The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ Leaves. Well, we are ready to go
for what is the final few days of March and a tremendous weekend of action
at least so we think on paper, from Las Vegas to Glendale, Arizona,
and to Inglewood, California, with three different fight cards involving championship fights.
It is the Big Fight Weekend Preview. I am the somewhat competent host,
TJ. Reeves. He is our insider. Hello, Dan Rayfield of
his Fight Freaks Unite substack also Big Fight Weekend dot Com. Good to be
back with you as we get ready to see what Tim Zuo can do headlining
in the premiere boxing champions Amazon pay per view, the debut of that pay
perview series, Oscar Valdaz, Liam Wilson and what is a really good fight
on paper in the top rank ESPN Plus main event and oh, by the
way, Zerdo Ramirez will go for a cruise aweight world time in a Golden
Boy Boxing main event on Saturday. You'll see anyways on Sunday and Heavyweight Suday.
Some weeks we've got like one primary fight card to talk about. Kind
of like last week, this week it seems like we need about five shows
to talk about all that we have going on. Anyway, good to be
with you. How are you. I'm good, I'm ready to go.
Let's good. Smile you're smiling because at the time we're doing this, the
Yankees have won. The Yankees are undefeated. One sixty two and oh.
Is possible as I stay with my two good friends, my do my best
buddies, all time Yankee fans like myself. We were texting each other the
one sixty two and oh thing earlier just after the game ended. You do
have that chance. My Tampa Bay Rays in my area not so fortunate.
They lost the opening game. No one beating season for them. We'll see
how it all plays out all right. By the way, thank you for
finding us. Make sure that you are following, subscribing, Apple Podcasts,
Preaker, Spotify, all the podcast outlets again, ratus in review us.
That does help with the algorithms, et cetera. We love previewing going into
the weekend here and then recap coming off the weekend twice, the inside analysis
twice, the fun on the Big Fight weekend podcast Speed so we will be
recapping everything that goes on this weekend. Busy busy, So let us start
with Hey in chronology. Friday night, as we released this podcast, they're
fighting in Glendale, Arizona in the ESPN plus Top Rank main event. Former
two division world champ Oscar Valdez in the hunt again for a title, will
take on Liam Wilson. You should know that name is a junior lightweight because
he fought valiantly against e Manuel Navorate, had Navarat on the deck before Navarate
got up and stopped him. Valdez also lost a fight to Navarat. That's
a common opponent, but intriguing. Main event Sanissa Estrada is the co feature
fight. Here we go for Friday night right away in the Top rank show
in Arizona. Daan, listen, this is a hell of a cart.
I mean, you know, we keep it real. I've been sucked.
I'd say it sucked. This is not that is a really good doubleheader.
It is the I guess in terms of the main event with the Oscar val
Does and Lean Wilson, it's I guess you could call it the Emmanuel never
at Ta Losers bracket. But they both had such great fights against Emmanuel never
atte that. I don't mind their care that they lost, and you know,
Valdez is coming off that loss in August. It was a tremendous fight,
a real great Battlefight of the Year contender, and Liam Wilson had,
like you mentioned, Navarrete had, you know, was down against him and
he was an obscure late replacement that fought. He actually took the place of
Oscar in that fight for the vacant title at one hundred and thirty. Oscar
had an injury, so they fought each other and when that fight was over,
Naverete had won the belt. When Oscar was good to go, he
came back and had the first defense against Oscar val does never At They did
and that was a hell of a fight. So since the loss, Wilson
has gone home to Wash Shelly and won two fights in a row. And
he's an action fighter, Valdez is an action fighter. They both come forward
and I think it's going to be fireworks, no doubt about it. And
you know it's they took the fight without this part of what I'm about to
say, So credit to them for that. Because of the rules of the
WBO and the fact that Navarrete is going to the one hundred and thirty five
pound weight class to vie for the their vacant title. Remember when Devin Hainey
vacated all the belts after he became undisputed and went up to one hundred and
forty, the belts became vacant, and so now Naverette is going to fight
against Denny Brenchik for that vacant title. That's going to take place in the
month of May May eighteenth in San Diego. So they have agreed to make
this fight between Valdez and Liam Wilson as the interim title fight, but in
essence, they're crowning the new champion of the WBO before the titles actually vacant.
I say that because technically, yes, of course, whatever happens with
the Navente fight, win or lose, he's entitled to return to the one
hundred and thirty pound way class to defend the title. But if you ask
anybody a top rank or the people on Navarente's team, or anybody that has,
you know, just normal understanding of the way that boxing works, the
chances of coming back to the one hundred and thirty pound way class, especially
knowing you'd have to fight the winner of Wilson against Valdez a second time,
which is not a bad fight, but doesn't have the kind of money associated
with it that he can make probably in the lightweight division of almost ninety nine
point ninety nine percent. He's going to stay in the lightweight division. I
guess it's conceivable that if he lost, maybe he would come back down.
Ray Vargas did that when he lost at one thirty, came to one twenty
six. But in essence, you know, it says interim title, but
in the end, come like May June, it'll have become for the title
because the winner will be upgraded. So there's added stakes as the point.
Both these guys, you know, found that to be an additional motivation when
they spoke about it. For Valdez, you know, he wants to be
a three time, you know, a three time champion. And obviously for
Wilson, he had his shot, he came very close, and he's got
another opportunity with this fight. So really good fight. And you mentioned in
the undercart fight co feature because the logistics top rank would have put this as
the main event, but there was different reasons scheduling wise why it wound up
as the co feature. But that's Saniza Strada against Yo Costa Vaye, without
question, the two best strawweight women boxers in the world. They are the
two women that have two of the titles apiece. They're fighting for the undiscreet
the title, you know. So in terms of women's boxing, it's an
excellent matchup between two of these women who are both pound for pound level within
women's boxing U and not a lot of knockouts between them, very good boxers.
But it should be a fun fight. They don't like each other.
They've been dogging each other out for quite some time on social media. Sinisa
says she's taken a personal Yocasta says it's not personal, it's business whatever.
I just know when they get in there, I think it should be a
very highly interesting, competitive, h you know, good fight and so I
think it's a dynamite card. And as you made mentioned, we did hear
from Sonissa Estrada recently on this podcast feed about her plans, her aspirations four
belt undisputed here for that fight and back to Valdez and Wilson, we can't
overstate this. There should be some atmosphere on Friday night because Valdez has got
a following in Tucson, nearby to Glendale, but also because again he's from
a part of Mexico that is in the northern part of the country, right
below Arizona, So there's there and that is a big fight area, Mexican
American fight area for previous fights that they've had. So I'm very interested.
I know it's a Friday night, i know it's not the biggest of names,
but Valdez has got a following. I'm interested in what kind of crowd,
what kind of environment they'll bet I'm a pretty good crowd there. And
also, I mean, you know the thing, I I mean, this
entire card is on ESPN Plus as opposed to the network, so you know,
you know all this, all the fights will be shown the way they
always are, except usually the last and all the of the carter on the
main network. But in terms of the prospects on the undercart, there's a
little bit for everybody. They've got some of the better top ranked prospects.
He got the silver medal winner from the Olympic Games. The heavyweight Richard Torres
is in action undefeated. Yeah, Raymond Moretaya that's knocking on the doorstep of
a lightweight world title fight. He's been calling out sha course Stevenson. Maybe
they can convince him to be his July sixth opponent. We'll see. He's
got an opponent that he's facing in No Genji that's fought against Haney and has
some other guys he's fought against, so it's another you know, good I
think, a decent opponent for Maritaya. When dolf aol Delgado, the Mexican
olympian who's always exciting, who's undefeated, he's in on the under card also,
so you know, there's a lot of good talent on this show.
And also Emiliano Vargas, the young lightweight that's the eight to oh son of
the of the former two time junior middwaight champion for an Endo Vargus, who
is you know, emerged as a hot product also, so there's there's a
little bit of a lot of bit of talent on this undercard, no doubt.
