This is I on the Ball with Steve Rivera and Jakin Zalis on Fox Sports
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R two SID and i Heeart Radio Station. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome
to I on the Ball here on Fox Spots fourteen fifty. I'm Steve Rivera.
He's Jakensos. Got our guy Jason in with us today. Welcome to
Wednesday, Windy Wednesday. Jason is going to be spending the summer with us.
YEP, it's lucky you, Jason. We're going to tune you into
an old dude soon. If you didn't already know that. Yeah, Jay,
appreciate you. Appreciate you. Yea, all that insight. He needs
other people to tell what they're doing brow what. I got no NBA knowledge
whatsoever. So I mean, I know I know some names, but you
know what you need to watch the game, and I got yeah. And
I'm home alone tonight. You know, my wife's still out of town on
a business pip. I have nobody to talk to other than the dog,
and he doesn't like you very much. So you'll be talking to the TV.
I'll be talking to the TV. I'll be yelling, I'll be tweeting,
texting you guys, tell you what crap it is that my guys aren't
doing what they're supposed to be doing. Expect you here from me to give
it. I didn't even tell you what I did, so I'm not gonna
tell you because because because because you know that's it. Just did you find
out who? Who want? Who's? Have you heard anything from the people
you forgetting to reach out to those guys? Let me tell you something I
was gone for. I was gone for a few days, obviously with my
uncle who's older than my mom, who was older, and it was like
being in cocoon. Who was being in cocoon? And I realized sometimes with
you, it's beating man. I'm sorry. I cha said yesterday. So
I asked you yesterday, are you coming in? You said yeah? I
said, Chase coming in today? You asked Jason, Yeah, Steve,
I don't know what you say. You know, I forget too, but
you like doing a lot, which is I'm just teasing you. Of course,
No, I know who I am. Okay, I know exactly who
I am. Do your kid? What are your kids think? Just exactly
where you would think they think, right, I think, you know,
they just wonder it just like that. We had that conversation, like right,
right, right, right, it's funny. It's funny. I hope
I don't get to that, please, please, Well, let's talk about
somebodys. Let's talk about sports. A lot of things going on. You
have a lot of breaking news, right, Jake Cool A lot of things
involved in Arizona, or a few things involved in Arizona. Huggins has made
it. There's a decision on Huggins because Kay and all that stuff. So
okay, okay, we have a pretty We put together a show today that
it's going to be interesting, very interesting. Yeah. So there's a boxing
match here. I covered boxing was a long time Jay. You know that
you covered a long time ago. Uh. The Doll Soul has a great
boxing for situation all of a theater, but they don't do any promotions.
They don't do it. You wouldn't know that this is happening. I was
there a couple weeks ago, saw the billboard and then someone said yesterday you're
going and says, oh, I forgot, But we wouldn't know. So
we trucked down the promoter or the president of the group that's bringing him in.
So he's gonna talk about the card this weekend, talking about Tussam in
a fight town. You know it and I know it. We'll talk to
him about that. So that should be fun for the first hour and the
second hour. We really probably have a lot of fun. We've been wanting
to get this guy for a while, but I just wanted things to settle
as much as they possibly could. They're not gonna settle. They're not gonna
settle. But it's a Brian Howell who covers the Colorado football for the Boulder
Daily Camera and he's been with us a few times right over you know,
anytime here was gonna plays Colorado. He's a writer that we contact to give
us a preview. One not good. So he's had what a couple of
months now with a few months with coach Prime or whatever they call him.
And that's a question. That's one of the questions because he talked about that
before he got there, that he knew that he'd be up against something,
but he didn't know what. Right. So here we are. So that
should be a lot of fun and what he's going through. Um in the
second hour, So no I'm looking looking forward to seeing how things have been
going over there. Look, I know I'm a hundred percent certain I would
not want to be covering no Colorado. No, No, I don't know
that for a fact. I was gonna I'll say this for I'll say this
for breaking news, because a guy who sends me odds all the time for
whatever they did the projections for conferences to win the PAC twelve back, you
know, sec blah blah blah. So I'll ask you who you think Carozona
is gonna whatever's gonna be, what Colorado's gonna be. Uh, it might
surprise you, um, but I you know I absolutely would not want to
be covering that. No, No, of course. I mean it's hard
enough to cover a sport, you know, working it every day, um,
doing all the things you got to do, getting access and all those
things, without all the hoopla that's surrounding. Uh Uh. Let me take
even even here at Arizona. It's not the same team. It's not our
grandfather's team. Right, we covered it. We had access. If something
happened, we would get information or ask and they would give it to us.
