The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. No,
here is your host, t J Leaves. It is here and we
are ready to go. It is the return of Canelo Alvarez to the rings,
defending his undisputed one hundred and sixty eight pound titles against a fellow undisputed
champion moving up two weight classes. Jeremel Charlow is the opponent, and we
are ready to break that down and all of the fight action that is in
and around it in Las Vegas, everything else that's going on too, and
if it's got to be, by the way, welcome in. It's the
Big Fight Weekend preview. I'm the somewhat capable host. He is our insider
Dan ray feel If it's a big event in Vegas. Ray feels there,
baby and ray feel O l on location in Las Vegas as part of the
preview. Good to have you at the time that we are taping this,
you've been there roughly twenty eight hours, thirty hours something like that. The
build up is going on. This is Thursday, headed into Friday. Set
the scene for us, my friend. Good to have you. Yeah,
listen, TJ. Big fight obviously, which is why we have the big
fight weekend. Uh, it's it's gonna be. I'm excited for the fight.
I mean, I'm always excited for the big fights. But as I've
been here and get a chance to see the guys and talk to the guys
and go hear from Canello and Charlotte later in the show from some brief audio.
I had a chance to talk to both those guys after the press conference
on Wednesday. But any event, Uh no, it's a you walk into
the MGM Grand which of course is the host hotel. There's signs everywhere the
big ring with the Lion. I actually did a whole photo essay with all
the description everything I did and where I went on Wednesday. I've been check
that out of my substack. A little plug for that. But listen,
I've done, you know, one hundred and twenty five to thirty trips to
Las Vegas. I've covered you know, dozens and dozens of events here at
the MGM and our team mobile arena, and uh, you know, this
is a big one and I'm just excited about it, and you know,
you could sense it because again, the signs are everywhere. There's already some
fans that we're around and and it was a good press conference. And you
know, it's just I mean, the schedule is typically the same, but
it's you know, there's a rhythm to it, but you just get you
get excited about it. And so I'm happy to be here. I know
it's Thursday becomes to Friday, it's going to ramp up even more with a
lot of people coming into town and being ready for this one. So we
are ready to preview it a bunch, right, So let's go over everything.
First of all, thank you for finding us however you did so social
media link Dan Substack Big Fight Weekend dot com. Make sure you're following subscribing.
We go into the weekend with the preview. The Big Fight Weekend preview
would come off the weekend with the Fight Freaks Unite recap podcast with whatever happens,
and again Dan is on location. Make sure that if you love what
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Make sure that you do the five star review, at least on Apple podcasts.
That will help us so those disclaimers are out of the way. Again,
you'll hear from Canello and Jamel Charlote. As you describe it, you
were there at the press conference on Wednesday. You'll hear part of that,
including Dan's Q and a coming up in a few minutes. Other than that,
you were now around the fighters. You were around seeing them. I
know they're going to weigh in on Friday, but giving your impression of being
around them in the build up here with about forty eight hours to go at
the time that we're taping this and as we released the podcast on Friday,
both relaxed, which was a little surprising. And I say it only because
Charlo has always been a guy with an edge to him, no matter whether
he was a huge favorite or maybe an underdog in this case, or you
know, an even kind of fighter and a big fighter, not a title
fight. He's always had that edge to him. He seems much more common,
relax and and and understands there's work to be done. It's a big
event. Seems excited about it, was was good with the media. What's
your take on that, what's your take on that being around I don't know,
Jeff, you don't ever read on that yet. I don't ever read
on that. I mean, I'm I've been I've been watching and reading fighters
for a long long time. My impression is that he's excited because he knows
the magnitude of the event and the kind of history he can make in the
kind of place he can put himself within this era of boxing history if he
can win. But I think he also views it, and this is me
maybe reading too much into it, like just by getting here, it's an
accomplishment for him, not to say that he's not going to go out there
and leave it all on the ring to try to win. But in many
ways he's already won by getting to this level, to becoming half of one
of the biggest fights of the year, to making that kind of paycheck he's
going to make. To be able to have the opportunity for the history,
he has to know in the back of his mind that whatever happens, if
he does lose, he's still the junior middleweight champion, so it's not like
he doesn't have any titles or something to fall back on in that sense.
And for Canello, you know, a total professional, calm cool. There
was just enough tension between the two guys to make it interesting, but not
a lot of you know, no custs under back and forth, bad words,
a little little chatter between them. The thing that I that I noticed
about Canelo, you know, and I've heard fighters talk about different, you
know, various excuses through the years about certain fights. But in this particular
case, I believe Kennello when he talks about how he just hasn't been right
in terms of his hand for the last three He said that since going into
the Caleb Plant fight, Plant, Beeboll, Triple G three, and John
Ryder, he won those fights obviously, other than the Bible fight where he
was outboxed and he knocked out the Caleb Plant to become the undiscuted champion.
He says he's had the surgery, he's had now rehab, he's had fights.
His hand, he says, is at its best, and he just
has this like sense of like this simmering sort of thing underneath him where whenever
Charlot said I'm going to do this, he says, he'll see, He'll
see, just wait, He'll say, like he just he wants to get
into and explode on this guy. I think he's got a great chin,
he's a good in fighter. He can fight. Certainly going forward, his
defense has always been underrated. He's got one of the best chins in boxing.
And one thing, let me bring this up. It gave me pause
was when Charlo, during our scrum with him after the press conference, was
asked about you know, can you get a knockout this and that, and
he brought up the time that Canelo Alvarez. This was a fight that took
place. I want to tell you was on the Sugar Shane Mosley Floyd Mayweather
undercard pay per view. This is a long time ago. This was not
Canello's first American fight, but one of his early American fights. It was
his first time being on like a major American TV platform. He was on
HBO pay per view on that undercard, even though he had fought on a
couple of Spanish language shows and he was getting a lot of hype. I
can remember sitting there at ringside with all the other guys at ringside, and
in the first round against Jose Miguel Coda, which is Miguel Codo's older brother,
he got cracked and almost got knocked out legit almost knocked out badly,
hurt very very end of the first round. If the round is a couple
more seconds he's probably gone, but the bell rang and he survived, and
he came back and he ended up winning the fight. But he was extremely
in big, big trouble right there, only time in his whole career,
and I think he's ever had any kind of trouble like that. And the
point is that Charlotte brought that up, and I'm like, how why are
you bringing up a fight from fifteen years ago. We didn't even get knocked
down. He was hurt, but he didn't go down, and he's won
every you know, big fight you can think of over all these years,
huge events, been championing, you know, from one fifty four to one
seventy five and taking punches from all the big punchers canello out. I mean
a Covalev and Triple G for thirty six rounds and you know it, just
a ton of quality fighters. That that tells me that he's reaching for straws.
If he got to go to back down far for that one moment,
that was my perspective. Well, especially if you've had, as you mentioned,
light heavyweights banging on him, because that's that was what a junior middleweight
fight, twenty pounds less. I think that act it was a welter that
was a welterweight fight. Yeah, that's thirty pounds less. So if you've
had light heavyweights banging on you even recently and you haven't gone down, then
I'm with you on that. It just seemed weird, that's all to me.
