The countdown is on to fight time. This is Big Fight Weekend. Now
here is your host, DJ leaves Well, we get ready for a weekend
that has more action, some of it in England, some of it in
Inglewood, California, in the United States. We have a Hall of Famer
coming up on the podcast. We've got other news, We've got nostalgia,
We've got all kinds of things going on. It is the Big Fight Weekend
Preview. Hello, and welcome back into another edition. However you have found
us, Thank you for doing so. I am merely a somewhat capable host.
He is our insider from his Fight Freaks Unite substack, Bigfight Weekend dot
Com. Always in a cheery mood, but especially when he gets to spend
some time with Oscar de la Hooya. Hello, who's going to be on
the pod in a little bit, Hello, Dan Rayfield. I don't know
if I can say I'm always in a good one. When I talked to
Oscar, and Oscar be the first onemit that him and I over the years
have had a few ups and downs, mostly good. I like Oscar.
I was saying, in general, you're generally cheery, and there might have
been a tinge of sarcasm in that, but especially when you got Oscar conversation
coming up, which the peoples want to stand by for here a little bit.
Its a good conversation. I mean, you know, I'm in touch
with the Oscar on a regular basis, but this was the first time I
said, I jokingly said to him, I said, you know, Oscar,
I've probably interviewed a thousand times over the probably almost twenty five years I
have known him, but this the first time he's on our podcast. So
you know, I was happy to get him on. And there's plenty of
Golden boy action to talk about, and we covered it all. I love
it all right, So we got plenty to get to here on the program,
including unfortunately, it's now official what we've been talking about, but since
we were last on this podcast feed with the fight for each unit substack,
it's now official. That's it for showtime boxing. And as we often use
the silly cliche on board games, do not pass go, do not collect
two hundred dollars. It's over like Monopoly that I'm making reference to for show.
We'll talk more about that in a few minutes. There's fight news.
There are a couple of fight cards of significance. The Dezone show in Liverpool,
England features Jack Catterall against the veteran Jorge Lenaries and then Alexis Rocha.
This is one of the reasons why Dan got Oscar on the explosive welterweight is
the main event fighter for the Dez owned Golden Boys show. That's all the
way out in California. You're a long way from Liverpool, England. If
you're in Inglewood, California, those aren't close together. We're gonna cover both
continent to continent here and we've got fight news. We got nostalgia about the
Hitman, Tommy Hearns and the real deal Holy Field lots to be with us
about. Thank you for finding us social media link If you found this Big
Fight Weekend website, Dan substack his newsletter. Thank you for finding us,
Follow or subscribe and rate us and review us. For goodness, say give
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podcasts. Give us a rating and review all good stuff. So we got
to begin on a little bit of a downer. First of all, I
want to publicly again say thank you to you. You joined me a couple
of days ago as we released this podcast Thursday night into Friday on the Last
Word on Sports Media podcast, which is a media podcast. One of my
many hats, I probably have too many hats. Rayfield looks at my hats
every week when we're talking on the show on the video hookup. I do
have too many hats, but figuratively. And Lindley, but that podcast,
you did a great job just in a short form of talking about the what
what had happened where on Tuesday the announcement was made, So we covered a
lot of the what and we teased then we would have more full forum on
our boxing podcast for you to elaborate. So you did a great job.
Thank you again publicly talking the what about Showtime shutting down on the previous one.
So it's now official. It's a downer. It's settled in for a
couple of days. Give me your thoughts and what else you've been able to
glean and find out here moving forward, after the announcement has been made,
they're out of the boxing business after thirty seven years. At the end of
this year, Dan, nothing really new has changed, except I'm just even
more depressed now than I was when the news happened. You know, when
the first announcement came, you know, you spring into action. You know,
you got to write a story about it. So you trying to gather
the facts, you know, make sure your stuff's right about what they're historical
specifics are. You know, you get the comments, you know, you
get the statement from Paramount Global, which is the parent company. I had
a lengthy conversation with Steven Espinoza from you know, the president of Showtime Sports,
and talk some of the folks on the PR team to help me out
with a couple of small things, and you know, you just you do
what you gotta do, and then you start thinking about it and you're sort
of like, man, I just can't believe they're not going to be around
it because it's so ingrained, you know, even more so with the exit
of HBO five years ago, they were the only premium cable out there involved.
And as I have said repeatedly since this occurred a few days ago,
I don't know a time in my life as a boxing fan that did not
include either HBO, Showtime or both SO and and. And not only did
it include both, but they were the dominating way in which I watched and
became a boxing fan. Yes, when I was growing up, my original
fandom was forged by watching afternoon network television CBS, ABC and NBC. But
to be to become a diehard, it really meant later on HBO and and
onto a smaller degree, ESPN fights that were on at that time, USA
Tuesday night fights was a big part of it. But for the big time
fights in uh, you know, it was HBO and Showtime and that was
that was the main thing. Sure. And to think of a world where
neither one of them is going to exist now I understand change. I mean,
we all change. I mean, I mean I went from spending my
first bunch of years as a as a journalist with my material appearing on a
printed piece of newspaper that landed on your doorstep in the morning and then transitioned
to you know, ESPN, which was only a website. I still remember
having the conversation with the friend of mine about, you know, I'm gonna
be writing, but there's no there's no there's no clipping, there's no newspaper,
there's no it's just on a TV on a screen. It's like so
it was like getting used to that. But yeah, you adjust with the
times. I mean, one of the reasons I've always thought that that Bob
Aram and Top Rank have thrived compared to say, Don King's promotion company that
did not thrive, is because Bob embraced the change. When things went from
closed circuit to pay per view. He adjusted. When it went from pay
per view and streaming became or the Internet started to grow, he embraced it.
When it became streaming, his team embraced that. He you know,
he surrounded himself with younger people that that had had an understanding of those particular
aspects of the business, and that's why they still are on top and and
Don never adjusted. So it's sort of like adapt or die, is the
way I look at it an year. So I'm perfectly happy to adapt.
I've been doing it for many years on different things related to boxing. But
that doesn't mean that the demise of this great franchise doesn't hurt, and doesn't
resonate, and doesn't make me sad and doesn't upset me in and make me
nostalgic, you know, as they say. So it's disappointing. They have
had in a remarkable history. They started in nineteen eighty six, not with
a live event, but with they they had the rights to do a replay
about four or five days after Top Rank had done a closed circuit event that
was headlined by a great fight between then undisputed midway champion Marvin Hagler and what
was the second to last fight of his career against John the Beast Mugabi.
And from that moment until the Canelo fight that we just had, you know,
a few weeks ago, they have done and this includes Showbox pay per
view and all the events that they have done, almost seven hundred and fifty
boxing events, almost two thousand bouts, wow, around six hundred and fifty
world title matches, and they also on top of that, now we all
thought about HBO as like the behemoth and pay per view, and they've done
tons and tons of pay per views over their history, billions of dollars in
revenue. But when you cut down to it at the bottom line, because
Showtime been around a little bit longer, they had Floyd in the big contract.
In the end, Showtime has achieved sales that are four of the top
five pay per views of all time. Now, granted, two of them
are in conjunction with HBO. That's Mayweather pac Yo and Mayweather No maybe yeah,
that Mayweather pac Yo and those that was the one that was the joint
pay per view, But the other ones are ones that they did on their
own, you know, Connor McGregor and Mayweather, Mayweather and de la Hoya
is the one that's the HBO pay per view. Mayweather Canelo was the other
Showtime one, and of course number five the infamous Byte fight with the Vander
Holyfield and Mike Tyson. So they leave behind at just a phenomenal legacy And
basically I think I actually talked about this with Dela Hoya on our podcast.
I love that when we got into the Showtime stuff. If you take a
look at the thirty seven years of boxing on Showtime at one time or another.
Pretty much every single major fighter that you could think of with you know,
a few exceptions either appeared on Showtime or Showtime Pay Review, and the
one that didn't was Oscar because all of his big fights he never fought on
show ten. They're all his notable fights are on HBO or HBO pay p
Review. But everybody else, whether it's Lennox Lewis or it's many packet even
because of the one fight with Shane Moseley, plus the Mayweather fight, and
you know, on and on, there's guys that may have had one fight
on show, but at least had one. They had everybody at least one
time or another, just like HBO did. So they've it's been the cornerstone
of boxing in this country, at least in North America anywhere, and they've
been responsible for helping put on like the literally the biggest fights in the history
of the sport. And to now have them go into the dustbin of history
in the next couple of months, it's a new frontier and you know,
we'll see how they finish up. They've got a November twenty fifth event with
Demetrius Andre and David Benavidez on a pay per view, and then according to
my sources, and I've written about this a little bit, there's the prospect
of two other events, a Showtime Championship Boxing, possibly another pay per view,
possibly with some different fights that we've talked about. No more show Box.
You know. Unfortunately they don't get the send off episode like they should
have. Their last one was a few weeks ago, and you know they
were around that that series around twenty one years, you know, Showtime Championship
Boxing thirty seven years. So I don't know what else to say except you
know, I hope they do a great montage of highlight reel the way HBO
when they closed out their their franchise, at least they left us with an
incredible highlight reel of like a ten to fifteen minute thing with the proper sendoff
that I spine myself to this day. I don't watch day or anything,
but I watch it like, you know, every every you know, every
couple of months, every month, whatever, just for back of it,
because it's so well done and and Showtime and the Showtime fans and their staff
and the fighters deserved that because they have that rich history. It is amazing,
and for the people that have lost their jobs, unfortunately, it's awful.
Hopefully they'll bounce back. More on that in a couple moments. So
you gave me a lot there, I'll fill in a couple of things.
I still remember that March of nineteen eighty six replay in my youth. I'm
a teenager with the same age I'm sixteen years old. I had just turned
sixteen years old, and I remember we take that and I must have watched
that Hagler Mugabi fight like five times in and around when it happened. It
was that good of a fight, that exciting of the fight. For this
reason, I was living here. We had moved here my family to the
Tampa Bay area about three years before, right at the height of the rise
of John the Beast Bugabi as a junior middleweight and eventually a middleweight contender,
and so it was a big deal locally here that he was challenging Marvin Hagler
on this pay per view and that the replay was going to be on showtime.
So I vividly remember the first one, and then you've got so many
out in between. I remember I joked with you the pay per view at
my house for the first Tyson holy Field fight. I had a house full
of screaming people. I had just gotten married earlier that year. My wife's
looking at me, like, what have we gotten ourselves into with all these
idiots that are over here watching that one in ninety six? And on and
on down the list for all the great showtime fights and the people, I
want to say publicly too, thank you to them. Some of them will
obviously hear this at some point. Thank you to them for being good to
me, to the initiative of Big Fight Weekend, the website and the podcast.
When I created this back five years ago, they were kind of lukewarm
who are you? But then after a few weeks and a few months of
me hustling and chasing and them offering fighters and me interviewing them, we started
a great partnership, a great relationship of being able to get fighters on etc.
On the podcast, cover their fights on Big Fight Weekend dot com.
So they've been great, they've been great. This is unfortunate. I just
wanted to say publicly thank you to them, because, especially back in twenty
eighteen and twenty nineteen, they didn't have to help as much with the website
and the podcast. But they were great people to help. I'm going to
publicly say to Chris Deblasio, to Steve Pratt, to all those stabs of
pr people that were willing to help and go along with it. I'm grateful
for that because it sustained the site. It's sustained the podcast enough until some
guy named Rayfiel could come in with the Hammer of four and help out.
That's got all the contacts, etc. As you did about a year and
a half ago in our relationship. So I just want to get that out
there too. Yeah, listen, I mean, the showtime folks have always
been a pleasure to deal with. I've been dealing with them for my whole
career. A lot of them are the same people that I started with,
or you know, certainly have been many of them long term people, you
know, you name it. The people you mentioned obviously Espinoza and Gordon Hall,
and all the Announcersmorrow and Al Bernstein and Brian Custer and Abner Marris presently
and Jimmy Lennon, the ring announcer is you know, one of the best
in the business, one of the best of all time, uh, you
know, and other other guys that were on the crew over the years.
