The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No.
Here is your host, DJ Leise. Oh Well, hello there and
welcome back in. As we get ready to preview the weekend. It has
title fights all over the place. We got cards in Minnesota, we got
cars in New York, we got cards in Japan. We got a special
guest. It's a former unified world champion. The Dan interviewed. We got
fight news, we got nostalgia, we got it all. It's a big
fight wee can preview podcast. I am the somewhat capable host. He is
our insider fight for each Unite substack and Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Hello
Dan, Rayphiel, As we get ready for another weekend. How are we
feeling. I'm doing very good. I'm looking forward to a decent weekend.
Hopefully we get some good action out of it. We certainly have a lot
of fights, and we certainly have a lot of fight news. And again
we say to you, the fight fans, thank you for finding us,
however you've done so on the Big Fight Weekend podcast feed. Make sure that
you're following or subscribing Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, review us several
of you have reviewed us in June. Keep it up. Those reviews help
us more people find us. Tell us if you enjoy the content, which
I think a lot of you do in the preview mode Thursday night into Friday,
recap mode coming off the weekend. Now I do need to say to
the audience. There is dedication and then there's what I'm about to go through.
I am about to go on a vaca with the family. Ray feel
in the car across the state of Florida. I live in West central Florida,
on the West coast of Florida. We're going to the East coast.
I am not getting in a NASA rocket. I'm not getting in a SpaceX
rocket from Elon Musk and launching myself. That is not happening. But we
are going on vacation. Nonetheless, there will be a recap podcast. I'm
trying to stay out of divorce court. Ray Field's gonna help me with this
Sunday night. No matter what happens, recap podcast always comes off the weekend.
We gotta give the peeps what they want, So there will be a
recap podcast, even though I'm off the clock. Ray Field, for the
most part, on vacation I understand that, but we were here's no problem
for the people. So there will be a recap podcast. So you want
to make sure you're following, you're subscribing, and without any other delay,
let's get into it. As you and I got set to do this,
you've had to adjust the rundown like twice. So the rundown was going to
be this, or it was gonna be that. Well, the rundown now
has Canelo Alvarez taken to social media and hello, I'm back in September,
which we all kind of figured. But then he put on this Instagram video.
He put that it is Premiere Boxing Champions. He didn't say whom,
and my man Raphael went to digging and nobody digs like him or I give
me the very latest fresh stuff that I don't even know all of. As
we begin the podcast with Canello coming back and what's the deal, what's up?
Well, first of all, like you said, not at all in
surprise that he's gonna fight in September. That's always his targeted date right now.
I mean again, it's not official, but it seems likely he will
fight on that second weekend of September, which is September sixteenth, which happens
to be a Saturday, that is the Mexican Independence Day weekend. Could be
maybe a small issue where it might be because my understanding is that's a weekend.
Whether it is a a UFC event at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas
on that night, I don't know what the magnitude of that event is.
Who knows if it will get switcher, they'll change, but suffice it to
say, whether it's in September, I guess technically maybe it can move into
October. Here's the point, Kenelo alvers his next fight is going to be
with PBC. It's going to be in the fall. That means it'll be
a showtime pay per view. And uh, you know, the only thing
he put in his video was September and PBC and a little shadow boxing,
a video of him, you know, showing his good stuff. But uh,
you know, as you said, I mean, I made my phone
calls talk to two people directly involved with this deal. He will be fighting
Charlot the middleweight Charlo, who was going to come off of a what has
been a two year layoff as of this week, he will move up to
super middleweight challenge Kenelo Alberts for the undisputed championship. Presumably all the four organizations
will will bless it with their sanction, but either way, that is the
fight that will happen. It is a three fight deal that Canello has done.
So remember when he became a free agent and after he left Golden Boy,
his whole thing was, let me do these short term, one or
two fight kind of deals. I can then pick and choose who I want
to fight. I'm not going to be encumbered by a promoter or a broadcaster,
and I can guide my career how I want, and he has done
that. Primarily he did a two fight deal with Eddie Earn at match Room.
He went back to Eddie. Eventually he did a one fights off deal
with PBC, which was his one interaction working with Al Hayman in that team
TGB Promotions. He was familiar with Showtime before he went back for the Kala
Plant fight because he had done a number of his bigger fights on Showtime pay
per view in the past, so he was comfortable there. They had good
success in terms of the the sales for the pay per view with Plant when
he became the undisputed champion, but then he went back to match room boxing
where he's done his recent fights. But now he's going to do three fights
with PBC, which you know, for a fighter at at this stage of
his career, that's a lot. You know, that's that's uh, you
know, I'm not going to say he's at the end, but he's you
know, we're around in uh at least second base, if not third base,
let's say, and uh, they have the horses. I guess that
he can fight. So that means the Charlot fight. I think that does
mean eventually we all see Bena Vetti's fight, maybe a David Morrell, maybe
Dmitri's Andreid. I'm just mentioning other qualities super middleweights that are in that PBC
fold. So those are those are the possibilities. There's also, you know,
we're gonna talk about him on the show now, Carlos so Adamas at
middleweight. Maybe he moves up. The point is they've got guys for Canello
to fight between now and the next you know, year or year and a
half or so. So that was that was the big news. Today.
He's gonna he's going forward. He's gonna fight Charlo. I don't love the
matchup. But I'm happy that Canello is back in action. Um, Showtime
does a great job with his you know, did a great job with his
event. It does a great job with all of their events, do a
good job with their pr I mean, there's nothing negative to say about it.
And uh, you know, we'll just have to wait and see the
exact date in the location. But it's this is a big deal for Cannelo
Alberts. And by the way, um my sources tell me that he is
being guaranteed north of forty million dollars for this bout. I believe it.
That's for this fight. That does not take into account what he may get
for the next two bounts on the deal. Yes, and okay, so
you slid in the quick. Oh by the way, comment, I don't
love this. We don't have to go on and on about this. But
again, Jamal Charlo has been off for two years and we'll have been off
for about twenty seven or twenty eight months whatever it is. If and when
that this does come to fruition and they do get in the ring, I
think a lot of people would rather see David Benavidez right away. But I
can understand there's levels to this and they'll have Benavides and David Morrell fight and
then have Canello fight the winner. That seems it's logical. Again for boxing,
there's logical, but I don't know if it makes sense to me.
I get what PBC is doing and they're taking care of one of their guys
who's been off for a long time, but I don't know how great a
matchup this is. And so there you go, all right, So that's
that's apparently the fight will wait for more reporting and including yours on when they
lock it down and that and that situation. I mean just from again my
sources again who are directly involved with making this deal. You know, in
the room, so to speak, it's gonna be Charlotte. That's the that's
the you know, unless he gets reinjured or something, but that's the opponent.
And I'm just interested here on your opinion, your take as to why
he went for a multi fight deal now when he wouldn't go for a multi
fight deal with PBC before the Caleb plant one was a one off. He
did do a multi fight deal with match Room coming off the pandemic year,
but he was fighting very quickly, three times within five or six months on
that three fight deal when he did a multi fight deal. What's your opinion
on why now on the three fight deal just because of the other opponents at
one That's a good question. I mean, look, I think that first
of all, everything is fluid. It's always a fluid situation. What was
what's happening right now with Canello's life and career is not the same as what
was happening a year ago or two years ago. Number. I mean,
yes, of course he wants to go with there his opponents, and certainly
I mentioned a handful of opponents that could certainly take up three fights for Kennel
Alvarez with PBC. And by the way, that's not even to say that.
Lets and I'm making this up and then we're going to talk about the
Edgar Berlanga fight on the weekend. If Berlanga should show himself to be somebody
that would be interesting to Kennel to be on the other side of the ring
with him. Just because Edgar has signed an agreement with match Room Boxing doesn't
mean that they can't go offer him that fight also and bring him the PBC
for one fight, because that would still be a big deal for Berlanga and
also match Room would would be involved in some capacity I guess at least as
the as the promoter of Berlingas. So you know, they can still go
lure if there's some opponent that presents itself outside of the PBC universe. That
doesn't mean it can't happen, because they can just bring him in the fold
for that event, or you know, probably get an option on them whatever.
But I think the reason is a couple of things. One, obviously
they have opponents for him. Two, from a financial point of view,
I have to believe the money that was offered was great than what match Room
was going to offer Top Rank. Doesn't seem like they really had the appetite
to put that kind of guarantee up for a pay per view that they couldn't
really really get a good gauge on what the return would be, partly because
they don't really have the opponents for him to fight, adding middle Way or
supermitter weight, So even though they're a great promotion company, it just didn't
seem like it was something they were going to deal with at this point.
I also think, look, Canello's a little older now, again, he's
still a great fighter. But maybe coming closer towards the end of his career
and you know, he's looking for some guarantees or for some structure and without
having to go, won't worry about what he's doing. Fight to fight,
get somebody else to do the heavy lifting. Remember his company, even though
match Room was involved, really was Cannello's team that did the heavy lifting and
all the business for the Rider fight that took place in May. It's a
lot of work and maybe they realize that, you know what, let's go
with a company. Not that not that Natchroom Boxing is not perfectly capable of
putting on a huge event. They've done huge amount of events. They're a
great promoter also. But I think he just felt like a combination of what
my sales were on pay per view when I did a fight with them,
compare what they've been recently with PBC. I mean with NATRO plus the opponents,
plus the paycheck, plus the security. I think it just all added
up to you know what, this makes sense and let me do it.
