Well off of a Saturday Night impressive win that we wondered would he get it?
He did get it. Himimongia scores a ninth round TKO and now has
put himself in position possibly perhaps for a much bigger fight. We're going to
talk about that. We're going to discuss that and a lot more. It
is the Fight Freaks U Night recap. I am the somewhat competent host TJ
Reeves. He is our insider. Fight Freaks U Night is his substack Big
Fight Weekend dot Com insider as well. Hello Dan Rayfield. Off of a
Golden Boy card that saw a lot of good action, that saw some knockouts,
We're going to recap that. We've got some fight news, We've got
some good nostalgia. As always, how are things coming off the weekend?
You know, it was a I guess a quiet boxing weekend, but it
was an enjoyable card. So I'm good. Yes, And in particular,
Jimimongia deserves a credit for delivering against obviously a credible opponent of former World Championship
challenger, and he looked good from what I So we're gonna get into that.
By the way, thank you for finding us however you've done so social
media link Dan substack, make sure you're following, subscribing, rate us,
and review us as well as more and more of you continue to find us
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give us a five star review that helps with all the algorithms and helps promote
the show, etc. If you enjoy what we're doing. We preview going
into the weekend usually Thursday night into Friday morning, and then recap coming off
the weekend Sunday evening, Sunday night into Monday. All right, so Magia
is the story. He does get the stoppage. Let's get into it.
Your thoughts on how he looked against England's John Ryder as he dispatched him with
a ninth round TKO. You can't see anything other than he looked good.
I mean, he did what he was supposed to do. I mean he
was the favorite for a reason. It was a solid match from the standpoint
that Ryder had fought in his most recent fight last year against Cano Alvarez,
challenging for the undisputed title. And even though Magia, you know, who's
a pretty humble guy, doesn't do a lot of chirping, a lot of
talking. He's very polite and all that, but everybody knew that the whole
deal here was if Mongia can go in there and win impressively and do what
Canelo Alvarez couldn't do, which is to get a knockout. Even though he
looked good against Ryder himself scored a knockdown when a one sided decision to retain
the super middleweight undisputed title. The question was, could Mongia sort of give
all of us media folks and fans and others in the industry something to compare
and contrast his performance against Ryder to that of Canelo's. And so if he
could go in there and look more impressive than Canelo, then maybe it would
start some sort of ground swell, drum beat, if you will, for
Mangia to be the guy to get the May fourth shot against Canelo Alvarez.
And I say that because I am under the very strong impression that even if
Canelo ends up fighting David Benavitez at some point, it's not going to be
the May fight. So if we're accepting that, even though that's the preferred
fight, I think for most everybody who then is the next best available guy
to have that shot, and it seems to me that it's not the rumored
fight between Canelo and Jamal Charlot, which is in my opinion, just not
interesting and just you know, kind of a disgrace in my opinion, is
that you want to see Mongia. You know, I'd be happy if he
thought David Morrell. I don't think that's happening. But so the guys that
seem realistic, Mongia is like the best guy that you can make that match
for that date. And so therefore he did what what we're here talking about.
He looked better against than Canelo. Now riders coming off of a beatdown
against Canelo, so perhaps that had something to do with it. But by
the same token, Mongia, you know, was in his previous fight,
in the fight of the year for many people, and a you know,
a hallaysious battle that he barely barely won only by the grace of a twelve
round knockdown against our guest Sergey devn Chenko. So in the end you have
Himan Mangia doing exactly what he's supposed to do, looking good, uh,
scoring four knockdowns overall, uh and and scoring a knock a knockout where the
corner threw in the towel in uh in the uh in the ninth round.
And on top of that, you also have to take a look at the
fact that this was, as we talked about in the preview, his first
bout with the great Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach as his head trainer of
replacing uh, you know, you're placing Eric Morales this past summer. So
they had a full camp together and uh, you know Freddy, I think
Freddy had him looking a little bit more under control. Uh, not as
pernetic, not as not as just wasteful with some of his shots. Uh.
And it did a good job. And you know, John Ryder,
he retires, like he said, was a good possibility if he lost,
you know, a tip of the hat to him because he's been a good
dude and a you know, always gave an honest effort and been in some
good fights. All Right, So let's talk about the stoppage because I thought
this was interesting. I mean, clearly rider in trouble down multiple times and
then eventually the referee they had to get the attention of the referee with the
corner with the bell ringing again, I defer to you because you've done this
much longer, much more involved. That's a rare thing. I don't know
the last time than in the middle of a round they've been ringing the bell
to stop the fight, because fundamentally, like you and I have talked about,
the referee is ultimately in charge. He's the closest one there to decide
when it stops or not. I thought it was interesting too on the call,
and I've gone back and watched it back that the Dizone announcers, in
particular Sergio Mora and Chris Mannick, said the corner is up on the apron,
but they don't want to throw the towel. I didn't quite understand.
You know, if you're up on the apron, your guy's hurt, you've
got the towel on your hand. Why are you not throwing the towel?
I realized the fighters were on the other side of the ring from Ryder's corner.
All right, I've said a lot there. What did you make of
ringing the bell to stop the fight in the middle of the round. I've
never seen that, to tell you the truth that I can think of.
However, the reason was pretty simple because the action was taking place on the
far side the ring. Wes Melton, who was known to be a pretty
good referee from Arizona, who was doing the fight, did a good job.
His back was to them. There's a lot of noise and he does
not see what's going on. He's doing his job, which is to focus
on the action in front of his face and the fighters and the condition of
John Ryder at that moment. And so it's not the corner. The way
that it's supposed to work in boxing is that the corner tells the inspector who
was there with them at all times, to get the referee to stop the
fight. And sometimes they get over emotional and over zealous and they'll throw a
towel or they'll get into the ring, like we saw in plenty of times
over the years. You know, Buddy MC did that with the Tallen Smith
fight just a couple of weeks ago when he was fighting or the Better BEF.
So that is not an uncommon thing. So I'm not sure what the
Zone guys were saying specifically. All I know is that it felt like from
the way they were describing, and what ultimately happened was the corner wanted the
fight to be stopped. And because they were signaling to the refere to do
so, just the and the referees, you know, with his back to
them. The only way to do it is for the condissioned people, the
inspector to get that stoppage was to get to referee's attention by having the timekeeper
ring the bell. It wasn't like the timekeeper just took it up, you
know, unto himself or herself and started ringing the bell to end the fight.
That would not be appropriate. They were clearly doing so with the authority
of the commission. And yes, the referee you know the old rules saying
is the only the referee can stop the fight. Yeah, except when the
corner he signals it's time to be done. So I had no problem with
stop it. It was a little messy, I guess, you know,
to be truthful, But it wasn't like it was a controversy or it was
a bad stoppage or anybody complained about it. No, you have Haimimongia,
you know, doing damage, having scored four knockdowns, beating him up and
had him on the ropes, and they just can't get their rest attention at
that exact moment, and so to make the fight stop as quickly as possible.
That's exactly what happened because when the bell, rang I was sort of
confused because I know it's not the end of the round. They were only
like less than a minute into the round, correct, So that's what happened
there. And you know, John Ryder didn't complain about the stoppage and the
you know, it was a it was a it was a good victory for
Longia. You know, there are those that might look at his career record
and we've spent plenty of time talking over the last you know time we've been
doing this podcast about the the utter disgracefulness of the opponents that that Mangia has
generally faced. But between this win and the devren Chenko victory, and then
if you go all the way back to when he was fighting, you know,
as a young, younger fighter in the junior middleweight division, when he
held the title. He's got the good win over William Smith and whatever,
but most of them have been you know, really disappointing type of matches.
