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family summer adventure at Aquizone. Dying well alf of a weekend at hand seen
Frank the Ghost Martin have to work hard, but he still got his win
in the Showtime PPC main event. Alicia Baumgardner retained all of her titles in
the match Room Boxing the Zone main event in Detroit, as well as some
other fights on the undercards of interest and note we're ready to talk about that.
We're ready to hear from the unified super Bannomwait Champ Stephen Fulton building up
to his fight with the former undisputed bannom Wait. If you're now moving up
to fight him, Naolia the Monster in a way, that fight's coming.
You'll hear from Fulton right here on this podcast. It is the fight Freaks
Unite recap podcast. I am merely the somewhat competent host T J. Reeves.
You're here in no small part to hear from this man. Hello,
Dan Raypheel of his Fight Freaks Unite, Substack and Bigfight Weekend dot com.
How are things off the weekend? Well, things are good, I think,
though you know you don't give yourself enough credit. People come here to
listen to you. Also, yeah, they listen to me. They'd like
to listen to us bicker a little bit. That is true. And by
the way, let me just say I was negligent and that is the correct
word that I was not recording just before the podcast when I did hit record,
because that segment was gold. That meandered from everything from your son's ice
skating competition and he's a heck of a young competitive ice skater, to my
day on Sunday, spending my morning in early afternoon at Epcot Center, and
you bag it on me for that with my family meandering to food like ribs.
You people should have heard this, but I didn't hit the record button,
So all I can tell you is I'm sorry, but we do our
best to like give you some insight into our and talk about you were talking
about you going to this restaurant at Epcot to have ribs, to have ribs
with my wife and the twins, and they were really good ribs. And
you immediately said to me that your son, we could if he could only
have one meal, it might be ribs. And he eats it. He
eats it the absolute right way, going all out. Say that now to
the audience now that I'm recording. He goes all out when he eats ribs.
Well on the times where we sometimes get take out and we bring ribs
home, and we got some good places around here in northern Virginia. My
son does do the deed and that rips the shirt off and eats like without
the shirt of the shirtless and that and he just went up ten points in
my book for going after the ribs shirtless. I don't know that you taught
him that a grandparent a relative if he saw it on YouTube like the kid
in tuition. But that is a boss move. That is an absolute boss
move to go after the ribs. Because I had it all over me earlier
this afternoon. But it's good, all right, So enough about the food
we told you. Stephen Fulton coming up by the way. Thank you to
many of you, and it's more than a few of you that have been
reviewing us. Rate us and review us, follow and subscribe on the podcast
The Big Fight Weekend podcast feed that includes this fight Freaks Unite recap on it.
We preview coming into the weekend, usually out Friday morning ish. Then
we come off the weekend with the recap usually out Monday morning Sunday night overnight
into Monday morning. We want you to rate us and review us. Several
of you have done that. Thank you. Keep that going. Two things.
One, We're gonna give at random a gift away for the Spence Crawford
fight. At least one of these either a fight poster and we may give
two things away and or or both a program from the fight. And we'll
do that for somebody at random that has reviewed us in July. Follow this
one instruction. Make sure that we can find you. Specifically, make sure
I can find you when we draw at random. Take a screenshot of it
so we know who you are. Tag us on social media, will do
the random draw. Several of you have done that in the last forty eight
hours or so as we released. As we released the podcast, so thank
you. For the writings and reviews. But again, if you want to
get in the contest, it's free, just screenshot it or else. Ray
Field Detective Reeves cannot find them. That's my point. I have to say.
I think, I mean, we've given away like what three or four
things so far. I mean, and those are cool items, and I'm
happy the folks that got them, and they seemed happy, and yes,
took the screensots of what we sent them and they put them up on their
social media. But I think this is the best one we've given away so
far, because this is a hot fight, is a huge fight. I
mean, will we give away? We gave away some of the I gave
away the Tyson holy Field first fight November ninety six baseball hat that I had
not worn, pristine condition, and a listener Homer Homer, who's in your
area, who's in Washington, DC and who's a lawyer and he's a huge
boxing fan. He won that. You've given away things like commemorative key cards
with the posters of fights from Vegas. That's an awesome item. Just we
gave away. We gave away some of the the boxing cups from the fight
that they have that have like the poster or have a special We also sell
the fighters. I gave away a poster from Australia from the first fight between
Devin Haney and George Cambosas, and we'll shout out to our guy Edrie and
California. He got the fight poster from Haney Cambosas. So we've taken care
of the peeps. We've bribed you before, we're bribing you again. But
I'm with you that this is going to be There's a lot of build up,
there's gonna be a lot of interest in this fight, and it's gonna
be a neat thing to commemorate with. Either the poster and you've been say
it one more time. You've been writing for the program that will be sold
that night. You've been writing a lot of the build up and the backstory
for Spence and Crawford for that fight program. Just well, I mean my
good friend for twenty five years, Jay Siden, who owns the company that
produces many of these programs of posters and other merchandise for fights. So I've
written for his programs like literally for over twenty years, virtually every big fight
program he has done. I'm in in terms of my stories and also I
also help edit them. And in this particular one, we have four trading
cards that will be part of it, so I write the backs for that.
It's an ongoing set that's been appearing in the programs over the last few
years. I believe after the four cards that will be published in this program,
the set is up to seventy two cards. And the program for this
between Errol and Crawford, will have Terrence Crawford's second card in the set.
In this program it will be Errol Spence is I believe second card in the
program. I will also have the actually believe it or not because he's never
had a card before, even though he's an older fighter. It will be
the rookie card of Nonto Donair, who has moved on to the show last
week, as we discussed, and also the rookie card of Isaac Pittbull Crew.
So it's a cool set, all right. So yeah, that's the
program. We got the poster. We'll give one away at random. So
we look forward to be you and I will be in Las Vegas together,
all things being equal. That is now about a week and a half from
now, we're gonna we're gonna unite in Vegas, and I keep joking with
this. Just one morning, I promise we're getting to the fight reac Apps
the news. We've got some nostalgian you'll hear from Stephen Fulton coming up in
just a little bit with Dan one on one. You and I to this
moment have been doing all of what we're doing with the podcast, the bet
Us Friday Show. By the way, Reeves five and one on the bet
Us Show, Big Dan four and two. Thank you Elvis Rodriguez for the
ko off the bet Us Handicapping Show. We've been doing these podcasts. We've
been doing the bet Us Show. I have jokingly said, but I'm somewhat
serious. We've been talking to each other almost more than we talk to our
wives, which is not a good thing at this point, although maybe Missus
Reeves thinks it is a good thing. At this point, I don't have
to interview her. After twenty seven years of marriage, we have not been
in the same room. We have not actually met. We have virtually dealt
with each other for the better part of fifteen months. We've not been in
the same place. That's coming in Vegas, baby, that is allegedly coming
and I can't wait. We might need to do. Like you know how
they have the all access going for Spence Crawford from Showtime. They have the
cameras on like you and I. You and I like the all access camera
the first time that ray Field and Reeves are in the same county, in
the same vicinity. Building it up. Baby, You're way way more excited
for that than I am. Well, the one thing, the one thing
that is gonna that is gonna be most interesting is I've seen you. I've
seen you doing stand ups and whatever else. But I don't think you realize
how tall I am. I mean, all you've seen me is like sitting
down doing these shows. Whenever we have any legs or anything. Well,
you can think that. And a lot of most people that meet me,
first of all, a lot of people don't know what I look like.
They know my voice. Yeah, I'm every bit of six four. So
you're gonna see me. You're gonna go, holy crap, Pj's tall.
So I could I could you got the height advantage I'm about I could put
I could put you down in a low post and go to work, you
know, going over the top, sky hook up and under Kevin McHale move
if need be, Can we get the boxing? Yeah, we can get
to the boxing. I'm just saying. People frequently say, you know,
I thought you would look different, and I would say back to them,
yeah, you thought I was a lot shorter. All right, let's continue
on its radio. Let's continue on the program by getting to the fight recaps.
Let's please do. And in the main event again, Frank Martin victorious
Artem Harda tuning In was very game and was in the fight, and Martin
was not able to put him away, even though he rocked him a couple
of times. And this was a close decision. All right, your thoughts
in the recap mode on what was a unanimous decision win to cap off the
showtime PBC Vegas Cards Sturday Night. Well, first of all, it was
a good fight, I mean, and that's always to me first and foremost.
Did you get your time's worth or your money's worth, or however you
want to gage it that if you took the time, or you spent money
on a ticket, or if it's a paper here, this was not obviously.
Do you feel like when you turn off your TV or you walked out
of an arena. Did you get your money's worth or your time's worth?
