The countdown is on to Fight Time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ leaves Well, Hello and welcome in for one
of the final times in twenty twenty three. We say it is the Big
Fight Weekend preview. We are here, we are ready to go on the
somewhat confident host TJ. Reeves. He's our insider, Dan Rayfield. Fight
Freaks Unite is his substack also contributor here on this pod at Bigfight Weekend dot
com. Hello, my friend, where we have got some very intriguing stuff
to go over a Friday night. Jake Paul reappearance in Orlando, Florida,
world title fight unification at flyweight in Arizona, Bam Rodriguez and Sonny Edwards,
the final ever Showtime Don't get sappy and emotional on me, the final ever
Showtime boxing card to be on Saturday evening in Minneapolis. We're going to talk
about all of those and heavyweight contender Atto Valeen in a convertation with Dan on
this podcast, and much more. My friend, how are you as we
head into the weekend. I am ready to go. We have a ton
of talk about, so let's get to it. Let's do it. Again,
rate us, review us. However, you found a social media link
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Host as somewhat competent. So let's get to it. Let's get to everything
that's gonna go on. We're gonna hear from Auto Valin in a little bit
Jake Paul in action. First, I have already said to you, you've
already interviewed him. I am intrigued by this. On Friday Night Dezone not
on pay per view, by the way, Cruiserweight main event. Andre August
is the opponent. Your thoughts on this is he's back to fighting a boxer
and says, we'll believe it when we see it. In twenty twenty four,
I'm gonna fight more boxers. I'm interested in being a boxing contender,
a boxing world champion. Your thoughts, Dan Rayfield, Well, my thoughts
are good for him and good for us because it's not a pay per view,
so that's good a part of your normal the Zone subscription, which you
know obviously has a big weekend this weekend and has a bunch of big weekends,
but this weekend with Jake Paul and then on Saturday, one of the
more interesting fights that you could ask for, at least if you like smaller
weight fighters with the flywits, which we'll get to. But in terms of
about Jake Paul, in my interview with him, he comes off as very
earnest, very believable, very dedicated and committed, and I felt like was
honest where he said when he started all this business, it was just,
you know, as he said, it was YouTubers talking shit. Let's fight.
And he didn't realize when he did that that he was going to really,
you know, as he said, fall in love with boxing and he's
taking it seriously. And we discussed about how we kind of is doing his
career back courts. Typically the guy would start with these types of fights against
you know, anonymous type opponents, where you're just building your skills and your
repetitions of certain things and working on this and working on that, and then
you hope to get into the bigger fights against the bigger names and the bigger
arenas and make the bigger money. Jake Paul has done even play the opposite.
He's been mostly on pay per view for his career. He's bought several
big names, granted not boxers, although Tommy Theory is a pretty decent name.
That was the one loss. He's made huge amounts of money. He's
packed big, big arenas, and now, as he says, I got
I'm making so much money doing all kinds of different things. I made like
two hundred and fifty million gross in the last three years of pay per view
that it's it's not just about the money, and I want to better myself.
I want to improve my skills. I want to be a world champion.
I'm going to fight Canelo someday. Now you can laugh and we can
say that's ridiculous, but you know what's the old staying from our good friend
George Castanza on Seinfeld, it's not a lie if you believe it. So
he seems awfully serious about this. And and by the way, I'm laughing
at the two and fifty million. Did he say to you in that podcast?
Two hundred and fifty million? That's yeah, okay, even if it's
a little bit exaggerated. Whatever. Here's the point, though, he's putting
his money where his mouth is because he is taking a fight against an Andre
August who is a ten to one in one fighter, who is a boxer
by trade. He doesn't participate in combat other than boxing, and that's what
his thing is in terms of being an athlete. So there's similarly similarly experienced
in terms of the number of fights and that sort of stuff. And he's
fighting him not in a big arena in Orlando, but in a casino,
uh, you know, in a in a big ballroom. And that's not
I'm not knocking that. I'm just making a point that as an event,
the fact that it's not against a big name opponent, it's not in a
large arena, it's not a pay per view, that's indicative of it being
smaller of scale. And he's like, I'm okay with that now. He
also made the point if one of these other knuckleheads, as he said,
or whatever his word was for them, meaning some other you know, big
name uh influencer or MMA person or whoever you know, wants to wants to
get beat down for ten million dollars. You know, he's happy to accommodate
him. So I suspect that come next year, oh yeah, you know,
we'll see him do at least one more of these kinds of fights and
probably another one of those you know, uh NMA type crossover type of fights.
But I give him credit. I've said it from steadfast, from the
beginning that we've talked about Jake Paul. I respect what he's trying to do.
He wants to make himself the best boxer he can. Whether he gets
there or not. The jury is out, So the real, the real
question on this is what kind of threat if all, if at all,
is August. So Jake is a seven and a half to one favorite on
the bet Us line. Most believe this is a win. There's a little
bit of risk here, though, because if he doesn't look good, if
August can box him, if he can't knock him out, it actually it
hurts Jake's credibility a little bit. Give me a little more from what you
know is August even a minimal threat here in this Friday Night Man event.
Well, I'll put it to you like this, if he doesn't get a
knockout, that doesn't offend me. I always felt like that's a weird way
to judge somebody. There's been plenty of all time greats, frankly, that
have not been knockout punchers that win fights and have done awesome work in the
ring and have great resumes and are well deserving of being in the Hall of
Fame. So not getting a knockout is not the end be all what he's
doing. He's trying to fight a guy who's a similar record, similar experience
level, and trying to work on some stuff, you know, with him
and his trainer of whatever they're do. You know, he didn't go into
details of what he's working on, but you need the reps, and you
need to get in there ring with a guy that's a boxer, who's not
a guy coming at you like okay. They can make a ton of money
with an ideas. And Adaz is a was a great NNA fighter, but
not a boxer. So now he's fighting a boxer and he's gonna work on
stuff and he's not charging extra for based on the fact that it's not ask
what's the possibility. His record is ten one and one. He's got five
knockouts, he's been stopped in his one loss. He is aged thirty five.
But he does have some experience. You know. For example, not
that I heard of him, but his most recent fight, which took place
in August of this year, he did win a six round decision against an
undefeated fighter who was seven to no name Brandon Martin. Now this will be
Andre august first scheduled eight round fight. He's fought mostly four rounders. He's
had a couple of six rounders, two six rounders exactly. Jake has fought
mostly eight rounders. He did jump up at the last minute. I remember
they had a back and forth where he and the idea has decided at the
last minute, let's extend at the ten. Originally was was scheduled for eight.
So Jake has a little bit of an edge in that respect that if
he has to go to the rounds, he knows he can because he did
ten against he has and he's done eight against Tommy Furry. That's right,
So that's that's part of it. Out of curiosity. August is thirty five.
Thing, I'm looking to make this a fifty to fifty fight. The
idea is that Jake's gonna win. Of course, he's just gonna get experienced.
But on August he's thirty five. Does he have any amateur background that
we know where he just got that late of a start in boxing to only
have eleven or twelve fights at thirty five years old, What do we know,
If anything, do we know? I don't think he had much of
a of an amateur career. That's not to say he didn't have any amateur
fights, but for example, he doesn't have if you go on his box
wreck, there is no link to amateur background. That doesn't mean he didn't
have any fights. Just late off through the sport, late to the sport
is how you would describe it. Probably yeah, I mean, also,
I mean and this is you know, you have to look at this.
I know I said he has a win in August. He thought at the
end of twenty nineteen, and I'm sure this was partly pandemic related. He
didn't have a single fight in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one or twenty twenty
two, so he had an extended layoff, but he did come back with
the win. So the matchmakers have done their homework. The whole idea here
is anybody, first of all, anybody that's expecting a fifty to fifty fights
a fucking idiot, because that's not what you're doing. You got Jake Paul
fighting this kind of fight. This is a fight too, as I said,
gain experience and put on a show. But they're not putting him in
with a you know, apparently not with a complete stiff. And we'll have
to see. I mean, I'll have a better assessment of the of the
veracity of the match once we see what occurs. Of course, I'm just
laughing because I'm thinking him. I'm laughing because I'm thinking of Rocky three,
with Rocky and Mickey sitting on the bed and he's having to tell him it
was it was my job to protect you. And Stallone says you mind was
sut ups and he says, no, they was hand picked. That kind
of seems like this, this is hand picked. It's supposed to be a
win. Are you feeling me, right? But Jake Paul is supposed to
win this fight, and that's not a secret. You're right, of course.
I mean anybody who thinks otherwise has no idea about anything to do with
how you do, uh, the the the the architecture of a boxing career.