Well, you're grasping at anything right now. I mean, let's let's
just lay something out there, just for the record, that fight with Josen
Mego Kodo, you know, one of the guys who was one hundred and
fifty pounds. One of the guys was one hundred forty nine pounds, so
slightly over the welter weight linen. Technically a junior middle weight fight, so
yes, But but again, twenty five pounds less than light heavyweights, you
know, fifteen eighteen pounds less than super middle weights where Canelo has been fighting
for the last few years with people hitting it more portly. The fight was
in twenty ten, yes, long ago, and let's and let's be honest,
I just want to kind of set the tone here at the outset.
I'm looking at the bet Us odds, for example, where Canello's a four
and a half to one favorite. I'm actually surprised it's not a little more,
but I think they're trying to entice you to bet Canelo is the favorite.
Canelo is the future Hall of Famer. Canelo is the guy that everybody
believes is going to get this done, and the other guy is grasping,
to use your word, he hasn't even been active and he's coming off a
broken hand. So I think there is a lot of grasping right now as
to what's going to happen, and I think it's I think it's very fair
to say this moment is bigger than anything Jamal Charlo has ever been in,
and Canello has routinely, to your point, been in this moment for a
decade of these fights. All of that, I do. I do think
Charlot is sort of you know, I think he'll meet that moment in terms
of like whether he wins or not, who knows. But I don't think
that the moment is going to necessarily unnerve him. He's been fighting in championship
fights, maybe not at the name level of a Canello Albarez, and he
gives him his due respect in that sense. When the mariachi band strikes up,
let's see, you'll be in the arena you'll report back to us,
and we'll see how it looks on the pay per view, and we'll find
out. We're gonna find out exactly exactly correct. The other thing about it,
though, is the fact that, uh, you know, you talk
about he's a four and a half favorite, four and f one, the
favorite for all the different reasons. He's all a famer in waiting. He's
done all these things if you believe that. The fact that the hand has
been messed up for the last few fights fair enough. But there's also the
school of thought that after a long career of over sixty professional fights against a
lot of tough opponents, where even though he won, he also took shots
that at age thirty three, Kanello Labarez is on the downside of the mountain,
and that even though still a tremendous fighter, he's not at his best
anymore. And then he hasn't looked good. He has admitted that, you
know, he looked idly, looked really good against Kayla plant but in the
fight after that, people he lost and now look great. He looked flat,
even though he won handily against Glofkin, who was you know, old
and kind of done at that point, and even against John Ridder, who
we beat up and won handly. He didn't knock him down or you know,
or do any any I kid, I didn't knock him down once,
And now if I didn't knock him out, he's the point against a regular
type opponent, And so you kind of think, well, you put it
all together, maybe he's just not what he wants was. But if it
really was, man, maybe he can still be at the top of his
game. So that's where we're gonna watch the fight. It's it's a fascinating
fight. And the reality is Charlotte was talking about, you know what,
I can't wait for the rematch, and people like, what do you mean.
He's like, because I've heard you know, he's got a rematch,
Dolts, I want to kick his ask. He's gonna want to do it
again, and I'm gonna do it again. Okay, So you'll hear from
both of those fighters in a few moments. Let's spend a few minutes talking
about the undercard. We've talked a lot about it. You interviewed Hazu's ramos
and ericson lubin. We played those on the previous podcast. They were meeting
with the media Also on Thursday, we also have the Ugas Barrios fight for
the vacant WBC Interram welterweight title. Elijah Garcia also on this card. I
know you're stoked about the undercard. I mean, you're normally there anyway a
few hours before the main event, but you're saying to everybody, Hey,
this is worthwhile to be in the arena or be in front of the pay
per view even a few hours before the Canelo fight. This is a good
undercard. If not, I'll say really good undercard, but it's a good
undercard at least. Listen. I always get on the case of promoters when
they shoot me the bullshit line, Al, We've got a stacked card,
and I'm like, fuck that. You don't have a stacked card. You
got a good main event and a couple of solid or average or below average
fights on the show. You know, when I think stacked, you know,
I go back to the those nineteen nineties Don King pay per views,
Revenge the rematches, where there was just one great matchup, back where we
would have like four championship or five championship fights on the same pay per view.
I know, you mean, look, I covered a fight in Atlantic
City that had eight championship fights. It was the whole card, with the
entire every There was eight fights on the entire event, you know, as
King would scream five on the screen and you know eight on the scene because
they televised five on the pay per view, and there was four other non
televised fights that they take and show it on delay like in the weeks that
followed. Anyway, So maybe this isn't at those level of shows, but
for the modern pay per view that we know today, this is one of
the better pay per view undercards I can think of in recent times. Maybe
not big megafights and Superstar World Championship fights, but Ramos against Lubin, as
I've stated numerous times, I think is a very quality matchup two very you
know good fighters. Ramos on the rise, Lubin trying to maintain a position
you know, has a couple of losses, but against you know, good
opponents. Ramoss looked tremendously doing what he's been doing. Good fight, who
got Sam Barrios. There's stakes here because the winner is going to have an
interim belt and it's gonna be positioned to either ab the mandatory for Crawford.
But if he gives up the belt like a lot of people think he will
eventually, then that person will become the WBC's champion. And they're both you
know how they may not be at the top of the sport right now,
but they both have credentials. They both have been in some notable fights ugus,
you know, coming back off the injury and the layoff after beating or
after losing in a unification fight against Errol Spence. You know, Barrios has
been in the ring with some good fighters. You know, obviously he tested
Tank Davis before he got stopped in their fight, you know, in one
hundred forty pound weight class. Now he's at welterweight. And in the Garcia
fight, Elijah Garcia in the middleweight against Jose Armando Rosendez. Uh Garcia is
undefeated, very young. Rosinde's got the one loss, but also pretty young.
He made his bones in a big win over in a great battle,
just a bab a barn Burner kind of fight against Jared Hurd that he won.
So that's a very good fight because Garcia has looked superb in some fights
and maybe even though he won a little like shaky and another fight. So
this is sort of a you know, a good fight for both guys,
because if you beat the other guy, you definitely take a step forward in
the middleweight division, which, as I have talked to you many times,
is devoid of a lot of top talent, and the guy that wins his
fight is not necessarily going to be sitting there to fight for the you know
a title right away, but it's going to put himself in a really good
position as a maybe the most interesting and exciting up and comer in the weight
class. And it just took quality show and then obviously the main events the
main event, so I'm pumped up for the unit card. The conversation will
continue in a moment. First, a few words about our friends at PPV
dot com coming up Saturday night, highly anticipated return of Canelo Alvarez and Jermil
Charlow undisputed one hundred and sixty eight pound titles on the line from Canelo from
Las Vegas, and the place you want to watch it is PPV dot com.
Why because you need no full time subscription to be able to watch the
pay per view in tremendous ten eighty P quality or four K quality depending on
how good your system is. They've got great interaction going on. You've got
to get an outstanding stream and coverage of the event. And there's no subscription
price. It's a one off purchase for the pay per view always at PPV
dot com. Again, we recommend them highly, especially if you're only looking
for this event. Canelo album Z Jamel Charlos Saturday night from Las Vegas.
It is a pay per view, it is Canello, it is Charlo.
It's on PPV dot com. Again, remember our friends at PPV dot com.
No subscription necessary to stream the fight on Saturday night with PPV dot Com.
And again we'll make the first mention here. We'll be on the bet
Us Show live one Eastern time, ten Vegas time, ten am, Vegas
time on Friday. Interesting that in the Ramos Luban fight, Ramos on the
bet Us line right now, Dan four and a half to one favorite is
ericson Luban, a live doggie. We're going to debate this at three to
one, three to one as the underdog Ugas and Barrios essentially a fifty fifty
fight. Ugas is the two to one favorite. Elijah Garcia is more significantly,
Yeah not bad. I mean four to one, four to one favorite
in his fight. So these are even on the bet Us odds, which
tells you again they they believe quality fights tough to tough to make the odds.