This was a good victory for him. Is it enough to to get him
the Canelo fight? We'll have to see the interesting thing about that aspect of
it, this is TJ. He got fans and press and everything talking about
the possibly the Canelo fight. They got you know, Oscar de la Hoya,
his promoter and their team talking about it. You got Mangia, you
know, telling people, you know, how much he would be on or
to fight Kenel if he would give him opportunity, which is what he said
to r PAL. Chris mannis in the post fight interview on his own.
Uh, you got everybody talking about that prospect of the fight, but you
don't hear anything from the PBC people or the Canelo people, and they're the
ones that make the decision, so you know, they haven't made up their
in mind yet apparently at least not a you know, from a public standpoint
of what his made forth assignment's going to be the cynic in me, uh,
my experience level of a long time of doing this is that they're going
to do what they want to do and the rest of the world be damned.
So we can sit here and pound our chest and say we want Benavides,
Okay, we're not going to get that. Well, we want Monia
and then if he's not going to fight Benavides and they still may end up
doing a fight against Charlot, which to me, if they go that route
would be about the most cynical thing you could think of. And you know
that knows me to it's a waste of time. I understand it's a waste
of time, I want to say, and I say that everybody who ever
has listened or read or or or watched or had any of interest in what
I have to say my opinions, knows I'm a Canelo guy. That's not
a secret. I would be really, really disappointed if he goes the shore
up in the Charlot route. I'd rather see him fight Edgar Berlanga than Charlo.
I'd rather see him fight David Morrell than Charlo. I'd rather see him
fight Christian and Billie than Charlot. Of course, i'd rather see him fight
Mongia than Charlo. And obviously David Benavidez is number one on that list.
Charlo doesn't even make my list. I agree. Waste of time is the
three year words that I'm going to use for that. And again you make
the point, they're gonna do what they're gonna do, and let's be honest,
forget about being cynical. Let's just be realistic. Canelo Alvarez wants nothing
to do with Oscar de la Joya. That's why he divorced him contractually.
Why in the world is he going to help in that regard. I'm not
even sure that Canelo would fight Haimi Mungia if he was mandated and was losing
all of his titles, he'd say so. Well, only the ones reason
I could see it happening is if and I don't know that this would be
the case, but if they make a deal that is so friendly towards the
Canelo team, if they take such short money just to get the opportunity,
uh, maybe it make it's worth their while, and he comes in at
a price point that will cost everybody a lot less money than it would be
to fight some of the other names that are better known that we talked about,
like a Charlotte, you know, or a Benevidia's that sort of thing,
you know. I mean, if if they're making a Benavedas fight,
which is a pretty big fight, you know, David Benavide is looking at
like a ten million dollar perse probably at least because I know you know this,
he's earned that and he's in that spot. So yes, but what
you're saying is Mongia might fight him for half that or might even fighting for
him. I'm not saying he might, I'm just saying hypothetic. If he
made him an offer, a a a laid out a plan of what he
wanted that they couldn't refuse because it was so worthwhile, maybe they could get
it done. So I will remain cynical about seeing Canelo against Magia because that's
who I am. I'm just gonna realism. It's not happening. It's gonna
be somebody else, and hopefully it's not Jamal Charlow. Let's hope not.
We shall see. Okay, So we covered that co feature fight and we
didn't go over this a ton on the preview podcast. We talked about it
some, we talked about all the bet Us show. Oscar Colaso did defend
his WBO minimum weight or straw weight title with a third round TKO over his
Nikaravuen opponent Ray Nearest Gudiiras, and he was impressive. You even said on
the bet Us show, I see him coming right at him. First round
was kind of a feeling out round, and then he did come right at
him. It did not take as long as I thought it would take.
I had the over. I did get my patented rayfield text that Kalaso got
the ko and the other I should point out I did have the mangia anytime
ko, so I cashed on that. But anyway, Kalaso gets the win
in the co feature. Your thoughts on that and what it means for his
future at that weight or might he be moving up? Well, I don't
think he's moving up yet. I mean eventually, like every strangway probably ever,
eventually move up. And the thing about it is he's twenty seven years
old, so it's not like he's a young young fighter and he's going to
outgrow the weight, you know, in the next year or two. He
is who he is. I mean, a lot of the strawweights that make
their way, you know, are twenty one, twenty two, twenty three.
They're in the very early ages of their career. But Calaso, you
know, he had an amateur career, so he didn't turn pro as soon
as a lot of other guys. So you know, what it is is
a breath of fresh air. If you ask me here, you have a
guy that's got a personality, offensive minded, exciting, has you know,
obviously, we'll have a fan base in Puerto Rico, where obviously they give
a lot of love and attention to their champions, and he makes in some
ways the strawweight division, at least in our side of the world, relevant
because most of the top champions that have come in the straweight division are typically
have been from Asia. I mean with there's some exceptions of Roman Gonzales,
Ricardo Lopez obviously or among the greats of all time. But what Kalaso does
is give a reason to like sort of pay attention to that weight class.
Now, now he is now nine and oh with seven knockouts, He's looked
really good in his last few fights. I'm not gonna say that it was
anything sensational in terms of the level of opponent that he fought in Gutiers,
because he was an untested guy, you know, and as they made them
and I noticed this actually when I looked up his record, and then they
pointed this out on the broadcast. He's so little known Gutierre is that if
you go on his box wreck, he had a black and white just a
blank space for where his photo would be. And Mannix on the his own
broadcast, he has a silhouette, so Mannix says on the broadcast, which
I haven't actually double checked to look at, but I'll take his word for
it. He said, when you go on box Wreck as of like on
like late Saturday, they had a picture which was the picture of him in
the in the clothing he was wearing at their fighter meeting or their photo shoot
in Phoenix, you know, leading up to the fight, which finally have
a photo. It's like the authorities we have a sketch artist, or we
have a composite drawing. Well wait a minute, now we have an official
photo of Gudier is yes, So okay, so you can't they put a
lot of stock in the opponent, but you can just tell. I mean,
I've watched Colaso fight before and this was just a good offensive minded performance.
He likes to get in there and mix it up. Like I said,
he's got a bit of a personality, and uh, you know,
he wants to fight the best guys. He wants to unify. You know.
