Well off of a weekend that has seen Canello Alvarez successfully defend his undisputed super
middleweight championships in Las Vegas over Jamel Tarlo, who deserves a lot of credits.
We got popped. The bunch hung in there, but it was still
a one sided win for Cannello. We're ready to recap that, the entire
fight card, all of the action from this weekend, fight news, nostalgia,
and more. It is the Fight Freaks United Recap Podcast. I'm the
somewhat capable host, t J. Reeves. He is our insider, Dan
Raphael. We have both been traveling. You beat me, by the way,
because you've traveled another couple thousand miles and I did, from Las Vegas
back to your home in Northern Virginia. I have spent Saturday and Sunday in
New Orleans in the Big Easy where my Buccaneers and the NFL got to win
over the Saints. But we're here to talk boxing. You were there at
ringside. We're ready to talk Canelo in the pay per view, all the
fights from that and much more. First of all, how you feel in
your jet lag? You all right? You're cranky? What's the good the
Jella doesn't really kick in until the next day. Really, But I'm fine
because I've slept on the plane and I've been on West Coast time, so
for me and maybe ten thirty or eleven o'clock a night whenever we're taking this,
I know you're ready, if you're ready to go eat a meal and
I'm ready to crash. I understand that we're not gonna get with each other
and write something or like watch TV or you know whatever. I understand it.
It was a good it's good, good fight week and I got there
Wednesday as if they listened to the Friday podcast. I know. And uh,
whenever there's a big event, it's always fun to be back in Vegas,
see everybody and feel the excitement and and just take it all in.
And you know, I've done it a million times, but it doesn't really
ever get old, no doubt. All right, again, thank you for
finding us, whether you've done so through Dan Substack, through Big Fight Weekend
dot com social media link, however you've done so, follow or subscribe.
We come off the weekend with the recap podcast, we go into the weekend
with the Big Fight Weekend preview. We are here for you peeps, rate
us and review us. A new month underway. Your ratings and reviews help
us with the algorithms and more people finding it again. September a smashing month
with tens of thousands of you listening to all of what we're doing. We
say thank you, thank you. We're grateful. But keep spreading the word,
keep promoting, keep reading us and reviewing us and getting all of it
done. All right, let's get right into it. We've had a little
over twenty four hours now right at it to digest what we saw right off
the Canelo pay per view and his win in the main event. I think
we got to tell the keeps also that besides this car, we got the
freaking undisputed heavyweight championship fight we're gonna talk about to talk Tyson Fury and Alexander
Usik. They have agreed. We did talk on the bet US show.
All of this runs together on the bet US Live Show on their platforms.
We did mention it because it was announced Friday. We'll go into some detail
in a little bit. Stand by for that. But again, you were
there, we were digesting Canelo's win. I will submit to you because you're
about I'm about to wind you up and set you off to go. I
will submit Canello dominant. Charlo deserves credit for toughness. He took a lot
of big shots, only went down the one time, wasn't really marked up
after the fight, but never really threatened Canello. He hit him hard a
couple of times, but never sustain anything. Canello gets the win. There's
he's saying that distant you were there, let's go, what did you see?
Well, You're given Charlo a lot more credit than I'm going to give
him. And by the way, I like Jamale Charlo. I've known Jamalo
Charlo since he was a young prospect. I've covered many of his fights.
I think he's somewhat misunderstood. I don't find them a bad guy like other
people bake him out to be. However, in the case of specifically related
to his performance and this particular fight, are you kidding me? You get
the opportunity of a lifetime. You're going in the ring with the biggest star
in the sport, You're making your biggest payday, you get a chance to
be the undisputed champion in two way classes at the same time, and you
put in that kind of fucking effort. He talks about lions, only I'm
talking about the cowardly lion. I was not impressed, now, Jamal,
he didn't you know. He came through the fight. And I never seen
a guy who knows he got blown out on the cards fall into a smile
and embrace with his opponent so quickly and so easily as your mel Charlo.
You know, I didn't even know what you're gonna ask me to kick it
off. And I'm just off the plane and I'm just back. I've been
home ten minutes. I washed up and took a leak in the reverse order,
and then I came in to do the podcast, and now you're setting
me off in the first freaking five minutes of this thing. Your Melis Charlo
didn't come to win. He came to collect a check. He came to
not get knocked out to go, even said in his interview with Jim Gray
after the fight, Kenello knocked all those other guys out, he didn't knock
me out. He was happy to not get knocked out. I felt like
that's how he fought the fight, to not get knocked out. And having
looked at some of the clips, his trainer Derek James was, you know,
doing what he was supposed to, try to motivate him, get him
to go and actually do something. He had no a billet, and listen,
you know what, if we're gonna give Derek all the credit, win
his guys win big fights. When Arrow was on just you know, winning
unifying three titles and winning big fights, and Charlotte became undisputed, and he
had Anthony and Joshua looking pretty good in the comeback fights. When your guy
does well, the trainer, it's the glory. When your fighter stinks,
you get some of the blame. And Derek gets some of the blame because,
uh, you know, he was saying the right things. But I
just wonder what was the game plan when he was losing after four or five
six rounds. There was never a change in pace, never a change in
strategy, never anything. I asked Jamal at the press conference afterwards. You
know, did you knew you were behind? Did you think about, like,
I gotta change things radically? And I used the term sell out,
which means in my mind, that means just throw it to the wind,
you know it. If you're you know, either get him out of there
or you're gonna get knocked out, but do something. And I keep thinking
to myself, I think of Deontay Wilder. Deontay Wilder, he knows in
certain fights, like I'll look at the Luis Ortiz fight, like he's losing
on the cards, it's, you know, kind of killer die. I'm
gonna go out of my shield if I lose. I lose, like with
Tyson Fury and the third fight, he knows he's hurt, he doesn't even
know where the fuck he is, and he's in there just swinging and trying
to get everything out of himself to win this fight. Jamal Charlot did not
leave it all in the ring. And again he he's the fighter. That's
his job. I'm not saying you got out there and get yourself killed,
but you got to give a little bit more of an effort than he gave.
I was not impressed. You're giving him way too much credit. All
right, Well, I don't know that I'm given in credit. I just
pointed out what I saw. So let me go a little more in depth
on two or three things that lead to this. And I'm not making excuses.
The guy was off a year and a half layoff, and he did
look and he did look rusty. I'm not making an excuse. He looked
rusty at the beginning of the fight. The next thing is he's off a
broken hand, which we understand now. He did throw the left hand some
and he landed a couple of them. But when we went into this,
I said to you, which one is the this is obvious stuff, which
one's the Hall of Fame fighter, Which guy hasn't fought in a year and
a half. Which guy's off a broken hand? And this went pretty much
like I expected, which is Jemel Charlo And I agree with what you just
said. Where's the adjustment back half of the fight, eighth round, tenth
round, Where's some kind of an adjustment. And I think it's very valid
criticism that as that wore on, it looked like survival mode. It looked
like I'm here to get paid to try not to get knocked out, and
that's it, and then I'll go back to junior middle weight and fight other
guys. He's the first thing I was talking about in the interview afterwards,
and then again when he came to the news, Carvers was, ah,
you know, no, biggie, You'll win some, you lose some.
You go back to the one hundred and fifty four b champ. You win
some, you lose some. The same fucking baseball where you play one hundred
and sixty two games. Is his professional prize, fighting at the highest level
of the sport. You know, I want him to be pissed off he
didn't win. I mean, I'm not saying you got a stew better for
the rest of your life and you know, and get into a deep depression.
But I want to see some emotion from my guys. Let's tell the
truth. Let's tell the truth. He was gifted into this situation. It's
not like he beat a big time contending super middle weight fighter to set this
up. He did not. It's not like he had even fought anybody in
this calendar year to set this up. This was handed to him. He
did not earn it. There is no spin anywhere when it works. Did
he earn this? He earned? Candid to him, he earned it from
the standpoint that he isn't undis while he was because when he del run,
he lost his WBO belt based on their ruling, and Tim Zoo was now
the WBO champion of the one hundred and fifty four pound weight class, but
I do. I give him the respect as being the youngest bed of champion
one hundred fifty four pounds and it's cerainly not the first time, but again
again, I'm going another weight class to win a champion, but I'm going
strong like Rayfield, he went up two weight classes and did nothing this calendar
year to earn the shot. He was gifted. He was gifted this opportunity,
and he fought a fight like a fighter that knows I'm gifted. I've
gifted the money, I'm gifted the opportunity, and I'm just trying not to
get knocked out, I guess. But Jamil also has talked so much shit
about how great he is and and I mean that doesn't bother me. That's
boxing. I get it. Guys beat their chest and I'm cool with that.
It's not my first rodeo. But when you talk dat much shit and
you do that little team on you man, I mean, come on.
And by the way, you mentioned about how he's off a long layoff,
you know not. I mean some of the guys who take these long layoffs,
it's for different reasons. His was obviously related specifically to an injury he
had the fractured hand, Otherwise he would have had the fight with Tim zew
in January. But when you take look at just in the last like a
little bit of time last year, not even like big name guys, big
level, top level champions who come off long layoffs and get smoked and blown
out in their next fight by guys who weren't off like that. Josh,
you know, Josh Taylor come off a long layoff. Timo Lopez spanked him.