Maybe not prompt, but many times prompt. Now it's like we have
to go through hoops to get to them just to some basic info. Correct.
So it's not fun covering, you know. And I'll tell you what
it's gonna be. It's gonna be interesting to see how how during the football
season or when camp starts, how the Jayden Delores situation with all questions is
you know, is he gonna come to you as many press conferences as as
he would if this hadn't happened. How often are we going to see him?
Uh? You know, what are the parameters when you're talking to him?
Uh? You know, all kinds of how much is Jed gonna say
about it? All that? But you know, being in the PR business
for a long time and me being the reporter having to ask you through the
business, you do it one time, get all the questions out done,
Boom, it's over that. That was always my advice. I would say,
let's okay, let's address it. Let's get it done, and say
we're gonna address it now. Ask all the questions you want to ask,
and then we're moving on. We're moving on and get it and just yeah,
that's what you said, That's what I would suggest. I would too.
We would you know, I had opportunities to suggest that both in UH
working at as the pr goat Tisson Electric and the city at Tisson. Yeah,
we got a call hesitate this call. Hi, You're on the air
and I on the ball. How are you guys? This is a Gabriel
calling from California. Say can we talk more about Jaden de Laura? What
do you what do you have on your mind? Gabriel? Um, So
I've been thinking about it more. And then the last night I listened to
Justin Spears and Michael lab on the Wildcast on the Wildcast Plus broadcast, and
Arizona is in a lose lose scenario because either they knew about it or even
they don't or either they didn't know about it. And also Jetfish and Jaden
de Laura need to have a press farm and have the media in Tucson ask
them what what do you know? And just and they need to they needs
to have a French conference press conference. And if they don't have a press
conference, the same situation is going to happen when jet Fish goes to the
Pastoral Median Media Day in Las Vegas and or Novada or or in La and
and listen Jason Delore, in my opinion, is on thin right. What
he did or what he allegedly did, it is absolutely a horrn and and
I will still support Arizona football as a whole as a whole and jet Fish,
but its rooting for Jason Delora is kind of difficult in my opinion.
Gabriel, I think you're you're on the right rights whatever. You are no
different than a lot of fans because they have a higher time figuring out what
they're gonna do and who to cheer for. So you're, you know,
don't you you're If that's your opinion, that's a good one. If not,
that's not. It's not a bad one because I'm hearing the same thing
right And can I see another scene? And I'm kind of on pin pins
and needles in case something else comes out from from from Hawaii, and I
just I really want Arizona just to be proactive. We don't we don't want
this to happen at at Arizona. So and I'm pretty sure that all right,
our rivals as creating the stummies are making fun of us, But I
really don't care what they what they said, they're probably gonna gaslight us anyhow,
but Arizona needs to be proactive and and sure people are probably gonna forget
it when when the seasons start, but right now it's the elephant in the
room. And just if I can't really piss off about this. Yeah,
no, I hear you, We all both will, we both hear you.
Um, it's a tough situation that we have. We haven't talked much
about it. We talked about it initially, right Jay, because it's it's
it's we don't really know what to say, because we have a lot of
questions. We have a lot of questions. Right. I don't think Jay
and Gabe that they're gonna have or Gabriel that they're gonna have anything until the
fall, right, Nothing will be said or done until the fall with them
too. But I agree with you, there needs to be some type of
thing with Jed and and even Dave hekey, uh, those three on the
podium asking or being asked questions. Let's just let the questions come and as
as we said, get it all out, get it over with and move
on. Then that's it, right, Because you're right here, you're making
a good point. If this is still hanging out there and packed twelve media
day. Um, it's gonna get it's gonna get asked and one one one
scene. Um, I know people will forget it, but um, this
is Jaden Delor needs to needs to be smart and not at not as dumb.
I was gonna say, no, yeah, smart, yea be smart,
right. I think that he will have to. He has no choice
to Gabriel, thank you for calling Gabe. And can I say anoicing,
Um, do you think this will affect recruiting? I don't think no,
no, no, no, not at all. I do. Okay,
thank you you guys, Sure, thank you, Gabriel. Among those lines
are we we are okay with time? So so we loved Justin because you
were. He talked about Justin Justin and he posted his story she had to
write last week or something like that, and he says, this is not
what I this is not what I signed up for. Hey, we you
didn't. We've gone through shootings back in the day, we uh alleged rapes
with with players, things that happened. And you're thinking, I went to
school to cover games. This used to be the toy department. I you
know, he covers the sugar sculls. So I ran into him at the
Sugar Sculls game on Saturday, and he was very unhappy. Yeah, because
it's you know, I'm kind of in a joking way, in a laughing
way, saying exactly that I don't this isn't what I wanted to be doing.