It's not one sided on the odds. Just one word, because I
have said, you know, when when the undercards are terrible on paper and
they and everybody's ticked off about it, you know, I have my say,
and so I feel like it's only appropriate if the if the promoters and
the PBC folks and Showtime and Canelo's team, if they if they do the
right thing and they make a good card, you gotta tip that and say
good job. Because I'm paying eighty five dollars for the pay per view,
I expect quality besides the main event, and I feel like for this event
we're getting it good stuff on that. By the way, I've yet to
mention we are sponsored in part by PPV dot Com. You're gonna hear more
about that they're streaming service and what they have going on here a little bit
later on on the podcast, but without further delay. After the press conference
for Canello and Jamel, Charlo Dan was part of a media gathering you're gonna
mostly hear Dan's questions on the Q and A here first with Jamal Charlo and
then with Canelo Alvarez. Let's get again my man is ol on location.
Let's take advantage of the audio Charlo and then Cannello from Wednesday in Vagus.
He made a good point about him having been heard before in his career.
Anybody can be heard, right, Yeah, boxing is about how many times
you get back up? Now? How many times to go down? Ye?
Do you have any concerns? If you do? What are they about
the fact that you haven't fought for a while. It's been since the Castagnia
second fight, so it's been quite a while. I think I'm I have
no concerns about I've never had a concern about sharpness and ratingness, no ring
rust and none of that kind of stuff, because I don't exist in boxing
for real. That only existing writers, because they don't get to see us
off here, so a writer would consider us not active or whatever they want
to say. How you've heard trainers talk about it also? Frankly, well
would ring rust come from? I mean, how can you be ring rusted
whenever you've been spawning in training and busting the wisse and putting all that hard,
gritty nitty working. How could you say, yeah, you ring rust.
That's an excuse. Okay, that's an excuse that they're using to justify
the bad performance. So he has talked about that reason for maybe he's not
as top level performance as he has wanted in his recent fights Triple G and
The Writer Fight, et cetera. People because of his hand surgery and that
he had the problem. Now he says it's healthy. So my question for
you is, what's the status if you're left hand obviously had the two fractures.
Ye don't you know? I don't speak on those things because you know,
I don't want to make an excuse for myself. I want to get
in there and l dog dame. You've been watching it for a long time.
You know that I come to fight. I come and put the pressure.
I come to the box. I mix it up. I mean,
I fight through adversity. Whatever happens has to happen. God got this written
for me. So I'm not really too much gonna go into like, oh,
let me. You know, they say, hey, you need to
do therapy, You need to do therapy, all right, I do therapy
for the rest of my life. Long does our box, I'd be doing
therapy on that hand, I'll be trying to make it stronger and stronger and
better than ever. So so you win this fight, it's a huge,
huge accompliment. Obviously a lot of people say it's a hall of fame type
of ceiling thing for you. I wonder, beyond this, what else could
you in your mind think about? What would be bigger than this? Like,
what else would you want to accomplish? What could you accomplish? Like
I would? I would, I would definitely, you know, love to
become the you know, number one bookseller and make out and write this story
or maybe have y'all get the highest producers and we could a biography on this.
But in what in boxing? Though about my boxing, in my life,
but in your actual boxing, Like, is there anything that you think
that could beyond this achievement? When, if, and when you win?
And I, you know, that's the greatest thing. I don't care about
all that achievement and stuff. I don't get paid for these accolades. I
don't get after you accomplishment, the rewards I get paid when I'll fight,
of course, But I don't get old. You know, I'm getting hired
like Dan repel On, yespian all because I was a two times champion like
that. It don't make a difference for me, you know what I'm saying.
I just don't live in my life like that. There's been a commis
about you this week throughout this fight. You can you tell us where that's
coming from. You just seem so little action. I'm just a common person
and for real, always been a calm person. I don't know what y'all
be talking about. Y'all see y'all seated something maybe maybe just my facial expressions
and and all of that kind of create that like you know, then y'all
be moanful over talking to me, and y'all start over talking to me.
Then now now y'all listening to me, so I'm calm, and you start
telling telling me all this other crazy shire, then I I want to defend
myself. I haven't been in a position to have to vocally defend me.
Thank you. Guys. You mentioned that having work second child really is what
you your life? Why do you think that is? And how to delace
like on the bost Yeah, because it's like you do things around the house
and you do things and just everything every time, and you just can't.
You just gotta be patient, and you can't just you know, discipline every
time you feel like it's it's necessary. And so when you deal with you
know, little kids, and you deal with people to look up to you
and they meet you, you you don't want to live your life and and
and be having a yelling bus all day or kids put put your fearing kids
and stuff like that. So I feel like that changed my life and just
how to deal with other people. Get all that's how was it there?
You're two years old? Two years old? But it's just it helps.
You don't got no children gonna have. So they've ben't see it. On
that fight, they have rematch glows in the contract. Yes it's a rematch
clause. It's much so that's why I mentioned that in the press conference.
I'm looking forward to prematch because Polo forget I don't win this fight, then
of course he moves on to the contract that he has to fulfill for PCC.
A lot of people switching at the meaning to say it is it it's
a psyche or is it just glow gonna surprise people? The way you could
surprise it people demeanor in the ring as well. Man, Look I don't
know what they're talking about. My demeanor is this This is really neat,
like, uh, I'm more than ready. Well fight, Uh, I'll
turn it up, turn it off when I needed to, I get in
the ring. This have off taking them so being thiscious at every moment,
every stuff that at twelve round to the tunes. I mean Charlotte has been
frown to like engage in like tell the tee combat it's just fights to get
Harrison because stuff. Yeah, very different and a different fighter. If he
does that against you, what's gonna have the right? I'm a different fighter
than them. You know, he's gonna feel saddled to night. He's gonna
be different. And for me, I'm more even myself this kind of fight
because you know, he never believed my kids and now I had the opportunity.
I have to the opportunity to show him. So it's gonna he's gonna
be different for him. How confident are you? I know you your hand
is all heeled, you know everything's fine. You really want to reclaim you
know who you are in the sport. How happy are you about I'm so
happy about that. I'm so happy and excited because you know, I'm able
to turn hundred percent and I have that confideling again me because on my hand,
I can throw my hand hundred percent, and and that made me feel
confident without a doubt. Is Terence Crawford going to be your next opponent in
victory? No? I don't know. And I come and I'm focused on
the person on child and then we want to sit down and see what is
next? Was that? You know? How was this camp different? Because
your wrist in your hand was better than before? How was oh different?
I was training happy and golfing and confident and working with Eddie in the paths
and and everything because you know before I can't throw my hand hard. I
just tried to get condition as much as I can, but I don't know,
I don't hit that carring. When you go in the fight and try
to hit hard and everything, you get tired, right and right now I'm
I feel in my hundred percent and you just just wait for for Saturday.
This camp was way better than the campital. It's one of the best I've
come. I either had better for the much better than for the Rider fight.