I mean, if you put guys in overmatch right away, you never
have a star. And uh it's not looking. But you know what,
that's the bottom of mine. Jason back in the ring. I'm looking forward
to watching him fight. Whatever you think about him, He's usually been in
entertaining bouts. And uh, they got a nice women's world title fight on
the undercard for the vacant WBC Super Midaway title between Shade's the Green and Franchion
Cruiz Deserned, the former undisputed champions. So there's some uh you know,
uh, some quality of a women's match on the card, and then some
author of Jake's prospects. So you know, a as a free show as
part of your normal subscription. You know what count me in. I'm good
with it. So good luck to Jake, good luck, good luck to
Andre August because the wind changes his life. Of course it does. And
again, as we released this podcast late Thursday, as Dan and I tape
into Friday Reminder, Friday Night, Friday Night, Jake Paul and Andre August
on to Zone, so that now takes us in the preview to Saturday,
and also on de Zone, this is Jesse, Bam Rodriguez and Sonny Edwards.
I saw some of them meeting with the media late Thursday afternoon again Arizona
on Mountain time now a couple of hours back from Eastern time that Dan and
I are on. So they were meeting with the media. They get ready
for flyweight unification title fight. Bam Rodriguez exciting young championship fighter Sonny Edwards from
England. Main event from Matchroom and Dezone Glendale, Arizona in the preview mode
A little more, please might one really good matchup. If you're a boxing
fan and you know some of the smaller weight classes, this is about as
interesting and as quality of fight as you can make. You know, it
fit the budget. I mean, the guys are both I'm sure making their
career best paydays. But it doesn't cost crazy millions of dollars to make a
fight like this, so it's affordable for the network, for the promoter.
The boxers still make their biggest paydays. We the fans get to see the
two best fighters in the weight class. Go at each other. I know
there's been some let's call it a kerfuffle, if you will, because the
folks you like when I come up with those good vocabulary. All right,
what's the kerfuffle over? The kerfuffle is that there was a debate among and
I'm not part of this group, but I saw some of the back and
forth. And you know, some of the guys at the Ring Magazine are
mindy, we're not kerfuffling, correct, So there was the discussion and the
debate about whether or not this fight between Sonny Edwards and Bam Rodriguez should be
for the Vacant Ring Magazine flyway title. My memory is correct is that so
was number one, maybe number two. But the point was usually when they
do a title fight, it's either got to be for a vacant it's got
to be the one verses two or one versus three. And I guess that
dam Rodriguez, because as good as he is, he's only had one previous
fight as a flyweight in terms of a title fight, which was when he
won the vacant title in his last fight where he got the broken jaw,
and Sonya Edwards is more experienced and I think they had Julio Caesar Martinez ahead
of him, and anyway, they're people who vote on that sort of thing,
decided not to make this for the vacant title, which I personally disagree
with. I mean, to me, this is a very bona fide,
legitimate fight for the for that Ring Magazine championship, and so uh the fact
that and we'll get to the rest of the card in a minute. On
the Showtime card, Julio Caesar Martinez was supposed to defend the WBC Flyway title
on that undercard against Angelino Cordova on Thursday. That fight was postponed. It
will now take place on a date to be announced next year. And the
reason was because Julio Caesar Martinez has a vic problem could not get in.
And this is just once again yet another Julio S'son Martinez fight right that has
been postponeder canceled. I mean, he has had fights, but I can't
even keep tracking the number five up till like twenty seven. I'm no,
I mean yeah, So to me, you know, Edwards against Bam should
be for the vacant Ring Magazine title. For my money, the winner of
this fight, I will view the person. You know, if it's a
legit clean win as the number one Flyway and you like to say, who
is the guy you believe this winner is the guy at Flyway, I can
tell you know. And I'd still like to see that winner eventually fight Julio
ses On Martinez. I mean that seems kind of unlikely at the moment.
But the main point is here you have Sonny Edward who's twenty zero. You
know, he's he's a little bit older than Bam who's twenty three. Sonny's
twenty seven. But Sonny's in a in the middle of a very nice title
reign. He's making like what his uh one, two, three four.
This will be his fifth title defense, and he's fought you know, when
he when he won the title, he did it against a highly regarded,
very outstanding, very underrated champion in Murudi Madalani from South Africa. He's defended
it pretty impressively without having much trouble against solid names Felix Salvarado, Muhammed Wasim,
you know, et cetera. And now he's got to fight. He
know, he's coming to America from England. He's beg for this type of
fight. When he was a fraze and he signed with Eddie Hearn. You
know, he was not going to accept anything less than a title unification fight.
And he's got Bam Rodriguez, now, Bam. You know, had
got a good run as a champion in the higher way class when he took
a title fight on somewhat short notice, like on a few days and beat
up on Carlos Quadras for the vacant title and then defended it against sickets Rungey
Side two outstanding you know, pound for pound type guys for a long period
of their careers. And and now he's moved down in wait after vacating won
that vacant title back in April of last I take it back in the September
of last year was his last fight at one hundred and fifteen. He went
down in waight, and in this past April, he won that title against
Christian Gonzales. He won a pretty substantial decision, but he also saw it
for a broken jaw. So if there's a question about Vaan Rodriguez is that
this is the first fight since the jaw. Now, when he made some
of his comments at the news conference and during the course of the fight week,
he was asked about the jaw and he actually, I was kind of
surprised by this. He said, it's still giving him a little bit of
trouble, but the standpoint that it's a little bit numb still. But in
terms of his physical fitness and the medical clearance to do the fight and spar
and all that stuff, he said, he's fine, but it's still kind
of it gave me pause when I read that. But he's lucky in one
sense because Sonny Edwards as outstanding of a technical boxer as Sonny is, Sonny
is not a puncher. He's got like four knockouts. I mean, he's
not a big puncher at all. I've watched many, many of Sonny Edwards's
fights and not a big puncher. If he wins the fight, he's gonna
most likely do it, you know, on a decision. But bam.
You know. He was in a running for the Fighter of the Year in
twenty twenty two. After that tremendous run he put together with the three wins
including against like I mentioned, Sharrungi said in Quadrus and then a good solid
win against it real Gonzalez, who was a pretty good contender in his own
right, and like these two guys just want it. They want greatness,
they want the money, they want the legacy, and they both ran towards
this fight. They nobody had to or withst anybody's arm to you know,
take a unification. Neither guy was like somehow concerned about losing their zero on
the record, like so many guys are. It's a first class matchup,
and it's a contrast of styles and uh, I'm very much looking forward to
it a lot of They made this statch. By the way, TJ.
This fight was signed back in June, right, It's just taken a while
because of the combination of the zone lining up at small dates and also because
Bam was still recovering from the jaw injury. But I'm pumped up for this
one, and again on the bet Us line, we'll make mention that we'll
do this live at one Eastern time Friday, Finus on the bet Us platforms,
their YouTube, et cetera. That Bam Rodriguez is minus two point fifty.
It's virtually a fifty to fifty kind of fight. Sonny Edwards plus two
hundred two to one as the underdog schedule twelve rounder with an over under of
ten and a half very intriguing you and I will handicap this coming up on
Friday and Bam again a rising star until the broken jaw is kind of sidelined
me a little bit. And that's some real intrigue on does it affect him
on fight night? But like you said, does Sonny Edwards hit hard enough
for it to affect him? That's part of the intrigue. That's what we'll
find out. Anything else on that the Zone show that stands out, the
match Room de Zone show in Arizona Saturday night, anything else of notice?
Shall we move along? I mean, one thing that is I guess mildly
interesting is the return of MJ Aquadalia, of the former unified title holder at
one hundred and twenty two pounds. He's in a title eliminator against Kevin Gonzales,
who's undefeated. The winner of that fight will put himself in position to
be the mandatory for whoever emerges as the undisputed champion between Noya in a way
and Marlon Tapalas, which comes up on December twenty sixth. Whether that guy
will actually end up fighting the winner of that fight, particularly it's in a
way if he decides to move up and wait remains to be seen. That's
a pretty good matchup and that's the cool feature. And then you know,
I've got some other younger fighters than the matchroom stable coming over from the UK,
Peter mcgraila prospect on the card. But you know, really this is
all about that main event, which is you know, I look at it
as a you know, if you were looking at all the fights that were
scheduled for this fall, you know that's like an A level kind of matchup.