Rol Spence off a long layoff, Terrence Scrufford beat the shit out of
him, knocked him out. Was not competitive. Stephen Fulton off a long
layoff, goes to Japan, doesn't show up against anyway. I mean,
Jamil is just the most recent guy to do that. I mean, all
these fighters who are top level before they got those other opportunities, look at
the who they fought. Now, not that Crawford was superactive, but he
had fought. He had fallen in December, He had faught in December.
He fought December in a way, had just fought in December when he became
the undisputed bantamweight champion. Tiafimo had fought, uh, you know, in
more recent times, certainly than Josh because he had had the fight with with
a Pedro Campa and I forget there was another fight in there he had all
so he had two fights, I believe, and Charlo hadn't had anything so
activity or lack of I think, you know, when you're a top fighter,
like all the guys I just mentioned, are it ruins you? Now?
Not all of those men that I just mentioned. We're moving up and
wait, Taylor was in his own way class. Stephen Fulton was the guy
who was fighting the guy that was moving up. Spence obviously a career long
welterweight, so Jamal was a little different because he was going up to weight
divisions. But again, I know, Canello is a super middleweight on distreeted
champ, and he's been a champ at light heavyweight and over all that.
But he did fight a long period of his career at one hundred fifty four
pounds, so and he's and he was physically smaller than Charlot. But he's
just a better fighter. He's got more punching power, he's got better skills,
you know, Charlo. Well, Charlo said he didn't actually say this,
but Canello, in his mind, part of His motivation, he said
all through the build up was that Charlot Brothers meaning Jamal and Dramal, he
didn't believe in my skills and I wanted to prove that. And uh,
it's very obvious after I scored the fight twelve rounds and nothing. He got
a lot more skills than Charlot does, no doubt. I had the fight
nine three and with the knockdown very easy, and in the decision was right
around there. We've spent so much time talking about what Charlo didn't do.
You were right there around one of the all time greats. Tell me more
about what he did, his legacy continues, and what's next for him because
you were around all of it. Aftermath well as as I joked with Canelo
at the news conference, the rumors of your demise are greatly exaggerated. You
know, obviously a lot of people one of the talking points going into this
fight was about how because of the fact that he lost against the Meat of
Evil, moving up one against Glufkin and against John Ryder. But you know,
I'll call that. I've referred to the Triple G third fight as a
quiet victory. You know, he won, obviously, but it was not
a dynamic performance. He didn't look good. He looked a little a little
off kilter, if you will. The John Ryder fight, you know,
he won obviously very cleanly and all that, and you know, bust him
up a bit, but the expectation was, when the chasm of talent is
that great and you're in front of all those hometown fans, you're you know,
you're probably gonna get the knockout, and he just couldn't do it.
Now, So you put the three of those matches together and people are sort
of like, well, you know, Kennelo is still a tremendous fighter,
but maybe he's lost this that. Maybe he's not what he was when he
was pound for pound. Maybe things have changed a little bit. He is
thirty years thirty three years old. Now he's now uh, you know,
he was well going into into the fight against uh, against Charlot, he
was already over sixty fights. Now he's got sixty wins, which is a
big milestone. But with all those all those uh fights and rounds and he's
closing in a five hundred career rounds, that's a lot of rounds. That's
that's like, you know, Bernard Hopkins boxed into his fifties and retired with
I think around five hundred rounds. Uh and and and this guy is,
you know, thirty three and has been boxing things as a teenager. So
the rounds add up. And not to mention when you have that many rounds
in the in the professional log, think about the rounds he's done in terms
of sparring that happens also, so uh, you know, at thirty three,
he still looks tremendous. But like I said, rumors of his demise
are greatly exaggerty because whatever you think about Charlo's lack of effort, He's still
a quality fighter. And he made him look like hedn't belong in the ring
with him. He was strong, his defense was sound, he had good
offense. I mean, I will give credit to Charlo because when he did
get tagg, he took most of those shots pretty well. He did get
knocked out with a shocking set. Can see when the seventh town, isn't
it fair? Charlo got blasted at least a half dozen times late in that
fight and did not go down again survive that seventh round. So this begs
the question. I know, I know this could be considered blasphemy. We're
bringing it up. Canelo maybe winding down because maybe the Canelo was three years
ago or even a couple of years ago, gets him out of there.
I don't know. I mean, this is now, this is three straight
wins by decision. He couldn't get John Ryder out of there, and he
hit him and hit him and hit him. He hit Charlo. Charlo's credited
sum. All right, don't buy the reason I want to tell by your
expression, you don't buy that it's I mean, I'm not saying it's it's
not possible. I don't. I don't necessarily subscribe to I understand why some
people might. The reason why I don't is because Charlot throughout his career showed
an excellent shi. He's got some good punchers, and he's only been knocked
down prior to the fight. In the Canelo fight. You gotta go way
back when he was a prospect, when he got a flash knockdown, you
know, when he was a young fighter, didn't and he wasn't hurt,
and he got up and then he took care of business. So you know,
you know, Tito Trinida at Oscar Delahoyo, lots of great fighters get
dropped around the career that doesn't mount to a hill of beans. You were
in the arena when he went down the seventh round, did you, and
did the arena think this could be it? Right here? Because I'm watching
remotely in New Orleans with the guys I'm watching with, and we thought this
maybe. Yet, what was it like in the arena because you were there?
Well, my feeling was when I saw him get knocked down, to
me, he looked like he was okay. He got to a knee and
his eyes were on the referee, So I felt like he's there and he's
he's actually taking he's doing the smart thing. What happens is sometimes a guy
gets knocked down and you see him jump up so quick because they're frazzled and
they don't really have their wits about them and they know the rest gonna count.
They don't, you know, they lose track of ten seconds whatever.
But I felt like Charlo was there because he was patient. He did observe
the referee and get up when he needed to get up. So I felt
like he got dropped and maybe this is the beginning where Canelo will start to
beat him down and then take him out, but I felt like he's probably
gonna be okay to go a little, you know, to go longer.
So I didn't have the My visceral reaction was, oh my god, it's
not like he's gonna be about to get knocked out. I felt like he
got dropped. But he's probably gonna be able to overcome this to a degree,
and maybe Canello will get him later on. But but Canelo, you
talk about the fact that he couldn't get a knockout against Charlo, And my
perspective is this, he does have a good chin. And also Charlo,
besides all the things I said about his performance, he held a lot on
the inside and he and he backed up constantly. So when you're facing a
fighter that is not going to be there to engage you and holds and backs
up quite a bit, it's harder to get a knockout. And the one
thing and and Kennello spoke about this at the press conference. I actually asked
him about this a bit. You know, he has put the fact that
he had the hand surgery and before that an injured hand, the left wrist
and hand. He said it hurt and it was a problem from going into
the during the training camp for kalb plant obviously looked good in the plant knocked
him out, became undisputed, but then it was still giving him problems with
b ball, TRIPLEG and rider. He did have surgery in there on the
hand. Now he says it's one hundred percent and that he feels strong and
more confident. He was able to hit the bags in the in the in
the training camp, and no problem in the fight and getting ready, and
he said, you know, he would like to get a knock out,
but we had twelve rounds and I dominated. You know what else he want?
I won? He won generously all twelve rounds, like I gave it
to him, and at worst he might have lost two rounds. You know,
So the guy is still the bad You know, he's still a bad
motherfucker. Is the bottom line. You're up on the f bombs after the
long flight, and look, bottom line is he is a first ballot,
unanimous Hall of Famer and the legacy continues. That was the big win.
Give me quickly before we move on to the disastrous controversial decision with ericson Luban
in a second, give me, give me what's next for Canelo? In
your opinion, the name Benavidez got mentioned in the ring. You all were
asking him about that after the fight, in the post fight, what's your
inclination? What do you think? Well, one thing, he did stay
in the ring as well as at the press gardens. He'll be back to
Stinko to my weekend in May, obviously, and that'll be a big deal.
You know, remember this was a fight in September where he fought on
September thirtieth. He didn't get to go on his normal weekend of the Mexican
Independence Day weekend, which was two weeks ago because of the UFCU took the
building on that on that day, which was unfortunate, but that's how it
goes. And I think that you know, they can line up a good
Canelo fight. They won't fear going against the UFC in the right fight.
But that's that's a that's an argument for next year. But he'll go May,
that first first Saturday in May, and the questions who's he gonna fight,
So there were some conversations that maybe he would get a shot or maybe
Jamaal Charlotte to get a shot. Now Jamal is supposed to coming back.
He was at to fight him and his brother, even though they haven't been
getting along recently. He did show up. They showed him in the dress
room hugging it out a little bit. He was at ringside. The word
in the street is that he's going to be part of this. You know,
you know, when we're out in Vegas, you hear all the showtime
people, all the boxing coach Raither, you hear a lot of stuff.
So the word is that on the Andre David Benneviti's pay per view undercard,
which the date that's being held is November twenty five, which is the Thanksgiving
Saturday, that on that card you'll see the return of Jamal Charlo against David's
brother Jose Benavidez Junr. Which, as they come back fight, is not
the worst thing I ever saw for a guy that hasn't foughten over two years.
So if he comes through that and he looks good, they may give
him a shot against Canelo. I think that would be the wrong move because
the general public is gonna be what he's fighting Charlo again, We just got
I agree with that. Again, We've already gifted We've already gifted one Charlo
and you're gonna reward the other one for fighting a guard. That's a garbage
that you're talking about. Jose Benavidez Junior. Okay Charlo against Josie Benavides Junior.