Yeah, the rider I still have. I can throw my hand hundred
percent? Was the hand give you problems for bow three? Since the fight
with with Calo Tran? Since the training camp with Calo came up to the
rider you were having was a left hand? Yeah, and you know he
had a broken left hand. No, you said that you had problems with
that. He doesn't want to talk about that. Do you think that that
he could possibly be one hundred percent after having the tarchers? And I don't
know what kind of tell you he had, but you don't you know,
I don't care. I'm ready and and that's all matters because you know I'm
able and I'm happy because but I don't I don't care what he's gonna feed
him or I don't really care. When was it? When was it?
When was it that he said that? When was it that he said that
he didn't believe in your skills? Like I never heard him say that?
Where did you? No? No, no, first hear that. He
never said he don't believe in me in that in that wards, but he
always chat about me, and he always calling me out and he always be
I'm not that fighting they show and everything you know he brought up the fact
that you got hurt by Miguel Coto's brother. What is that? Why would
he bring that up? The best chins in box is his only fight.
He can say that because he's the only fight. I have the struggles,
right, But I'm I'm you know, I'm defense. I fought with everybody
with the somebody with the song, guys with the skills, guys. I
don't know what to say. He's been very respectful and calmed, much more
calm than he usually is in promotions for fights. What do you make of
that? I'm happy, I'm happy. You know, I'm happy he respect
me. Do you think that's what it is? Like? He just really
respects you more so than you have that once more, you were standing right
there with both of them during that Q and A. You will see them
obviously at the way in on Friday, but this is like one of the
last times that they're talking before fists on Saturday. Final thought being around him,
professionals ready to go to battle. No, it's a big fight and
ready to do the business. And I think give us a give us something
that's going to be interesting to watch. Again. We will talk more.
Second time mentioned on the bet us Boxing Show the over under his ten and
a half rounds. By the way, Dan and I will debate that on
the Friday show at one Eastern time, bet US platforms, bet US YouTube
channel about how in play is that over under for this matchup? Again,
Canello's basically fought distance fights, with the exception of the plant stoppage the last
what the last three of all been distance fights, And we don't know what
to make a Charlo. He got a TKO in his last fight, but
I think that was during the Jimmy Carter administration. Whenever, whenever Charlo last
fought in any event. All right, so you've done a good job setting
the table with the fighters. Let's talk more about how the fans can see
this fight with one of our sponsors and do that right now. Well,
we are counting down to Canelo Alvarez Jamel Charlo undisputed super middleweight title fight coming
up Saturday night in Las Vegas, and once more we get the opportunity to
talk with Mark Bocardi, who is the senior vice president of Entertainment and Programming
for in Demand and PPV dot Com, because they are fantastic partners and sponsors
of ours, and we want you to know that you've got the opportunity to
go see this fight via PPV dot com without a subscription. We're going to
tell you more about that. Mark. Good to have you. I know
I am displaced. You are there in Vegas. So we're doing this building
up to the weekend. It is fight week, it is Canelo week.
There's I mean, it's always something special when this guy's around in Las Vegas.
Canelo. Yeah, oh absolutely, there's an energy in Vegas when you
have a Canelo fight week that's unlike most other boxers fight weeks. So yeah,
it's exciting me back up and fortunate enough to be here for a few
Canelo fight weeks and this one, you know, stacks up with with all
of them so far. So it's going to be good to be a lot
of fun. And again it's undisputed versus undisputed because Jamal Charlo, even though
he hasn't been in the ring yet in twenty twenty three, is the undisputed
one hundred and fifty four pound champ And that's part of the appeal here,
and that's that's why we want people to be engaged. That's why we want
them to be in age with PPV dot Com because you're seeing a part of
history, especially if somehow, some way Charlo can pull off in Upset moving
up two weight classes. Right, Oh absolutely. I mean, look,
you start with Canello for this event, and you've got a absolute superstar in
boxing in Canelo Alvarez, probably one of the top five Mexican boxers of all
time, and you can argue where he falls on that list, but you're
watching history whenever Canelo fights now, which is incredible. Now you bring along
Charlo and what he's trying to accomplish, and you get the two of them
together, and that that's what leads to these mega events, right, It's
it's a a level against a level kind of fight and fighters and that creates
the firework. So it's going to be a great night. And you're right,
I mean, Charlo could pull the Upset off. He really could.
This guy's talented. He hasn't yet been a a level drawn a pay per
view, but he's fought plenty on his own and proved himself, so he
deserves this. So it's it's gonna be fun. Should be it should be
a lot of fun. And again we often refer to this with Canelo he
is going to be a first ballot unanimous Hall of Famer and you're getting to
see him in action, and we don't know. We're not making him out
to be done like next year, but we don't know how many more of
these are going to be these big time events because he is thirty three years
old, he's been on the big stage, he's got his money, he's
got his Hall of Fame credentials, place in history, as you mentioned,
So we just got to sabor these in anytime if they're out there, and
I know with PPV dot Com you've got something special for this fight because we
had Jim Lampley on this very podcast back a few weeks ago telling us that
the iconic Hall of Fame Voice of HBO Boxing is going to be part of
the PPV dot Com special commentary and broadcast that they're going to be getting interactively
if they are with you and your service, tell us more about Jim and
Lance Plugmeyer as well, that are going to be going back and forth with
the commentary. I know you guys are thrilled to have this. Yeah,
yeah, we are, and it's gonna it's gonna be great. So your
listeners will probably remember When I've been on here before and we've talked about PPV
dot Com. One of the cool things about it is there's this real time
chat that happens alongside the fight, So we have fans chatting with each other,
we have fans chatting with hosts that we bring in who are journalists or
boxers themselves, retired boxers, etc. And for this weekend's fight for Canelo
Charlo, we will have both the iconic Jim Lambley as well as the legendary
boxing journalists Lance Pugmeyer co hosting together. As you said, we are really
looking forward to it. These are the two biggest names that we've had together
as chat co hosts, and I think everyone knows what Jim's credentials are in
boxing, so to have him a part of PPV dot com and quite frankly,
it's going to be different than him just calling the event, which would
be fantastic on its own because he's so great at it, but here he's
really going to be sharing I think, his thoughts, his opinions. Fans
can ask him specific questions he'll be there to answer, so that's going to
be a great way for fans to engage with Jim unlike any time that he's
ever been involved in boxing before. And that's a great point that you make.
It's one thing to get to hear him with some of the great calls,
you know, the Buster Douglass upset of Mike Tyson, so many tremendous
Oscar Dave o'hoya, Floyd Mayweather, and then even Canello Alvarez. Let us
not forget Jim worked a great many of Canelo Alvarez fights all the way up
into the lake to twenty teens, including the first two Canelo Glovekin fights.