All right, So again that is Friday night, as we released this
podcast for the ESPN Top Rank show Saturday Night, the most prominent of the
fights, and we've been talking about it now building up for a few weeks
that Tim Zuo's the headliner. We did talk at length over the weekend about
the switch now to Sebastian Fondorra. He is the opponent, and it's now
the headlining fight of the PBC, Amazon Prime and PPV dot Com pay per
view. It is for two belts in the junior middleweight division. This is
originally a non title fight at just over the junior middleweight limit. Now it's
a two belt junior middleweight world title fight with the vacant WBC Junior Middleweight title
on the line. Four title fights on this card coming up. All right,
Dan Rayfield, here we go. Zoo again, immensely popular in Australia,
trying to build some US cachet if you will get the dollars up by
coming to the United States. And I like what you've said a couple of
times, and we've seen it so many times. He could have potentially nixed
this and said I don't want to fight Fondorra, big southpaw, too short
a notice. I like this about this guy, he says the opposite.
Bring it on. I want it here. So let's begin with that.
Yeah, I mean you got to give him credit. I mean, I
give both guys credit. When you take on this dangerous of an opponent on
short notice, you know, it does throw things off. Now, they
were both training for fights becus Fondora was still on this undercart. He was
originally fighting for the vacant WBC title in one of the other bouts on the
show against Sir Hey Bochek, And of course the main event was Tim against
Keith Thurman over the weight that one fifty five, not for the title.
That wasn't because of anything about Tim that willing to put the title up.
That was the WBO for appropriate reasons not sanctioning it against Dermann who hasn't fought
in that weight clast who's been off for two years, and who was not
ranked. So they were to do non title. Now Fondora is the opponent,
and it's for the vacant belt that Fondora was supposed to fight for as
well as for Tim Zoo, so it's added stakes for that. So you're
going to go in with one one belt and the winner comes out with two.
And on top of that, as you mentioned, the credit to the
guys making the big switch because it's more of a look Fondora was going to
be in with Boachek. You know, similar size to Zoo, right handed
fighter. You know, not a lot of you know, different opponent fair
enough, but you know, and probably to be honest, a better opponent.
But the reality is it's you know, the same general size. It's
not like a huge You're not making some kind of huge changing your entire mentality
of going into the ring. For tim Zo, you know, for a
lot of guys to be tough enough to fight, to switch from a ready
to a lefty or to switch to a guy that was much taller, he's
doing both. He's going from fighting, as I've stated before, a five
nine ten or a five eight five nine Keith Thurman right hander to a six
foot six southpak which is just a huge change. And I'll say this again
the size difference, to just put it in perspective. When you're talking about
a six foot six fighter like Sebastian Vendora, he is the same height as
Vladimir klitch Go, the former heavyweight champion. His inch his reach is one
inch shorter than Vladimir klitsch goes from eighty one inches to eighty inches, So
it's a it's a very big change. But Thurman like you said, he
said, bring it on. So I think it's a good fight. I'm
not so sure how how the pay per view is going to sell because I
don't feel like Amazon has done anything to help promote this fight. That's a
different story for a different day. But it's a heck of a of a
matchup, especially on short notice. I like it better than the Therman fight
in the first place to be put on it, and we can talk about
some of those undercard fights because it's a it's an attractive undercard. Also,
again, pay per view, you can quibble and question it fair enough.
And I think Amazon has done nothing to help promote this fight at all that
I can tell, and I you know, Mike quarrel with them is this.
Yeah, they now have a landing page on the Prime website. But
if you don't know that the events happening, you gotta go like an on
an archaeological expedition to try to find it. I mean, I'm I'm a
pretty savvy boxing customer and consumer and and know my my ins and outs of
finding things to watch boxing matches on. This is like, it's no.
But the point is, unless you're the dorks like us and the degenerates side
diards who are gonna purposely seek it out. Nobody that's just not going to
just happen upon it. It doesn't seem So does the sports fan know about
this, that's what you're saying. Does the sports fan who might watch boxing
know about this through Amazon? Is the point that you're making. So they
know about it just because they're boxing fans, but they haven't gotten any help
from Amazon defined it as the point, And the reality is it was already
facing a very difficult, uphild battle just in the mere fact that, you
know, all the oxygen of the sports weekend is a lot of it.
Are most of it anyways taken up by the NCAA tournament that's going to be
going on, So they got a real issue there, and I you know,
again, the pay per view element is a separate conversation from the what
the perception of how the bouts are, So we can get into the other
bouts. But that's just my take on the pay perview element of it.
And we'll hear more about PPV dot com offering this as well. Besides just
Amazon dot prompt. We've been doing our part to promote them as sponsors here
on the pod and on the website, and you're doing that as well through
your substack. Don't come crying to us. We've been letting everybody know.
But that's boxing fans. That's the whole point. If it's the if it's
the sports fan that watches everything, that will watch the NFL, watch the
NBA, the March Madness, major League Baseball, how to if they're a
boxing fan casually, how do they know? That's that's the point. You'm
here, all right? Co feature fight is Roly Romero and Estsac Pitbull Cruise
some Thursday fireworks at the press conference, at least verbally not unexpected about this
WBA junior welterweight title fight. We got that and the other the other fights
on the under card. All right, what else here of the it's a
four championship fight card, three of them on the undercard, including the co
feature. Yeah, I mean, Cruz and Romero is an attractive fight.
Pit Pull is moving up from lightweight to junior welterweight to challenge Romero for his
belt. It'll be Raley's first title defense. But anybody that knows how he
won the title knows it's a little bit suspect given the horrendous nature of the
stoppage that he was able to win that belt when he fight against Ishmael Barroso
got a little bit of help from the referee, Let's say, in a
fight where Barroso was kicking his ass. Let's be honest, but Cruise is
a much smaller guy. But the thing about Cruise I like in the in
the in any match he's in is he's busy. He throws punches, and
Roly Romero as just not. He's a good puncher, and I give him
that, and you know, he's he's got some abilities in talent, I
don't take away from him, but he just doesn't throw punches at all.
And similar to what we talked about with the Valdez and Liam Wilson fight where
it's the Navarete loser's bracket fight, I guess you could look at this as
the Tan Davis loser's bracket fight because Tank Davis knocked out Romero, you know,
pretty roughly, and you know, Cruz was one of the rare fighters
to go to distance with Tank Davis, so they both were the losers to
Tank. But so it's an interesting matchup and it's a great opportunity for Romero
to sort of make his name better than what people think because of the way
that the last fight ended against Barroso, and obviously for Cruz it's an opportunity
to you know, win another title and he's got such a you know,
a good fan base, especially with the Mexican fans. It's a nice matchup,
you know, it's a little bit of a it's similar, like not
as stark as the main event in terms of the height difference, but early
Romeiro obviously is much bigger just in terms of his stature and size compared to
what is Zach Cruise is. But good fight and then you know the other
undercard fights. But this is the fight that we can sum have four seconds
on, which is Arisloni Lara defending the WBA middleweight title against his mandatory who's
long overdue from Australia. Also Michael Zarafa that was seven seconds. Are you're
gonna keep going? Besides go ahead? Just just a horrible fight in my
opinion, does belonging this pay per view. Laura is forty something years old.
He's been squatting on the title, holding it a hostage for years,
ever since he got the gift of even fighting for in the first place,
I mean ever since he had the loss in the Fight of the Year to
Jared Hurd, and then he had a draw with Brian Castano, who was
undefeated, who went on to become a joom NAA champion. So it was
starting in the middle of twenty nineteen think about him. In years that's been
Arizon Lara has had four fights and they've all been events, very very poor
opposition. Ramon Alvarez, the older brother of Canelo, not really his brother
in terms of his talent. Greg Vendetti, a New England club fighter,
Thomas Lamana who got wiped out in one round. Sho had never been in
a world title fight to begin with Spikosullivan, you know, a fighter with
some fans from you know, the UK, but not not a not a
world level fighter who you know that was a ridiculous matchup. He's from Ireland
actually you know, not the UK and now comes rof It was a better
greative opponent, I'll say, than those four fighters I just mentioned, but
it's just a waste of a spot. T PVC's got so many quality fighters
that have been inactive that they could have put on the show. They've got
guys like Carlos A. Damis and Brandon Figueroa and the mess Stanionis, and
I mean they're all young guys, you know, still with the real futures.