He called out the champions from Asia, you know, the CP Freshmark
from Thailand and the and the and the twin brothers from Japan. Uh,
you know, they're not big fights from the standpoint of like mass attention,
but they don't those fighters in those type of fights, they don't make a
lot of money in the first place. So if Oscar de la Hoy and
Golden Boy can offer a reasonable amount of money, you know, and and
the platform like the Zone on which for them to have, you know,
some sort of more significant fight than they're used to, then maybe you can
lure one of those guys from Asia to come here and fight where there'd be
more money on a the Zone. So he says he's going to be back
in April or May. Golden Boy will have some cards in and I'm sure
we'll see him back in a co feature and uh, let's see him get
in there in the throw leather again because he's exciting. And like I said,
there's not a lot of there's not a lot of strawweights that we would
spend time talking about and right now in current boxing, and like I said,
at least on this side of the world. But Oscar Calasa was the
guy you're gonna spend some time talking about if you're going to talk about straweights,
And he scored some knockouts. He's an exciting fighter to watch, so
let's keep an eye on him. Okay, rest of the Dezonne card,
which we we uh the Golden Boy card, which we did talk about a
little bit on the bet Us show. I don't know if we mentioned Darius
Fulgum and Atlantes Fox on our preview, but we did talk about it on
the bet Us Live show Fridays at one Eastern time when some people were asking
about the handicapping he was on this. Gabriella Fundora, the sister of Sebastian
Fundora, retained her flyweight title. What else on the undercards stood out in
Phoenix Saturday, Well, I'll just go through the fights, and you mentioned
about full Gym. He is one of the better prospects on the Golden Boy
roster. He was being stepped up in a fight that I think a lot
of people, myself concluded, felt like at his stage of his career,
being nine to zero going into the fight was a little bit aggressive. I
mean, Fox's you know, he came into the fight with three losses in
a row, but he's very experienced. He's a pretty good boxer. He's
very tall, he had had experience against some quality opponents in losses. Granted,
he fought back in two thousand and seventeen against Demetris Andred, he fought
in a WBA regular title fight against David Morrell, and he's got some other
guys on his record he had fought, and so for Fulgium to take that
step up, that was I liked. I like seeing that. And you
know, Fox has shown the ability at times to give guys some struggles and
some problems because he is a, like I said, a rangy guy and
he can box a bit. But full Gum comes in with some credentials.
He was a twenty eighteen National Golden Gloves champion, and you know, I
think is like I put it in perspective when I'm doing my end of the
year prospect list at the end of twenty and twenty three, I did like
fifteen top guys, but I I start with like probably twenty five, and
I call it down to get to the fifteen, and ful Gium would would
have been on, you know, one of the last you know, two
or three cuts from that list. So he's a good prospect. He's got
some good power, it looks like, and he has a good style.
He's got good size. He didn't look so good against Fox, But I
don't really have a problem with that. I'm I'm kind of glad if you're
gonna look kind of not great, do it in that kind of fight where
you're in with a guy that's there to give you that type of look that
you can learn from. So he had some trouble with him, not because
he was losing the rounds, but because Fox was making it so negative.
He was holding and he was doing what he does, trying to move around
and make him frustrated, and I think he succeeded to a large degree.
So now fuld Gem's got something to go back to when he gets to the
gym with his trainers and his team and look at the video and you know,
make some corrections. But in the end, you know, he did,
you know, mark up his face. He did bang him around a
little bit later in the fight. And the other thing about it, you
know, there's a right hand that he landed in the seventh round that was
dynamite that looked like it hurt Alanta's Fox. So when when full Jim gave
some of his comments after, but he was disappointed in his performance because he
wanted to look much more spectacular. But to me, if I want to
see the evolution of a young fighter on the way to what I think can
be a world title, you want to see that. You want to see
a little bit of a struggle. You don't want things to come so easy.
You wanted to kind of feel bad about himself. So he gets his
rear end in the gym and works on things that need to be corrected.
So I thought that was exactly what he needed at this stage of the career.
And you know, I think the future is still pretty pright for him.
He you know, the one thing that was just you know, crazy
about the fight and has nothing to do with Fulgem's performance. He had one
judge, no matter how just one he was with himself, said it was
one hundred and ninety. That's a shutout. He had another judge who scored
a ninety eight to ninety two. That's eight to two. I mean that
seems reasonable to me. I wasn't scoring it on paper, but as I'm
watching, I'm like, Okay, he's winning pretty much every end. Then,
of course, because it's boxing, there's always some wacky outlier. You
had one judge that had to fight ninety five to ninety five, which was
like, what the fuck are you talking about here? And the immortal words
of my good pal TJ areas, what are we doing here? What are
we doing here? Ninety five ninety five is not a comprehend the will score
in my opinion, and it was very shocking. So he gets officially a
majority decision, but he won realistically eight nine ten rounds and gave himself some
things to work on. So that was a good performance from all. Stay,
stay active, you fought here in January. Stay active, stay irrelevant.
We like all of those things. So in the other fight you mentioned,
you have Gabriella Fandora, the younger sister of Sebastian Fandora. She is
a very young fighter. She's only twenty one years old. She's now thirteen
and oher with six knockouts. She was making the first defense of the IBF
women's flyweight title against a forty one year old fighter named Christina Cruz, who
got a late start to recurve. But Christina Cruz, if you know anything
about women's boxing, she's like an amateur legend. I mean, she was
a really top notch fighter for a long time. But it was only your
seven professional fights, six and one that was zero knockouts, And actually I
was kind of surprised about this. After the fight, Fondora made the comment
that she had looked up to Christina Cruz and when she was a young amateur
boxer herself, she had a picture of Christina Cruz like on her bedroom wall
as like one of the athletes that she looked up to, So that was
kind of a big deal. So again, Christina Cruz's game is a boxer,
not a puncher. So she gave Fondora some trouble and she was winning
those early rounds, but eventually the younger fighter figured out started landing the heavier
shots. Cruz seemed to get a little fatigued and Fondora was taken over the
fight and sort of beat her up a bit and ended up stopping her in
the tenth and final round. Now, the only thing that was of I
guess consequence or note I guess, was there were some that really derided the
stoppage by the referee. And the reality is Chris Flores, who was that
era, who was that Arizona referee, was one of the best in Arizona.
He's done a lot of fights, and I think he usually does a
terrific job. He stopped the fight, not because she was badly hurt or
because she was knocked down or injured or anything like that. The problem was
in professional boxing, if you're in a fight and whatever is happening, you
cannot turn your back on the opponent and then walk away, you know,
if you spin and turn or whatever, you talk and then you throw back,
I mean and again. And it is the referee's discretion. But she
clearly, body language wise, clearly made it look like I don't want to
fight anymore. She turned around, she ducked down, she took two or
three steps to the ropes. At that point, it's not it's not even
like are you okay, it's you've resigned by your actions and then ended the
fight. Now, let me say one thing about that. So a lot
of people on social media say, well, should have given her a standing
a count, Yo, dumb focks. There is no standing a count in
boxing unless you're knocked down and then you get a mandatory eight count and then
you can get back in the fight. This is not nineteen fucking seventy four
where you can be on the ropes and the ref can call this. I'm
actually I'm actually more of an advocate. It doesn't exist in the rules,
But I'm more of an advocate of bringing that back on some level where if
the referee wants to say, give me, give me seven or eight seconds
to look at somebody and see if they if they should totally totally, you
don't have to go on a thirty minute tangent. I'm just taking to go
a host to it. But you're right, it doesn't exist right now,
so knock off, Hey, he should have given her a stand. The
reason I'm gonna take a few seconds to give you my view on that is
that if you are the referee and you feel like you need to give a
fighter an a count, that means they're in enough this damage or enough disarray
that the fight should be stopped. If you're knocked down one thing. If
you're on your feet and you're gonna give an eight count, I don't get
that, because that means you should be stopping the fight. My opinion.
Anyway around, you're taking an extra seven or eight seconds there to decide is
this guy can cuss gal? Are they able to continue or not? Yes.