And this was a good fight. I enjoyed the fight hard of Tunion was
really not known by many people. I knew him a little bit because I
follow when it gets to Olympic boxing, so I was aware of him from
his time when he won a bronze medal in the twenty sixteen Games. But
he hadn't fought anybody of consequence in any serious manner as a professional thus far.
Although he was undefeated, he was coming from Germany to fight outside of
that country for the first time, at least as a professional. He seemed
golfully happy to be in Vegas. If he'd watched his post fight interview,
he was over joyed, even wasn't happy he lost the fight, but happy
to be part of what was certainly the biggest event of his career. And
there's a lot of people that thought he won the fight. I mean,
he was a very close fight. The thing that was interesting about it,
TJ, is this the rounds that Martin won at least, I mean he
won on the cards. He got seven rounds on two scorecards a game to
win. The other one was, you know, a one fourteen one thirteen.
That was you know, the difference was the knockdown that he had in
the twelfth rounte. So even if he doesn't get the twelfth round knockdown,
he still wins the fight by a majority decision to fifteen one thirteen twice and
one fourteen one fourteen. He got the knockdown, which made it one twelve
on two cards and one fourteen one thirteen on the third. But the point
I'm making here is this, the rounds that Martin won, of the seven
that he got on the two winning cards, four of them were no doubt
about it. Clearly win the round a ten, eight round obviously in the
twelfth round, had a big, big round in round six, round ten,
round eleven. You know, he rocked them pretty good in those rounds,
and you know, it was very clear the rounds that besides those rounds
were much closer, but hard of Tunian seemed to edge most of them out.
But you know, a couple could have gotten either way. So I
didn't have a real big quarrel with the result of the fight. Some people
seemed to think it was a little more disputed or controversial. I didn't really
really think that one thing that I think was very clear though, was that,
however you thought the fight turned out, no doubt that through about the
first six rounds, or through the first five rounds before Hard at Tuni and
got really messed up in the sixth round. Those first five rounds, you
might have had a five to nothing. You know, Hard a Tunion was
winning the fight. Handle he was up on all three cards after six and
that's with losing round six, So halfway through he's holding a two point lead
on the cards, and to Frank Martin's credit, when it counted the most
at the end of the fight, he really picked it up in the last
rounds. Derek James, who was his trainer, was very clear. You
could hear him on the audio on showtime after round nine telling him, you
know, I need you to knock him down. I forget I think he
said, you gotta nock him down. You got to pick it up.
You know, we need we need to you know, we need to get
this guy. Like he was really urgent. You know, he said,
I now that I remember he's the quote was I knew you to stop him.
You're not doing enough. And Frank Martin wasn't and he even said in
the post fight interview with Jim Gray on Showtime that his timing was a little
bit off. He wasn't sure why, but it just wasn't what it normally
is. But the thing is, and that's this is the thing about whether
a guy is going to the promise line of a world title or he's just
a regular guy. When you find yourself in the position of I'm not having
my best night, you still find a way to win. And Frank Martin
found a way to win against a very competent and very quality opponent in Hartooning,
who just because people didn't know about him didn't mean he was no good.
He based on what I saw on Saturday, I believe that hartoon would
be able to compete with pretty much any of the top lightweights. Now,
he may not do well against certain guys that shit Core Stevenson. You know,
nobody's going to do well against for the most part, or a Devin
Haney, but other lightweights out there, he's not going to be out plassed
or outmatched or you know, out of his depths, let's say. So
for Frank to go get this win, it was a big win for him
because it was a WBC officiall eliminator. That doesn't mean he's going to get
the title shot in the next fighter and toil like that, but he's in
position which is important. And you know what, can you say? It
was a good fight And when you go out there and you score around twelve
knockdown, it may not have changed the result in any way, but it
was a big deal because it gives you so much momentum. It wasn't like
he hit him with a shot that put him on the deck. As Hartunian
said after the fight, he had had his eye was a little swelled,
and he had taken a good shot to the eye and the eye was giving
him some problems. And so rather than continue to stick his head in there
and get cracked, he took a need to sort of collect himself. So
that was actually an intelligent thing for him to do. He probably thought he
might have had enough on the cards at that point even to give away a
ten eight round turn out that he did not. But a good fight and
a good result for Frank Martin who moves on and I'm interested to see what's
next. But this is what I always say about these types of fights,
TJ. The best result of a boxing matches when both guys elevate themselves,
and in this fight, I feel like both fighters elevated themselves. If you
were to look at you know, a network making a schedule or read a
news reporter whatever, and you saw a harder tuning was back in action against
another decent lightweight, you'd be like, oh, yeah, bring him on.
I don't want to watch that guy again. And that's a good thing.
So I believe he'll make you know his first twelve fights went around with
nobody knowing anything about him. That was one lost. People know about him.
He made good account of himself. Hope to see him back. And
for Frank Martin, he's moving on and it goes again his training as you
mentioned with Jered James, and it is in a big time stable of fighters
right now too, and some of that may rub off and some of that
knowledge and being around those guys can't hurt. And he does get the win
in the main event a right rest of the card again, Elvis Rodriguez got
the KO against the veteran formal world champion, Victor Postal and so tell me,
tell me about that in the co feature and anything else off the showtime
PBC card in the recap. Well, Elvis Rodriguez is an up and coming
fighter. He's a younger on the younger end of things, in his twenty
still and you got postal former on hundred and forty pound title holder who's thirty
nine years old. Um, you know, who's getting a little bit long
in the tooth. Now. Never can question his heart, never can question
his competitive spirit. He's fought good opponents. You know, he took a
loss two years ago when he was undefeated in a unification fight against Terrence Crawford.
But now he's getting to the point where you know, the years and
the and the and the punches are wearing on him. You know, he's
lost his three He's now lost three in a row. Go back to the
August of twenty twenty, he gave a great account of himself when he challenged
Jose Ramirez, who was at the time the unified title holder at one forty
one. Lost a majority decision. A lot of people thought he won the
fight. That was probably his last, very good performance. Still lost.
Nonetheless, could have maybe had his hand raise on a you know, if
it wasn't necessarily in the United States, are in Jose's backyard, so just
you know, pretty much. But then it's been a lot of inactivity.
He had the knockout loss to Gary Antoine Russell, who really just dominated him
and stopped him in the last fight. That's, you know, a year
and a half ago, February of twenty twenty two. Has in thoughts in
sentail. The other night. Now he goes in with Elvis Ardriguez and he
came out in the first half of the fight. He did very well.
Now he was on the official scorecards. He won the first round across the
board and was then had lost the remainder of the rounds through the first six.
So even though it was five one on the cards, he was still
you know, you can have a five one fight, but every round is
competitive. That was this type of fight. He was in the fight,
he was doing very well. Everything kind of changed in the I believe it
was the end of the fifth round where he first he got hurt to the
nose and got doubled over with the body shot and it kind of all fell
apart from there. And Rodriguez, you know, this is the difference from
a kid that's twenty seven with a lot of energy and a guy that's thirty
nine. It hasn't fought in a while, that's taken a lot of punches.
You know, that that experienced level on that freshness. You know,
you could see it separated itself big time in the second half of the fight.
And you know, he ended up knocking him down with some good right
hooks, you know, because Rudwick is a softball. And finally, you
know, he got stopped with the shot. You know, the refere he
did the smart thing. He had taken a couple of shots. He went
to the ropes. He's an older fighter, he's coming off of a rough
knockout, lost quite a while ago, and they stopped the fight. It's
a great win for Elvis. It's to me, it's the biggest win of
Elvis's career. I've never been hugely high end Elvis, but I've always had
a lot of respect for Postal. Gave a great effort as always, But
he's now to the point where I don't know what he's going to do in
the future, but he's now there where you're like, Okay, it might
be time to call it a day. He probably don't disagree. He was
good at the beginning of the fight, but at thirty nine he was taking
punishment at the end of that. And you really wonder, just on your
point, where does he go from here? And how much longer at thirty
nine years of age for post I mean, does he want to be a
stepping stone? I mean? And what happens is you get to this point.
I don't know what his purse was last night, but I'm sure he
made, you know, hopefully he made six figures or you know, in
that realm. But every time now you lose, you get knocked out.
Now you've got three loss in a row, and they bring you back and
maybe made one hundred and fifty and now okay, we'll give you one hundred.
