight with Josh Body was made on kind
of shortest notice, especially for a pay per view, this was supposed to
be the date on which Mayweather and pac Yao fought, and they were you
know, they had gotten to a point where they had agreed on everything except
then Floyd demanded a certain kind of drug testing. Hakiao was like not opposed
to drug testing, but he wasn't going to allow him to have it inflicted
on him. You know, that was a time where, you know,
if the the general consensus was he'll do whatever the commission in Nevada says they
should do, and at the time it wasn't a matter of that type of
testing. So he just didn't want Floyd to be able to run the show.
Wasn't that he was unwilling to be tested, but he don't, you
know. But the bottom line was it fell apart over that we ended up
waiting five more years and like I said, so much short notice, they
weren't going to give up the pact date. He ended up fighting Joshua Claudiye
instead in you know, uh an important fight because of what it did in
terms of opening up this great building for boxing events and very memorable in terms
of the build up. But the fight itself was a big stinker room and
you were there, uh ringside for that. So I have to say you
just mentioned that. I remember walking into the place, uh for the first
time and just kind of just sort of take your breath away for a quick
second see the magnitude of how big the place was, the giant screen,
and then to be there on the night of the fight when you know about
I want to you know, Cowboys game, what eighty thousand, ninety thousand
or whatever they have there. Obviously, when I covered a Canelo fight there
that do seventy six thousand, But at that time I had never been in
a boxing atmosphere for a fight that was that large. It was like almost
it was like forty seven thousand or something like that. And as you mentioned,
they they had just opened it. And you don't realize that most of
the NFL stadiums that you watch games in can fit inside of AT and T
Stagium's. That's how big it is and how big those video boards are.
Dan. We keep talking about that whenever I go there for buccaneer games.
I've not been to World championship fights like you have those video boards that for
the cowboy fans in the upper level that are watching the game, they spend
their time watching the eighty yard wide video boards that were does boxing had to
be something else. It's amazing to stand and just look at that the first
time you're in there. We can't convey it enough. I'll tell you a
funny thing about that. I can't remember if it was the Claudi fight or
maybe it was when Pachio fought Margarito, but I distinctly remember being for one
of the Pacquiao fights. I'm at ringside. I'm sitting next to my man,
Kevin Ioli, and in between rounds, Kevin and I looked up at
the big board and we were we were so close to the ring you kind
of had a lean back to crank my neck to catch the video board.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to see it because were underneath the edge of the
video board. And I looked up and I elbow Ioli in the side because
what's on the fucking screen you showing. They're showing a shot into Pacio's corner
with Freddie Roach, you know, talking to Paco, and that was our
side of the ring, and there's fucking Raphael and Ioli's big fucking noggins right
in the midd That was your big moment at at and T Stadium for everybody
to see eighty yards wide. I'm not exaggerating. It goes from like the
fifteen to the fifteen, but walk down there seventy yards it does. It
did take your breath away a little bit given the score. And by the
way, if it all happens and comes off disclaimer Jake Paul, Mike Tyson
at and T stadium later this year, where they're looking to have some kind
of an attendance record for that because again they got standing room only, et
cetera, etc. If if sixteen, ifs if that fight comes off.
One more piece of nostalgia, just briefly. It was three years ago this
week the passing of Marvin Hagler, Hall of Famer, the legend, the
marvelous one, at age sixty six, of the of the four Kings.
That's the only death at the moment. And again, you know, we've
gone a long time since. Those guys all fought each other back in the
nineteen eighties and Marvin Hagler again retired by Sugar Ray Leard. You mentioned guys
that walked away. He lost that Leonard fight and was only what thirty what
did we say, thirty three, thirty two, thirty three? But I
look that up and he never fought again. He never fought again. He
was at night in April of eighty seven. He was an old thirty three,
though he had already had close to seventy fights, had been in a
lot of tough fights, came up the hard way. I remember when I
heard that Marvin had passed, it was, you know, I had only
met Marvin a few times. I actually had spent some time with him because
we brought him to ESPN had hired him to be like our guest analyst because
I was I was working with Brian Kenny and we were covering the Bernard Hopkins
Winkie Wright fight, and they brought Marvin int to be our analyst with us
during the course of the week as we were doing some stuff for Sports Center,
So I got a chance to like hang out with him on like an
informal basis, sit there and have breakfast, and you know, hear's some
stories. He was a real cool guy. I can't say I knew him
well, but that was a very enjoyable One of the most enjoyable experiences of
my entire career of writing about boxing was to spend that time with Hagler.
But I mean, I don't know if you can find another fighter in the
history of boxing that is more universally loved and respected than Marvin Hagler. You
fight, fans will quibble and quarrel about every little thing about There's their haters
on this guy. Others obviously will love a certain guy. I don't know,
I've never heard of fucking crosswork from anybody who had a negative thing to
say about Marvin Hagler or whatsoever. You know, he took a couple of
losses against some of those tough Phill League guys, because he beat the crap
out of most of them from about nineteen seventy eight on until the Sugar Letter
else and he fought, you know, everybody, and he came to fight,
and he put on some tremendous battles, and you know, obviously,
you know, even when he lost against Sugar Ray Leonard in the last fight
of his career, it was, you know, a lot of controversy there.