It began to get a little wonky. That's the that's the officiating and
how poorly it gets enforced or whatever, and that's why they've done away with
it. They've elimited. And one more thing, I was thinking when you
were explaining this, what's the fundamental thing you hear almost every referee say in
the pre fight instructions. Protect yourself at all times. If you have turned
around and crouched down, you are conceding the fight. You're no longer you're
protecting yourself by turtling, essentially, is the term that it's called on that
And Flores was the ref in the Colaso fight two fights later, and I
thought that that stoppage was fine. He had been knocked down, he'd been
hurt on the ropes. I mean again, don't turn your back. Don't
turn your back. I say the other thing about about people who want to
see a standing account. To me, it leads to more damage, because
if a guy or yal is not getting knocked down and they're just being teed
off on, you're giving him seven or eight seconds a recover and then just
let him take more punishment after that. That's no good either. If if
it's if the guy or gal is hurt enough, you need to give them
an eight count without being knocked down, and that means the fight should be
over. So you know, I feel the pain and the complaints of Christina
Cruz. She only has herself to blame now. It is a judgment call
in the ref he could have like had her spin around and like, you
know, called the fight back together, maybe you know, you know,
taking a quick second, But no, she turned it was over. She
was being dominated at that point over the last couple of hounds, all she
wrote. So I thought it was a fine stoppage. In fact, I
was disappointed, and I have nothing but respect and love for my guys at
his own in you know, in Chris Mannis and Sergio Mora, but they
were like going off about the stoppage, and I'm like, you know,
and as Sergio Morris should know better than that. He's a former professional fighter
himself and a former world champion. You turn your back and you walk away,
the fight's over, end of story. So I had no problem with
that. And then one more fight on the undercard, right a rising junior
featherweight who you know, he's now twenty seven h to one. I'm not
sure how far he's gonna go. But he looks pretty good. He's got
offensive game. His defense I think is maybe pretty solid. That's a fighter
named David Picasso, one hundred and twenty two pounder. He took a one
sided decision over Eric Ruiz. He dominated the fight and I give him credit
because after about what four rounds, he was wiping him out, looked like
he was gonna stop him. He was just laying a ton of punches on
him. He suffered a rib injury and that slowed him down. He ended
up going the distance, but he won, you know, very handily on
the scorecards, eight to two, eight to two and nine to one.
But he's he's a young fighter in that weight class, only twenty three years
old from Mexico. In that weight class, somebody worth keeping an eye on.
All right, let us move along, shall we? Some news,
good recap, excellent stuff on that. And by the way, we do
know it did come up on the bet Us show. We didn't really talk
about it here. Lewis Crocker did win in his welterweight air Quotes's main event
on the match Room show in Belfast, Ireland. Crocker, though came in
way over the weight you like it when I say this. He blew like
four exits on the interstate past where he was supposed to turn off at like
over one hundred and figure like one hundred and fifty point two pounds overweight.
Did win? Did I mean score the big left hand that dropped he had
already dropped Felix once scored the big left hand got the stoppage. We acknowledged
that on the recap. Crocker gets the win, but he's got to do
a better job of making weight obviously on that and had to give the opponent
some of his purse. All right. So other news since last we were
on this podcast, and it includes the Monster is back, and the Monster
is going to be in the Token Dome coming and may give me more on
when he returns, the setting and the opponent. So he is of course
the undisputed Father Junior Featherweight Champion. He is the consensus twenty twenty three fighter
of the Year, picked by the boxing writers, picked by the Ring magazine,
picked I believe, also by ESPN, picked by Yours truly, et
cetera. Noia in a way is back in business. The opponent is not
a surprise. He'll be defending the titles in the mandatory of the WBC,
which is Luis Narry who is a former two division world champion who is coming
off of in elimination or not coming at one fight since then. But the
elimination fight that was in twenty twenty three was the fight that I picked as
the fight of the year ahead of devren Schenko's very close and you know,
outstanding loss against against mcgea of course. Anyway, so Narry is the opponent
that that was mandated at the WBC convention that they just recently completed. So
that's going to be a barn or for as long as that goes. But
now we get down to the inde gritty of when you mentioned it's gonna be
in the Tokyo Dome, which in a way has been fighting in in arenas
in Japan and doing great crowds. But you're talking even if he's in like
the say Thomas Super Arena. I think that's something in the order of gonna
be like, you know, twenty five thousand or something along those lines,
Tokyo Dome that was where Mike Tyson had the famous iconic fight and lost the
heavyweight championship. The bus or Douglas back in the day. So that's a
big, big building, fifty five thousand people, I want to say,
So they're going to put him there and against Neary. The fight is,
I am told the fights signed for May sixth at the Tokyo Dome. So
that's early morning hours on ESPN plus in the United States on a weekday.
I believe that's a Monday. Be a Monday morning, right, Tuesday morning.
It's actually the uh it would yeah, it would be the Monday because
the fourth right is supposed to be the Canal fight exactly, so that it'll
be in the morning in the United States and obviously the evening in Japan.
But Nearry is like he's like the mandatory. But he's like, uh,
a enemy number one in Japan. If you go back a few years ago,
he retired one of their great champions, Sanuki Yama. Let me try
and say it again, Shanuki Yamanaka. Anyway, Uh, he fought him
twice. He stopped him in both fights. In one fight he missed the
weight and the second another one of the fights, the fight I think it
was okay. What happened was in the first fight they fought, he knocked
him out and then he had a positive drug test that came back after the
fight, and that was like a very big scandal over there now because the
WBC does not believe in strict liability, and they presented some type of evidence
that claimed it was due to food contamination, which is a problem in Mexico.
He was not stripped of the title, but he was he was ordered
to give Yamanaka a rematch. He did give him the rematch, he missed
the weight and he ended up knocking it out in like the second round or
whatever, the fourth round I forget which was which but early knockout. Basically
that ended Yamanaka's career. And so after that occurred, between the bad drug
test and then in the rematch missing the way, the Japanese Boxing Commission gave
him an indefinite suspension, which means he was no longer permitted to fight in
Japan. So they're still on the suspension. This goes back, you know,
to like twenty what's seventeen or eighteen, So they have been assured,
you know, privately, that that's not going to be an issue and that
it's just a formality that when they go to get the set, you know,
the the uh suspension lifted, it will be lifted and the fight will
go forward. They still have to take care of that. It's still not
technically done, but they've signed I Am Told for the fight, so that
that will be at least in Japan. That's going to be a huge deal.
And uh, you know, it's a quality opponent for for in a
way to be fighting in his first defense of all four belts. And we
love when when the Monster gets back in the ring. He's one of the
best fighters we've seen in many, many years, a tremendous talent, an
exciting guy, and you know, I figure him and near he should produce
a fun fight for as long as it goes. Both guys are excellent punchers.
Hey, one other thought, just why and we're gonna move on to
other news here in just a second. Just to expose him more to the
US audience, because again, if this holds on the timeline and it's a
Monday morning as a work week, there's only so much audience that's gonna see
that live. I wonder what you think that it wouldn't be the worst idea
for them to fight kind of similar to what we've seen the tim zoo situation
in Australia where you fight late in the US and the middle of the afternoon
in Japan. Especially listen to me sounding like a matchmaker here, but especially
if you were to have him fight on a Saturday, like on a weekend
where everybody can can gather in Japan during the day during the week not at
night in Japan, to just expose him to more of a US audience to
make even more money if you could. We understand he's immensely popular, very
lucrative fighter in Japan for that reason. I just wonder what your thought is
on that that on one of these Could they do it that way if they
want? I mean, I guess they could, But the reality is,
like ninety percent of the money is Japanese. I mean, they run the
show over there. So you're not going to ask, uh, you know,
a fighter who's making that kind of money to change their schedule or their
tradition to acquiesce to a place where it's just a small percentage of the overall
situation. So I doubt that's going to change, and you know, I
don't. I don't see a reason why it would. With the Japanese public
that follows boxing is used to and has been for a long time, of
seeing their top champions fighting on weekdays in the evening. I don't think they're
gonna They're not gonna certainly switch. Clearly be a weekday afternoon that would make
sense. Well, no, what I said, and my premise is do
it on like a Friday night where it's a Saturday afternoon in Japan, Saturday
midday, Saturday afternoon in Japan. And we've seen that with Zoo where they
were doing it on Saturday night Sunday afternoon in Australia. Similar timeline and finally
different, so is TJ. That's a normal thing for them in Japan in
the Australia, understand, But I'm saying just to vary it up. But
in any event, uh, we do know Rank was trying to bring him
here and they did have him fight in the Bubble in Las Vegas previously,
so they were trying to expose him some to the American audience, and part
of that was because you weren't having fights in Japan. I understand. He's
also he's gotten to the point where, you know, I understand we're all
American centric and we want to see the guys all in America, so we're
annoyed, like, oh, they're fighting in Saudi Arabia. Oh, you
know, in a way, won't come and fight in the United States again.