Your pay goes down, not up. And so you have to get
to the point where is it worth your time and the physical grind and the
effort and the and the mental strain of being away from your family and all
the things that go in to putting yourself, you know, through the grind
of a training camp to be ready for an actual fight. So post Well
has got some thinking about things to do. But you know, for Elvis,
it's a good win and he's moving on. He look at one hundred
forty pound weight class, a hot division. There's a lot of a lot
of good opportunities and fights in that weight class. And and Showtime seems to
like him. They've been putting him on and you know, good luck to
him. He's you know, the thing that was interesting is that Freddie Roach
had trained it still trains Elvis. He spent many years training Postal. He
was in the corner win post All lost the title fight, for example,
against Josie Ramirez. They have sparred together in many rounds in the wild card
gym. Freddie had his guys working with each other, so they were very
familiar with each other from those days. And you know, in the end
it was Rodrigueus where the youth prevailed and anything else. On the welterweight prospect,
they moved him up again. We explained this, You did a great
job of explaining it over and over again. It's Fraudy's Fraudy's role host.
I believe I got to right the welterweight prospect. He won by t K
or anything else noteworthy there on that guy moving up, well, just the
thing about him is that, you know, he'd never been on national television
before. He'd been on these under cards, young fighter now he's eleven and
oz with eleven knockouts. He looked good. I mean, what can you
say. The guy got the opportunity. He was so thrilled when he found
out that his fight was being elevated to the television portion when they made the
switches that we talked about last week, and so when the Donair fight was
moved to the pay per view with spencing Crawford, it obviously opened up his
position on the showtime broadcast because they wanted to continue to present a triple header,
so they took his fight against Sanchez, who was not you know,
I don't you know, not like he had huge accomplishments or resume, but
he was nineteen and one going into the fight, so it's not like he
was you know, based on the record alone, it's okay, it looks
good. A Mexican fighter, you know, can figure he's pretty tough,
right, And not only did Rojas to win, but he did a good
job in doing so. He dominated the fight. He's from Vegas, so
you got to figure a lot of the fans that were there were his people
that had come out to see him. And he's a twenty five year old
kid that had so much exuberance and so much happiness to be on this event.
He was thrilled to get the opportunity, and when presented with the chance
to go on to the television card and make an impression on the public,
he did that because here we are talking about him, and now I'm sure
we're not the only ones. If he'd been on the undercard non televisor even
just part of like a stream, you know on social media, you know
it might be a couple of people would have checked it out, but not
the same level when you're the opener on Showtime's main card, so you know
he's the kind of guy you want to see again. I mean that card
on Saturday was a low budget card relatively speaking. It wasn't filled with big
names, but in the end it turned out to be three good, solid
fights. I mean not that I didn't think it would be, but Rojas
in a dominating performance, but an entertaining performance. He wins. He moves
on at an undefeated record with all by knockout. See what he does next
again fighting in the Waterway division. There's opportunity at some point, still has
some seasoning to be done. It's not like he's ready for something huge.
Yet and as I mentioned with the postal Rodriguez fight, Rodriguez had probably his
best performance overall of his career so far, taking down a former tidle holder.
And we discussed the main event highly entertaining, highly competitive, to quality
guys that both elevated themselves. So I believe that again, if you took
the time to watch that showtime card, you came away having enjoyed yourself and
saw some good talent, good stuff. Let's move on, and that is
the Matchroom de Zone card. And let me apologize because I'm usually a stickler
for this. Alicia bomb Gardner victorious by ten round decision, and Christina Leonarda
to Leonarda too, if I say it correctly, not Len Dart. As
I said in the preview mode, she deserves to have her name not butchered
by me. She gave a good accounting. I thought bomb Gardner earlier in
the fight. Her hurt and here we go back to the two minute rounds
versus the three minute rounds. Ifs and butts were candy and nuts, Raypield,
we all have a merry Christmas. If she'd had another minute, maybe
she puts her down when she had her hurt, maybe stops her. It
didn't happen. Leonarda two was able to survive the rounds, survive the fight.
I don't think there's any qualm with bomb. Gardner was the better fighter,
dominated the fight, and got the decision. It just looked for a
little bit like we were going to lose out on the bet Us Show.
It might be a stoppage, it might be a t KO. But leonarda
to two was able to survive and it was a decision that was the main
event. So what about that fight and the rest of the card in Detroit
for Matrum, Well, I kind of agree with you when you talk about
the fact that the women's fights are two minute rounds instead of three minute rounds,
and what you know, what could be, what is, what might
be, etc. But I'm over that. Okay, women's boxing matches are
two minute rounds in certain jurisdictions. The default is two minutes, but if
both parties agree, they will extend it to three minutes. You don't see
that happen often. It does happen occasionally, but I'm I don't have a
strong opinion one way or the other. If the women want to go three
and the commission says, good, I'm okay with that. If they want
to continue to do two rounds, I'm fine with that. So I'm over
that it's two minute rounds. And it's the same thing as when you see
a fight that's close and they go when it's the twelfth round, well,
what if it was a fifteen round fight like it was back in the day
when it was separates you know, the men from the boys. As they
say in the real quote unquote from my child, that the real all championship
rounds are, you know, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. So but
that's not that's not boxing anymore. It's twelve rounds for a championship fight.
Women's boxing matches are ten rounds. So I don't deal with the the the
irrelevance of the notion that these are three minute could be three minute rounds,
They're just not. So that aside, Alicia fought a hell of a fight
and her opponent landarta two. She was very game, she was tough as
now. She came in with some accomplishment of her own. She was a
two time w WBO title holder at one hundred and forty pounds. She had
lost previously in a you know, a good solid fight against Katie Taylor when
Katie had went from lightweight to just take a shot at the title one forty
she did in her last fight against Chantel Cameron, who was undisputed and lost
when she went up just a challenge for the WBO a couple of years ago
against Christina. She won that fight and then vacated and went back down,
and then Christina regained the title after that. But anyway, the point I'm
making here she fought a credible opponent, but more so, whatever her credibility
is, this was a revenge fight. In twenty eighteen, almost five years
ago to the day that they met. In the rematch, bomb Gunner lost
her and a split decision in an eight rounder in Louisville, Kentucky and a
small card that was promoted by the old now defunct even Or Holyfield Company.
And so she wanted to, as she said, get that lick back,
and she did, and she did it in good style. She had a
hometown crowd behind her because she was making her homecoming fight in Detroit, all
the luminaries there. You had Michigan, you know, Tommy Hearns's ring side,
which is you know, he's the Detroit goat, as they say.
Claressa Shields, who was from Michigan, she was there watching supporting her fellow
Top women's star. It was a good fight. I mean again, both
of them went in there to do their best. They put on a heck
of a show. And uh and but but Bam Gardner. She was clearly
the better fighter that night. She was uh, faster, bigger, which
is surprising because the other woman had fought at one forty so many times.
Um, she just had better snap on her punches. It seemed like she
had better defense. Uh Lndarta two was a little more reckless. She didn't
really seem to be able to land clean Alicia. She was much more controlled
with her punches. Maybe let's call it economical, but she when she let
him go, she landed quite a bit of them, and she was close
to a stop at your one point. You know. Landarta two also hadn't
fought for you know, a little over a year, I guess. And
uh, you want to talk about some shit talk. When asked about what
she was saying, tell Landarta two, she said that baby, she had
a baby, Lendarda two, which is why she was offer so she gave
birth, so you know she's a mom and she's back in the ring.
But as Alicia said to her, uh the baby slowed you down. You're
not fast enough, and uh you know that was that was some of the
best away with that. If you're the champ and you're scoring your lefts and
your rights, you can get away with that trash talk. We all went
to world where everyone feels welcome and included. But where do we even start?
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supporting LGBTQ plus young people across Ireland, tech Action, Lace Up and where
with Pride because as Supervalue, we believe community includes everyone. Yeah, but
this is the big upshot of this. So she wins the fight. As
we've discussed before, in the women's side of boxing, there are is an
undisputed champion at one hundred and twenty six pounds in Serrano one hundred and thirty
pound undisputed in Alicia one hundred thirty five undisputed in Katie Taylor, one hundred
forty pound undisputed in Shantel Cameron, and of those, all of them except
for Serrano are with match Room Boxing, and Serrano has done business with Matchroom
Boxing. From the standpoint of match Room Boxing. Eddie Hearns, you know
who runs ZA comp and Jake Paul, who is the promoter his company,
the promoter for Serrano. They worked together on a huge fight between Katie Taylor
and Toronto, so they know each other. They've done business together. She
wants to fight one of those women, whether it's Serranto or Taylor or Shantel
or you know, some combination make the big match. And Eddie Hearn sat
in the post fight that she deserves a big fight. We want to get
her a big fight. They're doing the Cameron versus Taylor rematch in the fall,
so that's off the table for the time being, but he would love
to match her with Serranto. Now. Serrano has a date on August fifth
on the Jake Paul Nate Diaz pay per view undercard. She's taking on the
former featherweight title holder Heather Hardy, who she already defeated very easily, but
she's giving her the rematch. Nothing against party, but that should be a
straightforward victory for Serranto, and if that is the case, maybe they can
make bomb Garner against Serranto. Serranto has never had a problem going up and
down and wait, she's fought as heavy as one forty. She's now on
disputed a featherweight point being is for her to go to one hundred and thirty
to challenge bomb Garner for the undisputed title probably wouldn't be an issue. I
didn't hear them talk about the possibility of I don't think she would go down
to one twenty six to try to challenge for Serrano's title. But that's a
good thing. In women's boxing, the best regularly fight the best. Yes,
there is not as much of a barrier of doing so when it comes
to promotion or television or frankly, in terms of how much the women weigh.