And by the way, if three fights come and go, there's nothing to
say that after that he still won't be fighting at a good level and he
can go and make a deal somewhere else for some other fight, whether it's
one fight, two fights, whatever he wants. All right, we're good
enough on that. Again, we've got a lot of action in the ring.
But right away, now that we've gotten the top news out of the
way, let's hear from one of the participants. Former Unified one hundred and
fifty four pound champ is Julian Jay Rock Williams. He fights Carlos Adamis in
the WBC interim middleweight title fight. This is Showtime PBC from Minnesota on Saturday
night, and Dan Raphael spoke with Jay Rock and entertaining former world champion about
this showdown a little earlier this week. Want to welcome in to the podcast
this week. I'm very pleased to be joined by the former Unified junior middleweight
champion, Julian Jay Rock Williams. Julian, thank you very much for doing
this. Though you have an important fight coming up Saturday night on Showtime in
the main event in Minneapolis, You're going to challenge Carlos Adamas for the WBC's
inter a middleweight title, and I know it's important for you. You're looking
to get back on track win a title in another way class and move on
to bigger and better things. Tell me, first of all, how do
you feel about where you're at in your career right now? It's kind of
been some up, some downs, some inactivity, but a great opportunity presented
here. Uh you know what, man, be honest, everything that happened
in the past, it really doesn't matter whether the inactivity, the ups and
downs, you know what I mean, It really don't matter right now because
I'm here now and I can break all the roans and all the all the
ups and downs I had can be written, can be me right Starday night
in just thirty six minutes. That's a great that's a great attitude to have,
I guess, no doubt about it. Yep. Well, what do
you think about Carlos Adamis? I seen him fight several times. Seems like
he was a good amateur, very strong, just has the one loss that
was super close to Patrick Decita a few years ago for UH an interim title
which then became the full title one fifty four. What do you do?
How do you stack up with him? What is your take on his his
abilities? I think he's a good fighter. I do think he's a good
fighter. I think he seems to be a strong fighter, you know what
I mean? But uh, he's not an unbeautiful fighter. I don't I
don't want to. I don't see him. It's being unbeauted when obviously Patrion
set Sarah proved that. You know what I mean, I think he has
some holes in his game. And uh, I think he has some holes
in his makeup. So I think we're gonna we're gonna it's gonna be interesting
fight. When you say holes in his Makeum, I'm intrigued by that comment.
What do you mean by that? I don't want to dig into it
too much. I don't want to dig into it too much, but I
just know it's tight. That's all you can say about it. Got he
got a lot of blue inside him. So it's up to you to sort
of let's use the greatest example of standing up to the bully. I can
think of him boxing a Vander Holyfield against Mike Tyson bully the bully. Is
that what you're saying? Uh, not necessarily the way holy Field did it,
But yeah, okay. I think the thing is the thing about bullies
are they need you to react, They need you to like be scared of
them. They need you to like kind of like offer their bullshit. Well,
I mean, I've been covering your career pretty much from the day you
stepped on the stage on showtime. I've never known you to be a guy
fearful of anybody in front of you. With all the things you've been through
in your life, nobody's bullying me. Bro. I'm a I'm a man
first man, you know what I mean. I think, uh, just
judging from his fights, Bro, don't get me wrong, he's a good
fighter, yeah, just fights. I noticed when guys don't care about him.
He has problems with the guys that don't care about him, guys that
come to win. Well, you've always been a I mean I think you
know. And I'm not brown nosing here or kissing, but because we're doing
an interview, but I've alway, You've always struck me as a guy that,
whether you won the fights or lost the fights, you came to win
the fight. Absolutely absolutely. I'm not talking about me though, I'm talking
about him in his past opponents. Everybody that comes to win gives some trouble.
Okay, So about that. One of the things that's uh, you
know, I guess A little interesting is you both have been very quality fighters
in the junior midiweight division. He moved up, he claimed this interim title.
It's your question, Yeah, what quality win did he happen to nine
with junior midweight division? Well, I well, I guess not a big
win. I mean, he did have a great performance against the seat.
A lot of people thought he won the fight, So that's what I was
thinking about. But the point here I'm making is that you both have been
guys in the dreamy midiway division. He moved up a little while ago he
won this interim belt. This is going to be your second fight in the
middleweight division. Was it a matter of you having accomplished things in Jinger middleweights
and wanting to go up, or just a matter of outgrowing the weight or
finding this to be a division where you could find other opportunity. How is
it for you in the middleweight division now? It's more so a case of
finding of the opportunities, you know what I mean. I think the joy
midweight division is pretty much seld up. You know, Jamal Chello got all
the belts. That's true. I'm doing sit a running a week for somebody
to call my name, So I got to create my own opportunities. So
I decided to go up, and this opportunity presented itself. Now I understand
what you said when we first kicked off this conversation about you don't want to
really look back at the past. But I'd be remiss if I didn't ask.
When I looked at your record as I was getting ready to talk to
you today, and I did notice that, you know, you had become
champion in the Dream midweight division. That was a great victory against Jared Hurt
to become unified, one of your probably your best performance. I would say.
You lost the title in your next fight in his home town in Philadelphia
by stoppage. But since the win overheard, it's been pretty inactive. One
fight in twenty nineteen, one fight in twenty twenty, one fight in twenty
twenty one, and then the last fight in twenty twenty two. Can you
and I know, I know COVID affected some people at that time. What
was the reason though, for we're literally one fight over each of the last
four years. I don't necessarily want to get into the reason why, because
really fruitful we had now it really does not matter. But I think in
activity. I had a few injuries, I was fighting, and I just
but I never really stopped working, you know what I mean. I always
was in the gym. Man, my coach was going through a going through
a lot, you know what I mean. So I just think it was
accumulation of a bunch of things. It's not one specific reason. And then
we had COVID, right, the whole whortle slowed down with COVID. I
actually had a date December when h was December twenty, December twenty twenty.
Yeah, yeah, December twenty twenty. I had a date and then at
COVID then it fell through and then everything was like it was just bad from
there. So but you's got to fight through it. Man. You mentioned
about you and your coach. You you were trained by Stephen Bredman Edwards,
and you guys had a little bit of a spot there where you weren't working
together after many years of working together. Now you're back together. Can you
just briefly tell me sort of what the what happened that caused you to part
for a little while and then now you seem back together and all as well.
Again, I rather not talk about that even but I do. Uh,
I will say, we just said that I have a head a conversation
and we have some disagreements. We have some agreements, so we came to
an agreement to work each other again. Let's been a smooth ever since.
So how important then, do you feel like the fight is because of the
things we talked about? You're back with the coach, You're you're now ending.
Uh, it's you're not You're not that in acting because you did just
fight in November, so relative to your previous couple of years, it's actually
a second fight in like eight months or so, which by your recent stand
dually busy. You sound like you're confident, in a in a good spot.
Where where do you are you? I mean, I'm not worried about
Jay Rock the boxer in terms of physical you always come in good shape and
and there where are you in emotionally and mentally preparing for what is a very
important fight for your career. I'm just ready to just do it, Like
I'm not anxious. I'm also like, uh, how can I say I'm
just ready? You know what I mean? I'm just ready. I think
I think it's a perfect timing. I think it's a perfect timing and besides
a win against Carlos Adamas, which would be obviously a high profile win a
Showtime main event. Uh, do you have what other sorts of goals and
aspirations you have in the sport? And I and I ask you that because
I follow you on social media, I see you do some other things.
Obviously you're more than just a boxer. You know, you've got your your
family, you do your I believe, real estate adventures, that sort of
thing. But what else is it within boxing that you strive for still,
that you that you dream about, that you have goals for. I want
to create a lasting legacy. I think that every leg every every error has
certain fighters from from from every division that people who's just always gonna remember,
Like from this, from this error, you got guys like Taras Crawford,
Alexander us Errol Spins. Those guys are going to people remember for the next
era. So what I want to do is I want to create a body
work where I'll be remarried in the next era. And you feel like this
is the type of fight that can at least put you on that pathway two
division champion. Yeah, Well, there will be those that say that you
will win if you win the fight against Adamas, you know, and no
disrespect, but it's an interim it's an interim title. What what can I
do about that? No, listen, you're you're the one that said two
division champion. I'm just making the point that it's going to be a great
win if you get it. But I don't think people will consider you the
real champion, not because you didn't work harder have a good fight, but
because I understand you. Uh, and so is there other I mean your
weight class right now? I mean you are there, and Adamis is there
and the rest of the weight class. You know, Charlot has been inactive,
Gnati Golofkin is I guess in sort of semi retirement. Um, you
know Canello moved up a few years ago. Like, it's not the deepest
weight class, right who else is out there for you? Do you think?
But I don't even know exactly. I don't know. Marada retired recently,
another another guy. Uh, It's it's in one case, you could
look at it and say not the deepest division, not a lot to do.
But on the other hand, you know you are by your moving up
because of your past experiences at junior middleweight and the popularity you had in the
performances. Are probably one of the best known middleweights in the world right now.