You know, Steve Forard, you know, does he's not on the screen
anymore, for all those Jurish showbox I mean I was friendly with Nick Charles
back in the day before he passed. Obviously, Barry Tompkins. I mean,
I'm sorry I forgot somebody, but I mean there's just a lot of
tremendous people Manalo as well Carling the fights now, yeah, absolutely, uh
and you got the you know, like I like you said, the whole
PR team. But I'm just I'm gonna run down a few, you know,
because the main thing, of course is the fighters and the fights that
they've done. That's what we remember. Mostly. We have relationships with some
of those folks behind the scenes. I'd be remiss not to mention my pal
Jim Gray, who I become friendly with over the years. You know,
uh, the tremendous at what he does. First of all, first and
foremost, Showtime Championship Boxing was the broadcaster that helped make this fight possible.
And it turned out they didn't know it at the time, but of course
you know it now. What many considered to be the greatest, if not
certainly one of the greatest, if not the greatest fight of all time.
I'm not trying to be exaggerating, because you can argue that it's the greatest
fight of all time. At least let's say that was recorded, because we
don't know what happened before television. We didn't see fights in the nineteen twenties
and tens and eighteen hundreds. But the night on May seventh, two thousand
and five, I was fortunate to be ringside at Mandalay Bay when Diego Corrals
and Jose Lewis Castillo met for the first time to unify two of the lightweight
world titles and put on one of the single greatest dramatic sports events in the
history of sports, not just boxing. This is as dramatic as it gets.
It's the best fight I've ever covered. It's the best fight I've ever
seen. It's not a hard pick to make, and Showtime made that possible.
So that's one of the most important things that they ever did in boxing.
But they had other huge things. I'm going to run down a couple
of things just to job people's memories. What we're talking about. What we're
losing here, for better for worse. Both the Vander Holyfield might Tyson fights.
The first fight an incredible fight and a great upset by Evander to win
the WBA heavyweight title, and then of course the ignominy of the second fight
where Vander Holyfield had his ear bit off by Tyson who got disqualified. But
they did both of those fights and plenty and plenty of other Mike Tyson fights
in Evander Holyfield fights that are memorable for lots of different reasons. Their biggest
move on a commercial basis probably was besides I think that actually goes above that.
They of course signed Mike Tyson back when he had his problems and him
and King had their issues with HBO, and they left and went and went
to Showtime. He did a couple of fights before he wound up in prison,
but then had his post prison fights on Showtime, So that was big.
But the bigger one, in my estimation, was when they signed Floyd
Mayweather away from HBO in twenty thirteen, which led to a whole series of
megafights that became the ones that broke all the records on pay per view,
including of course the fight they combined with HBO to do, which was the
biggest money fight of all time at disappointment in the ring, nonetheless, but
the money was there and people wanted to see. It was of course the
big fight with Manny Pakia. They also were the partner with HBO, and
without them it was it wouldn't happen. And likewise, without HBO the biggest
heavyweight fight of my time, which I covered, Lennox Lewis against Mike Tyson
for the heavyweight championship. This was in you know, a time when the
notion that these two companies would work together was alien. I mean Jay Larkin,
who ran Showtime Boxing for many many years before he was unceremoniously fired and
then a few years later died from brain cancer, who was a very close
friend of mine for a number of years, had one of the great quotes
of all time. Before they ended up making Lewis versus Tyson, he said
in an interview with The New York Times that that that fight would happen,
that that HBO and show Time would work together when when pork chops grow on
the palm trees of Tel Aviv. And Jay of course was Jewish and if
you understand what that means, you know, that's absolutely hilarious. You have
shared that with us before, but they did get along, they did make
that happen. They also were the host network and put these fights together and
bankrolled them, made them happen. All four of the fights between the great
Warriors Israel Vasquez and Raphael Marquez, the second and third fight, which were
both for junior featherweight, the junior featherweight world title of the WBC belt,
but also the lineal title, were both the fights of the year in two
thousand and seven, in two thousand and eight, and as I like to
say, if two thousand and seven did not contain the first fight and the
second fight, you know, talking about all three fights being the fight of
the air, but the first two took place in the same calendar year,
and so the second fight got the nod over the first fight. We kind
of disavowed the fourth fight. They were the network that brought to you the
fight between Julio Sazar Chavas and Greg Hougan, which drew the all time biggest
attendance in the history of boxing period, indoor, outdoor, pick a country,
whatever. I still remember watching the Showtime replay of that, not the
pay per view. I did not see the pay per view, but It
is just staggering to go back and watch how many people were at that fight,
I Hagen, It's unreal. The official attendance for that fight was one
hundred and thirty two thousand, two hundred and forty seven at Astecha Stadium in
Mexico. And besides that Chavs fight, they did a whole series of Chavaz
pay per views with Don King, who was a very, very significant person
in terms of putting on their events. They had an output deal with him
for many years. But they did great cards like Revenge, the rematches with
King, and of course the fights between Chavez and Frankie Randall, and just
a whole bunch of fights, and you know other Tyson fights, Felix Trinidad
fights, you name it. They were also a partner with HBO, but
they had the live rights to show it live, whereas HBO had the tape
rights. That same day, the twenty seventeen Fight of the Year in front
of ninety thousand people at Wembley Stadium in London between Anthony Joshua retaining the three
heavyweight belts Againstvladimir Klitico. One of the great events I've ever been ringside for
in my entire career, absolutely phenomenal. They put on which at the time
and still to this day, a very very interesting situation. They put themselves
in a innovative thing they did with the World of the Super six World Boxing
Classic, where they took the six top guys in the super middleweight division and
did a round robin tournament that produced quite a bit of interesting fights over the
years that dragged out a little longer, I think than people wanted it because
of injuries and different things, but it was it was well received at the
time, and of course this year it three huge fights. They got fights
done that we all wanted to see, and that's what makes the loss of
showtime so, you know, so ironic in the sense that they had one
of their bigger years in terms of maybe not on the network in terms of
the fights they did, but at least in terms of the PA per reviews.
I'm talking about Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia, which you know is the
biggest pay per view in a long time, over a million buys, and
then the two huge other fights that that were that we were well received in
popular fights of course, you know, the fight we all wanted to see
for a long time between Crawford and Eryl Spence and then you know the two
one disputed champions fighting each other, Canelo Alvarez and Jermale Charlow. So you
know, for them to go out like that, it's it's what. I
can't say anything other than it's a bummer and I wish everybody there good luck
in the fright. Two other things that will cover that, I promise.
We're moving on to the preview of the fights this weekend. Oscar Dala Hoya
coming up stand by with Dan on a bunch of different subjects, including the
Alexis Rocha main event for Golden Boy. As we go into the weekend that
is Saturday night in Inglewood, California, stand by for that. So I
want to put this to you because now getting into the dynamic of what happens
next. So for Premiere Boxing champions who's had the deal with Showtime, they're
displaced. They got to figure out what to do. I'm going to give
you a little bit of my opinion here because we go back and forth.
I think it's going to be a very hard go for them coming up because
Showtime has been able to lay out money. From what you've told me and
what I understand about the business and help them make money, and I don't
know that that same money is going to be there with whatever other streaming service
or whatever other deal. I don't know what they're going to end up with,
but I'm very curious. I will say this from this standpoint, and
I was much more on board with PBC years ago than now. They contributed.
It was not the only reason. They contributed to a big part of
the problem of the interest and what's going on by a lot of their fighters
not fighting frequently enough and people not caring enough. To me, I don't
know if it would have saved showtime, but it would have made a stronger
argument as far as I'm concerned, if the fighters were more active and there
was more interest. I am dumbfounded. Is we sit here, Dan Raphael
in November of twenty twenty three that Deontay Wilder has fought part of one round
the last couple of years. I'm gonna stop you right there, because I
hear what you're saying. We've talked about in a committee thousand years. I
want to say again I've said this because besides this podcast, I've had other
people interviewing about this. Also. I was on Chris Mannix's podcast, Who
Does a Fine Job. We talked about it. Some of my friends on
some of the YouTube channels have hit me up. Here's the bottom line,
and people can accept this or not. That is a wrong characterization. This
was not a boxing decision. They didn't just get rid of boxing at Showtime.
They disbanded the entire distur mma. No more boxing, no more documentaries,
no more of their podcasts that they do, basketball related things, MMA
related things, boxing related things, and other stuff that they've done. This
is not a let me repeat, this is not a box boxing decision.
This is a company, Paramount Global, that is going through massive, massive
changes, that is under extreme financial pressures, that is trying to move a
lot of its content scripted and otherwise to its streaming service. And so when
you look at the budget the line item if you will, and you see
I can save this much money by acting Showtime Sports. Yes, they do
generate some revenue because of the pay per views, but it's not necessarily enough
to offset the cost of the entire the entire existence of their department. That
it's an easy thing to say, Boom gone. Thirty eight jobs, thirty
eight benefits, thirty eight salaries, all the other expenses in terms of production,
you name it, the travel, the hotels, I mean, soup
to nuts. They're a widget. If you made a list of twenty five
things at showtime, you know, it doesn't matter. It could say boxing,
it could say you know, dry cleaning. It's all the same shit
to them. It's just a number on the bottom of a page and how
much money it costs. And it was eliminated, not because they weren't doing
big events. So the fact that Deontay Wilder fought one time has zero less
than zero to do with the exit of Showtime from pining hold on, hold
on, let me finish, finish, you missed it, missed it.
I'm gonna fi Okay, this is one of the rare This is one of
the rare times where I'm gonna stop you because you missed my point in the
first place, and you stopped me. I did not say that the reason
why Showtime is gone is because the fighters are inactive. What I said is
it's a contributing factor to the interest. And I brought it up in the
vein of where does PBC go from here? Because this has been their outlet
for the last basically two years except for a few of the Fox pay per
views, and what happens. And the point I was making is they have
inflicted this on themselves with inactive fighters, and I don't know where they go
from here. I did not say to you, I did hold on.
I did not say to you that's the reason why Showtime's demise happened. So
don't character that way. That's not what I said. Swat other people that
are saying that. Swat the troll, swat other people that are saying that.
I just wonder when you have fighters like Jamal Charlow who hasn't fought for
two years, two and a half years, you're killing your own product.
And if you have harp, you harp on Jamal Charlow pretty much every show.
It's not it's not their fault. Jamal Charlot has had his own problems
that are related to his real life, not his boxing career. If he
needs to be off for two years, then so be it. If he
has to deal with problems that originally were injury related. Now he's got issues
with his non boxing stuff, his family life, legal issues, perhaps some
you know the you know the no question, there's been discussions that maybe he's
been drinking a little bit too much, whatever you want to say, that's
got nothing to do with anything other than his own personal situation. Now you
want to be upset with the WBC for allowing him to become or to remain
the BBC Champion for all that period of time. We can have that kind
of station, but his is inactivity again, has nothing to do with any
decisions that are made. And I'm going to tell you another thing. And
I've gleaned this over the last few days. You ask me what else have
I learned? And just made me think about this. So I have talked
to several people that are involved with PBC directly, that are involved in their
whole endeavor, non showtime people, and when I tell you that, they
don't come across as even the slightest bit concerned. I had one person tell
me, just wait till you see where we wind up. Like I am
led to believe that they either have a deal in place that is not known
to the public or to the media just yet, or are on the precipice
of doing so. There's been a lot of conversation that maybe will be Amazon
Prime, maybe that will be and obviously, Amazon has millions of more people
that subscribe to their outlet than do to Showtime number one. But when I
talk to people whose livelihood, who is living is based on PBC events and
their paychecks that are derived from PBC, and not one single person in separate
conversations, not done like on a conference call, but you know, talk
to this person here, text with that person there, an email here,
an email there, and there is no concern on their behalf at all.