Laura is just collecting a check every every few every year or two.
So I hate that fight and the replacement fight, well, I take it
back. They took the flyweight fight from the pre limbs that were free.
When they made the opponent switch, they moved get onto the main card,
which is the flyweight WBC champion Julius Sesar Martinez against Angelino Cordova. If you
remember TJ, this was the fight that was supposed to be part of the
final Showtime card back in December, but because of a visa problem they fight,
the fight was postponed and it was rescheduled for this card. So Martinez
has emerged as one of the top fly weights, if not the top flyweight
out there, you know, arguable depending on your perspective, but this is
a real fight. Cordova's undefeated, he's pretty solid. I've seen him before.
And then on the on the free part of the card, then Brian
Mendoza who's been coming has been training with Tim Zuo, who was on standby
with TGB and PBC in case he was needed. Who had a loss in
a defense against him Zoo where he went to distance with him in Australia.
Again, he's been training so he's not coming off the couch either. He's
the new opponent for Seray Boachik and they will fight for the interim title rather,
you know, which is kind of stupid. If you ask me that
you got the full title at stake in the main event and they're gonna make
the interim title in the co feature, I don't really quite get that.
And whatever it took to get the fight made, I guess you gotta do
what you got. It is interesting. He squashed Fundor with basically one big
punch now, so he lost every round before that, right, Zoo handled
him for the most part the same way in his defense last fall. But
Zoo had a lot of respect for Mendoza and was using him as a sporring
partner, et cetera. And now it's interesting because he's got inteled on both
guys. He's got intel for Zoo, I guess on Fundora and what it's
like to be in the ring with him. So that's just intriguing and now
he's on the card himself with Bulachuck. Yeah, so that's that's I mean,
as look, that's a really quality replacement. I mean, to be
able to go from having the Fundora against Boacheck and you get Mendoza on short
notice. You know, as a standby fighter, you sell there's you would
never look at the lineup of the card and say there was some gaping hole
in it because of the injury. You know, we can quarrel about the
about the the disappointment of having this Laura Zaropha fight on the show, but
in terms of the overall matchups that you know, they basically were seamless when
they made the switch. And then you throw in you know, Julio Caesar
Martinez's title defense, and then also one of my favorite prospects in boxing,
super exciting, on the rise, young kid, you know, with a
very bright future, Elijah Garcia in the middleweight division taking on the very experienced
Can Davis, you know who's got some you know, three losses, but
he's you know, he's never really been you know, he's been stopped just
one time. That was by David Benavite's back in twenty twenty one. He
went seven rounds with him, there's nothing to apologize if he gets stopped by
David Benavide, So you know, he's got the experience and and they're seeing
if you know, you want to see if how how far Elijah Garcia is
going to go, and you know, you have to beat a kind of
fighter like a Kyroon Davis to show that you can handle that type of opposition.
And I will say this in terms of Elijah Garcia, you know,
super exciting prospect. He's only twenty years old, but a real mature guy,
you know, got a family, wife, kids, but real grounded.
It seems I think this is probably you know, it's it's it's I
can't say it's a big step up, but it's on the same level of
guys who he's been fighting, which are not at the top level, but
pretty solid opponents, whether it's Jose Rizendez or you know, Alma carve Dal
Junior. That was like the big coming out win for him, who was
undefeated when they fought each other. You know, really to see who's the
prospect and who's not. So that's that's one of the free fights on Prime
along with the along with the Boachik fight against Mendoza. But yeah, this
is a good card. I mean, you know, I can't I can't
knock it all right, good stuff, and why don't we find out a
little more now about how to see it from one of our sponsors here,
as we're anxious to see what happens with all of these fights in Las Vegas,
and we do that right now. Well, we've been mentioning this.
It is the inaugural premiere boxing champions Amazon Prime pay perview, and we keep
saying that you need to order this on a one off purchase from PPV dot
com. And who better to tell us more about why you need to do
that for this four championship fight pay per view than Mark Bocardi of PPV dot
Com, who is back aboard. Good to have you again, my friend.
I know we have a different opponent than what we thought with Sebastian Fundora,
but still the sensational Australian champ Tim Zoo is involved in the main event
and we're excited with what's coming on PPV dot com this Saturday night. Yeah,
great to be back. Thanks for having me listen. Anytime Tim Zoo
is fighting, we're excited, right, I mean, he is a Dynamo,
and sure it was a bit of a bummer when we lost Durman.
A lot of times when you have substitutes fill in, these fights go from
something exciting to just a complete walkover. That's not the case here. I
mean you could argue that this is actually going to be a more exciting fight.
I mean, you've got the obvious physical disparity between the two, but
it's going to be a great event. So yeah, you mentioned it's the
first PBC on Amazon pay per view, but it's probably our you know what,
thirtieth PBC event on PPV dot com. So we're excited to be bringing
it to everyone, no doubt. And again with Fondora six foot six as
a junior middleweight, our colleague Dan Rayfield keeps saying, this six foot six
with the eighty inch wingspan is the same as Vladimir Klitschko, the former heavyweight
champ, who was six to six with an eighty inch wingspan and roughly one
hundred pounds heavier when he was fighting. So it is intriguing to see if
Fndora can create problems can zoos swing up at a six foot six inch fighter
when he's somewhere around five ten, five eleven himself. All of that is
part of the intrigue. But as I mentioned, we've got a Rollie Romero
Isa cruz Co feature fight junior welterweight World Time four title fights on this PPV
dot Com broadcast here through Premiere Boxing Champions as well. Yeah, it's going
to be a great card, I think, from from start to finish,
and not only all that, but as part of PPV dot Com is as
we mentioned before, and little of a little bit of new news here to
mention as well. In addition to Jim Lampley and Lance Pugmeyer participating in our
chat, who fans have really taken to in terms of interacting with during the
event, we're also bringing on board going forward starting with this event from Inside
Boxing Live, Dan Kenobio and Chris Aljery. Yes, a great pair as
well. Chris brings such a unique insight as having been in the ring on
major you know, he's fought Manny Paciao, has that other major events.
And then Dan is you know, just a boxing expert. So we're going
to have those four guys in there TJ for this event. So I think
fans are really going to be able to you know, have a really good
time in the chat and enjoy all different perspectives, tremendous interaction and from those
individuals and again Crystal Clear four K Kenady, whatever you need. And the
most important thing with PPV dot com, we keep emphasizing this, no long
term commitment, no six month commitment, no much less one year subscription needed.
That is part of the appeal here, Mark again it is. And
as we look forward here it's the appeal because we've got this fight the Zoo
Fundora. We're around the corner from Haine Garcia. Then we're around the corner
from Canelo, so we've got, you know, a pretty stacked a few
weeks, by the way, I forget to mention, right after that we
have fury U sic. And hopefully right after that we have Tank Davis's return
to two boxing. So it's going to be a great stacked next few months.
And the best thing for the fans is pick and choose what you want
to purchase. We keep talking about that. It is it is. I
mean, you may want to buy them all anyway, but you're not obligated
under a subscription price to have bought every month or every fight. If you
don't want pick and choose what you want with pp dot com. Right of
those five or six fights I just mentioned, you pick what you want,
no commitment beyond that, and have some fun in the chat with our guys.
And one more time here again with Tim Zoo. I mean we're getting
acclimated a bit to him right now. He's fought primarily in Australia. But
anytime you use the praise son of a Hall of famer, an unbeaten world
champion, look out for what could be ahead for this guy. We're looking
to see. It is a test. We're looking to see if he passes
the test, and then are big things ahead for Zoo? One more time?