Probably yeah, probably all right, So I'll just wrap it up like
this then, Julian, what are you going to show the fans who are
watching Saturday weaving seeing you in this level fight in a while? Because your
most recent fight was, you know, a rounder kind of like on the
YouTube stream. What do you want them to see? What are they gonna
see? Seemmy winning? That's what they want to see me? Do you
want to see me win? Always coming to the fights where I always have
a like a basic game plan, but I always coming to fights a word,
I feel like I'm gonna win. However, I gotta win. I
mean, that's what I'm playing on doing Saturday night. I got a game
plan. We went over every game plan we want to. We crossed on
urts and down all our eyes. But at the end of damn will win
however I gotta win? Well, I wish you the best of luck in
achieving that goal. And I can't thank you no for doing this today.
Thank you. I appreciate you. You bet, that's the luck to you.
On Saturday. Okay, so there's the guy that's the challenger coming up
against Carlos addamis more from you on him and on this matchup? Please that
headlines from Minnesota Saturday night. Well, I have to say this, when
this fight was first announced, I didn't dislike the match or anything like that.
I was just not like super excited about it. I was like,
Okay, that's a pretty decent match, that's solid. It'll be good to
watch. You know, it wouldn't be bad at all. But I can't
say I was like overly enthusiastic about it. But the combination of having watched
their news conference on Thursday, having spent some time talking to Julian in the
interview that folks just heard writing a story about Adamas, writing a story about
Julian Williams like I actually, and listening to how they spoke and what they
had to say, and sort of like their interactions, I kind of started
to get a little more excited about this. I actually think we're in for
a little bit of a treat. I don't necessarily think it's gonna go the
distance, which is not a bad thing, but I'm more intrigued now by
this matchup than I was, you know, a few days ago, let's
say, because now that I've started to pay attention to it and listen to
what they had to say. I mean, look, it's an interesting match
from this standpoint. Okay, they're both in different spots in their career.
Adamis is still sort of an emerging fighter. He's not the most known guy
in the world. You know, he had an opportunity in a in a
title fight at Jermanaway, which was an interim title fight. But everybody knew
going into that fight with Patrick to Sita that the winner in the next few
days after that was going to be elevated because of the schedule of the uh
the title holder at that time. So he lost that fight on a super
close decision, and to Cita won the title. He then had one more
fight, but then he moved up and wait and since he's gone to middleweight.
Um, you know, he's looked much better. His signature went at
the moment is the victory close one majority decision. And we've we talked about
a couple weeks ago when he defeated Sergey Devinchenko. We mentioned that when Devinchenko
was going into his fight with Mangia. Then he absolutely destroyed one Messius Montiel.
Now that on its surface is not like some spectacular victory, but here's
the thing that was in October and he just destroyed the guy. That's the
same one Massius Montiel, who a couple of fights in his career earlier had
gone the distance in a decision lost to Charlo, and even though it was
very wide, he kind of made Charlotte looked bad in that fight. So
that was a good win for Damas and now he goes that was for the
term vacant title because of Charlot being out for so along, the WBC allowed
that to be for the interim title. They're still waiting on Charlo's return.
Now it looks like he won't defend the title because he'll go and fight Canelo
Alvarez at one hundred and sixty eight pounds. So he's fighting Julian Williams in
the first defense of that interim title. And Julian Williams is an interesting situation
because, look, it wasn't that long ago, j and we're talking about
like in the end of twenty nineteen ish, you know, that's that second
half of twenty nineteen. He had in May of twenty nineteen, actually in
a fight that took place literally down the street from my house in a Fairfax,
Virginia at the Eagle Bank Arena that is the home arena on the campus
of George Mason University, which I live in that neighborhood. He put he
beat Jared Hurt in an upset and won the unified title. That was a
huge victory for him that night, and that put him, I think,
in most people's minds at that moment, number one in the world. That
one hundred and fifty four pounds he came to. Not only did he win
the fight, but he basically wasn't exactly Jared Hurt's hometown, but it's his
home region. Jared Hurt lives in Maryland, right over the river, you
know, half an hour twenty minutes from that arena where they fought. But
then turn about his fair play, right, he goes home to Philadelphia for
his first defense. I get his Jason Rosario I fight. I was also
ringside four in January of twenty and twenty, and maybe he was celebrating the
victory a little too much and taken in the home crowd a little bit too
much and Anyway, he got his ass knocked out and it wasn't pretty well
and Jason Rosario won the unified title that night. So his title ran was
brief seven or eight months, you know, in two thousand and nineteen into
the early part of two thousand and twenty, and it was a rough go
because he lost the title in a knockout. Then he had another company his
return from that, he lost the decision against the journeyman Vladimir Hernandez in a
fight he just looked absolutely terrible. And that was in October of twenty one.
That was on the undercard of of the Tyson Fury Deontay Wilder third fight.
I was also ringside for that. That was he was fighting deep on
the undercard. He looked really bad that night. So you're like, okay,
what is up with Jay Rock Williams. So in November of this past
year, he moved up to middleweight. He had a couple of long layoffs.
He people heard in the interview a little bit was injury related, et
cetera. Had changed trainer, has gone back to Brett Man, his original
trainer. But he won the eight rounder and now it puts him in this
position. So it's sort of like us. He's discussed this can rejuvenate his
career if he wins against a Damas, He's back in business by combing to
the middleweight division, which is pretty much at this moment devoid of big names.
When you take into account the fact that a Charlote hasn't fought for two
years and is moving up for his next fight. Triple G is semi retired.
You know, go on right down the line. You know, janebec
is not a well known guy. Julian Williams, by coming into the weight
class right away, is one of the better known names in the division.
I mean he got even, Like we talked about it before. Andre went
up, Mungie has gone up, devern Chenko has gone up, Danny Jacobs
has gone up to Demitrius Andre another guy that has moved up. All these
guys moved up. So it puts Julian Williams as one of the better names
in the middleweight division. And if he can win the fight, you know,
it puts him in a pretty good position for some bigger business, even
though the weight class is not the greatest. But Adamas is no joke.
I mean he's a tough dude also, and he's been talking a good game
also. I liked the interactions between them at the press coverts. I expect
this to be a fun fight and may the best man win. The one
thing that gives me pause. With all due respect to Julian Williams, so
I've always liked he has not shown the greatest chin in the world. When
he got knocked out by Rotario, When he got knocked out earlier in his
career by Jamal Charlot, that was down when they were fighting. That was
his first opportunity to fight for a title at one hundred and fifty four pounds.
He got wrecked in that fight. So we'll see. I mean he's
a good guy. Adamas has been a good fighter also and just just a
nice matchup. The conversation will continue in a moment. First, HIMS has
been helping guys like you, me and everywhere with health and wellness needs.
If you're having issues in the bad room, you're not alone, but HIMS,
as you covered, HIMS has lots of personalized options to treat eed like
by aggress c alas and hard mens win a green Jewebel tablets compounded with doctor
Trusted ingredients, New Discrete and only available through Hymns. At four hims dot
com Slashcare, you can access licensed medical providers and trusted treatments for ED one
hundred percent online. If prescribed, HYMNS will ship to you for free in
discrete packaging. It's that simple. If you are having a hard time,
I have to say it getting hard, look no further than a doctor trusted
solution. Just go to four hims dot com Slashcare. No copay, no
awkward in person appointment, no video visits, and no insurance required. ED
is personal and now so is treating it. Go to four hims dot com
slash care and get started today. That's four hymns dot com slash c a
r E. It's only available if prescribed subscription is required. See the website
for full details and important safety information. Restrictions do apply. Hardments is a
chewable compounded drug. The FDA does not approve compounded drugs, nor does it
verify their safety or effectiveness. All right, so we're looking forward to that.
I'll throw in one more take here, which is, and I've been
saying this consistently. If this is the case that Jamal Tarlo is moving up
to one and sixty eight. The winner of this fight should be elevated to
the one hundred and sixty pound champ. I mean Jamal Trolo has Jamal Chrolo
hasn't defended the belt, apparently has no intention to defend this belt, especially
if he beats somehow Canelo. So the winner of this fight should be the
guy for the WBC. And my only question is when will they do that?
Will they wait till after the Cannelo fight or do it this summer before
that happens. I'm actually I'm gonna I'm gonna at some point the next few
days, I'm going to message Mauricio Suleiman from the WBC and just asking he's
always been generous with his time. In his response, well, he alluded
to and I know we want to move on to the restauant. He alluded
to they were gonna name Jamal Trolo champion in recess, almost hinting that he
knew the Canelo thing might be coming together. But whatever, I mean,
he hasn't fought in two years, there is much less. How do you
have any credibility on stripping guys if you're gonna let somebody not defend the title
for two plus years and still be a argument. Good argue, and I'm
not saying you are all right. So that's the main event. On that
undercard. We have ericson Lubin back in action and what could be a very
competitive fight we suspect with Luis Arias in the co feature one hundred and fifty
four pounders, and we have a title fight as well on the undercard.