There's nothing wrong with that fight, But if he wins and then to
get Canello off that that I got a little bit of a problem with.
So I'm thinking who else is there now? He hasn't really wanted to fight
Benavides. He's got some kind of bug up his butt about about David and
some of the disrespect that his father has shown him. More than the fighter,
I think, I guess money talks. I'd like to see that fight.
I think every boxing pan would be I said this, since David beat
the fight beat Caleb Plant back in March, that if Cannelo Alvarez is the
undisputed super middleweight champion, then David Benavides is the undisputed number one contender.
He's the number one guy in the division not named Canelo. That's just the
bottom line. So the winner of Andre Benavidez is the obvious choice, but
business things come into play. Who knows what they'll do Benavitis against Canelo one
single Demyo the Mexican against the Mexican American on the Mexican Holiday. That's a
freaking big fight. If Andre beats benevite Is, that's a huge dwin.
And now you have the trash talking American against Canello, you know that.
I mean, I'd be fine with that fight. I mean, I think
Andre has been dramatically underrated for a long time. David Morrella would be a
great opponent, but he just does not have the notoriety or the ability to
necessarily generate a big pay per view audience to help out with the sales.
So it's a good fight, but I think he needs a little more seasoning
and so you know, who knows what's going to be. And then,
by the way, they don't have to only fight PBC guys. Canella runs
his show. If they go across the street to some other promoter and have
an opponent in mind, trust me, they can make a deal because that
opponent's going to make the most money possible fighting against him. I mean,
for you know it, just as one example, I don't stop saying this
would happen if Cannello decided, Hey, go get me himI Mongia, go
get me Edgar Berlanga or whatever like. Those are other names that you could
potentially throw in the mix because they can offer them riches that their their promoters
would have no chance to say no to. How do you say no to
a Knello fight. He's the You get a shot at all the titles and
you get all the biggest money possible. Good enough, it was right,
It was good. It was good to see him back. It was good
to see him healthy, good to see him doing his thing. And you
know, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I love going to Canelo fights.
That was my number twenty one from my career in terms of in person
coverage. He's a class act. And Jamale Charlotte decided he didn't want to
show up and actually put in the effort that we deserved as boxing fans,
not saying he has who go out there and get himself killed, like I
said, but you got to show up and if you lose the fight,
be a little bit more upset about it. Don't smile immediately and say it,
well, I didn't get knocked out. That means that's what I came
for, is to not get knocked out. Now to the co feature fight,
it is roughly twenty four hours later, have we figured out how in
the world two of those judges ringside in the co feature gave Ericson Lubin eight
rounds for one of them and then nine rounds for the other one against Hazer's
Ramos in a fight that we built up a bunch. Dude, I even
have a trouble I haven't got but with the other one giving him seven rounds.
Yeah, one judge had at one fifteen one thirteen, John Chris Migley,
or he had at fifteen thirteen, which is seven to five. John
McKay had at one sixteen one twelve, which is eight to four. Patrician
cors Jarman, who has always been one of the worst judges in the Nevada.
I don't understand why she continually gets to the assignments. She had at
nine rounds at three that's one seventeen to one to eleven. I'm listen,
okay. I'm sitting there in my chair in my immedia scene. I got
my man Mitch Abramson, the one of the pr men from Showtime, on
my left. I got my boy Keith Idik from boxing scene on my right,
and we're exhorted when the bell rings to end the fight, You're like,
how did you have it? How'd you have and where all three of
us and other people there, you know, Oh yeah, you're Ramos,
say know he won that fight obviously. Now they announced the scores and you
hear the scores and you're like, okay, I mean, fifteen thirteen is
probably a little bit too close for Ramos to get it away, only two
when I had seventeen eleven, Like, yeah, okay, Ramost got the
fight. John McKay won sixteen twelve whatever anyway, and the winner is Ericson
Lubin, And I swear to god, it was like a man, I
think, and I twisting our heads so quick to each other, like I
almost broke my fucking neck. Now we're just staring at It's like with our
mouths open, like what in the heck I'm watching in New Orleans And I
yelled out the word what, and I think a lot of other people yelled
out WTF, which is probably what you yelled out shortly thereafter. Again,
I don't want to make this out that Ericson Lubin didn't do anything in the
fight, but anybody, anybody that understands anything about boxing that watch those twelve
rounds, that thinks he won even six of them, much less eight of
them, much less nine of them. What are we doing here, Dan,
Rayphael, thank you decision? What are we doing here? Now?
We do this often, and I know it's not part of the judging criteria.
I don't have access to these statistics during the fight. The judges don't
have access to these statistics during the fight. Obviously, they can be skewed
because of you can land a lot of punches in one round and not a
lot in the other rounds. So it's a total as opposed who had it's
spread out over the course of the fight. But I did look at them
and it was fairly consistent throughout the fight. So I'm gonna say once again
as a just to let people know I'm not I don't live and die by
copybox numbers at all. I do not believe they should be the reason why
you score a fight for a particular fighter. However, they do a good
job of providing a guy to a fight. I say that all the time,
and if you have such a big disparity, they're usually right on the
money. I mean it miss goes to make logic and it's math. I
mean, I'm making this one up. If you got a guy that lands,
you know, three hundred punches in a fight, and the opponent lands
twenty and one of them isn't a knockout punch, then it'd be ridiculous to
think that the other guy is gonna win the So in this particular fight,
Ramos, who was the aggressor perhaps at times not effectively aggressive, you know,
to use the phraseology of the Lake Harold Letterman, you know, effective
aggressiveness, but he was credited. And again the numbers are not exact or
perfect, but again they're close. I'm dy've been dear. These guys know
what they're doing. He lands one hundred forty five of four hundred ninety nine
punches, which is twenty nine percent. That's pretty good, especially against uh,
you know, a guy that was fighting pretty much off the back foot,
that wasn't there to mix it up with you. So those are pretty
good statistics. Now, Lubin in a twelve round fight, he lands ninety
two punches. That is pathetic. That would be pathetic if it was a
ten round fight. This was a twelve round fight. Five hundred thirty two
punches thrown not not terrible, that was a little bit more than what Ramos
threw and landed at seventeen percent and never hurt never hurt Ramos whatsoever at any
single moment. So when you've got a guy that's landing that many more punches
throwing at a higher connect, Pesson is by a lot and just visibly forget
about statistics. Clearly the aggressor like he he hits all the boxes that yes,
he might have taken his foot off the gas the last couple of rounds.
I was going to say, because you have the numbers in fun of
you, that that disparity came down some because I have to believe that Ramos
landed without seeing it, over one hundred punches like in the first eight rounds
of the fight. I don't know that he landed more than twenty or thirty.
Had him four rounds. I had him up seven to nothing, I
know. And by the way, Steve Farhood, who was scoring it on
showtime, gave Luban the first round and then he gave like eight rounds in
a row to Ramos before giving lubin the last three rounds and had an eight
four card. I had the card as well like it at eight to four
because Luban. But again on the punch stats, I have to believe Ramos
did let off the gas and he maybe I'm just guessing here, he maybe
only landed about twenty punches in the last three or four rounds. That's where
Luban caught up some to an extent. This was a one sided fighting period
that I want. But I mean, if you want to know what happened
with the statistics, so in terms of the way that the punches were distributed,
again according to the unofficial Copybox stats. Again, let me prep let
me say so, but don't accuse me of saying Copybox should run the boxing
wins and loss calm. It's there, they're not seen by the judges,
and they're also quality. They're quantitative measurements, not qualitative measurements. In other
words, it doesn't measure how hard you hit the guy. But again it's
still over the you know what forty years that they've been doing this. That
that provides a sound guide and they have a giant track record to compare it.
Again, so it's not just some fly by night thing. If you
take a look at the way that Ramos was throwing punches you talked about that
he let off. He was very consistent in terms of how many punches per
round he was landing. You know, if you go to the second half
of the fight, like he landed this high number of punches landed actually came
in the tenth round eighteen punches out of forty one. Pre Pervious to that,
it was seventeen punches in the fifth round. But he landed double digits
in most rounds. A couple rounds he didn He had a bad ninth round
land at six to thirty four, closed decently nine to forty one. Now,
listen to some stats on Lubin. First l ericson Lubin in this fight.
Uh, only at the back end of the fight. In the last
four rounds he landed double digits. Those are the only you know in the
In three of the last four rounds he did land double digits, but in
around eleven he landed only three punches and the other guy landed eleven. And
the other guy was the one making the fight coming forward. All that kind
of stuff, So copy box statistically, you know, you want to talk
about the distribution, It wasn't that dramatic like Graymo's The activity level was still
there in the lake going to fight. He was in fact, very very
consistent throughout the fight in the low forties for most rounds in terms of how
money he was throwing. And he's a better he's a bigger puncher, it
seems to me than right. I mean, I've not been hit by either
man, but that's my assessment in watching and in hearing and feeling like how
those punches are landing. So it was a very disappointing result for that.
And you know, let's call it what it was. It's a robbery.
It's a robbery of ramos. He deserved the decisions. I'll say this though,
there are some people who I saw opinions who I respect. So the
former junior middleweight champion Eh Smith, I'll refer to I've known for for a
long long time. I'll refer to cha as my friend and me I have
a lot of respect for Esche Smith. He's he's a knowledgeable boxing guy.