Yeah, no, absolutely. At this point, I think the biggest
negative with Zoo is people have trouble with his last name. If over that
right, I mean everything in the ring. It's a sterling record and I
think he's going to have a long, really successful career. But yeah,
getting back to this fight, what are unique intriguing matchup? I expect Zoo
to come in work the body quite a bit on such a taller opponent,
but it's gonna be it's gonna be a good night, it gonna be a
fun night. Should be a lot of fun. Again PPV dot com for
all the interactive stuff with Jim Lampley, Lance Pugmeyer, Dan Kenobio, Chris
al Jury. Again one off purchase, great incentive for them to buy from
PPV dot com one more time, right, mark should be great. Yeah,
thanks again TJ. Thanks to your audience for listening, and we hope
everyone buys it on PPV dot com. We guarantee you'll have a good experience,
good stuff, and we appreciate their relationship and sponsorship with us. Again,
that whole one off purchase part will come into play here because there are
numerous pay per views coming up that you can pick and choose on with PPV
dot com. So we're you know what, We're not done previewing fights.
By the way, for this weekend. This is like the Gains sus Steak
Knives Ray Phiel. How much would you pay now? Twenty ninety five thirty
nine ninety five. Wait, there's more. As we always say that,
let's get to the Goldenboy Dezone show that we'll be coming on Saturday night in
Inglewood, California. This is the main event WBA Cruiserweight title held by Arson
Gula Marian. Gula Marian is an Armenian under the French flag who's been training
in southern California, but making his debut in the United States against Gilberto Zerto
Ramirez, who has moved up as a former super middleweight champ, lost in
a titles shot at light heavyweight against Dmitri b vol now has won a cruiserweight
fight against a former light heavyweight champ himself, Joe Smith. So now Zerto
in the way here as a as a top contender at cruiserweight for Gula Marian.
This is the main event Inglewood, California on the Golden Boys Show,
another title fight Dan to go over. Yeah, it's a busy day on
Saturday because between the Prime card and you got this card on his own,
and of course whatever else was going on on Friday with the Valdez card,
it's a busy weekend. So but this is Despite's kind of got lost in
the shuff a little bit. But this is I think, in some ways
one of the more intriguing fights because there's so much we don't know about the
way that for a lot of things, How is Gilbert going to be at
a full fledged scruiserweight You mentioned about his victory that he had against Joe Smith.
Obviously, they were both long time light heavyweight contenders, and when they
fought each other back in October, they contracted the fight at one ninety two
I believe was the contract weight, so that's eight below the cruiserweight limit.
This fight with Gumari Gula Marian is going to be at the full two hundred
pounds now. I suspect based on the build that Zero has at six'
two and a half, you know, with that long reach of his,
that he's going to be just fine in terms of filling out. I mean,
he obviously had trouble making the lights heavyweight at the end of his time
in the way class, and uh, you know, I think it also
impacted him even when he lost very badly in a lopsided decision to Dimitri biebel
In in that light heavyweight fight. Then there was another one after that that
was canceled because he didn't make the weight or wasn't close the weight. That's
right, He's gonna fill out. He's gonna fill out just fine. I
think at two hundred pounds he's actually a little bit taller than Gula Marian.
Uh and Gulamarian is the great unknown to a lot of people. I've seen
some videos of the guy. He definitely can fight out. I've talked to
the people within the sport also watched him and scouted him and had their thoughts
about him, and they say, this is a guy that's pretty well schooled.
He's got good power, and you know, he's not like a walkover
type of guy. Just because he never heard of him doesn't mean he's no
good. But the problem that he has, besides the fact that I shouldn't
say a problem that he just is not active. I mean, he think
about this. He had fought a couple of title fire. He attended the
title in twenty nineteen at the very end of the year, didn't fight it
all in twenty twenty, didn't fight it all in twenty twenty one. Now,
obviously a lot of that was pandemic related, like a lot of guys
that had those types of layoffs. But then he came back and it wasn't
until the very end of twenty twenty two. So from twenty nineteen in December
twenty one, twenty two was two year layoff where he just didn't fight,
and then in that fight he fought over in France and then didn't fight again
until this fight that's coming up against Zerdo Vermier. So his last was November
of two thousand. I know they've got some you know, lack of to
fight. I mean, so you know he's coming off not just like it's
one thing to come off the long left, but to have such a long
period of time between even just one or two fights is just you just don't
know how he was gonna react. Now. The good thing, I think
this is a good thing. You have to have to love his desire and
his willingness. He's coming here on an uncomfortable territory. It's not a mandatory
fight. He's taken on a good name in Ramirez, but he wanted to
be trained by the trainer Abel Sanchez. Abel Sanchez has retired. He's you
know, had his well known camp up in the in uh in California,
up in the mountains in uh you know, you know, in Big Bear,
California. Well known of course for the being the trainer for Gnati Glovekin
before that, the Hall of Famer Terry Norris and you know other fighters he's
worked with through the years. But he, like I said, he retired
and and gol Marian came to him and like basically camped out on his doorstep
and begged him to take him on. And uh, you know, Abel
had a good attitude about it after the guy just wouldn't leave him alone.
He's like, the guy must really, you know, how can I not
help him? You know what I mean? So Abel is training him for
this fight, and it's been a while since Abel's been, you know,
in any kind of fight, or much less a world championship fight. So
you know, we'll see if, if the wise Abel Sanchez can impart his
knowledge and all the all the great things that he's accomplished in his training career
on this fighter Goilmurray and see what he can do. So I like this
matchup. I'm very interested to see how Gilberto is going to do in the
way class. I'm curious to see how gil Marien is gonna do against by
far and away, in my opinion, his number one best opponent that he
has faced in his career, even though he's undefeated. It's interesting to me.
I'll be watching. And again, also, I'm curious, before you
get to the undercard fight, I'm curious what kind of shape is Ramirez in
will this fight start to go distance? Go sixth round, go eighth round?
What kind of shape is he in? Et cetera for this, because
again it was not long ago, within the last couple of years, he
was fighting at super middleweight, which I know you've been over and now he's
fighting a cruiser weight. We'll see, all right. And then on the
undercard, Alexis Rocha is on the undercard here in a welterweight battle as part
of one of the Golden Boy fighters as well. Yeah, I mean Roacha
was a good looking contender. He had suffered a previous loss, but he
was starting to really you know, he had bounced back. He was he
looked very good in some of the wins he had knockouts. Obviously part of
that was great matchmaking, you know, where he was in with opponents that
were not like bad opponents, but guys that he was clearly going to be
favored to win. They matched him up in October with Giovanni Santition, who
was thirty one to zero but was the underdog. He was coming to the
essentially the hometown of Roach in a fight and he he didn't just get knocked
out. I mean he lost pretty much every round and it was a real
rough fight and he got stopped and it was you know, he took some
damage in that fight that stopped knocked out in the sixth round. So now
he's coming back on the undercar and looking to sort of rebuild. You know,
it's a good spot for him because again he'll probably sell some tickets because
the fight's in his home area in Inglewood, California. You know, it's
not too far from where he lives. And he's taken on Frederick Loss and
now Frederick Lawson. Of course, if you remember what just happened recently back
in January, he got stopped in the first round by Virgil Ortiz and another
horrendous tony weeks stop. It's just just ridiculous, and there was a lot
of you know, false innuendo and nonsense. I'm not being to get in
too right now about all that, but the bottom line was, whatever you
think about the match between Ortiz and Loss, and you can't deny that the
stoppage was very premature, even though it looked like Virgil was on his way
to you know, getting an early knockout, so to sort of make up
for that, and you know, lost and has cleared all of his medical
issues. You know, there's no all of his testing apparently is fine and
Dandy Golden Boy promised because that was such a shit call, that they'll put
him in another fight. So they're giving him an opportunity against Roacha. They're
both coming off stoppage losses. Roach's was a much rougher knockout loss certainly than
what happened between Virgil and stopping loss. And so that's the co feature lost
in the seef. He can rebound from that terrible scenario what happened back in
January and Broach a same deal from what happened back in the fall. And
I remember we were saying at the time they should do something for him because
you're looking yes, he got paid, but you're looking at giving him no
chance there in that opening round to even see what he could do for future
paydays for anything else. So at least he gets something kind of as a
give back here from Golden Boy Promotions. So good on that. And we're
still not done because there's a Sunday boxer fight card in the UK on Sky
Sports that'll be shown on Peacock streaming here on the Peacock app in the United
States with heavyweights, the big dudes, Fabio Wardley, Fraser Clark intriguing for
the British and Commonwealth heavyweight championships. All right, so give me a little
more on this because this is Sunday. We got fights Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday's gonna be a good way to finish up the weekend. That's for
damn sure. Listen. I kind of like this fight. I kind of
dig it. I mean, I'm kind of hoping for like just a sloppy
heavyweight slobber knocker. I mean, is that too much to ask for?