Give me a little more on this. Well, Luban is in a situation
where he it's time for him to live up to the expectations. I had
him as a prospect of the year a few years ago. He just hasn't
lived up to the prospects to that everybody thought he had. You know,
when he stepped up against the better guys, he's been beaten. He got
beaten by not only beaten, but badly beaten in the first round, by
a knockout against Jamal Charlow. This is back in twenty seventeenth and his first
world title fight at one fifty four. You know, some might see he
was a little too young, not not ready for that. Okay, fine,
but it's not like he looked lights out since then, even though he's
has sports and decent wind Z h Smith and Gallimore and who's the other guy?
He beat Arl Gache, he knocked out Jason Razzario, So those are
okay wins. But then when he stepped up again and he was fighting for
the WBC's interim title at one fifty four. This is in his most recent
fight, that was fourteen months ago. Last April, he got knocked out
by Sebastian Fandora in what was a monster Fight of the Year candidate, just
an epic type of fight. A lot some people picked it as the fight
of the year, just a tremendous battle, but it was Ericson Luban that
got knocked out. So he has not fought now in fourteen months since that
fight. So we had a layoff after the Rosario fight. Now he's got
another layoff after that fight against Fandora. So he comes back against comes back
against Luis Arias, and honestly, it's time for Luban the show. If
he's the real deal, and that I would I would be disappointed with anything
less than a knockout if I'm a Luban guy. Arias talks a big game.
He's one of the best trash talkers in business. But he hasn't really
shown that in terms of his abilities, because when he has stepped up generally,
he has lost. His one quote unquote big win came a couple of
years ago. Uh. He was on a I think it was a Jake
Paul undercard if I'm not mistaken. Uh. He fought against Jared Hurd,
the former unified champion that we mentioned and uh was it. It was the
undercard of Uh, I take that back, it was the undercard of Logan
Paul. Was that the fight that was in the rain stopping it with the
slick ring in Miami. It stopped like twice for the rain. That was
the That was the exhibition between Floyd and Logan Paul. He got a win
in an upset by split decision, very close fight in the Rain on that
undercard, But then he lost to Vaughan Alexander, who was just a journeyman,
I mean, a hard nosed guy. But no excuse, no excuse
to lose to Von Alexander if you're if you think you're anything in terms of
being a serious contender. So that was a terrible loss for him. He
has one win since them. Now he's fighting Luban. The one thing he's
got going for him, that if and if Luban can get the knockout would
be impressive to me. Is uh you know, and Luis Arias's defeats,
he's never been stopped, so you know, this is a very I can't
I mean, you don't want to try to make him out out of a
mole hill. But I truly believe that in the in the trajectory of ericson
Lubin's career, who came in with huge amounts of hype, signed on his
twenty first birthday with Mike Tyson's old promotional company. A lot of people thought
he was going to the Olympics. He turned pro instead when he turned eighteen,
and he just hasn't lived up to the hype just yet, and it's
time to do it. It's you know, he's no longer a young kid
anymore in this sport. He's you know, in his later twenties at this
point. It's time to get going and I want to see a lights out
performance from Lubin in the co feature. And on the other fight that you
mentioned, there's a title fight that is the bantamweight title fight. Uh Fernando
Daniel Martinez from Argentina, who was fifteen to o. He is defending his
title for the second time against a Filipino fighter named Jade Barney. And now
remember and February of last year, he had the upset decision over Jerwin and
Costas, who had at that time held the title longer than anybody current in
the weight class. He'd been around for a while, made I don't know,
like eight or nine defenses or something like that, and he scored the
upset a pretty competitive decision, even though the cards were kind of wide.
He then beat on Costas and an immediate rematch took place in October. So
now he's gotten rid of that in his first defense, and here comes borneya
the mandatory he would like on Costas as a Filipino who is eighteen and oz
with twelve knockouts, and it seems like on paper a very competitive fight.
I have absolutely no idea how it's gonna go. Borney is not the most
experienced guy in terms of his opponents. But then again, when Martinez defeated
Jerwana Cazas, it wasn't like he was a super well experienced guy against quality
opponents. But you know, Barney's reputation as a guy that comes to fight.
He's beaten. You know, some of the journeyman name that you may
have heard of. He has fought over you know, he's fought some of
his fights in Mexico. He's fought in the United States in addition to fighting
in the Philippine. So it's not like he hasn't traveled without an issue.
So we'll see it should be, you know, as as opening fights go
on, a triple header solid as a rock, good enough, all right?
The Zone and the debut of Edgar Berlanga, a new signee for his
own. Berlanga, by the way, privately has to be wondering what the
hey, because part of his motivation was signing with match Room was a possible
Canelo fight, and he signs a multi fight deal. Correct me if I'm
wrong with match Room, and now Canello has a multi fight deal with a
rival promotion. All right, he's gonna headline. Jason Quigley is the opponent.
This is in New York. Give me a little more on this with
the backdrop here for Saturday night, Well, I mean this is the Edgar
Berlanga show. I mean, no, no, with disrespect that Jason quickly,
but Berlanga, everybody remembers he had that incredible shriek of scoring knockouts in
his first sixteen fights in a row in the first round when he was fighting
for top rank, and he was getting all the hype on ESPN, and
they would put countdown clocks of you know, how quickly he was in the
or is he going to get the knock out on the first minute, the
second minute, is he gonna go with? You know, a minute,
forty two minutes, forty five? How deep in the road is he gonna
go before he gets to ko? Obviously that was never gonna last forever.
But now he's gone four fights to the row where he's gone the distance.
Now granted the opponents he's going the distance with have then reasonable step up in
opposition. You know, Demon Nicholson tough as nails, who we knocked down
a bunch of times, but still when the rounds with you know, he
had the fight in Las Vegas against Marcello Kosaris, who had fought for a
world title. He won that fight, but he got off the deck from
his first knockdown. He also fought through a badly. You know, he
had a torn biceps in that fight and had surgery afterwards. So he showed
a lot of heart, so those were sort of forgivable kind of distance fights,
you know. But then he goes to distance with Steve Roles, which
was kind of surprising who had been blown out by by Triple G. And
then he kind of hit bottom in terms of his reputation, I guess,
and people's sort of irritation with him because in June of last year, so
literally one year and two weeks ago, fifty four weeks ago, he's coming
back now, he was in a main event on a Top Rank card with
Romer Alexis Angulo, and yes, he won the fight. The problem was
not only did he not get the knockout, but during the course of the
fight, he tried to bite and google on the shoulder and then he made
light of it in his poet fight interview, and for that he was suspended
for six months and fine by the New York State Commission. And you know,
he was eligible to fight at the end of last year, but that
did not happen. He and his team, as manager Keith Connelly, they
did a separation agreement with Top Rank. They just had different opinions about,
you know, did he belong in a main event, should he being on
an undercard, how much did you get paid at what? How quickly should
we move view, et cetera. And they decided to go their separate ways.
Top Rank gave him a release, and he then became a very much
sought after fore agent, and you had Golden Boy chasing after him, and
you had PBC talking to him, and Yet and Eddie Hearn talking to him,
and Connolly, who's the manager who's done business with all those companies.
They liked the deal that Eddie Hearne offered and they signed with Eddie Hearn And
this will be his debut fight for that promotion company back at the theater at
Madison Square Garden, so he'll have his fans there. He's a Puerto Rican
from Brooklyn. But as as makes sense when you're doing these types of shows,
they've matched them up with another fighter that might bring in fans. They
put on an undercard of different ethnicities and different people from the city that will
bring fans, so they expect a sellout crowd there. He's fighting Jason Quickly,
who's a you know, a tough Irish fighter who's probably best known I
guess for his knockout loss to Demetrius Andred in two rounds in the end of
twenty twenty one fighting for the WBO middleweight title. Now he's you know,
he's had one fight at one sixty eight. That was his most recent fight
that took place in April, but he was fighting a guy that was like
twelve or thirteen or fourteen fights under five hundred. So he's stepping in with
Berlang gets that's it's he's a big underdog for a reason. And you know
Eddie Herness said numerous times since this was made, you know, we want
to see Edgar Berlanga the superstar we think he can be, and that means
getting a big knockout. And so the expectation from everybody is that he's going
to go in there and walk through Jason quickly, knock out the smaller man,
and show that these four fights I've gone the distance and are not the
norm, that I can still score big knockouts. Interesting on the bet Us
line. And again, this will be the first plug the bet US Show
Live one Eastern Time on Friday before I hit the vacation road. Berlanga over
under his four and a half interest quickly. I'm really surprised that it wasn't
lower that it wasn't three and a half. We haven't had a two and
a half, but I'm I'm kind of surprised it wasn't three and a half.
So four and a half is an interesting spot there from the bit Us
oddsmakers on will quickly hear that bill for the fifth round or not? I
mean, there's a lot of reasons to like sort of wonder because Burlana hasn't
had a knockout in a while, he is coming off the year long layoff.
He seems like he's in good frame of mind, had injury as well,
Yet injury at one point did he not welly? But he's long over
that. I don't. There's no particular injury associated with this layoff. This
was really the combination of the suspension and then when the suspension was over,
going through the process of parting with top Rank and then signing with Matum and
getting a date schedule, so that took a few months to have that all
workout. This was not injury related. So he's coming back. You know,
it's not like he fought badly. It's not like he loss got knocked
out or anything like that. He just had you know, some frustrations in
that fight and did what he shouldn't have done, which is trying to bite
the dude and then joke around about it afterwards about it, I'm gonna be
the next Mike Tyson for my punching and my biting. Apparently with Quickly,
he's the question mark. What has he got? I mean, he got
blown away by Dmitris Andre who's a great, you know, a tremendous fighter.