I want, you know, I want to cover games. But we
all feel that we should feel that way. Nobody wants to happen, and
we've all been there to deal with deal with that stuff, and we always
you know, you just sometimes you have to um. You know. I
fortunately had the benefit of being a cop reporter for a once, so the
police blodder stuff, you know, it was easy for me. But I
doesn't mean I liked it. You know. I didn't like, you know,
having to go to the go to city court when Melvin Smith had fired
his gun at some people at skate Country seven eighty or eighty eighty nine,
you know, having to do stuff like that. I you know, you
don't like having to do that. That's why some it was great to having
you were in the cop side. If you're covering the team, that's one
thing because now you're kind of with the team having to deal with the day
to day. But you were on the new side, and you didn't have
to deal with it on the day of the day to day stuff. So
no, nobody wants to have to do that. But I, you know,
you may you bring up a good suggestion, Steve, is that?
Um? And and again, I you know, I had been in the
business house and I had the opportunity to advise people like that, say guys,
let's let's just answer to it and then we let's get it the hell
out of the way, sooner the better. Yeah, it seemed to the
better. But I also agree with you too. I don't think they can
do or say anything until maybe they do something right before camp starts or something
like that, or before Pack twelve me today or whatever. Um. I
can't I can't see them out of the blue saying all right, let's hold
a press conference to talk about it. I didn't see that they're going to
do that. Yeah. No, uh, okay, watch time? How
much time we have? About two minutes? Well yeah, about three two
and a half minutes? Okay, okay, So looking forward to all that.
Uh, in terms of our guests today, big boxing match this weekend
and then uh and then um with the Colorado right, yeah, yeah,
I mean you know, uh again, you know Brian House. You know
we've had talked to him a bunch of times, you know, seeing him
at the aactwelve stuff. I think I have too, but I just find
up Bryan, how's it going you sleep here? You're having fun? Yeah,
it's funny. And I'll ask him this because you watch you watch Facebook
and Twitter, right, he has all the Colorado has been tweeting out these
these speeches that he does in front of his players. Yetta yet and I'm
thinking I wonder as a player now, when he was a player, did
he abide by what the stuff he was saying? Does that make sense?
The question where he's asking these players is he doing did he do as a
player what he's asking? Exactly? Yeah, we'll ask all of it that's
been asked because he's asking a lot. And I'm sure if you're it's like
a new boss that you get. We've talked about this and you don't like
the Boston, Boston don't like you, but you need your job. What
do you do? You shake your head and say, whatever you need me
to do, work the until you get tired of it or you find a
new job. Exactly. Not exactly. I mean, that's and that's all
you can do because you just you know, you're either with the program or
you're not. You're not running clearly. You know. He's gonna endo with
an idea that most everybody here is not with the program. So I'm getting
rid of as many, rid of as many people as I possibly can,
and that that's what he's done. He's obviously got the backing of his athleg
director, who was you know, who was quoted as saying, other teams
have done this. You know, there's nothing wrong with what we're doing,
so, you know, and and it didn't need a house clean. They
were won in eleven, they were they were terrible this year, you know,
and Jed Fish turned his roster over as well. It just wasn't as
high profile because Jed Fish is not Deon Sanders, right right, Okay,
let's go and take our break. We'll come back and we'll have h we'll
have Matt McGovern, who's the president of World World Fighting Chant World Fighting Championships,
who's uh promoting the boxing card at Casino Del Soul this weekend. So
we'll talk a little boxing when we get back. For more than twenty years,
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Ravera Jaden Solids. They have their eye on the board on two suns of
sports station Fox Sports fourteen fifty. They welcome back to wing the ball here
on Fox Sports fourteen fifty everything catch us up with us two and a half
man here. Yeah, yeah, Well, I don't know what to say.
I'm busy reading up on the on the Bob Huggins thing. Uh reading
pad forties column about and we can talk about this in a in a second,
but uh, you know, we just uh, I guess right now
we should ahead and let people know. UM a little programming note for the
next couple of days. Uh, we're are We're not gonna have a show
tomorrow or Friday. Both Steve and I have some business we've got to tend
to. Um, so we're gonna we have to take the rest of the
week off. We'll be back on Monday and uh, you know, kick
the summer off and get one. So here it is, hello, mister
mcgovernors. This shoe, Yes, sir, how are you good to talk
to you? Well, this is Steve. We've got Jay here and you
are on the air. Yeah, you are on here. Just to be
sure. Hey, well, when you get into Tucson, still decide a
scheduled coming in Friday, but I might coming a little bit earlier. So
let me ask you. You probably are well aware of the two sons of
fight Town. It have been known for that the fights are few and far
between. Who found whom? Did the casino find you? Or you found
the casino to bring some boxing here? You know, we do fights all
over the country. Based in Las Vegas. We have a good reputation in
the casino business, and we've been talking for probably you know, five or
six years about doing the show there. I don't like going to a lot
of spots with other promotions in the place, just because the fans don't get
used to our style of fights, and you know, they're operating. I
don't think they did a fight in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two,
but they did one in the title fight in twenty twenty one, and there's
an opportunity. We wanted to do a special event for the military and first
responders, and so we're doing a fight there in May and also again in
November. Okay, okay um. I know the publicity has been kind of
shy, but what's the way it must be Friday when you come in,
or if you come in, say again the way in when the wayan's happened
Thursday or Friday? The way in? So will happen the night before Friday.