The draw he had the first time he finally, after a long period
of time to finally, finally finally get a chance to fight for the Middleway
title against Vito ante Fermo, who was undefeated or not rather undisputed at that
time. This is nineteen seventy nine. He gets a draw that a lot
of people were not happy with. Horrible decision, and he didn't just get
an immediate chance to go. He had to come back and fight like he
fought three how about this. He fights the fight at the end of seventy
nine in the draw, and then you know, you talk bos about activity,
and so that was November sty He comes back, He fights in February
of eighty, April of eighty, May of eighty gets three wins, and
finally in September of eighty, ten months later, gets the shot against Alan
Minter, who had won the title from Antefermo. And he went to the
UK and he beat the living crap and cut up Alan Minter and won them
undisputed title. And from there, you know, for the next what seven
or so years, he held onto that title for like a vice and made
you know, a dozen defenses and was you know, indomitable as they say,
and had of course the nassive victory against Tommy Erons and defran and then
they're nineteen eighty three fight and fought all the top guys, you know,
whoever it was, whether it was the Four Kings or guys like, you
know, tough dudes, you know, Juan Domingo, Row, Dan Mustafa
Ham Show, Skippy on, Tony Sibsons, Obama. He has two times
Caveman League. He thought, all these top guys and he just kept walking
through everybody. And by the way, the anniversary of his final win March
of nineteen eighty six. I believe I have that right. That just happened.
Great fight with John the Beast Mugabi who fought out of Tampa, Florida,
even though he's from West Africa by way of England. He fought out
of Tampa, Florida in the eighties and rose to prominence national TV, et
cetera. And they fought on pay per view. That was the first Showtime
pay per view, correct, was Marlon Hagler and on tape delay on tape
delay of the pay per view, right it was. It was a close
circuit top ring event that took place on March tenth, and then like four
or five days later, Showtime, in their very first boxing broadcast, televised
the replay of that card. Great fight, and that's Marvin Hagler's final win
is against mcgabi and then eventually fights and losers to Sugar Ray Leonard. And
it was interesting because he never I mean there was some talk would there be
a rematch, controversial decision, It never happened. We never got to see
Marvin in the ring again. As it turns out, in the eighties and
as I said, one of the most beloved and respected fighters you can imagine
and that you know, loyal to his team, you know, talk I've
talked to Bob Aaron about this in the past on a multitude of occasions.
You know, Bob promoted most of Marvin Hagler's you know, big fights,
almost all of them in terms of the title fights. They never had like
a written contract. They they had a handshake. They did the deals,
you know, fight by fight, you know, and and you know,
I still would say you should have a contract and that kind of money and
that kind of level of business. But they had an understanding and and uh,
they stay loyal to each other from the beginning to the end. I
mean even even long after Marvin was retired, you know, he still had
a relationship with Aaron. Uh and uh. And that's good to see.
I wish it was like that with more promoters and the Petron allies that he
was. He was supposed to stayed by them all the way through the marvels.
Then he kept them in. He didn't have to. He could have
taken more money, and he told them, you're not you know, I'm
going to pay you what you're supposed to get. And this is at a
time when he got finally near the end of his career is making really big
money. But he took care of those people. You know, he came
up the hard way and uh as and he coined the phrase. I think
it was him. I don't know if somebody else said it befo him,
but he would talk about trying to stay hungry later in your career, about
it's hard to get up and run those miles when you're sleeping in sel pajamas.
Because for most of Marvin's career he wasn't sleeping in sol pajamas. But
finally he got to that level and he introduced us in a commercial to the
word odoriferous. I'd never heard of that before. Right about right, God,
listen, you talk about the history of HBO Box. One of the
biggest signings that they ever did when they were established their boxing program was to
do a multi fight deal with Marvin Hacklin and take them off of the network
and bring them on to HBO because people signed up by the millions, and
to watch him brutalize the middleweight division for those early eighties before the big Hearn's
pay per view closed circuit. Yeah, no doubt on a marvelous one.
Shout out to him. This has been a busy show. Again. We've
got one fight card of significance in the United States coming Saturday night with William
Zapeta and Maxi Hughes in Las Vegas. That is the IBF and WBA Lightweight
eliminator. We should make mention to the audience. We also had Oscar Valves
here on the podcast of news and some nostalgia. Due to conflicts beyond our
control, Dan Rayfield, there is no bet us boxing show this week where
mayhem with college basketball on bet Us TV. They also have started the Major
League Baseball program the NBA that's going on. They've got the world sport and
they have a conflict with the end of this week, so we're not able
to do the bet ua us TV Boxing show. But typically we're there every
Friday at one Eastern time. We're just gonna let the audience know that we
will be back next week. It's just not there this week for the bet
USTv Boxing show. Other than that, I'm looking forward to whatever happens this
weekend and recapping it again. If they enjoyed Oscar Valdez hit like, subscribe
to this podcast and get ready because we've already played the interview with Tim Zoo
coming up on the Recap podcast because this is a light weekend. You're gonna
you wanna tease this the other half of that uppiming March thirty two pay per
view go ahead. Well, well, like you said, we had Tim
Zoo on the last show we have coming up. We got the Oscar Valdez
on this one ahead of his March twenty nine fight. And then I also
have an interview that you'll hear with Keith Thurmant, who is the other fighter
in the main event of March thirtieth. So we're looking forward to hearing that
off the weekend here on the Recap podcast, right here on this podcast feed
for now, my friend, enjoy the fights, have a great weekend.
It is always great to be with you here as part of the Big Fight
weekend preview. Thank you Dan Raphael. All right, my man, enjoy
the weekend. There you go. I am merely TJ. Reeves. Make
sure you're following, subscribing, Apple, Spreeker, Spotify. You're on the
right podcast feed. We preview going into the weekend recap coming off the weekend.
It is the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. We're good for now.
Enjoy the fights,