I mean, he's got pound for pound skills. He hasn't had a
chance to fight out any of the top guys. So what is Jason Quickly
hang his hat on? He hangs his hat on at this moment in time
a fight from twenty twenty one where he won a majority decision that was very
close against Shane Mosley Junior was not exactly a pound for pound candidate like his
old man, Shane Molesey Senior was. So you know, by all rights,
Jason Quickly is a big underdog and people expect but Burlena to get the
knockout. But as I've said numerous times, you can't you can't measure the
guy's heart, and I believe Quickly has it. It's just a matter can
he take the punches. Uh. My first reactions that would be probably not.
But who knows what Berlanga has got after all the issues and the and
the time off and the But I do suspect he wants to make a great
account of himself in his first fight with match Room. You know, whether
there's a Canelo fight or not is not relevant. He knows that he can't
do any of that stuff if he doesn't look good against Jason quickly, and
so you know, I'll be honest, I'm a little more intrigued by this
fight now than I was not that long ago. After I watched the two
guys on Thursday, I watched the press conference they had on the zone to
see how they sized each other up and looked at each other. And you
know, I'm kind of interested to see this. I mean, not only
if Berlenka get the knocked out, but it can quickly hang in there,
maybe pull the upset. I mean, again, not the biggest fight in
the world, but I'm more interested now than I was a few days ago.
We have some news and some nostalgia coming up, but real quick,
anything else off that undercard that stands out to you. I mean, the
undercard is you know, it's got some good prospects on there, like they
have Roshot Maddy, who's a match room prospect who's on the main card on
the before the Belt, a light heavyweight that is it looked like he can
maybe do something down the road as Khalil Co. But the co feature that's
sort of squasi interesting because I just look at it like it could be one
of these heavyweight slobber knockers. Like I don't think either guys, you know,
go into the championship thing like that. But they can make a fun,
exciting fight. And that's the Polish contender from Brooklyn, Adam Kuannaski,
who I know personally for a few years, who's a a just a great
guy to hang out with, a hat dinner with him. He's you know,
I love the guy. I mean, he's a fun fighter to watch.
Maybe him a little biased in that sense, but Adam's in a tough
spot. I mean this is his first fight training with sugar Hill Steward,
you know, the nephew of the great Emmanuel Stewart, and he's got his
work cut out for him. I mean not to say that Joe Kusumano,
who is his opponent, is a superstar heavyweight. Even though he looks the
party, looks in good shape, and he's strong as a bull and all
that. But the problem with Konaki's he's lost three fights in a row and
hasn't looked very good losing them. You know, he got Remember he was
like steamrolling towards a world title fight. Everybody thought he was gonna fight Deontay
Wilder, that was the plan, and then he got and this was not
just a loss, but a rough loss. He got stopped in the fourth
round by Robert Helenius. This was March twenty twenty. This was the final
fight that I covered at in person before the whole world shut down because of
COVID. The fight the next week in New York was, of course Stevenson.
That I was supposed to travel back to New York four was canceled,
as was everything. So I covered Konaski against Millennius one and then didn't go
to another fight for like seventeen months until I went back to Texas for the
Canelo Billy Joe fights. So I remember that fight very well. But he
came back after the loss Hillenius. He had an immediate rematch in the end
of twenty twenty one, and instead of getting stopped in the fourth round,
he got stopped in the sixth round. And it was at least when he
got stopped in the first fight, it was he was winning the fight up
to that point. He got claver in the fight. In the rematch,
it went six rounds, but he got his ass kicked and lost every round
and then got knocked out. And then after that he came back again and
he fought the Olympian ali Arin de Mezzerin and he lost a unanimous decision.
So he's coming off three losses in a row. So there was a thought
he's going to retire after that loss. Now he's in a situation where if
you don't, if you it's this is winner go home. You know again,
looks the part spoke well at the press conference. You know, I
think they'll make it a fun fight forever long and last He's got four losses
stop one time. The most notable loss of his career was the stoppage,
which was on American TV when he got knocked out in the first round by
ding It. He got destroyed that night on the undercard with the Jake Paul
first fight with Woodley on the paper, and he hasn't really ever fought anybody
else, have you real any consequence at all? So you know, this
should be a can ask you win, even if he's a you know,
not what he wants was, But who the heck most I mean, they're
heavyweights, and I don't even care who wins. I mean, I like
Adam, but I don't have an interest in who wins the fight. I'd
like to see a heavyweight slobber knockers what I'd like to see. So that
is the match Room card, the match Room to Zone card that is coming
Saturday night. Also another world title fight in edition to everything else we're talking
about, but no US TV on this one. It's Joshua Franco rematch with
kaz Ioka in Tokyo's Saturday morning US time. We'll talk more on the bet
US show on Friday one Eastern time. That's a fifty fifty fight on the
bet US line with Ioka right now like minus one ten to win, and
it's like a plu Us one twenty five or Franco in the upset if you
can even call it an upset on that. So we'll make some handicapping on
that lot. Of action. Just disappointing about that fight. I mean that
we'll get on on the US show, But the disappointing part, frankly,
is that there's no US broadcaster. And as I wrote in my column the
other day, in this day and age of streaming, it is just absurt
that there's no way to watch that legally in the United States, YEP,
or anywhere I think outside, not just in the side of Japan. It's
anywhere outside of Japan. And if I'm correct, I remember this because there
was not a way to see it live. But it was interesting because there
was a corner person or a fan or something in the Franco camp that was
live streaming the fight on Instagram and I found that live stream because you couldn't
watch it. It was on Japanese TV. You couldn't watch it, so
who knows how you can see that fight. We'll talk more about Ioca and
Franco just real quick in the handicapping mode on Friday show at one Eastern time.
News. Let's get to some news real quick and interesting about match room
boxing, and speaking of Franco, his brother Bam Rodriguez, and Sonny Edwards,
we have news of a unification fight. Tell me more, Dan Raphael,
Well, it's it's probably the best fight or one of the best fights
anyway you can make in the flyweight division. I think if you took a
look at any honest set of rankings, they would be one in two or
at worst, you know, one in three or two and three. I
mean, you're basically talking about those two guys, and maybe Julius sees our
Martinez, but I look at Sonny Edwards and Bam Rodriguez is a two number
two, you know, the one and two flyweights in the world. When
Edwards signed with match Room Boxing not that long ago, the whole plan was,
I'm going to get a fight this summer and then I'm going to have
a unification fight. Bam Rodriguez wanted a unification fight when he came down and
weight in one the WBO belt. And now this fight has been made.
You know, Bam Rodriguez, I guess is now or at least will be
by the time he has to start his training camp and go into the fight
recovered from the broken jaw that he suffered when he won the title against you
know, against Gonzalez. That was the vacant belt and Sonny Edwards signed with
match Room At his first fight under that deal that took place, you know,
just a couple of weeks ago. He won that fight against Campos and
you know, pretty one sided decision. And so now they've made this fight.
They wouldn't They've been talking about each other. Bam has talked about him.
Sonny talked about Bam quite a bit during the build up to his title
defense that took place, like I said recently, and now the dead has
done. Eddie Hearn announced on his social media and Matchroom Boxing also this fight
is signed, This fight is sealed, and they will deliver it to us.
The date has not been specified. My sources tell me this fight will
take place late November or early December. It will take place in the United
States. Remember, Sonny is from England, obviously, Bam is from San
Antonio. The fight will take place in the United States of America, but
it will not take place in San Antonio. Will take place somewhere else other
than San Antonio later this you know, in the fall. And it's if
you like why Way boxing, or you like even matchups, or you like
matchups that our style clashes because Bam, you know, as like a boxer,
puncher with aggression. Sonny Edwards is more of a stylish boxer, good
quick can speed and foot speed. Uh you know, it's a fascinating kind
of matchup. It's going to be a real interesting situations. Which of these
guys can impose their style on the other guy. Um, you know,
we want to see the best against the best, and that's exactly what this.
These are two undefeated championship level fighters. They're both on the younger side.