No, But Fraser Clark is a guy that was a bronze medalist in the
twenty twenty Olympics. But he's thirty two years old, so he turned pro
late, obviously, similar to what was the scenario with Joe Joyce, who
was in you know, either his very late twenties or early thirties or whatever
when he turned pro. I think he was already into his thirties. So
the whole point here is I'm going to make my pro career, but we
got to make the most of it, so we're gonna try to move quickly.
So he's only eight and oh and you know, while he has fought
like the David Allen's of the world and the ancient Marius Walk and Bogdan Dino
and guys would experience, but not at his level. But he's done what
he's supposed to do. He beat them and done. You know, he
beat them either by knockout in the case of Walk by a route but shutout
decision. And now he's stepping up to fight Wardley for stakes because the British
title in the Commonwealth title is meaningful in the UK. But Fabia Wardly to
me is kind of ready to take the next step. I think this is
a big, big gamble for Fraser Clark more so than Wordley. In my
mind. Worley's undefeated with seventeen wins sixteen knockouts, looked really, really good
on the card in Saudi Arabia back in October when Tyson Ferry fought Francis Nagano.
On that under card, he fought the undefeated countryman from Britain, David
Adelier, in a fight that going in, you know, a lot of
people sort of were on both sides of the fence, didn't know who was
gonna win, could see scenarios for both of them. They both were in
great shape and it was kind of a toss up and Fabia Wordley showed his
stuff and he he knocked a Delier down in round seven, stopped him good
stoppage, no issues, And he had been winning pretty much every single round
leading up to that. He was up by a shoutout on one scorecard and
basically was kicking his ass in a sense, and so that was a big
win for him. And now he's defending the British and Commonwealth against you know,
a fighter that if he can win in Fraser Clark might have a future.
Gonna have to move quick, I guess. But so if you're a
heavyweight fan and you like the Brits, this is a really interesting light to
me. And like you said, I'm thrilled that it's on Peacock in the
United States because I like to watch as much as I can and I think
this is a worthy matchup. All right, again, that is Sunday afternoon,
Sunday night primetime in England for the Boxers show. That's with that man,
We gave you a bunch, but also let me just tek at more
think about that on that undercard, I mean, among the undercard fights that
will be on the stream is you got the medalists from the Olympics. Also
the very polarizing and exciting and interesting, let's say, with his antics,
Ben Whittaker, the light heavyweight that a lot of people think is going on
to become not only a world champion, potentially like a pound for pound guy
who will be in a seventh professional fight. All right, so a bunch.
We gave you a bunch in the preview mode on all four of those
fight cards of interest. Now some news and some nostalgia. I know you've
been working on this as Thursday afternoons coming to Thursday evening. They've made it
official that Juan Francisco Estrada and Jesse Bam Rodriguez will battle or Astrada's lineal and
WBC Junior Bantamweight Championship. It'll be a de Zone show coming in Phoenix for
later this year. And I know you're excited about the prospects of this,
and it's now done and announced June twenty ninth. Like you said in Phoenix,
really outstanding fight, as I put on my social media from the below
the bantamweight division. This is about as good of a fight as you can
make in the sport of boxing, in my opinion, really really interesting fight.
Two guys that bring it, two guys that are exciting, two guys
that have accomplishment. But it's it's like a clash of generations. Obviously,
one Francisco Astrata is not of the current generation, even though he's the champion.
But he's almost a decade older than Bam Rodriguez. But you just look
at his track record, right, He's got the three trill and trilogies.
He's got the trilogy with Choclatito that he officially is the winner of two to
one. He's he's fought quadras, he's fought you know, Swiss kept rugby
side. If you go back a number of years ago, we had a
big win for the unified flyway title against Brian Valoria. He's a very very
accomplished fighter on the pound for poundless for a long time. Probably gonna be
in the Hall of fame in my mind. And and it's still the champion,
you know, and and still and still even if he loses, he
gives you your money's worth. That's for damn short and dam you know,
we saw him look absolutely awesome in his last fight when he when he uh
just battered Sonny Edwards to unify the flyway titles. And so he's going from
the flyweight division. He's moving back up to junior banhamweight where he used to
hold this WBC title and had made a big name for him up because he
beats Ristic Cats a run beside and he beat Quadris, who obviously were a
little bit older. And so now he's now he's matching up with you know,
the the other of the great foursome between the two guys I mentioned,
plus himself plus Chocolatito. You know, I mean, I guess you got
to look at it and say, you know, he's he's going back to
a way class that he's been in before. This is the title he used
to hold. He's decade younger. You know, I would imagine I'll be
the betting favorite, but I don't ever count that one. Francisco Estrada.
But I just love the matchup. I think it's it's it's an old great
against a future great, is the way I look at it. And you
know, there's gonna be a great crowd there, Mexican Mexican Americans in a
great fight city like Phoenix that can certainly turn out for the for the big
events. That's where Bam has fought a lot of his fights, you know,
in the Phoenix, in the in Glendell area, you know, some
of these bigger fights that he has had. And what I love about Bam
Rodriguez, He's not looking to just like defend the title or take on this
guy, or fight a mandatory or have a regular fight. He wants the
names and he's getting them, and he's willing to fight them. And he
because he brings a bit of a fan base also, you know, he
can he can help make those matches happen. Sonny Edwards, you know,
was more than willing to come here to fight in the United States to fight
him in the unification that took place in December. But like I said,
he also was able to fight Sarissicat and Quadras. He's just yep, he's
banking if he can, if he can win this fight against Estrada. From
twenty twenty two to now, he'll have beaten Swissicat, Quadras, Sonny Edwards,
and Jan Francisco Estrada. That's four out of the six fights he's had
in that time frame, and all four of the guys that he would have
beaten are top notch, like legit bona fide quality guys, no doubt about
it. So how do you not love it? I mean, it's just
for me. It's a great matchup. I love it. It's gonna be
action, and it's gonna be for big stakes and BAM beat the daylights out
of Sonny Rodrigae or Sonny Edwards last time we saw him for BAM Rodriguez and
he's he's one of the best, youngest, he's still the youngest. He
may not be the youngest now, but he was the youngest world champion back
a couple of years ago. Yeah, I don't think he is any more
punning, right, He's still only twenty four years old. And by the
way, as terms of the undercard for that, this is not done yet,
but my sources tell me that the co feature on this BAM against are
the Estrada against BAM fight. They didn't announce this when they announced the main
event, but the co feature most likely will be the return of Sonny Edwards
taken on Adrian Kurrie Ou who, if you remember, had the back to
back fights at one hundred and eight pounds with my boy siventh City Non Shinga
scored in the big knockout and then lost in the rematch, so that will
be a real crossroads fight. He would be moving up. But Sonny,
you know, took so much damage in that fight against Bam Rodriguez. You
know, you're not sure what he's got left, and obviously the other guy's
coming off the loss where he's moving up in wait. So, but that's
interesting because the guy that wins will suddenly become a player once again, or
in the case of Caill, a player in the flyweight division. So that's
got a very good chance of being squared away as the co feature. All
right, let's continue on the announcements. We have been talking about this a
couple of times. It's now official Subrio Matias will return to Puerto Rico,
will defend his IBF Junior Wiltway title, and the opponent is Liam Paro of
Australia. Give us the particulars though now on when it is, because it
is announced. Yeah, so it's gonna be June fifteenth. They were messing
around with a couple different dates in June, but it's now set for June
fifteenth. That'll headline the Mattrium card onto his own. It'll be the first
card that match Room ever promotes in Puerto Rico. It's taken place in a
place called Manatee, Puerto Rico, which is where that's the hometown of sibral
Matia. So they've got like, you know, when they put out the
announcement, they had stuff from like the mayor of Manatee there. They got
a lot of assistance and kind of getting this done from the mayor's office in
terms of like I don't know if it's a sponsorship or whatever you want to
say about it, but they were very instrumental in helping bring this there.