But how often do you get a chance to interact with him? That's the
point. And you're gonna get a chance for a little while, for at
least an hour or two, to interact with a Hall of fame broadcaster on
what he thinks. And I know he said to us that he's kind of
missed being around these big events, being around Las Vegas, being around a
Canello fight. So he has fired up as well to be part of what
you're doing on PPB dot com. He is, And I've been around Vegas
with him a bit already this week, and I can see he's re energized,
he's excited, he's re energized. He's the kind of guy that you
walk around fight week with. People are stopping him right Everyone wants to take
a picture with him, talk to him for a minute, you know,
get a second with him, so we can see. There's just a natural
appeal that he has to the boxing community. So I think it's gonna be
really special on Saturday Night during the event, and Jim will be there,
by the way, during the entire card, not just the main event,
so he'll be there for all, you know whatever. It ends up being
four four and a half hours of boxing content, so fans will have plenty
of time all night to interact with him, asking questions and just be a
part of the evening. We can't wait for this, so again, one
more time. The biggest appeal for PPV dot com and what you guys do
is there is no long term commitment. You don't need a six month subscription
to an outlet, much less a year or longer. If you're just looking
to purchase the pay per view, have it in high quality, and have
the interaction. We're just talking about PPV dot com. That is where it
is at Mark one more time. That's it. That's exactly right. You
have a zero month subscription obligation because there is no subscription and you just buy
what you want and enjoy it. And we think everyone's going to really enjoy
this one on PPV dot Com. Yeah, no doubt. I mean,
we were obviously involved with you for the Errolspins Terrence Crawford fight, which was
so one sided. I hope we don't get that, and we might from
Canelo. I don't know that it would be one sided in favor of Charlo
only, but we had a one sided one this summer. But we've had
other spectacle once. You guys have had Jake Paul fights that have been on
and on and on down the list available on PPV dot com, and Canelo
is just the latest one in a history making undisputed versus undisputed Saturday night.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Spence Crawford was, you know, one sided
domination. Davis Garcia another right one sided fight a prior, a few moments
of excitement, but one sided domination. We had Canello Golofkin also less September
as well, big Canelo win and he won that pretty convincingly. So so
we've had a string of really big events as you mentioned Jake Paul and others,
So this is this is yet another one, and then we'll see what
the rest of the year brings. We we've heard, we're hearing some good
things about big boxing events for the rest of the year, but nothing quite
finalized yet. So we'll be here and we'll be broadcasting them. Here's what
we know. Canello Charlows Saturday Night in Laws Vegas and if they're looking to
purchase PPV dot com is where you go for the one off opportunity to see
this fight again in ten ADP four K whatever and Jim Lampley and Lance Plugmy
are there interactively. I love it. I wish I was there around you
guys, and you were such gracious host. We even got to go see
Jerry Seinfeld with you guys over at Caesar's Palace. It was fantastic. I'm
still laughing about Jerry's jokes. I wish I could be there. I'm in
NFL world, in NFL duties with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Big Easy
in New Orleans. My man Rayphael is there make sure he behaves. God
knows I can't be there to make sure that he behaves and we love it.
And one more time to the people PPV dot com. That's where it
is. That's it, that's where it is. Thanks for having me again.
We thank them for sponsoring us. And as Mark was saying, Canelo
Week is something different. They've been involved with this numerous times within demand and
PPV dot com. Let's see and it's it's part of what has been a
roll call a big time Vegas fights. We've yet to really mention it on
this podcast, but you were talking about it on the last one that you
start with Jervonte Davis, Ryan Garcia, you move forward to Devin Haney,
the Silly Lomachenko, and then to Errol Spans, Terrence Crawford, now Canello
and Charlo. This is the fourth fight in Vegas of a pay per view
variety that has a lot of notoriety. There's something to be said for that
in Sin City, in the place to go, the place. That's why
ray Feel is there, baby, That's why ray Feel is on location here
on the parts. Unfortunately wasn't able to get out here for the Haney and
the Loma fight. But this is my third trip to Vegas this year.
I mean, if you go back years ago when I was at ESPN s
though, there were years where I made like literally like ten trips to Vegas
in a given calendar, besides going to places like New York and Los Angeles
another places around the country. But you know, Vegas is always the stalwart.
It's always where most of the biggest fights are and it's like old Home
Week, no doubt. And again PPV dot com, you don't need any
form of a subscription. It's just a one off purchase for Saturday, which
just you use them. And again Dan, as we were mentioning with Mark
and you know this because you Internet. Jim Lampley on the running commentary through
the whole pay per view. He and Lance pug Meyer are both there.
So that's great stuff as part of the interactive on PPB dot COM's you know,
Lance one of my one of my best buddies in the business. And
Lampley is also and we're with a group of people. We're gonna have dinner.
You're heading out to dinner here in just a little while, and I'm
not part of that because I'm not out there in Vegas. So you have
to behave you have to promise me you're gonna behave because I'm not out there
to chaperone this goal around out in Vegas like this. For the record,
when you were out here for this Fence Crawford fight, I was the one
that to make sure that you were behaved. That's not the other way around,
Thank you very Muchly true. All right. There is another title fight,
by the way, before we get to the news, and that title
fight is a cruiserweight championship belt uh the IBF cruiserweight title, Ji Opataia taking
on Jordan Thompson. This is in London, in England. Opataia won the
title a while back and suffered a very badly broken jaw. You love when
I get technical and orthopedic. It was a bilateral fracture, meaning the entire
bottom of his mouth broken, jaw all the way across. So he's back
from that first title defense. A quick thought or two is this is Saturday
afternoon US time before the Canelo Charlot pay per view. Thoughts real quick Dan
in the preview mode. Well, first of all, I know you mentioned
that Opataia is the IBF champion defending that title. He is twenty two o
seventy knockots. He also was the lineal champion because he took the title from
Myrs Bradis, who earned that recognition post the moving up in weight of Alexander
Us who he had lost to previously. But so this he's like the real
cruiserweight champ if you ask me and anybody else that follows this thing closely.
But Opataia you mentioned in that fight he had with Bradest, which was his
last fight in July of last year, so it's been a you know,
a little over a year layoff, had a terribly broken jaw. He fought
through it and won the fight and the title against Bradas in a unanimous decision
that took place in his home country of Australia. A well deserved unanimous decision
in one of the fights of the year. Just an absolute grinding, grueling,
physical, punishing kind of fight. I would if you haven't seen it,
I would urge anybody to seek it out online. It's just just a
really, very very impressive battle between those two guys. So he's coming back
first first defense. He was supposed to have a rematch with Bradest, he
got an exception. Bradest was okay with it. He was also a little
dinged up in ill I guess and and was like, you know, I'd
go ahead and fight this optional defense. So the winner between Opataia and Thompson
is supposed to then fight Bradest, perhaps a rematch with Opatiah. And you
know Opataia is from Australia, but him and his team Tasman Fighters, they
did a co promotion deal with with match Room Boxing, so he's on his
own. He's fighting in London. That you know. Jordan Thompson is from
England and he's fifteen to oh but he's taking and he disputes this based on
his comments leading up the fight, but in my mind I think those if
you just do an honest assessment of the Jordan Thompson record, despite being undefeated,
he's taking a very big step wemp in competition against Opataiah, who,
even before he won the title, was sort of known as like an uprand
comer, had been an Olympian, and let's be honest, I don't really
know anything about him, and you could just be honest, how much do
you know about him? And that says it all about step up in competition
because I didn't really know anything about this guy before Matt Room got him this
title shot. I mean, I know a little bit about him because he's
been on some of these other undercards. So I've seen him a couple of
times, and you know he's one like you know he's fighting for the IBF.
Hell, he's won like the regional belts and fought on on those types
of undercards that would put him in that position. And you know, the
one thing he's got going for him, if you take a look at the
pictures, is as much taller than than Opataia. As an example, like
I saw him, he boxed on the undercard and this was a great fight.
Remember when rock him Off had the belter with Cordina back in April this
year and Cordina regained the title. So Thompson fought on that undercard in a
regional belt and won that fight that kind of put him in position that was
a knockout. So look, I think I like just on my brief experience,
I've having lost a couple of Opataia fights and known as back Brown and
kind of his attitude, he's a fun fighter to watch and we'll see if
Tom's gonna hanging there. He's a much taller fighter. Sometimes the bigger they
are the harder they fall. But that's the main event of the The Zone
show, maybe not the biggest championship. I see him. I'm just I'm
happy to see that Opti has recovered from the jaw problem. He's got an
opportunity to get back in the ring and defend the title, and hopefully he
and Thompson can give us a nice fighting some news, then some nostalgia.