Damn it is twenty three years old, Sonny, I believe it's twenty
seven, but not at all used up or you know, beyond it at
all. Should be a good matchup, I mean, and that was officially
made, uh you know, just today was announced. So um, you
know, congratulations to the two fighters were taking a fight like this. Props
to Natural Boxing for getting the deal over the line, as they like to
say in the UK. And I look forward to this one and again Bam,
rob rig is off a broken jaw. It's got some much more credible
wins than Sonny Edwards has, and we'll see Sonyard hold on a second,
hold on a second. Sonny Edwards has a very impressive victory against m Talani
to win the title, who was one of the most underrated flyweights maybe in
the history of boxing. If you asked me, that's a hell of a
victory that he had, and he did it very impressively. You may not
have seen a lot of Sonny Edwards, and I'm not saying that that it's
as good that one win compared to say, beating Sarongbyside and Quadrus back to
back. But it's not like Dammer Rodriguez has any other big win on his
record. He's got those two wins against aging guys, and Sonny has a
basically a domination of m Flani, you know, who was again a road
warrior and has been around for a long time, but was a tremendous,
tremendous fighter for a very long time. Um, you know, I don't
know if I'd say he's a Hall of Famer, but he could maybe make
the ballot at least, which is still a kind of a big deal,
so don't downplay. And by the way, he also has a win over
Felix Alvarado. You know, he's no jokes, Sonny Edwards. He's a
very good boxer and even though he fought Andre's Campos, which was the fight
he had. As I said earlier in June, Campos was undefeated and he
you know, he won easily nine three on all three scorecards. Okay,
more news. New opponent for Jared real big Baby Anderson. It is a
fellow American. His July fourth I'm sorry, July first, not actually July
fourth, weekend July first, headlining fight in Toledo, Ohio, because the
previous opponent had a visa issue, so Dan pick it up from there on
about ten days notice, we get a known heavyweight, a former brief Cup
of Coffee world champion. He won an interim vacant title fight, and then
Anthony Joshu will beat Charles Martin. But tell me more about this matchup now,
where Anderson is clearly the guy that they are featuring and they want him
to win and win big Well, I'm actually more interested to see how Jared
Anderson will fare against Charles Martin than I was against the original coponent, which
is the fighter from Kazakstain named Zan Kosabutski who was nineteen to oh with eighteen
knockouts, also a big puncher, but a little bit older thirty four,
not the Charles Martin the young guy, but I'm just saying he's not a
twenties heavyweight. But like you mentioned, he had some issues with the visa.
At some point you have to pull the trigger if you're Top rank,
if you can't get the guy in, you have to make alternative plans.
And they weren't about to lose. What's the phrase I keep coming back to,
We're good, but we can't do something with a fighter who can't get
in the country rightly, you can do so. They they had wanted to
have a fight with Charles Martin for a while. They've had him on the
shortlist for a possible opponents for Jared Anderson. It just so happens they were
now going to do it at this juncture. So, uh, you know,
Charles has been a PBC fighter for a long time. PBC had nothing
for him. He's not a headlining type of heavyweight. So he comes into
this match. Even though the deal was done directly between Top Rank and Charles
Martin's manager, who is Mike Barreo. Mike tells me, you know,
they did this deal with the blessing of Al Hayman. You know, go
get your get your opportunity. Uh, and good luck and hope you get
to win that type of thing. But so yeah, so Charles Martin,
props to him for taking the fight on relative short notice going into Jared Anderson's
hometown. Martin has got twenty nine wins, three losses in a draw with
twenty six knockouts. As you mentioned, a couple of coffee as a champion,
and I put champions in quote marks three months in two thousand and what
two seventeen I believe it was or two and sixteen now when he won the
title in the first place, it was a vacant belt that had been stripped
away I believe from Tyson Fury at that time, who had won the title
against Klitchko but couldn't make a mandatory against Zarglaskov in like thirty seconds notice.
So he fought Charles Martin for that vacant belt. That was at Barclay Center.
I was their ringside. Nobody really knew what happened because they were fighting.
Nothing really much had happened, you know, a couple of rounds of
pass and then suddenly Zarglaskov just falls to the mat and get punched, but
he blew out his knee and he couldn't continue, so it goes down as
a t KO. So Charles Martin got the belt, then got offered you
know, like four million dollars plus type of package to go to the UK
to serve as the opponent for Anthony Joshua in his first world title fight,
and Anthony Joshua, for lack of a better phrase, let me see,
how shall I put this? Fucking destroyed him in two rounds. And look,
Charles, to his credit, has come back. You know, he's
six and two since then, he's won something, he's lost. M he's
got a you know, uh, you know, he's got a big physical
build. He's gonna stand uh you know, he's gonna look the part against
big baby Anderson. And he can listen whatever you want to say about Charles
Martin, he can crack a bit. I mean, he's no joke in
the punching power department. His problem is, uh maybe in the chin department,
I guess. I mean. Look, in January of last year,
he lost a knockout in an exciting fight against King Kong Ortiz. He has
since fought one time since then against Devin Vargas, everybody's favorite get well punching
bag he did him in four rounds, and now he goes into this fight,
so you know, for his sake, now that was like ten months
ago, or I take that back, that was September of last year.
Now it's gonna have been about ten months when he gets in the ring with
Jared in a few weeks. For Charles Martin's point of view, hopefully he's
at least been training, because if he hasn't been training, Jerald do him
in like one or two rounds. If he's been training. Phrase from the
Joshua fight, he did what he fu. Okay, that could happen again
here and fairly quickly we'll see. We'll find out that is for next more
interesting matchup because at at least Charles Martin, we know what he's about,
We know he can punch, we know had ortys on the ground if I'm
correct, backing down right, So, okay, he was down twice in
the first round and in the fourth round, and then he got stopped by
getting knocked down two times in the sixth round. So that was a good
shootout on that fight. So it's interesting because every heavyweight or every fighter with
aspirations for championships at some point, if they're going to take that next step.
You gotta kind of get the name, usually of either a good contender
on your record or a former champion on your record, somebody that's got a
name. And Charles Martin, even if he hasn't been successful in his biggest
fights, he does have experience under the lights, for example, against bigger
names, and he has fought good guys like I said, he fought Louis
Artiz, he fought like Gerald Washington would fought for the title. He fought
Konaki, for example, who he lost to back a back a few years
ago, and he got blown out by Anthony Joshua. But look he we're
gonna see. I mean, this is I think anyway. Say what you
want about the rest of the fourteen opponents, said, Jared Anderson has faced.
Charles Martin's probably the best opponent he has faced. Maybe you know he
is he a better grade than Jerry Forrest. I would say he's better than
Jerry Forrest, absolutely, So I don't think it's unreasonable to say that this
is his best opponent today. And if you're if you're in the camp of
Jared Anderson and you're watching it, what you think is a future heavyweight star
slash heavyweight champion. You know you want to see him stepping up to fight
the next to fight the best guy he spots so far and then from here
take it to the next level. So you know, I'm happy to see
the top rank and everybody could get together and salvage the fight and at a
reasonable replacement. And by the way, from Jared's point of view, he
was training for a south paw. Charles Martin is also a southpaw, so
you don't have to go sort of switcher sparring around the last week or two
and h and forget about all things you've been working on. So the fact
that they could keep a left hander in the fight was a good thing for
Jared Anderson. So whatever happens in this fight, I expected to be explosive.
I don't expect to go the distance, and everybody's coming to see if
Jared Anderson can get that early knockout in Toledo. Other news, Okay,
the shove by Devin Haney of a silly Loma Chenko has now in the pre
fight before he beat a Looma Chinko by decision and punched him legitimately for twelve
rounds. The shove is not a forty thousand dollars show of Dan Raphael.
We have an update on the price of the shove and some other news out
of the Nevada Commission meeting earlier this week. Details please, Well, yeah,
I think he meant to say four hundred thousand dollars shove because in the
immediacy of that shove that he issued, which was unprovoked, uncalled for and
ridiculous, the Commission withheld four hundred thousand dollars four hundred thous. I did
sell it short. My god, what a shove like spencer. Not that
he was never going to be fine four hundred grand, but just to make
sure they find they withheld ten percent of his first that night, his curse
was four million dollars, so he was with So he's been without his four
hundred thousand over the last you know, well a month or so since that
fight. At the meeting that the Nevada Commission, as they do, a
monthly meeting every month, and this week they had their monthly meeting and one
of the items was to go through that situation. And what they decided to
do is they find Devin Hainey twenty five thousand dollars plus got to make sure
you get this in there, three hundred and twenty six dollars for fees associated
with the with the meeting and all the things. So he has find that
amount of money. The rest of that four hundred thousand minus those totals goes
back to him, but hopefully he learned his lessons. I personally felt like
four hundred thousand would have been ridiculous. I feel like twenty five thousand is
actually a little bit light to me. The right number might have been about
one hundred grand to teach a real lesson, not that it's going to like
make him poor after he just made four million, but show they're not messed
around. So I kind of don't really quite understand where the methodology came between
the four hundred and the twenty five thousand. I felt like one hundred sort
of sound to me like the sweet spot. But nonetheless he's fined twenty five
k. And The other notable boxing item that was on that agenda was to
the hearing for Alberto Puyo, who had tested positive for a performance enhancing drug
prior to what was supposed to be his first WBA title defense against Roli Romero,
he tested positive for that drug, the Commission suspended him, the WBA
striped him of the title. Romero ended up winning the vacant title against Ishmael
Barosso in controversial stoppage fashion, which we have detailed before. But in any
event, on at the meeting they decided that they would suspend him for six
months. No fine because he didn't get paid that night, but he also
was assessed three hundred and twenty six dollars fee they back dated to the date
of the test, which was in early April, so he'll be eligible Pueo
to return to the ring I believe October fifth, which will be six months
since he gave the sample. But the real problem for Puyo wasn't even the
six month suspension or the lack of a finance. That he was stripped of
the title. I mean, that's what hurt him the most. So he
definitely lost out on money, not only from the fight against Romero but also
in potential future fights because he no longer has that belt. But again it's
his fault because he did the you know, he took the peed. But
so that case has now been adjudicated and I hope that Alberto PuO learned his
lesson and can make a clean comeback. And another news item here you've been
talking about and we mentioned it earlier in this podcast, David bena Vitas,
David Morrell, you talked when we came off the weekend that it looks like
this fight is happening and again does it factor into Canello's second fight now in
the multi fight PBC deal for early you know, midd you know, May
whatever next year. You've learned a little more about that and about the co
feature fight that would be part of this card, So give me some more
news on that real quick. All right. So a few days ago I
spoke to on the record, not sources or anything like that, the promoters
of these two fighters. You have Samson Lukowitz, who works with PBC on
David Benevides but has his promotional contract and has worked with the kid his entire
career and Leon Marghalisa Morriers Boxing, who was the co promoter for David Morrell.