He was a good fighter for a long time, and uh, I see
his point of view. And so we were having not like a negative not
like a you know, Kent Anchorage right thing, but a little back and
forth on on X we'll call it Twitter whatever, Twitter X right, and
and E's opinion. Like I said, I respect d Smith as a champion,
as a guy that that's that's been in these fights and all that same
weight class. Frankly, you know he's also one fifty four. When he
was had the title for a bit, he didn't see anything wrong with it,
So I mean, obviously he obviously should never be judging a fight if
he didn't see anything wrong with it. Again, Hazeus Ramos easily won seven
of the first eight rounds of the fight, if not all eight math people,
unless Luban had big rounds, ten eight rounds, knockdowns something that the
math you can't overcome the math on that, and then to get to him
winning eight four or nine three. Can we bring it to other sports where
eventually you've got to have some accountability where these judges get suspended and or don't
work anymore and or get here here's the problem that I'm having. This is
one of the things I'm struggling about with this fight because I know what I
saw. But what I struggle with is the judges who scored the fight.
Okay, obviously they're sitting a lot closer than I am. They have the
perfect view. And that's always the case when you're talking about a judge bread
to a fan or a journalist or something along those lines. The problem is
those judges who are experienced, they were all in the ballpark. That's the
thing now I haven't gotten and seemed like how each each judge scored each round
and how many they had in common, you know, and which would lend
itself to say that maybe it was a hard fight to score. But I
didn't see it in a hard fight to score. I saw one guy making
the fight, landing the harder punches, clearly being the aggressor, or clearly
landing more punches over the course of the entire fight. And even if you
tell me he won mostly I can live with that. But to lose by
that much on two cards, I just it's in competence. It's incompetence.
And let me just related Major League Baseball, for those that are with us
of the US and are following, Major League Baseball is now hit it into
the postseason and they've done something remarkable for them, which is fire. One
of the more prominent awful umpires of the last few years, Angel Hernandez and
they did it this weekend because he finally, like the last straw, had
a horrible call on a check swing and then ejected the player. Rice Harper
of the Phillies and the Umprior's Association in Major League Baseball finally had enough.
My point is, Rayphiel, with bringing it to boxing, is when are
we going to see this kind of accountability in boxing where at least you're suspended
for like six months. I mean, if we're gonna suspend fighters for failed
drug tests, if we're gonna suspend people for cheating and doing things wrong,
what about for competence? Incompetence, when are we going to send the message
to the other judges if you do a poor job. I get the point
that all three of them gave it to Lubin, but maybe you talked about
this before in a previous situation that New Jersey suspended all three guys from a
judging thing because they thought all three of them were bad. We get to
the accountability. Help me. That was the That was the Arislande Laura Paul
Williams tobacco that I covered, and it was the first time I ever seen
that happen, and I can't think if it's happened ever since then. That
all and by the way, the judge that got with the three judges got
to spend it, including one that gave it a draw right or even might
have had the other guy winning back forget if it was a majority or whatever.
But the bottom line was they all got suspended. And I mean I
might even saying that they have to be suspended what I would like to see
and they don't do this, And it's aggravating as hell is, even if
it was a pool reporter, not a big press conference, you know,
like they do in certain instances where he you know, you take Rayphiel,
you take the guy from the La Times, you take the guy from the
Associated Press. You get one one journalist to go represent everybody, and everybody
gets to share the quotes and all that, and you go and you have
them talk to the particular judge and question and just get their feeling. What
did you see that made you give the guy seven rounds? Try to least
explain it to it and like that to me is part of accountability, all
right, real quick. Just because the Commission protects it's a joke. There's
no accountability, all right. Just to put a bow on what you were
asking about. Patricia Morrise Jarman's card, she gave Ericson lubin all six of
the final six rounds of the fight. On John McKay's card, he gave
ericson lubin. My god, after the third round. He gave Ericson lubin
eight of the next nine rounds after that, except it's it's unreal. And
then on the midglory card, if that's how you say it, he uh,
he gave lubin three of the last four. He did give Ramos the
twelfth and final round, but he had given lubin nine, ten and eleven
late in the fight, so they were in They were in agreement basically down
the stretch, and even Steve Farhood gave the showtime unofficial scorer gave Lubin the
last three rounds of the fight. And again Ramos is to be blamed a
little bit, and he admitted in the ring afterwards maybe he should have done
more in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth round, or go get the knockout
and make sure you don't leave it in the hands of the judges. But
still, one more time, there's got to be accountability for this. This
is a fighting. This is a fight where Jesus Ramos's stock takes a big
hit because even if he won, he didn't look very good. Even he
got the decision and Lubin, most people thought he lost, and I didn't
think he looked good at all. So he got two young guys are still
relatively speaking, one guy twenty two, one guy twenty seven, Luban of
course, the more veteran guy with a couple of losses and fought for the
World tide. All that, who both kind of you want? I mean,
I don't even want to say there should be a rematch because I don't
even think there's a reason for it, because I thought Ramos wants, but
I would, I would accept, I will go a step for the Ramos
deserves a rematch to be robbed of that decision. I'm not saying he'll get
it. I'm not saying it's realistic. I'm not saying the public outcries there.
But I mean, good lord, he won the fight and he didn't
even get a single judge. All right, we spent a lot, We
spent a lot of time on by the way, Yeah, in those situations
like I told you about how Idik and I were looking at each other like
we were shocked to hell when it happened. I have been ringside over the
course of my career two or three times where they'll actually have come back and
said we made a mistake. And I was waiting for that to happen.
I've had that. I mean well, I mean, uh, there was
a half joke, and I think it was maral Ronalo that we really thought
they announced the wrong name, and and maral Ronalo even you could hear in
his voice I have I have nothing else to say or no explanation for this
other than it just keeps happening. And there's it's obvious in Las Vegas,
the places where it's the most important, in New York and elsewhere. Send
the message that if you do an incompetent job, you're gonna get sat down,
if not fired with this has got to be better, because guys livelihoods
are on the line too. Uh you know, I'm not I'm not telling
you any then you don't know, But for the audience, your livelihood's on
the line. Because in the case of Ramos, he's maybe on the fast
track for a title shot. This de rails him at least for probably six
months a year or more because he got robbed of the decision. All Right,
we've covered that thoroughly. Give me some Mario Barrios against Jor Dennis Ugas.
Barrios got the two knockdowns, decisive win, and hey, he got
the decision. He's give me some more. So, I mean, if
you listen. I don't remember we talked about this on the podcast, or
perhaps it was on our bet Us show. I said, flat out again,
not nothing personally against Mario Barrios. Nicest guy in the world, like
most of the fighters are. But I just was never like in love with
him as a fighter. I just like I never really understood and never got
a lot of people typed him up way more than I thought. I thought
he was handed a lot of things that he didn't earn. I thought when
he won the WBA Regular title at one hundred and forty pounds that it was
a terrible decision. I was ringside for that fight. I was not,
by any stretch alone in that assessment. You know, he put up a
good fight against Tank Davis and got knocked out, but you know, gave
a great effort. And you know, one thing about Mario Barris is that
he is going to go out on a shield if that's when necessary. You
know, he is the kind of guy that's going to fight to the end.
And so as a person that was I guess viewed by some as like
you're a Barrios hater. Okay, I accept that, But I picked him
in the fight. I said, I think I said to me like,
I can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm actually I'm picking Marrio el barrass
because I think he's gotten better since he's moved up. And wait, I
think it's it's easier from the make weight and it's it's better for him some
guys, you know that's the case. I think he's now in a situation
with the trainer Bob Santos, who has become one of the top trainers in
boxing. They have clicked there together. It's it's an improvement and you're seeing
the fruits of that labor. You know, he's by all accounts, he's
a teachable guy, you know, a good student. You know, has
desire. And I'm always been a fan of Ugas too, because he's got
such a great story, such a nice guy. He's had so much hardship
in his life. He's overcome so much and he's accomplished a lot for where
he was was, you know not you know when he was down and out
and it lost a couple of fights and he got cut by top rank,
and you know, his buddy rolled his. Chapman, the relief pitcher,
helped him out. He set him up financially, sent him out to Vegas
so he could get the proper training, and basically kind of bank rolled him
for a bit. That's why he wears number fifty four, by the way,
on his trunks and on his on his gear as a tribute, because
that's Chapman's number on his baseball uniform. Anyway, Ugas was coming off of
a long laughf he was coming off of the broken eye socket that orbit Bonn
against Errol Spence when they were in their unification fight. And so when I
made the pick and I picked Burrios, I was thinking, to hear,
you have Burrios, who was on the upswing in my opinion, even though
he had lost to Davis, he had lost the decision to Keith Thurman,
but he looked pretty good against Jovanni Santiago and his rat last fight in February.
So the activity was there at least because before that, after Thurman had
been a year off and in Ugas totally the opposite. Thirty seven, had
a bad injury, got beat up real bad. You know, had to
win over pack yot, but it was an older pack yot, And just
to me, it was like the recipe for this is all about young,
hungry fresh against old maybe not as hungry and definitely not as fresh, And
that was proven out. Now I thought Ugas did very well. I had
it a little bit closer than what the judges had it. But where I
thought Ugas did a lot of good work on that first you know, say
third of the fight, let's say, Burrios really came on strong, obviously
got the new knockdowns, he busted up the eye, which, by the
way, Hue the eye was the same spot where he had had the fracture.