I mean very much intrigue. Just don't know who's gonna win. Two
quality guys in there, you know, in in or approaching their prime and
made the best man win. It should be a good one. I think
vam Rodriguez out of San Antonio, Texas has a big following obviously in San
Antonio. Let's see what happens for this again. Ato Valeen coming up in
a few moments you'll hear from him. He's taking on Anthony Joshua and Saudi
Arabia. Dan had a one on one conversation with him here that in a
few moments. All right, here we go. I I bring it up,
and I see the look on your say, I see the look on
your face. The final Showtime Boxing card comes up now Saturday night. Here
it is after a thirty seven year run. David Burrell in the main event,
defending his WBA Secondary super middleweight title in the main event. As you
already mentioned, one of the title five heights has been lost to a visa
problem for Julio Cesar Martinez. All Right, Dan, time to get sentimental
for a few more moments. We've done a lot on this and about how
it would be the final one. It is now here in frigid Minneapolis,
inside in the Armory, a frequent venue for premiere boxing champions and this will
conclude Showtime Championship Boxing coming up Saturday night. I mean, I'm not really
sure what to say. It's disappointing, it's distressing, It's it's depressing,
it's I mean, I've known nothing other than HBO and Showtime my entire adult
life, for most of when I was a kid, So you know this
one hurts. I don't. It's not like a memorable matchup in terms of
what the what's on the card, the same way it wasn't a top level
matchup in terms of the matches that were on the final HBO card back five
years ago. David Morell is an excellent fighter, you know, has that
secondary title. You know, Canelo Albertz is the un disputed champion, but
who knows if that will ever happen. He's only got nine fights. There'll
be his tenth fight coming up on Saturday. His opponents se Abeco. He's
familiar. I think that the people that have watched show Box all the years
because as a younger fighter, he he you know, came up a little
bit on that series. Remember this was a fight that was supposed to take
placed earlier in the year. Uh it ended up being uh it was canceled.
I guess you is how you d had determin it because they had a
medical uh issue with Senate Agbeco's MRI. This was back in April on the
Ryan Garcia Tank Davis undercard, and so he was out and they put Yamagucci
Falca in to fight David Morrell, who he got knocked out in the first
round, and once uh Beco's medical situation was cleared and everything was good to
go, they rescheduled the fight. So yeah, but you know, it's
kind of anybody I don't I don't think anybody in good conscious is nothing against
ageco. I don't think anybody can really good conscious look at this match up
and say you're gonna see like in the final show timing events something like super
Memorable or you know, in All Time Classic. I mean, it's it's
most people would look at it as a straightforward victory for David Merrell, and
you never know, that's why they fight the fights. Uh So it's kind
of hard to get you know, really excited for the main event. Uh
well, and the belief is he may score another big knockout here to help
his credibility at one sixty eight. That's the injury possible right right at the
co feature. I think is probably the fight that most people look at as
like the quote unquote real fight that that means something, and that's the rematch
between the lightweight up and commerce Chris Colbert and Jose Valezuela. This is the
second fight earlier in the year they did fight, and it was a I
guess, sort of a controversial decision where Clobert got to win. A lot
of people thought that that Downswell deserved to get to win. It was you
know, I don't know if it was. I can't say it was like
some kind of great fight, but they decided to make the rematch, and
you know, it's an important fight for both guys. If valan Zuelle loses
a second time in a row, that's a problem for him and uh and
you know, if if Clobert does a win, people look at back at
the first fight and say, well, you know you didn't deserve that win
in the first place. So you got two younger guys both looking to h
to make, you know, a bigger name for themselves. And on the
bet Us line, Hello, we're not gonna officially picked this fight, but
this will come up during our live show, even money fight. We rare
surprised to see that with the odds where just take either one of them on
the money line right now even it's listed as even, or either Colbert or
Valezuela. Interesting on that twelve round when when they fought back in March,
this was one of the pay per view undercard fights back when Ben Avidi's had
the fight against Caleb Plants and the scores of the fight all three judges had
it the same. I don't know if they I don't think they all scored
every single round the same, but all three judges had it ninety five to
ninety four in favor of Colbert, but there was a ton of people that
felt like Valenzuela, you know, was the rightful winner of that fight.
So okay, you know, props to Colbert forgiving them a rematch, for
Valonzuela for wanting the rematch, so they'll do it again. They're both younger
on the rise, and you know, so that's that's a quality match.
But and then the other fight, because remember they added a fourth fight just
a few days ago, which now becomes the third fight of a triple huader
with the Martinez fight postpone, and it's the blackass in the past fight.
That's the wealth rate re matched from twenty twelve. I think it was between
Robert Guerrero, who won the first time around against Andre Berdo. And we
talked at length the other night about this, and you were looking into the
research, Oh I got going for you, and you said, Larry Holmes
and bone Crusher Smith, right, if you've done more research on on trying
to find ones that have been that long since the rematch. I didn't do
the research, but other people shouted it out to me, and I feel
kind of like stupid for not realizing it, and that because I was at
the second fight. Unfortunately, as I joked around, I tried to forget
it. So thank you for reminding me. Not no, thanks for reminding
me. And that's the many many years that transpired between the first fight between
Roy Jones and Bernard Hopkins for the vacant middleweight IBF belt the way back in
like I forget the year ninety six maybe whenever that was, and then they
fought again, you know, like eighteen years later whatever it was. That
was a fight at Mandalay Bay that I went to and now I'm gonna have
to look that up, because wow, the rematch was such a terrible,
terrible fight. They mean, for many years when they were both at their
best, remember they were on the pound for pound top couple of guys forever
and ever. Roy Jones was number one for like a decade. Bernard was
always, you know, for many years sort of trailing behind him a little
bit. But when the second fight happened, this was like in another area
code in this existence from the first fight. The point I'm making is like
in the early two thousands, the rematch was something that HBO was was really
desperately trying to put together. There was a ton of people that really wanted
to see it. It was a huge fight. Back at that time,
they oh, I made a mistake. I just I said the first I
was ninety six. Their first fight was in May of nineteen ninety three.
It took place in RFK Stadium, about probably half an hour from my house
where it was on the undercard when Riddick bow was still heavyweight champion, a
title fight at the RFK Stadium, So May of ninety three. Now,
a lot of shit happened between ninety three and when they had the rematch.
I mean, Roy was up and down. Bernard would like had a ton
of fights. He went through like seventeen careers. It feels like the rematch
was not intel. I mean, this is just unbelievable. The rematch was
in twenty ten, So from ninety three to twenty ten, twenty seven years.
No, well, no, seventeen years, I'm sorry, two thousand,
seventeen years. So, geez, that was Holmes and bone Crusher was
Holmes and bone Crusher was sixteen years, right, didn't you say? It
was eighty three to ninety nine. So it was just the fact that deb
Berto is now doing it a decade plus after. I mean, it's it's
there's not a lot of fights that you can think of where there's that much
time between a rematch. Amazing. They're both forty. I mean the first
fight was a pretty good fight, as my recollection goes, and so it
doesn't really mean a whole lot, but it's I guess it's the last show
time. They're looking for some nostalgia, although I kind of find it ironic
because the first fight between Berto and Guarrero actually was on HBO. But you
know whatever, here we are, here we are, so this will be
the final card. I'll tell you one thing. Let's just be honest about
it. I mean nothing against the matches that they put on. You know,
Clobert and don Zuela fine. I like watching David Morrell, even though
I don't expect too much from him. You know, Berto and Guerrero've always
been honest fighters in the ring, given their best efforts and all fair enough.