You know, he has been here three different times and he has fought,
you know, in the UK and places like that. He's making like
ten million dollars plus for fights, maybe even more than that. He's making
astronomical money in Japan. Why does he give a shit about the United States.
He can't. There's no way he can make more money in America.
And it's not like he's just staying at home and fighting, you know,
the lesser opponents. He's fighting all the guys with the titles. He's fighting
bona fide number one challengers. He's not taking easy fights. So if I'm
making huge money and I'm at home, my opponents are getting their biggest paydays
and are coming to travel, and I'm doing the business, I don't have
to worry about going to the Unite. He's a kingpin. He's like he's
calling the show. Was a reason if there was some real like big,
big name or a fight that has festered for a while, and it was
like everybody was saying, we got to see that. We got to see
that, and the money was there. I have absolutely no doubt in my
mind that in a way, would come and fight in the United States.
But right now, why would I take a haircut to come and fight in
America when I can stay home and make crazy money in Japan. It doesn't
make any sense. Agreed with you? All right? So we were talking
last week about the unveiling of the first Premiere Boxing Champions pay per view card
in Las Vegas for March thirtieth, and we did mention the Sebastian Bundura fight
with Bolachalk and now that fight has been elevated by the WBC in the In
the day or two since we've done the preview podcast, tell me more about
the one hundred and fifty four pound title that no longer belongs to Jama to
Jamel Charlow here and why they're doing what they're doing for March thirtieth. Well,
Jamel Charlotte, who at one time was the four belt undisputed champion,
is now down to one title. He lost the one of the belts.
Remember he was when he fought Canelo Alvarez. He knew before the fight happened
that when the bell rang, he'd be stripped of the WBO title and Tim
Zoo would be elevated because he had you know, signed the fight Zoo,
and then they didn't reschedule and Zoo you know complained and he was right.
And so when that fight took place between Charlo and Canelo, Zoo became the
full champion of the WBO. Then there was a purse bid for the mandatory
in the IBF that Charlot had dragged out. And then on the day of
the perse s bid, like in the hours before the purse bid, he
vacated the title. Uh, because he wasn't going to go through it the
mandatory, not because he was duck on anybody, just because it didn't work
for it. It wasn't a big fight, it didn't make sense for his
schedule, he wasn't gonna be ready whatever. So now he's down the IBF
title. He still has the WBA title, but now here comes with the
WBC. So on Thursday, remember the PBC announced the Amazon Prime Video pay
per view headlined by Tim zu in his fight against Keith Thurman, and the
fight one of the fights on the pay per view. It was the opening
fight of that card, which is Sebastian Fundora, the brother of who we
just talked about with Gabriella Fondora. He's matched up with Sergei Boachek, and
that fight was announced as being for the vacant WBC Interim title at one hundred
and fifty four pounds. It was like hours after that announcement where PBC sent
up the press release that the WBC's you know, their their board are voted,
and it was announced on Friday that they were elevating the fight to be
for the vacant title and that Charlotte had been relieved of the championship and made
what they call an in recess champion, which means we know you're not active.
You know, we love you, but you got to stay a little
busier. And so because we don't know what your schedule is, you have
legal problems outside the ring. As we have talked about before, he's facing
charges of a bodily harm to a family member, which even though it's not
official, everybody knows it's his wife because she filed for a divorce and she
filed for a restraining order, so he's dealing with that. There's also the
fact as Mauricio Suliman from the WVC said to me in a statement, was
part of it that his last fight was at one hundred, at one hundred
and sixty eight pounds when he fought against Canelo, and they don't know if
he's ever going to come back to one hundred and fifty four. They haven't
been able to get clarity from him or his team. So the bottom line
is you're not fighting in your division. You have legal problems. We have
no idea what your status is. We have a fight between our two most
available leading contenders. We've already approved that fight, so they put him in
recess. What that means is, should the day come when Charlotte decides to
fight again, if he wants to stay at one hundred and fifty four pounds,
he can have an immediate shot for the title against the winner. It
also won't screw up his percentage on a per spid, which is often what
this comes down to is what's my percentage if we make a deal or if
we don't make a deal and it goes to a purse bit, so he
would still be made whole on that. So this in essence is going to
be for the title, not in essence, it is for the WB stellup
because nobody thinks. I don't think that Charlo's ever gonna come back and fight
out junior middleweight, and even if he does, he's looking at probably a
long layoff, you know, because of that. So the guy from the
who made history as the first ever four bell champion in the one hundred and
fifty four pound way class is now down to one sanctioning body title, and
you know, boxing waits for nobody onto the next and we'll see what I
think. Is as I said, and we talked about when they made the
matchup, a fight that's a sneaky good fight between Fundora and Boa Chick.
It's it's going to be a fun fight, I believe, and the winner
will become the WBC Jim Middlewaight champion. And let's connect the dots just one
more time. This is me saying this since that time. Brian Mendoz is
the fighter that beat Fondora in his last fight, and then Zoo has beaten
Brian Mendoza, although he didn't get the WBC bill to do it, he
beat the interim champion. It's not hard to connect the dots. They're on
the same card Dan Rayphiel here that Tim Zoo could maybe down the road fight
the winner of this fight in a unification fight. Call me crazy that that
could be happening down around Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Fandora is
with PBC. Also, Boacheck is not, but Tom Loffler is his promoter
from three to sixty Promotions. And if you know Tom Loffler, he's a
guy that will work with anybody. He's not, you know, taking sides.
I'm only gonna work with this guy, or we'll make a deal here.
We'll make a deal here. He made a deal with PBC for Boachek
to be on this show with against Fandora. Tom is a well respected and
a well like guy in the business. So I don't think there'd be any
problem with that fight happening down the road at some point. And like you
said, you know, if you take a look at big undercards for these
big time fights, and you have fights that are in and around the same
way class as the main event, you can tell what the future potential matchups
are. Not because someone's doing this like on a pad and like they're plotting
out, it just becomes obvious, like it's not. It's not rocket science
in a lot of these instances. I mean, you can tell what they're
what they're if certain things followed a certain way, that these are gonna be
guys that end up facing each other at some point. So if someday down
the road in the next bit we see Fondorma against Tim Zoo or against Bultcheck
for that matter, I like, there's nobody should be shocked or surprised about
that. What's over. The only thing that you have to think about is
what's the timing of and when does it happen. But without question, if
you've got the guy that's the WBO champion even though he's fighting Thurmoton an title
fight, and you got the guy who's a WBC champion, you're all in
the family. Of course, it makes sense. You know. The idea
is to make the biggest fights that the fans want to see, and you
know, if Fondora can win the fight, or Boltcheck for that matter,
maybe put another winner too on their on their record, no doubt about it.