They seem much more willing and able to move not only up but also
down, And so this is it will be maybe in the future, because
it's still early in women's boxing history, sort of like a golden age of
women's boxing, where you have all these undisputed champions who are willing to fight
the best women. And I don't know about you, but sign me up
for Bomb Garner Toronto if they can make it happen. Yes, I would
agree on that, and we'll find out soon enough because they're on the same
timeline kind of here where that fight could be late in the year if they
wanted to make it happen. We'll see on bomb Gardner and Serrano we're talking
about for bomb Gardner's titles. And you're right. I mean Sarrano moved all
the way up to one thirty five to fight Katie Taylor. This would be
moving up to fight one thirty again. We'll hear from Stephen Fulton in just
a couple of minutes. Rest of that card saw Andy Cruz the Cuban did
get a ten round decision. The fight went the full ten against Juan Carlos
Burgos and he got the win. And heavyweight American Jermaine Franklin did beat up
on Isaac Munio's of Mexico and got the ten round decision, snapping his little
brief two fight losing streak. Anything else there stand out from those two fights
of note, I would just say, in terms of Andy Cruz, you
know, my thought was, is he gonna fight like an amateur and stink
it out, or is he gonna fight like a real pro and trying to
make a fight, you know, still be defensively responsible, but actually try
to make it somewhat entertaining. And I thought he did the latter. I
mean it was for a fighter coming off an Olympic gold medal, and you
know, he's a three time World Amateur champion, a two time Pan American
champion, a guy did everything as amateur, one of the most decorated amateur
fighters of recent times. It's still a different sport in the professional ranks.
Turn pro and a ten rounder against a faded guy, but is still a
legit mint guy who's been in the ring with everybody, who's coming off of
an eight round decision loss to Keyshan Davis. Obviously one of the top prospects
in boxing. I picked him as my fight for each Unite Prospect of the
Year in twenty and twenty one and our twenty and twenty two I should say
and and uh. He also had fought Andy Cruise four times the amateurs and
lost him each time, including in the Gold Medal Games, a gold medal
match, so here was a chance to sort of assess Andy Cruise as a
professional against Keyshan Davis as a professional, and they both beat Burgos, you
know, pretty much in the same manner by shout out. Difference being that
when Andy Cruise beat him, he did it in his professional debut in a
ten rounder, not in like his ninth fight in an eight rounder. But
I thought he any looked good. I mean, I'm interested to see his
development, see him again. Uh, match Room when they signed him,
Eddie Hearn said, you know, we're not in this to give him,
you know, a whole million fights to to build them up. They want
to give him a couple of you know, three or four fights, but
they want to have him into a significant fight in the very short order.
So you know, figure you know, three, four or five fight him,
we'll seem in something significant. For I'm antist. Put it like this,
I don't care who you are. If you're taking on Juan Carlos Burgos
in your professional debut in a ten rounder and you shut him out, you're
a good fighter. And Andy Cruz is already a good fighter, and I
would give him a chance against a lot of bality lightweights already. I'm not
saying you're gonna put him in with Haney or Loma Chenko or you know,
those types of guys or whatever. But he can handle himself against anybody.
This guy knows what he's doing in the ring, and this is the beginning
of what we hope will become something impressive. And as far as Jermaine Franklin
goes, he's gonna be guys like monios all day long. It was a
punching bag, you know, not not the most appealing fight in the world,
but Franklin did a good job. He did what he was supposed to
do. He's coming off a two five losing street because he fought two of
the better heavyweights in the sport, including in his most recent fight against you
against Anthony Joshua earlier this year and then in the end of last year,
a very close fight that you could maybe say Jermaine deserved to win against Delian
White. I don't think Franklin's gonna be heavyweight champ anytime soon, but because
he wins against those types of guys, and he's durable and he did make
a great fight against White, you know he's going to continue to get phone
calls and get work good enough off the match Room to Zone show in Detroit.
Let's get to it now. Coming up, you are going to have
an outstanding midweek title fight. This is not this week, but it's going
to be early next week. Tuesday morning, July twenty fifth in the US
is Primetime. In Japan for Tuesday night, July fifth is Stephen Fulton defends
his WBC and WBO one hundred and twenty two pound titles against the Monster,
the former undisputed bandom weight champion and one of the best pound for pound fighters.
There are outstanding fight on paper in Japan. Fulton, by the way,
has made his way to Japan. He's landed there, but just before
he was there, what do you have to do before you're gonna go and
defend your titles in Japan? You gotta talk to Dan Raphael about it.
So let's hear that one on one conversation about Fulton, his excitement for this
fight, and then talk about the interview a little bit more after you hear
the conversation. Right now, I want to welcome this week to the podcast.
It is the unified WBC and w BO Junior Featherweight Champion of the World,
one of the best pound for pound fighters in boxing. It's a Philadelphia's
own Stephen Fulton. Stephen, welcome and thank you very much for doing this.
I appreciate you, you bet. So we're here to talk about the
big fight you've got coming up. You're heading over to Japan to take on
a title defense against noye in Away, also one of the best fighters in
the world pound for pound. He's moving up and weight having vacated the band
and weight undisputed championship, to challenge you for your titles at one hundred and
twenty two pounds. And I think most boxing fans, Stephen, think this
is literally one of the best fights that could be made in boxing, you
know, one of the one of the best matchups that's available in the sport.
And so I think we all appreciate that this is being made. But
I'm wondering, from your point of view, what was it that made you
so interested in this particular matchup. You could have had other fights in your
weight class or out of your weight class for that matter. It was an
intriguing fight, it was it was something that made since as well as why
not you know, finished the division off with a band like this? And
I also seen like this fight, like me being out of Japan years ago,
I've seen this like I feel like everything was meant to happen this way.
So no reservations about going to Japan or you just you seem like you're
embracing the trip. No problem, I'm embracing it. You said, by
the way, finish off the division with a bank. Does that mean that
after this is done that your intentions are to go to featherweight? I believe
they made the winner. I mean, yeah, I believe Taplos is mandatory
to face the winner, so I might as well going to get that and
then you know, move up. Oh I got you with that, But
obviously you got to take care of this fight first. And so one of
the things that intrigues me about the fight, besides just the great matchup,
is that you know, on the business side of things, Stephen, you
know, boxing matches between promotional companies and TV networks, etc. They're hard
to make. Sometimes we've seen what happened trying to make Errol Spence and Terrence
Crawford, for example. For all this time it's taken, it feels like
when when when you and Anyway started to have the conversations or your teams.
Did the fight got made in like five minutes? Can you explain to me
why it was so easy, at least from the outside looking in for this
kind of matchup, A significant felt like this to get made so quickly,
with no drama, with no nonsense, no a side, no sides of
the street, no nothing. It just got done. I mean, it
was something that I wanted to happen, so I was giving a blessing.
So I feel like, when you really want things to happen, y'all two
men to sit down and you know, make it happen. And that's what
we did. I feel like over the fall I spoke with Al and my
matchmaker Lou and um and I'll say, like that what you want to do,
let him do it. And now we're here. And I have to
assume also, at least from your point of view, in terms of the
landscape of other fights that you could have pursued, I think this has to
be the biggest fight from a profile standpoint, as well as the money.
Correct. Yes, correct, That answers a lot of questions right there,
I guess. So what is your opinion of in a way, I mean,
those of us who have washed him for a long time. We view
him as I think one of the best fighters pound for pound. He's been
a champion in three different weight classes, the first undisputed bandamweight champion in literally
like fifty years. What do you think about his talents? Oh, he's
very talented. He's very talented. He's skillful. He's more known for his
power than anything, but he's very skillful. From what I see, he's
a smart fighter. But I also feel like no one was in the ring
room to really challenge to those mental skills yet. So you don't think a
fighter like that's a Hall of Fame fighter like a nonido and their first fight
anyway, challenge him in that sense. Uh. I feel like and that
first fight, you know, I wouldn't say No Needle challenged him mentally.
I feel like No Needle just you know, as a dog. So that
I felt like that's what he wanted to do, and that's what got him
hurt the second fight by him just you know, trying to take the fight.