I'm looking forward to the highlight reel and they better fucking do a good
one, and I'm gonna be pissed. Oh I think they will with all
of I mean from Mike Tyson to Floyd to Dale Hooya, back to Lennox
Lewis. I know what you're talking about, not Hoya but Manny pa early
days. What are you talking about? Manny Pack fought in Showtime like once
once? All right, but they've got I mean they're talking that their main
guys, the guys that you that are the superstars of Showtime that you would
affiliate with Showtime. Floyd several Canelo fights, Mike Tyson, Uh, certainly
who Felix, Felix Trinidad, Evander Holyfield. I mean, but they had
lots of great fighters, you know, Uh, andre Ward, Bernard Hopkins
fought many fights on Showtime. You know. Basically, if you were a
don king fighter in the nineties at any of any relevance, you were on
Showtime. Uh. Unfortunately, if you were not of relevance, sometimes we're
also on Showtime. But that's the story for another day. But Showtime's had
it has a tremendous history in the boxing. Their first ever fight was Marvin
Hagler against John and the Beast Mugatti. So when you start with Hagler and
Mugabi and you finished with Morella Abaco, uh, and a lot of ups
and downs in between. I have to watch, I have to swat and
correct Rayfield. Their first fight was that fight card. There were other fights
they showed on replay. Then they showed Haglers the main event. It is
kind of interesting that Hagler all timer, the late Marvin Hagler, one of
the all time greats, is the first ever main event fight. And then
we get David Morrell. No offense to David Morrell, but that's the last
ever main event. Okay, thirty seven years later and Haler had his biggest
fights on HBO. Also correct, but still it's been Let's just see what
that montage looks like. And again they will sign it off and the whole
bit and we'll recap all of this on the Fight Freaks Unit recap with whatever
they'll finish, they'll finish their boxing, uh Tour of duty, if you
will, have put on the biggest pay perview fights in the history of the
sport because they were the promoter, you know, with HBO and the actual
promoters of Mayweather Pac Yo. They did Connor McGregor against Floyd Mayweather, which
is number two, and they've done several other fights with Tyson and the Holy
Field and things like that that we're high up on those lists also, So
they have a great history and it's a sad weekend, there is no doubt
about that, all right, So let's segue off of those previews into your
conversation with Auto Valen. He is coming up on this day of reckoning a
pay per view in Saudi Arabia, not this weekend, but Saturday, the
twenty third. He will fight Anthony Joshua. Hear from him right now,
heavyweight contender. He's been in there with Tyson Fury, among others. What
kind of threat is he to Joshua? Hear that conversation right now in our
preview mode. Well, it's my pleasure to bring into the podcast today the
heavyweight contender Otto Valleen. Auto. It's been a while since I've talked to
you. I mean, I covered fight with Tyson Fear. I've watched how
your career has gone since then. You've won six fights in a row.
You have now landed a very big fight with Anthony Joshua, which we're going
to get into. Thank you very much for doing this. How's everything going.
I think it's going well, Thank you. I'm really excited about this
opportunity. So it's nice that it's finally happening. Well, I'm happy for
you. I will tell the people You're gonna fight Anthony Joshua in the main
event of the Day of Reckoning. It's a big mega card, a lot
of big time fights on that show. December twenty third and Riad Sadi Arabia
live on his own pay per view. And I was really interested when I
saw that this fight was made and had heard that they had made this match.
I thought about a lot of things, But the first thing was otto
that you had fought Ma Gassia in Turkey in September, and you got to
win in that fight in a decision, and now this fight is in December,
so it must have been like right after that fight, or maybe even
they had a deal before the fight. Can you just sort of walk me
through how quickly things developed once the Gassia fight was over or did this fight
already have been present? Did you prior to that fight? No, I
had no idea. I had no idea, So I had to fight with
Gasia, had a week off in Turkey, I had some adivacation there,
went back to Sweden for a couple of couple of weeks and then came back
to New York and then early November we heard about this fight, so so
it was not fast at all, or I mean it was fast when it
finally happened, but before that we didn't know about it. So then we
got to call Jolie, my manager. We went back and forth with the
other side, Joshua's side, and we made a deal and I think two
days, so it was it was really things happened really fast. I was
going to ask you, I like, because usually these types of fights,
I mean, Anthony Joshua, you know his fights, they take a little
time to development to be made. But obviously the way that this card is
being put together, it seems like money is really not any object for uh,
you know, his excellency and the folks over in Saudi Arabia that are
putting this together. Did did you have any reservations about getting back in the
ring and going right back in the camp so quickly after your fight with Gassia.
I didn't actually, because we felt like I've just been a good guy
in Gassia. But I didn't take much punishment and I didn't have any injuries
or anything. So that's what we based it on. If he had been
a really tough fight, maybe I wouldn't have taken this fight, but he
wasn't, so I was in good shape already, no injuries, felt great,
So I think, yes, that fight just gave me great momentum going
into this fight. Well, right, you should probably be pretty sharp having
just fought just a couple of months before you get in the ring on the
twenty third, I wondered, I have to be honest. I mean,
I know Anthony Joshua has not been the type of fighter that's looked to avoid
opponents. You know, he's fought a lot of good guys in his career,
been a champion two times, and you know, fought in different countries
and things along those lines. But I was a little surprised if he decided
to fight Otto Valleen, because you know, you're good, but that's not
his thing. You're also a South Pond. I know they don't really love
fighting left hainters. I've seen comments from hern and I've watched his performances against
other Southpaws Uhsik for example. I mean, you guys are different kind of
South Paus. But were you a little surprised that Joshua agreed to fight you,
because he really, frankly, could have had the pick of pretty much
any contender out there would have been happy to fight him, I'm sure,
and they'd have been able to make a deal. I was surprised. I
was surprised. But what I think did it was that I did number two
spot with the IBF, and that tied him might become vacant. So they
probably want the number two spot to fight for for the IBS against Herkovich.
But of course I'm looking to win this fight, so they can forget about
that and whatever they have plans whenever they have planned now. But I think
that I was at a little surprised because I'm a south paw, I'm tricky
and I'm good, and he's kind of short notice for the fight, and
also he has a new trainer again, so I think that's all to my
advantage. Well, you brought up about how you know you plan on winning
this fight, and it leads me to the question. I wanted you just
to get your thoughts, and I know you want to win. Of course,
that's why you're in the business, you know, when the fights,
when titles make money, all that. Certainly the people that are putting this
event together where they have you fighting Anthony Joshua in the in the in the
set, and the other you know, major fight on the card of the
Let's call out the you know the i'd really co feature, you know,
a comin event, however you want to describe it. They have Deontay Wilder
fighting Joseph Parker. It's very obvious based on the commentary from everybody and the
way this was put together is that the goal I think in the end is
for if Joshua and Wilder are the winner, to put them together. That's
been a fight that boxing fans have talked about, media have talked about for
a very long time. They're two huge stars, two big names. But
you and Joshua, you and Joseph Parker, you know, can alter that
in a big way if you come out victorious. And I wonder how much
besides just your own desire to be the winner and to move your own career
head, do you relish sort of messing up the plans for everybody else when
that's what so many people are talking about. I think that would be so
sweet. If I fell in the fight, then they can forget about you
know, the wild to fire, well, they can do it anyways,
who knows. I mean, it's still a big fight, I think.
But if he loses this fight, I'm gonna move on. I'm going to
be on top of the world and one of the best fighters out there and
should be in line to fight Whenny title. And then Parker and Wilder.
I don't think that's an easy fight because Wilder hasn't been active. I think
he has like one round in two years, so you're right, Parker has
been active, but it depends on how Parker comes out. If he comes
out trying to box, he probably get knocked out. But if he could
take it to Wilder, then I think he could be a good fight.
Yeah. I imagine that he probably relishes the thought of messing up a lot
of plans, just like you do. You mentioned about Anthony Joshua he's now.
I don't think he parted ways specifically with Derek James. I think it
was the scheduling that they had and the locations of fights that made it not
likely that they'd be able to work together for this fight. So he's going
to be with Ben Davison and I just wonder what are your thoughts about Joshua
where he is in his career right now, having had two fights this year.
You know, looked okay in those fights after the losses, but and
now he's going in with you third fight this year, but also changing trainers
once again. Uh to Ben Davison, who you know has gone against you
as the trainer for Tyson Furry right. I don't know Ben Davison that well,
so I don't really know what he can do about I think that Joshua
is I don't think evert is a good sign when he start switching trainers usually
doesn't end well, doesn't get better usually. So I have a hard time
seeing that Ben can really change Jim will improve much in this short amount of
time, because I feel like you have to trust your trainer and they have
to trust you, and and it takes it takes time to build a good
relationship and and understand what your training is asking for. So I think I
don't I don't think they can do much in this short amount of time.
Do you think Where do you think he is in his career, Anthony?
I mean, he did win two fights in a row to shake off those
losses, and now he's agreed to fight you. Uh. Is he still
a guy that you're thinking can do things. I know you're looking to stop
that, but what is your assessment of where he's at in his career now.
I think that he's still one of the best out there. He's a
good fighter. It is so suspect, but I think that there's been a
decline. Of course, I think it has been, and I think it's
a lot of a mental thing for him. I think that he feels vulnerable
now. He knows that he can lose, he knows that he can get
hurt. So I think that this timing is really good for me. I
have great momentum coming in from my last fight, and you know, like
I said a press conference, I'm gonna help Joshua. I think he's on
his way way out, really and I'm gonna help him with that. I
got you. I wonder you know when you see the way that the rest
of the card shakes out your fight. Obviously we talked about Deontay and Joseph
Parker, but they got Hergovich on the card. They got to meet you
biople defending the light heavyweight title. They got Opataia, the number one cruiserweight
in a fight. They have Daniel Duba, They've got other heavyweight fights.