Ray Fhiel's already tapping his watch looking at me. I can see him on
video. Because you want to go to dinner. I get this. I'll
get a lion to the people. Look, I'm just saying you've already made
mention that you've got dinner plans. I get it. It's Vegas. The
city never sleeps. I understand you're there, by the way. I haven't
mentioned yet. I'm headed at the Big Easy this weekend in New Orleans,
the site of Muhammad Ali regaining the heavyweight title against Leon Spinks in the Superdome
for Tampa Bay Buccaneers football. So I will be watching from the Big Easy
while you're there at the ringside. I think going on. When I think
New Orleans, it's the place where I covered by one and only Fighting Orleans,
Roy Jones against Eric Harding an eight alligator for the only time in my
life. You've got that up before. And there's so much other good food
in New Orleans besides just alligator, but you did have alligator. All right.
Some news and a kind of a somber note here because the passing of
Colonel Bob Sheridan, who for so many years was known in and around Don
King's pay per views and tape delays of fights, dozens and dozens, if
not several hundred of those that he did. He had been sick for a
while he passed away. Hall of Fame broadcaster, You are the perfect man
to talk about the passing of Colonel Bob Sheridan. Well, I had had
a good relationship and a close relationship with the colonel for many many years.
I mean when I first broke into the business and went to a lot of
those Don King cards. And by the way, not only did he work
for Don King, he also spent many many years doing the international broadcast for
Top Break. He's one of the few people in this business that had great
relationships both with Bob Aarman with Don King, and worked for both of their
companies for a long time when I broke in and I would go to those
don King shows. The two of the people that I spent a lot of
time with and learned a lot about this business from, and spent you know,
hours of just shooting the ship and kind of getting taught the ropes and
maybe having breakfast with and just you know, kind of following them around like
a puppy dog sort of like early in my days, was the Colonel and
you know, his his great pal and running mate who was the vice president
of don King Operations back in the day who passed, uh you know,
not that long ago himself, was the great Hall of Famer Bobby Goodman,
who was the vice president for DKP and a matchmaker and have been involved with
so many great fighters over the years. And so the two of those guys,
who were very close to each other, you know, took me under
their wing and in a certain respect and taught me a whole lot about this
business. And uh, you know, I'm appreciated that I spent a lot
of great times with those guys. And the Colonel I We've always get together
at the fights and kind of became a joke between us because he would be
doing all these fights, and he kind of, you know, he'd read
my material and I would talk him on the phone and he would know,
you know, had like kind of a rain man quality of the minutia of
a lot of these different fighters. Don't say that. The colonel realized that
too, Yes, So he would have his sheets all set up for his
you know, to have some background when he was calling these fights. And
we would sit in the press room before, like you know, earlier in
the week of the fights, and he would sit there and like ask me
questions. We would go over. I would give him like the like the
cliffs notes about some of the guys he didn't really know a whole lot about.
And it also became a thing because the colonel who was in the Hall
of Fame well deserved. I attended his Hall of Fame induction tournament, and
I sat in the front row with some of the people from his family and
stuff, and the Colonel shouted me out in his induction speech was I was
quite honored by I didn't expect it then, noe was coming. I've been
shouting out in two Hall of Fame induction speeches. The Colonel and my very
close friend Brad Goodman from Top Brink, who was inducted this past summer.
In any event, the Colonel was keeping track roughly of the world championship fights
that he had called. He called in the end over one thousand world title
fights. That's title fights, the four major organizations for his career that began
in the nineteen sixties calling fights he called in access of ten thousand boxing matches,
way over ten thousand boxing matches. And we would keep track of the
number of fights that he did, and he was getting into the nine and
they were coming slower and slower. It's like, are going to get to
a thousand, and he finally got to a thousand world title fights. I
forget what he I don't I don't know what he ended with, but probably
close to eleven hundred world championship fights. I mean, you know. And
the thing that always stuck to me about the colonel, and I could talk
to about him for an hour, but I know we're kind of short on
time. We got some other stuff to cover. But the one thing he
always made a point to me because where I would maybe take umbradge with certain
things that were said or reported or written, and I would have my say
and rip people and call them about things and write my opinions. The colonel
never had a bad word to say about anybody because no matter what it was,
he viewed himself as he would always say to me, you're a journalist,
I'm an entertainer. So you go with you do what I'm going to
say, what I gotta say. So I always respected the colonel for at
least being honest about that that we were. We were doing different jobs.
But even you know in recent year years, and he had been sick forever.
This is a guy that had a heart attack and left the hospital and
called hi, Mike Tyson, fight at ringside with the doctor sitting behind him,
and then went back to the hospital. Story a lot of the story.
I mean, that's a true story. That is a true story.
Wow, So he's been sick for a long time. I just think that,
you know, he had a lot of elements over the years. I
don't think he ever recovered from the death of his beloved wife Annie a few
years ago and they're back together now. Yeah. But he was a wonderful
guy, a gregarious guy. Every He didn't have an enemy in the world
in this sport. To my knowledge, everybody you know like to hang around
with him and drink with him, smoke with him. Whatever. It was
just the truest of true when you say it's something about a person who was
a character in boxing. He was a character in boxing. I will miss
him, and uh, you know what can I say? It was?
I was happy I got a chance to be his friend for so long.
Old school for sure. And he would do a lot of the tape delay
versions of the Don King fights that we would maybe see later on. A
bunch of them are on YouTube, by the way, including I would say
the one that I gravitate to the most, and most people would probably say
this have they become familiar is the Douglas upset of Tyson with him on the
call. Everybody knows Jim Lampley, Sugar Ray Leonard, Larry Merchant and the
HBO call, but the Bob shared and call in real time from ringside on
the delay for Don King still wasn't a delay Where else was it going internationally?
Right? Besides, I think about the Colonel is he was not known
as well in America, but everywhere else in the world where those fights were
shown often he was the call. If you're watching the fight in Australia,
if you're watching that fight in different places in Europe, if you're watching sometimes
in Canada, if you're watching it in the UK. His call went around
the world. He called you know, the rumble in the Jungle. He
called a billion big fights. If I said to you a thousand world championship
fights, pick up big fighter, Tyson Chavez, Oscar Floyd pack you out.
Uh. You know the Four Kings. He did a lot of those
international shows for all these guys. Just a fucking legend. And again that
moment in Tokyo, he rises to the occasion just like everybody else on how
stunning all of that was. So salute to Colonel Bob Sharan passing away from
this one. We definitely say salute on that. Absolutely all right, it's
quickly some news. Then we got some Marvel and Haggler nostalgia and we're done.
They have announced don't snicker the pay per view undercard for Tyson Fury and
Francis and Ghanu coming up at the end of October. Anything noteworthy. I'm
gonna give them credit that the main event between Fury and Naganu. You know,
people have their opinions. Some people say it's a fucking farce. Some
people are excited. Whatever you think about the main event, the undercard they
put together is actually a pretty solid it's all heavyweight pay per view, so
that's interesting. You know, you could see the big guys. So they
got a very good British fight between Fabio Awardley and David Adlier who got into
a big fucking brawl and there was chaos at the at the red carpet when
they did the press conference in London a few weeks ago, which sort of
stoked h this fight even more. So that's a very interesting fight to me.