He wasn't really being a smart fighter the first or if that second fight,
the second fight, the first fighter was like, ah, it was
a nice fight, but the second fight, Uh, anyway, was like
already used to this style, already used to him he had. He came
in the second fight with more confidence the second time, so it was like,
yeah, a good fight. Yeah. And the first time, of
course, like anyone really challenged him mentally yet, and that first fight,
of course they had the fight of the year. Um what, I'm also
interested in your opinion of this. I mean, I understand you've explained,
you know your your desire for this fight. What do you think it says
about him? He becomes undisputed in the bandomweight division, and he makes a
lot of money in Japan. He brings in a tremendous amount of fans in
the arenas where where he packs them in over there. So when he decided
to move up to junior featherruweight, he could have probably had a fight just
to sort of like feel out the weight class, you know, take a
softer fight, get used to things, still put on a big event.
But he didn't do that. He decided, you know what, I'm going
after the big the best guy in the weight class, and that's Stephen Fulton.
I don't think anybody argues the point that you're number one in the weight
class. He went right for number one, right out of the gate.
What do you think that says about his mentality? That speaks volume. That's
something now would have did my sons myself, so it speaks a lot.
Well. You mentioned about how you know he's known for his great punching power.
He's got twenty one knockouts in his twenty four fights, but I think
most people recognize that his greatest attribute as a puncher is a body puncher.
He's just ruined guys to the body many many times. I'm wondering, when
you get ready for this fight and you train for this fight, is that
something that you're very cognizant of, and how do you go about making sure
that you protect your body against a guy? Like? In a way,
I'm very aware of my situations when I go on any fight, you know,
so when I don't, I don't just train to train. I train
for each fighter that I'm going up against. But for like, I'll be
ready and prepared to take on whatever he bishes out that night. And this
is also going to be he fought in December when he became the undisputed champion
of the dannaweight division. This will be your first fight in thirteen months,
So you've had a bit of a layoff. You know, you're coming off
to a very good win, a shutout basically against Daniel Romand, who was
the former unified champion in your weight class. What was it about h What
was the reason for such a long layoff and are you at all concerned about
the time off? The reason was, I was waiting to see what M
MJ was gonna do, and you know they was prolonging, and now look
what happened to him. So he lost it to police. Yeah, exactly,
So that waiting and prolonged and then he came up short. Um,
do I think it would be a fact? You know, I don't believe.
I don't think it was a good effect. I don't. I feel
like I actually gave my body enough rest. I look at it that my
body rest, my mind rest, not enough punishment for over a year.
I'm I'm gonna be I feel I'm gonna come out fresh. You know how
it is when you when you don't know how it is. I don't know
how it is. Point Like, when you fight, you win, you
know you get you get like a couple of a month or a couple of
weeks off that first day back in the gym when you spart, you look
amazing. I feel like that's how it be. All right, that's good
to hear about that. You mentioned about, you know, what you might
want to do after this fight, depending how things go. I guess,
first of all, do I know you're the champion, but because he's the
guy over there, did he require you to give him a rematch? Clause?
So you're free and clear. The people don't see this. You're shaking
your head. No, So you're you're you're free and clear to do your
thing after this. Um. And so you mentioned about maybe maybe uh some
other fights. I mean, are you you know Brandon figure out you guys
had a great first fight. The rematch was sort of in play before you
made the deal for in a way, Uh, there there's the possibility of
featherweight. Obviously, Ray Vargas is with PBC. Robes Ramirez, who's got
a title, is on your undercard coming up, UM, and there's to
Poulos, who's the unified champion. Dude, what interests you will? Besides,
and I know you're thinking about anyway, but people always like to think
about what might be after I like on dis beauty I like one twenty six
and I like one thirty one thirty Also okay, uh to Paolos, I
mean, look, people wanted to maybe see you and MJ. That didn't
happen, But now the two titles are still with the other guy, so
you think that's a possibility. His his people say they're going to be their
ringside watch your fight. That's because they want a big pay day from anyway
they they people just want to try to push me out the way. It
ain't gonna go like this. Well I'm playing. I'm pretty sure that if
you I was, if you beat in a way, I think there's gonna
be pretty good payday for to Polos, they're also for sure. But you
know how some people think it is what it is. We don't get the
job done though, That's how that matters, all right, So I'll just
wrap it up like this. I know you're very confident. I can see
it on your faces. I'm looking at you here when you say you're gonna
get the job done. How do you think you get the job done against
nor in a way. It depends on how I feel when I wake up
that morning. So you're thinking you could maybe box them, I mean,
you're not known as a big brawler, big every I can do what I
can do everything. Just because I'm not known as a puncher or a power
puncher don't mean it ain't there fair enough. And you're you're also listening,
you're fighting, You're fighting in your weight class. You're fighting a man that
began his career as a junior flyweight. So I think there might be uh
some kind of difference in that respect. You do you think that you have
that that advantage. I can see that. I also feel like I have
the advantage of me fighting outside of my country because my bank will be against
the wall, so I have no other option but to live up to the
moment and do what I gotta do. It's a very interesting mentality because most
fighters when they travel, I think they look at it as a as a
negative in terms of not being something that's in there. You know on their
side of the ledger that you're going to the other guys. So hometime you
seem to be taken it the other way. Yeah, yeah, I like
that. All right, I'm underdog. Hey listen, the underdog makes the
world go around. We saw it happen with a lot of fights over the
years, no doubt about it. Stephen. I wish your best of luck
in the fight and enjoy your trip to Japan. Hope you get some after
the way and some good sushi, I guess, and enjoy your trip.
Enjoy your fight and good luck. Thank you. So there we go,
And I mentioned again you did that interview just before he left for Japan.
He has gotten there, he's getting acclimated again. To go over it on
the timeline, the fight is Tuesday morning in the US, Tuesday night in
primetime. Not this Tuesday fight fans, but next Tuesday. We'll keep talking
about this. The twenty fifth as we release the pod cast is the fight
day. All right, Dan, you got a chance to chat with him.
How did you find him in that conversation, I know you've dealt with
him before or thoughts. To wrap up that interview, Fulton's just a cool
cat. That's That's the way I describe a cool cat. Not nothing.
Doesn't really seem to get him too high or too low. He seems somewhat
happy, go lucky, excited to go to Japan. No, it wasn't
like they dragged him there and then made him go there. He was the
one that really wanted to do this. Why not, he said, let's
do it. You know, when when these big fights, when so much
gets wrapped up and there's so much nonsense trying to make them, this one
was a breath of fresh air because you know you've heard about no Ya in
a way. He said after he knocked out Paul Butler to become undisputed,
that he wanted to fight for the title at one hundred and twenty two.
I remember he mentioned Fulton by name, but he certainly said I want to
I want to go up and fight for the title. Fulton wanted the opportunity
to have a big fight for himself. He was happy to go overseas,
and so when they both were sort of interested in each other and Fulton had
asked his people to you know which is PBC and Al Hayman, to try
to please make this fight. Remember that the PBC people wanted to have him
fight Brandon figure Out in a rematch that was on the books for showtime.
He was like, I'd rather do this. They said, okay, fine,
anyway, here's the point. He didn't drect it out for two years
or three years or five years or whatever, or have a thousand back and
forth on social media or videos or Twitter or do with the Tyson Fury way.
They like adults. They made the fight and it suddenly got announced and
it only took like you know, it felt like it took a few days.
Maybe I don't know, two weeks. I mean for the fight of
this magnitude. It was done in a jiffy, as they say, real
And now he's over in Japan getting ready for the fight. In a way,
Abby's sure is going to come in great condition also, And when they
made this match, I kept saying him myself. This is literally if you
said to anybody who's a big boxing fan of today's sport, you know,
pick five fights you'd like to see, like your wish list. I think
in a way versus Fulton might very well be on that wish list. That's
how good of a match of it. As you have the superstar in a
way and Fulton, who has done what he's done to unify and fearless to
over there. Both guys are unbeaten. Um. The winner of this fight
is going to be the King of one twenty two, even though there's another
fighter out there to paulas with two of the other belts more and more.
More over, the winner of this fight is going to assert themselves as you
know, please look at me also as a pound for pound type of guy.
We already know that in a way is way high on the list.
Fulton has made his way onto the list and some of the lower parts of
people's list. But this is is a real fight between two really good quality
fighters. And as I said to you, I think before I'm here,
when when Top rank brings in these fights from Japan for their ESPN Plus broadcasts,
I don't necessarily wake up at four or five in the morning to watch
them. I'm setting the alarmed for this one. Oh yeah, and there
and there is no doubt the mon I mean, don't I watched him,
but I do know you just don't always watch him live because ray Fields got
to get his beauty rest. I understand this. It takes a lot of
it. By the way, in any event, uh, in a way,
he's already a guy that he is a seven figure guy. He is
a he's a form on speed, a champion. This is an opportunity for
Fulton, It's no secret. And we'll talk more in the preview. Yeah,
in a way, at this point, because of the TV deal he
has over there at the streaming deal, and the and the gates he brings
him. He I think at this point he's actually an eight figure guy.