I mean, Fundor is more known the Boa Chick at this point.
Bolt Chick is still unless you're a die hard, you probably never really heard
of him. But he's a good fighter. He's only got like I said,
he's got twenty four fights, right, twenty three by knockout and the
other fight he lost by knockout, so he's never heard the final bell.
So that's interesting we have Injurgue because Puondura got knocked out in a fight he
was winning with Mendoza. He got caught, I got hit with a big
time bomb, punch, staggered, went down, got stopped, and now
he's got to show some resolve, show some character getting back in the ring
here in this one. And if he does, he could be looking at
a lucrative situation. I'm saying this with Tim Zoo. We shall see right
now along those same lines, the very next week in Germany, they are
going to have the IBF Junior Middleweight title fight. Give me the update on
Bachrum and Jack Coleka and the details, but it's going to be the following
weekend after that March thirtieth card, right. Yeah. So when I mentioned
before about Charlot vacating the IBF title in the hours before a purse bit for
his mandatory, he had owed a mandatory defense of the IDF delt to Bachram,
where Tazalaliev. For quite some time, Tazallyev had taken multiple step aside
deals. He'd been placed on a variety of PBC cards. I think you
fought three or four times, or at least three times anyway under the terms
of that step aside to allow Charlotte to go do other things because he was
not a well known fighter. He hadn't really fought top guys. He was
actually still learning. Frankly, he was already in a mandatory position before his
ability let's say, warranted it if you will. And then when that when
that fight between him and Charlotte did not happen because of the vacating of the
title, Bacherm was ordered to fight the next leading contender, which is Jack
col Kay, who's experienced guide, been around, you know, maybe maybe
best known, I guess if you follow he he had a loss to Dimitris
Andre where Andre went to Germany and defeated him in the middleweight title bout,
or maybe it was even a dreim because it was a junior middleweight title belt.
In any event, coul Ka and rtaz La the purse bit took place,
and then the col K people at a company called Agon Sports won the
pers bid for six hundred and sixty six thousand dollars in change. They split
it fifty to fifty. Each guy gets three to thirty three K and they're
doing the fight April sixth in Germany and they will fight for that vacant title,
and so you know, it's, uh, it's another chip in that
weight class that's now going to be kind of wide open, if you will,
because Charlo is no longer undisputed and all the titles are fractured again,
so you can have Zoo as the top dog. We'll see what happens in
the in the fight between Fandor and Boachek. Charlo still has the w BBA
title, but he's inactive at the moment, and we have Martazza, Leev
and Clo K going for the IBF title. So you know, like it
always happens, CJ, you spend a lot of time, a lot of
bandwidth and getting excited and thinking and discussing when we're going to get to an
undisputed champion. We get there and then Charlo unfortunately, we'll go down as
having never defended the undisputed title because of all the things that we've talked about.
But if you're Martazzala leaving your culk, you're like, okay, fine,
I just want to win the belt. And so that's what they're going
to try to do on April six, and bigger money can be there,
especially if we start talking unification, because maybe that's Tim Zoo fighting the winner
this but we don't know. Maybe that's Zoo fighting this IBF winner if it
comes to it. All right, a few moments left. Love the nostalgia
always great stuff on the last one too, by the way, with Shane
Moseley and Antonio Margarito and you being right there for all of that, with
the controversy with the gloves, and we have some interesting names that are part
of the nostalgia. It was fifty years ago on this day as we released
the podcast Sunday, the twenty eighth of January, that the second of the
Muhammad Ali Joe Fraser trilogy took place. And you've often said this, we've
talked about this that of the three fights, the first one is is regarded
as the fight of the century. Fraser's went over Ali, handing Ali the
defeated at Madison Square Garden with the fifteenth round knockdown and winning the decision.
The Thrilla in Manila is one of the epic fights of all time. Is
the third fight. This one kind of lost in the middle a little bit,
but they did fight three times. And the fiftieth anniversary is on the
day that we're doing this podcast, So tell me more about the nostalgia on
Ali Fraser two. Ali Fraser two is the unloved of the three. And
as we've talked about a lot of times, in trilogy, there is one
chapter that maybe is a little less than the others, that's not as well
respected, that doesn't get the attention, that isn't talked about or rewatched and
gone over in minutia. And and that's this fight among this trilogy, you
know, and in more recent trilogies, if you want to give the the
one that's sort of the corollary Gaddy War two. Good fight, but not
the third fight of the first fight Barrera Morales, great trilogy. Second fight
not exactly as good as the first or third by a long shot. And
there and there's trilogies where where it's rare that all are awesome. I mean,
Bo Holyfield had three incredible heavyweight fights. If we disavow the fourth fight
between Vasquez and Marquez. The first three were incredible. Two of them were
Fight of the Year, and the only reason the other one wasn't was because
they happened in the same year as one of the other fights. You know,
if you look at Manny Pacau and one Manuel Marquez, they fought four
fights. All four of them are legendary. But in the case Ali Fraser,
the trilogy as legendary as it is, and you can't have the trilogy
if you don't have all three fights. But the second fight of these,
of these three great champions, between Ali and Fraser, is the one that's
the least remembered. They fought at Madison Square Guarden. It was it was
the one fight of the trilogy that was not for the world heavyweight title.
At the time, world championship fights were fifteen rounds. This was a twelve
round fight. It was for the NABF title, which was a respect it's
still our title out there. A regional title had a lot more meaning back
in the nineteen seventies. It's an offshoot now of the WBC. The North
American Boxing Federation had meant a lot back then, but not like the World
heavyweight title. So they fought for that title. And this is back in
the day where they didn't use the ten point must system. They just scored
in rounds. So I can't tell you that Ali won, you know,
one fifteens, one thirteen or whatever. This was eight four for Ali,
seven to four to one for Ali, and six five one for Ali.
So that was that fight. And I've watched that fight. I've got a
you know, I've got that on my collection of videos, and you he
finds it on YouTube very easily. You know, it's it's it's a good
fight, but it's you know when you think about like you said, the
first fight is the fight of the century to undefeated heavyweight champions and all the
whooplah. And the third fight is one of the most savage battles in the
history of the world. Uh. You know, this one doesn't hold a
camel to it, but it was important for when it took place. Like
I mentioned, it wasn't for the heavyweight title because two fights uh after this
is this has taking place two fights after Joe Fraser had Remember he stayed the
champion and took the lineal title from Ali in the first fight. Then he
goes in the ring and he gets blasted out by Joe by George Foreman and
loose his heavyweight So this is now two fights after Joe has been dethroned as
the heavyweight champion by Foreman, and because Muhammad Ali won this fight against uh
in the rematch with Joe Fraser in his next fight, he got the shot
at George Foreman's title, which was the course the very famous thrill Rumble in
the Jungle, one of the most if not most famous fights in boxing history.