And they're free and open to the public, and they are at five
thirty inside the casino on Friday night and very nice venue. Just just real
quick up, do you have locals on the card? Oh? Absolutely.
The whole entire fight card is locals. We're all about getting local and regional
fighters um opportunities, and you know, everybody's gotten behind this fight card and
we have every fight in every fighter that we wanted in town on the card.
Okay, super well, So, so describe how you know, how
this card came together, what you guys were shooting for. Uh, you
mentioned you know a lot of local guys. So just tell us how this
thing came together and what fans can expect to see when they come out.
You know, it's going to be a pro and amateur event. So we
have USA Boxing and then we have a tribal commission sanctioned the event. We
have the Ramirez brothers. They're two locals, very very popular in town.
They're from Tucson, Jensen and Jose Ramirez. Jose Ramirez is fighting another guy
from Tucson, Francisco and Martin Brow. He's from Scrapyard Boxing Jim. But
it's all locals, and I think we have locals versus locals on almost every
single fight. So it'll be Tucson versus two Sons and two Thumb versus Phoenix.
There's a lot of great Jim's Pete Cnenza's Jim from Two Sons on the
car Rovas from Florence, Arizona. But it's just a bunch of upping thumbing
fighters from the local area and that's that's a recipe for success for us.
We do twenty five casino shows throughout the country a year, and we're all
about helping these guys to the next level, so they don't get a lot
of opportunities. If you have a fight in Tucson, you might see one
or two of them on the fight card, but the rest are out of
town fighters. And so this time if we're giving that respect to the locals,
and you'll probably see probably twelve to fifteen local fighters on the fight card.
Okay, okay, I was going to ask you you're not just boxing,
right, you do other things ufc AM I correct. Yeah, we
do mixed martial arts and we also do kickboxing in different markets, and we've
looked at it. For Tucson, we wanted to start off with boxing because
it's such a big fight town and there's you know, world champions from that
area, and so that's what we wanted to start out. We might do
MMA, but yeah, our company called World Fighting Championships. This is our
first show in Arizona. We do fights all over the country and really love
it. Yeah, so I was just gonna ask you you've been here before,
but it doesn't look like you have. If this is your first card,
did you have to come in and look look at the venue, kind
of do sign some documents things like that. Now, actually we didn't come
in town. We were actually scheduled to do two shows in twenty twenty,
and you know how that was. So so that's you know, that's is
I haven't been fortunate enough to go to casino bell so yeah, you's had
to go out there for that fight. But we had a lot of established
relationships in the area and one of the ladies who's worked for us for a
long time, I think about ten years. She's based in Phoenix, and
so she has a real feel for the market and relationships with the gyms,
and so it's been helpful. So that you mentioned, you know, you
do casino shows. I mean that's certainly become a market for everybody, right
obviously for concerts, but specifically for boxing. What what do you guys like
about those venues? You know, they have a lot of stuff in infrastructure
in place, there's a lot of frequent customers to those events that we can
promote. They're usually in a great location in the area and they have,
you know, facilities that other people don't have from a venue statepoint, so
they have a difference that sort of revenue streams between food and beverage, hotel,
and then gaming, and so it helps offset some of the costs to
make these events possible. If we did have a casino, these events wouldn't
be profitable or possible. And if the fight community is small shrinking and shrinking,
and you know, we're our niches regional casinos and working with locals and
driving the traffic that those casinos want. And so they're all about the locals.
They're not pulling people from Wisconsin to the event or China or wherever.
And I'm all about getting these local fighters opportunities and getting as many kids involved
in this event because they need to get to the next level. And I
don't have, you know, aspiration to pull some former gold medalists from China
and he's gonna come in and look a local bye boys. But um,
you know, I want to put on good shows from the fans, and
that's what's been our set recipe for success? If you've done one hundred and
seventy s show do the last ten years and so and I have more business
than I possibly can handle. So it's good. We're in t Son this
week, We're in Cincinnati next week, and then in three weeks in Cleveland.