I mean, these are two guys, you know, both undefeated,
both on the rise, both in their still in their twenties, and they're
they're putting it on the line. So that's that's a that's an interesting fight
for for the division. He got Tyson's good buddy Joe Parker, the former
w BO title older he is in the in the card, He's taken on
the once beaten uh Simon Keen from Canada in a ten rounder, so nothing
wrong with that fight. These are both guys that still have aspirations to do
bigger things and just gonna position the winner with in a pretty good spot.
And then they got the Montreal based Russian fighter Arslan Beck Mak McDow is on
this card. He's fighting a fighter from Croatia, not not somebody that I'm
that familiar with, and a guy named Agron's mass Sicky. We'll see what
happens to that. But but but mam, you did a beautiful job with
those names. Mac mcdouba is, like, you know, he's been seen
in a lot of the Canadian cards because Top Rank has an agreement with I
the Tiger. A lot of his recent some of his recent fights have been
on ESPN Plus, so you can definitely see them. He's a good puncher,
you know, seventeen wins but sixteen knockouts, and so they're they're putting
on, you know, kind of a good little cross section of these of
these heavyweights that are trying to break out underneath, you know, the two
big heavyweights in the main event. And then they have the Frank Warren prospect
Moses the Tama in a six rounder who's only eighteen years old, but five
and already with three knockouts. No a pony yet he's in a sixth rounder,
and that's your pay per view, and you know what, I'll give
them some credit. That's I mean, it's not like maybe star studded or
anything like that. But those are solid fights. I can't really I can't
moan about a single one of those. They're all interesting for different reasons.
So you know, and I have said to you before, even though I
don't love that Theory Nagana are doing this, I'd rather see Theory doing the
USIC Fighter some other big heavyweight contender that I was just disappointed in it.
But you know what, the undercard kind of suthe my soul a little bit.
I'm okay with that. I like the undercard a good couple more news
items than it's nostalgia time. The Devin Handy Regis pro Grade fight is done.
I still remember sitting with Dan Rayphael here's TMI in his underwear doing the
recap podcast after Spence Crawford, and one of the news items was Devin Handy
Regis pro Grade late October in Las Vegas, and you said not done.
It's not done, and I'm not talking about it being done until it is
done. And so now it is done in low and behold, it's not
late October it's actually December, and it's not even in Las Vegas. Fill
in the blank. Yeah, I mean there are some people that like to
jump the gun on stuff, or even if they report that it was going
to be October Las Vegas, you can't report it as fact. That was
just they weren't looking to do it on October twenty eighth in Las Vegas.
But it was never a done deal. There was a lot of different reasons
for that, not the least of which was the Fury and Naganu fight was
the same day on pay per view, and even though they were going to
take place at the same time, you don't want to do two pay per
views at the same moment on the same day, particularly when the other guys
have the bigger event. So they had to figure out what the better date
was. They saw had a lot of internal things with the Zone about whether
it was gonna be a pay per view or not. They had to get
the location squared away, and so they finally have done that. It'll be
December of the ninth at the Chase Center in San Francisco, which is the
building where the Golden State Warriors played. You say, why is it going
to be in San Francisco, and I've been covering boxing for you know,
twenty plus years. There has never been a big fight in San Francisco.
The last time there was a fight of any consequence was before my time on
the beat, which was in the late nineties, when there was a card
that featured Floyd Mayweather and also a young many pack. Yo. I guess
I was already on the beat at that point, but it was like two
thousand and one, maybe something like that, two thousand and two, and
they did an HBO doubleheader that I did not attend. But there has other
since that show. Off top of my head, there hasn't been a single
like this way because I know here's the reason. I'm gonna give you the
reason. The reason is because Devin Haney is bored in San Francisco, right
even though he grew up in Las Vegas, he wanted to fight it up
his home hometown, and so they're doing that. Like say so, the
big thing is they haven't really had a big time arena in San Francisco until
they built one. Because a lot of people don't realize this. The Warriors
were playing in Oakland, across the Bay in what was a rundown arena that
they kind of refurbished, and so this is an attraction. This is a
state of the art facility. So it's kind of interesting what kind of draw
will it be for early December, etc. But you were saying to me,
the Warriors aren't playing there for a few days because they're playing in the
Las Vegas New NBA play in in season tournament that's got some rewards. So
they've got a chance to build this up a little bit and sell some tickets.
And Haney with a little hometown situation there too to make. I'm not
so sure what he's going to do there. And because yes he's born and
bred in San Francisco, fair enough, but he's moved to Las Vegas as
a kid. He's never boxed there. He boxed there as an amateur,
but not ever as a professional, as professional career is based been based largely
in Las Vegas. You know, his early fights when he first turned pro
as a teenager, fought a lot of fights in Mexico. But they wanted
to go there and see if they can maybe build a market and do something.
I credit them for that. The only negative thing about that, and
this is nothing about the matchup. We've all talked about before how interesting the
matchup between Prograce and and He is. It's a good fight. It's the
fact that it's a paper that's going to give a lot of people pause because
they feel like it's not worthy of that. But secondly, a place where
the paper he was going to struggle in a very serious manner is because that's
the same day that ESPN and Top Rank will do a presumably significant fight card
from Madison Square Garden post Heisman Trophy. So that's going to eat up a
lot of the boxing spacebox, media, boxing oxygen, et cetera in the
lead up to that fight, and the and ESPN can beat the horn and
blow it out the way that the Zone can't because they don't have that kind
of partnership with another outlet in the means that's not on their own service,
which goes to a limited number of people. So but anyway, that's that's
the The other going to be in San Francisco in December, and uh,
you know, I'll be your watching. The undisputed lightweight champ moves up to
fight Regius Pro Gray, and arguably it is it's Regis Progray's biggest opponent,
even though the guy's moving up in Wayne. He's an undisputed champion, so
we got plenty of time to build that one up. One. I don't
know if I agree that he did fight Josh Taylor to unify at one hundred
and forty. Was Josh Taylor unisputed? No, it doesn't matter if.
By the way, Devin doesn't matter. It does matter if you're undisputed.
You crow about four belt undisputed all the time. My name is it's his
biggest first of all, Devin Hand. He's a much bigger star than Josh
Taylor ever was, especially in Scotland. That we're not in Scotland. We're
not in Scotland. But I mean you're also saying that again, I love
Devin any, but he ain't the undisputed champion because he's no longer the WC
champ. But he was the undisputed chap when he beat woman Checo, So
all right, but Josh Taylor was not the undisputed champion when reg just Progray
fought him. Correct, it was not. So this is an undisputed champ
that he's fighting, even though that was a unification. But anyway, okay,
we don't have to argue about it before we get to the Marvin Haglin
nostalgia. Well, there's one more item. Miguel Burchelt is back, former
world champ as well, and he's headlining for Golden Boy and it's coming soon
quickly. So. Burchell was the longtime junior walter juwior lightweight title holder of
the WBC and he then lost his title by a spectacular knockout to Oscar Valdez.