What do you think about just the magnitude of the card and how load it
is, and the fact that they you're the guy opposite corner in the main
event of this huge cart. It's amazing. It's amazing. Like we didn't
we just talk about that that boxing wasn't even allowed in Sweden. Maybe that
was somebody else, Ill talk to him else. Yeah. Sorry. When
I first started boxing, professional boxing wasn't even allowed in Sweden, right,
and that now to be here fighting on a huge card like this, it's
just really amazing. I'm so happy, and I feel like it worked.
All the work that I put put in over the years and all the sacrifice
is finally coming. It's finally all work. It Well, you have won
six fights in a row since your fight against Tyson Fury, a decision loss
that you were extremely competitive in, and I wondered when you think about that
fight in twenty nineteen against Tyson Fury. You fought him, he wasn't he
didn't have any of the belts, but he was the lineal champion, he
was undefeated. It was a pretty big deal. I was at that fight
covering it, and I remember when you open up that terrible cut over his
eye. I think it wound up being two cuts in total. He ended
up having that forty seven stitches. A lot of us at ringside that night.
Oh my goodness, Otto Valley, unknown at that time, is going
to pull off a huge upset and uh and win this fight, become the
lineal heavyweight champion of the world. I think in a lot of places doctors
or refs would have stopped that fight based on the severity of the cuts that
Tyson Fury had. Uh, he was allowed to continue, you know,
he based on that. He did win the fight on points. But how
often do you think about how close you were to stopping Tyson Fury giving him
his first loss, And I would tell you that would have changed so much
about the history of the heavyweight division seeing what has occurred since then. Do
you like, Yeah, I mean in a lot of places they stopped that
fight, you know, Yeah, yeah, I think so too they.
I mean, of course, if you asked me, I feel like they
should have stopped it. And if I had that cut, that would definitely
have stopped the fight. But you know, he got to give some respect
to Fury. He kept fighting. He showed a lot of heart he came
through. But I mean, I've been thinking about it, of course,
but I try not to think about it too much. I feel like now,
I mean, I move on. This is four years and stuff,
and I want my career to be more than the guy to get few a
good fight. So hey, maybe it's a really it's a really good opportunity
to set everything. Maybe maybe a rematch with Tyson Fury someday. But since
that fight, like I said, this is I'll just wrap up with this.
You won the six fights in a row, but you have they've been
some of those fights have been kind of smaller fights, not big TV fights,
you know, I know you had one like on a small club show,
that sort of thing. Was it at all frustrating knowing what a great
performance you had put in with Fury and that you were, you know,
a bona fide contender, and that that the bigger fights were not materializing and
this one has sort of dropped in your lap as we talked about, Uh,
but was there ever a sense of frustration that you know, I'm spinning
my wheels, I'm I'm fighting, I'm winning, and I just can't get
traction with a big time fight. It was very frustrating. It was very
frustrating. I didn't get much fights, didn't get really good and a big
fight, so it was hard. It was hard. I mean, when
you're a fighter and you don't make you don't get big fights, you don't
make any money. So you know, I live in New York. It's
not very cheap to live here and not getting fights. I'm at the gym
twice every day, just trying to get better, trying to you know,
be ready for the fights. But they seem to never come at some point,
but I just focus, stayed in gym. I felt like it's got
to come sometimes, get I gotta get some child, and finally it's here.
So I'm just so happy. I stayed in the gym, kept training,
kept doing my thing, and and yeah, like I say, it's
finally here. But it was tough at times, really tough. I felt
like, oh my god, I'm never going to get a big fight again.
But like, what's going on, Well, you've got the big fight
now. I wish you the best of luck in that fight December twenty third
against Anthony Joshua Otto. Thank you very much for joining me today. I
appreciate it, and I wish you good luck in the match. Thank you
very much. So there you go. And again that is coming up next
Saturday, the twenty third in Saudi Arabia is part of that co main event
of volin Fighting Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker. All right,
so you you heard from him in his own words. You don't have to
handicap the fight right now, but Veleene legit, legit fighter for Anthony Joshua.
What other thoughts here to recap that conversation? Ottoveleen is just a pros
pro. You know, he takes things very seriously. He's well spoken about
it. He kind of says what he means. I feel like, you
know, he's not afraid. You know, if you listen to the interview,
wasn't afraid to admit the frustrations that he had when he couldn't get fights
after having such a you know, a big time performance against Tyson Fury.
Uh. You know, I thought was honest when he talked about how how
how much bothered him that like, you know, he really was like a
punch away from the being the winner and a lot of places he would have
got to win because the doctors would have stopped it because of the terrible cut
he opened. And he's also I love the fact that he he relish.
It is the fact that he can fuck up a lot of plans for a
lot of people if he wins, the same way that Joseph Parker can do
if he beats Wilder. And besides just wanting to advance his own career with
the victory against Joshua, you know he would he would take great pleasure in
destroying the plans that people are trying to make before he's even gotten in the
ring with this man. And again, as you as you've made mention,
this is a huge stage and a pay per view, and the victory puts
him in if if, if he somehow finds a way to win, it
puts him in the mix for whatever could go on twenty twenty four, twenty
twenty five. That's all you can ask for. I'll just tell you one
thing. There's no doubt about it that in my mind anyway, I think
the minds of most people, this is a winnable fight for for Auto Valley,
no question. Anthony Joshua of course is the favorite, and most people
will expecting they should win the fight, but otto is no joke. He's
a solid guy and I also loved this and we talked about this. He
just fought in September, so he's fresh. He came out he said no
injuries. That's why I took the fight. I was ready to go.
So he's in shape. He just fought at the end of September in a
solid fight. I went twelve rounds against Mura Gassia, so he's ready to
go. All right. Into some news, It has been out there on
the internet, et cetera, that Anthony Joshua Deontay Wilder looking at fighting in
March. That's not a nuclear secret that they are looking to set that fight
up. Une sets you straight, please, it's not out there on the
internet. It's one news article by my old employer at ESPN that's said that
they have agreed to terms for a fight on March ninth. And now you
are ready to say on the podcast, that's bullshit. They're not aving now
that story and I'm not saying you can't do this because I've done it.
We've all done it is reported with no attribution to any particular source, and
I get that. I mean, we've all been there. If you're a
journalist. You understand how that works. I hope. I'm questioning whether some
people do or not. But that's besides the point. The fight has not
been agreed to. Now are they working on it? Yes? The idea
is to have it in March March ninth. Obviously it pends. It would
be pending victories by both Joshua and Wild on December twenty third, It would
be pending them emerge d from those victories injury free. Now you don't have
to go back down long ago to know what happened with Tyson Fury. The
reason why December twenty third, the Day of Reckoning is happening, is because
the Tyson Fury fight against Alexander Usak for the undisputed title that was supposed to
be on December twenty third is not happening because Tyson Fury got cut, got
dropped, looked like shit, barely won, and was embarrassed and begged off
doing it in December because of him locking his wounds, so to speak,
from the bad performance he had against Francis Nagandhu back you know, not that
long ago. So they put this Day of Reckoning card together on somewhat short
order to do with December twenty third. They're trying to keep all these events
within the context of the several months long read season. So they did that
fight, They're doing this fight December. They've got Usik scheduled against Tyson Fury
four or February, and now the idea is just before I guess the end
of a RIAD season in March, to get another big time fight card in
which would be Anthony Joshua against Deontay Wilder. But it's not just about whether
they win and not get injured. As I am told, there are still
serious open issues on a number of fronts, not the least of which this
is probably the biggest one, is that they have not agreed to how what
the terms are for a second fight, because this is going to be a
two fight deal. My source tells me it's a two fight deal. But
usually when we talk about that, let's take the Aerol Spence and Crawford fight
for example, or any number of fights that we can talk about, is
the guy who loses then has the option to invoke his rematch right right.
He can pass on it, or he can he can ask for it,
Like when Deontay Wilder lost to Tyson Fury in their second fight, he exercises
right to a third fight. Terrence Crawford defeated Errol Spence in July. Aerol
Spence has invoked his right to a contractual rematch. What they're hung up on
in the Saudi fight is not about if the loser gets to invoke a rematch.
It's that the Saudis have the option of the fight. It's not about
it's a two fight deal period whoever wins and losers. So Joshua and Wilder
would not have the right to say yeay or nay. It's up to the
Saudi's if they're going to be interesting, they put on a second fight.