So we stayed busy and we're blessed to have some may good opportunities.
So so Jay posted a photo of you on Twitter and Facebook, and then
you send me a photo just just now. You're like twelve years old.
Why didn't you start doing this? I think it's just a good picture of
me. I think the last couple of years of the five businesses who made
the Age brought twenty years. But yeah, I do. I'm fortunate to
look pretty young. I'm thirty nine years old and been blessed. But sometimes
they still get carded. But I can't you know, I can't believe I
sold my first casino show twelve years ago and I didn't have a fight promotion
name, and I probably looked twelve in all reality, and they let me
have human fight in their billion dollars casino, so they trusted me enough for
that. And I've had a good string, you know, over the last
ten twelve years in this business, and you know, we we probably could
do fifty shows if I wanted to, But it's a it's a definitely a
lot of work, and there's a lot of people involved in these shows,
and there's plenty of curveballs. Okay. So so it sounds like you,
if my math is correct, you started doing this when you're about twenty seven
years old. How do you get into this business? And what interested you
about this business? I love fights, you know, I became I was
a fan first. I always wanted to work in sports whenever we were a
kid. And so I went to college and got experienced work in sports,
and you know, we kept building and building building, and then I worked
in the NBA development lead some sponsorships, and I went to a fight.
There's just a local oriented fight just like ours on Saturday night at casino bill
Fall, and I met the promoter and asking him, you know, questions
about the business side of it, and he said that you think you can
do better? And I said yeah, He's like, all right, let's
talk. And that's how I got in the fight business. And so I
got a casino deal and Rono for the guy, and hey, he had
about you'd show them that casino whole year. And you know, that's how
we got into the business. And and you know, I think it paid
very much to do those deals. Will I got out of the business,
and then I got pulled back in by Caesar's Corporation. They wanted to partner
with me on a fight promotion rand. And that's how I got pulled back
in. What do you like about it? What do you like about it?
What do I like about it? I like to put together you know
you I like the deal, right, I like to put together the deal.
You know, that's the best casino in Tucson. It's the most beautiful
venue. You know. It's a these guys you're getting behind me, trusting
me that I'm going to put together a great show. And then I go
and make new relationships with people I have no idea, and then I put
together a whole event and they show up with three thousand new friends, and
we do it over again and over again and over again. And so it's
just a challenge and the accomplishment. And I've never been to Casino dol fol
but you know, we're gonna have a great show on Saturday night, we'll
probably have nine or ten fights and we have a whole bunch of good people
involved in the show. When we can do it over and over and over
again with the work that we put in. Took a lot of work to
build all those relationships, but you know it would be you know, as
long as the fans come out and support these fighters and the fighters have good
time. Now we can do it over and over and over again to be
successful to doing it. But um, you know, my favorite part of
doing this is the challenge of creating the great fights for fans and sell a
lot of tickets and proven the people right that got behind me. So to
answer your questions through my eyes, Jake, I think it's the storylines,
because you know boxers have some of the best storylines. They start with nothing
and end up being very successful down the road. So do you have any
kids with great those great success stories or you know kind of maybe just starting
Oh yeah, no, you know, we have I would say probably twenty
five ye old champions that stop for our organization and built himselves up. One
that's fighting. You know, he's an undisputed light weight champion of the world
and his name's Devin Haney, and he is fighting at MGM Grand in front
of a sold out crowd on May twentieth, next weekend, and he has
four belts and he makes He probably made twenty million dollars in this business.
And he followed her so three times, I think three years ago. Right,
So these guys aren't that far away. If he didn't have twenty twenty,
you know, this guy would have been you know down here. He
would have made, he would have made. He probably made ten million dollars
after he founded my last show. He fought out Alkali in ranch from Rage
Palm Springs area for US. He fought for US in Pittsburgh, he fought
for US in the Louisiana and now he's the top guy selling Loman Jaco and
probably making five to seven million dollars on next Saturday. Right, So let
me ask you. You said something earlier that I may not have paid attention
to. But there's a question. You know, as we grow up,
a baseball players are few and far between because they're not playing in inner cities,
the minorities are not playing as much in boxing, or is the is
the sport running out of boxers or are they still trying to do what they've
always done, trying to you know, make some money boxing. Does it
make sense? You know, there's a there's a good amount of boxers,
but amateur boxing is you know, they don't make it a production right As
fans, we want to go to an entertaining event. We want to see
you know, entertaining fights, and USA Boxing isn't hasn't given promoters the opportunity
to do that. It has to be like a nonprofit inside of a gym
and not really showcased. And so as you've seen, is boxing has declined
and ma is take it over because the development of the sport and the openness
of the sport is a lot more open than it is for amateur boxing compared
to amateur MMA. And so you'll you've seen that decline and then you know
they're they're ace in the hole for amateur boxing has always been hey, you
can go to the Olympics. Right Well now they're pulling the boxing from the
Olympics. And so I was just on the phone last night with the US
the president of the USA Boxing, you know, saying hey, man,
I really want the sport to continue. I want you know, invest Ihy
do proams, and so we give these amateurs the opportunity to fight, because
some of these guys have one hundred and twenty amateur bouts. Like there's two
kids on my show next week they have one hundred and twenty ounts each.