I am telling you the combination of knowing that and my own personal knowledge of
my past relationship with Al Hayman, which of course has not really existed for
many years, but I knew him pretty darn well for a long time when
we spoke to each other regularly. I'm not concerned. They're gonna find something,
and I think it'll be something good, I hope. So I do
not underestimate Hayman ever, once for one moment. Anybody that does, I've
said this before, does so at their own peril. So you can love
it, you can hate it. But I'm telling you PBC ain't going anywhere,
so time may be out the door, but they're gonna find another quality
and I'm not suggesting that they are going anywhere. What I am saying,
and this is factual, is the interest has diminished and it has finished because
the fighters haven't been nearly active enough most of them, you haven't been nearly
haven't been nearly as active as they should have been. That the interest has
diminished. And I will ask you that in the span of from April and
til September, what is that five months? Correct? They did three fights
that generated correctrobably close to over almost over over two and a half million pay
per view buys in three pay per views, correct, and all three took
place in the same building that all three generated gates and excess of twenty million
dollars correct. All of those things are correct. Okay, that does not
to tell me that there's a diminished interest the well, but that is an
outlier to the overall, which is what is out there. This is three
well, but you had three different situations that all came to a head.
A Dvante Davis hold On and Ryan Garcia fight that had been talked about for
two or three years came together, an aerrol Spans Terrence Crawford fight that it
took at least two years too long to make by all of our agreement finally
got mad. And then Canelo Alvarez is now back with them after having been
away from them, and he's a draw wherever he goes. So you put
all three of those together, yes, but I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna spit
some more facts. How about in January in a fight that by no means
was a super fight still did you know, decently on pay per view,
but did an all time record for a building that has been around for twenty
years over a five million dollar gate for Tank Davis against Hector Luis Scarcia.
That's not normal to do a five million dollar gate in that kind of seat,
right, and he in his situation, he is obviously a draw.
But they have other fighters where it is MSSON. I'm gonna, I'm gonna
give you another example. They did a matchup between David Benavidez and Kayleb Plant
that took place in March neither, I mean Kayla Plant had been on the
pay per view event against Canelo and got knocked out. But that was of
course, that was a pretty big fight that that that it was done,
that generated you know, with showtime, what over eight hundred thousand buys.
He did a fight with David. In that March fight, David had never
headlined a pay per view. Now, I'm not saying this is massive numbers,
but for a first guy, for a first time a side is pretty
damn good. Uh. They they got close to two hundred thousand buys and
they did it, did the hell of a game in Las Vegas. And
why and in part why do you think it did that? Well? They
were more active and people were wanting to see them fight each other and one
of them had a world above fact, both of them at world titles.
So that's part of my point. They didn't have oral titles in that match.
I'm not in that matchup, but they previously had and they had been
active and people and you stay understand that. What I'm saying is so that's
part of it I'm saying to you is that they have put on events that
people have wanted to see, whether it's been activity related or not. For
the buys in the main event. Uh, the point is to circle back
the decision made by Paramount Global to eliminate the boxing programming from a showtime and
the entire sports department is not a boxing related decision. That is the wrong
way to characterize it, period. Okay, and I repeat again, I
did not characterize that. That's others may be doing that. I didn't character
at the at the beginning on that. And we'll see where PBC ends up.
And by the way, it wouldn't be the first time that everybody was
led to believe that something is going to be fantastic on the other side and
it turns out to be an absolute dud. You're not saying that, I'm
just saying, let me just I want to clarify. I'm saying that based
on my conversations with people who I've known for a long time who are material
to PBC, where you would say, hey, you know, are you
a little worried? Are you gonna try to do something else? Like are
you concerned? Like you guys have plans and they are in separate conversations like
just wait, okay, they're not concerned. So if I take it one
step further, I got I got one more thing, and then we'll quickly
move on because we spend a ton of time on this. The logical thing
would be the three letters fox Fox to come back to them to somehow do
a deal I know you're shaking your head. No. But the reason that
that has some legs is because Fox has a network. Fox is about to
lose the WWE on Friday nights, for example, where they've been having wrestling.
Fox has a cable network. Fox has the capability of pay per view.
ARM broadcast network TV is a different dynamic. So I'm just I have
no idea. I'm just curious could they go back to them, because I
will say this, understanding enough about about this. The Amazon Prime thing sounds
juicy enough, but how many boxing fans are gonna gravitate? How many going
to buy the pay per view? That's an unknown. I think we have
to agree that's an unknown right now on who's going to gravitate to that because
Amazon hasn't been doing boxing, so we don't know. We'll find out.
We'll stay tuned and we'll find out. Agreed, We'll find out whatever it
is that they're doing, whatever they're fair enough on that. Oscar de la
Hoya coming up in a couple of moments. Let's talk first, Jack Catterall,
Jorge Lenares give me the quick version because chronologically that's up first from Liverpool,
England, The Dezone Show that's coming Saturday afternoon in US time. Give
me a little bit on that. Then we'll morph into the Golden Boys show
later Saturday night and then into Oscar. But go ahead on Cateral and lenares
well. Jack Catterall, of course, is the a side, and anybody
that has followed boxing and the drama that has surrounded Jack Catterall knows that in
February of twy and twenty two, after having not fought for the entire calendar
year of two and twenty one, he had fought in November of twenty twenty
and then all of twenty twenty one he was out of the ring, and
then in the early part of twenty two we finally challenged Josh Taylor, who
at that time was defending all four titles. He was the undisputed junior welterweight
champion. They fought in Glasgow, Scotland, and the fight ended and there
was a lot of people that felt like Jack Catterall won the fight, and
of course he ended up losing a split decision on Josh Taylor's home turf.
There were some of us who thought that Josh Taylor, you know, squeaked
it out. I actually was one of them. You know you can kill
me for that, fine, But I thought he squeaked out. I wouldn't
be upset if they had given the decision to Catterall. It was a very
I thought Catterall won the fight, but it's great for debate. He didn't
get the decision, no doubt so, but it was It was a humongous
controversy over there, and that's sort of been the sort of the rock around
Jack Catterall's ever since. So there was the prospect of other fights that did
not come to pass. There was lots of postponements and cancelations. Remember he
was supposed to who was he supposed to fight? I can't remember who was
There was a fight that was on the books that kept getting canceled and postponed
because of injuries and different reasons in COVID and whatever. And it finally just,
uh oh, I think it was was it a? Was it a?
Do you remember what the fight was? It was a contender fight of
some kind. And whoever he was supposed to fight also got injured. So
he had tried to fight Josh Taylor and Taylor was injured, and then Taylor
vacated the belts and then the Taya Femal Lopez fight was a much more lucrative
fight, which we understood to come to the United States and fight that.
So that's why Cattererall didn't get the rematch in that instant instant. So he's
just he's been chasing the clout and chasing the recognition. So okay, So
he finally he finally got back in the ring. He well, he parted
ways with the past promoters. He had been through a couple He had been
briefly with boxer. Then they couldn't put the fight together, which I still
can't remember what the hell the fight was. But anyway, he finally signed
with Eddie her and they did a fight in May of twenty twenty three,
you know, several months ago. It was a pedestrian win. He didn't
look very good. He won the fight fine. It was kind of a
route, but it was boring as shit. And now they get him back
on path and so now he's headlining this his own card in Liverpool on Saturday
against port halenaris So. While Jack Catteraut based on the victory or the non
victory or the split decision, however you want to describe it, against Taylor
he is regarded as one of the top fighters in the weight class. He
only got the one loss, and that was obviously the controversy. But he's
fighting Lenaries, who has been a good fighter in his time. And I've
been reading some of the material leading up to this fight where people are saying,
Jry Helenaris is a future Hall of Famer. Bullshit. I'm a voter.
I know, I'm not even sure he'll get on the ballot, much
less being voted into the Hall of Fame. So that ain't I mean,
that's that's just that's that's boxing hype one oh one, right there, Horry
A. Laris is not a future Hall of Famer. He was a really
good fighter for a long time, but he's got a whole shit a lot
of losses, and he's also a guy that lost fights he should have won.
I mean, a guy losing fights. I don't necessarily hold that against
him if're voting in Hall of Fame. You know, Sugar Ray Robinson's got
like whatever, twenty something losses, whatever it is, But no one's going
to say he's not a Hall of Famer. Por Helenaris ain't a Hall of
Famer. A really good fighter at one time, but he's a shell of
himself. I think this is Jack Catterall taking on the remnants of Forgele.
Lenaris, who has lost three fights in a row, not look particularly good
in any of those losses, including a decision loss to Devin Haney, a
stoppage loss is zaur Abdoliev, and another fight where he lost a ten rounder.
Granted it was close on one card, but the other were very wide
against Zorah Hamzarian. I mean, a guy you probably never even heard of,
with you know, three or four losses. So this, this to
me, is not a good matchup. I mean, I mean, I'm
gonna watch it because I'm interested to see what's up with Taylor. And I've
always liked Lenaris because at one time he was a super talented guy that could
do a lot of different things. But he's like ten years past his best
days. Give me. You know, they're making a big deal about the
fact that, you know, Lenaris has had success when he's traveled to the
UK, which is true. But how many years ago is that. We're
talking like seventeen fifteen, you know, fourteen when he was winning fights against
like Kevin Mitchell and and then Anthony Krola in him back to back fights.
This is the twenty twenty three version of poor hillinares ain't the twenty seventeen version,
which wasn't even the twenty fourteen version, So give me a break.
So that's the status here. If if Lamaris can win this fight, it's
a humongous upset. The Caterall is supposed to win, should win handily.
We'll see if he can do that and in his mind move on to potentially,
you know, the winner of Haini Progray or something along those lines.
Being that they're all in the match room stable, you know, it's one
of those things where this is a main event. To me, I find
to be kind of offensive, if you want to know the truth. And
I'm not trying to rip on any but I'm just being Catterall needs to be
impressive. I mean, that's what's going to help his stake in his leverage,
and that's what you've laid out there for that. So that's earlier in
the day, and then before we get to ask her talking about Alexis Rocha,
let's let Dan Rayfield talk in the preview mode about by the way,
yeah, go ahead, the fight that now it is really is the fight
that we were talking about. That that the reason he didn't fight for his
as he didn't fight Catros because they were trying to make the rematch with Josh
Taylor, and that's what kept getting scuttled because there was injuries and there were
promoter changes and whatever, and that never happened, and then the WBO cut
it off and said you gotta fight the mandatory with was just tia Fimo,
and then Caterall moved on and ended up signing eventually with Eddie Hearn and Natcherman
and moving to this direction. So yeah, it was the tailor rematch they
were trying to do that was scuttled on a multitude of occasions, no doubt.
So now Alexis Roache will fight Saturday night, Inglewood, California. Outstanding
welterweight rising contender, big puncher Giovanni Santillan is the opponent. Did I hit
it close? Ation Santia? All right? Fair enough? Santi On,
fair enough? That's the opponent. How long will Santion last? We'll see
what are your thoughts here? Roaches delivered some big KOs recently exciting fighter fought
real quick here on the Golden Boy Dezonne main event later Saturday night. This
is this is the anti Lenaries caterall. This is a good quality matchup.
This is a rising contender in roacha who's only got the one loss, who
is the mandatory challenger for the WBO title which Terence Crawford holds. If you
remember, he and his team agreed to step aside to allow the Crawford Spence
fight to deal for all four titles. But they are still in the mandatory
position, so he's risking that. But he also can use a little more
seasoning. I don't think there was any issue with that. He can still
make a good payday and increase his notoriety and his name recognition and continue to
build up his career. Not only is an exciting fighter, I believe from
watching his recent fights, he's an improving fighter. He's also a guy that's
starting to draw a bigger crowd. Like he's they're checking all the boxes,
like he really has the chance to move up to the next level of the
sport because of the fact that he's good, he's interesting to watch, and
he's got fans that will buy taking us been active back to the podcast.