Both of them said to me on the record, Sampson more forcefully,
you know, with more detail. I guess since they're the main guy in
the fight anyway, that they had, you know, that they are going
to do this fight. It's going to take place in the fall October,
maybe early November, and they were going through the process of getting everything worked
out, but they had agreed in principle to the deal. It was a
fight that I know Showtime liked for their pay per view, a fight that
that PBC was interested and willing to do. Certainly fight that David Morrell had
been calling for. If you remember when David Morrell scored a first round knockout
against Siamagucci Falca on the undercard of Ryan Garcia against Tank Davis. David Morrell
had scored that knock on David Benavides was ringside and literally the first thing that
came out of David Morrell's mouth when he went to do an interview after that
fight was where's David Benevides. I Mean, that's the guy he wanted,
and that's a great matchup. I mean it's not maybe Cannello Benavides, but
if you're a boxing fan, that's a must see fight. That's an explosive,
interesting, high stakes kind of battle between probably the two best super midiwits
in the division other than Canelo Alvarez. Now, since that was said to
me on the record, I didn't just make it up. The people said
that this is what they're doing. David Benavides has come out and pushed backle
that's I haven't agreed to anything yet, but it's probably still going to happen.
It's not like he's got some other huge alternative that the Canelo fight is
not happening at this moment for reasons we've discussed previously. With the Charlo fight
coming about, you know, he'd liked to fight Heimi Mangia. That's a
very hard fight to make because of the whole Golden Boy his own showtime.
It just seems like it's unlikely, even though that'd be a great fight.
Also, I'd love to see that too and morel is a great matchup,
and what it does is it puts the winner of that match literally in the
driver's seat to fight Canello should he beat Charlo in the fall fight. So
David Benavides can say what he wants, but at the end of the day,
I believe that fight will happen as they said it would, and if
that fight goes down and it's the pay per view, we will be the
co feature or at least on The undercard anyway, will be the rematch between
Brian Mendoza and Sabashian Fandor. Remember if Mendoza scored a huge knockout against Fandor
in a fight he was losing and became the wbz's interim title holder at one
fifty four, Fandor had the right to an intermediate rematch. He exercised that
and the rematch would take place on that card, and that's you know,
as as pay per views go these days, that's a that's a worthy undercard
fight for that type of show. So hopefully they'll get it all squared away
and we'll see a nice, nice card in the fall. Yeah, Mendoza
landed the booming knockout paunch, huge fight he was losing, and so there's
some intrigue in that rematch. Nostalgia time, Nostalgia time to wrap it up
here. Before I put this to bed, we do the bet Us Show
and I head off on vacation, all right, Nostalgia from Oh you keep
talking about this vacation. You're really trying to get away from area. Well,
I try here and there, but I'm not really getting away from you,
am I? If I'm still doing a bet US show with you on
Friday, and I'm on vacation doing the recap podcast. But we love the
peeps that we were the piece, all right. So Wednesday Anniversary from this
week twenty years ago was Lennox Lewis Vidaly Clichko and that's the final fight ever
for Lennox Lewis. We've talked about this a couple of different times, but
you were ringside. It ends Lewis's Hall of Fame career. Give me a
memory or two, just nostalgia. Well, it was such a weird way
the fight came about. This was not done under the normal way that boxing
matches are done, where you negotiate a fight, you plan to fight,
you do the tour, you get all the hype, blah blah blah,
and then you do the match and then you got a big event. This
was supposed to be a pay per view at the end of two thousand and
the end of two thousand and three, not in June of two thousand and
three when it was first contemplated. This was HBO pay per view. Lennox
Lewis Is going to fight Kirk Johnson in the main event, who at that
time was a top contender and Klitchko was going to fight fighter that became a
sort of a journeyman later, even though he was still like sign of a
decent contender at the time. Cedric Boswell. Kurt Johnson suffered a pectoral injury
and withdrew from the fight, and ten days before the fight, now Clichico
and Lewis are both training for these opponents on the same card. The whole
idea was they're gonna showcase them in this pay per view, They're gonna both
win in spectacular fashion, and then at the end of that year, we're
having a mega pay per view fight between Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitchko, which
was a huge fight at that time. But when Kurt Johnson pulled out,
what they ended up doing was both sides said screwed the doubleheader. Fucked that.
They were like, we're going to fight each other. So Kurt Johnson
was off the show. Boswell probably got a few dollars to go away,
and they made on ten days notice a megafight between Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitscho,
And not only did they do that, they took it off of pay
per view. HBO went to the higher ups to go outside of its normal
boxing budget, got like a special grant, if you will, from the
you know, from the President's Fund or whatever they had stashed to do special
events for like an extra ten million dollars on top of what they already were
spending on boxing, and they put this fight live on HBO from Staple Center
in Los Angeles. I was I was going out for the fight in the
first place when it was the double header, and I can still remember getting
a call when the fight was postponed, and you know, and I was
like, oh, that sucks, you know, it's too bad, and
like, no, no, it's the fight Stillando, We're doing the fight.
They're doing the fight against each It like, oh my god. It
was like a big deal now it turned out, and not only to be
a big deal fight and in retrospect, the final fight of Lennox Lewis's Hall
of Fame career. Remember, Lennox was coming off of a year earlier.
He hadn't fought for a year. His most recent fight was the knockout of
Mike Tyson. So Lennox was whining things down. I mean, the plan
I think was sort of, let's do this, this interim fight, We'll
do Klichko and then I'll retire after that. But the Tyson fight was clearly
signaled he was coming to the end. Buddy fought Klitchko. He wasn't in
a greater shape that night, electric atmosphere at Staples Center. Klichko, remember
he now? He now may be all these years later a leading figure in
the Ukraine Russia War as the Mayor of Kiev, and he's been an outspoken
political figure in Ukraine for now several years since his retirement. But back then
he was living in California with his wife. His kids were born there.
You know, he was making a go of it here in the United States,
and he was a crowd favorite. He came into Hotel California, but
it was a good way to get on the fans side, and he was
trying to remember he had so much negativity had been thrust on him because of
the way he quit against Chris Bird a few years earlier. He was labeled
a quitter by many many people. Now he turned it all around in this
fight because it was a a great shootout, awesome slug fest, one of
the best heavyweight fights I have ever covered. But he got cut so badly
over the eye, and he was winning to fight on the cards when it
was ended, but the cut was so bad they had no choice but to
stop it. He took like forty or fifty stitches. But what people remember
is that he was begging to continue. So whatever dog in him you thought
there was for quitting against Bird because of a rotator cuff injury that you couldn't
see, he showed that much heart to beg to continue with as I hanging
out in the blood all over the place against Lennox Lewis, and as my
dear friend, the great Larry Merchant put it, and he's one hundred percent
right. Lennox Lewis won the fight, but Vitali Klitschko won the event because
everybody was on his side. Everybody cheered him when it was over, not
so much Lennox and Lennix of course, then uttered post fight the great line
look at the state of his face, you know, and I get tired.
I've heard a thousand times through these years, TJ. Well. Klichko
was winning the fight until he got stopped, Like yeah, but you forgot
that the important part of that sentence is until he got stopped, Because that
rocking hand from Lennex Lewis tours fucking face open in that counts as a knockout.
But listen, for many years I rated it as the best heavyweight fight
I'd ever covered in terms of heavyweight championships, maybe heavyweights overall. I can't
say it's number one anymore because there's been a couple of fights that have been
on that level or even slightly better. And that was being ringside for his
brother Vladimir Klitchko's knockout loss in a great twenty seventeen fight of the Year,
and when he stating against Anthony Joshua, and then of course the just incredible,
incredible fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder when they had their third fight.
But Lennox against Clichko was just everything you could have wanted a heavyweight title
fight to be. I mean, these were two you know, they're now
in the Hall of Fame. It was a worthy fight. Clichko didn't get
the rematch that a lot of people wanted to see. Lennox decided to retire,
you know, a number of months later, but Klicho came after that.