So that's a big part of it. And the other thing again, I
also I try always to deal with people on the record, and that's where
Shelley Finkle comes and he is the manager of Deontay Wilder, and I asked
him about what was going on. He's actually in Saudi Arabia because obviously Deonta
is fighting next week, so he's already traveled there. And when I texted
with him about the situation, you know, he basically was like, no,
we don't have a deal yet, And I quote, this is from
Shelley Finkle directly, So no sources said this is right. Now, He's
not the one that told me this guy is doing the deal for Deontay Wilder
go ahead. Yes, he's his career long managers and I quote at this
point there is no deal. He's on the record saying that. So anybody
that reported that they have a deal done in terms of even agreed to,
and I'm not saying they said it, that's sign is simply inaccurate reporting period.
We all hope it happens, sure, but let's lay this out there.
Same individual, I'll name the name, Mike Coppinger. He was talking
about the Haini Progray fight, and my man Rayphiel refuted and said, not
done for Las Vegas in November. I remember you saying it very plainly,
it's not done for Las Vegas in November. It turned out it was in
San Francisco in December. We just had it last weekend. So when you
are saying this is not done, it's because maybe it's going to be on
that date, maybe it's going to be on another date, or maybe it's
not happening. It's not done. The date that they have is March ninth.
Now, could it happen at some other time, I guessed, but
the Saudi's are very married to having it within the context. I understand h
Riah season. But the point here is the most important thing is at the
time that the story was reported that the deal was done, it wasn't done.
And I'm telling you it wasn't done. And now from a somebody involved
in the room says it's not done, says it's not done. Period,
It's not done. And so this is interesting too, because if you're talking
about in the United States, this doesn't matter in Britain, it doesn't matter
in Europe. That is the Saturday before what because you and I are big
fans of it, March Madness begins for the NCAA basketball term. It's not
the only thing going on, but it's one of the biggest things in American
sports every year, and it's the next three weekends where this fight you talk
about back burner. It might not even be on the stove, really your
sports relevance. The Saudis don't give a shit about it. I understand that,
but I'm saying that's why. I mean, if they cared about that,
they wouldn't be putting this fight card next week on the weekend of Christmas.
I mean, it's just as simple as that. But it's also just
enough before it. But in this particular case, if you want people in
the United States to pay significant attention to this, you want to kind of
find a slot where it would be. And so we'll see, for whatever
reason, it's that date. We'll see if it gets done on that date.
Your point again, one more time, it's not done. It's not
done. So not done means not done, all right. A couple of
other news items, Tank Davis, Devin Haney speaking to Devin Haney off the
win, going back and forth with Tank Davis about whether they would fight.
By the way, what did you make of the rehydration did you see this?
And it was officially listed that Devon Haney went into the ring weighing one
hundred and sixty five pounds the other night and the win over Regis program.
Anything you make anything of that on rehydration clauses? Holy cow, Well there
was no rehydration clause. It doesn't surprise me. I don't know why people
get all hung up on that stuff. They're playing within the rules. Devin
Haney went to the weigh in as instructed by the California State Athletic Commission.
He weighed in at or below the limit of one hundred and forty pounds,
and there was no rehydration. Clausn't he put on whatever he naturally put on
it. I will just say this. There are a lot of critics and
a lot of people that have pointed this out. This is dangerous stuff long
term. I'm not a doctor. When somebody puts on twenty five pounds in
one twenty four hour period after doing this, tells you what they did to
their body to make the weight in the first place. That's why a lot
of people raise eyebrows when it's that much. It wasn't just a boxing for
one hundred plus years. And the answer is very simple. You know,
I don't. I don't know. I don't know that it was happening one
hundred years ago. I don't know that was happening. CJ. Don't fuck
with me right now. I'm not in the mood, Okay. The point
is, if you want to do it the way they used to do it,
which is way in in the morning of that is that is the boxers
fighting in their natural weight class. But you'll also run the risk of having
fights canceled on the day of the fight, and it is not you know,
it has been proven for over years that it will be people who are
far more scientific than I that it is safer to weigh in the day before.
Where I feel like the problem occurs is this they've so bastardized the day
before weigh in to make it almost like irrelevant because they're weighing in way more
than twenty four hours at a time, thirty hours, thirty six hours side
right before the fight. Right, every single commission and every single jurisdiction should
be a certain maximum number of hours before weigh in. It should be standard.
You shouldn't allow the A side to dictate we're gonna have a morning weigh
in, or we're gonna push it to the afternoon to make you starve more,
or because I need more time to lose weight. No, no,
no, no no. If the fight's gonna be the card starts at whatever
time, you make sure that they're weighing in, you know, within a
certain amount of time beforehand, every single time. No trade to a different
time to whatever, because you know one guy is the one that's the champion
or the ast side, and the other guy is the opponent that nobody cares
about. Whatever, No, everything should be the same. In the case
of Hani versus Program, they played by the rules as instructed by the Califriga
Commission. So if you put on one pound or fifty pounds, that's within
the rules. That's all I care about. I'm not saying it's not within
the rules, but from a health standpoint, And by the way, don't
screw with me on this. If guys are required to be in and around
their fighting weight, they're gonna be in shape because they're training more often,
and they'll probably be more active in the ring more often. That's another point.
I know this too. Say whatever you want about Devin Hainey's twenty five
pounds. Devin Haney's in good shape, great shape, tremendous shape, no
doubt in my mind. Oh yeah, there's no doubt about that, all
right, So he and Tank Davis. I say it to you this way
all the time. Realism meter from ray Field seeing it in twenty twenty four.
Is it a three? Is it a five? Is it a six
and a half? Do I sense even more than that that this could actually
happen or is it, as you like to say, Shakespeare much ado about
nothing. But I think it could happen. I think it could happen.
I don't. I mean, I I'm not saying that I think it will
happen. I'm saying that there's no barrier for it to happen because Devin Haney
is not under contract to a broadcast or a promoter. Tank Davis, you
know, kind of calls his shots even though he's with PBC. He's got
a lot of sayte to on what he wants to do. He's no longer
under a promotional contract with maybe Weather Promotions, and so you know, if
he wants the smoke or if Devin Hainey is willing to do it for a
certain amount of you know, the short end of the money obviously, because
he's not going to get parody. If that's what he thinks, then the
fight absolutely can happen. I think a lot of people would like to see
it. I think it's one of the best fights you can make in one
hundred and forty pounds. Tank Davis has fought before one, so I don't
believe weight's an issue. Devin Hainey's last fight before program was at one hundred
and thirty five. Ainy you know, looked good at his at one Tank
Davis in his one one forty fight scored a big knockout against Mario Barrios.
It's a big money fight. It's a fight that would sell out wherever they
put it. It's a fight that would generate pay per view interest, and
and and the reason we were even talking about this is because the crazy back
and forth, you can, I don't need to chapter in verse, the
nonsense. Oh look at it, right, go look at the back and
forteen these two guys, you know, was as heavy duty shit talk as
you've seen in a long time. And believe me, if they actually agreed
to the fight, it would most likely continue up until the fight, and
that would bring a lot of people into that tent, so to speak,
and buying the pay per views. So I'd love to see it happen.
Whether it does or not, you know, I'm skeptical. But one other
variable reason why I can't. One other variable. Eddie Hearn stayed on the
West coast obviously San Francisco pay per view last week for the Haney Prograde fight
for Matchroom. Now they're in Arizona for this Bam Rodriguez Sonny Edward's title fight,
and it was on social media that he went to the headquarters of what
Golden Boy Boxing, Oscar de la Hoya's plays. And I don't think that
Eddie and his people were there just to see the Christmas decorations, which was
on social media. They were checking out the bunting, they were checking out
the wreaths and the Christmas tree. Connect the dots that that's Ryan Garcia's promoter.
I don't know what else they would have been talking about. Who knows
if that fight could happen, but I think it's interesting to talk about.
Yeah, they actually are talking about doing doing you know, hany and Ryan.
It's a fight that Ryan was asking for if you are Devin Haney,
uh and let's be you know, no knock on Ryan Garcia. I think
on a boxing perspective, it's an easier fight, uh that they probably think,
and it's a it's a significant fight in terms of gate and paper game
and all that. So that's definitely a fight that they could talk about.
But they also have the possibility of talking about at the sometime next year of
doing Mongia against Edgar Berlanga, which is the fight that the zoner was very
interested in. Obviously, the two guys are gonna have fights against different oponents
in the first quarter. Are you saying that Eddie was there for more than
the eggnog at the Golden Boy head quarters? Sure? Probably not just there
for the eggnog. And look, here's the thing. It shouldn't relatively speaking,
within this crazy business for Matsroom Boxing and Golden Boy promotions, when they've
got fighters that match up with each other, it should not be that difficult
to make the fights relatively speaking, as long as the boxer won it.