And they're gonna it's I think they'll be a pretty good fight, but they'll
make it like a big party, big homecoming, and uh, you know,
we'll see some good boxing. I mean, Puerto Rico is such a
hotbed, it's such a great place for boxing matches. No doubt, they
don't have they don't have like the there is no Miguel Coto currently or Felix
Trinidad or you know, the great champions they've had in their more recent past.
Mattias hasn't he's this is going to be a second defense. But he
hasn't fought at Puerto Rico since like twenty nineteen, so it's a chance for
him to become, you know, the guy that the that the fans on
Puerto Rico gravitate towards. And you've got to start somewhere, so you know,
it's a it'll be You always love seeing these big, exciting crowds when
the when the champ comes home. And again I'm not saying he's fighting like
you know, the number one, the legit number one contender or youification fight,
you know, but Paro he does have some reason to think he might
have a chance. He's got twenty four wins, no losses. He does
have fifteen knockouts, and when he's been in the fights that were supposed to
be competitive, they were not. I mean, he thought, for just
as an example, not that this was a well known fighter, but when
he fought his fellow Australian Brock Jarvis, who was also undefeated, he didn't
really know who's winning that fight. He knocked himut in the first round,
and then they put him in with Montana Love, who was more well known,
and he took him apart in the sixth round. So he's done what
he's supposed to do against the opponents that people thought might be dangerous. So
we'll see if he can deal with the ferocity and the intensity and the power
and obviously the great atmosphere that's going to be supportive of Mattias in Mattias's hometown.
But I got to give him Parow credit. You know, he's taken
the fight by going to the other guy's backyard. Never an easy situation.
And by the way, you love it when I throw in some insight from
the TJ perspective. I saw Liam Paro earlier in his career December of twenty
twenty one on the Jake Paul undercard in Tampa. He was impressive that night
as a little known Australian back Now two and a half years ago with all
this, so let's see what he looks like in that title fight. All
right, You have been talking to us about this mega card proposed for June
the first. The Archer better b of Dmitri bevol undisputed light heavyweight world title
is to be the main event. And this is the five on five that
you were talking about on our recap podcast. Eddie Hearn Frank Warren last week
shaking hands, saying, okay, let's make the fights. You suggested what
a couple of the names could be, including even a wild card heavyweight fight.
Do we know anymore as the week has gone on about what might be
going on here? Yeah, I mean, I you know, they're they're
working getting all these fights done. So first of all, just so people
understand where this is going. To the context of how this is happening,
June first is going to be the Arthur Better b of Dimitri Bivol. You
know, all the marbles at light heavyweight fight. That's been a fight we've
all wanted to see for quite some time, and just that fight alone,
you're like, oh, thank god, what a great fight. That's one
of the best matchups you can make in the whole sport. Can't wait,
great matchup. Now you have Turkey al Shehic saying that in the this goes
back to the press conference when they announced the fight between Anthony Joshua and Naganu
and Turkey was there. This is almost like an aside. He's like,
oh, by the way, I'd also like to do this later in the
year, and he said I'd like to have a fight card where I can
do five of the top guys in the Frank Warren Stable Queensberry to fight against
the top guys in Eddie's matchroom stable and five on five for bragging rights of
the promoters and all that. So those five fights are gonna be the undercard
of Better BEFDVL. This I mean, and I I'm not one for hyperbole.
I think we've been doing this long enough to know that I just like
I keep it real, man. We call it, we spew facts,
we call it like we see it. If this card gets done in the
manner in which they're trying to get it done, and these various fights I'm
about to mention to you are all in various forms of being finalized and getting
squared away, one of them, I know for a fact, is done.
This is one of the best cards of recent years, of maybe the
last decade, maybe the last twenty years, just top to bottom. When
you think that the main event is better Be against Beeville, that alone is
obviously big time as it gets pound for pound shit, you know, undisputed
big time. So now as a co feature, I know they're coming off
losses, but it's still an interesting fight Deontay Wilder against Zang July. You
know, the battle of the big right hand of Wilder against the big left
hand of Jang, where kind of like a loser go home kind of fight
because the winner is going to be in a real difficult spot coming off a
loss. They're not getting any younger. You know, Jang is forty or
whatever, forty one and that Deontae is about thirty eight. They both lost.
You know, Jang got beat they both got beat by Parker, by
Joe Parker. You know, Deontay got kind of embarrassed by him in December,
and he looked terrible. We're just going to be well, we're spewing
facts. He looked terrible. And this and then if this is what it
is for him, this is his last stand to show that he's something other
than the guy that Tyson Fury broke once and for all, which we know
which we've been over. But go ahead, what else? No? And
then and Parker, you know, got knocked down twice by Jang, but
still one word, you know, legitimately the decision when they fought back just
a few months ago, like or like last or this month, I guess
in March. It was March, wasn't that that was the card in Mark
correct, Yes, yes, So they're coming back to do this fight.
So that's that's the co feature of the heavyweights. Now you're talking about another
fight, and again there's still the title aspect still has to get squared away.
I guess they've got to do some negotiations or some conversations with the IBF.
But as everybody knows, come May eighteenth, the guy who emerges as
the champion undisputed in terms of Tyson Fear, Alexander Usik soon thereafter is contractually
obligated essentially to vacate the IBF title because they have a two way they have
an automatic rematch right, So that IBF belt is going to become vacant in
the days or ten days or two weeks after that fight. So the fight
that's gonna replace that for the vacant title most likely, and the fight's made.
Whether the I can't speak about the title one hundred percent, but the
fight is definitely made. And that is Hergovic, Philip Hergovic, who is
the IBF manator against Daniel Duba, who is you know, coming off of
a of a recent fight that just happened on one of these Saudi cars where
he beat up on your boy, Jaro Miller, you know, in December,
So it will be Hergovic versus Duba for the vacant IBF title, and
the winner of that fight would then probably be in line to defend the title
against Anthony Joshua, unless Turkey decides he'd rather see Tyson Fury against Joshua if
he's the winner against Alexander Usk obviously, you know, even though they've got
the automatic rematch, he's paying the money and he can you know, use
his leverage and his muscle to tastely say this is what I want to make
and it will happen. But the point is Hergovic against a way as it's
on its own title or even without the title, is a very solid,
interesting quality heavyweight fight. I think you would agree with that. Yes,
now that's the third fight, So that's that's a triple header that I've told
you. That's fucking awesome. Now let's go a little bit more. It's
like against Younis TJ What do you say now? But wait, there's more,
Yeah, there's more. So we just saw maybe the fight of the
year so far in two thousand and twenty four. That was recent between Odeback
Colmatop and Raymond Ford that they had up in Verona, New York on ESPN
where ray Ford got the last second stoppage and won the vacant WBA title.
Tremendous battle, really really dramatic, exciting fight. And we've also seen the
performances recently of Nick Ball, great performance against Isaac Dogbay, had the draw
against Ray Vargas challenging for the WBC title that took place also in Saudi Arabia
on the undercart of Anthony Joshua against the Ganho. Now they're talking about again
not done yet about doing ray Ford in his first title defense against Nick Ball.
Very good fight, two young guys, two quality guys, you know,
just just another really quality matchup the five on five, right, I
mean it's it's you know, Matt room as Ford, Frank Warren and Queensberry
have Nick Ball and that's just another very quality matchment. And by the way,
just to back up for a second, and the heavyweight fight between Jang
and Wilder. Jang obviously is with Frank Warren. Uh. I'm sure this
was contrived to help it happen, you know, when they picked the divisions,
they already knew what they were doing. Uh, they made it this
look for show when they did that video. But they're gonna They were allowed
to have a wild card pick and so wild there will be the matchroom wild
Wilder is the wild wild card. Yes, so now you go beyond that.