Right in MMA, if you have ten amateur bytes, they're like, why
aren't you pro? Right, So these guys have a lot of opportunities,
a lot of experience, but you take that golden goose, the gold medal
away from them, right, the opportunity to fight for the only I think
that the sport's going to decline even further. And there's not that many shows
for boxing, Like I've been going through all the shows this year actually this
week to see who's fought this year, so I can pull fighters that are
active to fight on my shows. And there's like, you know, two
or three shows a Friday Saturday. You know you're talking about six shows in
the entire US. Well, Matt McGovern's doing it like sixteen of them.
So I probably have twenty five percent of the shows in the US for the
year, like and that's sad, right, And so that's where these guys.
If you if you have a local event, whether it's my event or
somebody else's. You gotta get out there and splint these guys because they're trying
to get to the next level, and there's not a lot of big money
behind these guys. You know, if you have big personalities and you know,
the gold medalists, there's a few people that would get behind you.
But other than that, these local fighters, you know, they need your
support, and there's not a lot of events like mine where I have fifteen
to twenty local fighters. Because that's what makes these events special. These guys
are willing to fight similar skill level guys, so the fights are better.
Their selling tickets, they're bringing their families out, and they're sacrificing so they
can show showcase themselves for you. And so that's not the you know,
there's a lot that goes into these events. There's one hundred and like eighty
people working this show for this weekend, and that's a lot of personalities coming
together to try to put on a show for hopefully three thousand fans. You
know, Okay, Matt Government, thanks to very much. A Saturday night.
Gates will open at five thirty I think, and then fight start at
seven. Correct, Yeah, you need a ticket at WFC fights dot com.
There's sheet is forty dollars. Okay, super, thank you, Matt,
thank you. So you see you in two soa mcgover all right,
man again a sport that's always been you know, it's had a lot of
backing here over the years. Yeah, but we haven't like, as he
said that, we haven't seen enough of him through through the years. It's
been great, but then it's been raining and it comes back and then you
have flight by Night and people I didn't want to say that, you know,
they just come in and come out, come out. So good luck,
good luck home on everday night. Okay, let's take our break.
We're gonna come back. We'll take calls on pretty much anything. Five two
zero, four, one, six, seventy four, forty um. I
want to talk about the Bob Huggins thing because they're West Virginia's come out with
a decision on that and let's just talk about what we think of it.
So we'll be right back. If you're an Arizona Man's basketball fan, you
know it's been successful for nearly forty years. Now, take a look back
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dot net. Steve Bravera and Jaken Salaz they have their eye on the ball
on two Suns Sports Stage yet Fox Sports fourteen fifty streaming live. I mean
I heard radio app Hey, welcome back to it about here on Fox Sports
fourteen fifty I'm Steve Rivera, he's Jakins. Os got a guy Jason with
us today. You have about twelve minutes left. If you want to call
us, please do five two four, one, six seventy four forty.
You wanted to talk about Huggins. Yeah, first, So you're still not
gonna tell me what you did on the game tonight? Oh you Jordy to
make your bet? Yeah? I did. H So you bet? I
bet um Denver yesterday and I bet the Warriors tonight. So a line or
money line for for a few dollars two team party. Uh, I'm not
gonna say it's two foot putts because I've been missing two foot puts. So
I did Warriors to win tonight, to win obviously because the Uggs on yesterday.
And you want to get both Nuggets and Warriors into the to the into
the conference final, then they guarantees you're getting the team in two finals.
JA right. I'm surprised Boston stunk it up. They were so bad,
both of those bad last night. But yeah, Boston was surprised. You
were awful cool. I don't know what's going on in Boston, Like they've
been like just lacklusters luggish, like walking through games kind of like not focused.