And then in the last round. The reason why for the weirdness of
the one oh seven score was because the referee Thomas Taylor, when his mouthpiece
came out ugas is in the twelfth round, he deducted one point from him
as a penalty for that infraction. So the scores were a little even wider
because of that, but it was a very solid victory for Burrios and the
reason why it's important for Burrios because even though it was for the WBC interim
welterweight title, I think most people that understand that Terrence Scrawford is the undisputed
champion, that those titles are not going to stay together. I doubt that
he's gonna fight Mario Barrio and and by the way, WBC is not going
to order that fight anyway. They that's not That's not what I'm getting at.
What I'm getting at is that when Terrence Crawford does fight next, whether
it's against Errospence in the rematch or it's against Canelo Alvarez in the fight,
a lot of people are talking up. The bottom line is I don't believe
he's going to be defending welterweight titles in the next fight, So that will
at some point in the in the not too distant future become vacant, at
which point Barrios will become the WBC champian. So in essence, this was
like it'll be like a retroactive thing, like this fight was in essence for
the vacant WBC welterweight title. And by the way, we did not get
into what the possibilities or when we did get into the possibilities about what was
extra Canelo I did not mention Terrence S. Crawford, which is something a
lot of people have shown interest. And I don't quite get that because he's
even smaller than Yellow and Canello talked about. Now he's a much more dynamic
fighter and a better technician and has a lot a lot going for him prepared
to Charlotte in my opinion, and if Charlo and Terrence Crawford thought each other
at one fifty four, which was suggested that Terrence go up and fight him
for the belts at one fifty four, I would pick Terrence Crawford in a
heartbeat on that fight. And I'm not just saying that because Charlotte just got
beat up by Canelo. I would have said that even before that fight happened.
And now you got Crawford saying I don't want to fight Charlotte because he
didn't try against Canello, and you know, Charlotte say, well, I'll
go back down to fifty four. I wouldn't mind fighting Crawford. So there's
a lot of soap opera elements of this that will play out. But in
terms of Mario Barrows, you know, he's in a great spot now in
in the welterweight division that's going to be under under reconstruction. Let's say once
it's clear that Errol and and Crawford are moving up. I know, we
spent a ton of time on this car. We're gonna move on to everything
else. Give me something on Elijah Garcia before we do that, because he
won, but he was in a battle as well. Listen, other than
what Cannello did, he was the star of the show. That was a
tremendous fight. He is an exciting young fighter and by the way, that
the most humble, nicest, you know, just I mean the first thing
out of his mouth after he was talking about the fight. You know,
Other than it was a hard fight, Armando Rosendo's is good people like I've
never heard like a boxer say that that his opponent, like in the immediate
aftermath, love a fucking war. His fans and his team are the nicest
people in the world, and I wish them nothing but the best. He
was really tough. I mean, he gave him all the credit. It
was a great battle and it was two worthy guys in there. I mean,
Rasenda's earned the fight by the way he performed in the knockout or not
the knockout. Yeah, the knockout against Jared Hurd in a tremendous fight that
was earlier in the year. And Garcia, we talked about it. He
looked great when we got introduced to him. He then he won, but
he was maybe a little bit flat or a little bit you know, a
little bit complicated, let's say, and in this fight was a tremendous battle.
But I think you gotta remember one thing, Garcia, he's twenty years
old. This is not a guy either that had like two hundred amateur fights.
I mean, he's like learning on the job. He is a bad
boy. Also, he can punch, he's got a chin. It seems
like he's got a desire, you know, he wants to lift himself out
of the situation he's in. He wants to make money and and help,
like most fighters, make a better life for the family. I mean,
he's only twenty, but might understand he's married, he's got two kids.
He's a family guy. He's a churchgoing guy. I mean, and he's
just trying to make a go but in this sport, and he is an
exciting fighter to watch. Let me tell you. I mean, that was
a fight where they rang the bell and it was like a video game and
it was like that the whole fight, and uh, and it was like
somebody was getting knocked out. It was just who and win a right.
So I can't wait. I can't wait. I'll say this, TJ.
I can't wait to see Garcia again. I know he's fighting in the middleweight
division, and we talked about all the time devoid, bereft of a lot
of talent, but he is a bright face in that weight class. And
even Rasendez, despite this loss, you want to tell me you're gonna put
him in another fight, put him on a TV show that you know I'm
watching that fight because that dude is a fun fighter to watch. This was
exactly what I love in boxing. You have a great fight, two guys
who were interesting, who make a tremendous battle, who are both likable,
and even the guy that loses and the guy that wins, they both raise
their stock. I think both of their stocks go up in this win for
Garcia and even in the loss for Resenda, So I think they should be
uh, you know, welcome back against anybody, especially Resendas with the loss,
and I don't have a problem with that. And Garcia's you know,
he's got a chance to become one of these very exciting fighters for a few
years and win a title and do some damage. All right, good stuff
on that we should mention because we did talk about this briefly in the preview
mode on the Big Fight Weekend preview podcast. We also brought it up on
the bet US Live show that Jai Opataia did defend the IBF Cruise aweight title,
went into London to Jordan Thompson's backyard. Didn't know a lot about Jordan
Thompson and he got beaten up. Opataia knocked him down a couple of times,
stopped him. Impressive win for him. Just give me a quick take
on that and a good future it looks like for Opataia, at least in
the short term. Yeah, you didn't have a chance to watch the fight
live, but I did watch it when I before I went to bed after
the fight the other night, I was watching on my laptop on the zone
on the replay and look, I had seen him when he fought for the
title and one against my Rispratist. That was a great, great fight.
He showed a lot of time Opa tie by by persevering through a broken jaw
and beating the guy who was number one in the weight class at that time
to become the IBF champ as well as the lineal champion. And he goes
on the road against the guy that wasn't really experienced, but he was undefeated,
he was a lot taller. He was fighting him in his backyard and
Opataia is like, you know, have gloves will traveling. He went there
and he beat the crap out of him. I mean, you know,
Thompson tried, but he was you know, he was kind of out of
his depths of dead, it seemed to me. I mean, Opataia comes
in as the champion and an undefeated guy, but he also was an Olympian.
They mean, he had a lot of pedigree to him and he did.
You know, he's he's a rum He's a guy that just comes to
rumble pretty much. There's not anything fancy batch i Opataia, but he's coming.
You better be ready to be in a freaking actual fight ian because he
is not taking a backwards step. And he cut a couple of knockdowns and
the bloodied the guy's face up and stopped him. Was it, you know
for a first defense? Uh, he can't really argue with that. I
hope he can, you know, come out of that and be a little
more active. Obviously obviously the injury hampered him. And you know, there's
some nice fights to make in the cruiserweight division, particularly in Britain, and
hopefully he can be part of some of those fights. And to your point
from earlier, he came off a long layoff, granted level of competition.
I understand that, but he looked sharp, he looked good, and Opataia
gets the win. All right, some news and then some excellent nostalgia coming
up here in a few moments. I know the buzz is all over the
place on the internet, social media about the status of Showtime, Showtime Championship
Boxing, their relationship with PBC with pay per views. You want to address
this a little bit because there's a lot of speculation going on right now.
What have you you've been asking around, what have you been putting together?
Well, you couldn't go anywhere in the boxing circles at this fight in Las
Vegas this past you know, the last several days without people talking this was
this was even a hotter topic for some people than the actual fight between Canello
and Charlo, because that's a one night stand Canello and Charlo. But Showtime
has been in the business over thirty years, so you know, in the
in the larger scheme of things, it's a lot more important than what was
happening between the two fighters on Saturday night. Showtime has been a part of
the fixture of boxing for decades, start in nineteen eighty six, and has
done some of the biggest fights in the history of the sport has been I
think they're part of the biggest paper ruws of all time. I mean,
they did obviously all those huge may Weather fights. They were half of the
Payal fight with the HBO. They did all those other pack all those other
Floyd fights, and you know, you name it. They did big Mike
Tyson fights and Julio Cesar Chavis fights and I mean Vander Holyfield. I mean,
they had so many great fighters that have appeared on their network. You
know, maybe not as many or as deep of a history as HBO,
but it ain't that far off. And so the rumors are of course that
come the end of this year, they're out of business in terms of at
least Showtime Championship Boxing and Showbox. Again, I don't know this for a
fact, but I've heard it from so many people that I think are very
tuned in, all from all all walks of the industry. Not just boxing
people, mind you, this is other people in television who know this type
of situation, that that will be the end of it at the end of
this year. I hope that's not true, and that there is the thought
that show Time at least for the next year of twenty twenty four, because
by my understanding, the PBC agreement that they had with them is supposed to
be over at the end of twenty twenty four, so this would be the
final year, but they'll give a buy on Clarify. You said, hold
on, you said the end of twenty twenty four Clarify. Do you mean
the end of twenty twenty three or do you mean the end of next year?
Go ahead, I mean the end of twenty twenty three in terms of
Showtime Championship Boxing, twenty twenty four for other boxing meaning pay per view.