Yeah, he may very well be an eight figure guy. But if you're
Stephen Fulton and you can win this fight, you become what's often referred to
in the free agency business or now in the boxing business as a shot caller.
And so that means he can now go and get a big time rematch
here, big time fight here or whatever. If Fulton can win this,
and that's why he's taking this opportunity. It's significant money for him. It's
the biggest name. So we'll preview this more a little later on in the
week. But great stuff with Stephen Fulton in advance of that, just before
he left to go to Japan. And again that fight a week from Tuesday
as we released the podcast. We're not talking about this Tuesday, savages.
Don't get mad about. Hey, we're building this fight up. And where
was the fight on Tuesday? It's next Tuesday. But we got the inn
you in before he went to Japan. All Right, some fight news,
some nostalgia, and then we're done. Hey, look who's out of jail
Jervonte Davis. So we put our podcast to bed, We put the bet
US Handicapping Show live on Fridays to bed. And suddenly, while you and
I were doing the bet US Live show, the first indication that Jervonte Davis
was maybe not in the clink anymore in Baltimore County was he put a social
media post up with just an emoji and I'm going, okay, did that
come from like it literally a jail computer? Probably not. So he's out,
And as it turns out, he was released early after How about this,
Raphael, I read into this a little bit. It was not just
a new lawyer, but a second new lawyer, a second different lawyer since
his incarceration, finally got the argument legally in front of the judge. He
needs to be given early release here for these reasons in Baltimore pres sit in
in Baltimore law. So Jervonte Davis released approximately two weeks early on the ninety
day sentence for violating home confinement for his plea agreement. So Jervonte Davis out
on probation. Give me a couple of thoughts or two now that we have
that news and everybody wondering when is he going to surface again? When are
we going to hear from him? When Mighty fight again? But your thoughts
on this, Well, when I saw the emoji that he had on Twitter,
but I wasn't surprised because I had heard the day before that that he
was being released from people that were involved with him. So I kind of
knew that was come. I didn't know exactly what time and if it was
one hundred percent, but I was said, yeah, he's getting out,
okay. So then I saw it him, knew that that's the case.
But I mean, in the end, he served forty four days in the
Baltimore jail. Remember he had been convicted on well, he had pled guilty
to four out of fourteen charges. One of them was a felony for this
incident that took place in twenty and twenty where he left four people injured and
fled the scene late night coming out of a you know, and by the
way, did so driving with a suspended license or without a license. Had
a lot of issues. Let's put it like that got the gift from the
judge of home confinement. Fucked that up, ended up, you know,
being in place where he wasn't supposed to living in a four seasons hotel,
buying new property because he was supposed to be in Baltimore in the home of
his trainer, Calvin Ford. Remember, because even though Jivante is from Baltimore,
he's actually making his home these days in South Florida, where he has
property. So he didn't have a place to live in Baltimore. And you
know, he was upset he was too small. Okay, you're supposed to
be in jail, which a jailso is a lot smaller than your trainer's condo
or apartment or whatever. Anyway, the judge found out about a center to
jail. He served the forty four days. Hopefully he learned from this.
He can close the book on this chapter. He is now technically, according
to the lawyers and the legal people in the courts, everybody has paid his
dues to society or his debt to society. And I hope he just fucking
behaves himself. Okay, so so let me interjet he hasn't fully done that
because he's still got two hundred hours O. I know, you know this,
he's got two hundred hours of community service to in Baltimore County by a
date certain that's also part of staying out of jail and stay out of trouble
on probation. So he's not fully free and clear yet, but he's now
out. Yeah, I know you. Now he can live in his if
he wants to live in his new property, I guess he can do that.
He's no longer bound by the home confinement. He's done the time in
jail, and look, he's a grown man at this point. He's no
longer a twenty one year old reckless kid. He's now he's twenty eight.
He's still reckless, I guess, but it's time to grow up, get
some maturity, surround yourself at the right people. Get a driver. You
made millions and millions and millions and millions, like you know, probably twenty
five to thirty million for the Tank Davis fight that he had against Ryan garcia
Hire. The people that if you want to get chauffeured around, you don't
have to worry about being with a revoke license and running in the people.
Just remember everything you do has could take away your freedom if you fuck up,
and you should always have that in your mind. I don't want to
be back in a jail cell. Who wants to be in a jail cell,
and maybe it's a reality check because he finally ended up there. He's
had previous problems, and I know you know this he's had he's been in
jail before, and he's been in jail before, but he's largely avoided being
incarcerated the last two or three screw ups, and now this time that didn't
happen. But out of trouble. If you make all that money the way
you made against the the Ryan Garcia event, and then two weeks later you
go to jail, what good is making all that money if you can't enjoy
it and and spend it, or forget about the money, just your own
freedom, being with your with your friends, with your family members, whatever.
What's the point. So I hope he stays out of trouble. I
hope he'll learned from it. And I'm gonna tell you one thing, I
feel sorry for whever his next opponent is, because they're gonna take the brunt
of that aggravation, that that internal fire that's gonna want him to that's gonna
tell him to get the ring, want to beat the living shit out of
somebody after you know, get letting, letting all of the frustrations. I'm
sure he has after having gone through this recent serious situation of being incarcerated.
So I'm not sure who he's gonna fight when it's going to be. Although
I have my suspicions, I don't have liked percent knowledge of this, But
my handicapping guest is if Isaac Cruiz does well and wins and looks good on
the Spence Crawford Cart coming up on the pay per view, he's in that
co feature. I think the fight that Tank will have at the end of
the year will probably be a rematch with Pitbull Cruise, which is to me,
that's a worthy fight. There was a really close fight the first I'm
a hell of a fight. A lot of people thought pill Bull pit Bull
won the fight, and it's certainly not as big of an event as a
Ryan Garcia fight, but what is. So if Tank comes back, I'm
telling you that'll be a very popular fight. A lot of people are gonna
see pit Bull in this. Errol Spence, Crawford Undercart. We already know
the drawing power of Javanti Davis. They're both with PBC. In other words,
it checks a thousand boxes. I'm pretty sure the WBA is not going
to give a problem. I Tank is going to defend his regular title.
So again that's my prediction of who is opponent will be. I'll tell you
one thing. Also, look like he looked lovely scrawny coming out of jailway.
He didn't put weight on, he took weight off. So he's gonna
maybe enjoy himself for the last the first few days out, you know,
having some nice some nice meals, reality check on. Now let's move on.
I know you did some reporting and you did talk with the promoter of
Tim Zoo in Australia. Let me just say this and you get this.
We released the podcast now, we're taping it on Sunday evening and release it
overnight. So it's now Monday, July seventeenth. Why isn't the WBO strip
Jamal Charlo yet and named Tim Zoo as their world champion, which is what
they should do. Because I know it's not officially announced, I would assume
it's a it's signed. Jamal Charlo's not fighting Zoo by their imposed deadline,
So elevate the man. Elevate the man and let him get on with the
world title defense. And I know you, let's just pick it up on
that You've been talking to George Rose about Zoo having to realize and accept I'm
not going to fight Jamal Charlo at least in the rest of twenty twenty three.
I gotta fight somebody else. Well, as far as what happens with
the organizations, Number one, don't disagree with you that he should be shipped
based on what the orders were in terms of the timing, And clearly it's
no longer even about the timing. It's I'm not fighting him because my next
fight is already signed to fight for the super middle white title against Canelo in
September. Okay, but you can't just there is a process, and I'm
not going to tell you I must here and defend at nausea in the sanction
bodies, because even though I do think they do a lot of good things,
I have my disagreements about a lot of things. That's clear. But
as far as the w BO goes, I'm not going to be mad at
them. They have to go through their process. I think that there's a
very good chance likely that that announcement of him being that title being vacated could
come this week. We'll see what happens. With that. But you know,
look, they handled their business very in very quick order when it came
to the to the resolution as related to the one hundred and forty pound title
with te Fimo Lopez, where they basically give him twenty four hours, you
know, to tell them what he was going to do. So I don't
think they're slow walking this. I think it's just there's a there's a process
they go through, and they're going to go through the process. And by
the way, it ain't the end of the day if it takes an extra
few days or a week for them to deal with this. After Charlotte signed
for the fight with Cannello because I like tim Zo was fighting next week.