You know. Yeah, Philly's not bad, but Boston's one of the
better teams. Yeah, I mean that they're one of the most talented teams
lesson postseason. So for them to you know, have so many you know,
slip ups during the game, it was very odd. Yeah, it
was hard to watch. Yeah, you know, because I mean, I
I don't I mean, I like both teams, right, I like Joel
embiid I you know, but I like the Celtics too, although I didn't
used to. Ye when when the Celtics and Lakers were going at it in
the you know, in the in the eighties and nineties, I was more
of a Lakers fan because I loved Kareema dul Jabbar. It wasn't all that
fond of Magic Johnson, but I did like the other guy. So I
was more of a Lakers fan than than a than a Celtics fan. But
you know, Celtics have like some history when I was growing up, so
that's why I kind of root for them. They were just they were just
awful, and I might turned it off. I stopped watching it. I
turned on a date line because you would rather see murder than not only a
murder, but a murder, a murder that I've seen before. Do you
know how it ended watching Hi You're on the r and I in the ball.
Yeah, we are not talking Huggy Bear segment. We're talking NBA Make
it Be with Steve. I called this three or four days ago when Steve
was in Las Vegas, the winner of Denver Phoenix is gonna win it all,
which obviously Denver's in the driver's seat. I'm not an idiot, Okay,
No, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that because I went
with Denver. Um, what do you like your chances tomorrow? I think
they're gonna be. Okay, No, they're gonna win. And then but
you, you all, you have Denver winning it all? You you,
but you, but knowing you, you bet money on day Van Warriors to
win no championship. No, no, actually I bet Warriors a few months
ago because just that's because but about four months ago I went with Denver to
win the Western Conference had been three and a half to one or what it
was, and then to win it all, I could say eleven to one
whatever it was. So yeah, but your clueless sidekick is talking Eastern Conference,
which has no prayer of winning. Wait wait, clueless sidekick. Oh
wow, I've been no. No, because we because we know he's a
kiss of death thing. By the way, real quick, we gotta win
and we could still win it. They all here's what I wanted to talk.
It's really simple. It's fun. It's it's nicknames. Okay, go
can your younger person, because you're gonna need help. Jay won't have a
clue for any of them. Okay, the one I'm gonna go for a
hard one. It's a Sacramento guy, Kevin Rater. If he would have
played better, they would have beat war Ears. I wanted to call it
Kevin know who Huter? He's got it, he's got red hair. Yeah.
And then Donovan Mitchell what is because we know Jay doesn't know it is
nick what's his nickname? Is anyone else what Donovan Mitchell's nickname is? I
He's one of the spider top five players in the league, and I've known
his nickname for like two years name Spider Spider. Yeah, he's got it.
Yeah, the young kid got it's the Spider. Yeah. Okay,
Donovan Mitchell, excuse me, Kevin Werter's red. He was kicking the Sun's
ass in the regular season. He's got the smoothest jump shot. It's red
velvet. Okay, we got to have the old Man, and we got
to speed the game up. The Suns the old Man. And it's the
new nickname for Kevin Durant. What is his nickname? The one I just
lo like a month and a half. That's a really scary nickname. And
it's good. But he but I actually called I said he was he was,
he was finished a year ago. I'm slim Reaper. Yes, yeah,
we heard that before. So let me ask you, um about the
Suns. Was about the Suns? Um we like their chances? Oh do
you would you mind them trading a da or No? But no, he
he's playing. I actually staid it on Facebook. He plays like his little
boy. Okay, okay, how are we better go? Before you say
no, I'm not gonna say he's terrible. We gotta go in away.
We gotta go in How thank you see that? What you know? You
know what? That was a big one? Yeah, okay, mark mark
the time on that. I gotta I gotta get that out of the podcast.
Oh my god, we kind of expected for me was gonna be called
so I know, I know he was a little story. He was a
little little wires. When I worked him up a little bit, I wasn't
gonna say when you wait, wait wait wait, So let's go back my
clueless side check or KOD? Which do you prefer? I prefer to be
the KOD. I'm clueless on a lot of stuff. I mean, I
did, I admit it. Look, I mean, that's part of our
deal here, Steve, Like, we're just a couple of guys. We're
not analysts. We're not you know, we're not. We're not sitting here
pouring through staffs. That's Jason. That's what Jason is here for. That's
what Noah is here for. That's what Devin is here for. That's what
d was here for. That's their job. Okay. You know, when
when I get when when I get a guest co host, I Adam over,
we talk NBA because he knows NBA, right, and so I'm not
We're not those guys. I mean, and that that that's the whole deal.
We when we started the show, we said we're not going to be
the guys who're gonna break down the Lakers. Lineup for you right, Well,
you marked that time because you gotta go in and do some work.