Yes, this will be his third fight of the year. That's a good
thing. Now, his opponent, Santeon, is a very and this is
not now. The first two fights he had against George she and Anthony Young,
they weren't like the worst matchups in the history of the world by any
means, but they were fights that roacha was a sizable favorite in the fight
and no one expected anything other than what he did, which was to score
knockouts, and which is exactly what happened in the fight in January and the
fight in May. Santion's a different story. Santion is thirty one, and
oh he's not an old fighter. He's a southpaw. He is a real
guy. He's promoted by Top Rank. They don't just sign anybody. Now,
this is actually a good thing about the part of the boxing business that
we all complained about. But in this particular instance, Top Rank got a
good enough offer. And still even though as many shows as they have on
ESPN, it's never enough. And it was the perfect situation for them to
go and make a deal with Golden Boy to put their fighter in a fight
on their card and they'll have their representation go to the fight obviously and take
care of their business. But Santion's going to fight on this Golden Boys show.
He's getting this great opportunity to take out the mandatory challenger. And like
I said, he's thirty one and oh with sixteen knockouts. He's no joke.
He's a tough fighter from San Diego. So it's kind of a good
Southern California, you know, matchup between these two California fighters, and they're
fighting at the Forum, which is a historical venue for boxing. I have
covered several fights. It's I think it's you know, for my if you
gave me my choice, with all due respect to the Dignity Health Park,
uh and and what's now Crypto Arena and the other venues around the city.
Uh, for my money, my favorite place to cover fight in the LA
Area is definitely, uh the Forum now called the Kia Forms. We love
the nostalgia. The La Sports Arena very famous for a lot of reasons,
no longer standing. They tore it down. It doesn't exist anymore. But
this one, this one got refurbished. It was the fabulous Forum, the
Great Western Forum, et cetera. Got refurbished for concerts and events, and
so it's it's kind of neat it's still on that property Dan where they've now
built Sofi Stadium, the massive football stadium and the huge complex the Forum.
The Lady is still standing. Then, it's still it's interesting. It's a
it's a tremendous venue for fights. Like I said, I have been there
several times and I've always enjoyed it. And uh, anyway, this is
a real fight. This is a top contender against another rising contender, was
undefeated, who's had you know, not big big name wins, but some
solid victories in general, and so I have high hopes this could be a
competitive and interesting fight. By the way, Muhammad Ali ken Norton fifty years
ago in nineteen seventy three at the Forum with Chick Hearn on the call.
By the way, on the closed circuit at the former Laker's announcer. How
about I had a chance to cover at the Forum. I covered fights involving
Gnati Glovekin and Roman Gonzalez on their doubleheaders. Obviously, probably the most memorable
fight I covered there in terms of the way it ended, was being there
when Bernard Hopkins had what turned out to be the final fight of his career,
getting knocked out of the ring by Joe Smith at the Forum. I'm
trying to think of some other fights that covered there. I believe it was
the final fight of the career of Juan Danuel Marquez when he defeated Mike Alvarado
was at the Forum. That was a pretty good fight. So yeah,
I mean, I have to go through the list, but there's been a
bunch of fights I've been over there for a good lady is still standing.
And by the way, you know who made his debut at the Forum,
Oscar dala Hoya. What a segue, right, Phiel. I've been trying
for these and by the ways, and I got a pretty good one right
there. Yes, And when they listen to our podcast, that the interview
I did with Oscar his professional debut at the Forum came up in the early
part of the conversation in large measure because of this fight he's promoting at the
Forum. All right, So let's get to it now. Here is Oscar
dala Hoya on this fight card, the Golden Boy fight card, the situation
with Ryan Garcia and much more with Dan what's my honor to bring into our
podcast tonight none other than the Hall of Fame boxer and outstanding promoter from Golden
Boy Promotions none other than Oscar Delawye. Oscar, I've interviewed you probably about
a thousand times and knowing you for almost twenty five years, but the first
time you're a guest on our podcast, So thank you very much for doing
this. It's a pleasure, Dan, Thank you very much. And you
know, obviously you've you've been You've been very instrumental in the sport of boxing,
you know, to bring us, you know, the best interviews,
so it's really it's really an honor. I appreciate that. I want to
start off by talking to you. Have a you have a really interesting matchup
in your main event that Golden Boys putting on Saturday night at the Kia Forum
in Inglewood, California, a place you are very familiar with. The main
event is a welterweight contender Alexis Rocha twenty three and one taken on the undefeated
Giovan u Stantian thirty one and oh. And the first thing I want to
ask you before I ask you about the fight, and it's not the first
time Golden Boys put on an event at the Forum, where I have covered
many fights over the years, but I always think about it. You know,
you walk in the doors to that building and that's where the Golden Boy
made his professional debut thirty one years ago next month with the first round knockout
victory. When you walk through the doors there, what does it make you
feel like? Do you always remember what your pro debut was like? Well,
it makes me. It makes me think about the the very best and
the great fighters who have you know, walked into that arena. I mean
we're talking about, you know, from the late great Muhammad Ali sure and
myself making my pro debut and my gosh, thirty one years ago. It's
incredible. But you know it's it's by design that we uh that we that
we uh you know, organized this fight with Rocha and Santian, you know,
around around this anniversary. So it's, uh, it's a great opportunity
for two young fighters who are great fighters and uh you know, fighting for
respect and uh you know one is undefeated, Rocha has one loss, but
uh, you know they're both knocking on the door, you know, to
fight for that world title. And so I think it's gonna be one of
those fights where uh, you know, whoever has whoever has the that grit,
whoever has you know, the the stamina as well, and and and
and whoever can change up their game plans. I totally agree with you about
that. And when I made me think about this when I mentioned about it
is thirty one years ago next month that you had your debut was a first
one. Naka uh. The opponent that you're faced on Lamar Williams. Have
you ever in the thirty one years given a thought to yourself? Boy,
I wonder what Lamar Williams is doing. Now we know what Oscar deal Loi
is doing. Now I wonder what always happens to the guy that gets knocked
out by the star on the right. Yeah, you know what, I
actually I actually think about him quite a bit because you know, my first
fight is what is what started everything, and you know, I always think
about those beautiful moments, those special moments in my professional career, my amateur
career, and obviously one of them is my pro debut. So yeah,
and I never followed up on what he is doing. I'm curious to see
what he's up to. But you know, obviously I would always wish the
very best friend. Absolutely So another interesting element of this matchup between Roach and
Santion. You made the deal for the fight, even though Roach is already
sitting in this WBO mandatory position. Obviously, Terence Crawford is the undisputed champion.
I know you guys stepped aside to allow that fight with Errol Spence to
go through to be for all the belts. Crawford's future is is not clear
at the moment what he's going to do. There's a lot of conversation he
will do the rematch with Errol. They haven't decided to get on the wait.
I'm personally still a little skeptical that it will actually occur. But in
any event, obviously Roach is not going to just sit around and wait.
And I wonder, how do you go about maneuvering him if he wins Saturday,
to make sure that he's there to fight for the title, or perhaps
against Crawford he wants to defend, or whatever comes next. I mean,
you got to kind of lay things out, don't you sure. I mean,
look, the we do know that Crawford is going to stay at one
forty seven. We do know if the rematch does happen, it has to
be at one forty seven. Why why is that? I don't know that
he's staying at one forty seven. Do you know that for her? Crawford
has mentioned in the past that their contract states that the rematch has to be
at one have it. I've heard different, but okay, but either way,
either way therefore therefore that's why therefore, that's why the fighter is not
taking place at one fifty four. That's been the hold up. But you
know, the w BO convention was uh took place recently and uh and I
sent Eric omes there, you know, to uh to uh to to make
sure that that Rocha, you know, is next in line for for for
Crawford. We did step aside already and uh, Rocha wanted to once wanted
to stay busy. Rocha wanted to to to stay active, and he wanted
to stay active against a tough, undefeated fighter. And so I was very
surprised that Rocha chose Santian. But then again, that's that's Rocha for you.
He wants to fight the best and he wants to stay active. You
know, that's what a fighter should be doing. If you're in a position
when you're knocking on a door to fight for a world title and you just
quite not have that opportunity. Uh uh you know, you stay busy,
and you and you and you and you keep your your tools sharp. And
so this son beyond sight is a is a perfect example of of what a
fighter should be. A fighter that that that knows, uh, he has
a short window of opportunity, and you should take advantage of him. Well.
And it seems to me, Uh, maybe I'm wrong, but I
suspect when I've watched his recent fights that he's because he's been active, he's
getting better, He's drawn a crowd. Uh, isn't that what it's all
about? Yeah, he's drying a crowd. He's getting better, you know.
He Uh, he's he's understanding what it takes to to to potentially become
not only a champion, but a star. And so you have to go
out of your way. You have to do the work. You're when you're
a fighter, when you're a boxer, your dreams are to become a champion,
yes, but to become a star takes takes takes your time. It
takes uh, it takes strategy, It takes uh, you know, it
takes it takes everything you have knowledge. It takes you know, some planning
with your team and thinking outside the box. So you know, Roach's the
perfect the perfect package, and I think that if and when he does become
world champion, uh, he will not just become world champion, he will
become a star. Well. One of the guys that Golden Boy promotes who
has already become a star is Ryan Garcia. You've recently announced his next event,
coming off of the loss to Gervanta Davison. What will go down presumably
as the biggest money fight of the year in terms of pay per view,
at least in the United States. I mean, Tyson Fury's got his event
coming up. We'll see what happens there, but certainly Garcia and Davis was
a huge, huge event December second in Houston, Texas at the Toyota Center
against Oscar Duarte, one of your other fighters. So I want to ask
you about that. First of all, what is your take on Ryan's new
training situation After he lost to Davis. He and Joe Goosen parted ways and
now he's gone to work with Derek James, who obviously has shown himself to
be a top trainer in his own right, with a great stable and plenty
of guys he's worked with. What's your take on on the trainer change for
Ryan. Well, my take on the trainer change is that Ryan made a
great choice because I've I've heard from several sources that Joe Goosen had no control
whatsoever. I heard from several sources, and this is not me saying it.
I heard from several sources that Ryan would show up whenever he would want
to show up, that he wasn't really focused, and then he wasn't.
He wasn't one hundred percent. But the new trainer that he chose, I
believe will get him in tip top shape. He's a serious trainer, he's
he's developed, developed world champions, so you know, I I I strongly
feel that and I hope that this relationship is a is a good relationship for
the sake of Ryan's career because for him, sky's a limit. Look,
he got knocked out against against Gravante Davis, and I was very surprised that
he chose Oscar Dwarte, who's a knockout artist, right, he had I
believe, eleven knockouts in a row. He's a serious fighter, a serious
puncher. So it's gonna be very interesting how how Ryan Garcia, you know,
utilizes those new tools that he's been that he's been learning, uh,
and that he's been you know, sharpening. So I I'm very curious to
see what's gonna happen. It's gonna be a great fight. Oscar Dwart is
gonna come forward. He's gonna come with everything. He's motivated, he has
nothing to lose, and he has a great record, great power, great
skills. So yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah, you're right,
by I just counted while we were talking. He has in fact one eleven
in a row, and the one time that he did solf for a loss,
it was a split decision over ten rounds, so it's not like he
got knocked out in the first round by something like that. The other interesting
thing I find about the whole situation with the upcoming Ryan Garcia event, and
this is not exactly a trade secret. Here you are working on this event
with a golden boy and Ryan and his team, even though you have a
loss repenning against him over your contract, and obviously that has to be a
little uncomfortable, I suppose, But from another point of view, it's like,
okay, you have a difference of opinion about the agreement, but everybody
seems to be being mature about it, and you're going forward and doing the
event while the legal portion of it gets itself settled out, whether it's court
or I know you have mediation, etc. How is it like to work
on an event when you know there's obviously an issue between the company and the
fighters? It's all business, gotcha? And just like Ryan has in the
past, it's all business and uh, you know, we're here to work,
We're here to do a job. We obviously know we have a solid
contract. We obviously know you know that that we wanna you know, do
the best for Ryan. We wanna you know, make the best fights possible.