Because they're on the same boxing platform and his zone has a lot to say
about that. They can prevent present the United Front, and they're all working
with for the same team. They're not even you know, it used to
be back in the old when Showtime was an open shop and everybody could try
to get fight dates on there, and when HBO was like that, the
promoters would battle with each other on that platform because they were trying to grab
their own pieces of that pie on his owne. Golden Boy knows what it's
getting from for its part of the deal, and Masro mos what it is
getting. They're not fighting for each other's money. Gotcha good to know?
Uh. Two Japanese fight cards announced. Let's talk about that, do a
little nostalgia, and then we're done. It's been a busy show. You're
intrigued. You refer to yourself as a sicko. I think you're just I
for these, for these Japanese fight cards. Hold on, hold on,
hold on. I used the word degenerate. Degenerate, all right, so
I'll get to your proper adjet. I don't think you're a degenerate. There's
a lot of exciting fight cards there, and just because it may not be
English speaking fighters and it may be on in the early morning in the US,
doesn't mean that it's not entertaining. And they've announced a couple of more
for January and February. Give it to us. Go listen. One of
my favorite things in boxing are these fight cards from Japan. They always have
in when I would we talked about getting the DVDs and the and the and
the vhs and all that. But now it's so easy because Top Rank,
which has a close relationship with Teaking Promotions in Japan, they bring all these
all these world title cards from from Japan, and they have the ESPN Plus
in the early morning hours, and uh and and I love them. They're
there's so much fun to watch. They pay have a lot of great fighters
over there, and we never got a chance to see on regular television here
in the United States. So they announced two events. They did a joint
press conference on Thursday in Japan. The first one is going to be January
twenty third in Osaka. It is the unified Junior flyweight champion, also the
Ring Magazine Champion, Canchiro Taraji, who in my opinion, is pushing like
the pound for poundless given his domination and the quality of fights that he has
had. Recently, He's taken on a former title holder in Carlos Kenna'salas.
That should be a very good fight. And on the undercard you have Ardam
Delakian, he is defending the WBA flywaight title. And you also have more
of a kind of a I won't call it a side show, but he's
more of like somebody that the fans in Japan are sort of intrigued by.
And that's the kickboxing star tension. Nasukawa, who to boxing fans at least
in America, is probably known only because he got absolutely pummeled and destroyed in
the first exhibition match that Floyd Mayweather had after his retirement. But he has
now taken you know, I'm not saying he didn't take that seriously me.
Now he's in real boxing matches and he's turned professional with Teak and he's now
two and zero, and so he's being built up on these shows. So
he's a junior featherweight fighting in like one of the other bouts in this card
and in the other fight card that they announced which is February the twenty fourth,
that will take place in Tokyo. If you recall back on one of
the I think it was the was Errol Spence against We were there, yes,
on that July pay per view. Yes, they had the great upset
of the Alexandro Santiago who defeated Nonito Donair, who was heavily favored in that
fight to win the WBC's vacant bantamweight title. And so he is taking his
show on the road and going and he is in a very very tough assignment.
He's taken on the fierce, punching, very dominating junto Knakatani who was
moving up in weight, who has been a champion in the flyweight and jingor
bannamweight the category knocking guys silly. I mean remember earlier this year probably the
knockout of the year when he knocked out Andrew Maloney on the Lomachenko Devin Haney
undercard. So you know they're given Santiago. He's getting paid well because that
one does not look good for him. But Nowakatani's going for a title in
the third weight class, and they've rescheduled uh Takuma in a way, who
is the brother of Nouelia in a way, his defense against the uh former
title holder. Sherwent on Cassas that he's the in a way one that when
his brother vacated to Kuma in a way won the vacant w BA bantamway title.
So he's defending that against Akosas. That was a fight that was supposed
to take place in November, was postponed because of an injury, and so
it's now on this card also. And then you have Coosey Tanaka. Again
if you follow Japanese boxing, he's a top top star over right, you
know he's gonna be going for i think the title in a fourth weight class.
The Junior banda Waight WBO title against a Mexican fighter Christian Bachus Segura.
And let me tell you they've loaded these shows up. I mean, those
are a lot of good names that it's very intriguing fights. Na Katani is
one of the fan favorites, at least if you're a diehard and you know
Tanaka is looking to make some history in a way, first defense against equality
former champion. So, as I've said to you before on ESPN Plus,
I'm taking it. You wake up nice and early, have a little coffee,
and maybe go back to bed for a little while. But I'm definitely
down for these two events. Love it all right, Let's do a little
nostalgia and then we are done. And you talked about this before, when
you talk about pay per views and stacked cards. Let's go back to twenty
years ago. This week in two thousand and three, December thirteenth, and
a Don King pay per view. It's like the gain su Stak knives Rayfield.
How much would you pay now? Nine nine nineteen ninety five, But
wait, there's more twenty nine ninety five. How many fights and championship fights
on this Don King pay per view? And give me the roll call again
real quick. So this was the record eight title fights on the same show.
There was no other fights on the cart except I'm sorry, did you
say eight? Did you say eight? We struggled to get two decent title
fights on a paper there were eight. As I wrote in my most recent
substack notebook, where I do my Show and Tell, where I show someone
in then rebellion, I put in this particular case, I put up the
poster from this particular card that I wrote about how promoters today will will not
just today, but back in the years passed. Also they would refer to
their car as a stacked card. Can this the stacked undercard? And I
give them the finger because ninety nine percent of the cards are not stacked.
Most of them stink, And if it is stacked, it may be,
like you said, stack might be a reference to you get like, you
know, two or two good fights, maybe three. Now I'll give them
credit the card in Saudi Arabia that's coming on on the twenty third for them
to use the word stacked. That's that's lea. Yes, that's stacked.
Yes, most other cards are not stacked. Okay, but don king love
him or hate him in the nineteen nineties and into the early two thousands put
on a shiload of stacked cards. Just take a look, go and box
treck. Look up some of the Julio Sesar Chabas undercards when he was fighting
on Showtime pay per view back in the old days and was called set.
Look at some of the Mike Tyson under cards after he got out of prison.
That that king was putting on those types of shows. This was a
car did he put on in two thousand and three at the Boardwalk Call in
Atlantic City. Now he produced the show with his own announcers and his own
graphics and all that. It was distributed by HBO, and I covered this
fight. I went to a press conference, like when they did the tour
ahead of time, and they did a three city tour in New York,
in Washington where William Joppy was from, which was Bernard Hopkins's opponent for the
main event, then Philadelphia where Bernard was from, and the DC press conference.
Bernard Hopkins threw a chair at William Joppy. It was completely fucking chaos.
Okay, wait where were you? Just real quick when the chair was
thrown, how close were you? Did you have to duck. What I
mean, what about that while we go I did not have to duck because
I was sitting in the media area. I was in literally like the first
row, so Bernard was probably about like six feet from me probably, and
he threw it the other direction after a It's like if they were on either
side of the podium and he threw it towards William Joppy on the other side
of it was went there and the Geraldo Rivera show broke out, Yeah,
pretty much. So so that was that was a good promotion if if you
think that's good. I went on the bus to go to Philadelphia with Don
King and the fighters and had a good boxing time. We got stuck in
traffic anyway. But now the fight comes up, you know, a month
or so later, a couple months later in December on the boardwalk and like
I said, eight fights on the show. There were no other fights.
No four rounders, no ten rounders, no eight rounders, no six rounders.
Just unheard of in the present day. And that's the record. So
let me run down this card for you. So when you when you hear
all due respect to my boy Bob Aaron or Oscar or Eddie or Frank Larren
you know, or the folks at PBC pick picked the promoter whoever, and
they tell you your card is stacked. Just think what I'm about to read
off to you. In the main event, you had the undisputed middleweight champion,
Bernard Hopkins defending against a former title holder, William Joppy, who at
that time you know, was still a very solid contender. Now this is,
of course, this is the this is the era where it was three
belts to be undisputed and not four. So Bernard was making defense of the
undisputed the middleway title. He was considered you know number, you know,
high, high up on the punth roundless in the co feature, not the
main event, this is this is the co feature. You got Ricardo Majorga,
who was a popular action pack fighter, who was the unified champion,
who had knocked out Vernon Forrest, who had defended against Vernon Forrest. He's
defending his two belts and going for the third belt against the IDF champion,
Corey Spinks, the son of Leon and the nephew of Michael, and so
they met to produce the undispeted welterweight champion of the world. So you got
the undispeted middleweight champion ship fight in the main event. You got the undispeated
welterweight championship in the co feature. Now, on a lot of cards,
that'd be it, right, that's all you would get. Now, then
you go and unfortunately it turned out to be an absolute terrible, terrible fight.