Wait wait, wait, wait, there's more. If they get it
done, this is a fantastic matchup. Then I wish somebody was paying me
for all my my my at this point that you're damn right you've got.
Now we've talked about the poor middleweight division that just is very very lackluss word
use your word bereft. It is bereft or devoid of stars names anybody that
wants to fight, because but most guys aren't fighting at the middleweight division as
champions. Yes, but there are three really good up and comers in the
weight class. The young one is Elijah Garcia that we talked about, who's
going to be on the PBC card this weekend. He hasn't yet even gotten
to the level of the guys I'm about to mention, So he's the future
maybe of the division. The two younger guys that are on the rise who
are prospects, bringe, you know, young contenders, however you want to
describe their position. You've got the match room fighter Austin Amo Williams sixteen and
zero, who just look absolutely spectacular in a knockout on his last fight back
in February, and a couple and like I think a week later, you
had the Frank Warren middleweight, also undefeated named Hamza Shiraz yes scored a very
impressive victory against Liam Williams. They're going to fight each other on this card.
That is a really good matchup. That's the two best up and coming
contenders in the division fighting each other and not fighting for a world title.
I guess maybe it could be wound up as a eliminator perhaps in some organization,
but they're going to be well paid and they're going to put those zeros
on the line just because and I think it's a great matchup. And now
you get to the next one, and this is a good matchup also,
but it's it's the least of the ones. I'm gonna mention it, but
it's still a worthy fight, especially if you're a UK boxing fan. You've
got Craig Richards, the light heavyweight who you know, he's got three losses.
He gave the metri beval though hell in a really competitive fight, even
though he was a clear loser when he challenged Bovall a couple of years ago
for the title. You know, he took a little bit of a layoff
about two years. He was out of the ring for for a while for
whatever reason. But he did come back not that long ago and scored a
nice knockout against his opponent. He took about two or three rounds to get
his groove back, but then he scored the knockout, so he'll be on
one half. I think you've got the Queensberry fighter, Willie Hutchinson from Scotland,
who's got one loss but is considered by basically everybody's one of the great
Scottish amateurs of all time, really promising fighter in the in the light heavyweight
division, just got a win just last week or week before, and they're
going to fight each other as another fight that. I think we've got a
little sixteen fights here. So when do we suspect just to hone it in
that this will start getting announced? Is it later this week? Is it
going to take a couple more weeks. What's the educated Raphael antanna up speculation.
I don't know the date, but they're going. I don't have the
date off top of my head, and I don't think they've announced like or
said that they're having this news conference, but there will be a news commerce
in London in the next probably a couple of weeks or so, where they're
announce the Bevo Better BV and I assume they'll do the whole thing all at
once and make a big spectle out of it. And Turkey in the video
was when they were doing the weight classes that he did the Matchroom has on
their YouTube channel. He was making the joke with Frank Barren and Eddie Hearn
that he wants to have all the fighters that are on these five on five
fights come to the press cards but wearing masks so nobody knows who they are
when they pull it all. That's hard to do. If you're gonna put
a mask on a six foot eight, you know, six foot six James
or seven or whatever. He is big, big big man zang Zli and
another really tall man in Deontay Wather. You made me just think of because
we are both the same age, we are both very much alike. We
have the same likes in sports, including professional wrestling. Do you remember in
the mid eighties when they decided to put a mask on Andre the Giant and
have him wrestle in Japan? Yes, and and it was obviously even to
little kids, that's Andre the Giant with a mask on, and he's even
wrestling in Japan, and they're trying to act like he can speak Japanese.
But the only thing Andre the Giant could say was hi, which is yes
in Japanese. So they would say, are you ready, sir to get
in the ring? Hi? And then he would say, are you ready
to beat your opponent? Hi? That's what you made me just think of.
If they do this press conference and like Jiang comes in at whatever he
is, six' five six six almost three hundred pounds, we know who
that is, whether there's a mask on or not. I don't know if
the mask part of it. And then I don't know if made me think
about that he's being serious or not. But I don't know. But it's
when when they introduced Andre, was he from a parts unknown? Yes,
you have to be when you're wrestling with a mask on, parts unknown?
That if they get those all those fights done that I just mentioned. I
do think there's a very good chance that most of them will be completed.
I told you Hergovich and why that's good to go, dude, that's a
great card. I agree with you, and I don't use that word lightly.
That's a great cart. Well, and again, money talks, and
the money is flowing like an ocean, like the Red Sea right by Saudi
Arabia here for them to make these fights for right now. The one thing
that we continue to caution is this is not going to go on forever where
they just pay gobs of money for these different fights indefinitely. I understand what
they're doing philosophically right now, so we'll see. But right now, money
talks, and it gets Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn to the negotiating table for
that. All right, So we gave you a ton I'm with you.
I'm with you. But I love all this uh silliness of Saudi Arabia's replacing
Las Vegas all time as the new place. Yeah, until there's not money,
and then you'll be fighting in Las Vegas for a lot of these guys.
Las Vegas still has a lot of fights Canello is fighting that correct this
week? There, that is correct. There's still action in Vegas. It
will be numerous more as well coming up. All right, nostalgia time,
So twenty six years ago, as we released this podcast on Thursday March twenty
eighth, nineteen ninety eight, a Lenox Lewis heavyweight title defense against Shannon Briggs.
Makes the nostalgia go ahead because I may have a little more nostalgia.
But what about the nostalgia of this from nineteen ninety eight, twenty six years
ago for Lennox Lewis. Well, you said it was Lennox Lewis defending the
WBC heavyweight title, which is accurate, he was defending the WBC heavyweight title.
But some might say even more significant, more important is the fact that
Shannon Briggs was defending the lineal heavyweight title because he had defeated although highly controversial,
he didn't deserve the decision, but nonetheless, his hand was raised when
he defeated George Foreman, you know, several months earlier and became the lineal
champion because George had beaten Michael Moore, had been stripped or vacated to various
belts, but he never got beat and so he was fighting still and then
he got the what turned out to be his final fight. He lost a
very controversial majority decision in Atlantic City to Briggs, and now Briggs was fighting
Lennox Lewis in that fight. So even though the decision in Foreman against Briggs
was terrible, at the very least, it transferred the lineal title to Briggs.
So therefore Lennox Lewis as the WBC champion. He was able to merge
the sanctioning body title with the lineal title, which is what he kept you
know until he you know, lost to Rockman, but then regained it in
the rematch. So that was a significant fight from the historical perspective. Going
into that matchup that took place in Atlantic City at the Boardwalk Hall, TJ,
there was no expectations for this fight because people thought Lenox was just going
to absolutely, you know, just to brutalize and destroy Shannon Briggs, which
he ultimately ended up doing. However, getting there made it for a fun
fight because Briggs had a couple of moments he got off the deck from being
knocked out and it turned in, you know, to a fight that was
very fun to watch. So but if you go into something with no expectations,
if it lives up to even a tiny little fraction or something, you're
overjoyed. I mean, so that's what this was sort of like. It
turned out to be, you know, a fun fight and a good knockout
and good action. And Briggs had a couple of moments, but Lenox obviously
was the more dominating and far superior fighter. What I remember about it this
is remember this is before my days as a boxing journalist. Back in March
of nineteen ninety eight, I was covering minor league baseball, working for the
newspaper in Bingham to New York, and I was sent I covered the Binghamton
Mets, which was the Double A affiliate of the New York Mets, and
so as the beat writer, I was on my way. I spent ten
days in Port Saint Lucie, Florida, covering spring training, doing something well
for like our preview tab and for some stuff with the major league team.
And I was busy every day going to the ballpark, and I was staying
with our fatiographer that went with me. We were staying in like a you
know, in a longer term hotel because we're gonna be there for like two
weeks, TJ. When I tell you, we must have like a thousand
channels in our in our in our in the apartment that we had, our
suite whatever it was a late nineties cable or direct TV was was honking.