Yeah, it was like forty eight after the hour. Let's go with the
Hugginson because my own Okay, So as as time has gone on and again
I go to I go to Dan Wilkins. Take we'll try saying what Bob
Huggins said in the workplace and see what happens to you. You're fired?
Yeah, okay, um. UH West Virginia has now has decided on their
punishment for UH. For Bob Huggins, they're gonna take a million dollars away
from his salary this year. They're gonna put that into UH in LGEBTQ programs
and all that kind of stuff. For he's got to go to sensitivity training.
And he's now on a year to year contract, okay, meaning that
if they fire him, he's done UM, which is all great. And
then they suspended for three games which are gonna be against UM. Let me
find it here. First games. The first three games, so their games
against UH, Missouri State, Monmouth, and Jacksonville State, which Pat Fordy
who wrote a column about this, and I was reading and said, you
know, Gordon g who's the president of West Virginia University could coach those and
it wouldn't matter. So that's like no punishment whatsoever otherwids. He gets to
take the day off. So um And and the point to the point to
pad Fordy's column was at West Virginia University decided that winning basketball games is more
important than you know, having you know, your most prominent uh school official,
you know, utter hate speech on publicly on the radio. Yeah,
okay, and that's more important. Don't disagree with that. I we had
a lot of that stuff today. Uh, if you're if if he was
a mediocre coach, he would not be gone, be gone. Let me
say this because I talked to you about this when I returned, and I'll
say this, we got three happiness. If Jayden Delar were the third stree
quarterback, what do you think, he's probably gone. It's probably gone.
Um. So there are issues over there, those issues over here. Everybody
has issues, we all we all have issues. But but that's just the
price of winning, man, I mean it is. We've seen it.
We've seen it everywhere. If you're good, they'll find you. Look at
the guy, the kid from George Job who got in an accident. Blah
blah blah. Yeah, yeah he got jot to steal in drafted in the
first round. I R. Yeah. If you're good at what you do
and can make millions of what to do, they'll find you a place.
Unless you really screwed up, right, unless he like killed somebody, well
look at look at oj. He got away with it, right, that's
a whole another thing. You know what I'm saying. I do No,
I don't know what you're saying. And that and that's and that's the point.
So you know, the more as time has gone on, and now
that I see what West Virginia decided to do one, it was so West
Virginia. And by that, I mean, you know, the the university
has show this particular university and Gordon g in particular have shown that, you
know, the bar is much lower for them than than than for some others.
I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure if Jed Fish said this on our
show, he'd lose his job. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know, because they're how they're handling this other thing is wow,
I know, I don't know. I can't assume that you can think that
I don't know. That's why we haven't really kind, we've dentist around it
because we don't know what We don't know what the right punishment is if there
is a punishment, and there are some people say, well, Bob Hawkins
has done enough good things, and by that, I mean, you know,
he's put out kids who have gone on great careers, and he's coached
and he's been a you know, positive influence on so many so many athletes
and stuff like that that that should count for something. And maybe it should,
but maybe it should count for the fact that he no longer gets to
coach at West Virginia to give him a bunch of money and he goes,
well, I think that's part of it. Now, now that he took
away a million dollars, he's gonna be seventy next year, that his time
is gonna come anywhere exactly, and maybe that exactly and you know, um,
good luck to to cur Um. You know, he's gonna be out
there. I hope he enjoys his time there under under the coach. But
stuff happens. Yeah, well, just really quick quickly read and these guys,
you know, this is why these guys are national writers for you know,
sports illustrating whatnot Pat Forties, the second second paragraph to his to his
column says, then deciding to retain and moderately penalize it's Hall of Fame men's
basketball coach in the wake of him Crassley using an now an anti LGBTQ slur
on a Cincinnati radio station Monday, WVU made its pecking order clear. Nobody
else at the university could have gotten away with that casual public spewing of hate
speech and kept their job with relatively minor repercussions, Nor could any politician,
Colberton or other leader in the state. I don't think that's wrong. I
don't think that's false. No right, but they've said, okay, this
is you know, this is the level. You know, this is where
we put this position. So that's I don't know that. I will say
I do have some mixed emotions about our mixed feelings about it. I do
think ultimately I believe he should have been fired. I don't know if there's
a from my end, I don't know if there's a right or wrong way
to handle us. They felt that this was right given a year, and
you're a year to year, so you can easily say you're gone at in
the next your time, right, all right, we're top of the hour,
let's take let's take our break. Where to come back. Jason's gonna
break your news, right Jason, yep, all kinds of stuff. You're
probably took one for you exactly. And then Brian Hall from from the Boulder
Daily Camera will be here to talk about working with coach Priyank. We'll be right back