But at the end of the day, my belief is that tim Zu will
be elevated to the full WBO champion. He is the interm title, he's
already defended it once before. And in terms of his promoter, George Rose
from No Limit Boxing, I inquired with him uh and talked to him a
little bit about everything that's been going on, and it's like you can read
the piece in my sub stack. I know, we have a piece about
it on the Big Fight Weekend, a website as well, look, they
accept as you said, the Charlotte fight ain't happening. But Tim Zoo was
a guy like, Okay, he wanted the Charlotte fight very badly, but
he also wants to stay busy. I mean, this dude fought with a
dog bite, you know, two weeks later after dog took a chunk out
of his arms, So you know that's that tells you the guy's mentality about
wanting to be in the ring. So they'll go through their process. I
thought George and h in the way that he spoke about himself and Tim dealing
with this was actually very smart. It's sort of like they understand it.
They're not mad about it. They know that Canello is the man and that
you know, they have to line up his fights, and they did took
care of the Charlot fight. They didn't blame Charlo for taking the opportunity to
make a life changing kind of money and an opportunity to fight the biggest name
in the sport and become an undisputed champion in a second way class. So
like they get that, and so they weren't even mad about it. I
mean, and I don't think anybody can be mad at Charlo about that.
So that was the first thing, and the second thing he says, you
know, in America in PBC, they make sure that Canello analadies with them.
They got to get his fight situated. He's the priority. We know
that here in Australia were they're from, that Tim Zoo is the biggest name
of the sport, and that they got to get his next fight lined up.
So they'll go through their time process so figure out who they want to
fight, and they'll presumably line up some other opponent for him. And knowing
the way that Tim has handled his business, I don't think they're looking for
some soft touch, easy guy. I mean they took a lesser guy in
Ocampo because they thought that the Charlot fight was at stake. Before that,
they fought Tony Harrison, was obviously a very credible fighter who also, by
the way, turned in a good performance. He is also at least a
Bomb Garner's trainer. He was in the corner, you know, whipping her
in a shape for the fight against someone Dartituo the other night. And so
look, Tim Zoo, I hope I can't wait to see him back in
there, and he's exciting. He brings a crowd, he's got an attitude,
he's got swagger, he's got a dog bite. I'll bring him on
whoever he wants to fight. So I was just glad to see that they
were good nature well and not accepting. You're being smart based people. They
accepted the Canelo thing and they're moving on. Yeah, but they're being smart
business people because they know there is a lot of money and an undisputed fight.
And look, this is this is smart and simple. Just because Zoo
has one of the belts, he wants all of them and you can still
have the undisputed fight with Charlo having three of them in Zoo having one of
them. So they're being smart, you know him, have him have another
fight here, and then let's see if the Charlo fight maybe happens at the
beginning of or when it happens. It also depends on what happens with Charlot
in the Charlo fight. And furthermore, it depends on what the other organizations
do about their belts, because look, the IBFS had a mandatory due for
ages. Backerum has taken multiple step asides, so he's gonna want his shot
kind of you know, perhaps a Vacan title. I mean, I'm not
sure how much longer he's gonna wait. I mean, there are other mandatories
that are there, So you know, this is not an uncommon situation.
Whenever you have a champion and they're sort of their in limbo a little bit,
it takes a little time for things to play out and for the organizations
to go through their processes, for VACAN title fights to be ordered, etc.
There's a lot of jockeying because some of the fighters that could be in
those fights are ranked by the various organizations, so they sort of decide which
is our best road to go. So I feel like one hundred fifty four
pounds situation with Zoo, with Charlo, with the other organizations should be much
more clarified over the next month or so as we grow closer to the Canelo
fight with him and Charlo. One more bit of news, just real quick
here. Philip Hrgovich and Dim c McKeon of Australia will fight on the undercard
of the Anthony Joshua Dillian White fight coming early next month on August to twelve.
There had been some thought that Tyson Fury was going to f in a
WBC title offense against McKean, who he's familiar with. Instead, it'll be
Hergovich, who is the number one guy with the IBF. So your thoughts
on this landing on the undercard of Joshua and White Well, with regards to
the content that the notion that Fury was going to fight McKean, I think
the only one who had that in mind was Tyson Fury, and that was
sort of like he went to Australia to watch his buddy Joe Parker have a
fight, you know, a couple of months ago, and as Tyson as
want to do, when he talked to the local press, he threw out
the name of one of the better Australian heavyweights, and all of a sudden,
it was a front page around the world. I'm gonna fight dems McKeen.
I don't really think that was ever real. And Demzy McKean, you
know, he's got a great record, but he's never done anything to even
be close to a world title fight. In terms of Hergevich, he hasn't
fought for over a year now. He's coming off a close but you know,
solid went over his zang Jeli, which obviously looks much better now that
he did what he did against Joe Joyce, but that was the eliminator that
got on the number one position. So he can't just sit an act of
waiting and waiting and waiting. So the way that this is working is he's
going to have this fight on the undercard of Joshua. It gives that card
another like somewhat significant heavyweight fight because the guy who's the A side of that
fight is going to fight for the title. And my understanding is that if
everything goes well for Usik against Duba August twenty six, that at the end
of this year and not a you know date to be determined, I guess
or you know the particulars, but that IBF fights due and that fight's got
to take place before a certain time frame this year, and so there's a
very good chance that that IBF title shot will be coming his way at the
end of the year. And so you're not going to just go into a
fight with Usik coming off you know, that long of a layoff, and
so he gets ready for what he thinks is a world championship opportunity. You
know, Hurgovitch is only fifteen fights as a pro, twelve knockouts, but
he was a top notch amateur, as top touch as it gets, one
of bronze met only Olympic Games. McKean, I've you know. He's big,
he's strong, he's a south paw. You mentioned he's all shilling.
He actually is based out of England, which which is where he fights and
lives these days, so he's not going to be traveling across the world to
do this fight. But I've watched When I heard about him, this is
prior to the Fury fight coming up. I had heard from other people about
this big guy in Australia, and Eddie Hearn had worked with him because he
was starting to do some shows in Australia. So I went on YouTube and
I watched, like one of Demsey's a couple of his fights. Big,
strong guy, very little skills, just I mean, rough and big,
but clumsy and slow, and I think he's in some trouble and it just
reinforces being big, especially at this level when we move up, isn't good
enough. You don't get away with just being big. I heard you say
big like three times, but that was about all you said. There's not
much else other than big. We'll see Hergovich is a vastly experienced fighter from
his amateur days. You know, this is gonna be a hard one for
McKean, it seems to me. But again, Hergevich is not unwilling to
fight a decent guy, but he's also not going to be stupid when he's
got a gigante fight sitting on the horizon, whether it's us sick or for
a vacant title. So they're playing it smart and hopefully they put in a
good show and if mckinkin can land some good shots, you know, maybe
we'll see something interesting. But it's it to me if you're doing the heavyweight
fight between Joshua and White, having some other interesting heavyweights on the card makes
sense. So this is a good addition in my opinion. Good stuff on
that. All right, let's wrap it with some nostalgia a little bit.
You've got some good stuff here that as we released the podcast, Sunday is
the sixteenth, and it was eighteen years ago on Sunday two thousand and five
that your Maine Taylor upset Bernard Hopkins to become the middleweight champ and the second
ever four belt undisputed champ. You were ringside for this, but this the
magnitude of this upset, give me some nostalgia. On July sixteenth, two
thousand and five, please, this was a really big fight. Bernard Hopkins
had become the first ever four belt champion when he had scored a body punched
knockout against the Hasker de loyeto take his bio title and added to his other
collection of belts. And look, this was the old the old guard Bernard
Hopkins, who had made at that point, who had tied the all time
record, had set the all time record for middleweight title defenses at twenty U
now I was looking to extend that record to twenty one. And Jermaine Taylor
was the red hot youngster, Olympic medalist Darling of HBO, undefeated. And
it was a bitter, bitter, bitter bitter build up. Not because there
was crazy animosity between Bernard Hopkins and Jermaine Taylor, although you know, Bernard
always made animosity with his opponents, and Jermaine was, you know, a
pretty happy, go lucky guy, so he was sort of just kind of
he was the proxy, if you will, in this particular battle. The
battle wasn't between Bernard and Jermaine. The battle was being Bernard and Loud Bella,
who was Jermaine's promoter because of the terrible way that Bernard and Lou had
parted ways where Bernard not loose fault, Bernard threw him overboard. And I'm
not to get off on a tangent, but when I wrote about the way
that Bernard had thrown Lou overboard in an article that I wrote in USA Today,
once Bernard saw it and was very mad at me and like literally didn't
talk to me for about three and a half to four years or something like
that. Right, you went on ice for a while for riding the truth.