You were every channel you could ask for. But we did not have HBO.
So I was like, fuck, I want to watch the fight,
Like where I gotta I gotta find the fight. So I was sitting one
day and that I was sitting like that batting practice one day, talking to
like the pitching coach and the hitting coach, and we were shooting the ship
like we were doing every morning. When I went out there for the beginning
of the day and uh and one I knew one of the coaches was a
little bit of a boxing fan also, and I asked him, I said,
hey, you know you guys are all Then I was staying at one
hotel, but the team basically was staying at a different location. I said,
you guys have HBO at your hotel and the guy was like, yeah,
I'm pretty sure we did. So he gave me the hotel. He
said, how come he's gonna I want to watch the lennxluisid. He goes,
oh, yeah, that that should be good. Lennon Sluis heavyweit champ
got to check that out. So when the night of the fight came,
I drove, I rode over to the hotel, not knowing like if I
wasn't be able to see it or not. And I said something to like
the valet and I explained to him. I said, you know, listen,
I here. I know the New York Mets minor league club is standing
in your hotel. I'm the beat writer from the hometown in Binghamton. I'm
a big boxing fan. They told me, you guys got HBO here is
there is there any place like that you can watch the fight? You know?
He's like, you're a boxing fan, and he goes, I'm a
huge boxing fan. Come with me. He took me to like this.
I swear to I never forget this as long as I live. If you
know on a hotel like you go like, there's a level that usually asks
places where you can have like a banquet or a wedding, or ballrooms,
the ballrooms, conference center or whatever. So this hotel had that. He
takes me into like a close you know bank like a ballroom, if you
will, and there's a big TV like in the corner on a cart and
he puts on HBOS. I'll be right back, and I'm sitting there in
this ballroom by myself with the big TV watching the end of like whatever the
movie was on, cause you are who you are, I mean, he
put the HBO fight on. Ten minutes later, it comes back in.
We shoot the ship for a limit, the fight starts and it was only
like my memory serves only one fight that night on HBO, so it was
it went pretty quick. We watched the whole fight, great fight, exciting
fight. Lenox gets to knock out and and the guy's like that was good,
and he's like, you know, I was like, thank you very
much. And I went back to my hotel. And so that was my
story of like search around Port Saint Lucy. Tell me how Valet got a
little tip from you? Do you give him a little uh? He hooked
you up. He hooked you up for that night. So some good nostalgia
and Lennox Lewis put the boom uh there uh in that instance on Shannon Briggs.
Now, normally you're completely in charge of the nostalgia but you're completely in
charge. You have to Yeah, but I gotta I gotta interject that if
we go all the way back as we released this podcast to UH for March
the thirty first Sunday, for this weekend coming up, UH, you've got
a triple header. And this was really unique. This unique in that all
three of these fights were in different locations, but they were all on network
TV. On ABC, Larry Holmes defended the heavyweight title with a win over
Leroy Jones. Kind of a nondescript heavyweight title fight for him. Sugar Ray
Leonard heard of him just after I'm trying to get in my chronology just before
right, he would have fought Roberto Duran the first time. He's fighting Davy
Boy Green of England in another location, I want to say that was in
Landover, Maryland at the area where the Bullet used to play. That's on
the same night, also on ABC. But the one that I remember vividly
is Big John Tait, the former US Olympian as the heavyweight champion, the
WBA Heavyweight Champion, fighting Mike Weaver that same night in Knoxville, Tennessee.
And my great state of Tennessee. The Volunteer State in Knoxville, where Mike
Weaver literally lost every round going up until the fifteenth round. Maybe he heard
him, I think at the end of the fourteenth round, so maybe he
won the fourteenth round. But in the fifteenth round Mike Weaver hit John Tait
and it was timber face first out cold, where Mike Weaver as shocking and
a turnaround knockout win for the heavyweight title. And I just bring it up
that all those were on free to see network TV in three different locales.
But I need to bring up something else because you thought you fooled me by
not telling me you were gonna bring I didn't. I didn't fool you.
I just happened to notice this. But I'm going to bring jog your memory.
It was a quadruple header, was recites because they showed, as you
mentioned, the main fights of the night were was Larry Holmes's heavyweight title defense.
They did show the Sugar Ray Leonard fight from Landover, Maryland, and
they did show Big John Tate in that massive knockout with Mike Weaver. But
they also showed from the fight card that was taking place in in your neck
of the woods in Knoxville. Prior to the Weaver fight, the co feature
on the card locally was the light heavy weight championship fight between Marvin Johnson and
Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. And that was a fight. I mean, I believe
it or not. Here's how sick I am, TJ. You know,
I have all my uh you know, my my collection of my my videos,
like you know, people know I have like the posters and the and
the programs and all that stuff. But I have pens of foul. I
might have a hundred thousand fights in my video collection abouts who knows, I
mean tens of thousands of fights I have, uh, the ABC broadcast in
my collection of that event, and that was the Eddie Mustapha fight. That
was the light heavyweight fight, which was you know the first time they'd had
they called it Knight of Champions on each on a on on ABC Howard Cosell
in one location you had do you know who called your fights in Tennessee that
night? I believe, hold on, you're hitting me with this. I
believe Keith Jackson, whoa Nellie oh Nellie john Tati is down and is not
gonna get up. Holy and then we're in uh and I I believe in
Sugar Ray Leonards fight in Maryland, they had the great Chris Hankle calling the
fights. So think about that. He got co Cel calling the heavyweight championship
fight in Vegas. He got the great Keith Jackson, obviously best known for
football, but also did boxing. Did you know baseball did all that did
a ton of great fights, also a great other sports as well, calling
the fights with all the three of them are in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame
by the way, They're three of the best. And they were all caught
again did I say it enough times? Peeps all on Free Network TV that
night, and it was kind of an upset because Eddie Mustafa, Uh,
you know one won the WBA light heavyweight title from Marvin Johnson. Uh.
He was only making it, you know. He had just won the title
in his previous fight against Glindez and uh and he scored it. And this
is the fifteen round era. He stopped him in round number eleven. So
that was a fore fight card on like you said, Prime Time ABC.
Four fights, three locations, uh, and all world title fights. Great
nostalgia, man, we have had a ton on this show. Again,
We've got multiple fight cards throughout this weekend, starting with Friday night, the
ESPN plus Top Rank Show in Arizona, the premiere Boxing Champions Amazon Slash,
PPV dot Com pay perview with Tim Zoo headlining, plus the Gilberto Ramirez Zerdo
Ramirez challenging for the WBA Cruiserweight title in the Dezonne Golden Boys show, and
then the Sunday show with Boxer with Fabio Wardley and Fraser Clark the Heavyweights.
Are we gonna have like a three hour recap show when this is all said
and done. I don't know that it's gonna be three hours. We got
a bunch of recap though, coming off the weekend. We will, and
I hope people will leave us a review if they like the show. They
should because you're getting all kinds of stuff here. In terms of news of
nostalgia besides just the previews, I can't believe you brought up that card from
Knoxville. It's I just remember it. I remember vividly because Big John Tate
Knoxville ten to see. It was a big deal. And again, if
you've not seen the knockout, go YouTube it, go find it because he
literally faced first and laid on the canvas easily a couple of minutes, maybe
longer. Knocked out. We were stunning, stunning knockout. He had to
be helped back to the dressing room by like he didn't know where it was
that it was never and was never the same. What an upset? All
right, great stuff here, Dan Rayfield. Have a tremendous weekend. We'll
be reading you on your substack. We look forward to the recap podcast.
By the way, I always do promote the bet Us show. We've already
done the bet Us show for this week, so it's already there on the
bet Us Boxing channel. The live show was earlier in the week. Get
our handicap picks on all of these fights. Well, let's recap it,
shall we? Coming off the weekend, my friend, we will, but
we just will make sure it's not three hours. Yes, we'll do our
best to condense it below that. He's Dan Rayfaield. I'm TJ. Reeves.
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