And uh, you know, the mediation was uh was was just a
a a a place where we can just you know, iron things out and
uh and make sure that everybody honors their contract. And so I strongly feel
that everything will be okay. I strongly feel that we'll move forward and just
you know, business as usual. And how did that mediation go? Mediation?
Mediation is great mediation. Uh you know, it gives you the opportunity
to, uh to iron out your your differences. It gives you the opportunity
to uh to maybe uh you know, find out the facts it gives us
the opportunity to to just you know, move on with your career. Look,
we both know that Ryan has a great future. We both know that
we have a contract. We both know that you know, we as promoters
want the best for Ryan. So it was a matter of just ironing out
a few things and you know, we strongly feel that this will be over
and done with very soon and we can just all move forward. Okay,
I'm glad to hear that as it relates to that event that Ryan is going
to have on December second with Duarte. Obviously he's going back to the full
fledge one hundred and forty pounds. Obviously he made the catch weight of one
hundred and thirty six to fight the tank fight. And so there's been a
lot of conversation that one of the fights that may be on that card is
you have recently signed O'Hara Davies, who is a top contender from the UK,
and the WB has ordered him to fight Ishmael Barroso, who had fought
against Roly Romero who was on the shelf with an injuries there in line to
fight for the vacant title, while or rather the interim title. I should
say, well, Raley is getting better from his injury, are you gonna
be able to make that match and put it on a Ryan's card and set
up the possibility of him fighting the Winter for a title. Well, yeah,
I mean it's very interesting. You know that you mentioned that we are
working on something like that, and actually we are working on that. Well
yeah, but you know, it's it's a perfect stage for any one hundred
and forty pounder is a contender. Who is you know, in line to
fight for a world title? You know Ryan Garcia? You know he he
generates eyeballs. Ryan Garcia is now a pay per view star. So this
this platform that we have in front of us, We're going to utilize it,
you know, smartly, and make sure that we showcase the right fighters
on the undergard. So one thing that happened recently with your announcement of the
Garcia fight and getting ready for the Roach event was I don't know. Oscar
de la Hoya went on his Instagram and posted some photos of him with his
old buddy and former promoter Bob Aaron from Top Rank talking about meetings with each
other. You had your arms around each other, I mean, I know
you and Bob. If you've had your ups and downs over the years,
but I feel like at this time, you know, you guys are cool
with each other, and you did this fight between Roach and Santion together,
no purspid, no nonsense. You made them an offer for their fighter,
Santion, and they're doing the fight. And I love to see when people
can work together without being forced to do so. So now you got to
tell me what the heck went on with your meeting with Bob. What was
that all about? Yeah, I mean, look, first of all,
first of all, it was great to see Bob. It's great to be
working with him to make these types of fights. If you take a look
at this card for Shaturday Night, we have I believe three promoters. Were
working with Samson Nikowitch, were working with Migo Coto, and we're working with
Bob Aram. So my message to to the boxing world, to the boxing
promoters, you know, I want to keep my word and make sure that
we give the fight fans the best fights possible. It was a great,
pleasant talk with Bob. We discussed Ryan Garcia, we discussed the OPEMO,
we discussed how to make the best fights possible. Look, Bob is Bob
is ninety two years old, or I believe he's been ninety two for the
last fifteen years. But you know, Bob is energetic, Bob is happy,
Bob is Bob wants to, you know, make the best fights,
the biggest fights, and just have a good time. That's exactly how he
told me. He wants to have a good time making them. So,
you know, I seriously think that that that me and Bob will be doing
some business together in the near future, starting with this fight. And uh
you know, I believe that sky's the limit and and and and and this
message to all the promoters. If we can work together, if we can
set our sides, our egos to the side, we can make the fight,
make the fights that the fans want to see. So how realistic is
I mean? I've heard you talk about like a big perhaps a Super Bowl
weekend kind of fight where it's uh tia Fimo defending the world title against Ryan
if he wins on Saturday. I mean that's a huge fight, of course,
I mean how realistic can you actually? It's one thing to talk about
it, it's another thing to put it into action because there is still the
fact that you know your your vents are with his own. Bob has a
disagreement with with ESPN. It is possible to work together, as we have
seen in recent times. How realistic is that match? It's it's very very
realistic. And look like I said, Ryan Garcia, even though he lost
to Tank Davis, Ryan Garcia has a fight with Oscar Duar to December second.
But Ryan Garcia is still is still kind of like the gatekeeper there and
at one without a title because Ryan garciel is the one that sells. I
just want to jump in. I don't think you mean gatekeeper because that has
a negative path. Sorry, I think you mean he's the rain He's the
rain maker. He's yeah, he's the rainmaker exactly. He can make it
rain and obviously anybody fighting him will make the most money possible. But yeah,
fighters like TiO Femo, fighters like Devin Hamy and Pro Grace and uh,
you know, anybody at one forty who makes sense. I strongly feel
that that we can make. And when I said about you know the super
Bowl of Boxing, yeah we can do something like that, I mean Barbara
promotes you know, uh uh uh course Stevenson. Uh Barbara, can you
know match him? Up again star guy William Sapeida, for instance, which
will be in a terrific fight. That's a great fight. We can do
Ryan with Fio Fimo on the same card. You know, when I'm talking
about the super Bowl of boxing, you know, I'm talking about the big
picture here with the sphere opening, and I mean imagine that pay per view.
It would be the numbers would be astronomical. Well, I'm never one
to say never, but if you can somehow make a fight card where you
had Ryan Garcia challenging Tiafimo Lopez for the forty pound world title and Shakor Stevenson,
which would theoretically be a defense of the lightweight title, which he is
in line to win if he, you know, with these victorias in a
few weeks and that chim up against the paid on the same card. I
will tip my hat to everybody involved. And plus and plus I would love
to to face him and Mungia with somebody like Berlanga where matchroom boxing is involved.
So this is what I'm talking about, man, this is what I'm
talking about where we should be working together. There's a lot of money in
the pot. You know, there's a lot of money to be you know,
shared with, so you know these are the events that these are the
events that we must think about and think outside the box and make them happen.
Well, you you just touched on the next topic I wanted to ask
about, which was Jim and Mangia. My understanding, you tell me if
I'm wrong, is that while it's not done yet by any means, there's
still a lot of a lot of stuff to get done, at least in
terms of agreements, in paperwork and the particulars. But that Jimi would fight
perhaps at the early part of twenty twenty four. I've heard the name John
Ryder come up, who is a matchroom fighter also, and then Edgar Berlanga
is do also to fight a fight come o at the beginning of the year
January issue, maybe February, and the two guys would do their fights.
But going into those fights have an agreement in place with each other and with
the zone to deliver them against each other in the summertime. Is that a
plan that's in the works. Well, it's not a plan that's in the
works, but I love it. I mean, you you hit the nail
right on the head. I mean you you know better than anybody else that
you know, us promoters, especially Bob aram and Don King. That's the
way they worked, you know, they would set up their their future fights,
you know, you know, and and and think about the bigger picture.
You know, Jimi Mungia against John Ryder is a terrific fight. I
agree with that for sure. Yeah, it would be a terrific fights.
And imagine if Jimi Mungia knocks out Rider and something that Canelo couldn't do,
so that would that would be that would be something that I'm very interested in.
Well, it's certainly not something that you're not known about. Because when
you were getting ready to fight Julio Chavez, Bob Aeron put you guys on
the same card, prelude to glory, and then you fought each other after
you both beat your opponents. You did the same thing when Top Rank was
setting up the big, humongous fight between yourself and Bernard Hopkins. You fought
together on the same card and both got your victories and then moved on fight
each other. So obviously that is something that is tried and true in the
business. I hope that that hope that can happen. What better way,
what better way? Than to promote your your next fight. What better way?
I mean, it's a it's a perfect need way, it's a perfect
commercial, you know, to set up your next fight. And is that
what you're going to work on then try to do? And I'm not saying
that that Berlanga and and Mongia would fight on the same card with each other
necessarily, that I don't think is in the works, but uh, is
there going to be a plan to try to get them in the ring and
have them fight ahead of time before they fight each other. It's it's it's
it's definitely a plank. It's definitely a plan. I strongly feel them that
look us promoters and everybody in boxing. You know, I was a fighter
first, and I sometimes think like a fighter when I'm promoting fights. I
think like a fighter when I'm negotiating fights, and you know when when promoting
a fight, I mean, this is this is the perfect opportunity, you
know for a fight to get made, you know, fighting on the same
card, announcing the fight is the next fight on inside the ring or yeah,
this is this is you're reading my mind. Yeah, I just thought
when you were saying that, I thought of a recent example also or at
least more recent. Anyway, when when the when we finally saw the first
fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gnati Glovekin, you saw Canelo Alvarez score of victory
or what happened your March triple g into the ring to the music to announce
the fight. So it's not you know, this is not exactly it's not
rocket science. Exactly, it's not rocket science. But you know, you're
you're dealing with a lot of people who do not understand and you know,
like fighters, like managers. Uh, but it can be done a hard.
I want to turn my attention another topic a little further north. On
the weight Uh on the weight scale, Uh to Mangia and that's your cruiserweight.
Your your new cruiserweight. Zero Ramirez Gilberto Zerdo Ramirez who made his cruiserweight
debut on October seventh against Joe Smith, which I thought was interesting fight going
in, both guys moving up in weight, both guys you know, in
need of a victory coming off defeats, and I thought Zerdo Ramirez look maybe
as good as I've ever seen him look. He looked comfortable at the weight.
He he what I made the joke when he first got in the ring
and I saw how big he looked, like I said, oh my god,
he ate Canelo. But but he but he looked really good. I
mean, I mean that was just a joke. But he looked light on
his feet, he got snappy, quick hands as he moved very well.
He always had a good chin. And you know, Joe Smith is no
joke and he beat him rather handily. I thought, So it seems like
he can become a factor in the cruiserweight division obviously if he fights you know,
the other top guys. It's fighters who are already get in that weight
class. But what do you make of his performance? And should he have
been fighting at cruiserweight, you know, a couple of fights ago. Sure,
no, Look he is a big kid. He he should have been
fighting at cruiserweight several fights ago. But he looked amazing. He looked impressive.
Like you said, he was moving eight on the seat. His head
movement, his his waiste movement was was incredible against a solid, solid,
tough fighter, heart puncher and Joe Smith. And he's surprised everybody. And
uh, you know, I I do have to uh take my hat off
to uh I believe it's Malik Scott. Uh that that is his trainer who
who was in his corner and he was just amazing there. He it's a
perfect fit for sudo. Malik Scott was just incredible, uh, giving him,
uh the perfect instructions and uh, you know they're great, They're they're
perfect combinations. So I think for Suo that you know, we're gonna sit
down with him. But I do like, I do like a fight for
a world title at cruiserweight, possibly with a Baduo Jack for instance. I
mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, but do my understanding
and having communicated with the WBC as well as with personally, that his title
is currently vacant. He is gonna you know, or he's in recess.