But welcome to our world that you know, you write the truth and
you got problems. Well, just so you know, like Bernard and I
are cool now. We still text with each other. Bernard, I are
good buzz these days and have been for many many years. Once we got
past that situation, and I still you know, when when when it comes
up when we joke around with each other, you know, and I say,
you know, you didn't talk to me for all that time. I
said, I didn't really care because I didn't want to talk to you either,
dude. So we joke around about that. But anyway, so this
fight was a you know, the the emotions that were running so high because
of the terrible, terrible split between Debella and Hopkins, and I'm Bernard and
I'm so so obviously you have Taylor's there to try to make it right,
and uh, look the young man at that time, a young fighter,
and Jeremy Tylor rose to the occasion. Now, it was a very very
close fight, super close fight. A lot of people thought Bernard Hopkins was
the winner of this fight. A lot a lot of people thought that it
was an even fight. I actually went back because somebody on Twitter. I
posted a photo on my Twitter account, in my Facebook and Instagram of the
poster I had the very rare Adura trand that hung in the light box at
the MGM, and somebody commented on that and asked me how did I score
the fight? And I, for the life of me, could not remember.
So I went and I looked up the fight on box wreck and you
can click on their little wiki about the fights. And as it turned out,
when I clicked on the wiki, they have all the media scores listed
that they not every one of them, but they've got a whole bunch of
media scores that they compiled, and I saw my own score in that list,
and as it turnout, I did score that fight a draw, one
fourteen to one fourteen. A couple you know, Harold Letterman from HBO had
Taylor as a winner, but a lot of the other reporters that were ringside
had that fight for Bernard. But all you know, fairly competitive and cloths
or whatever. So it was that kind of fight. And frankly, the
second fight was similar in that respect where they had an immediate rematch and once
again Taylor prevailed in a decision, but again very very close fight. But
this was this was Jermaine Taylor's coming of age fight. You know, he
kind of gets lost in the shuffle from the standpoint, like I don't know
if he's going to ever be in the Hall of Fame, let's say,
But when you take a look at his absolute best days where he went in
short order, he beat Raoul Marquez, he beat William Jopp, he was
a former champion. Marquez had been a title holder at one fifty four.
He beat at the time an undefeated contender that was a real rugged, strong
dude, and Daniel Edward that people had high hopes for then he puts together
back to back wins over Hopkins close as they were. Then he gets another
it defends the title. It turns out to be a draw in a super
close fight against against Squinky right your boy from down there in the Tampa area.
Then he goes home and he takes on the very tough cassim Uma,
who was a former title holder at one fifty four, has the win over
Corey Spinks, finally gets knocked out by Kelly Pavlick. But that was a
great stretch for Jermaine Taylor, and a lot of people don't give it to
credit it deserves. Hopkins went on, of course to become after the losses
to Jermaine, went up skipped over super middleweight, scored a huge upset over
Tarvor, and went on to have a number of other He'd be pathlic.
He had a lot of other big fights Um and and you know as a
legend of legends, and and Taylor's got the two wins over Man. So
uh, that was a huge fight back in the day, a big HBO
pay per view. A lot of bad blood between the camps because of the
things I outlined. Um a great old fighter against at the time a great
young fighter and it was a big, big deal And and what can I
say that was that was a great fight to be at because there was just
so much going on, but that was like, it's one of those types
of fights to be like that. When we get to Spence Crawford, the
whole boxing world is focused on that. That was a big freaking deal in
the middle of the summer in Vegas. Love that eighteen years ago. And
by the way, so again as we released the podcast here, we're doing
so overnight Sunday into Monday. Monday being the seventeenth Tuesday, July eighteenth,
has significance for nostalgia for several reasons. Jersey Joe Walcott Raphael wants you to
know he was not ringside, but Jersey Joe Walcott historic became the oldest heavyweight
champion at that time ever thirty seven years of age with a booming left upper
cut against Zard Charles Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, seventh round KO for Jersey Joe Walcott
July eighteenth, nineteen fifty one. Also but the record was broken, of
course by from Big George Foreman, forty five years of age, broke the
record eventually, also on the eighteenth, one of the greatest. We talked
about big punches. You kept talking about Deante Wilder, Thomas Earns, who
we've mentioned Big one punch, one of the biggest one punch knockouts you'd ever
see, certainly in the nineteen eighties, occurred in nineteen eighty seven. So
it's now thirty six years ago. Mike McCallum July eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven,
just absolutely annihilated Donald Curry. That was thirty six years ago. Tuesday,
as we released this podcast, and Barry Tompkins, the HBO Legendary Hall
of Fame caliber a commentator, I told us that great story about that night.
I'll just relive it one quick second. That he's calling that fight in
the Caesar's Palace pavilion. Dan, you know of what I speak. And
he said, he said, this was not my wife who I later married.
He goes, I had a date with me that night, and she
had seats behind me. And when I when I did my call, I
could hear her behind me. I knew her voice, and she screamed,
oh my god, he's dead. He's dead. She's screaming it behind him,
and he could hear her and Tompkins' call is tremendous with Larry Merchant and
Sugar Ray Leonard of that is a classic one punch knockout. That is thirty
six years ago Tuesday McCallum over Donald Curry. Donald Curry was a great fighter
in a lot of people thought he might be pound for pound number one.
His prime was short, but it was spectacular. When he got to one
hundred and fifty four pounds, he just could not take it. The chin
was not there. But McCallum went on to become a Hall of Famer.
Was in the ring with a lot of you know, he was a guy
that suffered from a lot of fighters that didn't want to fight him. When
he did get the opportunity to fight the bigger names, so how our big
they were, he did very well and obviously he is well deserved in the
Hall of Fame. Donald Curry also was inducted into the Hall of Fame a
couple of years ago after a long wait. I love that fight. As
a matter of fact, I made it a point and I'm proud to say
I have that in my ample boxing collection and I will be tweeting the pictures
of it come the anniversary day, I have the program and the poster.
The poster, by the way, it's not the most attractive poster. Well,
let me tell you that's a rough one to find. That is not
a common post that I'm proud to have him. The lone Star Cobra.
Donald Curry was on a mission. He would he thought he was one of
the great names, by the way, yes, and he thought he was
going to get a chance to fight Sugar Ray Leonard. One more bit of
nostalgian then we got to get out of here. The backdrop if you go
back and watch the HBO broadcast, is that Donald Curry was suing Sugar Ray
Leonard because he thought Sugar Ray Leonard had misled him and cost him a chance
to fight either Leonard or Marvin Hagler, and Leonard took the Marvin Hagler fight
himself, and so the Curry camp wanted Sugar Ray Leonard off the HBO broadcast,
did not want him on the broadcast. So that's being talked about pre
fighting the build up on the full HBO broadcast. But low and behold,
it didn't matter. After what McCallum did with that left hook in the fifth
round, boom that night, and uh, Donald Curry was thirty one,
and oh that was his first loss and was really probably never the same after
that after that night. And by the way, happy birthday Canelo Alvarez on
Tuesday the eighteenth, that we released the podcast. On Monday is Canelo's thirty
third birthday. So there you go with somebody must I must correct you about
one thing. When Curry fought McCallum, he had one defeat. That's when
he had lost the welterweight title. Are you positive he was twenty seven and
one going into the MC twenty seven and one. My bad, my bad,
not twenty seven and McCallum was thirty one. Oh, I haven't,
I haven't reversed jup. Okay, but ye still when he had lost in
a big upset to the then on the feedd Lloyd Huntagan for the undisputed welterweight
title. That was an eighty six. He fought McCallum in how about this
for the difference of times. He fights Huntagan in September of eighty six for
undisputed at welterway. This is when it was three belts. He gets stopped
in the sixth round in what was the big upset at the time. He
then comes back and he fights two fights in early eighty seven and then fights
McCallum in July of eighty seven. So after losing by knockout, he had
two fights and then fought McCallum. So a total of three fights in less
than the in like ten months. Doesn't happen these days anymore. Mccam st
lone star Cobra was a big time name. And so there you go.
And by the way, shout out to my buddy David Payne in England for
a lot of different reasons, but he to this day would tell you he
named his son Lloyd like you named your cat Lenox after Lloyd Huntagan who beat
Donald Curry. That was a huge deal in Britain, that upstat that you're
talking about in eighty six, greatness tal Jay and Kennello's birthday thirty three on
twthday. With that, I think we have a full show. Nice job
with Stephen Fulton, full recaps here. I think we're good. Are we
good for the week on the recap? I think we're all good And we're
a few days closer to Spence Crawford coming in Las Vegas. Cannot wait for
that. With that, thank you, Dan Rayphel. Have a great week.
We'll talk to you on the preview coming this week and the US show
obviously coming later in the week. Here in the dog days of summer,
stay cool, my friend. Thank you you bet TJ. There is Dan
Rayphel. I'm merely TJ Reeves. Follow us, subscribe to this podcast feed,
rate us, and review us on the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed.
We come off the weekend with the Fight Preach, Unite or recap podcast.
We're done for now. Have a great week, everybody,