So this, the positioning of the date and when this occurred in their
careers was pivotal gives Ali the next shot to make the history of dethroning Foreman,
and it was Frasier having come off of having lost the title a couple
of fights earlier against Foreman, where these guys wound up fighting each other because
Foreman was off doing his own thing as champion, and you had the two
next biggest names in the division, you know, trying to reposition themselves to
a degree. I'm just I always I when I when I was thinking about
this fight, I mean, we're going to talk about it, I was
thinking about, like how you could not not the magnitude of who these guys
were. But in today's boxing, where you see, you know, a
Wilder take a loss, or a Joshua would take a loss and her fury
looks terrible against Nagano, or you know, Joe Joyce gets destroyed by zang
Zulai. How it how it fits into the puzzle as people move forward,
you know, or Joe Parker has lost to Joshua and now he's back,
you know to a degree near the top with a victory over Wilder. That
when these fights take place has an important, right, important position of how
you remember them and what was going on at the time. One more thing
to add, if I'm explaining myself, I got you on the one bigger
thing is Ali avenged the loss by getting the win. He didn't get the
title back. He would get the title back in October of seventy four,
but he avenged the loss in January of seventy four, and that set into
motion the third fight happening in seventy five in Manila, which is an all
timer in any division when you talk boxing, including the nickname Thriller in Manila.
So you know, because you could make the argument, if Fraser wins
in fight number two, yeah, then Maha. It's a totally different trajectory
from Muhammad Ali. But Ali was the greatest. Ali got the win there,
got the win over Foreman, got the win again in the Thrilling Manila
in the rest a Hall of Fame history. Yeah, because if Ali doesn't
beat Fraser in the rematch, he doesn't get the rematch with Foreman. Now,
maybe because of things that happened at some point, maybe he regains the
title, but I dare say it probably is not in a fight called the
Rumble in the Jungle in the you know, in in the middle of Zaire,
in a big upset with the robodope and making that kind of history.
Uh. And maybe Foreman is ends up fighting Fraser in a more immediate rematch.
He fought Fraser a few years later in a fight where you know,
you know, for Fraser was pretty much done at that point, but he
had already pummeled Fraser the first time. Maybe he ends up fighting Fraser a
second time sooner and he beats him again. And just thinking about the legend
that makes George at that time, this is way before the notion would ever
take place of him coming back after a ten year retirement and ultimately regaining the
title at age you know, in his forties, breaking the record for being
the oldest fighter ever. So yeah, it's it's it's. Uh. It
is interesting that you mentioned that, because, yes, if it had been
a little different, the whole history and what we talked about in boxing,
as far as anyweight history goes, would be totally different without this with the
result of the second fight between Ali and Frasier all right, also on Monday,
as we released the podcast January twenty ninth, thirty years ago. Now
I remember this the surgeon Frankie Randall, Morristown, Tennessee. I'm a Tennessee
woife. I bring that up. Frankie Randall, the late Frankie Randall in
the first ever loss on Julio Caesar Chavez thirty years ago January twenty ninth,
nineteen ninety four, including scoring a knockdown in the fight, a shocking upset,
not on the same level, but in the neighborhood of what happened with
Buster Douglas and Mike Tyson. Because Chavez it fought what eighty nine oh and
one had fought ninety times and Frankie Randall's the answer to the trivia question who
handed Chavez his first loss. He was a fifteen to one underdog. I
actually looked at Chavez, I should say was a fifteen to one favorite.
I looked that up because I knew it was a big upset, but I
was trying to remember just how big it was. Knocked him down, as
you mentioned, in the eleventh round, and got a split decision. I
thought, a deserve split decision. I have watched that fight won the WBC
Junior Welterweight title. The other thing that's cool about that fight, I mean,
as historical as that was, it was, and think about how many
times we talk about the MGM Grand as a host venue for major fights.
That was the main event of the very first boxing event to ever take place
in that building in nineteen ninety four. So think about all the fights that
we talk about that have taken place in the MGM Grand over the last like
thirty years. I mean, I know, personally, I've been to at
least one hundred fights at the MGM Grand and they've probably hosted you know,
I don't know if they've quite reached two hundred. Maybe they're closer, maybe
they're about two hundred. But that's a hallowed building for boxing, and that
was the first ever In a great trivia nugget that the first ever world title
about at that venue is Chavez's first loss. That's a great way to tell
other world title fights on the card that came before it. But it was
the main event of the first right at the at the venue. I mean,
that was you know, that was what was being promoted, and that
was a showtime pay per view back in the day, the shows that Don
King used to put on. We talked about that all the time, and
we can talk no nostalgia. I mean, here's an undercard fight from that
show. This was I don't know, I can't remember if it was the
co feature or maybe one fight further down the show. You had the young
IBF welterweight champion Felix Tito Trinidad Oh oh oh oh, hear to him against
and a winning a decision by the way, against a guy with maybe one
of the greatest chints in the history of boxing one I don't know, Hector
Camacho. That's a pretty big deal to him too, Yes, So I
mean that just shows you the depth of the car. But obviously Randall and
chav Is on the top was the big deal and they had an all.
They ultimately had an immediate rematch that chab is claimed with some controversy because of
the technical decision and the head butt rule, and we don't have to get
into all the details. You can look it up on Google. And then
many years later they had a third fight that was unnecessary, where Frankie Randall
was way way way way way way way way way past his best days and
chav has beat him again in Mexico. But for one night, Frankie Randall
mastered the Master and handed the great job as eighty nine to zero to one
made that record eighty nine to one and one. And Frankie Randall, he
doesn't kind of get to love. He's you know, he was a good,
good fighter for a long time. Very sad too, and Iver I
know his personal story, and I remember reading this because his sons were trying
to as best they could be caretakers. But he battled drug and alcohol problems.
He eventually battled dementia, was in a nursing home in Tennessee and died
within the last couple of years, probably within the last two or three years.
But he is the answer to the trivia question. I remember Frankie Randall
fights on the way up. He was fighting on ESPN in like world title
fights on Top rank Boxing. The surgeon Frankie Randall, and that was thirty
years ago, Rayfield. You remember when Frankie would come into the ring,
he would wear the mask, the mask, right, Yes, it was
hilarious. I've seen guys come in the ring with props, but that was
like the weird. That was like, you know, to see a guy
in surgical mass, you know, that was kind of a little unusual.
Let's say the Java is when that's obviously the biggest win of his career,
but you know, he also he put himself in that position. He had
a big win against you older Edwin Rosario. He beat guys like Jan Martin,
Kogi in an important title fight back post the Chavez rematch, and he
had fought you know three He actually had a trilogy with Koji where he won
two of the fights. You know, and if you were a fan or
a subscriber to Showtime back in those days, Frankie Randall's fights were a regular
thing on Showtime in their championship boxing shows. But he fought a lot of
good guys through the years, you know, Actually, if you go back
and you take a look, his name was one of the good names that
a rising Antonio Margarito got on his record in the early part of Antonio's career,
before he became a cheater apparently and a pariah. But yeah, Frankie
Randall, that was that was obviously a huge win. Foreman, like you
said, I never thought about it in that same context as you said,
like when you mentioned Buster Douglas and Mike Tyson. I guess in some ways
it is kind of like Buster light. You know, it wasn't that bad
relatively speaking. It wasn't forty two to one, but Chabas was eighty nine
ohoe to one and a dominating world champion, and no one expected Reynold didn't
to win, and he did, and he got the knockdown to punctuate it.