All right, So the again, my understanding is that the PBC agreement with
Showtime runs through twenty twenty four, so but at the end of twenty twenty
three, and this is all related to Paramount as their parent company, doing
lots of things to shake things up because they are bleeding money apparently, and
they've sold Simon and Schuster, the book publisher. They have their network b
et on the on the four sale block, and Showtime is obviously just being
integrated into the Paramount uh you know, on their streaming service. So there's
lots of questions that surround the whole company and Showtime boxing is one small aspect
of a smaller aspect, which is Showtime in general among their entire portfolio as
they work through to try to figure out what the heck they're going to do
with, you know, with their business. I mean, they've been cutting
things that we're losing money, cutting things that we're making a small amount of
money. Think cutting things we're breaking even It's like nothing is sacred, frankly,
So I don't take this as a personal thing as a boxing man.
Is disappointing if it's true. But if the PBC deal is expiring at the
end of twenty twenty four, what I one scenario I have heard is that
they will pay a buyout to PBC for X number of millions of dollars and
there won't be live boxing on the network. There will, however, be
a handful of pay per views because they do have the inventory to do a
big pay per views. Canello has two fights with PBC. Thank Davis is
they're going to be on pay per view, perhaps a couple of NAVDS fights,
something else that could come up, and so they can get through the
next year and still have a nice pay per view schedule, just like they
had in twenty twenty three. The thing is the net. The downside is
that the way you get guys to go and become pay per view attractions is
why because you've built them on your championship boxing shows and showbox shows on your
network, so the fans get to see them in other fights and you're not
automatically just paying for them. So they can ride these guys for the time
being. But what happens when Tank Davis isn't still a top fighter, or
Canello is no longer a top fighter, or Benev this is no longer fighter
who's replacing them and showtime needs has been the breeding round to bring those guys
along the same way HBO did for years. Obviously you know Top Rank and
ESPN are trying to do that. But I will tell you this, it
is my belief that it's always darkness before the dawn. And so as Showtime
in fact does go out like the rumors strongly suggest, and they would not
directly address it, and when I talk to people, I'll get to that
in a second, because this is the way it's always been, somebody will
come in and fill that. Now it may not be the same, it
may not be as good, it may not be exactly what we expect.
But as an example, when HBO left at the end of twenty eighteen,
it was a few months earlier in September of twenty eighteen that the Zone launched.
Now, is there some issues with dysiphone and some things that they do,
absolutely, but in large measure for regular boxing activity at the championship level,
they basically replaced HBO in that respect. So I do believe that if
HBO, I mean, if a Showtime does call it a day, even
if they just go forward with a handful of pay per views in the coming
year, that there will be another entity that will that will show up and
do it. And by the way, one other thing, it's like common
knowledge in the business, not just in boxing, but in the television industry
that Al Hayman is out there talking to other places Amazon for example, about
trying to construct some kind of deal. Now that's not to say they're going
to make a deal, but the point is he's got he's out there trying
to rustle things up. He knows that even if Showtime stays in business,
he's got such a big inventory of fighters he needs a second outlet. That's
why for a while he had Fox and Showtime. When Fox went out,
you know, he had It's one of the reasons why these guys are so
inactive. By the way that the final year of the Fox deal was only
pay per views, and the only fights that appeared live on Fox networks,
either the sports network or the main network, well was on the night of
the pay per view, where they would show, you know, some of
the preliminary sort of direct people to try to go buy the paper. So
you've said a lot and I actually have a little insight, and I'll share
this with you. We just kind of go back and forth. We did
not rehearse this. So I have a source, an impeccable source, not
a Showtime source, but this is a source within Paramount and within CBS,
and this source has been saying to me they would either absorb it as a
Paramount Plus entity in the short term or seize it all together. That's the
same kind of thing that you're saying. So I'm hearing the same thing from
somebody else that's not related to Showtime Boxing but is very plugged in. I'll
just leave it at that with what Paramount might be thinking. So my question
to you is, if Al Hayman has all of these fighters and has all
of this possible, you know, fight cards, whatever, why could they
not do a regular fight card series on Paramount Plus if they choose to do
a deal and then still have the pay per views somehow some way through Paramount
Plus or do you think this is something who knows for sure that they want
a bigger platform PBC, they want a network, Let's say they want to
over the air network like what they had at Fox, and they're just not
interested in regularly being on a Paramount Plus stream up service regularly. What is
your read I can't tell you what Al Hama is thinking. But it would
be my best guests with my experience of observing and looking at the types of
things that Al has done, and just in general terms, I don't think
it's a matter of we don't want to be in a streaming service. I
think it's a matter of that paramount plus or a paramount or whatever. They
just not want to spend the money on boxing programming, that they would rather
spend their money on some other kind of programming because of whatever their reasons are.
And that's obviously they're entitled. They're the buyer. So I don't think
it has anything with that, And I think they just don't see it as
for their purposes, perhaps the best investment of what they use with their resources
were, and that they'd be better off by. I mean, I'm making
those like to go buy a golf thing, or go buy an auto racing
thing, or go buy a tennis thing. I don't know, so I
think if there was a deal to be made, I hear you. But
from a sports standpoint, they're in bed with the NFL, they're in bed
with the NCAA tournament in college basketball paramount we're now talking about, they're in
bed with Golf, including the Masters, including the PGA Championship. There are
hundreds of millions and billions of dollars of rights fees going every which direction from
them, So it all makes sense. And I know we're getting deep into
the weeds on all of this, but I just want to like, for
example, you have the ESPN Linear network and they are the goliath of cable
sports. We get it, these things evolving, and then you have ESPN
Plus where there are different events and different fights. So you just wonder if
al Haman, much like the Fox deal is looking at, is somebody at
the network level willing to put this on a network, and then maybe some
of it is on a streaming service. But Amazon on Amazon has no network.
I mean, I think if you're, if you're and it doesn't,
we don't have to even just be talking about PBC. It could be any
promoter out there. They're gonna go where the money is, and if somebody
offers you a deal that makes sense for financially and as well as the activity
that you can have regularity of these events, they're gonna go where the money
is and where that activity is. And if it happens to be Amazon,
so be it. If it happens to be Paramount Plus or continuing on with
Showtime, you know, so be it. But that was sort of like
that dark cloud that hung over the fight week, and I have to tell
you, just briefly, it harkened back in my mind to twenty and eighteen
when the boxing world descended on Las Vegas, also at the Team Mobile Arena
to see the very much anticipated first fight between Golovkin and Canelo, and that
was the final HBO paper you because it was like two weeks later after that
the rumors were ramped that HBO was about to go out also, but it
was a couple of weeks after that fight took place that they announced that they
were leaving boxing. They did finish up that year. They did an event
in October, which is the last HBO card I went to. They did
another event in November of that year, and then they finished with the one
of the worst cards in the history of the network in December. And that
was all she wrote. So I hope that's not the case, because we're
talking here now. Showtime is planning on this that they're doing the Tim Zoo
fight from Australia in October, you know, in a couple of weeks they
are going to do this November twenty fifth pay per view event that is supposed
to be Benavidis against Demitris Andrei, and there will be probably at least one
other Showtime Championship boxing with some of the other basts that are kind of hanging
around. If you if you follow purse bids like I do, you see
that TGB Promotions, which is the company that promotes most of the PBC events,
all of the PBC events in some former fashion is they have like a
stockpile of like three or four fights that they have won at purse bids that
and they've won them for you know, reasonable money in the scheme of things,
three four hundred thousand dollars that type of money that they're sitting out there.
They have a straw weight fight they have They've got the the the Hector
Luis Garcia Lamont roach mandatory at one thirty that they want to purse spit on.
They've got a a fight I believe it's the Ray Vargaskins Brandon Figaroa,
which is the interim champion against the regular Champion of the w the full champion
of the WBC. That's one of those fights that's rumored for either Showtime or
or that pay per view cards. So they've got those types of fights to
clear before the end of this year. It just makes you wonder what happens
next year. And I have to say, I mean, it seems very
obvious to me. Showboxes a gunner, that's they're done. That seems to
me. And I'm on top of that. And I'll tell you another thing,
by the way, this is fact because I had somebody tell me who
works for Showtime they're looking for a job because they don't believe that they're gonna
be around because this is gonna happen. There are people at Showtime Sports.
That department is around thirty five to forty people, and there are people that
work there that are reaching out to other people within boxing looking for other gigs,
as they should. Yeah, because you can't just wait for the doors
to get closed and the lights to get turned off to go look then at
that point, all right, so all right, quickly, because we've been
going for a while, we did talk about this on the bet USh Show
again on their platforms on their YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, et cetera Friday,
because the announcement came Friday. That and I don't think this was a
complete coincidence to announce it Friday of the weekend of a Canelo fight that they're
not involved in top ranked Queensberry K two promotions. They went ahead and announce
you're you're wrong about that. But I'll tell you why you're wrong. I'm
just saying they're not involved in the other one. They just all of a
sudden announce on Friday, we have a signed deal, but they don't have
a date, et cetera. All right, so that's what they announced.
So elaborate a little more real quick here, because we talked a lot about
it Friday, but for the audience here, it's hearing us on the recap
podcast. Fury and USA have agreed. No, they're signed. The agreed
means signed non in my ven actor when I write stories, I'm very specific
with my words. Agreed is we have a deal. Now, let's get
the paperwork done and this thing. Okay, so while you're parsing things,
there is no date. So while you're swatting at me about they didn't just
try to upstage the Canelo thing. They have no date. First of all,
to watch you again, the people that are in charge of this fight.