His his goal in mind at the moment is he's going to move up to
the bridgerweight division, which the WBC created, and he's gonna look to win
a title there. Uh, to go for what would be a title in
another weight class. I don't think that's necessarily in the cards. I was
thinking and I'm acting on what our good friend Chris Mannick said on the broadcast
when Zerto fought. You have a ji Opataiah who was with mattrim but you
but they're both on his own. Who is the number one cruise of weight,
the lineal champion, the IBF champion, who looked spectacular in a knockout
victory in a fight a few weeks ago, just around the same time that
Zerdo had his fight. Look, I mean, I know he may not
be the biggest name, and you know, frankly Zerto maybe not the biggest
name, but you know, that's a hell of a fight. Is that
something that would cross your mind because it is makeable? And I say that
given that you're on the same broadcaster, absolutely, absolutely, where is open
to anything. Knows that is his window of opportunity is closing. Surdo knows
that he must take advantage of of of what's left of his career, you
know, and his career is bright after his last performance. But you know,
I think that you know, any opportunity that arises, you know sort
understands that he must take. So yeah, it's definitely a possibility. And
you know, I'm I'm open to to to working with anybody, Like I
said, So I want to ask you also about a fighter who unfortunately isn't
active like the guys we just talked about. And that's Virgil Ortiz, the
welterweight. Obviously everybody knows if they followed this thing for a while. He's
had his medical stepbacks, his problems. Unfortunately, no fights in twenty twenty
three, obviously not scheduled for twenty twenty three. Has only had four fights
Oscar in the last four years for obviously reasons, because I just mentioned with
his medical issues. The fight that with Stanionis was postponed a few times,
once because of Stanionis's medical problem when he had to have an apendectomy, but
the other times because of Virgil's issues. What's the latest on him? Is
he is he healthy? What are we gonna see himack in the ring?
And is he gonna fight for you know, a bigger name. I mean,
he tantalizes with his such talent and such power and such a good attitude.
And I've known Virgil since he started pro He's such a nice guy.
You want to see success for the kid. Uh, But where are we
going with him right now? I actually just spoke to him not too long
ago, a few hours ago, and Dan, let me tell you,
he is is on a mission. I mean, he understands that he lost.
He lost some time, you know, because of medical issues, because
of you know, certain reasons. But he is on a mission. He
wants to become world champion. He uh, you know, we we have
a possible date penciled in for him in early January, first couple of weeks
of January. Uh, we will, we will work on his opponent.
You know, he obviously does to move up and wait, it can even
be at one sixty. He's a big kid and so but he is ready
to go. He's training, he's healthy, and I strongly feel that everything
happens for a reason. But his attitude, his attitude change is scary.
And when when Vergio or teases angry in that ring, you better watch out.
I think I think anybody at one fifty four or one sixty is unnotice
because Vergio is coming for everybody. He's he's on the mission, and so
I'm really looking forward for his coming back. Well, he's got all his
wins by knockout at nineteen, you know, and like you mentioned, he
he's not like an old shot fighter. He's only twenty five years old.
So the window is still open pretty good if he can get healthy exactly,
and you know, this is the perfect time to just go after everybody at
one fifty four with with Aero Spence possibly moving up and with Crawford, you
know, being a big weal throughweight. You know, sky's the limit to
make these big fights happen. Well, making big fights happen. That kind
of leads me into the last topic I want to ask you about. So,
there's been a million big fights over thirty seven years on Showtime. In
fact, I was thinking about this. If you take a look back to
the last thirty seven years, at one time or another, pretty much every
big name fighter had at least one fight on Showtime or Showtime pay per The
only really major, major exception is Oscar de la Hoye, who had all
of the big fights in your career either on HBO or HBO pay per view.
But they have announced, and it's not a surprise. Everybody sort of
knew what was coming. It's depressing, but they made the official announcement this
week that they are exiting the boxing business. Not only the boxing business,
but they're shuttering the entire Showtime Sports department. It's going to cost the thirty
eight people their jobs and the entire department is going to go away. But
their legacy is unsurpassed by pretty much nobody other than maybe HBO. I mean,
even though you never fought on Showtime, you know the people there,
you know, for those who don't know, Steven Espinoza, who was the
president of Showtime Sports UH for the last twelve years. Before that, you
know, he was one of Golden Boys attorneys for many years, so he
was involved in tons of Golden Boy events. And your company had a period
where you where you were a strained from HBO, and you did a whole
bunch of events on Showtime for years. So I wonder when you see such
an important player in this business that that you make your living in, that
I make my living in uh no longer going to be involved in boxing at
the highest level or at all. What does that make you think, not
only for that situation, but for the future of the business. Sure,
I mean, look, it's it's uh. It's was a sad day for
for for boxing. You know, Showtime, like you said, I mean
put on some of the best fights in the history of the sport. You
know, you go back to Tyson and Javis, I mean Trinidad and most
recently with Crawford and and spends and tanks. So they they've done they've done
a great, great job, you know, showtime, and you know,
obviously it's it's a sad day. But all I can think about is opportunity.
All I can think about is this is where us promoters, This is
where the boxing industry, the the the the uh you know, the the
heads of boxing, the behind the scenes h this is where we must get
together and and unite and come together and look for that and find that next
platform that we can mold into the next you know, the next Showtime,
the next HBO. Because as you know, Dan, that everybody's cutting the
cord. Uh. People are still watching linear TV, but you know,
uh, you know, everything is headed towards digital, and so I strongly
feel that there is opportunity out there. You know, boxing, when you
put on the best against the best, generates millions and millions and millions of
dollars, millions and millions of eyeballs. And you know, I cannot see
any executive from any other platform or linear TV, you know, not noticing
that. So I strongly feel that, yes, it was a sad day,
but there is opportunity. Well, I echo that, I hope you're
right. I agree with you. I do think somebody else will fill that
gap. Hopefully it's sooner than later. Oscar, thank you very much for
doing this. I'm always happy to talk to about all these different topics.
I wish you a good success with the event on Saturday night as well as
all the events we were talking about, and just say thank you very much
for doing it. All right, you got it man, Thank you all
right. Oscar, there you go, Oscar de la Hoya, the Golden
Boy. You gave us a lot there. Oscar gave us a lot there.
Besides just Alexis roacha in the main event Saturday night at the Forum in
Inglewood, including the ying and the Yang with Ryan Garcia fight coming up.
But they're still trying to work it all out. You want me to do
the doctor Phil impression? Don't you still have love in your heart for him?
They're trying to work it out. Mediation is like marriage counseling. They're
trying to work it out. Will they work it out? We'll see if
they any other final thought. They were talking to Oscar as you did at
length. Oscar, I think when he talked about the Ryan situation, he
says, look, it's business, and that's exactly what it is. And
an Oscar has been in these situations with other people. He's done business with
Bob Aram in particular, and here we are all these years later, and
they got their arms around each other and they're taking Instagram photos and talking about
doing big fights together. So you know, whatever aggravations take place between people
within boxing in terms of the business, oftentimes time heals all wounds, and
hopefully that will be the case in what's going on with Oscar and Ryan and
his team. But I just enjoyed talking to Oscar because we went into a
lot of stuff as people heard about his top guys zert O Ramrez, and
he talked about Williams of Paida, and about what's up with Virgil Ortiz and
and of course to fight on Saturday, and and the pro the probability or
possibilities of what might happen with Haimil Munggee and the potential of the Edgar Berlanga
fight, his reflections on Showtime and their exit, given that he worked with
those folks at Showtime for many years with Golden Boy Promotion. So I've always
enjoyed my interviews with Oscar. Is always good give and take, and this
was just another all right, some news, some nostalgia, and then we
are done. The Devin Hany Regis Progray kickoff press conference happened earlier this week
for the one and forty pound title that Progray holds that upcoming December pay per
view. They also announced the undercard. Thoughts on that real quick, on
what you saw, Well, once the lunatic hype man for Regis Progray stopped
yelling and screaming non stop for the first several minutes of the press conference and
cursing like a lunatic like and and Bill Haney, Devon's trainer and father and
manager, and Devon himself kept looking over to be like, who are you
because I mean, it wasn't anybody that I've ever seen on regis Es team.
It wasn't his trainer, you know, you know, so as ye
had the Dais was was Devin and his dad and Eddie in the middle,
and then Regis and his lunatic who was cursing for ten minutes whatever. Once
that subsided, that was I almost wanted to turn the press comments off.
It was so terrible. Well, once the two fighters, they know they've
been circling each other for a while, they've had their sake. There were
some good quality talk between them. There was what I found interesting was the
well and this was something that was brought up. I think it was by
Regis that brought this up. That many folks who are looking at this matchup,
which is a good fight, by the way, and what I also
find interesting about it the fact that they're doing this December ninth fight in San
Francisco at the Chase Center. There hasn't been a world title fight in San
Francisco and pretty much like more than a decade, I believe. The last
one was when there was a title fights involving on a double header back in
the day when Floyd Mayweather was a title holder at one hundred and thirty pounds
and Manny Pacyao was a title holder at one hundred and twenty two pounds and
they were on a double header with each other on HBO. That's how long
ago. This is like nineteen or like two thousand and one thereabouts, something
like that. But it's been a long time two thousand and two, but
it's been many, many years since there's been in a title fight. But
Devin was born in San Francisco, that's why the fights there. So they
put the press conference outside in front of the big new, beautiful building they
built for the for the Golden State Warriors. Anyway, the interesting part was
the convention. No wisdom of the fight between these two guys is that people
view it in many respects as this is a matchup of the speed and the
skills of and of Devin Hainey and and just the aggression and the punching power
of Regis program, which sounds about right. But Regis went on a whole
thing about how look, I've got skills also, and that was a whole
big conversation. And I find it to be a fascinating matchup. I mean,
like I've discussed before, I'm disappointed that in America it's or in North
America this is a pay per view where if you get the zone around the
rest of the world, it's just part of your regular subscription package. Let's
see what they announced as the price point, which they have not yet done
putting the paper you aspect a side. It's a good fight, and the
press conference, other than the lunatic on the Regis Program team, they got
me more interested in the match. You're going to say something about the undercard.
A second, but two things. One Eddie Hearn revealed, for whatever
it's worth, they've already sold nine thousand tickets. I would be curious that
they do a pre sale with like the Warrior season ticket holders, which sometimes
happened. So was that maybe part of the factor. So when you talk
about preestyles and what tickets are being sold for it when things tick off.
I mean, I'm not trying to kick dirt on anybody or be a dick
about it. I just don't believe those are authentic sales. I mean,
I hope they are, and it'd be great if it is, but give
me a break. I mean, right, their job is to h that
stuff up. I mean, we don't know, all right. But one
other thing, and you will probably remember the name of this individual you just
jogged me that there was a member of Tyson's entourage in the late nineties and
the early two thousands, and his job was to be okay, Crocodile.
And so I remember this interview with Crocodile that he did on my local station
because they had him on for some reason and they said, well, tell
us about it, really, what your job is, And he said,
well, my job is two things, to help protect Mike and to yell
gorilla warfare. He goes, that's my job, go around and yell gorilla
warfare. Gorilla warfare, all right, So I could think when you were
saying that is this guy twenty years ago saying essentially my job protect Mike but
mainly yell gorilla warfare. So at least the guy who was on the DAIS
with Regis is not a guy that's only there to do the yell gorilla warfare.
He is also apparently Regis's strength and conditioning coach. He actually does have
a role. As far as the undercard goes for pay per view purposes,
you know, it's whatever you got. Liam Parro, who is a junior
walteraway from Australia, undefeated fighting Montana Love who is coming off the disqualification loss
against Parros Australian countryman Steve Spark who we threw out of the ring WWE style.