Got just annihilated one of my good upset picks. By the way,
we have to go back to my picks. He then came back and got
his clock clean by Jeremiah Naca Taylor when he moved up to lightweight, and
those were two terrible knockout losses in a row, and you're kind of figuring,
Okay, this guy's done. Well, he's been out of the ring
now it'll have been nineteen months. He is coming back to fight in Mexico
and he's gonna The opponent is Argentine Argentinian fighter in d Ruiz who's fought like
Michael Conlin and a couple of other decent names. Been a pedestrian record twenty
four to seven and one. This is a ten round lightweight fighter will take
place in Marita, Mexico. It's part of Golden Boys Golden Boy Fight Night
cards that they do on the Zone. They work with Zamford Promotions on this
event, so they bring that to uh. They're not maybe the top level
Golden Boy events like they have done, but still those Mexo cards are usually
pretty solid. They have a title eliminator in the co feature between a former
junior flyweight title older Felix Alvarado, and an eliminator at flyweight with a Mexico
Mexican fighter angel Iilla. But the question for me is, you know,
after the long layoff and two hilastious knockouts now in a heavier weight, what
does mcguil bert child have left. We'll find out, We are going to
find out coming in a couple of weeks. In that one nostalgia time and
here we go with Marvin Hagler becoming world middleweight champion, undisputed world middleweight champion,
and that was forty three years ago this past Wednesday, that that happened
with his knockout of a mentor out. I don't know about you. I
remember watching live Saturday Afternoon ABC's Wide World of Sports. I cannot I did
not go look, I cannot recollect. Was Howard Cosell on the call?
Howard may have been. We got a double check that as the beer bottles
came raining down on the stoppage, I think it was co Sell that was
on the call as the as the bedlam happened at Wembley Arena. But pick
it up on Marvin Hagler just dismantling Alan Minter and becoming well terrorizing middleweight world
champion. Go back to that fight, as we mentioned, took place in
September September twenty seventh, nineteen eighties, so forty three years ago on Wednesday
of this week. Prior to that, you know, Hagler had a rough
road coming up. He fought all the top guys out of even though he's
from Massachusetts. He fought him, you know, all the top Gate and
all the top names out of Philadelphia, a ton of top middleweights. You
know, had a you know, a couple of losses in there, beat
a lot of good guys, but it took him a while to get a
title shot. When he finally got the title shot against then on disputed champion
Vito at the Fermoh, you know, he got Saddle with a ridiculous draw.
Everybody knows that Hackler won. He was pissed about it. Everybody was
pissed about it, except probably know Vito's top about frequently talk about robberies.
Haggler got robbed that night. That was seventy nine in Vegas, and that
was on the undercard of Sugar Ray Leonard and Wilfred Benitez and a double water
But Haggler absolutely robbed in that fight. And by the way, stop right
there, think about that doubleheader Sugar Ray Leonard against Wolford Benitez for the welterweight
title, and on the undercard he got hit the formo against Hagler on disput
of middleway title and that was on ABC TV Network TV and now Regis program
and Devin Hanier on pay per view. But I digress anyway, So he
got the draw against Vito that night and he had to go, and he
didn't get an immediate rematch. He went on a three fight winning streak.
He won a couple of those by knocked out. He finally got a chance
in the interim period of time when he was making those comeback fights. Minter
had beaten at the Fermo to become the undisputed champion, and he went to
London on the road at the Wembley Arena, the same location where so many
of the fights that we've talked about that take place in the UK take place
in the smaller arena crossed from the big soccer stadium anyway, So on that
date Marvin Hagler went in there and cut up and beat up and smashed up
Alan Minter to become the champ stop them in the third round, and the
British crowd when nuts started throwing bottles and they had like a riot basically in
the arena and went always payned Haggler and kind of warred like a chip on
a shoulder for many, many years, maybe for the rest of his life.
Frankly, is that he never got to be announced as the middleweight champion
of the world in the ring because they had to clear the ring. They
were like covering it up. And if you ever watched one of the HBO
documentaries on Legendary Nights, I forget which Hagler fight they were talking about.
It might have been when he was doing a Leonard fighter. Maybe he was
the Tommy Hearns fight where he talked about and they had interviews also with with
you know, some of his handlers that they were made to feel dirty,
like they had done something wrong, and they had a kind of sneak out
of the ring like being you know, shielded by the police and and everything,
when all they did was win the fight and they couldn't get announced as
the world champion in the ring. And he always was like wore that as
like a scarlet letter. He was always pisted off about that. But that
was forty three years ago. After that, this was a time period,
if I interject, this was a time period where the hooligan behavior, the
lawless behavior in soccer matches and other events where people were getting killed, stampeded.
It was an awful time and here it bled into boxing because that was
a dangerous situation. I mean, he was brutalizing mentor the referee stops the
fight, and if I'm not mistaken, the referee got hit with a beer
bottle trying to get out of the ring and they're they're raining it down and
the English bubbies, the bobbies are in the ring shielding Marvin Hagler. But
by I go to get him out of the arena. Again, no fault
of his own. As you pointed out, I mean, I wouldn't excuse
a ride for any of the reasons. But it wasn't like they went crazy
because this was some sort of perceived quick stoppage or bad decision. He was
beating the living ship out of all he was and the referee had no choice
but to stop the fight. What do they want the guy to die in
the ring? I mean, that was ridiculous. So he won the title
and then went on one of the great middleweight title reigns of all time,
defended the title time and again, you know, about a dozen title defenses,
and obviously had some human longus fights against obviously the great, you know,
most memorable fight of his career against Tommy Hearns. He also had a
win over Roberto Duran and beat a lot of other contenders, and then before
he eventually lost the title and retired with the Hugh Mongus Nega fight against Sugar
Ray Leonard. But the night that they won the title, the afternoon for
us here in America, he won the title. It was only unfortunate you
couldn't get announced in the ring forty three years ago on amazing, amazing,
and I still remember watching that I know you're a you're an old school fight
fan like I am, and those Wide World of Sports Saturdays, you'd see
fights. You'd see him on CBS in the afternoons and sometimes the Minter and
Hagler is easily if you can find that on I think probably has it on
it's archive and uh, I'm not sure, but maybe on ESPN Plus and
it's wild. I still I still remember they eventually got Howard co Sill and
I believe it was Howard into the locker room to interview Marvin and and talking
about how scary the whole thing was and now you're the champ and the whole
bit. But you're right, it's totally anti climactic. You're not doing it
in the ring like the usual circumstance, like what we will see on Saturday
night for whomever's hand is raised. And I believe it's going to be Canelo
against Jamil Charlo in the pay per view main event. Undisputed against Undisputed.
All right, Dan rayphel We have had a very busy preview show. I
know we're looking forward to being back with everybody live as we release this podcast
on the bet Us Boxing Show. To make some fight predictions and some handicapping.
You're live there in Vegas. We're looking forward to that one Eastern time
Friday, ten am Pacific time. Don't stay out too late. Don't make
me have to try to wake you up with you know, wake up call.
It happens. I understand that. So we're live at one eastern time
tomorrow. See that later if you miss it at that time, we're back
with whatever happens Dan on the Fight Feats Unit, recap off the weekend with
whatever happens. They'll get that on this podcast feed as well. Other than
that, anything else in closing, Are we good? We're good man,
I'm just looking forward to fight. We are. It is Charlo challenging Canelo
Alvarez. We look forward to that. You heard from both fighters. Also
our friends at PPB dot com spots us as well. You always get the
preview headed into the weekend, the recap off the weekend on the Big Fight
Weekend podcast feed for Dan Rayphael, I'm TJ Reeves. Enjoy the pay per
view coming Saturday night in Las Vegas. Charlo and Kennello By