Yes, it's Queensberry in Top rank and K two, which are the
promoters of the boxers. But this is not about them. The ones who
are calling the shots is the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia, who don't
give a flying fuck about a Canelo Alvarez fight. They got the deal done,
they knew it was gonna leak and they wanted it out there. So
that's why it got announced because that was the situation. If the otherwise,
you would never announce it on that time frame. You know, we announced
it on a Friday. It's in our news. Business is called taking out
the trash, and obviously this is not This is not the type of thing
is that has taken out of trash. It's the biggest heavyweight fight in boxing.
So the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia is not concerned about Canelo Alvarez
fighting in Las Vegas. I guarantee you that. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is the fight is signed by both boxers, by the
promoters, by the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia. They are doing it,
you know, they've obviously they're the same folks that are involved in bank
rolling this fight between Tyson Fury and Frances and Naganu that takes place on octob
twenty eight. And the reason why there is no date specific yet for Fury
versus who sick is because he still has a fight. Now. You can
laugh and say whatever you want, but the reality is he's getting in the
ring with another big man who's gonna throw punches at his head and there is
the pay very real possibility as there isn't any boxing match that you could get
injured or you know, I mean, I'm not even saying he's gonna lose,
I mean, but never guess, but you know, you can mess
up your hand, you can hurt your shoulder, you can hurt your knee.
He got seriously cut against Otto Valine, the personally messed everything up right.
So the one thing though is that the fight between Tyson Fury and Naganu
is October twenty eight. It is part of what is the opening ceremony of
what is called Read Season, which is a big cultural festival that the folks
put on in Rion and Saudi Arabia, the capital of the country, a
cultural festival, arts, sports, food, music, whatever, and the
boxing match is part of that. The festival runs until early next year.
It's like, you know, it's a big thing to bring in tourism from
Europe mainly, and it goes into like the end of January. So the
fight is supposed to take place some time between December and when the festivals over.
I don't know the exact data when the festival is over. So one
date that's been flown out there is December twenty three. That seems a little
bit obviously, that's fast if he's fighting October twenty eight. Now if he
goes in there, look, he's not gonna When Floyd fought the crossover with
McGregor, he carried him for three or four rounds, five rounds, six
rounds whenever, just to make it look good and have a good time.
Because he had him. He gonna got rid of him, you know whatever,
he whenever he wanted to do that. He was retiring again. There
was nothing coming up after that, so it was whatever. Tyson Fury,
now that he's got the undisputed championship fight sign, I don't think he's gonna
want to mess about. You know, people ask me, what do he
thinks that happened that fight. I said, I've got Fury by we What
do you mean? I got Tyson Fury by whenever, like whenever he wants.
But now he's going to have a reason to go in there and get
rid of tight against Nagan, who get rid of him as fast as possible
because he wants to make sure that there's no injuries. Now, if he
got rid of him in one round and came through with no issues, yeah,
maybe they could have to fight on December twenty third. But if he
doesn't, if it's a little bit more stressful or whatever, they have other
dates there. That's why there's no date yet. But they have the location
of the fight. They got the fight signed and it's the next fight.
Usik is not doing an interim fight. He's got Also, they work things
out with the IBF. As it relates to the Philip Krgovich mandatory fight.
It specifies that even if Tyson Fury and Usk have a rematch clause, which
is still not known for sure, that whatever the deal is, the winner
of Tyson Fury versus Ussek has to either fight Kergovich in the next fight with
no intervening bouts, or they will be relieved of the title, and therefore
Hergovich is either going to be fighting the winner of the fight or it's gonna
be fighting the next leading available contender for the big and belt. And by
the way, the fight that happened this weekend in Turkey between Otto Valleen who
you mentioned, and Murad Gassi of the former unified cruiserweight champion, they fought
in an IBF eliminator for the number two position. So based on that,
if the title becomes vacant, if the winner of Fury versus Usk does not
fight Hrgovich, it seems as though it would be Hergovitch versus Otto Valleen because
he won the fight, and that would be your vacant IBF title fight.
But the bottom line and more important than that, is that US and Fury
have signed and that shows you when there's money that the Saudis or anybody puts
up, all the other bullshit goes out the window and Tyson Fur doesn't have
to go run around making social media videos and you love there you go and
you love this. Just as a reference. Deonte Wilder fought the rematch with
Luis Ortiz in November of twenty nineteen and then was back in the ring in
February, three months later for the second fight with Fury, and they had
signed two fights including the rematch, so that was roughly somewhere around ninety days.
So it's not unrealistic that the Fury fights at the end of October.
He could be in the ring in ninety days in January, and maybe even
a little quicker in January. Absolutely not unheard of. That's what we're saying.
More and more important than than the logistics of the of the of the
win, and exactly that we're talking about is this is the biggest fight in
heavyweight boxing. There hasn't been an undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis defeated Vander
Holyfield in nineteen nine, everymatch back in the old days of the three belt
the era, and this is what we s fans want to see. We
want to see the clarity at the top. I mean, Fury, he
is the lineal champion, he has one belt and in Usic has been the
more active fighter from the standpoint recently anyway with the Duba Victorian, and he
has the three belts, and so it's the right fight. I mean,
what else could you possibly want they're two undefeated fighters, they're two champions,
They're two great fighters at what they do. They bring different styles, very
very different personalities, different countries, you know, lots of different things going
into this fight. It's a huge, huge deal. All right. We
saw Ryan Garcia ringside at the Canelo Charlo pay per view and you've got reporting
here because you've learned about his return, which you've been talking about on our
podcast Give us more. Well. I have mentioned in the past, we've
talked about some of the possible opponents to two of which are the Golden Boy
fighter, Oscar Duarte and Pedro Kampa, who is familiar to some because he
had to fight against Tiafimo Lopez not that long ago. But the fight,
which did not have anything as far as a location and a date, I
am told one hundred percent is going to be December the second, And there
have been a lot of people questioning is it gonna be The Zone, is
gonna be pay per view? It will not be pay per view. This
will be a live The Zone fight as part of your regular subscription. Ryan
Garcia against most likely Duarte, campus still maybe has an outside shot they get
the fight, but whatever, they're very similar. I would have no problem
if he fights either one of those guys. They're both very respectable opponents coming
off a knockout loss in his first fight with a new trainer, but December
second, so mark that down. And again you also mentioned what is it
in a couple of weeks they have the mediation trying to work out the deal
with Oscar Dale La Joya with Golden Boy. Can't we all get along for
at least one more fight. They're trying to work through that, and then
we're right, that's that's gonna be. I believe the mediation that they're supposed
to have is off the top of my head. I want to say it's
like October eighteenth or something along those lines. So it's going to be in
the next two or three weeks. But they have committed. I mean,
look, I have to give them all credit. I mean, they're they've
been going at each other, they don't like each other, but they all
both realize they need each other. You keep saying that, and we under
this moment in time because Ryan is not going to fight without them for the
time being, and he wants to be back in the ring, and Golden
Boy needs him because he's their number one money maker and their biggest guy,
and they have they have a contract they say with him that they're getting that
they want the court to uphold. So while they go through this whole process,
you know, it's what's the old say. You'll hold your nose and
do your business, all right? You and I are both getting groggy fatigue.
At least I am here at this point late Sunday as we released the
podcast into Monday nostalgia time. It was forty eight years ago on October first,
nineteen seventy five, the Thrilla in Manila arguably the most noteworthy. You
could argue that the Ali win over four men, maybe you was as significant.
But what a war. The Thrill in Manila, the third fight with
Joe Frazier eventually won by Ali. When Frey your quit on the stool after
such an epic battle, Manila, Philippines, forty eight years ago on Sunday,
as we tape this October first, nineteen seventy five, I cannot let
you get away with saying that Joe Frasier quit. The great Eddie Futch stopped
that fight above Joe, Joe would never have quit in a million years.
That was not Joe Frasier, but Eddie, Eddie we learned, we learned
much later, revealed much later, decades later, that Frasier was blind in
the one eye which they had been hiding forever, and the other eye was
swollen shut. And so yes, Eddie Futch said, I can't let him
go get hit anymore. He's been hit the last two rounds and he can't
see any punches. But go on continue. I view that fight the thrilling
Manila as I mean, it's a great all time fight for sure. If
you like action heavyweight fights and just hard hitting fights, that's for you for
sure. I call it the most savage heavyweight fight going because you know they
talk about how you know, Albi says it's the closest to death they ever
came, you know, when he was still alive of course, talking about
that fight what it meant. And obviously Joe Joe went to the hospital and
was as you mentioned, blind in one eye, and you know, they
they they almost killed each other that that that in that fight. You know,
I've I've talked to Bob Aram about that fight because he was the promoter
of that fight. Uh and and he has marveled at it it's an extraordinary
heavyweight fight. It's not as I mean, it was significant because it was
for the the at the time, you know, the undisputed title to two
weight you know, the two belts, the w BA and the WBC,
which is a big deal. For the heavyweight championship that Ali held. It
was a big deal because they were one and one in their first two fights,
and it was the trilogy fight. H So you know, as it
has been described, they were not just fighting for the championship of the world.
They were fighting for the championship of each other. Uh. You knows
as the greatest rivals. I mean, if you talk about rivalries and boxing,
there's Ali Frazier and then everything else is not even on the same level.