Not the worst fight and we all, I mean Montana Love duck to
fight with Richardson Hitchins because he knows he would have got his clock clean in
that fight in terms of losing probably every round. But nonetheless they're matching up
in the co feature, you've got the light heavyweight Andy Cruz, who is
now one in er but is going to move very fast. He was the
twenty twenty Cuban Olympic gold medalist. He's fighting it's actually this is actually a
solid fight against Tector Tanahara, who has been out it as a one time
prospect by mc coomers. Just got the one loss. That's a that's a
interesting because that's a that's a huge step up for a guy in their second
professional fight. I mean, Andy Cruise is fighting ten rounders in fight number
two. Uh and say whatever you want about Hector tanaha but he's a real
guy. Uh So that that's kind of interesting. And then another fight that
they announced as part of this pay per view is the IBF Women's bantamweight champion
Ebony Bridges. She's going to defend against her Australian country woman, Avril Matthew,
who's coming off her first loss. But uh uh, you know,
Ebony has been Ebony Bridges has been in some kind of barn burner type fight,
so hopefully they put on a good show. And and by the way,
she's more than a pretty face, she's tough. She's been bloodied,
she's been beaten up and she's one some and so that there's intrigue there,
there's I mean it's not it's not entertaining. Yeah, Ebony is a she's
a cool girl too. I hung out with her a little while when I
forget, I think I was out in Vegas when I was there for the
Sean Porter against Terrence Crawford fighting for whatever reason, she was there and uh,
I was with a group of people there are like three or four us
and had a long conversation. She's a very interesting woman. And you know
what, and she's not she's she's outspoken and you know and anybody that knows
who she is, she likes to flow her. You know her, her
her looks, and you know her her let's call her her her womanly parts.
Uh, but she's not enough her sexuality, her sexuality, let's just
say, lets her big tits. I mean, that's just the way it
is. But she but she's the first. She doesn't that's doesn't that does
not offend her, like she knows that's perfect deal, part of the selling
point. But but she can fight also, that's the thing. So she's
like, you want to look at my tits fine, but I can beat
your ass. Also in the ring, and she had that fight I don't
know whom was it it was against, but she ended up losing I think
a decision, and then came back from that where she had the eye swollen
shut early on in the fight and bloodied and kept fighting. That's not a
joke, because you like to say, that's no joke that you're going to
keep fighting in that situation because you want it that bad. She definitely brings
value to her fights. That's and and by the way, am I not
correct? Not only was she a ring card girl, she was a school
teacher. I believe at one point she's had an interesting life. I think
that is correct in her background before the boxing career. So now she's in
the boxing career and she's on the undercard there as well there for Ebony Bridges
on that and we'll see what happens with the rest of that undercard. Right
moving along, we did talk about the likelihood that this would happen, but
Lee Wood has vacated the WBA featherweight title because the belief is he's going to
move up to junior lightweight anyway for the next fight. That's potentially at the
Nottingham Forest City Ground Soccer Stadium. Right, yeah, So I mean his
vacating the title is not at all surprised. I mean, SOPHI he ends
up doing a rematch with Josh Warrington, which is so only a possibility.
Who would, I guess probably be a non title fight unless some title became
available when he wrote his letter or when it was. Actually the letter that
went to the WBA on Lee's behalf was written by Tom Dallas, who was
one of the people that works at Mattrium, and asked the WBA in that
letter resigning the title, thanking them for their support, and asking that when
the next ratings come out, to have Lee ranked high in the rankings.
That's always what a champion does when they go up to the next weight class.
De'll thank the organization and usually we'll rerewarded with a high ranking in the
next division, which he deserves based on his track record at featherweight. So
I just say good luck to Lee, would I mean, I just know
one thing, whoever he's fighting when he gets in the ring at one hundred
and thirty pounds, I'm definitely watching because of the kind of drama and entertainment
value that he has brought to this pretty solid run that he's had in the
featherweight division. And that means that you'll have o te Bek Kalmatov, who
was his mandatory who we got an exception to not fight so we could do
the Warrington fight. Klmatov will be ordered and in the coming days or so
our week or whatever to make them to make a fight with Raymond Ford,
who is with Mattrium, an undefeated fighter from Camden, New Jersey. They
would be the fighter's order to fight for that vacant title. And that's an
actually, you know, that's kind of down in the weeds, but if
you're a if you're a real degenerate, that's a really good interesting matchup,
really good interesting matchup, and that that's the kind of fight where if they
can get it done, matchup can get it squared away. It wouldn't surprise
me to see that take place on one of the cars at the end of
the year. Uh, you know, maybe on the Bam Rodriguez undercard when
he when he meets in the unification fight against Sonny Edwards in December, but
sometime, you know, maybe by the end of the year. Certainly in
the early part of this year. All right, there was an announcement you
mentioned boxer earlier in the program with Jack Catterall uh and the uh and the
fight that he's having. All Right, so they did a deal because the
boxer card that was going on and is going on still this weekend was to
have had a light heavyweight showdown of British contenders. But the deal is now
They were going to be an our television partners with NBC and their Peacock streaming
service. But the Joshua Buazzi Dana Z's fight is now off. That was
to be the main event. Uh So tell me more about the overall deal.
But this is a downer that this is. This has happened here midweek
the disease has a back injury, not able to fight. It is definitely
a bummer that the fights off because it was a good matchup. And as
a matter of fact, I you know, I'm going to order Peacock because
I'm going to support that boxing. And frankly, when it's all said that,
I'm going to cancel showtime and the car the two should offset one another.
But I went on my Peacock service, which I can access through my
cable box because I still actually have regular cable, but it's one of the
apps that's available through my cable, and I was able to look at the
menu and I saw the big advertisement for a Z's at the matchup between him
and Buazzi, and I took a picture of my television and I had been
speaking earlier in the day about the deal with Ben Shalom, who was the
CEO and the founder of the Boxer company. He's the promoter. So I
took a picture of the TV and I actually texted him the picture. I
say, hey, look at this, this is the advertisement on Peacock.
They're actually giving it a little bit of play. And then I don't know
if it was the next day or hours later whatever. I guess it was
the next day, or maybe it was hours later because it was a day
after they announced the deal that that fight, of course ended up being postponed
because in his final training session they said that Azize had suffered a back injury,
and so now instead of having that as the headliner at the two in
London, the rest of the card will go on. And they've actually on
very short notice move the event because it's not a card that's going to put
a ton of people in the two if there's no main event, really it's
going to take place now at the London Your Hall. So the show will
still go on, It'll still be on Peacock in the United States, it
will still be on Sky Sports in the UK. But the upshot here more
importantly than just as one particular card is that Boxer, which has not had
a regular broadcast part of in the United States, now has that with Peacock,
and as they said in their announcement, and select events to air on
the main NBC network. So that's a big deal. Also, the interesting
thing about it is the fact that you have a Peacock and NBC that is
owned by Comcast. You have a Sky that is owned by Comcasts in the
UK, and so obviously there's a corporate relationship there, which I'm sure is
a big part of the reason why these events are going to be on Peacock,
and so they will get some exposure here in America regularly for their stable
of fighters as they build and as Ben Shaloon mentioned to me, the longer
game is to sign and develop some American based fighters so they can continue doing
their events, but also eventually do some events here in the United States.
So maybe NBC will step into the breach left by Showtime in some former fashion.
I don't think that it's a matter where they can only do boxer shows.
They could go and work with some other promoter or a series of promoters,
you know. That's the thing Back in the in the in the older
days, there was a time when, at varying times, HBO and Showtime
embraced the idea of let's just go and negotiate with promoters to make the best
fights. And they didn't have these long term output deals all the time.
The lot on output deals more than HBO did, and HBO had limited output
deals, but they still did fights with other promoters. But maybe that could
be the case, you know, with other networks that may come into the
fray, whether it's a Peacock and Amazon or whoever. I mean, we've
seen it with the Zone. Yes, they've got their deals with Golden Boy
and with Mattrim, but they've also been picking up cards here and there.
They've done stuff with Wasserman. They put on some smaller cards with the Bella.
They picked up the boxer card, one of the Liam Smith U Bank
cards, so that that would I think help in the overall picture. But
it's a great thing. If you're an American boxing fan. You know,
Peacock is one of the bigger streaming services out there. NBC has got a
rich history in boxing. They're a huge brand in this coun and I think
that's a good thing. It is a good thing. By the way,
I did find this Ebony Bridges. How about two things. Ebony Bridges is
a twin She is the younger of twins, twin brother, one of three
children, and she has previously been a math teacher in school in Australia.
I did get that right, what a background on that? For the undercard
of the Haini Progray fight to have her on. One more thing, Jake
Paul. Jake Paul now going to be back in a boxing ring. It's
coming in December. We don't have an opponent. Interestingly, though there had
been the rumors that he might be fighting Nate Diaz as part of some version
of an MMA fight as part of his Professional Fighters League. That's apparently not
next that that will be later maybe or not at all. What do you
do you hear anything about who the opponent might be in December too soon to
know. He's what I have been told by people that are involved with this
event and that are with Jake, is that yes, this December fifteenth,
and then he will be back in the boxing ring, but it will be
against supposedly an actual boxer. It's not going to be for these wild you
know, MMA of fighters, are you know, non boxing people? Because
look, you people can laugh and say whateverone. I respect Jake Paul a
lot because he says I'm going to be a boxing world champion, and I
mean, I'm not going to knock the guy for making that effort. And
part of that effort is to fight a real boxer. So that is what
I think he's playing. And can I be consistent with you? Because I
was critical after the DS fight that I don't need to see non boxers anymore.
I get it. And now if I'm gonna see boxers, I'm back
in again. I'm gonna be back in again and interested in December. If
it's a boxer, I'm with you. Here's the other good thing about this
upcoming event, whoever it's going to be against, and I'm not expecting to
be against some superstar opponent, which is fair it's not going to be a
pay per view. It's going to be on regular to zone. The Zone
probably hopes that because of Jake's popularity and his name recognition, it will help
goose to subscriptions and not a pay per view. And I don't think it's
a coincidence that a day after they announced the fight with Jake Paul would be
on hiszone worldwide, even if they didn't announce the opponent. That the day
after, which was on Thursday, they announced that they had picked up a
second edition of his MVP Prospects series to go from the four events they did
this year to now doing six of the events next year. Those are the
prospect shows, kind of showbox ish that they did from the same location in
Orlando, Florida, and one of the casinos there, the carib Royale,
and they put on some solid shows. It felt like not you know,
they got some They got a little bit of work to do on that and
make sure that they can get it better, but it was a good start.
And so six more of those shows for twenty twenty four and Jake on
his own, so not pay per view. I think he's going to fight
a non MMA person, you know, like an actual boxer, and so
you know, good for him, all right, nostalgia and then we're done.
Man, we've been here a while, but it's all been worth it.
A couple of big time birthdays. Tommy hit Man Hearns sixty five years
young. I don't want to accept. I don't want to accept he can't
be sixty five, the Hitman. We're getting that old Ray Field that was
earlier this week, he turned sixty five. We go with him first,
and Evander Holyfield had a birthday Thursday. We'll get to Elevand in a minute.
But the hit Man sixty five. You can't say enough about that booming
right hand, especially in the early eighties, and the mythology of and what
really and the reality of Tommy Hearns and his punching power. I think when
you think about Tommy Hearns, you know, you of course think of the
of the Four Kings, along with Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler and Roberto
Durant. But I would bet you as great as all four of those those
fighters are all Hall of famers, all great world champions, all pound for
pound type guys in their day. For sure. I think a lot of
people would look at Hearns and say, just for round for round, punch
for punch, fight for fight. He was the most exciting of all of
them, just because of that. He was always you never know if he
was going to knock you out or get knocked out. He could knock you
out with any moment of any fight. He had some of the most spectacular
knockouts in the history of the sport. I think about when he knocked out
Pipino Quavis to win the Welcome that was his first world championship. I think
about the devastating one punch right hand against the hands of stone Roberto Duran,
who also for most had a chin of stone. But Tommy Hearns cracked it
that night and just put him away. Uh but Tommy Hearns, you know,
he's most remembered, of course for the Hagler fight, which he lost.