All Right, one more piece of nostalgia, and that's Wilfred Benitez and
Roberto Duran. This is the anniversary is choose day on a fight. It's
now more than forty years old. Nineteen eighty two. January thirtieth, nineteen
eighty two. Benitez defeats Duran in a junior middleweight title fight. So this
is post no Moss, with Leonard getting his revenge. Duran would later though,
ascind and win a version of the junior midwaight title. But Benitez,
Benitez intertwined because he had lost to Sugar Ray Leonard and also lost to Thomas
Hearns in and around somewhere in and around this time intertwined around this, Wilfrid
Benitez, Well, I mean, we all talked about the four Kings Hagler,
Leonard, Duran and Hearns, and they all fought each other, and
that's one of the reasons. And they carried the nineteen eighties with that rivalry
start in nineteen eighty ending with Leonard versus Duran number three in nineteen eighty nine,
So it took up the full decade. But a lot of people will
tell you that Benitez belongs in that same conversation. Now, he and Hagler
never fought each other, but Benitez fought Duran in this particular fight, and
he won. Against Duran, he got beaten by Ray Leonard in the last
round of a fifteen rounder on a stoppage where when Leonard won the welterweight title
for the first time, that was a big time fight live on ABC,
I might add, not on pay per view, not on a premium cable
network, not on streaming which did not exist back then. And he also
later after the fight with Duran, he lost to Thomas Hearns. He lost
that title, so he was intertwined as you mentioned, with all these guys.
But if you take an all time stare down with Thomas Hearns, oh
yeah, they were like nose to nose during the pre fight instructions tremendous for
that, and then Hearns got him out of there on a majority decision.
And that was immediately after this Duran fight that we're talking about right now.
But the Benitez his career, by the way, if you look at his
his wins, the guys he actually defeated, you know, he became now.
I don't even think people can comprehend this. He is one of the
greats of all time from Puerto Rico. He was the youngest ever fighter to
become a world champion. He was seventeen years old when he won against Antonio
Servantes, who's a Hall of Famer. To win the title, I mean
that's like a I don't know, I don't think you never say never,
But there are certain records in different sports, whatever sport you choose to look
at, where you look and you say, okay, there are certain records
that's never gonna be be like, I just don't think there's ever gonna come
a time where you have a bonafid world champion at seventeen. It's just in
common sanse what commissions certain countries, But what commissions are going to let a
seventeen year old fight for a world title? Right? I mean maybe you
could see somebody doing that in Asia, like in a straweight fight in Thailand
or something like that, but certainly not in North America. You know,
you have to have a special license even to get license at age seventeen in
most states. Love of being one of the ones. Mainly you're not going
to really see that. In Europe, it's just not logical. Like you
know, I look at baseball, I don't see any ever breaking like the
all time that the games played record from cal Ripten with load management. Nobody's
gonna play, you know, two thousand plus games in a row anymore.
So the Benite's record is safe. But if you look at the record,
he was a great fighter and that win that won the title was a big
deal. But I think if you really examine his record, that went over
Duran may go down as his biggest and best win. You mentioned about the
staredown is epic. You should go take a look if you can find it
on YouTube. This was an HBO fight. By the way, Roberto Duran
was seventy four and two coming into that fight. He had won two fights
in a row since he quit against Leonard in the Nomas fight. He had
moved up to juniorm middlewaight. He won two fights in a row, which
put him his in position to get the shot at Benita's. But Benitez did
a heck of a job and this was a fight where I can't tell you
it was like an all action banger, a lot of good skills, a
lot of good techniques. If you take a look at the pre fight covers
a lot of it centered on you know, both guys in the dealing with
them making the weight for the fight. But they closed it out Benitez in
the fifteenth round. You know, back in the day, you know,
thirteen fourteen, fifteen, that's when men were men. As they like to
say, it doesn't exist anymore. Those are the real championship rowns. But
the Benitez had a great body attack in that fight. And another thing about
it was because Duran had quit against Leonard. You know, he was derided
about that and was for many years and even to this day. You know,
as great as he is, people still get on his case about the
nomas. But the way that it was at the time in the context of
when it was happening, because of the heart and the balls that he showed,
even though he lost the beneath As a lot of people gave him credits,
say, you know what, he may have quit against Sugar Ray Leonard,
but he kind of made up for it because of the heart and the
will he showed to get through the fifteenth round against beneath Us, who was
beating him like a drum down the stretch in that fight, in a great
fifteenth round. And I'm gonna throw one more stat at you, which is
freaking mind boggling. When these two men entered the ring together. I looked
this up also because I know we were in a talk about this. They
were a combined one hundred and seventeen wins, three losses, and one drug
went into the fight. This was high level shit big time, and again
Benitez deserves his place in that whole realm with all of those fights in and
around there greatness and also at one of the famed places, the sports Pavilion
at Zes Palace, which hosted so many of the great fights. And you
know, but Benitez gets that win, retains the title and there you go.
And then later on would end up losing it to Tommy Hearns and his
next fight as it turns out. But yeah, that's where he had lost
to Leonard in so many fight, I mean, the the Larry Holmes,
tremendous battle with Ken Norton. We've gone on and on about that building,
in that facility and Ches and Gomez. Ah. Yes, in the early
eighties especially, they would be out there fighting at the Caesars Sports Pavilion.
Great nostalgia yet again, not that the nostalgia isn't really good or great most
of the time, but it's it's great again on this edition. So we've
given you a lot on the recap podcast, including Heimimongia's victory. We did
mention we're gonna do something because we've got the azz Biwatzi fight coming up.
We're gonna do something on the podcast feed. I'll go ahead and put this
out there. Your conversation with Ben Shalom is coming up before you and I
are back. You talk with him recently. Just tease it one more time
about the new agreement with boxer Sky Sports in the United States with Peacock.
You had an extended conversation with him. We're going to bring it to the
audience before you and I are back. Yeah, I think you and I
talked about it. I think because my interview with Ben was pretty in depth
and it was you know, usually we bring the interviews to the podcast show.
You know, they're ten minutes, fifteen minutes, you know, maybe
twenty minutes at the max. But but Ben went a lot to say.
We had a real good talk about a bunch of different things. Our interview
went about half an hour, maybe thirty five minutes whatever, And I think
you and I agreed that it was a bit too much to put on the
regular show, So we're gonna make it a separate episode and it'll be out.
I guess it's up to you, since you're the one that does our
technical stuff. You'll put down a couple of days, but it'll be before
the bowatzi asas fight, which is for those fans listening in the United States
is a well on Peacock and certainly on Sky Sports in the UK. That's
a very good matchup. So we talked about that fight. We talked about
just a lot of things, his building up boxer, the deal with Sky
to get them off the ground, coming to America at Peacock, what their
plans are, some of the upcoming events and things are doing with some of
their fighters. You know, the the the competition in the UK, particularly
between boxer, Mattroom Boxing and Queensberry. You know, they're the big three
over there, kind of like here in America you have you know, PBC
and Top Rank and Golden Boy and so it was just a good call.
So we're gonna make that a separate show. Love that. You'll hear that
later in the week. You and I will be back to preview that fight.
Connor Ben's also in action. We're gonna hear next weekend from Tea Fimo
Lopez as well as he is fighting the Thursday of Super Bowl Week coming up
in a couple of weeks here defending his title on the ESPN top ranked show
from Las Vegas. Super Bowl week, that week, a full show,
A good weekend, Dan Rayfield, have a great week. We thank you
as always for the insight, for the analysis, and we're done with January.
Believe it or not, You and I will be back in the new
month. Thank you for the time here, coming off the weekend from my
man, we'll talk all right. There is Dan rayphel I'm merely TJ.
Rees. If you enjoy what you're hearing, following subscribing, that's the best
way to do it. Apple Podcasts, Freakers, Spotify, Ratus and review
us as well. You've been listening to the Fight Freaks Unite recap off the weekend