That's the biggest rivalry in this history. And this was what you know
that this is what uh you know, who was going to win this fight
was gonna win the rivalry and phenomenal fight. Now, the first fight that
they had in New York City, which was when Joe was the champion,
but Ali was the lineal champion because he had not lost the title in the
ring. He had been stripped of the title when he declined to be inducted
into the army under his religious beliefs and in box for three and a half
years because he was suspended. So that was one of the biggest sports events
in the history of sports, certainly of the twentieth century. And it was
also a terrific fight and Joe won that fight. But that was the biggest
event, but in terms of the better fight. Look, they were both
older at that time. They couldn't get out of the way. I mean,
one of the great traits of Mohammad Ali was his speed was remarkable.
I mean, the legs and the hand speed were just tremendous. By the
time they got to Manila, you know, Mohammed couldn't really move much anymore.
I mean, that's just the way that it happens in heavyweight boxing.
Should we should share, we should share. It was blazing hot even in
October and Manila, and in the arena it was believed to be over one
hundred degrees with people packed in plus the TV lights. They were fighting in
the morning time in the Philippines because it was the night before late night closed
circuit in the United States. And that's part of what you were talking about
about, the near death part of it is both these guys were suffering not
only from the punches but heat, exhaustion, dehydration. Ali very famously is
sitting in a seated position with his legs out on the ground with him fanning
him after he won the fight because he is in some part of heat related
illness. After this fight is I always I just keep going back to the
quote that Ali said about it. You know, the closest the death he's
ever been. I mean, that's the kind of fight this was. It's
it is, without question, one of the two most famous boxing matches in
the history of the sport when it comes to the I'm not talking about most
significant or the best or this or that, but just in terms of in
folklore, it's the Thrilla in Manila and the Rumbull in the Jungle, partly
because of the fancy names that they had, you know, in the catchy
names, and it was Ali, it was aid coming up with those names.
Heavyweight haampionship fights, both of them. Well, well, remember remember
one other point of this, and then we're gonna move on the nostalgia the
name. You know that you know the lineage of the name and how he
came up with it because he was constantly making fun of George Foreman, I'm
sorry of Joe Fraser and calling him a gorilla that you don't say it's going
to be a thriller and in Manilla, yes, And so it got to
the point where he kept calling him gorilla, kept doing it on ABC,
and then he would bring a rubber toy gorilla and start punching the gorilla in
press conferences or on network TV. And so then he made the big famous
poem Ali always famous about thrilla in Manila, when I put it on the
gorilla and he's punching the gorilla. There's video, there's film of this of
him doing it over and over again, getting under Fraser's skin. And that's
where the name came from. And you're right, we know it because of
the names, the nicknames that Ali had for these different fights and for what
happened. And that was forty eight years ago. By the way, Ali
fought on after that, and he defended the title of several more times.
Uh probably should have lost when he had the third fight with Kenny Norton in
their in their in their fight in nineteen seventy six, spot a couple more
after that then finally lost the Spinx and then petered out, of course with
the last you know, a couple of fights against Holmes and Trevor Berbick.
But oom, pooh pooh it because I was just in the Superdome Sunday with
the Buccaneers. He got the title back against Leon Spinks and became the first
man to ever regain and was tremendous. Say what you want about Spins not
trained, maybe as hard at being a limited fighter. I'minus that night and
there was a ton of interest and ninety million people watched. But you're right,
I mean he was not the same and Joe Frazier wasn't that the same
after the thrilling Mon prominently would have been better best served for the remainder of
his life had he retired after Manila. Sure and Frazier who took an even
worse beating in that fight than than Ali did. I mean they both took
beatings. He came back and fought seven eight months later, and he got
knocked out again in the rematch against George Foreman, and then he was off
for like another four years. He came back and had a draw with Floyd
Jumbo Cummings in nineteen eighty one, and that's all she wrote. So in
essence, the Ali three was the end of Georgia of Joe's career, because
he had the blowout against Foreman, and he had one more fight that was
you know, years later for no reason apparently, and so that it not
only marked to me, it marked the end of the of the real careers
of both guys fought. But he was done, and same with Joe.
But a great, great fight and one more piece of nostalgia. Let's do
it quickly because we're late, late, and we've been going for a while.
It was twenty six years ago on Wednesday, October the fourth, nineteen
ninety seven, a Lennox Lewis heavyweight title double header with also Arturo Gatti.
And whenever I say that name, your eyes light up on the same card,
on the same show. Give me more quick nostalgia, real quick.
So this was Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, where many of the biggest fights
in Lenox City have taken place. Lenox was the WBC champion and he took
on Andrew Glatte. It was perceived as a dangerous fight. Glatta had done,
you know, he had done well against Riddick bow. Obviously that was
where he made his name, even though he got disqualified, and as Lennox
talked about it in the build up, his objective was to get rid of
all the misfits in boxing, and he considered Andrew Glatta with those those disqualifications
to be, uh you know, quote unquote a misfit, and he defended
the title. Now, the reason I say that is because in the previous
fight he had had to fight against the mandatory Henry Akinwanda, where akin Wanda
was disqualified for constant holding. So he declared him a misfit because he was
petrified to fight Lennox. The fight before that was his rematch where he had
regained the WBC belt against the vacant title, but he had lost it to
Oliver mccaudy. Were fighting now for the vacant title, and Oliver mccaull of
course had the nervous breakdown and started crying in the fight. He consider him
a misfit. So now he's fighting his third misfit in a row, McCall
acin Wanda, and now Andrew Glatta. And and Andrew Glatta he started him
in the first round and it was one of the most spectacular performances that Lennox
has had against you know, a quality contender at that time. You know,
Andrew Glotta went on to quit and lose a bunch of other fights,
but going into the fight with Lennox, he was still a talented fighter,
still somewhat in his prime, and a big puncher and perceived to have a
good chin because he had taken hilatious punches from Rick Bow his only losses he
was twenty eight and two against Lenox, where the two d q's against Bow.
So for him to go out there and get rid of this dude in
one round, he got a lot of credit for that victory. But the
biggest thing for me anyway, I mean, yeah, that's a heavyweight WBC
panal, fair enough, that's a big deal. But on the undercard and
the co feature, you had what turned out to be the final one hundred
thirty pound title defense of Artaro Gotti, where he knocked out Gabriel Rowellis in
the fifth round of what was the nineteen ninety seven fight of the year,
which was an absolutely spectacular fight, as great as any you know, maybe
it's not the mickey word fight, but when you think about the great Artaro
Gotti fights. He's got about half a dozen to seven or eight great fights,
and this is definitely one of them where he came back if he was
you know, it's like the old saying when Gaddy's almost knocked out, he's
right where he wants to be, because he came back and scored his spectacular
victory. It was I want everybody to go wash the fight that they've ever
seen it because it is jump out of your seat kind of shit. I
mean he was. Gaddy was in bad shape in the fourth round. Roellis
was in a bad shape in the fourth round, and he finally clipped him.
And remember Roellis, who had been involved in a fight where his opponent
Jimmy Garcia, had passed away, hadn't really been the same. And the
general consensus was he actually had come all the way back in this performance against
Gatty because even though he lost, he fought with that same sort of let
me go get this guy kind of attitude and it was just a brilliant fight.
And then of course Gaddy after that he vacated and moved up to the
one hundred thirty five pound weight class. But it was picked as the ring
Magazine. Fight of the Year was picked as the ring magazine knocked out of
the Year. A lot of people called it the fight of the year.
Just a sensational, sensational fight. Love it on all fronts. Man,
We have given you a ton great stuff here with you getting back from Vegas
as we taped this Sunday night into Monday and put the podcast out on the
Canelo win and what might be next for him. We gave you recaps of
that card, we gave you fight news, we gave you nostalgia. I
think I'm about done for a week. I've been in New Orleans, I've
been traveling. My Buccaneers got the win again. I think we're about done.
We gotta put the podcast out and embark on another week here in a
new month, the month of October. And I'll just I'll give a little
tease. I mean, I don't know when, which exact dates we're gonna
run that. We've got some we got two really good interviews in the can
ready to go for upcoming episodes. I'll give a little tease on We've got
a ten Zoo interview. Ye that that was done prior to Charlot losing,
so at that moment, it was not clear about help me Zoo. Fight
week is two weeks from the week of the next next week, so that's
the tim Zoo interview has got to be coming soon. And then exactly against
bre Mendoza. And then at the end of October is Amanda Serranto was defending
her her title. And remember that was the fight where they worked out with
the Florida Commission to make it a women's match to be twelve rounds and for
the rounds to be three minutes. So I had an interview with Amanda and
we talked about a lot about that. So we have those two interviews coming
up, and I'm working on a couple other things. We're gonna try to
get wrapped up. Always he's always working, he's always out there. You
are who you are. Great job with this, Dan ray Feel. We
appreciate it as always. Have a great week. We'll be talking to you
later in the week on the Big Fight we can preeview, we'll read you
on your substack and also on Big Fight Weekend dot com. Thank you,
my friend. I'm a man. There is the one and only Dan Ray
Feel. I'm merely t J Reeves again. Follow or subscribe, Apple Podcasts,
Freaker, Spotify, wherever we get podcast, rate us and review us.
We come off the weekend with the Fight Freach Unite recap. That's what
you've been listening to as part of the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. We
will talk to you later in the week