But on paper you're like, okay, that might be interesting. You
had the WBA interim heavyweight title fight between Hassim Rockman and John Ruiz, and
this was important because even though it was for the interim title, this was
after John Ruiz had lost to Roy Jones and everybody knew that Roy was going
back to the light heavyweight division. So to facto, the winner of this
fight was going to become the WBA champion because Roy was going to vacate that
title and Rockman was the heavy favorite. John Ruiz won the fight and became
the WBA champion once again. So that was a terrible heavyweight fight, but
still good names on that card. Then you had zab Judah, who was
a popular fighter. He was holding that he only had one loss at this
time, that was the loss against Costa Zoo. He was defending the WBO
Junior welterweight title against a fighter named Jimi Rangel. Turned out to be a
one round knockout whatever. Not a big defense for him, but still go
great name to be like four fights down on the car and then you run
down the rest of the show. You got, yeah, the undefeated Travis
Simms who was the WBA He was fighting a WBA a junior midwaight title fight
against also undefeated Alex Garcia, who was an exciting fighter. You had a
really interesting fight. This was at the time he was the Ring Magazine champion
at junior flyweight and also held one of the belts. He was in a
unification fight against Jose Victor Burgos, so they met to unify the titles.
Turned out to be a draw in a pretty good fight. You had Wayne
Braithwaite, who was an undefeated, big puncher who was the WBC cruiseweight Champion
of Defense. And then you also had a rematch between what had been an
excellent first fight for the IBF junior bantamweight title between Luis Alberto Perez, who
was a very exciting fighter against Felix Machada, was more of a boxer,
and that was that's a stack card. When you have eight World Times bowls.
You know, you had a couple of mismatch and the Judi fight was
a mismatch. The braithweight fight turned out to be a first round knockout,
even though I don't think anybody expected that going yet. But I mean I
love this. I mean, yeah, well, you know you had a
bad fighter too. But I got six other great world title fights on the
same pay per view. I mean, there were so many. Was that
on? It was not on this planet in twenty twenty three, come on.
So two things about that number. One, Now, it's not that
uncommon, like for the last number of showtime pay per views. It wasn't
even like a big deal. They started the pay per views at eight pm
Eastern time. Back in the day, it was standard if you were having
this level of payper it was nine pm period, right, But there was
a lot of discussion between because even though HBO wasn't the producer, they were
the distributor of the fight of the card. It was like a big deal,
we're going to start this fight because we're going to show five fights instead
of four fights. We're going to start the pay per view at eight o'clock.
That was like a huge talking point all build up to the fight.
And then you had Don King, like only Don King can do, because
he had eight title fights on the fight card, but they couldn't put all
of them on the pay per view. He was running around for two months
before the fight. I got eight on the scene and five on the screen.
In other words, you want to see all the fights, watch eight.
If you only want to see five, watch them on television now.
So they put the five fights on the pay per view. And because he
still had three other of these world title fights you know, that were all
recorded and called by broadcasters. My memory serves that over a few weeks after
the show was over, he rolled them at one by one, like over
three weeks, and they showed them on tape delay on Fox Sports Net.
So all eight flights were televised, and it was it was a big show.
I mean, it was a stacked world championship pay per Twenty years ago,
this week all right, almost done on the night we're releasing this podcast.
Good Lord twenty seven years ago was the second Galatta bow DQ after the
first Mayhem at the Garden. This one turns out to be the rematch once
again, Galada winning the fight pummeling the former heavyweight champ, only to get
disqualified for low blows again December fourteenth of ninety six, so that's twenty seven
years ago tonight as we released the podcast into Friday, Thursday into Friday,
and really amazing, it was a replay, a replay of him scoring the
biggest punches, hurting Riddick bow and then just could not fundamentally resist hitting him
low lazily and getting dec'ed again. And we've talked about this before with those
fights in the nostalgia, but man, I don't want to accept that it
was that long ago as well, twenty seven years ago, that that took
place. I know is that I can't think of another example. Maybe there
is one, if somebody wants to chime in or leave us a comment or
something, or hit me up on my social media. I don't know if
there's ever been a rematch, an immediate rematch in a fight where they both
ended with the same guy being disqualified for the same purpose, you know,
low blows. It's just and the same narrative of the fight. He's winning
the fight and all he has to do is keep it clean Dan Rayphiel,
and he can't do it, and it was to the reason really the end
of both guys. Really from there on, Bo declined because he was concussed
and Galatta, i mean, never could overcome that and kept getting knocked out
after that, right, so he gets disqualified in the first fight in July
ninety six, that's the one that sparks the massive riot in Madison Square Garden.
And then the promoters made the obvious rematch. They took it to Atlantic
City instead of New York City, where I don't think they would have been
welcomed. And the whole build up in the fight, you had like videos
of Lou Duva, who was working with Galatta, talking about this is the
no goes on and he's waving his arms like no hitting below the belt like
Roger Bloodworth, the other trainer. They preached all through the camp were not
going to the body. I mean, there was funny videos about it.
Okay, so fine. So now the fight starts on what happens immediately starts
going to the body. He's destroying Riddick bow again, who would you know,
look good? But was you know, obviously not the same after that
first fight, and you know, like you said, probably the end of
his career, and he's winning the fight, he's up on the cards and
he gets disqualified and the only differences instead of being in the seventh round,
who was in the ninth round and didn't spark a riot. And the reality
was after that fight, Riddick Bow was done. He didn't fight again.
Everybody thought he was never going to fight again. He actually made a very
ill conceived comeback where he fought one time in two thousand and four, well
one time in two thousand and five, you know, a few months later,
and then then fought a final fight on a Klitch Goo under card in
two thousand and eight. But this was in essence the game, you know,
and he won the fight by i DQ. So, you know,
his only official loss was the one loss he suffered against Ridick Bow in his
whole career. In terms of Andrew Gillana, Now, he fought on for
many years after this fight. He fought for the world title on a few
different occasions after this loss to to Riddick Bo, you know, and in
fact, in his fight immediately after he got disqualified for the second time,
he got the shot ten months later against lennonx Lewis, who stopped him in
round one, and as Lennox talked about he wanted to clean up all the
misfits from boxing because he had had that crazy fight against henryk Andnwandi with a
disqualification, and now he's going to get rid of the misfit Andrew Gillatta.
So he a lot of got that opportunity, a lot of got another.
He won on a big winning streak. He then quit against Michael Grant.
He then quit against Mike Tyson and what became a no contest. He got
another title fight against Chris Bird, which was a draw. He got another
title fight against John Ruiz that he lost, and then another title fight.
And I was at all these other title fights are mentioned. I'm mentioning I
was there in Chicago which was his final title fight of his career when he
got smoked in one round by Layman Brewster on HBO. But the Ruiz fight
at the Garden, that was like a big deal because it was the first
time he was going to fight at Madison Square Garden post the Rye, you
know, all those years later and was a decade later. So Galata just
a fucking headcase all the and just a complete I'm with you. He was
humbling him in both fights and four months apart, the narrative is the same.
He gets dec'ed in a fight he was winning amazing if you put his
talent into the body of a boxer who was a little more cerebral and hadn't
understanding of how to actually go about your business, somebody like the clipscho like
a Lennox Lewis, who used their brain besides you to have a bona FID
heavyweight champion. But Glatta couldn't control himself and he ruined his own career in
many respects, his reputation for sure, and he ruined what the remnants of
ridding Bow unfortunately. All Right, busy, busy show, great stuff,
Jake Paul again fighting Friday night. As we released this Saturday Night, We've
got the Bam Rodriguez Sonny Edwards Unification Flyway title fight, the final showtime card,
A great interview there with Otto Violin. Who's fighting Anthony Joshua. You
got news, you got nostalgia, you got all of it. All right,
I'm going to see you on the bet Us Show Friday at one Eastern
time for some handicapping on these fights and then whatever happens, We're back on
this podcast feed to recap it off the weekend and get ready for the final
couple of weeks of twenty twenty three. Great stuff, anything else, Brother
Rayfield, We're good. We're good on see on the bet Us show We
shall one Eastern Time on their platforms bet Us TV's YouTube, Twitter, Twitch,
all of that again. You've been part of the Big Fight Weekend preview.
It's part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed Fight Freaks to Night recap
coming off the weekend. That'll be up next Sunday night into Monday. For
now, we're good for Dan Rayfield. I'm TJ Reeves. Enjoy everything this
weekend. Thanks for being with us.