He ended up winning the vacant WBC title and had a short reign because
he got injured, retired for four years, came back and in his first
fight back, destroyed Samuel Peter to regain that title. He had been made
Champion Emeritus, and then went on a string where he went like nine defenses
and then said, you know what, after the Manuel Shar fight, this
is gonna be my last fight. I'm retiring. He destroyed Shar, cut
him up real bad, almost as bad as he had been caught against Lennox,
and walked off into the sunset to go into the ship show of Ukrainian
politics, where now he's fighting for his country in a not physically in terms
of take up the arms and standing on the front lines, but as one
of their as one of their political leaders, dealing with what's been happening in
Russia and the thing I have so much respect for about Klitschko and his brother
for that matter, they don't need to be there there. There are millionaires
one hundred times over. They could be on a beach, sip in a
margharita or doing whatever with their families, staying safe and being far far away
from being right there in Kiev in the middle of all this. But uh,
you know, metallic. Klitchko is a man's man. He is not
somebody to take a step back. And all the people that criticize him for
quitting against Bird, we saw the true measure of this man's heart and how
we acted against Lennox As as our pal Teddy Alice would say, he acted
like a fighter. And now we are all these twenty years later and he's
doing it again, but not in the ring, but in the way he's
handling himself politically, working with his people as the mayor of his home city
that's under siege basically every day from the Russian But what in the boxing sense,
Just an awesome heavyweight title fight. If you never saw it as it
is twenty years ago, go find that shit on YouTube. It's awesome taken.
Check it out. Yeah, there you go, that heavyweight one and
and again the Klitchkos deserve an awful lot of political credit. By the way,
So that was Wednesday Thursday, as we taped this and released this eighty
five years ago, the brown Bomber Joe Lewis recaptured the heavyweight title in just
one round over Max Schmelling. So many subplots to this, because Schmelling was
a German part of the whole Hitler mantro that the Master race was the white
race. Now, it should be pointed out Smelling never participated in that.
He did not want to be part of what Hitler was doing and his rise
to that. Smelling then came back to the United States and fought Joe Lewis
and got knocked out eighty five years ago on Thurdy. Just one. I
just have to correct on one thing. He didn't regain the title. He
was already the champion in the rating. He was well right, he right
because it lost avenged his loss. I'll say it. I'll say it different.
He have venged his loss in just the first time around. Yes,
And so so the quick story that I have about that, we talk about
the present day and the internet, YouTube and how we can look on everything.
My friend back in the early nineteen eighties, young TJ's in middle school.
And this is completely by coincidence. I'm at disney World. We had
just moved to Florida about forty years ago. Thirty nine years ago. I'm
at disney World on Main Street of Disney World. They had an old timey
arcade and I'm paying this off here. It comes you go into the old
timey arcade. We're not talking about video games like Asteroids, Space Invaders,
Missile Command, all those video games. We're talking about miss pac Man.
We're talking about old timey arcade type games from the nineteen thirties, forties,
fifties. And they had an old kaleidoscope, a crank kaleidoscope where you put
your face in, watched the kaleidoscope, cranked it and watched the movie.
I put my nickel in, and the movie is Joe Lewis knocking out Max
Smelling in one round for a nickel, and I put another nickel in and
I watched it again because it's literally like thirty or forty seconds of him knocking
him down. Smelling gets up, he knocks him down again. Schmelling gets
up, he knocks him down again. The way the fight off. I
put like three nickels in to watch that fight. People, you got to
appreciate there's no Internet, there's no ESPN Classic too. Have ever seen the
Joe Lewis Max Smelling fight. I just thought i'd throw the nostalgia out there
that the first time I ever saw that fight was a tourist thing at Disney
World on Main Street by total accident for a net goal. Ray Field,
well, fifteen cents if you watch it three times, three times, fifteen
cents. Very true. But I found out about the Brown Bomber. I
had known about him, but I found out about that night. So that's
eighty five years ago, and you got one more piece of nostalgia and then
we're gone, Manny pachi Ow And this is Friday as we released the podcast
two thousand and one card he is fighting in the US for the first time
for a world title. Tell me more about that nostalgia because it involves a
pay per view in Oscar Deal La Joya, Right, all right, So
I was there in Las Vegas at the n GYM to cover Oscar Deal La
Joya, the face of boxing at that time. He is challenging Javier Castaio
from Spain for the WBC and Millinnial Junior middleweight title. And that was like
a big deal because it's Oscar Delois fighting for another world title, and uh,
it's on an HBO pay per view. And Oscar won that fight very
handily by unanimous decision and won the title. But what really became the story
from that event was that you know, on the undercard. This was an
undercard fight geared around the outstanding junior featherweight IBF champion from South Africa who had
been very impressive in some previous fights. He had fought on a Lenox Lewis
undercard that got a lot of exposure was Laylo Ledwaba and Laylo Ledwaba was supposed
to defend the title in the on the pay per view. His opponent got
injured and they had to find a replacement on like two weeks ten days notice.
Who gets the call but the former flyweight champion, unknown to Americans at
all, as a man named Manny Paco, Manny Who and people the HBO
commentators, Larry Merchant, Jim Lable, they kind of have a George Foreman
had a little bit of a hard time saying his last name many Packet because
he was unknown. He took the fight. It was his first fight with
Freddie Roach. He had been in the United States on a vacation slash working
looking for a trainer. He wanted to come and train in America, maybe
fight in the United States, and they took that fight on short notice.
They went in the ring as underdogs. You know, he was not known
he's just coming up from flyweight, you know, a couple of weight divisions.
Not only did Manny packet win the fight, but he absolutely fucking pummeled
with Babba. It's like, but Wabba had no idea was fighting a South
bot me and he broke his nose, busting him up and just you know,
just beat him up, really stopped him in the sixth round, and
it's like, what in the world did I just see? Like this guy
was like out of nowhere. You're like, I think I just saw like
a future legend. That's the type of performance that he had, and everybody
sort of fell in love with him. He looked phenomenal. HBO liked on
the lot. They put him on the air. They put him on when
it was time for them to put a fight as part of the deal with
Showtime on the Tyson Lennox wis hunder Carter, which we've talked about. And
that was the beginning though of Manny Paco taken America by storm. And here's
the funny thing about that. So I was a big Ledwaba supporter. I'd
watched a lot of his videotapes, not YouTube, but I'd gotten vhs cassettes
of fights that he had had in South Africa. I had seen the one
appearance he had on HBO before that he was a really good, good technical
boxer with some pop and I thought he was really really good, and uh,
you know, I advocated him, advocated for him to get some time
on HBO, and I was obviously knew the HBO vice presidents had handled sports
pretty well and everybody knew I was a big faniland Wabba. When Manny Pachyo
knocked him out, I'm sitting there at my ringside seat in the press row
for the fight. There was like a bunch of people that came walking by
me like almost like condolences. Your guy just got his ass cake and I'll
never forget. There was the HBO, one of the executive vice presidents at
the time, a guy named Xavier James, who knew of my great love
for Ledwaba. You'd have thought we were like we were at a funeral when
he came by my spot at the deaths here to offer his condolences, and
Ledwaba, you know, never reached those heights again. But Pakia went on
to become a freaking legend, and it started that night. He had won
a flyweight title in the Philippines but was really not known. It's really when
he came to America and had that fight on that Oscar undercart and who would
have thought, here's a guide one hundred and twenty two pounds and as American
debut, winning a world title, and many many years later he would be
fighting Oscar dal Lajoya in a welterweight fight and retiring the Golden Boy, and
as the number one fighter in boxing at that time. So it's just strange
how things work out. But just a very memorable performance from Pakiao on a
big time card there in Las Vegas. Love all of this nostalgia, news,
lots on the fights, and a great interview with Julian Jay Rock Williams.
Earlier on this pod, we have done a bunch to preview reminder bet
US Live show Friday one Eastern time. We will handicap fights and head into
the weekend and then you and I will recap the weekend. It will be
a little shorter version of the recap with TJ on VAK and we should mention
that we will also come off the weekend with the recap podcast. It's gonna
be a quick recap because I'm on vacation again, Raphael. I don't want
to get divorced. I don't, I don't. It's not gonna happen.
But we got a special guest as well. We'll recap all the fights from
the weekend. You scored an interview with Virgil Ortise. There's a tease to
hear from Virgil Ortiz, who's fighting Stanionis later on here in July. You'll
hear from him on Sunday night. If you're with us for the recap podcast.
Yeah, listen. I talked to Virgil this week. We had a
nice interview. He's preparing for the postpone fight, which been which postponed twice,
actually first because of Stanionis's appendeck to me and because of Virgil's medical issue
that reoccurred. But they are scheduled to fight in July eighth, and that
should be a tremendous fight. I cannot wait for that fight, one of
my favorite fights that's been on the calendar now for a while. And had
a good interview with Virgil, talked about we really got into a deep on
everything he's gone through in terms of his medical issues, and everybody can hear
that interview when the next one comes out on Sunday. Good enough, my
friend. I'll see you on the bet US Live Show one Eastern time on
their platforms, YouTube, etc. As we handicap, and then you and
I will recap here on the Big Fight Weekend podcast Beat Fight Freaks Unite Recap
comes your way off the weekend, Dan, have a great weekend and we
always appreciate the insight and the efforts on all subjects. Thank you, sir.
That sounds going to help you enjoy your vacation. Yes, we will
be talking from vacation on the next podcast that we do, and it will
be a lot of fun to have a little vacat, a little time away.
And there we go. All right, So with that, we're done.
We're good again. Follow us, subscribe Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
Spotify, rate us and review us as well. You've been listening to the
Big Fight Weekend preview. Bye