He's remembered probably second most for the Sugar Ray Leonard first fight, which
he lost. They had a draw in the second fight, which he kind
of got robbed of. Most people would think kind of got robbed. He
got robbed doctive knocked Leonard down twice? He won that, Yes, Uh
so he's a guy that's remembered maybe for a little bit uh more for some
of his losses, but it doesn't take away from the fact that he fought
all the best guys and he's got a ton of big wins in his own
right, including the ones I just mentioned against Duran and Quavis, you know,
who are both Hall of famers as well. Uh And the thing about
him also that I think actually doesn't quite get as much respect, frankly as
accomplishments of some other fighters. He was in fact the very first boxer to
win a world title in five different weight classes. And the thing that was
interesting about that he won welterweight title, junior middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight,
in light heavyweight. But he did it out of order. Most of
the time you go one to one on Z you move up to scale.
He jumped around. He won the welterweight title, and then the dream MIDDLEWA
title, and I think the next one was the light heavyweight title, and
then he came back down and won titles, you know, in the super
middweight middleweight division. So he was the first to do it. I mean,
it's a record that was broken later by you know, Oscar de la
Hoya and Manny packyapp but Tommy Hearns to win titles in five weight classes back
then, that was a pretty big deal. He fought a lot of quality
guys, and he has two moments that all you got to say is Tommy
hearns Roberto Duran and everybody knows about that right hand. And all you got
to say is hearns Hagler and everybody knows that first round. And I'm with
you. You said this earlier. I got to watch the Hagler Hearns first
round in particular, at least once every sixty days, just to get my
juices going again and get the adrenaline going. When these guys birthdays come up
to me, it's like, you know, okay, you wish them happy
birthday. And Tommy, by the way, is a cool guy. I
don't I can't say I know. I know I've met and had known the
other four Kings better than I ever knew Tommy Hearns. You know, I
have spent you know, time with Duran and worked with Sugar Ray Leonard on
epics, and I've been around him numerous times. Hagler not as much,
but got to know him a little bit. Hearns though I have met.
He's a cool guy. I've told the story before. I sat next to
him at a roast of the Friars Club when they gave Bob aarm a birthday
celebration, and in the video presentation, Tommy was one of the guests.
I was just coincidental. I was seated next to Tommy during that and during
the course of the video presentation, they showed his knockout loss against Marvin Hagler
about three or four times in the clips, and at one point he turned
to me and he kind of grabbed my arm. He's like, why do
they keep showing that? I always remember that as a funny moment. But
but Tommy Hearns was a was a great fighter. Of course, his trainer
was became a dear friend of mine before he passed. That was the great
Emmanuel Stewart, also a Hall of Famer. If you don't like Tommy Hearns
fights, you can't call yourself a boxing fan. Amen. He's one of
the greats. And we got time enough for one more legend who turned sixty
one Thursday. We released this podcast. We're taping it late Thursday night.
We released it into Friday. Evander Holyfield sixty one on Thursday. Legend it
began with the Olympics. A lot of people don't realize I Vander got disqualified
and it cost him a chance at the gold medal at the eighty four Olympics.
But then he went on to overcome that become a world champion in the
cruiserweight division. That eventually the upset of Tyson and an all time great heavyweight.
The upset, well, he knocked out Buster Douglas first to win the
title, regained it against Tyson. So the real deal Holy Field a birthday
milestone as well. This week. Get nostalgic for me one more time,
real quick? All right, Well, the DQ in the Olympics was kind
of nonsense. That was a bad call against Kevin Barry. You know why,
you know why it happened. You know what happened. They were having
they had two rings in the arena and the bell rang in the other ring,
and it caused the fighter that you mentioned, and that's why you are
who you are. Kevin Barry is actually the guy's name, and you didn't
you have to look at it. You scare him. Kevin Barry became a
top trainer. There you go. So so the bell rings and Barry stopped
and the referee said stopped because he wasn't sure, and holy Field hit him
and it was because of that that Kevin Barry couldn't continue. They disqualified him,
cost Evander a shot at the gold medal. He didn't even get to
fight in the gold medal fight. So from that though, he rose from
that. It was very sympathetic around him after that. Vander Holyfield is a
great all time also because first of all, he was a guy that overcame
a lot in terms of people counting him out because of his size, you
know, as a cruiserweight, which was a newish division back then, wasn't
really given a lot of love. He really perked it up. Actually,
he became the first ever undisputed cruiserweight champion and he unified it through and talking
about the demise of Showtime Boxing. He won his cruiserweight title in one of
the last great fifteen round fights in boxing. Not the last, but one
of the last. Absolutely spectacular fight, his first doubt with Dwight Muhammad kawe
Ye. You've never seen it, worthwhile to watch it on YouTube. Just
a fucking war beyond war fifteen rounder at his home in Atlanta at the Omni,
you know, a place where he drew a huge crowd there for that
night. And anyway, that was one of the great fights you'll ever see.
That was on ABC network, and after that main events his promoter who
had signed him in many the other eighty four Olympians, they had to deal
with Showtime and so his fights and Meldrick Taylor's fights, and and I don't
know if it was Parnel Whitiger, but certainly Meldrick and Meldrick Taylor and holy
Field. Mo I guess there must have been some Whiger fights also were on
Showtime. So when he became the cruiserweight champion, he then went on a
pathway on Showtime where he was eventually able to unify. At the time,
remember it was the three belt here unified all three titles. He became the
undisputed cruiserweight champ and then went up to heavyweight, and Showtime followed that and
televised all those early heavyweight fights before he finally got the shot up us Or
Douglas and including like one and again another underrated fight that people don't talk about,
but one of the great fights you'll see, one of the great holy
Field fights, a war against Michael Doaks, the former champion, and then
of course he was supposed to fight Mike Tyson. Mike took a little side
strip to Tokyo and got knocked the fucked out by Buser Douglas, and so
Showtime pay per view back then a set did a pay per view where Vander
knocked out Buster to become the undisputed heavyweight champion, and then he ended up
going to HBO for a number of years and then before he came back to
Showtime obviously, but the point is he had that great build up in the
cruiserweight division and the heavyweights, then became a legend in the heavyweight division.
The two fights, well, the three fights he had with Rick Bow are
all legendary fights, two for the title, one was not for the title,
but all three of them are great. It's one of the few trilogies
where all three fights were epic upon epic upon epic, and then you know,
thought he was done, had a terrible performance against Bobby Chez. Then
they finally were like, oh he's finished, now we're going to match him
with Tyson. That was Don King thinking that, and what happens upsets Mike
Tyson not once, but twice gets half his ear bitten off. And you
know, had the two big fights with Lennox Lewis controversy in the first fight,
I lost in the second fight, and just one huge fight after another.
The Michael Moror fights he had. I mean, we could talk about
him though, the Ray Mercer battle that he had, which is an underrated
fight. I mean, this guy had so many quality fights. The George
Foreman fight when George was an older fighter, but they put on a whale
of a fight. This was like the first ever real modern pay per view
where most people ordered it in their house. It was the advent of TV.
I can't tell you I've shared this. I've shared this before. I
watched that fight in college at a ballroom in downtown Memphis on a ticket on
closed circuit, and that was a phenomenal fight with Holyfield and George Foreman before
Big Georgie eventually won the heavyweight title later off of Michael Moore. I vividly
got Rayfield. That's got to be ninety one, right, that's got to
be two years ago. I was, I was, I bought a ticket.
I was a junior in college and vividly remember closed circuit, But you're
right. Pay per view in the home became a bigger deal as ninety one
became nine, that was ninety three ninety four, it became a bigger deal
pay per view and the Morman Holy Holy Phil Foreman was the first official,
actual modern pay per view fight where most people watch it in their home.
Uh. That was the advent of tv KO, which became HBO pay per
view. After that, he had the he was supposed to fight another fighter
and it was a last and that replacement he fought Bert Cooper at home,
almost got knocked out, but made it super exciting. I mean, the
Vander Holyfield always gave you a value for your money. Uh, you know,
in his in his in his later days, you know, he just
wouldn't hang it up. And he had, you know, the Unnecessary Trilogy
with John Ruiz and some other fights that weren't so great, and he you
know, had a losing streak and and did not close out maybe in the
greatest fashionball time. Actually, if he really wanted the truth at the end
of his career, when he you know, later in the days in two
thousand and eight, you know, he actually went to Europe and fought Nikolai
Value for the WBA title and got robbed of the decision. He should have
been a heavyweight champion other time after that, believe it or not, but
that is the end of his career. What people remember, of course,
is is the heavyweight heyday, the bow fights, and even the Tyson fights.
I mean, what can you say? I mean, I'm I never
got to cover Tommy Hearns as an active fighter. I think maybe he might
have had one or two fights I might have written about, but I didn't
attend them. This was at the very end of his career. But I
had a chance. Maybe in the waning days of his career I did cover
probably, you know, I forget the exact number, probably like half a
dozen or so Evander Holyfield fights in person, and even though they weren't classics.
The one great thing as Evander wasn't always great with the media, but
in the later days he did. I can still remember. I tell a
quick story. It was the night before he fought Chris Bird. That was
a fight that was for a title, the IBF title in Boardwalk Hall.
This is two thousand and two, and I was there and he wanted to
do a workout like the night before the fight, not anything strenuous, just
kind of shake out, kind of move around the ring, hit the knits
for a little bit, just to work up a sweat. But he wanted
to do it at the time where he would be fighting, so that meant,
you know, around eleven thirty at night thereabouts. And so myself and
like three or four other reporters that were already in Atlantic City for the event
they were they say, you want to come over and talk to a Vander.
We can watch him, you know, hit the mids a little bit.
And so we go into the empty boardwalk Call, which is a huge
cavernous building, but the ring and everything was already set up, and we
watched him work for probably, you know, probably like twenty minutes. It
wasn't like a lengthy, strenuous workout, and then he came down afterwards out
of the ring to talk to us. Now I had already filed my stories,
there wasn't I mean, I was maybe to hear what he has to
say. I just kind of wanted to see and get a feel for how
he looked and everything. So I wasn't like taking notes like I'm going to
write a story, because my material for you know, this is back when
I was at USA today. We were done for the you know, I
had done filing my stories, and he's going on. He's answering questions from
a bunch of us, and he's talking and talking and talking and gets you
point you after like, you know, like ten minutes fifteen they it's like,
oh yah, you know, I'm thinking, we're good. You know
what else is going to say? Dude wouldn't shut up. He must have
talked for an hour and he just he was enjoying. He's like, you
know, he was having a good time. It got to a point.
This is rare where you're like all the writers are like, all right,
we're good, got to go. Usually the reporters will stay and asking,
asking us. But no, no, no, I have more. I
have more that I want to share. He wanted to talk that night.
And he's a great, you know, great engaging guy, a friendly guy
as a person. I've always loved the Vander. I've known him for a
long time. Here's a great thing about Evander Holyfield. I could go three
years without talking to Evander, and then if I needed him for something,
I could call a cell phone. He's the one guy that never changes his
cell phone number, so he's had the same cell phone number for twenty years
probably like it's amazing. So and you call him up and he's just a
wonderful guy and so he was a great fighter. And happy birthday to the
real deal man. It has been a show a ton on the program of
News of Fight Previews. I think this is the first time we mentioned this.
We're going to handicap the Jack Catterall main event, as comical as it
might be in England, as well as the Alexis roacha main event in Inglewood,
California, on the bet Us Boxing Show Live at one Eastern time.
Whatever happens this weekend will obviously come off the weekend with a fight for each
to night recap. You heard from Oscar de la Hooya at length on this
podcast, News Nostalgia, all of it. Make sure you're following subscribing on
the podcast outlets, because again we come your way twice right now on the
schedule, at least twice, with a preview podcast out Friday and a recap
podcast out Monday. With that, I guess I'll talk to you next coming
up on the bet Us Boxing Show at one Eastern time on their platforms,
their YouTube, all their platforms, and we'll do some handicapping and we'll get
ready for the weekend to fight Stan Raphael. That sounds good to me.
Great stuff there, Thank you again for fighting us. I'm merely TJ Reeves.
You've been listening to the Big Fight Weekend preview